Archive for May 14th, 2008

14
May '08

Mowing

   Posted by: lyle    in Domestic, Getting Organised, Green Garden, House Work

Last week, we decided to get someone in to do the mowing of the grass in our garden. It’s something I’ve been doing, but it takes up a large amount of time on a weekend when we could be doing other things – sorting out the veg patch, for example. The entire garden is something like 8,000ft² (roughly 165′ x 65′, which is just over 10,000ft², but there’s other stuff in there than just grass, so I reckon it comes down to about 8,000ft²)

So we got a guy round on Friday to have a look, and he quoted us £30 to do the entire thing – mow it, strim the edges, and clear it all up. Not bad at all – yes sure, we could get someone cheaper (as Lionel pointed out elsewhere) but for the moment we’ll see how we do with this guy.

He turned up yesterday when we were both out, so I came home to a fully mowed garden. And he’s done a fantastic job – everything’s been done, the mowing, the strimming – even the dog toys were tidied away, (with the exception of one tennis ball that died – hardly a worry) and all the clippings plonked into our compost bins.

All in all, £30 well spent, in my opinion. Although we may need to buy a couple more compost bins before long.

14
May '08

Namesake

   Posted by: lyle    in Animals, Domestic

When we got the chickens back in November, we decided to name them after our grandmothers. (With the exception of one grandmother, who happened to have the same name as Herself – obviously that was a no-no)

One of the grandmothers- Gladys- was renowned as a dragon of epic proportions, and capable of having a right temper on her.

The chicken named after Gladys is turning into a similar creature – it’s very spooky. At the moment she’s all broody (again) and is pecking out at me whenever I try to move her. (The eggs aren’t fertile, she’s just sitting on them, and not getting up for food/water, which is a bit of an issue in the current temperatures) She’s even taken to pecking me when I put her on her perch at night – that’s a new development, only started this week.

All told though, it’s looking like we really should’ve thought more about the names before applying them to the girls. Ah well, live and learn.