Julio - Apex Predator (in his weight class)

It doesn't look like it from this photo, but there has been a lot going on in Julio's life in the past week.The pace in Julio's life picked up last Monday when he presented us with the lifeless body of a mole.I have been documenting my war on moles in the front garden for a couple of years. I do like moles, but I don't understand why they need to make up to 85 mole hills in my front lawn when there is a perfectly good (unmolested and mole free) field just on the other side of the hedge. I had Gamekeeper Mike in last year and he got four moles in one go.Julio was rewarded with Sheba - gourmet cat food. Expensive and gravy laden we wanted to ensure that Julio understood that killing moles was something we approved of. Julio has always had a fondness for gravy and this little treat was a break from the Iams dry stuff that I give him. He likes Iams cat food and I wanted to keep him on dry cat food to keep his teeth nice and white. It's always a shame when a cat gets to the geriatric stage and his or her teeth are falling out due to a diet of tinned cat food.

The next night, Julio was howling in pain. We first thought perhaps the treat he had was upsetting his guts, but as the hours ticked by, it was clear this cat was in real distress. Accompanied by Pam (house guest featured in the previous entry) I had a nighttime dash to the vet. It turned out that our poor puss had a blocked urethra. His bladder was hard and distended. Unable to pee, Julio was in agony.

It turns out this problem is common in neutered male cats - poor guy! His bladder was drained and he was given antibiotics, muscle relaxers and was kept in overnight for observation. The next morning, he was peeing on his own again. Whew! No need for surgery.

We had to switch his diet away from the dry cat food (which can be a factor in some cats) back to tinned cat food. He's just going to have to keep his teeth clean by catching and killing small rodents and mustelids in the area.It seems we have been forgiven for the trip to the vet and the twice daily pills (antibiotics) that we poke down his throat because today we have been presented with the body of another mole! (I will not post photos of the dead moles. It may be too upsetting as moles really are great little animals.)

I really love this cat!

Score: Moles 0 - Peggy 85

After work today, in the vanishing light I got all the last of those remaining 85 molehills stomped down, raked flat and sprinkled with grass seed. As I walked around on what is left of my lawn, I could feel the tunnels just under the soil collapse beneath my feet. I just know that when the sun sets, those industrious moles will be out there, repairing the damage my feet caused. That's okay, I've called time on the mole party in my front lawn! Now that I have done this, any new molehills that pop up can be tackled easily.

I was sent an e-mail by Big Biker Bob down in Cornwall. He forwarded some information about buying mole repellants and traps online. Thanks Bob!! I may buy something to aid my quest to rid the garden of moles.

We never used to have this much of a problem with moles, but then our old cat, Big Jim used to hunt them. From time to time, he'd lay a dead mole on the back step for us. Moles are beautiful animals. They're so interesting to look at. Having said that, I'm a bit NIMBY * about them.

While I have been up to my eyeballs with work, the weather has been sunny and dry. It figures, doesn't it? When I'm driving around, seeing my customers and looking out windows at the warm sunny day, the only thing that runs through my head is that I could be out in my garden. It is SO unfair that the weekends are wet, windy and horrible and the weekdays are bright, sunny and dry. I heard the weather forecast for the long Easter weekend (I've got Friday and Monday off) while coming home tonight and it wasn't good. We're supposed to get snow. *sigh* With this in mind, I had to get out to the front lawn and tackle the remaining molehills. I didn't want another week to go by with this particular job hanging over me. I felt like I couldn't move forward until the molehills had been managed.

While spreading grass seed in the fading light of day, I could hear a woodpecker in the trees across the road and the springtime call of the curlew down at the bottom of the field behind the house. Because we live so close to the sea, I actually see these beautiful wading birds all year round, but it is in the spring that they come back to the stream at the bottom of the fields near our house, I can hear their cries. Have a look on the RSPB site at the curlew. There is a great recording of the curlew that I hear when I'm out in the garden. I really love this time of year.

As the weekend forecast is bad, I got a lot of stuff picked up around the outside of Whitelees and what is left of the last delivery of firewood stacked neatly against the house. Well, if we're going to have one last blast from old man winter, I'm ready.

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* NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard

Mike the Gamekeeper

Today this man came into our garden and set some mole traps. I took photos through the window so as not to disturb him at his work. He initially said that we probably only had one mole but I noticed that he set about four traps. It turns out that moles do not like other moles unless it is mating season but we might have two young moles sharing the garden. You learn something new every day. I know it is mean to kill the moles that have only come into the garden to eat our worms, but they're making a mess and I don't want mess. I also think it is cruel to use poisons. In addition, how can gamekeepers earn a living if they don't have customers?

