Happy New Year.

So, a new year starts.

I hope 2014 is better than 2013, which quite frankly was not great for us here at Compost Mansions. Although the weather was better for gardening in 2013, ill health made it harder for both of us to get the things we wanted to achieve, done. 

This trend continued right up until the very end of 2013, as I injured my shoulder and neck muscles just after Christmas and am finding it hard to sit up straight, bend down or turn my head. This just added more misery to the post 'flu aches and pains I was already feeling. So yet again lots of outside jobs have had to be put on hold until I am well enough.  Being ill before Christmas also knocked a hole in my work schedule

Despite this, life has to go on and the chickens need tending, regardless. I had to go outside today in the wind and the rain, to put down pallets in the hen runs, so the poor things had somewhere dry to stand. At 2 pm it was nearly dark! The hens are not impressed by this weather or by the dull days (and who can blame them?) and huddle together in the barn, moaning at me to " make it stop" whenever I go outside.

Blondin the nearly-a-Cockerel dances around them, nearly but not quite brave enough to try his luck with the Big Hens. His  fellow hatchling Treacle (who was formerly called Creosote) is not quite yet mature enough to squat for him and she just runs away, so he is not happy at all.

He is a handsome fellow and has a very melodious crow, and is not (so far) at all aggressive.

While outside this afternoon tending to the hens I looked around through the grey veil of rain onto a totally sodden garden which looks a mess. The bindweed is taking over the veg plot to the point where I am seriously considering razing the existing beds back to grass and starting all over with new ones, elsewhere. The ground is awash and everwhere I walk I leave foot shaped mini ponds behind. 


Gloomy weather makes for gloomy thoughts in my head, which only longer days, outside work (with less rain!) will put right. 

So, having written this post and having had a good look around Blogland, I am off to watch the first episode of the new series of Sherlock - can't wait to settle down in front of the fire and enjoy it :)

And it is STILL raining outside - and now the wind is rising and wuthering around the house.  My thoughts are with all of you and hope you are safe, wherever you are.

February flying by.

Well here we are, nearly the end of February and I have not posted once this month. :-(    Not. One. Word. I have not even drafted any posts!

Life has been very stressful here since before Christmas, for reasons I am not going to blog about but which have made life very difficult and upsetting.  This has made it hard to get on with our normal life, as there have been lots of long talks late into the night, and nights spent not sleeping,  and days where meals have been cooked, only for there to be little appetite for them. None of this is good when there is lots of work to do!

Then to add to this, Compostman's back injury has been making itself felt ( not in a good way) and I got ill with a very severe chest infection, which had me in bed for 5 days and very weak for many more days around that - I am still recovering, Compostman is still struggling with back pain and planting/sowing/tree felling/clearing beds/moving plants etc etc has all come to a stop. Which, at this time of year, is NOT GOOD NEWS.

I HAVE sown the first batch of pepper and tomato seeds so have several hundred seeds of the earlier varieties ( 20 different sorts) in the heated propagators - will need to pot them up and sow another batch soon. These include the plants I grow " to order" for various customers - they tell me what varieties they want, I grow them and hand them over in May, ready to plant out.

I HAVE got the spuds chitting, the earliest ones are planted up in their bags in the polytunnel; the rest are stitting, waiting, for the soil ( and me!) to be ready to put them in the ground.

I DID get some garlic and broad beans into the ground finally, just before I got ill.

I HAVE got every thing ready , clean and tidy in the Polytunnel, all the seed order done, all the supplies ready for the 2012 growing season

Compostman DID manage to prune the apple trees and clear up all the debris from the major shrub pruning we have been doing. Huge bonfires raised a bit of cheer in an otherwise quite gloomy time.

BUT - we have lots of trees to fell NOW before they come into leaf, we NEED to get them down, not just for firewood but for land clearance, so we can then get on with the major earth moving project.

And I am not well enough. And Compostman is not up to it. And time is ticking on.

Sorry this sounds a bit gloomy - but it is how I feel. Hope all of you are having a better time of it!