New friend

Last night I left you as I was heading to bed.  When I went in the bedroom was a little smoky still and the petchka just hadn't built up enough heat for me to brave getting in, so I came back into Room 13 and poured another small beer to allow it to sort itself.  It's a hard life.

As I was just about to climb into bed, the power cut off and I laid there waiting for it to come back on for quite a while until I finally submitted to sleep.  I flicked the lamp off so that it didn't startle me from my sleep if it suddenly gained power again.  I slept like the proverbial log and did not awake until gone 7am local time, just as the sun was tipping the mountains across the valley.  This is late for me, so I must have needed the rest.

Sunrise to wake up to

My first jobs of the morning are to feed both Sassy and Rambo and to light the fire.  This morning, the fire got priority as there has been a fairly hefty frost.  So with that done, I went in and sat with Sassy for ten minutes.  She is a friendly little thing.  I have never had a rabbit, so was a bit concerned when I had to adopt her, as such, but I am feeling more and more confident with her now.  She came straight over for a fuss and then I sat down on the floor and let her acquaint herself with my fleece pyjama bottoms! I have swapped her back from an evening feed to a morning feed after her stay at S and S over winter as i am afraid that I will forget to feed her if I don't do them both at the same time.  They really did a fabulous job of looking after her.  Her coat is not just shining, but gleaming and she is so content now that she has settled in again.  As usual, Rambo was very excited to be greeted this morning.  He is always bouncing and wanting to play.  I was thinking that rather than feeding him immediately that maybe I should let him out and do his thing for a little while before resuming the old breakfast routine of feeding him in his enclosure.  He seems to be leaving some of his food and not eating all of it in one go, going back later to finish it.  With the rats around, I would prefer that he ate it all in one go.  We'll see.

Talking of the rats, I had begun to think we were winning with these little blighters because there was little sign of them over the last few days and the poison was being eaten or at least nibbled.  I threw down two more sachets in the downstairs store/tool room last night where they had there nest and where they had taken a previous sachet to a nest we had found in there and lo and behold, both sachets had disappeared by this morning.  This is both good AND bad.  It is good because they are taking the poison, but also bad because I think it means that there are more of them than I had hoped. Nevertheless, I am staying right on top of it.  I do get a little of jubilation when I see they have taken some however, when I saw they has nibbled and moved the sachet behind the cabinet in Room 13, I was less than enthralled.  There have been no signs of them upstairs for a few days and I thought perhaps our movements and presence had deterred them and kept them downstairs, apparently not.  I will have to lay more tonight.

Definitely nibbled

I had some work sent through overnight, so I quickly made a coffee and cracked on with that.  The time difference allows me a few hours in the morning, so if I have work to do I can generally do it first thing and crack on with some chores - which is exactly what happened today.  I realised that the Mr will want to see as much of what is going on whilst he is suffering in the UK, with his central heating and electric shower, gas hobs and functioning oven (only kidding lol), as possible so I took a walk around the building after I noticed that the water build up around the base of the building had almost disappeared completely.  Only one section of retention remains and that is below the floor level in one of the back store rooms, so all is good!

Back of the house, water free

Beside the gararge

The side

I then, after the realisation of the rat situation, took a small amount of burning rubbish out to the fire pit and burnt that.  I have been super careful about food and scraps and washing up the dishes at night now, as we used to do them first thing in the morning.  Hopefully it is helping to deter them anyway.  After burning I went out to the balcony and fed the birds.  I have seen an increasing number of the last few days and see regular flocks arriving into the area.  It is lovely to see and to wake up to, so I thought I would feed them the scraps of bread that we had had left over and see if they will get into a habit of eating it off the balcony.  I went out to see a few times and there were significantly fewer bits the last time, but as I didn't see them eat any, it could have been wind blowing it off.  Who knows?

After this and just before the UK business hour began I managed to get down and saw some wood as I was running low again.  Even with an electric saw it is hard to keep on top of this.  In fairness, the wood we are using at the moment is all the old wood from the roof, so it is not good quality burning wood - still, no reason to waste it, it still burns!

For most of the day until early afternoon I had lots of work to be getting on with - one has to earn a living!  I was consumed for around three hours solid with my work before I decided to take a bit of a break.  The Mr reminded me that he had planted some bulbs out last year and I had said I would go and have a look and see if they survived.  To be fair, I think they are coming along great.  Plants and trees are wonderful, such fight in them to survive a winter like this one!

Bulbs sprouted

As I was chitty chatting on Facebook last night it was suggested that I was in almost a Castaway situation (film with Tom Hanks on an island, if you haven't seen it) and that I needed a friend like his volley ball, Wilson.  So, I decided I would get myself a friend to keep me company when Rambo has been naughty and has to be locked away.  I present to you, Tommy!

Meet Tommy!

Tommy and I had a bonding session this afternoon over a beer.

Tommy's first beer

Rambo is not as happy as I am about the new arrival to The Old School.  I guess he will get used to him.

Tastes ok to me!

Moving on....  When The Mr did the humanure buckets before he left we had forgotten to include the food waste bin, so today was the day of my first solo experience of humanure.  I took a deep breath and went for it, simply uncovering the hay, moving aside a bit of the compost and chucking it in and covering it back over with the hay and then, the grate that had been sitting in the garden to dry off. Easy peasy and no smells.

Grate back in place

I made Rambo sit on the drive through the whole process then came up to scrub my hands.  I thought I would take him down a biscuit treat when I saw him as I came out onto the porch leaning over the pit and having a good old sniff.  he knows he is not allowed near it and when I shouted at him and sent him into his bed in the porch, with a sharp slap on the snout, he knew he'd done wrong.  So he didn't get his biscuit in the end.  He'll learn.

With evening fast approaching I suddenly realised that I hadn't brought any wood upstairs from the pile I had cut earlier, so off I went, gathering enough for this evening in Room 13 and then later tonight for the bedroom.  It burns so fast that I am getting through a fair amount.  When we order our good wood for next winter it will burn much hotter and slower, thankfully - cutting it all up is back breaking work, even with an electric saw.

Rubbish wood

Better rubbish wood

I also realised as the sun was setting very fast (and I yet again missed that photo opportunity) that I had not emptied the ashes from the petchka in the bedroom.  There were two night's worth in there so I quickly ran and emptied it.  It's a dirty job, but not a difficult one.  So I am now all set for heating this evening and as I type this I am preparing some dinner so that I can perhaps get an earlier night tonight as I am tired again.

I will leave you here tonight as I want to speak with the man Himself back home after I eat and could do with a nice relaxing evening to fully enjoy the peace and quiet of our home.

Leka nosht!
A x