Signs you are dealing with a 'Rooter'

lab man

PoorFarmer wrote: »

Sounds like a twin of my old lad. A 9" long piece of pencil post with a bucket lid nailed onto either end for rolling up polywire. Was shocked when I spent €50 on a geared roller. Lifes too short for that crap.

#username 😀

lab man

My dad was cutting silage with the 53" for a farmer I was drawing in he told me bring a few bars of chocolate as twill be a long day I hated chocolate but did anyway. He knew the score . Anyway the silage was being done on an out farm so the guys mother and father came with the grub twas a cows head in a big pot stewed in carrots etc I near got sick anyway had to eat a bit shur cause they were there. so when we were finished she asked when would she come with the tea the father said round 6 or so anyway 6 on the dot she came we were starved at this stage out she came with sandwiches the leftover of the cow and cabbage leaves for lettuce I was told go to the bulk tank for milk there was a cat in the bulk tank my father still goes there every year since 1958 when he bought his first tractor hes coming 81 in april and he'll be baling there this year too god willing youd see some square stuff on the road

Nekarsulm

Was the cat swimming in the tank, or drowned?

whisky_galore

Skipduke wrote: »

The cycle continues

Buys dog.
Makes half arsed effort at training dog.
Makes out dog is no use.
Bang.
Buys dog....

whisky_galore

I was invited in to have the dinner at one oul lads house when doing some manure spreading for him.

Main course was boiled chicken and boiled spuds.
The remains of a meal from the day before, or maybe days before was still there, encrusted onto the plate....

orm0nd

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Heard that one too, it's probably part legend, part true.

Saw it myself, no names mentioned. Sitting on the dead cow hands not washed, eating a sandwich and a mug of tay. Bluebottles every where.

zetecescort

it's funny reading recent posts about peoples standard of dinner that everybody lived afterwards. our stomachs can put up with an awful lot. personally think our super clean germ free living of recent years does us more harm than good.

Albert Johnson

whisky_galore wrote: »

I was invited in to have the dinner at one oul lads house when doing some manure spreading for him.

Main course was boiled chicken and boiled spuds.
The remains of a meal from the day before, or maybe days before was still there, encrusted onto the plate....

A local man has similar stories about mowing for hire year's back with a 20 and a finger bar. He was only a young fella and had no competition so used to be flat out and got lots of hardship.

There was another local elderly bachelor man he used to mow for and conditions inside the house were rougher than rough. He said he dreaded doing the work as the other man would always insist on cooking and he couldn't stomach the culinary results. Sure enough the request came for mowing this particular year and he decided the only way out was to mow it very early some morning and be gone before the owner was out and about.

He landed down in a day or so after at around 4 o'clock in the morning, you had to go in by the gable of the house into the meadow and sure enough there was no sign of activity when he passed. Having done the work he was set for off after 6am. Just when he was drawing near the gate the older man appeared and beckoned him inside. Our man had no choice but to give in and settled himself among the cats and dogs in the kitchen. He was presented with a few inch thick slabs of hairy bacon and 3 fried and equally hairy eggs. Having mentally prepared himself he started to consume it and the other man chatted away about the crop, the great spell of weather and how today was to be another scorcher. Just when he was nearly finished his host leapt to his feet saying he'd forgotten the tomatoes. Sure enough he produced 3 bruised tomatoes from his pocket that he'd bought on a foray to town a day or 2 before. Seemingly God granted him his eternal reward the following winter and our man never had to face either the mowing or the cooking again.

milehip

Lands been leased for a few decades so I've met some rough clients , one guy catches me to give him a hand loading a dead foal into the back seats of his jeep
and he had a trailer:eek: Christ the stink. He had about an hour to go to the yard probably took him 2 the way he drove.

SuperTortoise

You've got to remember that the old bucks are from a different time where nothing was thrown out, everything was repaired with a very limited ammount of tools, there was no such thing as heading into town to buy a new one because there was nothing but a grocery shop and a scatter of pubs in most towns, and even then there was no money around to buy anything.

A lot of those lads know nothing else because they've had to do it that way most of their lives, they won't change now because whatever rooting they have done has kept the ball rolling and i'm sure in time we may be looked at in the same light by generations to come.

Besides, a bit of rooting has got me out of bother on more than one occasion.

PoorFarmer

I'd say we all had rough days eating on silage jobs but they were still better than the days when you'd get SFA.
Got boiled eggs one morning from an old lad with the sh1t still on them. No harm there but he proceeded to throw a fist of porridge into the same water for one of the other boys who didn't eat eggs but said he would eat porridge.

I know someone,who got a farm in the early 70s.....they moved in and there was a vice bolted to the kitchen table!!

