Joy Yeomans

hubby was carting some timber back across the local reservoir and on top of the bund where walkers were,there were huge swarms of black insects with people really batting them away and dogs running everywhere out from the swarms, could these have been mayfly? this happened last week, around good friday

well, this is a good thread, and something weve often gone over many times over the years, from now on in if your employing someone, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys and you will see that your profit dwindles and your repairs increase - UNLESS - you can find some good lads or lasses, which are few and far between, as the best are already self employed who can work and do repairs as they go if need be, look after the kit as if it was their own and work from the time they get in the yard til the time they finish - and past if required. keep guards on machinery, keep staff trained up, insurances paid up, pay men a decent wage, and more firewood men just doing it for pin money out there, and see how your profit margins hold up. joe public doesnt want to know that our insurances costs are 3k with cs30/31 for our young lad just costing £750 and having a week off paid to do it, and repairs to machinery in the thous., with hubby off with stress and yet they still want logs for £80m3 and we struggle to get that sometimes. finding sales/work then goes to a very urgent requirement to pay wages/bills/mortgage - if i were you dave just stick to small scale unless you are getting big, employ someone on a casual basis who is perhaps semi retired, but if this is only a sideline to you you could put someone on full time and sitback and let them run it if you dont need to . just my two penneth joy

we could hear the thunder , chilling out up our farm, then saw in the sky a big anvil cloud forming, must have been towards leicester way that you had it and only a few miles away in staffordshire we kept the sun shining

we usually mark our end pieces of the stack at both ends with a blue dot if at a public area, and then we can see if any has been taken - very often you find little monkeys with large carboots and a chainsaw saw off the last 3 ft off a 12ft log from the back to make it look like the stack hasnt been touched! - and most people think they are stealing only from the Forestry Commission and not from the contractor who has bought the timber standing.

hi, just asked mr. about hypro, he thinks they are good, and thinks their stronger built than the nokka processors, hes explained to me that you operate them from outside the tractor on remote control and attach the winch to several logs at a time, he thinks they are good, but prefers to work from inside the cab with the bed processor that weve got as he prefers that. but says hypros are a good bed processor and would speed up times due to snedding and cutting to length operations ,also forwarding out is then quicker as the logs are all in one place as opposed to spread out along the length of the fallen tree as you would get with hand snedding. hope this helps - joy.

hi , we run nokka bed processor, and we still have to handfell and brash the tree up for the first few feet to allow the crane to grab the tree and put on to the bed processor, but in time saved they are a godsend to hand snedding. you need a roof mount crane to feed as the bed processor comes off your threepoint linkage or if 3pl crane youd need an additional means of putting the processor onto that 3pl off the crane base,. to winch to it youd need to keep in and out of the tractor to attach the winch cable id imagine and i dont think it would work. rohan operating the valmet and nokka can catch up two hand fellers sent in front of him in a day usually and keep up. ive not heard of hypro models - but Mr. probably has, but as usual hes gone to work early and back late so i will have to ask. all; the best joy

what angers me , is weve had a few lads in the past who said they were "fit" used to doing the work etc ,and when taken on it was clear they were woefully unfit and only just scraped through their tickets and didnt know a pine cone from a badgers armpit , one lad lied that hed got his driving licence, we took him on on the understanding we needed a lad who could drive - luckily he left before we had to let him go good help is hard to find and i thank our lucky stars we have a few good lads now in the team. some who've come in the past couldnt put a sentance together with out using at least 4 f's and a few b's in earshot of customers etc joy

two felled last week and their bark was peeling off the stem in long lengths

plus, does anybody else think that hardwoods will be more scarce this year or more expensive to buy in? our felling contract is for smaller diameter stuff this year and we have to travel further afield to get it, hence it will cost us more to process this next year.

my sister-in-law and myself use larch for kindling and logs in nets, she wears gloves , i dont and to be honest its not a problem, little bits on the fingers thats all, but if two girls can use larch , im sure you big boys will be ok joy:001_tt2:

we use a fastrac which is loveley and comfy with the cb on into the night silageing 65k which is faster than any johndeere, which you wouldnt want to do with the county, but i wouldnt go in the wood with the fastrac or a deere and it wouldnt go where the county goes - i wouldnt take the 7820 into the wood you boys are frightened of a mans machine:001_tt2: rohan

after having a full rebuild and spray job, its finally back where it should be - in the woods:thumbup:

i looked into it and we didnt need one to move our sheep within i think 20 miles radius of our grass eating etc and to market/slaughter, if there your own livestock and you hold the relevant trailer licence. your local environmental health from the local council will have all the relevant literature on such rules ,as we had a farm check last month from Staffs. council environmental health and this is something that came up in the chat. but as it wasnt too relevant to us we skipped most of it as our slaughterhouse is in the next village and market isnt too far and grass eating is within 7 miles

pulling out some sitka for firewood logs/sticks with the county and patu

BASE at Penkridge just off M6, near Cannock, one of our young lads is doing the his cs30/31 on monday for a week, cost £735 inc VAT for course and assessment

we did all 7 in about 4 days slowed by high winds to start with, along with two other trees to sortout, had to work around traffic underneath as just near the entrance of Alton Towers so busy with buses etc. and road closure wasnt really an option - a pleasing result to see all old trees looking so nice

i ask him how they get on each night and he says "weve gone mental" - so im guessing its well and truly run in:thumbup:

no sorry, no before and after i dont think on my camera , will be on hubbys as it was in a conservation area so we had to get permission etc, i just took a few while i was allowed to have a "comfort" break whilst doing my traffic management stop/go sign operation joy

aye, never mind that were in to the 21st century weve only just entered the 20th century:blushing: , speeds up snedding, but Rohans had to get the whip out to the lads to fell quicker as hes catching em up:lol: brashing moved to windrows with crane, then we'll bring our digger in and burn with the brash rake. cheers joy

who was that in the last pic:blushing: he looks well dodgy:lol: oh no its that wildlife consultant - known to us as Mr BIG:lol: cheers j.

well we finally decided to re-wire the whole nokka, as we found the problem -over winter the blue wire had faded changed colour to green and broke off in the wiring loom which really confused the lads trying to get the motors to work after they refubed it. so they ended up re wiring it in half a day and doing a proper job instead of a bodge:001_tt2: just in case the other wires decided to break up half way through our softwood contract. this weeks narrow clearfell along a track of sitka spruce mostly, a narrow path between ride and brook.

Roadside job a few weeks ago cleaning up some 7 lime trees and deadwooding.

sharing some pics of a log jam creation we helped make, we supplied the timber and made the log jam to help stop erosion. stone tipped at the erosion site, and then log jam created further down, a very interesting job. joy

Mr. currently is swopping between a makita body hugger and a hoggs wax gilet, the makita is really padded for really cold and the hoggs keeps the rain off your back. joy

cut to length of what customer wants or what will fit your equipment - to fit your log trailer - usually 3m lengths /12fts , different sawmills etc and pulp take different diametre and lengths.