Days of rest

 This week my afternoons have featured very long siestas, combined with a tendency to do as little as possible.  Perhaps I came back from the European trip more exhausted than I thought?

So, it will come as no surprise that today was another lazy day.

We headed out down the lane with the dogs early, before the heat set in. We were out and back before nine o'clock, but it was still very warm by the time we returned home.

My morning was spent working on The Journal entry covering the bike trip, and the main points from another couple of days were noted down.

The afternoon included another huge sleep, before we got ourselves tidied up. This evening we joined Bubbles and Bobbyn for a curry at The Mother Huff Cap at Great Alne. 

This restaurant and bar specialises in Nepalese and Indian food and we had a rather good curry. I may seem a little churlish, but that was all I can say. It was a decent curry. For some reason I am no longer as enthused by a curry as I used to be, and now regard it as a spiced chicken or lamb stew, nothing more.

Don't get me wrong, I do like a curry, but I now find little to rave about. There are plenty of good Indian Restaurants in these parts that serve decent food but, but after forty odd years of eating their food, I find their menus are all pretty similar, and the same can be said for the eating experience.

Perhaps I need to try one of the Michelin starred Indian Restaurants?

Another haircut

 Saturday turned out to be very similar to Friday.

The weather is very warm, but the skies are frequently overcast, and there is an annoying wind that deters me from gardening. Mind you, it is so dry out there, that we are doing little more than watering at present.

So, my preference is to stay indoors at the moment, and I needed something to justify this.

With the clippers still unboxed, from yesterday's grooming session, it was now Hobson's turn. The Grooming School have reported that he can be an utter pain to clip, but I found him to be quite well behaved. 

By lunchtime I had trimmed his coat back with a #5F blade and he was looking rather smart with a neat topknot and ears.  I should mention that he now looked quite tidy, provided that you didn't look at his feet.

After lunch I attempted to tidy up his feet, and that was the point when his cooperative nature dissipated. He obviously doesn't like the sensation of the clippers on his toes.

I also found that my Heiniger mini clipper just wouldn't work on the hair around his toes. It may be that the blade needs sharpening, so, for the moment, it looks like I will have to persevere with a full sized clipper and blade ... he isn't going to like that at all!

It's warming up

 A heatwave is expected over the next few days, with temperatures expected to peak in the low 30's on Monday.

Both 30% and I enjoy the warm weather, but it is no fun for the dogs. Both Whiffler and Hobson currently have quite long coats. It is, therefore, time for them to be clipped.

A couple of #5FC (6.3mm) blades* were ordered a couple of days ago, and were due to arrive today. In the meantime, I set to trimming Whiffler's topknot and ears. It seems that the students at the grooming school have opted to style Whiffler with a luxuriant topknot and ears.  These have developed tangles and knots over recent weeks and it is time for some serious pruning.

I spent this morning attending to his coiffure with anti-tangle spray, a comb and hairdressing scissors. After much faffing around, I am reasonably pleased with the result.  Although, I have to admit that, as long as the scissors are close at hand, there is always a tendency to just tidy up a minor imperfection.

Phil the postie arrived with perfect timing, and the #5 blades were unpacked and put to work.

Over the next couple of hours, Whiffler's coat was shorn right back. We took several breaks to allow him to rest, and for me to vacuum up the clippings.

At the end of the day, he looks quite respectable, and I just need to tidy up his rear feet to finish off the job.

As I mentioned yesterday, Whiffler is about to celebrate his eleventh birthday, and it is apparent that he now a senior citizen. The Grooming School have advised that he copes with grooming sessions well, but I have my suspicions that there is an element of self-interest involved.

He has a very calm nature and is, therefore, an ideal candidate for an inexperienced student. Today I noticed how quickly he became fatigued. It is definitely time he was retired and groomed at his own pace at home.

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* #7FC blades cut the coat to 3.1mm, which is probably a little short when we consider when they are next scheduled to be clipped.

Peaked too early

As the title of today's Journal entry suggests, I most definitely peaked too early today.

I was out of the house by half past seven this morning for a check-up with the Ophthalmologist. Amazingly, I was seen, tested and exiting the clinic before my eight thirty appointment time. My IOP readings are good and, apparently, my readings and scans will be reviewed by a practitioner, and I'll be alerted if there are any concerns.

I was home by nine o'clock, and had time for a quick coffee before Whiffler and Wilson were bundled in to the car for an appointment at the Vet's.

We wanted to check on Wilson's vaccination status and Whiffler has developed a fleshy lump on his lower lip. 

Whiffler had a similar growth a couple of years ago, which was removed. We had had the growth tested, at that time, and it was found to be a malignant melanoma. We were obviously concerned that the melanoma had returned.

Our Vet checked out Wilson and his medical history and confirmed that he was up to date with his jabs. She also gave him a once over, as he is scheduled to be castrated on the 7th of July. With Wilson checked over, it was now Whiffler's turn.

Emma the Vet had a long look at the lump and then fetched Whiffler's paper records to check the date and diagnosis of the previous lump. She confirmed that it was likely to be a return of the melanoma, and recommended that we get it excised.

She added that he was in great shape for an eleven year old dog and that it had been two years since the previous growth had been removed. In that time he had not developed any other symptoms or growths. It was therefore her opinion that the operation was worthwhile. 

She commented that, if the growth returned in a similar timescale, he would be a very senior thirteen years old.

So, now both Whiffler and Wilson will be going under the knife on the seventh.

Back at home I had an enormous kip on the sofa, before hauling my lazy backside outside. I managed to get the water butts filled from the well,* but little else.

I did say that I peaked too early today.

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* I checked the level and it is currently about 12' below ground level. I replaced the well pump back in 2023, and, at that time, calculated that it is about 50' deep.

Back in the groove

Wilson is settling in nicely, and, day by day, we are becoming familiar with his personality. 

It is fair to say that he is a good boy, but can be a little possessive and temperamental. His temper usually manifests as the occasional growl or barking, but these are becoming fewer as time passes.  He is wary of TP, and it is possible that this is because he originally lived in a home with a young man with anger issues.

However, the relationship with TP is improving slowly, and each visit will, hopefully, reduce Wilson's anxiety.

We also have Wilson booked in for castration in a couple of weeks, which should help with curbing his  hormonal behaviour.

Now, the reason I started with a summary of Wilson's progress was because today I unboxed the clippers as I planned to trim the fur on his face. This is another of those canine care activities that could go horribly wrong! 30% has been brushing him regularly and he seems to be quite happy with grooming, but, as they say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating".

I put a #10 blade in the clippers and sat Wilson down. I have to say that he was an absolute angel to clip, and didn't even wriggle as I ran the blades over the sensitive end of his nose and over his eyes. 

That is another significant milestone passed in his integration in to our little pack.*

Phil the postie turned up shortly before lunch and carefully handed over a small package marked Live Animals in Transit. He is familiar with the honey bee requeening process, as he has delivered a few in previous years, and is interested in how the hives are doing.

I carefully opened the package and checked that the queen was alright. She is not particularly large, and I can only hope that her size will increase as she settles in to the hive and starts to lay.** I placed a drop of water on the queen cage*** and put it in a cool dark place until I was ready to introduce her to her new home.

The introduction took place in the early afternoon, and all I can do now is wait a week and hope that the requeening is successful.

The rest of the afternoon was spent thinning my carrots. I really must remember to dilute the seed more when I next sow a crop, as I pulled hundreds of mini carrots from the raised bed to make space for my crop.

So, here ends Wednesday's Journal entry. I'm definitely back home and back in the groove.

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* Mind you, I haven't clipped his feet yet!

** The massive assumption here is that the colony accepts her, rather than deciding that she is an intruder, and killing her!

*** I had no idea how long she had been in transit, so wanted to ensure that she, and her attendant workers, were hydrated.

Now I need to crack on with the garden

 It was important that I found time to inspect the hives yesterday, as they really should be looked at every seven or eight days from late March through to September. Fortunately the colonies had showed no sign of swarming nor starvation, and no other problems had arisen whilst I was away.

With the bees taken care of, I had nothing that I must do today, and I found time to take stock of the garden.

In my regular calls to 30%, she had indicated that the weather had been very hot, with not a drop of rain.  I could see that she had not been exaggerating. I was shocked to see parched areas and virtually no sign of growth on the lawns ... there was no way they would need mowing until after this dry spell breaks.

I decide to settle back in to garden mode gently and spent some time this morning removing the side shoots from the tomatoes and tying the vines up to their supports. I also took a quick look at my carrot seedlings and added "thin carrots" to my virtual to-do list.*

That was pretty much all I achieved today, other than a monumental kip in the afternoon ... the bike tour was obviously more tiring than I thought!

There was one other episode from today that I felt was worth mentioning. 

A few weeks ago 30% commented that she had found some droppings up in the orchard that were significantly larger than one would expect from the occasional Muntjac visitor.  We have a trail camera, and, a couple of weeks ago, I set this up overlooking one of the larger gaps in the hedgerow to the adjacent fields.

This morning I removed the camera and sifted through the video clips. I can report that we can add Fallow Deer to the list of orchard visitors, as we had a couple of clips clearly showing this large deer with their unmistakeable dappled coat. There were also rabbits, muntjac and several appearances by a fox.**

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* That list also has "investigate parsnips" to see if I can find anything worth saving amongst the weeds!

