Herbst

It's been a while, to say the least.  My first year as an undergrad was mayhem mayhem, so I've cashed out for an HNC.  I had the grades, no problems there.  It was pretty much straight Distinctions in everything, but the politics got to me.  Suffice it to say I've been busy.

My first niece, Ellie, was born in December.  She's adorable.  I shan't blog photos though because internet.

Got away over the Summer.  When you're part of the many worlds that I inhabit you tend not to have a circle of friends so much as a diaspora, so I arranged a list of couches to crash on, got myself a Golden Ticket - *sings the line* - and went off to see, well, the UK I guess.  England and Scotland at any rate.

I ended up staying in Aberdeen, Northampton, Dundee, Inverkeithing, Manchester, and Leamington, with stops in Stonehaven, London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, York and Coventry, before ending the Summer in Brighton with Julia from Stages of Succession where I picked up an award!  

In all, I probably racked up 3,000 miles in three weeks.  It was awesome!  This map by @scattermoon doesn't show the Brighton leg but other than that the lines taken are accurate, it should give you some idea.

Muchly recommended!  If you get the chance to put in a fortnight city-hopping then do so.  I saw more museums and galleries in that short space of time than I do in the average year.  I went on the RRS Discovery, stood inside a mock-up of the Large Hadron Collider, finally saw Body Worlds, and got to stand on the footplate of a very handsome steam engine.  Ain't stopped grinning since :)

So the garden then.  The garden has changed considerably.  The buddleia got cut down, so I put in fruit trees, thornless brambles and rosemary.  I've also painted the railings British racing green so's they don't make the place look like a doctors' surgery any more.  Alas, with the shade from the departed buddleia having gone away I'm having weeds come up out of the ramp faster than I can pull them out, but once the trees get a little bigger that'll sort itself out.  

On the left along the fence line are three cherries: morello, dessert, and another morello.  Visible on the right, between ramp sections, is a family-grafted apple and behind that, near to the taller fence is a family-grafted pear.  

As you can see I'm training thornless bramble to wind around the railings.  This year's growth will turn woody next year, providing a broad and steady platform for next year's growth.  In time the railings will all be covered in blackberries, I may even put in an arch with bamboo and have blackberries cascading above the ramp.  Yum!  Ellie's been picking blackberries all Summer, she loves them.  

My new bay project - Stan - is coming along nicely.  Here he is next to the entry out front.  

That's all thyme in there.  The two in front are orange thyme, then three lemon thyme in the middle, Stan in back.  Oh you should smell that planter after a storm!  

Out back, meanwhile, I've had a little change of heart.  My veg beds will never grow anything like enough veg to feed my lot, but they can grow enough herbs.  They're now my herb beds.  The little ones that were my herb beds are now my odd-job beds.  The fruit bed is mostly planted, save for raspberries which aren't even stocked until October.  

From the left we have rose, thorned bramble, three kinds of blueberry, a fig, and loganberry on the right.  The roses and brambles are to discourage a cat from sitting on the Strawbrary because it pisses George off, who then runs around the garden frantically, and my flower beds get trashed.  No cat, no crazy dog, no destruction.  

This being Autumn now I'm drying rosemary for storage, where it'll keep us in home-grown herbs until the Spring.  

And meanwhile we've got enough fresh in the kitchen to last us a while.  

Rosemary - Sage - Thyme - Bay

Looks kinda Skyrimesque.  Ah well, until next time :) 

Training the Jasmine

The Jasmine (J. officinale) has gotten big, but it's been growing towards a point.  I want it to spread; so I've strung my remaining wire over the arbour, untangled the plant from itself, separated the larger vines and threaded them around the arbour framework with the support of the wire.

It looks overwired right now, but you look again in a year from now...

I've got some wire running to the frontpiece, which should promote curtaining (which is awesome!)

Cuteness happened.  Bloody annoying that he's dug up my garlic, but cute all the same.  

I borrowed a brazier.  Ten minutes later I was going "I HAVE GOT TO GET ME ONE OF THESE!"

And I've been getting equipped for college.  I'm weak on maths so I've been reading this a lot. 

