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End of summer garden thoughts ♥Sep. 1st, 2020 // 06:07 pm♥ [Tags | garden, going out, quilt club ] It’s officially autumn, now, and the weather agrees. So, how’s the garden doing? ( Gardeney ) In other news, the second half of the concert happened successfully, Benny is slightly lame and the vet is trying to sort him out, we have Eaten Out To Help Out (once), Lettice stole a clutch of eggs (v unusual for a runner) and today I went to Little Quilt Club, where we sat catching up for a couple of hours and then went home without any actual sewing taking place: masks made it hard to listen to what people were saying across the room, so it was a bit hard work, but everyone was present or accounted for, so that was good. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

That time of the year already? ♥Jul. 12th, 2020 // 03:01 pm♥ [Tags | christmas, garden, horses, ow, pilates ] I came off Benny a few weeks ago, and bashed my hand on the fence. It’s still not right, so I took myself off to the hospital this week and had it x-rayed, which confirmed that (as I thought at the time) nothing is broken, so now I’m going to play “hunt the physio with in-person treatments”. (And speaking of in-person treatments, I’m off to get my legs waxed next week! But I can’t have my eyebrows done, even though it takes two minutes and I can wear a mask during it. But men can get their beard trimmed, sans mask, and that’s safe. Hmmm. And I had a probably-illegal-but-sod-it Pilates session, which was nice.) Although the sore hand hasn’t stopped me from riding, last week Benny went A Bit Funny in trot. We had the vet out, and he’s to have a couple of weeks off in the stableyard. At least we don’t need to take them up and down the hill, I guess. The broadbeans are pretty much over, but the mange tout are just starting to be useful and the peas aren’t far behind. One of my experimental attempts to grow lemongrass seems to have worked; I have no idea what the actual plant will look like or how one goes about harvesting it once it’s grown, but I’m looking forward to finding out. I need to decide if I’m going to do Christmas hampers (I know, I know, but it’s cherry season). On the one hand, it’s getting a bit dull. On the other, I’m not sure it’s as dull as trying to find over a dozen quirky, thoughtful, non-tat presents every year. I really should change my default usericon. Not sure I’ve got any good ones of Bob. Link Who loves you?

Start of summer ♥Jun. 7th, 2020 // 04:33 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden, horses ] Bob started the week with a wobbly front tooth, and was anyway overdue for his jabs and checkup, so I booked a visit for him. The tooth came out before the visit, but we went ahead with it anyway, which involved waiting in the car, speaking to the vet by phone, and then putting Bob’s lead onto a wall hook and stepping away while the vet took him inside on a disposable lead (repeat in reverse order afterwards). He’s got a clean bill of health, and the tooth was probably just bashed when he was chewing a stick or playing fetch. He has, however, rather scraped his nose trying to get his muzzle off, so we’ve gone back to just his (newly tightened) head collar and being careful. Things do seem to be getting quieter again, with not so many strangers about, which is presumably a combination of the weather changing and there being more things for people to do now. (Oddly, the dog vets were pretty relaxed about his jabs, saying that he only needed to start from scratch if they were more than three months late. In the horse world, you can’t even be a day late before you have to re-start the sequence.) In good nature news, the swallows have hatched at least five chicks. In less good nature news, the horse flies have arrived (although the change in the weather seems to have slowed them back down). The change in the weather? It has indeed gone colder and grey, although I was hoping for something a little better than the 8mm of rain we’ve had this week. The garden work is starting to slow down a bit, with the last of the squash planted out, the damaged polytunnel plants replaced, the pruning up to date, and the weeding much more leisurely than it was. (The tomato side shoots that we put in water are starting to root, but we also realised that we had a couple of the right variety in the spares tray, so the new ones will probably go in pots in the conservatory.) We even shared a strawberry, but have strong competition from animals domestic and wild so I’m not sure how many more we’ll get.... Today, we moved the horses up the hill to their summer pasture. They seemed quite pleased with all that grass! Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

May rainfall: 18mm (average: 45mm) ♥May. 31st, 2020 // 05:02 pm♥ [Tags | garden, horses, weather ] The veg bed is now all planted out for the summer, and we picked our first broad beans (at least ten of them! There are lots more coming on, though, and the first courgettes, and bean flowers). The kohl rabi is just starting to swell at the base (note to self: check if it wants to be earthed up a little, or have straw put around it to support the bulb). When I pinched out the tomatoes, I kept a couple of bigger side shoots of the variety that ZuZu’s been at: they are apparently very easy to root, so we’ll see what happens. I’m also having a go with some left-over lemon grass, as apparently that’s quite easy to get going as well. (Also some tarragon from a bag of supermarket cut herbs, but I don’t have any great hopes for it so am still keeping an eye out for some in a pot.) All that’s left to do veg-wise is some more autumn squash, that are going in the front garden: we took out a bit of overgrown hedge, liberally “underplanted” with ground elder, so I was planning on dumping a load of manure on it, covering it with weed fabric, and seeing how it looks for planting something new later in the year, and if I’m going to do that anyway then I may as well leave the manure in heaps, cut slits in the fabric, and stick the spare squash in there. We’re just waiting for the boys to produce a bit more organic matter and then we can sort that bed out. I’ve even finished the first big weed of the garden that I’ve managed since September, so now it’s the much easier job of tidying up occasional seedlings: at least the lack of rain is good for something? I was worried last week about some of my sewing ladies: predictably, all the missing ones got in touch shortly after I sent the newsletter out, and all are doing ok. We went to check on the orchids, and the monkeys are doing splendidly now. We also saw some fragrant orchids, just coming out, and a fine butterfly orchid, although whether Greater or Lesser is a mystery to us. Mike finally cracked and had me cut his hair. It’s a bit shorter than he usually has it, but I think it’s ok and he hasn’t shaved it all off in a panic or anything. The woods seem to have got a bit quieter again, so we think we can risk leaving off Bob’s muzzle, at least during the week. This afternoon, we went to set up the boys’ summer pasture. Mike did a lot of clearing of brambles and nettles, while I plodded up and down the hill setting up the electric fence to keep the boys away from the barbed wire. Link Who loves you?

I could do without the excitement.... ♥May. 24th, 2020 // 06:14 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden, going out, horses, quilt club ] In the garden, everything except the autumn squash and the sweetcorn is either planted out or in final pots. Fenced off from the beans, Zu Zu is taking it out on the tomatoes and has managed to kill at least one plant; I’ll have to figure out a way to keep her out of the polytunnel, at least until they get bigger, which is annoying as I want the runners in there (and in the veg bed, really) for pest control. We ate the last of last year’s squash this week, and are near to the end of the passata. I’m hoping to pick a few broadbeans soon, as there are a few plump pods. We were very hopeful about yesterday’s thunder storms, but in the end we barely got a quarter of an inch of rain (and hail). They were sharp but short. (My mother has potted on her tomatoes. I’m still getting photos twice a week and detailed updates on how they’re doing!) GB’s been looking quite stiff, which is worrying: it won’t be long before he has to walk up and down the hill to the summer field, hopefully he’s still up to it. We had a bit of drama in the week, when Bob slipped his head collar and went for a couple of dogs. We were very relieved when all that came of it was a tiny cut on one of them, because it looked like it was going to be bad, but we’ve taken to walking him with his muzzle on for now. The woods are much more crowded than usual (both with locals who don’t usually go for walks and with people driving here) and seeing lots of strange dogs seems to be making his behaviour go backwards. A shame, given how much progress he’s made over the years. We went to Costco in the week (no part-baked bread or vitamin D, still one-per-customer on pasta), and to the garden centre (vain hope of getting aubergine plants). I was wondering how my sewing group ladies were doing so I emailed around and got them to send me updates, which I’ve put into a little newsletter and sent out for them all (didn’t want to risk them sending photos to the whole group, which was definitely the right call based on what they sent me). Slightly alarmed that one of the ones I know is good with email didn’t reply, but hopefully there’s a benign explanation. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

In the veg bed ♥May. 17th, 2020 // 03:02 pm♥ [Tags | garden, riding ] Busy week in the garden. We earthed up the potatoes for the first time, as we expected (and got) a frost, then yesterday we planted out the summer squash and the beans, as we’re fairly sure that that was the last frost. Today, we put the peppers and aubergines in the polytunnel, but the aubergines are very pathetic-looking, so we might have to try to buy some plants. Just the autumn squash and sweetcorn still to go, and the chillis and tomatillos to pot on. I do feel sorry for all the people not in frost-prone areas who lost plants to the frost. I guess there are advantages to having to be cautious. I don’t think we took any real damage from it, although a few of the leaves on the wisteria look a bit frazzled. My mum (stuck in the UK for the summer) was vaguely thinking about trying to get tomato seed, so I suggested that she cut up a tomato and put it in a pot. She now has a pot full of little seedlings, which she’s very proud of! I’ve bought a little temporary wire fence, small enough to step over, and put it around the veg bed to keep the ducks out: they are good slug control, but they also have a habit of stepping on things and partially uprooting them. Once the plants are a bit more settled in, I should be able to take it down and let them back in there. In non-garden news, I had a riding lesson yesterday. We had to wait until our instructor got the go-ahead from her insurance company, but they decided it was ok with the new guidance mid-week. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

