45 is NOT too old to want an easter egg.

Been a fairly productive week here. Had a visit from Mr and MrsC snr early in the week, MrC went nuts in the veggie patch, he’s been planting out a whole host of goodies. 5 rows of spuds, 3 rows of peas (including 1 row of his famous leafless pea), a row of mangetout and another 2 rows of broadbeans. Exciting stuff 🙂  Can’t wait to eat them.

MrsC went into full on haulage mode, clearing a huge amount of dead wood from the area I removed all the wire fencing from last week.  There is a big clump of snowdrops hidden behind the mound, so I really need to separate and replant them in the wooded area. .

Between David dumping all the conifers from the wood next door and MrsC haulage, we have an absolutely massive pile of stuff to burn, but I’m holding off on a fire for a while. There are a few jobs that need to be done that are going to produce green waste that I can’t compost and being green don’t burn easily. So before we have a MASSIVE bonfire the meadow needs another good ragworting and dock removal. The orchard needs a raking, it’s mostly moss in there and there is goosegrass everywhere I need to get up. Once these jobs are complete we can have, possibly the biggest fire yet. The reason I’m putting off the burning is because we’ve removed about 90% of the big stuff to burn, so this is probably going to be our last huge fire and you need a good hot fire to burn green waste.

MrC wants to put a path in the wooded area, and he wants it framed by logs so the path guides you gently round the wood, into the entertaining garden and down into the conifer grove. We have a fair few logs we’ve saved, but not quite enough to do the entire path, David has very kindly dumped a load of the conifer logs near the orchard for me to use, they’ll need hauling up to the wood, but they’ll do the job nicely.

He also gave me a couple of goose eggs, these things are enormous, not entirely sure what I’m going to do with them yet, maybe I should ask him if can borrow a couple of geese to take care of the goosegrass for me….

 

Bank holiday Friday was such a lovely day, time for some work. I’ve been annoyed for a while by the piles of soil/rubbish in the orchard, aim for today, sift through the pile, get out the junk, and redistribute the soil so it’s vaguely flat in there. Hard work, but I got the first phase done, the ground is flatish and grass seed sowed (aka pigeon food applied to the ground…) 3 bags of assorted rubbish sifted out, lots of bedsprings, a bottle of pills, hundreds of silver milk bottle tops among other things, also unearthed quite a few bits of aspestos which has gone into the hazardous waste bag. If anyone has a spare spine, I could use one.

MrC joined me outside, but all his work was underground (so no before and after), he tackled the bit of garden directly outside the kitchen window (that we’re going to turn into a wild flower garden). He dug up barrow load after barrow load of nettle roots, smashed a couple of tree stumps into oblivion and dug up bramble roots.

Maggie had a lovely time out in the sun, the first time she’s been outside with us when we’re working!

We’ve earned a reward, time for a bath to remove the dirt and head into the Rose for a few well deserved beers 🙂

Saturday is too windy to do much of anything outside, so as my friends Anne and Kev are coming by on Monday for a visit, decided to use one of the goose eggs to bake a cake for them, one cherry and almond cake ready for visitors.  Goose eggs are interesting, you need a hammer and chisel to get into them, but once you do, wow, bright orange yolks that whisk up well, can’t wait to try the cake.

Sigh…  Building work will start anew shortly, delivery today of new bathroom door and other bits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh Deere, ohhhhh Deere :)

Despite being a work day, there’s been all sorts of comings and going here today.

Last week Paul (who bought the wood next to us) said he was going to get David (chappie from the village with heavy machinery for hire) to take out the conifers at the front of the wood, as they are not native and blocking out most of the light. Rather than him having to haul everything up the road and find a burning site, we told him to dump the logs and branches on our meadow and we’d burn it for him. David has been dumping load after load in the meadow, I’m not entirely sure when MrsC snr sees the huge pile for burning she’s going to faint or do a happy dance…

Early morning some very nice guys turned up and put in some loft insulation for us, that should save a few pennies on the heating bill. After they’d finished more guys turned up to do the cavity wall insulation, they ummed and ahhhhed for a while, muttered something about ventilation and then buggered off without actually doing anything. They should be contacting MrC tomorrow to rearrange a new date.

MrC said he was out in the morning to go and buy a petrol lawn mower, there are a number of lawns we can’t access with the tractor mower, and MrC snr’s electric mower, whilst valiant in its attempt, really isn’t up to the job. I assumed he’d gone into Diss to do this, but no…

He’d actually gone all the way to Norwich and back (I did think he’d been a while) and arranged for the new mower to be delivered in the afternoon.

