The smelliest job so far!

Last night I moved the composter from the dark side of the patio to its final home by the strawbrary.

Fiddliest and smelliest job I've ever had to do in that garden, and I've done poop patrol!  

  The baseplate for the composter arrived, finally, after one lost delivery and one delivered broken.  I could not get that thing to fit on.  Nope.  No fitting on for that baseplate.  I chalked it up to the fact that it was cold outside, the composter body was at 0ºC while the baseplate was at room temperature, and so Physics has a thing to say.  In reality, this was my excuse for saying "sod it, it's 0º out here and this smelly thing is making my hands wet in 0º!"  I ended up laying the baseplate on the ground and standing the composter over it.  The weight of proto-compost should hold it all together.  

  Sliding the body of the composter up over the contents was a bit tense - would it stay together like a putrid blancmange or would it go everywhere?  It stayed!  The rest was work for a fork, a shovel, and eventually a hose.  The contents were somewhere below half the height, but as the thing is slightly conical I reckon it's full to about half the volume, or 165 litres.  Whilst I was forking out compost I took the opportunity to study the strata within.  Some bits seem to decompose faster than others.  Things that are watery (like cucumber) or mushy (like banana) seem to go first.  Things with a hard shell (like the pumpkin from Halloween) appear to take a lot longer.  Eggshells break down surprisingly readily.  Any leaves that get in there seem to turn slimy.  

  I've taken a photo of some of the strata, laid out on one of my favourite childhood building materials: the knackered, rusty sheet of wriggly tin (of dubious acquisition).  For the sake of your breakfast I've left out the bits where putrefying is actively taking place.  Upper layers on the left, lower layers in the right.  Rightmost is damn near compost!

This time next year, Rodney, we'll have compost.  

Woodcare

  Thanks to the efforts of the weather, crap builders and one inconsiderate smoker (who has been soundly bollocked, fear not), my bench is in a bit of a sorry state.  I've brought it in, planed it and sanded it.  I also improved it by using the plane to round off the corners, making it more comfortable.  Granddad Rab would be proud-ish.  I'll give it another sanding tomorrow morning then varnish it.  Jobs like these make me wish I still owned a belt sander (we lost it in a move), so when I've a few bob spare I'll have to have a shufti on ebay.

  I picked up a trio of birdhouses today; they'll also go up tomorrow.  I can make my own easily enough, but I had a coupon that made these more economical to buy.  They're of a size to attract tits to the garden - stop sniggering!  Got dirty minds the lot o' youse!  Anywho, there's something of a debate on painting and/or staining birdhouses.  Some say do it, it makes them look pretty and can ensure that they're in keeping with the look of the garden.  Others say don't do it, that you don't know what chemicals are in your paint or stain and that it might poison the birds.  

  I have my own line of reasoning on the matter, and that is that if you put a glass over the entry hole and draw round it, then only paint outside the line, you should minimise the likelihood of stuff getting on the bird.  You should also refrain from painting the roof, as water on the roof might drip in through a gap in the wood, and don't paint over the baseplate.  The baseplate has gaps around it to allow air in and to allow any water that gets in to drain away, protecting nestlings from drowning or suffocation.  Painting this can occlude the gap and cause these problems.  Finally, never paint or stain the inside of the birdhouse.  This should remain largely dry in use, it may even pick up oil from the bird's feathers, so there is really no need to introduce chemicals into such an enclosed environment.  

Lastly then, I've found out how foxes are getting into the garden.  It's hard to see scale in a vertical photo, but this lot is six feet high!

Pics of the finished bench and the birdhouses in situ will appear either tomorrow or Tuesday.  FSM knows what I'm gonna do about Steptoe's Yard...

Annoyances

  Someone changed the boiler recently.  The new one has a narrower flue and exhaust than the old one, which means the hole in the wall needed mortaring to a narrower gauge so as to be snug to the new pipe.  Fair enough, but they didn't put a tarpaulin down before they started mortaring, so the stuff went everywhere!

• It left indelible streaks on the patio.
• It discoloured a chunk of my bench, which'll mean an afternoon spent sanding and revarnishing.  
• It gummed up the head of my leaf rake.  
• It got on the lawn, shot the pH up through the roof and killed a square metre.  

  Grass likes a pH of between 5 and 7.5.  At 7.5 it gets sick, at 8.5 it dies.  I'm treating the area with citrate over the Winter so that I can try and reseed in the Spring.  Balls!  

In other news: aphids!

Things aren't all bad though.  I need some manure and Nathan (the mate with the horse) has offered to drive some round in the boot of his car.  This comes as a relief, because trying to cart a barrowload of poo on and off the train might raise a few eyebrows at the very least.  He drives up from Redhill to visit his partner in Boston Manor, so Strawberry Hill is about 50p's worth of petrol as a deviation from the normal route.  Easy peasy.

Life ain't all bad.