Mr. Ed

I’m all set up now with a New Old Stock Nokka 106 from M Large. Very good service. I hope I don’t get bitten by the fact that Nokka are a dead firm (I suppose the rams and seals and stuff are generic sizes). The build quality is good and the price was right. It had been in stock since 2014! They have a couple more by the way. I haven’t done any real work yet but it seems good and strong.

Thanks for the insight on the likely provenance - sounds convincing to me. Your Farma trailer would be a grand thing, but I fear that my wee AGT might only (just) be able to pull it up the hill as long as it didn't have any wood in it! I've got a bigger Ford, but I don't dare take it into the woods - I've already had to pull it out with the AGT once!

It's by no means derelict, but there is a wonderful celebration of functional old technology at the Wall family sawmill in rural Waterford. They're still off grid and have three (for redundancy) Crossley stationary engines to generate their own power for their big sawmill, planers, and sharpening operation. They fuel it with a 50% mix of diesel and old engine oil I think, using a centrifuge yoke for cleaning the rubbish out of the old oil. They built the balcony on our new house extension here in the woods. Lovely people.

I wonder what that would have been . . . no teasing . . .

Hi Spaceman The trees are in SW Ireland, but I still work in London so travel back and foreward all the time, and I've bought various bits of woodland toys in the UK - there's much more supply in the UK, and shipping can be done E

No, I'm just an old bloke who's ended up living in 40 acres of woodland and wants a machine to help him get timber out of it. I'm thinking of making an "informed" counter offer - if I can get a new one for 8,000 euro, why would I pay him 5,500?

Mrs. Ed has just responded to my description as suggesting that Kellfri are a bit Centre Aisle at Lidl. . . . Anyone dissent?

Oh it’s a Kellfri isn’t it? people are rather dismissive of their quality aren’t they?

Hi all I’m being offered this aged crane and trailer. The crane is painted and has no manufacturer’s name anywhere. Nor does the trailer (which looks fairly well made) have any maker’s mark. Also, is the white line in the second picture a welded repair? Should I run away? Thanks for any wisdom Ed

World's first wooden satellite launched into space WWW.DW.COM Researchers from Japan believe that timber is a space-grade material that could on day be used to build houses...

Not a funny topic any more. Wasps being angry at the end of the year may be a thing: Man (56) dies after being stung by wasps while cutting hedge in Cork https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/11/06/man-56-dies-after-being-stung-by-bees-while-cutting-hedge-in-cork/

So I got the AGT. As you said, a very simple machine and a bit basic but it’s a real joy to drive compared with the Old Ford. I didn’t set this up on purpose but on its first day at work it had to pull the Ford out of some embarrassingly shallow mud. 584b41fa-0f20-46b7-b80c-dc99fec3644d.mov

Was the three year seasoning done after it had been split? Seasoning in whole stems doesn’t (as I’m sure you know) really work (at least in a timely fashion. We burn a lot of it but definitely need proper drying once cut - produces a lot of tar otherwise.

Sound man Frost! Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’ Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: ‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him, But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father’s saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

er, whoops … the last line is an artefactual one. So sorry - I did a cut and paste. The poem itself ends with “ravens nest”. oh dear