Wednesday 29 June 2011

Wakehurst Place

It was a nice day, I didn't have Ocado coming at lunchtime and there were only 2 days left on the National Trust card so Laura and I decided to grab such freedom with both hands and go to Wakey.

Heading for the Millenium Seed Bank
Having used the facilities and been awestruck by the MSB as usual (as usual for Laura and me anyway) we headed off to the Rock Walk, where I did not take a picture of the spectacular yew tree that clings to the sandstone like a lizard as it's rather dark but by all means Google it. The children had a wonderful time playing like children should while Laura and I discussed deep and difficult things in the glorious sunshine with a buzzard whirling overhead. Well, there are worse places to talk about such matters.

Tris took this pic as he loved the view

Having had lunch we trekked off to the viewpoint and sat and watched the children fearlessly cavorting up and down the rocks, wondering if mother mountain goats had similar heart-in-mouth moments


We then left Laura and her family to carry on and walked back through the Pinetum and managed to only spend about £6 in the gift shop, although I did then have to resist a much-needed cup of tea as it was almost the same price.

Back home and my lawn has been mowed so it's a bit easier to distinguish where the borders are now. The bunnies aren't impressed by the lack of lush pasture (well, dandelions and 10 inch tall grass seed heads) but Richard did manage to navigate his way around the small beehive in the centre of the garden. What with the livestock, venemous insects and warrens as well as balls, sticks and flowerpots it's more of an assault course than a lawn-mowing job and he did text me to say that he'd found the £20 I'd left him thanks and although he'd cut it, he'd not managed to achieve the Wimbledon look.

Anyway Charles has taken the swarm now so that's one less hazard...until they swarm again!

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Stings

I went to the bee farm this morning having not gone yesterday as it was too hot. It was too hot today but I was sort of ready and child-free, plus the man from FERA is due next week and the hives need to be ship-shape. Putting on my beesuit over flimsy summer dress and leather boots I made a start on the WBCs:

In the rose garden
The bees were not best pleased about being disturbed and I was using the water mister rather than smoke (mainly so that I could spray my face with it) but Hive 1 was really cross with me so I had a quick check and bundled them back up again and went and sat under the oak tree for a few minutes until they left me alone.

Hive 1
They probably thought I was trying to take their honey (I wasn't!) and these bees haven't been checked for a while so must have wondered who I was. I tried to do Hive 2 but got stung 3 times through my gloves and beesuit so had to walk away as once they have stung, it releases a pheromone that calls others to the cause so it was back under the oak tree. They followed me all the way to the house which is a good sign that they're pretty fed up so I made an executive decision to leave Hive 3 for another day! I checked round the hives in the top paddock and there were no swarms but it was not a very productive morning at the apiary.

Here's Mary enjoying a newly-created dustbath with additional shading - I think the hens got fed up with having to scuff my very expensive dahlias out of the way when they were bathing in the borders so have started a new row under the hedge:



I had about 50 million marigolds last year so hopefully I will be able to use some petals in some soap or other concoction.






Sunday 26 June 2011

Hot

Well it's been the hottest day of the year apparently and so of course I celebrated the hottest part of the hottest day in my beesuit. I had checked my bees yesterday as they swarmed while I was out so I took measures to prevent them swarming again...honestly I think they muster up a swarm just to embarrass me; there's probably lots of tittering in the hive as I check through and they all make sure they conceal a tiny queen cell so I miss it.

Anyway, as you may have gathered, my bees don't swarm like this:


Courtesy of beemaster.com

Oh no, mine prefer more of a challenge:


That's it - spread yourselves around...
Soooooo I put a sheet under the table and then gave the top a whack and popped them into a travel box:

so it wasn't that bad really.

I had a tutorial in Croyden yesterday and came home feeling I should achieve something so started tidying my bedroom, which brought on my housework allergy, meaning I ended up feeling rather poorly with a migraine so I couldn't go out :-( and instead of going for dinner or the cinema or something nice, Charles came round and kindly tidied up my kitchen for me while I felt grotty and rather sorry for myself on the sofa sipping chamomile tea. He's feeling tired and wiped out today so perhaps he's allergic too...

I have almost finished my assignment though as I can't seem to rouse myself to do anything terribly energetic so have spent the morning in bed surrounded by textbooks and bits of paper. It's a glorious day outside but quite hot so I'll wait til later before going into the garden. First thing this morning it was very misty but had the promise of a hot day (or was it because the Met Office have been banging on about it):
Gratuitous pic of cute bunbun


"Blueberries and Cream" lavender

I am feeling rather inspired by plants having watched the BBC4 programme Botany: A Blooming History which was extremely interesting, despite about 8 interruptions while iPlayer buffered, froze and inexplicably conked out. I'm studying genetics too so it all ties in.

Friday 24 June 2011

Fun

Today the home-ed group met at the seaside which was lovely and the first time I have been to the beach for an awfully long time. So, ignoring the heebie-jeebies I get when driving the old route to the children's school, we managed to meet Laura and co at the top of the path. I took some photos despite not being able to see what an earth I was looking at with the sun on the camera screen:

I think some of them are my children

Inoceramid fossil
They were building a crab sanctuary apparently
So after our picnic lunch us mums started getting cold so we came home as the wind was picking up. I thought I should go and check the bees at the farm and with my new policy of never leaving all three children alone for more than 8 minutes as fighting ensues, I volunteered Rosie to come and be my apiary assistant.


Having spoken to knowledgable bee friend John at length about hatching queens out of their cells so that they don't swarm, I thought we'd have a go at hymenopteran caesarean sections as this colony is enormous but extremely placid, plus there were a number of queen cells:

Can you see her? Nurse bees (or are they paparazzi?) getting in the way of regal photo op
So that was very exciting and it'll be intersting to see if they swarm now. Although they are rather bursting at the seams:

Go back in! Nothing to see....
So many thanks to my able assistant Rose who I then sent off to get a drink as the next hive I did was extremely grumpy and the bees were all stinging my veil and gloves which is rather anti-social. I don't think they had a laying queen though which does make them very out of sorts - the queen releases a pheromone which keeps them all in check and once she's laying eggs and they've got baby bees to look after, the house bees calm down.

It's now looking rather gloomy outside but here's hoping for a sunny weekend...

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Daylight

It is, of course, about the longest day length in the year for us at the moment and given that we seem to have had summer in April, it is feeling slightly autumnal to me. Having found the camera (under a bag) I thought I'd take some pictures of nature's status in the growing season as I am always amazed at how early plants actually start setting seed:
This....
...plus this = embryonic crumble
A future champion?
Elderberry cordial to be
New Scots pine trees
So I know it might seem a bit depressing to be thinking about autumn but I am a bit obsessed with day length as I am studying the Cretaceous period when the global temperature was such that we had polar forests - Alaska was covered in cycads, ferns and conifers as well as flowering plants but because of the incredibly short growing period of about 3 months they were all deciduous. Of course, most of the 3 months was continous daylight but I find it incredible that plants adapted so brilliantly to the intense growth whilst still protecting themselves from maruading, migrating herbivorous dinosaurs...

Anyway, dragging myself back to the Cainozoic, my soap is now airing or curing or whatever:

 

It bears a disturbing resemblance to rum-and-raisin fudge

Oh yes I know I said in my last blog that it would have to wait til I got the proper stuff but everyone reading this knows I'm far too impatient to do that so having googled, I used milk instead of water and guessed the temperature.

And here's the regulation chicken picture - Maud and Mary in their rural idyll:

Not going to make it in to Country Living magazine is it
And just to make up for the lack of pictures yesterday, Tristan with the cake he made:
Clever lad

:-)

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Misplaced camera

No pictures from me today as the girls borrowed my camera to do Morgana Show movies and we have yet to locate it again, which is a shame as I took a picture of my raspberries (all 8 of them) - my first harvest of soft fruit! The strawberry is plumping up nicely too; no doubt the chickens are waiting until it is at peak ripeness before hopping over the fence and treading on it.

Anyway I now have the ingredients to make soap, thanks to Nicky, but I need a thermometer and some distilled water so it will have to wait til I can make it although it does give me a few days to finish drying the rose petals that I'd like to put in the soap.

I was out by the car this afternoon looking for the dog's lead when a large white van stopped in the road. My heart sank as I presumed the driver was going to put my appalling lack of observation/sense of direction to the test and ask me where a particular house was but no! phew! he pointed down the road and said "Is that your pig?" so I said no, but I knew where it lived. So, being the neighbourly soul that I am, I grabbed a feed bucket and half a dozen apples out of the fruit bowl and yelled for the children to come and help me retrieve nextdoor's pig who lives in the field diagonally opposite. The pig was almost down to the bridlepath by the time we caught up with him but some judicious apple-throwing tempted him back up the road towards his pen and with some encouragement, more apple and an impromptu pig board we got him back to the field. I never thought my agricultural training would come in so handy :-)

This isn't him but he's similar

Sunday 19 June 2011

More gardening

I let the new hens out this morning for the first time - they seem very settled:

Henry being uncharacteristically chivalrous
Luckily they don't seem too keen to wander off on their own and are quite happy to stay near the run.  They have bonded with Maud who is still a bit of a softy:

Maud gets carried around...a lot
So given it was Sunday and I had no butter with which to make cinnamon buns, I left the children cooking bacon (I didn't have bread either so it was the not very traditional Sunday breakfast of bacon in tortillas) whilst I went out in to the garden. I have a great new garden planner app on my iPad which tells you when to harvest things and apparently my potatoes should be out of the ground right now! - their exclamation mark, not mine. Unfortunately when I planted the potatoes I forgot that last year's borage would self seed and I couldn't actually see the potatoes:

Spot the spuds
After a cup of tea and a bit of digging I had my Red Duke of Burgundies out of the ground and a bucketful of borage too:

The borage did rather better than the potatoes but they are very tasty. So with a clear patch of ground and new things to plant I sent in the team of professional pest controllers:


...and then out with the hens and in with the brussels sprouts and carrots :-)


They're under their cloches for their own protection from both cabbage white butterflies (which are currently demolishing my verbascums) and the chickens, but they are there and will hopefully provide us with some ruby red sprouts later in the autumn.

