Spring

It's been a very busy spring. We planted about 1700 of the 3000 trees before realising that there was a lot more clearing needed to be done before we could plant the remaining 1300. Also it turns out that the grant only requires that they all be planted by February next year, so we plan on getting them in in the autumn. Nothing like putting off a job, ha! Why do today what you can leave until tomorrow? Still, we've not been resting on our laurels, you know (whatever that means). There are plenty of other things to be getting on with.


New beds are being created in the vegetable garden, at great effort. The land is horribly compacted after being used for horses by the previous owners, it's as hard as rock and shot through with thick, parsnip-sized dock roots. Pernicious weeds such as buttercup must be removed. Meanwhile last year's beds are being given the once-over before this year's plants are put in. So far we have several beds of potatoes, white and red onions, parsnips, asparagus, peas, broad beans, beetroot, leaf beet, kale and lettuce.

We've done a good (mostly timely) job of sowing our seeds this year, and have managed to keep on top of pricking out and potting on. Last year's success stories were: potatoes, parsnip, beetroot, basil, cucumbers and courgettes. Surprise failures included: spinach, carrots, peppers, aubergines and leeks. You'd have thought that leeks would be happy anywhere in Wales, being the national vegetable, but apparently not.

I've been trying to juggle Meg and the smallholding projects, and have been feeling quite frustrated by my inability to give my full attention to either as thoroughly as I would like. Megan is flourishing though, so I mustn't feel guilty for sometimes calling "Hang on a minute," as I finish hanging the nappies out to dry, or putting her in the laundry basket in the garden whilst I do some weeding for half an hour!


About a month ago I realised that I was getting stressed again, and that there was a whole host of stressful things hanging over me, needing to be dealt with. My mum encouraged me to write a list (one of my favourite activities) and I focused on sorting stuff out over the course of a couple of weeks. It's amazing how much lighter I feel now, and how much more able I am to face oncoming tasks. A weight has been lifted. :D


And all is well :D

Smallholding Plans

It's been a while since I posted, but don't let that lead you to believe that nothing has been happening here. We have been gearing ourselves up for a very busy year on the smallholding, having meetings and making plans. Our pressing projects include planting 3000-ish trees, which will take place from mid February until mid April (there's a deadline which needs to be met as the tree-planting is being done with the help of a grant), installing alternative energy systems (including a wood-fueled boiler for hot water/heating, solar panels to generate electricity, and passive solar collectors to heat water), as well as digging a whole load of new vegetable beds and hopefully growing twice as much as last year.

There's a good deal of construction work to be done, chiefly by Phil and my dad. The wood boiler will be stationed in one of the outdoor sheds, and will need to be boxed in and insulated so that we don't waste any leaked heat. A trench will be dug from the shed to the house as a route for the pipes. An 'A' frame for the solar panels needs to be constructed on high slope behind the house (due to the large hill in front of us, the houses lose the sun for the four darkest months of the year - the slope, being higher, retains the sun for a little longer).

The sun (shining tantalisingly on the other side of the valley) has not yet returned to our houses

We are planning a cool (but not too cold!) storage area on a mezzanine floor (which doesn't yet exist) for dried goods and things like potatoes and onions. Phil will be adding a foot or so of insulating hempcrete to the gable end and rear exterior walls of our house, which is something which should be done in warmer weather to aid drying. Eventually we hope to construct a conservatory along the front of the houses, as a way of capturing heat as well as creating more space, but I don't think we'll have time for that this year.

My mum has been excellent at taking up the reins with regards to the tree planting project. She has sourced them from a local tree nursery, so they will be well prepared for life at 800ft. Our plan is to start coppicing them for our own fuel needs as soon as they are big enough. Overall we are trying to become as self-sufficient as we can in energy and food, so that we are not at the mercy of volatile market trends and big business. We want to be as self-reliant as possible, it seems to be the only thing that makes sense in an increasingly unpredictable world.

The oaks lining the lane are hundreds of years old

Hopefully I'll make time to blog more regularly again (though it does look like I might soon be rather occupied!), and I really want to share Meggie's developments too, as well as what I've been doing creatively... Just give me a few extra hours in the day, that's all I ask!

I found a Silver Cross pushchair in a local charity shop for £3,
which is a fun way to take Meg out and about :D

Still Snowed In

Meggie's first snow :D

No chance of outdoor work!

A view down the valley:

The trees are stark and beautiful.

My dad rescues the potatoes from the freezing cold shed:

The holly bush beside our house is bursting with berries:

We've got plenty of wood, and it's cosy inside :)

And Meg's got a very toasty pixie hat, ha ha...

Abundance

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been alternating between making preparations and resting up ready for the arrival of Squiggles. In fact yesterday was my due date, so clearly Squiggles plans to be fashionably late. Aside from that, I've also been trying to help my mum to stay on top of the vegetable garden in all of its abundance! For the first time in my life, I'm in a position of having too many courgettes, and feeling the pressure of seeing them turn into marrows virtually overnight... This could become stressful! Even more than the marrows, we have a glut of cucumbers - especially the round Crystal Lemons - it's making me think 'if only we lived closer to the road, then maybe we could set up a roadside stall...' Perhaps it's time to approach one or two of the little vegetable shops in town to see if they'd like to offer them up for sale?


A couple of days ago, we found ourselves making an assessment of what needed to be done in the garden, with the results showing that every bed needs something doing, whether it be weeding between the sprouting broccoli, digging up the potatoes or harvesting the runner beans. I took it upon myself to gather all of the ripe tomatoes, cucumbers (both Crystal Lemons and the long green Marketmores), as well as the runner beans and French beans. Yesterday I finally made use of a recipe for Runner Bean Chutney which was given to me by a friend who couldn't over-emphasise how good it tasted, but the mixture turned out quite runny so we'll see whether or not it was worth it when it's reached the three-month maturity stage.


I've been feeling quite frustrated with my suddenly slumping energy levels, especially when it comes to keeping the house clean (which I feel is important, as we are planning on having a homebirth!) - it seems like every day I only manage the washing up and maybe a small area of hoovering before I'm worn out, which means I'm only succeeding in staying still, despite all the effort. The kitchen and living room floors are covered in bits which have somehow come in from outside, and the cats are trying to gradually dye the stairs carpet a deep, rusty red (adding a little more colour with each new catch), and the bathroom is somehow coated in dust... Maybe it's always been this way, but the 'nesting' instinct has suddenly brought it into sharp focus? Also I'm afraid that I'm somehow on the way to becoming a housewife (albeit not a very good one) and that Phil will assume more and more that his input is no longer necessary... Hmm, it's not all good in my world right now, I might as well admit it.

July Smallholding Update

The Baby: Yes, the baby has moved to the top of the list as (s)he's been the priority for me this month! :D We've now less than two weeks to go, and are pretty much as prepared as we're going to be (please ignore the filthy mirror in the above photo, ha ha). Physically, I've become quite uncomfortably cumbersome. I find myself out of breath even when climbing the stairs slowly, and have been having what can only be "practise labour" pains! Short distances have started to seem longer and longer, meaning I have to really think twice about heading down to the garden, or up the lane. I've started having a lie down in the afternoon, and even if I can't fall asleep it helps with the slump in energy levels. Squiggles is huge (so it seems to me!) and has very chunky feet which (s)he likes to regularly exercise against my ribcage, but at least (s)he's in the right position and is engaged and ready to go according to the scan we had last Thursday. Speaking of which, the head circumference measurements taken in the scan seemed to imply that the baby was more like a 39 week old than a 37.5 week old, though the abdomen was a little smaller than the average at this stage... We're going to have a baby with a massive head and a tiny body, argh!!! Phil is convinced that the baby will come sometime this week (wishful thinking, I reckon - he's probably just tired of me asking for help with the washing up), and I'm hoping it will come early too - isn't that what everyone wishes for, though?

Going to Aberystwyth for the scan meant that we could pick up loads of the bits and bobs we'd been promised, so we now have a huge quantity of prefolds, fleece liners/wipes, enough washable size 2 nappies to take us to potty training, a door bouncer, some washable breast pads and various other useful baby-related things... I feel ready now. Come on, Squiggles!


The Vegetable Garden: We've continued having our weekly smallholding supper (with extra variety almost every week), and everything seems on the verge of abundance. Phil and I haven't bought a single vegetable for a couple of weeks, and although we've been getting through a lot of potatoes, we're not tired of them yet. They just taste so good! Most of our meals are made from vegetables we've grown, perhaps with a bought addition such as a fillet of sea bass, a cheeky pie or some grated cheese. It feels great to gather what we need when we need it - it's so much healthier, and we're saving money too.

The Orchard: Plans are afoot for a massive cider-making project, as the old apple trees (which looked dead when we got here) are absolutely loaded with fruit now. Phil's been making blades for a machine which will chop up the fruit, and either we'll buy/borrow a secondhand press, or he will throw together some kind of apple press using a car jack or some such...

Drinks: While I'm on the subject of cider, I ought to mention that this month Phil's been inspired to start off some homemade wine - just some grape wine from cartons of juice, but it's great to see him getting excited about his demijohns! :D After I made a good quantity of elderflower cordial last month, I wanted to make a load more (but this time with citric acid so that it would last up to a year) but the rain came and destroyed the flowers, so I'll have to wait until next year for that now. Never mind, I followed the same recipe (for elderflower cordial) to make lemon balm cordial (with the citric acid) and it worked out beautifully, so I have a very refreshing replacement! This is the recipe:


Elderflower/Lemon Balm Cordial

20-30 freshly picked heads elderflower (or a big bowlful of lemon balm leaves)
granulated sugar
4-5 lemons, for juice
tartaric/citric acid (optional, keeps for several weeks in fridge without it)

1. Place elderflower heads/lemon balm leaves in a large bowl and cover them completely with just-boiled water (about 1.5 - 2 litres). Cover and leave overnight.

2. Strain liquid through muslin, gently squeezing to extract all the juice.

3. Measure the amount of liquid, and pour it into a large saucepan. To every 500ml of liquid, add 350g sugar, 50ml of fresh lemon juice, and a heaped teaspoon of tartaric/citric acid (if using).

4. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar, stirring occasionally. Bring to gentle simmer and skim off the scum.

