Paul in the woods

51 minutes ago, Stere said:

Being throwing a few "fresh" ones down from storage for the blackbirds to eat.

We did the same, went through our stored apples and picked out quite a few that were a bit past it and put them out for the birds. Had to chop them up as we had a thuggish fieldfare that kept fighting off the blackbirds from his patch. 

How long will the extension be and how close to your consumer unit? I run my 3kw splitter on a heavy duty 2.5mm extension plugged in a socket near the consumer box to minimise voltage drop. I've not had any issue but I'd expect any warranty would be invalid. These people list the voltage drop on their extensions: www.industrialextensionleads.co.uk

On 12/12/2022 at 18:06, scbk said:

Poke a few hybrid willow twigs in the ground and in a few years time you will have your own free firewood

Do you use much for firewood? I've got about half and acre planted and almost ready to coppice which will provide plenty of material for more planting. 

I've just burnt my test log (turns out the fresh log was at least 55% water) and it lasted ok so worth cutting more for the fire. I've also found the long, straight rods make good bean poles of they are left for a few months to dry out to stop rooting.

Just need to get the time to weave my own log basket.

This doesn't sound too dissimilar to our Hunter stove. We mainly have the top airwash vents fully open as it's our main heating and cooling source. Half closing doesn't seem to do much and fully closing does too much.

Have you cleaned out the top of the stove? Have you tried closing the airwash but then nudging it open a bit before the fire does down?

11 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

Properly off topic, I’ve recently rented a unit/yard, the bloke who owns it said, I don’t care what you do here, but no growing. Apparently his last two clients had stacks of plants in the unit.

Good to know dismembering is still allowed these days.

The best I can come up with is Chimonanthus praecox, Wintersweet or similar?

When I last trawled through the various documents from the likes of what is now Forest Research it seemed to be non-conclusive, so you could build a case for keeping or removing the trees.

I own a few acres of young ash, so over 1000 trees. They are about 30 years old and I've watched them over the years catch and die from die back. The last few years I've marked trees in the summer that show obvious crown die back so I can tell in the winter which ones I need to remove. Some I've not got round to felling but it identifies the badly affected trees for the next year. Typically they decline and die in a couple of years, I've left a few to provide dead standing timber but they are now falling over after just a year.

Your site may well be different but I wouldn't of thought it would be worth keeping any trees with signs of dieback.

10 hours ago, Jwoodgardenmaintenance said:

I’m out to make a wage 👍 it’s a supply and demand industry the customer tells me what they want and I give them it 🤷‍♂️ we all have families to feed at the end of the day 

Exactly. I also hate the stuff, I like sitting out on our real grass and watching our bees and all the other small critters getting on with their lives. But as you say many people don't want that anymore, they want to sit inside watching wildlife programmes and moaning about the damage others are doing to the environment. 

Of course dead wood is also a very valuable habitat but you don't get constant comments when people post up pics of tree removals, some of which do seem unnecessary.

15 minutes ago, Doug Tait said:

Interesting job, most of it is standard crappy roadside trees but some beautiful ones are going to get hammered.

Thanks for the details, that was my 2nd guess after quaddecker busses.

1 hour ago, Doug Tait said:

Beech reduction today, didn't take long.

A very sensitive 48.5% (approximately).

Out of curiosity, why? 

The point I'm making is it's no use saying you must pay taxes to get services when you don't get the services.

1 minute ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Alright mate! I’m not your MP, call him.

I doubt he'll be about, he'll be working overseas on his 2nd job. I have talked to a few councillors but that's worse than pointless.  

I often think a tax bill should be like an invoice, I'll happily pay for what I've received (including help for others less fortunate) but I'd like to cross off the bits I don't get.

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Re. The whole no tax thing.

When roaming armed gangs are invading your property because there’s no police.

Foreign invaders march unopposed down your high street.

Infrastructure, bridges, roads etc. Become unusable through lack of investment.

 

See what use your little bits of paper with numbers are to you then.

You've visited down here recently then.

I've not read the whole thread but what annoys me along with the ever increasing tax burden is the ever decreasing services. Police will not come out to investigate a crime because they've centralised their unit and we're too far away. Roads are so bad you need a 4x4 to get down your road (the last pothole repair was a smear of tarmac on the edge of the pothole and that involved two transits and a lorry and took an hour). Etc, etc.

I thought hornbeam was meant to burn well and burn for a long time? Worth a go if you have any.

I don't slumber our wood burner either, if it's been on all day and the last log goes on around 9pm it still often has embers glowing in the ash the next morning. 

Good luck with your search for suitable wood. It's something I might consider to act as a swarm lure for my hives. One thing that's interesting is the volume, 40 - 60 litres seems very small, my best hive this year filled 200 litres during summer and overwinters on just under 100 litres of space (this is a mongrel mix and isn't fed any sugar). 

Heavy suggests oak and I would expect the pale wood to be more orange if it was fresh felled alder. However, does it have a smell? Oak and alder have very different smells.

My stove was multi-fuel but I bought the conversion kit to convert it to just wood.

I find to get the best fire it needs space above the wood, so I keep the ash down to an inch or so and by removing the grate I get several inches more space.

This helps when burning large lumps of wood or something like oak. Once the fire is going it doesn't have much of a problem burning anything. I had more problems when it was a multi-fuel stove.

I think it has an almost unlimited number of uses but I don't think I've ever seen it listed as something you would grow for fire firewood.

For those who are curious: https://pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Sambucus+nigra

Yes, if it's seasoned. Although the witches and goblins will get you.

(Elderberry is associated with lots of folklore so you will read that it can't be burnt, shouldn't be burnt or it's bad luck to burn it but plenty of people do burn it as a quick search will show).

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to resort to shooting indoors, although I've only done that with rats.

As for the mice, have you positioned the trap correctly, i.e. with the baited end against a wall? When I've done that I occasionally get a mouse caught that's running over the trap rather than actually feeding.

You may need to put the trap into a pipe to stop the critter from volting over the trap...

2 hours ago, Doug Tait said:

 

Trust you to kill the buzz man

He's just bringing the thread back down to earth. 

12 hours ago, Stubby said:

He might be one of those that fade away into the ether 🙂

That'll be the carbon monoxide. 

Is it just me or does the original photo look like car body filler?

Some more idle thoughts....

Do you get any power cuts there? If so does the noise still exist? This could narrow it down, if the noise stops its electric, if it continues it could still be electric but someone with a backup supply. If it's a bad winter you may get quite a few rolling power cuts to help you...

Is you water on the mains, if so I wonder if there's a pump on the supply somewhere that's could cause vibrations which is also affected the connectors. You can get devices to listen to the water pipes for leaks, might be worth trying one to see if you can hear anything?

Yep, looks like honey fungus and it is parasitic, but often causes death of trees. 

4 minutes ago, devon TWiG said:

Why would you want Lawsons Cypress in your woodland , they are horrible urban things !!!

I've just planted out some Leylandii....

I'm planting a large mix of trees for future uses. The Lawsons I took down had produced far more wood than any other trees planted at the same time and I've managed to get a good number of fence posts out of it. Not everything grows well down here or will grow to a useful size in a reasonable size.