We have finally purchased a really interesting 26 acre chunk of land (deciduous woodland and overgrown coppice, rough overgrown pasture and wetlands too) on the Wrexham/Shropshire/Cheshire border of Wales and England.

We are absolutely delighted as it means we can finally finally after five years of a slightly strange nomadic existence in large rented [...]]]>

We have finally purchased a really interesting 26 acre chunk of land (deciduous woodland and overgrown coppice, rough overgrown pasture and wetlands too) on the Wrexham/Shropshire/Cheshire border of Wales and England.

We are absolutely delighted as it means we can finally finally after five years of a slightly strange nomadic existence in large rented houses all over the UK begin to make an area of the country a permanent place to reside and call home. This purchase has been a bit of a dream come true for us as we have tried and failed to buy some (wood)land for over two years now since we first started the buying process on a lovely woodland near our house at the time in Worcestershire. That purchased failed when we were gazumped and so did several other attempted purchases, some failed because our solicitor uncovered some ‘interesting’  aspect of the access conditions and one memorable one failed because we were too slow to make an offer despite whizzing up to Wales see it from Cornwall on the day it came on the market and making an asking price offer the following day.

Ever since we sold our house in London and started to rent rural houses instead we have committed to ourselves that we would *first* buy some land  and then we would find somewhere to live near to it as land is harder to find than houses and we are not able to combine the two due to lack of funds (or is that due to the extortionately high price of houses in the UK at present?)

We first saw this piece of land advertised on an agent’s website who specialises in land sales (Roger Parry) in March. Darren had a weekly search through all the agents’  websites and suddenly found this one with no photo. He got in the car to have a look at it and the following day I went too. It was a warm sunny day and I instantly fell in love with the place as it had huge skies, was private, was on the edge of a nice village with a school and a shop and only four miles away to a market town with good rail, road and canal links.

The purchase was made with our pension pots. We had contacted Peter Jones at SSAS Practitioner.com earlier in the year and as luck would have it the monies were transferred to our new combined pension pot ready for the purchase of land just the week before we found this piece of land. The story of  Buying Land with Pension Funds, how we were able to convert the stocks and shares pension funds from our decade of being London full time earners into woodland and pasture is written about in detail by Bealers on his blog.

I think we were both assuming the sale would fall through as the previous seven (or was it eight?) had so when in mid May our solicitor contacted us to say the contract had actually been exchanged and the purchase completed we could not believe it. Darren was halfway through his permaculture design course with Steve Jones (from Sector 39) as the tutor in Oswestry which is only a stone’s throw from the new patch and so his entire group went for a field trip there on our first day of ownership.

Since the purchase in May we have left the extraordinarily lovely and picturesque smallholding we shared with our very fine neighbours just outside the very special Mid-Wales town of Llanidloes and have instead taken a 2-acre smallholding in a pleasant Shropshire village just a few minutes drive from the patch our pension now owns.

The move came about after several camping trips on the land and associated 3 hour round road trips with car sick kids. As I had extracted the children from the local school to educate them at home and Bealers’ internet software business was able to be located anywhere in the UK we couldn’t resist the pull of the nice house in a nice village just a short trip away from the land where we want to spend so much of our ‘spare’ time.

The latest move has been a great success in that the kids are back in a really great small village school where they are thriving and making high quality friends, Bealers and I are able to set about bringing the woodland into a productive, sustainable source of timber and other functions as well as enjoying the masses of flora, fauna and restfulness a woodland environment offers.

The fact that we are lucky enough to rent another smallholding (our second or is it our third if we count the experience of the Cornish community?) we are now really transitioning to a portfolio of rural livelihoods by keeping hens and selling their eggs, cakes and lemon curds, obtaining a small flock of Badger Faced Welsh Mountain lambs to breed from for meat and fleece products, embryonic horticulture and permaculture designing skills, forestry and childcare.

The remaining question is where will decide to live if we aren’t going to rent other people’s fine houses for the rest of our time on this Earth?

