10 Bears

Having just read the tree reports, as Gary says, the panel only advised, but said that 6 of the 8 should be retained, and 2 removed for fairly sensible reasons, ie dieback/fungal colonisation/wrong place, and heavy lean in to road/vehicle strikes. The video above, albeit a little one sided, gives an interesting account on the nature of the situation, ie that Amey and the council are tied in to a contract, and ultimately, the trees are down because Amey has to honour its contract and the council have to justify the massive investment they have put in. IMO, it is just a tree management tick box exercise so the council is seen to be spending its money wisely.

I wonder what it could have been?

You had to make me get MS Paint out again didn't you... The expertly drawn model is what I had in mind. Either a. A-frame acting as a prop with the red sections as 5T ratchet straps or similar. It is possible to do this with a third upright to the A-frame, thereby making a tipi or triple A-frame. Wedges at the bottom if they can be used depending on the ground. or b. a set of linear/single props at right angles to the tree in the direction of the lean. These could be nailed/screwed/strapped to the stem. Again, wedged if possible to secure them from movement. Either way, made with substantial timber eg 4"x4" minimum, but better with 4"x6" or 6"x6". Turns out not needed in this instance of course, but if the ground was soft and still had plate movement, I would have looked to support it before going out on the stem. Each to their own though I expect...

All went well obviously, but did you not think about propping/'A' frame before you went up it? Might have helped with the twitchiness...

I had a similar issue on a Husky 346, in that the kill switch would not turn the saw off so I used the choke to stop the saw. Stripping it down, I found that the 2 leads going to the switch had corroded through at one point, so I replaced/soldered/shrink wrapped the offending section and I was back in business. Perhaps this is a similar problem for you, and the potential break in the line is not fully corroded through so is partially short circuiting?

You're not wrong on this count, but to be honest, this type of technology has been around for many years for governments (not even thinking about what is available on the dark web). Have a read of this review of XKeyscore which the US NSA developed and our government has been accessing via the NSA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore Ultimately, as others have said, this new bill to affect a change in the law is simply to legalise something that has been happening for many years - so it will make little difference now...

Revisiting this thread as a funny thing happened on Saturday. Myself and 2 others were working in the front garden of a well-to-do property. The job was spike/dismantle a cypress, dismantle 2 large ash, re-pollard 1 large ash, fell 3 smaller ash and 3 smaller beech. Process for logs and chip all arisings on site. So there was lots happening on the site, big saws, trucks, chipper, climbing etc. The work zone we established obscured a section of the driveway so no vehicles could get up and we left a sectioned off pedestrian area for passage by our site. About 2:00pm, a car pulls up to visit the house and has to stop short of the work zone. The passenger door opens, with the passenger still talking to the driver as they got out. I called a halt to proceedings to allow them to pass safely, and that is when the passenger stepped out from behind the car door to reveal his splendour! He couldn't have looked more like this if he tried - Foppish hair, crappy beard, check shirt and skinny blue jeans! The best bit was as I had stopped the site, we were all stood there in our gear, covered in dirt and chip, sweating from the graft, and had to stand and watch him walk past us, while he got his head down after him turning quite red and scurrying past. I said 'hello', and he mumbled something into his tan leather boots. We couldn't help but roll about as he went in the house! All very unprofessional I know, but it was hilarious at the time...

No problem. Sent via the arbtalk app, hence the brevity...

I know you said hire, but there are 3 on ebay at the moment from £2500 to £2800. See timber trailer hiab | eBay Could it be worth a small investment for future work?

Have you thought about posting an advert or contacting course leaders at the Newton Rigg/Askham Bryan campus?

Agree - I would auger that size on green logs, but depends on how many you are doing as it could become hard work...

