Billhook

It certainly came back from the dead last year, but the amount of lichen on the branches worries me. On the plus side it does seem to be evenly late all over with no dead branches anywhere What is the natural lifespan of a Walnut? There are two on the other side of the park with smaller trunks which have died, but they had a hollow rotted out trunk due to water ingress higher up. This one seems to be sound in that department. Nothing I can do about it if it is just old age, but it would be depressing to see it go as it dominates the view from our house to the parkland.

It may cost a bit to fly him over from Finland! The point about an axe v a mechanical splitter is not so much the swinging effort using the axe but I find the most tiring thing is bending down and picking up the pieces and throwing them into a pile, and that is just the same for both methods. A knotty bit of wood takes just as much trouble to extract from a mechanical splitter so it is best to have a separate pile for those as has been suggested. If you have a Fiskars X27 which is relatively light, and put the wood in a tyre on a block, (like matey in the video), I would challenge a mechanical log splitter of the kind first mentioned for a day's work. If I had a really big pile i would probably hire a proper processor for a day. Then you would see some work done and it may be cheaper than buying a splitter. One other advantage of the axe is that it keeps you warm on a cold day!

The Body Mass Index, BMI | Healthy Homeboy Mike Tyson 5' 10" 220 pounds BMI 31.6 when fighting fit and mean with it. Try calling him a fat bastard in the ring!

Just found the pictures of it taken same time last year. 26th May first two then 22nd June coming into leaf before making a full canopy later on. Just seems very late compared to the others in the last picture

W These pictures were taken today May 29th and this Walnut tree is only just starting to bud. It did exactly the same thing last year, looking dead until June but burst out into full leaf eventually, with no dead limbs. The leaves were much browner than the other Walnuts in the field which are way ahead in terms of leaf. There is a lot of lichen on the branches. Is this the start of the death of the tree or do some Walnuts carry on for years like this? It was planted in 1871 so it may be nearly 150 years old.

Sounds like another fast rope scenario!

Student-built wheelchair runs indefinitely on solar power You are putting a very brave face on a very difficult situation. I hope that you find some of these links helpful, not just for the potential to overcome some of your difficulties, but also I hope that you find it helps to know that so many of us are thinking about you and your problems and trying to support you.

Theodore Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Couple of links about paraplegic climbers. Sean O'Neill has developed a harness for extreme rock climbing. (3000 foot vertical ascent!) Not suggesting anything so dramatic but I am sure that the harness system could be adapted for tree climbing to give you access to the canopy if you wished. [ame] [/ame] Here is Sean O'Neills link Brothers Wild: Timmy and Sean O'Neill

Many of us working in the woods and with wood have had near misses and could easily be in your situation but for the Grace of God. You are inspirational to us all and a constant reminder to just take that little bit more time and care when working in a dangerous environment. You already have the love and support of your family and the good will of the arbtalk community. Love is a great healer. I have copied some links from youtube which I hope will be in turn an inspiration to you. There are many more out there. [ame] [/ame] [ame] [/ame] [ame] [/ame] [ame] [/ame] All the Best Sean.

I bow to your superior knowledge ( but only in this subject!) My memory fading again. Of course it was not on the cover but on page seven thousand and twenty three! ’The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing universe. For though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does make the reassuring claim that where it is inaccurate, it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it is always reality that’s got it wrong. So, for instance, when the Guide was sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Traal literally - it said “Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists” instead of “Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists” - the editors claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing; summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty, and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred…and in a moving speech held that life itself was in contempt of court and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off for a pleasant evening’s Ultra-golf. The Guide’s omissions are less easily rationalised. There is nothing on any of its pages to tell you on which planets you can expect suddenly to encounter fifteen mile high statues of yourself, nor how to react if it is immediately apparent that they have become colonies for flocks of giant, evil-smelling birds - with all the cosmetic problems that implies. The nearest approach the Guide makes to this matter is on page seven-thousand-and-twenty-three, which includes the words “expect the unexpected.” This advice has annoyed many Hitch-Hikers in that it is ‘A’ - glib, and ‘B’ - a contradiction in terms. In fact, the very best advice it has to offer in these situations is to be found on the cover. Where it says, in those now notoriously large and famously friendly letters, “Don’t Panic”.

I think I would be in danger of falling out of the cage just trying to look down her cleavage, so in that case I ought to be secured to the cage. What a dilemma!

As Dean says (and a rule to which he does not adhere I Note!) It's no good without pictures!

Because I can see that I am never going to convince many of you that just to have an unattached fast rope option is a good idea, perhaps it would be more interesting to have another Arbtalk survey. Fast rope down from 50 foot Who would you be prepared to do this for on a promise? Monica for me, it is hard to believe that she is fifty years old (youngster compared to me!) but has matured like a fine red wine. Just think, all that experience!

