Thursday, March 28, 2019

Woman in chains

Just two weeks ago I was unloading a load of straw. I had to manually push 30 4x4 bales off a lorry. It was hard physical work, as the bales were wedged on the load. I got a bit short of breadth doing it, but at the time didn't think too much about it.

That afternoon I used the tractor and loader to move the 30 bales from the roadside to a stack in the yard. Later my calf muscle was sore, I estimated that over the afternoon I had pressed the clutch pedal about 300 times bringing in the bales. The tractor has 130 hp, so the springs in the clutch are pretty stiff. That evening I was breathless lifting 25kg bags of meal to feed cattle, I was glad to be finished work for the day. That night I again got breathless going upstairs to bed.

Next morning I got up early, as it had rained heavily all night the cows had to be moved to a fresh block of grass. My wife gave me a lift near to where the cows were that night, it was raining heavily and by the time I got back to the house for breakfast I was really short of breadth, again. I took it easy for the day apart from going to the mill for half a ton of meal for the bulls, again throwing the bags into the back of the jeep I became short of breadth. That was Friday of the bank holiday Paddy's day weekend. Any time I exerted myself I was finding it hard.

I took it easy for the rest of the weekend, on Monday I tried to do some work in the yard, the bulls had to be mucked out and gates had to be hung in a shed to do it safely. I managed to hang two gates, but it had taken me 2 hours to do what would normally take me 20 minutes, I was shagged. I went home and called the out of hours GP as it was a bank holiday.

The doc suspected that I had a clot in my lung, it had started in my left calf, hence the pain the previous Thursday. There was an intermittent pain high up in my chest too, it felt like someone poking me hard in the chest with their finger. I had no choice, off to the regional hospital 35 miles away. 

Being a bank holiday Monday the A&E dept. was bedlam. I got seen by a triage nurse pretty quickly after arriving at 4.30pm. It would be after 1am on Tuesday morning before I'd see a doctor, 5am before I got a trolley (not a bed) and 8pm Tuesday evening before I actually got a bed. 

There were a lot of cops passing in and out of outpatients, sometimes they had a prisoner with them, sometimes not. They were going out for a smoke, one guy was in pjs. must have been on a witness protection programme or something. There was a big revolving door at the exit, and the prisoner got in the same section as me at one stage in the revolving door, the look of panic on the cop's face was priceless. Didn't know I had such a bad reputation.

The other prisoner going in and out for a smoke was a young blond woman, they had a 4 ft chain on her wrist attached to either of the two prison wardens with her. This woman was really striking, not that tall, her long hair was tied in a ponytail, she had a scorpion tattoo on the nape of her neck. After I got my trolley bed she was in the same ward and used to pass me a few times a day with her guardian in tow. I used to nod to her and she'd smile or say hi as she passed. 

I didn't see her again after I got moved to a real bed. I stayed in hospital for a few days getting tests and scans done. There was a big delay getting an MRI done. Eventually on the Thursday it got done and a lovely doc called Lamese looked after me. When I was leaving the hospital she surprised me by shaking hands with me, I was surprised because I didn't think doctors shook hands because of hygiene and all that jazz. Turns out I had a clot on my lung, they gave me drugs to help break it down. I'm still on drugs today to prevent another clot forming, and it looks like I'll be on them for life.

About a year later I was paying for diesel at a local filling station and there behind the till was the woman in chains. No chains this time, just a big friendly smile. She had more tattoos on her arms and I complimented her on them, She spoke English with an Eastern European accent. I've been back to the filling station a few times since, but haven't seen her. I hope she's ok and able to keep out of trouble. 

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

I hate March

If I die of natural causes it will be in the month of March. It's when I am at my lowest ebb, most stressed, even though it is spring, for me the winter isn't over yet. Last year there was a heavy fall of snow in early March after a fairly mild if wet winter. Same again this year, no snow and hardly any frost all winter then snow again in late February and early March.

Our seasons have changed, there can be no doubt about it, plum trees flowered in January this year, but now it is colder than it was in January, some buds are struggling to burst on the hawthorn, but it is like as if spring has been put on hold for now.

