Super busy Saturday

Wow what a day THAT was; busy but brilliant at the same time. I've a lot to cover so I'll get straight on to it other than to some stuff I forgot to put into the update yesterday. One amusing thing that happened was we heard Rambo making some noise, and another strange sound as well, while we were sat at our desk watching the tour and went to check out the window in Room 13. We found that two cows had managed to get in through the side gate (left open by the window people we think) and there followed an amusing chase as we both helped Mrs Other Brother to chase them back out onto the lane. They were the kmet's cows as well. We need to get the new gate hung, huh.

It was a late enough night in the end and both of us dropped off pretty quickly. I was woken at about 1am but thudding bass from music in the valley, probably a group of gypsies we had see in town earlier in the day and also by the side of the road a bit later. It was crazily loud and I was very tempted to get in the car and drive down and tell them to shut up. I decided to give it half an hour and headed back to bed, having opened the patio door to let some more air in. Within seconds of me doing this a bat flew in and started bouncing off the windows and walls in a panic. I had to turn the light on and open the fly screen to get it out again. A barely registered this excitement and had forgotten about it until I mentioned it first thing.

All the wasps in their nest in Julian

I did get back to sleep within the required half an hour which was good as my driving through the village to go and shut them up would have disturbed other people. When A woke up (or rather, the puppies made her wake up) I was still really tired and wasn't really aware of her leaving. Later as she came through with a brew for me I made her get back into bed for a bit, then we went out onto the balcony for our morning brew ritual. There was not a cloud in the sky and the heat was already getting up. I had a few things in my mind that I wanted to achieve today the first of which was to get the wasp nest out of the cooker exhaust on Julian.

Honeycomb structure with newest build on the right

Amazingly strong stem made of papiermache

Wasp nursery

It was such a shame to have to do this as I love these creatures and their amazing constructions however it wasn't good to have this wasp nest just behind the drivers door and actually starting to block up an important fuel vent. I sprayed with fly spray at first and then when they had all fallen down I got a stick and managed to detach the nest from the edge of the pipe. Then it was quite a hard task to pull it out as the gap was quite small and some of the wasps that were very close to hatching kept squirming out of their segments. Eventually I did get it through the gap. You can see if you look closely the embryonic wasps in the newest segments of the nest, and also sections where there are still young wasps cocooned. Amazing.

Decided this one wouldn't go up in Thomas

Loaded up once more

With this job done we went down to make a start on moving more of the deadfall wood to our collection point on the dust bowl. It was early still, before breakfast even, but the heat was really getting up and we had our hats on. We loaded the truck a couple of times during this time and emptied it up on the bank. It is only doing this that you realise just how much damage was done by that snow; there is LOADS of wood here.

Using my meat slicer

Feeling pleased to have got stuff done, and knowing that this was a step towards my "exhaust myself physically so I can sleep" challenge for the day, we headed inside for breakfast and I got the chance to play with my newest toy; the meat slicer. It worked like a dream and while I probably want slightly thicker cut bacon it is so easy to use I'll be able to do that next time (tomorrow). A was very happy with the thickness of the slices for her so that was good. This was bought from a lady on facebook and was a bargain; just what we needed.

After breakfast we plugged the new fridge in which was more complicated than planned as we had to put it on bricks so the power would reach the plug. We then thought the hot water was on so I went for a shower however unfortunately it died as I got in so I had a cold one. Never mind that, though, it was so lovely to feel just a small amount cleaner. Nothing will beat our new shower though when we have 500L of water above our heads forcing good pressure down through the boiler so we can get fully clean. With the shower done we headed to the other town to try and get the buckets we had ordered but once again a different lady was there and she denied all knowledge. I'm now fed up of driving all the way there over an unfinished road and so tomorrow we'll be going to our local hardware shop, with the one bucket we have bought, to see if they can get matching ones ordered.

First of all picking the low hanging fruit

When we got home A was really tired so she headed off for a rest and I got my game up on the computer and sat and played it for a bit which was really nice. Rather than stay there like that all day, however, I went out after a while and did another few loads of wood in Thomas. I got very hot (it was up around 35 degrees) and so left the final lot loaded in Thomas waiting to be unloaded which is where it still is now. I went and woke A up and was surprised she had slept all through the racket I was making outside while unloading the wood. She cooked us a lovely pasta meal and then after letting it go down we went out for the next task on the list; harvesting pears.

