THE RAIN STICKS, HOPE COMES

I am not going to mention the rain again, you me and everyone is bored with the subject - hang on - I've just mentioned it - d***!
I am wondering if its is all the fault of my Chilean rain stick.

R has been out with the power washer - power washing the paving. I have started the weeding and clearing up and shifted a barrow load of the old manure - my back is not what it was - partly as I was trying to push the barrow with a half flat tyre - and the old muck is wet and heavy. 
The wagon has been to collect the mowers for servicing.

Today, Wednesday, has been a good day - rain due but not yet. The sun shone this afternoon and we are all confused as to what is this strange light in the sky.

 Now to some house planty bits with pics of the poor ailing things. Poinsettia still surviving me on the left and a Peruvian lily on the right that has needed potting on months ago. 
Then on the right is the lemon scented geranium that comes in for the winter. I hacked this back last spring but it is doing okay.
However the streptocarpus on the left, also needing repotting, got overwatered as we were both topping it up and a lot of the leaves went yucky so I cut them off. It is in recovery mode.

 This is the window in the utility where I stick odd stuff, blue salvia on the left, then dead parsley, a small Hydrangea Annabelle alive and sprouting and two amaryllis almost at the end of their build up for next years flowering.

R has developed the habit of announcing that the moorhen is back on the pond by saying she can see the mallard. There are differences - one could eat a mallard but a moorhen would be very scraggy.

So what does one do when it is raining outside - eat. sleep, tv, write blogs, muck about and read. It is such a shame Harry Bosch is now a pensioner. I have just finished an amazing book - Joshua's Story by James Titcombe - traumatic reading of how the death of his son began a road through the minefield of NHS and political bureaucracy to change the way the NHS works.

Now I am reading The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks about a disappearing way of life in The Lake District. I grew up on a sheep farm though was never going to be a shepherd but recognise much of what he describes.
At the moment we have a movement for the wilding of the fells, the removal of the sheep - and of a way of life that certainly dates back to the Vikings and maybe many thousands of years further. In the end it may be achieved because hill farming cannot pay.

The outcome may be that wilding comes but with it the landscape loved by visitors will change for ever as fields disappear to be replaced by more upland woods. And these woods will reach up onto the mountains obscuring the views.

The tree fellows (fellers?)(both) are cutting down a neighbours huge evergreen and we will have a much better sight of the bay.



And then suddenly, after a dark wet morning, the sun comes blasting from behind a cloud. I walk up the garden, treading carefully on the gravel paths, and see new growth - snowdrops pushing through the leaf litter, buds braking on the flowering currant and there is light everywhere. The trees are full of finches and tits; robins, dunnocks and blackbirds scrabble around searching for food.
Of course it does not last, soon it darkens over and rain returns but now I can see into the future and how it might be.

The paving needs repointing so got a man coming to quote Tuesday - cannot do it until weather better though.

It is raining again.

RESOLUTION NO.9, NO. 9, NO. 9. . .

Apologies to the White Album.

So we proceed through the winter. Today is Wednesday 30th December and rain is lashing on my window, the eucalyptus is almost bent double and gutters are overflowing. This storm has been named Frank, a silly habit adopted by the Met Office and frankly I don't care a d***. G next - how about Gail?

So now you know why I am not out gardening today - I thought yesterday I would pick up the twigs and branches fallen off the ash trees but why bother when another lot willl come down the next day. The sheep in the back field are standing backsides into the wind and rain. But, you know, only the surface of their fleeces will be wet. Deeper in they will be dry - who needs a kagoul?

Pm - the rain is intermittent so I went out in my Wellies. Three new springs gushing forth and the grass is definitely no go - absolutely sodden. The sun appears and goes almost immediately. Daffodils are through in clumps on the upper banking but not yet in flower and even the day lilies are showing new growth. What a crazy world we're living in! (Apologies to Joe Brown.)

Today is the first day of 2016 and this is the view from the house, three score years and ten approacheth and I am going out to run the engine on the sit-on mower as it went flat a couple of years ago causing havoc for the mower service men. 
At the moment it is not raining, I have sort of started a diet, well am thinking about it, and my New Year's resolution has to be - gerrout there and do summit.

So I did - raked off and collected fallen wood from the daffodil banking and took it to the bonfire. I planted a Hydrangea Annabelle on the banking near the gate. 

Then decided to prune the two Rambling Rector roses which were out of control. They did not like it and got revenge - I have a long scratch right across my forehead.

In the kitchen cupboard were some small potatoes that were sprouting so I have chitted them and put them in empty egg boxes.
Whether we will get any produce from then waits to be seen.

I had a dream last night, crazy dream (apologies to Jim Dale)(or MLK?) about creeping buttercup - a recurring nightmare. The more you dig it up the more you have.
And I have put on a shirt with four buttons on the cuff - another nightmare for a man with ten thumbs. (I only broke two glasses over New Year.) Perhaps I should stop reading PJ O'Rourke from the 1980s (Rolling Stone Mag.) as he is influencing my verbosity and talk of gardening.

G, G, wherefore at thou and so on?

Oh! And diet time :-(

GOODBYE SODDEN 2015

All in all we have escaped (so far) from the devastating floods affecting so many towns, villages, even cities in the north of England. Res the garden has been wet - but not washed away. The weather remains mild and damp with regular storms blowing in from the Atlantic.
I have just received the catalogue from Burncoose Nurseries and there are now or two very tempting plants in there - not cheap - but high quality.
We have been away for Christmas in Herefordshire with family - the first not spent at home for, I guess, thirty-five years? It was very special.

We have a few roses left and there are plants all over the place like some bergenias in full flower I saw the other day. One of the the teasels has not died back but after having last year's stems removed is coming into bud again.

The (am I losing it? Can't remember its name) hellebore by the magnolia is in flower as is one of the brachyglottis. More to be expected, the winter flowering honeysuckle is also coming into bloom.


In the garden jobs mount up - the main path is badly mossed now and will need something radical done to it - unless I decide I like moss of course.




A mole decided to dig by the house and got a shock as there is only a shallow layer of soil over hardcore. This is a hardcore mole hill.

C's duck has received a companion - well I did - from B for Christmas. 

I think it is a sort of heron with two young in the nest. Anyway the duck has company now.

I also got a hanging bird table (not that that will make the slightest difference to the squirrels - acrobats of the animal world) and that is also in place waiting for the diners.

And so to the artistry of, I think, my grandson on his parent's car - nuff said.

PAST THE SHORTEST DAY, BLOWN AWAY

Past the darkest and dreariest and so on day. Now we have the morning closing in for a while and then . . .
We have snowdrops and a few are showing white petals! It is still in the teens Centigrade in the daytime. (Oh! and wet.) Talking strange events - snowdrops thinking it is spring before the New Year - our Liquidambar, the small tree with the October glory of redness, is still largely green - it has not found its autumn. 

We also have roses still out - we took some to church when we did the flowers and it went down well. They were put on the piano as part of an arrangement with variegated mint (still in leaf) and winter flowering viburnum. 

This is the view where the tree was, over one of the sheds to the back field. The blue box in the window is empty but was used to transport some Sci-fi books when we moved house. I sold many of them to a bookshop in Wigtown, the Scottish book town.

The tree now looks like this stacked against the wall, ends open so the wood can dry out but with a cover to stop the worst of our wet weather penetrating.

The grasses still have some green in but are looking ragged and messy especially this miscanthus and the Stipa gigantea.  They have had no real frost on them to look beautiful but will have to wait a little longer before the are cut back.

The pots outside the kitchen REALLY ought to be done but have now been put back till the New Year - lazy old s*d can't be bothered. 

Gales come and go and one is coming, called Eva, and the windmill has gone. This is not a little Eva but a good sized one and the air is full of locomotion.

(Ha! Ha!) When it stops raining I shall go into the garden in search of its vanes. The pond liner is up again - a quick run down in the rain, a twiddle of the alkathene piping and water running out again. It is definitely coming in around the inflow pipe but under the liner. Time to dig out the pipe and scrap it, fill in the settling pond except for the stream at the back.

And then there is the question of burglary at this time of year. R and I caught this suspicious fellow trying to climb in (or out) of a window near Cartmel.

