Emily and Caitlin spent a few days with us and we had a delightful time. Emily had suggested that she could travel at a time that would allow me to catch the 926 to Inverary and then travel back to Whitehouse with them. Things worked out beautifully especially when Caitlin decided to give her lungs a rest! For the rest of the visit we were is serious tourist mode and for once the weather co-operated.
There was a nostalgic trip to the Meadows intervals session to celebrate Martin Hyman’s 80th birthday. I managed 5x600m and although the seconds were the same as before, I’m not sure that the minutes were.
Most of the rest of the month has been spent out of doors keeping on top of the weeds and creating another clearing in the “wilderness”. The plan is to make at least one new clearing a year and as soon as I started doing it, memories of the summer of 2006 when I spent a few months slashing and burning the rhodies, came flooding back. At least we now have a proper shower!
The clearing involved processing a fallen cherry tree into firewood. I wanted to use the two wheel tractor to carry the logs to the wood store. Unfortunately, the trailer tyres were completely perished and being old fashioned mini tyres (145×10), they don’t seem to be available anymore. Perhaps I’ll be able to pick up something equivalent from a scrap dealer next time we visit the Central Belt. Still managed to barrow the logs by hand and we now have all of the storage bays full.
The “Lawnflite” strimmer head finally broke but I managed to get a replacement so the strimming could be completed. I tried using the old Flymo to see if it would speed things up but working with long extension leads is a bit cumbersome. I priced a flail mower attachment for the tractor but at more than £1000 it is just too expensive. Even a cheaper rotary mower attachent would cost about £750! The sterling/euro rate must be pretty dire at the moment.
The bottom pond decided to empty itself again and I finally managed to discover why. There is a functioning field drain in the bottom of the pond (the first one I’ve discovered anywhere in the garden) the inlet to which must sometimes be covered, allowing the pond to fill. I’ve extended the pipe so that it can be used as the permanent outlet for the pond. Hopefully, this will allow the land below the pond to dry out, which would be good because there is a huge fallen cedar that needs to be processed.