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Snaps in the Boonies here. No rain for 60 days now. This season could be the worst I've experienced since rooting down 17 years ago. Plenty of the wet stuff down south. Ponds are holding their own though. Can't complain. Number one has dropped about 15 inches. The ponds further up the gentle slope are doing OK. The water filling them is not that much - about 20 thousand litres a day - but it appears to be keeping up with evaporation. At least for ponds 5, 6 and 7. Moved the water pipe from pond 7 to pond 4 though. First had to service the waterway, and put the top ring in. That some dippo had reversed his pick-up into and smashed the original. Just enough gap for the water to flow easily. At the business end. All done. Mildred says to run the water as it is until this w/e coming, then revert back to number 7. Sounds good to me. The farm next to us held a big chicken gala last week. About 30 vehicles and 100 plus people attended. Plenty of encouragement, for the chickens. A wagon selling food and drink did a good trade on site. Chickens waiting their turn to perform. Only stayed for a couple of minutes to take the pics. I was assured by the wife that it was all just fun. No gambling what-so-ever took place. Only gamboling. I was certainly relieved to hear that. Went to Udon's IO for my 12 month visa a week or so ago. Everything went smoothly. Afterwards I met up with a gentleman I had met through the AN and TT threads. Spent a great couple of hours chatting over food and drink in the MAKRO restaurant. On the way to Udon I called into Sum Sao Wat to see build progress. Looked into the ground floor. Didn't go in as last time I was constantly hitting me head. That's what yer get being 2 metres tall, and the place is built to accommodate Thais. New flight of stairs leading up. And down of course. I didn't like them one bit, and used the wooden ones. The 'going' was just too steep for me. Back wall was built up. Gold everywhere. And it's real stuff. Not paint. Windows in place. Sad to note that the smashed items outside had not been fixed. Only requires a blob of cement and a lick of paint. Rice harvest last month. 27 sacks for us. had to give two to the thresher for the work. Farm next door. The Buddha farm used the harvester. Work done. Unload the rice and get the harvester onto the carry-away truck. We finished up with 54 sacks in storage. 8 more to come from a late sower; for a total of 62 sacks. About half-half Thai rice and Isaan.. The village square put to good use. Buffs will not move for Mrs snaps on her leccymobile. It was the big day. Float the little boats out across the pond, and make a wish. There was a big do about 6k away from us. Mildred, the Mrs, her sister Pook and Wow were all keen. Unfortunately I had a hairache. And couldn't make it. Mildred took charge of the snapping. The Mrs doing the honours. The offering will soon get the feel of water. Ladies head straight to the food tent. Mrs Snap's favourites. Traditional dancing ladies entertaining the masses. And then, the gong was sounded, and it was all over to the lake. Family shot. Mrs Snaps, Wow and Pook. +++++ Pool are running away with it. Ten points clear. Just hand over the title now I say. City playing relegation footy. Good win for the Owls yesterday. Change at the top of The Championship. Blades in control. Two of my old local clubs won through to the 3rd round of the FA Cup. Orient and Dagenham n Redbridge. Now! Who would you like in the 3rd rounds chaps? I'm sure the 'O's would settle for The Irons, while D & R would like Man City at home. Be sure to get through there. Barca lose at home. I'm not one for women's footy. It's alright i guess; alongside ladies cricket and boxing. I much prefer mud wrestling ad beach volleyball. But!! I have taken to one team in particular. No! Not Bradford, Burnley or Forest. I'm now a big fan of Long Itchington WFC. A small village near Brum, with less than 70 ladies of football age to pick their team from. I'll send you my love and kisses. Go to it girls. And that's not all. Right in the middle of their village is a delightful pond. When I go there, I'll take me rattle and some bread. +++++ Been right down in the dumps recently. The Mrs has been giving me hell. Yak, yak for this; and yak yak for that. Can't seem to do anything right now-a-days. One morning last week I didn't even get a cup of Rosy. Mildred says to keep calm and in a few years everything will be OK. Can't wait for the day. Three deliveries today. another water pump, and controller, for me next water project. A 20kg sack of dog biscuit and a solar lamp for the farm. As I type there is a big commotion outside with a herd of buffaloes. They are taking over. Mildred is outside with the camera. Pics next post. The village had a big party. Dancing girls and everything. Also two processions through the village. Have lots of pics to sort out. Mildred is off school today. Also Thursday and Friday this week. She don't know why. I'm not unhappy about it one little bit. When Mildred is at home her mum is not so volatile towards me. Went to pay the land tax last week. At the same place as they float the boats (above). Got 'fined' 89 baht for late pay. Number 4 market on Wednesday. Have a couple of things to get. Will probably get a koi ot two. And yesterday we (Mildred and I) saw the black long-tail carp for the first time on 6 months. Also on Thursday I'll pick up some PVC pipework and fittings for the new solar project. Still have it in mind to grow some Durians. in the area where the rice is grown, I reckon we could grow about 40. They would need water every day. So I've got it in mind to used a 1000 litre tank on stilts and pump water from the pond to fill it. I'll put in an overflow, that will run back into the pond. The idea being that the extra 'umph' from the water tank (2 metres up) will allow water to get to all the Durian trees at the same time. I'm working on it. Fell into deep water with a mod on AN. Posted 'misinformation' I was told. Only upset me for a week though. I've cheered up a bit today. Thanks for visiting people. Take care out there. Robert. Miss Lala. Lttle Jack Wagger. Mimi.

