Big J

I'm sorry to hear about your father. I do think there is merit in exercise. I started weight training again in April after a 12 year lay off (excepting 5-6 months a few years ago) and I feel a lot better for it, both mentally and physically. I was really struggling with my back through last winter, which compounded the mental health issues. I love being outside, whether that's fishing, swimming, hiking, cycling or just sat in the garden. The fishing is pretty good in Devon, but that's about all that can be said. From an access to the outdoors point of view, the move from Scotland has been very, very disappointing.

I'm quite a homely type as it is. I derive enjoyment mostly from my day to day being good, rather than looking forward to trips away and such like. I would never have thought it, but Scotland (for all it's crappy weather) actually sees less rain than we have here. I did work near Chard last winter and that was the very worst place. The green sand there is something else.

I ought to raise my head above the parapet on this one. I've always suffered from depression. Really as long as I can remember. Anyone who knows me well will testify to the fact that I swing between highs and lows. It just seems to be the way my brain is programmed. The main thing to exacerbate it is the weather. It sounds daft, but when you spend your life outside, doing a job for which the weather is a huge part, then it can affect your mood. I say weather, but in all honesty, it's just the rain. Devon seems to have two seasons. The dry season and the wet season. Last winter almost broke me with 6.5 months of continuous rain. Here in Cullompton, I measured 1.4m of rain in that time period. Some of the places we work (like Exmoor) see a magnitude more than that. It makes what would otherwise we a straightforward job turn in a daily grind. The prospect of getting out of the house in the dark to spend your whole day battling tidal waves of mud sucks all the joy out of life. I don't really know how to address the issue - the West Country is incredibly wet. You either change jobs or change location. The second option is being considered. I just wish I had more motivation to trudge on through the mud but it really is soul-sucking. Beyond that, I try to keep a positive outlook in other aspects of life but that is getting increasingly difficult. The prospect of grinding through another 5 months of winter/wet season feels like a bit of a prison sentence.

Good elm is worth a lot more than that now. If you can find clean, shake free elm from live or recently dead trees, you'd be looking at upwards of £8/hoppus foot, which translates to £220/t roadside, or thereabouts. It's pretty similar to good quality in oak, in terms of pricing, but good burr/pip will make a lot more. I know of one batch from near Inverness (2 or 3 loads I think) that went for £25/hf delivered to Helmdon in Northamptonshire. Straight, clean logs, averaging around 3ft in diameter.

Tis indeed

We've got a fair amount of work in South Devon over winter and with it being an area we've not worked in up to now, I'm lacking subcontractors in that area. I have a couple of months worth of nice work on National Trust ground, thinning young conifer (motor manual felling, with mechanical processing) followed by thinning middle aged oak and beech. The work is around Ashburton. I am looking for a seriously competent and experienced forestry worker. No need for tickets beyond the basic chainsaw tickets and first aid, but they need to be hardworking and able to work without constant supervision. Very good day rates.

I'm not going to get embroiled in the last few pages of contributions as I haven't the time, but all I'll say is that I've been in Sweden for the past week and Christ it's nice to be somewhere that is largely normal. Not looking forward to returning to the poorly judged action, ill considered reaction situation we have in the UK. The Swedes are proud of taking personal responsibility to keep their distance, wash their hands and avoid personal contact. They are experiencing the start of a second wave too, but the case rate increase is far slower and is yet to exceed their spring peak. In the UK, ours is already 4-5 times higher. I don't dispute that the disease is dangerous for certain demographics, nor dispute the need for social distancing measures. What I challenge is this enforced extreme restriction of social liberty. I obviously accept that the Swedes are much more sensible that the Brits but are we that stupid that we couldn't have made something similar work here? The Exchequer is paying out over £40,000,000,000 a month in Corona virus support presently and the eventual cost of that to the taxpayer will result in poverty that will cause far greater suffering than covid 19 ever could

I've had elm from Huntingdon before. Funnily enough, it's got it's own subspecies (Huntingdon Elm). Lovely stuff - fairly wide pale sap band and very dark heartwood. If you have a bunch of them, it would be worth taking them to Helmdon Sawmills in Northamptonshire, as they'll mill them in very little time, charge you very little to do so, you'll lose less to saw kerf than chainsaw milling it, and selling a couple of logs (once sawn) will easily pay for all the haulage and milling costs. That is where I took the elm from Huntingdon, which was probably 5-6 years ago.

That is awful. You have my condolences.

Rather unfortunate acronym from the German government ?

And the first time around, compliance was better assured due to the weather improving. I cannot see how anyone is going to be expected to spent the entire winter sat inside their own homes, by themselves. There comes a point where you have to weigh the risk to life against the quality of life within extreme control measures. For the young, the risk to health is minimal, but the implications to quality of life are extreme. Even for the elderly, many would choose to take the risk themselves rather than be confined to barracks. The value of a life is not measured by it's length, rather by it's quality. For many people, especially those close to the end of their lives anyway, they'd choose to spend it with the people they love, doing the things they want to do, even if there was a risk.

