Down the Rushy Glen

Keen to stop all this lovely rain water going to waste, we decided that it would be a good idea to invest in a couple of the huge (1010 litre) water 'butts' that everyone uses round here. These could be a reservoir for refilling the pond and also for irrigating the poly tunnel but also to supply drinking water to a drinker on our East Field for the horses and soon the sheep. These come from Coca Cola in Dublin originally and are for sale at anything from about €45 to €75 but have lately been in short supply. We have clubbed together with Mentor(s) Anne and Simon who can possible get them, delivered, at the €45 end of the scale, but their supply has dried up, so we nipped out and got a pricier one locally, collecting it with the trailer. We want to start accumulating water now so that we have a full tank by the time we finish the pond.

We have rigged up a bit of 2nd hand guttering (also, partly, from Anne and Simon) to collect the water from the car port roof. These tanks are only made from plastic and aluminium, so are nice and light when empty, so that Liz and I could easily lift it between us and wrangle it into position. After a bit of rain over night it is already 5-6 inches deep in water. We find that we are now ahead of the curve. Keeping your rain water separate from the sewers is the LATEST THING in eco-warrior terms and is called "Blue-Greening". Get us!

Look at any picture of the East Field we have printed up to now and you will see a mess of rushes tall enough to tickle the bellies of sheep and horses, tall enough to hide them if they lie down. These grow easily here-abouts as soon as the land is allowed to get wet and neglected. The cattle will not eat them, so they just get worse and eventually take over the fields, rendering them useless as pasture unless the farmers bother to spray them and mow the fields; not many do unless pushed, as in this year, by serious shortage of fodder, or forced contractually by their landlords.

We do not want to be negligent managers of our grassland, and the sight of all those rushes was preying on our minds. I was going to have to hire a brush cutter for a day and have at them. I was talking about this to our fencing guy, Paul M and, generous guy that he is, he offered me the lend of his meaty, 'professional' strimmer to try out. This turned out to work like a dream, scything through the clumps like a knife through hot butter. The field is one and a half acres, so it took a few hours (about 4), some replacement "string" (tough nylon cord in the strimmer head) and 4 tanks of petrol but it looks very good now.

The rushes were sprayed last year by Mike the Cows when he was using the field for his cattle, so they are possibly weakened, and some have grass growing among the rush root-plate, but the theory is that the soft rush regrowth can be eaten by horses and sheep which should finish the tufts off and grass will win the grazing war in the end. Our pasture will be like a rush-free garden lawn (!). Liz fancied a go at this strimming game so we kitted her out with her best pink wellies, and my Husqvarna chain-saw gloves, helmet, mesh visor and ear defenders and she was away. It is not on record who she was thinking of as the whirling string zipped through the tufts sending a spray of mashed rush fibre flying in all directions and the decapitated stalks whipping away in the wind.

Meanwhile we have sought (and gained) permission from John Deere Bob to go newt surveying on the little pond at the bottom of his bank field. We explained that we might have to go look during daylight but also at night with a torch. Looking a bit twinkly eyed at Liz as if calculating how much he might get away with as a tease he warned us to be wary of the faeries in the dark down there as there were known faerie-forts (raths) near that water. I am remembering Pud Lady's little rhyme from when we were all small

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.......

A Little Drop of Rain

Coo! When it decides to rain round here, there's no messing about. Buckets came down overnight, hammering on the roof and windows, blasted against the front of the house on a strong southerly wind. From no puddles and reasonably dry last night despite a bit of rain on Wednesday morning while we were fencing, I woke up to the biggest puddles I think we have had so far. The local lough, Lough Feigh has trebled in size overnight from a raggedy ribbon of wet between rambling beds of rush and reed, to an impressive expanse of open water. The reed/rush beds are submerged and the 'banks' are now grass fields further out. The local river, the R. Lung has risen from showing a yard of exposed bank, to brim full. A pipe-drain emptying into it under the bridge with a gurgling splashy drop of 4 feet is suddenly half submerged so that the water joins the river on the level like a tributary stream.

My part-dug pond was an almost complete sheet of (muddy) water. I will not be digging any pond today; that's for sure, but it is comforting to know that the pond is pretty level and is also in the right place in terms of catchment area. We are actually on top of a low hill here so nowhere is going to be that 'right' but we do have a small hollow centred around this part of the garden, partly because of the TK Max and TK Min apparent habit of bulldozing all the top soil off the yard and piling it up in heaps against our western boundary hedge. John Deere Bob tells us that many locals see topsoil as an expensive resource worth stock piling, so if an area was to be used for storing bales or farm machinery, then the soil (they say it "sale" here) would be scraped off. The result here is a big dam of soil along our boundary which prevents rain running off so we have a bit of a 'bowl' in which to construct the pond.

There are other dints and hollows which collect nice puddles much to the delight of the gander who splashes about dipping his head and neck under the surface, then rearing his head to shower the water backwards across his back, wings and tail. Suddenly he will honk excitedly and charge across the puddle splashing his feet down like a child playing in his wellies. We guess he wishes his womenfolk were not focused on being broody and might come out to play.

It's comforting to know that at least it drains away almost as quickly as it arrives. Almost, but not quite. Within a few days of no rain these puddles will be gone and even the pond will be dig-able. The house and yard area are the same - one of the main driving forces to our building project was to get rid of the damp and let it stay away - ivy was stripped off the walls, rainwater goods and guttering were all replaced with new, down pipes were linked to gullies (4 inch pipes) under the yard to take water quickly away to the ditches we had had cleared by mini-digger. The septic tank got a huge pebble-filled pit dug just 'downstream' of itself to ensure 'water' cleared fast and efficiently. My veg plot got its ridges and raised beds and these were aligned up/down the slopes to help clear water and our use of mini-horses and sheep on the East Field is mainly about repairing the damage done by heavy cattle squelching up the ground into a non-draining foot print divot mess ("poaching" in grass management parlance). All the overgrown areas of this hectare have been cleared and turned, for now, into short grass to help drying out and run-off when it does stop raining. Our living-hedge wind breaks are nice, thirsty, willow.

Let it rain - we can cope!

New Feed, New Fence, New Freedom!

Our chickens went on strike! Egg laying sputtered to a halt and stopped altogether. We have been messing around with ones twos and threes a day (from 4 'layers') earlier in the year and then 'lost' Betty to a broodying session and now to being an excellent Mum to the 8 chicks, so that we were down to one or two a day. We had a couple of generous donations of a dozen each time from Mentor Anne who is getting glutted out from her 30-odd birds so we've been OK but we were always suspicious that one hen was not pulling her weight at all. We have a slight problem that we cannot tell the Lovely Girls apart so we weren't sure this wasn't two hens laying every other day, but we have one girl spending so much time with William that she is always copping his amorous advances and her feathers are quite worn out across her 'saddle'. This one never seems to be 'missing' (as in off to lay her egg).

Last week this low production took a turn for the worse and one hen started laying very thin-shelled or shell-less eggs which were getting broken in the nest boxes and going to waste. Some days we had no eggs at all. We referred the case to 'Doctor Anne' who asked us all sorts of questions and homed in on diet. I have been feeding the local feed merchant's "standard" grade layers pellets but lately have found that their 25 kg sacks contain a lot of pellets broken down to dust size, so that the feed looks like it might be the sweepings from the end of a production run. At Anne's suggestion we have started the hens on Pedigree Foods' Organic Layers Ration. We have also discontinued the 'mixed poultry corn' which contains maize (and might, these days, be the GMO version of maize) and are going with local feed-wheat. It may take a few days for this new nutrition to work through but today (almost certainly by chance) was a 2-good-egg day. We will tell you how we get on. We are also going to fit the birds' legs with coloured leg-rings so that we can identify the non-layer and, if she doesn't watch it and these baby chicks come up to laying age, she may find herself in the stock pot.

The biggest project recently is our fencing of the 1.5 acre East Field with sheep-proof (and therefore mini-horse proof) fencing. This has been done by our fencing guy Paul M with me helping him as labourer. If you are interested in the detail, sheep fence is high-tensile square mesh about 3 feet high with smaller holes at the bottom (to stop baby lambs) with a strand of high tensile barbed wire at the top. It is all strained to bass-guitar twanginess using a thing called a 'monkey strainer', so it has massive 10" 'strainer' posts at each corner and for the gate posts and narrower (4 inch?) posts in between about every 3-4 yards. The strainer posts can be braced and buttressed with extra diagonal posts. The whole field is, as I said, 1.5 acres or about 127 yards by 44 yards, i.e. about 340 yards total fence which will set you back about €1050 installed. It's one of the bigger investments in the small holdering game, but good fencing should last you 10-20 years.

