Matthew Arnold

Thorncombe Wood Laurel and Rhody bash. Started at 9.30 finished at 4.30

It was hammering down and blowing a hooley first thing this morning but it soon cleared and turned into a cracking day. Been out beating all day but spotting severeal nackered trees for the estate woodmen to drop. Had a few douglass firs blown over and a mature ash fall over where we park our cars when we meet up in the morning.

Shaggy Ink Cap growing on Trailway verge. Shillingstone Trailway near Holloway Farm.

Absolute cracker lol.

Here are our younger ones when we first got em.

They should accept an outsider fine. CHarlie accepted the two little ones. It was a bit tetchy at first but they are fine now. They get on great as a pack.

Its funny as ours are completely different. We have given them cricketing terms. Charlie is the batsman and fielder as he picks up what we shoot. Bramble is the bowler and field as he will put up and retreive and brakcen is the Bowler and will only put up birds. What scares us about Bramble is he has a tendency to vault 4-5 ft stock proof fences from sitting or standing.

Woman goes to the dr all beaten up, she says my husband does this, can you help? Dr says next time make a cup of sweet tea and swish it around you mouth. She does & goes back saying I swished and swished and he didn't touch me. How does tea do that? Dr says its not the tea its keeping your mouth shut that does it!! Dwarf with a speech impediment goes to buy a horse. "I want a female horth" he said to the dealer who shows him a mare. "Nithe horth. Can i thee her teeth?" He lifts the dwarf and shows him her teeth." Nithe teeth. Can i thee her twot?" He lifts him up and shoves his head up the mare fanny and pulls it out a few seconds later. "I'll refaze that. Can i thee her wun awound?"

Its great fun because if a member of the public comes over. We just use the words conservation, wildflowers, butterflies and free logs and then they are happy for the work we are doing.

It was a Victorian Garden and Arboretum. Its full of wierd and wonderful plants that wouldnt be there normally. We've got Apple mint and lots and lots of Lemon Thyme. The arboretum was sadly lost in the 1983 storm. But a few trees survived. The Monkey Puzzles and fir trees we're part of the arboretum that survived but we have a Massive Beech that doesnt know if its a Copper or the normal variety which is quite quirky. We plan to do another load of tree felling this winter to extend the butterfly area and fell some very dodgy trees. We shall and try to create some semi natural monoliths (fell big tree into dead neighbour to knock branches out). It is very effective as we know then if the dead tree will be strong enough to windstand the strong south westerlies.

We have a 3ltre Hilux down in West Dorset. Its very nice and will quite happily tow 3.5 ton (strengthened chassis and reinforced towhitch) at 50. Incredibly smooth and handles the bumps very well. I shall try and get some pictures of it when i am down that way. It is currently in the workshop after the assistant ranger blew the transfer box taking it out of low range at 30. I did warn him that you have to be stationary to take it out but he was reading the high range 4x4 bit.

It sounds a bit pointless as the lightning would only follow that path and you would damage the tree further by nailing the copper to the tree. Plus it would make the tree more suseptible to lightning strikes. The only way you would be able to prevent the tree being struck is have a big metal scaffold type thing with guy ropes about 25 metres away.

It is very very sooty. And gums up the saw for a past time. Its worse than Larch and the dreaded Leylandii.

About 5 years ago we cleared an area of woodland on one of the site i manage to creat a woodland glade for butterflies and other things. Over ther past couple fo years we have set up a brushcutting regime to reduce the brambles and dogwood and improve the biodiversity of the area. It seems to be working very well. We had Common Twayblade (Orchid), Dog Violet and Devils-bit Scabious come up. We rake off the moss to allow the seed bank underneath to germinate. I have attached some pictures from early this year of the brushcutting, raking and burning regime and some of the Common Twayblade (Listera ovata that appeared this year.

