agg221

It wasn't immediately useable no - having spent time in the river it was probably soggier than a defence dossier behind a bus stop. There was so much rust that I suspect any rounds were more likely to come out of the side of the barrel than make it to the end - what is known on Ebay as a restoration project. Still, not the kind of thing you find every day. I took the picture before it went. That got interesting in itself. I thought I should probably report it so when I got back from the police station I rang the non-emergency number. I live in Essex but the dialling code is for the nearest town which is in Suffolk. I therefore ended up with an operator who was insistent that I should drive to Ipswich (over an hour away) to hand it in because that was the nearest police station. I pointed out that I was not going to drive to Ipswich and by the way, I was in Essex. Eventually it was arranged that Essex police would send someone round that evening. A patrol car duly turned up with two policemen in it. One revealed that the other wanted it for his collection. I then suggested that actually it was mine and once they had verified it I would like it back please. Suddenly it was going to be necessary to undertake all sorts of destructive tests and there wouldn't be anything for me to have back. I asked for a receipt please and he just smiled and walked off with it, so I know exactly whose collection that went into don't I. Returning to the point that prompted this - I can quite see why if you find something and want to hand it in it is much easier to give it to the BBC and is it also much more likely to get what happened publicised rather than covered up (the event rather than the contents). Alec

I managed to catch it. Well worth watching if it does show up. This Wednesday's looks pretty interesting too - Smart Cities and Urban Trees. Alec

You would think so, wouldn't you... A couple of years ago we had our river dredged. I was going through the dredgings before they got knocked flat to remove anything that might damage the plough and found a sub-machine gun. I duly took it down to the local police station (wrapped up so it didn't look like one) only to find they no longer have a public counter. I rang the phone on the wall which connected me to headquarters and explained what I wanted to hand in. They transferred me to someone else who after 40 rings of not picking up I decided wasn't going to and put the phone down. Nobody in the station could be bothered to come downstairs. I did contemplate shoving it barrel first into the knife amnesty box but decided that wasn't very public spirited, so I wandered off and brought it home again. Alec

The term protection racket springs to mind... Alec

February 4th 2017 at the NEC. I was there!

One of the few benefits of working from home is that I can stick Youtube on and let it wander. This has resulted in finding some things I missed and some new things which I had no idea were happening. Something I missed was Tom Waits' change in direction from the mid '90s to the mid 2000s, with a couple of really stripped-back albums he described as lo-fi (the track Chocolate Jesus, which is excellent, even has a cockerel crowing in the background, because it did!). Many good tracks from both The Mule Variations and Real Gone but the one which has probably been played the most in this house because my daughters really like it too is Dead and Lovely:

The first track on that Kyuss album reminded me of this - both the main riff and the bass, although obviously the vocals are somewhat different!

What size cuts were you planning? Walnut can be lightly pruned, particularly formative pruning, but I have found it takes a long time to heal. I keep cuts on mine below 2", ideally below 1", and they will take 3-4yrs to heal over. Pruning is midsummer so pretty much now. I will be taking a few low side branches off of ours this weekend as they are grafted trees of varieties specifically selected to produce nuts but also grow large enough to produce decent timber so I want a clear 8' stem. On the original picture, it does look like bark damage and I would agree with squirrels. I have noticed that when there is a wound it doesn't compartmentalise off immediately on the edges of the damage but tends to go a fair way back. Someone with a badly driven dumper caught the base of one of mine and scraped off a 3" wide section of bark. It is recovering but it died back 6" wide before it started re-growing. The pruning wounds from side branches tend to lose bark below on the main stem before they heal, unlike say an oak or an apple where it will just callus straight over around the edges of the damage. This appears to be what has happened in this case. There is no sign of unhealthy leaves so I would say it is recovering. There isn't much you can do to stop it happening again, other than trap or shoot the squirrels. Alec

Different species of Eucalyptus behave very differently. Some are excellent high density timber whereas others twist and split instantly. I had some gunnii from Nepia a few years back just to see what happened and it moved spectacularly but didn't really split, so I used it to build bits of chicken coop in the end, where it is still serving well. Dalrympleana is not one I have personally milled but there does seem to have been some commercial use of it for general construction in Australia, suggesting it is relatively stable. If so, it can make a good carcassing timber for furniture as eucalyptus acts like cedar in deterring clothes moths. The main thing I would check for is spiral growth - if present then it won't do anything more than rough fenceposts. Alec

