Quite an early start, and a trip into town with Gill and our eldest. Ended up going to Millers Yard for a mocha and coffee, and Waterstones to get Asterix books, the current favourite with our boys. Enjoyed the walk back home with son beside me.
And a good day followed too, I did quite a bit of work outside, and finished my arty logpile.
I tidied up some more stuff down the garden, shredded the ivy delivered a day or to ago, with help from one of our youngest son's friends, which was nice.
At 7pm, headed off to St John's to a York Green Festival meeting, Rand chaired and I took notes. It was a good meeting, lots of energy and enthusiasm.
Came home via the cycle track and just manhandled a large tree stump onto my trailer, I took the plastic box out and put that on my pannier rack, filled with woodchips from the shredding the tree surgeons did. A good haul!
Emailing as usual until late, interspersed with a bath as working tomorrow, and no-one likes a smelly entertainer!
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Monday 6th April 09
Another good day, after a late start I did my Community Care Blog and then at midday headed into town to a meeting with my Transition buddies down at City Screen, to discuss the publicity around The Age of Stupid, and the panel members for the discussion afterwards.
I then went to chat to the proprietor of 'One' Ethical Boutique, about a possible publicity stunt for the film, and my building society to pay in a cheque, the council to give in some paperwork, and finally to see Dylan at Millers Yard, and a good chat and collected several sacks of oranges and coffee grounds, which I promptly took to the St Nicks Fields composting area. All that pet shop sawdust needs some nitrogen-rich stuff!
Home for a very late lunch... 3pm and then did a bit in the garden, clearing up some of the riddling before tea and then another meeting, this time a YorkLETS meeting which I chaired and I think was a successful meeting.
Home by 10, and had to do more writing, this time the proposed text for the Age of Stupid flyer/poster.
I then went to chat to the proprietor of 'One' Ethical Boutique, about a possible publicity stunt for the film, and my building society to pay in a cheque, the council to give in some paperwork, and finally to see Dylan at Millers Yard, and a good chat and collected several sacks of oranges and coffee grounds, which I promptly took to the St Nicks Fields composting area. All that pet shop sawdust needs some nitrogen-rich stuff!
Home for a very late lunch... 3pm and then did a bit in the garden, clearing up some of the riddling before tea and then another meeting, this time a YorkLETS meeting which I chaired and I think was a successful meeting.
Home by 10, and had to do more writing, this time the proposed text for the Age of Stupid flyer/poster.
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Sunday 5th April 09
A super day... nice slow start and then did loads of my favourite activity in the garden, digging out a compost heap and riddling, also sorted out some of the pots from last year's tomatoes and other conservatory veg, by tipping out the spent growing medium and rubbing it through a riddle and taking out the biggest roots. The crumbly soil I put on the raised beds and around the garden where I feel the soil level needs building up.
The boys played in the garden too, my eldest helped cut up a pile of green potatoes thrown out by the grocers so they could go on the compost heap and have a chance of not growing!
Rakesh rang me and asked if I'd take some sacks of ivy he's cut down from a tree in his garden, as he cannot take them to Hazel Court as he has a van and it requires a permit, which he hasn't applied for. I told him I'd be happy to recycle his ivy for him, so he drove round and dropped it off. I'll feed it through the shredder and bung it in the now empty Compostumbler along with the next couple of week's greengrocer's 'resources'...
Gill made pizza dough and did a brilliant pizza, with the first of the purple sprouting broccoli out of the garden as a side dish, and potatoes from Country Fresh.
This weekend must have been one of the best weekends we've had for quite a while, pretty peaceful, lots of friends to play with and good weather so outside activities were possible and fun.
Let's hope for more days like these.
The boys played in the garden too, my eldest helped cut up a pile of green potatoes thrown out by the grocers so they could go on the compost heap and have a chance of not growing!
