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.