Wet, Snowy, Cold

Hello Everyone,

February is turning into an extremely wet, snowy, cold month. Not surprising as it is mid Winter. Saying that, it does not make for pleasant surroundings, even though it happens every single year, we are up to the eyes in mud. However, in another few weeks the grass will replace the muddy ground. The ground will firm up and the washing machine will have a break from washing muddy overalls and I will stop washing the floor tiles at the entrance to the house! Roll on!

We try very hard to design our growing areas with, not only the growing area in mind, the outer areas are also very important to us. We want our farm to look pleasing but also be efficient. Around and between all the polytunnels we have pebble paths. They are there to reduce the chance of weeds creeping into the tunnel, to prevent pesky rabbits tunnelling under and into the tunnel. But also to make it much easier to walk from one tunnel to the next without traipsing through the mud in the Winter (or other wet seasons, we are up North and high up after all).

The actual entrance to the fields are our muddiest areas we have to pass. Not only is it boots on the ground and wheel barrows being dragged, it is the tractor churning the ground which creates such a muddy mess! Monday morning this week sees the arrival of “hoggin’”. Yep! Our vocabulary has changed over the last five years! Hoggin is stone, larger than a pebble but people can easily walk over them, especially in wellies and boots. The “hoggin” is going in the entrance area and the aim is to have an entrance area which will not be a complete bog which we slip and slide our way across…or…that is the plan. All of this should make for a much more pleasant trip to the work place.

When I said our ‘muddiest area’ being the entrance to the fields, that was not totally correct. The Well Field, where we keep the pigs, is truly our wettest area. As the name suggests, the Well Field is so named because we have a well within the field. This well has been dredged a number of times and when we win the lottery, we would really like to excavate and rebuild it. However, till then, we have to endure the well overflowing each time the wet weather hits us. One thing for sure is that the pigs absolutely love playing and wallowing in the water and mud. This really is the wettest area of our land.

Another area which becomes occasionally wet is in an area which we haven’t used for anything much during our time here. It was known as our ‘Paddock’. We have now brought it into our Orchard Field boundary. We intend to have this as our ‘scrape’ a scrape is a very shallow pond. A pond will appear when and if there is excessive water fall. We intend to do this scrape, literally scrape away the top earth, soon. This will be a great area for migrating birds over the coming spring. Soooo excited. Can’t wait to see the birds arriving. Spring is on its way people!

We really appreciate you ordering promptly. Personally, I felt quite organised last week (go me), so I thank you.

Take great care everyone and next week, when I send the email out to you, not only is it Valentines Day, not only is the sun up till twelve minutes after five, the big news is that we start seeding. Brilliant.

Ann