Tag Archives: hen

Lockdown: You’ve Got to Roll With It

The sweet smell of DB No.5

When I was young, quarantine was for dogs.  Specifically, those coming from abroad.  A stay of six months was the norm, although that was increased to twelve months for a while when a dog named Sessan died of rabies in Newmarket.  These days quarantine is for humans – and it seems that dogs are our best way out of it, as it has been accepted that they need two exercises a day while we are allowed just the one. 

Our Labrador Retriever celebrated the first day of lockdown by rolling in something unspeakable during our single excursion from the house.  We have various names for the fields that we walk in, based on previous sightings and happenings.  There is the Old Deer Field, the New Deer Field and the Ducking Pool (where Ella wades and slurps water before coughing like a Covid patient).  There is also the Manor field, and the more descriptively labelled Dead Badger Field.  To that list we can now add the Second Dead Badger Field (DBF II).  We had to keep the dog down wind from us as we strode home.

I was deputed to put on my own Personal Protection Equipment, consisting of rubber gloves and an old anorak, which is not dissimilar to what the Government is supplying “our” NHS, it seems.  The dog herself could not understand the fuss and took it all as her own PPE (Personal Pampering for Ella).  So, after anointing herself with the odour of badger carcass, she now got to choose from a range of shampoos, left over from the Christmas hamper, with which to have a wash and shake.  She went for ‘After the Rain’ (from Arran Aromatics) and she looked gorgeous on it.  Fluffy and happy, smelling like a Highland Hunting party:  notes of heather and gorse, with a hint of rotting cadaver on the finish.

Ella does not see Lockdown as a problem and does not understand the concept of Social Distancing either; wandering out into the lane every time another villager walks past on their daily exercise.  It is not that she is being sociable – she is simply checking their pockets for biscuits. 

Self-isolation is something that the hen has decided she is going to rebel against too, as she escaped from her run twice yesterday and attempted to scratch away at the flowers coming up in the cold spring sunshine.  We sent her packing with a warning – next time it will be a fine, or perhaps a really hard stare from our Prime Minister. 

That should do it.

Back in Isolation
Daffs and stuff
Tulip testing the cold air
Crocuses & Tulip leaves
Perennial seedlings

Bedding In

January and early February have seen an upturn in postive thoughts around here.  The early morning walks are punctuated by the sound of thrushes singing their hearts out from the tops of trees while woodpeckers drum on hollow branches and robins argue noisily below; all trying to claim their separate territories with spring just around the corner.

My attempts at my own territorial improvements have centred on transplanting the Acer from the pot at the back of the house, where it was looking rather sad in the atutumn.  It has now taken the place of the unsightly cotoneaster, which took some uprooting from the front garden.  The removal of the cotoneaster has naturally been delayed until the blackbirds had taken their fill of the red berries, just as my father would have insisted.  I follow his advice more now than I ever did when he was alive.

Elsewhere, I have been tinkering with some of the borders: pruning roses and cutting back the autumn bliss raspberries – though the latter was mainly to ensure that I could get to the hen house more easily.  There had been the usual hiatus in egg-production from Agatha (although she still claimed her free board and lodging).  Supervision of the hen house had become rather intermittent, so when I did finally check on the 20th January, I was astonished to see eight eggs in her nesting box.

Since then we have cleared the path to the hen house and check on her regularly to collect any more eggs, while they are still fresh.  But this hen has a sense of humour, it seems, and there has not been a single egg layed since the 20th.  It’s probably her way of protesting over her recent exclusion from the flower garden – a ban imposed on her after she destroyed some of the nascent daffodills.  Not all birds are welcome in the borders.

The main piece of garden preparation I have managed is to spread two tons of Viridor Revive compost on the raised beds.  Thirty-eight wheelbarrow loads to help improve the clay topsoil and top up the beds.  So far my efforts have simply created the biggest, most luxuriant cat litter trays in the village.  The feline equivalent of Andrex triple-ply quilted, they are soft and very deep, and not even my labrador is able to consume the quantities of cat-poo that are likely to be interred on my refurbished veg patch.

Last weekend storm Ciara blew her way through the country leaving us to pick up the pieces of her trail of destruction, although the greenhouse managed to remain intact (despite losing one pane of glass a few weeks previously).  Today I am sitting inside as storm Dennis repeats Ciara’s performance of a week ago.  It is the type of weather my old head of PE once described as so bad “I wouldn’t put a cat out in it”.  To this brown-fingered gardener, it is precisely the type of weather I would willingly evict any defacating feline.

The calm between the storms
Super Moon in the morning
Two tons…
…to be moved
Previous storm damage
Chitting
Egg frenzy
Storm Dennis watering the beds
Updated beds
Cotoneaster roots extracted
Acer going in

 

 

 

Green Shoots

Back to a new term and the new garden as we prepare to put my father to rest on Monday.

Potting Shed being put to use

It has, of course, been a strange time – the combination of funeral arrangements, sorting The Old Man’s estate and domestic affairs, combined with family matters has kept me occupied through the latter part of the holidays. Having a six-day break in Arran was a much-needed breather and by driving eight hours north we also found far better weather than the West of England enjoyed.

We are now at school in at what is amusingly labelled the summer term. It would have been nice to have had a few days in the garden in the latter half of the hols, but the rain has been incessant and in one of the few dry intervals when I tried to cut the grass, the mower broke.  Getting the garden under control does is not coming easily.

Still, I am glad I made the investment in the greenhouse allowing me to plant plenty of seed trays.  The potting shed is coming into its own with the last surviving hen keen to help out on occasion.  Everything is late, but we finally have some tomato seedlings poking through as well as Cavolo Nero, cabbages and PSB.  I thought we had some chillis up, but they turned out to be mushrooms. Not what I was expecting at all.  They grew one day, died the next.  Hey ho.  Might need to look at a different brand of potting compost.

On the upside, the potatoes are looking well chitted and are more than ready to get into the ground. The down side being that I have not been able to prepare any beds in the waterlogged clay soil.  I have the frames for the raised beds, but no compost or topsoil to go in them.  That’s a plan for another week.

Help wanted?
One small tomato for man..