An exhausting day :-)

Well, it was ‘SAS related’   I left you this morning fed the pigs near my neighbours house https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/8188794?source_impression_id=p3_1572112545_tHRKffaB%2FnYtNby8 and went to ‘weigh up’ the situation. They’d phoned last night when I was in my pyjamas saying one of their guests was stuck!!!! Well, they were right about that, but to be fair, I did the same myself when I first bought the house thirty years ago

One thing for sure, it wouldn’t be coming out under its ‘own steam’ or with the help of my Disco.

It was time to go back to Sonas and get ‘Calum the Kubota’ I did try lifting it out out backwards first, simply cos we could find no sign of a front towing eye, the driver had no handbook and Mr Google wasnae working there Well, it certainly wasn’t for coming out backwards but we did manage to move it far enough to at least see the front wishbones. They were of course lying in deep mud but in the absence of anything better to pull it with they would have to suffice. So, very gingerly I tracked ahead of it, extended the boom and dipper, put the blade down and we managed to ease her out with the driver helping.

 

He was very happy and to be fair, so was I, we’d managed to extricate it from a very difficult spot with minimal damage to Disco and none to Calum

The neighbours drain will need a little ‘remedial work’ right enough but it could have been much worse Of course I now know where the towing eye is located https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/discovery-4-front-towing-eye.145672/ which would have saved me getting rather muddy and not made my shower tray look like I’d taken ‘a dump’ in it

After shower, muesli and break I set off to Torran to re route the Lister generator exhaust and clear out the fridge.

Adam the Polish builder had had to remove the exhaust to build the shed and in his haste to leave had left behind all kind of Polish treats with unpronounceable names. The cherry tomatoes, butter, smoked mackerel and Greek yoghurt I’d already had away, well, ‘waste not want not’ However, there was other stuff that looked edible and I was at a bit of a ‘loose end’ on the cooking front.

First job though was to knock a hole in the wall to let the exhaust pipe through,

   

very quickly establishing the fact that my 24v Hitachi was not ‘man enough’ for the job. Sure it’s quite adequate for drilling a couple of holes but the NiMH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93metal_hydride_battery batteries just don’t ‘cut the mustard like lithium ion ones. Reluctantly I went back home to get my 110V 38mm Hitachi breaker and transformer.

The next challenge was rotating the rusted fittings and removing the old exhaust pipe, which without the blowlamp would probably have ‘ended in tears’ with a broken cast iron manifold.

  

I had to do another trip home to cut and thread the tail pipe to clear the eaves and there’s still a little ‘tidying up’ to be done but before I ‘called it a day’ Mr Lister was chugging away nicely

  

Time to head home for a Polish treat.

Roast sweet potato, broccoli, beans and asparagus with some tinned pork Well I just had to eat it hey Can’t remember the last time I had tinned pork, ham or Spam, it’s better than I remember Gonna try and fry what’s left in the morning once the muesli ‘runs out of steam’.

All ‘tanked up’ :-)

Looks like a damp day of westerly winds ahead with perhaps a little sunshine. Sounds OK but I’m just back in from collecting me camera out of the car and I’m not inspired Nope, it’s boodly cold out there and that rain, not that there is much of it, feels boodly freezing. As with yesterday I had yet another great sleep, well apart from the SAS wannabes ‘yomping’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yomp about the car park at 11:30 Wee dug woke me up and I was confronted by lots of lights and car headlights milling about on the car park. No big deal seeing lights or cars at night you may think, well it is here. Barring the snow plough I don’t think I’ve seen any in thirty years Last I saw of the ‘SAS’ they were charging down the road in full packs heading south. Me, I just went back to me cosy bed and thought of the poor chaps and chapesses going up the hill at the other side. I once walked up it carrying a load and it nearly killed me

First snow

Well, that was a surprise when dawn broke, the first snow of the winter and it was boodly cold outside, perfect for sitting in a nice warm car for an hour and going to collect my bowser of diesel which had finally been filled.

  

As I headed south the Storr was replaced by Ben Tianavaig, it’s ‘Golden Cliff’, the Cuilin and some ‘Bolshy’ rams massing at the cattle grid by the Youth Hostel. No doubt desperate to get at the ewes that would soon be ‘in heat’.

 

It took me quite a while to get by the horny sheep and I made a mental note to take the ‘Low Road’ until they were ‘let out’ in the first week of December.

   

The ‘SAS’ were obviously ‘yomping’ to catch the 8:55 ferry, well at least they would all fit on it now our trusty Hallaig

 

was at last back home Me, I hitched up my trailer and headed back north, slowly, the day was getting better by the minute.

 

After Brochel I engaged low ratio and let the ‘Traction Control’ do it’s stuff.

 

With such a heavy load I’d normally stop half way up the drive to Sonas where the drive isn’t quite so steep so as to avoid wheelspin but the ‘TC’ dealt with it nicely without leaving trenches in my drive. I even let ‘wee dug’ into the front of the Disco, she was most impressed, like me, I think she hates that ‘privacy glass’ in the back where her cage is. Privacy glass, along with electronic hand brakes, radios without knobs, altering the clocks and Donald Trump added to the long list of things the world would be better off without in my humble opinion of course

Good for another year

So, after the muesli I got on with pumping the 1000lts of Vimto into my oil tanks, which is the sum total (much less actually) than what I have used in a year. That will be for the generator, digger, dumper, builders at Brochel and Torran Schoolhouse too. I say ‘much less’ cos I thought my tank on the container roof was empty, when I came to actually fill it there was still 400lts in it!!!!!! Camilli the clown has been using white diesel in his plant for over a week cos someone had turned off both taps at the bottom of the tank and he hadn’t the sense to check!!!!! Still, on the upside that means I used far less red diesel than I thought

  

With both tanks now full and 40lts left over I went for a proper ‘second breakfast’ then started back on my road/pipe burial project.

  

With help of course, May is on heat and acting a little strange had to push her out of the way with the bucket

Well, there was more,

 

like abandoned boats and trailers eight miles apart and no where near the sea!!! It just has to be ‘SAS’ related However, my first job is to go and recover a vehicle that’s come off the road round at my neighbours house, I wonder if that is ‘SAS’ related