Big J

I spent a while dotting around fisheries at the weekend in Devon and I think I'll find a lot of work there on site maintenance, peg reinstatement, winching trees out of lakes, timber extraction and the like. So many of these sites have tiny little paths that wind around the lakes, which are inaccessible to larger machines. And if I get a bit of free fishing out of it, excellent!

From what I hear, the weather is very local in Devon on account of the hills. West or south of Dartmoor and you get wet. We're going to be in the rain shadow of Dartmoor, so hopefully will remain a little drier. The climate data for Cullompton suggest about 15-20% less precipitation than here near Edinburgh and an average of 4 more dry days a month. And an annual temperature that is 3-4c warmer.

I'll take that! We've not had a summer up here since 2014!

Bloody miserable here today near Edinburgh. 11c, windy, showers, very overcast. Can't wait to move to Devon and leave this life sucking climate behind.

Another point to consider is that there is a lot more competition in the UK mill market than in times past. This has had the dual effect of lowering prices and increasing quality, or at least in my opinion.

Buy a new one if you can. Unless you know the history of the mill, it's worth remembering that it's very easy to do serious damage to a machine in seconds. Worth buying new if possible.

I'm in Exeter this weekend if anyone is around tomorrow or Sunday morning and wants to meet up to chat about forestry work, politics or the meaning of life ?

Some would argue that if you are able to do 15 miles on the bike after squatting that you aren't squatting hard enough! ? Always tough to maintain the exercise routine when the weather suddenly turns hot though.

Would you have any use for a super low impact 8 wheel drive forwarder with tipping body and clamshell attachment (footpath work, I'm thinking).

I can't even tell what is going on with the crane!

I have a panel of physios! I have a physio I see about once a year when my left ankle seizes up. 15 minutes with him and it's freed and good for another 6-12 months. I have my regular back physio and I've recently started seeing a different physio for my arms. Tight pectoral and bicep tendons seem to be the main issue, but I think I've gained too much strength too quickly. Gone from not training at all to 8x100kg bench in 5 months. Muscle memory was there from before but the tendons are all 10 years older and very much out of condition. I don't do any cardio presently. I used to compete at time trials as a kid on the road bike (back in 1999, I competed in the same 10 mile national time trial as Mark Cavendish and Nicole Cooke, and warmed up right next to Nicole) but haven't done much cardio since about the age of 21. I stay lean naturally, have a low resting heart rate and am constantly on the move at work so at the moment it's not a priority.

It's remarkable how 'small' the weighlifters of those times were. That being said, Arnie when he competed is like the natural bodybuilding competitors of the present day. The Mr Universe competitors now are truly huge, but obviously well juiced! I'm struggling with my tendons in my arms a bit to be honest. It's affecting my sleep mostly as I can't sleep with my arms bent without lasting discomfort. I've cut the pressing right back, which is helping, but it's wearing. The squatting is going really well though. Did 2x20x90kg the night before last and feel confident that I'll make the two sets of twenty with 100kg in two weeks time. In my gym, I'm the opposite of almost everyone else. Due to my tendons, I'm not doing much upper body work at the moment, but I just pummel my legs every session. Most folk spend hours curling and doing tricep work and little else.

That's all a lot more effort than having one big stove that you shove 24 inch logs into and keeps the place at a steady 23c. I love simplicity. Larger logs means quicker processing, less handling and longer burning.

Whenever I used cutters on my own jobs, my start point would always be to ask what their day rate was. We usually settled on £125 to £150 depending on experience and qualifications. I wouldn't work for less than that so why should I expect anyone else to? You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. You want a job well done, you need happy subbies, and a job well done gets you more work. Shafting your subbies only works once.

I look forward to it! The issue is mainly one of insulation. I don't especially enjoy burning 40 odd cube of wood a year. It's a lot of work, but it's still better than the alternative of buying 5500 litres of oil a year. I'm no fan of old buildings and it's our intention to look for land to build a straw bale house as soon as we're down in Devon. My wife is an architect and I'll still be able to use my sawmill for our house build when it comes to it. I see your point about particulates too. We've not had any neighbours for the 5 years we've been in our house, so it's easy to forget about the issues of air quality in conurbations.

