Crystal Ball

The sun is shining, hooray, how long it will last who can say

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Let me gaze into my crystal ball; I don’t imagine this instrument is called a crystal ball, but a quick poke about on the ‘tinternet’ didn’t find me it’s scientific name, its a device for measuring the number of hours of sunshine, I found it in the grounds of Chatsworth house, next to the Stevenson screen.

As an indicator of how damp the atmosphere has been around here of late, and I can’t ever recall it happening before, our bedroom and bathroom doors wont close properly  (the wood has swollen) and the  jug of dried poppy heads at the top of the stairs has started to go moldy. We resist the temptation to put the heating on to dry the place out a bit,( it’s not cold just damp) the fact that the last delivery of heating oil was at a rate of 60p a litre (the lowest we have ever paid was .08p a litre) is incentive enough to leave it switched off.

The field has been cut today

The Grass is Greener

The grass is greener on the other side of the fence, err no the grass is a rubbish crop  this year which ever field you are standing in, our meadow still hasn’t been mown, the weather has not been fit, looking at last years blog post on the topic I can see that last year it was cut on the 24th of August, and that was a month later than the previous year, 2006, at this rate in a few years time, Simon the farmer will be hanging tinsel and mistletoe  in the cab of the tractor when haymaking.

But it is no joke, the best they can hope for now is making silage not hay and that will be of dubious quality, meadow grass doesn’t stand around patiently waiting to be mown, this years poor summer grass has seeded and started to die back whilst other scraggy grass is forcing up through it, making a dense thatch of grasses and weeds; if your dogs coat has ever become matted you’ll perhaps know what I mean, it’s the nearest I can think of to describe it. Not only has Simon got our 3 acres* to cut but another 12 of his own and one of his fellow farmers has only managed to get  enough fodder off his land to last him till the end of October, this is a serious and expensive matter (Simon’s dad, long since retired from farming, can’t sleep at night for worrying about it.)

The usual seasonal  farming routine is shot to ribbons, It’s been so wet that on Simons farm, the heap in the ‘muck midden’ is nearly as high as the barn, this should be spread on the fields, but its just too wet, the tractors will either trash the turf leaving large water filled scars across the fields, or  the machines will get bogged down, its not good, as other bloggers will tell you, and I wouldn’t ask Simon about the price of feed stuffs and fertilizers, he’s not a happy man.

* pasture needs managing, as we have no livestock our neighbour ‘cuts and mucks’ the field for us each year,he gets the hay we get the field looked after, it works well for both of us.

Wet Wet Wet

Well at least the fish are happy; we had 48mm of rain yesterday and a further 33mm since midnight, granted most of that was tattooed upon the roof around three am, it woke me, but it’s  been dry most of the day.

The drive into the yard continues to crumble under the force of the water, great deltas of silt and gravel and neatly stacked piles of leaves are all that left in the yard this morning.

The outdoor tomatoes look like they would like to book a week away in Spain or Greece.

Mr Uhdd is staying in a tent in Scotland with Tom,(fortunately it isn’t raining up there) he ran the Ben Nevis fell race today, up and down in 2:06, not quite the time he wanted, but there was no more to give; Mr and Mrs Laid back runner are with them and he met  up with my fellow blogger Sarah from Aberdeen, her man was running too.  Usually we all go to Fort William for a few days, however this year the race has fallen so that the boys are already back at school and Joe declared, (he is not as keen a traveler as Tom) that he did not want to spend 16 hr of a weekend in a car so we have stayed at home, the last I heard they were going for an Indian meal, *sigh* I’ll go and look what we have in the fridge.

Dull, dull, dull.

The garden is as dull as dishwater, the flower beds save for a couple of clumps of battered phlox are flowerless; the hydrangeas have not flowered, not sure why. It needs a good tidy but I lack the motivation because I can now only envisage it dying back, there is no promise of things to come before winter (even the michaelmas daisies are nought but a few sprigs this year.)

The one blast of colour we do have, is a plant pot of ladybird poppies, but its one small pot in an ocean of green.

when we went away, they were straggly little runts of seedlings, I’d left them in the barn for too long, but whilst we were away, they took care of themselves and put on a bit of a show; I love poppies, but up until this year I’ve had little success growing them (I always thought that they would grow ‘anywhere,’ but not for me) it seems the bees like them too.

Micro Climate

A summer storm, thunder that ricocheted between the hills, rain whose quantity and  force, lifted drain covers, split tarmac and left delta’s of debris across the lane. As the storm rolled away, wisps of cloud remained  amongst the trees, or so I thought.

This feature of our weather is something  I have been hoping to catch on the camera for quite some time now, today it came good, me, the camera and the weather in the same place at the same time, but in the time it took me to get out of the car and get the camera out of the bag, the mist was gone; bum, I’d missed it. But I stood and watched some more and to my surprise new mist formed, it  seemed to be  oozing  out of the trees.

I can only think that rather than this being the remains of the storm clouds, that it might be that the warm air that preceded the storm, was trapped amongst the trees and that the warm air was now rising up from the woods, condensing in the cool fresh air that was sweeping up the valley after the storm, forming it’s own  wee clouds .

Am I right? please, are there any meteorologists out there? I’d love to know.

Bad feather day

The chickens have lost the plot; one is broody and appears once a day to eat, drink and emit strange clucking sounds (that drive the dog demented) before disappearing back into her hidy hole in the barn for the next 23 hours. The oldest  and matriarchal ‘Thing One’ has now just about run out of eggs,

 

she has access to all the egg building foods she needs, but she has simply run out of shell (HRT for chickens?) occasionally she lays us a ‘wind egg’ an egg with out a shell; I have been trying to photo one of these strange eggs for a while, but rarely do I find one intact; in an incontinent, old bird sort of way, she is not fussed where she drops them. I found this one one the barn floor, an egg with out a shell, just a membrane, its soft, squishy and translucent.

I tried to get a very arty back lit photograph to show you but failed dismally, when I clumsily broke the ‘egg’

But I hope you can see how delicate it was.

The other chucks are going into their annual moult, they have been looking scruffy for some time, and a new set of feathers is much needed, even way back, when there was snow on the ground, one of the white leg horns was not as white as she like to think she is. (notice the pink hue around her neck, that’s another story, that is yet un-blogged)

If it ever stops raining, I’ll bring you photographs of these disheveled birds.

Wet Weekend

It’s over two decades since I last went camping, I’m not sure how this came about, I used to go a lot, it just sort of happened; my first observation is that the ground has got a lot harder that it used to be, I am going to have to upgrade from my ancient graffiti covered carry mat, if I want a decent nights sleep. UK readers will know that the weather has been the pits this weekend, but somehow we seemed to have our own protective force field and whilst great swathes of the country had appalling weather, it only rained on us during the night, granted it hammered it down then (ear defender’s would have been handy) but the tent held up against the onslaught

Shedding water like the preverbal ducks back

Joe Tom and I had expertly pitched  it at the top of of a bank, not the bottom ( the girl guide is still in me somewhere and I’m glad we had a ‘practice pitch’ in the privacy of our own garden the day before)   this was a shrewd move. But it was still  wet with or without the rain, it  was billed as a ‘Water Weekend’ and it seemed the boys were never out of the water unless it was to eat sausages from a seemingly endless BBQ.

When I poked my head out of the tent on Saturday I thought the lake had a pod of porpoises leaping through the water, it turned out to be a couple of dozen wet suited triathlon athletes doing a few laps of the lake before breakfast, each to their own I say. (note to self, get  my eyes tested again very soon)

We had fun, I  don’t think it will be long before we go camping again.

Fish and Chips

Fish and chips, steaming hot, crisp batter and lots of salt and vinegar, eaten al fresco  sat on a bench at the quay side; hard to beat and as far as I am concerned the ultimate fast food. Bought from a shop with the wonderful name of ‘The Cod Father’ in the town of Kingsbridge. My beverage of choice for such a feast, a can of Irn-bru, replete.

It’s ‘Salcombe Regatta’ week, as well as boat races there is a program of jolly activities, from racing through mud, children’s crab fishing competitions, wrestling on greasy poles and heavens above, Salcombe is also following in what must now be  a rising national trend in teddy abuse, by  throwing teddy bears from belfries: yesterday morning saw the ‘harbour swim’ it looked a little fresh to me; brrr but then I am a total wuss about cold water.

Help was on hand, from the RNLI Lifeguards, for those who had ‘bitten off more than they could chew’

Technorati Tags: Salcombe Regatta, Irn-bru, fish and chips, Kingsbridge

Summer special

Some of our ‘beach friends’ have gone home today and we are missing them already; Joe’s best friend Peter is going to stay on with us (they only see each other once or twice a year at most, but they keep on touch playing ‘Runescape’ on line)  and we will ‘drop him off’ at the services on the M5 on the way home, where, hopefully his parents will be waiting for him, if everything goes to plan.

It has been so easy going and  sociable, with three families staying in holiday lets close to each other,  we’ve shared the child care, cooking, washing up and all piled in to the biggest lounge to watch films on rainy days, as well as messing about on the beach in the sunshine.

 

  As well as Peter, our friends have left the remaining contents of the fridge, we tried hard on the previous evening to ‘clean up’ with  a veritable feast, concocted from left overs, but  two  ‘lucky dip’ carrier bags remained (it’s a bit like a summer special of ‘Ready Steady cook’, all I need is a chef)  perishable foods that they weren’t able to take with them on their onward journey, so has anyone a recipe for the following ingredients?

Clotted cream (large quantity)

Ice cream (half a tub)

Orange (one)

Bacon (two rashers)

Olives (half a tin)

Shallots (three)

Reflections on a Picnic

We have a tradition on holiday of going by boat for a picnic,

this year we had to be a bit flexible as we are an inflatable short so we couldn’t get everyone safely on the water at once (we usually fix an outboard motor on the back of a sailing dingy and tow the inflatable behind it, you can spend an awful lot of money messing about with boats, but we are definitely  at the economy end of the market)  Our party numbered 16 in total, so some went by road, which was a bit of a shame because it’s just not the same, we go to a little village called South Pool, it’s chocolate box pretty.

 

The planning of the expedition goes on all week, it’s all very ‘Swallows and Amazons’) you have to catch the tide right, to get as far as possible up the creek, thus avoiding the mud and arrive at  a time when the pub is open, as a beer or a cider is found to enhance the picnic, for the grown ups at least.

Below is ‘Glebe Farm’ you can find farms of this name all over England, it’s a name that was given to land which belonged to parish, the revenue from the farm  contributed towards the income for the parish expenses

The children had great fun trying to catch the leaping fish as they came up the creek on the tide, they were unsuccessful in catching them, just as I was in trying to photograph the silver flashes of fish.