Conor Wright

100% It'd have to be role play though, with her playing shut the **************** up!

The future is bleak.

That's tomorrow's job, wash the hilux!

No shortage of work in Ireland following storm eowyn. In the short term anyway. You'll get a job in the morning with climbing and mewp tickets. Everyone is looking for qualified staff.

Close, radio na gaeltacht. I've a couple more enquiries out that way. That maccie we looked at in salthill back in autumn shit itself too. I'm guessing you've more than enough on? Can send some your way. It's starting to pile up!

A few pics from jobs we have on. Some of the coastal villages got an unbelievable hammering. Some are handy, others need some consideration.

Type c pants are a requirement to conduct the practical part of the course, so is using both hands on the top handled saw at all times, just saying... My partner occasionally comes along with me on jobs, she found it hard to get size 4 chainsaw boots, settled for a pair of oregons in the end. Not a climbing boot, just to say if you're of a smaller build your options may be limited. From memory aborted and pfanner had a selection of smaller sizes. Fwiw I find sawboots very snug, especially on rough ground. Heavy, yes but reassuringly solid.

Out of interest, any idea what weight it was carrying?

A nearby seasonal lake (turlough) almost froze over. All thawed out again now but it looked nice while it lasted. The flock of swans that migrate to it annually were particularly raucous about it all. Lowest we recorded at home was -4.7

Icy drive to work this morning. Very nearly lost the trailer and digger. Can feel a chesty cough coming on. Gonna be a short one today. Countryside looks stunning in the frost though. Dogs love it too!

Sher go on, it's too complex to be a "do it for the wood" job but I can price it. You have my number?

Where is that? Looks like leitrim soil! (Or lack of) I had a client looking for big lumps of softwood to carve large seats. 100 cm is just about big enough. 3 of them 4 meters long. Thought I'd have come across something by now but it's been all garden work for me this last while.

Dreams aside, given your rescue and climbing skills you could hitch a free ride on oosterschelde, the Dutch tall ship. She's due to go north again after she's finished her Darwin trip. Seriously cool guys and a magnificent vessel. always on the lookout for competent, chilled out crew. They have the best contacts too! Alternatively there's safehaven marine in Cork, frank has been known to take the odd guest up that way on trials, probably not your type of vessel though! They hold the Iceland to Ireland by sea record.

Lumag are at best assembled in Germany. If you read their blurbs carefully you'll see they say something along the lines of "100% engineered in Germany" "built to exacting German standards" etc they are most likely built as component parts in China and or India and some minimal assembly in Germany allows them to stick a German sticker on them. A bit like expensive Italian shoes, made in China but the sticker is sewn on in Italy. Just enough "production" to stick handmade Italian on the box. It all stinks really. This outsourcing will come back around to bite us.

To process over 450mm you'll need a big machine. Most of the entry level commercial machines are about 350 to 400mm and the timber must be arrow straight to utilise the full throat width of any processor. The recognised brands hold their value well so you'll still have most of your investment back a decade later if you decide to sell. This is not the case with the cheapo models. They're a hard sell out of warranty. I've been reasonably happy with my palax machine, however there are other/ better brands out there. Duun, tajfun, hakki pilke, farmi and posch are the first to come to mind. Posch are the best of the lot but it's reflected in the price and is probably overkill for the odd load of wood! Some form of log deck or log lifter is a must to make any processor viable. Anyone I've spoken to that has a farmi is very happy with it. Having had a farmi chipper I can confirm build quality is good. Most of the above machines will cut and split from 20cm to 50cm long or more so 35cm shouldn't be an issue with any of them. See who's near you that sells any of the above brands and go see one in the flesh, look out for forest/woodland/agri shows in the summer, there's often demos of processing equipment. Be careful of high usage secondhand processors. If they go out of sync they can be tricky to fix as adding one new part into a system of worn parts doesn't always help. It would be nice if you let us know what you do chose to get, a lot of folk seem to just disappear after asking a question these days, either way, happy splitting!