Wednesday this week I was up in Largs. As young George was still enjoying his spring break, he was able to come with me. After I had completed my sales calls for the day, we went for a bite to eat while watching the ferry go to and from Cumbrae for a bit and then walked over to the arcades for some serious time spent at the penny fall! We broke into our piggy banks before we left and removed all the .02 pence pieces. With the almost £10 worth of two pence pieces in a plastic container we were set!

I won most of the prizes this time around.
There is this little plastic football player. He doesn't look demented at all! He was a keyring, but somebody snapped the chain off.
Then there were two dolphin key rings. Dig the googly stick on eyes!
I think they would make very nice dolphin earrings, don't you?
The top prize of the day was this wonderful monkey watch! You want one, don't you?
The digital watch pops up when you press the little red button. It is my favourite thing of all time!

The Death of the Moles

When I look upon my lawn and see the bare patches where grass used to be, I am reminded of last year when the lawn was in its prime. It was cropped short in neat lines and there were no mole hills to be found at all. With few weeds and a good level surface, it was a beautiful spot for the boys to play football and for me to play fetch with the dog. Then came the autumn.

During the last few weeks of pitiful sunshine the mole hills arrived. I managed to clog the blades of the lawn mower on the last cut of the year buzzing over the tops of the four substantial mole hills. I wasn't to know that those first hills were merely the front line. An entire battalion of moles hills followed on in a slow and steady progression until the first of the year and they could no longer be ignored. Something had to be done!

Mike the Gamekeeper arrived back today and checked the traps. Two moles had been trapped and killed and he showed them to me. One was an old male mole. Please do not start thinking of Mr Mole, the mild mannered home loving character from Wind in the Willows or you will cause me to suffer even more upset. The other mole was also a male, but much younger. He was one of last year's brood.Their squinty almost useless little eyes were closed. Both their coats were a beautiful powdery dark gray that is so soft to stroke. Please do not misunderstand me. I hate killing. I am heartbroken that these two beautiful creatures have died in order that there be tidiness in my garden but there really is no other way.

The traps were reset and tomorrow afternoon will be checked and then removed. Perhaps I can consider these little moles as a pagan sacrifice to The Green Man. I am going to put a few mole deterrents on the place in the hope that this helps to keep them from an untimely death.

I will endeavor to be a good and diligent gardener this year so that the demise of these two animals will not have been in vain.

Despite Conditions

Delphinium seedlings. Look behind these little seedlings. Can you see how desperately some of the glass in this greenhouse needs to be cleaned?

Lupin seedlings.

I was all set to feel miserable and thwarted with respect to the garden and the weather again this week but HA! At about 9 am though the wind was up, the sun was shining so out I went to do battle with the jobs that are steadily lining up outside. I ended up removing my coat and hanging it on a hook as I worked in the greenhouse. It was so lovely inside that greenhouse out of the wind that I got all the sowing and pricking out jobs done that I wanted to accomplish this weekend.
The seeds in these pots are cucumber, courgette (2 varieties) pepper and pumpkin. The seed tray contains sprouting broccoli. Incidentally, the sweet corn in square cardboard pots on the left of this photo have started to sprout.

By 1:00 when I stopped for lunch it was almost balmy. It was then that Henry pressed George into service and they started digging the foundations for our new patio on the south and sheltered side of the house. As I don't normally have company outside, I went around to that side of the house to do some pruning. Julio, the helpful cat inspected everything I did very carefully, He gnawed on some of the branches I had cut just to ensure that they were dead. He also ran after and clawed any branches I was dragging over the grass. Very helpful cat!

While I was out, one of the people in our community, Mike the Gamekeeper stopped by. He said that when he passed the house last night, there was a fox in the garden by the chicken house. I said that I knew about this fox and this was the reason that the hens were not let out at all at the moment. Foxes now have young to feed and I don't want them to feed my fat hens to their babies. In years gone by I have had foxes take chickens from the garden during the day while I'm home. Mike the Gamekeeper said that he couldn't get a good shot at the fox last night, but he'll catch it over in the woods across the road very soon. Naturally, I offered Mike the Gamekeeper a mug of tea as we chatted but he declined as he was very busy and had to get on. Before he left, he handed me a new business card that he had printed up. He is in the pest control business now! I about squealed with joy when he said that he'd get rid of our moles for us! All his traps are out at the moment, but next week (he promises) he will be back and in our front garden to trap the moles.

