KonMari 2018 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

GreyQueen

Every year I end up pulling some infant oak trees, about 8 inches tall, out of the veggies. Jays plant them. Also walnuts although they are slower to germinate and I find them still underground, with a shoot, before they have time to become a sapling.

At these latitudes, bare soil becomes grassy soil, becomes scrub, becomes decidious woodland. Only human intevention (and our animals, in some cases) stops the process.

I have spent 2.5 hrs on my allotment(s) - how novel to say that in the plural, can't get used to it. Consolidated two bonfires, one from each, onto Plot2. Burned some, but it was a sullen blaze and kept going out. I could have nursed it along, but was busy about other matters. I'll have another go at it on another day, it ain't going anywhere.

Have been forking thru the earth berm and have removed a carrier-bagful of plastic carp. Most of it was smallish flakes but one swathe was intact enough to be recognisable as a 'ovis bread bag. Kept pulling it off the fork's tines and picking it out of the soil. Eww!

Took me back years to when I cleared Plot1. Plots 1 and 2 were tenanted for years by the same lousy gardener and he chucked carp all over the place. I've dug up a lot of plastic chicken feed sacks up there, and plenty of other trash. And, I've vowed if I ever get my hands on the lemon who carpetted Plot1 with green waffle rubber carpet underlay, they will die an interesting death, that stuff drives me spare...........!

silvasava

Oh GQ - what a battle before you even start to grow anything. Do you think you will be able to plant anything on plot 2 this year?

[Deleted User]

I got the karma woo again, absolutely not expecting any money but I always look at bank accounts after an attempted faud several years ago. At a perfect time for me and straight into my new house savings. Crikey, it always happens after a period of giving things away

Wednesday2000

I haven't got rid of much at all lately so I will look around my house and find a bag of stuff to go to the charity shop this weekend. I know I have a cat candle and a black skirt that can go off.

Siebrie

The company I work for is still renovating. Last month it was "my" half of the floor, and we had to move in with the other half; this month it is the other half that needs to move in with my already renovated half. It is a bit squashed. The good thing is that there are now many small meeting rooms and phone booths, and people are actively using them.


I am still getting rid of office paperwork, and some of it makes me really happy There are some really large projects that have now either finished or were never started, for which I did have to collect all the paperwork, and now I can just shred it all!

[Deleted User]

a boiled wool buttoned body warmer went today, have only worn it a few times and tbh really disliked it but I wore it because I felt I should and it was cold. Colour was bright crimson and it was too large. I hoped the doorbell would not ring when I wore it, that is how much I didn`t like it. The colour looked dreadful against my pale older skin. I had enough signals from it to let it go and it has gone

I have come to realise that I can segregate clothing depending on if they suit my skin. Today I am wearing mid jade, a cross-over thin acrylic/wool jumper. I used to look really good in jade but this one does nothing for me, I need pale jade I will wear it until it starts to look tatty and it will because it is mostly acrylic. So I will limit myself to a few items of clothing until the weather is warmer, it is the only way in which some things will have earned their keep

silvasava

Kittie - there's lots of information on the net about colour & skin tone. Basically you are spring, summer, autumn or winter. Sping and autumn suit gold toned colours and summer and winter are blue toned. Knowing this has saved me so much time and money over the years!
As you get older you just pick a more muted tone of the same colours. The advantage is that all your clothes will tone or blend with lots of other things in your wardrobe.

daisy_1571

Afternoon all

cant join in with gardening yet as too flippin' cold up here to linger longer than necessary today although it was a perfect spring day just a few days ago - real warmth to the sun but cold, love love love those days.

Ive been lost in the attic since Monday. Some stuff to CS and tip Tuesday and today. It actually looks worse than before i started as i have pulled boxes upon boxes from the edges of the attic into the middle. Things are generally sorted into corners as empty boxes/cases, boxes with old clothes, craft stuff, toys/games and the biggie - books.

Ornaments that I have "lost" for years are now dusted and lovingly displayed in the house now. China has been getting amalgamated and deciding what to keep/what can go. Pile to be ebayd. Pile of cat ornaments ready for local cat rescue for their next jumble sale.

I now need to go through all the old clothes and see just what carp is in there. I can see a plastic tub is full of rugby shirts and I know there is some stuff still from my teenage years (the 80s) in suitcases. Other stuff is just things that got too small for me in the wardrobe (:o) so got "stored". Think most of them can go. Should i reduce in bulk/width I am unlikely to go back to a lot of these clothes I reckon so why store them ?

Hate this stage of a major clearout when Stuff is lying about waiting to be gathered into large enough pile to go somewhere however i will persevere

hugs to anyone needing them today

Daisy xx

Karmacat

Sympathies, Daisy! It's hard to do anything when reorganising means things are cluttered for a while. I've got these photos to scan all over the kitchen (and an extra scanner) and today I was wanting to run my dehydrator, as an experiment. I can't tell you how tricky it was to find enough space to prepare what I wanted to dehydrate and have the dehydrator sit somewhere where I could take the trays off and check things. Ridiculously difficult! And my front door is almost blocked because of recycling and donations about to go out

In fact, I think I'd better get off the computer and get going again :rotfl:

GreyQueen

silvasava wrote: »

Oh GQ - what a battle before you even start to grow anything. Do you think you will be able to plant anything on plot 2 this year?

It's gonna be tricky because I have taken on a rough meadow, with no visible soil, in mid-March.

There is no way this abused and neglected soil can produce much of anything this year, I know from the extensive work I had to do to built up soil fertility on Plot1 what I will be handling.

Plus, I need to get the lumps and bumps and ridges out, and that involves having bare soil to drag around with the landscaping rake.

So that there is something happening, and the allotment officer is happy, I am planning runner and dwarf French beans. Legumes take relatively little out of the soil and fix nitrogen via their roots, and I can clear a smallish area and get a lot off that, while being able to actually work on the other parts.

I was nodding along at the description of the loft, as that's essentially the problem with Plot2 and it'll look a lot worse before it looks better. All lotties look rather bedraggled at this time of year anyway, but derelict ones are extra-tragic.

The purpose of talking the rear berm is to deal with the copious amounts of nettles and brambles which grow on it, and come over into Plot1 where they swamp the back of my shed and hamper access to the rearmost water butt. I want to tackle them before they start this year's growth.

I will need to dig out the area adjacent to the berm, as there are bramble suckers in there, and then I will be able to rake the berm flat and let it settle, eventually to be the resting place for the Dalek fleet.

There's lots to do, but I know what I'm doing, it's just sweat and swearing from now on.:rotfl: