Round-Up

You probably guessed my posts this week were dragged out of drafts and only the pollen one was edited and enhanced with better photos when we got another mass release day. (I think of it like coral spawning; somehow they co-ordinate.)

Our road was closed for a week for some much needed road repairs. We weren't stranded. There is the long way out, but nothing was so urgent I was prepared to add 20+km to the trip, so I set myself 5 tasks and 5 days in which to complete them.

Grubbing out gorse and blackberry on various parts of the section dominated the list: clear a greenhouse site, clear around the compost heaps, clear a path around the veg garden.....

Suitably motivated and fortified with coffee and porridge I became quite obsessed with the growing slash piles, hacking on long after I told myself each day to "call it quits - your hands won't thank you for this tomorrow".

Needless to say my hands are not the happiest parts of my body today. However in the process I accepted that my greenhouse idea would shade the veg patch and had a rethink. It's cleared though and in keeping with naming the other compost piles, the biomass from the area had been heaped up and called the Pterodactyl Nest. (I left a hollow down the middle so that I can tip in the household scraps without creating an eyesore for neighbours.)

Silbury Hillet and The Long Barrow have been sort of scooped up round the edges and had all the pernicious weeds dug out around them ready for the pumpkins to go in. The evidence suggests that the insides of those piles are already breaking down into lovely rich (gorse seed infested😒) compost.

I'll spare you a blow by blow of hacking and slashing and throw in some images of a pleasant and mostly effective week of labouring. I do lots of stuff here but the only thing I actually know how to do and feel confident about is dig and chop. It presents no problems I have to solve (that I haven't solved before if you get my drift.)

You can just see Scully supervising from her big cushion on the stoop.

Nascent Pterodactyl Nest above the rocks (or fossilized eggs). It's about 3 times that size now.

That white 'spire' in the image centre is a hank of vineyard bird net which I'll employ to keep quails off the seed beds.

Weather all week except Thursday was hot. Rain was forecast for Thursday but the day started clear before rapidly coagulating into full grey cover. This cloud seemed remarkable for its very solid leading edge. The other way the sky looked like

I call it fern sky. Possibly in weather terms it is mackerel sky: mackerel sky, mackerel sky, not long wet, not long dry. (Learned somewhere in 'weather for sailors' lessons.)

Within minutes it was 

Scully and I had our walk cut short but true to the rhyme rain didn't last long and the day was then great for hard yacker outdoors (not too hot).

During the week, breaks were awarded to build (1) a rhubarb box,

It gets filled with straw to kind of force the rhubarb to grow longer stems. (Unlike the pots used to force blanched rhubarb this lets the leaves open and feed the plant.)

(2) boxing for the water tank gravel (incomplete as of this photo but aim is to stop the crusher dust getting eroded around the edges),

and (3) fix the scrub-cutter blade which got severely bent hitting 'submerged' rocks when I had a session of clearing blackberry vine. I thought it was wrecked. Straighten it, said Bro. Straighten it and sharpen it. And you do know you can turn them over don't you?

Doh.

Yes I know I can turn it over but I'd wrecked both sides. Never occurred to me to hammer it flat again.

Big lump hammer, rock for an anvil … It's remarkably straight. And with the application of a file,  b****y sharp again.

Rain today but guess what next week has in store… brrmmm brrmmm

I'll leave you with Scully - who had been looking at me like she was peering over spectacles -