wrsni

Had the same problem for years with various makes of inkjets, either keep then running smoothly with genuine cartridges and pay the price of the printer over and over again many times, or go with cheaper cartridges/refills and have hassle. Last year I bit the bullet and bought an office spec Brother black and white laser printer. A lot dearer but we've probably saved half the cost of it already with (hopefully) many years of service still ahead of it and the speed and print quality is just phenomenal. No use if you MUST have colour of-course but I reckoned we could do without it and it hasn't been a problem at all.

As stated initially just SORN it and you can then legally run it on red no matter what it's classification. Less hassle.

I trawled the farming forums and done general searches before wiring the money and nothing came up, but then again most search engines don't bother with a two letter term anyhow so I'll admit that it was a bit of a "buy and hope" job. You have to do that disappointingly often over here!

KP tractors.

A filling station near here put a red pump under the canopy, the throng around it was so great that they had to put in another one!, and it's at the side of one of our busiest roads so it's not just country folk at it. Back to the original point, as someone else mentioned I really can't help but think but this is typical NI "law enforcement" against easy targets in a safe area. Despite having found many high capacity plants responsible for tax evasion on a massive scale, never mind shocking environmental damage there has not yet been one single prosecution against fuel launderers in border areas. The "pull" on the silage contractors, if true, could be very dodgey. If they decide to proceed with that one I think any half decent barrister could make fools of the CPS (again) very easily. Any time I read the relevant rules, it very much looked to me that as long as the relevant operation was unquestionably agricultural only, then red would be absolutely legal.

You'll comfortably get a nice ST30 for that and have change for an implement or two to get you going. The replacement is the STV32, finding one of them at £7k would be tight going but off-season you never know. The ST/STV were european market only and have the advantage of a bit more power but no bigger than most 20hp stuff. Ours is about 4ft 6in with wide grass tyres, would be comfortably under 4ft with agris on it.

Firstly, as stated above be sure that you want/need a compact. Seven grand will get you a pretty decent "bigger" tractor which may be more useful in a greater range of work. Secondly, I'd need a very good reason to look beyond Kubota. Been looking a compact for a while now to run with grass tyres on the golf course and keep about the place for future use in the woodland. Eventually picked up a s/h ST30 Kubota from a tractor dealer in England in February, bought it unseen over the phone but he sent me high res photos by e-mail and assured me it was 100% mechanically. So I stuck my neck out, wired him the money, and arranged transport. It arrived on the plant lorry with a flat tyre, link arms seized solid, oil pissing out of the front diff and NO clutch. That's "no clutch" as in it was driving constantly and the clutch couldn't be disengaged! To cut a long story short, the bollocks I bought it off sort of had me by mine as I was here, he was over there, and he had my money. He sang ignorance to the fault but said he'd either give me my money back if I got the tractor back to him, or pay for the cost of parts to repair. It was definitely letting him off the hook but I decided to go for the repair option and have a go at the job myself as it was potentially the cheapest and quickest way of a solution. Turned out the wee tractor had been used in a factory somewhere on Humberside since new and had never seen daylight which was why it was so good cosmetically and the link arms were seized in place because they'd never been used! The entire clutch actuating mechanism was seized as they'd just shuffled it about with the hydrostatic and nothing had ever been on either of the pto shafts requiring the clutch to be used. So I replaced the clutch and actuating mechanism, front diff needed an oil seal, everything else needed lots of releasing oil and brute force to get it moving, and topped it all off with a full service, new filters and oils from top to bottom. It's done a fair bit since without (touch wood) a glitch and the more I use it the more it impresses me. So much so that as soon as I get a few more pennies gathered up I'll be looking a bigger Kubota tractor to use about the farm. Not a conventional tractor set up. Actually has a chassis which required the engine to be lifted out rather than splitting as normal. But design and build quality of the whole thing is typically Japanese and very impressive!

Lost our wee springer in October and our collie in May, both posted elsewhere on this thread. For me, it seems as I get older loosing a dog is harder, I'm a mid-fifties (age that is, not decade!) farmer for god's sake, I should be as hard as they come yet I was gutted. Vowed there'd be no more dogs for a while, son heading over to Myerscough in September, daughter leaving school in September, missus with her work and elderly relatives, didn't want to become attached again. However, people we know had a litter of pups from two of their own working collies and our lass was offered first pick, I got out-voted 3 to 1 and this little rascal arrived a couple of weeks ago. And yes, he's won me over completely already!

If the weans just bought you a phone, then it's most likely to be "unlocked", in order words it'll accept any sim card you choose to put in it and work away quite happily with any network. If you get a phone as part of a pay monthly contract, typically over 2 years minimum, the phone will be "locked" to the network you've done the deal with on the basis that they're subsidising the cost of the phone so don't ever want it to be used with anyone else. IMO buying a "sim free" phone and then sorting out a separate deal for your service is the sensible way to do things so you're in a pretty good position. Oh, and as also mentioned you can keep you number and take it with you to whichever network you wish as it's legally YOUR number but be prepared for a bit of hard sell from Vodafone when you ask for the PAC code. Suddenly they'll "really value" your custom!

