Weeding, weeding, weeding!

Weeding, weeding, weeding!  That seems to be what my life has consisted of for the last couple of weeks.  In some places they were way taller than me and so it has been quite a satisfying job.  I have pretty much been over the whole garden.  Course, the first bit I did is now sprouting again.  I'm hoping now that we'll just be able to keep strimming them until they give in!
About a year after we moved here Mum gave us three Catoneasters which we planted, but they didn't thrive we didn't see them again.  When I was pulling up weeds along the side of the path, what do you think I found?  Yep, two little Catoneasters looking surprisingly healthy and since being uncovered they've grown about six inches!  What have they been doing for the last three years?!  We also have lots of Evening Primrose - again we planted some in the first year or so and then they disappeared for a few years and now they're back.  Even more of a mystery is very bright red little snapdragon that has appeared at the side of the gateway into the field, where we walk quite often.  We have no snapdragons, nor never have we and we've never seen it before.  Who knows what will pop up next - keeps it interesting.

We've had a couple of meal's worth of peas
from the garden - yum, they're so much nicer
than bought ones.  Mind you most don't make
to the pan - I just love the little baby ones straight
from the pod!

We've also harvested our first batch of garlic and I plaited them
to hang in the kitchen to keep vampires away - well, it's worked
so far!  We did an experiment planting some in the Autumn and
some in the Spring.  These are the some of the Autumn ones - the
Spring ones are really weedy and will have to pull their socks up
big time if they are going to make anything of themselves!

Bob has had a stand at the Big Art Show on the showground in Shrewsbury this weekend.  I went with him yesterday and it was a complete washout - literally!  It poured most of the day with thunder to go with it.  So, that coupled with the lack of advertising meant that it was a bit of a disaster.  It should have been so good - there were four big marquees full of stands as well as lots of individual stalls.  There was live music (the poor chaps had an audience of two most of the time), a Pimms tent (I didn't see anyone there at all), several food stalls (at 1pm when everyone should have been queuing for their lunch the queue was about one person long at each) and someone had to wake the girl up on the ice-cream van to buy a cone!  It was hard to guage how many people were visitors because I think most of the people we spoke to were actually other stallholders having a look around.  Oh well, maybe with the sunshine today Bob will have had a really good day and sold everything on the stall!  You never know.

I didn't go to help Bob today so that I could do some cooking for the freezer - it's looking a bit bare as I've been lost in the jungle of weeds for so much of the last two weeks.  So, I've made a bakers dozen chicken and veg pies, a huge batch of chilli to be divided up, beefburgers, cheesecake, tiffin and a pastry case and got the stuff ready for tea . . . . what a lot of washing up!

Ready for a beer now . . . . . come home Bob!

Dolphins and snakes

Well, we've been on us 'olidays and 'ad a reet good time!  Yes, we've had our few days away in New Quay (Wales not Cornwall) and had a lovely time.  It rained the few days before we went and then again when we got home, but we had wonderful weather while we were away.  We stayed in a very nice pub/hotel (The Black Lion if anyone feels the need of a visit) which was at the top of the steep hill down to the harbour and so had really good views of the harbour and Cardigan Bay from the beer garden.  We called to see Ben and have lunch in Aberystwyth on the way down, but then once we got there we didn't get in the car again until it was time to come home which was really good.  We went for a good long walk one day along the coastal path to the south with a pasty from the pasty shop for lunch.  We were chatting to an ex-lifeboatman in the pasty shop and he recommended a little diversion inland from the coastal path, so we took his advice and that was so pretty along a stream in a wooded valley.  We did get quite lost going back to the coastal path and ended up in a very jungley bit and so had to retrace our steps to find the proper path, so that added about 15 miles on (not really, and it was so pretty that it didn't matter anyway).

We detoured onto a little beach where we could
see someone had built towers out of the big
pebbles.  They looked really good so, of course,
we had to build some of our own.  

They did look quite Buddhist-like and could easily have
fitted in at Samye Ling where Laura used to live.

On the way back we saw this little Adder right in the middle of
the path.  It just sat there flicking it's tongue out at us and only
wriggled away when we stepped right back.  I think it must have
been one of last year's young as it was only 8 or 9 inches long, but it
was too early for this year's batch to be out and about.  Good job
we didn't step on it!

