pgkevet

I'll second using a spreadsheet..simpler than databases if only talking a couple of hundred clients but I wouldn't tend to use tabs for alphabetic names so much.. harder to run sorts for stuff pending or overdue. I'd probably use the tabs for quarters and new spreadsheets for your years. Most important is to keep backups..and more backups: a copy on the prime machine, another across a simple network to a second PC, a backup on a usb drive and another on some free cyberspace. And burn a disc every 1-3 months. OK I'm paranoid but I've seen what can happen.

If memory serves the Leeds Royal Infirmary has the National Poisons Information service... they provide info for medics (and vets) on poisonings and how to treat them and request feedback on each case...so a good chance that they would have some data on human cases per year. Whether they'll part with that info for a non registered user I can't say but this cause is worthwhile and they might.

A tree?

Playing devil's advocate: I have an older, doubtless innefficient multifuel stove running on logs and with it's back boiler it can heat the living room well but only just take the chill off the rest of the house and I'm guessing we got through some 12 tons of timber this mild 6mths. And guessing again I'd reckon we'ld have used £2K of oil if running that all the time instead...but would have been toasty. If I scale up those figures (more guesses) then 3-3.5K for a year here..so on your larger property and 2 cottages and a new efficient oil boiler...say 7K oil at current prices OR 40? 50? tons of wood for a year? That's a lot of timber..don't forget to factor in the capital costs and running/replacement costs of saws, chains, tractor, storage, PPE to get that timber...let alone your time And the differences in cleaning/maintaining wood stoves compared to oil stoves and the amount of brash and chip waste you'll be handling. Finally consider what happens from the viewpoint of risks to yourself in processing the timber and what happens if you get unlucky and unfit to go cutting it (age etc) especially if you say you can't accept external bulk loads. Could you earn more money doing something else with the time you'll spent cutting and carting?

This amateur just put 20 posts in using that type knocker..with a friend on 'tother side of post and workign together it wasn't too bad. If I'd used a sledge or mallet then i'd have had to cart something to stand on (and probably missed the post a few times too). A pilot hole makes is easier

..they'll nick those too..

The lines of the hare and the shading on the tree reminded me of this guy's work 100 years ago : Urânia - José Galisi Filho: The Genius of Josef Lada It does have a cosy feel to it although it'd be interesting to see the same logo 'modernised' - in the sense of losing shading colours and styalising the lines with an italic flow. That's not a criticism - I'd be intrigued to see it and if it came out as I envisage then no foul in having two logos: simple and detailed.

World cup then..wherethe Octopus God foretells...

..just like the cup final: which also ends up with the odd sacrifice:biggrin:

Religeons, like politics, start with good intentions and then become a way of elevating thier leadership or priests above the common man - an alternative model that can pull power from hereditary land-owing/kingship and impose itself on society. Any such 'organisation' depends on the suffering and down-tredding of it's followers to keep them in line, limit their ability to see the flaws inherent in the organisation and suppress those who speak against it. Whether you achieve that by brute force or by psychological tactics - from the wrath of a superior being, horrors in the afterlife or other brain-washing techniques is immaterial. It's the same thing. It happens to be cheaper to use natural occurences to support ones imposed viewpoint - thunderstorms, floods, freezes and other phenomena than depend purely on tales and miracles and create them and it's good practice to bond your subjugates together in a workign unity. Now whether that working unity is the building of a huge monument or a war again is academic...it's just that it'd easier to keep a 100year project going that new battles and battlefield casualties. look again and the simple acts of Thatcher and the Falklands opportunity and the fervour with which goverments rush to host the Olympics. the latter costs about the same, has less downside risk on casualties and is closer to home so folk can 'see the results'. The only real problems there are that both modern acts don't engage enough of the populace. By all means celebrate the facts of nature and it's seasons and interactions and accept it's beauty where you see it but don't go making up fairy tales and then believing them. i get the local zealots recruiting drive round regularly - a car-load of women whose spokeswoman always starts with the same lines "Isn't this valley beautiful? Doesn't it make you realise there had to be a divine hand behind the design?" To which i reply "If there was then it's the same guy who flooded New Orleans, Whose Tornadoes rip the heart out of the midwest, who burns the south of France and shakes Christchurch apart and drowned Boscastle and regularly starves Africa."

I find it amusing that when an unusual occurence happens folk shot for the bizarre explankations instead of the more likely. A rocking chair..well settlement in a house, expansion, draughts, it being on an area where passing heavy traffic resonates the floor..even TV sounds could cause resonance.. A laundry basket's strength will vary hugely with heat..steam from the bath? or a chemical leak from the make-up contents or a nearby radiator coming on for a time..even settlement of it's contents will change the strength of it's sides. ..just thoughts..

The organic nature (pun intended) of this profession and it's charges and surroundings means there cannot be a perfect system. A GPS location backed up with a 360deg picture and a Transponder in the target tree would be about as good as it gets...but nothing is infallible if someone wants to beat the system.

For those folk that believe in the quantum multiverse theory where reality is a matter of the subset of reality quanta that the mass of population can perceive then one can suggest that ghosts, fairies and the like are due to a bleed-through of other reality quanta and/or a change in the subset used to define the current reality - due to environmental, mass hysterical or chemically induced cerebral changes. ...or i'm just full of BS :-)

I doubt for the moment that the matter of legality is relevant here unless there was an insurance claim as a result of the work when in any event the matter would be a minefield between the farmers own cover and the chainsaw operators. Since safe working practices apply in both instances the simple answer is to make sure that no person or object can be hared during the works...as in be well clear of everything and anyone and watch out for stray walkers and animals.

I'm guessing sawdust with epoxy resin would be OK since epoxy grouts were used on tiled kitchen work surfaces. It'd probably be Ok to use a silicone sealant in there if you don't mind the rubbery feel and it's only small cracks but if you have a wife like mine who chucks everything into the dishwasher then that's your biggest challenge..... ..her next chopping board has to be a sheet of titanuim and a knife sharpener!