Lawn Again

All hail the soon-to-arrive lawn!

As my Reader knows, Chez Snail now has a new raised bed and some bare earth (didn’t know? Read about that endeavour here). The bare earth is, of course, where the grass is going to go. The Snail decided that we should invest in some pre-turfed, er, turf, the kind you roll on from a, you know, roll.

A few days after completing the raised bed, the turf arrived from Shropshire. We wanted to buy more locally but there basically isn’t anywhere by us unless we were prepared to pay over a thousand pounds for it, which seemed steep for 16 m² of grass.

Worst. Swiss. Roll. Ever.

I moved the 16 rolls round to the back of the house and The Snail and I began the task of creating a new lawn.

It’s beginning to lawn…

We kept on rolling…

Halfway there…

… until, amazingly, after about 75 minutes, it was complete!

Turf’s up! Well, down.

We put up a barrier to stop the dogs having a dig – it’ll come down in about a week or so’s time when the grass had had a chance to root. Another step closer to Stormy Harbours at an expanded “Throw It Again Sam Cocktail Bar”!*

Mine’s a Stormy Harbour please, and hold the squeaky ball

Quick update: We have had persistent rain the last few days and the grass has already started to root into some of the ground!

oOo

* When the rain would care to stop.

Raising the Bed

From this…

When Sting described seven days*, he reckoned that Monday could wait until Tuesday, and also that Sunday would be too late. The Cure didn’t care that Monday** was blue but were prepared to spend Tuesday and Wednesday in bed. Here at Chez Snail, none of this would have washed with The Snail who, on a Sunday morning, had a great idea.

“Let’s rearrange the garden,” she said, or words to that effect. The three raised beds we had created over a very hard weekend about 15 years ago weren’t really working for us anymore, so The Snail felt it was time to move a number of the old railway sleepers around to create a new big raised bed and leave a space on which to create a green grassy area (lawn is too grand a word, it implies a strict totalitarian regime of cutting which will never happen) to put important things on, such as a parasol and some deck chairs.

And so, on a Monday (actually, it was a Sunday afternoon that I tested out whether I could move a sleeper on my own, but Sting wouldn’t have approved), I started the move…

First sleeper (in the background) moved

Digging a trench to take the sleeper that will form the front of the bed

New front sleeper being moved into place. Old vertebrae being moved out of place.

Now, if I had followed Sting’s and The Cure’s advice, nothing would have been done by Wednesday. However, I was beginning to think that the heart attack The Cure were planning on Thursday might come to pass.

Slowly taking shape…

Top front sleeper in place – originally, it was going to be the one on the ground, pretending to be a banana

Just a couple of pieces to fit in now

The weather forecast was for very heavy rain on the approaching Monday, so now having everything done by the end of Sunday was really important. With help from The Snail, we finished up in the cool sunshine of a Sunday early evening.

Bed raised and ground in front covered to stop the forecast heavy rain washing soil away

Sleepers (two kinds)

All finished for now – there will be a few additions, such as a painted wooden top to the front sleeper to act as a nice seat.

Roll on edible things growing in the raised bed and drinks under the parasol on the new grass (post to follow about that)!

… to this, In Only Seven Days***

oOo

* Seven Days by Sting

** Friday, I’m in Love by The Cure

*** In Only Seven Days by Queen.

Hail to thee, Scythe Spirit!

It’s a jungle out there…

Just a quick post…

Chez Snail doesn’t have a large area of grass or meadow for me to practice my scything on, just a very small bit of grass at the front. So, when Going Batty in Wales said she wanted to cut her meadow which had become somewhat enthusiastic for growing hogweed and pretty much every other type of meadow plant, I offered to help out. Social distancing is easy as there is plenty of space – now there is a bit more!

…but we tamed it…

I scythed, GBIW removed the cut hogweed and we talked and talked and talked…

…well, except maybe this wild animal, who we left to its own devices…

When we were done, we had ham rolls and wine and talked some more. A perfect way to spend part of the day, more so during these strange times!

oOo

I Can See Your House from Here… and bits of mine

 

Flying High-ish

As befits one of my advanced years, I received a very mature present for my birthday – a quadcopter with a camera built in it. For those of you who have never heard of this toy, er, serious bit of equipment, it is a small flying thing with four rotors (one at each corner essentially) all attached to a light, reasonably durable body (I was going to put ‘like mine’ but it just wouldn’t be true).

Flying it is a challenge, even in light wind, and there is the ever-present danger of it flying off into the field next to the garden or worse still, ending up on the roof out of the reach of one who hates heights. So, I am still very much in the cautious phase of learning, the phase right before the ‘well, I never liked that solar panel much anyway’ phase.

A Close Encounter

Eventually, I want to be able to fly as high as is reasonably possible with the toy, er, quadcopter and take aerial pictures of the garden through the seasons to see the changes from above… and have fun in the process!

A Bird’s-Eye View of the Onion Cage

What follows is the most common photo I have ended up with so far:

Grounded!

Back to Earth now, I guess!

oOo