The Great Oak

 Its amazing how you can live somewhere and not know whats on your doorstep. Tourist attractions abound in these parts and by chance we found another, this tree, known very originally as The Great Oak. From a small acorn in around 1086 this massive tree grew, it doesn't do much, just dominates the roadside next to the two houses, handily named Oak Cottage and nearby is the Redundant Oak School. Its so famous it has its own brown tourist sign but that's not how I found it, I discovered its existence by cycling, or rather reading about cycling as its listed as a point of interest on a local route.

 It might not rival EuroDisney or have the state of the art white knuckle rides of some tourist attractions, but aside from the fact its free it does have one other unusual feature, its cavernous interior.

 The apprentice was justifiably cautious on his approach as to be fair this is something straight out of a fairy tale, but once inside he was mightily impressed. There is in fact enough room for around 6 adults stood upright.

 My beautiful and oh so patient wife got in on the act but we couldn't take pictures of the insides as the phone camera lacked a flash. Inside the branches are also hollow and allows sunlight in, it really is a strange sight.

So there you have it in a nutshell, or acorn shell, the great oak.

Perfect conditions for...

 Apparently its bad form to go for a 120 mile bike ride days after the birth of MkII rug rat so instead of donning the lycra and setting off with other like minded Mamils  I did the decent thing and got on with the jobs list.

 And as it was sunny, windless, dry, perfect cycling weather I soon forgot about the joys of long distance sportives, even when dozens of Mamils went past in a very disorganised peleton (Rock HQ was on the route) and so I focused on the job in hand and sorted out the water supply for the animals and garden, or as my beautiful and oh so patient wife described it. messed about playing dams. So the water flows down the side of the Bonsai Mountain into the Cauldron, see above, and into a large blue pipe, above the above. Over time and through clumsy pony hoofs and illegal motorbikes the pipe got squished and the dam got broke. So today was put it back together day.

 In no time at all a brand new reservoir and dam was constructed and millions of litres of fresh water now flows through the arcane pipework of HQ refreshing the pigs, goats, poultry and Trevor Shitland.

 Having had such fun sorting that out I decided to tackle the reservoir that supplies the garden but as can be seen from this picture its a bit over grown. Its dead centre of the pic and the stream that supplies it has all but disappeared. This was more of a task and end of play saw a new channel cut for water, which was in fact liquid mud so its been left sort itself out in the next heavy downpour. Once that deluge has cleared the sludge out I will connect it back to the pipework.

Tomorrow I will let you know whats so interesting about this Oak tree.

Back again

 The heavy rain over the last few days has meant that the river has returned, its actually lower than it was yesterday but yesterday I didn't have a camera

 or an apprentice who was keen to explore the local geography. Unfortunately we had to curtail or exploration as Pritch our friendly builder

returned to finish the fireplace. Little t got in on the act and even managed a builders bum.

Hang on!

 Doing the rounds today I called in at a fellow smallholders plot for a cuppa when I spotted this beast parked by his front door which he bagged for less than the cost of a racing bike off Ebay. The bargain broke down on the drive home, ran out of fuel so his lovely wife towed him. Tractors of this ilk are designed for around 12mph which is a fact that was missed in the please give me tow communication meaning proud owner of new old tractor had a genuine white knuckle ride as he gripped the steering wheel for dear life as his wife, keen to get home, reached speeds 4x the designated max mph.

 Meanwhile back at the ranch I found Chester trying to alert the household to the fact that he was hungry.

Thankfully he has not learned to turn the door key.

Give him time....

Tribute act

Some regular readers might have wondered what became of Kobe the monster calf that we helped haul out of Hetty two springs ago. Well he went over, with his mum to live on the lands of the Stable Sprite and now earns his keep as a Bon Jovi tribute act.

Just doing my job Maam

Given my capacity for falling off objects and my unerring ability to cock up DIY jobs it may have come as surprise to the casual observer today to see yours truly on the roof of Rock HQ in torrential rain puzzling over the complexities of slate roofing.
This episode began some three days ago when I noticed a slate where it shouldn't be (the floor) which meant that either an itinerant roofer had cold called and left a free sample, or, more likely, one slate had succumbed to gravity and hit the deck. Now as we have an everso friendly builder visiting this weekend this did not seem like too much of a drama until this evening when the heavens dropped copious amounts of H2O in a very short space of time (thus creating the frog aquatic complex in the workshop again) and the forecast was for even heavier rainfall.
On inspection the missing from the roof but found on the floor slate was one of two that had had the bad manners to leave their post and both were over our bedroom and more or less over the exact spot where MkII rug rat has his berth.
As infants are not prone to thrive in environments conducive to waterboarding superhero Dad set off on the replace slate mission via the broken rabbit hutch, oil tank and Berner Annex roof thus negating the need for technical equipment like ladders (which I fall off, see 2007 and nearly losing left arm saga)
Once aloft the task was relatively simple despite rainfall of Biblical quality and pretty soon I was taking a standing (cautiously) ovation from the crowd (Bernese Mountain Dogs eager to play rescue, whats that he fell off  the roof....) and descending in a controlled manner without injury and seeing as the rain has got heavier without getting in the house it was a job well done. I still got told off for being an idiot by my beautiful and oh so patient wife for going up without telling anyone but that's the risk a superhero takes.

Claim to fame

 Its been a while since we did the W3P2P challenge, thats the 3 highest peaks in Wales and the 150 miles in-between by foot and by bike in 22 hours. So it was nice to make to local paper.

Big shock today though as I sat reading my latest copy of Outdoor Fitness (I wont reveal where I was reading it but its the only room in the house where I can lock myself away for 5 minutes peace) to find that yours truly graces the same hallowed pages as Mark Cavendish, albeit in a small way, he has a four page in depth article about how he averages 40mph on his bike and max speed at 63 mph and I got a photo and a paragraph about the W3P2P. They also spelled his name right.

In only 7 days

 MkII rug rat has been with us

 for a whole seven days.

He marked 10.23 am with a suitable reminder to his servants that they should be doing something that involved him.