Archive for the 'Around the garden' Category

Rampant sex and ice hockey

Grandad February 11th, 2010

It’s that time of year again.

The snowdrops have been in flower for a few weeks now, [not that you could see them for snow, most of the time] and the daffydowndillies are getting ready to flower.  Best of all, the birds are singing their little hearts out.

Yes.  It’s that time of year for rampant sex in the garden.

The birds all go ballistic at this time and merrily shag each others brains out all over the place.  They have no sense of decorum at all.

I have been collecting Sandy’s hairs for the last couple of weeks, as she has been moulting like the clappers.  I have a large plastic bag full, waiting to go out into the garden.  The birds love those hairs, and almost literally kill for them, as they are ideal for nest building.  I usually put them out under a bush in a large wodge and then let battle commence.  It can be quite entertaining.

One thing that is different this year is the temperature.

On Sunday, it is the 14th.  The more brain-dead amongst you will be getting all excited about Valentine’s Day, which is the greatest load of shite ever invented.  Here at Head Rambles Manor however, the 14th is Frog Hump Day.  Every year, on the 14th of February the frogs meet up for a shagfest in our pond.  I don’t know how they know the date, but it is always the 14th.  On the 13th, the water of the pond will be its usual murky self, but on the morning of the 15th, it will be covered with frogspawn.  If you look out the window on the 14th, all you will see is a huge dark heaving mass of frogs as they all frantically fuck each others brains out.  They make quite a racket too.

This year, the pond is frozen over.

They will presumably turn up on Sunday expecting a nice wet stagnant lovenest, and instead are going to find a skating rink.  Presumably every thrust of the male is going to send the female slithering across to the other side of the pond?  [“Oy!  Come back here, Mavis!  I haven’t finished screwing you yet!”].  It should be interesting.  If it wasn’t so fucking cold out there, I’d mount a web camera to film the craic.

It’s not often you see frogs playing ice hockey.

A party with a bang

Grandad October 12th, 2009

I enjoy children’s parties.

Especially when I don’t have to attend them, and can’t hear what’s going on.

As you may have gathered, there was a wee soirée here yesterday, complete with the usual accoutrements that seem to accompany modern parties.

Of course I made my appearances at the appropriate times – when the mothers were arriving, or when the cake was being cut.  The rest of the time, I had a nice peaceful afternoon in the coal hole with Herself.  I had the coal hole soundproofed some time ago, as her yelling was annoying me at the time, but that soundproofing works both ways.

It was a very successful party.  The ambulance only had to call three times, and there are no outstanding court cases that I am aware of [yet].

The only sign of the party now is the clatter of balloons around the place.  A few of them burst in the garden, of course, so the place looks like it has been decorated with multi-colour condoms.

One of them just exploded on the floor beside me.

No warning.

No reason.

I shat myself.

I’m getting old.

*sigh*

A thoughtful daughter

Grandad October 11th, 2009

We have a very thoughtful daughter.

I awoke this morning to find that our K8 has made us a present of a shooting gallery in the garden.

shooting_gallery

Later this afternoon, she is going to fill it full of five year olds.

I’m going to teach Herself how to shoot.

I have the air rifles at the ready.

Electronic dog fences and all that

Grandad August 18th, 2009

I suppose you are all wondering whatever happened to Sandy’s electric fence?

As you know, I bought it a couple of months ago and brought it home to examine.

The first thing I realised was that I didn’t have enough wire.  There is a little transmitter that is mounted in the house, and connections on it for two wires.  The idea is that you feed a single strand out of one connection and run it around the perimeter of your acreage and then back into the second connection.

I had one hell of a job finding the right wire to complete the loop, but as you know, I found it eventually.

I connected the new wire to the old and carried on around the perimeter until I came back to the transmitter.  I connected the wire.  I switched on.  Nothing happened.  Eventually I traced the fault back to the connection I had made between the two wires, and that of course was in the middle of a bramble bush.  Many scratches and much blood later, I got the little light on the transmitter to glow.  Great!  Now to try it out.

There is a little tester that can be connected to the dog collar to see if it’s working.

It wasn’t.

The only thing I could think of was that the battery in the collar was dead, so I removed it and started on another marathon hunt.  It transpired that the battery is a very unusual size and no one stocked it.

