difflock

For whatever reason, I was thinking of the plight of the homeless this winter, perhaps triggered by an account from our son, describing a bloke staggering about in the busy street outside the shop he works in. I could not help suggesting that the bloke was looking to blag a spot in a hospital bed for over the Christmas period. That and the charity who booked a 1 night stay in a hotel for a group of homeless, I can only presume under some pretext/cover story, only to have the booking cancelled by the hotel, presumably when they found out it was for the homeless. The Hilton group then stepped in. I did wonder why this charity, or its staff, did not perhaps put the homeless up in their own homes, for Christmas? Perhaps they do, but it was not mentioned, and the cynic in me doubts it anyway. However, all that aside, how do you help those who will not be helped, or cannot be trusted to look after, or are incapable of looking after(their) accommodation, bedding and utensils. For whatever mental health/substance abuse issue(s) Money, or relative poverty is the smallest part of their problem(s), simply because no amount of cold hard cash can fix their lives. And paying people to do so, only, mostly, creates more jobsworths, middle management and overpaid Executivies. Whether such organisations are run Government, Council or Charity, no bloody odds. marcus

I was and still am pissed at the "knowledge" (O.K. from 10 to 15 year ago) which "stated" that one sized the heatstore volume on boiler output, not the firebox size= total heat output, and there was considerable variance in firebox sizes in the 30-50kW boilers I was looking at. And simply because of the £ cost and footprint of the heatstores, they=those quoting for the work, always kept them as small as they could get away with. Ditto for flue heights. So I ended up with a 2200l on a 40kW, and in hindsight reckon double that would have been better fit. Ditto for the 5.5m flue height.

Whale Oil beef hooked. Obviously! Like.

O.K. I score 2 out of Vesp's 3 essential court appearances. 1 in my late teens, the other in my late 50's Does that make me a bad person? marcus

As the old country adage states; "As the days do lengthen the cold it do strengthen"

I simply used a single leg ripper/subsoiler at about 20/24" deep which both gave me straight lines,(and I simply stepped out/eyeballed the distances between trees) , plus it bust the very well established sod and loosened the soil/subsoil, which made the planting a doddle. This was in 10-15 year old untended ungrazed pasture, and I needed some help before setting too with a spade. marcus

Bob, Indeed as I alluded to with my Factor Of Safety comment re the old winches, i.e. overpulling past their rated loads until something fails, and where did hydraulic winches ever be mentioned by me? I have due respect for older tractors and technology, but HP is HP, and pulling power is pulling power. The one thing about an older dedicated winch tractor, is like the "beware the man with only one gun, for he knows it well" it, the winch tractor, will be a well known quantity to its owner operator. And untwist yer knickers re yer supposedly worthless opinion, I for one, rate your vast and empirical knowledge, cheers Marcus P.S. Some of the local farmers who had local Bogland re-claimed back in the grant aided 50's or 60's still reminise about "Tugtug" a local winch equipped Nuffield, running an 1" wire rope, used for recovering stuck diggers/bulldozers.

Hmmmmm, slow and powerful or fast and not so powerful, though the 2 speed Boughton type, mitigates some. Re the height of the pulley, I see no significent difference between the Boughton and any Continental forestry winch with a low mounted pulley. And, bluntly, numbers count, 10t is 10t, though probably the FOS of the Boughton was higher. And if the Boughton is coupled to an older, relatively asthmatic tractor . . ., it must be down to the gearing , so it must be bloody slow. Marcus

Biochar=Slash-and-burn, sadly, realistically, historically, Hmmmm? Perhaps think about that first.

First to see will buy no time wasters honest old thing

I got to check to see if it still fitted . . .

https://nypost.com/2018/12/24/us-huntress-facing-scottish-firearm-charges-for-shooting-farm-animals/?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=referral

https://nypost.com/2018/12/24/us-huntress-facing-scottish-firearm-charges-for-shooting-farm-animals/?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=referral

As an old married man, that statement could well be misunderstood!

There have been a couple of occassions when I wished the Krpan EH had had some sort of controlled release function, but all I could do was release under maximum tension(i.e. the winch had maxxed out and I had to release to re-align the tractor) resulting in an unholy mess of loose wire on the drum, that required spooling out the rest of the wire and respooling under tension, a proper time consuming bollox.

I will go so far as to risk a Bah-Ho-Ho- Ho-Humbug & Enjoy the grub all Marcus

Drink Guinness, then eat whole cloves of semi-cooked Garlic, with fibre rich potatos in-their-skins, semi-digest, then commence effortlessly and magnificently farting.

Does recycling Guinness and Garlic count?

I merely strongly recommend the powered outfeed and radio remote control, tugging out a wire rope in forestry conditions gets old fast, as they do say.

As in, after a perfect day dog walking(in blissful crisp clear weather) up the Moss, followed by rug hanging/pot scrubbing(for Senior Managment|) etc etc, then a quick 50 min run to Altanagelvin to visit my mother(in perfect driving conditions), back home and walked up to McKillops for a couple of Stout and the associated banter. To return to perfectly cooked Bass(with Lemon and whole cloves of Garlic), accompanied by flourly Red Rooster spuds in their skins(accompanied by copious butter), all washed down with a rather large whisk(e)y. All most perfectly preposterously perfect. Can tomorrow be any better? Heres hoping! Marcus

A bottle o Malt, needs no 'leccy, to be enjoyed in good company.

But!, thats Bigamy! You should be in jail.

Might I comment that despite our DUP/RHI fiasco(to be ever-so polite), the English were just as bad, if not a lot worse, since there were so many more of them(i.e. fradualent applications) per an ear-popping programme on Radio 4, at first I thought it must be about NI, but no!, Turned out there was even more prepostrous unchecked financial skullduggery afoot in the Yorkshire Dales etc etc etc. Marcus

Only 1/2 cut his arm off, that 440 musta been wile blunt, but 'bout what one would expect I suppose.