Sugru and other squidgy mendy stuffs

I have been quite busy recently with a home made version of Sugru.
While i love the idea of Sugru and think that the inventor is a clever old clog, I cannot warrant spending £8 or £12 on a few tiny little blobs of it when I can make whole blocks of it If I want just by going to instructables or Youtube and typing oogoo into the search box.

Anyway.

Oogoo or Sugru is a silicone based putty  which sets in the air and becomes flexible and rubbery.

It can be used to mend many things and is quite strong and waterproof.
Stands heat and cold well and can be made to be almost any colour.

The official version Sugru  is available in lots of places and comes packed in foil with a 6 months life span or 18 months if you keep it in the fridge.

• I have used my homemade version to mend a dustpan.
• Make it a new squeegee edge.
• Make hooks for the kitchen
• Pan lid holders
• A knob for a saucepan lid.
• A handle for my deep fat fryer
• hooks in the bathroom
• Some washers
• A holder for my wifi dongle so it sits on top of the monitor
• Buffers on the top of our old loft ladder so it doesn't scratch the wall paper.
• A Grip for the flask lid which gets too tight to undo
• Mended the  end of knob on cup rack
• A new cover for a penknife which I found trodden into the mud when we were out.

Future plans are

• More bathroom hooks
• More kitchen hooks
• More pan lid holders
• Tidier way to fix the laptop connector on two of the fixed laptops
• Some rubber stamps for craft
• Fix my yarn winder to be more robust
• Fix the seal on the double glazed sliding door that leaks

I'm sure I will find other uses .
So far that is 13 things mended and 7 planned.
I don't know how many packets I could get through of the commercial version.

If you are interested in using the sold stuff.
Consider looking around the house first and finding all the things you want to mend with it.
Write a list and what colour you would need.
This stuff comes in black,white ,yellow,blue and red which are all the primary colours meaning you can mix almost any colour with them.

The home made version is slightly more versatile because you can of course make any colour you have in paint , including I think gold,silver and fluorescent and with glow in the dark powder, there is that option also.

Altering a Bra and other articles of clobber

Altering clothes for the frugally challenged.

I have been busy recently with my sewing machine.

I took in three pairs of shorts that I made about 8 years ago and were a good 4 inches too wide for me having lost weight and got fitter.

They are 100 cotton and dark blue with tailored waist band,inseam pockets and patch pockets.
That meant that I had to completely rip out the side seams after removing the patch pockets and rework them with new seams and seam pockets.
I decided not to remove the whole waist band but instead cut into it at the side seam as it was going to be so much narrower overall and incorporated it into the side seam as I machined.

One pair was shortened by about 3 inches, one pair by 2 inches and one pair by an inch.
The longest pair are going to have belt loops added so that each pair is slightly different.
I reattached one patch pocket on each pair but kept the second for using as material for the belt loops.

It took a good while but thankfully I have a very nice sewing machine so it was fun too.


Then I mended 6 pairs of pants( underwear) where the elastic had parted company with the material due to very cheap manufacture.
These last were done by hand because the material is thin and soft and the elastic although sound, is narrow and obviously stretchy.

I also had 4 quite nice bras that I bought back when I thought I was a 36 B
Unfortunately I am not a 36B and probably never was (MUM!).
The big TJ Hughes in town closed and their sale had several 34C bras which I bought to see how they fitted.
They were exactly right for me so I resolved to alter my other bras to fit better too.

I cant do much about the cup size but the chest size is doable.
Here is a diagram of how to do it incase anyone fancies having a go on their own.

 This was 

a really easy project and saved my bras from the dustbin. 

I remember when I first got a bra,Mum was in no rush to spend money on clothes and so it was after much pleading that I was given one, it was mums cast off and was way past its best.

If I had realised how easy it was to adjust the girth size back then ,I probably would have snaffled a needle and thread and got to work to make my ghastly acquisition a bit more acceptable .

As I did not, I went to school wearing it and other similar cast off s with over stretched straps and material and suffered the mirth of the 12 to 16 aged girls during many a PE lesson.

Bleaching T shirts

I found an interesting article on instructibles by a member called stinkymum.

She describes using Bleach in a tie dye fashion to alter dark T shirts.

This was very interesting to me because one of my favourite T shirts is black with a cheetah on and has become faded under the arms which looked horrible.
I also have a T shirt that OH gave me . It had been thrown away still in its packet because it was a small and didn't fit any of the beefy coppers.
When I wore it the first time, the black came off on everything.

So anyway I read through her instructions for various folds and chose two I liked the look of in her pictures.

The bleach went into a large bowl. I did 1 large yog container of bleach and 5 of water as it was wilkos thick bleach.
Then after folding and rubber banding my shirts ,I put them in and went off to do something else.
20 minutes later I took them out ,unbanded and rinsed them.
They had started to change but not very much so I had to carefully fold them back as closely as possible to previously and put them back again.
I gave them another 20 minutes because she had quoted 1 part bleach and 3 water and I had diluted mine by a lot more.

The second attempt was much better.
I rinsed like mad then when the rinse water  seemed to have cleared of browny colour, I put them through the rinse on the washing machine.

