Can't you get a friendly farmer to come cut all your acres and take it away as feed/silage?
That would work if the "grass" was all in an accessible place, was of a large enough area and there were few obstacles and steep slopes.
This is only partially true of one piece of our land which we don't use. But it is full of brambles, ferns etc and wouldn't make good sileage.
There is one bloke locally who does it for others but he is not a nice bloke and damages stuff so we'd never employ him.
So until recently we let another bloke put his donkeys on it and he promised that at the end of the season he'd come in with a tractor and a "giro" and clear the whole area of the stuff the donkeys wouldn't touch.
He did this precisely once.
He then the follwoing year put the donks back on, never did the clearing, said his drive shaft was fubar but never did anything about it, or he couldn't be bothered. The following year the donkeys were starving and even pushing the fence over to eat our pampas grass, so we told him and he came and put an electric fence in. But the donkeys got thinner to the point where we were feeding them. There was obviously not enough stuff that was palatable to them. So we told him to come and get them and that the "deal" was off.
Since then we have had to pay a bloke to come and do the area. Not cheap but a heck of a lot easier than me trying to do it with my machine.
As for the rest, it is doable with the machine and I have just given the first cut to a lot of it and a deeper cut to the stuff round the front of the house, i.e. the car park bit and the approaches to it. I have to stop after a couple of tankfuls of fuel to avoid white finger, plus the dust makes me cough, normally I chew stuff or wear a mask but today I never expected there to be much dust. :rolleyes:
Next cut will be round the nadgery and sloped stuff, (imagine an orchard on a slope with low hanging branches) plus in and out of raised beds, a poly tunnel, the chicken run, the raspberry cage, etc. I may get that finished, at least the first cut, by the end of the day. It'll be showery tomoz so I will have to crack on.
We don't have all that much land, (by the standards of country places round here), .6 of a hectare and much of that has gravel and flower beds plus the pool and its slabbed area. But if I let the grass grow any higher the machine really has trouble coping and it gets to be very stop start. As it is I have just caught it in time.
Enjoy the rest of your day!:):):)
 
Morning all

Plus 1 as also got my work vans broken into 3 x times , 1st time the entire van was cleared out so alas couldnt work for weeks until I managed to get a loan in order to get some basic tools again

Refused to do site work anymore because every time I would get something nicked , worse still was when I done a block of fflat conversions , the next day the boiler , rads and copper pipe would all be gone , other times bathroom suite would be gone

Never forgot one that we converted from an old fire house to a drug rehabilitation centre , had around 16 x self contained flats , after they moved in the kitchens and appliances would be wrecked , boilers and copper pipe ripped off the wall , flooding flats downstairs , the company I worked for stopped going there in the end as the return visits were constant

So then moved to another company that would only work in private homes , still packed my tools up every night as there were a few occasion where u would come in the next day and find my drills were gone

Made sure my very expensive boiler analysers were removed from the van every day as they cost roughly 5k , paid for them over time so ensured they stayed with me at all times, dread to think what some of the mobile mechanics contents cost

mechanical tools I have mainly Halfords professional as I find there good value for money , power tools went from dewalt over to Milwaukee, had a few issues with new batteries going flat , so would do the old trick of linking fully charged batteries with the flat ones in order to get them to charge

intend to get some Kielder impact wrenches as they look good value for money , plus the guys who done the 4 x4 mini use them so can’t be that bad , can get one that has a breakaway torque of around 1790 Nm , comes with 2 x 5.0 Ah batteries and case for around £240

For woodworking , ie routers and bits I really like trend

Indeed is one of the lowest things that anyone can do by breaking into tradesman’s vans, taking away there livelihood , remember one guy catching them in the act, alas he got nicked as he slapped the guy a few times , in the end the judge threw it out and sentenced the thief to a few years in jail as he was a repeat offender

Have a great day everyone

+1 to that had my van done over left the hand tools but all the power tools went thay did 3 vans in the village that night then people say why did you leave the UK derrr
 
I may have misunderstood you.
Are you talking being double taxed because you live abroad?
There is a no-double tax agreement between Frogland and Britland, although if we ever moved obever here permanently we'd have to get this all very straight.
But what would naff us off is that we would no longer get state pension increases, we think.
Not sure absolutely.
But yes, as a general rule, not against paying tax but very against paying it twice or over and over again.
Tax on "unearned" income is an oxymoron, cos you had to have earned it in the first place to be able to then invest it.
All IRs are money grabbing barstaff and then they don't even spend it properly.

And yes it is grossly unfair that those with tons of dosh can then protect it even better by shoving it up the Cayman islands or elswhere.
l think at presence you get all the increase to the state pensions in the EU not like Australia but that could change over night 😮
 
l think at presence you get all the increase to the state pensions in the EU not like Australia but that could change over night 😮
I was also under the impression that the date you start getting state pension it is frozen at that rate if you are claiming it outside the UK.
(without a UK residence address ;)).
We have a few years before the UK gov starts topping up our toy fund though:(, till then we will fund ourselves and continue to help the UK taxpayers with our (begrudged payments).

J
 
Last week it was 25deg today it is 5deg and we have snow flurrys so log burner going dropped to 0deg last night not a happy bunny 😣
It has certainly cooled down last few days, but we haven't resorted to needing to light the fire again.
Today was chilly but bright sun so the house is warm enough to get us through.
Please enjoy the snow and don't send it this way:p.

J
 
Utter scumbags stealing someone's tools & cheap tools will always sell so an easy target. :confused:
Funny now that you've mentioned the quality I have just bought a new dewalt drill as the other one which I think is
roughly 1 1/2 years old but with only light use, the issue is the chuck..it wouldnt realise a drill bit so I had to put
it in the vice to slacken it and now it wont hold a bit. Someone did say why dont you buy a new chuck then someone
else said better to replace the drill. Its kicking about in the shed. Thats a couple of my dewalt cordless thats packed in.
My nail gun started jamming think the firing pin is worn so thats out of action atm. My grinder trigger is starting to
play up to but that is well used so cant really complain. Milwaukee oooftt I wouldnt take any that gear near a site
youd need to have them harnessed on to you.

I had chuck trouble with a cheapish DeDewalt drill, bought from an 'outlet', after a year and a bit of ownership ...

Phoned them up and had a whinge, they said send it back and gave mailing coupon, replaced upon return ... result ...
 
Me big sheet is cut. Eye has cut 6x side fings and rounded oft the corners wiv me jigsaw. Sanded 3 ends to round them oft propper so far. Scrapped one lenf as eye shaped the end wrong. Was taking too long to mark them up so made a template oot me shreddies box. Stopped at 9pm last nite as it were late. Had just finished me cutting. Back on the sanding then stopped. Eye fort me sander would be quiet but it weren't. G clamped me belt sander on me work mate so eye could sand at 90 degree's.

When me cloth wraps round me big sheet eye were going to staple it into the edge as the flat side under neef will be too hard assits mdf. Eye has now changed me mind. Eye need to buy some timber strips to secure it to under neef. Will be easier that way.

:ttiwwp:
 
Evening all, still on the subject of tools I had one of the lads phone me up today & asked to borrow my new drill
I asked what it was for & he said Ive got rusty engine mounts to clean with a wire wheel. Nope sorry go & find a
battery one for that ok then you can tell the yard owner that the job isnt done then, aye I will cause you still aint
using my new drill for that, well your the only one in the yard with a drill. Yup & its staying like that. 🤣 🤣
 
Dinner time treat I think , lol
 

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