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... the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves ...
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Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 19 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

The problem is keeping the wildlife out of the stored timber. We try to get to ours before we get things like woodworm, which tend to go for seasoned timber anyway, but we have to be careful about hornets, wasps, bumble bees and of course things like woodlice. Wood mice and wrens also use the woodpile for winter quarters, but we take care not to disturb them if we know they are there.

The weather here yesterday was very damp; not rain, but either mist or cloud. We took MIL out to tea for her 93rd birthday. A bit late as it was the end of December, but couldn't manage earlier. We were well looked after and she enjoyed herself, so weather didn't matter so much. Glad to say it is back to sun at the moment, so long may it last.

gregotyn



Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 19 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Most of my timber is kiln dried Scandinavian, it only attracts the worm after felling and subsequent kiln drying and sending to the UK where it is often subjected to our weather on the docks, where timber is unloaded and left till you have it collected rarely undercover. When I was young I worked for my father in law who made packing cases, crates and pallets by the thousand in the West Midlands. Our stocks were as minimal as possible-cash flow. Now I am sawing those type pallets into kindling. They have probably made several journeys loaded with other peoples goods before they reach us when they arrive with agricultural products and then if dry and clean, I break them up, saw to length and sit and chop wood at about 20 nets a week in the season. I have to do it all year round as I can hardly keep up with demand in the winter so back up is essential. I don't worry about those slow worms biding their time to get out, Henry, once the sticks are cut, the worm holes become invisible to me as they are packed! We have had a good dry day, and quite warm for the time of year, and 2 more clean dry pallets ready for action when I get home. Thank you all for you advice, I will have to set up a kiln for drying to remove all trace of hangers on.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 19 8:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

We had good weather here yesterday too. Was working in the coppice taking out rods for Morris sticks, besom handles and for splitting for basket making. We were also clearing brash so that we could get to some timber for extraction. Looks as if it will be a nice day again today.

Found bluebells, wild arum and foxglove leaves and smelt the start of the wild garlic coming up. Rather nice in the woods yesterday though.

gregotyn



Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area
PostPosted: Thu Feb 21, 19 2:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Weather warmish and sunny today, spring has sprung? Still too cold for much growth of anything, but there is grass growing in places, so not all doom. Most farmers will be pleased to get their cattle out after the shortage of forage, maybe a lesson not to overstock so that you can always have a bit more forage to use and less of, in some cases, having to panic sell stock. The increase of 'spare' forage this year will be high as many who have sold stock, cheaply, will have spare pasture to graze or conserve, but not have the stock themselves to use it, and will be conserving more grass, in case it is another short year.
How good to have parents who live to their 90's. Apart from my father-46-most of my grand parents and great aunts have lived long into their 80's and 90's especially on my father's side. As long as the brain is there and functioning the older folks have much to tell us about how it was. And how they marvel at what we see as normal. Bit like me and computers.
Lovely weather again today-home now-kindling hasn't stopped being in demand yet, but I wish it would calm down for a while-please. I need stock for next season and this one is showing no signs of slowing down I need at least 300 nets in stock by the end of August and preferably more.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 19 7:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

It is warmish here too, but still get cold when you stop work. I am still filling log sacks, although the foray into the coppice coup earlier in the week was a pleasant change. Things starting to come up slowly here, but they will stop if we get a change of weather again.

Our log loads are slowing down a bit, but the log sacks still keep coming. I think people sometimes have a fire in the evening rather than have central heating on if it isn't too cold.

Heard a pair of tawny owls calling yesterday; quite early too, as they don't usually start until late afternoon, but that was in the morning. Think they are getting together to nest.

gregotyn



Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area
PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 19 2:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Another lovely day here after the first sample-rain-finished at about 5am. It is so nice out now it could almost be spring-warm and sunny. I have a librarian friend who is moving back to her origins in Scotland and I am envious. The bit in Ayrshire that faces the Clyde is a lovely area and relatively warm in winter they say. Her husband is following after he has sold the house here in Wales-a strange place as it has no garden just a small yard at the back which opens up onto a small lane and a front door which opens onto a main road-I'd move from there too. Basically her daughters and son all live up in Ayrshire and she is missing them-normal I suppose as she is also a granny!

I guess that it is only February after all so it is not surprising you are still on the logs, MR, my kindling is going faster than I can chop it. I like to end the season with about 100 stock ready for next year, but am down to about 40 stock now, sawing and chopping every day from now till at least June I expect. then I will have a bit of a break and be at it again by the end of August The consolation is that a friend chops large lumps on a machine, so I will be taking some to him at the weekend, to be cut during the week and I will pick up the following weekend, works for me and him! All I have to do is tidy them up and get them into nets. It saves my arm for a week or so! My shop sells logs too and his man mas run out of nets and neither are happy men. I hope I would have been watching my stock of nets closer than that.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Sat Feb 23, 19 7:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

It was misty and grey here yesterday through the morning, but brightened up in the afternoon and then it was quite warm. It is fine as long as the sun is out, but at night and when it is cloudy, it is still a bit chilly, although not really cold. I bought more nets this year as I was expecting to get through quite a lot. In fact if the number of log sacks keeps up at the present rate, I will have sold more than last year, even though last February was a very big sale as it was so cold. Your friend should be able to get more log nets within a few days if he orders them quickly.

