Squaredy

As others have said the stems in the photos are way too knotty. Small low branches can be ignored, but limbs of that size will result in almost no clean timber. This is why as a sawmill I would not have looked at stems like that. You could still mill them of course, and it would not all be waste. But the chance of you ever breaking even would be slim indeed.

If you feel like it let us know what you go for, and maybe upload a photo or two.

I am no garden expert but avoid any type of Cypress. In fact what you refer to as "Fir trees" are generally not good for normal gardens. If you are sold one that is not a dwarf variety it will rapidly get too big. Most varieties of cypress are impossible to re-shape or trim smaller (you will be left with only dead foliage). If you really want an evergreen you could try Yew, especially Irish Yew. Or there are numerous other shrubs and small trees that would need very little maintenance and be attractive. Fir trees originate in forests which is why they tend to be large trees. Britain's tallest trees are Fir (Douglas Fir) and are over 200ft tall.

It isn’t really durable timber. But when the weather allows the timber to properly dry you can get some treatment on it and it will still last many years. Search for poplar threads on Arbtalk; I am sure another member has used poplar for cladding very successfully. Lombardy pop might be a pain to mill due to fluting.

There are indeed several situations where company directors can be held personally liable for their defunct companies debt. These include where they have sold or given away assets for less than their real value, or using company assets for non company activities. Do you know what has happened to the company assets? Have they conveniently given them to themselves or their new company? Of course you need professional legal advice. And no doubt it will not be simple and maybe the problem will be proving anything. It could involve starting a costly legal battle with no guarantee of success.

I simply mill them and air dry them. What my customers do with them I don’t usually know. But they are perfectly good for endless indoor projects. Like mirror frames, shelves, desks, coat racks, etc, etc. The most common use I would say of any of the timber I sell at the moment is shelves in alcoves. And often people want oak, but when they see other timbers they often choose them.

I have now got most of a lorry load of new poplar logs. Nice clean good diameter logs, as is usual with poplar. Can’t wait to mill them.

Would be nice to see photos when you have it installed.

So is milling strictly a night time affair now?

I think it was about £12,000. Range is not amazing, in theory about 160 miles. I only do short journeys so I am not sure what the actual max range is. Performance is not bad, better than my caddy anyway.

I bought a two year old Renault kangoo EV in may. So far it is great. If you have access to cheap electricity it is a no-brainer. The newer models regardless of brand are mainly made by Stellantis, so will all be similar. My van is really basic inside and the controls are just like a diesel van, but no gears of course. The newer ones are loaded with all sorts of complicated tech and a touch screen.

Sounds like they should have chosen cars with a longer range. Some now have in excess of 300 mile range on a single charge.

Interesting. I think it should be like buying petrol or diesel. Help yourself and pay by card. Not everyone is capable of getting apps to work. My old mum can happily go to Tesco and buy petrol for her old car. She would never cope with an electric one if she had to use an app.

Do you still get the nonsense like we have in the UK that many of the public charging points need an app to use?

Will you think about it again or has that that ship sailed?

I got the extended range RWD model. This gives the best possible range on one charge - up to 400 miles in summer. Not super fast - 0-60 is about 7 seconds, roughly the same as the Kia. To be honest Steve electric cars are so quick off the mark it is all a bit daft. Two of the test drive cars I tried out had 0-60 times of around three seconds. What is the point? I live in Wales remember, the land of 20mph roads (and of song). Which one were you after?

If anyone is interested, after having an electric car for three and a half years, I have now handed it back and bought a new one. New car also electric but different brand and a little bigger. Overall I am very happy with the electric experience. So far I have found EVs super cheap to run, but of course pricey to buy. My old car has been faultless until last week when it decided to discharge its little battery just because the car had its doors open for two hours and I guess the interior lights were on. It felt ridiculous to open the bonnet and put a traditional battery charger on the little 12v battery when I know there is a massive 400v battery in the floor which could power my sawmill for a whole day. Anyway, after an hour or two of charging all was ok and the car is nice and clean and sparkly to hand back to the leasing company. If anyone wants to know, I will update on here in the future how the new car is. It is an outright purchase this time not a lease, which has tax drawbacks, but still owned by my company not by me.

Yes I saved the seeds myself from just a single pumpkin.

Is it normal to get lots of different colour pumpkins from one batch of seeds? The seeds are Crown Prince, but I didn’t expect such a variety of colours! I haven’t cooked any yet, so maybe they are all the same inside.

If she has not had her own policy before, £730 sounds very good. My suggestion is to say to her "Why the hell didn't you check before committing yourself?". That is what my misses would say to me. And she would call me an idiot.

This is a question for your accountant really. But, if we assume the car is not entirely for business use then you will be taxed on the benefit. This is done in different ways depending on whether you are an employee or self employed.

Not to mention dashcams in cars. In fact there is a police website https://gosafesnap.wales/ where they invite people who have dashcam footage showing dangerous driving to upload clips. I don't know if these get used in court, but I guess the police wouldn't ask for them if they couldn't use them in some way.)

Been lighting my wood burner most evenings for a week or two. Regretted it last night though - 25 degrees in my lounge, and 23 in the bedrooms. Way too warm for comfort.

Will this thread reach 1000 pages tonight?!?

It is very difficult to judge when to get the best spalting. If you had left it another year it would have been more spalted, but may have had rot.