Stone Clearing With Richard Herring - Chapter 13

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

Chapter 13 - Conquistadors. It's 7.50am on 21st February 2019 and there is still many centuries of work to be done. But nature is either giving Richard his blessing or spying on him from above, as he does his best to get his job done without being shopped by the Stone Stasi. Is stone clearing the cure for all mental illness? Or is it just adding to the issue? Will Richard manage to hit the stone pole? Will the world be saved from disaster by a contribution to the ditch? How many weeks before the main cairn meets up with the next cairn along? Are stones as precious as gold? Or more precious? All these questions will be asked and not answered in this thrilling episode. Thanks for all the emails. It's very hard to mention everyone who is writing in, but you can join the likes of Brenda Dogbin by contacting Rich at [e-mail].

Stone Clearing with Richard Herring Well, it's about 10 to 8 on the 21st of February 2019. Welcome to another chapter of Stone Clearing with Richard Herring. If you're just joining us at this point, I mean, probably go back and start from the beginning, because you've missed a lot. But the short story is I am a man attempting to clear all the stones up a very large field near my house, create a wall that will be seen from space and last for longer than humanity. I'm bearing my name even once humanity's gone up, so bear my name. And also, there's something else.

It's good. There was something else I was about to say, but you know, sometimes you just forget. So I'm going out a bit less regularly this winter months. This is actually the first stone clearing I think I've done since the last podcast. I'm trying to get fit, and there is a lot of exercise benefits to stone clearing. That's just one of the many reasons you should give it a go. Oh, it's secret. That's what I was going to say. Don't tell anyone. If you're new, don't tell anyone about this. It's a secret thing. I do like to walk the dog up the hill now just to start the day and just brace him away.

Look at that. Right at the start of the field, there's two bits of brick there. I'm sure he wouldn't have just appeared somewhere. Some geese or ducks flying there. It's a beautiful morning. It's quite a grey, but it's not too cold. The dog looking at those two ducks, I want to say. I'm not an expert. And while that's happening, I'll just pick up a few heavily sized stones. Again, just from the periphery of the very start of the field,

a place that I've been a million times, it's still just more stones. And it's been possible that given a man has been clearing these stones for so long. And if I just take a little walk out here, this is very near the... This is insane. Very near the ten by the bench. Three pretty good sized stones within a foot of the shoreline. I mean, what is going on? No one's coming and putting these back.

I can tell these are stones that are submerged, that have somehow found their way to the top. And yet stones are inanimate. I hear you say, well, are they? I think these stones know what they're doing. I have all of your things just done a poo. I'm just going to check that out. And when I say you're picking up poo by hand, I have a bag on my hand. That's what happened in the last one.

Some people, I think I may have trouble locating this poo. She's done it in some dents and the rest. And I think I can probably get away with leaving all that here it is. I'm going to take it just because, you know, I like picking up the feces of different animals. And if anyone thinks that's weird, then that's their problem of mine. That's a really good poo, actually. Well done will be. You know, essentially my job, besides from clearing the stones off the field,

is dealing with the feces of nearly everyone in my house. Not my wife yet. And arguably, she may have to deal with mine at some point. But as I'm getting older and her, that's what I'm saying. I'm not getting into copper failure. And then he says to me, I was like, oh, it was diverted into the field there by something I thought was a stone. It was actually ironically some white dog shit.

You don't see that anymore, do you? That's apparently what they say. There it is. Some furry dog shit there as well by less responsible dog owners. I'm not. Okay, so actually they've cut the grass right back here. That's interesting. They've cut the grass right back at the fence that I like to throw my stones against.

And so you can actually see quite a few of the stones that I've thrown. Someone's burnt a big fire here. So lots of changes have been going on. I hope they weren't surprised to find a lot of stones in their way when they started cutting back that grass. I mean, I'm pretty sure that all the stuff this side of the fence belongs to the farmer. There are a lot of people who live along this side of the field do tend to treat that kind of headland of grass as their own.

It's outside the perimeter fences of their actual properties, but a lot of them dump their grass cuttings. Here we can see out here. And I imagine would be one of them when I did start making a camp, I said they have to destroy it. It'll be interesting if this ever goes to court whether those people are picked up on their actual legal use. All I'm doing is moving stones around.

Nothing is leaving the field except the occasional stone that bounces too far. Still no word from the farmer, of course, as to whether this is a positive or negative impact for him or her. Because there's secrets. So why would they tell me they wouldn't? No one knows it's me. And yeah, it's quite a nice little hall. It's kind of more fun stone clearing.

I mean, stone clearing should never really be fun. And I suppose the way I am a tourist, the original stone clearers would have been out here 24 hours a day, literally sleeping when they could, kicking stones when they could, avoiding being killed by irate villages when they could. A nice little, feels like a stone age tool and sometimes it's nicely in the hand,

could have been used for bashing, plotting at the other end, it's that sort of shape, this one. And I'm quite pleased with that find. Could go to the museum, but more importantly, it's going to go on a pile of stone somewhere around the edge of this field, or maybe create its own pile. In fact, I'm going to just chuck it there.

There isn't even any there. That's kind of moved them in today. I know I'm a tourist and I know it's nice to be able to stone clear when you just feel like it, rather than as your vacation. I feel happier not doing it every single day, I have to say. That will change when we come to the plowing time. I will be out here a lot more, I think.

There's a massive stone right on the edge. I think I'm going to have to get that one out. Just going to quickly try to check those around. Prize this one out, because it's quite a hit. It is a prize. It is supposed to be prized. Yeah, let's look at that. I mean, that's literally pretty much on the path

and yet never been spotted before. But yes, on the last podcast something was interesting. I started off thinking, why am I being forced to do this thing? Who made me? What were they thinking? It seems impossible, but by the end, I was very happy today. I'm starting quite happy, aren't I? I'm in a quite jolly mood,

returning to the stones that I've missed. Oh, I flew off hard a bit as I threw it. That was quite exciting. It's been a flint. Of course, at night time, you do occasionally see sparks coming off these stones as they hit one another. Maybe by the end of this walk, I'll be depressed. Let's see.

Let's see if it works that way. But if you're having mental health issues, I mean, probably consult your doctor. But if you're feeling depressed, why not head out? See some geese and some ducks flying over? Can't look at which ones. Maybe they might be. Which means they're probably geese if they've got long necks, right?

They're hunking. Having the time of their lives today, hopefully annoyed. What I'm saying is if you're feeling a bit depressed, why not get out and spend all day walking around the field, chucking stones out of the field? It might make things worse, and I'm not saying I'm a doctor.

But try it for at least six or seven months, and it might just, by the end of that, your other problems might not seem so bad as what I'm saying. When you give yourself a task that outwardly seems impossible, maybe it makes all the things you do in your daytime life actually seem a bit more possible. I'm hassle-hopping now. I've seen something a little way out, just poking out at me.

It's called to me, and I will rescue it. It's a tiny stone, but a few other tiny's around here. There's a big one here. No one around at the moment, which means that hassle-hop, I think, was successful. There's always the danger. With going out to the field, someone sees you, works out what you're doing.

And even today, you're not safe from being chased out of the village and possibly murdered by high-ranked villagers who don't understand why stones have to be cleared. Some people feel stones should stay where they are. This is the way it's always been, why you try and change things. Others just like stones in the fields for some reason. And this tent, yeah, I mean, a little bit of household here, just as stones have slipped in the rain, I think.

Of course, that's not necessarily necessary, but if the stones are coming back onto the field of play, there is a danger that you will have to clear them again later. So it's a peremptory strike. You have to decide whether that, because some people feel, which I feel a little, that the stones know where they want to be, and you should leave them there.

But then if you actually take that flottery too far, then of course you just leave the stones on the field, because that's where they want to be. So they know to an extent, but sometimes you have to cajole a little just to get the stones to where they will be at home, in a wall around a big field. And of course, not going out every day

doesn't mean that this will take me a little longer than anticipated. I thought I'd be cleaning and clearing 500 stones a week. It's maybe, at the moment, it's maybe more like 50 a week. I mean, you just have to do the mathematics if there's, say, 10 billion stones out here. That's really making a difference the length of time this is going to take me. I'm not a mathematician.

I'm sure some people could even try and work. We probably need the aid of computers, but you could probably work out how long that would take. You would need a better idea of how many stones are here. And I'm looking down the horizon now. It's interesting because the crops are inches tall now, which doesn't mean most of the further waste stones are hidden from you, but the occasional tractor tracks do reveal parts of the field.