The manky underarm is gone from my cheetah shirt and the other shirt looks very cool going from a light mushroom brown to its original black in an interesting fadey pattern a bit like stained glass.
The cheetah is silk screened and so has not been affected at all and now sits in a shadowy shady mottled background. The underarm staining which was really I suppose natural bleaching from sweat and age, is just part of the bleach pattern instead of standing out screaming old and manky.

Better homemade vegan cheese

If you have read any of my other recent food type posts you will know that I discovered I have a milk allergy so have been trying very hard to find alternatives to dairy foods without breaking the bank.

Hooray I managed to make a much more cheese like cheese on my second attempt.

It grates and slices and looks like cheese.
It is softer,like a very firm mousse,not hard and crumbly but it is good on pizza or sandwiches or crackers and I even secretly made Quiche with it and nobody commented that the cheese tasted funny.

The recipe is from reciperenovator.com

1 C cashews
1 1/2 C water
4 teaspoons agar powder
   OR
4 Tablespoons agar flakes
1/4 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C lemon juice
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Soak cashews for 4 hours and then grind em up or just used ground cashews like I did without the soaking.
Boil water and add agar simmer for 5 mins stirring.
Put everything into a blender or food processor and blend it smooth.
add any herbs or whatever(I didn't) .

Oil a bowl or tub to shape your cheese.
Pour in the cheese and let it cool.
Put in Fridge when cold enough.

I did this exactly as above and have a yellow,almost cheddar coloured cheese.
You could add a little bit of tomato paste for oranger cheese or cook a carrot before using the agar in the water.

I might try some hickory smoke powder the next time.

I don't think the cup sizing matters because it is just to get the proportions of the larger amounts right.

Half of this amount lasts me a week so I cut it in half and freeze the second bit.
It thaws out well and keeps its firmness.

The harvest

I dug some of our spuds up last week.
I have dug about 1/5th of the whole crop and possibly have 6 weeks supply for 3 adults (2 will only eat them under shotgun circumstances anyway).

Have you tried marrow and ginger jam making?
I did some for the first time this year and it is like eating ginger beer on toast.

My birthday this month was lovely.
OH bought me a brand new laptop!
He also bought me a lovely green cover with a little light  for my ereader .
DS bought me some vouchers to shop with online and a big chocolate birthday cake!

We had fish and chips as a birthday tea too:)
*******************************************************************************
OH has decided to give up on his OU studies.
He announced yesterday that he had given up as he wasn't able to understand how to do it all.
At the time, he was attempting to recover his computer, having messed it up with a bad update install and I thought he was talking about that.
Really and truly, I have no idea why he had ever started the course in the first place.
He has spent 4 years banging his head in frustration over it while all the time admitting he had no thought to use the resulting qualification in any way.??

Actually I do wonder if it was more about trying to keep up with various sisters who had taken on courses and finished the studying.
One sister who shall remain nameless here (as usual) proclaimed that she was now better than other people who did not have a degree (much to my disgust as you can imagine).
Unfortunately, that is the attitude of quite a lot of snotty people and they live in ignorance of the skills and ingenuity of people everywhere who choose not to go get a piece of paper to 'prove' they can think,talk,breath  and write all at the same time.

*****************************************************************************
DS, who incidentally has spent 4 years getting his degree, still has no job after 14 months of looking.
DD, having graduated this year, is looking too and so far, nothing, after a false start with a firm who specialized in chugging turned out to be a bunch of sweat shoppers under the guise of charity fundraisers.

*****************************************************************************

Preserving stuff

I have been harvesting a fair bit this last week.

The dehydrator has been busy every night drying Beans, Kale, Courgettes, and  spinach .
We also have a Vacuum sealer which has helped keep the freezer from overflowing because it compacts things into flatter shaped bags.

Yesterday I decided we needed the bottom shelf of the freezer back (it is only a 3 shelf under-counter style ).
There were 6 Seville oranges and 4 lemons in there waiting to be made into marmalade.
I sorted through the saved empty jars to find enough with lids.
It took about 1 1/2 hours to chop them all up and boil it down in the microwave.

Last week I made Marrow and Ginger jam using ground ginger.
The result has turned out quite sloppy as there wasn't enough pectin despite a goodly amount of lemon juice.
I can see it being mostly used as pie fillings but no matter.

There are about 8 good sized marrows under DD's bed now.
Hopefully they will last w while without needing to be dried or frozen.

cutting bottles

I have been trying to cut the ends off the vinegar bottles that I buy in sains or asda.
There are at least 10 every couple of months because that is the cheapest way to buy a gallon of vinegar.
I do try to put them in the recycling bin but they take up a lot of bin space and weigh the plastic kitchen bin bag down.

I tried to cut a straight line using a glass cutter but it is almost impossible to get it straight and steady.
Next I looked online for glass cutting comments.
There was a very interesting utube video about using hot and cold water to separate your scored bottle.

Then I found a home made jig on Instructables and that is what I made this morning.
My jig is an old shelf we had lying around in the shed and I already had the screws and the glass cutter so the whole thing was free.

