Spring is nearly here!

[pollygog]

This lovely weather is just the ticket, the garden is alive with flying insects all day and the birds are making the most of it. A blue damselfly turned up at last on my new pond and I found another first, a tiny lizard about two inches long at most, never ever seen one in my garden before and thought it was a strangely sandy coloured newt but it moved a lot quicker. Saw a flock of jackdaws swirling about high in the sky this afternoon amost certainly catching a swarm of flying ants judging by the antics of them.
For all you dog lovers out there its 'Take Your Dog To Work Day' on Friday the 21st of June, traditionally it falls on the Friday following Fathers Day but in the USA its the 24th. Must admit hand on heart that I only ever managed it once, in 1999 when I took our Polly a Bichon Frise into work. In the words of John Steinbeck in his book "Travels With Charlie" when you have a dog with you, people stop and talk to you who would normally walk past you and not speak, this was the case with me and a foreman named John Roberts. He had hardly said two words to me in the past but he saw Polly and opened up and told me all about his little dog, turns out he was a really nice guy but just shy and reserved, as John Steinbeck said the dog was the catalyst. Most of us are more familiar with Japan as the birthplace of many of our koi carp but the Japanese recognise TYDTWD and are big dog owners despite a critical lack of adequate housing space. Deceased pets particularly dogs are now more commonly remembered in Japan as members of the family and are often memorialized at the family Shinto alter and become part of the family ancestry. I particularly like the Japanese Shinto belief of "The Rainbow Bridge" this is a concept of heaven where deceased pets spirits remain in a utopian space until the death of their owner at which time both spirits enjoy a happy reunion and travel together into the realm of heaven over The Rainbow Bridge. Thats a really nice thought that one day I will see my little Pollygog's tail wagging in greeting again, but still, her name lives on!

[pollygog]

JAPAN 23 WALES 8

Must be fate that I posted an article about the Japanese last Sunday as they just beat us for the first time ever this morning at our own game.
For those dedicated WRU supporters who got up early this morning to watch the game you have to admit we were outclassed. Wales were slow in comparison, the Japanese were quicker in the carries, recycled the ball faster,were stronger in the rucks turning the ball over time after time,they were also surprisingly excellent in the scrum and Dan Biggar please note, they kicked far less!. All in all a typical Southern Hemisphere hard tackling bruising fast game. Summary of the game is in the 67th minute when a commentator from S4C said during stoppage for a knock on by a Welsh player that the pass prior to knock on was a 'flat pass'?. With the benefit of replay it showed the two prior passes were clearly forward. We reckon that the atmospheric pressure on the commentators eyeballs 'down under' caused selective myopia a common complaint amongst Southern Hemisphere referees when they referee Wales games. You got to admire their optimism though. Interesting point is the last try scored by Japan was scored by a New Zealand born back row lock named Michael Broadhurst trained by an Aussie trainer called Eddie Jones, any tenuous Wesh link ? Japan play Canada and USA next week,must look/see if they are on Sky.
Seems its my week for let-downs, I was cock a hoop over finding a lizard for the first time in my garden last week and was telling my dentist on Monday morning about my rare discovery and he replied "Oh lizards you say, I regularly see them on the old stone wall at the back of the surgery when I'm parking my car, they come out on the sunny mornings" and his assistant not to be outdone replied" My mother had a dead one dropped on her conservatory roof by a bird just a couple of weeks ago, her next door neighbour identified it" Ah well, so much for rarity, seems they're as common as muck, the've just avoided my garden up to recently.
Bright spot of the week is one of those huge dragonflies turned up at my new pond on Tuesday, the ones you think a small bird has just flown past then it lands and you marvel at the sheer size of the beggar, not well up on the dragonflies but I think its called a Brown Chaser although if you live in Jarrow a brown chaser would be a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale!
Halfpenny has just converted the first try so I'm signing off to concentrate on the Waratahs v Lions match next.

