Big J

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.

I lived briefly in Salford and then Trafford Bar 15 years ago. I worked in deepest, darkest Salford and it wasn't a place I'd ever choose to go again. I think I might have passed through Rochdale once, and it was pretty unpleasant. I'm not a fan of Greater Manchester at all. It's a challenging situation from a policing perspective, certainly. A lack of community engagement, and as you say, proper policing, has resulted in a pretty sure situation. That being said, harsh prison sentences aren't going to fix the social issues in these towns. It's going to need a bottom up approach to stamping out this criminality before it even develops. As you said, there isn't that issue with the older generation.

I cannot argue with the sentiment, and I share your desire for retributive justice when considering criminals who have wronged me, or indeed anyone else. My point is that, even if it's contrary to human nature, a focus on rehabilitation results in a lower crime rate. If the main focus of any criminal justice system is to prevent crime (which is universally is, or indeed should be) then a focus on rehabilitation should be adopted. Recidivism is 77% in the US and 40% in Sweden, for example.

Whilst I understand the sentiment involved, retributive justice is counter productive. It comes down to whether you wish to punish crime that has occurred or seek to prevent it from happening in the first place. It would however be over simplistic to say that in all cases that incarceration with the intent of restoring the criminal to a useful and harmless member of society is the best course. Some people are beyond redemption. Even if it goes contrary to human nature, you have to look at the two extremes of the two opposing justice systems. On the one hand, you have the USA (with it's Draconian sentences) and it's sky high (particularly violent) crime rate. On the other, you have Scandinavia, with it's rehabilitative approach and low rates of recidivism. I cannot personally speculate as to the specifics of this case as the community in which it occurred is quite different from where I live. However, I would say that in the long term, community efforts to reduce criminal and racial tensions would be money better spent than increased prison sentences. I don't think that the prison terms act as much of a deterrent. In this case, special mention has to go to the extremely brave actions of the young tree surgeon, and I wish him all the best in his recovery.

Of no help at all, but that's my old home patch. Went to school there

That's a fair point. There is a reasonable amount of sitka regeneration throughout the block, but after 12-18 inches of rain in the 3 weeks we've been on site, the ground isn't looking great at present. Perhaps a mulch will act a bit like a wildfire in Australia, being the catalyst for new growth? It's just a thought. We've 12500 new trees to plant regardless.

We're nearly finished with a 5.5 hectare spruce clearfell and one of the options is to mulch ahead of restocking. We've basically got three options, which are low cost, medium cost and high cost. Low cost: Windrow brash Medium cost: Excavator based mulcher to mulch all brash and grind down some of the old stumps. It can't do anything with the fresh stumps. High cost: Purpose built forestry mulcher, everything ground to a pulp, site left like a tilled field ready for restocking. Costs are approximately £500/hectare, £1000/hectare and £2200/hectare respectively. Has anyone any contrasting experience with these different approaches from the point of view of future growth rates? My theory is that whilst the complete mulch option is the highest outlay now, the nutrient content ploughed back into the soil will result in a higher growth rate. Even if that's only an extra 2 cube per year per hectare, by the time you're at the first thinning at 15 years, that's 30 cube, which has a minimum roadside of about £1350. Couple that with the complete lack of stumps from the first rotation (and the lower harvesting costs), you're probably beyond the initial cost of £2200/hectare for the mulching. No massive stumps also means that you're able to use much smaller machines on thinnings that you'd otherwise be using. I'd be keen to hear about other peoples experiences. We have the luxury of being on a profitable site for the landowner so this is being potentially considered.

Right, I've got my excavator mulcher mulching, but was wondering if anyone in the area had a full sized forestry mulcher? The kind that can demolish stumps too. Have a 5.5 hectare spruce clearfell to do, which Kingwells have quoted for, but it's not cheap.

That should be correct, though I cannot be certain as I've only made large purchases in the EU as a VAT registered business.

You will need to pay VAT on it unless you are VAT registered here. You simply supply your VAT number at the point of purchase and they will not charge you VAT at the point of sale. If Brexit happens, god only knows. You'll probably need to trade your first born and a night with your wife.

It's been very, very wet for the last 3 weeks here in Devon. Rain every day. Cutting up on Exmoor at the moment, and must have had 12-15 inches of rain in that time. Looking forward to the end of it.

I has been extensively thinned in the past. Perhaps slightly overthinned the last time, hence the 60 odd trees windblown. Lovely timber indeed. Fast grown but great form throughout. The odd tree we've had to do the first length as a 3.7m as I'd struggle to move a 4.9m. Not yet certain we'll mulch it, but do have a chap from Kingwell Holdings coming out on Thursday to quote to mulch it with a monster purpose built machine

Not sure if the video will work, but Tom took a nice video of me coming out of the stand. The ground is in poor shape, but that's to be expected after 3 weeks of continuous rain. You have to listen to it with the sound on as the engine makes a lovely noise!

The industrial ones are even more impressive

I love the design, always have. The convection tubes are actually really effective, and the layout of the stove, taking long logs, is really practical.

The other new planting on that site has not been mounded, so I'm disinclined to do so. I'm considering using a mulcher on site actually. There isn't much brash (could have done with more to be honest) and what there is is half driven into the ground. A 13t excavator with mulching head will very quickly bash it down to virtually nothing. The mulch will help fertilise the new planting too, as well as improve the soil structure. Might be a touch more expensive for me, but it'll look better, and hopefully produce a better 2nd rotation. The trees were pretty large at base, and even with a larger harvester (this one will take 60cm), we would have still had to debuttress them. When factoring in lower stumps (and the money saved there) and the fact they are taking 1-3 lengths off per tree, it's only costing me a few quid a tonne to drop the tree by hand, and that's only counting the tonnes they produce, not what is going through the head on the harvester. And also, I've got good, hardworking cutters who do lots of shittier work for me. It's good to be able to give them some nice trees to fell for a change. But as I said, they are a fair size. This is a 372XP on a 24" bar:

They are beautiful stoves, truly. Out of interest, why is the flue illegal?

Two separate compartments I think. The topography lends itself to have the sitka growing on the exposed upper slope and the douglas on the northern edge down the hill a bit.

Yes. A 90% replant, with 15m strips around the outside for the already prolific natural regen to grow. The replanting is 50% douglas fir, 50% sitka

Not especially wet, which is remarkable considering the amount of rain we've had in the past three weeks. Soft, but not wet. It's all processed with a Harvadig. That was all that was available to me at the time. They average 48cm at chest height, but considerably larger at base. Hand felling them means very low stumps. I reckon we're gaining 20cm of log length off the stump, which at an average 60cm diameter is just over 50kg. With 1200 trees, that's 60 tonnes extra and over £4k when loaded onto the wagon. It also leaves a tidier site and makes extraction easier. I don't have a harvester yet. Just hiring in. The forwarder is doing fine. No issues at all

It's a rare stand. Good quality timber on good ground. I expect I'll put over 1000t onto the lorries next Tuesday-Friday

Wish I had more jobs like this. We'll have cleared nearly 3000t in 4 weeks. All hand felled (I like low stumps), a log or two taken off and processed by harvester. I think the sweet spot is about 10 lorries a day as it gives me enough time to nip down the hill to grab a load, which goes straight onto the lorry from the forwarder. Two forwarder loads is one lorry load