Stormy Summer still

So the weather (that continual subject on this blog) is again going to be central today. I don't want this to be the case, as I came out here to be able to write "yep, another gorgeous day of wall to wall sunshine in paradise, folks" but that just isn't happening at the moment. As I write this, late afternoon, a storm is blowing past behind the house and just now I jumped right out of my seat as there was one of the loudest cracks of thunder I have ever heard. It wasn't so much a rumble as a CRACK!!!! BANG.... rumble and the rumble went on for a good minute or so; the CRACK sounded like it was right outside my window. It isn't scary as such, though the thought of the house being struck isn't really on my list of experiences to go through, but that kind of a noise is always going to surprise you and make you jump.

This theme will begin the blog as well, from last night. I was nicely asleep (and dreaming about something involving rumbling) when I woke up and realised that I had been hearing distant thunder that was coming closer. Before I could get back to sleep the most torrential rainfall began and then there was no chance of getting back to sleep as, every now and then, it sounded like hail as well. I don't think it was as there was no damage this morning but I suppose it could have been isolated patches. I took this video just to get the sound of the rain on the roof of Julian. It took an hour or so for the storm to move on and then for me to be able to get back to sleep.

After today there is even more water here

I had a super long lie in after that disturbed night and didn't get up til about 9am which was much needed. I again only dragged myself out of bed because I needed a cup of tea to wash away the dryness of my throat. When I got in I found that dry was not a word to be used to describe the night and there was a large amount of water which had come through the holes in the roof and down the stairs to collect on the landing. It is still there as the temperature has not got high enough today to evaporate it in any way. Indeed this morning it was cold and muggy, a combination I've not experienced before and I really do not want to ever again now I have.

Sassy having her breakfast

One benefit (grudgingly accepted) of the night rain is I didn't need to do any watering today so I made my brew and drank it  before getting out to start my day. Sassy was, however, back to doing her "feed me, feed me NOW!" banging of her cage so I did her food, hay and water bowl and she was happily munching away pretty much immediately. It is so good that she seems to be healthy again though I have caught her eating the walls and I have no idea what the old paint is made of so I need to have a good think about that including maybe limiting her range.

So the first and most important task of the day was to sort out the humanure after Rambo had dug it out yesterday and disturbed the protective covering. The first thing I had to do was go and find some waste wood in the attic with which to build a front wall; I found a couple of old desk tops, and some other chunks, and carried them down to the collection point. Even with only being left for one day there was already a smell, and a cloud of flies, that is not there normally. It shows just how important all the little things that I am doing are to the process.

Ready to be put on the humanure pile

I had two full buckets, and some more kitchen waste, to empty so I also pulled them out and filled the watering can for the cleaning process. Before I did any emptying though I set about improving the barrier in front of the pile and when I say improving I mean actually put one there. My previous issue was to protect the pile from the livestock that used to come through the land however now, with some more kitchen waste going in (and the new dog arriving next week) I need to make sure the dogs don't make themselves ill digging in human excrement for rotten food. Because they are, apparently, hungrier than they are intelligent.

Much better collection point

So I arranged the new barrier and raked and moved the pile to be a flatter shape, rather than the slope that I had previously been building out of necessity without the front retaining wall. This will allow me to build a much more efficient pile so another benefit to this bit of work. I have relaid the branches over the top to add that as some protection from other animals and now I am much happier with the collection point. When I build the permanent collection point I will take all these lessons into account.

Where does this glass hide to appear the next day

I hadn't yet let Rambo out so, after finishing off the humanure and then going for a good scrub of my hands, I went and let him out. He was so very happy to see me and nuzzled and nudged me while I went to get his food bowl and he kept close to me all the time. He did know he was wrong to dig out the humanure; he looked so guilty when I came round that corner and saw him, and hopefully now he'll not go near it again. After I had given him his full bowl I went to check the area I had gathered all the glass from the other day and, wouldn't you know, there was loads more glass to be picked up. It really does just come up out of the soil.

The bank before and after scything

Anyway, after this it was time for my breakfast which was some bacon and eggs on toast and then, as I was so late and would not have lunch, a couple of slices of toast with marmalade. Very nice indeed. After this I had a lovely chat which cheered me up, and the sun also had come out finally and there was lots of blue sky, and so I decided to get a job done that I have been thinking about for a while. I have a couple of weeks before my special guest arrives again and the place we were sunbathing (if only) is now overgrown. There is also quite high grass walking up towards it so I took the scythe and set to reducing this problem. First of all I cleared along the face of the bank and this was really satisfying to do with thick growth that caught the blade well and cut quickly.

Pretty flowering orchids

Half way up the bank I came across another couple of orchids that were blooming nicely and so I carefully scythed around them and left them standing. These are such pretty plants I want to keep any that I find. The first one died sadly so it is nice that I have now found five of these that are thriving.

A path swathe

I gathered all the cut grass off the bank and then set to, scything a swathe about a metre or two wide from the top of the bank over towards the sunbathing point where one of the Magnolias is planted and the Zinnias. I kept swinging away and swinging away, with the sweat dripping off my forehead and down my nose and half way I thought I wouldn't make it without stopping but every time I thought that I put my head back down and kept at it. Rambo kept me company all the way, every now and then getting a bit close so I was worried about the sharp scythe and asked him to move, which he did and it was so nice having him near. It was very hard work scything up here as, unlike the bank, the growth is quite sparse mainly and so it's hard to get a rhythm and feel the blade biting into anything.

