Bliss and Chips

It’s a funny thing how putting the word ‘should’ before an action immediately turns it into something to be postponed. Indefinitely. The mere thought that ‘I really ought to… ‘ is sufficient to send my brain scurrying in the opposite direction, chasing whatever dubious, time-absorbing Rabbits of Distraction pop out of their holes to hop around enticingly on the horizons of my mind.

I really was going to write another post to follow Simon’s Takeuchi one. I really was going to make some smart-arsed-but charmingly-humorous comment about his ridiculous statement that skilled mini-diggering is a four-dimensional task. But somehow a little rabbit popped up and lured me ever deeper into the Warrens of Google, in search of an understanding of the Fourth Dimension. I am chasing it still. Trying to get a three-dimensional head around a concept so completely outside of its perceptual experience is not an Easy Thing. Some might even say that it is harder than operating a digger.

But ultimately, it is probably less useful. Being a Thinker rather than a Doer probably doesn’t make me well-suited to the farming life. Ho Hum. Who’d have thought it?
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The drains run free

This is the story of the continuing evolution of Plumber Man into Excavator Man.

Armed only with my trusty Takeuchi, and aided by my faithful surveyor/photographer/supervisor, I have transformed the far end of the vegetable garden. What was recently a sewage outflow pit is now the far more elegant-sounding “lit d’épandage”. Now literally translated this means a ‘spreading bed’. Of course, what it means is that the sewage outflow is spread under the covers of a bed of earth. Which may not sound terribly attractive, but ask yourself, where does your sewage go? At least ours is now filtered through very large distances of sandy soil before it reaches the stream . . . . .

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竹内      I join the Takeuchi fan club

If you have read Val’s recent post, you’ll know that I have bought a mini-digger.

Of course, the term “mini” is relative. My newly beloved Takeuchi is certainly small compared to the giant monsters you see ripping up the ground at large industrial sites, but at a ton and a half it feels big enough when you drive it.

Although “drive” is not really the right word. I’ve never really appreciated the skill of the digger operator. I thought I was skilful when I learned how to drive heavy goods vehicles many years ago, but now I realise that was in a different league altogether.

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To blog or not to blog?

It’s coming up to two months since I posted anything of substance on the blog. I haven’t left everything to Val, even though she has done 13 posts in that time. I’ve done the ‘technical’ stuff (although I have now taught Val how to load and insert her own photos) and I’ve changed the blog’s basic design to take advantage of some of the features of the new version of the bogging software (WordPress).

But basically, I have felt little inclination to write anything. Why is that?
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Everything Log Stardate 64015.9

So… Let’s try again.

This is the post I meant to write before I got bogged down in the meaninglessness of existence. And just so that I can immediately get over the paralysing effect of having two weeks worth of stuff to catch up on, here is a quick list of things that have happened since my last (proper) post on 5 July:

Simon has got himself a mini-digger.
Simon has been up to London to visit the Queen. (Well actually to visit his pregnant daughter, but no one has written a nursery rhyme about that).
Simon has done digging.
Simon has done filling-back-in.
All drainage systems are go.
Simon’s back hurts.
Big Cat has gone.
The Bold Three are back (without Little Black).
Lonely Chicken has stopped being broody.
Lonely Chicken is moulting. Again.
It hasn’t hardly rained at all.
Max hasn’t died.
Oh, and did I mention… Simon has got himself a mini-digger. Continue reading

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Everything Log Stardate 64015.4 (Prelude)

OK. I promise this will be the last (but one) time I use the Log-Stardate thingy in my posting activities. It’s just that I was really struggling to think of a title for this post, and I needed to get the damn thing started, before I completely lost the tiny spark of impetus glimmering at the bottom of my blah-filled brain. Continue reading

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