Author Archives: Lyndsey

Asparagus & Potatoes

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Spring arrived in a flurry this weekend, warm weather and a burst of energy from everything. Flowers bloomed, visitors arrived and we planted vegetables. This weekend we needed to get in the 50 asparagus plants bought us by some dear friends. James dug two 15 metre trenches in our beautiful soil, which we have been culturing for the last 12 months from mulching and covering to the digging and rotavating. The instructions were specific, the one year old crowns had to be 10cm below the surface, any more they could rot in the damp, any less and they could be killed by frost. It was a serious undertaking and Lyndsey’s dad and little brother got stuck in! Each plant was soaked then gently laid out in the trench, the root ball teased out to sit flat, then buried with excitement at the thought of the asparagus parties to come.

We also had 100 potatoes to plant these included Lady Charlotte, Kestrel, Pink Fir Apple, Nadine, Desiree and then some others.. however we mislaid the names!  That’s 40 metres of potato plants!

On hold

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Hi all – it’s been a long time since our last up date and we are in a bit of a strange position at the moment. The planners felt we had gone outside our planning permission and had therefore negated it. All quite horrific really! We had a meeting about 3 weeks ago where they seemed to realise that they had given permission for all that had happened, it just happened a bit more dramatically than we had hoped and we weren’t able to save as much of the barn as we would have wished. However we have heard nothing since. So at the moment James and I are on tenterhooks waiting to find out whether we have lost it all or if they agree that everything which has happened was within our planning permission. Our hopes are relatively high as our case is a strong one, for example in the meeting they referred back to the original planning which was to convert the old brick lean to into a kitchen and said we should not have knocked that down, however in our application that was to come down and be replaced, it was interesting seeing the realisation cross their faces. So keep your fingers crossed for us… and I hope that people are still checking this occasionally. I can only apologise that I haven’t updated this, all I can say is I didn’t have the heart to, as I was feeling pretty down about it all.

So I promise I will work on this soon and put up photos and stories of our Spring and Summer, which has been both glorious and horrendous.

So that was the summer

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—————-
Now playing: Brett Dennen – Billie Jean
via FoxyTunes

Well what a damp old summer that was! Amusingly our cat is insistent on going out, even in the worst of it. Looking back I said he would never become a true country cat, well I retract that completely, sadly he is catching everything from field mice to moles and romping in puddles with the best of them.

Thankfully the yurt has stood up to all the weather that the Atlantic could throw at it and to ensure that we have a cosy and dry Autumn we have indulgently bought a Nordica/Brosley Rosa woodburning range… plenty of room for roasting veg, yorkshire puds, James’ homemade pizzas.

With respect to the barn we have submitted preplanning documents and await to hear whether the council are happy with them, whilst we have outline planning permission we want to green it up a little. We are also going on the advice of our structural engineer who recommends that, as it’s an old cruck barn, the walls were not made to carry the full weight of a roof. Now that it does carry the weight of a rodf it’s pushed the walls out slightly, the current planning stipulates that there has to be a concrete ring around the top, we have come across a better approach where the weight of the roof is taken by a frame inside removing the need to put any weight on the structure at all. We shall see.

We also took a little bit of a break. One weekend was spent going to the fabulous Small Nations Festival just up the lane in Cilycwm, a stunning place for a festival and a great event if you are ever in the area. We got to do a few walks, had friends and family visit and went the National Botanic Gardens just down the road. Friends also came to visit us and managed to time it perfectly on the weather front, it seems that when people come to see us the sun comes out…

James’ mom and I cleared out the old garden which was very satisfying and our friend Ian and James cleared out the old orchard.. discovering two cars in the process! James’ dad built lots of things and James’ brother came down and chopped up lots of wood for us.. Hoorah for friends and family.

We have also had fun with our new tractor.. yes we ended up buying a tractor because it was becoming an impossible task to keep on top of everything. It’s a suitably sized one, in other words it’s quite dinky. Unfortunately the lorry driver who delivered it also drove off the edge of the drive and did a significant amount of damage to it trying to get it out… the air was somewhat blue around me! However the tractor has been a fantastic addition and we are able to do more tasks as a consequence.