we were snowed in.

Gardening is a great pastime, relaxing, good exercise, exciting and amazing, but today it was also sad. Today, we had to cut down the row of conifers we have been growing since 2006, and for all of you who know your dates, yes, we had these trees before we even came to Brevands. They arrived on the removal lorry in pots stacked up amongst the fridge and washing machine so  I did feel a little guilty and sad but once Mike had sawed them down I was excited with the actuality of a clear view into the allotment and the prospect of the land handed back to me being full of flowers and stuff we might eat. Mike is on light duties so we will have to wait to load this huge pile of tree into the trailer but I have the land back and I can now start planning my 2012 veggie patch 

The chickens have settled well into the pottager and I am training them to come to me when I want them back in the enclosure. They are clearing the autumn leftovers and feeding themselves so we don’t have to. I am not going to grow outside of the poly in the pottager so anything there is for them to forage. I always wanted to shout “come on chicky chic chics, come on” and have them respond so I am thrilled that when I go clucking about in  there  they come for  a handful of corn and then I trick them into the enclosure to shut the gate on them. Luckily hens have a very short memory and the trick of shutting them in is a constant surprise to them ……the power I have over those hens is intoxicating

Mike came up into the allotment last week with a bit of a face on and said “ good news or bad news,  I demanded the bad news first, Your duck is dead, “so what is the good news”…one less duck to feed and the reality of living with the wild and untamed was accepted, The duck was a female dressed as a male, blind in one eye and as old as the time we have been here, so her time was up and as we had only borrowed her from mother nature we  said our goodbyes and threw her into the hedge row for nature and all she looks after to  make use of her and close the cycle. We dispose of all our passing visitors that way, it makes sense  and feels right, from where we are here in the middle of it all.

I will not explain this picture but the autumn pumpkins in the back ground will give it away. Daffs in November…..absolutely ridiculous…but quite inexplicably exciting, We are all waiting to see what  winter has got in her plan for us. I am however, reminded that in three weeks time last year, we were snowed in.