At Last a Hint of Spring to Come

My Daffodils breaking through.

I can’t believe it has been nearly a month since I wrote anything on here. Even longer since I posted a recipe on the Cheap Meals Blog.

What have I been doing in that time. You may be thinking - Digging beds, sowing seeds, rebuilding walls, cleaning plant pots, washing the algae of the poly-tunnel, re-potting the strawberries, pruning the fruit bushes, forcing the rhubarb. I wish!!!!!

These are all things I should have done and haven’t. I can mainly blame the weather. It has been atrocious here, as it has for most of Britain. We have not flooded again, so I can be thankful for that but the ground is so waterlogged I can’t even walk on it let alone dig it. It has not even been that cold this winter; the occasional cold spell but hardly any time below freezing at all. What is preventing me getting out and about is the wind. It is worse than usual this winter. Not destructive storms force winds but almost a constant gale force. It is all people seem to talk about when you go down town. It has been really hard on the shipping this year and affected freight and ferries alike.

Today is so different – not much wind and dry and even a bit of sunshine. I have managed to go out and do some cleaning in the hen houses and have a good wander about looking at things.

The bulbs are doing well in the poly-tunnel. I thought I had lost them to rot when it was flooded for a while but some of the daffodils are so advanced they are showing flower buds and today I even spotted the first tulips and hyacinths poking through the soil. I can’t wait to see them in bloom. Am I sad to get excited over the prospect of flowers?

We need to be despatching some more cockerels soon as the poor younger hens are suffering from their advances. As for the older hens – they have become complete hussies since Ant died and follow poor Dec around constantly. All of them fawning in front of him, begging for food and chasing any younger hen away who might compete for his attention. He almost seems eager to escape them at times.

Sadie

Sadie has been very unsettled by the wind and barks at anything and everything and is driving us nuts. As usual the cats do not seem perturbed at all – except to throw Sadie a dirty look when she disturbs their siesta with another bout of barking.

So what have I been doing this last month? Well I have joined a couple of online writing groups. These groups pay you a few pence here and there (if you are lucky) when you post articles, and more if people click the like button. One of the sites InfoBarrel is a little more high brow than the other and the articles I have written there are mainly about the sites to be seen on Orkney. Bubblews is much less formal and people write anything from what they had for breakfast to in depth articles on the meaning of life. Very different from each other but they have certainly helped to pass the time during this winter. I am not sure how much time I will be able to devote to them once the garden gets going though.

If you would like to see what I have been up to then :-

Here is a link to my InfoBarrel stuff - http://www.infobarrel.com/Users/MEPark

And here is one for Bubblews - http://www.bubblews.com/account/143832-mepark

Ant has moved on from North Wald, Self Catering on Orkney

Poor Ant has crowed his last.

Ant as a youngster

He has been unwell for a while and lost his status as Cock ‘o’ North Wald quite a while ago.  He had taken to roaming the fields, mostly alone, but was getting spoiled by both me and Frankie slipping him extra feed when none of the others could see. He was slowly getting less and less adventurous and was often found just sitting about in the Peedie Hoose. Yesterday I thought he had gone missing and spent nearly half an hour looking for him before I found him sheltering behind the compost bins. He didn’t come out to the feeding area very often as he would be picked on by everyone. Sad really.

This morning he was lying expired just by the door in the Peedie Hoose. At least he made it back inside and didn’t die cold and alone in the bushes! How sentimental is that, to be worried about how one little cockerel died. So much for being the hard hearted farmer that I keep trying to be.

A Wet and Windy Winter at North Wald, Self Catering on Orkney!

What a wet, windy and miserable winter this has been so far, and we are only half way through!

The amount of rain that has come down is unbelievable. We are lucky in that we did not flood like other parts of the country have done and for this I am grateful but I do wish that I could get out in the garden to do some work though. The wind has been relentless with gale after gale. The polytunnel has taken a real battering but is still standing at present.

We did manage to get out and dig some more veggies today as we have guests in the cottage this week who wanted some of our veg. It was pretty sticky out there and you had to be careful where you placed your feet to ensure you didn’t sink but we managed it. A bucketful of fresh veg is now sorted and washed and waiting to be collected.

The Oyce in a gale

I was worried the guests would not make it here at all as the winds and sea were pretty rough yesterday. We kept an eye on the Pentalina’s web site to make sure the ferries were still sailing and on time. This was all combined with some of the highest tides we have had in ages. The Oyce almost became one with the sea at one point yesterday, and again this morning. The tides were so high the bar separating the Oyce from the Sea nearly vanished. The waves were breaking right over it. I did take a short video at one point but I was getting blown about so much that it was too shaky to see much.

One thing that the wind and rain has brought is milder weather. It has not been that cold at all, so far. Mind you the temperature is dropping right now as my feet are freezing. Time to open the fire up I think!