Hooptedoodle #41 - The Tale of the Eucalyptus

What a laugh - this weekend's farce here at the Nature Park was me trying to get the biggest bits of our old eucalypus tree split into stove-sized logs. We've burnt all the small stuff now. I had a go with a big axe a week or two ago - depressing - I could hardly make a mark on the wood. This weekend I meant business, and borrowed a pneumatic splitter capable of 8 tons pressure. Wouldn't look at the eucalyptus, thank you very much. Didn't mark the stuff any more than my efforts with the axe (which doesn't help, but is a slight comfort).

Eucalyptus is obviously special. You may cut it, though not easily, but it will not split. Today I am going to negotiate with the farm to see if they can hire me a tractor-mounted hydraulic splitter, which will produce 20 tons. If that doesn't work either then I'll see if they can hire me a young man with a chainsaw.

So what is/was a eucalyptus doing here in Scotland, the Land of Mud? When I bought this house, nearly 12 years ago now, there were two hefty eucalyptus trees, one either side of the garden. I know they were planted in the early 1980s, because I have an aerial photo from 1985 or so, with some little, wispy trees just visible, but by 2000 they were big and beautiful. The more northerly of the two had a bad accident in my first winter here. Because it had grown in the shade behind the building, it was spindly - what tree-specialists call "pencilling". In a gale one night it split, and about half of it fell across the garden. Maybe a couple of tons of timber - if it had fallen in another direction it would have altered the house substantially.

I had it sawn up, and the remaining section taken down, and I spent the years afterwards looking sideways at the survivor. This, however, was a much more robust specimen. Growing in what passes for full sunlight here, it grew to about 70 feet high, but it used to alarm me waving about in high winds. In addition:

* it kept having to be cut back to clear the power cables

* it overshadowed the patio, and provided a very popular pigeons' toilet in the same spot

* its roots kept getting into the village drains, an expensive nuisance and a source of potential unrest

* its leaves fell all year round, blocked up gutters, cluttered flower beds, stained paintwork and never, ever showed any signs of rotting

* as it grew larger it sucked all the water out of the garden - it became hard to keep the lawn alive, no plants would grow within 40 feet of it

* its roots were beginning to crack the garage floor, and ruin the paving

* most importantly, one day it was going to break and fall over - if we were lucky, it would hit the garage and the power lines, otherwise the house was under threat

On the other hand, it was an absolutely lovely tree. After some years of footling about, not making a decision, eventually we realised that it had to go, so we hired in a contractor and had a very entertaining day watching the circus act that is required for tree removal. Fantastic. It was cut into logs, but the biggest pieces were just stacked at the deep end of the woodshed, for future reference.

The large, dark green object to the right of the electricity pole is the longer-lived of our eucalyptus trees - this picture was taken about 5 years before it was taken down, so it still had a good way to grow...

After the tree was gone - and it came down in about June 2010, I think - we went into a strange period when we didn't like the garden any more. The heart had gone out of it - though, of course, it was now safer and more practical and less maintenance and we could actually use more of it. We've now put in some baby fruit trees, and made a feature of shifting our bird feeders to where the big tree used to be, and we are sort of getting the hang of it, but it hasn't been easy. This Winter I've been working my way through our stock of eucalyptus wood for the stove, and very good it is, but we have now reached the point where the big pieces are going to have to be cut up - this, of course, is where we came in.

The one really bright spot from the weekend is that I might have bought an 8-ton log splitter if it had turned out to be cheaper than a full load of logs, and then I would really have been very upset indeed.

Falcata - Carlist Wars

I got a few emails and some comments asking me for more details of the new Falcata Carlist Wars range.

I have to emphasise that I know very little about them, other than the fact that they appear very attractive! If you want to know more, or to purchase some, please contact Gregorio at La Flecha Negra, the Madrid model and hobby shop.

I managed to find a picture of some painted samples of the Carlist figures, a picture which I was sent by the shop but had managed to misfile. Here they are - apologies for the delay.

Falcata - a Package from Madrid

Gregorio at La Flecha Negra has sent me some samples of the new 1/72 Falcata white metal Napoleonics, which look very good. He also included a couple of samples of the new Carlist Wars, which are also excellent.

Top, left to right are Spanish infantry in campaign dress, a couple of Grenadiers and a line infrantryman in full dress, while below are the Carlist samples. Figures are nicely sculpted and animated, as you would expect, and stand about 24mm from soles of feet to scalp.

Gregorio also got hold of a couple of boxes of set FE-1808-07 for me, the guerrilleros from the old boxed Falcata series. I was very keen to get these, partly because I wants them (my precious...), but also because as far as I knew these never made it into production, and I had never even seen pictures of them. Here are some samples from these boxes - you get 34 castings in a box, with a wide variety of poses (especially suitable for irregulars). 1 box has 3 commanders, 3 standard bearers, 2 musicians (a drummer and a bagpipe player), a couple of dead guys and a whole bunch of fighting figures, including a female partisan.

