Fallen tree surprise

A few weeks back we had two Eucalyptus trees fall in the wind - it didn't help them that they were undermined by rabbits.

Out of all the plants and trees in our garden my favourite were these. I loved the fact the bark just peeled off them to reveal the wonderful coloured trunk underneath, the reds, yellows and greys are amazing. Not least because they seemed to spiral around the trunk and catch the light on a summer's day.

I looked at getting someone in to clear them, I looked at prices of chainsaws and decided to get a cheap one and see if I could do it myself.

I spent £100 on a 37cc Spear & Jackson chainsaw with a 16" bar. See below. 

It's a great little machine, although it has plenty of low ratings on the website, one that should not be underestimated in the world of power tools.

Now, I have no experience of using a chainsaw - indeed, I've always declined when given the chance to try one out, but I thought this would be the perfect chance to have a go. My experience in the past with various woodworking machines and trimmers is quite relevant with this tool, so I wasn't too worried with the actual use and safety of it. I have the proper headgear with ear and face protection, a thick work coat and decent gloves. I will invest in a pair of proper chainsaw trousers as soon as I can. 

On with the trial!

I managed to chop most of the main part of the first tree, but had to leave the top and bottom section for when it got lighter.

...and a little later...

...and we have some logs!

Overall, a great little chainsaw with plenty of power to get the job done and a successful trial for me.

....more to come!

Bees, Mushrooms and morning dew.

This morning we had free, due to the kids both being elsewhere last night, Jo wanted me to take a couple of photos of a mushroom just off the drive, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I love the detail of the underneath of mushrooms - they have incredible architecture!





Since I had my camera in my hands, I thought I'd see what else was out there this morning, and moved to the back garden to explore.

One of the first things that came to mind was the flowerbed by Zak's room, it has some beautiful colours and the flowers are wonderful.

It was while I was deciding which flower to take a shot of, that I noticed a solitary bee hovering from one flower to another, so I took a couple of shots.

The first shot was of a thistle, and the second shot was caught as it was collecting pollen from inside the flower itself.





The last shot I took this morning was of a spiderweb that was covered in the morning dew.



All I could think of when I saw it was, how you could imagine certain parts of it looking like jewelry.

What do you see?

To turf or not to turf.

We're sprucing up the house we've just moved from, so we can put it on the market, one of the jobs that we had designated to a pro was the garden.

Since the grass hadn't been cut since last October, it had grown long, bent over and made clumps all over the lawn. Unfortunately, the areas underneath the clumps had been starved of light, and the grass had died away, leaving random lumps and bumps...

...not to mention the size of the ant hills - which stood like mini volcanoes amongst the grass!

We decided to get some quotes for re turfing the lawn - that is, to take up all the old grass and top layer of soil, and replace it all with lovely new turf. After we had spoken to a few people, we received a quote to do 140m2, which we felt was way over what we expected, so we took the decision for me to do it myself. In the meanwhile, I cut the grass to see how bad the problem was.





The problem was, I found a turf website that could deliver all the turf for the job for 1/10 of the quote - and the machine to do the job was only cheap for 2 days - so onto the phone I went to organise the machine to be delivered.



After the turfing machine had been delivered, it took me a little while to figure out how to use it, adjust it and make it work for me, but luckily it didn't take very long at all! (I seem to have an affinity with anything with a petrol engine!)



I decided to do only the main part of the lawn, as the bank was too difficult to get the machine on, and anyway - it's not a well used area of grass.



It took me two afternoons (6 hours) to take the turf off the areas I wanted to, which I was very pleased about, as I had never used one of these machines before.

After all the turf was taken up, I had to order a skip, then another afternoon was spent moving all the old stuff into the skip.

Once everything had been cleared and raked to get the nasty stones and lumps out the way, I went round with my weed sprayer and attacked any weeds I could find.



The two tons of topsoil came the next day, and I set about wheelbarrowing the soil to the back garden.

The quote we received was for a group of men to work for about 3 days to re turf our garden...

...had I been able to work full days at the house I would have been able to do the job - on my own - in just 3 days!

I still have a small area to put top soil on before I order the actual turf, which I'll do today, but the really back breaking work is done now - so I'm happy!

While I was working, I found quite a few slow-worms. Most were small, but one was quite large.





I love snakes (never felt like owning one though!), and although I would never expect to actually see a snake in the wild over here in the UK, it was nice to at least be able to hold a slow-worm, and see it's little tongue darting in and out - tasting the air around it...



...I wonder what it thought of me!

(Jo caught me resting and having a drink after figuring out the turf machine)

Grass fun!!

Well, I'm sure not everyone can say that they have had fun with their lawns...

...but I certainly can!!

I have been REALLY busy recently, doing all sorts of jobs and things that have, in all honesty, totally knackered me out!

A few days ago, the weather started to be nice, dry and sunny, so I took the opportunity to get my little tractor out of the shed and cut the back lawn.

In previous attempts, it has only been towards the end of the job that the lines have been reasonably straight and uniform, but today was my lucky day, and almost straight away they were looking good!



As well as cutting the grass, there are some patches of bare earth, which needed to be sown with grass seed. The largest of all these patches was left when a soakaway (basically a big hole in the ground filled with rubble and stones, to let the rainwater drain away properly) was never sorted out.

Jo took some photos of me in the process of sowing the seed rather well I think - you can see how much effort I put in, and how exciting the job was! You've heard of 'extreme sports' well this was 'extreme seeding'!



Once the seed was sown, the ground was in need of a good watering, which again Jo managed to capture rather well!

(Please note the hose on the extreme right of the picture before you think bad of me!)

I then covered the area with bird netting to prevent the little blighters eating all my lovely new grass seed!

This was the start of my outdoor action hero stuff, more to come very soon!

A break in the fight.

It's not all doom and gloom at our place, we have a regular visitor that seems to live in our garden - a Green Woodpecker.

It loves to peck on our 'Nothing Tree' - so named by our builder who's family were farmers, and as he walked round telling us what each tree and plant was, on a break from working, he walked past this tree and just said;

"This Tree - oh it's nothing"

So we decided to call it the 'Nothing Tree'!

Anyway, our Woodpecker likes nothing better than to sit on this tree and peck away, probably for food.

It also flies down and gets food from our lawn, and I managed to snap it with my standard lens on my camera. (I'm getting a zoom lens for my Birthday I hope!). It was sitting just outside the window where my PC is.

Here's a close up.

My first photo

I was so excited to get my new camera I ran outside to have a go at some macro photography...

This was my first ever attempt at it, and I was really pleased.

I couldn't believe the detail I was able to pick up!