The Feliary

Shortly after Vita's return (see previous post) we built the feliary. It's right next door to the conservatory so the cats can go into the feliary whenever they want. Which is often as they love it. And why shouldn't they, it's got all the mod cons any self respecting kittycat could hope for:

 the feliary is spacious,

has a fabulous view,

a great outdoor dining space,

 loads of green stuff for munching and rolling in such as grasses and catnip,

gorgeous scents wafting through the air,

a grape arbour that thoughtfully provides shade and lots of amusing little green balls to pick and play with,

and all the running water, complete with the sound of gently trickling water, any thoroughly spoiled kittycat might need. Entertainment has also been kindly provided in the shape of one small dog in case the kittycats get bored.

Utter outdoor Bliss!

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

MIA

Haven't blogged much lately but not for lack of material to write about. Last July, for instance, my worst nightmare came true when my oldest cat Vita disappeared from the Bliss garden.

Since I moved here I was in the habit of letting some of the cats play in the garden while I was working outside so I could keep an eye on them. My old garden had been cat proof; no cat could escape from it and no cat could enter it from outside. Making the Bliss garden 100% cat proof turned out to be impossible and as all my cats were so well behaved and would come running when I called them, I let it be. And then, one awful day last July, Vita was gone.

I searched for her everywhere; the garden, the house, the garden cottage, the garage and then further afield: my neighbours gardens, sheds, garages etc. but all to no avail. We even searched with an infra red
camera to see if Vita was hiding in the shrubbery but no, not a sign of her.

I made hundreds posters and put them up everywhere in the village, even in a nearby city where many fellow villagers go to shop. Posters were put up in and near supermarkets, parking spaces, daycare centres, at the vet's, the petshop, a flowershop, places where many people walked their dogs etc. I also designed & printed about 1200 flyers and put them in people's letterboxes. You had to be living in deep dark hole in my village not to be aware that Vita had gone AWOL.

I would search for Vita every morning between 5 and 7 AM and every evening between 10.30 and 1 PM as the chance of finding her would be bigger when it was quiet outside. I also searched for her via the phone and the internet. But however hard I searched, no Vita. 1 Week passed, then another but no sign of Vita at all. I was getting pretty desperate when suddenly one day I finally received a phone call from an old lady who said she'd seen her.  Went over to talk with her and to show her some pictures of Vita. She was adamant that that was the cat she'd seen. Vita is a Maine Coon and looks very different from your average moggy as she has long hair and her coat colour is also not that common; blue tortie and white/blue calico & white. After that initial phone call I got more phone calls from other people in that same area so I concentrated the search for Vita in that neighbourhood. But again no Vita. She'd been gone for almost 3 weeks and as Vita was not a young cat (almost 15yrs) she would not be able to stick it out for much longer. And then, at long last another phone call this time from a man who said he was actually looking at her while we were on the phone. He asked me to come straight away.

 So we did. Brought a flashlight as it was late in the evening and already dark. Much to my relief it turned out to be my darling girl. For the first time in almost three weeks I was able to see her with my very eyes. My relief was utter, I was so glad to see her and know for certain that she was alive and reasonably well. But how to catch her?

Because you'll never guess where she'd been hiding; in a kitchen garden next door to one of the local pubs. When we got there, Vita was running around in a poppy field, trying to get away from the flashlights that were pointed at her. The chap who'd found her had also brought a flashlight and he and his wife had been keeping an eye on Vita till we got there. So we had a party of 4  but however hard we tried, we couldn't catch her and in the end Vita hid in a pile of wood and we couldn't get at her.

Judging by the amount of fur that stuck to the wood, this had been Vita's hide-out for at least a week. As we could not get her out of there, I decided to let her stay there and come back the next morning. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do; leaving Vita and return home empty handed. I had brought some catfood along so I left food for her near the pile of wood and went home with a heavy heart.

After a mostly sleepless night we returned the next morning around 5 AM. The catfood near the woodpile was gone, the plate licked clean but I had put another plate of food next to a gate bordering on the poppy field and that wasn't empty. So where was she? To eat the food she had to leave her hidey-hole. As the other plate of food was untouched she had not gone into the field so she had to be close to the houses next to the kitchen garden and poppy field.

Off we went to comb the whole area with a fine tooth-comb. We had searched for about an hour when I suddenly heard a noise coming from under a shed I was quite close too. I went to have a butcher's and this is where I found my Vita.

She was right on top of that pile of rubble, her head almost touching the ceiling and with her back against the wall. How to get hold of her without her running off again into the back of beyond?

There were some plastic chairs there so I sat down and surveyed the situation. I'd sent the under-gardener off for a thermosflask of tea and some sandwiches as we hadn't eaten a thing since we'd left home.

