Ah June. The weather has been glorious, and everything else has been chaos. A new car (and a new battery the next day), two teeth removed (one for each of us), three vet trips (and the loss of poor old Beaky), kitchen designers galore, on top of work and the normal day-to-day rumble of life, have all conspired to make June feel far from calm. As usual though, progress has been made here on the homestead, and it's so nice to look back, because on a day to day level I usually feel like we're getting nowhere fast at all. So let's take a look. Chicken run extension First up is the extension to the chicken run. We started planning this last year, before the avian flu housing restrictions, but it only became a reality in the last few weeks, when a couple of friends helped us make a start. The chickens themselves had a month of mixed fortunes - Rusty had a new hormonal implant, and we discovered poor old Beaky had a tumour, and had to let her go towards the end of the month. They all spent a lot of time lazing around in the sunshine though, which I'm very grateful for. They also spent a bit of time dust bathing in my veg patch, and I don't begrudge them that one little bit. While they lay around in the sunshine, we slowly got on with making their extension. First up, levelling - my least favourite job in the whole world (although it turns out it's easier when your spirit level is actually level). Then Peter made a couple of sides, and once they were on the whole thing started to feel like it might one day get finished. The new chickens took every opportunity to have a dust bathe in the construction site - very helpful. Now the garden looks like a building site, as well as the house, but the end is in sight, and we're hopeful it will have a roof in July, preferably before the builders arrive, as the chickens will need to be shut in while they're here. The veg patch Finally in June I planted most of the seedlings out of the greenhouse - well, those that hadn't died of neglect, that is. Several different types of beans, some squash, peas (which swiftly shrivelled to nothing), kale, and sprouts. They were all starting to look ok by the end of June, but not as far as I'd like. Let's see what July brings. Meadows The grass started to shoot up in June. I don't know why this always takes me by surprise. I looked back at my post from May today and laughed - it seems I thought the grass was out of control then, and now some of it is up nearly my waist! The woodland fields are full of wildflower, and I'm wondering whether I should be doing something to stop the new trees from getting overwhelmed... but they seem to be doing ok, and I have enough to do. I've had both the scythe and the strimmer out, tidying up various bits of the garden (mostly to get at other bits of the garden) but I won't start hay making until near the end of July. I don't think there's much else to report from June. Free time has been taken up liaising with kitchen designers (a thing I thought I'd never do, but here we are), trips to look at potential cars, and visits to the vets and the dentist. And a sneaky bit of working in the garden, of course. July's weather hasn't been great so far, but I've got a couple of weeks off work coming up and I hope the sun will be shining. I'd like to get the chicken run extension finished, and the final decisions made for the kitchen, and a firm date booked in for the builders to arrive. I'm hoping the veg patch will start producing, and maybe we'll have our first harvests. And the end of July should see the start of hay making. I'd love to manage the whole field this year.
As usual though, we'll see.
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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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