Snow / Nest / Apiary
Posted: Monday 21 January, 2019
Monday 14th January
Cold and sunny with an icy wind, but getting milder as the day progressed.
Lots of office work today – in fact, I’m going to be pretty much office-bound all week.
Jane came to trim the ponies’ feet.
Tuesday 15th January
Spent most of the day working on www.dalmore.org.uk stuff
Wednesday 16thJanuary
Cleaned out the hens then back in the office.
Ace tried to scare me by playing dead. He’s not.
Ace. Not dead.
Thursday 17th January
Ooh, light skim of snow. And that was it.
Snow.
Went for hay – lovely stuff.
Friday 18th January
More office stuff; some for Dalmore Croft but also a pile for Smallholding Scotland. Still, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Might be an oncoming train.
Saturday 19th January
Yay! Got to go outdoors today. Spent the morning cleaning out a badly drained patch of the cowshed – the contractor who laid it made a real mess, leaving a dip, which fills with liquid. He did try to repair it but made no difference so I lost patience. A couple of the mats were floating and the smell was pretty horrible, so I lifted the mats, cleaned it out, and Dan sorted the drain. Good topdressing of Stalosan and the mats back down again. Result! I wonder when I’ll get the grant for the mats – that’s been weeks now.
After lunch it was off to the skip with a trailer load of garden waste. Good to see it gone.
Sunday 20th January
Dan and I spent the day in the apiary. It had a lot of work done on it in 2017 by Paul and Gemma – they did a really good job too, felling trees and pulling out tonnes of salmonberry, weeding, laying a woodchip path for the hives to sit on and planting a new hedges.
The good news is that all four colonies are still surviving.
Dan started by cleaning out the nest box and dusting it with diatom, ready for the new season. The old nest had Bugsy hair in it, bless him.
Nest with Bugsy hair.
I weeded the hedge – only one plant has been lost. Dan cleared away a pile of soil and the black plastic under it, then strimmed. There’s a bit of weeding still to be done, the strimmed grass needs raked and new woodchip put down but it was getting dark by the time we finished. Good job.
Apiary.
