Hello everyone and blessings to you all....
It seems as though I am pretty useless at keeping track of my time, and once again it seems as though I have neglected to post more blogs this year....
Winter has come and gone and now we are in the midst of the start of Spring (though the weather lately has been more Winter than Spring), the buds on the trees are bursting, blossoms are abundant on the fruit trees and everything in the gardens seem to be plodding along quite nicely, even after the neglect that I have given them.
You see, this Winter we suddenly lost our beloved Rudy - one minute he was fine and chasing magpies in the back garden then the next day, he died. It was a traumatic time for us all and it took weeks for us all to stop crying - we loved him greatly and neither I or my family were ready to say goodbye to our special guy... but nature has a way of taking it's course doesn't it?
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This is the last picture I took of Rudy on 18th June 2024.
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There was a period of a month where the house was just so quiet and all we could do was miss our boy, talk about him and cry a LOT.... we were just SO sad...
Hubby decided he couldn't take it anymore so we discussed rescuing another dog, we started searching the RSPCA and AWL sites for likely candidates. We got Rudy from the RSPCA when he was approximately 5 years old and we had him for 8 1/2 years before he passed - so I said I wanted a younger dog so that we had more years to love them (I know that doesn't always work out, but all of our dogs have been 13+ before they passed over the rainbow bridge - so I was going on that).
We then found a 2 year old little brindle Staffy x Shar Pei called Mavis that seemed to suit us - we went to the AWL to see her and instantly fell in love - bought her home and boy, is she ever a bundle of energy.
Meet Miss Mavis Bramston "Wiggle-Butt" McLean aka Mavey-Wavey full of Gravy:
She is a terror on 4 legs hahaha - very excitable, very puppy'ish, but learns very quickly. She doesn't like other dogs or cats (we seem to always get those type!!) and chases birds in the garden (so there goes my hope of eventually getting chickens hahaha!!).
She is going through the terrible two's at the moment - but it's all a learning experience for both her and us. Mavis has bonded to Paul and he is her favourite Hooman!! (she gets jealous if Caetlyn or I get too near her Hooman - and herds us away) She loves to dig in the garden, so I have had to put a guard around my new apricot tree, so she wouldn't dig it up - she also tried to dig out the peach tree, which I have successfully put a load of compost around and tried to rescue it LOL. I have made a spot in the garden for her to dig her heart out!
Speaking of the garden - I am amazed that things are still alive as I haven't really been hands on a lot of the time.
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| A mixture of Mandarin tree, Thyme, Calendula and Juniper |
I had to pull my cauliflowers out as they went to seed and some got eaten by critters in the garden, I also had to pull out the kale as it was infested with scale - which is too hard to get off, so I just got rid of the whole lot. We did get some food out of it, a couple of cauli's, broccoli and kale plus one small cabbage that hadn't rotted to it's core. A few swede and beetroot, some carrots, lettuce, spinach and snow peas.. so there has been some success. I have planted out my spring seeds late July and they have been up-potted in my greenhouse - can't plant them out yet as the weather is still too cold at night, I don't want to risk losing them.
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| Our bathroom being painted |
I started my month long holidays on the 1st September and we have been painting a couple of rooms in the house to make it more colourful - it is now the 26th September and I have another 6 days before I go back to work... but my holiday has been quite full and I haven't even gotten into the garden much yet, except the occasional weeding frenzy and watering/fertilising the herbs and plants.
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| Our Fairy Hallway |
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| Or Fairy Lane... as we call it!! |
I did a mini Herbal Energetics course with Rosalee De La Foret, who is one of the leading herbalists in the world today - which was lovely and just reminded me why I grow herbs (not just for medicine and wellbeing, but also for the witchcraft side of things too). I got a lot of good information out of it and spoke to a lot of nice people in the course community as well.
I also bought myself some new clothes - a couple of dresses for summer, a skirt and top, and a pair of jeans. Plus a new Book to read - How does it feel? by Jeneane O'Riley. It's about an environmental biologist Callie Peterson, who finds herself falling through a fairy portal in the woods and ends up in the realm of the Unseelie Fae - with a Prince Mendax who wants to kill anything human, he wants to be rid of her so he challenges her to three deadly trials - if she survives, she gains her freedom - if she doesn't...... His wrath is only the beginning. I only started it two days ago and I am three quarters of the way through - quite a good read so far... I can only presume she survives as there is another book in the series, plus one being written at the moment.
I was supposed to be getting my health in order and making myself exercise to get a bit fitter - first day of my holidays I hurt my ankle (pffft - always happens when I have holidays, it's like my body goes "OK everyone off their feet for a few days!!").
So yeah - it's been an interesting, sad and happy few months of winter and early spring.
I might even do another YouTube video on how the garden is progressing soon - but don't hold your breath - I am pretty dreadful at doing all these social media type of things aren't I???
Anyway, if you have made it this far without falling to sleep - thank you!!
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Until next time,
Annette (& Mavis) xxx
