What do these turf cutters really want? (1 Viewer)

[therealjohnny]

this is half my take a couple of weeks ago before it was footed.

Cheap as chips and much better for us all than shipping oil from half way around the world to keep the ole generators going/ I'd say a lot less frogs were killed too.
1 tractor laid it out, and the rest was a bunch of back breaking work, by myself, to get it to a point where it can be stuck into a burner to heat mah home, hot water, dry my clothes etc.

how do you keep track of the amount you've cut? Do you have a....turf accountant?

 

[shower another shower]

Sure, it's cut and laid out between two shticks by the farmer. Ye gotta turn it, foot it, load it and take it home yourself.

 

[therealjohnny]

man I hated working on the bog so much. Never again. I hope the rural folk destroy them all! The I'll have the last laugh

 

[D0njo]

man I hated working on the bog so much. Never again. I hope the rural folk destroy them all! The I'll have the last laugh

It was a bit of a laugh, hard feckin work though. I went straight in to a drainage ditch once, thought I was going to drown but my brother pulled me out. I was also run over by a small trailer full of turf that was being towed. There were a bunch of us hanging onto the sides to get where ever it was we were going and I slipped off. IT WAS A FUCKIN DEATH TRAP. So we should send all Dublin people to work the bogs.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I hated the bog when I was a young lad and my father forced me to go but I think I'd probably quite enjoy it now. I had a summer job on a bog one year too where there were solid walls of peat about two feet high that had to be dried out instead of the nice flat rows like in showers photo. Nightmare stuff.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

hated working with wet/semi wet turf. used to love it when we got to the footing/clamping stage. our neighbours also were our turf neighbours a few years. they had about 18 kids and massive turf fights used to break out when the dad wasnt looking. good times. used to find loads of these in the bog too..

 

[therealjohnny]

Speaking of turf wars...one of our neighbours began cutting into our banks(!) When my Dad asked them to stop he was met with a barrage of screamed abuse along the lines of "what would you know about turf, sitting on your arse in America!"....he had lived in America for a while ...20 years previously

Which sums up what I hate about Donegal

and bogs

and boggers

 

[ann post]

hated working with wet/semi wet turf. used to love it when we got to the footing/clamping stage. our neighbours also were our turf neighbours a few years. they had about 18 kids and massive turf fights used to break out when the dad wasnt looking. good times. used to find loads of these in the bog too..

at wakes it was traditional to hand out those, and then it was also traditional to dump the ones you didnt use somewhere.

Speaking of turf wars...one of our neighbours began cutting into our banks(!) When my Dad asked them to stop he was met with a barrage of screamed abuse along the lines of "what would you know about turf, sitting on your arse in America!"....he had lived in America for a while ...20 years previously

Which sums up what I hate about Donegal

and bogs

and boggers

booooouuurnnnss.

 

[ann post]

hated working with wet/semi wet turf. used to love it when we got to the footing/clamping stage. our neighbours also were our turf neighbours a few years. they had about 18 kids and massive turf fights used to break out when the dad wasnt looking. good times. used to find loads of these in the bog too..

at wakes it was traditional to hand out those, and then it was also traditional to dump the ones you didnt use somewhere.

Stony Grey Soil
O stony grey soil of Monaghan
The laugh from my love you thieved;
You took the gay child of my passion
And gave me your clod-conceived.

You clogged the feet of my boyhood
And I believed that my stumble
Had the poise and stride of Apollo
And his voice my thick tongued mumble.

You told me the plough was immortal!
O green-life conquering plough!
The mandril stained, your coulter blunted
In the smooth lea-field of my brow.

You sang on steaming dunghills
A song of cowards' brood,
You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,
You fed me on swinish food

You flung a ditch on my vision
Of beauty, love and truth.
O stony grey soil of Monaghan
You burgled my bank of youth!

Lost the long hours of pleasure
All the women that love young men.
O can I stilll stroke the monster's back
Or write with unpoisoned pen.

His name in these lonely verses
Or mention the dark fields where
The first gay flight of my lyric
Got caught in a peasant's prayer.

Mullahinsa, Drummeril, Black Shanco-
Wherever I turn I see
In the stony grey soil of Monaghan
Dead loves that were born for me.

Which sums up what I hate about Donegal

and bogs

and boggers

booooouuurnnnss.

 

[therealjohnny]

Probably the only poem that resonated me with me in school..

still does

 

[magicbastarder]

If you fancy a trip to the countryside to harvest some fruit in a couple of months I'm sure you'd be very welcome

what part of the country?

i'd love a few acres. minimum of three for trees - lots of hazel for coppicing, anyway.

 

[Squiggle]

County Carlow

The forestry is long term, mostly deciduous (oak, beech, ash, maple, spanish chestnut) with some slower growing conifers.

A properly managed coppice would be very cool though.

 

[Space]

at wakes it was traditional to hand out those, and then it was also traditional to dump the ones you didnt use somewhere.


booooouuurnnnss.

I think they buried the ones that were used.

 

[shower another shower]

Ye don't touch another mans turf! Rule number one.

 

[magicbastarder]

The forestry is long term, mostly deciduous (oak, beech, ash, maple, spanish chestnut) with some slower growing conifers.

A properly managed coppice would be very cool though.

how long till he expects to harvest the first ones? and are they going to be felled singly, or as a clear cut?

 

[Squiggle]

Thinning, of the shorter term plantings - Ash and some of the conifers - as well as some of the "non-optimal" (crooked, damaged) slow growers, should take place in the next 20-30 years (the planting is about 15 years old now). So probably not in my father's lifetime. Our children and grandchildren will be the main beneficiaries, provided we can successfully keep the farm together for them to inherit. Hopefully the trees will be felled over time, as thinning is required to maintain best conditions. The chestnut and maples will produce "harvest" which will be beneficial too.

In the meantime they're providing habitat for wild deer and other wildlife and even attracted a buzzard who lived there and kept the grey squirrel population down until it was shot by one of the aforementioned bad neighbours.

 

[Psycho Punk]

Thinning, of the shorter term plantings - Ash and some of the conifers - as well as some of the "non-optimal" (crooked, damaged) slow growers, should take place in the next 20-30 years (the planting is about 15 years old now). So probably not in my father's lifetime. Our children and grandchildren will be the main beneficiaries, provided we can successfully keep the farm together for them to inherit. Hopefully the trees will be felled over time, as thinning is required to maintain best conditions. The chestnut and maples will produce "harvest" which will be beneficial too.

In the meantime they're providing habitat for wild deer and other wildlife and even attracted a buzzard who lived there and kept the grey squirrel population down until it was shot by one of the aforementioned bad neighbours.

Fuck this! If hes shooting on your land or shooting into your land then the Gardai should deal with it.

The local Superintendent is responsible for the issuing of permits for firearms. Why not go straight to him/her and complain. Problems regarding misuse of licensed guns in the area will rebound directly on him. Unless hes very stupid or deranged the super would have to follow up your complaints. Anyone who is so casual in their use of a gun could easily shoot someone accidentally.

 

[Psycho Punk]

Ye don't touch another mans turf! Rule number one.

Yeah, tell them to sod off.

 

[magicbastarder]

In the meantime they're providing habitat for wild deer and other wildlife and even attracted a buzzard who lived there and kept the grey squirrel population down until it was shot by one of the aforementioned bad neighbours.

i'd have shot the deer, not the buzzard!

 

[therealjohnny]

Shooting a deer is like killing a beautiful man