All creatures great and small

14 Cabbage White caterpillars

Those stoic few of you who visit our blog will know that Coco and I love all things living that come to our garden be they welcome guests or otherwise. 

Some unwelcome visitors are the Cabbage White caterpillars that have stripped our Brussel sprouts almost back to the roots.

Mature Cabbage White caterpillar

But that said, we do enjoy watching the butterflies meandering through the garden and of course the butterflies and caterpillars are part of the food chain and they keep the birds coming to the garden.

Some other pesty critters are the wasps, although despite there being hundreds of them we have remained unstung so far. 

Jarvis

In a morbid kind of way the wasp is a fascinating creature and to those of you who ask 'what use are they?' we would answer, they are the waste disposal units of the insect world.

We have two cats who are prolific hunters of small rats, mice and voles and they regularly leave remnants of mice on the lawn. 

The wasps dissect the remains and take relatively large chunks away with them, they also indiscriminately nibble every apple on our trees!

Bee and Hover Fly

Spider at night

Welcome visitors include spiders and all insects that remove the blackfly, whitefly, and other unwanted guests and of course the bees and hover flies that pollinate our plants.


We've had a few other exciting happenings at the garden,  I mentioned before the very poor quality shed we had delivered and sent back the same day. 

Our Hallgate timber shed

Well our new shed arrived from Hallgate Timber in Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, their website is www.hallgate-timber.co.uk.

Some of you will know that I am a carpenter by trade and if I was going to build myself a shed I would build one just like the one from Hallgate Timber.  The service was brilliant, the quality excellent, the price was good and it feels and looks right.

Sweetcorn

On the harvesting side of the garden we have been eating our own carrots, onions, potatoes, runner beans, purple kale, swedes, radishes and salad leaves for some time now.  But the highlight to date has to be our sweetcorn they are DELICIOUS!!!!!!

Coco eats them straight from the husk having peeled it like a banana.


Plant wise we have now put out our spring greens, which are a special request of Great Nanny Mero.  She has pestered us for ages to get some sown and ready for spring.

We also have some more peppers and chillis growing in the potting shed and waiting for the new poly tunnel to be put up.  It's on my list of high priority jobs to do.  Sadly above High Priority I have an Extremely High Priority list and above that a Very Extremely High Priority list.

Above that is the 'Nanny Southwellski Job list' that Coco and I are working our way through at the moment.  The only trouble is that when we finish one job for Nanny Southwellski she adds 2 more!

On a lighter note Coco's walking is improving every day and she seldom sits down and shuffles anywhere now, this has brought a whole new awareness on us that means we have to move everything to higher ground.

I'm a Nanny! Get me out of here!

When we show Coco something for the first time, be it how to eat a different food, put her shoes on or how a new toy works we generally show her how and what to do. 

Nanny Southwellski thought it would be a good idea to show Coco how to go through the play tunnel. It has taken nearly a week for her shoulder to get better.

You have to feel sorry for Walter

We 'knead' to do this properly!

Well you can't say that our Blog is mundane, it has humour, sadness, laughter, joy, frustration, philosophy and a glimpse at the life we Southwellski's lead.  In fact if it wasn't our blog I would still read it!

Coco and I have been busy this weekend, we had a baking session yesterday and made a whole farmyard of gingerbread animals and some home baked bread as well. 
 
Today has been no different to any other Southwellski day in as much as we didn't do the things we thought we were going to, and did something different altogether.

Today was the Wayland Show, the 137th as the banner above the livestock stalls reliably and proudly informed us.

A character?

It's a small show with a lot of character and a lot of characters.  We saw Knights on horseback, show-jumping, sheep judging, the West Norfolk hounds, carriages and brewers drays being drawn by wonderfully huge shire horses.  Makes you want to go back to those simpler times doesn't it?

Coco particularly liked the sheep, and the pigs because these were asleep and not snorting loudly like the Old Spots we saw when we visited Kadesh (an independent school we work alongside) a few weeks back.

Most of all Coco liked the fairground ride and we spent the rest of the afternoon going the long way round so that we avoided the rides and Coco pointing longingly at them and saying "this".

This is wheely great!

Coco's other favourite thing was the tractors, there were loads of them, more than you could point at and say 'this'.

So, poor Walter!  We stayed on until the end to see the 'Champion of Champions' our appetite whetted by the promise of a closely fought battle for best in show between the duck and the lop-eared rabbit!

Part of the pre amble to this ultimate event was the awarding of the trophies for 'Best Ginger Cake', Champion Grower from the horticultural show, Best Stand etc etc etc.

Then the MC got quite excited, he had something good to tell us about, would you believe of all things 'Young People'! How much more 'down with the kids' could he get?

He interviewed a teenage girl who was raising turkeys; another teenage girl who showed poultry; and then there was Walter a young man who worked as a gamekeeper on a local farm.

"What did you think of the gundogs Walter?" the MC asked, " they were alright" Walter replied.

"Will you be inviting them onto the farm Walter?", the MC went on. "They already come".

Knowing he wasn't going to get the better of Walter, the MC went on to announce which young person had won this years most enterprising young person award.  It was Walter!  Everyone clapped, his family who seemed to be sitting near us cheered.

The glory was short lived, the MC had read the results out back to front and the turkey girl had won.  There was a hush around the main ring.

