"Who knows, where the Time goes?"

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"Time by moments steals away

First the hour and then the day

Small the daily loss appears

Yet it soon amounts to years."

Where does all that time go?

'Man' has always found the Spring to be his busiest time of the year,

and it has been no exception here in my patch.

The clock for Rosie is now finished,

and will be returned on Saturday.

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Greenhouse has been cleared out

and tomatoes planted up and doing champion.

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The Organ has been tuned and music sorted and checked.

I was thinking of using the alternative front this year,

but the painting of the details and especially the

'rope' edging, was taking me ages!

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A steady hand was needed here.

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It was taking too long.

It would never be done by Saturday.

I shall have to stick with the Dutch style front

for this season.

The garden is a major consumer of my time at the moment.

Wesley thought this conifer hedge was too tall -

either that or the ladder was too short!

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It will have to be lopped,

chopped,

bagged

and

binned.

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"Hey up" what's that up on my neighbours roof.

Oh, it's those three ducks that Wesley was trying to

round up the other day.

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They felt safer up there.

And so the last couple of weeks has been

very hectic here, to say the least.

But it looks like it's going to be

a good weekend

and......

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I'm all packed up and ready for the off.

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"Singing Chickens"

One of my faithful followers, better known as 'Foody',

has a blog spot known as 'Singing Chicken'.

Now ‘Singing Chickens’ are very hard to find these days.

I’ve come across ‘Singing Nuns’,

and even ‘Singing Hinnies’

......but chickens?.......

Until I remembered Strasbourg.

Now, in Strasbourg Museum they have

the oldest ‘singing chicken’ in the world.

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It is all that is left of the very first clock

built for Strasbourg Cathedral in 1350.

All that is known of this clock,

is that it was very large....over 38 feet high !

Two further replacement clocks have been built for the cathedral,

but there are no remaining parts of this first clock .....

.....except the ‘chicken‘.

It was actually referred to as “The Great Cock”

and it sat on top of the clock and ‘sang’ every day at 12 noon.

At that time,

it would open its beak,

put out its tongue and flap its wings.

One of the engineering miracles of the bird, apart from the gearing and bellows, was that each separate primary feather on its wings, splayed out when the mechanism was working. You can see the details in the bottom right of the above drawing.

There is no record of what it sang or indeed even sounded like.

For some time now,

I had believed this to be the only 'Singing Chicken' in the world,

but yesterday I found the real thing!

Foody in disguise,

playing and singing here on YouTube.

After-thought One:- Singing Hinnies.

A Bakestone Cake using flour, butter, lard, currants, milk & sour cream.

‘The Singing Hinnie’ was so called as, when the butter and the cream melted during the baking it sizzled on the hot girdle and was thought to be singing.

After-thought Two:- The ‘Singing Nun’.

Belgium-born Jeannine Deckers shot to fame in 1963 when she released a song in order to raise money for her convent.

The song was entitled 'Dominique' after the 13th-century saint who founded her order. The track sold millions of copies worldwide and to this day she remains the only Belgian to have had a United States hit at number one.

She never repeated her success and her life ended sadly with suicide, following her depression, poverty and addiction to alcohol and painkillers.

News from the Workshop Part 3

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I have been asked by family members,

how the clock repairs are coming on.

I had a bit of a rest last week,

but I am now back 'on track'.

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Fitting the new side doors was quite a challenge.

The doors 'lay on' the surface in order to cover any gaps.

This meant raising the hinge pivot point

up to the surface of the door.

I cut off a small section with a razor saw,

and glued it to the case sides.

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Fitted new hinges.

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And there you are!

The colour match isn't brilliant, but...

It may do, (or not).

The whole case could be rubbed down and re-polished.

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Little door catches for the side doors...

and

A nice little catch for the bottom door.

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This is an 'olde catch' from another case.

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And so "I rest my case" m'Lad"

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News from the Workshop Part 2

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I bet this bit won't get 44 comments!

Well, never mind, but I did promise Adrian

I would post up a weekly 'progress report'

on the clock.

This is what I have been up to instead of blogging!

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As you can see,

the wooden dial surround was split right across at the hinge side.

Probably someone using over-size screws.

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In order to close this gap up,

I first had to remove some very old 'iron' nails.

Of course, having been in the wood for some 150 years,

they had rusted and had broken off.

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By careful levering with steel strips,

one half of the 'peg rail' came free.

The crack was then glued and clamped up.

To prevent it coming apart when the hinge screws were tightened,

I inserted a hardwood 'dovetail key' (cherry actually).

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There! How about that?

Rub a bit of polish or wax in there and you won't see it.

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This front frame is not glued or screwed to the clock box,

but is is held in place by four wooden pegs; two each side.

As it only came with three, and two of those were broken,

I set about turning up four new ones.

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In the lathe.

I don't have a proper wood-working lathe,

so I have to use the Myford. (really for metal-working)

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The old and the new.

This shows the positions on one side of the clock.

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If you pull these out when the clock is on the wall......

the front drops off !!!!

That's probably why some of these are known as

"Drop Dial" clocks !!!

(only joking)

This one I'm working on is an "English Dial" clock.

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No Time for Messing About!

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Wot no pictures?

I haven't been able to load pictures for days!

It's that Picasa messing me about.

I'm all behind now - and forgotten most of what I was going to say.

Now, where were we? Oh, yes.

Now the organ is finished*, I must get started on a new project. I am not one to just sit around.

I actually have a back-log of things to do and it's really a matter of choosing which to do next.

I have dozens of 'things' sitting in cardboard boxes waiting for some "tender loving care". (a bit like me really.)

Musical instruments waiting repair, a lovely 'musical box', clocks by the dozen and then of course there is the quarter full size, live steam, traction engine to finish. I think the sewing ladies call these UFO's. (Unfinished objects.)

Well, I decided on clocks; I have loads of my own to get up and running but brother Adrian has landed me with a lovely English Dial Clock, which he wants to give to Rosemary as part of her Wedding presents.

Like everything else this came in a cardboard box, and unlike most, seemed to be in one piece.

It was not in working order and also needed some repairs to the case.

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I soon had it stripped down and there inside was this lovely Fusee movement.

Hazel thought I said Fishy movement and had to investigate.

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"Can't smell fish here."

"Just dust if you ask me."

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I have to admit, I can't ever remember having seen a movement so dusty.

Took it all to pieces, gave it a good clean and then reassembled it.

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A little clock oil in the right places.

And away she went.

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Now left on test, whilst I look at the repairs needed to the case.

I apologise to those not interested in clocks, but I told Ade I would blog once a week to keep him informed of progress.

*The organ is not completely finished - I still have another 13 pipes to make.

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