harvest 2

More potatoes!  These are coming in at the right speed to eat them, so we don't (yet?) have a glut.

I don't think we are going to get a good harvest of sunflower seeds, however.

this sad specimen is all of 18" tall

as good as new

The spare part for our broken garden shredder arrived today, thanks to the speed of online ordering.

This is somewhat less worn than the old broken component.

It has now been fixed, and we are shredding-capable again.

So, we've saved ourselves from having to buy a new shredder, for now.  And props to Bosch for designing repairable kit and selling spare parts!

make do and mend

 We've had our garden shredder since 2008 (when it cost £269), and it's worked hard since.

In particular, it recently reduced a huge pile of bamboo from the garden to little pieces that have become a new path.

We got it repaired when it was 10 years old, in 2018, when it needed some electrical work.  Since that cost £100 (parts, labour, and shipping) we did wonder whether it would be better to get a new one.  But we got it mended, and it lasted fine.

Until today, when a large chunk of aluminium fell out of it.

That doesn't look good!  Surely we will have to replace it now?

My other half took the shredder apart to find the problem.

That's the internal guts that does the shredding.  It does look like it would be expensive to replace.

But wait!  A quick web search shows that you don't need to replace the whole thing, just that broken piece in the front.

And that costs only £26.  So we'll try that before shelling out more than ten times as much for a new shredder.

first harvest

We've had a few home-grown strawberries so far, but this is the first potato harvest of the season.  (A second crop is due later.)

Ickworth National Trust

We went with some friends to the National Trust centre at Ickworth today.  Another magnificent house in magnificent grounds.

We walked around the gardens.  There is a hidden stumpery: well-hidden, as it took us a while to find it, but it was definitely worthwhile.  Lots of very jagged, alien-looking tree stumps arranged around a winding path.

There are more formal gardens, with occasional great views of the house.

This is just the central rotunda.  There are a couple of lovely wings, too.

And there are big trees, and strange statues.

Nobody expects the large wooden giraffe.

Several of the trees have amazing amounts of mistletoe adorning them.

There is a nice restaurant in the hotel that occupies one wing of the house.  We had only a light lunch, as it was very hot out.  On exiting, we got to see the front of the house, up close.

We then went for a longer walk, around the park lands.  Lovely views, but very hot in the open.  So, back to the entrance, where they sell ice creams... then home.

blooming spring

The elder is looking simply superb this year.

looking down from an upstairs window gives the best view

king of the castle

We had a tree cut down recently. One of the neighbourhood cats clearly likes this new perch.

not in a pear tree

 View from our kitchen window:

snapped on my phone through the kitchen window, so a little bit of reflection on some pics

This red-legged partridge was pecking around under the birdfeeder, on which was a great tit flinging seed around.

By the time we got a proper camera with a bigger lens, this bird had flown.

sequestering carbon, several books at a time CXLVII

The latest batch before the Christmas presents drop (which means I'm up-to-date on databasing, for a day or so at least!):

silver and gold

We've recently removed a lot of bamboo from the garden, as it was getting rather large and overgrown.  We had a silver birch sapling growing on the edge of the thicket, but hadn't noticed quite how tall it had grown, desperate to find light next to the tall bamboo until the latter had been cleared away.  

Today, despite that early pink sky, the weather has been glorious, and has highlighted the tree in glorious low winter sunshine against a brilliant blue sky.  Beautiful, if in a slightly etiolated way. 

harvest failure

 The carrots have not been a success.

more harvest

The cooker and Cox apple trees are bearing fruit.

I predict apple crumbles to come...

Audley End

We went to a garden show at Audley End.  The show was okay, but we would have liked more "show gardens".  The street food vans were better: I had a very meaty tasty duck wrap.  We didn't go in the house, but we did walk round the gardens.  There was a large kitchen garden with vegetables, and more espalier apple trees than you could shake a stick at.  But for me, the best bit was the woodland walk, with some great trees.

harvest

 My other half planted a few potatoes this year.  We have produce!

Not quite enough for full self-sufficiency, I suspect...

An unexpected gem

 We got a photo of the "new" Skye bridge this morning before we left our hotel in Kyle.

Then we left to drive up to Inverewe, to visit the gardens there.  On the way, we stopped at Acnasheen to charge the car, via the ChargePlace Scotland app. 

Not sure I'm keen on standing in a big puddle while I hook up an electric charger...

Then off to Inverewe.  Like at Dunvegan yesterday, most of the rhododendrons are over, but that allows the spectacular bark to be seen.

But there are still a few late bloomers.