Hmm, it is easier said than done though , cutting a bottle.
I dont know if my cutter is a cheapo thing or blunt but it was difficult to get a continuous scored line even using the jig that holds the bottle perfectly.

My endevours so far have resulted in various wobbly edged glass shapes.
I want them for mini garden cloches as they are glass and wont blow away.
The plants wont care about the edges being wobbly but my eye is offended just the same.

I shall persevere!

I love instructables and today while looking for the instructions for the jig, I decided to use some of my surveys money to buy a pro membership. I can download their instructables as pdfs then or download their ebooks which are compilations of various things.

2 years membership is about £24 so very good value when you think of all the info that I find on there.

Weeding with tweezers

Yes really!
The raised carrot bed has loads of little carrot seedlings in rows but also about a million weed seedlings.
I have spent about 6 hours on it so far.

We are going to be absent for a few days so I have rigged up a drip feeding affair to add to the capillary matting.
DS will be here but he isn't very good with remembering to water plants.
The drip feeder is actually just two redundant bread maker tins with sponge cloth for drip wicks.
They last a few days.

I have a smaller version over the greenhouse carrots which is a washing up liquid bottle and the same foam.

Make simple drip irrigation for your greenhouse

Cut the bottom off a plastic bottle.
Using the lid with a hole in or a squirty top, thread some foam rubber (washing up cloth) through to use as a wick.
Fill with water and suspend over the plants.
I have two wire shelves set up in a tent shape over the plants and the bottle is sitting in one of the holes.
You could tie it or wire it to hang from something.
It will drip slower as it empties.
Yesterday it was dripping at about once every 8 seconds and today when it is about half empty,it is dripping at around once every 30 seconds.

The bigger tin drippers are hanging from two pieces of pipe threaded through the handle.


The garden is doing well.
Onions are big and fat.
Toms are getting taller and most have flowers.
Courgettes are appearing on the plants.
Peas have pods.
Runner beans have scarlet flowers.
French beans have pods.
Spinach is  trying to bolt but I keep pinching out prospective flowers.
Brassicas are becoming taller and I have separated 16 plants of Kale and Broccoli and put them under cloches to keep the birds off.

The spuds were showing magnesium deficiency so have been watered with epsom salted water.
Runner beans have been soapy sprayed to remove aphids.

We have the usual cherries which look like most like Raniers variety than anything else.
The birds eat most of them as they are far too high up to reach.

Rasps are getting red and sweet.
Strawbs are nearing the end and have been abundant as usual.

We have had far more than the initial outlay in fruit over the years.
There must be pounds and pounds of the last two in the freezer .

I have bought several green manure seeds to sow after the spuds and onions are done.

In the later part of the year when the fruit is over, I will clear the area as it is becoming hard to keep under control and replant strawbs ,rasps etc.

Comfrey


I have 11 out of 12 comfrey plants showing!
The HDRA cuttings I bought some years ago were disappointing  but these new ones bought from ebay have thrived all apart from one.
I am happy though because I only paid for 10 and the offer was for a minimum of 10 cuttings.

The Tomatoes are unleashed

I spent all Saturday afternoon mowing our lawn,then strimming the edges.
 ( We call 'weed wackers', 'strimmers' in the UK) .

We bought a much longer electric flex a couple of weeks ago because OH is slowly erecting a fence and the cable we had was much too short for him to use an electric drill. At first we thought we would just see if we could borrow the extension cable from a neighbour but then I realised it would be better to buy one ourselves as then I can use the strimmer and the hedge clippers in the veg plot and beyond as well.

Anyway,the plan worked well because I lopped off a lot of bramble and nettles straight after we bought it and this week,the strimmer helped hugely in tidying up the paths and weedy growth down there.
The whole thing from getting out the mower, to putting away the Strimmer, took about 3 1/2 hours with a short 15 minute intermission while I discovered why the power wasn't getting through towards the end of mowing.

It turned out to be a break in the wire where it fits into the plug ,invisible because it had broken inside the  plastic cover of the cable but not too frustrating because having eliminated everything else,it was the only thing left .

On Sunday, I got out the 2 Wheel hoes again.
First I used the cultivating teeth to loosen up my latest cleared bed, then the little rake (it's actually a bit too small) was fitted on, to clear the roots.

Lastly,I made two furrows with the ridger,one on either side of the bed.

The Tomatoes were then spaced out in the furrows and their pots put alongside them.
A bamboo cane was planted on the other side and I covered each plant using a trowel so I could right the plants individually and make sure the pots didn't get filled with mud.

I ran out of canes but there were plenty of branches lying around under the trees from our hedging escapades so that was no problem.

It rained quite hard for most of the rest of the day so they got a good watering in. Eventually they will be watered through the pots,hence their being planted beside one each. 

The idea is that the roots are the part of the plant that needs the water and if you water straight into the pot, it gets there, rather than evaporating . We have used this method before to good effect.

I haven't grown tomatoes for a couple of years. 

One year we had blight which usually affects a whole area as it is air born.

Last year I didn't grow anything at all because of  working from home becoming all encompassing.

Next I used the stirrup hoe on the other wheel hoe to weed everywhere it would fit.

