Some Sunshine! At Last!

I have a bit of time this afternoon, between feeding people, animals and birds. Before I forget here's a link to Tasha's Blog - she sent me Barbie Pink Clogs for my Birthday next month, so she deserves a "plug" - http://themooreshavelanded.blogspot.com/ Also, thanks are due to David C and the lovely Ms Bunn for the barbeque Birthday Celebration yesterday, lovely food and great company - shame The Bloke had a migraine; ah, well

Right, I thought, let's put some pictures up for the folks who are Hard of Reading, poor things. To this end, I hope to get the caption on or near the picture. No doubt someone will let me know how bad it gets. Anyhoo, here we go!

This is the beautiful Tracey. She is a lovely natured polecat ferret who has only ever shown any agression when I pulled her out of a kitchen cupboard by the tail (she turned round and gave me a nip on the knuckle, understandably!).

Look at her little ferret-y ears! How cute she is!

This is Sharon, Tracey's friend. They live together in this 'hutch' that was once a duck-house.

Yes, long story. AAAaanyway, she is slimmer and more scared than Tracey, so if I was you, I wouldn't poke a finger thru the wire. She's never bitten anybody, but she does worry, poor little girl

This is almost everybody that's left after the Bernard Matthews bloody Avian Flu Fiasco. There was once 21 hens and three cocks. Now there's Roger, here in the grey and fox-red outfit, and Fluffy the little white blob, Nasty the grey one on the right, Pootle's Baby the other grey one and the remaining Welsummer hen, Wierdo.

There are another couple - Scaredy-cat, Black and Brown Spotty and the poor little Wyandotte banty who gets bullied by everyone. Sad.
Looking at this photo, I feel there is room for some tidying up in the field! Anyway, this shows the size of the new enclosure for the piggies. The rest of the field has been "topped" which is a posh, agricultural word for mown - as in lawn - but it's done with a tractor. So all the bit with the long grass is theirs. You should have seen them running around, rolling, grinning and shoving each other. Hog Heaven!

So after all the running around in the rain, a short nap (of about two days) was required. From left, clockwise; Lilly, Daisy and Violet. Winston is under the straw and invisible, not a bad trick for a boar that size!

Lilly snoozing.

Other parts of the homestead are coming along. For instance we have a fine crop of Cow Parsley outside the front hedge. If anyone has a USE for this, please email me - urgently!! LOL!
Somewhere in the middle of this aquilegia there is a Magnolia Stellata that bloomed beautifully in the early spring. Now we have pansies. Pretty, huh?

This is a snap of the road in the opposite direction to the Cow Parsley 'crop'! The constant noise from all this traffic is deafening!!!
It's a bit of a trek if you want to buy a paper in the morning - but the postman collects any outgoing mail from the letterbox and takes it to the sorting room for me, coz it's 4 miles to the nearest shop.

If you look very, very carefully, you can see a house in the distance. It's like a metropolis, isn't it?

That's about everything non-vegetable orientated, apart from this little anecdote. This is our aviary where the canaries live. Yesterday, I was changing the bath water (yes. I know.) and one of the cock-birds flew out. I didn't notice at the time, but when I was filling the feeder on the other side of the wire, I saw him perched in the tree. At one point I actually had him in my net - but he escaped, flying away over the field to freedom or London, or wherever. "Bugger", I said.

About half an hour later, The Bloke called to me. He asked me to guess what he had in his net and then pulled out The Canary! It had come back to the aviary and the food supply and clung to the wire until The Bloke netted him and put him back in! My flabber had never been so ghasted.

So, to Vegetables and food without a face.

Look - somebody pea'd in the veggie patch!

Yellow courgettes coming along in the cruel East Coast Wind

And the green ones are not doing too badly either!

Crop of Broad Beans has expanded to 2.

Given a bit more of this lovely sunshine, we may even have a nice Strawberry Feast! Please keep things crossed!!

OK, I'm done boring people for a day or two!

Please let me know what you think or my dubious musings I would feel really silly talking to myself ... um ... er ... change that to "publically talking to myself", ok?