Working Dawn to Dusk

Kevin was up early to check on his latest cement marvel. The sun was up and so was the moon!


WALNUTS

 We've got a lot of walnuts. You're supposed to wait for them to drop from the trees, but we're heading back to the UK soon and won't be back for a while, and we'd like to take home as many as we can for Christmas... and for making unlimited supplies of  coffee and walnut cake, an all time favourite of mine.

 We're in competition with some other creatures. Some open the nuts comme ci:


And others open them comme ca:

 Kevin looked up the whys and wherefores and dos and don'ts of walnut harvesting. The first advice was to knock them out of the tree with a long pole. The photo below is of one of our walnut trees, a smaller one. Do you see something unexpected up in the tree?


That's right. Kevin's shovel. He didn't follow the advice strictly, and decided that he could just throw a shovel at the nuts. Some nice ones did fall down, but the shovel didn't.
He had better luck with his second lot of shuttering. Look at this impressive cement box and lid over the 'regard'. The two nails sticking up are so that it can be lifted. I'm sure he's putting on some proper knobs at some stage.

I've been painting most of the day again today. At one point I glanced down beneath me and saw this little accidental heart on the edge of the hydrangeas. Rustic, eh?



 Nearly there on this wall...

These are the existing shutters. They're not pretty, but they are highly effective at keeping out the heat of the day and barring unwanted entry. We were going to replace them with new wooden ones, but we've seen this style looking pretty on other houses. So, the plan is to rub them down and paint them pale cobalt blue. We'll see.


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