Super Blood Wolf Moon Hug Day!

It's International Hug Day and the rest of the family are really getting into it!

It's also the start of Energy Saving Week, though I think the impending headlong dive into catastrophic climate change maybe demands slightly more than an awareness week!

Onto smallholding matters and Saturday saw the Beginners Grow Your Own group round for our third meeting. This is something I run for members of Fenland Smallholders Club.

The chickens enjoy pecking at broken ice,

even though it's not really the weather for lollies!

A chilly but still morning saw us outside clearing the asparagus patch and making a start on cutting back last year's summer-fruiting raspberry stems. The aim is that I get a little help and that, by actually doing the tasks, the group learn practically.

Asparagus patch

Before and after a long overdue clearance

This was followed by a short introduction to fruit tree pruning.

Once we were wrapped up and working the weather wasn't actually too bad but it was nice to come into the warm where we looked at all the gubbins needed to raise your own veg plants from seed.

From next month it all starts to get a lot more real as seed sowing begins in earnest.

Sunday had me engaged in Smallholders Club business again as I had my first ever AGM to run as Chair. I hate having to do this sort of thing and really can't stand the formality.
Anyway, I got through it and we followed the formalities with a talk by one of our members on shooting for smallholders.


I doubt I will be getting a gun, but it really was very interesting. I felt a lot less nervous once the guns went away!

Back from the club meeting, there was time to clear out the duck stable before heading out for a walk with the dogs under a spectacular full moon.
This was a Super Blood Wolf Moon. There seems to have been a recent proliferation in descriptive moon names! At least it encourages a bit of awe and wonder at the world we live in and, to be fair, there was to be an eclipse much later on in the night.