And now the hard work begins

There was no time to bathe in the glow of yesterday's village show success, for today we had a mountain of produce to deal with.

Selecting near perfect, matched specimens for showing means that there is always a significant quantity of imperfect, unmatched specimens left over.  There is nothing wrong with these specimens other than slight defects in appearance. They have been tended over the past weeks and months with care and attention and there is no way that we would let quality produce go to waste.*

This morning we set to processing our harvest.

My first job was to prepare, blanch and open freeze the carrots.  I did a batch a couple of days ago and internet sources suggested that they should be blanched for three to five minutes. I followed this guidance, but have my doubts. I have a suspicion that this is way too long and will lead to soggy veg, so this morning I only blanched them for ninety seconds before chilling, drying and freezing.

With those out of the way, I pulled the beetroot from the fridge and put them on to boil. A pickling vinegar was prepared and by lunchtime I had a kilo of beetroot pickling in a jar. It'll be couple of weeks before we can sample it,  but I can't wait.

At this point I should mention that 30% was fully occupied picking and preparing beans and she also knocked up a rather good tomato soup.

The weather had cleared by the early afternoon, so I grabbed my smoker and headed up to the orchard to check on the bees.

The first colony inspected was nucleus #2. The one that was set up at the end of last week.  The young queen had been released from her cage, but there was so many bees that it was not possible to spot her on the combs. It was also difficult to see whether she had started laying yet, so I can not yet determine whether this has been successful. I transferred the frames and bees to a full sized brood box, added five frames of foundation and re-filled their feeder with syrup. Hopefully I will spot her, or young brood at next week's inspection.

The colony established from nucleus #1 was doing well. The queen was spotted easily and there was plenty of young brood. She has definitely settled in and started laying. Her attendant workers had also started to draw out the comb on the foundation in the brood box and some of it already held capped stores. Again I topped up the colony's feeder and hope the other colony looks like this in a week's time.

After inspecting the hives I headed back to the kitchen and made a batch of celeriac soup with the any other vegetable entry from yesterday's show. I can report that the soup was beautiful and that fresh celeriac has a much deeper aroma and flavour than those from the shop.

That pretty much sums up today's accomplishments, but there are still a lot of vegetables to be harvested. 30% and I are yet to agree on whether we will be pickling or making chutney from the rest of the beetroot.

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* The show entries get eaten too. They may have sat in the village hall for a few hours, but they're still fresher than anything on a supermarket shelf.

The Village Show

We woke to a drizzly, grey morning and, after a hasty breakfast, started our preparations for the village horticultural show.

30% set to baking a trio of cakes, as she would be a member of the team serving refreshments.  

I headed outside and started to pull carrots and lift beetroot in search of perfect specimens.  I then spent a good while sat at one of our water tanks, washing the roots before trimming their tops to the requisite 7.5 cm.  It was then a matter of sorting and comparing them to identify trios of closely matched roots.

By this time 30% had her cakes in the oven and was picking and selecting Tomatoes and French and Runner Beans. I moved on to cabbage, pumpkins and celeriac, before we assembled our produce and headed down to the village hall.

At this point I'll interrupt my narrative to mention that I do have a minor grievance with the Horticultural Society following an episode of rudeness that resulted in me resigning from my role as co-chair.* I therefore might have had a point** to prove at today's show.

Our entries were registered and displayed we headed home for lunch and left the Judges to ... well judge.

"In your face" Horti Club!

30% headed back to the hall well before me to perform her Tea Lady duties and shortly after her departure I received the above photo. It is fair to say that I was delighted that our Vegetable Collection in a Trug, Basket or Box had landed first prize.  Clearly the judges had recognised my abilities to produce an attractive and eye catching design.***

Overall we had a great day and landed three first prize cards, five seconds, three thirds and five Highly Commended awards.  We didn't achieve any silverware, but were placed in all of the Challenge categories.

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* I used to get paid quite handsomely to work with difficult, talentless and rude people. I am certainly not going to do it free, gratis in my retirement!

** That being, that I do know bit about growing and displaying vegetables, which are the key skills that the two arseholes on the committee lack.

*** Sarcasm!

Village Show - results

 Here's a summary of our performance at the Village show earlier today.

For reference all entries are made in 30%'s name for a couple of reasons. Firstly joint entries are not permitted and secondly there is a Challenge Cup for the most points scored by a female entrant. We stand more chance winning in this category than going up against "Fred" who wins the corresponding male category with ease every year.

First Prize

• Vegetable Collection in a Trug, Basket or Box
• Any Other Vegetable - Cabbage
• French Beans, 6 Pods

Second Prize

• 5 Plums, any variety - Damsons, bloom removed 
• 3 Carrots
• 3 Beetroot, any one round variety
• Longest Runner Bean
• Runner Beans, 6 pods

Third Prize

• 3 Carrots
• 3 Beetroot, any one round variety
• Runner Beans, 6 Pods

Highly Commended

• 5 Apples, any one cooking variety
• Any Other Vegetable - Celeriac
• A Specimen Succulent or Cactus
• Dish of Any Other Fruit - Figs
• 5 Plums, any variety - Damsons, bloom present

Silverware

• None this year, but
• 3rd in the most points earned in the fruit classes,
• 3rd in the most points earned in the vegetable class, and
• 2nd in the most points earned by a female competitor

Collecting and Gathering

A fairly short entry for today.

This morning 30% and I hitched the trailer to the Defender and headed beyond Powick* to collect the large hexagonal stone from the Architectural Antiques dealer.  Fortunately there was a chap on-hand to assist and we soon had it loaded on to the trailer and tied down securely.

Back at home it was a simple matter to tilt the trailer on its single axle and let the stone slide gently to the ground. In fact it took longer for us to decide where to stow it than to unload it on to a sack truck.

The main activity for the afternoon was to start preparations for the village horticultural show, which takes place tomorrow.

For the past two years 30% has been awarded the Challenge Cup for the most points awarded in the Fruit Classes.  We were hoping she could do the same again, so more than an hour was spent scouring our apple trees for sets of five perfectly matched cooking apples.  I now know why it is called a Challenge Cup because it was a bloody challenge to find perfect unblemished specimens. This year's weather has not been great for gardeners and our chosen fruit was nowhere near as impressive as previous years.

I just hope the judges are impressed by the bowl of figs and the beautiful damsons** that will be entered too.

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* There is a politically incorrect story about a member of my childhood scout troop (2nd Evesham & Bengeworth) that was nicknamed Powick. It's probably best if I leave it at that.

** Up until today I had always thought of damsons as terrible, sour little excuses for plums. However I finally realised that, for all that time,  I had been sampling them before they were ripe. The little beauties we picked today are packed with flavour and the perfect amount of sweetness.

Emergency Appointment

 My eyes have been incredibly uncomfortable after having the punctal plugs inserted on Monday. For the first couple of days I could actually feel the plug in my left eye when blinking. Fortunately that has now subsided but my eyes are very sore and itchy. It feels like someone has thrown the contents of a vacuum cleaner dust bag in my face.

I managed to get an emergency appointment at the eye clinic this afternoon and have been prescribed a course of steroids with a follow-up in a couple of weeks.

In other news, 30% returned from her trip to London and had a lovely time. I decided that fishing with painful inflamed eyes was not going to be fun, so we spent the evening together catching up on each others' news and planning our weekend.

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Post Script: 30% did eventually notice that I had installed the window bars on the garage, but only after I redirected her back to the spot where she had just collected the recycling bin ... She thinks they look fabulous.

Keeping busy

 My plan for this morning was to install more of the window bars, following on from yesterday's success.  Tools were gathered, measurements were taken and the first set of window bars was carefully lifted into position ... Fuck, that aint gonna work!

In short, the window bars have a decorative, central bar that features a section of wrought iron grape vine. Unfortunately that decorative feature winds around the bar and  makes contact with the window's central glazing bar. This means that some sort of modification will be needed to allow installation.  It looks like I am going to need to build spacers to bring the bars away from the window and buy some longer security screws.

It is starting to look like there is a modicum of truth in yesterday's prediction that I won't finish the job until 2038.

Mildly disappointed, I headed out to the veg patch and made a start on a slightly less impressive task.  I thinned out my carrot crop in preparation for blanching and freezing later in the day.  I was absolutely delighted with the carrots. Most of them are 8" - 10" in length and are lovely and straight. I must admit that I am tempted to put a bunch of them in the upcoming village horticultural show.

I hid the wonky one at the back!

Lunchtime saw the arrival of my most recent eBay purchase; a vintage Record spokeshave, and this set the agenda for the rest of the afternoon. 

A few years ago I acquired a rather nice, old draw hoe with a wide blade.  It is perfect for earthing up potatoes and such like. However, the only problem was that the handle had suffered the ravages of time and badly needed replacing.  I managed to find a suitable handle that flared out at the blade end,* but it would need a lot of work to get the hoe head to fit.

Most of the afternoon was spent shaving the handle down with my new/old tool and repeatedly trial fitting the head.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself and now have a lovely vintage, draw hoe that is likely to outlast me.

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* If you think about it, a hoe head needs to be fitted from the top end of the new handle, the end closest to the user, and be slid down the full length of the shaft down to the business end. The new handle should flare out at this end where the hoe head is seated.  If assembled in this fashion, each pull on the hoe, when in use, will further secure the hoe head against the flared end of the handle.  If you fit it the other way, it will come loose in use and will result in much swearing.

How long before she notices?

30% is spending a couple of days in London with one of her Frolleagues from her last job, so I have been left to my own devices at home.  Whilst she is taking in the delights of the capital I am left to enjoy my own company and attend to whatever task takes my fancy.

This morning I attended to an experiment that I set up back in July.  A bag of frozen celeriac was taken out of the freezer and the remainder of the ingredients for James Martin's cream of celeriac soup were assembled.  Forty minutes later I was blending in the cream and butter and can report that it is possible to successfully freeze celeriac.  I added it to the soup ingredients while still frozen and it worked brilliantly. I have my doubts about thawing it and roasting for example, but I declare my experiment a resounding success.

The only problem is that I have about twenty celeriac plants in the veg patch and am going to need a bigger freezer!

A lunchtime delivery by the DPD driver prompted my afternoon activity.*  There is a bit of a back story to this one, so please bear with me ... 

Our house has a large, subdivided outbuilding. The end furthest from the house is the garage then, working back towards the house, we have the garden store, the double carport, the workshop and finally the store room. Living out in the sticks security is a priority and on moving in we spent an absolute fortune on a set of nine keyed alike padlocks to secure these buildings.

We also commissioned a local metal fabricator to construct some window bars and these have sat leant against the wall in the carport since late 2021!

Well, today I finally got my shit together and installed the first of these window bars in the garage window. The previous owner had installed cobbled together an abomination comprising an undersized metal grill with half a dozen pieces of angle iron screwed in to fill in the gaps.  This complete fucking bodge of a job obviously irked me every time I looked at it, so I spent an hour or so fitting the new metal bars. They look really good, with a central wrought iron grape vine to slightly soften the look. On this occasion I used security screws rather than the easily removed pozidrive the previous owner thought suitable!

This was a job well done and, at this rate, I should get the remaining window bars installed by 2038!

Now to the title of today's Journal entry, the window bars have been installed right in front of the recycling bin and I am wondering how long it will take 30% to notice the difference?

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* Obviously this was once I had completed the mandatory two hour kip on the sofa

I have been as concise as possible

I Know, I know ... I've made all sorts of promises and commitments to maintain the Journal and, yet again, it is the best part of a week before I get my backside into gear and put virtual pen to paper.

I'd say I hope it's worth waiting for, but I am pretty sure that the mundane comings and goings here at home are probably not that enthralling.  Here is a concise account of the past few days.

Wednesday, 28th August, 2024

Despite having had three hours of sleep during the day on Tuesday, I slept like a log last night. However, I woke feeling irritable and out of sorts.

I did my best to get motivated in the garden and 30% and I transplanted some plants to the recently cleared area of the large herbaceous perennial bed at the rear of the house.

I also ended up being responsible for the blanching and freezing of a veritable mountain of runner beans that had been picked.