5. Let the cordial cool, then strain once again through muslin, pour through a funnel into clean bottles (sterilised if you'll be keeping it) - filling them to within about 2-3cm of top. Seal with screw-tops or corks.

6. To serve, dilute to taste with ice-cold water - at least 5:1 water to cordial.

The Polytunnel: The cucumber plants had been starting to turn the polytunnel into a hazardous jungle, preventing access to most of their hidden fruits, as well as the courgettes. Something had to be done, so I hacked away ruthlessly until we could walk between them and the pepper plants. The tomatoes are doing really well, the fruits are much sweeter than they were in the early stages - much softer and tastier and more like we'd hoped they would be. :D The 'Gold Rush' courgettes are also very fruitful - and as they are my favourite vegetable I've been happy to eat so many.

Pests: With the coming of the rain we have seen a huge increase in the slug population. I don't want to talk about how it feels to snip their rubbery, oozy bodies in half with the slug scissors.

Wild Food: The crab apples are growing (imperceptibly!) but won't be fully ripe until late winter. And we've got our eyes on the masses of hazelnuts in the hedgerows and up the lane, though the chances are that the squirrels will get to them before they're ready to pick. Phil has been bringing back all sorts of mushrooms and fungi from his long walks with the cats, but upon examination most have turned out to be worthless in the kitchen. My dad found some horse mushrooms (which were strongly flavoured), but won't tell us where on the land they were growing!

June Smallholding Update

It's been a busy month!


The Vegetable Garden: We've started having a special meal every Tuesday night, consisting of only what we have grown ourselves or found growing on the smallholding... So far it's been a huge success! The meals have been simple, but incredibly tasty - the potatoes (although not hugely prolific) are amazing, the salad leaves fresh and flavoursome (especially with the addition of herbs such as basil, chives and parsley), the beetroots rich and sweet. I have started making fresh drinks from lemon balm, mint and elderflowers, which have gone down a treat. We now have 17 fully planted deep beds - the additions this month being: a bed of purple brussel sprouts and turnips; rainbow chard and celeriac; leeks; and a bed containing two spare squash plants and three cucumber seedlings.


The Orchard: The massive, old apple trees (which were here when we arrived) are laden with fruit, by now the apples are about one and a half inches in diameter. I don't yet know very much about fruit trees, but it would seem to me that these are all cooking apples rather than "eaters." I have winter pies in my mind, but Phil and my mum are getting very interested in the idea of making lots and lots of cider!

Pests: Still no major signs of slugs, partly I suppose because it's been so dry. There have been some mysterious scratchings and diggings in some of the beds though, which has resulted in the loss of several of the celeriac seedlings. I wondered if it might be our naughty toilet-making cats, but have been assured that "no poo has been found in the disturbed areas" so we still don't know who or what is the perpetrator.


The Polytunnel: The first red tomatoes have been eaten! I think we've had about seven or eight in total so far, so don't get too excited. The plants are heavy with bulging trusses, however, so we're ever-hopeful that we might at some point be overwhelmed with fruits... The cucumber plants have exploded in size and are climbing rapidly up their supports. Though they look healthy, the fruits have been turning to mush before they really start to develop, so we're not really sure what we're doing wrong. A quick look in The Vegetable and Herb Expert shows that this can be caused by over- or under-watering, so we are none the wiser. The courgette plants have also grown exponentially over the last month, and there are several mini golden courgettes waiting to be eaten in our special meal tonight, as well as a stripey green one.

Water: It's been so dry, we're starting to realise how lucky we are having our own water supply. If we were threatened with a hosepipe ban, our vegetables would certainly die. I have friends who have to carry all of their water up a steep hill to their vegetable plot, and there's not enough time in the day (or energy in the body!) to fully provide for the needs of the thirsty plants. In the house, I've started drinking water from the tap (water which comes from our borehole) as the sulphurous smell seems to have gone away - perhaps both houses making use of the water has cleared out the staleness in the collection tank, and allowed fresher water to enter the system. It's good water, and has none of the chemicals we had to put up with in town - it's a pleasure to drink :D

Plant Feed: The comfrey tea was great, but after a while we started to realise that some of the tomato leaves were curling up at the edges and looking rather ropey. When we investigated the causes of this, it turned out that comfrey is really great for root development, and what we hadn't noticed was the fact that the affected plants had developed ridiculously excessive roots. They had grown out of the bottom of the pots, and along the surface of the soil on the polytunnel floor, and were hating having nothing to cover them. We covered them up with more compost, and set about making a new nutrient tea, this time one full of nitrogen (good for leaves): one made out of poo.


Wild Food: The elderflowers are out, and elderflower cordial has been the flavour of the month! It's so easy and quick to make, yet I've not had time to get around to it these last few years, so it felt really good to be back on track, and enjoying seasonal delights.


