July's garden wildlife - this month's assorted squigglers & wigglers.

Hello Friends,
As you know, I've been keeping a log of all the wildlife I've spotted in our garden this month. July hasn't overwhelmed us with different species, but of course, there are bound to be all sorts of wildlife shennaigans going on as soon as I put my list away & come indoors. I've not forgotten one of the Big Annual Bird Counts we did. The only feathered visitors to our garden during our selected hour were the usual suspects (though very welcome, of course!) then within 10 minutes of finishing it, a goldcrest alighted on a climber right outside the conservatory window & sat there for ages.....laughing at us, I'm sure! We are very much aware that different species visit us at different times of year. We see the most varied bird life during the winter months, whereas pond life seems most active in spring. I intend to keep putting additional species seen onto our list so that by the end of June 2015, we will have a complete record for a whole year.

Our garden wildlife at 'Hagstones' - July 2014
Butterflies: Small white, Large white, Small tortoiseshell, Meadow brown, Gatekeeper, Brimstone, Peacock, Comma, Ringlet.

This month, gatekeepers & peacocks (pictured) have been the most prolific butterflies in our garden. We haven't spotted any red admirals in our garden at all this year, which is very unusual.

Moths: Elephant hawk moth, Angle-shades moth & several tiny micro-moths which I'm unable to identify. This little orange & black stripy chap is a cinnabar moth caterpillar.

The caterpillar plant food is apparently the ragwort group, but he was tucking into our ligularia.

Birds: Swifts (nesting in our eaves again this year, hurray!!), Sparrows (ditto), Starlings, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Wood pigeons, Collared doves, Coal tit.

This is quite a low species count for us, but I think there is probably a decent amount of food around & the birds which visit our garden during winter aren't needing to put in an appearance. We've seen juvenile thrushes, starlings, sparrows & wood pigeons too, so good to know they have bred successfully. Usually, thrushes only visit in an icy winter or drought, so it was such a nice surprise to see that we now not only see them regularly, but that they have clearly nested nearby.

Other insects & assorted squigglers: Greenbottle, bluebottle (both of which are quite attractive when outside on plants & not indoors making a nuisance of themselves), 2 types of hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus & Scaeva pyrastri, I think), common wasp, cranefly, dragonfly (medium sized reddish brown) 7-spot ladybird, 22-spot ladybird (beige with black spots), ladybird larvae (hoovering aphids, yay!), green shield bug, green aphids, black aphids, earwigs, woodlice, centipedes, earthworms & red composting worms, common garden snail, snail (Cepea nemoralis? Hundreds of the things, anyway, but doing sterling work feeding the aforementioned thrush family), keel slugs, bloody massive brown & orange frilly slugs (probably not their correct zoological name!)

Bees: (I like bees too much to list them under 'Assorted squigglers') Garden bumble bee, bufftail bumble bee, honeybee. Surprisingly, we haven't seen our usual summer leaf-cutting bees yet, & as the leaves on the witch hazel are intact, they either didn't visit us during July or have decided to pick on a new plant!

Pond: Frogs, froglets, tadpoles, pond skaters, lesser water boatman, whirligig beetle, titchy leeches, pond snails. 

Mammals: Hedgehog. No sign of our bats yet, this year. 

I'm sure there are hundreds more little wiggly chaps out there just dying for a place on my list, but these are the species we've seen in July & I've really enjoyed doing a bit of pond dipping & just taking the time to walk around looking for signs of life. Must remember to check the buddlejas at night during August, as I know we have a great variety of moths out there.

And while I've been enjoying life in the garden hunting for critters, our own big furred critter has continued to count the hours until Going Outside Day. He wasn't able to have his booster jabs yesterday (bit of a saga) but should get them tomorrow, so we're hoping he will still be able to go out this weekend. In the meantime, he's been spending his time like this:

And this:

And with quite a lot of this:

Until next time,

C x

P.S. I mustn't forget to credit the Big Hairy One with the beautiful peacock butterfly photo, plus the bumble bee & frog.

