difflock

(i) No Geogrid used, yet. (ii) Basically felled the Birch across the Rodden, and attempted to keep all branches laid neatly side by side across the Rodden, and only 3 or 4 deep, with none/virtually none in some places, but deeper in the wetter places. Have not yet measured the metres done( this and photos a job for tomorrow) but "guesstimated" tipping the 8 wheeler trucks direct, without rehandling, justified the greater depth of hardcore needed to carry them, and the minimal wastage to the sides when tipping, compared to the hire cost of a 2nd digger and 2 or 3 fat tyred site dumpers. Only placed 40 loads direct, with 10 stockpiled for future use on the wetter rodden. cheers Marcus OH! And literally not a 1/2 Hr after the last load tipped, ABSOLUTLY torrential rain. Lucky or fortunate or wot! PS Matelot, What you mean by geo fibre, Terram or Tensar, i.e. filtration or reinforcement?

Well!, the VAST difference 3 or 4 good drying days in March can make! I decided last Thur, to buy and stockpile the hardcore, while it was available, even though ground was still way too wet. By Friday afternoon, we had tentetivley started nosing up the Moss Rodden. I pondered and gambled and stood trucks down for Monday this week, to allow time for the weather to do its magic (and for me to fell Birch to lightly "brash" the Rodden) With 2 trucks, being filled from a stockpile by a 30 ton digger and a sub 4 mile draw, a load about every 15 minutes, which is quite perfect for my diggerman. Fingers crossed we will get the last 7 loads (of 50 No.) in this morning, without rehandling. Quite surreal to see fully laden 8 wheeler trucks "up the Moss" on pure unadulterated quivering peat. Two canny "nacky" young drivers though. mth.

Fu!"£$%^&*ing lucky lucky Barstewart, living so far Sarfth 'an all.

Well spotted:thumbup:

Very very tidy woodlover, proper jealous of that I am.

Ho Hum, one of our best(imho) Sec of State was Roy Mason, under Labour, while Wee Willy Whitlaw, flying up an down, not so much, from hazy personal remembrances. BUT! Mrs. Thatcher WAS what Britian NEEDED, even incl. the Falklands War. And her tough decisions/actions during the Miners Strike. I do however agree that as time went on she sucuumbed to delusions of Roman Emporer Invincibility (or Popish Infallibility) Wor Tony, was on the other hand, was nowt but a decietful self aggrandizing clever sleekit Knave, with an even worse wife. IMNSHO

A tidy solution that, and much safer than a seat.

Indeed, I believe it be to common knowledge that the IRA, only swithed to a SF headed Political Operation, but only when they realized, and then eventually accepted, that the Security forces had rendered their murderous "military" operations ineffective, by dint of informers and other good intelligence gathering. And possibly realizing they were in danger of losing the blind unquestioning support of a significent %age of their Nationalist supporters, who were ever so slowly accepting that the RC population were now actually doing quite well as a result of years of positive discrimination. Hence our current "cracks-papered-over" stalemate.

Interesting times . . . btw. I am of the same opinion as best expressed by Sir Norman Tebbit. mth

Winter? Wot winter?

The better the day the better the deed! (Or so I have heard quoted) As in I welded my euro8 brackets on my forklift carriage today.(so, like wrsni?, do you want me to bring the wee Inverter welder round tomorrow:001_tt2:) And the wee Kioti will lift 1500kg, centred 400mm out on the toes, or 88 no 18 by 9 by 4 blocks, comfortably. Well pleased I am, so now to get my clip-on log beak fabricated

I bought my ex forklift carriage from a local forklift specialist, with a yard full of stuff "a breaking", saw an absolute honey of a virtually new looking box tipper carriage, with a hyd. motor driving a worm to give endless rotation, £1000.00 though. Ah could near be tempted . . . PS The Quickie Euro 8 brackets, the proper drop forged ones pre set ready to weld on, cost me £50.00 from a local agric engineer, i.e. cheaper than ebay!

Thanks wrsni, I bought mesel a 2nd hand forklift carriage and euro 8 brackets yesterday, I intend to fabricate a clip-on hyd log-beak of some sort, using a cheap hydraulic top link. With the fast hydraulics and the creeper gears, near as usuable as a hydrostatic drive for loading the bucket without riding the clutch (with a filled link box on the back as ballast), a concreted filled 45 gallon drum will be perfect at about 500kg. I intend to fit better fat radial tyres at some point, be ideal iffen I can source ones to fit the really good Stocks rims. cheers mth

Oddly for someone who is "careful" with money, I would unhesitatingly plump for the 600mm wide radials, tyres being essentially the one key limiting factor, irrespective of what vehicle they are fitted to. But I suppose that is why I am regarded locally as being (a bit) barmy for fitting new(15 odd year ago) 520/70/34 radials to my knackered old 1984 vintage David Brown. cheers mth

Thanks for the replies guys. mth

(i)better dayz, what sort of ground were you working on?, I figgered the Geogrid would prevent the hardcore from "punching" through any softer areas, and , by my rough calcs each layer of Geogrid would only pay for 125mm thick of hardcore(without costing in the diggers and dumpers), so sig. less depth when placed. (ii)scbk, tyre bales would add too much height, with the rodden already being higher than the surrounding moss, and I dont be aware of anybody local offering, though I have successfully used interleaved tractor tyres to revet places in the moss, and filling them with hardcore, tedious but effective and doable on my lonesome with a tractor and linkbox.

