Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

Only trouble with ‘massacring’ the grass, the other night, with the Dane .......



...... is yer’s gorra pick it all up !! ........ ‘Least you do on a first cut !!

Raked it all into heaps and after debating the barrows to the box, or the box to the grass, the latter won Sunday afternoon!!



Damned sight easier than the barrows !!!

Had a long conversation with Frank, in Norway, Monday evening ...... been trying to get Skype .... or to be more exact, my ‘net to behave long enough, to use Skype, to talk to him most of last week.

He managed to make contact with the seller of my ‘purchases’ earlier in the week ...... and the news wasn’t good.
We are both of the opinion that he’s sold ‘em local and couldn’t be arsed with a foreign buyer!!!!!!
Gave Frank some BS story ‘bout them being nicked!!!!

So, unless they magically re-appear, which is ****ing unlikely ..... I’ll not be getting these anytime soon .......



S60 indexator .... 2000 ..... two line (and a case drain too), button control, with Aux feeds .... 14,000NOK or 1183 quid to you and me ..... was £1151, the day of the purchase.




S60 Klepp quicky, plumbing and valve on 65mm pins, 400 ctrs and 270 wide .... 6000NOK or 507 quid in coin of the realm !!!!!

Frank had also sorted a carrier for me, for 2613NOK (£220) to collect them and transport to their Bristol depot, the morning he’d spoken to the seller for me.
Told him to consider them sold and to send me an invoice, which I followed up with an email to the guy via Finn’s messaging system!
I’d obviously get clobbered for VAT this end ....... but it was a very cheap pile of bits .... cheapest I’ve seen on Finn.
The guy exports m/cs to Africa apparently and takes any tiltys off ..... as they wouldn’t know WTF to do with ‘em !!!!

Anyway ... long story, short ..... neither of us could get a hold of the guy for more than a week and no invoice ever arrived ...... much to my (and Frank’s) annoyance!!

So ..... that was the story ..... that never was/will be ..... for now.

I do keep an eye on Finn for a ‘bargain’ and would buy one, if cheap enough, if only to pull it to bits and ‘see how they tick’.
This would’ve been an ideal candidate as it would’ve slotted straight into my control system with a new plug and a bit of rewiring. Pin centres were spot on and the width was only a few millimetres to lose in the hitch to swap with the Miller.
Could’ve either altered the ‘Dremas bushes or opened the cheek eyes on the hitch out to 70mm, which was favourite.

Before you all kick off with the ‘whys’ ..... I know I have my VA-r and it’s proving to be good so far, but I’m always aware of trying not to break the lil’ bugger, as it’s ‘capacity to cope’ is a bit of an unknown quantity!!
This Indexator is / was (in its day) ‘state of the art’, dig (virtually) anything gear ........ plus as I say .... I’d like to have a bloody good look at one .... in the metal.
Stuart’s (lefthooker) is the only one I’ve actually seen, or touched, to date!!

Looks like I’ll be waiting a while longer ....... well pissed off !!!!!!!



It eventually stopped raining this afternoon ..... hell we’ve had some wet stuff ....... again !!

I needed to lose the last of my planings pile, for the space to park some pallets of stuff ...



Which are in the way of any further ‘excavation progress’ ATM, so picked up the beam



and had a bit of practice with it. Could really do with a bit more of this stuff, as it’s reasonably fine ...... with the odd lump or two, interspersed !!!





With the lumps extracted, as they appear, this caps off what’s there quite well and the roller on the back of the beam packs it down pretty well .... vibe over the top and it’ll really go down nicely
Would be a hell of a lot easier to use with a decent pile to start with, to drag about.

[v8druid]

Had some new hoses arrive for the new Kinshoffer the other day ....... what was on there just wasn’t long enough .......



Usual source - Flowfit - and half the price of local, plus ...... Gates Megaflex !! Got some spiral wrap and fittings into ‘em and attached to the Kins



Well actually ..... had to take ‘em back off once, as I forgot the spiral wrap ... but you get the jist !!!

Then it was ready for some oil ..... once I’d gotten it airborne ....





And closes with a sweet ‘clack’ .......



This is pretty small on there, but was bought for a few specific jobs that require ‘small’ to be the order of the day.
Should do them admirably well !!

Even with the Hill disconnected to try this, it clung on to it like a limpet, but stuck a short safety chain on the lift eyes on each unit ...... just in case, but was still solid on there, after half an hour of trials.

I must get some permanent plumbing sorted for the Hill, but could always hang this on the 70mm pin head-set and drop the hill off if I really needed to use it.

