Paul in the woods

Depends on your council, ours are very unhelpful. You do need to be careful with these laws as they don't give the same protections in business to business transactions. There is plenty of advice online from Which? and Citizens Advice if you're a personal customer.

Plenty of various fungi about down here at the moment. I found (smelt) a good example of a stinkhorn today, dripping nicely from the trunk of an alder.

It's not a positive id but I'd go with puffball, possibly flaky puffball, for the first and parasol for the 2nd.

Is it not a young and/or poorly formed beefsteak fungi?

I'm currently trying to sort a planer sled, using a small Bosch planer. It's not easy as there's no simple way of securing the planer and it will only plane a couple of mm depth. With a router you can simple bolt the base to something and the router bit can be adjusted down a few cms. I've currently removed the back base of the planer and mounted it on a piece of ply the same thickness as the base. It almost works but there's still too much movement for a seamless finish on a slab. A piece of aluminium as a sled would be better. If anyone wants to try a planer take a good look at the planer and see how you'll mount it and keep it fixed in place.

Without knowing the full details of the case and T&Cs it's hard to see who's fault it is. Your contract is normally with the supplier, not the delivery company. No idea if this link helps and it may not necessarily apply to a business. If you nominated a safe place and it wasn't left in that safe place then you can argue it wasn't delivered. This may be obvious, but it's not be left somewhere else? I've known of cases where stuff has been left at the wrong address and even received parcels myself where the recipient hasn't bothered to collect. In hind site never get anything of value left without a signature. How to complain if your parcel was left somewhere or stolen WWW.WHICH.CO.UK This advice applies if your parcel hasn't turned up, were left somewhere outside your home and stolen, or left with a...

A quick google comes up with the "LOCAL GOVERNMENT (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) ACT 1976" and this is taken from Dorset Council, https://moderngov.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/documents/s6023/TreePolicies.pdf

Do they smell of aniseed at all? At first glance I would suggest horse mushrooms, Agaricus arvensis. As you say, I'm not saying they are edible but that's where I'd start. This might be useful to look and watch: https://www.wildfooduk.com/mushroom-guide/horse-mushroom/

Putting ones tin foil hat to one side for a moment... I thought Part P regs were amended to allow non-qualified people to connect a cooker up to an existing circuit. You'll need a Part P qualified sparky to put in a new circuit. If you're replacing a cooker then you should have an old cable to re-use, hence not needing one. I've had a built in cooker than had a 3-pin plug fitted but a free standing cooker that could draw more than 13A will need a bigger cable.

I don't know if this is any use but I used the online MyForest system to do my management plan a few years ago. Might be worth a look? myForest • home SYLVA.ORG.UK myForest is a free service for woodland owners, forestry businesses and wood users.

The alder I use seems to dry very quickly if split and put under cover. Burns well but very quickly in the stove.

Have you taken the battery out, blown out any dirt or chippings and then re-inserted it?

As a pros worst nightmare, an amateur who offers to help, I understand that. On a big job I asked for the logs to simply be left where they were chucked and the brash left where it fell. The guys couldn't help themselves in stacking some and also chipping a bit. Force of habit probably or wanting to leave a job tidy. I think my point is normally you don't get asked, some people would be happy for brash to be left.

You don't say if this is forestry or domestic arb. I've joked about this before but in all seriousness I wonder why the arb people who've done work on my property all insist on chipping even when I ask them to simply leave the brash. I have plenty of room for brash piles and the ones that have been left are still slowly rotting down after several years. (Even watched a family of stoats playing in one of the piles).

Apart from the obvious mature ash, I like burning oak and alder as it makes the garden smell nice (makes breathing in toxic particles worth it). Overstood hazel is also good.

8" diameter in 5 years is very good going. Are they normal alder or any special hybrid? Mine have taken over 20 years to get that size, although they are in an exposed site with wet, poor and acidic soil.

I've not seen hornets stripping bark, and we get quite a few hornets around here. A quick google suggests it's common, I'll have to keep an eye out for the damage as I did notice hornets taking an interest in a particular ash tree.

I've no idea, you would think they don't have the resources although I gather they do use aerial photography to check some cases. When I spoke to the FC about a felling licence on my small bit of young woodland they mostly seemed worried about too much open space. It didn't help they were working from very old photos and if anything it has too little open space now. Unless you plan to clear any of the woodland I would have thought you would be ok. You'll probably need to replant any areas that die off, areas of ash for example. I'm lucky in the fact that mines 20+ years old now and the trees are self seeding. I've been thinning out the ash and in most places hazel is already establishing next to the stumps so my tree coverage is the same. As for alder, it does coppice well if the stools get enough light to regrow. The added bonus is the deer don't seem overly fond of the regrowth.

I'm more likely to encourage them myself so don't know how to treat them. However, they don't seem to hand around long, the plant recovered the next year and they don't seem to return.

I think they may be Buff-tip Phalera bucephala. We get them on goat willow and they can strip plants very quickly, you can even hear them munching away. Buff-tip BUTTERFLY-CONSERVATION.ORG When at rest, the wings are held almost vertically against the body with two buff areas at the front of the thorax and at the... Buff-tip Phalera bucephala - UKMoths UKMOTHS.ORG.UK

I can't comment on the saw or bar but have you used the VXL chain before? Have a quick search on here as there's plenty of comments about the chain being a bit grabby and jumpy. I run it on a small back handle saw and wasn't impressed at first.

Looks like laburnam to me.

This Forest Research document will be worth a read, most with be over the top but you should be able to find some useful bits. https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/research/thinning-practice-a-silvicultural-guide/ As for the EWGS, I thought obligations ended after 10 years but worth checking the fine print of your specific agreement. (This should be covered by the sale process as if there are any obligations the vendor would normally transfer them to you). This might help: Legacy woodland grants and obligations - GOV.UK WWW.GOV.UK Claim and manage legacy schemes – English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS), Farm Woodland Premium Scheme (FWPS)...

I've noticed this for the first time this year, i.e. squirrels stripping very thin shoots. I've seen sycamores in hedges and on my woodland my field maple has been attacked on narrow leaders, less than 1" in places. The bark stripping is fairly obvious though and you get trees with fairly perfect leaves and then brown withered tips. On a side note, I thought no one knows why grey squirrels strip bark, certainly where I've seen the sycamores stripped there's plenty of water as the trees are next to a stream that flows all year so I doubt it's thirst.

It may also be worth talking to some of the companies that sell woodland to see if they would pass your details on to new owners. They may be able to give you a realistic idea of what people will pay for: Woodlands.co.uk | Woodlands for sale in South East England WWW.WOODLANDS.CO.UK Woodlands.co.uk - providing woods for sale in South East England for enjoyment and conservation. I know many owners, like myself, will do the work themselves but plenty of people just want to turn up for some camping. It's not unusual for people to pay an annual management charge for a holiday chalet for example so I wonder if there's any chance of getting people to pay an annual management charge to look after their woodland? Having said that, getting hold of a much larger land owner such as a farmer or two would be ideal.