Our New Life in the Country: Into a fresh week............

Monday 21 September 2009

Into a fresh week............

Misty morning in the orchard.

This morning is clean, crisp and fresh and there is a gentleness in the air that belies the activity that has been going on around here over the weekend. Maybe now is the time to slow down the pace and take things as they come instead of pushing forward incessantly striving for more and more. The days are already getting shorter and the evenings longer, with more time for relaxation and reflection on how far we have come up to now.

There has been some urgency this weekend in preparing the way for the pigs, but more was accomplished than we set out to so I think we can safely take things down a notch for next weekend.

The orchard has been tidied and two of the three pig arks assembled with only a minimal amount of swearing and losing of nuts and bolts. The fence posts are in place around the individual pigs pens and the wire has started to be put in place. Next week we have to complete the final touches and make them piggy proof.

This week my challenge is to find suppliers of straw and pig nuts, read through our pig keepers manual, and generally get myself up to speed on pig keeping, it's been quite a while since our course, I hope somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my cluttered mind that some snippets of information linger!!

After a hard days work Lovely Hubby came in to tell me he was ready to set off for our manure pick up ( a new hobby of his!!) and I said to give me five minutes to finish what I was doing. When I came into the room ready to go, this is what I found........poor tired man and his dog grabbing a siesta.

Dad.....I think she's spotted us!!

I didn't have the heart to wake them, so I let them rest for half an hour! Then it was time to hit the motorway with our big tipping trailer and pick up a ton of manure from the stables of the sister of a friend of ours. After that all that was left to do was to put the Lovely Hubby in a hot bubbly bath and make us some supper to eat in front of Countryfile, our new favourite Sunday night obsession.

Sue xx

5 comments:

pigeon pease21 September 2009 at 15:17
Poor hubby, mind you the pair do look like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, well Sue I think you both deserve a slower pace of life, but will you get it lol

lynn xx
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Helen21 September 2009 at 15:54
Hi Sue! I cannot believe how much progress you and hubby have made in a relatively short time frame. Enjoy, enjoy!
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A Bun Can Dance21 September 2009 at 18:59
Hey your hubby is just like mine - the ability to fall asleep within seconds! When I first met mine, i thought he might have narcolepsy !!!
We collected manure yesterday too, from my brother's smallholding..
Have a happy week, Sue
Denise x
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landcuckoo21 September 2009 at 19:50
Hee hee, that is a wonderful pic of the sleeping beauties!
Well done you both for achieving so much this year already.
Sarah x
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Jane22 September 2009 at 19:33
My friend Jane has 2 litters of piglets at the moment - very tempting. Good luck with yours.
J x
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Comments are now turned off for this old blog of mine. Thank you for reading the posts, I hope you enjoyed them. xx

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This was my Blog, just me writing about our day to day life learning all about and then living the smallholding life. First we started on a farm in Oxfordshire, then we moved to a smaller place in Berkshire (both in England) and then we found a place of our very own at the bottom of a hillside in North Wales. Along for the ride were all our various animals, and we ended up with just our dogs, Suky and Mavis, our cat Ginger .... who secretly thinks he's one of the canine gang, a sheep called Ethel who wandered in off the road and stayed... and a roving band of egg laying chickens that live cheek by jowl with the local wildlife.

We grow our own fruit and vegetables, selling surplus plants and edibles at the gate. We sell the eggs the chickens lay, we reuse, recycle and rethink ... and life ticks over at a pace that suits us.

It was simply the wild and wacky ramblings of a 50 something townie turned country girl called Sue, who lost her heart to a sailor and started a new life in the country .... many years ago. On a path that took us from Cumbria to Oxfordshire, to Berkshire and then we found our home at the bottom of a wet and windy Welsh hillside by a busy main road.

Pull up a chair, grab a coffee and relax into a world of dogs, cats, chickens, polytunnels and veggies with the occasional grass munching sheep thrown in for good measure.

Sue xx

Disclaimer

Our New Life in the Country is my blog.

I use it to chart the day by day, week by week, year by year goings on in mine and Lovely Hubby's life. In it I also express my views and opinions, and say what I do and occasionally how I do it. I am hoping that this will prove to be a useful reminder for myself of how we did things, as we continue in our learning process.

If you chose to follow my practices it is assumed that you will do so with care and consideration, and question where necessary any methods or techniques I use to your own satisfaction and match them to your own circumstances.

The pictures in each blog post are taken by me unless otherwise credited, and as such should not be borrowed and used elsewhere without my consent.