The Donated House

Two new volunteers, Kim and Andra, arrived last night, and straight away this morning I handed them a shovel each and made them move ten tons of gravel down the hill.

They took it very well.

We all worked at it and reduced the pile by about two thirds.

And made the new picnic area look a lot better.

It will look even better when we install the two old bathtubs and fill them with beautiful plants.

And finally… I got to have a go on Antony’s digger. But I wasn’t very efficient, so I handed it back.

A relatively quiet work weekend. Bob came, and Sal dropped in for as long as she could between other responsibilities. They played us some lovely tunes on Saturday. It rained a lot, so we did a bit of chair-stripping in preparation for having more than just the one re-upholstered pub chair.

Sunday was the Alternatiba festival of ways to avoid climate change, which Bob, Anna and I did a bit of stewarding for in the morning. It went off pretty well, was well attended even though it was rainy in the morning, and hopefully will be the first of many.

In the afternoon, Bob and I set some posts in the ground to hold up the new sleeping pod. Turns out it’s really hard to keep them upright while pounding them in, so we ended up putting rails across them, just to be extra sure there would be enough contact area when the floor goes on. That’ll have to wait until we’ve got enough people to move it, as it’s about four people’s-worth of heavy.

It’s going to be lovely, though, little hut in the woods, overlooking the bluebells.

Monday morning we had time to move a bunch more rubble into the “parking area” which will actually be a pretty sitting area in the sunshine. It needs leveling (now done) and some weed-proof fabric to stop the dreaded mare’s tail from popping right up through the gravel, and then I’ll need to get on to Fielden Factor’s to deliver my crushed stone. It’s going to be such a beautiful corner with the rose in bloom and the bath tubs as planters.

In the meantime, it’s a bit of a muddy field with a picnic table on it.

Anna did some more cleaning of bee equipment in preparation for the two nuclei of bees we are expecting later this month. There was still quite a lot of honey in the various cells, which attracted every bee for miles around. The sound of all the buzzing was awesome.

Anna made the sun come up yesterday by doing capers in a field above Hebden Bridge.

Happy May Day. More later.

Since we’re having to move out of the sheds we’ve been using for storage (for the most part, anyway) I’ve taken the opportunity to see how easy it’s going to be to breathe new life into these old pub chairs we got given years ago and have been hanging onto ever since.

They were in sound shape in terms of the frames. The seats were pretty perished, though, not to mention ugly to begin with.

Seat and back came off with a few screws, definitely the easy bit.

I had a tin of gloss paint kicking around, so I figured I’d use it up. Although I wiped and sanded the woodwork, it didn’t stick super-well going on, so we’ll see how it fares.

I cut the seat cover off, rather than pry out a million tiny staples. Then I just stapled on the new cover. The fabric came from a van-load I got given from a friend who inherited all the old stock from a market stall holder.

So far so good.

The back was a bit more of a challenge, being covered front and back, but after some experimentation I got the pattern mostly right. A bit of wrinkling on the inside curve, but I’m pretty happy with the results.

It’s feeling distinctly spring-like now, and that’s been inspiring Anna and me to do outdoor stuff that’s been on the waiting list for a long time.

Jack starts each day by being cute.

While Anna and I get on with what needs doing. Anna’s been going to a beekeeping course, so that when we get the next lot of bees, we won’t accidentally let them swarm or die. Having learned how all about the hive parts, she set about cleaning off the old frames in preparation for getting new bees in May.

This bumble bee was one of many, many bees that came to help clean up the old hive.

The last lot of bees had been squatters, helping themselves to a half-full hive to make a home. In the space that was not full of frames, they’d made do with some diagonal walls they constructed from scratch. Pretty, but made it impossible to look after them efficiently, even if we’d known how at the time.

While cleaning it all out, Anna found what we think must have been the last stand of the bees that died. Next time we’ll do better, bees!