It was his professional opinion that the moles we have are due to my tendency toward organic gardening. He says that these little guys (which are probably last year's babies) are after all the worms that are wiggling freely in my eco-friendly garden.
After Mike the Gamekeeper left, I got all the broken glass from the greenhouse repair, into a box and ready for taking to the dump to get recycled. I'll probably take the newspapers too as we habitually forget to set our newspapers out on collection day.
Then it started to hail. We all ran for our coats. I was so sure that it was just a cloud and the hail would pass. The hail was bouncing off George's hair and sticking in the rat's nest that is my hair today. It started to hail harder. Julio took shelter under an old window that is leaning against the house and I started to collect all the tools because we all gave up trying to work outside.Hail in the foxglove.

All outside garden jobs have come to a halt. The weather forecast was for horrible weather this weekend and I feel that this day's unexpected window of decent weather was a real gift.

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Update: It is 5:30 now and SNOWING!

Okay then . . .2014, here we go!

In the beginning of 2013 I started a log of the birds that visit our bird feeders.  I had been given some new bird feeders for Christmas last year and I had a spare 2013 diary lying around.  So, fill the feeders and sit back to watch through the window.

It was really fun to document what visited our garden.  There were seasonal visitors and surprise guests.  When writing in the daily log, I would highlight anything out of the ordinary in yellow highlighter.  For example if a new species (to me or the garden) showed up for the first time, that entry was made yellow.  When the red squirrels showed up, I highlighted those entries in pink.

The most common bird visitors to the place were Chaffinches and Coal tits.  They showed up every day and in good numbers.

Here is the bird list for the year.

Blue tit
Chaffinch
Robin
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Coal tit
Great tit
Bullfinch
Blackbird
Brambling
Dunnock
Buzzard - in the tree across the road
Barn owl
Tawny owl
Goldfinch
Long tailed tit
Assorted gulls (not close enough for identification)
Collared dove
Wood pigeon
Stock dove
Tree creeper
Green finch
Siskin
Pheasant
Sparrowhawk
Barnacle geese (in the field - I could see them from my window so I counted them!)
Crow
Jackdaw
Starling
Red poll
Black cap
Great heron
Cuckoo - call only
Lapwing (in the field)
Oyster catcher (in the field)
Curlew (in the field)
Swallow
Jay
Song thrush
Sparrow (first at the house in over 17 years)
Wren
Pied wagtail
 
Animals in the garden include

Polly - our dog
RED SQUIRRELS - up to four at once
field voles
least weasel
hare
rabbit
sheep
cows
horse
cat
moles
water shew
common shrew
pygmy shew
mice
hedgehog
badger
fox
common newt
toad
frog
stoat
deer 
four or five species of bat - at least one is a pipistrelle

Forty species of bird has been seen from the back room window.  I am certain that if I spent more time watching.  If I could have identified the different species of gull in the field and the list would have been longer. There are also Fieldfair and Redstarts in the field but they fly way too fast for identification. If I can't be absolutely certain, it wasn't listed. It was fun watching the winter visitors to the feeders (bramblings) and note when the swallows return, breed and take off again.

The highlights for me this year was seeing the families of birds.  We had visiting male and female Great Spotted woodpeckers.  I saw them mating in one of the trees.  Weeks later the woodpeckers brought their offspring  to the peanut feeders.  It was delightful to see the adults feeding their babies.

A new bird made it onto my life list this year, the redpoll. That was a treat!  

One day a female pheasant showed up with over 14 baby pheasants following her.  Baby robins, blue tits, woodpeckers, blackbirds and chaffinches all did that nestling behaviour at the feeders of flapping their wings with mouth wide open.

Now it is winter again, a new year has started and a new diary has begun.  I wasn't going to do another log . . . but I found that writing down what is seen at the feeder has become a habit.  The first day of the New Year and I didn't have anywhere to write down what I was seeing!  I had to get a new pocket diary in the supermarket on the next trip into town. 

Doing What Cats Do

It is a gorgeous day today! Warm, light breeze and only a few clouds in the sky.The cows are back out in the fields too. They look grateful to be back out in the fresh air after being in sheds, eating silage all winter. The cows sort of keep me company when I'm out in the garden.My friend Elaine called and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I'll always go for a walk, especially with a friend on lovely spring days. I tucked my camera into my pocket in case I saw anything worth photographing.
Just as we were setting out we were met by our cat, Julio. He was strutting to the house with a prize, a stoat. The thing was still breathing. Poor creature! I called out to The Man of the Place and he assisted Julio in making certain that the stoat no longer suffered. Julio and stoat

Look! The animal is so large that it drags on the ground. Julio came home with a few scratches on his nose the other day. Today a few more scratches have been added to the collection. I suspect now that it was a stoat that had inflicted the earlier damage as the new scratches sort of match the old ones.Wild primroses

Settign out on the walk we saw lots of wild primrose. Bluebells are starting to pop out and they'll be at their peak in a week or two.

