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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?

Duck tales ♥Nov. 11th, 2019 // 07:36 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] Over the weekend, while Mike was at Novacon, I noticed that Lucy Anagramma's eye looked... missing. Nothing there, just smooth skin. After a bit of wondering if we'd actually been so unobservant as to not notice she'd been born without one of her eyes, I dug through some photos and found some where it was definitely there. I asked around some of my bird-owning friends, who thought it was probably an infection. When I went to catch her at lunch time, to get a closer look with that in mind, it turned out that they were right: the infection had burst. ( I'm going to put this picture behind here, although it's not terribly gory ) We took her to the vet this evening, and confirmed that there was an infection, that there was probably a foreign body causing it, and that it had probably actually pierced the eyeball: she's unlikely to keep her sight, but should be fine otherwise. Now I have to put goop on her eye three times a day, which should be fun. Even if she gets used/resigned to being handled, all the others will go nuts when I go in the house to actually catch her.... In other news, still bloody raining. Another half an inch overnight, on (still) sodden ground, so the boys had to stand in yet again. I've given up any hope of weeding this year. Link 4 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?

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?

Time, and swallows, flying ♥Jun. 23rd, 2019 // 07:46 pm♥ [Tags | birdies, house, pictures, quilts ] I was slightly worried when the swallows were missing from their nest this morning. I needn't have been, though, as pretty soon we saw them wobble-flying around the stable. There are five of them, and we've got high hopes that there will be a second clutch again this year. They only hatched on the 12th, so I'm quite impressed. The little owl is less impressed: it's been hanging around, and the adult swallows keep resolutely chasing it away from the babies. We went to see the orchid meadow again today. The Common Spotted and Fragrant orchids are in full flower, and the Pyramidals are just starting to come out. It seems to be being a good year for them: Our own personal orchid meadow continues to get more crowded: we're up to about a dozen bee orchids, and four or five patches of pyramidals, although it's still not a patch on the one in the photo. After some delays yesterday, notably when I managed to sew the binding on back-to-front, I finished a new quilt this afternoon. Just a simple one, before I dive into the big project that I'm doing next. It's almost certainly going to Project Linus, unless someone wants to bagsy it. This morning, we cleaned the conservatory (just in time for it being too hot to sit out there). It's now looking lovely, but it'll only be a couple of weeks before it's full of dead insects again. We've also been plotting redecorating our bedroom, which is now a priority as it makes sense to do it before the new shutters arrive in mid-August. The horse flies have been out for over a week and I still don't have any bites. Very suspicious. Link 4 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?

They grow up so fast.... ♥May. 28th, 2019 // 08:05 pm♥ [Tags | craft, ducks, pictures, quilt club ] The ducklings have turned into ducks: This is probably a good thing, as Zu Zu is losing interest in them. She's been flirting with me and looking for a spot to make her nest. At some point, I'm going to have to let her back in the garden with the others (as it is, she's had to be rescued from the drive half a dozen times over the last couple of days, although I think I've now got enough of a barricade to keep her in), and I fear it's going to be before the ducklings can have adult food so they'll have to stay on their own at least for part of the day. This is Magrat, middle duckling, and Letice, on their way to bed. They are nearly as big as little Maggers. They are all girls, so suggestions for suitable Pratchett witch names welcome (and for the Campbells, who will probably be indistinguishable from each other; I was going to name them after the witch Tiffany trains with, who has two bodies, but it turns out that she's just "Miss Level" with no first name given, and I can't really call one of them "Miss" and the other "Level"). I admired a bag at Little Quilt Club a few months ago, and was subsequently presented with the home-written instructions for making it. They may have been the worst instructions I have ever had to follow, especially without a picture of the finished bag for reference. Now that I've made it, I do think I could make another quite easily, but actually it's turned out better than I thought it was going to, and almost all of the dodgy bits are hidden away inside. I do wish I'd realised how the handle was going to attach before I decided to make it two-colour, but there we go. Hand sewing the final binding was a bit of a nightmare: three layers of wadding and something like eleven layers of fabric to get through. Still, it is done. Link 21 kisses // Who loves you?

Ducks, ducks, glorious ducks.... ♥May. 24th, 2019 // 06:25 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] Although they've barely started to grow their adult feathers, the ducklings are not looking all that much smaller than Esme, Gytha and Magrat did when we first brought them home, especially in comparison to how Letice looked at four months old. This makes me wonder how old the original three actually were, and especially if they were old enough for adult food: is that why Maggers and Esme grew up so small? Is that why Esme was sickly...? (And hasn't Letice grown? As predicted, she is much bigger than Maggers, now.) Next week, we're going to be getting two new ducks. They are entirely Mike's fault, as he didn't need to tell me that there was a rescue looking to rehome 400 khaki campbells from a farm. It's ok, we're only having two of them. Link 3 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?

Idiot animal ♥May. 12th, 2019 // 09:22 pm♥ [Tags | pictures, riding ] I was riding Benny in the school yesterday when some pigeons flew out of the hedge and startled him. In the split second while that was happening, I fully expected him to spin away from them and head into the middle of the school. But no, the idiot animal turned towards them. Which also meant towards the fence. And the gate post. And as it happens, my leg was between him and it. I've got a lovely lump on my shin now, and my knee is quite raw. Link 13 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?

Ah, karma.... ♥May. 2nd, 2019 // 02:55 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] We were greeted by a satisfying sight this morning in the water bucket outside the duck house. It turns out that stealing and eating ducklings doesn't give rats the ability to float for hours, or to fly out of tight situations. They're three weeks old tomorrow, and start to move on to their next kind of feed. I think that, if it hadn't been for ratty, that 20kg bag wouldn't have been too much duckling food! Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Spot the difference ♥Apr. 28th, 2019 // 02:54 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] After some carpentry and more crowbar work, we're really sure we've blocked up the holes now. Hopefully. They're definitely growing, though. We have now reached the stage where the pen really has to move every day, and you can see where it's already been because of the layer of poo covering the grass. A busy week in the garden, followed by a busy weekend of visitors (featuring Dealing With Eastercon-Acquired Issues), and I expect another busy week in the garden before Mike heads off to Dublin next weekend for more DWEAI. We are still very tired. Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

And then there were four.... ♥Apr. 23rd, 2019 // 06:23 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] On Thursday morning, when the ducklings came out there were only six of them. I wasn't sure how many had gone to bed, so we figured that a cat or crow must have got one of them on Wednesday. On Friday morning, there were only five. Mike then spent an hour or so with a crow-bar, pulling off the panelling around the walls of their house, and finding two somewhat eaten bodies in the process. Our best guess is that a rat was going behind the panelling outside their house and then coming out again inside. After we'd headed off to Eastercon, the sitter stuffed various bits of wood into the gap, and we crossed our fingers. Another one vanished on Sunday night, after which some bricks were added to the mix, and so we came home to ducklings reduced in number but significantly increased in size: A job for tomorrow is going to be a more sturdy fix, which will hopefully make sure we don't have anything similar again. (There are many jobs for tomorrow. Those tomatoes are going to have to go out to the polytunnel, for a start.) Eastercon went well, but we are now very very tired. Link 3 kisses // 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?

Those ducklings aren't Schrodinger's, they're mine. ♥Apr. 12th, 2019 // 04:18 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] At least seven out of eight, I think. ZuZu was not happy to see me, so I'll go out again in a bit with an assistant to have a proper check. I suspect that Mike will want me to deal with ZuZu while he wrangles the ducklings! When I went out, two of them had fallen out of the nest and not figured out how to climb back up. I think I might have to move the box onto the floor for the first few days.... Edit: a couple of the ducklings got out of the nest and couldn't figure out the ramp to get back up, so I roped in Mike as Faithful Assistant and went to move it to ground level. Being Chief Duck Wrangler, I tackled Mum. - Hooked beak: immobilised - Flappy wings: pinned down - Taloned feet: well away from me It’s ok, though, because a devoted duck mum, who only leaves the nest for a few minutes in every day to eat and perform her toilete, still has one more weapon at her disposal. Still, nest and ducklings safely moved, and Mum is back on duty now. Got out of the shower and into clean clothes. Could still smell it. Oh, right, better clean my bloody glasses.... Link 12 kisses // Who loves you?

