Suspension of Blog

Sad news for the one follower and 5 other readers, I am suspending the blog until I have a working camera. There is little enough to keep you riveted here but without a photo...there is nothing.

This photo is a dramatic portrayal of 2007 winds that destroyed our new greenhouse. It WAS standing when a windy night left it looking as if a herd of elephants had made their way over it.

I hope you all have a good winter, but it will be better than this one up here - whatever the weather!

RE; Last Posts

I realise that you may bethinking that I now have 8 children living next door but no...not yet.
The photos all messed up when O loaded the East Yorkshire post so are not in order of my description. The animal vegetable is a potato but can you seem the resemblance to a sleeping sheep?

East Yorkshire

Here are some photos from the day.

Clockwise from the left, view from the top of the wood. If it was clearer you would see the Humber Estuary.

Moss and Pip walking next to the sunflower crop, yes, east Yorkshire not Provence!

The ploughed fields, chalk! The wood next to ours is Chalk Pit. but all the land is like this around here!

Red berries, seen further along the Wolds Way. This a hover fly with a light aircraft in the background...good photography eh?

I didn't do any work on the wood, just explored the area, looked at goldfinch eating thistledown and buzzards swooping over game bird hatcheries then sat and ate my lunch with the paper. Bliss!

The wall is DONE!!

So this is the piece of work that has occupied my summer. The little dog with a frisbee in her mouth is PIP who keeps herself out of mischief by running after the frisbee when I throw it, bringing it back and waiting patiently for the next throw. Moss lies in wait, like the herding dog that she is and when Pip runs, so does Moss. They race for the frisbee then if Moss gets it, she runs away with it and lies down, waiting for Pip to come and pick it up. Then she grabs it and turns her head away.

Collies have endless capacity for this type of occupation as every collie owner will know. And it does keep them well exercised.

The new neighbours apparently are moving in on Friday, possibly with 8 children? Is this the end of our life at sandalfarm as we know it?

New arrival at sandalfarm.

But what is it?

Oh! Whats this?

This is autumn.

It is definitely AUTUMN!

Oh well, it is dry and I have nearly completed 60' of wall in under 4 weeks, a saving of £400 doing it myself.

O my aching back and legs...but I'm so pleased to be working all day in dry weather. Stone walling is even more satisfying than growing your own veg. Not only is it creative but it sabes me money while growing your own veg doesn't really make economic sense unless you buy organic from Waitrose. (whoops, product placement creeping in, I never buy from Waitrose as the nearest store is in Otley which is full of traffic and a long way from here).

The tractor flail mower broke a belt today so no mowing today but we have on order a STARTER MOTOR so no longer will I have to stand and listen to the agonising groans of the engine as it is turned over again and again and again...until the flat battery demands a jump start.

OH and I both back at work tomorrow. And dark ay 7.30pm.

LOOK, DRY FIELDS!

So the tractor is put to work yet again! This picture was taken in the sheep paddock (formerly the Pony Paddock). It is a much drier field than the Reedy Field where Cloud lives but it has more than its fair share of reeds.

What a transformation to have them down and shredded (the yellow device on the back of the tractor does both, it is flail mower).

Sadly for the first time we have evidence of worms in the sheep so the next job is to construct some sort of pen again to get them seen to. I hasten to add that it isn't MY sheep that have brought them in but an interloper from a neighbouring farm.

They need to have their toe nails cut anyway and Molly has lost her tag and the lambs from last year are now due tagging.

Shetland sheep are incredibly low maintenance and I am glad we got this little flock.

It is pitch black at 8.30pm.

So lets look at the evidence that we had a summer...

Our neighbour (not immediate neighbour but round the corner) has made a beauitful vegetable garden, spending so much time and money on a fence, trees and shrubs and drainage in an attempt to create a "good growing area", and it looked to have worked. Their vegetables were tall and green looking in the view I have from my bedroom window. He built raised beds with real soil brought on the back of a wagon, put in drainage, lovely chipped paths and a seating area with stone walls and pavements. There are beautiful flowers and lights that twinkle in the dark having stored power from the daylight. Their umbrella shades the view of their table and chairs from my prying eyes but I know how much I have used my own this summer...

