Billhook

Very apt given the current situation.

Yes, it must have been something very subtle in the angle of the teeth or perhaps the way they may be splayed slightly to give the main blade enough clearance to move freely. It certainly grabbed a lot. But also the quality of the steel and although you could not see it on the video the blade did bend quite a bit more than the Stihl one when it grabbed. I am very ignorant on the finer qualities of a saw blade so perhaps one of you lot will enlighten me. Firstly there is the steel quality, then the length of the teeth, the number of teeth per inch, the angle of the teeth in all directions, the angle of the sharp edge, the angle of the blade triangle, the depth of the whole blade, the curve of the blade, the taper of the blade and many more things that I have not thought of since I have been celebrating my wife's win on the National with Tiger Roll!

Sad to see she has abandoned her nest. Maybe there are so few insects/snails around at the moment or maybe there was not enough greenery in the hedge to protect her from the magpies, jays, jackdaws, carrions or maybe the sparrow hawk finally cleaned her up. Maybe it was just too cold and wet and miserable. Dicey business being a songbird these days

The Stihl had been used a bit but the "Florabest" Lidl was straight out of the sealed packet!

I bought a Stihl folding hand saw from Amazon for £27.50 and it performed well. Yesterday I was amazed to see a very similar looking saw at Lidl for £3.50 Here is the test!

"Spring is Here" I think that we can conclude was a "Premature Especulation"!

Both a bit prickly?

Blackthorn has not flowered yet. "Beware the Blackthorn Winter"

Brimstone last week, but no hawthorn leaves.

So what songs do you like to play with that set up?

Well that does surprise me as you are normally well ahead.

Our hawthorn hedges seem to be very late to come into leaf this year here in Lincolnshire. Hardly any leaves showing

On a more positive note, there were three of these leather chairs dumped in one of our fields and rather than pay the £200 I took them down to the log cabin where they are fine. They are tidy and comfortable enough to relax in but not so good that I am bothered about mice chewing them, or people sitting in them with their muddy boots on.They actually go quite well with the poplar logs and copper beech floor.

Watford seem to have found a good solution!

My only real success was a few years ago. There is a layby on another quiet lane which had a continuous dumping problem. The council put up a sign saying "Strictly No Dumping, Maximum Fine £20,000" One day I discovered a heap of porno mags placed right under the sign. Of course I needed to examine them for evidence! However in this case the evidence was there in the form of a local man's name and address, printed on an envelope subscribing to the mag. Called the local council officer who came out and agreed with me how important it was to look through the mags in case of other evidence! Went away and said he would deal with it and I expected to hear nothing more. However a local man was named and fined £200 for littering and it was in the local paper a couple of months later. My only regret was that the paper never mentioned the nature of the material in the litter!

I agree Peasgood, I just meant that it would have been slightly less inconvenient to have it in a gateway because cars are now becoming stuck in the very wet verge. I have had sofas. armchairs, brick rubble and general waste dumped in the fields as well as a great number of cars over the years, some burnt out. They seem to have almost solved the car problem by presumably making it worthwhile to trade in, or the owners more traceable. In the same way I hope the proposed deposit system on plastic works as well as it did on the old Coke bottles. Can someone not come up with a scheme to reward recycling of garden waste and trimmings? It must be cheaper than sending people out to clear up stuff in the middle of the road.

Previous sin. Had the whole of the wide verge to dump it, but still puts it in the middle of the road.

Rudyard Kipling at his best. My first Airedale pup in 1982 lived for sixteen years. The only dog I have never had to train by repetition. Just to show her something once was enough. Devastated after having to make the final dreadful decision ( why do they never die quietly in their sleep?) I went out straight away and bought the two Airedale sisters as pups, the two on my avatar in front of the dozer. It seemed like a good decision as the old dog seemed to come back to life again in the two pups. The last one of those two died a couple of years ago, again aged sixteen and I am still so upset that I cannot bring myself to buy another and go through it all again.

This is becoming a regular occurrence around here. If they have to do it because they are charged at waste disposal centres could they not just back into a field gateway, why tip in the middle of the lane? The last time it was a load of hedge trimmings, this time turf complete with fence posts.

The Power of the Dog THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie Perfect passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for a dog to tear. When the fourteen years which Nature permits Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet's unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find - it's your own affair, - But ... you've given your heart to a dog to tear. When the body that lived at your single will, With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!), When the spirit that answered your every mood Is gone - wherever it goes - for good, You will discover how much you care, And will give your heart to a dog to tear! We've sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent, Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve; For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long - So why in - Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

At the time there were schemes with funding to train local people in various rural activities and I had to do the paperwork and assemble a team which proved to be quite easy. The poplar I owned anyway and it needed thinning so apart from my own time it cost very little in monetary terms. I was looking for a use for the timber since nobody smokes any more, butane lighters came in and the match industry collapsed. A friend had been living in Oregon and told me of log cabins out there being built of white poplar and that there was a log built church out there over 100 years old I was well aware of poplar's tendency to rot when in contact with the ground so there about two and a half feet of air beneath the floor and there are no signs of rot after 17 years The decking was made of Turkey oak, another wood that benefits from being off the ground and the floor of the cabin was not ash as I said but copper beech which has also lasted well. Give Dan Franklin @ woodenways a call and I am sure he will give you an idea of the cost.

I built the cabin pictured in photos one and three on Dan's website. He came up with a team in 2001 and we built it with the full scribe method in about ten days out of some large poplar planted in 1960 We are in an AONB, so I called out an officer from the local council to have a look. Because it was in a remote place on the farm and not visible from anyone's dwelling, not to be used as a dwelling, because it was sitting on six huge lumps of sandstone (I did insulate the poplar from the stone with a bit of damp proofing which has proved to be effective) with no services water/electric and because no nails were used in the construction so in theory it could be taken apart like a bit of Lego it was deemed to be a temporary structure and I asked him to confirm this in writing. There has never been an issue with it in the last 17 years. I made the floor from ash from the farm cut into planks by the Lucas Mill. http://www.woodenways.com/log-cabins

Androcles and the lion comes to mind. You never know one day you may be threatened by muggers and this happens! https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/butler-county/oxford/deer-scares-off-womans-attacker