A Nice Kind of Boss

Kitchen finished but for aluminium detail
strip along step (bottom of pic) and light
fitting (top left)

With the kitchen now all but finished we "builders" can move on to the next job. The little bit of de-snagging (as they say) involves just a fancy metal angle strip on the step and the light fitting in the new bit of kitchen, both of which we have yet to buy. The next job is all about creating, in K-Dub's yard, a series of concrete pads. One will take the planned big new shed/building/workshop/winter-quarters for the mini horses. Others will support dog-pen, dog house, green house and path(s).

That lovely old digger - a Massey Ferguson version of the JCB
mainly used by Councils back in the day.

When the helpful professional digger driver originally did the ground works for the house/extension he carefully sorted the 'waste' into piles of mainly one substance - topsoil for example, or rocks, or subsoil or turf-waste or 'rubbish-soil-with-boulders'. This is unusual, I gather - you normally inherit a great big mountain of general "spoil" and it's up to you to sort it out. In K-Dub's case there are mini-mountains dotted around the restricted space.

The trees out front getting rocked about
by the recent stiff NNW breeze

All this concrete work involves bringing lots of '804' gravel (sub-base) and several 8-wheeler concrete lorries onto the site and needing somewhere for the 804 to 'land'. K-Dub's solution is to move the mountain of top soil and, rather than double-handle it, to create several big, deep raised beds for the future veg garden. We do this by barrowing the stuff over into the beds but to fill the barrows out comes my favourite toy, the "JCB". It is not actually a JCB, but the Massey Ferguson version made in the 70s and very popular with council fleet buyers back in the day.

Plenty red currants up out of rooster-reach

K-Dub, being younger and fitter than me and a nice kind of boss believes that if he is not actually paying the 'help' then they ought to get the easier job (digger-ing) while he does the barrows. Suits me - I get to sit there for the hours twiddling my 6 levers with only the uncomfortable, tired seat and the chilly breeze blowing through the open-backed cab to complain about.

Mullein. Another 'wild' species we are
 trying to self-seed up a sustained population

I am reasonably good at it - I am tidy and I have not killed anyone yet but I have to confess I was delighted when the aforementioned professional digger driver (Jimmy, who lives next door to K-Dub) crept up behind me while I was working, stopped us working for a quick chat and fancied a 'go' on our old rust-bucket. He has long since moved on to the huge multi-ton turf machines but would have learned the ropes on these old MF work-horses back in his (relative) youth. He was a pleasure to watch - such control and deliberate movement. Poetry in motion. I must have been paying attention to this involuntary "master-class" too. K-Dub was amazed at the "improvement" after I'd watched Jimmy - "You are much neater and you're filling the barrows perfectly!" he said.

"Big Red" with her 4 now out and about.

Meanwhile, back at home, after all the excitement of that job I am refraining from talking about in this post (pssst... haircuts for ovines) we are enjoying a bit of a relaxed week bedding in the new chicks. Big Red has now started bringing her 4 chicks out to join white hen 'Connie' and her 3. They have little run-ins with other hens now and again and the ginger cats seem fascinated by them but too scared of the bossy hens to actually have a go.

Hubbards at 25 days get moved to the release-pen. 

They are thriving. I get good chick crumb and my finely-chopped hard boiled egg mix into them by periodically going to find the groups and, if there is no competition about, dropping little piles near them which the mother hen dives on clucking her bass-y "Food here children!" cluck. We thought we'd lost one of her black chicks - he was suddenly all slow, wobbly and woozy but he has recovered.

Release pen. They get a few days and nights to get used to
going to roost in the house, then let out into the 10 m by 10 m
pen itself. 

Maybe it was a chilly, wet day and he'd taken a 'puck' from an adult hen's feet (or beak) and got a bit cold and shocked. He got left behind a couple of times but we rescued him back to Mum and he seemed to improve after a few of their 'nap-time' hunker-downs. Mum-hens do that. They go exploring for a while but then decide it is nap time, gather the babies back under their skirts and settle down for a rest where ever they happen to be.

That first sour-dough loaf.

The Hubbard "babies" who are now as big as a pigeon in body-size despite only being 25 days old have been moved from their 2 square metres rabbit run, to their 'grown-up' 10 m by 10 m pen via a release pen I have built. Previous years I have had difficulty getting them to go to bed safe in the house - they started camping out UNDER the house and I had to rake them out and carry them to bed. So I built them a small training run which excluded them from 'under'. When they've done a few days and nights of going to bed properly, they can come out into the wider pen.

Welsh Cakes

In the new kitchen we are enjoying the sour dough bread making. I have had 2 reasonably good loaves (both been eaten) and I am creeping up on 'perfection' with a 3rd attempt tomorrow. The "sponge" is bubbling away now. Liz got inspired by some Welsh-Cakes brought by one of the guests to their recent AGM in Cardiff. She has had a go at them here. Again, they were OK but she was disappointed by the slightly scorched colour and that they were too thick and a bit sticky to handle. I expect there will be a 2nd prototype along soon.

