Highland Forestry

There is a set series of questions the assessor should ask you, and some of the answers contain several points which are all important, if you can't answer them all competently the assessor should fail you by rights. Do you know anybody with an assessor advice sheet? He will also ask you about your kit and about risk assessments, as well as environmental questions and other questions relating to the law. It would be useful for you if you can get hold of a candidates advice sheet also, or even the LANTRA workbook for CS39. Regardless of your competence - I would recommend doing a course, even if you just arrange a two day refresher as failing your assessment will be a costly excersise. As for the climbing, he should ask you to demonstrate several types of cuts, and will want to see a branch walk etc. If I remember rightly, I had to take along a first aid kit, as well as my LOLER inspection certificate as well as my usage records. Not sure how strict they are down by you but it was all by-the-book for me when I did mine.

LOL he looks like a dodgy Albanian gypsey to me... I cant decide which was worse.... the cuts or his jumper!! That must be one of the most labour intensive ways to fell a tree, he would havebeen quicker with a good felling axe!!

who the f*** is Ken?!?!?!? EH?!?

Does not supprise me at all... Morals and ethics went out years ago.. As Stevie says, they probably thought it was a cherry... even still, why would you plant a tree so close to a church?!?!?

The ones i've seen are all over the leaf, are smaller than the ones pictured and more often than not red in colour

I drink bitter, smoke fags and eat beef dripping sandwiches, and work hard.... sod the hand felling though

Erm..... that looks pretty sore... I'm glad for your sake Dean that you didnt scratch your main artery or it would have been much much much more serious.. Thanks for sharing though, it does bring it home that regardless of experience, you still need to make sure you are careful.

For the record, that technique works really well on sitka.

I dont know if I dare admit this, but I use my big saw for chogging down like that too... And often cut double choggs, only once through the first chog, I don't take the saw right out and start the second, I just lower the saw and take the second through with a pushing chain which saves more time. If i'm chogging down like that it's normally on something like a fir, a sitka, larch etc in which case I will climb up taking branches off, then start chogging down with the 020T untill I feel a bigger saw would be more effective. I then haul up the big saw, which will enable me to chog down right to the ground allowing for the fact that the further down you get the larger the diameter of the tree. It's easier for the climber to chog down in firewood size if we're removing the wood and then the groundsman can simply chuck the blocks into the trailer or stack neatly for the customer and there's no huge piles of sawdust to rake up afterwards. I nearly always chog into firewood size on the way down, makes the whole job on the ground that much easier, and it;s not much extra work for the climber... he's coming down anyway.

I've seen that quite often on ash trees.. always wondered what it was. Cheers Dave!

Might also be worth mentioning that if you sub contract as a self employed climber, whoever you sub contract to should have EL cover in place (legal requirement) because if they don't and you have an accident you are screwed.

Was given a 50g pouch of golden virginia and £20 last year from a really cool retired chap who was a chartered engineer consulting on estate management for the MoD...was a two day job topping and reshaping some maple and taking down a dead elm, he was so impressed with us he was out filming us and inviting friends and family round to watch.. I still get phone calls from him occasionally just to ask how i'm doing and to see if business is good... Some customers are just absolute diamonds!

I love hot summer evenings, after all the heat is gone from the day towards the end of sun-set and at twighlight when itls still warm but the sun has set, that little period of time between sunset and darkness if my absolute favourite thing in the world.. nature, the landscape and everything around seems happy and contented, the scenery up here is fantastic at sunset and it gives you a feeling that everything's not so bad afterall. The other thing is hot bacon butties made with suffolk dry cure bacon from the butchers in Lavenham, first thing in the morning before a hard day... wow.

I can confirm, it's the t22 harness...

Yep, got them already... JAS P Wilson seem good, been recommended them by a few guys.

Christ knows...... I never get any cash jobs at all...... cant remember when my last cash job was so in turn never have any notes in the pocket

Looking for good second hand used machinery for harvesting and extraction, does anybody know of any good companies supplying used but not abused forest machinery?

My misses hates me being on ArbTalk..... she just dosent get it at all..... she refers to arbtalk as my 'other woman' LOL However, she knows its a good way to unwind and chill out a bit.

groundsman doing sweet FA watching you when you're working your balls off up a tree.......girlfriend doing nothing in the house when you've been grafting all day....drivers that drive at 40mph everywhere and then dont slow down coming into a 30 limit....foreign call centre staff....... so many more I could list!

I think you will find that it is a legal requirement to have EL cover, to a minimum of 10M if you are employing someone, and someone is classed as employed by you if they are working for you in any way at all, including self employed. I don't believe it is a legal requirement to have PL cover, however you can not purchase EL cover without the PL so you have to have both.. This is as explained to me by my insurance company, who are bloody good! Give cameron a ring at Trust Insurance. Whatever you decide to do.... get an accountant... most important thing.. he'll maybe charge you 300 a year or something but it's pennies considering the ammount of tax he can save you and the advice he can offer. Plus, the accountant will keep you legal, up to date nd on the right side of the tax man.

Slacking off up here.. contract work is dieing a death and almost no private work at all.. Hope its the time of year...having said that it was the same this time last year. Looking for more contracts now..

Surely if the wood is that old, and a remnant of the old Caledonian forest, it will deffinatley be a SSSI and probably a SPA to boot - no way will they get a felling license to clear fell it.. as already mentioned, probably the woodland trust selectivley felling a few oaks for the right reasons. Where does one go to buy ceramic spikes anyway?? There was me thinking that most wooden dash boards in cars were made from Walnut?!?

Just looked at the photos again.... I can see it now, before you said about the crown reduction it looked ot me like they had topped out the middle of the crown and left the long outer stems.. I would have done exactly the same to be honest, a good hard crown reduction BUT I do think they should have done the whole lot rather than just the one tree and maybe not as much as 90%!! Something like a 60% reduction would have left it a better shape... Why didn't they do the neighbourng trees as well???

Problem with that John, IMO is thatopening up the middle of the crown like that has created more leverage on the outer stems. If I had been asked to cot that tree to that spec I would have refused to leave it looking like that, I would have tried to persuade them to top it level right across rather than leaving it like that, re-growth or not it won't eliminate the original problem.

What does cause that kind of split?? I cam acriss something very similar today on scots pine, although much much smaller than pictured with this willow. I was carring out remedial works on roadside pibes today, and nearly every one of them have branches with that kind of split in them... would it be something do to with high winds?? the wind could cause the branch to fracture through the middle, and then the next seasons growth open it up? got me puzzled..