It’s raining! ♥May. 10th, 2020 // 03:50 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, food, garden ] Only a tiny bit, but it is rain. I’ve been doing a lot of weeding, again. Nearly at the end of the first big pass around the garden, so hopefully it will slacken off a bit now. We’re thinking that we’ll start to plant out the non-hardy stuff next week, weather forecast permitting. After several weeks of being unable to buy sacks of flour (despite all the reports saying it was just a packaging issue with small bags), Mike managed to score sacks of white and wholemeal bread flour. The former we buy regularly anyway, but wholemeal doesn’t have a great shelf life: we bagged half of it up in 2kg bags and Mike very quickly sold it to people in the village. Interestingly, unlike the last couple of times he’s offered them, there was no interest in boxes of eggs, so I guess retail eggs are now back to normal. We have many eggs. We had One Of Those Days in the week, or rather One Of Those Fifteen Minutes: I broke a joint on the outside water pipe (local out of work builder came and fixed it the next morning) and Mike dropped a bottle of balsamic vinegar on the kitchen floor, which went everywhere; I even found glass on the dining table. Not fun, but Bob seems to have learnt that, when things get dropped and smash, he’s to go and wait in the hall until we go to fetch him. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Masks, flour and gardening: such is life, these days ♥May. 3rd, 2020 // 11:12 am♥ [Tags | cooking, garden, sewing, weather ] Things are starting to happen in the garden. The potatoes are sprouting, and the tomatoes are in the polytunnel. I planted out kohl rabi, and Bob promptly ran through the middle of the bed and snapped off a load of leaves.... We had an unexpected hail storm in the week, and it was only after watching it for a few minutes that I remembered the seedlings, hardening off on the patio. Fortunately very little damage done, although I got drenched. We’ve had a fairly respectable amount of rain this week, which is good for the garden and the field. The horses are a lot happier now that there’s something for them to eat. Given the way things seem to be going, I’ve started making face masks. I sent the first couple to my sister, as she’s out and about a lot working, and now I’m just waiting for some more hair bands to arrive in the post to make more. I’m using the Olson pattern, if anyone’s thinking of making some. I recommend writing the piece numbers on the fabric (wrong side) the first time, but once you’ve figured out the method they’re pretty simple. Mike not only managed to buy yeast at the local hippy food shop but also placed an order online for flour delivery. The white flour will be fine where we normally keep it, but we’ll have to freeze most of the brown (which is why we don’t usually get brown by the sack, but there’s been none in the shops for weeks, and we’ve run out). I do wonder if it’s worth a post to the local Facebook group: “flour for sale, village hall car park from x-y pm tomorrow”. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Weather whinge ♥Apr. 26th, 2020 // 11:31 am♥ [Tags | craft, garden, pictures, weather ] Still no more rain. They’re saying we’ll get some at the start of next week, and I hope we do because the field is looking very short and dead. We had another frost last night, but only a light one. Mike gave GB a hair cut, but continues to change the subject when I point out that GB isn’t the only one in need. For some reason, Mike doesn’t trust me.... I’ve been doing lots of weeding, and am now getting towards being on top of it. Not being able to get onto the flower beds from October to March meant I wasn’t able to get in and clear the autumn weeds, so it’s all a bit of a mess. For my birthday last year, Mike got me a kantha embroidery kit, which I finally got around to doing over the last couple of weeks. It’s understated, but I like it: Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Several things make a post ♥Apr. 19th, 2020 // 03:01 pm♥ [Tags | cooking, foraging, garden, weather ] As the garden centres are (mostly) closed, and the online suppliers are (mostly) falling over under the strain, I sent an email to the lady up the road who opens her garden under the National Garden Scheme and arranged to buy some plants from her. She had some alliums that she was going to have to plant out, so amongst other things I got a tray of 20 for £10. We had a whole half inch of rain on Saturday. That’s all we’ve had so far this month, and we’re now back to sun and a dry wind for the foreseeable future. The garden’s getting very dry, but I’m more worried about the grass not growing; we shouldn’t be having to give the horses more hay at this time of year. We also had a frost, but fortunately it wasn’t bad enough to damage the wisteria flower buds (which are looking very promising this year). Mike took out some of the overgrown beeches in the garden, and the tree surgeons came and took out some more (they were both more overgrown and had the phone line running through them, so it seemed safer to get the pros in). That should mean more light and less competition for the veg bed this year, which is good. In what I doubt is an unusually occurrence right now, Mike went to do the weekly trip to the farm shop and found that the car battery was dead. Fortunately, I knew that the Up The Hills have a battery jump start thing, so we borrowed that and got the car going again. Mike has now ordered one of our own, just in case. It’s become noteworthy to see an aircraft contrail. Starting to feel like a Pacific Island cargo cultist, next thing you know we’ll be worshipping Prince Phillip (or should that be Boris?).... The swallows have arrived, and the early purple orchids are in bloom. The wild garlic is going over, but I did pick a bag to make experimental wild garlic jam. ( Jam-ish ) Link 11 kisses // Who loves you?

Cookoo ♥Apr. 12th, 2020 // 11:07 am♥ [Tags | birdies, cons, eastercon, garden, weather ] (Heard one this morning, not turning into one.... Also saw a swallow a few days ago, but it didn't stick around.) I've just counted up how many days there were over the autumn/winter that the field was to wet for the horses to go out: 41 days, which is very nearly twice the previous highest (22). Which makes it especially annoying that we're now desperate for some rain. The once-muddy bits of the field look like a drought-stricken lake bed from a nature documentary, and the grass isn't growing like it should. The veg bed is starting to get populated, and the conservatory is filling up with things that need it to be just a bit warmer (although we've just had several days around 20C, I'd be astonished if we didn't get a frost in a few days when it cools down). The potatoes are in their tires, and the polytunnel is ready and waiting to be planted up. The warm weather seems to have really kicked the bluebells into action: they're pretty much as good as they get, and smelling lovely, even though the anemones are still in full flower. It is lovely when they're both out at the same time. We should be at Eastercon this weekend. Odd not to be there. Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

I ent ded ♥Apr. 5th, 2020 // 11:25 am♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks, foraging, garden, house ] I've had a couple of tellings off for the lack of updates: sorry chaps. We're fine, life is going on much as usual for us, other than a bit more use of the farm shop and a bit less supermarket delivery. I would quite like some self-raising flour, though. We've been doing lots of gardening now that it's dried out and warmed up, and I've been inspired to stick some spuds in the mix this year: if nothing else, we're unlikely to be driving around nearby farms buying new potatoes fresh out of the ground, this year. The horses are doing well, although Benny's a bit unfit after the horribly wet autumn and winter (and, just when the weather has improved, the BHS is advising against hacking, which makes sense). Bob had a little lump removed from his leg at the start of the year; it was cancer, but incredibly low-grade and it's not spread anywhere. Unfortunately, the wound got infected, so he's had a much slower recovery than he should have done, but he's almost back to normal now. The ducks are pottering happily, laying an egg or two a day, and I've been trying to decide if I want to get some more eggs for ZuZu to hatch, and if so what breed. The bluebells are coming into flower and the anemones are looking lovely. There's a pair of jackdaws building a nest in our disused chimney, which we've not had for the last couple of years. The seagulls seem to be flocking inland, which is presumably a reflection on the lack of chips to steal at the seaside. The wild garlic is going over now, but I have several tubs of pesto in the freezer. We had our drive re-done, the work was finished just in time. Hopefully this will be the end of the winter mud bath at the end of it. The delivery drivers all look pleased about it. Frequent visitors beware: there is now a step down from the drive to the garden path! Link 14 kisses // Who loves you?

Soggy ♥Oct. 16th, 2019 // 12:08 pm♥ [Tags | cooking, garden, going out, pictures, riding, weather ] Even though we had another inch of rain yesterday (we kept the horses in. It's October, ffs!), today was nice and sunny so I managed to do some weeding for the first time in weeks. I could only do along the edge of the drive, as I don't dare walk on the flower beds and am dubious about walking on the edge of the lawn, but it's something at least. The wet weather and warm nights seems to be suiting grass seedlings, as they're popping up everywhere (and are tricky to weed when they're in amongst the bulbs that are starting to come up). One end of one of the garden beds, that backs onto the field, looks like it will need mowing soon, so that's going to be tremendously fun if I can't get to it before spring. I did put bark down around the strawberries, to see if I could stop quite so much grass coming up, but it's not been tremendously successful. We had the muck skip emptied last week, and when it came back it was a nice fancy new one, rather than the one we used to have with a partly rusted-out floor. We were initially pleased, but then it rained some more and now Mike can't empty wheelbarrows into it because his boots are only fully waterproof to about two inches.... (And I took that picture before yesterday's rain. Mmmm, soupy.) Other things that I've been doing: - getting my first flower delivery (they are lovely, I'm glad to be getting them again); - partially putting the polytunnel to bed for the winter (still need to clear out the old grow bags, but everything else is done); - making jam (we're growing a different variety of hot chilli this year. The first batch of chilli jelly was a bit too hot, but Mike says the second is more normal, so I'll have to poll the usual recipients and see which they'd prefer); - going to London for lunch (and a check up) with my dentist; - going to the Brogdale Apple Festival, which was much the same as usual. We did go on the walking tour this year, which we'd never done before as they don't allow dogs in the orchards and we always used to take Jo with us. We also went to a local riding school and had a lesson on a couple of their horses: we're still struggling with Benny's canter, so we hatched the plan with our riding instructor to go and have a ride on a different horse to remind us what it should be like. It incidentally confirmed that it's trotting on Benny that's been causing me back pain for the last year or so: we gradually narrowed it down to riding (and fiddling with his saddle helped a lot) and then to trotting, but trotting the riding school horse didn't hurt. Mike's having a second play of Red Dead Redemption 2 and we've just finished the first season of Stranger Things, so I've been getting quite a lot of sewing done. Progress remains very slow, but I think it's about half done now: (And I've nearly finished the cherry since I did that.) Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Squish squash ♥Sep. 25th, 2019 // 05:00 pm♥ [Tags | garden, pictures, weather ] It's been rather wet here: 3cm in the last 48 hours. Things are getting a bit soggy, but at least the fish pond is looking fuller. I do wish I could get out and do some weeding, though. I picked the cocktail kiwis about a week ago, and left them to ripen in a bowl. They turned out to be a bit of a russian roulette of tasty and sour, so I'm inventing a recipe for kiwis in syrup, intended as an ice cream topping: we'll see how it turns out. (I'm adapting it from a recipe for sour cherries in syrup, which I hadn't previously noticed, in one of my favourite preserving books; I might try it with sour cherries next year.) We're generally getting toward the end of the harvesting season. The medlars are still on the tree, and there are still a fair number of green and green-ish tomatoes that I'm hoping will ripen further on the plants before I have to bring them in, but that's about it other than a last few courgettes. Mike picked most of the squash this afternoon (in between showers), while I went around and picked the last of this and that. A pretty impressive haul, but the last big one of the year: Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Grapes! ♥Sep. 11th, 2019 // 03:09 pm♥ [Tags | garden, pictures ] And a runner bean. I think that that makes it seven this year, and it is the last of them. We worked out last night that we've had, on average, about one pod per legume plant, across the whole veg bed. Not counting the ones that I direct sowed, which barely made it above ground before they got eaten. I don't want to rabbit- (and therefore duck, but not slug) proof the whole veg bed, so I'm having a little experiment with a chicken wire cage. We'll see how the peas, broadbeans and pak choi do in it, although as Mike points out it will be a sod to weed. And a bizarre mutant yellow aubergine: I've got no idea what's going on there, or if it will be edible or not. All the others from that plant have been normal. Bob and I are home alone today: Mike's mother has come to visit, and he's taken her off to Lille for tourist things. Mushrooms for tea! Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

Worldcon, and so on ♥Aug. 21st, 2019 // 07:40 pm♥ [Tags | birthday, cons, ducks, garden, poorly, worldcon ] We've spent the last week or so in Dublin at the Worldcon, where we did newsletter things. Annoyingly, I picked up what's turned into a horrible cold (probably) on the flight out there. Sorry to anyone that I infected before I realised. I spent the last few days of the con feeling a bit poorly (as well as the usual under-slept and over-run). It wasn't really my favourite kind of con, as it didn't really have a good social space (I like to be able to wander off from the office, go and sit with some convivial people, and then realise an hour or two has gone by and I need to get back. Instead, I would wander off, wave at a couple of people as we passed on the escalators, have a couple of five minute conversations in corridors, and then go back to the office for a sit down), but it seemed to go well, and generally not had too many crises, so that's all good. We came back to about 5kg of tomatoes, several rather large courgettes, and one decided marrow: so much for asking the sitter to pick everything and then use what she liked. Ah well. The girls have been laying well, too, so we also came back to a literal countertop covered in eggs. Six eggs today, one very small at the usual time and one quite large in the afternoon. I *think* that was just Maggers being elderly and Letice being over-achieving, but it's possible that one of the babies is getting ahead of herself. Speaking of which: it looks as though the babies aren't going to change their plumage significantly, and (Mike says) we can't keep calling them "pale, medium and dark", so I think I'm going to go with Annagramma, Lucy and Petulia. While we were in Dublin, my necklace snapped. It's already had two new clasps, because the links holding them had worn through, and the last time it was repaired the jeweller said that was the last time. This time, however, it was one of the links in the middle that had gone and, looking at it closely, several others are on the verge of wearing through as well. Given that Pete bought it for me, it must be fifteen years old, though, so it's not had a bad run. This morning, we went into Canterbury and Mike bought me a new (to me) one as a slightly-early birthday present. We went around all the chain jewellers, and the only ones I particularly liked were similar to one I had a few years ago, which fell apart three times (and was replaced twice) before I gave up and went back to my old one, so we tried the non-chain, mostly-second-hand places, and I got a nice second-hand one in one of those. It seems to have rained a lot while we were away, setting the harvest back. We currently have duelling combines, one on either side of the valley, trying to get as much in as they can before another chilly, dewey night. We even closed the polytunnel and put rugs on the horses! Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Luckily... ♥Aug. 10th, 2019 // 08:17 pm♥ [Tags | garden, weather ] It's been rather windy here today. Much to our surprise, we've only had a few flickers of power cuts (and escaped the big one last night that seems to have taken out half the country). When I had a quick look at the tomatoes this morning, the wind had shaken a few of the Amish stems down, where they had big tomatoes near the polytunnel roof. We grabbed the twine and tied them in, and then while we were at it also did a belt-and-braces loop around each bag of plants, tying them loosely around near the top and then up to the polytunnel framework. We came back from walking Bob to find that the cover had blown off the polytunnel. Fortunately, it had then got stuck between the polytunnel and the wall behind it, rather than being blown away entirely. Much wrestling ensued, and we got it back on (and added a few more breezeblocks to the ones that were already (supposedly) holding it down). It survived the rest of the day and, thanks to those extra loops of twine this morning, there doesn't seem to be much (any?) damage done to the tomatoes. The pepper plants were also tied to the frame, and seem to be ok as well. There doesn't seem to be much serious damage in the garden generally. We escaped the worst of it because the wind direction meant most of it went over above us, rather than getting funnelled down the valley. Hope everyone else is relatively unscathed. Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Where did the second half of July go? ♥Aug. 1st, 2019 // 08:36 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, cons, ducks, garden, house, pictures, video, weather, worldcon ] It disappeared into a pit of Too Bloody Hot, mostly. My feeble English self is not very good at 34C, and there was a lot of lying on the sofa whimpering quietly. On the plus side, the garden appreciated it (and the two days of heavy rain that came when it broke). On the minus side, so did the weeds in the garden, and I lost a week of gardening at just the wrong time of the year. I did manage a very little gardening, and found a 'nest' of snails under a shrub in the back garden, which the ducks were very pleased about. The tomatoes, in particular, have finally got over the bloody awful June, and the cherry varieties are finally producing: The yellow ones are a new-to-us variety called Millefleur, and they live up to the name. The trusses are enormous, and covered in dozens of tiny yellow tomatoes. (Speaking of tomatoes: I was talking to someone who was of the opinion that bush tomatoes are doing much better than vine with the weather we've had this summer. As it turns out, I've only got vine this year: anyone growing both?) We also picked our first home-grown sweet cherries this year, which was very exciting: In a change from recent years, GB also decided to dress appropriately for the weather, and actually finished shedding last year's winter coat before starting to grow this year's. Not bad for mid-30s: We have a new bedroom carpet, and Bob has a matching new bed, and the bedroom is now done until the shutters arrive (hopefully, shortly after Worldcon). There was, I'm sure, other stuff in there as well. We had some visitors, and have more imminently. We went to a lovely BBQ, and have another one imminently. It's Worldcon soon, and there has been a certain amount of getting ready for that. Fortunately, there's another week and a bit to go, so maybe I'll manage to get something done in the garden.... Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Still busy; fewer eggs ♥Jul. 15th, 2019 // 03:37 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks, garden, house, pictures ] As anticipated, the weekend before last involved hay being delivered. This is half of it, all now safely stacked in the barn: The village fete was significantly better than the previous year, in as much as we stayed for a good half hour and had lunch, but then we're not really the target market. We've had a wee bit of Bob trouble, including a couple of trips to the vet. He was chewing one of his feet, so we took him in after a few days but the vet couldn't see anything wrong. A few days after that he was chewing again and when I went to stop him I noticed a raw and slightly oozy bit, so we took him back to the vet and we're now cleaning it and putting cream on it, plus the Cone of Shame has come out of the cupboard. We're unsure whether he cut it and then stopped it healing properly by chewing or had a splinter or similar, which industrious chewing managed to force out of the skin, but either way it's healing nicely and we can hopefully put the Cone away again soon. In between everything else, we've finally finished painting the bedroom, at least until we have the shutters installed. We went carpet shopping this morning, so that should be done in a week or two as well. Hopefully we'll be able to get on with the neglected garden jobs, now. The ducks are mostly having a bit of a rest after their epic couple of weeks, but we're still getting a couple of eggs a day. The direct sown beans are coming up and not getting instantly eaten, so I'm moderately hopeful that we'll get some sort of harvest from them, but it would be good if it could warm up a little (it's only 16C and cloudy today) and/or rain a bit (we've not had more than half a mm since the middle of last month). Last year, I started picking tomatoes on the 17th July, but then last summer was very strange all around. Link Who loves you?

Cossacks! ♥Jul. 5th, 2019 // 08:09 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, going out, horses, house, pictures ] We went to the Kent County Show today. It was a bit warm, but we had a nice time, with ducks and chickens and dogs and horses and flowers generally being my favourite bits. We saw the ferret racing, too: It looked very much like red was going to win, as his nose poked out of the end of the tube, but then he turned around and went back again, so it was blue who was first out in the end. Yellow and green decided that it was too hot, and stayed in their boxes. Exciting as that was, the highlight was seeing the International Dzhigitovka Show. There was some excellent trick riding on display, most of which I didn't get pictures of because I was too busy watching: (I do, however, feel honour-bound to add that the actual riding wasn't as impressive as the Met Police display team, who I've seen a couple of times now.) Seeing all the beautiful sweetpeas in the flower tent made me feel quite despondent about the pitiful state of mine this year, but back at home I was cheered when I went to tie them in and found a flower on one of them, so hopefully they will get going properly soon. I think I might start over-wintering them again, because they do get going much earlier that way. This week, in between things like visits from the plumber, Little Quilt Club and Mike going into the office for the day, we've finally started painting our bedroom. The ceiling and three walls are done, so it shouldn't take too much longer to finish it off. Except that we're expecting our hay to be delivered over the weekend, and it's the village fete tomorrow, and the boys' rugs are being collected for cleaning on Sunday, so we need to sort them out, and.... Also this week, I have given away four boxes of eggs, and made two four-egg cakes. We have quite a lot of eggs. The ducklings are twelve weeks old, now, and still gradually getting their adult colouration through. I've planted out the second-try french beans that Mike started a month or so ago, when it became apparent how destroyed the first lot were getting. I've also, more in hope than expectation, direct sown some more beans and peas. They'll probably get eaten as soon as they pop up, but we might be lucky. If only we had some sort of large carnivore that could keep the rabbits out of the veg bed.... Maybe we need to rabbit-proof that bit of the garden. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

Starting to harvest ♥Jun. 28th, 2019 // 07:48 pm♥ [Tags | birdies, bob the dog, ducks, garden, horses, house, pictures ] It's not terribly impressive. A couple of weeks ago, we had similarly-sized crops of broad beans and mange tout, and that's probably it for the broad beans. The peas and french beans have just been destroyed (slugs, bunnies, maybe pigeons too; we netted off all the legumes this year, to keep the muscovies from the peas, but I think we need to re-think that next year to get better slug control), the runner beans are spindly but at least alive. We have had a couple of courgettes, though, and the courgette and squash plants are just starting to attempt world domination. Lots of green tomatoes in the polytunnel, too, so that's good (and needed: Mike -- whisper it -- used a jar of shop bought passata this week). More encouragingly, the ducks are continuing to do their job, and we're getting three or four eggs a day (Zu Zu, having laid enough for a clutch, is having a rest while she tries to figure out what happened to it). Our riding instructor has a B&B; when we give her eggs, she always makes a point that they're not going to be for the B&B guests, but we're hatching a plot (ho ho) to possibly sell her eggs for the B&B once the ducklings come into lay. Speaking of the ducklings: Middle Duckling has developed a distinct brown patch above her beak, and both she and Pale Duckling seem to be coming through with cream feathers on their bodies (as well as the patch of whatever she was sleeping in: this is a pre-morning bath picture). Although there are only four baby swallows in this picture, we counted seven (five babies and the parents) flying around this evening as we were putting the boys to bed: The boys are doing well, although when I rode Benny yesterday and today he was being a bit of an idiot about the wind. It has been very windy here, although nice and sunny with it (except on Wednesday, when we had inexplicable fog for much of the morning). Tomorrow is supposed to be horribly hot, although not as bad as it is on the continent. Still, the vet came out to give them their 'flu jabs the other day, and to give GB a quick check-up: all good, and she was particularly impressed to hear that he'd managed to rear the day before, but then so were we. Bob, sadly, has discovered the delights of badger poo. On the plus side, he's an awful lot easier to bathe than Jodie was. Mike's been busy doing prep work for decorating the bedroom. This seems to involve a lot of trips to B&Q, as well as putting lots of polyfiller on the walls for me to then sand off. I'm sure it makes sense really! Annoyingly, when we moved one of the chests of drawers I found this: Some spot checking in the rest of the room, and the other bedrooms, suggests that we've found it before the moths really got established. We were planning to replace the carpet as well at some point, but that's now more of a priority than it was and in the mean time we'll have to keep pulling the chest of drawers out to vacuum underneath. I need to pull all the clothes out and check them, but it's mostly my riding and pilates stuff in there: mostly synthetic fibres, so I'm not too worried. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

All The Eggs ♥Jun. 16th, 2019 // 04:48 pm♥ [Tags | birdies, ducks, garden, horses, orchids, pictures ] All the (adult) girls are laying now, so we're getting four or five eggs a day, now: The ducklings are also doing well, and I think just starting to get their proper-coloured adult feathers (Dark Duckling in particular has a couple that are noticeably black, rather than grey). I went to take a picture of them, with Agnes and Letice, but Light Duckling decided that she wanted to hide in a plant, so you can only see the edge of her bum: If it weren't for the fact that I'm still keeping them penned in while they have breakfast, I think that the ducklings would spend most of their time with the adult runners. Zu Zu is in full-on "Ok, something went wrong with that batch, must try again" mode, so keeping her penned in with the ducklings in the morning is also a good thing, as it means that she lays her egg in her super secret nest in the corner of the stable, rather than somewhere in the garden where I can't find it. The swallow chicks have also hatched, so mum and dad are busy with feeding duty (to the extent that they've gone "Ah, sod it, just ignore the humans" rather than trying to avoid going into the stable if we're in there). They are less easy to photograph than the ducklings, but there are at least four small white blobs in the nest: Fortunately, the nest is above an empty patch of floor, rather than, for example, the saddles! The boys moved to their summer pasture this week, and are having a lovely time stuffing themselves silly. We always keep an eye out for orchids, Mrs Ex-Up-The-Hill having once seen a bee orchid in the field, but have never seen anything other than a couple of lady orchids until last year when The Bee Orchid deigned to flower. I put a post in the ground so that we could keep an eye out for it this year, but there's been no sign of it. On the other hand, in the last couple of days we've found two patches of pyramidal orchids, just coming into flower, and at least three (probably four) different bee orchids: I guess having the horses grazing in there is a good thing for the flowers! We popped up this afternoon and put some temporary fencing around the bee orchids, to stop the boys from trampling them. Benny came over to see what we were doing, and very nearly did step on one. This afternoon, I took a break from the weeding to do some pruning. Must have a bonfire soon: Hopefully it's going to warm up now, and the veggies will start to grow as well as the weeds. Link 8 kisses // Who loves you?

Here, have some pictures ♥May. 19th, 2019 // 08:01 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, benny, ducks, garden, horses, pictures ] My leg is much less swollen than it was. This makes the bloody great lump more obvious, but at least I can wear my boots again now. We've been busy in the garden, both removing things (grass and weeds) and adding things: the courgettes and all the legumes are now planted out in the veg bed. The shade netting is there to stop the muscovies from getting at the legumes and eating their leaves. Ella spends an ominous amount of time standing on the hay bales and looking speculatively at them. When she's not doing that, she's often to be found harassing the ducklings. Not sure what's going on there, but she's forever having a go at them. Zu Zu doesn't seem at all bothered, though, so I guess it's all ok. The ducklings are starting to get their adult feathers in, and their voices as well in the last couple of days. We have definite quacking going on from at least one of them (and we think at least two; they're still peeping a lot of the time, so it's hard to be sure). This is excellent news: only the girls quack. GB's leg is bothering him. He was quite lame last night, and although much better today is still struggling a bit. He keeps scraping the skin off the back of one of his legs, which we think is because he's struggling to get up off the ground after lying down at night. Still, he seems alright in himself. I must take some pictures of Benny, who is looking particularly glossy and healthy in his nice new summer coat. (GB, of course, is still in his shaggy winter number.) Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Bits and pieces ♥May. 8th, 2019 // 07:51 pm♥ [Tags | craft, ducks, garden, pictures, quilt club, quilts ] Following on from last week's drowned rat, I noticed a couple of days later that GB's long-neglected not-salt lick was no longer dusty, and there were bits of it on the floor. The next day, I was entirely relaxed to find that a rodent had been chewing on some packaging: The day after that it had moved to the next shelf over, and when I went to refill the bait trap yesterday it turned out that the package was empty. My best guess is that drowned rat had a litter of adolescents at home, and when mum didn't come back they tried to find food on their own. Hopefully, there is now a small heap of dead rats somewhere. (Although the egg that I foolishly left on the bench this morning did mysteriously vanish, so probably not a clean sweep.) In more cheerful news, I let the ducklings out of their pen for an hour this evening. They are very taken with dandelion clocks, and mud. They went to bed filthy. Sadly, it's not as easy to get good photos when they have the whole garden to roam around in and they're on the other side of a pane of glass, but you can as ever click to embiggen. This morning, we had rain! Actual, useful rain, so this afternoon we headed up to the field and dug up ragwort, which will hopefully make the job easier when we do it again at flowering time. (I used this as an excuse to not do any weeding, because my wrists are having their usual late-spring too-much-weeding flare-up. Ho hum.) I've had a pretty quilty few days: Big Quilt Club on Saturday, a workshop on Sunday, and then Little Quilt Club yesterday. Mike was away in Dublin over the weekend, so I ducked out of Saturday's meeting early (and, as a result, half the paperwork has gone walkabout. *Someone* took it home, just not the person I'd asked to do it. I'm sure it'll turn up eventually). I was also going to duck out of the workshop at lunch time, but then the instructor overheard me saying so and said "Well, I don't mind if you bring your dog," with which other people agreed. The garden was sturdily fenced, a careful study of the hall's rules revealed no mention of dogs, and there were no signs saying "Guide Dogs Only", so during the lunch break I nipped home and brought him back with me. After about five minutes, he wasn't settling, so I thought he might still be feeling car-sick and took him outside for a bit of fresh air, at which point a member of the hall committee popped up on the other side of the fence and told me that dogs weren't allowed, inside or out. Sigh. The instructor very kindly brought forward the last part of the demonstration, so that I could see it, and half an hour or so later we were back at home. Poor Bob: two country lane car journeys for no good reason. I finished the sample piece off yesterday: The class covered two things: making improvisational (it's good to be wonky) blocks, and then making that circular 'porthole' surround to show them off (a lot simpler than it looks). I'm afraid that the former is a bit beyond my comfort zone, but I do like the portholes, and might well try to do something with them again. I've also been plotting future quilts. There's a big fabric sale next weekend (a company from Yorkshire that mostly does mail-order but also has a travelling roadshow that goes to various quilting groups a couple of times a year), so I want to stock up.... Link Who loves you?

Busy growing ♥Apr. 15th, 2019 // 05:04 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, pictures ] The ducklings and us! This morning, the ducklings were already outside when I went to let the ducks out. Sigh. I guess the duck house door isn't quite duckling proof. We got them sorted out, and they immediately dived on their food, so I guess they went out because they were hungry. We've had a busy day in the garden: Mike set up the irrigation system for the polytunnel, and mowed the lawn, and I assembled supports for the peas and beans, some of which we then planted out. It's amazing how much better the soil is in that bed compared to last year, but that's what happens when you put a nice layer of horse manure on and leave it to the worms over the winter. We've rearranged the veg garden this year, so that we can fence part of it off and keep the muscovies away from the legumes. Fingers crossed. Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Meet Letice ♥Mar. 1st, 2019 // 04:27 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, pictures ] No longer will we be able to refer to Magrat as "the little white duck" (although Letice will probably end up bigger, given the size of her parents). DW cup third opinion was "No more than £500", for those who are interested. Shortly after getting home from that trip out, Mr Up The Hill phoned to say that he'd just popped home from work for five minutes and seen a dog running around the boy's summer field and howling like mad. We headed up there with a lead and a handful of kibble, thinking it would be a five minute job, and half an hour later managed to get close enough to her for Mike to take a blurry photo of the address side of her tags. Fortunately, when Mike phoned our vet they had the address in their records and phoned the owners to give them Mike's number, so shortly after her owner appeared and took her home. As I suspected when I first saw her, she's one of the three whippets I've seen a few times charging around the woods with no owner in sight; I hope that this scares the owner into keeping them under closer control, because they terrify me in case they come too close and Bob goes for them before I can react. Then I pruned the apple tree, and now I'm tired. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Things I have been doing rather than update DW ♥Feb. 28th, 2019 // 07:55 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, craft, ducks, eastercon, fandom, fanzines, garden, pictures, quilts, riding ] - Setting up a Top Sekrit Grow Room in the study. The tomatoes are doing well, but the germination rates for the chillis have been pretty bad (we're now experimenting with soaking them overnight in camomile tea, which apparently both softens them and is mildly anti-fungal). - Eating duck eggs! Zu Zu started laying last week. Hurrah! Poached eggs, and tasty pasta, and yellow cakes! (This is daylight-related, rather than temperature, although I'm sure the sunny days helped with the light levels.) - Hatching (ho ho) a plot: muscovies are supposed to be good mothers (as opposed to runners, who just lay an egg wherever they have to be, including in the pond); fertile runner duck eggs are about a pound a pop on eBay. Ella was particularly dutiful in her attempts to hatch a fake egg last year (I had to take it off her in the end), so I'm going to wait until she starts getting broody and then order her some eggs. - Writing, with lots of help from various people, biographies of past-Doc Weir winners, with varying degrees of difficulty: some of the early women winners are almost cyphers, some of the early men required a huge amount of editing of their many recorded achievements. On the other hand, many of the recent winners, who I thought would be easy ("I know her!") are actually quite tricky to write anything substantive about ("And the only fannish thing that she does is faithfully do that one job every year without fail or fault"). See the recent Eastercon PR if you'd like a paper copy of it. - (Possibly) destroying Doc Weir mythology: a decade or so back, the cup was valued at about £4000 (because you can't buy an equivalent today and so would have to get it custom made; a source of some stress to winners as they then had to pay to add it to their insurance). The paperwork was lost, though, so I contacted a local auction house to ask if they could do a valuation. When I sent some photos and the history of it, their silver expert said he could buy one tomorrow for £250-£350 so it wasn't worth paying for a formal valuation. - Riding in the weird weather: very odd to be going out, shivering in a t-shirt, to the frost-covered school and being too hot fifteen minutes later when the sun finishes rising. Benny and I went down the lane and back, for the first time since I had that fall. Planning a tiny little hack on Saturday. Benny is shedding (this is also daylight rather than temperature); on recent form, that means GB will start shedding some time in about June. - Doing a bit of gardening, mostly tidying up last year's dead perennial growth. The wild garlic is just starting to poke leaves up, and the early irises are now just about over but were lovely a week or so ago: - Taking Bob to the vet, where he unsuccessfully tried to fake the vet out and pretend that he didn't have a limp on his front left leg (worried I'd leave him there if he showed weakness, maybe?). Nothing obvious wrong, so metacam and rest, and trying not to identify too many parallels with this time last year. - Working on an experimental quilt. I have no idea if it will completely fall apart, or just look crap, or actually work as planned. - Failing at email (sorry, Carl, Juliet and others not on DW). Tomorrow, we're going to take the DW cup to another auction house for a third opinion and then collect a new, white runner, provisionally called Letice (but better suggestions are welcome: I don't remember any of the witches being famous for dressing all in white, does anyone else? One day I will find someone to sell me a pure black duck, and she will be called Tiffany). Link 10 kisses // Who loves you?

Definitely autumn now ♥Nov. 4th, 2018 // 03:13 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden, weather ] We had a couple of -3-4C nights this week, so even the tomatoes in the polytunnel got frosted. The dining table's now covered in green tomatoes, some of which have started to change colour enough that they will ripen over the next week or so, and this afternoon we've taken the cover off the polytunnel for the winter. Today we also took Bob to a training session for reactive dogs, with two other dogs, which might have been moderately useful if we only ever walked him by ambling around in a large, path-less field in which all the other dogs kept a good distance away and were on leads. I struggle to think of how that would be a normal dog-walking situation. The trainer pretty much ignored everything we said about Bob and how / when he reacts, and showed us a *marvellous* method for keeping his attention, which worked brilliantly but also got him so hyped up that he drew blood pawing at her hand and then started to jump up at her, like we've spent six months training him not to do. Oh, and only worked if you were in a large, path-less field, and wouldn't actually be useful if the thing you were trying to do was 'walk past the other dog', you know, like people have to do when they're walking down the road or along a path. I don't think we'll be back. Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Grapes! ♥Sep. 10th, 2018 // 06:05 pm♥ [Tags | garden, pictures ] After the birds got through the netting (and then got stuck in it) last year, this year the grapes went inside paper bags. Seems to have worked! Link Who loves you?

Swallow success! ♥Sep. 2nd, 2018 // 01:17 pm♥ [Tags | birdies, garden ] Our swallows have beaten the weather and successfully raised a second brood of chicks this summer. They were flying around in Benny's stable this morning, trying to figure out that whole 'flying through the door' thing, and then after a few minutes they all made it outside and the family had flying practice together. I suspect that they'll be coming back to the nest for a few more days, and then they'll be off for the winter. Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

Three months on... ♥Aug. 8th, 2018 // 10:12 am♥ [Tags | garden, pictures, weather ] Today, it is not stupidly hot! It is still a little on the warm side, but it's definitely an improvement. Last night's forecast thunderstorms scooted off up the channel instead, so we just got an hour or so of light rain, but hopefully tomorrow's rain will be as good as the forecast says.... In the veg bed, I've given up entirely on the peas. The French beans are doing very well, the runners and borlotti's not so good. The butternut squash are loving it, the courgettes are doing ok (we have enough for us, but we're not giving them away like we usually do). The sweetcorn is doing ok but not brilliantly, which I suspect is because we chose the wrong spot for it (too shaded). The tomatoes are doing great, and the peppers are just starting to ripen. We've had one aubergine so far, but there are some more that are getting close to ripe. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

Before and after ♥Jul. 29th, 2018 // 03:03 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, cooking, garden, pictures, weather ] I've also been taking advantage of the Aga being back on to grill some courgette slices to go in the fridge and make some courgette goop. It's mostly been raining here, today, just what the grass needs. I even put a jumper on for a little while this morning: bliss! I am a bit concerned about the wind, though. I've already picked up one blown-over tomato plant on the patio, and I had to do a lot of re-tying in the polytunnel last night, so we've closed it up for the first time in months. GB's celebrating high summer by finally getting rid of his winter coat. I expect he'll start growing a new one in a couple of weeks. Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

A culprit.... ♥Jul. 11th, 2018 // 07:44 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden ] For the last month or so, we've been blaming the rabbits for eating the young leaves off our pea plants, but it turns out we were wrong: I just caught the muscovies at it. I guess we're too used to the runners, because it never crossed our minds. Now we'll have to figure out some way of keeping them out of that part of the veg garden.... Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Things, unsuccessfully, attempted in the last week ♥Jul. 10th, 2018 // 08:34 pm♥ [Tags | cooking, garden, weather ] 1) Doing anything in the hot weather (today, gardening, horse-riding and dog-walking were done for the first time in a week). Bob seemed utterly unconcerned by this, and didn't even run around the field more than usual in the evenings. Benny thought it was a marvellous idea, and was quite put out this morning when his tack made an appearance; the hot-foot thing seems to have been a red herring, and I now suspect that he caught it jumping into the field as it's not happened again since. 2) Growing asparagus peas (well, they actually grew just fine, it was the eating part that didn't work out: not a bad flavour, but an utterly horrible mouth-feel. Have pulled them up and put regular peas in their place. Which the rabbits ate the tops off. Sigh). 3) Eating all the courgettes (note to self: must start making courgette goop to freeze. We did try courgette fritters, as apparently you can freeze the grated courgette with no problems, but they were kind of bland in both taste and texture). 4) Making a tasty drink by putting cherries in white wine for a week, decanting and adding a splash of vodka (works wonderfully with cherry leaves in wine, or fruit in vodka; fruit in wine leaves both the liquid and the fruit almost entirely tasteless. Very pretty colour liquid, though). 5) Mike going to work (he Did Something to his back a few weeks ago, and it was a bit sore (physio said he'd strained a muscle and to give it time), but then last week he Did Something More and had to take to his bed for a couple of days. NHS Minor Injuries, in a fit of evidence-based medical advice, told him to go and see a chiropractor. He's much better now, though, so hopefully if he's careful then he'll be back to normal soon). 6) Eating the first tomato of the season (bah, blossom end rot. It doesn't seem to be too widespread, though, so I'll be making passata soon). Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Veggies! ♥Jun. 12th, 2018 // 05:39 pm♥ [Tags | garden, pictures ] And the cherry lady has arrived in her lay-by, so we have cherries (and peaches)! We took Bob up to the vet today, to have that bit of suture taken out, and the nurse pulled on the end of it and it just kept coming. In the end, she cut it off and left the end of it to dissolve, but hopefully it'll finish healing up properly now. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Bits and Bobs ♥Jun. 6th, 2018 // 04:37 pm♥ [Tags | benny, bob the dog, garden, riding ] Bits: - We have tomatoes in the polytunnel! Nowhere near ripe, yet, but there are plenty of fruit starting to set. Since those first two courgettes, we've not had any more (they didn't like the grey damp weather), but there are now a few mange tout and a couple of pods of peas, and the runner beans are shooting up. - My leg is now almost entirely back to being leg-coloured but is still very swollen, so I still can't fasten my riding boots properly. On the plus side, it's much less sore, and I'm pretty much back to normal riding again, because... - ... Benny is getting over his pulled whatever-it-is much more quickly this time, presumably because he was more muscled up in general, and is now almost back to normal. and Bobs: - Bob's leg is healing nicely, although not as nicely as it would be doing if he didn't keep catching one of the scabs when he's rolling around in the grass. For now, he's still wearing pooch pants, but only because of that little surface wound. He's back to walking, zooming and jumping over stiles as normal. - We had a good session with the doggy shrink last week (although I got rather sunburned: I'm used to walking in the woods, not at the seaside!), and she gave us various tips for getting / keeping his attention when there are other dogs around or when people come to the house. - Over the weekend, Bob walked to the pub and met lots of dogs, often very abruptly, on the way but was good with all of them. - He's also improving with people around the house, but he's by no means where we want him to be. We had visitors at weekend, and he got a bit over-excited when they were arriving, but nothing too bad and he calmed down after a zoom in the field. - Today, we've had a visit from a man to look at the boiler and another to read the electricity. The first didn't even merit a huff, the second he barked at constantly until he was off the property. I suspect that the difference was largely because we were on the drive waiting when the boiler man pulled up (he'd phoned me, twice, fifteen minutes apart, from the same spot, to get directions. And then drove straight past the house...) but the electricity man rang the doorbell. This suggests an obvious training opportunity! Link Who loves you?

Variations on a theme ♥May. 31st, 2018 // 05:51 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden, pictures, weather ] Mike bought me some veg-box irises today, and I thought they'd look nice with some ox-eye daisies (which grow wild behind the barn, and are having a fabulous year). While I was out with my trug and scissors, I went to get the year's first vase of sweetpeas and picked a few other flowers for the house as well. It was only later that I realised I had a bit of a colour theme going! Also in the garden, Mike (fortunately) noticed this morning that something (probably a black and white something) had dug into the pile of manure that the squash are planted into, burying one of the plants. He excavated and re-planted it, and now we have our fingers crossed that it will survive. Bob's stitches came out this afternoon, and tomorrow we're going to see the doggy shrink behaviourist, to see if we can start to make some progress on the idea of not trying to kill Evil Dogs on sight. In fact, he was very good at the vet, even though there were plenty of other dogs in the waiting room, possibly because we made sure to keep him a good few feet away from them at all times. The weather here has been very odd this week: warm and foggy overnight and for much of the morning, occasional thunder showers, hot and steamy when the sun manages to burn through the clouds. I didn't ride this morning because I could barely see the far end of the school, and didn't ride this afternoon because we had a downpour so he'll be soggy. We've cancelled tomorrow morning's riding lesson, because the rain warning has been extended and even if it is dry then I'm sure that the fog will be back. Still, it's good grass-growing weather! Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

First fruits! ♥May. 25th, 2018 // 06:26 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden, pictures, sewing ] This evening, we're having courgettes for tea! (Also asparagus and the first new potatoes, from the veg box. My asparagus plants have produced about two spears each this year, but They Will Grow!) And I have been sewing: Bob was at the vet today, and we didn't get too much of a telling off for the way he's been fiddling with his stitches (he will keep licking at them, through the t-shirt). They're coming out at the end of next week, but he isn't allowed zoomies for a few days more after that: poor Bob! The Aga had a service today, and got a clean bill of health, which is good, but less good is that the door seal on the dishwasher has gone, so I'm going to have to wash up by hand until Thursday when they come to fix it: poot. Link 7 kisses // Who loves you?

