Happy birthday, Compostman!

Ian's 70th birthday today, first sighting of a Swallow here and first Nightingale song heard in our wood.

Memorable day.

Thank you NHS

 I am very grateful to the NHS, as Compostman had a heart attack at home tonight about 6 pm.

He was whisked away by ambulance and treated in surgery within 2 hours, and is now on a ward, having been treated and stabilised.

He's awake and chatting, so fingers crossed, all will be well.

New patio area around barn and polytynnel

The wide slabbed area by the barn had a "flower bed" next to the barn wall, which the previous owners (gone 25 years ago!) grew a Loquat tree in, totally  unsuited to our climate and a bit of a disaster, tbh. It died, and the bed became a bit of a weedy mess. 

So Compostman decided to sort it out, and we agreed it would be good to generally tidy up all the rather ad hoc "crazy paving" effect which had evolved by the barn and to the polytunnel  to provide hard standing and walkways over the last two decades

I don't have a before  pic readily to hand, but imagine a half slab width bed next to the wooden barn wall, and a two slabs width path, most broken and with lots of  weeds growing between the uneven slabs. 

We had to buy five new slabs because the slabbed area is much bigger  but we did manage to use a lot of what was needed from our store of  "stuff you keep out back rather than throwing away, just in case it might be useful" 

One of the joys of having loads of spare land to store stuff! 

The area in front of the polytunnel was tricky, as the polytunnel isn't parallel with the back or side of the barn, so there was a lot of slab cutting and relaying involved, to get it looking good. 

 Oh, it is SO much better, now! A wide, level, functional and attractive space, rather than an uneven, weedy, messy looking area.

Excellent job by Compostman, as always. 

New floor tiles and nearly, new chicks :)

 Compostman hard at work laying down the new terracotta floor tiles. They are lovely, but how I wish we had not had to spend the money and take the time to do this unexpected work.

 Oh well, they do look good and won't get damaged if we have any other water leaks

On to happier stuff.  See the pipping? :)

More news, tomorrow :)

Happy Birthday Compostman

Today marks 30 years of us first starting out as a possible couple. We had " a date" on this day in 1983. I went to his house for a birthday tea and we ate home made cherry cake - I was impressed then at his culinary skills and I still am, now!

Happy Birthday Compostman - we have been married for 28 years now and are still together, despite a lot of difficulties, and  I love you  very very much. Even more than I did 30 years ago!

xxx

The ongoing HUGE chore - Living area renovations.

As I think I might have mentioned, Compostman is in the middle of demolishing our main living room.

He has dug up and re concreted various bits of the floor and has recently been taking down the 1993 addition of a stone chimney breast around the woodburner. Nice though it is and local stone though it is, it is not in keeping with our 1906 brick cottage!
It also takes up vast amounts of floor and wall space and makes the room look very dark.

So it has been coming down over the holiday season. Fortunately it is all just cosmetic, although very substantially built!

We have will be taking delivery of a skip for the large amount of mortar  and have a home for a lot of the stone and will also be keeping some for our own future needs.

Wonderful new hen run!

Wonderful new hen run! To go with the wonderful new hen house !

Built by clever Compostman, as a ( very) belated birthday present for me...and to go with the house he has already built for me....



Except we have swapped things around, so the new run now goes with Cluckingham Palace ( a boughten house) and the home made house (called Peckingham Palace) is now attached to the run which came with Cluckingham Palace ....

It does all make sense, honest!

Anyway, its a wonderful, wonderful present, the hens love it and it will make my life a lot easier, as all the hens now have lots of dry, sheltered space if they have to be left shut in for any reason.

THANK YOU lovely Compostman, you are a star and I love you very much!

Sunday catch up

Well I thought a catch up post was in order, as I have been doing lots here but haven't posted much lately (apart from about the chickens )

I was up early again this morning (couldn't sleep due to brain whirr), so have done lots and feel very content BUT am now flagging ( as you do...)

I was woken by Treacle the beautiful Black Star



laying her very first egg!



So 2 of the POL pullets are now laying :) Ginger started a few days ago and is very vocal about it! Good job someone is laying as the "old girls" all seem to have gone off in a huff and decided to moult and/or just stop laying

It has been a beautiful day here today, I got 3 loads of washing out and dry before lunch! I have mowed all the grass and it is all piled up ready to go in the compost bins.

