Poor blog

Dear Blog,
I'm very sorry for neglecting you but the sun has been shining and I've been playing out!
Lots of love,
Susie
x

I know, I know, this is what happens all the time in my world. I'll do a flurry of posts and then disappear off the planet for an age. It's always the same even though I try hard to be consistent in my posting. Hey ho.

This if course results in a mishmash of a post in which I try to cram in everything I should have written about but haven't and inevitably miss out some things. I have taken 547 photos in the last couple of weeks and choosing which to show is always really difficult.

Here I go then, in no particular order.

First I'd better catch up with the Sophie blanket which is now nearing completion. Here I am at work on the butterfly border with a Tilly cat accoutrement:

"I am going to climb onto your shoulder no matter what, so you'll just have to get on with it!"

When the butterflies are nearly completed they are a bit askew so just need pulling into shape

There's also a hump inbetween them but this disappears after the next round

On the next round I used Htr (Hdc in US) rather than Dc (SC in US) as stated, then Tr (DC in US) for the one after as I felt that positioned the butterfly better within the border, especially as I'd done Back Post stitches to mark the start and finish

Here it is before I started the last few rounds. The butterflies don't show up very well in the photo as the colour is too similar to the carpet!

In other crochet news I've been making something for my friend Terry to decorate what's known as the Navigator's Hat:

Terry is a member of the Hardley Runners club and last year he was awarded the hat because he got lost on his way to a training session! It is a tradition that the person receiving the hat adds a decoration to it and Terry asked me if I'd make him something. What fun I thought, I'll knit him a runner, which I did using a pattern from Knitlympics which my friend bought me. Then I wondered why on earth I'd done that as there's already a runner on the top of the hat - DOH! I gave it to a friend for her grandson. Then I started to think about how Terry is an excellent training partner for many people at the club as his pacing is excellent. I crocheted a clock face but didn't like it. 

Then someone suggested I make a metronome and that's when the solution came to me - he deserved a medal in his honour. I wanted to make it big and bold so I attacked a biscuit tin with my giant cutters and cut out an oblong shape, folded it in half and bashed it together.

I wanted it to be square rather than round so I could make a granny square to cover the back of it plus a lot of race medals are round and I wanted it to be special. Choosing the colours was frought with difficulty as I was trying to get as close to his club colours as possible which often look quite different in real life so I'm hoping these are OK.

For the back of the medal - with some holes so the silver medal shows through

A ribbon to hang it - before blocking

After a quick burst of steam to flatten it out

Then I wracked my brain to think of what to put on the front of it. Terry's name/initials/the date? Then it came to me - 'Your pace or mine?' with his initials. All I had to do was decide the best way to write it. Mike suggested punching holes, which I've done before, but the tin was rather thick and it might not have been very neat so I decided to print it on coloured paper - until Mike came up with an even better idea of prinitng it onto photo paper which allowed me to make the background blue and the lettering yellow (although it doesn't show up in the photo). Clever Mike!

I stuck it on the front of the medal and proceeded to crochet around the front to enclose it. Then I stitched on the ribbon and adorned the bottom edge with some dangly grannies.

I have no idea how he'll attach it to the hat but I'm sending him some of the purpley blue yarn in case he can tie it to something!

In wildlife news we had a visit from Mrs New Duck and her 7 ducklings, the first we've had this year which is very late. 

They were really tiny and can't have been hatched very long. The trek from the pond is about 200 metres each way and she brought them to see us twice that day - 800 metres is a long way for such little legs! 7 ducklings marched up to see us and 7 ducklings made it back to the pond.

On their second visit Mike took a short video using the camera and I've tried unsuccessfully to load on here (you can hear their little chirpings which are very sweet) but it just won't work no matter how much I've trimmed it down below the maximum file size.

After their second visit I followed them down to the pond again check they got back safely and watched them scooting around in the water.

I expected them to come trotting up the next morning but they didn't appear first thing. I wasn't worried as I thought Mrs New Duck might be waiting until the other ducks were out of the way. But then, as I was sitting crocheting with my morning coffee, there was a frantic tapping on the patio doors and there she was but with no ducklings. She was very agitated and I quickly threw her some bread which she gobbled down and then flew, rather than walked, back to the pond.

Oh dear, I thought something bad must have happened so I went to investigate. I couldn't spot her at first but eventually found her hiding in the reeds and the only reason I spotted her was that Mr New Duck was hovering around (which is unusual as they usually disappear when the ducklings are born). I watched for a while and eventually she came out with the 2 remaining ducklings. 5 little lives had been lost overnight. It could have been one of many predators or a combination of several - foxes, Magpies or other carrion, badgers. So sad.

