A Pair of Whoppers!!

We were out in the polytunnel this morning, digging up the Borage plants that I have grown in there over the Winter and transplanting them into Nut Wood, which is our wildlife area at the far end of the paddock.  It's fenced off from the rest of the field so that the sheep when we have them staying don't nibble at the young trees and is developing into a real wildlife haven.  

While he was there Lovely Hubby finished laying the membrane over the grass that was still exposed and then dug a large shallow hole to slightly sink the plastic paddling pool that we found lying in the woods when we first moved here, it makes a good pond for wildlife but the green plastic was jarring on the eyes, this way it sits more naturally in it's surroundings..

We have sunk it in with an inch still showing above the ground to stop beetles and other small creatures from scuttling in by mistake in the dark, and of course we have placed large stones at one side inside the pool to enable any creatures that do fall in to climb safely back out before they drown.

Now that the Borage plants are in there the idea is that it will self seed each year and provide a regular supply of early flowers for the bees that visit us and pollinate our flowers and fruit trees, of course I will pinch a few of the flowers for us every now and then, they make a lovely edible garnish for salads and look lovely when frozen into ice cubes and dropped into a glass of Pimms  :-)

While I was in the polytunnel clearing the beds after removing the Borage plants I had a good tidy up.  I weeded the beds and then gave it all a good water, mainly so my little Nematodes don't die until they have eaten all the slugs and the slug babies ... which they seem to have done a treat, I didn't spot any while I was picking leaves for tea, but I did spot lots and lots of lovely worms, something that we had in very short supply when we first moved here.  There were worms of all sizes big fat juicy ones right down to some teeny, tiny ones that could only have been a day or so old.  Once the worms arrive you know your soil is going to be okay.

I also picked the carrots pictured at the top.  Pulling them up I had no idea they were going to be so big or I would have only grabbed at one.  Lots of grated carrot for us this weekend, or maybe it's time to make another pot of soup after my salady week.

Sue xx

All a Bit Same Old, Same Old

I've been more than a bit lax in my postings recently ... sorry!!

To be honest the dreary weather gets me down and it all starts to feel a little bit same old, same old, if you know what I mean.

I go through pretty much the same routines everyday, cleaning out the hen house, filling up feeders and drinkers, walking the dogs and general work in the polytunnel, so I get to wondering if you are all just a little bit fed up of the same chit chat and then I lose all impetus to sit down and chat.

Of course I know deep down that there are lots of you out there who relish a sit down and a cup of coffee while you read the ramblings of a mad English woman living on a Welsh hillside with an equally mad Scottish man.

The big news this week ... if you can call it that ... is that Mother Goose, the Hyline hen is no longer broody and is out and about in Chicken World terrorising any chicken that gets in her way and getting all shirty and huffy if Mr Jack dares to try and have his wicked way with her.  She doesn't think she needs a man in her life at all, in any way and chases him away if he dares to approach ... but he's a man even if a very small feathered one and will not learn  ;-)

Daisy's infected eye is all but better after a course of antibiotic injections, the last one administered after she led me a merry song and dance all around Chicken World, until I gave up and waited for bedtime to come and lifted her off the perch when she wa half asleep.  Far from getting stressed out with a chase she really seems to enjoy it and I could virtually hear her laughing at me as she tucked herself under a bush on the edge of the woods knowing full well I couldn't get to her there, once she had decided the game was over!!

Rosy has developed a limp, whether she's just pulled a muscle or something I don't know.  She's fine when she's running round in the paddock but once she comes in and has been resting for a while and then gets up she seems not to want to put much weight on it for a few minutes.  I've felt it all over and she seems in no obvious pain with squeezing poking and stretching, her foot is fine with nothing in the pad or between her toes etc, so I'm giving her one more week for it to get better if there is no improvement she is off to the vets.  So now I have a Pug that limps with her left back leg (hereditary knee problem) and a Jack Russell that limps with her right back leg ... if Mavis walks in the middle it's all balanced out very nicely!!

Anyway, I need to get off the computer now and get stuck in with the ironing, I'm running out of shirts to wear.  Shirts are pretty much the only thing I iron these days so how the ironing basket gets so piled up with eight or more at a time everytime I'll never know, as I said at the begining same old, same old!!

Sue xx

Treleddyd Fawr Cottage - A Lovely Welsh Cottage

After last years wonderful April break at Pontbrenmydyr cottage, a National Trust property near Aberaeron, we knew we would have to find somewhere pretty special to top that experience of cottagey loveliness .... I think we've managed it very well.

This year we are having a weekend away in Treleddyd Fawr cottage a very well known and much talked about Welsh cottage in St David's, Pembrokeshire.  I first heard about this cottage many years ago when I used to read a blog that spoke from a cat's perspective written by the wonderfully talented artist and writer Jackie Morris.  In the blog she wrote of her cats and the cats of Treleddyd Fawr and their owner Mr Glyn Griffiths, it captured my imagination like no other blog I have read has ever done and got me dreaming of Welsh cottages when I lived in Oxfordshire, in southern England.  How fate moves in mysterious ways, and I've ended up in a cottage of my own on a Welsh hillside, but one that has nowhere near the age of the one we will be staying in.

More about this photograph HERE.

When Mr Griffiths died in 2013 he bequeathed his cottage to the National Trust, and when they realised what a gem this little workmans cottage was they accepted with delight and work commenced.  The work finished last year and it is now available to rent as a holiday home, so that future generations can see a simple but much loved Welsh cottage and experience living in it for themselves.

Photograph by Jackie Morris

When Glyn Griffiths died Jackie Morris wrote a beautiful and very moving tribute to him for the local paper, it appears in full in her blog post 'Last Words'  .... a lovely read and it includes some lovely photographs of Mr Griffiths, his cats and his cottage.  Griff Rhys Jones visited the cottage for a BBC2 programme about the cottage.  Two short clips of this are HERE.

Of course these days the cottage has lost its romantic, derelict air and is fully renovated and ready for use, to say we are looking forward to our three night stay is a bit of an understatement.  Unfortunately we won't be taking a cat with us ... but we will be taking a certain very well behaved little Pug who will no doubt give the cottage a brief reminder of it's previous four legged inhabitants.

Sue xx

In the Fridge and Reverse Bills

Everytime I open the fridge I smile at it's contents ..... a pack of Nematodes is not what you expect to find on the cheese shelf!!  

I have just enough left in the pack after doing the poly and net tunnels just before I copper-banded them, to be able to do a couple of watering cans full of Nemaslug on the pots and the tin bath on the patio.  It needs to be used up by 5th April so I had better get a shufty on tomorrow.  Up to now there has been no sightings of any slugs or slug babies in the polytunnel and I've been digging over most of the beds so it seems to have worked very well.

And here it is ... our very first 'reverse bill'.  

A payment to us from British Gas for supplying the National Grid with some energy.  Lovely Hubby thought it should have been higher, but thinking about how dark and dismal it has been up until the last couple of weeks, and knowing that our battery backup system has only been fully in action for the last month or so I think  to get this much and more importantly not to get yet another quarterly bill for £450 or so pounds is very good.  Well I'm happy ... it's another step forward in our push for self sufficiency.

Sue xx

Tubby Club

Warning this post has Pug Overload

... which will not be a problem for all you Pug lovers out there  ;-)

Back in April of last year I enrolled Suky in Tubby Club at the local vets.  It took me a while to get used to calling it that, I kept saying Fat Club by mistake .... but Suky didn't hear me !!

She goes most months for a weigh in and over the course of the last year has slowly and surely lost just over 2kgs in weight.  Her starting weight was 12.2 kgs and at her last weigh-in she was 10kgs ... the same as she was at the weigh-in before, and the only time she has not lost something.

She has never gone backwards in her weightloss journey and the nurse that runs the club loves her to bits and always grins at her consistently downwards pointing graph of weight loss.

She used to look much tubbier, a little head on a big body.

Now her rear end is much, much slimmer, although she still has the large shoulders her Mum had.

Which means if she poses for a photo like this she still looks a bit tubby.

But if you get her more like this she looks as slim as she actually is.

I think she has about another kilo or so to lose to make her even healthier.  She is already much happier, well I mean she can scratch her own ears now and run all around the paddock, something she most definitely could not do this time last year ... and if you're a little Pug that lives with two energetic Jack Russell terriers you've got to try and keep up haven't you.

With big sister Rosy when she was 9 weeks old.

How did Suky get her name .... well Suky was born exactly one week after my lovely Mum in Law Jessie died in October 2011. She loved dogs that cuddled up to you and were happy to while away an entire afternoon in cosy cuddling, and would say to any dog that craved affection and cuddles 'you suky, suky little thing' and give them the cuddles and love that they needed, so Suky was thus called.  In memory of Jessie, and to let the world know that she craved love and attention.  And funnily enough I have just found out that Sukey (spelt with an 'e' in the Hebrew way means Lily as does my full name, now that's a happy coincidence!!

Sue ...  and Suky xx

More Free Seeds

Two mornings this week I heard the happy thudding of my magazines falling onto the doormat, it creates a frenzy of barking from the dogs and a smile for my face.

They both come in polythene bags containing the magazine and my free seeds. The Kitchen Garden magazine had £9.15 worth of free seeds and ...

... my Grow Your Own magazine had £6.67 worth of free seeds.

And of course they both gave me yet another elastic band for my collection.

Sue xx

The Paddy Fields of North Wales

After the rains of last Autumn and Winter and the flooding of the fields across the road we have been thinking about a new crop.

We don't eat that many potatoes and much prefer rice with most meals, so putting it all together ... the flooded fields, a gently draining hillside and the lovely sunny days with the sun shining in just the right direction and after having a good think about it, we are looking to put a couple of Paddy Fields in our paddock and, if we can persuade Thomas to rent us his field for next year, we could expand to the wettest field of them all across the road from the house.

I can just see us both in our wellies planting and caring for the crops ... I even quite like the hats  :-)

Sue xx

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Happy April  Fools Day  ;-)