Mark Bolam

Can you get to try on the Petzl Strato Vent Dan? I’ve just swapped over from the Vertex and it’s more comfy. Don’t know how it would size up for you, I’ve got a smallish head but there seems to be plenty of adjustment.

Struck by lightning 30 years ago, this oak wasn’t in good nick. No before pics, sorry. Canopy rig out this morning then Transit aided fell. Back for beers in pool by 5.

Calling it back.

I had a call today from a local customer who says she has quite an infestation on a number of semi and mature oaks. I haven’t looked at the trees yet but she sent me this pic. What is the best course of action?

It was filmed in Australia.

The app and Tapatalk are bolloxed, just login through Google.

@Joe Newton who has used both extensively. Love my original 2511, and the newer model is supposedly even better.

Another view of yesterday’s fell that the customer sent over. E82F8BDD-1E52-4F1A-89EA-620789463E75.mov

The Big Lad Alan Lawrence is with us no more. RIP Felix.

First pic for scale, Danny Mac dropping a big lateral. And it was big. 540 bar length big. First time Dan’s had disco leg in a while. Not a particularly big butt, the 660 with 25” extended the cut, but remember we had dismantled the other co-dom stem earlier before we could fell.

Genuine question. Have you had one of your mates on a ventilator for three months? Who’d taken more precautions than most because his wife had MS? I’m not in charge of HSE on Arbtalk, I just think we can help a little bit by wearing a mask. 1% difference is better than f-all, surely?

That was just after I said ‘brave effort mate, where’s the bar, I’ll buy you a pint’.

The job today was working for a very handy bloke who can deal with any timber we get on the deck. He has a felling licence for what we were doing today. I quoted a lot of money for rigging a big ash over the chalet his daughter lives in, and a lot less for an assisted fell across his pond after specific limb (and stem) removal. He went for the assisted fell. Our remit was to get this ash down without hitting the chalet. We did that, then stayed around for what I thought would be the hard part. Getting the tree out of the pond. His son in law then rocks up with an Allis-Chalmers crawler built in 1938, so we stayed around. Pinged a 5t rigging rope (which I’d agreed in the price) pulling the main butt up the banking, but all went well. First pull on tree was on a redirect with a LR Defender. Order of pics vids may be cocked up, I’ve had a few. 059BBF57-225F-4BFE-8065-E97D6A2F8A65.MP4 2F251FD5-98A6-46B4-8BEF-53D7A81789C9.MP4 27D6F9B6-471A-4621-AA88-E6AF35B777F6.MOV

That’s mint Gary. Makes some sense of what we are doing here, if you know what I mean?

It’s not you mate, you’re part of the furniture. And I’ve seen you climb.

No big issues down here in rural Kent wearing masks. People seem happy to put them on in local shops and supermarkets. The big thing is the majority are keeping the distance thing going as well. After all, who wants to get near a freak wearing a mask? The government control issue is such a crock of shit. If masks improve things by 1%, then that’s 1% more than the ‘it’s the government trying to control us’ brigade can come up with. Unless you’ve got any better ideas? Not arguments. Not bullshit. Not anti-Boris. Not negative crap. Just positive anti-mask arguments, please. Replies preferable from those who actually work in the tree game please.

Big thanks to Mark, Barry and the guys at Skyland Equipment. Placed an order yesterday, rang an hour later when I realised I had forgotten to add some Pfanner face masks (which are great, by the way), and the postie delivered the whole lot this morning. Top notch service, chaps.

It is slightly annoying mate, but perhaps my thread title wasn’t catchy enough. Maybe people gave it a swerve thinking I was banging on about some new trainers Nike were bringing out.

Pass on my best to John if you do get hold of him mate.

The decay well up the stem wasn’t too clever either Pete!

I’m not suggesting it’s perfect mate, far from it, but it might help a bit and I really don’t see it as a big deal when popping into a shop. Apologies for the name calling earlier.

Totally with you on the handwashing and distancing thing Kevin, and I agree that the usual idiots will simply crack on thinking a mask means they are bulletproof.

What do you suggest doing about it then, you fuckwit?

I bought a crap one from the services simply so I could get booze (I was in Honeys on Wednesday hoping to buy a gucci Protos one, but they didn’t arrive in time. WH Smith, £5, sorted. It’s shit, uncomfortable and hurts my ears. BUT - if I contract C19 it will definitely HELP stop me spreading it when I’m in close proximity to other people. Like in a shop, for instance. It won’t stop me CATCHING it, but it would help me stop SPREADING it, if I get it. My farmer mate has just done 3 months in ICU with C19, he came out, the 2 blokes in his room went out the other door. This is a real thing. We’re arbs, not Kardashians. I suspect the vast majority of us avoid shopping whenever we can anyway. That farmer mate agreed with something I showed him which I nicked off FB - ‘If you don’t like wearing a mask, you’re really not going to like the ventilator’ It’s not about control, conspiracy, 5G, Russia, ‘my choice’ (fuck your choice you snowflake idiot), politics or anything else. It’s just putting a bit of cloth over your face when you are in a shop. Man up, mask up, get on. Get the country moving again.