Ready for chickens

I slept right through last night, I don't even remember waking once to have a drink or anything which is incredible for me and very rarely happens. I wish I knew why I got good sleep and why I sometimes have disturbed nights because I'd make sure I always slept through like that.

Rambo waiting patiently, for once

I was woken in the end by Rambo howling which did not impress me much. I shouted at him from bed and this time he heard me; I could see him through the window in the end of Julian and he was doing a full on wolf-shape howl at the sky thing. Bless him. He shut up and lay down by the gate and when I eventually dragged myself out of bed because I was gasping for a brew, he was right there waiting for me to greet me.

Lovely happy tomato plants

I have been getting requests to show how my tomatoes are doing and so here they are, photographed while on the morning rounds which I did having to fill the watering can at the inside tap as the bes pare water in the standpipe was not running at all first thing. Anyway, here is a bit of tomato porn to satisfy those urges I know you have.

"Bung it up in a dish"

This morning The Electrician took over breakfast duties, as had been discussed yesterday, to make use of the chicken which we still had in a pot from quite a few days ago; it really has to be used up today else it'll be being thrown away which is not what we want. He did some awesome fry up with it and served it, with toast with brown sauce on it and it tasted amazing and really filled the hole.

Freshly milked, um, milk

While we were eating we heard steps on the stairs and I thought "ooh T really is early today" however it was Usmivka carrying another tub and saying "not ayran, milk!". He had brought us some fresh milk; how amazing. I poured both of us a small splash into a glass and we drank it; tasty as! I have since been warned that I should boil it else I risk Bovine TB and other nasty sounding illnesses. Hmmmm.

The mesh over Mo's enclosure

Once again today I took Mo down to put him on the table tennis table during the day however I have been a bit concerned about birds maybe taking him so I fashioned a funky cover from the remains of the square chicken wire I had bought for Sassy's travel hutch. I didn't need to do much more than just rest it over and then bend it into place to stop it from being blown away. Typically he has spent most of the day hiding from the sun; and here was I think I was doing him a favour getting him into the sun more.

T hard at work as always

As he has been doing for a while now T had just tipped up and got on with his tasks for the day. He hoped to get all the additional walling for the garden / chicken run completed today including tying the base of the chain link into the top of the wall. The simpler part of the wall had been completed yesterday and now he had to hack and cut through roots and other undergrowth to free up a relatively level base on which to concrete the bricks down. He just gets on with it with no complaints though so I sometimes forget just what an effort he is putting in.

Ready for the planting

For some reason, and I really don't know what prompted this today rather than yesterday, I decided that I would put another Silver Birch in this morning so I grabbed a stake and the digging tools and very quickly dug the hole for the stake and wedged the pole upright in it, then collected a barrow of manure from up the village. At this time I came to really appreciate another benefit of having bought a place that has a breeze (and I really did have that as an important thing to have, mainly for the cooling properties in the main heat of the summer) - flies! While I was walking down and even more on the way back, along the lane which is a bit sunken I had swarms of them around me buzzing and landing on me but thankfully not biting. As soon as I got back up through my gates and onto my land the breeze discouraged them and they stopped bothering me.

Anyway it did not take me long to plant this one as it was the newest hole, dug by myself, and almost entirely soil with very few stones to get in the way and tire you out while shoveling. I took more than a full wheelbarrow away up to the hugelkultur (which I haven't touched since the day The Electrician arrived) for putting over the top and I also tied top and bottom of the tree to the pole with cut tights. I only have one more to plant now.

First flames

After planting the tree I thought I'd get on with another chore that has been backed up for a bit; burning the bag of waste from the electrical work and the other stuff which The Electrician had tided up for me. It took  a few goes to get a bit that would catch enough (with the breeze picking up quite a lot as well) but this one did it and very shortly afterwards the whole pile was on fire and I was able to leave it to it. Plastic fires like these are no fun to watch because if the wind shifts you start to choke.

Insects in the head of a thistle

As I was making one of my trips out to burning drum from inside with more stuff to throw on it when I spotted a collection of insects all sitting on a flower of a thistle. I had to snap a picture for my inevitable question of "what are they?" to you, my loyal readers.

