Squaredy

I would take off a slice from the butt end and see if tree timber still has strength. See how hard it is to cut. Rotten ash is easy to spot, not sure about ash weakened through dieback.

From felling the tree do you have a feel for whether the timber is sound?

No indeed. It goes back at least to the Roman Empire. They indeed were (if I remember rightly) the ones who came up with the word Palestine (a corruption of the biblical Phillistines) in what was Judaea. Yes the Israelites have been persecuted for thousands of years,

Mmmm well the people of the Gaza Strip are in a pickle then. Maybe they should have considered this before they slaughtered Jews two years ago and plastered it all over social media. OK, I know there are innocent people caught up in all this, but we should all be wary of blindly accepting what Hamas tell us. When they state that the majority of the casualties are women and children it reminds me of that stupid British politician who said that most of the small boat crossings from France to the UK are women and children. And don’t get me started on the Hamas offshoot called UNRWA.

Last time I checked Israel doesn’t completely surround the Gaza Strip. Couldn’t Hamas invite journalists in through Egypt?

If genocide is occurring why won’t they allow foreign journalists to witness it?

Yes absolutely; cut them down to a little over size before kilning. Expect some end splitting and cupping. Make sure everything has extra thickness and length so you can machine it to exact size when doing the build.

Nice machine. Not relevant for the scale of my operation though.

We have had arguments on AT in the past about free speech. If anyone still thinks it exists in the UK perhaps they haven’t heard about Graham Linehan. I am rubbish at pasting links, but a quick google will uncover the facts. What he was arrested earlier this month for writing on X is this: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” Even the establishment seem to have realised this should never have resulted in his arrest, and he is now suing the MET police. Initially his bail conditions even prohibited him from using X; but this has now been challenged. The police actually thought this was within their power though!

I’ve never used a chipper personally, but I suspect the hundred or so lengths in each bundle might take a other longer than three minutes, and you would need about thirty bundles to fill a walking for lorry. What I do with it at present is sell it as bundles, but there is not quite enough demand so I keep dropping the price. If someone has a couple I only charge £15 per ton. If it comes to it I will just have a bonfire.

Nice analogy! And realistically are they going to pay someone to feed the chipper all day? And to fill a lorry it would take a day I would say. This picture gives a better idea of what the bundles are like. Even though it is about a ton of timber per bundle there is not much chunky stuff.

There may be but I don't have a chipper or the space to keep it until it was a lorry load. I don't think I could send it for biomass as it is because it is in loose bundles.

It is a puzzle for sure. Also remember this is totally unseasoned timber so once processed into manageable lengths I then have to keep it in IBC cages for a year or more, properly covered and with good airflow. And then finally I have a product which is brilliant for getting a fire going, but not so good for maintaining a nice slow burn. Not enough chunky stuff. So the bottom line is the amount of time and covered space it takes to process, dry and sell it is just not viable.

You will need to get them in to a similar environment to the final installation and leave them there for (depending on the thickness) maybe a few months, or even a year. From what you have said there would be no point in putting them in the house they will be used in whilst the build finishes. If this is not feasible I think you need to consider kiln drying. Ash is better behaved than oak, but if you can't acclimitise them thoroughly you should expect some movement (twisted doors) and if you are making them into work surfaces a bit of pulling away from the wall and maybe cupping. You can make your own kiln with a suitable insulated box, heaters, fans and a couple of dehumidifiers.

As it happens a refugee boat crisis did start when Maggie was in charge (from Vietnam). But as soon as we started deporting them to a third country the flow stopped.