Big J

Beautiful daytime weather, but a bit nippy in the evenings. Fire is now on 😁

I'd just finished the winch processing for that whole block. Even though I'm going back in later in the week after the harvester, I just didn't want to leave a grabful of logs in there. The logs on the back are 3m chip with 3.75m log ontop. It won't be a million miles off 5t there. The headboard is 1.85 square metres, and I reckon I've got 3 square metres there. Average length 3.4m, 70% log/30% air space comes to just over 7 cube, so maybe even 6t.

I'm not sure I'm getting any more logs on than that. I can't believe that nothing fell off on the way to the loading bay! 😬

I dare say that learning Norwegian or Swedish is a fair bit easier than Finnish too.

If anyone is in need of processor grade hardwood (by the lorry load - either 18t or 25t loads), we are going to have a large amount available near Exeter in the coming weeks. Two sites. The first has larger, live ash of a wonderful quality suitable for a larger firewood processor as well as smaller, dead ash that would be dry enough to use/sell this winter. The second site has very little ash, with sycamore and beech of excellent quality being predominant. Longer distance haulage is a possibility (within 150-200 miles of site) provided you have the means to unload the lorry and that's only possible for the second site. Many thanks

A replanting site near Dulverton. 4000 eucalyptus 😎 And the Vimek on our current thinning site. I'm enjoying this one, even if it's taking ages.

We've nearly finished the job now, but if you want to pop up and say hello, it'd be good to meet you and there might be a few days.

Katie is doing really well. She's adjusted to having a little less energy but still tears around when we go for walks. She's a little more retrained on work sites, and today she quite literally dug herself out a nest to sleep in whilst I was processing timber nearby.

Wholeheartedly agree.

You must be touched with the outpouring of sympathy Stubby 😆 Having tweaked my left glute last year, I can appreciate how uncomfortable a glute strain/tear is. Rest up, though maybe get one of those special cushions

Far too shiny Mike - where's the knee deep mud?? 😄

Huge congratulations to her. It was a great final - probably the best game of women's tennis I've ever seen.

30 cube a year, heating a 102 square metre detached (and fairly exposed to wind) old farmhouse in Devon. Sod all insulation. It's just a 20kw stove in the middle of the house. We have to have a little electric radiator on in my younger daughter's room overnight when it's properly cold. I can't see wood catching on in any serious sense. Increasingly restrictive legislation (Woodsure Scheme etc), lack of national supply, extremely high firewood cost and idiot customers who won't season their own all restrict the market's potential to grow. Heat pumps are the way to go I think. The majority of houses in Sweden are on geothermal or air source heat pumps, despite the obviously massive availability of timber and it's much lower cost. That said, electricity being 2-4 pence a kilowatt hour certainly incentivises it. Insulation is the main issue here. Most houses are terribly insulated. Even new builds (where there is no excuse whatsoever for shoddy specification and workmanship) have the thermal efficiency of a paper bag. My brother's new build in Exeter is always markedly hotter in a heatwave in summer and chillier in winter than our crappy old farmhouse. Anyway, I've planted about 62 hectares of eucalyptus nitens down here, so I'm sure we'll find out how good a firewood that is in a few years

Narrow country roads you say......? 😆 It is very true. The spectrum of technical ability on the roads is staggering. If ever I meet someone on a single track road, I nearly always just reverse as it's quicker than me waiting finding out if the other person can actually go backwards at a reasonable speed.

This is not good. It's a legislative sticking plaster; an admission that there is a fundamental need to fast track the training of a hundred thousand people into HGV driving. But more worryingly, it's an erosion of a necessary skills benchmark that formed a part of continuous training for people wishing to progress their driving. Towing a trailer of 3500kg should not be taken lightly. It's a weight that will usually be substantially heavier than the tow vehicle and badly loaded or badly driven, can cause a serious accident. I did my trailer test over ten years ago. I'd already driven a fair bit with light (but often slightly overloaded) trailers, and I felt the benefit of a day of training and the test at the end. The trailer test is nothing more than an advanced driving test, but that's not a bad thing. I'd regard myself as a technically very competent driver, but I'm still cautious when towing. That's partly common sense and partly training. There are still a vast number of drivers leaving the profession every week. Conditions are crap, treatment by other road users is abhorrent and services inadequate. Fixing these fundamental problems isn't as simple as lowering the standards of training or upping wages. The general public doesn't have an appreciation that lorries are responsible for transporting just about everything. Re: 1997 and there not being serious issues with heavy towing then. There are almost 10 million more vehicles on the road now than in 1997. We are much more congested. On R4 this evening they had an interviewee saying that the 'just in time' system for supplying goods is now unworkable. The days of being able to go to a supermarket and expecting to find any given product are over. Saying that we should just train and employ British workers is a) wrong b) unworkable c) ignores labour surpluses and deficits and d) ignores reality. We are part of a global economy and there are literally hundreds of thousands of capable drivers prepared to work here and yet the government won't add HGV drivers to the key skills shortage list. Madness.

Ripe pickings in the Matt column at the moment:

I came across a new composer (to me) with a short piece tacked onto a recital that I was listening to on Youtube. Astor Piazolla - Argentinian and regarded as the foremost composer of Tango music. This piece (Libertango) is great fun, unmistakably South American and fiendishly difficult to play.