After yesterday's complaining, I made a conscious effort to drag myself back to cheerfulness, starting (of course) with a nice cup of tea. Far too windy to drink it outside, but it was very nice to feel the sunshine through the living room window, and I've enjoyed having these roses which some friends gave us last weekend. I spent quite a lot of the day outside, with no particular plan, and the rest of it inside letting my face recover from being buffeted by the wind. I realised I'd missed National Meadows Day on Saturday. For the last couple of years I've been to open days at local meadows, but that wasn't possible this year, so I wandered into the middle of ours to see what was growing. Lots of things, as it turned out, but it was so windy it was difficult to take a photo of them. I'll write a separate post about managing our meadow I think - each year I learn more and I'm getting a better idea of what needs doing and when. The gooseberries were starting to ripen - not the red ones I planted, but the green ones on the edge of the field, which I've missed for the last two years because the birds spotted them before I did. I've harvested a few (they're now in the freezer) and will keep checking. The blackcurrants are nearly ready too. While I was out pottering round the garden, I turned the compost (and oddly enough later had a conversation with my sister about compost bins for her garden). The first bay wasn't full, but it was becoming a bit of a tower and has had a lot of hay and chicken bedding added lately, so I shifted it to the second bay and mixed it up a bit. Some of the middle was quite dry, so hopefully the rain will give it a bit of a soak today. I also spent quite a bit of time with the chickens, old and new. Peter's built a temporary outdoor run attached to the main run so the new ladies can get used to the fresh air without roaming completely free yet. It also means there's plenty of space for a bit of 'enforced mingling', although at the minute the two factions prefer to stay quite far apart from each other. The new ladies are making themselves at home and seem quite comfortable with us, and when they're on their own, but are very wary of the older ladies. The older ladies are also fine when on their own, but are quite put out about having imposters living in their space. Bessie seems to be on the mend now she has her implant, but Rusty has been acting a bit too quiet for the last couple of days, although she did lay this soft-shelled egg yesterday which might explain a few things. We had a bit of a downpour in the afternoon so I came inside to tidy up a bit, and found one of these tiny fairy eggs that I'd collected a few weeks ago and shoved on a shelf near the back door and forgotten about. I love these - we've only ever had four in nearly two years of chicken keeping. They're shaped just like a normal egg but tiny. I've added it to the collection I keep on the windowsill. More rain, so I sorted out some clothes, and cleared up the kilo of dried mealworms that had vibrated itself down the side of the freezer when the washing machine was on earlier in the day (I'd also left my watch in the pocket of my jeans so that was not a successful wash overall!) Eventually it stopped raining, so back out to do a bit of tidying in the greenhouse, which I'd neglected for so long that the thistles had started growing through the handle of my watering can. We caught a mouse near the back door (probably harvesting the rest of the mealworms from under the freezer) and drove a couple of miles to release it in the Mouse Layby up on the moors (where we release all our mice into the wilds). Once the chickens were all shut in, I made a start on digging my experimental french drain. There's a really soggy area in the field next to our edible windbreak, which gets even more soggy when trampled by the cows, and drains across the gateway, making even more mud. I'm hoping I can drain some of it off into a space in the garden which can stay damp most of the year, and soggy for some of it, and which will hopefully stop the field (or at least the gateway) getting too wet. Bit of a project, at least when you're being stubborn and doing it on your own with a pickaxe. But I thought I might as well take advantage of the wall having fallen down to lay a bit of pipe underneath it.
I don't really know what I'm doing, of course, but other people have laid french drains before so it can't be impossible, right? I'll figure it out. So, altogether not a bad day, and it did lift me out of the funk I'd dipped into. The sunshine played a big part in that, of course, but so did doing something, reading, growing, digging, pottering. I must remember all this next 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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