Neighbourly

 Our neighbour brought over ten pounds of plums from his tree, picked before the wasps got in them..he has lost quite a few already. These six pounds are spread out to ripen before use...the other four pounds are in the dryer

Pirate is slowly learning to pace himself and break jobs up and take rests in between...the middle day job today was mowing the grass...

He still tries to do too much in one session... but it is a hard lesson.

Nice to have the place looking tidier though..and a nice square ready, in case anyone wants to stay and camp!!

Now while he is resting I must draw up the shopping list for the shopping expedition..and being later we might be lucky and score some reduced items!!

Garden time

 I managed to get to the garden at last today..in the greenhouse as the wind is still chilly! It's no wonder that the runner beans are not running with it being so cold and dry!

Potting up time for cucumbers squashes and tomatoes..and...drum roll, Steve, six red lupin seedlings!!!

The chard has just germinated..relief as we eat quite a bit of that..but the parsley and coriander are still no shows.

I will take a wander around the garden for you..

The garlic planted last year is going well so far, and I've sown carrots too..but they take an age to germinate.

The compost bin construction is coming along slowly, step by step and is now working..in the second bin are the pallets I will use to make shelves for my empty plant pots...

Which are cluttering up the polytunnel...

It is indeed a sorry object too because the plastic is rotting....Pirate believed what he was told when he phoned the importers..that it would last five years....no, this stuff does not!!

 We had a nice afternoon, me in the garden and him sorting some papers. Then chatting with neighbours...really enjoyable.

Himself is off to bed..he runs out of steam by nine...and I have a quiet Me time...clearing the washing up, making sure the greenhouse is closed and everything vaguely tidy for the morning, and a quick Duolingo lesson...I try to to a quarter-hour every day.

Then the sunset...and it's ten o'clock already!

Hot days

 

Keeping the drying lawn tidy

We put the gazebo up in front of my workshop...pirate is mending our next door neighbour's bench and the shade is needed.

The roses are blooming well..the colours are difficult to show when the sun is so strong, they are far deeper!

The moon was a mellow yellow orange last night...and will be full tonight. Really beautiful.

It is even hotter today. I pricked on a few seedlings , growing them on ready for  planting out when the onions are lifted . If the weather continues like this, that should be in a week.

I retreated to the house midmorning. Plenty to do indoors apart from keeping cool!!

Weekend

 We have had a good weekend with our friend staying over...bike ride together yesterday. Long walk this morning. 

Good company, great craic...and neighbours calling by too.

I found this feather on our walk...possibly from a Snipe, there are some around.

Patterns

 Everything seems to have slipped out of kilter...so we are trying our best to get back to the life pattern we had as a start...

We were always early risers...and this Winter being our first here in three years has been difficult to cope with, let alone any other restrictions.

So earlier bed....after usually turning off TV and computer by 9pm.  We can make exceptions.....we are now watching a programme about Stonehenge....

We walk nearly every day....

This was Wednesday's walk...two and a half hours passing seven farms! 

One of these runs a feed store in a small barn and they are changing their small woodburner next summer as it can't cope... hopefully I can buy it when they get the new one, for my workshop.

Yesterday the cloud was high and the air dry.

Our walk took us along field and old track to see a local farmer. He has visited NZ, and his daughter lives there..Pirate lent him two copies of "Footprint Flats" cartoon books...and he gave us a dozen eggs! His farmworker has been there too...and wants to go again as soon as...

She decided that this was her better side!

Ice by Millmannoch...today we have been helping with the village tidy up...one man started mowing the verge and picking litter on the stretch of road by his cottage. Being outside the 30 mph village limit the council cannot litter pick without a road closure..so a few people decided that they had enough! The council workers have provided litter pickers and bags and pick up full bags when they are around in the village.

This man has been clearing a derelict patch between the river and road with permission of the farmer..but he has no chainsaw..and we do...

Noone else wanted the wood...so we are getting it....we have build a woodshed with four pallets by a fence...and the fuel for my workshop heater is building up!!

So small tweaks at a time, accepting cosmic chuckles, trying to stress less...and the knowledge that new patterns take a fortnight to come easier..

Earth!

