Bathroom

Saturday was mostly spent peering inside beehives, and counting bees (answer: lots, broadly). They're definitely slowing down, now, for the end of the season. To help prepare the hives for that, I've prototyped a beehive cosy, which, once tested and refined, I'll be making a set of, to help keep them warm, and also protect the hives from woodpeckers (who correctly a wooden structure containing insects that are highly nutritious, and sometimes attempt to break and enter).

We managed, also, to finish painting the window frames, which is a job we came to a bit late, this year (as in, in August), but went really quickly. We've even managed to get a couple of coats on the new windows in the gable end of the preservatory, and everything's looking much smarter. However, we're struggling to get the bike shelter roof/lid painted—the primer isn't priming very effectively. Further effort will be applied.

In the garden, the lawn's been mown, which sets of the late-summer garden much better, and we pruned the apple walk's trees. There are several, now, that have reached the apex, which is great, and the structure is really obvious now. There are even a few dozen apples to pick.

Today, we got on to a job that's long been awaited, and started work re-fitting our downstairs toilet. First out were the green/brown suite (vintage 1978), which have been much disliked by us for each of the eight years we've been here. Astonishing, therefore, that it's taken us so long to get to doing this room. (In truth, it's been too useful as a room with a sink for mixing plaster and washing paint brushes: now that those jobs are mostly done seems time for the re-fit.)

The 1978 suite (© Ian 2017)

The suite came out remarkably easily, actually—I was expecting a bit of a battle—with only slight difficulty with the basin's pipes.

It is gone! (© Ian 2017)

I could then set about removing the tiles. They've been easy enough, too, with SDS chisel. There's some making-good needed around the window, and some of the plasterwork is inevitably damaged.

Radiator off wall, tiles gone (© Ian 2017)

Next is the floor (you can see I've started), which I ran out of time for before we had to load up and get the debris to the tip. The floor won't be quite as easy, but there you go: I hope once I get started, I can get the chisel under them. Once they're up, I can figure out what to do: might need a levelling screed if we re-tile the floor, but if we decide to put wood down, it'll just need a ply base. Decisions, decisions.

Paint

So much paint.

It's been a busy few days, since David and Ann left, getting work done on the preservatory and workshop, mainly so that the dining room can be tidied (it's currently a warehouse of beehive parts, and some more domestic stuff that lives out there) before we have a house full of guests next weekend.

We've primed, painted, and top-coated the three walls of the preservatory that we've plastered, as well as painting the skirting boards. The floor, which was still bare plywood around the perimeter, is now also painted (in the same green we started with a couple of years ago). The two windows in the gable end of the room, which were still single-glazed, have been replaced by the ever-effective John, with double-glazed windows that match (kind of; they're landscape aspect ratio, unlike the rest, which are all portrait) the rest of the front of the house. They look really good.

In the workshop, as well as tidying and sorting, we've painted the breeze block walls, which were stained and sooty, and are now a lovely white. The ceiling, which especially near the boiler was horrible, was primed with some remarkably effective shellac based primer, and is now beautifully clean white. It looks so much nicer in there, especially after also painting the floor (concrete paving slab) with a green garage floor paint. It looks really nice, and will be a lot easier to keep clean, compared to eternally-dusty concrete.

We even got rid of a load of plasterboard scraps, which have remained unused since the big insulate and remodel, and are likely to remain so.

Lastly, everything came back in from the dining room, and the preservatory is starting to look really ordered, with a big stock of beekeeping parts and equipment arrayed along the front benches.

Plaster Progress

It's been a weekend of two main activities: working on the preservatory and workshop, and checking on the bees (which took most of Saturday, and a bit of Monday). The bees are doing well:

Bee hive entrances (© Ian 2017)

Work on the house is also going quite smoothly. We started by sorting out the workshop a fair bit— tidying, and moving things in order to build a stud wall dividing the workshop from the section that houses the boiler and where firewood gets stored inside before it's burned. We got most of the way there on Sunday afternoon, before finishing it on Monday afternoon, which let us get started with plastering. Both workshop and preservatory are done, barring the back wall of the preservatory, which we've had to store everything against. That wall will have to be last. Last thing was attaching skirting board—which always makes a really big difference to how 'finished' a room looks, I find. (Attaching it was a lot more fun with my nail gun. For the record.)

