Some Sad News

I'm afraid I lost my lovely Buddy this afternoon. He went to sleep peacefully on his bed at home. The time was right and I am at peace with that. I have nothing but happy memories. I felt it was right to bring Matron out from behind the keyboard just this once to share my favourite photo. Buddy had just won the James Bond K9 007 fancy dress competition at the RSPCA fundog show at Pinewood Studios. Our proudest moment. Thank you all for your kind wishes.

Poor Buddy - Again!

You might remember that just a year ago Buddy had a small stroke. He wasn't well at all for quite a while but he made a full recovery. Poor Buddy has had another stroke. I just hope that this time at 15 years old he has the strength to make a recovery. Fingers and paws crossed this time. I know there are so many people out in blogland who will wish him well.

Spindly Rhubarb

I think I have some sort of problem with one of my rhubarb crowns. My whole rhubarb patch is only 3 years old, planted from divided crowns and has done really well for me. The problem with this section however is that the rhubarb stalks are coming up just the thickness of a pencil. All the other crowns in the same patch, with the same treatment, are nice fat buds just waiting on the surface of the soil.
I'm sure I read about some sort of rhubarb virus or disease which causes spindly stalks like this. From memory I don't think there is any cure other than to dig it up and start afresh. On searching the internet most informations seems to indicate that rhubarb is fairly problem free apart from crown rot (which this is not). Does this seem familiar to anyone?