Pickaxe time

I thought that it was about time that I repaired the mudguard on my large trailer. It was damaged by the careless forklift driver at Brico Depot when he, against my instructions, tried to load a Big Bag of ballast that I needed for the concrete base of my new ‘abri’ from the side rather than from the rear. The forklift arms could not be extended far enough because of the weight of the bag and he couldn’t get it into the centre of the trailer. When he lifted it up again he caught the mudguard, bent it upwards and ripped it off its two outer securing bolts on each end.

Since then I’ve used the trailer several times, most recently for collecting the wood that I’ve needed for my new fencing, but I’ve always been worried that the mudguard might flap up and down so much that it would also be torn off its two centre securing bolts. I already had some large diameter washers so today I took the time to remove the two bolts from which the mudguard had separated, add a large washer under the head of each one and retighten them, thus clamping the mudguard back in place. It was totally successful and now I have to get round some time to fitting a new metal floor in the trailer to make it perfectly serviceable and roadworthy again.

I was originally then going to start work on my fence but before doing so I decided to check on the two little fruit trees that have been waiting to be planted in their original little pots for over a year – I was given them as gifts for my birthday last year, not the one just gone. I found that it being Spring and all that, both trees had lots of buds on and those on the plum (the other is an apple) were almost ready to come into flower.

First the apple.

Now the plum.

So now that the guys have finished whacking the fence posts in using their tractor down in the area where I wanted to plant them it was time to get them planted without further ado. Usually you’d just need to grab a shovel, dig a hole, add a bit of peat or whatever, drop the trees in and that would be it. But not here in the Dordogne. As we saw again the day before yesterday with the fence posts, you only have to scratch the surface here and you find rock. It was the same again today for the trees and so it was time to get out my trusty pickaxe again.

I wanted to plant them towards the bottom right hand corner of my land so they will not block my view of the valley beyond and will act as a kind of natural screen when I move my ‘abri’ for my ride-on mower and other garden tools down there. I had in mind a kind of triangular arrangement with another tree, probably a cherry, that I don’t have yet and couldn’t plant anyway until all of the work in that corner has been completed. So I left a gap in the lower far right corner of the ‘triangle’ and planted the two today in the other two apexes.

Here’s a shot with the apple on the right and the plum on the left.

Here’s a shot from a different angle with the apple again the closest and the plum a bit further away.

Finally, here’s a shot looking back up the land with the plum closest to the camera.

It took quite a bit of effort to get the job done but eventually I was able to give the roots of both trees a good soaking with two buckets of water each, which I hope will be all that they’ll need to overcome the shock of being planted and enable them to flourish. So job done, not that I expect to be harvesting much fruit in the time that I’ll be living in my new house 😉