Henrietta, Pet66, MrsAverage and David C
Many thanks for the compliments on my gardening efforts. I was under the naive belief that once a garden was thrashed into shape it would kind of look after itself with just a bit of weeding once in a while. Fat chance!
I spend about two hours a day at least (in bits & bobs of time) weeding, dead heading, watering, etc, etc, etc…. it’s never ending!
Just as well I really enjoy being in garden; it really is very calming for some reason. Even when I’m jumping up and down in frustration over say the bind weed, I jump up & down calmly. When I yell at my begonias for being such wimpy ones in comparison to the stout bushy ones outside the library, I accuse them nicely.
When I castigate my solitary (so far) blue moon rose for being such a traitor by being a really washed out looking pink instead of – at the very least – a blueish mauve I did so gently and then promised to feed it with my Vitex Hydrangea Colourant (for changing pink hydrangeas to blue) which I duly did.
However, either my pink blue moon rose didn’t like being castigated (even gently, the wuss) or it didn’t like the Vitex stuff because it went all droopy on me. And it’s STILL a horrible dirty washed out dingy pale watery pink colour. But I went all Zen on it, and forgave it for being so bloody awkward. Next time I feed it with the Vitex stuff I won’t double-up the amount. Maybe it just needs normal strength Vitex? Even just a tinge of blue will do…. For now!
Pet66,
The birds will come, I promise you. And you don’t have to go to the extremes of creating special sanctuary’s for them either. SM has compared me to the bloke from ‘Close Encounters of a Third Kind’; the one who obsessively sculpts mini-mountains out of mashed potato to attract aliens.
My pondlet had one major fault. It killed local wildlife. Bit of a bummer that for a sanctuary. I awoke one morning only to find a dead rat/mouse in my pondlet. The poor bugger had fallen in and drowned. Those of a nervous disposition regarding death and/or mice/rats look away now.
The origins of my pondlet; an ancient stainless steel inset hand basin bowl found lurking at the bottom of mum’s garden chest.. It was its sheer polished sides that were so fatal to the luckless rodent.
SM: Why are you blow drying a dead mouse with your hair dryer?
Me: That’s just it. I don’t know if it’s a baby rat or a full grown field mouse, so I’m blow drying it dry or I’ll have to wait for ages for it dry in the sun otherwise before I find out.
SM: Fine! But why do you want it dry in the first place?
Me: So’s I can tell whether it’s a mouse or rat. I thought I already explained that.
SM: Let’s start again. How does blow drying that dead rodent help you identify it?
Me: Easy! According to the Rentokil website mice have hairy tails and rats don’t. Plus mice have bigger ears proportionately than rats and whiter under-bellies too. And smaller feet….
SM: But how does blow drying it help….
Me: I’d have thought that was obvious. It was soaking wet when I fished it from my pondlet so I can’t actually tell about its tail or ears as its hairs and fur are clinging flat to it. Plus being wet means its colouring is darkened so I can’t tell about its underbelly colour either.
SM: I can see there’s a certain logical madness in your method, but why blow dry it through a chip pan?
Me: I’d have thought that was obvious too. So’s Nelson doesn’t nick it if I need to go inside to answer the phone or go to the bog or something.
SM: Who the hell is Nelson?
Me: Nelson’s that albatross sized gull that come to our garden. Dad called him that after the seagull from the car insurance advert. I’m happy to chuck him the dead rat mouse when I’ve identified it….. Bugger! I can see now it’s dry that it’s a field mouse…. It’s definitely got a hairy tail and its ears are still huge… and a whitish underbelly too.
SM: What difference does it make whether it’s a rat or mouse?
Me: I couldn’t give a monkey’s if my pondlet drowns baby rats, but I’m not allowing it to drown innocent little field mice too. I shall have to build a ladder for my pondlet so’s they can climb out if they fall in.
SM: Why don’t you build them a water slide and diving board while you’re at it! Maybe some mini sun loungers so they can dry off after their dips? Perhaps some courtesy sun tan lotion too?
Me: Don’t be silly; that’s going to extremes. Besides, I don’t think they’d know how to use diving boards or sun loungers properly and why would mice need sun tan lotion? They’re covered in fur…. A water slide might be a good idea though.
As it turned out I built neither a ladder nor a water slide for my pondlet. But I did build steps for it made by gluing broken tiles together scrounged from next door as they were replacing their roof.
My carefully worked out tile steps glued together.
My tile steps in situ.
Just one problem. I came back to the pondlet sanctuary area a few hours later to add yet another bird feeder. The water in the pondlet had gone all whitish and cloudy; a bit like Cleopatra’s fabled baths of asses’ milk.
I’d used Unibond’s ‘No More Nails’ to glue the steps together without realising it re-dissolves if immersed in water. I’d progressed from drowning wildlife to potentially poisoning it instead!
I hadn’t read the instructions properly, but even so! The useless stuff shouldn’t re-dissolve ESPECIALLY as I’d left it to both set and fully cure for over 48 hours before putting it into the pond. Serves me right for not reading the instructions first.
I had to strip the whole lot out, thoroughly wash down both the steps and pondlet, and re-glue the steps back together again. I used car body filler the second time. No chance of that re-dissolving itself as it’s designed to withstand being assaulted by oil and petrol let alone a bit of poxy water.
However, it was worth the extra time and effort for I also have proof positive that my new steps do indeed saves local wildlife lives. I haven’t managed to capture mice scrambling up my pondlet’s steps with my very basic mobile phone camera. But I have managed to capture about the only local wildlife my camera could handle, as follows:
A boring photo, but take note of the snail under the water by the top of my steps on the right hand side as you look at the photo.
Half way up my ‘Stairway Not to Heaven.’
“Cheers for that, Saj. Your tastefully terracotta steps saved my life.”
It’s nice to pretend to be appreciated, even if it’s just by a snail!
I LOVE those photos of the snail, it’s so cute. I hate the word cute but it’s the best one I can come up with.
I decided not to chuck it over the back wall as a thank you. Plus after saving its life via my steps (I’m assuming here that snails can’t breathe under water and drown) it seemed a shame to go and then kill it.
I didn’t tell dad that. He thinks I killed it as he hates snails. Wish I had now seeing as what those gluttonous sods did to my busy lizzies. Or was that the slugs? Same difference minus the shells.
Maybe I should’ve taken MrsAverage’s advice, “it's good therapy isn't it?, takes the hate out on slugs and feel the good spirits of previous gardeners whom have all added to the soil over the year's.” And killed the shell bedecked slug after all. Mind you, I’ve chucked so many over the wall since then that I suspect I already have. All it got was a temporary stay of execution. Oddly enough, I hope not.
SM in his wisdom thinks my gardening is good for me as he often intones, “gardening is a most noble pursuit.” A pursuit, by the way, which he most assiduously avoids, noble or not. He’s less keen on my interest in Monty Don though.
SM: Monty Don says this, Monty Don says that. He’s a bloody gardener for god’s sake NOT a guru.
Me: You’re just jealous cause he looks better than you in wellies and braces.
SM: That’s a back-handed accolade I can happily live without, thank you very much! You do realise he’s just a heavily marketed middle-class woman’s man tart. I bet when the cameras stop rolling he drops those secateurs as if they were hot stones and the real gardeners then come in to do the real work.
Me: MEOW! Put those claws away, Mr Catty. Who are you to call me middle-class? I’ll have you know that I’m classless.
SM: You said it!
Me: MEOW again. What is your problem? You don’t hear me making a fuss about that goody, goody-two shoes bland blonde you’ve got the hot’s for from Waking the Dead, do you?
SM: If you’re referring to Dr Nicky Alexander she’s actually from Silent Witness….
Me: Same difference!
SM: and you confuse being a goody two shoes for being a lady. For your information she’s not a bland blonde but possesses a very delicate English rose type of beauty.
