Creme Brulee or . . .

. . . roasted teeth mold??  

Having recently invested in a small 'blow-torch' for cooking purposes, it was time to try it out - and reading the instructions on the packaging, it can apparently be used for 'roasting teeth mold'.  

No I don't know what it means either!

Decided to stick with the more traditional Creme Brulee - and very nice it was too!

Harvest by Night

This summer, instead of the usual cows, we've had some kind of crop growing in the field next door - and tonight was harvest time:

The local farmers have certainly been busy over the last few days, getting in the harvest while the weather is good, but it was particularly fascinating to watch the machines working away in the dark (although they did have some very good lights on board!).

Borth Rocks!

Had a walk along Borth seafront this weekend to see how the coastal defence project was working out, a few months on.

The official 'opening' was earlier this month, but work is still ongoing (even on a Sunday when these pictures were taken).

The final stages of the project include removing a causeway created to enable the building of two reefs in the bay - check out the machines in motion here.


There also still seem to be a lot of large rocks to move around - although the 'grabs' on the excavators make it look easy enough!

Loads more info on the Borth Community site if you want to track the project from the start.

Canute Lives!

Well not exactly - but if he'd had £12.9 million to invest in coastal defences he may not have got his feet wet!  Still, it is a rather large sum of money, so we headed out for a quick look at how the coastal defence project at Borth was actually doing ....

Unfortunately we seem to have managed to miss all the dramatic scenes of 10 tonne rocks being moved around*, instead the diggers were cosied up to each other standing silent.

The beach does at least look a bit like a building site at the moment:

 - and in due course that £13 mill should deliver new rock groynes and breakwaters, an artificial multi-purpose reef (which will have the added benefit of turning Borth into a surfing destination of choice) and 'beach nourishment' (which apparently isn't as interesting as it sounds and just means they are going to add more sand and shingle!). 

Borth could well be a much more 'happening' place to be in years to come ....

* As seen below: 

© Copyright Chris Denny and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Making Hay

Had always vaguely wondered how they got from fields of grass to those huge black plastic-wrapped rolls of hay. Well, with a hay field opposite the house, I've now had a chance to see it happen, from the cutting of the grass, to gathering it up into lines along the field - missed the 'rolling' bit unfortunately, but caught the final stage. The video below shows the apparatus picking up its first 'roll':

Once 'on board' the apparatus starts 'wrapping', but stops to pick up a reserve roll on its way back to the stacking area. The second video below shows the tractor dropping off a finished roll, and starting to wrap its 'reserve':

I thought this was just the coolest piece of kit (or maybe I'm just easily impressed!) - mind you, can see why we don't have a large farming workforce anymore, one man with this must be doing the work of ten at least!