Daydream fund challenge part 4

Davesnave

In other news, we paid another visit to a wood burner emporium today. The lady who runs it has been selling them for 25 years, so she's a mine of info.

She's sending her 'lads' to assess our fireplace and chimney, so we will soon have a couple of appraisals and quotes to consider.

I also began demolishing our shed. It's seen better days, but the main reason it has to go now is to give access to Pete's digger. It's sitting right in the path of a new soak-away.

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

Will she let you do it?

I think so.

There will be 3, or maybe 4 of us, if the other lady's husband joins in. He'll probably just do some strimming in the garden.

It's better if there are two families involved, not just the two of us, for the reasons you suggest. The other family are excellent, ex-farming people and the lady is already a carer for someone in the village.

We have keys etc.

The son is about 200miles away. He does his best, but.....he's a bloke!:o I don't think he sees what we see and I don't think he has a clue what to do anyway; things have changed so fast.

alfie_1

hi all....


well done dave and co... for helping HW retain some dignity before a decision has to be made..


I found a BIG hornets nest... very active, in the bottom field shelter.. so got the hoss's shifted pronto. I thought they died/hibernated/?? for the winter ?? this nest is growing daily, will try and get a pic on here later. im happy to leave them be , we have other fields! cant destroy something that's only nature after all... BUT what happens during the winter months ....will they re-emerge in the spring or will they do a bunk ? I don't want to wake up a mass of grumpy hornets if I move the nest [which is an architectural wonder ! ,] but cant leave it there in the summer next year !


weather started off today horrendously but settled by lunch time and got out quite nice !!?


looks like the hoss's next door are in for the long haul .... poop

Davesnave

You don't need to worry, alfie, the nest will probably grow through October, but by winter the ordinary hornets and old queen will have died, while the new queens will be holed-up, waiting for spring to start a new colony. The old nest is always abandoned.

We only see the occasional hornet here, and this year there have been very few wasps. We picked over half an old hundredweight of plums, but weren't troubled by wasps on them at all.

Last year, there was a nest in the bank of the stream, which I found when strimming up the dry stream bed :eek:, but this year there's none on our land. Fewer butterflies too, unfortunately , although in the polytunnel that's a blessing.

Mind you, we had help in the polytunnel this year. The sparrows which use the nest boxes just outside,know that there's a ready supply of food in the poly, so they fly in and grab any insect that's banging itself against the roof. They're not bothered by us at all.

Davesnave

Managed to take down the old shed today without breaking it or me, but it has too many rotten bits to be kept. I'm finding ideas for the parts, though, like the roof can be used for boarding-over part of the loft.

Spent quite a long time with HW, trying to teach her to use a mouse, but we couldn't seem to connect to the internet. Although there was a signal coming through, the router wouldn't accept our password. :mad:

After an hour of messing around, I finally decided to re-set the router, only to dicover that it was totally dead, having been switched-off when HW went into hospital.

Then I twigged; we were connecting with the router of the people next door! :rotfl:Down there, it's like one giant hot-spot.

Davesnave

Pete came and we rounded up the sheep for a bum-cleaning session. He was impressed because three of us were able to pen them, almost without the dog, which is virtually blind now. These sheep are used to me walking among them, so they just needed gentle coaxing along the fence line and into the pen.

Then the fire man arrived to assess our chimney for a fireplace and stove. What had seemed a daunting job soon looked much more do-able, so he was a real pleasure to have here after the conservatory guy...who's sent us his 'final' plan...and it's still wrong :mad:

He's putting together a deal where we do the prep for the fire box + hearth and fit those ourselves, then he fits the chimney liner and fire and then there's a delay while a bespoke limestone surround is made in Portugal and shipped over.... but we can still use the fire in the meantime. Finally, he fits the surround. This sounds expensive, but apparently it's not that different from having an 'off the peg' job.

It all sounds great, but there's one problem, apart from getting the parts from 5 different sources,which is that Mr Rod needs to tie-in with this for the plastering...and we all know how hard he is to pin down! :rotfl:

No swallows seen today. The few we saw yesterday were probably already on their way south. Always sad to see them go.....:(

lucielle

Just had a lovely weekend away with the whole family. Back to reality. Work is a real chore at the moment and I'm not enjoying it one bit.


DS2 has decided not to go back to sixth form and has managed to get an apprenticeship at JCB. He's off to college for 2 weeks tomorrow, early start for OH.


DD2 is also away for 2 weeks as she has to do the milking. Not sure how pleasant she'll be after that.
L

pink_poppy

Davesnave wrote: »

We only see the occasional hornet here, and this year there have been very few wasps. We picked over half an old hundredweight of plums, but weren't troubled by wasps on them at all.

Last year, there was a nest in the bank of the stream, which I found when strimming up the dry stream bed :eek:, but this year there's none on our land. Fewer butterflies too, unfortunately , although in the polytunnel that's a blessing.

We have had the usual amount of wasps I would say, but one thing I've noticed is a distinct lack of ladybirds

Loads of butterflies around, particularly the brown ones with creamy coloured spots on, never seen so many, plus the usual cabbage whites of course.

Davesnave

pink_poppy wrote: »

Loads of butterflies around, particularly the brown ones with creamy coloured spots on, never seen so many, plus the usual cabbage whites of course.

That would be the Speckled Wood, which is one of few doing well.

We have those, but our most common one is the Tortoiseshell. We also see Peacock, Red Admiral, Painted Lady, Fritillaries (don't know which one) and the Good Ol' Cabbage White. Only saw 1 Comma this year, and the same in 2015.

greenbee

We've had lots of gatekeepers. Not that many bees, and not many ladybirds either. Then again, I haven't been here much this year - and when I have the builders have been here scaring the wildlife.

I managed to cut the grass today after three weeks of neglect - it'll need another cut with the blades lowered as soon as I can find the time and then I'll need to try to keep on top of it. There seems to be a very low proportion of grass to other vegetation, and there are still plenty of thistles growing, so I have been wondering about an autumn lawn treatment. I'm not that keen on monoculture, but I think there should probably be a bit more grass than there currently is...