** The little sod is even coming in daylight, which means 30%'s plan to release the chickens will have to be put on hold.

I'm back

 I made it back from the Black Forest tour yesterday afternoon.

Once I have had time to collect my thoughts, I'll summarise where we went, what we did and how I just about managed to avoid telling one of the group that he was an overbearing know-it-all prick!

But, for now, I'll just run over my first day back at home. It relates, mostly, to bees and honey.

TP stopped over last night and asked for a couple of jars of honey to take back to Cardiff. 30% had reported that honey had been selling well over the past ten days. In other words; supplies were low. So first job of the day was to get a batch of honey warmed, bottled and labelled.

While it slowly liquified in a hot water bath, TP and I took the dogs for a walk down the lane. On our return I got the first batch bottled, and set another batch to liquify.

We all lunched together and TP headed off home shortly after.

I then needed a restorative nap, before I donned my bee suit and headed up to the hives.

I started with Hive #3, and was delighted to report that the queen has finally started to lay. I could see plenty of larvae and two frames of capped worker brood. I added a queen excluder and a super to the hive and hope that the colony will increase significantly over the next few weeks.

Hive #2 was next on my list. It, too, is doing really well. There are several frames of brood and I caught sight of the queen as she wandered across the frames. The colony temperament is not too bad. They were prone to get a little stroppy, but soon calmed with a couple of puffs from the smoker.  I'll keep any eye on them and see if they settle over time.

I finally got to Hive #3, and it was exactly as expected. The little brood present was predominantly drone brood, and this is definitely indicative of a failing queen. I located her quite easily and euthanised her. I then promptly hit the internet and got a new queen ordered ... she should be here in the next couple of days.

So that's it for my first day back. It's lovely to be home, in the company of 30% and the dogs.  I've had an interesting break and will, eventually, get around to jotting down my traveller's tales.

Packing and last minute jobs

My main achievement for Thursday is that I have now, mostly, packed my bags in preparation for the trip to Germany.

I wisely purchased a pair of inner bags for my panniers, and this made packing a doddle. These are now sat on the bedroom floor, and will be put on the bike tomorrow. 

A sad commentary on my age is the ridiculous quantity of prescription and non-prescription medicines that completely fill one sub-compartment of my rather natty luggage.*

Once I was reasonably assured that I could survive a week with the items that I had packed, I headed out to the garage and adjusted the screen angle of the ConnectedRide cradle. Hopefully that will make the phone screen easier to see.  I also made a tweak to the phone settings in the hope that the sat nav instructions will be audible.

My back is no worse, and I still plan to make a judgement on arrival in Folkestone.

My final must do was to take a look at the bees before I abandon them for ten days.

I found the queen quite easily in Hive #3, but there is still no sign of eggs or brood. I hope it is just a case of she is taking her time to settle in and start to lay.

Hive #2 is doing really well. I didn't spot the queen, but the four frames of capped brood indicate that she is present and building up the strength of the colony.

I finally got to Hive #1. I found the queen quite easily, and, as with the last inspection, there is very little brood in the colony. I think she is failing, and was hoping to find supersedure cells, but, so far, nothing. If the colony is the same when I return from Germany I think I will requeen it.

Right, that's it ... I'm just about ready to go.

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* insulin, vitamins, eye drops or various types ... the list goes on ... and on!

Well that works!

 The back is certainly no worse today, but I'm not sure whether it is any better.

I dosed up on painkillers this morning, and decided to do as little as possible. I did, however, have a couple of must dos that could not be put off.

After a lazy morning, I headed out to the garage and fitted the panniers to my bike. I then installed the BMW ConnectedRide cradle and slotted in my mobile phone. Bike, cradle and phone paired automatically, and it was then a moments work to access the Motorrad app and type in a destination.

Within a couple of minutes I was off down the road and was truly impressed with the performance of the Satellite Navigation system and the way it operates in conjunction with the bike's LCD screen. The instructions are clear and the map view on the phone is lovely and clear. I'm really pleased that I bought the cradle and it is much less costly than the BMW Satellite Navigation unit.*

There were a couple of niggles ... I need to adjust the angle of the ConnectedRide cradle and the audio volume on my Fodsport intercom is still bloody crap!

As for riding with my unloaded** panniers for the first time ... I didn't notice they were attached.

Finally, my back ... It's no worse, but no better. I plan to ride down to Folkestone on Friday and make a judgement on Saturday morning. As I mentioned yesterday; the last thing I want is to be stranded in Germany with a bike I can't ride.

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* Which has very poor reviews

** I plan to pack light.

I hope it's not serious

 I woke this morning with a twinge my back.

It was nothing awful, but I had definitely done something to it. Looking back, I had mowed the back lawns yesterday and also loaded an exercise bike in to the trailer. 

I wondered if I had pulled a muscle, while hoping that it wasn't a recurrence of the problems I had with my back in 2023.

With the German motorcycle tour getting underway on Friday, an injured back was the last thing I wanted. My inner hypochondriac went in to overdrive, and had me imagining being stranded in Deutschland unable to ride my motorcycle.

I took a couple of ibuprofen and decided to have a lazy day. Unfortunately the pills didn't lessen the pain, so I upped the anti and took couple of Tramadol too. 

For the uninitiated this is the pharmacological equivalent of downing half a bottle of good wine. I subsequently spent the next three hours dozing on my bed.

Dot 'n Dave paid a visit in the afternoon and we spent a few hours sitting in the sun catching up with each others' news.

On their departure I downed another couple of Tramadol and snoozed on the sofa for the evening. 

I was so out out it, I didn't bother to eat.*

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* 30% was out with the cinema club

How big is it?

Monday started with the obligatory dog walk.

Having ticked that off the list, I then entered a period of extended pottering. This included fascinating activities, such as an inspection of the tomatoes in the greenhouse, and watering of the veg patch.

It was during this light gardening that 30% happened to mention that she "was going to pick up an exercise bike this evening".

Now this didn't come as a massive surprise, as she wants to improve her level of fitness, and had just missed out on buying a recumbent exercise bike at the weekend.

I should also point out that I am fully aware of the actual meaning of "I'm going to collect an exercise bike this evening." What this really means is "I'm going to pick up an exercise bike this evening and you're coming to help me ... whether you want to, or not!"

There is no way that 30% would be able to load an exercise bike in to her car on her own and no guarantee that the seller would be willing to assist.  My assistance was therefore mandated.  At this point I enquired as to the size of the exercise bike and whether it would fit in the car.  

My dear wife hadn't thought to ask either of these questions during the negotiations for the purchase of this exercise equipment ... She never ceases to amaze me with both her optimism and complete lack of forethought.

So, after an afternoon that included mowing the lawns at the back of the house, and the replacement of the LED strip light in the shed, we headed in to deepest, darkest Redditch.

After arriving and handing over thirty quid, it rapidly became apparent that the bike did not disassemble easily,* and there was no way the bloody thing would fit in the back of the X3.

It was therefore necessary to return home, hitch up the trailer, and drive back in to Redditch in order to collect the damned thing.

Now I love my wife dearly, but there are times when I just wish she would put in a little more thought, when we are executing on one of her impulses.

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* I had the foresight to bring an extensive socket and driver set, and a large screwdriver

Problems with my helmet

Sunday was a fairly lazy day.

I pottered around the place and, on occasion, attempted to gather together my Germany trip essentials. I finally took the time to attend to my crash helmet,* as I am not happy with the fit, nor the installation of the intercom unit. 

For some strange reason, every time I put on the helmet I find that the pinna of my right ear gets folded over. This isn't particularly uncomfortable on a short ride, but on long journeys it niggles. I'm also not sure about the location of the intercom speakers, as, at high speeds, I can't hear a thing.

I had already made the decision to replace the helmet later on in the year, but, after faffing around with the lid for twenty minutes, I made the decision; there was no way I was going to put up with that ill fitting crash hat for the upcoming trip.

I therefore spent the next hour considering the fit and suitability of my other helmets.  The Shark Evoline 3 has a delaminated visor, is noisy and well overdue for replacement too. I finally looked at my Shark Explore-R. I had bought this on a whim a few years ago, and quickly decided that I wasn't overly keen on the plastic peak attached to this full face lid. As a result it had sat in the cupboard mostly unused. I wondered about the possibility of removing the peak and replacing the detachable goggles with the spare visor supplied.

After much faffing, and a narrowly avoided temper tantrum, I eventually worked out how the peak was removed.** Attaching the visor was a doddle, and I also found out that the helmet liner has pre-cut apertures for the intercom speakers ... Result!

And, as for the fit, it's lovely!

So, I did manage to achieve something today.

We also left Wilson home alone for the first time, as we popped over to help Bubbles celebrate his birthday. It was a fairly low key barbecue with a few friends, and we had a pleasant couple of hours.

A special mention does go to Jess. Have you ever met someone who had a massive impact on you  ... but not in a good way?  Jess was one of those people!

