March Full Moon and The Garden

 The March Full Moon tonight  seems to have  had lots of names in history- the Plough Moon, Lenten Moon, the Worm moon - when worms emerge, the Sap Moon, Crow moon or Storm moon. We are not in the right place on earth to see  the moon's total eclipse happening, although the moon hasn't been very visible lately with so much cloud every night.

 March weather can be as cold and unsettled  as February, but the sun is rising higher and it's now just 17 days until the Spring equinox and 26 days until the clocks go forward. At this latitude Suffolk gains two more hours of daylight by the end of the month and the week ahead is looking to be fine here in the East of England which is very good news. 

Yesterday was the first mild day of March......I had the patio door open to let the fresh air in....lovely

It is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before,

The redbreast sings from the tall larch

That stands beside the door

There is a blessing in the air

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,

And grass in the green field.

William Wordsworth.

Last week BiL kindly came and cut the grass for me, it's hardly stopped growing all winter but also hasn't been dry enough to cut with my battery mower for weeks. He also pressure-washed the patio which was getting very slippery. I can get the weeds out of the cracks but the mould remover I tried for the slabs was useless and pressure washing is the best.

I had to move all the pots off the patio for the pressure washing, most things have survived the winter but the few strawberry plants in two planters that were OK last year have almost vanished. I emptied one compost bin onto one of the veg beds, there's still another to empty but I need to do some serious weeding everywhere..

The  summer fruiting raspberry canes didn't get watered enough last summer they haven't put up many new canes, I think it will be a poor year, not sure about the other canes some fruit early and some late, I cut most of them back in the autumn as it's impossible to know which are which.

The slab under one  of my water butts that collects off the greenhouse had tipped backwards so I emptied it in the autumn and need to level the slab before I can put it back. 

So many jobs to do as soon as my gardening mojo returns properly - it always happens -  sometime.

Yippee! Car Boot Season is Almost Here.

 My new header is Spring on the bookshelf, I don't have many things for Spring compared to Autumn and Winter and everything has been out of the cupboard before except for the small Brambly Hedge plate which I found from a car boot sale in June last year. What the shelf really needs are flowers. My daffodils still aren't out - weeks behind everywhere else.

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Weather permitting car boots should have started yesterday at the Sunday one furthest from home - 14 miles. I only go to that one about twice a year and as the weather was rather grey and cold yesterday and probably not many selling I didn't bother to go (and a good thing I didn't as later in the day a facebook message said they'd cancelled.)

The smaller Sunday boot sale that's nearest to me is on land at Stonham Barns - a leisure and retail complex with campsite, holiday caravans, lodges, fishing lake, golf centre, teapot pottery, showground, lots of retail units and the Owl Sanctuary. The people who own the land have gone into administration although all the things on the site are still running. Hopefully someone will buy the whole thing. Must be worrying for people who've splashed out thousands of £s on a holiday lodge there.

They have to wait for really dry weather to start the boot-sales at Stonham as the site is completely flat and gets very water-logged.

The usually much bigger Saturday boot sale at Needham Market  gets going next Saturday, they are on dryer sandy heath land on a slope and rarely get rained off,  they'll have Wednesdays boot-sales as well from mid month.

This year I'm looking for.............

• A pickle draining spoon!
• Interesting books
• Christmas wrapping paper
• Useful things from the house clearance people like parchment paper, foil, half started packets of washing soda etc
• Things that will make Christmas Presents

Not much needed at all, but it will still be good to get back to that early morning walk with a purpose.

February Financials

Income in February was the usual State Pension and County Council spouses pension, interest on savings plus £20 from 'We Buy Books' .

Because of choosing to pay Council Tax over ten months rather than twelve, February and March have no payment due. Instead there was the half year for sewer and water charges - and that had gone up yet again. Other  expenses were the usual direct debits for phones and broadband, charity donation and the monthly electric bill. I filled the car up twice with diesel once at the beginning and once at the end of the month and read the meter and paid the monthly electric bill. That lot came to £435. Then on Friday I ordered a fill up of heating oil to arrive next month - 500 litres for £338.

I prepared for growing with seed compost, two packets of seed for here and two packets of beetroot seed for BiL to grow some extra for me.

Household stuff included some spare bulbs for my lamp, the bread-machine blades and bin bags.

I  have a bill still to pay due to  problems with the flush on the bathroom loo cistern. It started flushing all by itself! Problems here are usually caused by our hard-water area, limescale getting into the works . The cistern on the bathroom toilet is all built in but I managed to prise one bit of cupboard off and unscrewed the front cover on the cistern and stopped it flushing but it was still trickling in water so I got the guy who fixed my drippy tap last year to come and look and he capped off the water intake and took out the inside 'gubbins' and went off with them to track down replacements , which are now fitted. I was very glad it's a 2 loo bungalow! I think water might have been trickling in and out for a while and that would be the reason for the bigger water/sewer bill.

Personal spending was just two woolly winter hats, exercise group and the book I bought at the beginning of the month  

which  doesn't have anything in it that I didn't already have in other foraging and WWII books and seems to have some mistakes about the dates of the introduction of rationing. It does have some lovely pictures but I was a bit disappointed - although not sure what I was expecting

Penny savings to spend on more interesting things

• Turned a couple of bread crusts into dried crumbs for topping bakes
• Started to save apple peel etc to make some compost jelly as I'm on the last jar - I'll add some raspberries that are in the freezer and some sort of cheap bought fruit.
• Got diesel for car when visiting YD and opticians - it's always several pence a litre cheaper there.
• Had to use the tumble dryer once but managed to dry in 40 minutes - so not too bad.
• Usual bread in the bread-maker
• Dishwasher only used every other day.
• Lots of lovely books from the library
• No newspapers, magazines or make up etc bought as usual.

March, despite no Council Tax, is one of the expensive months of the year (along with April and Christmas) and there will be the bill for boiler servicing added to the list too and the car servicing and MOT. No way to have a low-spend March.