Mycoman

Interesting take on it.

Dumfries and Galloway is stunning and a bit off the beaten "head for the Highlands" track. Just turn left at Gretna Green....

I once had a client actually shout "Tiiiiiiiiimmmmmmbbbbbeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr!"

Totally, water men, or catchment managers, should be vital to hydrological works and carry great clout in the planning process. They should be funded by insurance companies, which stand save billions in the long run. and by agri-environment schemes.

Here's that pdf: http://www.fishactive.com/pdfs/Lge_Woody_Debris_and_Rivers_2011.pdf

I'm not really sure flooding is mostly caused by new housing schemes, tarmac, etc. Aerial photography shows that this is still largely a green and pleasant land. The main alterations to hydrology in a catchment must be from agriculture, draining fields, ploughing, overstocking (causes poaching) and in some cases plantation forestry. Urban areas are the victims, not usually the causes, of floods, it's just that there are more, and more spread-out, urban areas than before. Now I'm not having a go at farmers but do we as a country need to be striving for self sufficiency in food commodities from our farmland or could we use it to slow up water? Take out field drains, dig swailes, grow trees more sympathetically, allow rivers to meander (Google a booklet "Fish Live in Trees Too"), reintroduce beavers. Maybe the insurance companies would pay?

My Dad's mate got back to his car, found it had been bumped while he was away. There was a note under the windscreen wiper which read: "the people standing around think I'm writing down my name and insurance details but I'm not"!

Those containers (clean, obviously) fetch £5-6 from horsey types round here.

To be fair, he's only cutting half the containers up, allowing him to sell the others. Could they be stacked 2 high, meaning you'd only have to cut up a quarter of them?

I second that.

Mulberry?

48. Missed Iowa and couldn't spell Massachussetts.

A reasonable article on the matter: BBC Nature - Are birds of prey being unfairly persecuted?

BBC News - Buzzard capture plans abandoned after 'public concerns'

Impulse shopping to the nth degree: It was the kids' nursery outing to East Links fun farm near Dunbar (brilliant place, well worth a visit for anyone with little 'uns in south Scotland, none of that 'maximum age' nonsense). In the petting farm bit were lots of poultry. Now, not sure exactly how it happened (was busy in the dads pedal kart race), but wife left with 35 fewer pounds and 6 hens of indeterminate sex and breed and a turkey - all 3 weeks old and super, super cute. They're now in their own aviary - which we had anyway, used to be a pheasant pen - and giving great pleasure. Breeds, we think, are 3 Appenzeller (White, dark and brown), 1 Poland and 2 question marks. And we can't tell yet between cocks and hens. Likewise with the turkey. Were told it'd be ready for Christmas but got a strong feeling he/she'll love to a ripe old age...

But why is DEFRA - ie you, me and everybody - paying for research specifically into threats to pheasants? I'm a shooting man myself, but I can see why having taxpayers' money spent this way, in austerity Britain, isn't great PR for the country way of life. Better, surely, for a shooting organisation (or individual?) to fund it then trumpet any 'collateral benefits' in terms of protection of lapwings, etc.?

Update: wife's just been offered half a dozen laying quail. Any advice on these gratefully received.

We got six hens a couple of weeks ago, sharing them with our neighbours. This splits costs and, more importantly, chores. They're still too young to lay but hopefully there'll be enough eggs to share out. Got the coop free too. Breeds are: 2x speckeldy, 2x Light sussex star, 1 neras and a bluebell. I could watch them all day!

Lidl is great but it doesn't have all you want all the time. But it's always got cheap Haribo, Kinder bars, etc -bulgingcheekssmiley-

Can't remember a day I haven't used my Opinel for something. Newest use: Lego brick separator for my son.

Out of interest, would the beeatches need to be the same breed? If not, what does a mongrel duckling look like?

I want to build/create a barbecue and need inspiration so please can I see pics of what other Arbtalkers have got. And no calor gas ones, neither.

I've had an enquiry from a couple wanting to hold their wedding in a marquee in my garden. It's a biggish place, and 2 years ago my sister had her wedding here, 200 guests in a marquee, so I know it's feasible. The couple want max 150 guests, and we're half an hour from central Edinburgh. They also want to hold a humanist ceremony. The bride-to-be is an events organiser so will do all the arranging, we just provide the venue. Does anybody know what sort of amount we should charge? Did anybody have a similar wedding? It might be something we get into more seriously so I have to know if it's worth it. Thanks in advance for any advice.

A large building company is developing a brownfield site across the river from a piece of my land. I got a letter from the electricity grid company saying that they wished, on behalf of a client, to attach 2 stays to a power line pole in my field and they offered me £82.50 for this. I spoke to someone from the electricity company, who admitted their client was the developer and that they wanted the power line moved to accommodate more houses. I said I was not inclined to accept their offer, they said I could negotiate with the developer directly. So, where should I start? This isn't a children's hospital, it's a developer wanting to shoehorn in more houses. To what, if any, degree do I have a ransom here? What margin do big developers make from homes? Anyone had a similar situation?

An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a Dane, several Americans (including a Hawaiian and an Alaskan), an Argentinean, a Slovak, an Australian, an Egyptian, a New Zealander, a Japanese, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Uzbek, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, a Venezuelan, an Iranian, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Israeli, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Liechtensteiner, a Moldovan, a Syrian, an Aruban, a Mongolian, a Portuguese, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Cook Islander, a Norfolk Islander, a Haitian, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Georgian, a Bahaman, a Tajikistani, an Armenian, an Albanian, a Samoan, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a Virgin Islander, a Belarusian, a Qatari, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Canadian, a Cuban, an Azerbaijani, a Romanian, a Chilean, a Kyrgyzstani, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, an Ecuadorian, a Costa Rican, a Swede, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Bulgarian, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and two Africans walk into a fine restaurant. "I'm sorry," says the maître d', "but you can't come in here without a Thai."