log stores and flower beds!

Bank holiday weekend - guess what we have been doing? You've guessed it - building and digging things!! We got the mad idea that we could put a log store on the drive as we have a duel fuel fire in the living room and spend most of the winter driving up and down to Castle Howard to buy bags of logs! Anyway we started the log store a few weekends ago and finally finished it today! Despite having no blinking idea we ended up with the 'botch it and leggit' version and even if I say so myself - its a mighty fine log store! We just need the logs now!! We also decided to build another flower bed and used the stone from the wall we had taken down as a border. Next time we should hopefully have the gap between the paddock and the neighbouring fields closed up if the builder ever turns up!

One man and his mower...!

Today was momentous - we got the delivery of our ride on mower!! What a lovely beast it is and will now only ever be known as Roger (as in Roger the ride on!! - Mr Rs choice might I add!!) So Roger was set to work after Tom from GardenCare explained the inner workings of Roger, where the fuel went, where the battery was and most importantly how to bugger up the drive belt thus incurring a cost of £100 to replace! Tom, at one point, started explaining the size and type of engine - I looked over at Mr R who was very much into screen saver mode!! However the most important feature was to come - it has a really well placed cup holder - a must for Mr R who has already tried it out as it neatly fits a bottle of beer!! Plus one thing Tom did do, was sell us a trailer which attaches on the back of the mower - we managed to get this for very little as we were buying the mower - so we now have trevor the trailer too!

A curious visitor

Apparently our entire village is keeping an eye on what we are doing to the 'paddock' and everyone is saying we are making it look a lovely garden (hopefully!). Well whilst digging, mixing concrete and planting plants we had a lovely curious visitor - a young racehorse!

Brassicas...

The brassicas have now gone in today as well!! Mr R decided to take a trip to Castle Howard garden centre and virtually wiped them out of brassica plug plants. Prior to that we spent the whole of sat and sun building the most over engineered brassica cage ever! You see we have a massive pigeon problem and if we had just put the brassicas in the pigeons would have eaten them all within minutes!! Although it took forever to build I am actually really proud of Mr R and lets see if the damn animals can get in!!

May Bank Hols and cement mixers!

Mr R had the great idea last week of buying a cement mixer - apparently we will need it!! I did ask why we would need it only to realise that Mr R had actually also just bought a new ride on mower and therefore he needed somewhere to store it securely! So the bright yellow concrete mixer has come in handy as we spent most of this morning mixing cement, sand and hardcore and laid a base! Mr R studiously looked online before we embarked on mixing so we got it right but the first mix wasn't really sloppy enough! 2nd and 3rd mixes were much better and hey presto we have a base. Ok the base isn't really level but as this is our first attempt we don't care! Lets hope it sets and is strong enough to hold the new mower! (more about the mower when its delivered tomorrow!)