Back home Julio is sleeping in a sunbeam now after having a post-battle wash. He is one mighty hunter!! That is what cats do. I can't say that I like when he kills things but I wish he'd hunt moles.Photo by Dean of DDD

I've seen a couple of beautiful Orange tip butterflies. They only fly in the spring so it is always a treat to see them.

Scruffy Chicken

I have one hen that is STILL moulting. She looks more pathetic than any of my other hens did when they were moulting. You can see her standing next to one of her sisters who is finished with the moult.

These chickens are getting pretty tired. The Maran hens are about three years old and the Welsummer (yellow necked) hens are at least two years old. They may be older than that, but I haven't actually kept records on them. In any case, they are laying pathetically few eggs these days. During the summer the peak laying season was very brief and I am getting NO eggs from the hens now. The thing is, the chickens still eat even though there is no egg production. I don't think that is how things are supposed to work.

This means that it is time for fresh hens. I am due to pick up six hybrid layer pullets (young hens) on Saturday. The pullets will be 17 weeks old and are due to start laying eggs at 20 weeks. I'm wondering if I should cull the old gals now so that they don't bully the new gals.

On the other side of the house, there is a mole or family of moles making short work of our lawn.

For the soft-hearted among my readers, please don't worry. I won't kill the chickens unless they prove to be too violent toward the new girls. The new hens will be put in a separate cage next to the big chicken run for a couple of weeks until everybody has decided that they can be friends.

There seems to be an abundance of berries or haws on the hawthorn bushes this year. Now that we've had a couple of light frosts, the colours are getting very pretty.

I'm Getting Older

The an entry on Time Goes By by Ronnie Bennet and then a follow on blog entry on Blogging in Paris by Claude Covo-Farchi has got me thinking about the aging process. It really isn't something I've ever really considered until recently. I certainly never thought of the need for bi-focals, the appearance of a second chin and the inability to drink wine like I used to was apart of the aging process, but by gum, it is! I'm getting older.

If when asked in their youth about what life will be like when they reach retirement age, nobody ever talks about what the aging process will have done. The focus will always be on where they are financially or how many children/grandchildren will be surrounding them. How many countries they have visited will be much more important at 20. Certainly that's what I would have spoken about when I was younger.

The wear and tear your body gets as we drag it through our lives is what is called the aging process. Had I known that it was going to start when I was 21 and pregnant, I would have never taken off my support bra, ever. Sadly my breasts never really bounced back after those two brief years of childbearing. I guess I thought they would. In my mind it was only older women who had problems with sagging breasts. I never made the connection between my current bra-free behaviour and the long term effects of gravity.

I love the sun and was out in it as much as possible in my teens. I never wore sunscreen. I may have put some on when I was working in the fields, but that would be it. Now the damage is done. The damage is deep and someday one of my little moles or freckles may do something strange and I'll have to have it seen to. That has already happened to my younger, fairer sister Kate. Now she has a self-imposed banishment from sharp sun for the remainder of her days. I don't know if I could stay away from sunshine. I do know that I am much more vigilent about sunscreen.

When we go diving, almost every single diving instructor is a smoker. Okay, they know the risks they take and the reduced lung capacity when they do that, but do they realize that your lung capacity diminishes merely by the fact that you're growing older? One day, they'll do a lung function test and either fail or not do so well as they thought. They'll put it down to the cigarettes and cut back or even quit, but the non-smokers will not have done so well either. "How is this happening?" they'll ask themselves. Its rough on people to be confronted with the harsh reality that aging happens to everybody.

Ronnie has been talking about ageism and the language that is used to sell things to make us look younger. The fact that looking younger is a prize we have to hold on to diminishes the face that we get when we get older. Why is looking older bad? Why are wrinkles to be avoided instead of anticipated? We've earned them! How to we create this change in attitude? I don't want to look 25 or even 30. I did that once. It was easy. I want to rejoice that I am still here, I survived my youth to achieve a solid middle age. I'd like to continue with the aging process thank you very much.

