Billhook

At the log cabin I made a little bat box at ridge height The bats of course spurned my work and the bumble bees took over. All this year they have been doing well until a couple of weeks ago I noticed that some wasps were going in the little slot on the left. The bees and wasps seemed to be living in harmony but today as I sit here there are very few bumble bees and the odd one or two buzzing about do not go in. We had a large wasps nest inside the cabin a couple of years ago and suddenly a hornets nest was built right next to it and the hornets cleaned out the wasps nest to feed their grubs i was wondering if wasps did the same thing to bumble bees although you would think that they would have trouble tackling something so big The first image is of the bat box I was hoping the Pipistrelles would land on the vertical ply on which I had routed footholds , the slots on the side were for a bit of air circulation The other picture is of the gap where the poplar Log has warped to leave a pencil sized space for the bats and their droppings are everywhere

Planted these alongside a lake in 1996, started with one tree now dead and spreading. Not sign of insects so I assume viral/ fungal? First two photos show topside ( very yellow) and underside green

Not physically perhaps but mentally..................

Would I have to pluck my eyebrows and shave my legs before I played it?

Indeed, "The Abominable Dr Billhook" has a certain ring to it. Perhaps I should record a rendition of Riders on the Storm on the Snetzler and put it on Youtube so you can understand what abominable really is!

I forgot Stubby! Of course I shrink at the weekend, or do I go and see a shrink, I can't remember!

But compared to different shoe and glove sizes you are talking of a fraction of an inch difference and most modern keyboards are one size fits all There is absolutely no way I could wear my wife’s shoes and gloves and clothes so another of my fantasies out of the window! in spite of sausage fingers and farmers hands I can still just about play my fender strat and people have paid me in the past to listen but they had probably drunk too much!

But the more I think about it the stranger it is that we all have very different shoe and glove sizes for which we buy different shoe and gloves. My wife’s hands and fingers are half the size of mine and her shoes are size 6 whereas mine are 11 Then there are those tiny Chinese girls playing the piano incredibly well and you would not have thought that they could even stretch an octave! So why are there not different keyboards and fret boards to match? i was asked to play the organ in our local Church the other day. The hymns went quite well but I was not sure what to play as people were coming in and leaving at the end. I chose Riders on the Storm but played at quarter speed! One person recognised it! But the point about the organ in the Church is that it is a Snetzler from 1775 and very rare and valuable but the keys on it are about three quarters of the width of normal keys and it was very difficult for me not to hit three notes at the same time with one of my great fat fingers!

Always amazes me how a man with fingers like Lincolnshire sausages can be as dexterous as those girls flying around the fret board. You would have thought that he would never find the notes or be able to do complex chords, at the same time you would have thought that the girls with their spindly little fingers would not have enough strength to do bends and vibratos. Look at nine year old Taj Farrant I suppose that I am more surprised that guitars seem to have such a one size fits all fret board

Ludvig would not have heard them!

Something completely different but beautiful

I think that it is much the same story with classic cars. Generally it is a labour of love and they are sometimes worth as much unrestored as pristine simply because a retired individual who might have come into a bit of pension money and is needing a project would find more satisfaction in seeing the job through himself.

It means that 50% of people disagree with the other 50%, bit like this forum!

I think there has mostly been enough food for everyone, just look at the waste in the Western World. We farmers chuck out fruit and veg at our end that have slight blemishes, the supermarkets chuck out anything past its sell by date even though it would be seen as luxury food to the starving. The problem has usually been wars, dictatorial regimes and extreme weather and in all cases the logistics of actually getting the food to the people that need it on time is nearly impossible.

These figures only go up to 2010 but in 2014 and 2017 there were 45,000 and 50,000 excess deaths and we never heard a word about it The 1951 figure is over 100,000! Excess winter mortality in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics WWW.ONS.GOV.UK Annual figures of excess winter... Excess winter mortality1, England and Wales2, 1950/1951 to 2009/20103 Winter EWM 1950/1951 106,400 1951/1952 44,950 1952/1953 82,670 1953/1954 47,180 1954/1955 64,670 1955/1956 67,560 1956/1957 29,080 1957/1958 57,780 1958/1959 77,920 1959/1960 41,060 1960/1961 68,880 1961/1962 68,820 1962/1963 89,600 1963/1964 49,510 1964/1965 41,730 1965/1966 57,120 1966/1967 25,990 1967/1968 70,260 1968/1969 50,630 1969/1970 67,790 1970/1971 34,110 1971/1972 46,270 1972/1973 46,630 1973/1974 34,710 1974/1975 31,920 1975/1976 58,100 1976/1977 34,590 1977/1978 41,240 1978/1979 48,490 1979/1980 30,120 1980/1981 32,900 1981/1982 42,380 1982/1983 42,820 1983/1984 30,240 1984/1985 47,380 1985/1986 49,330 1986/1987 26,370 1987/1988 32,970 1988/1989 21,160 1989/1990 47,200 1990/1991 37,940 1991/1992 34,850 1992/1993 25,650 1993/1994 25,900 1994/1995 27,290 1995/1996 40,190 1996/1997 47,690 1997/1998 22,900 1998/1999 46,840 1999/2000 48,440 2000/2001 24,840 2001/2002 27,230 2002/2003 23,970 2003/2004 23,450 2004/2005 31,640 2005/2006 25,270 2006/2007 23,740 2007/2008 24,690 2008/2009 36,450 2009/2010 25,400

Trying to think of something positive to come out of all of this. When a really serious virus comes along, just like in the Hollywood movies, the virus that kills young and old, fit and healthy, then at least we are now slightly more prepared. Perhaps we might just put a box of masks in a cupboard somewhere or even build that dream log cabin deep in the back woods!

Yes County brakes! four wheel braking but only powered by two rather feeble Ford 5000 brakes. My 1124 runs and functions but is tired. It has lost one fork of a gear selector which makes finding second gear a delicate matter and to replace it means a gearbox out. But for my work in the woods, the old Matbro is much more stable, has far more lift and reach and can push or pull itself out of trouble also has many attachments. The County is retired as a classic I think. The Matbro brakes are formidable!

I never wore a helmet skiing for about thirty years and in about 2005 I had a series of people telling me of their near misses just before i was due to go. So I met up with my usual group expecting a load of flak about my new helmet but found that they had all started wearing them and indeed half the people on the slopes were wearing them. Nowadays nearly everyone is wearing one. The helmet is black and fairly cool looking and as it was so expensive I now wear it on my morning bike ride. Keeps me warmer in winter and has vents for summer. Certainly no lycra for me though!

We need some pictures! I have been busy doing other necessary jobs around the house and garden so the poor old County has been a bit neglected at the moment. Just trying to finish my Lockdown Splitter in the workshop and making a frame to adapt the Lucas slabbing bar into a processor saw.. Looking promising at the moment. Need to do a heavily edited video for the Tube!

It must be fairly painful to have to spray your sensitive parts with hydrogen peroxide or other disinfectant before consummation on your wedding night!

Drone Fly. Makes a lot of buzzing noise but does not bite (or sting)

Now here is a bit of real blues from someone who has seen a lot of action, he plays left handed with the strings set up for right hand.

Ok , there’s a lot of it about One of our own Sophie Lloyd lovely smile and playing her greatest hits. But do concentrate on the guitar work! And from Latvia Laura who can shred and also do some mean bass But I take your point Mark, these girls are so young and have seen so little of life relative to someone like BB King, so how can they put that into their music. Bit like being shit hot on a video war game without ever seeing any real action

This topic on the Forestry Forum is worth a read. It seems that more power or more chain speed is not necessarily the answer, it is more about letting the guide bar find its own speed to give it time to clear the swarf. A super skip chain may allow more speed but I only know about the system I have. Advice sought - dedicated slabber chain speed in Sawmills and Milling FORESTRYFORUM.COM I'm about to start assembling a dedicated slabber, that will be operated by a 40HP electric motor. As I'm figuring out how to...

What is the difference between a Lucas dedicated slabber and the Lucas slabbing attachment.? In these clips the Lucas at 4 minutes in seems to be going about the same speed as the Peterson in the other video With my slabbing attachment on the Lucas, I admit that the log is not very big but the electric winch seems to operate at much the same speed on a four foot wide log and it will take a five foot log though I have not had one of those yet!