I had had a shower after the humanure and feeding Rambo (including washing my hair and beard) and now, after these scything exertions I was ready for another one however of more necessity was a cup of tea which was quickly arranged and so I sat, with no top on as I sweated profusely, and chatted online while putting the cricket on. After a while I decided to get on with the another task identified earlier which was to bring some of the tables I had found earlier while getting together the wood for the humanure and use them to tidy the really messy tools in the downstairs store room. First of all I went and straightened things, picking up boxes that were sat on the floor and  because of the dreadful weather the dampness had risen through the floor and started rotting them. Not nice.

Stunning clouds from the balcony

I found a couple of boxes of books, a box of pens and other stuff, and my tea pot and so I brought them up to Room 13 and noticed that I had a message online so I sat down for a bit to chat. After this I rang my best mate as he had his birthday last week and I also wanted to nag him to come out to see me. While I was doing this I watched a cloud build and build through the window so after I got off the phone I popped onto the balcony to capture it; what a stunning sight.

"What are you doing up there, dad?"

While I was up there Rambo came wandering past, probably on one of his rounds of the property, and noticed me stood on the balcony. He came over, said hello, then wandered off again; maybe he is getting used to the sight of me up on the balcony where he cannot reach me.

No longer just piled up, this is better

So I went back in and continued with my tidying and I am very happy with what I have achieved. The whole room is pretty much tidy now with almost nothing left laying around and that which is still laying around is stuff I do have no home for, like my marshall amplifier. This I will move into the upstairs room when T is in tomorrow and maybe even I'll carry my records upstairs and then the room will only have what I want in it relatively long term.

Yet more storm clouds

And now to the title of the blog. Storms. More storms. Not just that which I mentioned earlier in the night, nor even the one which was thrashing around when I started typing, but the one which is outside now, a couple of hours later, still rumbling and it is still cold. What is this, it is mid June and it should be hot now, hot and dry. A comment received yesterday about my hay collection highlighted this using the saying "make hay while the sun shines" and right now we should be seeing settled heat with maybe a couple of thunderstorms over the entire summer; not three or four of them every day! Here is another one going past earlier just before I cooked dinner; it was so close that I took these stood in the doorway and did not venture out onto the balcony.

Jesus went straight in for his dinner

I had pulled a couple of chicken thighs out of the freezer earlier with the aim of having another sunday roast and, mid afternoon, chopped the tatties and put them in to roast and it was all going very well indeed, smelling lovely, so I chopped my cabbage and green beans and gave the offcuts to the boys as usual. Mo was not as interested as Jesus who emerged from his hole very quickly and buried himself into the pile of goodies; literally.

Sunday roast, Bulgarian style

While I was typing away dinner suddenly became ready so I stopped typing mid sentence and scarfed it down. It was so lovely; those green beans were such a good purchase and I am glad I have bought more and frozen them. The chicken was crispy skinned but was moist and gorgeous underneath, and the roasties were amazing as always. So gorgeous. What a lovely Sunday roast.

My chosen dram

I had a pint of beer with dinner to help wash it down but afterwards I decided to not have more beer but to pour a little splash of the Balcones Brimstone into a glass and I am still sipping away at it. This is one of my favourite whiskies and I am pleased to have a couple of bottles of it in reserve for when this one is dead.

Taken one minute apart, two directions

So I am getting to the close of this update and I will end it as I began; talking about the weather. In front of me, out of Room 13, I have blue sky and light clouds lit up prettily by the sun. The left hand picture above is taken looking out of the side window, but in the direction the main window points. If I turn round and look out the door across the corridor and out of the landing windows I see black clouds and the aforementioned thunder storm which is still hanging around and rumbling. That is the right hand picture above. Every now and then some rain comes pattering down outside and when I popped out just now it was actually cold outside again.

Tomorrow I have T back and I hope the weather is nice enough that he can be outside doing concreting but if not I'll help him out upstairs in the attic starting to shift down the wood and the tiles down. If he can be concreting then I will give putting the course of bricks up next to the internal bedroom window a go, making use of a small amount of the cement he makes. I really hope I sleep well again tonight as it will be an early start as I have to go and collect him. I do get the sofa tomorrow though.

EDIT

Dr Doolittle indeed

Well I had JUST hit publish (and hadn't even done any pimping) when I heard a sudden burst of tweeting from the corridor so I went out to check what was going on and all the babies from the next in what will be the living room have flown from it and were sitting on the windowsill. The problem was they were sitting on the one that has glass in it. They were fluttering around and trying to get out just kept bouncing off of the glass. Two of them made it correctly but the other two stayed sat there so I picked the first one up and took it to the open window and it flew away happily but as I went to get the second to repeat the rescue it flew off and into the bedroom and straight into the glass of the doorway, collapsing in a heap on the floor. I climbed through and went to pick him up but again he flew off and this time he flew into the brick wall. I almost caught him this time but he flew off my hand as I picked him up and repeated his mistake into the balcony door. He stayed still so I picked him up again and put him outside on the balcony, watching until he flew off. He sat still on my hand for quite a while after the last mistake and I think he had stunned himself. Poor little thing, but if they are now no longer needing their nest I will be going round sealing the entrances so they can't get in trouble like that again.