Stone Clearing With Richard Herring - Chapter 52

Episode Date: January 19, 2020

Chapter 52 - Ice Clearing. The first frost of 2020 has turned the ground into a clench-jawed child and only loose milk teeth shall be cleared today. Some chat about why no stone clearer can have a partner of any kind and some stuff about not having sex with dogs, which I think we can all get on board with. Plus how did Hasselhoffing get its name? The answer might surprise you. Look at the progress on the main cairn. Pretty impressive huh? Off the ftocean we join Richard as he attempts the relatively simple task of driving a car 50 metres down the road and for a moment thinks his dog is on fire. Plus a celebrity email about whether water can ever be a stone. You are in for a treat. Sorry the recording kept cutting off. Probably the cold.

Stone Clearing with Richard Herring Hello and welcome to Chapter 52 of Stone Clearing with Richard Herring. It's 8.27pm. It's Sunday the 19th of January. It's a cool morning. There's suns up. No cloud cover. Blue sky. Chilly though. A bit of chill in the air.

And just walking up to the field now. Let's have a see the moons out in the day. It's a little crescent taunting me saying come and get me if you can. Try and clear this one. We can reach for the moon. We can make it there. The sun just coming up over the horizon. Making it very hard for me to see where what's coming.

Always a danger. The ground for the first time. Oh yeah, I haven't brought my trowel out with me. I wasn't even going to come this way today. And I needed my trowel really. I've cleared three tiny stones but they're just the ones I could pluck from the jaws of the earth. They're lying on top. Everything's frozen. Which is in a way good because what kind of a world are we living in when January's pretty much the first frost of the year.

It's become that here. I am worried about the fact that the freezing cold let me see if I've got any gloves. It's like picking ice out of an ice box. I've got some woollen gloves here. I don't know if they will be up to the job. I literally cannot see what's coming over the horizon. And many of these stones clamped into the earth. They do not want to leave our challenging conditions.

But that's what the podcast's all about. Teaching you how to do your best. The boots become, ah, you can see now the sun's dipped below the horizon. I'm safe in all directions. It's a beautiful day. But all the stones I'm clearing are just the ones scattered. Oh, I want to hassle off out to that one. Because the ground beneath my feet is not muddy.

And I'm hassle offing. A few people were saying is that named after the actor David Hasselhoff. Because of his appearance in Baywatch where he would rescue people from the real ocean. I mean the water ocean is no less real. This ocean out here of stones. It's not named after him. He is in fact named after the practice. He began in Germany.

The Germans were the first to think of being able to move into the field to clear stones. They didn't bring as much in stone clearing lore. Oh, there's something just brilliant. The light is so bright out on the field. There is a lot of opportunities to hassle off as I tell this story of how hassle offing began. Because it's just catching, just catching the light. And you think, oh, I'm going to get that one. Dangerous.

The one that's the one I saw. I told you these guys, like, you know, people say, how do you know which stone to get rich? How do you know which ones to take on this occasion? It's a question we keep coming back to. I don't know if I've not explained it sufficiently well. But I would say to you, how did you know when you met your partner? How did you know that they were the one? It just was a feeling, right?

I mean, that's not a very good analogy to use. Because I imagine most of the people listening this did not have partners. It is. And that's not to cast aspersions on stone. Because they often are quite sexy people. Often nude, which is a star. Towards being sexy. But many of them cannot really form human relations.

And those that have, once they start stone clearing, if they've got the relationship first, which is usually the way, it was certainly for me. I was a married man before I started stone clearing. I'm not sure I would have. I'm married to the stones. But I'm also my wife legally. But it doesn't quite, even though my wife doesn't really know what's going on. She's annoyed by whatever it is.

And will probably leave me as a result. That's just something that's just one of the sacrifices I and all stone clearers have to make. But anyway, imagine if you watch a film and see someone fall in love. How do they know? Which how to look at your friends who have partners. How did they know? How do they choose? There's a billion people out there, probably more.

And yet they've honed in on one. Decided that's the one. That's how you choose. Except with stone clearing, you're allowed to do that. You know, 200, 300 times a day. So much better being in stone clearing. It would be better if human relationships were like that as well, in my opinion. And it's another reason I think my wife is considering her options.

