Well , May has been a very busy month with lots of up and downs here
at the land, The chickens have settled in wonderfully and continue to
provide us with an egg each and every morning like clockwork, getting
problems with rats creeping in and tunneling underneath the coup,not
sure how much this stresses out the chooks but they keep stealing the
food from the feeder, no matter how many attempts we make at blocking
there their progress they always get the better of us.mmmmmm.
As for
the land itself ,its starting to get a little greener but still waking up
to the occasional frost in early may, not good as its destroyed my
potatoes, i hope they recover sufficiently,didnt expect frost in middle
of may ,as we are around ten miles inland from the coast we dont get the salty warm air of the coast in the morning,we have woken up many a morning to slight frosts and nothing of the sort on the coast where we work,All a learning process i guess, only affected the potatoes and
runner beans i had planted, most other veggies ive left in the polytunnel
until they are ready, the carrots are under the ground but the potatoes
have taken a real hit,its very depressing to see those wonderful green
leaves all turn to black and wilt.
Had a busy time in the
polytunnel getting it dug over and potting and seeding all the
seedlings,very exciting,with all the cold weather weve been having ive
been worrying about the warmth in there but they seem fine.
Weve
bought a new van (well second hand ) because our car derived van is just
getting too small,once we have our boards and wetsuits and a few bits in
there it was just no room spare,so weve got a larger transit type van
for £2400, i really dont like buying a new vehicle but needs must, very
sad to see the old van go, got 1600 for it froman old school mate so it
was nice to pass it on to someone i know.spending alot of our time now
converting the van into a camper for us to have somewhere to sleep in
an emergency and enjoy the summer with, weve enlisted the help of a
friend whom is great at carpentry and all that stuff so thats been
a great help as its been hard finding the time between work hours to fit
it.in. The van has finally been finished after a month of hard work on it,we are very happy with it but took longer than we expected,got room for the boards to slip under the seat come bed, gas stove and leisure battery with a plug to charge our laptop ,phone etc,more hi tech than our home!!on that subject,with the long nights ,not dark until at least 10-1030pm we havent even used any candles or lights towards the end of may .The compost toilet is working a treat, seems to be rotting down nicely with all the leaf and straw in there, reckon well only need to empty once this season,no smell at all!! oh and we had to stop using the river water to wash as we both had cuts turning septic and had to take antibiotics,not good ,the doctor said that the water maybe putting to many bad bacteria on our bodies and the good bacteria cant cope with it to equalize it all out, so we now use rainwater or tap water from work,not proven if its the river water but weve had no problems since weve stop using it..getting a few nice sunny days at the end of the month but still not enough surf,weve been so busy with all the plants and the van so not been to bad,reallly need to get in the water more,the sea is around 12-13degrees and not warming up much lets hope the waves improve next month..
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| caravan or boat? |
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| few leaves on the trees(view from caravan) |
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| ready for action |