Anyway after this I decided to cut my hair as I was pretty hot from the digging for the tree, and then have a shower as I was sweaty and also would have lots of itchy hair everywhere from the head shaving. I did the hair thing easily enough though I definitely need a new set of clippers as these ones needed me to press the "turbo" button continually to get any cutting action at all. At least it didn't give out the ghost completely mid-shave as the last one did but yeah, that's now on the list. I went down to have my shower after struggling to find the dustpan and brush for sweeping my trimmings (I used a shovel and a brush head before noticing, later, that it was right in front of me on the side; typical) and warned T not to come in for a bit and then: disaster! There was the smallest trickle from the tap and no hot at all. I used what I could to wash my head and also rinse as much sweat as I could but pretty soon it stopped entirely. No water!

Now it isn't such an issue when I'm on my own but I do have a guest and also I was expected the Kmet to arrive at any point today to take me to sort out my residency and I didn't want to go to the Obshtina stinking to high heaven. I also was thirsty so I had to go and fill the kettle from the standpipe where I was getting a small amount of flow though hardly the full normal pressure. What a pain.

Adding rigidity to the door frame base

Anyway, the tasks I had set myself couldn't wait for the water to come back on (though T was a bit stuck as you can't mix cement without water) so I set myself to the main job for the day; making the chicken coop. I measured the dog kennel and then the door frame from the narrow door downstairs and they were exactly the same. This mean that my fag-packet design for a home built table could be thrown away as the door frame would provide the basic structure. It obviously had an open end so I cut a length of scrap wood down and nailed it across to give rigidity.

Putting the legs on it

I then took the roofing timber I had selected (it was one that had been used as a form for Rambo's enclosure and has been laid on the grass ever since) and cut it into four 800mm lengths. My little tenon saw ripped through it really easily which was great as I was expecting this to be a real pain to cut and had even got my big toothed saw just in case. With these prepared I initially started balancing the frame on my saw horses (one of which broke today which is a pain) but then realised  that the ground is far more stable and sturdy so I put it on the floor and nailed these legs in place with huge nails. I had to rest up half way through as my hand was cramping.

Sunbathing rest platform

As I was working on this I heard a truck driving along the lane and saw that the window people had arrived with the door and window for the bedroom out onto the balcony. I showed them up to where it is going and then left them to it and headed back down to continue working on the chicken coop. My idea was to give the chickens a house (the dog kennel) and next to it a platform they can sit on and this would also have the benefit that the shaded area underneath would be larger. I had saved the panel that I had used to seal the back of Julian for the journey so I chopped sections out of it to fit across and then nailed these in place.

They are back at it

I now had to keep popping upstairs to check on the progress of the window people, and take copious photographs, and here they are just getting started with removing the old window. I had put plastic over it last year to keep the weather out as much as possible and the light which flooded in when they removed this frame was incredible. It was also such an awesome thing to see the view again from that window after not seeing it for a year. I can't wait to wake up to it every day.

Taking the wall down for the door

I was waiting for a phone call so I stayed upstairs for a bit in Room 13, muttering to myself about lack of mains water and continuing to check out the progress they were making. They came and plugged an extension into one of the new sockets and then started up their hammer drill and removed the wall for where the door is going very quickly indeed. It was a dusty old business and I got grit in my eyes more than once trying to get photographs.

My telephone call was delayed slightly by a letter so I headed back outside to work on the chicken coop which was really close to completion now. I just had to offer up the kennel to make sure it did sit right, and then make a ramp for the chickens to climb up. I got a hand from T and we found that I needed to shave about 20mm off one of the legs and then it would wedge on top without needing any nails, leaving it easy to transport as it could be taken apart again really easily. While we were playing with it Usmivka came over and asked about the workmen. I took him upstairs, he had a few words with them (I think he was asking for a quote) and then he wondered off. I went back into Room 13 and heard another truck coming my way. I wondered if it might be The Electrician (he had taken Thomas just after breakfast to go on a major exploration of the area and was still not back) but it was the sand/gravel delivery that my friend had kindly rung through for me with hers. I got Lucy moved so they could dump it in the same spot, paid up, and a few minutes later they were gone. Some things are just really efficient over here.

