Billhook

It was put on your back, you could not lift it onto your back. I forgot to add to the other theme, when I was but a lad, about being asked to go to the workshop to fetch a tub of elbow grease...........

Graham is correct, it was 18 stone sacks of beans not 16 stone. Hedge sparrow I feel that 100 cwt of cement would have quite a detrimental effect on the body and 200cwt (10tons) might just leave you feeling a little flat!

Normal farmworker test in Norfolk! Sort the men out from the boys. Started with 16 stone sacks which were put on your back with a sack lift, but eight stone sacks were normal to be lifted off the ground. I have a video somewhere of me doing ten "push-ups" from the shoulder with a four stone weight. Cannot do that anymore. Not so much the actual weight but the bloody awkwardness of the thing which made it difficult.

I'm diamond tipped at 60 But I can still lift two four stone weights slowly above my head and clack them together! (That's 2x56 lbs to the over 40s and 2x25kg for the young'uns.)

Just saw a Jay today on my morning bike ride and realised that it was the first I have seen or heard this year. Previous years the woods have been full of them and their loud scolding. Anyone else notice a decline?

Two Years ago? That means he will have served two years and will be out of jail by now. These people walk amongst us!

It seems I was wrong about that.....

Pub brawl becomes chainsaw rage | Newcastle Herald Chainsaws are seen to be deadly weapons, but I think it would be easier to deal with a bloke wielding a chainsaw than say a Samurai sword or a gun or even an axe or slasher. Would you not just throw coats and clothing at him until it clogged the saw or am I being naive.

Arrive to work on time, ready to go, with everything sharp, including your brain!

In the colder Winters before this last one I saw the Barn Owls out a lot in the day time, obviously struggling for food so I built a small platform on top of a six foot pole for them in our open fronted shed. I bought a hundred frozen day old chicks from the pet shop and put them in our freezer. Each evening in the harsher weather I put three in the microwave and put them out on the platform. I never saw the owls in the shed but they were gone in ten minutes! Last Spring as the weather was improving I did my duty again and was surprised to see old Barny sitting on the side of a trailer with a vole in his mouth. He was waiting for me and the message was obvious. "I am sick to death of those bloody day old chicks so for God's sake don't bring me any more!"

Something is not right with half the Ash trees on the farm here in Lincolnshire. Whether it is the season or disease, many look to have only half a normal leaf canopy, which makes the keys very visible since they have not dropped, which again gives the appearance of a sick tree. It is most obvious when you see a healthy tree alongside a poor one, so it points much more to disease though I have not identified Chalara There is a lot of lichen forming on the branches of the poor Ash and a previously very healthy Walnut in parkland (planted in 1871) suddenly last year became covered in lichen and only has a few tiny leaves today (June 2nd) The Chestnuts had an attack of leaf miner but that has not shown recently. An large Oak again in the park is half dead with Stag's head. The Elms that the farm had in abundance fifty years ago are still there in massive numbers mainly in the hedgerows, no mature trees and at about fifteen years they succumb to the DED but they are waiting for the day when the beetle or disease mutate or die out so let us hope that this will be the case with the Ash. Perhaps these diseases happen again and again over centuries and outside our timescale, a species is dominant, becomes wiped out except for a reserve of smaller trees and another takes over.

Very sorry to hear this and your post has prompted me to get off my Harris and try and sort some security out here. Three or four years ago I bought a little Chinese camera thingy for about £100 which is battery powered. It is called a MMS Mobile (AV) monitor and can send three pictures ti my phone and email three images which apparently are admissible in court as well as sending me a text when the camera is activated. There is no need for a third party server. It is the right direction but I bought it off ebay and I cannot find any more! Does anyone know of a good system which can operate several cameras and send me a text every time one is triggered so even when I am abroad I can scroll through the cameras to check on things. I could then phone police or neighbours to try and catch them. Have tracker systems improved enough to make it worthwhile to fit to smaller items like chainsaws?

Just listening to Bob Flowerdew on Gardeners Question Time yesterday talking about layering and he said with vines and Clematis he trains a shoot to go through a plastic flowerpot, damages the stem a little to encourage rooting before filling the pot with compost, (I suppose rooting compound would help) and then holds the pot in position with a couple of clothes pegs. Once the layering has taken place just cut the stem and continue in the greenhouse. The Elm may look a little strange for a while bearing odd looking fruits, but it seems like a good idea so I will give it a go.

Serendipity or Synchronicity or both!

I rather thought that it was due more to the bark starting to change from smooth to cracking up as the trees grow bigger, say fifteen years without being trimmed. The cracks allow the beetles entry to spread the disease. If your brother keeps trimming perhaps the bark remains smooth.

Alec When I click the "upload an image" icon it tells me to enter the URL of the image which I did copying the one from Flickr. with no result here on the page. When I upload onto other sites,say Pistonheads, it goes through the procedure you describe and uploads onto its own photo site and all seems very easy and is something I have done successfully many times. Btggaz The root cutting idea seems to be another option, but I was wondering if there may be a problem with the cloning aspect in the same way as suckers may be from a different root stock, especially since the tree is a "specimen" planted in the middle of parkland in full view of the main house. I do not know how much experimenting went on in Victorian times with different root stocks, but I know that they were keen on their trees around here.

By the way, why didn't my pictures come out as a photo on the page. I thought that I followed the instructions after clicking the "post an image" icon

All very helpful, thank you. Only thing left to do is to try everything and report back!

Thank you Alec for the detailed reply and yes what I want is a clone of the tree that I have observed now for several years recovering from a little sniff of the disease each Autumn. Just need a bit more detail here "If you take them in June you need to cut the leaves to half their length and pot in a 50:50 sharp sandotting compost mix, burying a couple of inches. It is best if you use hormone rooting compound." Where is the best place on the tree to take the cutting.? How long a twig do I need? Do I need new growth? Do I need to cut the twig at a particular point? Do I need to split or slit the bark at all to help the rooting compound Is there any benefit in trying to layer the lower branches into the ground where possible? Why do you need to cut the leaves to half length?

On the farm here in Lincolnshire we have been devastated by the Dutch Elm disease mainly in the 70s and 80s. There are many Elms in the hedgerows and woodland that are still going strong until they are about fifteen years old and the bark cracks and the beetle invades again, but they keep coming back from the suckers, I suppose waiting for the time when either the beetle or the fungus mutates. However in the middle of this Elm disease ridden woodland are two large mature trees one of which seems to be touched by the disease in the crown every Autumn to the same degree and this has been the case for some years. The one in the photo stands in open parkland whereas the other similar sized is in a hedgerow, but it has shown no signs at all of the disease. Several questions about cloning these trees. 1. Where is the best place to take a cutting, presumably away from the suckers. 2. What time of year or growth stage should this be. 3. What is the most successful method of turning the cutting into a tree

I sometimes have had the same problems with Ash. I always thought of it as a benign wood and never bothered with more than the helmet mesh when working the Lucas Mill! But now I treat it with the same respect that I treat Yew and wear a mask and goggles as my eyes suffer as well.

One good thing about chainsaws being bright orange and red is that you tend to see them out of the corner of your eye when reversing..............

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpy2dJUxkOA

Not quite sure what this guy cut but I am pretty sure it was the wrong rope

The first video looked bad but this one looks worse