Tag Archives: larder

Winter

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We have had a truly exceptional winter this year, heavy snow, – 16, rivers freezing over, challenging and delightful.

We adore the snow, it seems to tap into a childlike desire to run around, slide down hills, instigate battles, dive into it… It is also so dramatic and the landscape is altered  incredibly, wiping away familiar landmarks. Another magical transformation was at night when no torch was required simply because of the bright moon and the snow creating a monochrome day light.

The honorary Tamsin bench

The cold and dark of winter creates a number of challenges for us, including keeping the fire in over night, limited lighting, frozen water pipes, keeping the chicken’s water liquid..but it’s all a challenge and you go to the river and get water for the chickens from there, and you go back to the old washing round the neighbours again..

It has been bitter however the yurt has continued to keep us very warm and provided us with all the shelter we need really.

Our veg garden, on a slightly less optimistic note, is looking a tad sad. Plenty has died in the polytunnel which in previous years has seen us through, including our kale. The brassicas outside have turned to moosh from being under all that snow. The celeriac appear to have survived and the Jerusalem artichokes seem to be thriving…

The cats ..(especially for my aunt Judy!) are doing well.. Rusty is currently sat on my lap, leaking an odious smell one end and a purr the other.. Gilbert is also doing well.. he has had a bad eye all year from diving into the long grass (idiot) but this seems to be finally healing.

Finally onto the build.. we are currently waiting for the weather to be just a little bit kinder and to sort out the bottom of the drive before we proceed with the build. This winter has however been one of optimism and talking about woodburning stoves, back boilers, hydroelectric, underfloor heating, solar water heating, pantries, kitchens, sunrooms, floors…etc etc!

The actual barn and a bit of an update on the goings on

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So of course this is all about the barn, not just our lives here. Our fantastic friend Dave is our architect (DW Enterprises Splott Road Cardiff) and as both Mags and he are so special the design work is our house warming present, there is probably no way we can thank them enough! We have the final designs and Dave is now working them up so that we can go to building regs to get all the final agreements. We are going to ask for a couple of small additions through planning permission but hopefully nothing that will freak the planners out. Inside is beautiful with the downstairs middle room open to the roof and a fantastic bridge between the two upstairs bedrooms. It’s becoming easier to visualise the whole place as time goes on.

I also have my dream of having a larder included in the design. When I was a little girl my nan from Yorkshire had a pantry, she was such a fantastic cook and she really inspired me to enjoy eating and cooking good food. So I want a cool larder where I can store all our home grown produce.

Talking of which we have also been busy digging beds and preparing the ground for a polytunnel whilst at the same time desperately trying to keep hundreds of seedlings alive!

The land is all coming to life around us and it’s such a different place now, all the different greens are quite breathtaking and exciting.

We have also met our other neighbours across the river and again we are so lucky to have such nice people living here. They have very kindly offered their shower and as they have it set up downstairs in their lobby we can use it whenever we need it. John and Pat have lived here 20 years and so have a fantastic understanding of the local wildlife. They have seen over their time here, an otter every autumn who follows the salmon up when they do their run up the river, dippers nest all along the river, pied fly catchers swoop up and down the valley and will nest in boxes put up for them, woodpeckers thrive as does the local gosshawk (especially on the local chickens!)

Finally on the matter of chickens we have 12 new inhabitants who are getting to live in our barn before us.. and I am already getting a sense that they are very naughty.. After escaping the one area we hoped to confine them to one managed to kick over a paint pot, she is now called Blue Foot.. still haven’t found out how you get paint off chickens!