Burrs on my Boots

Well not really boots but like as not I am out in the fields wearing these little slippers, the slip on nature of slippers suits my lazy nature.  Though I end up with multiple muddy  pig-kisses to scrub off my legs before bed. The long hot days of summer argue with my gumboots. Though I wear them for the sloppier chores.

I am fairly sure that brussel sprouts are not meant to look like this.  I will give it another week or so then feed these big plants to the pigs. They will appreciate it.

The swiss chard is growing back, soon we will be eating it again.

I am sure I have told you already but I am very proud of growing  the apple trees. This is the first year we have been able to pick apples off them and I am just thrilled to bits.

There is an old saying about this fluffy caterpillar. Something about it being half black and meaning one thing and all orange and meaning another.  Something about the winter. Autumn is not here yet but soon we will sense her presence as she slowly appears, being shoved through by that enthusiastic winter in her wake.

My bees are drinking two cups of sugar water a day. When the weather settles again you and I will take the lid off the bee hive and see what is going on. I think they are doing ok. They seem busy and healthy.

Good morning. Last night I was woken by a big howling wind, followed  by big hard edgy rain that sounded like hail but was rain. I put on the long slicker my Dad sent me years ago.  I think of it as my deep sea fisherman’s coat. The oil skin coat that comes to my ankles. It is stiff and once all the domes are connected it sticks out around me and I move across the landscape like a miniature Bedouin  tent. I feel like I am walking inside it as opposed to being dressed in it. I put on my cowboy hat (to keep the rain off my face) and gumboots and the dogs and I go out into the storm to  fix the ark.

Every evening, on my last rounds, I prop a huge  pink sheet of insulation against the wall of the ark to protect the chickens from the night winds. I also have this rather odd idea that if the coyotes see a big pink polystyrene sheet they won’t be inclined to investigate all the dinners sitting behind it.  I prop big cement bricks against it to keep it in place. I knew this would have blown away, as the storm roared through shifting the wind to the other side. Sure enough it  was under the trees and the chickens were huddled in the horizontal rain.  Struggling inside my coat I retrieved the pink wall, which weighs nothing and with it flying beside me like a sail,  we tacked our way back across the field. Once it is arranged on the correct side, the wind actually holds it in place but  I gathered the concrete bricks and propped them against it just in case the wind shifted again. Then the dogs and I went back to our respective sleeping places to sleep with one ear on the rain.  The chickens watched us go with little bemused peeps.

This morning has that lovely washed clean scent.

That damp warm benevolent heat that presides over Growth.

Have a lovely day.

your friend on the farm, celi