Friday 25 May 2007

Thursday/Friday

Seem to have been so busy lately, am struggling to keep this up to date. When the evenings are light till near on 10 o'clock, I feel I want to be outside doing stuff in the garden or even just sitting and enjoying, get enough of being shut away from about 5pm for so many months of the year. I like watching the swifts particularly, and the little birds are feeding beyond 9.30 pm at present too. Last evening, before I went to the meeting there were 6 Buzzards circling overhead, a wonderful sight.

Okay briefly, the meeting about the wind turbines was both informative and very depressing. It was much worse than I imagined as regards noise. I won't go into much detail here, but I am very worried now. The group are going to be meeting every Thursday and I shall be attending to add my support. A solicitor is willing to take on our case as it seems that the Council have done something underhand. Also the site is the habitat and breeding ground for two red-listed species of birds and is therefore also illegal. The turbines are going to be huge. A person looks like an ant up against them. Each of the three blades are as big as a jumbo jet. 6,000 hgvs will be needed to transport the stuff here on our tiny roads. Plus the blades have to be transported in a complete section. If this goes ahead, the plans are for 100 (yes one hundred) turbines to eventually be situated in Brechfa forest. The noise will be heard at least two miles away, and can be heard up to five miles away in certain weather conditions. The valleys enclose the sound and make it vibrate and echo. There is the whooshing noise of the blades, and a godawful hum. The power will also have to be transported from the turbines over land to wherever it is needed, which will entail more pylons and cables everywhere. I was appalled that nobody else I recognised was from this village, they don't seem to realise what it will mean here, it was only people from the two other villages which will be affected more. I want to do something positive about this, and will suggest that we do a newsletter to all houses in this village and I will put them through doors if necessary. We need to raise funds to fight this, and people are being asked to pledge any amount of money they can afford to help pay the legal fees. Will leave it at that for now on this, but am hoping upon hope that we will be successful. My whole future here depends on it I think.

The doctor had a real good look at my eyes and said that it is probably a form of irritant conjunctivitus, and not allergies. He prescribed antibiotic eyedrops to take for 5 days and then go back if it hasn't cleared up. Well, not done a lot so far, but will have to see how it goes, been streaming again all day today.

Well the three baby greenfinches are now all dead, I managed to pick two of them up, one yesterday, one today, and both have died in the carry box. I found the remains of another one half eaten in the garden. But there are still two others out there, one baby, one adult. I am so gutted about this, there won't be any left before long. I have withdrawn the sunflower hearts now, just putting a small handful out if I see a couple of other birds around, but no feeder full anymore. Typical though, because I decided to do this, I was sitting outside with a coffee yesterday morning, and a female bullfinch landed about 6 feet in front of me on the lawn, looked around, saw nothing to eat and flew off! The first one I ever had in my garden. Still, maybe a good thing she went, I don't want her getting ill too. Of course I won't be seeing the siskins or the goldfinches here either for a while, but again, that's for the best, if they are desperate, they can eat peanuts, other people seem to get them in the garden when that's all they feed. I am still doing the suet pellets and raisins for the tits. I had my first baby blackbird here today too.

Today went shopping with Irene, she bought a new telly, so went back to hers with Emma after and helped her set it up. Time I got home and did the teas, decided I'd best cut the grass as we've got rain due, we actually had some first thing, but it dried up and was lovely in Carmarthen. It turned a bit windy this afternoon, although not a cloud in the sky tonight, but it was only 44f at 9pm, extremely chilly for the time of year I think.

3 comments:

cmk said...

I'm quite interested in your take on the windmills. I understand them to be used to make electricity, right? My husband works at an electric power plant, so wind generation is something that we may face in the future. Right now, his power plant is operated by burning coal and the environmentalists are very disturbed by it. The company he works for has some windmills put up, but they are nowhere near where we live. As people are too afraid of nuclear power plants and many feel as if coal-fired power plants are too dirty and hurt the environment, wind generation is something that is considered a viable alternative. So, we may be facing here in the States what you are facing right now. I really don't what solutions there are, but the way we use electricity here, ALL options must be looked at. Because, frankly, people will not curb their usage--that just is not going to happen. And, unfortunately, there is ALWAYS going to be one group or another unhappy about the solution, whatever it is--you just can't please everyone.

cmk said...

*That should read: 'I really don't know what solutions there are...' Sorry about that. :)

oldcrow61 said...

How awful to have a racket like that going on 24 hours a day. I wouldn't want it either.

So sorry to hear about the little birds. Hope your eyes get better soon.