Monday 22 May 2017

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

That is the question.

As mentioned previously I have for the last 6.5 years been working as a tree surgeon or if you're feeling fancy, an arborist. For the last 4.5 of these I have been running my own company Treeple - The Tree People, with my friend Tristan. The name came to me after a whole lot of umming and ahhing and going through numerous puns, which the Irish, and I, are very fond of. Is good to have a memorable name to stand out from the norm such as Paddy O'Murphy's Tree Cutting Services.

Arborism is something that I love doing and I wish that I had discovered it a lot younger in life. Starting as a 30-something ex-estate agent, who had always been fond of gluttony and extreme laziness, I was not in possession of the body or the musculature required to climb big trees and do hardcore physical work all day every day. Basically I was a fat bastard who had not refrained from eating all of the pies. 6.5 years later I am a little bit less so thankfully.

Working outside is a joy, even if the weather in Northern Ireland can be changeable and unpleasant to say the least. There are very few days that it absolutely pisses down all day, and I find extreme summer weather just as dreadful as extreme winter weather because chainsaw trousers are like duvets for your legs. At least if it is cold or wet you can dress up accordingly.


These are my other babies, the tools of the trade. From left to right: The Mozzi (Tristan has a similar one called the Gnat), Butterface (Tristan has one identical called Daily Bread - they get used all day every day and are our bread and butter), The Stihl (no nickname equals minimal love), The Old Maid and The Beast (120cc and a 36 inch bar). We have a few others that we can call on when required.

When we were extending the house we decided we should have a log boiler installed at vast expense. The benefits we thought were that we would get free fuel from my work, and as it was part of a renewable energy incentive scheme, we would actually get paid the more we burned. Seemed like a no-brainer.

One of the benefits of having your own tree surgery business is that you get a shit-load of wood as a waste product of your work. Luckily Tristan and I both live on old farms so we have quite a bit of space to store most of it.


This is the boiler and buffer tank that runs all of our heating and hot water in the office and home. We moved in in October, so just when the weather was starting to get cold and it quickly became apparent that I did not have enough seasoned (dried) wood of the correct size (it takes 50cm long logs), or seasoned wood of any size, so providing enough heat to the house and office was proving difficult. This, along with Mrs B on at me constantly to burn burn burn, so that we could start getting paid back some of the money we had shelled out, was a constant source of anxiety, and I was spending every waking hour worrying about it. My dreams too were predominantly based around cutting, splitting, stacking and burning logs for quite a while - more like nightmares if I'm honest.

Anyway we got through the first winter by burning bad wood, and borrowing bundles of seasoned logs from the father-in-law that were paid back in unseasoned ones, and walking around the woods finding large, long-dead branches on trees and cutting them off. I then took it upon myself to get busy preparing so as to not get in the same shituation again. I bought a lorry load of wood (trees basically), built a few drying areas in my yard and got splitting and stacking.

Any time I have a free hour or so this is what I have to do. Sounds like a lot of work? well, like money, firewood don't grow on trees you know - so it has to be done. Have a look at how much wood I have about the place drying and waiting to be burned, just for our consumption.


What is left of the timber lorry delivery still to be processed at my father in law's. Those three big rings at the front are a metre long, waiting to be split.



Two piles at Tristan's yard. He thinks they might be his. He will soon learn.


The boiler shed, logs ready to go.


The shed next to the boiler shed, also ready


What has been processed (and not burned) of the timber lorry load. Metre lengths to be cut in half - dry on the right, drying on the left.


Crappy soft wood ready to be split. These have the added fun and pleasure of having been covered in dexter shit and piss that has run down the yard from the cattle shed, above and behind the party shed.


Half of these piles are to be split and stacked, the other half to be cut, split and stacked. I have included my big-girl bicycle here for scale.


Little mini wood shack I built, works well.


The best one I've built, a lean-to against the wall. Loads of logs fit and they dry out fast, needs better ends though. And gutters.


Small logs for the stove in the house which we light every night for about 9 months of the year.


The sides of this makeshift one are rusty builders frames which are breaking under the strain. If I walk past and fart some logs will inevitably fall down.


Some small, some big. My original wood shed but nothing dries as well as if its outside.


