grass cutting

First cut of the year.  A bit long, so needed to strim a fair bit too.

Wood cutting continues

I've been back in the forest felling, logging and moving trees.  My friend Henri needed a hand, and more importantly, I needed his tractor to pull down the last handful of trees on my plot.
Henri has an awful lot of trees and about 3 weeks to get them felled.
So I've worked 2 'french' days with him, which starts around 1030 for an hour, then 3pm 'til 6.  The hardest part of the day is the aperitifs which are compulsory, and finish anytime between 7 and 8.

Field drains

With all the recent rain, it's been getting a bit soggy below the orchard.  There is a natural hollow and the rain sort of gathers in the hollow and then runs in a straight line down hill, under the log pile, and is then channeled into a bund created 4 years ago during some storms.  A filed drain in the bund runs this off to a ditch.

Well, we decided that another field drain is required from the start of the hollow to the ditch.  About 13m.  As it's supposed to be a field drain, it's not very far below the surface - say 100mm.  80mm pipe.

In the picture it runs from the grey square in the foreground to the ditch.  The square is a drain cover to keep a hole/sump open that leads to the drain.

ignore - widget test

reads from xively reads direct from cpi using dns redirect

Skiing!

The first skiing day of the season today.   Very quiet. Bareges was shut due to a problem with the Tournaboup lift, so they shut the entire area.  Thanks for that.

then
9/12/13
12/12
10/1 looking bare
17/1 not bad 5-10cm 2 days ago
28/1?  ok chains
4/2 quite a lot of fresh lienz drag open. plus black chair

Post box bell

Now the letter box has been moved, we can no longer see if the postie leaves us any bills.
Whilst I encourage SHMBO to regularly visit the box, there has been a little bit of resistance; a return trip is nearly 160m.
So a bell was installed which triggers when post is delivered; luckily there were a few spare cores in a cable used to monitor the electricity consumption, which were in a box just adjacent.

Doinnnggggg - Yamaha Fazer Rear Shock removal

Finally got around to fitting the Hyperpro  1101X lowering spring to the bike.
Problem was the old shock had other ideas.  The sleeve that holds the bottom mount point in is a loose, greased fit. However, after 8 years of being fitted, the grease allows small amounts of water in; this water causes stiction.  About 10mm protrudes, but no enough to get mole grips on.  After reading several posts there are 2 options
1.  Heat the assembly to around 200C which frees it up.  It also wrecks the oil seals and needle bearing, so these need buying and replacing
2.  file flats onto the sleeve.  This sounds easy, but access is rubbish, and the steel is hardened.

I opted for the 2nd choice.  The night before I started I sprayed everything in WD40.  The following day it wouldnt budge, so I carefully heated the sleeve with a pencil blow torch.  Mole grips moved it a tad, but that was it.  I filed 1 flat on the top with a Abrafile (normal files are no good) and then enlarged it with a small grinding disc.  Access is really bad and you can see areas where I've taken paint off.  This was repeated on the front face and the bottom. The bottom was poor, but enough to get the grips on and turn.  More WD40.  When the sleeve was turned to the front, where access is excellent, a good flat was ground on, then the sleeve turned 90 degrees and repeat.  Once 4 good flats are on, it's easy to get the grips on and keep turning and sliding to the right.  Eventually it slides right out.

The secret is the flats.  You can't push the sleeve out as the sleeve doesn't go all the way through.  Once you have flats you can get the grips on and turn. Polished and greased it just slipped back into the shock.
There are a few bike forums that gave me the ideas to try, so a big thank you to those that posted.

 Once out I carefully improved the flats in a vice, they now fit a 15mm open spanner.

 Oil seals - you can read the part numbers

 Reference measurements

Using a Draper car spring puller and some 8mm rebar to compress the spring.  Cardboard on the arms to stop scratching the particularly attractive purple.