more rain...................

well it started fine this morning, with brilliant sunshine and blue skies all overhead. However, here we are at 11am and the rain is pouring down again. It's still very mild though so that's a bonus.It means I can have all the doors and windows of the cottage open wide to let the air in as the place stinks!! Not nasty stink as I  keep the place clean, but Archie The Pig, my English bull terrier got hold of the fabric spray I use to spray the dog bedding between washing, and crunched the bottle until the top popped off, then wandered through the house with it, spilling it as he went. Luckily it wasn't an aerosol!  I don't have any aerosols in the house at all because even the CFC free ones damage the environment, plus they are very expensive because 90% of the can is gas with only 10% product. So, instead of a delicate and subtle smell of lavender wafting through the house, it's eye wateringly strong.I think Archie The Pig has heard me complaining about his terrible wind (Piper the African grey parrot calls out "Arty Farty pig")and attempted to redeem himself.
I have to go out to the compost heap later and dig for worms. I have started to sell my 'red wiggler' worms on ebay and am having to hustle to keep up with the sales.I have 700 to pick and sort this afternoon so I hope the rain stops at some point. I do have a brilliant waterproof boiler suit I can wear to stay dry but if the weather is mild, I find myself feeling like I'm in a sauna. It may well keep the rain off but I am just as wet inside the thing when I start getting hot and perspiring.


If I manage to get a spare couple of hours, I hope it stays dry enough for me to get some more of the polytunnel frame erected. I am very keen to have it erected in order to be able to garden under cover,(it is a massive 32feet by 24 feet!) and as a plus, it protects my plants from the feral rabbits someone dumped in the field next to me which come and scavenge my guinea pig food, and also the little wild bantams which live down the bottom in the old goat paddock which is now my veggie patch. Neither rabbits nor bantams can be caught so I just have to live with their presence and protect the plants as much as I can by fencing, polytunnel and perhaps an electric net of some sort. I have seen some which are solar powered and this would be ideal for me.


I was in the large storage/potting shed portacabin yesterday watering the seedlings and noticed that even with the few bright mild hours we have had between torrential rain, the plants have responded and are eagerly growing.If I get a few minutes I'll take some of them down to the small greenhouse to give everything more space.

green, white and blue eggs from my chickens

Regardless of the weather, the chickens are laying very well. They have a large run with hedges surrounding and trees overhanging which is ideal for chickens, however, they and the guinea fowl have eaten all the vegetation. In winter I buy cabbages and apples in bulk for them and just tip them into the run for them to peck at as I feel they need fresh food as well as their pellets.In spring and summer I pick the dandelions and ground elder which grows in the tortoise garden and they get those. Dandelions are full of calcium which laying hens need.
I don't have a super tidy garden and prefer it to have a few weedy areas, not only for the tortoise but for insects and wildlife too.
 I don't panic about greenfly and blackfly either. Nature designed them to emerge just as baby birds hatch in the hedgerows. All baby birds need a diet of soft, moist, protein rich insects to grow up big and strong, and I have watched parent blue tits clinging to a rose stem and cramming their beaks full of aphids and fly off to feed the hungry youngsters in the nest, then return again within minutes to cram yet more into their beaks. Back and forth they went all afternoon. Now imagine  if I'd sprayed those greenfly with chemicals to kill them, and the parent birds had stuffed their nestlings full of toxic aphids. More wild birds are killed by chemical sprays than are killed by pet cats which can catch only one at a time, whereas nestlings being fed beaks full of poisoned aphids means that the whole nest of babies ends up dying. Your garden won't suffer too much if you have aphids. Leave them be. It won't take long for the wild birds to learn where there is a plentiful food source and they will sort out the aphids for you and not only will it not cost you a penny, but you can watch them doing all the work while you sit indoors with a cup of coffee.


I'm all for not making more work for myself if I can.I'm also all for not spending more money than I need to. To this end, I am planning things for the dog portacabin. I bought and had sited, a beautiful 22 foot by 9 foot portacabin, with lights and plug sockets for my grooming equipment, it's all insulated and has 2 rooms and lots of windows which open for fresh air. I have lots of chihuahuas which are hard to housetrain and I was constantly washing bedding and floors and getting stressed. So, having them out in the portacabin with a large dog run attached was a godsend for me. I bought a job lot of plastic barrels some years ago and when I'd got all the water butts I needed, I just stored them behind a shed. They are perfect dog beds. Laid on their side inside the portacabin, and filled with shredded paper, the dogs love them. However, shredded paper is quite expensive to buy in the quantities I use. A local person in the village collects newspapers for me and brings me bundles of them which I sit when I have a spare hour, and tear into strips and put into feed sacks ready to put into their beds. However, I was talking about gerbils to someone the other day and remembered a Gerbil I used to have named 'Silvia'. Whatever I placed into her tank was neatly shredded within hours. Since gerbils do not pee much, it was clean and dry. So a chain of thoughts started in my brain. Instead of shredding the paper all by hand, which is often very painful indeed due to the arthritis ,why not get a production line of gerbils shredding it for me? Today's newsprint is non toxic, being soya based so it won't harm them, and the gerbils will enjoy what they like doing best which is chewing things up, and I clean the tanks daily and get a supply of clean small paper shreddings. So I'm going to look in the shed where I store used cages and sort out some nice big ones to house a colony of gerbils. Free cage, free paper, free shredded paper and if I'm lucky I'll even find some gerbils which someone wants rid of due to lack of interest also for free.
 I also want to put a dog flap into the portacabin door but refuse to pay £30 or more for one. That sort of money can buy me lots of seeds. So I am working on a design to make one myself. I have all the timber I need to make a frame and am just trying to source a thick piece of heavy rubber which I'll sandwich between 2 frames, attached only at the top. The rubber will stop rain from driving in and will be heavy enough to stop draughts too. Then, once I have installed the little wood burning stove I have bought off ebay, they will be all lovely and snug no matter what the weather and I will be warm and comfy when I go out to brush and groom the dogs. The portacabin was also off ebay and only cost me £45.

Archie The Pig aka Arty Farty