pre winter gardening

Well the leaves are falling off the trees and grass has stopped growing for the season, the midgies have eventually dissapeared for another year and I can get out there and not be bitten all over. I have been cropping bushes back this last week or so letting a bit more light and breeze into the place.

 

 

Peat in for the winter

Well it was another nice morning so I got a lot done about the place, chopped some more wood, cut a lawn and erected a wee fence while Gus trained Ben how to jump into the pond (and get covered in mud) and how to bark and Jessy tried training him to bite the lawnmower front tyre.

I bought a trailer full of peat from a neighbour for 60 Euro which will last me all winter with the wood supply supplementing it. Helped him load it and he had an awesome Fork specially for handling peat it has baubles on the fork ends so they don't pierce the turf and is sort of spoon shaped so you can pick up a good load at a time and it doesn't spill off. I have to unload it into the turf shed at some point which will take ten times as long but I have it covered with a tarp to keep it dry meantime. Tonight is meant to be wet again but we have been lucky this week with gorgeous weather.
I took a wee photomontage of my view across the bog it will be a shame if its covered in bliddy windmills. Emailed the Galway Mayor councellor Welby who used to be on the Oughterard small business committee with me to have a whinge lol probably do no good whatsoever but what the heck ehh.
We are meeting with the counsellor in charge of planning but he will already have had his backhander from the developer no doubt. I'm not opposed to renewable energy and I  understand how Ireland has to meet renewable resource deadlines but all counties in Ireland have areas with sufficient wind speeds to make them economically viable – this is borne out by the presence of wind farms in these areas already. It is evident that any national policy for Ireland which seeks to capture the country’s maximum capacity for wind energy can be achieved without impacting on areas with sensitive landscapes, ecology and hydrology and I think my bog could quite eassily qualify as sensitive.

Dog Psychology

Well its a joy to watch a puppy interacting with my two older dogs, Jessy the eldest and only female dog in the pack was having great fun racing him round the garden through the trees over hedges under stuff and round in tight circles earlier and now we are back inside dodging a shower he is slapping his front paws on the floor and dancing round her to try and get her to do the same chase inside. He is scared of the car for some reason, maybe he accosiates it with being dumped so I didnt insist he come with us for a swim this morning but it wouldnt have been fair for the other two to miss out so we left him in the porch I suppose the obvious way to get him to trust the car again is to make every time he goes in it a pleasurable experience, the other two as soon as I say "in the car" go crazy with excitement. Gus is not quite as enamoured with the new guy but puts up with him fine.

I am feeding them seperate from the pup as he is very skinny and gulping down his food then trying to get theirs which is a recipie for a fight, I read somewhere that getting malnourished animals back to prime health again needs a bit of thought you cant just dive in there and feed them as much as they can eat straight away so he gets small feeds often throughout the day with added extras like egg and cheese instead of a big feed at night which is what the other two are used to, they have been having smaller than normal feeds twice a day as well.

There was a call from the owner of Ross Castle yesterday that I missed but she was singing my praises to Angie about how much she likes her new website, its not "live" yet as I havent finalised with her if there is any more info to go on it but you can view the test site on my server at http://www.galwaysitedesign.com/ross/ another one I have nearly finished is for a wee guest house in Oughterard its also on the server at http://www.galwaysitedesign.com/fougheast/ others I am working on are http://www.galwaysitedesign.com/breizon/ and http://www.windowsgalway.ie/ any comments are welcome as pages look different on different browsers.

I had a call from a bloke in Dublin the other day asking about website design, he wanted a small site for his business with the capacity to buy items from him using paypal to pay, I quoted a really reasonable E200 to which he told me I was too dear, on asking him how much he expected to pay he said could I do it for E45, I spilt my coffee, luckily it didnt get on the laptop. I spend perhaps 10 - 20 hours getting a site right which equates to between 10 and 20 Euros an hour. To get a decent trademan to lay some flooring or make an archway would cost me twice that at least per hour, so I told him he should shop around a bit.  

Visit to the Cardio Department

Well I had to go for an echocardiogram this morning then be poked by a 25 yr old Polish Sheila who said she was a Dr, I didn't complain even when she wanted to feel how rough my hands were on the back of her kneck, ok I was dreaming again. I have been put on a bigger dose of Atacand and fish oil which used to be subsidised but was removed last month, so its costs about as much as caviar, probably because they knew I was coming and fish oil comes from Poland. Have to go back in 3 months to see how the drugs have gone and maybe have an angiogram which is where they pump dye into your blood and watch it circulate through the heart, if they use blue dye it may not show, I told the Polish Sheila that, but she was too busy playing angry birds on her iphone, or summat, to hear, or didnt quite get the joke.

Ben hasn't been claimed so we had a bath, I say we although he was quite good and stood in the bath well, after he realised I wasnt going to skin him so I didnt get too wet. He is less brown in colour than we thought initially.

 

He follows me round like a shadow so I guess he is glad to be in a warm environment with dogs and dog lovers.

Abandoned Pup

Well I'm babysitting, a wee pup that appeared outside on the road yesterday, I think it has been abandoned as it is skinny as a rake and badly needs a wash. It also hasnt been neutred so I'm guessing it was dumped, anyway I have contacted the local radio station and they will put out on air that he was found and I also told the local shop. Not sure what age he is but he has young looking teeth and apart from needing some TLC and lots of food, seems fit it took him 20 hrs to come indoors but he is an affectionate wee creatir and the other two dogs like him.

windmills and new floors

Well the floors are down and I spent today moving furniture and rearanging the house. Its great to have floor coverings back and it looks really good. I still have a bit of painting to do and insulation to go in the loft which would be nice to do before the cold weather, I have a fire on tonight so it is really cosy.

Angie's company did a double take when she said she wasnt going to Dubai and decided to keep her on in the same position here in Galway so thats a bit of relief.

There is a planning proposal for a wind farm development of 14 windmills between me and the 12 pins mountains basically right in my view so I was at a meeting the other night of locals opposing the farm. I'm a "blow in" and the whole meeting was in Irish so I would have been more constructive if I had gone to a meeting of North Korean butterfly conservationists, but I did email the action committee with my points of view today.
The developers had a display in the local hall with photos of how the windmills would look and of course they are in 50 mm wideangle so they look tiny, I showed a comparison that I found online with windmill photos of the same area taken with 50mm and 75mm which is more like what we actually see as a comparison and suggested they ask the developers for shots in 75mm and when they refuse, as they will, we can quote their unwillingness. The Scottish Heritage have a court case just now insisting that windfarm developers show true representative photos in 75mm rather than wideangle shots as they are deceptive.

 I went to the movies aand had dinner out last night as Angie was at a going away party for some of her workmates that have been made redundant, the movie was the Sweeny with Ray Winston and was full on violence and swearing and the movie theatre had a grand total of 5 people in it. Last night was the 27th and "Arthurs Day" so the town was full of drunks staggering all over the place when we drove home about 2300.

I did a website for Warmer Homes Ireland and have started one for the Internal Defibrillator Accosiation of Scotland this week and fixed up a PC so it wasnt a wasted week. The weather hasnt been great but whats new ehh and the time that it was calm the bliddy midges were back.

I'll give them "blow in " got as much right as anyone to complain about wind farms here.

Seafood

Well I got a website design job for a company called Breizon who process and export shell fish, when I was down at their office getting information and such the owner gave me samples of the produce so we had seafood last night curtisy of them. I made prawns in a 1970's style Maree Rose sauce and garlic crab claws for a starter then crab meat spagattini with garlic, chilli, tommatoes, a wee bit tom paste and a couple of spoons of lemon/ lime marmalade which turned out nice. Its nearly impossible to buy fresh Irish shellfish here unless you have a contact on a boat as it is all sent abroad. I think if he has an online shop selling things like razor fish, lobster, whelks, crab and scampi he would do really well.

Tonight we are back to mince and potatoes lol. I paid for the hardwood flooring today and tomorrow the electrician is back. Friday the tiler is here to use the remaining tiles from the kitchen floor in the spare bedroom onsuite. I have to drive to Monivea tomorrow to see a customer for another website so am quite busy.

 

Had to move the yacht today as they are sandblasting and painting in the marina so I have a berth not in the corner this time.