Walnuts

Wow what a full on day today has been; I'm sitting here, having just finished eating an interesting concoction  from A for dinner, watching some rugby and trying to get the energy up to go out and do the watering round. We've done loads of energetic work today and I'm feeling the effort now, sat here. Not that I'm complaining; it's great to work hard and feel tired from an honest days work.

Stones to sort through

So after finishing that paragraph I did drag myself outside and do the watering round which was really nice to do. It's lovely to see how things are going out there. But, to the update. I think we both slept pretty well last night. I don't remember moving at all through the night but A was up before me quite early, before the sun was up, letting the puppies out for their toilet. She came back in, with them, shouted at them when they jumped onto the bed, and we ended up having a lie in until 7.30 which is just unheard of for us. We did have a brew on the balcony for a bit, but the sun was well up and already feeling warm so we headed down to get on with the jobs for the morning. As explained yesterday my first job was to drag the best chunks of rock out to save for the driveway.

Loaded into the back of Thomas

By the time we got outside and ready to start work the workmen had arrived for the balcony. I went round and told them my task was to sort through the stones and one of them wouldn't take no for an answer but demanded to help me out. We worked well together and did two full loads in Thomas to the area I've been stacking them. Maybe I'll get round to digging out the trench and filling it with stones this year. We'll see.

Chopping wood once again

A had got the chainsaw out and was hard at work cutting up more firewood. We have so much to go through and we need to keep at it to make sure we don't have to be out there chopping wood when the weather finally changes. The wood is really hard and it takes a while to cut each log to pieces; much longer than it does for the wood from our own land. This should burn very well.

Logs stacked in the wood store

For my part I was starting to shift the cut wood into the wood shelter. I'm not totally sure where Bekir is going to build the walls however I figured I could start in the middle and move outwards. It didn't take me that long and, with a break in the middle for a brew and a rest, I stacked everything and the logs she had cut during the morning. After this we both were pretty tired and went in for breakfast and a rest.

Trying to cut it horizontally

For myself I made some bacon and egg butties (eggs from Kat from 8th and 10th September and they were brilliant) while A had some cereal and yoghurt. After a bit of a rest we headed back outside for the next job which was to cut down the rest of the walnut tree I had made a start of cutting down yesterday. We took the ladder down and carefully, checking at each stage to make sure it would fall correctly, we cut it all down. We were left with quite a tall stump and then A had the bright idea of trimming the top off "flat" so we could use it as a tabletop. I started off this and made a good go and then when I got exhausted (it is pretty hard wood) A took over so I could take some pictures of her.

It's a table, not a seat. Honest

We didn't get the top totally flat; A had selected the widest part of the trunk and cutting that was HARD, but we hadn't done too bad a job. The Little Lady came over to see what was going on, looking quite bemused at our actions but she understood when A said it would have coffee put on it. I think we should get some toughened glass and fashion a glass top for it which we can store inside during the winter, and set down on it during the summer. We shall see.

A really messy birds nest of twigs

As well as chopping this tree down we took the opportunity to cut down dead branches on the other walnut trees down there as well. Some of these went bouncing over the fence onto the lane but no matter. I am going to ask Bekir if there is anything I can paint on the stumps to prevent the ants getting in. It is clear that it is the ants which killed the one tree at least. While we were cutting these branches down we found a rough birds nest half way up one of the trees, balancing precariously in a fork. We did our best to keep it there but later on, when I was climbing this tree, I disturbed it so much it had to come down; what a shame.

Smiling and pretending it isn't heavy

Before going in for a quick break I cleared a few bits of the tree over to the wood cutting area and A got this picture of me smiling while I struggled; it was a heavy chunk of wood, that. We have loads more to move though there isn't very much room up the top so it'll have to wait down here for now.

Rugs spread to collect the walnuts

After a bit of a rest we gathered together our rugs and went back out for the next task. The walnuts are ready for havesting, we checked with Little Lady when she came to laugh at our table making efforts, and we wanted to get as much done today as possible. At first we went round collecting the easy to reach long hanging nuts and we got quite a lot this way but most of them were way our of reach.

Climbing trees is fun

Once we had everything that way we both climbed into the tree and shook branches to get fruit to drop. I'm not so good with heights but I must admit I did enjoy climbing the tree. We got as much as we could out of the first tree and then went to the one in the corner, next to the one we'd cut down, and I climbed quite a way up into that at one point, using a long stick to bash the branches and knock more nuts down to A on the ground. I'm a little monkey!

A big stick

Eventually the stick we had proved too puny and short so I went and got one of the really long straight trunks that had been left in the house when I first bought the place. This worked really well, though it was slightly unwieldy it reached right to the top branches. I was dropping it onto the branches while A was running around picking up the nuts when the felt. Once we had filled up a bucket load we decided to go inside as it was getting hot and we were really quite exhausted.

Starting to dry out our walnuts

We went onto the balcony to start taking the hard nut out of the green shells. We only lasted a short time up there as it was very hot and we were burning up. We took the rest of the box of unsorted walnuts and worked through them together on the sofa. With this done, and before we rested, we took them onto the roof terrace and spread them out on an old towel then covered them with my bird proofing thing.

It took over half an hour just to sort this bucketload out

We relaxed for the afternoon, I even got my game on for a bit, as we waited for the worst heat of the day to pass. A had a doze on the sofa at one point which was lovely as the puppies were laid on her as well and they were all asleep. After watching a game of rugby from the World Cup I decided the temperature was down enough and we should head out again and do some more walnut harvesting, even though at this point I was aching already really badly. We went back to the corner tree and continued bashing it with the big trunk We got quite a good haul this way but then the Little Lady came over saying "don't do it like that, do this" and in about 5 minutes she knocked down about as many as we had with the much lighter stick. Bless her she said we could borrow it for finishing the job tomorrow; they are SO generous. I was ready for stopping by this point but before I had a shower I sat for however long it took to split all of this down into husks and shells. It was not quick.

Good progress today on the balcony tiles

Good progress on the wall skimming also

The balcony men had been hard at work all day today laying the tiles on the floor and also skimming the walls as I had decided we should have the concrete skim on before we put the tiles up. They will be back in on Monday and maybe Tuesday to carry on with this and then it is a public holiday so everything stops.

Quite a haul of walnuts

I headed onto the roof with A's help (my back was really stiff from sitting shelling them) to empty all the shelled walnuts underneath the bird netting on the roof terrace. We have only done one tree, really, and there are five more trees to harvest and some of them are really stuffed with fruit. Tomorrow morning we will be up early and out to get on with the task.

Beautiful sky

I was lucky to get on the roof to get the picture of the walnut just at the peak of the sunset this evening. It was stunning as it almost always is. My camera has started playing up today, printing a "code 99" error which apparently means the shutter might be breaking. I managed to fix it, maybe permanently, by whacking it however this has gone back onto my list of "things I need". A new DSLR body which will fit my 450D lenses. Any advice out there?

Anyway, we've just watched Japan beat South Africa in the rugby, I've lost my voice from shouting at the tv in excitement, and so I'm going to sip my brew and watch a bit of the next match before heading to bed. I'm tired. Night all.