blazer

Proves that just having a 4x4 is not the answer for ice, I have had the Michael taken out of me for using snowchains on my L200 but when is rubber on ice they work well. I remember my Dad telling me how he skidded with some armoured fighting vehicle in Northern Italy during the war, going through a wall with all the blocks going up in slow motion. Last Saturday I was helping out on a shoot when it really started to snow, by the time I got my quad back to the farm it was really deep so I fitted my L200 with snowchains to get up a steep farm track and onto the road. Not much about just the odd 'landy' but managed to tow the odd car up a steep hill no probs. No connection but look on 'Brindley chains' they are great for mud as well.

-12 this morning but Saturday was 'interesting' no snow forcast the night before but this changed to heavy snow on Sat but on the pheasant shoot I help out on, they decided to go for it:confused1: I went out on my Quad beating with my working cocker on the back, First drive started to snow, not going too bad but by the next drive it was really heavy snow, hard to see where I was driving across the hilly fields. I was on stop for the 3rd drive and snow and visibility totally dropped. It was impossible for find shot pheasants dropping into the 9" of snow - so I drove around on my quad (dog now wrapped in a coat) to find beaters and picker -ups. Got the quad back to a barn and put snowchains on the back of my L200 to exit a slippery track to drive home. Roads empty except for the odd landy, cars stuck on the next hill so towed one up, no prob with the chains over BFG's drove over 12 miles with them on more like a frigging panzer down lanes with drifted snow. later that evening went out to pickup my son's girlfriend from the next village, passed one guy struggling with his wife in the snow to move their car. She really thanked me but 'he' wanted to 'man it out' with his shovel, his wife really verbally torn into him:001_huh:

Check wind direction, if a problem wait unitl it's blowing in the way you want, then light a smaller fire from the back - up wind side. I use carbroad, strawbales etc - tyres will give out massive black smoke, could cause problems. My daughter had a bottle & pallet party one frosty evening - toastie

How about 'cooking wok' for when he runs into a 'flush' when out shooting

lovely pup, How about 'Dobby' from Harry Potter - the dog with magical power. I have a black working cocker with a white strip on he chest so called him 'Blaze' but it grew out so now he's all black. I now have another black working cocker and went for a pagan name, to annoy the ex vicar down the road who calls his dogs after old bible names. So he is 'Odin Raven' as he was born near Raven's hill - or Odin , Mr Bitty (sometimes refered to 'annoying little s***) Both dogs come out with me with a gun and even the 5 month old pup had been out on a shoot day on my quad. With names like 'Blaze & Odin' they are both short and sound different enough for them both to respond to. Being a softy both dogs now sleep on our bed, so some nights it's like the Simpson's sofa, with the 3 yr old at the bottom of the bed and little one between our pillows. Hope you give your springer plenty of long walks or it may trash your home

or buy some snowchains? I have x3 sets of different sizes 4x4 types from 'brindley chains' - work well in mud as well. being made in Austria they were well developed and easy to fit - but you need practice first. They are easier to fit to road/A/T against mud tyres. Could sold a truck full on the M8 yesterday

I had an old type transit as a camper and fitted A/T's to the back much better on grass etc, then I brought a 4x2 Ranger again fitted larger wheels, lifted it a bit and fitted A/T again better than road tyres, also fitted a pair of M/T to the back but if very muddy would be little better than the A/T. Best thing for a 4x2 for both snow/mud is snow chains, I buy products from a country thats uses them so it's a Swedish logburner and Austrian snow chains from 'Brindley chains' I now have x3 sets all the cheaper 4x4 types at around £120. I have just brought a set for my old L200 4 life 265/70-16 as last winter I was given a set of 10.5-31 x15 M/T alloys worked well in snow/mud but it's still the same coming down frozen hills = 'tight cheeks & high pressure gas leaks' and I nearly got stuck in mud even with the diff lock and another time had to winch myself out with the M/T's fitted. the trick is to practice fitting snow chains before you need them, The fun bit was when I ordered the snow chains, it snowed the next day and they were delayed - stuck in post van in snow? May be a problem fitting snow chains with double wheels but a set of spacers could solve the problem, or have a chat to Brindley chains.

