So I jumped out of bed this morning to the sound of a saw in action, rushing outside to investigate I found his lordship swinging his chain saw around and threatening one of the Walnut trees. Before I could so much as blink he hacked off two branches and then kept going, I have to say as much as I didn't like the idea of dismembering the tree, it has bought in a lot more sunlight and of course some much needed logs for the winter.
Of course all this action meant more work for me, no surprise there then. Luck didn't seem to be on my side and I didn't get to rush off to the office, the internet had gone down yesterday and they were still waiting for a technician to arrive so there was no choice but to get on with it. First things first, I had to find buckets, now when I left here, I had masses of buckets old and new but for some reason they seemed to be scattered far and wide around the property and no one seems to know why, and the best I could do was an old paint bucket with a hole in it. I used to know a song about that :)
After much faffing about I managed to fill 3 such buckets (one held together with brown parcel tape) with the walnuts that I stripped from the felled branches. His lordship still managed to find a reason to go out on some errand or other, so I thought sod it and sat out side with a well deserved cuppa, as I sat contemplating the meaning of life, whilst bathing in the warm yellow sunshine, my ears were drawn to a noise coming from one of the other trees, as I looked up I could of sworn I saw a huge black cat, and when I say huge I mean of the Panther variety, it moved pretty damn quick and the whole tree shook as it ran off, rubbing my eyes in the "did I just see that" kind of way I sat back down and wondered if all these walnuts were giving off some kind of hallucinogenic. Anyway no sign of cat now but I think I will be a bit cautious about going out in the dark for a while. Lunch over, I actually got his lordship to sit down with a knife and help me peel the walnuts. Well what a joy that was, 4 hours of silently peeling, apart from the sound that has been bugging me for days. The sound has been there in the background as I mentioned for a few days, it seems to be off in the distance and sounds like someone calling out for help. I asked his lordship about it and he shrugged his shoulders and said "Help me, I have no food", well the sound had left me with a kind of sick feeling to my stomach that I have not been able to shift, so I suggested we should go and investigate, he gave me one of his quizzical looks and left it at that. I can't tell you how much this noise has bothered me and then it dawned on me...that it was not some poor person shouting out but a ruddy goat, no wonder he gave me such an odd look when I wanted to go sort it out!
Anyway back to the walnuts, the three buckets loads are now peeled and hanging in some old nets under the portico to dry. Now you would think that peeling walnuts would be a harmless sort of task to do and if you are wearing gloves then it is...
or at least you would think, that stuff must be strong or I had a hole in both gloves.
But his lordship decided that he would just man up
Apparently he now has Gypsy hands (but not of the big fat type), I just couldn't persuade him to rub them over his face. I do have 3 buckets (more to follow) of walnut skins so if anyone out there has got a shed load of stuff to dye walnut brown please feel free to help yourselves.
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