Stone Clearing With Richard Herring - Chapter 34

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

Chapter 34: Fire and Rim Stones. It's 2nd September 2019 and as the world burns, so incredibly does my field and quite a lot of stuff around it. Not the stones though. They are impervious. It's an action packed stone clearing, only slightly spoiled by the first 20 minutes of the podcast failing to record again. After so many hallucinations on the field can it be true that there were firemen, a fire engine and burned decking? And is it inappropriate that Richard is jocular about the devastation and delighted that a small amount of ploughing designed to stop the out of control flames has thrown up a bumper crop of stones? You will never have heard such an eventful stone clearing podcast, even if you've listened to every episode of every stone clearing podcast in the world. I expect the mouse got cremated too.

Stone Clearing with Richard Herring Hi there, welcome to another chapter of Stone Photone Clearing with Richard Herring. Once again my recording equipment has slightly let me down. It's a very exciting podcast today and unfortunately we've lost about 15 or 20 minutes at the start. It was the 2nd of September 2019, I was heading out at about 450, something like that. For the second time in a week there were fire engines in my tiny village in Hertfordshire. Someone had crashed into the garage next to my garage on Friday and severed a gas main and nearly killed us all. You can read about it in my blog.

And then today I was getting stories that there was a field on fire, there was fire engines on the street. Hello Wolfie, could you come because this is our podcast I'm doing. And so I thought well I'll head up there to see what's happened and you know I'll take my trowel and see what's going on. And sure enough there was a fireman on the field, there was a fire engine on the field as well as one on the street. And all sorts of stuff was going on but also they plowed a furrow around the edge of the field as I discovered when I talked to a lady who's now on the podcast because it didn't record. To try and stop the fire getting out it was setting fire to basically everything at the side. I thought just minorly but you'll see as things go on it gets a bit worse than that. I may have to cut bits out, I've had quite long conversations with people.

But anyway this is picking up about 15 minutes in. This episode is sponsored as I think I say quite quickly by Callum who's about the Kickstarter. And he wanted me to say glory, glory to the High Bees which I do in the podcast as well as myself. So let's sit back, relax and enjoy. Me being picked up on quite a windy field at least to begin with has a fire engine pulls in to put out a small plume of smoke. Sadly again seem to have lost me and just as we came in on the podcast I don't know how far we got probably up to taking the photos but I didn't meet the lady who explained everything. I'm right by the fire engine now it's just come over and driven across the field to put out another fire. Another fireman lady explained that I think they've been burning crops in front of the edge and set fire to a lot of the side of the field.

So they just drove across right towards me and extinguished another trailing bit of smoke. For these podcasts I should say I think it's been lost from the bit of recording I did. I did some great stuff again. What a disaster. What's happened to my recording equipment is caused by Callum who wants me to say glory, glory to the High Bees which I believe is the burning football team but maybe he is ruled over by bees who knows. Cheers then. And the fireman just leaving now. Get it and call and check it they say. The farmer has attempted to stop the fire spreading too far by plowing up a big sways of the field around the edge which has given me a feeling like it's Christmas day. It was over. Even though there are many people here just watching proceedings I've been unable to stop myself just nipping in and picking out stone after stone.

It just gives a real idea of how it's going to be when the whole field is plowed. There's just hundreds more stones here than there were. I've been plucking them out. I've been kicking them across. I can't believe I've failed to document one of the most excited things that has ever happened on this field. The fire engine is now moving away. And it certainly will give us some stuff to show you on the video which we plan to do on Wednesday as long as there are no fires or people plowing stuff up out here. We'll have to make do with something. But yeah, second time in luckily the woman I told you to give away the location of the field so I would have had to erase some of the stuff anyway even though it's now been erased by my clumsy fingers I think. Still going at the moment. But yes, you fail to get quite a lot of my excitement. As we walk down there's just stones all over the place.

So maybe we'll take a little round the edge. Maybe get to talk to some of the other inhabitants of my village about crazy goings on that's happened. I've already thrown three or four large stones into the Brexit ditch. There's just stones lying around. Just for anyone to kick or touch or whatever you want to do with them. That is what I've really been looking forward to. It has been a year since I started doing this. This is what it was like in the early days. Just an impossible number of stones.

And the soil plowed up. I mean you could just pick them out with your bare hands or your human hands. Fending them your species. It was a little funny there for you. I did one joke a year and that was this year's joke. So I threw out a few more stones into the ditch that's stopping Brexit. I'm going to kick a couple more down because there's just like a billion stones here. And they're all of a nice size.

I brought off the field and found another thing that had been plowed up and just found three stones. Another day would be really big stones to find today. Just lying there on top of the field. It's just a truly exciting time to be a stone plower. And... There's just a big stone lying on the actual path that should flick across. That's just how easy it's going to be for the next few stone players. And you know I'm glad that this is here for the filming.

It's what I was sort of basically saying. Those have all gone on to the end of the entry to the field. But I will especially as we've lost another 15 to 20 minutes of fabulous commentary on this. I will do a little bit more on the edge of the field again. Just to see where we get to. This is where the fire engine was. This is where quite a lot of the plowing work has gone on. And...

