Seed Swap This Weekend!

So the annual Hereford seed swap is on this weekend!  

Always one of my favourite events of the year. Hope to see some of you there! I can't wait! 

Restoring A Hedge

 With the oak tree down it has left a rather large gap, and although it was set back form the hedge by a good 14ft it feels very empty down there now. 

But it has let a good amount of light into the old hedge that runs in parallel to it. It's also made me realise how much this hedge needs some work, especially this first section. It's very gappy, with the trees that are left looking very little like a hedge. 

Want to seize the bull by the horns I decided to keep on working with the wood on our land and lay a bit of this hedge. 

INDOOR Camp OUT

This month our eldest turned 13! In all honesty it's made me feel rather old. 

We asked her how she wanted to celebrate and she suggested a camp out with her friends. I have to say I wasn't that keen on camping outside so I suggested a compromise. We'd camp in the scout hut. 

 There's not many advantages to being a scout leader, but using the scout hut when we want to is one of them! 

Chipping Brash

 I seem to have done a lot of work with the trees on these 5 acres the last few months. What I need to do now is start tidying up before the grass starts to grow. 

The first job is to chip all the brash that I've got piled around the place. The picture above shows the blackthorn I've taken from my little coppice. I'm still not finished in there, but it does feel like I've made an impact to stop it's spread. 

Rabbit Damage On A 13 Year Old Trees

I couldn't quite believe when I saw my apple trees the other day. These trees are 13 years old and the one had been chewed by rabbits! I thought the bark would be hard enough now to discourage them. 

When I see stuff like this my work is flexible enough that I can deal with it straight away. I went and got some rabbit wire and wrapped around them. I hate using wire like this and will try to make use it doesn't grow into the trunk. 

I really thought they'd be big enough now that I wouldn't have to worry. I guess there isn't much goodness in the grass at the moment. 

I foresee rabbit pie in our future...

Giant Oak Dismantle

Last spring one of our oak trees fell over. 

I was gutted. Really gutted. I like to think we're here to look after the land, but this came down due to high winds and a very, very wet winter. It blocked the gateway. 

Pizza Oven In January

We have a few birthdays in in January, the youngest had a few friends over at the weekend for a sleepover - although they were up at 4 so I'm not sure much sleeping happened! 

 We fired up the pizza oven for feeding them. It was frosty and cold outside, but I much preferred standing out there, cooking the pizzas, to being inside with the noise and chaos!

Large Flour Scoops

 Before Christmas a small bakery asked if I'd make a couple of my regular flour scoops a little bigger. to hold around 500g of flour per scoop full. 

Short Rotation Willow Coppice Year 10

Last weekend I got my next section of willow cut. That makes for 4 years in a row I've cut a section. 

This time I didn't log it up straight away, instead I've kept it in long lengths. That way I have other options of what I can do with it. It's a great resource that I can use for building temporary structures around the smallholding, or the children can use it for building dens. 

Moving Beehives - But Not Far

 So The two hives that have bees in were set up very quickly last year when we caught the swarms. 

The weren't quite level or completely stable though. Nothing much, but enough to annoy me. 

I decided that as it was cooler and the bees were all in their hives I would put some slabs down and try to get them level and stable. 

I made three spots for two full hives and one empty one. I moved the one hive, just a few feet back, but the bees were not happy about it! So I've left moving the second one until I'm suited and giving them their treatment for varroa in a few days time, no point up setting them too much. 

It's a really nice area in the coppice where they are, and I think they should thrive there next year hopefully. 

Wooden Gate Latch

When you think about it, the way we go about doing things now is completely alien to most of our history. We used to make everything ourselves and fix them, somehow now we think the first thing should be to buy the fix. 

And in the past most stuff was made out of wood, stone and little bits of metal. I know we used other materials, but there were so many jobs working wood in different ways it's unreal. 

Which brings me on to my latest temporary fix, the latch on the gate post to the apiary.  

My Wife's Books Of 2024

 It's fair to say my wife and I egg each other on when it comes to books. We push each other to do a bit more reading and frequently end up reading too late at night when we should have already turned out the light. 

A few people said they'd be interested in what she read as well o I thought I'd do a short blog post on it. 

Shuffleboard Table Top

 Before Christmas, just before, I had a customer drop off some oak for me to make a shuffleboard table top. 

The oak came at the last minute, and wasn't quite what I was expecting. 

January Walk About The Homestead

 Things haven't exactly gone to plan since I last blogged about what I was doing in the garden. 

Probably best to watch the video to see what's been going on, but long story short everything has been eaten! I need to really up my game on crop protection. 

How is your garden looking in the middle of winter?

Happy New Year

 Happy New Year everyone!

We've had a great time over Christmas, and I do love this weird time where I have to constantly ask what day of the week it is, but I also look forward to getting back into routine. 

I managed to have a good bit of time in the workshop completing a project I wanted to sell today, so that feels a bit more normal.

We had a great time last night seeing in the New Year with a few friends, a lovely laid back evening, with some great food and company. All the children get on so well as well (there was 10 children to 6 adults), they played board games all night! 

My wife made cheesy garlic bread to take with us! 

We met up with lots of family over the time between Christmas and New year, and even had tickets bought for us to go to the theatre in Oxford to see War Horse with my wife's side of the family. I'm not sure I can describe how good War Horse was, it got a standing ovation at the end and it was completely deserved, it made me cry multiple times and was visually stunning as well! I've been around a lot of animals in my life and for the the whole play you'd believe these were real, you forget the puppeteers are even there. I know its been around for a long time, but if you've not seen it I really urge you to, you won't be disappointed. 

So here's wishing you all Happy New Year, thank you for following and encouraging me. I can see 2025 being a good one.