Updating
Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 10:46 am
It has been a hectic few weeks since coming back from our visit to Holland. We had a great time visiting Oscar and Pascal and meeting the lovely Daphne.
The Kuenenhof was beautiful as usual and the cycling in the Velue National park was just as challenging for our old muscles!
The trip was over, far too soon for us and Monday saw us heading back to the ferry via the Beischbosch Museum to spend a couple of hours in the peace and solitude of the lakes, marshes and wild life. It was a good thing we did as once home, it has been like a mad house!
Reed cutter still at work in the reeds as he approaches 80 years old.
Boat in a museum display
Using the willow to make baskets and mats for repairing dykes.
Aircraft engines recovered from the marsh as it was drained.
Anglian Water declared a hosepipe use ban in mid-April because we were in the middle of the worst drought for nearly 70 years here in the East of England. It really is a pity that drought was not declared in November 2011 as, since the hosepipe ban in mid-April we have had nothing but constant rain! Potato planting stopped throughout England as the fields became wet and waterlogged and none wetter than the Dye acres! I started ploughing a few weeks before we left for Holland, in early April, and did not finish and get the potatoes in the ground until April 28th/29th and then they were planted in very wet soil.
The delay in planting has meant that the electronics side of the business has had a strung out season too. I have been sorting problems on potato planters right through April and now deep into May from places as far apart as Scotland, Austria, Israel and Australia, mainly little ones caused by operators not reading the instruction books and adhering to the set up procedure but, hey! What’s new?
What’s new indeed! The factory that makes our circuit boards and assembles them burnt down on the 20th April taking with it a number of half completed boards and all the art work for other projects. Luckily another batch of completed boards was already in the dispatch area so these were saved although heavily smoked. Again, luckily, I have everything backed up here on disc and chip with the exception of one small project, but it has been finding circuit boards from my stock and replacement parts that have been the problem, hopefully we have enough to see us through this years builds until the factory is rebuilt later in the year.
We are also starting to build units for September delivery so that we will be in front of orders when we go back to Australia in late September. The fire means I am spending a lot more time on the end of a soldering iron again.
The wet weather has also delayed the ploughing of the pumpkin field but the few fine days last week meant I could finally get the land turned over in a couple of evenings at the end of last week. This time I did not use Dotty as the going was a bit too much for her so I got Henrietta out of her winter sleep and hitched her to the PM plough. It is about three years since she has been on ploughing duty as this has been shared between Nuffy on the deep digger plough and Dotty on the PM with Henrietta coming out for the blight spraying of the potatoes but this year, Nuffy is attached to the Dutch levelling harrow and potato planter, with Dotty on the precision drill for the flower and other small seed planting, straight behind the plough.
Also the cost of diesel and petrol has made Henrietta a more economic tractor to run again. We have to buy road diesel at full cost of around £1.49 per litre making a gallon of diesel around £7.40 so filling up Nuffy is pretty expensive. Henrietta will run happily on the much cheaper kerosene so this has replaced diesel in my TVO mix.
I had forgotten how good she is on the plough when really hot. The going was not easy, the land sticky and wet with wet holes every so often but she did not falter, ploughing with two 12” furrows at about 10” deep. I had also forgotten the deep torque that is there on the TVO engine, she will pull the revs right down when the going gets tough, at not much more than a tick-over and still keep going. This helps to reduce the wheel slip and, with careful use of the independent brakes we managed to get past all the wet patches.
It is not fast ploughing in third gear but it a great relaxation after a mentally tiring day, sitting there in the fading light, watching the land turn over neatly behind you. Now all I have to do is be patient until it drys enough to get the seeds in.
The Kuenenhof was beautiful as usual and the cycling in the Velue National park was just as challenging for our old muscles!
The trip was over, far too soon for us and Monday saw us heading back to the ferry via the Beischbosch Museum to spend a couple of hours in the peace and solitude of the lakes, marshes and wild life. It was a good thing we did as once home, it has been like a mad house!
Reed cutter still at work in the reeds as he approaches 80 years old.
Boat in a museum display
Using the willow to make baskets and mats for repairing dykes.
Aircraft engines recovered from the marsh as it was drained.
Anglian Water declared a hosepipe use ban in mid-April because we were in the middle of the worst drought for nearly 70 years here in the East of England. It really is a pity that drought was not declared in November 2011 as, since the hosepipe ban in mid-April we have had nothing but constant rain! Potato planting stopped throughout England as the fields became wet and waterlogged and none wetter than the Dye acres! I started ploughing a few weeks before we left for Holland, in early April, and did not finish and get the potatoes in the ground until April 28th/29th and then they were planted in very wet soil.
The delay in planting has meant that the electronics side of the business has had a strung out season too. I have been sorting problems on potato planters right through April and now deep into May from places as far apart as Scotland, Austria, Israel and Australia, mainly little ones caused by operators not reading the instruction books and adhering to the set up procedure but, hey! What’s new?
What’s new indeed! The factory that makes our circuit boards and assembles them burnt down on the 20th April taking with it a number of half completed boards and all the art work for other projects. Luckily another batch of completed boards was already in the dispatch area so these were saved although heavily smoked. Again, luckily, I have everything backed up here on disc and chip with the exception of one small project, but it has been finding circuit boards from my stock and replacement parts that have been the problem, hopefully we have enough to see us through this years builds until the factory is rebuilt later in the year.
We are also starting to build units for September delivery so that we will be in front of orders when we go back to Australia in late September. The fire means I am spending a lot more time on the end of a soldering iron again.
The wet weather has also delayed the ploughing of the pumpkin field but the few fine days last week meant I could finally get the land turned over in a couple of evenings at the end of last week. This time I did not use Dotty as the going was a bit too much for her so I got Henrietta out of her winter sleep and hitched her to the PM plough. It is about three years since she has been on ploughing duty as this has been shared between Nuffy on the deep digger plough and Dotty on the PM with Henrietta coming out for the blight spraying of the potatoes but this year, Nuffy is attached to the Dutch levelling harrow and potato planter, with Dotty on the precision drill for the flower and other small seed planting, straight behind the plough.
Also the cost of diesel and petrol has made Henrietta a more economic tractor to run again. We have to buy road diesel at full cost of around £1.49 per litre making a gallon of diesel around £7.40 so filling up Nuffy is pretty expensive. Henrietta will run happily on the much cheaper kerosene so this has replaced diesel in my TVO mix.
I had forgotten how good she is on the plough when really hot. The going was not easy, the land sticky and wet with wet holes every so often but she did not falter, ploughing with two 12” furrows at about 10” deep. I had also forgotten the deep torque that is there on the TVO engine, she will pull the revs right down when the going gets tough, at not much more than a tick-over and still keep going. This helps to reduce the wheel slip and, with careful use of the independent brakes we managed to get past all the wet patches.
It is not fast ploughing in third gear but it a great relaxation after a mentally tiring day, sitting there in the fading light, watching the land turn over neatly behind you. Now all I have to do is be patient until it drys enough to get the seeds in.