Never heard of using 'larsens' for squirrels, could be fun getting them out, most use Fenn traps with ply covers to prevent moggies getting trapped. As one old boy said," there's three types of Rats; 1, rats. 2, rats with wings = pigeons. 3, rats with good PR = squirrels. Good luck with your move to Scotland recomend the 'weggy - english dictionary.

Sorry but Eastern greys were imported so they are outside the Darwin bit. Greys really do kill small birds and damage trees - true so do Reds but the population ratio can be a 100-1 differance. This reflects on the small bird population. I do my tree bit on a large estate but also do my vermin bit at peak in a year I have send 400+ Greys 'to a better place' now it's about 160 per year. using rifles and shotguns - it's instant but like with all shooting not always but I try my best. Greys have very thick skin so most air rifles don't have enough power nor do a moderated (subsonic) 12g cartridge, so I use the more expensive 32g game cartridges. Yes I kill alot of vermin but I take alot of care to reduce any suffering. I'm not into drowning, it's too slow - go for a smack on the head but the RSPCA only allow 'one blow to the head' to me you either kill it or not. Part of the problem is the sale of 'live traps' it's illegal to release Greys the only way is to use an air gun to despatch to take them out, so I can see why some may be tempted to drop the cage into water. The effect of killing hundreds of greys over the years is a large increase in the small bird population:thumbup:

Is this all about 'tax dodging spikies' fly tipping etc? a friend has been stopped x5 times recently towing a trailer full of scrap metal locally from his workshop to the scrap yard in a rural area. When I took my old caravan to a farm with my old L200 with the hitch too high, yep it looked classic spikey, a cop car passed me the opposite way with an look of total hate on his face. Yes, it's the law but are they being 'selective' in who to apply it against. With so many contractors transporting wood waste - how many have actually been stopped & fined for not having the right paper work? If that's the case are the 'fuzz' doing a good job by trying to run the cowboys out of tree work? Just a thought.

NO probs - just don't worry about how your bum looks in a pair of chainsaw trousers. I have seen a young woman doing the climbing/sawing with a man for the grunty ground work. She was very assertive and did a good job. For me it's just having the aptitude for each job. I imagine with girls doing better at school, then more will have better grades to take college places.

got stopped yrs ago by the plod," what are you doing in this village at 10:00pm"? been canoing, "Where's your canoe"? left it with a mate," it's been dark for 4 hours, where have you been?" like a dick, I said,"in the pub" - he let me go.

best I have ever seen - brilliant both in art content and standard of work

My missus would kill me, lets say on the completion of the stone circle the Druids had a lets say 'Pagan night', the sight of the flickering fires throwing reflections of 'dymnaic bodies' against the stones - quite a memory.It took a while to get carefree display of flesh, at the end of the day they would jump into a large communal open hot bath:blushing: They only had 3-rules; no drink. no drugs. no electronic music - the rest goes. After a week I went home 'cream crackered' Back to the knot look up on Google the 'lightermans hitch' - images. but as this hitch is for a bollard, on the final part instead of looping over the top of the bollard again, simply tuck the last loop into the the knot against the tree.

Simular, I must try and post some pictures. I think mine is a sort of boat mooring hitch but I learnt this hitch from a group of Druids when building them a stone circle with 10 ton stones all by hand 12 yrs ago (long story). We once broke a 10ton sling pulling a stone, whipping a girls butt, after that I banned the use of any shackles on any winch job. It was impossible to estimate the load with 30m pine tree as a lever pulled by a group of semi clothed druids.I also use it to erect a carved tree and it could be released without climbing. I later tried out the hitch pulling trees say 2 tonne and found it never jammed and with no end loop with a straight end, it could be pulled out from under the tree I used to work on oil tankers and the massive steam winches used to amuse me in the way the crew were only ever allowed to put two wraps around the say 3ft diameter winch and the large rope would grip well enough for one guy to pull the ship backwards. So with that level of grip simply by wrapping a rope around a tree a couple of times and making off the end by wrapping and tucking in the end it should hold - test first.