As regards Lockdown, it makes no sense to try it again. It cost the country an absolute fortune, the number of lives it saved is debatable, and the excess deaths causes as a byproduct of it (missed cancer screenings, people too scared to attend A and E etc) probably exceed the number of deaths directly caused by covid. Given that it didn't work the first time, repeating it and hoping for a different result is the very definition of insanity.

On your first point, the issue is that at present, the policy on covid is almost exclusively determined by executive decree. Parliamentary scrutiny has been entirely sidelined. Given the numerous U-turns, cockups and embarrassments, is such great power weilded by so few really the best course? On your second point, yes, the majority of people are idiots, but mandating adherence to ill-conceived and often illogical restrictions on our personal liberty plainly isn't working. We have the highest case rate in Europe. To contextualise the situation, our present infection rate is 25 times higher than it's lowest point in summer. Sweden's has increased 3 fold. Our present infection rate is 2.5 times worse than our April peak. Sweden's is 1/2 of what it was. My point is that our hugely restrictive lockdowns have acheived absolutely nothing. The economic cost of this continued insistence on an interventionist approach to covid is now into the hundreds of billions, but the Tory's cannot possibly backtrack and reverse policy. To do so would be political suicide. This country is utterly fooked. The public finances will never recover from this, and I have no intention of staying here when taxes get increased hugely, whilst at the same time that services are cut, all in an effort to pay for a fatally flawed covid response.

Yep, very busy at the moment. Come New Year we're fooked.

Not too bad generally, and most of the first thinning that I am targetting is planted on virgin farmland.

You're missing option 3 - he's a f*cking idiot. Either way, I'm bitterly disappointed. I really had high hopes that covid would rid us of him but the bastard is still breathing ?

Depending on site access, ground conditions and local timber prices, somewhere in the region of £30-35/t standing. Maybe more, given the timber shortage in Ireland.

My ongoing saga with travel to Sweden looks like it'll take another interesting turn this week. Currently there is no restriction on going there, but my wife heard in the media this morning that it might be returned to the red list on Thursday. What's completely ridiculous is that they are using the figure of 20 cases per 100k people per week as the cut off. Sweden presently has around 30, we have over 100 in the UK. So in travelling to Sweden, we'd be going from a higher risk area to a lower risk area and yet we'd have to quarantine on our return? It's bloody ridiculous! I'm presently trying to bring my wife around to the point of view that there is no moral or technical case to adhering to any such quarantine restriction, so we're as well to go and just crack on as normal when we get back. I'll quite happily fight them in court about it as any such restriction on my liberty to travel is without any demonstrable reason. Restriction without just cause cannot be justified, and as such is unlawful. To reflect on the contributors from the previous several pages, another lockdown is clearly unworkable and is unlikely to seriously benefit anyone. I believe that the primary reason that the case rate came down over summer is that we had months and months of glorious weather. A modicum of social distancing, coupled with everyone being outside vastly reduced the transmission rate. With the winter looming, it will be more challenging to continue to use outdoor spaces for socialising. We just need to implement a considered and sustainable policy for managing covid through winter. Preventing families and friends from seeing each other (legally) will only result in bad feeling towards any government policy, and compliance will reduce incrementally. This is especially true if there are any further 'Cummings breaches'.

I've seen a number of the small harvester excavators with extending booms, but I guess that not only adds a lot of cost, but also adds weight ot the end of the boom. I did some matrix diagrams and can easily first thin with a 5m reach, so I'm not sure I'd need it. That is contingent on a narrower (ie 6t class, and 2m wide) machine though. I'm not pretending that such a machine wouldn't have it's limitations. It's aiming at a different market though - landowners that don't want a full sized machine into their stands. Also, most of the woodlands that have potential for such a machine are small (5 hectares) so being able to shift both the forwarder and excavator on one transport helps with the economy of it.

The Cat looks very nice but it's too large unfortunately. Is the lack of aux pressure on the JCB something they can address in the factory during the build? A Mecalac would be lovely, but is an expensive option, and does look complicated. I am looking for good functionality, but a degree of simplicity too. Thanks for your thoughts

I'd access the middle in one of two ways. Either by creating chevrons and using them to get further into the matrix, or I'd cut a ghost rack out in between the main access racks. I'm really not keen on a machine as large 14t. The largest I'd consider is a zero tailswing 8t base unit. There are loads of people down here with Harvadigs and similar sized harvesters and there is no point trying to compete with them. I do take your point about stability and strain on the machine though. A small head on a larger machine is eminently sensible.

JCB seems to be very unpopular. Good to know, as you cannot beat 1st hand reports.

Interesting regarding the TB175 - I've seen lots of videos on Youtube of small machines running roller heads. There is a big variation in the oil flow requirements on the thinnings heads that I've looked at though. There is a big difference in footprint between a 5-6t digger and a 7-8 tonner. Usually the former are 195-200cm wide and the latter are 30cm wider. I am told that there are a lot of young plantations in the Southwest that were planted tighter than normal (1.5-1.8m spacing) so to avoid having to take two rows, a narrow machine is a must. Definitely agree regarding the tracks.

I don't really fit in tractors (too tall), so it's not much of an option for me. I really like the look of the Nisula 325h - I was watching videos about them last night. As regards second thinnings, I like working alongside a cutter anyway, so can always get them to fell the larger trees as required. I'll have a look at the Kobelco....