I can sort of weed the onion beds with it but when I planted them out last Autumn, I forgot to measure how wide the Jalo was and so there are a few bits where only a hand hoe will fit.

The Comfrey is beginning to show at last!

It is that little bright green leaf beside the umbrella-stay which I put there to mark where each piece of cutting was planted and hopefully keep OH's giant cloddies off it ,not to mention the cats.

There are 12 pieces in there and so far 6 are peeping out.

In the Autumn,I will make cuttings myself from the older clump that was planted about 5 years ago.

I wanted that clump to be well established before dividing it because despite having bought it from the HDRA and receiving 10 cuttings, only 3 or 4 came up.

Eventually I hope to line the edge of the plot using cuttings as it is so useful and because we have the Russian Comfrey variety, it is non invasive.

After the weeding,I whooshed the Jalo up and down between the spuds and then with the ridger still on the other Jalo (hence the usefulness of having two).

I swooped between the rows again and tidied them up.

That may well be the last earthing up they need this year because the canopy of leaves will soon meet overhead and once it does,the weeds are not such a problem.

Here they are from about 2 weeks ago. They leaves are much more prolific now.

The weeds on the right are strimmed off now too and the left hand path is strimmed.

More about the Victorian seeders and the Jalo Gardener Hoes

I managed to get a picture of the inside of the victorian seeder at last!

This is looking down with the front of the hopper at the top of the pic.

The hopper is bottomless and there is a sliding plate below,on which it sits fairly snuggly.

It isn't really easy to see but there is a bullet shaped hole on the sliding plate .

This is set to almost fully open in the picture and the white shape at the bottom is the floor of the shed seen through the bullet shaped hole and the seed chute beneath.

Here it is from the side.
The Wheel has prongs all around the hub.
There is a metal pointer which rests on the prongs and when the wheel rotates, the pointer is forced up and down.
At the other end of the pointer is a bolt with an adjustable knob.
The bolt is connected to the slider plate with the bullet hole in it.
So when the pointer is forced up and down, the plate must push backwards and forwards under the hopper.
A strong spring makes sure the pointer stays against the wheel prongs.

When the plate is in the forward position,the hole is shut because it is no longer under the hopper.
When the plate is back, the hole is open and depending on where you have adjusted the knob, it allows a seed or some seeds to drop through.
There is no adjusting for distance between seeds but as the plate takes longer to expose the complete hole when planting bigger seeds, the distance is further apart.

My French beans were around 4" apart when they emerged. There were a few skipped places but the cats had been in and scratched up a lot of the bed during the night and I had to keep pushing seeds back in for a few days.

Originally I didn't have the cardboard in it but the seeds got left at the back of the hopper too often so the cardboard is sitting on the little prong which is on the slider plate behind the hole (I assume to stop the plate from shooting out too far).
The cardboard shoots forward as the sliding plate moves and that helps to bounce the seeds to the front.

It needs a lid else the seeds sometimes leap out of the top due to the springy action.so I cover it with a plastic bag and hold it on with elastic. This works very well as you can see when it is empty and if you lay the seeder down,the seeds don't all tumble out.

The seeder in the picture is probably the older of the two as it has' Le Butt of Bury St Eds' on the side.
The maker is Josiah Le Butt who invented it in 1869.
I made the hopper on this one as the original had broken off and was gone.

The other one is not branded at all and the wheel rim is flatter. The original lid and hopper are still strong.


I have a metal shelf fitting for a stand for the two seeders and the Jalo wheel hoes.

It means they can all stand in the corner of the shed near the door and not take up too much room.
In the picture, the stirrup hoe is still bolted to the older Jalo and the Ridger is fitted onto the bracket I made on the other one.
The Hoe with the ridger is now painted and de rusted and looks much better than it did when I got it.
What I originally thought was a thicker handle ,was in fact just layers of thick blobby paint .
The two hoes are almost identical now it is painted.
The only difference I can see, is the wheel on the one,has a star pattern (you can just see it in the photo ).
The other is smooth.

Amateur metal working

I have been making bits for my wheel hoe.
Well , one bit really.
It is an oscillating hoe.
A lot of the new wheel hoes have them and I thought I would try my hand at a home made one.

Mine is made from a strip of iron bar we had, and 11 inches of a 24" steel rule(OH's late father had them everywhere so we had a surplus).
The steel rule is the blade.

So far I have had it working but the oscillating bit needs some fiddling to get it right.

I needed to bend the steel and used some pieces of wood and my own weight and a club hammer.
Once bent into two Stirrup shapes,one bolts to the other and all are bolted to the wheel hoe.
The oscillating bit is a little piece of metal that has a small space for the blade to wobble within so that it swings ever so slightly as you push back and forth but not enough to let it erode the metal or the bolts.
The deliberate agrarian has a few pictures of his own that he makes to go with his 'planet Whizz bang hoe' so that was a handy guide.

Also I have been playing with a couple of Absolutely ancient seeders.
They are from the late 19th Century I think as the only info I could find on the WWW was for one made around 1879 and is very similar with the same makers name.

