Garden works: the paddock

After the diggers left in May we proceeded to sow grass and clover. We were a bit worried there was going to be a period of drought just like the last time we had the guy in last year. Only after two months we were satisfied with the amount of greenery growing. First it looked like there were only some patches that were covered, but it looks like a proper field now.
We also got a call from a farmer friend who knew someone who wanted to get rid of some fencing for a paddock. Dr Livingstone drove up to the house to take a look at it, but the negotiations broke down over the price.

Some weeks later, somewhere in June, he called again. The people were desperate to get rid of the fencing. They were clearing it away and were going to have to find some storage space and they didn't want to have to move it twice. After re-negotiating the price and having agreed they would also install the fencing for us they came at the beginning of July and had it up by the end of the day.

It looks absolutely stunning now it's finished. We just have to put some wheels on the gate for support and level the ground.
And we also have to put the electric fencing stuff up, in case there's some wild beast that is going to meddle with it.

Garden works: the stables

I haven't been keeping still and neither has Dr Livingstone.

I finished my thesis in August and have been trying to catch up on all the little bits of work that have been looming around the corner in and outside the house.

A lot has changed over the past year and I haven't really shared a lot. It seems I do not have a single spare moment to chillax and blog about what has been going on.

But things have moved forward and we're both chuffed to bits at all the improvements we've finally been able to do.

Most of the daunting chores have been dealt with. The most dreaded tast of all was chopping up all the pallets that had been stored in the stables. We'd been hoarding them from everywhere. Roughly estimated we had about sixty of them. Crazy neigbour™ was very kind to lend his saw table AND help Dr Livingstone to do the sawing business. They were at it for an entire afternoon, had tea and biscuits afterwards in the garden and then were unable to move because of aching joints and muscles the day after. But what a result!

After that Dr Livingstone and myself also made all the long bits into shorter fire wood to get the stove going. We now have three entire Big Bags full of start-up wood which will probably last us several years to come!

I also managed to paint all the hinges and metal work on the stable doors and together with the sidings I had already painted a trout colour last year it looks much better. We also cleared away all of the bits and ends that always keep lurking about. Several trips to the recycling park later (can't say container park anymore according to the Council) it all looks pretty tidy now.

Just three more project in that corner of the garden:

1) clearing out and organizing our composting station (Dr Livingstone did make three tub-like structures but then proceeded by just chucking everything random in there).

2) clearing out and organizing the shelter next to the stables. There are still a lot of roof tiles there. We're also going to use the fire wood piled up in there this winter so it can be emptied out. We're planning to use it as a kind of temporary locker/preparation shelter for anyone wanting to make saddles ready or put some horse riding utensils in a locker.

3) make a nice path next to the stables and make a little door so we can enter the garden from the public footpath that runs across our land. Dr Livingstone already dug a ditch to pump excess water into the little brook in case of heavy rainfall.

But first let me update you on the rest of the chores we have done...

Bliss

How soothing it is to unwind just sitting in the garden amidst the colours and sounds of early summer...

The dove from above

Stuff always happens after I have finally decided to clean the windows.
It is an event, cleaning those windows but I finally managed to find a rapid, effective way to do them.
We've still got the moat running round the house and using a ladder has now been circumnavigated. I can get at the windows now with stuff mounted on poles.
Anyway, stuff always happens. Like heavy rainfall that puts streaks all over them. Or birds flying into the windows.
We used to have a lot of them flying into the conservatory, remember the big lovely Jay nursed by Dr Livingstone.
So this dove was no exception.

I didn't see it at first, but in the morning when the condensation was on the outside of the window, the imprint became quite apparent.
Caught in mid-flight. It's ghostlike appearance hovering in the line of sight.
It's on a window of the room where the administration gets done.
It's still there.
I might consider cleaning the windows again.
But twice in one month's time is a lot you know...

Mouser mousing

Finally we got some rain. Quite refreshing. The lawn was begging for some drops, manifesting its will by turning a lightish brown/gingery colour.
I haven't had a peek at the water tank, but I imagine it will not turn to cement powder just yet.
Mouser has been out and about, surprisingly, during the intermittent showers.
Just before I headed out to bed I opened up the front door to see if Velvet Claws™ was going to join us.
There was a flash of fur and then it stopped mid-way down the hall.
I flicked on the light switch and lo and behold: It had rescued a fluffy friend from drowning.