Rakesh rang me and asked if I'd take some sacks of ivy he's cut down from a tree in his garden, as he cannot take them to Hazel Court as he has a van and it requires a permit, which he hasn't applied for. I told him I'd be happy to recycle his ivy for him, so he drove round and dropped it off. I'll feed it through the shredder and bung it in the now empty Compostumbler along with the next couple of week's greengrocer's 'resources'...
Gill made pizza dough and did a brilliant pizza, with the first of the purple sprouting broccoli out of the garden as a side dish, and potatoes from Country Fresh.
This weekend must have been one of the best weekends we've had for quite a while, pretty peaceful, lots of friends to play with and good weather so outside activities were possible and fun.
Let's hope for more days like these.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Saturday 4th April 09
Excellent day... spent lots of it outside working. Kids played, all was happy.
Our youngest went to the Yorkshire Museum quite early, with Ros and her son, to wave the 'Roman Coin' at the Portable Antiquities people. The consensus was that it was a reproduction... what a pity!
Simon came round with his son, and our eldest played with him whilst Gill and I chatted with Simon over a cuppa. I then cycled over to Goodramgate to visit Oxfam which sells big tubs of Cafedirect instant FairTrade coffee, 500g for £14.99, a somewhat better price than the Scummerfield 100g jar I got yesterday (as we'd run out!) for something like £3.40 I think. Anyway, I like to buy stuff from Oxfam. I then went on to Sainsburys and spent the same again on assorted things and came back along the cycle path and brought back sticks.
Then did a load of composting jobs... dug out a static tumbler (one which has ceased to rotate as the frame broke but I still use the drum for putting tumbled compost in, to mature) and then emptied the Compostumbler 600l machine, forking the stuff into a dalek. The children helped me with some riddling, using the Rotaseive. Did loads of this, after they'd done a couple of loads. They played on the trampoline and made mud bricks and built a wall.
A lovely but hard working day.
Our youngest went to the Yorkshire Museum quite early, with Ros and her son, to wave the 'Roman Coin' at the Portable Antiquities people. The consensus was that it was a reproduction... what a pity!
Simon came round with his son, and our eldest played with him whilst Gill and I chatted with Simon over a cuppa. I then cycled over to Goodramgate to visit Oxfam which sells big tubs of Cafedirect instant FairTrade coffee, 500g for £14.99, a somewhat better price than the Scummerfield 100g jar I got yesterday (as we'd run out!) for something like £3.40 I think. Anyway, I like to buy stuff from Oxfam. I then went on to Sainsburys and spent the same again on assorted things and came back along the cycle path and brought back sticks.
Then did a load of composting jobs... dug out a static tumbler (one which has ceased to rotate as the frame broke but I still use the drum for putting tumbled compost in, to mature) and then emptied the Compostumbler 600l machine, forking the stuff into a dalek. The children helped me with some riddling, using the Rotaseive. Did loads of this, after they'd done a couple of loads. They played on the trampoline and made mud bricks and built a wall.
A lovely but hard working day.
Friday, 3 April 2009
Friday 3rd April 09
Gill did all the early stuff, I got up, breakfasted, Gill came back from delivering our youngest to school, and we went back to bed as this is the last chance we have for a lie in for a fortnight... both boys are early risers, like Gill. Got up again at 11, I went to Thomas the Baker for Yesterbake bread and some pasties for tea, and the Co-op for some other bits. Met Stephen and as usual, 'chewed the fat' with him, putting the world to rights.
Came back to find Ai's wormery has been delivered. WRAP has a deal with assorted local authorities, through the Recycle Now website, they offer reduced price composting equipment. You put in your postcode and a range of different compost bins and wormeries comes up, with different prices in different areas. In Ali's area, there wasn't a Can O Worms available, but there was in York and North Yorkshire, so she ordered one to be delivered here. Se did this just in time, as now I cannot find any wormeries available on this website! The best price deal that I've found today is in Lancashire, where a 'dalek' compost bin can be had for £3 or £5, with a delivery charge of £5. But I put in postcodes of people I know in Shropshire, Cambridge, Norwich, Hebden Bridge and Leeds, and there are good deals to be had in all of these. My 'top buy' is the 330 litre Compost Converter 'dalek' bin.
