Bean Mountain

It has been a week of beans which largely got picked on Thursday. As you will see from the photograph below they all came together and we now have a bean mountain in the kitchen. They are lovely and fresh, but very plentiful to the point that I am currently looking at runner bean chutney or freezing them to use them up, if I can make some room in the freezer.

Sadly, my usual distribution network is not available to me at present so as well as my bean challenge I have had to make my first foray into the world of curried courgette chutney to preserve the courgette mountain that proceeded my new predicament.

Olympic Success

It felt like the whole wildlife community was up late watching the Olympics. And didn’t we do well! 

Somehow a small island nation took on the might of China and won, (well came second behind USA). But it was a huge achievement and shows what can be done with the right resources at your disposal.  

It was wonderful to watch if you got the chance to see any of it, especially the cycling where we appear to be much better than everyone else in most events including barging people off the velodrome and getting away with it. 

Hidden amongst our great achievements were several sprinkles of good luck which you need to do that well. Let’s hope the luck continues in the future and no one contracted the horrible Zika virus, which they were all afraid of before the start and seems to have disappeared from the news with all the success.

It also helped create a small feel-good news moment for us after a series of terrible bombs and terrorist attacks hit the headlines. The sight of lots of gold medals and smiling faces was uplifting and even encouraged me to dust off my bike and believe that I could cycle once again. I am currently demonstrating to myself why that is much harder than it sounded, especially the ability to sit down on the bike once you are saddle sore, having cycled the grand distance of two miles, (whilst only stopping twice). I thought of putting a picture of me in my Lycra cycling kit on here but I don’t want to put you off your breakfast just yet.

Maybe the Olympic ideal is beyond me at this stage in my life, but having watched the Eddie the Eagle film recently I have not gone through enough pain and suffering to give up just yet.

Our cats take up the baton

As the Olympics progressed I started to recognise many of the Olympic traits in our cats.  I have previously mentioned their Olympic high jumping ability, leaping over the electric fence guarding our vegetable plot in order to access the virgin soil to relieve themselves.  But now they seem to have been practicing for other events. 

The long distance sleep – 12+ hours of gruelling unconsciousness where they come out at the end looking like they are knackered and ready for another rest.

The pommel horse nether-region cleaning technique - where they flail both legs around their head in coordinated fashion similar to the men on the pommel whilst lying on their back and inspecting their nether regions.

The synchronised gymnastic cat tumble – running at full speed one cat attacks the other and they tumble head to tail across the garden and then run off again.

And finally their real speciality, the marathon sit and wait - hours of painstaking waiting for a poor unfortunate vole or similar to pop its head out of a hole, only to be snatched before it has a chance to realise what’s going on. They practise for this event daily and I think in four years’ time could well have reached the Olympic standard.

Wasps come back with a bang

I mentioned previously that the wasps seemed to be in small numbers this year. Well that has now changed, and with it has come a new sport of wooden furniture eating. I have never been aware of this, but wasps eat wooden things; such as tables, chairs, benches and their current favourite, window frames. 

I knew they built their nests from wooden strips but didn’t realise that they would get these strips by devouring our furniture. This all sounds a bit dramatic but it has seriously started to show. What was a perfectly smooth table, bench or chair now looks like it has been filed by a two-year old armed with a rasp.

How do I stop this? - as with everything these days I looked it up on google. 

I am not alone!  Other people with far more to lose than I have suffered the same fate.

The current remedies range from: 

- Posting a sign over the furniture saying “Wasps go home” (or similar)

- Shouting at them, swearing and calling them names

- Lying back and listening to them devour the furniture and using it as a form of therapy – (not sure what issue you have to have to feel that this is therapy)

- Finding their nest and destroying it (even by accident whilst clearing the loft) – probably a bit too exciting for me to achieve

- Set fire to the furniture to smoke them out

- Cover one chair in jam to sacrifice one item in favour of the many others

- Or my personal favourite, using the fact that they apparently detest the smell of human urine to pee all over the furniture

With these helpful suggestions gathered together I feel the only next step will be to coat all the furniture in teak oil and make it harder for them. I have tried following them back to their nest but lost them in flight each time over the pond. It is not yet time to panic but action is required soon.

