March has involved more of everything than February, which was a month of slightly grumpy waiting for (disappointing) job news. By March I'd moved on, and although I was very much in need of a break, I start to feel like the year's activities were starting to ramp up. Morning pages This isn't a homesteading activity, as such, but a habit I've started in a bid to free my cluttered mind a little. You can read more about the practice here, but essentially the idea is you sit and write three pages of anything at all, first thing in the morning, as a creative practice, a way of clearing your head, and getting yourself in order. I've tried this before, and never stuck to it, but for some reason, I managed it for the whole of March and am settling into a nice routine. As soon as I get up, I make a cuppa, refill the hot water bottle, and head out to the swing seat in the garden with a cushion (and a teatowel to wipe the rain off). Yes, in my dressing gown, with rigger boots over my slipper socks. The sky isn't always as dramatic as this, but it's good to be outside, even if it's misty, or grey. If it's windy and cold, I don't stay out for long, but it's still refreshing. I usually have the Merlin app open, to identify the birds which are very vocal at that hour. A very light drizzle doesn't deter me, but if it's actually raining, I light a candle and sit near the window in the living room, looking at essentially the same view. I write about anything and nothing - the idea isn't to produce something creative, or something anyone else will ever read. I deliberately write on loose sheets of paper, not in a notebook - I have a tendency to keep notebooks forever, and these I want to be ephemeral, the important thing being the ritual, the act of writing, rather than what's written. We'll see how long it lasts, but I'm certainly enjoying it for now, and it's working to calm my addled brain a little. Clearing the garden I've been on a bit of a mission to clear various areas of the garden in March, starting with the very overgrown ivy, which I haven't really touched since we moved in six years ago. I have no real objection to ivy, but it was creeping across the driveway, and I wanted to tackle it before the birds started nesting in it. The other side of the wall was worse. This used to be quite a well kept lawn, and the first year we moved in, I spent a lot of time lying on it on a blanket. It's the only bit of lawn we have that isn't visible from a public footpath, and while I do like chatting to walkers, sometimes I just want to be on my own. The ivy had crept all the way over it, almost two feet deep in various places. I hacked a bit by hand, then took the strimmer to it. Even after strimming, there were a lot of tendrils creeping through the ground that I had to pull out by hand. It took quite a while, but I think I've got to a point where the grass can grow back now. This was a dismal, grey day - I'm sure it'll look better in the sunshine! I'd picked up some reduced plants a couple of weeks ago, so I plonked them into that strangely shaped planter - hopefully they'll fill out nicely. The ivy was also creeping its way along the terrace outside the front door. Again, we used to often sit out here when we first moved, but it had become quite overgrown, and I wanted to reclaim it as a sitting place. I'm not sure that bench will stay, but it'll do for now. I'm fed up of moving chairs from one area of the garden to another, so one of my tasks for this year is to make sure each sitting spot has its own seating. At the front of that low wall on the terrace, things were also looking dire. The top stones are cemented, but beneath that is a dry stone wall - a bad combination, as the dry stones shift, and the cemented ones don't shift with them. In this case, the cement has cracked as the stones beneath have shifted, meaning the whole of the top row will eventually shear off. I have no intention of ripping this out and replacing it, so for now, I've bashed the stones back in as best I can, with some extra ones to pin them in place. Not ideal, but good enough to stave off a big job for another couple of years. Anyway, all this activity generated a lot of cut greenery - mostly ivy, which I didn't want to compost her, so it's been carted off to the council tip. They compost it, and I bought a few bags of the municipal compost to top up my pots. The hay field I said in February I'd bought a new scythe blade, and cut another couple of rows. I was intending to do more, but with one thing and another, I didn't, and now we're starting to get to ground nesting bird season. So I've gathered the two rows I cut in February, and the field will now be left to do its thing til July. Elsewhere in the garden The daffodils are blooming, and the rhubarb is poking its head bravely above ground. I have started attempting to shape and tame the willow dome. I've left it a bit long, and it's quite a task, but hopefully it will grow to become a lovely little space to lie or play. Spring cleaning Cleaning isn't something I'm usually that enthusiastic about, but a bit of a fit of spring cleaning came over me in March. I hired a steam cleaner, and have been attempting to finally remove the sploges of old plaster and builder detritus from the kitchen floor. It's a bit of a thankless task. This is before, and then after. They're never going to be pristine, but they are getting easier to mop. This is all in preparation to fit the skirting boards... I seem to have taken quite a few pictures of washing on the line in March - we have had some excellent drying weather, and I've taken the opportunity to wash all the bedding, including mattress covers, and to get the duvets themselves out for an air (after being blasted with the steam cleaner). We even cleared all the glass bottles from the coal shed. We do have a recycling collection here, but they don't take glass, so it tends to build up until we have a car full to take to the tip. There are always a few raised eyebrows... but it felt good to get it all out of the way. Sitting around Phew! Looking back, it seems like I did quite a lot in March! In reality, most of that gardening was done over a few very full weekend days, and there was plenty of time for sitting around, both outside when the weather was nice, and in a cafe when it wasn't. And what will April bring? Well, I'm off this first week, and it's my birthday at the end of the month, so expect some reports of adventures. We've also started a month of decluttering, which is going well so far (although it's only day 3), so there may be some considerable house progress. I want to keep on with my morning pages routine, and there will be a bit more exercise as I gear up to (maybe) do Iron May again.
