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Thread: Workshop visit

  1. #1
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    Default Workshop visit

    Occasionally, I'm visited by Stumpy, the one legged king parrot. I hadn't seen him for over a year, as he has taken up residence about a kilometre away, but today he came into the workshop and, as usual, landed on the tablesaw. I gave him some seed which he ate, then flew over to the bench, almost landed on my hed then left.

    I've no idea how he lost his leg, but perhaps his habit of landing on the table saw gives a clue.

    King Parrot - Stumpy-1.jpg

    King Parrot - Stumpy-2.jpg
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  3. #2
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    I had a unexpected workshop visitor on Friday myself.
    The compliance officer from my local council
    He asked me if I had any machines outside.
    I showed him the big wire wheel / buff and 3 phase Foundry grinder under the lean to.
    He then asked where is your dust extractor
    I showed him the Bill Penz cyclone I’ve spent the last 6 months building, connecting up to machinery, making a muffler, soundproofing around it and the walls of the small shed extension it’s in etc etc.
    He said according to the council permit to operate as non complying light industrial ‘woodworking’ as granted by the previous council ( we were ‘amalgamated’ since) 35 years ago the dust extractor should be in the main workshop as per my original application.
    Also the annex I now had the majority of my woodwork machinery in was for garage and storage.
    I mentioned I was basically retired and had moved the dusty stuff there as I was restoring a few cars as a personal hobby.
    He said he didn’t hear that as it was a approved as a woodwork factory and that was all.
    He took a few photos including my Macson metal lathe and pilot arc welder.
    I had a dig and found the written application in the paper stash upstairs in the house.
    I had agreed to what he said but at least I had included a metal lathe and welder in the original kit. It was only an old Atlas which a mate now has and it was a pilot arc back then.
    The mig and Tig are just updates
    Main problem is the cyclone, the extension is not approved so I’m giving the cyclone to a mate up country and the old pulford compressor to Andrew.
    He said if I get a sketch and application in I ‘should’ be ok as the extension is small and follows the building line.
    Dunno if I’ll have to move all the wood kit out of the annex, I’ll probably flog off some large lumps if that’s the case.
    Funny thing was I had a few agents come around re what the joints worth.
    The missus doesn’t want to move but I don’t need a war with the council and new trendoid neighbours who are now paying 3 for a knockdown on land half the size we have.
    Please send Stumpy over I need cheering up.
    I did visit Riverbuilder and his mutt Monty helped.
    H.
    Jimcracks for the rich and/or wealthy. (aka GKB '88)

  4. #3
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    thats a bugga.
    where I 'live' in other words spend most of my time, the local council boffin said to me, "F**K mate your the end of a no exit road I really care a s**t what you do here, just dont let me hear about it, dont write for any approval, dont start bitchin, dont upset the apple cart. You got time for a beer." end of official conversation
    I would love to grow my own food, but I can not find bacon seeds

  5. #4
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    Default Different Council

    Quote Originally Posted by clearout
    ... I had a unexpected workshop visitor on Friday myself.
    The compliance officer from my local council ...

    A builder set up a workshop on the lower level of a three story house he was restoring (for 4 years) in the middle of a residential area a block from my place. He was a hard worker, and worked on various sites during business hours and then his crew worked in the "workshop" until midnight, sometimes 2 am. With the noise from tables saw, jointer, thicknesser, router table, etc, immediate neighbours were not impressed - and made many complaints to council.

    The council sent around their Compliance Inspector, always during council office hours, and he found "no noise emitting from the said property". The builder started work in the "workshop" again at 6pm those nights, as he always did.

  6. #5
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    I'll get a visit from the council one day, too, Clearout. Marrickville is also changing, but my immediate neighbours like what I do and often drop in, so I'm safe for a while.
    I would much prefer a visit from a one legged king parrot.

  7. #6
    rrich Guest

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    A while back I had a visit from a guy dressed in a long sleeve plaid shirt, chinos and full leather shoes. (Almost the uniform of state employees.) He says that he needs kitchen cabinets, "Just like the ones her in your shop." He is visibly irritated when I tell him that I don't have a contractors license so I can't and besides I'm retired. After a bit more banter he leaves. The car that he is driving is a state vehicle with exempt license plates. A few months later another probable state employee (Same almost uniform) tries the same trick.

    It seems that regardless of where on the planet we are, the government is trying to squeeze every bit of money out of the citizenry they can.

  8. #7
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    Goodness.


    I live on the outskirts of Brisbane. My neighbour on one side is a builder and often building stuff in his carport. We're on large blocks and I've a 9 meter shed on that side but I can still hear the saws in the daytime.


    The other side has 3 young girls.


    There is every sort of noise etc here, kids on trailbikes, tuning the loud V8 etc etc.


    No one gives a rats. The only person that's had the council called on them is an especially disagreeable chap who cleared vegetation on council land then tried to claim it by parking a 40' container on it. Pretty much everyone else gets on a treat.


    If you must move this area might be an option. You could buy a palace here for the value of a run down outhouse in sidinee...
    I'm just a startled bunny in the headlights of life. L.J. Young.
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  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Damien
    ... I live on the outskirts of Brisbane. My neighbour on one side is a builder and often building stuff in his carport. We're on large blocks and I've a 9 meter shed on that side but I can still hear the saws in the daytime. ...
    If only ... But it's a bit different if you are on a 350 m2 city block, and the offending router table is less than 3 metres from the complainants lounge room window.