Me: English rose beauty my arse! She’s such a total drip she makes my sickly blue moon rose look like a Chelsea Flower Show winner.
SM: I’m surprised you haven’t tried to contact your gurning guru about that blasted rose of yours.
Me: The magnificent Monty does not gurn; he smiles wolfishly… a bit like you, actually. And how do you know I haven’t already emailed the Delicious Don through Gardner’s World about my rose?
SM: You Haven’t….. Have you?
I haven’t; not yet anyway. What I’m definitely going to do is what Alexander_18021 suggested about using the freebie ‘Open Office’ software from the net instead of Microsoft’s Word.
I tried using MS’s Notepad. It actually has all the features I usually use bar the most important one. It doesn’t have a spellchecker, and I’m utterly lost without a spell checker. So, as far as I’m concerned, Notepad is a waste of hard drive space.
I tried installing Open Office myself; joined up and everything. But when I finally got to the bit instructing you how to install it I didn’t even understand the first instruction.
MS (as in my MS not Microsoft) had a go too but also failed.
I think he did that deliberately as he’s been pestering me for ages to change to his beloved Linex. If he can handle installing that monstrosity, he should’ve been able to manage Open Office? Bit of sabotage there methinks. He nuts about Linex and thinks Open Office is a Micky Mouse app. He would!
But all I want is the word processing equivalent to a small run about car for picking up some shopping, dropping the kids off at school and the occasional day trip out, NOT a double decker bus!
I barely use 10% of Word as it is. Come to think of it I don’t even know what 90% of Word actually does let alone use it. Does anyone actually know what the ‘Insert Table of Authorities’ tab means, never mind what it does?
So I’m getting my nephew to install what I want when he gets back from his well-deserved hols.
On a more up to date note, had a really busy week last week. Took dad to see a consultant about dad’s wonky knees on either Wednesday or Thursday; I forget which.
The appointment with the consultant went well. Dad’s knees are shot with hardly any cartilage left in them causing rubbing problems with bits free-floating around, with both problems causing dad considerable pain. It’s too risky for a full scale operation to replace his kneecaps but he’s going to have them cleaned out or something via micro surgery. He won’t be able to run for any buses after the op but will be in a lot less pain. So that’s good news.
The bad news is that he’s going to have to wait between 6 weeks and 6 months for the op, and when he’s had it he’ll be laid up for about three weeks. That means I’ll have to wait on him hand and foot till he’s mobile again. Still, if it improves his pain and general mobility it’ll definitely be worth it.
We also went to a funeral on Friday as one of dad’s many cousins had kicked the bucket. The funeral was one hell of a ‘do’, with a terrific party afterwards. The Irish, and their off spring, sure as hell know how to have a real knees-up of a wake. It turned out that my dad’s dead cousin was actually my dad’s dead uncle, making him my dead great-uncle not a second cousin, or a cousin twice removed. Can never remember which expression applies.
That’s the trouble with Catholics; they tend to have massive families. My dad’s dead uncle was actually younger than my dad as he was the youngest son from a family of 13 kids. In most ‘normal’ families aunties & uncles are a lot older than yourself, not a similar age or even younger; hence my confusion. For the first 10 – 11 years of my life I thought my dad’s youngest bro was my cousin instead of an uncle as he’s several months younger than my youngest bro. Weird or what?
Monday is my ‘ME’ day. I sacrifice it for no man, or woman, except for the direst of dire emergencies. I had a lie in till 6.30am and, after SM dropped me off, I spent the morning splitting my time between potting around the garden and working on Zygolex then off to me AA meeting.
I had the entire afternoon and evening to myself as SM, dad and bro’s were watching the world cup at some cronies place complete with barbeque. I have no interest whatsoever in the World cup so read and worked some more on Zygolex as it was too hot to garden. All on my lonesome…. BLISS!
On that happy note I shall sign off now.
Chow for now X
