Rainy day

Firstly, I will point out that there are 18 photos today, but do not worry, I am going to say nothing about a lot of them and just waffle a bit in general as usual - no need to fall asleep just yet.

The forecast for today was for storms; the one that has been going on now for a couple of hours and is threatening to pull the plug on my electricity! I wanted to at least prepare an area in case I got the opportunity to buy a couple of chicks from the neighbour. Off I set, first thing with my coffee in hand and Rambo in tow to the enclosure to firstly bring the hay in that was cut the other day. So I laid it all out and I had the idea to use a couple of our buckets with broken handles as nesting spots. Half filled with sand and half with hay. It will do until Mr gets back and builds the coop.

Nesting area

As many of you will know from my whining on Facebook and Twitter, the water has been extremely unreliable here since I got back and I have been struggling between working too much in this heat and not having a shower available to get clean, so you can imagine my delight, after raking up and lifting and carrying and doing the watering round, that the water was on; albeit with low pressure. This was the result.

Bad hair day

It rained for most of the morning and I pottered around tidying up and getting the backlog of dishes and pots washed up. I did get outside after a break in the showers. This is the section that I will not drone on and on and waffle about stuff I don't know. Here are a few of the wild flowers from the land. Pretty.

Breakfasting beetle

Raindrops

Wild and hairy

After all the damage caused by the snow over winter it gave me great pleasure to find that the lone pear tree on the back of the land was growing fruit again!

First pears

Pink delight

Amongst the grasses

We do have a lot of insects here and I have gotten used to them, except for the big hairy spiders. If I find what has been munching my sunflower though, it may be a goner!

Devoured

The storm held off longer than predicted and in between showers I decided to tidy the porch and Rambo's bedroom (inner porch) as I have seen mouse and rat droppings on the outer porch every day for the last couple of weeks. It is hard to keep anything clean and/or tidy here between Rambo and his shedding hair and the workmen. I also have my moments myself - the Mr would have killed me had he seen all the gardening tools in there. But I got it sorted after a while and in between Rambo trying to grab the broom from me. Strange dog.

Clean bedroom

Clean Ranbo terrace

After the winds today I am going to have to rethink my haystack. Never mind, it was only a makeshift idea. I will leave all that design stuff to someone with the patience for it.

Unsuccessful

 This afternoon I went for a walk to find Little Lady and talk to her about the chicks. I found the chicks straight away and this one seemed to be doing yoga.

Fit bird

I spent a little time looking at it and considering how small it still was. Perhaps they are too young just yet, I will have to check. Little lady didn't seemed to be around and I turned to leave and suddenly I had five chicks all around me. Every stp I took they followed. In the end I waited until they got far enough away and I slinked off. Apparently I am not slinky enough, they literally ran after me and down the lane. So funny watching their little legs go so fast!

Stalked

The storm had threatened most of the day but mostly skirted around us. This did not look appealing at all.

Storm

Bizarrely, at around 2pm the drainage guys turned up. A van dropped them off and they set to work. I was very surprised given the forecast and the fact that they would have been stuck here in the storm until someone collected them again. However, the rain thankfully stayed away and they cracked on with filling in some of the trench.

Front trench out

 Perhaps now the grass can start to grow again.

Garden repair

I have a load more photos of the trenches for the Mr to see, but I won't post them all here. He can see them when he gets back from Islay and the whisky festival; which I have to report, despite the weather, he and Thelma and Louise are thoroughly enjoying!

I will leave you tonight in a hurry as the storm is still going and i am afraid of not getting this posted. So here is a random poppy to make you smile.

Leka nosht.

A x