Poorly pup

There’s not much to report for last week. We only got to the allotment once which was on Tuesday. Ruby has been very poorly.  She started with sickness and diarrhoea. She then, quickly, became very lethargic and would neither eat nor drink which just isn’t her at all. We rang the vet quite late in the evening as luckily our vet provides a 24 hour service. As a result we made a late night visit where Ruby was diagnosed as having a fever and gastro enteritis. The options were to keep her in and put her on a drip or for her to be given an anti emetic injection, to be taken home and us to keep a close eye on her. We chose the latter and we were instructed to take her back if she deteriorated. When we arrived home, the injection had kicked in and she had a good drink - the first hurdle was overcome. After a good night’s sleep, at least for Ruby, the next morning we managed to get her to eat some chicken. Over the next few days she was kept on a bland diet of chicken and white rice delivered in small amounts throughout the day. One meal was sprinkled with a probiotic powder.  She has steadily improved and is back to being playful. On Sunday afternoon she produced a satisfactory ‘deposit’ so we are gradually switching to her normal diet.

We did get to the allotment on Tuesday. Martyn covered one of the beds that had previously been dug over. It was first covered with weed control fabric which was then held down with a layer of wood chippings.

One of the downsides of weed control fabric is that cut edges fray badly. We’ve been trying to think of a way of mitigating this and are trying ‘cutting’ with a culinary blow torch. Hopefully the sealed edges will resist fraying.

Whilst we were at the plot we gathered a small harvest.

28 September - courgettes - Ambassador, Cauliflower - Saragossa, Raspberries - All Gold & Joan J and Blackberries =Loch Ness

Last week's meals where our homegrown vegetables were used were a chicken and mushroom hotpot. Into this went some of our, potatoes, carrots, onion and frozen peas and sweet corn.

We also used vegetables, cauliflower and sautéed potatoes, as an accompaniment to breaded haddock. 

We used, onion, garlic, onion and frozen sweet corn in a turkey, bean and quinoa bake. I didn’t have any black beans so used black eyed beans instead. I used a mix of red, white and black quinoa.

Sunday we had a tomato and mushroom frittata which used some of our plum tomatoes and parsley. The eggs came from the allotments too just not from our plot. I used more tomatoes than specified. It was served with some of our frozen sweet corn and sautéed potatoes. It looked better in the pan than on the plate

As always, wherever you are, I hope you and your furry family members stay safe and well.

This week I am once again joining in with Dave’s Harvest Monday collection of posts over at Our Happy Acres

 

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett