Mattsnaturalrivers

Sorry for a long one but I have a couple of unexplained incidents. When I was a teenager I lived in an ordinary detached house not particularly old or interesting etc. Once when a friend came round whilst looking at a painting on the wall he flew back into the sofa, he claimed that he was pushed. Now my friend at the time did like to tell porkys so even though he must have moved 5 foot back from the picture I put it down to balance loss and exaggeration. At the time I was convinced the house was haunted. A couple of years pass and then whilst laying in the bath relaxing an event happens that I can't rationalise. We had a plastic mesh clothes basket next to the bath with a lid on it and on top of this was a small make up bag. Whilst I was in the bath the basket slowly squashed down which then led to me running downstairs naked (thankfully house is empty) and into the garden (thankfully no neighbours in the garden). When I finally gathered my courage and went back up to the bath room the basket was popped back up as normal. I then thought that perhaps the make up bag may have weighed it down but it took me to lean on it before it would squash down. Since that incident sometimes when alone in the house I would hear noises upstairs in the attic like somenone moving around. This would then involve me having to open up the attic door go upstairs armed with a torch and loft hook bricking it thinking someone was breaking in. The noises would continue until I would get to the top of the ladder and then go quiet. Sometimes when the door was closed back up then the noises would start again. In the end it stopped bothering me and I just ignored it, having spoken to my parents about it, dad never picked up on anything but mum would hear the same noises. Then more recently me and the missus are in our 60s council house relaxing on the sofa in the evening and something in the corner of our vision catches our eye and we turn round to see the wooden chair at the computer table rock back an forth as if someone had tipped it back as far as it would go without falling backwards. We both saw it and again I couldn't explain it.

Waitrose do some great ciders, their reserve ciders great and nice and strong too. My favorites their vintage perry @ 8% couple of those and your well on your way.

Found a flowering cherry a couple of weeks ago and saw dragonflies mating today as well as loads of ladybirds and wasps flying around, seems like springs here already!

Thanks for the info. Just interested in the potential for river restoration sounds like Robinia could be the future for works on wetlands, could be an extra market for the land owner as well as his supply of firewood.

Depends what your using the posts for. How does Robinia stakes do in water, (chestnuts excellent and just gets harder), and is anyone producing them commercially and if so at what price would they go for?

Thanks for the responses so far especially the Sparsholt avenue thats a great idea, will put the word round a few assessors as well. Spoke to the other keepers again today and they reckon that on the site is about 100 of these poplars dotted around with most of them being 4-5 foot width at butt which they would be keen to remove.

Thanks for responses, I understand where your coming from am just putting it out there, not all land owners are wealthy some are land rich but money poor. The trees aren't on the river bank but in the meadows surrounding and the brash wouldn't need to be chipped that would be taken care of once the trunk was processed / possibly having the keepers on site to help remove brash. In terms of felling and processing it would be reasonably straight forward with no major obstacles around, we could potentially do it ourself but its the time taken that could be better spent on other work and we wouldn't have any use for the materials. Looks like they may well be left standing for a while yet then.

Been looking at one of our fisheries recently and we have 10+ large Poplars that the land owner would be keen to see gone, however they would in an ideal world like to see them removed and them recompensed for the timber. Would anyone be interested? Access is reasonable but may involve going offroad to get to the trees do-able in a 4 by 4. Cheers Matt

I recognise the camel thats from Durnford Estate in Wiltshire, the lady of the manor reguarly rides that around the countryside (the real one not the horse shoe one).

Spot on thanks for that I'l give it a try, regarding the wood used for the rack does it need to be seasoned before drilling etc or can it be bored out, sanded and left indoors to season/varnish? Not had any experience of wood working/milling etc.

Forgot to update this thread, ended up buying a Ford Ranger crew cab which I'm very impressed with both on and off the road and has certainly paid for itself many times over. Thanks for all the responses and help its much appreciated. Matt

Have also been interested in making one of these after meeting them at game fair, I have a petrol powered wood drill which I think would be ideal for the power but not sure on the technique and drill bit so if anyone has any specifics?

Thanks for help, offered land owner £500 and he's happy for us to take as many trees as we want.

Hi Paul Thanks for the fast response, just had a look and the prices sounded rather expensive, I was more thinking that as the trees weren't ideal for commercial use, planking, logging etc (excluding the ash perhaps) and access to remove them for those purposes would be extremely limited so I was imagaining £20-£30 ton ish?

Hi hope someone can help with this. I am in the process of planning some river restoration works soon and part of the proposed plans involve pegging whole trees into the river to deflect the flow and re-inforce eroding banks. We have spoken with the land owner who is open to the works but would like some renumeration for using his trees. ~The trees in question are mainly multi stemmed alders and willows with one or two ash as a possibility, the trees are about 50 foot high by a foot and half wide or smaller guessing that if logging would probably get a couple of loads of logs out of the bigger trees. Any idea what price we should be paying him as a guideline? If anyone could help out that would be much appreciated. Cheers Matt