If you have a garden, you're always busy - 300th post spectaculaaaaar!

Ok you got me, not really so spectaculaaaar, because mostly I've been painting things and I only just noticed that this is my 300th post. Not bad really considering I get pretty bored pretty quickly. I blame work and the fact that it forces me to spend so much time with seventeen year olds that I've accidentally adopted their attention span. That and I'm naturally really childish.

The greenhouse desperately needed a lick of paint - the old sage green was wearing off and we didn't want it falling to bits! I painted on lots of wood preserver before the colour to give it the best possible chance.

We started with slate grey Cuprinol as a base and added a little purple and black acrylic paint to make it a much richer colour. Classy, we thought.

It was pretty tricky painting the roof, (balancing one foot on the top rung of a ladder, trying not to fall through), and really it's best the photo's are from a distance because there is far more paint on the glass than there ought to be.

Still, it looks pretty in the photo's and that's one garden job done - there are always plenty more though!

Beccy

Sunny garden days!

It's been so wonderfully hot and sunny lately we can't stay out of the garden!

Unfortunately that usually means it gets worse before it gets better! Somehow every single pot with dead twigs gets dragged out from behind the greenhouse to be prodded and probed. Is anything alive in there besides vine weevils? A few sad bulbs? Or can we reclaim the beautiful pot for one of the three-hundred plants we seem to have acquired over the last few weeks!

Of course, it really is very hot so we usually end up making the yard clean and tidy first because that's the coolest place.

Don't get me wrong, I love sunny weather. It just makes me want to start things in the morning that I can't finish unless I want to frazzle to a crisp!

Beccy

Mostly sunny, shiny days around Yorkshire…

Millgate House in Richmond, Parcevall Hall near Pately Bridge, Skipton Castle, Beningbrough Hall near York, Cayton Bay, Scarborough, Tholthorpe.

Beccy

Building the hen run…

I’ve been trying to think of an Alcatraz/Colditz based hen pun but my tired brain can’t come up with one.

The thing is for a while now a couple of the hens have been regularly escaping. It was pretty easy for them because we’ve always had a Heath Robinson approach to run building and hens are really quite clever.

But this one is different. It’s taken quite a few weekends to plan and build the new run even though it’s a pretty basic frame because it’s an impenetrable fortress using fence posts, 2”x1” treated wood and chicken wire.

We’ve always had a lot of trouble with mud before (and hen churned mud can get really quite smelly) so after a bit of research I decided to put down a layer of weed-supressing membrane…

…and then a thick layer of bark chippings. The membrane allows water through but stops the hens churning the ground and the chippings sinking without a trace. It’s hard to tell from the picture above but the chicken wire extends across the floor of the run for half a foot and the membrane was laid over the top and pinned with lots of tent pegs.

We put boards around the edge of the run to stop the chippings from being kicked out by the hens and I had some big branches from when I cut the hedge which made perfect perches.

We kept the old gate, I just extended it upwards and added chicken wire. With any luck the hens won’t escape anymore although I did notice them walking along the fence tapping every few inches which reminded me of Jurassic Park.

So maybe they won’t escape, or maybe it’s just eggstremely (*sigh*) unlikely. I’ll keep you posted!

Beccy

Toadstools…

They started quite discreet…

But then they grew…

And grew…..

And grew…!

I thought that fly agarics were rare, or only grew in foreign lands. A quick google tells me they are rife and everywhere. Still, I’ve never seen one except in a picture book so I was pretty disappointed there weren’t more gnomes. Or any gnomes.

Luckily the hens didn’t seem interested in eating them, but something was definitely having a nibble – I think our resident slugs are having a whale of a time at the bottom of the garden! Either that or they’ve all poisoned themselves.

Either way, I’m not particularly interested in eating them. I just think they’re pretty. A friend issued a warning when I put these pics on Facebook – you’d better pick them before they spore or your garden will look like Super Mario Land!

That sounds awesome!

Beccy Ridsdel

Late Springtime!

I love late springtime – not quite as much as snow but I love it all the same.

The butterflies are all waking up…

More aquilegias than I can count flowering in the garden…

Fresh lilac on the table (my absolute favourite spring thing!)

And, erm, freak hailstorms. This is Britain people, and I live in a valley so we have crazy unpredictable weather! Honestly it pours down and then it’s blistering hot, so we usually end up having to water everything anyway.

In other news my pleurisy went away which is good, but I once again haven’t had much time for sewing. I’ve managed to shorten some jeans into capri-jeans which were great for the two really sunny days we had, and I think look pretty cute!

I’ve also been tarting up refurbishing a cabinet which involved totally re-glazing the doors and a painty makeover. Not finished yet, but watch this space.

Also, we had our friendly neighbourhood squirrel raid the bird feeder today. The only thing is, he then proceeded to bury the seeds all around the garden. We’re going to have a bumper crop of strange grasses this year!

Stupid squirrel.

Beccy

Snow!

Anyone who knows me will tell you I get ridiculously excited about snow. Even the prospect of snow makes me bang my palms together like a giddy toddler at a circus.

Well, we’ve been very spoilt the last two years with about a foot of snow from November until January. This year though has been a bit of a white Christmas washout.

Until today!

Woo! Ok, so there wasn’t much and it kept melting between showers. But we had enough for a snowman…

…albeit a Raymond-Briggs-end-of-The-Snowman snowman.

Even Billy came out for a brisk walk (we didn’t dump him in the snow because we thought it would be cute, honest)

He didn’t stay out long though!

All this will melt but more is due at the end of the week. Did I mention I love snow? Because I really love snow.

Beccy

A few sunny garden moments…

Only just sunny, but it was nice to be able to appreciate the flowers that are abundantly blooming before they are unceremoniously flattened by the rain.

Beccy