Someone here has been quite a bit rude and kicked a lot of my stones out of the way. That's just rude. Seemingly got annoyed. You know, this patch of land, I don't think it belongs to anyone, but the people who own the houses behind it. Like to think the edge of this field belongs to them, which is ridiculous. It's a ridiculous idea, the idea of a piece of land belonging to anyone. It's ridiculous that stones could belong to a human. But also legally, I'm sure it doesn't.

So anyway, Hasselhoff comes from, that is German for clearing a stone. Ancient German. If you studied German, you might go, hold on that. And if you study ancient German, you might go, I don't remember that being ancient German. It's really ancient German from before records began. When I was writing Hassel, means to literally to Hassel. It means Hassel way in English. And half means stone in ancient German.

So you'd Hasselhoff by going into the fields. I actually imagine you get quite a few stones off here, so it's not as bad as it could be. That's that. So yeah, so anyway, it's like choosing a stone is very much like falling in love. You just know, and also it's transient thing that will pass. And with human relationships will just lead to regret. Not from me, I love my wife, but I think my wife's probably regretting what she's done. That will meet her now for the moment.

So fun. Stoneclad has not been used in the court of law as a reason to end the marriage. So surely the time, the number of rule doing it now, partly I have to say through me popularizing it. I'm not blowing my own horn. And the whole Stoneclad movement is of course in itself, even if your partner still loves you. It's very much against biological entities. So you bring instead the stone based community. So it makes it hard to form relationships with humans or animals.

I mean, you know, which is good that at least that is good to stop. And people will form a relationship to animals or that one stuff. Looks like it's stuck there in a very cold corner of the field here. I haven't done that, hasn't it? It's here at all. So you just got to do what you can do. Luckily, there are a lot of stones. Once we get this down a bit.

Besides that, baby, I can't really clean that one. That was a good one. Just a stone is already off. That's the best one I've ever taken off. I've forgotten about it. Morning. Whoopie, come here. Whoopie.

No, no. Come here, darling. Whoopie. Sorry. Please play. Good girls. It does. Well, she's so big.

Come on, you. Put that little dog in your own. Clever. Just the other side of the fence there, lady. Clever. So what was I saying? I can't remember. It doesn't matter, does it?

Anyway, it's hard to... Yeah, I think I was saying that at the moment it's easy because there's a lot of stones. Obviously, the year down the line, most of these stones will be cleared. I'll be trying to dig down at this time. Just seeing what I can do. Just lodged with my feet here. And we're getting some done. Getting some out, but it's tricky.

I haven't been too well, but I don't know if you can hear me sniffling. I just had to spit out some excess snot there. I hope that didn't spoil your enjoyment of the show. If you're listening to this because you like hearing men sniff and then spit out sputum, I don't approve of that. There's a big turd right across the path. How rude is that? That's just rude, isn't it?

We wouldn't do that. When are you going to poo? I'm going to listen to this just for your poo's done. Come on. Is it too cold to poo? Anyway, yes, I'm a bit ill. My mind's wondering if it's going to be the sharp focus that you're used to. Luckily, still quite a lot of stuff is just lying atop the field.

Of course, the plight I was to spin through, which has helped a few more weeks. It may become harder to dislodge. We're looking forward to the first proper fall of snow, I guess. We'll be chasing that one. It's gone into the... You can't see the sun was ever judging from where we're at. I think that's gone comfortably into the verge. I'll take people walking it up on the other side of the fence.

You do have to be prepared to give up all human relations. It's to be a really great stone clear. I am hoping this podcast over the coming years will... You'll just see my human relationships falling off one by one. My wife leaving me, my children becoming disillusioned. Thinking I'm sort of a fun, weird dad and then realizing it's sort of worse than that. So I'm just left alone with me and Wolfie. 20, 30 years time just me and Wolfie are.

Well, if I manage as I hope to replace all of Wolfie's bone and flesh with stones. The only way to combat log dogs is with a stone dog. Everyone knows that. And I will start my experience with Wolfie. No offense to her and no offense to people who value the life of animals, but she is less important than I am. Just in stone clearing. I threw a stone there.

Quite a long way, she's picked it up. Well done dog. Give it to daddy. Give it to daddy. I'm not literally a daddy. Give it to daddy. It's not like a perfect pervert. Why did you pick that up? I threw that so that it would be near the edge.

It's not perverted to call your... to pretend you're your dog's daddy. I don't literally think it. It's not a sexual thing if that's what you're thinking. I made it quite clear that I think sex with animals is a bad thing. And I've never had sex with my dog. I will hold on to this Wolf. I'll throw that with him.

It's a nice round stone, that one. Nice for Wolfie to be able to play along. So just as I say, she's pretty useless at gathering stones. She turns up as if to... prove her worth with a stone in her mouth so that she can clear. She hasn't picked it up again though. Let's throw it again. I've got the same one.

We'll see if we can get this one to the edge. We're right across the middle of the field. Oh, that's beat off. My eye was caught by something over here, but it's gone. And yeah, another impromptu stone clear, really. It came out in my best coat glass. I'm actually having my best coat again. But I wasn't thinking I was coming stone clear,

and I just decided to go this way. Where did that stone go, Wolf? I'll look inside this one. This is like a dinosaur's leg, the bone that goes into the hip. That's a nice one. We'll carry that one. I think we may have lost the one I was throwing. That's a shame.

But so we're picking up some nice... and they're clean stones. Oh, I think that was the one. That looks like it works. That'll do, I think so. I think I know where it is. They're just coming out of the ground like the teeth of a child. No, I'm not talking about pulling kids' teeth out.

It's an experiment. I was saying, you know, when they come out naturally. Oh! I've just become a little tugger. I think I may have lost the... got so close to that little roundie. I think... Yeah, it's hard to distinguish them,

because all the other stones will come back to it. I'll recognise. I'll never forget a stone, despite what I said earlier about not recognising that. That's the one that you'd think I'd recognise. But we'll find that one again in the future. Hopefully, life on air. Hey, remember that time?

We were trying to get that one around. Here it is. We found it again. As long as it's near the edge, which it sort of is, it's near this edge. And it was pretty near the other edge last time. So Wolfie brought it back.

Getting a nice kind of wall effect developing here. It is stretching down. I'm trying to keep it low. Not too obvious, but looking at it there from a distance, it's certainly building. And for those five big stones I've put on, I'm going to help that.

Let's see. This is interesting. This is the main camera right now, obviously. I didn't need to say that almost. And... botanical forces are attempting to overtake it. It's lower than it was. We are still recording.

We're still recording. I'm just going to try to take a photo. I think you can see how that's working, as we round the corner. It's quite impressive. We're still recording. You can see a dog walking a distance coming that way. So I'm going to head back down this way.

Almost got my gloves off. They're unnecessarily these are gloves that you can use your iPhone with. And it's been a couple of days, certainly not expected when I got here. So don't try and prejudge the weather. It's my advice. Sometimes, and actually the stones up here

have been in the sun a little bit longer than the ones at the start of this journey. You'll look at this like a bit of chrystalline. It's just ice on the stone. It's slowly, slowly the wall down, particularly down this part of the field is developing. Those people who thought I was mad, those people who thought,

oh, they'll do this for a week and then they'll find some other preoccupation have been proven very wrong. Hard to look at. And I'm looking into the sun again now. So it's hard to see the Hasselhoff Hassel. It doesn't exactly mean Hassel in the English sense because there's also it's Hassel.

It's where Hassel comes from, but it also means to venture outwards and Hassel things. So it's a sort of double meaning hoff, as we noticed. And it's just a coincidence that David Hasselhoff got a job in which he was like a stone clearer but of people and people in water and stones in land. He must have laughed in his family,

I presume, over their derivation of them. They must have found that amusing and slightly sad and offensive, possibly. And they must have been disgusted with themselves also. And the sun now four or five inches above the horizon looking from where I am. I think in reality the units of measurement will probably be bigger than that.

Some people believe, of course, that Earth goes around the sun, but I can tell you right now that sun is moving upwards. And we are very much still. So forget what you know about science. Just use your observational skills. Trust your instincts, the lies you have been told by science and linguistics as well.

Some people are going to come and go, actually hoff doesn't mean stone ritual, it does. So the things you have learned around. This is the Brexit ditch there. So the couple of weeks trying to work is magic. We will see, we will see if that happens. So I mean it's been a casual day stone clearing. We've seen a couple of dog walkers,

but nothing to massively get in our ways. The stones have been cold, but my gloves have proved quite effective deterrent against ice. I'm going to fix up on here that literally has ice on it. I can't feel that coldness. And that's exciting this point here because I think often to really be at one with the stones, you need to feel how dead they are.

They are, to understand how alive they really are. I hope that makes sense to you, but when you're dead for eons, is that really less alive than something alive? For a few to hate? That coldness is a real sign of life. That's why I believe anyway. So we're coming back down,

so it's just a quick little jump around the field. I am doing some non-stone clearing work this week coming up, which will probably preclude me from doing very much stone clearing. I'll be out and walking it up and I'll try and get a bit in first thing in the morning, but I will be in London town where there are not many fields or many stones on this field. Am I pity the things in London town for that?

All right, well, so we're going to go and get the car. We have to move the car for some road work since it's up the road a little bit, so I'm going to go and get that and then drive back home. It's not a great distance away, but just be a slightly different podcast than usual. Of course, the stone carers have medieval times

when the stone thing was probably at its height. It did not have access to cars, so if any medieval stone carers are listening, this is going to be confusing this bit. Walking in directly into the sun, as I seem to have done even though I've gone in a circle, I feel like I've been walking into the sun all the time. Come on, walk.

There's a piece over the little village I live in today. My car is going to have loads of ice on it. I could just fly my journey back home. I could take a couple of emails while we're... Ice tea has been in touch. I presume the wrapper. He knows about Jaffa from Only Fools and Orses, that guy. So why wouldn't he know about me

and why wouldn't he be interested in stone clearing? He is interested. He says, you, Rich, who controls your destiny, fans, that's the cruiser. Ice tea is one of the things he says. I like the stone clearing, even though I prefer ice to stones, but in a way, isn't ice a kind of stone?

Well, that's an interesting question, Ice Tea. I'm very apt, again, for today, so thank you for... I'm a big fan of your early work. I haven't listened to that much stuff recently. I think it worked mainly acting now. It isn't a stone, but I understand what you mean. At least it transforms water, a very un-stone-like thing, into a temporary stone.

And if the world becomes cold enough and too cold for human habitation, as I hope it will, then the permanence of the ice there will make it more less a stone. So, you know, though I have no truck with water, I don't like it in many ways. Its job is to diminish stone. I do look forward to the time when the world returns

to the icier climb. And, yeah, I think that's the point. You're making a good one. Wolfie, thanks for walking the road, Dick. Let's see if I've brought my car key, otherwise this whole journey has been somewhat of a waste of time. But thanks, I mean, it's nice to have some celebrity fans. Do get in touch with your celebrity.

And if you're not, it's still all right. And if you get in the back of the car, because, girl, have we got any ice in here? Because if we haven't, there's going to be a long old stop. And I'm going to open the door. Oh, yes, I have. And I've got an ice caper as well. So, you've heard me clear some stones.

Now, if you like a teething, water is more important than stones. You're going to enjoy this bit, because it's going to be me literally clearing some ice. I've actually cleared all kinds of things. I have some raisins, which are just forming up right in the door there. Morning.

That could just be a little bit quite there as a... Man, a jogging man was running past trying to prolong his life. A waste of time. Think of the stones you could have cleared and invented this. This is... And this is why water will never be a stone. That's why. And I'm spraying on...

I'm just scraping. I'm just scraping so that it's putting ice on. I might just get inside an attempt to use the... windscreen wipers. We can carry talking in the car. In a way, it's safer than that. You should do all the podcasts inside the car. Maybe I should.

Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Checking to have my phone off there by... giving it a round with it. No, it's still going. It's going to go quite a long time. So I'm quite a... This is quite a change...

for the... Sanctuary. Well, that's me putting on my suit belt. I can recognize that sound. The sound is beautiful now in here. Are you all right, Wolfie? If you're sitting patiently in the... boot of the car, it's a big car.

This is my tour car. And a family car. Oh, the... windscreen wipers actually frozen. All my best. I can't go again. Oh, this is turning. We cut off at some point there.

I hope we find out later what that was. It didn't look good, whatever it was, but I think we're still good for the rest of it. I just went out to try and... I... I'm just working now. I... Oh, it's not good at all.

I think this isn't a way to make a hot car. I think it's sitting in a old car with windscreen wipers, I think, in that kind of noise. Oh, it's... the temperature is minus 0.5 degrees. Oh, a little bit of a... a little bit of a spurt from the...

I don't know if you just need it. I'm going to be able to see to drive up the street. Of course, but... I... I mean, it's become quite a dull hot car. I'll take a couple more emails. I mean, is this really a plain-listening to a man sitting in a car with

a sound of windscreen wipers struggling to break through ice? I don't think it is. I wouldn't listen to this. I've spent my life, I was sitting at home, listening to this. If there was a guy doing that, I think it's a pretty cool guy doing that. Which I am, but if I was listening to that,

I'd make some wrong decisions down the line somewhere here. Let's just check that this isn't gonna... Close the front rooms. I think it's all internal. Let's get the old heaters warmed up. Let's see if we can get this baby done. It's taken me a lot longer than I anticipated.

Simon Wingmer has been in touch to ask, is it ever accepted to use a car in Snowflake, which is a very good timing for Simon. It's very difficult to use a car Simon, just due to... mainly due to... the habit most fields are

can't be driven on, if you've got a Land Rover that can sometimes work. But the problem is on an icy morning like this, visibility is poor and really struggling to... the conversation inside the car has also got the heaters on. They're like now smeared it.

I mean this would be... if I crash this would be a useful thing recording to have. It's not fire now. Are you alright back there? Yeah, the ice is inside the car. I've never seen that before. Like ice.

What's going on Moose? Is that your breath? That's a fire. Let's just check out Wolfie's not on fire, I think it's just her breath in the car. Ah, that was weird. Just because there was a smell of fire, plus Wolfie's breath is really flowing

out the back there. And yeah, it's stuck here. It was stuck in a kind of limbo. Waiting to use the scraper on the inside of the car and what will that do? It's a really rubbish scraper.

Have I lost a bit of this or something? It doesn't seem to do the job at all. It's not helping. I've got a bit of ice on me now. And this is the worst, don't think I'll cast it all the time, I'd say. I'm just going to risk it. I can see behind me. I just can't see in front of me.

Just come around. I just think maybe the car's moving, Wolfie. Let's see. Let's see how I do. Right, I can see enough, I think. We'll find out. There's some cars coming up there on the side. There's nothing coming, so I think we'll be okay.

So, yeah. Well, thanks for tuning in to Stone Clearing. I hope you enjoyed it. Oh, there's some bikes there that have a valley invisible. Just going to pull over here. I don't know where they're waiting. A man with the new dayton actually, cycling with his kids.

Good job, I didn't take them out. Oh, they're delivering papers, that's very sweet. What a lovely sight. He's got a son in the back, one of his children anyway in the back of it. Another one in front of him, a kid in the back, holding onto the newspapers that have all been delivered. It's the most wonderful thing I've seen in a long time.

It makes me think, maybe humans are better than stones. I'm joking you. Right up on the pavement, that's no good. Let's park this baby here. Just have to move it down nearer to my house, because we're going to need it later on. That's what the car situation is.

Let's see how that is. Okay, well, that's the end of the video. It keeps on stopping and saying replace the thing, I don't know what's going on. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. I enjoyed the bit with the dog fire, I hope you did. I thought it was a fire, but it was just a dog. And there's a smell of fire.

And the stone here was good too, so I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you enjoyed the slightly different stone doing podcast today. All the best, see you soon. Thanks for listening, thanks for all the emails, and thank you for emailing in. Bye. Listen to the stone,

Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone,

Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone,

Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone, Listen to the stone,

Listen to the stone, Listen to the stoneiction, Listen to the stone, Life and truth, don't live unto your underhand. Live unto the throne, live unto the throne, and they in turn file live unto ye my friend, my fine friend. Life and truth, don't live unto your underhand.