Sweet Peas / Potting Shed / Escaped calves - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 12 June, 2023

by Rosemary at 9:52am in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 5th June

Summer seems to have moved on – it’s cold, well 12C, and dry. Grass has stopped growing or is growing imperceptibly slowly.

Rebecca and I walked the ponies out this evening. Heard Tree Sparrow and Reed Bunting, as well as Blackbird, Wren and Robin.

Tuesday 6^th June

The polytunnel is filling up; we’re getting a couple of handfuls of strawberries every day and the sweet peas are starting to flower.

Polytunnel.

Wednesday 7^th June

Still cool and no rain; it warmed up in the afternoon wee bit, but is definitely not “sitting out without a coat” weather. Still, cut the first sweet peas for the house. Delicious.

First Sweet Peas.

Thursday 8^th June

Moved the cattle into Sheepfold today, after SSE had finished the work on the poles. The cows were very happy. There are video clips of how happy on our Facebook page. They (SSE) kindly left us the old pole. Very useful.

A welcome gift from SSE.

Friday 9^th June

Dan topped Home, for rushes, and Far Ditch (which the cattle have just come out of) for thistles.

Still no rain.

Saturday 10^th June

Dan pottered this morning, catching up with small jobs. We had been invited to a party this afternoon, so he didn’t want to start anything too time consuming. I, on the other hand, started to turn out the potting shed. Since the weather was set fair, I knew I’d be able to leave it all out overnight – not that there was much to be damaged by rain.

Starting to turn out the potting shed .

The potting shed was the coal shed when we moved here and it was probably the first outbuilding that we cleared and adapted. It’s constructed from old railway sleepers and he back wall is the wall of the fruit garden – consequently, sometimes the ivy seems to be consuming it. It does have a concrete floor though. We put a clear wriggly Perspex roof on and windows in the back; both salvaged from elsewhere on the property. It’s tempting to remove it and replace it with a nice new potting shed, but I kind of love it.

Ivy-strewn walls.

This is probably the first time in thirteen years that it’s been completely emptied, but I was fed up moving the same things around every year – things that we never used.  So the stuff coming out went into four piles – keep, give away, sell and dump.

Progress.

Sunday 11^th June

Finally, some rain - not a lot but steady for maybe an hour.Better than nothing.

Dan was back in the sunken garden, finishing the last corner and having a burn. He does love a fire – he’s his mother’s son right enough.

The last corner.

The big burn.

Potting shed now finished; I confess some stuff was moved to the workshop, to avoid a decision and I think that’ll be turned out soon.

Almost finished.

Brought the cattle in to feed them – only one calf. The other three were on the burn side of the fence on an adventure. Funnily enough, Legs was not part of the exploration party.

With a bit of persuasion, they managed to find their way back o the gap created by the collapse of the rotten strainer, shot through the gap and galloped off in search of mums and a comfort feed. Dan’s made a repair but a longer term fix will be required.

Calves on an adventure.

They are cute though.

L to R Legs (Baby), Socks (Rora) and Skip (Blizzard)