Bees, Mushrooms and morning dew.

This morning we had free, due to the kids both being elsewhere last night, Jo wanted me to take a couple of photos of a mushroom just off the drive, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I love the detail of the underneath of mushrooms - they have incredible architecture!





Since I had my camera in my hands, I thought I'd see what else was out there this morning, and moved to the back garden to explore.

One of the first things that came to mind was the flowerbed by Zak's room, it has some beautiful colours and the flowers are wonderful.

It was while I was deciding which flower to take a shot of, that I noticed a solitary bee hovering from one flower to another, so I took a couple of shots.

The first shot was of a thistle, and the second shot was caught as it was collecting pollen from inside the flower itself.





The last shot I took this morning was of a spiderweb that was covered in the morning dew.



All I could think of when I saw it was, how you could imagine certain parts of it looking like jewelry.

What do you see?

VICTORY!! Stiggy vs Mole update!

It's been a while since I started an assault on a mole that had been causing me no end of trouble and heartache.

The war started with smoke bombs, to try and push the mole out of our back garden, which worked quite well, making Mr Mole scurry into our paddock area. The main problem with this was that he then had free-reign to dig and burrow for all he was worth. This made it very unstable in the paddock, due to the unbelievable amount of tunnels, which collapsed underfoot and under mower!

Enough is enough I thought, and preceded to buy a couple of mole traps which I didn't have much success with to be quite honest. Mr Mole seemed to delight in back filling the traps until they went off, and then tunnelling around them!

The same thing happened when I used a 'Humane' mole trap. The little wotsit just glued the little tin doors up, and then tunnelled round the trap!

Recently though I thought that Mr Mole had moved on to pastures new - to either the field next door - or to the field across the road - that was until I walked round the chicken run and nearly broke my ankle when I trod on a three way tunnel junction...

...I then realised that the problem hadn't gone away - just out of sight!

I wasn't too optimistic about catching anything, but I thought I'd give it a go before I spent any more money buying a few Dufus mole traps, so off I went into the paddock, armed with two of the traps I'd bought previously.

One of the advantages of a long campaign is that you do actually get to know, or recognise certain signs of mole behaviour.

One of these signs is to find a tunnel just under the surface that ends with a little mound of earth. This is one of his exploration tunnels, which he may or may not come back to and continue on his way.

I roughly tore up the roof of the tunnel about 8" before the mound of earth, and set the trap. The second trap I placed in one of the tunnels I knew the mole was still using. You know Mr Mole is still using the tunnel because you have to flatten all the tunnels in the first place to see if he repairs any - then BINGO, you know where he goes!

I went back to the traps the next day, and didn't think anything of the trap that had gone off - but i took it out and looked into the tunnel...

...low and behold, I saw a little tiny paw sticking into the tunnel - I didn't want to get too excited, just in case I'd actually caught a rat or some other animal...

...slowly i grabbed the little paw...

...pulled it out of the tunnel...

...IT WAS MR MOLE!!!

I pretty much whooped with joy - I know it sounds silly, but no-one I know has had ANY success in catching or killing moles.

I was exalted!

Straight away I brought Mr Mole to the house like the proud hunter I was, and showed Jo who took the photos, and although Kane wasn't too impressed with it, hopefully it will help to harden him up to country life a bit.

One thing I remember is a comment on my first post about the moles (which I deleted), from a professional mole catcher - which pretty much pooh-poohed my attempts at mole catching, suggesting instead I contact a 'proper' mole catcher to do the job, as I was unlikely to get any results, and I was just wasting my money.

Well I hope you're reading this Mr Mole Catcher - because you are totally and utterly WRONG!

ANYONE can catch a mole, and it's even easier I hear with the Dufus traps - you just have to know what you're looking for in the first place in order to set the traps in the correct place!

I feel like I have just come of age!

:D

School Sports Day.

Since I'm on the subject of summer, nothing symbolises the break up from school for the long, summer holidays than the School Sports Day.

Kane recently had his, and it's always a great day, with a chance to watch the kids having fun, and (sometimes) getting that competitive feeling.

An awful lot of schools, I hear, in the UK have stopped the tradition of sports day because they don't want their pupils to feel in any way inadequate by losing a race!
Personally I have the opinion that in order to survive this wonderful and difficult life, we have no choice but to teach kids the bad with the good - and how to cope with losing occasionally...

...even if it IS losing the 'running with a plastic cone on the head' race!!

Anyway, I digress.

The way the Sports Day works at Kane's school is they have lots of different events placed within the school grounds, each one being run by either a parent or one of the older kids at the school. Last year I ran the 'kick the football at targets on a wall' event, and felt I missed out in a big way from not being able to see Kane compete.

This year was different. This year I decided to drop all responsibility, and to follow Kane round and give him support. Jo and I went together and I decided to take a few snapshots of the day. I wish I could post more than I have here - but to be honest, I actually took 192 photos of the day!

So be prepared for lots of photos here - I'll just put a quick note saying what each one is!

Kane's 1st event of the day - 'balancing 3 tennis balls on a tray race'

Dribbling ball round cones.

Get a score with beanbags.

Standing long jump.

Run to get 1st beanbag and put it in bucket, then 2nd beanbag etc...

...then run carrying bucket to finish line.

Dribble football round cones.

Skipping race (which Kane was WAY in the lead until he got caught up in the rope!)

Famous 'cone on the head and run as fast as you can' race.

Egg and spoon race.

Having a laugh between events!

The sack race.

Get score by throwing balls in baskets.

See how many times you can bounce the ball on the racket event.

Obstacle course race.

Last event - get as many balls through the hoop with 3 balls.

We were so proud of Kane, and the way he handled himself during the day. It was lovely to see how much he had improved at certain events, and just how wonderful he was generally with everything that was given to him to do.

All in all everyone had a really fun day, the kids behaved impeccably (as did most of the parents!) and no one was mortally wounded or put into deep depression by any of the events.

Memories of summer

I haven't really got time to blog in a regular fashion at the moment, but I thought I'd share with you some fun that happened over the summer, when my Mum and Dad came over and helped to set up our crops in our polytunnel.

I thought I'd give my Dad a bit of a laugh - so decided to take him on a race around our garden on my little tractor with him in the trailer!



As you can see he enjoyed himself rather more than I thought he would!

Then we had to get down to the task of moving some of our wonderful, fantastically broken down compost and chicken manure. Part of the reason our manure is so fine, is that when the ladies free range - they scratch around and turn everything over, leaving us with almost a find sand like texture!



We had some great success with all of our crops - in fact probably TOO much success as we have been unable to eat everything we've grown and had to resort to handing out various vegetables to friends and family!

Well, that's me done for a little while - I hope to be able to write more posts as time allows - but seeing as we have both kids now for 6 weeks summer holiday - who knows!?

Take care,

Stiggy

Apologies

I apologise for my lack of posts recently, we've been rather busy in life, but hope to return soon as I get enough time!

I hope you'll still check back once in a while!

:D

Another loss today.

I thought it was sad the other day when Cherie died, but it seems she may not have just 'died' as such.

I was standing in the school playground, chatting to a couple of the dads I know, when my mobile phone rang. Jo was on the phone telling me that a fox had attacked the chickens and one of the hens had been got, so I rushed in to get Kane from school. Luckily it was home time, so I asked Kane's teacher if I could take him right away.

We rushed home to find Jo in the paddock, she told me that she heard some racket, and rushed outside to see what the matter was. Jo saw the fox attacking one of the hybrid hens - the brown ones - and told me that Rhydian had stood up for the girls, clucking and flapping his wings at the fox!

Jo herded the chickens under the big fir tree, and protect them until the fox ran away.

Unfortunately, Jo told me that when she got to the hen that was attacked, she picked her up and she was breathing very fast, then she lay her head on Jo's arm and closed her eyes. Then she was gone.

From now on, I will only let my 'ladies' free range when I'm there to protect them. It's a shame as it's lovely to know they're enjoying themselves without my watchful eye.

I guess it's just the country way.

Overdue update!

Today I thought I'd put some time aside before I start anything else, to update my blog on a few things.

Recently I laid some turf down for our back lawn, it was the first time I had ever tried doing this job, but it seemed to go quite well.

I have had to go back up to twice a day to water some patches that have dried out, but it seems to have been worth the time spent, as the odd strand of green has been seen poking out of the straw coloured turf.

R.I.P Cherie

Unfortunately we found Cherie dead in the paddock the other day - I had let them out in the morning, as is usual, and when I went to put them away, I found poor Cherie lying down.

It seems she may have had the same thing happen to her as one of our older chickens some time ago - although my medical skills are limited, there were no marks on her, and no feathers littering the grass around her - so she must have gone very quick which is a good thing.