I have cleaned Fudge the Guinea pig's house, all 4 hen runs and houses as well, so Fudge, the hens and Ruby and the chicklets are all nice and clean and cosy :-)




All the throws and cushion covers from the sitting room are in the wash or have been given a good beating on the line to get the dust out, the kitchen, halls, sitting and dining rooms have been vacuumed and generally tidied up

20 wine bottles have been released free of labels and washed and upended to dry,





We need lots of clean bottles to reuse, as we have 72 bottles worth of wine on the go at the moment!



I refilled all the various washing up liquid and liquid soap dispensers, I buy Faith in Nature and Bio D in bulk bottles to save on packaging and resources and then reuse or recycle the big bottles when empty.



I tidied up generally, cleaned the small bathroom with an e cloth and hot soapy water, I cleaned various windows and mirrors with an e cloth and vinegar.

Compostman and I started loading up my car for me to go to the Household Recycling site....



Then we picked apples ...lots and lots of apples.....and pears....



This is what 50 lbs of apples looks like..and we have lots of these tubs filled up....

Compostman picked beans, and blanched and froze a load of courgettes while I picked the pears from the other pear tree (Conference)and I think I shall have to make pear leather with the remaining Beth pears as they are very ripe now.

I will be making chutney later on from the Victoria plums in the fridge, the Damsons are finished now on our tree so we are leaving what is left for the insects ( especially butterflies!) to ea. We have lots of wine on the go and lots in the freezer to make jam out of in a few weeks time.

I now have to think about making cider and juice from the apples.

One of the cats took exception to some mending left in a pile on the floor by my chair yesterday and wee'd all over it (and my knitting..grr) so I spent ages cleaning up the mess with the special spray from the vets ( which works!) and washing out wee from previously clean stuff yuck!

I had a lovely, if busy week here, one day last week my fellow Eco Club leader (who is a teacher at Compost girl's school) came round so we could sort out the Green Flag application for the School. We had a really productive session and got lots sorted and it makes me SO proud of the children to see what progress has been made over the last 4 years. I have also re started the Eco club I run at another school nearby, as well as "pitching" for some craft workshops during half term in October (happily I got the work, so am now making stuff for it and Compost girl is helping me!)

So a busy and productive day, and week, here at Compost Mansions!

Michael Chapman played a gig at our local pub...

we actually went out JUST Compostman and me earlier in the week, to a gig! We went to see Michael Chapman, an amazing guitarist singer songwriter....who was appearing at our local pub, The Walwyn Arms ! Compostman first encountered Michael back in the very early 70's when he played at a folk festival Compostman was doing the PA for...and we have been to see him a lot over the last 35 odd years...(eeek) but since we had Compostgirl we have only been out together 4 times in total. ..and not to see him... :-(

so we really enjoyed ourselves on Tuesday :-) especially as Compostgirl went on a sleepover with her best friend from school!

It WAS fun! to be a grown up again, to get dressed up( a bit, I put on clean jeans and a nice top and some lipstick!) and go out somewhere with lovely Compostman..and talk about grown up stuff :-)

Hot water from sunshine :-)

Oh joy!

Compost Mansions has a new addition! Its up, on the S E ish face of the(newly tiled) roof !



Compostman starting to carry tubes up the scaffolding yesterday afternoon



Work partly done, yesterday afternoon. Heavy rain called a halt to proceedings yesterday



But the tubes were still getting the water to a respectable temperature this morning with only half of them installed...




Late this morning and all tubes are plugged in and working.



So the temperature of the water in the tubes rose...



And rose....we have NOT had a very sunny day here today, it has been warm but not hot, and overcast at times. BUT by 4.30 pm it was blooming hot in those tubes! 49 celsius!

Can I just say here that Compostman is an absolute STAR for installing this system, he has worked really hard these last few weeks to get all the parts together and install it and I love him very much indeed.

oooohh I can't wait to have a shower :-)

A very catch up post!

Gosh, I have not posted for more than a week!

The reason being, it is *that* time of the year! Like many of you I am madly busy in my veg patch, the first crops are now ready to harvest (new potatoes, carrots, broad beans, spinach, courgettes, shallots and onions, strawberries, cucumbers, salads.....) and weeding weeding weeding is a priority!

