Tadpoles

The frogspawn has started its conversion. Now a mass of tadpoles are busy in the pond and the leat. Tailed but legless they have started their transformation.

The two cockerels have settled in. Jeff enjoys his polygamous life and has been very active and hopefully helping us expand our stock. We we have created a box in the hope that one of the hens may go broody. Made out of recycled materials from the work in the boot room it will not be a great loss if we have to change our plans to an incubator. In the interim, Scampy is is using it as a refuge as he regains his health as Jeff and the girls do not tolerate his company.

We have started to get involved in the local gardening group and even at this early stage it has proven valuable.

Spring Sounds

Spring continues to slowly evolve. The days are warmer and brighter and over the last few days we have seen the solar panels deliver about 10kwH. More flowers are showing their heads in the garden with patches of colour appearing in the borders.

The greenhouse has been pressed into action. A paraffin heater keeps the frost away and fills the greenhouse with a characteristic smell which is very evocative of old men and allotments.


We are trying to recycle the as much as we can. Hopefully the tubes from inside toilet and kitchen paper rolls will make pots for seedlings. If they survive long enough, without degrading, they should allow the plants to be transplanted into the ground with minimal risk of root shock. We are also using beans which we found from the previous owner of the house. These french, runner, and broad beans are quite aged so we are taking a bit of a gamble. However, if in a fortnight they have failed we should still have time to get beans going.

We found a large cold water header tank. This was rusted and holed in many places but has been recycled to act as a local incinerator.

Some heavy digging in the near end of the woods has uncovered a large drainage pipe. This should allow us to drain some of the bog down there. It might also make an outlet for a duck-pond. It looks as if, which some unpleasant muddy work, we could dig out a reasonable pond here. Fortunately we are probably having visitors in March who might be enticed into heavy manual labour.

Chicken looking amazed by recycled incinerator.
(Another chicken with a blasé expression was cropped out)

This clip might also give some idea of our recent activities :- Sound

Here comes the sun .. ..

The weather has remained mild and it has felt almost springlike. There was no great wind today and for the most part it has been dry. Little work was done in the vegetable garden but the aged, Tesco garlic bulbs seem to have survived and are now sprouting strongly. It is quite encouraging to see some green in the first raised bed.

The main work of getting the wood store ready for the winter goes on. I have started to work on the far side of the wood where there are a number of trees that have fallen and a number which need felled. With the fm radio on the phone and a set of earphones it is a pleasant place to listen to The Archers' Omnibus and Desert Island Discs.  The need for a good wood store has become more pressing as it seems that we are going to be able to reinstate the old wood-burning Rayburn in the kitchen

The biggest change over the weekend, however, has been the installation of the solar panels. We now have the ability to make 3.36 kilowatts although when they were switched on, just before sunset in the  winter, we only made enough (80w) to light a few dim bulbs. I am glad to say that the panels do not seem too intrusive and  blend into the roof quite well.

St. Dwynwen's Day

St. Valentine's Day has come around again, fortunately we didn't have to celebrate it this year as on the 25th of January we ignored St. Dwynwen's Day instead. Unfortunately,St. Dwynwen's Day has started to become commercialised like its sassenach sibling.

However, these festivities, in part, herald spring and the last two days have been much milder. The temperature is still in single figures but at least it has been greater than one and at last small bursts of colour are starting to appear. Now in addition to the snopwdrops the croci have started to appear.

The colour in the crocus has not been the only yellow to appear. The trail gold mine has been producing more water and the cave is now quite full. This water is a strong yellow/orange and remains this colour down into the leat. Interestingly the opening has been hewn from what appears to be good quality slate. I still have not been brave enough to try and pass beyond the water level. This seems to be a summer, rather than winter, project if I ever pluck up the nerve.

The building work is progressing well and the kitchen and boot room have been partitioned. Large slat slabs have been found under the concrete at  the door to the porch. This raises the hope that there may be more under the dining hall. This may prove a good alternative the the floors  we had considered. The solar panels are due to arrive soon and hopefully will be fitted shortly afterwards.

Mobile Sawmill

In a break from logging trees in the wood I went to the neighbour's wood where he had hired a mobile sawmill. This is a cost-effective way of working in less accessible rural areas. It is very impressive to watch the machine pick up an entire tree and in a few minutes convert it to one inch planking.  As it had been cedar trees which were being prepared the smell was wonderful and added to the morning's work

A new year, a new intention

Good Friday seems as good a day as any to declare that spring has started. We are now officially off on our horticultural adventure. This will be similar to last year, but unlike 2008, in 2009 we expect things to be subtly different. We intend that this year we will actually do it properly. This year we will grow a full range of vegetables and even amongst them those villains of last summer - beetroots and cauliflowers. These are described as "easy" vegetables in the books but they have defeated us two years running. They have either bolted (beetroot) or just failed (cauliflower). This year will be different. They should have suited our acid soil but we were only playing last year - this year it will be very different.

In out new, professional, industrious and energetic 2009 these prior failures will not be tolerated. We will not be happy with peas, beans and potatos. We will have leeks as thick as a baby's arm, beetroots like footballs, carrots like rolling pins, courgettes in abundance, salads you could drown under, onions that will make our neighbours' eyes water and cauliflowers as big as your head. We have the seeds, the ground, the intention. All we lack is the skill and knowledge - what can go wrong ?

Today the row of garlic went in and two rows of beetroot as its neighbour. This is later than last year so hopefully less chance of bolting - we will see.

Spring forwards, fall back

In spring the clocks spring forward and in autumn the fall back. The extra hour we lost in bed this morning was amply repaid by sunshine this evening. Rather then coming in from work to dark and cold it was still a fresh spring afternoon when I got home. It remained pleasant in the garden until well after 7 p.m..

This valuable time allowed us to catch up after the rainy weekend. The peas were planted in the other raised bed and two rows of beans extended the vegetable by another metre.

The chickens have, in true pavlovian fashion, learnt that spades are associated with worms and have become much more affectionate as a consequence. This increasing closeness has prompted them to be named; Blacky, Scabby, an Nicey. They haven't fought over the names at all.