Preparing for Winter V

[Deleted User]

Our sweep charges £55 for the woodburner chimney but was safe as houses in the precautions he took to keep us safe and also asked us to take to keep him safe.

greenbee

MingVase said:

Wow Jamanda, our sweep charges £20.

Mine charges £50. Where you are in the country makes a HUGE difference!

[Deleted User]

Rhubarb picked, plums nicely purple but not softening yet and neither are the damsons, it's a bit early BUT happiness is discovering that what we thought was a damson tree is actually a Mirabelle Plum and nicely covered with those lovely little yellow plums a couple of pounds of which are going to be made into sweet pickled plums this afternoon to go with ham at Christmas. I hope they ripen at a steady rate rather than all at once as I'd quite like some for plum cheese a little later in the season.

Si_Clist

£45 a flue here, and if he does two at the same address, it's still £45 each

Back to eggs for a moment, in case anybody doesn't know, the "use by" date on a pack of UK hens' eggs is 28 days after date of lay.

Ref drying of logs, after 38 years of drying logs for our woodburners in all manner of situations, we've come to the firm conclusion that what they need in order of priority is time, shelter and a good airflow round them

Floss

Si, I guess it's the time to set up, clean & clear up rather than the address that dictates that price. 
I've not needed a sweep for over 20 years but seem to remember it was in the region of £15, which was the cost of 5 sacks of proper coal from our coalman, we lived on the edge of a former mining area so no smokeless stuff for us!

Si_Clist

Floss said:

... I've not needed a sweep for over 20 years but seem to remember it was in the region of £15, which was the cost of 5 sacks of proper coal from our coalman ...

... and the £45 we reluctantly pay the chap who does ours now (very tidily and efficiently) is exactly what 4 bags of smokeless costs us from ours!

MingVase

We're currently paying £18 per sack from the coalman, smokeless eggs. Last for ages but we still go through 3 bags a fortnight, the fire is never out.

Laura_Elsewhere

MrsCD said:

With eggs, I work on the 'dead fish float, so do eggs' principle.  Once they're a couple of days past the date on the box, I put them in a jug of water when I want to use one. If it sinks, it's still fresh, if it hovers in the middle, it's ok to use to bake with but if fried it will spread a lot. If it floats on the water, it's probably past its best, but do the look and smell test before deciding whether to use of throw out.
My MIL would never throw food out, to the point that she was often 'bilious' as she called it! 😱

Yes, that's what we've done with the eggs - none of them have even been hovering in the middle. Very very fresh eggs lie on the bottom sideways; fresh-ish eggs lie on the bottom upright.... and the only ones I have actually thrown out were three eggs Use-By May 18th, when it was July 22nd, but even they still sank to touch the bottom - and we did have two as fried eggs a couple of days earlier and they were completely fine, two whole months after their use-by date! 

I definitely would avoid being quite so thrifty as your MiL...! I'm not sure it's thrifty if you save on food but spend on extra toilet paper...!  

Laura_Elsewhere

boazu said:

Rhubarb picked, plums nicely purple but not softening yet and neither are the damsons, it's a bit early BUT happiness is discovering that what we thought was a damson tree is actually a Mirabelle Plum and nicely covered with those lovely little yellow plums a couple of pounds of which are going to be made into sweet pickled plums this afternoon to go with ham at Christmas. I hope they ripen at a steady rate rather than all at once as I'd quite like some for plum cheese a little later in the season.

ime, Mirabelles do ripen all at once and don't keep well - our Council planted them in various places around the town, yellow ones and red ones,  and nobody else ever picks any, so I enjoy them The yellow and red ones ripen at slightly different times. I do find they freeze brilliantly though and if you're making cheese with them (which is what we do) then you don't even need to faff about de-stoning them, just shove 'em in a bag and freeze... 

missmarbuff

First step yesterday towards Winter - brought a new hot water bottle
Our apple tree in our garden is laden with fruit - might try freezing some this year.