Gregorio hopes that he may have a supply of the old boxed Falcatas in a month or two - whether that means that they are being reissued or if it is old stock I do not know. In the meantime, if you are interested in the new ranges (12 infantry or 3 cavalry or a gun + crew in a bag), please contact Gregorio at LFN - they have stock available now, and they are very nice, helpful people to deal with - they do not take PayPal, but international money transfers are very easy now - even from Britain!

I am a happy bunny today - nice job, Postie.

British Artillery Caissons, and Some Very Big Guns

Delayed by a late decision to strip the limbers, here are two examples of what Carl Franklin, in his lovely book, describes as the British Two-Wheeled Ammunition Car. A quick glance, of course, will confirm that the car is hooked up behind a standard limber, so it is in fact a four-wheeled vehicle, but articulated, which was regarded as a big advance over the earlier rigid 4-wheeler. These are the carts which accompanied the individual batteries into action, to provide an immediate reserve of ammunition.

The models are Lamming throughout - equipment and horses, and also the drivers, as evidenced by their Easter Island profiles and the trademark Lamming elephant whip. My thanks and compliments to Clive and to Dave Watson, who somehow came up with yet more supplies of extinct artillery kit.

Since I am deep in the artillery projects box at present, I think I may take the opportunity to make up and paint some more siege guns. As these may be of some interest, here are a couple I prepared earlier. I included a more normal 9pdr gun to give an idea of scale, and you will see that these siege guns are very bad boys indeed. These are 18pdrs from Hinchliffe's (current) 25mm scale range, which should make them way too big for the Minifigs gunners. Before you laugh (and I laughed myself before I checked the sizes), be assured that I have measured these castings and they are spot-on for 1/72 of the official weapon dimensions for an iron 18pdr. Further, Clive and I once put these same Hinch 25 castings alongside a Finescale Factory model of an 18pdr, and they were exactly the same size - I am not even prepared to consider that FSF would ever make anything which was not perfect 1/72, so let's just assume this is what they were like.

Big.

Anyway, I have 2 or 3 more of these to prepare, and a 10" howitzer, so I may take a short break from painting vehicles. Note also that my Allied Siege Train and associated engineering chaps have their bases painted a fetching shade of mud brown. It seemed a good idea at the time.

Royal Horse Artillery - Limber Teams

More vehicles ready - in this case, they are well overdue. I sold my old (Airfix) limbers around 7 years ago, and they'd been kind of decommissioned for a while prior to that. Since then I've been hoarding the bits for the replacements in my spares boxes, and systematically playing leapfrog with the painting queue so that they never actually got done.

Well, no longer - here are three RHA limbers, ready to go. Although I like to use 2 model guns for a battery, I use only a single limber when they are travelling, so this group represents all my three horse artillery troops on the road. I used to like the idea of having loose, "deployable" guns, so that I could actually move the ordnance pieces between the limber and the gun crew, but I have decided it is not one of my greatest ideas. I have dropped more cannons than enough, so I've saved up enough extra guns to be able to have some permanently attached to the limbers, and everything is now safely glued in place.

The horses and riders are all S-Range Minifigs, the limbers are Hinchliffe 20mm, and one of the guns is also Hinch 20, while the other two are (I think) Rose Miniatures. It stands to reason that the actual gunners get first choice of the Hinch 20 artillery...

British caissons will be along next, in a day or two - a couple of the limbers allocated to them are in the bleach at the moment.

British Ammunition Carts

On a vehicle-painting kick again this weekend, all British stuff. Two ammo carts finished last night - they have just to get the mag sheet on the underside of the bases for storage in the official Artillery Boxes.

The carts are S-Range Minifigs, horses and drivers are by Lamming. There will/should be some caissons in a day or so, and three 4-horse RHA limber teams.

Good fun. I wouldn't like to be hit by one of those whips, though.

New in The Cupboard

For me, the personalities in my wargames armies are important. It is always a source of extra satisfaction if there is a customised drummer in this regiment, or an odd figure with a bit of history in that one. One of my French infantry battalions, for example, has - completely out of context - a mounted officer from the first box of Airfix Waterloo French I ever bought. After a period when I have systematically cleared out and replaced all the figures which were substandard, and bought in all sorts of prestigious castings from Jorg Schmaeling and so on, I deliberately retained that one Airfix officer as a memorial to the early days of my armies, when Airfix formed most of what I had.

Non-regulation hat

In a similar vein, I am always on the lookout for unusual staff figures - it is not so easy to believe in your generals if they are all very obviously identical brothers, from the same mould. Here's a new chap - a French General de Brigade wearing an infantry shako - form your own explanation why he chooses to wear his lucky hat (or whatever) - this is clearly Hinton Hunt FN224 with a new head. I am reluctant to hack up old HH figures myself, but am always pleased to buy in conversions which someone else has done, to add variety - I like this little chap.


Late edit, to oblige Louis - as requested, here is the old Airfix mounted officer in the 2/27e Ligne. This entire brigade used to be Airfix - the officer must date from the very early 1970s - you will note that in those days I was keen enough to replace sword-blades with dressmaking pins. To heighten the contrast, I see that the Les Higgins rank and file are now augmented by distinctly up-market eagle-bearer and drummer from Art Miniaturen.