It doesn't really matter for the moment. I think maybe 10, 20 years from when I've literally cleared the meter around the edge of the field, this will become more pressing, but I will need to be pushing my way further out. But let's say the first meter was going to say 10 years to clear, the next meet another 10 years, the next meet another 10 years. Obviously every time the field getting slightly smaller

because you're going around their edge. I mean, realistically, I can only hope to live in 100 years, so we're looking at 10 meters from there. So I'm just looking at that now. That is still quite a lot of the field to go. So maybe that central part of the field is for the next generation to worry about, or well, several generations really. But I'm hoping I can live long enough to complete this.

And maybe I can up my workload as I get older and have less writing work to do and less comedy to do. Because that's what I do in my spare time. There's a bit of comedy in there. Again, right at the edge of the field here, it's spooky how a few people are around. There's a massive stone. That was a Twin Peaks.

Lots of different little stones. It was actually one big stone. That's the biggest stone we found for a while, certainly this close, and that is two inches from the shore. I mean, that's insane. I don't know how these stones are appearing. Maybe there's erosion,

or maybe they're coming up, I don't know. So throwing three or four quite nice sized stones there onto a mini can. Still carrying my bag of dog shit, of course, and one of these people who ties it up in a tree and leaves it. Having done the difficult part, I will be taking this back home with me. So yeah, as I say, my job is doing comedy. I seem to be the lesser,

for some reason less of that seems to be going on, which is bad for me and my family. It's very good news for fans of stone clearing, and for people who want their stones cleared from fields, because it just gives me more time as I get older to do this. Again, I suppose, it's something to say in rich, but as you get older,

your back will be hurting, your knees will have gone, stone clearing will be a much more difficult thing. Maybe, or maybe after practising stone clearing for years, I'll be better at it. I mean, that's how things work, isn't it? And I think you can hear from the clicks, there's a bit out of breath.

How much stones have been taken off the field right now? And again, another huge one just in the path, just almost lying on the path. So, I think there's something to be said by not over-farming the field. Coming out every day, it doesn't give the stones the time to grow, and maybe in the ancient of days,

stone clears would have gone around 10 or 20 fields in their daytime walks, and then returned in that way so that like a week later, there would come more stones that have grown. I mean, you say they're not growing. I would like to see science understand this one, why I can have walked along this path

literally a thousand times and still be seeing massive stones right where my foot is. I explain that science, you can't. I mean, it is a good workout. You know, walking up the hill with a dog is nice, but I'm not sure anything, quite any workout in the world

compares with this walking, bending, kicking, throwing, stopping, starting. It's bursts of energy, I suppose. I'm just, yeah, again, just still amazed. I still can't stop commenting on it. Here I am. I haven't got to set that one hassle off of this, which has only made 10 reasons for the field.

I haven't gone beyond the first meter of this field. Still finding bounteous amounts of stones. And, you know, there were something. Now, I was listening to the book of sapiens, which you may have read or listened to. There's an audiobook. I thought it was something quite interesting in that that when the conquistadors originally went to South America,

the people there were amazed to see them interested in gold. This soft metal that was not very used for making tools couldn't be eaten yet. For some reason, the Spanish people, their eyes lit up. They were obsessed with gold. And those people thought, ah, damn, there's someone coming just at the point where I'm coming to my other field.

It's going to stop me transgressing, at least, but I'm in clear view of a dog walker and three dogs. They're real dogs, they're not dog dogs. I'm going to just have to go back my way. Oh, there's one coming across the centre. I'm really in view of lots of people now. Suddenly, which other way I go, excuse me, just had to spit down a bit of the coal,

and my hands are full of dog shit. Now, come on, good girl. So I'm just going to pretend to be a regular dog walker for at least a few seconds. Oh, well, talk about this. Oh, and I'm just looking out at the next field as I do this. And I mean, I feel like a Spanish man arriving at a place where gold has no real meaning.

I mean, they used it to make jewellery and such, of course, but it wasn't a valuable thing. Whoopie! But the value of the gold was just a management, wasn't it? It was just something we've decided is precious. Whoopie, come here, whoopie! All right, whoopie's going off to meet the other dog and to be friendly.

