Posts by David Haywood
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Just in case anyone is worried: another short story in the same series reveals that no-one was hurt in Kylinda and Timothy’s house fire (not even emotionally, it would seem)...
“They were only things,” said Kylinda. “But we did lose pretty much all of them. I was left with my nightgown; Tim only had his pyjama trousers. In some ways it’s lucky that Rupert was staying because Tim usually sleeps naked, so it could have been worse.”
Marjorie frowned slightly. She never enjoyed hearing about Kylinda and Timothy’s living arrangements. “Although if Rupert hadn’t been staying then he wouldn’t have set fire to your house in the first place,” she couldn’t help pointing out.
“It’s amazing that you can be so philosophical about it, Kylinda,” said Emma. They were having lunch in the Ballantyne’s Tearooms. Emma didn’t particularly care for tearoom food, but it seemed almost inconceivable to shop at Ballantyne’s and have lunch anywhere else.
“Tim reckoned we should just enjoy the spectacle,” continued Kylinda. “ The neighbours gave us blankets and we stood in the firelight and watched everything burn. The best bit was when the Hillman Hunter’s petrol tank exploded—it blew the boot-lid right across the street. Tim said it was the fastest any part of the car had ever gone. It was a quite a shame when the fire brigade arrived and put it out.”
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Capture: Garden of Arcane Delights, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
There seems to be some dangerous livestock loose on those roads!
Yes, it all seems very amusing when you're just passing through -- bit of a different story when you live here, I imagine...
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Further disturbing sights from John Key's favourite part of New Zealand...
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A van on parade ...
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My own visit to a park this morning...
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Southerly: Høstens Vemod, in reply to Hebe,
It looks like we may well be either replanting this garden or establishing another when our earthquaked house insurance finally gets sorted, so I’ve lost interest in planting any more. That’s a good thing because I’d plan the fruit trees differently: an orchard with a specific pasture mix and have chickens free-ranging for disease control and fertilising.
I do hope you get your insurance problems sorted very soon, Hebe. You really have my sympathy.
And thanks also for all the horticultural advice. One of my former engineering colleagues claimed enormous success with integrating chooks into a small orchard (particularly -- and surprisingly to me -- with near-elimination of codlin moth damage). I shall be very interested to hear how you get on in the fullness of time.
One high-health apple I would very much like is Monty’s Surprise.
That's on my list to plant this year (I couldn't get it locally before now).
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Southerly: Høstens Vemod, in reply to Ross Mason,
ot being unduly parenting over the fence but I have found safety glasses quite handy to keep two eyes functional.
No worries, Ross! To quote myself from earlier:
My only (mildly) serious accident was being knocked unconscious as an adult due to safety glasses fogging up. [Touches every wooden object in sight!]. P.S. You’ll note from the videos that Bob only wears safety equipment when there is an actual hazard, e.g noise, flying particulates, etc. However we’ve lately discovered an anti-fogging spray for our safety glasses that actually works, and so I’m now instituting a policy of always getting Bob to wear safety glasses while in the workshop (just to save anyone the trouble of emailing me about this).
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steven crawford wrote:
I’m hinting about wanting someone with a licence to bring blasting powder for my next birthday party plus a turducken for dinner…
I’m glad you added “for dinner” on the end of that sentence. Although “Blasting powder… plus a turducken” would certainly make for a memorable highlight to any brithday!
Hilary Stace wrote:
But truffles take about 10 years to grow and I think you need a pig to dig them up.
We have several giant pigs in the vicinity of our house (pets of various neighbours). One can imagine these pigs making short work of digging up truffles – the trick would be getting the truffles off the pig afterwards. I spoke to a chap a couple of years back who was training a chocolate labrador as a truffle-finding dog. I thought at the time that it was a bit odd that he kept specifying it was a chocolate labrador.
Lilith wrote:
I’ve never had this problem with chocolate truffles, ever.
But maybe I completely misunderstood what kind of truffles the dog was being trained to find? I’d be pretty keen on a dog that could pop down to the supermarket and forage for chocolate in the confectionery section.
Hebe wrote:
May I suggest an early-fruiting (second or third week of January) Red Haven peach to plant about now, and in 18 months you will start to have crops of luscious red-gold yellow-fleshed peaches that do much better than many of the later variety, especially in dry summers. It’s a good organic grower too…
Our gravenstein apple usually comes in a week before and, while not a great keeper, it’s juicy, crisp and the very first apple for the season, before any others are in the shops.
That’s extremely helpful, Hebe! As you may have noticed, I’ve only planted disease-resistant fruit trees so that I can avoid spraying (very happy to accept smaller crops in exchange for avoiding that horrible job!) I shall investigate both varieties; they sound as if they’d be ideal to minimize the winter gap in my crop production schedule. Do you think that the early crops would survive the late frosts that we tend to get on the plains?
What have you done about the understorey? We planted comfrey around all our new trees, then wafts of cow parsley with borage, nasturtiums and tagetes.
Nothing as yet, alas. We have so many pasture weeds (bindweed, thistle, yarrow, etc.) that any unmown bit of ground ends up metre-high in unwanted vegetation unless weeded weekly. At the moment I can’t afford the time for weeding and so I just mow under the trees. I’m hoping that by mowing (i.e. not allowing the weeds to seed further) I will eventually outlast the weed seeds yet to germinate in the ground. This may be complete fantasy on my part.
I wouldn’t mind daffodils and bluebells under the fruit trees either…
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Rob Stowell wrote:
For truffles, my (sometimes vague and unreliable!) memory is you need a soil that leans alkaline. Our soil tested too acidic.
Ah, thanks for that Rob. I should probably investigate further out of scientific thoroughness. Truffles sound as though they'd be nice to eat; I've never actually eaten them. My plan: (1) eat truffles (2) if delicious/edible then investigate planting...
Lilith wrote:
Good golly! Are you building a rockery, eyrie or fell-field?
Oh, I had a lot of holes elsewhere to fill in, believe me. Twenty-eight tonnes of stones doesn't go as far as you'd think.
Now you only need Jolisa to Gracewood the Hay-Haywood Wood!
Now at last I understand why Jolisa spurned me in the life-raft that time -- aversion to humorous hyphenation outcomes in the event of marriage...
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Southerly: Høstens Vemod, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
it is truly the ‘Hay–Haywood Wood
You outdo yourself, sir!
(With apologies for the long lecture on the physics of shelter belts during your visit...)
