Sunday 24 April 2011

Fantastic morning to all. Ok it might get a bit hot later which can be a bit stressful so early in the year but just for the moment it is perfect. Sun out, light cool breeze, early mist clearing from the valley just stunning. I suppose today may see a few of you on restricted hours today with many centres closed for Easter Sunday, a moment to catch your breath, gather your thoughts and press on with what is a bonkers couple of weeks with all the bank holidays. We have had a good couple of days to catch up a bit and today it’s just Caroline and I sorting out the irrigation, seed sowing and accounts. We are having a bit of a holiday later with a trip to Dorset for family lunch which will be a nice break, then back later to finish the watering. We are back on Monday with a ¾ crew and will be treating the coming week as a normal trading week but with deliveries probably not starting until early Tuesday.

Last week was unsurprisingly a hectic one but we got there in the end although we are getting a bit tired. It would be a lot easier if it wasn’t so hot but there you go, can’t do much about that and it does get people outside. It doesn’t take much to push me over the edge at the moment, I caught myself at the top of the stairs this week on my way to bed carrying my empty dinner plate, realising I set out for the kitchen! Fruit juice at breakfast made it into the cereal and most of my wardrobe has disappeared where I have taken something off and forgotten where I put it. I put it down to an active mind, thinking about lots of different things at the same time, or is it just old age creeping up. Still at least it keeps us fit in body if not mind.

Eco news
I spent last Sunday having a great time rotorvating a 60m x 3m strip next to the new hedgerow we planted this winter. This was to sow a wild grass and flower patch as part of our wind turbine ecology improvement plan. I was just going to tickle the surface to get the seed raked in and it would only take an hour. Five hours later the job was done, well the bed preparation anyway. I had forgotten about the rather flinty nature of our thin chalk soil, and the run wasn’t quite as smooth as I had pictured. You just get set on a moments nice tilling when you hit one the size of the Isle of Wight and the whole machine leaps out of the ground usually sideways too, making for a bit of a wrestling match. Late on Friday we managed to get it levelled and rolled, sowed the seed, raked it in a bit and put on the irrigation. Hopefully in a few weeks we will have our wild flower meadow, although the amount of seed recommended for the area seemed a bit mean. I doubled it to allow for the bird feeding but we will see later if it is enough. A bigger area I was thinking of sowing will have to wait until I find a man with a tractor, I’m keen on promoting wild flower areas but not that keen!

Nature ramblings

Exactly three weeks from seeing the first swallows, the house martins arrived this morning. I was out at 6.00am and there were none, by 8.00am they were there. A characteristic flash of black & white and there they were, probably 4 or 5 all swooping around the house checking out the old nest sites. A long trip for them from their African feeding grounds all the way back home to Kirton Farmhouse, how do they do that? We get a great view of them from the bedroom window and it is always a summer morning sight that gladdens the heart.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

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