The last couple of weeks have very much been taken up by my other role as co-convenor or a Community Garden Charity. Last week I spent with another volunteers learning how to assess a woodland and plans it's management. This was followed up with a practical session on picking the trees for felling and felling them. Really good fun. From this we are in the process of setting up a woodland management team.
Meantime I have returned under the floors. The weather is cooler which makes it less unpleasant and we are about to have our hall floors sanded, so I need to have them insulated ready for sealing before sanding. Just as I think the end is I site I have discovered there may be merit in putting and extra breather layer of insulation below the rafters. We have decided to complete the task we are doing, then get the house thermally imaged when it gets cold to allow us to decide if it is worth while. Watch this space:)
Sadly, myxomatosis returned to us this week. Yet again a buck succumbed very quickly in less than12 hours from feeding normally he was dead. The signs on sticky eye. The main signs in myxomatosis are slowed behaviour, sticky eyes, sometimes a nasal discharge, what are called tumours but are really black scanned sores and swollen genitalia in males. It takes 7 - 21 days from contact to the disease showing itself and then the illness can be swift as in this case or slow. Some rabbits do recover, especially after immunisation, but the danger is blindness. We have one doe who recovered last year but is left with a little bald patch on her nose where the tumour scab fell of.
We continue to pick tomatoes, courgettes and runner beans. Nasturtiums are still edible as are some salad leaves and kale if the cabbage white butterfly caterpillars haven't eaten them.
I have planted broad beans for next year and collected calendula seed for planting in the spring.
RSS Feed
