Tag: chimney

There are five photographs on the Photo page starting from number six.

Early Diary today. It is such a glorious afternoon that we are going to the coast for fish and chips and a break from the Cottage and Kitchen.

Sooty Dove from the chimney.

Will this be Mr Farmer in a few years time!!! Rose W’canton.

Here are 2 pictures from my garden; they both show some different colors of Prairie Cone Flowers, and also 1 picture of a cat sculpture my brother gave me for my birthday. Penny, Chicago.

I still have not finished the Cottage and Kitchen that we are working on. Starting to think that maybe someone else should be doing the job. But I have to tell you a little story that has happened in the Farm House.

For well over a week when we have been sitting quite in the lounge we have heard short spells of rustling from one corner. The rustling didn’t go on long enough to be able to pinpoint it to one area, just the direction. We looked to where we thought the rustling was coming from and found nothing. On either side of the inglenook fire place are two built in cupboards that the rustling may have been coming from, but we were unable to see if the rustling was coming from there as the keys have been mislaid. My suspicion was that somehow something like a Mouse or worse had got into the cupboards and I wasn’t to bothered about finding the key to find out. I must admit that if any thing had got into the cupboard it would have needed to have got through a three foot stone wall, so for sure it wouldn’t have had a lot of trouble getting through the oak wood that the cupboards are made of, so every time that we heard the rustling we were thinking the worse, and I was getting ready to run.

I heard the rustling again yesterday afternoon. This time it went on for a little longer giving, me time to hear that it was coming from the direction of the wood burner in the inglenook. I opened the door of the wood burner gingerly, ready to slam it shut and lot quicker that I was opening it if the had been anything inside. It was empty but the rustling was a little louder. It seemed that we had been worrying over nothing, as it sounded as if the rustling was coming from the top of the chimney and that the noise was being exaggerated through the chimney and a metal pipe from the wood burner. Before we had purchased the Farm the chimney had been lined with a type of compound and the inglenook blocked up to make way for a modern small tiled fireplace to be put in. Why it was ever done I cant imagine. It was a hideous fireplace completely out of place in the old Farm House. Opening the inglenook fireplaces was one of the first renovation jobs that we did. We were unable to remove the compound in the chimney, so that would have made the rustling more pronounced. Or so we thought.

Last night after dinner before going back to work on the Cottage and Kitchen we sat down in lounge for a few minute. The rustling started again. There was no way this time that the noise was coming from the top of the chimney, it could only have been from inside of it. I opened a small inspection hole in the pipe from the wood burner to the chimney. There is an s bend in the pipe so we were unable to see a lot, in fact nothing. There was only one thing left to do and that was to remove the pipe, not an easy job. After a good hour and myself looking like a Sweep the pipe was ready to be removed. A bucket was at the ready to catch what we thought would be a small amount of soot, as most of it we thought was on me. As I pulled the pipe away a surge of soot poured out of the chimney filling the area with a puff of sooty dust, all but filling the bucket at the wait. Then just as we were thinking what a waste of time we had just gone through out of the chimney came a blackened sooty Dove. It fell to the floor and although it must have been weak it didn’t want to hang around. It was quickly caught and taken out side. To be honest we weren’t sure weather to clean it off and try to feed it, or let it go. In the end we let it choose for itself. If when we had put it down it flew away that would have been the right decision. If it didn’t we would try to help it. After a couple of minute of walking around to yard it flew away. As you can see by the photograph on the Photo Page you couldn’t miss it if you had seen it, and this morning it was with the other Doves on top of a roof.

There are five new photographs on the Photo page, starting from number eleven.

These pinks fill my garden every summer with perfume. They really do have the most beautiful smell. Elsie.

This is one of the Eden Project Robins. They have taken up residence in the domes!Lindsay.

Screen shots of Hazel and Valentine. FF (Rose)

Swans they were taken last August. GJ.

This is a photo of Cowm Reservoir Whitworth Lancashire Angela (Kent)

I always check the Mares last thing of a night when they are close to Foaling. If the Foaling looks imminent I will let you know.

As much as I dislike felling trees, today we had to take down a Willow by the side of the Farm House. It just appeared about seven years ago in a flowerbed, and it has grown to well over twenty foot in that time. When I say it was by the side of the Farm House, it was within a couple of feet and was stopping light from getting into our kitchen and stopping most of the light to the flowerbed. The worse part about it was that every year it produced fluffy flowers that turn in to seed. When they drop they fly everywhere, making a mess all around the Farm Yard. If we leave the Farm House door open the kitchen finishes up full of the things.

Being so close to the Farm house we needed to be very careful in felling the tree. The main trunk of the tree had managed to separate into three, all very large and spreading out into different directions. One was leaning into mains electric overhead wires that feed one of our barns, another the largest was leaning towards the Farm House.

The easiest way to have felled the tree would have been to have cut it down as it stood, cutting it up in to pieces on the ground. that wasn’t possible being that the trunks leaned into different directions. We worked from a scaffold tower, cutting off the branches with handsaws so that we didn’t bring the mains electric cable down. We cut off a good forty large branches that would have been the size of ten to fifteen foot young trees. We were unable to get to the branches of the trunk that was leaning towards the Farm House with out damaging the Farm House roof, that we would leave until last.

After cutting away the branches off of two of the trunks, we tied a rope around the trucks and with wedges cut out, we pulled the trunks with the Quad Bike, into the direction that we wanted, so to avoid hitting the mains overhead wires. It was time to cut away the trunk leaning towards the Farm House. Again we tied a rope around the truck as high as we could so that we could pull it right away from the Farm House. We cut into the truck and started pulling it into the opposite direction of the Farm House. It was then that the tree decided to get its own back for us cutting it down. Instead of falling away from the House it twisted and fell to the side, landing precariously perched on the Farm House roof and a twelve foot chimney, the cut end was on the stump of the tree by a whisker. This was a bit of a problem. One wrong move could well have caused a bad accident or could have caused major damage to the Farm House roof and chimney.

We needed to wedge the trunk so that it would not fall any further. We managed after a lot of head scratching and two props to make it secure and safe. One of my Lads had to climb onto the Farm House roof and cut away the branches that we were unable to remove earlier. With other parts of the trunk removed to lighten it, we were able with four men to lift the trunk, to get it off of the roof and chimney. Fortunately the roof only suffered minor damage, just a couple of slates damaged. It could have been a lot worse.