Billhook

Just found this old 78 record in the attic, worth a listen! Wish my chainsaw was as sharp¬

I suppose if people were hungry due to lack of nitrogen we could always increase beans and peas for the nitrogen and not inefficiently process the beans through cattle Then there are the oceans to harvest seaweed kelp etc but best not go there as we have managed to fcuk them up enough already

No not really fair. There were some farmers making headlines by tearing up hedges and trees and making huge fields with continuous cereals but here in Lincolnshire with better soils we had good rotations with potatoes and sugar beet and oilseeds as healthy break crops and this farm and many around here have seen sustainably high yields and much more informed and intelligent use of chemicals and fertilisers which had to be reduced by regulation and sheer costs. Our soils have not been denuded and we have not changed fertiliser and chemical use much in the last forty years, The yields seem to improve gradually which has a lot to do with improved plant breeding We are proud to have kept our woods and hedges with little loss of profit i have been at the sharp end of chemicals for many decades, my father more so and I have never heard of anyone being made ill around here by their use People all the time give us grief about chemicals but think nothing of taking headache pills, sleeping pills, vitamin supplements and any pill recommended by a doctor which are all chemicals and undiluted as well. We could easily feed you all but several things need to change Firstly there is so much waste caused by supermarket obsession with the visual impact of a few blemishes Then there is the size grading Then there are the sell by dates All of these causing perfectly healthy food to be chucked out Then there is the fact that food is too cheap and people will just cut the breast off a chicken for instance or not eat liver and kidney Then there is the obesity epidemic and the fact that people eat too much Then there is the trend for importing exotic foods at great cost to the environment Then there is the current trend for rewilding and greening taking land out of production as well as land sold for planning

In 1984, there was enough food produced in Britain to feed the nation for 306 days of the year. Today, that figure is 233 days, making 21 August 2020 the day that the country would run out of food if we were relying solely on British produce. But what does this actually mean and could we be producing more?

Confucius say “ People ask me about the future . I say to them, if you want to know the future, firstly you must examine the past “ By 1984 we were about 80% self sufficient but as you say it has been reduced to around 50% It will always be the case that if people are hungry, they will not give a damn about the birds, the bees and the herbicides as long as they have their food, and if they are cold they will not give a damn about the birds, the.bees, the trees or Climate Change as long as they have their fuel.

If you ask me everyone around farming, the machinery, the inputs, general professional charges, all look at the price of wheat and adjust upwards regardless of supply or cost of production ! So we farmers (moaning as usual) end up with the same low profit. So I am banking on fire wood to pay for Christmas!

I see that Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, is pinning his hopes in the Met Office forecast of a mild wet Winter and the hope that heating demand will not be great from the general population. As I have said many times as a farmer, if I had farmed by the weather forecast, I would have been bust years ago. They have not even been close on a daily basis let alone half a year away At the height of wheat harvest here on a Friday they predicted heavy rain on the Sunday so everyone went mad on Saturday bringing in wheat at a high moisture content causing massive drying costs. Of course no rain here in the Sunday. There are so many variables to the weather, particularly long range weather forecasts. So I will make a prediction that it will be the coldest Winter for twenty years due to decreased solar activity, increased cloud cover, larger hole in the ozone layer ( funny that we have not heard much about that recently) volcanic activity causing more cloud and blocking of sunlight Buy my firewood now!

Would it be good or bad to take a reasonable sized pipe into the roof space to draw air from there? Warmer air and venting the roof space at the same time??

I never gamble!

Nobody on the forum listens to me, my wife never listens to me, my bank manager never listens to me (mainly because there does not seem to be one), none so deaf as those who won't hear!

The point for me and possibly BigJ was that it was quite exciting to watch and dangerous but the point of the exercise was not to try and injure an opponent, just to be stronger faster and more skilled. Any injury was incidental and not the purpose of the competition. We have come a long way through the years from gladiators to bear baiting to cockfighting to badger baiting to dog fighting to otter hunting, bare knuckle fighting all of which have been outlawed. Fox hunting is nearly gone. Boxers suffer brain damage, look at poor old Ali, and now it seems that heading in football is to be reviewed The point is that you can have good sport without the need for anyone or thing to be injured.

You seem to be on your own here but I will offer some support. Really boxing appeals to one of our most primitive forms of entertainment, much like the gladiators of old, the baying crowds desperate to see bloodshed. Hopefully we were meant to have advanced in the same way that we stopped having baying crowds at public hangings and feel that putting people in prison with colour TV for life is a better way. Sport should have advanced to having far less physical contact , The web gives these examples Examples of non-contact sports include cricket, tennis, table tennis, badminton, golf, bowling, bowls, croquet, pool, snooker, bossaball, darts, curling, tug of war, bodybuilding, swimming, diving, gymnastics, sprinting, running, track and field, bicycle race, rowing, freestyle football, footgolf, fistball, tchoukball ... Of course there is always tree climbing, chainsawing, axe swinging/throwing competitions to keep arbtalkers satisfied!

Need to start the video at 13.50 minutes to cut the crap and show the actual tool I bought

I bought one of these and made this in about a minute for knocking difficult logs back out of the splitting wedge

" You have just been selected by popular vote as the guinea pig to report back to Arbtalk on your experience with this machine!" All Right Trigger Andy, we will let you off having to be a guinea pig as HHH has vindicated the machine somewhat!

G.I.T.S. Gifted Intelligent Tree Surgeons !

I am an old git, same age as Stubby who is not a git, and I can work the Palax all day with a home made log deck which has no power and boat trailer rollers to move the logs by hand sideways to the saw. The cut is so easy and quick just by leaning forward on the hinged table i have stopped using the auto trigger for the splitter and prefer a light foot pedal for more control if the log does not fall correctly I agree with you about the stretching up and pulling down, and I think the powered trough is unnecessary This guy is much slower than me! But you can see clearly the speed of the circular saw versus the chainsaw which adds up during a long working day

Four way surely? You have just been selected by popular vote as the guinea pig to report back to Arbtalk on your experience with this machine!

Yes, but it is not beyond the capability of Arbtalk members to make some modifications to handles and perhaps ask a local fabricator to weld up a different knife Yes I bet the small print with extras and delivery and tax may tell a different story and give me my tungsten tipped circular saw blade on the Palax any day but for someone starting out with just an axe it could make a big change for standard splitter money Feider FBT-10T100 10-Ton Petrol Log-Splitter WWW.MOWDIRECT.CO.UK Enjoy range-topping power, productivity and capacity with this 200cc 10-ton petrol log-splitter...

I am sure someone will tell me it is made of monkey metal and bamboo shoots but on paper it seems to tick a lot of boxes with a saw, adjustable height splitter, conveyors for logs to saw and firewood to trailer or box, log lift, engine, hydraulics etc All for £1500?? What is the catch? I am very happy with my second hand Palax Combi but that cost £2500 way back in 1996! Wholesale mobile firewood processor with log lifter From m.alibaba.com M.ALIBABA.COM Wholesale mobile firewood processor with log lifter from Yantai Rima Machinery Co., Ltd. on m.alibaba.com

Taylor Wilson

Kawasaki Mule plus Arbtrolley has been a Godsend in the muddy conditions caused by the recent rain. Hardly left a mark in the woodland as we extracted some Sycamore

Was the girly pink paint scheme because you were hoping your other half might operate it??

Shame because I was also looking forward to making a fortune on my youtube channel of videos of people having punchups for jumping the queue!