The weather is definitely starting to feel autumnal now and it’s time to harvest what I can from the polytunnel as and when it’s available. So these may be the last of the cayenne peppers, or if it’s mild I might get a few more. We’ll have to see what happens.
I thinned out some of the lettuce and brassica seedlings that I sowed a few weeks back today. The lettuces haven’t done very well in terms of germination. I’m wondering if slugs/snails might be to blame. I found a snail on the frame of the greenhouse close to the module trays containing lettuces, so evicted it. I’ll sow some more tomorrow.
Planning is quite an important part of growing vegetables using the “sow in modules & plant out later” method and it’s one I still haven’t entirely got the hang of. Throughout the main part of the growing year it’s not too bad, but now, as the first batches of plants go into the ground, it’s a bit more tricky. I want to have space between my different pea varieties, for instance, so hopefully they won’t cross-pollinate, and I need to be able to plant sweetcorn in a block across two beds so that they will cross-pollinate. I’d prefer that all my potatoes and onions are planted in a single group of plants, but they’ll each take up most of a bed and I still have winter brassicas suchs as PSB and swedes occupying space that I often end up wanting to use.
I try to draw a plan up every year and I’m getting slightly better each time, but I think it’s going to be a while yet. If it weren’t for the intention to keep the ground productive all the time it would be easy, but then I’d end up with a lot of space that wasn’t doing anything for six months of the year or more.
With the melons and aubergines removed from one of the greenhouses a couple of days ago it was time to get the Winter salads in — some radishes that may or may not do well, winter-hardy lettuces and mustard leaves.
Along with a few more that will go into the polytunnel, these should keep us in salads for most of the Winter once they get going.
No sowing to do today, mostly just tidying up of plants (quite a few brassicas) that are no longer productive and dumping them on the compost heap.
I did however take the time to dig a hole about 300mm deep in my “herb” bed, cut the top and bottom off a twenty litre “jug” that used to contain dairy hypochlorate and sink it into the hole with about 30cm above the ground. Inside the jug I have planted some mint plants that were left over from last year, the idea being that the walls of the jug will stop the roots spreading elsewhere in the bed.
I have more of what I believe to be mint in a couple of pots that somehow started spreading through the beds in the main plot a couple of years back. Last year I transferred some to pots and then attempted to eradicate it completely from the beds.
It isn’t really big enough for a reliable attempt at identification yet, so it can stay in the small pots for a few more weeks. Once I can tell what variety it is I’d decide whether I want to keep it (and do the same again) or heave it onto the compost heap as well.
The hives have already moved from the old apiary to the new one, so it was time to move the shed and fix the damage done by recent storms.
The pre-fab shed came apart fairly easily, but first I needed a new floor to sit it on as the old 9mm OSB floor was seriously past it. I made a new floor from 3″x2″ timbers and 1″ thick boards that I pulled up tight to each other with some clamps before screwing down. I also made the new floor somewhat larger than the original shed — about 8’x10′ whereas the original shed was 8’x6′. This allowed me to extend the shed to 8’x7′ and (since I had to replace the roof, too), some fiddling about gave a covered sort of “verandah” area for equipment storage.
I wasn’t about to put rubbish felt back on my new roof, so I used EPDM instead, which still needs cutting to size and fixing down at the edges.
Having built the gauge to test the accuracy of the setup of my table saw, I might as well get on and use it.
The blade (of which I forgot to take photos) varies from front to back by about 0.2mm. That sounds like it should be correctable, so I’ll have a go.
These are from the right-hand T-slot to the left hand side of the fence.
Looks like it bows away from the slot (and therefore the blade) by about 0.2mm in the middle when compared with the ends? I’m not sure how I deal with that for the time being.
And the left hand T-slot and right hand side of the fence.
Looks like that side is also bowed, but more out at one end than the other.
I’m really not sure what to make of this for the moment. I guess the second set of measurements aren’t a big deal as I almost never use the fence on that side of the table. A bow of 0.2mm doesn’t sound like a lot, and in reality probably isn’t, but it’s enough to show in a joint.
More consideration required.
I’m backing up a few things thanks to the weather — sowing parsnips has been delayed a few weeks, and today I had planned to sow carrots and onions for pickling, but the ground is just too wet.
I could still get some sowing done in the greenhouse though — coriander, romanesco cauliflowers and beetroot, followed by some flowers for the cutting garden — rudbeckia, salvia and bupleurum and finished off with petunias for my wife’s patio pots.
The cucumbers aren’t going to produce anything more now, so it’s time to remove them from the polytunnel. This mostly leaves a few tomatoes that are still ripening.
The squashes — butternuts, spaghetti squash and Crown Prince were all harvested and put in the sun out of the weather and the remains of the plants fed onto the compost heap.