So, all that was lovely and interesting, but by far the best thing was seeing the dolphins - and we saw loads.  We didn't go on a boat trip to see them, they were just there right near the harbour wall.  One of the Marine Conservation people we were talking to did let slip that the best times to see them are first thing and at dusk and that they tend to go further out when the boats are coming in and out.  He probably wasn't supposed to say that as that must be how they get most of their money!  One morning I was awake at normal work time and thought 'You know, I know we're on holiday, but I can actually have a lie-in at home, but I can't see dolphins' and so I got up and was sat on the harbour wall by 6.30am with just me, the sun on the water (warm enough for just a t-shirt) and the dolphins - truly spectacular, but so peaceful and quiet, what a priviledge.  Bob came down a bit later and a few other people.  The dolphins were just right there below us fishing and playing including a baby and one came right into the harbour among the boats.  The next morning we got up early again and this time there were more of them and they were herding the fish in towards the harbour wall.  All of a sudden there was a lot of splashing at various places and you could see the fishes jumping out of the water in front of the dolphins as they chased them in.  Definitely a co-ordinated attack - very clever.  One evening we took a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses from our room, got fish and chips and sat on the harbour wall for dinner watching out for dolphins - how cool is that and in Britain too, who needs to go abroad!

Back home again we had a few days to potter around here before Bob's Ludlow market on Saturday and me back to work today.  We mostly did garden stuff.  We prepared a bed for the leeks which was quite a mammouth task.  It had been really weedy and so we sprayed it last week and then pulled them all out before we went away.  Then we had to dig it all over and get all the roots and stones out.  I ended up seiving the soil with a riddle because there were so many stones - three wheelbarrowsful in just that small bed (it's only about the size of a large dining table!).  While I did that, Bob built the wall on one side up a bit, then we put new rabbit wire around. We then added lots of compost and finally planted the leeks.  I don't think it's supposed to take almost a day to plant a few leeks!  We have also done some more to the wall Ben and Bob started at Christmas and we now just have a bit left to do on one side and then we'll be able to clear the stones out of that (!!!!! more stones!!!!) and put top soil and compost in there too and we'll have another finished border.  Well, apart from making a bit of a retaining wall at the back of it, it'll be finished.  Just need to think what to put in it!

While we were on holiday the blackcurrants started to ripen properly and so I picked enough of them to make a batch of jam and I've picked some more today to freeze.  The raspberries which, until last week, were lost in shoulder high weeds are also ripening (amazing that there are so many on there after being so neglected!) so I had a bowl of them with yoghurt one lunchtime and Bob had some tiny wild strawberries with his (he doesn't really like raspberries).  When we first moved here and were digging out for the septic tank, I was devastated that we'd destroyed two wild strawberry plants . . . I needn't have worried as we have loads and loads of them and I literally pull them up like weeds.  I just spent a nice few minutes gathering bluebell seeds to scatter around while eating tiny little strawberries straight off the plants - it's a hard life sometimes!

The pressure's on!

Nah, it's not, it's the weekend!  No work, no furniture shows, no visitors and nothing planned - a whole weekend off is quite rare at the moment you know - and the sun's shining so all's well with the world.  

Here's the new water butt all plumbed in and everything - looks a bit Heath Robinson, but I quite like that.  The overflow isn't really half way down (that wouldn't be good use of a huge barrel), but the wooden slats are widest at this point so better for drilling through and inside it's connected to a pipe which goes to almost the top of the barrel.  On the outside it goes into standard orange plastic pipe which leads to a soakaway, but that would look horrible so we've hidden that inside and old piece of salt-glaze pipe we had lying around.  We then cut a circle of slate with a hole in it which sits inside the lip of the old pipe with the overflow pipe going through it and then we've put a bit of soil on top and planted lemon thyme in it which should trail down and look lovely.  Eventually the little wall here will probably be a course or two higher and there'll be some plants the other side of it, but that'll have to wait until we know what we're doing with the pathway there.  This seems to be how we have done the garden (and the house for that matter).  We can't plan it all in advance like a lot of people do - we get an idea for one bit and then when that bit is done it helps us decide what to do with the next bit and so on - seems to have worked out OK so far.  

