How did Calum do it ?

It’s funny because my back’s not hurting and it should be, my hands are still numb but the back is fine, it has been very busy day at the north end.

The first day of October really did feel like October, with a stag roaring in the half light of dawn just feet from the kitchen window and an ethereal mist lying in the hollow of our little valley. I was hoping for a little peace to savour it alone but half of my eager workforce arose not long after myself desperate to help with the days tasks. Actually they were more enthused with the thought of riding quads than digging holes and feeding pigs but the main work was a mile away over rough ground so they were happy to take the rough with the smooth.

 

By the time we left the house at 8:00am the fine ten pointed stag was gone and the mist all but away as we headed over the valley to recover my mate’s Quadzilla.

This less than three year old machine having burnt its second clutch out in just 650 miles was in a shed on my neighbours croft. Any other machine would have sat happily outside in the elements for a couple of weeks on my croft awaiting spares but not this piece of Chinese cr4p. When the last clutch failed it was only thirteen months old and I made the mistake of leaving outside for a few weeks whilst the parts came, the chrome fell off it, the rust came on it, the red plastic turned pink and the stickers peeled off 😦

 

So after pumping up the tyres we towed it home to fit the new clutch that had arrived very quickly from http://www.xtreme-sport.co.uk/ in Lincolnshire. Not only did it arrive quickly but it was far cheaper than the last one he bought. They were also very helpful when I phoned for advice. OK, the machine is rubbish but it’s good to know that at least there’s good back up when you need it.

Fortunately it’s an easy enough job to do, well it is if you have a 42mm socket a tool to hold the clutch and drum to hold them and a willing pair of hands to put the big nut on whilst you compress the pulley spring. Luckily I had them all and the experience of doing it before 🙂

That done we headed over the hill in our little convoy loaded with picks, shovels generator and rock breaker to get on with the trench.

The purpose of this trench being to lower my water supply pipe as much as possible as it rises out of the loch in an effort to prevent, or at least minimise airlocks.

It started off easy enough on Thursday but pretty soon I came across a rather solid bit of rock, further chipping away with my own 1100w Hitachi on Friday for an hour or two nibbled away rather slowly and I got to wondering about how Calum built his road. Today we had an 1800w Hilti and still the progress was slow, how on earth di he manage  when he came to a stubborn bit of Scotland? I had four helpers, a jackhammer, a generator to power it and a quad to carry it!!

Immortalised in song

by Schiehallion

 

a great tune by Capecaillie and of course Roger Hutchinson’s excellent book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Calums-Road-Roger-Hutchinson/dp/1841584479 which has now been made into a play.

Currently touring Scotland it finishes quite aptly in our very own village hall on the 25th November http://raasay.com/NTS-CalumsRoad_000.html Though I have to say that this quote lifted off the brochure made me laugh.

“His daughter has been forced to board at secondary school” forced indeed, it took us four months to get our son in there 🙂

 

Anyway after a good few hours work interspersed with the ride home for food we had made good progress.

 

There’s now way that I would have tackled this with a pick, how did he do it 🙂

The ‘Powerspout’ is here 🙂

I have to say that I was a little dubious when Parcel Force promised to deliver my new hydro turbine today, especially when I’m pretty sure it’s been sat in their Inverness depot for a week 🙂 But arrive it did, well packaged and pretty quickly considering it came from New Zealand http://www.powerspout.com/ .

 

Purchased from Hugh Piggott at http://scoraigwind.com/ who handled all the shipping and import taxes it seems a very well made and sturdy piece of kit with quality bearings and a stainless steel shaft. This is the GE400 version designed for tying to the grid via an inverter but there are battery charging versions available cheaper. I chose this option due to its higher voltage and will couple into my own ‘mini grid’ via a Sunnyboy SB1200 inverter http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CG0QFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.solaraccess.co.uk%2Fresources%2Finvertor%2Fdatasheets%2FSB1200_1700-DEN092410_EN.pdf&ei=dpGHTo7ZH4XA0QXY8pj6Dw&usg=AFQjCNHvtTOPjU3xEGnUTY93g6ggkjYX_Q again purchased from Hugh so I know I’ll have good back up and not get fleeced on delivery charges 🙂

 

What a finish to the day from the end of our drive looking over to Skye 🙂