Matthew Arnold
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Everything posted by Matthew Arnold
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I must admit we were going to have a couple of sets (one set of five for the l200 and 5 for the ranger) but damn they are expensive. We went for the Cooper Discoverer STT instead. Got some horrid looks when the tyres emptied themselves of mud in about 25 metres in the car park. The true meaning of "$%&* hitting the fan."
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We call the two trees "The Twins". If one of em gets a fungi the other one does soon after. The tree nearest to the garage has got more Kretz that the furthest one and is starting to show signs of illness. As it very close to the main road and just about within falling distance of the pub we are planning on having it reduced by the council tree team as it right on the main road and on a blind corner too.We looked down the route of a mewp so we could do it but the more we look at it. The more it looks to be a dimantle job. We arent sure how low we should to with the reduction. But if we do one should we do its twin as it will now be suseptible to strong winds?
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I bloody hate Kretz. Its rot is so unpredictable and is it is difficult to detect in some case. We are carefully monitoring a couple of our roadside beech trees. I hope this link works but if not i shall get some pics of the tree we are monitoring very closely. Sturminster Newton - Google Maps
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Our work L200 is alrite. I will admit that the suspension is a tad spongy on the front but the brakes are good. You need a bit of spongynes in the suspension to allow it to travel when going over alternating bumps. Whenever the guys from west dorset come out with us we always have a 3 ton strop in the back to tow em out. But the turning circle is better than the Navara and the new Ford Ranger turning circle is appaling. Ours is a 56 plate.
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We had a new fuel pump fitted and new injectors soon after the alternator refurb. It went from starting white to starting black nad runnin a tad rich uphill. But i thought that if a diesel is running white its a sign of it running far too rich? Thats how Challenger 2 tanks get their smoke screen by dumping unburnt diesel into the exhausts.
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Mallow. Its a pretty flower but spreads like billyo. The worst plant i have ever come across is Valerian. The bloody stuff goes everywhere and is a complete sod to kill. A 350ml of Glyphosate 480 to 15 litre of water mix seems to have done the trick.
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We got a defender with a 300tdi engine. It was rebuilt a year ago as the cambelt snapped on it. Nackering the valves,head n cylinders. Luckily it happened before we bought it. It has a 3 stage turbo on it so it goes some. It will happily do 80 on the motorways with no overheating issues.
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Freelanders are naff off road. They can barely pull them selves along never mind towing a couple of ton behind. The TD4 sounds like a bag of nails between 1k n 2k on the revs.
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It sounds like it might be the glowplugs are going. We had the same problem in our old Disco last winter. Full of charge, glowplug light went out turned key that extra bit to get the starter motor goin and nufin. It would turn over lovely but the bugger wouldn't start but when it did you just had to make sure that nobody was behind the truck as it was a tad white. We had changed the battery and refurbed the alternator at home as well and both of those were charged fine.
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We got a T516. Brilliant piece of kit. Granted they are heavy pieces of kit but they are easy to set-up. We also have a T535. We sometimes use them in tandem when we are doing massive trees (which is rarely). But we mainly use the 516.
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The other problem with snow is that when you are felling a tree you get covered in the snow as it get vibrated off the branches. I had a nice pic (before my work computer blew up) of a snow skeleton of a tree we felled. The snow stayed in place for just long enough to get a pic.
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It sure does but sadly the boss is too tight to buy even a lil tractor with a flail n maybe a bucket but we have a contractor who we use with a massive one. But he bought a new ford ranger with all the off road trimmings and a couple of new saws. How does that work? lol. I have used a tractor before for a fire but sadly it was a massive barn fire that had been started by the local oiks. The fire got thru 2500 bales, 150 bags of NPK Fertilizer and a brand new Massey with flail arm on the back. They had CCTV on the side of the barn showing the kids setting fire to the barn but according to the local plod it wasnt enough proof that they were the ones who set fire to it. Even tho they all had lighters and lighter fluid.
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My colleagues took a picture of me last winter working in nothing but trousers n boots as i was on fire duty. I was loading the stuff above my head and it was munching through everything. We got the fire going on the stump of a tree we felled the week before to get rid of it.
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Atleast its good slide control practise. Where we work the big boss drives like a loon. He came a cropper last winter when he hit a gate post when he slid around a corner. I had our work L200 with chunky mud tyres sliding in low range with the air difflock engaged last winter. Didn't hit anything but shook me up a bit as i didnt have my feet on any of the pedals.
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Lol. If there is a biting frost we try n have a big bonfire and if that doesnt work we get the chipper running. The exhaust and radiator keep our hand warm. And if needs be we put the heaters on in the trucks to heat our gloves up.
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We will generally work in all conditions (even blizzards). A few times last winter we could barely drive along the untreated town roads. So out in the sticks would have not been fun. For the first time ever last year we used snow chains on one of the high points in the county to get to a site in the north of the district. What was worse is that it was one of the main roads that should have been gritted. It ran parallel with the main A road which was clear up until a village about 5 miles away from the town. And the diversion put you out on the top road which wasnt gritted. We did drive a few snow drifts the deepest being about 3 ft deep.
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My dad n i both have BSA Ultra Multi shot n Verminators. The verminators have been uprated to about 30 ftlb instead of the standard 12 ftlb. We use the BSA Ultra when we are paddock shooting and the verminators when we are lamping for rabbits. My dad also has a 17HMR Rifle and i have a 22 rifle for the ginger critters.
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Yep especially when he still has all of his tackle and it clears the fence by a few inches that always makes me wince. As Charlie a few seasons back somehow managed to slice the top of his sheath on a piece of layed down barbed wire. We didnt notice it until we got home and noticed him licking like crazy. There was no blood which was strange but my god did it make me n my dad squerm.
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My Bramble has a horrible tendency to jump over 4 ft stock proof fences. He clears most of them. He has only come a cropper twice but luckily not broken anything.
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It can be a big problem especially with your fingers even with gloves as your fingers are the ones on the throttle. In extreme cases the trees can freeze but thats it very extreme cases. And then sometimes with 2 stroke powertools and even diesel powered chippers will refuse to start. We have problems with our saws and brushcutters some mornings. Only last week we had to jump start our chipper as the battery was flat as a fart and would barely light up the glow plug light.
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Yet more fungi to identify ( I am hopeless)
Matthew Arnold replied to Matthew Arnold's topic in Picture Forum
Cheers Hama. Is it common to have Flamulina velutipes growing on Elder? Or is it not species specific and will feed on anything? -
I sure do. We get the rejects. And then after about 2 weeks we find out why they were rejected as volunteers elsewhere. lol
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I spotted these cool lil guys growing even after the frosts weve been having. The first two pictures are of a shroom growing on an Elder. We had a limb cut off as it had split out due to the ivy and there was quite extensive white rot around the centre. The other set of pics are of a dead Oak stump. The tree was felled last winter as it was leaning over towards a hospital car park, it was heavily clad in ivy and in July it had Honey fungus growing in the base. These lil critters came up last week. I thought it was another batch of Honey fungus but it has sprung up all over the stump and on surrounding dead roots. I'm wondering if its Sulphur Tuft gone mad.
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One of our guys after being told not to chip up rotten fence posts even if all of the metal has been removed put a 6 inch straining post through our TW150. We just had the blades sharpened up and they were trashed within 5 minutes of use as the muppet put the straining post thru with the wire n staples still on the post. His excuse was "I thought it was a shredder. I thought it could take metal going through it." He helped me put the sharpened blades on the prune. Needless to say i was not amused and neither was the boss. I had to use bolt croppers to remove the wire from the feed rollers and a big chunk of stock fencing wire from the axle of the flywheel. A few F's n B's were thrown his way during his rollocking.
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That would have been a really nasty accident. Did it come out of the chip chute and end up in the wood chip heap?
