Daydream fund challenge part 4

ukmaggie45

Greenbee, I think your idea of giving out packets of wild flower seeds is just wonderful! :j

Will you be doing flowers for the funeral? If so this place might be a good place to get them from? Though not cheap! Mind you, I haven't priced up other florists recently. I'm sure they'd do a more wildflower sheaf or wreath if requested. I first came across them on Twitter, where I follow them.

greenbee

Thanks all for the feedback. I think I need about 1kg of seed and 200 little brown envelopes (we're assuming 200... it may well be more, in which case the church will at least be warm from overcrowding!).

Maggie - a friend of my mother's is doing the church porch with mini cyclamen and hedgerow flowers. We're going to do a few bits in the church, but not much - probably lots of ivy and some of the wonderful holly from the garden which is covered in berries. I might cut the last of the teasles from my garden too.

What my dad would really like of course is a few trees... he loved trees

Apparently my suggestion of a brace of pheasant for the coffin wasn't suitable. Appropriate possibly, but flowers are traditional...

alfie_1

greenbee... sorry for your loss but lovely idea re the seeds... nothing stopping you putting some pheasant tail feathers in any flower arrangements ??


I too have MANY pheasants turn up in the garden for the corn I "accidently" drop across the lawn
they don't have many days shoot here now and one time the row of guns waited as the beaters went through the woods and ...they waited....and waited ... ooops ! the pheasants all just "walked" into my friends and my garden ...:rotfl:
as they are not allowed to shoot over our land they were up the creek without a ...pheasant !


well weve had plenty of the minus temperatures here..
Thursday at 7am it was -7.. went up aprox one degree an hour till it was 0 at midday.
got to the fields Thursday morning early to break the ice on the troughs only to see friends gardener down there doing it !! I assumed she'd asked him and visa versa but no, he'd done it off his own bat
I love putting out heaps of hay and watching them all munching away ...


dave.. bit of a bu**ar re your hearth !! some companies really do beggar belief re customer services... do they not realise they LOSE custom !!


well the horrible heron has hooked out some of my smaller koi :mad: what annoys me is he just catches them , couple of pecks then leaves them... invested in a much bigger taller fixed net today so after an airport run tomorrow that is my no1 job to do...
spoke to LIR this week and alls well. the mare and foal I plonked on her are doing exceptionally well now [butterballs].. just good care, lots of love makes all the difference


ive been lighting my fire this week but more for looks ! as central heating in this house is mega and I keep turning rads down ! after last house where I literally froze my buttttt off this is luxury :rotfl:


keep warm, keep safe peeps

Davesnave

Funny we should be talking pheasants. Almost as soon as I left the computer, a c0ck pheasant, emerged from our main flower border..... But he wasn't alone; creeping along behind was Lila, just waiting for the right moment! :rotfl:

She got it wrong, but only by a whisker!

It's strange that she knows to leave the hens alone, yet goes into hunting mode as soon as a bird larger than many of them comes along. True, she treats the poultry with complete disdain, even sleeping in their nest boxes, but I don't think she'd harm them.

I noted some of your temperatures were lower than ours, alfie. We might have made -5c in the last week, but on the whole it's not been too bad. You're not used to this rough winter stuff down there on the coast!

Yes, the hearth is a pain, mainly because we'll have to wait for an 'official' response from the stone company. I expect we'll get a replacement piece eventiually, possibly with some bad grace, because their previous responses have been so poor. However I won't pre-judge, as I've no idea who we've been speaking to up to now.

There are two other slate companies within easy driving distance if the worst comes to the worst.

On your heron losses, we have these in reasonable numbers nearby and so do you, I think:
http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/little-egret

alfie_1

yes dave, plenty of egrets but they tend to just go in the open fields here if not on the river.
ive re netted the pond now so should be secure......

just seen the sihloette? against the night sky of a gurt big heron flying past !! nah nah nana na


we are used to being extra cold here so close to the sea but have the advantage too of better summers... don't mind cold/snow just hate the rain !!


big hoo haa going on here about getting more reflective collars on the forest ponies and donkeys.. the commoners of the forest seem to come up with more excuses than solutions but moan like hell if one gets hit by a car ! there will always be moron drivers but accidents happen purely cos you cant / don't see them till the last minute .. ive been experimenting with different reflectives on my lot to see what stays on the longest ..


ive just been in my xmas cupboard and half the lights don't work in true xmas fashion !! what happens to them id like to know ! go in there working, come out defunked


I got a bargain 80metres of lights [1000 lights] to put outside [£30 instead of £60] so will attempt that tomorrow :eek:
I will get a pic of the house lit up from across the field for you after

Davesnave

Egrets 'fish' in the River Taw, certainly. Dunno if they're as common as herons, or just more conspicuous.

Here, it's deer that need reflective collars...but then Mr Dog would shoot even more of 'em!

Wicked wind here today, so I stayed indoors putting a mist coat on the new linen room's plaster. The living room's nearly dry too, so the last of the coving will go up this week.:D Our builder will be pleased; it's not his favourite job! :rotfl:I haven't dared tell him about pulling-out the hearth yet!The two of us nearly got a hernia getting it in level.

I'm eyeing-up the bottom barnyard for some planting in the spring. At present, we've no plans for the barn, but who knows? My plan is to replace the thatcher's collapsing fence with a hedge of evergreen shrubs, but in the meantime, grow eucalyptus among them to achieve height quickly. We can always cut the eucalyptus down after 6 years or so.

The main problem there is just that....the water main to the village! It's probably in line with this proposed hedge, not very deep and I'll need to locate it.... gently....so using the digger is out.

Edit: No real news on Horse Woman. She definitely has a brain tumour. She may be coming home, once a care package is in place. It can't be like before......

alfie_1

oh so sad dave re horsewoman... sounds like she led an eclectic life tho !


I think I will have a "mad" prefix to my name in the coming years... :rotfl:

DaftyDuck

Ah, "Eccentric Alf" has a certain ring to it. A certain gravitas the "mad" doesn't convey.

I was nicknamed "Daffy Doc", or "Dafty Doc" from Uni days, and it has stuck fairly well since, in several variations. I find it helps greatly, especially when I'm madly out of my depth and at a complete loss.


Which is a normal, everyday event for me nowadays!

Davesnave

I'm not revealing the nickname I had at school. It was OK when I was 11 or 12, but didn't really go with the cool image I wanted to cultivate as a teenager.:o Mind you, it was better than those of some school friends: Nob, Boggy and Scab are just a few who come to mind! :eek:

One didn't get to choose a nickname; it was awarded by others in some strange, evolutionary process, impossible to identify. But having one, even a real stinker, was still better than being just 'Jones,' or whatever. It proved one had something vaguely interesting to offer the world....;)

Anyway, when I left Devon for the bright lights of London town at the tender age of 18, I resolved that I'd bury that nickname for good. There would be no one who'd know it, or the details of my life that had inspired it.

So, imagine my horror when, only 2 weeks into my new life, fresh and equally cool friends at my elbow, I was spotted in a Brompton Road fish bar by a classmate from school, who yelled "F=3%@&y!" at the top of his voice. "How are you mate?" :wall:

It took months to shake Norman and the old nickname off. He was never my mate, but like most Normans, he thought he was! :rotfl:

Davesnave

alfie_1 wrote: »

oh so sad dave re horsewoman... sounds like she led an eclectic life tho !

Oh she did; she has friends all over the south of England from the days of horse racing. She had a HGV licence and virtually lived in the van sometimes.

Only today we had a local VIP visitor here, asking after her. She mixed in many circles, but in recent years she'd become a very private person.

I don't think the medics know how dangerous the growth is. There's no chance of operating, but these things can be slowed-down sometimes, and she's having treatment. Who knows what the future holds, but she might come back here. If the right care is in place, she won't miss food/ medication and become so confused.

She was reasonably lucid last week.