pycoed

Use a Dowty seal instead of a copper or ally washer if you are worried about your wristwork (ooohh err matron!). If you haven't seen these, they are also called bonded seals - they are aluminium with a neoprene/viton face bonded to the ally & will seal a sump plug with just a nip up. Great if the sump plug WAS previously stripped & you've re-made the same thread.

There are some really clever people around, if you stop to look. That workmanship is humbling. Do a google search for Cherry Hill's models if you want to see some more unparallelled craftsmanship (or craftswomanship in her case!)

Unless you want to spend a LOT of money, then if your existing oil system is fine & working then leave it alone - just use it for background heating. Set thermostat to maximum of say 15deg & use non boiler wood stove(s) to ensure winter temps can be 20+ in the rooms. Thick stone walls will store a lot of heat if you never let them get cold, which the oil background heat should guarantee. Get as much insulation in the loft as you can & make sure windows are all at least double glazed. Oil fired AGA cost the same as a decent pickup & cost as much as a Bentley to run, but unless she was brought up with one, I doubt you missus would welcome cooking on a solid fuel fired range?

+1 I've done 4 ft high rushes & saplings with a UTB445DT - 45hp & a 5ft Rhino topper. Go dead slow on the first pass & then second pass cut the opposite direction - an easy morning at most. I'm sure a flail would be a better solution since it'll mince every thing up small - any decent sized modern tractor over 80hp with an 8 ft flail would eat all that in an hour or two.

Don't pull bracken using a bare hand - always use heavy gloves. . The stems have long fibres that can cut you very badly as most young country boys know from bitter experience.

Semantics? Well it was posted as "fact": a "fact" that is demonstrably wrong. Now you go quoting polls - which told us that a hung parliament was going to happen last year & that we would vote to remain this year.

Not so :- Scots voting for UK: 2,001,926 (55.3% of 3,619,915 turnout) Scots voting for EU:- 1,801,752 (67.2% of 2,681,179 turnout) If you can't even do simple arithmetic correctly, then I'm disinclined to trust your economic forecasts too...

Just had my first call for crows (not many pigeons in these parts sadly - we get about 6 weeks around harvest time & largely that's it). Farmer said they are hanging round the yard - got 15 +7 carrions + 4 ferals & a magpie - nice little afternoon. My old terrier is now knackered! (Won't risk cockers on crows). May take her pup tomorrow if SWMBO permits.

I've got a fair bit of this around the place & I've found the blisters only come in direct sunlight. I'm lucky that they don't seem to affect me much - they don't itch or hurt , but the do look gross!. I always use long sleeves, gloves & full face mask for cutting them these days. When I first got the blisters on my forearms, I read up about the stuff & the following year I did an experiment. I clean cut a stem & pressed the end end-on onto the inside of each forearm on the soft bit. Then I left one forearm exposed & the other covered. Following day the covered one was fine, but the one in the sun had a beautiful big blister. QED I do most of it with a slasher these days too, it cuts really easily & you don't get sap sprayed everywhere.

Just watched that - a cracking 40 minutes! I read his book Last of the Fen tigers a while back now, so it was nice to see the places he described in that. Thanks for posting, that's bookmarked on my PC

I really don't know how you pro's manage to work in this game during the summer. I know I'm old & fat, & it was on a really steep slope in a hedge, but a couple of hours today cutting out some badly overhanging branches & small trees between two of my fields has left me whacked! I cut to length & split the few bits of this load that needed it (about 20%), but I still have to stack it. This is the first time I've ever done this out of winter & I ended up a bath of sweat, went back to the house for the second shower of the day & pondered how you lot manage to do this for 8+ hours every day – respect!

Sorry Barrie, I missed your response to my Viking post - I didn't check the blade/crank - I'll get back to him to check them out. A new manifold & welded plate got the machine running again & I'd nipped up the three mountings - it seemed to run reasonably smoothly when done, so fingers crossed! My mate is the antithesis of mechanically sympathetic, so it wouldn't surprise me if he's been levelling hardcore with the mower - you should see the state of some of the winches he's asked me to repair! He's a knackerman by trade & the winches always seem to fail on hot summer days with the truck full of fermenting cattle. I don't think he'd ever get a commercial repair done - put it like this - most people (me included) wouldn't do the job for normal money. The things you do for mates...

