Today is brought to you by the letter B

 Yep, my Wednesday seemed to be dominated by activities beginning with the letter B.*

The first B was for beans.

This morning I settled down with a large basket of French and runner beans that had been harvested from the vegetable garden. It took me the best part of an hour to prepare the beans. The French beans were top 'n tailed and then cut in to 3" lengths. That was the easy part of the job. The runners needed to be stringed and sliced. It's a chore but worth while, as they are lovely fresh from the garden.

I then blanched the French beans before plunging them in to iced water. Once the had cooled they were patted dry in a tea towel before being open frozen on trays. They'll be bagged up tomorrow.

The prepared runners were placed in a bowl of cold water and refrigerated. We had located a recipe for Sri Lankan Runner Bean Curry** and it looked like it might be quite tasty.  It seems that, as I had suggested the recipe, I was on chef's duties,*** so I gathered the various ingredients and set to cooking dinner.

I have to report that the recipe was pretty straightforward and the outcome was absolutely delicious. I mostly adhered to the instructions, although I did slightly increase some of the spices and it certainly needed a teaspoon, or so, of salt adding to bring out the subtle interplay of flavourings. 

I will also admit that I left out the fresh coriander, but I hate the bloody stuff and no-one wants a curry that tastes of soap!

The other B was for bees.

Last Thursday Pete the Beekeeper called round to let me know that he had ordered some new queen bees and was going to prepare some nucleus colonies**** with them. One of these nucs would be for me.

He called round in the afternoon and we spent an hour or so in one of his apiaries assembling a couple of nucs. He then dropped me back at home with my nuc and a mated queen bee in a queen cage. The nuc was carefully placed on a hive stand up in the orchard and the queen was placed in a cool, dark drawer. I will introduce her to her new colony tomorrow.

After a disastrous 2023, from a beekeeping perspective, it is lovely to have bees back up in the orchard. I am hoping that we have a lovely, mild Autumn allowing the colonies to flourish and build up their stores in advance of the Winter. 

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* One of those "Bs" was the fucking bomb site I had to clear in the kitchen after 30% did some early morning baking for a coven Garden Party!

** Courtesy of the BBC Good Food website

*** I like to cook, but do so rarely.  The infrequency frustrates 30%, as apparently I am quite good at it.

**** There are whole articles written about nucleus colonies, but I will try to be brief. A nucleus colony is made by taking three frames of brood from an established colony. These brood frames contain young bees at various stages of development from eggs, larval stages, through to capped pupae that will shortly emerge an adult bees. A further two frames of honey are needed to sit on either side of the frames of brood. These frames are placed in small nucleus hive and young nurse bees are added. The important thing is that no queen is present. The nucleus colony is set up and left for a day or two before a new queen is introduced in a queen cage. The queen cage is sealed with a small plug of sugar candy and the nurse bees will release her in to the nuc by eating through the candy. Hopefully she will start laying within a week or so. Over time the new colony will increase in size and be transferred to a full size brood box.

Punctal Plugs

The title of today's Journal entry may be a little baffling, but give me a moment or two and all should become clear.

Since the beginning of the year I have suffered from dry eye.  It's not life threatening, but it is certainly unpleasant. The symptoms are extremely dry, itchy eyes. Periodically there is some improvement and then a flare up will happen and I am back to square one.  Rubbing the eyes brings no relief and, in fact, makes matters worse as it makes one's eyelids sore too.

Apparently this is an age thing and will not improve, so I have been using eyedrops* hourly and even more frequently when the symptoms flare up.  The past month or two have been quite miserable as the presence of pollen seems to aggravate the condition.

This morning saw me at the Ophthalmologist's** clinic for a review and I was in the consulting room for under five minutes.  I put my head in the examination frame and recited my recent symptoms, whilst the clinician peered through his optical thingumajig and occasionally grunted.

After a very few minutes he grunted a term that I eventually deciphered to be punctal plugs and escorted me to the reception desk. A few minutes after that I was booked in for a minor surgery clinic on the second of September.

Punctal plugs are small silicone rubber plugs that are inserted into the tear duct and they function by slowing the rate at which tears drain from the eyes. This should, with continuing use of eye drops, greatly improve the condition.

I was actually hoping for a Borg ocular implant, and 30% muttered something about a body like Seven of Nine ... it's probably best if we leave that narrative there.

In other news, a total of twelve chicks have hatched. Five are olive egg layers and the other seven are Crested Cream Legbars.  Adding in the five that hatched early, that gives a total of seventeen chicks and a hatch rate of 85%. That is a great result from our little incubator.

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* These have ranged from steroidal, antihistamine and plain old lubricating with the mature ladies favourite added ingredient; hyaluronic acid.

** Here's an observation about Ophthalmologists. None of them appear to be great conversationalists. Perhaps there is something about sitting in a darkened room and staring closely in to another person's eyes that inhibits conversation.  I'm not expecting flirting or an enquiry about my hobbies, but all of them appear to be monosyllabic and getting any information about my condition has been like getting blood from a stone.

And Yet More Chicks

We are one day away from the due date for our latest batch of incubating eggs. I've already had a minor moan about the five that hatched prematurely about ten days ago, but the expectation is that the eggs should hatch over the next couple of days.

I was greeted by four fluffy Legbar chicks when I checked the incubator this morning and a further four hatched throughout the day. It is encouraging to note that almost all of the chicks appear to be pullets, with only one showing the paler colouring of a cockerel. At this rate I might even summon up a modicum of forgiveness for the chap that sold me the batch of eggs.

The increase in our poultry flock guided my activities for today. I needed to tidy and clear one of the outhouses as it will soon be home to three separate brooders, one for each of the batches of hatched chicks.

The outbuilding in question is know as "the storeroom" which is badman speak for "where I keep my beekeeping equipment and every other fucker uses as a dumping ground for shit that should really be thrown away". 

This task took most of the day and was punctuated by a variety of curses, especially at the point when 30% decided to add to the clutter with a dog cage that doesn't even belong to us.

I finally reached a point where I could see improvement and retired to the house for a rest. I was quite relieved when Bobbyn sent a WhatsApp to advise that she was held up at work and wouldn't be walking this evening.

Back at it

 After achieving nothing beyond a personal best at sleeping yesterday, 30% and I were definitely back in the saddle today.

After the morning rounds of poultry and plant care we headed over to Redditch to collect some chicken feed. We then headed over to Church Hill to pick up some angling gear* that 30% spotted for sale on Facebook Marketplace.  Actually locating the premises was beyond the navigation capabilities of 30%'s Seat and Google Maps, but we eventually found the house with the assistance of a local chap.**

With the nets collected we headed home and lunched before heading out in to the garden.  

My afternoon was spent digging out a very large clump of yellow loosestrife.  The plant has been allowed to run riot in the herbaceous perennial bed and it is time for it to go. After an hour I was left with two or three square yards of very dry clay soil and it took another couple of hours to clear the weeds, remove the rhizomes and break up the clods of earth.  I am going to need to dig a serious amount of horse shit in to that soil before we consider replanting.***

30% assisted by volunteering for one of her favourite jobs ... a bonfire. She claims she was working hard, but I think she was having a riot of a time burning anything she could gather hands on.

At one point she wanted to set fire to a little, old shed that is home to various poultry related items.

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* Three landing nets and two telescopic landing net poles for twenty quid ... Bargain!

** His directions were followed by this caveat "I haven't lived here that long, so don't blame me if I'm wrong. The house numbering here is absolutely crazy"!

*** There is a fabulous Bronze Fennel at the edge of the bed. 30% planted it a couple of years ago and it is magnificent, standing 5' high. We planned to move it to a more appropriate location at the back of the border until I googled "transplanting fennel". Apparently they hate being disturbed, so I am going to need a plan B.

Written off

 It is fair to say that Sunday needed to be regarded as a write off.

Yesterday evening B and I consumed three bottles of red wine and then worked our way through three quarters of a bottle of Glenmorangie. Lord knows what 30% and H drank, but my dear wife did admit to being a little ill before she went to sleep.

So, a late night and a vast quantity of booze meant that we all had a leisurely breakfast out on the Patio before B&H headed off for another party!  I have no clue how they managed that because 30% and I went back to bed and I didn't surface until three in the afternoon. 

I spent the remainder of the day in a dressing gown and the only thing worthy of mention was that I did ensure that all livestock was fed and watered.

Two in one

 This is another two days in one Journal entry.  My days seem quite full at the moment and finding time to make a Journal entry can be challenging.

So let's start with Friday. It was a beautiful morning so I did something that I haven't done for many years. I dug out my camera and took a few photos of the vegetable garden. It has occupied much of my time in the past few months and I felt I would like a record of how it looks now we have finally started to take a crop.

The raised beds featuring carrots,
Spring onions, leeks & beetroot

cabbages & runner beans

In the afternoon I set a few salmon steaks to marinade in the fridge overnight, as B&H are coming over for dinner on Saturday.

In the evening we both did something else that we haven't done for years too. We wandered down to the local Pub with the dogs for an early evening drink. This unusual activity was instigated by a local couple that we often meet when out dog walking. Basically it transpires that they used to be semi-professional singers and someone had twisted their arms to put on an outdoor show in the pub beer garden.

Six o'clock saw us seated at one of the many picnic tables outside the pub with D&P serenading an enthusiastic audience of locals.  Music was provided using backing tracks and they were really good. we stayed and listened for a couple of hours and only departed because our stomachs were rumbling.

By the time we left they had people up and dancing and we could hear them continuing to belt out pop classics as we wandered down the lane towards home.

Saturday morning saw further culinary activities as I attempted to make a chocolate mousse. I don't know what I produced, but it certainly wasn't a mousse.  30% deemed it beautiful and rich, but it was incredibly heavy and I really wasn't happy about proffering it as a dessert. A review of the recipe and a forensic search of the internet suggests that adding alcohol to 85% cocoa dark chocolate may have been one of the issues making it so dense.

The annoying thing is that I am certain I made a mousse using the same recipe twenty years ago and it was amazing. 

Anyway, I put my frustrations behind me and we headed out to the Heart of England Forest to view a sculpture exhibition in the gardens. It was a fund raising event to enable the charitable trust to further extend their reforestation and habitat regeneration activities.

We had a pleasant morning strolling through the gardens viewing sixty statues on the themes of Heroes & Villains.  If I am honest, I found most of the statues quite uninspiring. They definitely did not have the appearance of a collection that had been assembled and curated with care and knowledge over an extended period.  Instead they tended to look more like they had been purchased from a catalogue or had been bought as a job lot.  I will say that the Minotaur and the Rhinoceros were quite splendid, but most of the others were meh!

I will, however, reaffirm that we had a lovely stroll with the dogs in a very pleasant garden setting.

The afternoon saw a mass tidy up of the house before B&H and their daughter arrived for what turned out to be an hysterical and very boozy evening. They are delightful company and one of the key decisions from the evening was that 30% needs to get us another narrow boating break booked in the Spring of 2025.

A little bit of everything

This morning 30% and I headed over towards Evesham to visit The Valley.* 30% had purchased some large terracotta pots yesterday and a few more were needed to complete her patio planting vision.**

Well, one thing led to another and the quick trip to The Valley took most of the morning. By the time we left we had consumed coffee and purchased plant pots, new pillows and three new sweatshirts from Fatface. It's a good job we brought the Defender as the shopping didn't stop there.

On our way home we stopped off at Golls Nursery. 30% bought a couple of Nasturtium plants and a rather splendid Melianthus major. She also picked up a pink Scabious ... I'm starting to think that she may have a plant addiction!

The afternoon was spent pottering in the garden and included visits by Mummy Sheila and Beekeeper Pete. 

Pete is a local, semi-professional beekeeper and he has been a great mentor to me over the past few years. He had offered to fix me up with a new colony, as I had lost all of my bees last year.  Today's news was that he has ordered some new queens and plans to create some nucleus colonies next Thursday.  It looks like I'll be spending the afternoon with him helping him create the nucs.

As afternoon faded in to evening, the rain started.  I headed over to Fladbury in the optimistic hope that the rain would stop and I could have a pleasant evening fishing. The rain did eventually stop, but not before me and my kit were totally soaked. I stood on the bank for about an hour before I tired of a) being soggy, b) no fish action and c) chapter three of a fourteen volume of work based around the comings and going of the local Volkswagen Dealer's workshop ... Christ, Bubbles and Ben can be tedious when they get together! I am certain it is not intentional, they just don't realise that a conversational subject that is easy and natural to them is fucking irrelevant and meaningless to me.

I was home by nine and settled on the sofa with 30% for an evening in front of the television.

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* Evesham's out of town shopping experience frequented by the elderly, the irritable and the spatially unaware. These three qualities are often combined in a single human being, usually to be found blocking aisles or just stopping directly in front of me for no bloody reason at all!

** It features lollipop olive trees and grasses. I'm sure it will look lovely, provided that I get my own way and am allowed to replace a couple of rather straggly Hebes.

More Chicks!

I woke this morning to find that the overnight rain had turned to drizzle. It is definitely not August weather!

I performed my early morning check of the three Crested Cream Legbar chicks and the incubator and find another pair of chicks have hatched.* I am impressed by the resilience of these birds and the fact that they can withstand a twenty four hour interruption to their incubation, but the sale of partially incubated eggs further reinforces my disappointment with the vendor.

I spent most of the morning bringing The Journal back up to date after our internet outage.  The afternoon saw an improvement in the weather and I ventured out to the veg patch with a spade and hoe.

The second crop spuds that I planted at the end of July needed to be earthed up.  So forty minutes were spent creating a miniature version of a First World War trench line ... with added potato plants.  If hostilities ever break out with the moles in the orchard, I realised that this is the perfect defensive position to hold back their initial attack.

I just need to be aware that they might try a flanking manoeuvre and launch an assault using the cover of the herbaceous perennial border.

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* A pullet and another cockerel

Normal Service is Restored

Rumours of my demise are just that ...  rumours.  Basically an internet outage has limited my access to The Journal, hence no entries for the past few days.  I'll accept that I could have used my phone, but I prefer a full size screen and keyboard for generating this waffle and nonsense.

Right, enough of the excuses, it's time for a relatively brief summary of the past five days.

Friday, 9th August, 2024

Earlier in the week Ben reached out to me and asked if I fancied shooting a few clays today. If I'm honest, I didn't really. My shooting has been very poor recently and I've found the experience increasingly frustrating. However, the fact that the youngster wanted to spend this morning in my company was a friendly gesture, so I did the decent thing. We spent the morning at Wedgenock, near Warwick and were rewarded with a fine sunny day. The targets were challenging for both of us, but my heart wasn't really in it. I think I'll give my gun a good clean and put it away for a while until my enthusiasm returns.

The afternoon was spent in the garden watering as the dry weather continues. Everything in the veg patch is growing vigorously and it now takes a couple of hundred litres each day to keep it all lush and green.

Saturday, 10th August, 2024

Today we bundled ourselves and the four dogs* in to the Defender and headed West to Cardiff to spend the day with TP.

We had a lovely time, although his walk planning may need a little work.  He lives right at the edge of Rhiwbina and it is a short but steep walk to the woods and Castell Coch. The distance and incline would have been acceptable, but the weather was hot, very humid and it was also raining. By the time we reached the woodland cafe that he had selected for lunch; we were boiling in our own sweat and knackered.

Fortunately the rain abated and the walk back was quite pleasant, especially as it was mostly downhill.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent drinking coffee, diagnosing a minor problem with his motorcycle and then noticing a nail protruding from his rear tyre. I tried to get him to see the positive side of this by pointing out that it was better to notice it in his garage, than have a flat tyre fifty miles away from home ... I'm not sure that he was convinced by this perspective.

As I said, we had a lovely day and, hopefully, we will get to spend a couple of days with him in the not too distant future.

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* Our house guest Lupin remains in residence

Sunday, 11th August, 2024

One of the first things I do each day is to check that the chicks all have fresh food and water and that the incubator is running correctly.  I performed my incubator check this morning and was amazed to see a fluffy little chick staggering around amongst the incubating eggs.

This was not supposed to happen. I only set the eggs on 31st July and hens eggs have a twenty one day incubation period. This egg has hatched after 12 days.  This is not some avian development miracle.** This is a poultry management clusterfuck. Fundamentally the idiot that sold me the eggs hasn't got a clue what he is doing and has given me a batch of eggs that included some that have been underneath a broody hen for about 10 days.

The more I think about this, the more I am dismayed. The breeder clearly isn't checking his birds properly and has just had a rummage around in the coop and thought "these eggs'll do". I certainly wouldn't want to  eat any of his eggs based on this experience.

What is worse, I am now likely to have two batches of chicks to rear separately.  It will not be possible to raise them all in the same brooder as the older chicks will bully the younger ones mercilessly. Normally chicks will hatch over a two to three day period. If the age range is much more than that they will need to be raised separately.

The is a balls up and one that I will have to do my best to manage. By the end of the day another chick had hatched and, as they are auto sexing,*** I now know that I have a cockerel and a pullet.

The late morning was spent catching up with Bubbles' news from the Edinburgh Tattoo. We spent a good hour nattering and drinking coffee before he headed off with Lupin.

In the early afternoon 30% and I headed out to the other side of Stratford to collect some reclaimed Victorian border edging stones. Our initial plan is to use them in the veg patch to retain the bark chips around the raised beds, but I need to do some measuring first to make sure I have enough.

Once back at home, we hit the garden and divided the beautiful blue Iris from the perennial bed and the large potted Agapanthus.  These were dead headed and replanted in  the area that we cleared about a week ago.

The weather remains beautiful and the local farmer started to harvest the field of wheat alongside the cottage. The stupid fucker managed to hit the overhead wire providing our broadband service, tearing it free from the telegraph pole.****

Fortunately the BT fault recording service was effective; an engineer was promised for Tuesday and an EE 4G mini hub has been promptly dispatched.

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** The surprising thing about this is that the incubation has been interrupted for at least 24 hours and the eggs were washed in egg disinfectant before they were placed in my incubator. Despite this the buggers have still hatched. To quote Dr Malcom, "life finds a way".

*** The chicks of some poultry breeds have different colouration, depending on sex at the point of hatching. This has been exploited by commercial hatcheries producing laying birds. There is no profit in rearing the cockerels, as they are no good for eating.

**** The pig ignorant bastard couldn't even be bothered to apologise and seemed to be of the opinion that BT had got the cable too low over his field.  This is despite the fact that he has managed to avoid it in the preceding three years ... What a Prick!

Monday, 12th August, 2024

A check of the incubator this morning found a third fluffy chick pottering around. We now have two pullets and a cockerel. All being well, we should have a couple of layers from this incubation cock-up.

The early arrival of the Legbar chicks meant that I had some Poutry management to perform, so the morning was spent setting up a larger brooder in one of the outbuildings. The older chicks were moved to it and this freed up space in the smaller brooder for the premature hatchlings.  All three chicks are doing well and will be moved over to the brooder about twenty four hours after hatching.

The day was incredibly hot, so I spent the afternoon sat in the shade of a parasol preparing runner and French beans for blanching and freezing. It was too bloody hot to do much else!

Tuesday, 13th August, 2024

This morning saw the chap from Openreach arrive nice and early to replace the broken fibre cable.  The repair took most of the morning and, hopefully, the new cable will be out of reach of Farmer Dick's combine harvester!

The Legbar chicks were moved to the brooder and then we applied ourselves in the garden. 

Our morning was spent watering as the hot dry spell continues. A lot of the crops in the veg patch need plenty of water so a good hour or two was spent lugging water from the butts.  I like the fact that we can irrigate with our own well water and are not reliant on Severn Trent to grow our vegetables.

We then headed over to Goll's Nursery to pick up some leek plants (var. Bleu de Solaise) and scout out some fresh colour for the herbaceous perennial bed.

It'll come as no surprise that my afternoon was spent puddling in the leek plants and the late afternoon saw a walk around the Three Miler with Bobbyn and the dogs.

I appreciate that this has been a bit of a rambling, brain dump, but at least I'm up to date ... I think!

Rain stopped play

My plan for today was to finish weeding the vegetable garden and spread some bark chips around the raised beds. The bark would serve as a mulch against the weeds and also be a barrier between footwear and wet soil.

Right! I had a plan! However the chicks needed their brooder cleaning and various other little jobs* needed to be attended to before I finally hit the veg patch.

By mid-morning I was on my knees weeding and making reasonable progress. Within a couple of hours the rain started to fall, and it appears that I am, most definitely, a fair weather gardener. There is no bloody way that I am going to be on my hands and knees in the mud in the pouring rain. I'll happily work in the greenhouse when it's soggy and I'll even put a coat on and prune in a shower, but hand weeding in a downpour ... no way!

Having lost my gardening mojo for the day I headed indoors and spent some time preparing, blanching and freezing a couple of batches of beans** from the garden. 

The veg patch remains unfinished, but a little progress was made and there's always tomorrow.

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* Tomato plants to tie up and a shelf that needed to be taken down in the larger of the greenhouses ... apparently it was interfering with the Marmande tomatoes

** French & Runner Beans. They are beautiful cooked fresh from the garden and they also freeze really well.

An Advent Calendar for the older generation

 All oral medicines should be chocolate coated or, at least, be flavoured and textured like jelly beans.  The reasoning behind this decree will follow shortly, but first the news of the day.

30% was out early this morning. She had a day planned with the extended coven.* They had a Group Rover ticket for the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway and planned to harass and bemuse the inhabitants of Broadway, Toddington, Winchcombe and Cheltenham at various points throughout the day.

I was left  home alone and finally got my arse in to gear to attend to the rather weedy vegetable plot. There is no way that I can make hand weeding a 15' x 35' plot interesting, so I will simply state that it consumed the day. I can also report that my knees were bloody sore by the time I shuffled back in to the house.

Now it's time to turn to flavoured medication. 

I have reached an age where I need to take a daily pill or two.** These are nothing concerning; vitamins, antihistamines and a couple related to being a type 1 diabetic. However, I do need to remember to take the damned things and I generally have far more exciting things to think about other than "have I taken my pills this morning?"

30% came to the rescue and purchased me one of those dosette boxes. For the younger generations, a dosette box is a clear plastic box with seven separate lidded compartments. Each compartment is annotated with the day of the week. One places their medications in the appropriate compartment and can, at a glance, see if they have taken them.

Basically it is like an advent calendar for old people. Hence, my original premise that all oral medication should be a tasty treat ... I think you will find that it is the law that advent calendars must contain a tasty morsel behind each of the doors!

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* The local Women's Institute

** Christ! Writing this makes me seem really old. I don't feel old, so let's settle with mature or more accurately immature.

Not much to see here

 Today was one of those days when I didn't seem to do much, but I was busy all day.

At this point there is an interjection from 30% "The two hour kip this afternoon was you being busy, was it?".  This criticism is a little harsh, as she also had a mega nap.

In brief, I had blood tests down at the local surgery first thing and the dogs were taken to, and collected from, the Groomers at each end of the day.

I've already mentioned the extended early afternoon sleep, so that warrants no more page space. I also dug some rotted manure and bone meal in to the herbaceous border that I cleared yesterday. Continuing on the subject of gardening, the second crop potatoes, that were planted ten days ago, have shoots showing above ground. They will need to be earthed up tomorrow ... and there is also a massive amount of weeding needed in the veg patch.

I also picked a couple of portions of French beans, which were prepped, blanched and frozen within an hour of picking. This is the first time that we have grown French beans and I'm really impressed with the vigour of the plants and the quantity of beautiful, long, slender pods. If they taste half as good as they look we will be in for a treat.

An extended spell of watering took place as we have had no significant rainfall for quite some time. We must be getting this right as everything in the vegetable garden is flourishing ... including the bloody weeds.

We went exploring

 Another walk this morning and, this time, 30% set the route.

I tend to be quite unimaginative in my walking* and tend to plod around the Three Miler with the sole aim of getting the dogs walked and myself exercised. 30%, on the other hand, is far more adventurous and will explore the lanes and paths. She will often return and recount her walk and I won't have a clue where she has been.

Well, today we turned left out of the cottage and walked to the top of the low rise. We left the road and took the footpath along the crest of the hill.  She then directed us through a spinney and three or four interconnected paddocks. It was a lovely walk, but there is a "but". 

I learnt that my good lady is absolutely brilliant at finding new walks but she has no bloody sense of direction. Our walk became an out 'n back because it wasn't possible to loop back via the bridle path as she had originally planned. As we reached the aforementioned spinney 30% attempted to direct us down a non-existent path, despite me pointing to the route indicated by our footprints left in the grass no more than forty minutes earlier.

Our afternoon was spent working on the large bed of herbaceous perennials in the back garden. One end of the bed was dominated by a huge clump of Day Lillies (Hemerocallis) and they desperately needed to be cleared to make room for other plants.

It took most of the afternoon to clear the two or three square yards of plants, dig over the soil and do my best to remove the roots and rhizomes.** The next step will be to refresh the soil in the bed with rotted manure, compost and bonemeal, before planting our Agapanthus and Iris.

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* We think this might be a consequence of my working life. I would find an hour to get the dogs walked, but would generally need to get back to my desk fairly promptly. This became an ingrained habit and I did the same walk, knowing how long it would take.  Clearly, I now need to break this habit.

** I have a strong suspicion that I will be removing plantlets for years to come!

Mostly Mowing

This morning 30% and I took an early morning walk over the rise and down the lane towards the bridge. It is probably little more than a mile and a half, but the dogs loved it, tearing along the verges and sniffing the scents from the nocturnal wildlife.

By the time we got back home, the dew had lifted and it became clear what the remainder of my day would look like.

The shed was unlocked, the lawn mower was wheeled out and that was it. I spent the rest of the day mowing the lawns. The garden looks pretty good at the moment and a neatly clipped lawn really finishes it off.

A casual observer might note that there are a few strange clumps of uncut grass on the front lawn and on the verges in front of the cottage.  The reason for these unmown tufts is that they are where the cowslips grow. I love these delightful little flowers and do my best to encourage them.  Although the flowers bloom very early in the year, their seeds do not mature until late July or even early August. Hence the plants need to be left uncut until now, several months after their petals have dropped.

Well, August has finally arrived and I have checked the now scruffy tufts. The cowslip seeds are mature and many of the plants have already shed their seeds.  I was now able to mow the lawns without having to skirt around the tufts .... Avoiding the tufts a pain in the arse, but, I think, worth it to see the cowslips again next Spring.

A guest arrives

Yesterday evening 30% was perusing Facebook Marketplace and asked if I needed a workbench.  Before proceeding with this narrative I need to clarify a couple of points.  