Green woodpecker twins

We have had the company of two green woodpecker twins this week. Previously we saw a family parading their two young ones when they were first born, but this week the two young ones have been back to find ants. 

With all the hot weather the ants have been particularly good at building their nests in the lawn and the woodpeckers are taking full advantage. They have spent literally hours banging the ground picking ants from their homes. 

Which led me to think, how long can they do this before they get a headache?

A question I will never get an answer to even on google, or so I thought. Well I was wrong again. Look it up it is interesting, but complicated. Too complicated for me to explain here. 

 Have a good weekend, I’m off to oil my furniture!

Evening Sky Over the Lake

This week the weather where we live has been simply wonderful. The days have been warm but not too hot. There has been a slight breeze mopping the sweat from my brow and cooling my head as I tidy the garden and take several truck-loads of branches and cuttings to the tip.

There is something magical about the tip. My wife gets very excited at the notion of ridding ourselves of something unwanted. I half expect to wake-up one morning from a deep sleep amongst piles of grass cuttings and smelly compost.

The good weather has even encouraged the badgers to awake from their slumber and visit us in the afternoon. A couple of days ago one of them was devouring the seed on the back lawn in full day-light at three in the afternoon. He seemed a bit dopey but was obviously hungry and completely oblivious of the fact that he was about seven hours too early.

At first we were concerned as this is very strange behaviour, but it seemed well enough, if not a little hot wearing all that fur in the hot sun. But it soon shuffled off back to from whence it came when the seed had run out.

A couple of years ago, at a similar time of year I was driving home one afternoon when I saw an owl sitting on a branch by the side of the road in full daylight. This too seemed reasonably unperturbed surveying the road for rogue animals. I never saw it again.

This week the owls have been sitting on our roof at 3am in the morning shrieking. The females sound like a baby crying, and for someone who has no children themselves this is an unwanted addition. However, the novelty of having owls on the roof outweighs any thoughts of trying to shut them up.

Anniversary of electrical mayhem

With such settled weather in August, it is strange to think that it is actually the anniversary of some strange goings on in the garden. A couple of years ago almost to the day, we were awoken early one morning as it was just getting light to the sight of the electrics flickering in our bedroom. As we looked out of the window the garden was filled with a strange mist. Intrigued we explored further and realised that the power to our house had gone completely.

I wondered outside to find out what was going on, and stumbled on a strange man in my garden wandering around. Immediately irritated by a stranger in the mist I shouted to him to challenge him. Living where we are, we are used to some weird people but not usually wandering around the garden at five in the morning.

It was at this point I realised he was not alone and there were several other people and trucks the other side of my hedge all driving around in the neighbours’ garden. It was the local power company investigating a power outage.

At first they had no idea what the problem was, when I was reminded of the “mist” in our back garden. I walked around the house to find that it was actually lots of smoke coming from large scorch mark across the back lawn. This had been caused by one of the electric cables overhead, snapping and falling, live, down into the garden, touching the ground and etching a fairly large gouge in the earth. It stretched for probably 10-15 feet in total.

To cut a long story short, they spent a few hours fixing the problem and then cutting back a couple of trees that they blamed for the problem. However, with no wind or bad weather it seemed odd.

A year later almost to the day, it happened again. Another scorch mark was cast in the lawn at five in the morning when the weather was at its most placid. This time it appeared that the cable hadn’t broken but instead had just fallen down when one end had come unattached.

What I haven’t said is that the particular area which was scorched twice, lies almost directly where my vegetable plot is and the second time it damaged the netting around it when struck by the cable. I regularly spend time in that area working on the garden so the prospect of being electrocuted was not so unlikely.

Anyway, with this in mind I have had one eye on the garden each morning this week, half-expecting the worst again.

Chicken Invasion

As described last week our neighbour keeps various animals, including different types of chickens. They are regularly pecking around the car park on anything that they can find to eat.

On returning home one afternoon we walked around the back of the house to find four chickens holding court on our back lawn. Each large female was chaperoning a smaller female and teaching it how to eat. It is not the worst thing to have in your back garden except for the unprotected vegetable plot that was in line of sight of all of them.

Our cats were sitting a short distance from them making up their special Southern Fried Crumb mixture in readiness for the feast they were expecting once they got hold of one of the young ones. 

How do you catch chickens? – I didn’t know.

The answer is, not easily, when you have never done it before. I walked around and drove them towards the fence which I thought they had come through. At first this worked, but as they got closer and became concerned they switched to their confusion plan and one large chicken ran one way towards the cats, while the other ran the other way with the young ones, away from them.

Our cats did not even attempt to take on the large chicken, being rather chicken themselves when it comes to large animals. But they were distracted for long enough to lose sight of the fleeing animals as they disappeared into the long grass and stinging nettles, which is where they then stayed for the next 20 minutes believing that they had suddenly acquired the power of invisibility. What they hadn’t realised is that invisibility only applied to me, and not the cats who could hear them and quickly made tracks to surround them.

Again, cutting a long story slightly shorter, the cats were kept at bay by the one heroic large chicken. They did try in a fairly feeble manner to distract it and grab one of the smaller ones but they didn’t succeed.

Finally, after much time spent by me trying to drive them into next door the large female that had split up from them, came back, and with a fair amount of clucking persuaded them that bed-time had passed and off they set.

Thankfully they have not returned, and order was restored to the garden once more.

On which happy note I wish you a good weekend, although rumour has it we will see some rain.

As a small mention, can I thank everyone I saw last night it was very much appreciated and touched me greatly.

Each morning when the sun shines I rise early to water the garden. There is no better time in the day. The birds chirp, the lambs baaahhh and the pigeons coo. It is the point at which one feels glad to be alive and appreciates the british climate. The gentle breeze touches your face and the dew on the grass moistens your feet. Nature’s pick me up, delivered for free every day.

With my soul feeling good I started to feed the hose into the greenhouse to water the tomatoes and cucumbers. At this time of year, I am often able to eat a ripe strawberry off the plant as I water, something that doesn’t last long but is fantastic while it lasts. I looked at the bush in anticipation. Yes – there is one there that is just right.

But this day, out of the corner of my eye a black shape moved. It flashed by my face and I ducked. It attacked again and I rocked back trying to take in my aggressor. It paused on a tomato plant, and I finally glimpsed it properly. A young blackbird had got into the greenhouse and was locked in overnight. 

It was not happy and it couldn’t work out how to get out.

Automatic opening windows are wonderful. They let the heat of the day out and save the tomatoes from an ordeal by heat. But birds don’t understand how they work and this particular bird was no different. It had got in to explore and now couldn’t get out. Thankfully I had not closed the door behind me and there was an opportunity for the young bird to escape. However, it was not bright and had not discovered the exit. It continued to fly around me as I protected my face. It was not trying to do anything other than get away, but at this stage I didn’t know this. 

I crouched and walked backwards out of the greenhouse to look at it from outside. Finally, it saw me leave and followed. From a branch above the greenhouse it shouted at me as if to say, “I will get you next time you great buffoon”. 

Snakes are in the grass, and the pond.

We have a reasonable sized pond in our garden. Twice a year I have to get into the pond and clear out some of the reeds that have grown since the last time I got in. These reeds are incredible and grow very fast. To the point that they take over the pond and you can’t see the water – which is sort of the point of the pond. 

