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.

D Minus 37

For those keeping score, we are now only 37 days from June 30th which is a VERY SIGNIFICANT DAY in Project Erroll terms. A life-changing day, a huge crossroads and a bit of a scary prospect as well. Do you get the impression that maybe the humans are focussing here?

Mum and Dad are both working hard in their separate domains and evenings are long and dry, either warm and balmy or, at present, a bit cold and chilly. Mainly dry, though. We have not had any significant rain for what feels like almost 3 months in the SE, all of March. April and all of May so far. The ground is as dry as dust and nothing is growing. Lawns are straw-coloured and soil is cracked.

For we dogs, of course, life bimbles along as normal. We get plenty of walks in the dry evenings - tonight round the Cemetery and Rec where we meet and have a good scamper about with 2 year old westie Jimmy. Dad plays that old favourite game with me of 'chuck the abandoned pop bottle' - Lucozade tonight and then I amuse all comers by walking home from the Rec with it between my teeth as if using it to cool my fevered throat after the hot playing.

37 Days

Deefs

Going Equipped

Seriously worried about Dad last night, as he loads a dodgy looking bag with claw hammer, crow-bar, screwdrivers, rubber mallet and "cape hammer" (ask the fruit boys, the stevedores) and heads for the back entrance to Diamond's house (in her absence). He is meeting a bloke there we do not know. Are his intentions honest?

Yes, it turns out - he and fellow allotment holder Mike, are fixin' to dismantle the garden shed in Diamond's back garden. The shed was once Diamond's step-father (Denis)'s pride and joy (and Dad will tell you how precious blokes get about their sheds). But Denis (love him). is now pretty much confined to hospital and won't be needing the shed any more, so Mike gets it, and the flat, paved area which Diamond always thought was a bit too good to put a shed on, is freed up.

Diamond will enjoy this as a sun-trap terrace area, and has visions of painting the walls white, screwing on a blue trellis, and attaching the poor old rose , which up to now has been buried behind the shed, to the trellis. Diamond has always been a fan, since teenage years, of the Greek island of Poros, and she will re-create a small chunk of Poros in her back garden.

Mum sets out, once the terrace is cleared, a chair and a table fior Diamond to sit at. On the table she sets a rusty cat-food tin with some old carrot-flower tops "planted" in it. Diamond will enjoy this - Denis was a great one for keeping all manner of junk in the shed, and empty cat food tins were one of his favourites, and the sheer dodgy-ness of it will strike a chord with the Poros "barbecues made of old oil drums" etc.

Rags, needless to say, has a whale of a time while the boys are into the shed and taking it apart.

Today, we are back into walking. I am on the lead for vet-reasons (lead-only exercise for 10 days). We pass through the cemetery, and we are amazed by the huge pile of floral tributes to "Jimmy". We assume from the size of the display, and the fact that there are models of a caravan, a Land Rover and a horse made out of flowers, along with all the huge (expensive) tributes saying "Good Night Jimmy", that these are a traveller family. They know how to do a good funeral. here is even an old "single" vinyl record of Lonnie Donegan (Battle of New Orleans) tied up there.

RIP Jimmy, who ever you were. You were obviously very popular and had many children and Grandchildren. Good luck mate - and as the Irish say, "Slain Abhaile" (Good Journey)

We are in for a quiet weekend traffic-wise. The road outside is closed further up, and has now been dug up a cross its whole width while contractors install traffic islands, round-abouts and so on. For 3 weeks, no-one will be able to come whooshing down our street and whizzing past our house.

Have a great weekend

Deefer