Not a lot else matters once the cider has fermented... except where your next pot of cider is coming from! I (along with several friends) help a family from the village who have a good sized orchard, with their 'apple day' that they host each year. Basically a load of families all get together, harvest the apples, play games, drink, eat, play more games, then chop, mush and press a lot of the apples for juice and cider that gets consumed over the year - until we all do it again the next year. All very much good fun. The apples that go in the cider are a mixture of everything - cookers, eaters etc. and it doesn't really matter just as long as they are not the apples already fallen to the ground and turned bad. I am certain there are the occasional invertebrates in the mix, but as you press you extract the juice into a barrel (you could pass through muslin if you want, but I don't think there is any point - we don't), and the pulp containing the invertebrates bodies is left behind and disposed of. So, I wouldn't be concerned about the potential for contamination from a few moth/grub bodies as in reality I think very little would get into the end product, and if you think about it, you are more than likely consuming the same amount of contaminants whenever you buy similar products from the supermarket...

I appreciate you are trying to offer a guarantee of sub 20% MC - but I think you are doing your customers a disservice if you think that they couldn't understand the difference between green, seasoned and kiln dried. People ask for green as they have the space to dry it themselves and want a cheaper price. Otherwise they ask for seasoned as they need dry wood to burn now. In my opinion, suppliers in the market place who, like yourself, praise the virtues of kiln dried being the best way to achieve sub 20% MC are doing the market, and importantly, the environment, a greater disservice then firewood suppliers who use air dried/seasoned as their method of controlling moisture content. I also appreciate your statement that you won't sell anything you wouldn't use yourself as an indication of product quality. However, the fact that your principle product is birch is not a great sign either way. Of the common timber species used for firewood in the UK, eg oak, ash, sycamore, hazel, hawthorn etc., birch has the lowest calorific value and as a consequence, the lowest KWh/ODT (Oven Dry Tonne) output as well. You say these birch logs offer "high and intense heat", well when considering KWh/ODT, I would state that evidently they don't in comparison to other firewood types. Another way of looking at your comment is that this essentially means they burn fast and therefore don't offer great value to the customer. Mixing in bark briquettes simply means the customer has to use another product supplied by you ie another financial tie-in, in order to maximise their investment. However, simply a seasoned, mixed hardwood supply would have better heating results. You say you get your product from FSC certified producers, but then side-step whether or not you would produce a chain of custody certificate. To my mind, without the CoC cert, stating that you operate a sustainable method is not tenable as there is no evidence to back it up. You may be able to get the evidence, but to me, the issue is what you are telling the customers from the perspective of your website or face-to-face. Here is the biggest bug-bear though. How on earth do you think you are offering an environmentally friendly product that has been artificially heated to accelerate moisture loss, then the product is transported approximately 1750 miles (my estimate for general Baltic areas), accruing embedded carbon costs at every mile of the transportation? It simply does not stack up that just because you are selling a 'natural' product, that this is somehow 'environmentally friendly'! You are massively industrialising a product with significant impact on the environment, without any mention of accounting for these negative impacts, and yet, you still state to the customer that this is an environmentally sound product. It beggars belief. In your words, you describe your product and services as "best value for money with as possible minimal harm to environment". In my opinion, a cursory look at the facts and your methods of operation would indicate that this is anything but the case.

Ha - really? I had never heard of snopes before, it was just the first article that came up with a contra-overview to make my point, hence my comment, "and of course the sources should be subject to further scrutiny". It was just an example of the lies, counter lies and utter nonsense you get on the web dressed up as 'real facts'. I will admit I've been guilty of it myself in the past - I'm certain I've quoted the 97% fact to someone ... and believed it was true because I read it on the web! It just goes to show that folk (and I certainly include myself here!) should drill down a little deeper and do their own research/come to their own conclusions before repeating and defending web-facts, although it can often be difficult to get to the original research/article - and again who often has the time? Either way, the lesson is; proceed with caution...

Just reading through the back messages of this thread and came across this quote which struck me as interesting, so I did a little wider reading. Essentially, the following article highlights the flaws in what is known as the Oregon petition, and broadly states that it is a useless measure: 30,000 Scientists Reject Anthropogenic Climate Change? : snopes.com But in the interests of comparison, I thought about the counter claim that '97% of all scientists agree that there is ACC' that was mentioned earlier in this thread, and came across this article that identifies where the original 97% claim(s) came from: Climate Change: No, It?s Not a 97 Percent Consensus | National Review Interestingly, the source seems to be a Masters degree student project. Now, both of these are media articles and of course the sources should be subject to further scrutiny, but I feel that there is a large degree of negative reporting on both sides, ie that folk only state the 'truth' as they see it (and as long as it fits with their argument!).

