We’ve spent most of this month planning our next round of projects, and plan to start work in March.
After the severe, countrywide storms this month, we’ve decided to have a final go at planting a shelter belt. Even without storms Eunice and Franklin et al, the ‘lazy’ Lincolnshire wind which, as I’ve mentioned before, is famed for being so idle that it goes through rather than round you, has managed to scupper every previous attempt at hedge planting.
We tried a native edible hedging mix comprising elder, hazel, blackthorn and bird cherry, most of which died, apart from a few straggly elders which, sadly, are not an asset to any hedge line. We also tried a small row of rosa rugosa, interspersed with rowan saplings. I think we have one stunted rosa rugosa plant left after four years, and no rowans. We tried hawthorn, but the hares and rabbits polished it off when the spiral tree guards shattered in the cold and wind. We tried a mixture of hawthorn and hornbeam and that is still alive, albeit not very tall because the sheep and horses nibble off the tops every time they grow above the guards.
For what we hope will be our last and most successful attempt we’ve settled on native English holly (Ilex aquifolium), so please keep your fingers crossed for us! We have a lot of holly hedges already and think that its leathery leaves are what helps it survive the buffeting wind. The plants arrived from a local nursery on two pallets and George, Hannah and Annie moved them all from the cattery car park to the terrace at the back of the house where it was Tony’s job to count them – all 500 of ‘em!
Another big project involves extending the cattery/shop car park slightly and making a part grass/ part gravel picnic area with picnic benches, as well as a pathway along the back of the cattery to enable easier access to the gift shop. The cost of materials is eye watering, but not quite as bad as Annie feared upon getting the first emailed quote. Somehow, the area in question had expanded in the mind of the quarry owner and we were quoted for 17.5 thousand tonnes of aggregates! After Annie climbed back onto her chair from her new position on the floor, she rang the supplier to explain that she wasn’t proposing to resurface the A16 from end to end and, thankfully, a much-reduced quote was produced.
The steep increase in fuel prices, combined with the blustery weather has spurred Annie and Hannah on to make some draught excluders and what better to stuff them with than wool from our own sheep? We used the sink in the cattery sluice because unprocessed sheep’s wool pongs a bit and dried it on an electric airer. It’s quite matted, but that’s fine because we aren’t going to spin it. It’s been a longstanding ambition of Annie’s to buy a woollen mill, so could this be the beginning of something new?!
Finally, a couple of photos. The first shows the field after half an hour’s snowfall. Tony and Annie were in the nearest town, which nestles down in the valley, when the snow began. In the fifteen minutes it took them to drive back up the hill (skidding alarmingly on one sharp bend) the ground was white over. If they’d left it any longer and had had to stop on the hill to allow another car to pass, I doubt they’d have made it home. Mind you, after a few more hours every trace of snow had disappeared as though it’d never been there.
Cold days call for comfort food and Annie has been busy experimenting with her new kitchen toy, a Remoska. It’s proving to be very versatile as well as a lot more energy efficient than the fan oven, and has produced various casseroles, Bolognese sauces and stews as well as this little loaf, which tasted as good as it looked.
Foxglove Farm 