18.03.2024 16 tons and wadya get?

 

 ~o~

  Monday 18th 35F/2C. Quite bright with overall smudgy cloud.

 Up at 7am. I was up earlier from 4-5.15. Having woken and couldn't get back to sleep. Wasted the night hours on the news and YouTube. No ill effects from yesterday's ride. 

 8.00 After a walk I shall continue throwing rubble. From the edge of the parking area into the lower area beyond. There isn't much rubble left. So I shall need more material to build up the area properly. There is a pile of demolition rubble next door. 

 How to get it from 150m away without exhausting myself? Nor wasting time barrowing it. I could fill my trailer but it's tiring and far too slow to pick it up from the ground. I have already discovered this with the modest amount of rubble I have moved already. Which varies from fist sized to over football size. Mostly concrete from the former "patio." Which I began to break up with a pick and sledge hammer. Until I ran out of energy and momentum. With only 2/3 removed. I left enough for a front doormat and somewhere to park the three big recycling bins. 

 The village sand and gravel man's full sized, tipper lorry is going to struggle to reach the right spot. There is very little room to turn. The drive is narrow beside house. Which probably means bringing the material one load at a time using my own trailer. 

 Or, having him dump the material as near as he can get. Leaving me with barrowing it from the huge heap. Which is exhausting work at my age. It also makes the parking area inaccessible until I finish. 

 Hiring somebody with a front loader?  A few minutes work for a JCB. A little longer for a skid steer. I could pay the gravel man to drive his huge front loader to my place. To move a big heap of self stabilizing gravel into the sunken area. That would be fast and effective. If he was willing. 

 Instead of a walk I decided to exhaust myself by finishing the rubble tossing. I keep getting breathless and tired. I just don't have the strength or stamina I used to have. I managed to move the dome segments further away. Using a mixture of rocking and rowing. Where I did not have the strength to drag them bodily. Let alone lift them. 

 There is now a clear shot for a tipper lorry to reach the area. Only after I dig up the cables carrying electricity to the dome. They are much too shallow now that I have cleared the approach. They used to be safely buried in a high quality, yellow hose. Running around under the hedges I have since removed. 

 The green hose contains a low voltage time signal to the big clock dial on the shed. That too was disconnected after my wife died. I lost all interest in my lifetime passion [obsession] for electrical horology.

 I see from the image that I still have a lot of clearing up to do in the background. My wife's worm farms are still lying about after I released their contents into the wild. She used to feed them with kitchen waste. Producing vast quantities of worms. In their big, inverted water butts with the tops cut off. 

 I never saw her use any of the compost they produced. I would bring it home in bags. From the garden centre or supermarket. She was very fussy about quality and complained for years. That she could no longer buy John Innes. All the bagged compost over here is/was peat based.

 My DeWalt chainsaw keeps shedding its chain. Probably because the chain has stretched. So I can't cut down all the trees and stumps. I'll have to order a chain [or two] online. The steel post once held a huge satellite dish. For receiving British TV from Astra 2. Before they got greedy and killed it for European reception. I dug a deep hole and set the post in concrete. Now it's in the way. It is also perfectly vertical. The slope is entirely the effect of phone camera distortion. Note how the observatory building on the right is upright.

 9.45 41F/5C. Still sunny. Now I am dripping with sweat and sneezing. With a runny nose again. I need a rest and will make morning coffee. 

 10.30 It has clouded over. No more sunshine. Had a rest. Now what? Go and fetch a new chain for the saw? A nice little ride along the lanes. The sun is trying to come out again. I had better save my energy for tomorrow's 50km round trip to the hospital. The weather forecast is dry but grey and windy from the south. So I will be fighting the wind more on the way home. Probably using the second battery by then.

 12.00 Overcast. I have returned, in the car and fitted the new chain to the DeWalt chainsaw. Topped up the chain oil to be certain. The skinny chains are prone to burning. I'll start by tidying up the yellow, willow saplings and stumps. Which might come up again from beneath my rubble and gravel landfill. It is already beginning to feel more spacious. Even before it is all brought to the same level. 

 I am really not sure how far to go back. If I remove too many trees I shall be able to see Scrapman's multiple carbuncles. If only in winter when the trees are bare. Not that people in glass houses shouldn't keep their own place much more tidy! The camera doesn't lie. It just doesn't get pointed that way.

 12.30 Early lunch over. Time to get cracking. Hopefully the chainsaw will behave itself now.

 13.30 Sunny periods. Time for another rest. Why do I get so hot and breathless? All the stumps and small trees have gone. At least as far out as I am likely to expand the car parking area. Another heaped trailer load of branches for the recycling yard. The saw worked fine on the new chain. Making short work of willow stems up to 6"/15cm Ø. 

 It doesn't look like hours and hours of tiring work, does it? My wife assembled a lot of the bricks visible on the right. I found her crouched down there one day. Not long after the chimney was demolished. She was naturally, highly skilled at dry stone walling. So the bricks must have been quite easy for her to stack in layered steps. The gravel on top has flowed down in the intervening couple of years. Hiding most of her work. Thee was no spare rubble until the chimney was demolished.

 

 She also helped to move all the gravel built up under the observatory. When a local contractor abandoned us. After promising to send a skid-steer, front loader and driver that morning. We had to move about 22 tons around 30 meters by shovel and wheelbarrow alone. While in our early 70s. 

 My wife discovered she could lean a barrow against the vast heap. Then rake the gravel down to fill the barrow. It was easier than her shoveling. While I pottered back and forth. Pushing the other barrow full and tipping it into the drop. She was only a tiny 5'/1.5 meters. 

 18.30 Lit the stove. It has been hovering around 61F/16C indoors. So I am wearing a fleece jacket for warmth. The cheapest and most efficient energy is that you don't produce. There are no losses. Except marginal comfort.

 Dinner was poached eggs on toast. There was nothing else left.

  ~o~