Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Ok, final list check in for the day... 

7.30-9.30 - Starting the day
- let chickens out (yes I know that doesn't need to be on a list, but I want to be able to cross it off!)
- workout
- breakfast
- shower
- tidy bathroom (pick up and fold clothes, hoover, clean sink etc)

9.30-12.00 - Plotting and scheming and errands
- wrap friend's present and put letter in envelope
- take both to post office
- cafe trip with Mr Cheery (and notebook to plan final third of the year ) 
- possible trip to town for fruit etc

12.00-2.00 - Lunch and sitting down
- make and eat lunch
- see if LPG people have replied to email
- banks & YNAB 
- possible blog post

2.00-5.00 - Activity time!
- measure and cut wood for kitchen ceiling (doing things in stages...)
- possibly attach battens to joists
- sort out piles of clean washing in bedroom
- hoover bedroom
- start sorting out clothes in other upstairs room
- clean out chicken house and put new feeder back in the run
- clear up chimney-sweeping mess in study

5.00-7.30 - Transition to evening
- shut chickens in run, and later in house
- make and eat tea (possibly with a couple of extra portions for the freezer)
- hoover downstairs
- washing up and clean kitchen

Hmm, guess which section got the most ignored... Still, I'm pleased I measured and cut the battens, that gives me a head start tomorrow. 

I think I might have another internet free day tomorrow, so won't post tomorrow's list on here, but hopefully it will involve all the rest of the things I wanted to do today! Will report back! 

Cheery_Daff

Should point out I did also do banks and a blog post but for some reason the strike through isn't showing for those (even though when I click edit it does show).
Hey ho.

greenbee

In that case you've done very well! Far more than me. 
Lists do help you see progress. I don't necessarily allocate things to specific times, but I do try to make sure I make a note of dependencies. And tend to divide into indoor/outdoor so that if the weather is nice I prioritise outdoor, but also have an alternative if it isn't rather than wondering what to do with myself. 

Karmacat

I confess I do the "wondering" bit quite a lot if the weather isn't cooperating and I've decided to do outdoor jobs ... good luck on the remaining jobs, Cheery, and enjoy the internet-freeness.

Cheery_Daff

Great idea to have an indoor and outdoor list! 

Well yesterday was lovely, and SO productive and satisfying! Cut some hay, turned some soggy hay, shifted a load more soggy hay somewhere else (notice the theme? ), cleaned out the chicken house and run, did a little bit more DIY, picked a load of veg from the garden, dried some oregano in the dehydrator (which I've barely used so far - need to get on with it!) All kinds of outside pottering, which was utterly lovely. Also did a load of washing (which is still out there as it got rained on), had a little trip to a local market town and cafe, entered the bl**dy virtual London Marathon (blinkin sister persuading me to do stupid things again ). Ended the day with some nice reading in a long leisurely bath. Excellent. 

Anyway, I'd like another productive and cheerful one today, although having access to the internet does rather take up some time... Still, so far I have... 

* done a workout
* been to the cafe with Mr Cheery
* written a blog post about what I did yesterday  
* caught up on here 

That's it actually... I'm pretty sure yesterday was far more productive! Anyway, give me a second and I'll write a plan for the rest of the day... 

Cheery_Daff

11.45-1pm - lunch and food prep
* make lunch (aubergine and tofu thing)
* prepare pizza base for tea
* washing up

1-5 - outside!
* clear table and assorted junk from round the chicken run
* start digging hole for 'rain garden' (might be curtailed depending on chicken interference - chickens and pick axes don't really mix)
* find big bit of stone drain pipe to go under wall
* dig up and replant rowan and sloe bushes out of rain garden area
* plant out hazel that's been sat in a pot for yonks
* cut some more hay
* turn the hay that I turned yesterday again, see if I can dry it out (and if I can, bale it before it starts raining again)
* put some more soggy hay onto windbreak area
* bring washing in
* poo pick chicken house

5-7.30 - transition to evening
* put chickens in run, and later to bed
* make pizza for tea! Yay! 
* washing up
* hoover living room and kitchen
* hoover study
* empty container of rainwater out of fireplace... 
* tidy study a bit in preparation for going back to work on Tuesday

7.30 - Evening
* see if I can print off two previously-made blog books (already printed them once to give to my mother but it was years ago - are they still stored in the software?)
* investigate how to turn next blog into book (I switched platforms, and the new platform wasn't supported by the previous software so need a different option)
 * get at least a couple of battens attached to the kitchen ceiling 

Hmm. I strongly suspect I won't get all of those outside things done... but having a list certainly will stop me messing about, and hopefully I'll get some of them done at least - part of it will depend on chicken interference, and the weather. 

Ready, steady... GO!

Baileys_Babe

Cheery_Daff said:

 * get at least a couple of battens attached to the kitchen ceiling 

With the combination if the chicken talk & my dyslexia I read this as:
get at least a couple of bantams attached to the kitchen ceiling  😳

Cheery_Daff

Oooh, heavens BB! Aside from the obvious animal rights implications, attaching chickens to the kitchen ceiling would be nigh on impossible, and if I did achieve it, I imagine they'd make an awful mess!

Well I've done an hour of scything and I confess I'm worn out and have come back in for a sit down and a cuppa... Keep forgetting I'm not 20 any more! (Although I'm probably fitter than I was when I was 20...)

greenbee

I'm ignoring my scything for the moment (and at least it goes straight into the garden waste!) and tying up all the climbers. I only have a small patch to scythe, but it's all been flattened by the wind and is very soggy. 

Cheery_Daff

Yes, that's the trouble I'm having too greenbee. The scythe is going through it nicely, but because it's so long and windswept, it's all tangly and won't move itself out of the way easily! 

Got distracted over my cup of tea and started looking at ways to print my next set of blog books. I printed off the whole of my first blog (in three installments) but that was about five years ago (!) I copied and pasted every post individually into a word doc for the first one, then turned it into a pdf, and printed with lulu.com - an absolute pain in the !!!!!! but relatively cheap. The second two I 'slurped' the whole blog into the Blurb software, and it was more expensive, but SO much easier and quicker to format. 

Then I switched to Wordpress, which Blurb doesn't slurp from (in fact it seems it's stopped slurping altogether). I've attempted to find something else that will slurp the whole blog in, but to no avail. Well, I imported the whole thing into PixxiBook which looked nice, but they give you NO opportunity to format, and basically just print 2 pictures a page, so while it looks lovely, it's going to cost me over £400 to print the whole thing off

Needless to say that will NOT be happening. Instead it looks like a compromise - copying and pasting each individual post into the Blurb software. Quicker than faffing around with Word (and the end product will look better), rather longer than if it had just imported everything automatically (because I'll have to save each photo from the blog - or find it in 10 years of photo archives I suppose...) and copy each bit of text individually. But still, should be able to do it for about £25-30 per volume (and there'll be three). 

YAWN. The last one I printed was from 2011 - it took me til 2015 to actually get it printed (I did the last three at the rate of one a year ) So I'm now on the latter half of 2011 - only 9 years behind myself... 

Anyway, that's a rain wintery day activity so I'm going to get back out in the not-sunshine-but-at-least-not-raining