We have landed in a rural area near to a small market town which has a definite ‘alternative’ streak to it. There seem to be plenty of interesting folk living here, doing interesting forward thinking things and drawing more interesting [...]]]> I have met lots of great new people here during the past week or so.

We have landed in a rural area near to a small market town which has a definite ‘alternative’ streak to it. There seem to be plenty of interesting folk living here, doing interesting forward thinking things and drawing more interesting folk to the area. I’ve met several writers and people who are into exploring the way our futures will be shaped by the way humans have behaved in the past.

Our new chums Leanne and Andy at The Loop Project kicked off our exceptionally social and busy week with a visit to  ’Loop Project Presents – a chance to meet people, share knowledge, challenge assumptions and discuss ideas’ another thought provoking film and discussion afterwards with people they have met here since they moved to the area a year ago.

My top chum The Neighbour and I went to watch ‘Food Inc‘ with them (taking homemade nibbles and booze to share) which was absolutely brilliant and horrifying all at the same time. Afterwards we chatted with the others who had come to see the film about the modern world of food production, why our local town doesn’t have a farmers’ market, how the attitudes at the local primary school towards food influence our children. It was a great evening, with a surprising amount of good humour despite the heavy topics being discussed and lots of lovely camaraderie.

During the week I kept bumping into people I had met at the Loops Project’s screening (mainly in the wholefood cafe or in the organic veg shop next door where Leanne volunteers) and having coffee with them or standing chatting for ages. It was a lovely feeling to have so many new people buzzing around town having a bit of a wibble about things they are involved in. I met a cool couple who are new to town with their two year old and a new baby due any day. We chatted for so long in the veg shop about communal living, how they had been hugely influenced by ‘The Moneyless Man‘ that my little one was bored to tears by grown up chitter chatter and was trying to drag me out of the shop to get me home. They were living temporarily out our landlord’s farm which is near to ours so I invited them over for longer and comfier chats at our house the next day. They came with their new friend who has been living in a yurt for a few years but who used to live at our little holding in a caravan. It was a fab little get together especially as The Neighbour had a work friend over at the same time who lives at the same housing co-op that The Loop Project Presents was held at (phew this is getting complicated!). We all had a great old time sharing tales of communal living and how life in a deliberately set-up community can be brilliant or not very brilliant depending on the other people, communication, visions and agreements.

That evening I cooked supper for three out of the five other people we are hoping to set up a housing co-op with so it had been really good timing for me that I’d had so many people chatting about communal life earlier in the day. It was a good evening and we got lots done (it is a labyrinth of complexity trying to buy a property, carve it up into different residential units and work out what we will do with the shared parts) but it was a big shame that Bealers was away working for a few days and missed it.

A day later I went with my two-nearly-three year old, to a parent-run playgroup set up by families who are home educating their children, intending to home educate their young children or just thinking about the idea. I met a couple of mums there that I have seen around town and at school picking up older children and it was lovely to find out their names and chat together. The playgroup had a lovely structure to it – playing, painting and then bread making for the littles, story time, a sing-song session then out for a blustery walk into the woods along a rushing stream and lots of puddle splashing. We came back for a proper sit-down lunch comprising all the homemade veggie dishes each parent had brought with them and the bread rolls the kids had kneaded earlier. It was great but after so many months of not going to anything like that I was a little overwhelmed and still haven’t decided whether we will be making it a regular weekly fixture in our diaries.

On Friday evening we had a call from our landlords inviting us for dinner. I explained that evening dinners were tricky without organising a babysitter so we went for lunch instead. Our landlords are very cool people who bought the amazing 16th century timber framed house we live in 20 years ago as a near-derelict project, did it up but to old-fashioned rustic standards (lots of recycled butler sinks and slate floors which have seen better days feature in our lives), created amazing gardens sheltered from the strong winds by lots of trees and hedges they planted having watched their polytunnels blow away too many times.

