Some Beans, Baldrick? With Toad in the Hole?

 Whenever I see beans of any variety, I immediately think of Lord Blackadder trying to teach Baldrick, his idiot servant, basic addition. In response to the adding of two beans + two more beans, Baldrick responds variously with ‘some beans,’ and ‘a very small casserole’ and ‘three beans, plus that one.’ 

It always raises a titter in me. Fortunately, Baldrick would not have any bean adding issues chez Damson Cottage Vegetable Production Enterprises today because there were only two beans:

The first of the runner beans are in, dear Reader(s)! I think there might be enough for a small casserole by the end of the week. 

According to the forecast, we were supposed to be having hot weather today. It didn’t materialise. It was a bit sunny, a bit cloudy, a bit windy, and altogether rather pleasant and manageable. I did chat to one of my Kentish friends - they had it much hotter down there, and this is another reason why I am glad we made the move from south-east England to the West Midlands. 

Yesterday, I took a watering can to the front of the house to water a small tree in a pot that stands by the front door and I sometimes forget about watering because it is out of sight to me for most of the day. I tipped up the watering can but water there came none. This is usually caused by some sort of blockage - if I am lucky, a clog up of dead leaves, and if I’m unlucky a snail or a dead mouse. Sure enough, after a bit of can jiggling, a dead mouse appeared on top of the water. Poor thing. Very dead. 

I tipped up the can again; still no water. Hmmmm. I found a stick and poked it down the spout of the watering can and there was definitely something still blocking it. I peered down the spout. Two eyes peered back at me. Two frog eyes.

Now, this particular watering can is an old-fashioned galvanised steel one and its spout is on the narrow side. How the frog got up there I do not know, but I assumed it was stuck and dead. But when I looked again, the little frog eyes blinked. 

For chuff’s sake. Now I was going to have to attempt to push it out carefully in the hope of not damaging it. I found a slightly kinder, round-ended stick and set about pushing it down the spout end as carefully as I could and this is when I found out that a frog stuck in a watering can spout is both solid and resistant. And, as with any potentially harm-causing but ultimately beneficial activity, once you get started you have to see it through to the end. Like ripping that plaster off a grazed knee. 

Actually, it didn’t take long for the frog to plop back out into the main body of the watering can, and I released it (and the dead mouse) into the undergrowth on the side of the driveway. It hopped away okay, and I hope it wasn’t suffering too much from being poked in the head with a stick. It was a surprisingly big frog, too. 

Anyway, the upshot of this event was Lord Malarkey saying how lovely it was to have such wildlife diversity in our garden and me saying perhaps we should create a decent-sized pond which would be a better living space for froggies than having to seek refuge from the drought inside a watering can and getting themselves stuck up the spout. 

I have read up about making a wildlife pond, and I have wandered around the garden this evening and think the best spot would be in the middle garden in the opposite corner to the goat willow. Nothing much grows there and it is an unused area. It is sheltered, not too sunny, not too shady, and is next door to the field. There we go then! A late Autumn project to get my teeth into. 

It could be another case of ambition outdoing ability, but I shall give it a go.