Billhook

I was thinking that I should have offered it for the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral to save having that special one made. As a Sandringham Six made by Hotspur Cars of Sandringham the name would be correct and the crane would have helped the pallbearers!

Forget the Easy Start, just give the man on the handle a squirt of this!

Like this you mean, tipper as well as 3.5 V8 Stage 1

Goslings doing well on lake so far, they have a lot to deal with in the coming weeks, crows, magpies, stoats, mink, cats, foxes, hawks, buzzards maybe even pike.

Nah, it’s not dead it’s resting! There I saw it move

Yes the lack of insects has a large knock on effect for all to wildlife Bats need them desperately as do most garden birds trying to feed their young My wife and I went down to the lake for a cuppa in the sunshine and it was very apparent that insects were back big time!

I felt like royalty today witnessing a flypast After all the crap rain and cold yesterday, it is quite warm and sunny this morning although breezy I went out the back door and five swallows swooped and dived inches from my face, twirled around each other and went in out of the car port inspecting last years nests. Then sat on the old television aerial while we had a chat about our different Winters! They told me that they never had any lockdowns! I have never before witnessed wild birds so pleased to be back!

You were 68 in January, stop trying to hide your real age!

I suppose that if they say that 50% of the time they have a good chance of being right!

I realise that there is nothing new about memory loss with age, I was just wondering if it has been accelerated in the last year. The young usually are quick to correct me or come up with a name but this has not been the case recently. I remember reading somewhere that your memory actually improves as you age but it affects you more when you are older. For instance if you forgot your pen at school you would probably think little of it but if you are the MD of a big company and you arrive at an important meeting having forgotten your pen, you think that you are losing your mind as well.?

I think I have repeated myself on this thread already! Somebody stop me!

Yes now I think about it, it was always names of people that went straight in one ear and out of the other. Being introduced to a group of people at a party or a business meeting. I think in those cases you are so busy assessing the person you are looking at and making quick judgements that the brain side lines the less important name. But the Hornbeam incident really made me think as it is a solitary tree on the farm road here and at this time of year looks just like a beech and I try to catch people out with it, but just managed this time to catch myself out! Some telephone numbers and all my bank statements and bank codes I remember well Yesterday a girl in the bank asked for my banking pass code number and I just reeled it off straight away " Oh dear, she said I only wanted the last two digits and now I am going to have to send you another number .in the post" I am really on about something a little different. I just notice it more with other people at the moment, people who I am sure would have remembered the name a year ago, a bit like " What is the name of that site on the web that talks about trees!" "It's on the tip of my tongue, I'll think of it in a minute!"

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

??????

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