Village Living

The last couple of days has seen the weather improve greatly, so maybe there's hope that some of my vegetables will ripen. The locals are complaining that their tomato plants are dying off and the dreaded Blossom End Rot is back. A neighbour is spraying his daily with some chemical concoction that is probably banned in a load of other countries. Luckily so far for us there seems to be no signs of it here, and I'm still adamant that I won't be using any pesticides or chemical fertilizers, my plants seem quite happy in their organic, homemade compost.

Today I managed to get half of the garden strimmed down, mainly because the electric kept going off so I decided to get off my backside and away from the laptop and get something done! After lunch I did some more painting for our friends Nev & Pat, then popped in to see another friend quickly before I came home. Hubby wanted to have a quick trip into the big town so off we went in search of a cheap above ground pool. A few shops later we hadn't found what we wanted so headed home to get the animals in and fed and have ourselves a late tea. Lo and behold when we got back we were missing one horse - Maya, found happily munching away not far from where we'd left her, and also Scruffy Vasko seems to have taken himself off for a wander. He's not returned yet but something has eaten his tea! Hopefully he'll show up by morning. Usually he doesn't go far but since his tea time was a little delayed tonight he may have gone off in search of food! I've been out with a torch and called for him, but will have to wait until morning to have a proper look. I'm quite fond of him now and hope he's ok.

My chilli and pepper plants are really starting to look well, a few of the plants already have some chillies on and I was curious to see if they were really hot as they'd come from a packet of mixed chilli seeds my mum had given us. Hubby took a bite and said mmmm sweet taste, I agreed after the first tentative bite....but soon my tongue was tingling and after munching a bit more I was getting a little hot! They are nice though and look like they may produce well so I'll be saving seeds and pickling chillies soon. We really do enjoy pickled chillies and the vinegar livens up soup a treat during the winter. Pickled garlic is also a favourite but it does make the cupboard pong a bit!

I'm off to catch up on some sleep now and hope you've all had a good day. Need to be up early to water the garden before it gets too hot.