Sunny.

Another fine day, tempting as it was to sit out in the sun garden work called.  

There were a few more branches to cut back and then for the rest of the day I've down on my knees digging out weeds and roots. Even if my back did allow me to use a garden fork it wouldn't have been much use due to the tree roots in the soil. Digging down as best I could I came across the most enormous nettle roots some the size of my little finger. No wonder the stinging nettles kept coming back. The bee veil came in handy keeping those pesky flies away from my face.  My goal, which I managed to achieve, was to clear the soil along the boundary and transplant the shrubs that had been planted by the old netting fence of the hen run. Both the rubus and the spirea are tough as old boots and good spreaders so they should survive or at least most of them. The plan is simply to tidy up the area using spare plants from around the garden.

Sunny.

It's been a lovely sunny day making this the 5th summery day of August. First thing this morning the BT men came to sort out the pipe that carries a telephone wire across the stream. The initial survey and plan to do the work was over 2 years ago. I hadn't expected it to happen straight away and eventually I kind of forgot about it and so did they. Then the surveyor whom we know, made a social visit in the spring and was most surprised that the work hadn't been done. I've been phoning every week or so since May and at last they turned up. However they hadn't known the pipe was steel (?) and didn't have the right tools. Now I have to wait for a contractor to come and do the work. That pipe has been trapping sticks and caused the stream bed to be raised by a good 12-18" so I shall be glad when it's gone. When they left I painted the final coat of gloss paint on the wood in the porch. I'm almost tempted not to put the hooks in the wood as the walls look much better bare. After that I sawed up the wooden pallet, all by hand, and stacked the dry boards by the woodburner. I also brought in the rest of the small logs from the wood shed. We don't have much wood this year but we might as well use what we've got.

My afternoon was spent working up in the chicken's run sawing down big branches that were overhanging my washing lines. The flies found me quite quickly so my bee keeper's net which arrived the other day came in handy. It was hot work but satisfying to chop down so many branches. The final job of the day was to drive the rubbish up to the road for tomorrow's collection.

I stopped halfway down the drive and climbed a big mound of  soil/old straw to take these pictures for Mary.

 Indicott.

 Holwell.

 Wigmore Farm.

Overcast.

It didn't take long to put a coat of gloss paint on the bits of wood in the porch so I thought it would be a good day for a 'one day job'. My goal was to make a cover for the pump housing that sits in the yard. (It pumps air into the waste tank.)  That's a job I had been planning to do for a long time.

There were 2 reasons why I wanted to make a cover. The first was though the pump has been there through snow and frost without any problems for about 15 years it might concern prospective buyers seeing the sticker that says do not leave outside. The second reason was that the pump makes a continuous buzz which I find quite annoying when I'm outside and I can still hear it in the kitchen if the front door is open which it usually is. Peter says he can't hear it in the kitchen then claims his hearing is better than mine!

I made plans, measured and measured again but I still went wrong a number of times and it took me all afternoon. However it did get done and the materials used were; an old desk top I had saved after taking the rest of it to the dump, the feather boarding left over from boarding up the back door and a few scraps of wood from around the place. The fake dog kennel looks a lot better so that's the first aim achieved. The roof section lifts off for easy access. I put a load of carpet pieces on top of the pump but it hasn't make much difference to the noise. I'm thinking either polystyrene packaging or some loft insulation might work better. 

Chilly.

The sun shining through the montbretia really cheered up what was quite a cool autumnal morning.  

We had a lovely time yesterday with our visitors. Gemma had lived with us for a while but Phil had never been here  and I love showing people around the garden. I like being able to share my plants and they took home some different varieties of buddlia and an assortment of small sedums which will be planted on the grass roof of their cabin (not the buddlia). The chicken in cream with mushrooms turned out okay. I sort of followed a recipe but where it said season to taste I added garlic and coriander to give it bit of oomph. The lemon cupcakes were a success so I'll use that recipe for the wedding cupcakes. We spent the evening playing a game of scrabble and surprisingly, as we haven't played for a very long time, I won. Mostly down to lucky tiles.

This morning I fitted a brush draught excluder to the bottom of the front door then spent quite a long time adding a piece of wood to the door frame at the side. The door frame had been badly done originally and the gap along the side was so wide in places that the door catch hardly went into the frame. Not only did I have to carefully cut 2 holes in the new piece of wood to take the door latches but it had to be thinned down at the ends as the gap was not even all the way along. That's been done and a first coat of paint applied.

The afternoon was sunnier but still cool under the clouds. I sat outside and repaired a pair of Peter's favourite trousers that had got torn on a nail. After that I took my book up to the scree garden and caught the last of the afternoon sun. 

