…and I am not referring to Jan here
With planning permission foolishly approved by a local authority clearly distracted by a virus, we can now make a start on the building of our pole barn. I already had a working sketch scribbled on the back of a seed packet and critically we had acquired ten massively heavy 4 metre long telegraph poles. So heavy in fact it would require 3 or 4 strong fit people to lug them one by one the 200 hundred yards or so from the gate to the site. As a result they spent the winter just inside the gate knowing that only Desperate Dan would have any chance of stealing any of them.
“No problem” says Jim nonchalantly, “we’ll just tie them to the tractor”.
As it happens I had been stupid enough to pay “money for old rope” when I was at Prestatyn second hand market not so long back. No sooner than I had mentioned it, Jim cut a length off and was busy “splicing” one end. He said gruffly …
“I’m not even going to try to teach you how to do this”.
That was probably wise as it took me long enough to learn how to tie my shoe laces and I wasn’t ever accepted into the boy scouts due to my ‘previous’. As I protested about how on earth he could expect to move a huge lump of timber using just my little 17hp tractor and an old bit of rope, Jim mumbled something that I took at first to be in Gaelic but on reflection I think included the words “clove” “hitch” and “idiot” and was away to the tractor.
We first attached a mysterious multi-holed metal attachment to the tractor. Jim had insisted I buy this object, apparently commonly referred to as a “drawbar”, as it would “come in handy”. On his instruction, I dutifully backed the tractor up into position at the edge of our stockpile of poles. He started to tie the rope around three poles! My God! Surely he wasn’t going to attempt three poles at once! I swallowed hard and immediately started thinking of the cost of replacing the hydraulics on the tractor and repairing the damage caused when the poles crunched into the back. I quickly pushed those dark thoughts to the back of my mind as he insisted …
“Watch this closely so you’ll know how to tie it right in future. Tie it wrong and you’ll have to cut it off with a knife”.
I elected to video it because I find it hard enough to get my head around 2D problems, never mind 3D in motion. Here is the video so the next time you find the need to tie telegraph poles to a tractor you’ll know how its done.
Jim started her up and I stood well back and tried not to look. I needn’t have worried because the system worked like a charm and the logs happily trailed along behind the tractor like an old dog on a lead ambling behind its master. They were slung so low they slid across the grass with hardly a mark. We did the lot in 30 minutes and retired back to the pavilion for well deserved tea and cake.