Sunday 30 September 2012

Morning all,


Very short report this week as we are off to a family lunch celebrating a diamond wedding anniversary. 60 years married that’s a good stint, well done Charles & Betty. Unfortunately I am not well prepared, I haven’t decided on the outfit yet, although one advantage of a limited wardrobe is it reduces the decision making and I haven’t managed to get a razor very close to the chin for a few days and there may be a bit of kissy greeting going on. I know Tom doesn’t like a bristly smacker. We leave in an hour and this bit usually takes two so need to press on.

The last bits of potting sorted this week just a few bulbs to play around with when they come in over the next couple of weeks so that’s a relief. Another season slips buy and a nursery full of pots hoping to find a home in a few months time. Best not dwell too much on looking back this year on plant sales just focus on all the progress made and how much more exciting next year will be. Said good-bye on Friday to our nursery agency boys who do such a great job through our busy seasons and we look forward to seeing them again next year, with hopefully a bit of overtime this time. Our staffing levels do take a bit of a dip on the nursery over the autumn and winter period as we simply run out of jobs and money to keep everyone busy but we are very lucky that everyone reappears to help out in the spring and we are very grateful for that.

Just a very quick report on archaeological developments. We had a surprise visit from Brian our tame archaeologist during the week after he was rained off at home and offered to come and take a look at the ring ditch I spotted on Google Earth. In a nutshell, we sorted ok’ed things with the farm, located the site using scaled aerial shots of the field and put in an exploratory trench (by hand) across part of the ditch. The surveying worked brilliantly and despite not being able to see anything on the surface we hit the ditch perfectly first time. We just did an evaluation by taking out a very shallow trench, but because we are on very shallow soil this exposed the bedrock chalk below which showed the trench very nicely. No treasure, just a very small
piece of Roman pottery in the top level of the ditch and some burnt flint on the surface. Brian has done some measuring, drawing and photos to record the findings which I have got to put together to report to the local archives just so they know what we found. 3500 to 4500 years ago it would have be a mound with a burial in it (a round barrow) but it has been completely ploughed out over the years since it was constructed and only the shadow of the outer trench remains. But standing on the site and looking at the landscape it was positioned in was interesting, it had fantastic all-round views and you could see why you might want to be laid to rest there. If I hadn’t spotted the crop mark I would never have recognised this as such a significant spot.

Saw Ben Waters play a warm up gig in uptown Owermoigne, Dorset on Friday night. Fantastic night in the village hall before the band left for a short European tour on Saturday. Great talent on show from the whole band with guest Mick Taylor (played with Rolling Stones, The Who and Dire Straits) and plenty of room to shake a leg. Ben is doing a solo tour this Autumn don’t miss him if you get the chance www.benwaters.com/web/

OK 15 mins too tart myself up and be on best behaviour.

Wild stuff

Spotted plenty of swallows and house martins again this week flying over the barrow site.

Luckily we harvested most of the cob nuts from the tree as after 25 years with no resident squirrels we suddenly seem to have at least one regular and he is after my nuts. Get out there quick if you want to save yours.

If you need a fax list please let us know, pick it up from the website or alternately send an email address.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

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