Snaps in the boonies here. It's Sunday the 15th of December 2024, No rain for 75 days. Plenty down south though. Some pics of the number 4 market. Kois for Mildred's favourite pond. Into number 7 pond. Still planning to plant the Durians. Checked at the plant section for the prices. Monthong variety is between 200 and 300 baht a tree. I'm gonna plant around 40. Found these little bundles of fun. Couldn't resist getting a dozen. I had the job of looking after the goodies while the wife went to get the car. One of the two solar lamps at the rear of the house. New hammocks at the farm. Great for relaxing after a hard half hour feeding the fish. Mrs Snaps treated herself to a cart for the farm. Don't know where she got the dosh from. Could it possibly be the money that slipped out of me pocket a while back? No! Well perhaps. Don't like that poly money one little bit. Bring back paper I say. Jealous I was. So next time at the PVC shop, on the 2022, I bought myself a cracking 10 metre tape. A bargain at 120 baht. A Monqiqi. Well known for their quality tools in China. Even has a little place for putting a drop of oil. Pretty accurate too. Nut scavengers at work. A couple of ladies gathering up any old nuts. I'm told they are great for getting fires going. That little bit of residual oil does the trick. Nut cut. 850 kg of big nut bunches. This lot from just half the farm. Getting there! All secured with a net; for the first time. Usually use posts and rope. This is better though. Don't wan't a 20kg bunch of nuts running loose on the 2022 highway. Price had dropped a little to 7-80 baht a kilo. This wholesaler also buying in cassava. Some of the salt-beds, to the north of the town, that have put Ban Dung on the world map. The sign is up. Building coming along. Will be buying stuff there in a year or so. What is that? Looks like a bamboo stake with a plastic bag on top. It's the special spot for the water drillers to so their bizzo. They arrived PDQ too. Told me two days and they arrived that afternoon. Supplies arrive on cue. The two topping-out pipes. 700 baht each. Heavy duty. water come. Job done. Pack away. Next job for us, me and Kun, was to prepare to cap the well. A solid 80cm concrete plate was the first thing put in place. Have so spread the load as wide as possible. Then a ring. Then a bit of concrete. The well head is capped. A bit more to do, but that can be done later. Me and Kun marked out for the solar base. Next job will be to secure everything for the posts, that will hold the solar panels. (pics next post) Meanwhile; my job to get all the deep well pipes ready. The female ends are cut off and a screw filling glued in place. Never been lucky in raising ducklings. Out of the 12 bought, we have just 6 now. But they are looking good. Mind you, they all looked good when I got them. But 50% success. Not bad for Isaan. The plan is to make a duck-house, and fix it onto one of the floating frames. Then, when the time comes, the ducks will be secure in their home; in the middle of the pond, and be able to go and come as they please. Around the New Year for that I reckon. So much other stuff to be getting along with, Cats doing what cats do. Scratch anything that is softer than their claws. Mrs Snaps moaning and groaning. Good job we have plenty of tape. About once a week I give the 4 palms at the farm house a really good water. The ground is hard in these areas and will just run away. So I use my special spiker to get the water 3 inches down. The kids from the village school were on the move. Lovely to see. Very disciplined, incognito marching. No music. No school uniforms. No chanting. Princess leading the way. +++++ Footy question of the week. What two clubs, from the same town, scored 37 goals between then in the WFA? You guessed it. Rangers and Celtic. 13 for the Ghirls. And 24 (twenty-four) for the Blue Belles. Looked Westdyke up, and they are named after a sports centre in Westhill, Aberdeenshire. They merged with Cove Ladies a few years back. Can't find what their nickname is. Maybe they are called The Ducks? Anyway; well done The Ducks for scoring. Highlights on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTRVv4MB3g I've got to put the 7th goal down to a goalkeeping error. She will have nightmares about that one. The Owls are gradually creeping up. Gunners and pool both drop points at home. New world Chess Champion. 18 year old Indian lad. In the PDC; the battle of the Lukes; goes to Humphries. What a final!!. +++++ Busy, busy busy. Unlike years past, I find it hard to go at it all day. 2 or 3 hours is quite enough for me. Although it helps that the weather has been mild. Ordered the solar panels and pump wire. Gonna do the PVC pipes tomorrow. And early this week will get the steels for the panel structure. Then start construction. Fed the fish with Mildred this morning. They look good. The ducks are OK. Cats are doing what cats do. Charging about. Robert and Oscar are well. With this beautiful nature all around; do I sometimes think it would be nice to be back in Essex; spending quality time behind the power station at Dagenham dock!? Only one thing left to say; take care out there. . = Westhill, Aberdeenshire

