Tidying up some of the trees I’ve felled was first on the list of priorities for today. We’ll need to start cutting grass soon and it’s no good if we can’t get the mower out because it’s blocked by a wall of trees.
So, out came the chainsaw, chipper and trailer once again. I trimmed off all the bits that were useless for firewood and turned them into veggie plot path material and shortened the remaining trunks into manageable lengths for processing later.
Continuing the theme of “last harvests”, the very last of the climbing beans, which are the last of the borlotti beans…
But when I do try it, the forecast it offers is completely different from the one that uses the current data.
So which am I meant to believe?
Tomorrow’s weather, hourly from 3am (with the chance of precipitation), old-style:
New style:
So either there’s a strong chance of showers before dawn, or quite a small chance. Go, as they say, figure.
I spent most of today playing chainsaws in some quite awkward places. First to be felled was this tree, which I was hoping would fall a little more to the left, but as it would naturally have fallen entirely the opposite way as it was leaning quite significantly away from the camera, I was happy enough. It was growing in quite a precarious place, as whilst it doesn’t show very well in the photo, the place where I cut it (where the fresh cuts can be seen in the top left of the image) is over a vertical drop of several metres into a pond of unknown depth.
I may be able to take one more tree down from the same clump, but all of the others are leaning too far the other way (which is over a field we don’t own, so I’ll have to speak nicely to the farmer before I can deal with those).
Next up were some pieces off a stump left from trees I cut down two years ago.
And finally, the stump of the tree that was left after I had it removed because it was leaning unpleasantly over some outbuildings.
That’s actually a fair-size chunk of wood, and mostly likely to be root as I suspect the line of trees it came from grew into the top of what was originally a banked hedge, so nearer ground level there were lots of places to cut it away.
The plan, inasmuch as there could be said to be one, is to get the digger in there and remove the remaining roots which should make access easier from the area in the background into the veggie plot and apiary.
To prevent losses to the chickens (there have already been a few), today I picked all the remaining pears from the tree in their run (Concorde is the variety as far as I recall). Now I just have to work out what to do with them all…
Bit of a sluggish day today, in part thanks to drizzle on what was forecast to be a dry day. Tree work really needs to be getting done though as buds are breaking on some already.
So, this morning I sharpened and adjusted the chainsaw blade, mixed up fuel and got the saw started and warmed up since it hasn’t been used for a few months. I had one tree that was overhanging various outbuildings including a greenhouse taken down professionally in January, but the next most urgent ones to be dealt with (also overhanging outbuildings) weren’t so big that I felt I couldn’t fell them myself, using a rope to pull them against the lean.
And so it was. Firewood for next winter from the trunks. The rest can go through the chipper and will be used for paths in the veggie plot.
My “double-decker xylophone” filled up rapidly and I needed more storage for beehive frames, but where?
Pootling about the workshop my gazed fell upon the remains of the bed frames that I’d used to make the afore-mentioned xylophone — the round metal tubes that spanned the two sides of the frame to support the mattress. A swift walk up to the bee shed and brilliant! They were just the right length!
I drilled holes in two battens to take the ends of the tubes and screwed them inside the roof to allow frames to hang from them via the lugs.
The tubes are a little further apart than the outside measurement of the sidebars, enabling frames to be placed offset with the the self-spacing part of the frames overlapping and the top bars touching so I can fit more in. The measurement wouldn’t neatly fit into the length of the shed, so the middle two tubes are closer together and the frame sit inside slightly diagonally, just to use all the available space.
This morning there was proof that slugs and/or snails have been at my lettuce seedlings. In a try next to the lettuces were some coriander seedlings. This morning I found one with the leaves on the compost, detached from the stem, and a slight hint of a slimy trail across the top of the compost. I suspect one or two of the other seedlings might have disappeared, too.
So I’ve sown half a tray each of every lettuce variety I have once more. I suspect I may be playing “hunt the gastropod” for a few days to try to get rid of them.
A few warm days and the bees at home are flying far more. I’ve seen a few visiting celandines, but I’ve no idea where most of them are going at the moment. I’d not be surprised if they’ve found willow trees providing a good source of pollen, but our damson tree and may of the blackthorns are already in flower. Seems crazy to me, but I guess humans only have themselves to blame.
It’s been making an early inspection of the colonies very tempting, but it looks as though night-time temperatures are due to drop, possibly close to freezing, this weekend, and in the day it’s forecast to drop from the mid-teens (°C) of the last few days back into single figures, so I shall hang fire for the moment. I might be tempted to have a peek through the top of those hives with clear crownboards, but I don’t be cracking them open this week.
is no basis for a form of government, so Monty Python would have us believe, but some people apparently believe that Penny Mordaunt’s ability to hang on to a sword at Charles III’s coronation is worthy of her becoming the next Prime Monster. Perhaps those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it, badly.