A long title, but I got from a minimum of 600m ( & up to 1500 m ) of undisturbed peat rodden that I wish to improve, for a well shod tractor and trailer(& see the "Yoke" in my Avatar) in dry(er) conditions, or rather be prepared to avoid using when too wet. Peat about 3m-4m deep, mostly reasonably dry, but undulating, with a good "scraw" of grass, but bare wet patches.(which I will "darn" felled birch into first) Anyway I can currently get virtually unlimited crushed demolition hardcore, but, as always, at a price. I was considering hiring a tracked dumper to draw forward to a tracked digger, and first filling the hollows, with crushed hardcore, to leave a relatively flat surface, without removing any "scraw". Then unrolling 4.0 m wide 20/20 "Geogrid", (@ £200.00/50m roll) before covering with, say 150mm-250mm-300mm more crushed hardcore, again drawn in by tracked dumper. If needs be doubling up on the Geogrid layers in the softer/wetter places. Anyone tried anything similar? mth

Eggs, although my God fearing country bred Mother, never actually expressed it as such, I believe her innate belief was "life is not meant to be easy", and so she kept her chin up and carried on. Or, indeed, despite my depressive moments, I have commented; "Iffen anybody decided to shoot at me, I ud probably do my best to run" i.e. I am definately NOT sucidal/ life is not THAT bad, yet. So, be thankful & soldier on. PS Just back from the pub, where ; (a) one bloke has bin chucked out of his v recently deceased partners home after 30+ years, like 3 days after she was buried. (b) Another bloke was grieving ( as in, tears running down his cheeks) over the recent self inflicted death of a 44 year old Son. So, indeed, my/our life is pretty good! regards Marcus

I liked burning Birch, but when I switched to burning Lodgepole/Sitka, I found no odds, since I am only carrying the same weigh in for the same burning value, and the heavy metal stove modulates the heat output very effectively. BUT! hardwood is so much nicer to handle.

Unfortunately this is where "cant fix stupid" really kicks in, ditto for ambulence drivers destroying clutches(absolutly needlessly) when bogged on a bit of wet grass, or binmen driving down glassy smooth ice in a cul-de-sac, then wondering why they (i) cannot get turned, (ii) or magically drive back out uphill. I.e any of these great nationalized services simply cultivate stupid. Send em on a course and they will ALWAYS come back rubber stamped as trained, no matter how cognatively challenged they happen to be.

Hardwood or softwood?

Local feed merchant is charging £40.00 for a dumpy bag of mixed birch and goat willow, this bag about 0.65m3 from memory. I have just filled a trailer with a generous 4.0m3 of dry conifer, cut to nominal 8" /10" lengths. So, what to charge? Thoughts please. mth

Darn it! I intended "Direct Rule" in my title, not Devolved.

I would not say "bollocks" to medication, as I will probably remain on a wee tablet for the rest of my life, the Doc, who it must be said cannot understand depression/mood swings, admitted that it was a "suck it and see" approach, trying me on a couple before finding one that was compatible with my particular chemistry, i.e stabilizing without zombiefying When I came off the meds one spring I went bloody hyper and bought yon 3PH Baker sawmill, which still sits as an expensive reminder to stay on the meds. good luck mth

As a reasonably educated 58 year old Presbyterian raised citizen of the United Kingdom, (who lost no close kin during the Troubles, but loathes the pure hyprocisy of the SF/IRA party.) I believe I could stomach a United Ireland, IF, and only if SF/IRA admitted to their guilt and atrocities, and with after such a confession the likes of Gerry Adams (and the rest of the "Old Guard" ) retreating from public/political life. Simply because the ROI is no longer in thrall to the RC Church. BUT The British minded population, of a United Ireland, would need protection from the JackBoot policies of o so sweet innocent SF. N.B. Pre partition, about 30% prods in the South, due to blatent discriminatory RC Church driven policies this rapidly dwindled to about 3%. Oddly enough, the %age of RC's increased "up North", despite the Unionist control (50 years of misrule and all that!) during this same period. marcus P.S. I did NOT vote DUP