Stereo

Thanks, that's the boy.

Found this big fella in the garden. Wingspan longer than my iPhone.

Meanwhile some tosser in a hoodie nicked 3 boxes of eggs from us this evening. I saw the guy walking along the road. He was wearing stuff you don't wear around here so hopefully he's just a townie on holiday. Otherwise, we'll have a problem.

Had some kids on mopeds trying to raid our little egg honesty box the other night. All for the odd couple of quid thats ever in their. It's over on the corner about 200 yards away from our garden and we were out having tea with the kids. We heard the mopeds and had be warned about this group so when we heard them rock up my missus starts yelling at them. I'm half cut already but set off across the field after my 8 year old boy, bless him. Not sure what he thought he was going to do. I'm shouting things you shouldn't in front of the kids and they scarper, at least 2 of them do. The other cant get his bike started. So I jump over the gate and must have had death in my eyes as he looked like crapping himself. But what could I do? Nothing missing and he tells me he's lost. I give him pretty clear directions back to town and let him know I've got his plate. Our police lady says she's had a word with him and his mates and hopefully they won't be back. The irony is I spoke to my neighbour the next day and it turns out the little buggers ran out of petrol outside his place and he filled them up from his chainsaw can............... Still kids is one thing, if you are still pulling this kind of stuff when you are grown up you need whacking.

Yeah, you always seem to get blue or white mould on it. Doesn't seem to be any way to avoid it. They always say that Sycamore has antiseptic qualities which is why the Romans used it for food prep etc. Must be something to do with it I suppose although I can't work out why.

Good thing is they grow fast so if an immune strain can be found and bred, I think many land owners will plant like crazy. I know I will.

Sorry, grapefruit seed extract. Totally natural and you don't need to cut the booze out. I've used it to clear tooth abscesses etc.

One thing I use a lot of the time is GSE. It tastes like bile but not bad if mixed with orange juice and downed. I swear it's the best anti-biotic out there. I would totally recommend it for this kind of thing.

Call them bstrd flies here. I react badly too and it's getting worse as I get older. Any bite makes the area swell up and the last few times I have felt like death too. Really bad reaction. I hate them and now wear an old shirt with sleeves and collar even in the hottest weather when out in the fields. I love to kill them. They are a bit slow and the feeling of letting one land on your shirt and then nailing it is epic.

I've always bought Husky but no major pref really. Had a few little Stihls and have been happy with them. The thing that would put me off a new Husky is the stupid fiddly filler caps. But then, I find the anti vib on Huskys to be superior.

What I can never get past with Stihls is that the on/off switch is the wrong way up. Should be flick down for off. Other than that, all the ones I have had / used have been excellent.

I know what you are going to say but I'm looking at something around the £1500 mark for dealing mainly with lighter stuff. Hazel tops from coppice and other brash. I tend to log down to about 2" mostly anyway. Looking at turning all that waste into bedding for the chickens / fuel. Would such a machine just fall to bits in no time? It seems such a big jump to a serious pro machine.

LOL, I imagine it must. Buzz, click,click, buzz, click. I only ask as the way my dad uses a saw (has done for probably 60 years without injury) makes me cringe. We were out the other day clearing down an overstood hazel and I managed to trip while moving through the stuff. The way I and the saw fell meant that my visor hit the chain as I went down and it came up, having bounced off a fallen limb. Now I appreciate that there was no throttle on and the chain would not be moving in all likelihood even with the brake off but it freaked me out a bit. I guess the main thing was that visor saved face meeting sharp chain which was good.

Thanks all, got a mulcher blade off eBay and it's really damn good as promised. Really munches them up and makes light work of it. Even my old man is impressed and that ain't easy.

I get the p taken out of me when me and Dad go out cutting up wood. I'm not trained but I wear full PPE have a well maintained saw and have read and digested as much safety stuff as I can. I do plan to go for tickets when time allows, just for working on the farm, not for profit. I don't attempt anything I'm not happy with. I tend to engage the chain brake when I start the saw and pretty much whenever I have to move 1 foot more than a few inches. I've got a decent Huskie so it's nice and easy and I do appreciate on older saws it was less easy to snap it on with your wrist. But Dad tends to stagger about among the fallen stuff on uneven ground with the saw swinging in one hand close to his leg and not only that he has a habit of blipping the throttle whilst doing this, presumably from years ago when saws wouldn't keep idling. He never uses the chain brake. Is it something that you pro boys use a lot? I pretty much think if you are not sawing the brake should be on.

Did the coal mines / steel works / factories pay more than minimum wage? If so, why did everyone live in a terrace with an outside bog? Socialists were / are the real bullies. The left always occupies the moral high ground but they are the most controlling and destructive of anyone. The unions destroyed UK manufacturing, nobody else.

Is it possible he thought the tree dangerous and took it on himself to fell it as nobody would take any notice if him? There are a million possibilities here.

Looks rotten to me. I wouldn't look twice at it.

I tend to log up as much as possible. Takes a while but it's depressing when you feel the heat off a brash fire and think that could have gone to heat your house. It's just time and money I guess. Will have a look at the branch logger.

Few older folks here saying they were stressed and now not. I think I am the same. You worry about money, your house, work, this, that and the other. But at some point you get past 40 and you kind of realise that it's all still here. All those worries and fears came to nothing and you still have a roof over your head. You kept working hard and you kept paying the bills. I've just taken a company through a 3 year period where every day was life and death. I used everything I could and it was massive, really massive but now we pay the bills and its looking OK. You can't know unless you have been there. All you need is a will to survive and you will find a way. There is always a way. Never give up. Ever.

Lots of fencing boys gone bust down here over claims. The posts they were selling five or six years ago were dreadful and have all failed. Not sure what today's ones are like. We've been using some 15 year guarantee ones from Cornwall farmers. They are quarter round and look good so far. Time will tell. We need more chestnut coppice in the uk,, especially outside the south east. Down here in devon there is virtually none.

You are doing a fencing job and you think, I'll just take down that over stood hazel. 5 hours later you have a mountain of logs and a bigger mountain of tops and most importantly, no fence.

I am actively coppicing alder at the moment. Converting big trees into coppice stools although some have died after felling. Some have thrived and I'm not sure why. Luck? It's an ongoing project and I'm finding success with planting sun shoots in the spaces. Really enjoying the learning process with it. Great firewood but only grows in the wet here. I'm currently clearing out our old pheasant pen which is a mammoth task and have decided to plant out a SC coppice as it's rare down here in devon although we have a few mature trees in the woods so I know it will grow. We have nothing of note that we can use for fencing stakes and I think that's silly. So I'm putting in an acre of SC so that I (or my boys) might have some material in the future. I'm also putting in a long strip of oak for coppice but that's a very log term deal and I guess I might see a fence as an old man one day.

I've got a 'Take me home' function on my iPhone for that. All I have to do is steer.

Yes, I expect the Draper one is Chinese or Indian manufacture but you do find that Draper stuff is a cut above similar products from Silverline and Am-Tech etc. They just have higher standards with the factories I think. But they are similar. The thing is, we are a Draper dealer so I can get it trade so I'm tempted......