Billhook

And another

Another photo

The man who sent me the photos said that he took it to the Antiques Roadshow the other day and none of the experts or anyone in the two thousand strong crowd knew what it was. Yes I think some sort of die perhaps was put in the square cradle to imprint a shape or letters on a flat strip of metal which would be trapped by the four wing nuts . But quite what the round bit at the front is for is beyond me.

Another picture

What is this?

from a farmers point of view I would have said that it would be much easier to tip some obnoxious translocated type chemical around the roots. A job that could be done quickly without the noise and mess of a drill. With a drill you would have to somehow inject chemical without making a mess of yourself, the tree and the ground around. Plus you would not manage to inject enough chemical into a hole that size plus I do not think it would affect the whole tree from that point without a form of dripfeed. The clue is the lavender and it may have been as simple as him tipping a bucket of drain cleaner or Harpic around the base, perhaps on several occasions. A trail camera like a Bushnell which is automatic and has night vision, would be the answer for any future activity, then you have clear evidence and a date and time. Making accusations without hard evidence is hopeless, as would paying for a soil analysis or involving lawyers.

Listening to someone in distress about the fact that their massive old beech/elm/oak has just come down in their beautiful garden. There is no access for big machinery and how on earth are they going to remove it without making a great mess. Along comes Billhook with the mighty Lucas saw. Lays down planks and tarp to protect the lawn and catch the sawdust. Watching their cynical expressions as the wappy looking saw is set up, wondering how such an apparently unsturdy thing can deal with such a huge tree. Seeing the change of attitude when the job is done and Billhook has been lucky enough to have no problems. When it has gone well I never have a problem with payment.

Excellent tool. It seemed a bit expensive and I thought that I could slap one together in the workshop but on closer inspection there is definitely more to it than that! Since I have a forklift I thought that I might not use it at all but actually have ended up using it all the time. Taking firewood offcuts from the Lucas to the Palax Combi Taking sawn boards from the Lucas to the drying shed Taking out cuttings. Watering the new orchard using a 50 gallon barrel and a Stiga mower which I bought cheap off Ebay as it had no cutting deck. It happens to be the same width as the Arbtrolley so is very handy in gardens or when I have a full load to pull uphill! I made a detachable hitch and if I have a very heavy load and a distance to pull it I can always hitch it on the car. It would be quite useful to have a dumpy type bag which fits over the poles for lighter stuff like leaves and sawdust. I thought that I had seen one somewhere, but perhaps it was another make.

You really are a fantastically talented photographer Sean. It may well be that your situation will give you the time to see things in greater and greater depth. I would love to buy a book of your photographs if you put one together.

The trouble is that although the branches look dead, covered in lichen, they are in fact still alive. I have heard the rhyme and never thought it was anything but somebody trying to be clever. However of all the many walnut trees on the farm, some of which are fine looking "balanced" trees, the one that has produced the most fantastic walnuts is a smaller tree on a windswept field boundary which leans over at about 30 degrees and which I have caught by mistake with the plough on several occasions. So it has had a beating. The walnuts are too big for most nutcrackers. The tree in the photo always yielded plenty of much smaller mean little walnuts which the rooks enjoyed before we had time to collect them

I presume that the Walnuts that are grown for their wood will be different from the ones grown for the nuts.

Thanks for all that information. The cows never seem to be near the trunk as the branches come down low to act as a fence. There are only ever three or four animals in that field as it is quite small. We have a two acre walnut plantation on the farm which was on the 1832 map There are half a dozen very old looking trees looking slightly knackered but no bigger than the one in the photo. They could be originals I suppose. I know that the one in the picture was planted by my Gt Gt Uncle in 1871 on his 21st birthday. Some of the old men in the village said that they can remember him before the war when they were young boys. They would nick the walnuts and scoot off on their bikes but if he caught them he would chase them and shove his walking stick through the spokes of their bikes. He would probably be arrested now for child molesting!

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!