Some lengths and bits and bobs that I'll get round to eventually. Hopefully we don't need to get anything big out of the lockup.


And finally. This one was meant to be my pride and joy (drying three rows of 50cm logs at a time) but it is the worst one. It is on the wall that gets hit the hardest by the shite weather, which is also the furthest from the boiler and the hardest to get to over soft ground. I also built it with two fence panels as the roof thinking the water would run just off it. Unfortunately this was not the case and in fact the panels have sagged in the middle, making more water pour down onto the logs when it is raining, hence the mouldy brown logs in the middle. The tarp is a temporary solution. Bollocks is what it is though really.

And that's about it.

So the answer to the question posed by the tongue twister "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" in my case, is literally shed loads. And with the soft wood under the cattle shed, shit loads.

Tuesday 4 April 2017

FORGIVE ME INTERNET FOR I HAVE SINNED................

I am mostly guilty of the sin of SLOTH. It has been over 5 years since my last post which if I'm honest is both surprising and disappointing. I have been residing in the 'Where are they now?' file. Well I am - like what Baby got in Sir Mixalot's classic - "Back". And this time I won't be leaving it quite as long between now and the next one. Famous last words.

I have also been guilty of LUST. Three kids worth of it. In fact doing the maths I have worked out that only a month or two after my last post was when Florence was conceived. This I believe contributed greatly to my Blog-sloth as any woman who has ever been pregnant, and any man who has been with a pregnant woman knows, there are plenty of better - better is probably not the right word - plenty of "other", more important things to be doing that are not writing blogs, or generally having any fun.


This is the current state of affairs in the Bayley household with a dog and a cat thrown in for good measure - they took the photo so couldn't be in it. I am amazed that such good looking children could have been produced from my genes. Flo is Little Miss Photogenic, Baz is already throwing out rapper signals and we have already enrolled Eliza at our local Shaolin Temple. PRIDE.

ENVY and GREED often go hand in hand and for me I was envious of both the bosses of the company I was working for - bleeding their employees (that's me that is) to the bone for little monetary recompense - and all those people living in big ass houses while we were living in a granny style bungalow.

So I started a company with Tristan (the other guy from the Cregagh Glen post) called Treeple - The Tree People, and we have been going well for over four years now. We also extended the shit out of our bungalow, giving us loads more living space and comfort, and on the whole making home life more enjoyable. Thanks to the in-laws for putting us up for eight months while the building works were going on, just after Baz had been born and we were trying to get Flo out of nappies - perfect timing.

The rest of my time has mostly been spent indulging in my favourite of the sins - GLUTTONY, and plenty of it. During these five years I have probably eaten an entire one of these dexter cows from the father in law's herd.


We also decided to raise a couple of pigs - Rodney and Del Boy (Trotter) - so we would have large amounts of free-range, non-abused pork and I had big ideas about home smoking meats and making great sausages and bacon and other yummies. Sloth had something to say about that and although we didn't get all that, we did get two pigs worth of delicious pork to put in the industrial chest freezer Laura managed to get through Gumtree.


Unfortunately one day when Laura was showing the progress of the building work to her Godfather, they noticed a bad smell. Upon further investigation it became apparent that one of the builders had managed to unplug the freezer, many days before, and everything had gone rancid. Laura came back to tell us the good news and your's truly was duly dispatched to deal with the mess. We burned all of the rotten meat and other ruined foodstuffs and I spent a retch-filled hour or so cleaning out and disinfecting the freezer, which I then left in our yard to drain and dry out. The next day another of the builders got to work, saw the freezer outside and decided to assume (and we all know what to assume does to you and me) that we must want to get rid of it. So he picked it up with a digger and smashed it into a skip, thus topping off a particularly disgusting cake with a ridiculously annoying cherry and in so doing inciting the seventh and final of the cardinal sins - WRATH.

Tune in next week for the next instalment - 'How I have been a Saint instead of a Sinner'. Come to think of it, we may well be waiting even longer than we did for this one if I go ahead with that as a topic.


Thursday 2 February 2012

What's been happening over the last few months.....

.......its been quite a mild Winter so far which has been a blessing. Going out and climbing trees in heavy rain and and gale (or some days storm) force winds is one thing but mixing that with -15c temperatures is something I am happy to wait to endure.


