gibbon

Looks like a less robust but more expensive version of a grcs. If you do tons of big rigging and can afford 2k get the original its awesome

Going to try to get to Burnham

Inspected 2 large Monterey Pines this morning. 1 had 2 patches off smooth bark I first though was down to some old stem injury. Client is sure these patches have been here some time but there has been no damage to the stem and no falling branches which might have damaged the bark here. I assume its just normal flaking of the bark, or could it be subtle sign of soemthing else?

Thats a beast. Tom, did you mill the Holly I sold you yet?

If you can drive 2 trucks at the same time do your own lowering and climb at the same time as using a stop go boards then I'll stretch to 13k

Starts at £12k. I'll pay the FdSc for you though

They could offer a consultancy service. Borrow the money, maybe pay it back out your wages on condition of repayment should you leave. I'm encouraging one of my guys to do the tech cert on a similar arrangement. Its only £1k a year, I'm sure your boss could help you out. Or find one that will

Maybe you need some help with your money management. There are plenty of folk about who manage to finance themselves through further education on a modest wage Can you not tap up your employer for a loan on the FdSc costs? Its not an expensive course and I'm sure they will benifit by offering a wider range of services once you've acheived your qualification

I'll be looking for someone who's got an NC or similar and already has upto cs 39. The last trainee we took on started on £11500 3years ago and had just CS30he's still with us and is pretty good now Not looking for anyone who wants to just come in and climb before they learn how we are used to working. From past experience, I found that some college leavers think they are more experienced than they are and have trouble following instructions that may differ from what they learn at college. I know the sort of person I need just need to find whats a fair wage. Not interested in employing anyone under 19/20. If they're older but doing the same job then why should they get more? Its not my job to manage their finances after they've been paid. Am I being realistic and is would £12k be a reasonable start, possibly to be reviewed in 3 months? " maintaining drive and enthusiasm should be a consideration if you want the best from your staff. " My staff are happy enough thanks (except my wife in the office who's always grumbling)

Thats very good. South West wages aren't so great I'm afraid. I was wandering whether £13k was a fair start? Thing is alot of college leavers want to be up the tree earning a good wage from day one without the experience.

What is a resonable wage for a new employee, straight out of a 1 year college course, no experience? They would be working with experienced aaac crew on a full time paye basis. Training and ppe provided, 28 days holiday, over time available.

Friend of mine did similar, but with an electric concentric to a house. 4 or 5 rusted poles ended up collapsing leaving live cables 6 foot off the ground all the way down the street

Very funny. I could tell you of misfortunes in my past life, but not on a public forum!

Felled a Cypress with an iron bar in it. Tree twisted 90 degrees took down some lv wires which went into the garden pond an electrocuted the pet duck. The clients son was watching and said "thats the coolest thing I've ever seen!"

I had one in a pot of 7-8 years and never watered it. It used to loose all its leaves when it was very dry then come back to life when it rained. They are super hardy. Very strong smell to the leaves too! I ended up feeling bad for it so planted it in the garden about 2 years ago and its thriving now. Make sure you sever all the circling roots. Cut back the leader if its too spindly so it fills out lower down. I have to prune mine 3 times a year already to keep it in check. I doubt it will suffer if you cut it back too hard, just better to prune it little and often and to keep thinning it to keep a nice form.

I was living in Costa Rica when there was a 7.2 early one morning lasting about 50 seconds. The house was on stilts and rocking for all its worth, howler monkeys and parrots were going crazy in all the trees around the house, girlfriend screaming. It was one hell of a way to wake up.

My screw came loose all by itself! Something you need to watch, could be catasrophic during a take down

Have a go on this bit of drift wood!

You will be putting some pretty hefty forces on those anchor trees. Personally I would use a seperate lowering system on each tree and drift the sections. The force on the ancor pionts would be roughly half compared with what your suggesting . You could add a tag line to guide them down. Alternatively, you could have a long rope with a pulley attached to one tree and your lowering line secured to the other running through the pulley. This would give you a moveable anchor piont and exert less force on the anchor trees. That would only work if the 2 trees are significantly taller thanand pretty close to the tree to be removed

Cool though

Found this in the archieve. What do you see?

Few photos from a horrible Monterey Pine dismantle. Very dead an no drop zone

I am of the opinion that in the modern world we have steped out of the evolutionary process. Evolution favours survival of the fittests, where the brightest, stongest and best adapted survive and reproduce the most effectively. Now that we have no predators and modern medicine props up the infirm, we are nurturing our weak genes rather than selectively breeding them out. Also some of our fittest, brightest, highest achievers have smaller families later in life because of the high demands of their occupations. At the same time societies lowest acheivers often have the most childeren at times with the worst diets and higher incindence of health problems. All of this to me is a backward evolutionary step which is ultimately likely to contribute to our demise.-Cheery thought for a Monday morning, but I've got food piosoning.

I'm still not getting this. Page 9-14 of the article make perfect sense to me, but where is all this cosmic spiritual re-awakeng stuff coming from. I can completely understand that a tree (or any other organism) is a dynamic system, or a system of parts, in much the same way a a forest is. Science knows all about this. But how does the realisation that there is a whole, very complicated system full of different organisms all effecting and altering conditions for other organisms become the answer to all spiritual, religous and scientic qyuestions in the world? Are you saying science thinks a tree is a plant, and a decay fungi is a bad organisms trying to kill this tree, black/white good/bad. And that this Rayner guy has come along and said, "hang on a minute, these organisms have been around for millions of years and the process has become a little more involved than that. The tree has developed alongside this fungi and in some way can benifit from its presence"? I think either I am completely missing the piont here, or is this just a discussion on the complexity of nature?

Am I missing something here? I may be about to expose my ignorance here but I fail to see any great revalations in this paper. My understanding of this paper (after deciphering the over complicated poetic mumbo jumbo) is that Rayner is just reiterating what we already knew about recyclers and evolution. Is the the essence of the evolution theory not that if a niche or opportunity for life is available a species will adapt to exploit it? Then does it not seem logical that within any living system varying niches will develop and different organisms will exploit them, and inturn these organisms will provide potential opportunities for other organisms in a potentially endless loop? Of course fungi have a role as recyclers. If an organism dd not fulfill this role not only would our planet be littered with millions of years worth of dead plants and animal corpses, but we would also have a huge hole in the theory of evolution. So is the basis for this "inclusional" theory that the tree and fungi are not either in direct competition for space and time or have a clear cut sympiotic relationship, but are part of an ever changing a dynamic ecosystem or changing circle of life? ie, the tree has reduntant heart wood-the fungi exploit this-the tree is able to recycle and re-use material previously locked up in redundant woody tissue but now re-available for uptake because of recycling? Like I say, I may be missing the piont here so please enlighten me if I have, or have I unwittingly been a closet inclusionalist the whole time?