She is an ex-primary school teacher*** who has a complete inability to listen. She was constantly in transmit mode, and was only interested in patronising her audience with the benefit of her views and limited knowledge ... We've only owned standard poodles for fifteen years and, funnily enough, did not need to be told the origins of the breed and their elaborate clips!

And, as for Wilson ... we arrived home to find no dramas at all ... another result!

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* Shark Vision-R

** A single thumb screw and brute force!

*** We have a saying "A teacher generally only knows slightly more than the age group they teach."

Germany is fast approaching

As the week drew to a close the weather forecast for Saturday had been suggesting that heavy rain was likely.  This was not welcome, as Bubbles had booked us in for a morning's clay shooting at the Cotswold Shooting Ground in Childswickham.

On rising I could see that we had experienced a few showers overnight, but the weather was reasonable. There was a cool breeze, but no rain, for the moment.

After my early morning chores, I threw my gun and shooting bag in the car, and headed across the Vale of Evesham for a fun morning's shooting. My score was dreadful, but I had a pleasant time catching up with Bubbles' and Ben's news.

And, even better than that, not a single drop of rain fell from the sky.

In the afternoon my first job was to remove the touring screen from the BMW, so that I could affix my Crit ' Air* sticker to the inside. I know that I should have done this on Thursday, when I originally fitted the screen, but I foolishly didn't.

Basically I am now in the process of slowly getting ready for the tour to Germany. I still haven't ridden my bike with the panniers fitted, but I am sure I will get to that before next Friday ... I bloody well hope it is still manageable.

So, as each day passes, an item or two is ticked off the virtual list and/or is added to the pile in the bedroom. 

As my holiday preparations continue I realised that my stock of bottled honey is running short, and I am hoping 30% will manage my little retail establishment** while I am away. I therefore spent a couple of hours liquifying and bottling the first batch from this year's honey harvest.

I now have twelve jars bottled, labelled, and ready for sale. That should be enough to keep her going.

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* A French vehicle emissions certification that permits access to municipal clean air zones

** A tiny little roadside table, not even worthy of the term, "stall"

Today I 'ave been mostly ...

... Clipping The Rat.

Dog #4 has been looking very scruffy recently, and the fact that I have just clipped Whiffler and Hobson's faces have made her look rattier still.  With the weather likely to warm up, I really did need to get my shit together and give her a damned good haircut.

Now I have recounted the fact that The Rat does not like going to the groomers on several occasions, so I won't bore you again. I will simply advise that she is such a fidget that she just gets a 7FC* all over. Actually that's not strictly true, as I do clip her face with a #10 blade.**

So, today has been mostly spent clipping the dog. I took plenty of breaks to allow the blades to cool down, and for the cordless clippers to recharge.  These allowed The Rat to rest a little, and I also used several treats to keep her reasonably cooperative.

I can report that I now have a much skinnier looking dog.

That was my most significant achievement. I also finally removed the "no longer wet" supers from Hives #1 and #2.  These were reasonably clean, but had been left a little too long, andthe bees had started to store a little nectar in some of the frames. To get them totally honey free, I stacked them in the carport. Within a few minutes they had been located by scout bees, and were buzzing; with hundreds of bees busily cleaning them up.

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* This will only mean something to someone who clips dogs. A 7FC blade is a #7 Finish Cut blade and it cuts the dog's coat to 3.2 mm in length.

** 1.5 mm

Post Script

I thought that The Rat's coat was looking a little overgrown. It was only when I checked that I realised she hadn't been clipped since last September.

That's gotta go!

At our first encounter with Wilson, we both noticed that he had a rather peculiar clip. 

He had a fairly short topknot which extended down the back of his neck. We both agreed that it made him look like he had a mullet.  Now neither of us are particularly stylish, but there is no way that any of our dogs is wandering around with the world's worst hairstyle.

As the title of today's post makes clear, it had to go!

After several days of nagging, I finally got out the clippers to remove the offending mullet.

I was aware that Wilson is used to being groomed, but I had no idea how he was going to respond to me sitting him down and attacking the back of his neck with my cordless Andis. It only took a couple of minutes to trim back his coat and I can report that he was quite happy to let me do it. 

Of course, a complete clip is a different matter, and I think I'd like to do that myself before we take him to the dog groomers. After all, I want to be certain of his temperament, before he is inflicted on an unsuspecting trainee.

I have already mention that I had been nagged politely requested to get rid of Wilson's mullet. This nagging request was multi layered, and I had also been instructed asked to trim Whiffler and Hobson's faces.  This was achieved without a fuss, but there was one more Herculean labour to be accomplished ... Dog #4 aka The Rat needed a complete clip!

I have previously documented the fact that The Rat does not like going to the groomers, so will not bore you again. She does not like being groomed, so today was not going to be fun! However the weather gods had smiled upon her, and she had earned a reprieve.

30% had foolishly taken the dogs out for an early morning walk and they had got quite wet. Now a quick face clip is no problem, but there was no way I could clip The Rat until she was completely dry.  We have discussed this at length, and it is the view of Ratty that she won't be fully dry "until the back end of July!"

Now the preceding paragraphs are usually sufficient for one day, but today turned out to be more productive than expected.

The bees were overdue for an inspection, but the weather would not oblige. It has either been sunny, but very windy or cool or showery. Neither of these are ideal conditions to open up a hive. But, after a wet start to the day, the weather finally cleared in the early afternoon and I managed to work my way through all three hives.

I can report that the young queen in Hive #3 was spotted, but there is still no sign of eggs or brood. I am reasonably confident that she has been mated, so, hopefully, she will start to lay in the next week.

I then moved on to Hive #2. This would be the first inspection since I took a shook swarm from it at the beginning of May.  After working my way through half a dozen frames in the brood box, I was delighted to see a frame of capped worker brood. The queen had hatched, mated, and returned to the colony. Clearly she was also laying well. As I continued my inspection I actually caught sight of her wandering across a frame. Satisfied that all was well, the hive was reassembled and the colony left to rebuild.

I finally checked the third hive. For the past few weeks I have found it challenging to locate the queen, and there has been very limited quantities of brood. Today's inspection yielded the same result. I located the queen and there was a couple of frames of brood, but, at this time of year, the brood box should contain six or seven frames rammed with brood.

I think I may have a failing queen. I am now faced with a dilemma; do I attempt to re-queen the colony, or do I leave them alone and hope that a natural supersedure will take place?* The fact that I will be away in Germany from next Friday makes re-queening challenging. On balance I think that I will leave the colony alone. I can always buy in a new queen when I get back, if there is no signs of supersedure.

Right, I'm almost finished! On the subject of the motorcycle tour to Germany, I have purchased a larger touring screen to make longer trips a little more comfortable. The screen arrived today, and eventually got fitted to the R1250R.**

I've finished now ... I promise!

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* As has happened with Hive #3

** After a call to the retailer to got a copy of the correct fitting instructions.

Lazy Day

If it weren't for the fact that I affixed a UK sticker to the number plate of the R1250R,* I would have achieved absolutely nothing today.

Instead I did some more socialising, as we hosted a local art group this morning. 

The Dormston Doodlers are a delightful group of, mostly senior, ladies. The use their hobby of sketching as an excuse to get together, chat and eat cake. 

This morning our garden and orchard was their chosen venue and the weather Gods smiled upon them.  They dotted themselves at various locations around the garden, and, were soon making preliminary sketches.  Over the course of the morning these were developed in to some accomplished works. Their chosen mediums included pencil, pen and ink and watercolours.

I was particularly taken by the watercolour of Rose Cottage, and the pencil sketch of the huge Bramley apple tree up in the orchard.

They really were a lovely bunch of people and many of them have considerable talent ... both at doodling and also at making cakes!

So that was the morning. 

My afternoon was incredibly lazy, and was spent snoozing on the sofa. I blame the weather for this slothfulness. It had turned cool and blustery, making me put off the planned inspection of my hives.

I did make it to Tai Chi this evening and had a good session. Swotty Caroline only occasionally impeded my view of Kung Po Fran. I also made a slight adjustment to my assessment of Jane. She has been upgraded from "the woman who just doesn't listen" to the more succinct "moron". She achieved this promotion when she told us all that she had a smartphone, but was insistent that she did not want apps loaded on it!

Is it me? 

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* A legal requirement for driving in France and Germany, apparently. 

Good Mates

The weather was cool, grey and wet this morning, and I was home alone.  30% had a very early appointment at the hospital in Kidderminster, so I was left in charge of the house and pets.

After checking out the weather, I made an executive decision and our normal exercise routine was cancelled; instead we had a literary morning, and I finally finished Terry Pratchett's Small Gods.*

Guilt then set in, and I headed to the kitchen, where I attempted to assuage these feelings by making the room look less like a blender explosion had just happened.

30% arrived home shortly before lunch and reported that all was well. She was very complimentary about the service received from the NHS, and we are both rapidly coming to the conclusion that parts of the NHS work brilliantly, and wonder why the rest is so appalling?

My afternoon was spent in the company of Grandad Jack.  We had attempted to link up with Judge Dread too, but he had bailed; claiming a leg injury or some such Southern Softy nonsense! Instead, Jack pitched up here and we spent a pleasant few hours drinking tea, talking nonsense, playing illness Top Trumps,** and taking a tour of the garden and sheds.

