peds

I have one of those I was supposed to be doing this week before I had to come back to the UK. It's still there, waiting, I'll have to do it first thing in January. Griselinia, with other bonus items scattered around the garden. She kept saying that other people had let her down, I didn't have the heart to join their number. Enjoy!

Are you controlling the squirrels at all? Tasty as they are, and all that...

Not my husky, not my IR camera. Cool picture. Edit In keeping with the spirit though, here is Albert the Second, 11 years old, born into a three-collie-household but now a lone wolf, still mourning the passing of the recently-deceased Jane, 14. In oak and chestnut.

Anyone heard about the impending alien invasion in New Jersey? There's a lot of focus on New Jersey anyway, but there are currently reports of multiple "orbs" all over the world... Miami, Cordoba, China... Lots of interesting pictures and videos surfacing, some more credible than others, of drones hovering about... some are obviously just planes flying around at night, which really does make you question the intelligence of anyone involved in the whole thing, but there are also some very convincing examples. The White House seems to be being rather shady on the subject too... The fact that yer man Kirby there (as the spokesperson for the US government) seems unruffled by the situation suggests that they are in fact a US military activity on a strictly need-to-know basis, and not visitors from another planet, as everyone desperately wants them to be... which, given the rise of drones in military application over recent years, is still wildly interesting. Anyone got orbs and aliens and drones in their feed?

Oh yeah, I guess so. Cheers boss.

What's a De Veg operative? I'm intrigued, why's the job specifically to be done on Christmas and Boxing Day? Not interested obviously, I'll be busy and drunk. But intrigued.

Righto skip, will do.

Oh yeah, Christmas. Best start thinking about shopping. What do you want for Christmas, team?

Good morning everyone. Drizzle here...

After seeing him wrestle a stepcut unsuccessfully before giving it another few slices with the hand saw, I find his content remarkably relatable.

I'm googling, and now I'm disappointed. I find myself wondering if parapent BASE jumpers (that is, a tandem flight of parapenters/paragliders, and the passenger bails in midair, to open their own wing on the way down...), or even slackline or hot air balloon BASE jumpers, etc., have any fancy name-brand technology available to them, like the Plummet or Freefall... or if they just rely on slipknots or fiddlesticks or even regular old unclipping. I remember seeing a video of one BASE jumper deliberately rappelling off the end of a rope. Pretty wild.

I thought you already did? Should we take a brief census by way of a poll...? Good morning everyone, I'm going to pull on my filthy clothes from yesterday and continue scrubbing the rat shit out of the corners of my folks' outbuildings. Have a productive day, all!

Luigi Mangione's brief manifesto:

What distance are you covering these days? My tib-fib post-op father can make it down the single step to the outside bog all by himself now! Very impressive. I'm sorting my folks shed and summer house today, trying to put them back into a functional space instead of mishmash storage in both. Pretty rock and roll. Nice to have a week off work, anyway.

Nice one, I'll give it a go.

I have a block of home-grown beeswax waiting for an application. Anyone want to suggest the ideal oil and the ratio in which to mix it? Neatsfoot does sound like a strong contender... being cows, and all...

Are you supposed to use an offcut of your climbing line like that?

You're being mean to your fat groundies. Probably hurts their feelings more than you realise. 💔

Like that nice chunky piece at 07:30? Great watch, thanks for sharing.

That doesn't rhyme.

If you like the Petzl Eject, you'll love the Beal Escaper... Beal Escaper Abseil System WWW.CLIMBERS-SHOP.COM The Beal Escaper Abseil System is a retrievable rope anchor designed to let you travel a full rope length without...

Went walking up behind our fence on Saturday, while the winds were still slightly raging... this old ash, biggest stem of three rotten at the base, was facing away from the wind and as such got peeled down. The other two, leaning into it, were flexing a bit, but coping well. Perfect place to sit and have a (very quick) snack while learning about calculated risk...

For anyone who can't recite it from the top of their head: * The Firewood Poem Beechwood fires are bright and clear If the logs are kept a year, Chestnut's only good they say, If for logs 'tis laid away. Make a fire of Elder tree, Death within your house will be; But ash new or ash old, Is fit for a queen with crown of gold Birch and fir logs burn too fast Blaze up bright and do not last, it is by the Irish said Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread. Elm wood burns like churchyard mould, E'en the very flames are cold But ash green or ash brown Is fit for a queen with golden crown Poplar gives a bitter smoke, Fills your eyes and makes you choke, Apple wood will scent your room Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom Oaken logs, if dry and old keep away the winter's cold But ash wet or ash dry a king shall warm his slippers by. * Now open to suggestions for a stanza extolling the virtues of leylandii firewood.

Get rid of anything vertical, thin them out a bit (so you can throw your hat through the tree, as they say) mulch out to dripline, feed it.

I knocked over a stand of escaped leylandii for someone a couple of years ago (previously topped, multiple new leaders, a windy mess). I offered to process it for him, said wait for four years and it'll be some of the best firewood you'll ever have. He just left them there on the ground. Drove by a few months ago, the site had been digger cleared... I saw him, asked what became of the wood. He said the digger driver told him it was pure garbage, he dug a big hole, smashed it all in, leveled the top, walked away. Pity. He was buying in double-height pallet crates of kiln-dried from eastern Europe.