agg221

Which of us (kav or me?) Cheers Alec

I milled some that looks very similar to that earlier this year - I soaked it in Wykabor and dried it standing on end for about 4wks before stacking. No damage so far. Alec

Email notification of new PMs has stopped working for me (using Chrome on a PC, emails to hotmail.co.uk). I haven't knowingly changed options and it seems to still be ticked in the right box but they aren't arriving either in my inbox where they used to, or in junk mail. Alec

Did resharpening take up all your sweet time? It'll give it right back one of these days...

That could be an indication, but the only brown oak I have milled had heavy lower limbs which the colour went right through but had not spread out to branches small enough to take off and assess. The other issue with this particular specimen is that, being woodland grown, there are essentially no small branches before you reach the canopy so the colour would have to have travelled over 60', and I can't actually get up there to see anyway. Alec

Thanks all for the thoughts. David - interesting link to the previous thread, although I can't get the link to Gerrit's album to work. Mycology is not my strongpoint but my interpretation is as follows: The question is very similar to that which Graham asked on the original thread, concerning a deliberate inoculation procedure but nobody knew the answer to that either so it appears that knowledge of the deliberate process has probably been lost. If you are good at reading the body language of trees then you might be able to see the externally visible signs of progression. Internal progression of F.hepatica on its own is nigh-on impossible to spot so you are taking a guess on when the colour has spread, however its method of attack is to go first inward, then outward, then produce FBs so there is a good chance that if I am seeing widespread FBs around the trunk it has progressed quite well already. If it is not associated with anything else (most likely Laetiporus sulphureus) then the tree is unlikely to fail prematurely under most circumstances. In the absence of any other indications, the best approach would therefore be to leave the tree for as long as possible before felling to enable colouration to spread upwards, monitoring it to establish whether any other FBs appear since this could change the strategy. Cheers Alec

It's actually the lignin which is thermoplastic and does the binding together of the cellulose. A well established principle - the same as behind Stramit boards if you remember those. Alec

Did you drag it over the truck bed or anything else steel? If so, that's probably where a lot of the staining was picked up. A light sanding and it will disappear (if you don't go for the oxalic route). Alec

I'd welcome some thoughts on this one. I was having a look at a milling job a couple of weeks back - in a wood. The wood has not been managed for a fair while and there are some oaks at just over 30" dbh which are getting near to harvesting as the owner doesn't want to lose the understorey completely. I spotted one oak of this size which had a fair number of brackets of what I think were Fistulina, very low down on the buttresses. They were well past their best but the shape and colour looked right. This is interesting, as I have a need for some decent brown oak in the long term but it doesn't really matter when I get it, any time in the next 5yrs would be OK. The tree does not need to come out right now for any other reasons. It is well in to the fenced wood, a long way from public access, and although it would not be ideal if it fell the wrong way, it would not be disastrous in any direction. In an ideal world we would now wait until the colour has run through the tree so far as possible, balancing progression of colour up the trunk against progression of excessive structural decay at the base and pick an optimum time to fell. So the questions are: How to tell when the colour has gone well through the tree Are there external signs to use in assessing when it has gone too far at the base and it isn't a good idea to wait any longer? Anyone have a sense of the timeframe for progression of each of these in trying to pick the optimum time to fell? Any thoughts welcome. Cheers Alec

Whether it is worth getting milled depends on whether you have a use for the timber. It is not a high value timber (i.e. not very expensive to buy either) but it is good for structural use in sheds/outbuildings so long as the design keeps it from getting wet, or as cladding it is OK if regularly coated. You wouldn't be able to use it for anything which needs to pass building regs. as being softwood you would need mechanical grading, but for anything else, common sense in not using bits with large knots or where the grain runs straight out of the side (i.e. the visual grading standards used for hardwoods) will stop you having problems. You will get about 30-35 cu.ft out of that as sawn timber. To buy that seasoned from a timber merchant would be around £350-400 so if you can get it milled for less and have a use for it then it's worth doing. Getting it milled may be the issue. As a single log, you don't have a day's work for a portable band mill, static mills may or may not touch a log from an unknown source due to the risk of the metal and whilst it is a nice job for an Alaskan, unless you are milling structural sections it will work out rather inefficient. If I was doing it, I would reckon I could through and through saw it with the Alaskan in a half day, so long as you wanted 2" and thicker boards which you might then rip down once dry into 4"x2" or 6"x2" etc. depending on intended use. An assortment of 2", 3" and 4" would probably be about right. The other option is, if you think you have a reasonable chance of more decent sawlogs is to batch them up, stored off the ground and get them milled together on a bandmill. That would be a lot more efficient as a sawn price per cu.ft. but put the up front cost up. Alec

Sort of. You want to end up with no vertical branches but if you just cut them all out this winter the tree will grow very vigorously (upwards!) and stop producing fruit, so you have to spread it over a few years - 3 to 5 depending on how strongly the tree responds. You also may be able to make use of some of them if there are any gaps in the canopy where a branch would bend down usefully to fill it. You can tie them in to get the right shape - if done over winter they will need untying around next June. Alec

Do you cover the lethal bit on the A46? No abuse from me - this activity is extremely low cost to the taxpayer and at the very least should help people to remember to check their speed without any penalties, unlike a police run check. I live in the last but one house in a linear settlement village, about 1.5miles long. It is a 30 limit in the village, then national speed limit. There is a slight s-bend in the road. I regularly see people coming in to the village still doing ~50 and leaving the village frustrated by having to slow down, already having accelerated to over 40. I have also seen idiots who, fed up with following someone doing 30, decide to overtake so are doing 60+. There have been three major accidents in the 8yrs we have lived here. Every morning I have to cross the road to take my children (5 and 7) to the bus stop. I have visibility of around 100yds one way, 150yds the other. This is plenty to see cars doing 30 or a bit over. On a couple of occasions we have had to run to make it across due to a car coming so fast it wasn't in sight when we started crossing. All it would take would be a child to trip when forced to start running and there is no chance that cars going at this speed could stop in time. Yes I sometimes exceed the speed limit, but I will face the consequences if I get caught doing so, whoever it is that catches me. Alec

Unverified figures but I think the simple answer is the multiple between wages and house prices. In 1970, the average house price was apparently £4,995 and the average wage was £1,664 (Guardian 2004 figures) so a house was just under 3x the average salary. The old, fairly rigidly applied mortgage criteria at that time were 3x single salary, 2.5x joint salary, over 25yrs, so it was quite affordable for one person to buy a house and so long as the interest rates didn't go silly (like they did in the early 1980s) you could comfortably make the payments. This was also a time of inflation, so wages were going up but of course the mortgage wasn't, so it actually got much more affordable pretty quickly. Today, the average house price is £216,750 (Land Registry Sept 2016) and the average wage is £26,500, a multiple of over 8. Even allowing for extended mortgages (35+ yrs) the payments simply aren't affordable on a single salary. Static wages due to low inflation and a weak economy (today's estimate is that they won't reach 2008 values for at least another 5yrs) also mean that the mortgage does not become more affordable over time. High house prices also drive up the rental value. Funnily enough, the relative cost of other essentials such as food and clothes, together with a lot of luxuries such as televisions and foreign holidays, has actually come down, but the mortgage is such a dominant figure in the total income that spending money on pointless luxuries is pretty much an irrelevance in the overall figure. Alec

That is a serious parsnip! I'd like to see how you peel the bottom three inches.... Alec

You still do get the range - in France they used to define it as orme rouge and orme blanche (red and white elm). It can get so dark it looks like walnut right through to so pale it looks like ash. The smell however is an easy way to distinguish them. Alec

As has been said, they will chew their way through rails but it's harder for them to get a good bite on posts. You could put them up and if they do go for them, tack a bit of chicken wire over them as a cheap fix? Alec

One other observation - the tree in the picture has developed a few rather vigorous upright branches which I would be inclined to have out a few at a time over the next few winters. Alec

Is this thread moving on to the subject of Leonard Cohen too.... I'll get my coat. Alec

Almost certainly codling moth. A bad case will take out almost all the apples. Fortunately the solution is easy - traps like these: https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/codling-moth-trap?gclid=CNenmcHArtACFWsz0wodKKcEkQ Can be found cheaper on Amazon and Ebay but the links won't work. It won't be 100% effective but if you do it every year then after a couple of years the damaged apples will be the exception rather than the rule. Alec

This is probably true. Does the fact that I find it very funny describing this to my 7yr old and watching her facial expressions as she tries to make sense of it make me a bad parent? Alec

Aha, a revised version of the raven paradox! I always liked the raven paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox Alec