1. I have two matching workbenches in the workshop and a dinky little carpenter's bench in the garage.* I am also about to build a potting bench for 30% in the shed. 
2. This is a redundant question, of course I need another workbench.

I took a look at the advertisement and saw a rather nice engineer's bench with what looked like a Record vice bolted to the top. It is fair to say that within thirty minutes the bench had been viewed, hands had been shaken and we had arranged for me to pick it up this morning.

So, the trailer was hitched to the Defender and it was a short journey to the other side of the village to collect the bench. It really needs a new ply work surface, but the clincher was the No 24 Record Engineers bench vice with quick release mechanism. The bench and vice set us back £120, but the discontinued vice model sells second-hand for upward of £150. They are a fantastic piece of kit and I am extremely chuffed to have finally got my hand on one.**

Most of this morning was spent clearing a space and moving the bench in to the garage ... Christ, it was heavy!

In the afternoon I headed over to Childswickham and met up with Bubbles and Ben for a round of clay shooting.  I wish I hadn't bothered. The course was a nightmare and I shot appallingly.  To make matters worse Bubbles had agreed to combine a shooting lesson with our round.  The tuition was a significant interruption and the delays just added to the frustration of a very poor shoot.

I followed Bubbles home, as we will be having a guest for the next few days. Bubbles and Bobbyn are off to Edinburgh for the Tattoo and we have been asked to look after their senior terrier; Lupin.*** She is a delightful little dog and is sat on my lap, demanding affection, as I write this.

It was a matter of minutes to bundle her luggage in to the Defender and we were soon heading back to the cottage. Lupin knows our house and three dogs really well and it is a recurring joke that, upon arrival, she just treats the place like her own home. 

She settled in without any fuss and has spent the evening curled up on her bed, the sofa, the other dogs' beds, our laps ... in fact anywhere she likes!

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* In need of some refurbishment

** I have perused engineers vices on the internet for a couple of years, but have been put off by the price of a good one and poor reviews of the cheap ones.

*** They have a house sitter taking care of the other two dogs, but felt that looking after three would be "too much for them". We are also well aware that when all three of the terrors are together they have a tendency to scrap, and I mean SCRAP!

Faery Beefs

Today's first mission was to head in to Alcester and pick up my new specs. A trip that should have taken no more than an hour ended up consuming the entire morning and included massively prolonged conversations in a bakery and the jewellers ... I'll leave it to you to work out which one of us was in desperate need of extended, but pointless conversation ... if you need a clue, it wasn't me!

Anyway, we eventually arrived home and were chatting in the sun, when a thought occurred to me ... what do faeries actually eat?

I mulled this over and thought that maintaining flight with those tiny wings must required one hell of a calorific input ... thoughts of hummingbirds did come to mind and I wondered whether dewdrops sweetened with nectar was the favoured faery juice?  This train of thought continued and I started to cogitate on the dietary preferences of faery folk. Pollen bread and mushroom based foodstuffs seemed like possible faery comestibles, but, after a long, hard day flying around granting wishes,* I'll wager that they really fancy a burger.  There is already literary evidence of faeries stealing milk from cows, so we know the little devils aren't vegan.  The references to theft also suggest that they are far from "pure and fair" and, clearly, no strangers to mortal transgressions.

I think it's a short stretch from nicking milk to vegging out on a comfy toadstool sofa with a dirty burger grasped between faery fingers.

The next question is where do the faery folk get the beef for the burgers?  One might be tempted to assume that they steal it in the same way as they do the milk. However, a moments thought highlights the weakness of this theory.  A faery attempting to dispatch and butcher a bullock of killing weight is probably the equivalent of humans whaling.**

I'm pretty sure that people would start to notice missing cattle, or dead beasts with little nibbles taken from the finest cuts, because there is no way that the faeries would be able to consume, or cache, an entire Bos taurus carcass. 

My research has identified that the faery folk actually have their own cattle or Faery Beefs. These are somewhere between a pigeon and a duck in size and look exactly like a miniature cow apart from sporting a fine pair of wings.  They can be a pest in parts of the country when huge flocks of them descend on, and devastate, young crops of wheat and barley.

They also make a dreadful mess if they crap on your car when they are flying over.

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* or exchanging milk teeth for coins of the realm

** Mind you, a crew of faeries manning a steam punk, flying abattoir ship does have a certain visual appeal

"On Trend" in the garden?

 Over the past few days we have cleared a neglected border alongside one of the outbuildings and have been left with a dry, narrow bed. The soil is very shallow and impoverished, so it badly needs to be improved and, if possible, made deeper.

Our plan was to add edging that would enable us to increase the depth of the soil, but none of the options available from local establishments were particularly attractive. We did, however, notice that galvanised metal, particularly corrugated, galvanised metal seems to be very popular at the moment. Many of the garden centres and nurseries are displaying vast arrays of galvanised metal containers, both new and vintage.

This must have tweaked something in my subconscious as I remembered that we had a few small sheets of galvanised, corrugated iron sheeting up in the orchard.

I grabbed one, and after a couple of measurements I realised that, if I cut it in to 8" wide strips, they would be perfect to form an edge to the border. They would also allow us to add compost and manure, raising the soil level, improving both the soil quality and its moisture retaining ability.

After twenty minutes with an angle grinder the 24" by 30" sheet was cut in to four strips and I was ready to try out my design.

It worked beautifully. The strips of corrugated iron don't reduce the width of the bed and they interlock, making them simple to install and tie together. The corrugations also add rigidity, so we will be able to add compost and manure, increasing the soil depth without fear of the edging collapsing.

The edging looks great alongside the brickwork and I am feeling quite pleased with my low cost, up cycling solution.

Everything is growing beautifully

We were both up before six this morning and, after an early breakfast, we got started with the day's activities.

Mission #1 was to give the hatching eggs a good clean in egg sanitiser before placing them in the incubator and starting off the next twenty one day incubation cycle.  I then continued in the poultry vein, cleaning out the brooder and ensured that our first batch of chicks had plenty of food and clean water.

I then headed out to the orchard where 30% had applied herself to weeding the pumpkin patch. In the past couple of months the pumpkin plants have run riot. After a slow start they suddenly put on a growth spurt and the six plants have now completely taken over the old poultry run and are pushing out vigorous shoots across the grass. Pumpkin fruits are starting to form on the vines and the largest of which is close to eight inches in diameter.

We spent a good couple of hours placing tiles under each of the young fruits to lift them clear of the damp earth and reduce the risk of rot. We also cleared the remaining debris from the now demolished chicken house. This old shed appeared to have been built on a foundation of railway sleepers, loose bricks and whatever else came to hand. I swear I even extracted an enamel dish and a baking cooling rack from the ground this morning.

With the another part of the orchard decontaminated, we lunched and then headed in to the afternoon.  30% "headed" straight to bed for a nap, and I wandered over to the computer and attempted to find inspiration for yesterday's Journal entry.

After taking it easy during the heat of the day, we wandered back out to the garden. I thinned the beetroot seedlings to ten centimetre spacings and then mowed a strip in the orchard, where 30% wanted to clear and prune. After a few minutes of this, we both decided that it was far too hot for manual labour and, instead, decided to head off in search of edging for the small bed we cleared on Monday.

The bed is shallow, narrow,  dry and its soil is impoverished. We would like to install edging that would allow us to increase the depth of soil, but everything we looked at either wouldn't work or looked bloody awful.  In the end I decided that I might be able to do something innovative in a rustic fashion with some corrugated iron that is kicking around in the orchard ... I will either be feeling smug or bloody frustrated, depending on how that pans out.

In other gardening news; the tomato crop has now started to ripen and we have tasted the first of the Bloody Butcher fruits. They are tasty enough, but not as good as Alicante in either flavour or vigour. I can also report that the Spring cabbage seedlings have already started to shoot, barely four days after planting ... not bad for seeds that passed their expiry date three months ago.

To wash or not to wash?

 Today I seemed to be mostly collecting fertile eggs.

In the morning 30% and I headed over to Stratford-upon-Avon and whizzed around the supermarket before heading across town and on to Snitterfield.  Our destination was the Domestic Fowl Trust, where we were supposed to collect twenty Crested Cream Legbar hatching eggs.

Unfortunately, the laying birds had not read the order properly and there were only fifteen eggs available ... and many of those were pretty grubby. The chap at the Trust was very decent about this and halved the price of the eggs. He also threw in a good few kilos of medicated chick crumb, so it would be churlish to be anything other than complimentary. 

As we headed home I pointed out that we would have five spare spots in our incubator and we might as well try to fill them.  The man at the Trust had mentioned Newland Poultry over towards Malvern, so I gave them a call.

It is getting towards the end of the poultry breeding season as the parent birds will soon start their moult, but Newland Poutry managed to scrape together half a dozen "Olive Eggers" for me to pick up later in the day. Olive Eggers are a cross breed from Marans and Crested Cream Legbar parent birds. They will, as the name suggests, lay olive green eggs once they mature.