Baby: At 34 weeks, I've finally got my head around what we have been given and what we still need. I spent a day researching washable nappies and their components (I have been given some Fuzzi Bunz pocket nappies, but nothing to go in the pockets!), and found a great list of what I'll need. My advert on the Machynlleth Swapshop brought loads of promises of nappy and baby bits, so I'm really pleased. I also spent a day (yes, it took a whole day!) going through all of the clothes we've been given, ordering them into sizes/ages and washing everything from 0-3 months. It felt really good to be getting everything in order, and so exciting to be holding these tiny and incredibly cute garments... I can't wait to put Squiggles in them! Here's how the bump is developing:


Things can only get... bigger, I guess! Er... :D

May Smallholding Update

A summary of the month is in order!

The House Situation: After a very quick sale, we moved all of our furniture and boxes of STUFF out of the house in Machynlleth and over the mountain road to the smallholding. The job took two days, and we were very fortunate to have my parents there to help. My dad helped Phil and my friend Martin to carry the heavy furniture and boxes out of the house, and did a great job of loading the trailer. My mum cleaned the house from top to bottom and offered much needed moral support! The first trailer load was fine, but the second resulted in a tire blowing up, so the process became much more long-winded than it should have been. It was strange to find that my attitude towards many of my belongings changed dramatically as soon as I tried to fit them into our much smaller home. In the house in town, I had found it really difficult to get rid of so many things, but once they arrived at the smallholding I saw a lot of it as excess weight, and the lightening process was incredibly easy - enjoyable even. Phil and I are starting to feel the stress of the house sliding away, selling it has relieved us of a huge burden of responsibility and anxiety.


The Vegetable Garden: It's been a little slower this month in terms of creating new deep beds. Partly because I can no longer help with the digging (due to the fact that my heartburn has been getting worse and worse, and kicks in the minute I bend over, then lasts all day and night), but also because the grass and (more specifically) the docks are growing so quickly that they make the job much more difficult. Last month I found myself taking loads of "before" pictures, hoping that soon we'd be looking at a veritable jungle of healthy greenery, and I'm glad I did as the beds are really starting to fill out now. It's so satisfying to see progress! My parents have done a great job getting the raspberry canes into what must have been the most nightmarishly weed-bound, root-clogged area we've come across yet, and they have been cracking on with more vegetable beds. We now have 13 fully planted beds, containing: onions (white and red), shallots, potatoes (earlies and main crop), broad beans, runner beans, climbing beans (rare Native American Indian 'Trail of Tears' and 'Lazy Housewife'), lettuce (various, including a number of Chinese salad leaves), spinach, parsnips, beetroot, peas, celeriac, kale, and purple sprouting broccoli. There are another two unfinished beds. As of a couple of weeks ago, we've been getting all of our lettuce from the garden - with a little more available every day, it's very rewarding, and unbelievably tasty! :D


The Orchard: Some of the baby apple trees had mysteriously been losing what few leaves they had, and at first we thought it might have been some kind of insect attack. Later it was discovered that a very bolshy lamb had been getting in through the slightly rickety fence which divides us from our neighbour's land. The little scavenger was coming in whenever he felt like it, and helping himself to our goodies! So my dad fixed the fence. No more naughty lamb.

Pests: Incidentally, (touch wood!) we've seen no more evidence of rabbit activity in the garden - perhaps they were put off by the fleece we laid down to cover the parsnips and beetroots, and the cloches and chicken-wire frame we used to protect the lettuces. Perhaps they've heard the rumours about the two black and white killing machines which steal their young and show no mercy. Our cats (especially the female of the two) have been quietly decimating the local rabbit population, regularly bringing decapitated baby rabbits into the house and eating them whole - fur, feet and all - bar the very bitterest organs. Slugs are starting to appear amongst the leaves, so we're going to leave a sharp pair of 'slug scissors' down in the garden. I hate killing things, but in this case slugs are The Enemy.

The Polytunnel: Once the polytunnel was declared fit for use, we avoided it for a week or two - it just looked like it was going to be so much hard work trying to open up the compacted earth, not to mention somehow enriching the pale, lifeless soil. Eventually we realised that we needn't expect miracles of perfection this year, but would make do as best we could. We would make the most of the protected space and awesome heat (the thermometer was recording a reading of 50 degrees most days). We now have plants in pots, as well as some in the ground (planted on top of a generous bucketful of well-rotted manure) - these are all in the left hand side of the tunnel (which is pretty much full), the right hand side has yet to be worked on...

In pots:
Tomatoes (10)
Basil (17)
Peppers (6x Hungarian Hot Wax, 4x Marconi Rosso)
Aubergines (5)

In a bed:
Cucumbers (3x Crystal Lemon, 4x Marketmore)
Courgettes (3x Gold Rush, 1x Cocozelle)
Squash (2x Custard White, 4x Butternut Squash)

Here's a picture of my wacky cucumber supports, three were made out of spare sections of trellis, the others are clearly an experiment in bamboo canes and binder twine, ha ha!


Water: There is a trough set up in the polytunnel with the option of water from the borehole or the stream. As explained before, our borehole water is very alkaline, whereas the stream water is acid, so we fill half the trough with one and then divert to the other - though the results may not be perfectly pH neutral, at least it's an attempt at a compromise!

Plant Feed: Next to the polytunnel we have a large bucket of comfrey "tea" - made by stuffing comfrey leaves into an onion net, then throwing them into a covered bucket of water where they "brew" for a couple of weeks. When the smell becomes disgusting, the tea is ready! We dilute a mugful of the liquid in a watering can of water from the trough and feed the plants as we water them. Our tomatoes are fed every day, but other plants have the tea once or twice a week.

Wild Food: As the trees came into leaf, and then into blossom (some of them, at least!), we were excited to find that we have an elder tree quite close to the house - I can't wait to make elderflower cordial and elderflower champagne! And later in the year the berries are great in crumbles and puddings. There's a suspected wild damson tree down by the river as well, and some other as yet unrecognisable fruit trees dotted about the land... We shall see what they are in due course. The oyster mushrooms have not returned, though I try to check the log by the stream every time I go to collect the post.

The Baby: We're at the 30 week stage, so only 10 more weeks to go! Squiggles is growing so quickly, and loves crashing about in there - it's quite amazing to see the kicks and squirmings. I have started investigating washable nappies and other essentials: we have been given a number of different types of nappies, now I just have to get my head around them and make sure we have everything we need! The hormones have been up and down, as one might expect, and I've been struggling with depression, but I'm optimistic that once Squiggie is out and in my arms I'll feel a lot better :) Phil and I are both very excited (and a little nervous!) about the future, but I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic adventure!

Here's a pic of my friend Martin and I, after we'd cleared most of the house: it serves as a good bump update! :D

April Smallholding Update

The much needed rain has come. Finally, a chance to get some long overdue jobs done in the house, and take stock! We've been here for just over a month now, and neither Phil nor I can believe that so much has happened in such a short time. It's been continuously sunny for the past month, with a couple of overcast days thrown in, and we've been busy outside in the vegetable garden almost every day. Perhaps it's time for an update:

The Vegetable Garden: From humble beginnings, the fenced-off area now boasts 10 deep beds for vegetables - mostly potatoes and onions at this stage, but we've also planted out some broad beans, peas, parsnips, spinach, and beetroot seedlings. We're crossing our fingers and willing the experimental row of carrots to sprout, and have sown a hopeful row of broad beans between rows of potatoes. The rabbits have already shown interest, daintily destroying half of the parsnip seedlings overnight, and leaving their telltale droppings. The battle has commenced. We were afraid we might have to invest time and money in rabbit-proof fencing, and it looks like that might turn out to be the case - but for now we have had to be cunning, creating makeshift protection out of odd bits of mesh, fleece and corrugated plastic.

The Orchard: We have planted 5 apple trees of different varieties, as well as a damson tree. They are still very young (two years old?), so we'll have a bit of a wait before we can actually harvest any fruit, but it's a good start. We are still debating the pros and cons of planting the soft fruit bushes between the fruit trees - I saw it done like that on a forest gardening documentary and it looked like a great idea, but we're not sure whether or not we should just bunch the soft fruit together in cages so that we can protect them from the birds... There are some really old apple (and some as yet unknown) trees which were already here when we arrived - they looked gnarled and moss-eaten and completely dead until a few days ago when they exploded with blossom. Their yield shall decide their fates... :)

The Polytunnel: The sheer duration of the demonstration DVD should have served as a warning to us, but our optimism knew no bounds... What should have taken a day (or two at the most) has become an ongoing saga. There have been several setbacks in the way of missing parts, but that still doesn't justify such a lengthy project! The digger came in and flattened the area, then we found we needed to gouge out more space by hand. The water and electricity pipes were laid at the same time, and the trough connected - so now we have water in the vegetable garden at least. The hoops have been screwed together and painted (so as not to absorb too much heat), and the hot-spot tape has been stuck on... Slightly prematurely... And now, finally, all the hoops are up, the crop bars have been attached - it looks like the skeleton of a giant metal beast who laid down to die amongst the freshly dug graves. Yes, deep beds look like graves. Which is ironic, given that from them life flows. It reminds me of when I was in Guanajuato, in Mexico, and we were walking up to the Mummy Museum when we stopped at a shop which sold both coffins and fresh vegetables. Clever, I thought to myself, they've got something for everyone, whether living or dead.

The Water Situation: We've got two options for water - the first is the borehole, which goes down about 300 feet and is serviced by a pump. This is the water which comes out of our taps in the houses, and it gives off a smell of sulphur and upon testing was found to contain rather high quantities of manganese. It is alkaline. Hmm. The second is the stream, which would need a good slow sand filter to purify it if you wanted it for drinking water, and due to its course through peaty valleys, it is acid. The seedlings we have been raising in my mum's house have started going yellow, perhaps due to being too alkaline, so we've had to start mixing the two waters to get more of a balance in pH. So far so good, but thank goodness it's raining, because all that carrying is hard work!

My dad just discovered that I am writing this, so has emailed me over a couple of pics (thanks Da'!)... Here's one of the men looking very proud of themselves after the first hoop went up:

And here's one of the women in action - preparing the bed for the beetroot seedlings. You can see the broad beans and peas to the left, and the dead area to the right is where the rabbits found the parsnips:


Wild Food: It turns out that we have some really pernicious weeds in the garden, and it just so happens that some of them are edible. I'm planning on cooking with ground elder for the first time, and the young nettles are looking radiantly healthy too. I have enjoyed nettle soups in the past (the trick being to use a handful of oats in with the nettle leaves - that way they don't tickle as they go down your throat!), but my dad has often spoken of nettle beer (only very mildly alcoholic) so I'm hoping to give that a go too. The bushes and trees around us are springing to life, so it's a really exciting time - in the next few months we'll find out exactly what the fields and hedges have to offer! Who knows, maybe there will be some elder trees, hazelnuts, wild damsons and blackberries, not to mention horse mushrooms, hedge garlic, and fish in the river!