They used to go and watch badgers in the next valley in the grounds of a ruined house and chapel. They heard it was for sale ten years ago and bought it. Again they did up the house (another 16th century timber framed long house – the twin of the house we are in) and have also renovated the chapel and several old timber framed barns. The setting of their place, Old Chapel Farm is utterly breathtaking. The have huge productive gardens and livestock too but whenever we comment on how inspirational they are they simply say that they have had so much help from their WWOOFERS over the years and that they couldn’t have done it without them. They have on average 100-150 volunteers stay with them throughout the year! We had lunch with them, their daughters,  our children and one PhD student volunteer from Aberystwyth . Afterwards Bealers went with Nellis the volunteer and our landlord to their woodlands to help set up a pole lathe under canvas.

When I got home from our lunch date I was delighted to see that The Neighbours’ visitors had arrived with them safely – a really special couple who had been seriously considering living at the Cornish community we all met at. They had decided against moving their really suddenly not long they were due to move and the loss was a big shock to us all. They had put their reasons in writing and as the months went by we tended to see what they had seen prior to moving there. It was absolutely marvellous to see them again especially as they seemed so full of vitality despite a year of terrible health issues. I joined them on a little guided tour round the gardens and up the hill and loved that they could see how great our little set up is despite being ankle deep in mud.

So many nice people in one short space of time. It’s weeks like the one just past that makes me want to stay in this part of the world as have spent too many years on the road feeling a bit of a nomad.

Today and yesterday little S and I spent a nice quite couple of days at home with over an hour in the garden (in the sunshine!) digging up nettle roots and noticing things that we might want to do to the garden to make it prettier and more productive. We have a small polytunnel so S made a cafe for the chickens inside it in the mud with her bucket. The Neighbour came out too today so we chatted about what we might plant where, how it’d be nice to have a camping area of the garden, where we might need some menfolk to lop down or lay untended hedges which have now grown into trees. We collected a few eggs then went back indoors for tea, bread making, yoghurt making and  getting supper ready for another visit from the new friends we are hoping to buy a small farm with. I made a strange but delicious concoction of root vegetables (celeriac, swede, parsnip, carrot), onions,garlic, leeks and a dried chilli plus a couple of handfuls of soup mix (dried split peas, red lentils and oats) with loads of shredded savoy cabbage thrown in at the end to just to warm through.

Tomorrow we will go and visit another family of local friends – another home educating family round the corner from us (actual distance about 2-3 miles but they are considered very near neighbours in this sparsely populated area). They too have a very cool lifestyle and have a beautiful place ‘Oakwell Barns‘.

I’m so happy to be meeting so many people as it does make this latest home feel like it might be a  long-lasting home area.

We have rented a house in the countryside between three English [...]]]> I’ve just read another attitude-changing book, again borrowed from the library but like other inspiring reads this too will be bought for the home bookshelves and most probably as a Christmas present for other similarly minded friends or family.

We have rented a house in the countryside between three English towns for two years now we are in the process of thinking ahead and wondering what sort of environment we would like to raise the kids in when/if we buy a place of our own.

It is well documented that we do love living in the the countryside (the space, the sounds, the quiet, the ability to produce our own food) and have felt until reading Ian Walthew’s account of his move to a small village in the Cotswolds that we should probably not move too far away from a commerical centre and the so called benefits they bring (namely shops, leisure centres, cinemas and according to my five year old son the constant lure of fast food establishments offering ‘free’ toys). Reading his book has radically changed my mind and has helped me to realise that I have no real affinity to large towns any more and actually the small town we live in has the few things we need/like as a family (a lovely village school, a playground, a doctor, a chemist, a butcher, a greengrocer and a charity shop). If we were to move further away from such things it may mean we have opportunity to experience the pleasures of other things we haven’t even dreamt of yet.

A Place In My Country has opened my eyes further to the turmoil modern farmers are in.

I feel I’ve learned so much about his neighbour’s small old fashioned farm, the hard, hard relentless physical labour he has put in day in and day out since he was a small boy and now only to earn a few pounds per animal or per quantity of grain but despite this there is no question that his neighbour would ever consider farming another way or  selling up.