I have a set of waders that allows me to do this unscathed. These waders are not your normal type as I have sized 15 feet and therefore require them to be extra-large, bearing in mind the shoes come attached.

I had to buy them from America as it appears that UK people don’t have sized 15 feet. Apparently people in America who have sized 15 feet are also 30-40 stone in weight, as the waders are actually so big that I could get my wife into them with me, (not that I have tried this). If I tipped over in the pond my waders would probably fill up with enough water that I would float out of them. But they keep me dry, although I do look like an advert for Wallace and Grommit’s “The Wrong Trousers”.

Around the pond we have regularly seen grass snakes. They are not that large but they are snakes none the less. In fact, we have seen grass snakes swimming in the pond. So as I entered the pond I had an image of me clearing the reeds only to be joined in my waders by a grass snake. 

Grass snakes are harmless if left alone. They are not poisonous and are more afraid of you than you are of them. But a grass snake inside your waders would be another story, and something that I wouldn’t be able to get out of my waders without climbing back onto dry land and jumping out, or flapping about madly like a man possessed. This image troubled me as I tugged at the reeds pulling them up and hurling them out of the pond. 

Thankfully this year the image was just that and not a reality although my wife did remind me as I was getting out of the suit, that she had seen a snake there the previous day. 

A couple of days later I too saw the snake swimming in the water I had cleared the reeds from. A shiver went up my spine. Thank god we don’t live in Australia or somewhere where there are really nasty snakes. 

A large thud comes from the window

This week we have had a spate of loud bangs on the windows. The first time it happened I rushed out to see what had happened and a bird had flown into the window. I am not sure why as they had not been cleaned, but some of the young birds are just not wired up correctly yet. Sadly, the bird had broken its neck and lay dead on the floor.

A day later the same thing happened again. What on earth is happening? Why are they doing this now? At least the birds were common and nothing rare, I thought. 

The next day I was sitting eating my breakfast when “Bang” another bird slammed into a window. I had only seen this happen once or twice before this week and now it had happened three times in as many days. I was quickly on my feet and outside. The reason I always jump up quickly is that if the bird has survived but is on the floor, the cats will quickly move in if I don’t.

This bird looked dead. It was in the bush next to the window upside down on its back. I picked it up and held it the right way up. It was a dipper. 

This was one of the most beautiful birds I had ever seen. It had a white throat and top of its chest and a brown undercarriage and mottled back and sides. It was wonderful. As I admired the bird its eyes opened. It had white eyelids that flickered in the sun. I had never seen a bird with white eyelids.  Gradually it tried to move its mouth. The beak looked floppy as if it was dislocated. Then the feet stirred and it sat onto it legs. The wings were still stretched out and immobile, and the beak hung loose.

“What will I do with it if it is injured?”, I started to think. Memories of the duck incident from last week came back to me. 

As my mind drifted I saw it move its head in a more coordinated manner and it moved its wings back into their normal down position.  I held it in one outstretched hand so it would not be too spooked. It still didn’t move.

I stood there for what seemed like ten minutes or longer, hoping that it would take off, and just as I started to believe it was too injured, with a start, it flew. It only flew about twenty feet but it landed on the fence looking at the world, as if for the first time. 

I walked over slowly and stood next to it, guarding it from the cats and certain death. It demonstrated why it is called a dipper, by dipping up and down at irregular points. It was fantastic and I had the feeling of protection that one has when you have saved something. It is my dipper and no one is going to hurt it! 

Then it was gone, across the garden and into the stream where it was trying to get before this all happened. Nature is so wonderful I thought.

It might be a hot one this weekend, so enjoy the sunshine, knowing our summer it won’t last long. I have a weekend of making courgette chutney as we have a glut of courgettes that wait for no man and have grown very large and numerous. The runner beans are also ready and coming at us in numbers so we need to pick them before they get woody.

Have a great weekend!

A slightly longer post this week than normal.

