5thelement
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Everything posted by 5thelement
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If your weed is running low though, it’s running low.😂
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Was this training, refresher training or Assessment? Was it NPTC who did the training or some other training provider?
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This is one of the issues that the Industry faces, varying quality and experience, the same as in many other aspects of the tree work industry. Many employers just book courses with the local agricultural college without doing any research, only to find out that the Instructor is a person from the last years Foundation Degree course, then complain about the poor quality after the event. If I was asked to supply a training manual for my tractor, unless the tractor was very specific with unusual specifications, alarm bells would have been ringing. I would have just used another trainer who knew their stuff rather than pay someone who didn’t.
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I hear this nonsense quite a bit. I have been a hand cutter on piece rate for nearly 30 years, I think I have got the hang of it and am pretty efficient by now. I still keep my hand in on the Arb side too, as that’s where the real money is. I became an NPTC Assessor/LANTRA Instructor about 9 years ago, mostly because I enjoy the teaching side and it gave my body a break from the fatigue of commercial Forestry. In the UK I would do 85% Forestry on piece rate, 10% Instructing and 5% Assessing. I can earn more per day cutting a chain of Sweet chestnut, I can earn more per day on tonnage in any decent stand of Hard/Softwood. Any decent subby climber with their own kit can earn more per day than an Assessor. I would love to know where this fabled cash generator gravy train is, because I have certainly never boarded it.
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I think he beat Ruiz more because of of a change in strategy from Ruiz, who came in massively heavier, slower and sluggish than he did in the first fight, rather than anything AJ’s camp changed.
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I don’t think AJ could beat Usyk if he fought him 50 times, Usyk is far too elusive and AJ is far too static, I don’t think AJ’s camp can come up with any strategy that would allow their man to win. Fury v Usyk would be hard to predict and could turn out to be a classic if it ever happened, I would back Usyk for the points win. Fury would beat AJ hands down, but if Usyk wins again, that is a fight we would probably never get to see.
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Joshua will retire after he gets beaten again by Usyk.
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Won’t know the results for a while. I think the trick is to keep the soil moist but don’t overwater or fertilise as you just end up with masses of vegetive growth and no crop. I have mulched them with a 4” layer of well rotted wood chip.
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Even though I was a bit late this year, starting from scratch in the new place, things are doing okay. First of the Cucumber (Devils food🤮) round Courgette for a change, Baby Sweetcorn as it is difficult to find here and I use it a lot. Tomatoes doing fine outside, first time growing Sweet Potatoes, hopefully they are doing as well underground as they are above. Pears/Apples/Peaches doing fine despite the late frost that lost us a lot of blossom and hammered my Kiwi Fruit right back to the main stem.
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Download the current Assessment schedule from the NPTC website, it will tell you everything you will be asked to do practically and verbally.
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There is a company in Brighton that collects all the spent coffee grounds from the masses of coffee shops in town. They compress the coffee into recycled card boxes and impregnate them with different fungi, you spray a slot in the box each morning until the mushrooms appear. I got given one for my birthday a while back. Put them in the kitchen windowsill, got a kilo of hot oyster mushrooms after a week or so.
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Wakehurst Place, who hold the millennium seed bank started a reintroduction programme for native Black Poplar a few years back. Females are the hardest to find, they where usually cut down around properties because they produce masses of candy floss type material when flowering. They are very localised in the UK, the Kent examples we took cuttings from turned out to be clones from Manchester stock. I only found out how rare they where when I moved down South, until then I had been felling one a week in and around Greater Manchester for ten years, feel a bit guilty now, although I did reveal the whereabouts of several unknown females, there is only one known on council owned land in Manchester, it’s right smack in the middle of the Trafford Centre car park entrance.
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Morels also do fantastic in wood chip.
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I did a bit for a guy a few years back. Cut back some Oak in his woodland and created stacks for the doweling. I think he got 7 years from them before he needed to renew the timber, Oak lasts the longest, you can’t use Ash or pine.
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I’ve used the Supertack ‘Bio crap’ from Clark’s for at least 10 years in all my saws, 3 series, 5 series Husqvarna and my Stihl, never had any issues whatsoever. I often cut on SSSI’s and alongside watercourses where Bio oil is compulsory.
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Do you get any concessions yourself Andy, being in the industry, or do you pay the same as us plebs?
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And there you go guys. Every time you fill up you are giving trigger Andy a pay rise so he can spend more time at home and more time on Arbtalk belittling you for earning pittance. If ever there was a chance to unite under one banner, this is it. 😂
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The 5 year refresher has always existed, albeit ‘Advisory’ from AFAG/HSE, meaning the majority really didn't do them. FISA just made it compulsory in Forestry so that they could make a fortune on training, you could only use FISA instructors initially, unfortunately they had next to none.
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The CS41 will cover it technically, but if he spends most of his time doing aerial work and little felling, this will probably be the weak spot that needs to be refreshed, so a one day refresher might be appropriate for CPD/insurance etc. I would personally take a look at his felling and see if he is up to scratch, if so, crack on, if not book him in. NPTC now do a one day ‘Golden Badge’ certificate where you basically do the Assessment again to see if you are still deemed competent, with guidance on where to improve from the Assessor. The only thing I would say is does he fell large trees/stems over his CS31 limit, if so maybe put him in on the CS32 instead.
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If you read the instruction manual and look at the diagram at the side of the start button on the saw, it tells you how to start hot and cold. Do it this way and it will be fine, don’t do it and guess what? 😉
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The French government invests massively in the UK due to the shortsightedness of successive UK governments. A few years back I was crossing the Severn Bridge with an Italian guy, he asked me who received the toll payment, England or Wales? I didn’t know so I asked the guy in the pay booth, his reply, France? They footed the bill for its construction, take the revenue and pay peppercorn rent to England/Wales, and we haven’t even started on the foreign ownership of the UK train network operators!!!
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The Green Energy frenzy, certainly wind power, is just as buoyant here in France. I haven’t looked too much into it but I would assume the turbines are produced and shipped using the same cheap workforces as the UK ones do. The main difference I see here are French men are doing the installation with French companies, French energy company logos on the finished turbines, putting energy into the French grid and sold to the masses at a capped and far lower rate per unit than in the UK.
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No idea what this plant is in my garden, can anyone help?
5thelement replied to GT1's topic in Picture Forum
It usually looks a bit shabby at this time of year, especially after long periods of dry weather, it’s a consistent Winter flowering plant. Cut all the flower head stalks back to ground level before they set seed and it usually perks up a bit. -
Its down to simple economics. It is cheaper to design, manufacture, ship and install using foreign labour than invest in our own workforce and infrastructure, our government simply wants cheap with maximum profit, they have no interest in the long term benefit to the UK, just short term gain for their term in office, same shit whoever happens to be in power. We can’t keep buying cheap products made in the Far East and then complain about the loss of our own manufacturing industry.