Now that we have two water butts, we thought it was important to monitor the pressure in at least one of them and so we have fitted a pressure guage to the one near the kitchen as it's easier to keep an eye on that one.

Not really!  What would be the point in that?!  Bob's dad used to work for a firm that made water pumps or something and when we were clearing his shed out, we found this lovely one and didn't want to throw it away and so we've had it lying around ever since.  We thought it'd look quite funny on one of the water butts and make people wonder what on earth it's for and so here it is.  You have to tap it as you go past and slightly adjust the handle just to make sure everything's fine - like they do on films.  Well, it makes me smile anyway!

Oops a daisy!  This is what underground drain pipes look like after you've put a pick axe through them!  Bob was digging out for a bit more of the wall he and Ben started at Christmas and then said 'Erm, I think I might have hit a pipe or something' - guess the echoing, booming noise underground is a bit of a giveaway!  Luckily, this pipe isn't being used at the moment - we just put it in in case we ever put any plumbing in the top barns - so there was no need to panic.  It is now repaired which is a little awkward when the pipe is in situ, but it's done.

Guess what!  Bob actually had a phone call from someone in Surrey who had seen his website (sheltonfurniture.co.uk) and wanted to order a chair!  How exciting is that?  It all seems a bit strange really - generally Bob has at least met anyone who buys a chair, so this is all a bit remote.  Apparently though Shropshire is this chap's favourite part of the country and he has family not too far away, so he may actually come and collect it when the time comes.

We've spent the day so far in the garden with me part way though a mega weeding session and Bob sorting the pipe and wall out.  I came in for a cool-down to write this and now I'm feeling the call of a nice cool bottle of cider from the fridge!  Enjoy the sunshine!

One man went to mow . . . .

. . . . .went to mow a meadow, one man and his dog chicken (cluck, cluck) went to mow a meadow.

As if having a lawn that keeps growing isn't enough, our end of the field keeps growing too!  Last year Bob used the strimmer to keep on top of the nettles and brambles, but now that we have the lawn mower out and usable he thought it was time to give it a go in the field.  I think it was hard work, but not as hard as using the strimmer and there weren't as many obstacles hidden in the grass as we expected, just loads of molehills.  Course, the grass was a bit long for this little mower so Bob had to keep unclogging it, but it looks much better and should get easier now it's been done once.  We are a bit envious of Rob, who owns the rest of the field, as he whizzes up and down on his ride-on mower - we can't really justify one of those, but it looks like more fun!  Can you just see the stick standing to the left of Bob on this photo?  Well that is to mark a wild orchid that we didn't know we had and it is now flowering - I wonder if they do much multiplying and one day we'll have a carpet of them?

We now have the second whiskey barrel in place as a water butt.  The steps up the side of the house are now finished and pointed (at last!) and so we could roll the barrel into place at the top.  For quite a while we were worried that the barrel would look too big at that end of the house as the walls are much shorter up there, but now it's there it looks fine and makes the steps look pretty good too.  We had a scout around the local salvage yards to find cast iron pipes and bends to connect the gutter and the downpipe and they are all cut to size and we're just waiting for the paint to dry so we can connect it all up.  Once that's done we can finally get rid of the plastic middle from a roll of carpet that we've been using as a downpipe for the past few years - well, it was free and it's done the job (not sure it was quite what the Planning Dept had in mind when they were specifying what the guttering should be made of though!).

We had a good weekend with Ben and I think he enjoyed relaxing, lying in (after being woken by the crows at 4am), a beer or two and home cooking - both eating and doing.  He's a really good cook and enjoys experimenting so we invented a lemon truffle chocolate bar for a Father's Day present - worked out really well I think.  I don't think he enjoyed the sudden attack of hayfever after a short walk which left his eyes streaming and him working his way through a box of tissues - living by the sea he's escaped quite lightly I think and forgot to take any tablets.  I took him back to Aberystwyth on the Sunday and we sat on the beach with a huge icecream each which was nice.  Talking of beaches, Bob and I are having a little holiday at the seaside in a couple of weeks.  We're staying in a pub in Newquay in Cardigan Bay which comes highly recommended by someone at work.  I'm really looking forward to it and we're hoping to see those elusive dolphins this time.  My friend said they spent a whole afternoon sat on the harbour wall watching them play, including a baby!

