Working til we drop

As per usual our Sunday is hardly a day of rest; I'm starting to type this relatively early as we have both worked ourselves into exhaustion. Maybe it'll be a film night tonight again. Anyway, without any further delay, onwards...

Some autumn flower coming through

We both slept well last night, without the petchka going this time as it was warmer again. I was up twice in the night with the puppies as they both had to go more than once which is unusual but I was able to get back to sleep pretty quickly afterwards. A barely registered any disturbance both times as well. We had quite a good lie in this morning but eventually the drive to get stuff done dragged us out of bed. Before I'd even made a brew I went straight outside to empty the humanure buckets. The new sawdust isn't as good as the old but it's doing a job. While I was down emptying them out I saw a lovely blue flower popping up through the twigs and leaves. I spotted a few more afterwards. What are these?

A much cleaner garden

We made our brews and then got on with our chores. I was down by the wood to clear away all the bits and pieces we had collected the other day, breaking most of them into kindling to empty into the pile in the garage, while A was in the garden clearing out the old tomato plants and weeding around generally. After about an hour or so I wandered round to see how A was going and found that she had made some pretty impressive progress.

Wheeling some weeds to the compost heap

Of course I was just in time to help her out by shifting the wheelbarrow that was fully overloaded with weeds. Our compost heap, down past the green building, has been settling nicely so it was good to stack more on top of it again. We were both feeling a little hungry so I headed inside to make bacon and egg butties for both of us. These were amazing and just what was required to keep us going this morning.

Really swollen; quite concerned by this

I mentioned yesterday that Louise's eye was starting to swell up again. Unfortunately it got worse over night and this is what it looks like right now. We've been putting the eye drops in that the vet gave last time, and also treating with salt water and ice, but it is not getting any better. It isn't getting worse again though which is good but our plan now is to get her to the vet tomorrow morning, going with Bekir so he can't fob us off, and get it properly checked out. Poor little princess. She doesn't seem that bothered by it, but it has started to a bit as she keeps trying to rub her eye with her leg.

Cutting up the last of the wood

After eating breakfast we made another brew and both went back out to continue our tasks. For me this was getting the chainsaw running and cutting up all the thicker chunks of wood. I switched my brain off and cut and cut and cut, throwing the ball for Thelma while I was at it. She never tires, that puppy. I felt myself getting a bit of a headache again from the fumes but kept going anyway. There wasn't a whole lot to do and getting this finished would mean the next task on the list would be possible.

A trailer full of brush wood

When I finished the chainsawing we went over for coffee with the neighbours and then they came back with us to have a look at the progress, as The Other Brother and his wife haven't been over for a few weeks. It's always nice to spend time with them and hopefully we'll see more of them again now. After this I went straight out and shifted the chopped wood inside while A got on with the last bits in the garden. It was then time to start the next job which was to move all the thorny bushes that were piled up by the side. We stacked it into the trailer and then I pulled it up to the burning circle and unloaded it.

We made an impromptu bonfire

As we were stacking it all up we decided that we would actually burn it all today rather than waiting for the bonfire party as we had quite a lot of brush here and it was quite a volume. It wasn't that easy to get the pyramid effect, particularly as there are loads of thorns on every branch and it bit back a lot. We didn't fit all the brush on this time so I stacked the remaining up to one side to add on once a bit had burned off.

Getting a good blaze on here

Throwing the edge bits onto the top

We got it lit eventually, after some struggles with rubbish matches, and pretty soon it was roaring away. We sat and watched it for a bit then I got up and went on patrol to make sure there was no spread, and also to keep feeding the bits and pieces on top of the flames so it burned up quickly. It was a pretty hot in close but burned fast so I was able to keep safe while working in close. It's good that we got rid of all of this brush so we can build a monster bonfire for two weeks time.

Using my super reversing skills

With the fire blazing away we stayed but once it had died down enough to leave we headed down to carry on. We didn't know the time at this point and probably should have stopped for lunch but we were on a roll. I first reversed the new trailer down and up onto the patio where it will stay until the driveway is finished then we went up and hitched the old trailer on and I backed that down as well. We then shifted the tent and the chopping block to its new location and now the dust bowl is cleared so tomorrow Gyuner can maybe make a start digging holes to plant the fruit trees in.

Two trailers parked up safely

We headed in after this and fount it was about half past two which is way too late to eat but we just hadn't felt massively hungry up to that point. Rather than do anything major we reheated a little of the rabbit stew from last night and this was just enough for us. After this we went back out and A hung out the washing and I started shoveling up the sawdust into white bags for use in the toilets. I only took one bag out thinking there wasn't that much there and then found it was about 5 inches deep and I ended up filling four bags and could have got more. The problem was by this point we were both exhausted and didn't want to keep moving.

So we came inside and I've typed this up to finish early while watching Ireland lose to Argentina with a sad heart as I wanted them to win for A. The chicken is in the oven for our dinner tonight and we're probably going to get the fire going and watch a film tonight. My plans to tidy the store room and the gardening room has totally gone out of the window (though I MAY go now and do a bit of it, we'll see) so that'll now be a fill in job for during the day tomorrow if I get annoyed by work.