28/02/14

A slightly less dismal view of Drax power station with wind turbines in the foreground. I took this photo while waiting to load with seed grain at Woodhead seeds.  My favourite collection again :-(  Four drops and one bag to return to base for delivery on Monday. On the good side I got loaded for Monday, fuelled up and at last I managed to get onto the wash and actually cleaned my truck. I am hoping for   a good dry weekend I have a lot to do. See you Monday.

27/02/14

A view from behind.  Just thought someone might like this picture that I took while eating lunch in a farm yard a couple of miles north of Helmsley on Tuesday.

Today has been busy, I have been back on deliveries today.  First load was only just over four tonnes but because of the size of the second load there was no choice.  Back to first load, two farm drops near Stillingfleet and one drop at West Haddelsey.  The last drop was three tonnes and all done by hand, i did ring and ask about the possibility of a fork lift but instead I got help so that went well enough.  Back to the yard and loaded a full load, half for Carlton store and the remainder was to return to a mill at Penistone and collect the correct product, not my mistake for a change.  I also had a three tonne collection from Howden Dyke.  The drop at Carlton was easy enough, I even managed to scrounge a coffee, though I did have to collect a random three tonnes of bagged carrots which had mysteriously arrived at the store.  At Howden Dyke I was informed that there had been a break down and I may have to wait for two hours though I would get the product.  As I had to get to Penistone in reasonable time I didn't have the time to wait so back onto the M62 and off to Penistone.  The collection went OK and I was back in the yard by quarter to six so all in all not a bad day and I didn't end up itchy and dusty.  See you all tomorrow.

25/02/15

A trip to Woodheads Seeds again, then delivering what I have collected. As I. Have said before, it isn't my favourite collection.  The yard staff are good but the office staff!!  First drop at Hotham Cart, a good drop and quickly done, second drop at Shiptonthorpe, again easily done. Third drop a couple of miles north of Helmsley, another easy drop. Have had to take a break here as my hours are up. The next drop is only about half a mile away but the track between is not passable for me.  So five mile round trip. Only one drop after that and I'm not sure what's next. We only get to know on a need to know basis and we drivers obviously don't need to know, we might start thinking and making things easier if we knew. :-)

24/02/14

Lunch in Lincolnshire on the way to a mill collection at Driby Top. The day isn't doing justice to the location. On a good day this is a pleasant place to stop, though it isn't really far enough from the road to avoid rocking in the turbulence of passing vehicles.  So far the day has been good, one store drop and one farm drop. Though I have had a problem with the sheet on the near side sticking. A little adjustment with mole grips and a hammer helped for the moment. I need to take care for the rest of the day to avoid it happening again. Lunch over and back to work, only three miles to the mill.

What a view.

I took this photo through the windscreen of the truck a couple of years ago. I couldn't resist it.  Sometimes we drive in the most spectacular places.

21/02/14

Friday!  Well yes Friday happened and that's about all I can say for it.  I was back with the seed dresser.  Seventeen tonnes to dress on four different farms, two customers compromised fourteen tonnes of the work, luckily they were the first on the list.  I will say little about the day other than that it was windy and cold with some rain and all except the second stop were outside.  By the time I had finished for the day I was cold itchy and very ready for a shower.  I didn't start to feel human again until the next morning when I finally got the remainder of the dust out of my eyes.  All in all I was pleased to get home, it was one of those days.  That is why I have been so long passing comment on the day.

20/02/15

Good start to the day. A full load for a single mill drop at Northallerton. In and out in less than half an hour, great.  The drive involved going down Sutton Bank and up again on the way back. I won't go up it with a full load until I inherit a more powerful truck, it's a bit steep and has a couple of sharp bends. I'll have to try get a photo next time. Second load, one farm drop at Cawood followed by Carlton store. I may have a collection as well but I'm not sure yet. I think I deserve an easy day as I'm seed dressing again tomorrow, but there's time for it all to go wrong yet.

19/02/14

Seed dressing again today. The days work  was four smaller jobs of not more than four tonnes. The trouble with a day like this is that I spend more time setting up and cleaning down than I do seed dressing. The first customer was at Chop Gate, note of Helmsley, two and a half tonnes of barley, the second at Old Byland, three tonnes of barley. The third near Reivoux Abby, four tonnes of barley. And the last near Pockley, four tonnes of oats. Oats are difficult for my machine, it copes well infill you try to get them out. The angle of the bagging spout is too shallow and they stick. But I only had five blockages for the four tonnes, not bad. But I did have the machine on a slope towards the chute, it's supposed to be set level.  But I survived without flooding my temper. See you tomorrow.

18/02/14 b

I met this pig today while delivering barley seed to a farm at Easingwold. She was a very impressive sight and seemed to be enjoying herself.  I do like pigs, especially random pigs that appear where least expected.

