Monday, September 24, 2007
Country smells (2)
Having filled FIL's old water tank with fresh cut comphrey leaves (said by mediaevals to be good for inflammations and broken bones) it now smells rotten. Various wasp like hover flies seem to quite like it. The idea is that the green liquid which will result in due course is very good for runner beans. I hope so because the comphrey is really good at coming up good and strong everywhere except where I plant it on purpose. Maybe it likes being chopped up and replanted along with the rest of the compost.
We also have a wire thief. Had left what was left of the line wire from the deer exclosure hanging up on the pole bin. Noticed yesterday, when I wanted it, that it had gone missing (at least I don't think that I returned it to the alternative hanging place in our garage roof). Only a few pounds worth but depressing that even in a small closed community like allotment holders you get the odd thief. Presumably communes of bubble or other substance loving folk have the same problem: no way of weeding out the bad apples which is not worse than the problem.
This in the course of replacing one side of the compost bin. A neighbouring landscaping contractor was loading his skip up with the pallets from the stone he was laying and was happy for us to remove them, so we acquired five pallets plus sundry other bits and bobs making up the stone crates. On acquisition, we learn that stone pallets are made in a much heavier fashion that the regular sort and are rather smaller - maybe three feet square rather than four feet square. Maybe this means that they do not recycle in the same way. That being as it may, three of the new sturdy pallets did a good job of replacing two old ones, the new shape serving to lock the two sides adjacent - which had been wobbling a bit - properly in. The bits and bobs served to make a sort of upper palisade, compensating in a feeble way for the lack of height, but with the unintended side effect that the whole thing now has a slightly more amateurish look than it used to, despite actually being rather stronger.
Also learnt that the bashing that nails take when you extract them from pallets leaves them rather soft, and very prone to disastrous bending when trying to use them. Maybe not just the softness but also their having been hammered straight. The resultant nail is not quite true and must have slight bends at which there is a tendency to buckle under stress. All adds to the amateurish look noted above.
The Bulgarian wheat is coming up well. There are a lot of shoots, about two inches high now and looking curiously fragile. We will see how many of them survice the various horrors which lurk in the dark.
Reminded by a peice in today's DT about how much I disapprove of husband and wife teams in the workplace. The peice in question suggesting that some of Blairs heirs share their late leader's love of money - to the extent of being economical with the spirit if not the letter of the rules in such matters. Maybe it is a prejudice inherited from my mother, and I have never had to work with a husband and wife team, but I am sure that I would have found it a pain. A little clique - or perhaps boil - in the otherwise healthy body politic. Maybe the BBB will find time to make rules about it when they have first hand experience.
We also have a wire thief. Had left what was left of the line wire from the deer exclosure hanging up on the pole bin. Noticed yesterday, when I wanted it, that it had gone missing (at least I don't think that I returned it to the alternative hanging place in our garage roof). Only a few pounds worth but depressing that even in a small closed community like allotment holders you get the odd thief. Presumably communes of bubble or other substance loving folk have the same problem: no way of weeding out the bad apples which is not worse than the problem.
This in the course of replacing one side of the compost bin. A neighbouring landscaping contractor was loading his skip up with the pallets from the stone he was laying and was happy for us to remove them, so we acquired five pallets plus sundry other bits and bobs making up the stone crates. On acquisition, we learn that stone pallets are made in a much heavier fashion that the regular sort and are rather smaller - maybe three feet square rather than four feet square. Maybe this means that they do not recycle in the same way. That being as it may, three of the new sturdy pallets did a good job of replacing two old ones, the new shape serving to lock the two sides adjacent - which had been wobbling a bit - properly in. The bits and bobs served to make a sort of upper palisade, compensating in a feeble way for the lack of height, but with the unintended side effect that the whole thing now has a slightly more amateurish look than it used to, despite actually being rather stronger.
Also learnt that the bashing that nails take when you extract them from pallets leaves them rather soft, and very prone to disastrous bending when trying to use them. Maybe not just the softness but also their having been hammered straight. The resultant nail is not quite true and must have slight bends at which there is a tendency to buckle under stress. All adds to the amateurish look noted above.
The Bulgarian wheat is coming up well. There are a lot of shoots, about two inches high now and looking curiously fragile. We will see how many of them survice the various horrors which lurk in the dark.
Reminded by a peice in today's DT about how much I disapprove of husband and wife teams in the workplace. The peice in question suggesting that some of Blairs heirs share their late leader's love of money - to the extent of being economical with the spirit if not the letter of the rules in such matters. Maybe it is a prejudice inherited from my mother, and I have never had to work with a husband and wife team, but I am sure that I would have found it a pain. A little clique - or perhaps boil - in the otherwise healthy body politic. Maybe the BBB will find time to make rules about it when they have first hand experience.
# posted by Jim @ 12:25 AM 