They came as a pair because they were incomplete but there was enough there to make one whole machine with a bit of fiddling.
It seemed a shame to just discard the other parts so I have been fabricating my own replacement bits using the Dremel, a hack saw, a drill and several old bits of metal from things we had lying around broken.
I have one working and needing a new handle and paint the other is working,needs a better handle and paint.

The one with no handle has part of an old wooden one still stuck in the metal handle bracket so I have some work to do to get that out,the screws holding it in are stuck fast.
The other has a thin handle I connected to it rather weedily and although it does work as a handle, it isn't robust enough and will need replacing.


This morning I dug my bean trenches (finally).
The weather is still one long round of drizzle or mizzle or just thin rain.
Grey clouds and cool wind.
The beans are becoming taller and are going to need to go outside in about a week, so the trenches are dug and comfrey is laid in them thickly to act as a fertilizer.

The spuds are just starting to show their leaves.
The row with the shop bought seed potatoes anyway.
The others will show up in their own good time. They were not as far along in the chitting when they went in so will be later to surface too.

Everything in the garden is nestling in a cloddy mess.
The strawberries have loads of flowers and the rhubarb is doing well.
They don't mind the rain although it does encourage the slugs as well which means keeping an eye on the strawberries as they will hollow them out if they can get to them.

Finally Pics of my Jalo Gardener Bracket !

We have had rain for days and days.
Today I actually got out into the garden with my phone which has a camera on it.

I got some digging done with the Trusty Azada.


The junk lying on the ground  is all the stuff I have got covering the 'cleared but not working on at the moment' earth.
The blue thing at the far end,is the old car cover thing that was left here when we moved in 24 years ago.
It is thick plastic and quite heavy.
From there on,is all weeds and trees.


It was quite cloddy but I pesevered.
This more ploughed bit is hopefully going to be for the beans.
The bit of wooden fence was chucked into the garden by a neighbour in the houses along the bottom behind a 6ft fence. I have it for walking across the mud at the moment.

Next I got the new Toy (A Jalo with cultivating teeth/Tines YAY) and gave that a try.
I was looking on Ebay for the tines for my other Jalo and found this .
Often you will see either Jalo or planet junior hoes with various tools very cheaply because they are collection only but I was lucky with this one as the owner had offered delivery too.

The last one I saw with many tools, went for about £90 and there is one up there today with about 5 days to go, that will sell very well despite being collection only I think, as it has every tool that Jalo produced  apart from a seeder.

This one was £27 . I thought that was a bargain because 3 Tines from America (only place selling them new) is about £53. I paid £ 15 for the delivery and it came in 2 days so that was very good value and far cheaper than driving half way across the country to collect it.

The Tines are in very good nick with only light surface rusting which was easily removed with a light rub down and the handle of the machine could really do with a rub down and paint just to smarten it up.




The teeth work well and go quite deeply after the Azada has broken the ground.
I have 5 teeth or tines for it but have only got 3 on it in the 2nd picture as it is so muddy today.
Then I changed the teeth to the plough fitting (which I bought on Ebay a few weeks back for £12 delivered) and ploughed for a while.
I forgot to get a picture of the plough .

Last of all, I got the other Jalo out of the shed to take some pictures of the new bracket that I made last week.



My Bracket made from a  cut down  Satellite dish bracket .

I made this because you don't often see single tools for sale with delivery for the Jalo.
You have to look for weeks and weeks before one turns up and then of
course you must bid for it.
That can push the price up too far.

We have a few wolf multichange tools that we bought before we moved here and I have one or two newer ones ,they are the type that all fit into one handle ,so the bracket has furnished me with all the other tools I might want for my wheel hoe.

The wolf tool handles slide into the rectangular tubing,with a small slither of rubber just to make it a firm fit.
Then just do up the bolt.

It works perfectly and I can fit the wolf tools into the bracket and have it set to any angle along one axis ,so that it can be for deep or shallow use.
That is massively improved on my first bracket which was just a tab to hold the wolf handle steady against the frame.
The first attempt worked perfectly too but I had no depth control except that of lowering or raising the handle angle by holding it differently which was awkward.

The Bracket simply unbolts from the Jalo if I want to use it without.
No drilling or cutting on the trusty old tool.
 

These machines really help with a vegetable garden ,especially if you are tackling the work single handed.. They take a lot of the slog out of the work.
I think it is because you are pushing and pulling like you do with a mower but you are not having to also take the weight of the tool. Even the wolf tools are easier because you have two hands to do the propelling rather than one.

shredding and ploughing

OH cut next doors and our hedge .
It is ours but he has to go next door to do the other side.
There was a lot of debris.

Luckily,we have a new toy.
It is a shredder.
We had one once before that we were given by someone on Freecyle but that one did tend to cut out at the least provocation so after a while we passed it on to someone else.

This one is a Bosch and is much much better.
It handled almost all the branches from the hedge and some of the old plum tree remains.
Some bits were as thick as a broom handle and it had no problem making them into little bits.
Then I had rather a lot of mulch to distribute and so , the fruit beds were added to.

