Daydream fund challenge part 4

choille wrote: »

I do think the cuckoo numbers were really devastated a few years back - stormy weather and killed many off whilst migrating - I heard.

The neighbour, poor thing is very lonely and I've been every day apart from two since her hubby passed away a couple of months ago. It is difficult and I wish there was more who would pop in. It would make it a bit easier for us - sounds selfish I know.

Boring catch up with paperwork morning and then down the croft with puppy face who was agitated. I have a hind in - pain as they do bark the trees.

I really could do with an atvc type of tractor/quad thing - on another note.

When I was out in the fields doing conservation work last summer, the (very aged) farmer said that quads were awful because of their habit of flipping over once one wheel dips into a rabbit hole - something he'd had experience of (rather than just TV and tanked up Rock Stars). No objection to a UTV though - people from the different organisations I worked with all said pretty much the same. This old boy bought a side by side specifically so the Last Sheepdog could still feel like she was working with him.


I've only ever heard a cuckoo once in my life - I was 9 and at Brownie Guide camp in Deepest Kent. It would be great to hear one again.


Just realised it's a Bank Holiday weekend coming up. Why didn't [STRIKE]we [/STRIKE] he sort out a short break? Twit. I've become one of those Education Types who leg it at every available opportunity.

Never mind, best get the shopping order done for delivery tomorrow. And get the compost order in, as for some reason, the Met Office seem to think it might actually stop tipping down for five minutes for the first time all week.

choille wrote: »

Good for you with the gate sales Dave - you are hard working. That's rotten about the person not paying - they may come back but it does sicken you when it happens.

Neighbour is just lonely and it's sad for her. I pop in but find it hard to come away.

Jo Jo - Quads are unstable and it is steep here. I just find things hard to heave about and want a bit of a solution to ease the dragging of stuff up hills and down. Course I want that for free or cheap as chips.

The cuckoo in the past was a great pain here as there were so many of them and it doesn't really get dark in the Summer at all so they'd be blubbery cuck cuckooing all night. There are numbers are drastically down.
I thought that they were everywhere in the UK but obviously not.
I was down South before I saw my first blue jay and that I thought was a stunning bird - is a stunning bird.

Rained heavy here later on and cold again with hail for goodness sake. Glad I didn't move a little tree as it would suffer. I need to shift an acer - but will get it done sometime.

I think that was the argument for a Gator or suchlike - being less likely to flip over, rather than bounce about. I was only just passing my brushcutter/stumpcutter and polesaw training at the time (spotted a widowmaker oak branch at first glance across a large ridge (as proven by the way it dropped like a tombstone before I was even halfway through it), so was happily listening and absorbing the wealth of knowledge they were chucking at me. I think I got told so much because I'd spotted/recognised the rear end of a 1930s Massey Harris at the back of the shed from my vantage point of underneath seed harvester as I was clearing the brushes of crud from the previous season's use (and accidentally said the name in a West Country style, rather than my usual London-with-a-smidge-of-education - thanks, OH).

We get Jays round here - they are rather attractive - but then again, we also have ring necked parakeets all over the place, too. They're the brightest green imaginable - but completely disappear the moment they land on a tree in leaf. Even today at work, as I was [STRIKE]gazing aimlessly[/STRIKE] deep in contemplation, I had a crow on the bench outside looking to see if I had a sandwich crust to chuck out to him, followed shortly after by a tired looking Magpie (and a constant flow of grey squirrels - the fox only visits just after lunch or at 4.15pm when the kids have left). I don't proffer food to the shy-te-hawks; the kids do that enough by chucking their leftover food onto the ground rather than one of the 20 bins in a quarter acre space.


I've just managed to spend two hundred quid on not very much. The majority of the delivery tomorrow night is two massive bags of compost, cat food, makeup, hairdye and sunblock (I need a bit of a spruce up), some meat, fish and veg I can't get round the corner, various soft drinks where the same applies, some Lady Grey teabags for work because I'm bouncing off the walls with too much coffee...oh. And some gin. :whistle: It was reduced by 17.6% and I had already ordered some elderflower tonic, rose lemonade and citrus fruits...

I'm just hoping that the next couple of days aren't as wet as the others have been - it was coming down in lumps today.