waiting and worrying

  

25.4.2023

 

It is Anzac Day and we have a bank holiday. The weather is actually hot! This week we have had clear skies and sunshine every day. It feels as if the weather is returning to previous patterns.  We hope so anyway.  I have planted out brassica seedlings and broad beans, and actually have to water them every day. The lettuces and other things are returning naturally and I will move the seedlings to new beds when they are large enough.  We are still getting tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries and I have picked the apples.  The fig tree is super productive as usual and I have been giving away buckets of fruit. Some returns to me as preserves and I get out of that stage of work.

 

We should be super happy but at present we are too worried about Al and family to totally relax. Pip is in the last weeks of pregnancy and is in hospital probably needing a caesarean.  She is having a terrible time. Luckily her parents are able to stay down with them and help care for the young boys. I had them here last Friday and they are mostly really good, but they are also active and need constant supervision.  Bo was planning to be there for the birth, and her puppies would have been at there new homes by Pip’s due date, but with this set back the planned dates are all wrong.  Josh and CB are hoping they can bring their puppy for trips out to the farm so that it she gets used to the separation gradually, but although all the puppies have people wanting them no-one seems in a hurry to take on the responsibility. 

 

There has been a lot of work involved in preparing and freezing all the fruit for winter. To fill the time gaps, I get with this sort of work, I have got out my weaving loom and have been working out how to use it with tablets.  My experiments are improving but my tablet weaving is still at a very novice stage.  The work like most weaving is in the warping not the weaving. Sorting out 40 plus lengths of fibre and getting the right colours into the right holes on each tablet can be challenging.  Bo is still working on her art and producing lovely, large, landscape pictures. I am over awed with the way she has been teaching herself how to do this.