Barn Blitz and Mad Cats 21-23 July 2009

Mad Cats

I was in the garden between the showers yesterday when a blur of ginger and black whizzed past me. You can tell Sandy has recovered from his poorly paw. Here's Sandy showing of his newly healed foot, in a rather balletic pose I thought:

'Hey, look at my foot. It even has some new fur growing'.
This was a pause in the mad fighting that went on (or should I say a paws)....

I made up this little montage of the action for you. You'll notice Sandy is almost always the dominant one. He had a mouthful of black fur at one point and was trying to spit it out. Poor BlackJack. Mind you, he's often the one who starts it all.

We have some long ornamental grass in one of the front beds at The Deenery and BlackJack discovered it yesterday. He was fighting it and hiding in it. It was hilarious. I made another montage of his antics:
The grass is clearly winning in the centre bottom shot! He looks so cross. Do click on the photo to enlarge it - you'll get a much better view.
'Phew, enough is enough. Don't you know I've been poorly', says Sandy!

Top Barn Clean Up

The big news from 2 days ago, which I had forgotten in the water chaos, was that Jim and I spent the day clearing up the top barn. We need to move all the junk from the old barn, which has to be demolished, up into the newer one, so it had to be done.

I made a tentative start in May. Here are the 'before' photos I took then:

About the only thing that's happened since then is we have done one run to the re-cycling plant.

So, after our efforts, which included shovelling 20 year old cow poo which was stuck firmly to the floor, this is what it looks like now:

The 'stuff' in the cow byres on the left is all re-cycling so we'll do a tip run next week.

This is the top section and the dividing wall still has to be scraped. How on earth do cows crap up there? I have scraped each individual cow stall, walls and floor!
This is the last cow stall I cleaned. You can see the metal piece on the wall where the cow was presumably tethered for milking. I'm sure Weaver will set me right on the names of things and what used to happen here - and maybe even the trajectory of cow poo!!

So there you have it, all as clean as we could get it without actually washing it. After the tip run we'll move the stuff up from the old barn, some time next week.

Water

The water saga goes on. Yesterday evening when Jim arrived home about 8.30pm, the water stopped again. Jim primed the pump and it was fine. I went to bed at midnight and Jim told me this morning that the water stopped again shortly after that and all we'd done was flush the loo! Something is wrong somewhere. So the Pump Man is coming again at tea time today.

While he was here last time the heavens opened and we had a monsoon (well, almost). We hid in the barn while Sean had a cigarette! It was so noisy, as it has a corrugated iron roof!

Here is our water supply (or not, as the case may be).
The water comes up the big black pipes from the 'well'. Looks a bit primitive doesn't it?

What water does come out is still a delicate shade of brown. Lovely. It doesn't notice in tea of course.

The Garden

The gladioli are just coming out, there are lots in the top bed by the gate and also some on the allotment:Nearly there. This is the top bed, which has the gladioli and dahlias, it's packed full to busting.
You can see the orange cactus dahlia I took a photo of 2 days ago. Here is a close up of the purple and white one:I used to have a large, sprawling Marguerite daisy plant in the long top bed in front of the barn. I dug it all up and transplanted it to various places around the garden and allotment. A small plant has just flowered in one of the raised beds:
Such a plain but pretty flower. I hope Teri sees it, she loves daisies.
Finally a petunia which is in one of the hanging basket. They have been so pretty this year.

ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and Inchies

Soulbrush sent me the letter 'K' ATC, K is for Kick boxer. What a great idea. I've had trouble thinking of a K. This is for the group I belong to ABC of ATCs.
Soul also enclosed four 'inchies' so now I must send her some of mine to catch up:

These are literally 1" square! I have had great fun doing mine. I love the pink lady the best of these. Thank you Soulbrush.

Today - The Pump Man Cometh Again

Jim's had to go to the Kildare Horticultural Trade Show again today as he didn't get all his interviewing done yesterday. Sean the pump man came again this afternoon so I have dealt with him. He thinks the real solution would be to have a submersible pump. These are obviously under the water and even when the water is low, whatever is there it will pump up. It's also quiet (ours makes a tremendous racket) and the little house thing that's in the middle of the drive could go and the controls could be fitted inside the top barn. This would kill 2 birds with 1 stone, as he would put lighting in the barn and a couple of sockets too, all in the same job. Also he'd fit an outside tap. Sounds good to me. Money, money, money!

I just have to persuade Jim now.

I think that's enough for today. Must get outside as it's stopped raining.