I've found it burns rather well. We cleared an area of woodland to create a woodland glade area for butterflies. Where possible we avoided the planted Monkey Puzzles but a few were clobbered. We have more trees to fell in that area as they are begining to lean heavily towards the path searching for light. We have had 8 fail this year already.

When i was at Kingston Maurward we had a vet copper beech right outside the main house. It was surveyed whenever there was a tree surveying course at the college and was climbed on a regular basis by the arbs there. During one of the days i was there some trainee tree surgeons were assessing it and deciding their best course of action ready for the next day. They decided to do a deadwood and crown lift. We had a strong storm blow through during the night with gusts of 50 mph. The trainees couldnt do the crown lift and dead wood as they had planned as the tree had fallen over and flattened 3 cars. There was no signs of fungi (fruting bodies, die back in crown, etc) but the root plate was incredibly rotten as was the stem. The trainees cut off the crown and slowly cut more weight off the trunk until it righted itself. The monolith is still there with a few straggly bits of regrowth in the top. The only thing stopping it falling over again is a 15 mm thick wire cable.

Funnily enough thats excatly what we do where i am based. Just cut the ivy off at the base leaving a 1 foot gap so the stems cant rejoin. The ivy will die and drop its leaves but the stems will still be of use to bats. Its rather amazing seing the different species of bat that use ivy clad trees even after all the ivy has died.

I would remove the ivy and do a deadwood and then re-inspect a year later or maybe 6 months later just incase the fungi have rotted away before the initial assesment today.

They work atleast 2 or 3 days a week during the season. Sometimes even 4 or 5. All of them are completely different especially when it comes to the beater days at the end of the season. Charlie hangs back and retreives. Bramble puts up and retreives and Bracken put em up and very occasionally retreives. Bramble did the longest retreive last season. 850 Yards for a hard hit cock bird. We were all impressed.

Anyone heard of Apocalyptica. If you havent here are a few of their songs. Very nice band if you want to have a bit of a moshing session in the bedroom or lounge. I am liking Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqypqm8dTus]YouTube - Apocalyptica featuring Corey Taylor - I'm Not Jesus[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyJzwm9q_UM&feature=channel]YouTube - Apocalyptica;Apocalyptica featuring Cristina Scabbia - S.O.S. (Anything But Love)[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6gFJogLJ_g&feature=fvst]YouTube - LACUNA COIL - Closer (OFFICIAL VIDEO)[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixxtnrWb17Y&feature=channel]YouTube - LACUNA COIL - Heavens A Lie (OFFICIAL VIDEO)[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx58hXh4pVA&feature=channel]YouTube - LACUNA COIL - Enjoy the Silence - US Version (OFFICIAL VIDEO)[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEgXDhiayz4]YouTube - Within Temptation - What Have You Done (feat. Keith Caputo)[/ame] This one i think fits in rather well with Arbtalk [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX27gXHai6U&feature=related]YouTube - Within Temptation - Mother Earth[/ame]

Ye. For the first time in ten years we have had to top our hay meadow as there wasnt enough grass. Hopefully there will be a few fungi coming up when the grass rots down a bit further.

The bosses like it alot as i try and avoid the fungi on our sites when i mow. I did get a funny look when i had left a ring of un mown grass due to Fair ring Champignon. Sadly they are no longer there as members of the public went mad and picked them every 2 weeks.

These are the terrible trio. Charlie (mostly brown, slightly ragged looking) is 11 years old and still going strong. Bracken (smaller of the 3, saddle back, mad hair do) is 4 years old and is the borther of Bramble the biggest spaniel weve got. All of them are worked during the shooting season.

I got some nice pics of some Shaggy Ink cap growing on a trailway verge in Shillingstone. It is mown on a 4 week cycle during the summer. We avoid these as much as possible as we have a good sized group of them. In the summer and autumn it covered an area of about 5 sq metres.

I know Derek Brinsley. He taugt me for my basic tree surveying. And i know him from Kingston Maurward. He is very nice and will go through things step by step.