I would want to put a cut in a sample (could be a side branch) to check the colour. Elm can be anywhere from chocolate brown to orange with green and purple streaks to very pale cream - none of these are due to fungal infection, just natural features of a really varied timber. The chocolate brown can be about the colour of black walnut. The pale one is worth a lot less than the dark one. The last I bought at Hoppus rates I paid £8/Hoppus for a mix of dark and orange with streaking. The seller wasn't too bothered to check colour so I probably bought it a bit cheap (but then I didn't have the chance to check colours other than on fresh cut endgrain which is never as accurate). I would think £5/Hoppus for plain, pale but good wide boards, £7 or £8/Hoppus for nice colour and potential figure and £10/Hoppus for really dark or very good figure. However, as you suggest, it is down to what is locally available and everyone is happy with. I bought mine out of a mixed parcel of hardwood which was heading for a small mill. The mill made an offer and I matched it which suited the seller who had cleared the trees from a development site as there weren't enough butts in total to make up another load to the mill, which was the opposite direction from where he lived, so if I had the elm he could avoid the trip and drop it off with me which happened to be on his way home. If I had bought it in the round from the mill it would have been more; if I didn't want much then there is enough elm in this area that I could probably buy the odd stem for very little (there is one which was felled by a farmer last winter and is currently sitting going to waste). Alec

Not mash-ups but covers. During the various lockdowns my wife's school did various online quizzes. Whoever won had to do the next quiz which meant when she won she had to do it. That led to putting together a round of metal covers of well known songs. The ones which stood out were: Best vocals: Best video: And for the man from Suffolk:

I would swap out Rishi Sunak for Priti Patel.

This one has brilliantly messed with my 10yr old daughter's head! Alec

Do you mean forging or panel-beating as the other one? Alec

Of course. Needing some relief from working from home all day with everybody else out of the house, what could be better than a bit of gardening? Alec

Nope, not necessary - it's all in the wrist action. Alec

Erm, yes, perhaps I should mention that I also wore a pair of jeans and some boots (and, for completeness, socks and pants). Alec

Slightly OT but if you are planning on keeping it, I would be looking very seriously at that low angle fork which is effectively creating twin leaders and removing one of them. Midsummer is the right time to prune walnuts so I would be doing it about now (I have some formative pruning to do on my own). Alec

No - no gauntlet, just a T-shirt. I caught one briar thorn on the back of a finger and that's it. I am quite careful about where I make my cuts so that the sickle handle won't pass through anything spiky - the briar caught me as it fell faster than I thought it would. Agreed - I have had to do this a couple of times. Once at my parents' place over 30yrs ago and once at my current place when we moved in. The limit is about 3/4" I find. Once there is blackthorn thicker than that I cut everything else with the sickle and then leave those thicker stems which are chopped out with a mattock. The only saving grace is that once the blackthorn reaches that thickness it generally starts to suppress the bramble. Alec

How wide is it? The total area doesn't sound that bad. I cleared 50ft x 10ft of 6ft high brambles and briars in an hour one evening last week with a sickle. I treated it in layers - slashing forward cuts first followed by horizontal cuts, followed by dragging the loose away and then then repeating for the next layer. It is now wilted off nicely and I will run the ride-on mower over it all next time I am out there which will get that area back under control. I would prefer to use a mulching brushcutter but it was getting a bit late and that area adjoins our next door neighbours' house. Alec

Did you hear about the race between two cats to see which could become the first to swim the channel? The English entrant was called 'One Two Three' and the French entrant was called 'Un Deux Trois'. The English cat won because Un Deux Trois cat sank. Alec

I have a number of large trees at my place which are beyond my ability to access. Sometimes I need work done (need because they need reducing/removing to avoid damage to something else). I have a steady supply of work at the rate of a couple of days a year. It does not all want doing at once - it can be spread over months/years. I have had a day-rate arrangement with several people (who may still be on here). They climb and cut, I drag brash and feed it through the chipper. If they have a chipper and include it in the day then that's great, otherwise I hire one. They fit in days as they are mutually convenient. A job price would not work because the requirements are constantly evolving. They get to fill in time, I get a clear figure and can prioritise. From experience, day rates do require you to define what a day is. It also requires defining what happens if it doesn't work out as planned - when I am hiring a person plus the chipper, what if it breaks down? What if that is because I feed it a house brick (no, I am not that stupid)? Basically, a day rate relies on either a lot of contractual paperwork to cover all eventualities, or mutual trust. So far, the latter has worked for several parties, but we are both careful who we choose. Alec

I have one which has died - very mature, around 80ft tall, 3ft dbh. It has been a bit unstable for years and leaning on the adjacent sycamores. It did move a bit more this winter but not enough to have lost any major roots. Just started to leaf out and then died. We have a lot more willows around here of various types - none of them seem to have been affected. Alec

I agree Paul, lots of things are very delayed this year due to the extended cold weather in February I think. Ash has only leafed out here in the last week, no ducklings yet (although there are cygnets) and no frogspawn. I think most things have just delayed. The unfortunate ones will be where they started early as this year's generation probably got wiped out by the weather. Alec