Quote from: Orcs on 01 July 2021, 06:19:01 PM
Went to a local food fair, and they were selling Squirrel on one of the butchers stands.

What next? Bats? 
But, in my Grandma's day, 'Hares from The Fellin', were likely to be Cat!   

Quote from: Leman on 01 July 2021, 07:54:03 AM
I do enjoy a thread full of good taste.

It is, Little girls are said to be made from sugar and spice . 

Quote from: Orcs on 01 July 2021, 06:19:01 PM
Went to a local food fair, and they were selling Squirrel on one of the butchers stands.

Nasty vicious tree rats ... (except the Red ones that are oh so cute & tufty) 

I will have you know i was born in the Felling.
Nowt wrong with the Hares

As a lad - during & after WW2 - my dad used to go out into the Kent countryside and shoot grey squirrels with his air-gun.
There was a bounty that was claimable from the local police station (I seem to remember it was a farthing or 1/4 of an old penny) for the squirrels tails. As they were deemed to be doing large-scale damage to forestry.

He then sold the rest of the carcasses - having gutted & skinned them - to the local butcher, allegedly to be turned into animal (cat & dog) food. Not sure what the butcher paid him for them.

He told me that he then cured the pelts - which drove my grandmother mad as the stink was horrific* - this seemed to involve stretching the hides on a frame, scraping them then leaving them (on the frame) in the stream at the bottom of the garden (he had an idea that this was to allow the small fish to pick the hides clean!). He then used cement dust to finish the cure - I think that the lime in the cement had some sort of anti-biotic effect. I cannot remember what he did with the hides after that - not sure who would have wanted to buy them. He claimed he got quite good at the curing process over time. His main challenge - aside from my grandmother - was his old English bull terrier. She took a fancy to the hides as they cured and had to be restrained from chewing them.
When my grandfather returned from the Far East  (he was a Military Policeman in Burma after the war) he soon put a stop to the whole practice.
He thought it was all thoroughly unhygienic + the butcher stopped being interested in the carcasses and I think the tail bounty also ended ... but it showed serious ingenuity from a young chap.  
*he also ruined her best milk saucepan by boiling the dead remains of a toad in it (so he could collect and mount the bones). Needless to say he went on to become a Marine Biologist - working for the Natural History Museum, the Royal Zoological Society and even NASA (but that is another story).

NB: I've just done a quick bit of research and the Forestry Commission paid a whole shilling for the tail from 1953 - see note below:

Between 1945 and 1955, County Agriculture Committees set up Grey Squirrel Clubs, which were provided with free shotgun cartridges by MAFF at taxpayers' expense. This mass culling failed to prevent grey squirrels increasing both in numbers and range, and in 1953 the Forestry Commission launched a 'bounty scheme', which encouraged the public to capture and kill grey squirrels, cut off their tails and take them to a police station to receive a shilling for each tail.
A 1953 shilling would be worth around £2 today.
After three years of this subsidised slaughter the 'reward' for a Grey's tail was doubled and remained at two shillings until the scheme was abandoned in 1957. More than one million squirrels had been killed under the four year 'bounty scheme', costing taxpayers at least £3million and yet, at the end, the grey squirrels were more numerous than ever and covered an extended range, despite all the shooting and trapping.

Evolution rearing its head again.

Interesting stuff about the squirrel bounty.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm reminded of The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre which happened in 1902. Hanoi was a French colony at the time and also plagued by rats.

A bounty was offered for every rat's tail and initially the scheme was a success. However, people being people, since the bounty was granted for every rat's tail, soon the place was overrun by rats with their tails cut off, left alive to breed the next generation. Adding to the problem were the increasing number of rat farms in the poorer parts of town.

The Law of Unintended Consequences in action!

Accounts of the effects of the bounty paid on human heads in Ming China make sickening reading. Even worse than the "war project" in the Americas.

