Is this a world record?

I have reached the stage where I am not sure if I am going to be able to get through all my stash before I die. By the last reckoning I had over 1000 balls of yarn waiting to be used up, add to that about 20 embroidery projects, numerous fleece for spinning, several silk items for painting, a loom I still need to learn to use, several yards of material to make into clothes, a patchwork quilt to finish, plus of course my cardmakingand a couple of rugs to complete etc and you will see why I am beggining to wonder if I perhaps may have accumluated too much, even for a craft fanatic? If anyone can beat this please let me know……….

ANNUAL FUNGUS HUNT

Having survived eating last years fungi I have been out again collecting what I can. My style is cramped by the number of Eastern Europeans, for whom, I gather, collecting wild edible fungi amounts to a national pastime. I did manage to find a couple of cauliflower fungi; following my usual path of not eating anything which looks anything like a mushroom I felt that this one at least can’t be mistaken for anything else ( yes I know that there is a bit of a lookalike which lives by Birch but even I can tell a Pine tree when I see one!)

Now it is pretty distinctive, if you dont know what it looks like then take a look at these pics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparassis

The main problem seems to be cleaning it! I divided up into florets, thoroughly washed them, ate some and tried to dry some. I gather it dries well, I suspect I need a bit more practice in this critical area. I really need an airing cupboard and my house doesn’t have central heating on this time of year. I thought I would try putting it in a low oven, a disaster…. it went all soggy and had to be thrown out. I also tried drying some in a basket in the kitchen, this was more succesful but I still had small amounts of mould. So the hunt is on to find a way to dry cauliflower mushrooms in my new house.   I dont expect you can microwave it, like flowers, although I will look on the net to see. I also got quite a few Bay Bolete and Ceps, probably enough for the year. Storing them so they dont get mouldy will again require some thought. These dried more easily

Beeless again

I went to see how the bees were coming along the other day. What did I find? Nothing, no bees, no brood, no stores …no sign of them replacing the queen, a completely empty hive. The problem is that because my hives were wiped out last winter I could only summon one colony. I was hoping to get them through the winter and divide them in the spring. A lesser woman would give up, it’s so depressing. Ill just have to focus on getting some swarms next summer and starting all over again…………I am going to ask for some support, I can hardly believe how much colony loss I am getting.The bee inspector was going to come to see how they were getting on. I am so depressed!

Belle of Woking

I had one of these in my last house.

I was attracted to it as I lived in Woking. Now Woking has a reputation for being ideal for Rhododendrons and Clematis as it had Jackmans nursery, famous for Rhododendrons in Victorian times. They used to transport them by road by cart to London.

I was so fond of it I want to plant one in my new garden. Surfing the net I was very surprised to hear that it is considered difficult to grow. It was rather lanky but had two show of flowers each year. My garden was always rather neglected. The only care this poor plant got was a part share of rose feed designed for the rose which also shared the arch, and a very occasional water. Which goes to show that it must be about the soil and the fact the roots were protected ( by weeds!) .

http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk/clematis/clematis%20belle%20of%20woking.htm

Settling in.

Well,

the solicitor who dealt with my mad neighbours last time has written to them for free. He has also sent me the legal correspondence from the previous owners. There are some aspects of this that are quite humorous. He calls it ‘a ridiculous long running saga’ It transpires that my barmy neighbours dug up the previous owners plants while they were out! It seems that in only having my planters moved around I have got off quite lightly!

Now the neighbours seem to have quietened down slightly I am really settling in. The cats have had their own boundary disputes to deal with. The road seems to have cats at every turn, so there is a turf war going on. They won, after all there are three of them!

The sun has been out for a few days, clearly there is something wrong. So far the cyclamens have survived being in my care, but only just! I keep finding them lying flat out, watering them, and then they revive. I thought they didn’t like it too damp!

No cider this year!

I very much doubt I will find the time and the equipment this year! I have two apple trees in my garden and have started to at least dry some of the apples. I wont be able to do any preserving either, I have no idea where my preserving pan has gone!

The good news is that I have a hazelnut tree in the back garden and it has quite a few nuts. Last year I collected wild nuts but these seem much larger so it may be a more commercial variety.

I have a proper fireplace so spent the day sawing wood.I really could do with a chain saw but am reliably informed that I won’t be able to handle it as it has too much of a kick. I have got a little Black and Decker Scorpion, that helps a lot, but the vibration makes my arm ache after half an hour! I hate having to ask for help, so if anyone has any bright ideas as to how I can cope with sawing tree trunks let me know! Bear in mind I am a grandmother!

One thing I do hope to do over the next few days is go mushrooming again, having survived the ones I collected last year!

My new neighbours seem barmy!

Apparently they had a long running feud with the previous occupants that they owned half their drive! This is despite the fact that the Land Registry clearly shows that they don’t. When I arrived I kept finding things moved about it took me a while to twig that they were coming on my property and moving things around when I was out! So when I delivered my cards to say hallo to everyone in the street they got a letter from me threatening litigation! Card, card, litigation, card……………………………

I have posted up some question on a forum called legalbanter, and very helpful they were too.

Apart from that it seems very quiet. My main aim now if to get the damproofing done asap and get enough firewood ( free) for the winter..I am lucky that I live fairly near the army ranges, which helps, plus I have managed to get some from freecycle.

I have stuck a very large pot out the front and planted a corkscrew willow and some red mini cyclamens to  give some instant colour. Now my friend was quick to point out that they have very different watering requirements.  I have left the cyclamen in pots, I am hoping that it will help give them dryer conditions. They DO look nice, but knowing my luck will be dead within a fortnight!