It is a bit misty here again at the moment, but seems to be clearing already, so looks like a nice day again.

gregotyn



Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area
PostPosted: Sat Feb 23, 19 10:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Lovely morning, washed the motor, and delivered wood, filled with fuel and done what I should have. I will be watching rugby this afternoon all being well. England should win, but Wales pull out all the stops against England usually, so I don't predict, and it is the needle match, as the Welsh think they invented the game. I don't really worry who wins, I just enjoy rugby, and really only like to see a good game. But it is good when I go into work if Wales lose-I don't get so much stick then! Tomorrow is another rugby day, but it will be all wood then to make up for this afternoon's loss of production.
It appears there has been a glut of late log sales for the friend this season and that is why he ran out of nets and his current supplier has too! I find my kindling is the same. I am almost at the point where I think retirement may be a good thing. I can start to do a bit more to the house which I have neglected to do for the last few years and the plus is that I can now afford to do more as I have saved the money, and get my entire stock together before winter so saving all the hand to mouth I am about to embark upon. I used to sell wood in small supermarket mini, poly., "fruit bags" with the 2 handles, and have seen some lurking in a shed-about 50, "in case" so they may alleviate the current shortage-"in case" may well have arrived, I will have to check the sticks for wood worm. But if they are ok they will sell and release space in my full to overflowing 6x4mtr shed and I may even be able to sort that a bit. Retirement may be the right way to go. The annoying thing is that the library may well close soon as the council are trying to make savings. And I hear this year we are to have a larger than usual rate rise-mine have gone up by £200 a year for the last few years. The problem is that the services have gone down. A pot hole mended one day had become a larger pothole within a week so I will be paying to have the job done twice. What I do see every morning is council vehicles driving like maniacs to work at well over the speed limit as they pass where I work.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 19 8:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Sadly central government have withdrawn more and more funding from the councils, so they don't have the money to cover all their needs. They are being encouraged to 'invest' in property, which is all very well until they can't get tenants for the supermarkets, warehouses etc. that the money is going into. If our district council make a mess of the investment, it is going to cost every person, man, woman and child, about £200 to bail them out, so a big rise one year in the district council rent.

There are two net suppliers I know of Gregotyn; Bag Supplies and Medallion, but there are others listed on the internet. To make it economic, you really need to order something like 1000 though. I will have got through the best part of that this year though if I even keep up the present rate of sales, and any cold weather may well increase it.

Another lovely day here. Husband is working in the bathroom, so I may well do something in the garden as it is too nice to be indoors. I did all the baking yesterday, so have plenty of biscuits and some bread pudding made from odd crusts I had stored in the freezer.

gregotyn



Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 19 2:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I watched the rugby and in the end the best "team" won, as England did not play as a team.

I didn't get through any where near the amount of work I expected to over the weekend. I managed to get a load of pallets broken and de-nailed yesterday, ready for today to saw and chop, and do some netting tomorrow. And today I got 3 more suitable pallets for breaking My stocks are very low of netted product. And there looks like very little chance of the sales slowing down. I will be going through the summer flat out I expect. I am half thinking of retiring soon, but if I do then I will have too much time on my hands and will only approach someone else to take my sticks and that may land me with the same result. We had 4000 nets as that was the least that the bag supplier would allow us to buy. At the end point they are well received by customers. I was thinking of selling the little tie top bag I used to do-ex Tesco and Sainsbury for fruit and veg-but think this may be too much in handling in relation to return and I would need to be buying from the super markets a lot more than I am now to get the number of bags I would need!

I have been in touch with a friend in Kent, but am a bit worried as I don't have a 'phone number or an address and I am getting no reply to my e mails. I don't want to go down there to see if all is well in case it isn't-she's just had an operation and I know she is home but suddenly no contact-guess it could be her email address and I have it got it wrong.

I hope all is well with Jam Lady and Cassandra.

Jam Lady



Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2501
Location: New Jersey, USA
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 19 4:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Today clear skies, but chilly. And calm, too. Yesterday was not a day to be flying kites, what with wind gusts up to 34 miles / hour. Do not recall such winds, and actively blowing for more than a day. May help dry out the mud.

There are about 3 winter aconites in the woods, a very late, slow season this year.

Cleaning out drawers and trying to dispose of items on Freecycle. Alas, most of what I no longer want is apparently uninteresting to others. Someone coming today for sheer curtains. I will kindly offer 2 small boxes of ribbons etc "in case she'd like to look through" before I put up on the site.

Went to press preview for the [url=https://www.bellewood-gardens.com/2019/NYBG Orchid Show_2019-02.html]orchid show[/url] at NYBG last week.

No idea why the Linky Fairy is upset. Any moderator available to make her happy?

Met Mr Jam Lord's sister there and we had a nice visit. Next week I'll go with friends to the Philadelphia Flower Show. Signs of the season.

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45374
Location: yes
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 19 5:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

the/ and/ around 2019 might be the issue, try deleting the /'s

Jam Lady



Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2501
Location: New Jersey, USA
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 19 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I have previously included the /. The back slashes are part of the entry's name on my web site. If they are removed then the Linky Fairy will not be able to find it.

The tip sheet notes I have are as follows:

If you want a "long" link like this, you don't have to worry about the [url] and [/url] markers: when you paste in a URL, Downsizer is clever and knows what you mean, and converts it to a dark green clickable link for you.

If you want a fancy short link however, you do have to put the markers in yourself, but the format is slightly different. Instead of:-

[url]website address here[/url]

it becomes:-

[url=website address here]Text of your choice here[/url]

O.K. So I try again -

[url=https://www.bellewood-gardens.com/2019/NYBG Orchid Show_2019-02]orchid show[/url]

still no joy. Let's just forget about it. Who cares about orchids anyhow.

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45374
Location: yes
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 19 9:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

https://www.bellewood-gardens.com/2019/NYBG Orchid Show_2019-02

that got a 404 error

but i did find this

it looks like a nice show

Jam Lady



Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2501
Location: New Jersey, USA
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 19 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

orchid show at NYBG

Linky Fairy doesn't like spaces. Must remember to use %20 instead

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