Tonight we had chicken cobbler and in the cobbler was…..
Garlic, dill, onion and peas - all home grown. Yummm.
An update since we started gropwing things in this post!
In my plant shelter/cloche I have:
Three sorts of broccolli…
Two sorts of carrot - purple and orange, dill, pepper and celery….
My pumpkin and those sunflowers, and a squash of some sort (crown prince I think) and some courgettes in the distance….
Veg bed behind the shed - Peas, chard, carrot, celery, beetroot and some salad leaves just coming up.
My apple tree - this is the Cox’s and we’re down to three apples now - but it’s only young and small.
Mimi’s garden - Lavatera, sweet peas, 3 short rows of carrots, a pumpkin, some strawberries and possibly some nasturtiums.
Dino’s patch: A potato, come carrots, beetroot, peas, cress (because he wanted to see what the proper plant looks like) and some strawberries. There’s a pumpkin and some chard in there too but they’re hiding under the potato!
And finally my spud patch and that lovely ex-bramble patch that is producing a crop for the first time since we moved in when Dino was 18 months old.
I’m very pleased.
We cleaned out Fudge’s hutch today, scrubbed and disinfected it so we could re-use it for Mini, and then the spare cage can go back to Kris for babies (umm, baby piggies, obviously, not people babies…. I hope?)
The final cage cleanings got dumped in an almost ritualistic manner on the kids veg patch - "so when we eat the things we can remember him"
It was drizzling a bit but we stayed outside and planted out some peas, carrots and leeks behind the shed and a melon in the sweetcorn bed near the house. I took some lavender cuttings and if they take then the old (tatty, leggy and falling over) lavender can come out and I can put something else in there - maybe the new acer or fuschia, or both. Anyway, there are 8 cuttings sitting on the sill behind me.
Then we made paper pots and sowed carrot and peas as well as a few ransomes and woad seed - just to see if the ones I’ve saved will actually germinate!
Both kids are doing a lot of talking about Fudge and death in general and in between that and gardening they’ve both done some reading.
It’s a hard lesson to learn when your pet is taken suddenly ill and the vet says she can’t do anything.
Fudge became lethargic sometime this morning, refusing food and water and his adbomen was horribly bloated and getting worse. So we took him off to the vets where, upon examination, it was apparently obvious that something had blocked his intestine causing it to twist into a knot. Either that or he had something nasty growing in there. Whatever it was we will never know because he was so weak by then that even an xray would have stressed him into heart failure. His lungs were struggling and we took the decision together to have him eased on his way. We could have put him through lots of treatment but the vet and I agreed that it would be hard on Fudge, cause him further distress and pain and probably end in his death anyway.
So now we’re down to two piggies again and I shall clear, scrub and disinfect his hutch later.
Dino chose to not bring him home to bury. I did make sure he was given the choice and that his wishes were taken into account and the vet was brilliant at explaining to him what the problem was and that she’d be very gentle.
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
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You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
We were in town, it’s Monday and therefore bill paying day - added to the parcels that needed sending urgently after my soap nuts finally turned up this morning. Anyway, on the way back to the bank to pay the last bills in there and we wandered past the butchers we used to use a lot before the kids decided they’d rather have bland sausages that may as well have no meat in. I think it’s a general part of life now that we’ve forgotten what meat actually tastes like, along with what it looks, smells and feels like.
I adore our little butcher opposite the post office, he has posters of animal breeds and butchering diagrams all over the place and the meat in there is fresh and tasty and locally raised, slaughtered and butchered. He makes basic pork sausages as well as some interesting varieties - the pork and apple is just gorgeous.
So, we were walking past when Mimi pipes up "That looks nice, can we have sausages for tea, from here?" They’ve chosen some of the basic pork and some lamb and mint. We’re having the lamb and mint with mash and baked beans tonight and they smell lovely. I hope the kids like them as I’d love to go back for meat from him again.
http://sarahbarnard.co.uk/freeread.html
Free eBook download until the end of June.
Sam has been missing for two long years. Kate struggles on with her own children and Sam’s after Jack left her but she continues to believe that one day Sam will be back. It’s Hallowe’en, Samhain and it’s a dark moon. Abruptly in a flurry of mystery and magic, Sam is back and Kate’s already insecure world is torn apart as forces beyond her experience and understanding flood into her life.
Of course I am hoping that some of you might go on and order a copy because reading on screen can be a pain, and that you’ll tell everyone you know about it too and then some of them might go and buy a copy……
Available through Amazon, The Book Depository, and through all decent high street book shops - but you’ll have to order it.
Well, gardening really but I’m sure they learn stuff while we do that. Today we put in a row of mange tout peas, a very short row of a few lettuces, some beetroot and some regular peas - all sown directly into the ground and you never know, they might come up…. I popped a few tiny little foxgloves in by the rose and a teasel in there too. Yes, I know, they’re prickly and a pain but I just love them and they are fab for wildlife. Did a bit more digging and am planning on putting more peas and carrots in but in about a week so there’s a succession of crops - unlike the garlic - we now have 25 in the shed and about the same still in the ground but I want those that are left to swell a bit more before I pull them.
Both kids have done a bit of reading, Dino is working on some punctuation rules and general maths too - reluctantly as always but it’s being done.
Kids were wandering about with the camera and there are a few pics I might put up later but most are of a foot, table leg, space where someone was a second ago etc. I think they need more practice and as it’s a digital on rechargeable batteries there’s no real waste.
It’s Father’s day on Sunday, and Daddy’s birthday the week after so we’re rolling it into one on Saturday! We found socks and a mug saying Fab Dad (he isn’t but the kids think he is, which is the important part) for Father’s day and they’ve got him a playstation game for his birthday.
Then they wanted to make him something and we found a reduced chocolate mould set ….. So this afternoon we are melting chocolate and making Shrek chocolates for Daddy. I think we should make extra so we can test them. 
We wrote in and sent off a card and socks for Granddad too, so that should keep everyone happy for another year.
An elderly woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
‘I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.’
The old woman smiled, ‘Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.’
Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
So, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!
