End of Day Two

The digger has gone and the compacter machine ( can't think of the proper name for it at present) and we are ready for the slabs.  Alistair and Peter moved soil to level the lawn a bit as there was quite a dip in it and built up the patio to make it level with a small stone wall to one side, a couple of steps will be added and the paving then will continue to the door of the Byre ( my studio)  I have ordered lawn seed and feed to try and get the lawn back, but they did replace the turf that was removed and hopefully it should take and grow again.  I will be planting a lavender hedge around the edge of the patio leaving a gap at the front.  All in all I think its gone to plan.  As they were working on this I have been working in the main garden which is all behind the house and putting down more slug stuff as the hosta's along the back of the house by the brook have been seriously nibbled- it's such a large garden to do by oneself but I like the intimacy that arises from working on a garden, learning every nook and cranny and the sense of achievement at the end of the day when you ache all over but then can sit with a glass of something and admire it all.  As I worked my way along the paths and borders yesterday I found the perfect place to build a Fairy house by the side of a bridge, so will dig out my fairy house book ( I have a book on everything it seems, Amazon must love me )

The house wall is on the left and a brook runs on the right of the hosta's, the thing that looks like Darth Vader in the distance is an oil tank.

The stone slabs should arrive next week I think and in the meantime I notice the birds, mainly the black bird enjoying the fresh soil - this garden is full of worms although I wonder how they get through the clay and rock that it is built on.  Everything is growing like mad and if I miss a day or two walking around some parts of the garden it is amazing what suddenly has appeared.  Just some light weeding today, no strimming or hedge cutting as I can really feel the aches and pains today.

As I was writing this the slabs arrived so looks like Alistair is going to be busy for awhile, I shall of course provide encouragement, coffee, food when needed and the odd remark if it doesn't look quite right.

Patio Building

Of course as soon as you plan to build a patio ( or buy sunbeds) the rain just doesn't stop.  Digger was booked last week but it was just to wet for it, so today we are having another go, when I say 'we' I mean Alistair.  The digger was supposed to be delivered on Saturday but has been sitting at somebody else's house all weekend with nobody realising that it had been delivered to the wrong house - you wonder why the people who's house it was didn't question why a digger was sat outside their house all that time.  Anyway by the time it had been collected this morning and then brought to ours it was gone 11am and lots of digging had already been done by hand.  Alistair has a friend helping him and my role seems to consist of telling them that they are doing a 'grand' job each time I pass them.

Kiki has been keeping them company but Lucca wanted to stay inside in the warmth. I will show the progression of said patio over the coming days.

And so it begins

Tea and Biscuits for the workers

The Wild Horses

Yesterday we had a visit from the vet for the animals annual vaccinations.  Lucca is terrible in the truck ( which we bought specially for them, as they can't both fit in a car) and gets anxious and reacts from both ends which makes it rather a messy business on the whole.  With them being so big and Boudicca our rescue cat being so psycho it is worth paying for a house visit as to make everything as least stressful as possible.  I had locked the cat flap so there was no chance of escape and the dogs gave them an overwhelming welcome as they do with visitors, leaving everybody covered in a layer of white fluffy hair as they are moulting - they calmed down after the initial welcome and totally calmed down after the kennel cough squirt up the nose, and decided that maybe visitors aren't that much fun.

Achilles our Spanish laid back cat couldn't care less about things but Boudicca the rescue cat is something else.  She completely flipped, tried to force herself through the pet gate, attacked Alistair then ran to the locked cat flap and got her paw stuck in the non-swinging flap and that iswhere she had her injection.  Released from said flap and avoiding Alistair's spilled blood on the utility floor she was delighted to gain her freedom and get as far away from us as possible.  She appeared later on in the day trying to make up for her actions and giving Alistair lots of attention, obviously this cat has got a conscience after all.  Alistair is sporting some fantastic scratch marks on hand and head and seems to have forgiven her for now or till the next time she kills something.  The vet and assistant had travelled to us over the Longmynd where we used to live and we talked about the wild horses that live there, this made think about them as I was going through some photographs later in the day and came across these.  I should be posting photographs of the dogs and cats after this story but these horses are so special so I couldn't resist.

The rain keeps coming

Pied Wagtail

The rain started and seems to have hardly stopped, we have just walked through the woods with the dogs and although lovely, you can't help but wonder how the birds are coping.. I saw on Springwatch that owls have trouble feeding in the rain and that can mean that the baby owls don't get the food they need - all was quiet when we walked past our owl box where I have heard them, I hope they are ok.

The pied wagtail has been sitting in the rain and didn't seem to want to find shelter as I'm not an expert on birds ( or anything else in fact ) I'm not sure what their habits are.  I've most probably read about them in the past but my memory is so bad that it has now disappeared into the ether along with lots of other information.  I am presently working through the many flower photographs I have and trying to name all of them correctly, which is taking quite awhile but will be useful for my records.  I would like to draw a plan of the garden and woods showing the lay of the land and different areas we have here, it is something I would like to paintin watercolours so people can get a real feel for the place and imagine it better, but to get it to scale is the daunting part at the moment.

The hosta bank is looking stunning and not too much evidence of snail damage as yet, so maybe the nemetodes I watered on them have worked.  Kiki still has to jump in the pond for a closer look though even in the rain. Scared the life out of a duck.