I saw a mouse scurry round and head into the living room.
Of course it hid under the first available book shelf. Mouser was poking about trying to coo the rodent from under there, to no avail.
It ran into the study and I closed the door.
Dr Livingstone came out to help catch it and we moved some furniture about.
Mice tend to walk along walls and never straight across open spaces.
I had been in a similar situation a couple of years ago in the old house. To jog your memories: see my blog entries Cat & Mouse & Human Game and Got Him!
I though this was going to take hours.

But to my own surprise I caught the little bugger at the first attempt, although it did try to bite me. I had to hold the plastic container down because it just moved the whole thing across the floor while under it.
I relocated the mouse to the doorstep and it disappeared into the night.
Needless to say, teh Kitteh was still hovering around the bookcase looking for its playmate.

Butterfly-in

I've been roaming around the garden since the weekend before last with my camera. It was a very long time since I snapped some wildlife and I went in headlong. There was a butterfly counting weekend, so we made ourselves useful. We've not too good at naming the insects so I took pictures, we compared them to others on the insecternet and hey presto; some eight different species popped out:

Polyommatus icarus (which I hoped would have been the very rare Adonis butterfly (Polyommatus bellargus).

Autographa gamma

Gonepteryx rhamni

Pieris rapae

Colias crocae

Celastrina argiolus

Maniola jurtina

Aglais io

This was more than I had expected to see in the garden.
Looks like the combination of wild flowers, a veg garden and a manicured garden with a lawn, herbs and the surrounding fruit trees are a very good combination for attracting all sorts.
What a difference compared to where we used to live. We realize what an unhealthy environment that was, notwithstanding we were in the middle of greenery and fruit trees too. But it just shows that all those pesticides they used on the fruit trees and the farmland were a complete disaster for the fauna over there.

Summer blogging break

I haven't been updating the blog of late, as there is so much work to do at the shop, in the house, with the studying, in the garden.
I promise I will make some time and post some garden pictures pretty soon. I will leave you with a picture of Mouser's share of hard work.

The IKEA relation test

We've taken the test many times, yesterday was the toughest one so far.

Dr Livingstone suddenly decided to get the office sorted and get some bookcases in we wanted since we first moved in and got rid of the old ones. And also a sofa which turns into a bed. So I can sneak away at night if the snoring gets too loud. So we measured the available space (again) and chose the stuff we wanted (again), lent a van (again) and drove all the way to the nearest IKEA store (again). We were there about an hour before closing time, not too much people about. Time was pressing on, so we quick marched across the obligatory display route and went to look at and test the sofa-bed. It was ok, except the colour for the cover. I had already printed out the location of the bits and pieces we needed in the self-service area, so we were well prepared to get out as soon as possible. Dr Livingstone started to speed walk slightly as we navigated our way to some trolleys.

We thought we had found a short cut (and we did!) but no trolleys to be seen, so we had to walk past shelves of cutlery, rugs, cushions, greenery and candles. Which seemed to last for miles and miles. We got two trolleys and sped towards the Bedthingy. Everything was in place, bar the cover. So we got a grey one.Dr Livingstone dropped the parcel the frame was rapped in, he could get his hand in the cardboard and things were rattling inside, so we decided to change it for another one. Up to this point he was extremely annoyed at everything. From the display of the stuff in the shelves, to me wanting to verify the numbers on the boxes and the store closing in 20 minutes. Next up: the bookcases. We got a large packet on the second trolley and then proceeded to the single, smaller ones.

Empty shelves. Great. Nothing in stock, while the IKEA system promised us everything had to be there. 'That's it. I've had it with this bloody store. Leave everything. We're going.' I wasn't leaving empty handed. We had just moved heavy parcels and I wasn't going to drive back with an empty van. We didn't speak a lot on the way back. We ended up having a bite in the restaurant close to the workshop. I checked the IKEA stock on Dr Livingstone's smart phone. 14. There should be 14 ruddy pieces of plywood in stock. They must have cloaked them with an IKEA force field, because we really didn't see a single one.

Playing catch-up

Hello my lovelies, it's been far too long since I blogged again. I'm still trying to get the hang of the new blogger dashboard interface. I tried to hold on to the old one as long as possible, but alas.

Anyway, what has been going on in my world recently:
1) As of two weeks I am now known as Mrs B, BA. Yes, I finally got that degree. With great distinction too I might smirkingly add!

2) We rented a machine to plough over the garden. It looks grand, but the grass and weeds are springing up.

3) the petanque area is finished!

4) three men are here and taking out all of the old windows and putting in new ones. They're in luck. The sun is out and it isn't raining today. So let's hope it stays that way.

5) We still have to shift the second sh*tload of wood we received over a month ago. We're both knackered and there's just not enough time to do everything we want.

