Viridic

Back in France on what must be the hottest day of the year so far. No time to get comfortable though, the weekend promises cold rain into next week. So I've been out there in the midday sun trying to catch up on all the stuff that's been on hold until the good weather comes and hoping it's not too late for stuff to catch up.

The overwintered oca tubers are now in. With luck I'll have half a dozen plants of each colour to plant out in a few weeks and with a following wind a fine harvest in the autumn. I can hope so.

I also had enough ulluco for 18 pots of individuals to plant out and crop and a bigger pot of petit pois sized tubers which I hope will form the basis of a tub that I can bring in for new seed tubers for next year.



Spring foraging for a handful of greens for my supper tonight I found nettles (of course), new growth on the Good King Henry, winter cress flower buds, hop shoots and the flowering stems of some overwintered purple kale so I shan't go hungry.

It also seems as if winter hasn't been quite so grim here even if there was lot of snow. We have bluebells already despite dire warnings in the UK of a late start to the show because of the slow spring.



No bloglove yet, it's too sunny to stay in and read but I'll add some later when I'm cosy with a wood fire and a whisky.

Episodic

This bloglove challenge is getting a bit patchy. Sorry. In my defence I think the improved weather has tempted the bloggers away from their machines and back into real life, at least there was a dearth of blogs over the weekend to choose from.

Celandines in the garden and at last the trees are beginning to show their leaves. I'm off to France tomorrow and hope that the late start in the garden there won't have too many ill effects.

Some more bloglove posts:

Oats growing in Canada under lights. It's not the way it's usually done but it seems to be working.

Fascinating post about the diary of Kate Parry Fryes who wrote of her experiences campaigning for Women's Suffrage.

Idiot Johnson sings for his supper. Buy the album. He doesn't take comments but you can find him on twitter.

Catastrophic

For a long time on this blog I did an occasional update on our kittens as they became cats. They are fully grown up now but still very important members of the household so I dedicate this post to them. None of them wanted their pictures taking and I apologise in advance for the rather basic snaps.

Raven, the fluffy girl cat is still as light as a piece of dandelion down, she doesn't jump but flies through the air and is wonderfully soft to the touch. In the evenings she likes to snuggle between us on the sofa to watch the television and take advantage of our protection as the boys tease her something rotten and she has no sense of humour about it. They only have to look now before she starts to growl at them although she has no real aggression, she just runs away if they persist.



Crow is still the slinkiest naughtiest cat but just recently he got into a fight that he clearly didn't win. He came in, shocked and shaken and hid for twelve hours. He didn't want to be checked over, I feared he had been hit by a car, and stayed in the dark beneath my desk until late into the evening. Then he perked up again but a few days later a horrible pustule burst from under a wound on his forehead. It smelled disgusting and I thought it would need a trip to the vet but after I'd swabbed it out with salty water it cleaned up well and started to heal. The hole is nearly all gone now but you can still see the patch where it was in the picture.



Rook now weighs nearly 8kg, far too much, and we've taken to calling him BigFat. He doesn't care but everyone including the vet is agreed that he's at risk of diabetes so in theory he's on a diet. Unfortunately, it's not working very well and I think he's actually gained weight since it was started. He's not exactly greedy but his method of waiting until the others have finished and then cleaning their bowls combined with almost continuous inactivity helps him keep the bulk in place. I'm hoping that the summer in France will give him more exercise and more things to take his mind from dinner.

Bloglove today:

Kerstin talks about motherhood and doughnuts.

Emma, she of bloglove challenge fame has got the bug.

Botany Photo of the Day has the Purple Filbert today and is worth checking out everyday for lovely images.

Agrettic

And they said it couldn't be done. On the 8th of April I ignored the very sensible suggestions from Realseeds on how to grow their Salsola and planted some in a pot to leave in the darkest dampest corner of my north facing bedroom window. I'm pleased to say that this is just as good as starting seeds outside at this time of year and a considerable comfort, at least I know that something is going to grow for me.

Liscari Sativa  (Wiki calls it Salsola soda) is a funny little salad plant, salt tolerant and often likened to samphire but better suited to garden cultivation than that salt marsh dweller. The Wikipedia entry is somewhat rambling and imprecise but talks of the commercial uses of this plant which has a long history of being burnt to provide soda ash for glass making and soap. It was particularly important in Italy for making Murano Venetian glass in the 15th century. Fascinating as all that is, I'm just going to eat mine if they ever get big enough to harvest.