Will this be the month I get back to more regular blogging? We'll see.
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I'm not sure what there is to say about February. The first two weeks were spent slightly frettily waiting for a phone call about a job that I didn't get, and I'm not entirely sure what I did for the rest. Let's have a little look through the photos, that usually gives a clue. We started with some snow. Not much, and not for long, and while a few roads were closed for a few hours, we weren't snowed in, and we didn't lose power. I tried to spend a bit more time outside in February, and, aside from a brief flurry of snow, the weather wasn't too bad. I walked up to the top of the moors one day, not for any particular reason, and was rewarded with a beautiful sunset. And several mornings we've had epic cloud inversions in the valley, that I just cannot get a decent photograph of. It was so warm at one point, that I even hung around in the hammock for a while. Not for long (it wasn't that warm), but it was nice to be swaying in the breeze, looking up at the sky through the branches. I did get a few things done while I was pottering around outside. My scythe blade had cracked over the winter, so I replaced it, and cut another couple of rows. I won't get the whole field done this season, but it was good to do a little more. We spotted a large fox out there a few weeks ago, obviously hunting for its dinner. Not surprising really - there are clearly a lot of critters living in there, which makes me feel slightly better about not cutting it all. While I was outside I also braved the greenhouse. It wasn't pretty. The poor fig was sitting under the broken window, and its roots were completely sodden. I managed to pull it out of the pot, but it was such a swamp I couldn't free the roots. I left it sitting there to dry out a little, and I really must go back and rescue it. It'll be a miracle if I ever get a fig at all, the way I mistreat it. I did another little job while I was outside, one I should have got round to a long time ago. At some point, and I'm not even going to try and remember when, my mum bought me a couple of little metal bird silhouettes. I found them in February, in a pile of books, and finally got round to putting them outside. I've got one in the gate, that I can see from my garden swing seat, and tiny one on the edge of the bird table that you can see from the living room window. They're charming. I don't think anything much else happened around here in February. Work, of course, and the usual messing around with house and car insurance. Peter cleared a load of books off the landing, and we changed LPG suppliers, which involved taking lots of pictures of the LPG tank, but otherwise, it was a fairly uneventful month. It almost started to feel like spring - although I've been reliably informed that it was, in fact, Fool's Spring, and indeed things have gotten considerably soggier again since.
I'll try to get something more done in March. Might even take the Christmas tree down... Yes, I know - no posts for three months, then three in one day. But I think I might have caught up with myself after this one, and then we'll see if I can keep a bit of momentum going for the rest of the year. Outside The weather at the start of January wasn't too bad, and I spent a bit of time in the field raking in the piles of grass I'd left before November. It was a lot harder, as of course it was now all soaked and extremely heavy. I did make some progress though. It was even nice enough to peg a load of washing out! Even if I did have to finish drying it inside. While the weather was nice, I made a start on weeding some of the planters by the house, and potting up some small plants I'd bought on sale before Christmas. I want to make something of this area this year, and it needs a good tidy up. Before the weather turned cold again, I finally got round to sowing some yellow rattle seeds in the hay field. This little plant acts as a parasite on grass, and slows the growth to allow a more diverse range of plants to grow. It needs a period of cold in order to germinate, and I'm not sure it will have had long enough, but time will tell. Inside Inside, we had a small incident in the living room, with water coming in through the old chimney and shorting the electrics. All safe now, but yet another DIY project to go onto the (end of the) list. For now, we've pinned a sheet over it, and are looking the other way. We spent our time doing more important things - like spray painting our boots silver for a friend's birthday party. One DIY project I did manage in January though, was putting up the shelves in the study. We took the old ones down when I fitted a carpet, way back in October 2022. My books have been sat in a pile on the floor ever since, so I'm delighted to have this shelf (although clearly it's not going to hold all of them...). I spent quite a lot of January preparing for a job interview, for the job I applied for in November. It was a long shot, and a small miracle that I was shortlisted. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get it, but it was an interesting process putting everything together.
And what will February bring? Another job application, it looks like. More raking of soggy grass. Perhaps a bit more scything before the new grass starts to grow. Will any DIY get done? I have my eye on a small patch of tiling, but at this point there are only eleven days of February left so that may be a little ambitious... For me, 2023 has been a funny old year. It was the end of our little chicken flock, of course, and I don't feel like I've got very much done around here, but let's take a look back and see. I started with a review of 2022, in which I declared I wanted to write here more regularly. Oops. I also said I'm hesitant to make any predictions, but I'd like 2023 to be a year of progress, where I feel like a few jobs get ticked off the DIY list. I'd like the kitchen and dining room to be finished, to have properly moved into the new bedroom (the mattress is still just on the floor at the minute), and to have set up my craft room. I'd like the stairs to be finished, and maybe even to have made a start on the bathroom. Well. Hmm. I had a long period off work over Christmas, when I painted the second coat of yellow on the kitchen walls, finished the thermal blinds, and shovelled some compost. The chickens were under an avian flu lockdown order, but we did rehome two new ladies, Skippy and Daisy. It snowed a bit, I started planning the garden, and we finally rebuilt our bed in the new bedroom. January on the homestead was relatively uneventful, aside from the new chickens, and a trip to the vets for Bessie. In February, the weather got a little brighter. I spent quite a bit of time outside, starting the new extension to the chicken run, pruning some bushes which were encroaching over the footpath, and weeding the veg patch with some friends. The rhubarb started growing, and I donated some of our tree guards to a community project. Indoors, we cleaned and restocked the pantry - a large and very satisfying job. March on the homestead was slightly more eventful. The daffodils arrived, but then so did a large snow storm that had me staying at a friend's house for three days because the roads home were all closed. I did a bit of batch cooking and got the dehydrator out of hibernation. I had a trip to stay with a friend, and poor old Sunshine chicken had a trip to the vets. April on the homestead was grim. We lost both Sunshine and Budgie, leaving us with just our elderly Bessie and the new chickens we'd rehomed in January. I did clean out the greenhouse and start making some new staging, and we finally took the Christmas tree down, but on the whole I was glad to see the back of April. May on the homestead was also pretty grim. We lost our beloved Bessie chicken at almost six years old, and we were heartbroken, especially so soon after losing Sunshine and Budgie. We made the difficult decision to rehome Skippy and Daisy - we'd only had them a few weeks, and couldn't face getting any more. A horrible time. We took ourselves off for a couple of much-needed restorative trips to the seaside. I did a lot of exercise, joining in with IronMay for Cancer Research UK. June on the homestead was rather more cheerful, although it felt very quite round here without the chickens. I strimmed the grass, we had a BBQ with friends, and I finished making my greenhouse benches. We also looked after our dog friend for a few days. We didn't get any DIY done, but the house did get struck by lightening, wiping out Peter's computer. July on the homestead was busy! I made a new bird table, we started gathering stones to make windowsills, and I finally planted out some courgette plants. I did a fair bit of batch cooking, started clearing compost from the chicken run, and cleared moss from the terrace by the front door. We had the side of the house rendered, set up the spare bedroom as a craft room, and I started the scything. The garden felt quite overwhelming in August, but I did make some progress. Some friends came to help with the scything, and we got a fair bit done over a weekend. We finally got round to hanging the hammock, and I spent quite a bit of my fortnight off just hanging around in it. Yet more scything in September, and I harvested a load of damsons (but not much else) and made some washing liquid from my own homemade soap. The weather was nice at the start of October, so yet more scything was done. We visited some friends, and I spent quite a lot of time applying for a new job.
November and December kind of got lost along the way. We went to Berlin, it snowed quite a bit, and we got all festive and cosy. Did I do all the things I planned for 2023. No. We moved into the new bedroom, and set up the craft room, painted the kitchen and finished sewing the blinds, but that was it for inside the house. Outside, I did more scything than ever (but still didn't finish the field), barely grew any veg, and spent quite a bit of time cursing the grass for growing so quickly. We've had various bouts of illness between us, and losing the chickens took its toll on our enthusiasm for a good while. So what will 2024 bring? I really do want to get the kitchen and dining room finished, and the stairs too. I'd love to make a start on the bathroom too. Outside - finishing scything the whole field of course (I imagine I'll still be saying that when I'm 60, without once having achieved it). I think 2024 might be the year I take a rest from veg growing. The last few years I've grown, failed to plant out in time, and whatever has grown, I've not harvested. I think I want a break. I'll scatter some flower seeds in the veg beds, but otherwise focus on seating, pruning, tidying up what's there, and a few little garden projects. We'll see. Yes, yes, I know it's the middle of February, and here I am writing about November. I'm not entirely sure what happened. We were sharing a laptop for a while, which made sorting out photos much less convenient, and then it was Christmas, and now here we are. Anyway, I shall attempt to catch up with myself, and then endeavour to post more regularly. We'll see how well that goes. November was an uneventful one on the homestead. I did get some more scything done, and had a bit of a tidy up under the bathroom sink (I do have pictures of that, but you don't need to see them). The most exciting thing was that we went to Berlin! Just for three nights, to stay with friends, but it was our first trip abroad in six years (since we went to Berlin for three nights to stay with the same friends... Clearly we are not very adventurous...). Looking at my photos, December seemed to be full of cakes and snow. We had a few small flurries, and then a bit of a larger dumping. I spent a lot of time sitting in cafes, including one memorable day with my sister when we were supposed to be doing an all-day race, but decided at 5am (with storms forecast) that we really didn't want to. I also met some friends for an evening of crafting under a giant Christmas tree in the foyer of a grand hotel. There was a bit of crafting at home too, as I started making Peter yet another new hat (which I've still not finished). Finally I finished work (it felt late this year), and settled in to do some plotting and scheming for the new year. A bit of a whistlestop tour, but there we are. Not much gardening, nothing in the way of DIY, but a good bit of cosiness and plenty of cafes. Not a bad couple of months.
Yes, I know - no posts for several weeks, and then two in one day. But at least I feel like I'm vaguely catching up with myself. October has been all over the place. Work has been busier than usual for a start, and I feel like I've trekked up and down the country more than I have in a while too. But I have spent some time at home, and some things have been done, so I'm counting that as a win. Scything We had some good weather towards the start of the month, and I did get out into the field a few times. Then the rain set in, and things became rather soggy, and what with one thing and another, I barely got out at all in the last couple of weeks. Got to the end of row 14 though. Getting there, albeit slowly. The weather Good at the start, soggy from the middle onwards. We live on the top of a hill, so the flooding didn't really affect us that much, but our cellar has a well in, and does flood pretty regularly. I measured a good two feet of water in it at one point, but it receded pretty quickly, thank goodness. Apparently we did have a couple of nicer days towards the end, and I spent a little time drinking tea in the garden (not much though, it was starting to get pretty cold). Plotting and scheming I did a lot of plotting and scheming in October. Sometimes at home, sometimes in a cafe, always with a notebook in hand. We visited some friends early in the month - the sun shone, and we spent a long time just sitting around in their garden, which gave me a few ideas for a new sitting spot in ours. Our garden is quite windy and exposed, but there is a little sheltered corner that isn't taken advantage of. I've often thought of putting planters there, but never chairs. I shifted things around a little to see what it would feel like. Obviously it needs a fair bit of work, but I think it could be a bit of a winter suntrap, just the right spot for sitting out with a cuppa. There are better views elsewhere, but this is at least sheltered and not windy. It might be a little project for me over the winter.
And that's it for October I think! I had my head down for a fair bit of it, either working or travelling, and not much got done on the homestead. I did manage a small adventure or two though (more on those later, if I get round to it). And what will November bring? Work is still busy, so not much so far. Hopefully a little bit of house and garden progress, but I'm not holding my breath. Oh, and shhhh.... I've applied for a new job. It's along shot - I can't imagine I'll get an interview, let alone the job itself, but it was good to pull the application together. I should hear something at least in November, so fingers crossed (but again, I won't hold my breath). Yes, I know it's November now, and September was quite a long time ago. And I also know that, despite my best intentions, I'm clearly not going to get back into the habit of posting here more regularly any time soon. But never mind, I'm here now. Let's see if I can remember anything that happened back in September. Sitting around I've realised that some of the pictures I used in my August post were actually from early September! The sun came out just as I went back to work, and I spent quite a bit of time lounging around in the garden and out in the fields. Very lovely it was too. Making hay I hurt my back doing too much enthusiastic running at the very beginning of the month, which hampered things somewhat, and then hurt it again in the middle of the month (leaning over a desk to cross something off on a wall chart - very athletic). Scything continued in fits and starts around my injuries though, and I think by the end of September I was up to the end of row twelve, not bad. It was starting to feel quicker to do each row, but I'd not been back and gathered up any more of the cut grass. Harvest! My harvest has been largely woeful this year. I did manage a single courgette, and a handful of tomatoes, but that was it for veg. The damson tree put on a fine show though, and I spent a happy morning harvesting damsons and getting them into the freezer. Washing liquid Our homemade washing liquid finally ran out (I made it in July 2022), so it was time to make some more, this time using up some of my own home made soap. Not pretty, but it does the job, and costs practically nothing, and this will last me well over a year again, I imagine. Batch cooking I've continued to batch cook and fill up the freezer, making sure I've got relatively wholesome meals for when I don't have time to cook. It's good, and yet again, I'm amazed I never got round to doing this before. Overall, September was a quiet month round here. I could move very quickly, so nothing overly drastic happened in relation to DIY or the garden, and a lot of time was spent sitting around. No bad thing though.
I was off work for quite a lot of August (I think I worked seven days in total, towards the end), and at the time, it felt like it did nothing but rain, and the sun only came out the day I went back to work. My photos tell a slightly different tale, of course - although I am always less inclined to take pictures when the weather is grim. Whatever the weather, let's see what we got up to in August. Scything I'd done two rows by the end of July, and in August, things stepped up a gear. The long evenings helped, as did knowing I had a couple of friends coming to stay for the weekend to help. By the time they got here, I'd done four rows, and while one scythed another row and a half, the other helped me to rake up everything we'd done so far. Quite an achievement by the end of the weekend, and I will forever be grateful to them for their weekend of haymaking. I carried on myself after they'd left. The evenings were light, although the weather was rather hit and miss, and I think I was up to nine rows done by the end of August, slowing down considerably after my initial flurry. Plenty still to do if I want to get the whole thing done this autumn. Oh, and we also had an exciting moment when we found what appears to be star jelly in the hay field. Opinions vary as to whether this is some kind of animal secretion or 'meteor snot' (more likely the former...) but I've certainly never seen anything like it before. Very odd. In the garden My friends gave me lots of advice and encouragement about the garden, which I've been finding rather overwhelming. Seeing things through someone else's eyes is always revealing, and I did manage to start focusing on some of the good things, rather than a to do list. There's not much veg in the veg patch, but it's filled with calendula, raspberries, sage, rosemary, and lavender. The apple trees round the edge look like they are still holding onto some of their apples. My friends did point out that they looked a little choked with grass... So I spent a few evenings, just half an hour at a time, clearing the grass, adding some comfrey leaves, some earth from the chicken run, and some wood chip. They seem to be thriving. That small achievement in a small amount of time made me feel empowered, and I ended up clearing the whole of that bed down the outside of the veg patch, and moving some rhubarb and some more comfrey in. Just opposite this area is the edible windbreak - also looking rather overgrown and neglected. I didn't get any gooseberries or blackcurrants from there this year, the birds had them all while I was looking the other way. I wasn't going to let that happen to the bumper damson crop though, so I set about clearing space for me to get at the damson tree. By the end of the month, a few courgettes had appeared (although one was promptly devoured by slugs). Mostly, though, the calendula ran wild and free in the veg patch. I must harvest it and do something with it. I've made calendula balm before, and it's about time I made some more. Inside the greenhouse, the tomatoes were looking rather better after being topped up with compost. I've still not fixed the window, so it's not exactly warm in there at the minute. I'd like to sow some overwinter seeds this autumn, so I need to get on the case. Hanging around Towards the end of the month (just as I went back to work), the weather picked up considerably. We found an old hammock we've had for years, and I finally ordered some straps and hung it between two trees. It's a shady spot, so not very warm, but I spent quite a lot of time there, just hanging around, gently swaying. My other favourite spot in the garden is the swing near the house. I spent quite a lot of time hanging around there too. There's a footpath that runs down our drive, right outside those gates, so I occasionally sneak a bit further into the fields for a bit more peace and quiet. Brambles Every year I forget the brambles. In my head, they need picking in September, but really it's August, even round here. Fortunately, because the weather was so nice, I did remember this time, and managed to pick a few. I didn't pick enough to do anything as elaborate as jam - I've just thrown them in the freezer, and they're being added to my breakfast each day. Windowsills Inevitably, we don't have any actual windowsills yet. But I did do some experimenting with cleaning the stones, this time using brick acid. There are very mixed opinions on using brick acid on this type of stone, so I did one, rinsed it, and left it for a few days to see if it completely disintegrated. Needless to say, it didn't. The brick acid removed some of the stains, but not all of them, so I tried a few different stones. The results have been mixed. I don't have after photos, but while these stones look generally cleaner, those black spots are still there. I'm genuinely not sure whether to use them as they are for a very rustic look, or have another round with the brick acid, or something else. Watch this space...
Overall, August was mellow, relaxed, and sociable. We saw a LOT of people while I was off, and it was nice to have the odd day to myself here and there too. The sunny weather was very welcomed, although things did start to take a rather autumnal air towards the very end of the month, and September has turned distinctly in that direction so far... July has been rather soggy. That's not just me exaggerating - apparently in my local town, we've had roughly double the average rainfall for July, it's been the wettest July since local records began 160 years ago. I don't think it's rained every single day, but it's certainly felt like it has. Still, things have been achieved, and adventures have been had. My last day at work was 20th July, and I've been off ever since, which has been great (although I confess I would have appreciated a little more sunshine). Let's see what's happened. Ticking things off I have a long list of relatively small jobs that seem to just follow me round, interfering with my thoughts. In July, I decided to do something about it, writing all the tasks on little pieces of card, and dividing them into drawers - one each for 15 minute jobs, 30 minutes, those taking an hour or more, and ongoing jobs, where I could just spend 15 minutes at a time and make some progress. Early on in July, I picked out a card which said 'fix bird table'. Clearly not the most important job on the list, but that was the point - sometimes it's impossible to decide what the most important job is, and that can lead to doing nothing at all, so this was away of taking the decision out of my hands. And so I tackled the bird table, which was admittedly rather wonky. It turned out to be easier to dismantle than to fix, so that's what I did. It's slightly taller and thinner than the original, but I've salvaged the original pole and roof slates, and I don't think the birds will mind at all. It took me just over an hour, and is now one less thing tugging at my conscience when I look out of the living room window. Windowsills We decided that our next bigger DIY job would be windowsills. We currently don't have any in the kitchen, dining room or bedroom - five windows in all. We hadn't been able to find a satisfactory local option, and so we decided to make our own, from the giant old roof tiles that fell from our collapsed barn. It was quite an effort dragging them out of the field, but we've salvaged enough, and they're now propped up in the front garden, making it look rather like a small graveyard. Obviously none of the stones exactly fit any of the windowsills. The windowsills are large, and none of them can be done with a single stone. We've spent quite a lot of time with measuring tape, chalk, pen and paper, scratching our heads and drawing and re-drawing, and we think we've finally worked out how to put them together. We've also had advice from a neighbour who's done something similar, and we have a plan of attack. Not that we've actually put it into action yet, but these things are best done in stages... They'll need to be cleaned as well - another job best done in stages. It might be Christmas before they're done at this rate. More cooking I continued my enthusiasm for batch cooking in July, filling the freezer with more meals, and making sure I was eating healthily even after a busy day at work. I can't quite figure out why it's taken me so long to get into the swing of it. The garden The veg patch has mostly been left to its own devices, although I did finally plant out the courgettes and beans - probably a pointless task, as they're unlikely to have long enough to grow before the weather turns. The only thing I've harvested so far this year is raspberries, which persist in growing all over the place, although the birds get most of them I've been slowly digging the compost out of the floor of the chicken run - it's a lovely, rich mix of composted chicken droppings, bedding, and old wood chip, which makes an excellent addition to the veg patch. The greenhouse wasn't looking great in July - filled with yellowing tomatoes and in high need of some attention. It didn't get any though... One of the little jobs that I pulled out of the drawers was to clear the small terrace outside the front door - another thing now ticked off. Scything Before the end of July, I made a start on the scything. I'd managed two rows by the end of July - a good start. Rendering the house We made a start on another job in July - getting the side of the house rendered. I'd painted it last year, but the paint was peeling off again, and the water getting into the house, and it was obvious the rendering had failed. Not something I wanted to tackle myself, so we got a recommendation from someone local, and got a quote, way back in October last year. Finally, the rendering man (after some prodding) managed to fit us in. By the end of July we had the first coat of rendering on, and the old, rotten fascia boards removed, ready to be replaced by plastic ones that a neighbour had given us. Not an exciting or glamorous job, and quite an expensive one, but I'm glad to see the back of it - it's something that shouldn't need doing again for a good while. The craft room Another DIY-ish job got done in July - setting up the spare bedroom as my craft room. This room was our bedroom until recently, but now all the building work is done, we've moved into the bigger room, and this one was just housing a spare bed and some clothes rails. They're staying, along with bedding and blankets under the bed, but in July I also got round to adding what used to be our kitchen table in our old house, and a set of shelves (which had been languishing in an outbuilding and was in need of a good scrub) to house some of my craft supplies. Eventually, I need to sort out the rest of the craft supplies from the loft, add some extra shelves, find my craft books and also somewhere to put them, but for now, this is a calm, peaceful little spot to make a start on some long-neglected crafts. I imagine it will get more use in the winter, as I'm pretty focused on outside jobs at the minute. It also provides a useful second bedroom if one of us is ill, or snoring...
So that was July on the homestead. Quite a productive month, it turns out - being off work for over a third of it helped, of course. Some things have been ticked off, and lots of things started but not finished, so I'm hoping August will prove similarly productive. We've also done a lot of hosting and visiting while I've been off, but I'll post about that separately. Off to see what the rest of August brings... My birthday is at the end of April, and around that time, I tend to do quite a bit of pondering. This year, I was pondering how I'd largely got out of the habit of exercise. Well, I'm not sure I was ever properly in it... but I was doing hardly any, and was feeling slovenly and unfit. I saw an advert for a charity event, where you signed up to do the distance of an IronMan race, but across a whole month, rather than a single day. It was free to enter, there was no set amount to raise for the charity, and the whole thing felt like a bit of a challenge, but not so unreachable as to be off-putting. I signed up. I started with a plan to space all the activity evenly across the month, but, well, May was rather a mess, and life got quite in the way. Still, I headed out on my bike whenever I could, mostly along the old railway trails. It was lovely to do some more cycling. I left the bike in the car, and stopped off at the trails on the way home from work, which isn't something I'd usually do, but was lovely. The swim was, surprisingly, the least hassle. It was 2.4 miles, which worked out as 155 lengths of my local pool. I went swimming each week, including when we were away in Llandudno, and this was the first discipline I finished. I think I was most worried about the cycling - 112 miles is a long way, and takes a long time when you're as slow as me. I did ten miles here, fifteen there, but by the last week or so, I still had 76 miles left. I had a couple of rather long rides, including what felt like a rather epic 36 mile day cycling around and near a reservoir. Some of that day was rather outrageously uphill. With a couple of days before we went to Scarborough (which took us into June, and I didn't want to take my bike), I still had 16 miles left. I planned to go out along the trails one night, but as I got home from work, a piece fell off the underside of the car, and I had to wait for the AA. I was busy being annoyed, when I remembered the exercise bike. I thought I'd get a couple of miles ticked off, but by the time the AA turned up, I'd done five miles, and as it didn't seem that bad, I figured I might as well do another five. The next morning I was feeling quite wobbly, and finished off the final miles on the bike in the living room. I'd thought the run would be ok - it was only 26 miles over a month, after all, and I was meant to be training for a 15 mile running race in June. Somehow, I kept putting off running, until I found myself with about fifteen miles left when we went on holiday. I took my running shoes, and set out for a long run both mornings, accepting that I was going to have to do quite a bit of walking. I made it, finally, and spent much of the rest of the holiday sitting down.
Overall, I raised about £300 for Cancer Research UK, and rediscovered my love of cycling along the trails, and generally being outside. I also ended up quite pleased with myself that I'd actually done it - I often leave race preparation to the last minute, but because this wasn't a single race, and it was impossible (for me, at least) to do everything on the last day, it was fun to have a tracker and add a few miles here and there throughout the month. Obviously, a fair bit did still get left to the end... but it gave me a great sense of achievement, like I could actually commit to something and see it through. I'm still carrying that with me now. |
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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