Then up a super safe ladder for higher prizes

We collected what we could reach from the ground then I took my life in my hands and climbed up the ladder to get the ones just out of reach. It is quite an uneven part of the land so we used a rock to wedge the ladder and I made sure A was footing it the whole time. Later she climbed so and then we moved it round to other parts of the tree. We barely even dented the fruit up there as most of it was out of reach but we filled a large tray within a few minutes. After last year, when we only got about 10 fruit in total, this is just so awesome.

Spot the puppies

They are still in there

The girls had come out with us and rapidly disappeared to play, as is their wont. I didn't know where they had gone at first but then heard a rustling and saw the shadowy shapes of two puppies wrestling right inside the pile of brush. I couldn't quite believe they had got in without ripping themselves on the sharp thorns on some of these branches however not only did they get in there fine they came out really quickly when we called; their recall is getting really awesome now.

Tour de France, and pear processing

And so it was inside and the rest of my day lay ahead of me, processing this huge pile of pears. The final day of racing on the Tour de France this year was on the TV so we set that up, A joining me in watching it, and I peeled, quartered and cored 1.6kg of pears over 2.5 hours. I did take some rests during this time but not that long; it just does take a lot of time particularly with such small fruit.

During this time we noticed that the forecast storm was blowing in. At first it was just an impressive cloud but then the thunder started faintly in the distance and finally it was nearly a continuous rumble with no breaks. I headed onto the balcony in one of the pauses in fruit-work and took this video. I really hope that you can hear the thunder as it wasn't all that loud, just never ending. Amazing. The storm eventually hit us and we even had some rain, the first proper rain for over two weeks and just what we needed with all the dust in the air.

Finally done, but my thumb is sore

Finally I finished doing half of the pears in the tray which was all I had chosen for the pear preserve (which is amazing in natural yoghurt, so much so I ran out completely of my supplies from last year) and we settled down to watch the end of the days racing. It was really awesome, so tense and exciting and for a while it looked like Quintana may steal the yellow jersey from Froome on the last day however an amazing final push with two of his mates helping him out limited Quintana's lead over the line and Froome is Tour de France winner for the second time. What a three weeks it has been.

Boiling up the leavings to get juices

With the stage finished our evening suddenly became a rush as it was actually quite late. I put the peelings in a bowl with some water and lemon shavings to simmer while I started on the next bit of chopping; splitting the pears into smaller cubes. This took me absolutely ages and my thumbs are now both totally shredded (though not hurting or bleeding as I only went through the top layer of skin) from chopping.

Hard boil with sugar and fruit in

A helped me out by putting some jam jars in the oven to heat for when I would be ready to fill them as the chopping was taking me so much longer than planned. Eventually it was done, my hands raw with cuts and also all the juices making them prune, so I strained out the liquid from the peelings, finding I had rather too much so saving the left overs for tomorrow's attempt, and added the fruit, then the sugar, and got it boiling fast. While this was going on A was feeding the chickens and I was out lighting the BBQ.

I expected to make a bit more than this

With the jam bubbling I made use of some very brief hot water and did the washing up and then it was ready to bottle. I did the first few myself but then A came to give me a hand which made it a bit easier. It was slightly discouraging to end up with five jars of preserve after five hours of working and 1.6 kg of fruit. As A said however she remembers this from last year. Oh well, it'll taste awesome.

Very successful BBQ

The chicken in no way set on fire due to both of us running around and not paying any attention to the cooking process however even with the slight blackening dinner was outstanding. We ate on the balcony with the girls bouncing around and causing us several times to almost fall off our chairs laughing at their antics. It was also good to see Baker (who had been reintroduced to the flock yesterday) coming out and milling around with the rest of them, though KitKat did have a bit of a go at her at one point and prompted both of us to shout at them.

Shafts of light as the sun sets

The storm had really cleared the air and the follow up sunset was stunning. We couldn't sit for long however as most of the chores had not been done. I went down to do the watering round (the rain hadn't fallen that much) and then came in to get this blog started. A made use of the return of hot water to have a lovely hot shower and I'm wishing I had as well.

It's been a super day today and tomorrow promises to be awesome as well, with some friends on their way to see us for the day. We have lots of stuff planned for first thing in the morning before they arrive so let's see if we achieve it all.