Exciting times! :)

March Madness

Sorry about that. That was a long pause!

Since I last wrote we have been stupidly busy.
Rebecca and I went to Holland to play our last foreseeable performances as Ember, and we've not seen much of each other since. The album has been selling well thanks to her mailouts to the people who support us and value our music. We still have to work out what to do with the many boxes of Emberobelia - theatre programmes and magazines featuring write-ups about us, reviews, stacks of live recordings on CD and DVD, data CDs full of photos, as well as all the excess office materials we have left over. We can't just throw that stuff away!

Since Ember finished in early March, Phil and I have been racing to complete the remaining work on our house so that we can put it on the market and go to the smallholding. It felt so good to get involved (finally!) and complete jobs such as sanding and oiling the stairs, cleaning up the revealed copper pipes, and thoroughly scrubbing the entire interior. Phil has been doing so well - he's finished putting the new roof on the annex, painted most of the window frames and (almost) fixed the front door. I feel rather out of my depth with the actual building work, so have been signing up for any and all of the cleaning tasks...

I can't believe we are planning on moving to the smallholding on Thursday! We have two more valuations taking place on Wednesday, before we decide on an estate agent, and we're planning on leaving most of the furniture in the house while it's on the market. Life at the smallholding will be pretty basic to begin with, but my parents have offered to lend us some chairs and a patio table for our kitchen in the meantime.

Today I hit the 19 weeks mark in the pregnancy - halfway through, according to the updates I get from the BabyCentre.co.uk - and the time has been racing by! For the last three weeks or so I have been feeling little Squiggles moving about inside, and the little cartwheels are getting stronger all the time. When I think about the fact that there is an actual baby inside me, it makes me feel strangely ticklish and a bit giggly... Exciting times! :)

The downside of the pregnancy has been a hugely increased emotional sensitivity - I've been getting really upset over small things (they seem so massive at the time!) and sometimes in the evenings it can all become too much. The depression can last until I finally fall asleep exhausted. I am not normally one to cry, but some nights have seen me weeping inconsolably for hours. :( There is such a thing as Ante-Natal Depression apparently, though we don't hear much about it. The positive thing to bear in mind is that usually the depression passes once the child has been born. I'm hoping it will pass when we get to the smallholding - life has been so stressful these last few months, slowing down can only help!

Hormones though, they can drive you mad! How are you supposed to remain a nice person whilst being dragged around on a nightmarish emotional roller coaster? Poor Phil has been through the mill as well, he has no idea when I might snap next... (Well, nor do I...!)

I shall do my best to get some photos of our beautiful, tidy house for you to have a look, and while I'm at it, I might even ask Phil to take a photo of my little bump...

Goodnight! :)

PS - Oh yes - the One Hundred Days? I reckon it's over, baby. I did 54 posts out of 100 - pretty poor! - but I can appreciate what it did for me. It got me started on this blog for one thing, and helped me to connect with others who were involved - without it I would never have found Tammy, or Beth... It's brought me closer to my Kellee... Not to mention the fact that it's allowed me to share my daily mundanity with my mum, who checks the Tangled Yarn regularly and will be pleased to see that I've finally posted another update - oh - there she is now - HELLO MUM!

SEEDS! Spring is on the Way!

Day Fifty Six.

We drove with Phil's parents to the smallholding today, as they'd not yet seen it. I managed to stuff a few big boxes of books into the boot, so little by little we are moving over there. It also helps to reduce the clutter in the house, which is brilliant.

While Phil took them outside to see the land, I sat by the woodburner with my mother, and we compiled a list of seeds we'll be needing for the coming year. It was very exciting to start thinking about growing, and to envisage the outdoor life we're looking forward to living. I'm hoping that all of my stress will fall away, and that the increase in excercise and outdoor activities will serve as a physical and mental therapy.

Far too soon we had to leave, so that Phil's parents could get on their way to South Wales to visit Phil's grandmother. My mother and I had made a pretty comprehensive list of all of the seeds we fancied sprouting, but we thought we'd both better check what we had at home before the order was placed. Of course, when I got home, I realised that I had a huge boxful of seeds, including most of the vegetable types we were planning on growing, and so did my mother, so in the end we decided that we would only buy in seed potatoes and onion sets for now. If the other seeds don't work out, we can always buy seedlings from the local nursery - perhaps the local farmers' market sells them too? All good things to be investigated. I can't wait!

:)

A Most Difficult Goodbye

Day Thirty Three.

When my parents were getting ready to move from their Pembrokeshire farm to the smallholding, Phil and I helped them to get everything out of their attic. We helped them to go through the boxes - some of them had not been unpacked for over twenty years! - and sorted the items into four big piles: to keep, to sell on eBay, to take to the charity shop, and: to bin. Amongst the glassware, old suitcases, framed prints and wedding photos there was a big, bulging, green bin bag full of teddies. You may well laugh, but seeing their little faces after so long filled me with dread - because I knew it would be wrong to hang on to them, but getting rid of them would leave me feeling guilty forever! Why? What could possibly make a thirty-two year old stall when it came to throwing away the things of childhood?

OK, I'll tell you why. My brother and I never had the view that teddies were just cuddly, fluffy things which were a comfort before you went to sleep. No. We made an entire Teddies World. We had a Newsagents (a specially altered cardboard box) which sold the newspapers we wrote in tiny handwriting, a Video Store (a two storied cardboard box, as I recall, with accommodation above the shop) which rented out the many "videos" we created (like cartoons) in frames on strips of paper, which were pulled through a "video-player" (a small cardboard screen which showed one frame at a time... There was a School, and everyone had their own handmade exercise books, a Bank (Big Ted was the manager - funny that!) with "real" coins and notes. Some of the naughty teddies smoked, and I remember going through the process by adding red felt tip to the end (when it was being "lit"), then cutting about millimetre off at a time as the "cigarette" was smoked down to the filter. Each time you cut a bit off, you had to add the red pen again, to show it was still burning.

We played out many, many scenarios with the teddies; homelessness, scandals at school, running a successful businesses, struggling with debt, dealing with crooked politicians, amongst many others. So you see, the teddies really were a big part of my childhood, they were our closest friends, and throwing them away would be the greatest betrayal...

Despite this, I thought I'd better bite the bullet and at least take them out of the bag to have a look at who was in there, and to see what condition they were in. I lined them up, and found myself greeting each of them by name. They looked... well-loved. Some had ears or arms missing, others had holes with the stuffing poking out. Some actually looked OK. I decided I would have to be quick. Choosing the least characterful first, I started putting them gently back into the bag, and that's how I was left with the ten threadbare favourites, the ones who were the main characters in all of the teddy episodes, if you like.

Here are a few of them, posing for their picture in the sun:


The others will go to the nice people at the Dog Shop, I'll let them decide what to do with them.

Pando Saves the Day

Day Twenty Five.

Phil and my dad left early this morning to drive to Pembrokeshire to pick up more of my dad's boxes to take to the smallholding. I'm starting to see where my hoarder's personality has come from! My father finds it really hard to part with anything, much to my mother's dismay. I've promised her that I'll help my dad to go through everything if he's not already done so by the time we move in, probably sometime in March.

It was lovely to get up so early and feel the whole day stretching ahead of me, without any distractions. Finally I had the time to sit down and convert all of the individual tracks (of the songs ready to be mixed) from Garageband files into aiff files. Sounds boring, but is essential for the tracks to be imported into ProTools - which is how Chris (our amazing sound guy) needs them. When we were at his place last, we had a bit of a breakthrough after several difficulties raised their ugly heads. Non-techies can stop reading now...

To get my Garageband songs/files onto Chris' ProTools, I needed first of all to get them onto his computer. They are very large files, and so I thought I should set up an FTP directory on our website so that I could upload to there and he could download from it. Alas, FTP will not support files with anything other than numbers and letters as names, and Garageband seems to insist upon naming each track something like 'Recording#23.' Invalid filename, unacceptable to FTP.

Then I discovered Pando.com - a programme which allows you to send large files (much larger than normal) in an email. I sent the songs to Chris, and despite his disgruntled murmurings about it taking hours to download, he was surprised that it worked... But... But it became an impossible dream when we opened the files with him in his studio and discovered (to our horror) that each recording was no longer in order, nor was it cut down to size, so that would mean we would have to go through every single track and a) try to place it in the correct place in the song, and b) cut it back AGAIN to cut out unwanted parts, which means that c) we would have to re-listen to everything to determine whether or not it was a wanted or unwanted section - argh!!!

At that point we thought the whole project would have to change course, and without Chris' expertise at that. There was no way we could afford to rearrange every micro-recording of every track of every song. 'If only we could get the tracks with the silences in between...' we muttered, glumly. And then suddenly I had a brainwave - if I could mute every track but one, I could send each track to iTunes and the silences in between would happen in real time! I quickly put my idea into action and was mightily relieved that it worked. So that's what I've been doing this morning. Saving each song with all tracks but one muted, one track at a time (naming them appropriately!), and sending every version to iTunes. I'll wait until tonight to send them all to Chris, as Pando takes up all of the bandwidth when it's sending...

I can't wait for the album to be finished, I'm so excited! :)

This afternoon I'm going to drive over to the smallholding to have a look around before Phil and my dad return from Pembrokeshire. Then I'll give him a lift home. I can't believe I've only really spent about half an hour there - that was when I went to view it before we all put the offer in - yet we're planning on being there for the rest of our foreseeable future... I'll take my camera, maybe I'll have some nice pictures to share when I come back :)

EDIT Here's one:

Making Christmas Less Stressful

Day Eighteen.