My mate dropped off his Viking MB505MM mower to me saying "It'll start but not stay running". He was right enough, so I said I'd take a look. I found the whole engine was loose on the resilient mountings, so I nipped up the mounts. Question 1 Should there be 4 mounts? There was no mount at all under the exhaust i.e the left front side as you push the mower. If so, does anyone have a part number for the resilient mount? On taking off the air filter (filthy & soaked with petrol), & backplate, I found the plate the carb mounts to was held by only one loose bolt, the other was missing. After a lot of searching my bits & pieces bins, the only bolt with the right threads I could find was an Allen bolt (damn these American threads!). Fitted that & confident the primer bulb would now seal without leaking & all would be well. Ummm no! Just the same issue as before, so I told him to leave it with me & I'd clean the carb. Removing the carb I noticed the manifold was loose, so investigating further I found the plastic manifold snapped in two, also the carb mounting plate (now nicely secured with two properly tightened bolts, was still wiggly... the reason was soon apparent:- see crack in plate in bottom picture. Question 3 Does the plastic manifold often crack? Question 4 What is the proper name (part number too, if not too cheeky) for the cracked carb/governor lever mounting plate in the picture)? I'll give him a ring in a moment to ask him to get the parts from the dealer, but I can see him asking me to weld the carb/gov plate though it's a bit thin for my "Turn up the juice & use the biggest rod you can find/pigeon sh1t" level of welding expertise!

Do you sleep properly? It's not a daft question - lots (me included) suffer from sleep apnoea, which means interrupted breathing, snoring, stopping snoring then starting with a snort, all night long. Ask your missus if you are like this, which means you just don't get the benefit of "sleep" since you are not properly asleep. When I was first diagnosed they told me "If you are over 40, over 14 stone with a collar size of 16 or greater, it's odds on you'll have sleep apnoea to a greater or lesser extent" I more than qualified in all criteria! I haven't been 14 stone since 1968, & my collar hasn't been less than 16 since 1964!! Worth checking this out.

Well I agree with most of that except the pejorative bit at the end, but there is still no recognition that hedgerow loss is not solely due to agricultural changes. And what have hedgerows to do with your OP? What also is the agenda you accuse me of pushing? (Oh the irony!) My view is typical of lots of West Wales - lots of small stock & 1 dairy farm, none of which AFAIK is organic. If I was a few hundred feet higher I'd be able to see the Ammanford opencast areas - a few hedges lost there, but not to dastardly farmers (I am not a farmer by the way:001_smile:)

Sheep trade is on it's arse, beef trade ditto, pigs have been for years, dairying is done for & all you lot are moaning about a bloke planting a cover crop around some trees! There were probably more hedges grubbed out for industrial, commercial, transport & housing development than ever were for agriculture, yet no one moans about that? I'm looking out of the window across the valley here, & the field boundaries are entirely unchanged from the 1873 OS map in front of me & that is true of vast swathes of the country, certainly on the western side. I suggest Suffolk & London(!!) is skewing your viewpoint.

:biggrin:

Get yourself a C series Wheelhorse rideon mower. Proper chassis, cast iron axle, cast iron transaxle & most have hi-lo range 4 speed boxes. You'll get a really good one for £500. They are bomb proof - Kohler engines 8-16hp, any of which would eat the stuff you show in that picture. Make sure you check the deck (they come in 36 42 or 48" widths), since they only seem to last about 25 years(!) & the C series are a bit older than that, but the rest will go on FOREVER.

Horse owner? Unreasonable? Doesn't pay? Whatever next! It's always a struggle when the spec. is "flexible":dontknow:

Make sure you tack weld a thick washer or similar onto the hinge hooks to stop the gates being lifted off, either by horned stock (we tack a highland bull whose first task on arrival is to check every gate!) or by thieving scum. Re "thieving scum" - is probably why so many gates are old barb, two colours of baler cord & a rusty sheet?

Eat another Weetabix for breakfast! Seriously, if you can't split sycamore by hand you need to get a splitter, because just about everything else is more difficult.

Tremendous footage that!

I have a Solo 646 as a "best" saw, bought after a heads up on here & I'm very happy with it. My most used saw is a Husqvarna 136 bought second hand on Ebay a few years ago because my son didn't like my Homelite Super XL12 (no chain brake & an amplifier rather than a silencer!). Anyway I was frankly thought the Husky was plasticky rubbish when I got it....not now though! That little saw has done a miles of hedgelaying, cut piles of brash in firepiles, chewed through mountains of 2-3" stuff in bundles of 15 on a saw horse, felled snedded & ringed a few trees around 15". In short, it has been everything a smallholder needs for domestic firewood & hedging. I would heartily recommend it. It's had an oil pump & a new bar plus several chains, but all cheap enough stuff. Oh yes - I also used it to cut a few sleepers & several telegraph poles for gate posts & a pole barn too.

What's wrong with a simple cage trap? Peanuts always do the trick for me, though I've also caught with a sprinkling of wild bird food too. Fenns work well too with a peanut trail into the tunnel.