The dubious role of cats in aerobics.........plus pesto!

Hi Friends,
Actually, scratch the word 'dubious' from that title, for I can tell you this, absolutely & categorically, there is NO role for cats in aerobics, not one. Probably ever! 
As most friends will know, I've been working hard on my weight over the last 3 years or so & have achieved a weight loss of 6 stones. This has partly been done by old-fashioned portion control & calorie counting (& a 'Virtual' Rosemary Conley on my shoulder nagging in my ear) but I can't emphasis enough how important exercise has been, especially now I have hit those 'woman of a certain age' years where calories form into small magnetic balls of fat which ping onto my middle like lard tiddlywinks. I've spent my whole life being an Exercise Dodger (I'm sure 'School: The PE Years' will form a blog topic at some point) but I've realised this simple personal weight loss fact: If I stick rigidly to my diet plan alone, I will lose maybe 1/2lb or 1lb a week (I've been doing this a long time now). If I do 5 x 30-40 min exercise sessions a week, then that weight loss will usually be around double. I quite like walking (not more than 3 miles or I get bored & moany!) but for everyday activity, I do aerobic-type DVDs. These are pretty boring on the whole but I prefer them to the body conditioning type (Not convinced any DVD anywhere is up to that job, frankly!) My preferred exercise time is first thing in the morning as that gives me less time to talk myself out of doing it.

So rug rolled back to expose stripped wooden boards, curtains closed around Albert Whiskers who is zonked on the windowsill, I'm down to my bra & knickers going through the warm-up routine & stretches. Half way through the first fat-burning routine, Albert Whiskers launches himself off the windowsill & throws himself down full length smack in the centre of the floor. I try to adapt a step or two to see if I can box-step round him. I can't....& he's eyeing my feet. I move him. He comes back. I move him again, he comes back. I try to introduce a sort of new 'ungainly leap step' (you won't find this anywhere in the Rosemary Conley repertoire) so I can do 'Swing & lift, weird jump' instead of just 'Swing & lift'. I can't. I put him out in the hall. Next track. Ancient M-People number. I wonder for the umpteenth time why no-one has brought out a heavy rock aerobics DVD, instead of this cheesy nonsense. Then the meowing starts. I don't have the volume turned up very high because the music is pretty irritating & I don't want the neighbours subject to the same 8 tracks every day, so instead of the encouraging voice of Rosemary, I've got a combination: 'Meow & lift, meow & lift, leg raises on the end, meow, meow you can put as much effort into it as you like (& he is doing...), sounds of door being clawed to shreds, meows have morphed into drama-queen yowling.....' Then they stop suddenly, I sashay backwards while still trying to keep my arms going & have a peek through the frosted glass door....at first I don't see him, then I do...the bugger's all but swinging off the door handle! He must be standing on one of the lower panels. I decide to ignore this display of attention seeking. |No cat can need to gain room entry that badly. I manage to get through another 2 tracks, then realise I can hear muffled action in the hall. It sounds like someone systematically killing a doormat.......I work through the final thigh & hamstring stretches & open the door. The mat looks like it's gone several rounds with someone intent on world doormat domination & there is a sad little heap of loose pile from the hall rug. And Albert Whiskers? Does he bowl me over in his efforts to get into the denied room so as to continue whatever he was doing that was so important? No! He doesn't want to go in there at all. In fact, as I opened it, he was already heading off the conservatory to catch some rays. Bloody cats!! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!!

In case anyone is thinking that all I've done since my last post is jump around to bad music in my frillies (I refuse to spend my clothing budget on anything as tedious as sportswear when I could be spending it on dresses & boots!), I should add that I have been busy in the veggie garden & turning nature's bounty into stuff for the freezer. I've picked 2lbs aubergines & turned those into a tasty curry, a really low calorie recipe too, & have started picking & freezing our chillies. These are jalapenos......so big & shiny, looks like a great year for them.

I also cut the basil, grown in large pots this year. The hot weather has brought this on well. Basil is a sniffy crop to grow. It gets just so far in a colder summer, then says it isn't playing any more, & what's more it wants its ball back, before wimping into a collection of sad barely green stalks. 

Not so this year, though! A whole colander of absolutely lush leaves gathered & turned into pesto. This freezes really well in small plastic pots & is great for providing a taste of summer in the depths of winter.

The small bowl is lemon basil pesto, to which I added a chopped hot red chilli for a bit of a different vibe. This is the first year I've had a successful crop of lemon basil. It's fab chopped into mayonnaise with some crushed garlic too.
So I've been quite productive. If I don't post again, you'll know I am trapped under a mountain of courgettes awaiting a winch or preferably a fireman's lift!
Have a good weekend, everyone,
C x

Marigold scones & one stir-crazy cat!

Hi Friends,
Another busy week in the garden. It's mostly all maintenance now, to maximise those lovely food crops, but I've done a little more seed-sowing too. We're now picking cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes, spring onions & a few mange-tout, as well as continuing to cut lettuces. The BHO lifted his shallots at the weekend & those are outside drying in the sunshine. We've had an unintentional little free gift from our neighbours, as the annoying brambles that keep poking through the hedge & arching over one of my borders are now bearing ripe fruit, so I'm picking it daily & adding to my blackberry treasure stash in the freezer. The aubergines & jalopeno chillies will be the next to be cut, so should it be moussaka first, or a curry? Can't decide!

The pot marigolds (calendula) have put on such a fab display this summer & are still flowering their socks off. I save the seed from year to year, so they're probably a proper 'moggy' of a flower by now. I get lots of different shades of oranges & yellow, as well as plenty of double blooms. This afternoon, I've picked a pot of the petals (you only need 2 tbsp) to make marigold scones.

Freshly picked petals waiting to be used

Marigold petals were used in the past as 'poor man's saffron', & they do give a cheery warm glow to a scone (I should know because I've just snarfed one, fresh from the oven, with a slather of butter........what a good job the aerobics DVD has made an appearance today....) I just used my basic scone recipe & added the petals at the same time as the sultanas. I'm also planning to make a batch with  chives, as well as marigolds & a sprinkling of parmesan or Lincolnshire Poacher on top. 

Warm & ready to eat!

At the beginning of this month, I started a sort of survey of our garden wildlife. I'd intended to do this for just a day or two, but this would leave out the interesting feathered visitors we occasionally see in the winter, so I decided to keep a list, add 'new' species as they appear, then post at the end of each month with a little report of what we've seen. So far, I've done a bit of minor pond dipping, had a poke around in the compost bin & been checking the flower borders daily for butterflies, bees & other buzzies.

Somebody who would very much like to be outside undertaking his own wildlife study is poor old Albert Whiskers. He is turning out to be the most lovely cat, extremely funny, with very definite ideas about how he likes his household to be run. He is the most vocal cat I've ever owned. Nothing can be done without a barrage of meowing, chunters & grumbles. The escape attempts continue.......for his Big Massive Escape before we'd even driven 1 mile from the Cat Rescue, see my earlier post about his arrival. Since then, he has faked being fast asleep then walked straight out of the front door, waited till the BHO was at a critical point in some or other virtual alien-splatting pursuit, then attempted one single vast leap for the window from the floor & today, he has feigned an overwhelming interest in the ironing, with the ulterior motive of sneaking behind me & along the bedroom windowsill for exit through the window. I didn't spot any specialist cat abseiling equipment about his person, nor was he knotting together sheets, so I suspect that one could have been an expensive trip to the vet! He is absolutely DESPERATE to go out. He's had his primary injections, but has to stay in until he's had the boosters, which will be next Wednesday. 

Proper fed-up!

