Big J

Not just Baltic imports. I was chatting to chap yesterday who was talking about eucalyptus chip from New Zealand ending up there too.

I would guess so. Everything that I grease on a day to day basis is bushes. Loads and loads of them. Same for you I'd imagine Matt.

Well OK, but on a forwarder, it's pretty hard to overgrease things, and on a centralised system, pumping in 1/2 a tube by hand every day isn't my idea of fun.

I was in a bind needing an impact wrench the other day and picked up the only one that was in stock in Tiverton, which was a Ryobi 18v tool from Halfords. The 2ah battery was a waste of time, and I exchanged that for a 5ah one and it's pretty bloody powerful to be honest. It's only used occasionally for track tensioning on the forwarder so it's perfectly adequate. I think it was £148 all in. I have a Milwaukee grease gun and if you're still using manual grease guns, you need to cough up for the battery powered ones. Night and day. You use so much more grease, which cannot be a bad thing.

With that kind of bondage, it's like Fifty shade of Grey (poplar?) ?

Just look what you've done! Any more snake related puns and I swear I'll get hiss-terical!

I've seen a total of three in Scotland. One fairly large on in the Lammermuir Hills south east of Edinburgh and two black adders on Mull. Errr, and one on Epsom Downs when I was 10.... That I picked up.... That bit me.... Resulting in projectile vomiting at Epsom Hospital, blacking out and an overnight stay..... And 6 weeks of a mostly unusable right hand due to blood blistering and swelling. The moral of the story is don't pick up snakes. And if you have to, be absolutely certain it's not venomous! ?

Completely understand and respect the experience and knowledge embodied in it, but I am in the fortunate position of living very close to a eucalyptus expert here in Devon

Ooh, that's expensive! But thanks for the link. I've been chatting to Bryan Elliot of Devon Forestry Consultants about E. Nitens. He lives and breathes Eucalyptus, by all account.

We're buying a house in spring and it has a 3.2 acre paddock with it, so it'll be a long term project for us. Separately, I've got a clearfell do to in May on a site close by, but with wetter, richer soil. I'm recommending E. Nitens for that as well, as the poplar that's on it has grown huge and it'll be interesting to contrast the two sites, which are geographically close but have different conditions. That site is 6.5 acres.

This is a great thread. Really sad to see the amount of ash that has been grown, as no doubt it's now dead. We're going to be planting 2.2 acres with eucalyptus nitens in spring, which I intend to intesively manage to maximise yield. The field is at 110m ASL, south facing, flat and gently sloping, sandy ground, well drained. I'm extremely interested to see what kind of growth rate we'll get. 10-12m at 4 years old seems doable. We'll fertilise before planting too.

No, nothing. Interesting prospect, but would be hard to do with softwood planted without tubes. We decided to go with an excavator based mulcher on the present site. It's looking very good.

That is odd. Mine was chucking around WRC logs at 1500-1600kg (weighed onto a wagon) without an difficulty.

Odd. It's certainly powerful enough for everything I've chucked at it so far. The 3.75m spruce mentioned was 100cm on the butt and 82cm at the top end. No problem for it at all. And I loaded it onto an artic too.

My Komatsu 840TX has a fairly strong Cranab crane on it and the heaviest stick I've measured and worked out the weight of was 2.3t (a very girthy 3.75m spruce stick). That was a fairly easy lift over the pins. The issue with forwarders is that the pins are largely fixed and with girthy lumps, you have to lift them pretty high to clear the pins. I'd guess my forwarders comfortable limit is about 2.5t

I can never remember the different terms, but these days I just go for simple financing in the form of VAT as the deposit (which I get back, as VAT registered), and the balance plus interest divided up over the 36-60 month term so that it's all paid off at the end. The vehicle is then mine to do with as I please.

Older vehicles can be a false economy. Just make sure you straight finance it with no balloon payment. And get one where it's not going to come out of warranty whilst you own it.

A new Navara/L200/Hilux etc will only work out at a monthly payment of about £350/month plus VAT over 5 years and it's yours at the end. That's less than £100/week and when you factor in the much better fuel economy, zero repair costs (most offer a 5 year warranty) and a large reduction in down time, that cost is well worth it. Just fuel economy is a big one. A modern Narava for instance (NP300 I think is the designation) does 10mpg more than it's predecessor (the D40). On 25k per annum, that's a fuel saving of £1400, which is a third of your annual finance cost. And then downtime. Lets assume your billing out at £150-200 a day. If you lose 3 days per annum with an old truck to repairs, you're doing well, but that's over £500 lost. Plus actual repair bills. If it's your daily driver, I'd always recommend going new unless you have a back up vehicle. You always lose money with vehicles - with new it's depreciation, with old it's down time and repairs. I find the former to be less annoying.

Realistically about 4t straight lift for the biggest machines. I remember having a big komatsu on a site in Scotland years ago and it managed to clean lift a 4t elm log. The main limiting factor is the grab and what it can grip

What this forum clearly needs more of is Boobies. So here is a lovely pair....

Pretty much anything but pop. My personal tastes are punk (mid 80s onwards, not the 1977 stuff), ska, funk, metal, blues, jazz and lots more. On the whole though, I only listen to classical regularly. Any music, made for the right reasons has value, even if it's not to your own personal taste. I can't stand the manufacturered X-Factor type garbage that seems to dominate the charts though. I have respect for anyone that chooses to play an instrument, and plays it well. Doubly so if they can compose something meaningful to themselves too.

That is a sad truth. I know that I get away with more due to my size, but I would still exercise a degree of caution. Besides, it wasn't rural Kevin, it was Tiverton. The Big City man! ?

Here is a video of the owl being released, for something a little cheerier

After a bracing walk with the kids to help release an owl that we found a month ago near to our forestry site (a young tawny own, bruised leg and eye infection, a month with a bird sanctuary and it's fine), we popped to McDonalds on the way back. On pulling up, we noticed a new VW Polo sat in the car park with the music far too loud. Crap music too. As we walked past, I saw (from the passenger window) a cup come flying out. I immediately charged over to the car, opened the door and bollocked the young couple (less than 20 yrs old) and insisted the young wench go pick up her litter. They weren't impressed but she did it. I'm just wondering if I've progressed to the final stage of grumpy old man, complete with forestry worker enhancement? ? I just can't imagine any other reaction to that sort of behaviour. I absolutely detest littering. There are bins everywhere in a McDs carpark. Not that there is ever an excuse, but when surrounded by bins it's staggering! ?

There is a much better consistency of work with forestry. It's very hard work, but if you're any good, you'll find 7 days a week at £180+ a day.