Ty Korrigan

To add, I'm having a reed bed sewage system installed if the planning is accepted. The survey tells me from core samples to a metre just what type of soil is found at various depths. Sandy loam, no clay presence, high water table. I then bought a soil pH test kit and found it is 5 - 5.5 so fairly but not overly acidic. I then asked the farmer whose land borders mine and he confirmed it. So I ordered 3kg of sulphur granules from Poland of all places and mixed some with peat from Lithuania for the Blueberries. I'll need to top dress each year with sulphur to maintain a low pH. A few flowers already present on a couple of plants. I'm now reading up on preserving methods for a future 🍅🍅 🍅 project.

I'm not happy that I've paid for a top brand of potting compost only to find my own woodchip pile is better quality. Regardless, I'm germinating at home in fibre pots (bought 1400) before I take the plants up to our renovation. Today I put in 60+ broad beans in the fibre pots, roots bursting through the sides. Mrs Lee makes a thick gruel from them, some mountain Berber recipe from her Grandmother. I pulled back the black plastic to find my soil was very warm and moist, ideal for root stimulation. Shallots, red and white onions are getting going. Spunta spuds, a large variety good for chips are poking through. I screwed up on the spacing with these.My 50 🍓🍓🍓🍓 are settling in nicely. This morning I spent €15 on a tray of the celebrated Gariguette 🍓🍓🍓🍓 from the West Brittany which lasted no time at all. Lovely they were. Think I'll put another row of this variety strawberries in next year. Tonight I ordered another 2 blueberry and 4 raspberries 'Glencoe' as well as herbs for a shallow raised bed at home for Mrs Lee. Planted out a line of giant Mongolian sunflower 🌻🌻🌻🌻 then sowed a band of flower mix. Many parts of France are under a drought with some villages living in bottled water. Here, the water table is high and consistent. Hopefully I won't need to irrigate much this Summer.

and OFSTED...

Interesting thread. Is that £90k a before tax figure? I am quite pleased by our own figures last year but the time sacrifice required to better them consistantly when I have young kids and a current good quality of life is off putting. No employees, no credit and lucky with the work that came our way. Our income is limited by the range I'm willing to cover and the available time I'm willing to allocate to quoting. With 75% of clients being within 15km 20% 25-30km and 5% over the 30km, I try to remain local so to spend more time with the family. I don't actively look for commercial work, it occasionally looks for me though. One job that we won in 2022 was worth 19k, cost me around 3k in subbies including the stump grinder contractor so netting me 16k in 5 days. I doubt I will ever be able to better that but it gave me an insite into the kind of money sloshing around on public works projects. I try to limit myself to a 4 day week on the tools and fit quoting around what free time there is. If I was to expand my range even just a little, I'd eat into and even risk losing that precious family time. Many private clients are of course available only in the evenings and weekends with commercial being the opposite. Almost daily I think about growing the business to a size where I could run a second team to take me sufficiently but not entirely off the tools to allow time to manage, quote and fill in as well as renumerate me better given the financial risk I would be undertaking and I don't believe that at 53 it is too late either. MEWP, better truck (inevitable) telescopic, larger grinder, employ a clean living drug free climber from a monastic order, roadside signage, call myself the Breton Tree King and mumble inane advice in bizzare TikToc videos. My language skills are at a point I feel comfortable in meetings with recent commercial clients such as telecom mast builders and public works and we have a decent enough reputation to be recommended by the local authorities and invited back to work without them obtaining other quotes. However, with mature consideration, I wouldn't swap a salary of £90k for time with my family at this period. We are currently living in a sweet spot regarding time over salary over stress over quality of life and I'm reluctant to shake the mix up and lose it. Stuart

I am now, given the evaporation rate through the plastic. There is a loss from a hand driven pump fixed to the container but I though I'd use a pump that you squeeze instead then seal the drum afterwards.

Aspen 2 weighs 0.69 kg per litre. I'll Google translate their info on evaporation. The 5 litre are the worst size for evaporation a 500ml per year.

Yes, far smoother. The new 12mm lasted a morning's worth if frustration before I ordered a 10mm.

This is the one I use but my climber says there are more supple ones. Corde de rétention et de démontage KATUALI FTC - Ø 10 mm - 1 épissure WWW.ELAGAGE-HEVEA.COM Le meilleur rapport qualité / prix du marché ! La corde de rétention KATUALI de chez FTC offre un excellent compromis diamètre / résistance. Avec un faible allongement à la tension...

I've only ever done two, climbed one, groundy one. The sap never gummed up the saws but did make a mess of everything with the live one. A rinse with petrol sorted the saws out. The branches shocked the two other groundies, both arb students. I was surprised by how much volume of chip there was for the low weight. It was on this job I tripped whilst dragging and fell against the house wall making two holes. Exterior insulation... Stuart

I've both the 70kg and the 120kg The 70kg gets used often, it was out today in fact. There was no possibility of using a bollard as the trees were sandwiched between a fence and sheds on top of a bank. The 120kg, gets used far less but should have been today for the final lumps. I run a 10mm rope with both of the devices, so much slicker than 12mm An advantage over natural crotch rigging is the lack of friction when pulling branches up to clear obstacles. Stuart

I should film an opening and measuring into a glass measuring jug...

No, I regularly decant into an empty and unbloated Stihl container with grades. Yesterday, in the store, we weighed several Aspen containers on kitchen scales then the dealer opened a container and measured it with a graded jug and found it was 500ml short.

Do you have any links to the U.K 'packaged goods' law? I'd have thought there must be a reasonable allowance outlined within it for fuels?

Right, I believe goods can be sold over weight but not underweight. If the goods are sold underweight due to poor storage, packaging or time between manufacture and eventual sale then surely this is an offence unless advertised? It is quite one thing to sell 5 litres of Aspen and the client experience evaporation of the product but quite another to sell it under volume in the begining.

We are all well used to buying cereal whose boxes are two thirds full but these are sold by weight not volume. I do not think consumers would accept short measures anywhere else at the point of sale without the seller offering a pro-rata reduction.

Can you think of any other examples were the weight or volume reduces so much? Seriously, I buy 5 litres of Aspen I expect 5 litres not 4.5litres. What is the accepted variance from the marked amount at the point of sale? I find 10% or 2.80 euros quite unacceptable.

Apsen is my main fuel and chain oil so fed up of being given short measures, yesterday I took the matter up with my local supplier of Aspen. Many containers of Aspen 2 have been coming in a 4.5litres and were packed in March 2022 and my dealer bought a pallet of 108 x 5 litre containers last summer 2022 This is the equivelant to losing 2.80 euros per container at full retail in France. The statement I have before me from Aspen France states 500ml per year lost through the actual Aspen containers themselves WTF! So much for punting it as a fuel that keeps long term if the evaporation rate is that high! In addition, if your dealers sell a container advertised as 5litres but containing 4.5litres at the point of sale, surely this is an offence under under the U.K weights and measures act? However, this is not limited to Aspen either. Whilst in the local dealer, we weighed other brands pre-mixed fuel and all were significantly lighter than 5 litres (0.69kg per litre) plus container weight. Today I picked up 3 fresh containers, this time with a white cap instead of a black one. They are packed March 2023 and contain a full 5 litres(held up to the light) I have kept one of the March 2022 containers aside as a control having first weighed it as I am curious to see just how much more is lost over this Summer (stored in my garage) Stuart

Victim of a Ukranian drone...?

It is a crime often featured on the evening news here in France. From absent owners whose forests are pillaged by organised crime using all the big boys toys to the small time firewood poacher cutting without permission. Stuart

Mewp is just a pipe dream for the moment but one that may become a more solid proposition once I have finished our building renovation. I once thought I had a good thing going with a young clean living subby climber but he burned out and now fits stoves instead.

I feel this way about subby climbers and that puts us off employing any-one. Still I'm looking for a fresh faced kid with no bad habits to become an apprentice. One of our work experience lads is interested for September 2024 My subby climbers are often moody tempermental divas. Late to site, always sleep deprived and stressed, first words usually an optimistic "never get this done in a day let alone a morning" Stomps back to his van for a Red Bull, vape, black coffee, throwball tantrum, mobile phone diversion before a sudden positive mood swing as whatever he took earlier kicks in. Strings lunch out as long as he dares only to randomly disappear from site between 3-4pm Texts later "oh I thought it was all done" Sometimes rucks up late to a job having been on an opiates binge for 3 days. Lane closure, traffic control and 3 groundies stamping feet to keep warm only to say "I can't do this today, don't feel up to it" Anxiety, depression, emotional wrecks and the pre-Brexit expat climbers were probably running away from something. Certainly a very good reason to buy a MEWP and quit relying on these twunts.

I have a groundy who works part-time with me but cannot drive. She starts late and finishes early due to school runs. I hang on sharpening saws until she is ready or she walks to the job if in town. Recently the French have been striking alot over pension reforms so she loses days because of collecting kids at midday for dinner and picking them up early because there is no after school club. It works well enough on smaller local jobs and I even drop her back home then return to finish up on my own. I make an effort because I like working with her. I admit it is easier because she is my wife and technically I work for her but still, a point of reference. Stuart

I checked for cream rendered walls, 20 year old fence panels and extérieur insulation. You got me thinking now...

I'm still looking for a second climber if anyone is considering settling within an hour or so of Rennes. Image of a local Breton for interest.

3 birch stumps and ploughed the area for surface roots. 30min machine time. Took longer to load/unload and travel to job. Wife came along because I had to drag the machine up a grassy slope which at the time I felled the trees was freshly sown and a no go. I do regret at times not buying the self propelled version. The engine cut out 3 times, a bit of a mystery but with 172 hours in the clock I guess the fuel system might need cleaning. Running a mix of Stay Sharp and QRMS depending on the job and soil.