Matthew Storrs

But if I heard the news right, it’s not just the vaccine they’re sceptical about- it’s that even if we try and obtain natural immunity it seems you can still catch it months later as the antibodies diminish after a few months..

How are you finding your Kubota? Any issues yet?

I have heard this from several of the older generation (70+)- what kind of life are they ‘saving’ us for.. One customer of mine said trust me it’s not much fun when you get to this age! They don’t want to spend their last years in isolation and would sooner take the risk whilst taking sensible precautions where neccesary.

Exactly, self employed, every day is the same, I’m working today through choice, some day during next week il not bother- that’s the beauty of self employed, I think it would be different if you employed lads during the week and wanted them to do a sat/sun, I think it’s only fair to offer them an incentive to give up their weekend as they don’t have the choice to not do weekdays. There is also a difference if the client specifically wants it done in the weekend- personally I probably wouldnt charge extra as I don’t give a toss what day of the week it is.

Just use a small bucket. I’ve tried an auger in the past and it’s neither quicker and for some reason doesn’t seem to bring up enough soil for backfilling- a little bucket- one scoop and a nice little pile produced ready for tamping around the tree.

Is your Takeuchi on buttons for the auxiliary hydraulics? My TB125 is and no proportional control at all- something to find it a bit limiting as wanting to fit attachments such as tilting grader/thumb etc and it’s too erratic. I put inline flow control valves in to see if that would calm it down but the pump just dead ends as trying to push full fluid through a restricted space- I wonder if you have found a way to overcome this, it’s almost becoming a good enough reason to sell it so I can buy something with proportional control and 3rd/4th aux lines too, which is what I’m really after but my Tak owes me nowt and is in such good condition I’m hesitant to see it gone.

The sock was a joke- but actually just put one on and surprisingly easy to go about life with it on....

An old sock? ? sounds painful though

I’m fairly sure not I’m afraid. Tracking takes a lot of the hydraulic requirements thus leaving very little available for auxiliaries.

I don’t disagree with you at all-But I quite admire Connor for being so tenacious with a machine, it’s not a route I would go down myself as I’m not really a fan of wasting time and money fixing things- it would be interesting to know how much he has spent all in on parts never mind the labour? But even a shagged (to continue the analogy!) TB125 will fetch quite good money at the mo. All the machines I’ve ever had I’ve been happy changing tracks and a few bushes/sprockets here and there- as soon as it gets into major component failure things start getting expensive rapidly and the best place for it is eBay. That said my TB125 is a low houred minter and I’m half tempered to stick it on eBay for a ridiculous price and see if anyone bites!

Sounds good, how many hours is she on. The old TB125 I had was on 5000 hrs and had a very rough life being largely an ex hire machine and the slew was just starting to get rough at 4500 hrs. My newer one is on 2500 but it’s been a really well looked after machine as had it from 1000hrs and it was owner op before that, so will be interesting to see how many hours il get out of it before major works are required like your having.

How many mm play was in your king post to require the line boring- mine is starting to develop a me want to try and get it done before line boring is required...

It will be like new when done- keep t photos coming, funnily enough my undercarriage bit where the idler Slides in had splashed out only an inch or so, but my goodness that took some bending back- think it would be best to heat it up first- I used a Good sized bottle jack and it was pushing the whole machine sideways, and the damn thing still didn’t bend back!

That is impressive. First year growing tomatoes For me and it’s was going great, healthy plants fairly heavy crop and the. Bang the whole lot got blight, and in any case any fruits that haven’t yet rotted are refusing to ripen. But disheartening but will try a better compost next year- this years compost was from Lidl’s as was the only place I could find any at the time!

Well worth it if your doing all the work your self- the TB125 is a superb model IMO.

My sister is a teacher for a year 1 class outside Newcastle, 2 days back and her co worker gets tested positive so the whole class are all back home for 14 days! Primary school near me, 60 kids all sent home cos someone tested positive. so much so for back to school!

...And they won’t have brought their economy to its knees in the process.

Yes the machine is in single acting mode. There is likely a lever somewhere- (usually on route back to tank) where you can swap it to double acting

What about a tracked dumper Instead, that would be far more capable with it being on tracks and the load actually assisting traction rather than being a dead weight behind it...

Depends what you mean by heavy and what you mean by steep! my 85hp tractor on very good tyres used to manage up to 6 ton or so up a steepish field. But all depends on what kind ground you’re on and whether there Is stone to bite down to below the topsoil. I imagine a Kubota under 50hp (regardless of what the paper specs say) might be limited to only a ton or two behind it up a steep muddy hill.

These are great pics. So I think the general synopsis to my original question is that yes they are worth it on anything bigger than 2.5t, don’t think anyone has posted any pics of anything done by smaller machine.....

Who speeds up when they get a snake on! ?

They closed the A38 on Haldon hill two weeks ago- we came up past on opposite side and a large hiab was fishing a Caravan out of the woods!

Yep last Friday a year ago!

Oh this is a conundrum I have yet to solve- exactly the same as you Dave have a single cab 110 hicap which is brilliant as can lye 6ft posts down in the bed and being wide plenty of space for wire/tools or whatever. But then there is literally sod all space in the cab! at the moment I’ve solved it by having a landrover discovery as a tool carrier and temporary family car as have left one rear seat in and shelved the rest for tools, and the 110 is used far less regularly for fencing/pickup work. The way I see it apart from the initial purchase cost I’m better off running two older vehicles, as tax/insurance for both is the same cost as for one newer vehicle. Plus it’s nice having a backup if one is not behaving itself and relieves the stress of having to fix it in a hurry for the next day etc. Having run the two together it would have to be a superbly designed/ultra reliable vehicles to make me trade the two in for it- and I’m just not sure one vehicle can ever do it all....