Ipernity Nos 2001-4000

I have a number of obsessions, but collecting vintage tractors isn't one of them. However I can recognize someone else with passion, and this Swedish farmer near Boresnberg ticked all the boxes! There were some paraffin-driven models I can remember from childhood - late 40s/early 50s. This was just a small part of his enormous collection...

The west coast beaches of the Outer Hebridean Islands are littered with thousands of razor shells. These were collected from the beach at Valtos, on the west coast of the beautiful island of Islay.

Yes, they're ugly, but they are excellent containers to hold a selection of home grown herbs closer than the vegetable garden. The pallets they rest on, prevent all but pole-vaulting rabbits reaching the produce!

Chaffinch

I know it's Mothering Sunday in Britain, when a neighbour pitches up with a large bucket and a pair of scissors to relieve me of several dozen daffodils to decorate the local kirk for Mothering Sunday. We have more than we can possibly cut for the house, and I hate having to deadhead them, so she is most welcome to them. The children seemed to have remembered, as a bunch of flowers arrived at the back door this morning, as well!

Early days - need to tidy up the layout of the hour lines and numbers...they should probably be more circumferential, but then it's different! :-)

The farmer was gathering up the sheep which have been over-wintering here from the west coast. You need to know the technicalities before you start a conversation by asking how old they are!

Vertical sundial with correct angle for its latitude. Tricky boring a hole at exactly the correct angle in the block holding the rod, representing the gnomon.

The first handful of about 600 tulips, if the mice didn't get them over the winter...

When they built a house up here two hundred and fifty years ago, they didn't pussyfoot around with breeze-blocks and bricks: they found the largest boulders they could, and piled them up and stuck them together with lime mortar! A neighbouring farmhouse is having its gable end repointed at the moment, which has stripped and exposed the massive stonework involved.With the lime mortar removed, what is still holding it all together? Gravity!

Someone asked me to photograph the mirrors and frames they make. They were having difficulties with unwanted reflections in the mirror itself. Putting them on their back on the floor, and then taking them at an angle to reflect the (white) ceiling in shadow, seems to have resolved the problem. Any other bright ideas out there?

the caller asked! For a 1963 vehicle, I would would say, remarkable, sending him the images!