off on holiday tomorrow. :)

The pre-holiday prep is seemingly never ending.
We shall have to see how trouble behaves on her very first holiday. :) If I  can ever get this house clean that is.  

Everyday stuff.

Well, I took Trouble for her very first walk on the main road today. We went without Niche and I have to say Trouble was not a happy puppy. She didn't like the cars at all. I had to carry her for some of the way back home. She even got upset when another dog wanted to play with her, which is unheard of.
My greenhouse achocha got killed by a marauding chicken the other day so the other achocha will be taking its place. I hope this one makes it.
And I got nettle tea plant food on my hands this morning so I now have really smelly hands, and the smell isn't washing off.

Anyway. Busy day today. Lawns to mow, weeding to do (hate, hate, hate weeding) chicken coops to clean out. Plants to plant, dogs to walk and laundry to do. :/ Yey.

Well the cost was steep.

It only took an ice lolly and a flake chocolate bar to cheer me up.

Its too hot to walk her so she's staying occupied with a pigs foot. The clouds have just appeared out of nowhere so I think we're in for some serious weather.  

I've got another nice crop of radish and some onion scapes to eat.  

Some cucumber and sorrel seedlings ready to go outside. Not that I have any room for more cucs.  

My dad gifted me some sweet peppers the other day. 

And I finally got the chance to 'season' my French bread pan, I've had this pan for well over a year. I haven't mucked about today though I've got some little French breads rising in it already. 

This is the dough. I used actual, French flour, that arrived in the mail this morning along with fresh bread yeast. The dough feels really, really silky. I'm a little bit in love with it.   

Update: 

The breads turned out really well. :)

The potatoes have flowered. The flowers were open until it rained. 

Look at all of those potatoes!

And a very fast growing puppy! She's doubled in size! 

As have my squash plants. They're looking pretty good. I'm going to take a few photos of them as at any minute they could be destroyed by puppies or cats, chickens or slugs .  

Hot, hot, hot.

Well it certainly is hot today. The plants are growing nicely. as is the puppy. Who it is getting harder and harder to keep off my nicely growing plants. And my laptop. And the cat, chickens, Tupperware.

I'm feeling a bit down today and its hard to find the motivation to do anything. Hopefully I'll perk up later.

Sorry the pictures are blurry I have to do everything around the insanity that is a 15 week old puppy.

Other than the purple sprouting broccoli this is my first crop of the year. :)

I might even pick a small amount of the cut and come again lettuce.  

I planted 12 celery plants today. I'm not that keen on it, it only goes in soups so I didn't plant too many. 

My two courgettes and some of the strawberries. I already had to replace one courgette that got destroyed by slugs and the cat. 

This is a new England variety of squash so they're used to a bit of cold. I will protect them if a frost is forecast though. I'm going to try growing the squash up the mesh just to save some space. Plus the mess might save them from the puppy. I'm not holding my breathe on that though. :S Ignore the weeds. I hate weeding and there will always be weeds in my garden. 

Time of year.

This really is the time of year that I hate having a garden. :p I know, I know. I'm trying to be self sufficient and should love being out there ALL the time.

I hate mowing the lawn. I really, really hate it. I try to get it done once a week but due to illness its been a good ten days and I've only just done it.

The amount of poop that accumulates on the lawn is insane. I think the puppy must poop four times a day. It takes so much time. First I have to poop a scoop then pick up all of the dog toys, chewed sticks etc off the lawn and then haul the mower out of the shed, over the path and onto the grass. And of course I have to make sure I don't mow over the puppy.

 Sigh.

I don't know how my dad does it with over a quarter acre of grass.
All I have to do now is weed the paths, poop a scoop the rest of the garden, clean out the chickens and strim the boarders.
I guess I better get on with it.

I'll take the puppy out with me and close the back door this time. I came in not long ago to find her with her head in the chicken food bag. Eating the chicken food!

Six chickens.

I'm down to six chickens now. We gave our rooster purple to a nice lady that wanted to breed her girls. I'm still very sad that he had to go though. He was such a friendly lad. I keep telling myself that he's grown up and gone to chicken uni.

In the next few days the three babies will be going too, to live at my boyfriends, mums school, which is where they were always meant to go. and I'll only be left with the three ex-batts. That is until I rescue three more ex-batts and that will be my lot, chicken wise, for a good while.

My achocha have germinated! Only took a week. :D

And this is a little video of Trouble. The noise is the show community. You don't really need the volume on. She doesn't say anything. :p