I had lunch with Gill and then got on with processing the large logs out the front. I just managed to saw through the really thick cherry trunk and split the chunks, stacking them by the side of the house to dry. One of my neighbours told me that he thought my logpiles were untidy, and that he sometimes smelt smoke from the stove. I apologised for the occasionally poor management of the stove, which only burns smoke free when burning hot and with the air coming through the turbobaffle. Sometimes Gill opens up the air under the grate to get it burning well, and then forgets to close it. Sometimes a log goes on which doesn't catch properly, and it smoulders rather than burn cleanly and heat up well. So these stoves are only smoke free if they are well managed. I didn't tell my neighbour that I found his cars ugly, but I did, in passing, mention the invisible and smell-free carbon dioxide pollution that cars emit in very large amounts, but this was dismissed. Depressing. We ought to live in a smallholding really, where having a few tonnes of logs stacked around the place wouldn't upset the neighbours.
Gill did the school run and the boys had some visitors to play with. Melody and Ros came to drink coffee and chat. I visited Country Fresh and Freshways, to collect my not very fresh stuff.
Melody left soon after I got back, and had been given some garlic bulbs by Gill as I've got dozens and she pickles them. Next to the front door were another 50? or so garlics, thrown out by the veg shops, and I'd been intending to pickle these. I gave them all to Melody, as she's far better at doing pickles than me, she was ecstatic. In return, she'll give me a jar or two of the finished product, yippee!
Tea was delicious... I cropped some of the Shiitake mushrooms and gently fried them in olive oil on the stove, appreciated by all the males in the house (don't think Gill's too keen) and some of yesterday's lasagna and pastie and potatoes.
A warm and cosy evening. Did more dried pears.
Came back to find Ai's wormery has been delivered. WRAP has a deal with assorted local authorities, through the Recycle Now website, they offer reduced price composting equipment. You put in your postcode and a range of different compost bins and wormeries comes up, with different prices in different areas. In Ali's area, there wasn't a Can O Worms available, but there was in York and North Yorkshire, so she ordered one to be delivered here. Se did this just in time, as now I cannot find any wormeries available on this website! The best price deal that I've found today is in Lancashire, where a 'dalek' compost bin can be had for £3 or £5, with a delivery charge of £5. But I put in postcodes of people I know in Shropshire, Cambridge, Norwich, Hebden Bridge and Leeds, and there are good deals to be had in all of these. My 'top buy' is the 330 litre Compost Converter 'dalek' bin.
I had lunch with Gill and then got on with processing the large logs out the front. I just managed to saw through the really thick cherry trunk and split the chunks, stacking them by the side of the house to dry. One of my neighbours told me that he thought my logpiles were untidy, and that he sometimes smelt smoke from the stove. I apologised for the occasionally poor management of the stove, which only burns smoke free when burning hot and with the air coming through the turbobaffle. Sometimes Gill opens up the air under the grate to get it burning well, and then forgets to close it. Sometimes a log goes on which doesn't catch properly, and it smoulders rather than burn cleanly and heat up well. So these stoves are only smoke free if they are well managed. I didn't tell my neighbour that I found his cars ugly, but I did, in passing, mention the invisible and smell-free carbon dioxide pollution that cars emit in very large amounts, but this was dismissed. Depressing. We ought to live in a smallholding really, where having a few tonnes of logs stacked around the place wouldn't upset the neighbours.
Gill did the school run and the boys had some visitors to play with. Melody and Ros came to drink coffee and chat. I visited Country Fresh and Freshways, to collect my not very fresh stuff.
Melody left soon after I got back, and had been given some garlic bulbs by Gill as I've got dozens and she pickles them. Next to the front door were another 50? or so garlics, thrown out by the veg shops, and I'd been intending to pickle these. I gave them all to Melody, as she's far better at doing pickles than me, she was ecstatic. In return, she'll give me a jar or two of the finished product, yippee!
