Matthew Arnold

Yet another mini milestone.

Had a cracking start to the day. Two full stile kits and a sleeper bridge to install. We were expecting the job to take us all day. It only took us 90 minutes to do all three.

The black ooze on the Birch is most likely down to rhizomorphs of Honey fungus. As for the spots on the Rhododendron leaves not sure.

The boys sunbathing.

Tonights display.

1-4 - Flammulina velutipes

As we have a quiet couple of days next week and i have access to a heated work shop with an airline. I am going to strip all our saws down and make notes of anything which the saws need. By the sounds of it our No 2 (ms341) and No7 (ms261) may need new needle bearings or just some extra lube to keep them going..

Had an inch overnight but almost all gone. Skies still look full ov it but we just have sleet falling.

We did but that was sorted soon after as it was running lean. Now it is running as sweet as it ever will.

We have a 261 and have had no problems. Going to strip the 261 and one of our 341 as it has a bit of a rattle coming from the clutch housing when on idle with the chain brake on.

2 or 3 bottles of ale a night. Dont drink stupid amounts just like a bottle or two a night to go with my tea.

Epic track by a new legend. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVw7eJ0vGfM]David Guetta - Turn Me On ft. Nicki Minaj - YouTube[/ame]

We are having the Blandford section scraped and re-dusted. The contractors found out how far they have to scrape and how deep. Today they shifted 10 ton of soil from the edges. Tomorrow they shall be getting to the worst section.

Pics from today. 1-5 - Unknown fungi growing on 2 year old hard woodchip heap. 6-10 -[iChondostereum purpureum][/i] and Flammulina velutipes on Sycamore stump.

Todays job. Dropped 12 Silver Birches, 4 Oaks, 2 Hawthorns and an Elm. Had the chipper today so brought our Ifor Williams TT116 down with some hessian sacks attached around the side to catch the woodchip. Had it filled to the top and got pulled by the local plod as he thought we were overloaded on the hitch. We were 2kg under the maximum:lol:. Back again tomorrow for 2 large Ash coppice stools. No chipper so going to try and get the boss to have another fire.

Todays fun "little" job. Had 5 people complain about the large amount of trees we have felled today and the fact we are destroying the Ozone with our fire despite it being carbon neutral. They are going to be even more horrified when they see what we are dropping tomorrow (18 silver birches [12"-20" DBH], and two massive ash coppice stools [8-18"dbh x 20 stems per stool]).

If they had the money they would employ me but sadly because of cut backs left right and centre there is barely any money left at the end of the financial year (Less that £100 in the jar).

For those of you interested we are having a Trailway Clearance Weekend. It is running on the 18th and 19th Feb. We shall be starting at 10am and finishing at 4pm each day. I shall give more details when i get them.

Hedgelaying Volunteer task. It was our last task scheduled in so had a good turn out.

Yesterdays show.

1 - It does seem strange red sock, gaitor wearing brigade tar all 4x4 users wit hthe same brush. They claim that we are destroying the countryside when it is infact just a small minority (mud pluggers) that go well off piste and chew up private woodlands just for a thrill. There are hundreds of off-road groups throughout the UK which all have Codes of Practice. The National groups (GLASS -http://www.glass-uk.org/ , LARA - index ) are always campaigning for lanes to be opened and not closed. Yet it is the walkers that get upset when a local UCR,Byway,ORPA gets opened up so off roaders can drive up and down it. 2 - There is the Green Cross Code but unfortunately alot of the ramblers point the blame at the councils for not waymarking the routes clearly enough. The trouble is the majority of the jobs i get are reported through members of the public and they are prioritised by what the member of the public puts down (e.g Broken stile - Priority 5, Stile has barbed wire showing across top rail, foot tread is split and dangerous - Priority 3). And because it has been reported they expect the stile to repaired within 24 hours which sadly isn't the case as most RoW teams have a massive backlog.

Starting to come down heavily in Blandford. Roads are white and compacted. Even the main roads are a bit tricky.

Snowing in Blandford. Very light at the moment but decent sized flakes.

The pics from today.

On the front page of the local rag. I hope it doesn't get closed as it is drivable all year round. Although tarring all ramblers with the same brush. The local group dont like getting their gaitors muddy.