Having collected the eggs, I left them to settle overnight, planning to start the incubation tomorrow. However, as mentioned earlier, the Legbar eggs were pretty dirty and, obviously, the incubator is the perfect environment for bacteria to grow. Should I wash the eggs, or not?

An internet search followed and left me none the wiser. Some sources state that washing the eggs in a proprietary egg disinfectant solution is the way forward. Others say that it damages the egg's protective cuticle and is the action of a madman.*

In the end I decided that the eggs would be washed before incubation. It'll be interesting to see how thing pan out in twenty one or two days time.

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* Many years ago I recall collecting a Minorca egg from a very muddy run. The egg was literally plastered with mud and other chicken run filth. I clearly remember that I incubated the egg and it hatched successfully, and I am pretty certain that I would have washed it first.

Cleaning & Tidying

 The chicks are doing really well and first job of the day is to check that they are OK before refreshing the newspaper lining of the brooder and ensuring they have clean water* and plenty of chick crumb.

After cleaning the chicks' brooder, I attended to the cleaning and sterilisation of the incubator. This was timely as 30% has arranged to collect a batch of Crested Cream Legbar eggs tomorrow morning.  I was amazed at how grubby the incubator was considering the chicks were only in it for less than sixty hours. Every surface was covered with a fine dusting of down and the base was littered with shell fragments and chick faeces. 

As I washed and sterilised the components my thoughts turned to an acquaintance of ours, who is an incubation addict.  She will set batch after batch of eggs without ever cleaning her incubators. I often wonder what her hatch rates are and whether her chicks are impacted by being hatched in such an environment?**

Cleaning and reassembling the incubator took most of the morning and the afternoon was fairly leisurely. 30% and I cleared a small, shallow border alongside one of the outbuildings. Until this afternoon it was planted with a scruffy rose that refused to flower, a poorly fruiting raspberry and several Stinking Iris plants.

Our plan is to plant a couple of Lupins in the bed, but, having cleared it, I wonder whether Lavender might be better suited.  The bed has very shallow soil and is also very dry.

Whatever we plant there, it will need a lot of care and attention until it is established and possibly beyond.

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* The chicks may be precocious, meaning that they require no parental care, but this precociousness seems to be combined with an innate ability to crap in any food or water container less that five minutes after it has been refreshed.

** Mind You, it can get pretty rank under a broody hen! That is definitely NOT a sterile environment and naturally hatched chicks seem to do OK.

Guests

 We don't see M&M that often, but when we do it is always great fun.

After our last get-together in Winchcombe, we had arranged for M&M and Nova* to come over for lunch and a leisurely afternoon.

That day had finally arrived and the weather was absolutely perfect for al fresco dining. 30% spent the morning preparing a huge feast of salads, cheeses, charcuterie and nibbles, whilst I spent a couple of hours mowing the orchard.

M&M arrive around one o'clock and we had a wonderful afternoon out on the patio laughing, eating and drinking.  

They are a little overprotective of Nova, but she is their "first baby" and we'll allow them their  new parent insecurities. 

Hobson was an angel and played beautifully with her. Dog #4 came out had a sniff and a bit of a play before returning to her bed and staying out of sight for the rest of the day. As for Whiffler, he did feel the need to show that he was top dog and did attempt to hump Nova a few times. This did cause a few concerned dashes across the garden to protect her innocence.

We could see that it was a dominance behaviour, mostly to show Hobson who was boss, unfortunately M&M were worried that Nova would be defiled.

Oh well, hopefully they will relax more as she gets older.

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* Their six month old Labrador pup

Hailes & Gardening.

Saturday was another busy one!

I was out of the house before eight thirty and headed over to Evesham to collect Bubbles.  We then drove over to Hailes and had a splendid morning clay shooting.  The weather was absolutely glorious and it is one of the most attractive shooting grounds that I have ever visited.  From the stand at the top of the hill there are splendid views north west across beautiful countryside towards Dumbleton and beyond.

I had a couple of appalling stands, but, overall, was reasonably pleased with how I shot. My score was 52/96.*

Clay shooting consumed the morning and first task of the afternoon was to plant a row of second crop potatoes.** I've not planted spuds so late in the year and it'll be interesting to see how they perform. If the packaging is to be believed we will be able to have Charlotte new potatoes with our Christmas Lunch.

30% and I then headed out towards Powick. We have set our hearts on a water feature comprising a mill stone with a bubbling little fountain at its centre. 30% had found a local Architectural Antiques dealer with a potential stone and we were off to check it out.  When we found the dealer we were surprised to see that it was a house that we had viewed about four or five years ago when we first put The Pile on the market. At that time we rejected the house because it was very close to a busy road and this time we rejected the mill stone because it was cast concrete, rather than the real thing ... the search continues.

Back at home I returned to the greenhouse and planted some Durham Early Spring cabbage in seedling plug trays. These will be grown on, transplanted in to pots and will be planted out in the veg patch later in the year.  They will spend the Winter under cloches and should provide some lovely Spring greens by February.

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* The Hailes shoot is twelve stands with eight clays at each.

** Maris Peer and Charlotte varieties. Ten seed potatoes of each. The Maris Peer were planted at the end of the row closest to the path through the veg patch.

Chick Update

It is time for the results of our recent incubation. We set twenty eggs on the Fourth of July. Ten were from Cuckoo Marans and the other ten were from Norfolk Grey chickens.

The eggs were due to hatch on Thursday 25th, but the first chick, a cuckoo Maran made its appearance on Wednesday.

By Thursday morning a couple more had hatched and the end of day total was five.

Friday was a busy day at the Game Fair, but we checked the eggs before we left, and ten were cheeping and staggering around the incubator. 

On our return we checked again and no more had hatched. As we were now a day over the normal twenty one day incubation, we decided it was time to open up the incubator and take a look. We also transferred the hatched chicks to a Brooder pen, providing food, water and an electric hen to keep them warm

One further egg had pipped, but the other nine were still intact. I float tested* these and none seemed show any indications of containing a hatching chick.  All of the eggs were returned to the incubator.

On Saturday morning no further eggs had pipped. The one egg that had pipped had cracked further but the chick was struggling. 30% stepped in and assisted the hatch. The youngster was left to dry off and recover from the exertions of hatching.

By Sunday we transferred the last check to the Brooder pen and turned off the incubator. The final total was eleven chicks; six Norfolk Greys and five Cuckoo Marans.  A fifty five percent hatch rate isn't great, but it could have been a lot worse. Now we need to wait a few weeks to see how many pullets we have.

Oh, and 30% is already scouring the internet for another batch of fertile eggs!

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* Float testing: If a hatching, but not yet pipped, egg is floated in warm water, the movement of the chick stirring inside the egg will jiggle the floating egg. No jiggling suggests that the egg is either infertile or the chick is dead in shell.

The Game Fair

 We were up early this morning and, after a quick breakfast, we whizzed around the garden and ensured that everything was well watered.  Next on the list was to take the dogs for a short walk to make sure they were emptied!

Then we all bundled in to the Defender and headed off down the A44 to Blenheim Palace for this Years Game Fair ... basically an excuse for a commercial extravaganza wrapped around a theme of Hunting, Shooting and Fishing. 

We had a lovely day, parts of which were spent with Bubbles and Bobbyn. The weather was just perfect, dry and sunny, but not too hot for the dogs. As for the dogs, they got many compliments and caresses ... mostly accompanied by statements to the effect of "it's so nice to see proper poodles rather than doodles and cockapoos!"

Having three large dogs meant that most of our day was a wander around and a general viewing rather than intense scrutiny of any of the events, demonstrations or commercial outlets. However, we did end up ordering a case of some splendid wines and a replacement cheese knife was also purchased.*

We headed home at about four in the afternoon. We had had a lovely day, but we both agreed that it is a far better event when it is hosted three miles down the road from home at Ragley Hall.**

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* How the hell do you loose a bloody cheese knife?  We had a little beauty, but it simply disappeared about 6 months ago, never to be seen again. We are both blaming TP for that crime!

** The Blenheim organisers haven't got a fucking clue about car parking or signposting within the venue.

Busy Day

Today was always going to be a busy day.

We have chicks hatching in the incubator, but they don't demand a lot of attention. In fact, the worst thing one can do is to open up the incubator for a better look. We just needed to be patient and leave them to hatch in their own time.

So, off we went to Alcester for eye tests. 30% was due for her post cataract surgery check up and all was good. We hope that the second operation, scheduled for October, will go as smoothly. As for me, I had my last eye test in February, but I felt that my vision had deteriorated and wanted to check that all was well. It turned out that my prescription had changed and, by the end of the session, my wallet was three hundred quid lighter as readers and long distance spectacles were now needed.

We had a fun time choosing specs, and then headed down the high street to the show shop to return a pair that 30% had gifted me last week.  They were lovely sandals, but they just didn't fit correctly, so back they needed to go. Again, we had a super time with the sales assistant* and found a pair that fitted perfectly and also a replacement pair of Josef Siebel Max mules ... my slipper of choice.