Tea was delicious... I cropped some of the Shiitake mushrooms and gently fried them in olive oil on the stove, appreciated by all the males in the house (don't think Gill's too keen) and some of yesterday's lasagna and pastie and potatoes.
A warm and cosy evening. Did more dried pears.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Thursday 2nd April 09
Gill left to go to visit her sister in West Yorkshire at just after 8am, so I took our youngest into school and came back via Fastpack on Lilac Avenue, which has an impressive range of nuts and bolts, tools and building materials. They sell bow saw blades, and I'd agreed to get a new one for Pauline's 24 inch bow saw as hers was blunt. Then I cycled down to Cycle Heaven where they have had a new wheel hub waiting for me for ages, and I left my bike with them whilst I walked round to Pauline's, had coffee and chats, chopped a little bit of firewood for her, and got back to the bike shop by 10.40. They had sorted out my back wheel, brakes and a brake cable.
Then to the main Post Office, as someone has sent me a package with not enough postage on it, and to the Council to give in the Planning Panel paperwork. Walked through the footstreets and then, cycling down Walmgate, saw a 'ripe' skip containing some good-looking wood, so stopped and chatted to the builders who were happy to help me load up some very old oak beams. Then, on Hull Road, as I was pulling up to the traffic lights, a van overtook me with a good pile of tree-prunings in the back, including some huge cherry logs. I pulled up alongside and asked them if they would like to drop off some of them just up the road. They asked where, and when I said it was just a minute away, they said they'd follow me, so I sped off, despite my heavy load, and they followed. Well worth it, as they gave me some massive chunky and dead-dry cherry logs, one trunk is about 50cm in diameter!
Stopped for a few minutes for lunch, but then got going again, sorting out some of the wood at the front and then started to prepare tea, ingredients for a lasagna. I did a roux and added lumps of cheese for a cheese sauce, and brought some sliced carrot and cauliflower up to the boil to take off the crunch before adding it to the lasagna. When I got back from school I layered up the sheets of pasta (no-pre-cook type), dollops of butternut and leek soup, slices of tomato, slices of carrot and cauliflower florets and the cheese sauce. I only put the cheese sauce in one of the bottom layers and all over the top, and then microwaved it for 10 minutes. Then, to finish it off and crisp the top, I bunged it in the gas oven for a few minutes. Gill arrived in and after saying hi to us all, tottered off upstairs to go to bed; she needed an hour's rest after going over to Ilkley and seeing her nephew's new baby and their delightful toddler too.
The lasagna was really good, both boys loved it, and so did I. I don't cook as often as I used to, and should do more really. At least I don't leave it all to Gill to do... and I won't let her do any washing up as I'm definitely better than her at that!
We had some fruit for pudding and then the boys went outside to play. Gill came down and I put the remains of the soup on the stove for her, this is what she had said she wanted. I went out to finish off the shredding. I was nearly done when our next-door neighbour Ken shouted at me to come and look at something. He showed me his lawn, which had two patches of pigeon feathers on it, and Diane, his wife, told me she'd watched a Sparrowhawk pulling the feathers off the pigeon and eating the whole thing up. There were literally only feathers left. It is fantastic to know that this urban environment supports a top predator like this. I've not seen the Sparrowhawk here, but Gill saw it swoop towards our bird table a while ago, but it didn't get anything that time.
I showed the boys the evidence of the Sparrowhawk, and then it was time for their supper, and at about 9 they were both heading for bed, having had a happy day. Looking forward to the holidays!
Then to the main Post Office, as someone has sent me a package with not enough postage on it, and to the Council to give in the Planning Panel paperwork. Walked through the footstreets and then, cycling down Walmgate, saw a 'ripe' skip containing some good-looking wood, so stopped and chatted to the builders who were happy to help me load up some very old oak beams. Then, on Hull Road, as I was pulling up to the traffic lights, a van overtook me with a good pile of tree-prunings in the back, including some huge cherry logs. I pulled up alongside and asked them if they would like to drop off some of them just up the road. They asked where, and when I said it was just a minute away, they said they'd follow me, so I sped off, despite my heavy load, and they followed. Well worth it, as they gave me some massive chunky and dead-dry cherry logs, one trunk is about 50cm in diameter!
