True then, True now.

Two centuries ago John Stuart Mill declared that there had never been a labour saving device invented that saved anyone a minute's labour.

True then, true now.

Literary Appreciation

Today I had a lie in so I was up at 9am. I had my usual breakfast. I read my book a while. I came to a decision on what I would do today. The poo trailer was still at the lottie, I had a number plate in the garage and spuds in the ground. There's a plan. I went to the lottie and emptied the poo trailer and in the process buggered up my back. I soldiered on very annoyed with myself. I had decided to to dig up the remaining Charlotte spuds. Bending down did not hurt my back so I plugged on. The soil is still on the dry side of moist. The spuds came up clean. I dug the three rows up which leaves nine rows of Cara left to be dug up. I went round the Calebrese one last time and found another dinner worth of heads to harvest. They are pretty much spent. The Calebrese have performed very well over the year giving me three harvests. I will be planting them again next year.

I dropped back in at the house. I removed the number plate off the trailer. Using the old number plate as a template I drilled holes in the new number plate. Holes sorted I screwed the number plate back on the trailer. The trailer now has the number plate of Degsy. I had picked up a trailer safety strap at Melton market the last time I was there. The "strap" is a plastic coated steel cable with ring at one end and a carabinar at the other. I just had the loop the wire through the ring to secure cable to the trailer. The carabiner hooks onto Degsy when the trailer is hooked up to Degsy.

I have been reading a book by Pete Brown about beer. I have come to appreciate the pub, its history and even the unspoken rituals more than ever. I had run the trailer back up the the stables. Whilst in the area I popped over to see the Bees. H came with me for the ride. The Bees were flying freely despite the colder nights we have been having. On the way back we spotted that the front door of the Railway Inn was open so we stopped. We sat in and had a pint, me a Guinness and H had half a Pedigree. Just in the sense of literary appreciation you understand.

paaaand a bowl

I have been off work this week. I have to use up my holiday entitlement or loose it. Tuesday H and I went to Melton Mowbray to the Livestock market. There is a general market on that day as well. You can buy, at auction, anything from a Hereford Bull to a Matchbox toy car by way of; Pigs, Sheep, work clothes, animal foodstuffs, feeders of every kind and every sundry item that could be needed. There is a general market to where there is all manner of delights. It is like a massive car boot sale but more professional. Then there is the "Fur and Feather" auction. There is game such as Hare, Rabbit, Pheasant, Partridge and Quail. Live ferrets, fancy birds [budgies, finches and parrots to name to ones I recognised], and all kinds of fowl, chickens, ducks and geese. It is an assault on the senses but a great morning out. We had a wonder round the town as well. Market day there too. We found a super little cafe over looking the market. A quintessentially English Tea room, Tea served on a China service, two tier cake stands, waitresses in black and white livery and service with a smile. No wonder it was voted the best Tea room in Leicestershire for 2011.

Yesterday H and I went to Oakham. Malc & Penny bought us a afternoon Tea as an anniversary present so we decided yesterday would be the day. But first we went to Barnsdale. Barnsdale is five miles the far side of Oakham so having got up at a reasonable hour and had a nice breakfast we trundled over to Barnsdale. Geoff Hamilton was a TV presenter of Gardener's World from 1979. Click HERE for his obituary. In a change to TV production the BBC made Geoff the main presenter. Geoff used his garden at Barnsdale to show the TV audience how to set out gardens and how to do all manner of garden related tasks. The gardens are still there and that is what we went to see. Not the best time of year to see garden...never mind, we had the place to ourselves, more or less. I don't know if it was the weather or time of year but the gardens had a quite sad feeling. It was like a memorial to Geoff. Still, he gave us gardening TV as we know it. Gardener's World remains a firm favorite with many people. Geoff cottoned on the a more natural way of gardening, we call it organic. Geoff was an early promoter of the idea. After we had had a look round the nursery we came inside for a brew in the very nice cafe. Geoff's DVD were playing on the TV. It was a bit surreal. Still, worth a trip.

Afternoon Tea was booked for 3.30 at The Whipper Inn, Oakham. We got to Oakham a couple of hours early and took a spin round the town. It a splendid little town. THe market was on in Butter market right in the middle of town as it has always been. There were good stalls. The great fish stall but all I wanted was the brown shrimp. If had been able to find some quality butter I would have bought the shrimp and made potted shrimp. It would not be as good as Morecombe Bay potted shrimp but I am sure it would serve. I got a turned wooden wedge for a quid. H got a loaf from the baker's stall. The veg man was having a hard time, " paaaand a bowl", any offers, paaand a bowl". In Leicestershire vegetable stalls have a system were they have shallow stainless steel bowls and in the bowls is produce. The bowl has a price for whatever is in the bowl but all the bowls are the same price. Oakham market the bowls had fruit or veg or what I call stew mix ups, any combination of carrot, parsnip, potato, swede. There is enough for a good stew from the contents of the bowl. On Oakham stalls a bowl was a "paaand" [one pound]. The previous day in Melton the bowl has all the same things as Oakham but also bowls of Strawberries, another of mushrooms and so on. Melton bowls were two quid. Same stuff just different price. That is the perfect market for you.