 In the meantime, it's every variation  of mouse on a string you can think of (with  & without holey cardboard box), alternating with him sitting in our bow window, looking for other cats. Some elicit bigger yowls & more interesting body language than others..........it's almost as if he has his own copy of 'The Spotter's Guide to the Village Cats'.....(10 points for Big Grey Fluffy) In just a week or so, he can meet them in the fur.........lucky them!! He is a friendly, nice-natured cat indoors with us, but he does have a rather diva-ish  streak, too, so I think he's going to be a bit of an unknown quantity once he gets a whiff of the great outdoors.
For now, he's doing his best to snooze away the hours until his big day & making a good job of it!


That's it from The People & Cats Republic today.....till next time.....which I bet will involve aubergines.......bet you're all glad I've stayed off the topic of nuclear litter trays.......
Hope everyone's enjoying the sunshine.
C x

The severed head & further recycling.......

Hello Friends,
Another glorious day, in which I've cleared out the shed, rescued possibly the loveliest but thickest baby thrush in the world from our greenhouse & dealt with a litter tray that frankly needed sealing in concrete & burying at sea. 

My backside has not made contact with this chair once today!

While working on the shed, it occurred to me how much stuff we recycle & re-purpose to help with our food production. All veggie gardeners & allotmenteers I know do this, but it suits me just fine because I like to keep as much useful gear out of landfill as possible. When did we become such a thoughtless, wasteful society?  

This is one of my favourite bits of re-purposing of all time: 
As I stood one morning admiring our veggie plot, a small object whooshed past my ear & landed with a plunk in the shallot bed. I picked it up & discovered it to be.......Jim's head! (as in 'Rosie & Jim' from children's TV). I assumed it had been lobbed over by kids, but it was a school day. Perhaps someone further down the street was having some kind of 'episode', standing outside, repeating 'I hate my life' though clenched teeth, slowly dismembering Jim before launching each body part independently into neighbouring gardens? Anyway, we got the head, & as I was short of precisely one cane-topper, that's what it became!

Perfect!

Other recycled/re-purposed items used in our veggie garden:
Yoghurt pots -  Large ones for flower pots, small ones used in trays as modules
Loo roll tubes - For sowing runner beans,as can plant whole thing out
Old net/muslin curtains from well-known Swedish emporium - Use as horticultural fleece (lasts longer too!)
Tiny plastic bottles - Cane toppers
Large plastic drinks bottles - Cut down to use as cloches or watering funnels
Broken plastic laundry basket -  Grew a courgette in it 4 years running till it crumbled
Empty compost sacks - Line containers,, warm soil in Spring or use as rubbish sacks or to bag home made compost
Clear plastic trays from buying strawberries, grapes, etc - Use to cloche seed trays
Transparent plastic pots from olives, etc - Use as mini cloches for tender veg seedlings i.e peppers
Strong plastic meat trays - Use as seed trays
Empty spread tubs - Cut up rectangular ones for plant labels, use round ones as greenhouse plant saucers
Old CDs - String up as bird scarers
Cardboard - Cut into large circles to use as moisture mats in the worm composter
Empty flour bags - Add to worm composter. They love 'em.
Old ice lolly sticks, coffee stirrers, plastic 'disposable' cutlery - I've used all these as plant labels
Newspapers - Can be made into small pots or larger tubes for sowing runner beans
Bills/bank statements - Put through shredder & layered into compost bins or used as worm bedding
Odd knitting needles - Great for staking up chilli plants

Knitting, growing & recycling - 3 of my favourite things (also like whiskers on kittens.....)

