Away from home.

We have been home three weeks now and still we haven't put all the photos onto Luke's Flickr account so although it's nothing to do with gardening, I'm very aware I haven't put any photos online for you for weeks and who wants to listen to my warbling so here are two pics from The Maldives - those 30 degree temperatures are so missed!
The first photograph is the 'Ray feeding man' scooping up a guitar fish, a half ray/half shark creation. The second one is our last minute on the island and I am spending that time feeling the sand between my toes.... happy days.

Another day dawns.

What to do...,

Another mixed summer. Today is the village summer fête yet so far the rain has lashed down and the promised sun is merely peeking out from behind grey clouds every so often to raise our hopes. I have loaded up the washing machine, believing that the warmth of the sun is only an hour or two away and then everything will be basked in it's light. Here's hoping anyway.

So what can be done when the garden is boggy from days of rain? Well, I have been able to thin out the carrots and marvel at how badly my peas have done (although to be fair I did have to move them to make way for the fence although seeing how long that is going to take I am not sure we couldn't have left them where they were).

Although Shakira is broody and needs to be placed in the broody box we are loath to do that as the dog next door is still coming into our garden on an almost daily rate and will only alarm her. So we are just plucking her out of the nesting box every time she goes in there and hunkers down. There's no cruelty in taking her out as she will not lay any eggs whilst broody and her sitting on an empty nest is pointless. She does cluck away when Buck Bucky comes near her but as Buckster (Buck Bucky's other name, whilst we shorten Shakira to Shaksta or Fattie) is the top of the pecking order she takes little notice and soon Shakira gives up and gets on with her life (which consists of eating and brooding). Although we still miss Sweetie it is very easy having just our two original girls as they know their roles and Shakira can't pick on any other chicken. She's always been second in the pecking order, much to her chagrin as she would love to be 'top dog'. Buckster was the oldest chicken of the original four and because the others were so little she automatically became the boss although as she is such a calm bird it's always worked well. Shaksta though is a bit of a bully and weirdly enough always clashed with any silver pencilled chickens we owned. Sweetie and Pom Pom were both small birds in relation to the others but had such brave and audacious characters that they were happy to scrap with Shakira who, like the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz is mainly bluffing it. Because the two remaining chickens live harmoniously together we have decided to keep just the two for now. If we introduce new ones there will be the usual argy bargy and I'm enjoying the peace and quiet (remember last year we had to split the chicks because the fighting got very serious between the outmatched Shakira and Sweetie. I did admire Sweetie's tenacity but she was so much smaller than Shakira and so it was always an unfair fight (not that I like any fighting of any sort). Sweetie's hydrangea is starting to bloom and the sunflowers which didn't get eaten are building up fat flower heads.

It's gorgeous seeing all the young birds feeding on the nuts and seed and there is always colour and movement in that corner of the garden. I haven't seen or heard the wrens since but I'm sure they are out there, just waiting to tell me off for straying too near to them.

I hope the sun comes out ; our summers seem to only last days nowadays rather than weeks or months and who remembers that glorious Queen's silver Jubilee year of 1977 when the sun seemed to shine non stop? If and when it does appear I so want to get in the hammock and feel the sun on my face.

What a racket

I'm babysitting Jack's cat, Socks this week and so am often found hopping over the border between our gardens. I like that we just have shrubs between us as it gives a natural look to the garden. Shame we can't do the same the other side but as Milo, the dog, has been in our gardens five times in four days, much to the general alarm of the hens who scuttle off to the safety of their elevated hen house at the mere sight of him and who can blame them, we have no choice but to fence it off.
Yesterday morning I went to feed Socks when I heard a loud, excitable whirring noise. I knew what it was, Luke had chanced upon the perpetrator earlier when he opened up the chicken house. It was a tiny wren, a little brown mouse of a bird with it's upright tail and downturned beak. In case I didn't know what was making the noise it flew in front of me and landed in another shrub where it again started it's high drum roll of a noise.
I have seen a pair of wrens up behind our shed so am guessing there is a nest there too. One of the pair came very close to me, three feet away, clinging to the ivy on the shed before perching on the corner of the shed's roof and making it's racket as if to scare me off. I have been bullied into submission and am now hiding in the house because I don't want to disturb the pair of them. Chased indoors by one of the smallest birds known to man!

A broody hen - again.