Bloglove links:

Ottawa Gardener is eating her wild vegetables, which some might call weeds.

The Cuban currency system explained. I wasn't able to leave a comment but I am grateful for this article. Cuba is a country which I have a great interest in and wish a much better future for.

Stuart and Gabrielle are extremely busy (and considerably more productive than me.)

Acherontic

That's a new word. Anyway, for the last couple of days I've been slipping into a depression, mostly without identifiable cause and probably just needing to be sat out until the moment passes and I can see the future again.

I couldn't even find a picture of a black dog for illustration, Houston, above, was abandoned on the farm a few years ago and we eventually found her a place in a refuge in France. I wonder what happened to her sometimes but I wish still more that something bad has happened to the people who callously left her in the forest all alone.

Too miserable to leave comments but here are some #bloglove links. Step along and say something nice from me.

Nick is doing dandelions. I like the roots braised in a splash of soy sauce.

Celia is cleaning out her spice cupboard  and other mustinesses. I should do that.

Vegetable side dishes in Sicily.

Photographic

It really seems to be a proper spring day today, a little bit windy but warm with it, sunny, mild and the bees and butterflies are beginning to show themselves. We even cut the lawn in the back garden. It's true that we didn't see the magnificent Swallowtail in the picture above though, that was taken in France way back in 2003.

The pictures have always been a big part of this blog. I am by no means a photographic genius, I still get my F stops muddled with my extended octaves and bokeh is what happens when I try to watch television without my glasses on but modern digital cameras really take the strain of deciding what settings are needed quickly enough in most cases that quite dramatic photography is possible.

I'd still like to be able to understand the principles involved, and I do to some extent but I don't have the feel for them that allows for sufficient fluency at speed and just prefer to be able to get on with it without having to stretch my brain for merely mechanical facts.


Canon Digital Ixus 330, bought in 2002 still working 2013

The arrival of my first digital compact camera, a Canon Ixus 330 with a magnificent 2 megapixels of resolution in October 2002 really brought me the opportunity to explore photography as an art form. It removed the need to pay for film and development and meant that experiments were possible because chancy shots were cheap and painless to discard if they didn't work.

It was even better to discover that this little camera was so sturdily built  that it's still going strong even now and I keep it as a useful backup. The Swallowtail was taken with this camera, admittedly with Paul behind it but that butterfly was a real tease and required a long reach to get it in the frame. We've never managed a better shot of one even though we now have far more advanced and expensive kit.

These days I use a Nikon D40 originally chosen by Paul for himself. He's since replaced it with other more recent models but this camera with a Nikon 18-200MM F3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR DX lens does nearly everything I ask of it and manages the close-ups of flowers and insects interspersed with pictures of birds flying away and long shots of the vegetable patch extremely well. I've grown to love it so much I've just bought it a camera bag after several years of toting it around in a carboard box. Here it is, snuggled down in lovely orange luxury.


Nikon D40 in cheap but cheerful Amazon basics camera bag

Bloglove today:

Laura is hardening off her chillies in Sweden .

Langdon is eating Devil's Club aka Oplopanax horridus.

Sophie has been to Whitmoor Common.

Bicyclic

This is a Kingcycle although unfortunately that link to the inventor doesn't actually tell you very much about these recumbent bicycles. You might take a look here at Dave Larrington's blog for a few pictures of the same model in action.

This particular bike was bought new in about 1994 and Paul used to ride (and race) on it regularly before he took up with me. He was still riding it to work each summer until quite recently but in the last few years the roads have become so pit holed and the other road users so careless that he stopped because it had become too dangerous to use.

However a renewed interest was born this spring and he's been doing it up for the last three weeks. It's now ready for road testing. There are very many technical details that I'm not competent to to comment on but if you're very anxious to know ask away and I'll try to get some answers for you.

Of course, I'm not so keen on cycling but in the course of our researches we came across this sort of thing which might be the motivation I need if anyone feels like making me a gift.

And what goes around comes around. Please check out our bloglove for today:

Moving time again for the Reluctant Memsahib.

A marvellous Grape Liqueur at the Cottage Smallholder.

Rose has a wonderful Dandelion Vegan Blog and I hope she'll continue for a long time.