Life in the boonies. December 6th. The buffs certainly took control of our soi. The lady in charge was not at her best, and the buffs took advantage. In between our gaff and the small shop next door. Outside Mrs Snaps mum's house. Getting close. And they were off. down the soi. Now the big thing with buffaloes is not to let them do poopoo on tarmac roads. Concrete OK. Stone OK, Soil paths OK. Grass fine. But tarmac could get them and their owner into hot water. The Mrs reckons the poopoo must be picked up, or washed away, inside 3 minutes, or the road has to be dug up and relaid. Or is it relayed?. Big party a while back. Great singers. Wonderful dancing girls. Appreciative crowd. Straight afterwards, there was a march through the village. Celebration of local insects? On the way to Udon last week, I passed through an area that creepers had made their own. Nature conquers all. Just the same on the other side of the road. View from my computing corner. Daughter had an 'Art' test the week before last. There was a Kiwi fruit and a half on the table, and the students had an hour to present their interpretation. Mildred's effort. Six months ago; all we had for transport was the Mazza. Now we have the Ford, the Leccymobile. The Mazza and a motorbike. Spoilt we are. The Mrs has taken her saloon to the farm a couple of times. Just don't ring true with me. Only gonna water the plants. On the way back from Udon, I was looking forward to seeing progress on the strange structure on the 3016; about half way to Nong Han. Nothing! Has an 'eree' feel about it now. Someone had big plans. Probably best part of a million pizzed up the wall in that project. House, next but one to us, is looking the biz. Tiling underway. Probably waiting for the doors and windows to arrive. Baloons at the Thursday Market. The Buddha next to our farm is expanding. For those not as familiar with Thai as me; it says Monastery Residence. Activities include meditation, hiking and tree climbing. +++++ The FA cup draw has not been too bad for my two clubs. One easy and one very hard. Dagenham & Redbridge travel to The Den. That's a toughie for any club. And Orient host The Rams. Every chance there, My pick of the rest; Tamworth v Spurs. City, Gunners, Pool and Chelsea all have easy home matches. All kicks off in the second week of the new year. Pool drop points at Toon. City back to winning ways. What is the matter with some of these clubs in The Championship? The Baggies have drawn 10 of their 18 matches. And once run-a-way leaders Sunderland, have drawn 5 of their last 6 games. Win one, lose one, is better than draw, draw. +++++ Another hectic week. Water drillers are at the farm. They said they couldn't start til next week. But I've just arrived back and they are nearly finished the first bore. Delivery also. 24 sacks of stone 10 posts, 6 rings, 8 bags of cement and a few other bits and pieces. Total spend 6.7k baht for the supplies. 11.400 for the drillers; that includes the two 5 inchers. Delivered a pick-up load of nuts to the wholesaler today. Price dropped 20 satang to 7-80 baht a kilo. Still very good though. Mildred came with me. On the way back through Ban Dung we bought two 5 inch, heavy duty PVCs. for the topping out at the drill head. No rain for 66 days. Went to number 4 market on Wednesday. Bought two pair of designer shorts. Just couldn't resist them Bargain at 5k baht each. I'm jesting of course; 100 baht for the two. Got some ducks as well. Spent 200 baht on 4 lovely kois. Pics nest post. Set the solar light up. Was supposed to be for the farm, but the Mrs wanted it at the back of the house to deter intruders. In case Robert and Oscar couldn't wake up.. Fixed it up. All seems good. It runs at 30% brightness, and if anything gets within 5 metres it goes on full beam for 5 minutes. Cats are having so much fun. And talking about cats. They have ripped Mrs Snaps' car cover to bits. Bitcoin topped 100k dollars US for a while. What should I do with the 100 I bought for a dollar apiece way back? AN have closed the Owl Diary thread. Never mind. We are still alive and kicking on here. Only one thing left to say; bye y'all. That tree keeps leaning.