I will try to explain one knot I learnt, don't know the name. Take a long loop wrap it around once ( or twice if you like). wind the loop 4 times around the tension side rope, so it looks like a simple wire wound joint. then tuck the loop doubled up through the start of the wrap, it really is that simple. The doubled up loops help prevent the rope jamming when under load. pull lop to release, works well on thick ropes also place a piece of wood put into the start of the wrap so it can be pulled out to ease the loop. I also found when joining slings a piece of wood jammed inside helps the release. Just saves using shackles on winch lines. hope this helps

Cherry bark along with Birch bark is like tar paper, even wet will go. If I'm clearing up old Cherry I collect the bark for fire starting, ok it's on a small scale. I collect joist offcuts and split & smash them in half, the splitered ends will often start with a match.

I hate you Butler

Totally agree - to stand by HMS Victory in Portmouth and realize all the timber was processed and the ship built by hand tools only is hard to believe. Some aspects of the 'old ways' ware cheaper for say cart & boat builders, like buying felled tree, pit saw it into planks and stack for seasoning often for 12 years, all with a few hand tools. There were also health benifits, I did a long running experiment with my son to use axes from the age of 5 to 15, (it stopped when he found girls and motorbikes) his upper body strength is far greater than all of his friends.

It wasn't just the tools that used less fuel but one man I knew used to go out up to 20 miles on a small 98cc motor bike with his mate on the back carring an axe & crosscut saw. True on a large tree it could take a few days to set up & fell. I have a 5ft cross cut in good condition, which I have used to fell along with an axe, also a collection of (rusty) saws including an 8 ft cross cut and a 8 ft pit saw. Yep in NZ I have heard stories of 'mega' cross cut saws used in the mountains of NZ. Correct me if I'm wrong, the method of bringing down the trees was to build a dam on a stream, stack the logs up - then collape the dam to flush the logs to the river below. As I posted earlier, I learnt the techniques from the old boys that used the techniques but there was a difference to what they told me. They never let out there often 'secret' techniques in there working life as it mean they were less competive, but at 80 they told me and often gave me there old axes as they wanted them to go to somebody that would use them. That was about 15 yrs ago - so they have all gone now. One old army sgt told me how when going across Germany, if they had a river to cross, they had a unit of Canadian lumberjacks. They would walk along the bank to select a crossing place and fell the largest conifer trees (with chippings the size of plates) across the river pull them together = instant transport bridge. I found it safe to fell with axes as you are more fussy with the hinge. Also coal miners used axes, it was more pick, shovel & hatchet - as one old Welsh miner told me," you would be more upset if somebody chipped your hatchet than if you found out they had slept with your wife" On axes there is also the 'adze', still an efficent tool, I have seen films of them in use on the wooden deck of US 'kent' class aircraft carrier.

Brill topic, I leart axe work from the old guys say 15 yrs ago when most of them were say 80 yrs old - now they have gone. I learnt their skills and used them for years safely. I have felled 2 ft dia oaks safely using an Elwell 7, a razor sharp 7lb axe that will cut a 3 inch pole in half with one swing. With that power I often feared taking my leg off - big axes don't have brakes, alot of people lost legs in the past when a big axe 'bounced'. I must have say 50 axes and billhooks all not just sharp but 'tuned' for different jobs. The basic safety skill is to be able to use and axe both left and right handed and be that accurate you can split a match. I will post more skills if of interest to anybody next week

With most of the oldest Oaks being 'pollards', I assume axe cut in cycles for hundreds of years. Then Oaks can cope with big boughs being removed and not affecting the trees health. But from clearing alot of fallen Oak boughs which mainly have some fungus damage I assume the tree rejected them naturally in the next storm.

take a look on 'pigeon watch' forum 4x4 section, plenty of responce

just a quick add on to the above post. As I told my son, "there are two ways to learn, one is listen the other is pain"

OK training in general I'm practical based medical engineer, BUT the last batch of 'degree' applicants not one could put a plug on a mains lead. I have noticed simular with other training. I was shocked years ago by the amount of 'site accidents' addmissions, so since my son was 5 yrs old helping me at home or on the woods I trained him in 'safe working practice' it all worked well it also extended into his driving. I can't see how 16 yr old lads with not a clue on safety coming into a high risk trade can be instantly trained up into safe operatives. But I have noticed over the years that some people are always more at risk than others.