spuddog0507

Yep not bad and yourself,,weather is great ATM and we can travel well with out making a mess which suits me,,

Andy at A&G had his machines done about 12 mth ago, all with locking caps, they just cut the kneck off the tank and took fuel but it cost him a fair do to replace the tanks,,

TBH i dont know if there is a few different strains of Ash in the UK may be some one could clarify this,, around me most Ash trees seemed to be doomed with the odd exception, there is some on the playing field at the back of me that are just coming in to leaf and look in very good health to me but 50/60yds away at the other side of the river there are several that have not looked good for a couple of yrs now and if they get many leaves on this summer i will be suprised ?? then another example i noticed a few yr back was a row of 15 ash trees at the side of the rd, the trees would be 25-30yr old 12 where infected with ADB and now been removed and the 3 remaining trees seemed in good health, i have not been past them yet this year but i will make a point of going that way and see how they are this year,,

Got a few singles by the Alarm (or early versions of CD,s as my kids once called em) they where a decent band back in the day and well worth listening to, RIP Mr Peters,,

Thats very smart that, thought i had made a good job of one several yrs back out of some very tight grained larch,, but yours looks 100 times better,,

usually done with a forwarder with a brash grab on it, one site a couple of year back they had a 20 tonne digger with a brash rake on it and only thig they left was the needles,,

thats sweet chestnut, mostly spruce and a bit of dougles up here,

They leave nothing behind today on most harvesting sites as the brash all gets collected and chipped,, i not even seen any fence posts on harvesting sites for i bet nearly 10 yrs now as most of that all go,s in the brash matt then collected at end of job,,

think that could be past its best TBH, Ash is not a very durable timber outside and it looks to far gone to me, i have some big lumps of ash that have been inside 3yrs and 18mth outside before that and cutting it up for fire wood ATM,,

Still a few of you older boys climbing and every credit to you for still being able to do it, my climbing days are long gone, not as I ever did that much, but did a hit here n there, climbing today consists of getting in n out the cab of this Ex MOD truck and getting myself up on to seat to operate the crane,,

You say energy levels and strength aren't what they were, but it's like Mick Dempsey said, experience, and that accounts for a lot in today's world,,

Just turned the big 60 and still doing plenty and enjoying it, had 2 days with 2 of us on site a couple of wks back sorting some windblown out which i do enjoy doing and over the 2 days we sorted just over 70 tonne out, OK i did not feel up to much the day after 😂 but i did go down yard and cut n split a crate of logs in afternoon,, i go to yard most days if nowt else to do and cut n split logs, Most enjoyable thing in recent yrs has been working on a Leyland DAF T244 Ex MOD truck that i bought 5 yr ago that i have set up for moving timber with and now out n about in it moving timber back to yard from our own jobs and a bit from some local estates,, way i look at this now is if i can still do the job in 5 yrs i will do and if i can still do it in 10 yrs i will do ?? but i do know the job takes its toll on your body and the aches are not getting any less as the days rush by now,,

i tend to think that trailer was off ebay 10 12 yrs ago as back then ebay was flooded with cheap Chinese and eastern European ATV trailers, i bought a small crane off a guy in Huddersfield who was importing them from eastern Europe, crane has been worked to death but still going and got a few hundred tonne to extract with it this summer,, the trailer in the photo i thing just came in a big wooden box and you assembled it yourself, if memory serves me right i think they was about £3800 delivered, the crane i bought complete with spool, grab, rotator, legs and a 6hp petrol power pack was £2200 and when i collected it i did look at a complete trailer but the trailer was not up to much and i thought i could build a far better stronger trailer for about half the cost,,

The big blue jobby is well man enough for the job,,

My thoughts exactly as well, been reading every comment on this issue and TBH some of the comments are yet just another accident waiting to happen,, knowing the right cuts, winching experience and experience in dealing with trees in this situation all go a long way,, people on here saying do this do that as they have probably done it once and got away with it ?. one smart arse i worked with a few times knew every thing about tree work and you couldnt tell him any thing at all as Collin was one of them that had swallowed the map and shit the dictionary, hence poor Collin been in a wheel chair now for several yrs as he got pinned against a wall taking a big Willow down on a council job, There was a HSE investigation and Collin only had CS30/31 and the relevant climbing tickets, what the full out come was i not to sure but will make a phone call or 2 tomorrow,,