Thursday, 29th August, 2024

Over the past week I have been peering at my beetroot plants and have noticed that they appear to be developing quite reasonable sized roots.  The beet seed was planted on the 15th of July, so that was barely six weeks ago. 

I am surprised at how quickly they have grown with minimal care, other than a thinning two weeks after sowing. I pulled a root to see how they were doing and was quite amazed that they are certainly big enough* to be pickled as baby beets. I'll give them another week or two, but they'll be picked soon to let a little more light fall on my leek plants.

In the late morning Pete the Beekeeper turned up and we headed down the road to one of his apiaries to collect my second nucleus hive.  This was sited up in the orchard alongside nuc#1 and a new queen will be introduced in the next couple of days.

In the evening I headed over to Fladbury for an evening of fishing with B&B.  Bubbles caught an impressive Bream, but he wasn't enthused at all by this catch. The fish was unceremoniously returned to the water without even a quick picture as a momento.  Apparently he dislikes them as they give little fight once hooked and are easy to reel in.  I'd have been delighted to catch the fish as it was the only one any of us saw all evening!

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* Golfball sized

Friday, 30th August, 2024

Friday was a relatively quiet day, although it was a case of very cloud having a silver lining.  Mummy Sheila's freezer had been accidentally switched off and she presented us with two lovely joints of beef that had defrosted and needed cooking immediately.  30% placed them in the slow cooker on a bed of sliced onions and the kitchen has smelt heavenly all day.

In the afternoon our local watercolour artist and his wife arrived for an hour of damson picking in the garden. I was happy to help, as Stella's damson jam is beautiful, and we have been promised a jar or two.  The hour of fruit picking became most of the afternoon as we took a wander around the garden and had tea on the patio.  We may be seeing more artists in the near future as Stella thinks the corner of our orchard may provide some interesting views for the Dormston Doodlers to sketch.

Late in the afternoon TP arrived with his BMW prepped for his motorcycle tour to France and Spain.  His visit will be brief as we learnt that he will be leaving at five thirty tomorrow morning to make the eleven o'clock ferry from Dover.

Saturday, 31st August, 2024

Today was mostly taken up with gardening and beekeeping.  I watered the vegetable garden in the morning and then headed up to the orchard to check on nuc #1. 

It didn't take long to inspect the five frames in the nuc and I easily identified the queen with the green mark on her thorax. There had been no problems with her exit from the queen cage and she seemed happy wandering across the brood combs.

I had turned up prepared*, so the entire colony was transferred to a full sized brood box with an additional six frames of foundation.  I gave them a couple of litres of sugar syrup, hoping this will encore the young bees to draw out the foundation in to fresh comb.

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* I long ago learnt that when beekeeping you need to plan ahead and take absolutely everything you think you might need. There is nothing worse than being halfway through a colony inspection and needing an item of kit that is back in the beekeeping shed.  Today I took a brood box, a crown board, an open mesh floor and a roof just incase they were needed.

Sunday, 1st September, 2024

This morning 30% and I headed over to the Architectural Antiques dealer that we visited about a month ago.  30% had spotted a copper contained that she thought might be suitable for repurposing in to a water feature. 

On inspection we realised that the old washing copper could be used as the cistern for the water feature, but that very little of it would be on display.  It was a less than perfect solution so we decided to continue our search. It was a good job we did, as lent up against a wall behind another item was a large hexagonal stone. It is about 25" across and about 7" high and will be absolutely perfect for a millstone type of water feature.

Clearly I will be digging a large hole in the not too distant future!

In the afternoon 30%'s half sister paid us a visit with her rather complicated family.*  We had a pleasant afternoon chatting and drinking tea in the sunshine and I even managed to persuade boyfriend and stepson by marriage** Dan to help me position the new chicken house up in the orchard.

It was then a case of revolving doors as Bobbyn and Bubbles arrived as "D" and her clan left. We had a lovely evening sharing a Chinese takeaway courtesy of China Twon and B&B are the best of guests as they left relatively early allowing us to collapse and vegetate on the sofa for the remainder of the evening.

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*Seriously, DO NOT ask!

** I did say it was complicated!

Monday, 2nd September, 2024

This morning we did very little other than ensure lifestock was fed and watered and that all was well in the garden.

