A day as a volunteer at the Rocks By Rail Museum usually leads to a variety of work, much of it involving physical exertion! Take for example the continuing work on the Plant Shed. The scissor lift to reach the roof is about as mobile as a rock! So moving it is an exercise involving either mechanical power or physical brute force. Given that Harriot the JCB had decided that a flat battery was a good thing to have, the mechanical power option was off the agenda and so it was down to physical brute force. Getting it out was easy as the shed floor is on a slope and Andy and Martin managed that on their own.
Getting it back in at the end of the day was another matter! Whilst the old adage that many hands make light work may seem appropriate, the sheer belligerence of the scissor jack to move needed some additional ingenuity! In this case it was to put a strap between the stationary flat battery Harriot and the scissor lift and then use the strap to winch it in!
And after a lot less physical effort the scissor jack was back in the shed ready for some rest - just like the rest of us!
More work had been going on with 1391 but today the smoke box door was closed but I was assured that there had been lots of physical work removing valve gear that was also being belligerent in not wanting to be removed!
Not being belligerent, was Mr. D who John is continuing to paint with things looking really good on the outside - and that is just the undercoat of paint!
In the cab John has been busy preparing for that to be painted as well. Not sure if he thought my suggestion of wallpapering it went down too well!
For me, I reacquainted myself with the lawnmower for a short spell - mowing grass in mid November wearing a T shirt and jeans - that is not normal but neither am I as Mrs. Woody will confirm!
After that it was down to the Bone Yard as it has now become known, with the strimmer to do some vegetational butchery on the belligerent vegetation that is hiding all sorts of hidden gems! Following last weeks work it was obvious that the vegetation was fighting back as this picture shows!
However, I am as belligerent as the vegetation so armed with Mr. Strimmer the vegetation soon found out who was boss!
There were plenty of gems to be found like that pallet of corrugated iron sheet that everyone had forgotten about.
Or this pallet of yet to be identified metal bits!
However, more exciting for me was uncovering the piles of hardcore and bricks which are needed for the gabion baskets/cages that I talked about in my last post on the Museum. It was just belligerently hiding and needed uncovering!
Alex was conveniently passing by so he got roped in to start moving some of the new found hardcore to the gabion baskets/cages.
First barrowful in place. It is going to take a lot of hardcore and barrow trips to fill the three baskets/cages!
After six barrow loads the first basket/cage is about a quarter full.
If the weather is good next week hopefully at least one will be filled but I somehow doubt that I will be wearing a T shirt unless I am totally belligerent to the cold weather that is forecast!