I came home from a long old day at work to let Jack's cat out (who came straight from Jack's empty house into ours and is now on my lap, twitching her tail and purring furiously) and thought I'd check the girls were asleep before locking them up for the night when I noticed that only one was about. On seeing the extra large droppings in their run and knowing Shakira, our gold laced Wyandotte bantam, as I do I guessed that she was hunkered down in the nesting box even though it was say past her bedtime. Five weeks after going broody she is back that way again. As Darth Vader said in Star Wars, "The force is strong in this one". All we need is a muggy day and she is in that nesting box, no eggs in sight, ready to sit it out for the twenty one days it would take an egg to hatch. Bless her, she is such an old Mother Hen. So, tomorrow it'll be with sadness that we put her in the broody box again to cool her down and snap her out of it. It's always an arduous task just watching her stuck in basically a wire cage. To quote another film (Dad's Army), "They don't like it up 'em" and she certainly won't be happy about the breeze blowing her way as she tries to snuggle down and nest. She is such a good broody that if we were hatching eggs she'd be ideal but as we only have our two old girls left and no cockerel to fertilise the eggs it's all rather unnecessary! Sorry, Shakira!

Digging it again.

Well, almost two weeks after we returned from The Maldives I have got my mojo back for gardening.

Whilst I got some gardening done last weekend and Mum came over with some lovely tree paeonies

for me in the week I still hadn't got really enthusiastic about it. This weekend though it all clicked together again and I've got a sunburnt back to prove it (all that bending over the plants, you see).

This weekend, even though we've had a friend to stay we have managed to get quite a lot done. We let Bob fall asleep in the hammock whilst we busied ourselves. Luke dug out great holes with the auger he'd bought specially for the purpose. This is the first step to building the much needed fence between us and our new neighbours. Not that they aren't nice, they are but they have a dog that doesn't realise a) this is not his garden and b) chickens are not for chasing. We calculate it will take probably six weekends of work before we have the entire fence built and Luke is doing it all by himself. It will be worth it but won't be much fun to make. But once it's done we will have a safe environment for the hens and a framework for us to work with. In fact, although we liked it as it was before with open views and a little extra land (the neighbours didn't mind us using a little of their garden to grow peas) we always knew it wouldn't always be this way so let's crack on and get the fence up and the dog safely on his side so our chickens can happily relax knowing that dynamo of fluff won't be racing towards them wanting to 'play'. I have cleared out the bark chippings that carpet their run so they are back to the bare soil which they will enjoy pecking around this week whilst the sun shines. Next weekend we can add new chippings and the old ones are now around the raspberry canes, the fruits of which have all been eaten by sharp beaks. At least that way they are keeping off my delicious, to them, delphiniums.

Mum visited with four different varieties of tree paeonies on Wednesday and because I had nowhere to plant them (I'm waiting till the fence is up before I get a feel for what will work best where) we ended up visiting the garden centre to buy some compost to pot them up with. Of course it was impossible not to give into temptation and I told Mum how I'd agonised last week over paying £5.99 for a particularly pretty Nemetia. In my head though it's only worth about £2.49; it's a common enough plant and I thought it was overpriced so I didn't buy one but still longed for it. We both decided to get an equally pretty but cheaper variety and spent the next ten minutes going through everyone for the exact shape we wanted for the spot we both envisaged our plants going into. There is something nice about knowing Mum has the same plant as me in her garden, it's a sort of link. Imagine my disbelief then, when on leaving our trolley for the five minutes it took to look at the bargains someone had swiped the Nemetia from under our noses! Ruddy cheek!

I had to choose another one to go with a half price Stargazer lily and a windblown but colourful plant that I had never seen before and didn't know the name of. Why I was buying MORE plants when I didn't have room for the large tree paeonies I'd been given is beyond me but that is what happens with enthusiastic gardeners.

On Saturday I replanted some flowers that I had used as a stop gap. I also divided some clumps of pom pom primulas and moved some black grass before pulling up a shabby hollyhock that was shaming the nation. Everything that was planted was very well watered and I also took out the kinkiest (as in it had kinked in several places like a piece of twisted spaghetti) Verbascum which I never even planted. I experienced the same in my last garden when I presume a bird must have deposited a seed. This new four foot tall beauty with another two foot of dipping stem bursting with dusty grey and yellow buds is on the edge of my black and white bed so as you can guess I had to move it. I've put it at the back of the clashing corner as it's a spectacular, tall plant and will work harmoniously with the beautiful giant Scabiosa which is a lighter yellow.

Today I have finished off the weeding in between the garlic and onions and planted up a much delayed row of Tommy peas as well as turfing out the compost and giving it a good mix before piling it back into the compost bin. Luke checked his tomatoes and tweaked off some sideshoots before staking them up and tying them in. I also tied the new Bay shoot around a cane to encourage it to bend into a spiral. I'll keep you informed on how that works out.

Whilst Bob has snoozed in the hammock I worked up a sweat and loved every minute of it.

I'm back!