Growing Defences

As you may have noticed owning land, particularly land ontop a hill in Wales, is fraught with problems related to the weather.  Wind, rain, flooding...blah blah...

There are some nights where I need to mentally prepare for feeding and haying the horses; sitting in the car for an age, letting the elements batter the car before being sucked out of the door by the gale.  Any stress from a day in the office is quickly put into perspective as I shove the hay barrow through the thick, slippery mud, in the dark with a duff head torch... 

Despite all the weather has thrown at us you have to take a positive slant on it.  The flooding and constant wet has forced the issue of replacing the brick cow sheds, something I dreamed we would do but thought other priorities would take a precedence.  As exciting as that is we have to go through planning so natural shelter is always our first friend.

Protected on three sides by woodland the
wind is funneled up from the south.

The land is south facing on the side of a river valley so gets the full blast of wet Atlantic winds from the West or cold icy winds from the East.  The southernmost boundary is made up of Willow, Beech, young Oaks and a lot of Holly but because everything has been left to grow it has all got tall and spindly leaving bare patches with just the fence keeping the horses in.

The southern end of the land is the most sheltered as the wind deflects over the top of trees and hits the mid/top of the land, however on bad days you have to pick where you stand as there are plenty of gaps in the hedge that the wind and rain whistle through.

We want to keep some of the trees at their current height but lower and thicken up the shrubby stuff, this will give us some great views over the valley from the top of the land and improve the lower level shelter.  The thickest cover is provided by holly, which grows like a weed, so we just need to train what is there and plant more of it.  Eventually having the hedge laid.

There are several ways to reproduce and grow plants for hedging, I plan on trying several methods and if all else fails I may just end up buying in young plants!

Royal Horticultural Soc - Hardwood Cuttings

How to grow on holly from cuttings

I cant wait for some settled weather so I can get out and take the cuttings to plant on.  I hope to post photos of the holly nursery in a month or so.

Hormone rooting powder at the ready!

Valentine

The sunshine came out for Valentines day so Woody and I had a day out to the beach with the the dogs and Easter in Valerie the Van.  It was a good excuse to get away from the mud and let the dogs run and run making new friends as they went.

Although its an hour away we go to Burnham-on-Sea where the wide sandy beach stretches for over seven miles.  I can let Easter get her head down, stretch her legs out and be able to cover some ground in a decent canter without stopping for gates, roads etc.

Family road trip over we return back to the land and wash the sand and sea water out of everything.  Woody went for a walk to check the fences and shouted for me to come and look at something.

On top of the rock pile, curled up in the bracken was a young vixen, she was skinny but otherwise in lovely condition.  We're not sure how long she had been there or what she died of as there was not a mark on her (apart from her eye was missing!).  She looked as though she had found a dry, safe place out of the wind and just laid down.  

Woody and I love our animals both our own pets and the wildlife around us so we were both quite moved when we found the fox.  It's a mystery as to how she died; poisoned?  Starvation? Exposure? Parasites even, maybe she had even been living with a shot wound before succumbing to sepsis.  

It is understandable that people want to keep fox numbers down when they can cause such huge amounts of damage, killing stock, wrecking fences and spreading mange.  Our neighbors had all but one of their ducks killed recently and the lambing season is on its way.  

Foxes are such enchanting creatures, it is a rare treat to catch a glimpse of them out in open farmland usually because we are always so busy dashing about.  If only we could all get on.  The reality is that in spite of mans help or hindrance the countryside has always been a beautiful battle ground and war goes on between natures species on a daily basis, leaving only the fittest to carry on another day.    

Sweet dreams little Valentine Vixen.