Today has been a back-breaking pleasure! It’s been sunny and calm weather so I’ve been helping myself to lots of free entertainment in the garden. I’ve been watching Rosie and Archie play. Arch has really sussed out how the land lies and he’s on his best border patrol at all times. Our land’s boundaries are traditional Cornish dry stone walls and he’s worked out that he can climb on top and see off anyone coming towards us! He loves standing on top of the wall just watching the world go by.
Rosie has worked out that she can run through and around the different garden segments for entertainment and ambush purposes. I’ve been watching her ambush Archie by standing behind a tree then attacking him as he passes. He is, of course, much more interested in the inhabitants of the tree – so he’s been on back legs peering up into the foliage willing a squirrel to fall down into his mouth.
While all this has been going on, I’ve been starting to clear my veggie plot for a spring planting of things to eat. I’ve discovered that the soil isn’t the lovely black loam from our little cottage but it’s fairly wet clay! I’m not sure if that’s a result of years of ‘intensive’ chemical methods (and therefore will revert once I start digging in hummus rich materials) or if it’s just a cross I will have to bear long-term. In any event, I’d say it’s got to be better than the pure desert-like sand of Sandhurst.
Another bit of free entertainment has been in the form of the hens ‘helping’ me with the digging. My pace has been slower than I’d like because of waiting for the fat-bottomed girls to get clear after I’ve done a bit. I know they will carry on cleaning the dug earth when I can’t get out there so all the time now they are earning their keep. I am still in terror about what happens when bird flu hits our shores (which it surely will) because watching those scenes in Turkey is enough to make any sensitive soul weep. Shoving live animals into sacks and suffocating them is not what I want for my girls.
Although there are many beautiful things in the garden, there is nonetheless still a general air of decay, typified by this growth on a now-dead apple tree in our ‘secret garden’. Even with lots of time, it’s going to be a mammoth task to get it back to its former glory.
My efforts turned over around three or four square metres and I reckon it’ll take another fifteen days at that rate to do the rest of the veggie plot. Groan. The good news is that it’s not necessary to do the whole lot at once – I can start planting the early stuff in the space I’ve already made.
Last year I was starting a mini-series that was so much fun to do....ten songs that changed my life. I got the inspiration from a fabulous book - Cool for Cats!
In case you're interested in mine....
SYSLJFM - the Q-Tips (link above)
These Arms of Mine by Otis Redding
Love and Pride by King
Elevation by U2
Blinded by the Sun by the Seahorses
(I've got your number) Written on the back of my hand by the Jags
Drive by the Cars
Do you want to know a secret? by the Beatles
This is love by PJ Harvey
The shape of things to come by Love and Money