3-tier metal vegetable stand - grow strawberries in it (reminds me of a really unusual obelisk my sister once used for sweet peas.....when I admired it, she said . "Oh, that's my old saucepan rack, turned upside down")Empty beer bottles (the kind most regularly seen at our house....) - Use upside down as funky recycled edging
Empty jam jars - A bit of wire around the neck, a tea-light inside, hang from trees at dusk. Magic!
Old metal fire guard - Dismantled it & use as frame for growing peas
Broken crockery - Saved to use as drainage crocks in containers
Plastic milk cartons - Cut off top third lengthways (the handle bit) & used as 'guttering' to sow peas
Old plastic plumbing pipes - No idea where they came from but currently in use as my cucumber frame
Lorry tyre - A piece of the eclectic assortment of crap inherited from previous owner, now used for growing squash
Metal bread pan from defunct bread maker machine - Planted with a chilli plant
Large plastic Sainsbury's delivery crate wombled from Waitrose car park - Mini raised bed for lettuces
Rocket sticks - Love seeing how many rockets have landed in our garden after Bonfire Night...they are strong wooden sticks which make great stakes for chillies, peppers & aubergines!

My next challenge is to make some kind of plant staging using a purple aerobic step (I'll sacrifice firm thighs if I never have to get on it again....) & a box of large ceramic 'slate' floor tiles.

I should stress that I fall strictly into the 'recycler' category & am not going to turn up on one of those TV shows in which people are rescued from imminent burial under an avalanche of tat.
Albert Whiskers has come to tell me it's time his chunks were making an appearance, & is threatening to superglue himself to my leg, rendering even crossing the kitchen impossible. More sunshine tomorrow. Enjoy!
C x

In which the garden grows apace & Albert Whiskers goes to the vet.

Hi Friends,

It's that time of year when work in the garden is now mostly maintenance, keeping everything fed, watered & happy.....which means away from wood pigeons.....& sparrows.....& snails......et al. Then comes my favourite bit, which is harvesting our own fresh food to cook & eat. Our garden is about 30 feet wide & 130 feet long, like many such gardens attached to 1930s houses. It has 3 mature fruit trees - an apple ('Charles Ross', according to my Mum!), a pear (conference) & greengage. Roughly two thirds of this space is grass (I couldn't dignify our pretty but messy patch full of wildflowers by calling it 'lawn') with big flower borders & the remaining third is our productive veggie garden. These pictures aren't great as were taken on my phone, at a time of day when the sun was bright & there were lots of strange-looking shadows, but they should give an idea of what summer at 'Hagstones' looks like:

Luscious ivy on our old pear tree

From under the greengage tree

Geranium 'Rozanne', wild borage & alchemilla mollis

Penstemons I grew from seed, with a tiny self-sown foxglove (Who doesn't love a freebie?)

Under our whitebeam tree, which I mended with sellotape when it was a sapling!

Purple alium 'Sensation' seed heads

The calendula are fab this year. I like to grow a row of these in front of my outdoor tomatoes.

     A peek into the greenhouse

Cucumber No. 3 growing away nicely

A vision of shiny purple loveliness - what a sexy beast!

Lots of bunches forming on our 'Black Hamburg'
 

From the back of our veggie plot - sorry, it's a bit dark!

On the kitchen front, there's more preserving in progress. I'm like a squirrel between now & autumn with a real drive to make & store lovely things for winter. Today I've prepped a whole load of lemons & put them to soak, ready to make lemon marmalade tomorrow. 

The whole house will smell just gorgeous when that's bubbling on the hob, which will make a pleasant change from Eau de Litter Tray.........

......which brings me neatly on to Albert Whiskers' trip to the vet this morning. A very kind person gave us a a stronger cat carrier, which compared to his old one is 'The Alcatraz'. Unusually, he didn't race off to hide in the linen cupboard at first sight of it (the MO of our previous cats). Instead, he insisted on finishing his breakfast before being picked up, but as soon as he was in it, he barged the top & side doors to see if they would bow sufficiently to effect another escape, before seeing if digging his way out would feasible. All Houdini attempts this time failed, I'm pleased to report. A couple of attempted clawings on route, but no escapes this time & the BHO was able to arrive home minus lacerations. The vet thought he was absolutely lovely.....a 'real boy cat' with his big face & huge paws. The fight damage to his face/eye won't be a problem, it's already much better & his fur is growing back. We were surprised to hear that both his canine teeth are broken.......as the vet said, he's clearly 'seen some action'. So, he had his inoculations,  his boosters are booked for the end of this month & then.......the moment he is so desperate for............it will be Albert Whiskers' Going Outside Day!! 

