Spring into Summer 2021

 

Covid, Mud and freezin' weather ...

 

... gradually receded and the best time of year arrived. With the third lockdown my helpers were confined to barracks and not a lot happened. It allows time to plan ... I planned to do a bit of woodland maintenance and get more timber cut ... but didn't really!

 

I'm told the difference between a literalist and kleptomanic is that the former takes everything literally whilst the latter takes literally everything. Well, that's the lot for the clever stuff for this year back to the bum and bonking jokes.

Before we get to those ...

 

... I had a message from an old colleague and woodworker who had spotted a large Oak that was a 'if you can get at it and move it you can have it '. This is always worth a look though experience has shown that anything that sounds too good to be true, often is.

 

Excitingly, another even bigger Oak had fallen nearby so I braved the horrors of Slough to get to a nicer bit in Bucks and had a close sniff. The one pictured below wasn't a disaster but there was insufficient good timber to cover cost of extraction.

 

It's big brother had come down heavily and was a mix of rotten and split timber and had the worst body since the scabby thing I woke up next to after a heavy night in 1983.

 

 

One to walk away from ... in a flooded field temporariiy iced over the butt end was rotten and there were too many branches to get a clean first length.

A friend of mine confided that ...

 

... his young Thai girlfriend had insisted that a small penis wouldn't affect their sex life. He told me that he still wished she didn't have one! Another friend was given a Rolex for his birthday by his lovely lesbian neighbours.

 

I thought he would grateful but he complained that when they asked him what he wanted for his birthday he had said " I want to watch ".

 

I was lured to the other side ...

 

... of Petersfield after a tip off about lot of Oak at a good price. Like the Oak in the top story above I'm always cautiously optimistic but again I was disappointed. You wouldn't need my 20 years experience of viewing timber and more than double that naked women to quickly decide this was a pile of crap.

 

In the end, my Oak needs for this year were met closer to home with the double advantage of dealing with a decent local land owner and being able to use Andy the fabulous log forwarder who can get it to the Woods by the Saw with no effort from me and a sensible price.

 

I think if I had the sheds stocked with this it would stay there!

I used to like to paint black and white ...

 

... stripes on my wife's body before we made love. I really thought she enjoyed this until I heard her telling a friend that she was fed up with me badgering her for sex!

 

In other news ... Do you ever do about 80% of a job and mean to come back and finish it but never do? Well sir, not me sir though in this case it was 14 years later that I finished it.

 

Back in 2007 Gordy felled ...

 

... an Oak in the Woods and with his then new Alaskan Mill chainsawed a few slices off it. He didn't have the expertise that New Forest Rob has developed to be able to mill it right to the ground so about 6 inches of meat was left at the bottom of the log.

 

The Oak was in an inaccessible bit of the Woods. When everything died back in the Winter I would see it and think I must drag that out before everything starts growing and it disappears again and I never did ... until this year when me an' Tuesday Dave liberated it ... still usable!

 

 

If you click on this link it'll take you to the first blog in this format and if you scroll down to last picture in that you'll detect that the one above is taken from same place. Gordy gone but not forgotten and his mate Tractor Dave replaced by the far more handy Tuesday Dave.

Regular readers and visitors know ...

 

... Goulden fine wood emporium is over run with Daves. Obviously Tuesday and Thursday Daves - the above mentioned Tractor Dave. Market Dave, the No1 customer and Dave the garage from the village and one or two others.

 

After 20 years as neighbours in Quarry House next to the Kiln I was sorry to see the ever helpful Seeber family leave but their replacements Max and Dave are shaping up nicely. Both of them and their young family are very energetic and they come to the Woods on Sundays help with bonfires and sorting firewood.

 

You've got Tuesday and Thursday Dave says ...

 

... young Henners well my Papa who is Dave always comes to the Woods on a Sunday so can he be Sunday Dave? Yes he can, so I now have Daves on all 3 of the Wood days ... rather have Daves than piles, eh!

 

Having struggled to find ...

 

... decent Oak as above, typically once I'd sorted some a lot more came my way. The one below was courtesy of my mate Ant who has good local contacts. Cutting a beast like that needs Rob and his state of the art cutting systems so more of that next time when I've lured him from Cornwall with a exaggerated amount of dosh or some other ruse!

 

Sent the pic to Rob who said ok ... can you get the crack horizontal or vertical - I'll try I said . Later he said don't worry I'm going to try something new.

Steve at Helmdon Sawmill ...

 

... has had a busy winter - sadly cutting other people's wood. The system is that you have to leave a message on a landline ansaphone in his sharpening shed and if he wants to, he'll ring you back. This works very well - for him & if he has a mobile phone it and it's number is kept well hidden from the likes of me!

 

I last collected some timber on 15th December and his parting words were " I'll try and cut that Beech for you next week. " Having heard nowt on 15th January I left a happy month anniversary message which elicted no reply.

On the 15th of February ...

 

... I left another happy anniversary message & added if you need me to send f-ing flowers just let me know. To be fair he rang me that night and said " Bear with me for another couple of weeks. " On 15th March I left a message asking if it was Helmdon timber depository and explained that I had a load that I'd like to remove and did he know if there was a capacity to cut them into slices to aid transport.

 

This also went unanswered, so it's pretty clear how he rates me and my business in his priority to do list. Obviously in the end he gave up and rang me - he didn't want to lose his almost royal warrant!

 

Progress on the kids camp ...

 

... in the middle of the Woods was as ever slow but noticable if you left a time lapse camera on it for months. A donation of a new and quite sexy flag pole was received and installed with the help of a recently retired Police colleague.

 

If you were the Station officer on certain days like the Queens Birthday your job was to fly the flag. I can't remember ever putting it up, only lowering it at dusk when late turn. (getting my excuse in early here) Chris was confident he knew the correct way up to fly the flag from his previous experience so we holsted & I sent the pic to the flag company who were delighted to point out it was upside down!

 

Thursday Dave also pointed out that it ought to be inside and that if we did we could get it a few feet higher so that was swiftly sorted.

Occasionally we cut into something ...

 

... in this case a bit of Burr Acacia not knowing quite how good it will be and are very pleasantly surprised. They aren't massive but are sure to attract the attention of one of our craftsmen customers - or woman or bi curious or whatever the correct term is nowadays.