Simple living in the country - back to basics

Baileys_Babe

You have done loads today @Cheery_Daff and your chickens are so fortunate to have such loving humans.

Cheery_Daff

It's certainly an excellent composting system! Their run is on the ground, and into the bit where the house is, we shove woodchip occasionally, and the leftover bedding when we clean out the house, and they enjoy raking through it. Their droppings get incorporated into it through the day, and we never have to clean it out, they rot down really quickly. I could just leave it in there, but eventually we wouldn't be able to fit because of the height of the floor 😂 It's ace on the veg patch! 

Cheery_Daff

So, the most productive day I've had in a while! 

* made soup in the hay box
* ticked off small painting job in the study
* started painting the kitchen
* cleaned out the chickens ready for next weekend
* extinguished small roadside fire 🙄😂
* car had service
* filled other car with diesel
* reduced fruit & veg in the supermarket
* put up third kitchen blind (still need to hem the bottom but couldn't do that before it was hanging - will do it tomorrow)
* half hour of yoga

No particular plans for tomorrow, but hoping for some more painting, finishing that blind and maybe hanging another, and continuing the slow working towards going back to work on Monday 🙄

beanielou

Go you 

Cheery_Daff

Thanks Beanie, and you too BailieysBabe, missed you there in amongst all my waffling! 

Not quite such a productive day today. Gloomy and rainy and Mr Cheery isn't recovering quite as quickly as either of us would like, so a quiet one. Still, some things achieved: 

* Painted some more of the kitchen
* Made a risotto
* Finished off the third blind
* Used our Christmas vouchers for another cafe trip - just topped up £1.25 worth of cash (still got more vouchers, but they're £5 each and you can't split them, so we just use whole ones and top up the remainder)
* Tidied up the kitchen a bit more
* Checked banks and YNAB - forgot that my fresh start meant I didn't have all the monthly DD set up as automatic in YNAB so had to add them all. I was £19 out somewhere, but I think it must have been something that was pending over the new year when I switched budgets, so I've written it off as an accounting error and will keep a better eye on it for now. 

Doesn't look much written down like that... I'm definitely in need of a bit of structure to my days. Not that I'm angling for going back to work, but I probably need to start getting dressed before 11am! Might experiment with that tomorrow... 

Feeling at a bit of a loose end tonight, not really sure what to do with myself. Should probably do something useful like cleaning, or something cheerful, like curling up with a book, but somehow I'm just bimbling round the internet not really achieving very much. Hey ho. 

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Anyway, a plan for tomorrow, and getting ready for the week ahead!

* Get everything out of the study that doesn't need to be in there - Christmas presents, sewing machine, dried washing, clothes maiden etc
* Give my desk a good clean and tidy up ready for the new term
* Do some washing and hang out (ha - might need to get the airer back into the study for that!)
* Paint some more of the kitchen - would be good to get it finished, but I can't really do it once it goes dark, it's a daytime job
* Meal plan for the week - got a couple of things that will need using up in the fridge, and I just know I won't bother unless I plan
* Sort out clothes for the week - don't want to be messing around trying to find tights etc while I'm also trying to leave the house for work for the first time in nearly a month

Got a couple of back and forth days this week, all of my own doing, but will still be a bit annoying, and might necessitate paying for parking at work as I won't have time to walk from my usual parking spot, which is a bit annoying. This is a rough plan: 

Monday - work from home, Mr Cheery out in the evening
Tues - meeting 2 hours away, then drive to the office for another meeting, then home. Mr Cheery out in the afternoon/evening - near my office, but we can't travel together because of my morning trip
Wednesday - work from home
Thursday - meeting in the office 1st thing because it's a colleague's last day, but then I have to leave at 10am as I have a docs appointment at 11.30. Most vexing. 
Friday - priority is partitioning off a section of the chicken run, ready for... 
Saturday - collect new chickens! Probably spend the rest of the day policing the introductions... 
Sunday - chicken police duties, and finish the painting if it's not already finished

Right, might go and put the washing on now, I suppose that'll save me a job tomorrow. 

KajiKita

Ooh, new chucks! 🐓😊

KK

Cheery_Daff

Yep! Three seems like a bit of a small flock... 🙄 I might regret it, especially as they're still under the housing order, but hey ho. 

Right. Washing done, and I'll hang it up in a second - one less thing for tomorrow.

Meal plan done - whether I stick to it is anyone's guess.

Had a look through my goals book - one of them is to get back into making soap, so I've ordered myself a small block of an oil I can't get in the shops, and will get the rest from wilkos/aldi over the next week or so. I think I've only made soap once since we moved, but I did it several times before that, and I do like to experiment!

slm6002

lol I read that as making soup and wondered why you need block oil.  Time for me to go to bed I reckon lol

WelshmansDaughter

Would you believe that I had to stop and put out a small roadside fire this afternoon? 
Sadly my can of fanta was sacrificed to put out a pair of jeans that somebody had obviously taken against 🤷

Cheery_Daff

WelshmansDaughter said:

Would you believe that I had to stop and put out a small roadside fire this afternoon? 
Sadly my can of fanta was sacrificed to put out a pair of jeans that somebody had obviously taken against 🤷

That is absolutely bizarre! What is going on? Good job the weather is so soggy. Why would you set fire to a pair of jeans at the roadside? I do hope it wasn't the pair the person was wearing 😱

Morning all 😊 I had an Internet free(ish) day yesterday, unplanned but very much enjoyed. Same rules as when I did the whole month in May - I still did the Happy Wheel, watched a couple of YouTube videos I subscribe to, wrote a blog post etc (that doesn't sound very Internet free at all 😂) but no forum, no newspaper, no social media, which are all the things I end up reading in a loop that takes me away from other tasks.

Anyway, my main other task yesterday was painting the kitchen! I still have a section of wall left (we wanted to squeeze in an excursion while it was still light) but I'm on a roll now so will endeavour to do that this week, but it'll likely be Friday now. Feels good to have got this far though - I started the first coat in November 2021 😱😂 

Also bought most of the rest of my soap ingredients, although I've still not got caustic soda. They used to sell it at Wilkos, but they only had 'drain cleaners' now which had all kinds of other ingredients - good for drain cleaning I'm sure, but useless for making soap. Couldn't find it anywhere else in town either. Hey ho - apparently they sell it in B&Q so take a slight detour on my way home tonight. 

Not much else to report. Can't decide if soap making stuff should come from the household budget or my own spends 😂 obviously at this stage it would be cheaper to just buy soap... but it usually evens out in the end. So far I've spent:

£6.99 new thermometer - had a lovely old jam thermometer from a charity shop but I can't find it anywhere and have a vague memory that I broke it
£ 1.65 coconut oil (enough for 1.5 batches of soap)
£2.29 olive oil (enough for 1.5 batches of soap)
£3.95 shea butter (just enough for this batch)

And a balloon whisk but that's definitely just counting as part of the general household supplies.

And I'll need caustic soda, which is about £7.80 but I'll only need about 80p worth of that for this batch.

So back of envelope calculations are roughly £6.20 for this batch (plus thermometer and whisk, which can obviously be used for other stuff too). Should make at least 10 bars of soap, so 62p each. Not super cheap but tmprobably nicer than super cheap soap.

The recipe I've used before only uses olive oil and coconut oil - that works out about 22p a bar so definitely cheap! I'll see whether the shea butter is worth it - thought it might be nice to get back into my experimenting with a new recipe 😊

Right, first day back at work so should probably get a shift on. Grateful to be working at home!