6) Dr Livingstone and myself attended a wedding where strange things happened like waving about napkins (twice) and dancing something called a polonaise. If time allows I will dedicate an entire post to this... I will leave you with a picture from this morning when the lads turned up and removed the old double glazing.


Bye!

Quick round up

My apologies for the lack of posting, it's been an incredible week and a half. I'm ill, of course, and have been sleeping all day.
I want to give a brief recap on the garden and our activities in it.
We managed to shift all of the concrete rubble, the water reservoir is in (although the measurements the store gave us were not the same as the real dimensions of the thing they delivered), the petanque course is (nearly) finished and we did some weeding too.

And we managed to shift wood that was delivered three weeks ago, just in time for another load that was dumped here on Friday evening.
Last weekend we went to get rid of the railway sleepers. All 995kgs of them.
It is -very slowly- all taking shape.
Yesterday evening we even had a short inaugural throw with petanque balls!
Oh, and while digging in front of our driveway the crane hit a grey cable which apparantly was the telephone cable from our neigbours.

Barnie Rubble

20 tons of concrete rubble 20/40 was dumped on site today.
I took a ride in the truck from the load-in site 'till home to give the driver directions. Dr Livingstone was ahead of us in the van to lay down some rubber matting on the slabs to protect them. Wasn't necessary, the dumpster could move 1 meter out of the truck, so the guy nicely dumped it in two convenient piles on in the petanque area so Dr Livingstone and someone called Simon can spread it out. There's also 10 ton in front of the garage which needs to go around the house.
Don't really know if Dr Livingstone is really up to it, he had extreme pangs of pain shooting up his back, he's going to the physiotherapist tonight to see if he can make him go again.
I can help the odd hour tonight, but I have an exam (actually two) in the morning.

Borderline

Another team was here on Thursday to put in the borders for the petanque area and the path around the house.
They thought they would have been done within half a day, but they left around 4 pm.
They did do a very nice job, relaxed people, they cleaned up everything very nicely. The eldest one was a bit of a chatterbox but he did know his trade.
Luckily I closed all the windows before they started slicing through the cement borders. What a load of dust!
Good thing the neigbourlady didn't have her washing out to dry.


It is a very different view now, it is all slowly taking shape.
Next week, after my exam(s) on Wednesday I'm getting stuck in, ordering more stuff to dump in there.
And we'll have to put the drainage in around the house, that is going to be a different challenge.
We also want a nice little terras to go in next to the petanque area under the cherry tree. It produces a nice speck of shade from late morning until two pm. It's ideal for the pick nick table and lazy summer brunches.
We'll give it a shot ourselves (she said bravely not realising what a cock-up this was going to be in future).
It will probably involve a lot of swearing, sore backs, some refreshing beers and more concrete slabs, but we're up for it.
It seems everyone is having some post-holiday ground activity. The asocial people from the new house down the road have also got the heavy machinery in and are digging a pool.
Alas they have pumps on all night trying to get rid of the ground water, but they are pumping away everything in the area.
My bushes will probably not make it through the scoarching heat predicted this weekend, even though I water them twice a day.
UFO-neighbour's pond level had dropped about 10 cm compared to the day before, he's afraid his fishes will emerge.

Blocked Drain Inc.

Blocked drains. We haz them.
Well, not any more.
We already found very shoddy workmanship a while back and now was the time to replace them (temporarily) until we can hook up the rain water tank.
One side has completely been done.

The second picture is the crane digging away some earth about 2 meters from the house to make a nice, broad path for walking and putting some benches in so we can sit in the shade in the afternoon.

Underneath, but not as deep as we expected are the drains from our bathroom, kitchen and the septic tank.
We replaced all of them (except the septic tank), added an extra entry for the drainage that is going in around the house and an extra entry that gives us access in future to clean the drains. Those can be seen where the white plastic bags are covering the holes.

Of course Mouser had to help and had to see if we had sloped the drains 1 cm per meter.

The worst bit is still to come. We still have to put the water tank in and remove the temp drains. We had to dig the most bit by hand because the guys with the digger couldn't be bothered any more. The first thing I insisted on was putting up a tent so we could work in the shade.

But with soaring temperatures and our bad backs Dr Livingstone called up the guy with the tractor who did the corral a while back and he had time to dig another trench to find yet another semi-blocked drain.
The people who lived here never put any filters in the pipes on the roof so for years on end all kinds of leaves and stuff have been building up inside, clogging the drain and obstructing the evacuation of water. Mind you, while Dr Livingstone was flushing out the rain pipes, a tennis ball popped out!!
Just fancy that!

