First Week (And A Bit) Of May Is Behind Us

Thursday was my annual trip to dressage day at Badminton with H, we did a lot of window shopping, walked a lot of steps (20,000 +!) and watched a fair bit of dressage. It was cold but dry, and it was lovely to spend the day with her.

We found a wether with flystrike on Friday, so had to dag them and then spray them, as the shearer won't be here for another month. It very much looks like we'll have to do the girls as well.

There has been a little bit of rain, though not enough for the land, but the temperature has dropped like a stone, so nothing seems to be doing much growing.

Biba pony had her feet done also on Friday, Chris our farrier bless him is rushed off his feet but managed to fit her in, so now she's got very smart toes!

Sunday brought a 'family gathering' on Neil's side about which, honestly, the least said the better. It was an exhausting day, the best part of which was getting home and decompressing with Boo in an Italian restaurant for an hour and a half, eating pizza. Moving on.

I've got a crumbling filling which I should have booked in for replacement weeks ago and didn't, so now I've got a date two weeks hence. I'm not sure it's going to last that long.

My VA work is a bit frustrating at the moment, and one of my clients is letting me go at the end of this year, so I need to decide whether to call it a day, and close the other one as well, or look for more - one on its own doesn't justify the insurance and subscriptions required. I'd like to drop it and get my substack to work for me really, but I need to be way more consistent.

Lack of consistency is my downfall. As you are only too well aware!

Lambs, Posh Parking, and Longdraw Spinning.

 I just seem to be incapable of keeping up here, so I'm going to just start where I am, because I do so desperately want to get back to keeping this as a daily (ish) diary.

Well, lambing is all done. We have nine lambs from seven ewes. All doing well and out on the grass in the sunshine.

This last weekend, we hired a BCS cultivator and Neil has gone all over the veg garden. Of course I immediately start plotting a return to commercial growing, but I do think I have to calm myself down and grow food for us first. We watched an absolutely brillian YouTube film about a couple in Vermont who have such a brilliant productive business from just over an acre of productive ground, and that of course set me off alarming.

I've not been fantastically well, with the combination of postcholecystectomy syndrome (aka lack of a gallbladder), diabetic medication (the dreaded jab) and IBS creating a bit of a perfect storm so my mind has wandered a bit, but I'm still trying very hard to honour my direction to myself for this year - 'what we are, who we are, where we are' - staying put in my mind, body, and spirit and giving up the lifelong habit of discontent, and living in an imaginary future. 

Brought back down to earth this morning by having a vast amount of VA work to do, so I've been in the office today until lunchtime.

We went to see The Fishermens Friends in Oxford - the girls' birthday present to their dad, whose hiraeth for Cornwall knows no bounds - and it was a wonderful evening. Because I was leary about parking, we definitely overpaid and booked a spot at the Randolph Hotel. They are just on the parking apps, but imagine our surprise when we discovered it was valet parking, no less. The smartly dressed French concierge didn't raise an eyebrow at parking Neil's signwritten painter's van. (Well, it is a Citroen, I suppose!)

This entitled us to use the loo (blessing!) in the hotel before and after the concert, and to have a post concert drink in drawing room (coffee for Neil, a glass of wine for me) while listening to a very talented pianist on the grand piano.

Last Saturday I went to Skills Day at  Guild, and learned (again) long draw spinning, which was fabulous. We are so fortunate to have such an active and well 'staffed' Guild on our doorstep. This class was held in the weaving studio, which I haven't previously been in, and it is an absolute Aladdin's cave. If ever I have any spare time at all, I'd love to learn to weave.

Grocery costs are through the roof, and the news doesn't seem to get any saner, so I think I really need to get back into budgeting, and frugal living and concentrate first and foremost on growin our own, on that vast open plot I've got waiting for me. It's dry as dust and I can't believe we're all complaining that we despeately need rain, but it's true.

I'm closing in on the second front of my cardigan (make's it sound like a military strategy) with only the dreaded sleeves (where I usually fail) to go. 

Do you knit in summer? I find it hard to settle when the days are long and light and outdoor tasks call my name.

Muddy Suds!

 Time is getting away from me and I'm forgetting to keep notes here.

I finally got to Slimming World on Monday and had lost another 3lbs (probably from feeling so ghastly with biliary colic if I'm honest!) and gained my 2 stone award, so very happy with that.

I didn't get to Craft Day at Guild because the weather was, for one day only, fine. We aimed to have a really good go at clearing the polytunnel site, but in actual fact it defeated us, and we just decided we will need to get help with it. I did prune some fruit bushes better late than never (I hope!) but it's still very swampy down there.

I made two cottage pies for a family from church who've had some bad news, and Neil was due to pop them round there on Wednesday, but couldn't get in touch with them so they've had to go in the freezer.

I finally got round to making my laundry detergent (a hybrid between Rhonda's version from Down To Earth and Nancy Birtwhistle's from her new book, Clean Magic) and you have to laugh. I had ordered the soapflakes online (I keep telling myself I must stop this and buy everything locally but I'm not sure where I'd get them. Note to self - do some research!) and when I took the pack out to start on the laundry liquid it said Savon de Marseilles 'olive'.  Sure enough, the soap flakes were a very attractive olive green!

Once mixed, my lovely laundry detergent came out a sort of sludge colour with overtones one would rather not discuss! I'm sure it will work just as well though.

Do you have good local sources for all your green/frugal/homemade products, or do you cave and order on Amazon?

Confined to Barracks

 We've now got all three lambs on the ground from the early lambing group, two ewe lambs and a ram lamb. All were straightforward, nobody needed any help. All nice lambs.

I'm on the second day without a car, because it was booked in for a service and the mechanic accidentally ordered in the wrong parts. I've not been too well so I'm not complaining too much about a couple of  'at home' days.

I sowed another bunch of seeds yesterday in the propagator, but if I'm not careful I'll have my usual problem of a greenhouse full of seedlings and no ground to plant them out into, I really am going to have to grit my teeth and get down there to try to clear up some ground, not least the polytunnel.

I finally finished my first real quilting project - a table runner - and immediately I looked at it finished, it was obvious to me I'd placed the squares really badly, with a recurring 'two dark bits joined together' problem - how on earth did I not see that when I pinned the blocks together?!

Of course now I can see exactly what I should have done, but it's a bit late!

I'm trying to get another skein of wool spun and plyed so that I can finally get on and dye it. Craft day is this Saturday at Guild and I was hoping to have it done by then, but I'm not optimistic.

I didn't get to Slimming World on Monday (see car saga) and once again, my payment has gone out for the Health Club without my darkening the doors for yet another month, so the Spinning, Slimming and Swimming situation is in a pretty poor way.

Waiting for Spring

 A second lamb arrived late on Tuesday night, so just one to go now in this first batch. A single again, this time male.

I've pulled out the incubator, and loaded it with our own Copper Marans eggs this time. Last year I did a couple of trial runs with bought in eggs, with mixed results, so I'm hoping this will go smoothly, and we'll have some new birds, and maybe even a surplus to sell.

Sowing in the propagator is going painfully slowly, I just can't find my mojo with it this year, and I know I'll be kicking myself in a week or two when it's mid-March and I'm feeling terribly behind. It's been hard to get out and do much on the 'allotment' because the ground is so wet, but there are a good few overdue tasks, like pruning soft fruit back, and endless bed preparation.

I seem to be operating in slow motion. I'll be glad when spring comes, and hope it will wake me up and reinvigorate me a bit. We've had one sunny day and I did feel a lot better, and get a fair bit done that day, so there's hope!

First Lamb and An Uninvited Guest

 Last night we were in two minds about whether it was definitely time to bring our three early lambing ewes in. We don't always bring ewes in to lamb, but we've got these three in lamb early, because originally we had thought we might do some showing this year. That's another story, but because it's so early and the year so far has been so wet, they do need to come into our small, precious, under cover space to lamb.

I won the toss and we did bring them in yesterday. This morning, when Neil went down to do the jobs before church, he was met with the first lamb!

a lovely, leggy, little ewe lamb

So that was a good call! She was a first time mother and had just got on and sorted everything out herself. Oxfords really are very unfussy sheep and grand mothers.

Unfortunately, as he set off up the field, he found another extra sheep! This time a little Welsh Mountain ram lamb, not ours at all!

Local investigations led us to discover that the 'tack sheep' (a large group of sheep from higher or wilder areas, wintering down in the lowlands and tended by a local contract shepherd) had become infected with a virus which blinds them! And this little fella had lost his friends, panicked, and happened upon our little flock.

From a biosecurity point of view, it's less than ideal, but we understand the virus was environmental, and shouldn't affect ours. He didn't come into contact with them, anyway.

Unbelievably we did manage to get to church, and are now trying to have a bit of a restful day, though of course, night checks are now go!

Willow and Waffle!

I've decided to try to post here in a diary format, more frequently, and then round things up and create longer, more 'finished' posts on my substack - hopefully weekly, but honestly that almost never happens.

Yesterday we had the vet visit to inspect our livestock for the VAN (Veterinary Attestation Number) that you need to take animals pretty much anywhere - for sale, to market, for slaughter - and I was slightly dreading it, because we are so flooded, and things are being made worse by the still awaited fences to protect the new hedges.

She was lovely, though, and said all the animals look really well, and we were obviously doing our best in very difficult circumstances.

I then pressed on with the 'spare room' or more accurately work room for a bit, and got things into their own separate boxes and spaces so that I can get on with one thing at a time, and the one thing in question yesterday was some ironing. I'm not a great ironer, but there are a few of Neil's smarter shirts, a few of mine, the odd table cloth (for company!) and so on. Weirdly, I do like my cloth napkins ironed!

Earlier this week I finally got round to putting out ground cover and planting out some willow whips which I literally cut from my existing little basketry bed as I needed them

Don't they look hilarious with the backdrop of the thousands of carefully protected hedge plants ?!

I really need to do a bit more research on how to harvest and use this willow. I have five colours, and the main bed has been there a couple of years now. I would absolutely love to be able to make a basket from our own willow - maybe to harvest vegetables into?

Meanwhile it was a near miss for my newest tomato seedlings in the propagator, as I forgot about them for 24 hours and by the time I went in yesterday to continue the clear up, they were a bit leggy and leaning, but I think I've managed to rescue them.

Thanks to Rhonda at Down to Earth  I've happily redsicovered Feedly, and it's so lovely to find old friends still posting! I shall mention them one or two at a time, I think. First off is Tracing Rainbows - I've been having a good old read and it's like catching up with a long lost friend!

It remains to be seen whether anyone is seeing my posts here, or if I'm just note taking for my own purposes. If you do see this, please drop a comment? I'd love to know if anyone is still  there!