peds

I don't know about Twitter because I'm not a part of it, but there's some pretty spicy memes going around the other corners of the internet. Right now I'm very much enjoying the official news blackout to preserve OpSec, only to hear about the ridiculous gains made when information gets released.

My yard? That's quarry dust not tarmac, blindings before a raft goes on. The car park is over there, with a big pile of 804 in the middle of it that the digger forgot to move. Oh well.

I have a little patio cherry in a big pot that the cats were using as a scratching post, but she's fine now too. I suspect you're thinking of someone else's cherry tree though. Another 9 ash to knock over on this side too, hope their still worth the time and effort as firewood at this stage...

Mine's all right, the eucalyptus on the ground next to it isn't feeling very well though. I moved the trees a bit closer for better birdwatching. Yeah, there's around 7 trees in a line to come down there, including the big one, which looks like an old giant that was coppiced once upon a time. Shame, but it'll improve the view. Two poplar that I'm not keen on as well, they've got a future in a hugelkulture bed.

Yep, we are getting there! I've heard it said that getting out of the ground is the hardest part, and I hope to God that's true. Buried a few wastewater pipes and a radon sump the other day, I'm just ironing it flat again now.

You are farming livestock on the total area of land required to keep them alive, instead of using someone else's land in Ukraine or Brazil or wherever. The land required (and crucially, when chemical fertilisers are used, the carbon footprint) doesn't just disappear.

My goal is gorse and primrose flowers, but you'd have to gather an absolute shed load to flavour a gallon of sap. I think you need to boil it down to concentrate it a bit before you get any worthwhile strength or flavour, without adding any extra sugar. But yeah, I've never found it near the top of my to do list at the appropriate time, so I'm yet to try it myself.

Every year I find myself without the time to harvest any birch or sycamore sap, but when I do get around to it, I've heard it's worthwhile adding a few freezer fruits or seasonal flowers to the brew. Same as mead... it's nice, but it's better if you add something extra to help it along.

... for ever?

Just poke it down inside the hedge for the next poor sod to find 👀

Meaning that it hasn't been tested by squirting it into the eyes of the poor lickle bunny rabbits, like most bubble baths. Without checking, and I could well be wrong here, I definitely wouldn't be surprised if there were ingredients of animal origin in bubble bath. They really do turn up in the strangest of places. With regards to the firewood though... yeah, not sure what that's all about. I do insist on my firewood being free-range, however.

Put apples, both perfect or bruised and blemished, chopped or whole, unpeeled, in a big pan with a bit of water. Boil until soft, then mash through a colander, or press through a food mill or moulin. Boil until a bit drier, then mix with about the same quantity, or a bit less, of sugar, and any spices you might want... cinnamon, clove, dry ginger, you know the story. Boil until it looks like it'll set, or Google the correct temperature to bring it to. 105° or something, probably. Look for recipes for apple cheese, apple jam, black butter, or something like that, if you need to follow something more specific.

It was probably a very small tree when it was planted.

You've just got... like... zero positive attributes as a human being, have you? You're just... a big leaking sack of hatred. It must be exhausting.

High-brow comedy right here. Real top-drawer wit.

Poor cottage. 75 euro of scrap metal in the roof and pipes. Big pile of stone stacked up in a corner for landscaping. Spare soil spread out over the future growspace, lots of mineral-rich dab. I'll scatter some green manure seeds over it a little later in the year, and the polytunnels can go up next spring. With most of the lumps ironed out, we decided to camp out among the stones and bones of the old building. A few decent bits of wood from the roof were saved from destruction. Some newer lengths, still with a practical application in the shipping container shed roof, and some ancient pieces that just spoke to me. Square nails, that sort of thing. They might end up as garden paperweights, or they might find some noble purpose in the future. Managed to nudge a shipping container 5 metres to the left (the delivery crane couldn't reach the intended location, the digger helped out), and dropped a layer of stone between the two. Just need to get a roof over them and a smooth floor, and it'll be a decent space. And now, with 360 tons of stone down and another 100 or so coming tomorrow, we can almost start thinking about getting the raft out. Long days at the moment, working 7-3 and heading straight to the site when I'm done, and spending the whole day here on my days off. But I suppose I can rest when the roof is on it.

Personally I'll be putting in around 60% effort today and having ice lollies for lunch. Anyway, now that it's been decided that really manly men can easily work away in 40° heat, and everyone else is a big girl's blouse, I wonder what will happen next year when we get to 41°, or the year after that... How hot is too hot, for all the rugged, masculine types out there? Mid-60s?

Yeah, loads of them died in the heat and all. What's your point?

I'm fairly sure "we" adjusted our work methods when building "our" empire by working hundreds of thousands of brown, black, or yellow-skinned locals into the ground, when we, delicate white folk as we are, were unaccustomed to the heat, the humidity, the malaria. Are you suggesting people do the same thing now? Can you recommend a temp agency with access to thousands of shackled savages? They all keep hanging up on me when I ask.

Lot of people in this thread who'll never know the simple pleasure of a sachet of instant cappuccino at 3am, brewed with melted snow on a Jetboil, halfway up a mountain, still wrapped in your bivvy bag and down jacket. Best coffee in the world.

They are our trees, and they have more value than another view of the mountain. Nice trees are rare enough out here, nice views aren't. You can pull on your wellies and hop the back fence, in 30 minutes you can be up on top of the mountain. That's a better view to enjoy. There's also a different view 45degrees to the right as well, after the removal of a big ash with dieback, which is less of a shame.

Can't see the base, but cover the grass out to the drip line with a doughnut of brown cardboard, then mushroom compost or seaweed, then rotted woodchip. Give the soil some nutrients.

Windows and doors stripped, ceiling torn down, all scrap metal herded together, bathroom sink removed (to be plumbed in behind the shed, fed from the rainwater tank), patio taken up, roof tiles from the extension on the left taken down. I thought I'd go looking for more spanking porn in the attic. Tore the place apart trying to find it. 170 odd pavers, 190 roof tiles. Floor for the shed, roof for the hen house.

You can't have done, we've never had a flask thread.