Gav836

I like the pictures of you ploughing, are the furrow splitters welded on by you or are they a kv part, good luck for the future too

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. 

I will be in the next couple of weeks. Will be doing farm work still and also taking training courses for the local group here on granular pesticides and various other pieces of machinery

Thanks Mark, hopefully this mornings call will pay off, I had reservations about the newspaper advert due to the cost of it but one or two calls like that will make it worth while.

After a tricky few weeks work wise since my temporary job came to an end my diary finally seems to be filling up, took a fixed booking for 5 months from August yesterday back where I was last Autumn and now as a result of a newspaper ad I've got running have had an enquiry for a booking from mid February through to August, starting to look like its coming together finally after last years disasters!

Did you find it in the time fashioned manner of standing on it with bare feet then hopping around swearing?!?!

They must be stronger, thicker poles than the ones I'm used to seeing around here if they can take the strain of you hanging from them Porky Pullen

I've switched to ploughing now with a 6 furrow Kverneland LO85 on land plough on the 8345rt, taking a bit of fine tuning as its new to the farm and not quite set up properly at the moment.

Cheers Ol and Paul. The John Deere is from where I'm working now, all the other tractors there are from the Case and NH stables. The Fendts are from the other lot.

This is what I've been driving today, a 2010 John Deere 8345RT pulling a 3m Sumo Trio busting up land behind potatoes

Here's a few pictures from my brief stint on potatoes this autumn, I spent most of the week driving a Fendt 718.

There's a chance the job that I'm starting tomorrow could turn into a permanent one, just have to see how it goes.

I haven't been into a job centre for 15 or 16 years now Paul, tend to be able to find work fairly quickly as I have so many contacts locally and on the internet.

I'll put a few pictures on here later Mike, the new job was a complete disaster and I've been without work for the past two weeks. I worked one full week for them, they then put me on a zero hours contract when there was no harvesting to do before getting rid of me two days after that. I start a new job tomorrow at Littleport in Cambridgeshire, it may only last until Christmas or it could last longer but I'll be ploughing for and drilling all of their cereals for them most of the time while they harvest the potatoes.

Well my time working here is coming to an end, after some events here in the past week I've decided to move on again to somewhere that understands that when an employees partner goes into hospital for a serious operation they may need to take some holiday to be with them and not be forced to work Sundays to make up for it.......!

As of the beginning of September I'll be working for a potato grower again driving harvesters, trailers, planters and sprayers, really whatever they need me to. I've worked there before 7 years ago so already know the boss and get on well with him.

Been at Addenbrookes since 6:30am with my partner, she's currently in theatre having stents fitted to correct a collapsing vein in her head, carries a 1 in 200 risk of stroke but it's essential.

They had a 6530 first that was using a litre of oil to a tank of diesel so it had to, the reason that they have the 6534 as far as I can make out is so they have the balance of a 6 cylinder without the price tag. The 6530 on the fleet has been problematic as well with turbo failures, the first one went in spectacular fashion and took the engine with it, it now has turbo number 3 fitted since 2009!

Balance isn't too bad really Mike, doesn't seem too light on the front and the right hand wheel is water ballasted to keep it balanced in that respect. All 5 of the trimmers we have out are cable controlled still as are the 2 spare machines, they don't fully trust the reliability of Bomford's electric controls yet especially for 2000-2500hrs use a year.

The machines in daily use are:

2009 JD 6530 and Bomford B71M

2011 JD 6534 Autopower and Bomford B71M - this one also does the multi blade saw and saw blade work

2007 JD6230 and Bomford Falcon 6T - this is the spare outfit at the moment with no full time driver now verge cutting is done

2011 JD 6230 and Bomford Falcon 6T - my outfit

2013 JD 6105r and Bomford Buzzard 6.5

In the shed as spare machines to cannabilise are a B58T and Falcon 5.8T, both are tired but useful if one of us needs a ram etc.

We also have a multi-blade saw head, single blade saw head, two heavy flail heads and a cut and collect head and trailer used for nature reserve jobs. There is also a 3m Votex flail mower for topping jobs that goes on the front of the 6105r.

Thanks. Those Perspex guards are a nightmare once they start to age, you struggle to see through them when the sun hits them, they are hard to see through in the wet and the glass can sometimes mist on the outside when its dull and you have the aircon on, in short, I HATE them!!

We're now working our way through farm hedges, starting on those who are not in various schemes

We done a few hedge cutting jobs between first and second cut, mostly domestic type ones and a stud farm and the race course at Newmarket.

My Nemisis, these damn markers.........the worst bit in my areas, 20 on one bend near a school

Been a while since I updated this topic, I started my new job in mid May and have now carried out the 5 week first cut and 4 week second cut of the verges in Norfolk. Its not a bad job but we do see some utterly terrible examples of driving while doing it, every sign and black and white marker post has to be strimmed round when we come to them. The marker posts can be got without strimming if you're careful as they are very flexible......you can bend them right over so the flails get everything in each direction and they pop back up!

This is my Machine, 2011 JD 6230 which I've now put over 600hrs on so far and a 2006 Bomford Falcon 6T

There's also the matter that Grimme have been selling destoners at silly prices when they know they will lose the deal locally as well. We've often said that if the blue machine was red with a Grimme sticker on it it would be a best seller!

His main income is hedge cutting so he needs the weight for balance more than the power. The 6920s was bought as it was one of his customers tractors so it had a known history, it was starting to suffer from a gearbox bearing issue so needed changing.