In the Polytunnel ... and a Gardeners Friend

It's almost the end of September and our weather has been a strange mix of chilly nights, warm days, some dreary non-stop wet days and some days with quite a bit of sunshine between heavy and prolonged or short and sharp showers.  The dogs and Ginger started to get their Winter coats then the weather turned mild, so now they are moulting them right off again meaning the hoover is seeing lots of action at the moment.

When I'm not hoovering up enough fur to knit a whole new pet with I'm out in the tunnels, tidying, weeding and picking things for our meals.  We still have lots and I mean LOTS of Kale, lots of Spinach and as you can see from this photo the last few tomatoes are still clinging onto the plants. 

Normally I would have stripped the plants of their last few green fruits and used them for chutney but with the warm weather they are slowly and surely turning red on the plants so I am leaving them in situ as we munch our way through cabbages from the veggie patch and broccoli from the polytunnel.

As well as all the veggies mentioned above we have the last of the salad leaves, lots of beetroot waiting to be harvested from both tunnels and large spring onions that I am using in soups.,  The last of the cucumbers have been affected by the colder nights and gone over a bit, so they are being fed to the chickens as a daily treat along with all the trimmings and outer leaves from things I harvest for us. 

Today saw me planning ahead and planting for next year, with 80 red and 80 white onion sets being planted in the net tunnel.  I was going to get the Garlic cloves planted in there too but the rain came and I retired to the house instead.

In other news ... I came across this little chap in the bottom of an empty bucket the other day.  I had no idea how long the poor thing had been there so once tipped out I gave him a drink of rainwater on a leaf.

He seemed to enjoy it.

Black beetles are a gardeners friend eating all the little bugs and critters that would damage our vegetables and plants, so it was nice to do one a favour for once.

Sue xx

Poor Rabbits

This rabbit may look like it's happily soaking up the last rays of Autumn sunshine, looking straight at me through the kitchen window ... but in fact it is soaking up the last rays of the Autumn sunshine completely oblivious to anything except the warmth on it's back and hopefully the beauty of the birdsong as it lives out it's last few hours hoping for a peaceful end. 

Myxomatosis has been rife on our hillside this year, beginning in late Spring it seemed to vanish throughout Summer and now it has reared it's ugly head again as we head into Autumn. 

The few rabbits we spot like this one, we try relocate to a safe place, away from Ginger and Mavis, to hopefully end their final hours relatively peacefully, those that find themselves away from the shelter of hedges and trees are easy pickings for the birds ... as the sad little piles of fluff we find each morning testifies. 

Myxomatosis in rabbits.

In my opinion our wildlife has enough on it's plate to survive the things it survives day to day without also having to contend with the most horrible of manmade diseases  :-(

Sue xx

Mice with a Sweet Tooth ... and Saving Every Penny

Alan is partial to a box of these every now and then, this flavour and the others that you can get these Wheaties in ....

... and so it would seem are the mice that I have been catching in the net tunnel in our humane mousetrap.  It turns out this cereal is a favourite all around  ;-)

Nothing goes to waste here, and although I don't often buy boxes of cereal, when I do I use every bit of what I have paid for.  The cereal was obviously eaten, by Alan and the mice, the waxy paper inner bag was used to wrap the sandwiches we took to the car boot sale with us (it stops you spending the profits you make if you take a flask and sandwiches ... although this time Alan was totally captivated by a huge cream scone for £1.50).  So that left the cardboard, well that was easy ...four shopping list blanks and some little bits and pieces to pop into the fire-lighting basket next to the log burner.

While I was in waste not want not mode I cut up a just washed yogurt pot to make some plant labels to use in the plants that I sell at the car boot sales for 50p each.  After all if I have gotten everything for the plants I'm selling for nothing or just pennies then I am making much more profit on each one I sell and that's the name of the game from now on.

Sue xx

Waste Not Want Not

In a 'waste not want not' moment I took three little potatoes that I found sprouting in the potato bag in the kitchen cupboard over to the polytunnel ....

