Frank

Apprenticeship schemes are the way forward in my opinion. Excellent stuff.

Yeah, we camped out for a fortnight using night vision cameras installed in different parts of the tree and did 18 pre work climbs. Set up a wildlife perimiter zone of 4 miles and had a team of 24 ecologists reporting results. (or we may have just done some visual checks as we installed the ropes) cant remember now as it was last tuesday. Haha.

Sirius works stupidly good once worn in. Tie it on climb up a tree and decend rapidly wearing gloves should do the job.

We did a thorough check for signs of life. Fair few woodpecker holes but nothing else to write home about. The four main stems pretty much disintigrated whilst dismantling.

Also what you cant see from the pictures is the 5foot wide 20foot tall stem that it all grew out of.

I dont think the pictures actuall did it justice. It was such a fine tree. (although completely rotten, the four stems were all hollow from the tops down) it came down in rather large lumps. Video to follow. Wished id taken more pics as all thats left of that fine veteran is a pile of stumpgrindings. In a few months there will be a huge house there.

Just going back to the tiger forest, there are as many trees there as in all the worlds rain forests combined, in fact it holds 1/3 of the worlds trees. in march when the snow melts the forest produces so much oxygen that it refreshes the atmosphere of the entire planet. I did some learning this evening. ha

2nd set is a dirty great big ash that was ripe for the chop.

This week in pictures. First set is Veteran beech that was long overdue a bit of chainsaw action.

Its easy to want to give up trying when you are being asked to take down veteran beech trees down and grind the stumps house so they can build houses on the land.

£75 for deer stalking.

So what can we do?? I believe we have already assatained that there is no money in going round telling every tree owner that their tree probably wont fall over and is a good home to beetles, so we need to pay our household bills in other ways, this involves getting a job outside of arboriculture and leaving even less time to worry about trees and ecology. So Mr Tree, what do you suggest we do?? I bet every "tree cutter" on this forum would love to be able to get paid to go round and view amazing trees, maybe even climb some, without getting covered in sawdust and chain oil, without having to drag logs 300 yards to the van. This isnt going to happen around here so what should I do?? I love veteran trees, i love the thought of nature being untouched, I love the thought of wilderness where nature does as nature does, but I also love climbing trees and messing with chainsaws. I also know that that In nearly 10 years I have only had A handfull of private customers who would even contemplate leaving a pile of wood as habitat, let alone a standing dead or potentially dangerous tree, or a monolithed stem. Only on large estate work have we been able to push this sort of empathy for nature.

BOC??? The Tiger forest is pretty vast.

Forestry in the UK only cuts down 40% of its sustainable yield in a year. So for example if the trees grow 10 inches in a year, we only cut down 4 inches. That doesnt take into account tree surgery or anything like that or tree planting and im not sure about the rest of the world. I know south america is cutting alot of trees down to make room for cattle for beef production.

Doesnt the Tiger Forest in the Arctic provide a quarter of the worlds Oxygen??

Could you not have just felled it into the pond and left it.

Since when did snake have that many teeth?? Haha. Only kidding. That is one cool bench.

Oh and stuntfelled this Cherry tree, got bored of chipping so had a bit of a fire instead. Haha.

Got the stumps ground out from a large job today. Must be really boring operating a grinder all day.

Like Mark Bolam always says "its not the colour of the hi-viz, its the superstar wearing it that matters".

Erm......... No. Sorry.

Yeah It was defo Frank.

Thats only a semi-lunge. I was the one stood in the hi-vis taking the photo actually. Haha.

Dont be silly Jim. We are talking about scientists not tree cutters. Haha.