Another Brick In The Wall(Final Update)

Hi folks. I decided today to make a start towards replacing the crumbling wall surrounding a part of our garden. I thought it would maybe be fun to do a thread to document this, so here we are. I have no idea how long this going to take me or how the finished wall is going to look, as is normally my way, I'll sort of work it out as I go along. I suspect I'll often be sidetracked along the way, as has already happened today. I've been collecting stones for a while now and I don't intend to replace the wall with bricks. Instead I'm going to use stones which are not all of the same type of stone, but that's what I have, so that's what I'll use. The first few photos show the condition the current wall. The first photo is the end of the wall nearest my woodshed and as you can see, it's not looking great.

The wall is only a small one but has been here for many years and is now crumbling badly and really insecure and wobbly at bits. This photo shows the wall behind some of the stones I've collected.

A view of the wall with the large stones moved away from it.

And a more detailed view of the extent of the damage.

As we all love the birds, I'll see if I can photograph some of them along the way, like these Starlings on my neighbour's TV aerial.

I also decided to stuff some straw into a suet ball feeder and hang it in the holly bush in case the birds might like to use some of it as nesting material.

I've decided that probably the best way to go about this is to lay out all the stones that I have and hopefully this should maybe help me to select the stones easier as the build gets under way. The next photo is of the stones that were piled along the edge of the old wall. I've tried to lay them out in a sort of organised way, (to me anyway).

At around this point, Mrs A called down to see if I fancied going to the garden centre with her for a cup of tea. This sounded great to me, so off we went. As is the way of things, we ended up having a light lunch and returned with a new adapter for the garden hose, a 12.5kg bag of peanuts and two new peanut feeders, one of which is shown here. We liked the look of these feeders because the wire mesh goes all the way around the bottom an back up the other side which should help to prevent the peanuts at the bottom from becoming damp, although the Sparrows around here take great pride in preventing this from happening by scoffing as many peanuts as they can, as often as they can.!!

When I got back down the garden to start again, I found that the supervisor had arrived and was carrying out a detailed assessment of the site. This is Tee Tee, one of my three cats. She likes to ‘help’.!!

Assessing and helping can be very tiring however, so it wasn't long before mental and physical exhaustion got the better of her.!!

Mrs A called down the garden again, reminding me that she'd promised the elderly lady next door that I'd dig out a few very small trees that had taken root close to her front door. Also I was to dig out some Peony Roses from the same area as well. I actually broke the first garden fork that I used, but think I may be able to repair it with a small exhaust clamp. I got another fork from the shed, which we actually found lying in the middle of the road when we were out in the car one day.!!(the fork, not the shed).!! I've actually found loads of things lying in the road now that I come to think about It.!! The list includes a pair of safety goggles, one of those hard hats with the ear protectors fitted to it, a small digital camera, three battery powered inspection lamps (all at different times and in different locations) and my most recent find was one of those clamp things that mountaineers use to help them when they're climbing up a rope,.. you know the type of thing? You attach a bit of rope with a loop on it to put your foot in, and as you take the weight off your foot , the clamp thing is slid up the rope and then grips the rope again as you put your weight back on the loop.!! Quite ingenious actually... In actual fact, it’s in the drawer downstairs, I’ll go get it and take a photo of it to show you… back in a ‘tic.......... Here it is..... Thanks for waiting.!!

Never be afraid to stop and pick things up (safely of course), you never know what you'll find. I actually doubled back to get the safety goggles.!! Anyway... I dug up the small trees and Peony Roses but I hate to see things go to waste, especially as they're living things, so the small trees are now planted in my garden and Mrs A found a place for the Peony Roses. I've no idea what kind of trees they are but here's a photo of one of them in it's new home, half way down the garden. I put it in the middle of some other plants that Mrs A has got (with her permission of course).

I am in all honesty trying to get back to the wall but the way things went today I was all over the place. Mrs A once again called me to see if I wanted to see a Bee that was on the ground at the front of the house. This is a photo I took before we moved it to a safer location in the garden amongst the plants. It was moving very slowly on the ground.

Whilst I was down on the ground I took a few snaps of a couple of the plants that are out at the front of the house. The first one as I'm sure you'll know is a Heather but I've no idea what the second one is. I'm not great when it comes to idenyifying plants.

Another bit of crumbling wall at the front of the house. I'll have to sort this at some point too.!!

On the way back round to get on with sorting out the stones I thought I take a few pics to show you some other stuff. It may surprise you, but I actually found these tubs (I have two of them) in the field at the back of my house. They were much taller than they are now and someone had made then into garden seats, obviously didn't want them any more and threw them into the field. There is a pile of wood in the corner of the field that the farmer doesn't bother about, so long as it's only wood or garden waste. Every now and then he sets fire to it. It’s really handy actually as all of our trimmings and stuff can go out there without the need for us to bag them up and take them to the council's waste centre. I cut the top off the seats, painted them up, and Mrs A planted some sort of butterfly friendly plants into them.

I also found this small tree lying in the field, minus a pot. I rescued this as well and put it in a pot over the winter. I planted it today in another bit of the garden but have really no idea what it is.

A view looking down the garden from the other side of the fence from the barrel planter. I built the wee hand cart thing myself out of some wood that I had lying around. Mrs A puts flowers in it in the summer and it looks really nice. The wheels were bit of a nightmare to build and I tried to persuade Mrs A that a broken cart with only one wheel would be nice, but she was having none of it. I had to build the second wheel.!! It's full mostly of the soil you get free from the council recycling centre once a year, mixed with some garden centre compost as well. The box behind the cart to the left which looks like an oversized Rabbit Hutch is Harry's house(one of my other cat's). I actually built it for Tee Tee when we moved here but she looked upon it with spectacular indifference. When Harry adopted us he moved in without a second thought. He has a comfy bed in the top half where it is nice and dry.

Heading back to continue with the wall, I took a photo of some House Sparrows leaving the tree. I'm not sure what type of tree it is but I think it may be a type of ornamental pear willow....I think. It does bear very small, hard, pear shaped fruits every year.

It's a great tree for the birds. It's close to the feeding area and the Starling and Sparrows love it. Another photo of House Sparrow’s in the tree, and arriving at the tree.

A quick stop over for a refreshing drink of Lager Shandy.

An artistic look through the stones.

Since I'm at the bottom of the garden I'd be just as well to show you a view out over the fields at the back. The farmer had been spreading....stuff...on the field the other day but you tend to get used to it...if you know what I mean.!! He puts cattle in here later on in the year so maybe expect a post about cows at some point.

This is my chimney thing that we sit round on the summer nights, and as you can see, it hasn't has the best of winters this year. Another job to add to the list.

I have plans to use this barrel as a Water Butt, but I need to put guttering up on the shed at some time and use the run off to fill the Butt. Yet another one for the ever lengthening list of things to be done.

Almost back to the stones again, but first a quick photo of one of those insect home things that we have in our Holly Bush.

I do have another pile of stones which I now got round to bringing out and organising, but before I show you a photo of all the stones together, I thought I'd introduce you to Harry. Some of you may remember him from an earlier thread, but if you missed that, here he is. He's quite old we think, and he's also a bit deaf, especially with lower frequencies. He has only recently taken to coming into the house for a wee while in the evening, before wanting back out again. He lives outside most of the time. Tee Tee hates Harry and they constantly go through a ridiculous charade where Tee Tee does what we call 'The Slow Walk'. She postures herself and passes by Harry's box with exaggerated slowness, looking at absolutely everything around her..Except Harry.!! He flattens himself to the base of his box during this and watches her intently. Totally ridiculous behaviour from both of them. Occasionally though, it does come to blows, but happily not as often as it used to. This is Harry in the bottom part of his box, pretending he doesn't know that Tee Tee is watching him from further down the garden.

This is Tee Tee, watching Harry from further down the garden, no doubt planning a 'Slow Walk' up past him.(note the condition of the wall behind her).

A pair of Goldfinch paid a brief visit, this being one of them.

And finally, these are all the stones that I have for the wall.

I think there are enough stones here to do the job and if I need smaller ones I can maybe use the sledge hammer to break up some of the more awkward shaped ones. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do this in small steps (mixing the cement by hand) or if I'll maybe get hold of a small cement mixer and try to do it in one go if I can get a good day for it. It’s taken ages to put this post together and I do realise that it did veer off course at bits, but I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I’ll update this maybe next weekend if any further progress is made.

Paul