S'appening??

Hmmm... blog may be being somewhat neglected lately, but not at the expense of our fruit and veg.

Sometimes I worry that I've overly focussed on the pheasant, but couldn't help laughing (repeatedly - after all, you gotta take your laughs where you can find them) at it being utterly distracted by the sight of itself in some mirrors that someone has leant up against their shed - the stupid thing spent a good couple of hours pecking at it's reflection last weekend - not sure whether it was misplaced masculine agression at a supposed rival for the females affections, or pure & absolute vanity and self-love. But hour after hour, it was peck peck peck peck peck. Mwah!!

Excitingly, I have a stuffed pheasant in a case borrowed from my local museum school loan collection currently sitting up in my studio at the moment, about to become an oil painting for me to permanently enjoy (or if I don't like the resultant painting and I'm not too ashamed at the outcome, may offer it to my allotment shop to cheer up their blank walls).

What's new, is that last autumn we aquired another half-plot.  I chose one at the neglected end of the site - no-one is anywhere near us, so brilliant for occasional bbqs and beers (unlike our older half-plot, surrounded on both sides by energetic semi-retired plot-workers with beautiful straight rows of perfectly marshalled (and frankly, larger & more perfect looking specimens than mine) veg, so generally, the original plot is just too overlooked to just stop, sit back, and just enjoy the great outdoors. But the downside of the new plot is that it's surrounded by neglected plots and woodland, so everytime I approach it down the quiet paths spade in hand, a dozen pigeons flap off in a panic. But fine by me - that's where most of the least-attractive-to-winged-rodent root veg have gone so far this year - onions, garlic, shallots, potatoes and parsnip.  And anything else is being netted, Oh, and slightly disheartening to me weeding, is that the slightest breeze carried wafts of weeds and dandelion seeds on every breath of wind, but hey ho - small price to pay for relaxing & enjoying the great outdoors. And seeing as how the neglected plots are unlikely to be re-let till next Oct/Nov, I may take advantage of the surrounding space and guerilla plant some of my pumpkins - at least it'd keep the weeds down.

We have rhubarb and purple sprouting broccoli coming out of our ears at the moment... as is the asparagus, but as this is only year 2 on 2-year old crowns, we are being very good at licking our lips and leaving that alone for just one more year. Can't remember the proverb about being patient, but I'm sure spending several years waiting for an asparagus crop is a good example.

 Gosh - it's all just too exciting once again!

Birds versus Cats

For the past seven years, thanks to the threatening presence of the cat next door, birds visiting our back garden have been a very rare treat indeed. But quite frankly, our next-door neighbour owned the ugliest tom-cat in the world.

He (the cat, not the neighbour) used to squat on our back garden wall and stare at us in a beefy threatening way until we dropped eye contact and sidled off furtively back into our kitchen in a diminuitive manner. He was the kind of cat that just looked like he smelt funny (I say this as a cat-lover). Sometimes, if I felt a bit cavalier and derring-do I'd pet him till he purred and rolled over to invite a belly-tickle, which oddly enough, I always declined with a "Ummm, uh, yeah, errr, thanks, but no thanks, ewwww". And I always felt the need to immediately wash my hands afterwards.

So, birds were a rare treat. Oh, except of course for the herring gulls squawking from nearby roof-tops who thankfully never visited the garden, though would always seem to make a special flyover visit just to crap on any bed-linen I might have dared hang outside to dry. Sheets to a seagull are obviously like red rags to a bull.

Last year, sadly, the bruiser (still talking about the ugly cat) moved on to the cattery in the sky. I think in the end my neighbour was somewhat relieved to see him go - he only ever came indoors to poo on his carpets (the cat that is, not my neighbour).

Since then I've spent a fair amount of time, money and effort over the past year making my garden bird-friendly. A carefully selected bird table, bird treats, nuts, fatballs, you name it, I had it. Nothing happened for weeks. Then months passed. But finally, they flocked. Blue tits, sparrows, wrens, robins, the impressive looking red-legged partridge. I can't say I relished the daily visits by the idiotic wood-pigeon - bird of fat body and tiny brain that would perch on the roof of the bird-table and seemed unable to figure out how to get to the seeds on the table below. But when it finally did figure it out it'd stay and scoff the lot.

I specially welcomed the gardeners friends, blackbirds and thrushes, who came and hung out daily hopping in and out and round all the containers and pots, dining on all the spiders and snails. My heros. Specially on the spider-munching front.

But it's all over now. Another set of neighbours have bought two kittens. Like I said, I love cats, so I'm quite  pleased to have them visiting our house and garden. Though now it's strictly supervised house-access only, after the recent muddy-paws-all-over-the-bathroom incident.

But I'm very sorry to find that the birds no longer feel safe to visit. Can't think why.