Although Mouser did look very skeptical at what we were doing.
Poor puzzled kitteh!

Temperature Record so far

The mercury in the digital thermometer reached 32.2ºC today. For this weekend yet even hotter is forecast.
I hope it rains pretty soon. Everything is turning a nasty shade of brown and the anti-social people building a little bit further down the road are pumping up ground water for some shady reason.
UFO neighbour's pond level had dropped considerably and he is anxious for his fish.
I put down a bird bath just in case, but Mouser is the only one using it at the moment.

Tabula rasa

I found the USB cable. And therefore I am able to present to you the 'before' and 'after' pictures.
For added effect I will only show the most spectacular bits.
The first picture was taken on the drive way looking towards the neighbour who believes in UFO's. I wasn't kidding when I said we were going tabula rasa!

Then for another angle facing the other way. It's a mish-mash of several photo's which I quickly put next to eachother to make them look like a panorama pic.
This front garden will be filled up with several different bits; a wild flower & butterfly garden, an edible garden, bits of grass, a winding path, a seating area in the shade and a petanque court. Yes, you have permission to snigger.



In the third 'before' picture the second layer of concrete was still in place aroudn the house, the 'after' picture has the 2 meter wide gap that will be filled with stone debris and pebbles from the Taunus region. We've already put some planks in place because we cannot fill it up entirely. We still need to re-do the outer walls.


The fourth and final comparison is where the court is going. Some guys are going to put the concrete sides in on Thursday and once those have dried up we can order some trucks with stone rubble and dolomite for the top layer.



So there you have it. I will leave you with a picture of the site surveyor who's been keeping an eye on things, making sure the concrete waste is neatly disposed of, the workmen are have the regulated lunch breaks and little grey noms going squeak are seen to:

They test the missiles here or what?

Right, I wanted to blog a little earlier to keep every one up to speed on the stuff going on around the house. I took loads of pictures, but I can't seem to find the little USB cable I need to download them onto the computer.
We decided to go tabula rasa on the garden. Nearly everything has been pulled out and transported away to be turned into compost.
I apologized to each and every shrubbery and tree before they were plucked out of the ground.
The only things left now are two peony bushes, a cherry tree, two other trees -I don't know what they are- but they give enough shade where needed, two bushes which have white leaves in the spring, a curly hazel and something that brings forth pink flowers twice a year.
I tried to salvage as much bushes as possible, I planted them in the corral for the moment, hoping they will survive.

This weekend Dr Livingstone and I dug up drains and replaced them. What a sacré boulot. We haven't decided yet on where we are going to put the rain water harvest tank. We replaced the old rain water pipes so far, but just to evacuate the rain until we can hook them up to a solid system.
We want to use the water to flush the toilet and use the washing machine, we are now doing everything with tap water which is a) expensive b) selfish & decadent.

All the drains were delivered on Thursday, together with the concrete borders which will be placed around the house and our petanque court before the weekend.

Right now the garden looks like a tornado tore right through it.
Or, it could also be described by those epic words of the guy who gives Tom Hanks a ride home in The Money Pit: 'They test the missiles here or what?'

Goodbye Council Shrubbery

Today, the garden is getting a face lift. Goodbye to a spruce, a fancy looking spar, some bits of birch trunk, some bushes Dr Livingstone keeps referring to as 'council shrubbery', lots of Equisetum arvense (aka the dreaded ponytail) and lots of other brown, green or dead stuff.
The dirty digger is coming and all will be going into the big container in front of the driveway. Earlier this week I ordered some building materials, they are going to be delivered this afternoon.
I still don't know where they are going to put everything. The second container was left in the middle of the drive way...
The guy who is coming later on said he was able to shift it.

Mouser is all excited and wanders around the big containers, looking all puzzled and wondering what the bleep we are up to.

The plan: to get rid of all the stuff in the front garden which is way too much to keep tidy. It is teeming with weeds and it looks awful.
So we decided to go for a 15 x 4 petanque area. That's 60 square meters of non maintenance!
Some 60sm of gravel (well, not exactly gravel but some smooth looking quarts from the Taunus mountain area) is going around the house which will be excellent for getting rid of excess water against the house.
And there is going to be a terrace around the cherry tree.

Well, that's what we've got in mind. Updates will follow (I hope)!

My life: an update

Tons of excuses.
I haz dem.

