The weather continues to be kind to us, warmer than the last couple of years and definitely not as wet as last year. This has allowed us to get well ahead with getting ready for winter, it has also helped that we have had some great volunteers giving us a hand. They have helped us  get the windows put in…
Lots of Windows
September and the beginning of October has brought on the arrival of Autumn along with unpredictable weather, one day we are in jumpers and the next back to tee shirts, but even on the warm days the nights are starting to get a bit chilly. September also saw the arrival of Minami and Wataru and with winter approaching we started…
A mini break in Trojan
Almost two years and one month to the day since Julie and I started work on this house, we have finally decided that we need a holiday 😮 A last minute trawl around booking.com, and confirmation from a friend that she can come and house-sit, and we’re off to visit Chiflik, a small village in the hills above Trojan. So…
Active August
With great relief the weather has started to cool off a bit in August and we have finally had some rain, which was perfect timing for our next couple of volunteers to arrive. First to arrive was James who helped get the bathroom and freezer room windows sanded, the extension roof tiled and among other things started to plane the…
I’m feeling hot, hot, hot!
It’s been a while since we did one of our normal update posts the reason being we haven’t been doing much. We do have some excuses for our lack of progress, ok first excuse I unexpectedly ended up going back to the UK for just over two weeks so wasn’t here to keep an eye on things 🙂 While I…
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
This post is for Michael, you know who you are! Well, we’ve moved to the country, and this year we’re sure going to eat a lot of peaches! We spent a very pleasant day yesterday with our friend, Ivan, preserving his year’s peach harvest, making 42 large jars of peaches in a thin syrup, ready for winter. It started off…
Improving the soil with manures
The transformation of waste is perhaps the oldest pre-occupation of man. man being the chosen alloy, he must be reconnected—via shit, at all cost Patti Smith, “25th Floor” from the album “Easter”, 1978 And so it is here on our smallholding. A huge amount of our time seems to be being spent collecting, storing, turning and finally distributing manure and…
A very different May/June
After a lovely start to this year, May and June have had awful weather. Mostly dry, but with huge thunderstorms. It’s been so wet that most of our soft fruit crops have been lost to moulds, and those that have survived are pretty tasteless. So this year we have barely any greengages, strawberries, or cherries. On the plus side,mulberries have…