I hope you're all having a lovely day and spoiling yourselves whatever you're up to and whoever you're with.
It's definitely feeling loved up around here with all the birds deciding Spring is on the way. It's so lovely seeing the first bulbs sprout too, and the days being noticeably longer, what a fantastic time of year. :)
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| Snowdrops are out...one of my favourite flowers :) |
The robin is still busy guarding the bird feeder, I wonder if he'll get too distracted by fatballs to find a mate! He's even started trying to guard another feeder at the same time... unsurprisingly this doesn't really work very well as he can only be in one place at once. It's very entertaining though!
We've seen the barn owl again which makes me very happy! He seems to still be living in our top barn so I'm glad we haven't scared him away. We saw an interesting interaction between him and a hawk the other day. The hawk kept flying at him and attacking him. I'm not sure if it was a territorial thing or if he wanted the prey Barnie had just caught, but it was fascinating, I've never seen anything like it before.
A week or so ago I had a nice walk along the river, which I hadn't done for a while. It was so lovely. I saw my first kingfisher since living here, and not only did I see my first one... I saw another 3 more! One of them could have been the same one spotted twice, so I'll have to confess that it could have been 3 kingfishers I saw, not 4, but I was over the moon and it still makes me smile thinking about it now. They're so beautiful with such vivid electric blue feathers and bright orange as a contrast.
On the same walk I also saw a marsh harrier and a fox and some other birds which I haven't been able to identify. I'm getting there slowly with bird identification, but I think it could be a few years yet before I get any good at it. I haven't any photos I'm afraid as I stupidly didn't take my camera, but sometimes I suppose it's better to immerse properly in the experience, rather than trying to capture the moment, only to not appreciate it properly at the time.
This last month we've been carrying on cutting the big trees back, we're trying to get it done before the birds start nesting, so we haven't got very long left as it needs to be done before March, but we've made a lot of progress. We've cut down a willow by the track which had become hollow and so was a danger to people. It should grow shoots from the base though, so hopefully will grow back stronger. Otherwise the trees have just been pruned rather than chopped right down, although there are still some hefty branches which will make decent firewood... that's how crazily big some of the trees are!
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| Iain starting to cut down the hollow willow by the track |
The willow was quite a good tree to cut down in some ways as it has a definite lean, which luckily is away from the barn. To be safe though, Iain still did the bird's beak method, where you cut a wedge out of the side where you want the tree to fall as it encourages it to go this way, there being less tree in the way to stop it's progress.
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| The tree is down :) |
This should help keep us warm next winter, thank you willow tree!
Other jobs have been finishing the polytunnel doors, and patching up the polytunnel as we've had yet more storms. It does feel sad to patch it up before we've even used it, oh well, we'll see how it holds up! We've also been moving lots of woodchip (free from our tree surgeon friend, thank you!) into the polytunnel beds. I tried growing veg in woodchip before and it worked really well, as the woodchip breaks down releasing nutrients and warmth as the plant grows. So we thought we'd make use of this resource. We've filled 3 beds so far, the other one needs a bit of fixing first and then it should be all done. I'm excited about planting things in there soon!
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| Polytunnel beds being filled with woodchip |
The last big storm managed to cause some damage to our barn roof as well as the polytunnel, the winds are crazy here! We were very lucky the damage wasn't more severe as it could have caused us significant problems. A whole section of roof panel flew off, somehow bounced or glided back up and pierced a big hole in another section of roof, then fell down and crushed our washing line. It's scary to think what could have happened, had it hit a window, solar panel or even a person, thank goodness that's all the damage caused!
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| Section of roof now missing a panel |
Fingers crossed, it seems like the worst of our problems are behind us. We have reliable power again, the washing machine has had even more new parts and now it seems to be working (please...please be properly mended!). We have a nice, new, electric chainsaw which is fabulous and Iain's been using that for all the tree chopping fun. I like the fact that if you let go of it, it immediately stops, it's so much safer than the petrol one, as well as being lighter, and more environmentally friendly. I even had a go and I think I'd be quite happy using that rather than the big, scary one!
Vegetable-wise, I think I can safely say that we're now in the hunger gap! The chard is still growing, but very slowly and with tiny leaves, so I decided to leave that for the wildlife, as they won't have much food now. I harvested the last of the carrots (I think...I keep finding odd extra ones!) and dug up an enormous one! I saved it until last and we had it with a roast dinner, yummy!
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| The final carrot! |
Well, I'd better get on with some jobs, we've a lot to get done in a short space of time! Have a great month everyone. :)