Modern farming methods are rapidly destroying our soil structures (with their heavy reliance on chemical fertilisers instead of spreading manure to enrich soil structures), our wildlife (most modern farms comprise of huge swathes of land managed by one person with enormous machines, many hundreds of acres without hedges, dry stone walls where wildlife would have once resided) and these smaller farms are now a minority which are disappearing fast along with the knowledge, skills, experience and the wide variety of crop and animal breeds which once meant we enjoyed a diverse range of products instead of the monoculture governments are turning this country towards.

Throughout the book there is a sense that no-one in a position of power is thinking rationally about the future of our land and what will happen to future generations of people wishing to live and work in a rural environment. The people who are struggling to maintain a living from the land are continually up against legislation and the push for producing cheap food on a huge scale (as well as the weather, poverty and people with more wealth wishing to build housing estates on their land). It’s a really well written book which manages to be both informative, moving and hugely entertaining too.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/

NB: While I’m waxing lyrical about books I’ve recently read about life in the English countryside I also read another moving and inspirational account called ‘The Fight for Fordhall Farm’ by Charlotte and Ben Hollins.

It is their story of how they saved their fathers delapidated organic farm in Shroshire, UK from being bought by property developers and turned it into a community ventre by sheer determination, hard work and positively refusing to give up when it looked like they would never be in a position to raise the £800,000 required. Given that they were only 19 and 21 when the events unfolded it is an incredible tale.

Both these books give us non-farming readers a tiny window through which to peep through into a world where people are giving their whole lives’ effort to  work with nature not because it will earn them a fast car or a foreign holiday, new fashionable clothes or the latest gadget but because it is something they love from the core and would not give up without a lengthy fight.

Both have made me want to do more in the way of producing our own food and aiming towards an even more simple and self-sufficient way of life before our nation is forced to re-examine our unhelthy dependence on oil.

My poor little head is too full of too many things to do (an exciting dot com project with my beloved, administrative work for our small internet business, a small babe and two little kids on summer holidays to look after, a house to keep in order, tummies to feed, this blog to [...]]]>

My poor little head is too full of too many things to do (an exciting dot com project with my beloved, administrative work for our small internet business, a small babe and two little kids on summer holidays to look after, a house to keep in order, tummies to feed, this blog to write AND its so hot!) but I’ve got a tiny moment to share the fantastic book I’ve borrowed from the library.

Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Our Year of Seasonal Eating’ is an insiprational and educational account of the author and her family’s decision to leave Arizona where the population generally doesn’t know that potatoes grow in the ground and are 100% dependent on the petroleum industry to bring them food to their supermarkets all year round to a farm in Virginia where they spend a year only eating what’s in season and grown locally (their own gardens and those of small local farmers). The kids and the husband all write essays, facts and recipes which are inserted into the main narrative. Its a fantastic read.

It has made me determined to eat less food which has traveled a long way. Food which is grown to be transported thousands of miles is generally bred to travel well and not to taste good, and for each 10 calories provided by a vegetable or animal when eaten many more calories are spent producing it (fertiliser chemicals, insecticides) and transporting it. Each time I put the book down I’m even more fired up to continue our quest to live a simpler life in which food is not just grabbed as a pre-prepared product at the supermarket and wolfed down but instead lovingly planned, grown, shopped for, perpared and enjoyed with no hidden preservatives, flavourings, transfatty oils, or meat from poorly treated animals hiding within.

I’ve learnt so much and am only a third of the way through the book (eg. why hybrid seeds are a bad thing – because they don’t produce viable seeds for next time; making cheese at home is easy and fun with normal pasteurised milk; how supporting local farmers and buying their produce at a farmers market can have a huge impact on the local economy and environment) but the main thing I’m going to try to do more of from now on is resist the temptation to buy food out of season (because it will have been shipped halfway around the world to meet my desire for it) and to buy food produced in the UK, locally if possible from small enterprises rather than the huge food suppliers.