Hey there. Come on, whoopie! Come on! Well, I'll just tell them while those dogs are playing, they'll just kick. Oh, it doesn't really go enough the field. Come, whoops! You can do the occasional kick when people are looking,

because it just looks like you're idling away, playing with a dog. Good girl. Oh, there's a nice one there. She's not really looking. She's going to nip in and grab that. That was risky. That was risky. I didn't even look back to see what she saw.

That woman seemed friendly. She said, good girl to my dog and stuff like that. But she could be some, she could be the stone starzy, one of their stall pigeons. I haven't even thrown that stone yet. I'm so nervous about whether I've been seen. It was an unnecessary risk for one stone,

but sometimes, you know, you're going to achieve something. You're going to do that. So what my point about the conquistadors is, you know, it's gold, not just a sort of a stone. I mean, it's metal, but it's the same principle. Why are we obsessed with gold?

Why is it valuable to us? No reason. And things only have value. If you give them value, and if you give stones value, you will find this a very, very exciting exercise. Because if you think, you know, imagine if you walked into a field laden with gold,

oh, look at that. There's a hawk up there. Wolfie, look at that one. You're not going to take that one down, are you? It's beautiful. We're getting a nature ramble today, and no mistake. We've seen geese.

We've seen hawks. Just buffeting on the breeze. It's as if nature is saying, rich, carry on. What you're doing is what we want, even though we're organic material. We appreciate your understanding that minerals are more important. All of human civilization, if you read sapiens,

think about it for a second. It's based on artifice. Everything you believe is artifice. You can mock people who are religious for everything we believe in, from democracy, money. I made this point many years ago. One of my comedic shows,

which I suspect the writer of sapiens saw, and then thought, oh, I'll write that as a book. The imaginary, you can't knock people for believing in imaginary things. Because you do as well. Nothing in civilization is actually true. They're just ways for us to operate more efficiently. We have beliefs,

but there's no empirical truth behind any of those. They may help us work better together. And what I'm saying is no reason why gold is worth more than these bits of flint. And there's no reason why hoarding gold is a better thing to do, less mad thing to do than picking stones off a field

and putting them at the edge of the field. That's my point. That's maybe the point of this whole thing. The point of this whole thing is to clear stones off a field. You can view any metaphor you want into that. You can say, oh, it's about Brexit. Oh, it's about how life is basically meaning. It's a good sized stone.

They're just lying. I don't come down that we're going, because we're not going across the diagonal here. This is a place I don't come to too much. A nice find there. No work required. The good thing about coming this way is there is a dog shit bin quite imminently.

So I can get rid of this dog shit if people are worried about me carrying some dog shit in my hand. And I think, you know, I expect he's just carrying it in his bare hand rather than in a bag, like some people did in the last time. You use the bag to pick up the dog shit. I mean, this is shit picking up lesson one.

Use something else to touch shit with if you can, especially there on the field, where there's no hand washing facilities. I'm not a monster. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. That is the motto of the Stone Clearer Association, as you know. Oh, I'm just looking across at the next field now.

Another point of entry, I might there's just some tasty stones there. Again, imagine you're Spanish. I mean, it's a horrible thing to have to imagine unless you are one in which case, you know, sorry that you are Spanish. I'm sorry, you're Spanish. I'm not sorry for what I said.

Imagine how you'd feel with this. You just, these chunks of rock just lying here unattended. It's not my field. It's not my, it wasn't the Spanish people's country, but countries, of course, are an imaginary construct anyway. Yeah, you're going to learn some stuff if you listen to this podcast. Anyway, those have formed a little,

those have gone into the border wall. I feel that the one I'm doing is not as controversial as some of you do. Yes, I'm sure I shouldn't really be in this field, but I'm doing good. And in a way, aren't the boundaries of any field as imaginary as anything else in this world? Yes, they are.

So that's the point, isn't it? The way, the point is I'm collecting stones and getting them off there. That's the point. But you can read another stuff to that and maybe just think about your lives a little bit. That's not what it's about in this podcast, but, you know, it's going to be a long old haul

doing this every week for the rest of my life. So I feel I should give you, throw you a few crumbs. A couple of big stones here. They're basically on the headland of this part. No, nice big stones, but I'm just going to move them right to the fence. There's a very handy fence down this way where, you know, we can just pile the stones up

and that will make it much more convenient. Oh, and here we are at the dog ship bin on the wreck. Wolfie has reminded me of going into the wreck. We're not going in the wreck, and Wolfie, there's no stones in here, and if they are, they're not my business. Oh, it's one of those with the little sort of splat, like you're depositing money in the bank.

