Put it down to experience 172

I know it looks like I'm an old moana, but it is a bit disappointing to realize you cannot do what you used to do only a few years ago. Put it down to experience, well this experience is not going to get any better with time, in fact it can only get woss. 

Lifes Time Clock You Cannot Beat

You wonder where the time, and all the years have gone,

They pass so quickly now, going one by one,

Season’s sequence come in turn, no control have we,

Wind and rain and sunshine, day and night decree.

Snow and frost in winter, new start for New Year,

Spring and summer showers, and then the sun appear,

Autumn fruits and berries, for the birds to eat,

Repeat with little change, life’s time clock cannot beat.

Owd Fred

Suppose it gives you more time to look back on the things you wished you had done, and just had not the time to do, at one time you would start something and rush head long into it hell for leather, but right now the only thing I can get stuck into is writing, and that's slow, which is probably just as well as me thinkin is just about the same speed.

We are lucky in UK in that we do not get the extremes of weather like we hear of in many other parts of the world, as its weather that controls most of what we do as farmers. My old mother used to "do" the weather for us all of her life, I wrote this story about it a years or so ago  http://yewsfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/weather-forcast-by-owd-freds-mother.html

Father, he was a truly handy man, there were not many jobs that he would not tackle, and when he did a job it was made to last, strong smart and professional lookin, the only thing that he was absolute rubbish at was welding.  He bought an oxy acetylene gas welder with the pipes gauges and bottles, it was before the electric welders got popular, he had seen the blacksmith welding and decided to buy a set and try for himself. It looked easy, but there is a fine balance to be struck between heat and cookin holes into the metal ya trying to weld, and applying the rod metal at the right time to produce an even weld. He had had no tuition and did not weld often enough to become proficient so, he did not improve with age.

Wood work was his favorite pastime in retirement, and in his garage/workshop he gathered any old useful timber he could find about and stored it in the roof members of his garage plus some more back at the farm. The oak was always the "heart of oak" he said the wood worm eventually get into the sap wood which is softer, ash and yew was also gathered as and when he came across it.

This is the clock he made for me. 

Never had to use a walking stick

 up to now, but i Got plenty 

standing by

From this timber he made four grandfather clocks, one for each of us four lads, four kitchen tables, a large welsh dresser, stools, wooden farmyards for the kids and also got into wood turning. These were made over twenty years of retirement, towards the end we had to stop him using his circular saw and a planing machine as he was getting to unsteady on his feet. 

But he did enjoy his retirement, the only thing was he did worry if anything went wrong on any of the farms that we lads were working at. He always told us that we had got to learn from our own mistakes , though he could not help trying to guide us from making them in the first place. I have no doubt that he had had his fair share over his lifetime farming.        

I remember Fathers Plumbing

In the house at the Beeches, when we first moved in,

No hot tap for water, only a cold tap from the tank within,

This was pumped up from the well, that’s also in the house,

Opening a valve on pipe, sent water for cattle’s thirst to douse.

First thing he did was fit back boiler, to the kitchen range,

With pair of pipes flow and return, to cylinder exchange,

The pipes they were of one inch, galvanised iron pipe,

Threaded to make the joints, fittings screwed up tight.

Under floor boards to the bathroom, to the cylinder,

Pipes to bath and basin, this it made him ponder,

Also to the back kitchen, where we washed our hands,

And mother did the washing up, at deep sink where she stands.

Fired up and tested with water getting hot,

Lasted years and years till pipes with lime scale blocked,

Eventually replaced with copper, and new oil boiler applied,

Big enough to take some rad’s, old house inside it dried.

Owd Fred

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
---Unknown.