Plans

Sorry I have been missing in action - Friday night I had a meal out after work and by the time I got home I was shattered and yesterday afternoon I felt awful with a pain in my stomach which was only better when I laid down so I spent most of the afternoon and evening reading in bed.

I am much better today though so thought I had better post.

Not much smallholding going on here - yesterdays rain meant we couldn't do much outside but I did pop into the library to pay off some fines as my card had been barred (in Suffolk if you owe more than £15 your card gets barred!). My local library is lovely and lets me pay off what I want, I know Ipswich make you pay it all off before you can borrow again. I paid off £10 so I can have books again!

When I got to the library I could not find my card but gave the lady my number - for some strange reason I have memorised it! My account came up to say that I had left my card behind the last time I was in - luckily they keep all these cards safe in a drawer. My card is one of the old style white ones, my signature has faded now but it was in my maiden name and I have been married for 13 years so I was pleased to get it back - I didn't want a new purple one!!

Anyway while I was in the library I had a look in the gardening section - I had tried to reserve a book a few days ago that someone had read and posted on their blog about but it wouldnt let me as I was barred! I have found the updated James Herriott biography (They had no.1, 2 and 4 so I took 1 and 2 and will order 3 when I get to the end of 1) and also an Alan Titchmarsh book.

We are attempting to grow our own veg this year - we did potatoes about 4 years ago and haven't bothered really since but this year we are doing it seriously.

I thought the book would give me some handy tips although too be honest I have learnt a lot from reading other blogs.

So today DH had his eye test (I love the fact that Specsavers opens on a Sunday) so this afternoon we have been in the garden.

DH has been building a wall - he loves anything like this and is really very good. We had some conifers taken down at the side of the house and of course we are left with stumps so he is building a brick raised bed where the stumps are and then we will put in some bushes from the front garden ready to remove the raised flower beds that are there now (they are rotten, they have been there about 7 years) and we will sprinkle some flower seed in to the ground and hopefully have an abundance of flowers!

I have caught up on the washing and then the neighbour called over the fence to tell us she had some veg plants for us! So I popped round and she gave me 2 cucumber plants, a runner bean plant, a dwarf runner bean plant, a pumpkin plant and a pot of aubergine plants (there are about 10 in a pot just coming through so I will seperate them soon). She is such a lovely neighbour!

DH and daughter planted some seeds last Monday and the sunflowers are just starting to poke through so the plants the neighbour gave have gone in the greenhouse.

Then I started to panic about where the pumpkin plant will go - we have a fenced area at the top of the garden that used to have the potatoes in, and at various times it has been the chicken run but we have not done much for a while. DH and I agreed the pumpkin plant can go at the top but of course it all needs digging over. So today I have made a start and done an area 1.5m x 1.5m!! I will try harder in future otherwise it will take me ages! I have tried to post a picture but it comes out upside down - even though I have corrected it in my saved pictures it won't load properly.

I had some other pictures as well but will try again tomorrow.

We have also decided to buy some more chickens - we are going to get 20. I will ring the man tomorrow and hopefully we can get them next Sunday.

We counted out our egg money and we have £99.50 so that can go towards the new chickens.

On Friday we sold hens eggs and goose eggs and made £5.00 and today we sold half a dozen chicken eggs and 9 goose eggs and made £6.50.

Our chicken eggs are in such high demand we can't keep up hence buying some more as we only have 8.