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When your reading this on a Sunday Bank Holiday

It was 65K when I registered. IMO it is impossible to run a van, 1 full time employee, chipper and insurance and stay under vat and work full time. Unless you are earning less than your employee.

So I'm not the only one to be a twit this month. Glad it wasn't worse, your lucky. Its that damb conplacentcy again.

Watching my 18 month old daughter going down the slides with the 10 year olds at the fun park.

Not so bad. Twinges when I catch em funny. Its the lowest one so no so bad for breathing in. Bored already though want to get back into it next week if pos.

Don't be so sure of that. 80% of my work was domestic and like SWB had to register in year 3. I didn't find that it made too much difference to my clients. Yes you loose a few of the tight wads who want the cheapest possible job, but do you want that type of client?

How much was that bad boy to hire?

Apparently not. That was the reason for the crane so they could be removed carefully. It was too difficult for a bee keeper to remove them and would have been a shame to kill them just to save the cost of a crane for a day in the context of several new homes.

I have just invented CS 101. It involves using a mobile crane to remove a tree with an active bees nest inside. Pre-rec is a week old broken rib. We were contracted in by another firm to remove this Oak for development. We already postponed the job once and in the mean time I managed to break a rib. Had the crane booked and an builders ready to build so I had to dose up on painkillers and get on with it. The other firm had wrapped some sacking around the nest to keep most of the bees in, still loads buzzing around but no-one got stung. It wasn't that big and I did the brash, chopper in the red helmet did the large saw work on the stem that I couldn't manage. It was his first time climbing on a crane job and did very well. We relocated the bees at the end of day and no-one got a sting!

My accountant told me that the only insurance which is required by law is pl. Not to say el isn't vital, it is. The piont is that without pl you may not be viewed as legitimatley self employed which could be a tax nightmare for whoever employed you that year.

NI stamp is about £2.50 a week. If you put 15-18% of everything you put through the books in a savings account that will leave you plenty for your tax bill at the end of the year. Thats what I did anyway when I was freelance climbing and it worked well for me.

2nd time I've done it. 1st time I was 17 and felled down the stairs, also pissed up. Weird though that the was the pain gets worse, reduced a Lime on Thursday and wasn't too bad. Rigging down an Ash today was agony, had to stop and go to Hospital after work.

A quick update. After an uncomfortable weekend and a painful climb today I went to hospital after work today. Turns out I broke a couple of ribs last week. What a div!

I went at 19 to work for some biologists in Costa Rica for a year. The first day I was back at my parents they had a firm taking a tree down. I asked for a job and started the next day. Never looked back.

I need to buy employees new boots and was wandering what the best boots are. We have had meindl, elton, stein over the years but rarely get 12months out of a pair. I now have gone back to Klima Air as my first pair lasted 3 years but at they are £200+and we allow £150 for boots. What do you guys reccomended? Is there a decent pair for £150 or should I just increase the boot allowence?

I did the VTA course with Mike several years ago. It was good and worth the money even if you already have vta experience. IMO QTRA is a usefull tool if you manage large tree stocks and management budgetsd There are other risk assesments available for free you could also look at.

You've got too much time on your hands!

Looked like fun. Was that a capstan or a bollard you were using?

I hired a 2 ton tracked dumper from cullompton a few years back. It was a beast, built like a small tank. I think it was about £220 inc delivery for 2 days. That thing would extract your timber easy over any terrain.

Lazy. It was before lunch and I have had an easy week so far. I think when your learning or doing something out of the ordinary you pay more attention. If you are doing something you do all the time its easier to get sloppy.

We use 18 and a 24mm polyprop. Cheap to replace and the stretch is a usefull indicator of the tension its under.

It happened all to quick too get the old sphincter twitching. I just though, "Ohh no, I wander how bad this is going to be" when it happened" Afterwards I was cross with myself, but its a good reminder. I was always told, "Think twice cut, once.". I wasn't thinking at all.

I may be leaving myself wide open to abuse here, but this is what happened to me today. I was dismantaling a big leaning sweet chestnut over a road today. Tree was about 20m+ with a dbh of around 1.5m. Rigged/dropped everything over the road then dropped lumps of timber on to a timber crash mat. When I got to the last few sections over the woodland verge I was struggeling with my 18inch bar but couldn't be bothered to change to the 660 for 2 cuts. The last piece was about 1000kg, maybe more. I was being lazy. Due to the lean I put my undercut in from each side as again, I couldn't be bothered to hang under the lean and put it in properly. There was about 8 inches below left uncut. When I put my back cut in it cleaved and badly, about 2m below my feet. I was on my side strop on my hip rings. I took I bit of a pounding, but was very lucky. I think the only thing that saved me was that I wasn't using my steel strop with a grab. I have a small vt on the side strop and it pulled back all the way, until it reached my main line on my centre D the the lump fell clear. I was very lucky indeed not to have sustained a major injury. My reason for posting is that my accident was due to being complacent. I have been in the game a while and work on very big trees often, perhaps weekly. I got complacent, and was sloppy due to the fact I was doing what I do every day. I know what I was doing wrong and on a sweet chestnut of all trees. It was a slap in the face which I guess I needed,

Dem Firs want topping!

Bit of spike tickling I expect