Druidic Dabblings and General Twaddle !!

[bobthebuilder]

you've convinced me Jim ... just got the lid to secure .... after me mate's been an' emptied it
might get it buried in the meantime

Mr price ?

 

[Furniss]

It's not there is no demand, yes its less than it was, it's because supermarkets will just buy the cheapest s**t they can, the British dairy industry was something to behold, and the milk was premium quality, because we had stringent rules on animal husbandry and expected milk quality, but supermarkets came along and with everything they sell, started dictating how much they were going to pay for it, and if they couldn't get it for X price they just went to the French/German W@#kers and bought their low grade full of bacteria s**t for half the price. Then the government put the final nail in the coffin when they abolished the MMB. Ask me how I know..... I should be a third gen dairy farmer, but somehow a 180acre ring fence dairy farm in prime dairy land couldn't make it pay, neither could any of the others, I could name 20 dairy farms in north Nottinghamshire that are no longer there, one of them was the largest heard in Nottinghamshire at the time, all within 10 years 1998-2008i

s**t going on eh - my grandad was a dairy farmer albiet tiny @ 40 acres and maybe 25cows - my old man built a agricultural garage on a bit of the land and his brother carried on milking for quite a long time, my cousin is still in milk with about a 100 milk cows, there is bit of diversification going on now in an effort to make it work better

 

[V8Druid]

Mr price ?

Kevin - Cessexpress

 

[bobthebuilder]

Kevin - Cessexpress

That's our man also,been dealing with kev for years

 

[V8Druid]

That's our man also,been dealing with kev for years

yeh he's a great lad .... used to repair his tanks for him regularly .. when they get thin the vacuum collapses them .. push 'em back out, (once washed out) roll a repair sheet and weld it back on the outside with plenty of barrrel welded areas

 

[V8Druid]

easy day Sunday .. twisted my back somehow last week ... wasn't good Friday - driving didn't help it .. Saturday's drive and wander round Welland really did for it .. could not getcomfy in bed so thought sod it .. and Tramadol-ed it 'bout half two - slept like the dead from 4 onwards ... best kip in ages
Vicki rang late Sunday evening - could we meet her and the girls at Noah's Arc farm zoo, Clevedon 'bout half eleven Monday ... been down in Dorset for a few days and the girls asked her to ring us to ask the Q.
Pam had a blood test appt. at 09.45, so set off after they'd finished with her and arrived early enough for a coffee and sausage roll

spent several hour wandering around the animiles .. all well cared for BTLs, though I did feel the sea eagle shouldn't have been there - poor bugger looked really PO-ed ..no place for a 3 ft tall bird of prey

wore this pair out and headed for home 'bout five-ish ...
not a bad place but seeeeriously dear entry ..
1 adult, 2 OAP,s , and 2 kids, one 5 - 125 quid and then they had the audacity to ask if we'd like to make a 10% donation

couple of paracetamol with tea and some more to got to bed with .. back not so bad this morning
visitor this morning so didn't get going 'til after lunch
jumped on the tug to bring that trailer load of firewood down to the woodshed and the bloody seat broke away from its mounts

overdue BTLs
looked at re-mounting it but sod all to attach to and the cover fought me tooth and nail so thought sod this and went in search of an FLT seat I'd taken off the S40, 'fore I stuck it in the skip in 2014 - was a fairly new seat back then ...
luckily for me I'd made a base plate to fit it back then and was still attached

so set out the dim.s for the seat mounts and drilled some new 10mm holes to attach these

left the exisiting bolts in and flat-ed them down to just the nuts .. spaced the plate with some more nuts attaching the plate to the mounts and dogged it all together
Clara will be happy as the seat's sliders'll take the seat a lot closer forward to the clutch/brake pedal

and gives enough adjustment for me to be comfy too (plus there's a further 3" to be had too

way better/comfier seat than the original too
but that nadgered most of my plans for the afternoon ...
was gonna haul the tip skip out of hiding, swap bodies and move some tish down to the man hole for back filling with ...
seat put paid to most of that plan
got the trailer body off the axle/draw bar - held on with three slide bolts on it's tipping sub-frame -- POP to swap

up end and pull the three slide bolts and it's a chassis waiting the skip body which I had to wake the 'Drema up to extract from its spot

dropped it on the floor and stuck the box of bits back in where it came from, minus the skip under it and dropped the axle/draw bar onto the skip

just putting the box back in spot and Pam arrives -
" answer yer bloody phone, tea'll be ready in ten minutes "
" that's good timing - can you eyeball and steady this back into place for me please "
not best pleased, but obliged - and it was time for tea

came back up after me pasta and meatballs (yum) and finished tidying up and locked up ...

parked up for the night

uninterrupted tish moving'll be on the agenda for the morning
Pam goes out, trolling round the shops, with one of her mates on a Wed.s morning, 'fore 'lunching out'

 

