We're so boring. There's really not been much to write about for the first half of 2017...apart from my endless unreasonable whining about the weather, the rate of grass growth, horse disasters, dog shenanigans, and our pie in the sky dreams....
We have owned our patch of mud for 3 years now. We were brutal with it for the first 8 months, the big old oaks on the boundaries were either removed due to safety concerns, pollarded or had a seriously harsh short back and sides, but they have now recovered and look stronger for it.
We've had the "lawnmowers" on the land since March 2015, they've thrown two years of abuse at it eating everything and poaching up what was left. We've turned around a few horses in that time too and welcomed newbie Dave to the heard at the end of Feb this year. He's a very chilled out 6 year old ex racehorse who I hope to have some hunting and perhaps eventing adventures in the future.After we sorted the trees out and replaced much of the fencing we progressed to removing the gorse by crawling under, wrapping a chain round the base and pressing the tractor "go" peddle! We nearly set the whole place alight when we burned the dead stuff. The cleared ground has been harrowed, stone-picked, grazed, flooded, rolled, dried out, flailed, scorched, poisoned, poached, pooed on....
But, sitting in the meadow last weekend contemplating our ongoing planning permission for stables and sorting out the rest of the gorse, we realised we were surrounded by the pink haze of meadow grasses and flowers we had seen long ago on our first viewing. It's a tough old bird, made of sterner stuff than we gave it credit for... the meadow has returned and she's looking better than ever.
Oh and we are more often on instagram these days; lara8littleacres for more regular photo updates.