Stopped for a few minutes for lunch, but then got going again, sorting out some of the wood at the front and then started to prepare tea, ingredients for a lasagna. I did a roux and added lumps of cheese for a cheese sauce, and brought some sliced carrot and cauliflower up to the boil to take off the crunch before adding it to the lasagna. When I got back from school I layered up the sheets of pasta (no-pre-cook type), dollops of butternut and leek soup, slices of tomato, slices of carrot and cauliflower florets and the cheese sauce. I only put the cheese sauce in one of the bottom layers and all over the top, and then microwaved it for 10 minutes. Then, to finish it off and crisp the top, I bunged it in the gas oven for a few minutes. Gill arrived in and after saying hi to us all, tottered off upstairs to go to bed; she needed an hour's rest after going over to Ilkley and seeing her nephew's new baby and their delightful toddler too.
The lasagna was really good, both boys loved it, and so did I. I don't cook as often as I used to, and should do more really. At least I don't leave it all to Gill to do... and I won't let her do any washing up as I'm definitely better than her at that!
We had some fruit for pudding and then the boys went outside to play. Gill came down and I put the remains of the soup on the stove for her, this is what she had said she wanted. I went out to finish off the shredding. I was nearly done when our next-door neighbour Ken shouted at me to come and look at something. He showed me his lawn, which had two patches of pigeon feathers on it, and Diane, his wife, told me she'd watched a Sparrowhawk pulling the feathers off the pigeon and eating the whole thing up. There were literally only feathers left. It is fantastic to know that this urban environment supports a top predator like this. I've not seen the Sparrowhawk here, but Gill saw it swoop towards our bird table a while ago, but it didn't get anything that time.
I showed the boys the evidence of the Sparrowhawk, and then it was time for their supper, and at about 9 they were both heading for bed, having had a happy day. Looking forward to the holidays!
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Wednesday 1st April 09
Woken by kids yelling as if being murdered downstairs, so sleepily rushed down to be met by two laughing boys saying 'April Fool'. Didn't quite know what to say, but all was good humoured!
Gill took our youngest to school and went on to her art class. I did a bit of emailing and Facebooking, and then got dressed and made some leek and butternut squash soup, and started building a logpile of dry wood outside the front. This one isn't going to fall down!
Had a good day, doing bits around the house and garden, nothing very focused but had a productive day. Shredded a load of twigs (mainly from John round the corner) and took apart a large clump of tough grass/sedge which Gill dug up ages ago. The soil had dried so I could crumble that off and pulled out the bits of the plant with roots, and shredded these too. The soil I added to my store of turf/soil/loam in one of my many compost bins. This is used to make potting composts, mixed with rich compost from fruit and veg, and leafmould, in varying proportions depending on what I'm using it for. I emptied one of my tumblers, putting well rotted stuff in a large plastic sack (for continued decomposition and eventual riddling and use) and unrotted sticks, paper and cardboard in a pile, ready for putting back with all the shredded twigs, sedge and a vast pile of cauliflower stalks, bad oranges and off potatoes. All this went straight back in the tumbler, filling it right up in one go. Compost bins are rarely empty in this garden! I took the temperature of one of my recently loaded pallet bins, just over 60 celcius in the centre... a veritable sauna for the microbes in there!
I also did lots more weeding, as we have an excess of deep rooted Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens) and easy-seeding Geranium species (some type of Crane's Bill) and the always-on-the-make Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria) which is perhaps the most invasive thing in this garden, apart from the encroaching compost bins... I pulled out some nettle seedlings, baby brambles, docks trying to sneak their roots way too deep for me to get them and dandelions trying to be as tenacious as docks. My fingers are now tingling pleasantly from the stinging nettles, a feeling I quite like.