... and stuck them in a large plant pot full of compost.

I was in a free potato mood as I've just harvested a few meals worth of free potatoes that had grown up in the top raised bed on the hillside.  No matter how careful I think I've been I always seem to leave a few potatoes behind when I dig up a bed, so as we weren't putting anything in this particular top bed for a while, I left them there to do their thing.  Their own thing turned out to be a large colander full of smallish but perfectly formed potatoes  :-)

I was stood at the conservatory door this morning and I thought I saw movement in the chickens food trough.

I did!!

It was this cute little squirrel, he sat there for ages contemplating something before he spotted me zooming in.

Sue xx

A Little Splash of Colour

Over in Nut Wood, our little wildlife haven, at first glance it seems messy, almost derelict looking and nothing special.  But to the little creatures that live there it's home and a refuge. 

There are a few rabbits that see it as a sanctuary from the dogs in the morning , as long as Rosy doesn't spot them and they sit still they are safe in there, if they lose their nerve and make a dash across the paddock to the perceived safety of the big woodland it really is a run for their lives.

There are lots of insects that we can see, and no doubt many more that we never lay eyes on, but that go about their business day to day in amongst the wood chippings, trees, boulders, logs and tree stumps.

But I'm most pleased about the greenery that is starting to spring to life in the 'wildflower corner'.  Yes, to most of us they are seen as weeds, but what is a weed if not a wildflower growing in the wrong place .... only these are growing in the right place :-)

A few little Buttercups  ...

... and now at last the Poppies have decided to come to life.

Glorious red poppies ....

... and lovely deep pink poppies.

A splash of colour on a dreary autumnal day.

Have a good weekend.

Sue xx

The Squirrels

The squirrels are abundant on and around our bit of Welsh hillside, well with so much woodland you would expect it wouldn't you.  Unfortunately all ours are grey but if you venture forty minutes up the road and over the bridge onto the Isle of Anglesey they would all be Red, and thankfully thriving.

They spend this time of year planting and replanting their nuts in the ground, then come the colder, hungrier weather they spend all their time trying to remember where they planted their nuts in the ground ... and lots of little holes appear. 

They don't have brilliant memories because every year we find lots of baby trees coming up in the grass, handy for transplanting into the woodland but each one representing a meal missed and a hole dug in the wrong place.

"Stop eyeing up my rhubarb patch ... go back to your nut gathering!!"

I took this delightful photo back in July, when this particular squirrel ... and no doubt at least a dozen of his mates ... visited the Chicken World on the hillside to help himself to layers pellets for breakfast every morning.

These photos were not taken with a zoom lens ...

... I really was this close to the cheeky little monkey squirrel.

Sue xx

A Little Visitor

We had a little visitor over the weekend, the smallest one for quite a while.

He came in the window to say hello and just sat there for a minute before the dogs interest and barking set him off fluttering around a bit.

You can see how little the window was open so he was obviously determined to come in and visit us.  After snapping this photo I slowly walked over and pushed the window open a bit further, and with a flap and a flutter he went on his way.

No drama, no fuss, just a short visit from a little feathered friend.

Sue xx

Our Littlest Weekend Visitor

Saturday evening saw Lovely Hubby erecting the old chicken fence around his now flattened 'molehills'.  He was about the start properly smoothing the area, but then he came in for some lunch and in the thirty minutes he took off to eat his dinner (and the forty five minutes he then had for a nap) Mr Mole ... the real molehill maker .... erected two new edifices to mole life in the previously flattened ground.

Losing the will to live he decided to put the fence up to keep the dogs from walking wet dew ladened soil into the kitchen every morning ... I think Lovely Hubby must have heard the slight use of swear words and banging of doors first thing on Saturday when they did just that!!  I think we will leave it for a week and see how many new real molehills appear before we sow the new grass seed.