A Ben Burgess delivery chap turned up and unloaded the mower, bless MrC, he knows I love all things Jon Deere and that’s what he’d bought! This one is second hand, but nothing wrong with that, it’s still nice and green and shiny. So after work (for me, MrC had the day off) we headed out to give the lawns (we have 7, not all lawns as such, but grassy areas) their first mowing of the year. I played with the new mower, and did the cat/fish garden and the front garden that doesn’t any access for the tractor. I’m still a bit wary about using the tractor mower, but I really like the petrol mower, although it does take me a few goes tugging the starter cord to get it going. It has powered acceleration so you don’t have to push it, although you can turn it off to do tricky bits. The first few goes it set off like a greyhound out of a trap dragging me along behind, but I’ve gotten used to it now.

MrC played with the grown up mower and got the rest of the lawn areas done!

I then had a nice potter about in the greenhouse, seedlings are coming up (MrC was delighted to hear that some of the Brussel sprouts had germinated). Planted another tray of marigolds (companion plants for the veggie patch) and another tray of leeks. Still got the 3 flame oak trees in the greenhouse waiting to plant out, and MrC added another 2 normal oak seedlings (they’re only about half a foot tall) that he found growing out of a conifer stump, guessing they germinated from acorns that squirrels had hidden in there.

Good News on the fish front, all 5 are now accounted for, guess they’re more clever than ducks!

Less excitement planned for tomorrow, although the weather forecast does look a bit like parents 🙂

(lol, just as I was about to publish this, they phoned, weather forecast definitely looks like parents!)

 

 

I dread to think what my carbon footprint is with all this burning.

So Wednesday I had an enforced day off, I don’t need much to do my job, but electricity is a prerequisite

Up early, dressed and out the door while Damian works his electricy magic. I headed to the wooded area and shifted about 10 loads of rubbish before I got too bored and switched to a job I’ve had my eye on for a while.

The orchard area has a metal wire fence surrounding it, held up with a combination of metal posts buried about 3ft down which are a bugger to remove and rotting wooden posts. I’ve already removed some, but there is about 40ft of it left, I’ve been itching to remove it and see what’s behind it. Time to get out the wire cutters and have at it.

So much snipping later (and a very large pile of scrap metal moved over to the area near the outhouses where we’re storing all the rubbish that needs skipping because we can’t burn it) and what do we have….

Well, oddly a very large mound of earth, covered in dead trees, soon to be dead elders and piles of previously chopped down rotting wood. Haulage time, need to get all of this removed to the meadow for burning.

Proof I shouldn’t be allowed outside on my own, I grabbed one dead tree on the top of the mound, it was quite large, so I gave it a bit of a tug to see how dead it was, answer, very dead indeed. It rather unexpectedly snapped, I lost my footing and headed down the mound headfirst but backwards. Unfortunately I didn’t have the wherewithal to let go of the tree whilst hurtling down the bank so that gave me a bit of a beating on the way down. Net result some rather interesting bruising and a pulled muscle in my neck. Got my own back though, it’s burned now 😉

As the injuries didn’t really kick in for several hours I carried on, sawed down about 5 elder trees (my bingo wings are a thing of the past) and hauled as much as I could down to the meadow ready for burning. Didn’t manage to clear all of it before the light went, but a good amount is gone.

Thursday was an unexpected, but welcome, visit from Mr and Mrs C snr in the afternoon, MrC wanted to fix the rotator and give the veggie garden another going over, MrsC snr tackled all the junk I’d cleared and dumped in the meadow yesterday with a good fire! And as the ground has finally dried out a bit, the broad beans are finally in! I can now add a small burn on the face to the injury list, I caught a spark from the fire just under my eye, just thankful it did miss my eye.

Good News! Damian finished up all the remediation works to the electrics today (we still need some new sockets putting in the second bedroom, but that wasn’t in the original spec). He’s going to sort out all the certification and that’s one of the largest jobs in the house finished!

Saturday morning, despite the temptation to spend the day on the sofa, I’m not going to be able to get out in the gardens on Sunday as it’s my lovely little Goddaughters birthday and we’re heading over to see Mal and Ally, so after a bit of a lie in, time to don the togs and get outside. Started off gently, an hour in the greenhouse, my cabbage seedlings are absurdly leggy so they got a replant.

