Taupotreeman

Yay, one for the fureners. No idea what it says but it sounds pretty.

I think robbo was replying to my statement saying I had no idea what he was on about. It was just a translation of text into english. I also find quite a few accents almost lyrical or poetic but text speak just seems lazy.

That's what happens when the PC brigade have their fingers in all the pies I'm afraid. Kids growing up without manners or respect for others. With regards to the numpties who don't acknowledge when you pull over; My little truck only does about 70kph with the chipper on and I cover a fair distance to get to work so obviously deal with a lot of traffic. I always keep hard left, pull way over if there's even one car up my date and signal for them when it's clear. I gets my goat the amount of people who can't even be bothered to wave, especially when, by law, I don't have to pull over until there's seven cars behind me. Truck drivers and bikies are the best, the locals a close second but the ignorant anus' that come from the big smoke drive me nuts. Top that up with the knobs that are in more of a hurry than an emergency vehicle with its blues and twos going. Mind you, I know a guy that had a couple of big rig air horns stuck on his disco. Scared the bejesus out of the ignoranuses.

Oh, and cheers for the translation robbo; would never have got that in years. Jeez, I must be getting old.

At least with firewood man's statement I know I don't understand Welsh so there's no point even trying to translate but I spend way too long with either text speak or just plain poor spelling trying to understand what the hec someone is attempting to say. I find myself going over stuff time and again and even googling various words to see if I can make head or tale of it but eventually I have to read the other posts to see if someone else has got the gist of it and can enlighten me with their answer, if that makes sense. Either that or I just give up. At least for us old farts try and make things a bit easier for us....please. Maybe I should start posting in Maori and everyone else can post in their own native diallect and see what confusion we can cause in a short space of time.

Plenty of women in this kind of work and I think we have a current competition champion on the forum but I'm sure I'll be corrected if mistaken. If you're keen, go for it otherwise you'll never know if you can make it and might be kicking yourself for ever and a day. Don't mind what others say either; you don't need to be butch to do the job so long as you can think on your feet. The ladies tend to find ways around doing the heavier jobs and I don't mean avoidance I just mean they tend to use different techniques etc. I say give it a crack and see how you go, at leat then you'll know for sure.

Lorry I understood but robbo? No idea!

Is it just the fact that I'm now classed as a miserable old bugger? I seem to have a problem understanding some of the newer threads posted on the forum these days and tend to spend five minutes deciphering what is being said or is trying to be said. Some of the threads need more patience than trying to understand the engima code. Is it just me and do I need to get with the times or is anyone else suffering the same problem.

well you learn something new everyday. Better start asking around although I suppose i actually need to get the job first.

Yeah thought as much. The top has died back, about 25 feet or so and they don't think it's worth saving the rest. From what I remember there's no lowering required but it's the thought of handling those branches that's giving me the eebiejeebies. Might have to try and find a couple of local turners too as if it's half decent it seems a shame to waste the wood on the fire.

If you can find a ship big enough to carry it

Okidoke, in the twenty odd years I've been working with trees I've never had to deal with Monkey Puzzle. I have to price to dismantle a dying tree tomorrow so some advice would be good please. Anything I need to look out for? They same to be quite hard and spiny so is the stuff pretty sharp when handling and what is it like on the gear? Any thoughts would be appreciated ta.

We burn a lot of Euc over here in NZ. I usually find that it takes a good 18 months for it to burn well and if you can leave it a bit longer all the better. Make sure it's split wet though as it can turn as hard as concrete when it's dry and tends to explode on some hydraulic splitters. Had one chunk fly off at speed and nearly took out my crown jewels. Stuff like Birch you can burn green but it'll soot up the chimney so chimneys need to be cleaned out more regularly. If it's wet most wood will burn eventually but most of the energy is used up drying the wood out so the heat output is low.

