willedoo

The other day I had a test run winching a small log up to the ute with the winch cable running over that big roller. The obvious happened - without a roller ramp or a lifting boom the log winches up too close to the ute back and catches.

The other option is to make up a longer roller ramp and winch the logs straight on to the back of the old farm ute in the above photo. It cuts out one articulation but the tray is a lot higher than the deck of a trailer and the height presents a few challenges.

The rollers I have are probably around 500mm long and 60mm diameter. They'd probably do the job. I've also got a few sets of big rollers (photo of one below) but they're heavy and a bit of an overkill. I'll find some other use for them. I picked them up years ago from the local dump in the good old days when the dumps weren't manned and people could take home whatever they liked. I think they were from a gravel crushing plant originally.

I've had another thought bubble on the subject of building a log jinker similar to that in the opening post of this thread (screenshot below). I'm inclined to build the rear section as it would be a good way to deal with that end of a log and with minor design adaptations could be handy for some other jobs as well. As far as the front section goes, my thoughts currently are that while it's a nifty toy, building it is a lot of work and expense for something that's fairly restricted to a specific use. So here's the prototype plan C. I need to buy a cheap unregistered 6x4 single axle trailer for carting stuff around my block. You can pick them up for around $300. It could also be used to support and tow the front log section. With the electric winch pulling from the front of the trailer, the log could be winched up a temporary roller ramp that runs from the rear of the trailer to the ground. I've got plenty of rollers on hand to build a cheap ramp. I can see it as a much easier and more versatile option.

Does the Jackey's Marsh festival still happen or is it history?

I thought it would be expected behaviour around there.

One thing I've noticed over the last week is that the days have warmed up, even hot some days, but at night there's been a beautiful cool, almost cold, breeze blowing from the north east. I assume it's the built up ground heat from the day rising at nightfall and drawing the cool air from the ocean in under it.

Autumn is good because there's something to look forward to. The weather is becoming more stable, it's getting cooler and the mosquitos (or flies if you're west of the range) are getting fewer. Spring is the reverse. It can be pleasant weather but things are about to get a lot worse. Spring always has you wondering if that cool, pleasant day is going to be the last one for the next few months.

It's hard to see any peace deal being made with the Ukraine/Russia war. Trump is tight lipped on details of his fantastical plan to end the war in one day if elected. Ukrainian surrender of all Russian occupied territory would be a bare minimum there. The Finnish president in a Fox interview has named four conditions for peace in Ukraine. The first is all 1991 territorial borders returned. The second is security guarantees where Ukraine is accepted into NATO or receives similar specific guarantees. The third condition is punishment for those responsible, and the fourth is compensation. Those conditions amount to a total surrender by Russia. They would only agree to that if NATO tanks rolled into Moscow.

The last two or three summers in S.E.Qld have been relatively mild, at least here where I live. The worst summers I can remember were, from memory I think 2016 and 2017. It was either that or 2017, 2018. Both those years had short winters, 6 days in the one year and about 10 days in the other. Also no spring or autumn to speak of.

Sometimes some states are less competent than the federal government. A new state won't necessarily add to government incompetence in Australia. If it had good government it would improve the national average.

I just read through that link and Land for Wildlife started in Victoria over 40 years ago and came to Queensland in 1998.

It's both amusing and sad how hypocritical our council is when it comes to environmental protection. They have all the rules and regulations but it's closing the gate after the horse has bolted. We've had massive environmental destruction here over the years and council has been the major cause of it. For sure, the developers have done the actual dirty work but they've been enabled by council. In their greed for growth, council has encouraged, approved and permitted the mess it is now. I'm glad I've owned my place for the last 36 years as I've been able to preserve it as best it could be. Under other ownership it likely would have been converted to bitumen and brick houses years ago. In the immediate area, there's only my place and one neighbouring property plus the lower sections of three other adjoining properties that provide any original habitat for the animal life. I'm not sure how widespread it is but in S.E. Queensland we have a setup called Land for Wildlife. It's a voluntary thing administered by councils and you can join up and register your property. They don't force anything on landowners and there's benefits like being able to get subsidies to remove noxious and invasive weeds. A couple of neighbours are members. I'm not but I've started to look into it. To be fair to council, councils change over the years and the current one isn't the same council that has caused past destruction. The current council is certainly a bit better than past councils when it comes to environmental protection. https://www.lfwseq.org.au/

As far as unregistered buildings go, I have the feeling that council turns a blind eye to everything that existed before they started using satellite imagery. In the rural hinterland areas, there's a big percentage of unregistered buildings built years ago.

My favourite temperature is around 16 to 17 degrees which can be a bit of a problem when you live in Queensland. At least we get it in winter for a while.

With our mob it's more building code compliance. Vegetation is fairly well controlled here by council and state government. I forget what they call my local council zoning but it's a green zone affair. With that zoning, you can clear 600 sq.metres to build a house but that's the limit. Council and state government rules conflict a bit. According to state government, most of my place is koala habitat but there's four areas that were previously cleared that are exempt. According to state government there's no restriction on clearing regrowth on those four areas, but council would have different ideas. It's a bit of a legal grey area.

One thing I don't like about local government is their trumped up big brother attitude towards the shire residents. Our local council employs two people full time to study satellite images of our properties. That's their only job, to make sure we're 'complying'. They study one property at a time and compare it to the stored images from a year or two before. Nothing better to do than spy on people obviously. It would be good if they just got out of our lives. I can't see the sky falling in if someone on a rural property puts up a chook house or garden shed without a very expensive permit.

There's been a push in north Queensland for many years to form a new state. I doubt the government would ever allow it as a lot of the revenue comes from the mining, agriculture and tourism in north Queensland.

In southern Queensland we had the first of the major thunderstorms for the season roll through late yesterday. It's warmed up quite a bit in the last few days. Winter here is beautiful weather; it can't be faulted. It gets cool enough to light a fire at night and you get a chance to wear a beanie and cool weather gear, but without the finger numbing and nose stinging cold. Now we're approaching the time of year where we have to pay the price for having such perfect weather for half the year. Sometimes it can be reasonable but often it's five months of heat, humidity, mosquitos and continual damaging storms. The BOM is predicting hotter and wetter conditions than normal for the next three months. Last summer they were totally wrong. They'd predicted a hotter and drier summer than average and we ended up with one of the wettest summers ever. I think their prediction was based on an El Nino event which didn't eventuate.

Maybe 'named for' is more correct.

Also Queensland, named after Queen Victoria.

What about: NSW - Mardi Gras Land NT - Rock Land WA - Canola Land Victoria - Cup Land Qld and Tasmania could share - We don't want any more interstate migrants here Land SA - ?

A good reminder. One job I need to do is to run the firefighting pump and make sure it's ok and ready to roll. Petrol goes off fairly quick these days so I've hatched a plan to periodically drain the firefighting pump's tank and refill with fresh petrol. The older stuff I can re-use in an unregistered petrol Triton I run around the property in. Another preparation is to make sure there's spare petrol on hand at all times.

King's Birthday is today in Queensland. Maybe it's the only state with the holiday in October. Our Labour Day is in May.