Lots To Do & No Time To Do It……
Life near the beach, too many distractions.!?

It’s been a while since I have posted anything (the last post was a draft from last year!). This year has seen a lot of life changes forced on me and therefore quite a bit more time on my hands.
Well this is what I thought, but between dropping and picking up the kids from school, fitting all the jobs in that I had planned for the day and studying I never seem to stop.
I have always been a busy person with lots of things to do but when I think the list seems to be getting smaller it increases again because the jobs I have done mean others can be started. Some of the things I have done since I stopped posting are, complete the shed, remove the old shed/clear the bottom of the garden, move one and put up another greenhouse, build some steps into the extension (this has been in need for the last few years and at last I can have my tool boxes back again!!), clear and dig an allotment, clear a friends allotment and start to build a chicken run. With all this going on I’d best get my camera out and post some pictures in the next few weeks.

Another project that I’m starting for the wet days when I can’t get out in the fresh air is brewing both wine and beer as if we need any more projects!

Wine brewing I have done before just the once using a kit I did some red which tasted alright the process was the problem and put me off a bit due to the first part of the fermenting process. This was a bit on the violent side the demijohn was on top of the fridge freezer. Overnight it managed to cover the ceiling and the wall dripping all down the back. So the wife wasn’t too pleased. The sticky mess this created was the main thing that I needed to sort this time round.

The wine kits that I have started with this time are Wine buddy Cabernet Sauvignon and a Wine buddy Chardonnay bought from brew-it-yourself. The only ingredients they do not contain are 900g of sugar and the water. Last evening I carried out the first step which was the same for both kits. Dissolve the sugar in boiling water and then add the concentrate top up with more water then the yeast and oak chips all in a demijohn. Then put the air lock and bung on the top.

After the mess it created last time I had to create some defences so after placing a tray in a bin bag I placed the demijohns on the tray and pulled the bag up so only the tops of the airlocks were sticking out. The white wine seemed happy enough during the evening bubbling at a very fast rate the red was the same but was also frothing in side the bottle. This made me check the temperature and it was on the high side so as the evening was quite warm it was time to cool down the ambient air temperature inside the bag by placing a freezer block on the tray. This immediately cooled down the air so I went to bed.

The following morning was a bit of a mess as the froth in the red wine had come up through the airlock. This was cleaned and all seamed fine when I left for work, a call about an hour later wasn’t so sure about things as it had happened again! This was dealt with in the same way and all was well we thought….

On return from work there was evidence of a slight eruption from the airlock but not a great deal of mess which was good. Since then all has been well until I returned from work tonight. The white is very happy but the red seams to have stopped working which is a little concerning as it is supposed to take a week not two days!

With the recent purchase of the Ryobi Brush cutter/Trimmer RBC30SESA to clear the allotment of long grass we realised that the strimmer was maybe not the best thing for the surrounding paths as it tends to send the grass clippings everywhere.

The flexy-mower attachment is small and is perfect for the small grass paths around our allotment. You could probably keep a small garden lawn down with it but it obviously wouldn’t give you a bowling green finish. The machine handles well once you’ve got used to it – it seemed to take a lot of revs to get it started.

The difference with using this head over the strimmer is the trimmings don’t fly about, they stay close to the ground and can be raked up afterwards (or left!). It isn’t the type of tool I’d choose to cut the lawn on a quiet Sunday afternoon but when there’s no electricity available it does the job at great speed without the need for lots of extra tools to store in the shed. The flexy-mower head got a bit clogged up when the grass was wet and quite long – nothing more than a normal mower would have done though.

All-in-all we’re really pleased with this new piece of kit, we’ve even found new homes for our electric strimmer and lawn mower and will be using this new kit in the garden and not just down the allotment.

I was just downloading the photos off the camera and found this one. I’ve decided to make it the background on my computer. Dinefwr Park is a really beautiful place to visit any time of year. We’ve been several times and each time we’ve said it w=ould be nice to see the blue bells in flower. This year we made it and I think probably went when they looked their best.

This was purchased at the same time as the Ryobi Brush cutter/Trimmer RBC30SESA as we have two hedges already and are planning to plant a hedge row on the allotment (to attract wildlife that likes eating slugs and snails!!)

The electric hedge trimmers that we had tried in the past have given us very varied results. Some cheap ones we purchased chewed the hedge rather than cut it so they went straight back to the shop. We were then given some mid-range ones that did a good job but seemed underpowered and therefore were on the slow side. Not as slow as with shears but it still took along time to go along two hedges.

Now that we had purchased the Expand-it brush cutter we thought it would be worth trying out the hedge trimming attachment. This was a good purchase as it gives a very clean cut and is very quick.

The down side is the length and weight that the tool ends up, this makes it a bit of a handful. The sides of the hedge were quick and easy to produce a good finish but the top was all but impossible. The hedge is over head height which meant holding the whole lot over my head and after a few minutes everything got too heavy and I was only able to complete one hedge and the other one which is slightly higher I had to do with shears.

This said on the whole I was very pleased with the speed and efficiency that they gave. I guess I’ll have to get some weight training in before they need doing again!

Last year we landscaped part of our garden, using lots of junk. A pond and bog garden was made from an our flower pot and disgaurded sandpit that the children had grown out of. This year our irises have flowered and they look beautiful. I’m chuffed.