I had a composter delivered earlier in the week, so despite the fact I have no idea how the heck to compost, it was time to unpack and site it. I wanted it behind the greenhouse wall, but unfortunately the bit of land I wanted to put it was covered in a rotting window frame and other assorted debris so it needed a clean-up first. I dumped the rotting wood on MrsC snr’s fire site from Thursday and much to my surprise it started to burn, so as there was a bit of debris still hanging about I got a fire going really quickly. Composter ground cleared I headed back to the woodland area to rake and clear debris, and with a fire already going I was able to clear about a third of an acre of rubbish and burn it immediately which is a lot more efficient than piling it up and burning later. Still a long way to go though.

Time to start off the composter, I’ve put in a layer of horse poo directly on the soil, which should encourage worms to come up, and I’ve got about a tonne of wood ash that I can use, I’m going to beg the neighbours for another barrow of chicken poo (they’re going to think I’m obsessed with poo).  I’ll then put in some shredded paper and start adding veggie peelings after that.  I’m reliably informed by Damian that weeing on a compost pile is a good way to start it off, but the damn thing is nearly as tall as me, I’m not sure I’m up to the job.

The land is drying out and I’m dying to get a skip and a digger in to remove the treestumps and bamboo roots in the meadow, we’ve spent all winter looking at them, it’s going to feel like a real milestone when they go.

 

 

I think Spring is making the wildlife a bit frisky.

Last week was wet, sorry, make that REALLY BLOODY WET.

MrC and I were not able to do very much between work and the rain, but the Caseys snr came around twice when the sky was a bit less soggy, but the ground was completely saturated, not really suitable for planting or digging, so they did a whole lot of haulage and burning. The grounds are completely littered with debris, both stuff we’ve made by chopping and clearing and lots of stuff that was cleared years ago and left to rot. They made huge inroads into the dead brambles and dead branches that need hauling from the very bottom of the property where we’ve cleared out all the brambles from the trees. There is, I think, about 3 weeks of hauling and burning left to do (that’s 21 days of fully working, not 3 weeks where we can only get out for a couple of days and snatched hours). We have to do this, we can’t plant or plan or develop the grounds until they’re clear, it’s really quite boring and very hard work though.

Saturday was a nice day, which we should have taken advantage of, but didn’t, I got my hair done on Friday and had far too many drinks at the Rose to be up and cheerful in the morning and MrC didn’t fancy it either, so we both spent most of the day napping….

Sunday was a different matter, fully recovered it was up and at it! Sunday lunch prepped and in the oven, MrC and I headed out to the row of Miscanthus in the front garden, Monty Don said this was the weekend to trim them and I’m not going to argue with a gardening God.

MrC had a bit of a shock, when some of the leaves he cleared out, contained a hedgehog! We quickly put Mrs Tiggywinkle back in a nest of the leaves and judging by the snoring coming from the nest a few hours later, I don’t think we bothered her too much. And let me tell you, hedgehog snoring is possibly the cutest sound in the world, a cross between a snuffle and a purr, so adorable.

Mr and MrsC came round and they headed out to the veggie garden.

When we first moved here, I didn’t think the veggie garden was very big, it was so covered in nettles and brambles and debris (including the asbestos propagating shed) it looked small. Now the Caseys snr have rescued it, it’s actually huge, we could probably feed most of the village from it.  Because I knackered my knee I’ve not been able to help much with this, all the work has been done by Mr and MrsC snr, and they’ve done an amazing job.

Mr and MrsC snr got a huge amount of veggie garden cleared before the lovely rotovator cleaved a pin on the front wheel and asked for a rest, MrC snr assures me it’s not properly broken, just needs a new pin.

 

I need to get in the greenhouse and start growing some seedlings to plant out there after all their hard work (no progress on the parsley, tomatoes, chilli’s, spring onions, lisianthus, or hollyhocks yet, but we have 2 marigolds sprouting). I’m a bit worried I’m not very good at this whole seed growing thing, but I am employing my very best glaring technique at the seed trays, so lets hope for progress soon.

MrC and I carried on with the miscanthus, I honestly thought this would only take a couple of hours, I was wrong, it took both of us all day and that was with MrsC snr gathering up all the clippings and taking them down to the meadow for burning.

The wildlife round here has been getting a bit out of control, a few days ago MrC and I were entertained by a deer chasing away a male pheasant from the duck food, then the pheasant got all flappy on the deer, and chased it into next doors garden. The ducks are on a time out after MrC found them bottoms up in the fish pond, they’ve got a bloody duck pond for heavens sake, no ducks in the fish pond, they got a comprehensive chasing off! We’ve only seen 3 fish, after their excursion, there should be 5. There seem to be about 500 rabbits at the end of the garden and every morning the lawns are covered in pigeons, I’m hoping they’re eating the moss. We also have a family of baby pheasants, 6 of them, living in the meadow.

