The Donated House

Had a nice and productive weekend with a few people over helping out. Anna did her weekly inspection of the bees with the help of Alice. Not looking too good, actually. One hive has tried to supersede its queen, we can’t tell with what success yet, aside from that it doesn’t look any healthier every time we look in. The other hive is trying to supersede as we speak. Hopefully they’ll have better luck, though it’s not ideal that they are doing it in the first place. Still, as Anna says, if our bees survive their first winter, it will have to count as a success.

Anna’s cousin Alison came round and did a marvellous job of hacking back the overgrown summer kitchen. The very pungent pink and orange rose in there is doing alarmingly well.

The blooms start out quite bright pink and then fade to a peachy orange as they open.

It’s looking much better for not being totally overgrown by the clematis montana.

On Saturday evening, having noted the prevalence of blue blue bird poo everywhere, reasoned that it was time to walk up and check the progress of the bilberry patch, finding it in decent health, which meant breakfast on Sunday morning was bilberry pancakes.

The best patch was below the stones at the top of the golf course. You can just see me and Sal in the bushes below, picking all we could reach.

Thanks to everyone’s efforts, the place is looking much more manageable and tidy, which makes it feel like a nicer workplace for me as I start researching and buying power tools…

Spent a very well-worth-it day learning about woodworking from the excellent Chris Tribe in Ilkley, who mainly makes high-quality furniture (and teaches other people to do the same) but agreed to spend a day talking to me about window construction.

In addition to talking a lot of theory, we also cut a piece of square wood into a shape suitable for use as a window casing, just to see how joint cutting works and to play with all the cool machines.

Starting with a square length, we used this excellent table saw (I really want one of these) to cut out a recess for the glass to sit in.

And then cut it into lengths suitable for working with on practice finger joints.

We then used a router table (I really want one of these) and a jig to remove all the bits of wood that shouldn’t be there.

For the mortice (if it were a mortice and tenon joint) we used one router bit, the name of which escapes me.

And, having done that and used a special measuring-marking-tool-thingie to mark the opposite piece, we prepared to cut out the other bits. It’s all very technical…

A different router bit this time, chewed away the bits from around the tenon.

This guy would never be short of sawdust for a composting toilet. Anyway, the two bits looked like this when apart:

And like this when together. I was fully satisfied with the fit, although Chris said it was a bit loose. Still, it was exactly as I would have expected it to work and I am planning to make all my own windows this winter.

Here are some pictures from Italy, where I spend the last few days of my gloriously work-free last 3 weeks.

Me and Anna at the Vatican:

Me and Anna at the Pantheon:

Me standing in a fountain. It was so  cold it actually hurt my ankles, which was awesome.

Anna drinking from the same fountain. The standing in bit was below. She didn’t stand in it, she is too civilised for that.

We ate a lot of really good food. The Italians are pretty good at food.

This meal was on a terrace by the sea, with beach umbrellas closed up for the night and a beautiful sunset.

And afterwards we ate ice cream. There was a lot of amazing ice cream.

Apparently Italian cats also sit in boxes.

We visited the etruscan tombs at Cerveteri, a short bus ride north of the town where we were staying. We left before 7 am but it was still stiflingly hot on the walk there.

But it was cooler in the tombs.

And at least it was forested and shady.

And they were kind enough to supply a cat at the cafe. Good place.

Done more on computer than in real life lately. But here are some cute pictures of the wendy house.

Put the ceiling on first this time, to avoid having to hang rock wool above my head. Then the roof, which was a mega-pain. Remind me not to do a 45 degree pitch again. Oh wait, the real house has a 45 degree pitch…  oops.

Lam, from Hong Kong, our latest volunteer, is putting the larch siding on it. We got it from Nora at Black Bark, who is also sawing the bits for the real house.

Cute picture of the day… look closely:

The bees got delivered today. Two “nukes” of New Zealand hybrid bees, with one year old queens, ready marked for ease of finding. Anna is well excited.

They came in polystyrene boxes with a movable wheel that allows various levels of access to the outside world.

The guy (whose name I have already forgotten, but Anna knows it) helped her put them in their new home and gave all sorts of helpful advice.

The first bit of advice was to feed them freely for three weeks, as they’re young and not really able to support themselves yet. So off we went to buy bags and bags of sugar, which we mixed with warm water to make bee food.

And in other news…

I have now done a percolation test, as per the requirement of the council for my reserved matters on the subject of drainage. And the verdict is… that my land basically is a swimming pool and hardly drains at all. Lucky me. I don’t know what this means, actually, but at least now I know.