A really pleasant surprise

Hello there and welcome back. Thank you all for reading this; it's always a pleasure to see how many people have thrashed their way through my ramblings on here. I do think you're all slightly insane but I mean that in the nicest possible sense. Anyway, onwards with the update.

Sunset snapshot

Dinner last night was an excellent paella which was so good it disappeared before I thought to get the camera out. We were sat again at our dinner table eating but it was just overcast and dull outside so we both thought there was no chance really of a good sunset. I hadn't quite finished the blog by the time dinner was ready so went back to doing it as A fed the puppies then took them outside for a run. She shouted me down to come see something and as I turned I was amazed at the sunset that had suddenly appeared so I grabbed the camera and snapped two shots through the window. Wow. You can't take your eyes off the sky for a minute.

Sun disappearing behind my favourite tree

It was time for us to put the chooks away for the night in their new hutch but as I walked up I again couldn't resist a photograph looking towards the sunset past my favourite tree. This has got what appears to be a bumper crop of pears on it despite the damage from the snow over winter which is really exciting to see. It wasn't too much hassle getting Kit and Kat into the coop; I caught one, passed it to A and then chased and caught the other and they were both locked in easily. Just before bed time we once again went outside to give the girls a run and were once more astounded at the numbers of fireflies all around. We are thinking that maybe because the grass has been left to go so long this has provided a habitat they were missing last year. Anyone got any better ideas?

Here it comes again

And so to bed and a relatively good nights sleep. I do recall waking at one point and seeing a gorgeous sunrise, getting up to get the camera, and then changing my mind before I had even reached the end of the bed. When I finally got out of bed, after A was already up and boiling the kettle, I decided I needed to get onto the balcony to capture what a glorious morning it was and I'm glad now that I did so. How can anyone not love that view?!

Sadly warped floor being removed

Before I did any paid work today, before I even had breakfast (but not before a cup of tea) I decided that I would clear the stuff on the landing for the museum. The best place to put it, we had decided, was in the lab room behind Sassy's room. Unfortunately over the winter the lovely parquet floor had completely lifted due to damp and heat and cold. It didn't take that long for me to pull the middle raised section out completely and now we have two big buckets full for firelighters and another load stacked on shelves in there as well. It's a shame to burn it in one sense but in another there is no better use for such excellent dry wood and we don't have enough of the pieces to re-lay it anywhere sensible.

Sassy stretching out

It did not take long to carry everything through into there, though I had forgotten what a mess that room is, and now it is waiting for time for us to go through it all and sort out what can be saved and what should just be binned. As I was cleaning up and shutting up all the doors I snapped a picture of Sassy stretched out behind the house I built her for winter last year that she never ever uses. She's so chilled out she didn't even pay any attention to me, though she wasn't very happy at being locked in her cage while I was carrying things through.

All my girls happily asleep

The bulk of the rest of the day was taken up, as per usual, with both of us glued to our desks working for money however we are careful to take breaks relatively regularly to keep the blood moving and also allow us to just enjoy being here.  It is not always the case, however, that a break involves moving as you can see here where A has stepped away from her desk, got Thelma sleeping on her lap, and has dozed off as well. Bless.

Fighting

We did attempt to keep the girls from jumping on the sofas however this proved way too much trouble and we found ourselves shouting at them a lot so A put a blanket up on one for them to use. They now sleep up there most of the day but sometimes they are up there and not sleeping as here, where a wrestling match is in full progress.

Chewing their stick and ignoring their toys

In the last of the pictures of the girls here they are chewing on a stick they found somewhere in the garage and brought upstairs to play with. They have already almost destroyed the new hand grenade toy I brought out for them to replace the one they destroyed at John's so it is good that they have other things which can entertain them.

Started to weed out the hugelkultur

Before starting work I decided to go out and let the girls have a run and for some reason the urge to weed the hugelkultur overtook so there I was pulling up weeds and filling the wheelbarrow with the results all before 8am. I got about 1/3 of the way along but this was the easy bit so it'll be another few efforts before it is ready to accept any produce at all. It looks very dry to be honest which is a shame as the whole point of the hugelkultur was to provide a moist environment without watering; maybe I haven't done it quite right?

So much corn is growing; how awesome will THIS taste!

I have been meaning to take a picture of the corn stand for a few days now so here it is. There are SO many heads on this it's amazing; A has done such a great job getting these to grow so well and my mouth is watering now imagining the BBQ we'll have when the first ones become harvestable. Next to them, just on the edge of the picture, are the two tomato plants she has grown from seed and they are also doing really well with flowers on them already.

We had noodles for lunch and spent the balance sat on the roof terrace in some very lovely sunshine however that proved to be the only time we would see any today. There was a breeze up which caused the parasol to rock alarmingly and I can't work out a way to secure it better without putting some wedges in where it fits into the base so I'll have to have a think about it. We ended up winding it down and laying in the full sun for most of it as it was too hard to relax with the swaying and creaking. At the end A cleared off the storage unit in Room 13 so we could pull it out into the corridor as we continue our drive to empty the room so we can tile the floor to keep the dust down.

Barefoot weeding once again

The rest of the day was taken up with working and at the end I was so tired I headed to bed for a half hour snooze and woke up an hour later feeling dead headed initially but then much better for it. A made me a cuppa and we went outside again with the girls to spend time with Rambo and once more I got the urge to jump into the hugelkultur and do some more weeding. My feet really are toughening up now we're back and I was barefoot for this and again I filled a wheelbarrow.

Copulating snails

While I was pulling out some of the worst weeds I saw what I thought at first was a weird shaped mushroom but closer inspection showed me it was two snails who were up against each other and probably having sex. We also disturbed an ants nest which Louise was straight into eating them until she was covered in them and I had to grab her and brush them off her. They were both loving it out there, bouncing around in the long grass and chasing each other and generally having a really fun time. Lucky puppies.

This one is doing REALLY well!

A went wandering down towards the raised beds where the olive trees had been for some reason while I was doing this and suddenly she shouted me over to see something. When I got there I could hardly believe my eyes. One of the trees, which had been totally broken by the snow, had green leaves coming from it! I immediately set about removing all the undergrowth from around it so we could give it a good chance to survive; after the winter we had one tree out of four is quite a good success rate.

Even the dug up one has green leaves!

But there was more! We went from one bed to the next and found that we didn't just have two, or even three, survivors but even the one which had been dug up by the intruder who tried to buy Rambo off with bread has green things coming from its base! How amazing is that! It turns out that at this stage all four of our olive trees are still alive. I replanted the uprooted one and we cleared out the beds and watered them all and now we will cross our fingers and hope that the recovery continues. This is the really pleasant surprise I was referring to in the title.

Rambo is back to being fit and healthy again

And so it comes to evening and I have fed Rambo (the first time I've done so since being back) and he really does eat slowly now. It's very strange because the dog I've known for years has wolfed his food down with barely time for him to breath. We also got some time to be outside again before our own dinner was ready and I snapped a picture of Rambo for you to see; he is a very happy dog even if he eats slowly now.

I'm going to wrap this up now and go outside with the puppies.