Billhook

Spring holes in otherwise very dry conditions are very different to becoming stuck in heavy clay after a lot of rain.. There is a good chance of making less mess by pulling out forwards as the vehicle pulling or winching should be on hard dry ground, :Pulling out backwards is not generally desirable as you are messing up what you have ploughed and risking damaging the plough, but we had to do this as the Matbro had not enough traction on a side slope to pull the Fastrac and the plough out forwards over the lip and we couldn't be faffed to go back and start up the Cat D7.

I have heard my todger called many names but never an old oily machine! We had a discussion about this a couple of years ago on the "Show us yer Tractors" thread The old County is feeling a bit flat in the first photo but has since been revived

Teleporters are easily tipped over just with no load and mast up and extended on rough ground, just need to be careful and yes a falling tree has a lot of energy Don't think I would be happy with four and a half tons on my 1124 cab roof! The bloody thing nearly tips over sideways with just a few logs in the grab, not even half a ton, and it has water ballasted tyres.

The 1124 has nothing like the ability of the Matbro Teleporter in the woods It cannot lift even half as much and the teleporter is great at helping trees go down in the right place as well as easily dealing with hung ones. Another plus is that the muck grab is above you helping to guide the tree and protect against falling rotten branches Today we have been thinning some 80 foot high sycamore which were planted too close and the trunks are only just over a foot in diameter. They are so close together that every tree becomes hung up Just a nudge with the teleboom is enough to bring them down and if not a chain around the base and a short bit of reversing. The logs are stacked at ten foot lengths and I can pick up a large bundle with the old muck grab and deposit them gently on the log table by the Palax I would like to restore the old 1124 back to agricultural spec. ( ducks down under desk to hide from missiles!)

S Someone suggested that it may have been shot at by one of the local trout farmers. Apparently legal to shoot them if they are taking fish from a business??

Heron looked to be asleep in the lane and looked soaked and unhappy in the heavy rain yesterday

The Track Marshall 90 was 90 Perkins hp, which is not much compared to the 170hp Cummins in the Fastrac. The 1174 had about 120hp and the 1474 about 160 hp. The TM had differential steering with levers which is the reason nobody has ever beaten me at arm wrestling! Now the D7 for all its size and weight has a beautiful hydraulic assisted pair of clutches and brakes to turn the machine on a sixpence. It only has 120 hp but it is 14 litres with a huge stroke in each of the 3.5 litre cylinders. Max revs is 900. A County 1474 short nose was just sold recently to a collector near here for £205,000! I still have an 1124 with roof crane for forestry. Even the Countys and Cat D7 would have gone down this wet spring hole but at least the Cat has the Hyster winch with over 30,000 lbs of pull to recover itself! The tyres on the !474 were only 18.4/34 compared to the Fastrac 540/65 R30. I would choose the Fastrac every time with electric hydraulics, proper draft control, aircon, and suspension that leaves you in better condition at the end of a 10 hour day than all the others! I was only doing the headlands which were messed up in all that rain we had a few years back. So they were very hard having not been cultivated for some time, full of ruts, sloping a lot and heavy hard dry clay , until of course I hit the spring! We are going to sow them with Miscanthus so that hopefully will be the last time they are ploughed

To be fair to the Fastrac, it is well balanced with that massive weight on the front, and I have ploughed the farm for the last fifty odd years with a variety of tractors starting with a two furrow reversible on a Massey 185, to a Track Marshall 90 with 4 furrow trailed, County 1174, 1184 and 1474, Caterpillar D7 with tool carrier. The Fastrac is the best so far with the Besson plough behind The problem here was a Spring hole and although I was able to drive the Fastrac and plough over the crust with the plough in the air, as soon as I started ploughing it broke through and then it is like trying to break out of a swimming pool as all the ground around is dry and rock hard. The heavy clay soon turned the new tyres into slicks. A few years ago in similar dry conditions a New Holland TF 46 put one wheel in one of these Spring holes and it still was stuck fast with two 150 hp Massey tractors chained together plus the combine wheel turning. The D7 did pull it out quite easily but it weighs twenty tons and has a shed load of torque. Anyway today it has pissed down so much I think that the tractor will be in the shed for the time being!