Don't forget to take in the salts as well as the liquids. If you work hard and sweat a lot replenishing the fluids should be obvious but you also lose a lot of salt which needs to be replaced. I usually go for the isotonic drinks or something that have mineral salts in them to replace what I sweat out. I haven't suffered from cramps yet but a friend of mine had them quite badly from only drinking water through the day and having hardly any salt in his food. I believe he started adding sachet salt replacement stuff to his water and doesn't get the cramps anymore.

Near miss reporting can be used to good effect in finding out where short cuts might be taken and then looking at resolving those issues. Most near misses I've dealt with are from lack of discussing site safety, having a proper tail gate meeting or just plain ignorance but then on the other hand you have those companies that have been told by various outfits such as OSH that no company is free of near misses and therefore OSH should be able to see a plantiful selction of them. Those companies are looking for benefits such as reductions in ACC (accident compensation) fees here in NZ and have to prove they have all systems in place including near miss reporting. They will then actively hunt down near misses to show the heirarchy that they do have them and something is being done about them and because they are nipped in the bud at near miss stage they are unlikely to have a major accident so deserve lower insurance premiums, if you undertsand that load of waffle. What it boils down to in many cases is not the company wishing to have a safer working enviroment but the company wishing to reduce its overheads.

Some electrical contractors working for MANWEB several years ago in North Wales rewired a whole 11KV circuit straight in to the 240v lines. Blew nearly every appliance in the village. Hefty repair bill and much embarressment followed.

Just because its a phone line doesn't mean it can't be dangerous. Phone lines are often run on the same poles as live power lines and it has been known for the phone line to become entangled in the power line meaning that line then becomes energised. They should both be treated with the same respect unless it's blindingly obvious that the phone line is the only one there.

The first pioneers felled most of the big Kauris in NZ with axe and cross cut and yes, the dams were used to send the logs from the high points down to collection points at more managable sites. The terrain and bush in NZ is pretty rugged. There are still some of the dams up in the Waitakere ranges west of Auckland, or at least there were, and there are a couple of old pubs around, the main one being at Puhoi, which is full of old saws and pictures of the original pioneers that cleared the forest. They managed to get down massive Kauri so I can't see any of todays trees being a problem in the slightest. I also worked with an old fella, Kieth Wadkin, who had some choice old photos of him doing tree work with axe and cross cut. The boys in those days new a bit about hard labour I'd say. Still haven't found that nuclear powered chainsaw yet so what do people plan to use in the future?

Just wondered what we will use to cut trees down once the oil reserves are depleted. Will we revert to axe and crosscut or has someone designed a solar or nuclear powered chainsaw that I haven't heard about. Sometimes the old ways of doing things shouldn't be discarded....... just in case.

That's exactly what happened at the large company I worked for. The bosses said if you're not happy or confident doing the job then call someone else in that is, someone with more experience. As soon as people started complaining that either the safety gear wasn't up to spec or they were being sent out on jobs that were way beyond the individuals experience the boss came down like a ton of bricks. Some employees had a few words in their ears to the tune of; do the job or you'll be looking for another. The staff turnover was high and the company didn't mind too much as they new there were plenty of other eejits out there that they could train up to do as they were told and not ask questions. We lost a lot of good guys through this. A prime example was a crew that was sent out to do utility clearance. The EPV tests were out of date, the crew had NO experience in line clearance, no communications etc. I sent them back to base, rang the boss and told him to send out a line clearance crew. Next day the first crew turned up on a different part of the netwrok under a different manager. They'd been told; go out and do the job or and don't say a word or you're down the road.

One of the things I miss about Ol Blighty is the abundance of goodies in hedgerows etc. I haven't had Elderflower champagne for yonks and srumping for old english pears and apples was great. You could fill up the freezer on free stuff with the addition of the odd bunny or two. Too much 1080 over here to consider eating rabbit when you don't know where its been feeding.

Now that's a fine idea.

Crikey, first time I've experience that on this forum. Page kept reloading.

Oooh Oooh 10.09 ............10.10!

does it count because it's the 11th here in NZ?