Billhook

I found my special tool I made for the job twenty years ago! A large diameter bar with a piece welded to it to enable the holder to keep a safe distance from the striker! But I might still investigate whether I can wiggle the track drive gear out without splitting the track if I can make it loose enough. Debating whether to even take the track off the front idler, or off altogether

or this

Now something like this would save my poor wrists!

There are two pins with dimples and I did split the track before as we found a better one to replace it I had not considered taking it off unbroken as it weighs so much also it is too close to the wall for room to work I will split it and I do have the Matbro to assist I remember the effort knocking the pin out last time hence I was wondering if there was a power tool designed to knock out pins I know some fit young lads who need some exercise after Lockdown and a crate of beer might work out cheapest in the long run!

Bought this 806 C JCB in 2000 for £2000. The machine had done a lot of work before I bought it and has had some hard treatment recently. Last September it started to rain on the 23rd and did not stop till mid March I had to drag the old soldier out of retirement to clean out the overflowing ditches and together we did over a mile and a half and save a lot of our land from flooding. I am not sure it helped downstream! The JCB has a ten foot Ash growing out of the engine compartment but after its removal the engine struck up first time. Good old six cylinder Perkins with no clever computer aids or other things to go wrong. A hundred yards from the main road the track came off the idler .we managed to put it back on and it was a big struggle as the ground on the stream Bank was so wet that it kept sinking down no matter how many logs we put under the chassis. In the end we used the Matbro successfully and I tracked back to the yard about another mile. Five yards from the concrete base where the JCB lives we lost all drive and the bearing had disintegrated allowing the planetary gear assembly to slip off the drive axle. Could not swear too much as the old fella had done a hell of a job and made it home Can someone remind me of the best way to split a heavy track and rejoin it I did it once when we first bought it but that was twenty years ago and my wrists were in good condition (see injuries thread!) so the pins knocked out quite easily I wish there was a machine operating like an air gun that does the job for you, bit like a jack hammer. Is there such a thing?

You cut yew hedges a hundred years ago........I saw you!

Had a good read of your link to Dr Newnham and read another piece by him below. Interesting the comparison with table salt where we know that too little of it will kill you and too much will also kill you. But that must be the same for almost anything. Certainly too much of anything is not going to be a good outcome , whether it be ibuprofen or Mars bars or fizzy drinks. Too much water can kill you (its called drowning) so the fact that you have fed some poor rat an overdose of 100 times normal and it died is to be expected as normal. I will keep my appointment with a rheumatologist and hear his opinion as I do not want to be labelled like Trump was for pushing drain cleaner! Boron: Major Cause and Cure for Arthritis WWW.POSITIVEHEALTH.COM Forty years ago, Dr Rex Newnham developed arthritis, and orthodox medicine did not help. His analysis of the...

Thanks for that encouraging information. I will give it a good read later on this evening and report back

Just read this thread from start to finish and it is fairly horrific. A warning for all you younger ones to take more care but you never listen as I never did, such is the invincibility of youth! I have had a lifetime of farming and am now 66. In the bad old days everything was unloaded from lorries by hand and all sacks of potatoes and fertiliser were 1 cwt or 50 kilos. Some corn sacks weighed twice that but they had to be put on your shoulders with a sack lift barrow. Had a bad bout of lower back trouble in my late twenties. Played a lot of league hockey and nearly seized up after the game and after the bar, could hardly exit the car when I came home. I decided in 2000 in my mid 40s to just do a 3.5 mile bike ride around the block each day before work so that the system was warmed up before work. There are a couple of steep hills to make the heart pump faster. I needed some good weather gear to keep it up every day, but now having gone around the World, 24 thousand miles, (3.5 miles a day, 1200 miles a year for 20 years), I have not had the bad backs that left me needing a walking stick for a week or two when I was younger. On another note I have been doing more and more chainsaw work since 1993 with few problems till this year when I have started to have arthritic type problems in both wrists. My right wrist is far worse which is strange since I am totally left handed and operate a chainsaw with left hand on the trigger. I can operate right handed which I had to do to gain my certificates but I was just wondering if any of you right handers with the same problems feel it more in your left hand because that hand is pushing harder perhaps and feeling the vibration a little more

!984 should be compulsory reading in all schools. We are well on our way there with Newspeak, Thoughtcrime, Big Brother etc. and remember the protagonist Winston Smith, whose job it was to re-write history and erase all evidence of someone who has been no platformed It is a great way to control people to use fear. People scare so easily, just look at how a supermarket used to be emptied of bread when there was a touch of snow. The Romans used to keep order by saying that the Carthaginians were about to invade even though there was never any evidence that it was the case. "You need us to protect you"

You obviously have not visited York Jorvik Viking Festival!

Gregg again more upbeat

Posted by Youngsbury in "Jokes" some time ago

Thanks, that sounds like a good place to start. I will try foliage spray on one tree and maybe put some iron sulphate under another

Just had a look at the chlorosis photos on google and I have to admit it certainly has the same look, try some iron fertiliser perhaps?

It is medium to heavy loam and next to the lake which had a layer of clay at the bottom so as they are on the bank of the lake I would think quite a lot of clay but all the other trees are doing well Black poplar, wayfaring tree, alder, evergreen oak and a ginko As was they are up above the field I do not think leeching of chemicals would be a factor and if it was due to chemicals you would expect them all to be affected It certainly looks to me like some disease that is gradually moving along the line of trees. As I said there was only one initially and we had been 10 years organic when it showed symptoms the chalk line Land is a mile away, this field is in the valley and the ph is around 7.5

Thanks for those replies, I’m sure the wasps are up to no good but could they cope with something as big as a bumble bee? Perhaps they just ignore the adults and are unaffected by their stings and just steal the grubs and sugar

Lockdown Blues Plenty of No Money

At the log cabin I made a little bat box at ridge height The bats of course spurned my work and the bumble bees took over. All this year they have been doing well until a couple of weeks ago I noticed that some wasps were going in the little slot on the left. The bees and wasps seemed to be living in harmony but today as I sit here there are very few bumble bees and the odd one or two buzzing about do not go in. We had a large wasps nest inside the cabin a couple of years ago and suddenly a hornets nest was built right next to it and the hornets cleaned out the wasps nest to feed their grubs i was wondering if wasps did the same thing to bumble bees although you would think that they would have trouble tackling something so big The first image is of the bat box I was hoping the Pipistrelles would land on the vertical ply on which I had routed footholds , the slots on the side were for a bit of air circulation The other picture is of the gap where the poplar Log has warped to leave a pencil sized space for the bats and their droppings are everywhere

Planted these alongside a lake in 1996, started with one tree now dead and spreading. Not sign of insects so I assume viral/ fungal? First two photos show topside ( very yellow) and underside green

Not physically perhaps but mentally..................

Would I have to pluck my eyebrows and shave my legs before I played it?

Indeed, "The Abominable Dr Billhook" has a certain ring to it. Perhaps I should record a rendition of Riders on the Storm on the Snetzler and put it on Youtube so you can understand what abominable really is!

I forgot Stubby! Of course I shrink at the weekend, or do I go and see a shrink, I can't remember!

But compared to different shoe and glove sizes you are talking of a fraction of an inch difference and most modern keyboards are one size fits all There is absolutely no way I could wear my wife’s shoes and gloves and clothes so another of my fantasies out of the window! in spite of sausage fingers and farmers hands I can still just about play my fender strat and people have paid me in the past to listen but they had probably drunk too much!