The other day we were talking to a neighbour who works the land properly, about his grape harvest and he said it is really bad this year. They are still all unloading the crates and filling them as they get the harvest in, as seems to happen every year regardless, but he said they are few, and...

That is terrible. Apart from the waste of good grapes and what they would have gone on to be (wine mostly, I guess), not to mention livellhoods, it must be devastating for the growers. I know livestock farmers for example don't view their herds like pets and take a pragmatic view of their...

Greetings everyone from Portugal.

Loads of thunder & lightning tonight.

They would do some damage...

:oops: I used a hired one and fortunately it didn't break it, or the straps. They were long straps so I put them twice around the engine and kept the jib as short as possible. The front springs are 11 leaf, I assume the suspension is hard so that the front end doesn't wallow.

Nightmare. We've had 'lightning question mark' in the forecast for a couple of days so the well is disconnected again... Had three power cuts as well during the day, always a nuisance but worse when it's down to a storm.

I thought it might have been a long shot but there was always a possibility. The thing is, they generally like drains because it's the water they are after, apart from shelter. If there is no source of water and no source of food, there will be no rats. I've also heard it said that if there...

That sounds a bit dodgy, there was a load of trouble here a couple of years ago when people realised that the air being pushed through, and compressed in the process, was spinning water meters at very high speed. A few people got bills of up to €60,000 on the strength of it and were fighting it.

Yes its quite shocking how much is used even when careful. I fitted a water meter on the outlet pipe from the tank so we can monitor how much we're getting through without having to keep looking in the tank. We are very careful and recycle a lot of water but it goes too quickly for my liking...

6cyl 2.6l here as well and my front suspension is pretty solid too. I did wonder if the springs were not doing much springing but it's been up on axle stands for a while and standing on the front bumper and bouncing it proves it does bounce, the bounce was not all in the tyres, but it does not...

Have you considered the possible action of rats? They like getting into drain pipes and setting up camp in there and they are destructive little beggars. If there are bends or derivations that gives them an internal surface they can get their teeth into and if plastic pipes they can chew...

More water delivered today...

Everywhere's very brown now. The trees are green tho' :cool:

Just catching up with this too - very interesting and I starting reading up on it at the time, disappearing down an internet wormhole in the process, as you do... The industrial history of the area (different industry) reminds me of the area around Cromford and Wirksworth and up the Via Gellia...

By the way, greetings from Gibraltar. Its hot & humid today...

Sorry its taken me ages to come back to this, been a bit tied up. I find that when I get embroiled in doing something major it can get a bit all-consuming. Re the disconnecting, I've done it so many times the screw heads are starting to round off now! The consequences of not doing it are too...

Sounds like fascinating geology, you can imagine a massive eruption flinging material everywhere as you suggest. I suppose that might influence where springs appear and who has them, much to some people's chagrin!

We have considered lightning conductors but the real problem is spikes coming down the electricity lines rather than buildings getting struck. We never know which pylon is going to get struck! The last time it was the sixth one away from us, probably half a kilometre away. The insurance has...

That's quite a wrap sheet...