I knew the minute that either one of us would come too close to Vita she'd be off like the proverbial bat out off hel. What to do? I could wait until the next day, Monday, and try to either beg, borrow, buy or steal a trap so we could catch her.  But frankly the thought alone made my heart sink. I wasn't going to wait for a whole day, or worse maybe even several days before I could finally hold Vita in my arms again.

So I came up with a cunning plan. After the under-gardener had returned with the tea and sandwiches I went home to get some netting & other stuff that we needed to close off the three gaps between the pillars (see pic above). It took us about 1 1/2 hours to close off all the gaps so that not even a mouse could escape. We checked and double checked that we had indeed sprung the trap. We had. Within 5 minutes Vita was safe in her carrier and after we had removed all the netting we returned home triumphantly.

As soon as we got home I popped Vita in the utility room and gave her a thorough check-up. Apart from being as thin as a rake (went from 3.8 to 2.6 kilo), ever so slightly dirty and sans her last 3 canines, Vita was fine, remarkably so. She had no ticks, fleas, earmites or other nasty beasties. Cleaned her up a bit and fed her. Then I stumbled into bed and slept for 4 solid hours, I was exhausted. At long last my darling Vita was safely home.

A lot of missing pets are never recovered simply because their owners gave up searching for them too soon. My Vita was found after 19 days. Another cat in my village, that went missing on the same day as Vita, was found after 30 days. If your pet is missing, DO NOT GIVE UP. Keep searching, your pet has NOT disappeared into thin air, it must be somewhere and somebody must have seen your pet. I got my Vita back because I'd put a flyer in the right letterbox, Dido (the other missing cat) was found because of an add in the local rag. Whatever you do when your pet has gone missing: do not give up!

I mentioned earlier that I searched via the internet as well for my Vita and here are some links to sites that I found that have been invaluable to me. If you have pets please bookmark this page so you can always find the info here if, Valen forbids, one of your pets goes missing.

http://www.catprofiler.com/profiles.html  cat profiler Jenne Mundy
http://www.katalbrecht.com/  pet detective Kat Albrecht
http://www.catsinthebag.org/ Cat's In the Bag - providing a huge amount of useful information
http://catsinthebag.yuku.com/  The Cat's In the Bag Forum where you'll find a lot of support and helpful suggestions

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

Summertime, and the Livin' Is Easy

 A view of the border from the wildflower meadow

Summertime and the livin' is easy
berries are poppin'
and the cornflowers are high

Summertime is certainly easy, not to mention fab when you are a gardener and it's even better if you are a potagerer as well. At this time of year my garden certainly lives up to its name: Bliss!

My big border (17 meters long) is jam-packed with flowers to my utter delight. The butterflies and bees are pretty ecstatic about it too.

With such a profusion of flowers it's not hard to indulge yourself with bouquets galore!

Been to Normandy, France, recently where they go utterly rose bonkers in June. Well, they are not the only ones as my own garden has quite a few roses growing in it as well.

This is Constance Spry, making her debute chez Bliss. It's a climber that flowers profusely but only once. It's fragrance is exactly what you'd expect a rose to smell like. I love roses, not only because they delight the eye, nose, heart and soul of many a gardener but also because they are a culinary delight.

Here's a recipe to make rose syrup with solar power only:

Fill a glass jar with fragrant rose petals and add 1 lime cut into four. Fill the jar up with cold springwater and put it in the sun for a few days. Give it a shake every now and again.

Pour it through a sieve and measure the liquid. Add 400 grams of sugar per liter. Then put it back in the sun for a few more days before you bottle it. Pour out a measure of rose syrup in a longdrink glass and fill it up with cold (sparkly) water. Cheers!

You can also turn strawberries, violets, elderflowers etc. into  syrup in this simple and easy way. I wasn't joking about summertime being easy.

The Bliss entrance fragrantly covered with Guirlande D'Amour and Madame Alfred Carriere

But it's not only the roses that do well chez Bliss; the potager is producing a tremendous amount of yummy food on a daily basis now.

So much in fact that you can't eat it all straight from the garden; my favourite way of stuffing my face with homegrown food. So I decided to make an utterly scrumptious dessert with my glut of

gooseberries.

Gooseberry & elderflower custard:
- 500 grams of gooseberries
- 2 to 3 elderflowers
- 1 cup of cream
- 1/2 a cup of sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
-  butter

Put a knob of butter in the pan and put it on a low fire. Add the gooseberries, elderflowers and sugar. Bring it to the boil and let it simmer until the fruit is soft.

Whip the cream, eggs and egg yolk together and add gently to the mixture. Keep stirring until it starts to thicken up.

Pour it in a bowl and let it cool off. Then put it in the fridge for a few hours before serving.

 Bon appetit!

Summertime, and the cookin' is easy 

Next time I will blog about my garden filled holiday in Normandy, France. 