As is grass mowing and compost making...Compostman has been scything the long grass and the comfrey today, and I have been filling up the newly emptied compostbins.

The compost has been dug out of them to go in various raised beds, and I have been planting climbing french and canadian beans up beanpoles cut from our own woodland ( feel very smug about this!) as encouraged by the Small Woods Association, of which I am a proud member! and who I occasionally work for...If you want a great place to go, visit the Green Wood centre in Coalbrookedale, its wonderful!

In the last 10 days I have also done 5 full days of Master Composter stuff which I organised, booked, transported the display etc to and from (and made sure the lovely other Master Composters had a good time )



This is me joining in the drumming at the World Environment Day stands at The Big Event.

I spent Sat and Sun this weekend just gone at Hellens in Much Marcle, at The Garden Festival, which is the Hereford Waldorf School Summer fair. A wonderful place and a very worthy cause to help, and it is a pleasure to go and do a stall at such a lovely event.

While I was there I did an interview on BBC Hereford and Worcester..click here to listen...go to 45 mins into the programme.

Last week I started the first session of a new Eco Club I have been commissioned to run at a school near Bromyard and I went to a meeting of the new Transition Town Ledbury group and have been asked to join the Steering Group, to help get things "transitioning".

So lots of outside activities going on here, must be because it is approaching Midsummer! I DO feel energised and buzzing with life at the moment, I must say, despite still feeling a bit rough from the nasty flu bug thingy.

At Compost Mansions, as well as all that harvesting and weeding and compost moving and making, I have earthed all up the spuds again, harvested a lot of new ones, planted out climbing beans, mowed(with the push mower!) around the edge of the veg patch and I have cleared all round the clearing and log circle in the wood. I have potted on numerous brassicas and salads both for home and for the school garden use.

I am preparing for a couple of days of school party activities in the wood at the end of this week which is very exciting. I have also been writing course notes and brochures and web pages for my environmental activities in the wood and I have planned a series of courses to be held here in the wood in 2010, training early years practitioners in "having fun in the woods" type of stuff.

AND we now have a house wreathed in scaffolding, as we are having a few bits of work done/doing a few bits of painting on the roof and up the top of the walls and Compostman is going to be putting up THE SOLAR PANELS !!

Yes, the ones which he was going to do last year, but then he had to have an operation so couldn't . But now he is well again and we are SO excited about the fossil-fuel-free hot water we will be getting.

Having scaffolding and building work going on does make it more "challenging" to try to get on with anything, however......

And sadly as a result I have been unable to do much in the way of housework AT ALL as there is too much other stuff to do..

So thats a shame ;-)

Chickhen House name!

Oh you lot HAVE made me laugh! Well done, all of you!

I love the names you all have come up with for the new hen house, I really do!

I think I like " Sandr-egg-ham House" and the "Pent-egg-on" the best!

Compostman thinks we are all potty BUT when he read the "Pent-egg-on" comment, he decided to build a 5 sided house and call THAT "The Pent-egg-on"...so I think he is secretly quite amused....

At the moment I really like "Sandr-egg-ham House....or "Peckingham Palace"

The house is the same height and width as the other wooden house, which is a "Handy 10" from Flyte So Fancy and is supposed to house up to 10 hens, BUT is is not as deep
( only the double nest box deep rather than the nest box plus about another foot...)

So I would guess it would easily hold 8 hens?

Especially as Cluckingham Palace has lots of room even with 10 hens in there, its the attached run which is tiny! BUT as my hens are only in the run first thing in the morning, just until I go and let them all out into the Orchard, its not really a problem....

I am hoping to get another 5 or 6 hens and put them in the new house, put the run from Cluckingham Palace on the new house and Compostman is making me a bigger run to put on Cluckingham Palace....

THAT was the present, really...a new hen house and a new run, BUT he has been so busy he has only done the house, so far...

Still when he DOES get the run finished, I "eggspect" it will be as "eggcellently" splendiferous as the house..!




And I haven't forgotten my 500th post/Birthday givaway...I will announce it in a later post.....(ooh ramping up the tension...!)

Belated birthday present.....

But oh so well the waiting!

