csservices

Its something I've always fancied a go at but I don't think my back would stand it day in day out now, used to do a bit of thinning for local shooting estate but mostly it was stacked to be handballed onto a trailer or pickup, any larch, spruce etc we would cut to 5ft lengths and then saw into hedge laying stakes on site using my old mcconnell bench on the tractor, with regard to the comment/s above about brash and keeping sites tidy I remember two of us thinning a stand of silver birch, they were between 10-18" diameter trees from memory, had to fell, sned and cut to managebale length to handball and stack for collection, I worked by felling one, snedding it and stacking brash and timber then moving onto next one, the lad I was felling with felled about 30 trees without moving anything and ended up with a huge dangerous mess, and by time he'd cleared it all I think we were tree for tree, by the end of the day

I pay what thier worth, I got a 16 year old who will graft as hard as anyone who's on £40 a day and a twenty something who gets £60 a day, I have been told of a lad who will work for £30 a day, difference is I know the the other two lads will actually turn up and work at the rate I'm paying them

Full of flu still (went straight to be at 5pm friday night when I got home) so up the farm to feed round this morning, back home for a sit down and back up the farn this aft to feed round and deliver some hay to a customer and now couple of hours sit down before have to fetch youngest from work, was hoping to finish digging veg patch while its nice but can only manage bout ten mins work before I'm out of breath

Thats called the "gift of the gab" if they want any more I've got about 15 ton of pop sat on yard still

I usually just say its not up to me as I'm subbing and you will have to ask the boss when he turns up

Haha beat me to it

I've got a loader tractor and a skidsteer and to be honest 9 times out of ten the loader tractor gets used round the yard for shifting timber and everything else

Todays job was planting the hedges to finish the fencing job I put pics on of the other week, ground was rock hard, had to start the slits and then had the customer watering them for me so could get the spade in deep enough to be able to plant, all done 150 beech and 160 hawthorn, sore knees and bad back in the morn, I'm getting too old for that kind of job

Windy here, got up this morning to find the door of my greenhouse in the middle of the lawn!

I blame reading this thread , for the first time in ages I woke up about half a dozen times last night, not for long periods just wake up, turn over go back to sleep and same again couple hours later, only herbal sleeping pills that usually knock me out are the tesco's own brand ones, downside is give me a stinking headache day after so not sure which is worst

I rang them last year as I was struggling to pay what i owed, they point blank refused to give me a payment plan and one time when I rang to check they had had a payment as it hadnt been credited on my tax statement I got a half hour lecture concluding with asking me how much my van was worth, pointe dout if I sold my van they would'nt be getting the rest of the money as I wouldnt be able to work, worst of it all was my accountant told me I would get the tax back as I had made a loss the year after and then told me I wouldnt get it after all and charged me £600 for the privilege, needless to say looking for a new accountant for this year

Last return spring I put on was a pain in the rear, ended up drilling right through the end and using the little tensioning bar as the pin to hold the tension, took a bit of a fight to tighten it up though, sure they used to be alot easier

I do know someone up in the peak district who was contracted for mowing and baling of heather to use it for re-seeding areas of moorland where the grass had taken over, the grass was cleared first and then the heather bales were taken to site and rolled out again to re-seed the heather

I know mate, been farming all my life, theres not a week goes by without some health scare/problem turning up, we try and produce as much of our own meat as possible now, run hereford cross for beef, grass fed only and hung for 21 days you don't get beef like that in the supermarket, make my own sausages using decent cuts and dry cure my own bacon, and we also have our own lamb, trouble is keeping hold of enough for ourselves once friends and family find out, just got to get the veg patch sorted properly and should be getting towards self sufficent

Ripley on a saturday night

True, but the point is still valid, all these "representative" polls are only representative of whoever was passing the person conducting the poll at the time or of whoever took the time to respond to a poll by telephone/email etc, so basically it may as well be made up

99.9% of statistics are made up on the spot-Spike Milligan

From memory supermarkets are allowed to add a certain percentage of water to meat, why I have no idea as it is purely a profit making exercise, the water in bacon is from brine curing, if you dont want the summy water in the pan get dry cured

None here yet, but the curlews and peewits are about, cock pheasants are coloured up and the skylarks were singing away in the sunshine the other day so I reckon its going the right way

Its something I've been pondering over for a long time, as when hedgelaying alot of brash is produced which is usually burnt on site, whereas if there was a way of processing it into a usable product it would add value to the job and be more enviromentally friendly.

Yep it does, will make sure I leave some for it

I've got some at the farm to take out as have been uprooted by the snow, the biggest ones are 8-10 inch diameter and 20 odd foot tall, split it green, season it well and it burns hot as coal

From memory you have to change it to agricultural machine on the taxation class, which I think to do you have to prove to vosa that it has been modified to use it for agriculture, but don't quote me on that

Lies, damned lies, and statistics From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death. Other coiners have therefore been proposed, and the phrase is often attributed to Twain himself. [edit]History Mark Twain popularized the saying in "Chapters from My Autobiography", published in the North American Review in 1906. "Figures often beguile me," he wrote, "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"[1] Alternative attributions include, among many others (such as Walter Bagehot and Arthur James Balfour) the radical journalist and politician Henry Du Pré Labouchère (1831–1912), and Leonard H. Courtney, who used the phrase in 1895 and two years later became president of the Royal Statistical Society.[2] Courtney referred to a future statesman, not a past one.[3] The earliest instance of the phrase found in print dates to a letter written June 8, 1891, published June 13, 1891, The National Observer p. 93(-94): NATIONAL PENSIONS [To the Editor of The National Observer] London, 8 June 1891 "Sir,--It has been wittily remarked that there are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third and most aggravated is statistics. It is on statistics and on the absence of statistics that the advocate of national pensions relies....." Later, in October 1891, as a query in Notes and Queries, the pseudonymous questioner, signing as "St Swithin", asked for the originator of the phrase, indicating common usage even at that date.[3] The pseudonym has been attributed to Eliza Gutch.[4] Courtesy of Wikipedia

Society has to blame someone