Acton Scott Working Museum

We joined lots of other Shropshire volunteers at a thank-you event at Acton Scott working museum near Church Stretton.

It was a beautiful evening, the air was still, with a hazy sun in a reddening sky. While we gathered around the introductory speech, a robin hopped around on the barn roof and cocked his head on one side as if he, too, was listening.

When I finally climbed into bed my head was full of piglets and haymaking, brick-making and butter-churning, lambs and ducks, cobblestones and farm carts. I was reminded of the time when I used to climb over the half door and sit with the calves at the farm at the bottom of the hill. Calves were small and docile. There was a later day when I was grown up when I had to stand with an electrician in a barn full of cows and stop them knocking over the ladder he was standing on. Cows gradually get more and more bold until nothing you do frightens them away – and they’re so big!

The piglets were gorgeous, soundly asleep alongside their mum in an old-fashioned pig-sty. The last time I saw piglets it was at the Royal Show and the mum was in a cage so small she couldn’t possibly turn around with all the piglets lined up feeding. I’ve only bought Freedom Food pork since then.

This picture I’ve entitled ‘total contentment’. If we didn’t eat meat, pigs would probably be extinct as we don’t drink their milk or use their skin for much (correct me if I’m wrong). We might not like the idea of killing animals for meat but the fact is that to get milk a calf needs to be born – and you can’t keep all those calves as pets – can you?

Beautiful old trees sheltered a pool surrounded by wildflowers, foxgloves and alkanet, buttercups and campion – pinks and blues and yellows all vying for space around the water. Wild ducks swam lazily, dipping their heads and dripping water droplets spreading rings across the water.

We were taken back to an age when time was getting the hay in before it rained and muscle-building was butter-churning and cheese-making, bale-lugging and ploughing, and energy was provided by shire horses pulling the ploughs and turning the wheels for machinery.

How simple life seemed then, working with nature to earn a living, provide food on the table. How many of us these days, in 21st century England, I wonder, would be able to survive without food shops?

It wasn't the rats

It wasn't the rats - the next day I noticed lots of great tits twittering in the trees above the portacabin - the baby birds had left the nest and are flying around! The rats did eat my ducklings though!

Last night we took sleeping bags and lay on the trampoline outside watching the stars come out - and the bats flying around - they go so fast - no way of knowing what sort of bat they are.

Today I took pity on Betsy (yorkshire terrier cross - stray) and bathed her and cut her hair - she looks quite a different dog now - she's got legs instead of moving around like a mop (bit like Dougall in the magic roundabout!) Everything's a bit lopsided as she wouldn't keep still - but she's much cooler. I call her 'shorn' now. I found two fleas - dog fleas are much larger than head lice - and they jump! They also drown - thankfully. I remember once a teacher telling us about fleas - she said she got one once and the only thing she could do was fill a bath with water, take her clothes off one by one and shake them over the bath. Funny how things stick in your mind. That was of course why cinemas used to be called 'flea pits' because you picked up fleas from the horsehair seats (my mum told me that.)

The polytunnel's up but it's too hot to go in it! Forecast is cooler tomorrow and rain on Friday so should be able to plant things then. I've never grown melons before so it will be interesting...

I need a longer hosepipe to reach the polytunnel - don't fancy lugging watering cans across there.

Tried making some comfrey organic plant food. Evidently you cut up comfrey leaves and put them in a large bin with a little hole in the bottom. The bin needs to be raised off the ground. Put a jar under the hole and as the leaves decompose the organic solution drips into the jar. Dilute with water and use as a foliar feed. Unfortunately, I didn't read the instructions in the book first and did it from memory - I just put a load of comfrey leaves in a bucket and filled it with water. I'm sure I've read that somewhere - will have a look at my other gardening books.

The baby rabbits are 6 weeks old today - 9 of them - I've moved them to their own cage. They can go to new homes now but I prefer to wait until they are 8 or 10 weeks old.

Going to have a look at twitter now

Rats

The rats got at the great tits - the tile was moved slightly this morning and all the baby birds have gone. In the last year rats have killed and half eaten a whole litter of my baby rabbits and all my ducklings. We've only got two ducks and I wanted some khaki campbells and indian runners, so we found a place in Exeter and called in on the way back from Cornwall. The ducklings had hatched that morning, they sat on Logan's lap all the way home. They were so tame, they stayed in the conservatory with a light bulb for heat for a week then we put them out on the lawn in a pen each day for weeks until they were big enough to go in a pen at night. The pen was Pip-proof (Pip is our Jack Russell / Paterdale cross) so I thought nothing would get them - but the rats did - they tunnelled under the shed part of the pen, ate two and left the rest dead - it was terribly upsetting.

Where do the rats come from? The local ratman from the council keeps coming along and putting poison down and we keep finding dead rats every so often. I keep all food in sealed containers - so where do they come from and why do they keep coming?

Well maybe next year the great tits will use the tit box made for them which would be much more sensible. The robin didn't have much more sense - we put a robin box, made specially for him, in the barn but he had to make his nest in a roll of canvas, hanging precariously from the barn roof! Happily all the baby robins survived and have now flown the nest.

Forecast is good for the weekend.

Black Panther

Dear Blog,
Mike (next door) has been saying he's seen a big black cat in our fields for ages now. Last week he said it had been in his shed and had left a rabbit skin behind. Mike's not the sort of person who imagines things. Then on Friday, mother-in-law was house-sitting and she said she had seen a big black animal but it went so fast she couldn't see what it was. Yesterday I was spot spraying a big patch of nettles and found a hidden flattened patch in the middle of the nettles. I've always wondered why the rabbits don't eat my vegetables when everyone else around here complains that they can't grow things because the rabbits eats them. Could it be because of a black panther ?

There's also a tree in the big field which has been used as a scratching post - to about 5 ft high. Must be a big cat to do this. Just hope it doesn't find the great tits' nest before the babies can fly.

My baby rabbits are 4 weeks old now - they are New Zealand Whites and very tame, very friendly and never bite or scratch. I used to breed them for meat (white meat, tastes like chicken, very low cholesterol and better than battery hen meat) but I've found I can sell them for more as pet rabbits now. They'll be ready for new homes in a month's time - end of June.

Off to tidy up the polytunnel and put a table in there for my plants.
Bye for now

Dear Blog, It's been a beautiful weekend, we finished putting up the polytunnel today. Didn't realise it would take two days to put up! It's 10 ft wide and 20 ft long and it's all ready for my cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and melons that are growing in the conservatory.

Today I've done lots of weeding, transplanted leeks, spinach and fennel and sown french beans, lettuce, radish and spring onions.

The hoe is truly the gardener's most useful tool - but I think my little cultivator comes a close second!

Also planted busy lizzie plants everywhere which has brightened up the garden.

Found a great tit nest in a hollow concrete block half covered by a tile - there's a beautiful ready- made bird box ten feet above it, safe from cats - why choose a nest on the ground? Blue tits are busy feeding babies in the next box on the end of the washing line pole. The lapwings are busy in the field - I love to hear there pee-wee-it calls when I'm gardening. The swallows are back, swooping over the fields.

Well time for a well-earned rest and my book. Back soon

Sunday

Dear Blog,
It started raining so thought I'd work out how to write a blog. Now I've got this far the sun's come out so I'm going outside to plant my peas. See you later.