So it looks like my parents and brother will be coming to our house again this year. It will be too stressful for my parents if we descend upon them at the smallholding - I mean, they're only getting the keys tomorrow, and moving more stuff (tractors!) up on Wednesday, so it'll be a house full of boxes and chaos... Now what will they do with the cat?! :S

So, to reduce our own stress, Phil and I sat down this evening to write a list. There are so many things to be done. It has only just been decided that we will put Christmas on here. We had expected a low-key event at the smallholding, with Phil cooking and me being his assistant, but somehow it being in our house makes us feel that it will now need to be as good as it gets, rather than a case of making do...

Tomorrow will be the big day of tidying, cleaning, preparing rooms, buying plenty of food and drink, thinking about presents, decorating upstairs, buying 'eco' logs to ensure nice, hot fires (no one seems to sell dry wood anymore, have you noticed?), and all the rest. Oh man, we might even need to get a tree! It's all there on the list. And as we know, all good actions start with a bloody good list - check out Beth's blog if you haven't already - it's a Hundred Days blog, with the first day's task being 'Write a list' and the following ninety-nine days taken up with ticking one job off every day in no particular order...

I'm finding it very inspiring, but you know me, I love lists...
:)

Try, Try and Try Again

Day Fourteen.

Yes, I disappeared for a few days. I wonder if anyone noticed?
I was not spirited away by some magical fairy sparkles, oh no.
I was entangled in the dark stress-cloud which surrounds my head like a blanket soaked in ditch-water, suffocating my breath and shattering my thoughts, making even the simplest of tasks seem like complicated, mammoth obstacles. I've been there for a while. It makes me feel very melodramatic, as you can tell... :)

I'm back now, sort of.
I've decided not to ask too much of myself for a while.
I hope to keep doing and writing, but do not plan on beating myself up over any of it!
:)

I tried to do lots of things on Thursday, Day Fourteen...

I need to arrange a replacement SIM card for my phone, and people keep promising me their old ones, but so far none have worked, most have been forgotten... I tried out a couple, but got the same message 'SIM Activation Failed.'

We want to move all of the boxes of books from the loft down to the empty bedroom, so that they're ready to take to the smallholding when we go. But my parents need space their on their own to overcome the stresses of the last six months, so we are now uncertain as to when we might be able to start moving stuff.

I've been waiting for a hoover part to arrive which should sort it out once and for all - how did a huge piece fall out without us noticing?!

I searched high and low for the Bukowski DVD which Bec borrowed from the library and then lent to me. It has completely vanished, and so no success there... :(

I wrote out some of the addresses for the Christmas cards, and discovered I didn't have them all. Started trying to find people's addresses.

We did some more recording at Bec's house, and listened to most of the songs. I can't keep reporting that though, can I? No matter how exciting it may be for me!



A very trying day.

Day Twelve

Day Twelve.

The smallholding is in the bag!!!!
Contracts have been exchanged, finally, we'll have the keys next Tuesday, just in time for Christmas, oooh, I'm so excited! Phil and I went out to the pub and had a couple of special-occasion Whiskeys tonight. Then we went wild and had a lovely meal at the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant. Feels so good to celebrate after such a long time of waiting for news.

Very full now. Phil is already asleep beside me. Completely conked out. I fear I must soon hit the sack too. Will catch up tomorrow. x :)

EDIT: This news meant that I could do some appropriate de-cluttering - I deleted all of the digital smallholding brochures from my laptop, and put all of the physical brochures in the recycling. That's one less folder full of pointless information, horray!


Goodbye to all the other potential properties, none of which were quite as compelling as the one we hope to own with my parents next Tuesday! :)

There. That was easy.

Wardrobe Disaster Area

Day Eleven.

Not yet run out of things to do and areas to de-clutter. No, it'll be a long time before that happens. And way before that time comes around, the beautifully clear areas will be piled high with junk again, no doubt, so we'll be back at square one.

I've had a long and stressful day. The smallholding we're buying with my parents is still not ours, and we are starting to feel that after months (and years!) of hoping and dreaming it may yet fall through. But they're meeting with the solicitors tomorrow, so who knows, maybe everyone's finally ready to exchange contracts and set a date for completion.

Anyway, here's my project for today - the horrible open-fronted disaster that currently stores our clothes in a permanent state of chaos:


I'm so tired I can't even muster a joke about it. It makes our bedroom so untidy. One day ("When we're on the smallholding..." as we keep saying to each other, making ourselves and each other absolutely ridiculous promises) we'll have a bedroom which will serve only two purposes - to be a relaxing space to hang out together, and a calm place in which to sleep. There will be NO clutter, no tangled visions of hell in sight. The clothes stored therein will be behind doors, preferably smooth white doors, or lovely, simple doors made of lovely, simple wood. There will be no bookcases, these will all be DOWNSTAIRS. Perhaps one or two books may enter the bedroom, but only if they are currently being read. There will be a laundry basket, with a lid. The walls will be white, or cream; one wall may be deep red. There will be no overhead lights, only bedside lamps and perhaps some uplighters. Of course, as ever, there will be no television, but I'm betting we'll each have our laptops in there upon an evening. That's a given. :)

This is the tidy (or tidier) version:


Oh, I wish it had doors. Or a curtain, or a cover of some kind. Something to keep all of that random visual activity from getting into my brain! Ah well, when we're on the smallholding...