Then over one day the beautiful vegetables disappeared from view. I thought, he obviously didn't use successional planting...but it wasn't that! His brassicas had been decimated by caterpillers. Oh, it is a sad truth known to those who indulge in the passion of growing their own vegetables (sorry, I've been reading the biography of Jane Austen) that vegetables need daily attention if you want to grow organically. Nothing can replace the daily toil of picking off the leaf needy insects and SQUASHING them. If you are vegetarian, there in lies your dilemma...kill a creature and lose your veg or leave the creature...etc.

As you all know, I am no longer vegetarian having reverted to canivorous life on buying the farm and having access to kindly reared and happy animals (at least until they are slaughtered), but can a human live by a holey cabbage alone.

The sunflower seeds will help.

Tractor tribulations.

This is what he did...got the tractor stuck...well and truely stuck...but all was not lost because I drove the truck, hooked up the tractor and he drove the tractor and lo...all was well again. It wasn't bogged down in the rain sodden field but on a piece of metal...

Who knows what the metal was, but it just got longer and longer and disappeared into the next door's land. Shame there is no scrap value in metal anymore, with the amount we have dug out of sandalfarm we could have retired.

I am back...

This is the River Spey, a wondrous river for fishing and canoeing and dog swimming.
There is such a sense of aloneness when walking through the woods in this unpopulated part of GB. Fishing, farming and shooting sre still the main industries, alongside whisky and shortbread.
Still, it's nice to back at sandalfarm and getting going on the neglected jobs.
I dug up my potato crop yesterday. It was no where near as good as last year but some good sized tatties there and should keep us going for a few months.
The runner beans are the best I have ever grown up here and the onions are "variable" - some are huge and some are miniscule.
Sadly, my first day back was spent in work, my second day it rained for half of the day and the third is today...I am breaking for oat cakes (yes, brought home from Bonnie Scotland) and Wensleydale Cheese before returning to the great wall of Cloud's field.
The house next door looks to have been sold but I don't know how big the family is yet and I am certain that they are not interested in keeping stock. Shame. I have 6 weeks to get the wall finished so I can trespass on their land to get it done.
Better get back there...
Tomorrow I will show you what OH was up to while I was away.

Too busy to take photos.

This is what is keeping me busy...the wall is a new one so the foundations have to be solid, the stone imported from another part of the farm and it is work in progress.

I spent from 11.30am until 7.00pm with half hour lunch and half hour for patching up the silage bales as the plastic had torn leaving the silage exposed...a certain way of acheiving a nice mouldy for Cloud in the middle of winter.

Speaking of Cloud, that white lump is her. She tends to hang around while I am working, whether eating, chewing the cud or sleeping. The latter applies in this photo.

Wonderful day, warm and not too hot. BUT more rain tomorrow.

This will be the last blog for a week as I am off on my travels again. I usually leave the farm for a total of 14 days a year at most in short breaks but family commitments in Scotland and more than doubled that total already this year. I am resorting to weed killer and neglect to get through.

ps my runner beans, spinach and potatoes are all cropping well. I don't let the beans get too long as they are unpleasant in my opinion for what it's worth.

Repairing the hen house.

One very rotten floor.

Evidence of a rat's nest or maybe just a big mouse...certainly moles throwing their soil up and making piles and a hole where humans can fall through to the waiting rat. Work in progress, pictured above.

To the left of the pop-hole, a creature was making a new one. It isn't visible on this picture but it was further evidence of a rat (says OH).

It is now finished but pouring with rain again so you will have to wait for tomorrow for the last photo. Bet you can't wait.

Busy busy...

So after neglecting to do much work over the summer due to frequent trips to various locations (and another coming up) I am now getting stuck in. Rain has just stopped play so an ideal time to catch up.

On the farm; cropping potatoes and other veg (not so many, it is not a great place for vegetables as I have previously remarked).

Continuous strimming particularly around the trees.
Weeding and spraying so it looks a little less neglected than of late.

Ragwort spotting...as it still pops up.

Worming for them that need it.

Cutting rushes, moving rocks, repairing the chicken house. (OH)

Finding eggs as they started laying outside again while friends were farm sitting last week.

AND...best job of all, building a new wall!!!

In the wood; clearing the front edge in preparation for the hedge which will eventually be layered.

Bramble bashing.

Building a log cabin...well it is a log shelter for me to wee behind ready for when the leaves fall off the trees.

Ordering natural/native daffodils and bluebells and preparing for planting next month.

What a wonderful life it is...never bored except when it rains of course.

The photo is of Little Eagle when she was a chick. Nothing to do with the content but cute.

