Have we opened a petting zoo?

 Most of this morning seemed to have been taken up with Hobson's visit to the Vet. This is the second appointment this week to check on an infection in his right ear. Fortunately matters are improving and today's pencilled in sedation wasn't needed to examine his ear canal. We left with a large quantity of drugs and ointments and will be back next week for a further follow-up.

Our return trip included a stop off at Botany Bay Nursery for three bags of manure and a rare visit to the Village Shop for a couple of kilos of granulated sugar.  The former will be dug in to the garden at some point and the latter will be made up in to sugar syrup and fed to the nucleus colony of bees.

That took up most of the morning and what little spare time was left was used to clean and sterilise the incubator. It is now packed away, although I have a strange feeling that 30% will have us hatching again next Spring.

Shortly after lunch the first in a string of visitors arrived. It appeared that 30% had invited any of her family and friends with children to come and see the recently hatched chicks.

First through the gate was the ELF with her son, our nephew, Oswald. We had a wander around the garden, viewed the hatchlings and had coffee in the afternoon sun before waving them off. It then became a case of rise and repeat as the ELF was followed by H and her two lovely granddaughters and finally Ellie and sons; Thomas and Oscar arrived for a look around.

It was actually a lovely afternoon and, with one exception,* the children were a delight. I think it will be a good few years yet before I stand any chance of being a grandparent, but it was great fun to spend time with enquiring and enthusiastic youngsters.

The final noteworthy activity was the introduction of the new queen to the nucleus colony in the orchard. I didn't spend too long up there, but can report that there were plenty of bees in the nuc and all seems well. I now need to wait a week before I inspect again. I think young Thomas might be up for helping me with that little job.

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* Not even I am stupid enough to name the annoying child in the on-line edition of The Journal.

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.