When one decides to be more of a locovore (someone who eats only locally and ethically produced food) one needs to be prepared to be inventive and creative with making dinners with only what is seasonably available (but not hard if you start being a ‘locovore’ in the middle of bountiful summer!) storing some of the glut of fresh foods harvested during July-October helps.

It was only a generation ago that out of season vegetables (shipped by train in ice-boxes from California to colder states) where a rich person’s party-piece, now they have become the norm and so unfortunately have all the questionable processes which bring these flavourless, travel-hardy cousins to our table.

The book is on loan to me from my local library but I’ve just bought myself a copy (a rare thing these days for me to actually buy a book instead of just borrowing it until I’ve read) as I know I will want to use the recipes time and again, lend it to like-minded friends and to re-read for more ideas of what to grow in our garden.

There is an accompanying website written by the family where the recipes can be found.
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

Hmmm. I’ve just been watching the boldest, chunkiest rat while I did the washing up. He/she/it was waddling around the path in the garden, popped up the apple tree and sat looking at me then waddled back down, had a sniff around the drain and the rubbish bin (no lid and generally [...]]]>

Hmmm. I’ve just been watching the boldest, chunkiest rat while I did the washing up. He/she/it was waddling around the path in the garden, popped up the apple tree and sat looking at me then waddled back down, had a sniff around the drain and the rubbish bin (no lid and generally has refuse sacks containing the week’s waste complete with holes made by a mystery creature) then waddled back to where I presume it sleeps in the ex-outdoor toilet which is now used as a garden store.

Until I came upstairs I thought little of the latest visible wildlife in our garden other than a fleeting ‘Gosh aren’t they sweet looking, nimble and intelligent too’

Turns out they have nasty diseases, nasty habits (like popping themselves up nearby sewage pipes and into one’s lavatory), can cause nasty things to happen (especially if they chomp through household electricity cables) and the only thing to do if you have signs of rats living near your premises are to kill the blighters. The best way to kill them is apparently with a rat trap.

Great. It wasn’t something I had on the to-do list but here goes – better start getting rid of them before they get the better of us and start being really cheeky like coming into the house. I’m a bit scared of traps though as I imagine they would hurt A LOT if it went off on a human finger or toe and with two daft five year olds living with us I guess we’ll have to wait until after their bedtime to set the things up.

The following advice is taken from the very helpful page at King County:

Rats are dangerous! They can ruin your food, destroy things in your home and start electrical fires. Rats and their fleas can carry disease.

Where do rats live outside?* Under wood piles or lumber that is not being used often
* Under bushes, vines and in tall grasses that are not trimmed or cut back
* Under rocks in the garden
* In cars, appliances and furniture that has been put outside and is no longer being used
* In and around trash and garbage that has been left on the ground
* In holes under buildings

Where do rats live inside the home?

* In the insulation of walls or ceilings
* Inside the crawl spaces
* Behind or under cupboards, counters, bathtubs and shower stalls
* Near hot water heaters and furnaces
* In basements, attics and wherever things are stored in boxes, paper or cloth

What foods brings rats into my yard and neighborhood?

* Garbage that rats can get into, like garbage cans with loose lids, plastic or paper bags, and litter.
* Food for pets and birds that has not been eaten. Birdseed on the ground, pet food in pet dishes, bread crumbs, etc.
* Fruits and berries that have fallen to the ground.
* Compost pile or worm bin that isn’t taken care of the right way (do not put meat, fish, poultry, or dairy in the compost)
* Dog droppings

What do rats eat when they get inside the house?

* THE SAME FOODS WE DO!
* Foods, fats, oils that have been spilled and left on counters, floors, appliances and tables
* Grains, like cereal, oats, rice and vegetables like potatoes and carrots that are in cardboard boxes and plastic bags
* Pet food in boxes or bags
* Any garbage that is not in a can with a tight lid

Keep rats away from your home!

Do not give food and shelter to these most unwanted guests!

* The time to act is before the signs (droppings) of a rat or mouse.
* Stack fire wood 18 inches off the ground and away from all buildings.
* Birdhouses and seed should be on poles and in trays rats can’t get.
* Keep garbage can lids closed tightly.
* Plant bushes so they will stay at least 3 feet from your house.
* Keep yards and alleys clean. Take junk to the dump!
* If you feed them, they will stay. Pick up fruit and vegetables in your yard.
* Do not compost any animal products (fish, meat, chicken, cheese, butter). Keep lids tight.
* Use only rodent resistant composters.
* In basements keep any food in closed containers that rats can’t chew through.
* Cover all openings to your house. Rats can get into very small places.
* Do not leave your pet food outside. If your pet doesn’t eat it, the rats will.
* Roof rats get into your house from tree branches that hang over the roof. Keep trees cut back and cover any openings in the eves.

Keep rats out of your sewer pipes!

Rats live in sewers and can follow the food in pipes up to your toilet.

* Keep your kitchen sink rinsed clean and use garbage disposals as little as possible.
o Rinse out your kitchen sink once or twice a month.
o Use 1 cup of bleach (an alternative to using bleach, 1 cup of baking soda followed by 1 cup of vinegar) and rinse with boiling water.
* Never throw grease down the drain.
* Keep your toilet lid down when not in use.
* If you find a rat in your toilet, flush it! (hint: squirt a little dishwashing liquid under the lid into the bowl, wait a couple of minutes then flush)

To kill a rat, use a rat trap!

The best trap is the large, simple, cheap wooden “snap trap.” They are sold in hardware stores.

To use the trap:

* BAIT IT with pieces of apple, potato, raw bacon or with peanut butter.
* ATTACH IT firmly to the ground or solid place to keep the rat from dragging the trap away.
* PLACE THE TRAP near where you have found the droppings. Make sure the trap is safe from people, children, pets or animals who could get hurt from it.

POISONS ARE NOT RECOMMENDED for rat control, because children or other animals may eat it by mistake. Also, poisoned rats can die in hard to reach places causing a very bad smell.

DEAD RATS must first be wrapped in newspaper, or placed in a plastic bag before putting it in a tightly covered garbage can. Injured or sick rats must be killed, then wrapped and put in the garbage can. Try not to touch the dead rat. Use gloves if possible.

WASH YOUR HANDS WITH HOT WATER AND SOAP AFTER GETTING RID OF DEAD RATS! (even if you used gloves).

How do I clean an area where rats/mice have already been?

If you are cleaning out a building that has been closed up, such as a cabin, shed, or garage, or areas where rodent nesting material have been found, follow these steps.
1.

Air out the building for at least 30 minutes by opening windows and doors. Leave the building while it is airing out.
2. Wear latex or rubber gloves and a dust mask while cleaning.
3.
Avoid raising dust that may spread the virus through the air: Do not vacuum, sweep or dust. Carefully wet down areas with disinfectant before cleaning.
4.
Use rags, sponges and mops that have been soaked in the disinfectant solution to wipe down counter tops, cabinets and drawers, mop floors and baseboards.
5. Mix a solution of 1 cup bleach to 10 cups water or use a household disinfectant.
6. Steam clean carpets, rugs, and upholstered furniture.
7. Thoroughly spray or soak any dead mice, droppings, or nesting areas with disinfectant or bleach solution.
8. Wash clothes and bedding in hot water and detergent. Set the dryer on high.
9. To dispose of contaminated items, including dead mice, put them in a plastic bag. Seal the bag and put it in another plastic bag. Seal the outer bag and put it in your outdoor garbage can.
10. When you are done, disinfect or throw away the gloves you used. Wash your hands or shower with soap and hot water.

Jane won’t mind me saying that I was completely humbled by seeing where she lives with her young daughter Martha and her partner [...]]]> This weekend I paid a visit to my remarkable friend Jane who lives on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire (a large rock in the Atlantic ocean just off the coast of south western Wales).

Jane won’t mind me saying that I was completely humbled by seeing where she lives with her young daughter Martha and her partner Juan.

