Category Archives: Wildlife

Sitting here watching crows like themselves

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Early this morning we popped down B&Q in Bell Green for some liquid fertiliser as we’re not producing enough comfrey leaves to make the liquid feed we’re used to putting on our garden (Above: crow waiting for bus home like us at 8.30 am).

Something we should look into is the NPK content that comes on the side of the bottle denoting how much Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and K for Potassium (or Potash) is in the liquid. As we’ve always used home-made comfrey liquid and mixed in compost on the beds, that’s something we’ve got to research about more.

Back home we spent a good hour or so feeding the back garden including the giant sunflower which is reaching skywards. We’ve 3 sunflowers, this 8ft monster and another 2 that are about 5 foot. It must be all about where they’re placed and how much sun they get. We love the sunflowers as the tops do follow the sun about during the day.

And this week we were told about this video, 10 vegetables/fruit that we don’t bother with anymore. We’re talking skirret, alexanders, good King Henry, medlar, chickweed, scorzonera, welsh onions, lovage, tansy (“The punk rock herb…” “…that demands respect and attention” as the bloke describes it, we love that!) and turnip greens. We wonder as food fashions come and go, will any of these “old time something come back again” as the song goes?

 

And two tunes about flying winged things:
The first a nice dub number from Derajah meets The 18th Parallel called Dub Crow.

 

The next is an a excellent tune released by the wonderful Sublime Frequencies out of Seattle, Washington, it’s by Chhoun Vanna and called To Tea Yum Chlong (Birds Are Singing But My Lover Won’t Return). At 2.45, it just ain’t long enough.

“The birds are chirping, to and fro
My love, have you forgotten me?
As water can’t cut through the sand
I can’t cut you from my memories
The bridge (between you and I) has broken
The pathway is gone, and the water is so very deep
How am I to find you on the other side, so far away?”
Thanks to fleurmach.com for the lyrics.

 

On the slow-mo trance at this time of a Saturday morning

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We can’t get enough of this tune since first hearing this. It’s released on the great Serafin Audio Imprint and as they say on the tin (labelled Bandcamp), “We are a fine little Imprint from Germany supporting slow and beautiful music all around the world” and they don’t half! This one is from Laaar and it’s called A familiar feeling and by the way, all of the EP it’s from is worth listening to!

And if you like tunes that sample shortwave radio like we do, here’s one by Hali Palombo called Contestia using a vocal sample off the Shannon Volmet, more about what a Volmet is here.

Cosmos fever

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A big thanks to Debby H for starting this current wave of cosmos appreciation here at Weeds. Hers are presently looking great in situ (above).

We know a couple of us had some problems with slugs eating some of our seedlings but that’s not going to stop us trying again next year. We started off a good few but the only ones that survived were the plants under the dying cherry tree which are giving us a few nice blooms at the moment (above).

And above and below are from Mike & Julia‘s garden near Coventry. Great stuff!

Gardening is about having a go and if the slugs got your seedlings this year it doesn’t mean they will next year. Out with the beer traps and the copper tape and your other favourite anti-slug tricks and see what happens. Another good thing about the old horticulture is the practice of swopping and passing on plants and seeds. Keep the old circle going around! Cheers again to Debby H!

Saturday night mellow

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While doing another mix for the shortwaves we found this excellent track from out of stockport from J-Walk called Winter Moon Rendezvous. It’s a nice mellow track for a Saturday night.

And the other night we (re)discovered the cassette label PetPets’ TAPES out of France. There’s some wonderful stuff on their Bandcamp page here and the releases are as cheap as chips. Here’s a couple of tunes from a tape called Majaal – Songs of Naam.

 

It’s in mint condition mate, honest

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We’ve just looked at that John Peel auction that Gerry Hectic alerted us to last month (original post here), that had a couple of lots which contained our fanzine Ded Yampy. Looks like they’ve been sold! £190 and £140 (above) but that’s nothing compared to a John Lennon signed LP for £10,000 (below). Who’s got the money for that?

We’re now thinking of getting into the auction game ourselves and our first “lot” will be the 30 or so reggae 12″ers we found at a south London market last year. We were so excited with finding them we put on a poker face while flicking through the boxes as not to alert the seller/other record hunters that we had found some gems (or so we thought).

We omitted to check the condition of the records at the time as we were so excited. On the bus home we took a look and were shocked to see how bad they were. We learned a lesson that day, check the condition! Even a good clean didn’t help (above).

That is nothing compared to the time we popped out for a pint of milk and came back 2 hours later relieved of £20 but the owner of some great rare old reggae sevens procured from the back of a Peckham nail bar that once been a record shop. Our excuse this time was that the lighting was dim in there so didn’t look too hard at the actual vinyl. More likely our eyes and brain were on dimmed if you have a look at this one from The Wailers (above). There’s even a phone number scratched into the other side. Check before you buy, excitement or no excitement!

Let’s get cool in the pool

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Here’s a lovely chilled-out balearic mix from a long time friend Will J, who actually introduced us to the exellent Echo Chamber radio show on KFAI many many moons ago we remember (Dr Strangedub of said show’s raised beds were the feature of last post funnily enough!)

Reminiscent of those old C90’s from Jose Padilla and the balearic bailiff himself Phil Mison, the hour’s tape includes some excellent tracks including this one:

It’s a mix well worth playing loud when the sun comes out next (or even when it’s raining as it will cheer you up). Good stuff Will!