Mr. Ed

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

I’m all over John Clare at the moment. A great man for unfeigned and intimate love and knowledge of nature. Here, he writes on an oak tree and its resident ravens. It’s un-punctuated as he wrote it and you might have to go through it a couple of times to get the rhythm. His spelling was eccentric and it’s printed as he wrote it - “hugh” was how he spelt “hugh”. The last line is stonking. The Ravens Nest John Clare (1832) Upon the collar of an hugh old oak Year after year boys mark a curious nest Of twigs made up a faggot near in size And boys to reach it try all sorts of schemes But not a twig to reach with hand or foot Sprouts from the pillared trunk and as to try To swarm the massy bulk tis all in vain They scarce one effort make to hitch them up But down they sluther soon as ere they try So long hath been their dwelling there--old men When passing bye will laugh and tell the ways They had when boys to climb that very tree And as it so would seem that very nest That ne'er was missing from that self same spot A single year in all their memorys And they will say that the two birds are now The very birds that owned the dwelling then Some think it starnge yet certaintys at loss And cannot contradict it so they pass As old birds living the woods patriarchs Old as the oldest men so famed and known That even men will thirst into the fame Of boys at get at schemes that now and then May captivate a young one from the tree With iron claums and bands adventuring up The mealy trunk or else by waggon ropes Slung over the hugh grains and so drawn up By those at bottom one assends secure With foot rope stirruped--still a perrilous way So perrilous that one and only one In memorys of the oldest man was known To wear his boldness to intentions end And reach the ravens nest--and thence acchieved A theme that wonder treasured for supprise By every cottage hea[r]th the village through Nor yet forgot though other darers come With daring times that scale the steeples top And tye their kerchiefs to the weather cock As trophys that the dangerous deed was done Yet even now in these adventureous days Not one is bold enough to dare the way Up the old monstrous oak where every spring Finds the two ancient birds at their old task Repairing the hugh nest--where still they live Through changes winds and storms and are secure And like a landmark in the chronicles Of village memorys treasured up yet lives The hugh old oak that wears the ravens nest In the picture the Raven is real, and so am I.

And of course it’s the standard wood for engraving on. You work on the end grain and large blocks are made up from several small pieces tenoned [?] together.

Thanks Gareth. Could you point me at a source that says that most green glass doesn’t get recycled as glass? I’ve not found one. Only curious, not questioning.

I don’t know if this thread is still live, so ignore me if it isn’t: I’ve never heard this about green glass. Can you expand on it?

I commute between SW Ireland and SE England and the squalor of English verges is very marked.

I stumbled across this just now. The strangest video I'm likely to post anywhere. I think it was the first Christmas we were in the house, and we were moving out some overgrown Christmas trees. Had no tractor or motor winch and I was pulling this tree out of the undergrowth with a Tirfor and the junior arch. Needs sound - it's very boring and just a little bit beautiful. Bella Regazza.MOV

Hi Peds. Underside is just a couple of short battens on the inside of the bath just enough for the board not to slide off the edge. I was pleased to use the curved wany edge as a bit of a wrap around. The angle of the book blocks was resolved by trial and error.

our nuts never last long enough to go off. Good point though - you’d want to have some drainage holes in the bottom. Here’s a nice simple Christmas present for Mrs Ed who loves her bath.

Thanks! the balcony is a joy - breakfast at the height of the birds in the trees. The job’s still not finished - stairs to be dressed in oak and lots of Ash skirtings and architraves to be moulded still. Made some bookshelves. Glad I didn’t pay for them - they’re not very well done really.

Excellent! Looks wonderful. Ours is slightly unfinished in that photo, but it is proper board on board. We chose that to help it hide in the woods. The trees came from right in front of it, an overgrown hedge all leaning on itself like drunken soldiers.

May I just add that this Mr. Ed is not that Mr. Ed. I hadn't known I was a usurper. And this one loves Leylandii, so much that he wrapped his house in it. Does this make me a Man in a Shed? But Leylandii does need a lot of seasoning if you want to burn it - tons of tar.

It does sound like a challenging project. Good luck with your decision making process! Here’s something I didn’t know: from the paper that Amarus referenced, with reference to your location. <<. In terms of environmental conditions, wetter sites have been observed to have higher mortality, although in the UK ash growing on chalk (very dry) has also shown high mortality. >> In our own mixed woodland (SW Ireland so not notably dry but most of our land is quite well drained) our management plan for the oldest area (in terms of established trees) is to do absolutely nothing beyond keeping the main track open. It’s an area of gullies and there are beautiful tall elegant mature Ashes growing from the bottoms of the gullies (one of the most beautiful things I know is the sight of these trees dancing in the wind in a summer gale, with their neighbouring big old oaks looking on in benign amusement like elderly relatives at a ball). After the heartbreak of realising this magical place was going to change we are resigned and will watch and see. They are lasting longer than younger trees (we felled several thousand 12 year old Ash) but after each of this winter’s gales the floor is more littered with branches and quite big boughs. We hope the trees will “monolith” themselves naturally and remain standing as vertical habitat piles but if they fall we’ll leave them there. We’ve had to get tree surgeons in to remove the big ashes beside the main access road to our house and I’m glad we did it before they were completely dead for it made the work far easier - they were still nice and Ashy and make fine timber and firewood. At this stage I wouldn’t be particularly anxious about a danger from falling trees (though we don’t go out in the woods in big gales, not least because the noise is terrifying). I’d be more frightened by the big old willows who randomly drop big boughs on the ground.

Mine’s not at all posh but it doesn’t have a return trap either. Which is good now you point it out.

I’ve got nothing to compare the splitter with beyond an axe. It’s easier on your back than an axe. There? I’ve said it. I play a bit of keepy-uppy where the goal is to keep the wood off the floor - from saw horse to barrow, from barrow to table to splitter, back to barrow again then on the pile. I’d like to say my back is fine but the barrow and the splitter are just a few inches too low for comfort. And I’m aware that the process involves handling the wood many times before it even gets on the pile. I’m sure there’s a better way: maybe I’ll invent a machine with chainsaws and conveyor belts and maybe even a splitter as well, ah it would never catch on….

Talk about a difference in scale! this was a days production for me! my processor and my conveyor.

Finally getting round to Ash dieback casualties. Lots of work for modest return! My break through was to use the ratchet strap to hold the bundle together - it stops them chasing me around and means I can saw it like it’s one big piece.

The nice thing about a grate is the ability to turn it up to turbo mode for a moment by opening the ash door. Makes it easy to relight from embers for instance.

My warning is when Mrs Ed takes her shirt off. Time to damp down the fire then I suppose, but you know, what else so you have a bearskin rug in front of the fire for?

I've got one of those little logrite arches, and they're lovely things. So neatly designed and well-made. They lift the log just with the geometry of pulling down the bar, and a heavy log takes quite a force to get the centre of gravity up and over the wheel, so that's a bit of a limitation. The other limitation is length - walking with them is a bit like taking a dog for a walk (that's why it's called "junior" I suppose) and if you have a long one it's always nipping at your ankles, threatening your achilles tendon and back of the knee like a malicious cowdog. There's a handle you can extend with, but you still can't use it with really long logs. I use it in the yard mostly for pulling little bits about, or for lifting one end of a bigger log so you can saw it. The basic concept is so delightful that I use it whenever I can.

I’ve used this a bit,including on back roads (shhhh). Not in the woods yet till we get our nimbler tractor. The winch is a bit feeble. I have fantasies about using a tractor winch to pull big logs up close and then swapping out lines and using it to lift them up. A very good idea to strap the sticks in!

True. The 835 ranges from 22 to 26 based on tires.