Cherie was one of five rescue chickens we picked up last year, and she was especially endearing as she had a twisted beak, which is why we named her after Cherie Blair!

She was one of the few hens that let me pick her up, more than the others anyway, so it is especially sad that she would be the one to go.

Rest in peace Cherie - we'll always remember you!

Kane rises the ranks!

Kane has been doing really well at Little Ninjas, he seems to have a natural flair for martial arts.

Well the other week he successfully passed the grading to give him his new belt - the yellow belt with a green stripe.

Every training session he goes to he receives a tag on his belt, and every time he gets 8 tags on his belt, he is eligible to do the grading for the next belt. Kane now does 2 sessions a week, and gets 2 tags a week, this has cut down the time he takes to get a new belt - not that it's rushed or anything - the test is quite comprehensive for the next belt.

Here he is in a fighting stance, with his new belt!

What a sod!

No - I'm not swearing at anyone - I'm just describing what sort of job I did yesterday!

Now, you may remember I worked very hard at lifting the old turf off our back lawn at our old house...

...well yesterday I spent the day lifting sods and carefully placing them in a weird sort of puzzle on the bare ground.

I was told by the nice man who delivered to me from Perfect Turf that I should lay the turf round the edges of the garden and work to them - that way I'd get a nice clean edge along the border, rather than a jagged line where I'd cut them in.

I started nice and quickly, I think it was because it was a new and exciting job that I'd never done before. Either that or someone had secreted a strange chemical into the turf, cos either way it seemed fun!

I decided (all by myself!) that I was going to lay the turfs in a brick formation, this seemed effective and gave me straight lines that I could work to. I hadn't bothered to set out wires or string, mainly because I couldn't be bothered - but mainly because I didn't have any wire or string to set out.

Now then, I was a little stuck for something to cut the turf with, but I found in a kitchen draw a table knife, so with this in hand I set out to trim that turf!





I had a break to go pick Kane up from school, then I went straight back to the matter in hand.



After finishing the job at last, I plugged the hose in and gave the whole lot a lovely long drink, to give it a good start in life.

Job done!

Ocassionally I find causes that I want to support, and this is one of them. We took some ex batts in last year, and so I feel it's good to give something extra back.

The below rescue is in Norfolk.

The following is what I have been asked to copy and post on this blog;

Little Hen Rescue desperately need homes for the last remaining battery hens of a farm due to shut down. The slaughter man has been booked by the farmer for 29th June, these hens will be slaughtered unless homes are found ASAP. After spending 18 miserable months of their short lives in a hell hole, never seeing daylight or grass, never knowing what the sun feels like on their backs, they will be held by the legs and roughly put into crates, loaded up like rubbish and killed. All for cheap crappy eggs.

Many co-ordination points have and are being set up to accommodate as wide an area for re homing as possible. If you can give a home to some very needy hens, or can help in other ways ie putting up posters or donating, please contact LHR @ http://www.littlehenrescue.co.uk/
If you have been thinking about re homing some ex battery hens but are unsure, please feel free to join the Ex Battery Hens Forum for very friendly and helpful advice http://www.exbatteryhens.com/

If you are a blogger, please pop a post on your blog to help raise awareness.

Please, support LHR and help them to get these hens out.

Many thanks for reading,

Stiggy

To turf or not to turf.

We're sprucing up the house we've just moved from, so we can put it on the market, one of the jobs that we had designated to a pro was the garden.

Since the grass hadn't been cut since last October, it had grown long, bent over and made clumps all over the lawn. Unfortunately, the areas underneath the clumps had been starved of light, and the grass had died away, leaving random lumps and bumps...

...not to mention the size of the ant hills - which stood like mini volcanoes amongst the grass!

We decided to get some quotes for re turfing the lawn - that is, to take up all the old grass and top layer of soil, and replace it all with lovely new turf. After we had spoken to a few people, we received a quote to do 140m2, which we felt was way over what we expected, so we took the decision for me to do it myself. In the meanwhile, I cut the grass to see how bad the problem was.





The problem was, I found a turf website that could deliver all the turf for the job for 1/10 of the quote - and the machine to do the job was only cheap for 2 days - so onto the phone I went to organise the machine to be delivered.