Nekarsulm

The father told me that to buy a ring spanner locally was impossible when he was a young lad.
Only open ended ones to be got.
Then in the late 1940's he got a basic welder, and welding rods were only available form Mackie Burn's in Dublin.
Ring spanners and sockets came from the same establishment in the 1950's, but at least you could order them and collect them off the train...

cute geoge

The lad iwill describe will take some bateing .All along sides of house and in front on to main road is blocked with various scrap vans ,cars bits of machines and junk .As well as hoses and donkeys tied in front yard fed with waste veg and sops of hay .He bides his time trading in anything and everything .The best one when he went to his mother in laws funeral ,he jaunts up with a cattle box and continues on to the mart after the funeral!!!

Feisar

curiousinvestor wrote: »

My auld man was a gr8 judge of cattle, hard worker, fairly good farmer.
But my lord,if there was an awkward and stupid way to do things he had it. Gates tied up, nothing hung right. Every week gates moved here there everywhere.
Fencing, walking around fields carrying posts and wire. He nearly had a stroke when I started using the tractor to carry stuff and drive poles. Wasting grass and diesel.
Every second week there was a calf pen or calving box made Saturday morning and disassembled next week.
Every morsel ofsilage in d winter had to be picked out.

He just didn't put a value on his own time.

Edit - not knocking the man.

Albert Johnson

cute geoge wrote: »

The lad iwill describe will take some bateing .All along sides of house and in front on to main road is blocked with various scrap vans ,cars bits of machines and junk .As well as hoses and donkeys tied in front yard fed with waste veg and sops of hay .He bides his time trading in anything and everything .The best one when he went to his mother in laws funeral ,he jaunts up with a cattle box and continues on to the mart after the funeral!!!

The most amazing part of that description being he must have had a significant other to have had a mother in law. Usually those sort of lad's could never find any woman (apart from there own mother) willing to put up with there antics.

lab man

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Was the cat swimming in the tank, or drowned?

Drowned

carrollsno1

Albert Johnson wrote: »

The most amazing part of that description being he must have had a significant other to have had a mother in law. Usually those sort of lad's could never find any woman (apart from there own mother) willing to put up with there antics.

Similar to the fellas on Jeremy Kyle with no teeth, no job etc and theyve two or three women fighting over them.

cute geoge

Albert Johnson wrote: »

The most amazing part of that description being he must have had a significant other to have had a mother in law. Usually those sort of lad's could never find any woman (apart from there own mother) willing to put up with there antics.

Better again a laying hen!!!

lab man

SuperTortoise wrote: »

You've got to remember that the old bucks are from a different time where nothing was thrown out, everything was repaired with a very limited ammount of tools, there was no such thing as heading into town to buy a new one because there was nothing but a grocery shop and a scatter of pubs in most towns, and even then there was no money around to buy anything.

A lot of those lads know nothing else because they've had to do it that way most of their lives, they won't change now because whatever rooting they have done has kept the ball rolling and i'm sure in time we may be looked at in the same light by generations to come.

Besides, a bit of rooting has got me out of bother on more than one occasion.

We only having the craic shur , my father always says there was nothing in the country in the 40 50 60's but when you were finished a job you were paid I must go through the old books to see amounts paid and on the day they had great pride then , he tells of one family that there was a large family there that used to come one by one to my fathers home house cause they had nothing to eat and no clothes on their backs when the money had to be paid to the church they could only give what they had and I think the priest thron the money down at the woman making a show of the family he said last week about the mother and babies homes. " god is a great, but he had very poor soldiers "I thought twas a great off the cuff saying

whelan2

Used to milk in a place we called it Beirut. No wash down hose, throw a few buckets down the sides. No washing done in the evenings just empty out milk and turn off machine. Straw going around on agitator in tank. Flies in wash trough water. Wash water changed once a week. He reckoned he knew the days that milk was going to be tested. Dry cows running with milkers

Albert Johnson

lab man wrote: »

We only having the craic shur , my father always says there was nothing in the country in the 40 50 60's but when you were finished a job you were paid I must go through the old books to see amounts paid and on the day they had great pride then , he tells of one family that there was a large family there that used to come one by one to my fathers home house cause they had nothing to eat and no clothes on their backs when the money had to be paid to the church they could only give what they had and I think the priest thron the money down at the woman making a show of the family he said last week about the mother and babies homes. " god is a great, but he had very poor soldiers "I thought twas a great off the cuff saying

That last quote is very true and I must try to remember it. "The closer the church the further from God" is something I see proven time and time again.

carrollsno1

A fella asked me before "do ye know the smell yed get during the summer when ye wouldnt have a shower for about 5 days when yed be busy? I said no id generally make a good effort to shower daily regardless. He says "yea well id be fierce busy and id only be getting a few hours sleep i wouldnt have time for a shower in the summer ye see" this fella isnt 25 yet i dont think.
Id imagine if i went a week without showering id probably have a H&S officer or supervisor asking me whar the f#ck was wrong with me if i hadnt been f#cked out of it before by the lads im working with.

