Sunday catch up

It is Sunday morning and I have retreated to bed with a mug of tea and my laptop after an early and industrious start to my day.  The animals are fed and let out, a soul warming beef stew is cooking slowly in the oven and the clay bunnies drying on the kitchen table have had a once over and a tidy and touch up ready to be fired in the kiln later this week.

Outside the day is cold and grey, but I don't mind, I am enjoying  my early morning indulgence and if I can attract the attention of one of my sons before they disappear outside I may even get another  mug of tea made for me if I am lucky. So far the only one who has tracked me down is one of the cats who is trying valiantly to sit on my chest chatting away to me as I type.


We have been busy preparing a new paddock with what feels like miles of sturdy fencing and a new hen run for the chickens.The place is beginning to look like a prison camp! Yesterday was busy , wielding the chain saw to cut back the primeval forest that was once many years ago, I  am sure. a modest privet hedge but now stretched its branches high up towards the horizon blocking the  sun from the garden. Our goats love privet so they are happy to munch and cavort their way through the piles of twigs and greenery deposited in their run.

 Youngest is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his  Breton sheep, The Ouessant is one of the smallest sheep breeds in the world. They originated on Ile d'Ouessant and he is breeding them for the freezer. Meanwhile he  is  using the tall straight privet branches to make them a wattle and daub shelter in their run. His sister is horrified, not at the wattle and daub but the eating part, I am however thrilled the price of lamb being so high as it is!

It seems winter is not keen to leave us and let spring in . We are still threatened with further snow and the remnants from last weeks blizzards rest in the gullies and ditches. Despite all that I was out planting the earth banks that surround the garden with minature daffodils that I have had flowering in the house and are now past their best so that next year they will come up again.




Aha  as hoped a fresh  mug of tea has arrived along with both my boys, the cat has shot off to avoid the commotion of their arrival and I am signing off  as there is no way I can type when they are making me laugh so much with their silly voices and jokes adn tickling each other!!

Happy Sunday to you all!!