peds

That's nice. I don't think I've ever thought of you...

What a mess. I guess our only hope is that both of them just straight up kick the bucket at the earliest available opportunity. Not sure where to go from there, but it's a start.

Well, fingers crossed for them, hope they wake up. Hoping to plant 6 more apple trees myself ASAP, not finding the time at the moment unfortunately. They are just sat there in pots, waiting.

I like to remind myself of that every now and then by letting it bite me.

Problem with using a bight that you've clipped into is it weakens the rope and provides a possible point of failure. That point of failure is probably still wildly outside the forces you are working with, but still. A rope grab is exactly what you want in this situation, or even a prusik, as long as it's made with decent strong cord, if you use cord with 20kN breaking strength then it definitely won't be the weak point in your system. The good thing about rope grabs and prusiks is that they start to slip on the rope a looong time before the forces get high enough to cause catastrophic failure, which is actually a good thing. Where prusiks have a slight edge over rope grabs, other than the cost, is that they bite the rope again sooner once the forces are lowered. Double check the numbers, but these things generally all break around 20kN, grabs or prusiks start slipping somewhere between 8 and 11kN, then grabs grab again at about 4kN, but prusiks prus at around 6 or 7. These are figures from memory, don't quote me, I'll try and remember more exact ones at some point. That bowline on a bight won't slip at all, it'll hold on until something breaks, giving you no opportunity to identify snags in your system before it explodes.

Yes mate. That's a nice bit of kit. 200kg obviously, but how mobile is it really? If there is much wobble from slosh, you could add a few baffles internally. Might not need it, might not be worth the effort?

It was surprisingly tricky to find a suggestion as to what temperature ear wax melts, but here is an answer. You say you've tried a hair drier, but I think you get better results in a 55⁰c oven, positioned holes-down, obviously. You might also get good results using either cheap olive oil or bog standard sunflower oil, warmed gently, to help loosen the deposits. Depending on where the technology is in the earbud, you might even get away with a shallow bath of the warmed oil, in a low oven. in culinary terms, we would call this technique confit.

At that point, don't even bother with insurance at all. How do the two totals over your lifetime stack up, money paid against reimbursements? Think of what you could have saved if you'd just gone under the radar, like I suppose the young fella who hit you was... Again, this won't be helpful as hindsight is 20/20, but what were you thinking agreeing to a 2k cap? If it's the other party at fault, that isn't something for them to offer. They either cover the costs entirely, or they don't, and insurance does. At this point, be happy with the 600 quid sting, I suppose.

This might not help now, but I'd have gotten insurance involved immediately, on the day, without fail.

Yeah they do, which helps knock the woodchip and the droppings about and mix them together. But they aren't going to move all the chip out from under the tree and past the dripline, they'll only toss it around. If the garden is big big though, and the girls have enough to occupy themselves with elsewhere, it's probably easiest just to fence off the tree until a solution is found and the tree is happy again. I put in temporary chicken fence with 6ft lengths of rebar hammered into the ground, threaded through 4ft chicken wire, or clipped to it with a snip of wire or cable ties. Easy to move around. It's worth doing what I outlined in the post above in a chicken run anyway, if they don't have an acre or more of free ranging. A few fenced off bits provide a haven for plants and creepy crawlies, which in turn keep the foraging options for the girls nice and healthy.

If the chicken droppings are the problem, and she is unwilling or unable to fence the tree off from access, then it might be worth mulching around the tree with woodchip to soak up a load of the nitrogen, then scraping it up and replacing it every 4 months or so. It'd be rocket fuel mulch elsewhere in the garden then. The right kind of companion planting could help too, nitrogen-hungry plants that could be fenced off until established then harvested regularly for compost, like comfrey or nettle, would cut through the richness. Or heavy feeders that could be given as forage for the chickens, like a perennial kale or perpetual spinach. Again, fenced off until established with a loose circle of chicken wire, and access given or plants harvested as needed.

There's a cynical and cold-hearted voice somewhere at the back of my head muttering about how at least they had the opportunity to go to their God whilst on pilgrimage. Could be worse for them, I suppose. I just saw some numbers crunched elsewhere on the Internet, nearly 2 billion Muslims global, assume 80 year life expectancy, Mecca should receive about 24 million per year to get them all in (at least one hajj requested per devotee over their lifetime). I understand they've only got around 1.8 million this year, so they really do need to pull their collective finger out and crack on. Of course, a significant quantity of that nearly 2 billion are only as Muslim as the UK is still a "Christian" nation, so maybe 1.8 million per year will be enough to get the truly devout all fully pilgrimaged.

Just feels like a big difference between a few thousand deaths as a result of poor crowd management or fire safety, which are entirely avoidable given proper planning or whatever, and a few thousand people just cooking to death under the sun. Which, thinking about it, would also be avoidable if they just chose somewhere better for a holiday. Saudi Arabia has never been near the top of my travel wishlist, but Saudi at 50⁰c is definitely somewhere near the bottom.

Not sure about the trousers, but there's some lovely looking tools on that site. Japanese stuff generally seems well thought out, the bits and bobs I've used anyway. My steel toe cap slip-on kitchen clogs from Japan are still a favourite shoe, long after leaving professional kitchens.

Very interesting. Thanks.

Google images for "Swiss chalet mail box" returns some ideas that may be worth emulating, and some that... aren't.

Annual updates from this moment onwards then. Is it too late to add a poll? Lovely woodwork, but I think the box let's it down a little as well. Would you ever build one out of wood to carry on the theme? Swiss chalet style, or something.

They'll eat smaller, weaker, or slightly-injured live chickens too, if the mood takes them.

Don't give up that easily, argue your case!

Mine love eating the Polystyrene around the outside of our raft foundations. Cannot get enough of it, the weird little bastards.

Well, I can't speak for the others of course,but I think it's a good idea to provide a little pushback against some of the misguided, offensive, hateful, or racist things you sometimes come out with. Otherwise we run the risk of you taking over the conversation and turning the place into an echo chamber, and anyone reading this site might think that it's okay to hold some of the ridiculous views that you do. Not everything, mind. Occasionally you manage to post something fairly useful, even insightful. Don't ask me to find an example though.