Quick daily posts

[Podolyanka]

We all got covered....even the horses and they were 2 miles away!!

I love your sense of humour, Wendy. You have made my day!

[richardandtracy]

Glitter - invention of the Devil.
I imagine if cats knew about it, they'd love it, given how much aggravation it causes their humans. I can imagine Ozzie sticking his nose into a pot, sniffing and then sneezing into the pot, with inevitable consequences.

Have run out of holiday for the moment without finishing the garage roof. Ah well. Better not to kill ourselves. Apparently the steel sheeting will be delivered before the end of this week. I am hopeful that my hands won't feel quite so crippled from gripping things by then and maybe we can get on over next weekend. At the moment I can't hold a needle - requires more fine control & gripping strength than I can muster. Cutting 7 old and HARD concrete blocks with a cold chisel & club hammer left me with almost no ability to grip anything, it was a miracle I didn't throw the club hammer all over the place. My angle grinder cutting discs just skittered over the surface of the blocks without biting in, so I couldn't use that apparently much quicker cutting method. Old concrete either disintegrates or continues to cure as time goes on. These blocks were from the 1980's, so were about 50% stronger than 1 month old concrete. By the time they get to 100 years old, they'll be double the strength of 1 month old blocks. I like to use stuff for a second or third use if possible.

The annex/playroom we built 10 years ago for the girls with their help used bricks from the building we dismantled onsite. In doing so we found a number of bricks with paint on faces inside the solid wall (indicating at least one re-use), so those bricks are now in their third building. Much of the structural timber used in one new wall of the garage will be the dismantled treehouse we took down 2 years ago - which before that was timber from one of Tracy's colleague's garden decking. We try to re-use, re-use then re-use again if we can. And if we don't, it's usually not for want of trying. The corrugated bitumen board from the roof will be used as a weed suppressing mulch that also has the secondary advantage of giving safe & warm hidey holes for Slow Worms (which love being under the boards on cool days). The roofing takes 6-7 years to compost down in that condition.

We did replace the roof on our 35ft x 15ft (10.6 x 4.5m) pole barn/workshop in 2 days and that used pretty much the same construction method of corrugated bitumen board nailed to timber joists being replaced with steel sheeting. The garage is 33ft x 10ft (11m x 3m) so is a comparable area. The pole barn used 11 off 5m long steel sheets, the garage will use 6 off 5.5m sheets. However, that was 12 years ago and I didn't need to replace the joists as I went along, so I'll try to get everything prepared & hope(!) everything will go like clockwork. I may have to cut the power to the garage. Having it rain on live electrics will be exciting in a way I don't appreciate.

Regards,

Richard.

[Mabel Figworthy]

I like your policy of re-using until it really can't be re-used anymore - and you find some interesting things like your painted bricks!

[Serinde]

I guess I knew that concrete continued to cure, but only thought about that in relation to large structures. Interesting bit of information, thanks.

I also applaud your reuse it mentality. Lots of that around here, too.

[rcperryls]

I get a daily newsletter from CNN which includes (what I really like about this newsletter) a Breakfast Browse with fun and interesting tidbits of information. Always ends with a link to a video (I think I have shared some of these before). Today's link is a brief video about Typography, explaining some of the terms describing parts of letters. I found it interesting and thought some of you might too. Beginning Graphic Design: Typography

Carole

[Mabel Figworthy]

I really enjoy that sort of thing, thanks for sharing!

[Serinde]

So did I.

[Podolyanka]

I thought after 2 months in Queensland (1998), nobody could surprise me where it comes to a variety of birds. But the day before yesterday I came across this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW6qS9hCCXk

and now cant have enough of watching birds at day time and fruit bats at night. We are nearly in the same time zone- South Africa is 1 hour behind Kyiv time.

[Serinde]

This is biscuit decoration taken to a whole new plane!

[Mabel Figworthy]

Serinde I've saved some of those pictures to turn them back into embroideries!

[Serinde]

@ Mabel: Snap!!

@Lyudmila: Fabulous! I could spend a lot of time looking at those extraordinary birds. So colourful -- no idea what they are, of course, but did spot a sparrow!

[richardandtracy]

I thought after 2 months in Queensland (1998), nobody could surprise me where it comes to a variety of birds. But the day before yesterday I came across this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW6qS9hCCXk

and now cant have enough of watching birds at day time and fruit bats at night. We are nearly in the same time zone- South Africa is 1 hour behind Kyiv time.

!!!!!!!!!
Wow. Makes our little collection look positively mundane. Glorious to see such a range.

As for sparrows.. Yes. I understand there are gangs in South Africa, Australia and I have seen them in Yosemite in California, and probably anywhere large numbers of Brits settled. Apparently in the 1800's a lot of Brits moved about the world and felt utterly lost without their beloved & familiar Sparrows. So they had some shipped to various parts of the world just to make them feel at home. (Read that on one of the useful information signs in Yosemite National Park when Tracy & I were on Honeymoon. This was just after being surprised & delighted to see a gang of Sparrows).

Regards,

Richard

[Podolyanka]

Richard, you would not believe, I did not see a single sparrow in Australia. There were gangs of galahs around, so in my mind I nicknamed them "Australian sparrows". Now I look at their live feeding cameras, and sparrows seem to be as common there as here. Maybe I was in a wrong place in a wrong time.

[richardandtracy]

Lyudmila, possibly where you were in Queensland was too warm for them. Sparrows seem to prefer cooler climates and can cope with quite a lot of snow provided food is still available to them. I can imagine them liking the temperate climate in Melbourne & Sydney but not the tropical climate of Cairns or Far North Queensland. I've not been to the southern part of Queensland, but imagine it's still largely too warm there too.

