Morning all,

Good to be here, the world didn’t end after all.

Yet another flat tyre started the week but managed to get it to the menders for a replacement valve so it worked out ok in the end. After that things got more exciting as the week went on, culminating in a couple of hours off yesterday to do the supermarket run and have breakfast out!

We had a very welcome splash of rain overnight, but it’s now sunny and very windy so it’s all evaporated again. We have been topping up the puddle in the yard for weeks now to help out the house martins building projects and the water bill is mounting (we do use a bit on the nursery too!) I wouldn’t mind as much if all the wind was pushing our turbines round but all I can think is that all the wind for the year will have been used up by the time they are up and running. I’m not sure yet how much this very dry weather has affected the farm cereal crops, certainly the barley is in ear already which is very early and the hay crops are very poor. Could be another year of hay and straw shortages which is bad news for we donkey fosterers.

On the brighter side the wind turbine project got active again this week with at least some dates being set (see below) and the chicken enterprise has kicked off. We are now proud owners of a chicken run and a small batch of rescued free range chickens. No eggs yet but they are a surprisingly entertaining gang making very pleasant contented chicken noises. We have never kept them before so I could well be wrong on the contented interpretation but it sounds very therapeutic to me. Hot news straight from the horses mouth, or should that be the hens bottom, we have our first egg!

We put in our order for a table of tickets for the local business awards dinner next month. We are in the final of the green award section and selected for the final of the overall business of the year. I’m not sure we press enough of the right buttons or tick the appropriate boxes to win but it is nice to get some local appreciation of our efforts and a good opportunity for the staff to see that at first hand. It is a black tie event, so it will be quite exciting to see how some of them scrub up, smart dressing is not something we see much of on the nursery!

Eco news
This week I have been organising all the different suppliers and installers of the turbines as we received a date for the foundation installation. They are starting on Tuesday 31st May and expect it to take all week for all three to be prepared and concreted in position. Then it’s several weeks for the concrete to cure enough to put the masts up, a date was set for 24th of June but that has already been postponed now until w/c 4th July due to a delay in mast making. There is quite a bit of sorting out to do before then anyway, with cables and poles to come down, trenches dug and cables to come in and be buried, substations to be installed and various electricians sorting out each end. Then there is also associated water works to accompany some trenching. Work starts on Monday with the digger man coming to remove the top and subsoil on the three sites, each 5 meters square. This work needs to be started ahead of the foundation installation so that the archaeologist can check we are not digging up anything ancient and if we do, they can take appropriate action. I now need to go and set up the protective fence around the nearby hedges to prevent damage before all this starts. Tension mounts!

Nature notes

We are getting round to clearing a few tunnels now and it’s great to see the number of frogs and toads hopping about, they must be doing some good. The long native hedge/windbreak we planted 11 years ago is not only doing a great job as a windbreak and natural habitat site but looks fantastic at the moment with waterfalls of dog-rose cascading out.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries