Jamie C

Hi, I found this on the base of a cherry (kanzan type thing) I was removing and I've no idea what it is. It wasn't in a bracket of any kind, just lumpy crusty stuff. Does anyone have any ideas? Cheers, Jamie

On the DIY end of the spectrum - plastic saw horses, preprinted signs, some polycarb and a few strips of pallet wood. The pallet wood had a few cuts on the table saw to make the housing for the signs. Nice thing is that they're still saw horses, so you can weight them down with rounds. I already had the sawhorses so for me this was a no brainer.

I'm envious of all the sun. Here on the coast in Blyth I would describe it as "wet and meh". Cloudy, raining on and off and a max of 14º. In Geordie land that translates to somewhere between shorts are essential and lets have a barbeque. It is not quite at the level where the pub is more busy outside than it is inside.

Your work is outstanding. I love the way you're working with the curves and shapes of the burls to retain their "burliness" in a way that doesn't make it overly obvious.

Aye - QGIS is definitely a learning curve. They are also really helpful people.

I’ve found myforest to be nice for getting started on the plan. It seems very focused on forestry commission compliant plans. I’ve also been using QGIS to split out the woodland I’m working on (3 hectares) into 20 metre square so I can map it out by hand bit by bit when I’m there and I’ve got a few minutes between the other stuff we’ve got going on. When I’m down there I basically use a 20m tape measure from screwfix and a pen and paper. I dont bother with tech stuff in the woodland because reception is rubbish and I cannot afford the super accurate GPS / RTK GPS kit. Between the two I imagine I’ll get the management plan sorted this summer. I could totally do it without qgis, but I’m a bit of a tech nerd and I have those skills, so I put them to work.

For what it's worth I've been doing tech and software web dev for 20 years and I'm retraining in arb and forestry. Im very experienced in one (app and software) and totally green behind the ears in the other (arb and forestry) If there's scope for an app I can normally sniff it out, I cannot see one yet. Doesn't meant it doesn't exist. I'm sure theres a gap somewhere for something, but the reality of it is that any app would be so niche that it'd not be a market to pay the multiple thousands to have it built. The only thing I've spotted so far (that I'll probably smash out myself with react native) is an app to assist in plotting woodland, capturing data on individual trees (photos, geodata etc) and doing height stuff to avoid having to have something else to lose (eg clinometer). Even if there was something off the shelf that did all of that (and there probably is) it'd have to work with no signal, not murder a battery and then theres the issue of data, how it is stored, data protection, information security, uptime, bug fixes, marketing, support. Never ending list. Big app corp may be able to handle all that but it's a real consideration. So I'd love to give you a bunch of features that would be "game changing" but I suspect it'll be more a case of a problem looking for a solution. This could be because I have less than a year in this new trade of mine or because the trade existed for years before apps came along and it manages just fine - notwithstanding a few places where technology can take the chore out of the work (eg drone missions for woodland stuff) I hope you find success. Cheers.

Hey - I've been lurking for months and figured I'd introduce myself. I've spent a few years doing various "techy" things and decided to retrain in forestry and arb. I'm doing the city and guilds level3 arb course at Houghall in Durham. Hello.

I almost got talked into it years ago when I was running a web design company but I managed to side step it and my business partner jumped in for me. It seemed like a great idea at the time but the early morning breakfasts turned into a right chore and the networking side of things didn't produce anything. Mind you, that could have been our fault : ) To each their own, but frankly, you'd be better off just crackin' on.