Billhook

Starting towards the end of last year, I began to notice my ability to remember peoples names, business names and other things become poor. I put it down to my age, 67, and tried very hard to work at bringing those names to the surface by going through letters of the alphabet and trying to think of other links without reverting to the internet for prompts. This was quite time consuming but mainly successful. I then have noticed this phenomenon amongst people half my age. "What was the name of that firm that used to sharpen saws or the name of that guy who repairs computers," sort of questions that would have come up with an instant result 18 months ago. Went down to the woods today with a very experienced and knowledgeable man of the woods and neither of us could remember the name of the Hornbeam tree we were looking at, although we were both very familiar with the species. This really shook me. I can remember complicated tunes and songs on the guitar and piano, and even sing Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" without making a mistake., but this seems to be a different area of the brain's memory cells. Have been wondering if this is the result of too much time on the computer and too little social interaction and a lot of time on your own with less stimulus from others. Anyone else notice this or is it just me?

This evening they all returned, a pair inspected the engine shed in the farmyard and when I came home I had a formal flypast by the car port by a pair here

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I do not think it was one of our residents, just one passing through since I have not been greeted with the usual flypast and general inspection of last years nest site in the car port

May 2nd our first Swallow! Better late than never. Beautiful morning here clear blue sky, summer must be here!

I think you are both spot on. Are they rare, are they native? Can we be sure they are not duck mussels Swan Mussel | NatureSpot WWW.NATURESPOT.ORG.UK

Further research shows that Zebra Mussels are a pest all around the World but the photos I have seen seem to be of intense clusters which need to adhere to something solid and they say that Zebras do not do well in soft sand or silt. They are also smaller than the ones my wife found which were individuals in soft silt and not all stuck together Zebra mussel - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Trawling the web (as well as the stream) it looks as though you are correct about the Zebra Mussels which are apparently unwelcome and invasive, but still must be a good indicator of stream health water quality Mussel invasion blocks water supply in Lincolnshire WWW.BBC.CO.UK A local water company is spending £1m to deal with shellfish that block its water processing plant.

My wife and I and another friend were clearing fallen branches and other debris from our chalk stream. My wife was feeling around for rotten branches in some mud at a point where the water exits the lake and enters the main stream. It is relatively calm water at that point, but still on the move. She suddenly discovered all these mussels, and having done a quick internet search which revealed how rare they are, we quickly put them back after the photo. Hopefully they will be ok. It says on the net that they can live up to 130 years we have had all sorts of folk over the years doing surveys of wildlife but mussels have never been mentioned. Crayfish, Brown Trout, Grayling, Bullheads, Lamprey and much more but never mussels Apparently a good sign that the stream is healthy and unpolluted Anybody know any more?

A few modifications during Lockdown 2021. The log tilting exercise was a bit of fun to make and quite effective but in the real world here many trees are not straight and end up being cut into rounds on the ground although I do use a Woodchuck Peavey to keep the saw off the dirt The drip feed oiler I replaced with a more positive hand pump which is not so wasteful I had an old small truck crane which will lift about a ton but unfortunately only has a single acting ram. When I lift in unrestricted mode it creates the “Lockdown Log Lobber” which is fast but has little control . I put a restrictor in the line but then it would only lower at a snails pace so the answer was to control it with a lever valve. Not ideal but it works well enough. The crane can also lift long logs or awkwardly shaped ones with the Wiltec grapple The platform and grid fold up neatly for storage (photo 1) Because it needed to be so long for the logs and was not necessary any more I cut a metre off the H girder to make the unit more compact and manoeuvrable The new log lift will lift enough rounds to fill a cubic metre of loose firewood in the box so two loads fill a box Again I personally do not have to do any lifting, just rolling ( and reeling!) I ended up with a lot of crap in the boxes so I fitted some hay rake tines to let the bits fall to the ground before the box. I should put a wheel barrow underneath but it is easier to scoop them all up afterwards with the forklift bucket. They make excellent kindling (photo4) Lastly fitted a large spring to hold the log grabber down on the return stroke

Proper version with all the accessories. Looks like it has the mount for a machine gun as well!

So those were when the pups were only a few months old, these next two are in a Panda 4x4 a year between shots

I remember driving mine back from Hornsea across the Humber Bridge in 1995, beautiful view,wonderful air, so I lifted my visor to take it all in and was hit at 40 mph by a large bumblebee on my bottom lip. That did hurt! The two Airedale sisters took to it when they were puppies and I could leave them in the local town and come back to find a group of people chatting to them

Was it a 650 as well?

Quite right Gary, bring us back into line. This area is for arb dogs not motorbikes even if the motorbikes are dogs!

Made out of recycled tank metal I suspect! First saw one when a friend and visited Ukraine just after they had come out of communism in about 1993. Found out that a lovely lady called Olga was selling them at Hornsea and converting them to right hand drive Unfortunately this means only one wheel drive as all the left hand drive model have both rear wheels driven The other clever thing due to good design is that the spare wheel fits all three wheels

It may interest some of you that the bike is a Russian copy of the German BMWs that were used by the army with a machine gun mounted on the sidecar, some were chasing Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. It has a reverse gear i took it to our local bike shop for an MOT and the old Lincolnshire owner of the shop said he would have to take it down the road to test the brakes . He came back and asked in his wonderful Lincs accent” ‘Ow many ‘osses ‘as it got” I told him it said there were 35 in the handbook. He replied “ Wee’ll I reckon thirty of ‘em are deead maeete !”

Hold what Stubby? Your breath, your language, your scream, the wood that hit you or some part of your anatomy??

Just realised that you were talking about the dead Elm from a year ago and not the lime Drinksloe! I did not need the Matbro on that one as there was no doubt about where it would fall. It was a much bigger tree but again was dead so difficult to assess quite what might happen depending on the state of decay. I was pleased with that result too! I only post successful videos!

There is casual observer type watching, there is another arborist type watching, there is certificate assessor type watching then there is a line of irate motorists type watching, wondering why you are taking so long and didn't I know they were on their way to something very important (like shopping!). I can cope with the first three, but the last is more testing!

Every felling is a new learning curve! I was amazed how gently the tree went over, just like a slow motion film with no crash and it did not even break the fence ,just a bit of stretched barbed wire. Wish I had videoed it but as I said we were concentrating on the traffic and worried more about falling rotten branches at the time.