Lantra 2 day chainsaw course 31st May - 1st June 2012

 A full-on couple of day's work, but well worth it.  Both Paul and Jasmin had very little experience of motorised tools between them.  Jasmin had literally never even touched one!

Its simply amazing what can be learnt in two days and both Paul and Jasmin did exceptionally well to get through all of the maintenance teaching and also to get properly familiar with the saws in the wood.

There is simply no way an outsider would have guessed that these two had never used a petrol chainsaw at the beginning of the course!

Well done to you both, and make sure that you get on the saw again as soon as you can.

Lantra Pesticide Application 2 day course May 28th - 29th 2012

Sitting in a class room all day when its beautiful sunshine outside may not be everyone's idea of fun, but pesticide courses always turn out to be fun to teach.

This one was great because of the variety of people on the course, from Alun (a local farmer), Gwen (from the National Trust and Ryan and Kris (from a rail track maintenance company).  Everyone did very well to pass the PA1 test, especially Ryan and Kris who had driven 2 and a half hours each way to be there and had only had 3 hours sleep!  The PA6 course is due this weekend.  I hope you have all had a chance to get your heads around the figures!  Good luck to all.

Lantra 5 day Chainsaw course - 14th - 18th May 2012

Many thanks to Richard and Anthony for an interesting and varied week in the woods.  We were thinning larch in a farm woodland on one site, and line-thinning sitka spruce on a forestry plantation on another site.

We covered tractor winching and cross-cutting on road side for extraction by farm trailer and also a bit of wind-blow, not to mention a tour from timber felling to woodchip production and drying.  Never a dull moment!