Snapshot November 2013

I've rather got out of the blogging habit recently due to the Facebook page and laziness. So I've decide that rather than try a complete roundup I'd just do a snapshot of the farm today.

It was such a glorious autumnal day that I was inspired to  share a little bit of just how lovely it was with a few photos. Maybe I'll add some photos of what happened over the summer in another post. Enjoy...

View to the lower field from yard

 In the kitchen, the rest of the family in relaxed Sunday morning mode...

"Smile!"

In the former 'egg shed', various projects are underway using an assortment of worn out old tools and relatives   :)

Dad wondering how anyone can work in such a congested mess.

 In the yard , looking East, no sign of all those big sheds anymore and much of the concrete lifted, topsoil brought in, grass appearing, veg plot manured, pond outline apparent...

 ...shallow graves dug.... oops , actually they are raspberry cane trenches awaiting delivery this week. An impromptu football game happened shortly afterwards with the 'neighbours' in the caravan.

Look at the colour of thoes trees - fabulous!

Looking back up the yard, treehouse and 'new' hill visible in distance. I don't stand up on top of the wall very often so it makes for an unusual perspective.

The pond will be an ongoing side project

As does looking down into the glasshouse, which has been neglected by me(except for the grapes) since I've been far too busy to temporarily repair it and now leaks even more than ever...

The glasshouse is 45meters long and looks a lot like this all the way !

... which has not been good for the vines (second disasterous year in a row). A tactical error in spraying with dilute milk as an organic anti-fungal experiment worked initially but ended up slightly staining the grapes brown and altering their flavour. As a result I gave up on them and lost the lot to mould - several hundred bunches. Doh ! Quite pleased with the results up to that point - when the glasshouse is eventually repaired I'll be an expert...maybe !

April has had substantially more success earlier in year with her strawberries - several hundred plants now, all looking fabulous in the Autumnal light .

Down in the lower field the Grumpy caravan is getting a pre-winter makeover...

And in the upper field, the neighbours horses have munched everything down and are well wrapped for the impending cold weather...

The woods are just the perfect balance of leafless and colourful to allow the sunshine deep into the valley

More interesting fungus have popped up , not sure what these ones are yet...

I haven't managed a treehouse blogpost as intended, but it was finished externally , and we did sleep in it for a month over the summer. I might even decorate inside eventually. Mainly I just enjoy looking at it from a distance, the Grove Farm equivalent to a Gothic folly !

..and looking to the right , the recently rebuilt wall (to immediate  right of doorway) still awaits its crowning copestones but is already blending in perfectly...

I got 'distracted' onto completely rebuilding the entire master bedroom before we finished the wall (and its got a bit cold for lime mortar work now) and I'm pleased to say that, after sporadically working on the bedroom for much of the last three months, we 'moved in' yesterday and the light fitting went up three  hours ago...

(please excuse the terrible photo - its hot off the camera!)

So maybe thats why I managed a blogpost after so long - suddenly the workload seems to have reduced massively for a short while, all thats left to do today is ...

"cheese!"

...type


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