lapwing

You need plenty of decent card wads: over the felt wad, and over shot if using rto. I find a word with local publican produces a stack of new beer mats which are just the right material..... Oh and dont be tempted to use them rabbiting in stubble fields next harvest!

PES T12 on my .270. Stainless and partly strippable, but quite long. Does the job, and tames it into the bargain

.270 is much maligned; stick a decent sized moderator on the end and it becomes a very capable pussycat. Failing that, have a few shots with something like a .505, then most uk calibres seem tame

Just seen this topic. Presumably he is standing for election in a "rotten borough" in Norfolk, and may return if tomorrow's result goes his way? Or will maybe be too busy if he ends up as a coalition cabinet minister for the rights of ethnic minorities.

Fortunately "next to nowt" is no longer applicable to sheep. At last the price has begun to reflect the dire state of the uk sheepmeat industry as so many people have got out of sheep owing to the dire returns. There is now a bit of a shortage of supply so things are looking a bit better. We sent some old cull ewes to slaughter 3 weeks ago; averaged £47/head nett. You need to be thinking of the value of ewes being kept for breeding as being considerably more than that, and round here the casualty disposal charge is around £25/head. Makes a robust enclosure round the feeders seem cheap.... (How about "upside down" stocknet?)

Bit off on timing maybe but any chance it might have been a young roebuck snapping the posts, with opportunistic thievery by the subterranean brigade after the event? Sounds to have been a tiresome and expensive nights activity. (I wont suggest building a henge round the copse and wiring it in until next grockle season)

Without wanting to get into the rights or otherwise of stopping Tabatha from Twitching, may I just point out that the internal layout of the damn things is a bit different to your average quarry species. A .22 hollowpoint may well not do the job if you treat it like a bunny. Now a 12 bore at 30 feet however does not allow much room for discussion, or preferably use a cage trap so you can check for collars first and be sure of no runners. I think that the earlier advice of 3 s is to be recommended

This whale solution probably seemed a good idea at the time too; sorry if it has been linked before

Surely not sour grapes Baldrick? I can see you are still in denial about your ancestors, but giving away trade secrets about the henges on a public forum will not endear you to the grockle milking industry. Just because your illustrious predecessors made a slight miscalculation regarding the high tide mark when siting "Seahenge" within sight of Harnsers sand dunes is no reason to sulk about ours. Midnight drilling now tricky for us technophobes without satnav/autosteer as too dusty to see the drill in the lights. Don't think me ungrateful for the sun at last, but even we could do with a drop of rain now!

Oh dear. I seem to have inadvertently touched a raw nerve. First may I remind our fenland dwelling friends of the old adage that "size isn't everything" and anyway maybe over the next couple of ice ages you might get lucky and score more than muddy sediment & detritus. I thought sand dunes were to be found in the western desert Harnser? Not having a coast here I will have to take your word for it; I presume it is the incomers who have problems as the aforementioned inter-digital webbing must help with traction on those nasty steep inclines. Now Baldrick, it appears a little history lesson is in order: why do you think our illustrious forebears created such structures as Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and Avebury to name but a few of the better known ones? Surprisingly enough we can occasionally grow fine malting barley over here (it is just the harvesting of it in the rain without loosing all germination that is the challenge); evidently the archaeologists are a little narrow minded and have not realised that the desire to look over ones neighbours hedges is as old as agriculture itself, and in the days before the urge to put ones hard earned cash into large items of shiny agricultural toys one had to make do with the odd henge. Now I do not dispute that your average quadtrac has probably got a better sound system, but I doubt it will be more than a rusty chinese built washing machine in fifty years time, let alone a few millenia. Just for the record I no longer take the Farmers Weekly; all those colour classified ads with "£poa" got so depressing. Took to writing to the "Times" instead until it became a tabloid (no good for wrapping up animal entrails any more); now I just wander around the vale mumbling incoherently to myself and going out ploughing after dark when my little tractor looks just as grand as the big boys by the time you switch on all the work lights.

Percieved wisdom down here is that Norfolk is flat (or so I was told once by someone who claimed to have an uncle who had been there by accident many years ago). I am sure we have equal numbers of hairy toothed rellies here in the remote shires, but at least we have hills to sit on. How else can you admire the occasional tramlining error in ones neighbours drilling, or have a little warm glow when you see that the latest act of vandalism by the little green space alien crop circle creators has for once appeared on someone elses field.... Now I am sure that our eastern counties friends are happy with their little undulations, but they know no different. Perhaps that is why they all have such massive tractors as it is the only way to get a view?

Maybe my issues with reconstituted meat scraped off the floor are more to do with the contents of my wellie treads adding a significant alternative flavour. Have to put in a plug for beef farmers sometimes!

