Here we are again

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So I was all set to start a new blog.  I thought about what I wanted to talk about - well - life, work, saving money to get out of debt, buying somewhere to live.
Budget allotment growing, our rented land and the critters and plants that live there.
The wonderful new world of sheep fleeces and spinning.
Growing older, and somehow making life better - losing weight, getting fitter.
My intermittently empty nest.

And I decided there was no point starting a new blog, because it's just this one continued.

The heat around here is absurd. When Neil hopped into the van to go back to church at gone 5.30 this evening, the external temp read 35°

The sheep are dealing with the heat well. The hay is in, the goat is pregnant. The vegetable 'allotment' was going well but this punishing heat means that my Saturdays and Mondays can't be spent weeding and tending for long bours so it's a bit of a mess, and drought is a tough call.

Tomorrow was to be back to Slimming World and the Library - I'm hoping for a lift to the former but the latter is off limits as my car has bitten the dust and had to be towed to the mechanic

The next question is, can gym / health club membership be justified on a budget. Discuss.

Days off, and a bargain

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Spring is coming a bit slowly. It's still cold, and things are growing cautiously. We had a frost this week.
I've got five days off work now, and the job list is growing!
Top of the list is to disassemble and recover the polytunnel. It's way past its best, and really does need an overhaul.
I've also got a lot of seeds still to plant and lots to prick out/pot on/possibly even plant out, too.
I haven't been to see Diva the welsh pony for a while - Neil looks after her while I'm at work - but if the collie's coat is anything to go by, she'll need a good spring brush.
The sheep are already sheared, as they were due to be shown at the Bath and West, but our class has been cancelled, so no show prep to do.
One hopefully pregnant goat might need some tlc, and the two 'baby' chickens will need to be moved outside.
Not to mention a bit of a house and garden overhaul. I need five weeks off !

I am usually wary of magazine subscription deals, but I couldn't find much wrong with Kitchen Garden's £5 for three issues, plus free seeds.

Today the seeds arrived! A very good deal, I think!


Out of Doors

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Plans were afoot to do work in the garden, the house, and all sorts. However, the weather forecast being what it was, in classic Bank Holiday style - that is to say that it will rain torrentially all day Sunday and Monday - we decided to focus on the veg garden while we could, and possibly pulled a muscle or two in the doing.
In the top half of the picture you can see a no dig bed under construction. We bought two 'tonne sacks' of compost from the recycling folks, and hoped it would do two good beds, but it's gone nowhere near. I've just prepared a seed bed at the near end of the next bed, and we should be able to put a 2" layer on the rest of it, and it did have some on it last year.
Every year I say I'll give up on no dig because the couch grass is such a problem. Every year I give it another go.
However, you can't be permanent no dig on our plot - it's silty, sandy soil and it caps. So within some kind of rotation, you do have to dig or at least turn over the soil now and again. At the bottom half of the picture you can see my potato bed - that's getting dug and planted at the same time.


Meanwhile Neil cleared massive amounts of blackthorn from the boundary hedge, freeing up the fruit bushes, and managed to burn quite a bit of it in my aged incinerator.  The fruit bushes have been neglected and needed a real clear out.


Newest babies are doing fine.

Bitter

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The dogs’ breath silvers in the last of the light as we leave Lacey the goat and Diva the Welsh pony to the night. Both shelters have been double strawed, hay is inside, and this determinedly tough duo have sanctuary if it is needed.
Without doubt Diva will brave the snow and the wind and may condescend to put her head into the shelter to eat the straw, as long as it is clear her round fat backside was outdoors all along.
Linney, Lacey’s sister who is usually her companion, is away over to Pewsey way, with a billy goat, hopefully ensuring the continuation of the line. Poor Lacey has a detached udder, and although in fine general health, cannot be bred again, so will have to settle for being an auntie.
We’ve taken the unusual step of bringing the Oxford Downs in for the night, partly because of the exceptional cold, and partly because this morning we were greeted with an unexpected babe. Since Aran the ram did not make the acquaintance of the new mother until a scant four months ago, he cannot be the daddy.  One of last years ram lambs was obviously left in a position of trust for too long.
This means our plans for lambing – still a long way off – have been scuppered and anything could happen.
Back at home the Rayburn and the woodstove are kept fed all evening, as phone calls are made and we battle with making sense of the instructions for the incubator – eggs are on their way and we’ve yet to decipher the translation from the Chinese.
Tomorrow, after a week’s leave that amounted to ten real days, I’m back to work. This lamb thing has somewhat messed up our plans. Thankfully Neil is working locally so he’ll be on lamb check for the foreseeable.
My tiny plants in trays in the polytunnel have had a few hours of fresh air and daylight each day while I’ve been around, but from tomorrow, they, like me, will be confined. They will be under fleece. I will be in an office.

February Freedom

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I'm not even going to say anything.
I always love it when people pop up and say, 'I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while.'
I'm pretty sure no one was waiting.
Had the lovely H home for the briefest of visits this weekend. So lovely to see her, and hear all her news.
Boo, meanwhile, who nominally lives with us, works so many hours I barely see her.
This weekend we vaccinated the sheep and goats. We've moved the sheep around so the girls are all on our field and the boys are at the field in the next village. So a bit of driving around with a satchel full of sharps, but all done.
Then H came home, and we had a late night chat, and then Sunday morning church, big  roast, sleepy afternoon, and then she went home.

Thus begins a whole week of 'work' in which I have to make inroads into the veg garden, and try to sort out the house and bits of the general garden. Two cubic metres of recycled compost due for the veg garden have been delayed until Thursday, so Monday is starting slow and I really must be careful not to waste the week.

Updates to follow, I hope!



One last January Saturday

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I managed to hit Lidls by 8.30 am which I haven't done for a long time, I must say.

On a tight budget and trying to use up a lot of stored and frozen stuff this week, so kept it low, but oh! the joy! the seeds were in. It would be rude to buy none, wouldn't it? Even though the seed tin of shame is overflowing as usual.

We had a list of errands around town, most of which I sabotaged by forgetting something. Near the top of the list was refilling my ecover washing up liquid bottle. Which I left on the draining board. With the shopping list.

I popped into the wool shop (you know where this is going, don't you?) to buy some short 3mms. The natural nativity is progressing as if to be ready by next Christmas, but it is dull knitting Joseph's scarf or the donkey's legs on great long needles.

I came out with some gorgeous beech wood double pointed needles and sock wool. There you go.

'A bit of batch cooking' seemed to take up the rest of the day - chick pea casserole, macaroni and cheese, this and that, ready for a busy work week.

Cheese and lentil loaf for supper as well, and then by 7 pm I was installed in front of the fire, with the sock wool.

Spring will be here soon enough, with seeds to plant, and sheep to halter train, and chickens to hatch. One long evening in front of the fire knitting socks can't be all bad.


Moving on

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I'm going to ignore the long gap. In it our darling Boo went to uni for three weeks and came home again. In it some  bizarre things happened at my place of work. In it all kinds of things looked possible and then weren't.

I'm just going to take a deep breath, and hark back to last year's new years resolutions, and gently bring them forward to 2018.

Last year, we joined the garden club. Towards the end of last year I fulfilled a lifetime ambition, and learned to spin, at a fabulous course run by our local Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers.

I joined the Guild, and on Saturday attended my first 'Craft and Chat'.

Socialising doesn't come easy to me. I'm an introvert and lack confidence, while managing to look as if I'm brimming with confidence and talking too much. It's a nightmare. However, it's still a massive aim to discover community where we are, and I the Guild is a brilliant place, full of fantastically talented people who share their gifts and skills freely.

The fantastically quirky building in Steeple Ashton is a dedicated space. It's a bit chilly and the stairs are a nightmare, not to mention getting through the gap into the carpark, which is about 2.5 inches wider than my car, but oh the joy that awaits.

2018 is going to be a very different year for me. This is the start. I have some big and scary decisions to make. But The Guild is a start.
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