Ty Korrigan

Saw this, thought of you...

Soon be time to bring the low ball into play and do it 'for the wood'...lol! I've had an "I'll ask my wife" response to one small quote this morning which is considerably more than the dark silence from 90% of the other quotes I've done in the last few weeks.

Here is a usefull tool to help you think about calculating stump pricing. Pizza Comparison WWW.OMNICALCULATOR.COM Should you buy a larger or two smaller pizzas?

Last client booked in for 3rd June. Looking forward to a break and cracking on with our renovation. Convenient timing for a down turn. Our 'treasury' is healthy enough to see us through to September when we'd normally expect the enquiries to begin in earnest. I still expect the odd quote to be accepted but am quite prepared for a dry few months ahead. Stuart

They look a bit soft. Even fresh, my FSIB20 would chew through both of those in under an hour with new teeth.

Any advert promoting banks as willing and helpfull towards you and your projects. Suggesting they are 'with' you, accompanying you through life. Mis-representing banks as benevolent institutions. A cocktail of bile, piss and blood boils internally when I remember asking for 'help' from our bank when going through difficulties and being refused.

I believe I have worked it out. There are other oaks in the vicinity in the same soil also showing the same symptoms to a lesser degree. Drought stress By raising the crown, I greatly reduced the spread. This shaded the roots. Added to this, the owner has chickens who have exposed the bare soil as the mulch I put down has not been added too, plus horses which have overgrazed and compacted the other side of the fence.

Striking Chicken of the Woods on a roadside cherry next to one of our council jobs. Not tempted to sample it being exhaust and dog height, plus a bit dry.

It certainly isn't frost damage. Ruled out herbicide sprayed under canopy and vandalism (drilling holes and using herbicide, a 'thing' locally but more of that later) Client does burn waste from bee hives near the crown so some thought given to heat and a chemical release scorching the crown but this is a wild card. What I am leaning towards is drought. There are other oaks which are browning off or have already died. Our 'county' department 35 Ile et Vilaine is for the second year officially in drought. I've been grinding today in town, bone dry to 30cm. The soil is heavy yellow clay. In contrast, our new place though, 25km North has damp soil, higher watertable. Wednesday I had a survey done for our sewage system. Core samples done, deep sandy loam with light clay and sand subsoil with iron pan at 1m depth. Damp all the way down. Grass lush and green.

Like a dog with a bone that Solis. Took me 4 hours to move all the wood from the work zone around to the owners property, lifting the rounds over the concrete palisade, then once the pile got too big, driving around the block to then move it all a second time. The building plot owner refused us permission to remove a section of palisade in order to drive through, plus since I did the quote, either the seller of the building plot or the new owner put up a shonky fence thus denying us access for a truck and chipper so all the branches were handballed over the palisade and the Solis did the wood. Still, as this was one of my more outrageously priced jobs a little inconvenience was easily absorbed. The farm peacock has also snapped off the amber work light so I've that to sort out. During the job we had a bitter hatchet faced Eco-Karen in an unwashed cat hair covered fleece and baggy hippy pantalons reeking of patchouli oil yelling at us several times during the course of the day. I trolled her as she filmed us on her phone, telling her not to worry as had we already removed the nests before starting whilst pointing at a pile garden waste and that had to get a shifty on before the council realised what was going on and called the police. Eco-Karen was apolyptic with righteous indignation and I half expected her to make a pitch the invasion or sit down protest. The police municipale made a slow drive by shortly afterwards. The owner had reluctant permission from the town hall as the council had hoped to award the oak a preservation order. No nests present. Stuart

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nHA_K0XZ2Hc I thought the Little Britain sketch inappropriate today.

I have observed that the French are no longer focused on handwashing and have returned to their former insalubrious ways. We have had our first bouts of 'norovirus' since before Covid. My son likely brought it home from the afterschool centre then a few days later it hit me hard. So hard that the strain of chundering strained my chest muscles. I went back to work after 3 days but on easier jobs that I still struggled on. It took me over a week to regain my form. I have sworn never again to shake hands in this country. Stuart

A detail here is the mill is a Peterson with a 23hp Honda twin. Alot faster and less instrusive than an 880. Still, takes a day to load, transport, set up, packup, go home, unload. The trunks would be 2 half days. I love milling, it isn't mine but I get Tom Jenkins out whenever I can. If the trunk can be moved to his yard, we move it. I also proposed that the client engage Tom direct and make use of the sawn lumber himself as he has a building project. The client did contact Tom but was put off by the cost of milling, 2 guys 2 days and by his carpenter who poured water on the idea for reasons of timing. The wood won't be sufficiently seasoned in time for his use. I was going to use the wood for my own project, building Mrs Lee a kitchen extension.

I crown lifted an oak pollard back in November. It has a very busy crown due to being a traditional Breton pollard. I noticed today that over half the buds have browned off just as the leaves started emerging but there are still a few stems with green leaves towards the top. It doesn't have signs of Phytophthrora ramorum on the bark but has always a Fistulina that appears each year. What pathogen might be the cause of death here? Have I carried something on my saw? This is worrying for me because of just who the owner is and his position in our local community. In tandem with this oak, a line of century old council oaks which we work on is also showing the same symptoms. Co-incidence or are my team vectors for something? Stuart

This is the problem with milling. Few want the continued noise and mess and as Mick say's client's don't like the idea of you profiting from 'their' wood in front of their eyes.

I've a signed quote for the takedown starting Monday, stem down Tuesday afternoon. I'll tell him to put the wood on Le Bon Coin (Gumtree) See what genre of neer-do-wells he has to deal with crawling over his neighbours property, tyre kicking the rounds and asking if he will deliver or "nice wood, not sure about the colour"

Thanks for replying. I originally offered the client a discount off the felling for the crown wood which I think is no more than 5m3 but was looking for opinions on that, and another more generous one for the stem which was easy to calculate. I planned to cut the stem into two 3m sections and mill it for my future house extension. Annoyingly, despite me proving the volume using math and showing him the current price of oak on a forestry website, he still believes there is far more wood that I say there is and wants eyewatering sums for it, seeing only the retail price of firewood and the value of forest grown oaks destined for Notre Dame in Paris. So I've dropped the idea and wish I had never offered in the first place as it has really muddied the waters. The client seems to now think I badly want the wood and is hoping to off set the removal cost. I don't 'badly' want it, I simply knew the client had no use for firewood, no savoir faire or time for dealing with this amount of wood and wanted to make a mutually beneficial deal. Instead, I have been treated with suspicion, almost to the level of "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception" I've good money on this job though and it is still going ahead despite the clients recent weirdness towards me. I think this is brought on by stressing over the massive price increase in building costs and an expensive tree removal is an unwelcome addition. I've taken the precaution of photographing the broken concrete palisade surrounding the garden in case he claims we broke it and tries to sting us with 'betterment' So, instead of a convivial buy back deal, I have just I given him a cheeky price for moving the 90cm x 50cm rounds of cross cut stem plus crown from his neighbours future building plot around to his building plot using my wee Solis and truck. I used www.timberpolis.co.uk to calculate the weight of the millable stem and was surprised, 6m x 90cm = 4m3 thus 3250kg fresh sawn, divided by 12 = 270kg per round. Wrestling those rounds onto any splitter isn't something I can see my client doing and even better, he runs a pellet stove at home! Stuart

Off to the Youtube college of further education... Thanks for that Ian

This oak is coming down Monday. I've got the trunk sized up. 90cm dbh and 6m+to the first large pruning wounds. 4m3 The stem has a slight kink halfway up, an ideal place to crosscut as moving that lump so we can build the Peterson around it would be a struggle. Estimating the wood volume of the crown is just that, an estimation. I've stared at it from all angles before leaf burst and think around 5m3+ if we don't chip any thing much over 10cm. Any opinions? Also, just for curiosity, how much might this stem fetch in the UK? I may yet get to mill it in situ, either for the client or for me as part of a buy back deal. My client thinks it is worth a fortune and only yesterday was convinced he could sell it for parquet flooring for €2k My other question is again out of curiousity, how much does unsplit oak destined for firewood fetch in the UK? Cheers. Stuart

Hello, Our wee chippette has developed an oil leak which seems to be around the drive side of the engine judging from the dirt it attracts in that area. It isn't from the oil drain plug. Any ideas? The kitchen roll is there absorbing oil. Stuart

The 23hp Vanguard is as disposable as wet wipes. It was built with congenital asthma as a feature and no amount of early oil changes can save it from an early death.

Similar thickness to the armour to the T72 tanks falling like flies in Donbas. The battle of the 750kg...

This lip prevented wood from being reversed out as any 'pegs' or irregularities would get caught on it, torment.

Our 150, the bottom of the infeed chute deformed creating a lip. Nothing to do with feeding it over size wood. Just insufficient welding adding to the perfect storm of faults. GM replaced it amongst other things when I took it back to the UK.

Time to side hustle and break out the meth lab then...