[Lancs Lad]

easy day Sunday .. twisted my back somehow last week ... wasn't good Friday - driving didn't help it .. Saturday's drive and wander round Welland really did for it .. could not getcomfy in bed so thought sod it .. and Tramadol-ed it 'bout half two - slept like the dead from 4 onwards ... best kip in ages
Vicki rang late Sunday evening - could we meet her and the girls at Noah's Arc farm zoo, Clevedon 'bout half eleven Monday ... been down in Dorset for a few days and the girls asked her to ring us to ask the Q.
Pam had a blood test appt. at 09.45, so set off after they'd finished with her and arrived early enough for a coffee and sausage roll

spent several hour wandering around the animiles .. all well cared for BTLs, though I did feel the sea eagle shouldn't have been there - poor bugger looked really PO-ed ..no place for a 3 ft tall bird of prey
View attachment 83670
wore this pair out and headed for home 'bout five-ish ...
not a bad place but seeeeriously dear entry ..
1 adult, 2 OAP,s , and 2 kids, one 5 - 125 quid and then they had the audacity to ask if we'd like to make a 10% donation

couple of paracetamol with tea and some more to got to bed with .. back not so bad this morning
visitor this morning so didn't get going 'til after lunch
jumped on the tug to bring that trailer load of firewood down to the woodshed and the bloody seat broke away from its mounts
View attachment 83671
overdue BTLs
looked at re-mounting it but sod all to attach to and the cover fought me tooth and nail so thought sod this and went in search of an FLT seat I'd taken off the S40, 'fore I stuck it in the skip in 2014 - was a fairly new seat back then ...
luckily for me I'd made a base plate to fit it back then and was still attached
View attachment 83674
so set out the dim.s for the seat mounts and drilled some new 10mm holes to attach these
View attachment 83675
left the exisiting bolts in and flat-ed them down to just the nuts .. spaced the plate with some more nuts attaching the plate to the mounts and dogged it all together
Clara will be happy as the seat's sliders'll take the seat a lot closer forward to the clutch/brake pedal
View attachment 83673
and gives enough adjustment for me to be comfy too (plus there's a further 3" to be had too View attachment 83672
way better/comfier seat than the original too
but that nadgered most of my plans for the afternoon ...
was gonna haul the tip skip out of hiding, swap bodies and move some tish down to the man hole for back filling with ...
seat put paid to most of that plan
got the trailer body off the axle/draw bar - held on with three slide bolts on it's tipping sub-frame -- POP to swap
View attachment 83682 View attachment 83681
up end and pull the three slide bolts and it's a chassis waiting the skip body which I had to wake the 'Drema up to extract from its spot View attachment 83679View attachment 83678
dropped it on the floor and stuck the box of bits back in where it came from, minus the skip under it and dropped the axle/draw bar onto the skip
View attachment 83677
just putting the box back in spot and Pam arrives -
" answer yer bloody phone, tea'll be ready in ten minutes "
" that's good timing - can you eyeball and steady this back into place for me please "
not best pleased, but obliged - and it was time for tea

came back up after me pasta and meatballs (yum) and finished tidying up and locked up ...

View attachment 83676
parked up for the night
View attachment 83680
uninterrupted tish moving'll be on the agenda for the morning
Pam goes out, trolling round the shops, with one of her mates on a Wed.s morning, 'fore 'lunching out'

I've a theory us blokes start out on rideons and end up back on them.... Full circle.

Noah's ark. Sure we went there donkeys years ago. Near the M5?

 

[V8Druid]

I've a theory us blokes start out on rideons and end up back on them.... Full circle.

Noah's ark. Sure we went there donkeys years ago. Near the M5?

yeh, Clevedon, just off the 5 - exit at Gordano

 

[V8Druid]

busy day .. eventually - after getting fed up watching an auction that never ended (fkn 10 min plus bidding)

juggled a few bags oftish about with the 'Drema to start with - got the cover off lil' Jake and wound up the tug
Haner is the perfect size for emptying dumpies with

had to deal with a bit of foliage in the one bag

left it free rotating and easy enough to rotate against the forks

got a fair bit down there - could do with some more though

got a fair bit of burgered stone too, so turned my attentions to that once I'd run out of tish
was really nice slab when it came out and got stacked on pallets ... weather has completely ferked most of it so can go on the bottom for fill

parked up for late tea ... 4 skips of rubble down .. 5th sat for the morning

everything is seriously dry - like the rest of the world

'cept the bits that get watered every other evening

 

[V8Druid]

would not want to put a match to the lawn ... you could napalm the green bit over what I presume is a soak away - though God knows what's going in there - had no roof water for weeks and way too high to be the septic's - growing like hell though, whatever is watering it ??

 

[Lancs Lad]

View attachment 83727View attachment 83726
would not want to put a match to the lawn ... you could napalm the green bit over what I presume is a soak away - though God knows what's going in there - had no roof water for weeks and way too high to be the septic's - growing like hell though, whatever is watering it ??

