It amazes me how much life has changed in just one year. Our days used to be defined by the time on our watches, now it seems we plan our activities according to the hours of daylight. The chickens rising and bedding down starts and finishes our working day. The summer days here are really long and often it doesn't get dark until nearly 11 o'clock at night and conversely, the winter days are extremely short. Just now we have to wait until 8:45 for the day to get started and our outdoor jobs need to be finished before it starts to get dark at 3:45pm.
As we had hoped, we managed to get our new front door fitted before Christmas, it looks very smart and hopefully the cold drafts in the hall have now been banished. Unfortunately M was unable to save the old stained glass window as it exploded into a thousand bits.
Look what we found in our woods, a little antler. Jess and Finn were very interested in it but M managed to get hold of it first. We keep looking for the second one in the pair but no joy just yet.
A week or so ago we dug up all the willow cuttings we had put in one of the baths about a year ago. There were also a few elders which I had stuck in when we trimmed our newly planted elder plants in March. We couldn't quite believe it but there were 45 willow plants in all and these are now dotted around the woods. I potted up the elders to give them a little protection over winter before being planted out next spring. I'm really chuffed with my little group of oaks and hopefully they too will find a permanent home in the new year.
Dreary days lead to crafty adventures and M has been busy. He has cut and dried willow before soaking it to try some willow weaving and the result is a beautiful willow wreath adorning the Wendy house.
He also weaved a little cone before picking some winter greenery for an indoor arrangement; he is so creative.
The best I can do is buy some little indoor plants, I love the look of a poinsettia at Christmas. I also decided to get a small Christmas cactus which has loads of buds, hopefully we won't kill it before it blooms - we've never been particularly good at keeping house plants.
Some lovely hyacinths complete the windowsill picture.
One final note on the chicken front: due to the avian flu restrictions they are now enjoying their enforced confinement in the byre where the wild birds can't get to them or their food and water. Roll on the 6th January and a return to normal scratching around, free range, in the chicken yard.
No comments:
Post a Comment