Gav836

Thanks Chris, I'm happier now than I've been for a while. It was touch and go before Christmas with what to do work wise, go back to full time farm work or invest in the training and stay self employed but with two more training groups and now talk of a third wanting my services the decision has sort of been made for me. As long as I can keep my hand in on the operating side of things still then I'll be happy.

I don't mind the T6080, I did in fact drive this one for a day on a de-stoner back in March last year, its not a bad place to spend the day at any rate and certainly a good hedge cutting tractor with the large side door and seemed stable enough with the cutter out at full reach.

Its been a while since I posted in here, there's been a lot going on in my personal life involving becoming single and moving house. The new year has got off to a slow start for me but things are starting to pick up now, I'm now providing training services through 4 different groups across Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. I've expanding into the Pa2a sprayer course as well now with plans to do a forklift instructors course in March to allow me to carry out training in that area as well. I've not done any farm work since last November but am starting with a contractor for a few weeks as of tomorrow carrying out hedge cutting for him with a New Holland T6080 and Shelbourne Reynolds cutter, it should keep me going up until I do the instructors course with the possibility of several weeks de-stoning elsewhere afterwards. I'll try to get some pictures along the way, for now here's one of the T6080 when I had a go with it last Friday.

Blight spraying again, hopefully if tomorrow goes to plan I should get it wrapped up for this week. Got a trip to Cottenham and Waterbeach down the A10 with the Sprayer in the morning so will see what rude gestures I get this week!!

They only bought it last year I believe as an irrigation tractor to leave in outplaying fields, it's in really good condition for its age.

It's far from knackered just done several hours now and is outside a lot of the time, doesn't help that it does all the fertiliser spreading so has had some abuse to the paintwork, it's pictured on duals a few pages back in this topic.

That's the guys, yeah the warehouse there is their office and potato store/grading line/packing station. They own all those builds set back off the A10 on that side but none of the land there.

They are the opposite end of Little Downham to Jackson's, heading towards Pymoor. They also have a Case Puma 210, 215 and 140 along with a NH TM155 and Ford TW-25. I'm only about 5 miles from Wissington myself on the Kings Lynn side of it so not far away.

I'm working for Richard and Mark Taylor at Little Downham/Littleport, covering land between Waterbeach and Welney as they grow several acres of potatoes on rented ground as well as their own. I've been back on the 8345rt today discing set aside land to try and get more black grass to chit, bit of a change from spraying!

It's hard to say Mike as a lot of the fields are between 8 and 15 acres and there's a lot of travelling which kills the output

After a quiet couple of months on the work front I've now gone back to where I was working last autumn in the Littleport area to help with the blight spraying. First time I've been on a sprayer for 4 or 5 years but soon got the hang of it again. It's an Amazone Panterra with 36m boom and GPS section control, far superior to the trailed John Deere machine I last used.

Moving the parsnip grader around at the site its kept at this morning before going and getting a load out this afternoon. We were lifting them yesterday as well except they were for stockfeed as we have more than the market demands at the moment and the field needs clearing.

After yesterdays hectic day chasing backwards and forwards subsoiling, moving work vans about and carting parsnips today has been a bit calmer with just running one 16t trailer of seed potatoes out to the two planters and then spending the rest of the day terra discing land before its ridged up.

Done the same with my Defender just before Christmas, was under the bonnet and noticed oil had been running from the turbo so got local garage to change it before it failed. Brand new Garrett turbo with 2 years warranty cost £479 then another £125 for labour and oil which I didn't think was too bad.

Teaching a pesticide application course, just a shame the NPTC have overly complicated the categories in this section!

I do know where you are in the picture but I was sworn to secrecy on it

Certainly seems that way at the moment! I'm very glad about that but don't think anyone else will win it either somehow

My Landlady, just as my work starts to pick up she's told me I have to get out of the house as she wants to live here again so now got to find somewhere to live as well!!

I did have one little mishap with the Lemken plough first thing one morning, the wheel spigot snapped off while it was in transport mode! The plough hit the road with a bit of a bang and a shower of sparks! The plough itself has done a lot of work so not unsurprising but at least it went where it did as another 50m it would have been in the middle of the level crossing on one of the mainlines to Ely!

I did quite a bit of ploughing with the 8345rt but the tractor was absolutely useless once it turned wet so actually done most of the late ploughing with a Puma 230 and 5 furrow Lemken rather than keep elevating my blood pressure with the crawler when it spun itself into the furrow repeatedly!

This is the farms own drilling rig, a Case Puma 210 with front power harrow and rear power harrow combination fitted. The tractor does have a little black box fitted to it as well at times to allow it to work faster, I did however have a turbo hose explode on it late one evening when it was working hard!

We also had a Horsch Sprinter ST on demo, this was only 4m wide and the dealer "insisted" we had the 6210r on demo with it........nothing to do with a Puma 210 coming up for change in the future of course. I preferred the Pottinger drill and certainly wasn't a fan of the constant heat shimmer above the bonnet of the tractor!

Here's a few more pictures from last autumn now I've taken them off my camera. We had a Pottinger Terrasem 6m drill on demo, they left it with us for nearly three weeks so we got a massive chunk of the autumn drilling done with it. I drilled a large amount of wheat directly into stubble with it as well, the last picture is of the first field I done like that once it had got going.

Sorry I missed your question before, they are a bolt on KV part from the dealer Phillip.

Thanks Sean, should be alright I think as I have contacts in various places keeping their ears and eyes open for me as well as the advertising.