oldwoodcutter

Dennis Lee at Fakenham, does everything and has everything in stock

Just a few years ago, we were treeing in what was a fairly modern development of nice houses, but where the householders parked off road at right angles in a nice line, rather than by their front doors. My climber casually stuffs his old truck in one of these unallocated slots, as open space was at a premium, and a short while later mr BMW X5 comes chugging in and blocks the truck in, sits in his X5 for a few minutes, obviously fuming, then goes to a house and slams the door nearly off its hinges. All on the ground saw it, and surmised what would happen. This climber was, and still is, always of a very volatile disposition, of the bare knuckle variety, so much so that my lads are always a bit wary of him, they don’t make jokes that could be taken the wrong way in his hearing, or ask him personal questions of any nature, however amusing they think the topic is. So the job got finished, he puts his stuff in his truck, and goes and knocks on the door , which is ignored for a good few minutes despite knocking at intervals. The general consensus is that x5 will be dragged out from his door by his hair, or at the very least sustain severe internal injuries before, during or after BMW’s shifted. But he kept his cool by simply asking if he could move it please, which he did. I took the opportunity to go over to his truck and said how well he handled the situation by showing, what to him, must have been enormous restraint .

Someone asked , windfall are trees or branches that have fallen to the forest floor. Windblown are a completely different kettle of fish, those trees that have blown over and are hanging up on others, silently waiting to kill you, at best.

£800 ? charity or not, I wouldn’t feel guilty about adding a zero to that figure.

Of course it can go against the grain when you see the nice little earner you’ve priced up has been done by someone else. I occasionally mutter crack on to myself when I drive by one, but it’s always going to happen. It may have been done worse than your own standards, or better come to that, but you will almost certainly have done the same to other tree companies in your area, more than likely without even knowing it. I generally try and be philosophical, and look forward around the corner to when I do hit that big pay day again

I have resisted the temptation to buy a 500i as my 462 seems perfection itself. For the big stuff I still have the big boy, my heavily ported and highly tuned 660 .

Why not also do a little bit of fencing then you could call yourself Midges Utility Fencing & Forestry.

We were on £380 a day, 40 years ago with a fordson major, a big trailer, and a telephone linesman’s harness.

I’ll never forget a one time work colleague , for reasons best known to himself, took his new mrs on honeymoon driving around Poland. When I knew him he wasn’t much of a conversationalist except if he got the chance would talk non stop about extermination camps. Needless to say once he got her over there he insisted on visiting as many of the sites as possible . Naturally the marriage lasted until about the time she got out of his car back in Blighty, God knows what he was thinking about, but he sort of disappeared after that and we never saw him again.

As we can see, the standard fc lock is the bottom. Many years ago now, before the days of mobiles, and I had no radio,and the wrong key ring, I found myself locked in Swaffham Forest late one Saturday afternoon, of course no fc workers around at the weekend and I doubt not a ranger for miles. In desperation I sawed the wooden post off beside the familiar pole gate, and kept a low profile on the Monday morning.

All that mould, I expect the hens would soon be in a foul mood

Just price normally, less your costs of dragging the chip away, unless I’m missing something

Turners and carvers used to contact me all the time, looking for this or that species , and excitingly talking about burrs. After going out of my way a few times to fix them up I was always let down at the end by them finding fault with everything which inevitably lead to only paying a derisory amount. So now, as I value my time and effort, I don’t have any truck with any of them.

Just this evening I called back a lady who’s left a message on my landline at 8:30am. She said Oh you’re too late, I called another firm this morning and they came out this afternoon and did it. Well good luck to you Mrs.

Such is the fickle nature of tree work, then add the vagaries of customers, employees, and the weather, and you soon get used to rolling along week to week, with at least one contingency plan up your rolled up sleeve.

3 or 4 years ago one of my employees, (who had a criminal record but not for theft) left on very bad terms, and his parting words ( to me in front of everyone else in the yard) were ‘I know where you keep all your stuff and I will tell all my mates and you’ll end up with nothing’ I took this boys threat very seriously, happily nothing came of it, but I continue to keep everything with a 2 stroke engine in my house each evening out of habit and security.

Only thing worse than a monkey puzzle is a dead monkey puzzle to dismantle and chip up, I’ve still got the scars .

Many years ago I priced up quite a few bits n pieces in a big overrun garden , few trees deadwooded, fruit trees pruned , hedges cut back into shape, full days work for 4 . The aging lady customer lived in a cluttered old bungalow . On the day we did it,almost straight away lots of little things occurred, one lad mildly twisted his ankle , another was stabbed in the face by an Apple tree broken branch he’d walked into, my son in law got stung by a wasp or something and puffed his face up immediately,and I walked into a metal spike that was angled out of the ground in the long grass skinning my shin,and this was all before the first tea break. So discussing all this, everyone agreed the place had, what nowadays you’d say, bad vibes, nothing would go right, everything seemed awkward, and this was a well oiled team on top of their game usually. As we hurried along to get out of there as soon as, I remember the mood affecting all of us , anyway we finished, she came out,paid up and we cleared out of it. The next year, against my better judgment on the day,we went back for routine maintenance, but immediately we all felt very uncomfortable and down, so we did a quick bodge it and scarper and never returned, even though she asked me back after that. Occasionally when I’m in Sporle I pass by her place,derelict and overgrown, and I think back to whatever it was in there, certainly didn’t want us in there.

Putting his shorts to one side for a moment, I was watching his bar tip and had a cold shudder go down my spine.

An oppo of mine used to wear just a tee shirt in wet weather Stubby, he was a fine figure of a man in those days, now he can hardly walk, let alone work, his spine shoulders and elbows wracked with rheumatism and arthritis, which, in hindsight, he puts down to a lifetime getting soaked.

I’ve had a cut n climb almost since Clark’s started selling them, very good with zipped vents but if it’s lashing down it comes in through the neck. When I have to be out and it’s hammering down I have a Royal Navy heavy weather gortex job with a big hood which fits over my helmet, and nothing gets in it. One of my sons in law is in the navy and he managed to pikey it out of the Portsmouth stores for me. He had to take that route,as I’m nearly twice his height and weight so it would have looked a bit fishy him asking the quartermaster directly for it.

It’s true that some arbtalkers can be seen to be a bit aggressive, calling people liars and other derogatory language, but by and large it’s still very good and easy on the eye. As someone who should have sold his assets years ago and retired at the usual age, I’m guilty of spending too long in Facebook groups and YouTube of an evening , that’s not just for younger members. I believe with Steve’s guidance AT will continue to shine brightly.

I shan’t be even bothering to quote for them anymore, I went out last week to one that was begging me to come and look at his trees, and against my better judgment thought I’ll give it a go, and it ended like a Karachi street market, at the finish I just walked away and continued on my way to quote to my other potential customers. I’m getting too old for all that malarkey.

Yes Bob, 2.5k may come in from someone, but if I were doing it it would have to be north of 4K , nearer 5 possibly.