[v8druid]

Well you lot have had some peace and quiet from the witterings in this direction for a while .......

So ......

The Hill had to come off yesterday .... for the first time since I stuck it on there..... X no of weeks ago .....





So’s I could put this on ......



...... for a spot of ‘juggling’..



....... these .........





The pile up on the top level are positively in the way and needed ‘creatively re-locating’ to somewhere ‘less in the way’, for a while at least!!





Got a lot of the ‘larger’ ones shifted yesterday afternoon ..... after Madame Clara had departed, from her unexpected visitation, but got interrupted by the need to eat .....



..... so that was end of play yesterday as it was getting on for 19.30 and thought the neighbours might have had enough of listening to me Deutz, for one day!!

The day didn’t start again ‘til late today ...... after Clara’s dad had picked her up, earlier than usual, for a Thurday, to go swimming !!

Bit of an ‘arty-farty’ one for you, for starters ......



.... and got the rest of the smaller boulders cleared up.......



....... and into the stack ......



Then it was off with the Cranab .........



...... and back on with the Hill ......



Getting pretty proficient at swapping bits on those big ol’ 70mm pins ..... Could used to do Jakie’s in minutes and TBH it only took me 10 minutes to off the grab and get the Hill back on, so pretty pleased with that.

I did get ten minutes this morning, after the posty had been, to get the old grass barra’ back into service .......



6 quid for tyre and tube inc. delivery to the door ...... ‘cheap crap’ tyre, but at the end of the day, it ain’t gonna be doing 70 on the M4 and if it lasts as long as it’s predecessor .. it’ll be miraculous .... LOL ...... but’ll do the job.

Picked up a new barrel pump for my engine oil barrel earlier in the week off fleabay .... where else !!
I’ve had one of these for years ..... never seen another and tripped over this one accidentally the other night, looking for a CAT grease gun, after D4’s high praise recently .....



Great pumps and totally rotary, so no wasted ‘elbow grease’ like with the 1 Litre a shot -wind one way, then t’other types, that are the norm on a barrel.

God knows how old these are, but came in it’s original box, packaging, etc., unused and even had the instruction sheet with it!!
Note the non drip feature ..... and it works a treat !!



When’s the last time (some of us older guys) did you see a sheet like that ..... with a brass eyelet-ed punch hole in it, to hang it up !!????

Installed last night and pumping like a good un !!
If you can find these, they are the dog’s gonads!!




forgot to mention ...... our usual lightweight grass barrow was looking a tad sorry for itself when I went to use it the other day .....



we'd heard a hell of a bang a few evenings ago and it hadn't registered just what it was ....... 'til I tried to push it !!!'Twas 'well to the woods'/past it's use by date anyway ....



so that came off tuesday afternoon too and was going to chuck another on 'til I found ..... I'd no tubes and this 'un's beyond a patch I think !!!!

Glad I wasn't using it and doing any speed when it let go ..... could've been a nasty 'off'

[v8druid]

Been a ‘bitty’ sort of day today, filled with interruptions and just never seemed to get going ‘til late in the day .... had a suss of the field for drive-ability .... one of the main over riding factors in spoil shifting ... that and the condition of the cheesecake crust, that passes for a surface unless totally dry, which it was this afternoon ... just about and so was the field !

So thought .... what the hell ... can get a few loads in ‘fore the bell tolls!!
Had a bit of help too ......



try op-ing with a furry head constantly head butting your hands, wanting to be stroked, sat on yer lap ..... better that though, than not knowing where the hell he is ... he’s become far too blasé around the ‘Drema and swung around to find him stood on the back end, waiting for the door to come around, so’s he could hop in the cab and up onto me !!

Thought I’d make a start on the hunt for a few more rocks !! There’re a few [an understatement if ever there was one!] with the tops of their ‘heads’ poking out at the bottom of the bank/desired level, which were easily accessed from the bottom of the ramp, so grabbed a couple of bucket choices and set about exposing them along with getting the lower reaches of the slope down to somewhere near a finished sort of level, to aim for some more room to stack stuff that needs relocating.

Well I found a few ...... pretty damned quick ......



...... and the ol’ VA-r tackled the task pretty well, with a reasonably ‘cautious’ approach and having gotten ‘an edge’ to work in from ...... did just that and worked my way back into the bank !

The further in I got, the bigger they got .......



...... bit of a bucket filler and easier chasing ‘em into it with the right ‘angle of attack’, than chasing the damned things around with a fixed bucket.

