2021 Week 10 - Into Self-Isolation

It's been a strange week. The jet stream has strongly influenced the weather resulting in warmer temperatures but strong winds and rain. As they say, March came in like a lamb but has turned into a lion.

Early in the week I was busy coppicing the final willows, turning the compost and even getting the lawn mower out for the first time this year. I've begged, borrowed and stole a mountain of cardboard to go on paths and weedy beds but I had to hold back from laying it until the strong winds have passed.

Not Back To School
It was back to school week for England's children too, but not for me. I was self-isolating, still Zooming. For I finally had an important check-up at hospital in London. I have something called polyposis, which basically means that from my stomach onwards is a bit of a polyp forest. Although these adenomatous polyps are usually benign, they are not always, and I have enough growing to mean the statistics are not on my side. I already had some extensive re-plumbing when I turned 40, but I have enough of my digestive system left to still function fairly normally as long as we keep a close eye on things.

As a result I need regular check-ups but these came to a grinding halt when coronavirus made its nasty appearance. This has increased the worry for me during the pandemic, so the news that my check-ups were back on track was a great relief, though a worry in terms of what they might find too.

And so on Monday morning I took my Covid test,  awaited collection by a courier and moved into a room downstairs. I am fortunate that our land provides a much more stimulating environment for self-isolation than is an option for many, but the weather put paid to getting much done outside. I caught up with seed sowing and gave all my tender seedlings lots of care, probably too much! Finally Thursday came and the drive down to hospital in London. It all felt a bit strange at hospital, much quieter than usual and I felt like I had my own personal health service. They needed to access my stomach and duodenum today and the only way to get there, unfortunately, is down my throat. I normally have a good dose of sedation but, as my consultant put it, I still put up a valiant fight! So this time I was having general anaesthetic for the first time since my big operation nearly fifteen years ago. This meant they could spend a good couple of hours poking around inside rather than the usual ten minutes or so.

The team at St Mark's are fantastic.
However amazing they may be with colons,
their apostrophes still need a little work!

All I remember is feeling light-headed as they gave me sedation, then a stinging in my hand as the anaesthetic went in. Next thing a groggy John was being brought round by the recovery team. I quickly came to my senses and my consultant came to see me with the results. They take pictures of my insides which appear on the report I get. I won't show you, but they are fascinating. They removed a couple of the larger polyps from my duodenum and left little metallic pegs inside to stop the cauterised wounds from bleeding. I think these dissolve. I have to go back again in 6 months to have more removed, but the good news is that there's nothing they found to cause any undue alarm.

The worst news I got was that I had to go the rest of the day without eating!

Anyway, that's enough about my mutant body! Life goes on and you have to make the best of what you're dealt.

A Spring Clean Before Everything Springs Back Into Growth
So as I mentioned I've been coppicing the last of the willows and generally having a spring clean around the place. I leave the pollarded willows in the woodland for two years and cut back half of them each year. I chipped everything I cut from these and used it as  mulch around the fruit trees in the orchard. 

I also needed to cut back some of the laurels which protect the bee hives from the worst of the winds.

This left me with a stack of laurel cuttings to deal with. Laurel contains cyanide and you can read some scary stuff on the interweb about the dangers of handling it. However, I managed to get it all chipped without being overcome by noxious fumes or my skin blistering. The next problem was what to do with it. Laurel leaves take forever to rot down and I was aware that they might have an effect on the soil if I used them as a mulch. 

I found what I hope is a good solution, using them to mulch under the almond tree where I want to turn the grass into a more productive area. The smell of almonds was very strong, not from the tree but from the laurel leaves. It's the same chemical so I figured the tree would be able to cope with any effect on the soil.

The other tidying job for the week was to clear all the dead vegetation from one of the ponds. I managed to do this without once falling in!

A Visitor

Someone has moved in to the area behind the big pond by the house. A few days back I heard Arthur barking persistently. I assumed he had found a rat or a hedgehog, but when he was still barking half an hour later I decided I'd better stop my work and investigate. I was surprised to find him at the base of a tree several feet up which was perched a rather handsome grey and white cat. We don't exactly have many houses around us, so this must have come quite a way to get here. I have now seen the cat every day for four days. It makes brief appearances at the back of the pond. I managed to grab one photo before it slinked away back into the undergrowth.

I've had to stop feeding the wild birds again as the rats have moved in under the feeders. I think this must be why the cat has moved in. It's not as if we are overrun by rats, but they are beginning to breed at this time of year. I can tell when there are young around as they take the grain off the Fenn traps but are not heavy enough to spring the traps. However, when three climb on at once it's a different story! The less glamorous side of smallholding.

I think that's a good place to leave things for this week. 

Next week, back to school properly.