Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Davesnave

Blackjack_Davy said:

Davesnave said:

Well, the afternoon was a few hours of sunshine broken by one torrential burst of rain that lasted around 10 minutes, so the planned garden visit to Marwood Hill took place. However, I forgot that the site is steep-sided east-west valley and now heavily wooded, so the north facing slopes were in shade, as was most of the valley bottom from about 14.30 onwards.

Things certainly began well. But as the light began to fade and the wind got up, 'late summer' turned to autumn!

We have memories of the garden going back to the early 1980s.  At that time the huge eucalyptus and other Southern Hemisphere trees were small. Dr Jimmy Smart, who developed the garden from a greenfield site was an anaesthetist. My friend, who sometimes worked beside him in theatre, says he always had a gardening publication with him somewhere. I met him once or twice in the garden, but I remember his Jack Russell better and so do our kids!

Jimmy can still be found in his garden, but he doesn't get about much now and prefers one view in particular; overlooking part of the garden's national collection of astilbes.

Oh my goodness Marwood we were in there back in July. And yes it always seems to be rain whenever we visit too

Living reasonably close, we're able to pick our days and the Friday window of fair weather actually worked out...well, most of the time!

Davesnave

I'm not sure if I've said, but for the past 5-6 weeks we have been treating the hens for Bumblefoot, with varying degrees of success. The treatment is to use a scalpel and tweezers to remove growths from inside a hen's foot after warm water immersion, which is pretty stressful for the hen and the amateur surgeon too! The only pain relief we've been able to use is Calpol and it's taken two of us to perform this task, so it's been costly in terms of time as well as frayed nerves.

After battling with this problem, we managed to cure 3 birds, though we're unclear why so many were suffering in the first place. Of the remaining two, one was considerably better, but the other isn't such a toughie and seemed to be deteriorating, so yesterday we were back at the vet where we had some  bargaining to do.....The vet can operate, but there's no local anaesthetic for chickens, so the cost of the alternative is astronomical and not a viable option for us. We're talking hundreds of £ for a farm animal with a value of about £10. The obvious alternative for really sick chickens is free, but these were both alert and otherwise healthy, so I didn't want to go there!

Long story short, we signed away ownership of the hens to our vet, who's a specialist, able to operate in her own time and use antibiotics. Afterwards , she'll re-home the birds, either personally or via contacts she has. Once antibiotics are used, the eggs shouldn't be put into the human food chain, so the birds will just be 'pets.'

It was the best solution all round. Having already spent £150 on consultation and medicines, we'd had enough. The daily treatment sessions were really getting to us and so many other jobs had to be put on hold.

I spent the afternoon smashing-up logs, but  only got 3/4 of a tipper load into storage before dusk. The rest are soaking wet now, as itwas bucketing down all night.

Farway

Thanks for fowl update Dave, never having kept birds myself I was not aware that they had expensive problems, ignorance is bliss I guess but at least it's a decent outcome for the birds, and possibly a longer pampered life as a "pet"

Poured last night but watery sunshine now, no gardening planned, bit tied up with volunteer admin & my Tax return as well, only a short Tax form but needs careful attention none the less. One year I put the figures in wrong boxes and a tax bill for umpteen thousands arrived, luckily resolved with a 'phone call and common sense at tax office end

goldfinches

Wild and woolly day here on the weather front, gardener commented to me that he did enjoy being blown to his next job!

I took this pic this afternoon as the colours were just so eye-catching so here are some more RHPs for you Dave.

This one seems to be almost fluorescent, the colour is so bright, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it is reflecting/emitting light beyond the wavelengths that human eyes can see.

 

Down to earth with a bump here.

alfmurph

Planted daffodil , tulip and snowdrop bulbs in the dark and rain today . Perfect soft ground for it .
Then bought a £50 terracotta  flower pot for £20 in sale .
The price of flower pots is going thru the roof these days .
Even plastic one's . I blame brexit .

Farway

Sunny day ahead, may get out and see if the last of my apples are ripe for picking but that is about all I intend doing fro now

Davesnave

goldfinches, you've reminded me to cut and store our squashes now. Hopefully, we'll be getting more than one per plant. It's usually 60-80 overall and we might not sell so many this time. They will join our winter stash. Like last year, Boris isn't going to cancel our Christmas, 'with a heavy heart' or not!

We grew a load of Alstroemeria 'Indian Summer' for the Indian wedding, and then didn't use them. They do make a great cut flower.....

Yesterday, in consideration of the parlous state of the chicken run fences, I bashed-in new posts to support half a dozen of the old ones. Next year we'll have to bite the bullet and either replace at a cost of many £hundreds or give up the hens. The awful truth is there's a commercial egg place about 7 miles away that sells reject oversize and mis-shaped eggs at £2 a dozen.... and they're just as good as ours!

Davesnave

Farway said:

Thanks for fowl update Dave, never having kept birds myself I was not aware that they had expensive problems, ignorance is bliss I guess but at least it's a decent outcome for the birds, and possibly a longer pampered life as a "pet"

We don't bump our hens off when they stop laying; they've earned their retirement. A friend had a hen which was fully grown when we arrived here in 2009. It only died a month ago!

Blackjack_Davy

Davesnave said:

Living reasonably close, we're able to pick our days and the Friday window of fair weather actually worked out...well, most of the time!

My mother lives near Barnstaple so its one of the place to visit when visiting. There were some wild geese nesting on the island in the lake and both parents took the goslings out for a walk onto the mainland for the first time I think honking at anyone that got too close

phoebe1989seb

Dry and sunny - albeit a little chilly - here today, after several *mixed bag* days that have included lots of heavy rain and some gusty winds. I've been busy inside so it's not as though I'd have been gardening anyway, but today feels like I should really be making the most of it 🙄

However, I'm partway through finally finishing off a part of the kitchen that has been neglected for ages....

When we moved the kitchen into a new space back in 2018 we never completed the front window sill area because we knew we'd be replacing the rotten window at some point. As it turned out (due to joiner issues), although we ordered the windows in 2019, this didn't get done till Jan 2021...but even then, we've been too busy elsewhere in the property (inside and out) to tidy the 18"+ sill up. Now I'm on it and want to finally get it looking as good as the rest of the room 😉

Anyway, the garden is looking more than a little messy, what with tons of leaves coming off the trees in the recent winds and there's lots of stuff to cut back etc....plus we need to remove some trees on the front boundary whilst we can. So, hopefully the forecasters are correct and the dry weather is set to last a while 😎

DH noticed a single flower on our Wisteria Alba this week....a pink one! Sadly it's too high up for me to take a pic.....