Saturday 7 May 2011

Old and Noisy!

A friend of ours had an old Rotavator gathering dust in his garage and said we could have it.  Having cleaned it up and carried out a basic service on it I eventually got the engine to run.  That was stage one.

Stage two was to get replacement drive belts for it which I did this week. So now the rotor blades turned.  The third stage was to fit an exhaust to it.  The one on it was completely rusted and useless.  My friend gave me an exhaust with it but not the same so I had to cobble it on to the outlet - rather makeshift and on the first attempt in shook off.  I have now managed to get it fixed on to stay (at the moment), therefore, it runs quite a bit quieter.

So yesterday afternoon and today I have been shaken around the vegetable garden and part of one of the pigs enclosure trying to get it all turned before the rain that had been forecast.  We had fenced off part of the pig enclosure thinking it would be a good idea to grow some winter feed for them and also let it weed over for them to eat through later in the year and then swap halves.  So now that is ready to plant up, but we need the rain.
 
Well it's now all turned over and the machine was definitely a bit old, noisy and hard work, especially on the upper arms and shoulders, but it's done the trick.  Now bring on the rain!

5 comments :

  1. Good score!
    My hubby rotary hoed the area we had our first lot of pigs in so that we could grow pumpkins and corn, and also melons and courgettes. These all did really well in the fertilised soil!
    We only have the pumpkins now to feed our new pigs. Would be interested to know what you'll be growing to feed yours.

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  2. We are planning to plant a type of beetroot (like sugarbeet) - rain permitting. Good idea to use up some pumpkin plants as well.

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  3. After reading what you said about feeding pumpkins to your pigs I have sown all my spare courgette and pumpkin seeds and will grow those on for the pigs. I have spare seed potatoes so they're going in as well. Not sure how well they'll do if we have another dry summer but worth a go as I have the space to plant them.
    Rosie

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  4. Every bit of food you can grow will be useful, I'm sure you know how much food pigs eat!! Hope you get a good crop from all those seeds.

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  5. We haven't sown the sugar beet yet as the ground is so dry. The packet says we have until June so fingers crossed for some rain before then. The left-over spuds have gone in though and the remaining pumpkins are starting to germinate so with luck the pigs might get something extra this year - rain permitting ....

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