Strap everything down -- it might get a bit bumpy

[Erichalfbee]

At least I won the Scrabble

Enjoy a good game of scrabble. Sadly only get to play when the kids are here...Stan is dyslexic. I bought him/us a jigsaw for Christmas .....God! How old am I? 95?

 

[enrico]

Enjoy a good game of scrabble. Sadly only get to play when the kids are here...Stan is dyslexic. I bought him/us a jigsaw for Christmas .....God! How old am I? 95?

Ha ha, doing one of those too.....only 71

 

[Gilberdyke John]

You can turn them off in settings.

I vaguely recall turning off something about emergency government messaging a while ago. If I'm at ground zero, so be it, there'll be enough headless chickens blocking the main roads without me contributing.

A stand of mature willows down along the pond behind the bees.
Hives ok
Field shelter lost one side with contents strewn all over.
Polytunnel ok.
Boughs down into neighbours field along our drive
Branches all over the garden. Water leaking under sunroom doors.
No 4g
Intermittent WiFi
Still very gusty till this evening.
Inventory of damage tomorrow

The wind strengthened here and the rain returned here about 1.30 pm.

Is it national grid, or the local power company? SSE or someone...

In my area Northern Power Networks deal with distribution failures, most of the rest seems to be UK Power Networks. We have a contact number which elicits responses but I can well understand current queues in using today. Fortunately our power has stayed on so far and local forecast suggests calmer conditions due about noon.

 

[Curly green finger's]

A few things blown over but luckily hard pruned my 100 year old walnut last year so fingers crossed it may stay standing. Chickens don't think much of It.

We also haven’t any electricity, it’s been down since 3pm yesterday, we are told it will be back on by 6pm tonight, spent the night by candle light good job we have a good supply

 

[Curly green finger's]

Beginning to lose stuff now, pergola gone over, branches coming down and various other garden items been demolished. Just checked the bees and still all upright but well strapped. Need to change one of the stands, one leg looking iffy. Hope it holds till tomorrow. The gusts are super frightening.

I moved all my nucs and mini nucs into the tunnel yesterday afternoon, of out now too check the hives at the out apiary’s the dole rite has held them down .

 

[JamezF]

National Grid are now quoting 8pm tomorrow as the target time for restoration of power to some of the villages around us!

James

 

[enrico]

We also haven’t any electricity, it’s been down since 3pm yesterday, we are told it will be back on by 6pm tonight, spent the night by candle light good job we have a good supply

Hope it comes back soon, we are just about to try and rescue the garden

 

[enrico]

National Grid are now quoting 8pm tomorrow as the target time for restoration of power to some of the villages around us!

James

I wouldn't have their job for anything. I admire their bravery and wish I could thank them all personally

 

[Curly green finger's]

Hope it comes back soon, we are just about to try and rescue the garden

Been out to do that what a mess

 

[JamezF]

Been out to do that what a mess

It's really not tidy here either Lots of small stuff blown about and plenty of small branches ideal for tripping over. At least the drive is now clear so we can leave the property if necessary. The next job involves a rant at my father-in-law, so I'm going to "take a moment"

James

 

[pargyle]

Some really heavy gusts overnight - another two fence panels down in the back fence, debris and small branches all over the garden. One part of the fence between us and our neighbour to the side is down and destroyed - it's quite breezy still this morning, very cold and now it's raining. Bees are fine - not even a roof off ! They are in a very sheltered part of the garden and don't even have hive straps or bricks on the roofs .. my only fear last night was that with the wind backing North it could create an eddy in the apiary - fortunately, no problems.

 

[Erichalfbee]

the dole rite has held them down .

What’s that mean? Perhaps we needed that for our willows that are down

Cleared the drive today. List of firewood to saw up.
Willows at the apiary will have to wait. They actually belong to a neighbour who lets his fields. He’s going to have to repair the fence before stock comes in.

Further up the hill there were long lines of silage bales in readiness for overwintering cattle I presume. No sign of the cattle yet but the bales have rolled about all over the place.
The ground is sodden. If they try to move them back into place with machinery they will make a heck of a mess.

 

[Curly green finger's]

What’s that mean? Perhaps we needed that for our willows that are down

Cleared the drive today. List of firewood to saw up.
Willows at the apiary will have to wait. They actually belong to a neighbour who lets his fields. He’s going to have to repair the fence before stock comes in.