  10. #9
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    Default

    Last time I had a Council Inspector come around I was living in Queensland on a half-acre block zoned "Rural Residential". The complaint was about my compressor, which was allegedly coming on at all times of the night. We all know that compressors can come on at inconvenient times when the air pressure in the tank drops from a small leak or whatever. Well I had not wanted the compressor to annoy me in the middle of the night either so it was plugged in through a timer, so it got no power between 8pm and 8am.

    I showed the Inspector the timer and reminded him that I had no idea he was coming so I could not have just set it up for his visit. I told him that my shed stereo was on a timer too so my music could not play at night either. He replied that there had been a complaint about the music too.

    He told me that I should be careful because it seemed I was living near a nuisance complainer. I let him know that I was already aware of that because the RSPCA inspector had been out about a fortnight earlier to check on the welfare of our animals. They were all fit and healthy.

    After about six months of living there I was on first-name terms with the Council, RSPCA, police and a couple of other authorities I had been dobbed-in to for issues that did not exist. They rarely called in to see me when a new complaint was made. They just phoned up and asked if everything was alright, which I guessed was the minimum they were legally required to do to investigate the complaints and finalise them.

    To this day I have always had my compressor connected to a timer. It just seemed sensible right from the start, and the fact I had done that defused the situation very quickly when the Inspector came.
    I got sick of sitting around doing nothing - so I took up meditation.

  11. #10
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    Not long ago I went to QLD to visit an old cobber.
    When I got back there was a pair of beautiful little Pardalotes who had dug a hole for a nest in the bank just outside the window of my work bench.
    Unfortunately my presence in the workshop unnerved them and they re-located.
    DSCF8551.jpg
    DSCF8553.jpg

  12. #11
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    Sorry Alex for ‘jacking your thread
    I’m still very pyssed off.
    Removed the cyclone yesterday.
    Will take it up country in the ute next week.
    H.
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  13. #12
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    Pardalotes is that what they are ? I had some here. They even got nesting in the wall of the hole I hug to repair my drains. I guess I was working too slow for them. My excuse was a couple of strokes in teh middle of the job. I tried to be careful when I filled it in not to trap the birds. I'm pretty sure they haddn't laid yet.
    I'm just a startled bunny in the headlights of life. L.J. Young.
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  14. #13
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    Nice, Artful, the pardolotes are really pretty little birds, and they are little - about half the size of a sparrow.

    Pardolote 1.jpg Pardolote 2.jpg Forty Spotted Pardolote

    Pardolote 3.jpg Striated Pardolote

    Did you take those photos? The reason that I ask is that they are of a Forty Spotted Pardolote which is highly endangered with only about 1,500 birds left in the world and perhaps 99% of them on Bruny and Maria Islands. They live almost exclusively in mature manna gums - E verminalis - in dry schlerophyll forest.

    The striated pardolote, a notable song bird, is much more common, and commonly builds nests in tunnels in earth/sand banks: I have included photos (the last two).
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  15. #14
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    Love the visitors. 30 years ago when we still lived in Edmonton near Cairns FNQ we had a pair of pardalotes take up residence in a pile of crusher dust we had in the back yard. It was for filling damage done to our yard after a neighbour illegally used our property for access by large tippers. So we had to hold off for a fair while until the young fledged and left the nest. Feral cats were also an issue but they survived.

    Here in Townsville I have had quite a number of visitors including blue mountain and Cairns birdwing butterflies, skinks, legless lizards, a lace monitor, and a 2m+ eastern brown in the shed.

    Only a few weeks ago we had a 2.5 to 3m carpet snake in the back yard. The Cadaghi on the footpath has Black Cockatoo's just starting to feed on the nuts, Rainbow Lorikeets feeding on the blossoms plus the usual Red Eye Fig Eaters, and bower birds have a stoush over ripe palm seeds. White Cockatoos feeding in the Burdekin Plum across the road, plus a dozen or more species, Sunbirds, Northern & Willy Wag Tails, several species of honey eaters, the occasional Eastern Rosella, Galahs, Koels, Stormbirds (channel billed cuckoo). Nightly visitors include two or three species of flying foxes & possums. A pair of Torres Strait Pigeons are nesting in the "White Silky Oak" on our boundary.
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  16. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by GraemeCook View Post
    Nice, Artful, the pardolotes are really pretty little birds, and they are little - about half the size of a sparrow.

    Pardolote 1.jpg Pardolote 2.jpg Forty Spotted Pardolote

    Pardolote 3.jpg Striated Pardolote

    Did you take those photos? The reason that I ask is that they are of a Forty Spotted Pardolote which is highly endangered with only about 1,500 birds left in the world and perhaps 99% of them on Bruny and Maria Islands. They live almost exclusively in mature manna gums - E verminalis - in dry schlerophyll forest.

    The striated pardolote, a notable song bird, is much more common, and commonly builds nests in tunnels in earth/sand banks: I have included photos (the last two).

    Hi Graeme. Yes I did take the photos through my dirty workshop window. I am quite aware that the forty spotted Pardalote is a very rare bird and is usually found on Bruny Island, which as the crow flies is not far from my place. However I had never seen one before and was unsure if the 2 little ones at my place were 40 spotted ones or not. I did look online and there was conflicting information about which type was which so I am yet to be convinced.Some of the pictures I saw online had your striated one called the 40 spotted and if you look at the pictures they do have a series of small spots on their wings. These ones had most definitely dug a hole that is still there and were going in and out of it. I was really hoping they would get used to the movement in the shed and stick around, have chicks etc.

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