After a rather fraught few weeks it is nice to have some better news to share with you. Our big problem recently is the breakdown of the ride-on mower. This may seem like an indulgence but with the area we have it makes keeping it in order just about possible. My shoulders are not yet healed and Jacqui is still recovering from various ills making anything too physical almost impossible. The mower stopped working a month ago, throwing out black and then white smoke and coughing before dying completely. The determined and talented Andy worked through possible solutions, from dirty plugs to a choked carburetor. Despite new parts and lots of cleaning it still refused to run. Then we tried draining the fuel tank and adding all new petrol. Like a miracle it worked and we had a working mower again!
Andy says he’s had a number of calls about similar problems and it may well be down to the new “green” addition to petrol. Bio fuel, even at 10%, can attack rubber so hoses and seals rot away, break down and pollute the engine. Certainly the seals and hoses on our machine showed significant breakdown. Well, the weather finally cleared and we spent a happy couple of days pushing back against the weeds, brambles and long grasses that threatened all our recent progress. Happiness is indeed a working mower!
As some rather nasty storms swept in last week we needed to get a bit more wood from the store. We’ve been very quiet and slow if we needed to go into that end of the lean-to as we didn’t want to disturb the swifts nesting there. The growing pile of guano on the floor indicated there were still birds there though we hadn’t actually seen them. This time however I glanced up and was startled to see three little heads poking over the edge. Baby swifts! We have baby swifts. They weren’t in the least scared by our activities, just watching us. It is getting late in the season now and the swifts are already lining up on the wires ready for the flight to the sun. They are not massing yet but we are worried our little family may be too late or too young. I’ll let you know if they get away safely.
The animal rescue mission continues, this time with newts. Our friend Noel found the first one whilst working on the raised bed. Since then I’ve seen several more and late last night I spotted one lying on a flagstone in the back garden. It looked as if the dogs had stepped on it but I managed to pick it up. It flopped over onto its back when I put it down in a small pile of greenery so I turned it over but it was limp and still. I fetched some water and trickled it over the newt and the greenery hoping it might help, then got the dogs in. Just a few minutes later it was gone – newts can play possum, I think.
One less welcome arrival is a rat – or possibly several rats – appearing from the field at the back. We were alerted to them by Charlie, who has taken up a position by the back door, alert and barking as soon as they appear. I moved one of the trail cameras and have pictures of it clambering down the wall late at night. Then Mabel, the feral/farm cat, appeared and the rats, very wisely, stayed away. I hope that between them Charlie and Mabel will persuade them to move on somewhere else. I don’t think Charlie has met Mabel properly but he is familiar with cats. We had cats with all our Tibetan dogs in Saltburn and they always got on very well.
Now, a bit of writing news. I’ve always fretted over the ending of “Death of the Elver Man”, my first novel. I reached the end and realised I had no idea how to finish it off. Well, fourteen years later I have produced a new final paragraph and this will be in the new edition when it is republished. However, this seems a bit unfair to all my loyal readers who have already bought the book so if you are one of them and would like to see this ending please email me at jennie@jenniefinch.me.uk and I will send you an e-copy. You just have to promise not to share it with anyone else please!
Well, that’s about all for this episode. Thank you for reading and I will be back in a couple of weeks.