I know, I know - July was ages ago, but here we are. A funny month. There's no evidence from my photographs that I did anything but laze around for the first half of the month, and then in the second half I finally caught covid for the first time. As usual though, some things have happened, in spite of me. Trees Our trees are growing! We had 1000 planted by the national park back in December 2020, and many of them are starting to appear from the top of their guards. It's nowhere near a woodland yet, but I'm starting to see how it might be in a few years. We even spotted the first orchid we've seen here. Chickens I'm not sure I've said much about the chickens for a while, but they're still here, mostly lazing around in the sunshine. We had to take poor Bonny to the vets at the end of the month though. She'd laid a few lash eggs over several weeks, and the vet gave her a hormonal implant to stop her producing any more eggs, and hopefully let her fight off whatever she was fighting. She's always been skittish, and never remotely appreciated being picked up, and it was difficult to catch her. The vet described her as 'having an attitude'... She's had mixed fortunes in relation to her health since then - more in August's post. Sorting out We've been slowly sorting out odd corners of the house, and July was the turn of these shelves in the the offshot. They housed all kinds of bric a brac, but now are home to nicely organised chicken-related supplies. The reason we had to empty all this out in the first place was because there's something wrong with the washing machine. I was hoping emptying the filter for the first time in 20 years would help, and it did, a bit - but there's clearly something else wrong too. We can't go into the winter with a machine that leaves us with sopping wet clothes, so that needs to be sorted with some urgency (although clearly not much, as it's now near the end of August and I still haven't done it...). Isolation Finally, after avoiding it for over two years, I caught covid. I wasn't too ill, but it was a fairly rotten few days. I moved into the spare room, and after a couple of days of lying around feeling sorry for myself, I settled into a nice routine of watching tv and knitting, and once I felt a little better, repairing some cushions and sewing new covers. I had a day lounging on the swing with the chickens, knitting and looking at the view, and then towards the end, I spent a day sat at the kitchen table, writing a five year plan (sounds ridiculous, but I do love a good planning session). Outside July in the garden was a mostly spent despairing at the state of it. Seedlings not planted out, weeds everywhere, and a general mess. I did harvest some fruit though - although I've just thrown it in the freezer, so I do need to do something more permanent with it. It's looking like we might actually get some apples this year too. So that was July, and, of course, I didn't finish the kitchen ceiling, or paint the walls - I was planning on doing that in my week off, but covid intervened. It's not a secret that I haven't yet done it, but I'm hopeful for this weekend... (although scything has now taken precedence, so we'll see).
August's update should show considerably more activity - I'll try not to be so late in writing it this time...
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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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