{"id":1829,"date":"2011-09-25T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T07:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2012-07-21T10:51:06","modified_gmt":"2012-07-21T09:51:06","slug":"25-september-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2011\/09\/25\/25-september-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"25 September 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Boston<\/a>Good morning from an increasingly autumnal beautiful downtown Byfield. It seems very early this year \u2013 no doubt a result of the warm spring and cool summer \u2013 but things are feeling and looking very autumn-like hereabouts. The shrubs, trees and hedgerows are beginning to adopt their autumn colours and the Boston ivy along the fence and at the front is decidedly brick red. The temperatures are still tolerably tolerable but it looks like it won\u2019t be long before winter is knocking on the door. Whatever happened to the Indian summer we were looking forward to?<\/p>\n

Well, it may be that it’s coming next week. It seems that the Met Office is predicting a “mini” Indian Summer<\/a> this coming week which, they say, will last through until the beginning of October. I wonder if this prediction will be as accurate as the one they made of a BBQ summer a year or so ago?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In anticipation of the approach of winter, we had our winter logs delivered last week. There is a local lad who started up a business delivering excellent logs a few years ago whom we have used every year since. He gets the logs off the Fawlsley estate, dries them, splits them and delivers them to your doorstep. Each year I\u2019ve been interested to see how his \"Logs\"<\/a>delivery methods have improved as he has grown the business. Over the last few years, for example, the logs have been delivered in the back of his pickup truck and off-loaded by hand. This year business has clearly been good and he is now the proud owner of a dumper trailer which clearly makes his deliveries considerably more efficient. We had two cubic metres this year (just over half a cord, if my sums are correct) which will see us through the winter nicely. Nothing like the quantity you guys in the frozen northeast get through but (a) our temperatures, for the most part, are considerably more temperate than yours and (b) we certainly don\u2019t have a fire every night. Still, it\u2019s always lovely to fire the wood-burner up on a cold winter\u2019s evening and enjoy the sauna-like temperatures which it throws out.<\/p>\n

What to do with a two cubic metre stack of logs on our driveway? Invite Nick and Lucy to come for lunch, obviously. While Pen prepared a lovely snack and Lucy and I sat around looking gorgeous (well, she did anyway \u2013 I just sat around) Nick very kindly stacked the delivery into a very neat wood pile in the garage. He managed it all in about 45 seconds as you can see from the time lapse video below!<\/p>\n