18/02/14 a

A view of Drax power station from the loading point at Woodhead Seeds. I hate coming here, the road is bad and the office staff miserable. I wonder if the two things are related.

A few pictures taken while working.

Some days it's miserable, every gate is shut and every light is red, even in Yorkshire.

Other days it's like this, you wonder if there really is a farm at the end of the track and secondly if there is will it be possible to turn round.  This track was around five miles long over the North Yorkshire Moors.  Yes there was a farm at the end of it and even better it was possible to turn round.  Thank goodness I didn't meet another truck on the way in or out, that would have made life interesting.

Other days it really is sunshine and flowers.  I had to stop and take the two pictures below on my way out of a farm which can only be described as "off the beaten track"  The track was just wide enough for the truck and had a couple of tight turns but the view was something else.  North Yorkshire at it's best.  This picture was taken a couple of years ago.

The view to my right on the way out.

The picture below shows what happens when the customer is unpleasant to the driver.  I unloaded the timber below by hand on my own after calling the customer as per instructions to let him know an estimated delivery time only to be told in a grumpy voice.  "This is no good is it?  I needed to know the day before."  The stack is tidy and neat, he can't complain but the catch is that it's impossible to pick it up with a fork lift!  Always be nice to the driver, it makes life easier in the long run.;-)

Below is another slowly dying rulley for my collection.

And another one.

14/02/14

Valentine's day! Does anyone else believe as I do? That it is a con thought up by card manufacturers to get them over the after Christmas lull. In other words a con.
Apart from the above it has been a horrible day. Getting loaded took longer than usually, two and a half hours, yes it's true, I know how horrified you must be. After a it's an unbelievably long time. The first drop, a horsey person, had the wrong product on. I did have the product named on my ticket though, the only positive, it wasn't my mistake for a change. The rest of the day went OK, but it started to rain and blow half way through the day. I hate horizontal rain and wind irritates me. But I got through the day without loosing my temper, which, considering the day, was a great achievement. I won't bore you with the exact detail of the day, suffice to say I survived it and am now sat in my chair with a glass of wine.  Cheers! Not at work on Monday so see you all on Tuesday. Have a good weekend.

13/02/14

Off loaded the remainder of the seed barley from the day before and parked up the truck.  Today I am back to seed dressing for a customer on a Yorkshire Wolds farm.  These farms on the wolds almost always give me a good feeling though it is tinged with sadness for what they have been.  The farms are usually fairly large for English farms and the yards are big and easy to drive round, the sadness comes because they are no longer the busy hives of industry they once must have been, instead of a staff of ten or more they are often run by one man or two at the most.  But things change and I suppose it's progress but it leaves these beautiful big yards empty of life.  Back to the job, the set up was great, I chose to set up outside and let the wind clear the dust away even though I endured the odd snow shower I enjoyed being outside.  The work went exceptionally well and I had dressed the whole seventeen tonnes packed up and was on my way back by quarter to twelve, that's some sort of a record for us.  Back at base I had my lunch before letting my boss, out transport coordinator know I was back ;-)  Lunch over I went to see what was next, guess what!  I reloaded the seed I had unloaded that morning and delivered it to three customers.  The seed got the fun of another fork lift journey for nothing.  The drops were spread out and apart from the yard of the second drop being a bit tight to turn in all went well.  The road into and out of the farm is interesting, take a look at the pictures below.

Back at the yard for five having done all three drops and I am in fourth position to load in the morning.  A good productive day and tomorrow is Friday again.  Yes Friday, oh happy driver, weekend again.