So, the crows are still a real nuisance and we're thinking of putting razor-wire on all the window sills so they can't land!!  Not really, but we'll have to think of something like that.  Yesterday evening we sat with a beer watching two baby woodpeckers trying to come to grips with the peanut feeder, Mum was helpful and gave them bits of peanuts, but Dad just argued with them and chased them around, poor things (maybe they forgot Father's Day!).

This has been day six of seven solid days at work - don't like!!!

The Birds (as in Alfred Hitchcock's horror film!)

Well, we didn't need to worry too much about watering the lawn!  We had a couple of days of watering it morning and evening and then nature took over and we have had soooo much rain!  Saved us a job I suppose (and undoubtedly did a much more thorough job of it), but we are a little fed up with it now.  After the statutory three weeks of not walking on the lawn, we couldn't walk on it anyway because it was so wet.  The grass was certainly lush and green . . . . and very long.  The chickens stopped walking on it too because it was longer than their legs and they got soaked every time they tried.  Eventually we had a night without rain and so I got on and cut it.  Because I didn't want to do too much tramping about on it, I did it very quickly and not very carefully and it ended up looking a real mess.  It reminded me of a little lad at one of the schools I worked at years ago whose dad decided to do a home job on his hair with the clippers, but the poor boy ended up looking like a badly shorn sheep with short bits and tufty bits.  Anyway, the lawn has now had its second cut and looks much neater.

 Elsewhere the garden is looking quite cottagey (basically, the geraniums have taken over - that's the more natural pink, blue and lilac ones rather than the bright red hanging basket types).  Laura and I had a good old weeding session on this border which makes it look much better.  So, now we need to sort out the bit between this and the lawn.  The plum and damson trees have absolutely loads of fruit on them (all little and green at the moment of course), so barring disasters it should be a good year.  The peas are growing well, we have loads of garlic, beans just shooting and tomato plants ready to go in the baskets against the sunny lounge wall.


We have had an incredibly busy time with visitors recently.  Laura went off to Edinburgh to start the next episode in her life just over a week ago, but during her last week Jan (Bob's stepmum) came to visit on the Monday, then on the Wednesday Mum and Dad came on their way back from the Lake District.  They stayed until Friday and then a couple of hours after they left, Carol and Graham came. 

In addition to Graham wanting to do a bit more to the rocking chair he's making, they came to do the annual hillwalk in the next village.  It is a lovely walk (although as it's name suggests, it's very up and downy), but this year it was very, very muddy.  We did the 10 mile walk (there is an option to add another 6 miles in the middle up a very steep hill) but as the weather was pretty rubbish we didn't do that.  Well, that's why the rest of them didn't do it, I just don't think I'm fit enough!  Next visitor is Ben who is arriving tomorrow for the weekend for a break between finishing the taught part of his Masters and getting on with all the lab work for his dissertation.

While Laura was here we had a bit of a project going - to knit lots of floppy rabbits.  She then took most of them to Samye Ling on her way to Edinburgh for ROKPA (the charity she worked for there) to sell at their summer teaparty.  They looked quite cute all huddled together.  For quite a while the lounge was a mess off various colours and sizes of rabbit parts.  Talking of rabbits, we've finally put the first length of rabbit wire in the garden, all along the hedge.  The rabbits can still get in (we have quite a lot more to do!), but it was funny the first couple of mornings to watch them trying to find their way out when we clapped our hands at them.  The chickens were a bit put out by it too!

So, to the birds.  As you know, I'm always going on about all the lovely birds we have around here, but I'm now ready to shoot these particular ones!  When we first moved here, the crow/rooky things all lived on the other side of the quarry which is fine by me as their 'song' is not the most melodious to say the least.  I think last year they started visiting this end occasionally which was still OK.  This last week or so though they have become a major nuisance.  They wake us at 4.30am with their version of the dawn chorus (which totally drowns out the nice tweety version).  Even worse, two of them have taken to pecking persistently at the windows.  Last year and the year before we had a solitary blackbird that used to do that.  These two crows come together though and make a really loud banging on the glass.  As we put string or mesh across one window, they moved to another until we now have stuff up at all the windows to try to deter them.  It really does remind me of that Alfred Hitchcock film as they are very big close-to and could easily be seen as quite menacing . . . prisoners in our own home, bullied by huge black birds  . . . . well, no it's not that bad, but we are both really tired and would love to sleep peacefully until 6am as we used to do!