----------------------------------------------------
Addendum: for making rose syrup you can also use tapwater if it's of a good quality, if not, use bottled water from supermarket. I leave the jars out at night, it's balmy so why not?


Copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

The Low Maintenance Garden Club

 My own front garden

I moved house a couple of years ago to an area where I didn't know a soul. What to do? To meet new people you are often advised to join a club. As I love to garden a garden club would be just the ticket. So I searched high and low but was unable to find a local garden club. Hmmm

 Rosa Blanc Double de Coubert at the back and Sombreuil in front, both have a divine scent

At that point I could have given up I suppose but I didn't, instead I came up with a cunning plan. I wrote a open letter telling people that I wanted to start a garden club and asking them if they were interested in joining. That open letter was photocopied 200 times and one fine day I put on my walking boots and went into my village looking for pretty front gardens. The reasoning behind that idea was that behind every gorgeous front garden there must live a keen gardener and I wasn't wrong. At every beautiful front garden I popped my letter in the letterbox. Even before I got home the phone was ringing with people wanting to join my garden club to be. Success!

A recent visit of my garden club to a Peony nursery abroad (Belgium)

The first meeting was held at my home with 16 people attending. Later on some more joined and others fell by the way side as they couldn't handle the way this particular garden club was set up. The thing is that I wanted to have fun, extend my horticultural knowledge and visit gardens near and far but I didn't want a traditional club with a chair(wo)man, secretary and treasurer. I'm a free spirit and do not want to be tied down with rubbish like that, especially not when it became clear to me that the others saw me in the role of chairperson. That was so not going to happen. And it didn't.

 As all members of my club are adults I didn't see the need of a nanny aka chairperson and after some persuasion the others agreed. A treasurer we didn't need either as we all pay our own entrance fee and such when visiting a garden, a garden show etc. That left the job of secretary and that we take in turns. We meet twice a year at someone's house and that person will be secretary for a few hours that day.

The letter I wrote asking people to join my garden club

At a meeting we decide together what gardens, garden shows and such to visit in the coming 6 months. Via email the agenda is sent to all members by the temporary secretary. As we have about 20 members and meet twice a year being a temporary secretary boils down to 2 hours of work once every 10 years, something even the laziest of us could manage.

Garden club visiting Laura Dingemans garden

The most important item on our agenda is having fun and we do, lots of it. We swap plants, cuttings, seed, knowledge, give a hand where necessary and we also have a meal together twice yearly and  everybody brings food and drink.

Sometimes when visiting a garden we have a cuppa with cookies or cake and sometimes we go afterwards to one member's house for a glass of wine, something to nibble and a whole lot to talk and laugh about. We have members of all ages from mid thirties to early seventies. As garden clubs go, mine is not bad and wonderfully low maintenance in respect to actual work and pretty high maintenance in all things fun.

Susan taking a breather after a hard day's garden visiting

So if you are tired of dragging unwilling spouse/kids/non-gardening friend with you to an open garden day, why not find kindred spirits in your area and start your own garden club?  It's easy, great fun and you've got the manual right here, so what's keeping you? Get cracking!

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen

Peony Porn

I went abroad recently, all the way to Belgium, to visit a Peony nursery with my garden club.

Fun was had by all and we really were in Peony heaven that lovely Sunday morning.

 Their collection of Peonies is vast and quite a few were in flower.

If you are into spectacular blooms, ones that really hit you in the eye with bells on, then you can't go wrong with Peonies.

 Some have flowers as big as cabbages, some are scented and some have very decorative seedheads.

ET, phone home!

 But there are also Peonies that have a more modest sized flower. This one has a pretty and rather unusual orange colour.

Some Peonies get rather big, this one will be 2 by 2 meters across once it's finished growing.

I like it a lot as its flowers are a very pretty yellow and not so in your face. A pity it gets so big and I simply don't have the space for it. Especially as Peonies flower for a short time only and in my garden the plants really have to earn their keep.

As you probably know, Peonies come in shrubs and trees. The shrubs you don't want to plant deep at all but rather just below the surface but the Peony tree needs to be planted deeply, preferably 10 to 12 cm deeper than it sits in its pot. Both don't like to be moved and can remain in the same spot for 50 years or so. But, if for some reason, you do have to move them; dig them up and split them into 3 or 4 seperate pieces and then plant them together again. By rejuvenating you have the bestest chance that the Peony will survive the move. Peonies are easy to grow; they need a sunny spot and a bit of chalk once a year and that's pretty much it.

This Peony is imitating an Hellebore as it also hangs its flower heads. As Peonies go, this one was quite elegant.

Hope you enjoyed the Peony porn although I'm wondering what kind of people this post will also attract considering its title. ;-)

copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen