peds

Took a bit of a ride there. Can't really see what happened through all the pixels, has anyone seen a bigger version? Is it being rigged down but he bit off more than he could chew? The saw flying away is pretty dramatic too. m2-res_1920p.mp4

Try and get a side-by-side comparison picture of the tips, buds, leaves, fruit, or whatever else you can of both trees. Tricky to get an accurate ID with two vastly different stems. (Edit to add: the two trees are quite clearly growing from two different sources, they might well be the same species but it looks like two trees... unless they started growing lower down and the ground level was then built up to be in a raised bed, in which case you've got bigger problems. Doesn't look like it in the photos though.) It looks like the lights are starting to girdle the stem lower down, if left on it'll harm the tree more as time goes by, and be harder to remove when you do. What brand of power washer did he use? If it was just a crappy Lidl one you'll probably get away with it. It hasn't exactly gone right through the cambium layer. Tree will probably panic a bit, just be kind to it. Mulch the base with rotted woodchip or bark out to the dripline, feed it with seaweed or comfrey extract and a dose of activated biochar, and most importantly, find a smelly hippy to sprinkle some biodynamic horn manure tea around it. Then cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Bump This could be purely my imagination, but has anyone else seen a good bit of healthy growth on a number of ash that they thought would be on the ground by now? There's still a load of casualties around obviously, but the 95% seems pessimistic now with what I'm seeing.

That's flipping loopy.

At the risk of having the good old cuck insult thrown around again, my wife simply won't let me drive through anything deeper than a puddle. We always go around. My training has been so thorough that I even listen to her nagging when she isn't in the vehicle, because I would just hate to give her any ammunition for one of those told-you-so episodes. I seek my giddy little thrills elsewhere.

I've seen it around a bit, I did a good bit of googling the first time I saw it, and I came to the conclusion that it was the substance contained within female frogs that eventually turns into the jelly part of frogspawn (not the eggs) when deliberately laid. But when the frog gets eaten instead, it swells in the stomach of the heron/fox/cat/etc, and forces an ejection. Could be completely wrong, but it makes sense to me.

Very useful for to know, thanks Peas. Sure I'll stick them in anyway and cross my fingers, and keep my eyes out for better future berries. I don't recall seeing any near me before, ever...

Challenge accepted!

Bump I've got a little pile of mistletoe left over from Christmas, I'm going to smear it into cracks in a few of my trees. Any hot tips? I'm thinking 3 or 4 berries per crevice to mimic the application of bird faeces, would this be about right? Edit Having read through the thread I'll be posting it into hawthorn, hazel, birch, an oak, and a few of the many black poplar I have, in the name of science.

Don't know how your new years parties are going, but the Pictionary is getting pretty f*cking heated here.

You can barely tell. Blends in nicely.

We needed it because we were building a house and needed somewhere for deliveries, tools, storing furniture mid-move etc., and didn't have the time to build anything else. 4 screws in the ground one afternoon, containers delivered the next day, finished. Usable secure and dry storage space. Now that they are there, it's a lot quicker and easier to just clad them and roof them than it would be to get rid and start again from scratch. I don't see the reason for the negativity towards them. There's certainly enough containers kicking around for people to do whatever they want with them.

One advantage is that it no longer looks like a shipping container. I have 2x20ft containers with a gap between them, they were hugely useful when we were building our house, and my wife says we can only keep them if they get clad to a decent standard.

Well tell her to have a blast and to stay on top of her transceiver and crevasse rescue game 👍

It's a long day all right, it's the way we usually do it whenever we visit the UK so we've got it down pat now really, with a good few stops along the way for the kids and the dog.

Ah right, would I know her? I lived in Cham from 2008 to 2018.

Never spontaneously, as far as I know. I'm sure the number of species incapable of it far outweighs those that can, but it does happen!

These are well documented in species the world over, especially during times of reproductive scarcity, so I do wonder... Interesting question!

Good stuff, crack on. Merry Christmas!

Nice one Conor, yeah up in north Sligo. Thanks for putting a figure somewhere near it, I did think it'd be somewhere in the 4-5k range. Obviously it's impossible to quote on photos, you have to be under the tree itself before you know what it is, but I promise access is as good as I claim. I wonder how much it'd go up if it was inaccessible! I might give you a call on that chipper question if things look right, but at this stage I'm definitely holding back until the bigger firms can put a quote in though. Might not be worth my sanity, even if it is worth my time... And 500 seems steep, surely someone would want to do it for the firewood?

7.5 hours is a big old push, at least with UK to Ireland you get a sit down on the ferry. When I lived in the Alps we'd usually do the drive from Chamonix to Dover/Cherbourg in 8-10 hours, which was an absolute doddle on deserted French motorways at night.

Well you have to really, we can't manage a goose and a ham between 8 of us. We'll need all the help we can get. What are your plans?

Celebrating our first Christmas in our new house this year, we are expecting all three sets of grandparents for the big day, including my folks staying with us for a week. On the drive from Warwickshire to the west coast of Ireland two days ago, someone made the wrong decision and drove into my parents' car. The car is a right off, but both humans and both dogs were uninjured, as were the occupants of the two other cars, so things could have been a lot worse. The police on scene made it clear that one party of the three involved were responsible, so hopefully insurance shouldn't be a headache. They usually split the drive to visit us over 2 days to make it easier, they are approaching 80 so you can't blame them. They put their time in over the decades, driving through the night and crossing Europe in a single push, so they are allowed to slow down a bit now. To save time before Christmas though, I'm waiting to board a flight to England so I can drive them over in their second car. Leaving at dawn tomorrow, six hours through Wales, 1410 sailing from Holyhead, another 4 hours across Ireland, and we should be back home by 10pm tomorrow. They've been living the high life in a Travelodge near Oswestry for the last two days, so they'll be glad for the change of scenery. Anyway it's not so bad, if the other car had hit 90cm further back then there'd be a hospital involved at least, and probably worse. So you can't complain. Merry Christmas one and all, hhope it all goes well.

Absolutely could, yeah. And drop zone is grand, either side of the fence. Track mewp definitely sounds tempting now though, I'll look into it.

It would, wouldn't it. I think they go for about 750euro a week from our local hire place. Might give them a shout.