We had a trip over to London in early December to babysit our new niece Alice who was a superstar (luckily she likes Beverly Hills 90210).




It was also the leaving do of two of my best friends - the Burges (including my God-daughter) who have now moved to Hong Kong. Great to see them and other friends and party London style again.




There was a lot of love in the room and they will be missed




Workwise I have been doing a lot more climbing and am getting better and more confident every time which is great news. One thing that does not help is when your colleagues decide to fell the tree when you are still in it.




As I drive around a lot for work I get to see some interesting vehicles on the road. There is something about the Northern Irish mentality that means they sometimes lack a bit of subtlety when it comes to pimping/personalising their rides. Things like this are quite common - 




I bet she does.



Was that a hand me down number plate from his mama do you think?




The "Penetration Experts"? as a company slogan? Nice.


Keeping with cars, my little Polo reached a milestone (bdumtchich) of its own recently - 



I missed 123456 by 13 miles. It is going to take a lot of driving before I get another opportunity to witness something like that again. 


13 incidentally is the number of the locker they gave me at work. I guess nobody else wanted it. In a job like mine you need to do everything possible to minimise the risk of injury. Luckily I am not superstitious or else I might start to worry as I am often met with unlucky numbers (as above), have my path crossed regularly by black cats in gardens and walking under ladders is a daily occurrence. I saw the dangers of tree surgery first hand the other day when my best friend (and mentor) at work decided it would be a good idea to cut through his rope 25 feet up. It wasn't and he fell onto his shoulder upside down but thankfully nothing was broken and he should be back to work soon. Lesson learned there - the easy way as far as I am concerned. He was bloody lucky and I have chosen to be extra careful from now on.


Even prior to this it had become an ongoing joke that I am the health and safety officer of the family over here, grumbling and tutting away when the nieces and nephews decide to carry out another potentially fatal activity or when the brother in law thinks his off road vehicle is the best way to test the strength of ice on a frozen lake. Health and safety seems to be frowned upon and blatantly ignored over here and never more so than at a B&Q I went to recently - 




Nobody's getting out of there alive that's for sure. Maybe it is just something about B&Q customers as it was also there where I witnessed this excellent piece of parking.  



With the car park virtually empty and any number of spaces to aim for the driver of the red car managed to take up not one or two, but four spaces with her (yes it was a lady, i saw her with my own eyes) dubious parking ability.


We had a great time over the Christmas/New Year period. First Christmas as a married couple meant that I spent Christmas with the in-laws which was excellent fun. It felt like it started for me at the Christmas shoot. It was a day/night of carnage that I cannot put any pictures up of, for fear of being ostracized for embarrassing my nearest and dearest. I was in bed by 9pm in all of my clothes to give you a bit of an idea.


The run up to Christmas was a blur of drinks parties and meals. When I should have been abstaining to give myself the best chance of survival I was not and this is the first year that I woke up on Christmas morning, hungover to hell and still absolutely stuffed from the three course meal we had had the night before. I was ready to go to bed at 9 again on Christmas day but managed to hold out a little bit longer - for the sake of Santa and Jesus.


After Christmas we flew to England and spent a good few days with my folks and brother's family. Unfortunately my sister's boy was ill so we did not get to see them. He is now better thank goodness and hopefully we will see all of the Gladwins soon.


We spent New Year's Eve in Newport in Wales with one of LB's best friends LW and lots of her friends. We had a 20's style party in her dad's amazing house which had been used as the dominatrix's house in the BBC series Sherlock. 




Was a great party with really nice people. I borrowed some of LW's dad's fly clothes so looked the part and the journey back to Ireland on January 1st was probably one of the worst we have ever suffered. Was good to finally be home.


So far this year we have been dog-sitting Alfie, LB's parents' dog. What he lacks in brainpower he makes up for in looks. He and Pinky are usually the best of friends.




Pinky is about a quarter of the size of him but regularly lets him know who is boss especially in the car where she always gets shotgun and he has to make do with the back seat or worse.




Pinky's training is coming on nicely, in some aspects and she likes nothing better than playing fetch. 




We may still make a good retriever of her yet, although she does need to learn what her limitations are.



