Highland Forestry

I would like to state for the record that I would never normally recommend the pollarding of a beech but in this particular circumstance I belive it may be a satisfactory control measure to minimise hazards associated with limb shed and deadwood falling and may offer the tree a new lease of life or a new purpose in life for habitat - either way it would be beneficial.

Climber Required to dismantle two beech trees on upcoming project. We are looking to bring in a sub-contract climber to dismantle and sectionally fell two beech trees approximatley 20m from LV lines on an upcoming project in Aberdeenshire. The start date for this contract shall be 17th November 2009 NPTC Certificates CS30, CS31, CS38, CS39, UA.1, UA.2 essential. Please contact: Matthew O'Brien - [email protected]

That's what I was getting at - and almost certainly what i'd be inclined to do.

Fell/replant or monolith/pollard

Chuck it in the bin and buy a Stihl !!!!!! hehe!! I'd contact a husky main dealer and get one posted to you mate.

you could buy a large(ish) tracked dumper quite cheap at the moment, weld some bolsters on to it and then suffer loading it by hand - the upshot would be that you can tip it out at the other end. You could even mount a crane on it if you bought a big enough one. They are cheap cheap now, saw some the toher week for about £1500.

There's also a work at height seminar coming up in suffolk I believe

Ardverikie?? Or Feshie? On my doorstep and I never even knew about it!

Have had similar happen to me on more than one occasion now - ''My mate rekons he can do it for £50'' It's a waste of time even taking them on - you're better to just forget it, put it out of your head and get on with somehting more productive - like drinking beer. If you do feel the need to take them on, you can proudly tell them that you are qualified, insured, experienced, you offer your services at a price which is professional, competitive and honest. Then you can tell him that his mate is a propper prize prat for being willing to underwrite all risks associated and to put himself in danger for the sake of £50!

Erm..... that scream SCAM at me in a really loud high pitched noise with big flashing lights all over it.. For starters, if he can send you an e-mail that means he has internet access and that means he has paypal access and also bank account access so he's lying right from the start. Sounds like he might be foreign, if you read the paragraph out loud it makes sense, grammar and spelling wrong, different words used like 'oceanist'. Does his email have an IP number in the header anywhere??? If so you can locate an IP address and that will tell you if it was sent from the sea or from roughly whereabouts in whatever country he's in. Dont be too worried though, if you give him your paypal email address all he can do is send you money, he can't do anything else without your password.

THANK CHRIST IT DOSENT GO ON YOUR PROFIT!!!!!! hehehe

Ferrets are for work... There are far cuddlier and far less agressive pets you could get rather than a ferret. They aint so cute when they're hanging off your finger or they've ripped a lump of flesh out of your kids ya know!

Coup: (Verb) To roll or tip, spill, fall over etc.

I can now add Lady Russel and Lord Miller to that list.... Most of them have been through subbie work actually but roger taylor was on a shooting party.

You cant get anywhere near her.... she has a team of privat security guards, all ex gurkhas!

Use propyzamide (Kerb) - it's sedimentary, nothing will grow there for aaaaaages after treatment.

Dont think you need a lawyer for a small claims court.. Not sure if it's changed or not but it used to cost you a fee of something like £35 for a SCC hearing and you had to get copies of all your documents, quotes, argument etc to them.

You need an excavator based mulcher, and then go back over it with an excavator based stump grinder OR excavator based mukcher and then pull the stumps out with the excavator and windrow for mulching. The skid steer machines are very good but will only take stumps down to gound level and if you are on a side slope you'll have to watch you don't coup it!

Martyn.... Just remember that the more time you spend on this job in letters, calls, mediating, county court etc - is all costing you even more money. Might be worth cutting your losses and just going along and dumping a huge load of chips and all the debris right in the middle of thier driveway, even block their vehicles in by tipping late at night or early morning then just leave it alone - if they pay up afterwards then all well and good, if not then let it rest. You'll have to weigh up the financial side of it for yourself of course, but bear in mind you might reach a point where the cost has swallowed up the profit and makes a dead loss on the job. The other way to do it and to really bugger them up would be to approach a debt collection agency which will take something like 10% off you for the pleasure of collecting on your behalf. If they dont pay the debt collection company then they will end up with CCJ's, bad credit etc.

Know what you mean, never know what you're going to earn because the costs can be unknown. Same here, but what I do know is that I dont earn enough for the effort that goes in, but that's my fault - hence finding better customers.

With you there... ! How many professions do you get where the contractor is mobile and can turn up with 20-30k (probably more in alot of cases) worth of specialised kit. If you have a van, chipper, ground staff, all the saws, kit, grinder, climber, fuel etc - you're not long before your cost of operation is 500 a day.

has anyone found that customers who go for loads of quotes and hunt down the cheapest possible quote are always the worst kind of customers in a general sense? The customers I like are like the one I had on friday... a reccomendation from another customer, and the contract was mine even before I quoted. Fair price, nice work, everyone is happy and payment immediatley on completion... Now if I could get that for every job I'd be a happy chappy.

Not sure where I fit in really.. over 90% of my work is commercial, and alot of it is for safety reasons such as roadside felling, de-veg, remedial work etc. I see myself somewhere up there with plummers, electricians ??

He'll go bankrupt eventually mate, undercutting and people that undercut stupidly create a false economy and a slow death.

Tom - i've found similar mate, but have started to come round to the idea that I am worth more than working my balls off for next to nothing or indeed no profit at all. I think 30k a year is realistic for an owner. If it's a larger company I'd be looking towards 50k