Claire's Bed

 Just to prove the first one was not a fluke I repeated the trick with Claire's bed.

Emma’s Bed

Can you spot the difference?

Before

And after

New headboard, new foot rail, sprung beech bed slats and a mattress with her name on it.

 

 

 

The 2'6" bed is now 3". I just have to do the same with Claire's now.

 

Asian Hornets

 Within 36 hours of phoning the town hall the exterminator arrived. 

Tap on the image and you should see a larger version. The nest is just above the end of his pole. He sprayed it with a natural insecticide derived, I think , from the geranium plant. 

And a close up of the nest.

Filling up the raised bed

 Start with some old logs and bark

Add some well rotted grass clippings

Then the remains of the runner bean plants and the contents of the troughs they grew in.

 

Hoping for some rain now to settle that lot down a bit.

I have some more compost to go on top which the courgettes are currently growing in.

Raised bed in final position. A weed suppressing mat was laid underneath and around the outside and pine needles saved from the pine tree before it was felled were spread on top.

 

Those Douglas Fir and Black Pine logs were cut by a local sawmill for €65 euros. The spruce was not planked as was not wide enough

Stacked up outside the barn.

I had to buy a draw knife from ebay to help with the bark stripping. This would have been a doddle when the wood was freshly cut but after just a few months the bark is dry and stuck like glue.

The joints are called half dovetail notches and with the help of this template were not too difficult to cut. Although extreme care when marking and measuring was required. Working with live edge boards made life difficult as there was no uniform width but the finished affect was worth the aggro.

 

All the joints were cut by hand outdoors as at 2.2 metres the boards were too long for the workshop. A folding Japanese kabata saw was a doddle to use for both cross cut and rip cuts. A folding saw helped to protect the fragile but very sharp teeth while not in use.

The top boards needed one uniform square bottom edge and the top boards a slightly angled uniform top edge to do this meant taking the bandsaw outside.

The finished raised bed is at a height that should make it easy for Claire to use it without having to bend or kneel. I will line the sides with a waterproof material leaving the ends open for drainage probably with some added wire mesh to stop the soil falling out. And moisture trapped between the waterproof material and the boards should escape through the gaps between the boards.

We had a few trees down

In amongst here are two Douglas Fir trees and a Spruce which were in the corner behind the main gate.

In the the back garden in the right hand corner was this Black Pine

 

A local sawmill can plank the largest logs from the Fir and Pine Trees. Not sure if that is cost effective yet but of they can they will provide some 3" planks which I have a cunning plan for.

 

The smaller logs have now all been stripped of their bark.

 

And will be used either around the veg plot.

 

Or I shall make a raised bed, log cabin style.

 

Our Hedgehog's back

I would like to feed them. To do so would encourage the marten which I am not so keen on.

Stone/Beech Marten

 Note the time, just 9.35pm. Very much still daylight then and I did not go out to close the chicken coop until just after 10pm. Just as well he did not find the front door.

Trail Cam

What do we have here then?

A Mouse

Erm... Not sure what this is, probably the marten again. Note it is half the size of the cat.

A cat.

And here are the images I took back in December.

Basketball hoop

We made a basketball hoop.

It's a bit wobbly but could I could only use the timber I had to hand.

 

    

Hedge be gone

Anne and I have been cutting down our neighbours hedge. Brambles in there as thick as my wrist. Our garden to the left of the fence.

 We then dump the stuff on the large pile of existing hedge prunings at the bottom of their field.

 We get a much improved view. The hedge was above the horizon.

I hope the neighbours won't mind