Catching Up

Sorry, I know I have been a bad person and haven't posted anything here in ages, so this will be a very long post to make up for it...

Last week Greg and I went on a Basic Chain Saw Operations Course to learn how to safely use and maintain a chain saw. It was great but exhausting. Hence, not much motivation on my part to do anything, including posting here, when I got home at night! We learned LOADS and had a wonderful instructor and on Saturday we went to Llandeilo Mart and bought our very own chain saw:


In other news, I finished the scarf I was knitting:


We harvested the last of the vegetables from the raised bed -- lovely swedes (rutabagas) and carrots that don't taste like office carpeting!


We killed and cooked two of our chickens -- one of them we made into very delicious soup, and the other one, weighing in at a hefty 4 pounds, we roasted and then made stock from the bones later.


And that's about it really... Will try to be better about posting updates this week...

Diolch yn fawr iawn to Andrew, Derek, James, and Peter for helping us cut up and burn lots of wood this weekend!

Eggs!

Have just been out to put the chickens to bed -- and there was another egg! So I think we are starting to get back into the swing of things now...

Old News

Pauline and Rachel -- knitters I know from London -- came to visit for the weekend back in December. This is Pauline feeding Little Boy and New Girl. You can see more photos from their weekend here.

Big surprise this morning when I went to let the chickens out -- our first egg of 2006! Yippee! Spring is really here now! :)

How many pairs of wellies?

Derek the fire-god...

We had visitors this weekend and managed to get lots done -- Derek and Andrew brought their chainsaws and Peter and James helped us make a bonfire.

The chives have woken up from their winter nap. Is it too early to call this the first sign of spring?

The poultry dispatcher has finally arrived, so we will be saying goodbye to Polly and Little Boy this weekend... :(

We sort of had a bit of snow the other day (not really...)

Finally burning (sort of...)

More hedgelaying...

Greg trying to get a fire going, with some very wet, green wood...

Hedgelaying (or, in Welsh, Plyguclawdd)

Was talking to Rachel last night and she said it was difficult to understand the whole hedgelaying thing from my photos -- so please go have a look at the National Hedgelaying Society web site --they have very good photos and a very good explanation of what hedgelaying is and how it works.

One of the drawbacks of hedgelaying is that there is all of this wood that we've taken out of the hedge that we now need to sort through and cut up into...

...the small twiggy bits to be burnt on a bonfire now as soon as it stops raining...

...and the useful firewood...

Lovely blackberries from the autumn's abundance in my oatmeal makes the bleak winter taste much better... :)