Heard of some auld fella now retired who was laying sewer here and he used to wear long johns everyday of the year, how often he changes them i dont know hut apparantly there was skid marks up to his neck on them. The same fella got a lift back to a yard with a lorry driver one day (same fella that told the story but i have my doubts about this second story) he dropped him off and he gave the cab a quick clean after him being in it. When he was driving off he copped your man bollock naked in the doorway of the jacks, he ran over to see was he ok as it was a residential area and wanted to avoid an incident. He got to the door and there was the fella washing himself with blue paper and Swarfega.

Anto_Meath

I have an uncle in law living down in Cavan, he is a great man to tell a story, it would always start with "there is (was) an auld boy down beside us" then he would proceed to tell whatever hardship rooting was going on. This Uncle in Law called for a visit just before Christmas & I noticed his stories are starting to change, now it's "there is a young lassie beside us & she just after finishing the cert in Ballyhaise" but there doesn't seem to be the same level of rooting or hardship, it milk 100 odd cows seems to be the nub of it now.

carrollsno1

whelan2 wrote: »

Used to milk in a place we called it Beirut. No wash down hose, throw a few buckets down the sides. No washing done in the evenings just empty out milk and turn off machine. Straw going around on agitator in tank. Flies in wash trough water. Wash water changed once a week. He reckoned he knew the days that milk was going to be tested. Dry cows running with milkers

Was milking in a place similar last summer and i had to stop in the end i couldnt hack it. Wash down pump didnt work, used to use to put the finger over the pipe in the dairy when the rinse was being let off to get the parlour. Dry cows had tape on them running through the main herd, gates everyway and anyway not near enough space in collecting or exiting yard.11 unit parlour with 13 clusters last cow in tbe row would be out in the yard being milked i usually got 12 in the rows but he often came in and got 15 cows into it as ah sure theres a few handy heifers in it there they wouldnt take up much space. Gate at the front of the parlour a hanger broke on it one day and he said it was because i hadnt the twine on the gate aside from him having 15 in the row.
Terrible nice fella all the same and couldnt say a bad word about him but im not going near the place to work again.

lab man

Albert Johnson wrote: »

That last quote is very true and I must try to remember it. "The closer the church the further from God" is something I see proven time and time again.

Another one he says is always beware of "the croí thumper"

kk.man

Fella near me long gone was as mean as dyke water as they say. He stored 50p's in buscuit tins probably so vermin not get at them(this was before the punt coins). He was always up to something and very shrewd no matter what he'd be up to. He could do vintage machinery, dogs and god knows what. He had a lovely place but the contraryness and penny pinching knew no boundaries. But someone would suffer from his sales whether the small square bales of hay (he had thousands) were not what they were supposed to be or the cattle were not the pedegree.

His mother was dying so he went to the local shop to order in the food for the funeral (he would spend money on good food clothes etc). So he ordered a massive amount (hams, chichens the lot). His mother recovered and she lived a for a few years later and it killed him to pay for all the grub.

To cut along story short Revenue came after him fir almost 500k he had an Ansbacher account. I think the whole place was never as delighted to see someone got caught. The whole place saying all the screwing he did over years came back to haunt him.

Birdnuts

Never look in a Rooters fridge - best before dates have no meaning for them!!

Reggie.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Never look in a Rooters fridge - best before dates have no meaning for them!!

Ah thems only guidelines

foxy farmer

Lad around here was running a dairy farm. Very smart but wasn't cut out for farming. Let it out with 15 years or more. He got a nice cushy 9-5 job in the town but retired recently. Gone daft on Trump and anti virus Vax mask etc.
Yard was inside in a hole. Youd want waders in the pit during the winter. Contractor was in one day spreading slurry. Pulled away from the tank and within 100 yards he was stuck. He called over yer man to pull him out with the tractor. Yerrah no" says he "let the slurry off twill be grand." On goes the pto and he starts blowing it out. He looks back and there's yer man running from the back of the tanker and he plastered from head to toe.
He wiped the sh1te off his face and the rest of him with his hand. Off back to the yard and next thing he's filling his own tanker. They went in for dinner. Yer man sat down still covered in sh1te. Back out again after dinner. It got cold and the sh1te was soaking in so he put on an oilskin over the whole lot so he could marinate in it.! When it got dark the contractor bailed out as fast as he could. No way was he going back for tea. Fecker would want to be powerhosed and disinfected before being left inside the door. How the wife dealt with him I don't know.