So my blog reader, perhaps both of you, may I wish you a hot, dry, prosperous New Year when you have recovered from the madness that is the commercial winter festival. Once it was a pagan celebration, then the Christians adopted it, now it is the property, by and large, of capitalism and the big buck (or over here pound).

And I leave you with a panorama shot on the shortest day from our kitchen door looking over Morecambe Bay not long after dawn.

THE GARDEN ISN'T THE ONLY THING THAT SLEEPS

In the beginning there were bacteria and then there developed a whole host of plants including - algae, liverworts, mosses, horsetails, ferns, gingkoes, conifers, magnolias, other trees, flowering plants etc etc.

All of these are in our garden and other things like quillworts and clubhouses can be found within twenty miles.

Mind you we could do without the proliferation of some in less desirable locations - liverworts on the paths, moss on the drive, algae in the pond, horsetails anywhere.

Harts-tongue fern

Moss on wall

Green algae

Magnolia

So to the garden otherwise know as the bog, marsh, quagmire - take your pick. More alkathene pipe up it and the pond drains again until it blocks again then more alkathene . . . etc etc. The moorhen is back though - great to see it at first light paddling about.

And I trimmed off the lower new shoots off the damson trees. You wouldn't think they had thorns like this but they do - painful! Suppose there is something very blackthorn about them - very sloe. Perhaps a natural sort of protection from predators such as moi! However they do taste better than sloes though gin made with both is delicious.

Picked our first sprouts as we had a frost yesterday - to be eaten tonight with some roast chicken.

They were delicious and tasted of something unlike many bought and served in restaurants.

I watched the last part of Monty Don's history of British gardening and it gave me ideas. Perhaps the stream can be modified to give a succession of little pools? This is not a super controlled like the big gardens but something very minor. It would put more sound of running water into the garden - as if we do not have enough at the moment. (Rain forecast for the next few days.)(Again)

I have covered the top of the new log stack with some plastic sheeting but left the side open so the wind can try and dry it out. It is all ash wood so good to burn.

So am I in the garden labouring away? Well today, Tuesday I think, I slept long, got up, ate breakfast, had a nap, went out for lunch, came in, had a nap and am now feeling tired!! And the Blogger site is centring everything no matter what I do. Cannot get the words to left justify.  Like this dog in Cark I can't wait to get out - ha, ha!

Enough is enough - I need a rest.

OUR DOG HAS LOST ITS HEAD!

Tree down, windmill broken, dog has lost its head but other wise we have got off relatively unscathed. You can see the man up the tree on the right. Now we have a lot of logs for the burner. It has changed the whole aspect at the rear of the house and now we must think of a good evergreen hedge to grow in poor soil - perhaps laurel. 

Bay might have been an option but the winds come from the north over the field and bay's hardiness might be suspect.  

The windmill has been partially repaired and sprayed gold from an old can I found in the shed. I have not yet got one of the vanes to turn without undoing the nuts on the end so it keeps falling off. 

Then there is the tragedy of our nodding dog.  Fortunately I can pop his head back on quite easily.

First there is a liner, then there is no liner, then there is - apologies to Donovan. I seemed to have temporarily sorted pond with drainpipe between liner and matting.

(Film of floods on my Facebook site.)



So back to gardening which is mainly to clear stuff and pick up sticks, stay off the grass and kneel by the pond in the mud praying. The alchemilla is still a mess as seen here - this gives you an idea of what I need to do - work that should have been done earlier in the autumn.

The winter spinach is doing well - the mild wet weather seems to suit it. We still have roses in the garden - a few - I have always managed a small vase on the table at Christmas.

I have not yet cleaned out and planted up the various pots and containers so that is another thing to do.

It is strange to be here in December with the tops of the first daffodils showing, buds greening on the flowering currant and azaleas and the rambling roses still growing (as is the grass). (Cannot mow though - too wet.)

I see Mr Badhairday in USA decided to go a little more bonkers. I might worry about Vlad in Russia but the thought of Don in America - in charge - fall down in hysterics - as a certain tennis player has said - "You cannot be serious!" I am glad I am not a Mexican moslem.

Now for a mug of Yorkshire Gold tea.