LOOK at what lovely, lovely Compostman has made for me :-)


A new hen house!





Hmm now what to call it.. the other wooden house is "Cluckingham Palace" so what should this one be called?

Our Study

Several of you have commented on how nice our study/office is recently and I thank you for that.

It USED TO BE a horrible room, it is North facing and West facing, so gets the worst of the rain laden winds here and the walls ( solid, not cavity!) were letting in the damp for many years before we moved in. Although Compostman stopped all that by re-pointing the outside when we first got the house it left the inside still prone to getting mould growth in cold spots on the walls...not nice!



It had a horrible old carpet in, it was dingy, and damp... and despite being a big room it was so poorly laid out we could never find stuff and had no space to store things.




so...Compostman started on "The Great Renovation".

This involved replacing the single glazed windows with modern double glazed, FSC soft wood frames, which he painted. Then he lined the interior walls with plaster board, with damp proof membrane and air gaps and thermal film ( as per best practice) to minimise heat loss through the walls.

He then took up the old floorboards, sadly they were in too poor a state to re use, so we have been burning them and very good tinder they are, too! He laid a lovely new floor and then a new FSC wooden floor on top of that, with insulation under the new floor to ( again) minimise heat loss. We chose a nice, calming blue for the walls and roller blinds for ease of use and for shade (as we ae working in there a fair bit and the room gets the sun all afternoon and evening.

I bought a new computer desk and a matching long table for me (I tried to get stuff from Freecycle, but failed...), this maximises the usable space, but the table has folding legs so can be moved out if we ever need the floor space for guests! we have a sofe bed which could be used if needed.

Compostman has a lovely long desk and we re instated the large bookshelves on the wall. These hold a huge number of reference books, manuals, box files of reference stuff etc etc ...



I also bought a huge cupboard which takes all my Environmental Education/Forest School stuff, rucksacks, kit etc etc AND lots of craft supplies, paper, and other stuff...its like the TARDIS in there!

Compostman also took advantage of having the floor up to finally do the clever 3 zone central heating zoning he has wanted to do for ages, so we also now have a much more energy efficient way of heating only the bits of the house we need to heat, rather than doing the whole lot and relying on the radiator thermostatic valves to turn off individual rooms. We still have the thermostatic valves as well, but the house is divided up and there are separate controllers switching on/off the heating depending on the temperature and the time of day. We have noticed a big drop in our oil consumption! and we can make it work when we have the woodburner on, so we are using our wood rather than oil...

:-))



The Study has been transformed by hard work on the part of Compostman from a nasty, cold, damp, mouldy room (which I hated working in) to one which is warm, needs little heating, is cool in summer, is comfortable, well designed to work in and has lots of space to do stuff. I can lay out sewing and use my sewing machine, I can prepare for a Forest school session and have lots of space to spread stuff out, he can practice his guitar, we both can work at our desks, Compostgirl can write her stories in there with us, or use the computer and we can get lots of stuff done as a family.

I am a lucky woman to be married to such a helpful, useful man! And we have been married now for 24 years and we have been "together" for 25 ish years....

He is a wonderful man and I am a very lucky woman to have him in my life.

Happy Valentines Day

I am very happy!

Lovely Compostman gave me a very wonderful (and somewhat unexpected) Valentines Day gift today...

"The Victorian Farm" book of the BBC TV series!

and the DVD of the archaeologists previous "living in a past era for a year" called "Tales from the Green Valley" which I completely missed when it was on TV, as I was quite ill all that summer with M.E and other stuff, and remember struggling just to get through the day and go to bed early, not stay up and watch TV....

So I will be able to finally watch it!

:-)))

I AM a lucky lady! (and its a good job I had got him a lovely gift, as well)
We have been married for 24 years at the end of March, and have been together for more than 25 years, and he can STILL surprise me :-)

I hope everybody else is having a good day as well :-)

Cock fighting!

I went out yesterday to put the chickens to bed and found Long John Silver Dorking with a bloody throat, looking very sorry for himself in the corner of the Broody Ark. His beautiful speckled white neck feathers were covered with blood, it looked dreadful and at first I feared the worst,( fox, cat, mink attack etc)

So, I picked him up, tucked him close up under my arm for comfort and carried him over to the garage, where there was better light and the chicken first aid kit lives. I examined Long John Silver and it transpired he only had a small wound on one of his wattles (the red bits of skin which hang down underneath the beak) and was fine everywhere else. Phew!