They are incredible people to chose to live in such a remote location. Juan has held the position of Skomer’s resident warden for about nine years while Jane has lived there with him for the past four. They are the only permanent residents on the island but even they are forced to evacuate due to severe weather during the winter months.

It is a stunning environment which cannot be imagined. Sheer cliffs all around, no trees or shrubs, thousands of bluebells and pink campion creating a lilac carpet, many thousands of sea birds noisily making Skomer their chosen breeding ground as there are few predators (such as rats), huge numbers of burrows made by puffins, Manx sheerwaters and rabbits make the island’s surface feel like one could fall the whole way down to sea level if a wrong foot is placed (hence strict rules of only being able to tread on the footpaths).

I’ve known in principal, since Jane moved to Skomer, that everything they consume must be brought on to the island by hand but only by my visiting and negotiating the steep coastal path down to the boat jetty which takes day visitors and volunteers to the island and then up the very steep steps having disembarked from the boat am I able to really comprehend what this means. The milk, the sausages, the coffee we enjoyed during our visit were all carried in this way and more likely than not by the only free hand which was not carrying Martha.

Jane I’m totally awestruck by where and how you live. No wonder you felt compelled to write your book (Skomer Island by Jane Matthews). The most amazing thing is how little you’ve grumbled about the hardships to me over the past few years. I can’t imagine how cold it must have been with no heating in March nor how you can bear it when you have to get more supplies in or take bottles back to the mainland. Please grumble more from now on and I’ll try my best to never moan about my very easy life…

I’ve made a vow to myself to return again to Skomer as soon as I can as our trip there was sadly curtailed by the prediction of strong winds potentially making the boat stop running. I’ve also vowed to NEVER moan about having to carry bags of shopping up our drive way or feeling a bit chilly when the central heating oil is running a bit low.

Later in the week when we found our newly flowering aquilegas were covered in aphids I suggested we go on a ladybird hunt as they are good at eating all the aphids.

We were both a little surprised to find one who [...]]]> Edie and I watched some ladybirds ‘cuddling’ last week and photographed them.

Later in the week when we found our newly flowering aquilegas were covered in aphids I suggested we go on a ladybird hunt as they are good at eating all the aphids.

We were both a little surprised to find one who did in fact start gobbling the aphids as predicted when we placed it on one of the affected plants.

Yesterday we watched yet another ladybird lay some eggs next to the back door and both kids have been looking at the cluster through a big magnifying glass to see if any of them have hatched yet.

I pointed out a few ladybird larvae wandering the pine needles of last years Christmas tree (growing happily in a pot) to Edie but I wasn’t convinced that I had my facts right as they look so unlikeadult ladybirds.

Having just read this ladybird factsheet I now know that young ladybirds are just as good at getting rid of unwanted greenfly and whitefly and so should be treated as welcome visitors in the garden.

Usually a mother ladybird would lay her eggs near to a plentiful food supply (ie. on a plant with loads of aphids on) rather than a scorching, barren, south facing brick wall.

The female we watched lay two batches and then as the last egg emerged she ate it! The children were a bit perplexed by this and kept asking me why she did it and I really didn’t have a good answer other than ‘Maybe she was very hungry and she knew it wasn’t a good egg to hatch..’

I LOVE [...]]]> Wow. We had a grass snake in our garden. We watched it, photographed it, video’d it and generally marvelled at how it moved like a snake a bit but also just sunbathed a lot in front of the compost heap where we keep the children’s outdoor toys and I have a water butt.

I LOVE living in the country.

The sighting of a snake was so exciting for me that I called my mum who asked me to identify it properly (using the lovely countryside books I once found in the local skip) to make sure it wasn’t a viper/adder. It wasn’t and I now realise it was a very young snake as fully grown grass snakes can be over 100cm in length.

I’ve just read that female grass snakes often favour compost or manure heaps to lay their eggs in Autumn as the heat of the rotting pile acts as an incubator. This explains why we found it just by our compost heap but will I ever be able to use the compost if I think it might contain snakes!