Monica Bellucci Color by marinameira on DeviantArt

A dozen possible reasons for needing the fast rope technique. 1. A gang of yobs tie up your groundie and start to have some fun with the controls. 2. A gang of yobs start hooning their cars around where you are set up, lose control and crash into a leg 3. There is a mechanical failure which causes the machine to topple but leaves enough time to grab the rope 4. There is a failure of the ground under one of the legs, perhaps an old manhole with a rusty lid then covered with tarmac but not apparent when setting up. 5. An electric cable which was well clear of where you are working is brought down and over by a vehicle running into it and the cable falls across the MEWP making it live. 6. A drunk driver ignores all the barriers and crashes into a leg 7. A stolen car chased by the police rams a leg. 8. A light aircraft with engine failure chooses to land in your vicinity and crashes into a leg. 9. A deadly poisonous snake had found its way into the box section overnight and suddenly appears in your basket. 10. The acetylene gas bottle you were using to do some cutting suddenly has a blow back and safety valve failure and starts to heat up. 11. The can of paint thinner tips over and there is a spark and the whole cage starts to burn. 12. Monica Bellucci walks under the MEWP and says that she will give you a freebie if you slide down the rope. 13.

[ame] [/ame] [ame] [/ame] If the alternative was certain death, I would opt for the steady handover hand descent with the loop over your foot but these Marines seem to do all right just pinching the rope between their feet, with a full back pack and weaponry.

I am not attached to the rope. It is just there as an additional safeguard in case something unexpected happens. On a positive note, if you bother to watch the video of the guy in the gym rope climbing, he demonstrates two methods of standing on the rope and taking both his hands off! He makes a fast descent at the beginning and he has no gloves on. I admit that I only knew the first technique of winding around your leg. At school only a few of us were strong enough to climb but we all did a descent. I suppose it has all been banned now for H &S reasons. I never hope to do this, it is never going to be a regular event, it is just there for belt and braces. Going back to the video, (I know that this thread has been going on for too long and I am sorry for those who have gone to sleep!) I am sure that what he demonstrates is a useful bit of knowledge to practise perhaps once or twice. You may one day need to know how to safely descend from a rope for unexpected reasons and he shows you how to do it.

As the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy states in bold letters on the cover. "Expect the Unexpected"

And here is a video of me practising my rope work! [ame] [/ame]

So you have done all your checks, put up barriers, mobile phone charged, machine in perfect condition. You are fifty feet up and one of these starts to appear. [ame] [/ame] No normal ground check would help as many are in built up areas with tarmac over them. You are telling me that you would not grab the rope if it was there. Not the greatest option I grant you but it has to be better than the alternative of going over with the basket.

But surely that is exactly what I am doing? Planning ahead and giving myself another chance. Assume that the machine is tested and the operator is trained and everything is nearly new. I am not talking about operator of machine error but the sort of events that go on in the real world like the incident with the bus. Yes there may well not have been anything suitable to attach a rope or fall arrester above where they were working, but do you not think that it would be good plannig to have the extra safety measure. The Titanic analogy is rather better than I first thought. They like you thought that they had every safety feature thought out and tested. It could not possibly sink with all those watertight doors. I am sure that they had a tickbox of a checklist before they set sail. Hydraulics, tick, radio, tick, lifeboats ahhh now we won't be needing many of those will we? Lifeboats are dangerous on the high seas anyway and people might suffer rope burns trying to slide down into them. Imagine being 50 foot up on your tickboxed cherry picker on a building site and one of these guys turns up unexpectedly [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aR3iDs-H-8[/ame]

So to be quite clear about this, if you had the option of falling 50 feet attached to a MEWP platform or grabbing (literally) a lifeline you would choose to go down with the machine??? Don't think you would have done very well on the Titanic with that mentality.

It is not good but twenty minutes is a long time and it would not take long to call for help on the mobile. Surely given the option of dangling for a bit or going down with the machine, the dangling has my vote! My original question was about what kind of rope system would you use to exit the cage in the event of a mechanical or electrical failure. These things happen in spite of Loler and all the checks you should do. Even if you had a groundie the machine may not operate and you need to come down. It cannot be any more unsafe than coming down from a tree or abseiling. At the moment I have the fall arrester which is heavy and cumbersome to rig up but which does the job and gives me free movement in the cage. I also have this thick hemp rope as another option. This rigging up time is not so bad as I spend a lot of time in one place when painting. All I was asking was is there a better way as to me lashing myself to the cage is signing your own death warrant. Surely also in a 140 ft Genie there is something very wrong with the design if by pulling a lever you go down so fast that you come out of the cage. My machine works in a very steady manner.

Can you just explain that one again please and tell us what the outcome was. I have a Troll Lynxx full harness which I use with the fall arrester.