And there's some security required. That's what that one's like. What's going to happen today? So my hair is running in my face. A lot of ancient centuries would shave all the hair off their bodies to avoid this end of getting in the way. You know, a stray cube or some long dangling hair, like I could, you know, impede what you're trying to do.

Oh, and another dog walking down here. That's a shame. Where are they going? I think they might be leaving the field. That's all right. So we've been quite lucky that we lost a little bit of stone clearing. Thanks to...

I wonder if that hawk was somehow part of the surveillance. These geese, they moved on to... I mean, that would be quite clever to move on to... I mean, you know, I took it as the natural world saying, well done, Rich, carry on. Why would the natural world say that? You know, why would the biological world say that? Kind of digging up with my foot to no avail.

Oh, there's some nice ones here, Wolfie, because we don't come down here very much, do we? And this side of the field, it was always a bit of a paradise for stone clearers. And undiscovered, I think, it's like finding Tutankhamen's tomb a little bit. No one has ever come down here and thought, oh, let's clear some stones out of here.

So you've literally got every stone that has ever been here since the dawn of time. And yeah, again, they're gold metal. Are these stones gold? Not literally, no. But maybe they are literally gold. Maybe they are. We thought about that when they're not their fruit, mainly.

But it's gold is just a state of mind worth. It's just something we ascribe. You might argue that food has worth. Sex, obviously, has a lot of worth. But apart from that, nothing is worth anything. And you just make up what it's worth. And what does, oh, look at that beard. And when you see a beauty like that,

just an inch from the shoreline, it looks like a small toy, a millennium falcon. It's that sort of one again. And that sort of size, the small toy version of the millennium falcon. And that sort of size, the small toy version of the millennium falcon. Then you'll know.

Then you'll know the pleasure. Oh, when just bounced through the grill of the fencing into the other side. Well, that's where it wanted to go. That was a bit like tipping point. Ah, the sun's come up just as we approached this sort of... I mean, it's been quite a few months of a good podcast anyway.

God, I hope this is recorded. I'm on a new phone and I've kind of got a feeling it might not have recorded in which case, there's no point in me saying that because you won't hear it. If you do hear it, I'll just look mad because it was fine. The sun above the clouds,

looking across the beautiful woods of Harkshire in that direction, like it's almost ethereal mistiness of sunbeams catching mist. I mean, I say it before, but I say again, this is a sort of idyll, isn't it? But people have laughed at me for stone clearing. Yeah, I wonder how they spend their morning.

I think you're probably sitting on a tube right now. No, as you listen, maybe as you listen. But as I'm saying this, and that here, I'm not sure if you can hear it, but I'm not sure if you can hear it. But as I'm saying this, and that here I am looking at the

disc of the sun, shouted now by light cloud, as if we were going into a weak eclipse. The sun, the ultimate stone to clear, of course. I mean, in some ways, a ball of gas, but in other ways, clearly not. Come on, can't be gas. That would just flow away.

I mean, science really is way behind in a lot of this stuff. Not a great deal on this little route. I've found a little pebble there in there, just in the headland, sorry, on the shore, not the headland, that I've put onto the can at the other end of the diagonal. If you're drawing a mental map of this field,

as I'm sure many of you are, some of you may be able to work out from that mental map where I am, like Masquerade or something, the Kate Williams book, if you can find what I am, you can come and look at some of the cans I've created, but you know, I wouldn't bother for you.

There's Wolfie being a good girl. She's gone, she's right behind me, left the best gift in the world. Yeah, there's a few little ones. It's not insignificant. There's some little stones here that will need to be cleared, and there's a couple of them gone,

if you're counting. But as a weekly haul, I think you'll agree this is weak. And that's why they call it the weak, because most people have a weak haul of stones. It's not, it's not. We are picturing the throwing post. A lot of people's highlighted the podcast.

Simon Stump has got in touch with me. Rich, why don't you just make the whole podcast just throwing the rocks and stuff there? They're not rocks, make the stone. I'll get it right. At the post, just do that. That's the best bit. Well, mate, it wouldn't be the best bit, would it,

if it was all that... I mean, think about it. Why it's good is because it's just a little relief in the last quarter of the podcast. Just gathering a few stones to... That's quite a nice size one. That should be easy to help. I'll use it at the last.

