I finally converted the pallet forks to fit our digger:)

Today was spent finishing making the brackets for my pallet forks to fit the front of our digger. They originally came from a normal forklift so not a straight forward fit. We can now move pallets of bricks and bulk bags of sand around:) Only taken me nearly three years to do it! I did have them ratchet strapped to the front bucket but couldn't see what i was picking up (and the strap stretched a bit).

bricks are ordered

Its been a while since my last update, the weather has not helped, and work is busy. But we have ordered the blocks for the inner part of the garage, and the bricks for the house and garage. Seems there is a national shortage of bricks, and the brick companies are putting all efforts in to making standard bricks, so our specialist type brick has taken a back seat with a six month lead time! Luckily Travis Perkins have almost enough of what we need in stock at one of their branches so we have dibs on those, just awaiting a delivery time of 17,000 bricks:) The Celcon blocks are also in demand so been on order for a few weeks and await delivery of those aswell. As the weather is VERY wet at the moment the field is like a swamp, just the same as any large flat area of grass field, so not much can be done anyway without making a huge mess. With any luck i can start work on building the base of the garage up in the next couple weeks, then ill have a solid platform to build the walls up from.

More Mud moved

The pile of mud (or should i say mountain) is getting smaller:) Another mud moving day completed today and im knackered! Phili was in the digger again and just me on the tractor and trailer today. Its hard work just me tractoring as there's no break between loads, and although the trailers tips I still have to spade it out of the trailer bed and push it down the slope, and hook out the large lumps and stack to one side so they dont crash at the bottom breaking through the fence:)
Im gradually finding things i dont want anymore in the shed and selling them on to fund a laptop fast enough to edit the video footage im shooting so you can see all this. My plan is to make it all in to a build diary as i go to accompany my blog here.
Im hoping to get some chevron tyres off a friend for the other tractor to increase grip, then hopefully my brother will come back for another mud moving day.

Mud Moving day.

Wednesday 16 July was a Mud moving day to clear some of the mud i've dug out for the footings of the garage. Phili was on the digger, filling trailers towed around by me on my Wheelhorse Electro 12 and my brother using the Wheelhorse 312-8 that i bought Monday evening as a none runner, and spent Tuesday afternoon cleaning the carb and rewiring the switch to turn a none runner gamble in to a very sweet running tractor, that ran faultless all day. We cleared about 1/3rd of the mud, there's a lot! Having had to dig 2m down by 650mm wide due to trees next door. And as it's currently piled up in the middle of the garage we need it gone before anything can progress. Trying to juggle work and Robins Nest building is tricky at the moment, but still determined to get the garage up by Christmas.

Digging has started

Well i got the meeting with building control on Monday afternoon. Digging the garage foundations started on Tuesday and i almost finished yesterday, just one corner to clean up. Unfortunately cant get any concrete till Monday afternoon! so hopefully no collapses over the weekend. The trench is two meters deep at one end due to trees, so that's a lot of mud if it does collapse! I've started to get some video footage to make a series of short films as a sort of build diary, don't expect any Youtube video soon though as my laptop is a bit slow for video editing.

We can start!

Nearly a year on since getting planning permission, and the conditions have finally been discharged so we can officially start building our house :D Yay!
Hopefully i can get a meeting with building control Monday, and then let the digging commence. Robins Nest has now started.

Toy Land Rover is finished.

My Toy series 2 Land Rover is finished. Well almost! I have a slight modification of chain tensioners to add, and front light bulbs to change to 24v not 12v, so waiting for bulbs to arrive.

Powered by a 24v motor, geared for 6mph top speed, with adjustable speed control, working lights front and back plus indicators. 

Folding windscreen, drop down tailgate, model working engine under the bonnet.

A working video will follow shortly:)

Snow plow is finished.

My snow plow build for the little Wheel Horse tractor is finished:) And so is the funny video i made of the build.

Hope you enjoy it:)

The beginning.

Welcome to my first post, of my first Blog.
The main point of this Blog is a sort of diary for the building of our first house, named, 'Robins Nest'. As im also very creative ill update with any projects i happen to be building at the time. Currently im making a scale model childs ride on version of a Land Rover series 2, wooden construction and battery powered up to 6 miles an hour. Also on the go is a snow plow/dozzer blade for my Wheel Horse garden tractor, this was a tight project and i challenged myself to build it using only scrap metal or left over off cuts.