Billhook

Chick on the left is daughter of Telly Savalas called Ariana

I take it that you have speed and everything you need? And if I were to knock you down you'd just get up again. You're intelligent and clean, you've never let your friends down and never made a boob. You wake up every morning with a smile upon your face and your natural exuberance spills out all over the place! Yes , it is a great tragedy, the loss of Neil

This is Morgan James the one on the right. Try and concentrate on the song!

You also forgot politicians and Parliament

I don't think that the cost of it is relevant to the argument.. The perception is that we have to pay a lot of money to stop using fossil fuels and eating meat by paying for more costly alternatives or taxes. If you really believe this and there are going to be huge sacrifices to be made in the name of cutting down emissions then banning fireworks is a no brainer The Sydney case is worse because as Alex said it would be very insensitive and unfair to put firefighters on standby in Sydney when they are desperately needed elsewhere.

Not just humans who have a bit too much on NEW Year's Eve!

You forgot ex wives

I used to love having a bonfire of the brash in the woods on a cold Winter;s day, but since we are a farm and a commercial unit, it is not allowed without an environmental exemption I used to really enjoy stubble burning, not just for the benefit of needing less cultivations and sprays, but I appreciate it needed stopping as it was antisocial. Surely fireworks cause more pollution than wood burning stoves I appreciate that kids love them, but it is mainly kids who are leading the extinction rebellion and perhaps banning fireworks would be a good way to demonstrate how serious they are.

It certainly would make the people who slap the TPO on, think a little more carefully about the consequences

I see that the German environmentalists are going for a ban. German environmentalists urge fireworks ban in urban areas WWW.DW.COM The ban on fireworks would affect cities like Berlin, Munich and Cologne, and would be implemented to protect... They have calculated that 5000 tons of particulate dust were released within a few hours around midnight, equivalent to 16% of the emissions from vehicles for the whole year Last year my wife and I endured New Years Eve in Denmark and it was as if World War three had broken out. A pall of smoke hung over the small town near Copenhagen and people were throwing fireworks under cars in the street. If you add up all the particulates worldwide...........???? Look at Sydney, a very insensitive display in front of all those people who have lost loved ones, their homes with the fires. Fairly irresponsible in such a dry time. Surely we need to ban fireworks before we start banning gas and wood stoves? Bit of joined up handwriting needed methinks. Personally I am fed up with them, I might have been awed by the first site of a full display twenty years ago, but it is now a bit like going to see your favourite movie for the twentieth time. Even Crocodile Dundee becomes tiresome! A lot of terrified animals, a lot of people taken to hospital, a lot of people trying to sleep disturbed. I won't miss them.

I had the same idea to split a tree down to a size that will go through the Palax, about 10 inches diameter. Impressive as the old Cat D7 is in splitting this sycamore, I found that there is little control over the split and the tree will follow the grain leaving bigger diameter bits which need quite a bit of faffing about to bring down to size. A nice straight bit of Ash may be better and I will post a video of that when we come to a piece which is buried beneath a heap of logs at present. If unsuccessful I may revert to the Lucas Mill to cut up a big tree into long lengths of 8"x 8"

Been sawing wood all day and singing "It's all about the blade , bout the blade, no trouble" whilst thinking of a night out on the town with those three. Also just re-read Orwell's 1984 and realised that it would be a thought crime, then realised how close we are to that story with our own "Newspeak" "Thought police" "Hate Speech" and cameras watching our facial expressions on every corner.

More than one it seems

Are you sure? You haven't heard me sing!

Only happens once a year at Christmas

Looking forward to your video Stubby!

Well I have seen it happen several times and I bet many others on this forum have, One moment a song thrush is listening for worms in the middle of the lawn and the next second all that is left is a cloud of feathers. They attack the tits on my bird feeder as well. Sparrow hawks are only a small part of the picture. Birds and their young have to avoid carrion crows, magpies, jackdaws, jays, kestrels owls and now buzzards and red kites as well as cats, foxes, squirrels, weasels, stoats and rats. The old "due to modern intensive farming methods" is becoming a bit tired now. I was fully organic for ten years, which I admit would have been a loss but for the subsidy. I saw no increase in wildlife on the farm, in fact the reverse due to the increase of the aforementioned. We are much less intensive now even after returning to conventional farming , much more selective and accurate with chemicals which are themselves more thoroughly tested and have not used an insecticide for years.

Tis a strange world we live in, especially one which demonises chemicals. Both salt (NaCl) and Acetic Acid (CH3COOH) are chemicals. Salt is a good example of one that without it we would die and too much of it we will die. CO2 is the latest one yet without it all life would cease. Glyphosphate is one of the least harmful to the environment if used correctly which is why it can be used in waterways, or at least could be for many years. We allow housewives to pour neat chlorine down their sinks and loos in un metered quantities, use all kinds of harsh oven cleaners and general worktop cleaners. We drink water with fluorides and chlorine in them and we swim in highly chlorinated public pools. We pour petrol and oil into our vehicles, we use gas and oil for heating and cooking, and coal of course. All chemicals.. It is a fine balance between the harm and the good. One of the best examples was DDT, now everyone knows how bad that insecticide was because it went into the food chain and eventually killed the raptors, the crows, the hawks etc. But that meant when I was a child in the 1960s that our garden was full of small birds, thrushes were out in the middle of the lawn. Now the sparrow hawks have cleaned most of them up but the loss of small birds is blamed on farmers using chemicals bizarrely. More serious was the use of DDT in places like Egypt where people starved due to locust plagues. DDT was administered at the flightless stage by thousands of people armed only with buckets of DDT and a small leafy branch. This saved thousands of lives. Worse than that was the banning of DDT just before it had nearly wiped out the malaria carrying mosquitoes which have now killed millions. Roundup was actually put in a glass and the head of Monsanto drank it neat to demonstrate how benign it was. It is all a delicate balance as I said but I do not think people quite understand the consequences of banning it in farming. It may make it impossible to grow Winter Wheat due to blackgrass infestation. Not only would this increase the use of more harmful chemicals or increased use of tractors and cultivation and more burning of fossil fuels, but this would also mean very much reduced yields in a world where the population is increasing.

Very Christmas spirited of you to give Jeremy Corbyn a lift!

I was going to gusset it with some angled, sharpened triangles but in the end I could not be bothered thinking it may be mild steel but it is four pieces of half inch mild steel.. I tend to learn by my mistakes!

Another demonstration of the massive forces involved with the D7 and the knife There are four pieces of half inch by three inch bar that were bent when the log went sideways

Some of us have less hair than we used to have!