Yes, I know, it's June. Things have been rather traumatic around here of late, and with one thing and another, I've never quite gotten round to writing a post. Still, can't put it off forever. There might be a flurry of catch-up posts before I try to get back into posting more regularly. So, April. The chickens April was a dreadful month. I mentioned in my March update that Sunshine Chicken hadn't been well. It looked like she was on the mend and then she died on the way home from seeing the vet. A couple of weeks later, Budgie Chicken got ill - different symptoms, so we don't think anything contagious. She didn't respond to medicine, and we had to have her put to sleep. I'll do proper memorial posts for them later, but in the meantime, here they all are, enjoying some freedom after the avian flu housing order was finally lifted. By the end of April, we were just left with Bessie, and the two youngsters we'd rescued in January -Skippy and Daisy. We were heartbroken at losing Sunshine and Budgie in such quick succession, and weren't sure how much more we could take. Bessie was almost six years old, a vast age for a rescue hen, and we knew we didn't have that much longer with her. We made the difficult decision that, once we lost Bessie, we'd rehome the younger two. It wasn't something we wanted to do, but we didn't want to ever be in the position of only having one chicken, as they do much prefer to be in a flock. Anyway, maybe you can imagine where this sorry tale is going... but I'll keep the rest of the story for May's post. The garden The garden was largely neglected in April, between a flurry of chicken illness, several work trips away, and various other life happenings. One thing I did do was clear out the greenhouse - a much-needed task. What a mess! I turfed everything out, and dismantled the shelves, which were originally part of our old plastic greenhouse, and which didn't really fit properly into this one. Then I started building new shelves from an old pile of pallets. It was a good plan, but the first one was difficult to get through the door, and I realised I wasn't going to have to start building them inside the greenhouse. Tricky. I didn't quite finish in April, and therefore I also didn't sow any seeds. The rest of the garden was ignored, although the apple trees put on a good show of blossom, and the willow dome started to fill out. Christmas Two Er, yes. We celebrated Christmas in April, having largely ignored it the first time round given various illnesses. The Christmas tree was still up, as I refused to take it down until something more cheerful happened, and we invited some friends round for Christmas dinner. They gamely turned up with a chocolate chicken and some festive Easter eggs, and a jolly time was had by all. All told, I was pretty glad to see the back of April this year. Still, amidst all the turmoil, the weather turned, it started to feel like spring, and everyone had at least one good dust bath.
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Goodness me, March. You really were quite the rollercoaster. I'm not really quite sure what got done in March. No big DIY jobs, that's for certain. But then we were rather at the mercy of the whims of the weather. Let's have a look. The weather March didn't start off too badly, and I even spent an afternoon tidying up the front garden in a t-shirt! A few days later, though, it was quite a different story. I went to work one Wednesday, and didn't get home until Saturday. So many roads were closed with drifts of snow and fallen trees, that there just wasn't a route I could take. Fortunately, I was holed up all cosy at my very accommodating friend's house. Eventually enough roads were opened, and the snowplough came down our drive, and I finally got home to this. It melted quickly, and then snowed again, but gentle, pretty snow this time. Pretty, but cold, and we're very glad that the boiler has at least waited until April to break... Preserving and batch cooking I spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen in March, stocking up the freezer with meals and pressing the dehydrator into service. It always feels good to have a few meals ready and waiting in the freezer. It's so tempting to just eat toast or porridge when I get in from work, and that doesn't help me feel good longer term, so having meals on hand is really important. I don't always manage it, mind you, and I'm down to my last two, so best get cooking again. Other inside sorting I also took advantage of the cold weather to do some sorting - in this case of clothes and shoes. Honestly, who needs this many pairs of shoes?! Good grief. It's not like they're all fancy-pants designer showing-off shoes either. Many of them are charity shop finds - and if you find a decent pair of walking boots in a charity shop for £8, you buy them, even if your old ones aren't quite worn out yet. But then you start wearing the new ones, because they're new and exciting, and don't throw away the old ones, because there's still some life in them... and multiply that by many years of walking boots, work boots, sandals etc, and you end up with a pile like this. I'm pleased to say some of them have actually gone in the bin, and some back to the charity shop, and the pile is looking somewhat more respectable now. All this sorting was because we're finally in a position to turn the spare bedroom into my craft room, which is very exciting. I decided to paint it before we put any more furniture in, and I did that in March, although I don't seem to have taken any pictures. Proper pictures in April's post! Adventuring March wasn't really much of a month for adventures, unless you count getting snowed in (or rather out in my case), but we have done a little bit of pottering, and I spent a weekend attending an event and staying with a friend. Obviously, there were the usual round of cafe trips, and looking at these pictures, it's no wonder I can't fit into many of my clothes. The chickens The chickens are doing nicely, and we were delighted to spot the new ones having their first dust baths. Needless to say, we still haven't finished the extension to the chicken run, but we have at least got the posts into the ground and some of them cut to the right length. Getting there (very slowly). Towards the end of the month, Sunshine's comb started looking a bit off colour, so she had her first ever trip to the vets. Fortunately she's looking a fair bit better now, thank goodness.
Overall, there's been quite a bit of upheaval in March. I've been on strike for some of it, the weather has been all over the place, and things have generally felt quite unsettled. But we've got some painting and some sorting and some pottering done, and now the weather has (mostly) started turning, it does feel like we're finally heading towards summer. February felt quite spring-like round here, which was nice, as we have since retreated back into winter again. I even got a few things done outside. The chicken run Poor neglected chicken run. We've been meaning to build an extra extension for at least 18 months, and somehow it still hasn't quite happened. Still, in February we had a few dry days and I did at least get a few holes dug. I bought ten foot posts, because I originally planned this as more of a fence, without a roof. However, the bird flu situation means that the chickens are likely to be in the run for six months of every year in the future, so I want them to have as much space as possible. I've dug all ten holes now, as deep as I can. Now I need to figure out much to cut off the posts, and how to fit them all together. It's going to involve acquiring more wood, but we're going to have a a good root round in the garage to see what we've already got first. The chickens themselves are doing well, and the new ladies are growing in confidence. I'm pleased with how we split an area of the run off for them this time - it's far less ramshackle than we've done before, and it's really easy to use. We started a bit of supervised mingling in February too, letting the new ones into the main part of the run for an hour at a time. The older ladies were NOT impressed with the newcomers, who were boisterous and very enthusiastic about food. The older ladies didn't fight back, but rather retreated to a corner, sulking. Slowly, they're all learning to live together, although there's still some caution when it comes to food. Sunshine had to come into the house for a bath as her backside was a little grubby, but after a wash her bloomers have returned to their usual glorious state. In the garden I wasn't planning on doing anything much with the garden in February, but some friends arrived, and their small children expressed an enthusiasm for digging, and I wasn't going to turn down free garden help. We stayed out in a light drizzle for an hour or two, weeding and digging, and cleared far more than I'd thought we would. A lovely start to the season. Elsewhere in the garden, the rhubarb was starting to grow. The weather was still mild a few days later, so I grabbed my secateurs and a pruning saw and tackled this coppiced sycamore, which has been encroaching on the footpath for a while. It's not really clear from the pictures, but it looks much better now, and there are some long, straight branches which are potentially useful as beanpoles or similar. It felt good to make progress. Often in the garden, as with housework, I feel like I'm doing something that's just going to need doing again in a few weeks. Of course this will grow again, but this is the first time I've cut it back since we moved, so I'm hoping I've got a few years til I have to do it again. Clearing and restocking the pantry We also tackled an inside job in February - sorting out the pantry. This isn't a separate room, it's just the area by the back door - we call it 'the offshot', but it's kind of a utility room, and it's the main way we enter the house. These shelves house the bulk of our food store, and they'd got into rather a muddle. We cleared everything off, wiped and reorganised, and did a bit of a restock. I love looking at the food stores of homesteaders, particularly in the US - some of them have such a glorious array of canned ingredients and meals. We're never going to have that, and our pantry certainly isn't pretty, but if necessary, we could probably eat for a few weeks from it (although we'd have to get rather 'creative' with our meals towards the end, and I'd definitely miss cheese). We didn't get anything else significant done to the house in February, and I'd definitely like to change that in the coming weeks. Tree guards Our little woodland is starting to grow again, and it's lovely to see the buds poking out of the top of the tree guards. Some of them haven't made it, and I didn't want to leave the guards standing in the fields unnecessarily. I've been asking around for a while, and finally found a community project who would take a few. As it happened, they weren't quite the right fit for the types of trees they had, but with a bit of alteration they did the job. I spent a morning planting trees with the group too, which was lovely. It was nice to be outside, and to see a new bit of parkland I'd not been to before. Other than that, February was the usual round of work and cafes. We had a few days of being on strike, so my goal of working fewer than half of the days in each month was fulfilled, albeit not in the way I intended...
It was good to see some sunshine though, and to spend some time in the garden. Slowly, it feels like summer might eventually appear on the horizon. January has been a funny month. I didn't go back to work until the 9th, but we'd both been ill over the new year, and that dragged on well into January. It felt at the time like nothing was being done, but when we got to the end, I felt like we'd achieved quite a bit. Let's see... Chickens First of all, the chickens. We picked up two new ladies, of course - Skippy and Daisy. They're settling in nicely, gaining more confidence and loudly demanding treats along with the others. The older chickens were very shouty for a couple of days, but soon got used to the idea of the newcomers. They're still separated at the minute - we did try a little supervised mingling today but that's a story for February's post... The other chicken story was that Bessie started showing slight signs of being unwell, and as she is pretty elderly for an ex battery chicken (five and a half!) she was carted off to the vets very speedily. She had a rattly chest and an inflamed reproductive system, but after a new hormonal implant and a week of twice-daily antibiotics (neither of which she was pleased about), she seems to have made a full recovery. We would probably have mixed in the new chickens by now, but didn't want to make her more stressed while we were catching her every day to give her tablets... DIY progress Despite both human and chicken illness, we did manage some DIY and house sorting progress in January. I (finally) painted the second coat of yellow on the kitchen walls, we had a good sort out, got a few of the new thermal blinds finished up, and we rebuilt the bed and properly moved into the new bedroom. Very exciting. Making things I started making a few things again in January too. The thermal blinds are an ongoing project, of course, and I finally got round to making soap, and making a start on finishing a rag rug that's been sat in a box for years. The soap was a new recipe for me, but it seems to have worked better than the previous one I'd tried, and should be ready in a few weeks. Plotting and scheming The festive season is usually my favourite time for plotting and scheming for the current year. As I was ill, all this extended well into January. I made plans for all kinds - house and garden projects, work, excursions, meal planning etc. I love planning and making goals - it makes things far more likely to happen. I like it even more if I can do it in a cafe with a piece of cake, of course. Outside Not that much happened outside in January, aside from tending to the chickens. We've had a few snowy days (nothing too disruptive), a load of drizzle, and a bit of sunshine, but overall it's been pretty January-y and mostly the weather for staying cosy indoors, apart from an occasional brisk walk. My mind has turned a little towards the garden though, and on the list for the year is doing something more interesting with this space outside the house. That's about all there is to report for January I think. The usual round of house and car insurance comparisons (YAWN - but I did save us almost £200 so always worth doing). I do feel refreshed after a long break, even though I was ill for quite a bit of it. And it's nice to have a more regular supply eggs now we have two younger chickens again. February is already proving to be more outdoors than January, and some of my plans are coming to fruition (although never as quickly as I'd like), so let's see where that takes us...
For me, 2022 has been a fairly gentle year, a much needed rest after the chaos of 2021 and the strangeness of 2020. Let's have a little look back at how the year unfolded. I started with a review of 2021, declaring that I wanted 2022 to be more restful, and to keep the house slightly less chaotic - which I'm pleased to say have both been achieved. My post about December on the homestead showed the state the house had become, and I'm delighted it's never got to that level since. January on the homestead was a busy one - we didn't do any DIY, but we looked after a family member's dog while they were in hospital, and sadly lost Bunty chicken. On the homestead in February, we had lots of weather, noticed signs of spring, and started painting the kitchen (which I'm ashamed to say I still haven't finished!) March on the homestead was productive. The chickens were still in flockdown under the Avian Flu housing order, and we had two rather expensive home visits for Bessie, our oldest chicken. I did some batch cooking, painted the bedroom, cleaned out the greenhouse, turned the compost, cleared the veg garden, and finally took the Christmas tree down. In April, I pondered how to make this place feel more like home and less like a building site. My April on the homestead post shows that I spent a lot of time outside. We hired a power scythe to tackle the remainder of the hay field (which we won't be repeating), strimmed the garden, and ate our first meal of the year outdoors. In May, I talked about some local adventures I'd had, did some more wandering, and vowed to do even more in the future (which I never quite got round to). May on the homestead was pretty cheerful. The avian flu housing order was lifted, so the chickens could roam free again. I retreated from the internet and found a whole load more time. I finally got round to planting some seeds, and tidied up quite a bit in the house and garden. June on the homestead felt busy, although I wasn't sure there was much to show for it at the time. I harvested some fruit, wheelbarrowed a lot of woodchip, did some spring cleaning, and we had our dog friend to stay again for a few days. In July, I found myself getting back to making things - in this case a blanket for a friend's baby, a new hot water bottle cover, and some washing liquid (which I'm still not even half way through). In July on the homestead, we did a lot of lazing around with the chickens, tidied odd corners of the house, and pondered the general state of the garden (which was rather out of hand). Then I caught covid for the first time, and spent yet more time sitting around sewing. In August we sadly lost Bonny chicken. August on the homestead was all about scything, and it looked like we might just get a decent apple crop (spoiler - we didn't). September on the homestead involved yet more scything, and considerable progress was made. Moles took over the garden, I made Peter a new hat, we made a hay box, and I took part in the local well dressing. September was a nicely sociable month, so not much else done, but we spent a lot of time hanging around with other people, which was lovely. In October, we had a little trip to the seaside. On the homestead, my thoughts turned to the cold weather ahead, and I had a little foray into carpet fitting, and started making thermal blinds. In November, we unexpectedly lost Poppy chicken. We took a trip to Edinburgh for a wedding, and had a few local days out. In November on the homestead, I made more progress on my thermal blinds, and sewed some present bags. Sadly, the bird flu housing order came even earlier this year, so they went into flockdown quite early in November, having only been out for just over six months. I hope this doesn't become an annual occurrence, but it's looking increasingly likely that it will. December on the homestead saw yet more thermal blinds (for the kitchen this time), more present bags, and the start of some rather chilly weather.
So overall, 2022 was indeed more restful than 2021, and the house did stay the right side of chaos for most of the year, although I have despaired occasionally at how long it's taking us to get everything finished. And what about 2023? I'd like to write on here more - for most of 2022 I only managed one post a month, and while I'm glad I did that, I do miss more regular ramblings. 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. Outside, I want the chickens to finally get their new extension, the whole hay field to be scythed (I got so close in 2022!), the garden to be productive, all fruit and veg to be harvested, processed, and stored away in a beautiful pantry. Not too much to ask, is it? I'm not entirely sure where December has gone. I was at work for the first two weeks, in a flurry of activity leading to a deadline. My last day was the 15th - a complete luxury, which I planned for, as I only took a week off over Christmas last year and it wasn't long enough. We had some lovely weather at the start of the month. Beautiful, but very cold, and of course that was the very moment our boiler decided to conk out. All fixed now, thank goodness, and without too much inconvenience. We also had a spell of freezing rain - a bizarre type of weather, where it's so cold that the rain freezes instantly and coats whatever it comes into contact with in a layer of ice. Absolutely treacherous, and I was glad I didn't have to go any further than the chicken run. My thoughts, unsurprisingly, have been on keeping warm. I finished a couple of my thermal blinds and got them up in the kitchen. I'm delighted with them, they make the room far more cosy, and they're bright and cheerful. I bought the thermal fabric for this project, but all the other material we had lying around, bought in charity shops many years ago. We've got another two to hang in the kitchen, and two in the bedroom. While I had the sewing machine out, I made a load of present bags from a couple of festive table cloths I picked up in a charity shop recently. I love using present bags instead of wrapping paper - I made several last year, but they weren't particularly festive, and my technique has improved the more I've made. I finished my Christmas shopping on 23rd December, which might not sound early, but is an improvement on most years, when I usually end up buying the final things between Christmas and new year, or even after that. Not this year though. I'm really pleased I had time for some pre-Christmas cafe trips and general hanging around, because since then, things have gone rather awry. Peter has been ill since Christmas eve, and now I'm full of cold as well.
Before I got ill though, I did manage to squeeze in a race with my sister. We've done this race before, in 2018 - it lasts from sunrise to sunset, and you just do as many laps as you can. I love the concept of keeping going for the whole of the daylight hours, in the shortest days of the year. We managed 21.5 miles, and were giddy with success, and then I somehow got locked in the car park, which resulted in an hour traipsing around the playing fields in the dark and rain with another woman who was also trapped, until we managed to squeeze our way out of a pedestrian exit. That, combined with the race itself, and a two hour drive home during which I could not get warm, combined to make me rather stiff, and unsurprisingly, I caught Peter's cold, so now I'm poorly too. Since then, we've been cooped up inside the house, spending our time in separate rooms, each with a box of tissues and our choice of mindless tv, occasionally rousing ourselves to make a cuppa or take the chickens a treat. What a way to end the year. I'm glad I took over three weeks off work, because it means I've still got nine days left before I go back, and I'm going to need that time for family visiting, doing all the little jobs I vowed to do while I was off, and generally recovering. Back soon with some reflections on the outgoing year and some plans for the new one... November began with a chicken tragedy. We were all set to go away for two consecutive nights for the first time since getting chickens. My sister was coming to stay to keep them well stocked with treats. We picked our friend up from the airport, and as we were showing him around, we found Poppy Chicken dead in the garden. An utter shock - she hadn't seemed ill, and they'd all been seen wandering around together just half an hour earlier. It wasn't a fox - she had a wound in her neck which fits with what I'd expect from a stoat. We do see them regularly here, but I wouldn't have expected one to attack a full grown chicken in broad daylight. We'll never know if it attacked, or if she died from something else and the stoat was just passing after the event. We were, of course, distraught, and our friend's first visit here involved a chicken funeral. I'll do a separate memorial post when I can get at all my old photos. In the meantime, on to the rest of November. An exciting trip Like October, November began with a trip - two nights in Edinburgh for the wedding of some friends. Our excitement was marred by losing Poppy Chicken of course, but we had a good time nevertheless. Other jaunts We seem to have done a fair bit of galivanting in November, as we followed our Edinburgh trip with a visit to a friend in Lincoln, and then a wander down a local-ish canal. November also involved tea in some different places, and a visit to an exhibition of an artist whose work I'm very fond of, Sue Prince. Oh, and a trip to Trentham Gardens, where I've never been before, and where apparently I took no photographs. I did do quite a bit of Christmas shopping though. Sewing and more sewing November involved yet more sewing of thermal blinds, although I don't seem to have taken any pictures of the kitchen ones yet. You can see the cave-like window in the corner of this picture - it'll be so much nicer once there's a cheerful blind in front of it! I also picked up a couple of large pieces of festive fabric in a charity shop and while the sewing machine was out, made a few present bags ready for Christmas. Flockdown Sadly, the start of November brought the latest 'flockdown' - a housing order put into force by DEFRA to try to stop some of the spread and damage caused by the latest round of avian flu. Last year it started in early December, and lasted until 1st May. This year, it started on 7th November, and if it lasts until May again, the chickens will have been shut in their run for a full six months. Their run is big, and sheltered, which is great in this weather. We'd still like a bit of space that is more 'outdoors' (although still with a roof), and while we'd planned to start that last year, and even bought some materials, we never got round to it. Before flockdown started, we staked out where the posts with go - although I confess we still haven't got any further than that yet... I think that was it for November. Between jaunts and sewing and a work deadline or three, the month just whizzed past.
And now here we are, almost in the middle of December, which seems to be whizzing past in equal fashion. Only four more days at work before I break up for Christmas, and I am SO very ready. I like to spend the break plotting and scheming about the next year, so expect to see some of that here at some point soon. I should probably concentrate on getting the Christmas tree up first though. Gosh, that was a long time away from my little blog! My ancient laptop was behaving very oddly, and eventually just gave up altogether, and I've only just got round to replacing it (and figuring out the new photo software). Anyway, now we're here, let's go back in time to October, which feels like rather a long time ago now. A trip to the seaside October started with a much-needed trip to the seaside. We were there for less than 24 hours, but goodness me it was refreshing. The sun shone, we wandered a couple of miles along the beach from the hotel to the tower, munching chip butties and doughnuts. Then, once it went dark, a crowd of people formed - unknowingly we'd arrived during the World Fireworks Championship. Sadly this turned into a literal damp squib, as a downpour arrived not long after the start of the show, but we still had a marvellous time and returned home nicely reinvigorated. Exploring closer to home I met a friend for a walk, and we went somewhere close to home but new to me. It reminded me how I planned to do more exploring this year, and never really got round to it. Something else to add to the list for next year. Carpet fitting October's big project was fitting a carpet in my study. I spend a lot of time in this room, and it's one of the coldest in the house, partly because it barely gets any sun, but mostly because of the ceramic floor tiles. I did have a rug down, but it wasn't very warm, and there was still plenty of tile visible round the edges. We realised we had some spare rugs in the loft, and I thought I'd throw a few down to see if I could get the room a bit warmer. We retrieved some rugs from the loft, and at some point, Peter realised he'd got an entire carpet from Freegle a while back, and it was still sitting in an outbuilding. Would it fit the whole room?? Yes! Well, very nearly, and certainly more than the assortment of rugs would have done. But wait! If we're going to the trouble of putting down an entire carpet, we might as well put in some decent underlay and do it properly. Did you know underlay has a tog rating, like duvets? I didn't. This is 3.6 tog, 15mm thick, wool underlay, and it is SO warm. I've never laid underlay before, but how hard could it be? Obviously everything was a bit of a fiasco, as with all these jobs, especially when you don't really know what you're doing. The first thing was to lay carpet gripper rods, and because of the tiles, these couldn't be nailed to the floor, but had to be glued. We took all the furniture out of the room, and I was reminded yet again that life sometimes seems like one long game of House Tetris. After gluing the gripper rods, we decided to remove the giant bookcase from the room (I was originally going to go round it, to save the hassle of dismantling). Yet more faffing - especially when I realised I'd painted the room AFTER installing the bookcase... Gripper rods down, bookcase dismantled, gripper rods under the bookcase removed and re-glued, first coat of paint. The original cream paint was eggshell, and I was painting matt, so it was really patchy to start with, and I realised that even with two coats, it was going to be a slightly different colour than the rest of the room. I ended up doing one coat on the missed bits, and then another two coats round the whole room to even things up. Finally, it was time to fit the carpet! I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor like this, despairing. Why had we FOLDED it before putting it in the outbuilding? Who folds carpet?? Certainly not professional carpet fitters. Still, the aim of this project was warmth, not perfection, and a lumpy carpet is better than no carpet at all. Slowly, after some rather unconventional smoothing techniques, it was starting to take shape. Yes, that is indeed an upturned coffee table filled with heavy things, and if you imagine me lying face down and essentially using this as a giant iron, you won't be far off the truth. The carpet didn't quite fit into the final alcove, but I did a bit of patching with the chunk cut out for the fireplace, and it doesn't look too bad. I'm definitely considering this a triumph. I've put the original rug back over the top, and I've not had the electric heater on while I'm working since the carpet went down. I can't tell you how thrilling it is to be able to work at my laptop without fingerless gloves on. We decided not to put the bookcase back in. Instead, we moved the sofa bed, so it's now possible to have the bed folded out and still use the rest of the room, which is very handy. It does mean that all my books are temporarily in a different room (House Tetris again), and we now need to build some more bookshelves. Still, I have learned some new skills, and we now own a knee kicker for the next time we need to fit a carpet. Thermal blinds October was apparently the month I turned my attention to the impending winter, as the other project I started was also all about warmth. We don't have curtains in either new bedroom or the kitchen/dining room, and not only does that mean things get decidedly chilly at night, especially in the kitchen, but it doesn't feel cosy to sit there looking at giant black squares once it's gone dark outside. Curtains would have been the easiest option, but Peter's not a fan, and I don't like the way you end up tucking them behind radiators. Instead, we decided to go with simple blinds, and because we try to avoid paying for things we can do ourselves, I declared I'd make them. I measured all the windows, six in total (two upstairs, four downstairs), and ordered some thermal fabric. This isn't fleecy, it's just really tightly woven. I started with upstairs - that way they would be mostly out of public view if my experiments didn't quite work. We found some fabric we'd bought years ago in a charity shop, and some bits of wood for the top and bottom. Then I started scratching my head (and swearing) as I tried to figure out how on earth to put everything together. The fabric is beautiful, but shiny and ever so slightly stretchy. There was also only just enough, meaning no room for excess seams. I wanted the pattern to be straight, I didn't want it too bulky at the sides where it would be rolled, and also the three layers of fabric really needed to be attached together all the way across so it didn't go saggy. The first one was quite painful, but once I'd figured it out, things went a lot more smoothly. These are red and gold on the front, black and gold on the back, with a layer of thermal fabric in the middle. They look fantastic, and, as is the way of things, they are still not hung up at the windows (that's a job for this week...). They do go very nicely with the ridiculous gold and orange walls in the bedroom though. The ones for the kitchen use a different pair of fancy fabrics, but they didn't get started til November (and still aren't finished). Fungi So, back outside, and on a wander round our fields with a visitor, we discovered a wealth of fungi. I confess I don't have a clue what any of this is, and I never did get out the identification book to check. Maybe next year. So there we are - a potted run down of what was happening here in October. I didn't spend much time outside, and did nothing much in the garden. Still, a trip away, learning how to fit a carpet, and redecorating an entire room isn't a bad list of achievements for a single month.
November to follow soon... September was rather sociable. We spent a lot of time in cafes, and at other people's houses, and we had people to visit every weekend and sometimes during the week too. It was lovely - although it did mean that the DIY was a bit neglected. The hay meadow One thing that wasn't neglected was the hay field. I was out there whenever I could, and both my mum and a friend did a full day of scything and raking as well. We made lots of progress. I'd left several rows of cut grass, so the first job was to rake all those up into piles, and ferry them to the new grass dumping ground, where I hope it will all rot down nicely into compost for next year. It definitely started to feel like we were getting somewhere. I've been keeping a record, and it seems we only actually spent 14 hours in this field in September, and that included the hours done by my mum and my friend. It doesn't seem like much - I did 24 hours in August on my own - but it was all just over two days, with the rest of the month given over to being sociable. The woodland One of our visitors is rather a tree expert, and was interested in inspecting our fledgling woodland. Of course, it still looks absolutely nothing like a woodland, but I was impressed how many trees were growing over the top of their guards. It's interesting to see how the different species are faring. We saw a lot of alder, birch, rowan, field maple, aspen, and oak, a good number of hawthorn, blackthorn, and hazel. We didn't spot any willow, but there are only 15 of those in a field of 1000 trees, so I'm not too surprised. We also didn't spot any beech - there should have been 45 of those, so again, not too surprising, although there are only 45 birch too and we did see plenty of those. It'll be good to see how it all works out. There were a few that hadn't made it, which is only to be expected. At some point over the winter I'll try to start gathering in the guards and stakes from those, and seeing if I can pass them on to someone else. We did pick a few blackberries while we were down in the fields, but not as many as I'd hoped to. I spotted them at the right time this year, but didn't pick them until later, when they were mostly gone. Oh well, there's always next year. Moles Another outdoor preoccupation in September was moles. Now, I have no interest whatsoever in a pristine lawn, and nothing at all against moles in principle. However, this summer our garden has become home to a very enthusiastic mole, who seems determined to colonise the entire garden. I don't really mind - but we did start getting concerned for the chicken run, after every trip to the compost bin resulted in one of us sinking into a mole tunnel. The chicken run doesn't have foundations - it's just built on top of breeze blocks, and the speed at which the surrounding ground was collapsing was quite alarming. September saw us make several failed attempts to encourage the moles into the hay field (which is very close, and where they could have free run) but to no avail. We resorted to more drastic measures, which I'll report in October's post. The hay box Moving inside now, but still thinking about hay - we made a hay box. This is extremely exciting, and something I've been meaning to get round to for a while. There's a fair bit of talk about these at the minute given the rise in electricity prices, but I don't know anyone who's made one. We talked about all kinds of fancy plans, but in the end just took a plastic storage box, and filled it with hay. Nestled a pan in the middle to make a hole, which we draped inelegantly with an old pillowcase. We stuffed another pillowcase with hay to put on top, and finished the whole thing off with a stone from the garden. The idea is that you bring your food up to the boil, then put it straight into the hay box, where it finishes cooking. These were, of course, popular in war time, and now there are a variety of thermal bag alternatives. We are complete converts, and have made all kinds in here - I did rather go overboard on how much rice I made (but it's brilliant having cooked brown rice in the freezer!) A new hat I've started making Peter a new hat. I've made a few of these before, but never got round to making a proper template, and it usually takes me a few goes to get right. It's still not quite finished, but I've been having fun making it (although there has been quite a bit of cursing too). Other things There's nothing much else to report from September. I got involved in the village well dressing, which was fun. We also went for a bit of a local walk, and spotted what I'm pretty sure was a red kite - not too common round these parts. Other than that, September was mostly just hanging out, either at friend's houses, in our own kitchen, or in our favourite cafe. Overall, a nice, cheerful month. October so far has been less sociable, but more DIY has been done. Will report back soon.
August was all about one thing round here - hay. Well, more specifically, scything, as hay itself is more of a by-product - my main aim is to reduce the fertility of this field (by cutting and removing the grass), and therefore eventually increase the biodiversity, ultimately restoring something like what would have been a traditional hay meadow habitat. Anyway, I started slightly later than I intended, as I had covid towards the end of July, and it took a couple of weeks to get back up and running. And I started in a different corner of the field this year, aiming for a diagonally upwards direction. So I started at the bottom left of the field, and slowly, an hour at a time, edged in rather curved lines, up the field. It was hard going though. Theoretically, it should have been easier than last year - heading diagonally upwards means you're depositing the cut hay slightly downhill to your right, rather than slightly uphill. I made a good attempt to peen the scythe, which should make it easier to scythe. That worked a little bit, and I did get quite a bit cut and removed, and stacked up in the shed. I was doing all this on my own though, and it proved to be too difficult to make wheelie bin bales like I did in previous years (with help), and so it's all been piled haphazardly in the back of an outbuilding. Not very scenic, and a bit of a nuisance, but we are all about practicalities here. I was still having a tough time scything though, and tried switching to my longer scythe blade. This lasted about five minutes, until I misjudged the length, and impaled a water butt, meaning I had to abandon the scything to rescue the precious water leaking rapidly into the field. The longer scythe blade was quickly abandoned after that, not least because what I'm trying to scythe isn't beautiful swishy meadow, but rather an assortment of clumpy, uneven grass. About this point, I sent the scythe blade to be professionally sharpened. I also decided to start again in a different corner of the field. This meant I'd be heading downhill, and therefore depositing the cut hay slightly uphill, which isn't ideal. However, the grass by this point had flopped over rather a lot, and general consensus seems to be that it's best to cut with the grass flopped over away from you, rather than towards you. Between this, and the newly sharpened scythe blade, things started moving an awful lot more quickly. This is where I started on 20th August. Ninety minutes later, I'd done the first row. And by the end of the following day, after eight hours of scything over the two days, I was starting to feel like I might actually get to the end of the field this year, for the first time ever. By the end of August, I'd done seven long rows, along with cutting and raking the bit I'd started with originally. Getting there. So, twenty four hours of scything in August, and while that doesn't sound that much, it was mostly achieved an hour or two at a time, after work, or in between weekend activities. You'll have to wait (not very long!) for September's update... In other news... We lost Bonny chicken, of course, which we are all very sad about. I'm so glad she had her final days hanging out in the hay field, rooting for critters. The apples were still looking good at the end of August, although nowhere near ready to pick. I'm afraid there's nothing much else to report from the homestead for August. All my spare energy went into scything, so there was no weeding, or any other garden activity, aside from the occasional bit of sitting on a bench. There was no painting of the kitchen - I wonder how many months I'm going to be saying that?
September's update soon (I hope...) |
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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