Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Morning all :hello:

Yes, neighbours are indeed very helpful :j I feel quite guilty actually as there's very little I can do for them (other than letting their cows graze our fields of course which I suppose if you're a dairy farmer is quite useful :rotfl: ) Doesn't feel equivalent though!

Glad your salvia is surviving KC! :j My tiny cucumbers are still tiny :rotfl: but they're being joined by some equally tiny french beans so all good

MSE things for today...

* went for a run, so free exercise
* gave a meter reading to the electricity people - it was way lower than their estimate from 1st July, and almost as low as their estimate from 1st June so I hope this will stop it flashing up 'YOU ARE USING MORE THAN YOU ARE PAYING FOR, PLEASE ADJUST YOUR DIRECT DEBIT' from flashing up every time I visit... :eek: It's because we used three electric heaters for a few weeks when we first moved in - they seem to think we'll still be using them :rotfl:

* put the plug in yesterday when I had a shower - keep meaning to do this and forgetting Used the water for the tomatoes etc last night :j Saved about 45 litres I think :eek: Water saving is one thing I've been shoddy on this year. I've got 2 water butts, but it's not rained since I fitted them :eek: so I've been back and forth to the tap. Not any longer though - washing up and shower water all the way from now on :j

Er, that's it I think. Mr Cheery has to go to the big city later this evening, so I'm going to go with him and sit in the library for a few hours to get some stuff done :j Means I can justify taking the afternoon off to potter about :j

Nowt else to report I don't think! Still wading through our lettuce mountain :rotfl: Hopefully by the time I'm done with them we'll have a cucumber mountain to wade through

Have a good day all

starnac

How do you get the water out of the bath Cheery? I've been meaning to do this for a while but our water butts seem to be holding at the moment (our garden is WAAAAAAY smaller than yours!) so it hasn't been top of my priorities. Plus the thought of going back and fore with buckets really doesn't appeal to my lazy side so I was wondering if you had an easier way?

PS I'm sure extra grazing land is helpful to the farmers

Cheery_Daff

No easier way starnac - I put the watering can in the bath and scooped the water into it with a jug :rotfl: :rotfl: Going back and forth doesn't appeal to my lazy side either but sadly I didn't get the water butts until a few weeks ago and it hasn't rained since, and we have no outside tap up by the veg so I'm back and forth into the house to the actual tap anyway. Going to the bath doesn't make much difference! (our bath is on the ground floor, although the house is quite bizarre so that part of the ground floor is still up several steps from the garden...)

Sorting out water storage is DEFINITELY on my list for this year. One water butt will be fine when it actually rains, the other isn't linked to anything at the minute - I was going to leave the lid and just let it fill, and I've put a load of weeds in it to make fertiliser tea, but I think I'm going to take them out and connect it to the other side of the greenhouse. That way both of them will be up by the veggies for when needed (except they probably won't be needed then as it'll be raining :rotfl: :rotfl:

I'm pretty sure between them they would have just about covered us over this dry spell - if they'd had any water in before it started :rotfl:

greenbee

Cheery - you can connect a series of waterbutts together, so that when one fills up it overflows into the next etc. That might solve your problem.

Must get my waterbutts sorted out before next year...

edwink

Hello cheery and chums

Hope everyone is managing to keep cool in the hot spell of weather we are having. What is it like where you are Cheery? Good for the veg growing I suppose so mustn't grumble although I really do not enjoy it when its this hot. We are in the mid 80F here and south facing. Everything is growing nicely but it cant get watered quick enough especially one of the greenhouses as that is in the full sun.

Just a little reminder for when you get your hens Cheery don't forget to rig up a waterbutt for them from their hotel roof if you can get another one from somewhere. Our girls only drink rainwater here and we have 3 x 250ltr ones just for them. At the moment we have about half of that amount left for them so looks as though they will be drinking tap water in a few weeks or so. All of our veg watering butts are completely empty now so having to use tap water and sink water when we have it.

Not sure which button I have just lent on from my keypad but the print size on my screen has just changed. I am laying on a reclining armchair in my north facing living room with a fan blowing right at me whilst typing this.:dance: I am surprised I haven't lost the whole post tbh as my laptop is bouncing everywhere when I type. Before coming in for a cool rest I treated my hens to an ice lolly and they loved it and made a right mess of it. Just trying to cool them down that's all

Enjoy the sunshine.

Edwink x

Fortune_Smiles

Farmers are desperate for grazing at the moment Cheery. The lack of rain has meant it's in very short supply. We calculated the going rate for pasture land was around £90 an acre a year. We don't charge our local farmer though as he cuts our hedges for us and the animals keep the grass down saving us the cost of cutting it. I think it's a fair exchange.

Fortune x

pinkypig

Your neighbours sound lovely Cheery (just as well with that quote:eek:). You worked wonders on your last place, I'll bet you have this one licked into shape in no time

themadvix

Thanks for the reminder to put the plug in the shower Cheery - I shall endeavour to remember from now on! Our water butt quickly got used up topping up the pond (necessary for the fish!), so we've been using tap water for watering too.

Evening in the quiet (air-conditioned?) library sounds lovely

starnac

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

No easier way starnac - I put the watering can in the bath and scooped the water into it with a jug :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

*sigh* never mind! DH has rigged our water butt to catch the rain coming off the shed roof. The neighbours thought he was mad putting guttering along the shed but it's done us well.

I like the idea of one overflowing into another greenbee. That would be very useful over winter, hopefully leaving a lot of water for the summer.

Cheery_Daff

evening all :hello:

edwink, I LOVE the idea of giving hens a lolly ice :rotfl: :rotfl: However I am quite protective of my lolly ices so they might have to have one of my bitter cucumbers frozen instead :rotfl:

Our neighbours are indeed lovely :j We met a couple more today - wives of some of the ones we've met so far. Most of the one's we've already met have been men as they're the ones out chasing cows around :rotfl:

Water butt is filling nicely :j Must connect the second one too it (there's a hose, they're just in different fields at the minute). Of course, the connector pipe blew out on the first night it was rainy and windy so I didn't collect anything at all... :mad: hopefully it's more secure now...

Big MSE news of the week is I had an email from the electricity company about the wayleave - I'd contacted them to see what the situation was (as the house vendors had no records) and they'd said it was an £80 annual payment.

This week they sent a letter to ask if we'd prefer to have a 14 year 'termed agreement' and a lump sum of £2000 instead :eek: I need to ring and check, but as far as I can see it's not an easement (so not tied to the house deeds, and ends if we sell), but does mean we can't ask them to move or remove the electricity poles in those 14 years. Given the poles only serve us and one other house I can't see us asking them to move them anyway...

Just need to check we're not actually giving them permission to build a substation or something and then I think we'll say yes. That'll be a nice chunk off the mortgage! :j (Or perhaps a nice chunk into the emergency fund, not decided yet...)

:j