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to finding some of these buggers ... the good news is that a hole this size only produced 2 dumper loads of spoil ..... the bad news is the quantity of rocks I have to re-handle and find a home for !!



There’s one big mutha, firmly ensconced in the far left of the pic that may warrant the VA-r coming off, the ‘Drema’s 4 footer getting stuck on the Miller and getting attacked from the top of the bank, which is where I’ll be heading next, to work from, having gotten a level to work off and a reasonably cleared edge to work back in from.

Get a decent sized area down to flat, at the desired level so I can park a load of stuff currently sat above the r/h side of the ramp. I can then get that down to extend the width of me access across and tackle at least half the current ramp width, perhaps more, where I know there’re a lot more lumps of stone age Lego lurking.
At current showing, there is going to be some sort of rock pile growing, where I moved t’others to the other day!!!!

Tea was thankfully late tonight, but still had to come back out to finish off and deposit the second dumper load in the field ...... just before it pee-ed down!!

Hell is it throwing it down ATM !!!!
So that’s knackered any continuations in the a.m., ‘less it stops soon and blows like hell all night, which it's currently having a damned good go at too ...... a real Southerly tonight!

[v8druid]

Day out today, up at Pam’s elderly farmer uncles’ place .... 2 old bachelor bro.s, both in their 70s, needing some ‘assistance’ in clearing up some of the decades of crap/scrap lying about their 15^th Century, grade 1 listed place ... that’s had little or no attention in decades.

Another place with a view .... the Llanthony valley .....







.... and some sort of history!!!!

Me and the BIL have worked our bloody socks off today .... good ol’ boys though and a lovely turkey dinner at the end of the day ...... my favourite !!

Two bro.s and two sisters .....



....... and a lot better weather than forecast !!

[v8druid]

Well I’m gonna miss it ...... but it’s gonna have to come off for a day or two ..... before \I break it !!!!!!





These lumps are taking some ripping out !!

Miller and either the 4 foot toothed or my favourite 3 ft Geith, to hoik the buggers out with, bulk out what I can and trim up with the wiggly wobbly bit after!!



They are some sort of lumps.

Hill had to come off and the Cranab back on this evening to shift the first of the big muthas ......







Only just managed to hang on to this lil’ bar steward !!!

Relocate this lot tomorrow, ........



.......then VA-r off .... serious ripping tools on and frighten the bejeezus out of this un and his mates from above.



There’re several more here for the masochistically inclined ......

http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8druid/slideshow/

[ianoz]

You be carefully , You will have Time team Wanting to have a dig .
Looks like the remains of a Druidic castle to me .

[v8druid]

You be carefully , You will have Time team Wanting to have a dig .
Looks like the remains of a Druidic castle to me .

If they'd like to come and shift this lot for me I'll book 'em in a minute

[v8druid]

about to post this last night when the 'net did a moony .... and disappeared ...... again

so if some of teh days don't tally ...... worry ye not ...... pretend it's last night

I’d just about finished juggling with Monday’s rock finds ...... these cats really are getting far too blasé around the ‘Drema ...


......deadly Smedley just strolled by, casting a nonchalant glance at the Cranab as he passed by ...... when the ‘usual suspect’ from Parcelfarce arrived wivabox !!!!



Could only be from one man ..... ‘specially as his name was on it !!

Having an ‘inkling’, as to what it contained, I put it in me tool box, for an investigation later on, as I was on a mission this morning......and the rocks were calling me !!!!

I’d noticed the odd few drops of Plantohyd on the grab earlier on and having had a brief look, could see the one banjo under the Roemheld rotary , feeding the Aux QCs weeping a bit on the VA-r, so when the Cranab came off, it was time for a better look .....



New Dowty and job was a good un, before I parked her up on her plate for the day ....



First time this has been off in ..... I can’t remember !!!



The Miller had almost forgotten it was a quicky .....



Left all the plumbing on her, as I’m gonna need her again ...... in the a.m. - and the grab !!
Would be nice to have something I could clamp the grab onto, to drop the VA-r and it off in one lump, as I’m going to need to repeat this process, quite a bit I think !!

Next item on the agenda was to get the ‘Drema’s 4 footer and my fave Geith 3 footer down from their parking spots and into a position I could reach ‘em from, once up on the upper level !


Got meself up the ramp then swung around and caught hold of the 4 footer on a sling and stuck it in easy reach of where I was headed, but more on that later, (just to tease Chris).

