Slipped disc - but not me this time! Canine IVDD.

I think we've been blessed weatherwise for the past week or so, if it's rained it's been at night time and the sun has been out during the day. In fact it's been so mild that I'm already drying washing on the line and that is practically unheard of me because the sea air makes it too damp to dry usually.

I've had big plans to get started on the garden and while we've managed to clear it of rubbish and all manner of bricks, wood and broken projects I haven't actually managed to put a fork in the soil yet. This is down to a little Shih Tzu called Kasa

This naughty little ray of sunshine has managed to slip a disc in her back - something Shih Tzus and other long bodied stumpy legged dogs are prone to apparantly (why is it we never find this information out until it actually happens).
Initially the vet diagnosed arthiritis but after a couple of days we weren't happy with that diagnosis and took her back to the vet - IVDD is the medical term or Intervertrebal Disc Disease.
To start with a wobbly gait was all we noticed, Kasa was otherwise her normal happy stupid self but it progressed very quickly and by the time we took her back to the vet she had lost knuckle reflex in one of her back paws suggesting that the protruding disc was putting pressure on her spinal cord and causing sensation issues.
Strict crate rest is the solution for this if you opt out of surgery. Surgery isn't guaranteed to help and the nearest animal hospital to do this is about 300 miles away with costs going into the thousands.
Thankfully conservative treatment is the most popular way of dealing with this now especially at the stage Kasa has it so 24/7 crate rest it is! As I'm the only one at home all day this has fallen to me to do and it's taken a while to get my head round it - it's extremely difficult to crate a dog 24/7 and not feel guilty, even if you know it's for their own good.
Kasa hasn't made the journey any easier because she hates a crate and attacks it - literally! I cannot even begin to tell you all the different methods we tried in the first 2 weeks to get her to settle in confinement. Unfortunately her battle against the crate has made her condition worse and she has now lost the ability to gauge placement of both back legs. This is not like losing all feeling though, she still has deep pain sensation, it's just that the disc is pushing her spinal cord more and causing a loss in sensation. The 24/7 crate rest was and is supposed to prevent this!
As of now we have a crate sorted that she cannot scratch, jump out of, chew or attack and fingers crossed she will begin to heal, from all the research I have done (ALOT) this condition is completely recoverable so the crate is now her new best friend for at least the next 6 weeks, she's only allowed out to go to the toilet (whereby I have to carry her, then support her back end in a sling while she does her business and then carry her back).
You would think that crate resting a dog would be easy wouldn't you? Honestly, it is so time consuming you wouldn't believe it, especially with a dog that fights it like Kasa does.
So anyway Kasa is the reason I have not really been absorbed in the garden however that should change once we have Kasas pain meds sorted and controlled.

During one of my little stints to the polytunnel I did have a lovely surprise. Late 2014 I dug up a clump of amazing white Iris's and temporarily planted them in my polytunnel while the garden was renovated (pmsl, it still isn't done), anyway last year I watched as those Iris plants appeared to grow healthy and then suddenly shrivel up and die. I almost dug them up and chucked them but I didn't get round to it. I was so pleased when I checked the polytunnel bed yesterday and a couple of my pots and saw this sign of life

At first I thought it was Daffodils coming up because the stems of this Iris do look like Daffodil stems not regular Iris. Unfortunately I don't know the name of it but it has to be the most amazing Iris I have ever seen, it's been a bit reluctant to flower the last few years which is another reason I thought it was ready for lifting and dividing.

Snow!

The promised snow has finally arrived! We've been lucky of late because everytime it was forecast nothing actually came of it. The same goes with the wind too.
We have had rain though and it has literally saturated the ground, there is absolutely no way I can get outside and do any kind of gardening - such a shame as I would love to be out there in the cold, NOT!
As I said though, the snow has arrived. It won't stay long as it never does but we tend to get it worse in this village than just 1 mile up the road, I think it drifts and as we're one of the last properties before the sea we get alot of drift.
Having said that, it's hardly been an avalanche of snow. In fact we're talking maybe one inch is all.

 This is the start of it - not much huh!

