Busy

I thought I had heard it would be wet again all day, however woke to sunshine and a light air frost. Let ou the geese who loved the large puddles on the fields (see extra Photo).

First job was to do Angie''s car tyre change ready for the promised snow. We haven't had any gritting/salting this autums so could store the mag wheels without having to wash them.

Then off to the compost yard with a small fianl trailer of tree felling scraps and at the same time picking up Flash from the morning ride Angie, Rosie & Luna continued on. And naturally picked up a large block of cheddar from the local dairy.

Back home started on the chicken caravan which has to be made in to a goose mobile home. Most importantly need to replace the missing shingles (roof was damaged before my hair raising drive yesterday). Hitched up the drawbar to my front loader and started to reverse the shed to the workshop. Quickly realised the axle for the two (rear) wheels are much too high and worse much too narrow. 30 meters over flat paving was "interesting" - I was just waiting for it to tip over.

Luckily loads of spare shingles in the shed and so an hour or two of hammering and climbing up and down step ladder. Then a layer of bitumen roofing on the floor, difficult to lay in the now cold temperatures.

Black clouds on the horizon and getting cold and I wanted the geese to try out their new house but knew the wheel situation had to be sorted so lifted the rear end with the tractor and started on the task. It got dark and the snow came but I struggled on setting up floodlights and trying to keep drills dry in the blowing snow storm!

Almost managed it but at 8:00pm gave up, frozen to the core and yet again wet. Abandoned everything and fled indoors where Angie was just about to do a sauna. At her suggestion I took off and jacket and then still dressed sat in the sauna. From -1°C to +80°C in one second! Once I got some feeling in my toes got out.

Geese will have to spend one more night in their old quarters and hope I can finish off the job tomorrow. Luckily filled up the tractor with diesel on Friday.By law the petrol stations must have winter diesel which will withstand temperatures down to -20°C from 16th November until 1st March. Various brands have their own methods some start earlier. I just hope mine did and that they didn't just top off with a delivery this week on top of a half full tank of summer diesel. The radio announced this afternoon we can look forward to -16°C this coming week. The +20°C earlier this week is long forgotten!