This week Damian will return to finish off the electrics. Because we’re now in South Norfolk council territory he needed to take some new exams to enable him to certify the work here, he sailed through them and now has the authority he needs to issue the correct paperwork for all the works. Also means I get a compulsory day off work, can’t work without electricity…..

 

 

Rain stops play…

 

It’s been a quiet weekend, the weather was filthy on Saturday, horizontal rain and gale force winds, I don’t do rain, so the day passed mostly with me napping on the sofa watching Game of Thrones.

Sunday I didn’t really have an excuse not to get my butt off the sofa as the weather was better, but the ground is still really saturated, which is a huge shame as it was finally starting to dry up a bit.

I pottered about in the greenhouse for a bit, giving the trays that haven’t germinated yet a good glaring at, I’m pretty sure being glared at is a large part of the germination process. Stuff that has started are the rocket and radish actually planted in the greenhouse beds. The oak trees seem to be doing pretty well (really really must plant these out soon). Both cabbages and cauliflowers seem to be ok although the cabbages are looking a bit leggy, I might need to repot them as soon as they grow their first true leaves. I’ve also got 4 sweetpeas that have poked their little heads above the soil.

I then split and replanted some of the snowdrops in the woodland area, no signs of bluebells yet, I’m still hopeful there might be some, but if not, then that’s some planting we’ll need to do, you can’t have a wood without bluebells (English of course).

MrC came out to join me and we fished the tractor mower out of the garage, gave it a bit of a clean and MrC fixed the punctured tire, alas the land was far too wet to use it, but it’s ready to go as soon as things dry up a bit. MrC then gave the area in the front garden where he’d cleared out the brambles a bit of a go with the rotator, but the ground was a bit soggy for it to be effective.

I then headed back to the wood, with all the clearance we’ve done, there is a huge mess that needs to be raked up, transported to the meadow and burnt. I got several barrowloads shifted, then we headed to Bressingham for lunch. It started raining again when we got home so I headed to the kitchen for a bit of baking. My Ginger Nuts (second attempt at these) turned out a lot less charcoaly than the first batch, but the marmite and cheese scones were a bit of an offence to the taste buds. I’m still adjusting to an electric oven, getting there though.

The battle for the pond appears to have been settled, Penny and Tucker are back and so are the moorhens, although they seem to be doing some sort of time share. The ducks are getting a bit cheeky, standing near the back door waiting for me to make with the duck food. They’re funny as anything as they run towards the pond (I’m keeping the feeding near there, I really don’t need ducks, moorhens and other assorted birdage camped out right next to the house).

Monday morning the place looked a lot less of a mess with a covering of snow.

I think it was a bit cold for Maggie paws though. She decided to sit on the table to warm up in a nice shaft of sunlight.

 

 

 

 

 

Heston Blumentit expected at any moment

A visit from Mr and MrsC snr today, always a good thing.

They worked like Trojans hauling various debris from all over the place to be burnt, it’s not very glamorous work this, but there is just SO MUCH rubbish about the place. Organic rubbish, metal rubbish, rubbish rubbish. Still, I take comfort in the fact we will only need to do such a massive clean-up once. We’re picking up at least 10 years worth of crap, we’ll never need to do this on such an industrial scale again. Really must persuade MrC to fix the tractor tyre, at least then we can triple the amount we shift per load and it’s got to be more fun than continually walking back and forth to the meadow hauling stuff.

After lunch, they had a lovely fire, which I was able to help with a little after work.

I made the mistake of telling Mr and MrsC snr how much I enjoyed watching the goldfinches, bluetits and other little birds at the bird feeder. Today they arrived with presents (I love presents), the most full on bird feeder I have ever seen, designed for niger seeds that goldfinches apparently love (seats 4 with extra special “select your bird” seating), A fatball feeder and a peanut feeder. So what we have now is basically a 5* bird restaurant with pool. Can’t wait to see all the birds once they get used to it.

Other bird news includes a turf war on the pond, the moorhen (definitely a moor, not a coot) now has a boyfriend and has been muscling in on Penny and Tuckers pond time, and then there were new duck infiltrators trying to take over the joint, what a racket that was, I have no idea who won, there have been zero ducks on the pond today…

MrC snr noticed that the nectarine we planted out last week end is about to flower, and the weather is still very frost prone, so he suggested we fleece it, which to me sounded a bit like an act of petty vandalism, and the result kinda looks like a prank Americans would play at Halloween. Hopefully, this will protect the flowers, not sure the tree is old enough to support fruit yet, but it’ll be fun to see.