The week has seen a number of bizarre goings on that if I hadn’t seen them myself I wouldn’t believe. In fact, it has felt like a week straight out of a 60s drug induced haze, (not that I am old enough to know what that feels like). The haze where everything is a bit weird and unnatural. I could have saved some of the stories for another week, but I thought I would write them down while it was fresh in the memory.

The week started with a fairly regular activity when one of our cats brought a creature over to present to me while I was sitting on a bench. The creature was very small and didn’t move. I walked over to see what it was and the cat laid it at my feet. It was a shrew.

Shrews are very interesting creatures and here are a few facts you might not know:

> Shrews can live up to 23 months. 

> Common shrews are insectivorous and carnivorous, feeding on insects, slugs, spiders, worms and carrion. They need to eat 80-90 per cent of their own body weight in food daily. 

> Due to the extreme amount of energy shrew’s use up by their constant activity, they will starve to death if they do not eat every three hours.

> Because of their very sharp teeth and aggressive nature, shrew    s are capable of killing animals many times larger than themselves.

>Most importantly for us at this stage - cats don’t eat shrews as they have nasty smelling glands on their skin that produce a foul odour. 

But cats do play with shrews if they catch them. Our cat was about to do exactly that when the shrew woke up from its frozen state and ran straight into the “moat” that surrounds our house. The “moat” is a large drain that we have had put in to keep the house dry, and it is big enough to harbour animals that are small enough to get through its meshed grills. The cats can’t get passed the mesh to their annoyance.

I lifted up one end of the mesh to block the drain with a plastic bag so that the shrew wouldn’t run the length of the drain and fall into the water hole. I then proceeded to gradually pull up drain covers to drive the shrew towards the bag so that I could capture it in a suitable receptacle. The shrew sped towards the plastic bag and what I thought was a cul-de-sac. But it had other ideas and it vanished under the bag and into the water hole.

The water hole is where the rain water runs from the drain underground and out into the stream. It was gone, escaped and probably racing along like one of the borrowers to its next adventure.

Previously, this type of adventure was mainly pursued by my wife as she was around the house more than I to experience this. I once came home to find my wife calling to me on her hands and knees, ferreting in another old drain pipe which has no outlet. A mouse had fallen into this and she was trying to get it out. Rising to the challenge I took over and spent the next 45 mins with a wooden spoon and a soup ladle, gradually getting the mouse to the top of the pipe only to see it jump off and drop back down.

In a moment of ingenuity, I decided to try sucking it up with the end of the hoover. It was either this or give up and let it starve in the pipe. I set-up the hoover and switched it to low power. I pushed the end down into the pipe and low and behold the mouse became attached to the end. The look on its face as it rose out of the hole and into the night was a picture. Once out, we let it go unharmed and it ran away into the night with a story to tell its family. I suspect our recent shrew did likewise. 

Meet Gary - he is not quite as he seems

During the week we popped out to our local town. As we came out of the car park we waited to cross the road with a couple and their large dog. Then I looked again and realised they were actually taking their pet goat out for a walk as if it were a dog. It walked like it had been trained properly and it didn’t appear to struggle or be frightened of anything, but everything it came across it immediately tried to eat. For example, rubbish including plastics, vegetation and everything else it could chew.

This caught people by surprise as they walked up the high street. People would look at the goat and then look again when they realised what it was. Then they would walk up to it and try to pet it, at which point it tried to eat their clothes while they were still wearing them. I hate to think how many people had their favourite summer outfit ruined by a few well-placed teeth-marks and a dose of goat spittle.

Good morning, I need feeding

Our two cats are very friendly. So friendly that they feel the need to wake me up each morning to go out at 4.30am and then again at 5 or 6am for feeding and finally to go to sleep on the bed. Being half wake I am a bit robotic about this and I do as they request without thinking about it. If I don’t do as they ask, I get a paw or claws in the face or one of them plays at being in the Olympics and runs around on the bed as if he has ants in his pants.