The woodland walk includes a path down to the loch.

panoramic view of the loch

And there are marvellous trees.

Californian Redwood

After about an hour and a half walking round all the gardens, we had lunch in the garden cafe.  Then time to drive to Inverness.

Just before we got there, we stopped at what looked like a large layby with a Public Convenience.  But it turned out it was the small car park for Rogie Falls.  An information board showed two trails: a half-mile Salmon Trail down to the Falls themselves, and a somewhat longer and "strenuous" Riverside Trail.  It was still early, so we put on our boots and set out on the longer trail.

We took the blue trail

disappearing down the trail

This brought us down to a path along the river above the falls.

an unexpected gem

The path led us to the falls themselves.

We guessed from the name "Salmon Trail" that this is a salmon river, but assumed it was too late to see any.  But no! There was a lot of jumping going on, but we failed to get any photos of fish.  We continued on the trail, back to the car park, and then drove to Inverness.

We chose a hotel that was supposed to have an EV charger associated with it, but it was no longer there.  So we went to a local shopping centre, plugged into a Tesco charger, bought some items in Tesco's to be legitimate customers, then ate in a local diner while the relatively slow charger filled the car.

Off to Edinburgh tomorrow!

Over the Bridge to Skye

After a great time at the Glasgow Worldcon, yesterday we drove up to Kyle of Lochalsh, and today spent the day driving round Skye.  The last time we were here (about 40 years ago!) we had to take the ferry; now there is a bridge, making Skye more accessible, and more crowded.

view this morning from our hotel window

We visited Dunvegan Castle and gardens.  The castle has a fairly standard historic interior.  The formal gardens are interesting, and there was also a pipe band playing. And the woodland walks are beautiful.

Dunvegan Castle

A very well covered pergola

mossy roots

Too late for the rhododendrons to be in flower, but that just makes the twisty shapes more visible

Waterfall, fed from all the water falling from the sky...

We then had lunch in Dunvegan village, and spent the afternoon driving further north around the coast on single track roads, down to Portree for dinner, then back to Kyle for a second night in the hotel.

Off to Inverewe and more gardens tomorrow.

Belvoir Castle

We are slowly making our way up the country to the Glasgow Worldcon via interesting places.  Today, we stopped at Belvoir Castle.

Belvoir Castle

We looked around the castle, which had castly things in it.  Then we went for a walk around the grounds.

The woodland walk was excellent, with many weird, wonderful, and magnificent trees.

weird : lots and lots of branches

wonderful

magnificent

There were also several buildings constructed of wood, or cut into the rock.  

Root and Moss House

Closer to the castle, on the edge of the woodland, there were some stunning hydrangeas.

they were a much more vivid blue in reality

And closer still were the more formal gardens.

green formality

a lovely rose garden, but just past its best

We then drove to a nearby Premier Inn hotel for the night, chosen mainly because it is part of a chain that has EV chargers.  It also had a Brewers Fayre eatery attached, where we had dinner.  The menu had a nice looking mixed grill, but it was clearly too big for one person.  So we shared it, and had a good, filling meal each.  Then we shared an apple crumble for dessert, which also gave us a good-sized portion each.  The result was a really nice substantial meal for two, for less than £25! 

spring

 Despite the wet March and cold April, spring has finally sprung.

a lovely sight on walking across campus this morning

sequestering carbon, one Christmas at a time XI

His ’n’ hers Christmas presents:

hot compost

We've been composting all our garden waste, plus most of our food waste.  But not cooked food waste.  We don't have much of that, but there are always things like trimmed fat, fish skins, and the odd over-catered potato that shouldn't be put in ordinary compost, lest it attract rats.  We've always been a bit annoyed at having to wrap this up and put it in the "green recycling bin": couldn't we recycle it ourselves?

So recently we bought a "hot bin".  This is essentially a big polystyrene box that keeps the heat in, allowing a high enough temperature that cooked food can be composted.  To install it, we needed to move the old kitchen waste compost bin (garden waste has it own complex of three large bins elsewhere.)  Interesting, we had been filling, but not emptying, this bin for 10 years.  When we tipped it up, a glorious brick of very dense, very black, very fine compost slid out from it; not quite coal, but close!

The hot bin needs more care than the standard compost bins, in order to maintain a sufficiently high temperature, and a proper mix of materials.  Today it was full enough, and composted enough, that we could remove some of its contents.

the hot bin, with the output door opened, sited next to the old kitchen waste compost bin

 (right) and a small green waste top-up bin (left)

close up of the yummy compost

So now, even less stuff to put out for council recycling.