Not much has happened this week, The swans where not there today so no news on them, I only took one photo today and that is of Horace so ya might want to see it.

Tags: Dog

Yesterday we where given a huge plant for our tiny pond, So today I decided to split it up into smaller plants suitable for our pond, I then felt a strange tingling feeling on one of my fingers, I looked at where it was tingling and saw a leech stuck to my finger. ARRRRH. I had to get a photo of it before it sucked me dry of my bodily fluids.

Tags: Garden

The swans have been swimming about with their cygnets this week, Louise has got some good video footage of them, Over the next week we will edit all the best bits together and then put them up here in the video pages in the mean time you can view some photos I have taken of the cygnets in the photography pages.

Tags: Swans

We've had a black plastic compost bin for about 10 months now and we checked it the other day to find the compost was slimy, I did a search on Google about what could be done, Some one said that if we put wood chippings into it it would help, So with us doing some woodturning we had a good pile of sawdust and we decided to make another compost bin, So we built a wooden frame around the black bin and nailed some wicker panels to it, Then Louise took the black bin out (I was at work at the time) she said it absolutely stunk, Anyway she added the sawdust and mixed it in now a week later it is looking a lot better and not as slimy as it was, we will keep adding sawdust to it and turning it over regularly.

Tags: Compost

We have made a plot to plant our vegetables, We planted our first ones today they are rocket, onion, cabbage, leek and purple broccoli.
Nothing has grown yet and it's been ages since we planted them, must be about half an hour ago.
Anyway I am looking forward to seeing them grow, Any plant I've ever had has always died but Louise has had more luck than me.

Tags: Vegetable

When walking Horace yesterday we saw the new cygnets in the nest, Today we watched them for about half an hour, I managed to get a photograph of them, I have a Lumix FX30 and a small pair of binoculars so I put the camera in macro mode and zoomed in and put the binoculars up to the lens, It was a bit difficult to keep steady but I did manage to get this shot. Aren't they cute. I will be taking the video camera with me this evening, Lets hope they are out again.

Tags: Swans, Cygnets

Time to give Horace a bath.

Haven't had a picture of Horace for a while, I took this today as we where taking him for his walk.

Had a day off work today because my car had broken down and was in the garage. So me and Louise decided to do something in the garden. We had this tree given to us and we decided to plant it today.
First Louise built a small stone wall to hold the banking up then we planted the tree in front of that. We also thought we should change the pond water, because a few weeks ago we got hold of some frog spawn and put that in the pond, After a couple of weeks we couldn't see anything living in the pond and today decided to drain it, When we got to the bottom of the pond we saw something move and it was the tadpoles then we saw a couple of newts, so we thought we would leave what was in the bottom of the pond and just fill it back up with water. I got some photos of the newt.
Larger photos of the newt are in the photo section.

Tags: Garden

We are doing something with the garden, Our aim to make it look nice by using as much as we can from reclaimed items. We have used pallets to make a fence, I got hold of some wicker panels from the skip at work.
Someone down the street had chopped a couple of trees down and Louise dragged them home and has cut them up to use them as borders for her plant bed, All the stone came out of the garden. So weather permitting we will gradually do bits here and there and I will post then here.

Tags: Garden

Our friend the Swan was not interested in feeding this afternoon, Some other people got there before us. So we took the rest of the bread with us and we saw a goose so we threw it some bread, I managed to get some photos and a bit of video of it.

Click this image for the video.

Tags: Goose

Went to Lady Wood this morning, Nice place you can forget you are just a half a mile from any roads. We didn't see any wildlife though but that happens, Next time we might see loads.
Here are a couple of photos I took.

I manage to get about 2 seconds of footage of a fox that lives near by, I was scrambling to get the camera and video capture software set up before he went, But as usual he had gone by the time I got it set right.

Click the image below to see it.

Tags: Fox

We went to a nature reserve today, A nice little place it was just off a main road in a small town, I'm not going to say exactly where but on our way round we saw a hole in a tree and thought that woodpeckers might have made it, Anyway me been a bit curious wanted to know what was in the hole, Most of the time it is just crisp packets and beer cans, You couldn't just look inside because it was pitch black so I stuck my camera in the hole opening and with my flash on I took a picture. I got a surprise when I looked at what had been taken..
Now we have identified this as a Nuthatch but if we are wrong can you tell us what it is..

Over the last 7 months or so we have been feeding some Swans that have been hanging around the canal, We are sure that they recognise us now as when we first saw them they would hiss at Horace and get all defensive, Now though they don't bother with him even when he is close when we are feeding them.

Here are a couple of photos of the male Swan trying to eat my camera. Bless

Tags: Swans

I've been the manager of a screenprint department for about 4 years now and 2 weeks ago I found out that my department was going to be closed down. For me I'm glad that it's happening because I didn't like screen printing, After 26 years in the trade it had become a chore. I have another job within the company to do now, As for the rest of my lads well one might take his redundancy money, one is going to the packing department and Lee will be going to another company. I've enjoyed working with these lads and will keep in touch with them.

With the price of oil going up each week and petrol going up faster and our government adding tax to it at an even faster rate, We get people saying what can we do about it? Well we just need someone to go out and get a franchise to build the Air Car here in the UK, I would buy one like a shot and stick one in the eye of the government (till they decide to tax air)
For more info on the Air Car visit the web site here http://www.theaircar.com/acf/ or type air car into Google and you will find some video footage of it too.