In the early afternoon we headed in to Worcester and I had punctal plugs inserted in an attempt to alleviate my dry eye condition.  All was well until the local anaesthetic wore off and I spent the evening feeling like I had had a bucket of sand thrown in my face.

We did also head over to Bromsgrove to pick up a drilled piece of slate that was very attractively priced on Facebook Marketplace.  This is likely to be incorporated in to the water feature at some point. 

Watch this space, but don't hold your breath.

Sample points on the UK Social Spectrum

I was up relatively early this morning and in time to wish TP farewell as he headed back home to Cardiff.  Apparently he has a final night shoot in London this evening before they spend a couple of days de-rigging in Cardiff.  He'll be back here on Friday before heading off for a motorcycle tour of France with a couple of his mates.

This morning I seemed to be channelling a secret suburban, middle class persona and spent a couple of hours pressure washing the patio.  I must confess that it was the perfect job for a completer/finisher like me and it does look quite splendid now I've finished. I do have one observation though, my jeans were soaking and splattered with shit at the end of it. I look nothing like the immaculately dressed* men in the pressure washing advertisements.

After lunch I had an extended snooze and then did very little for the rest of the afternoon. The only thing of significance was that I spent an hour in the sun stringing runner beans.

As the afternoon turned to evening I wheeled the R nineT from the garage and headed out to meet up with Buzzer and Dot.  We headed up to the Piston Club at Red Hill for their Tuesday evening bike meet and had a pleasant couple of hours catching up on each other's news. Unfortunately the evening's entertainment was a couple of Death Metal bands and they were fucking atrocious! There was only so much distorted screaming and badly played noise we could put up with before we decided an early night was probably the best choice.

I was back home by seven thirty and, after a light supper, I managed to spend another couple of hours asleep on the sofa.

As I wandered up the stairs to bed I thought "I'll never sleep tonight, after three hours of slumber during the day"

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* They're a bit "I'm just nipping out to put some petrol on the Volvo". I looked a bit more like " I've just woken up in a skip"!

Three in one

The past few days have had a domestic focus and are unlikely to be of much interest to the casual visitor. 

I will attempt a summary because this is my Journal, but I can't promise anything riveting. 

Saturday, 24th August, 2024

The morning was wet and windy and I spent the morning indoors attempting to look busy. The weather brightened in the afternoon and 30% and I headed over to Bromsgrove to pick up some terracotta plant pot saucers for the pots she bought on the fourteenth.

Despite the morning's soaking the lawns were reasonably dry on our return, so I wheeled the mower from the shed and spent the late afternoon mowing the back lawn and around the greenhouses.

Sunday, 25th August, 2024

Today was a case of one out and one in.  30% left in the early afternoon for a one night stay at Champneys Spa up in Leicestershire with her friend Michelle.  TP turned up later in the day to  stay a couple of nights having just wrapped up the Netflix fantasy drama that he has been working on for most of the last year.  Apparently the Wrap Party had a free bar, so it is fair to say that he was somewhat lacking in energy and joi de vivre today.

My morning was spent mowing the front lawn and I met up with Bubbles in the afternoon for a wander around the trade stands at the Evesham Angling Festival.  We picked up a few oddments of tackle and gave some thought to a day up on the Severn in search of Barbel or Pike.

Back at home I caught up with TP's news and then spent a lot of time stringing runner beans as 30% had picked a huge bagful before she departed for her Spa break. The runner beans were put to good use as TP and I dined on runner bean curry for supper.

Monday, 26th August, 2024

TP disappeared early for a day boating on the Avon with his mates.

I started the morning with a variety of domestic activities. French beans were blanched and frozen as was the remaining half of last night's curry.  The kitchen was tidied, but eventually I ran out of little jobs and had to bring myself to do a job that I was not looking forward to.

The afternoon began with a long kip before I headed out to the garden and watered the veg patch.

I can also report that the aforementioned patch is finally producing something other than beans and here are a couple of snaps of the latest harvest.

12 weeks from seed to harvest!

Seed planted mid June'24

30% returned rejuvenated from her mini break and we all dined on roast lamb with fresh veg from the garden.

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!