With our Alcester trip completed we headed back home and had a hasty lunch. We then headed over to Pershore to pick up a pair of teak Steamer Chairs that 30% had found on Facebook Marketplace.  They will be perfect for the garden, needing only a new set of cushions. I might give them a rub down and oil over at some point over the Winter, but, for the Summer, we can put up with their slightly worn appearance.

Back at home we both collapsed and snoozed for an hour before Mr and Mrs Tweedy arrived for afternoon tea and a peep at the hatching chicks. Mrs Tweedy was at the better end of her irritability spectrum today, so we had a reasonable couple of hours catching up on 30%'s family news.

Bobbyn arrived shortly after their departure and we headed off around the Three Miler with the mutts. More peeping at chicks followed, before I collapsed on the sofa with supper.

As for the chicks, the end of day count was five.

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* She made it quite clear that we could take as much of her time as we liked and that she was quite willing to bend over backwards ... basically do anything but be involved with the mother and two boisterous children that needed new trainers.

Cut out the middle man?

 This morning 30% and I headed in to Redditch to pick up some supplies from a local Feed & Tackle Store.  30% failed to find a suitable poultry drinker and I emerged from the fishing tackle section with my wallet £20 pounds lighter.

That was the point where I should, knowing what I know now, have just thrown the twenty quid straight in to the river ... or a convenient bin.

The day rolled on and minor jobs were completed. The high spot of the day is that a couple of the eggs in the incubator have started to pip.  The young chicks have managed to make an initial chip in the eggshell, but it will be several hours before they manage to break free.

Now, back to fishing and fishing tackle. This evening I headed over to Fladbury and set myself up on a peg near the bridge, as suggested by Bubbles. Over the course of the evening I was, once again, subjected to inane and deeply uninteresting trivia from the workshop of the local Volkswagen dealer. I also managed to loose not one, but two sets of tackle on an underwater snag and had barely a bite all evening. By ten o'clock I was quite cold and decided to pack up my gear ... just as Ben pulled a beautiful chub from the river.

At this point I realised that I could have just chucked the twenty quid straight in the river and spent the evening at home with 30%.

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Post Script: I actually do enjoy my fishing. There is something quite zen about the preparation, the gathering of the tackle, the set up of rod, line, hook and bait. It comes close to meditation. And, as for the hours watching the rod tip, the flow of the river and the rising of the fish, that is incredibly relaxing. And there is also the underlying tension of the potential catch!

It is just that, recently, I find myself somewhat irritated by B&B's chatter. They work together, hence much of the discussion is work related and I find myself excluded. Also Ben is only twenty two and has very little life experience. Consequently a conversation with him tends to be limited ... he is a nice kid, but discourse with him is definitely within boundaries established by his lack of life experience.

Perhaps I need to invest in a landing net and fish on my own peg for a while.

Quite Busy

 A short entry in the Journal today, as I need to be sorting out fishing tackle rather than sitting in front of a screen.

Tuesday morning was spent dealing with vital, but relatively minor items from my to do  list.  The cobweb covered poultry feeders and drinkers were scrubbed clean and put out in the sun to dry.  A moisture trap was placed in the BMW and I prepared some bait* for fishing on Wednesday.

I then extracted my tea chest smoker from the shed and set it up under the carport.  My intention was to smoke a few blocks of mature cheddar.  However, I was going to need to make a minor modification to the smoker to increase its capacity. 

The smoker has a single shelf comprised of removable dowels that is perfect for smoking a block of cheese. However, the cheese I smoked a few weeks ago was very popular and I had orders from Bubbles, a member of the coven and 30% for more. 

I needed to construct and install another removable shelf** in order to accommodate three pieces of cheddar. Fortunately a quick search of the workshop located dowels and a piece of oak that would work quite nicely. A happy couple of hours followed whilst I fashioned and installed the second smoking rack.

The smoker was lit, the cheese was inserted and the timer on my 'phone was set to two hours. 

Whilst the cheese smoked, I dragged The Beast from the shed and finished the lawns, specifically the rough areas around the garage and the verges at the front of the house.

That pretty much sums up my day apart from wrapping and refrigerating the cheese after smoking, a walk around the Three Miler with Bobbyn and the dogs and a lazy night trying to stay awake on the sofa.

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* cubed luncheon meat marinated in garlic paste with a sprinkle of madras curry powder.

** The shelves need to be removable so that the smoker can accommodate two full loins of pork, when I am smoking bacon.

Gardener's World

Today was always going to be a gardening day.  Our potterings over the weekend had identified a couple of jobs that needed attention and my plan was to get them crossed off the to do list.

First job of the day was to check the tomatoes, nipping out any side shoots and tying up the vines as necessary.  As I checked them over I was delighted to find that one of the fruits has finally started to ripen,* a first blush of red.  This is a gardening milestone for us and it seems to have taken an age this year, perhaps due to the mediocre weather that seems to be prevalent. 

I can't wait to enjoy our home-grown tomatoes rather than the frequently tasteless varieties available from the Supermarket.

After tying up the toms I headed out to the raspberry canes. The Autumn cropping varieties are starting to produce long shoots and these needed tying in to the supporting wires. By late morning I was finished and it was time for the first outing of the new Mountfield mower.

I am delighted to report that it mows beautifully and the lawns look fantastic,** having benefitted from the recent showers.

While I was mowing, 30% had been possessed by her pyromaniac alter ego and had an impressive bonfire burning in the orchard. By the end of the afternoon she had disposed of the huge pile of material cleared from the Pineapple Broom Bed, leaving me with another large area of the orchard to attack with The Beast later on in the week.

That's just about it for today, although I will mention that we now only have three days to go until the eggs are due to hatch. The incubator has automatically increased the humidity, slightly dropped the incubation temperature and turned off the egg turning function ... now we wait with bated breath for the first signs of pipping.

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* The variety is Bloody Butcher. This is the first year I have grown it and I am not overly impressed. The plants have not done well, when compared to the other varieties that I am growing; Alicante, Sweet Aperitif, Shirley, Marmande and Gardeners Delight. It may have won the prize for first tomato of the season, but it is far less vigorous than, and will be easily outcropped by, the other varieties.

** Apart from where that fucking mole has been buggering about!

Shattered!

After last night's dinner party it was one o'clock in the morning before my head hit the pillows.

You can, therefore, imagine my disgust when I found myself wide a-fucking-wake four hours later!  Try as I might, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I rose and took a very slow start to the day. As the morning continued I felt more and more groggy. It's not as though I can blame drink as I was the designated driver* last night. 

After re-setting the mole trap** I had to admit defeat and retired to my bed for a desperately needed hour of sleep.  This became a recurring theme throughout the day and further kips and snoozes were necessary at intervals.

The day wasn't a complete write-off though. 30% and I did manage to plant out her pea plants. They are just starting to flower and are now out in the veg patch with a rather professional looking mesh support for the vines.

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* I've actually been off the booze since the beginning of the month.

** Yes, another of the little bastards has encroached on the lawn ... fucker!

Don't count your chickens

 I am well aware that one shouldn't count their chickens before they hatch, but I am also equally aware that one should always be prepared.

With five days to go before our eggs are due to hatch we are making sure that we have everything we need to successfully raise the chicks. Feeders and drinkers have been located and will be cleaned and sterilised over the next couple of days. And much thought has been given to housing the young birds.

For the first six weeks they will need to be sheltered and kept warm, mimicking the conditions that would, under normal conditions, have been provided by the hen.  I have an old wooden brooder box that I built years ago. It is tried and tested, but is very heavy and rapidly developing chicks soon outgrow it. I therefore scoured eBay a few days ago and found a purpose built, easy to clean brooder up for auction. It would need to be collected, but was only about thirty miles away ... so guess what I was up to this morning?

Yep, I won the auction at the opening price of twenty quid and this morning 30% and I headed up the M42 to Coleshill to collect it.  I suppose one of the luxuries of being retired is having the time to find a bargain and then go and pick it up.

On our return we called in at one of the local feed stores and picked up some chick crumb. All I need to do now is get an additive for their drinking water to, hopefully, prevent coccidiosis, and we should have everything we need.

I assembled the brooder in the afternoon and delighted with it. It is light, spacious and easy to clean. All we need now is a successful  hatch.

The remainder of my afternoon was quite lazy.  Rain storms came and went and a planned dog walk didn't happen.

In the evening we headed in to Evesham for dinner with friends. Our hosts were Rosie and Jim and we were also joined by the Tewkesbury contingent; Gizzie and Jules.  The evening started with Gizz and Jules, recently returned from a trip to The States, arriving dressed as a cheerleader and a New York cop. It then descended in to many hours of great food and hysterical laughter.

It was, most definitely a late one!

A long, sweaty afternoon in the sun with a couple of Hos ...

By the end of it I was absolutely exhausted!

Hang on. After re-reading that intro I realise that I may have missed out an "e", or two.

It was another scorching day and, after breakfast in the sun and a stroll around the garden, 30% headed out for supplies and I attended to watering. 

