more mushroom compost

The tiny hens were ravenous when I let the others out, and went rushing to the food hopper as soon as the rooster and the big hen went out of the hen house.  It occurred to me belatedly that yesterday, with the adult fowl sheltering from the rain in the house, which the SA reports they did, the new hens may have spent the day hiding in the egg box and not have got much to eat.  Two of them came out into the run briefly later on, so that's progress.  They are very tame, and don't flinch away from my hand when I top up their food or renew their water, though they still keep kicking sawdust in their pan of water, and the sooner they start using the run normally with the others the better.  They keep together in a little flock, and make small peeping noises, which again is encouraging, as hens generally seem to chatter when they're content.

We went and got more mushroom compost this morning.  Originally we were going to go last Friday, then the Systems Administrator began to think that a morning spent shovelling straw and manure might not be the best preparation for an evening sitting on the chairs in the village hall, which was a perfectly sensible thought.  It was just a pity that we had over 20mm rain in the intervening period.  The yard at the mushroom farm was particularly slurry covered, and staff were dumping fresh loads of spent compost when we arrived, so that the only accessible pile for us to dig from lay the other side of a large puddle and a layer of semi-liquid straw and manure about 15cm thick.

I went to pay at the office, and the woman there asked me how many bags we'd had.  I said that we hadn't loaded it yet, but would like 25.  She looked at me and asked 'How large is your car?'  We agreed that mushroom compost was splendid stuff for the garden and she wished me happy shovelling.

By the time we got to the twentieth bag I was beginning to feel tired, but I really wanted that compost, and when we'd bothered to drive all the way up there it seemed a pity not to make the most of it.  I nearly got my boot stuck a couple of times, but didn't, and we both managed not to fall over.  We had a bit of a scare with the truck when the SA reversed it down a slope to bring it nearer to the bags, to save carrying them across the yard, and it wouldn't go up the hill again because the wheels kept slipping on the slurry.  Eventually the truck made it back to the top, after taking a run at the hill, and we heaved the bags on board.  I could lift the small ones that originally held B&Q composted farmyard manure, but the big ones that originally held Strulch were a two person job

On the way home we agreed that it was just as well I hadn't gone for 30 bags, and the SA confessed to hating loading manure, while seeing that it had to be done.  The bags certainly weigh more than 25kg, which is the weight of a sack of chicken feed or bag of cement.  If they weighed as much as 40kg each then we lifted 1000kg of manure, which is a tonne.  Literally.  It might have been a bit less than that, but it was a lot.  As the SA says, a whole heap of shit.

missions accomplished

The truck, which started beautifully yesterday afternoon, refused to fire this morning.  As at the third attempt the starter motor died away into a sluggish grrh grrh grhh, I began to think that we weren't going to get the Christmas tree today, but the Systems Administrator trotted away to get a can of Easy Start and sprayed some into the air intake, and the truck suddenly coughed into noisy life.  I'd forgotten that this is what cars used to be like.  It is one reason why I don't dare drive the truck, apart from the fact that it feels as though I am venturing on to the road in something the size of my kitchen, and I don't understand the modifications the SA has made to the ignition system.  Since it broke it now starts off a button, not the ignition key.  The new arrangement passed the MoT, so that's fine, and looking on the bright side the truck is very unlikely to be stolen.  Nobody would want it, and if they did they'd probably never get it to start.

We went first off to get the mushroom compost.  There was still a large puddle in one corner of the yard, but we found a dry place to stand and shovel.  A man in a bobble hat came and asked if we were bagging it or chucking it straight on the back of the truck, and I said I would like 25 bags if I had enough bags, and should I pay him or the office?  He seemed keen for me to pay him, and let me have my 25 bags for less than what I thought the going rate was, saying that they would charge me an arm and a leg up in the office.  I decided that this arrangement was between him and his employer, but it suited me as I'd discovered I didn't have enough money for 25 bags, or even 20.  Who is to say how large a bag is anyway?

Then we went to the plant centre to collect a tree, taking the truck for a short sprint up the A12, which was adventurous of us.  It's good for it to have a run.  I nipped off to wash some of the manure off my wellingtons, and by the time I got back the SA had inspected the Christmas trees, and said they were an odd-looking lot.  We'd forgotten to measure the height of the ceiling where the tree is to go, or to bring a tape measure to check the size of them.  I could have borrowed a tape, but that wouldn't have been any use given I didn't know how tall I wanted it to be.  Around 27 years ago, when  we were living in a rented flat in Highgate, we set off to Marks and Spencers to buy curtains without having first measured the window, so we haven't progressed in more than a quarter of a century.  The SA had picked out a tree that looked a nice shade of green, and had a lot of cones on, but a very obvious kink in the top 45cm of trunk.  We agreed that the wobble added character, and that it was a lovely tree, especially for what is was going to cost us.

Back home, I was startled to see two flowers out on Camellia japonica 'Alba Simplex'.  This is a beautiful old variety, with simple white flowers (the clue's in the name) bearing central bosses of bright yellow stamens.  It makes a dense, bushy shrub, and once established seems to cope well with dry conditions.  I never irrigate ours, and after seven years it has made a well-clothed shrub more than a metre tall and wide, which puts it on course to achieve the International Camellia Society's indicated size of 2m after ten years.  It is a nice thing, though it isn't supposed to be flowering in December.

I was less pleased to see that during the heating oil delivery two twigs had got broken off my Ligustrum japonicum 'Rotundifolium'.  This is a jolly little evergreen privet, with wavy edged, glossy, dark green leaves.  It grows so slowly that two twigs is a lot.

After getting ready for a woodland charity talk this evening I pruned roses for a bit, but stopped at half past three.  It was getting too dark to see what I was cutting off, and experience teaches that most times I have accidentally poked myself in the eye while working among shrubs have been in the last half hour before dusk.  It's the combination of being slightly tired and rather cold, and not being able to see properly what you're doing.