Tuesday 20 July 2010
Something Strange
My beans are acting most oddly. First of all I was (well, we all were) banned from the yard by a series of barricades, when it was just one I could jump over but lots within not much space between were beyond even my tiggerishness, we were kept out for about two weeks, which was quite good because we were allowed in teh garden instead. And then this weekend the barriers were taken down and we could go down the yard again but all the lovely grass and nettles had been removed and the concrete cleaned with the smelly stuff. Next was that my puppy bed appeared in the dog house, but the door was shut so I couldn't get in. Very odd.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
How come it's mid-July? Where's the year going??
So what's happened since 9 June. Well not a lot and then again loads!
Juno is now officially a teenager having turned thirteen, which is 91 in dog years not that you'd know it; most of the time she behaves just like a youngster but then at other times I catch her in repose and she's got a saggy, baggy face (too many puppies hanging off it) going grey around the muzzle. She's slowing down too but that doesn't stop her from joining in Hebe's mad half hour every now and then.
She's also being dosed with a herbal potion created for her by Katie the herbalist vet, every day she gets milk and honey with extract of compost heap with her breakfast and then two lots of yoghurt also with compost extract. It's done brilliantly well until this last week when she started chewing her feet and then over the weekend progressed to trying to remove her skin. Katie's working on a new improved brew for her.
The garden is looking wonderful, although I can see a few gaps to be filled with plants. This year was designated clear up and tidy year. It's been progressing slowly but I have at last weedkillered the yard and it's beginning to have some effect, the yard fence was washed down and last weekend was painted green – very smart it looks. The new table and chairs have been teak oiled and the recent rain is standing off the wood. Andy has dug out the bed at the foot of the hedge although I've not yet managed to get the new compost and manure dug in but there are very few weeds popping up so that's good. Once it's fully prepped it's going to be a green and white bed (this does kinda come under tidying up because it was just a weedy mess and now it's a patch of clean soil which means it qualifies – at least that's my excuse!) However there is still a lot of weedy gravel and a heap of stone down one side of the house. I have to move the stone before I can tackle the gravel and the stone is going to edge the gravel garden in the back still to be cleared – another job for Andy but we've not had the right sort of conditions so there's another wonderful excuse… And there's no point clearing the drive until I know when I can order more gravel and I might as well order for the paths and the drive. I did order a big table bed planter to be my new herb bed, again this comes under the tidy up campaign because I can get rid of the multitude of untidy pots scattered around. The catalogue said requires some self-assembly, just like the new table and chairs which required approx. four nuts each and came complete with their own spanner. However, the planter arrived as a heap of wood and bags of screws with an instruction novel (yep, that's a novel not sheet). I looked at all the bits, looked at the book and put it away, left it a week then got out the bits, looked at the book and put it away again and then I had a brainwave – my wonderful Uncle John, retired CDT teacher would read the instructions and put it together in 10 minutes. John looked at the bits, scowled at the book, drank some coffee, threw away the book and then put the wood together in the right order taking closer to an hour than the envisaged 10 minutes – note to self don't go buying big planters over the internet. Mum says it looks like a coffin on stilts, it does a bit too but once it's painted soft green and filled with aromatic, tasty herbs it will be glorious.
The new IT system in the office is still causing problems, granted not as many as before allowing my broken hand to mend and fortunately it's not been bad enough for me to smash it into the wall again so I dropped a table on my foot instead!
On the hound front we thought we were going to get a puppy in October but we found out over the weekend that the bitch wasn't in pup so we'll have to carry on waiting but we'll keep on searching and one day soon there'll be a long-legged stripy scragamuffin to join the pack.
Juno is now officially a teenager having turned thirteen, which is 91 in dog years not that you'd know it; most of the time she behaves just like a youngster but then at other times I catch her in repose and she's got a saggy, baggy face (too many puppies hanging off it) going grey around the muzzle. She's slowing down too but that doesn't stop her from joining in Hebe's mad half hour every now and then.
She's also being dosed with a herbal potion created for her by Katie the herbalist vet, every day she gets milk and honey with extract of compost heap with her breakfast and then two lots of yoghurt also with compost extract. It's done brilliantly well until this last week when she started chewing her feet and then over the weekend progressed to trying to remove her skin. Katie's working on a new improved brew for her.
The garden is looking wonderful, although I can see a few gaps to be filled with plants. This year was designated clear up and tidy year. It's been progressing slowly but I have at last weedkillered the yard and it's beginning to have some effect, the yard fence was washed down and last weekend was painted green – very smart it looks. The new table and chairs have been teak oiled and the recent rain is standing off the wood. Andy has dug out the bed at the foot of the hedge although I've not yet managed to get the new compost and manure dug in but there are very few weeds popping up so that's good. Once it's fully prepped it's going to be a green and white bed (this does kinda come under tidying up because it was just a weedy mess and now it's a patch of clean soil which means it qualifies – at least that's my excuse!) However there is still a lot of weedy gravel and a heap of stone down one side of the house. I have to move the stone before I can tackle the gravel and the stone is going to edge the gravel garden in the back still to be cleared – another job for Andy but we've not had the right sort of conditions so there's another wonderful excuse… And there's no point clearing the drive until I know when I can order more gravel and I might as well order for the paths and the drive. I did order a big table bed planter to be my new herb bed, again this comes under the tidy up campaign because I can get rid of the multitude of untidy pots scattered around. The catalogue said requires some self-assembly, just like the new table and chairs which required approx. four nuts each and came complete with their own spanner. However, the planter arrived as a heap of wood and bags of screws with an instruction novel (yep, that's a novel not sheet). I looked at all the bits, looked at the book and put it away, left it a week then got out the bits, looked at the book and put it away again and then I had a brainwave – my wonderful Uncle John, retired CDT teacher would read the instructions and put it together in 10 minutes. John looked at the bits, scowled at the book, drank some coffee, threw away the book and then put the wood together in the right order taking closer to an hour than the envisaged 10 minutes – note to self don't go buying big planters over the internet. Mum says it looks like a coffin on stilts, it does a bit too but once it's painted soft green and filled with aromatic, tasty herbs it will be glorious.
The new IT system in the office is still causing problems, granted not as many as before allowing my broken hand to mend and fortunately it's not been bad enough for me to smash it into the wall again so I dropped a table on my foot instead!
On the hound front we thought we were going to get a puppy in October but we found out over the weekend that the bitch wasn't in pup so we'll have to carry on waiting but we'll keep on searching and one day soon there'll be a long-legged stripy scragamuffin to join the pack.
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