New quilt! ♥Apr. 9th, 2019 // 06:47 pm♥ [Tags | craft, ducks, pictures ] Mike bought me a stack of fabric for Christmas, and I've been making a somewhat experimental* quilt with it: More pics. * It's pieced wrong sides together, and then I've snipped the seams. It's also got three layers of poly batting, and is hand tied, so it's incredibly soft and poofy. Zu Zu tried to go for me when I was cleaning out their house yesterday; she's been squeaking and occasionally hissing at me all along, so I'm hoping that this is a good sign that she's feeling movement in the eggs, but it's made me realise that, in retrospect, I probably should have been at least stroking her every day to keep her used to being handled, 'cause she's not going to be happy when I start picking up the babies.... Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

New things ♥Apr. 5th, 2019 // 07:40 pm♥ [Tags | family, food, house, pictures ] My Grandad, who in his younger days was often to be found with a paint brush in his hand*, left me a bit of money, so I decided that we'd (pay some people to) do some decorating in his memory. * From my uncle's funeral speech: Grandad, a draftsman, was off work once with an eye problem that meant he couldn't do close-work. The Big Boss wanted to consult with him about something, and another colleague had once been to their house so offered to show the Big Boss how to find it. They travelled in separate cars, and the colleague parked slightly closer to the house than the Big Boss. He got to the house only to see, through the window, Grandad up a ladder painting the ceiling. Furious gesticulation occurred, and when Big Boss knocked on the door he was greeted by Grandma, hair in curlers, wearing Grandad's paint-spattered coverall and holding a paintbrush (possibly for the first and last time in her life), while Grandad lay on the sofa looking stricken. I've never been terribly keen on the (old, and so both worn and inherently less good than modern) laminate floor in there, so we've had a new floor and then the walls painted. (By the same people who did the living room, as they both did good jobs.) (We kept the old curtains, because they're fine and that many curtains is expensive even if I make them myself. We were going to have them dry-cleaned, but the chap came to do them today and looked dubious, which turned out to be the right reaction after he did a patch test and they discoloured; he also advised against water, so steam cleaning is out. So I guess we'll just give them a good vacuuming.) Anyway, new dining room is new: A month or so after we moved here, we signed up to a local veg box scheme. It was a particularly local one, as everything (except mushrooms and sweet potatoes) came from within ten miles of their farm; it's a lot easier to do that in Kent than in many places, especially if the UK's largest greenhouse is within those ten miles. A couple of weeks ago, we had an email saying that they were going to close down: parents wanted to retire, and keeping it and the other businesses going would have involved hiring a manager, at which point it wouldn't pay. I suspect that last summer had something to do with it as well: the effects are still very clear, with shortages of some veg and incredibly tiny onions for the last month or so. They sold their customer list to a larger and slightly-less-local company (that uses many of the same suppliers), and this week was the first delivery from them. It was supposed to happen yesterday, but this morning the rather apologetic owner arrived, explaining that he followed the road sign (and a half-remembered instruction from Old Veg Box Guy) rather than his sat nav and turned the wrong way at the end of our road. Hopefully that will be a one-off thing, because so far we're pretty impressed: we're allowed four do-not-wants (bye bye beetroot, and probably also courgettes because we generate plenty of those by ourselves when they're in season), and we're not guaranteed carrots every week. We're also not guaranteed onions, which is a slight problem as we get through a lot. The kale we got this week is nicer-looking than we've been used to, as well. Hopefully it'll continue to be good once they're no longer trying to woo us! Link 2 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?

Unexpected ♥Nov. 21st, 2018 // 03:29 pm♥ [Tags | pictures, weather ] We woke up to a little bit of snow this morning: (As you can see, we've been working on circles recently!) Only a very little bit, but we've never had snow nearly this early before. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Minor mystery resolved ♥Nov. 18th, 2018 // 09:41 pm♥ [Tags | cooking, pictures ] A couple of months ago, I made my usual apple and sloe jelly. It took me three bloody goes to get a set: I ended up sticking pectin in it (FFS!), and that eventually did it. Two days ago, my medlars were finally bletted: (Crafty Day folks, I suspect that if I'd hunted around then I could have found a bletted one for you to try. You'll have to come back around the same time next year.) So yesterday I boiled up the medlar jelly and this morning... no set. Some experimentation with a pan of boiling water revealed that my jam thermometer is reading a degree too high. All is now explained. Although I fear that, in my attempts to be over-cautious, extracting the re-boiled medlar jelly from the jar may need a sharp knife rather than a tea spoon. Especially as I've just seen in my diary that I didn't bother with pectin last time. Link 7 kisses // Who loves you?

