I love frosty cold mornings and we have had some beautiful ones. James and I have to get up very early for work sometimes, however the last couple of weeks I really haven't minded. When driving down to the village we have watched the sun rise over the snow covered Carmarthen Fans and enjoyed the hoar frosts. Beautiful!
So a quick wildlife update. The stag has been staking out his territory over the last couple of weeks, the roars have been heard up and down the valley (I am not sure he's had any competition). The swallows left last month - amazing they simply went, not a goodbye, no last chirrup beforehand. The local tawny owls have also been staking out their territory, two tussled for the tree next to the yurt, one outyelled the other and so we now have a shouty owl in residence. I love hearing them, especially when they start calling up and down the valley, I often wonder what they are telling each other... "nice voles over here".. "Get out of my tree".. who knows? We also spotted fish jumping up the weir, we couldn't tell what they were it seems a bit early for salmon. No more otter sightings of late (but I haven't been down there as early as that particular day).
And an update on the land; we have put in a pond.. or mini lake, we really want to attract as much wildlife as possible and as we saw a lot of dragonflies over the summer, we are excited to be able to provide them with somewhere to breed. We also want to plant it up with local species and then extend the planting out into the boggier areas. This particular spot had very few plants other than reeds, however on some of the other boggy areas around we have seen flag iris, marsh marigold, cuckoo flowers and ragged robin so we hope that some of them will move into the bog as well as anything else we plant. We have also started the orchard, we went to an apple day at the Botanic Gardens and got the details of a local man who knows everything about apples.. and pears.. and cherries etc. He is getting us trees that have been grown locally for hundreds of years so we know that they should do well here.
The chucks seem to be doing ok, they are providing a steady supply of eggs and are enjoying a varied diet of scraps, corn and layer pellets. They make particularly contented noises when they find a piece of bread (and even more contented if one finds it ahead of the others!)
On the building front the full plans are in and we are starting to talk to builders. We have found some potential carpenters and Dave has found us a possible person to do the underfloor heating, linking into a wood burner. The same company do grey water systems and solar panels for water, so it could be that we can get one company to fit the whole system. So the next couple of weeks will see a number of visits from a variety of people and hopefully we will find some people to take the build forward.
And finally it's the one year anniversary of finding the place. What a mad twelve months!
So a quick wildlife update. The stag has been staking out his territory over the last couple of weeks, the roars have been heard up and down the valley (I am not sure he's had any competition). The swallows left last month - amazing they simply went, not a goodbye, no last chirrup beforehand. The local tawny owls have also been staking out their territory, two tussled for the tree next to the yurt, one outyelled the other and so we now have a shouty owl in residence. I love hearing them, especially when they start calling up and down the valley, I often wonder what they are telling each other... "nice voles over here".. "Get out of my tree".. who knows? We also spotted fish jumping up the weir, we couldn't tell what they were it seems a bit early for salmon. No more otter sightings of late (but I haven't been down there as early as that particular day).
And an update on the land; we have put in a pond.. or mini lake, we really want to attract as much wildlife as possible and as we saw a lot of dragonflies over the summer, we are excited to be able to provide them with somewhere to breed. We also want to plant it up with local species and then extend the planting out into the boggier areas. This particular spot had very few plants other than reeds, however on some of the other boggy areas around we have seen flag iris, marsh marigold, cuckoo flowers and ragged robin so we hope that some of them will move into the bog as well as anything else we plant. We have also started the orchard, we went to an apple day at the Botanic Gardens and got the details of a local man who knows everything about apples.. and pears.. and cherries etc. He is getting us trees that have been grown locally for hundreds of years so we know that they should do well here.
The chucks seem to be doing ok, they are providing a steady supply of eggs and are enjoying a varied diet of scraps, corn and layer pellets. They make particularly contented noises when they find a piece of bread (and even more contented if one finds it ahead of the others!)On the building front the full plans are in and we are starting to talk to builders. We have found some potential carpenters and Dave has found us a possible person to do the underfloor heating, linking into a wood burner. The same company do grey water systems and solar panels for water, so it could be that we can get one company to fit the whole system. So the next couple of weeks will see a number of visits from a variety of people and hopefully we will find some people to take the build forward.
And finally it's the one year anniversary of finding the place. What a mad twelve months!
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