It's been a wild couple of months. I've been living according to following rhythm:
Sleep - get up - be amazing - sleep

Lot's of things have happened over here.
1) We had a digger in the garden to scrape away the paving around the house that was causing wet patches to emerge on the walls. It looks like a nuclear testing site now. They've not finished and they'll have to come back after their holidays.
We've worked out a scheme to remodel the garden. It will get rid of all the stupid things that have been planted by the people who lived here before and will reduce the maintenance work.
When the big digger was working in another part of the garden I heard little squeaky noises. I managed to trace the source: lo and behold: it was a little nest of mice!
They were entangled in a bush that had been removed. I replanted part of the bush and then covered them with some dry moss to shelter them from sun and Mouser.
Kitteh heard it too, but didn't seem to interested.
In the evening I did see mum or dad roaming around. The day after they were gone. This could mean two things: they were moved or they were eaten. The ground didn't look disturbed so I'm hoping for the former.

Anyway, I haven't been doing any weeding, raking or pruning as I thought they would clear away everything a little earlier.
It is now a complete and utter wilderness. It's very depressing.

2) We managed to find some people thought the intertubes that wanted to pay us to have the hideous electric blinds removed.
They needed to go because we're going to re-do the outer walls. So the ugly things have finally gone and we didn't have to do anything.

3) I finished up some exams in June, all went well, passed with flying colours. I'm still working on my paper. I managed to move the deadline forward. I need to take two exams in August/September because I wasn't able to take them the first time due to lack of time.
Work has been keeping Dr Livingstone and myself überbusy. With no time for fun and games.

4) We did manage to sneak away for two days. We visited the abbey of Himmerod in Germany.
I even bumped into a genuine Cistercian monk in the church, who greeted me on his way to prepare everything for mass.
It was a nice weekend full of Hefeweizenbeer, schnitzels and some very lovely abbey beer.
They're not trappists like the Cistercians here in Belgium, but they've got a trout farm, eco vegatables and honey.

5) The wasps nest in the spy hole in the front door had to be removed, alas. It was all hunky-dry when there was only four wasps there, building their little hive, minding their own business.
But then it was pretty warm for some weeks and I could see every hole was filled up with larvae.
Two weeks ago suddenly there were about twelve or more wasps there and every time I opened up the door they swarmed out protectively. But they were getting nervous and aggressive amongst themselves. So we decided to remove them.

6) We've got some gooseberries in the garden! Hurrah! Dr Livingstone: twenty of them in yoghurt would be very tasty. Alas the stalk is only yielding about ten berries at the moment. But still. The garden had brought forth something. Once the front has been cleared, I'm planting a whole row of the things. I want to walk through the garden and pick fruits of everything.
The cherry tree had some cherries on them, but most of them have been eaten by birds or the ones on them are not ripe yet. They do look a delicious kind of bright red already, but they were as sour as a lemon.

7) Mouser had some dealings with a weasel that it had brought in from god knows where. We managed to set it free two times so it could run away and escape. The darn thing didn't do much escaping. It just hid under a nearby bush and stayed put. We kept Mouser indoors for an hour or two, but once out it headed straight for the bush.

8) Our neighbour (the one who believes in UFO's) had been giving us lots of vegetables from his garden. We've been showered with salad, beetroot, fennel, some kind of cabbage, a couple of kilograms of big potatoes and a weekly box of freshly laid eggs.
We don't really know what to give him in return.

There's loads more, but back to work for now!

Lottery Insulation

Dr Livingstone and myself have been pretty selfish.
On Monday we closed the shop early (by half an hour -gosh!-) and went to a building exhibition.
We've been meaning to insulate the house as much as we can to cut back on our heating bills (heating oil is expensive!).
We're nearly at the 1€ mark for one litre!
We've already signed a contract to have the old double glazing replaced by something far more expensive efficient.
And we've had some pretty strong ideas on what we would like on top of the roof and the outer walls, but were kind of stuck on what to go for and were not able to pick up the right information without spending loads of time on teh intertubez.
So we used our freebie tickets and made our way from one slimy salesman to another (I spotted at least one with a toupet).
One of them even (not sporting any hair) recognized me from way-back-when he used to run a newspaper store in a small village I used to live once upon a time.
I've been searching my memory and I can't even remember where the shop was.

Anyway, in the end we came away with a pile of information brochures, some telephone numbers and appointments with people coming to look over the house for: signs of water infiltration, combatting damp patches on walls and measuring for new wall insulation.

We were very elated once we got back and hope we will end up with a nice clean salute to the Modernist Movement once all this is over and done with.

First we need to pick the winning lottery numbers and then we'll be fine!

Opinions

I want grey, Dr Livingstone does not.