Not hard to make a wooden box; then add an "inner liner" & partitions a bit like a wine case out of more plywood. The liner needs to be jointed together so no bolts or screws from the hinges etc can conduct heat straight to the inside.

Bambiburger for me anytime, but if you use beef for the meat use decent well hung minced beef, none of this reclaimed muck from the cutting room floor. The old saying of silk purses from sows ears applies equally well to any food; rubbish in = rubbish out!

All very clever I am sure. Now what happens when they get it a little bit wrong and you have a wounded elk disappearing into a wood at 900 yards, especially in that terrain? Unless you are starving on a deserted island, I respectfully suggest the place for such long distance shooting is on the target range where the price of a pulled shot is paid by dented pride and not an injured animal.

At last. We finally finished with the combine this afternoon on some spring rape. Won't be sad to see the back of that job for ten months.

130 grain. Load my own so cost varies depending on powder availability etc.

We are hoping to get on the wheat again tomorrow; down to a day or so on it, then beans & spring osr next week. Saw 4 foxes in the last field, but they all sneaked out one corner; time for the lamp when we finally get done combining. I have been trying to figure out how to put up a picture for Baldrick's benefit, but my screen looks different to the one on the "how to" bit of this site... any suggestions as I dont seem to get the "browse" section to start with?

We use it on all arable crops; high ph chalk soils "lock up" a lot of micronutrients so you have to add a little bit as a fertiliser spray directly onto the plant as the roots have difficulty getting it

Still got a "20" and a 35x, but dont get to use them much nowadays. (Proobably 25 years since the 20 moved come to think of it) We get by with smaller kit than you big arable boys; still using the plough & press on a good half of our acreage, and only got a 3m drill. Ever heard the tale of the tortoise and the hare? More to the point it is not cost effective for us to re-equip with high hp min till kit on a relatively small acreage (only 500 arable) so have to be content with dribbling over the fence at the quadtracks & 30' headers! Our tractors are around the 125-150 bracket so not too heavy, and can still do the forage jobs, pull the tree planter etc. I seem to remember the "good old days" involved draughty noizy canvas cabs, no heater, no radio, no airsprung seat, and kit on the back so small that progress over anything bigger than a 10 acre field took an age....so no nostalgia here. PS Baldrick we eat our oxen nowadays. No pto shaft or 12v feed for all the modern electrics.

Credit where it is due, our inspection was specific thorough and detailed, but he did not demand unnecessary leaping through hoops and was gone in 90 minutes.... makes you wonder what they were looking for... Ah well, back to looking for gaps in the rain. Down to a day's wheat on one farm, and 4 here; spring beans and spring rape not ready yet. To hear some of you discussing a drought season is almost like a different year!

At last. Finished the spring barley and back on to wheat. One little cloud is the nice man from the RPA who rang yesterday afternoon wanting to come and do a sheep inspection this morning; he offered to come before we started with the combine, but happily deferred until tomorrow when I pointed out that we would be doing a road move at 0530, so it would have to be in the dark... Glad that they are so in touch with farming work patterns.

As Baldrick says, for a universal rifle in the UK the venerable .270 is hard to beat. People always go on about bullet damage, but surely that is the whole idea of a rifle whatever the calibre. If you put it in the right place you will probably break one rib in and 3 out at worst, so not much different to a .243 on a roe. Sure if you get it a bit wrong and hit a soild bone things get messy, but at least your quarry isn't likely to be going anywhere much. It has the legs for foxes at decent ranges, and plenty of poke if you want to tackle the larger UK deer species. I am not saying that a .243 is not big enough for any bambi in the country, just that I prefer the greater margin for avoiding a non fatal wound that the .270 has. It shoots flat & fast, is not a beast if you fit a moderator, and if you are on a tight budget they are cheap secondhand due to their pre moderator reputation. Good luck with whatever you get.

Another vote for the ridley system; we found the net type a pain as if the battery goes flat every fox or other "large ground mammal" will entangle itself and rip the fence to pieces by the morning. Dont forget the earth whatever fence type you choose, as they all use a ground return. Get a decent metal spike and drive it well in the ground to attach the energiser earth lead. Probably not an issue in your neck of the woods, but in a very dry year (whatever that was) we sometimes used the middle strand as an earth to keep in truculent ewes. If deer are around they can cause quite a bit of damage when they do not see it in the dark. You need to keep it free of shorts; small steel standards are easy to move onto adjoining ground, or if permanent maybe spray a strip under it (what are your regs re spraying alongside watercourses though)? Dont forget that most wood will conduct at the voltages you will be using so unless you get posts specifically for electric you will need insulators to carry the wire. Have you any contacts in the mobile phone mast world? You might be able to get a few batteries when they change out the ups backup ones which should have some life in them. We find the "leisure" type 12v ones last about 2 years as long as you dont let them go right down between charges.