Sunny Days Tinged with a Little Sadness

The weather here is fab at the moment, hot, sunny, with clear skies and dewy mornings, perfect for my growing vegetables and topping up my tan!

The only things missing are my children who went off at 6am this morning for an extended holiday to the UK where they can see their friends and family members they've been missing. it's really strange them not being here and the place is far too quiet. You'd think there would be constant noise with all these animals around but it's not, well apart from the dogs barking right now and the crickets chirping!

Scruffy or Vasko the dog is still with us and has moved into the yard area, he's mainly quiet and happy to laze about all day. He's now wearing a lovely flea and tick collar and has been de-wormed along with the rest of the dogs so should start putting some weight on and generally feeling better in himself. He likes to follow me about in case I have any food for him as I often sneak him a small treat lol. The pigs are doing great and have also had some treats today, our friend Jordani came round to say he had boxes of free food for the animals and we had to take the ex-camper van-now pick up to his to get it.....we came home with 10 boxes of pitta breads so they'll be shared out between the animals over the next week or so.

Tomorrow we have hay to collect from the field, more chillies to plant, animals to feed/water etc and hopefully there'll be time for a siesta too. With the temperatures rising daily it's now time to adopt the meditteranean (spelling?) afternoon snooze to get out of the heat and save getting burnt to a crisp. At least I don't have to worry about the kids getting heat stroke now or not applying sunscreen. I'll sign off for now but would like to ask if you like my new theme/background. I'm not sure if it's a little over the top and would like your opinion please.

Pass the Matchsticks Please

Just a short update tonight as I'm struggling to keep my eyes open.....getting up earlier is extending the time I can work in the garden but I keep forgetting to have an afternoon siesta so am feeling shattered today. Burning the candle at both ends only works for so long then I need to chill, sleep and recoup some strength.

Scruffy the dog who decided he wanted to stay here is now asleep outside the front door - which is a big step for him as he's been sleeping outside of the gate since he arrived. We've had some interesting news about him and he's really called Vasko. He was/is owned by our village policeman who lives 12 km's away and said the dog went missing. He laughed when he realised the dog was here, got in his car and left without the dog, so it looks like Scruffy Vasko is here to stay! He's getting so much friendlier and looks forward to us opening the door and giving him some attention. He barks at people passing by and seems to get on well with the other dogs and Snotty the cat.

Well that's it for today folks. Feel free to comment and tell me what you've been doing and what you have planned for the summer. I'm off to bed as it's wayyyy past my bedtime and I'm definitely in need to some beauty sleep!

A Week Off

As the title suggests I've had an unexpected week off from blogging and the internet. Our connection here is via a wireless router on a digital wireless network and the router stopped working properly meaning we were incommunicado until today when the operator gave us a new router.

This has meant that I've spent more time in the garden and have finally managed to get my raised beds finished and an extra one built that has yet to be planted but will have my tomato plants in later today, once the weather cools down a little.

I've still been out with the camera as the flowers are wonderful this year. some of the food crops are flowering too and my courgettes are starting to fruit nicely. I've added more peppers and chillies to the garden and pulled the last of the radishes out before they bolted, the chickens enjoyed them immensely. The beech Marten has stopped it's nightly raids so we haven't lost any more birds and one of the missing bantams is sitting on eggs and keeps popping out of her hidey hole for food and water.

I've got to admit that having no internet for a week has made me work harder in the garden, but I have felt a bit cut off and missed reading other blogs, tweets and facebook posts, it will take me a while to catch up with everything. Strange how the internet quickly becomes a part of daily life.

Here's a pic of the dog that has decided to live here, I strongly feel that he's probably been dumped by an owner and he's not in the greatest of shape but starting to look a little better each day. He seems to be quite friendly but a little scared at times and looks forward to the gate opening at tea time! He's been named Scruffy for obvious reasons.

Ups and Downs

I've not been blogging as much lately due to various things. Life has been full of ups and downs in the last week some of which I've covered in previous blog posts. Last night we lost the last bantam to the dreaded and now hated Beech Marten despite our efforts to stop it killing them off. I'm quite sad about it really but can understand that it's a wild animal and at this time of the year probably has young to feed. It's all about survival but doesn't make it any easier when the barn floor is littered with feathers from my little bantam crew.

My hayfever this year seems to be worse than ever so I've had to abandon the garden for a while until I can either get it under control or whatever triggers it stops flowering. Hopefully I can get back to normal pretty quickly and enjoy the summer. The kids will be heading off the UK in a couple of weeks time to see family and friends so it will be rather quiet around here! And we've been told yesterday that hubby's oldest son, 2 of his friends and a friend of ours are booked to come over mid September for a holiday, so our little bungalow will be in use then.