I have also been busy working on my Wheel Hoe.
I wanted to make an adapter so that I could use wolf tools on it and it took all weekend of fiddling.
I did make one a couple of weeks ago but it was rather basic,comprising of a tab to hold the wolf handle still whilst bolted to the hoe frame.
This new bracket is able to be adjusted for depth and angle and is much stronger.
I got the parts out of the dustbin.
OH had thrown away a broken satellite dish that we found lying in the road but the recycling bin men wouldn't take it as it is the wrong kind of thing to put in our recycle bin.
I fished it out and saw a new use for it.
The dremel came into its own again as it was the only thing that would cut holes in the thick metal.

All we need now is for it to stop raining long enough for me to get some use of it.

I may even get some pictures up later in the week. No chance today due to the rain .

Books


I am reading 'A hat full of sky'.

I cant decide as yet if it is a saying of the 'Nac Mac Freegle' (the wee free men)
or if it is referring to a vacant space where your brain ought to be.

Grinding and Blending

The boys went to Gillingham today in the car to get a post hole digger.
OH reserved it online before they left but when they arrived, it had vanished from the store so they went elsewhere and found one instead.
So much for reserve and pick up!

The garden being very long, we have been in need of a new fence or any fence for a long time.
Now we have new neighbours, it's time to start fencing it properly.
Our old neighbour didn't mind that it was not fenced and I don't think the new one does either as it is at the bottom end beyond a lot of trees etc but we have always said we would fence it properly one day.
We went down to look yesterday and discovered that the fence along the path (right of way rat-run leading to a council estate one end and a field the other) was demolished,so all the more reason to get fencing underway.

While they were gone, I used my grinder to powder some rice and some lentils for cooking.
They make excellent thickeners for soups and stews.
Then I got out the blender and made Peanut butter using two small packets of salted peanuts and 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil.It fills a 1lb jar and will last several weeks.
I like it after exercising as it seems to stave off any lack of energy surges .

I have a self assessment request from the IRS which is odd as I haven't been employed at all this year.
Trying to get through to HMRC on the phone is as usual a Joke.
They must meet with an awful lot of frustration and irritation on the phone lines mostly due to their constant revolving of musak and the line 'thank you for ringing HMRC,an advisor will speak to you shortly'  which are alright for the first minute but after 10 minutes have the listener wanting to fling the phone across the room.

My first attempt took me through 3 menus before the revolving torture, my second attempt was the 3 menus and then the ' line is unavailable' tone. I will try again tomorrow when hopefully I will have more luck.

UPDATE

I did finally get through to HMRC  and the man at the other end of the phone line, decided after I had explained about the circumstances , that there was no need for me to fill in a self assessment form.
Apparently they will write to tell me not to do so...
As yet ( April 26th ),they haven't written at all ..

Pictures of the garden

I thought it was about time I got the camera into commission once again.
So here it what I have been up to these hols.

Cherry Tomatoes just coming up,they are a variety called cherry Bell that I haven't tried before.

The cold frame with a make-shift cover

5 rows of potatoes and beyond that you can see the onion beds.

Cherry blossom on the right.

The fruit bed is beyond the onion beds.

The bent over green frames are the tops of the old plastic greenhouses,now used as supports for netting to keep the birds and foxes off the strawberries.

Runner Beans ,Scarlet Emperor (I potted these on yesterday)

Rainwater in Gallon cans ready for watering.

Carrots in loo roll tubes. I have a second lot started and will add to them every 2 or 3 weeks.

I didn't get a picture of the inside of the cold frame which is filled to bursting, as it was raining and I didn't want to get the camera any wetter.

Yesterday after lunch,the postie brought my new toy which is a plough tool for my wheel Hoe.

I found it on Ebay and managed rather jammily to get it for £12.50 delivered.

I have been using the hoe a bit more this year so I spent quite a long time a few days ago,making a bracket for it using the Dremel and some Aluminium from an old Apple Mac case,fashioning  an adaptor for Wolfe tools so they could be used on the hoe.

I managed to make one that would fit all the ends and so all that is needed is to slot the end in and do up a bolt. This works well with the cultivator end and the tiller with the oscilating hoe on and has made it much quicker working the soil. The flatter hoe is unfortunately not angled and so wont really be useful as a wheel hoe attachment .

The whole potato bed was cultivated in about 1 hour from bare earth and then ploughed to take the spuds in about 15 minutes.

Then it was a slower job to bend over and plant all the potatoes in the furroughs.

Last of all ,a swoosh along each furrough and the spuds were covered again.

It was raining by the time the spuds were laying in the earth and so they got a free watering to get them going.

I'll try to get some pictures up of the wheel hoe and its new tools once it is a dry day again. Today is overcast and it has rained and I haven't cleaned off the mud caked plough tool due to the rain becoming rather heavy and me being in it .

Muck spreading

Well mulch spreading really !
I took a large amount of rotted grass clippings and daubed them all over the fruit part of the veg garden.
My strawberries stand out now and the Rhubarb looks a bit more lively.

My neighbour inadvertently mentioned how well my Raspberries do considering I pretty much ignore them once they have finished fruiting.
It's true *Shrug*. They rarely get cut down after they are finished.
The new canes just grow and the old ones die and snap off.
No point fussing about trying to 'help' them, they know what they are doing.