30% returned just before lunch and informed me that "if we can't go to Greece yet, I'm going to bring Greece to us". She smiled and produced a lollipop Olive Tree in a pot and an inflatable paddling pool. Basically it's an instant villa kit ... just add sunshine, a few puffs of air and several litres of water.

30% was out again in the afternoon ... another triple c* session with the coven, so I was left alone. I did what any man starved of company would do and arranged for an afternoon with a couple of hoes.

Yep, I spent a long afternoon in the sun weeding the vegetable patch!

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* coffee, cake and chat

Home Alone

 It was foretold in the stars and the scattering of the chicken bones that I would be on my own for much of the day ... Basically 30% had planned a day out with the coven in Malvern. They would be away for most of the day, as lunch was planned before viewing a musical based on the hits of Dolly Parton.

This left me home alone with a couple of items to be, hopefully, crossed off the to do list.

It was a beautiful morning, and we started it with a gentle stroll around the garden before taking breakfast on the little bench that I have recently moved to catch the first rays as the sun rises over the orchard. 

As 30% made her preparations to leave, I realised that the tomatoes needed watering quite urgently and emptied several watering cans in the greenhouse. This left the water butts drained, so my next task was to unroll the hosepipe, plug in the well pump and refill them.

With my morning, and the water butts, duly filled, I retired to the shade for lunch before starting objective #1 ... nettle spraying.  

Parts of the orchard become thick with head high nettles as the year unfolds and they are a pig to control. I have tried brush cutting but it leaves the roots intact, allowing for regrowth.  My preferred approach is to spray with SBK. It is a selective, broad leaved herbicide that targets nettles, docks and brush, leaving grass unaffected. 

SBK is perfect for the orchard as our aim is to improve the grass cover. We are hoping that a combination of nettle killing and mowing will encourage and improve the grass to a point where we can actually call it pasture.

It took 13 litres of spray to treat the orchard and by the time I finished the last patch I was ready for a kip away from the afternoon sun.

In the later afternoon I gathered my fishing tackle together along with sundry items* and a rather tasty supper, before heading over to Barton for an evening fishing with Bubbles and Ben.  

Well! that turned out to be painful! I spent the evening sat between B&B and had to endure a fucking tedious conversation that tacked from shooting ear plugs to the comings and goings of a Volkswagen Dealership.  I wish I had selected a solo peg and enjoyed a quiet Summer evening rather than listen to their bloody nonsense.**

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* Phone, car keys, fishing permit etc

** To make matters even worse I had forgotten my insulin, so my home made chicken and mayo on wholemeal remained uneaten and my belly rumbled.

The Beast

I had problems getting my act together this morning.  I had jobs that needed to be done, but I just could not get my arse in to gear.

30% busied herself with further tidying of her Pineapple Broom's bed and suggested that we could complete a Tip Run before we needed to head in to Redditch to view the new, old mower.  I grudgingly agreed, fell in to line and soon found myself happily extracting items of garden debris and piling them up by the trailer.

At this point I should probably mention that the previous owner of the cottage was a) a bit of a hoarder and b) a bit of a bodger. The phrase "why do a job properly when you can assemble a half-arsed mess of inappropriate items" accurately sums up his approach. Over the past three years I have removed all sorts of stuff from gaps in the fences and hedges. We assume these were attempts to constrain Archie, their son's Lurcher. And, as for the chicken house, do not get me started on that abomination!*

Right! Back to the Tip Run. Obviously the Porn Mower was destined for recycling and it was joined in the trailer with several large sheets of metal mesh and plastic that had been inserted at various points in our boundary hedges. A few other odds 'n sods were added to the load and off we went to Hanbury tip.

A quick lunch was eaten on our return, before we headed off to Redditch to have a look at the second-hand mower.  It was a Honda engined McCulloch that was originally a self-propelled unit.  Time and some abuse had resulted in the failure of the self-drive functionality and it had been serviced and converted to a push only mower.

It started easily and seems perfect for hacking back the grass and weeds on the rough ground in the orchard. If it only lasts a season it will have earned its keep.

Hands were shaken, money was handed over and the Beast was loaded in to the back of the Defender. We then headed over to Evesham to pick up a prescription and a few comestibles.

Back at home it was time to try out the Beast and it was absolutely brilliant. I spent a merry couple of hours in the orchard and it was only thirst and a need to spray more nettles that brought the fun to a close. 

With a few more hours up there, it will start to look almost civilised.

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* Definitely a crime against carpentry and shed construction in general

How many lawn mowers does a man need?

 Achieving anything significant today was always going to be challenging. 

Hobson and Whiffler were booked in at the Groomers and this meant that at least an hour needed to be put aside at both ends of the day to ferry them to and from Stratford-upon-Avon.  "OK" I hear you say "but that is only a couple of hours, three at most" and I agree, but when you add in compulsory coffee breaks and a definite need to change in and out of filthy gardening clothes, the couple of hours becomes a significant disruption.

So, the day panned out as follows. We dropped them off in the morning and then headed over to Evesham with Dog#4 for coffee and a wander round the shops at The Valley.  That consumed most of the morning.

The afternoon was mostly pottering, but the most significant occurrence was that 30% has made contact with a chap in Redditch via Facebook Marketplace who has a second-hand mower for sale for a very reasonable sixty quid.

"Why the fuck do you need another Mower?" I hear you ask "You already have a ride-on that you rarely use and there is a one day old Mountfield sat in the shed!"  Well, these are good points, but you are forgetting that I blew up the Porn Mower* attempting to tame the orchard on Saturday. There is no way that I am going to expose my Beauties to the wilds of the orchard. 

If I am going to kill another mower it is going to be some cheap, potentially knackered old bastard from The Ditch!

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* God Bless its eternal soul

Out with the old, in with the new

 The forecast for today was torrential rain, which was due to arrive by lunchtime. That had a significant impact on our gardening plans and we ended up doing little jobs that could be easily aborted as the morning showers came and went.

30% contented herself with weeding out in the front, whilst I nipped out the side shoots and trained the tomatoes in the greenhouse. I then headed out to the vegetable garden and planted another row of spring onions and also a row of beetroot in the larger of the two raised beds. The carrots in the smaller bed were thinned about a week ago and are looking fantastic with their feathery foliage, evenly spaced in five neat rows.

In the early afternoon we headed in to Worcester to pick up the new lawn mower and collect a few sundries from the supermarket just over the road from Ron Smith Ltd. We were back home by two o'clock, just as the rain started.

30%'s life is punctuated by coffee breaks. Every activity is either preceded by, or followed up, with a cup of coffee, so our safe arrival home was celebrated with a cup of "instant" before I assembled the mower. 

It didn't seem to be an overly complex job. The push handle needed to be fixed in to place and the grass collection bag needed to be assembled. However, If I am honest, the task was made more complicated by the fucking appalling, infographic loaded, multi language pamphlet that had been substituted for a proper manual.* The booklet covered three model ranges and had model dependent assembly instructions. Unfortunately the diagrams did not make clear which model they for and there were a couple of steps that had to be redone after moments of inspiration, gifted by the deity** of lawn mowing.

As for the grass collection bag, do not get me started! The only reason I was able to get this put together was that I had read a couple of on-line reviews, and learnt that, if assembled inside out, the bag would simply fall apart once it was half full of clippings. It still took me a couple of attempts and a bloody big screwdriver to clip the bag on to its metal supports. What makes this worse is that I rarely use the grass collection bag, preferring to mow in mulch mode.

Anyway, rant over. All I need to do now is to decide on a name for the new mower.

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* A full manual is available on-line, but I am assembling the mower sheltered from the rain in the shed and I am sixty years old. There is no fucking way that I am going to use a tiny phone screen that turns off five seconds after I put the damned thing down, in order to tighten up the next bolt in the assembly process. I want a proper bloody manual that I can put down, open at the correct page and then glance at it when I am ready to follow the next step in the process. Is that too much to ask for Mountfield?

** Worship this all knowing entity properly and make the correct offerings.*** Then you can be certain of fine weather and a dry sward on the day you want to mow the lawn.

*** I have clearly fucked this god properly off as I have recently been stricken with a plague of moles!

Shooting at South Worcester

 A short one today!

In the eight months I worked at my last job I only managed to develop one working relationship. That says a lot about how badly the remote team was managed and it was probably the primary reason why I decided to retire. For someone who enjoys the solitude of home working, it is somewhat ironic that I found it a very lonely job. In every other remote working job I have had, the teams have been well managed and working relationships established with ease, many of them developing in to friendships.

That didn't happen with DXC* with the exception of the relationship with Gary.  A few months in to my employment I was assigned to shadow a deal being led by Gary and within a few minutes of our first phone call we realised that we were both cynical bastards that liked shooting.  The relationship blossomed and we have continued to keep in touch. 

His role in the relationship is to remind me how shit it is working for a living and my role is to piss him off by telling him how great retirement is.

Anyway, today he came down from Nottinghamshire and we went shooting with Bubbles and Ben at South Worcester shooting ground just the other side of Upton-upon-Severn. We had a splendid few hours in lovely sunshine and then headed back here for bacon rolls and a chat.