Snotty the cat was allowed to stay in the house for the first time ever last night while we tried to corner and stop the Beech Marten, he wasn't too impressed though and had managed to knock over lots of things, pee on the bathroom mat, keep me awake for ages prowling around and sneezing (that's why he's called Snotty) and finally teaching himself how to open the front door to let himself out, twice! Never mind, he's much happier out in the stable yard. We seem to have been adopted by a dog too - he's been sleeping outside the gate, next to the cars since friday night and doesn't look like he wants to go anywhere. He seems rather sweet and shy, but is quite thin, has some general hair loss and one leg covered in pitch/tar. I have a sneaky suspicion that he's been dumped close by as seems to happen near where other expats live, and has happened to us before. We'll see what happens, for now he seems quite content to stay outside of the gate.

Phew, Hot Work and Tiring

The last couple of days have been half spent trying to get first of the year's crop of lucerne lifted from the field, it's an awful job lifting and stacking it, dirty, hot and sweaty. Yesterday afternoon we managed almost 3 hours and got a third of the way across our designated patch. Today we went at 8.30am and worked until noon before deciding it was simply too hot to be standing in the middle of an open field in full sun while the temperature climbed to over 30 degrees C.

Tomorrow we'll have to get it finished and transported back home before the predicted storms appear over the weekend, plus another 1000sqm's of lucerne that has been cut this morning will need turned first thing tomorrow and then moved into the barn at tea time. So all in all a busy time, but it needs to be done otherwise we'd have to pay extortionate prices later in the year to buy winter animal feed in. No rest for the wicked as they say, and once it's done there's only 4-8 weeks until the next cut so we'll have to go through it all again!

Meanwhile in the garden my polish clematis has flowered and looks stunning, the beans I planted a week or so ago are coming through nicely and the okra is starting to sprout too. The cabbage seedlings seem to be doubling in size every day but my lettuces are starting to bolt and go to seed - I'd like to save seeds from one of the lollo rosso's so will leave a couple and let nature take it's course. The radishes are almost done now, I've lost the onions amongst the weeds so really need to tidy up that area and all of the squash plants seem to be doing well. The sunflowers are flying through now and getting taller each day, I'm hoping some of the seeds I saved last year are the variety I grew last year that you can see in the photo below.

Well that's it for today, past my bedtime as I need to be up early and off to sort out more lucerne, so I'll be giving the weekly market a miss tomorrow and getting on with things.

My First Award

Michael Rivera, fellow blogger and author of  The Psyche of Mikey has kindly nominated me for my first ever bloggers award.

Along with the award comes a set of rules that I should follow. These are:

• Express gratitude to the blogger who bestowed the award unto you. (check)
• Display the picture on your blog proudly. (check)
• Be nice and provide a link to the person who gave it to you. (check)
• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth, or switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.(hmmmm not sure about this one)
• Nominate seven creative writers who might be into doing this.(ok I can probably do that)
• Post links to the seven blogs you nominate and let the owners of those blogs know.(no probs)

So here goes, these are my lies or truths, you decide which is which! Admittedly I'm struggling to think of seven so let's see how many I can do.


I have never kissed a person without first at least knowing their name.

I am not addicted to the internet.

I was once a professional dominatrix.

I love flying in an aeroplane.

If I won the lottery I'd give it all away to worthy causes.

I'd never lie for my friends.

I love celery.

So now it's up to you to decide which are the lies and which could be truths. And I would like to nominate these others for the Creative Writer Blogger Award, here's hoping they will see it as the compliment it's meant to be :)

Adam, at No Going Back
Deb, at Carrots and Kids
Melissa, at Adventures in Free-Fall Parenting
Max, at Rural Idiocy?
Jenny, at Inky Paws
Mrs Icarus, at Hardup Hester's Stretching the Penny's Blog

So I've nominated 6 people and done my little bit for fun. Now I'm off to chill out in the garden for a while before the evenings chores need to be done.

Inactivity Makes Me Tired

This morning I was up early, dressed, topped up my caffeine system and got the horses out by 7am. On my final trip to the stable yard to put our donkey out to graze the rain started, and boy did it lash down for a few minutes or so. The kids are off school today as it's a national holiday, details of which can be found HERE

We had a lovely tea last night with fresh, home reared pork, Lollo Rosso lettuce and radishes from the garden formed part of the salad. I'm so looking forward to being able to step outside and pick peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers to say the least and also finding out what some of the mystery squash plants are! Now that the temperatures here have risen again their seems to be a few more poking through the soil (and muck heap).

I'm still finding interesting things in the garden to take photo's of and enjoying my time out with the camera. Hopefully my photography skills (or lack of them) are actually improving. It's something I've never really taken the time to explore until now. In years to come I'll have something to look back on and browse through the winter months. What do you get up to when the weather isn't great?