Good to be back

I know. I've been AWOL for quite some time now.

Those of you who follow this blog may have realised that I tend not to do things by halves. So, when I started blogging, I vowed to myself never to become one of those people who blogs enthusiastically for a while before things tail off ... with the usual excuses ... you know them.

What's my excuse then for my last post being way back in March?

Busy? Most definitely. Away? Only for a day, to see a Rock Thrush in Yorkshire.

No. I've had a complete technological meltdown and that's all I want to say about it. But now I'm back, though photos may take a while to make a reappearance.




So, what has been going on here at Swallow Farm? Not much really.

The building work is almost done, but we have definitely been through the worst of it. There have been times when we wondered why we ever started it. The house is painted. We have four new lambs, one less pig, four fewer hens (sold) and eight fewer cockerels (freezer) and we don't have sixteen new goslings (long story, still going on). There's mixed news on the bees which have had a testingly long winter. On the wild bird front, the swallows are back in the stables, the pair of Little Owls has moved into the Ash trees and Don discovered a Mallard nest yesterday while he was cutting the meadow for me. The first cuckoo of the year has been heard and Swifts are screaming through the air once more on their short summer sejourn in our land.
I've been digging, sowing, digging, planting, digging, muck spreading and digging. And the grass has been growing, along with the weeds.

The weather has been cool, but anything's better than last year's early drought followed by endless soakings. Things in the veg plots are looking up. The fruit trees and shrubs are looking healthy and the young woodland has come through the winter well.

Actually, thinking about it, we really have been very, very busy.