Getting Things Done
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♥May. 4th, 2018 // 09:50 pm♥
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As a result of the re-fencing work that Jobbing Farmer and His Mate did, we've now got a small heap of concrete lumps and breeze blocks, as well as coils of old fencing wire.
Yesterday, I had a skip delivered, so that we could get rid of it.
I didn't really think it through: we're quite busy with garden stuff right now, especially as we have New Veg Bed that hasn't had the winter to quietly digest a load of manure and so needs compost moving onto it, and I'm off quilting tomorrow afternoon and all day Sunday, but on the other hand it's a bank holiday on Monday, so Mike's here more than usual. It'll be ok, right?
As part of the garden stuff, we spent a while yesterday afternoon getting the polytunnel ready to go. Shh, don't tell DEFRA, who have still not lifted the bloody bird 'flu restrictions even though there haven't been any cases (other than a couple of buzzards) in three months, but that involved moving the ducks' food and water outside, where wild birds can get at them. (OTOH, they're now in the same situation they were in last year, when there actually was bird 'flu, so meh.)
This morning, after a riding lesson, we were going to start on moving enormous lumps of concrete to the skip, but I really wanted to make sure that Zu Zu wasn't hiding her eggs somewhere in the ducks' stable. When we moved in, we noted that the previous owners were really crap at estimating how much Stuff they needed for each of their many refurbishment projects: the ducks' stable is made up of a small partitioned area, which I roofed with chicken wire to make it safe for the girls to sleep in, and a larger space full of Stuff, much of it leaning against walls or other Stuff to make hard-to-check nooks where Erzulie has laid at least one egg.
We re-stacked the stone slabs (left over from the conservatory floor, and pretty much enough to entirely re-floor it), stuck the part- and un-used packs of laminate flooring in the skip, along with a few misc bits of other Stuff, and put the random bits of wood on the bonfire, left the random piles of bricks where they were, and now it's much tidier and there's more space for Stuff of our own. Didn't find any eggs, though. (And *why* are the runners still not laying? Are they on not-allowed-in-the-garden-because-of-bird-'flu-strike?)
Then we went around the property and gathered up all the coils of wire, and stuck them in the skip as well. Then the skip was full. Mike has hopes that piling lumps of concrete on the wire will squish it down....
In the afternoon, we put up strings in the polytunnel to tie the tomatoes to and then planted them out. While we were doing it, some chaps from the window cleaners (I phoned them on Wednesday, and was told someone would come out to do a quote but probably not until next week) arrived. Almost the first words out of the lead chap's mouth, as Bob started objecting to Strangers, were "He can't be as bad as those two alsatians", from which I gathered that he used to clean the windows for the previous owners, which meant that he didn't need to look around before going "thirty quid?". (Bob later settled down and made friends with them all, pausing only every thirty seconds to bark at them.) Two minutes later they were up their ladders, and half an hour after that they were gone with promises that another chap, with different kit, would be along soon to clean the solar panels as well. He gave me a ticking off for the state of the gutters and weatherboards in passing, and when I actually looked at them I did go 'wow, they're quite green, except where they're still wood and god we must get the wood weatherboards replaced'. The windows are lovely and clean, though!
In amongst all that, Mike heroically played with his new toy tackled the regrowing brambles with a brush-cutter, which seems to be much more useful than the strimmer (although I fear that, as with the strimmer, I won't be able to use it for five minutes and still retain the ability to, eg, use a knife and fork that evening).
And now we're quite tired. And I'm contemplating phoning Mrs Farmer and saying "You know your son who's got a baby due any day now? Would he like some cash for a day of casual labour over the bank holiday weekend....?"
Oh, and some bastard bitey thing must have got under my top yesterday when we were doing polytunnel things, because I've got over a dozen little bites all around my waistband. Itchy.
Still, BBQ chicken for tea, summer's not all bad! |
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