Tracy & I also saw flocks of Galahs near Cairns and also Alice Springs and were hugely entertained by them. The bird that amazed me by its numbers was the Black Cockatoo. There were flocks of 40-50 flying in V shaped formations high over Port Douglas in North Queensland when we were there. Such huge birds in such numbers... an absolutely awe inspiring sight.

It has just struck me. Ayres Rock (Uluru) is actually the furthest South I have ever been anywhere, and elsewhere in Australia, the furthest south I have been is Townsville. So I've not actually seen much of Australia at all. Just the central track from Ayres Rock to Darwin and a little area no more than 90 miles from Cairns. Australia is so huge one could spend years travelling & seeing something new and amazing every day. Then there's North & South America to explore even then you'd have to ignore the beauties of Eastern Siberia and all the way west to the Atlantic. The place I most want to see in person, though, is the cold bit at the bottom of the planet. Just a bit difficult to get there, especially now. One lifetime is nowhere near long enough to see it all. Hrrumph.


Today is a big day. Tracy returns to work in her Library for the first day since March. She has rather got to like working from our conservatory where she can see the garden, cats and birds. She's going back 3 days a week and continuing the office side of her work from home 2 days a week. It's going to be a bit of a wrench and she's very nervous about it. We know eight people who died from Covid-19, and that has rather coloured our view of returning to work.
Every year the students return to her University Library in September and every staff member in the Library goes down with a cold or similar viral infection in September or October. Covid-19 being a Corona Virus similar to the cold virus will be just as easily transmitted. We are wondering if we shouldn't avoid seeing Tracy's parents for a few weeks until we are sure either Tracy, and the rest of us, have had it or the biosecurity measures in place are effective. Personally, I am certain the biosecurity measures are no more than window dressing and the absolute minimum that will prevent being sued when transmission takes place, having seen the precautions taken. It appears a huge amount of faith is being placed in the students' common sense and the effectiveness of yellow coloured sticky tape in stopping an air and contact transmitted virus. At the moment the English Chief Medical Officer is saying that the majority of transmission is occurring from contagious people of the 20-40 age group not showing common sense or following basic rules of hygiene and distancing. Students fall into that age band and are notoriously unable to either show common sense or follow simple instructions...

Regards,

Richard

[Mabel Figworthy]

Richard, I think you are wise to be cautious. I try not to be paranoid about the risks (although I am definitely at the risk-averse end of the spectrum) but a friend who teaches in a secondary school where the children returned last week (they'd been teaching a small number of special needs students and children of key workers, but now it is all the students) said that there is absolutely no social distancing in any practical sense. "They're teenagers," she said. "They're meant to walk single-file at all times, but then they spot a friend and run over to have a chat; they stand too close together; none of them wear masks." And a majority of parents (less likely to be a problem at universities, of course, or even at secondary schools) are no help either; another friend who teaches at a primary school remarked that a large proportion of them cluster at the school gates just as usual, chatting in groups without masks.

At the moment the majority of infections appears to be among younger people, and they are fortunately less likely (though not entirely without risk) to get seriously ill from it - but not feeling ill they may unwittingly spread it to those more vulnerable It's a tricky balance to get right.

[richardandtracy]

I went to boarding school as a young brat (parents in Germany and they thought a UK school would provide a more stable school when they moved around and the army provided 50% of the fees). One year the school had a serious outbreak of Chickenpox, 120 of the 180 pupils were in bed with it and schooling effectively stopped for about 10 days. So, yes, virus' can rage through a school environment like an all consuming wildfire.

[I got it twice more before developing adequate immunity, and was highly relieved not to get it when Orianna got it aged 18 months - she's now age 21.]

Regards,

Richard.

[richardandtracy]

Currently I am quite pleased. My steel garage roof sheeting has been delivered. Naturally, the delivery truck arrived at 6.40pm, just 30 seconds after my youngest daughter had dished up supper. So I had a cold supper in the end. However, I am pleased. It was delivered just under 2 weeks late, but I am close to the state where I had intended to be when it was due. Things have taken much longer than expected.

With any luck, I'll get the majority of the roof done this weekend. Even if it's not fully watertight by the end of the weekend, it is unlikely to be as bad as the current roof. The current roof has sagged so much there is an 8" deep pool on it...

Regards

Richard.

[Serinde]

@Richard Glad the new roof has arrived -- that'll make quite a difference when it's finished!

Off to the dentist today, which holds no fears as my teeth have generally behaved themselves over the years. Then, if the weather holds (it's not been as predicted really for the last week), I'll get out to tidying bits and pieces in the garden. Anyone want some runner beans?...

[richardandtracy]

I love Runner Beans. Adore them. Unfortunately we have great difficulty growing them here. They like rich soil and moist roots, and we live on one huge field drain - 4" of hungry soil over 18" of flint and below that is chalk. We do water them morning & evening, but it's not really enough. The last place we tried them had their roots in the shade most of the day, but that didn't seem to help much as the soil is so thin. With the chalk around any organic matter seems to break down very fast and stop retaining moisture very quickly.
There is a field about 1.5 miles away where they grow runner beans, and I expressed my astonishment that they could do so when talking to the owner. Turns out they have a 3/4 acre ironstone inclusion in the chalk just below the surface and it slows the drainage, making runner beans possible.

Regards,

Richard.

[Mabel Figworthy]

I'm afraid all I've managed so far is a rather watery tomato and some herbs

I don't count the wild strawberries as they are absolutely nothingto do with me, they just grow!