We started the task last Thursday afternoon, had a quick couple of hours on Friday morning before Paul had to go off and attend a wedding, missed Monday for Bank Holiday, and then got properly stuck in on Tuesday and today (in the rain). We'd done by about 4 pm. Paul joined us for tea and scones and then I had to show him a couple of bits Vendor Anna needs on her bit of land and then he was gone. He's a lovely bloke and great fun to work with, being full of local stories and anecdotes. We would happily use him again and I would recommend him to anyone round here who needs fencing done.

 We are delighted and feel like we have "got our field back". Since last year it has just had the beef fence (3 strands of barbed) between us and the field to stop Mike-the-Cows's cows from straying onto our lawns and garden and was open to the north. It felt like we didn't own it and shouldn't go there. Now we can come and go through the new gate opening by our Utility Room and the fences around the 'outside' stop animals coming and going across our boundaries.

At 5 o'clock then, we were ready to unleash the horses. We had two at that stage, Bob and Cody, who had been tethered on the lunge-reins since Sunday 5th and we had been moving them on to new grass each day. Now we could lead them into the field and take off the head collars and let them run free. And RUN they did, all overcome with excitement at the new space, grass and freedom, not seen since November last year. They took off at a full gallop, racing in great arcs up and down the field full of the joys, like a couple of mad youngsters (they are actually about ten years old). I walked round the field showing Liz the fencing (I know! I know how to show a lady a good time!) as they raced away and back past us again and again. It was lovely to see.

After a while they calmed down and set to eating. I texted Carolyn to say the field was now ready and soon, Charlotte showed up with the other horse, Romeo (he of the cart pulling). We let him go into the field and the others were so delighted to have him back that they went racing around again. It is a brilliant funny sight to see three Thelwell style ponies galloping about as a group as fast as their little legs will carry them.

Happy Horses (and happy roses and rhubarb!).

Deux Cheveaux?

A quick catch up on happenings around the livestock. In the last post you met miniature horse Romeo, he of the cart-pulling. This afternoon we have 'taken delivery' of his two stable mates, Cody and Bob. Both of these guys have posh pedigree names longer than they are; Cody's is "something something Da Vinci Code" (sorry - I wasn't paying attention!). He's the dark brown and white, 'entire' purebred Falabella stallion. His 'oppo' is Bob, the pale brown Miniature Shetland who, like Romeo, is a gelding. I am not explaining 'entire' and gelding' - if you need to know look them up.

We are currently half way through the job of fencing the east field for sheep (which will also make it miniature horse proof) and when we have done that, probably Tuesday or Wednesday evening, all three horses can go in there for the Summer to keep the grass under control and eat off the rushes. These two are fortunately quite happy to live on the end of a tether short term, so they have been brought down early to eat grass round till the field is available. Romeo, sadly can't 'do' tethering, apparently and gets himself all tangled up and then stands pathetically waiting to be rescued, so he has to wait, but he has the big horse for company.

These horses are only a borrow. They are owned by our friends Charlotte, Carolyn and Keiran from down the road. With the current fodder crisis in this part of the country due to late, cool spring and everyone running out of hay and silage, Carolyn had not been able to get agreement on grazing these horses on any land so they were eating bought in food and living in a sand-school since last November. Well, now they have grass under their hooves and bellies full of the stuff.

The theory is that the east field will support these three mini-horses with enough spare for this year's lambs when we get them and between the two species we should be able to improve the grass and get rid of the cattle-damage (poaching) and rushes. I may have to brush-cut the rushes but the soft re-growth will be eaten by the horses and the grass will then out-compete the rush plants.

With both of our female geese now broody and apparently working as an efficient brooding team (much to our amazement) the poor ol' Gander is feeling a bit lost and lonely with no-one to talk to all day. He has taken to hanging around the Broody Betty run and her baby chicks, seeming to have adopted them to protect. Perhaps they bring out some of his father instincts being a bit like goslings, but what ever the reason he shouts and yells his warnings at any hooded crows or magpies which fly over.

When he's not with the chicks, he tends to hang about with the rooster and the Lovely Girls but they are a bit less welcoming of his advances and tend to give him a wide berth. Poor old boy! Still, the geese should sort themselves out one way or another between about the 22nd and 27th of this month. He'll either have real goslings to defend, or presumably we forget procreation stuff, all go back to normal and the three geese can wander about as before.

Finally, the 'always-female' rabbits are back from their 'dirty weekend' at Charlotte's. Padfoot, our black and white lop-eared has been mated to a purebred lop buck, Ginny, the grey and white not-lop sister has been mated to a black and white 'Dutch' pattern buck. Due date for these expectant mothers is June 2nd and they have, for only the 2nd time in their lives, been separated in case of any jealousy fights over nest sites, new born 'kittens', or just territory. They can see each other through the mesh and touch noses, but not get at each other. The 'formerly male but now female' Buck Rogers (now either Ginger Rogers or 'Nibbles' according to preferences) is now also pregnant but is now the property of Charlotte.

That's about it for this one. As I said, Two-horses but not in the 2CV sense! Have a good Bank Holiday.

Of Liz and Buck, Romeo and Ginger.

Liz is safely back among those present - I collect her from Knock Airport on Monday 29th afternoon. She's had a lovely (mainly) Girly Weekend among all the old chums from Darkest Kent and further afield (Aberdeen and Hamburg!), Diamond, Mazy and co, eaten and drunk in some lovely pubs and restaurants, chatted, caught up on the gossip, and generally had a good ol' time. These boys and girls have been together for years and they call this annual get-together, their 'AGM'. The location rotates around where-ever one or more live, so it was just a coincidence that the 'Kent Lot' got it just after we moved away. It gave Liz a nice chance to go visit and, while she was there, look up our former neighbours, Angel B and Jim.

 We have mentioned before that we have made some new friends in this townland (village), namely Carolyn and Keiran and that we have now done the all important mutual you-show-me-your (small holding) if I show you ours. On visiting 'theirs' we also got to meet 18 year old daughter Charlotte and 'new' (14 months) baby Henry as well as meeting all the livestock (including the pigs who we may end up doing half-carcass swapsies with for one of our lambs this year) and the horses. They are a great bunch and we hope we have made some firm friends. Keiran is also a carpenter so we may be using him soon on out-building doors.

For quite some time we found ourselves chatting to Charlotte who has a happy, friendly way about her and an accent which veers between local (Roscommon), Dublin (Dad) and Manchester (Mum). She has obviously grown up in the small holding environment and is very well versed in all things goose, pig, duck and, particularly rabbit (she has 18 at present) and horse (she has three miniatures and a Welsh Cob). Our chat around rabbits ended up by us offering her our Buck Rogers whom we had bought last year to mate with Ginny and Padfoot but who, we thought, might be too young or small; anyway, no babies materialised.

Charlotte's three miniature horses were used for showing around agricultural shows and in some cases in pony/trap driving competitions. What they do not have on their holding, however, is any winter grass for the horses to graze, so the 4 are kept in a sandy-floored yard and fed expensive hay and other proprietary feeds. All around here the farmers have been struggling with supplies of silage and fodder for cattle, and Carolyn has not yet been able to get agreement from the farmer who usually lets the horses graze his land. They are a bit stuck so Liz and I decided we might be able to help. We are about to have our 1.5 acre East Field fenced with sheep (and therefore horse) proof fence and will not actually need it for sheep till August or September, so why not let these horses have our grass. Horses are also good at grazing when tethered, so we could use them to keep the lawn and other bits down, saving me having to mow. Also in this mix is that the horses have grown a bit fat and lazy over the winter and Charlotte would like to get them fitter and leaner during the summer.

To cut a long story short we offered Charlotte the buck rabbit but told her she had to come and collect him in the pony and trap. That way we could try to reproduce our circa 1900 picture of the house with the ponies and traps queued up along the front which I have included in an earlier post. The lucky horse would also get to eat some genuine grass while we wrangled rabbits and drank tea. The horse Charlotte chose to bring was one called Romeo who is actually an International Champion horse. He is of the breed 'Falabella' but he is a cross with a Miniature English horse (sorry, didn't write this down so I am not sure what breed) and he is a gelding. The other two are a pure bred Falabella stallion and a miniature Shetland (I think). So we were honoured to have the impeccably behaved Romeo on our lawn.

Meanwhile, Charlotte wanted to get a good look round our rabbits. Buck Rogers proved to be an in-season female! That at least explains why he never got very far mating with Ginny and Padfoot. Because SHE is a pale brown, Liz promptly renamed HER 'Ginger Rogers' and Charlotte said she'd love to take her anyway. She then grabbed up both Ginny and Padfoot, found that Ginny is also on heat and offered to take all three rabbits home with her to put with her 'proper' buck(s) and see if we couldn't get both of them pregnant this time. Concerned that her Mum would be wondering where she'd got to after all this chatting, rabbit wrangling and horse photography, she loaded all the rabbits onto the cart, hopped back aboard, Hyaa!'d Romeo into an easy trot and set off back down the drive and the lane home. Brilliant! We were all grinning like loons!

Last but not least we come to our geese who, contrary to my last report now both seem to have gone broody. Here, I am rather ashamed to admit, we have been guilty of some appallingly bad husbandry and failed to take on board the generous and freely given advice of Mentor Anne and Simon. They warned us that we'd need to separate the geese or risk nest robbing and egg-snaffling between the girls so that you'd never know who was still laying or whose eggs were whose, or whether those eggs had all gone the full 28-35 days of being brooded. This has indeed happened.

We tried, when we realised both were involved, to give them a hay box each, with a 6 foot gap between, but the 2nd box and any eggs we put in it, were ignored. With the two boxes next to each other at least both get sat on but who ever is sitting while the other one goes out to poo and freshen up, seems to then snaffle all the eggs into her own nest. A couple of days ago Goocie was definitely on 15 in the left hand box. Yesterday she is on all 15 (or maybe 16) in the right hand box. We do not like to get in and upset everyone by forcibly moving geese or eggs, so we are just going to let this one play out and when both geese have done their times, if we get any goslings we will be happy with that. We will try to get more organised next year. Our first possible hatching date for any of these 15 eggs is Wednesday 22nd May. The one thing in our favour is that the two females have always been inseparable and seem to be best of mates, so there is no fighting or arguing over eggs and, we hope, no disputing over any successful goslings. Wish us luck. Poor Gander is currently a bit lost and lonely with no ladies to parade around, so he spends his day hanging around with William the rooster or by Broody Betty and her chicks in the run.

Finally, last time Sparks was here he commented that it must be strange as well as nice, to wake up and then decide what 'work' you are going to do today. Well, for the first time in ages I know this one in advance. Our fencing guy, Paul M came by today to drop off all the straining posts and barbed wire for our fencing job on the East Field. Tomorrow I will therefore be lugging posts about, handling reels of barbed wire, monkey-strainers, staples, hammers and crow bars. I hope it's another lovely day like today. Finally-finally, Broody Betty and the 8 chicks are thriving. It's looking very promising.

Of Hatching Chicks and Flying Geese.

On the allotted day, Thursday Day 21, Broody Betty duly declared her eggs cooked and some of them successfully hatched. She then, however, kept this a deep dark secret, not revealing the existence of her new family by allowing any cheeping or by turfing out any broken open shells. She continued to sit in her trance like state and I assumed that nothing had happened yet and maybe we'd all have to wait till Day 22. When Day 22 arrived, Mentor Anne phoned to tell me that hers had hatched 'yesterday' and asked if we had had any luck. 'Had I looked?', she asked and advised me to lift the protesting BB off the nest. I did so and was delighted to find that we had 7 chicks in a variety of colours, 3 orangey, one pale lemon yellow, one multi-coloured and fetchingly striped and 2 black ones, plus an egg I could see with a crack running all around it, almost hatched. I pulled out the obvious broken shells (other eggs can lodge inside a broken half preventing that bird getting out) and let BB get back on while that 8th baby escaped her shell.

Liz is currently in the UK meeting a gang of friends, so had missed all this. The next day I had to take BB off the babies again to get photos for this blog and for Facebook and my poultry discussion forum. I quickly knocked together a 'verandah' for the nest box to prevent the problem we had last year of chicks falling out of the nest and, unable to get back in, getting chilled on the ground.

I used the verandah as a feeding platform to let the babies get at a small jar of water (you have to watch they can't drown themselves), a bowl of cold, hard boiled egg (with the shell chopped up really fine, egg is a good food supplement for the first couple of days) and some 'chick crumb'. Their Mum quickly shows them how to peck this up - she pecks gently with a crowd of baby beaks half an inch from her own like a scrum of fans round a celebrity.

Today the chicks are 3 days old and starting to get a bit too adventurous to be kept in the next box, even with the verandah (which worked perfectly, incidentally) so it was time to move them to a bigger space and, because it is a sunny, warm day (if a little windy), I decided that this could be one of the unused rabbit runs out on the grass. The grass is very short and the run gives them 2.5 m by 1 of run-around plus a nice cosy 'bedroom' into which I have put a shallow tray of nest hay where they can retreat at night. I covered the 'first' half metre or so of run with plastic sheet in case or rain. They LOVE this run and zoom about following Mum as she shows them how to scratch and what tasty morsels you can find among the grass by doing so. The rest of the chickens come and look curiously through the mesh at them.

On a more sombre note, this is also your chance to find out why the unhatched eggs did not 'work', cracking them open carefully over a compost heap (they can explode with decomposing filth!). Of my 4 I had 2 with no chick inside, just sloppy yolk and white, presumably infertile. One had a half-grown chick inside, he's presumably died along the way. My last had a fully formed but dead chick, fully feathered and with all the yolk sac absorbed. I am told that sometimes the chick can just get herself into a bad position where she can't open the egg from inside, or can be too weak to break the shell. These things happen. Generally 8 chicks from 12 eggs would be seen as a good successful clutch.

Meanwhile, in the Goose Department we now have Goocie (she with a few black feathers on her back) gone broody also as of the 25th. I cannot be 100% sure but I think this has also coincided with the other female (Goosey) coming off lay. Goocie appears to have adopted all eggs from both geese and is now sitting on 15. I did not get organised in time on the separation of the 2 ladies and this can cause nest-robbing. I have 2 hay boxes but they are too close, and Goocie has been able to drag all the eggs from the 'other box' up over the lip and into her nest, which she has now lined with breast feathers. Goosey seems to have now lost interest and spends all day out and about with Gander.

Geese incubate for 28-35 days according to (goose) size. It is quite normal for them to hop off the eggs twice a day for a bout 15-30 minutes each (Anne and Simon tell me). This lets the eggs cool down (which is needed) and gives the goose a chance to feed, bathe and get her breast nice and wet which suits the humidity needs of goose eggs. I had not actually seen her get off till today. I was sitting watching the new chicken-chicks and suddenly three geese waddled by. This gave me a chance to go check the hay boxes and see who had what and how many eggs were under Goocie (and get this photograph).

I have already said that the geese waddle about for the most part in a fairly sedate way but every now and then they get to honking excitedly and start running for 30 to 50 yards, wings flapping furiously. Nobody ever got airborne but it always struck me that with a good leading wind, it might happen. We call this 'going for a charge about'. It seems to have no purpose; they don't go anywhere except perhaps for the sheer joy of running, flapping and honking. Bizarre, but all part of being a goose. Today I was near the baby chicken run (again) and the 3 geese were out on the front lawn when they started the shouting and came racing through the gate by the kitchen garden, headed straight for the run, which is only 18 inches high. Goocie seemed to decide she'd not be able to stop in time, so with a hop and a skip, she took off and skimmed across the top of the run and landed the other side looking as amazed as I was! The other two geese thought better of it and pulled up with much excited honking. She had FLOWN! OK only 2 feet up and only for about 15 feet along, but there you were, an airborne goose!

 Back on earth I continue to excavate the pond and have now pulled out the biggest rock so far, this one maybe weighing more than me! I actually broke one of the shovels, not actually on this rock but trying to prise a smaller rock loose which was wedging this big one in place. The pond shape has 2 'bays' down one side with a small blunt 'headland' between the two, and we have decided that we can use this rock as a feature, our very miniature version of Howth Head.

And finally, I did manage to plant all my allocated trees on the big day but I think that country-wide it all went a bit pear shaped and I cannot see how they would have got anywhere NEAR the target of a million trees in the 24 hours. As far as I know, we all just got the 'starter packs' of "20" trees (mine actually had 27 in it) and nobody got their fruit or nut trees, hedging plants etc. We are possibly going to get these as a follow on order when the Project Team are through the panic and get sorted out but my suspicion is that the whole thing may be allowed to quietly fade away due to funding difficulties. I have planted mine in a good range of locations around this site, to close off a gateway, in some of the already existing beds, to extend a hedge, to fill gaps in another hedge and so on. Although the baby Scots Pines looked quite striking, all the other trees were unlabeled, anonymous 12-24 inch saplings, so are not easy to photograph till they have leaves on. Here, then, is a Scots Pine by the former gate into the 5 acre field.

27 planted. Only 999,973 to go?

Been Here a Year!

Happy Anniversary, House! It was on April 26th 2012, exactly a year ago that we had finished the renovation of this house far enough to be able to move in. Project Manager, Sparks shared the meal depicted here on the 25th and then departed the next day so on the 26th we left the caravan which had been home for 4 months and officially moved in to the house. We had no mattress at that stage, so we blagged mattresses off the single beds but that didn't worry us. We had created a live-able, if rather bare, space. It was a brilliant achievement of which all three of us are very proud.