Tuesday 10 June 2008

Water, polytunnel, chickens and foxes!


Well it has been a non stop few weeks since we last updated the blog! Every waking minute of when we aren't working has pretty much been spent on putting up our polytunnel. The plastic is now on and we have 3 lovely large beds to work with, much to the relief of our seedlings which had been suffering terribly with just being in pots and shoved in sheds!

We also had (and please note the had) some lovely hens, they were the most friendly and ridiculous creatures who followed you round the whole time. We had just started to see them all laying eggs at about 1 each a day when sadly all apart from 1 were taken by a fox. Unfortunately it is that time of year when foxes have cubs and so are that little bit braver - 1 hen was taken about 20 yards from our yurt and I was sat out side at the time! I can't be angry at the fox for doing something natural we are just both angry at ourselves for not taking better precautions with them. Anyhow we start again, we were left with the 1 lonesome chuck and we asked a neighbour for a companion which they happily helped with. With the addition of 2 Black stars as well we are rebuilding our flock.

We have water - we feel ludicrously posh at the moment - live for four months without running water and you get used to it! Now we have a tap which gushes forth very enthusiastically and we can even have lovely solar showers in this hot weather.

Our meadow is developing, we have found common spotted orchids, oxeye daisies, yellow rattle (good sign of an older meadow) and possibly some whorled caraway (which is quite rare and needs to be confirmed).



We have even found the time to do a bit of adventuring out in the area, we drove up to Llyn Brianne the other evening. The views on the way up are really beautiful and the countryside just begs to be explored.

Bracken! by Dana Kittle

Bracken! by Dana Kittle
Tree on one of our sloping meadows

The Barn by Dana Kittle

The Barn by Dana Kittle
This is our Welsh Barn which we have just bought. Our architect has confirmed that the old crucks we've found inside date it to being at least 300 years old.