May Days

Happy anniversary Scraps. She has been with us for a year now and is probably about 16 months old and slowly growing up but still adorably nuts.
Bugsy had his big operation last week and also had a rogue dew claw removed while he was under. He was really good about wearing the anti reach collar and despite a lot of noise and his low pain threshold has been a brave boy.The weather has gone ballistic now and both dogs are learning to like the water more and more although they don't like suddenly being out of their depth. This is so useful because it is a good way to cool them down in the 30 plus heat. This is Bugsy's first summer too so he does tend to feel it more.The river is the highest we have ever seen it and our usual walkways around the shore have disappeared so we are looking for alternative routes for our daily walksand at the dam the water is 10 metres higher than the maximum limit. A bit dodgy we think but apparently the powers that be are going to release the water this weekend. Surfs up!!!
The tadpoles are now tiny toads and the gorse and heather are out.Still doing repairs after two winters of heavy rain and frosts. The concrete flashing between the veranda roof and house wall has been leaking for two years so we decided to replace it with zinc flashing. So Steve and Fraser spent two days on the roof trying not to break too many of the old tiles since we have so few replacements, putting in the flashing sections and replacing leaking tiles.In the meantime Vanessa continued to re varnish the veranda woodwork that I started at the beginning of the month..and since she is as light as a feather and less likely to break the tiles than me she also gave the upstairs windows a much needed external coat too.We all finished off re-varnishing the rest of the veranda and I brush-painted the front wall. Couldn't use the rollers and tray because an enterprising Redstart had a brood of chicks in a nest on top of the tray, hanging on the wall in the baracao! They were just so cute. Anyway the veranda now looks the biz. Hammocks are back up and ready for hot afternoon siestas.

We put in more staggered steps down to the garden gate using up some of the old wood from the barn. Eventually they will be gravelled.

The weeding contines and we have masses of poppies this year. I think one of the bags of compost that I bought must have had a load of poppy seeds in and the back terrace is poppy city.
The pond is looking great and we are just waiting now for the waterlilies Final jobs of the month are to rebuild our front wall and put in a new metal fence and wooden gate and to sort out our water pump house once and for all.
The wall is down and the rain has come!!! so delays all round so I guess that will be part of next month's blog.
I am off to the UK on Friday for 10 days to meet up with family and friends and use up my transfered BA flight from Christmas. Volcanic ash permitting!