The Age of wire and dobbers

More sunshine today. More CSS tweaking. More more.

Aunty Pingu rang last week to furnish propitious dates for planting and transplanting and all is now fit for G to take advantage of the advantage.

The boys in red were out today - and the girl in the brown hat. Farmboy is proving to be a dabber hand with the paintbrush this spring than he was last autumn - fast, accurate, tidy and ambidextrous to boot. Eddie is an exceedingly able pair of hands with a light touch on the irrigation works. He was working with Gill today to test out the new irrigation system for the extensions to Lav2 that D designed. G was pegging out the pipe (Eddie made the metal pegs that hold the pipe in place) and marking in the new plant positions. After that she drilled the pipe and fitted the "dobbers" that will feed the individual plants with H2O when things dry and heat up. And then they were ready to wet run (dry run would be more usual usage but since this is tested with real water ...) the irrigation extension system - it has its own stopcock. So, Eddie was dispatched down the lane to the main irrigation supply feed tap where the water meter is permanently broken to initiate the "burn sequence". By the time he got back, having opened the cock no more than a third (pressures this time of year are ferocious) G had heard the water coming and had herself opened the main farm cock. So far so good - no leaks - no waste. They both then trooped off down to Lav 2 where they opened the new cock and G verified that all new "dobbers" were indeed operational. But before calling it a day they tested, well G tested and Eddie stood around looking far from decorative, the pre-existing irrigation for Lav2 (it's called regression testing when you test to make sure that what you have added or changed has not altered the operation of what was already there - IT people are supposed to do it but rarely do). Result - everything works - "Felia we have lift off! All systems are go!". Then and only then were all cocks closed in reverse order all the way back to the main feed down the lane. All is readiness for the Lav2 extension.

Apart from painting up some bamboo fence like panels in the terracotta used in the potting shed (what Shaun called unnatural bamboo) Frambot took another stab at stripping out the girls. Bridey had been getting a tad sullen of late noticing that Moll had been spruced up and that she had herself been neglected and so it was Bridey who was up on the table this afternoon - and she loved it. She's really an attention whore at heart. Frambot is proving to be a worthy successor to the Guv'nor himself at the stripping (it helps that Bridey's coat is so manageable but he's pretty handy nonetheless and learning all the time). Bridget is well pleased with herself and looking much more cheerful. So is Frambot. The Guv'nor, if his forearm improves, will re-attend to Moll toward the end of the week (she needs tidying up already) so if Frambot finishes B off this week then both the girls will be spick, span and Bristol fashion for when Kell turns up in a fortnight! Two weeks tomorrow! Maybe even when Chick turns up next week! Just a week? Unbelievable.