12/02/14

Back to driving today, no more seed dressing until Thursday.  I managed to get loaded, all except a single bag of layers pellets, the night before.  So this morning the layers pellets had been made overnight and I was able to complete loading.  No, the mill hadn't produced a single bag of layers pellets for my load, they had made several tonnes for stock, I and my meagre load aren't that important thank goodness.  Anyhow I collected the bag of layers pellets and loaded it.  I also took off one of the pallets that had been loaded the night before and re-wrapped it as I didn't consider it secure.  I managed to get the tickets confirmed and got out of the yard just after seven in the morning.  The load compromised two farm drops, one mill drop and two household drops.  All the drops except one household drop were completed before I ran out of hours and had to stop for lunch.  I had passed the access to the drop but since I was unsure of the access I found a parking place and ate my lunch while I checked the access on google maps via my phone.  Its surprising how often I use this system to check drops before I drive in and get myself into a difficult situation, its saved me difficulties more than once and provided me with the assurance that I could get to the drop, and more importantly get out, on even more occasions.  When I found the drop it was easy enough and there was ample turning room, oh happy driver, in and out in very little time.  Next job was to collect seven and a half tonnes of seed barley from Woodhead Seeds at Little Airmyn.  I won't bore you with grumbling about the staff in the offices there, I believe I have done so before.  The final three miles or so is down a single track road with very few passing places, the road had a flood bank for the river on one side and a few houses and fields on the other.  The road twists and turns as it follows the meanders of the river so it isn't possible to see the road very far ahead, if you meet another truck at least you can see it over the bank so one of the other can give way, but because of the flood bank its impossible to see cars approaching, great care is needed.  Why anyone should start a business which requires so many truck movements in such an inaccessible location is completely beyond me.  By the time I had collected my tickets and got to the loading point it was raining and blowing a gale, the only plus point of this is that the fork lift driver didn't like it any more than me so I got loaded and out quickly.  The office staff finally deigned to notice me and completed the paper work so I was able to get out of the place.  I had to deliver three and a half tonnes of the seed to three farm drops and the remainder into our store.  The farm drops went well enough considering the locations, the first a Lockton, the second at Newton Rawcliffe and the third near Cropton and I was back in the yard for half past five.  I wasn't able to get the remainder of the load off loaded so I left it for the morning.  All in all not a bad day.

11/02/14

Seed dressing again today, thank goodness I was under cover today.  It's been a miserable day here in North Yorkshire, rain and wind all day and now my wife tells me its snowing.  All I can say is thank goodness it's dark and I'm not able to see the stuff, I don't want to think about it.  But after my explanation for the process of seed dressing yesterday I thought some pictures would be good.  The first picture is of the output from the cleaner, I was dressing spring wheat at the time.

The second picture is an expanded view also showing the bagging off point.  

The last picture shows the waste output from the cleaning operation.  The output compromises small and broken grains, empty husks, weed seed and short pieces of straw.

Today was a little more difficult as I was working for two customers at two different farms and treating three different products.  The first was spring barley, easy enough as it was spring barley that I was working with yesterday, though it was a different variety the settings were the same.  The second grain was spring wheat, I had some changes to the settings of the cleaner but not big changes.  All went well and the wheat was completed before we stopped for lunch.  The last item for the day was three tonnes of spring beans.  This required a full change of the riddles a bypass of the de horner and a full readjustment of the air flow inside the cleaner.  Once the changes wee made I started with caution, beans are very heavy and if they are allowed to run through too fast the whole thing will grind to a halt.  When that happens everything has to be manually cleaned out before the machinery can be restarted.  This time everything went well and I built up the throughput carefully until I reached a satisfactory speed and we cleaned the whole lot with no stopping.  Yes! I was back at base by half past three, in good time to collect my tickets for tomorrow.  I'm back delivering again tomorrow, no dust for a day.  I am told that I will be seed dressing again on Thursday but anything can happen between now and Thursday.  

10/02/14

Back to my second for the first time this year, I operate one of the companies mobile seed dressers. If anyone asks why I always say it's because I didn't run fast enough when they asked for volunteers.  But, sadly, the truth is that I enjoy it, it's a change from my usual work, I meet different customers and get to places that I usually don't see.  For those who aren't familiar with agriculture I will explain.  If farmers save their own seed they often hire in an outside contractor to clean the grain, removing weed seed, chaff and broken grain, then treat the seed with a fungicide, insecticide or trace element, possibly all three.  The treated seed is then bagged into half or quarter tonne bags which are then used to load the seed drill.  This procedure can save the farmer around two hundred pounds per tonne of seed and if the farmer has done his job well he can get better quality seed than that bought from a merchant.  The seed cleaning equipment and the chemical treatment equipment is all contained within the curtains of a small truck and the whole procedure is done in one continuous operation.  Today was the first time out for the spring season, the job was for a regular customer at Shiptonthorpe in East Yorkshire.  The customer had booked sixteen tonnes and I ended up dressing seventeen tonnes.  There was only one hitch, one of the air rams didn't open correctly first time causing the mixer door to stay closed.  A little fiddling with a screwdriver soon got things working correctly and form that point on everything went without a hitch and I was done and on my way back by quarter to two.  The procedure isn't quick, the machine can work up to six tonnes an hour with good wheat and about five and a half tonnes an hour with good barley.  If I have to dress poor oats it can go down to half a tonne per hour, I hate dressing oats.  I don't expect this to be a busy spring because last autumn was dry and most farmers took advantage and drilled winter cereals.  Let's hope tomorrow goes as well as today.

07/02/14

Two drops and a collection to go. Parked up for lunch facing Eggbrough power station, not the best view in the world but at least it's not raining. The collection is seed corn from Woodhead Seeds. I hope the miserable office staff don't ignore me for half an hour this time. It's been a long week and I'm tired, my patience us at a low ebb.  I might just explode if they do it again. Let's hope!