 Two tons of topsoil are in, and nice looking earth it is..plus a ton of soil improver, in other words bought composted material. 

An investment worth doing we think. No, we won't get our money back in fresh fruit and veg, but it will help us grow decent produce as soon as possible instead of slogging it out for five or ten years. 

Which, at 81, Pirate doesn't want to do!!

So today has been a day off if sorts.  A bike ride around the lanes at lunchtime even though it was a low cloud grey day. No washing, no housework, and just packing up one small parcel , an eBay sold bike bit. 

The hopes that the local yobs won't be harrassing our neighbour again..it started again last night, just when we all thought it had finished.

Under the weather

 Being stuck indoors is just not us! 

I know that we can wrap up warm and walk..but there is a limit to what we will go out in!

Today has dawned quietly and without rain....so far....

So the glass that our retired joiner friend cut in his workshop for us should be in today. Hopefully with no breakages!  It was bliss to sit in one end of his workshop as he worked, on a chair in front of the woodfired stove (do that and you have the job of feeding it!) The stove runs underfloor heating as well as being used by his wife to cook the evening meal when he has a day in there!  All masked up against dust (and germs) of course.

The eBay selling has picked up again, and I am getting the process streamlined so that it doesn't spread over the table that I work at when linocutting and drawing. It keeps on encroaching though!!

It has been too wet for a month to garden outdoors properly, so I will be starting the rest of the onions and beans in the greenhouse in pots in the Spring.

Meanwhile there is indoor gardening.....

Neighbours, sadness

 Our neighbour is having problems with a gang of kids throwing stones at his house..they have already broken his back door window...

We helped mend his back boundary with planks to restore the fence, and he brought two farm gates from work. 

He is a farm labourer, in his late 50s, a gentle giant with no enemies who will help anyone.  He has worked at the farm in the village he is from, some two miles away, since before he left school, helping on the farm and with their milk round.  He has lived in his house here for twenty years.

Now they have started kicking his front door...

He works seven days a week, from 10.30 until 7 at least...he loves his job and the animals there. No longer a dairy farm but still cattle and sheep and fodder crops.

The kids are aged between about 10 to 15 years..so the police can only warn and advise their parents...when they find the right ones..and no-one can lay a finger on them.

So what is a group of a dozen kids doing around between 8 and 9pm every night, out in the dark? Apart from up to no good?

Next step is a wildlife camera to catch images of the "wildlife"....

As you can see this tablet would be of no use.

Foraging, preserving

 We had a day out foraging today, not far away from home, and by the Clyde.

A quarter mile walk, along the cycle route again then Pirate saw a path into a harvested field....and we were there for a couple of hours picking blackberries/brambles, elderberries and sloes.

Deposit those in the car, then we walked a mile up to the local Co-op shop to buy lunch. Lunch in the car after walking back as it turned chilly for a while. 

A walk in the other direction took us along the Lang Scots Mile a little, then down onto what was beach and dunes and now has been colonised by all sorts of plants and trees.

There we found rosehips and apples!

A small detour on the way home up to the trig point on Brown Carrick hill..and unfortunately the trig point itself has been stolen. But the views are still good, including looking over to Ardrossan where we were two days ago!!

Plenty of preserving to do, including plum jam for our neighbour who supplies us with eggs and tomatoes!

Helping others.

Power washing next door's patio.
One advantage of ghastly wet and windy weather...her grandkids will not be playing in the garden!

We are at present getting the tail end of a storm that has come over the Atlantic...I welcome the rain, but I am worried about the polytunnel. After all it is no more than a tent!!

An advantage of himself being out there? I get time to concentrate on ordering online from our usual health store company and wholefoods company.
I don't find it easy.  I have been putting it off. Silly really as they could take two weeks or more to be sent out...and who knows how long to get here.  However now I have started the process it should be easier to do it again.

Next to face putting more on Etsy.

An online artist acquaintance has started selling postcard size original paintings in her shop....perhaps I could do that with drawings? She charges £20 post paid, which is a bargain for her work.
How much would you pay for one of my drawings, postcard size?  Be honest!

Almost Spring

 Keeping in touch with neighbours!....and then sunny again...