willedoo

They're only just shells of engines. A lot of the parts have been stripped out.

It's a Continental, there's another one behind it somewhere under the rest of the stuff. I'll have to have a closer look as I haven't paid much attention to them for along time. Early 206 engines from memory, so probably O-520 engines.

Noddy's predicament is that they are potentially losing the votes of women voters and any of their men who are supportive of them on the abortion issue. He repeatedly says they have no plan to change the laws if they are elected. But he refuses to answer the question on whether he would allow a conscience vote for LNP members if Katter got his repeal bill up in parliament. In theory, if Labor cops a hiding and loses heaps of seats, the LNP will have a lot more numbers. If Noddy allows them a conscience vote, the bill could potentially receive heaps of LNP votes. Katter has four seats currently and one independent. It's probably unlikely to come to anything but refusing to answer questions about a conscience vote makes him look shifty, as if he's covering up the fact that he would allow a conscience vote if the bill was voted on. Added to that is his past coming back to bite him on the bum. When the abortion laws were decriminalised a few years back, he voted against the legislation. The two of them are having one more public debate before the election. The premier won the first one and should have no trouble in the second debate with this abortion issue front and centre.

I don't know what his game is, he's usually relatively sensible. Maybe his party is courting the religious vote thinking they might pick up another seat or two. I can't think of any seats where the bible vote would sway the result.

I searched a few folders and found a photo of mine. It's in pretty rough condition.

I found a photo of a 24D. The one I've got is definitely the same model, although nowhere near as good as this one in the photo.

This is my bottom shed, it's the worst one. It's still half full of cow dung and the old cow died almost two years ago. She used to camp in there when it was raining. The shed needs a total clean out to make better use of the space. There's a bit of old stuff in there like a vintage lawn mower and an old BSA side valve stationary engine that was on my grandfather's mower. I've even still got the 32 volt generator and 240 volt inverter in there that was our power plant when I was a kid. About half the shed is taken up by an old David Brown petrol engine tractor that hasn't run for years. I think it's an old 24D, circa 1950's.

On the subject of positives, I've been in salvager's heaven this last week. I just have to make sure I use all the gear so it doesn't turn into a hoarder's nightmare. I answered an ad on Facebook Marketplace for some secondhand bricks. They were solids, from the old local brickworks when they were operating. Solids are like hen's teeth now; brickworks that still make them often only do it to order and they are very expensive. I rolled up at the renovation site and picked them up, about 200 of them. The people doing the renovation are a nice young couple and it turns out they are house flippers. They usually end up with heaps of building demolition material that goes in the bin skip and would prefer it if someone could use it instead of throwing good material away. As it is, they found the right bloke for that. I went back in today for a couple of loads. I ended up with 100+ split face retaining blocks (retail $6 each) and a pile of good fill for the driveway holes and a few sheets of non structural ply. The second trip was more driveway fill plus a couple of 3 metre long 6x3" hardwood beams that had been used as lintels and a whole bunch of hardwood 3x2" short studs. They're only 2 metres long but will be ok for jack studs and the like. Tomorrow I'm going back for another short 6x3" beam, some more ply, a hardwood bench, some treated pine posts and there's heaps of pallets there if I want them. It might be ongoing as they do two or three houses per year. It's mutually beneficial; I get good recycled building material for free and they get the site cleaned up.

It's hard to stop those sisters. Mine is heading toward 76 and she still teaches dance classes.

The Super 70 was far from the safest tractor to drive. That hand clutch could be a bit jumpy. They work opposite to a dozer clutch; with the Chamberlain you push it forward to engage. It makes for a lot of fun reversing up to an implement to hook up.

We had a Super 70 with the 371 GM motor, one of the models before the bench seats. Just a drawbar, no three point linkage and you climbed on from the rear of the tractor. The seat was a single seat. It was the same as this one in the video:

I bet he's really p*ssed off with Robbie Katter saying he will sponsor a bill to criminalise abortion if the LNP win government. It's the sort of election issue they could have done without. Until this point it's been an easy run for the opposition leader repeating his four issue mantra but now some tricky questions are coming at him.

Poor old Noddy copped a bit of difficult questioning from journalists in Townsville. He seemed frustrated they weren't accepting his slogans as an answer. https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/1g15mwr/david_crisafulli_has_dodged_38_questions_in_a_row/

During WW1 my great uncle spent a bit of time on detachment to the Imperial Camel Corps when he was with the 5th. Light Horse Regiment. He hated it and really didn't have much time for camels and their Arab camel drivers. I don't know what they were doing, probably mounted infantry escort for the Camel Corps. By the tone of the letters he wrote back home, he was glad to get away from them.

What's the EX stand for - EXecutive or EXpensive?

Grand Caravan EX

I've heard that story a few years back about American companies exporting into Australian markets. They see Australia as the cream on top and charge higher prices here than they do anywhere else in the world. The tale I heard (on the radio I think it was) was that it was a bit of a standing joke among American traders.

Inside a very flash caravan:

I've got a big six metre long RSJ spanning across the centre of a 6m x 6m shed. It supports the skillion roof without having to have a centre pole, but the original idea was also to have a travelling chain block on it. That part never happened. It was meant to be a workshop but soon got filled full of stuff so it's best described as a storage shed these days. It seems to be the fate of all my sheds.

I can visualise how it would work. A similar principle to this tombstone lifter, except this one sets up and packs away on site.

I've seen some photos where they've had a small crane boom mounted on the rear of a ute. With a bit of skillful reversing of the trailer, they jacknifed it beside the load, picked up the load, then drove forward with the load suspended until the trailer straightened and was under the load. Then just plonk it on the trailer and drive off.

I've seen a few variations of this type that sets up at the back using the tow hitch as one of the support points. It would be portable, versatile and fairly easy to build.

Today I got one of those letters with the window that are obviously from the government. Whenever I see them in the letterbox my first thought is usually 'this can't be good', but as it turns out it was. It was a letter from the Queensland Revenue Office letting me know they'd granted me an exemption to paying annual land tax. The new unimproved property valuations had pushed most people into the land tax bracket. Normally you would have to apply for an exemption, but with an election this month, they are giving automatic exemptions to people who live on their properties and don't rent out part of it or conduct a business on the property. Once you have the exemption they will automatically grant it every financial year unless your circumstances change. The tax would have cost me $2,600 per year based on the current valuation.

You have my sympathy ome, fishnet stockings are expensive.