Big J

It's a fair point, but neutering does make the goal easier to attain. It's more of an issue for unneutered male dogs I feel, but then I would only have a female dog anyway.

God, that must have been awful. And hilarious 😄 For me it all comes down to quality of life for the dog and for the owner. Anything you can do to improve this is worth doing. I'd say at least 80% of dogs I come across in day to day life look like a lot of work to live with. Crappy recall, don't do what they're told, have to be on leads, barky, humpy etc. If you can mitigate any of those irks, everyone is in for an easier life. That's where neutering comes in - you can't expect a sex crazed mutt to have good recall if it's hot on the scent of another dog/sofa/leg.

We spayed our collie bitch when she was about 18 months old. She only came to us aged 15 months. She's been wonderful, with no health issues relating to it and we've had her very nearly 10 years now. She's fit as a flea and alarmingly intelligent. I would strongly recommend getting your lab neutered. There is nothing worse than a big male dog that tries to hump everything. You're creating a rod for your own (or more specifically, your wife's) back if you don't. You raise ethical concerns relating to the operation, but I'd argue that it's generally unethical to have an unneutered male dog in Britain, unless you're intending to breed from it. It's behaviour will be harder to manage, meaning it'll be less able to be fully included in your life. I can take my dog absolutely anywhere. She follows me and the forwarder round all day, she meets loads of other people and other dogs whilst doing that. I can walk her (to heel, without a lead) through a flock of sheep, through a busy town centre, take her on a canoe, swim across a lake with her or put her in a car for an 8 hour journey. I am lucky with her being so biddable, but part of that freedom is down to her being neutered. Do everything you can to maximise your pet's quality of life, and for me, that includes neutering.

God I hope that this is a joke 😲

Absolutely! It was bought a while back, but it's in date and everything. Not that I know how you'd tell if it had gone off. 🤪

My wife has a jar of this extra old rubbish, saved for her brother in Sweden (whenever were actually allowed to go over there). What's it worth to you?! 😝

Finally, a silver lining to this whole pandemic mullarky 😄

I know 😄 I had a 5 tonner on site the other day putting ramps in for me, and he tanned a good 50 litres on a 10 hour day. The Vimek is drinking the fuel on this site too, as it's almost half a mile from the bottom of the block to the loading bay, with a 70m climb. Normally, 30 litres sees you a full day on the machine.

Some updates to the machine. The reversing camera is a great addition and having the grab tank is brilliant. No more pouring Jerry cans. It's 220 litres and that lasts 50-60 hours of machine operation. Were finishing up a medium sized conifer first thinning at the moment. Some incredibly fast grown trees in there. The largest spruce we felled at 21 years old was just about 2 tonnes.

A few work photos with Katie from the last month. She does about 8 hours of walking with the machine per day. She'll be 11 in 6 weeks and still as fit as a flea.

Hope she recovers quickly Gary. She's absolutely beautiful. We nearly lost our Collie when she was 3 to idiopathic aplastic pancytopenia. Again, extremely rare, usually fatal and expensive to treat. It's a complete shutdown of the bone marrow, so no platelets, white or red blood cells being produced. Several blood transfusions and a year of immunosuppressants and she was recovered. Betty looks like she's well on her way to recovery. I adore collies - intelligent idiots

I think from a tree surgery perspective, yes. A lot of people have excess cash at the moment on account of having been furloughed and having had their social extravagances curtailed. This, combined with the pressing desire to get socialising again, means that getting gardens tidied ahead of the rule of 6 outside coming back is a priority. Correspondingly, sales of garden furniture and such like have been huge. The pin that'll burst the bubble is that the economic reality of covid has yet to hit. Furlough is delaying hundreds of thousands (if not more) of redundancies, we're looking at a complete restructuring of how the country buys it's goods, with highstreets suffering an unprecedented shock. The legacy cost of the covid support measures is astronomical, and as soon as that reality hits home, non-essential spending (such as tree surgery) will be reduced. Just my 2 cents.

We're heading to Sweden next year and will be carrying on with forestry there. I like early thinning and light machine work, so I'll just focus on that. Where are you planning to go?

That does rather remind me of Arrested Development:

If it was so popular why did you fell it? 😄

Hahaha 😄 I just came across a page on Facebook that made me chortle, so thought I would share