This morning Ady got the Rangerover up the croft, dropping animal feed off and a new gas bottle, which should mean we’re good for gas til February. Always a good feeling 🙂 Want to stock up more on decent firewood and then will feel better prepared.
I went down to the polytunnel and spent a couple of hours in there sorting things out. This year I had planted things into containers but it is not really ideal as you don’t have as much space and things seem to get root bound and stunted. The soil in there is improved as it is where the pigs were once and a few months of being suppressed by containers has killed the weeds and meant there are loads of worms so I have decided to plant directing into the ground and have the shelves for seedlings and smaller things. I threw everything that was over into a container which we fed to the pigs, got rid of any ‘spent’ compost, as in stuff which has lost all it’s nutrients to hungry crops like tomatoes putting it on the compost heap and moved up all the last few things which may over winter or still perform. I have brought the seed box up to the caravan so it doesn’t attract mice or rats and I can do a stocktake on seeds ready for next season. A nice indoor job in there now will be weeding out all the roots of the reeds which are mostly dead, maybe putting in some borders to the beds (stones are good, create some height and also store heat from the daytime to slowly release through the colder nights.
We had lunch and watched this week’s Apprentice then Ady and I went to the boat. My cheap waxed jacket which I have re-waxed twice proved itself utterly non waterproof 🙁 I’ve ordered a new one, that’s wellies and a coat ordered in the last 24 hours, you can tell the weather has changed! The soaking was justified though as we had loads of stuff come off – amazon monthly deliveries of flour, tomato puree, long life cream, crisps, noodles, coconut chips and cocoa nibs, the final bulk order of jam jars, our new wind turbine gizmo so we should get the new turbine trialled tomorrow, our Toolstation order of sealant for the windows of the shed, hooks to secure the doors open, green wood treatment (hopefully the other bits such as padlock, hooks to keep the doors closed and latch will be in the actual post which we’ve not collected it). We helped unload the shop deliveries and took our order of cheese from Jinty, collected chicken from the freezer for dinner tomorrow, picked a handful or two of brambles as we walked past the bushes and collected some slates for making more signs so had quite a car full!
We dropped stuff off as we went until we just had a wheelbarrow of bits to come in the house. Scarlett had made pizza dough and got the fire lit so I had a shower (I was wet anyway!) and put the shopping away. Davies was working on some illustrations as he is going to apply for an advertised illustration job for a picture book. I had tasked him with setting the scene of someone telling someone else some good news and he did that really well. We didn’t tell Ady what the brief was and he got it instantly from looking at Davies’ pictures of facial expression and body language. I’m going to set him a couple more and then we’ll put those together with some other pictures he has of art work to send off. No idea if it will come to anything but it’s an exciting possibility and he is full of enthusiasm for it.
This evening was pizza and Doctor Who.