Hope everyone had a festive Christmas. We enjoyed the company of Liz, Ian and Mathew for the day. Mathew is a wonderful story teller and kept us all entertained with tales of his interesting and alternative life. The Christmas pudding went down a treat but it was too much for his lordship who ate a substancial portion [...]

Garden, General

It’s raining, it won’t be enough for the farmers but every bit helps. It’s been a cool, dry spring in Sheffield. The ground is cracking and I’m watering daily. The dam has dropped a couple of feet. Actually the dam needs to be addressed soon, it has no planting around it or on it. I [...]

Garden

The bulbs Sharon and her mum planted around the gate have started flowering. They’re delightful. Every morning I walk up to the gate to get the paper with the dogs and there they all are smiling at me, jonquils, daffadils and now the muscari’s are flowering too. Little blue spikes popping up everywhere. I planted [...]

Garden

I’ve planted nearly 40 liquidambars along the south-eastern boundary in two rows. The little trees have turned the most magnificent deep plum colour. They’ll be spectacular when they reach a mature height. I have been thinking a lot about this planting and wondering whether they would look better mixed with another species to add better [...]

Garden

Lizzie is staying for a couple of days so we did a few jobs. Pulled down a fence above the house and moved the bits up to the round paddock ready to reassemble. We also got a trailer load of alpaca poo and straw from the alpaca shed and mulched around the box hedge near [...]

Garden