New Forest Part II

I've been wanting to write a sequel...

... to anything really for some time. Easy money eh, cashing in on the first one. It's never quite as good as the first but once I've got you this far I'm home and dry.

So anyway, I left Rob and his band of nutters with the thing on the ground but so big that there was nothing that could lift even small sections of the 15 foot round butt.

Just to recap in case you haven't been arsed to read the first bit, Jarno had slaved for hours up a rope on the hottest day of the year gradually reducing the Oak- he was recording this epic job on video or so he thought!. Each bit that came down was bigger than the last.

The one pictured below made quite a thump and Rob scurried in with his skid steer to take it up to where Richard was milling with his Woodmizer.

That was in his intention...

... but Rob soon found out that getting under the bigger trunks was getting very hard and lifting them nearly impossible. I say nearly as he eventually after much customary swearing, though for once not throwing his helmet on the floor managed to grab the bit below and turn in the right position.

Getting it to the saw was a challenge he was up for but Richard an old hand at big ugly beasts (trees he tells me not women) knew what would go on the Woodmizer and what wouldn't so they stopped pictured below for a mother's meeting:

How best to complete...

... the job was hammered out after I had made my hasty exit. There was talk before I left of hiring a meaty Manitou to cart the biggest bits but in the end a JCB was borrowed from a neighbour to move the trunk into a more get - at - able (if that's a word) place further up the garden.

Jarno rested his aching limbs and viewed his efforts only to find that some knob in a purple rugby shirt had stood in front of the camera thus obscuring the exciting bit. Now I accept that I was the only one wearing a shirt of that colour and the number 15 on the back does narrow it down somewhat but frankly you can't see the face so there is no proof, ok. He'll just have to fell it again... take 2 and action.

Richard trundled off with his Woodmizer trailing behind back up to the land of dark satanic mills or Blackpool- a good place to take the mistress for a spot culture or failing that a damn good time.

It was agreed...

... that Richard would return Monday to Wednesday, minus the Woodmizer but with his alternative to the Alaskan mill, a chainsaw or three and a second wind to mill the monster with Rob, who was also feeling a bit tired.

They would be feeling a bit worse than tired as the temperature upped a few more degrees C to over thirty.

It's a bit like working...

... in a wetsuit, was how Rob described the 8 hours milling in the heat with all the gear on. The trousers become soaked with sweat and stick to your legs. I've had a go for an hour or two and I really can't recommend it.

Still, I bravely made sympathetic noises as I sat in my airy office in the smoke sipping a refeshing cup of char whilst Rob relayed this over the phone. It reminded me of a miserable old Yorkshireman who was a warden of the section house I lived in as a young Policeman in London many moons ago.

Dennis, as was his name had a favourite phrase when the lads were bending his ear about their troubles. "If you are looking for sympathy, you'll find it between Shit and Syphillis in the dictionary, now F off". He was a sweet old thing as you can imagine!

My two regular readers...

... will recall in the Farleigh School story last autumn that having taken a 4" slice off of another big Oak we were stuffed as we could hardly move it. The end result was that in the struggle my finger got squashed and it bloody hurt.

No such problem here, we all make mistakes as the Dalek said climbing off the dustbin. The secret is to learn from them and Rob had by having the ever handy skid steer on hand to lift 'em off and take them up the top and stack them:

So the three days...

... hard work passed by for the two Rs - or pair of arses as some watching might have said. Presumably it was Richard who told the following to Rob who was so amused he emailed it to me:

A chap is walking along a pavement next to a fence and hears a voice on the other side of the fence repeating the word thirteen. He stops and listens. Then curiosity gets the better of him and he bends down and looks through a knot hole. Suddenly a finger comes through the hole and pokes him in the eye. As he reels back in pain all he can hear is fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen!

I'd heard it before- it's the wife's favourite. She knows a bit about pain and crap jokes having lived with me for 22 years.