Just give myself a challenge. I do want to put a couple of stones. Oh, there's a bit of dog poo there, right? People are very irresponsible dog owners. Not like me. My dog poo safely blinged. All right. I'm going to put a couple of stones on the pile.

Again, the can that doesn't ever seem to grow around. We're going to go to the central lamppost, and I've got four stones now. Let's see if I can leave them on. Wolfie! Wolfie's disappeared. I've been talking. Wolfie!

Wolfie! Good girl. Excuse my spitting. You're a bad girl. Come here. Come on. I'm just trying to do the best bit of the podcast, and you ruined it.

And there's someone who can basically see what I'm doing if she cared to look like a grey-haired lady with a black and white dog. You may know her. Right, here we are. Some distance away. Oh, missed the first go. Hit the second go.

Hit two and four. Two out of four ain't bad. That's one out of two. That's a 50% success rate. I think you heard the hit, so I hope you cheered. I did it quickly as well because I was being observed. So heading up to the main can now. Slightly a can that's been slightly...

What's the word I'm looking for, Wolfie? Wolf! Yes, it's Wolf. It's been slightly neglected. I'm late. Yet still seems to be growing. Suggesting the stones, as I said, are magnetic and drawn to it.

That's my... That can be the only real possible explanation. Just throwing a few little stones and I'm gathering as we go into the fence. So these will make a fine wall at some point. Big hole there where a dog has dug. Maybe someone's trained a dog to look at stones. My dog can dig, but she hasn't yet understood

why she's digging and what she's looking for. She's an idiot in many ways, but I love her still. Probably all love an idiot somewhere in her life. Maybe someone loves us and maybe we're the idiot, he knows. This podcast is about changing your perspective and looking at the world from a different way. I'll put one there. That's a nice little nest there growing.

Maybe 20 meters, maybe 15 meters from the main camp. So it'll be a lovely day when these start to connect. That's what I'm looking forward to. Again, just nipping out slightly into the field now just to pick up a few specimens for the main wall. Nothing massive though. I've got five medium to small. I wouldn't quite call them.

This is the last one you might call a pebble. The rest is slightly too big to be a pebble. I know people will ask, what's difference in a pebble and a stone and a rock? Well, you'll know. You don't need classification. You will know. And then just extending the end of that wall a little bit.

See if it was around. I don't think they are. So I'm going to just, again, a few fallen stones. So it's going to happen. I'm moving them around a little bit to a happier position. Yeah, no, I don't think anyone's added to that. That's all me and the magnetic stones. So we're heading down the hill now.

Just going to throw a few pebbles towards the main camp. That's about bounced on. Nice of those two slightly missed, but we'll be hopefully part of the camp at some point in the future. I hope you enjoyed today's walk. It's been just a ramble in both senses of the word. But nevertheless, there's been, I hope there's been some interesting points picked up.

Oh, I thought that was a stone, it was a leaf. Just want to pick up a couple of, I think these are properly pebbles. They're going on this mini can. Again, this one's probably more like 20 meters from the wall. But again, amazing day when that joins up. We're approaching, of course, the ditch that I'm trying to fill. And then I need to put a stone in to prevent global calamity,

which has been working well so far. I'll pick up a couple of things here while we've got some. Oh, we'll see. Doing a second per the day. You've got to admire that. And even though it's on the field, I am going to take that one. It's quite close to the edge. And I'm thoughtful of other stone clearers.

I mean, what the stone clearers was to come out here, looking for stones, as we've experienced, happened to me, didn't it? Oh, there's a nice brown stone. Oh, no. So if you take no other message from this pocket, let it be that you pick up your dog's food, please. Oh, it's a soft one.

The other one's really solid. It looks solid, but we're soft. And that's often the way. And I'm using my bare fingers again like a pet stone clearer would. Just to pick up not the poo, the poo's in a bag. There were just a few stones around there. It's like Wolfie unable to pick up the stones herself. If you're looking for stones, I understand.

