Say, this glove smells like…hmfff…mff
Yeah, sure, y’all laugh, but Onkle B looked down yesterday and realized he’d tracked hedgehog poo from one end of the house to the other.
Yes, we’re keeping the kitchen door closed now.
July 12, 2017 — 9:52 pm
Comments: 17
Have I got a trail for you…
In the thread below, Ric Fan asked if anyone hikes the old Roman Roads. Yes, some of them have been converted to hiking trails. But the best of the best hikes in Britain is the Ridgeway. It’s prehistoric, fam.
Eighty six miles (I thought it was 87, but it says 86 in that graphic I stole and I don’t want to look like a banana) and it’s J.R.R. Tolkien shit the whole way. It starts at Avebury (largest stone circle in Europe) and ends at Ivinghoe Beacon.
I’ve only hiked a few miles of it, although we’ve visited lots of spots along it. We walked up as far as Wayland’s Smithy once, during the foot and mouth crisis of 2001 (I remember stern warnings hanging on the fences). When we drove near the Uffington White Horse I thought sure the car was going to topple down the hill. It’s an amazing thing from one end to the other.
You get a Completion Certificate if you do a big enough chunk.
I want that thing. I want it bad.
July 11, 2017 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 13
Shoo!
I have bailed this hedgehog — or a hedgehog, anyway — out of the house every night for a week. Sometimes twice.
No, he’s not tame. Every time I walk in on him, he gets that “oh, shit!” look on his face and disappears under the nearest piece of furniture. Little bastards are quick. Once he panicked and pee’d the floor. And then disappeared under the nearest piece of furniture.
In the end, we got some advice from Sussex Wildlife Trust. We were worried he might be sick or something. Nope. He (it’s almost certainly a he) has developed a powerful cat food jones. It started with the leftover bits of nasty old cat food I flipped out into the grass for the chooks and graduated into breaking and entering.
So I’m trying an experiment. At the end of the day, I’m putting the cats’ bowl out back for him. So far its…well, see the picture. The cats don’t seem to mind a bit (cats are communists).
Got a note from my next-door neighbor this morning: she put food out on the deck for her cat and caught a hedgehog with his nose in it. Broad daylight.
Either we have a family of the prickly little bastards, or we’re going to have Sussex’s most morbidly obese hedgie.
July 10, 2017 — 9:32 pm
Comments: 24
Comes the harvest
Our first year here, we made tons of jam. We had such a fun time making it, and then we realized we…really…just…don’t eat that much jam. Even today, I find the occasional jar of gray glob from all those years ago.
We’ve learned to moderate our jam-making activities, but we still make a few jars a year. In the picture is the makin’s of a red jam — raspberry, tayberry, a few strawberries and gooseberries. That was several days ago, and it turned out real nice.
Tonight, we made redcurrant jelly. Two plus pounds of redcurrants cooked down to two little jars and a bit. I hate to think what that would cost if you bought the berries – they’re super expensive in the store. Oddly enough, redcurrant jelly is usually used on meat here. Brits, eh?
Good weekend, everyone!
July 7, 2017 — 10:51 pm
Comments: 28
At the sign of the poopin’ fox
Hey — HEY! — I didn’t make the ‘hole in one’ joke, did I?
Yeah, I’m reduced to the comedy animal photos. It’s Summertime and I’m AFK.
This photo reminds me. Uncle B was potting up some flars yesterday (he does a couple dozen pots every year, and very lovely they look around the house, too). He’d left behind the merest skiff of potting soil on the lawn. Jack the Cat came along, stuck a paw in it, decided It Was Good and took an enthusiastic crap in the middle.
July 6, 2017 — 9:23 pm
Comments: 8
how cats achieved world domination
I’m taking a life drawing course on Wednesday nights again, making me late to home. So have a gander at this article on kitty genetics that I’ve had open in a tab for a while.
The gist of the chart is that the ‘blotchy’ tabby coat is a recent mutation — like, Medieval — but that 80% of cats carry the gene for it now.
Thing is, I think of the blotchy tabby coat as being a strictly British thing. All the tabbies I’ve known in the US have been the mackerel kind. You know, straight stripes.
Would you agree?
July 5, 2017 — 9:46 pm
Comments: 9
Hells YES we celebrate the Fourth in this house
And the Queen’s birthday and Squirrel Appreciation Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day. If there’s a celebration — particularly one that involves food, booze or fireworks — I’m yer weasel. (Image pinched from previous Fourth).
Just occurred to me. If I get my act together this year, this might be the last Fourth of July I ain’t British. OH NOES!
Happy Independence Day, everyone!
July 4, 2017 — 10:20 pm
Comments: 13
Vomitous
So FaceBook apparently passed two billion users at some point recently. To celebrate, they instructed robots to make a vomitous short film starring nightmarish cartoon figures, creepy music and pictures of me from my various profile pictures. It concludes with a montage of my friends’ profile pictures swirling around me.
Ugh.
I can’t show you it, though. They didn’t actually make one for Stoaty. I guess I don’t log into that account enough. Apologies if you’ve tried to reach me there.
Two billion. What a world.
July 3, 2017 — 10:00 pm
Comments: 8
What have we done…?
After years and years of talking about it, we finally signed up to Amazon Prime while the cheap promotion is on this weekend.
We’ve come close before, but too much of the stuff we order isn’t actually offered by Amazon (and therefore no free overnight shipping), the Amazon TV isn’t all that compelling, and you still pay through the nose for movies. And the other stuff…well, it remains to be seen how useful it will be.
It was the unlimited photo storage what got us in the end. Uncle B is the kind of guy who backs up his photos, and then does a portable hard drive backup of his backups, then backs up the drive to another drive. Like that. The cloud will never replace any of that, of course, it is merely another layer of neurosis.
So — to those who have gone before us — what have we done? Do you find it useful? Any tips? Tell us all about it, now it’s too late…
June 30, 2017 — 9:31 pm
Comments: 29
Boules, cried the queen!
Stayed out until dark playing boules with the neighbors tonight. That’s a game where you drink wine and throw heavy balls at light balls. I’m good at at least one of those activities.
Both, come to think of it. I was cap’n of the winning team both games.
Yay me!
June 29, 2017 — 9:31 pm
Comments: 12