Recent strong northerly winds brought down this small ash just a few hundred yards from the cottage, so I loaded up the Husqy's, put on my chaps, and set to work. I managed to get aprox 0.6 tonnes, thats 2 traler loads.

Since this pic was taken I have completed the front face to the roof. Two more and I can relax and spend more time in the veg plot and hopefully, FISHING.

The broad bean plants are in flower so should produce some in the next few weeks.

Once the carrots start showing I'll start thinning them.
Baby carrots with butter, salt and pepper, almost as good as sex, but not quite.
The peas are starting to flower also so should have in a few weeks.
Speaking of peas, the 45 acre field at front of the cottage has been planted out with peas. They are'nt the sweet garden variety like mine but make excellent pea and ham soup.
I need some rain.

Big Fish

Caught and carefully returned this evening a fine female pike of just over 18lbs. Post spawn this young lady would have gone over 20 but a wee bit lean at this time of year.
Well chuffed though.
Gordon.

firewood

In an earlier post I had sliced up a couple of rather large branches from an old beech tree. These were left stacked in the forest to start the drying process. Last weekend , with some help from Roy, I extracted most of it and brought it home for splitting. The equipment in the above pic is what I use for this purpose. A splitting hammer, sledge hammer and a four way splitting grenade. Also in the background a pair of splitting axes.




Find the centre of the slice and hammer it in. Most times it will split the slice in half but sometimes three or four can be achieved. Once the slice has been broken down into more manageable sections I use the splitting hammer to break it into aprox 4"-5" or 100mm-125mm logs. The splitting hammer is a great tool for this job because it never gets stuck due to the wide blade. It either splits the wood or bounces off it.



We use aprox 2 1/2 cords of wood most winters. A cord is a stack of closely packed logs measuring 4' x 4' x 8' or 1200mm x 1200mm x 2400mm aprox.
It is my intention to fill the woodstore to full capacity of 4 cords this year.
I start off with 2 large pallets set slightly high at the front, then carefully build the logs like bricks, always sloping slightly backwards. This reduces the risk of an avalanche. Once the store is full I will nail a couple of boards across the front for extra security.

At the front of the store you can see some sawn softwood logs. This is wood that I salvage from the Halliburton facility where I work as a handyman. One of my duties is the management of pallets and crates. These are repaired or re-used where possible, but those that are'nt, I dismantle and recycle. I have permission from the management to take home whatever I need so I take full advantage of this. The rest goes to a chipboard/MDF manufacturer. I also manage the recycling of all paper/cardboard/plastic and glass etc.

I'm going fishing this evening with a mate. I'll report back.

What a difference a couple of weeks makes, particularly when you have lots of hot days interspersed with a few showers of rain.
Sweet yellow toms on the left, red cherry toms on the right. A good few dozen flowers hiding in there so should have a good crop this year.
There are four cucumbers on this plant at the moment. They grow aprox one inch a day. Home grown are much sweeter than shop bought.
This is the biggest success though, I never expected garlic to grow this well in Scotlands climate. Biggest ones are about 18' 450mm high and growing all the time.
Had a major disaster with the chilli's. I planted them along with the toms in a mixture of compost and cowshit. I think the cowshit may have been too strong for them and most never got past the 2 leaf stage. However I managed to rescue a few and put them into dung free compost and they are thriving.
I have put a rather unusual tropical plant in the greenhouse this year. Its a bug eating Mimosa. This plant, I hope, will eat any green/black/whitefly and any other plant eating beasties.

Rain.

After having to water the veg every day for about a month, we finally had rain yesterday. Nothing better for your veggy plot than a good days rain.

These are my tomato plants. We had a good crop last year and expect even better this year.
The chilli's are finally starting to show themselves as are the Pac Choi and mustard greens.

This weekend I'll be processing logs and stacking them to dry for next winter.

Italy and an update on the veg plot.

Everyone does this.
The Colloseum.
Pizza and cappuchino.
Vatican church.
Ferrari dealer.

Got back from our wee coach tour break in Italy on Wedensday. We started from Calais in northern France, travelling through Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany and an overnight stop in Switzerland to get there. That was a long day. First night in Italy was spent at Pisa, including a excursion to the Leaning Tower. Second and third nights were spent near Florence. We never took the optional excursion there, deciding to explore the place by ourselves.

Next day we took the excursion to Roma and the Vatican, very nice but very expensive. 5th night was spent at a resort called, Lido de Jessolo just outside Venice. Venice was nice but again very expensive for ordinary working people like ourselves. The last day in Italy we spent at Lake Garda, then onwards to Austria where we spent our last night.

All in all a very hectic holiday, not very relaxing but a great way to see the highlights of a country in a very short time.

Once I work out how to extract pic files from my phone I will post some pics.....

I cant believe the difference in just eight days. Everything seems to have doubled in size due to the warm weather here while we were away. Temps were averaging low 20's.

Should have some nice strawberies in a few weeks.

Garlic doing well. Shallots doing well.Cabbage, cauliflower, beans and brocolli.Japanese red onions, French white and red.

Its all going rather well with no disease or pests as yet.

Rainbows, and a wee update on the veggie plot.

Heavy rain on Wedensday evening was preceded by this awesome double rainbow. Not too sure if summer has arrived yet or not because its still a wee bit cold in the mornings and during the night.

Not to worry as Sandra and I are off to Italy for a short break on Tuesday.

Heres an update on the veggy plot. Lots of rain and sunshine and we should be eating our own produce by June. Might have a few chickens by then.