Erecting an electric fence.

After the hay fields have been harvested, I asked for 3 bales to be left behind this gate (the bales are not in the picture), which they duely were. Now in the field behind the gate is Cloud. She is a wise old cow of 17 years and knows what lies beneath the black plastic on the round things that have appeared in her field. She needs to be kept off them.

Until OH is around to help erect a wire fence, I decided to employ my brand new (well it is 5 years old but not yet used) electric fence to do the job.

Ho hum...searching for all the bits took half an hour. I had to dismantle the agility course because it is fashioned from the plastic fence poles. The battery was already on charge so that was no problem. And yes, it was charged, I know that because I electricuted myself 5 times in the process of learning how to erect an electric fence. (how do you spell electrecuted??)

Still, all in a days work on sandalfarm...

So the fields are bare and the winter feed is in place and the nights are drawing in. OH and I are off to Wales to look for a pedigree White Park heifer (maybe).

Catch you next week.

First potato harvest 2009

After some wet days in Somerset (yes, on holiday) I have returned to glorious sunshine! What a state my vegetable gardens are in! So many weeds.

Anyway, this is the first of the potatoes, so not bad. I roasted them with home grown coriander and bacon and a bit of chilli as my chillis are only just in flower.

Also, the farm shop farm manager has cut our hay. We only need 3 bales, having only one little lonely cow to feed, so he has left us 3 bales in the field and taken the rest. Hopefully this will mean that we don't have to pay for the cut like we have in past years.

I read a leaflet and after a few shocks, managed to erect an electric fence around the bales to keep Cloud off them. There is a lot of grass now she is on her own and she probably won't look at them for a while. She is staying down the end of the field near to the field with the closest cows are but she doesn't spend hours mooing at them, in fact she hasn't mooed at all, but she certainly is keeping closer to them than she used to. She still waits for me in her usual place in the morning though. Sweetened calf feed is the best food of all!

Soggy land.

It is too depressing to post a picture of the last 2 days so I have posted one of a drier summer 3 years ago. This show the extent of the reeds in "Rushy Field"and one of Cloud's calves. Then we didn't have the equipment to manage the field. Now it is because

the rain has been extremely heavy and the result is the land has become saturated once again.

I have strimmed around the essential bits, pulled ragwort and picked crops but even though the sun is now shining, I am not walking on the ground any more, trying to keep the damage minimal.

The sun is shining now and the forecast is good for tomorrow. Luckily for us, the butcher hasn't started on his job with our beef so we are free tomorrow and are heading off to the wood. Saturday looks grim and that is when it will be ready for collection.

Although we don't butcher ourselves, the meat comes in plastic sacks and has to be sorted out for freezing and distribution. Last time it took 5 hours to divide into two and bag up our half. This time we are dividing into 3 and bagging our third. It is also a smaller bullock, so I'm hoping it won't take quite so long.

A gruesome job.

Cloud meantime is munching on grass and seemingly content enough. There are 2 Highland cows in the field at the end of hers so she has made that end of her field her desired resting place. She isn't moo-ing at them and is still meandering around the field to graze, and actually helping us by keeping the top half of the field to grow new grass.

I wish we could get this field sorted...

Neighbours.

I have described about how our farm is attached to two other houses, occupied by families. I am not sure I said that one is for sale, the one attached to us and therefore the one with whom we have most contact.

Worrying times...

But last night while OH was digging drainage holes at the end of the cow field, the neighbours from across the road invited us round for a G&T in the warm evening sunshine.

They are an agreeable couple that we see only occasionally and they are a very agreeable couple. So what started as a drink in the garden became a full-blown evening in with wine and pizzas.

In fact the midges drove us in before we took a first sip.
I wonder how to dispense with midges when it is such a lovely evening. Usually there is too much wind for them to bother. Wind - difficult to grow things, gets on your nerves, cold versa wind - dries the soil, keeps the midges away, cools it down on a hot day.

So there you have your plus points and minus points;

neighbours - share tasks, have a drink together, look after the chickens in an emergency (maybe) versa -neighbours, resent sharing their space with you, getting bothered by their requests for help, having to entertain their children. (picture - which I have made small to protect identies)

I am rambling. Time to go and pick the rest of the gooseberries.

I'm back.

This picture was taken last August. This time the dogs stayed at home with OH who was on holiday. I have just returned to an ecstatic welcome (from the dogs not OH who has disappeared to dig a trench somewhere) and I am off to survey a week's worth of weeds, say hello to Cloud and the sheep andrecover from the 7 hour journey home.

PS, the picture is of Moss in the woods at Grantown on Spey.

What a day!

Can you see the rain on my window? This is the view from the office and the computer sits under the window. Usually at this time of the day, the sun streams in, making it the best part of the house to sit in. Not today, it is relentless.

Can you see my model sheep, I bet my little flock wish they could be as dry. They have a shelter and rarely use it, prefering to huddle by a stone wall or in the long reeds. Silly sheep.

It is 10.9c and the wind blowing at 15mph with gusts up to 22 mph. Yuk. I have had a day at work anyway and the dogs weren't that bothered about a walk, they told me. We have played "Find the Ball" and "Fight Each Other Because we're Bored" and eventually they'll give up and sulk quietly.

I won't be posting for over a week now, so don't forget to catch up on sandal farm news for the rest of the July and hear the thrilling news about Arthington Show and OH's week solo at sandalfarm.

Soooo many gooseberries...

And I don't even like them that much...I have picked pounds and pounds of them and still the bushes are graoning under the weight of them. I like them best raw and ripe or made into a fool or with oily fish but don't like them at all in a crumble.

Our collie that had a taste for them (Fly circa 1982 - 1996) would get terrible diahorrea after eating the fallen ones so Moss and Pip are not being allowed to discover them. Both like to eat the bluberries which are ripe now and Moss can pick her own, but as we only pass them when out walking she doesn't get much chance to consume many. We walk quickly...

As a quick sad note, the bull went today. It was very stressful, none of us like this part of farming. He loaded well and travelled reasonable well but wouldn't leave the trailer. Horrible. Anyway, the deed is done with Cloud now quietly chewing on the cud alone at home and unperturbed, seemingly.

OH said, lets become veggies, no doubt living on gooseberries.

Wood photos at last!

Here are some pictures of our beautiful (steep) wood. My path, above left, which now reaches the top of the wood and left me exhausted yesterday. My path, above right, which leads from the "Fairy Glen" into a birch woodland. OH at the chainsaw, removing dead and over-crowded trees. Please no messages about suitable gear to wear while doing this task...it is a sore point as I saw a pair of chain mail trousers in a charity shop for £8 and didn't buy them. OH went back the next day and they had gone and I've not lived it down.

It was a peaceful day as the road was closed and no neighbours appeared. We didn't have a barbeque this time but it was warm and sunny and the flowers were so beautiful! I took 3 photos of the wild flowers but none are of reproduction quality.

Also the birds...I wish I knew what they were, but I can't identify anything by song alone and in the trees it is impossible to see them. I only saw the wood pigeons and heard a cuckoo cuckoo

Meet Little Eagle.

Little Eagle is the chick. She has been with us for 5 years and was our first home bred chicken. She doesn't lay eggs anymore but when she did they were lovely blue ones being as she is part Aracana and part hybrid.

The dog is Mist, our two and a half year old collie that died of poisoning on the moors near here, that was 3 and a half years ago. This story is another one because tonight is Little Eagle's page.

I've always loved this photo and I'm feeling lazy...

Introducing Billy.

This is an old photo of Billy, our ram, he is now 4 years older and not quite so pretty.

Billy, like the Shetlands (he is not full bred Shetland, a bit meatier for lamb production) does not need to be sheared as his wool kind of drops off. It is a slow process and he gets quite itchy so round about this time of the year he becomes very happy for me to tug it out.

He stands, leaning against me, even if there is food on the ground, while I pull off his fleece. If he was a cat, he would purr. The other Shetlands are not happy to be pulled manually so I leave their rugs to drop off in their own time. Consequently they look a little wierd with skinny necks poking out of a ragged rug.

It costs a lot of money to have them sheared, even commercial farmers don't always bother as there is no market for the fleece. In flocks that are a bit more intensive than ours and perhaps where they are in a more sheltered environment, the fleece can encourage fly strike, where a nasty fly lays eggs in the fleece which then burrow into the skin to feed.

We have never had a problem with our hardy little band of Shetlands. They may not be the most productive so definitley fit the "Low in-put, low output" expression.

Woodland day

Yesterday we spent the day at the wood. How lovely it was in bright sunshine. The trouble is, I forgot my camera again! So the picture is NOTHING to do with woodland.