Our brown bits are disappearing fast.
Piddling it down again. Feels like nw is a different country ATM....

 

[Monkeybusiness]

Our brown bits are disappearing fast.
Piddling it down again. Feels like nw is a different country ATM....

We are just a bit south of you and have barely had a drop of rain - it’s desperately needed here now tbh. Everything seems to pass either side of us somehow, was working near Oldham this week and they had loads of rain at the weekend.

 

[V8Druid]

We are just a bit south of you and have barely had a drop of rain - it’s desperately needed here now tbh. Everything seems to pass either side of us somehow, was working near Oldham this week and they had loads of rain at the weekend.

@6feetdown said the other day, they had a massive deluge in Zooport
we're 20-ish miles from there and saw absolutely nowt
had a couple of hours of misty drizzle a few nights ago - literally more mist, but enough to wet your hair/the cats coats
couldn't tell in the morning though

 

[Lancs Lad]

@6feetdown said the other day, they had a massive deluge in Zooport
we're 20-ish miles from there and saw absolutely nowt
had a couple of hours of misty drizzle a few nights ago - literally more mist, but enough to wet your hair/the cats coats
couldn't tell in the morning though

Weird and it's hardly flat round you.
Was down on lyn peninsula yesterday...dry as anything and yet surrounded by hills

 

[V8Druid]

so the boss was happy with efforts so far but - more fill required to extend to where we'd discussed ending up
so ran several more loads of rock down there yesterday ... had a little Robin hovering round me all day looking for whatever appeared out the piles .. seemed to be doing well too

little fella didn't seem phased at all by the machine's noise
first pallet going down

and gone

time to get Ll' Jake down to the job ...
sod tracking him all the way down there

time to exercise the P38's auto box .. Kia'd've had a fit - least its clutch would've
got him into spot to relocate a lorrarock .. Pam grabbed me phone wanting some pix

time for tea,

so came back after tea and squared it up

all done with the Haner ...... Brûlée having a warm on the foot plate ... went pretty chilly yesterday evening

new garden ornament

 

[V8Druid]

well that was Thursday .... Friday morning, having thought about the lack of fill I ....
set about a.n.other pallet of rock ....

skip filling by hand was a little slower without Lil' Jake

dug out all the 'soft tish' and stock piled it, so's I could fill its place with some harder crud

won as much back as I could, before finding the previous day's rock fill

and set about replacing it with a few skipfuls

second pallet diminishing ....
little robin's been with me all day again

and time for topping off with 6" of soft stuff

by the time the boss has got some plants growing across the front it'll look fine
not a lot left of pallet #2 ... the bottom layer looks like it might still be in decent shape ..
be good for front t'other end of the fill job, once i get to that and find some more soft fill

it's a pity the weather's knackered these pallets of stone ... were lovely coming out the ground and been wanting to get shot/find a new home for these for quite some time ....
see if I can't get them down there for now, out the way, but yon tug is in need of a new drive belt - has had a caning with all the hauling and God knows how old it is, but it's looking a bit slender ATM and starting to slip badly ... see if I haven't got summat suitable later

 

[Jimoz]

Have you missed your calling as a dry stone waller?!

remind us again why you raised this section was it just to lose the rock or did you need to for other reasons?

 

[V8Druid]

Have you missed your calling as a dry stone waller?!

remind us again why you raised this section was it just to lose the rock or did you need to for other reasons?

no need to take the piss trying to work with whatever came to hand as it fell out the skip

our septic lid/neck top was / is in a low spot and was constantly inundated by ground water .. plus the area always looked a bloody mess/pig's guts
has been handy to lose some very crap stone as a bonus ...
been wanting to lose it for a looooooooooooong time - had I known how badly it would deteriorate sat on pallets it would've gone to the tip pile along with everything else that got dug out, instead of making the effort to palletise it in the first place

5 of 9 all told - was lovely beds of slab coming out

 

[Jimoz]

I was being serious it looked neat at the edge of that pile! I remember reading this thread when you were digging it out. Must be some right s**t stone if it cant stand up to a few winters!? Atleast you've found a good use for it! Looks like you've done a good job there pitty the inside of that manhole isn't rendered

 

[V8Druid]

I was being serious it looked neat at the edge of that pile! I remember reading this thread when you were digging it out. Must be some right s**t stone if it cant stand up to a few winters!? Atleast you've found a good use for it! Looks like you've done a good job there pitty the inside of that manhole isn't rendered

yep -- it's massively disappointing how that stone has fallen apart ... came out lovely - blocks in a couple of beds all flat as ... looked like it'd been laid
and thanks for the complimentary comments .. always hard to tell on this sort of thing how it looks, and get little 'input'/comment from Pam

got a plasterer coming Monday to give it a skim coat