Big J

Haha 😄 Is this the stage where I point out that I paid you for a day we were rained off because of your aforementioned heroic cutting efforts? 😝 All credit though as you started and finished the site and didn't take a day off, cutting about 400t on the way. It's the cages that are braked on the back, but most of the traction and braking on the slope comes from the front wheels (which are chained). I'd never take a trailer down there. With it being unfixed (ie, on a towing hitch and articulated, rather than fixed to the machine), you'd run the very serious risk of your trailer overtaking you. It might have been a bit easier with the Komatsu in there as the machine being 9ft wide gives if more stability. You'd have wanted front and back tracks though, which wouldn't have worked for the extraction route.

This was her when she first got home, with my younger daughter cuddling her.

Really good Gary - as well as we could have hoped. My wife collected her from the vets and came to my site with lunch, and Katie was cheery and bright. Panting a bit (it is warm, and she's always been crap in the heat) and not so quick on her feet but in no way withdrawn. I'm so pleased that she seems to be out of the woods. We've got a massive pile of meds to give her every day for the short term, and she'll be on heart meds for the rest of her life. She went straight to bed for a bit when they got back home, but then spent the rest of the afternoon outside, potting around the farm and sitting in the shade under the bench.

This the very steepest bit. My stomach was fluttering a bit as I went over the edge of the step. Totally stable though. That slope is 35 degrees (on 70 percent, if you prefer. Or a little steeper than 1.5 in one). It was fine to load up a few small logs whilst sat there

Thanks for all the warm wishes guys. It means a lot. So many of us here have companion dogs that we see more of than our partners, children, friends or indeed anyone else. Nobody goes into dog ownership blind - we nearly always outlive them, but it doesn't make the prospect of that end point any less traumatic. So to update - she's doing a lot better today. Much perkier, and she's somehow managed the convince the (obviously easily manipulated ) nurses that she only eats gravy bones. Her temperature is stable. Her heart murmur persists and her breathing is a bit laboured still, but it's a positive step and we can take her home tomorrow morning. With a bucketful of meds (to quote the vet). I don't think that she's out of the woods, but she'll hopefully recuperate better at home. There will be lasting damage to her heart with the endocarditis and the recovery from that is 4-6 months usually. It'll require her to have a change of pace in life, but hopefully she's on the road to recovery.

It is, yes. It's surprising what it'll climb though. The only time it's an issue is steeply climbing facing forwards. You can put band tracks on it and I have them, but all the work I've done so far with it has been long distance hauls, so they've not been used.

My 11 year old collie Katie is very sick at the moment. On Sunday, she was just was fit as normal, racing up and down a steep hill on Exmoor. Monday, she seemed a little tired, and only had breakfast (didn't touch dinner). That's not entirely unusual because she's a fussy eater and in repairing the forwarder on Monday, we didn't do much mileage, which usually dictates her appetite. Monday evening I did notice that she was just a little bit jittery, which concerned me a little. Tuesday morning, her breathing was rather shallow, rapid and raspy. So we took her to the vets in Minehead (where I'm presently working) and they've had her since then. She had a pretty epic fever on arrival (40.8c) which was brought down over 24hrs. She's had a little bit of food, brought it back up again but kept the latest batch down. She's had blood tests and X-rays and the vets are fairly sure it's endocarditis. She has a heart murmur, enlarged heart and apparent bacterial growth in her heart. She doesn't appear to be in any pain though and being a wonderful dog, has been entirely cooperative throughout all the testing and treatment (hasn't even needed sedation for the x-rays). The prognosis is uncertain at this stage, but isn't brilliant. If they can get the heart infection under control, it's likely she'll have at least some scarring. If they can't, then it's the end of the road. I've been getting regular updates from the vets (2-3 times a day) and after a long conversation with my wife after a long conversation with the vet (where I just about held it together), I'll admit that I found myself in the strange position of sitting half way up a hill in the forwarder, weeping. You spend 10 years with your dog, each and every day, watch your children grow up with them and even the notion of losing them wrecks you. I really, really hope that this isn't it for her. She's been doing 50-150 miles a week of running with the machine all year and was until the weekend as fit as a flea. Maybe if she was a little older it would be easier to accept but she's only 11. She's in the best place she can be now. The veterinary team seem to be really caring and attentive, and I'm hoping tomorrow brings some better news.

Yep, and steeper. Slewing power is actually very good indeed. Much better than it ought to be for the size of the machine. I'm loading douglas 4.9s at 40cm TDUB on the slopes without much drama

We're working on a very steep PAWS restoration/general thinning at Minehead at the moment. Challenging work for everyone involved, and this is (I think is fair to say) about the average level of steepness. There is one section which is more or less undrivable, but I'll winch that. I'm glad it's finally stopped raining and that it's rocky and grippy under the machine 😎

Sorry for the delay in coming back to you - very busy on site at the moment. The Megamax is indeed a very exciting project and a huge development undertaking for Logbullet. What's interesting about a machine of this size (4-5t) is that is very much still fits the criteria of being a low impact machine, but it almost twice as productive. That's my experience from running the Vimek 610.2. Obviously, it can't be transported from site to site by car trailer, so it's best suited to larger jobs. The haulage cost isn't that much though, so for instance, on my present job it'll equate to about £0.30 on each tonne.

