well not quite mountains, but most definitely mole hills.

 blog 2 Jan

This is a very unusual photograph because I am working in the pond enclosure chopping wood and raking leaves and swanny is with me and is calm and happy to be sharing his bit of space. Mike and I decided that this year we must play catch up as we both feel we have had 2 years off and now is the time to get back on track and get our place looking good and feel active and productive again.  Sadly we are now two years older and a day grubbing out a persistent lilac tree and dealing with the left overs has left us sore and battered but as with everything the more you do it the better it gets

 
Every day I walk through the poly tunnel  after I have fed the hens and keep and keep eye on  my tender young plants.  I am at a crucial point because it  is  now that I find out whether they are going to make it or not. It is then so very exciting when I look into a wet and grubby pot to find bright green shiny shoots showing me that everything is good and the roots have taken. I am very glad to say that I have a good success rate so far and I am quietly optimistic that I will have plenty of young plants to start the season.

 

 

 

 

 

Mike has decided to make more of the pond area and we are looking to make a water feature that looks a little more designer than a farm pond with a grumpy swan on it.  A couple of weeks ago Mike found a lady selling gunnera cuttings and has potted them up to give them a chance to develop some roots before we move them into place and the purpose of the getting into the pond enclosure is to clear out over grown trees. It also gives us a chance to do a bit of wood collecting for the fire and that always feels good and wholesome.

 

 

 

 

Having spent the afternoon pruning buddleia and making sure all the left overs are cleaned up I trudged up into the hay loft and flopped into the sofa and asked Mike if he loved me even if I look like this and he said I love especially because you look like that.  that one little one liner is all the flowers and chocolates I wish for in a year.

 

The reason Mike was tucked away in the hay loft was that he was installing the karaoke machine that came  from a quick click on Amazon to have the machine purchased and delivered to us here in Brevands and that is only the beginning because then you have to have a TV.  A quick trip to our favourite second hand shop and we walked out with the biggest TV we could carry and that cost us 20 Euro then we needed a table and a trip over to the other second hand shop found a very Normandy style table for 30 euro and voila the singing corner is set up and ready to go.

 

 

And now Mike has set up the play station game as well so all our toys are in one place. Now Mike has the feeling that he wants to make the barn a little more secure and is eyeing up a door that has been kicking around for that past 7 years and will try to fit a new door and put a lock on it to keep the sheep out

 

And finally, there is trouble in the wood. You can ohh and ahh at big boy just looking gorgeous on his walk out but in the back ground you will see that there are very nasty looking brown lumps in the wood lawns and that means moles and moles need catching. It is now too wet to even think about going out to lay traps and clear up but it will need to be done hopefully when it dries out the moles and their families may just toodle off to next door but for now it just grates on our sense of tidy and clean to have these monster mountains of mud around our tree,