openspaceman

I did a few, less now that used ones don't come my way, but I didn't get them as good as new by a fair margin, such that I would never expect a climber to use them again but fine for a bit of pruning.

I mostly try and avoid producing it at home by ringing up logs elsewhere, as a result I can often fill a plastic bag with it and put it at the bottom of the fire after removing ash and then start the fire on top. If I had lots as a result of producing firewood commercially and no space to dump it I would use a simple vortex burner in a 45 gallon drum with a paddle fan to suck it and blow it in. Maybe even dilute the flue gas with lots of air and use it for drying.

Enjoying the heady smell of gorse bloom in the warm air with the dogs. None of them mine nor arbdogs but I don't think any of us would get any exercise if I didn't walk with them.

Yes you normally have the pressure from rollers pushing a thin layer of sawdust through the die plus the heat from friction with the die locally softening lignin to bind and form a skin on the pellet as it cools. The actual bonding within the pellet is fairly weak hydrogen bonding of the fibres as the pressure forces them together. The fibres in newsprint are mostly held together this way but that achieves it by pulping the fibres in a wet process, then drying. Medium pressure briquettes can be made in a press using a wet process but would need a binder of smaller fibres or a glue like starch from boiled potato peelings. The Legacy Foundation promote blending various waste products into cooking briquettes for sub Saharan Africa, partly to alleviate pressure on trees. Here I would be tempted to add some dilute PVA and mixing well before compressing.

Yes, I have not kept up with the legislation but it remains a hazardous waste and rules have to be followed for spreading on land. Twenty or more years ago the water companies invested in Short Rotation Arable crops to provide a non food outlet for the sludge but I don't expect many farmers are still involved in growing it.

Yes it makes sense but most of us are plumbed into the wet sewage system, mostly for historical hygiene reasons, which means most of the fertiliser value goes out to sea. The solids do get put back on the land but there are issues with heavy metal contamination as there is no way of separating other wastes, like run off from roads, yards etc. from the crap and piss. Even cow slurry is not that rich as a feed stock; what it is good at is supplying the bacteria that have evolved to be in the hot, oxygen free, wet stomach that live on volatile solids produced from the food the cow eats and respiring methane and water. So if you want to produce biogas you need a warm, anaerobic soup of food and fibre and inoculate it with fresh cowshit. Maize silage is a good start but precision chopped grass silage is good too so is sugar beet. Basically the best feed for the gas production is the same as what the cow would eat. That is not to say there is no beneft in adding shit because that will produce some gas but the main benefit is in reducing the pathogens in it before returning the digestate to the land. yes, it looks like solar PV and battery will supply all my electricity needs for March through October but that still leaves a shortfall November through February. Wood does the space heating

I'm not at all sure but the crane looks like one I had on a new botex trailer in about 1989 when Gordon Hoy still ran botex from Devon. Mine had curved round pins I thought but I have no photos from the period.

What will you feed it with? I think a hydro scheme is still your best bet

Yes on second look the stems don't look hazel, and the leaves look more like lime, buds would be the confirmation

My guesses 1 Lawsons cypress 2 Holly 3 Pissard plum 4 Beech 5 Horse chestnut 6 Holly 7 Hazel 8 Ivy on a dead tree 9 Looks like two different trees, beech then sycamore butt 10 Maple covered in ivy 11 Robinia stump

The other thing that occurs to me is group killing by lightning strike. It's not the direct hit which normally blows off a strip of bark from the sudden evolution of steam but the ground current that kills the surface roots. The only time I saw where this was the alleged reason a group in a 30m radius area were killed but they all seemed to die at once.

That rules out chlorosis then, sp is very drought resistant too. If there is no butt rot then Fomes is unlikely the cause. What chance some sort of lawn treatment has affected them?

The blue stain is a fungus that has invaded the sapwood after it is functionally dead, so not a pathogen. The rings look very close suggesting the tree has been stressed for many years. What soil is it, this is similar to the effect of chlorosis on a thin rendzina soil

I'll raise you with clematis

Fascinating, thanks

In 1974 the government proposed changing the tax status of forestry land, to close a loophole which was the basis of funding for The Economic Forestry Group, for which I worked, So my foreman and area manager took off with others to protest at the houses of parliament. Said foreman equipped himself with the Jonsered 621, bar mounted minus chain and off they went by train and tube leaving me to bash my way through goat willow encroaching the rides with a long handled hook (known as a horse tripper in the trade). Apparently engines were revved (silly thing to do with no chain and a screwed on clutch) but lawmakers were not impressed.

Yes, I ran a couple of tanks of fuel through the one you deleted the accelerator pump on and for simple logging I could not notice the lack of accelerator pump. The lady owner hasn't used it yet but I'm sure she will not feel it at all lacking.

I was thinking more likely Austrian in a garden setting.

The front one looks like scots with the thinner orange bark higher up but the coarser barked one behind may be P nigra of some variety unless it too has orange bark higher up. As Stubby says the grouping of the needles would help.

Still on the subject of shake in sweet chestnut here is a picture, it's just a bit of branch wood that I am splitting for firewood. You can see the grey patches mottling the sound wood where the shake is a bit random and not showing much in the end grain. This is of course a separation within the wood; when you are felling you often become aware of it as a tannin rich liquid seeps out of the cut from where it has filled the shake in the standing tree. Incidentally I used to sell sweet chestnut for export to Portugal in the early 80s, their buyers were blissfully unaware of ring shake as it seems it does not occur in their trees but also they were milling thin random width boards for draw bottoms as well as table tops (and castanets 🙂) so they may have worked around it..

That just about sums up my experience with my garden boundary hedge on poor soil. Over 40 years with light annual clipping it had grown up and wider. Mixed holly and hawthorn and ivy which completed covered a small building with stems 100mm had expanded into the hedge and completely smothered two hawthorn plants without my being properly aware. I have now reduced the height and width severely and am controlling the ivy ground layer to some extent as it takes advantage of the extra light before the holly and hawthorn establish a thicker matrix. I have a feeling the hedge was previously all hawthorn as it was a field before the house was built in 1862.

Would the top stratification choke tube with the purge line fit the new carb?

Looks like a Ganoderma infestation and a bit of lean Google Maps GOO.GL Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps. I don't envy those London tree carers looking after these old specimens , especially after the history they have been through. I rarely venture into London but when partaking of lunch in one of these squares on a sunny summer's day and seeing all the people sunbathing I do worry.

It looks like it was held up by only one substantial root, all the other major roots showing white patches yet the surface feeder roots all seem to be functioning and thus the crown still looks sound. Streetview from last May Google Maps GOO.GL Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.