Another plus for Makita. Bought a new backpack Makita blower eight years ago and it's done a lot of work, originally keeping a 600 meter kart track clean and now that plus four golf greens. Has never missed a beat and touch wood runs just like the day it was new.

The original hot-house, using green waste from preceeding summer/autumn.

Seems logical enough, using the concrete slab as a thermal store which then releases it's heat directly in to the living space but with insulation below it to prevent the heat being lost downwards. The basic principle of underfloor heating (and before that, the storage radiator), just on three or four times the normal scale.

Well that's just the nature of the ash, you'd wonder how it manages to be one of the fastest growing hardwoods when it gives itself such a short season. What's worrying people is that this year it's so late, my hope is still that while dieback may be a problem with a small number of trees in some areas, the overall reason is climatic. It has after all been a remarkably frost free winter even by mild UK standards.

Ash shockingly late about here as well (mid-Antrim), but they're all either mature or naturally generated and there's been no reported cases over here yet of die-back spreading to established ash so maybe it's a seasonally related thing this year. Fingers crossed!

Well, always worth trying the simple way just in case. Young fella had an errand in town, reached him the head gasket and asked him to call at the local lawn mower shop (which he used to work at part-time) just in the off-chance that he might have one saying as he's been on the go for a long time. Half an hour later he's back with a genuine Kohler head gasket, 8 squids. Lucky or what!

That's correct and all detailed on their website "dealer locator". But there's a big difference between being a stockist and a good stockist, thus the question.

That is really very generous of you. Sadly there's a substantial stretch of water between us which precludes me from "nipping up the road" to get it. But thank you very much for the offer.

Looking a head gasket and a couple of head bolts for a "K" series. Will get on to the others first thing Tuesday and see what they can do for me. Thanks.

Can anyone recommend anywhere in the UK for Kohler engine parts. Doesn't matter if they're online, e-bay, or whatever as long as they'll post. Thanks.

Personally I wouldn't uproot anything, even if the existing stem dies the roots may still establish and send up new shoots next year, or even I've been told, the following two or three years. If and when you do decide to replace, plant between it and the next nearest stem and if it all grows eventually then just thin out sooner.

I was advised not to replace anything on the basis of one year and now in to my second year with them I can see the logic. My Norway Maples last year seemed to be a disaster, probably something like 25 or 30 percent of them failed to establish. So I ordered replacements and started to slot them in around mid-March this year. However, when I examined the "dead" ones what had actually happened was that while the stem as I had planted them was dead, there were new shoots coming up at ground level so the tree was actually alive. So what I done, not just with the Maples as I'd also got a few Hazel, Alder, Ash and some other bits and pieces, was anywhere there was a space I planted the replacements between the existing rows so if a new shoot comes up in another year from the original plant it'll still have space to come up and then I can thin in future. Strange about the Alders, they're one of my star performers so far. I was worried about them on the really dry places but they grew on all summer, maybe be different this year with the really dry weather we've had so far, time will tell.

Check the wires running to the fuel cut off on the pump. Take off all connections, clean them and if necessary close up the female ends so they connect more snuggly. Sounds like it might be the culprit.

We've two, a Ransomes Super Certes and an old Atco, total cost of both was under £500. We're developing our own small private golf course around the house so the Ransomes is used for the greens, the Atco is used for the tees and surrounds and is set higher. The finish they're capable of producing could never be matched by any rotary, but cutting isn't the issue. We have four greens and the young fella works at them constantly or else they'd be a carpet of moss and weeds already. Cutting peoples lawns with the cylinder would probably just be a disaster without all the other attendant maintenance between times. A nice rotary with roller is probably what you want if stripes is the aim, just remember that you'll still have the front wheel tracks when you're done which does detract from the effect a bit.

With respect, while that's quite correct it's not really my point. Fossil fuels ARE a finite resource, the timescale is hugely contentious of-course but eventually it'll happen and given our rapidly accelerating usage of oil and gas especially, easily extracted (and therefore cheap) supplies of these two things is most likely to be measured in decades. Seems strange then that they energy they produce is valued lower than genuinely renewable sources, timber included. If nothing else it only facilitates waste and regarding oil and gas we as a species are being shockingly wasteful at present with something which will only last for a very short time and never ever be available again once exhausted.

Nail on the head, but it's a reality that nobody wants to face up to. For as long as human life exists there can be timber available, it is a renewable energy source. Fossil fuels however some day WILL run out (oil and gas relatively soon), and given that fact it is remarkable how wastefully they're being treated at present. Or is it just that we know they will last for the lifetime of most of us and while we claim to care about our children and their children, we're actually much too short sighted and selfish to worry about the picture even further ahead.