Midsummer Reminders

Its nearly the middle of the year and I know we don't want to think about winter but a few things done now might make life a bit easier in the middle of the winter.

1. Buy that sack of salt/grit for the path/drive before everyone else wants it and the shop is empty.

2. Most of us have got the heating off now so sweep that chimney, have the central heating serviced, top up the fernox in the radiator system.

3. Winter fuel. Prices will more than likely keep going up so collect/buy that firewood/coal/oil/bottled gas now (if you've got somewhere secure to keep it)

 

I will start by buying the presents...

 

im terrible or would that be great at being orgnised that way,coal bunker full,piles of kindlers and newspaper stacked in shed,pile of firewood stacked, have been thinking about the dreaded christmas presentlist -started saving

 

Almost that time of year already! Should have ordered that druid mask earlier, they're out of stock now.

 

A long time ago, in a forum far, far away....

Waste paper & cardboard

When the papier maché is dry, you can use it to soak up waste oil from the deep fat fryer.

Now that puts out some heat.

 

I've got 2 of those 'paper log makers', one on long loan from an old lady who couldn't cope with it and another from a charity shop (50p? ish) which get used in summer and the 'logs' in stacked mushroom boxes under the gazebo and in the greenhouse (don't grow anything in there once it's all planted out. The trouble is getting enough people to give you all their old newspapers plus wanting to use them as mulch.

Real logs were cut last winter and some siver birch in early spring, got about 100 pallets stored and we also gather sacks of fir cones.

Here's another:

4) When it's really hot & dry seive fine soil and bag up to use in the hens' dust bath before it turns all cold and wet - well that's normally the case.

 

Try raiding the paper bank, all sorts of stuff in there.

 

My local authority used to supply polythene sacks for waste paper collection (nice and easy to snaffle), but then they changed the system so that waste paper was tipped in the same open baskets as old tin cans and plastic bottles (yuk for snaffling now), but guess what - they claimed they had vastly increased their tonnage of waste paper collection by using this new system, but taking account of paper weighing around twice as much when it gets wet due to be left out in open baskets, rather than collected dry in polythene sacks, they were collecting no more than before, and perhaps even less.