Trees. Felling / lopping, thereof. Does anyone actually check whether their garden trees might be under some sort of 'Conservation Order' before felling?
Online Council site seem to want detailed 'applications' for specific actions. Will 'some Guy' come out to make an assessment... if asked?
Trees planted near house 50 yrs ago are TOO big. Scots Pine Healthy but 'leans' too near house. Spruces... past their best... still alive, just. Leylandii...need topping! 'OLD' Ashes need a 'trim'.
We seem to be in a 'Conservation' area... but, just can't believe that all the felling /lopping that goes on locally will have had 'applications' made!
Any thoughts?

Quote from: Heedless Horseman on 04 July 2021, 04:48:02 AM
Trees. Felling / lopping, thereof. Does anyone actually check whether their garden trees might be under some sort of 'Conservation Order' before felling?
Online Council site seem to want detailed 'applications' for specific actions. Will 'some Guy' come out to make an assessment... if asked?
Trees planted near house 50 yrs ago are TOO big. Scots Pine Healthy but 'leans' too near house. Spruces... past their best... still alive, just. Leylandii...need topping! 'OLD' Ashes need a 'trim'.
We seem to be in a 'Conservation' area... but, just can't believe that all the felling /lopping that goes on locally will have had 'applications' made!
Any thoughts?

iIn this case its better to ask forgiveness than permission.

suggest a better route to "hack and be damned" would be to get an accredited Tree surgeon in to quote and advise if there is a Preservation Order on a specific tree. (or tell you how to check)
Other than that some trees need attention every few years to conserve them.  (e.g. pollarding willows).
As to total removal, if you can prove a definite root risk to a residence or an expert says that type of tree should never be that close,  your defence is already there for any challenge.
When I needed it, I was lucky in having a fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society in the extended family because I was managing a block of flats and was/am a complete "townie". We had to have one tree removed and others well trimmed and our local council insists on pre-approval even to replace double glazed windows with exact copies.

Quote from: Heedless Horseman on 04 July 2021, 04:48:02 AM
Trees. Felling / lopping, thereof. Does anyone actually check whether their garden trees might be under some sort of 'Conservation Order' before felling?
We seem to be in a 'Conservation' area... but, just can't believe that all the felling /lopping that goes on locally will have had 'applications' made!
Any thoughts?

At our last place, in Notts, we were in a conservation area.......yes....we did always check with the 'tree man' if work needed doing....Didn't always let us do exactly what we wanted....But on other occasions he barely had a second glance.

The Laylandii (is that the right spelling ?) we wanted to remove he looked at from 50 yards....."Yep..take those down,"....
I think we just had to wait until there weren't likely to be any birds nesting, that time.

There were a couple of Black Poplar hybrids, at the top of the drive, that were of concern, because of their condition.....Very tall trees..and one was splitting where it had been pollarded badly.
Matey looked at those and said, "Don't even wait for the written permission..those are dangerous...arrange to have them taken down as soon as possible."

Where we are now, is within the Pembrokeshire National Park, and again we always check.
There are two huge Ash trees by the big barn, which we'd like to take down....But those are apparently 'an amenity'...
They've both got Ash die back (as have 90%+ of the ash trees around here)...But we'll have to leave them for the time being.
I think if we kicked up a fuss we could have them severely topped.

We'll get around to it at some stage......But we'd really like to have them removed completely.

Only times we haven't had to get 'proper permission', have been for work on the trees that the Highways department wanted sorted out.
Highways view of this is that they trump the tree conservation bod.

Then there's the local electricity supplier who tops any trees on our land, that might interfere with the overhead cables......They sort all that out...and it's always free.

I'm sure not everyone goes through the right channels regarding getting permission......But I wouldn't want to landed with any potential fines.

Cheers - Phil 

I'm sure most of you have seen this, but just in case:

Tree cut in half in neighbour row over driveway pigeon poo.

Very odd - possibly criminal as well.