Thanks for that DM. Just went over to AN and read the post from CharlieH. TBH, Charlie has always treated me fair and square. And I'm sure that if I'd asked for guidance over this particular matter he would have set me straight. But not this time. It is true that I will not acknowledge the warning. And until I do; I cannot post. My take, is that it was misinformation that I was responding to. I think my last post was something like; ''Show me a medical/scientific paper where a virus has been isolated.'' There were other posts too about covid testing. One poster in particular didn't like what I had to say; and the rest is history. I will miss putting up topics on the footy thread. But onward and upward for TT.

Reading his rant-response, I cannot help but conclude that Charlie the AN Mod that closed Owl Sees All's unique and long running Isaan Diary thread on AseanNow has clearly lost his marbles... How can Charlie rationally explain that comments made by Owl (known as SnapDragon here on ThaigerTalk) on AN's Covid-19 sub-forum, can result in closing his Isaan Diary thread in another AN sub-forum? I checked and all of Owl's posts on the Covid-19 sub-forum have been removed. And note that Owl has NOT been banned, as the AN Mods - contrary to their previous enthusiastic use of that 'punishment' - are now much more reluctant to ban one of the members (otherwise my alter-ego Red Phoenix - that other thorn in AN's Covid-side - would also have been banned long ago already). It's nothing more than a spiteful demonstration of Mod power-play. Look, we can close your very popular thread here, for your 'thought-crime' posts on other parts of the Forum, and there's nothing you can do about it. So we Arrogant Mods are shutting down this unique and one of the most popular - and much appreciated - Thailand centered threads, for the sole reason that Owl has a different opinion on Covid-19 and without banning him, we clearly don't want him to be part of our Toxic Cesspool community! What a sad bunch of petty losers on the AN Forum...

Love this thread. Thanks for sharing your adventure. Appreciate it

A tad off topic (apologies Snaps). I’ve been making tin signs as decos for my garage recently. And just knocked one up for Sheffield: Note that Blades and Owls are equals, at least on my design anyway

You are not wrong there Owl. At the farm we have to do a lot of measuring. Distance between trees being planted, lengths of PVC to be cut etc. It's absolutely imperative that tapes are accurate. This new one is smooth and a delight to use, but when I checked it against one of my older ones there was a difference. On top of that, it only has decimal, no feet and inches. I've had a problem with the drilling of the main steel bearers. Need to drill 8 holes. They will allow the steels to be bolted onto the concrete posts. I did have a 12mm drill that had a tapered shank, but could I find it? I have another 12mm bit, but not tapered, and the Nash or DeWalt drills only take up to 10mm. My Bosch hammer drill is broken, and I cannot get it fixed. So. I've sent away for a 13mm bit on Lazada. Could be with me today. The 6 ducks left are doing good. Give them lots of fresh water every day and food. Today they will get a slice of watermelon and finely chopped up cabbage. Also tried them with some wetted cat food and dog biscuit. Not going to release them from their present home until January. By then the duck-home will be ready. Hope they can swim!?

They are great signs.

A typical Sunday morning in the Snaps household . fbdown.mp4