the daydream fund challenge thread

Davesnave

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Hi all,

its great now, you can notice it getting lighter and lighter when we come home from work, cant wait until feb is over, as in march we start seeing some nice sunny and warmer days ( normally)

Yes, but the flip side is that soon I'll be getting up at stupid o'clock to let the hens out!:rotfl:

Also, there's oodles of winter jobs still to be done, which I can't see us fitting-in by the end of March.

No excuses either this year, as it's been pretty tame out there, apart from the amount of rain earlier on. So glad we got on with hedging in November.

Rummer

:jMy copy of Allotted Time arrived today :j

lostinrates

There will always be jobs undone, thats the nature of it. Unless you have staff you do what you can when you can and manage that with the need to hibernate/live.


Opened the door for ex batts and snowballs today. Snowballs are please, ex batts are intrigued and terrified......a car going down the road freaked them. They are meant to have been in a free range place...so should have seen sun before at least. One has a nasty limp today

Davesnave

Arr, they money-grabbin farmers be at it again!

Had a 'Protest Now!' letter through the door this morning about the latest wind turbine proposal near here.

This is it:
http://docs.middevon.gov.uk/pap/index.asp?caseref=12/00190/FULL

Edit: P.S. the docs take ages to download on my connection here.


Not sure what to think. On the one hand, nobody wants them, but on the other, some things will have to change. We have plenty of smaller ones around, locally. Something of this size is of a different order, so locals see it as a sort of test case. Another one has aleady been opposed.

This turbine wouldn't affect us. From the land we wouldn't see it, and in the house there's no chance either, due to a very large and not exactly beautiful complex of tin barns across the road.....In fact, seeing that far in that direction would be lovely.


Where's Rummer? I've sowed loads of chillis, sweet peppers and toms today. Doesn't mean you have to though! But you asked us to tell you!

lostinrates

Dave, they are trying to build a farm of them round the corner from me. I think, gulp, its a good idea. Of course i would rather not see or more importantly to me hear them, but they have to go somewhere.

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

they have to go somewhere.

My thoughts exactly, and I'm not a stranger to them either.

Worse news! We are almost certain two of our RIRs are co ckerels!

We've been suspicious for some time,
as they've not laid, have a different feather pattern, long, strong-looking legs and small spurs developing...

What's more, I think the other two may be bantams, as they should surely be larger if true to breed. They're nice birds though.:)

Luckily, the person we got them from will likely have them back, otherwise it would be roast RIR before long.

I've told DW I shall be vetting the next so-called breeder she chooses to buy from. I think we might have had less 'fun' with chickens in the last year if we'd picked numbers at random at the Hatherleigh auctions! :rotfl:

OK, off to prepare for Panto now....

Lotus-eater

I like wind turbines, I've never understood the anger felt towards them. In the Netherlands they are everywhere. What we do best in this country. NIMBYism.

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I like wind turbines, I've never understood the anger felt towards them. In the Netherlands they are everywhere. What we do best in this country. NIMBYism.

The noise can be somewhat offensive. I think they are quite attractive really,certainly better than pylons. But not as nice a unspoilt landscape!

Itismehonest

Being an island (& with the weather we get) tidal power would be a more sensible suggestion in my opinion.

If it's too windy the turbines can't work & if there's not enough wind then the turbines won't work. They're an enormous blight on the landscape.

Luckily we are far enough away that we can't even see the monsters at Fullabrook although they are seen from nearly every high point for miles. They have already caused problems for people through noise & made one poor guy, who lives close to them, ill.
For a better idea of the scale of the things see this article which also gives an idea of how much chaos just getting them into place causes

RAS

In Wales they have done a survey of the best sites for wind turbines from the point of generating power. If your site is listed, there is a good chance of getting permission. If it is not, then it is likely to be rejected.

Sounds fairly rational to me and everyone buying knows what the score is before they move into an area.

We had some on a high hill not so far away. Can not see them from most of the scenic places but there are one or two very off track (access land that requires a fair bit of trekking) places where they are visible from a long way away. I think they are OK.

We seem to have this little thing about pretending that the rest of the planet (or at least the human portion) does not exist; that wild and beautiful cannot co-exist with human and human stuff. We have been structuring this landscape by design and stupidity for millenia. I wonder what people thought about Stonehenge and the associated works at the time?

When I walk all too often what I find is a world stripped of its human inhabitants, gutted by industrial migration. If we want these places to thrive we actually need to put the humans back alongside the other species.

I do not agree with vast wind farms in remote places chosen for low land costs and hopefully low numbers of potential objectors, from whence the power needs transmitting for hundreds of miles but I think modest scale wind generation is a good thing. The Danes do it a lot and their countryside does not seem to suffer for it.