Once Gary had headed off I had a traditional Sunday afternoon snooze, followed by a very lazy evening.

All in all a grand Sunday!

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* The manager was, at best, a dispatcher who was fucking useless. He loved the sound of his own voice, but hadn't got a frigging clue how to listen or manage and unite a remote team. I realised very early on in my employment that he was pretty clueless and nothing changed my opinion in my time there. He seemed completely disinterested in how I was integrating in to the role and didn't assign me any work for over six months. There were a few nice people** on the team, but there was no opportunity or apparent willingness to develop relationships. It was basically just a bunch of middle aged men with their own assignments under a common manager.

** There were a couple of complete fucking pricks too, but, fortunately, they were relatively easy to avoid.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Saturday started with a trip in to Evesham to fill the Defender with diesel and to pick up a couple of bags of chipped bark. These were needed to mulch the bed that is now home to the Pineapple Broom.  En route we passed Golls Nursery and managed to pop in on both the outbound and inbound journeys!  We purchased three lovely little Coleus plants with the most beautiful russet coloured foliage. They aren't frost hardy, but, for the moment, they look lovely in the recently cleared bed.

Mole news; I learnt that the Wikipedia statement about them being "solitary creatures" is complete bollocks! Another of the little sods has created a new molehill barely inches from yesterday's successful trapping.  I've got over my mole killing remorse very quickly and have re-set the bloody trap.

I then dragged the mower from the shed and whizzed around the back lawn and greenhouses.  With the rear of the cottage looking neat and tidy, I decided to take the mower up in to the orchard and see whether it would be feasible to mow it.

At this point I probably need to state that the grass and weeds in the orchard are close to knee height and it is nearly quarter of an acre in size. This is the gardening equivalent of trying to paint the Forth Bridge with 2" paint brush.

Actually, I was very surprised! With the mower set to its highest cut it made a reasonable job of the test area* and both 30% and I were bowled over by how much better it looked.  We had already been talking about buying a second hand mower for use up there** and this trial has demonstrated that simply mowing the orchard vastly improves its appearance and will help to control the weeds and improve the sward.

In the afternoon I was persuaded to take a break from the garden and take a walk with 30% and the dogs. For a change we diverted from the Three Miler and headed over the little bridge towards the next hamlet.  A couple of hundred yards beyond the bridge we turned right on to the Bridle Path and found a delightful, overgrown, but easily passable path with lovely views over the fields.  We walked for, perhaps, half a mile before turning and heading back towards home and supper.

Back at home I decided to mow a little more of the orchard and re-started the mower. It has been making horrible noises for the past couple of outings and, after a couple of yards, it lost power and stalled. I attempted to restart it and, after a few pulls, got it going again, but it was very, very sick.  After thirteen years of faithful service it had finally expired.  Without a single look back, not a modicum of remorse I walked away, grabbed my tablet and got a new mower ordered ... I'll be picking that up on Monday. 

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* About 50 square yards

** Mowing the orchard is going to be very hard on any mower until the ground is levelled out, so I don't want to be buggering up a brand new mower up there.

Not all victories are glorious

I slept late this morning, well late for me, and was woken around eight o'clock by 30% with a mug of hot coffee.

After a very gentle start to the day, we divided and conquered. 30% headed out* whilst I attended to gardening matters.  The main vegetable crops were fed; tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages and celeriac and then I went to inspect the mole trap ... Success!

I have caught one of the little blighters, but, despite yesterday's bluster, there is a poignancy to the deed. Moles are delightful little creatures and, as I have said before, I am perfectly happy for them to tunnel up in the orchard. And, for the past three years, that is exactly what they have done. It is a shame that there is no effective deterrent as that would be my preferred approach.

Midday approached and there was still no sight of 30%, so I dragged out the pawn mower and made a start on the front lawn. It was making a horrible noise, so I stopped and checked the blade. It is securely bolted to the drive shaft, but there is a lot of play and my imagination headed off down a very dark alley ... the one where the blade breaks loose from the drive shaft, exits the mower deck at the rear and shears off my feet at the ankles.

It is definitely time for a new mower!

The afternoon saw us clear the last of the ivy and brambles from behind the re-discovered bed and finally get the Pineapple tree in to the ground.  This, of course, creates a whole new gardening debate based around "what ground cover plants should we go with?"

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* For a chat with her half-sister

Crossing the Line

 A couple of weeks ago I was looking out from the bathroom window* and noticed a small heap of freshly dug earth at the edge of the lawn. 

In an instant each and every nerve fibre was on full alert ... it was clearly an initial foray by every green keeper's nemesis; a mole!

Now we have moles up in the orchard and I am quite happy for them to live their little subterranean lives, munching on worms and creating heaps of soft, brown earth.  However there is a line that shall not be crossed and that line surrounds each and every one of the lawns.

"Do your moley shit in the orchard and all is fine. Any foray on to the lawns is an open declaration of war!"

Over the following days a few more molehills appeared and a mole trap was purchased.  Now for a little tangent. Years ago my father informed me that moles have a very keen sense of smell and one should always handle mole traps with hands that have been rubbed with earth to mask our scent. Taking heed of this I ensured that the new mole trap was rubbed with damp soil and buried for a day or so, before I set it in the mole's run.

The approach I used was to dig carefully down with a hand trowel and locate the run about 5" below the surface.  I place a few chopped worms in the run as bait and carefully set the trap in place.  A bucket was upturned over the trap to keep every thing nice and dark and all needed to do now was to go about my business.

Should the mole be piggybacking on my wifi and reading the Journal, I have this message for it ... I WILL END YOU, YOU LITTLE FUCKER!

The rest of the day involved some gentle gardening, an invitation from the coven to attend an Indian cuisine demonstration and an evening fishing at Fladbury with Bubbles.**

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* The WC in the bathroom is affectionately known as The Best Seat in the House.  We have no neighbours, so we have no need of opaque glass and therefore enjoy unobscured views across open fields when sat upon the loo.

** We had several good bites, but none were caught.

Can you freeze celeriac?

 I know it's a bit of an odd title for a Journal entry, but I'll get to the point in a moment, or two.

I woke early and wandered in to the kitchen to make coffee. A flash of colour outside the window caught my attention and my eyes fell upon a Greater Spotted Woodpecker searching for insects on the trunk of the Birch tree.  We have several woodpeckers in and around the garden and they are always a delight to see and hear.

As I watched it searching for food, a movement on the ground distracted me and I saw another quite large bird. It took me a moment to realise that it was a juvenile Green Woodpecker here in the garden.  We often hear these shy birds calling in the surrounding fields, but it was a rare treat to see one only a few yards from the kitchen window. 

So that was how my day started, coffee and a rarely seen avian dinosaur. 

Now on to celeriac and whether it can be frozen.  Both 30% and I love this versatile vegetable hence I have twenty plants doing quite nicely out in the veg patch. They are slow to germinate and grow, but I should have a decent crop by the end of the Autumn. 

I have grown them previously and the limited information available suggested that they could be left in the ground and simply lifted, as required, over the course of the Winter.  I found out the hard way that this advice was complete bollocks, as they turned to a revolting mush after the first couple of frosts.

I was therefore interested in finding a way to effectively store this vegetable to avoid another wasted crop. Research on the internet had indicated that it could be blanched and frozen, so that is what I tried this morning.  

The celeriac bulb was peeled, cut in to 2cm cubes and added to a pan of boiling water. Once the water had returned to the boil, it was left to simmer for two and a half minutes before being drained and plunged in to iced water.  After chilling, the cubes of celeriac were patted dry with a fresh tea towel and then frozen loose on a tray. They will be bagged up tomorrow and then left for a month or two, before I thaw them out and see if it is an effective method of preservation.

The alternative is to simply lift them out of the ground, clean them off and store them in a box of peat in a cool, dry, frost free place.  My only concern is that the bloody mice will be at them before I shut the door on the store room.

The rest of the day saw me mostly out and about in the garden. I finally got the BMW hooked up to the battery optimiser and it is now neatly covered in the car port. 30% and I gave the dogs a short walk and finally got the Azure Rush Geraniums and Lemon Popsicle Kniphofia planted after they had sat patiently in pots for far too long a good while.

The big job of the afternoon was to prepare space in the garden for 30%'s recently acquired Pineapple Tree (Cytisus battandieri).  The chosen spot was a very overgrown bed to the rear of the vegetable garden up against the orchard fence.  The bed was home to a monstrous, tangled privet, a healthy crop of stinging nettles and a red currant that had last cropped when I was a child. It is fair to say that clearing the bed was a bit of a job and, by the end of the afternoon, several barrow loads of greenery had been piled in the orchard for burning at a later date.

We haven't finished the clearance yet, but we can see that we now have a bed that is about 5' x 8' and it should be perfect for the Pineapple Tree ... once I get those bloody roots out!

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* I must jot down the celeriac soup recipe I use. It is a fabulous rich creamy soup that must be good for you, it has vegetables in it.**

** Yes Bad Man, it also has six ounces of butter and half a pint of double cream too!