I know there is nothing I can’t still learn but I do have a private list of things I just wish I already knew, trees and forestry is one of them. If we lived on the mainland I would definitely do some kind of course on forestry and learn more.
After Popmaster I was consumed with the need to be outside today. Scarlett is still a bit snuffly so we left the kids indoors where they have done more drawing, played with lego and messed about with tablets. Their current ‘thing’ is Adventure Time so they are drawing that lots and creating versions of it on minecraft. They are happily consumed by it so I am tending to leave them to it!
I hung out a load of washing from yesterday and stuck the final load in, then went off with my axe. Ady was fixing the log burner flue and generally tidying up around the static. He also fixed two broken / rotten slats on the pallets that surround the static. I went into the woodland between the croft and the river and cut down loads of alder and hazel from some coppiced trees. Long, straight and very green so nice and easy to bend and weave into each other. The autumn sowed garlic has already got shoots which the chickens were pecking away at so I wanted to net the raised beds. I netted the two with garlic in them and planted another one up with some more garlic and netted that too.
There are loads of cockerels in the chicks from last year, we need to decide which we’re keeping and start killing off the rest for meat. I have earmarked a couple of particularly pretty or character-ful ones to keep. They are all just starting to crow and chase the hens to mate with them, it’s really funny being down there as they find their voices and act like teenage boys! It was not particularly sunny today but it was still, dry and not too cold. A perfect day to be out working in. I really enjoyed it.
We realised at lunch time that we’d left it too late to have our planned dinner of slow cooked pork as we’d not actually taken it out of the freezer so swapped for tomorrows planned dinner of fish cakes. Sadly it was not until nearly 8pm when Ady had already cooked and mashed the potatoes that we realised we had no tuna! Jinty was already closed and we had no tinned meat or fish at all. We used my emergency chorizo chopped up small and added some cheese and made some really nice potato, chorizo and cheese patty things though which were delicious. I did realise at 5pm that if we were going to have slow cooked pork tomorrow it would need defrosting today though so walked down to the village to get it out of the freezer. I met Deb along the way so stopped for a brief chat (but only brief as I’d not taken a torch).
The forecast tomorrow is rain so will probably be an indoor day again. The polytunnel needs attention but it is such a mess I want Ady to come and do it with me, it is a sad place to be at the moment so I want to have company while I put it straight again.