All I'm saying is that a larger stove offers flexibility. The transitional time between needing the stove constantly (up here in Scotland) and very infrequently isn't usually too long so the time that it's running at a lower efficiency rating is small. However, we still managed to use less than 500l of oil over what was a very long and cold winter and that's with the boiler doing our hot water. Surely it's more environmentally friendly to use wood with a small degree of inefficiency for a limited time than be reliant on oil? You must also have a very well insulated house! A friend of ours did a quick thermographic survey on ours a few years back and said for it's age (circa 200 years) it was surprisingly good. But we still need 20kw through winter.

That sums it up I think! Our average temperature from the 1st of November to the 31st of March was 2.58 celsius. You need a lot of heat!

Possibly for some homes. I do so often see huge rooms with minute stoves in them (that trend has become apparent as we've looked at hundreds and hundreds of house listings around Devon over the past few months). You'll see a 20-40 square metre room, often open plan to another room or a staircase and they've put a 5kw stove in. It serves no purpose other than as a decoration. I guess it comes down to whether you treat your stove as a luxury or as primary heating. For us, having the large stove allows us to do 95% of the years heating, but continue to gently heat into spring and in autumn also. A smaller stove would be no use to us, and we'd be burning thousands of litres of oil.

I believe that a lot of what influences people to think that a firewood is good or bad is the kind of fire/stove they are burning it on. An open fire is always bad and will not flatter a lot of different species. Equally, many stoves now are so small that creating a fire large enough to burn efficiently is tricky. We've got a Jotul type stove that is enormous. 27" deep firebox and you can put logs into it that are frankly too heavy to handle, even when dry. It's not sophisticated, it's probably not spectacularly efficient, but it burns everything faultlessly. Even if it's not that dry. So in answer to the original question, and to echo other peoples sentiments, the best firewood is wood that is cheap and dry. Species isn't that important unless you have a fussy stove, but even then, the dryness of the wood is 100 times more important than the species. Also, get a massive stove if possible. Makes life much easier. You can still have little fires in a big stove, but you'll be thankful for it when you have extremely cold weather, or unsplitable lumps of wood that otherwise wouldn't fit.

We'll be five minutes from Junction 28 on the western side. We're planning to come down next Thursday to Sunday, so I'll drop you a line then

Does anyone have experience with Woodford Trailers? Their tri axle vehicle transporter looks very solid. I'd lose the tilt bed but keep the three axles: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Flatbed-Car-Trailer-Woodford-3500kg-Tri-Axle-Tilt-Bed-with-Winch-Spare-wheel/162967620205 Speaking to Marsden Barn Trailers, they seem very friendly. Competitively priced too.

Life favours the bold, or the stupid, or a combination of the two!. I started my sawmill with a 20 year old pickup truck, an 041 Stihl chainsaw and a homemade Alaskan mill, with a couple hundred quid in the bank. Still just as poor, but with a lot more machinery, and several thousand tonnes of timber milled under my belt! Looking forward to it greatly. Friends of ours very kindly viewed the house for us today and we joined them via video. Perfect house for us, and great access to the M5 for work. I'll keep the updates coming as they transpire.

Update: Forwarder due in June, and I've bought a Mercedes Sprinter 4x4 to tow it with. Trailer still to be decided. We've provisionally got a house, and we will be based 5 minutes from the M5 at Collumpton. We'll be moving down and getting set up through July and I'll be ready to get to work at the start of August. I've got a business name in mind, but I've not registered it yet, so I'll not share it until I have!

Have you considered just demolishing the old barn and starting again? I hate the idea of renovation. I'd much rather start with a blank slate than deal with someone else's mess.

My brother in Exeter said it was nearly 20c there. We topped out at 5.6c here today, with dampness, grey cloud and a stiff easterly.