And I leave you with a image of the view from the house on a lovely sunny day -

DEADLY DESMOND, GLOBAL SOAKING?

Before I start these images are from Facebook and posted by Loz Taylor.

It is Desmond - the weather bods have started naming the storms like hurricanes and cyclones - actually just gales and a lot a lot a lot of rain - again! I am glad they did not  all it Duncan? 
Then it rained and rained, Keswick cut off, Appleby under water, etc etc. It happened a few years ago and they said it was an event that only occurred every hundred years!!!

Perhaps hibernation might be a good idea - or migration - New Zealand for the winter? At least the shortest day approaches - nearly there - but then though it starts to get lighter in the evening it goes on getting worse in the morning for a couple of weeks - something to do with a wobbly earth.

Ah! Well, every feeder has its squirrel.

Yesterday tried to drain the pond under the liner and failed. Water is gushing out of the field and down the steep banking - saw the sun yesterday - at least I think it was the sun as it seems so long since it was last seen. Gone again today anyway.

Now next morning and towns under water, up to 350mm (over a foot) of rain on fells in 36 hours! This is a record - roads are washed away - by Thirlmere and at Patterdale.  I have put some shared pics on my Facebook page.

(Pond liner on surface.)
Further adventures of a pond liner man - have found that the water is between the liner and the underlay protecting it so tried to get a drain between the two - partially successful. R now says we need a clay bottom to the pond - big job. A drain along the bottom of the pond under the liner but above the underlay would do it plus control of the inflow where a lot of the water is getting in.

This seems so petty when people have their homes under water just before Christmas. We have been lucky being a bit away from the mountains and some distance from a major water course.

How can I talk of gardening. GG slept in his van on the A590, J and D could not get to Manchester Airport to fly to Thailand and thank anygod that no one has lost their lives. I think that is due to the response to the last floods at least giving the emergency services time to evacuate people etc.

Sunday and the sun has been out but more rain forecast for tonight and more Monday/Tuesday!

The tree man cometh tomorrow as he cannot get to his designated job because of the water.

HAVE I MENTIONED RAIN?

The heavens have got to be empty!
The small plank bridges are washed away, the banks of the stream are under water.
The pond is a mess.

The squirrels are bedraggled.
The birds are sodden.
I am not going out there.
I shall light the wood burner.
I shall make a hot cuppa and sit by the fire and do some Christmas cards.
We are awash.
A gale is blowing.
The trees are shedding twigs and small branches.

So, one muddy pond, bleached heron to the right - needs a repaint - (The bush is a winter flowering Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn") and diggings to try and sort the liner problem at the back left.

The view from the living room outside door window through rain spattered glass. Note the great white cherry still has it's autumn leaves but the rest is dreary.

Finally it stopped but the water has got under the pond liner so I went out, diverted streams (boy stuff) unblocked things where overflowing was happening, raked the remains of leaves off paths and then tried to drain the pond - failed. The moorhen does not mind though. It sits on the raised liner using it as a small island.

Next day - woke to pouring rain AGAIN!!

So let's skip yesterday. Now it is Wednesday and outside it is very windy and, believe it or not (a Ripley moment) it is, you've guessed it, raining!

Yesterday we turned off the Aga for  service man but he got swamped in a flood twenty miles away. It is still off - we wait - and meanwhile I hear nothing. 
I ought to be out in the garden doing something but -
Nothing from the Aga man so it is relit.
Have quote from tree surgeon and have accepted so chop chop.

The orchid in the kitchen is suddenly losing flowers which it does - 3 months dormant, 3 months flowering - just in time for Christmas.



Today it is Thursday and when I woke it was - you guessed it - raining!!

So I made some shortbread at the suggestion of R as we have run out of biscuits.

Recipe - Mrs Tyson's Shortbread.

12oz plain flour, 8 oz softened butter
Rub together till soft crumb then add -
4oz ground rice (rice flour) and 4 oz caster sugar
Knead well and put in greased tin. about one inch thick.
Cook on low heat till golden brown.

Cut into fingers whilst still slightly warm but leave in tin until cold.

The squirrels have eaten all the sunflower seed so I go out and brave the weather to fill up the feeders - and get wet.