For the last few days Mike and I have been taking some bread down to the pond and feeding them as she obviously doesn't feel it's safe to bring them up until they are a bit bigger.

Now, which photos shall I share next?………...

Crochet, cats and compost

A crochet & cat combo

I've done quite a lot on the blanket over the last few days but each time I've tried to lay it out flat on the floor for a photo Tilly has come and helped. So I've abandoned all hope of a full photo for the moment and will just show a couple of views with cat accoutrement!

I wouldn't mind but she has her own special snuggle rug on the chair seat (you can just see it in the photos).

Although she's been with us for 10 months she has shown no inclination to venture outside as she's very timid and still scared of visitors so we decided to let her tell us when she was ready. Recently she's been watching what's going on through the window and seemed to be much more settled so for the last few weeks we've been encouraging her to be brave and come outside just for a short time each day.

I'll let the photos show her journey. She was really scared at first and it took days to get her to even come out onto the patio (with me sitting on the sun lounger with a packet of Dreamies cat treats as encouragement!) and she'd just sit there sniffing the air and looking around.

I'm not sure…….

Here I come…..

…but then again…..

I like it here!

What's that then?

This smells interesting - it's Curry plant so the leaves are aromatic but she spent ages rolling underneath it so there must have been an animal scent there too.

There were lots of nice smells around the stacked wood by the barn

Hmmm, I think mum needs to get some weeding done in this bed!

First close encounter with ducks. Thankfully they quickly established the ground rules between them.

Now she's very keen to come out and we have several outings each day of about 30 minutes at a time. She wanders off and has her own adventures whilst I potter in the garden; then she comes to get me when she's ready to go back inside. Bless her!

Compost

Yep, I'm about to extol the virtues of a good compost heap. No, don't yawn, it's an important part of gardening!

For years I've been hoarding pallets (well, a girl can have an obsession other than yarn can't she?) in the hope that someone, ahem Mike, would make me some compost bays. We've only been here 12 years, admittedly a lot of that time was spent renovating the house itself and the garden had to take a back seat, but finally my dream came true and here they are:

They may not look pretty and you probably wouldn't want them in an urban setting but my goodness they are useful! Until now I've had to just create piles behind the barn and because they weren't closed in at all they attracted the ducks and badgers who would rummage through them for worms and make a right old mess. I also have piles of leaves rotting down, a pile of wood chippings which I use as a decorative mulch on some of the flowerbeds in the wilder areas and a pile of horse muck.

You can see I've got 3 bays; one to be left to rot down, the current one that's being built up and one for piling stuff to be sorted into the current heap - oh the luxury!  It's really important to get a good balance of ingredients so things rot down well. Mike puts the grass clippings in the end bay so I can add them to the current heap in layers as grass clipping just form a slimy mush if left in a pile on their own or added all at once.

The first thing I had to do was transfer my existing heap into the first bay. I did this at the beginning of February which was the ideal time as it's got time to finish rotting down before I start using it to dig in when I plant new things. It's really important to turn your compost heap to mix things up and get air into it but it's jolly hard work.

The lower I got into the heap the more worms I found; just look at these lovely composting machines. They help the rotting process by digesting things, which breaks them down, and by moving through the heap thus aerating it too.

But you don't need such a large area to compost things. When we lived in our flat we were lucky enough to have a small garden and I had a wormery just like this. I still chuckle when I remember that the brandling worms came through the post in a polystyrene container! We put all our kitchen waste into the bin together with some plant material and the worms did all the hard work for us. Not only did they produce the most crumbly compost, they also gave us a liquid feed (that's what the tap's for) which I diluted and used for our plants. 

When we moved to our next home the bin was full and I refused to empty it out so the removal men transported it for us. They were both fascinated and horrified when I showed them what was inside!

What do I put on my heap? Lots of things, some you might not have thought about composting. Here are a few things:

- things high in nitrogen such as plant material from the garden for example plant leaves and stems but not perennial weeds or annual weeds with seeds developed. I also add fruit and vegetable peelings and scraps, coffee grounds and tea bags (although not all teabags are compostible). I always have a few comfrey plants in the garden as their leaves speed up the composting process so I add them throughout the summer.

- fibrous materials such as dead and dried plant material and plant stems; but not anything too woody as they take a long time to rot down. If you want to add tougher plant material then you can put it through a shredder to help it to break down faster.

- I used to add rabbit dropping when we kept rabbits and I always add horse manure, egg shells, cardboard (ripped up and wetted) and paper towels.

So why am I showing you a photo of our beautiful pampas grass, taken last summer? Because I left the plumes on all through winter and they looked wonderful but I had to chop them down so that the new growth could come through.

I know that the birds love this sort of material for their nests and so when I'd cut them off I put a pile of them by the compost heap so they can help themselves.