And that, is the end of my ramblings for today. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Back soon,

C x

Pineapple chutney & lime pickle, nom nom......

Hi Friends,
Have had a few industrious hours of kitchen alchemy this morning. I really fancied making a batch of mango chutney, so naturally when I visited the market on Saturday, I discovered that the national mango shortage had reached the East Midlands! Not a single mango to be had.......well, except in supermarkets at prices I wasn't prepared to pay! Thwarted by furry mango fungus....or whatever it is that is limiting imports at the moment, but the day was saved by the BHO, who spotted some colossal pineapples on sale & suggested using those instead. Enjoyed adapting the recipe, & using both our home grown garlic & scotch bonnet chillies in it. It's got a fiery kick to it, but not so hot that the pineapple flavour is lost. I think it's going to be great on home made burgers, with curries & rice and on cheese on toast.

Once the cauldron of pineappley loveliness was bubbling away on the hob, I made some lemon pickle. I haven't made it before. It doesn't require any cooking. You simply put the cut up lemons & other ingredients (salt, sugar, turmeric, garam masala & chilli) in a kilner jar, give it a massive stir, then leave it to stand in the sunshine for a week, giving it a shake each day. I'm guessing this will be very like the uber-hot lime pickle served in Indian restaurants. Hope so! I've got my jar in the greenhouse, so that I will remember to shake it when I water the aubergines each morning!

I baked the little cakes for the BHO's reading group. I wasn't too happy with them, but a pile of judiciously applied dolly mixtures covers a multitude of issues! 

Albert Whiskers has now been with us just over a week. This would have been a beautiful photo with him at his winsome best, but at the last minute, he decided that looking out of the window was more important than posing for people who refuse to let him out! He's mostly behaving really well, but he is absolutely DESPERATE to go outside. He's quite a young cat & needs to burn off some energy. There's only so much 'Mousie' you can play with your humans before it gets samey. No escapes since last Monday, but he's definitely been sizing up the chimney........

Well, I shall sign off now, as I want to weed the courgette bed before the rain starts.

Back soon,

C x 

Comfrey liquid plant food - eeww!

Hi Friends,
Well, pegs on noses, please, as this morning, I've strained my first batch of this year's comfrey liquid plant food. For anyone who has never indulged their curiosity/tightwad tendencies & actually made this, I can tell you that it is possibly the smelliest thing ever. It's difficult to describe, but I'm going to try. For catty friends, think of the worst, most nuclear litter tray EVER...yes, that's right, the one requiring the cordon sanitaire around half the house, the one where you simply cannot believe that something so evil can have come out of anything so small & fluffy.....Holding that thought? Good. Well, now add in a strong rotting vegetable overtone.....like the time when you were a student & discovered someone's ancient liquifying carrot in the bottom of the fridge. Getting the picture? Now all you need to do is add a subtle top-note of festival toilets (on the last day) & we have the full olefactory joys of home made comfrey liquid plant food!

There are various ways of making this. We saw an innovative method a while back at Garden Organic, Ryton http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/ryton which involved a long length of drainpipe attached vertically to a shed wall. The drain pipe had been fitted with a tap at the bottom. The comfrey was stuffed into the top of the pipe & poked down with a plunger (a recycled plastic bottle weighted down with water). Did we go away & adopt this clever bit of low-tech? Nope! For the lower than low-tech 'Hagstones' bucket method, see below!

Opened bucket & gingerly stirred the witch's brew within. (Unless you are a masochist, always use a lidded bucket....unless you have nasty neighbours, in which case use unlidded bucket & position up against fence near their BBQ area.......actually, have never done this, our neighbours are really nice). Next, I strained it into a bucket using my compost sieve. I always chuck the rotting comfrey onto the compost heap in the belief that something so stenchy can only be doing some kind of good. Then it was bottling time, & I just funnel it into recycled plastic bottles.