I have finally moved house!

After 4 buyers, and 3 sellers plus a month of homelessness I have finally moved in, thank God! I had planned to move into a buy to let I own but the tenants left it in a filthy state with a massive cockroach infestation, so I had to budge up with family and friends while the place was being cleaned out and refurbished. I am very pleased to see the end of that!

To fill in my time I went to the Oxford Records office to look into my family history, then off to Hertfordshire to do the same thing again. I must say genealogy is very interesting, I have learnt that my parents were never married, discovered a half brother I never knew existed, found out my great grandfather came from Glasgow was wealthy and had a woman and several children on the side, that my grandmother was 5 months pregnant when she got married, and that I had relatives in Ireland who went over with the Plantation.

On top of that I had an ancestor who died early as he was a zinc worker, a chimney sweep, God knows how many agricultural workers, an ancestor who took the Oath of Protestation just prior to the 1st Civil War, a straw hat maker, a guilder, a greengrocer and a female ancestor who was a ‘worker in White (made white leather gloves).

What a motley crew, and to think my parents were a ‘pillar of respectability’ ! Who said that it was the ‘good old days’ and people were more upstanding then! If I have learnt nothing else it is just how hypocritical society really was! At least we are more honest now.

I have not had a lot of time for hobbies for obvious reasons and I havent checked the bees in weeks. I had been feeding them a fancy feed which is supposed to build up their strength.The bee inspector wants to see them so hopefully I can go over in the next week to see how they are getting on if the weather is OK.

I have however managed to do a little bit of gardening recently, and have allocated a whole room for craft work.

The one fly in the ointment is that I have some neighbours who are bonkers. They have got it into their head that they own part of my land, they dont, but they keep moving my planters around as they dont like where I have put them.

The other day I delivered several hallo cards and one threat of litigation!I have only been here three weeks, why does everything seem to happen to me?

My new house does have a nice fireplace, being Victorian. All I need now is lots of wood!

At long last I have started to have some time for relaxation and went back to the Chilterns with a friend to watch the Red Kites. What beautiful birds. If only we could bring back all the wildlife we have hunted to extinction

An update on the bees!

Well, the last colony just dwindled to nothing. The queen seemed to dissapear into thin air and the numbers dropped rapidly.

The last few months have been very depressing, after a great deal of effort I now have 1 very small colony, consisting of 3 frames!

I currently have them in a nuc and fed them today with a Vitagreen supplement which is supposed to build them up, they need something!

I am hoping I might be able to get a swarm from somewhere over the next few weeks, I really don’t want to go into the winter with only one colony!!

I put up some nucs with swarm bait, didn’t work , that’s the second year I have tried it. I keep living in hope. When I opened the hive up I found a visitor, the bait seemed to attract something else, and later I got a look at her, the LARGEST flying wasp thingy I have ever seen. I took a fuzzy pic of the nest, its not easy when you are wearing a bee suit. By opening the hive up I destroyed the nest, and went through a guilt trip about it, however I have since found out it was a European Hornet, which can sting five times! They are not native to these shores and are moving in because of climate change. That’s salved my conscience a bit! However, I have also since found out their numbers are declining in Europe because people think they are much more dangerous than they are, they will only sting when defending the nest, in fact it illegal to destroy a nest in Germany!! Oh dear! See URL for a pic, I have never seen one before….still perhaps she flew off and built another little nest?

just coming out to face the world

Hornets nest ( rather fuzzy)

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2009/04/29/european-hornet-queen-perhaps/

Colony collapse disorder

Its ages since I put anything on my Blog.  Several reasons for this

1) I am selling my house!

I was all set to move when the stupid man who was buying pulled out at the point of exchange.  People kept saying it was because he was from South Africa that he gave me such a rotten time! I had spent weeks looking for another house and we were all rushing around like the Keystone Cops. I found a place with a large garden, suitable for bee-keeping, the right price and everything, all in six weeks and we were due to exchange. What a pillock ! I am sure anyone selling a house right now will feel some degree of empathy. Anyhow its now back under offer. In the meantime I am living out of boxes as this stupid ex buyer insisted he wanted to move in quickly!

2) there have been redundancies at work..so I have been busier than normal

and

3) I have been knackered!

I finally opened my bees up a week or so ago to discover that out of 3 hives in my garden one colony had died  from what looked like isolation starvation, despite my feeding them. The sudden low temperature and snow probably did it! A second colony when opened had not a bee in site! This Mary Celeste syndrome is most puzzling and not a little demoralising. I had three strong colonies and now I am down to one! To make matters worse my last remaining colony is very weak. There is a queen and she is laying but the whole colony only takes up two frames! I also noticed that the brood is in the super instead of the brood box. I contacted the Chairman of our local Beekeepers Association who told me that for some reason his bees were only laying in supers this year as well. He suggested that I feed them and take away the brood box so the bees dont have to go all the way through it to get to the brood. So the hive now consists of a super, floor etc!

I checked yesterday and she is still laying. Hopefully the nice weather recently may help. I have ordered a queen and optimistically set of a swarm bait nuc. You never know your luck………………

I watched a programme the other night about Colony Collapse Disorder ( AKA Mary Celeste Syndrome). The States seems more badly hit than us. I was some what appalled at the way the commercial beekeepers there transport those poor bees up and down the country. All that monoculture can’t possibly be good for nature, its no wonder the system is under stress. Miles and miles of a single crop, its totally unnatural.

I will keep you posted on the progress with my poor bees! I somehow dont think I will get much honey this year!