Further up the hill there were long lines of silage bales in readiness for overwintering cattle I presume. No sign of the cattle yet but the bales have rolled about all over the place.
The ground is sodden. If they try to move them back into place with machinery they will make a heck of a mess.

Dhustone granite dolerite it’s really heavy granite, Dhustone means black rock in Gaelic which came from the Irish and Scot’s that worked up at the quarry’s in the 18/1900s.
The house is partly built out of it.

 

[Jules59]

All my Xmas lights along our gables have failed overnight from being thrashed about - only put them up a few days ago. They are years old so probably not worth repairing (even if possible) -so ordered some more for when the wind dies down.

Also tested the genny, just in case the power supply down goes for some time. My oil fired CH still needs electricity, obviously.

A big tree came down yesterday across the bridle path by the house. I'll leave that for the framer to sort.

 

[JamezF]

The next job involves a rant at my father-in-law, so I'm going to "take a moment"

It gets worse...

On Friday whilst trying to park his car my father-in-law put the front (driving) wheels on the grass at the entrance to the orchard. The ground was absolutely sodden everywhere, so he wasn't getting out. That's no big deal as it's not always easy to tell how far is too far, and all it takes is to put the wheels on the grass and you're stuffed. At that point he could have come in and asked me just to pull the car backwards about three feet with the tractor and he'd have been sorted. But no, he decided that he could turn the car around in the orchard (it's down a slight gradient, so the car would still roll that way) and drive out. Predictably, as soon as he turned back up the slope he ended up stuck in the mud in the middle of the orchard. I was a bit cross at that point given that he'd turned a five minute job into an hour's job just because he couldn't be bothered to come and find me.

Yesterday, in the middle of the storm, he thought he'd have another go and of course just ended up digging the car in deeper.

This morning I decided to tow the car out. I explained that as he was at 90° to the direction he needed to leave in, we'd tow him up the slope past the entrance and then I could pull him out in reverse whilst he turned the wheels to line the car up. "Yes" he said. So I pulled him forwards up the slope, unhooked the tractor and off he went, trying to turn the car around! Eventually I got him to stop, but only when he'd almost crashed into a large Bramley tree.

Back to plan A and I gently towed him backwards out of the orchard with the tractor in low-ratio. It was all going very nicely. However, unbeknownst to me and for no sane reason that I can imagine, he was revving the engine like crazy with the car in reverse and as soon as the tyres bit the car shot backwards, smacking the tailgate hard into the 3-point hitch of the tractor. The tailgate now has a massive dent in it. I'm not even sure if it will open.

It has been said by someone I used to work for that in my case the expression "doesn't suffer fools gladly" is one word too long, but rarely do I actually lose my temper with them. This time however I was right on the ragged edge of blowing up at him. I'm now going to have a little calm down in the workshop whilst making a new window to replace the one sucked out of the bee shed by the wind.

James

 

[The Poot]

Well, the only “damage” here was a garden bench was blown over. A few trees lost some small branches, but that’s all.
That’s a blessing of living in a valley bottom - not so good when water is the issue, but the wind damage was much worse at the valley tops.

 

[enrico]

Well, the only “damage” here was a garden bench was blown over. A few trees lost some small branches, but that’s all.
That’s a blessing of living in a valley bottom - not so good when water is the issue, but the wind damage was much worse at the valley tops.

I have temporarily repaired the greenhouse door, managed to get one garden chair out of a young Acer . It has been well pruned but hopefully might live. The only thing I can't put right is a large wooden seating unit that blew over. Needs some muscle much stronger than mine. Might have to try and pulley it to a nearby oak tree! Could have been so much worse.

 

[The Poot]

I have temporarily repaired the greenhouse door, managed to get one garden chair out of a young Acer . It has been well pruned but hopefully might live. The only thing I can't put right is a large wooden seating unit that blew over. Needs some muscle much stronger than mine. Might have to try and pulley it to a nearby oak tree! Could have been so much worse.

You’ve pruned a garden chair, so it might live? I knew things were weird in the levels but……

 

[mbc]

I've had a few nucs blown about, an interesting observation of those where the frames had left the box was that there was no brood visible at all, so I'm commencing the last round of vapes.

 

[JamezF]

I took a bit of a round trip into work today and visited all my hives to check they were ok. Everything was still upright, so I'm happy enough about that. Nor did there appear to be any further damage to nearby trees other than what I saw on Friday which did surprise me a little given that there was plenty of evidence of other trees having come down.

James