Frog Central

A few weeks back Parsley and I were admiring Sam's (my neighbour) pond. It was teeming with frogs. Must have been upward of 20 +. Our pond had a measly three in there, looking the dudes and dudettes who didn't get invited to the party, or some unsavoury section of society mulling over saucy things to do. The sun was beaming down on their little amphibian faces, forty gleaming orb eyes looking at us. I was jealous as hell. So imagine my unfettered amazement and joy when I went down the garden last Sunday and saw a slew of frogs bouncing about in our pond - hard as a cholo mobile. I actually started laughing. With a bit more inspection I saw mad clusters of frogspawn. Out of every 2000 eggs laid, only six frogs will reach maturity. That's a pretty brutal stat right there. Nonetheless I was over the moon as was the family Wakefield who paid me a visit in the morning. It was a pleasure to see my Dad and the Boneman staring into the pond as I have been wont to do many a time. My little, beloved nephew Joseph did a very good impersonation of their croaks and ribbits.

I just can't wait for the tadpoles. I have ludicrous primary school memories of tadders swarming about like furious apostrophes or commas in a communal tub. And just now I've read, 'Tadpoles can regenerate lost limbs though grown frogs cannot!' Does anyone have any thiouracil going spare? We could make some very old tadpoles by blocking the action of their thyroid hormones! But that would be just plain cruel n'est pas?

Watch this space for more reports from Frog Central.

Got any Welsh rarebit?

#Flop

 Flop. Wow. A fairly innocuous sounding word, unless you consider it in the context of something being a failure, or the state men might find their nether regions in at a crucial moment. EITHER WAY flop in G Unit parlance is used to describe the putrid and sloppy combo of water, sand and clay that has no practical use in the garden whatsoever. Moreover this crap - brown ooze is actually bad for stuff! It looks like diarrhea! It's useless! Flop!

We had a royal chuckle recalling an excellent documentary that was on last year. In it we saw a dead elephant decaying and being eaten by various creatures. The first dude on the scene was a hyena and for want of better words he went right for the bumole. Snuffling his snout in there he wasted no time in chewing on a particularly volatile length of back passage. Within seconds a hot, turbid jet of fart juice that had been building up in the savanna heat, shot out and the hyena legged it. It had an uncanny likeness to flop. Just check out this stuff below. Rank.    

Heat Sink

Over the course of the last few weeks most of our efforts have been directed at the construction of the HEAT SINK. This bad boy has gone through many stages, the most recent of which was widespread pebble and stone washing, which is about as much fun as it sounds. But as it was Parsley and I doing it there was roars of laughter, clay catapulting and one liners that would've made Bob Monkhouse jealous. My favourite lines were 'If you know what a noise sounds like you can hear it.' (Parsley), 'Ew, you're kicking shit in my face,' (Parsley) and 'Get in your pit you pig!' (Parsley). I took to screaming COTTON TRADERS alternating between a Texan twang and a silver spoon upper class lilt. This will take too long to explain and is as insular a joke as you could expect to find. Just know we found it hilarious. Cakeatonne didn't!

Just why were we cleaning millions of pebbles? Well in Parsley's infinite wisdom we were removing layers of crud (mostly orange clay) as this would impede the flow of air round the pebbles and stones once they were in the sink. At first I sneered and jeered at the idea but the amount of slop we sloshed off in the course of a few days was pretty substantial. We were all over the place - at the back of the garden in the yard area; over by the apple trees; in the centre of the garden where there's always a lovely wildflower collection in Summer - always spraying with the hose and shaking the crap off in a riddle (a true garden implement not a brain teaser). I was carrying trugs of sludge water around like an ape and pouring it off onto hedges, anywhere that wasn't already SOAKED. The mess that was left behind we called FLOP. I will discuss this horrid substance in a separate blog because it's worth it.

Last Friday we put the heat sink together and lowered it into the hole in the solardome. Various experiments were made to see whether the air was flowing through the pipes properly. In the final instance we took a hair dryer and blasted it down the pipes and that worked a big cakey dream! We then started to lob in all the clean(ish) stones and pebbles we had accrued over the last few weeks. Eventually Parsley will fill the rest of the hole with water filled coke bottles. As it stands at the moment we are approx 1/4 of the way to filling the cage. See below for the sequence of crazy events that doth a heat sink make.

Spring hath Sprung

I dedicate this entry to the start of a very beautiful and promising Spring. The following is lifted, almost verbatim from my diary of 2011, March 24:

Hot green tea from a metal mug, plucking the odd leaf from my lips as Alice stuffs a soggy receipt in her mouth. A trip to the tip or the dump with a seasoned, evasive man in hi-vis jacket asking questions about post code and rubbish type. Com Truise, mesmeric, setting sci fi themes to odd buildings. Jacob and I - quips pertaining to strength et al. Gloves half useless. The smash of porcelain, mirrors, gnomes and a silver terminator toy with gun upraised. Today, I noticed all these things...Earth boy. My fingers smell of woodsmoke. A visit from Gigasmethwick - a bead of saliva as he rolled his large skull against the stone, utterly content. Yes. Yes. 

Fix a Pear Tree, Dig a Hole

Happy 2012 followers and non followers of G Unit alike! There has been a distinct yawning hiatus since our last entry, way back in September 2011. Plenty has taken place between then and now, so I am on catchup / ketchup.

In open defiance of the cold (it has been mild until now) we have been hitting the garden like it's Spring. First port of call was the pear tree which has been listing like Michael Jackson in Smooth Criminal. Cakeatonne and I took it in turns to push it into an upright position whilst we slipped pieces of timber in place, supported by stakes. The surrounding area was a battleground of oozy mud, so we were slipping around and swearing like Jack Tars. Tipping soil from a nearby bag we levelled (somewhat badly) the area around the roots and then splashed on some grass sods. Nothing like the careful planning of Parsley, but she was at work.

Fair pear! 

This week we have been putting in the extra work on a heat sink in the solardome. I'm not going to go into the science of this bad boy but it will be amazing once its done. All I know is how to dig a hole, and even then I need supervision! We've made good progress, through the many layers of soil, from guinness black at the top, through to dusty grey and orange clay. Sparks have been flying - literally. Using the grub and mattock (fast becoming a favourite tool) Cake and I were bashing hoards of rocks and pebbles, getting ever deeper. There were some absolute classic quotes: 

Oregano: 'C'wor getting out of this hole is proving to be more difficult than I thought. If I'm not careful, I'm gonna split my kipper, and I don't EVEN HAVE ONE!'

Parsley: 'Eww don't say that, can't you say I split my YOM KIPPUR?'

Oregano; 'Yeeeeeah! YOM KIPPUR YOM KIPPUR!'

Parsley: 'Dig all the brown away and slam it in the John Barrowman (wheelbarrow).'

Cakeatonne with a meat thermometer in his hand: 'Leave it out or I'll take the TEMPERATURE OF YOUR BAMO!'

How we laughed.

It was interesting to see how much warmer it was below the surface. Above / top level it was 0.5 C. At the bottom of the 'pit' it was a seasonable 6 C. This bodes well for the sink.  

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Editor's note: We are soon going to implement some changes, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Once You Lop You Just Can't Stop

Once again I found myself scrambling up some steep ladders to do some lopping this week. This time it was a conifer. Under the instigation of Parsley I went scrambling up, armed with a natty new bow-saw, a pair of Fiskars loppers and a mini tree saw. Not all at once mind! I'm no octopus.

Overcoming my initial fear of heights I went up for the first cut. It was damn difficult as I was getting scratched to high heaven by all the surrounding twigs and branches. Prickly little fuckers! But once I'd got some of them out the way the cutting proper was swift and merciless. The first cut is the deepest as the saying goes. Took me two journeys to chop down the first part of the main trunk. Barely had time to alert Parsley as a huge branch replete with slapping leaves came hurtling down towards her; not so much as a TIIIM BURTON! Had a second go at it after that, cutting off another 2 feet approx.

The other branches were much easier, although by now I was getting cocky and there were flying branches knocking off stone bird baths and ivy. 'Push it towards the dome!' or 'Not towards the arrch!' screamed Parsley. Well she didn't scream but she could've done.

Once the main body had been cut (we surveyed from upstairs to get the lowdown), I went up again to trim off the rogue bits and dismantle a pigeons nest. Don't worry no chicks this time of year. Then Parsley did the nice cosmetic part, tidying it up so it didn't look like topiary gone hideously wrong. Ten bags of cuttings and a couple of trunks later we sat down to sup Polish lager and a bottle of wine that could rip the varnish off floorboards. Cheers Bargain (B)ooze. Cheers.

Crazy Paving!

Here I am on a blazer of a Sunday afternoon, incongruously swathed in thermal underwear. It's been a fair while since I blogged and as ever there have been some great antics going on. If by antics you include bomb sized marrows with their very own handles, leveling shrapnel infested soil or eating chicken chowder and talking about prostate checks under the safety of a September solardome then, yes winks there have been antics.

The subject of this blog relates to an antic known as POWER WASHING HEXAGONAL PAVING SLABS. Pulling out and rigging up the Wolf Blaster Max (see link below incase you've forgotten) was a job in its own right. This lovely little piece of equipment can literally tear the skin off your body.

http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2011/06/over-moon-in-june.html

So caution had to be taken. We're talking the full Craig David here - big earphones, goggs and gloves. Transporting each of the slabs over to the other side of the garden (Parsley never likes things to be easy, even when they're perfect there will be another task, like shifting the house a couple of degrees west so it gets more sunlight etc), I slammed them on a giant tarpaulin bag. On with the Wolf to clean off the impacted dirt and scuz. For the most part it worked a big cakey dream. In my own way I felt like one of those restorers who cleans years of soot etc off the roof of the Sistine Chapel. In another mode I felt very happy to be holding a power tool feeling like I could advertise it on TV. Only people with hair like mine appear as extras in Game of Thrones, not a power tool in sight for this warlock!

Witticisms included: 'Diet Irn Bru break,' (Parsley) 'Diet Panda Coke Break,' (Parsley) and 'It categorically cannot be Panda Coke. Because whenever you say Coke it belongs to Coca Cola. It's Panda Cola!' (Cakeatonne). 'Awfully rich.' (Parsley and Oregano in response to Cakeatonne's snobbery). 'Girls Aloyd' (All three of us!)

We're about half way through cleaning them. They will look awesome in the solardome. Watch this space. Space rhymes with what? PACE. (Peace).