Here's some that I can't point. I have no fingers. So the only way I can point is with my soft feces. And it worked, Wolfie. So thank you for that. So I'm going to put a nice can here. I'm going to put a couple of the pebbles on there. And I sort of semi-sphere one that looks like a ping-pong ball

that's been cut in half and turned out to be solid, or a dinosaur egg maybe that's been cut. It might even be a dinosaur egg. It probably is. And I'm now working... I haven't lost my love, have I, Wolfie? That would be a disaster, hasn't it? Is that it? No.

Oh, there it is in my pocket. It's okay. I have these stone-claring special gloves. They're cut resistant. They've been working quite well for me since that original pair did get shredded. There are even this part of the field where there aren't many stones.

They're the occasional just monsters as a merge from the seas out here. And I'm still managing to pick up a few stones. So I've chucked up them into the... I'm going to put two in the ditch. And that should make us doubly safe from global disaster. I don't need to thank me. I'm just part of my job.

And then there's the entrance and exit can. And I do like to throw things towards as I come in and I place as I come out. So I'm just trying to find a couple more bits to go in there. We've been quite lucky with not to meet... Depending on your point of view, a lot of people, their favorite bit is when I meet other dog walkers

and have to pretend to be a polite, normal human. But the dog walkers from my point of view in the stone pair have been distant today, which is good. Oh, kicked a stone. It was a leaf again. That's still a problem even now. Water has gone.

And, yeah, look, here we go. Still a tennis ball on this particular cane, which I'm going to leave. It's organic, really, I suppose, but I'm going to let it slide. Well done, Wolfie, for doing that second pair. You've got water all over your nose. Where have you been?

Oh, I've got the bag taut up in the lead. That could lead to disaster. Lead to disaster. A lot of puns today, Rich. What's happened to you? I've got old, Rich. That's what's happened. Okay, Rich.

This isn't that podcast. Talk to the dog. Talk to the stones. Do not talk to yourselves. Okay. So heading down the path now. Our job done. So what have we learned today about stone clearing?

I mean, there's only so much you can teach in these things, and probably a weekend podcast is a bit overkill. Some of you seem to enjoy it. Brian Vine has been in touch to say, I enjoy it, which don't stop doing it ever. He emailed in herring1967 at gmail.com.

You can all do it. Lots of people have been doing it. Ian Pyle of Leaves said, I can make some names. No, Russian name, probably, thinking about it. It's a Russian name, I can make it. And there's a woman called Jane Leaves. So if you're suspicious that's not real.

It is real. There's probably someone called Dmitri Pyleov. So what I'm saying is it's a real email. He says, come on, what are you talking about now? He says, never stop, Rich. What you do is amazing. You are an inspiration to all stone clearers. That's true.

I'm going to walk this bag of dog food up to the dog poo bin that's quite near my house. And I guess I don't have to dispose of it in my own bin. It seems, you know, it's only some dog food in a bag, but even so, it is still poo. Two poons for a walkie today. And she did three yesterday, so I'm slipping. It's part of my house.

A car drove past with the poppy still on its grill there. That's the kind of place we live in. It's been a good walk. We've had some fun. I hope you enjoyed it. Maybe we'll leave it at the bin today. My wife and children upstairs playing. So do keep those emails coming in.

Janice dog bin. I mean, there's no such thing as a dog bin, so I can't just have seen that. It says, I don't really like this podcast, Rich. I like the other stuff you do. This seems weird. Hey, don't email in nasty things. I think this podcast is good.

And if you like it, then you can listen to it. And if you don't like it, you don't have to. I'm going to stop at the bin, wasn't I? We'll go back. We're having such fun. Why leave it now? I hope this is recorded. I'm going to feel foolish.

You're a good girl. Should we get you your breakfast? What have you got? What have you got on the end of your nose? What have you been doing? You're a funny girl. All right, here we are back at home. So the charade must be reimposed if anyone's there.

So obviously, if I stop talking about going clearing your nose, there's a danger discovery. And here we are. We're back home. No one's here tonight. Thanks for listening. I'll be back probably next week. We'll see.

I hope you enjoyed the bit where I cleared the stones. That was my favorite bit. And if you have any questions, I won't answer them. Bye. All right, go moves. Stone clearing Richard Herring started me Richard Herring and Wolfie the dog and some dogs in the distance really. And the lady in the distance were not much else this time.

The music's by Mike Cosgrave. The voice of the stones is Michael Faheen. Thank you for watching.