Ramp on its ledge

I used two of the pallets which the bricks had been delivered on to make a ramp, nailing them together, and then nailed another length of wood to the side of the table on which to wedge the top of the ramp; I want this to be easy to move and not all attached together as the dog house is heavy, so is the base table and the ramp will be flimsy. Indeed it proved so flimsy that I had to put several strengthening struts on it to stop it flexing. I think I will put some boards over it in case the chickens don't like walking up what is an open grating in effect.

The proud maker of the chicken coop

After this T helped me to carry the component parts into the garden area and we assembled it and here I am standing very proudly by it. I am quite proud of the bodging and the fact that I have managed to make it in an hour or two. The other awesome thing is that by this time T had completed all the walling and so I am now fully ready for my chickens. We closed the gates and headed in to see if the water was on so it would be worth doing more work or if he should just head off.

Furry speedy caterpillar

While we were moving the kennel a caterpillar suddenly appeared on the roof and it was so awesome I had to snap a couplf of pictures. It was moving really fast and climbed up the roof, over the top, and then down the other side until it reached the edge. There it paused, climbed back up a bit, and then (to my eyes) jumped. T thought the wind caught it though but it looked to me like it backed up and then went for it. We watched carefully as it scooted across the paving slabs until it was well out of accidental treading on reach and then carried on. Awesome furry thing.

The storm approacheth

I had a bit of a review of the progress that T has made on the wall and admired the ties he had put in. I think the chickens will be safe in here however the point was made that the trees maybe should have their lower branches trimmed so they can't climb up and out and over the fence. While we were standing there we noticed that the lovely baking hot weather which has been here all day was about to change; there were huge black clouds across the valley and there was no way that this was going to split and go round the sides. It looked mean and I was concerned enough to get Mo and bring him up to Room 13 just in case, and then go around and grab other stuff to get it out of the rain that was definitely going to arrive very soon.

If only it had just been rain. About five minutes after this the wind was howling and massive hailstones were pelting down and smashing into the ground, the vehicles, and my plants. We took cover (though I went out in it to rescue the bag of cement that had been left out; it's probably got too wet anyway in the time it was out but never mind) and while we were standing under the porch every now and then one hit us and it hurt.

Hammering down with hail

Huge hailstones

Terry taking cover in Lucy

A river appeared from off the parking area

Just a bit of hail fell

Above is a selection of photographs taken while the storm was raging and it was so bad that the fitters stopped working and took shelter as they were getting battered by the hail coming through the open gap where they were working. By this time they had fitted all the frames and were on with getting them straight and true so this delay probably annoyed them quite a lot.

Hail damage

After a while I noticed that the rain and hail was being blown in the opposite direction to before which told me it was passing and going to settle down and about half an hour or so after we had first noticed the storm was heading our way, the hail had stopped and the storm was passed. The thunder was still rumbling around for quite a while with some pretty impressive grumbles going on for ages and a light drizzle continued for a while as well however the men were able to get back on with the fitting and I was able to go outside to check on the damage to my plants. And was there ever some. The Fuschias have been decimated, the Marigolds have lost a couple of heads and a load of the flowers from the tomato plants, photographed so excitedly earlier on, have gone. I should have brought them in but I wasn't expecting the weight and size of the hailstones at all.

There wasn't much I could do so I have just left them; I will probably tidy them up in the morning and see if they need pruning to make less ragged cuts. It's incredible to see how the hail literally cut through the leaves and shredded them on the way past. Nature is so powerful.

After this T headed off and The Electrician arrived back after a fantastic day out (apparently) having visited loads of sites (and sights) and returning just as the storm was passing over. I'll not go into his day as this blog has already taken me far too long and is also getting massively long in terms of words as well. The evening has been spent with me typing, him cooking (a lovely curry type affair) and typing as well, and some music being listened to. I've had a little bit of a downer on and off which I am saying is partly caused by the fact the water is still off and I am sticky and want a shower, as well as other influencing factors that I won't go into here.

Having finally got to the end of the day I will leave you with that video of Mo, taken by T, which is very funny indeed. Here's hoping the forecast thunderstorm tomorrow doesn't hit with as much force as today.