I found one of last year's yams, just beginning to grow, and tried to dig it out, but it was so deep, the main body of the tuber was over 60 cm below the soil and it broke off, just giving me 50 or 60 cm of thin rooty tuber hardly worth doing anything with. I'll replant this bit, probably in a pot as it's easier to get the crop! I bought this as 'Angela's Cinnamon Vine', 5 tiny balls which form in the vine where the leaves branch off, it climbs several metres up, and produces a bigger tuber every year if left. So far my biggest tuber was about 70 cm long, after 2 or 3 years growing. The vine dies off during winter.
Gill called me in at 7.30 and reminded me it was tea time... I just get completely lost when I'm in the garden, there's always more to do than I have time for, and eating gets put down the agenda (or falls off the end of it until it's too dark to do anything more). I had a two bowls of leek and butternut soup, seasoned with marmite from a nearly empty jar, washed out with hot water to get the last of it. This with a hunk of bread and hummus and blobs of pesto, and some cucumber out of the compostables... one end was unsaleable, the other end delicious!
An evening not worth writing about, as I spent most of it writing...
Gill took our youngest to school and went on to her art class. I did a bit of emailing and Facebooking, and then got dressed and made some leek and butternut squash soup, and started building a logpile of dry wood outside the front. This one isn't going to fall down!
Had a good day, doing bits around the house and garden, nothing very focused but had a productive day. Shredded a load of twigs (mainly from John round the corner) and took apart a large clump of tough grass/sedge which Gill dug up ages ago. The soil had dried so I could crumble that off and pulled out the bits of the plant with roots, and shredded these too. The soil I added to my store of turf/soil/loam in one of my many compost bins. This is used to make potting composts, mixed with rich compost from fruit and veg, and leafmould, in varying proportions depending on what I'm using it for. I emptied one of my tumblers, putting well rotted stuff in a large plastic sack (for continued decomposition and eventual riddling and use) and unrotted sticks, paper and cardboard in a pile, ready for putting back with all the shredded twigs, sedge and a vast pile of cauliflower stalks, bad oranges and off potatoes. All this went straight back in the tumbler, filling it right up in one go. Compost bins are rarely empty in this garden! I took the temperature of one of my recently loaded pallet bins, just over 60 celcius in the centre... a veritable sauna for the microbes in there!
I also did lots more weeding, as we have an excess of deep rooted Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens) and easy-seeding Geranium species (some type of Crane's Bill) and the always-on-the-make Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria) which is perhaps the most invasive thing in this garden, apart from the encroaching compost bins... I pulled out some nettle seedlings, baby brambles, docks trying to sneak their roots way too deep for me to get them and dandelions trying to be as tenacious as docks. My fingers are now tingling pleasantly from the stinging nettles, a feeling I quite like.
I found one of last year's yams, just beginning to grow, and tried to dig it out, but it was so deep, the main body of the tuber was over 60 cm below the soil and it broke off, just giving me 50 or 60 cm of thin rooty tuber hardly worth doing anything with. I'll replant this bit, probably in a pot as it's easier to get the crop! I bought this as 'Angela's Cinnamon Vine', 5 tiny balls which form in the vine where the leaves branch off, it climbs several metres up, and produces a bigger tuber every year if left. So far my biggest tuber was about 70 cm long, after 2 or 3 years growing. The vine dies off during winter.
Gill called me in at 7.30 and reminded me it was tea time... I just get completely lost when I'm in the garden, there's always more to do than I have time for, and eating gets put down the agenda (or falls off the end of it until it's too dark to do anything more). I had a two bowls of leek and butternut soup, seasoned with marmite from a nearly empty jar, washed out with hot water to get the last of it. This with a hunk of bread and hummus and blobs of pesto, and some cucumber out of the compostables... one end was unsaleable, the other end delicious!
An evening not worth writing about, as I spent most of it writing...
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