There would be issues if millions turned up at once. Spread over 70+ yrs, rather less so. It also occurred to me that there will still be a few survivors from the Kindertransport in that number. There are now effectively no people in Calais since the Jungle was demolished and I don't really class Libya as our border. It's rather a long way from here. Yes - there are people there who would like to be here. Our border controls seem to be fairly effective as they currently stand at separating refugees from economic migrants. We also don't seem to have massing hordes of European immigrants on our borders (mainly because they could come straight in if they wanted to - they just don't want to). Muslims born in the UK wishing to attack it is not OK - see previous post. The problem is, there is less we can do about it. However it is a fraction of a percentage of second and third generation Muslims who are being radicalised, not the immigrants. No idea whether you have grandchildren but if you do, how accountable do you feel you are for their actions? Discrimination against Muslims in case their grandchildren happen to be the tiny percentage who end up being radicalised is hardly reasonable. Far better to try to understand the causes and address them. Muslim leader speaking out against terrorist acts, not very hard to find: Statements by Muslim leaders condemning terrorism Islamic Statements Against Terrorism – Charles Kurzman Paris Attacks: Muslims Speak Out Against Terrorism You can find hundreds more if you want. It also aligns with my personal experience of Muslim colleagues. It sounds very patronising to write this, but they are without exception peaceable, deep-thinking and integrated. With quite a few of them, I haven't actually realised they are practising Muslims until some chance remark, sometimes after having known them for years. There is no real difference between the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews or Christians I know (except that possibly the Christians are more pushy about it). It is true that not all Muslims are integrated. It is not true that no Muslims are integrated. Sweeping generalisations are neither accurate nor helpful. Alec

Yep, excellent post and I wholly agree, these are very real questions and worth serious consideration. We are pretty much all immigrants at some point in our history and with each new wave, the culture evolves. The challenge as I see it is to maintain evolution, not revolution. Alec

Do you have any credible references for 1-4 above? On point 1, the figure looks reasonable but I would point out that there have been no deaths due to terrorism in the UK since 2013 (Lee Rigby). One of my colleagues (French) lost several good friends at the Bataclan and like any reasonable person I would far rather that nobody was killed, in the name of terrorism or anything else, however this is in the context of the 518 homicides in the UK alone in 2015 Homicide - Office for National Statistics You talk about the vast numbers (8M people in the UK who were not born here) and appear to believe that there are massing hordes on the borders coming to join them. However, when you start breaking this down - immigrants include GIs who settled here after WWII; post-war Afro-Carribeans; a large number of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who arrived in the 1970s, together with some Chinese and a few Vietnamese. This is not a recent phenomenon and they have not, so far as I am aware, been inclined to do any of the negative things you attribute collectively to immigrants. There are also a lot of immigrants from Europe, some permanent, some temporary. The figures don't discriminate which. They are also not carrying out terrorist acts. There are full controls over immigration from outside the EU and anyone inside the EU who wants to come here has been able to for years, so where are these massing hordes going to come from? If it's inside Europe why aren't they here now; if it's outside Europe why won't we just refuse them visas as we do today? Similarly in the US, it is not the hispanics, who make up the majority of immigrants, who are committing acts of terrorism. Where are the UK terrorist suspects coming from then? Of the 280 people arrested on terrorism offences in 2015, 78% were British or dual nationality https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/operation-of-police-powers-under-the-terrorism-act-2000-quarterly-update-to-december-2015/operation-of-police-powers-under-the-terrorism-act-2000-and-subsequent-legislation-arrests-outcomes-and-stop-and-search-great-britain-quarterly-u You can review the link to see where they are coming from. So far as I can see, it seems to be radicalisation, mainly of second and third generation British muslims. It is a very small proportion of the total muslim community and is roundly condemned by the majority, but it would still be a good idea to understand the drivers and how to stop it. Since they are British citizens by birth, there isn't much else we can do about it. You appear to be using the term 'immigrants' quite correctly to define everybody who has moved to the UK. You also appear indiscriminately to regard them collectively as wishing to cheat our benefits system, devalue jobs and murder us in our beds. Do you accept that the overwhelming majority of immigrants do not wish to do any of these things? Alec p.s. you refer to me as a Liberal - on the scale of Liberal to right wing extremist, I'll take that label.

Hmmm. See previous point on mass hysteria. Alec P.s. Did Freddie Starr eat your hamster?