Memory Lane, 18th October 2022

Posted on March 22, 2024 by james

Harvesting peppers today. Gorgeous selection of colours. Still a few more to come, perhaps, if the weather is good enough for them to ripen.

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Just get a grip

Posted on March 22, 2024 by james

I see that people who are desperate to be offended by something/anything at all are up in arms about the new England football kit because it contains an image of a cross that is not strictly a St. George’s Cross.

I really don’t give a monkey’s about football in the first place so I wasn’t ever going to be that fussed, but really! It’s a small part of a pattern on a shirt collar. Get a sense of perspective! I read that some woman on a radio phone-in (probably Mrs. Angry from Purley) claimed to be “incensed” about the change. Honestly, if that’s what gets her incensed, how does she cope with the knowledge that so many people are having to use food banks or are living rough or can’t get dental treatment, or even any kind of hospital treatment? How does she react when our government ministers are gaslighting us (which seems to be all of the time these days)? Or about the entire state of our education system? I’m surprised that I can’t hear the gnashing and wailing of teeth from here.

It’s a football kit. Worn by a small group of outrageously wealthy people kicking a bag of wind around a field, deliberately falling over and pretending they’ve been shot with an elephant gun. Get over yourself. The Moon will not fall out of the sky. The World will not end. The Sun will not go out. Not even if they turned up to play in fluorescent green mankinis. Though the Womens’ team might find that a bit uncomfortable.

If you really need to be “incensed” about something, get incensed about an issue that actually needs fixing for people who can’t even achieve a basic quality of life.

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Keeping on with the firewood

Posted on March 22, 2024 by james

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.

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Memory Lane, 16th October 2022: Has beans

Posted on March 21, 2024 by james

Continuing the theme of “last harvests”, the very last of the climbing beans, which are the last of the borlotti beans…

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Met Office forecast offers trial of new weather data

Posted on March 21, 2024 by james

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.

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More firewood production

Posted on March 21, 2024 by james

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.

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Memory Lane, 11th October 2022: Pears going bananas

Posted on March 20, 2024 by james

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…

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Firewood for next winter

Posted on March 20, 2024 by james

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.

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Memory Lane, 10th October 2022: Old bed, new frame(s)

Posted on March 19, 2024 by james

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.

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No dig diary, 19th March 2024

Posted on March 19, 2024 by james

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.

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