Busy Weekend - Nice To Be Out In The Sunshine!

Well! How nice to be out in the fresh air this weekend, and it stayed fine.

Hope you all had a good one.

We made the most of it, we visited carboot sales both Saturday, and Sunday - saw lots of friends - carbooty type of friends, it was nice! And Hubby P got lots of interesting things, so he was happy! He is - as we speak - head buried in a book reserching something or other about corkscrews of all things. You know what they say - 'it takes all kinds to make a world!!'

We made good use of the fine weather and Saturday afternoon saw us taking all the large cardboard boxes etc (from Christmas) and rabbit bedding (I gave the rabbits a good clean out) - to the recycling centre.

Sunday afternoon whilst Hubby P sawed up firewood, we - that is Rich my son (who was hanging around doing nothing productive - always dangerous thing to admit to when I am around) and I cleaned out the chicken shed. Poor things were in desperate need of some clean bedding - but its just been too wet and snowy to attempt it. And they wouldn't thank me - whilst the bedding was deep - although a bit smelly, it was warm!

Anyway Rich set to, my days of actually doing a lot of digging or forking bedding are fading fast - I usually end up doing myself a mischief, so my role was one of Foreman, or Director of Operations and chief bucket/bag holder!

We soon had them sorted, and they love a good thick layer of woodchip. Billy the rabbit hampers things a bit, he does so want to sit on your feet and inspect each forkfull of muck!

Being out and about in the garden I noticed just the tiniest of signs that Spring is on its way.

Just an odd little flower, shining its little socks off.




And a few green shoots - all most welcome!

Cleaning the chickens out on Sunday ment another trip to the Recycling Center, and what goodies were to be found there!
As you know I always go along, to have a look what people are throwing away - I find it facinating - sad but true!
Anyway Saturday I was rambling along nosing in all the skips whilst Hubby P unloaded all the smelly rabbit muck. One of the workers there asked if I was 'Okay' (some nutty woman pokin about the skips - whatever next!) I said I was looking for old buckets and whatnot to put plants in - which has a ring of truth about it. 'Oh' she said -' there's an old pan over there, if you want it' - Yes, its a young woman who works there, and a good job she does too - gets a bit of stick I think working with all those men. So I went to find the pan - she must have pulled it out of the skip earlier - and what a good pan! It's a really good heavy bottomed jam pan, very clean and like new. So I said 'Thankyou very much' - I have never had a proper jam pan before.

On the way back to the van, I noticed this brazier thingy - a bit rust but fine and sturdy!




Ideal for burning all those twiggy bits in the garden, and I always burn all the 'sensitive stuff - you know letters with personal information, bank details etc, Usually I use them to light the fire, but in summer when we have no fire this will be really useful for disposing of them.
So I hoked this out of the skip too!

This was Sunday afternoons find - browsing the wood skip at the Recycling Center, I had to do a bit of ingenious manoeuvring with a chair to get it out. Hubby P just waits in the van - he's quite use to my browsing habits!

Isn't it cute - and I just love is battered shabby look - obviously too battered for someone - and they skipped it!

This afternoon I gave it a good wash and a quick coat of wood preservative, cut a bit of the hedge back and fastened it in position - all ready for the birds.

I do hope they like it!

Bit of a Thrifty Snippet!

Whilst I was searching for the bird seed and whatnot I found an old packet of fatballs at the bottom of a bucket - all wet and yucky! It was a full packet and I thought what a waste - they had gone soft and were falling apart. So I took them into the house and boiled them up with some water to remove the fatty bit - saving all the seed.

I melted some fresh lard and mixed this seed into it, I had a good scrabble in the cupboard and found some sultanas and porrige oats, oh, and a handful of rabbit food -not in the cupboard obviously - but you know from the rabbit feed bin!!!

I saved the nets from the old fatballs and using the little aluminium tins (from the steak and kidney puddings we had last week) as moulds I filled the nets with the mixture.

I thought the nets I could sew up and they could go in the fatball holder. The leftover mixture filled the tins, and this comes out quite easily when the lard sets - comes out as little 'bird puddings!

I put one in the new bird table late afternoon - it will be interesting to see how soon the little birds find it. Mind you we have Geofrey the mouse who lives just under where the bird table now sits, and he comes out at night - we see him sat in the apple tree and helping himself to the fatballs that hang from its branches. I bet he's found the birds pudding - a feast for a tiny mouse!

xx That's all for now, carbooty finds to show you another day! xx