Woozy pooch ♥May. 18th, 2018 // 02:25 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden, pictures ] Today, Bob's been to the vet to have the lump on his leg removed. (We're pretty sure that it's benign, although will get it checked, but were worried that he'd catch it on things, especially given that he does tend to worry at it.) He was almost entirely a very good boy: he did lunge at one collie as the nurse was taking him through, but he was good with the two dogs in the waiting room before we saw her, and they say that he was good while he was in the back. Oddly, just before he lunged at the collie we were starting to relax because he was looking at it and wagging his tail; not sure what that means. (When we went to collect him, the nurse brought him out of the back door rather than risk there being dogs in the waiting room. He then tried to go back inside again rather than come with us, so I don't think he was too traumatised by the experience.) He's currently curled up on the couch and a bit stoned, but hopefully he'll be feeling more normal later on. It's very odd actually being able to see a square patch where they've clipped him, rather than just a slightly less dense area of fluff. In general, I think that we are making some progress. He's still barking for far longer than necessary when someone comes to the door / drives past the house / is visible, but I think not for quite so long. He also saw some dogs we know and was fine with them, even when one of them bopped him on the nose for being too interested in sniffing her bum. It's just going to take a while. We're meeting a dog behaviourist in a couple of weeks (scheduling issues), and we're going to do it down at the beach so that we can guarantee lots of other dogs so that we can get a feel for things like safe distances and maybe even what it is that causes other dogs to be Evil. We've been very busy in the garden, and I've now planted out my new flower bed (in what was the veg patch). Mike has a new chainsaw, so he's been having fun chopping things down. The first courgette is now of a size that you could pick and call it a baby courgette, but one baby courgette isn't really much use so I think we'll leave it a bit longer! Edit: The drugs are wearing off, and he doesn't understand why he can't go for zoomies in the field. And he wants to lick it better, so now he has to have a Cone Of Shame (the inflatable isn't enough to stop him getting at it, unfortunately). And he is very unhappy. Link Who loves you?

Back on the horse ♥May. 11th, 2018 // 04:41 pm♥ [Tags | garden, pictures, riding ] I had a go on Benny this morning, for the first time since I came off. Then I decided that it was too uncomfortable, and Mike got on instead. My leg is going all sorts of interesting colours. I just hope that the swelling goes down some more before Sunday, when the weather forecast makes me suspect that I'll want to be back in my boots, rather than the trainers I've been living in for the last few days. We've been busy in the garden. I'm not sure how it is, but even though we keep planting things out in the garden there always seem to be more things left to do. Well, ok, part of that may be that I ordered a load of plants online for the former veg bed, and they're gradually being delivered.... Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

Bob has discovered the joy of badger poo. ♥May. 8th, 2018 // 06:35 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden, pictures ] And our resident badger seems to have an upset stomach. On the plus side, more work in the veg bed this morning (before it got too hot), so now the mange tout and beans are planted out. So are both of the pea plants that actually did anything, out of about sixteen planted from a brand new pack of peas: I may complain to Suttons, especially as I had very bad germination from the french beans as well. I suspect that we'll have courgettes in a few days, as they're already flowering. The bales of hay are for the squash: they've got an empty space in the middle, which we're filling up with (raw) manure, and then we'll put small heaps of compost on top and put the plants into those. Apparently works very well as long as you keep the hay bales damp so that they break down (we've been hosing them down), and will have the added benefit of providing a load of nice organic matter to spread over the bed for next year. Link Who loves you?

Yup, pretty colours.... ♥May. 8th, 2018 // 10:46 am♥ [Tags | garden, ow, pictures ] It turns out that digging the veg bed over was possible, so I did manage to get a fair bit done in the garden after all yesterday. I chickened out of riding this morning, though, and just left Mike to it. I also chickened out of even trying to put my boots on, and of going for my Pilates session. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

The trouble with plans.... ♥May. 7th, 2018 // 10:23 am♥ [Tags | benny, garden, ow, pictures, riding ] The plan for today was that I would dig over the new veg bed while Mike mowed the lawn, and then we'd move some hay bales onto it (we're going to experiment with putting the squash in hay bales, as we have plenty of spares) and plant out the courgettes (crossing our fingers for the weather, but they are about to flower and we can always put fleece over them if we have to). Oh, and moving lumps of concrete into the skip. But first, lovely sunny day, I took Benny out for a hack. Tootling along the lane, a car came up behind us. Inconvenient place for it, as it's a long way until the next passing place, so we switched up to a trot so as not to delay them for too long. Benny was going along quite happily until he caught sight of a sheep through a gap in the hedge. There are sheep in the field next to ours. They frequently stand around watching when I ride Benny in the school. He is entirely unconcerned by them when he's at home, so I don't understand why they suddenly become so terrifying when we're out on a hack. They are, though, so he span 180, I went off the side and he tried to head for home but couldn't because I'd kept the reins. Unfortunately, when he tried to head for home I was between him and home, and one of his feet came down on my leg. Fortunately, the people in the car were the (small animal) vets, on their way to their practice open day. After I reassured them that I was ok and only a little bit trampled (I think they were thinking that one of them would drive me home while the other led the horse back), they came and held Benny while I sorted myself out and got back onboard, and then reversed back down the road and went the long way around so I wouldn't have to worry about holding them up. I decided it was probably best if we didn't go for a canter in the woods today, so instead we just pootled around the lanes a bit more, passing as many sheep as I could because really he needs to get over this, and then headed for home. In our absence, Mike reports that GB was very well behaved, only calling for Benny once, when he saw us coming back down the hill, which is excellent news and does make me hope we'll be able to stop sedating him. I was slightly worried that I wouldn't be able to walk (to the extent of having Mike stand ready to catch me when I dismounted), but I managed to hobble around the field to poo pick before coming in, being helped out of my jods, and inspecting the damage. I am very glad that 1) the horses are barefoot and 2) that I didn't go with my impulse this morning to ride in short boots so as to be cooler. I don't think I'll be doing any digging, though. Link 8 kisses // Who loves you?

Getting Things Done ♥May. 4th, 2018 // 09:50 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden ] As a result of the re-fencing work that Jobbing Farmer and His Mate did, we've now got a small heap of concrete lumps and breeze blocks, as well as coils of old fencing wire. Yesterday, I had a skip delivered, so that we could get rid of it. I didn't really think it through: we're quite busy with garden stuff right now, especially as we have New Veg Bed that hasn't had the winter to quietly digest a load of manure and so needs compost moving onto it, and I'm off quilting tomorrow afternoon and all day Sunday, but on the other hand it's a bank holiday on Monday, so Mike's here more than usual. It'll be ok, right? As part of the garden stuff, we spent a while yesterday afternoon getting the polytunnel ready to go. Shh, don't tell DEFRA, who have still not lifted the bloody bird 'flu restrictions even though there haven't been any cases (other than a couple of buzzards) in three months, but that involved moving the ducks' food and water outside, where wild birds can get at them. (OTOH, they're now in the same situation they were in last year, when there actually was bird 'flu, so meh.) This morning, after a riding lesson, we were going to start on moving enormous lumps of concrete to the skip, but I really wanted to make sure that Zu Zu wasn't hiding her eggs somewhere in the ducks' stable. When we moved in, we noted that the previous owners were really crap at estimating how much Stuff they needed for each of their many refurbishment projects: the ducks' stable is made up of a small partitioned area, which I roofed with chicken wire to make it safe for the girls to sleep in, and a larger space full of Stuff, much of it leaning against walls or other Stuff to make hard-to-check nooks where Erzulie has laid at least one egg. We re-stacked the stone slabs (left over from the conservatory floor, and pretty much enough to entirely re-floor it), stuck the part- and un-used packs of laminate flooring in the skip, along with a few misc bits of other Stuff, and put the random bits of wood on the bonfire, left the random piles of bricks where they were, and now it's much tidier and there's more space for Stuff of our own. Didn't find any eggs, though. (And *why* are the runners still not laying? Are they on not-allowed-in-the-garden-because-of-bird-'flu-strike?) Then we went around the property and gathered up all the coils of wire, and stuck them in the skip as well. Then the skip was full. Mike has hopes that piling lumps of concrete on the wire will squish it down.... In the afternoon, we put up strings in the polytunnel to tie the tomatoes to and then planted them out. While we were doing it, some chaps from the window cleaners (I phoned them on Wednesday, and was told someone would come out to do a quote but probably not until next week) arrived. Almost the first words out of the lead chap's mouth, as Bob started objecting to Strangers, were "He can't be as bad as those two alsatians", from which I gathered that he used to clean the windows for the previous owners, which meant that he didn't need to look around before going "thirty quid?". (Bob later settled down and made friends with them all, pausing only every thirty seconds to bark at them.) Two minutes later they were up their ladders, and half an hour after that they were gone with promises that another chap, with different kit, would be along soon to clean the solar panels as well. He gave me a ticking off for the state of the gutters and weatherboards in passing, and when I actually looked at them I did go 'wow, they're quite green, except where they're still wood and god we must get the wood weatherboards replaced'. The windows are lovely and clean, though! In amongst all that, Mike heroically played with his new toy tackled the regrowing brambles with a brush-cutter, which seems to be much more useful than the strimmer (although I fear that, as with the strimmer, I won't be able to use it for five minutes and still retain the ability to, eg, use a knife and fork that evening). And now we're quite tired. And I'm contemplating phoning Mrs Farmer and saying "You know your son who's got a baby due any day now? Would he like some cash for a day of casual labour over the bank holiday weekend....?" Oh, and some bastard bitey thing must have got under my top yesterday when we were doing polytunnel things, because I've got over a dozen little bites all around my waistband. Itchy. Still, BBQ chicken for tea, summer's not all bad! Link Who loves you?

