Hobbies and Crafts

I didn't see this yesterday.
Kandj I hope the stronger painkillers have helped your OH. Awful seeing him in pain I am sure.

That is a lot of bird activity Jane. Yes, I know where Deerhurst is, Not that we have been into the village as we are normally going past it on the main road heading towards Malvern from the A38. Sounds lovely for a weekend though. You were about 15-20 minutes from me.

Vera, must be a time of pond/water feature clearing. myOH decided to sort out one of our water features at the weekend. It is a large sort of pointed rock which had a hole in the top, water is pumped from the bowl reservoir underneath and the pump has packed up. When he got to the bowl there was a frog in it, he wanted to move the bowl so with difficulty managed to get the frog out, then laid a bucket with water in nearby for the frog. We went out, when we came back he went to check the water feature and there were two frogs in the laid down bucket so he has brought them up to the top water feature. Not sure if they stayed there as I haven't seen them.

I think ALL those Frogs sound happy just mucking around in your' posh pond' Vera LOL .Not bothered about the slugs :-)
We have had 2 Buzzards overhead all morning and quite low too. The Crows were having a field day trying to chase them off. There has been a Pheasant somewhere close by too .Probably next door. We could hear something pecking on the other side of one of the fences.
I have also seen a Heron fly over the garden heading for my neighbours pond. It will be out of luck though as the have a big wire grill over the pond.

I hope Kandj's Hubby has some relief now from the stronger pain killers. I moan about my aches and pains , but they are nothing compared to what Gloria's OH is having to cope with. I hope the pain has eased up somewhat today <3

Kandj had to call the paramedics out to her husband and he now has extra pain relief. Hope it kicks in soon. Sending love to Kandj <3

OH said he would clean the pond as I have cut back the vegetation that was nearly hiding it. As you know, in our house, “pond” is a posh word for a glorified washing up bowl and I am really not joking. It is a heavy black plastic bowl, 18” in diameter and about 9” deep. It already contains a brick on which stand two pots with water plants, and a rock that stands up above the rim so that anything that gets in has a means of climbing out. So not a lot of spare room in the “pond”.

When OH started to empty out the water he found 8 frogs in the bowl - 8. Can you believe it? What I want to know now is this. If the frogs like our garden so much why aren’t they eating all the slugs?

Thinking of Kandj today as her Hubby is in a lot of pain <3

Ann we stayed in Deerhurst just a couple of miles from Tewkesbury. My family live there.Actally I think it was called Deerhurst Walton. It was a lovely restored and renovated Dovecote.Turned into a 2 bed holiday cottage.If you google The Dovecote Deerhurst you will see what I mean. The bedrooms !!!

Kandj, very difficult to keep your BP down if you are stressed, and not easy to not be stressed if your OH is not well. Sorry to hear he is not good. It is such a worry for you. Pleased that you didn’t see mouse when the freezer was delivered maybe you scared him off.

I shouted HELP PLEASE to Damian and he called after work with bright torch, looked all around the garage..... no sign of a mouse or any droppings. He renewed the poison in 5 bait boxes and reset 6 mouse traps. He is a a star!!!!

I bravely followed the delivery man bringing the freezer and glanced around briefly but no dead mouse/mice in any traps. I haven't looked in the garage this morning.

We have had lots of stresses to cope with this past month. Hubby is now not good and my BP is very high but being monitored....... hardly surprising to be honest.

Thanks ladies for your kind words....................... greatly appreciated.

Kandj, oh dear, back to the traps, hopefully just one stray.

Vera :-D :-D dirty birds!! We have found that collard doves actually like niger seed but their beaks are too big to get it out of the wired feeders so they wait until the Goldfinches drop seed in the tray underneath. I see OH must have spilt some when filling the feeder as it is growing in the lawn!!

Jane where did you stay? Hope you had a lovely time, beautiful area to visit.

OH NO Kandj :-(. Poor you. Just what you need right now ! Back to the mouse traps. Might there be another little hole that your young man (was he your nephew?) could plug up for you?

Just the usual sparrows about today but I did notice the Niger seeds seem to be going down, even though I never see any birds on that feeder. I also scrubbed the bird bath out AGAIN. It was disgusting I feel like putting up a notice saying ‘for drinking only. Not to be used as a bath and definitely not as a toilet’
:-|

Tidying in the back of the garage as we have a freezer being delivered in the morning.
Saw what I thought was a leaf moving and it was A MOUSE!!!!!!.... end of tidying up!

