22nd July, 2023

Second day of sun, or at least until mid afternoon. It was a very cold night, down to close to zero.

Another productive day, I made a new brush for the milking machine claw, found a mat to put under the cat bowl in the dairy, planted the lemon thyme and culinary thyme, weeded and mulched another section of the side garden, planted bronze fennel (I didn't know it could grow up to 1.8m !) and the chocolate mint.

I also discovered a batch of jerusalem artichoke tubers while planting the fennel. Now that I think about it I remember the plants being there but didn't think they did any good. I'll clear one of the raised beds down at the other cottage and give it a shot of manure and put them all in there. I'll do another one while I'm at it and the tenant, Calab, can put in his seed potatoes. 

I cleared out and fertilised a pot in the backyard chicken proof cage and planted that with some "confetti" radish seeds. A mix of colours that will make lovely pickled radish as an accompaniment for indian meals. I'll do another pot every two weeks so I'll have a rolling harvest.

I also started the bonsai process for the dwarf cox's orange pippin, an apple tree that had adopted a 45 degree angle due to winds during it's first year. Each week I will tighten the wires a smidge until it's closer to vertical. Not too much while it's dormant though, because there is no growth to make changes, all I would do is loosen the roots.

I pulled down and washed the curtains from the kitchen and dining room ready to put wooden venetian blinds up.

I moved the tub of beef fragments gifted to the dogs. The big bones are all out and scattered like random treasures around the central drive. The fat and meat shreds were being worked over by the chickens are and better in their area than by the back gate smelling aromatic. And it might keep the chooks away from Finn's new bed of straw, which they have enthusiastically working over for the leftover grain heads.

I also solved the mystery of why the electric blanket was only heating my feet. I pulled the bed apart and discovered that about half the warming part had migrated down the bed and over the end, the elastic having pulled free from under the bed at the top. It was heating the bed end and not much else. I anticipate a much improved snug factor when I go to bed tonight.

Jack, Leigh's ram, managed to push through a gate and appears to have bred Pickle. She was sticking close and was going to follow him back across the road, the hussy. At least she has lambed before, so if it sticks she won't be having her first lamb at 6. Hopefully no-one else made eyes at him.

I went out to call the dogs for dinner and a fog had descended on us. It hushed all the noises and puffs of it were billowing past me. In the breeze I could smell all the green and fragrant things in my garden and the valley, especially the old fashioned daphne at the back gate. One of those moments when the Tassie slogan "Come down for air" really resonates.