Bits and Pieces

It’s been one of those ‘little bit of this and a little bit of that’ days. It usually is as since my breakdown I’ve found it really hard to concentrate on any one thing for a long time. I also have a bit of a problem with my back and I find by changing what I do frequently it copes much better. So today, apart from looking after the animals, I did a bit of work on each of the following.

This is one of the beams above the new window that’s been fitted. You can just make out the original dimensions of the beam on the right, the missing bits on it were what descended as dust when the cement skim fell off. A bit of extreme sanding is called for and I was pointed in the direction of this. I didn’t know you could get sanding discs for angle grinders and oh boy is this efficient. This time I’ve hung a polythene sheet round the area to try and contain the dust and it has largely worked. So much so that after about 10 minutes of sanding the air in the enclosed area is so thick with dust that it’s getting into my eyes even though I’m wearing goggles.

So a change or air was called for and I started shifting more of the alpaca manure and layering it with the old straw I have. The two original heaps I built had compressed to about half size so I built them up again and added a third stack on the end. The dung pile is the one in the foreground and the two small heaps are in front of the two straw bales. You can see in the background the remaining bales I would like to use before I cut the wheat in May/June.

After a dozen or so wheelbarrow loads of alpaca manure it was back to the sanding. I’m now at the point where I’ve more or less done the left hand side. To get to the right hand side is proving a bit more difficult as the angle grinder is very definitely right handed and has a long handle sticking out the left hand side. I see some contortionism coming up.

Once the dust level became too great again I though I’d move a couple more loads of gravel before my back gave out. Thankfully I don’t have to do the whole drive just from the dark shadow up to the house. That small area from the shadow to the spade has already yielded 8 barrow loads and I’ve a long way to go until I reach the back of the house. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet but I’m sure it will be useful somewhere even if it’s only to put back on any areas that melt in the summer. And talking of summer, Snowy took the opportunity of today’s sunshine to bask on the remains of a hay bale beside me while I worked.