Peasgood

What is brown and sticky? A stick. That is my second favourite joke but the best one for this site.

He was holding the pig most likely.

Which part of log sales hasn't been working quite well for the last few centuries?

I don't have a grid connection but was quoted £20k + vat about 18 months ago, in hindsight maybe I should have taken the offer but as I didn't have £20k at the time it wasn't viable. The price of everything has gone up (very much including electric too) since then and it would be closer to £30k at a guess given the first quote did not include 140m worth of trench for cable. I am already running my workshop on a petrol generator, it is 6.5kw running power and is on it's limit when everything is going. I have to start things in the right sequence as the biggest motor takes a fair whack to get it going. The biggest downside is it uses 20 litres a day and running around with jerry cans to the nearest fuel station (which is not the cheapest) is a pita when I have no spare time to do so. I already have 1000l red on site so makes sense to change to diesel. I have a steel frame shed with a roof good for panels and a well insulated building I hope to make into a dwelling. My line of thinking was 10-20kva generator that will run both buildings with auto start that keeps batteries topped up if needed. Probably using Growatt or Victron and as I have no batteries at the mo I was thinking to dive straight in with LiFePo4. I can afford the mains connection now but feel being independent from the grid would be a smart move and smarter than just having a changeover switch for outages. I am little more than an interested amateur compared with you guys with experience and knowledge but trying to research it all. At the moment it is a bit of a tossup with grid connection or solar + batteries with generator in reserve but the cost of grid connection and price of electricity is favouring the latter right now. In fact a new 15kva generator running on red beats mains right now.

Interesting stuff there @Dean Lofthouse, it is something I am trying to plan for a bungalow I am working on. My plan wasn't for such a big generator though, everybody says go for the biggest you can afford but does it really have to be that big? I was thinking 20Kva would be more than sufficient and run my workshop when required. In my house I have a wood fired Aga type cooker that does all heating, DHW and cooking. A bit surprised you don't have similar but doesn't suit everyone I guess.

Dry leylandii, You can light a stick with a match, incredibly cheap.

Happy. What do you mean "Happy"?

You had best make the most of it while you can then because it will be banned soon.

Roundup is said not to have any residual effect but experience very much suggests otherwise to me. It might be worth trying a selective graminicide such as Fusilade (just kills grass) as you could be suppressing other "wildflowers" with the Roundup.

A chap in my long distant college days was not exactly practised in affairs with the opposite sex. After what was probably his first sortie ever he was bragging at how fast he had climaxed. Forever known as "Two Stroke Bob" from then on.

I think they were always effective. They had a reputation of not working when they first came out as unlike the other pellets you do not see the dead slugs so everyone assumed they weren't working. They were, it was just the slugs went back under the ground and died.

Copper is a very effective fungicide but not so sure it does much to slugs. Only way copper does anything to slugs that I know of is if you fasten a band of it to your raised beds they will not crawl over it. I assume it is a bit like us licking a 9v battery. Modern slug pellets are based on iron, ferric phosphate

There is a pole locally that is actually in the road. The pavement goes behind the pole. I can think of many more that are right on the very edge of the road so don't believe there is a minimum distance.

Just comes down to correct choice of herbicide in the following crop.

I am guessing but once the stores are full enough to fulfil contracts the price of potatoes can be so volatile it is often best to leave them in the ground until you know it is financially sensible to spend some money lifting them. They do keep fairly well in the ground as we rarely have prolonged spells of frost that will reach them.

I have grown raspberries commercially for decades, it is quite normal. Downside is that it is at the expense of next years crop. Last nights supper was home grown, outdoor, fresh dug new potatoes. They were nice too.

What heats your water now and what heats your house? ie are you trying to link into an oil fired system or do you just have an immersion heater and logburner?

Looks like he found something better to do after 12 hours baking his log.

My loft was full of vermiculite and my brother "hoovered" it all out with a big industrial sawdust collector. I don't think it would be too difficult to make your own. A powerful hoover piped into a 45 gallon drum with a flexible hose up into the loft. The hoover sucks it out into the 45 gallon drum.

I was thinking more like chainlink and concrete.

And none of those things happen any more do they

Are the pics before or after? After imo

I have always put better colours down to drier conditions which would explain poor colour this year in Canada give the news I've seen of the flooding. (It is a big country and no idea if it is all wet)

A bit odd to do your best to make an oak tree look like a gum tree, especially when the first thing the tree will do is to try and grow the "fluff" back again. Customer is always right of course.

Good advert for Ifors.