Finally, I am sure you have heard in the news about a bit of an escalation in the troubles over here and have probably been having sleepless nights worrying about me. There have been bomb scares, bombs going off, mindless beatings of TV extras and many more besides. 


I have done a good job of avoiding these things but there was one experience where I found myself exactly where I did not want to be. I found myself right in the middle of one of the most violent sectarian divides one could imagine. Forget about the Protestant/Catholic or Arab/Jew things - this one is between the Tommies from the South and the Americanos from the North. Their blood feud has been going on for generations and neither side will rest or lay down their arms until they can categorically say, once and for all, that it is them and only them who can legitimately claim to be - Simply The Best!!


   
Laters....


xxx

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Autumnal activities...

....as with last year Autumn has so far been pretty nice here in NI. 


We have been going for walks with the dawg and on one of them I took a picture of the back of LB and SM, walking off ahead as usual, and in it I was amazed to see -




The Lough Ness Monster, Nessie herself, there in the water for all to see (if you look carefully). Far from home but that would explain why nobody has been able to find her in Scotland for ages. I will be doing guided tours once I can get my hands on a world War 2 amphibious landing craft and get some mugs and t-shirts printed up. 


Being a bit further North than London I have noticed the sun seeming lower in the sky and it also gets dark very early so is usually pitch black when I get home from work. Call me paranoid if you will but I think that this has given the farm animals the cover they need to plot the takeover of the human realm. It is like Charlotte's Web meets Chicken Run meets Babe Pig in the City. I was driving along our road one evening and saw this shocking and frightening sight of a chicken and cow in mid conversation. 




I had to stop the car and reverse to make sure I was not seeing things. The cow has camouflaged itself but you can just see it there to the right of the gate. They shut up as soon as I shone the light on them and waited until I had gone before they continued their scheming. It is true I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough? 


I also spent 7 days over the last two weeks on a tree climbing course, learning how to climb, rescue people from trees and how to use a chainsaw in a tree. Today at work I was able to climb into, dismantle and take down my first tree. The X marks the condemned tree - 


  
Luckily there were not any photos or video of me getting into the tree in the first place as it was neither impressive nor pretty but I got up there in the end and lopped off the branches one by one, carefully avoiding the heads of my colleagues below - 




And once it was small enough I felled it.


 
First with the chainsaw and then to finish it off with a mix of pure brawn and raw power - 




Here with his well defeated foe is the great white hunter (of trees) - 




After all of this hard walking, hard work and hardcore livestock suspicion nobody would deny me the occasional afternoon siesta would they? 



Didn't think so (thanks a lot Andreas). 


Sweet dreams everyone!!

Sunday 23 October 2011

Update time.....

.......it's been a while so thought I would write a bit about what has been going on recently.


We have been busy busy busy and seemingly away most weekends, mainly celebrating the marriages of some of our friends. LB and I have been to Kent, Northumberland and France, as well as to a few here in NI including our own. Congrats to all of our newlywed friends but thank God the wedding season has finally finished.


As well as singing hymns horrendously out of key, eating and drinking too much and dancing like an ass I have been developing my climbing skills - 


  
and my shooting skills - 




and my Viking boat racing skills. 




Myself and some mates were the core of our local pub's team - The Smugglers - and we got to the semi finals where we let the army boys beat us. They were off to Afghanistan soon and we thought we'd give them something to celebrate before they do. 


Have been hiding from the dog but she has a way of sniffing me out - 




I did a bit of stand up. 




Sitting down.


We went on a friend's folk's boats to celebrate her birthday around Lough Erne. These were the boats - 




The birthday girl (sporting her versatile changeable necklace/glasses thingy) -




  LB - 




Your hero (with a magic laser ring) - 




I have been working down south and having to leave earlier than usual. One of the people on the roads at that time of the morning seemed to be mocking me - 




We have also come into contact with one of the more unusual hazards when working in the tree surgery business. Nothing that a chainsaw cannot solve though - 



One other thing I did was go back through some of my old photos, trying to clear a bit of space on the computer, and I found an amazing photo of LB and CK and if you look really carefully you can also see a cheeky little leprechaun sneaking in on the photo - 




Got three days of non-stop torrential rain on the way. Woohoo!!