I have too many emails. Thunderbird is refusing to accept more. So I guess that's it. No more email for me. I accept the situation.
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🗁Added 13 photos to album Stuff I made.
Capsicum, chilli and tomato polytunnel excitement. Excessive courgettes. Harvested the turnips too late and they're not good. Got a second freezer to start bulk processing some of this produce and storing for winter.
🗁Added 38 photos to album Edinburgh, Aug 2021.
Sunshine in Edinburgh. Wander around Murrayfield, mushrooms in Dalry Cemetery, lunch on the Meadows. A long run up Arthur's Seat.
Little caterpillars in my kale, your clever camouflage somewhat backfires when you're hiding from someone who only tries to find you in order to not eat you.
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This weekend's bathroom refurbishment jobs include the ceiling, and sealing. My Dad and I have found ourselves talking past each other more than once.
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🗁Added 12 photos to album Stuff I made.
Interesting clump of mushrooms growing with one of my broccolis. Haven't identified them yet.
Everything is getting eaten by caterpillars, but rescuing as much kale as possible before I surrender.
Cucumbers and chillis are starting to explode.
🗁Added 5 photos to album Stuff I made.
Misc flat improvements.
🗁Added 20 photos to album Stuff I made.
Work on the ensuite uncovered an exciting floor void, and rotten floorboards that the step ladder fell through.
Tiles went up, a new floor went down, toilet from ebay and sink unit from Freegle were installed, and existing towel rail was moved. The wooden shelf was yet another piece of beautiful wood, ash this time, scavenged from R's shed, that was almost exactly the right dimensions already, and I sanded down and varnished it.
Dad left, and I repainted the walls with white bathroom paint. Two weeks later Dad came back, and installed the heated towel rail to replace the radiator, and fitted a new ceiling as the old one was rotting a bit.
The mirror had been an issue as the window interfered with the space above the sink, and we need one that works for people between 5 and 6.5 feet tall. Astonishingly at the last moment I picked up a mirror with a frame to match the shelf from the secondhand furniture shop for £3 with a swivel stand, so we bolted that to the windowsill and it was perfect.
🗁Added 64 photos to album Foraging 2021.
A very successful afternoon of mushroom foraging around Kirkcaldy-adjacent woodlands, and Aberdour. Featuring:
- Many different russulas, nibbled on site to decide whether to keep them.
- A variety of boletes in reasonable condition, mostly yellow/orange cracked, and a few brown birch.
- My first porcini!
- A bolete with a brown cap and a fat red stem. It could have been a lurid or a scarletina, but we left it. We got one mature one that after triple checking is definitely a scarletina.
- A good haul of chanterelles.
- What we thought were puffballs, but turned out to all be earthballs when we got them home. Most common cause of poisonings in the UK, I expect because the rule of thumb is earthballs are dark inside and puffballs are white. But actually some earthballs can be cream and it's easy to think you have a puffball. But the giveaway is the texture - earthballs are much firmer.
- Lots of blushers spotted (poisonous).
- A variety of to-be-identified mushrooms, including some funnel caps and milky caps.
🗁Added 15 photos to album Stuff I made.
The cucumber situation is getting out of hand. All hail our cucumber overlords.
Eight out of eleven of my chillis are now bearing fruit!
Also courgettes, beets, broad beans. Tomatoes are ripening.
Planted some less functional but pretty things in my crate planter to make the place look more presentable.
🗁Added 25 photos to album Foraging 2021.
Wandering the fields near my sister's place in the Lake District, and picking up mushrooms on the way. Mostly not edible, apart a couple of field mushrooms, but fun to try to ID them all, familiarising myself with the book. Also borrowed a sundew to take home.
🗁Added 33 photos to album Foraging 2021.
Walking in the woods near my Mum's place near Alton, and picking up mushrooms...
Loads of earthballs (not pictured) and lots of amanitas; definite blushers, and pretty sure not death caps, but some other kinds. Very old boletes, scattered russulas, stinkhorns, and some big 'uns in a field that I'm not sure about.
🗁Added 27 photos to album Foraging 2021.
An epic Fife fungal foray. The very local oysters are still flushing, plus some puffballs coming up nearby. A few good scarletina and yellow/red cracked boletes. A milk cap, probably not a good one, but haven't learnt much about those yet.
Went to check on a baby chicken of the woods to see if it had grown, and alas, something had eaten it.. but then.. out of the corner of my eye.. down a muddy slope and through several feet of ferns something was glowing orange.. my conscious brain said "almost certainly some trash" but my subconscious brain knew... I slid down the bank.. and sure enough.. a chicken of the woods as big as my torso. What a feast!
Plus, blackberries on my doorstep.
🗁Added 4 photos to album Edinburgh, Aug 2021.
Afternoon in Edinburgh to see B&J. Food from Seeds for the Soul and Black Rabbit, and a nice sit on the Meadows.
🗁Added 8 photos to album Foraging 2021.
Hen of the woods in the middle of Kirkcaldy town. And misc.
🗁Added 19 photos to album Foraging 2021.
A jaunt into local oak woods to look for more chicken of the woods after last week's exciting discovery, and was not disappointed. Lots of small ones, mostly the right age. And some very high up a tree! Alas. Lots of beefsteak fungus too, but didn't harvest any because though it's pretty I wasn't impressed with the taste and texture of the last one I tried. Got a ton of hen of the woods though, a new one for me.
🗁Added 8 photos to album Foraging 2021.
I walked all the way into town for one specific thing, which I did not achieve. But in some random grass near the train station I found a bunch of good russulas, and loads of field mushrooms. So, not a completely wasted journey.