Bob day 3 ♥Apr. 7th, 2018 // 04:35 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, garden ] Less good today, sadly. Last night, he didn't settle downstairs and in the end Mike brought him up to our bedroom, where he jumped onto our bed several times before settling in the dog bed that Jo never liked but he seems happy with. Not sure if that's because I didn't accidentally leave my jumper on the sofa for him to cuddle like the night before, if he's more bonded to us and therefore less keen to stay alone, or because we had brief overnight guests (I think this is least likely, as he's not been here long enough to know that they're not part of the household; he was otherwise very well behaved with them). Probably as a result, we've had much more trouble keeping him downstairs today, to the extent that when I went upstairs to do post-visitor tidying I shut him in the living room with Mike. He proceeded to stand by the door looking mournful, with occasional scrabbling. While we were doing the horses this morning, he was thoroughly getting in the way, so I tied him to the barn on a shorter line, which he was also very unhappy about, but this afternoon we've been out in the garden* and he seemed reasonably happy about not being able to get to me (up a ladder, so didn't really want him too close!), at least after he'd run and caught a squeaky toy a few dozen times. * We lost February and March, in gardening terms, because of Jo and the weather, so were now trying to catch up. I fear that the crab apple blossom won't be as good as usual, as that was my project for today and it was already starting to leaf and bud. Only managed half of it, because I am both out of shape and full of con crud. While Mike was having a nap earlier, I tried leaving him alone in the living room while I did some kitchen tidying and then a bit of sewing. I started at two minutes, went back to calm him down and then backtracked to thirty seconds. It takes a while to empty the dishwasher in thirty second increments! I did eventually get it up to five minutes with him just calmly curled up on the sofa (leave alone, go back and sit with him with no fuss, leave alone for thirty seconds longer, etc) but then he suddenly got stressed again. After a break to let him calm down, I tried just going and doing some sewing but leaving the door open. He did follow me through immediately, but I wasn't fussing him and he doesn't like lying on the floor, so after a stern 'no' to his speculative look at the sewing-covered sofa in there he pretty much gave up and went back to the living room, although he did come and check on me every few minutes. This is worse than Jo was even towards the end, so even though I hope he'll be better when he's settled I'm very glad that as well as an appointment to get the vet to give him a general check-up and have a look at his lump** I also made an appointment on Tuesday with the nurse who's a psychology specialist. ** The rescue say it's just a skin tag, and it might well be, but even if it is entirely benign I think it needs to come off: he's worrying at it, and it sticks out so much that I would worry about him catching it on something once he's off-lead in the woods. On the plus side, he's barely tried to lick my face all day, his recall is much better in the field (at least when there's a bag of treats involved), and on walks he's coming on from interesting smells when you ask him to, rather than when you tug him away. We may try letting him off the lunge line in the (double fenced) field tomorrow, if this evening's recall practice goes well. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Adventurous snowdrop ♥Mar. 24th, 2018 // 05:52 pm♥ [Tags | garden, pictures ] Back in 2013, we had a big leylandii taken out, which left us with a pile of logs that we planned to burn. Mike did chop about half of them into stove-sized bits, and those are all stacked up in one of the stables waiting until they've seasoned a bit, but the other half got left in a big heap. A big heap that's stacked up against the fence between the front and back gardens. The fence that's about to be taken out and replaced with something nicer. We've spent the last couple of days gradually moving the bits to the stableyard and burning them, and we are now nearly done (but some of the remaining bits are enormous, so we may end up declaring them to be 'features' around which to plant things). Today, Mike spotted an adventurous snowdrop: Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Pondering.... ♥Mar. 23rd, 2018 // 03:38 pm♥ [Tags | garden ] Of course, what we could do is move the veg bed to the new patch of usable garden, which would mean that I could go back to having an actual flower bed to look at in the back garden, and mean that I walk past the veg three or four times a day and so am more quick to spot problems / incipient marrows, *and* put the veggies into The Duck Zone, where they'll benefit from slug patrol.... And we don't tend to grow much or any winter veg, because frankly we get enough cabbage and kale in the veg box, so it also means we can cover it over in winter which will help to kill off any remaining bits of ground elder (the areas mostly been covered one way or another for the last few years, but there are still bits of the stuff around the edges). Probably work best if we terrace it, as it's on a slope, and if you use railway sleepers then they're wide enough that you can walk on them rather than compacting the ground.... [messages Jobbing Farmer with a vague enquiry and gets the reply "We can do anything!"] Edit: But, after he came around to have another look, he reckons it would be very tricky (because pipes and cables), and anyway that we won't have a problem with the soil sliding downhill. We're going to plant it up this year and see how it goes: we can always do terraces next winter! Link Who loves you?

Picture post! ♥Mar. 22nd, 2018 // 05:19 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, pictures ] Since not long after we moved in, we've been a little concerned about the wall along the path behind our garage, which holds up an earth bank and is not exactly vertical. It's been on the 'to sort out' list for a while. One of the fence panels between the garden and the stableyard fell over this winter, and has been held up since with baling twine. It's part of a fence that really needs to be entirely replaced: it's six feet high and wooden, and really cuts down on the light to that part of the garden, and the gates in it are increasingly rickety and hard to use. (That's also where we had the polytunnel last year, in an otherwise-useless patch of garden, but it didn't really get enough light. It'd be nice as a little cutting garden, if it didn't have the six foot high solid fence along the south side of it.) The fence along the edge of the back garden has been fairly dodgy since we took out the leylandii that were growing through it, but then I planted the willow in front of it so it didn't matter too much. Still, a bit messy.... This winter, the fence along the front garden has started to lean over rather, in a 'not long for this world' way. It didn't really make sense to do any one of those jobs without doing the others, so we never really got around to any of them. A few weeks ago, I said to Mike "Let's just ask Jobbing Farmer to quote for it." And I did. And today he came long with a mate and a digger man, and they started work: Before and after: And the new view from the stableyard: I think I'm going to have dahlias in there. I bought a bag at Costco the other week. We put the ducks in the garden for the day (shh, don't tell DEFRA). Poor Erzuli was never very good with going down steps, and didn't have much time to practice between coming here and being exiled to the stableyard. She spent a good chunk of the afternoon on the patio, looking desolately down at the lawn and then wandering around looking for the way down. I, on the other hand, have taken advantage of the fact that my pre-Follycon stuff is pretty much finished to do a bit of sewing: The next job is replacing the fence between the front and back gardens, which is going to be a wooden lattice affair, and then there will be a pause: when Jobbing Farmer went to order the fenceposts for the main fence, he was told there was a three week wait. Oh well, we're getting there! Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Life goes on ♥Feb. 3rd, 2018 // 07:55 pm♥ [Tags | garden, jodie the dog ] Today, we dusted off the propagator, filled little pots with compost and started the first batch of this year's seeds. In the process, I found out what happened to many of the sour cherries from the tree on the back patio: one of the tray of little pots had a small stack of cherry pits in the bottom, all carefully licked clean of fruit and then nibbled open at one end to get the kernel out. After having what seemed like a better day on Thursday, Jo was very sore again yesterday and today. She's quite restless, and sits panting unhappily a lot of the time. She's doing all that she can to hobble into the garden to go to the loo and have a drink out of the fish pond. Link Who loves you?

Handy household management tips ♥Jan. 28th, 2018 // 09:21 pm♥ [Tags | garden, jodie the dog ] If you have a net over your fishpond to stop the herons and cats from bothering the residents, you may have noticed that the top of the net gathers up rotting leaves at this time of year. Although you will, as a diligent housekeeper, have been carefully periodically removing the dead leaves, sometimes you just need to get in there and have a clear out. I have the perfect solution. First, ensure that you have an elderly dog who is currently not on her usual pain medication. If you can further ensure that the replacement medication makes her stoned without actually stopping her from hopping along like a hoppy thing then this is a bonus, as it will act as a reminder to tidy your fish pond. Second, take your elderly dog outside for a wee. As her pain medication is not working, she will be unhappy to do so and you will have to constantly shine your torch backwards so that you can check that she is actually following you onto the lawn. From there, it will be a (literal) short step into the fishpond, where you can carefully remove the floating leaves before continuing your dog-toilet exercise. Note: this is an advanced household hint, and works best if you have a person in the house to whom you can later shout "Please will you bring me a towel, dressing gown and dry pair of socks", otherwise you will subsequently have to mop the kitchen floor. Unless you forgot the part about taking the dog for a wee, in which case you'll be mopping it anyway. Additional note: you may need to replace the net over your fish pond later. Further note: if you happen to be wearing a cashmere sweater when cleaning your fish pond, this will provide added incentive to look up the best way to wash cashmere. Pro Tip: remember to wear old slippers. Not the ones you bought last month. Still, at least you have an aga: Link 10 kisses // Who loves you?

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