How to Get Through The Tough Times The Old Style Way.

mardatha

Just finished this book and it will be one of my all-time favs forever I think. You must read it - I got it on Amazon for 1p.
"A Croft in the Hills" by Katharine Stewart. Life on a highland croft - in the hills above Loch Ness -in the 1960s. And she isn't an incomer who stayed a year to write a book and make money - she is in her 90s and still lives in the area. Pure magic book.

kidcat

Anyone worried about fuel thefts you can buy a locking fuel cap to replace the ordinary one, they are available at a motor factors store, I lost a lot of diesel a few years ago so replaced ours. It cost less than ten pounds and has easily saved me that in lost fuel.

GreyQueen

..............hope everyone remembered to put their clocks forward overnight? I certainly didn't and was staring bleary-eyed at the computer clock for 10 seconds wondering why it said 8am....duh....if I had a brain I'd be dangerous.

Gailey, hi, and sorry to hear baby still not arrived but rest assured; you don't have a wasp nest. Wasps don't nest this early in the year. What you do have is hibernating queen wasp(s) who came indoors late last year and hid up there. I'm fairly expert on wasps as have lived with them indoors (nesting in lofts) in a couple of places. At the end of last year's season, the young queens and the young males (the bulk of wasps are sexless drones) would have flown the nest, mated, the males died and the females hibernated. The drones would have had a few weeks of purposeless life buzzing around until the cold weather killed them. Please, anybody, don't kill any wasps you see at this time of the year as you'll kill a queen and a nest-to-be and the drone wasps will eat a lot of harmful insects in the months to come. And yes, I have been stung by wasps many a time, including the little !!!!!! who crawled up my trouser leg when we were entertaining company on the parents' patio.

Mardatha, you give our yellow ball back Right Now! It's still grey down here but at least it's stopped raining; started to tip it down by the middle of the afternoon. Need some rain for my lottie and esp to recharge the waterbutts. There's a rumour going around the site that the Council won't be switching the water to the stand taps back on at the beginning of April as a cost-saving measure but I haven't heard anything official. It will be very difficult if they don't as we are on very light soil and tend to have a drought every year from late May thru til July which is prime growing time, obviously. I expermimented with buried bottles with little holes in as watering points alongside my courgettes last year and have been planting bottles with my broad beans too. The amount of other gardeners who want to know what's UNDER them is unreal.

Question: I have a 6 foot x 8 foot apex-roofed shed with a gutter and a big water butt on each side. Am contemplating having a 3rd butt, if I can fit one around the back end, with overflow piping from the other two, to catch excess. Has anyone done something similar and would you mind sharing advice/ tips please?

Just realised that I'm one hour late for my breakfast...arggh! Or is that early? I'm sooo confused now.

gailey_2

Morning

Greyqueen-sorry idiot boy not sorted out hopefully wont be too long.
thanks foradvice on wasps hate them!

Im confused what time it is 9.39 or 10.39? weirdly kids still asleep!

right speak 2soon 18month old awake best go dobrekkie.

bertiebots

GQ you can link 2 water butts together by using a linking kit. No need to faff around with guttering etc

http://www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk/product/waterbutt-link-kit/940

GreyQueen

bertiebots wrote: »

GQ you can link 2 water butts together by using a linking kit. No need to faff around with guttering etc

http://www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk/product/waterbutt-link-kit/940

Thanks, bertiebots. I'll check it out. What I need is to create linkages from 2 existing water butts which are under the shed's gutters to a third one standing between the two (third one not being bought yet!)

bertiebots

I suppose you could make your own link of any length using an off cut of hose pipe, but I dont know how you would seal the pipe in the hole iyswim! Maybe someone else here has done it and can suggest something!

GreyQueen

Speak softly so as not to frighten it, but the day is slowly brightening over Provincial City and any second now we will have Yellow Ball up in the sky. I'm chuffed as am about to go to the lottie for a few hours of graft. Will be planting onion and shallot sets and possibly other things, depending on how the day goes.

Hope everyone gets a share of the Ball and has a good day.

silvermaid

No-one's sharing the yellow ball with me and I wanted to get my washing on the line. I can put it out but it is cold, grey and windless. Oh please share, pretty please, and let me join in the sun fun x

tryingtodobetter

Yellow ball in the sky here in Devon, just waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can hang the washing on the line. I've finally got some time to catch up as the big boys are at rugby with DH and the baby is asleep. I'm really annoyed with myself as I have £30 of charges coming out of the bank as i took my eye of the ball (not the yellow one ) when I was in hospital having the baby and went £20 overdrawn :mad:.

I'm currently trying to decide if I should buy a sewing machine with a gift card I have or if I should sell the gift card? I would love a sewing machine and have wanted one for ages but realistically I don't have much time at the moment with the new baby, the older children and the woodland :undecided

Washing has now finished so I shall hang that on the line and hopefully be able to make some rice crispie cakes before the baby wakes up.