almost there

I have been cutting the hedge again, and am getting so tired of it, I really can't think of anything new to say on the subject.  I thought at the start of the day that I might finish the job, but by the time I stopped at six I still had a short high level section to do with the Henchman, and a few feet to go at the far end.  Tomorrow is due to be wet, but maybe on Tuesday.  Next year in Jerusalem. And the poor chickens never got their run, because I was intent on pressing on with hedge cutting.

Burning all the long grass in the incinerator is going to take at least as long as doing the hedge, to judge from progress to date.  Once you have got a fire going and have a hot base you can stuff the bin with grass.  Nothing then seems to happen for a time, while the grass dries off, then whoosh, it burns like a prairie fire.  If at that point you aren't on hand to refuel the incinerator it goes out, since the grass doesn't leave much in the way of glowing embers.  I have this on good authority from the Systems Administrator, who is the officer in charge of bonfires.  I just added some handfuls of grass in passing when I was up there emptying shredded eleagnus leaves into the compost bin.  Looking at the pile of grass to be burned, which was about the size of a mini, and the capacity of the incinerator, which is basically a small galvanised dustbin, I thought it was going to take a long time to process the one through the other.

Once I've finished the hedge I need to tackle the brambles that are narrowing the width of the entrance by about a yard.  They will be competing for my time with the yew and the hornbeam (that should have been done in August) and the box (that should have been done on Derby Day).  It doesn't matter when I cut the brambles, though I was leaving it until the fruit had gone for the sake of the birds, but once the whole drive is back to a normal width, instead of there being barely enough room for a delivery van to squeeze round, we can have some bags of gravel delivered.  We need to top up the gravel on the railway, which is too thin in lots of places, so that the newly emerging weeds in the areas I have already weeded are not so easy to pull out as they should be.  I've said it before, gravel does not stop weeds germinating, but a good thick layer does make weeding much faster.  You run your hands over it, and they come rolling out.

As I was typing this the horrible realisation struck that I have left the Henchman blocking the drive, and am going to have to go out and move it in the dark.  It's that or do it first thing tomorrow, and if by then the rain has arrived I'll be sorry I didn't do it tonight.