Hooray at last the grass is in it's infancy.
It was sown just over two weeks ago. First we had to check the amount of seed leaving the spreader and for that the kitchen floor was the very place. Several attempts had to be made adjusting the little knobs, measuring the area covered, sweeping up the seed and then weighing it. If anyone had chosen to drop by at this point I suspect we would have been carted off immediately!
Then outside to the real thing and off went Mr Second Wind whilst I was ready to replenish the hopper at frequent intervals.
And then we waited, and waited and inspected and examined every day. Nothing seemed to be happening and we were beginning to wonder if we had got a duff lot of seed and might have to start all over again....... but on Sunday last there they were, tiny shafts of greenness, a haze over the soil. What a sight!Oh joy! The birds have had a bit, but we allowed for that though we hadn't foreseen the visitation by a rabbit who has decided to dig a few holes!
Whilst waiting nervously for the seed to germinate we got busy with something else that's been on the "To do" list for far too long
Under that cover is our woodburning stove which has sat patiently waiting for over two years
It turned out to be a trickier job than we had anticipated because the chimney pipe is a smaller diameter than the flue and using glass fibre rope to pack it out was never going to work as the gap was too big. So we acquired an adaptor piece which then had to be fitted about 50cm up the flue and sealed with mastic. This involved OH sitting astride the stove and attempting to get very sticky gooey mastic at the correct height up the flue and sufficient to seal the adaptor in place. It's so easy to laugh about such antics after the event but it was a tense time while this was done! When one's arm is up the fluepipe it is near impossible to then see what one is doing. Next the chimney end had to be covered in mastic and raised vertically up the flue without touching the sides till it met the aforementioned mastic. At the same time the stove pipe had to also be attached to the chimney pipe with fire cement and all before anything decided to set. Are you all following this still. Well I don't blame you.
View up the chimney!
After leaving it all to set and cure for a couple of days we tentatively had a little fire, only a little one mind as you have to sort of "run it in".
I'm so looking forward to a few cold evenings now, but of course the weather has been quite balmy for the last week. It makes a wonderful focal point in the room and the smell of applewood burning is just lovely.
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