While you were gone ...

OK kids you all know me and I ain't no moaner - right? Yeh right - but that was one helluva long time to hold us guys back wasn't it? To make almost asif'n we weren't even here no more? No disrepect to Shaun at all ifn you follow me - it was a fine ripping tale and all but I can't say as how I followed all of it with its twists and turns and references and such but reading it to young Eddie most nights I'd sometimes think I near nuff understood enough. Eddie loved it of course but he likes anything any story so long as it's got quantum physics in it. And both of us thought the ending was riper as they say down under.

While that tall tale was going on in here life around the farm was going on pretty much as you'd have expected - spring giving way to summer and wild flowers drying back to twigs and dust. Now all that's left are the huge heads of the wild carrot flowers and some gorgeous chicory plants that only show their flowers in the early morning. G's new morning glory (royal purple) plant is ripping away but the roses and the bottlebrush have been quiet for a few weeks now as the real heat sets in. We water most mornings, nigh on drowning them tomatoes these days, and yet the surface crusts and cracks still and the soil fades from brown to cream to white.

And of course it's July now so the lavender harvest is well under way (hip hooray Lindz arrives tomorrow to help out with the last of the first cutting - G will be so pleased to have what she calls real help). Yield from Lav2 is well up but Lav1 seems to have suffered in the wet winter and is not so good this year - have to trench out in autumn I figure. G is picking close on 2000 flowers each day and I wonder sometimes how she keeps it up day in day out. But she's got gumption that girl - don't know about giving up. The type 2s are amazingly fragrant this year by the way and the new drying rack me and Eddie put up for G in her potting shed has already been filled and emptied. And the one in the bathroom! Wardrobes and chests are filling with product already and that unique smell of lavender drying permeates the whole cellar.

Speaking of which D&G had some works done on the cellar this last month that have transformed the old place: a new window (east facing, we didn't have one of those before); a new stable door (much bigger and arched at the top); and shutters all round. I'll tell you it makes a helluva difference - lighter, airier, all round better. And it'll be great come winter too. That lanky Rob did all the carpentry and he brought a few big old boys around to do the grunt work - knocking out and knocking up and the like - nice old boys they were too - took a real shine to Eddie and him to them. (BTW no sign of the institution coming looking for him yet and The Boss acts like he's just like the rest of us these days so I can't seem him turning the boy over ifn they do) (come looking that is). I asked Rob if his grandad had given him the secret of they sweeties he was always advertising but he made like he didn't know what I was talking about! Mum's the word.

Well that'll have to keep you going for now I've got work to do re-fitting the Boss's carage and this ain't getting the baby a new bonnet but I'll catch you up some more another time - till then I'll love you and leave you.

P.S. The Boss got himself a gun recently - there's been reports of a psycho lady on the loose stalking the valley - and he's been doing some target work, looks like he's getting pretty good at it too (me and Eddie aren't allowed near it) so if that ole loony does turn up near here she'd better be careful coz he's as likely to put her eye out as not.