ONLY, we met the owners of the next section of woodland and had a long chat about what their ambitions are. He is a young man with a wife and2 young children and they had come to camp overnight with friend and brother and brother's daughter (and others? I lost count). He has cleared some land, and planted some trees, put in some bird boxes and daffodils and made some tidy piles of logs to dry off. We were just off as the extended family arrived as we had spent all day there, doing the same as last Saturday.

Only this time we had a barbecue lunch of sausages (our own) and black pudding. It was lovely to sit under the trees and eat with Saturday's papers spread about. We used dry twigs to set the brickettes alight, although I felt we should really have made a campfire and cooked over that.

I found a new path that went across the wood, so was easier to clear. I did some more of the steps to take us up to the top of the wood and then returned to the horizontal path which was a lot easier.

I found another clearing and many beautiful silver birch in excellent condition which was great as I thought we only had ash, hawthorn and sycamore. Silver birch are probably my favourite tree.

Our neighbour is thinking of grazing some of his clearing, with a native rare breed. So the picutre of our Wensleydale lamb with his blue pot on has a vague relevence.

Ponies and horses.

I have owned and loaned ponies since 2001.
First loan was Boo Boo. He stayed 1 month and nearly killed me and OH by his behaviour on separating from his field mate.
Second loan was Jess. She was a gentle giant and may have stayed a bit longer only the field I kept her in was trashed with over-grazing. She was sold to the riding school where I had lessons. She was too big for me anyway, although she was sweet.
I borrowed one of their ponies but she bolted with me on the first day so she went back to them,
Then I bought Tanzy and after she backed into walls at alarming speed, galloped around the school and wasn't safe to hack out in company or alone, she went back before the end of the one month trial.
I then got Sophie, pictured. I had Sophie for 18 months. This picture was taken from her new home with her teenage owner. Sophie wasn't as fat then! She lived at a farm and small riding place and the owners, with whom I became friendly, helped me a lot to get her going out alone. She was ridden by others and the arrangement worked well. I had an idyllic summer with Sophie but then we moved to sandalfarm. I had Storm, a retired pony from the same school that took Jess. After only 6 weeks Storm died and Sophie went back to the farm with my friends.
Lacking the facilities (no stables at that time) or a companion for Sophie, I sold her reluctantly.
I rode other people's horses for a while, Brandy being the most long term of these, then bought Paddy without too much consideration and sold him just as quickly. He just didn't like me, nor me him. He wasn't cuddly at all. 2 months after I sold him he died of a heart attack at 12 years old.
I went back to riding schools then found a nice local place for livery, a woman wanted to have company for her own horse.
I bought Thor, a Norwegian Fjord. I had him for a year. It was a miserable year and I only rode him with fear and trepidation. He had a massive "nap" and just set off for home without any pre-warning.
I kept on riding at a local school which was fun and stress free. Then I hurt my back and 18 months later have not done much with horses at all.
The yearning doesn't go away but I promised I would never never buy a horse again and stick to dogs, cows, sheep etc. But my friend is down-sizing and she mentioned putting one of her school horses out on loan.
What should I do?

Repairing the drive.

Look at the misty morning, taken yesterday at 10am. It was nice to be a little cooler in the heatwave and the cows were certainly glad!

OH was determined that I noted his hard work over his week's holiday. The picture you see on the left is him on the roller and the neighbour on the digger. The picture on the right is the finished product, looking down to the house which is ours.

The drive has gradually been eroded over the last five years with the heavy down pours that we experience. It was left with a big bump in the middle and scattered debris on the two ruts. The men tackled it by digging out the hump and rollering it flat.

Now OH and I have motorbikes so it will be great to be able to use the drive without fearing for a tumble! We will just have to wait and see what it looks like after the next winter.

Ate our first broad beans last night and spinach tonight. Worth waiting for!

Down to the woods today.

Sadly, although I put the camera on to recharge, I forgot to take it, so no photos. What a fool. Also we took, a little stove, a tea bag (for me) and a sppon or two of coffe (for OH) and milk in a plastic bottle BUT FORGOT CUPS! Well, eating our picnic al fresco we decided to use the plastic box for the dried fruit for my tea and cut the top off the milk bottle for OH's coffee. All was saved.

We spent from 11.30am until 4.30pm in a variety of tasks,

clearing a path to the top of the wood using a spade to cut in steps (me, still unfinished)

clearing a lot of old wood and over-growth to make it easier for the undergrowth to develop (OH)

clearing spindly trees from above path (OH)

taking out millionbs of sycamore seedlings, branbles where they are are not needed and ragwort (me)

collecting the next harvest of wild strawberries (me)

eating above collection (both)

discovering a new path leading to a copse of silver birch (me) And what a delight to do this as we are worried about our silver birch at sandalfarm that are all dying.

watering new trees in (me)

clearing nettles etc to reach above trees (me)

So, a lovely day. What a wonderful place. Birds singing, flowers flowering and a cuckoo in the opposite wood across the valley.

Shame about the photos.

I must not forget the camera.

I must not forget the camera.

I must not forget the camera.

ps the photo is the foxgloves back at sandalfarm that perhaps I will plant up in the wood.

Preparing for Jet's final journey.

Now don't be sad. Remember that Jet has had 2 long happy years in idyllic setting, if a little wet and windy sometimes. He is a little bull and actually can be quite scarey as he thunders across the field to headbutt you playfully with his enormous head.

So, no more pictures of Jet.

Within 2 weeks he will be very used to going into his trailer for a bucketful of food. It all helps to make the unpleasant business of farming, a stress free as possible.

The trip takes about half an hour depending on traffic and only one of our animals has shown any stress. This was the last bullock who tried to climb out of the horse trailer in the middle of Bradford. OH got out of the truck and punched him on the nose and he settled down then. I was so shocked and scared that he could get out of the trailer that the rest of the journey was one of the worst of my life.

I am hoping that this episode was a one-off. I'll let you know.

CLEANING THE POND

Oh has been hard at it! Clearing the pond that is...and did it need it?

You can see the murky water, well that is nothing like it was. The dog got diaroaha (can't spell) from drinking out of it. They both came back orange coloured after diving into it!

We have a lot of frogs and toads that appear from under stones but the way the pond looked, it would never sustain any life in the future.

So the hours of standing in his waders (my Christmas present to him) have resulted in the island (right) which mat even give somewhere for the ducks to nest.

The piles of mud and weed have to be left for a few days for the pond life to crawl back into the water. But then we will have an idyll, believe me!

The garden is abundant with flowers and fauna, including the wagtail family who appeared last night, learning to fly the nest...

The spinach and broccoli and sprouts and leeks and parsnip and potatoes are all doing really well, keep watering every night is if a warm night or in the morning in overcast...

what a wonderful life.

Tomorrow I will tell you about the preparations for the bullock's departure.

First crop from the wood.

On Friday we went to the wood and spent five hours there. One of my jobs was to collect some of the ripe strawberries. They are wild, obviously, and the photo shows them next to my care keys...so that little picking fitted into the palm of my hand!

Still, they are very sweet and there are 1000s of plants so hopefully there will be more to come.

The jobs were divided according to tools. OH had the loppers so pruned dead and diseased branches for 5 hours. I had a spade so started to make steps up the side of the valley. It is very steep and although there is one twisting path, it doesn't actually have a start on the valley floor so a finish on the top.

After 2 hours I gave my back a rest and went to the clearing to pick the strawberries, then got stuck into clearing the brambles from this site. There is a thicket of them at the top in the sun and will provide a good crop of blackberries later on.

Then I collected piles of wood and made piles while circumnavigating the site taking out ragwort.

The dogs careered around until I tied them up with a pig's trotter each. That kept them quiet.

More of a feast than out strawberries will provide!!

Keeping Bees.

This cotoneaster bush is alive with bees when the sun is shining. Although my photographic skills are a bit lacking, you can easily see a flying bee in my snap!

OH went on a bee keeping course and was assured that it would not be possible to keep a hive up here on windy mountain. The bees get blown off course and can't find their way back apparently.

Poor little bees, they need all the help they can get (visit the co-operative campaign site for more information).

The routine watering was back in force yesterday but today there has been steady rain all day. This is how it should be of course. I can catch up on paper work for my jobs and tidy the house. Being an outdoors addict does have a "downside". The dogs seem content to lie around even though I have been out all day. Their 20 minute play in the rain was enough.

And no sign of a bee this afternoon.

Views.

People often come to Sandalfarm and say, "What a View!"

I don't really rate our view (not a great photo but it gives you some idea) as it is an industrial view, interupted by power lines and a city.

The city of Bradford lies five miles down the valley and it isn't a pretty view to overlook any city except perhaps Oxford with the dreaming spires or St Davids on the south west coast of Wales.

From Bradford it is a plateau that stretches to the east coast.

The most visible landmarks are the power stations at Ferrybridge, Eggborough, Drax and the other one (the name escapes me). Their plumes of untrapped steam identifies them easily from any high point in West Yorkshire.

There is also the Bradford University and the church at Thornton, the village unknown as being the birth place of the Brontes.

We moved in on Bonfire Night and it DID look spectacular then. All of Bradford were welcoming us to our new home and our new view. Now we see fireworks when there is a wedding or (so I am told) when the drugs arrive.

Pots of pansies.

A wonderful flower is the pansy! I bought a tray of tiny plants for £5 from our farm shop (not OUR farm shop, but the one near to us) and pootted them up and located them around the front door and yard. They flower and flower and later on, I'll let them run to seed and collect for growing next winter.

These pansies have put up with strong winds, drought and excessive rain in the last month. I think they should be a mainstay of every "low maintenance" garden.

It has been dry for the past few days so I am back to watering everything. I watch the weather to then make a decision on whether to spend the half hour to an hour that the watering takes...but the weather forecast is too unpredictable to be a reliable guide.

At a farm visit for the Co-operative (I am a committee meber) in Goole yesterday, I saw the dry baked soil of the this area and decided that although most farming for crops is in the east, there is a downside to this. Their soil looked like an African plain, arid and cracked. I despaired of the trees planted last weekend at Dale Wood.

Perhaps I should have planted the resiliant pansy!!

A Boundry Wall.

This is a photo of a corner of the Rushy field with a finished wall, well almost finished.

You can see the fence and wire that is still on the cow side of the wall. Everytime I go into the field, Jet comes for a nosy around. He is quite timid, not at all aggressive, but he does like to bump things with his head. It is fun and it may unearth some nice green grass.

I do NOT want to be bumped, however docilely so finishing this wall has been slow progress.

It is finished up to a point where I need to refence to keep the cattle in. My neighbours wanted a bit more land and this involves refencing. So I have decided to wait until the field is empty, well at least empty of Jet as he is the bumping sort of problem (as Pooh Bear would say).

My walls are rebuilds and are built for stability. To make a lovely finished edge, I need to spend more time chipping at edges, instead I get on with finishing the job. Except of course...finishing means waiting...

Nice weather for waiting though.

The Woodlanders.

Well, here we are in the sunny side of Yorkshire. We had the key delivered on Friday and on Saturday trundled off down the motorway to our woodland.

We drove straight past as it looked so different in full leaf! And what a wonderland or wild flowers and grasses, trees and even wild strawberries.

We had taken some fruit trees to plant so I got down to that while OH started snipping off dead wood. 3 and a half hours passes so quickly, it was only thirst and hunger that drove us home.

The view from the top is over our wood but you can look along the valley and see the Humber. It was glistening in sunlight at that time as the tide was out, just a brown streak yesterday.

Isn't it wonderful! I feel so priviledged to be able to have this little oasis of trees and birds as a retreat. There is a lot of work to do but none of it is urgent or day by day. A complete delight and better anyday than leaving money in a building society earning zilch.

Pylons

One reason our farm was cheap to buy is the location. It is on a hill overlooking the city of Bradford, which is not a popular city to live despite the proximity of the Dales, the Pennines, major cities and the Asian restaurants. If our post code had been HX for Halifax which is a step away then the price would have been more. The other price depressing factor was that our land also has the electricity wires running straight over the fields. We receive £9 a year for this priviledge from the National Grid.

I haven't become depressed since moving here as one friend informed me was inevitable, neither have I developed cancer (although it is early days yet having lived here for only 5 and a half years). The worst thing about them is the noise the wires make if the wind is blowing hard from the west. They howl and keep me awake. Kathy Earnshaw's howls fade into insignificance in comparison. In mist they spit and hiss.

I don't see them most of the time. But sometimes they provide interest like last week when men in little cradles were suspended above me as they checked their viability. And a man comes to see if our trees need to be lopped if they grow too close to them ... it will be an acheivement for us when this happens! The first visit from National Grid for this purpose made me laugh, as if our weedy little trees were anywhere near his lines! But the last visit, he said they were getting there and he'd have to monitor them more closely. Yippee!

Anyway, this picture was taken on Monday evening. Shows some beauty to the monsters that tramp across our view.