I bought two full 2.5 kg bags of very small potatoes on Sunday. They were reduced to 76p and I am guessing it was because they are unwashed and golf ball sized.
No-one wants to fuss about cleaning such small veg.
I wont. They are going to be planted as they are ideal as seed potatoes.
This enterprise will happen next week I think once I am finished preparing their resting place.
Hopefully ,all those potatoes will see us through the year from about July onwards.

Cheap grub

Yesterday we had fish pie made with fish and chip shop scraps(boneless cod bits),left over bread made into crumbs and some reduced cheese blended in.

Todays dinner was home made fish and chips with the better bits from the fish and chip shops bag of scraps.
The bag costs £1 and does 2 meals for 3 people.
The chips are almost always home made.
I have a metal chip cutter bought in a boot fair for 50p years ago.
I never bother peeling potatoes,the skin is good for you.
I use a basic deep fat fryer, the kind you sit on the hob and watch till you see the smoke rising.

It really doesn't take very long (25 minutes ?)and no having to go out and get them.

Seeds ,knitting and 1st cutting for the grass

It was lovely and sunny yesterday, I couldn't resist getting the mower out.

We have a big hover mower that we bought when the kids were little ,it is a 30" cut with a grass box behind.
The grass was just about cut-able, a bit slippy where the shade was still on it but it managed.
It took me 2 1/2 hours to cut the back lawn and tidy up the edges with the strimmer.
I had forgotten that the cat flap was blocked so had to plug in round by the back sliding doors instead. The local cats get quite interested in our house so we do have to watch out else we find them scampering about inside.
I don't mind the scampering but they are almost always Toms and that means the spraying of acrid pong that goes with a territory statement.

If you remember, our own cat was killed 18 months ago by a neighbouring dog that was not secured properly in his garden,so we haven't really needed a cat flap but as it is a permanent hole in the wooden back door, it is handy for plugging in machines without having a door open.
I block it in winter as it is too cold to leave it.

All the grass went into the new compost bin that my Son made out of the old rotten shed. Usually the grass from one cutting will fill a Dalek style compost bin but this time ,it was only about 8" over the bottom of the new bin!

The knitting loom progress

I finished my knitted socks and am now almost finished one of a pair for DS who has the most enormous plates of meat,like a Hobbit.

Seeds and sowing soil

This weeks seed sowing was
Tomatoes
Cabbages
Spring Onion
Lettuce
Cucumber
Courgette
Pumpkin
Runner Beans
Early Peas
Main crop Peas

Last weeks were

Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Leeks
Kale

I still have left to sow

Radish
Carrot
Chard
Beetroot
French Beans
Cauliflower

As usual I made the seed compost myself

I sieve compost and then add equal amounts of Earth and Sand.
This gives a nice light soil without too much water retention.
The pots are reused every year so cost nothing.

Next to do is make the Bean frame after clearing some ground for them.

Cheesy Grins

OH noticed that the co-op have reduced cheese when he is on his way home sometimes.
He has been keeping his eyes open and last week brought home 7kg
We used to buy Cheese in a huge block from Costco but we aren't members anymore because we found we weren't really recuperating the cost of the membership once the kids were finished school and with the Dartford Tunnel being a Toll road and petrol having soared in price.

Anyway, the cheese was all half price and we buy a KG about every 2 weeks so this is a very nice saving.
It will keep fine in the fridge as long as it is kept  airtight.

Aloe Vera and vinegar remedy

In the garden yesterday trying to clear the strawberry patches of moss and weeds, I encountered an angry wasp.
He was sitting on my hand ,digging his sting into my finger at the time.
I let him go or rather ,he flew away and I hared it up the garden pronto to get a tissue soaked in vinegar.
Vinegar is excellent for dealing with wasp stings because it is acidic and wasp stings are alkaline,therefore it neutralises the stinging.
The way to remember if you should use vinegar for wasps or bees is easy...
Winegar for Wasps and Bicarb for Bees

I sometimes get spots on my chin from the fleeces I wear in the winter.
The collars come up past my neck and rub my face but I like the warmth of fleeces.
Aloe Vera works well to eliminate the spots.
I break off a leaf and open it up.
Scrape out the gel part(you can eat it to help with digestion) and then use the wet leaf to clean round the spots. It is soothing and helps to reduce the redness in a matter of minutes.
I have quite a lot of Aloe Vera plants. I bought 2 small ones in a charity shop about 8 years ago and have been potting them on ever since.
They produce mini plants which are easy to pot up on their own.

Success!

The DS has passed his driving test YAY
He took it yesterday.

Maintenance on the remote dwelling 


OH finally found a plumber to sort out the water at the flat where DD is living while she is at uni.
It is our flat ,DS lived there for 3 years while he did his studies too and the water always took an age to heat.
The plumber said the cylinder and thermostat are at least 40 years old.
He fitted a new shower but couldn't get the electric to run to it so OH will need to get a sparks to sort that out.
DD broke it when she slipped in the bath and grabbed the shower to stop herself falling.
Good thing it didn't electrocute her!

Smooth surfing 

We are now running on Sky LOL
The swap over from BT internet was smooth.
BT was running till 3pm on Monday and then cut out so we unplugged the modem and plugged in the new Sky modem.
It was all up and running in moments.

I have a new wifi dongle that I bought for my laptop as my wifi signal was not brilliant, the new dongle is wifi n which can take the faster speed sent by the modem.
It is running through at 144mbps instead of the 54 it previously ran at.

Left overs Friday

Today is Left overs day as usual.
When we have Bolognaise, I make the usual 4 portions just as though DD were here, then put one aside for DS to have today.
I generally have left overs curried with a baked spud or rice.
OH is back tonight instead of going to Police and we will have curried liver and bacon left over from Wednesday.

No Poo

I have gone back to washing my hair with bicarb.
It was too much bother last year when I was working from home but now I have time to faff about with it again.
It is quite easy and my hair has more body because of not being stripped of all oils every couple of days.
You put about 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate into a bowl, mix in some hot water and swirl it round, it goes cloudy and when you cant feel the granules(almost at once) you wet your hair with water and then work in the mixture.
Give it a good massage and wash it out.

A rare trip to London

We hopped on the Motorbike today and zoomed to London.
Then parked up and changed from our leathers into jeans and jumped on a bus to Charing Cross.
We were up there to see the Da Vinci Milan Exhibition.
It was well worth it.
There were sketches on the most fragile looking pieces of paper some belong to the Queen and are on loan.
I love Leonardo's style of drawing because he shades with fine cross hatching and some of his light and shadow drawings are beautiful.
Of course there were paintings too including the 'new' discovery which is a painting of Jesus holding a glass globe.
For me the best exhibit is the copy of the Last supper which was hanging in the upstairs Gallery.
There was a huge life size print of the original painting which of course cant be transported because it is painted on a plaster wall. This is fading and flaking and sadly the worse for wear but hurray for the artist,he had a copy which he made on canvas and that was there in beautiful clear colours and completely intact.

There were also his preparatory sketches of various aspects of the painting.
I expect he did a lot more but the ones we saw were maybe all that survived.

I love art and especially Da vinci who's drawings were particularly realistic in an age where many painters will still making quite crude artwork.
There were not many mechanical drawings sadly but I suppose these were not particular to Milan.

Afterwards, we went to Pizza hut (another very rare treat) and had what was reportedly a Hawaiian(for me) and a farmhouse(OH) deep pan pizza of regular size.
Mine had absolutely no pineapple and the OH ended up with a chicken supreme.
We were hungry so we ate them anyway.
I think the waitress was Scandinavian and maybe misunderstood us, either that or we got someone else's order.
The base which was meant to be deep pan, seemed very light and bicarbonate of soda tasting.
Dear me, for nearly £9 each, we wont be hurrying back.

I can make a far more substantial pizza at home,twice the size  with a real bread base for around £1.

present perfect

I bought an ereader for the daughter, on ebay.
It is for xmas of course,cant warrant that kind of spending every day.
It came today and is spiffing. LOL
I thought it was a greyscale screen but it is actually colour and can even play film files.
She is getting through a lot of books in her course at uni so it should help her keep down the costs.
I spent £39 on it and about £4 on next day delivery.

Here is the case I made for OH's phone.
Its similar to his bought one but I made it narrower so that the phone doesnt slew about .
That is my phone in it at the moment which doesn't have a camera.
The flap at the back folds either half way down or rolls and folds depending on if you want to see the back of the phone.
Folding halfway down means the rain shouldn't get in while it is in video camera mode.

oops where did the week go?

Yesterday I went to the poundland shop in town and bought;

• a pack of chocolate to share with my son
• A sectioned box for small tools or screws
• A bottle of concentrated star drops.

The box is for my salvaged dremel and its little blades.
I cut two slots in it near the hinge side and fitted the dremel in.
It fits with the chuck poking out one end and the wire poking out the other.
All the blades fit in the other sections.

Today I played with the scroll saw.
I have had it years. We bought it when I wanted some Montessori puzzles and accessories for teaching the kids.
We couldn't afford to buy them so we bought the saw and wood and made them.
Last week I found that I can get new blades for it cheaply on ebay.
Now I just need a new spring for the blade assembly and it will be good as new.


Christmas

I am in my usual Xmas making mood.
I spent a day of last week making a new waterproof pouch for OH's phone.
He has one but it is quite battered so he will have another.
I used a found clear plastic umbrella which had a little tear in it, for the plastic,it has to be transparent as he uses his phone to record video of his commute via motorbike so it must let the lens work.
It must be waterproof although not immersible, so it doesn't wet the phone if it rains..
This was cut to size, folded and folded and melted with the iron using foil to stop it sticking.
Then The edge was finished all around with the umbrella edging which was purple but it is very dark once you fold it and melt it so not particularly a bad colour to use.
I will get a pic of it up tomorrow,cant at the mo as OH is downstairs and might catch me in mid camera wielding mode.

He has 2 cinema tickets stashed away for his birthday too.They need using by the last day of the year but I cant see that being a problem. People buy tickets for events as presents and they are often in 3 or 4 hour windows of one day,whilst these will be able to be used for any one of 9 days or any two if he decides to go alone to two different films.