Allotment, Geocaching, Homebrew, Walks 'n Stuff

300 cloves of Porcelain Garlic from this years harvest are planted finally. 150 in the garden and 150 at the allotment.

Just a  few photos of the Dorset Naga, Scotch Bonnet Red, Peach Habanero, Orange Habanaro and Chocolate Habaneros. Now inside as it is too cold for them to ripen in the greenhouse.

Here are the 7 breeding lions having their lunch. They are ACHILLES, APOLLO, KWEZI, MAMBA, MAMBO, PENDUKA and PHOENIX.

1st Week

2nd Week

WOW what an amazing experience. 16 nights at Antelope Park working on the African Lion Rehabilitation project.
and details of out 2011 trip back to Antelope Park
http://www.sad-land.co.uk/2011/10/30/volunteering-at-antelope-park-gweru-zimbabwe-2011/

Information about the A.L.E.R.T. Project taken from the Africa Impact website

The Lion Rehabilitation Program:

Over 200,000 lions used to roam the African continent, as recently as 1975. The latest estimates show an 80 – 90% population decline in the last 30 years. The end objective of the Victoria Falls lion project, along with our Antelope Park programme, is the reintroduction of the offspring of captive-bred lions into the wild by means of a four-stage process, which you will learn more about during your involvement with the project.

A brief breakdown of a day in the life of a volunteer.

6:00am – Bottle feed the 3 8 week old cubs
6:30am – 8:00am lion walk, taking cubs from 7 months to 18 months out into the bush, either with or without clients.
8:30am – 9:30am Breakfast
9:30am – 12:30pm involved various duties including enclosure cleaning (Elephant, Horse or Lion shit shovelling), cub walking, boundary patrols, painting lion enclosures or meat preparation.
12:30pm – 2:10pm Lunch
2:10pm – 6:00pm afternoon duties included lion walks, horse rides, fighting fires, making fire breaks, painting and more shit shovelling.
6.00pm – Briefing by the volunteer coordinator about the following days activities
6:30pm – Dinner

My favourite parts were the meat preparation and fighting bush fires with tree branches, oh and of course we hogged the cub sitting 

Photos of Antelope Park

The 3 C’s – Chobe, Chisa and Chundu

Meat Prep and other gruesome stuff

Lions and Lion Walks

Just a quick photo update

Well after what is going to be a terrible year for almost everything at the allotment, at least the garlic is a massive success.

From 178 cloves planted, we have 173 good bulbs and only 3 had rotten. Last year from 80 about 45 had rotted… Some are fist sized and are now hanging in the garage. On Average you get 6 BIG cloves from this Porcelain hardneck garlic, so that equals ~ 1038 cloves. I plan to plant 500 of them in the autumn, not bad for an initial outlay of 30 odd quids.

Been a strange few weeks in the tank. The Duncan was looking amazing one day and the next it was dead… All we have left is a skeleton and no idea at all what happened… It was our favourite coral, gutted such a shame..

Last weekend we decided to buy an orange spotted Goby (called TOBY!!!!)
Plus we got a GSP (Green Star Polyps), leather finger coral and err something else which I have no idea about.

So far Toby has hidden away and the sand isn’t being cleaned by him at all!! git! Earn your keep!!

Start/Finish : 54°25.187′N, 1°11.487′W (Lord Stones Cafe)
Total length : 9.3 miles
Time taken : 4:15 Hours
Min Elevation : 638ft
Max Elevation : 1384ft
Total Ascent : 2200ft

Well it was decided we would do the same walk but start at 7am (ish) and try to beat the previous time. Well we got going at roughly 7:15am and completed the walk in 4hr 15 mins!! No problems with cows this time and boy it was a very hot morning. Finished off at Lord Stones for food and drinks again.

Cold Moor take 2