the daydream fund challenge thread

lostinrates

choille wrote: »

Found pecked black orp hen wedged between hen houses - half under it & she's alive. Amazing.

I can't believe I've found her alive. She's fine but was scared & has been there since Thursday. She was very thirsty & hungry but okay.
If I could get my hands on who let her out - and Mr Teddy in the neighbouring pen - I'd have something to say to them. I'm amazed she wasn't eaten by a marten through the two nights she's been out - incredible.

What a glorious day with a stiff breeze making it pleasant to bracken & bramble haul out doon t'slope.

Goodness I am pleased about the hen - The gate is now padlocked & will remain so.

Oh what a relief! Poor little hen. She must be pleased to be fed, watered and home. Pecked or otherwise.

Rummer

Fantastic news Choille!

Lotus-Eater the way you suggest is my natural approach to that bed but this year I was keen to try something more unstructured and natural. Although it is becoming painfully apparent that I am a straight line kind of girl!

lostinrates

Rummer wrote: »

Fantastic news Choille!

Lotus-Eater the way you suggest is my natural approach to that bed but this year I was keen to try something more unstructured and natural. Although it is becoming painfully apparent that I am a straight line kind of girl!

This is a flower border?

what do you like? Your favourites? Out of those, what would be happy there (light/soil etc). the two beds I've seriously started are interesting. The white garden is ''easier''. I just found stuff that would be happy that was white and y favourites in white. I have to say I'm pretty chuffed so far. Because it has a ''theme'' its been easy to keep it looking good and with some interest over the almost a year now.

The other one is harder because we got fixated on the colour theme idea (don't do it!). I adore roses, and there are dozens that fit. I'm also trying to use perspective/tone of colour...so making the garden feel ''deeper''. So on the basis light things seem bright and closer, I've started the light colours nearer the house. e.g. back to the roses....In order from the end nearest the house the roses go Jude the Obscure (creamy) Crocus Rose (soft yellow) Compt du Champagne (a light yellow/pinky champagney colour) through things like Shropshire lad (mid picky peach) to Pat austin...a dark coppery orange. The colour theme as peachy gold and has morphed into ''rose gold'' so shades of orange pinks, corals..hints of clean yellow.

The idea is the brights will arrest the eye and stop it wandering in to the house fro the far end, but the light through dark will make the border seem longer and deeper. But to break up th roses, provide greater interest an relaxed cottage feel I've got other stuff....A japenese quince...a soft pinky coral (I want a darker one for the darker end. Through the summer I hope various poppies will take...oranges, yellows, sorbet peaches/yellows/corals.

Next year I'll have tulips in appropriate shades for spring. It will grow. Annuals will do till the right plants come. And this year the soft fruit is in there too

we do hope to add structure to this one for through winter. Not sure how yet...DH wants topiary animals. I don't want to be clipping all the time!

Davesnave

Great to hear that the lost hen is found, choille. If someone let ours out like that, we'd certainly go with making our bottom yard secure, but it's an expense we'd rather do without at present, and in some ways I'm happy to retain this 'open' link with our neighbours. If we put tall gates on, we'd gain more privacy, but we might lose neighbourliness. Our barn dwellers, for all their occasional lunacy, are an asset rather than a threat.

Odd tidying-up going on down in the commercial barns this am. One is completely empty. I sense something is afoot...;)

Both of us are under the weather at the moment , though it's DW who's very poorly, and I'm just like a wet weekend, which it almost is. There is a bug doing the rounds here, and it's our turn now, apparently. We have DD1 and 2 home, so the latter helped by cleaning out the hens, which was a great help as it was time for a deep clean. One of our friends has had the dreaded mite return to her coops, so DW is paranoid about cleanliness. That friend also reckons her 4 A'lorp chicks are 3 hens & a cockerel, which is better news.:)

Loud thunderstorms this pm and some heavy rain here, but the really big downpours missed us. It isn't enough, and I don't see enough on the week's forecast either......but the weeds will still grow!

rhiwfield

Davesnave wrote: »

Loud thunderstorms this pm and some heavy rain here, but the really big downpours missed us. It isn't enough, and I don't see enough on the week's forecast either......but the weeds will still grow!

Still no rain here, forecasts of thunder showers are made but when the time comes not a sign of the wet stuff. Everything is so dry

Met Office forecasts heavy rain tonight, otoh Netweather has it dry.

Made up the wall and hanging baskets yesterday using the thunbergia and nasturtiums. Didnt realise how well nasturtiums transplant, hardly any wilting at all.

Off to a car boot soon to see if I can get some more planters.

lostinrates

No still NOTHING here. I watered last night and the plants were so happy you could almost here them slurp. Our water bill will be horrendous though.

Lots and lots of strawberries on their way and the currents look heavy too.

Problem is, when it rains it will probably rain and rot. This kind of year is abbysmal for MSE too. Grass to dry to grow well for hay/silage...pushing farming costs up to. I have a decent but small crop of grass out there (4 acres, my guess is I'd get at least 120 small bales of each acre loking at it)...was going to swap it, might make sense now to sell it if its going to be another high price year. Awful.

choille

There are so many holiday makers about. The road is a constant thrum & there seem to be loads of those mega camper vans, some even towing cars. Met a few last week on our way to Applecross on the single track - grrrrrrrrrrr.

Still hot & the midges are arriving, slight nibbles last night late on - grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I will have to water things.

choille

There is all black smoke wafting up the Lochside & a fire engine has just whoosed past siren blaring. This will be the third fire in two weeks. But this looks really bad. It's so dry & people are camping & lighting fires & it's actually quite breezy.
That's what scares me the most is fire getting on the croft.

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

No still NOTHING here. I watered last night and the plants were so happy you could almost here them slurp. Our water bill will be horrendous though.

We had the driest March in 100 years or something silly according to the local water man and we've had 0.1mm of rain in April. :undecided

Yet my beds that are under a cardboard mulch are still damp.

Most other things, mainly the small seedlings are really struggling and I've lost some, despite trying my best.

No respite in view either. Nothing on the forecast which would give any rain. Nothing on the long term forecast either.

On the plus side, I still have a 1000 litre container full of water which I've been saving for my toms when they go into the ground in the GH, which they just have done. I like to use tap water while everything is small, as its sterile.

I'm not sure that putting the toms in the GH was a good idea, but others around me here have their French and Runner beans outside! Pushing it a bit I think, but we'll see.

Davesnave

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I'm not sure that putting the toms in the GH was a good idea, but others around me here have their French and Runner beans outside! Pushing it a bit I think, but we'll see.

Some of my toms have been in the polytunnel with no doors for a few weeks now, (I think I've said this somewhere) and a good few peppers have joined them, because we don't have room in the conservatory for everything. They're all fine.

I don't want the toms to grow too soft, as the 'for sale' ones have to stand outdoors all day anyway. On the whole, I find the conservatory stuff gets buggy, whereas the poly plants are cleaner, if a bit slower.

Wind and occasional sharp showers here, but as DW is very unwell with this bug, and I'm poorly too, it doesn't matter. Indeed, if moorland fires like those choille is describing are now less likely, that's a plus. I think it's all localised rain though, so there may be areas where it's still tinder-dry.

1000 litres is an impressive container, lotus. I'm guessing that mine are about 200 litres. They still go down pretty quickly. I refill, because I like the warm water for small plants. If we're metered, we shall try to claim agricultural immunity for the nursery. Failing that, we'd have to get a bore hole, or an even larger tank than yours....or move!:(