On Sunday someone decided the new fence was the perfect place to sit to observe what we were up to ....

... he stayed there for ages, long enough for me to firstly stand and admire him from the conservatory and then to risk dashing into the other room to pick up my camera.

Not even a lazy cat cooling off in the shade on the patio was enough to scare little Mr Robin off.

Sue xx

Saving a Life

After walking the dogs around the paddock this morning I went back to top up the sheep's two water buckets.  There's no running water in the field so this is the only way they can get a supply.  It doesn't take long, I just turn on the hosepipe to the polytunnel and carry over two watering cans full of fresh water.

I always check before I pour into the buckets, indeed I check the buckets every time we walk past them, for any little insects trying not to drown.  Usually I put a stick or a rock in every bucket or any standing water so that anything that falls in can climb out but we can't do it in the sheep's buckets or they'll poke an eye out or not drink out of the bucket at all.  Today there was a bee, floating totally still on the surface of the water.  I found a flat stone and carefully lifted him out.  Leaving him on the warm stone I watched for a minute and sure enough he started to move around.

Clever little bee had expended as little energy as possible and floated calmly on the surface for I don't know how long.  I realised he would be short of energy even though he had been clever enough to stay so still in the water, so I went over to a bush that was full of blossom and pulled off a sprig.

Sure enough after a few minutes of drying in the weak morning sunshine the bee started to feel around inside the flowers.  I don't know how much nourishment it would have got from a bit of blossom but it seemed to help.

I left Mr Bee to his own devices and went back to fetching water for the chickens having replenished the sheep's buckets.

It's always nice to start the day saving a life.

Very Blurry Photo of a Magical Moment

I stood transfixed early this morning at the office window watching a beautiful Barn Owl swooping over and over across the field opposite looking for some breakfast, or supper I guess since they are usually active at night.  I reached for the binoculars which usually live on the office window sill but they weren't there.

So I got my camera and tried to zoom in but it was a fast moving target and I was lucky to get this shot.  It dived behind the hedge over and over no doubt, spying things running for safety but seemed to fly away empty handed.  

It was back again a few minutes later and spent a futile ten minutes or so sweeping low over the field, landing and resting every so often but then taking back to the air to see what it could see.  It seemed from the distance I was at to be quite a young bird, as it was nowhere near as big as the other Barn Owls I have had the good fortune to be closer too.

In Oxfordshire one flew ahead of me as I made my way up our drive (one and a half miles of track) using the headlights of the car to hunt by, sweeping majestically away from the beam of light as I passed the barn.  It took all of my concentration to keep the car on the track and not go over into the ditches while I tried not to be too transfixed by the bird.  Then weeks later I saw possibly the same bird sat in our barn, it was on the beam just over my head and just in front of it's nesting box, rather stupidly I spoke to it and broke the spell ... it flew away.  Well it seemed rude not to say 'hello'.

If I had been quicker this time, and maybe had an all singing all dancing camera .... and more patience than I have ever had in my entire life ...  I could have got a shot like this one.

They are beautiful birds.

But I've got my blurry photograph and now this blog post to remind me of a magical morning moment.

Sue xx

Blurry photo all my own work .... other 'proper photos' courtesy of Google Images ;-)

Flicking a Switch ..... or Keeping Warm the Cheaper Way

It's been cold here this morning, and I mean really cold, so much so I was almost tempted to flick a switch and set the central heating in motion ..... almost!!

Instead I decided to go out to the wood store and bring some more logs and wood into the house.  There was already enough at the side of the log burner to have a fire tonight, but I don't like filling up the log basket in the dark, spiders, moths and screeching birds make for an eerie time late at night, and anyway wood at room temperature burns so much better and warmer.  So I thought I should stock up now so I could light the fire early to warm up the house.

Once we do get the house warm it holds onto the heat really well thanks to the excessively thick insulation in the loft and the Aga ticking over twenty four seven.

