A catty problem...

Hmmm since we had Tabitha spayed earlier this week she has taken to pooing on the bathroom carpet....and weeing on any pile of material she finds or can pull down to the floor ( so think towels, dirty clothes, clean folded washing...)

I have asked our Vet if it is a medical problem and the answer is apparently not.....this often happens after a trip to the Vets!

So for now we are having to confine her ( and, unfortunately Sid and Tom also) in the utility room on a tiled floor and keep them shut in overnight, to try to "remind" her to use her litter tray if she wants to "go".

Oh dear...I hope it works! Not only is it not very pleasant to have to deal with poo and wee on the carpet every day BUT we can't have the other cats on the bed with us at night at the moment.....

And to all my lovely blog friends who have been wondering how I am ....I am rather upset with some "stuff" which is happening on a green forum I am a long term member of.....and I am feeling rather frail still from the shingles......AND Compostgirl is being "difficult" again with her ongoing ODD issues... so I have very little energy left at the moment to blog....

Sorry.. and THANK you for your concern....I really DO appreciate it!

I WILL be back..soon....

Why not use cans?

I have been brewing this post for many weeks now!



This is the boot of my car, loaded up for a trip to a recycling site ( it doesn't matter which one, I have several around us) because I am going out in the car for another reason.....it might be to collect Compostgirl from school or to go to town and get some food and go to the library...but anyway the recycling goes in my boot JUST IN CASE I pass a recycling point.


All our waste collected on Tuesdays by the bin lorry goes into landfill, so it is up to US to make sure we recycle ( separately and at our own convenience, expense, washing, storing, sorting and transport) any recyclable waste.

This is what I put out for the collection this week...we do not have a kerbside(what's that?) collection of recyclables...we are " too rural" for Hereford shire Council to provide one: This week we put out a plastic laminated /cardboard box ...a mixed packaging box ( my pet hate!) which means neither the plastic film NOR the cardboard can be recycled...( my bad, I shouldn't have bought the paddling pool for Compostgirl which was in it...) and a (degradable) black plastic bin bag with a small amount of plastic packaging which cannot be recycled in my area...( Our council only recycles plastic milk bottles/pop/water bottles with the recycling symbols "1" or "2" on them....)





This is the corner of our kitchen where we sort out the recycling, compostable dry stuff ( the wet compostable stuff goes in a caddy by the sink, see the cider and wine posts a few pages back!) and the stuff which has to go into landfill. We try to minimise the stuff going into the landfill bin by not buying it in the first place as once in the landfill bin it goes to a big hole in the ground ( Landfill..nice euphemism!) - where it sits decomposing and generating Methane if otherwise compostable ( Methane is 23 times a more potent greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide!) OR just sits and does nothing useful except fill a hole in the ground and be part of a disgusting mess for future generations to be appalled at how wasteful the previous few generations were...EVEN THOUGH WE KNEW what a mess we were creating...

As you can probably guess EVERYTHING which can be composted here, gets composted....and if we can recycle it, we do, and we avoid buying it if we can't recycle it ( under normal circumstances... but read on...)

So, what has prompted my somewhat ranty post? Well, as regular readers may remember we have fairly recently acquired 3 new cats, Sid the nearly (now)year old cat, and Tom and Tabitha the (now) 6 month old kittens. We also have Kitty Cat the elderly resident puss. Kitty eats what he catches, supplemented with cat biscuits; the late beloved Monty Puss used to eat small quantities of cat meat and mainly biscuits so this wasn't an issue before, BUT now we have kittens we have suddenly started to get through a HUGE quantity of cat meat!

ANYWAY, with Monty, we always used the little foil cartons, as he had a small appetite and a can would go off or HE would go off IT before it was finished...so anyway, either can OR foil tray went into the metal recycling box and off to the recycling bin whenever Compostman or I were going past one.

But NOW we are buying "kitten" food, and can you get it in cans or foil trays? can you HELL....it all comes in plastic "pouches"...which of course are NOT recyclable!
SO I am faced with buying kitten food in plastic ( on the left) and throwing the empties in the landfill OR getting non kitten food in cans and being able to recycle the empties.














Whose bright idea was it to market plastic pouches? Did whoever think ..."Oh yes, lets sell cat food in non recycleable plastic rather than endlessly recycleable cans...." I am sure they didn't! but the end result is..a recyclable packaging option replaced with a non recyclable , fossil fuel using package...grrr.