[pollygog]

Special request from Nigel to members with ponds, we need another pond in Rhyl/Prestatyn or Flint/Holywell area to visit for half hour or so on Sunday the 30th June for our return pond visit from Liverpool and district Koi Club. Agenda for Sunday morning the 30th is Nigel will meet up on A55 with their coach (or mini-bus) and guide them to Colins for breakfast stop where Colin has very kindly offered to provide all with hot drinks and bacon egg and sausage baps all round then its on to ? ; -------------------------? this is where we need your pond as there is a gap to fill!.
Day ends at yours truly for (hopefully if weather is kind to us) a barbecue. There have been several suggestions over the past few months about our club barbecue's and particularly the trotting out of the same sometimes quite boringly predictable selections from the indiginous supermarkets shelves so it was suggested that we go for something radical, something adventurous, something new, something completely different, so, this year if you want to, we can really impress our guests over from Liverpool and have a meal to remember with, 'The Roadkill Grill' ;
We will adopt the motto; 'From Your Grill To Ours'; If you knock it down or just find it lying dead at the side of the road, give us an hour or so and a delightful, delicious, gourmet presentation is yours to share with your friends and guests. So, get your cars out and start collecting meat!. Theres a few dead badgers on A55 I've earmarked for collection also, anybody out there know what newt tastes like?.
All votes for suggested barbecue/grill to be in by Thursday 20th June otherwise its back to the Grockle special ie,Tesco beefburgers and M&S sausage.

[pollygog]

BARBECUE SUGGESTIONS
Dont forget folks voting ends at midnight tonight, best we've had so far is consomme of newt served with croutons and a tiny sprig of parsley followed by southern fried pigeon* and grilled rack of badger the latter acompanied by potato wedges and hot bread rolls served up with garlic butter, anybody better that?. Recipe's for above available on request although do bear in mind they all require quite a lot of garlic, onion and/or seasoning, this is just to disguise any 'gamey' taste.

* could be crow or rook , depends on what we find.

[roselanekoi]

I seem to remember seeing a lot of fat lambs in the field at the bottom of your garden, I'm sure the farmer wouldn't miss one or two if they went on the barbecue,

Colin

[pollygog]

Hi Colin, would you believe it, I heard a lot of bleating and baa-ing late on on Wed afternoon and it was the farmer with a livestock truck on the field separating the lambs from the ewes and carting the lambs off presumably to market at St Asaph livestock sales Thursday morning so too late there I'm afraid. There was a dead ewe in the field at the back of the house on the morning of the 5th the day we had our social here but the farmer shifted it early on. Anyway whats wrong with badger?, I spotted a fresh big one near Rhuddlan roundabout on A525 this morning going to B&Q. Anybody out there tried fox or polecat

[pollygog]

Well we won but only just by two points. The British and Irish Lions beat the Aussie's on their own midden but no thanks once again to the Southern Hemisphere referees. The touchline judges made some quite astonishing decisions too, like the second Aussie try rightly disputed by Lions for a forward pass prior to try that the judges deemed was
thrown backward despite actually being caught a yard or two forward, yes they actually said it the ball was thrown backward. Complicated mathematics inclusive of geometry, trigonometry and involving 'Einsteins Theory on Relativity' were involved by the judges it would seem, thus, allowing for Pye over two squared, Mercators Projection and the 5% differential anomaly between Magnetic North and True North and the effect of atmospheric pressure on ball in flight, all these contributing factors once again induced the Southern Hemisphere flat pass. Just a great pity it never worked for their kickers as once again Halfpenny showed them how its done. One surprise was it was the Australians for a change who were limping off injured, the very first Aussie casualty stretchered off after 53 seconds! but then who would deliberately want to charge into George North, all six foot four and seventeen and a half stone of solid bone and muscle of him, you bounce off the man from Ynys Mon!
Dont forget the visit from the Liverpool Koi Club next Sunday the 30th

[pollygog]