Fast forward to the end of my day’s endeavours and with a late tea devoured (Wednesday evenings is Pam’s circuit training jaunt, so tea is always 7.30 onwards) .... I set about my parcel, with a sharp knife to tackle what looked like a full roll of duct tape holding the contents inside it. !!

I was wrong ..... with the lid off ..... there was even more !!!!



Plus what looked like a very large mouse nest


Never let it be said that Mr T. doesn’t know how to package stuff up for a safe journey ...

Obviously dissatisfied with the integrity of the box’s bottom he’d added a little extra .....



Smelt bloody gorgeous .... wonder how it tasted? !!!

As you have all sussed by now, this was the mystery package that Numbawun had been talking about last week ....



And very grateful I (and the ‘Drema) are to Massaboss Rob for making the effort to relocate your old spares stock to a loving new home ..... they will be cared for !!

But ....... the burning question foremost in my mind, since unpacking ‘em has been.......

What’re you keeping your “Recipes and Handbags” in now that I’ve got their box Rob?????



‘Fraid the rest of the days exploits are gonna have to wait ‘til tomorrow ...........
I am ready for my pit. ..........

[v8druid]

Yesterday’s exploits ...... lotsa diggin’ and a lorra lorra rocks !!!!!





Both the rocks and the pile for shifting just kept getting bigger ......



As said before ...... the upside is less spoil to have to cart up the drive ... have only had 7 loads out of this hole !!!



Anyone got any idea what sort of rocks these are .... apart from large heavy and green?





Late start today ... Clara day ... and didn’t get at it ‘til damned near lunchtime ....

Me box of grease tubes arrived mid morning, along with a large ‘loose’ tub too ....
£1.33 a stick, delivered .... Smith & Allan been about since 1926 doing lube, so must be doing something right and are dealers/agents for Shell, who’re pretty fussy ‘bout who they supply. For information ... these have a ring right around the biz end, if you’ve a double hander.



Wound her up and left the oil warming for five, whilst I pulled the pins on the grab ..... stood t’other side of her and thought “what’s that noise?”
Popped the engine cover up ... again .... always dip her and do fluids, to see the primary fuel filter and water separator canister dancing about with a bolt head missing .....



So knocked her off and slacked off t’other to get a hold of the knackered one .... came out sweet as and soon had a new M8 x 8.8 in there . ..... that cured the dancing !!!

Got the VA-r back on, followed by the Cranab .....


Ready for some rock ‘juggling’ and juggling it was too with some of ‘em !!!!

Few pix specially for Chris from t'other.... who loves rocks ........









.....’til I got to the last one ...



I thought this was the Cranab’s Nemesis !!!

Took me bloody ages to get a grip on the damned thing ....



But eventually managed to get enough of grip on it to get it closer to me and at an angle I could get a hold of it properly ....



And what a lump it is ....... but got the bugger on the stack ....



And sat solid ....... the stockpile is growing ... rapidly ......gonna need a bigger bank soon!!!!



...... and there’s a lot more where they came from!!!!!



Can’t believe how long it took to juggle this lot about and stacked up today.

Rounded off the afternoon, by dropping the grab and VA-r BACK off and refuelling the old girl, ready for another onslaught in the morning, with the buckets, hopefully, before finally finishing off, with a trip down the village, to the kid’s house, with the bander, to give a large package the treatment, ready for a carrier to collect in the a.m. ......



Hope they’ve both had their Weetabix, when they come for it!!!!

For anyone who’s not seen enough pix of rocks ...... there’re lots more in me bucket (Chris!!) clicking on any pic will link to it ..... If it don’t ....try this ......
http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8druid/slideshow/


Hoping for a good day on this tomorrow, with no ‘visitors’, Pam’s out most of the day and as long as it doesn’t rain ..... I shall be, to quote Jake and Elwood, “on a mission from God ” LOL!!!!!

[v8druid]

Forgot to say last night, as I was parking up the dumper for the night I discovered a little bird’s nest, tucked in the front pivot of the skip .... obviously last years as not occupied, but hell they’d managed to stuff some moss in there !!





I had to move the little walker this afternoon to make space for some pallet loads of materials, currently parked beside the ramp. Having started it first pull and started to move it, I’m suddenly surrounded by wild bees .... and they ain’t happy!!!!!

Anyway after abandoning digger and giving ‘em 10 minutes to calm down, I can see where they’re coming from/going to .... yet another abandoned birdy nest sat on top of the boom lift ram, in the pin flanges !!

