Guess who's back..

As yours truly is just not busy enough Rock HQ received a call long awaited late last night, one of the critters missing since JULY 2020 had been captured and was creating havoc in the yard of one of the local militia. Which is why at quarter past sparrows fart I dutifully reversed Moby up to the tow hitch of the horsebox and for the first time ever managed to achieve successful hitch first time. This obviously woke the small god of misfortune and so began a series of events that really could have ruined the day had it not been for my calm approach and good humour, and squadrons of flying pigs cheering as they performed victory rolls over the bonsai mountain.

Four wheels were locked solid, seized through inactivity so a bit of gentle back and forth and 3 were spinning as they should. Typically the fourth refused to free and tried to annoy me further by bursting.

Being the prepared type a spare with a brand new tyre was on the subs bench and called forward to glory.

The difficulty then was no jack. Modern cars don't have spare wheels now apparently so you get an inflator and a tub of tyre filler to get you home but no jack. In an inspired moment I decided to build a ramp from stones and get the ok wheel on it this lifting the broken one clear. Hurrah!

This tyre has definitely expired.  

Much WD40 later and a severe bashing with the sledgehammer the hub spun free and the wheel could be attached. A hole was dug with a hand axe giving enough room to put the inflated tyre back on. Genius!

The more observant would have seen the apprentice helping so rather than mock his attempts to do real jobs other make reassuring noises I relented and let him do the wheel nuts up as what could possibly go wrong. Well, nothing, unless you forget that you have let a 10 year old boy do up the wheel nuts. 

Flushed with our success at changing the wheel without a jack we packed up

and turned around in a sub optimal turning space, hurrah another win, and boldly went down the lane to the gateway to the world. That really smug feeling that you have thwarted the small gods attempts to derail your day evaporated as soon as I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a wheel remarkably like the one we had not five minutes before attached to our trailer was bouncing over the fence and into the next field. 

Three wheels on my wagon was perhaps not the song to sing but it was a statement of fact and what happens when you don't tighten wheel nuts up properly. MBAOSPW saved the day (again) by finding the wheel nuts along the drive and having reversed the trailer over a pot hole the wheel hanging process was completed successfully this time with really tight nuts, 

So why was all this trouble gone to? To fetch Benjy back after his very long absence without leave. This young pony is in for a bit of a shock as we have plans for him. 
 

Times they are a changing

Had a bit of sad news the other day which is why we took Moby off the beaten track and up to the technohermits lair where we did a quick Uey 

and like most things, lose it or lose it, its been so long since we took a vehicle up this section of track that its much more difficult to navigate what with fallen trees and deep ruts cut into the surface by the torrents of water. These channels have got a lot worse since our part time neighbours stopped coming to stay in their house so often, he would spend a great deal of his time here either chasing squirrels or keeping the gully clear so the water didn't erode the track. And that's the sad news, they have decided to sell and never return

which means we will get new maybe full time neighbours whom we met briefly when they called to get the keys. So time will tell us what will happen to the ghost house and its squirrels. Helen and Murray have been adding to the history of the bonsai mountain since 1974. Times they are a changing for us all. 
 

Ooops I did it again ...

In an effort to get the attention away from my own clumsiness (read stupidity) here is a picture of Mrs Bear. 

This on the other hand (geddit?) is what my left one looks like after an intense first aid session given by the apprentice which hides some very nasty cuts. Self inflicted obviously and not as you might assume the result of absent minded using something sharp. No. This injury was as a result of gravity. And stupidity. Lots of that.

So at the back of the house we have a cliff. There it sits, mocking me. Times past before space age left arm which thinking about it is also as a result of a gravitational injury yours truly has climbed said cliff and mocked mere mortals below. For some inexplicable reason all day yesterday I was compelled to climb said cliff and in an amazing lack of foresight set off up it at approximately 4pm and by 4.00.10 had fallen a fair way and could be found on a ledge contemplating the possible outcomes of this mini adventure. Now having once been a proficient climber, indeed having instructed it, it was a bit of a literal and metaphorical crash to earth being defeated by our cliff. I was doing well right up until a huge upside down hand hold which I used to lever myself up to the next foothold and the next thing i knew there was a blur of rock, falling dirt and vegetation and (thankfully) and abrupt stop on a ledge some 20 feet from the sudden impact below. There being no real way out of the situation and with left hand bleeding nicely yours truly relented to the ignominy of the apprentice running to fetch MBAOSPW (who had a rapid sense of humour failure, what were you thinking, well not about falling obviously my sweet) who in turn fetched a large extending ladder to assist my safe descent. I obviously sulked for the rest of the evening and took solace in gardening which is much safer. This is a bed of seedlings. Some of which may be flowers. Time will tell. 
 

