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This is the gas powered automatic trap. Looks good in theory. Shame its so bloody expensive! A new weapon against the greys WWW.FORESTRYJOURNAL.CO.UK The alien North American grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is a huge challenge for UK foresters, especially those wanting to grow hardwoods for…

I was thinking about this too.

Good plan. Oily fish like mackerel is really good. Tasty too. Just a shame about all the heavy metals in it due to pollution in the seas. You're meant to be careful about how much you eat because of that. Bloody humans!

Avocados do eventually disappear. I tend to sieve the compost after getting it out of the bin each year. To get rid of any plastic crap and retrieve any cutlery! At the same time I chuck any bigger bits of un-composted organic debris, like avocado, into the bin to go through the next cycle. Not sure what makes moss so tough but there's definitely something about it. It's used in hanging baskets as a liner and also a major constituent of carnivorous plant soil mixes. I grow some of these and the moss always lasts years before rotting down. Thinking laterally, maybe this is also why moss peat takes so many thousands of years to form any depth of.

Yep. But aren't there some downsides to reintroducing Pine Martins all over the place? I heard something about them once but forget the details again. Do they attack birds nests as well or something?

Anyone know why the buggers do so much bark damaging? The Greys. A guy told me once that it was all to do with territorial behaviour and the fact that they have no natural predators in this country. Frustratingly I've forgotten the details of what he said. Until recently I didn't realise that they attacked oak trees as well. I thought it was beech and sycamore that they preferred to go for. I was doing a light reduction and thin of an oak a few weeks back and when I got to the top loads of branches were screwed with squirrel damage.

I'll vouch for squirrels being good eating. Though I had a mate of mine do the butchery, I wouldn't have bothered myself as not much meat on them. I think he used 2 or 3 of them to make a terrine. If was very good.

Bloody marketing! I fell for it the first time of reading. Thinking biodegradable meant it would disappear in my compost bin after a year or so. Maybe I won't bother with PG tips after all,.and just go back to putting all tea bags in the household waste. We have no food waste option for our rubbish collection with our LA, but I think all the household gets incinerated anyway. Cheers to you and your daughter for the info! PS. Avocados are amazingly tough. Skins and stones.

Just out of interest;- is your motivation purely environmental protection? Or do you make some kind of use of the "by-products"? That would make sense; it would be sensible for people to eat squirrel meat as an alternative to highly resource and energy costly farmed meat like beef.

I very highly commend you. Thanks for you efforts. Grey Squirrels really are the Devil's Spawn!

This book is really good. It's short, readable and takes a no nonsense approach to the issues of back pain, causes and treatments. It describes the back in terms of a mechanism, which is all it is really, a series of joints. The idea being that you can treat the problem yourself before it escalates too much. Treat Your Own Back by Robin McKenzie | Waterstones WWW.WATERSTONES.COM Buy Treat Your Own Back by Robin McKenzie from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25. Personally I'd always go to a physio rather than a chiropractor or osteopath. The latter often seem to have a bad reputation for being no good, and money grabbers. Physios might also be more used to dealing with active, physical people like ourselves and sports people. Providing the issue is not too serious, one that requires surgery, you want someone to diagnose the problem and then give you some exercises to do at home, rather than asking you to go back to them every week for three months to be poked and prodded, at £50 a session. (That happened to my partner. She wasn't impressed and jacked it in after a couple). The most useful thing that I've taken from that book, and a couple of visits to a physio is the best way to treat a bout of acute back ache is to do an exercise to bend it the opposite way to normal, i.e. arch it backwards. A good way is do some press-up, but try to keep your groin pressed to the ground. A few days or weeks of that, a couple of times a day, really helps in my case. The rationale is that the discs get squeezed out backwards from bending and lifting over time. As they're flexible they can, to a certain extent, be squeezed forwards again to where they should be by bending the back over backwards. Works for me. All that said I think a certain amount of back pain is a sad consequence of manual labour and getting older. Mine always aches a bit after too much bending down or heavy lifting. Also, bad posture is a big culprit. I reckon there's as many desk workers or more with back problems. Swimming and cycling are good for stretching out and freeing things up. Hanging upsidedown too! I've never tried it but the idea is to stretch the back and open up the vertebrae.

Me too, for peace of mind. I'm sure it's not necessary though as that webbing looks bloody strong.

What about a load of manpower? Some years ago a mate of mine had a Shed Moving Party and BBQ. The details are somewhat hazy now in my memory, but I think 5 or 6 of us moved it by about 15m down the garden, including a sizable bank down at the end. It worked well. I think it was only a 6 by 6 shed, so might not be a serious suggestion for your case. With enough guys though, (fueled by enough beer and BBQ), anything is possible!

RIP Prince Philip. A sad loss indeed. From my perspective he was always rather a 2D figure, known only for his many gaffs and as being second fiddle to the Queen. I guess that's largely down to crappy media coverage. I've learnt today that he had many more strings to his bow. I knew of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme. I did the first two levels myself. Apparently he was seen as a moderniser of the royal family. He was a highly intelligent and well read man, an early adopter and proponent of new technologies, a great sportsman, a champion of environmental conservation........... I never knew any of that stuff. I don't think it was often mentioned in recent years. My respect for the man has increased today, on hearing more about him.

Agreed. I turned on the radio at lunchtime and Radio 4 were doing a special extended version of the lunchtime news. I thought fair enough. However, I was amazed when I turned the radio on again at 830 and they were still on the same subject, albeit a special version of Any Questions that time. The coverage is way over the top by any standards. I say this with absolutely no disrespect meant to the great man himself. I actually have more respect for him now after hearing lots of stuff today that I never knew before. It looks like they've even cancelled Gardener's World tonight as well. That takes the biscuit!

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More likely, I'll grant you that.

It's a bit confusing but I think all their teabags across the range are now fully biodegradable, but they haven't yet got around to updating all the information on their packaging. That's how I read this anyway. I hope so as we generally drink Earl Grey and Red Bush tea. Only one way to be sure I guess ............ I'll get back to you in a year once I've sorted the next batch of compost! Biodegradable tea bags WWW.PGTIPS.CO.UK Here’s a fact! Around nine billion PG tips tea bags are enjoyed by cuppa lovers every year in the UK. That’s a lot of tea and tea bags. And we take that super seriously. Make no mistake, we're

Good man. I'd like to do that but sadly am too lazy. I've just leant that PG Tips don't use plastic in their bags. Maybe time to change to them.

Beaver with a spirit level?

Excuse the blurry photo, my camera is screwed.

This is why we don't put tea bags in the compost bin anymore. Apparently almost all manufacturers put a small amount of plastic in the bags. Rank.

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Bugger! I've got at least one box with tits nesting in right now as well. Next question; any ideas of how I might dissuade the nasty sods from setting up home in nextdoor's tree? [emoji848][emoji50]

Uh oh, that doesn't sound so good. My pair must be exceptions then; they're far from shy! Always out there messing around. Pretty birds too, lots of different colours on them.