Off to the Cotswolds for a couple of days for a family get together.

Lots of little birds enjoying a group bath this morning. I think they might have been trying to wash ofall the horrible Sahara Dust that we had yesterday. They will hopefully be clean as whistles now :-D

Hello everyone......... Vera, YES we do seem to still be mouse free, HURRAY!!!!
July and August were just sooooooo challenging for me and I still HATE MICE!! YUK!! I really wouldn't have liked seeing a large frog either. What a wuss I am!!!!!

Enjoy yourselves in the Lakes Ann. It is so beautiful when the sun shines but a different place when it rains, that's if I can remember that far back, as it is many years since we holidayed in the Lake District (or anywhere else for that matter).

Jane, don't let Thomas get blown away with all the strong winds around just now!

Nothing new here just the same starlings, sparrows, blackbirds,doves and pigeons. We haven't seen the two magpies for a while. Wonder where they are hiding now?

I just worked out what LD was Ann LOL I hope I got it right and it's the Lake District :-D. It was the mention of the Cormorant that got me a bit confused.

Well we are being buffeted a bit by the winds here but thankfully nothing as bad as it is in Ireland and the North and West. The birds have been far and few between today. They must all be hunkered down safely .Even the cat is in.I will keep him in now for the night .Whether he likes it or not. :-D

Not many birds here in the LD although did see a cormorant today in Barrow. No ladybirds either and definitely no warmth!
We did see a large murmerstion of starlings getting ready to roost in nearby trees from the lounge window last night. And today it didn't rain after 11.30am.

Vera it is Ladybirds and Cobwebs here :-S Not big Spiders now but just the little ones that hang in the webs ...but the webs seem to spread so much :-S. My Cobweb brush has been so busy sweeping thw walls and ceilings. But it seems as soon as I turn my back the webs are back again :-| :-| :-|.... Frogs seem to love your garden Vera.

Kandj is Mouse free :-D :-D

Haven't seen any ladybirds around here Jane. In fact there doesn't seem to be much of anything around at the moment. I filled a feeder with seeds yesterday afternoon and it is still three quarters full. Normally the sparrows empty it in a day.

We do seem to have plenty of spiders indoors at the moment. I keep picking them up and putting them outside. I also bent down to pick up something that had fallen behind some large pots and found myself eyeball to eyeball with one of the largest frogs I've ever seen.

I wonder if Kandj is still mouse free.

We have hundreds of Ladybirds ! All on the house brickwork and in the house. I counted 10 on the inside of the window in the front bedroom just now, and there are more on other windows
:-S This lovely warm weather has a lot to answer for I think.

Vera, I hope your Brother continues to make a good recovery from his major op and will then be strong enough for the treatments needed over the next few months.

Ann, No Thomas didn't eat the Hedgehog food. I always put the food out late at night when Thomas was in for the night. I think if he had had the chance though he might have scoffed it LOL,as he was always very interested when I was putting the food in the dish.I must say it looked very tasty :-D

Still no Goldfinches here.Well not in my garden . Loads of other birds but I don't think I have seen any Robins for a while. There were so many about not so long ago.
I think Thomas must be sitting under the tree near the feeder as I can here the Birds kicking up a bit of a racket.He is a real tease LOL

I bet you don't Jane, not seen 'ours' for a while, did see it one morning around 2am last week scuttling across the road,

We still have the goldfinches, we were pleased to see them return. Not many around today. There are a lot of trees around with berries on so maybe that is why we are not seeing many birsd at the moment.

Jane did Thomas eat the hedgehog food?

Oh dear Vera I am so sorry your brother has further problems to be treated. I think it is usually the family who worry more about these things. I hope he is able to overcome his problems and return to good health.

It's a long while since I have seen a hedgehog. I could do with a few around here to eat some of our slugs.

Nothing to report birdwise. It's just the usual starlings and sparrows.

Thank you for your good wishes for my brother. He is making an excellent recovery from his operation but has today learnt that there are other problems and he will be facing months of treatment. Not the news we wanted to hear but he is very calm about it all.