06/02/14

A tedious day, very tedious. It took two and a half hours to get loaded this morning, thank goodness I only had one load. The load was only four farm drops and Carlton store, but at least it was a full load. First drop only four bags of wild bird food, but on this drop you either back in or back out, turning isn't possible.  I chose to back out, not a difficult task, about three hundred metres in all but the truck would sink in the soft ground if I got off the track. In and out, no problem. Carlton store and coffee then next farm drop. The customer is planning so forty bags came off by hand. Don't mind for this customer as they are nice people and are busy not lazy. Next drop a farm drop at Balne, only ten bags of hen food and all came off by forklift. Next bit was irritating, had to pass the entrance to my mill collection and go some fifteen miles or more out of my way for one gate.  Worst of all when I reached the drop at Whitgift the customer hadn't ordered the gate, don't know what had gone wrong with our system. Anyway back to the mill collection at Pollington. Didn't have to wait long to load, wedged the gate between the pallets as they were loaded. Out of the mill quickly enough, I have sometimes had to wait a couple of hours to load at this particular collection. Back to base and ready to unload first thing in the morning. Friday tomorrow!

04/02/14

Good bright day, Carlton store and area first, all easy enough and nothing out of the ordinary for the drops. Then a farm drop at Newport, Newport Brough in East Yorkshire. I hadn't done the drop before but after a phone call it was easy enough to find and even better, there was plenty of room and a forklift when I got there.  Next drop another farm near North Newbald, had to back in blind as its not possible to see down the drive, but again it was easy enough. The drop was all by hand but I was close enough so it was a long carry and the customer helped. The picture of snowdrops was taken on the exit from the farm. Last drop was at Kipplingcoats and another farm drop, but like most wold farms, this one is a big farm with ample room and a fork lift, spot on! :-) Back to base in daylight. :-)

05/02/14

Not a great destinations for lunch but it's where I found myself. Carlton store and two farm drops done and three drops and a collection to do.

03/02/14

Silly day, very silly day.  Started with two stable drops in Norton the first was a reasonably large drop for a stable drop, as usual there was no help, but I didn't expect it, this one is a genuinely busy stable yard.  The second was a small drop but they seem to have sold part of the yard and getting in now is an obstacle course in reverse.  But I got backed in and unloaded and out again, I only ran over a little of the grass, but it was either the grass or two parked cars.  Next was a collection from a wood yard in Pickering, what fun, six inches of mud.  The only good thing is that there is a reasonably hard base under the mud and so long as you don't drive onto the wrong bit of mud you can get out.  Back to base and load for my second load which included some of the timber that I had collected in Pickering.  (Next time I will take some pictures of the mud, its unbelievable.)  I knew there was going to be a problem with this load on Friday and I wasn't wrong.  When I got the tickets confirmed I was informed that I had to drop the wood first.  Firstly this was well out of my way and was the job I had planned to do last, secondly it meant that I was carrying weight further than necessary.  This leads to poor fuel economy and a worse ride, but its not mine to question why so I did as instructed.  Funny thing, when I reached the first drop the customer didn't seem to be desperate for the timber, strange!  Next drop was a farm drop just over the Humber bridge, two sheep troughs, I doubt if this was economic considering the bridge is a toll bridge but once again its not for me to question why.  Third drop was a regular farm drop, only twenty bags and not a long carry.  Last drop was Carlton store, about six tonnes that I had been carrying about all day.  All done easy enough and it was the only forklift I saw all day.  Back in the yard a little after five to find I am fifth in the queue to load tomorrow morning, great.  Tomorrow in a few short hours hope it's a more logical day.  I will have to start taking more photos, I really will.

31/01/14

The years only just started and the first month is finished.  Funny stuff, time, it can run very slowly or, as with this month, it can pass in a flash.  Anyway the last day of the month went as quickly as every day this month seems to have done.  First load was a full load to the Malton store, accomplished easily enough, there was even a cup of coffee for a thirsty driver, not bad at all.  Second load wasn't a full load but was a mill delivery to Gilberdyke, again easy enough but there was no coffee ;-(  Third load was a full load to Kirkbymoorside store this is usually an easy load but the road between base and Kirkbymoorside has been closed for the next eight weeks so we have to make a four mile detour, and that isn't the official diversion, that would be ten miles or more out of the way.  The real problem for me is that I have to make this detour twice a day as it is between my home and work.  Back to the delivery, all was accomplished easily enough, though Ned who was unloading got wet, it was raining and cold.  But again there was a coffee for a cold wet driver, isn't it amazing what you can get by looking wet and dejected!  Coffee drunk and back to base, collected my tickets for Monday, looks complicated but what the hell that's for Monday.  See you Monday.