Well, I think they’re edible :-)

No sign of the pishing rain that XC https://www.xcweather.co.uk/forecast/IV40_8PF was promising me this morning. Mind you it’s so dark outside I wouldn’t see it unless it was from the west or north and I’ve not actually ventured outside yet.

 

Nope, despite being up since long before Radio 4 goes on air I’m sat at the kitchen table studying that most excellent book by Roger Phillips ‘Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain and Europe’ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mushrooms-Other-Britain-Europe-original/dp/0330264419/ref=sr_1_4?crid=O0258S1KCTZR&dchild=1&keywords=mushrooms+by+roger+phillips&qid=1635569823&s=books&sprefix=mushrooms+by+%2Cstripbooks%2C136&sr=1-4 Which is regarded by many as the mushroom pickers Bible, though you will need a rucksack to carry it out in the field as it’s not actually pocket size

I found some ‘shrooms on the Torran track yesterday whilst I was tracking Calum the Kubota over to the Schoolhouse.

 

Methinks they are scarlet wax caps and edible but I’m not 100% certain, it is many years since I’ve picked and eaten any wax caps. Perhaps I’ll take the book with me and have a proper look when I go back there today.

Thursday

After giving my Disco window frame a few more coats of paint yesterday Bonzo and I went for a walk, sort of. I started tracking the digger over to Torran and he followed me, though we left it halfway and walked back to get the Mule and muesli which is when I spotted the ‘shrooms.

 

The Raasay fishing boat Mary M was in Loch Arnish lifting his creels when we returned to continue or journey.

My plan being to bolt that large piece of timber to the gable end of the building to support a lean to with a slate roof. My Mate and I had already bolted a 6” x 2” piece up there in the summer to act as support for the main one that I was about to lift up there. It being much much simpler to fasten a relatively light piece first.

  

The lighter timber having already been fastened to the wall by drilling 15mm holes and bonding M12 threaded bar into it and it was already levelled. I then bored a series of 19mm holes in the new heavy timber. Having left the studs sticking out of the support it allowed me to rest one end of the new beam on the outer stud and lift the other with Calum’s boom.

  

Once I had it up there and sat on the ‘rest’ I screwed a guide onto the rest that would stop the timber falling of but still allow me to slide it along in the correct position.

When it was aligned correctly I started the onerous task of drilling into the gable through the holes I’d bored in the wood.

 

It’s not easy drilling holes up a ladder with a big hammer drill I can tell you so after doing four I went home for a rest

Finding a few late chanterelles on the way

Back home I got on with fitting my newly painted window frame to the Disco and would have found that job much easier had I removed the waist seal first. Still I managed and was well pleased with my working window afterwards. Next job was to fit the new (to me) warning lamp cluster to the Land Rover.

 

Well that didn’t go quite so well but at least now I have the correct light illuminating when the centre diff is locked.

  

My burgers

After feeding dugs and pigs I turned my attention towards feeding myself and decided it was time to turn some pork mince into burgers.

 

Just mixed some of it up with chopped onions and black olives then served it with steamed beans, broccoli, mushrooms, asparagus and baked sweet potato. Well I’d only had two slices of toast for lunch

Diverted up the lumb :-)

Sunday morning now, a grey but promising start to the Sabbath and feeling just a little sore.

Though I didn’t actually do much on Saturday, it was obviously too much

  

I did start with the best of intentions, just tinkering about in the ‘Old Girl’s’ battery box then on my back underneath the rear axle fitting brake pipe brackets. Nice simple tasks involving no stretching or straining. The battery box is now thickly plated, sealed and bored for the large winch cables and their cable trunking. A coat of paint will be going on it today once the sealer has set.

 

In between making brake pipe clips and boring holes I turned my attention to bent steering on the ‘Tank’, leaking transmission pipes and a blocked fuel filter. The fuel filter and transmission cooler pipework being within the ‘pain threshold’ the banana shaped drag link being ‘put on hold’ until my muscle ‘Mate’ turns up tomorrow. Methinks that be a job for him under my instruction and with the help of ‘Calum the Kubota’ You would be amazed what you can ‘un bend’ with a three ton digger

The chimney avalanche

It was during such showers that I migrated to my shed to turn my attention to the thorny issue of a friends blocked chimney and I don’t mean blocked with a bit of soot. I mean a pure avalanche of rocks out of the gable end that were brought down trying to fit a flue liner. I had been perusing this thorny issue for weeks and came up with a plan. The first part of which was to get a piece of string or fishing line through the blockage strong enough to pull a wire rope through it then to try end dislodge the jammed rocks by pulling upwards with a Tirfor. Numerous attempts having been made by others previously to push it all ‘down the way’ having failed’.

Anyway, we had got as far as getting a rope through the jumble of debris, all that was left now was to remove the wire rope from the Tirfor and pull it up. Then a large shackle or similar object could be pulled ‘up the way’. This however required the making of something to squarely support the Tirfor vertically on the chimney pot.

   

Enter the stainless steel hydraulic hauler disc that was perfect chimney pot size I just happened to have lying around

 

A little work with the grinder and some aluminium angle and I soon had a great vertical stand finished off with a foam pad to rest on top of the pot.

 

Where it now rests awaiting ‘Mr Muscle’, how I wish my son had not gone back to uni

A lovely relaxing evening followed eating simple fare caught or grown locally, a hot smoked mackerel with potatoes and French beans from the Raasay Walled garden.

  

Even more and fresher fish arriving on my doorstep courtesy of neighbours at Torran just prior to me going to bed before 21:00 with a good book.

How sad am I  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Warships-Finding-Abandoned-Preserved/dp/0760347565 My son certainly knows his father’s taste when it comes to literature  

Sunday

The grey start is long by with and it’s cleared up nicely, the pigs are fed it’s not even 8:00am, already the Ronja Supporter https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:4458461/mmsi:258187000/imo:9775359/vessel:RONJA_SUPPORTER

is heading off to work somewhere. The sun is out, methinks it’s time to forgo the muesli and fry up the left over Raasay Walled Garden spuds with a couple of Duchess and Curly’s wee eggs then go and lie under my Land Rover.

 

Lovely flowers from the Walled Garden too hey