Yes, I struggled to find a single look up place too. You would have thought there was one - and easier to find, but evidently not!

There is this: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plant-health-controls and reference to using eDomero, but its not clear if the service is for export only, import only, both, or lookup.

David - stating the obvious probably, but presumably you have checked FERA, DEFRA, PHSI?

Yes he does have a DoC, but this would not fully absolve liability for the OP unfortunately - particularly if there was a subsequent failure or similar. There is a tenet that is applied generally in these situations, of the responsibility of the 'last professional on site'. In your example Matelot, the OP has both a legal and moral obligation to inform the owner, BUT, they are also being paid for this service. Even if the OP just takes photos and only says 'look at these', he has still given a professional opinion that something may be wrong and subsequently not taken the correct steps to formally inform the owner, or indeed, take appropriate remediation measures. This could be compounded if the person receiving the pictures was for all purpose, a layman, not an expert, like the OP. As the OP was the last professional on site - potential liabilities (to whatever degree) would still lie at his door, hence IMO, the OP still needs PI and should do this properly.

OK - Some questions. Comments in italics/bold are from your website: We offer only carefully selected products, which are most suitable for open fires, multi-fuel burners, and firewood stoves. How do you define 'most suitable'? Is this a quantified measure in any way? We focus on making the wood fuel purchase process less overwhelming, easier, faster, and more pleasant... Wood fuel ordering is easy. With just a few clicks, your order is completed on our website, and processed immediately. How is this process 'less overwhelming/more pleasant etc.' and in truth, any different from ringing up and asking for a load of logs? We care about our environment. All of our products are sourced from well-managed, sustainable forests! What are the sources? Are you FSC or PEFC certified and could you produce a CoC cert? As you are selling prominently birch - I presume your source is a Scandinavian county (but will happily stand corrected). By what method is your kiln fired/heated, and exactly where is the drying taking place? In case you are wondering why all the questions - firstly, I am not a firewood business/competitor, but I want to get a good handle on the reality of the claims you make on your website and subsequently make a balanced judgement.

I agree with Paul here. You cannot remove liability when you give a professional opinion (either written or verbally), just because you don't want to accept it. Get your PI and do this properly. I'll happily give you direct advice if you want, either on here or email/PM.

The BBC have simply reported observed facts, ie the speeches that Trump has given. The fact he publicly denounces the existence of climate change and reportedly intends to subvert the Paris climate agreement, the impact of these moves will be felt globally and for many subsequent generations. It matters not, whether the BBC are seen as being balanced. They are simply the method by which it was reported what this unpredictable menace has said.

America - what have you done? This does not bode well, potentially for the whole world... US election 2016 results: Five ways a Donald Trump presidency changes the world - BBC News

Looks interesting... How about the 'team' lifting a log over an obstacle? eg 2 platforms of increasing height and bring the log up and over - similar to army obstacle carrying an injured soldier. Doesn't have to be very high, as you wouldn't want logs dropping from a great height. Not the same obviously - but perhaps some ideas here: [ame] [/ame]

Just another thought - I didn't mention staking. The tree would be best staked for support in its new location while the pit is still open. This way you can place the stake through the roots and not damage them when hammering the stake in firmly. Keep the stake about 2" away from the stem so this will prevent rubbing against the stake. A good cheap alternative to a tree tie is to use some old towelling - literally a towel cut into strips. You can figure of eight around the stem and stake and then bind the middle of the '8' with towelling to make it stiff and hold the tree away from the stake. The towelling will rot away after a couple of years, so that will be a good time to remove the stake too. Also, dont stake too high, the bottom 1/3 of the tree should be enough. The tree has to adapt to wind forces and if you stake too high, it wont develop correctly.