Chicken Run – Enlarged
Posted: Sat 26 July, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Green Garden Leave a comment »Today we’ve been sorting out a new bigger, better chicken run. Putting in the metposts and fence posts, and lining the perimeter with 6 foot high chicken wire.
All told, it’s (roughly) 40′ x 20′. I haven’t measured it exactly, so that’ll have to do you.
Of course, the downside of them having this much larger fully-enclosed run is that Herself now wants two or three more chickens…
Demolition, Gardening
Posted: Sat 12 July, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Green, Green Garden 1 Comment »One of the jobs that’s been hanging around for a while at home (OK, since we bought the house) is that there was a little dividing wall between patio and garden – and that wall was shot. There were various cracks and wobbles in the wall, and it wasn’t really all that safe to sit on, for example.
This weekend, we’ve hired (yet another) skip, with the aim of getting rid of the wall, and various other large bits of garden stuff (masses of willow branches, for example, and a couple of unruly bushes that just need killing) that we just can’t be arsed to also take to the local tip etc. So a skip it is.
The wall came down in two hours flat, and in that time it was only the bottom two rows of bricks that required any real input from the 4lb lump hammer. The rest came apart by hand – which, when you think about it, is pretty scary in itself. It’s all gone, and the patio area’s appearance has changed massively without it.
The garden stuff took a bit longer, but we’ll still be able to get rid of the skip on Monday morning, which helps minimise the costs of having it.
All told, a pretty productive Saturday.
Mowing
Posted: Wed 14 May, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green Garden, House Work 5 Comments »Last week, we decided to get someone in to do the mowing of the grass in our garden. It’s something I’ve been doing, but it takes up a large amount of time on a weekend when we could be doing other things – sorting out the veg patch, for example. The entire garden is something like 8,000ft² (roughly 165′ x 65′, which is just over 10,000ft², but there’s other stuff in there than just grass, so I reckon it comes down to about 8,000ft²)
So we got a guy round on Friday to have a look, and he quoted us £30 to do the entire thing – mow it, strim the edges, and clear it all up. Not bad at all – yes sure, we could get someone cheaper (as Lionel pointed out elsewhere) but for the moment we’ll see how we do with this guy.
He turned up yesterday when we were both out, so I came home to a fully mowed garden. And he’s done a fantastic job – everything’s been done, the mowing, the strimming – even the dog toys were tidied away, (with the exception of one tennis ball that died – hardly a worry) and all the clippings plonked into our compost bins.
All in all, £30 well spent, in my opinion. Although we may need to buy a couple more compost bins before long.
Bugfood
Posted: Tue 13 May, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Green Garden Leave a comment »One of the things I hate about summer is that I turn into a buffet bar for mosquitos. (and other bugs as well, but mainly mosquitos) There’s something about me that obviously tastes good to the little bloodsucking fuckers, and they just dive in for a chomp.
After having a meal outside on Sunday evening, I’ve got no less than five bites on my legs already, three of which have swollen up unpleasantly.
We’ve got a mosquito-repellent in the bedroom which seems to work OK, and we’ve got a UV anti-bug lamp, although I really need to sort that out and put it somewhere so it’ll actually do something to the little vampiric bastards. However, the UV thing can’t really go outside (not long-term, anyway) so I’m also considering an outdoor version like this one which might help zap the buzzing little tossers.
Ah, the joys of summer.
Garden Work
Posted: Sun 11 May, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Green, Green Garden 2 Comments »Most of the weekend’s been spent out in the garden, which has been really nice. There’s been some hard work – finishing off the extension to the woodshed, so it’s about another eight foot long and will take another six months worth of wood. (at least)
Over the summer, we’ll be ordering another trailerload of wood, so it can season properly- we’ve got enough for a couple of months once it gets cold again, but we want to have more in stock than that, and be able to have it used in rotation – some of the wood we buy this summer may not get used ’til Winter ’09, by which time it’ll be good and seasoned. That’s the plan, anyway.
We’ve also been doing a buttload of weeding – it’s nowhere near completed, but we’re getting there and will continue with it during the week as well.
So that’s been the weekend, really. Not much else happened (except for seeing Iron Man, of which more in another past) but it’ll be good to go back to work for a rest…
Selling Seeds
Posted: Wed 23 April, 2008 Filed under: Getting Organised, Green, Green Garden, Health, News 4 Comments »It’s good to see that apparently more and more people are buying vegetable seeds, and growing their own veg, particularly in light of rising costs and growing awareness of the environmental impact of various imported fruit and veg.
We’re doing this more and more now that the garden is getting a bit more sorted – so far this year we’ve planted:
- Three rows of potatoes
- Leeks
- Carrots
- Onions
- Bell peppers
- Chilli peppers
- Runner beans
- Peas
- Rhubarb
- Tomatoes
and - Parsnips
We’ve still got plans for broccoli/calabrese, courgettes, pumpkins, cauliflower, more leeks and parsnips for over-winter, and a couple more tubs of potatoes as well as gooseberries, blackberries and (probably) strawberries on the fruit side. And even then, as we get more organised next year we’ll do even more.
It’s just good to see people doing more for themselves in this way – I suspect it’s something that’s going to keep on happening. I certainly hope so.
Norfolk Weekend
Posted: Sun 13 April, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, Green Garden, House Work, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s been a funny weekend, really – I haven’t had the time (or inclination) to be writing stuff for D4D™, as we’ve been fairly busy, yet it doesn’t feel like we’ve been busy enough to have a decent excuse.
Still, we’ve been getting a fair amount done.
Friday night was a social evening for a local charity connected (tangentially) to Herself’s work, doing a wine-tasting event – although it was a bit of a bummer to be the designated driver for the evening, as it meant I didn’t get to do any of the tasting!
Saturday sort of slipped away, really – doing a number of housey things, including fitting a new doorbell (we haven’t had one since we moved in, although the old bell-push was still on the door, which led to lots of annoyed delivery people) and just general domestic rubbish – shopping, sorting out plans for the weekend, that kind of thing.
Today we’ve been doing more stuff in the garden, including planting a whole bundle of veg in the veg patch (admittedly, that was mainly Herself) and sorting out some issues with our various water butts and the like. Oh, and I’ve spent some time putting together the basics for a new site, getting it all set up and ready to go.
So – busy, but not massively so. Just a fairly occupied weekend.