Lastly then: I saw a caterpillar in the garden; big hairy bugger.  Caterpillars are unique to the butterfly or moth they become, but I've not found a match.  Any ideas?

Later.  Jx

#fuckcispeople

Audre Lorde famously said "the Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house".  Well...

Division is the master's tool.
Misunderstanding is the master's tool.
Ignorance is the master's tool.
Confusion and anxiety is the master's tool.
Fear is the master's tool.
Having more hate for those below us than for those above us is the master's tool.

And all of these are forged in the minds of (some) cis people when we say fuck cis people.

Shit, the master has enough damn tools as it is!

Various updates

Here's where we're at:


The front garden has a new fence.  It's five foot high with the trellis topper and provides nice screening.  I'll be planting a row of dwarf trees behind it in the Autumn, in-between the fence and the ramp.

My peas are ready.  

George has squashed my maincrop potatoes in his paranoid bids to bark madly at the big Maple.  I'm not convinced I can save the spuds.  He's already trampled my Thyme to death.  

The Jasmine has now grown to the top of the arbour, and will soon be trained across the front.  

The lawn survived the heatwave mostly intact.  I'll give it a reseed in March ready for next Summer.  

And almost all the books I ordered have come.  I'm still waiting on Wheater's Functional Histology.  The Gray's Anatomy and the Stryer's Biochemistry I already had from donkeys' back.  The rest, including the Histology book, came to £28 on ebay.  Kerching!

Preparing for college

  So I think tomorrow I'll be ordering a lot of textbooks. For £9 all-in I'm getting Principles of Genetics, Functional Histology, and Principles of Anatomy and Physiology. I'd best clear off a shelf in my room for all this (or build another shelf if I can't clear one), and fetch my Gray's Anatomy and Striker's Biochemistry down from the loft, though I prefer Lehninger's Biochemistry and will be getting a copy at my earliest convenience.  

  Getting Bioscience Laboratory Techniques next week, along with as many box files and as much lined paper as I can scrape together.  A friend has offered to lend me her copy of Essential Cell Biology.  

  The advance legwork I need to put in ahead of my practicals is well in hand.  So much so that Julia now has an entire folder of emails titled "Jo's crabs".  Yep, I'm looking at mitten crabs.  I'm also intending to look at bees and holly.  Two subjects of great environmental significance and one subject of personal curiosity.  If I get the green light for the holly study then I may find myself doing carpentry in the lab: the study will need a rig that I don't think we have, but that I can build for next to nowt.  

In 69 days' time I will be a biologist-in-training!

One of those hot days...

  It's a glorious Saturday morning, the sun is shining, no chance of rain, so you think right, I'm gonna go out and strim the lawn.  You throw on your DIY trousers (the ones covered in fifty shades of vinyl matt), plug in the strimmer, whack on Springsteen's greatest hits and set to work.

  First verse of Born To Run is barely done and already your armpits and boxer shorts are sodden with sweat, I'm a Celt, we do pissing rain, we do permanently overcast, what the hell am I doing out here?  You get to the end of the track, you're getting those V-shapes down your chest and back, and the bloke five doors down who spends his weekends on the xbox in his bedroom has turned off his techno and is looking out his window, raising a cider at you for working on so hot a day as this.  Shit.  You give him a wave and get back to strimming.  Shit, he's even turned the techno off, you can't go indoors now! 

  You're halfway through Hungry Heart before the lawn's done, you've had to put on boots after you strimmed your toe and now the boots are full of sweat, but no, come on, he turned the techno off.  You've gotta at least prune some shit!  So you train the Jasmine and get out the hose to water the lawn.

Damnit, I swear I've been microwaved today!

On Chinese Flying Lanterns

Don't buy Chinese flying lanterns.  They look pretty, but there comes a point where the flame is no longer hot enough to sustain flight but is still hot enough to set things on fire. What you then have is a source of ignition dropping from the sky onto a random location. This one fell onto a stack of plastic and injured nine firefighters. They're also known to injure owls, cows and sheep. You cannot control where they land so please don't use them.

kthxbai