How often have we given the compliment that a new hair cut or item of clothing takes years off of somebody? How is it that when somebody says they look as though they've aged, they aren't being complimentary. They're small points, but it is still ageism. It is so ingrained in our culture, I don't know how we're going to fight it.

If we rant about the fact that we don't glorify elder faces, then perhaps we should start with ourselves. Develop our own aesthetic for faces that reflect the lives we are leading. Any solutions? Anybody?

The Prodigal Hen

So, I'm getting ready for work this morning. You know the dash around the house morning routine. Where's my handbag? Where's my phone? Have you got enough lunch money?

The Man of the Place is in the front room and looks out the window and is promptly aghast at the size and number of molehills we now have in our lawn. They are really getting bad and we're going to have to do something to get the moles to move on. I see some movement in the front hedge. We almost always have pheasants in the front garden and at first that is what I think it is. It isn't a pheasant, it is my missing hen!!!

She is in the field in front of the house and she is looking for a way to get back through into our garden.

I slipped on my rubber clogs, grabbed a slice of bread and the camera and went out to rescue her.

The new red hens are quite tame and run to me when I do my "chick chick chick" call and this one walked right up to me, having a bit of bread helped. I was able to reach through the sheep wire and get her.

She must have somehow found herself on the other side of the hedge and fence and couldn't get back. She had been out there for three days!! We had a very hard frost on Sunday night and there are always foxes around. It is one lucky hen. I'm so pleased to have her back.

Feeling Better - Let's Walk the Dog

We are turning the corner with the flu bug.  I'm working at about 78% capacity and thought the long suffering hound could really do with a nice long walk.

I bundled up and took her up the road to our favourite walk.  It snowed about an inch last night and I could see we were the first and only visitors to the pond today.  Well, the only domestic visitors . . .

There were some deer tracks.

By this little hill, I could see where some pheasants had been dragging their sleds around in the snow.

Then there was evidence of a fox.

 I got this shot of the fox's path through the snow before Polly could go and bounce all over the tracks and spoil it.

The fox had zig zagged all up and down the snowy lane looking for something, anything to eat.

This tree looked lacey with the snow still clinging to its branches.

I don't know if you can tell from this photo how quiet it was . . . . but I could only hear my footsteps and own breath.

Here's our pond.  It looks different all silent and frozen.  In a few months - this bit of water will be heaving with the activity of spring but for now, it is still.

This surprised me - the moles - blast their furry hides - are still active.  This mole hill at the side of the road was made fresh this morning.

When Chickens Go Bad

Do you remember that shot in Jurassic Park where the velociraptor is looking through the window and it exhales and the breath steams up the window a bit . . . . the exact same thing happened this morning with one of my hens. I wish I had been quicker with the camera so that you could see. Ok, so she doesn't hold the same menace as a velociraptor but she tried real hard.The hens were out this morning. I must not have wired the door to the chicken run tightly enough. If the door to the run isn't wired well, Polly our resident hound will push her way in to the run to see if there are any good kitchen scraps to be had. The hens then have a means of escape and will roam the place. Free range hens can wreck havoc on a garden so I don't let them be out of their run for long. This particular lot of hens are very tame. If they see me, they'll come running. One can just image them saying "Oh, there she is!" They will then stand by my feet (in what I take to be adoration). All I have to do is to walk into the run and they will follow. Any that fail to follow me can just be picked up later and tossed in. I don't have to chase these birds or trick or bribe them into the run. It's great! All chickens should behave like this.
As the days are growing longer the hens have gone into high egg production. I have given all I can to my neighbours and still have this bounty remaining. Brioche takes seven eggs . . . . . I can use a dozen egg whites in an Angel food cake . . . . custard . .. . mayonnaise. I'll have eight more eggs tomorrow. I may pickle some.

Here is what else is in the garden this fine spring morning: PeriwinkleMy favourite daffodils are blooming near the mailbox. They are my favourites as they are the most beautiful and delicate shade of yellow.A freshly mowed lawn - the barrow of clippings still to go into the chicken run. The lawn looks good from this angle. Another view shows the scars left by the visiting moles. A little lawn seed should fix this just fine. ForsythiaMy lovely rose var Elizabeth has sprouted leaves.
Parsley is hardy! It self-seeds in the gravel on the south side of the house. It's the extra tasty Italian flat leaf variety so we leave it alone. On a sad note, a pot of rosemary didn't make it through the winter. It is brown and withered in its pot. It was a couple of years old too. I guess I'll need a new plant.

So, that is what is going on in the garden this fine spring morning. I guess I'll get another cup of tea and go "do some stuff". See ya later!