AHPP

Don't be obtuse. You said in a previous thread that you lobbied the government to keep the recently dropped licensing requirement. Shall we get rid of all training? Not for me to say. Get rid of all government and whatever is worth having will still happen. Whatever isn't worth having, won't. And yeah, I put my money where my mouth is.

No. The tree industry is generally real and productive. People want to make things out of wood and to look at the sky. Driver training (where the training is de facto necessary for licensing) almost exclusively exists because of constraints placed by earlier governments (that you lobbied for I recall). It's artificial and a harmful drain on other people. Someone has to pay £500 for a trailer course. That's £500 they can't spend on good shoes for their children or on an evening course to better themselves.

So I should keep my mouth shut when they're plundering someone else and be glad it's not me? That's serf talk.

Good.

You really are wired like a big bully's little bitch. The government does a rare thing and leaves people alone a bit and you're genuinely annoyed that they're no longer granting you your monopoly at the expense of everyone else. Take a bloody hard look at yourself and find some way to lift up your fellow man rather than treading on him to get a little higher.

Stupidly didn’t whip the camera out while this (right stem) was on the hinge. I only had about forty seconds. Ash top, going out at exactly the angle it looks like. Bored and released and the wind sat it back UP onto the bar. Obviously more sail and/or wind than it looked like. A slowing of the wind let the gob half close in proper slow motion. Must have been at least five seconds. A little novelty on an otherwise straightforward thing.

Dolescum writ large. Receive a lot of tax loot in land subsidies and similar. Use it to monopolise what could be productive land and property while excluding the people who pay for it.

May I encourage you to just plant the trees yourself and keep the National Trust out of it. Certainly don't give them any money. They're a bunch of arseholes.

Occasional user, not owner. The Forst ST6 infeed is rubbish. I'd want to know the ST8 is better before ordering. Engine better though. The old Timberwolf 190 diesel was intimidating; the new 280 petrol is considerably less so, hits the no stress easier, throws worse. Consider the petrol if you have cold enough weather to make diesel engines inconvenient and are open to supercharging it.

North Americans are used to good chippers.

The general lack of 4wd vans is maddening. They're such an obviously useful thing. I've been considering hawking myself to Volvo to design them one. Minor downside is that I'm not an automotive designer but I think I have some good ideas. Internal combustion engine drives front wheels, electric motors drive back wheels. It's a hybrid so you could tick all the bullshit eco boxes for low emission zones etc and more importantly provide real utility for when a van needs short bursts of high power and/or high traction (off road, out of a steep driveway, pulling a tree over etc). Plus you'd have on-board batteries for charging tools. And I don't know for sure but I suspect the easily variable power and regenerative braking of the rear wheel motors could be used to greatly improve towing. Unfortunately, I also suspect the automotive industry is happy to sell a tree surgeon both a van and a 4wd pickup when the tree surgeon only needs a 4wd van.

Thank you, Mick and Mike. And now for the opposing view, Sviatoslav Tulin.

How old do we think that is? 700?

I’ve never understood taking dead weight when you could take something useful. A massive picnic would be my first choice.

Three of us bounced the back end of a VW Polo round ninety degrees the other day. I did suggest picking it up with the fk off crane lorry we were moving it for but the bounce was actually quite easy. I reckon three or four could bounce the front or entirety of that little red thing no problem. Or drag like Paul said. My petrol capstan would move that with the handbrake on.

Say a cat deposits 100g in your garden, 200 days a year. That's 20kg. Far more convenient to procure 20kg of equally or more odorous shit from an animal that lives six thousand miles away and then spread it on your garden yourself. But why stop there? Spray the inside of your loft with exotic guano to deter native bats. Tether a bald eagle in your conifer hedge to ward off pigeons. Infest your wife's crotch with common fleas to displace bothersome pubic lice. Be the master of nature.

Not my bag. I’m like this normally.

On the contrary, I looked 10,000 years into the future as a minimum whereas Murray was worried about brambles for as long as it takes him to fell 4 hectares. None of it matters though. Gaia bless.

Oh don't get me wrong. It's fine and I'd use it if I had some but it's easily replaceable. There's still some about too for people who want it for niche things.

I imagine whoever experiences the profit or loss is taking it as seriously as it can be taken. As for the environmental worries, keep an eye on it for 10,000 years. See if it sorts itself out. Worry then if it hasn't.

Have you got any lorry based grapple saws in your area? That would have been an ideal job for one, snipping the limbs and tops off working up the drive and dangling a climber cleaning up stubs on the way back.

I wouldn’t call it a crisis. It’s just change. Things come and go. Man plans, god laughs. Etc. It’s pukka firewood but nothing special beyond that. Probably more like a crisis if you’ve invested money in a crop of it that you’ll not recoup.

It’ll all work but I handled some new Makita stuff a few weeks ago and it felt crap and plastic. The Dewalt drill my neighbour has is very strong and a friend has the darling little 10.8v set, which I would have in a heartbeat. I happen to like Milwaukee but out of Dewalt and Makita, Dewalt.

Aye. That if he can. Otherwise just try it. It'll either work or it won't.