Needed to plough some poor land while it was so dry. So dry in fact that it broke the two shear bolts on the rear pair of shares, Big mistake! Matbro to the rescue but even it could not pull me out forwards so it had to be towed out backwards New tyres turned into slicks!

I am well aware of the problems of battery tools and rain after losing my Bosch cordless due to carelessness but in this case I had left the saw with a colleague as I had to do another job expecting him to put the saw and battery under cover after work but he did not, probably because it is so dry here over the last few weeks as we have had no rain

In fact any electric saw if left out in the rain. Has anybody had a problem? I knackered my Bosch Cordless drill after trying to use it after it had been caught out in just a small shower i wondered if Stihl had waterproofed the batteries somehow I will borrow my wife’s hair drier and give the battery a day or two before I next use it

Sorry RH, I did not see that you beat me to it!

Nah, it's restin'.

I used to be on about 12 cu meters, but then I became married and all of a sudden I am up to Trigger Andy's consumption!

It may be that electricity demand causes power cuts and gas limitations Has there ever been a gas cut or is that too dangerous?

Since over half our electricity is powered by gas and nuclear seems to not be a popular option, how are we going to heat ourselves economically if gas is to be phased out Capital cost is a major factor with Ground/air source or Stirling as I am lead to believe that a conventional radiator system would never deliver enough heat. All the floors would need to be ripped up and replaced with underfloor heating to be effective. We will have to wrap up well like our ancestors with lots of woolly sweaters. Oh no , I just remembered, sheep are being phased out as well, too inefficient and too much farting I am told!

CHP seems to be fired by gas , which I thought is to be phased out apart from being expensive Combined Heat and Power (CHP) | Cogeneration | Centrica Business Solutions WWW.CENTRICABUSINESSSOLUTIONS.COM Improve your resilience and reduce energy spend with Combined Heat and Power (CHP), also known as...

Not like a farmer to be optimistic but perhaps with the current hike in gas and electricity prices, coupled with the net zero initiative and the move to all electric cars, people may find it hard to pay the increases to keep warm. Keeping warm is the greatest cost. I see they had to fire up a coal power plant recently as the wind power had faded. Gas being phased out and the electric demand will no doubt cause power cuts what d’y’all think?

Swallows lining up ready for off today. They sit around for the last few weeks of North Wind and cloud and then decide to leave as soon as the sun comes out! Never did understand birds (of any variety!)

Was it something you said??

Many Swallows this year, more than I have ever seen , but not a single House Martin A few Swifts, about average

We had an Osprey visit our little lake for about seven years in succession. The lake is full of little silver Rudd and I think he treated it a bit like a motorway services on his cruise round from Rutland Water. They are about the same size as a Buzzard but have narrower wider wings which are cranked when gliding. They are far better fliers than the clumsy Buzzards. We have about three pairs of Buzzards here and I have never seen them catch anything on the move, just carrion. They did take offence at the presence of the Osprey and I have an analogue video of two of them swooping down at the Osprey. The Osprey hardly seemed to move its wings but put a good distance between the diving buzzard which ended up in an untidy mess before recovering to have another go After the third attack the Osprey had clearly had enough and rolled over onto its back in mid flight and showed the Buzzard its talons! That seemed to work! I slept one night down at the log cabin and managed to take a short clip of it picking up a Silver Rudd with one talon but again it is on analogue so I must have it digitalised to put up on here. The clip is not that impressive as the camera cannot decide what to focus on The diving buzzards is a better clip.

Our Swallows seem to have done particularly well this year in spite of a very late start. The was a gathering of maybe fifty or more around the yard and many were lining up on the electric wire as they would normally do in September. Have not seen a House Martin. IMG_1617.MOV

Number one photo with the clean looking sprocket is his 391 Number two with the worn sprocket is my old 340 Then his oiler working followed by the obvious difference between the saws on the same bit of wood His still produced quite big chips but is struggling with the same bit of sycamore I think his engine is poorly tuned which adds to the problems IMG_1604.MOV IMG_1605.MOV IMG_1606.MOV

Buggery bollocks, the old cock pheasant has rumbled my anti squirrel electric shock system and has invented a “Nut raining system” ! IMG_1593.MOV