For a long time now I’ve used ‘no mess’ wild bird seed at our garden feeders. Despite its name, ‘no mess’ seed is very messy and, for the most part, it’s all scoffed by the resident jackdaws while the spillage is eaten by wood pigeons. This irritates me because it excludes all the smaller garden birds that we used to have in abundance. This week I restocked the feeders with sunflower hearts instead and the impact was immediate. The jackdaws turned their beaks up at the very idea of sunflower seeds and bogged off to someone else’s garden, and today the feeders attracted a male bullfinch (the first I’ve seen around here for quite some time) and a juvenile finch of some description, female I think, that isn’t quite identifiable, at least to me. Such a small thing, but it made me absurdly pleased.
the shed
A trip to B&Q was more mundane. There was a long queue to get in, longer than I’ve seen at our local supermarket, and they were operating a one in, one out policy. I have no complaints about that. Once again, I was in the minority wearing a mask. I needed paint for a stair rail outside our front door, and I took the opportunity to load up on multi-purpose compost and odds and ends. I’m a bit late to the game this year, but I’d like to get some plants into the shed and thereby introduce a bit of colour. Late or not, I’ve made a start.
On the subject of masks, I had a look on Etsy to see if there were any decent Grateful Dead masks being made, and it turns out there are. Unfortunately, they are all in the USA and postage is prohibitive.
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Vegan scones
Outside the shed, we have a patio area where we’ve had a picnic table for a few years now. That table has been badly damaged by time and the weather and by its being a cheap table in the first place. It occurred to me that I could dismantle it, tidy up the patio area, and have the perfect spot for a 6’x8′ greenhouse, which would, amongst other things, let me get back to growing tomatoes, peppers and the like again, as I did when we first came here. A retirement project, I think, to see what might grow there. All I need to do is to sort out a budget and see what I can afford.
Talking of retirement projects, I had a successful stint in the kitchen this afternoon; I wanted to bake some scones but they have to be dairy-free, so I substituted coconut oil and coconut milk to see what would happen. If you judge success by the speed at which other people eat them, then it was a very successful afternoon.
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The statue of the British slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol was today torn down and thrown into the River Avon by protesters. Why there was still such a statue there is beyond me, but it’s difficult to object to its removal. Nevertheless, Home Secretary Priti ‘Vacant’ Patel described this as ‘utterly disgraceful.’
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Like an Atom Bomb
Music: As it’s Sunday it’s only right to have a sermon or three and some gospel, brought to you tonight by Billie Hughes and His Buckaroos, Jackie Doll and His Pickled Peppers, and the Sons of Pioneers. Praise the Lord and pass the Plutonium.
All of these songs, and many more, can be found on the excellent Buzzola compilation Like An Atom Bomb: Apocalyptic Songs From The Cold War. There are several compilations covering various themes, and, you probably won’t be surprised to learn, I have most of them.
We have a pesky jackdaw who wakes me up at 5am each morning., plus magpies and wood pigeons who clean up under the bird feeders which have always been full of sunflower hearts since we discovered how good they were at attracting little birds two years ago. Before them we had had no birds for 11 years in our garden. Now we have robins, goldfinches, blue tits, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds and a few we can’t recognise.