Goodbye to an old friend .....

About a week before Christmas we had to have our old dog put down. Meg was a cocker spaniel and would have been 16 this year but unfortunately she suffered a stroke the same night as my daughter came back from University (may have been the excitement I guess) and when we took her to the vets it turned out she had 2 tumours as well. She was a marvellous dog and truly was man's ( well this man) best friend. She will be sadly missed. We thought over christmas about getting another dog but I couldn't face the anguish again and so we decided that we would wait twelve months and see how we felt. Christmas came and went and was probably the worsed one we have ever had.

Then a week ago we went to my wife's bosses house and were greated by his big roughty toughty Lurcher being chased around the house by a small liver & white lunatic.

Meet Nacho

It turned out that the 13 week old puppy in question was taken to one of the local vets to be put down as she had attacked the owners cat. The vets refused and a new home was sought and even my wife ( who isn't supposed to be a dog person) fell for her and so the small whirlwind blew into our lives and nothing has been the same since.

She has a mischeiveous nature, but there again I'm comparing her to a a 15 year old lady, and loves nothing better than to run off whith a shoe, sock or anything else. You usually get a sight f her with her ears pinned back trotting of at speed - a sure giveaway.

But she's learning slowly and now has developed a taste for a cup of tea (bit like her owner ). And when she's not reeking havoc she enjoys nothing better than a good snooze, along with a family member of course.

Today was the first time she's been down to my allotment and as usual she took it all in her stride with everyone falling for the cute face ..... if only they knew!!

Happy new Year !!

Well 1st one of 2007. Hope you had a good 'un.

On the Grapevine ( excellent lively forum see link on left) Someone posted a thread about how much is saved by growing your own and it got me a thinking. Somme time ago I picked up an old Book by Richard Sudell book called "Practical Gardening & food Production" and from reading it I would guess it was written somewhere around 1935 ish. It's full of info that is still good today although a lot of the varieties have gone by the wayside and it;s a bit heavy on the chemical sprays for my liking. But as comparison I tried to work out what the value of the cost's & savings would be in todays money & climate. First problem was to try and rember how much £1 13s 9d would be in this new fangled money !! Then to try and find somwhere where I could calculate the value today.

Any way it was quite enlightening.
The total costs of tools, seeds and seed spuds worked out to £7 15s 3d which worked out to around £300 in todays money.

It then gave a list of crops and the expected yeilds which came out to a total cost to buy at the time of £13 9s 9d (which I suspect was quite a bill in the 1930's) and the cost of the seeds, muck and seed spuds was £2 7s which gave a saving of £11 2s 9d or a saving of around £400 in real terms as they say!!

This is quite some saving so this year I will try and keep an account of costs and see how much it does save. This isn't my main reason for Growing my Own though but if I can save a few bob along the way I think it helps.

Here is the lists and I hope you find it as intersting as I did.