Two loads of wood like this and I was happy I had more than enough wood to last the afternoon and the evening.

Oh, and did you spot the little visitor in the top two pictures .....

... I thought I saw movement as I stepped back with my bowl of wood and when I stood still and watched he started hopping about.  A cheerful little chappy in his red waistcoat.  He made my day.

After all the gathering and carrying of the ood and then stacking it beside the log burner I was lovely and warm so I didn't end up lighting the fire but I will be lovely and cosy tonight .... and hopefully somewhere outside in his nest or den so will my little feathered friend.

Sue xx

Squirrels, Dogs and Roses

The clocks going back an hour at the weekend has normalised my days more.  Getting up as it goes light is natural for me, and for most other folk I assume, except poor shift workers of whom my son is one.  It must play havoc with your sleeping patterns if your working day alters on a rotating shift pattern, I know it does for Jason, who when not at work is either at the Gym, or crashed out on his own sofa snoring for England.

Anyway me and the dogs were up bright and early yesterday morning, so early that as I was putting on my jacket and pulling on my wellies ready for the damp and chilly morning circuit of the paddock, I glanced out of the window and caught this little chap still having his breakfast.

I got the camera off the shelf in the kitchen and he was still tucking in when I came back and took this shot.  He carried on nibbling his way around the rosy red apple that he had clutched in his tiny little paws just looking so cute I had to stand and admire.  Wouldn't you love a fluffy tail like that to keep the draughts off your back while you sit eating a fresh apple.

The dogs were getting restless, after all when Mum has her jacket and boots on it should mean the door magically opens and they can run out into the fresh air ..... not stand waiting in the conservatory. So when I saw the squirrel had virtually finished his tiny apple I made a noise with the door handle, which of course sent the now over excited Rosy into a frenzy of barking, which Mavis soon joined in with and this gave little Mr (or Miss) Squirrel time to make a swift exit completely unseen by my excited little canine companions, back to the safety of the apple tree and with no doubt chance to choose the apple which would make the next meal of the day.

Walking round the paddock I was surprised to see these lovely little Dog Roses flowering on the bush that is full of Rose Hips.  I don't remember ever seeing both on a bush at the same time!!

So pretty on this cold, damp October day.

I could have harvested some of the Rose Hips and made a syrup, but I thought that this year I would leave them all for the wildlife, we have plenty of stores this year.  Maybe I'll have a go next year.

Sue xx

Little Billy No Mates

Every evening as I walk the dogs round the paddock to stretch their legs after tea, and before we settle down to a cosy evening in front of the fire, we get to witness a wonderful display of birds settling down to roost for the night on the wires that run through the pylons behind our land.

They swoosh around, chattering and chunnering as they do, finding a spot that they are happy with before briefly it goes all quiet.

Then one more bird will land and virtually everyone takes off again disturbed by the late-comer and the whole process starts again.

You might not even be able to make him out...  

... does a circle help ...

 ...  but way down the wires high over the river one bird always sits totally by himself.  Neither part of the flock on our pylon nor part of the smaller flock that sits on the wires at the pylon by the river.

I've christened him 'Little Billy No Mates'.  

I wonder what his story is, is he waiting for a friend, for his partner in life ... or does he simply want no part of this settling, scattering and settling again that repeats itself over and over until darkness falls.  He cuts a lonely image in a great big sky, but hopefully before they all depart for warmer climes he will join in with some friends and be part of the flock again.

Taking photos of the birds made me notice in more detail just how quickly the ferns are now dying off.  The patch of brown on the hillside is getting bigger each day, soon there will be ground visible again where only a couple of weeks ago lush ferns filled the space.

We're out of British Summer Time this weekend, with our clocks going back by one hour on Saturday night/Sunday morning.  The evenings will be long and dark, but hopefully cosy and relaxing.  It's nice once all the jobs are done, the chickens are safely tucked up for the night and we can relax with the dogs and Ginger in the cosiness that is home.

Sue xx