I do 90% of my work mileage in my 19 plate Citroen Berlingo. It's practical, comfortable and reliable, as well as being fairly quick and cheap to run. The remainder is in my 2006 V10 Touareg, which I use for occasional heavy towing and site visits. It's not cheap to run, isn't 100% reliable (it's 15 years old) but it's extremely comfortable and very rapid indeed. It puts a smile on my face. Now and again I drive my wife's car, which is a 2016 4x4 Seat Leon X-perience. It's essentially a VW Golf estate on stilts with 4 wheel drive and a tuned GTD powertrain. That's also a right giggle to drive, but it usually stuffed to the gunnels with my wife's and children's stuff, so I stick to my two vehicles.

I do. I don't like day rates as it seems like a payment for attendance, rather than work done. If I'm on hourly on the forwarder, I almost never stop. Doing days for the National Trust over winter on hourly, I took two 15 minute breaks for food over a usually 8-9hr day. If I'm working for myself, on my own time, I'm much more relaxed. It's my time I'm wasting then. Also, given that I usually ask for longer days than most (07:30 to 17:00 is standard), it seems only fair to pay for that extra time.

I'm honoured to have my name dragged back into this 😄 Fundamentally, the contractor pays for recovery and doesn't charge for the time if it's his (or by extension, his staff's) fault that the MEWP got stuck. If the customer insisted on putting the MEWP into that position, against the vocalised better judgement of the contractor, then the customer should pay. I don't think that scenario 2 is very likely though, and thinking about my own machines, I wouldn't allow a customer to push me into a position where I thought that my safety (or that of my machines or subbies) was compromised.

For me it depends on the circumstances prior to the MEWP getting stuck. If he pressured you into pushing the machine into an area where you highlighted a strong chance of getting stuck (and you proceeded against your better judgement) then he should pay. Given that I think that it's unlikely that that happened, I don't feel that he can be charged for either the recovery or the day. When I'm on an hourly rate on the forwarder (I don't do day rate, only hourly), the clock stops for any kind of repair on the machine unless it takes less than 30 minutes. So burst pipes even aren't charged for. This is why I charge hourly rather than daily, as down time is fairly common.

That's some going 😄 I've had it show 4.3mpg for a little while when full throttle accelerating up Great Haldon Hill (A38 southbound below Exeter) with a heavy trailer. Problem is that you can't do that for long as you rapidly close in on the speed limit despite the 1 in 8 incline. I've never really tested the 4x4 capability on it as I'm too precious with it.

I've had up to 32mpg on a long run up to Scotland, but I was only doing about 63mph and I was bored stupid. Over 600 miles from the admittedly rather large tank. 23mpg is standard for general, local hoonery.

That's pretty much exactly what the Touareg does. 15mpg is spirited driving with 3.5t behind. 28mpg is a steady 70mph on the motorway.

Bah. Amaroks are little baby cars for little babies. The Touareg V10 is where it's at 😎

To an extent, yes. But also no. As I said earlier, I've seen birch in Finland where it's simply grown as a weed on waste ground and has a form that is simply unobtainable in the UK. Similarly, scots pine in Sweden grows absolutely, completely straight. It just won't do that here. Management is certainly part of it, but the level of managerial input needs to be much higher here (I feel) and the results are far from guaranteed.

Interesting thought and I can't argue against it, but would then cite my various visits to Germany (good soil) where the forestry is generally excellent.

I appreciate that. So what's your explanation for the rapidly grown, but poor quality timber in the UK?

Most of the forestry here in Devon is planted on such marginal land. There is also loads of spruce on sites that are completely unsuitable. We're working in a bark beetle infested stand at the moment, which I feel is exacerbated by the extremely dry nature of the hill top. Drought stress makes for a happy bark beetle.

Thanks for that. I shall have a look. I started out on second thinnings on hardwoods, handfelling. Ran a sawmill for 7 years, whilst doing larger diseased elm and sometimes specimen softwood harvesting jobs in Morayshire and the Highlands. Then moved to Devon and do a wide range of forestry. The variations are really interesting, and there certainly is some good quality timber here, but it's a lot of work to get it to that state. You do notice that even just a couple of counties east of us that the oak (particularly) improves no end.

I agree that it's more complex, but my understanding so far is that the increased wind speed, decreased quality of sunlight in summer and the lack of a dormant season contributes substantially to our rapidly grown, but generally low quality timber. Please educate me on this - I do find it very interesting and it's something I'd like to know more about. I know a little more about silviculture than is needed to be a harvesting contractor, but would not describe myself as a forester. I'm only reflecting on my own limited knowledge in the field and my more extensive empirical observations from being both a harvesting contractor and sawmill owner. I posted a photo of some first thinning spruce from Cornwall on a Swedish forestry group and it was described as balsa wood 😄

Interesting bit of trivia. A platypus can both lay eggs and produce milk, meaning that it's the only animal able to make it's own custard. That's fresh custard, mind you. Powdered custard is made by Birds.