drinksloe

I'm the oppisate, fairly average climber but confident feller. Spent a lot of time in commercail softwoods, generally the hinge will hold on softwoods esp that size so don't have to worry about it tearing and spinning towards house the way hardwoods often do I far prefer to fell trees than climb them and just use winches if needed to aid direction or usually take the wieght off a leaming tree (so at 90 to felling direction) and use my wedges Be a pain climbing up those trees snedding as u go as so many branches and possibly change if u topped them out if top lands tip first could bounce towards house. But all depends on where ur skills/experience is. Be a lot quickier if u can fell them out, but only if u know wot ur doing and are confident. PS Prob shouldnae say this but not a lot of wieght in thoose trees (or atleast looks that way from photo) u'd have to get something severly wrong for them to hit house and doubt they'd do much damage, bit more forgiving than hardwoods

Personally i think i would be just straight felling them, don't look very big or tall in photo a look resonably straight up, not leaning any direction. If in any doubt chuck a rope on the 1st one/couple, sometimes soft woods can cling onto there neighbour like u would not believe when growing close together and those trees don't look heavy enough to pull free, prob only need a pull by hand but best to have a winch handy just in case. Should get easier as gap gets bigger Just depends how experienced u are, i'd cut the gub far more 'open' than normal so they can hit deck and stil be attached at hinge and leave hinge far thicker on far/fence side. Hinge should hold no problem Sounds obvious but just be aware of snedding trees on the slope will always want to roll down hill if ur not careful so either stay on uphill side or leave on the hinge till all processed. Surpising how easily u can get caught out throu complancy The banking will alter this but if u hold a stick up that is the length of ur arm at 90degrees and walk back until the top and bottom of tree match up with stick u should be about where tree top will land (ie hieght of tree) to do with making 2 right angle triangles and equal sides, pythagourus?

We always used pinch bars to drive stakes in. 1st pinch a small hole then turn pinch bar horizontal and malky the stake in with the bar, 1 hand either side of stake. Sounds ackward but easy when u get knack, plus doesnae take a lot of driving if pinched, if going good just malky the stake with no pinching. Must admit never been a fan of those post drivers for stakes or fence posts

How can u rectify pulling a heavily leaning tree over if strop fails? Or lifting something? tree springs back to where it wants to be or falls where the wieght is. Not sure how u can rectify that? If a sheer pin fails, not ideal but with tirfor type u can ease of 1 or 2 clicks but everything should still hold. So u can then decide how ur going to get out off it. Extra winch or using a snatch block. Also if shear pins fails first u shouldnae have any 'twanging' as everything else is designed to hold Same with the strops etc, it dosenae really matter as long as ur strop is plenty strong enough, just like u know roughly the size of chain u need.

I thought winch cable now should have a rope? core so no longer snaps back the way it used too. Knw ive seen/had a few cables snap on me from tractor winches and just lay flat even when under big tension. Nothing like the old wire rope which would come back to meet u. Dodgy stuff. I too was under the impression the sheer pims has to give first. If it is not the weakest link means the rope/shakle/strop will give so wotever ur winching is about to fall back to original position. Not good. Most tifors have spare pins in the handle

I got my 'tifor' from the above place. Spot on. Great piece of kit. If ur buying a snatch block get a swing cheek 1 (ie u don't have to thread entire length of rope throu the pulley) i got 1 of them 2 Must admit i tend to use old 5T ratchet straps for all sorts of things including strops for tirfor, and got some in vans for tow ropes if/when i'm ever stuck, May not be strictly H&S/loler ticketed but does job in most of the places i find myself, never snapped a ratchet strap yet with tirfor. U could also use short lengths of rope to keep costs down too as long as suitable size/strength

Just to add, most decnt sized harvesting companies in my area will have an old county skidder sitting in the yard for tricky trees/jobs, and generally sit's there rusting for large chuncks of year. 1 has an old skyline that tends to do the same. A mate only had a skyline and he went bust, now just got harvester/forwarder. No doubt work there, but with low timber prices not really vaible commercially and possibly most of it already sewn up

I used to cut for a sky line. Don't think there is many sky line companies in Eng but a few in Wales and know of a few in Scot. mates gota welsh company working for them in cumbria the now Makes it very dear timber when u add in labour costs and the slow production etc. Doubt there is many really good staff oput there to man and maintan 1 as so few will have worked on them. May be work for a smaller tractor triple drum winch/high lead type system but still need boys with a bit of common sense to set them up and run safely. Like everything else it will depend on ur contacts and the type of work u do. Probably work for 1 based in steeper heavily forested country but that tends to be where the set ups already are. 1 i know tends to sit doing nothing a lot of the time but is needed to tidy up jobs behind there harvesters

Almost impossible to give real advice to a post like that. No one knows u personally or seen ur books for either farm or ur own business. Farmings not in a good way at minute and no sun on horizon for it. so working the 2 together may work. But if u book jobs in and then have to cancel to cut hay/silage etc. Plus with trees u'll probably have staff as can't do much on ur own so gets more ackward to fit both in. But u'll always have jobs for them on farm if rained of tree work Really need to ba asking ur account or ur uncles account.

I'd imagine if u go on either GWCT or BASC sites should be info on the traps and making boxes. Been a while since i made any but think it was 6" boards work nicely for size, also helps if dig a slight hole where trap sits so level with ground or slightly lower, otherwise trap sits proud. Leave a lid to set access the trap and ALWAYS ALWAYS use the safety and flip it off with a stick. Just to warn u there is talk of the MK4's possibly being banned under some EU trapping rule/law. Not 100% clear yet or wot to use to replace them

At moment u might struggle with that with strength of the pound so high. Also production costs etc generally not a big profit in it for all the work that gos into it. U'll see other threads/posts on here where folk importing a lot of wood in from eastern block countries and scsndinvia far cheaper than they can produce it here.

Grow forest makes some good points about planning shooting rides, if u do that think about ur normal winds so u can get into ur shooting position with wind in ur face easily. U can also go a stage further and plant a deer lawn (load of plants deer like, Kings cover crops amoungst others willl sell it) to attract deer and hold them in ur culling area. Probably not so relevant with hard woods but we used to brash deer glades, brash SS up to 6ft high so deer think there in cover but u can still cull them Know 1 forest company would not plant trees on certsain soil types and left those areas for deer culling I take it the zoo is for loin/tiger poo/urine? Never heard of gralloch's working to keep them away and seen deer very near recent gralloch's if that's where best grazing is

They do tend to be very first light and very last light, verging on nocternal. Was a few of us up north stalking them all sat out waiting for them to emerge out of the big timber on to a flat, no sign when far to dark to shoot. By time we walked back to motor and drove past, had a quick shine with lamp and eyes all throu exactly where we hd been waiting for them. Have heard of rangers swearing they've seen them stick they're heads out of trees and look straight up at the high seat/doe box before emerging, seeing if anyones there. Very clever beast's Could go out at night with a big foxing lamp to see if there about at night which could be likely. Not sure law in Ireland but illegal in the UK to shoot on the lamp without a special license, and not a good idea with sika anyway as so clever get very lamp shy very quickly

Sika can be very hard to deal with esp if in numbers and can travel vast distances in no time, also tend to be on the go at very first/last light. A very clever deer. If ur going to use guards u would need to be 1.8's or similar to red hieght. Wot's the purpose of the trees? Do the have any commercail value? If only for conservation won't really matter too much if lead shoots are nipped. Will just give u strange shaped trees Possibly u could plant some willow round edges as some deer tend to favour them for fraying and eating but that is usually in commercial soft wood plantations, anything would taste better than sitka I have seen 2 single strand electric fences about 2m apart work to keep red deer off grouse moors but doubt it would work as well for sika plus if tree other side might be too tempting for them. Really u need to get on top of them if u can, might need neighbouring landowners to help the way sika live/move about

Wil depend how much detail and how accurate u need it to be. Until u actually built it u'd never ever know how accurate ur estimate was, so if just a project mibee be near enough. I'd just phone that company and get the craic with them. As dalton trees said prices tend to be m2 and generally will be to finished standard so all electrics, plumbing finishing done (so 100m2 house ur taking 100k) i'd imagine u might just have a bog standard kit inside 'log cabin' to get ur u values so possibly the only difference in price will be between brick/block/render finish and ur log style finish If using a traditional kit inside as load bearing perhaps u could use something cheaper than whole logs, possibly T&G but more rustic looking Steve a allegedely they do have some sort of building standards over there (not sure i believe it thou) allegedly house are built with earthquakes in mind so designed to withstand shear forces. But must admit looks like they make it up as go along. Not an awful lot of H&S on the sites over there, bloody quite clever how they figure some things out and do things old school If u google wallets marts and find the rural property section (on link) theres a log cabin for sale near me, only built a few years ago, took him ages to get it throu planning

Good post ccharlie. Just wondering is the 100kw a direct replacement for the older 4kw? ie usiing same pipes and pump house and just bolting a larger turbine onto it. Or was it a complete new build new pipe work etc?

Have u seen the tv programe Building Alaska, on the travel channel, 46? on free view, came across it while watching ray mears 1 nite. Building proper log cabins in middle of no where, sometimes with just a chainsaw as only tool. Is the 1000 a sq m not for a more traditionally built house,and even that could be low at times. Depending how the logs are built could easily be more expensive again

I'd agree with the above, most machinery needed would be fairly capable off road and bar pipes not a lot else u need. After 1 summer u'd be lucky to notice the pipe tracks If ur damming/redamming the ones i've seen were designed if a drought to run dry at something like 10% of average flow so burn would still flow

I half heartedly looked into it at a house i'm doing up, 1 condition is the source of the burn usually has to be on your property so ur nieghbour cound not stop it/alter it. Thats where mine fell down also it can dry up in summer but have a massive ammount of head for the rest of year, while not ideal it dries up it may still have been vaible as i could have done most of the work myself. Plus i would of piped the whole burn which is not allowed even thou it is a man made burn/ditch and has been used for something in the distant past, can see signs of sluices and a ruin below Try having a look on energy saving trust site, think it has a bit of info and links to others. There is a fair bit on the net to try and figure out ur flow rates and head Quite a few of the larger loacal landowners are putting them in, make far more sense than windmills. Should be encouraged far more. In most cases u would never know they had them apart from a tiny shed/turbine house.

I think most trees are gnerally easy to split when fresh or when totally dry but become ackward and tough inbetween times. But beech seems to be the oppisate (or atleast thats wot i've found) and hard when fresh, seems to hit a sweet spot a few months in but not all at same time. I tend to give it a swing and leave it if not marking it but sometimes the next disc will split easily and all off same tree, go back a month later and hard 1 splits easily too?? I've found it quite strange but not split the volume i'm splitting now before

Does no one find beech very hard to split green/wet? The limbs are fine just the butts got a lot of discs cut about 18"-2ft thick and 2-4ft daimaeter are a real pain when green, my splitting axe just bounces off them hardly arking them, yet 4-8 months later just after being left out to weather split a lot easier. Sometimes u can see the grain drying out and spliing Just treated myself to a Fiskars X27, only had a wee play with it a logs were frozen together so just splitting them as they lay but definately seems a good tool

Been wanting to find some for a while too, always used to get them from Chieftain Forge before he retired

While i'm sure altering them will ruin any kite marks and may affect there performance. Ur only cutting the bottom couple of inches so any loss in performance probably doesn't matter as much as ur boots will be protecting ur feet anyway. Could u not turn them up inside (possibly make them to bulky) or outside and sow the seem so doesnae fill with sawdust, so in theory not cut anything

I don't think we're that far apart OSM, must admit i tend to think the lack of habitat/environmental change excuse is the easy 1 all the birders like to pull out the hat when they don't know wot to blame, or face the truth u have to manage predators. They can't point the finger at old grammies cats as they donate to them and scared to upset them Bit like 'global warming' chestnut Obviously it could be site specific, but in my local area the local farming has not really changed that much, almost all the old hedgrows are still where they were when i was a boy and infaact more have been planted. When i was a boy we used to collect eggs (granted won't have helped matters) now hardly ever see a wader in this area, yet go 20miles up the road to almost identical farmland and the place is literally teaming with waders and all fledging chicks succesfully. The only difference is got a decent keeper up there (as gwct study at otterburn proved scientifically, as only thing they changed was predator numbers) Even some rspb resrve they manged to significantly increase wader numbers by predator control but keep it all quiet so not to upset members, now spending fortunes fencing nesting areas, money would be far better killing the things there fencing out so a far greater area will benefit from safer nesting. That nature resere is a prime example, always around the 50ish resident mallard, yet there has not been a succesfull brood there for years, that nature reserve is not self sustaining and needs duck from elswhere to come in to keep it stable. Had a pair of little glebe's for years 1 year had 4 nests never got a chick off, 1 was killed by a stoat last year so other is just on its own. This year they are finally allowing me to do limited crow control at nesting time, prob killing 2-3 pairs of carrion crows is all it will take to give nesting birds a chance Yet has plentiful Reds squirrels as have no predators so feed/habitat works well I'm sure if u google the Langholm moor it wil come up, got a fancy website for it the now and it will probably give u the history of it, quite intresting wot they're doing but the sheer number of buzzards up there has ruined it. Do u think the stoats are no longer there? I'd be surprised if there not, it's just ur not seeing them. Most owl species are stable rising so must be not to bad for mice/vole numbers

I have the complete oppisate view, predators by their definations should be rare, ur basic ecological principles of boimsss or population pyramids also state u have to have far fewer predators than prey. OSM wot ur saying does no entirely make sense, if u think there is a problem further down the food chain why is there more predators than ever before in recorded history?? And that is my argument/point predators and prey are not really linked in this totally man made environment we all live in There is no doubt that waders, song, LBJ (little brown jobs) are generally in massive decline some at over 80-90% in last 30 years. If predators were totally relying on them they shouldnot be in such high numbers. If u look into Langholm moor, big study ongoing the now (looking like going to be a total failure after £10mil) the 1st study up there Hen harriers bred so well ate almost every living thing on the moor and did eat themselves to starvation, numbers dropped from 28ish pair to 2, before the study was always about 4 pair breeding successfully and 5 keepers had FT jobs and a bit ofseasonal work for locals, after HH explosion no jobs up there. The new study is going the exact same way the way its looking at minute althou this time HH numbers never go so high due the the high number of buzzards that were absent in 1st study. Have a look on the Song bird Survival website, they're a proper bird charity doing a lot of good work who actually care more about birds than just chasing funds. Another really good site is the GWCT, they have done numerous predator studies over the years. 2 relevent to this are the work they have done at Otterburn, basically a big bit of hill ground, divided it into 4 big chunks and studied wader breeding and predator control. They found on the 'control' areas where things were left to get on the birds were producing less chicks than they needed to survive every year. As soon as u inroduced predator control the breeding success of waders shot up by about 3X the chicks fledging. The other real intresting long term study is ot there doig at Allerton, basiclly they were inherited an small estate/farm for research/study. They at 1 point stopped feeding and predator control and bird number plummetted on the farm, started feeding and numbers rose a bit but when started predator control again numbers really shot up. Nothing there doing is really rocket science, basically ur 3 legged stool, provide habitat feed and predator conrol, if ur only doing habitat and feed ur probably doing more harm than good attracting a higher density of birds into an area making it even easier for predators. In an ideal natural ecosystem predator numbers should inicate a good healthy ecosystem, but in the broken man made systems that does not seem to b the case, when numbers of birds are declining by 80-90% something is far wrong (possibly predation is not the 'main' problem) but it can be the final nail in coffin. Even putting bells on cats collars would help massively. Obviously these are only my opinions, but if u look on some of thoose sites research does tend to be backed up by wot i see after living the last 40 years in same village and spreaking to old fsarmers/shepherds/keepers who have also lived/worked on the same farms for a long time. The view u are given from countryfiile/autumn watch etc is a very skewed highly edited view and not really true, they believe everything will just get on if u leave it to it, which just does not happen in practice