We put on some surgical gloves (I had a job as its hard to do with a chicken under your arm!) then Compostman opened the sterile saline sachet and wipes for me (as I had my hands full of Long John Silver!) and then I gently cleaned away all the blood and had a good look at the wound. It was actually not bad, a small nick only, just it had bled a lot! I puffed some Veterinary Wound powder on to the area and made sure there was no blood visible any more (as the other chickens will go for any bloody wound and peck at it). I wondered about putting on some Gentian Violet but decided not.

I then gentled poor old Long John Silver a bit, gave him some corn in my hand and petted him till he had calmed down, then put him in his run (with Ruby and Buffy to snuggle up to for company) for the night.

Compostman said he had seen Long John and Cap't Flint squaring up to each other earlier on, so it must have been as a result of a fight. I had already separated out the two cockerels a few days ago into separate runs and houses at night time because of their increased aggressiveness to each other. I had put Cap't Flint in the Eglu with Violet and Willow, Long John Silver had the Broody Ark with Ruby and Buffy

This did seem to have worked as they are only in there overnight and the rest of the time they have LOADS of space to avoid each other and the "big" hens!




My problem at the moment is the cockerels are still too young to dominate the big hens, who chase them and laugh at them, quite frankly!

My long term plan is to put let one cockerel have a harem in Cluckingham Palace and the other have a harem in the Eglu, and they can all just work it out! As there is plenty of space and enough hens this should work OK, I have seen it work quite happily before....but not until the cockerels are big enough to actually "persuade" the older hens that they WANT to be part of the harem!

So...in the meantime Cluckingham Palace is off limits because it is occupied by the "big girls" and I have to sort this out for myself...and make sure the cockerels are separated out at night.

Teenagers! Honestly!

Not Singing in the Rain

We had a torrential downpour here on Friday night, it was very wet indeed, the rain lashed against the windows and doors of Compost Mansions, and on Saturday morning I found the garden saturated and more importantly the chicken runs awash with mud.

YUCK! Henny had laid an egg in this liquid mud and I am afraid I threw it into the wood, I really didn't fancy an egg which had been submerged for a few hours in liquid mud/poo.


Well it was not possible to leave the chickens to paddle around in this level of mud, so Compostman and I got togged up in old, warm clothes, wellies, gloves etc and went out to do battle. We first moved the hen run sideways,



dug out all the gunky mud, (see! I DO do some work! ;-) )



and then put down a lot of sand to mop up the wet mud. This also will raise the level of the ground and help it to drain a bit more, as we are on solid clay here and it does get VERY wet underfoot!

We put the Cluckingham Palace run back in place and I then added some straw at the chicken house entrance end of the run to help provide some drier stuff so the chickens dry their feet before going inside at night.



This also stops them putting their mucky feet all over their newly laid eggs and making them dirty, which means I can't sell them! The tarpaulin was also extended back over the run so most of it is now sheltered from the rain.



I also put down a "hen board"* inside the run, and cleaned out the house. The "hen board" was the back from an old garden bench which fell to bits, but it was just the right thing to put in the run to keep the hens off the mud!



It IS a good job we keep stuff here...you never know what might come in handy!

I then repeated the process with the Eglu and run, except that was not so muddy inside so I just put down some straw in the run and cleaned out the Eglu itself.



I also cleaned out all the feeders and drinkers, added another feeder in the Cluckingham Palace run so there is a choice for the lower order hens, and laid some straw /sand paths across the mud between the houses and the gate.



I am trying to avoid completely ruining the grass I walk over to get to the chicken orchard, but I fear I may need henboards* down to actually stop it happening. In the longer term I think we will have some sunken paving slabs down as a permenent path to the hens.


We emptied and moved a big compostbin, so I now have somewhere to store up the chicken poo and soiled bedding until I want to add it to the compost bins.



The Chickens, meanwhile, enjoyed a scratch aroound in the outside raised beds.


We started all this just after lunch and I finished just after this amazing sunset was gracing the sky.

The hens were very pleased to be dry footed I think! So an afternoon well spent we hope.



* well they can't be duck boards, can they?