Taupotreeman

40+ and still climbing. I find I have less health issues, back problems etc than when I was sat on my backside in a ute all day as manager. Sure, there'll be a time when I just can't do it anymore but even if I have to slow down the older I get I won't be going back to a desk job until I really have to.

Choice! Instant antidote to a prick of a friday.

Had to do a report for the local council down here not so long ago after an Auckland landscape architect recommended planting 140 of the things around a new housing area. I recommended strongly against planting them due to the dust, allergic reactions etc but they went with the landscape architect anyway. Hopefully I'll be out of the game byt the time it comes to start trimming them. Even with a mask on the hairs still get in your eyes so I try and steer clear of them now.

See if you can get someone to set one up for you. Admittedly mines a desk top but the guys who sorted mine out tailored it to suit my needs and I didn't get all the advertising bumf from the big stores. The place I got mine also does laptops but obviously you won't want to be coming to NZ to get one. If you can find an independant outfit go see them and they can find out exactly what you need it for and then you don't end up paying for stuff you won't use. I ditched most of the rubbish and just set it up mainly for downloading, a bit of accounting etc.

Now that is a better illustration of what they can do. No hydraulics to go wrong and tough as nails. Good for putting holes in garages or at least that's what I used mine for last week. No damage to the chipper although there's still a chunk of the wall stuck in the mudguard.

Nothing on the business, all bought and paid for as I go but about $240K on the house so I suppose about 110K pounds.

I don't think they are as dangerous as everybody makes out. As long as you know how to use it properly. Lets face it if you're going through a chipper you're going through no matter whether it's a drum or disc. If you're dragged in I don't think those reverse bars are going to do much. The whole idea with a chuck and duck is to feed from the side as you walk past the chipper so that as the branch hits the infeed you are actually alongside the machine rather than behind it.

You know they made those drum chippers with a 358 (I think) V8 windsor engine in them? Imagine the damge that could do.

I know an outfit here that use to shout their contracts managers an expenses paid trip to Oz to watch the Wallabies v All Blacks. That's flights, hotels, match tickets, food, taxis etc. How the hell are the small time businesses supposed to compete with this? And while the contracts managers are receiving this kind of treatment it's highly unlikely that they are going to look at using someone else for the contracts. I call them the pipe and slipper brigade ( no offense to those who smoke a pipe...or wear slippers for that matter) because they are the type that have their feet firmly ensconsed in their slippers and under the table, pipe in mouth doing as little as possible. Many don't actually manage the contracts they just let the contracting company do that. All they have to do is keep the work supplied and reap the benefits. It sucks big time but I saw it happen on a more than regular occasion. As a manager I was shown how to keep happy those that dished out the contracts and it's all about who can give out the biggest and most gifts either at Christmas or throughout the year. The contracts managers just expected it and the gifts got bigger and better depending on how much the contract was worth. It won't stop until the whole practice is banned but when a trip to Oz is on the table who is likely to say something?

Some of the safety features have been removed, like the rubber curtain that should be in front of the blades to stop stuff flicking back. I use a whisper drum chipper and it's not as bad as it looks. Obviously not as good as a large disc chipper but it makes mince meat out of a thrity foot branch. You don't have to hang around waiting for it to go through. It's powered by a 6 cylinder 4.2 petrol engine and will take between 6 and 8 inches depending how hard the wood is. Once you figure out how to use it safely they're not bad, especially given how much it cost. They do tend to whip branches about a bit though and both me and my groundy have been on the wrong end of chunk of pin oak or willow slapping across the back of the neck. The whisper was the first chipper I used and was taught safe operation so I don't mind them, and let's face it; any chipper, if used incorrectly or abused, is dangerous, as the fatality stats in the states show. People seem to think they have to show less respect to the disc chippers and they seem to be at the top of the accident lists rather than the drum style.

I'll second that. A terrible tragedy, flags at half mast tomorrow.

DaveW ( I think) can you PM me again? For some reason some of my PM's disappeared so I don't know if you got my reply.

ooooooo nasty!

Back to Riseholme for me. I didn't do arb there but forestry and conservation and I wouldn't swap those experiences for the world. They were some of the best times of my life and I'd do it all again in a flash.

The finished job. Took around 6 hours all up once breaks and stopages were taken out.

Had to fell some largish Poplars for a roading contractor. No clean up, just drag em down the road and push em over the bank. The local axe mens club are taking the logs. 11KV single working earth behind the trees so all had to come back against the lean. Nailed seven Poplars and about 8 other trees today, back tomorrow to do the last few.

I'm guessing the reasoning is for view retention and to contain. This is one of the better examples around town and I'm not actually sure if one of the pro companies have done it or it's a home done job. There's plenty of those too and some horrendous ones at that. Most of the pro companies have given up arguing against this type of thing so you can't really blame them for doing what the customer asks but in real life on this tree some of the cuts could have been better.

Saw this on my travels this morning. Wondered if the local mowing contractors had been over stepping the mark again.

The day you stop learning is the day you die. I've been in the industry for 22 years and I'm still learning new stuff every week. New trees I've never come across, new jobs that need some thought power put in to how the job will be completed, young fellas who need advice on how set up on their own. There's a multitude of questions to be asked and just because one question may sound dumb to one person it doesn't therefore mean it will sound dumb to all. Anybody should feel they can ask any question and not be snubbed because the answer might seem like common sense. I've asked my fair share of questions etc that now seem a bit silly but I got the answer by asking the dumb question in the first place. Some of the younger guys can teach me a few things and in turn I can still show them a thing or two. It's all reciprical. Ask away I say.

Yep, got a chunk of Blackthorn stuck in my left index finger years ago. It came up in a big lump which the doctor said was a ganglion ( I thought that was something out of star trek) and it would be OK. The lump got bigger and more painful over the years and started to affect my finger after a while. In the end I had to have an operation to have it removed. It was like a big lump of gristle. At least they let me watch. If it doesn't go down after a week or so I'd go get it looked at as some of them can work their way in quite deep. And don't poke around with a needle too much as it'l make it worse.

Excellently said hamadryad

If you have problems with the muscle going into spasm I can highly recommend trying electro acupuncture. This is similar to normal acupuncture but an electrical impulse charge tenses up the muscles and then releases them. Eventually it stops the muscle from going into spasm. Sounds grusome but it's a whole lot better than pumping drugs into your body which only mask the pain rather than curing the problem. Another way to do it if you want to go down the drug path is a muscle relaxant. This helps by relaxing the muscle enough that the tension goes out of the muscle meaning it won't spasm. It also means a day curled up on the couch or in bed because it acts on all the muscles...obviously. I also agree with Dan76. I've just started pilates along with physio after the quacks found that my vertabrae were compressed to the point of almost fusing in several places leading to chronic pins and needles and dead arms during the night. This along with a shoulder muscle that doesn't operate properly...... so the quack decided to try pilates for me rather than operating. So far the back is improving along with the pins and needles but we wait and see with the shoulder. I can also strongly recommend against the chiropractor. It's usually alright for a day or two but can come back even worse after that meaning ongoing visits to have your back snapped and ongoing expenses associated with the visits.

Had my Airstreams for a few months now. Waxed them twice and they've never leaked yet. Sounds like you got a duff pair.

I like em. The trees have a different character and still maintain an ecosystem. It's just something different from the norm. S'funny but I read the thread on the Squirrels before this one and some people were saying that they should be left as a survival of the fittest scenario. I think the same applies here. The tree is isn't dead yet and it would have been left to do its own thing if it was in the middle of a forest. I've seen this type of thing happen with a few trees where they go over and send out new supporting branches and roots leaving all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes.