of actually working here 🙂
We started this morning with some fruit picking – raspberries, jostaberries, gooseberries, tayberries and loganberries. I did some pinching off side shoots on tomatoe plants and then that was followed by cuprinol-ing the ends of some cut wood that John is planning to use as cordwood on a building he is putting up for his sister. It’s a real shame we have not got to spend more time with John actually, he knows loads about lots of subjects we are interested in.
We made that job stretch rather as we have realised our pace of work is way quicker than they are expecting here. And it was 1030am so we persuaded Scarlett to make us a cup of tea and we all listened to Popmaster 🙂
Our next task was to lop the willow growing at the top of a willow structure. Ideally it would be pruned and woven in in it’s dormant period in winter but some of the growth was so heavy it was preventing the light getting to lots of the other bits so it needed to come off. I held the ladder – when I wasn’t letting it go to take pictures 😉 and Ady lopped. We thinned one of the apple trees and then did some trimming edges of grass with the shears. Lisa asked me to come and help her with lunch which we ate early again today.
After lunch we thinned the rest of the apple trees, removing fruit where it would hamper growth and create smaller, rubbed against each other apples. We then pulled up some garlic and put it out to dry off in the polytunnel.
Our final task of the day was to remove some pipe lagging that had been put around some young apple trees that were getting ring bark damage from rabbits to protect them. The lagging was sweating though and holding moisture against the trunks which was doing them no good. A couple had the root stock sending out shoots rather than the grafted tree too so we took those off.
We retired to the static where Davies had two very spectacular nose bleeds, one lasting for ages. Lisa had one yesterday and Scarlett had obviously had a minor nose bleed in the night as she had blood around one nostril this morning so it must be the stormy pressure of the weather or something, but Davies has not had one for ages. We watched last weeks episode of Sorry I’ve Got No Head on iplayer but were most disappointed at the lack of Jasmine and Prudith 🙁
Dinner was bean soup. I know. Soup. With beans in it. To be fair it was actually quite nice soup and also contained carrots, potatoes, sugar snap peas and herbs from the garden so I ate all but the beans and then explained I really don’t like beans but Ady loves them and passed them across to him. I was left with a serious carb and protein deficit though and was most glad of Ady’s suggestion yesterday that we buy some cheese and crackers for just such moments, so enjoyed them a bit later with a cider :).