I Know, I know ... I've made all sorts of promises and commitments to maintain the Journal and, yet again, it is the best part of a week before I get my backside into gear and put virtual pen to paper.
I'd say I hope it's worth waiting for, but I am pretty sure that the mundane comings and goings here at home are probably not that enthralling. Here is a concise account of the past few days.
Wednesday, 28th August, 2024
Despite having had three hours of sleep during the day on Tuesday, I slept like a log last night. However, I woke feeling irritable and out of sorts.
I did my best to get motivated in the garden and 30% and I transplanted some plants to the recently cleared area of the large herbaceous perennial bed at the rear of the house.
I also ended up being responsible for the blanching and freezing of a veritable mountain of runner beans that had been picked.
Thursday, 29th August, 2024
Over the past week I have been peering at my beetroot plants and have noticed that they appear to be developing quite reasonable sized roots. The beet seed was planted on the 15th of July, so that was barely six weeks ago.
I am surprised at how quickly they have grown with minimal care, other than a thinning two weeks after sowing. I pulled a root to see how they were doing and was quite amazed that they are certainly big enough* to be pickled as baby beets. I'll give them another week or two, but they'll be picked soon to let a little more light fall on my leek plants.
In the late morning Pete the Beekeeper turned up and we headed down the road to one of his apiaries to collect my second nucleus hive. This was sited up in the orchard alongside nuc#1 and a new queen will be introduced in the next couple of days.
In the evening I headed over to Fladbury for an evening of fishing with B&B. Bubbles caught an impressive Bream, but he wasn't enthused at all by this catch. The fish was unceremoniously returned to the water without even a quick picture as a momento. Apparently he dislikes them as they give little fight once hooked and are easy to reel in. I'd have been delighted to catch the fish as it was the only one any of us saw all evening!
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* Golfball sized
Friday, 30th August, 2024
Friday was a relatively quiet day, although it was a case of very cloud having a silver lining. Mummy Sheila's freezer had been accidentally switched off and she presented us with two lovely joints of beef that had defrosted and needed cooking immediately. 30% placed them in the slow cooker on a bed of sliced onions and the kitchen has smelt heavenly all day.
In the afternoon our local watercolour artist and his wife arrived for an hour of damson picking in the garden. I was happy to help, as Stella's damson jam is beautiful, and we have been promised a jar or two. The hour of fruit picking became most of the afternoon as we took a wander around the garden and had tea on the patio. We may be seeing more artists in the near future as Stella thinks the corner of our orchard may provide some interesting views for the Dormston Doodlers to sketch.
Late in the afternoon TP arrived with his BMW prepped for his motorcycle tour to France and Spain. His visit will be brief as we learnt that he will be leaving at five thirty tomorrow morning to make the eleven o'clock ferry from Dover.
Saturday, 31st August, 2024
Today was mostly taken up with gardening and beekeeping. I watered the vegetable garden in the morning and then headed up to the orchard to check on nuc #1.
It didn't take long to inspect the five frames in the nuc and I easily identified the queen with the green mark on her thorax. There had been no problems with her exit from the queen cage and she seemed happy wandering across the brood combs.
I had turned up prepared*, so the entire colony was transferred to a full sized brood box with an additional six frames of foundation. I gave them a couple of litres of sugar syrup, hoping this will encore the young bees to draw out the foundation in to fresh comb.
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* I long ago learnt that when beekeeping you need to plan ahead and take absolutely everything you think you might need. There is nothing worse than being halfway through a colony inspection and needing an item of kit that is back in the beekeeping shed. Today I took a brood box, a crown board, an open mesh floor and a roof just incase they were needed.
Sunday, 1st September, 2024
This morning 30% and I headed over to the Architectural Antiques dealer that we visited about a month ago. 30% had spotted a copper contained that she thought might be suitable for repurposing in to a water feature.
On inspection we realised that the old washing copper could be used as the cistern for the water feature, but that very little of it would be on display. It was a less than perfect solution so we decided to continue our search. It was a good job we did, as lent up against a wall behind another item was a large hexagonal stone. It is about 25" across and about 7" high and will be absolutely perfect for a millstone type of water feature.
Clearly I will be digging a large hole in the not too distant future!
In the afternoon 30%'s half sister paid us a visit with her rather complicated family.* We had a pleasant afternoon chatting and drinking tea in the sunshine and I even managed to persuade boyfriend and stepson by marriage** Dan to help me position the new chicken house up in the orchard.
It was then a case of revolving doors as Bobbyn and Bubbles arrived as "D" and her clan left. We had a lovely evening sharing a Chinese takeaway courtesy of China Twon and B&B are the best of guests as they left relatively early allowing us to collapse and vegetate on the sofa for the remainder of the evening.
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*Seriously, DO NOT ask!
** I did say it was complicated!
Monday, 2nd September, 2024
This morning we did very little other than ensure lifestock was fed and watered and that all was well in the garden.
In the early afternoon we headed in to Worcester and I had punctal plugs inserted in an attempt to alleviate my dry eye condition. All was well until the local anaesthetic wore off and I spent the evening feeling like I had had a bucket of sand thrown in my face.
We did also head over to Bromsgrove to pick up a drilled piece of slate that was very attractively priced on Facebook Marketplace. This is likely to be incorporated in to the water feature at some point.
Watch this space, but don't hold your breath.
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