I STILL have oak trees in the greenhouse, we really need to figure out where these are going to live, and I’ve a mulberry tree in the conservatory that needs to be planted out as well, this will go in the entertaining garden, but we need to clear all the dead stuff first and spray the comfrey again before we put it out.  I’m a member of quite a few gardening type facebook groups and there are some very heated arguments about the use of weedkillers (why do people who are anti something always seem to come across as rabid nutcases and the pro people as sane, it’s a very odd thing, not just weedkiller, but hunting, shooting, eyeliner, pillowcases and all sorts of other things).  Obviously I’m pro weedkiller, mostly because of the sheer size of the job we have here.  It’s not something I intend to use as a first resort once we’ve got things under control, I would LOVE to be able to do this without the need for chemical intervention, but that’s just impossible right now, they have their place, and that place is at Purbeck.

Other developments in the greenhouse, include germination of 2 sweetpeas (tiny tiny shoots), I’ve planted leek, Chervil, marjoram and busy lizzy (these are very very old seeds I must have bought about 5 years ago, I hope they germinate because Busy Lizzys are hard to come by these days due to disease). The cauliflowers, rocket and radishes are looking good and I really must take the cabbages out of the conservatory before they get too leggy.

In the veggie garden, we have definite growth from both the garlic and onions. MrC wanted to plant out broadbeans today, but the soil is too waterlogged at the moment, next week hopefully.

Finished off the day with baked potatoes from the bonfire, bit burnt, bit raw, and absolutely lovely.

Maggie has been very upset with me recently, I spoilt her favourite napping spot of under the duvet by moving the bed.  the headboard was right up against a radiator, which is probably why she loved it there, but I was waking up with a boiled brain in the morning (I wasn’t exactly a morning person anyway) , so I had to move it.  She’s found a new spot now, MrC’s wardrobe, she looks very cute and comfortable (if a little bleary eyed), I had no idea this was her new spot until I was putting away a stack of MrC’s T-shirts and the T-shirt pile in the wardrobe suddenly developed eyes and ears…

 

 

Burning chestnut wood smells just like roasting chestnuts.

So we’ve had a visit from Roger and his trusty chainsaw. This is like being visited by a small highly targeted hurricane! I’m so grateful for his help, neither MrC nor I have any experience with chainsaws, I think it would be a little like giving a 3 year old a loaded machine gun, probably not going to end well.

His first job was to take down the chestnut tree, not an easy decision this, I didn’t really want to fell it, but it has rust mould and it was far too close to the Oak tree, so it had to go (Oak trumps chestnut every time, don’t know why, it just does). Turns out it was the right decision, inspection of the trunk after it was felled showed it was dying from the inside out.

Hopefully this will allow the Oak to thrive.

Mr and MrsC snr hauled all the branches down to the meadow, the pile of stuff in there is, once again becoming a bit overwhelming.

Roger then turned his attention to the area MrC and I have been been clearing near to the summer house, there is a number of dead/fallen trees in there that were a little bit much for our handsaws. Had a bit of a hiccup on one of them when the chain bit through dead wood into some that was much denser and got stuck. He managed to free it and retightened the chain, time for a cuppa before he carried on.

After lunch Mr and MrsC snr turned their attention to the veggie patch, raking up the moss and dead nettle stems before rotovating and then pulling up all the nettle roots. I can’t believe how much they’ve managed to clear. Best I get into the greenhouse and plant some seeds so we have some veggies to put in there!

Roger had come round, not just to help with the trees, but he also wanted a lot of the scrap metal we have hanging about the place to use making pheasant enclosures. After work MrC snr and I dismantled a (as ever) well made cage in the orchard that was only housing a couple of holly trees, a lot of snipping with wire clippers before it came free, and he also took away a bunch of metal posts that had been holding up the asbestos fence. We had no use for any of this, so it’s great it can be used (and saves us chucking it in a skip).

Once he’d run out of dead trees to log (there may be more, still a fairly large area we haven’t managed to access yet) Roger decided to have a fire! The stuff I’d raked out of the conifer rows over the weekend went up really fast and made a good start for chucking on all the trees and other stuff that had accumulated over the last week or so. This was a HUGE fire, as the light started to go we were all feeding it, just chuck another tree on before it gets dark…

Once MrC finished work (he works much harder than I do) he came out and had a go with the rotovator in the waterlogged area near the meadow, he did a fair bit of it and planted some grass seed, hopefully this will take.

 

I saved a few logs from the fire to make an insect hotel in the conifer grove.

A huge amount achieved!