The lighting doesn't matter on the radio.... ♥Oct. 31st, 2018 // 03:45 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks, going out, pictures, radio ] Last night, we went to see a recording of The Kitchen Cabinet, in the banqueting hall at Dover Castle. Fortunately, the lighting doesn't matter on the radio: The show will air on Saturday week, and neither of us appears on it (except in the background noise). It was fun to see the recording, well worth the £0 ticket price. We really must actually go to Dover Castle some time to look around. Today (boo, hiss, I got caught for customs charges, which are fine except that the handling fee is larger than the actual tax), Bob's onesie arrived from Australia (the woman half an hour away who'd said she could make him one having then gone silent). It's a good fit (I ended up getting it from Aus because I was pretty sure none of the many greyhound / whippet ones would fit him, and I could only find two people who were doing customised ones with more than a couple of measurements), but quite difficult to put on and take off, presumably because of the extra bulk in his chest compared to the standard pattern. I've ordered some velcro, so I just need to decide whether to put the cut on his back or his chest. Chest seems more logical (as I can cut straight through -- it leaves his belly bare), but the struggle is getting his front legs in / out, so back might give more extra play. (And, now I've got it, I can make myself a pattern to make some more....) There's Something Wrong with Esk, who's taken to faceplanting while running along, and seems a bit subdued generally. Vet in a few days if she doesn't improve, I guess. Link Who loves you?

Swans! ♥Oct. 19th, 2018 // 08:04 pm♥ [Tags | craft, pictures ] After something like 40 hours of quilting, the swans are finished! More pics: https://imgur.com/a/bu4dxks Link 25 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?

The sloes are early this year ♥Aug. 25th, 2018 // 02:40 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, craft, foraging, horses, pictures ] The swans are sewn, now I just need to wait for the backing fabric and get quilting: (I'll also have to rearrange the living room to get enough floor space to pin the layers together, it doesn't fit in the study!) GB has crossed some sort of watershed: he's not quite finished shedding last year's winter coat (the long, paler hairs that you can see against the black) but he's already starting to fuzz up with this year's growth (which you can see against the white): Still, not bad for an old man. Even if he does spend half of his time with his willy hanging out a bit these days.... I had a lovely long session on Benny this morning, the weather was just right: sunny, bit of a breeze, and enough of a chill in the air that we didn't overheat. Much more satisfactory weather than lately. Link 7 kisses // Who loves you?

It's almost like people know me, or something... ♥Aug. 24th, 2018 // 01:50 pm♥ [Tags | birthday, pictures ] From three different people: Link 7 kisses // Who loves you?

Bloody animals.... (Insects are animals too, right?) ♥Aug. 24th, 2018 // 10:03 am♥ [Tags | angelo, benny, ducks, horses, owie, pictures ] On Wednesday evening, as I was leading the boys in from the field, Benny decided that he was sick of having to walk as slowly as GB does and started rearing in protest. The first three times weren't really an issue, but on the fourth he managed to hook one of his forelegs over my arm as he came down: My back also felt rather peculiar, so Mike played it safe and told work that he wouldn't be at the company away-day yesterday (he was devastated, especially at the prospect of not having to go out at 6:30 to drive there). As it turns out, it wasn't too bad (although I skipped our riding lesson yesterday afternoon and let Mike have a longer session), and he's off in London today. As well as my various scrapes and bruises from Benny, I'm covered in mozzie bites. I seem to be getting half a dozen a night, and am not sleeping well as a result, so I'm quite pleased that it's going to be chilly tonight so that I can spray the bedroom and, with the windows closed, hopefully not get nibbled on. Even Mike has had two or three bites over the last week.... I think I prefer horse fly season. Grump. GB is also suffering from the insect life, getting nibbled on his feet and face by harvest mites, which appear in the grass at this time of year. The poor things has some horrible open sores on his feet, and is terribly itchy. Actually, I think that Benny's getting a bit bothered by them, too, which might explain the grumpiness the other day. Still, it was *lovely* to be out first thing this morning and feel a bit of an autumnal chill to the air, even if it did warm up fairly quickly. We're actually going to close the polytunnel tonight (which will at least stop Bob from stealing the tomatoes...), and maybe put light rugs on the horses! In good animal news, I'm very happy to report that Ella, the new muscovy, has started laying (I guess they mature more slowly than mallards), and is doing so in the duck house. Even better, Erzulie has taken the hint and is now also laying inside, rather than in one of her hidden nests. Of course, this means that she refuses to come out of the house in the mornings, so that I have to tuck her under my arm and carry her to breakfast, but I'd rather that than the alternative. Must post more often! 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?

Hanging around with Bob ♥Jul. 17th, 2018 // 07:50 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, pictures ] Too hot! Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Busy busy ♥Jun. 27th, 2018 // 01:57 pm♥ [Tags | benny, bob the dog, carpal, family, horses, pictures, riding, visitors, weather ] We had Mike's family visiting over the weekend, so it's all been a bit busy. Still, it seemed to go well. Bob did very well, once he'd settled down after people arrived. He's very noticeably more barky at men, especially if they have beards. Fortunately, the dog-phobic visitor found the combination of howling and wagging tail to be very amusing, and even brought herself to feed him a treat, so that was good. The kids made a huge fuss of him, which he seemed to enjoy tremendously (at least, he didn't get up and walk off after a few minutes, like Jo would have). ( The Bob theorising bit ) ( The horse theorising bit ) Before that, I'd ridden Benny in the school, just some dressage basics in walk. He was being a bit of an idiot about going into one corner, by the orchard, which makes me wonder if our grass snake is back. I'm very pleased if so, because it can help the little owl to keep the rodent population down: (Ok, it's a bit Sammy The Brown Pixel, but he's quite shy so I took that from the house! Click to embiggen. Which is now a word!) After I'd ridden, while we were waiting for the Back Lady, I shut the gates to the field and the road and left them by the school, where the grass is in need of a trim. When I went back half an hour later to get them, GB was mooching around in the school (he quite likes to have a little run around in there for old times' sake, and he *loves* to have a good roll on the nice big, flat, soft surface) and Benny was... standing in the middle of the field eating grass. I suppose, if he's going to jump the gate, it's better that he goes into the field rather than out of it...? (I'm reminded of the way he tried to jump into the field when we first got him.) Other things? I've been saying for a good year that there's something wrong with a couple of keys on my Macbook keyboard, and a couple of weeks ago the spacebar started to go iffy as well, which is good timing as apparently they've now admitted that it's a Thing and will (hopefully, as this is the original and worst design) give me a new keyboard: handy, as I've now had this for long enough that the keycaps are wearing off! My wrists are misbehaving. They were really bad a couple of weeks ago (I always struggle at this time of year, from weeding), but seemed to have improved. I am finding that my right hand is going numb whenever I drive or ride, which is annoying. I've been off the sewing, because of this (and visitors), but have done two swans so far. My mother said the other day (from Greece) that my sister said that their lawn was all brown, because it had been so dry. I woke up today to the news that the moors are burning, so I guess it really has been dry there. Hope they manage to get it under control. I'm quite glad that my brother-in-law is retired from the fire service. Link 9 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?

Well that explains that.... ♥Jun. 11th, 2018 // 10:15 am♥ [Tags | bob the dog, pictures ] Even though it's well over a week since Bob had his stitches out, we'd still been putting his pooch pants on him because he kept worrying at the scabs. We did stop using the cone a few days ago, with no problem, and last night he managed to get his pants off but didn't do anything too drastic, so we left him to it. He was having a bit of a lick at it this morning, while I was mucking out, and when I went to check he wasn't doing any damage I saw that he'd got the scab off and revealed this: ( Almost entirely non-gory picture of Bob's almost entirely healed wound, just pink skin and a little scab ) Which explains why he's still been fussing at it. He's now re-empanted, and we're back to the vets tomorrow to have the remaining stitch removed.... Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Tomatoes ♥Jun. 7th, 2018 // 04:40 pm♥ [Tags | pictures ] Supermarket vs veg box: 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?

Couture de chien ♥May. 20th, 2018 // 03:46 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, pictures ] After several attempts to do things with darts, bits of string and safety pins, Bob continued to look like a teenage boy wearing trousers several sizes too big, complete with regularly tripping over them. I went for a more radical re-design, which has given him an oddly piratical air but seems to be working (even when he spent ten minutes rolling around on the lawn). Fingers crossed! Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

Baggy trousers... ♥May. 19th, 2018 // 11:22 am♥ [Tags | bob the dog, pictures ] My t-shirts don't fit Bob as well as they fitted Jo: Better than the Cone Of Shame, though! Link 2 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?

Signs of summer ♥May. 3rd, 2018 // 11:58 am♥ [Tags | angelo, birdies, ducks, pictures ] The swallows have arrived, and are checking out the stables for nest spots: And GB's summer coat is coming through (slowly), and as ever it's much more white than it was last year. (For some reason, only his summer coat is going white while his winter coat is still dark all over.) The bloody runners still aren't laying, though. They'd better get a move on, before we decide it's orange sauce time! Am considering putting Erzulie on a lead, so that she can't keep dashing into the barn looking for nest spots. Link Who loves you?

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