Elfin safety

I used to listen to Health and Safety stories in Britain and have a good old chortle. Fancy making kids wear safety glasses when walking near conker trees. Or not being able to rock climb or climb trees for fear of falling.

This morning I had a wee experience where I have to concur with some of those nay sayers. Weeding underneath chestnut trees can be bad for your health.

I was uprooting day lilies and stray gladi bulbs in the area next to the old potting shed in preparation for the Build. Head down, arms akimbo, not watching anything but dirt beneath me, when, thwack! The chestnut tree scored a direct hit of a burr plus three nuts right in the middle of my back. Egads it hurt. Mostly in that shocked, I didn’t expect it kind of a way, but also in the sharp burrs, heavy weight from a great height and a direct hit.

This afternoon, once the shed was cleared, I bid a lazy  retreat (it’s warm and I’m in a sunhat) to the vegetable garden instead. There, in a blissfully risk free zone I weeded cabbages and laid waste to about a hundred of those wretched little gendarmes bugs.The ones that breed when your back is turned, eat little holes in all the leaves of every single brassica, and turn your fingers green when you squish em.

Therapeutic in a sick sort of way. And I found two cabbage moth caterpillers on the plants.  So I will have to be vigilant indeed if these cavollo nero plants are to make it through the winter.