One of the stalls at Oakham sold hats. All kinds of hats. I ended up getting a crushable felt Trilby. I blame Nick Crane. I read his book "Clear Waters Rising". He wore a crushable felt Trilby on his travels. I got one for the same reasons, more or less. The brim keeps the sun out of my eyes and it keeps my head warm. I hope that if I should be outdoors went to rains it will shed the rain off instead of soaking it up as my wooly beeny hat does. The only thing it does not do is keep my ears warm. Perhaps if the ears are cold I should retire indoors or get out the beeny. The Whipper Inn is on the market place so it was the shortest of walks to the front door.Click HERE for there website. It is a Inn of two halves. The main entrance and main room is dark and timbered and looks like it has been there forever, which it probably has. The other room is a modern bistro. We sat in the old bit and ordered a couple of Sherries from the Hungarian waitress. We read our books for a while then tucked into our afternoon Tea. Sandwiches with crust cut off, seed cake and scones and off course Tea. It was quite nice. Thanks M & P.

Cecily

I have been waking up early these days but H was still up before me. H was off to Donnington le Heath, click HERE for the website, to take part, as a actor, in a medieval day. Her alter-ego is Cecily. When I had finished at the lottie I popped over to see her to lend some support. I drove there in Degsy. He needed a run after being stood her a few weeks.

Back at the lottie I decided to tidy up the plot and harvest some more spuds. I took down the bamboo frame for the French beans. I just left the vines on the soil. I went through the Pumpkins and harvested the fruits. They are not so big but big enough. I got the wheelbarrow and chucked in the spent bean vines. Pumpkin vines and Sweet Corn stalks. The ended up in the big compost bin. The compost I made last year just have had seeds from Don's Huckleberry plants. They grew very nicely but they are weeds. I worked through the top end of Bed1 cleaning up the Huckleberry plants, other weeds and the remains of the Pumpkins, Beans and Sweet Corn. The soil is still as dry as a bone but it makes weeding easy.

The nice job was to harvest the grapes. Not as many as last years as they got hit with a late frost whilst in blossom. I also dug up a another row of spuds. I still have twelve rows to dig up.

Before going to the lottie I had to empty the back of Degsy as it contained a load of Bee hive parts. I was given a hive a few weeks ago. When I got back from Donnington le Heath I parked Degsy back onto the garage. I took the harvest round to the back of the house. I tipped a couple of tubs of weeds from the lottie into the green bin at home. Then I set about cleaning up the "gift" hive. I got the blow torch out and the wire brush. I played the blow torch all over the hive boxes burning away the cobwebs and hopefully any bugs. The heat also softened the propolis which I scrubbed off with the wire brush. The hive parts were stacked up in the garage which required tidying up that side of the garage.

I noticed that Degsy was ticking over a bit quickly. When all the other jobs were done including sweeping out the back of Degsy I warmed up Degsy then backed off the throttle stop screw. When a fraction of slack could be felt on the throttle stop I then adjusted the slow running screw to set the tick over proper. I brought the tick over down until the "charge" light, on the dash board, started to glow. After a quick spin round the estate the tick was proved to be spot on.

Mojo

I seem to have found my mojo. This weekend I; fettled bees, sorted Steve's Landy and mine, fitted a fan to the down stairs loo, refitted a cupboard in the garage, took time to walk down to the local car boot and had a brew on the way back, patched some holes in the garage brickwork, emptied Degsy and tidied up the garage. The weather is mad hot with high humidity. Any work was sweaty but it did mean that I could leave all the doors in the house open, even if H does not like it. It does let me get the work done quicker.

I even got the watch the Moto GP and ran Steve's landy back to him.

Bee brush

This weekend was very warm and sultry. I went to the apiary on Saturday to "bed down" the bees for the winter. However I think I shall be visiting again before too long. I closed down the left hive to a double brood. It is full of honey but no Queen. In the few weeks the hive will be dead. At least I will get another honey crop.

The hive on the right is filling up with honey which is not bad thing. There is a viable queen and she is laying although the brood area is much reduced which is as it should be. I put feeders on both hives and removed empty super and moved them to share area.

H and I went to Moira car boot sale on Sunday. Whilst wandering round I spotted a stack of plastic feeders. I had to ask the chap what he wanted for them. One pound for the bag was the answer. A pound was exchanged. The bag contained six feeder with lids, A bee brush and a capping fork. I bought a capping fork earlier in the season. I had decided to buy a bee brush so getting for free was a result.

Summer Time & harvest time

The summer has been very busy at work. I have had very little time for anything else. Despite the weather at the moment it has been a very dry summer. I also have several big Willows growing in the hedge and it roots have been found in Bed A. The trees have sucked all the water out of the bed. The crops in that bed have done very poorly. We did get some nice peas but not as many as we should have.

The spuds have done well enough. I did go to the trouble of watering them now and then. The nice thing is that we not see any sign of blight this year. When the spuds were dug up and the soil being so dry, the spuds came up clean, not needing washing. The crop has been better than fair. I dug up a two rows of spuds today and despite all the rain we have had over the past few weeks the soil an inch down is still bone dry.

The Calebrese did really well. I got a second and third cropping before digging them up this weekend. The freezer is full for the winter. We had a fair crop of French climbing beans. The freezer is bulging with them.

We have a small crop of Pears from the tree at home. They are a bit small but Pears after only a couple years is encouraging. My neighbour gave me access to their Pear tree. It has given us a big crop of really nice Pears. H made several jars of smashing Pear jam.

The bees have come good. One hive lost its Queen but the other two are on double brood boxes. This makes them very strong. I have had a decent crop of Honey. because all the Rape round the hive means the honey solidifies in the combs. I have damaged the super frames trying to extract the honey. In order to extract the honey I took to extracting the honey much earlier in the year and before the honey solidified. It has worked well. The farmer tell me they have sown Rape this autumn, so it is likely I will have adopt the same strategy next year.

The poo runs have continued throughout the summer so I have fair supply for winter digging. The wind has given the netting a beating so I have a repair job to do.