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The avantgardener

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Everything posted by The avantgardener

  1. The avantgardener
    There is a pretty good mark up on these Birch faggots for horse hurdles, you just need a good connection with The Jockey Club.
  2. The avantgardener
    And brush all the oily crud from the behind the clutch and side cover each evening when you have finished.
  3. The avantgardener
    It’s your tree and your responsibility if it unsafe and could cause damage or injury to other people or property. Unless your tree man has indicated that the tree is in imminent state of collapse then being an Oak I would think it will still be standing in a couple of years, that should be enough time to save the money to get a proper/safe job done.
  4. The avantgardener
    Nice gesture.
  5. The avantgardener
    It’s an Italian tradition, I think from Naples, I can’t remember what it is called in Italian. Doing a good turn for someone less fortunate, Greggs even have vegan pasties, whatever next?
  6. The avantgardener
    Grey squirrel are even worse than deer down here, at least the deer are being shot or fenced out. There is a Woodland Trust site near me that has a 30 year old mixed native hardwood plantation that has been totally destroyed, not a dominant stem left on any tree.
  7. The avantgardener
    If I go into the BBC Iplayer app on my TV it will ask me to declare that I have a TV license and put in the license code.
  8. The avantgardener
    No, they would have to prove that you had been watching live broadcasts in order to prosecute. I have a tv, no license, I subscribe to Netflix, watch it rarely, I cannot be prosecuted unless I watch live broadcasts or BBC Iplayer, this is correct and the TV licence guy who got told to f**k off when he knocked agreed.
  9. The avantgardener
    A guy I know had his Stihl MS362 stolen from the back of his vehicle yesterday, he was in the yard at the time but didn’t notice anyone hanging around. Quite distinguishable as it has a converted bar with a chainsaw morticer attachment on it. Stolen in the Battle area of East Sussex. Anyone who gets offered it or has any info, PM me please.
  10. The avantgardener
    Best with two people, you have a far better lifting position and can use both hands. When I am felling I use timber tongs and stack as I go on my own, you can lift far bigger pieces with two people and the Logjaws.
  11. The avantgardener
    I use timber tongs everyday in the woods, I hurt my knee a while back and got some extra long handled ones too, no bending at all, never really got in with sappies except when firewood processing, as you say, great for picking up rings and split wood. The last time I was at Blean Woods, the RSPB had the Logjaw grabs in the attached photo. They usually have volunteers to help move cordwood to the ride edge, they work in pairs and spread the load, one either end. I used these for a day to move some pretty heavy timber (Corsican pine), and have to say I was blown away at how well they worked, solidly built/heavy and a far better lifting position than timber tongs.
  12. The avantgardener
    I would love a stove like that in my kitchen, minus the pressure treated 3x3 though.
  13. The avantgardener
    I usually burn between 12 and 15 cube per Winter, I am on the coast south of you and it has been pretty mild/wet so far so not really hit the wood store hard just yet, the burner is in night and day when the mercury finally drops.
  14. The avantgardener
    I am pretty sure you can connect it to the central heating system, you just need to keep one radiator on all the time to draw off the heat, most people put one in the attic to do this. I am not a plumber though so look into this first if it is an option.
  15. The avantgardener
    My mate had one installed when he added an extension to his kitchen, he has the back boiler version that he runs the underfloor heating from, he really rates it as the best thing he has bought, it looks great too.
  16. The avantgardener
    I have been thinking about buying a camper van for some lengthy forestry jobs where 4x4 access isn’t an issue. Anyone know if I could claim this as a welfare vehicle even if I use it outside of work? What defines a vehicle as welfare?
  17. The avantgardener
    If any coppice is overstood for too long the main problem that develops is that one or more of the stems collapse and shear the stool apart, or they blow over and uproot in the wind in the heavier biased direction. There are plans to cut a section this Winter and monitor how they respond. I think on this site the maidens wouldn’t have been cut for at least the first 30 years.
  18. The avantgardener
    The Woodland Trust have owned the site for 25 years and it has never been cut in the time that they have had it. It’s hard to say what the rotation cycle on this particular site would have been as the wood grows really slowly here. The soil is very thin over sandstone, has a high elevation and exposed to the winds off the sea, it is a cold wood overall. A large Sweet Chestnut stand that was coppiced 25 years ago looks more like 10-15 year old coppice in other parts of East Sussex and Kent.
  19. The avantgardener
    Hi TVI, I took a photo today of the Oak Coppice in the woods that I am ride widening in, just a phone shot. The Woodland is 110acres of coppice, mostly Sweet Chestnut with Oak standards, apart from this 10 acre English Oak coppice. The Oak is tanning oak, the bark peeled and used at a nearby tannery, the wood used for charcoal. There is another pure Oak Coppice just down the road in Bexhill, this is an even rarer habitat as it is Sessile Oak, it has qualified for SSSI status. The only Oak Coppice known in the South East.
  20. The avantgardener
    I am doing some Ride widening myself this week for The Woodland Trust, although not anywhere on your scale. Talking of multigenerational activity, this wood has a section of Oak coppice, a particular long rotation I would think, and one of only two known in the South East.
  21. The avantgardener
    The other RSPB site near me at Broadwater Warren used similar sized mulchers as part of the heathland restoration project, starting in 2007. I am used to seeing large clearfell sites but this was on a grand scale, and frankly alarming, it looked like someone had nuked the place! I was back there earlier this year and the recovery was remarkable along with the list of rare and endangered wildlife that had returned. I think your ride edges will look fantastic in just a few years.
  22. The avantgardener
    Excellent saw, can’t fault mine, and it has had some thrashing.
  23. The avantgardener
    Blean Woods is managed successfully on both the commercial and habitat creation sides, even though it is a SSSI. I have worked there regularly over the last few years and the ecology survey results back up the management decisions. Sometimes these large interventions can look drastic, but a couple of years later the rewards are all clear.
  24. The avantgardener
    And should get their arses kicked more often on the job for being sloppy, by the more experienced guys.
  25. The avantgardener
    I drink with a climbing assessor quite a bit and he regularly fails guys so I don’t know how you have come to this conclusion. The way I see it is different, the training/techniques that are in the industry now are far more advanced than when I started 25+ years ago. The problem is with the candidates doing their training, too many Instagram/Facebook, Go Pro, drone camera hero’s, obsessed with ‘likes’ and ‘selfies’ in the tree instead of working. No interest in trees, no knowledge of trees and how timber strength changes from species to species, and you can’t make a good arborist in a 5 day course. There is nothing that I see that is wrong with the way that we are already climbing, it is poor practice of these techniques that is causing these accidents, a decent climber will work two ropes without too much drama, a poor one won’t and will still have accidents using it.

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