I cut the comfrey back yesterday when I was tidying up the herb garden, so I chopped it up a bit more, added a particularly malevolent nettle which had been threatening my ankles for a while & started off another batch. I wish I could tell you there's some mystery to it, but there really isn't. Just ram your bucket as full as you can, add water, apply lid & give it at least 2 weeks.

Something I've discovered through experience is to use comfrey plant liquid well diluted. On a warm day, a strong solution can scorch foliage, so I usually use a small recycled plastic pot, no bigger than a mug, to measure it out into the watering can, & I try to aim it around the roots, rather than the top-growth as much as possible. So that, my friends, was my very stinky morning. Did I water it onto my feet this time? No, amazingly not, but I have got it on my hands & despite using a scrubbing brush & washing them a subsequent 4 times, I can still smell it. Ooooh, the allure of me, tonight.....!!

I made a good start on cutting back a big flower border too, but the rest will have to wait. I'm going to brew a cafetiere, find my book & spend some quality down-time with Albert Whiskers, who has just bitten me because he wasn't allowed to sit on the laptop keyboard! 

Until next time,

C x

Harvesting our herbs

Hi,
A busy time in the garden. Transplanted the leeks yesterday. They are much smaller than usual for this time of year. I'm thinking probably another victim of a dodgy bag of compost I had this Spring. Never mind, it doesn't matter if they are small, they'll still go in the pot! The watercress, radishes, spring onions & frilly lettuces I sowed the other day are already coming up & I've spotted the first tiny aubergines setting in the greenhouse. Am cutting lettuces regularly now, & we've already had two cucumbers.

Today's job has been cutting back the herb bed, which had grown like wildfire, weeding out yet more bloody hawkweed......that stuff would survive a nuclear attack, I'm sure, & is becoming a worse thug even than bindweed.  The bed looks a lot better now, although this picture isn't very bright because it's in the shadow of the greengage tree.

I really enjoy harvesting fresh herbs for drying. It's such a lovely fragrant job & a real summery thing to do. I had a ball of string in my pocket & cut & tied bunches as I went along: Oregano, sage, rosemary, golden marjoram, winter savoury & thyme were all ready for cutting today, & are now hanging from the kitchen ceiling to dry.

I hacked the comfrey back too, & will use that to make more liquid comfrey feed tomorrow....so any offers of industrial strength gas masks welcome! If I manage not to pour it all over my feet & up the leg of my jeans, that will be a first.......

Albert Whiskers continues to settle in nicely. You never really know how they will adapt to their new home. Some rescue cats get their paws under the table very swiftly & seem so happy to have a home & some humans at long last, while others spend much longer in the 'deeply suspicious' stage. Albert Whiskers seems pretty pleased with his new life so far.

Three things I have learned about Albert Whiskers in the short time we have known him:
i) He must never, EVER be trusted just because he looks cute.
ii)If nobody has time to listen to him, he is quite happy to spend hours talking to himself.
iii)The feeding regime we've used for our previous cats is not going to work because one thing that is clearly a major deal breaker for him is his insistence on a trucker's breakfast..

It struck me today that while Albert Whiskers is confined to barracks, it would be a good time to do my garden wildlife survey. I've been meaning to do this for a while & it's one of those projects which is likely to be more successful without cat help. Shall have to get some rubber gloves for dipping our pond (wimp)...as last year, I did some pond dipping & found two fearsome looking mini-dinosaurs which turned out to be dragonfly larvae. How cool was that? Wouldn't fancy one in my bare hand though! We do get dragonflies in our garden but I hadn't realised they were breeding in our little pond!
OK, must crack on, Mon - Thurs being my cooking nights.... the BHO is working late, so likely to burst through the door fit to eat a scabby horse!
Back soon with stenchy comfrey activities,
C x
.