Frozen Feb

This month the house renovation starts!  What we have is rubble stone and earth mortar walls with 1 inch thick cement render on the inside and outside.  Good for pill boxes and anti-tank obstructions but no so good for living in as it creates cold walls, cold house and condensation everywhere, and mouldy everything.  So I'm taking it all off and replacing it with a lime render on the outside and hemp/lime for the interior.  Also thinking about enlarging the living room, replacing the windows (but keeping the style), re-wiring, re-plumbing, etc!

 The beginning.

I've also made a natural trellis for the gite garden so there's some privacy.  Chestnut posts, hazel other bits.

Going to plant nasturtiums and other bits and bobs to scramble over it, country-cottage style.

Planted more trees in the field - nearly done!

Polytunnel's full and apart from some wilting due to the cold, all's well and we're picking fresh coriander in the winter!  Also a few early peas!  Woop.

Absolutely nothing to do with smallholdings...

...but you've got to do something on a rainy weekend, and we need to tidy things up a bit!

Cheap (ish) crap pine + wobby workmate and 150 year old tenon saw + bent double for days on end sawing and cursing = something you could have got in IKEA days ago.  I don't want to see another mortise and tenon joint as long as I live.  Apart from all the other jobs on the list that need them...

I give it two days before the cats murder something on it.

A tenner well spent.

Rescue one rusty, dirty ol' saw from a brocante.  Clean off the rust with wet & dry, sand the handle clean and smooth and coat liberally with linseed oil.  Next day, wipe excess oil off hand, sharpen and set teeth with a pair of pliers and a file.

Then do the equivalent of 100 one-arm pressups and slice your log up.  This keeps you warm and gives you a perfect excuse to eat two lunches at once.

Take your surprisingly heavy slices and split 'em up.  Take the time to see where the grain runs to avoid hammering the axe down and getting nowhere and nothing but injury.  Should take little effort (kind of): like everything else done properly with hand tools, keep them super-sharp and use the tool's weight as the driving force.  Also, swing it well and the log just pops open (kind of) to reveal wonderfully-smelling beautiful wood.  Kind of.

Job done!  Off to eat a lot of food.

Last of the Gite-hicans.

Finally, absolutely finished!  Anyone fancy a visit?

Belters.  Now I can get on with the smallholding and waffle about food and stuff!

Cold and wet.

We have got gite bookings rolling in so I have been spending all week in the absolutely freezing hangar making a cupboard to hide the gas bottle for the gite cooker out of crappy scrap I had lying around and a splendid bronze plane.  Absolutely no gardening this week due to howling winds, torrential rain and freezing mud coating everything.  Still a bit to do out there though:

Finish digging (only a metre left but need a dry half hour for it!)
Mulch the beds with horse poo and compost depending on what's going where next year
Dig out a new bigger holding bed
Dig up all the ash and oak trees in the driveway and plant out in the field (have to wait for the Boys to vacate it now)
Cut and trim hedges and boundaries
Cut poles for trellis, beanpoles and pea-sticks
Prune trees and fruit bushes
Take cuttings of trees and bushes
Etc...

Thankfully, I have 5 crates of beer to get me through it - half the usual light fizzy ("mesle yellow") and a new one: a strong, dark, 7%(maybe) battle pop.  Tastes great and I no longer miss the Gardener's (nearly).  Need a name for it: maybe "Bad Santa"...

I'll post some piccies later.

Earthling study final report.

They're all doomed.  Worldwide financial crisis brought on by banking debts and massive consumer debt, so why not turn to bankers and economists to sort it out then.

Bit like a police force manned by burglars.

Hmm, hmm, yes - that is a worry.  Less than 1% growth.  Gosh.  Could be a recession.  Golly.  Nobody's spending any money.  Hmm.  Euro's going tits up.  Shucks.

Venus is scorched with a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F). This high temperature is primarily due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide. 

Probably some trouble getting seeds to germinate there, and here as well in a few short years...

Proper jobs for November.

 Hedge done!  Proper job, that was!

 Double digging started!  Proper job, this is!

 Stones from hedge line and 1m of spud bed - doing a proper job of it!

 Trees being planted!  A right proper job!

Christmas ale brewing!  Should be a p- oh ok, I'll shut up.