Garden Pests

Northern Ireland is currently experiencing Summer Time and I have been making hay while the sun shines, or sort of... I have been weeding, sowing and planting and Nelly's Garden is actually looking OK. If it wasn't for all the interruptions life would be great.

First of all, I took Saturday evening and most of Sunday as a vacation from what the Americans call yard work. We went out for dinner with the Banjos and slept over. Then on Sunday, we all went to Garden Show Ireland. It was Marty and Jazzer's first visit (even though they live in Antrim) and I think they enjoyed it. I bought my usual geranium and wanted to buy some white papaver Orientale but missed out on pot plants so bought root cuttings from a beautiful Dutchwoman. Two white, two salmon pink and two red. Hope they grow! Going around the exhibits I realised that my bay tree is probably worth £120 and that the three trees I'm nabbing from Bert would cost me nearly 500 if I was buying them from a garden centre. And - the half dozen lupins I'd planted the day before and that were grown from a teeny little seed were worth nearly fifty quid at Garden Show prices. I actually felt quite rich.

Monday was family gardening day and it started off well when the black and white cow had a healthy bull calf standing by her side first thing in the morning. Then there was great excitement when Evil Edna started to show signs of imminent calving. Unusually, for Edna, she was considerate enough to hold off on the big reveal until the girls' homework was done, then had the calf birthed just as supper was being put on the table.

Yesterday Hannah and I went shopping in Antrim. I bought a hand weeding tool and Hannah bought socks. Bored with the shops we went to the Castle Grounds to walk. The council workers were still clearing up after Garden Show Ireland and I found a lithodora 'Heavenly Blue' in a bin and nicked rescued it. Another £7 saved.

Today, nothing much to do so worked in the garden. Planted geraniums, crocosmia 'Lucifer', cosmos, potentilla' and used my new weeding tool which is very useful for grubbing up dandelions and creeping buttercup. It was a very enjoyable day except for the invaders. First, there was the chicken escapees, three of the young hens that have no trouble flying over the fence. They spent the day in the flowerbeds gathering up grubs and insects.

Then I was wandering around taking pictures of this and that and heard this crashing noise and there was...

...Lily, who had to be quickly headed off before she started trampling on my freshly planted flower beds.

The next invader was driving a shiny red car that whizzed into the yard with one door hanging open and that turned out to be a mother and child delivering leaflets for a church lecture. I'd already noticed posters for this event in the village and was astonished that such people still walk among us. I told the woman that I was a firm believer in evolution and she looked at me very askance. She suggested I should come and add to the debate. I said I probably wouldn't.

Click to enlarge and get a better look at Evie's plastic dinosaur and the potentilla and geranium that flank it. The invite from the crazy people is propped against the alpine strawberry.  

Success (Of Sorts)

When all around the world goes sad, mad and bad, it is the simple pleasures that count - one's chickens, the new calf that was born today - Martha says her name is Ava and we must never sell her. I say that we must but she shall have first refusal. Our other pleasures include friends, family and music.

And, of course, there is food. This weekend was not one of my better ones when it came to home-cooked food. Supper was shop-bought sausage rolls, tinned beans and an interesting salad made from tender leaves of kale (home-grown), olives, tomatoes and little sweet peppers. The dressing came out of a jar. I made (at Evie's request) the steamed chocolate pudding, chocolate sauce and ice cream dessert.  It was the wrong ice cream. Not popping candy ice cream. I made the excuse that I'd forgotten to bring my glasses which was a lie. It didn't matter anyway as Evie had been to a birthday party and was full to the neck of sweets and cake. She didn't even have dessert, said she was 'tired of it.'

Breakfast was Kellogs Variety Pack and Peppa Pig on Netflix. I wasn't part of it as I was reading The Guardian in bed. Some lad from Buckna was supervising the young'uns, helping them eat Variety and watching Peppa Pig. Lunch was (hang my head in shame) shop-bought pizza. I attempted to jazz it up with extra toppings and Lidls mozzarella cheese. But then, my triumph, the food that made up for all other culinary shortcuts and shortcomings, my first successful sourdough loaf. For, even though the first attempt resulted in rolls that could have served as missiles, I kept the mother going and made this...

I know it is boastful but that loaf was not my only success this weekend. At Martha and Evie's storytime I selected a book of fables, beautifully illustrated by Janusz Grabianski. But one forgets how shite fables are. There is no real story, no satisfying ending, no resolution. The one I chose was about a fox who fell down a well and couldn't get out. Said fox tricks a decent old billy goat to jump into the well and help it escape. Then, the fox being wily and all, fucked right off mocking the billy goat for his gullibility. And that was the end. So I said to the girls,

I didn't think much of that story! I think I could make a better job of it!

So, putting down the book, beautiful illustrations and all, I finished the story bringing in two brave young animal rescuers called Martha and Evie, a grandfather (Bert) with a length of baler twine in his pocket, a lovely woman called Denise who was in need of a billy goat, then a billy goat in a new home in The Parks with two wives and four lovely kids (three girls and a boy) and a nasty fox who called round and ended up getting butted over a hedge never to be seen again while everyone got to live happily ever after. I believe I enjoyed telling it far more than the girls enjoyed listening to it. My reward came this morning when Evie joined me in bed and said,

That was a good story last night.

Thanks, Margaret Green (and Aesop) for the beginnings of the tale and thanks to Janusz Grabianski for the wonderful pictures.

A Calf Is Born

When Martha and Evie came out this afternoon Bert told them it was highly likely that the cow would have her calf before they went home. They stuck to him like glue for the rest of the afternoon, made him fix them up a den and got him to push them everywhere in a cart. Honestly, you would think the man hadn't any work to do! At one point I saw him race past the window, two excited girls in the cart and five dogs bringing up the rear. Round and round the house four or five times. Bert was exhausted. Eventually he sneaked off for a coffee and Martha took the opportunity to check on the cow. She then raced to the polytunnel to inform her mother that the cow was lying down and it was panting and straining. Zoe let Bert know and they all went out to the shed where the girls saw, for the first time in their lives, an animal give birth. They were absolutely delighted. They are calling the new calf, a little heifer, Polly.

 Evie watches the proceedings

New arrival