The busy bees got down to hard work at the weekend and created a more secure and substantial residence for our long eared friends the rabbits:
Concrete blocks weighing down doors. I think number one son must have been listening to me or reading my allotments tales about concrete lumps and blocks holding down tin roofs on allotment sheds, polytunnel s made out of plastic water pipes and onions drying in old supermarket trolleys. They will have to be fox body builders to move those blocks.
The new run is now split in two sections so Mr Rabbit can live in separate compartments from his wives until he invites her into his humble abode and puts on his record by the Nolans: "I'm in the mood for dancing, romancing, I'm going to dance the night away"...
There is also a mesh floor now to prevent any escaping or digging tunnels for the great escape:
Being tight wad smallholders. This new bunny palace cost nothing because it was part recycled and we always have some materials hanging around to repurpose or create new creations.
Anyone else been creating or repurposing material to use for their animal housing and veg plot projects?
If Peter Ustinov had substituted a Dinosaur for a Rabbit film title on the Irish Riviera here in West Cork
Any road We got up on Saturday morning to see to the livestock.
I fed Barley the sow some of her Sow and Bonham ration and gave the field pigs a couple of buckets of pulped fodder beet and the hens and ducks were given their Layers Mash and some vegetable peelings from the kitchen.
Then I went inside and made us a cafetiere of black 'real' coffee and ate some chocolate Oaties biscuits.
Whilst reading blogs and comments and drinking and eating number 2 son arrived and informed us that 'our' rabbit had escaped from under the run. But the other rabbits were still there.
I was not an happy bunny and thought that would be the end of that poor rabbit.
Later that afternoon one of the lads friends went looking for Domino our smallholding cat to feed him and she noticed the escapee hiding under a shrub next to the rabbit run and rabbits. Number one son saw it and pounced and 'our' bunny rabbit is now back home.
Late afternoon the haggard was an hive of activity. The rabbits have now got a much more substantial and secure home. Watch this space to see the happy bunnies new home in the countryside next to the sea!
I have been lucky enough to see quite a few great Rock bands. One band who I have liked since I was a teenager is Toronto 3 piece outfit Prog Rockers Rush.
I have seen them twice. Once at Birmingham NEC and once at Sheffield Arena.
Neil Peart the drummer and lyricist is sadly no longer with us but his music, videos, lyrics and books live on.
I have in my possession his great motor bike travel memoir Ghost Rider. It's full of pathos, humour and it's where I got the phrase "my mental jukebox" from.
Neil writes to a buddy in jail and the stories are highly amusing. He also paints some amazing word pictures of the Canadian and North American and Mexican landscape. It's a book I highly recommend and I aim to read it again some time.
Being a Prog Rock band. Rush made concept albums and Farewell To Kings was recorded in Wales.
Have you seen Rush?
Here's a short track by Rush instead of a long Prog version like Xanadu which is based on Coleridge' Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner. That man from Porlock had a lot to answer for.
Here's Spirit Of The Radio. It's lyrics sum up when radio music was good and reminds me of when I would listen to this record over and over again. Some magical lyrics from the Professor Mr Peart like: "A companion unobtrusive..."
I don't really listen to the radio much these days. Unless it's something like Classic Hits playing eighties and nineties music.
Even this years Glastonbury is bringing back the oldies like Guns n Roses and Cat Stevens/Yusaf Islam. Like that Bob Seger song says: " You can't beat that old time RocknRoll!"
I ain't no Paul Newman. But I'm starting to be like his film character Cool Hand Luke.
We are having an egg glut at the moment. We are getting 18 eggs a day and that's 12 hen eggs and 6 duck eggs.
The wife is baking bread and cakey wake and we are even had Quiche Lorraine for our Tea. None of that Lunch and Dinner nonsense. We are even giving eggs away and Barley the newly farrowed sow eats eggs for her breakfast.
Homemade Quiche Lorraine. It did what it didn't say on the tin. It was ok. J says she's never made one before. Well she's made one now!
It's eggstroidinary (have I invented a new word?) that they are laying so much especially during Winter. Perhaps it's their layers mash mix or maybe it's the grass and weeds I keep feeding them? Answers on a postcard or even a comment down below. Please that is. Even petty, pretty please!
Anyone else keep hens and ducks? The eggs are a lot fresher than what you get in the supermarket. Next time you are in there. Ask them for half a fresh egg. That will confuse them.
I tidied a garden yesterday for my brother and then I tended the two family graves.
Then in the afternoon we took two of the dogs to the beach near where we live in the countryside next to the sea.
The two dogs paddled and swam and I collected 6 fertilizer("bag manure") bags of seaweed.
It's a free resource from the sea, weed free and said to contain over 50 trace elements. Anyone else collect it and use it in their veg plot?
Beach full of washed up seaweed.
More seaweed. Thankfully no rubbish.
Six bags of seaweed which I collected and carried to the car boot.
I spread the six bags and I had exactly enough for this years new potatoes plot. In winter the fym will be rotted enough to spread over the veg plot. You don't need to use man-made chemicals to grow your vegetables.
Our ancestors were organic or natural farmers for thousands of years long before it became middle class and trendy.
I was clearing a part of my veg plot the other day and I found this shovel again.
It came from England with us over twenty years ago or so. It originally had a wooden handle and this broke and ever resourceful number one son made and welded me a new T shaped handle.
This is used mainly for a mucking out shovel. Especially where the floors are made of concrete.
In Ireland and a lot of the other parts of the world they use the long handled Celtic or Devon shovel. These have a point on the shovel blade.
I can use any. They are horses for courses kind of tools.
Sledge hammer heads can be picked up very cheaply at carboot sales and second hand markets and you can buy new wooden handles for less than ten Euros or Pounds.
I like to start off my onion sets in plastic modules. I fill them with potting compost 3 for the price of 2) and push the sets into the modules.
They live in the polytunnel for a couple of weeks until they sprout shoots or onion stalks and a lovely white root sock.
They like their polytunnel bed and breakfast arrangement and I water them regularly.
Today I planted them outside in the terraced house (containers) allotment garden of the veg plot and filled up the module with fresh compost and planted red onion sets.
Underneath the growing module. See the white roots emerging from the holes? It's a much better way of starting them off instead of just pushing them into the cold and sometimes very wet soil.
Onion sets sprouting in ye olde polytunnel. I even took a photo of my wellies.
Tomorrow we will probably sow our tomato 🍅 seeds? Have you started planting and sowing yet?
You don't need to have a garden or allotment to grow vegetables and container filled with compost or soil will suffice.
They ("who are they?") say that supermarket vegetables will be in short supply this year. So why not grow your own? Or even get some pigs and ducks and hens and be like other smallholders and raise your own food? Home grown and home raised food is the best.
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