Now, it is prudent when one has dug a hole and reached the bottom to stop digging. Not so if you are the MC at the Wayland Show.  Trying to make light of it he announced that it was 'sad' and that Walter would see the funny side as he was a 'Game-keeper!'  Walter got £50 pounds for his trouble and his 15 seconds of fame.

We wanted you to win Walter, and don't feel bad because we were cheated too;it wasn't a lop eared rabbit nor a duck, it was a rabbit that looked like a hare and a chicken!  'Fowl play' I hear you all shout!

We've added our names to the list of competitors for the horticultural show for next year, I reckon we would have won the longest runner bean contest this year and our potatoes would have given the winners a good go too.

There will be more pictures added when Nanny Southwellski shows me how to get them off her computer.

It's a funny old world

Moody or what?

It's also a very beautiful world if you take the time to have a proper look at it.  I never tire of looking at the sky when I am in the garden.

Tonight it was definitely moody and although I never actually caught sight of the sun, it was making it's presence felt.

Daytime or night, there is always something to see, be it the stars, the sunrise, the sunset or just the clouds.

Last night the Milky Way was there for all to see in all it's glory.

There are of course so many things of beauty in the garden all year round.  I discovered a Deadly Nightshade plant in with the potatoes tonight.  What a beautiful plant!  It's in the incinerator now ready to be disposed of.

Runner beans are one of my favourite crop producing plants flower wise, I love the contrast between the calm green leaves and the vibrant red flowers.

Our beans have not been great so far, but as Terry on the Radio 2 allotment said his are all behind as well I don't feel so bad.

Our dinner this evening was home produced with the exception of the meat.  I made an apple sauce from our Bramley windfalls.

I know, throw your hands up in horror. You shouldn't eat the windfalls!  When I was a kid going round the fruit farms of West Norfolk with Great Grandpa Southwellski in his lorry, we used to get given bag full's of windfalls which Great Nanny Southwellski turned into pies and crumbles and I'm still here.

I was pleased it rained today, quite heavily at times and yet when I was out in the garden around 8.30pm the soil just below the surface was bone dry and that's after 6 - 7 hours of rain!

How to stay dry Scarlett style

Never mind, I find watering up quite therapeutic.

You will, if you've read my blog before, know how much we love our dogs and how much they mean to us.

Lou, our 17 year old Rottie cross has aged rapidly in the last 3 -4 days and both Nanny Southwellski are preparing ourselves for the inevitable heartache when she goes.

She has always been a very nervous dog and has only really relaxed in the last year since she went deaf.  Now sudden noises don't worry her and she has started eating normally even during bonfire night and thunder storms blissfully unaware of anything.

We have had a bit of a love hate relationship with Lou over the years but she is very loyal and always with us despite our shortcomings.

She has had her moments such as when she refused to let 3 travellers move after they tried to come in through the back entrance to one of our building sites.  That was at the height of her nervousness, but she was showing none of that on this particular occasion.

We have to help her in and out of the house now, it's no problem and she seems happy enough just to be with us in the study or laying out in the sun and while she is clearly not suffering she will remain part of our family.

 Our apple tree is laden with fruit and I mean laden.  They are also ready and Coco and I have now replaced our morning constitutional to the peas with a trip to the apple tree, scrummy!

We went to the opticians today, our eyes are healthy enough apparently it's just that we can't see.

I saw an advert a while back for a national chain of opticians where a young boy is running round the house like a looney and bouncing on the sofa.  His father then comes through and finds his mangled specs down the back of the sofa. Off to the opticians.  Now why would anyone choose the same glasses as Brains on Thunderbirds?  Does he not know what a berk he looks? Did he do it for a bet?

I chose a simple pair and as long as they don't fall off my head and people don't point at me they will do fine.

When they arrive next week, who knows this might start to make sense.

A whole load of firsts

First Cauliflower

I actually saw this for the first time this evening and I have been checking my caulis for the last few weeks and missed them, good job Nanny Southwellski and I are off to the opticians tomorrow.

Do you know who I bumped into the last time I was at the opticians?  Everyone!

We had a very special visitor to the garden on Sunday, in fact we had special visitors all weekend and I had a very able trainee poultry manager in Ed Waldren the son of some good friends who, despite allegedly not liking chickens at all spent much of his time here in the chicken run.

In fact the eggs didn't even settle in the straw before they were delivered to the kitchen.  Good job Ed!

Ed was accompanied by his younger brother Archie who ran the dogs ragged all weekend and his parents Sal and Alan and we really enjoyed them being here. 

Our other special guests were Norga and Carlos, distant relatives on Nanny Southwellski's side of the family.  They came all the way from Bolivia just to visit the garden, oh, and go to some meetings in London and Norway while they were here. 

Carlos was the Bolivian Ambassador to the UK and is now involved in a global youth project encouraging young people into business.  Now other than Ed and Archie, guests just don't get any more important than that.

French Breakfast Radishes

The other firsts include my French Breakfast radishes which are soooooooo much milder than the burn your mouth vindaloo style radishes we had earlier in the year.

I couldn't give them away!

Peppers, no really!

I'm a Cucumber, not a cactus!

In the poly tunnel it's all happening too, we have cucumbers and peppers starting to appear and the tomatoes I planted in the tunnel some 4 weeks after planting out the outdoor ones have overtaken them already.


Now I am sure there was another first today, now what was it?

Only kidding, Coco took her first proper steps today and as soon as someone shows me how to upload a video from my mobile I will put it on here!  We are all so proud of her, now to get her name down for a paper round!