Undiscovered Kong

Ah the joys of it! Mum and Dad are clearing the dining room and the kitchen preparatory to Bob the Builder coming in Monday to demolish the wall between the two. In the process they move a big dresser and, lo and behold!, under it is an old Kong toy. What's more it's full of treats!

Now these may be fairly ancient treats (rumour has it that the kong was bought for me as a pup but that I either lost interest or it rolled under the dresser and got forgotten, but these treats improve with maturity and age, so I immediately claimed the toy as my own and set about extracting the goodies (and growling at anyone who came near.)

Haggis, on the other hand HATES all these furniture moves with a passion, strongly suspecting that they may result in humans disappearing with their belongings in a suit case and us being abandoned to the tender mercies of Dog Sitters. Now the only dog sitters we've ever had are Ken and Jackie one side, and the Angel B and Uncle Jim the other, all of whom are wonderful, but that doesn't stop Haggis slinking around with his tail and ears down, and a hang-dog expression like his little world is falling apart.

Meg's cool as long as no-one turns off the food supply....

Deefer

Workin' on the Night Shift...

Topsy turvey at the moment as Dad has to do a couple of night shifts, so we're working through the night and trying to sleep in the daytime. That's a joke - it's not easy to sleep with that amount of builder noise going on, especially now they've started on the foundations of the "Home for the Bewildered" right out behind us so there are, as we see when we wake up at 4.30 pm, no less than 5 big diggers within 100m of the house, plus a lorry craning a big gen-set onto it's bed.

No matter. It does mean Dad is around and (a bit) awake during the daylight hours, so we benefit from some nice walks. Today's was to Challock Forest where the bluebells are all but over. The chestnut and beech are in full leaf, the bracken is 2-3 feet high and unfurling fast, and the bluebells are green seed heads with just a few powder-blue bells left intact.

Talking of walking - a small dog can fill even a simple walk with drama. Take the footpath round the back of those houses on the North side of town, leading to the allotments. To Dad, Meg and the H it is a straight path from A to B, with occasional interesting grass tufts worth a sniff at either side (M and H, not so much Dad).

I can make it a veritable adventure playground and obstacle course. The fences either side are not that good, so every few yards I can scoot right, through a hole and onto someone's back garden - there are cats to chase and bark at, there are occasional children looking over back fences as we pass, which take me by surprise, so they deserve a bark too. Those cats occasionally stroll across the path 50 yards ahead, necessitating a headlong dash along the path and back. Squirrels chatter from the trees above. Dogs and dog walkers to meet and greet too. A girl is exhausted time she gets to the allotments!

Deefer.

Rumbling Closer

Despite me voicing my protests in the most strident, loud manner to the builders, they insist on rumbling ever closer. Just beyond our beech hedge a big tracked hydraulic digger is scooping off the top 2 feet of the old hard-standing carpark into big 8-wheeler lorries, and another is laying a new foot of finer stuff, which is being smoothed by a road roller.

I have already mentioned that an enourmous estate behind our house is currently being developed to include 390 dwellings and a Home for the Bewildered. the Home is right at our backs, and as the houses gradually encroach on us the space is being cleared for the car parking for the Home.

Dad is impressed tonight on the dog walk when a small shaggy terrier is let out of the front of his house on our busy road by a bloke in a white van, and trots 50 yards down the pavement to the van looking up adoringly at the bloke, before leaping in as soon as the guy opens the door, and sits on the passenger seat looking out of the windscreen, waiting quietly while the guy belts in and fires up.

Dad comments to the bloke that he wishes he could trust us to do that (theory is we'd take off after a cat or stroll about aimlessly across the lanes), and says that H for one, has never voluntarily got into a vehicle in all his (almost) 11 years.

Ah so.

Barking Builders

I am known in these circles for being more of a loud, shouty, feisty girl than any previous westies, and it has got me into trouble many times.

Down at the bottom of our garden "they" are building 390 dwellings and a home for the bewildered. "They" in this case are dozens of lads, all of whom park their cars on a bit of short-term hard-standing laid just outside our beech hedge, which is pruned at the bottom to raise its "skirt", which means I can easily see under it.

That means it's great sport to have a shout at the lads each morning as they park up and get their hard hats, hi-viz jackets and boots on. It goes on as long as I can get away with it, before Mum, rousted from her breakfast or shower, or snooze by the racket, races down to grab me and shut me up.

Imagine Mum's surpriase yesterday then when she could hear someone, or something barking back at me. The builders! Having a rare aul' time winding me up by barking back at me!

How come Mum didn't race down the garden in her nightie and grab a few of them to shut them up?

Deefer