Guess which option we chose to buy? Yes, the cans.....and before anyone shouts "Kitten cruelty!" We DO also feed them kitten biscuits ( which we get in a cardboard box...) .....so no accusations of kitten cruelty, please!

I really wish there was some joined up , adult type thinking over all this....why can't "TPTB" just decide that all packaging HAS to be recyclable...no ifs, no buts...and ideally easily compostable in home compost bins as well???


PS I feel ever so slightly guilty at the amount of food being bought for what are basically an indulgent luxury pet, when there are people who die from lack of food...but that's another post I think!)

Now the contaminated manure story has made it into The Observer!

abnormal growth of vegetable crops caused by contamination of compost.

I am more and more concerned at the possible implications of this issue...

Community compost systems take in ANY greenstuff and compost it and then distribute it, council run sites take in stuff and compost it,
IF any of the green waste has been contaminated by this herbicide, what will happen ?

I also have had a muse about small scale composting of hay.....I don't have any stock eating hay but I DO have a Guinea Pig and he lives on hay from a local (not certified organic) farmer..so potentially this hay may be affected.... (although I have now just checked and the hay is supposed to be chemical free....)

AND many people get bales of hay for mulching allotments as well as putting under small animals or stock for bedding and food and then ...where does it all go? Why, on the compost heap!

All the bedding and poo from my Guinea pig goes in the compost bins...now I make SUCH a lot of compost that any ( possible) residues would be very well diluted...BUT suppose one only has a couple of bins and a small garden.. an input , possibly contaminated like that, even from a few domestic pets could be potentially a fair proportion of what goes in the bin...

and then if its used on the garden next year... one may get affected potatoes or tomatoes? EEK!!

I think this has the potential to be a real issue for those who grow in allotments or back gardens...even if they are not buying in manure

APART from the whole, other, BIG issue of commercial growing.......

I have also found that my Organic peat free compost is partly produced from composted green waste.... So... I am going to email the manufacturers and ask if they test for residues of this wretched herbicide......

I think this stuff should be banned ASAP..the implications are quite alarming......

And getting EVEN more worked up again....

Now the contaminated manure story has made it into The Telegraph........see title for link to it.

Warnings of abnormal growth of vegetable crops throughout the country!

Have been made aware of this issue by a poster on the INEBG forum...VERY WORRYING STUFF!

From the RHS website...linky above in the title if you are interested.....

Farmyard manure contaminated with weedkiller residue is causing abnormal growth of vegetable crops throughout the country.

It is believed that the manure has been inadvertently contaminated with aminopyralid. This selective, hormone-type herbicide is used on pastures to control weeds. Manure from animals fed on treated pastures contains chemical residues sufficient to damage susceptible crops.

Gardeners buying this manure to apply to vegetable crops and gardens are coming across abnormal growth particularly on tomatoes, potatoes and legumes, although ornamental plants such as delphinium, phlox and roses may also be susceptible.

Symptoms of damage include distorted foliage, with cupping of leaves and fern-like growth. There are no remedies once damage has occurred and there is no assurance that affected produce will be safe to consume. However, as this weed killer can be grazed by livestock soon after application there is no reason to believe that children, pets, gardeners or wildlife are at risk.

Further digging around on my part seems to be showing that compost made from GRASS/HAY which has been sprayed with this stuff also seems to cause the same problems...and the advice from the manufacturers seems to be that it will need around 2 years to elapse before the compost or manure can be used to grow tomatos or potatoes WITHOUT a problem.

Unbelievable..........

I shall come back to this issue when I have gone for a walk to calm down a bit, as what I would write at the moment is not fit to be published......

F****** BT!

We have major problems every winter with our phone...a part of the line is underground through someone else's field and when it rains our line goes wrong...this has happened for the last 10 years....

We lost our phone PRETTY WELL TOTALLY ( AND THE COMPUTER!)in Dec and BT came out in Dec and Jan...both times agreed it was NOT our equipment...and that we wouldn't be charged £99 for each visit... ( but as usual they didn't fix the fault, as that would mean them digging up the cable and replacing it....)

so guess what I have just seen on our bank statement online? £198 charge from BT...

I spent all yesterday morning trying to talk to talk to SOMEONE about this....... .

rather than doing the very important gardening/food preparation stuff I HAD planned on doing.....

BT "engineer" didn't put on the log that it wasn't our equipment at fault, even though he said both times that it WASN'T our fault so we would NOT be charged...

so we have been charged for the visit...AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

and I now must spend YET more time writing letters to try to get our money back.........