Saturday 18 June 2011

Eggs and a rainbow

The morning started with catching the cockerel so that I could brush surgical spirit on his legs - he's got Scaley Leg which is where mites get under his scales, poor chap. I told Rosie to make sure the photo was of Henry rather than of me - she certainly did a good job at protecting my identity:

Henry would be horrified to know this undignified photo
is in the public arena
I then had a cuddle with Ida. She's very soft and pretty.



The day was spent rather drearily, as yesterday. I did some studying and made a start on the maths for my assignment - trying to hold on to the threads of the calculations is like nailing jelly to a wall, I have to work so hard to keep track of what I'm doing and I get to the end with a number and read part (ii) of the question which involves the dreaded words 'interpret' and 'evaluate' and 'explain'.

I was about to let the hens out when my neighbour pointed out there was a fox behind my hedge. I called the dog and decided to go for a walk in the field - not deliberately after the fox of course as that is against the law ;-) but a stroll seemed like a very good idea. Scruff seemed happy to oblige and tore off through the wheat. The fox was long since gone but I think at least a doggy presence may put him off a bit.  When we got back in the garden Scruff was sniffing in the beech hedge and I discovered why Mary had spent so much time in there, which no doubt was also the reason for her demise:



14 eggs!!
Mary was tiny - how she managed to brood that many eggs I don't know, I can't think of anything more uncomfortable. I don't think they would have hatched as she was coming back to the run and in the coop every night but she was probably sitting on them when the fox was passing by.

I went back to check the new hens and found another egg:
They are laying then
We did check the rest of the hedge for Mary as she may have found somewhere else to make a nest but no sign.


I went to collect 2 beehives this evening and delivered them to their happy recipients and driving away from the farm there was the most perfect double rainbow.




Friday 17 June 2011

Wet

We met some other home-ed families at the woods for a picnic and chat but the steady drizzle meant it was a huddle with pinched faces and flasks of hot coffee under the trees before heading home with filthy wet children and dogs. Scruff loved it. So did the children. I didn't.

We called in at the hen shop to purchase two replacements for Ida and unfortunately Mary who has also disappeared and I don't feel it's very likely that she'll reappear with chicks given the whetted appetite of the local fox.

Bit camera-shy
Anyway, Ida is on the left - another Blue Belle and Mary is another Speckledy but with a lot of white on her so hopefully we'll be able to tell the difference between her and Emily.  There wasn't a huge selection but I really felt for Maud's sake and the other hens that I needed to get the count back up as Henry is really a no-less-than-six-girl guy and Maud needed some friends who were also young. I have the new ones and Maud in the extension run with the rabbit house to shelter in. So we are now at Ida II, Emily III, Peggy II, Maud II, Mary II and the original Daisy. I'm not going to work out how much it's cost me to maintain my grandmothers' namesakes!

Henry was overjoyed to see some more females and strutted around the run exuding testosterone but he wasn't looking his best, being so damp:

Still quite a chick-magnet

The bunnies have been moved from the warren and seem happy to be in some longer grass:


but apart from that the day has been so wet and dreary we've done nothing really.  I must go and put the new chickens in to roost with the others as it's too wet and not secure enough for them to be in all night.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Gardening

I wanted to get out in the garden today as the forecast isn't good and I've lots of things to plant out - especially as Charles called in with some tomatoes for me on his way to the office.

So after some homeschooling with the girls and trying to get my head around Cretaceous carbon sinks I headed out before the rain.  Quick check on the bunnies:

The warren is coming along well


Tomatoes on the bottom, squashes on the top
(to stop greenhouse blowing away)
I've got 2 other vegetable patches which I must say have done very well - I have enjoyed a good crop of broad beans and leeks but I need room for the summer veg so it was out with the broad beans (leaving the roots in to provide some nitrogen to the soil) and in with peas, beans and my sunflowers, which I'm growing to hopefully provide some bird seed for the winter:


The peas are from Sarah Raven (I'm a sucker for her glossy brochure) and they really are rather beautiful - they're purple podded and seeing all the flowers, hopefully I will have some pods to photograh at some point!


So I think I achieved quite a bit in the garden.

As an aside, I took the dog out late this morning and we met a tiny lady walking along. Out of the undergrowth leapt an enormous Rottweiler who bounded heavily towards me and Scruff, barking deeply, teeth bared and hackles raised. The lady said "Oh don't mind her - Rotties are always a bit noisy when they're playing..." Playing?? What is it with people and their enormous dogs? However 'friendly' and 'playful' they may be, having a dog the size of a small ox thundering at you looking for all the world like it's going to consume both you and your spaniel in one mouthful is more than a little disconcerting and quite what this bird-like woman would have done had her darling Rottie decided to do just that, I really don't know. She did helpfully point out that my dog would be able to outrun her dog anyway...I'm not sure if I'd have been able to though!