Fuck!

After trying countless supermarkets, hardware shops, chemists and others I eventually found a solution.  Instead of using the battery I was supposed to use, I made one up out of a little stack of those fiddly little silver pellet batteries.  I found a size, that if I stuck four of them on top of each other, I would have the right voltage and a perfect fit.  I stuck them together with sticky tape and put them in the collar.  It worked perfectly!

Now the next problem I had was the small matter of training.

When I got the box originally, there was a DVD in it with full training instructions.  Of course it was American, and in true American fashion, they assumed that we all have “yards” with no fences.  why the fuck do they call them “yards”?  Yards are for rubbish and storing timber and the like.  Anyway the bloke in the video had planted the wire around the perimeter of his “yard” and proceeded to teach the dog that any time it approached the perimeter that it was time to turn back.  My problem was that my perimeter was all brambles, nettles, bushes and undergrowth and there was no point in trying to teach Sandy that she wasn’t to stroll through that lot, as she wouldn’t try anyway.  She’s not fucking stupid.  I could have tried training her that she wasn’t to approach the area where she usually got out, but she knew that was verboten too.

In the end I just said fuckit and stuck the collar on her and let her loose.

She was out in the garden for about three minutes before I heard the first scream.  It worked!!!  Ten minutes later, I heard the second yelp from a different direction and a little puff of blue smoke arose from behind a rose bush.  This was good stuff.

Since then she is very wary about approaching any of the boundary.  She hasn’t been out on the road since.

I did have a couple of small problems.  To complete my wire loop, I had to run it around the outside of the house, and in a couple of places the signal reaches indoors.  This means that Sandy’s collar beeps at her and give a warning even when she is inside the house.

We have had a very happy couple of weeks.

Sandy is free to wander the estate without being watched.  She loves the freedom.  Every now and then she comes across another loop of the wire and comes in somewhat chastened and smelling of singed dog-hair.

Pity about her food though.

Her feeding dish happens to be in one of the signal areas.

I keep meaning to move it, but I keep forgetting.

All in all, I would call the dog fence a yelping roaring success.

Go chop my arse

Grandad August 9th, 2009

I wasn’t in the best of moods yesterday.

This was very unusual as you know me- always bright and cheerful?  Always looks on the bright side of everything?  Always happy and positive?

Anyway, I felt like a bit of killing or something.  Unfortunately that was out of the question, as I had loaned my favourite sniper rifle and the bugger was late returning it.

When I was a kid many many [many] moons ago, my mother had an expression that used to drive me nuts – “go chop some wood”.  I hated that expression as it was a dismissal of my inner child’s angst and reduced my torment to the level of chance for a bit of slave labour.

It struck a chord yesterday though.  I decided that the best thing to do was to do some gardening.  I decided to mow the lawns.

Of course it immediately pissed rain, which nicely reflected my lack of a sunny disposition.  In fact the rain made my mood somewhat darker and I chose to do something a little more violent.

Our “garden” is quite old.  There are large areas of it that are quite inaccessible because of the undergrowth.  This is ideal for birds and other wildlife who want a bit of privacy for child rearing or whatever, but it somewhat restricts my ability to reach the further corners of my acreage.  There is one corner through which we used to get a lovely view.  It also happens to be the corner over which my broadband signal flies.  That corner has become somewhat wild, and where there were a couple of shrubs and bushes there is now a fucking wild woodland with trees, brambles and nettles.

I armed myself with my favourite gardening tools.  First on the list is my secateurs.  These are purely for cutting off any brambles that get stuck on my clothes.  Then there are the real buggers – my branch cutters, my saw and my carving knife.  I never got around to replacing the machete that somehow got buried with the Venezuelan, so I use a carving knife instead.  It’s a lethal bastard in the right hands, and is very sharp.  I can testify to the latter, as I would have very neatly removed a finger recently, but fortunately the bone got in the way.

I had a fine time in the corner of the garden.  I hacked and slashed, and generally created mayhem.  I got wet, but I didn’t care.

After an hour or two of this I got a wee bit tired and decided to call it a day.  I still can’t see the view as there is a lot more to be demolished yet.  My broadband signal is a good bit stronger though.

And I discovered that my mother may have had a point.

There is nothing like violence and destruction to lift the spirits.