Wednesday 11 March 2009

'Spring has sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where the boidies is. Some say the boide is on the wing, but that's obsoide the wing is on the boide'! (apparently not Spike Milligan but Ogden Nash).

Obviously its been busy as I haven't managed to post for rather a while, and work is picking up for both of us which is of course good news, especially under the current climate, it just has meant that I haven't been able to update this.

Spring has definitely sprung but its had a bit of a struggle getting there. Its lovey now, but we have had some very wet and windy weather too. Even snow the week before last which took us and the forecasters by surprise. The daffs are doing well now as are the primroses. Thankfully the hens aren't interested in them!

We keep meaning to get down to the beach to do some fishing but time and the tides seem to be against us. Each time we have time to go the tides are wrong. I am trying to finish a dissertation for a master degree and this will be finished at the end of this month so then hopefully we can do more important things, like fishing and walking on Dartmoor.

We had been rather slack on the planting and brewing side. M has planted out some chilli seeds, tomatoes and spinach and now we have managed to get runner beans, french beans, peas, S onions, shallots, lettuce, carrots and lots of different flowers finally planted. The spuds are chitting nicely and will go in soonish. I just cannot believe it is mid March already.

Part of the planting delay has been the problem of our bog garden, M has created one raised bed but there are already some leeks in the plot that we obviously cannot move and we cannot really build a raised bed round them (might try); however we have also run out of wood which M is going to try to rectify. We also struggle with the weeds and so have covered the ground with old silage sheets in the hope that this will kill off the worst of it and then we can get moving, but time is marching on (ha ha) so we really must try to get some of these things in sooner rather than later somewhere. Thankfully the s peas and the beans and marigolds can start off in pots.

The brewing as I mentioned is slow. M was supposed to make more beer weeks ago but it was so cold in the outbuilding he really couldn't face it. Then last week he finally managed to get a brew going only to find that his brew boiler thermostat had packed up, so mid brew had to poor off boiling beer into two smaller containers that would fit on our hob. We think the OG wasn't quite right but we are going to see how it goes. The boiler isn't that old, so M contacted the manufacturers who were brilliant and are going to replace it free of charge; apparently they had had some problem with some of them...!

The wine side isn't bad, I have a nice looking peach ready to rack off and a tea which looks a bit like a bad urine sample but sure will be OK. The banana continues to bubble away despite the fact it was made about 4 weeks ago but it is starting to clear and in a couple of weeks will want racking off again. The rest probably need bottling now but seem to be happy as they are.

The cats are enjoying the nice sunny weather as are the hens.

1 comment:

Pattypan said...

Nice to see you back Lotti - glad your work has picked up but sad you haven't been able to post - mind you I have had a little of that as am trying to sort out a mahoosive storage problem - WIP. I am getting there very slowly. Hope the dissertation goes well. But its lovely to see you back

Tricia aka pattypan