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oldwoodcutter

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Everything posted by oldwoodcutter

  1. oldwoodcutter
    A while ago I was passing the time of day with a forestry commission fellow and I asked about his berlingo, which seemed a little out of place in the forest. He explained it had some kind of pack on to raise it a bit, but the trick was it was 4wd. Whether it was factory fitted or a fc conversion he didn’t know. The latest small van the commission run about up and down the ride ways at the moment are Ford couriers in the familiar green livery.
  2. oldwoodcutter
    So Santa comes down the chimney to be met with a very pretty woman in a skimpy negligée. She says would you like to stay for a mince pie and a drink. No I got to be going thanks, he says. She says well perhaps you’d fancy something else then , as she moves up close to him. No it’s my busiest night of the year I’ve got to be cracking on. So she takes off what little she’s got on and moves up even closer to him. Are you sure I can’t get you to change your mind Santa, as she strokes his beard. Yes I will stay he says, because I can’t get back up the chimney now anyway.
  3. oldwoodcutter
  4. oldwoodcutter
    Yesterday afternoon, bit of fun I entered my grandchildren’s school fancy dress competition. I came 2nd in my old dusted off Giraffe costume. I know I didn’t win but at least I can still hold my head high . . . .
  5. oldwoodcutter
    So years ago a german lorry driver was at a truckstop in norfolk saying how lazy British truckers are. He boasted he regularly comes from Germany , up through Holland and Belgium to uk drops off his load , then back to Stuttgart with a return load in just 2 days. The Norfolk driver says I used to pick up a load on Norwich , nip over to Düsseldorf, drop my load off,then back the same day and have a fish n chip supper. The gobby Kraut says what sort of rig were you driving then. A Lancaster Bomber came the reply.
  6. oldwoodcutter
    As regards ground workers, if you decide to pay one good worker more than the rest, sooner or later the others will find out, and you’ll then have more moaning minnies than you can shake a saw at. My strategy is to employ all good workers and pay them all the same, if they all do the same work with the same qualifications, and to let the free loaders and stand abouts go off back to their gaming consoles.
  7. oldwoodcutter
    Cheeky little scamp
  8. oldwoodcutter
    Friend of mine rents a booth on Hunstanton sea front funfair. He’s been a ventriloquist for 50 years and that’s all he knows really . When I saw him he said business was very bad, he was lucky to get 1 customer a day in to hear his little act. I said to him that a ventriloquist is a bit old hat, everyone nowadays is into spooks and the afterlife, ghosts and spirits that sort of thing. So for once he took my advice as the next time I saw him he was doing seances, and getting into contact with those that had passed over. He hadn’t got a price list on the door but I heard him answer customers price enquiries, He could talk to the dead for £20 He’d get the dead to talk to him for £30 Or for £50 , all of the above whilst drinking a glass of water.
  9. oldwoodcutter
    I had a temporary young fellow join the gang a few weeks ago, he’d recently completed a few cs courses which he showed me on his phone. I drove over to the job site and as I was casting an eye over proceedings ,he was bucking up and seemed to me to be standing in an unnatural position. I tapped him on the back and suggested that straddling directly behind a saw with the bar in direct line with your head is a bad idea, even allowing for him, or the inertia actuating the brake, he said that no one had ever told him about that before on any course he’d attended.
  10. oldwoodcutter
    I’ve worked alongside cutters that slammed the brake on every single time they moved one pace forwards backwards or sideways. On the other side of the coin I’ve been with others that didn’t use it from Monday morning to Saturday lunchtime. All I can tell you is when that saw does come back at you and the inertia has stopped your chain from ripping your throat open it’s a sobering enough experience to contemplate your own mortality.
  11. oldwoodcutter
    He claims his garden faces south west, so could be pacific south west, ie Southern California, in which case federal, or more accurately, Californian tree laws apply, which are very strictly enforced ,particularly where Monterey Cypress are involved.
  12. oldwoodcutter
    Why you taking the app off our iPhones Steve, that’s all I use . Any more tech than that and I have to ask someone, usually under 18, who wears their baseball cap back to front , to do everything for me.
  13. oldwoodcutter
    Don’t go too mental Steve, some of us have a job keeping up at the best of times.
  14. oldwoodcutter
    I don’t usually struggle to find climbers, mine are on top of their game in any tree, in any scenario,and Ive always paid them top dollar .
  15. oldwoodcutter
    To use a modern expression, what I can’t get my head round, is those dog owners who do indeed clear up but they store it in those thin supermarket bags just inside their gate, usually about 20 all filled and knotted, lined up against the fence stinking and fermenting to high heaven. As if they mean to take it somewhere, but haven’t got around to it during the past 3 years.
  16. oldwoodcutter
    Even after asking for it to be cleared up ready , sometimes on the day there’s still a few heaps about . It’s one of the few jobs that I never ask my lads to do, i look around for the customers shit shovel, and get cracking. Personally,It’s often at the pricing stage that I manage to stand in a hidden heap, and once back on the road to the next quote,the penny drops after that horrendous smell wafts up from the pedals.
  17. oldwoodcutter
    The older I get, the more looking up at a young climber rapidly waving a silky about in thin stuff fills me with a sense of unease,
  18. oldwoodcutter
    I’ve occasionally been in a situation where the customer has said that, but has gone on to say they’ve had 2 cheaper prices , (and shown me their quotes), but didn’t like the approach or attitude or appearance of those contractors. So normally I’ve moved a little, but negotiated doing a little less. Of course some try it on,but not all.
  19. oldwoodcutter
    All I can tell you is the longer the heap of chip has layed there, the more spore dust is realised down your throat or up your nostrils when it’s disturbed, no matter which way the winds blowing.
  20. oldwoodcutter
    Once you’re 20 feet off the ground, and the customers gone back in his house ,get the spikes sent up
  21. oldwoodcutter

    Wood ID

    oldwoodcutter replied to ARV's topic in Milling Forum

    Red fir
  22. oldwoodcutter
    It won’t affect the old retired farmers I know , that decant tubs of red into their 21 plate bmw 7 series, as they can’t put expenditures through since closing their books.
  23. oldwoodcutter
    At the height of the spate of copper cables being ripped out of underground conduits , local to me on average about 6 villages were targeted per week. The copper lads were one step ahead of the law in so much as they were using a stolen bt/openreach truck, naturally no one batted an eye in seeing that working in the middle of the night with miles of cable all over the shop.
  24. oldwoodcutter
    If it’s fibre you can’t join it yourself. BT will charge their customer to have it lowered, and it’s the customer that has to talk to them, they won’t nowadays liaise with the tree contractor . They will also charge to put it back up again. Only recently I wanted uk power to drop their wires , and bt to drop theirs, all was organised for the day, uk power there as usual no fuss, no show from bt unsurprisingly. As someone said above, if the bt wire is accidentally brought down by a freak gust of wind on the same day as you are there, and your cust calls em, they’ll come out pronto at no charge.
  25. oldwoodcutter
    Some of my biggest paydays ever have come from a 9 o’clock Sunday night call, even with withheld numbers . You never know who it is, some of the most eccentric characters with money to burn come in this way. Of course if you’re a tree firm boss that’s already got a million quid on deposit , then just answer mon - fri 9 til 5.

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