With a week of nicer weather we’ve (again) prioritised a day off and outdoor jobs over painting in the Cow Shed (who wants to spend the first sunny week inside if you have an excuse not to!!).
On Saturday John had arranged one of his quarterly village pub hikes, open to anyone who wants to join and taking in at least 2 pubs in the local area. This time we started with breakfast kindly put on by The Kings Arms in Stockland, walked over The Cotley Inn in Wambrook in the neighbouring Kit Valley for a drink, and then walked back to The Yarcombe Inn for a late lunch, before heading back to The Kings Arms for a final drink. We had about 26 people join for various stages of the 12.6 mile hike and another few who joined us for lunch. It’s a lovely excuse to get out and enjoy the Blackdown Hills and support our local pubs at the same time, And we’ve got to meet so many more wonderful people that we’d never had got to meet otherwise. We’re so grateful we get to live in such a beautiful part of the world. At some point we need to add the pub hike routes to our cottage welcome folder as they’re great routes for guests who might want to do walks that take them further afield…
John’s been busy during the week, doing his annual job of feeding the lawns and putting pet-friendly weed and moss killer. He’s very determined to keep the lawns looking green and luscious for our guests, while we make sure we have pollinator plants in the flower beds and in the wood, which we let go wilder to encourage insects and bugs to feed the various wildlife we have around. John also pressure washed the bird bath in the Farmhouse which was looking a little weather-worn, and started incinerating the branches we cut down from the orchard. Many of them are infected with canker so the only thing we can do really is to burn them – although I do try and steal smaller older branches that aren’t infected and add them to my wildlife corner at the bottom of the wood to rot and attract insects.
I got our green plastic greenhouse out of storage this week and started potting up some of our more substantial seedlings. We seem to have rather a lot of tomato seedlings this year – I’m using up old seed packets and our propagator is actually doing a good job at helping the older seeds to germinate. Our broad beans are very ready to be planted out too and just need hardening off – I’m hoping being in the plastic greenhouse and out in the daylight weather means they’ll be ready next weekend.
We did manage to get an afternoon in the Cow Shed, finishing off sanding the beams, hoovering and then continuing to paint the ceilings. We’ve now done the first coat in the bedroom and the cupboard, and made a start in the main living area. It’s just a bit of a faff with the high ceilings as we need to keep moving ladders and the tower around the room. At some point we’ll both need the tower so we’re going to try and stagger painting timings during the week to get the first coat finished. Then we’ll only be a few days behind our revised timelines…
Ley Farm Cottages 