A quiet few days

Over the last couple of days, there has been no significant events or exciting adventures. I know that now I have written this, there will instantly be several incredibly noteworthy events happening simultaneously. But allotment life has gentler days when all that needs attending to is the chickens and time on site is spent chatting with others or sitting on the veranda day dreaming.

Yesterday morning, I was very excited to find a flower on one of my loofa plants! It was a gorgeous yellow-orange colour with long elongated petals. By the time I came back in the evening, the flower had gone! It seems that loofa flowers don’t last more than a few hours.

Today was so blisteringly hot that after feeding the chickens and refreshing their water, I had to sit in the shade for a while. The heat was absolutely relentless. Tracy swung by to say hello and we had a chat about our loofas before Cliff invited us to pick some fruit from his plum tree. Apparently, Cliff’s plum tree hasn’t produced much fruit ever but this year with all its strange weather seems to have agreed with it. It was heaving with fruit! Tracy took some home to make some jam whilst Cliff kindly offered me a dozen to take home to share with my husband. Most arrived home… several were sampled beforehand! They were absolutely delicious!

Next I ambled across to Rachael’s plot and collected some willow cuttings to build the next part of the willow bee. I had managed to think of a way to make the bee 3D. Using several strips of willow stretched into an arch shape and attached to the frame of the bee then weave shorter willow strips to build out the top of the bee stripes. All very well in theory and I made a start on the head of the bee. Three arches secured into place and I began to weave the shorter willow strips into place. The heat was intense and the lack of shade made it worse. It didn’t get too far before I conceded defeat. I decided I would pop back this evening when it was cooler.

Late evening I walked down to put Pop to bed and to try to do a bit more on the bee. Rather miraculously, Pop had almost got herself into the nest box independently. I cleared out the old bedding and refilled their water bowls and food. I also managed to collect an egg from the main coop.

I reviewed the bee and decided that there were too many buzzing things around the willow arch to risk working at the head of the bee. Instead, I began to build the rear of the bee using thicker willow strips to make the arches and thinner ones to weave it all together. By the time I had woven about ten strips, it was getting a bit dark to continue. Provided that the heatwave doesn’t intensify tomorrow, I will try to finish off both ends of the bee. It is definitely going to take a lot longer than I thought but hopefully the end result will be worth it!

Before I left, I sat a while with Pop and Leia, enjoying watching the sun go down. Finally the day was cooling and if the mosquitoes weren’t so keen on eating me alive, I would have stayed much longer.