In the house

Dr Livingstone fastened the plastic conservatory to the ground (so it won't blow into our neighbour's pond!) and today the plants went into the ground.

I fastened some ropes between two planks so they can serve as a grow-guide. Everything got a place: 4 cherry tomatoes, 2 normal tomatoes, 2 F1 tomatoes [I hope those will grow VERY fast], 2 paprika's, 1 peperoncino (or something very much like it) and 1 cucumber. 

Plenty of good soil added and now it's up to the plants to do the work. And Dr Livingstone to water them regularly...

Garden update

It looks like this blog is turning into a gardening blog.
Loads of stuff has been going on, Dr Livingstone and myself have been VERY busy at work and in college. And somehow we've managed to find some time to plunge headlong into gardening.
It's beginning to look pretty trim now. Bar the weeding. It's all a work in progress, but it's slowly taking shape.
Some things just grow by themselves and are doing very well. The climatis by the car port is holding back for some better weather I think. Dr Livingstone moved a bee hotel from the back near the stables to this sunny spot underneath the one that was already there. The top one is already full, let's hope the other one will house a plethora of new bees to pollinate the flowers and veg.

Dr Livingstone has been planting some veg in the self-made crates I mentioned earlier. This is the way to beat backache (well, erm, after doing all the hard work).
Crazy neighbour gave him some salad to plant and our other neighbour gave some Tagates to plant in between the rows of onions, leek and potatoes.

Last weekend we also got some poles and some plastic gutters. Dr Livingstone and myself fashioned them into raised flower pots and Crazy Neighbours' wife brought some flowers she had left over. Other neighbour also offered some manure. Looks like they're keen to have a lovely garden next door!

I also made a second space for herbs. Now I've got extra Moroccan mint and I've also moved the dill I had in the conservatory outside.
Dr Livingstone bought a plastic mini conservatory. He fastened it down with some logs so the wind won't transport it somewhere we don't want to. I've bought some red paprika's and a lot of cherry tomato plants. They haven't gone into the ground yet, the guiding poles for growth have only gone in today.
The trellis Dr Livingstone finds hideous also went in the ground and I've planted 4 climatis alongside it and hope they're going to give us a nice rainbow of flowers (if we ever get some spring and nicer temperatures that is).

We've done a fair bit of work and have done more, but I'm saving that for a different post.

Chillin' next door

I went to return the crowbar I had leant from Crazy Neighbour™ and found Mouser chilling on one of their garden chairs on the patio, just outside their kitchen.
The neighbours are
catsitting for their son who's on holiday. So two cats are in the house. A fat blue point called Sylvester and a skinny rusty long haired female called Missy.
Mouser knows they are there and is keeping an eye on them, looking in, stalking.

Till the end

The garden is turning into absolute wilderness. Were there's supposed to be a lush, nicely trimmed lawn, there's weeds as far as the eye can see. The concrete borders are still absent and the guys who were going to do the lawn haven't been in touch.
Dr Livingstone had enough, we decided to go out and buy a tilling machine.
We rented one last year to break the ground, it was a heavy thing, weighing about 300kgs. This one is ideal for giving the area Dr Livingstone wants to have his veg patch on. It's only 70 kgs and handles much easier then that beast from last time.
It's going very well, Dr Livingstone is very pleased with it and he's been at it for an hour at a time as long as his back permits.
We've also made some crates to grow veg in from old pallets.
I'm chopping some up and adding some plank here and there. Dr Livingstone stapled some plastic lining on the inside and is now filling them with some dirt.
We're still working on the rest, but it's coming along nicely.

Spring on campus

This is what (part of) the engineering campus looks like on a sunny morning around 10 am.
In winter you can see squirrels looking for nuts without noticing you from behind the window. In spring and summer there are kayakers on the river.

Chicken or egg

Dr Livingstone found an egg in the front garden. I had seen it two days earlier but thought it was a snatched and empty egg. Sometimes the pine marten robs them from the coop. But Dr Livingstone brought it to the kitchen and said:'It's still in tact, I'm having that for breakfast!'. I took another egg we got from our neighbour, its different.
I'm guessing that egg belongs to a duck rather than a chicken.
He boiled them together, luckily it turned out the duck egg wasn't fertilized.

Le nouveau spring est arrivé

Tell tale signs of spring really starting to kick in: an Orange Tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) visiting some flowers in the garden!
And Mouser trying to hunt the insect.