Wet.

Cold, wet and grey today. The low clouds made it very dark this morning and even now at 2.00 I have the lights on. I'm blogging early today as some friends are coming over this afternoon. Peter had hoped to do a barbecue but it's far too wet.

This morning I hung the curtains back up over the inner porch door and had a general tidy up. I made buttercream and iced some cupcakes I baked yesterday. The dip in the top of each cupcake is perfect for filling with some lemon curd before piping the buttercream on top. The tartness of the lemon cuts nicely through the sweetness of the butter cream. 

Must go now and finish prepping for tonight's dinner of chicken in a cream & mushroom sauce.

Wet.

After yesterday's cloudy evening sky I was surprised to see the stars a bit later on. I was very tired after my busy day and the previous night's meteor watch so I didn't drive up the hill. Instead I positioned myself up at the scree garden where I had a fairly good view of the sky especially to the north. I saw some meteors but not as many as the night before, maybe it was a bit too early in the night. There wouldn't have been any point staying out longer because when I turned to have one last look before going in I saw a cloud bank rolling up from the south.

Today I finally finished painting the porch ceiling. It felt so good to  be washing the brush and roller for the last time at least for now. I took the above photo when I had just started. I didn't mind having concrete walls and bare rafters but I do think it looks nice now and more inviting. When Peter came home we moved the wooden bench back against the wall so the space looks even better. Tomorrow I shall put the curtains back up, fix the brush draught excluder to the door and put hooks into the wood on the wall. 

I hung the new bird feeder up yesterday evening half filled with seeds. This morning it was almost empty, greedy birds I thought until I looked around. There were  lots of seeds on the ground below. That's a terrific waste of seeds and will either encourage rodents or put the birds in danger from the cats if they feed off the ground. I have an idea to reduce the size of the holes that the seeds come out of which might work.

Oh and it's been cold and raining for most of the day though we did escape the thunderstorms.

Sunny.

The best time to watch the Perseid meteor shower should be tonight but when I looked out last night and saw a starry sky that was me set for some meteor watching. This time I did it in style, loading my sun lounger which goes right back, into the car and driving up the hill. As usual I was warmly clad, 2 pairs fluffy pj bottoms under joggers and 2 body warmers under a padded coat. It may be August but it soon gets cool at night. It was lovely lying back under the Milky Way and watching all those constellations. The meteors were a bonus. I counted 19 in the hour I was up there which wasn't up to the usual count which can be 60-80 in an hour but after the cloudy skies of the last 2 years it was good enough. I was so cosy that I nearly fell asleep which was when I decided to call it a night..

Today has been a brilliantly sunny day. That makes 4 good days so far in August. However we have been promised heavy rain and possible thunderstorms tonight or tomorrow. I was up early and painted the porch ceiling before breakfast. It dried quickly and I was able to paint a second coat, this time of undercoat, in the afternoon. Nearly there.

Next I packed up the car with the old wire netting which I had taken down in the chickens' run and took it down to the dump at Ilfracombe. As I had a look around the for sale area I found an seed bird feeder on one of the tables. I was checking to see how you put the seeds in when I dropped the piece at the bottom. I heard it hit the floor but there was no sight of it. I looked all around, even got down to check if it had rolled under a nearby pallet. Laughing at the mystery I told one of the guys who works there what had happened and he joined in the search. He did find it in the end, it had rolled even further under the pallet but then when I asked him how much he wanted for the feeder he gave it to me for nothing. I dropped in at the Tesco's which is on the way home for a few things and they had a table of books being sold for a local charity so I gave a donation and got myself a book as I've finished all my library books. 

On the way home I stopped near South Indicott farm to take a photo of our valley. The white house in the centre is our neighbours' house and we are out of sight in the trees below it. In the distance is Exmoor and beyond that the Bristol Channel.

At home I was tempted to sit and enjoy the sun after painting the ceiling for the second time but instead I cut all the grass before the rain sets in. Then I sawed the pallet that the delivery man gave me in half so that I  could put it in the shed. And finally I went up to the chickens' run and burned all the branches etc that Sam had piled up when he blitzed the overgrown section. Because there are a lot of overhanging trees it had to be a very controlled fire also I didn't want to melt the washing line. A stunted apple tree that had fire blight disease was cut down and burnt straight away and I manged to clear everything else that could burn. Whenever the fire looked too hot I added leafy branches from the willow tree that needed a good cutting back. I also got great satisfaction from adding stinging nettles to the fire. A brave act considering I was in shorts and flip-flops. The sun is still shinning and I feel satisfied with my day's work.