Part Two – Summer
When the sun came out it was time for Nelly’s first bath of the year. When we first got her, many years ago, she was the most beautiful dark dappled grey with a coat as shiny as a child’s wooden rocking horse but she’s an old lady in her 20s now and has completely greyed out. She’s got arthritis and can no longer be ridden but she enjoys life as a field ornament and never misses a chance to roll in mud.
In her younger days she had a weekly bath during the showing season but now it’s only a few times a year because I like to make sure that she dries off completely before night-time to avoid chills. I no longer keep a range of grooming products to rival those of a top hair salon, she just gets a basic shampoo and her mane and tail are conditioned with whatever type of cheap conditioner I can find. My family have never let me live down the day when I accidentally left my brand new, expensive equine conditioner (designed to make yellowy tails look really clean and white) on for too long and had to go take her to a show looking as though she’d had a blue rinse!
‘Project Kitchen Garden’ continued with Tony hiring a digger to dig out a pond and rill. The previous year we’d visited the late Geoff Hamilton’s gardens at Barnsdale and I immediately fell back in love with his Town Paradise garden that I remembered from the late 90s television series. I was a huge fan of his and dug (excuse the pun!) out his books when we got home so that we could make our own version of his design. I know we don’t live in a town, but I think the design will work perfectly here.
Tony used breezeblocks with rebars to strengthen the walls. The base of the rill is poured concrete. The blue pipe will eventually circulate water between the pond and the water feature at the end of the rill.
When the anticipated summer sunshine arrived we treated ourselves to an inexpensive hot tub.
Not to be outdone by Tony’s efforts, George began his own project, nicknamed ‘Project Tiki Bar’, a shelter to go over the hot tub.
Finally, we decided it was time to buy a few sheep and travelled to a village near Newark for a socially distanced look at these lambs. We wanted a breed that we liked the look of but that wasn’t going to be too flighty and these coloured Ryeland ewe lambs seemed just the job.
We’re hoping to breed from them next year and will put the tup in with them in November. He’s called Archie and is very handsome with lovely soft wool so we think the girls will like him!
Foxglove Farm 