Hooray! After much digging and carrying and swearing, the greenhouse is finally up! I already have the plastic greenhouse of course, but with the amount of outside space we have now I'm planning to grow as much of our food as I can, so I began to hunt for a second hand glass greenhouse. Fortunately, a lovely friend offered us hers, and we went to dismantle and collect it a few weeks ago. Since then, it sat in pieces in the garage while I pondered where to put it and dug a base. Needless to say, it was a bit of a fiasco and took far longer than expected (and two panes spontaneously cracked in the garage), but we're finally there. My other triumph took rather longer and rather more head-scratching - I have finally finished building the section of dry stone wall that collapsed not long after we moved in. I had to dismantle a fair bit before I got to a section stable enough to rebuild on. Slowly, over the last few weeks, I've been adding a few stones here and there, often late into the evening. This bit of wall catches the evening light, and I've often found myself out there at nine or even ten at night as the sun sets. Slowly, the wall grew, and the farmers next door said encouraging things like 'it's a good start' and 'I've seen worse'. Finally last night it was time to put on the top stones. I'm laughing now, looking at how short the grass is in that first picture when it collapsed - it's now nearly up to my waist and I had to trample a load of it down searching for the top stones which had all but disappeared. Already there's another gap in one of the fields, and several more places seem in danger of imminent collapse. Still, that's the way with dry stone walls - they stand for a hundred years then one day you wake up and there's a hole. It doesn't so much matter in between our fields, but I wouldn't want any of our cows escaping onto someone else's land, or to find someone else's sheep in our fields. So every day when I'm out, I cast my eyes around to make sure everything's still standing (the cows aren't helping by rubbing their chins on the top stones, pesky beasts). I could easily fill all my days, and several other lifetimes too, with pottering round here, although things feel slightly more manageable now we have the cows to keep the grass down, and the seeds planted and in the greenhouse, and some veg beds prepared, and wall fixed. I'm not even sure what the next job is. Possibly fixing the collapsed wall between the fields (it's good to practice on unnecessary walls, I feel), and the beans will need planting out soon - I've been hardening them off for a few days now, inside the greenhouse at night and out during the day. And chickens! I have promised myself that I'll be ready when the announcement comes for the next local rescue day, and I've decided where they're going, but I'm still being indecisive about hen house design. I'm leaning towards something simple and temporary which can be made more elaborate once we've established a bit of a routine. In the meantime, we're pottering about in the fields before and after work and at the weekend, becoming weather beaten and sore, and still vaguely like we're on holiday in someone else's life.
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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February 2024
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