Samhain and Birthday weekend

Swedish log fires - chopped ready for Yule

Another huge bonfire made light work of yet more Rhodies, as four of us spent a sunny afternoon around Samhain chopping and feeding the fire. Unfortunately we were not able to get the chipper started, as it would have been idea material to cover the muddy paths with at this time of year. Will try again next time and in the mean time use the mound of coals as path liner instead - the route to the loo is treacherous... especially after a few glasses.
The wayleave has all been strimmed for the winter, and the firewood store extended to give us another dry-ish place to stack the logs in preparation for Christmas.

This weekend we took the bird boxes down for cleaning and to have metal plates put over the now-enlarged holes in an attempt to stop the woodpeckers from raiding the nests for chicks all summer long. The tawny box will be cleaned out in-situ in a couple of weeks time to be sure the last set of Stock Doves have vacated.

new fire store extension

We cleared out the big wooden storage boxes and made space for buckets of dry short logs for Cassius and even gave him another crackfiller round the back. My new ultra-powerful torch lit up the inside of the oven and showed it to be in quite a good state... no internal repairs needed at the moment.
The old drum BBQ that served as the ideal hostess trolley last yule, sadly hasn't fared so well and is now destined for the tip with its bottom now sporting a gaping rusty hole... so an alternative solution will have to be found - keeping all that food hot, and ready to serve together at the end of December is not an easy task.
We stayed over on Saturday night and had a good giggle in the Yardarm keeping warm by the firepit with nips of decent whiskey and a few bottles of vino.
Thank you to all who stayed and/or popped in to say happy birthday (or in Paul's case, slid in on his arse) - it was much appreciated - as were the pressies... so spoilt and so lucky to have such awesome friends.