RobRainford

i agree with that, if i have the money coming in i will buy something that could make my life easier or enjoyable, however i was asked if i wanted anything for climbing, so i kindly replied i like to know that if i can afford it, i will buy it but only if i can make it work for me, one of the best ones recently was the wolf garten 4m pole and saw. invaluable! With doing the degree aswell as working its pretty much my life atm and has been for 3 years. the balance will hopefully even out as time goes on and im not in academia anymore.

we had 2 bays that just gave up their whole top in the worst of the snow we had in 2010. tried to re sprout but weren't doing too well so they got the chop! i would say yours have just suffered a bit from the cold rick

It certainly is a lifestyle, not a job. To me anyway. Not had a great deal of cash for shiny stuff for a while. Last thing I got was a new lanyard to go with my new positioner from Santa! It's a great thing getting a bagful of new kit. I remember getting all mine. Didn't want to use it!

I've done the fdsc onsite at myerscough and I'm about to complete the BSc top up year. From having no prior knowledge of trees other than I knew what a conifer was and wasn't!

It was a 7m girth too apparently. A stonker it was.

this fine oak is showing some signs of an I. dryadeus colonisation, can you spot them? It was at Wynnstay house near Wrexham.

agree with others, im suprised the TO has called that kretzschmaria. as its a pretty distincive fruiting body in its own right. even though the pictures arent great and they are very desiccated, is it a possibility of collybia?

i love it, i dont like fumbling around behind me for a scabbard, id rather reach for my leg! found it great with my zubat, i just use the straps from it on my sugoi now. which is an ace combo as the scabbard has holes already

im listening to a variety of stuff at the mo, quite open minded and do like a good acoustic song with proper instruments, some of the stuff on radio 1 atm is crap even for me, i just cant find a way to like it! Gotye's album has been a recent worthy purchase, something different and a very fresh. Also in the same playlist ive got Rizzle Kicks! Their album has some good tracks and they are two talented lads. i do agree with robs statement on the over engineered crap that seems to haunt the radio now

There is a good margin for me an my little chipper with a man. But having a slightly bigger one and a guy in for £150 extra per day doesn't leave much in it.

RobArb on here is onthe fdsc arb online at Myerscough ATM. He may pop along here to give his word. If not, meither him with a PM Afaik it requires a lot of dedication if you want good marks. And you have to be disciplined!

I'll ring round a couple of places and see what's what. I'm interested in chipper and man however the contract I'm doing a lot of work with now doesn't have a huge margin. So can't afford £200/day for a man and chipper.

St helens and around there. Manchester every now and again and stretching to the near side of Liverpool.

Is that a day rate? Would be a good job for anyone in that area no doubt.

i have no requirement to trim the sides, the thickness of the foliage will be required from a lot of the hedge especially from some of this, as its thin below where i want to take it down to. Although if it is asked of me then it would be a good day with the mewp and hedgecutters!

we found a couple of good ones today with the ATF meeting, even found a couple nobody else did! including one monster one ringed by dryadeus, ill get a photo up shortly for you and some others from today

thats a monster bracket! should look cool as a monolith!

thats left me a little befuddled?

the stihl oil shots are about £15 for 10, which will do you 50l of oil, thats hardly expensive.

have you seen his 200t & 201T modded videos? they turn awesome, i want a 201 just like that one!

thats what im afraid of, i know people will be protective of their kit, i am the same with mine, ive got a number i could phone that i think may work. I hope so anyway. once summer hits and ive got a couple of things out the way ill be looking into a bigger machine myself, the cs100 really cant keep up with takedowns!

This may be a long shot for me, but i thought id try. Ive got a few jobs coming up where i have lots of little jobs to do, my CS100 has been doing ok but is quickly getting out of its depth, plus feeding it requires a technique so that you dont overload the machine and cook the belts, which happened while a guy working with me was just a bit heavy on the little chipper. Id be after a small tow behind chipper that i could hire on a day rate basis, i dont trust the hire company local to me as ive had nothing but bad experiences from them with more specialist pieces of kit. something like a tw125ph or equivalent, something that will shift a bit more than the cs100, weight is an issue though as ive still not got my B+E, but i have my test booked for mid april. another reason for asking this is that the chippers with feed rollers and hence anti stress are a bit more fool proof and just require feeding. any takers? dont know what im going to get from this.

crank!

a mewp can make it a bit awkward for getting the middle out, so climbing it is fair comment, last time i used a mewp on a hedge it was a pain to get into the hedge and was reaching out the bottom of the basket just to make the cuts. there certainly is potnential for mewp hire, i will factor it in just incase its needed. But ive got a feeling this job will take longer than planned. directly behind the hedge on the two long sides are roads, which are country roads but there is no pavement between the base of the trees and the road, so nothing can go backwards.

id happily get a mewp in for this job, done big hedges before and a mewp was the best option. I havent recomended a full removal, yet, but i said i will deal with it in the summer.