We've had some lovely weather in May, and I've been doing a bit more wandering. Not far - either in terms of distance from home, or distance walked, but still wandering, and a nice bit of scenery. Up to the moors, down through the fields, along the valley, and across the bridge to the place where three counties meet. I've been here once before, many years ago, but it didn't feel familiar at all. It was nice to be back though. Another sunny afternoon we went in another direction with some friends. Down the hill, through the village, past the little shop-in-a-shed, along the track, over the bridge, stopping for a little paddle. I've been trying to get out in the evenings too for a little wander up and down the lanes. Not far, just a little stretch of the legs. Every year around this time, I start to walk more, and vow I'll keep it up all year, and it rarely lasts past the autumn. Let's see what happens this year.
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I've not actually done much local adventuring since we moved here. Some wandering, of course, but with one thing and another, not too much exploring. As it happens, I still haven't been anywhere completely new, but I have made a bit of an effort to revisit places I've not been for twenty years. At the beginning of March, I went up to The Roaches, a rocky outcrop overlooking the Cheshire plains. This is a well known climbers' haunt, and there is a house built into the rock face which I once stayed in. There are rumours that a mermaid lives in this pool. It's quite breezy up on the top, but the views are well worth the wind and the climb. I think I only walked about three miles that day. It was chilly, and I didn't want an epic trek. Turning round, Tittesworth reservoir was glinting in the sunshine. A few weeks later, on my birthday, we went down to the reservoir I'd seen from the top. I've been here before too, but not for a while. We didn't walk all the way round, just wandered a little way along the edge, then back to the cafe for a cup of tea. It's a nice mix of scenery - there are wooded areas, and at times the view opens out across the water and you can see back up to The Roaches looming on the horizon a few miles away. There's always a tendency to go to the same places, but I'm going to make a bit more of an effort this year to find some new places, and revisit some I've not been to for a long time. There are a lot on the list.
We have had a rather dry April, an I've spent a good amount of time outside, which I'm very grateful for. I didn't have my usual fortnight off work over Easter, but I've had a few long weekends, and am feeling rather more rested than I was at the end of March. So what's been happening in April? Strimming the grass We have a lot of grass, and I don't have a lawnmower - largely because I don't really have much you'd describe with such a sedate term as a 'lawn'. Our grass is bumpy, tufty, unwieldy, and full of weeds, and while I considered buying a diesel mower this month, I was eventually won over by a strimmer harness, which takes the weight of the strimmer, making it far easier to carry for the hour or so it takes to cut the bits of grass I can be bothered to cut. It's not exactly a bowling green... but at least I don't have to wear wellies to peg the washing out. I've left plenty long for the wild flowers to grow throughout the summer. The veg patch There isn't much to say about the veg patch. I've done very little in there so far, aside from occasionally waving a hoe on my way past, and throwing down a bit of wood chip. It's untidy and not really ready for planting, but that's ok, because I haven't sown a single seed in the greenhouse yet, so I won't be planting anything for a while. Things are starting to grow though. There has been blossom on the plum tree, and the apple trees are starting to bloom too. The fig tree is getting started in the greenhouse too. I see from last year's April on the Homestead post that I had all kinds of things growing in April, but not this year. Cutting the hay field My main outdoor job in April has been cutting the hay field. This is not something that usually happens in April. Since I've been cutting the hay with a scythe, usually in late summer, I've never managed to get through the whole field before the winter, meaning the new spring grass grows through the flattened, dried grass from the previous year, creating a thatch, and making it much harder to cut with a scythe at the end of the summer. This year, I decided I was going to experiment with some machinery to try and remove last year's grass, in a bid to make scything easier later, and hired a power scythe (or rather, a rotavator with a scythe attachment) for a weekend. I've never used one before, and gosh, it was a heavy and unwieldy beast. It was self-propelling, so at least I didn't have to push, but it had a mind of its own, and it was quite a struggle to get it to go in a straight line over our bumpy, tussocky field. I'd also anticipated that the scythe attachment at the front would slice under the thatch of old, dried grass, but no - the machine just sailed over the top of the flattened grass, with the blade chomping into thin air. I suspect it would be slightly more effective for cutting a field of standing hay (which is what it's designed for). All this meant that I had to effectively lift the handles as I was guiding it along, and even then, it didn't go under the thatch, but it did at least manage to remove some of the dried grass. You can see that even after cutting, and raking, there's still a lot of dried grass on the ground that hasn't been cut. Not much I can do about that at this point. I'm trying to restore it as a traditional hay meadow, which means no cutting (or grazing etc) rom now until towards the end of the summer to let the flowers do their thing. Incidentally, people often ask me why I haven't hired in a contractor, or put some sheep in, or some other solution that doesn't involve me either swinging a scythe or wielding machinery. It's a reasonable question - I'm often complaining about scything/machinery-wielding, so I can see why people ask. The answer, of course, is not that I didn't think of those things, but that I've weighed up all the options and am trying the one that's the most straightforward first. That doesn't mean it's the least effort on my part (far from it). But this is a small field, and this is the wrong type of year for hay-making, and so finding someone with a large tractor and hay-making equipment who is willing to drive it out here for a tiny amount of grass (when they're not cutting any other fields locally) isn't going to be easy. It might be possible to get someone to cut it when they're cutting other local fields - but that means having it cut when other farmers are cutting for silage (often June) which is too early for the flower seeds to have dropped. Making silage doesn't have the same requirements or routine as making hay, and barely anyone round here makes hay because of the unreliable weather. As for sheep (or llamas, or whatever) - again, this is a small field. Yes, there are some local sheep farmers, who all have their own land. This field has no water supply, falling-down walls, and a large, dangerous, derelict barn, meaning animals would need an electric fence and daily tending, which I'm not volunteering for. The cows we have in the other fields don't turn up until May - and if we let them in this field at that point, they'd just munch all the plants we were trying to encourage. And anyway, last year's dry, flattened grass, isn't really an appealing prospect for many animals, who'd likely be inclined to just munch the new green shoots and ignore the old stuff. Right now, I prefer to spend a small amount of money hiring a small piece of equipment and put in a load of effort myself over a weekend, rather than traipsing around the countryside asking local farmers for things they would rightly regard as a bit mad. Anyway, the point is that I have inadvertently made some hay in April, and it all got spread as mulch on the edible windbreak, which I see is exactly what I did with the small amount of hay I had at this time last year too. I also spread a bit around the willow dome, which I hope this year will actually grow enough to turn into a dome. Other things All was pleasingly uneventful on the chicken front in April, which is how we like it, although the bird flu lockdown was still in force (lifted today - hooray!) We've had plenty of eggs, which we've mostly either given away or made into pancakes. We cooked our first meal outside towards the end of the month - it wasn't quite warm enough but we'd committed ourselves by that point, so we did it anyway. And in possibly the most exciting event of the month, our resident owl landed on our swing seat and peered at us through the living room window. We have made some progress inside, although apparently I haven't taken any photos of it. Mostly it's involved moving three different bookcases around the house in a kind of bookcase version of musical chairs. We do now have shelves in the new bedroom though, and I'm hopeful some clothes rails will follow shortly, and then we can start moving clothes in. Getting there. Slowly. This weekend would have been a good time to finish a few things, but it's ended up being surprisingly sociable, and our first night away in a hotel for, gosh, I don't even know how long - possibly about five years. Crikey.
So what will May bring? I'll sow some seeds, and prepare the veg garden. I'd love to say we'll move into the new bedroom, but I've been saying that since December so I might just wait and see. I'd like to get the kitchen ceiling finished, but I've been saying that for even longer, so again, let's just wait and see... |
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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