BARRICADES

The chickens and ducks are usually causing me grief....as soon as I mulch or move something the chickens are there scratching and messing it up, so I came up with a plan, I used some of the wood we chopped down to build a barricade to stop the chickens from kicking the mulch about 20 foot all over the car port area. They are only little and its great they are truly free range in every sense, but dot hey really have to trash everything??? At one point I felt like Victor Meldrew off one foot in the grave and him moaning any going bonkers at the moles in his garden, I was a bit like that with my flowers and much and the chickens, frightened myself really!!!

SPRING IS IN THE AIR?

I see a glimmer of hope, some snowdrops and a few shoots are a welcome sight after the 5 months or what seems forever of mud, I cant wait until the Spring, some flowers and greenery again. I think I say this every year, but this winter was a hard one.

FINALLY!

We finally after 16 months of trying...have got a piece of balustrade to stop me falling down the hole! The hole is supposed to be there as its double volume staircase but I seem to head right for it each time, but now we have balustrade all will be fine, and its a one off.....you didn't really expect anything else did you! Keith Babb made it for us, so I can really recommend him, he only does one offs but they are well worth it.

BIRTHDAY SEASON

Just realised I am way behind with all the news.... Well it was my birthday first in Feb and Laura, Steve and Aaron made me a great cake I loved it and we had pizza for tea! One of those takeaway expensive ones that you know its your birthday when you pay the bill!! nice and quiet after a really hectic week.

HAIRCUT 100!

Well if you remember them you must be old!! ha ha only kidding. Lucky and Gem keep getting really lagged in mud and I thought it would help if I cut their hair a bit, Lucky sort of obliged but was feeling a bit sick with the cheesey treats and wouldn't stand up, and Gem was a real baby. I did try to catch Shadow but as soon as she sees the scissors or clippers she goes and hides in a really ridiculously small place! So the photos are Gem and Lucky clipped and Shadow sitting pretty as if to say I am far to posh for this carry on, just feed me grapes! She loves to sit and listen to the football on a wednesday night and the train when it occassionally crosses, very strange dog, she also love to sit and watch the stars, quite bazaar!

AND THEN MORE!

On my birthday Western Power in their wisdom decided to turn the power off all day! No cups of tea!!! whilst they cut some major trees down to protect the power lines...not happy bunnies!! but at least we were able to have more wood as we didn't have much did we!!! So as the 12 man cutting crew left a tractor arrived with great big chunks of wood to be axed up, Dad offered to start as I had quite spectacularly collapsed at the vets the day before and was tested for a stroke it appeared it wasn't a stroke, luckily but a really nasty virus which gives you all the symptoms and leaves you with vertigo for a few weeks, not very nice at all, I still keep falling over now!......., he was axing and I was shifting, he got through most of the pile and then the dreaded tractor came again with another huge load!!! It will be handy to keep warm, but somehow soul destroying to think you have finished a really hard job and then be back to square one!. So thanks Dad and great Gonzo face you made in the wood by accident but we are keeping him!

LUMBER JACKS!

We had a 5 day stint of chopping and tidying the top paddock behind the house and general tree cutting, ANt and Andys hands must have been shaking for a far while after that, I was out there dragging the stuff to burn and sorting out all the loggable tree bits and dad spent a whole day in soot on one of the many mamouth burning days, I didnt see him through the smoke for the whole day, just kept feeding him bushes! It does look a lot better now and ready for things to grow in a good way! We filled the log store and the firewood store.

OUR SQUIRREL

Not sure if I shared this with you before, but Laura and I made a mosaic out of some old bathroom and porch floor tiles, so whatever was around we had to use, and came up with this squirrel, It was better than we expected so might have to go into production!!!

MORE HOT TUB

And finally into position, I think it loks great another 3 week project, really need this one to be our last or we might find ourselves living in a tent!

THE ARRIVAL OF THE HOT TUB!

Its arrived, had to get a dirty big crane though to lift it over the wall as we couldn't get through the narrow arch! Here's a few of the installation photos, you probably aren't that interested but I was amazed at the precision of the lift, sad really aren't I!!!!