Jack left laden with eggs and honey. He later reported, via the medium of WhatsApp, that our eggs must have health giving qualities as he had managed to eat two of them for his breakfast. This is the first time that he has eaten this much since his treatment started.***

It was lovely to see Jack, who, for some strange reason, seems to enjoy coming over here, being leapt upon by the dogs and having the piss taken out him mercilessly by me.

We both agreed that we should do it more often.

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* I know! I really do need to broaden my literary choices.

** Jack won, he has just been given the all clear after cancer treatment!

*** This is brilliant news as he is still having problems eating as a result of the radiotherapy treatment to his neck and throat

Finally, they're in the ground

For the past six weeks I have been religiously putting my brassica seedlings out in the garden, and then returning them to the shelter of the greenhouse overnight.

They have grown reasonably well, but I am not delighted with the young plants. I don't know whether it is the seed compost, the containers, or my watering regime, but they just aren't great.

Anyway, today I finally found the time to get them in to the ground. A row was marked out in the veg plot between two areas recently mulched with horse manure, and the plants were spaced at 18" intervals. The row is planted with a dozen savoy cabbages, and a couple of cauliflowers were added to complete the row.

I had another four small cauliflower plants, and these were planted in a mini row over by the French Beans. 

A keen gardener once told me that it was a waste of time growing cabbages, as the crop would be destroyed by pigeons and cabbage white butterflies. Now I love savoy cabbage, and I was not going to be put off by this negativity.  I purchased some metal hoops and insect netting, and I haven't looked back. Our cabbages have won first prize in the any other vegetable class at the local Horticultural Show.

As for this year's crop prospects, we'll just have to wait and see.

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* BBQ Dave; he doesn't have a positive bone in his body!

The air show weekend

Saturday was most definitely a day of two halves.

The first half of the day was spent cleaning, tidying and preparing food for our planned get-together.  By three o'clock the house was reasonable presentable, and we even had time for a short snooze before our guests arrived.

We were joined by C&S and B&H in the late afternoon for the more relaxed half of the day. We settled in the garden to chat, drink and occasionally get the binoculars out to check out the aeroplanes from the airshow. 

I can report that the coffee cake was a great success, although we quickly moved on to alcoholic beverages and savoury nibbles, and by the end of the evening we had consumed a lot of wine!

B&H left late in the evening, and the rest of us eventually made our way to our beds around midnight.

It is fair to say that very little was achieved on Sunday.

We breakfasted out in the garden; demolishing home cured bacon sandwiches and eggs; collected from the coop that very same morning.

After copious amounts of tea and coffee, we managed to summon the energy to take a walk down the lane and out along the bridleway. C&S departed late in the morning, and we were left to have a very lazy day.

One thing worth mentioning about the weekend was that Wilson was absolutely amazing. He was a little noisy when our guests arrived, but settled down within minutes and was relaxed for the rest of the time.  The boy has only been with us a dozen days, but is rapidly fitting in with us and our little pack. He still has his moments, and can be a little possessive at times, but, overall, seems to have the makings of a lovely dog.

Coffee & Walnut Cake

With guests arriving tomorrow, I thought it might be a nice idea to bake a cake.

The Air Show weekend does tend to involve a fair degree of sitting in the garden, and refreshments are always welcome. I therefore decided to extend my baking repertoire and have a go at a coffee and walnut cake.

I used Nigella's recipe, and upscaled it to suit my two 9" baking tins. The ingredients and method are summarised here.

Ingredients

• 65 g walnut pieces
• 285 g caster sugar
• 285 g unsalted butter
• 255 g plain flour
• 5 tsp instant espresso coffee powder
• 3 and a bit tsp baking powder
• ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 5 large eggs
• 1 - 2 tbsp milk

and for the buttercream

• 440 g icing sugar
• 220 g softened butter
• 3½ tsp instant espresso coffee powder
• walnut halves to decorate

Method

1. Lightly butter two 9" baking tins and line with baking parchment
2. Pre heat the oven to 160℃ (fan)
3. Add the walnut pieces and caster sugar to a food processor and pulse it until is is a fine (ish) powder
4. Add the softened butter, flour, coffee, baking powder, bicarb and eggs, and blitz it until it forms a smooth batter.
5. While still mixing, gradually add some milk. The aim is to produce a soft dropping consistency.
6. The divide the batter between the two pans
7. Bake until the sponge springs back when pressed, or a skewer comes out clean. It took about 40 minutes for a 9" cake.
8. Once baked, leave the cake to cool in the tins for about ten minutes, before turning out on to a cooling rack.

Buttercream 

1. Pulse the icing sugar in the food processor to remove any lumps
2. Blend in the softened butter to produce the buttercream frosting
3. Dissolve the espresso powder in 1 tbsp of boiling water and, while mixing the buttercream, slowly introduce to the mixture; to produce a coffee flavoured filling and topping.

I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow

The afternoon included a bit of hoeing in the veg patch and it's worth noting that it's not every day that a Lancaster bomber does a low level pass right over one's house. We also had a few strafing runs by the Red Arrows.

Cooking

 Activities took a culinary turn today.

It is the Midlands Air Show this weekend. It is centred on Ragley Hall, near Alcester in Warwickshire. This is conveniently only a couple of miles from us as the crow flies, or rather as the splendid display of aircraft and hot air balloons fly.

There is no forking out handfuls of cash for tickets and overpriced refreshments. Us cheapskates watch from our garden and do get a rather splendid view with all the comforts of home.

This weekend we will be joined by C&S, and B&H will be joining us for the first time at what is becoming an annual event.

This intro was a little long winded, but explains the reasons for my culinary activities. We have guests this weekend and it's only fair that I do my share of the cooking ... I also then stand a chance of doing less of the house cleaning that will definitely need to take place!

It had been agreed that we would be serving a honey roast ham this weekend; obviously basted with this year's honey harvest, and I was on the hook to prepare the it.

30% had purchased the gammon joint earlier in the week and, after the obligatory walk with the dogs, I put it on to simmer for three hours. While it was cooking, I headed in to Alcester and picked up a few essentials from the supermarket, including a disposable aluminium roasting tin.*

I started the afternoon by sticking cloves in to the ham, followed by a sprinkling of soft brown sugar, and a coat of this year's honey. After 40 minutes in the oven it was finished, and simply needed to cool, before being refrigerated.

That was pretty much for today. We did take another short walk with the dogs and I also adjusted the ingredients of Nigella Lawson's coffee cake recipe,** as I plan to extend my baking repertoire tomorrow.

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* The couple of quid price for one of these is well worth paying, to avoid having the clean the sticky mess that results from honey roasting a ham.

** From an 8" baking tin up to a 9" tin. Basically it's about a 25% increase

What flavour is your dog?

 Today I did close to bugger all.

In the morning I rinsed out the extractor and uncapping tray, and can finally declare that I have finished the clean up after Sunday's honey extraction.  The extractor was reassembled later in the day, and the store room is now accessible, once more.

I also finished repairing the super that I started yesterday. Basically there were two areas where the cedar sides had split, and small sections had broken away. One of these was large enough to allow ingress of bees, and this is not a good situation. Honey bees are not beyond robbing weaker hives of their stored honey, and a hole in a super would give them easy access to free food.

The repair wasn't particularly complicated. The damaged areas were cut away and routed to make regular, rectangular cutouts. I then fabricated an oak dutchman, and glued and screwed it in place to fill each of the holes. I'm rather pleased with this little repair job and it will be interesting to see how the super stands up in use.

As I said earlier, I did close to bugger all today, and the bulk of the afternoon was spent snoozing on the sofa. For some reason I felt absolutely shattered. Looking back, I suppose I have had quite a demanding few days in the preceding week.

I did also make it to Tai Chi this evening, but it was more an exercise in frustration than mindfulness ... Basically Swotty Caroline virtually glued herself to Kung Po Fran,* and it was very challenging to follow her lead for much of the session.

Finally, the recent arrival of Wilson got me thinking about the dogs in general. 

Wilson is described as a red Standard Poodle, but I think he would be better regarded as a dark apricot. Thinking about his coat colour led me to think of ways to describe him and I landed on "almost caramel" in colour.

This led me to bestow each of the dogs their own particular flavour. Wilson was, of course, salted caramel. Whiffler is a pale cream and is now definitely vermilla.** Hobson is a pale apricot colour, but he is, without doubt, banana. *** Finally we get to Dog #4 aka The Rat. Her flavour, without fear of contradiction and based on considerable evidence, is fox shit!

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* Our most excellent tutor

** It's how we say vanilla in this household

*** In the UK "nana" is an abbreviated form of banana, and is used as a gentle and affectionate rebuke for someone who is daft. Hobson is adorable, but can be an absolute fool at times.

A good day

The weather forecast for today was not pleasant reading. After a mediocre start, rain was expected to arrive by lunchtime and stick around for the rest of the afternoon.

This is far from perfect beekeeping weather, but my hives were due for an inspection.  At this time of year they need to be checked once a week. The inspections are for a variety of reasons including swarm control, disease, and, surprisingly at this time of year, starvation.