All that said though, we do still have lots of lovely birds.  The Jay and the Woodpeckers have got very brave and happily come to the peanut feeder even if we are in the garden.  The other evening when Bob went out to say night-night to the chickens, there were two baby Tawny Owls just across the path from the door making very funny squeaky noises.  The grown up Tawny Owl has visited the garden quite a few evenings, sitting in the little Ash tree in perfect view from the lounge.  A few evenings ago, there was a lot of twittering just down the lane so I went to see what was going on and, after I'd stood very still and quiet for about 10 minutes, an ivy-covered tree exploded with baby Wrens.  They seemed to be everywhere flying around and landing haphazardly on anything that got in their way.  We have had baby Great Tits and Blue Tits on the peanuts and are now waiting for the Woodpeckers and Jays to introduce their offspring.

Pimms on the lawn!

The mystery object is the little piece of metal under the
beam by the way!

First of all, here's a mystery object for you to identify - we bought it off a blacksmith at the craft fair in Oswestry where we had a stall - less said about that the better as we didn't even take enough to cover the cost of tea and cake for one!.  The following weekend we had a two day show in Ludlow which was supposed to be a prestigious one run by the Shropshire Guild of Designer Craftsmen (of which Bob is a member).  It was a nice looking show with really good quality stalls and no tat, but again not much happened from our point of view and it was all a bit demoralising.  Seem to do better standing outside on a market stall in the weather!

I went up to Scotland during my week off to collect Laura who has now finished her stint as a Buddhist nun.  She is staying here until the end of the month and is then off to Edinburgh with all sorts of possibilities in the pipeline which is all quite exciting (if a little scary I should think).  Her hair has grown a bit and she has sorted out all her clothes - when we stopped at the service station on the way home she said how strange it was not to be stared at!

So, look what we've been up to!

For the last few years we have had a soil mountain outside the
kitchen.  It was free from the chap who came with his digger to
tidy up around the extension for us.  He was working on another
job and had to get rid of some topsoil and thought of us!  Brill!

We decided it was finally time to do something about this eyesore
and so we put down some gravel boards and . . . .

. . . . with Laura's help we started weeding it and breaking
it up . . . .  

. . . and spreading it out and levelling it . . . . 

. . . . and then moving the remaining mountain (there was quite
a lot of soil there!).  Laura couldn't sleep that night because her
arms ached so much!

And so instead of a weedy mountain to look at, we had a lovely,
clean Gardener's World-type patch of soil - all fine tilth and everything! This has never been known here (well not since we've been here).  It
was quite a novelty for the chickens.  Now, you can guess what's
coming next . . .

Yep - we're making a lawn!

Darn, we were just a tiny bit short - how annoying.

Luckily though we were able to pick up another couple of
pieces and finish the job!

Oh, how strange it seems to have a real, live lawn!  We spent about an hour after we'd finished just looking at it from different vantage points and giggling.  We'll be sitting out drinking Pimms on the lawn before you know it!  Just need to keep watering it and stop the chickens scratching it up.

While we were gazing lovingly at our lawn, Bob got 'buzzed' by a sparrow hawk - it flew at great speed just a few inches from his head - so close that he felt it rather than saw it and didn't realise what it was until he turned to see it flying off and over the quarry.  While we were laying the lawn yesterday there was a cuckoo calling in the woods across the lane.  It was there for most of the day.  Apparently they are really struggling at the moment and are quite rare.  You know I have real mixed feelings - everyone gets so excited at the sound of a cuckoo (indeed it was the talk of the pub last night) and as an iconic sound of the British Spring I'm with them there, but cuckoos are actually really horrible birds when you think about it.  Now, a much cuter bird is the wren and we have them nesting under the eves of Bob's workshop.  In past years they nested in the old wriggly tin barn (which Bob's workshop has replaced) and we wasted hours watching the babies fledge.  So Bob made a little platform for them under the eves and, because we didn't know which way they'd like their nest to face, he put an upright piece of wood in the middle so they could choose which side to build.  Guess what?  They've built a nest each side - so we have semi-detached wren's nests!  I don't suppose they'll both get used, but it'd be nice if they do use one.