Yeah, I mean it was a bit of a Roman tile there. It still goes into the edge. Another interesting thing. This was once the Roman river out here. Let's hope not. That will disturb my work a lot. That's what it's discovered. If I find one I will just break it up and throw it to the side.

Of course. So let's have a look at what we have on offer here. I mean, it's just to see the field black. If this had been the podcast without the fire engine being here. I would have been very happy that there we are with significantly more action and excitement. And usually I do miss the big events. The thunder and lightning and hail storm. I was not being recorded.

I should record everything and why you should have maybe more reliable equipment than I've got. Yeah, it's just... And there are still some firemen up here. Just checking I suppose that everything's definitely out. So I'm going to have to be a little bit sceptitious in my stone clearing. In case they think I've started everything. And yeah, there's such a tasty one out there. I can't get it because of the meat.

Yeah, someone's back garden. I've been caught up in all of this. That's the problem. We were all in the job. Oh no, it is. Any fire was a problem for you. But we were the other side of kitchen. It was not. No, it wasn't you.

The fire, the field. Oh no. Yeah. Blimey. We're having the time of this week, aren't we? Yeah. Oh dear, it's bad, isn't it? Yeah.

Oh dear. Blimey. Oh, is it? Okay. Oh, there's someone should come and do it for you, really, shouldn't they? That should be part of it, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I don't think so. Oh my goodness.

I think we're all okay. No, no, of course not. Of course, of course. Oh dear. He's got a better view now. This isn't in the way. Oh dear. Sorry about that.

Wow. Come on, darling. All right, come on. Come on. Come on. My goodness. Oh, just went over on a stone. That would be ironic.

Yeah, blimey. It's like a devastation down here. If only someone had spent more time building a wall along here. So, we're just going to hit a bit by one of the stones there. Oh, there's some beauties down here. Look at that, baby. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's really way worse than I thought.

There's whole fences gone at the back here. Yeah, my goodness. What an exciting day for my field. It might make the local news, which would be bad for me. It does not have a bit of brick there. That's the side. It does at least give us a view of what I've achieved along here, which isn't much. I picked up a stone bigger than my hand.

I'm carrying it down towards the corner can. And there's just, again, more stones than we can deal with here. It's a beautiful bounty for me. It's a shame that it's taken the destruction of a lot of people's property there to create this. I've had a lengthy discussion there about the guy's decking. I'm not sure I can really put all of it out. And then, yeah, we get away from there and we're up back to what we were before, just the hard field. Unplowed.

I can do some climbing up here, so I might just walk across and pretend to be looking at the fire damage. I suspect they're maybe doing more here burning. Unfortunately, over the next few days, which might kibosh our plans to film here, we'll see. Let's see what we can find out here. Not as many bees just in this particular bit. But there we go, look at this. This could be something monumental. Yeah, and that's a nice size stone just lying there ready for an intracad explorer to find.

So yeah, quite some excitement. It goes on the edge. Well, that's all part of the daily life for a stone curve course. It seems like it's going to be a groundhog day of walking around the field. The same things happen every time and then suddenly bang! Gardens of flame. Nature. Again, letting us see who's boss. Is it the straw that has been burnt to bits?

No. Is it the decking of that guy? No. Is the stones are they burnt? No. They are not burnt. They are here. And they always will be here to stay until I move them. And then they're there to stay. I mean, I am hoping they will get around to play on the rest of this up. Because what I'm walking on now is like 100% hard rocky ground, but not made of rock and straw.

Yeah, it's been quite the eventful week here in my village. So heading back across the field. We should hit the big stones in a second as we get to the bit that has been found. I'll see if I can find anything else on the way for you. Again, it's always very hard to see anything beneath this carpet of dry grass. And it's hard to get anything out. So we've witnessed in the last couple of podcasts. It's almost like just using a plow.

Some kind of stone gathering mechanism is a better way of doing this. To be fair, that will only get the big, big stones out. It's a glory seeker to use those big stone removal machines. I'm trying to get everything over the size of a grain of sand off of here. Anything that's stone. And there's no machine on earth that can do that. I'm a human hand. Yeah, come with me, big machine.

Sure, help me a little bit. Pull up some earth so I can get underneath it and have a look. But the real work has to be done by a man out here with his dog as cover. And I surprisingly feel like I'm on a plowed bit now. Maybe I've done a better job than I gave myself credit for because there's not too much out here. Kicked up a couple of these large roots. I mean, that's a large, a smooth large. Maybe into the medium category, but nothing to get excited about.

I mean, as I say, it's not more exciting if they're huge. I've got to get my hair off of the stone a little bit more. That's just one. So we can leave that. There's certainly more stones here that I can carry across to the main can in one trip. This will keep me busy for a little while, but it's nice to have this area back. And it's nice to just be able to pick up a stone every feet or so that it's going to add to this main can. That's the reason I like signing size.

And they do what I've got moving by a lot of goodies for a future trip. There's one line there. He'll be again running across the smoky ashes to make him miss that bit. He's eating some of the ash because she's basically an idiot. And yes, well, this is a promise of what is to come, my friends. Not the fire. That may be a promise of what is to come. The water's cut up on the village.

I've got picked up just coincidentally, I think. We've had an apocalyptic time out here. I've got a real chance to extend my wall now. I can see what I'm doing. And there's a lot of material here for me. I've got a few more bolts across the back to wear, I think, if I'd be recording that. And oh yeah, very nice, medium, medium, medium. Very nice.

A few to add up to another medium, medium, medium. We'll head down the hill, wolves. Maybe chucking a few of these across as we go. So we've got to find them where. I'm hoping that's not in the fire. These do create sparks, it wasn't me. The fire had begun before I was here. That is a warning to all stone players to be careful with flutes.

Just assume it can do nothing because it can do much. There are lots of plods, of course, of earth, thankfully, rather than two. And one of them just collapsed in my hand there. This is one of the areas in the field that usually has a lot less stone. So it's pretty cool to be able to just come out and find some more. This is stone clearing of its best and easiest. Which isn't necessarily the best, but it's nice to clear the huge amount. And to know that all the time you were just walking past here,

all these stones were just nipped beneath the surface, ready to be discovered. So I'm heading back now. Wolf has done a poo. We've had the firemen have gone in their way. The people who have lost their decking and spences will have to contact their insurance. Hopefully it will all be covered by the person who set the fire. I don't know how it works. But promise of what is to come.

That is what today's podcast is all about. The harvest may create a bounteous feast to fill the bellies of the workers. But it creates something more than that and better than that. It creates a hell of a lot of stones. And then we're seeing that literally in front of me now. Just kicked one into the ditch that caused Brexit. So I was going to save Brexit, stop Brexit. Oh, dog dodging that one.

Dog dodging that one, dog dodging that one. Playing a little game with the dog. So we kicked the stones down into the ditch. I mean, if this doesn't stop Brexit, nothing will. If Brexit is still a thing later today, I'd be quite surprised by the number of stones that have gone in today. Have a good size too. Well, I'm as happy as Larry.

I'm as happy as a man with 10 dicks in the competition where they give you more dicks if you've got 10 dicks. And I want those dicks. And that's as happy as I'm as happy as a man with 10 dicks is where the competition is to get nine of the dicks removed because the only ones won dicks and they're taking off the less good ones. So come on a mousse, we're being observed by one of the ladies over there. Don't think she saw what I was doing.

But who knows? Come on, quicker. Yeah, mousse for you. And, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, this is a sign of the times. I don't know if you're experiencing lots of weird things going on in your village. If you live in a village, as I assume you do, if you're a stone to her. But thanks again to Callum for sponsoring the podcast, just in case.

That's got lost again. Glory, glory to the highbeats. I support York City personally, but I'm happy to support all the football team if you pay £150 to the podcast. That's your thing. The dogs in the village sense and something is all right. Well, well, you're better than that, Wolfie. You're better than that dog. Thanks as always to the many emails I've had in.

Lesley Ash has been in touch. She says I'm not the Lesley Ash. Come on, good girl. Hey there. Yeah, good thanks. Burning the crops, I think, and it set fire to the fences at the back. Yeah, so about three or four of the fences. Some of the decking's gone on one of the people's gardens.

So it's, yeah, it's all gone up a bit weird. But I think they've got it all out now. They were going around squirting. A lot of cars just got down there. Yeah, yeah. We've got to be able to spot that postbox. Right. Police again.

It's all gone. It's all gone. See, man, take care. That was a post from Lesley Ash. I point to her. She's not the Lesley Ash. I remember having a bubbly. In fact, she says I'm not even a woman.

I am a man. Sorry, Lesley. I didn't catch the spelling there, but that's fine. But I'd like to say what you do if there's a fire on the field that engulfs some of the back fences and stuff. Is that a good question? That's a very pertinent question. Part of the reason I brought that up, that question up,

is because that is literally what just happened. Well, you just get on with it. You just got to get on with it. That's the thing. You can't let a fire stop your stone clearing. The stones are safe and always will be. Right, Lesley. I've got you some food, Wolves.

Early dinner for you. Well, anyway, thanks for listening again. And thanks for all the emails. I'm excited for everyone else. It's really cool. Have you got a hug yet? I'm going to get some more food, Wolves. I'll make you a nose and mouth.

And, yeah, enjoy your stone clearing. We'll be out on the field again on Wednesday to film what's going on. Sorry about the disjointed nature of this podcast. Hope you're listening. I will attempt to sort out what's going on. Since I've changed my phone case, I think it doesn't automatically turn off. We'll get some stuff in our pocket.

So I'll deal with that. Don't worry. Otherwise, I'm sure the sound quality everything's great, right? Okay. See you next time. Bye-bye. Stone Clearing with Richard Haring, start with me, Richard Haring, and Wolfie the Dog.

Also featuring a woman who then had her bit cut out, which she talked quite unknowingly about the field. Quite a lot of firemen. The couple who'd had their decking burned. Some people in the distance. And my postman towards the end. The music is by Mike Coffgrave. And I'm going to play the song.

I'm going to play the song. I'm going to play the song. I'm going to play the song. The music is by Mike Coffgrave. And the voice of Tones is Michael Faheen.