Our birds are finding it tough too. Yesterday as I drove into my yard I noticed a sparrow hawk perched on the gable over the front door, he didn't fly away as I approached, I say 'he' because males are smaller. He had no fear of me, if anything he looked hungry and miserable. We try and have an unkempt garden to provide food and shelter for wildlife, perhaps he had his eye on a blackbird or the pair of wood pigeon who have started nesting in the ivy on the garden wall. If our top predator birds like a sparrow hawk are having trouble surviving then it is a good indicator that the whole ecosystem is in trouble. I see hawks regularly flying along the road about 6 feet above the ground then diving through a field gateway, or hovering on a stiff breeze watching their prey, but I rarely see them near the house or in the garden, but that's the second time I saw a hawk in a garden this week. 

Occasionally I see a barn owl too at dusk, I believe he roosts in the roof of an old house in the yard, s/he's the reason I don't lay rat bait in the yard, but I haven't seen it since the autumn. There are also some pheasants who gather up the scraps of meal after feeding cattle. For anyone who thinks wild game meat hasn't been fed GM food, I hate to tell you but you might want to re-think that one next time you are ordering something gamey in a fancy Dublin restaurant.

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Pruning spruce trees.

If any readers have tried to walk through a young spruce plantation before the first thinning you'll know what I'm writing about. I planted 12 acres of trees 15 years ago. Before planting we put horses on the land to graze it bare, the reason for this was so that the guy digging the drains and mounding the spoil could see the lines of mounds easily and make neat straight lines of trees which were planted on the mounds.

There is a shallow drain every 12m with 6 mounds between the drains, which gives me a row of trees every 2m, but along the rows they can be as close as 1.7m apart. There are at least 2,500 trees per ha, it's basically impenetrable to humans right now. Eventually through periodic thinning the final crop of trees will be just 400 per ha. The first thinning will remove 1 row in 7 to allow access.

I'm trying to make a path perpendicular to the 1 in 7 rows before they get taken out. I use a secateurs and a pruning saw to cut the dead branches off the line of trees from ground level to about 2m high. When I started I didn't really know what I was doing, I was kneeling on the ground to cut the bottom branches off first, then alternatively using the secateurs and saw I would work my way up the tree, using the saw for the thicker branches. I was getting about 5 trees done per hour!

Now I think I've mastered it, here's how I do it.

  • I put my hood up
  • I push my way in past the branches, secateurs in my right hand
  • I prune a few light branches approx. 1,2-1.4m above the ground
  • Now that I have a bit of space I swap the saw for the secateurs
  • I'm right handed so I saw with my right and hold branches with my left
  • The path I've already cut is behind me with the branches I've cut to my left
  • I start cutting branches on the left hand side of the tree, working my way down the tree holding the cut branches and the branch I'm cutting in my left hand. This ensures a clean cut
  • I cut about a quarter of the branches in a line down the left side of the tree, I dump the cut branches to my left
  • I take a step forward, working clockwise around the tree I cut another line down the tree, this time starting at head height now that I have room to work.
  • I work my way round the tree, dumping cut branches away from what will be my path. 
  • On the larger trees, if the branches are dead I cut them off above my head as far as I can reach.
  • I put the saw in the scabbard and trim small branches with the secateurs, at this stage all the raindrops and loose needles have fallen off so I drop the hood to help me cool off as I tidy the light branches
  • Then it's on to the next tree, secateurs in hand, hood up. 
If I come across a  wolf (forked) tree I skip pruning it, perhaps just cutting the side branches off it in the pathway or instead prune the tree to the right instead. I can now prune a tree to 2m in approx 2 and a half minutes.
 Some of the 15 year old Sitka spruce are 20cm at dbh, the Norway spruce are a bit smaller at 15cm dbh for the best of them. By giving myself access I am able to select the better trees for high pruning to 2.7m this should help give me higher quality, knot free sawlogs in the final 400 trees per ha.

Just behind the pruned tree is a drain from which the soil for the mounds was taken before planting.

First few branches cut off from 1.2m to ground level.

About 1/4 of the branches that I'll be taking off are removed at this stage. Now that I have some space I can work up to about 2m. 

Just a few left, cut branches are on left, pathway on right.

I cut just outside the branch collar so that the bark will quickly grow over the wound.
Finally I tidy up with a secateurs, taking care to keep the blade next to the tree. This means that the part of the branch bruised by the anvil part of the secateurs is removed, again helping the bark to heal quicker.

1 tree done.



This tree will hopefully be one of the final crop and has been pruned to 3.5m 


Bit more reading here;

https://www.forestry.gov.uk/PDF/FCBU035.pdf/$FILE/FCBU035.pdf