Greenhouse treat part 2

So after the first step of ground moving stuff was completed we got in touch again with the greenhouse guys telling them that all was ready.

Again an early start for us as they were ready to build the structure before the crack of dawn. I was at the ready with coffee at some time before 7 a.m.

First up they put in some concrete foundation, we don't want it to be blown away when there's an intensified storm.

On top of these come the steel struts and in between the rest of the foundation. It immediately gives a good impression how it's going to look.

Next up the gutters go on top and then the roof and the support beams for the glass and hatches.

We chose to have a big sliding door of 1,5 meters fitted, it will allow a better air flow once temperatures climb up to 40ºC in summer.
Also two manual hatches and two automatic hatches that open according to the temperature inside.

The new greenhouse is huge (3 x 9 meters). It's that big because we wanted to have a little chill out spot inside it so we can have a beer when it is just a bit too nippy out and when there's a tad of annoying wind up.

The greenhouse in its entirety was put up in half a day. We put in the (recuperated) concrete slabs the following day (with Middle Teen's help) and were having a nice chilled beer by 4 pm.

We also started putting some things in it I'd sown a week or so earlier in our heated conservatory. It's got a tray holder at the back at a very convenient hight.

But I bundled the frail plants indoors again at night. Last week saw 20+ºC temperatures and temps just above freezing level at night.

More on the little seedlings in another post...

Greenhouse treat part 1

We've treated ourselves to something we've coveted ever since we started growing tomatoes in a plastic closet in the garden: a proper greenhouse.
Dr Livingstone's physical therapist had a second hand one installed in his garden, we got the address of the people who built it and got in touch with them.
They specialize in de-assembling old professional greenhouses, refurbish them and then rebuild them from scratch.
So we're doing our bit for the environment: cutting back on our ecological footprint by growing our own veggies, not using any pesticides while growing them AND using second hand material at the same time.

But before it could be build on our chosen spot, the ground had to be prepared. When we went round to the greenhouse people to order the thing they said it'd take about 4-6 weeks before they could come and deliver the thing.

But they gave us a buzz just three weeks later telling us "We'll be there tomorrow".

Alas, the ground wasn't ready to put it on just yet.
We still had to get rid of a huge amount of sand and get some fresh dark earth in to grow veggies on.

Luckily we found a guy who's cheap, fast, punctual and effective. He got rid of the excess sand, flattened the ground and supplied us with some truckloads of  great dirt.

This is the Chosen Spot.

It's bordering on Crazy Neighbour's™ plot.
An early start for me, as the digger showed up at 6.45 a.m.
The first step was scraping off about 30 cms of excess sand. In the background you can see the stables. I repainted a part of the front in a lighter colour last season, I still need to finish it by repainting all the hinges and metal stuff on the doors. It's a lot lighter and nicer to look at, a real transformation (for the better).

Then the dumpster truck replenished the area with new, good, normal ground so we can have lovely yummie veggies in a couple of months.

We also had another 5000 liter water tank fitted because the meadow which will be used for grazing needs to be drained of excess water. We're going to channel the water through a slowed water system. Is there should be some kind of mayor rainfall, it will help to get rid of too much water without dumping it immediately into the stream behind the stables. So it will function as a sort of buffer. We're one up on the newest environmental steps the government is willing to take to manage some future problems relating to the environment such as global warming.

The groundwater level is fairly high here, and if there is lots of rain, it tends to take days, sometimes weeks for the water to seep into the ground. There's some kind of impenetrable layer under ground and it has a funny green/blue-ish colour.

Also the water tank will provide us with water to -er- water the plants in summer so we do not have to use tap water. We filled it with water from Crazy Neighbour's™ pond to stop it from coming up because of the pressure from the ground water.

Garden thrift

I was browsing through some pictures of the insects in my garden last year, how I miss the lush, colourful vegetation!
Things are starting to bud here and there (peonies are go!) but we're still a long way away from spiders, bees and butterflies dangling from every available leaf and flower.
Although we did spot Polygonia c-album, Inachis Io and two Goneptherix rhamni fluttering about.
Anyway, here's a snap of Hylotelephium telephium starting to grow again.

I'm quite up to speed on clearing up from last year. I've done most of the pruning and clearing away of dead material. OF course it's nothing compared to last year when we started from scratch. So yay for me.

Dr Livingstone cleared the veg garden in front, we're filling it with new earth and making plans to plant lots of yummy stuff once its warm enough to sow or plant outdoors. We've also re-arranged the self-made crates to make access easier for weeding.

I know I promised to blog about stuff going on so here's a small update on loads of stuff that has been going on all year.

1) Last year we introduced flowers on the drive way, not only to please ourselves and our neighbours but also to prevent people from parking in front of our door. This really helps and (we hope) will keep away contractors once the owner of a piece of land next to our mad neighbour starts to prepare for building (but let's hope not).
Two weeks ago I bought 11 different colours of primula and kept them indoors for another week. Last week I put them in our home-made receptacles together with some violets. Of course it froze the very next night (doh!), so they have withered a bit.

I've left some space open to plant petunia's later on, when they've matured enough to go out.

The flower boxes are made out of plastic gutters and are mounted on 50cm high poles, whacked into the ground with a big, wooden mallet.
It was a much cheaper alternative to buying ready made ones. And it was fun making them too.

