December is always a busy month. For us it is filled with school shows, brass band concerts, Christmas Fairs and scout activites. This year to add to the mayhem we have had a sinking hot water tank, exploding boiler and sick chooks:(
The sinking hot water tank was first noticed when our plumber and his mate came to do the annual service. Yes our hot water tank needs serviced to maintain it's warranty. As the plumber was doing his checks his mate was standing behind him and noticed the tank was leaning over, against the wall of the cupboard it is housed in. For all the times I have cursed our black brick internal walls I am eternally grateful for them now. They are the only thing stopping the tank tumbling. If you remember way back in January 2011 we had a burst pipe from the tank which made an incredible mess.
Our tank manufacturer, Ariston, sent out an engineer who confirmed the above and I am now waiting on a replacement cylinder to arrive, well worth the annual servicing fee.
The boiler has been playing up. Well not the boiler the pellets that feed the boiler. With all our insulation we are using less pellets than we initially expected. This means pellets are in the pellet store for about a year, which in the wet scottish climate is too long. Yes the store is water tight but the air is humid/damp and pellets quickly absorb any moisture. The result is they don't really flow so the auger takes up pellets around it's entrance to put in the boiler but not many fall back to replace them. This means we are raking the pellets twice daily, and if we are a bit slow the boiler turns off due to lack of fuel. This happened over the weekend, my husband went and raked the pellets and ran the auger to re fill it. This unfortunately over filled the burning grill with pellets so when the lit they went boom! No damage done to him or the boiler but he was a bit shaken, no surprise.
And finally chooks. The old girls are still not laying despite finishing their moult. The new ex barn ones are laying an odd one. One of our older chooks developed a runny bottom one morning, she looked fine so I decided to monitor her. That evening she didn't return to the hen house, we scoured the garden to no avail. The following day I found her dead. Not sure what it was but so far the remaining four look fine, fingers crossed. Meantime one of our new ex barn girls has developed a prolapse which despite being put back twice daily won't stay in place. She is still eating and drinking but looking a bit sorry for herself so I'm not sure if she is going to make it:(
Otherwise I think we are ready for Christmas and all it leaves me to do is wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you will join us in our journey into 2014.
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