Nerd alert......work in progress.

Those that know me understand my nerd need to make models and the obsession with Beersheba and the events of WW1, in particular the charge of the Australian light horse. This means that I feel compelled to recreate part of the town and so the railway station is now near completion. The pic above is as was

while this one is as is on the dining table 

at a scale of 1/144.

Here is a WW2 German resupply train 

not that they were there in WW2 but its my reality so don't mess with it. 
 

Time out

One of those rare occasions took place last weekend, we escaped Rock HQ. Now this requires a mammoth amount of planning and help from our friends but every now and then we manage. It also gave is the chance to test our remote operated cameras installed just after the fire.

So with a few essentials packed we wended our way to the RNLI hotel for a weekend of boat bothering.

The weather had other ideas though, storm force winds and heavy rain meant no time on the water.

More time for breakfasts! Every cloud and all that. 

The RNLI is a massive organisation  and the hotel is its training HQ and boat yard in Poole.

The boys loved it and as they are members of storm force the weather suited their status. 

Back in the dry the offerings of the bar were sampled by yours truly. 

The following day saw a bit of a break in the weather so we went to the beach and watched the RNLI training their lifeguards

unfortunately we couldn't blag a ride on the jet skis. 

The boys played in the sand

and made a picture of icanfoster's strap line.
 A great weekend despite the weather and a huge thank you to those that helped. As usual there were the standard questions when we got back, did you have a nice time, what was the weather like, was the hotel nice and how do you sleep at 4 in the morning when the Bernese choir starts the dawn chorus. 

Watching over HQ

Proof if ever it were needed that

when our dogs cross the rainbow bridge they 

keep an eye on Rock HQ
 

Something missing .....

For a while now the med bay and the tack room have been knocked into one big bale store which means that the two stables are empty (another tale) and the horses evicted to the fields (or not depending on their ability to jump or find the holes cut into the fence by the firebrigade and which yours truly promptly forgot about) where they look longingly at the huge stock pile of fodder and plot ways of getting at it. Now for reasons known only to myself the last lot of bales arrived and instead of negotiating the narrow back passage (ooooh matron) to the now bale store I stuck them in the front stable (this does have a relevance to the story bear with) with the best of intentions to clear out the new now nearly empty bale store before putting the newly arrived bales back into the proper bale store. Makes sense to me. Anyway I'll move on. Thanks to the judicious use of a JCB the rear entrance to med bay is now HUGE and flat and begging to be extended hence the above pic where spare bits of previous builds are being put to good use and a small building destined to be the hiding place for the Kat is under construction. While this was going on the number one pain in  the ass equine Will.I.Am was conspicuous by his horse sized hole in my life. It was only the sound of contented munching that gave him away.

Here he is, the working end anyway, clearing up and adding to the mess in the bale store. The fat pony paused for a second pondering having a look to see if he had been busted but being the lazy sort thought it too much effort to turn around. I could have evicted him but as it was in here he was out of my way so left him to it. 

Here he is inspecting the slow progress and wondering why the big door is suddenly inoperable. 
 

The Kats out of the bag

Yours truly has had a motorbike hidden away, a design icon of the 1980s, a Suzuki Katana. Until this silver machine came into being motorbikes were pretty much similar whoever made it, this broke those rules. So for a while bits have been cleaned, repaired and when possible replaced and now it works, runs like a dream.

If only I could remember what I did with the Keys!!
 

Feel the burn

Not what you would expect to see on the Bonsai Mountain.

But some dickhead had set fire to it for the 3rd time this month (april)

and due to the dry wind blowing our way the fire soon travelled the half mile to our boundary 

hence the need for 7 fire engines and millions of gallons of water.

At one stage it looked pretty bleak

with 6 firehoses around the house soaking their full range of 23 metres from the boundary in the hope of stopping the advance, talk of evacuating us and the critters were held 

especially as things were getting out of control 

and you could feel the heat when stood in our yard.

Thankfully their efforts prevailed and 9 hours later the fire died out

leaving us to go and survey the damage the following day

armed with bottles of water 

we hunted down the hotspots

and doused them. Thirsty work!

This is another view at its peak heading our way.

Sunday we were out again and hot spots flared up bigger than our water bottles could cope with, the brigade turned out 3 more times and when it got dark a line of flame still burned but the forcast was torrential rain so things were not too bad. 

The kids were brilliant going up and down with water to quench the flames.

There was a lot of ground to cover too.

and the K9s had to avoid burning their paws as the ground was very hot in places. 

Not everything survived. Thousands of birds must have been nesting in the bushes.

Ever watchful :) patrols will be a bit different now half of the mountain is fire damaged.