Safety dance

 Really only one song title suitable for this week.

A new knife safety regime began today. We are doing more work with knives, cutting and removing plastic tree guards for re-use. However this has seemed to result in two quite bad accidents with those knives this year, trips to casualty in both cases.

So we trialled two types of new knife today. Safety parcel cutters, with a fixed but entirely enclosed blade, picture below, and a much more expensive and more complex knife with an auto self retract blade.

Other brands are available, but these were big and sturdy.

The general conclusion today was that the parcel cutters were adequate, and the safest - with the auto self retract a bit more versatile. We will continue to test both, for safety, longevity and value.

I also gave people level 3 cut protection gloves, which were probably overkill for using the parcel cutters, but should be used with other bladed tools we have, such as saws, billhooks, sickles etc.

We were at Netherwood, and we were; myself, Geoff, Steve, Sarah, Dave, Michael and Paul.

https://youtu.be/0QDKLglEP5Y

Falling and laughing

Steve points and laughs at a fallen tree. He's a fun gi.

Today Geoff led the charge at Scammonden SC6 for yet more guard removal. He was joined by Steve, Cath, Kayleigh, Jess, Shelley and Dave.

Philip and I were doing a bit of light woodland management at Tanya's. More trees falling, and more laughing.

Our tree order goes in on Monday morning. 5910 new trees and shrubs for the valley.

https://youtu.be/Cdp6iBgDUpM