Breaching Health and Safety….

So, the other day I had to get some machinery from Stormy Hall, namely a blow torch and some pallet forks (A little thing for carrying a pallet or boxes). I had the little blue tractor, with the tractor’s pallet forks on, and a cultivator on the back….Since the cultivator was set for a certain position, it wasn’t really ideal to put the link box on instead, so I went with the cultivator….

This is a full gas bottle and blow torch on the back of a cultivator.. tied on with bailer bind…. Oh yea, that baby is going nowhere!

Spooning pallet forks…. Also tied on with bailer twine… Oh such a bad idea..

Surprisingly it actually didn’t fall off and end in tears… The pallet fork on the front shifted sideways a bit, but it wasn’t too bad, though I’m glad the HSE people weren’t about!

-Skippy

Spring time activities

It has been a funny week last week… It started off very nice and dry, the temperature got up to about 20 degrees, and the ground dried up nicely. This means we’ve been able to get the tractor onto the fields, and Gilberto has been doing some ploughing:

But on the Sunday, a day off I’d been planning for quite some time, it started to snow:

^NBF courtyard

The Church

We’ve also been mucking out the bull pen… It really did need it…

We had some people complaining about the state of the pen… And to be fair, I can’t say I blame them….. So, after about 3h of work, we managed to get it from that ^^^^ to vvvvv That

Quite impressive though I say so myself.

Just use the broken piece of bull guard in the top right corner to see how deep it was….

Righty then, breakfast time! G’day y’all!

-Skip

Spring…. It’s still not technically here…. But it kind of is

I was walking down the path to go to a farewell gathering in Falcon Farm for all the Land Workers in Botton, the sun was shining, and all the crocuses were out, looked very pretty and I was gutted that I forgot my camera… So, I went back after milking  with my camera, but the sun had partially set, so the light wasn’t quite as nice. It still looked very pretty though, very colourful.

The daffodils are coming up nicely, and in some places they have come into bloom. Soon it will be a good time to go to Farndale to the daffodil walk.

Very pretty petals of a crocus.

Another one of a crocus

Some snowdrops

…Nooo! This wasn’t staged at all!

Anyways! I’m currently destroyed from morning milking and a lack of discipline, so I shall go and snooze at the breakfast table and y’all have a good day!

-Skip out.

It’s a beautiful day here on Pandora….. (Well, Botton Village…)

So, the temperature got up to a toasty 12 degrees or so today, so it was out with the shirts and off with the overalls!

Blue Sky! Just what you need to set you up for being in a good mood for the afternoon.

At first we chased some sheep out of the back of the dale, and put them back on the moors.

Took us about an hour to chase them out…

We then moved some gates to prevent them coming back in again, then we only had about 30 minutes left before tea break, which we used to rebuild a stone wall that the sheep had used to get into a field:

<Before

< After

It’s not a Phil Collier work, but it’ll do to keep the sheep out!

As promised, a picture of my hair cut!

I like it!

Then we headed back for tea break, and milking!

Valknut

Just a little something I’ve been doing in my spare time.. What little of it I get…

It’s a pretty simple geometric design I found. This is cut into a piece of sandstone I found near the back of the dale… I jumped off the tractor and grabbed it then jumped back on, I got a very odd look from everyone….

Sennheiser Cx150 In Ear Headphones from HMV

|| Product being looked at here! ||

Righty, a few months back I broke my headphones, I think they must’ve got wet or something while I was doing Marine Biology, but they stopped working is the key point. I headed into Bangor, North Wales in search of some new headphones and found a HMV.

I found some pretty cheap headphones. They were just £15 when i found them in October 2011. I figured they’d be okay, maybe nothing special, but better than a dull and quiet bus ride home, so I bought them.

The only way I can fully express my feelings towards these headphones is to describe what happened next.

After I left the shop I tried them on, and plugged in my Ipod…. I’ve never had this before but I could not stop the massive grin forming on my face whilst listning with them, the sound quality is amazing, I was hearing instruments and riffs I didn’t even know existed in some songs.

I have tried expensive headphones, cheap headphones and a load of others in between, but I can honestly say these Sennheiser Cx150 headphones are the best I have ever tried. I strongly recommend!

Only downside I’ve found is that they’re a little fragile, am slightly concerned I’ll break them… Downside of being a farmer…..

Spring comes to Botton

So, spring is begining to come to Botton, the Snow Drops (Galanthus nivalis) and  crocuses (Crocus spp) are begining to appear. I think we’ve had all  the snow we’ll be having this year, was not really enough to go sledging in, but no matter!

Snow Drops(Galanthus nivalis)

Crocus (Crocus spp)

Anyways, it’s all very pretty, well, on the nice sunny days anyway!

On the rainy horrible days it’s a bit junk.. but it’s still pretty!