Onward to Autumn...

July and August have flown by, mostly in a torrent of rain and a mixture of humid and then very chilly temperatures, generally confusing the hell out of the horses and wildlife.

With the sticky/wet weather we have not done as much as we had hoped this summer only managing one camping trip.  We have managed to stone pick a couple of tonnes of rocks by hand though, this will come in useful for filling a couple of boggy gateways.

Woody then harrowed, reseeded and rolled the stone free top triangle and the bare patches where the trench for the water pipes went in.

Then it rained.       

You know.... we always wished we had a "patch of mud" but we really should be careful what we wish for!  It's not too bad really but we have had to fence off the new seedbeds, from us and the horses to avoid creating a proper mud-bath, making it a rather annoying obstacle-course at feed time.

The horses have been grazing areas down selected by us, but with one horse becoming more lethargic than usual we checked the plant species in that paddock only to find out that the common and rather pretty Rosebay Willow Herb is toxic to horses (although I can't find out much evidence on this)....we hope the haylage and clear pasture will flush their systems out.  At some point I will put together a catalog of all the plants and trees that we have identified over the last year.

More gorse clearing has taken place, this time we got serious and both the tractor and digger were employed to dig and rip the bloody stuff out.  This was a slight knee jerk reaction after looking at the photos from last year and realising we had more now then when we started clearing!  It snuck up on us!  The softly, softly approach needs the occasional back up from the bigger boys, we didn't realise how quickly it grows but at least we are now ahead of the game and can continue to pull the rest out with our trusty/rusty old tractor.

Gorse clearance meant having a rather large fire, but at least we have exposed more of the meadow,

September starts us off in a new season; Autumn is here, albeit the weather might not be that different to the last couple of months.

Jobs are now focused on making the land ready for winter; getting haylage in, planning out and fencing the winter trash paddocks and digging out the old yard area that will give us valuable hard standing in the worst of the weather.

Woody has also managed to get some of his woodwork projects underway (things you do on a rainy weekend out in your man shed)...he has promised an update with photos...

There is also project X to keep our imaginations going but we may have to rethink our plans a little with that one....tbc..

Project - X

Woody and I are rather excited about a big project we are currently working on with the collaboration of some extremely interesting and gifted individuals and organisations....at this point however I can say very little about it (until Dr.T returns from his hols!) but I am useless at keeping secrets and lying so pleeease don't ask me anything, I just had to get it off my chest and let you know all will be revealed before the end of the year.

I know, I am really sorry this is such a tease!

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In other news...

Woody has found another gorse clearing method that is quick, fairly painless (well a lot better than hand cutting the damn stuff!) and does not use chemicals = tractor tug-o-war!

The ponies are free range ("at last" they say) and are busy helping to tidy the place up and putting on weight ready for the winter (our summers are short up here!)

And I keep pulling out the ragwort, allowing the Cinnabar Moth caterpillars as much time as possible to feed their little faces (we need these chaps to come back and help with the rag war next year).