Daydream fund challenge part 4

Davesnave

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Mil still in hospital, but she is alot better, no more away with the fairies so to speak.. But she has gone very quiet now, prob very tired after it all, they are waiting for social services to put things in place before they will leave her out, which could be any day now...

That's great news about MiL's mental state.

The infection will have taken a lot out of her, but here's hoping for a good result once she's back at home.

DaftyDuck

Well, I keep excavating junk the previous owner abandoned, dropped, left to rot, part-burned, or literally buried. I haven't yet attempted to clear the "midden" where he burnt everything he couldn't load into his vans (which included motorbike, furniture, tyres, powertools and many, many, many bin-bags. That'll have to wait for now. I do, however, have a heap of metal that is substantially larger than a Vauxhall Astra ( a reasonably-priced car, in my opinion), all of which was originally subterranean. Obviously, if you have rubbish, the sensible thing to do is just bung it in a ditch, then fill the ditch in. Or, just lie sheets of wire mesh down on the ground, and dump a few years grass cuttings, boulders, some more wire, and then some more soil.

Tools, including power tools, are most sensibly just dropped when you finish with them. Why not? I've found 4 usable sledge hammers, three spades, enough spanners to fix anything, a couple of rather rusty saws, a (just) working Bosch drill, and a couple of still-working electric fence energisers, just thrown to one side.

Just now, I've been clearing the hay barn. Of course, a hay barn is the perfect place to strew nails, screws and many, many staples. I now have a metal bucket brim-full of them, all ready for horsey to eat straight down. Saves eating the hay (which is also full of screws!)... Bonfire, sieve, bin...

I'm so glad we had the plan of no animals 'til we'd sorted the mess... A plan that smoothly progressed with a further delightful arrival from the mad lady; We now have eight of her horses to add to our own. :D:D With backache and fingers sore from all that rooting around for metal, I trundled up to the top field, where I was mobbed by small, medium and large horses from the horde. I can't think of a better way to watch the sun set.

I haven't yet got anywhere near training the wonky donkeys, so I'm still pulling all this metal carp about by hand. There's going to be a race... will I get a donkey to do anything useful before my wife buys a shiny (rusty) tractor? But, their time will come. They watch me labour away, then give a braying laugh to mock me. Seeing and hearing a donkey wind itself up to unleash a bray is a thing to behold. Especially when they are interrupted halfway through, and forget what they were intending to do.

Have to admit, I am right royally knackered.

choille

CTC - pleased that MIL has improved. It will have scared her I would think - poor thing. It's quite common for urine & other infections to cause symptoms like dementia in the elderly.

Hope that she continues to improve.

Dafy Duck - we know that clearing up others' rubbish situation all too well.

We had that in a place that was by boat access & it took several boat trips to get the mess into skips. They'd knocked out Georgian wired windows & built a flower bed on top of it - they even threw light bulbs down outside. I cut myself so many times gardening. They buried batteries & a transit van - anything & everything.

They left the house like the Marie Celeste - socks in the drawer. All the furniture - that needed chucking, dirty nappies - you name it - we couldn't get our own stuff in until we'd got their discarded rubbish outside- it's all coming back, Deep breathes...........................must go & lie down as I have a headache........
SYMPATHIES>

alfie_1

dafty duck... I understand well the sight of a herd of happy horses..
not being a party pooper but be carefull you don't end up with too many from the "mad lady" and get taken advantage of ? theres good will and theres taking the ****. ground can get poor very quickly.
I felt sorry for a mad lady with donkeys years ago and ended up with a neurotic stalker when I had to ask her to leave [she started to tell me what I should and shouldn't do in the fields and kept moving hers onto "saved" land..


you are probably savvy on this but be carefull xxxx

choille

Alfie's dead right - I have far too many sheep for this reason.

Thing is you get to really be fond of them & can't part with them & end up with too many - or at least that's my problem - well one of them!

Davesnave

Your account of the buried stuff has a very familiar ring, Dafty.

For us, it was the 50 - 80cu m heap of material that appeared to be rotted manure, till you looked into it. Sieving through that lot took months, but fortunately those were days when a half dozen dumpy bags of mixed, unidentifiable garbage didn't even cause comment at the tip.
I have a picture somewhere.....

Attacking the heap.

This is the sort of stuff we found in it:



The orchard was so overgrown, it was 3 months before we found the two rusted out pig arks.:huh:

We found 150 wine bottles in the hedge much sooner. At least they looked recycle-friendly.....till we realised many were full of decomposing shrews. :eek:

Then there were the bale bags......why bury 150 bale bags? :huh:

A couple of years ago I thought we were past all that, when I started on the stream bank planting etc. It was then that I discovered the back axle of something and a piece of black plastic silage cover that went on, and on, and on. By then, I'd learned what to do..... They were covered-up again!

It's not all like Country File! :mad:

Davesnave

Mr Dog was out yesterday, so I got into the road hedge he takes exception to me planting and swapped-out a load of brambles for some Scotch and Sweet Briar roses + some 3 year old hawthorn that I'd cut back severely. He won't notice!

The stuff I put in last year is still there.

We have a road closure here for around 3 weeks, while BT put in the cabling for superfast. They shut it at around 09:30 and open again around 16:00 to let the school buses through, as the alternative route is a bit of a nightmare.

I'm hoping to do a bit of tree work while it's quiet.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Morning all,

I agree with Alfie re mad woman..people get carried away with the amount of animals they have on their land, and before you know it, the land suffers, and so do the animals..so please don't be afraid to say no..

Looks as though it's going to be a lovely day here, but cold. Don't mind that . so it's a major !!!!! shovelling day today..

Mil came out of hospital yesterday, but hubby isn't too happy he thinks she wasn't ready. The red cross brought her home, and then occupational theorpy turned up about half hour later to assess things.
Mil refused home help when she was in hospital, and even refused it when she got home,but they managed to persuade her to ' try' it.. So it will be a few days now before it will start. Someone will call in the morning to make sure she is up and dressed, and had breakfast etc.. This will take the pressure off us, as we can go there around tea time.. Instead of twice a day..

Davesnave

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Mil refused home help when she was in hospital, and even refused it when she got home,but they managed to persuade her to ' try' it.. So it will be a few days now before it will start. Someone will call in the morning to make sure she is up and dressed, and had breakfast etc.. This will take the pressure off us, as we can go there around tea time.. Instead of twice a day..

Don't worry, she wouldn't be of her generation if she didn't refuse help at first.

Fingers crossed you'll get someone good. Then in a week or two, MiL will be looking forward to their visits.

Most pro carers I met were brilliant. Let's face it, they're hardly doing it just for the money on their wages!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Thanks davesnave..yes you are right re their generation lol..

It has also made us realise too.. She was in hospital for 10-11 days and it more or less put our lives on hold. And we just about managed to feed, spot clean the animals etc.. So we missed out a deep clean last week..so it made us realise ..we now need to factor in something happening with mil and my parents when planning things... Before the only planning ahead we done re animals, house etc was if we had an event on that we would be away for the weekend,

And we have only got a few animals ..