AHPP

In a kinder world, I might offer to bring it down to something like five feet so that it can be regularly repollarded from the ground. But the world is not kind and I'm not optimistic about changing it today.

"Tree care question. Everyone's saying cut it down. Quick. Must look all thoughtful so they look like brutes who can only fell and I look like a super-clever tree whisperer." Moderation for moderation's sake. A competition to do least. A bad decision making process. Might as well be a civil servant. By all means be restrained and nuanced when restraint and nuance is right but be forceful and final when that's right.

Forgive me, I'm just being flippant. Tip gratefully received.

It's not just a liability issue. It's a reputation and marketing issue. If you cut it down and do a decent job clearing up, no damage etc, you're the guy that did a decent job. If you cut it in half and do a decent job clearing up, no damage etc and it later falls over, you're the guy who left them with a tree that fell over. It's not the whole story but it's the headline that everyone will see. Annoying but real.

That was my first thought yesterday. Then I thought open-minded thoughts like, "The customer can have what they want. It's their tree and their choice." Then I slept on it and I'm back to Mick's answer. If ten signs say turn left, turn left.

My chickens live in the north east of England, not Gerrards Cross.

My mate's first idea was a BMW motorcycle watercooled flat twin. I suspect that thing had something bigger.

Inch deep drinker OK?

I don't think I need to seat 27 very often. Wouldn't mind a 2CV now I'm thinking about it. As long as it's waterproof.

Is that a Zil? "What’s as big as a house, burns 20 liters of fuel every hour, puts out a shit-load of smoke and noise, and cuts an apple into three pieces? ... A Soviet machine made to cut apples into four pieces." Probably a Volvo estate. I know a guy with sixteen (or something roughly that ridiculous) nice old ones crammed into an industrial unit in Sunderland. Entire cars are stored inside other cars. Some are on a mezzanine constructed with a sense of guile and resilience that might have been better employed getting one of the cars finished instead. When the place is inevitably compulsorily purchased and demolished, he's buggered. He's got nowhere to put sixteen cars. The unit is really weird. You have to wend your way round a really tight internal one way system to get to it, a big S in a big building with loads of internal divisions. I struggled to get a SWB Transit round the corners. You don't ask what your neighbours are doing unless they volunteer the information.

I'll take your word for it about stuff falling off but generally that doesn't look in horrendous health. If 0 is a perfectly healthy tree and 10 is utterly ashdiebacked to utter death, I'd say that's a 3 ish. Would be interested to see how others appraise it.

Does anyone remember the children's television programme, The Animals of Farthing Wood? It was all quite gentle and pleasant and as you'd expect. And then clearly one of the writers woke up very, very angry and decided that the primary school children who watched it needed to witness some brutal truths. It suddenly went from all the lovely fluffy creatures living in unrealistic harmony to bulldozers turning up to flatten their home for a bypass. Then, in the confusion of fleeing, the kestrels impaled the mice on thorns. Profound bit of television. Like Schindler's List for kids.

To what base product is marketing added to make that? I've just used petrol and brushes before.

**************** this stupid bollocks. My next vehicle will be classic.

Cheers. The butler’s been grinding up layers pellets for them. Back with them tomorrow or Tuesday. Will update.

How shut away should the chicks and new mother be? Locked in box? Locked in shed? Locked in run? Free range? Suspect closer to the start of that spectrum. There are loose geese that could eat them.

As I become more capable with tools etc, I drift further away from using wood for everything, as a default anyway. Fixings for everything are so good these days and it's only a little harder to drill and fix to concrete, steel etc. Worth the effort if it's a job you want to stand for fifty years. Even things like small sheds, fences etc where just whopping it up with wood and screws seems obvious, you can make things last way longer with structural plastic. Wood splits, rots, is strong in one direction only etc. You can treat plastic like wood (i.e. screw into it without pilot drilling, cut it easily, bend it a bit) and it doesn't have the drawbacks. I'll still use wood if it's free/cheap or I want something aesthetically pleasing.

Never used decent felt, only gashy garden stuff. For that reason I'm not a fan. Too fragile to work with, too fragile in place. I assume your pukka stuff is a bit more resistant to bending by heavy handed installers. The other thing I've never liked about felt on wood it is the water sandwich that you make if there's a leak. I helped my mate do his shed roof a few years ago. Brick built onto house, OSB and wrinkly tin on top. I thought it was a waste of OSB at first because the tin has enough intrinsic strength but the result is really good. It's airy in the gaps and nice and woody inside so slightly insulated and easy to screw to. And strong as **************** obviously, a design consideration because he didn't want scallys stamping through it to nick tools.

Blue collar as ****************, that.

My van doesn't have a towbar. It is a longstanding matter of shame, regret and, above all else, inconvenience.

It's mighty white. Everyone at crossfit will be impressed.

Blue Ford Ranger? Bought from a black man whose boyfriend recently decided tree work wasn't for him?

This just in. Two hatched. Other two eggs gone cold. Is a 50% success rate considered good? We think it is.

What are you looking at going to?

In the nicest possible way, why on earth not midline? If you’re going to do something new, it should do what existing things can do and then more, not less.