Isn't it a strange old world we live in for as we celebrate the Summer Solstice in traditional style, ie standing in the rain watching a village fete or cricket match (as yesterday) the Chinese bless em celebrate the summer solstice with their annual 'Dog Meat Festival'. They traditionally gather in the city of Yulin to eat hundreds of dogs that have been crammed into metal cages for selection then slaughtered under the most barbaric and cruel of conditions while we in Britain are quite content with morris dancing!. We banned bear baiting and cock fighting amongst other cruel sports, consigning them to history in the 19th century and quite rightly so, ok, our record isn't unblemished but at least we eventually conformed to public opinion. Surely the internet will consign dog eating festivals the same way as public opinion through newspapers did for us and slavery in the 19th century and thankfully now the anti dog meat festival demonstrations in the city of Yulin are burgeoning thanks largely to the rapid spread of the internet and its instant worldwide communication. The traditionalist Chinese will be dragged albeit reluctantly into the 21st century through the potent relentless power of the media and thank God for that as a lot of dogs were needlessly cruelly butchered in China this last weekend. There is a horrible coincidental irony to the Chinese dog meat festival as a small dog loving part of the civilised world celebrated this weekends summer solstice with Friday's "Take Your Dog To Work Day" .
Stepping off my soapbox I can tell you that there will be 13 guests over from Liverpool next Sunday so please let Nigel know if you are coming mainly for food ordering this week.
On the subject of food particularly koi food interestingly, I tried for the first time this week Queni-koi Japan Mix, its a mixture of the Coppens best sellers (on the Coppens formula sheet I gave out at my talk on koi food in winter its mostly the OSW combi formula) and my koi just love it and the big advantage for me at least is some of the pellets sink, (I ordered 6mm)
About 15% slowly sink but at least little Halfpenny my 'grow and show' kohaku gets his share as he is intimidated by the other big bruisers and hovers underneath them grabbing what he can. The Japan mix is a very reasonable £59.95 for 15kgs p&p inclusive and very fast delivery by courier, all in all its extremely good value for money given the quality of product.

[pollygog]

This week is the start of National Insect Week from the 25th June to 1st of July and there are lots of events planned through Wales nationally and locally for us from Hollywell to Conwy by various conservation groups, just type above in and all the organised events come up, also its soon to be, National Dragonfly Week, (honest there really is one) runs from the 20th to the 28th of July and speaking of which I had my flying visiter identified as a four spotted chaser and not a brown chaser though it mostly is, they also are running a program of events at the ponds on the nature reserve at Rhydymwyn nr Mold. I've done my bit for insect conservation this week as I wondered why the sparrows hadn't used their bespoke comunal living nest box this year, I got a stepladder up so I could lift inspection lid to see inside and quickly found out why. Suddenly all hell broke loose as a whole pile of bees with a really mean attitude piled out mob-handed and seriously looking for trouble. I beat a hasty retreat I can tell you, wacking at my head as I did so as I had one stuck and buzzing furiously in my hair and one stabbing my neck.
Recovered my composure safely back in conservatory and carefully combed the now dead bee from my hair, it was tiny, about the size of a large bluebottle fly and an unusually bright ginger on its thorax and a buff tip to its abdomen, so it was on t'tinternet to look it up and discovered they are the Brown Banded Carder Bumblebee :latin: Bombus humilis: = According to the bee experts at bumblebeeconservation.org the bees are quite rare and increasingly so as they're running out of habitat and forage plants, apparently they prefer open dry grassland or heathland and quarries, fat chance of finding dry habitat around here in North Wales lately, still the bees look healthy. I shall take a torch and have another more closer look at them tonight when they are asleep, they are quite early risers apparently so should be knackered and sleeping soundly by 23.00. The nest is just 6ft away from my Victoria plum tree so it could be more than coincidence I have such a good crop this year. The American Bee Keepers Association started a 'Honey bee awareness day' to try to reverse the dire plight of all bees on a national scale back in 2009 but it has blossomed since and is now the National Honeybee Day which is on the third Saturday of August, falls on the 17th this year and is now celebrated on a global scale particularly in India and on Facebook. Friends Of The Earth are sponsoring "The Bee Cause" at the moment and are giving a bee saver kit for a small donation to their cause, there is an excellent bee identity chart/guide amongst the items in it. Wonder will I fall into the category of 'beekeeper' now or do I qualify as bee minder . By the way, please note anyone coming Sunday I've fenced them off for now.
We are still hoping for a nice day for Sunday's barbecue and forecast looks good so far so fingers crossed, will post agenda later or in morning I'm just off to scour the roads!.

[pollygog]

Agenda is in newsletter !