I have just taken a honey harvest, which has removed stored food from the hives. We are also about to enter a period in the British beekeeping year known as the June gap.  Basically June is surprisingly short on nectar bearing flowers. We have had the flush of fruit blossom and oilseed rape in the Spring, and now there is an interval before the Summer flowers make an appearance in July. It is, therefore, vital that the bees are checked to ensure they have sufficient food to keep them going.

I wandered up to the hives after breakfast and judged that they were sufficiently active to allow an inspection. I then headed back to the store room and gathered my equipment. This included some brood frames packed with stores, and the six supers that had been extracted on Sunday. 

The frames in these supers are still sticky with a film of honey that cannot be mechanically extracted. But the bees will collect every last sip, if the supers are placed atop the hives' crown boards ... this was my primary objective for today.

Hive #1 is currently my only hive with a laying queen. I quickly removed the two supers, noting that the lower one had a reasonable amount of stores. I then took a quick look through the brood box.  I didn't see the queen, but did spot a few larvae, so am reasonably happy that all is well. I also replaced a couple of empty brood frames with two filled with capped honey.

The hive was then reassembled with three wet supers on top of the crown board. These will be left on the hive for a few days and the bees will clean them up.

Hive #2 had a swarm cell when inspected on 6th May.  There is little point in carrying out an inspection for another week, or so. At that point I will be looking for signs that the queen has hatched, mated and started laying.  I am also aware that the colony's demand for food will have reduced, as there have been no fresh brood for three weeks, and the number of mature workers will have dropped too.  I did, however, give them three wet supers to clean up.

I was about to finish up when my eyes fell on hive #3, and I thought "Sod it, I'll have a look, it's probably not going to come to anything anyway."  This hive contained a shook swarm; taken from hive #2 on 6th May.  A subsequent inspection had shown that the queen had disappeared and a supersedure cell was found on one of the frames. The colony had then been left for nature to take its course.

I flicked through the frames, noting that there was plenty of food, but no sign of brood or eggs. As I reached the last couple of frames I spotted a very pretty queen wandering across the cells ... Fingers crossed that she will start laying in the next week or two.

The rest of the day was spent continuing the clean up of the extraction equipment and a repair to the woodwork of one of the supers.

I also had a call from the hospital regarding the results from my MRI scan.  The news is good. There is no sign of prostate cancer and no further tests are needed at this time. There will be a follow up appointment in six months time, and I will need to have a PSA test completed at that time.  If the PSA is normal I will be discharged.

This is obviously good news. I hadn't become overly worried in the past couple of weeks, and had just got on with my life.  There was little point in worrying when I hadn't even had a diagnosis.  I'll admit there were moments when I did think about a future that involved cancer treatment, but these were few, and I need to get on with other shit anyway.

The clean-up commences

It doesn't take a genius to work out that my priority for today was to clean up the sticky mess in the store room.

I rolled up my sleeves, got a bowl of hot soapy water and made a start. 

My approach was to deal with the easy items first. The honey buckets were stacked in a corned, and I then focused on the messy clutter of sieves, uncapping tools and so forth.

Over the course of the morning I made some progress and the extractor is now unbolted from its base and partially dismantled. It hasn't yet been cleaned, but I'm working myself up to that task.*

I dipped in an out of cleaning up over the course of the day. I know it needs to be done, but after the long day yesterday, the last thing I wanted was to be dealing with more sticky stuff.

Fortunately the afternoon had a welcome diversion, as 30% had invited Bubbles and Bobbyn over for coffee, a catch-up and to meet Wilson for the first time.

And that just about covers Bank Holiday Monday. I did manage to get the extractor frame and honey sieves in the dishwasher ... so they'll be nice a clean by tomorrow morning.

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* The extractor is about four feet in height and is approximately two feet in diameter. It is a large stainless steel drum on legs, with an electric motor unit to drive the central shaft. This shaft supports the cage that holds the honey frames. I am not blessed with long legs and I can only just reach the bottom of the drum when cleaning it. A few years ago I actually managed to crack a rib leaning over the edge to get it cleaned after extraction.

The Extraction

Sunday really did have an early start.

The honey supers needed to be removed from the two hives before the bees started flying. This meant that I was up there just after seven o'clock; loading the supers on to my wheel barrow.  They were quite a weight, which boded well for a good first harvest. There were also very few bees present. This indicated that my new clearer boards had worked too. I wheeled the supers down to the store room and stacked them, ready to be extracted.

It was then time for breakfast and a short walk down the lane with 30% and the dogs.

I was now at the point when I could put off the extraction no further. A bowl of hot soapy water and a towel were collected* and TP and I made start.

For the next few hours we worked our way through six honey filled supers. Each super contains ten frames of honey, each frame is double sided. That is sixty frames that needed to be uncapped before being loaded in to the centrifugal extractor.

I think I have already mentioned that the bees cap off each cell with wax once the stored nectar has been converted to honey.  These wax caps need to be removed. This is done with a knife that has a long serrated blade; very similar to a bread knife. 

This may sound straightforward, but the face of the combs can be quite uneven, and the frames can be heavy; making it a the most arduous, and tedious, part of the process.

Loading the frames in to the extractor, pressing the start button and operating the speed control are a piece of cake by comparison.

By the end of the day we had about 120 lbs of honey; filtered and stored in plastic honey buckets.

I was pleased, but every piece of extraction equipment is covered with wax and honey. I now have a monumental clean up to "look forward to" in the coming days!

Now that should have been all of the new today, but I also noticed that my carrots have made an appearance in the raised bed.  These were planted on two weeks ago, and I was concerned about the viability of the seed, but it seems that there was no need to be worried ... they are coming up like weeds! 

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* This is the most vital piece of equipment. Honey extraction is very messy, and I cannot overstate how much of a pleasure it is to, briefly, have clean hands.

The Toms are in

The new relatively* early morning routine is that we all take a short walk down the lane with the dogs.  We tend to cover a mile, or so. The aim is for the dogs to be emptied, and for the new boy to become familiar with us, his new pack and his new surroundings.

He is making good progress and can now be walked off the lead.  His recall seems to be pretty good, and he is unperturbed by horses, traffic and other dog walkers.

However we were a little concerned by his behaviour later in the morning, when TP turned up for a weekend visit.  The new boy, Wilson became quite agitated and very noisy.  He soon calmed, once TP sat down and gave him a stroke, but the behaviour was repeated each time Wilson encountered TP afresh. 

Matters improved slightly over the course of the day, but he was clearly not as comfortable with TP as he is with me and 30%.*** We can only assume that it is a response to a new person in his new territory, and that he is being somewhat protective ... Let's hope he calms over time.

Right, that's the dog news update, now on to the garden.

I got my tomatoes planted in the greenhouse, and mowed the lawns at the front of the cottage.  The garden now looks reasonably presentable, but I do have to say that my tomato plants look very small considering that it is almost June.

TP and I then took a walk around the Three Miler with Wilson, Hobson and The Rat.  This was the first time Wilson had completed this loop and he performed really well.  He did pull a little on his lead through the village, and he seemed to recognise when we were close to home; pulling to the limit of his extending lead.

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* 30% is not an early riser. She says she is and will present some waffly narrative about rising at the crack of sparrows to let the dog out for a pee. The problem with this tale is that it will not include the fact that she then returns to her bed and has a lie in until seven thirty** at the earliest!

** Eight o'clock is her more usual time of rising.

*** Apparently he shared his last home with his owner's brother; a young man with alleged anger issues.  It may be that he is wary of younger men.

Honey harvest preparations

Friday turned out to be another busy day.

After an early morning walk down the lane to empty the dogs, we loaded Hobson and his brother in to the car and headed over the Cheltenham. 

I wandered in to the Motorrad showroom and was promptly relived of a couple of hundred quid. My bike was brought from the wash bay, and I was soon heading back down the M5 towards home.

I then turned my attention towards the upcoming honey harvest, and got the extractor assembled. Then it was a case of preparing the hives.

I planned to take three supers from each of Hives #1 and #2.  Obviously honey extraction is a whole lot easier if the supers are free from bees, so the hives need to be configured to get the bees to move out of them.  The hives were given a few puffs of smoke to calm the bees, and then the three supers were taken off the hive. An empty super was added to hive to give the bees space to move in to. I then added one of my newly constructed clearer boards and replaced the three honey filled supers.

All being well, the bees will move out of the supers overnight and be prevented from returning by the clearer boards ... fingers crossed!

The rest of the day was taken up with watering the veg patch and mowing the lawns at the back of the cottage.

Apparently the forecast for the Bank Holiday weekend is not great, so I wanted to get the lawns trimmed before they got out of hand.

Today was, shall we say, unusual!

 Today can be summed up very concisely.

I got up and got busy. Then I got clean, after which I got stoned. I then got scanned and, after that, I mostly slept.

I you'd like a little more detail here we go.

The "getting up and getting busy" was because I needed to ride the R1250R over to the Motorrad Dealership in Cheltenham for its first service. 30% followed in her car,* so she could give me lift back.

The "getting clean" bit really doesn't need elaboration, but I should clarify the bit about getting stoned.

I am a claustrophobe. I really do not like being constrained in restricted spaces. Shit, I don't even like wearing polo neck jumpers! 

I have an MRI scan scheduled for this afternoon, and, on previous occasions, I have panicked, hit the alarm button and started to crawl out of the damned things, midway through the scan. I really am quite claustrophobic.

In order to reduce the "get me the fuck out of here" urges, I have previously consulted my General Practitioner and been prescribed Lorazepam.  These little pills do work a treat, and I have been known to actually sleep during previous MRI scans.

The downside is that I talk rubbish, see double, claim to be a most excellent driver and have a tendency to fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

So, having dropped off the bike, I showered and, at around eleven o'clock, I treated myself to a coffee and the prescribed medication. Within half an hour I was a little unsteady on my feet and very calm.

Mummy Sheila picked me up just before one o'clock to give me a lift to the hospital and I was definitely very chilled by then.

The scan went well. I didn't panic and, if I am honest, I was half asleep for the entire process.  I kept my eyes shut tight most of the time. I did open them on one occasion, and a mild sense of alarm started to bubble up in my addled brain by the proximity of the scanner tube. 

Anyway, I got through it, got home and was sent straight to bed by 30%. I woke around six o'clock in the evening and was so confused, that I briefly thought it was the following morning.  

It is fair to say that the rest of the evening was spent semi-conscious on the sofa.

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* With Hobson and his brother coming along for a little ride out

A quiet day, with preparations underway

 Wednesday was another quiet day spent mostly in the garden.

Our canine guest has been doing well, and is slowly integrating in to our pack.  He can be, shall we say, a little over possessive when it comes to his toys, and we have adopted a confiscation tactic to calm things down.  Overall he seems to be settling well. 

We took him for a short walk down the lane with the other three this morning and he behaved well.  He will walk to heel on a lead, but he really enjoyed walking on a longer lead, and checking out the scents in the verges.* 

We also took him for a short run in the car, as he will be having a ride out tomorrow. Again, he behaved perfectly and simply settled and snoozed.

Now moving on to the bees.

I inspected my one queen right hive yesterday and spotted the queen for the first time in three weeks ... phew.  The colony seems to be doing well and there are three supers crammed with honey, and ready for extraction.  

I plan to harvest the honey over the coming weekend and will also be removing another three supers from Hive #2. I haven't bothered inspecting this hive, as, if all has gone to plan, it has a young queen in the process of maturing, mating and taking on her regal role at the heart of the colony. There is little point in intervening in this process, so I'm leaving well alone.

The rest of my day was spent in preparing the store room for honey extraction. My honey extractor was dismantled and the interior was given a damned good scrub. It was cleaned after I last used it, but it needs to be spotless for the production of foodstuffs.

I did the same with the uncapping tray,** and then arranged the various stands and tools to create a compact, and hopefully efficient workspace. My honey sieves have been put through the dishwasher and we just need to get the honey storage buckets clean, before we're ready to go.***

The thought that my profit margin will soar when I'm selling my own honey has not escaped me!

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* and adding his own to the mix!

** The honeybees seal each cell of honey with a capping of wax. These caps need to be cut away before the frames are inserted in to the centrifugal extractor. Uncapping can be quite a messy job and an uncapping tray is a worthwhile investment to make honey harvesting a little easier.

*** That is not strictly true. I need to get spare supers and clearer boards added to the hives, and leave them for a day or two. I then need to remove the filled supers, which will, hopefully, be bee free.  THEN I will be ready to start the extraction. DO NOT get me started on the faffing around once the honey is out of the frames! The clean up is a mission in its own right.

He's not perfect, but he's very good!

 Well! The new boy settled brilliantly last night. 

He curled up on the floor alongside the bed and made no fuss at all. He did stir every early in the morning, so 30% did take him out in the garden for a 4 am wee ... just in case. But, other than that, he had the perfect first night.

Today has gone well too. We have spent the day in and around the garden and he has been able to explore and play at his own pace. There have been a couple of occasions when we have had to remove toys, in order to calm down the level of excitement, but overall we couldn't have hoped for a better first day.

In summary he is a little nervous, but he is happy to explore and interact with the dogs and us. 30% nipped out, and at one point he gingerly climbed up on the sofa and curled up on my lap for a snooze. He wants to play, but it is clear that he hasn't been well socialised. We are hopeful that his social skills will improve as he spends more time with us. and integrates with our little pack.

Oh, and he definitely prefers the ladies. This is no surprise, as his owner was a single young woman, so he has definitely shown a preference for 30%'s company.  This is not overly concerning. He is happy to come over and be fussed by me. He will also follow me around the house and garden, but he does seem to want to be by his new Mum.

So that is the dog news. I think I said that this is a trial fostering period, and he will be staying with us, provided that there are no issues with integration and behaviour.  

Based on what we have seen, I will have to decide on a suitable alias for him.

In other news, I spent a chunk of today in the store room, setting up the equipment for the first honey harvest of the year.

The extractor is now bolted to its base and was briefly switched on to ensure that there were no problems with its motor. The uncapping tray has been mounted on a Black & Decker Workmate and various other items have been removed from storage.

It looks like tomorrow will be taken up with making sure that all of the equipment is spotlessly clean, before the extraction takes place at the weekend.

A quick catch up

It's been a few days since my last Journal entry, and I've finally found a few minutes to rectify this omission. If I'm honest the lawn really could do with a cut, but I really can't face wandering around the lawn for three hours, so here's what I've been up to.

Saturday, 17 May 2025

The day started with a wander around the Three Miler with the dogs.  Whiffler is now sufficiently recovered to be exercised, and he really seemed to enjoy this morning's trot around the lanes.

Having exercised the dogs, 30% and I tidied ourselves, and headed in to The Regal in Evesham for a lunchtime comedy gig performed by Chris McCausland. We were familiar with Chris from his panel show appearances, and his triumph in last year's Strictly Come Dancing, but were not familiar with his stand up material. We both really enjoyed his engaging persona and his take on some of the, quite frankly, ridiculous aspects of modern life. It was a well deserved 8/10 gig.

The only downside to the gig was that 30% spotted the parents of an old school friend of TP, and insisted on making contact via the wonderful medium that is WhatsApp.  We hadn't had any contact with this couple for at least twelve years and it was definitely one of those relationships that has been and gone. 

30% refused to go along with my suggestion that we steer clear of them, and the end result was a tedious kerbside chat after the show. As we walked away 30% commended how boring "Trish" was, and I was somewhat frustrated to reiterate that my suggestion had been to avoid her like the fucking plague!

The odd scheduling of the comedy gig meant that we were home before four o'clock, and I was able to spend a little more time in the garden. I thinned out my celery seedlings and sowed a crop of Early Nantes carrots in the other half of the large raised bed.  I am not convinced that the Autumn King seeds sowed last Tuesday will be viable, so these were sown as a contingency against the first sowing failing.

Sunday, 18 May 2025

I am not very good at keeping in touch with friends, but I had managed (in my half-arsed fashion) to semi-arrange an outing for today. 

Over the past couple of months I had exchanged occasional WhatsApp messages with an old Frolleague; Tel,* with the aim of meeting up.  Tel had suggested Westonbirt Arboretum as it is roughly midway between our homes.

A picnic at the arboretum seemed like a good idea, and when 30% discovered that it was very dog friendly we leapt at the idea.

We met up with Tel and his good lady; Deb around eleven oclock and had a fabulous day there. The weather was perfect for a walk around the verdant collection. Coffee and ice cream bars were conveniently situated, when refreshments were needed, and we had our picnic in a lovely shaded glade. Whiffler, Hobson and The Rat had a wonderful time too; racing around, playing, and making lots of new friends.

We had had a fabulous day, and I should also mention the lovely Gloucestershire villages and countryside we passed through on our way there.  The drive was certainly not a chore.

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* I had worked with Tel for many years at The Neat & Tidy Piano Movers,  and we were the inseparable pair of cynical buggers in our team. We keep in touch by text or call pretty regularly, but don't meet up as often as we should.

Monday, 19 May 2025 

As mentioned on Friday, 30% has been in touch with Hobson's breeder.  A young dog from the same litter as Hobson needs to be re-homed. We have the space, the time and a modicum of experience with Poodles, so Hobson's breeder thinks that this young dog might fit in well with our little Poodle pack.

The back story is that this dog was bought by a young woman who thought that owning a young Standard Poodle would fit in quite nicely with a career working away on cruise ships.  The dog was abandoned with her Sister when she worked away for ten months last year, and she is booked for another cruise in a few week's time.

Fortunately she has finally seen sense and offered the dog back to the breeder.

Today saw us head over to the Swansea area to collect the poor boy.  At first sight we were a little concerned as he seemed very nervous and his tail was down, almost tucked between his legs.  We introduced him to Hobson and one of his breeder's bitches and the dog seemed reasonably friendly, but it was apparent that he had not been properly socialised and was clearly lacking in canine confidence.

It was also apparent that his diet hadn't been particularly good as he is significantly smaller than Hobson and much less well muscled.  The boy definitely needs feeding up, an exercise regimen, and the company of some well adjusted dogs.

After a tearful farewell, the young boy was bundled in to the car to sit alongside 30%, and we headed back towards the Midlands.

Now I would have expected the dog to be incredibly stressed. He had just been separated from his owner, and lifted in to a strange vehicle with unfamiliar people and dogs.  In fact he settled down almost immediately, lying  down and enjoying 30%'s affections all the way home.

It almost seemed that the further we got from Wales, the more relaxed he became.

The introductions to our three have gone as well as we could have hoped. He is understandably apprehensive, but there has been no aggression and, again, he has relaxed and settled down to snooze in the same room as Hobson and Whiffler.  He also had a massive dinner.

Let's hope that we all have a quiet night.

Planting

 I finally got my arse in to gear this morning, and got the beans planted.  

I can now report that we have eighteen runner plants and about a dozen French Beans in the veg patch.  The runners are Lady Di. A variety that we have grown successfully for the past couple of years.  The French beans are a variety that produces a purple pod.* 30% suggested this, as she feels they will be far easier to spot amongst the foliage when harvesting.

The bean planting took up most of the morning, and the afternoon saw the obligatory post-prandial nap.

On waking, I returned to the vegetable patch and decided to get a row of parsnips** planted.  I have never grown them before, and have some doubts about how they will perform in our clay soil.  However,  nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I carefully sowed a row of seeds, watered them in, and covered them with a row of cloches.***

Apparently parsnips like a warm, moist , stone free soil, and can take up to two months to germinate.  Warm and moist is not a problem, but the way weeds grow in the garden, how the hell will I spot the seedlings?

So that's the gardening news. I also have to report that 30% has been in communication with a young lady from Wales, who owns one of Hobson's litter mates.  Apparently the young lad needs to be re-homed, and it looks like we will be going down to see him on Monday!

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* Apparently they turn green when they are cooked.

** Variety: Tender and True

*** We bought about twenty of these from a Market Gardener over in Bretforton a couple of years ago.  They are no longer used in the Market Gardens, having been made obsolete by modern horticultural fleece materials. They are perfect for our vegetable garden but quite frightening to assemble.  They comprise four panes of 3mm glass, three wire clips and a single heavy duty wire support.  Putting them together involves juggling the glass, support and clips, whilst avoiding slitting your wrists on the sharp edges. If you get it right they suddenly become a rigid structure as the last clip is pushed in to place.  If you get it wrong, you could bleed out!

A day in the workshop

There was a chilly wind this morning, and I did not feel like planting out the beans.

Instead, I crammed a wooly hat on my head, and took shelter in the workshop.  I spent most of the day in there making a pair of rhombus clearer boards.*  They could have been thrown together quite quickly, but I had the time, so I milled the necessary timber framing from pallet wood, rather than buying it from the DIY store.

The job took most of the day, but I enjoyed every minute of it, and am quite proud of my two hand crafted clearer boards ... Also,  30% was delighted to see a huge pile of wood shavings on the workshop floor.  At her request, these have now been swept up, and will be lining the chickens' nest boxes before the week is out.

This evening saw us head over to the Redditch College restaurant for an à la carte evening with Mummy Sheila. The food was quite splendid. I started with a salmon and prawn salad. My main was a chicken Kiev, served with green vegetables and pan fried potatoes. The dessert was a lovely crème brûlée, served with raspberries and mini shortbread biscuits.

I know that I will sleep well after a busy day in the workshop and with a large meal inside me.

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* If you can bear it, take a look at yesterday's Journal entry. I go on, at length, about clearer boards! 

Preparations

This morning I selected the longest and strongest of our bamboo canes from the car port roof space. I then headed out to the veg patch with them, some string and my trusty Swiss Army knife.

The next hour was spent assembling bamboo teepee frames, which will act as supports for our Runner and French Bean plants.

Having put up the teepees, I really should have made a start on transplanting the bean plants from their pots in to the ground, but I really couldn't get motivated. Instead I watered the ground at the base of each bamboo cane, in preparation for planting, and then found something else to do instead.

That "something else" was to make a start on tidying up the store room. It is in a bit of a state at the moment, and really needs to be clear and tidy so that we can extract the first of this year's honey.  The tidying took a good chunk of the afternoon and I can now report that the floor is clear and the room just needs a vacuum and dusting before I get my honey extractor set up.

Preparation for extracting honey got me thinking. 

 A day or so before extracting the honey, I will need to place clearer boards on the hives. A clearer board is inserted immediately below the supers* that are to be removed from the hive. It acts as a one-way valve. The worker bees will descend from the supers down in to the brood box in the evening. They will pass through the clearer board and, theoretically, will not be able to ascend back up in to the supers the following day.

This means that the supers should be free from bees when they are removed for honey extraction. Trust me, one does not want any bees in the extraction room. Extracting honey is hard enough work, without having frantic, stingy little sods trying to take it back up to the hive.

Now I have had mixed success with my clearer boards. I have removed supers that are totally free of bees, and I have removed supers that are still crammed with the little sods.**

I therefore decided that I should make a couple of rhombus clearer boards. It is alleged that these are far more effective at clearing bees from supers ... we shall see!

I had the plastic rhombus bee escapes, but I needed a sheet of 6mm ply wood to make the clearer boards. It was therefore a quick run in to Redditch to pick up a quarter sheet of ply from the DIY store.

I arrive back and had a while to relax, before I headed in to the village for this evening's Tai Chi session.    The class was very quiet this evening with only six of us in attendance.  It was a brilliant session and we managed to complete all five stages of The Infinite ... It is amazing what can be achieved when the noisy members of the class are away.***

All in all, I think that today was a productive day ... clearly my chi is centred

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* Honey Supers: the sections of the hive where the honey is stored by the bees.

** Each frame needs to be removed, and the bees carefully brushed off it, before it is put in another lidded super ... quickly, before the little sods get back in there!

*** I find it very surprising that one of the attendees still hasn't managed to work out that a Tai Chi session is about mental and physical focus and control. The bloody woman has been going for years and sees it as an opportunity to talk!

Bees and Carrots

Tuesday started with a dog walk.  Hobson and Dog #4, aka The Rat were my canine companions.

Although Whiffler is much improved, we're avoiding walking him at the moment. Part of the Three Miler requires him to be on a lead, and that might aggravate his neck injury.

Next on my virtual list was to weed and dig over the raised beds in the vegetable garden. That little job took me through until lunchtime and they are both now ready for planting.

The afternoon saw me head up to the orchard and carry out this week's inspection of the hives.

I started by looking at the shook swarm that I established last week, Hive #3. 

There were plenty of bees in the hive and ample quantities of capped brood cells. However, I was disappointed to see no sign of the queen, and I think that she may well have died. The reason for this assumption is that she did look rather scruffy when I found her last week. This is often a sign that she is at the end of her life.

 On a more positive note there was a capped supersedure queen cell in the colony, so I shut up the hive and will leave it alone for two or three weeks. That should allow her sufficient time to hatch and, hopefully, have a successful mating flight.

Hive #2 was not inspected as I know it is queenless.  Last week's inspection identified swarm cells, so it will also be left to let nature run its course.

Hive #1 was inspected and seems to be going really well.  The honey in the supers is being capped off and there was plenty of brood, at various stages, visible. I didn't manage to spot the queen, but the sight of young larvae indicates that she is present and still laying.

After finishing with the bees I returned to the veg patch and planted a few rows of carrots in the larger of the two raised beds.  I used some seed that was left over from last year. It had been kicking around in the greenhouse and I am slightly concerned that the heat may have damaged the seed ... I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next couple of weeks.

Last little job of the day was to assemble and fit a new hose reel that arrived in the post this morning.  All was going swimmingly until I noticed that a component did not seem to be present in the box. It's a small spring that is used to prevent the hose collapsing or kinking inside the reel. 

It looks like I'll be calling customer services tomorrow ... or should I just go and buy one?

Another day, another DRE*

I was up early this morning and could see that there had been a shower earlier in the day.

As I wandered out to pen up  the chicken coop, I was greeted with that fabulous smell that follows the first fall of rain after a long dry spell. Petrichor is the name given to this wonderful aroma. Petri comes from the Latin for rock and Ichor is the name given to the fluid that ran through the veins of the immortals... That sounds like Trolls blood to me.

Anyway, it was an early start as I needed to be at the Alexandra hospital in Redditch for an eight thirty appointment today.  This is a follow up to an appointment I had with my GP last Wednesday. It is amazing how quickly the NHS can move when they think there might be something seriously wrong with you!**

The appointment was an examination and consultation and the Doctor was of the opinion that my GP may have over reacted. My relatively young age and recent blood tests do not suggest that there is anything to worry about, but further tests will be scheduled to make certain. 

It looks like an MRI will be happening in the next couple of weeks*** and, possibly, a biopsy, depending on the result of the scan.

Back at home, I finished trimming the turf back from the paving slabs, but didn't really feel like doing anything else for the rest of the day. I did check on the feeder that I gave to my recent shook swarm. It seems that they have now taken down half of the syrup ... I wonder if that bodes well?

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* You really don't want to know!

** By contrast, a friend of ours is a Nurse Practitioner, and recently had a thirty year old demand attention for a lump on his neck ... it was an ingrowing hair!

*** It's actually scheduled for next Thursday. They do move quickly when they need to!

More shit

Sunday morning was spent removing the knackered lights from our trailer, and replacing them with a brand spanking new trailer light board.

