Daydream thread continues.....

Davesnave

:wave:Greetings Welsh Poppy.

I'm 1/4 Welsh, but more of an honorary part-Welsh person really, due to 3 years research across the Bristol Channel at every opportunity....and then I ended up here!

Bit windy out....but everything seems OK, although I haven't investigated carefully. We are more sheltered from the west, and that's where it's coming from....

Ozzie leaves us on Saturday, to live with another Australorp enthusiast not very far away. He has never shown any manly interest in our two Australorp hens, but he might not have so much choice in future! :rotfl:Meanwhile, one of our Australorps has gone broody, so we have put some potentially fertile Welsummer eggs under her in a broody coop, just to see what transpires.

So, Ozzie's genes might live on....:cool:

Great woodpecker photos, Maggie. Haven't seen ours here for months.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Well the wind was well and truely blowing last night, still quite rough out there now....had bit of a leaky roof, due to a dis-losdged slate...
Keeping the chooks etc in today, or at least untill this afternoon....

Think they have given it dry for tomorrow, and then the rain back again on sunday/monday

Went to the dentist again yesturday, and she inected my front bottom teeth for a under the gum clean:o, yesturday i felt as though my bottom jaw was about 2 foot long, and today my jaw is aching something cronic....that will teach me to miss going to the dentist for 3 years ( even though i pay a monthly plan) so back now in 3 months

They have machines in the waste ground now, and by all accounts they start 'proper' work on the supermarket on monday:mad:
got to try and keep the cat in now, the amount of traffic etc will totally confuse her, plus they are builting on part of her 'hunting' ground... this is going to be a nightmare, and she mews constantly in my ear when she wants to go out in the nights/early morning

rhiwfield

Was due to travel today but decided against it with 60mph gusts and heavy rain.

So I was in to receive a parcel from Alf :j:j

Its a bit like getting a christmas hamper, rummaging around to unearth yet more goodies. Just lovely

Lashed down the coop yesterday, the chooks staying in most of the time. No real damage that I can see but will probably have damage to fruit.

lostinrates

Been a terrible time here.

We lost the barn doors, and a couple of chooks, top of the best peach tree, one of the plums (less of a loss).

Lots of garden damage too, roses etc. but the fence stayed up, for once!

lostinrates

Oops, and now the laburnum we were going to save. Imo that is no great loss, i don't like 'em, but dh does. Anyone know how it burns? We are going to have a lot of wood to add to our stacking pile.

Incidentally we stack by category...is that weird? My reasoning is i would rather not use the pine in the dodgy wood burner, and also the fruit woods seem a shame to lose their scent on the wood burner, so these are better saved for sepcial occasionas when we have an open fire, and then the other stuff fine chucked on the wood burner.

And when felling trees how much of the top do the rest of you keep and cut for kindling, all of it? There is a lot of twiggy stuff for not much wood in many cases!

lostinrates

http://www.ehow.co.uk/list_6715710_wood-varieties-not-use-firewood.html
Laburnum seems a no- no, though there are websites with people saying they use it in their woodburners

RAS

Laburnum is lovely wood when turned.

lostinrates

RAS wrote: »

Laburnum is lovely wood when turned.

Its not huge..might make a shephards crook:D. Know any one down south who might want it? They would be wlcome to it, i would hate to throw it outif it can be used.

Itismehonest

Sorry to hear the wind has caused so much chaos with you, LIR.
Particularly about the chickens.
Did the wind rip the barn doors off their hinges?

The gales gave us a less than peaceful night but there's no real harm done as far as I can see.
I think the fact that our trees were so far behind this year (& that the gales were going across the valley & not along it) has meant that there aren't even many leaves off.
The Montana has taken a battering. It looked like a beautiful bank of snow but now looks like the crumbs left on the plate when the Christmas cake's been devoured :rotfl: but that's about it for damage as far as I can see.

We used to keep most of the downed trees apart from their end twigs. Everything from an 1"+ diameter seems to 'come in' for something.
We have even used the end twigs for supports in the garden occasionally but, since we have grown our own bamboo, we don't even need them for that now.

A belated Hello, Welsh Poppy :wave:

Davesnave

I'm sorry too to hear about your losses, lir. It is a nightmare anticipating all the potential things that can go awry when extremes of weather strike.

We seem to have escaped almost unscathed, and although I heard the River Tavy was very high yesterday, we've not seen rain like that up this way.

As regards chopping up trees, I did start saving pieces from 1" up for kindling, but we still have so much of that I don't bother now. My saved pieces depend a bit on species, but they start at about 2.5". The theory is that I get the chain saw out and cut them all up in November! :rotfl:

Managed to get our new monster mower out of the van this afternoon, started it and cut a good swathe of rough grass before running out of petrol. It wasn't the best weather for a test, but it's already clear that the thing will save me hours of tedium. :j:j:j
The rest of the day was spent sorting out the sliding door furniture on the polytunnel and tightening up all the nuts & bolts holding it together. My DW and FIL managed to install two huge and useless hasp & staples supplied with it, which I really didn't want, as we won't be padlocking it any time soon. After all, one stroke with a Stanley knife..:eek: Even the makers seem dense, supplying 4 bolts to lock the doors in place from the inside, which is fine, but when you leave, there is need for at least one more bolt outside, to secure the door you just went through!