Dividing wall between workshop and boiler room (© Ian 2017)

Door

We've spent today in Scarborough, visiting Liz's grandparents (with her parents, who have come up to see us for a couple of days). It's been a nice day, with lunch at a place outside Scarborough, and a smooth journey both ways.

While we were out, our new front door has been fitted (started yesterday, but these things can't be rushed).

The front porch early in the year (© Ian 2016)

With the raised floor (© Ian 2016)

And now with the new door (© Ian 2016)

The whole house now hangs together better! (© Ian 2016)

Potatoes

For most of the weekend, Rebekah and her family have been staying with me, mainly so she could go to a friend's 30th. However, yesterday we managed to go to a very nice pub in Blackmoorfoot, which had some good guest ales, and an extremely reasonable three-course fixed menu. We walked round the reservoir afterwards, which the dog and ten-month-old enjoyed (the rest of us squelched, rather). In the evening, Dan and I went to another pub, closer to home, to while away the evening with more guest ales...and gin. It was very pleasant.

Today's been rather more productive. They set off after breakfast, to time travelling with a morning nap; I went out to plant my potatoes (all Lady Christl, this year), and did a couple of hours of weeding. The herb garden and colour wheel are looking much tidier, now. I've sown broad beans in the former; there are flowers to direct-sow soon in the latter, which I'll try to do this week, as the weather is gradually improving.

My onions still haven't arrived, so I can't plant them out yet—hopefully soon.

I came back in, and put the skirting board on the wall behind the desk on the landing, and have filled it. A quick coat of gloss tomorrow evening, and the desk can go back in place,

I realised too late that I should probably have mown the lawn, as I think evenings this week will be damp. Never mind. More positively, though: the frogspawn in the pond is doing really well. There's loads—I'd guess seven clumps.

Frogspawn as laid 14^th March (© Ian 2016)

The first little wrigglers have emerged, now, and the rest will probably do so over the next ten days. The survival fraction is atrocious, but hopefully it'll mean I'll have half a dozen new frogs in the pond.

Frogspawn two weeks later (© Ian 2016)

This evening, I've made some seed bread which looks rather good. It's about 40% white flour, 40% wholemeal, and 20% rye, with sunflower, poppy and sesame seeds, and golden linseeds.

Multi-seed bread (© Ian 2016)

Painting

My mum came across yesterday morning, and we've spent two days painting walls upstairs. It's been a bit of a mammoth effort, with a couple of long, continuous days, but we've managed to paint both guest bedrooms, the guest bathroom (all but, anyway), the landing, and make a start on the master en suite. It was all bare plaster, most of which I've applied in the last couple of months, so it needed a watered down white emulsion, a full-strength white emulsion, and a top-coat of the off-white we painted downstairs in, 'Timeless'. We had a brief break on Friday to go and look at a house that's on the market (very unlikely to become the new Yorkshire Cottage), and a rather tasty curry takeaway last night. Today didn't start too promisingly, with a five-hour stint getting the first coat on the walls of the front guest room and the landing. Some of the plaster in the guestroom, mainly on the un-changed wall and around the fireplace, was a real pain to cover properly, and the landing is rather large, in perimeter terms. In the end, we got there, though, and it looks really good. Everything's still in disarray, partly so I can put skirting boards on without having to move anything, and in the morning I'll drive mum home, and stay until some time on Monday.

Skirting Boards and Seeds

Lots of small jobs, it seems, today. I've sown a load of vegetable and flower seeds, including about half the sweet peas. I need to get the other half done, soon, too, and there are more vegetables for the coming weeks. If the weather keeps looking promising, I shall direct sow the colour wheel seeds soon.

I've set the seed potatoes chitting, which I realised I failed to do earlier. Never mind: they're sitting out in the preservatory, and I'll plant them in a week or two. The onions, which I'll probably plant at about the same time, are on order.

The stone paving slabs for re-laying the floor in the storm porch were delivered this morning. It'll be a week or two until I get to laying them, I think. We'll see: I might take a day off and do them sooner, so that I can get the new doors ordered.

I have skirting boards (delivered last Wednesday) ready to put up all through the house. I started by trying to cut them by hand (with the aid of a mitre box), but they're a bit tall (169mm), and it's been an annoying process, with decidedly inaccurate cuts. Fortunately, one of my neighbours has a proper 240V mitre saw, with a (frankly oversized) circular saw and bevel mount. I've got on and cut almost all the boards for upstairs, and will try to get them fixed over the next couple of weeks.

Fireplace and Plaster

Having had to rearrange a visit to Kent to see David and Ann, I had an unexpected weekend at home. Over the two days, I've alternated between working on the chimney breast in the master bedroom, and the stone wall in the sewing room (the old house bathroom).

The chimney breast in the master room, when we hacked the plaster off it, we discovered had been repaired with several sections of cement block (also known as breezeblocks). This was a bit disappointing, as I didn't want to re-repair in stone (partly because messing around with a necessary and functional chimney seemed unwise), but we had hoped to have an exposed stone feature in the room.

Fortunately, the repairs were not particularly extensive—unlike in the front guest room, where apart from the immediate fire surround (sides and lintel), the rest of the chimney had been rebuilt in red brick. This allowed a partial exposure of the stone. First was to remove as much of the remaining plaster from the stones, and chisel out some of the pointing. The pointing was mostly in good nick, but in order to keep it looking consistent, and as some would need replacing, I needed to cut back all of it somewhat. I used a steel brush on the drill, which worked really well at cleaning the stone. To keep dust down, I hung a polythene/cotton dust sheet to make a compartment, which did the job fairly well.

Once the brushing was complete, I sponged the stones down to get rid of the residue. There's a few places I need to do a little more work, but it's pretty good. I then used browning plaster to cover the cement block repairs, and enough of the other stones to make a transition from the plastered adjacent wall to the exposed stone. I've mostly done the finishing plaster, too, but ran out of a batch with a square foot to go—that'll have to wait until next time I've got a bucket made up.

I'm pleased with how it looks. I still need to clean the lintel/sides, and do a bit more cleaning, particularly on the left hand side where it goes towards the bathroom door.

The cleaned-up and replastered master bedroom fireplace (© Ian 2016)

The other job was plastering the stone wall in the sewing room, which required several coats of browning plaster, followed by finishing plaster. I don't expect it would win prizes, but it's fine.

I still need to do the chimney breast in the sewing room, in the same way: pull out some nails, steel brush it down, and then sponge it. They'll both then need re-pointing, with lime mortar, which is a job for later: but the sewing room one won't need any plastering, as it's wholly stone.

Wall Hanging

It's been a long weekend, as we had Friday off. We spent the day helping Cath & Jason move house—they've not gone far, so it was five of us with a Transit van, while baby & dog were with Cath's mum. It wasn't too traumatic, in all: they completed around noon, and their buyer wasn't actually moving in on the day, so it wasn't too stressful. Fortunately, we managed to corkscrew their sofas up a rather unpromising twisted staircase...which was by no means certain for a while.

Today and yesterday have been relaxedly getting on with the wall-hanging/curtain for the dining room for me, which is almost finished, while Liz has got on with bits and pieces around the house. Yesterday, that included painting the downstairs windowboards and reveals, which are now looking really good. The gloss could do, really, with another coat, but that'll wait until spring, when I hope to do the window frames too. The weather's been atrocious, so the only things we did outside were to rearrange a delivery of firewood on the drive, ready for chopping, and harvest some Jerusalem artichokes (delicious), parsnips (one good, one rather forked), and scorzonera (to be eaten).

Window Reveals

I've been at home today, and have managed to get all the window reveals and curtain boards filled and caulked, ready to paint. It's taken ages! They're looking a lot better, though, so once the walls and they are painted, downstairs will look almost finished. I also spent a little while trying to repair the sewing machine, which I've not yet succeeded with.

Christmas Cake 2015

The Christmas Cake bake was upon us, having soaked the fruit for a couple of days. It took a couple of mugs of tea, which is more than the recipe, so we'll see how that's worked. It took 4:20 to bake, which is a bit quicker than last year—I don't think this is a precision thing, though. Anyway, it's made, and it looks very tasty. We'll probably marzipan it in a couple of weeks, and ice it the first weekend in December—so I need to remember to give it a drink a couple of times before then.

The curtain isn't finished, partly because we had a machine failure: the feed plate has stopped feeding, because a gear broke. I need to order a replacement, and figure out how to fit it... However, the bit that's done looks really good, so that's very pleasing.

Christmas Cake Fruit

We're getting on well with the wall hanging, but it won't be finished this week! We're going to bake our Christmas cake on Sunday, so we've also had soaking the dried fruit for that. It's the same recipe as we made last year, which was very tasty: notes to follow on Sunday.

Wall Hanging

We're just back from a weekend visiting David and Ann, which has been really relaxing. We called in on Liz's sister on the way home, too. Back home, now, and this week we're planning to make progress on the wall hanging/curtain that will cover the insulation on the gable wall of the dining room. I hope to make good progress, but I'm not convinced we'll finish it.

Pictures, Plastering, Planning

I've had a three-day weekend (Liz was working on Friday), although in some ways it's not been the most productive, for being longer. Friday was a rather unsatisfactory day, as I struggled to make progress with one of the main planned jobs—getting the CCTV up and running properly. The external camera system's not been working quite as intended. The footage is recorded (a little too zealously, so I could do with tweaking the motion sensitivity), and I can monitor it from anywhere in the world via the wonders of the internet. However, I can't see previously recorded footage, only live: which isn't much good for when I want to know why the house alarm's gone off. Anyway, I've got not further with that, and am still only able to see recorded footage locally.

However, I did get further with other things. I've made a trip to the tip/scrap metal place with a load of rubbish, which has improved the situation on the drive and in the preservatory. Our new bike rack has arrived, so I've assembled it and attached it to the car. I've also finally got round to installing the network switch, which means that all the ethernet sockets are now live. That, in turn, has meant I've been able to install the two IP cameras, meaning I can check in on the cats while away from the house...well, that's one benefit.

Saturday was a long, but much more satisfactory day. I've sorted out the satellite cable where it comes into the sitting room, wiring it into the same patch socket as the three data sockets behind the TV unit, which is much neater. I've also gun foamed all the gaps and holes in the plasterboard in the sitting room and dining room, which has meant Liz has been able to finish plastering them both.

While she did so, I tidied up the kitchen plasterboard: tweaking how it's sat behind the radiator, filling holes and gaps with more foam, and preparing the tricky area between the doors where the light-switches go. We've then plastered the room, between us: Liz getting it onto the wall, and I've gone along behind her, smoothing it to match the other plaster in the room. It looks comparable, actually, which is a relief.

Marmite was deeply unimpressed, but I added some pawprints: she, like Domino and Chess, is now immortalized on the wall.

Today's been easier-going. We went to Samuel's christening, which took us out until mid-afternoon. When we got home, I racked the wine into demijohns, and have barrelled the batch of beer I started in July. It's meant to only take ten days, or so, to ferment...but it always takes more like ten weeks. Never mind. It's now in a barrel, in the cellar, and should be ready to drink in a week or two.

The last task has been planning our long-intended curtain for the gable end of the dining room. The wall's a nice stone wall, against which one of our mirrors looks good, and we didn't want to lose this when we insulated. Instead, the insulation is, technically, removable, so in theory every spring we can take it down and have a stone wall once more. Whether we bother remains to be seen. However, for the months where the insulation is up, we want to hang a curtain, and we've come up with an ivy-leaf design we plan to make. Just need to order some fabric, and we can give it a try in a couple of weeks.

Painting, Plumbing, and Green Manure

Liz has spent a lot of the weekend painting: priming, basecoat and topcoat in the master bathroom (two walls), and the guest bathroom (just behind the towel radiator), so that I could finish plumbing them in. Plumbing them in was the last part of getting ready to run a system cleanser round the central heating system for a while, before I then run a leak sealant (just in case), and top up the system ready for the winter. The cleanser is because of the two new radiators, and the new piping in the preservatory, and because it's been a while since it was last done.

While Liz was doing this, I finished connecting the preservatory radiator to the central heating circuit. I'd got the pipework from the radiator along the wall of the room, and up into the loft, but then had to take it around the loft space, through the wall into the porch loft (heavy going, even with the big SDS drill!), through that loft, and then t-junction the two pipes into the flow and return. I was rather trepidatious of that stage, as they're big, 28mm pipes, and I really didn't want to go wrong, as that would mess up the central heating for the house, not just the preservatory. Anyway, although it took ages to get there, I've jointed them in, and they seem to be watertight.

We've managed a few other bits, in and between: the lawn is mown, and we've pulled up the beetroot and onions. I've sown green manure in those two spaces, to overwinter (it's caliente mustard): the sowing I made where the potatoes went is starting to come up nicely.

Tomorrow evening we'll plant out the overwintering onions, which are going to go around the bean/pea supports in the herb garden.

Floors

We spent yesterday morning in Haworth, where Philip and Rachel are staying this week. They're in a rather nice cottage on the main street, in easy reach of all the sweet shops (and less easy reach of, say, supermarkets). We went on a circular walk south to Oxenhope, then back,  taking in the river, railway, Three Chimneys house, and coming in to Haworth through the churchyard.

In the afternoon, we painted the garage floor. On Wednesday, we sanded it down, and I sealed the gaps between the boards, and it's now getting two coats of decking paint. This has the advantage of not needing priming, and being waterproof enough to mop, later, if we need to.

Today's been a day of sorting and tidying. The garage now has curtains, as well as a cleaner floor, and we've spent a good while in the garden. We've dug up all of the Lady Christl potatoes, which have done well, and replanted the space with various brassicas.

Radiators and Elderflowers

A day off for me, today, which has meant, inevitably, getting on with a list of jobs. First was getting the fridge-freezers onto the driveway, and giving them a thorough clean. They, the filing cabinet, and pine desk, were all collected over the course of the morning, and have gone to new homes. The garage is much neater as a result, and the pine desk has been replaced in the front guest room with an adopted antique dresser. That needs a bit of attention, but should clean up nicely.

After the lawnmower's failure last weekend, I then replaced a new switch/capacitor unit, and also lowered and sharpened the blade. It should cut more cleanly, now, and actually works, which is a clear improvement.

I've cut 50-odd elderflower florets, and started a double batch of cordial. That should be ready on Saturday, or Sunday if it's slow. (To the 50 heads, add 6 pints boiled water, 6lb sugar, five thinly sliced lemons, 4oz citric acid. Leave for 2-3 days, stirring a few times, and strain. I also add some wine-maker's stabilizing powder and a Campden tablet, to reduce the chances of spoilage.)

I then did a trip to the tip (sorry, Household Waste Recycling Centre), with a load of left-overs from building work and tidying, and then scurried to a scrap metal merchant to get rid of the accumulated scrap. Most of that's been near-worthless ferrous (a whole £3.80), but the £25 for the old water cylinder is better. That will probably go into the Tatton Park fund for a week's time.

Liz finished her work soon after I got back from that, and together we've hung the two towel radiators in the bathrooms. The guest en suite didn't have a radiator over the winter, as we'd not got one to put up; our en suite had the old radiator (albeit in a different position), which worked, thermally, but was a bit in the way. The new ones fit their spaces really nicely, and were surprisingly simple to put up. I now need to sort out the plumbing, which is a little less urgent, as they're not running. We need to briefly take them down to plaster and paint, and then I can finish off.

I also finished the work under the back guest room floor, where there's a void where the old staircase was. This has a nexus of plumbing, as it's where the central heating flow/return enter the old house, and it's also where the power for the immersion heaters, and the data cabling to the garage go. I took a telephone cable that way, too, and I've now pushed this out into the library alcove, where I'll be putting a telephone point. I also took through another Cat 6 cable, which will mean I can then daisy-chain another telephone point out into the garage, meaning it has telephony, as well as ethernet. Very modern, for an 1841-built house.

All that done, there was just time to vacuum, dust, tidy, wash up, and cook dinner before collapsing. Just.

Brushcutting the Hillside

The hillside, and the verges, have been getting gradually wilder as the season's gone on, and it's now been long enough since the daffodils flowered to cut the verges. I had no such excuse for waiting so long for the hillside.

We decided this year to try cutting the hillside paths throughout the year, so that there are two main routes kept clear: from the gateway to the apple walk, and to the plum arch (or, location of the future plum arch, I should say, as it's just a peg in the ground). The rest of the grass we're letting grow, and will cut it in late summer. This should encourage wildflowers, and create a good wildlife habitat. The only exception is ragwort, which we're pulling up when we see it.

It looks a lot neater, now. I also mowed the lawn, which was also a bit wild, though comparitively not long at all. The mower is, unfortunately, playing up, and I had to borrow a neighbour's: ours needs a new switch/capacitor unit.

Today we've spent tidying up the garage, which has meant shifting our new (adopted) fridge-freezer into the workshop, and getting the old two out ready for collection; repositioning the sofa-bed; using the remaining plyboard to reinforce the sewing room floor; getting the half-dozen plasterboards leant up (rather than stacked on the floor); moving the shelving units we acquired into position; and generally making the room rather more habitable. It's taken quite an effort, but with a trip (or two) to the tip, it's much more like a room, now. Better, the planned work of plasterboarding the walls, and putting in sockets, now seems much more achievable.

Plumbing

We spent a rather long time on Saturday morning working out how we were going to finally fix the pipe that's been dripping from the ceiling of the dining room. It's been doing so for five months, and all my attempts to fix it have been thwarted by poor access and adjacent pipes. That's made re-making the pipe, re-brazing it, or properly applying external sealant, impossible. We applied brain power to the problem, and, with a bit of investigation of the pipes hidden in the floor beneath the old house bathroom (now the sewing room, above the back half of the kitchen), we think we've worked out a plan.

At present, the cold water main goes from the kitchen, along the front of the house between the floors, then cuts across, goes into the loft of the porch, and gets to the boiler room. Here, it feeds a garden tap, as well as the top-up loop for the central heating, the emergency quench for the boiler, and the cold supply for the domestic hot water heat exchange built into the accumulator tank. The hot water so generated runs down the pipe that used to be the hot water circuit feeding the hot water cylinder, meaning that it runs the same route back to the other end of the house, where it was plumbed into the hot water circuit...running all the way along the house to feed the taps.

Thus, hot water coming out of the taps in the downstairs toilet had gone along the full length of the house three times, twice while hot: this was noisy, and thermally inefficient, as I suspect you would never get piping hot water out of that tap.

What we've figured out, with the benefit of opening the floor in the back guest room to pass cables along on Wednesday, is that we should be able to bypass some of this. The hot water coming from the boiler can be fed into the hot water circuit from the opposite end, near the downstairs loo, in the loft above. This will feed—in order—that loo, the guest en suite, the master en suite, the kitchen and utility room...and then be capped off.

The leaking pipe is the pipe that would have run from where we're now going to connect to this lot, all that way to the other end. Although it'll be redundant, I won't try to remove it—it's not worth the effort.

In further plumbing exploits, we installed a pair of outside taps outside the utility room, taking a valved spur off the cold water tap. That's in order to hook up an irrigation system to water the kitchen patio; the dining room patio; the front garden; the herb garden; and the colour wheel, as well as leave an accessible tap for filling watering cans, and so on. We also planted out the last of the dahlias (Bishop of Llandaff and Twynings After Eight) and cosmos (white Purity), in the colour wheel beds, and near the beech bench.

We've also acquired a new sofa bed from the latest neighbours to move out: it's gone into the converted garage, which can now function as a guest room.

Gadgets

I've had a day off today, and have got on with a number of jobs. Firstly, I've made myself a couple of gadgets to help guide cables or hoses around the garden, prompted by the fact that there's nothing stopping the mower cable falling into the pond as I go round it. The guides are made from a 60cm length of dowel, 25mm diameter, which I've sharpended at one end (to push into the ground). The other end has a 12cm slot cut into it, leaving two arms. Between these, at the end, is fixed an old horseshoe, which is free to rotate, fully, between the two arms. The effect is that you can push the rod into the ground, then trap a cable or hose in the horseshoe, against the rod, but take it back out easily. I've painted the rod with the same green as the sheds, and the horseshoes black gloss.

I've cut back the ivy and Virginia creeper on the front of the house, and also cleared the gutter at the garage end, which was blocked and overflowing. That, admittedly, has been a problem for six months, but I've not got round to it. The over-flow has probably been most of the reason for the bike-shelter roof's paint wearing off.

The last of the rubble from the work on the house has gone, off to Chris's silage storage ramp: there's some tidying up outside the back door to do, but it's very nice to have seen the last of the backs of plaster and rubble.

The high winds over the last few days brought down a largeish branch from one of the silver birches above the Colour Wheel garden. It hadn't broken entirely free, though, so I've got it down, using my very long pruning saw, and tidied up the break. Hopefully it'll recover reasonably quickly. I am conscious that silver birches aren't the longest-lived of trees, and we may, in our lifetime, have to fell these trees, and work out how we replace their function of a visual, noise, and wind barrier along that boundary.

While Liz was weeding, I've made doors to the two ends of the newly re-covered fruit cages. These are designed to slot onto the top of the door-frame, meaning that there's no gaps for birds to find. Hinged doors would have been nicer, in some ways, but the unlevel ground, and nearby vegetable beds, made it unlikely to work, so I found another solution. Each one's a frame of 2" wood, with corner braces and a 'handle' plank half-way up; they're then covered with 2" chicken wire.