Sunday 21 February 2010

Beer and Woodwork

I've spent the weekend in my shed making two things, one I can't say as its a present and the other is a set of shelves/cupboard for my garden shed. This is as well as putting up a shelf in one corner of my workshop for my radio, as everytime I walk past it the damn thing looses reception. The set of shelves are looking quite good but I now need to make the cupboard bit and oil all the wood.
I've also started to make 5 gallons of home brew beer, it shouldn't take long to brew and it'll be ready for our party at the end of March. The total cost is about £7 with the sugar so much cheper than store brought stuff- I just hope its drinkable!

Sunday 14 February 2010

Great week

This week has been great. I had a good couple of days plasterboarding with my brother, trying to get the little utility room ready to be skimmed. Then I worked for Dave on Wednesday in a little woodland in the middle of Ludlow. I grew up in Ludlow and I never knew that there was such a large wood and about 7 fields right near the middle, it was amazing! It was a hard days work but in the end we felled about 8 trees (having to use ropes to get them to fall the right way) and stacked the logs and the brash.
Thursday and Friday were spent (with my brother again) training and taking our trailer test. This is so we can tow a trailer on the road (if you took your driving test after 1997, a bit unfair that grandfather rights never seem to affect me!). We both passed but it was pretty nerve racking as its the same examination as if you did your HGV licence, lots of reversing around cones and trying not to drive with one hand around Gloucester.
My brother is starting a new job tomorrow, so that's going to feel pretty weird as I've been working with him so much over the past couple of months and he's going to be lodging away during the week. It sounds like a good experience for him as it combines tree work and building.
The weekend was lovely and warm so I did a little gardening, planting some broad beans (more than normal as I'll have more space when I get my allotment, the dibber in the picture I made myself at wood turning classes but I'll talk about that on another post) and pruning my apple trees and fruit bushes. I was quite pleased as I seem to have two new gooseberry bushes that rooted themselves from branches of my main bush, so they'll be moving to the new allotment soon!
I also finished the shed, as well as making and hanging the door to make it nice and secure. I'm determined to keep it clean and well organised, so I made a tool rack for my main gardening tools today, every tool now had a space and I'll make sure they go back there! I also plan to make some shelves and a cupboard to store all my nets, cleaners, chicken medicines, glue bands, string, saws, knives, fertilisers, etc.
Anyone else got any storage ideas?

Sunday 7 February 2010

Allotment news!

In the past couple of weeks since my last post I’ve been quite busy.Work wise I’m still working for mum and dad on the farm but I’m starting to look a bit more for other work (although I’m still not sure what I want to do!). I’ve been working with my little brother loads so that’s been really good and he even came round the weekend before last so we had a mess around in the garden trying to light a fire by friction. I think if it hadn’t got so dark so quickly then we would have succeeded but unfortunately we didn’t and we’ll have to try harder next time!
I’ve also started work on the baby shed for all my gardening tools, as the one we inherited when we moved here leaks like a sieve and is a complete mess. I’ve built the shed flat-pack-able so if we move house I can bring it along, but it weighs a stupid amount because I can never build anything small enough!
I managed to get it erected this weekend and most of the roof on so I’m feeling quite good about it, although I’ve run out of cedar and I’ve still haven’t got a door to put on it!
The exciting news is that I’ve been told I can have an allotment! Its about 5 miles away but it will mean I can grow loads more veg and I’m really looking forward to the social side of it. It’s not until April as at the moment it’s just a green field and this is a new site. I'm not sure what to grow but its time to have another look in the seed catalogues, I feel like a kid at christmas!