Combine harvester

So here I am working away getting dinner ready a pork and bean casserole with a side of olive bread. Between the cooking and other domestic chores one catches the state of the garden out of the corner of my eye.
It's grown remarkably in the last couple of weeks the split Jekyll and Hyde pesonality that the climate has had warm sunny conditions then torrents of rain have provided ideal growth conditions for the greenery that passes as our garden.
I don't have as much time as I used to working away more than before and the vegitation has taken full advantage of the absence of it's main protagonist.
The chickens when they escape evade capture easily darting into the long stalks of the Fegrig Savannah all you hear is an jntermittent disembodied cluck as they evade capture. The dogs are not quiet small enough to have been swallowed up but it will not be long now before they will.
Today of course I'm on full as opposed to part time domestic duty ( twiglet in full woolfest mode) so the neighbours have taken full advantage to plunge the secateurs further into my guilty gardening heart.
To my left mow, mow,mow to my right the sounds are even more complex with a full range of gardening paraphernalia being brought to bear on the already pristine lawn.
They even have the gardening equivalent of nail clippers or perhaps nasal hair removers for that snooker table finish. The earthen borders like the full pockets of said table brimming with colour from the annual, perrenial and hardy plants and shrubbery.
If the garden was a head of hair ours would be the unruly hippy head, unwashed, none conditioned and seldom waxed or gelled, comb or hairbrush being historical artefacts only seen on "Time Team".
Next door is a head of hair atop the smartest guardsman who models part time for bryllcream with assistance from Vidal Sassoon. Lovingly sculpted into a work of beauty.
Maybe I'll just take away the fence that adjoins us to the farmers field in order that his combine harvester can give our small portion of an acre the horticultural equivalent of a number 3 the next time?





-- Post From My iPhone

Vigilance?

Lovely warm day, blue skies, grass growing, birds tweeting. The dogs have been out and about before the day heats up too much, have had their breakfast and are having a break in the sun.






















A strange pair of dogs you have there Fegrig, the pet shop sold you a right pup or a cub you might think? The keen eyed amongst you will have detected that these are indeed lions. When you look at these two resting on the kopje in the Serengeti and then look at our two this morning its not that big a jump in my mind.

Just ignore the pallet sitting on the grass that's another story - oh and this is what they are looking over.















In the foreground it is rapidly growing grass and weeds but beyond it is the Forth Valley, not that the dogs can see much from their position as the six foot high fence at the bottom of the garden restricts their view. On a good day they / we can see right across central Scotland from the Bathgate Hills in the west, the Auch Corbetts above Callander going across to the various hills within the Ochils above Dollar and Tillicoultry before the eye takes you to the Forth Bridges and finally Edinburgh on the eastern edge of the view.

Today its too sunny and indeed hazy to see most of this but it's there and on many an occasion I can sit and watch the world go by. Perhaps in years gone by rather than one of the "A" roads westwards carrying cars to and from Edinburgh you would have observed sheep and cattle being taken by their drovers to market "in the toon" or further back, deer and other game in order to plan the hunt, perhaps with dogs sitting at your feet just as they do now. Perhaps not as hard worked as their ancestors might have been but there again neither am I.

However the hunting instinct drawn from wolves can't be too far away from these two, last night walking in the cool darkness the dogs walking ahead, their black coats just visible in the moonlight I heard a squeak as a field mouse narrowly escaped two sets of teeth. However with a missed aperitif as a prod Boris set off into the dark his nose alerting him to a cat which promptly left him floundering as it scrambled over the seemingly sheer six foot barrier masquerading as the neighbours fence

Back to this morning with the dogs outside ready to spring into action I volunteered to make a brew and on finding the tea bag caddy empty decided to fill it up















and as you can see I was very vigilant in my caddy filling and would have been buzzingly vigilant with all the caffeine from those incorrectly placed bags had I poured the water into my cup!