Cold Ale - The Blokes' Thread!

The budget is a bit tight due to a couple of big bills... including the down-payment on a new car... so we have been forced to cut back. The biggest place to slash the budget is in dining out... which we do far too much. So instead we're eating at home. Tonight was the big meal of the week: New York Strip steaks on the grill accompanied with some very fine beers... and wine for the wife. We spent an hour or so after like an old couple sitting on the front porch... It was a gorgeous day. Now that the sun has dropped down I'm up in the computer room/office/library listening to some bluegrass cranked up loud... followed, no doubt, by my drinking music:

http://musicqwest.com/wp-content/upl.../12/let-it.jpg

Before logging in, I knew what picture would follow the ":"
We're having a nice well deserved steady rain at the moment, but your steak reference has me hoping for a small break to grill out this afternoon.

I've been mowing the lawn with my new Austrian scythe this evening. A flock of Great Tits were feeding on some little grubs that are eating our lilac tree. The grubs are inside the leaves and the birds were hanging upside down tearing them open to get at them - like they were eating a prepacked supermarket meal . The swallows were diving for the midges I was putting up - it was great, much better than using the lawn mower.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle

"Tales from the Allotment" I do enjoy your updates.
If I were a betting man, I'd put it on the improvements to your sheds.
You did make those improvements, right?
Congratulations.

---

I made improvements of a sort - I demolished the old fallout shelter which was no use to man or beast. It had been constructed with opaque plastic and very big window frames which were on the side next to the hedge - so no use for light. It made a sizeable pile of glass and wood. Some of the panes were 4 x 4 ft.
This all went into the skip.

As it happened, one of the other plotholders - Steve - had to leave as he was moving in with a new girlfriend who lives in Stratford Upon Avon. He had organised his whole plot into 31 raised beds complete with paths and a nice border. It has two sheds and a brilliant greenhouse. He left the lot and my committee compadres suggested that I take it. So I did.

It has really helped my wife, who has been ill this year, as the beds are easier to work.

We had a Barbie there tonight to celebrate the lad's graduation. We went to the ceremony in Oxford on Friday and had a cracking day. The Chancellor is a famous human rights lawyer here in the UK. She gave a really good speech. We were also supposed to have a speech from Hilary Mantel - the double Booker Prize winner, but she was ill. Pity that. I can't believe it's been 4 years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by prendrelemick

I've been mowing the lawn with my new Austrian scythe this evening. A flock of Great Tits were feeding on some little grubs that are eating our lilac tree. The grubs are inside the leaves and the birds were hanging upside down tearing them open to get at them - like they were eating a prepacked supermarket meal . The swallows were diving for the midges I was putting up - it was great, much better than using the lawn mower.

---

Sounds fantastic Mick. I'll have to look up the Austrian scythe.

"Great Tits...?!" :eek6::shocked:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by prendrelemick

I've been mowing the lawn with my new Austrian scythe this evening.

---

I'm getting a bit worried about you - first it's being buried to Don Giovanni, now you're out there with a scythe!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stlukesguild

"Great Tits...?!" :eek6::shocked:

---

Yes; the best-named bird on the planet. Oddly enough, they're quite small.

A perfectly legitimate ornithological term, along with Blue Tits and Great Bearded Tits.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Paulclem

I made improvements of a sort - I demolished the old fallout shelter which was no use to man or beast. It had been constructed with opaque plastic and very big window frames which were on the side next to the hedge - so no use for light. It made a sizeable pile of glass and wood. Some of the panes were 4 x 4 ft.
This all went into the skip.

As it happened, one of the other plotholders - Steve - had to leave as he was moving in with a new girlfriend who lives in Stratford Upon Avon. He had organised his whole plot into 31 raised beds complete with paths and a nice border. It has two sheds and a brilliant greenhouse. He left the lot and my committee compadres suggested that I take it. So I did.

It has really helped my wife, who has been ill this year, as the beds are easier to work.

We had a Barbie there tonight to celebrate the lad's graduation. We went to the ceremony in Oxford on Friday and had a cracking day. The Chancellor is a famous human rights lawyer here in the UK. She gave a really good speech. We were also supposed to have a speech from Hilary Mantel - the double Booker Prize winner, but she was ill. Pity that. I can't believe it's been 4 years.

---

Another few years and you will be taking over the entire allotment, then another and another and soon....

Our council made some allotments next to a housing estate (We fenced round it). the plots were tiny, about 10x15 ft, and the rent was £100 a year. I was wondering if you could grow £100 of veg on a plot that size. The lady from the council said it was more of a "Community garden" and all about the priceless experience of eating your own produce.

"The old man, holding himself erect, moved in front, with his feet turned out, taking long, regular strides, and with a precise and regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than swinging one's arms in walking, as though it were in play, he laid down the high, even row of grass. It was as though it were not he but the sharp scythe of itself swishing through the juicy grass."

http://www.classicreader.com/book/266/74/

^That episode is my favorite bit of Tolstoy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Another few years and you will be taking over the entire allotment, then another and another and soon....

Our council made some allotments next to a housing estate (We fenced round it). the plots were tiny, about 10x15 ft, and the rent was £100 a year. I was wondering if you could grow £100 of veg on a plot that size. The lady from the council said it was more of a "Community garden" and all about the priceless experience of eating your own produce.

---

That is a ridiculous price. Our rents are £18 a year for a plot that are around 30 x 50 at least. A lot of people rent 2. It sounds like a bit of a money scam from the council.

For the first time in quite a few years we're full. We have about 170 plots covering 16 acres. We do have the option of reclaiming land that has been let wild should the need arise.

Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were a-field under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air and short shadows of noon. Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning of blue-bottle flies; out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss of tressy oat-ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath. Every drop of moisture not in the men’s bottles and flagons in the form of cider was raining as perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. Drought was everywhere else.
—Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, Chapter XXXIII

Lammas is August 1st, the festival of the first harvest of wheat.

This bloke is great. How to do it Albanian style.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RyZCCl3OE0&hd=1

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by prendrelemick

This bloke is great. How to do it Albanian style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RyZCCl3OE0&hd=1

---

Enjoyed the video, particularly the peening and sharpening techniques. I'll be happy to loan you these when the time arises:

http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...psebfcdc58.jpg


Note the WD-40 to wet your stone and the sock to slip it in.

RE: Ornithology

The Red-breasted nuthatch is an absolutely adorable bird. Recently a pair of were making the rounds clasping onto the shaft of sturdy Oak penetrating acorns with their beaks.

Another common bird in my neck of the woods, is the Bridled Titmouse.