the village idiot

Top banana! I'm reliably informed that this is the correct terminology as spoken by the peasantry and other such members of the underclasses.

A thousand pardons my Gallic friend. The recording of which you speak is indeed a true masterpiece. I have my minstrels play me selected cuts during my arduous and prolonged nightly dis-robings.

Elementary my dear McAlpine. I always had my suspicions but it all became clear when I realised you were typing too fast to be a real moose.

Cropper is a fool, you are a mischief maker and I'm going to have my dinner.

Good God man! Our minds are perilously poised as it is without having to assimilate the likes of that.

Brilliant post Gav!

I don't think Ian is really talking about either of those scenarios.

Black sabbath were the godfather's of many of the heavy bands I am into these days. That intro riff on 'into the void' is majestic! Kyuss did cover that very track if I remember rightly.

Ha! Was a huge Kyuss fan back in the day. Still go back to them from time to time. Sky Valley is a classic. Needs to be played LOUD. I love most things that are weighty and have got a groove. Deaf as a post now but still get a kick out of the vibrations!

Well that's not very rock & roll!

You need to have a word with those backing singers, they're seriously cramping your stage presence. Not going to attract any young and impressionable groupies like that!

Really like this thread. Whenever someone posts a video up it usually triggers a pleasurable deep dive into the youtube music video archive for an hour or two. This one brought back some memories for me. I am usually a bit of a slow, heavy doom metal freak so pop darlings Travis were a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. It's a catchy wee ditty and the video is great fun.

With 200m3 at £65 per cm3, you are sitting on £13 billion.😄

Exchanged a couple of tweets with Alan. He says he would not been seen dead in Sudbury. Apparently it's considerably more noble to be blasted out of the more salubrious skies over Hadleigh.

Not that far from you Eggs.

Yes indeed. In my farm worker days I once got horrendous blisters on my legs and arms after hand pulling weeds in a parsnip crop on a sunny day.

Thanks Paul. I didn't see the Oaks in their very early stages, when I believe mildew is most problematic. I don't know if the nurse crop helped with mildew or not. Probably not. They are certainly growing strongly now. We did some high pruning on them about a year ago. Surprisingly hard work from the ground as I'm sure all you tree surgeons are very well aware of!

Thanks Gary. It's kinda my hobby as well as my job. I'm very lucky to have found myself in this position.

Do the bales hold together enough without string or net to be able to collect up afterwards? If not I'd be as well off with a mower/collector and not have any windrowing to do.

Another interesting thought. There will be some nettle and thistle seed mixed up in it all which some people like to avoid, but I'll certainly make some enquiries.

That's an interesting thought. Small balers don't look like they cost too much money. I wonder if they would cope in a woodland setting? I can just imagine the local farmer's face if I pointed his £200,000 baling set up into the Woods!

Yes, the flower seed has all arrived under it's own steam. Much of it will have already been in the seed bank as you suggest and just 'waiting' for the light. At the moment we are thinking about the best way to remove the grass cuttings after mowing. If we just cut and leave the clippings the soil will become enriched and have a negative effect on the flower mix. We are toying with the idea of a flail with collector. The only problem with this is that the collector will fill up very quickly and we will constantly be emptying it. Another option is an old hay tedder which will shift all the cuttings into a long narrow row. This will limit the enrichment to a single narrow strip and also be of interest to the grass snakes. Might also be a good home for insects (or a buggery as we like to call it).

Yes, the logs in that picture are almost all Ash. We are a very Ash heavy wood and have been hit very hard by dieback. Pretty much all the crowns of the trees we fell are shattering on impact and it's a sobering sight walking around in the summer. The only change we have made really is to accelerate the felling, chasing Chalara around the Wood to extract some value from the timber before it deteriorates too much. We are getting better at recognising potentially resilient trees in the winter, the canopies still have a slightly 'springy' look to them. We are leaving any of these specimens and will monitor them over the next few years. It is possible that removing infected trees from around the strong ones may help them fight off the fungus. We are lucky in that we get very good birch regeneration from seed in the previously ash heavy areas, as long as we manage to keep the deer numbers in check!

Wide Ridening XVIII: While I'm at it I'm sure you're all on tenterhooks waiting to hear how the ride edges are getting on! It's been a while so first a quick recap. Stage one was to clear the ride edges of most of the trees: Stage 2 was the monster mucher to take out the stumps over half the newly cleared area: Stage 3 was to selectively mow to encourage the desired three zone growth profile: Now that everything has started to settle down after this admittedly 'heavy handed' intervention we are starting to reap the rewards. We are getting fantastic wild flower swards in the two zones closest to the centre and the third zone which wasn't mulched is developing into excellent coppice like nesting habitat. These ride edges were previously very floristically poor due to the decades of heavy shading. For more info on exactly why this work was undertaken have a quick shufti back at page 16.

Oaky bloke: Part of our winter felling activities last year included a handful of Oak stems. These are taken out of coppice compartments and along ride edges if we feel they are over represented and casting too much shade for the regeneration to get away. Another friend of ours helped us with a good few days of coppicing and ringing up. In return I offered him three standing Oaks that we wanted to come down. He felled the trees, milled them up and then built this for one of his customers. Pretty darn good I thought, especially as it is his first attempt at Oak timber framing. It's really nice to see where some of the millable timber that comes out of the Wood ends up. Ordinarily it gets taken away on a big timber lorry never to be seen again. Also nice for our friend to be able to carry out the whole process from tree felling to finished building.