Office, Logging and Garden

We finally getting round to nailing another long standing job, having got a chance to buy wood at Woodie's DIY in Carrick on Shannon on the day of the NCT re-test. That's the gnarly bit under the stairs where the broad band arrives and a phone point but where the work station was still the old green fold-away caravan table. This has now been treated to a nice work top and a shelf for the screen, 2 box-shelf units from IKEA (originally intended for the kitchen but Mum found they didn't 'go' and that was that.) and a new book case unit from Mulligan's in 'Balla' ( we have discovered that all the locals call Ballaghaderreen by this name, which makes life much easier and we can't really go round calling it "Bally-Lala" which was becoming its nickname!)

In the kitchen garden, with the last of the most recent 10 tonne of 804 gravel now shoveled away to become floor of caravan bay in the former hay barn, there is space for Mum and Dad to build the third (of four) raised beds out of our inherited railway sleepers. The first one, completed a while ago is now producing some nice looking crops, particularly shallots, onions, garlic and radish. We are rubbish at labeling things when they get sown, but Dad is "fairly confident" that the radish row was double-planted with parsnip seed as per the advice in the "Vegetable Growing in Ireland" book. Radish takes 3 weeks to crop. Parsnips take 3 weeks to germinate, so you can use radish to mark your parsnip row.

While the chainsaw was out for cutting the railway sleepers in half to make 'ends' for the beds, Dad decided to try his hand at felling his first tree. In the woods to the left of our drive which are, we think, black spruce there are a few dead weedy ones long since over shadowed and killed by big beefy neighbours. They are about 45 feet tall (compared to 60-70 or more for the big, healthy trees) and less than 12 inches diameter at the bottom. Dad selected one which stood a chance of falling into a gap between others, neatly across the drive and onto the lawn. It all "sort of" worked except that the tree kind of bounced off a neighbour and hovered briefly in the clasp of its branches but it came down soon enough when Dad made an extra cut in the trunk. Dad cleaned off the side branches (some of which Mum stole for pea sticks) and then logged it up into 40 odd logs. Nice clean job.

Deefs

Utility Room

The biggest single job this week was to start the Utility Room. This is one of the outbuildings on the eastern end of the house which we have up till now known called the 'office' because when we found it it was full of desks chairs and farm and office paperwork - invoices for milk and vet supplies, records for animals etc. It also contained a load of school reports from when the Three Sisters and TK min were at school. Much of this paperwork was cleared out by the sisters in the last days before we moved in.

In fact, the building was almost certainly some kind of slaughter house or butchery room. It has floor-to-wall coving and a drain at its lowest point out to the yard as if it needed to be hosed down or pressure-washed. It is six inches from the house with an annoying gap into which has been thrown, down the years, a whole lot of old rubbish, scrap iron bits, bottles and general waste which has built up a heap between the two buildings which collects damp right against the house wall. To make things worse a bizarre decision to route a downpipe from the gutter down into here adds to the wet.

This is right outside the range chimney and has almost definitely not helped with the damp, slow-burn, creosote build up issue in the bottom of that chimney which we are only now being able to sort out by opening it up inside and clearing stuff from against the walls outside, getting a bit of a breeze through the place.

The old 'office' has a very flat roof which is badly rotted and is also a bit low for Dad who is 6'1" tall. The boys decide to remove the roof, replacing it with a new more sloping one spanning from a ridge plate fixed to the house wall, to a wall plate on the office outer wall. They will then be able to demolish the inner wall altogether adding a foot to the width of the room. The roof will be waterproof OSB ply like the extension with 2 layers of torch-down tar felt and with insulated foam panels between the rafters. The walls will be insulated panels and it will get a new door. It will be plumbed and wired and should easily take the washing machine and any other white goods, a sink for dog washing and a chest freezer. These will be in rows up either side, with a galley walkway between.

The inner wall proved to be very tough, made of poured concrete with rocks and stones lobbed in and puddled down. It was, joked Dad and Sparks, probably the strongest wall in the house. Why do we have to knock down the strong walls and keep the tired, falling down ones? Anyway, my pictures here are of the process so far. The roof came off, the new roof beams were mounted on the new plates and the inner wall was demolished using Dad's sledge hammer. By Friday afternoon, all the beams were in and the wooden boards fixed down. The ends of the beams were then marked and sawn off to sensible lengths so that a gutter can be fixed along the outside which will feed into one of our new gulleys. Rain stopped play on any torch-down felting so this will be picked up next week. A nice space is coming together. A good job.

Dog washing sink? Yoiks!
Deefs

R and R, workin' 9 to 5

A day for being spoiled, and allowed to rest and recouperate from my op. Thanks to my "assistant" for giving me the day off. I have not yet started licking my scar or my stitches, so I have been able to put off the day when I have to wear the lamp shade.

Everyone is making a fuss of me and sympathising. Mum is concerned at leaving me behind, so she takes me into the office, where I am greeted by all the colleagues. A small bed is made up for me and a water bowl, and I am attached to the furniture by my lead. I am very quiet and completely charming (natch), and no bother to anyone.

I receive a get-well card from my real Mum (Mollie), Dad (Hector) and bro' Archie. I am told that the longest they managed to make real-Mum keep her lampshade on was about 10 seconds. First-Mum also phones to check on my progress, and everyone at Dad's work is asking. Didn't know I was so famous.

Lastly, sis' Ellie is passing, all glamm'd up for her walk with her red diamond coller - real diamonds! :-)) (she's always all glamm'd up!) as we return, so she comes in to say hello, but no-one's allowed to race me around and play. Anyway, Ellie is definitely feeling like she's on OUR TURF, and rolls on her back while we all sniff her. I get a bit concerned at so much activity near my sore underside, and have a bit of a grouch at her. Sorry, Ellie. We'll make it up to you when we next see you. I'm not myself at the moment.

Back on the road to recovery

Deefer