Oh, nearly forgot - this is what the mystery piece of metal is for:

CHEERS!!

Cobbling

We've had another busy day on my day off.  I was hoping for a bit of a lie-in, but as always happens we were wide awake at 6.30am and ready to get up - we forced ourselves to wait until 7am though so I guess that is a lie-in of a whole hour!  So, our first job was to gather some free firewood.  There are lots of dead branches in the wood across the lane which is owned by the quarry.  A while ago the manager said we could help ourselves to dead wood and so we did.  It's surprising how much you can gather quite quickly. This log store was completely empty and it took us about an hour and a half to gather, cut and chop this.  As it has been dead for some time, it is just about ready to burn which is handy, we just need to let yesterday's rain dry off it.

Bob has been and gone and sold another chair at the second Ludlow market on Saturday!  He also took an order for another and sold three of the coat peg boards, so a pretty good day.  Course that means that he has to get on with making some more of everything.  So we had to have a search through our timber store and choose which bits of wood are suitable for what.  While we had the planks out, I treated some of them with woodworm stuff.  Just precautionary/preventative hopefully, but while it was a dry, windy day it seemed a good idea.  We had to buy some bat-friendly woodwormer when we were treating roof timbers and it it really easy to use and not at all noxious, so it was quite an easy job.

After lunch we both got on with different parts of our hard-landscaping in the garden . . . . is that what they call it on Gardener's World?  This is all along the side of the house in various forms.  Bob got on with the next rise of the steps at the top end.  He must be getting bored of them by now I'm sure, but the next stage gets more interesting because we need to build the plinth for the water barrel waterbutt and to incorporate that the steps will have to curve round.  The bit this side of the steps will be a herb garden eventually (when we've got rid of all the builders bags of cobbles and other building rubbish).  At the moment every spare bit of it is covered with wild garlic which the chickens really enjoy . . . . . wonder if we'll have garlic-flavoured eggs?

While Bob was doing that I got on with a bit more of the 'patio' - oh that sounds so pretentious for what it is.  I was doing my bit to empty those builders bags by doing some cobbling.  We have some very big flattish stones which have made up most of the area, but we don't have enough to do all of it so some bits are being cobble.  We dug the stones up from in and around the end barn which is now a bedroom, so it's nice to re-use them.  We researched how to do cobbles and the gist seems to be that you make some 'hoggin' which is a mix of clay and sand and makes a very solid base to hold the stones.  You put a good layer of that down then pack the cobbles as closely as you can and knock them down into the hoggin.  As you knock them in a long way (like icebergs, you only see a small fraction of what's there) they should hold each other firmly in place.  I haven't got them anywhere near as close together as a proper cobbly person would, but they fill the gap.  Once that's done we press lime dust into the joints and ram it in hard and this soon mellows and blends with the old stones - we just made this bit up, but it looks OK.

So, this is how it all fits together.  We need to find
something for the middle bit outside the lounge door.
Unfortunately, I think we might have to buy something -
the rest is all re-used from around the place which
feels very appropriate and green and all that!

Talking of green, there's a definite green haze everywhere as the new little leaves come out on the trees and hedges.  Our bit of laid hedge has green on all the branches and even tiny shoots starting from the cut stumps - phew, we didn't kill it all.  By the end of the summer, it should look quite different.  Elsewhere everything is sprouting and shooting.  We have flowers on the bluebells which seems quite early, there are primroses and cowslips everywhere and the wood anemones and sorrel are coming out in the wood.  Even the roses round the kitchen door have bushed out, shot up and have the first flower buds on.  All the plummy/damsony type things have lots of blossom on them (even the plum tree we pruned quite viciously seems to have forgiven us!).  So, the garden looks quite 'twinkly' just now with little white dots everywhere.  I hope we don't have any vicious frosts now to spoil it all - it's such a lovely time of year.