On Tuesday morning one of the cats went through this routine and came onto the bed as usual to hunker down and sleep. I opened one bleary eye to look at him. His head was about 12 inches from mine.

He suddenly went into coughing mode at which point I opened both eyes fearful that I was about to wear his dinner. A long tail shot out of his mouth towards me like a rogue piece of spaghetti. Before it had completely left his mouth he sucked it back up and it was gone. This definitely felt like something pretty bizarre. 

Mildly disgusted, I decided that getting up was the better choice at this point and I let him go to sleep. Thankfully, no further coughing incidents took place.

Hello - I’m from next door

My final story this week is about a duck.

I have mentioned in previous weeks that our cats are keen duck hunters and will watch from the bank of a pond or lake for hours to try to snatch one from its mother.  One cat in particular seems to be able to make himself invisible enough that they sail right up to him like a Tom and Jerry episode.

As I was working in my study one of the cats was asleep on the chair next to me. The cat flap slapped as the other cat entered the house. The cat that was sleeping, awoke and jumped off the chair and walked into the hall to see what had come in. Watching him, I quickly became aware that something was up as he did a double take and the eyes nearly popped out of his head.

I got up and looked down the hall to see the other cat walking down with a medium sized duck in its mouth.

I raced down the hall and chased him into a bedroom where he hid under a chair with his prey firmly in his grasp. I picked the chair up from over him and he dropped the duck onto the floor. It was very much alive and unharmed.

I snatched it from him and stood up. The cat jumped up to try to snatch the duck back and knock it out of my hands. I walked out of the room and locked both cats in the house as I went outside with the duck in my hands, one round its neck so it couldn’t get away and the other supporting its back, legs flapping at this stage to try to get away.

It was at this point I realised I had no idea where it had come from, and therefore what was I going to do with it. The neighbour has a big pond on one side so I wondered over to see if there was a family of ducks there. A family of moorhens, but no ducks. 

I couldn’t just let this duck go as it was not completely formed and couldn’t fly, so the cats would get him again, and we would go through the same exercise later.

The neighbour the other side has a large lake, and a conference centre / restaurant where they have large functions. He is bound to have a family of ducks I thought. I walked around and looked into the lake. It is so large that you can’t see the end of it from one side. I couldn’t see any ducks, just some little grebes diving for fish.

I needed to go into the conference centre and find out. As I walked across the forecourt and into the reception area I was spotted by the corporate customers who were currently having dinner in their restaurant and several people stood up and came to the window. At this point I realised what I must look like, standing there in my best gardening clothes full of holes and covered in various stains and carrying a medium sized duck, legs flapping, into reception.

As I came to the counter I said calmly, “I’m from next door”. The man on reception looked at me, then looked at the duck and was struck dumb. He was the chef, obviously taking his break on reception.

“Do you have any ducks in your lake?”, I said without explaining myself properly. Again he looked me up and down and then turned and walked quickly into the room behind without saying a word. Within seconds the heads of two people dressed for reception appeared in the window of the door. Seeing the obvious respectability of the person stood before them, they came out.

I then managed to explain what had happened and they looked less concerned. “Ask the lady next door”, they said, and pointed me in the direction of a small cottage on the edge of their car park.

I set off for the cottage. The duck had got used to me and was no longer flapping its legs and had calmed down. Maybe it knew what was coming.

As I knocked on the door, I thought of a better way to explain things, but before I could open my mouth the lady said, “There you are!”, looking at the duck. “I thought he had got lost as he hasn’t been here for a couple of weeks and escaped from the enclosure”.  The duck was known to her and was being brought up by a couple of chickens. 

She produced a box which she was going to fill with straw and place him under a heat lamp in order that he would be ok. Finally he was home. I suspect he will try to escape again when he gets a bit bigger.

All’s well that ends well, albeit a slightly weird way of getting him home.

That’s it this week, I hope you have a good weekend, they say the weather is improving again.