This little task took up most of the morning. But I can now report, for the first time ever, I have a totally legal trailer, with working lights and a proper number plate.

The reason for this activity was that we had arranged to pop over to our friends' stables to collect another load of well rotted horse manure.  This took about an hour, as 30% does like to natter while I shovel the manure from the pile to the trailer.

Back at home it was another hour's work to cart the manure to the veg patch and spread it evenly over the earth. My inbuilt estimation function kicked in and I reckon I will need another three trailer loads to get the job finished.

After dealing with the load of manure, I decided that I wanted something a little more leisurely. I therefore wandered in to the greenhouse and sowed some leek seeds into trays.  I may be a little late in getting these in to soil, but it's a Winter hardy variety (Winter Giant), so it should be successful.

Having got the leeks planted, it was still too early to call it a day. I needed to find myself a little job to keep me occupied for an hour, or so. I grabbed a spade and a wheelbarrow and made a start on trimming back the turf from the paving slabs that run across the lawn from the house to the store room. 

It always amazes me how different this part of the garden looks when I do this simple job.

A Garden Party

 Today's big event was Dot's eightieth birthday party over in Oversley Mill.

 As is usual, Dot was blessed and the day was forecast to be splendid; wall to wall sunshine, and temperatures in the low to mid twenties. Just perfect for a garden party.

I spent the morning sorting out a few odd jobs, as I didn't want to get involved in anything complicated, protracted or exhausting.

First task of the day was to fit the replacement number plates to the X3. 

30% could now get on line and get her personalised registration assigned to the vehicle.  I am afraid that it is impossible to leave this subject at that. 

30% has cherished her "personalised" number plate for many years and it has adorned at least four of her previous vehicles.  She swears that this registration is almost identical to her two initials and her surname.

Now I can't see this at all. I will freely admit there there are some personalised plates that are close approximations, or even perfect matches for the owner's names or initials.  I don't, however, think that 30%'s personalised plate is ...  unless you pronounce the digits five and three as the  letters "BA"!

 To end on a positive note, at least we can now both remember the registration when the details in car park ticket machines.

Next little job was to replace the short length of hose pipe from the well pump to the hose reel. This was completed without fuss and I shouldn't need to attend to it again, unless further irrigation disasters occur.

As already mentioned, the afternoon was spent at in glorious sunshine celebrating Dot's eightieth. We had a lovely time and it was great to see everyone. There was a lovely musical interlude when Dave was joined by his grandchildren; Harriet on bass and Alex on vocals to perform a few numbers.

We had a lovely time*, including Hobson, who had come along for a play date with Django**.

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* I avoided Mrs Tweedy for the entire afternoon

** Dot's son's Lagotto Romagnolo.

Should I mention the hose pipe?*

 Friday was warmer and I was slightly more enthusiastic than yesterday.

Whiffler seems to be improving slowly, but he is still not ready for any exercise ... despite his clear enthusiasm when I gathered leads and poo bags for this morning's walk.

The wander around the Three Miler was enjoyable and, in complete contrast to yesterday, no coat or hat was needed.

The afternoon saw The Coven assemble on the patio and partake of tea, coffee and cake. Various characters were assassinated and much cackling could be heard.

After a few minutes of chat, I left them to it and headed in to the greenhouse. I spent the next couple of hours pricking out my tomato seedlings  and thinning out the brassicas. 

I think that I left this year's planting a little late, but there is nothing I can do about it, just wait and see what the harvest looks like.

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* After the Coven departed, 30% decided to switch on the well pump, unreel the hose pipe and fill the water butts. After about half an hour she wandered in with a sheepish look and requested assistance. I wandered out to find the hose reel dismantled from the well pump.  30% reported that the hose had stopped running and she had returned to find water gushing everywhere. Now I am well aware that my wife is, shall we say, a little heavy handed, and I would guess that she had give a hefty heave on the hose rather than return to the reel and sort out the issue. Anyway, she attempted to demonstrate what was wrong and I could immediately see that she hadn't got the foggiest idea what the problem was. The poor girl was attempting to reconnect the well pump to the reel in a way that would have meant that the reel wouldn't wind the hose back in, and the water wouldn't flow.  I worked out what was wrong and soon had it all sorted and operational ... I did notice that there was a pinhole in the well feeder pipe, but that can wait until tomorrow. 

For clarity; my dear wife has many, many fine qualities, but analysis and mechanical aptitude are not amongst them.

Holding Pattern

 The weather today was grey with a cold wind blowing in from the North East.

It was a day when I really did not want to be outside and a complete contrast from the balmy weather in the preceding weeks.

Hobson and Dog #4, aka The Rat, were keen for a walk*, so I donned a hat and coat and took a wander around the Three Miler. There have been many occasions recently when I have made poor clothing choices when walking**, but today's choice of warm outer wear was spot on.

Back at home I made an executive decision, and the rest of the day was designated an indoors day.  I curled up on the sofa and alternated between sleeping and reading.

So that is it for Thursday.

There may be other news in due course, but I'm in something of a holding pattern at the moment. 

I did also bump in to Pete The Beekeeper yesterday and he strongly recommended that I get my current crop of honey extracted before it sets in the comb.***

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* Whiffler was too, but he is confined to home until he recovers from his neck injury

** The Drag Queen look and the back half of a pantomime horse have not been my wisest choices for dog walking.

*** There is likely to be a high proportion of Oilseed Rape (Canola) nectar in the honey, and this will set and crystallise in the comb, making extraction nigh on impossible.

And now there are three?

This morning started with an incredibly exciting job. I emptied a couple of our compost bins. They have not performed well and I was rewarded with a compressed mass of fibrous material that looked nothing like the fine, dark tilth I was hoping for.

This poor performance from the compost bins was expected, as I was well aware that we hadn't been conscientious in layering browns and greens. Neither had we been keeping the bins moist. Todays plan was to restart our composting on a more sound footing.*

After emptying the compost bins, I pulled the lawn mower from the shed and attached the grass box. I then hit the lawns and soon had a large pile of grass clipping piled up behind Rose Cottage.  30% assumed compost making duties and was soon carefully layering the clippings, old compost and chicken coop detritus in the bins.

Hopefully we will have some reasonable compost in a few months time.

I managed to mow virtually all of the lawns, leaving only the verge at the front of the house and the small patch by the garage until tomorrow.

I then pulled on my bee suit and headed up to the orchard to inspect the colonies.

Hive #1 is doing beautifully. The three supers are all filled with honey and the bees are in the process of capping off the cells.  I worked my way through the brood box and, again, failed to spot the queen, but the sight of eggs** and larvae indicate that she is present and laying. I added another super and closed up the hive.

Hive #2 is doing well too. Its supers are good, but not quite as heavy as those in the other hive. However, on checking the brood box I was disappointed to find a capped queen cell. This was a sure sign that the colony is preparing to swarm.

I headed back to my store room and grabbed the components to make up another hive. Basically I created an artificial swarm by locating the queen and introducing her, along with several frames of brood, stores and worker bees, into another hive. Hopefully she will think that she has swarmed and set up a new colony in hive #3.

As for hive #2, I need to leave it well alone for three or four weeks. Hopefully a new queen will hatch, mature and have a successful mating flight, before returning and continuing her mother's fine colony.

Last job of the afternoon was to take Whiffler to the Vets.  He seems to be improving, but is still not fully recovered. He is also classed as a senior canine, as he is now in his eleventh year, so he is no longer as robust as he used to be.  The Vet thinks he has injured his neck and has dosed him up with high strength doggy painkillers. 

The poor boy is now snoozing. Lord knows what he is dreaming with the amount of opioids whizzing around inside him.

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* The shavings and chicken manure from the coop make splendid browns, and we will have plenty of these going forward. More than half an acre of lawns mean that I am never going to be short of greens.

** With my eyesight there is no guarantee they are eggs!

Shovelling Shit

 No, I have not decided to return to the world of work.

But I have spent a good proportion of my day shovelling shit.  Not the proverbial shit that abounds in ever increasing quantities in the corporate world, but honest, authentic, and well rotted horse shit. For clarity, the stuff that appears regularly from the back end of a horse.*

It has been a couple of years since we added any organic matter to the veg patch and I would like to ensure that we maintain both fertility and the quality of the top soil. 30% has therefore been in contact with a couple of her friends that have a stable just down the road. 

They are very conscientious horse owners, and regularly poo pick their paddocks, to keep the pastures at their best.  This means that they have large heaps of well rotted horse manure that is just perfect for laying as a mulch on top of our veg patch. Just to stress, this isn't the clearings from stables; horse manure mixed with wood shavings.  This is 100% horse manure, that has rotted down over the past couple of years.

Following on from yesterday's abortive trip, we headed over there this morning, and I spent an enthusiastic thirty minutes filling our trailer to the brim with this lovely composted material.

Back at home I spent a further hour moving the manure and spreading it on the veg patch. I estimate that I could do with another four or five trailer loads to cover the entire vegetable garden and will be nagging 30% incessantly until she makes the necessary arrangements.

The rest of the afternoon was spent back up in the orchard with The Beast and the brush cutter. I can't exactly say that I have finished up there, but it does look a whole lot better.

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* As opposed to the stuff that regular spouts from the front end of a senior manager or any sales executive.