eight little acres: Springtime; a time to smell of the earth

Step away from your laptop, put down your phone, get out there, get your hands dirty, no garden? Then fill your windowsills with pots of chili seeds, roll in the grass, hug a tree (or at least give it a pat) go and witness nature at its most exciting! (rain or shine!).

The weather has been beautiful and spring is in full swing. I heard my first Cuckoo of the year this evening as I was poo picking the horses field. Yes I am poo picking. Many who have the opportunity to "chuck their horses out" do so to get out of doing any work whatsoever.

note the newly connected water trough in the background.

However tempting it would be to do nothing and let the horses eat themselves silly, poo-ing as they go, we would soon be left with nothing but dust. Lets face it, the land would be pretty horrible to look at too. I still have that pink, hazy image from last July in my head when the meadow was untouched, full of butterflies...and you half expected a unicorn to trot into the frame! So we are very conscious that we have "disturbed" that with all the work we have done so far and want to keep our negative impact to a minimum.

Our grazing it pretty poor at the moment, thin with weak roots with a lot of moss and dead matter stopping the light and water getting to the soil. It needs grazing, harrowing, muck spreading and possibly re-seeding. Woody says it would be easier to plough it and start again! Maybe! But that could mean we loose some of these beauties;