Sunday 12 April 2015

Painting, potting and pointing

Today I finally managed to get a full coat of paint on the gate and it's come out a lovely shade of green. I even got started on the second coat before the baby woke up, so we're almost at the finishing line. The second coat goes on so much quicker, thank God. Who'd have thought a gate could have so many different surfaces?



I had just turned round and there was a little lizard sunbathing, I'm not sure what he was quite but it's the first time I've seen one in this country. Hasn't he got lovely toes!



James also got some more of the old mortar removed on the back of the house. He did fall off the scaffold again though, he is so accident prone you wouldn't believe it!



I spent a lot of time in the greenhouse transplanting various seedlings into larger pots and even made a stop at a local garden centre as I'd run out of pots. They have this crate outside for people to put their old pots in to get recycled into something else, but I figured it's better to reuse than to put more energy into melting it down for something else so I half inched a whole load.




We also cut the shoots off a hazel tree that is in the weirdest place and I laid them out for some future use. It didn't take more than a day to realise I had to make some trellis for the peas and other climbers to grow up. So this afternoon we made a quick support for the peas that are hopefully going to grow up soon under their makeshift cloches (empty fizzy drink bottles). I've planted more as the first lot never grew, hopefully these will be more successful as the ground has warmed up in the sun this last week. If not I grew some in the greenhouse anyway and I'm just hardening them off ready to go in the ground over the next few weeks.



We also had a bat survey done at the end of the week for submission with our planning application. I'm not sure quite what she'll put but I'll let you know when I get the report. She said it would either be no risk or moderate risk, big difference you'd think? There are no bats living there but there's potential for them to live there!? Don't ask I'll explain what she said at some later point.

Wishing you all good weather and a great week.

3 comments:

  1. Love that farm gate, and would have liked to have had them here, but we have opted for metal ones instead because my husband finds them easier to make. You can't buy farm gates here anyway, and to make one would be beyond his wood working skills, bless him. Your husband sounds just like mine when it comes to being accident prone. I think its because they get distracted, Whenever Lester goes up a ladder I tend to stand at the foot of it to help make him take care!

    We have lots of those lizards here and our dogs spend many happy hours chasing them. Not sure what they are called but we love to see them around the place, and adds to the general feeling of being on a farm. And we have bats living here!


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  2. We came across some of those lizards here last summer, hopefully they will be back this year, I do like your gate, we have a couple of wooden ones that we found and have put back on, we are looking at putting a wooden one at the end of the drive its our driveway but our neighbours have right away access :-)

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  3. Good work with the pots! I've been running low as well this year, I've never planted so much stuff before! As for the bat survey don't get me started on that one!

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