After the turfing machine had been delivered, it took me a little while to figure out how to use it, adjust it and make it work for me, but luckily it didn't take very long at all! (I seem to have an affinity with anything with a petrol engine!)



I decided to do only the main part of the lawn, as the bank was too difficult to get the machine on, and anyway - it's not a well used area of grass.



It took me two afternoons (6 hours) to take the turf off the areas I wanted to, which I was very pleased about, as I had never used one of these machines before.

After all the turf was taken up, I had to order a skip, then another afternoon was spent moving all the old stuff into the skip.

Once everything had been cleared and raked to get the nasty stones and lumps out the way, I went round with my weed sprayer and attacked any weeds I could find.



The two tons of topsoil came the next day, and I set about wheelbarrowing the soil to the back garden.

The quote we received was for a group of men to work for about 3 days to re turf our garden...

...had I been able to work full days at the house I would have been able to do the job - on my own - in just 3 days!

I still have a small area to put top soil on before I order the actual turf, which I'll do today, but the really back breaking work is done now - so I'm happy!

While I was working, I found quite a few slow-worms. Most were small, but one was quite large.





I love snakes (never felt like owning one though!), and although I would never expect to actually see a snake in the wild over here in the UK, it was nice to at least be able to hold a slow-worm, and see it's little tongue darting in and out - tasting the air around it...



...I wonder what it thought of me!

(Jo caught me resting and having a drink after figuring out the turf machine)

Grass fun!!

Well, I'm sure not everyone can say that they have had fun with their lawns...

...but I certainly can!!

I have been REALLY busy recently, doing all sorts of jobs and things that have, in all honesty, totally knackered me out!

A few days ago, the weather started to be nice, dry and sunny, so I took the opportunity to get my little tractor out of the shed and cut the back lawn.

In previous attempts, it has only been towards the end of the job that the lines have been reasonably straight and uniform, but today was my lucky day, and almost straight away they were looking good!



As well as cutting the grass, there are some patches of bare earth, which needed to be sown with grass seed. The largest of all these patches was left when a soakaway (basically a big hole in the ground filled with rubble and stones, to let the rainwater drain away properly) was never sorted out.

Jo took some photos of me in the process of sowing the seed rather well I think - you can see how much effort I put in, and how exciting the job was! You've heard of 'extreme sports' well this was 'extreme seeding'!



Once the seed was sown, the ground was in need of a good watering, which again Jo managed to capture rather well!

(Please note the hose on the extreme right of the picture before you think bad of me!)

I then covered the area with bird netting to prevent the little blighters eating all my lovely new grass seed!

This was the start of my outdoor action hero stuff, more to come very soon!

Not so little Ninja!

Kane has been going to little ninjas for just over a month, and last session he picked up his brand new uniform for it!

Little Ninjas is actually a Korean martial art called Soo Bahk Do, and is taught in our local area by the Scriven family. You can find more information by following their link.

Soo Bahk Do was originally called 'Tang Soo Do', but reverted to it's original native name back in the 80's.

When the children go to Little Ninjas, they do a lot of exercise and practice games with their basic moves, which is a really good way of getting them to perfect each move. So for example, they run around the hall around 4 instructors who are all holding pads to hit, and the kids have to hit the pads with either a palm strike, a punch, a chop or a jump.

Kane loves doing these and you really can see the concentration on his face - it's a joy to behold, especially as some of the kids there are probably made to go by their parents - in fact one parent asked if I was taking Kane to Little Ninjas for the discipline aspect of martial arts, I just laughed because we have no problems at ALL with Kane in that respect, and asked Kane why he wanted to go to L.N, to which he replied;

"I want to learn how to kick butt!"

I think that was all that needed to be said really!

There is a little history in Martial arts in our family - I used to practice 'Wing Chun' before I met Jo and got married.

Wing Chun is the Martial art that Bruce Lee first started when he was around 13, although he took several Martial art styles and blended them into his own made system called Jeet Kune Do - 'Way of the Intercepting Fist'.

Kane and I really enjoy performing the 'Forms', which are a series of moves linked together to create a display of moves that the student has learnt.

For Kane's first belt he will have to perform 2 moves of the first form, something he should easily be able to do as together we have learnt the first 10-12 moves!

He looks forward to every lesson, and receives a tag each lesson. After he has collected 8 tags, he then goes to the grading for the next belt - this system is a wonderful way of keeping the kids interested and focuses on their goal.

Would you mess with this kid!?