Week Four film - Time Lapse

Well this is a short and sweet film for my film course.  We had to do a time lapse movie and so I chose to film the start of a new day.  As I didn't want to waste battery by leaving the camera on all night so I had to get up at 4am to switch it on and then had two hours of the camera clicking as it took pictures every 30 seconds.  Not sure it was worth it as nothing dramatic happened except a pheasant ran across the bottom of the frame at some point.  At least I know how to do them now,  so would like to capture a night one with star trails, or maybe I could film the owl nest and see what activity I can record - will have to be a dry night unless I want to get really into things and build a watertight hide in the woods.  I don't know who would be more scared, me or the owls.

The sun shone ' briefly' and I managed to get some shots taken in the garden, which is looking really stunning at present with all the rhododendrons flowering and weeping cherries. I discovered that we have some meconopsis ( blue poppy ) so luckily shot the photo's before the latest rain started and battered all the flower heads.  Also found some very pretty Corydalis in the most beautiful blue.  I think its called 'fumarlifolia' but have a feeling that I saw it called something else in a gardening magazine I was reading recently.  Will check it out.  Pouring down with rain at present and so I will edit photo's from the garden shoot and stay snug in my studio with the two dogs.  Alistair is out buying paving for a new patio he is building - remaining very positive that the sun will return and we will be able to use it a lot.  I on the other hand went and purchased two cheap sunbeds and a picnic rug, the latter for lying on when photographing flowers and bugs.  It was like the kiss of death, as soon as the sunbeds arrived the rain started.

Alliums and Wisteria

The flowers on these are with us for such a short time but the colours are my favourite and from the brightness of the alliums to the ghostly romanticism of the wisteria.  The wisteria covers my studio and as you can see the top windows really need cutting back but I keep stopping Alistair from doing it as I love how it looks at present after a winter of bare stone ( lovely in itself of course).  Rain is due tomorrow and this morning I had every intention of rising at dawn and getting outside for shooting some of the flowers in the garden that are looking stunning at the moment - maybe at dusk I will take a walk around, but I always love the light of a new day and that freshness that surrounds you.  

At present I am drinking bottles of water to which I add a tablespoon of aloe vera juice, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice - as Ibelieve it helps with inflammation and it certainly seems more refreshing than just plain water.

A dirty job but somebody has to do it ....

Thankfully this time it wasn't me... It is usually me who dons the waders and steps out into the unknown, but this time Alistair was keen to get in there and clear the weed out - which is incredibly heavy and full of squirmy things. Any newts found get gently placed back into the pond (Alistair says some were as big as crocodiles but then he is prone to exaggeration!). Don't tell anyone about our newts in case the heavy mob from the EU descend and want to know how many we have and are they all accounted for! And while they're here they will no doubt want to check on the bats, one of which Alistair found under the bed a few weeks ago (Boudicca the killer cat had got it). That cat has got to go. We put a collar with bell on her but she has managed to remove that, no doubt while climbing trees looking for nests - I just can bear her murderous ways anymore. Alistair did ring the cat rescue centre where she came from originally but they are full at present, most probably with other killer cats.

Anyway the pond is looking better and the organic nematode things that I put in seem to have cleared the algae bloom and hopefully the bit of rain we had yesterday has flushed through some fresh water from the stream.  The film below was taken on Sunday when we had a family BBQ, the first of the year. We have used the summer house for the first time which involved us having to stock it and get things moved up to that part of the garden; it's quite a trek and we were pleased and relieved when the younger members of the family cleared the plates and dishes with several trips back down to the house. Next time it should be plain sailing. 

So much to do in the garden and if you have watched the film below you will see that we have been overwhelmed with dandelion wishes/seeds, which have blown in from the neighbouring fields. We are going to have a serious dandelion problem at some point!

Kiki watching Alistair

Week Three of film course

On yet another bright and sunny day I find myself having to water plants - it seems almost a novelty after all the rain we have had.  I'm sure we are going to curse later on in the year but this weekend we were covered in dandelion wishes which must come off the surrounding fields.  The theme for this weeks film is slow motion so here is my try at it.

Film 2 of my film course

I must admit this seems a bit dark and sad but I just liked the song, I wasn't sad at all - Alistair was away down south watching rugby so I just went with my instincts.  I must admit I like the emotion of photo's and film and am not a happy clappy photographer - the black and white seemed to work better with this film and I did pot more than a couple of new oxygenating plants yesterday and yes Kiki was in the pond again.

Hosta Bank

I have been spending most of my time in the garden at present, everything is growing so quickly and its hard to keep up with all the jpbs that need doing.  I have sprayed the Hosta's and the hosta bank with nematodes or something like that, rather than use slug pellets.  It involved about 20 trips with a watering can up from the house to the top pond where most of the hosta's reside.  It says on the instructions that it will have to be done every 6 weeks so I will see if the hosta's keep their leaves intact.  It is nigh impossible to keep Kiki out of the ponds although her brother Lucca does not seem to have the same love of water that she does.  Boudicca the cat is very nearly reaching the point that I would consider finding her a new home. We have been watching a pair of pied wagtails that have returned and that we saw last year - they are so friendly and trusting and we love sitting with a glass of wine in the evening watching them and the swallows and house martins as they zoom around the barns and back and forth to their nests.

Last night I went into the utility and found the female wagtail dead on the floor and Boudicca looking pleased with herself - I could have killed her.  I went to bed upset and teary and vowing to get in touch with the rescue centre and get her re-homed - Achilles never kills anything completely the opposite to Boudicca who is almost a killing machine.  Not sure if I will repent or not.  Yesterday morning we had to construct a wire pen around a duck nest that is by one of the ponds with 8 eggs in it as Boudicca has found it and will kill the ducklings when they hatch if we didn't do something to help protect them. Anybody want a cat?