week 7 spring

Monday - Helen, David & William here - Will & Ben built a great set of shelving out of recycled wood - perfect for putting our tomatoes out on..David's in charge of all the watering - quite something now with all our flowers, fruit trees, raspberries, sweet peas - and now 18 tyres filled with salad potatoes!  Helen & I did the hens and ducks, then spent the rest of the morning potting up roses & clematis to go outside the porta cabin.

Wednesday, Sue and i were on a Care Farm Training course, so Gerry was left in charge (with the help of Ella who's home from college!)  Bob was on hand helping all day too..  They cleaned out the stinky duck pond and found two duck eggs in their house.  They all checked the incubator - which we hope is going to hatch out, Rhode Island Reds, Bantams & Cotswold Leg Bars, at Easter!  Then they all had a go at dry stone walling - breaking bits off the stones, making them flat, preparing the ground underneath.  Of course there's still a pen load of lambs to feed - 14 last count...so plenty of hands on lambing going on!

Cerney House Tulips

Thursday, Mike was here helping and all 3 students arrived.  We thought we'd make a start on the flat packed fruit cage - however, it took Mike & Mike (carer) most of the morning to work out the instructions....suffice to say there are a few rather wobbly metal rods up so far..!  We had to spend at least half an hour mending fences in the sheep field as about 20 or so naughty lambs have been 'burrowing' out and then can't get back to their mums for a feed!

Pm we went down to Cerney House again, for a treat.  The tulips look amazing - well the whole garden looks lovely - and it's a real joy to see everyone so happy, wandering about admiring all the flowers!

Our Tulips!!

Only two more days to go, then we break for Easter till 8 May - and hopefully will have some chicks hatched by then...!

week 6 spring

Monday i was away, so i left things in the capable hands of Ben, Hilary, Legs and Molly.  Molly wrote up my weekly diary, beautifully, and i'm just reporting back to the blog!  We had a visit last week from my insurance company, and by the time they left we knew we would have a list of 'recommendations' as long as yer arm....!

Suffice to say, William & Ben's first job was to move the paper hand dispenser from our little kitchen, to the men's toilets!  There was a lot of 'bottle' feeding done, as we have about 14 pet lambs now, owing to the Mastitus outbreaks - this job is absolutely Helen's favorite part of the morning, so we had a very happy student again!  Ben and William have made us a great bench for sitting outside the porta cabin...it's been put together from ends of telegraph poles, and a 'donated' plasterer's plank??!  Anway it's exactly what we needed outside in the glorious weather we've been having.
Wednesday was SO hot, Steve actually got a very burnt neck - i've had to insist they all bring sun hats & creams - can't believe it in April.  My friend Sally Ann has lent us her incubator, so we set that up first thing.  We've put a mix of Rhode Island, Cotswold Leg Bars, and my Bantam's eggs in - we'll have to wait and see for 21 days now.  We planted out all the Sweet Peas into ....yes, you guessed some of the millions of tyres we've STILL got on site!  The guys made some lovely tripods out of hazel twigs for them to grow up.    Peas & radishes were planted out in the 3rd raised bed - everything is growing at such a rate, it's fantastic.  Broad Beans are up outside, & some tiny leeks, and inside the poly tunnel the salads are going crazy - must get to the local pubs to see if they want to buy some salad bags off us!

Thursday, great excitement, as the local Police came over to help plant out the last four Fruit Trees, as they had given us the funds to buy them.  Coln House School also helped - i don't think we've ever had so many willing helpers on site - we got most of the wood chip spread round all the paths, and i think they would have put the fruit cage up if they had been allowed to stay all day!
After they had left the rest of the gang planted up 18 tyres  with our 'chitted' Charlotte & Pink Fur Apple potatoes - it's all taking shape now!  The only thing is there's SO much watering, and having got our bowsers all attached to drainpipes, we've had hardly any rain!  I'm sure it won't be long, and i hope it rains at night only...!