A very productive weekend

We've not had much sun at all this week, indeed, there was even some very welcome rain, which saved us having to water the allotment. The lack of sun is annoying though because it prevents the strawberries from ripening. It's also been incredibly windy but the temperatures themselves were quite nice so as far as gardening was concerned, the weather was pretty conducive.

By the time an exhausted OH asked "Is it Beer o' clock yet?" on Sunday evening, we had managed to do the following from our list:
 
* lift fence panel at the back and plant surplus raspberry canes on the little neglected bit there.
 Done on Saturday!

* lay out the area where we're going to have a little bench, to look at the pond.
My pride and joy! Not just did I lay out the area, I also put down weed-suppressant membrane, bordered the area with our leftover bricks from the living room fireplace, emptied those 6 bags of pebbles that had been lying around and getting in the way for the past 5 years and raked them in (OH did that). Then I gathered up all the little pots with rooted cuttings of sage, thyme, monarda, lemon balm, mint and lavender and planted those into the cracks (yes, I kept the mint in the pot). Moved the cafe seating set -- 2 metal folding chairs and a round folding table -- to the area and hey presto, a new seating area right next to the apple tree. I'm so proud -- it looks fab! Pic to follow.

* lift some more soil and transfer it to the third "coffin" out the front, fill it, and plant it up with tomatoes and perhaps leftover pumpkins and squashes.
Also done -- 3 wheelbarrow runs. The 3rd planter now contains broad beans, lettuce, tomatoes and squashes.

* even out the area that will become the second "Holzleg" -- an extension on the existing one
* build the damn thing and cover it with roof membrane
Kudos to OH who has concreted the 2 posts in and put the marine-ply roofboard up. It all now needs screwing together and roof-membraning, a little bit of evening out with a saw, the sides need to be slatted up so that the logs don't fall out, the guttering for the rainwater needs to be fixed and connected up to a water butt, and I need to move some rubble to lay the ground for a pallet-style floor that allows the air to circulate underneath the woodpile. But all the excess soil has now been moved out from under there by us -- me doing the grunt work and OH doing the zen-crumbling and de-ground eldering of clods.

* move the old Victorian bathtub down the garden and tidy up the patio
Nope -- yet to be done. Moving that tub is at least a two-person job and both OH's and my backs are a little sore after two long days of gardening. We don't even know where to put it. Under the pear tree? If we ever do get really hot summer days, it might be quite nice to have a cold bath under the pear tree (hoping the wood pigeons above don't drop anything). Alternatively, we could fill it with soil and compost and plant more stuff in it. What we can't do is sell it yet because everyone else is getting rid of their baths and no-one's giving us anything for it.

* move some of the fence panels to the allotment, to make raised bed boundaries

Well, we moved the wood off the driveway at least, and down the back of the garden where the old chopped-up shed used to be stored.

* saw up the rest
An over-the-summer job, once we know how many we'll actually retain -- so many building projects going that we'll need to recycle the panels for: allotment beds, shelving... When it was raining on Friday evening, I disappeared into my Woman Shed for a couple of hours with some power tools to try and sand down a selection of panels. I first used a crappy little Focus sander that came with sandpaper that tore almost instantly on contact with the wood. No wonder that DIY chain folded. The triangular sander had paper that was so blunt that it would not even have coped with my cracked heels (TMI? Tough.). Then I found a Ryobi round sander but the battery for that one was flat. Sod it, I thought, I'll wrap sandpaper round a block of wood and use good old elbow grease. So I sanded for an hour until my arms fell off and I got annoyed with all the splinters I kept getting from the wood.


* move the maple logs off the patio and onto the beds, for decoration
 Not finished with this one yet but have moved quite a few already and used them for edging the new pebbled seating area. 

* order a truckful of bark as mulch for the beds
Well, we found what looks like an OK local deal and are waiting for a quote including delivery to come in. At least the fence wood is off the driveway so whatever we get delivered can be dumped there.


* order a truckful of wood for the winter and stack in new wood store
Saw a phone number for logs by the roadside -- need to try that one. Our previous supplier charged £60 incl. delivery per 1 (short) cubic metre that he had declared "seasoned hardwood" but that was full of pine and logs that had too much water content to be properly called "seasoned". This year we'll have to reckon on 7 cubic metres of the stuff, at least, if we're getting another one of those Arctic winters.

* go to chainsaw dealer in town and ask for a demo
Classic: I'd been pushing to go to the dealer on Saturday morning but OH had ten thousand other things he'd rather be doing so by the time we had arrived there, after a twenty or so-minute drive, the place had been shut for half an hour already. Waste of time! I'd been looking forward to being given a demonstration and I already knew exactly what model I wanted. To be fair, the store could have advertised its opening hours on its website, and it hadn't, and we'd been too blase to ring them to check. 

* keep on top of the weeds!
Yeah, yeah... Weeding sucks but the trade-off is being entertained by Mr Kropotkin and his wife who are both buzzing around us whenever we weed, grazing on soil critters and singing to us with their beaks full (have you ever seen/heard a robin sing his gratitude to you with a beak full of squirming earthworms? It's one of the oddest sights and sounds in the garden.)

Yesterday, we watched Mr Kropotkin pull out a massive, and I mean massive, earthworm and try to take off with it. He just could not get the height -- it was hilarious. "I reckon he's feeding two broods," OH said, pragmatically, as we were finally sitting down in our new seating area with a beer, "robins are renowned for their cuckoldry rates and have you noticed how he's flying off in two different directions each time? Or, if he is feeding one brood, it will turn out to be one heck of a fat one that won't be able to fly at all!"

We hope they will learn to fly because our garden continues to be Cat Central. I'm hoping the new pebbled area will deter the cats from crapping on it but I know one thing already, namely that that cat mint I planted is not going to survive for very long. Mr Tubby has discovered it and has chewed it to pieces, getting very stoned in the process. I didn't have the camera to hand on Saturday but when I do, I'll post the video.

Neuroticat was getting very neurotic last night because there's a white fluffy cat that likes to park itself right in front of our patio door, staring in. The first we hear of it is a very loud, plaintive miaow from Neuroticat, which loosely translates as "Do something, make him go away -- he's horrible!" If I could teach her some Thug Skills, I would -- but her nature is so sweet, she even gets embarrassed when she is doing a wee in the garden, so it's pointless. I don't like that white fluffy cat because he's one of those vicious little shits that pretend they like a fuss, only to turn around after 30 seconds of lulling you into a false sense of security -- and bite you. Our Neuroticat never ever bites or scratches, and that is probably her undoing. Last night, Neuroticat sat on our dinner chair by the patio and miaowed to break our hearts and that white cat sat there insouciantly outside thinking it fricking owned the space. "No, you don't." I said to it and gave it both fingers. It stared at me, disgusted, but didn't move. "Wait," OH said, "hold Neuroticat." Then he opened the patio door. White Fluffy Cat began to smirk triumphantly -- he was going to be let in! Inside where he could pee all over Neuroticat's territory. Neuroticat was going bonkers in my hands. OH knelt down to eye height with White Fluffy Cat. Fluffy Cat twitched, about to stalk inside. Then OH gave a hugely loud dog bark. Fluffy Cat shot off round the corner. "Sorted," OH said and closed the patio door. Neuroticat relaxed in my hands and allowed herself to be fussed. She didn't leave our side that evening.