Getting a little worse but it'll probably disappear overnight and then we just have the water run off to contend with. While we will never flood here - we're so far above sea level (at least those cliffs are a good 200ft drop) and a burn runs water straight to the sea - the garden could definitely benefit from a substantial drainage system as the amount of water we have is just sitting there freezing over.
We did a couple of drainage channels last year but TBH it looks like it was a complete waste of time!

I've spent a bt of time in the PT tidying it up ready for Spring and I've found a few issues with it that will need rectifying in spring. The main problem is one bolt holding the bottom trim in place has come away which means that piece is just flapping about, this in turn means the plastic to that area is also flapping and loosening. There's also a few rips to the plastic but I think once I repair those I should get another few years out of the plastic cover.

I have a system going with my daughters workplace, we collect all their broken pots and make use of them. They store them in giant dumpy bags and then we collect them and bring them home so I can sort them out. For the most part they are not salvageable so I break them up and use them as crocks for the bottom of pots

There have been a few pots worth saving though so I have quite a collection going now.
I know the big one has the bottom missing but I will sink this one into the ground and use it that way.

A new year!

Last year I decided that I would start growing veg again this year, I had everything planned - what I was growing, where it would grow etc etc however I have had to take a reality check and reign my enthusiasm in a tad.
I used to try to do it all - keep a house, look after animals, renovate the land, grow veggies, build 'stuff' etc but it got too much and I ended up losing all interest in absolutely everything. I couldn't keep everything in check and felt like I was juggling balls and despite being busy all the time nothing seemed to be getting done.
Then last year I gave it all a break, all of it. The polytunnel housed plants in pots or with no homes instead of fruit and vegetables, the garden probably got weeded once, the land renovations halted and I only built the odd piece of garden furniture. I took the year off and was determined to get back to it this year.
I'm not old - 44 - but no spring chicken either and health issues mean there are days when I physically cannot do anything, depression often seeps in and makes everything seem so much more traumatic and I simply cannot do the things I could do only 5 years ago.
So for the sake of my own health and sanity I have decided what is important this year and reigned the rest in.
The polytunnel will continue to house those plants while I spend this year renovating the land to make new homes for them but I will concentrate on small areas only and will get one area finished before another is begun.
The garden will be weeded and then mulched to help keep back the weeds releasing me from that chore every other day and project making will be stalled until/unless I have time. The only projects outside of gardening that I intend to do this year are a few furniture renovations for the house - which I am redecorating - and some items I am making to sell in my online shop.

As for the first garden area to be tackled, this is it!
The borders are to be extended and a huge patio laid. A new wall will be built to the left side replacing the fence (hence the boards behind the border) and it will be smothered in shrubs and climbers, especially over the aviary at the back.

What can I say about this one.
The sleepers have to be dragged out and those back borders have plastic underneath gravel over them - did nothing to stop weeds though. This aviary is also getting some colour to it.

This is going to be alot less lawn and alot more plants - yay for plants!

Dreadful! Even the dishwasher got dumped out there over xmas when it broke - it's since got to the landfill though. The house walls are what will hold me back some as we have to erect scaffold to get the harling on the walls.

This is also on the list for renovation this year. It's quite an extensive area and while MrTG does need some of it for stacking his building materials we're going to utilise at least half of it from the house side. Hoping to plant trees but we have a small issue with that because we had the rock on the ground set to about 3ft, nothing is growing in that! If you look closely behind the old digger you'll see tree stems, these are willow and we had to use the digger to dig out a trench along that back line and infill with topsoil so we could plant the willow.
I think I may have to build some massive planters for any other type of tree but this area is extremely exposed so I don't know what to do yet, I'm no tree expert and have no experience in this area. The sea is extremely close to us - you can see it behind the digger - and any wind from it can be seriously strong though not usually cold because although it's the east coast it's actually south of us.

This area will no doubt stay the same. There are about 500 plants in this polytunnel if not more, most of them are just waiting for a new home and have been stuck here for a few years. I have a feeling that we may need to renew the plastic on it this year as there are a fair few splits now. Most of them are along the bottom so if I can get a couple more years out of it by repairing rather than replacing that's what I'll do.
Before I can ever grow veggies in here again though I need to raise some on the beds more and add more top soil, some of the beds are too shallow because the area tends to hold water and so those beds can be very soggy.