And inside the greenhouse, the last of the aubergines and melons were also harvested and cleared up.
It really feels like the end of the season is imminent now.
I’ve kind of sat on the whole lathe thing for a few weeks, partly thanks to being ill, but also because once I got it in situ I ended up with a whole load of other stuff to deal with that I wasn’t expecting.
Today I decided that it was time to finish what I’d started.
The first job was to bolt the bed down. This was more fiddly than I was expecting, mostly because shifting the headstock end of the lath accurately to get the bolt holes to line up was a bit awkward. Eventually I got there and did all four bolts up finger-tight in case I needed any other adjustments later.
After that came the motor and gearing assembly. Because the motor is not original there are quite a few “adjustments” to the original design and getting the three bolts back in (four, counting the belt tensioner) was quite tricky because the new motor mount partially obstructs them. Again I left these finger-tight whilst I plugged in all the connections for the motor. I was very much hoping that I’d got those all right as but for the earth the remaining five (or six?) cores in the cable all have black sheathing. There’s no way to tell them apart.
With those connected I could re-fit the motor cover which uses four allen bolts. Unfortunately one didn’t really appear to fit correctly — it wasn’t long enough. I don’t know why we didn’t notice that when it came apart.
With the motor reassembled I fully-tightened all eight mounting bolts and before re-fitting the belt drive decided I’d try giving the motor a spin. It worked! Not that I as expecting any other result, obviously 😀
Refitting the drive belt was much easier than expected. It’s a link v-belt where the end of each link passes through the next two and was so stiff I was expecting trouble, but actually the “T” of each link pushed through quite easily.
Finally I re-fitted the forward/reverse switch cover, not least because without the cover all the terminals are exposed.
Then it was time to bite the bullet and check everything ran.
Wahey! 😀
There are still a couple of small jobs to do such as refitting the tailstock properly and fixing the handle on the apron wheel that sadly got broken in transit, but so far we’re looking good!
I see the BBC News site has another piece on BMI today. This time in reference to children, who I thought everyone accepted it didn’t work for anyhow. But as ever it all kicks off into a discussion of BMI and who (as adults) it does and doesn’t work for. Many people say BMI is not appropriate for “athletes” without defining what “athlete” actually means. Someone who is a professional sportsperson, perhaps? Or a keen amateur? Or someone who turns up for their local club mostly because they’re into the social side?
And the NHS glibly suggest that BMI isn’t appropriate for some people without actually giving any information about how to decide if you’re one of those people or not. Very helpful. Not.
I’d guess that an awful lot of people would suggest that BMI would apply to a man in his mid/late fifties who isn’t a professional sportsman and never has been (and in fact has a sedentary office job). But here’s the thing…
That’s me. And whilst I know I’m carrying a small amount of baggage on my sides that I could do without, to achieve the maximum “healthy” BMI I would have to lose around 30kg (70lb, or five stones). Even when I left university, when I really was quite skinny, I’d have had to lose 5kg (11lb) to make the grade. Yet I have no obvious fat on my arms, legs or upper torso and I have visible abs and external intercostals(?). Only in the aforementioned areas above the iliac crest would it even be possible to come close to being able to “pinch an inch” as the saying used to go. Most other places you’d be down to millimetres.
I do, or at least did, until the local swimming pool closed for refurbishment last November, swim three times a week. I can’t wait to get back. It used to be more often, but my body just couldn’t recover fast enough any more. I swim hard. Rarely was I not the fastest person through the water in the fast lane. It’s just for fun though. I don’t compete and never have. I just like to be good at it. Swimming has significantly changed my body shape over the eight years I’ve been doing it and I did initially lose a fair bit off my waist as a result. I also saw a definite increase in my chest size, which is now around 125cm or 49″.
Diet-wise I eat reasonably healthily though I drink more alcohol than is recommended. As a family we eat vegetarian more often than not. And I often reach the stage where I get symptoms similar to those that might point to low blood sugar (poor motor control, loss of concentration, poor balance, occasionally blurred vision), which perhaps suggests that I’m not over-eating carbs and my liver is struggling to find more glycogen to provide to my muscles. Eating and giving my digestion time to work always seems to fix it.
So where am I? I’m at an age where all sorts of health issues can occur that are usually at least in part associated with “being overweight”. But am I actually overweight? Several GPs have told me that BMI isn’t a consistent or reliable indicator of being overweight, but seem to be able to offer no alternative that will provide an answer to what seems to me to be the obvious question:
“How much excess body fat do I have, if any?”
I surely can’t be the only one in this position. There must be many more like me. But until someone steps up and can provide a method for “normal” people to answer that question definitively, those who share my position seem to be stuck between the rock of being accused of being obese and the hard place of having no way to find the answers to the questions that we need answering.
