Long Day

I woke up with a blinding headache in the back of my head and a sore shoulder. Must have slept awkward. Felt better after applying some deep heat and a couple of aspirins.

First I had to water the plants. I deliberately planted the bamboo next to the hop bines as they're thirsty plants too.

The second job was to take the machine apart and re-build it in rotavator mode.


The tar on the old Christmas tree trunk was almost dry so another job was to use a ground auger to dig a hole for the trunk. I guesstimated about a metre which would mean the augur handle would end up about 8" above the ground. Before that, though, I'd need to attached some string for the bines to climb. It would be a bit silly to put the trunk in the hole and then cry "Doh!".

I could have used trig and measurements to work out the length of string but I paced out the distance from the hole to the bines and went back to the shed and paced out the same from the bottom of the tree. Tied and cut them off when János the Scythe came in. (Pronounced a bit like "yah-nosh")

He's very, very good with a scythe but, unfortunately, he does like to chat. I say unfortunately as his accent means I get about one word in ten which means I don't even get the gist. He had me put another set of wheels on the rotavator (which later one, as Hobo pointed out, turned out to be on the wrong sides) and re-arrange the handles on my Austrian scythe.

He went to work with his scythe and I went off to drill a hole. I put the trunk in, filled the hole in when Hobo turned up. He pointed out the problem with the wheels and swapped them over.

Hop Support

He had a problem and said that we'd need the brush cutter to clear the land first. This is when I discovered that there were some parts missing from the strimmer. No idea where the nuts and bolts are or if I received them.

Next problem we had was that the strimmer didn't work. It would start up, race then cough and splutter to a stop. We spent the next hour trying to get it to work, even changing the petrol for new stuff. Nope, nothing. Out of any other ideas, I washed and cleaned the air filter and hung it out to dry.

Hobo then said he'd go see someone about ploughing it. (One of the new words I've learned is the verb "plough". Amazing how many times I've heard it since!)

In the meantime János the Scythe went off for a break. He's quite frail and can only manage about an hour before he knocks off.

János came back as I started weeding. I managed to finish off all of the weeding in my kitchen garden just as János started to attack my hedge! I told him to stop and he carried on with some other bits and pieces of high grass around my kitchen plot.

Shortly after that, Hobo came back and said the tractor would be ten minutes. 20 minutes later and the top end of my land was ploughed. One of the neighbours popped his head out to have a look. I guess he was checking that we didn't accidentally plough up his land too. (no fences on that side. Yet)


Tractor behind Hop Support.

All in all a good 8 hours work. Oh, and I got sunburn on part of my neck!