Moving Day!

Yesterday dawned dry, unusual for this summer.  We decided to tackle a job which has been on the 'To Do' list for a long time and move a shed, which was left by the previous owners, to a better location.  The gazebo was put up, shed emptied and dismantled.  I left all of that to George and Jonny.

I just continued with my weeding, hoeing and forking, trying to make up for the weeks of neglect due to the rainy weather.  I had my trusty assistants - Little Red Hen and Toby, the cats came and went, easily bored.




LRH stayed very close, observing every forkful of soil, checking every weed I pulled.  She constantly burbled and chatted and was great company.

Toby was not impressed, he was bored - and showed it.  I had to laugh because when the cats got too close LRH would suddenly charge at them and the cats ran away, scared.  She even had a go at Toby, once, when he ventured too close.

As I continued to pull weeds and tidy the vegetable beds and pathways George and Jonny dismantled the shed and took up the old base.  They made some interesting discoveries.  There were three fat toads and one nest.  It looked like a mouse nest, but turned out to be something much more interesting.

No mice ran from it, but we could hear a buzzing sound - it was a tiny 'beehive' built inside an old mouse nest which had been under the floor of the shed.

We asked John the beekeeper about it and he very kindly came along and checked it out for us.  He found it fascinating - something new to him.  Definitely a beehive, we saw the enormous queen and the tiny collection of cells within the nest.

He recommended that we cover it over, with easy access for the bees and then move it very slowly over a period of time to a new, safer site.  It has to be done slowly or else the worker bees won't be able to find their way home.

This is the new view from the Owl Wood gate, no ugly shed!  It is so much easier on the eye, and the silver birch tree looks much prettier now that it is no longer butting up to a tool shed.  The garden is a real mish-mash of levels, slopes, retaining walls, no doubt they all helped to exacerbate the recent drainage problems.

The sun is shining brightly and I am heading out to do some more work in the vegetable garden - no rain is forecast today.

It should be a bright, bright, sunshiney day!

I won't hold my breath, though, this is England.  Have a lovely weekend.