Sunday 27 July 2008

New Toy

This is my new toy:


It's a branch lopper. You can hold it up and cut away branches that are just too high to reach with ordinary clippers. Just look at the lethal blades. They slice through branches like butter.



I have been lopping madly and wildly with the result that I have a huge pile of cuttings and clippings waiting to be burned on my next bonfire. I am lucky enough to have a woody bit at the bottom of the garden, but too many bonfires upset the neighbours, especially if they are sitting out having a soothing glass of gin during the morning.


The pile. Or perhaps I should say pyre.

Also bought in a mad splurge of consumerism, some dinky little crooks to hang my bird feeders on.


I also got this little spiral to hang Cheeky Norman's fat balls in. It took the squirrels less that twelve hours to pull it to pieces and scatter poor Norman's balls over the garden. Cheeky Norman is our greengrocer who supplies all sorts of delights and delicacies including an extensive range of bird food.


Bargain of the week: beautiful book on gardening - four quid from the charity shop.


I cannot finish this posting without a word about Maalie's unhealthy, but beautifully photographed, breakfast. I had a bowl of meusli with mashed banana, skimmed milk, goji berries and a dollop of yoghurt.



This was followed by Fair Trade Organic coffee which is really one of the best coffees I have ever had, not a bit like that horrid stuff from Nicaragua we all drank a few years ago in solidarity with the Nicaraguans. Added was a soupcon of single cream. Not squirty cream which is full of air.


And a vitamin pill.


Yes. Well. Seeing what I eat and what Maalie eats for breakfast, I shouldn't really be surprised that he escapes when he stays with us. I expect he goes to the nearest transport caff for a fry-up.

26 comments:

Shammickite said...

And wot's wrong wiv a full English fry-up? And you get the best class of clientele at the transport caff y'know.
I borrowed one of those branch loppers from OlderSon's MIL... and I went on a mad branch-lopping frenzy. There was no stopping me! I had to finally give up cos I got a horrendous crick in my neck from looking skywards trying to find more branches to lop.
PS You asked about baby Callum? I just blogged him.

tut-tut said...

We inherited a lopper from an aged relative. It really is fun to wave it around and then grasp something and pull. You never quite know what will come down . . .

I enjoyed the previous post's explanations, too. I'm enlightened, and have some new words to use when trying to make small talk.

Maalie said...

What the bleedin' heck is a goji berry? Can you make pies with them? I still have a slab of frozen pastry from last Yuletide in my freezer.

Anonymous said...

you have a lovely garden.

Ju's little sister said...

Wow, cool! May I come stay and cut things up and eat yummy muesli? Please?

lorenzothellama said...

Goji berries are little red things that grow in the Himalayas. They are hightly nutricious and quite tasty. They come dried and if you don't soak them for long in the milk they can be hard to chew.

I am sure you can make a tart with them, but make sure you soak them first.

Merisi said...

A fishing rod for cutting tree branches, vow! :-)
Your muesli and goji berries (you know all about the last health food trends, don't you? *smile*) and joghurt (my favorite way to eat muesli, soaked in joghurt!), all looks delicious. The colour of your vit pill is a bit off-putting though, honestly.

Merisi said...

I really wanted to write "the latest health food trends". Oh well, have not popped my pills yet. Big mistake! :-)

The Lone Beader® said...

I miss having a birdfeeder in my yard! Come to think of it, I miss having a yard! And, you can see my Facebook page HERE. :D

Maalie said...

Can you say how much that thing cost? It looks as if it would be highly useful for clearing mist net rides :-)

lorenzothellama said...

Well that one I bought was a Spears and Jackson and cost £28. There are cheeper ones, but I wanted a good one that wouldn't blunt too easily. My neighbour has exactly the same and she has had it for ten years and it is still as good as new. Her's cost £20 ten years ago. Pah! Inflation!

Hilary said...

Breakfast looked quite yummy.. except for the vitamin pill.

Martin Stickland said...

You are a porky teller! Branch lopper? more like toe nail cutter because you cannot be bothered to bend down and cut them.

What are you like?!

lorenzothellama said...

Oh very funny Martin!

Anonymous said...

Actually Lorenzo uses them to castrate cats at arm's length.
It's not a pretty sight.

Jack

lorenzothellama said...

No Jack, but it's quick and efficient. Remember how we struggled with Glanville and the rusty spoons?

simon said...

poor Normans balls...

I have a lopper too and it seems we are both into garden mode!

that is VERY cool!

simon said...

I remember Maalie and meself pouring VB over our Wheat bix at breakfast.....cooking steaks on the BBQ using fresh kangaroo tails

No muesli or yogurt or rubarab in site... just meat, fat and beer

Martin Stickland said...

Aaaaaaaaaachoooooooooo!!!!

Pass the bug

Maalie said...

Mate, your description of our breakfasts are making me salivate. You better not tell them what we had for dinner!

Yeh, nothing quite like VB (Victoria bitter) on you breakfast cereal. And you better not let on what I use the brekky fruit jars for.

Maalie said...

Far be it for me to criticise your efforts to feed (or even bait) the birds, but I wonder if you feel those crook things are a bit low and within the reach of pest cats?

lorenzothellama said...

Yes Maalie I agree. But aren't they pretty?

Maalie said...

And so will your garden birds be pretty when they have been mauled by your local pest cats.

lorenzothellama said...

My garden birds will see the cats a comin' as there isn't a lot of hiding place very near the feeders.

Ted M. Gossard said...

Nice, nice. It looks nice over there. The garden, and yes, even the breakfast!

Lorenzo- you have received an award over at my blog.

Have fun with it, or do or not do whatever you like with it, of course!

Metamatician said...

I took it for a fancy fishing pole from the first photo!

Looks intricate... I doubt I could figure it out. I admire people like yourself with lovely gardens. I do ok on small plots, but I know I'd be rubbish with all the hard word and know-how that goes into a proper one.

Needless to say, carry on. And that breakfast doesn't look half bad either. The vitamin look like the generic ibuprofen pills we have here in the States.