Matthew Arnold

Where i am part of a county council everyone has to attempt to cut down on carbon dioxide producing activities. Driving, leaving lights on,etc. Its so frustrating when we are doing tree work and a member of the public screams at you. They would scream at ya if the tree nearly hit someone as well. Its normally a lose:lose situation with us. We keep tabs on how much fuel we put in our trucks and how many miles we did before it needed filling up again. Once a month we put a tank of optimal fuel through the system to clear the pipes and to generally make the vehicles run better. The highways dept are trying to get us to have these so called "super fuel efficent tyres" put on all countryside vehicles. The trouble is we need tyres with a bit of bite to get us to where we are working.

Black one on the Ash looks very much like I. hispidus. Not sure on the Oak. How recent did it shed a limb? And what colour was the heartwood of the fracture?

Stihl 660. New shipping container. Pay rise.

At the weekends i would watch the Ashes and have a crate of beer on the go as well.Just hope n pray that if the sister is in it wont go onto her bloody prgrammes....Come Dine with Me, Hollyoaks, Eastenders, Hannah Montana, Thats So Raven and Sonny with a Chance. She is 19 years old by the way. Apparently the programmes i watch are boring as they contain too much info. You can tell the one with the higher grades and a much better job prospect.

I will be switching off the TV and listening to the Radio as of 25th November and will be doin so for the entire duration of the Ashes. Most of my colleagues are really into cricket but the apprentice and the trainee aren't too keen on listenin to it all winter. We will soon bring them round.

Yee haw. I bet they lassood that tree up n gave it a few goes. Bunch of cowboys. We got a contractor to drop a dangerous tree a few months back. He sub-contracted it to a friend of his and his team. It was a simplish job. Re-pollarding an Oak and deadwooding the neighbouring trees as they are in a car park. We got a phonecall from the member ofthe public sayingnthat their car had been hit by a branch. We drove up there sharpish and found these so called "tree surgeons" doing the work on the Oak. The vans weren't marked up and the transit tipper had no tax. It took a 2 min phone call and trading standards and the local traffic cops turned up. We even got hold of the contractor who we gave the go ahead to do the work. He wasn't going to do the tree for 4 weeks after the go ahead and would have checked the tree the day before, for nesting birds. The blokes doing the work were just cutting the limbs off because they needed some logs.

Not too long ago we were doing a job for a member of the public whos land borders our and we were removing some trees that were overhanging his garden and one that was quite literally leaning against his shed. Whilst we were there we heard sirens very close by. It was a fast/first response car. About 10 mins later an ambulance turned up and then much to our surprise the Air Ambulance was hovering over and soon landed within 30 metres of our work trucks. We didnt realise it but the poor old boy had been pruning his Apple and Cherry Trees out on his front lawn and had fallen out of the trees which were only about 8 ft high. He landed on some of his prunings and had skewered himself. He sadly passed away two days later as one of the stems had snicked his femural artiery and caused an embolism which burst. We had white doves flying around for the week after. And they even nested in his Dove cote on the side of his house.

It was rather amusing as we were the only council work force (other than highways) that were out on the road. We actually had to sleep in the trucks on a site one night. We couldnt see anything. Had a full on blizzard we could only just see the indicators on the trucks when we unlocked them and that was about 4 ft away so we waited for an hour and it got worse so we phoned our loved ones and said we would see em i nthe morning. It sounds dodgy, 4 blokes sleeping in a truck together. All i will say, i have slept in more comfy positions. Four 6ft blokes sleeping in a L200 with 2 normal seats and a bench seat in the back.

lol. Last year we wrote off one of our work trucks. We parked it on top of a snow covered grass hill. Handbrake applied and left in gear as we were on a slope but the truck decided to slide down the hill still in gear and with the handbrake on. When it got to the bottom there was no steering arm. The front and rear diffs were showing their cogs, the prop shaft had fallen out of the front had ended up going thru the passenger seat. It was in a right state. A very friendly and helpful farmer loaded the now deceased truck onto his bale trailer and took it to the main highways yard where the main garage is. They just looked at it and said " It's nackered. Its a right off".

Its rather amusing where i work as we have a 56 plate L200 with soft suspension and a 10 plate ranger with hard suspension. The boss seems to thinkthat the ranger is better off road. How come we have pulled him out of holes where the truck was 2 wheeling instead of 4?

It wasnt too bad. It was the ice which was the major pain in the ass. Because most of the country roads are in cuttings the sun doesnt get to it. So it just built up each night. The most we had in one night was about 6 inches. We had a shoot day cancelled as the roads were so lethal. Even tractors struggled on the ice. When we went out we alway had a 100 kg oak disc in the back just to put some weight over the back wheels as they are mostly in 2 wd. Was good fun but also ass emptying when we unintentionally played pinball of the banks in a 2 ton truck. Just as well we didnt meet someone coming up the hill. But DCC was one of the few councils still with plenty of salt. They have stockpiled this year just incase. Our shipping container is almost next to the salt dome and it currently has about 2,000 tons of salt.

Just cut the ivy off at the base and watch the leaves disappear

Try and have as many fires as possible to keep warm. We only lost 2 days last winter to snow. And on one of those days we had to cancel as both trucks were literally frozen shut. Now if we have a frost we put a tarpaulin over them.

The damp would be a major problem and if it has been pebble dashed it would be gr8 fun to rip it off.

Will do hama. Should we take out the Elder around the base of the tree. We also have some long "sunseeker" limbs that move a massive amount in the wind should be have them reduced to save them snapping and potentially allowing further nasties into it. I know that taking the weight out would help but i've been taught that a neat, angled cut would be more beneficial to the tree as the water and spores would run off the angle rather than sit in the flat spot.

It would be a cracking habitat for the Common Pipistrelle bat. Wouldn't have to go far to find moths and beetles to eat. But the Spider population would be booming both in the ivy and in the house. If you think the ones in the houses can get big you havent seen the sods in the ivy. I cleared ivy off my bosses house wall before it was repointed and there were house spiders with 3 inch leg spans and even a couple that were touching 4 inches. And i dont like spiders.

Is that still lived in?!!!

We have an Oak tree on one of the urban sites i manage. It is undermined by those pesky wabbits. It had a grey coloured, knobbly surfaced bracket fungi growing in a dip on one of the butresses. The crown in the summer is very healthy. We will be doin a minor amount of crown lifting with our polesaw. The epicormic growth/ crown lifting limbs are growing in a ring at the same height. I shall get some pictures of the work before and after and its proximity to targets. And will get some pics of the bracket fungi which is now in our office and it had fallen off.

I was gonna say maybe crane it out. But if ya cant get a mewp in then the reach would be too great for a crane to lift it out. Plus the insurers would be having kittens if ya told them how you were gonna remove it.

Ok cheers TW Tech Support. The chipper is coming up to its yearly service so hopefully the guys can get it out and get it working correctly. But in the meen time i shall tightened the nuts up and see if that has an effect.

Cheers. I shall check all the bolts and relevant washers tomorrow morning. Would i need to torque them or would an ordinary spanner to until the are tight enough that there wont any play but enough to allow the slider to move?

Been up on Nettlecombe Tout today. The first of 3 days of this winter (i'm only there for the one. LOL). Lots of lovely gorse, blackthorn, hawthorn and brambles with a little bit of elder thrown in there for good measure. Cracking weather and views all day. 3 massive fires and some great fun off roading getting to the site. Such a shame we had a blow out on the way home and no usable spare as that was flatter than a road kill. (The blow out wasn't caused by the fun we had getting off the site.)

The council guys next to us are up for it and ready for it. The snow ploughs have been painted up and have new rubber blades on the base. And we had aproxx 1000 tons of salt ready to be spread.

lol. Nettlecombe Tout. We have done Blandford to Hilfield in 45 mins. One of my colleagues was driving and he is a bit of a loon. But our truck has been upgraded and the standard engine management chip has been replaced with a Ralliart (Mistubishi tuning company) chip. Our engine is now kicking out 215 bhp. Fuel economy is a bit lower than normal but only 2-3mpg lower than normal.

It was great fun last winter playing pinball with the trucks off the high banks around my area. We even came to the rescue of the Meals on Wheels service. Did 20 runs when we had the snow just because we had low range. The fun bit wasnt so much getting there, it was when the Sat-nav said "you have arrived at your destination" and about 15 metres past the property "If possible make a u-turn". We daren't touch our brakes as we would have become a 1.5 ton tabogan going downhill and a rate of knots. P.S. We barely touched 20 going around the lanes in the snow. Bit quick i know but you could see nothing else had been thru the 3 ft snow drifts.