I carefully moved it another 10 ft or so and then left ‘em to it ..... for now.
Both the neighbours keep bees .... or did ... lost ‘em all through the winter .... too soggy apparently!! ‘Praps they’d like to adopt ‘em !!

Think I’d mentioned earlier that I needed to widen the ramp and had always intended to progress across ‘the front’ with it, but had a dose of stuff on pallets parked in the way, hence the ‘walker’ episode, but hadn’t quite intended to shift ‘em ‘quite yet’, but ....

Having spent a few hours this morning ripping boulders out, ...



loading a few loads of spoil out and progressing toward the existing ramp, I was getting concerned about the ramp’s edge when I started finding block-work and lumps of yellow land drain .....



I knew they were there as this area has been a bit of a dumping ground for many years prior to our ownership, but thought they were further over, so extending the ramp has now become a bit more urgent.!!

So slung some of the larger lumps that I’d had to keep up with me, in the dumper, to get ‘em down ..... couldn’t reach anywhere sensible to park ‘em ... then had a very careful run back down the ramp, having cleared the other side as much as I could to get hard over to the the bank ......





Master Yoda’s (my nick name for Rob Taylor) words were foremost in my mind .... keep that bucket where it can help you most ... and hopefully keep you the right way up !!!!!

It was uneventful ... thankfully and having gotten back to the bottom safely, I had to put the VA-r back on with the grab to stack another dozen rocks .... and empty the dumper of large, solid, heavy lumps, so’s I can use it tomorrow for yet more spoil.

Rocks sorted, the Cranab came back off ... again ... and the Hill went back on, ....



‘cos I needed me forks [and a few of Mick’s buckets, up top] to shift all these pallets of materials, so’s I can tackle the ramp extending session, hopefully tomorrow.

Fraid there ain’t any pix of the pallet shifting as it was getting on and I was cracking on, shifting it all. The VA-r is deffo the way to juggle pallets and get ‘em where you want ‘em!!

Might have to start a spot the difference competition with the rock pile ..... there’s another dozen in here tonight ..... these pix are taken from the same spots as ones last night .....





Last night’s pix ........





It had better not bloody rain tonight ...... left the ‘Drema up on top tonight, ready for the bank attack/ramp extending in the morning.

[v8druid]

“It had better not bloody rain tonight ...... left the ‘Drema up on top”




It absolutely pee-ed down last Friday night ..... massive thunder storm



Not a lot got did 'til very late in the day saturday, when the cheesecake had dried out a bit!!!!!



but the ramp was still seriously claggy ....... as was the field for a few days!!!!! Bugger!!!!!

[v8druid]

Not done a lot the first 2 days of this week ... had to make the decision on my poorly Puss Tuesday morning and didn't feel up to a lot afterwards

Spent some of Wednesday 'supervising' a pole planting on the side of me drive way and making sure they didn't wreck my hard won greenery, ready for a tranny change in a few weeks. The existing pole is older than me

The guy on the 4 CX was bloody good fair play to him and had to dig a hell of a hole to get the bugger in to













That guy is stood up in there!!!!!


would appear that the previous/existing one may be missing a few feet off the bottom below their datum marks ....... hence the hell of a hole, with an extra 2 ft plus, to get in the ground, on the new pole !!!!


All juggled between live 11,000 volt lines !!!!!!!!


They were very lucky not to find any of me boulders and the ground was the best digging I've seen here !

[v8druid]

oh !!!!! Hell I got some catching up to do here !!

bear with me ..... gonna have to find it all !! ...... there's a lot happened in the last 3 weeks

[v8druid]

Well that last one with the pole, was Wednesday the first of June. The following day was beautiful and set about finishing off the ramp extension ..... from the bottom up initially ... face shovel style .......





Which proved very effective and kept the spoil where I wanted it ....... off the planings.


‘Til I hopped up top to finish it off ......





And relocate all the various rubble lumps that had surfaced .....







Also found a bit of a tyre killer in the process ....... about 4 ft of cast iron stench pipe, in just the wrong place .......





Put a marker on it ‘til I could deal with it, which I did Friday morning, by ripping the first foot off it and dropping a block over it for now with a good burying !!


Having got me take off ramp built I was now looking for volunteers to jump with the ‘Drema .....





.....but as I got no takers .... the ramp had to go, which it did Friday .....





Not a lot of pix I’m afraid, as I was ‘getting on with it’, as progress has been slooow this week .... we’ve had Clara quite a bit as her mum is away, lecturing on a Maguire course.