So stay tuned for a next installment about my garden thrift.

Kicked in

Spring has kicked in last weekend, setting record breaking temperatures since -er- records began. Two days in a row some 20ºC+. Lovely.

Loads of butterflies about, a greenhouse installed (oh yes!, more on that later) and already some seedlings rearing their fragile heads...

Meme from the past.

I know I posted yesterday that I'd stay clear of posting stuff about politics because they tired me.
But I just couldn't resist posting this when I thought of it.
It seemed appropriate. For those of you too young to know what the phrase means: check out the knowyoumemes.com site.

Hybernation on hold

Hybernation is over. I've emerged from that strangely, warm winter (with only on day of snow) as slightly overworked, too busy to post anything meaningful (as you might have noticed).
So, dear reader, if you are still there, I pledge to make up for lost time and bring you some updates again about the World.

First off I'd like to point out that I'd had numerous things I wanted to blog about, be refrained from doing so. This was due to a lot of reasons. Mostly because I was going to comment on the political situation in the absurd little country that is my native Belgium. We've got elections in May and it has taken up most of the politicians time since spring last year.
So I'm quite done with it, and want nothing to do with political banter.
But alas, it is everywhere and there is no escaping it. Within a couple of weeks election banners and bill boards will be up and on display in every sympathizers front garden.

I'm finishing up my masters degree this year. But my professional work has dominated everything and I'll have to do my very best to write my paper and make it look interesting enough for some scholar to notice it and take me on board for some research project.

Lastly we've been busy in the garden yet again, I've done my bit so far. Getting rid of weeds, planting bulbs, clipping some bushes and ... sowing some seeds.
Will update on this because we've got big plans for this spring. Currently we have a crane with caterpillar tracks in the garden, so stay tuned!

For now, I'll leave you with a picture of lovely Mouser who's been really sweat and cuddly all through winter and has been a big help counting mice for statistical reasons.

We've survived it

Yep, no trick or treaters because we were in the pub. And Mouser guarded the pumpkins.

Immodeficiency

According to the Belgian national newspaper De Standaard HIV stands for 'human immodeficiency virus'.

/facepalm. 

I know that the financial market has been relentlessly on home owners since this financial crisis. But apparently a defying "immobilien" (=real estate) virus is making more victims as we speak.

If you would adjust just a few words, it could have been an Onion-article.

www.gwendolynruttenlookslikeahamster.be

http://www.gwendolynruttenlookslikeahamster.be

New website to be launched shortly.

Click below for a sneak preview.

Ah come on. She does doesn't she?

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...

King of the air

I can recognize the sound of a Westland Sea King helicopter miles away. It has been in service in our Royal Air Force since 1976 so I've nearly seen and heard it on a daily basis because I used to live on the coast, about 20 kms from its home base.
So I was really surprised when we were relaxing outside our house when I suddenly heard the low, thundery noise in the distance getting louder by the minute.
'I can hear a Sea King' was the first thing I said to Dr Livingstone.
He stared at me in disbelief.
'I can really hear it, it's getting quite near'. After a minute or so it suddenly emerged from behind the tree tops and flew right over our house.
I was just in the process of taking some pictures of the garden, so I was rewarded with a nice picture of the RS02!

Last Friday was the centennial of our Belgian Air Force. There was a show at the air base of Bevekom (Beauvechain) in which the Sea King participated.

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.

Rubus stealus

I spotted an over-succulent raspberry on one of the bushes a couple of days ago and I just had to take a picture.

The bush is teeming with berries getting ready to turn all red and sweet.
When Dr Livingstone came home one evening I forgot to tell him all about it.
So I did the following evening.
'I know there's one. I already ate it this morning before I got in the car.'

-_-

A carrot shaped like...what exactly?

No turnips here shaped exactly like a thingy, but we have pulled out some extraordinarily shaped carrots. They look like they changed their mind half way and started growing in the opposite direction.

Dr Livingstone thinks the ground is probably too hard and they're having trouble  moving in the right direction.

Summer still here

Luckily the summer hasn't left us yet, so nice warm weather, lots of sun.

We could do with the odd shower though for the garden. And our water reservoir. It's empty. It usually holds 5000 liters.

Ph'lip ya for real.

The Belgian Postal Service has released a commemorative stamp for the 'trone swap' as it is literally translated. AKA: the abdication of Albert II.
Here's the original stamp as it will be sold in post offices across Belgium:

Here's what it actually should have looked like if it embodied the full spirit of a trone swap:

Thank you. I'll be here all night.

Make jam, not war

A perfectly heart-shaped sweet strawberry. It had to be captured in a picture and broadcast to the world.
Sweet love for everyone!

For scale's sake

The courgette plant has been supplying us with humongous vegetables for a couple of weeks now. Tried all kinds of recipes to keep enjoying them.
To give you an impression of the kind of copious amounts we have to deal with on a regular basis: here's a photo to clarify. I added my garden glove for scale's sake.
We currently have two plants doing very well and not likely to stop growing as of yet.
We are strongly considering planting just the one next year!

No cue for cats

The only difference between the two pictures is that there are no people cueing to see Mouser on top of the Waterloo Lion's Mound.