Wales cont......

Right I have got lots of piccys to add so I will start with these.

No. 3 chicken house

The victoria plum tree that we spent a lot of time picking from.

the amazing vine in one of the greenhouses

Climbing squashes in the greenhouses

a great idea for growing courgettes

the runner beans and peas

The fantastic bed various vege

no.4 chicken run and house

The greenhouse that the previous owners decided to concrete into the ground so it may never be moved!

The greenhouse that they built behind the other greenhouse

Phil checking the frames

Brownie the sheep, Michelle has actually knit a whole jumper from the fleece of the sheep.

The second rhubarb bed before we weeded it

The second rhubarb bed after we weeded it

again the second weeded rhubarb bed

Me feeding lambchop while Matt keeps the other sheep at bay

Garlic

Some of the jam me and Michelle made

Beeeeeeeees

Smudge on quiet time in the afternoon

Ok well on Monday (22/08/11) we did extract some honey from 3 of the hives in the end! The first one had cheekily taken a lot of the honey below (towards the lower honey super) which meant few bees had to be removed. The other two decided to play hard ball and took a lot of smoke to try and remove them.

Honey extractor and honey.

We got to learn how to get the honey by taking the caps off the honeycomb and then spinning them in the extractor. Afterwards we put the frames back and just as we put the last one back a bee got into matts boot and he got stung! The upside was we found that he is not allergic and that it isn’t that bad.

Tuesday was very oniony! We spent the morning taking up all the onions and then spent the rest of the day hanging them up.

Wednesday we picked plums and spent the morning propagating and sowing seeds for the winter crops ready for the poly tunnel. Me and Michelle also did some prep in the salad tunnel by weeding and removing the bolted lettuce.

Thursday We took on the polytunnel and won! It was full of willow herb plants. Between us we cleared it to the point where we could take up the black plastic underneath and give it a wash and try to remove the roots. We were all very tired, so a very early night was had by all!

Before

After weeding done in one day!

Friday While Phil was away at Market me, Michelle and Matt cleared the second chicken pen. Many ash trees and conifers were taking over (which made putting the chickens away very difficult) at the end we had a fantastic bonfire and a large pile of ash logs.

Saturday: I should mention that I have started knitting and thanks to quite a few evening tutorials with Michelle, I have been able to make a drawstring bag and a prototype sock (to give me practice so I could make some winter socks) and I haven’t stopped since. After a few interesting Sophie style purl stitches (which are backwards, woops!) I am now able to read knitting patterns and Michelle also kindly set me up with an entire set of needles. Me and Michelle also went into town (Lampeter) and I got to see the most amazing collection of patchwork quilts, owned by one of the vege box scheme customers. (http://www.jen-jones.com/QuiltCentre/welcome.html )

I also went and got wool to make Matt some socks (since I went through how to do it and what with wwoofing in winter) from this fantastic shop, which quite frankly we could have spent all day in! (http://www.calicokate.co.uk/ )

The ditch that guys dug

the new drainage system for the poly tunnel that flows into the ditch.

While we out the guys had been very busy attempting to sort out the lack of drainage in the recently cleared poly tunnel. This involved adding plastic piping and redigging the land drain to see if this helps. This meant they were quite muddy by the end of this, but it was a job well done!

After a quick clean up, we fed the animals so we could go out that evening. We went to a place called (I think?) Llangrannog. We had a lovely walk along the cliffs and while on the way we were adopted but a scruffy hound hehe! We had a unbirthday celebration at a lovely pub overlooking the sea, the food was lovely but there was so much of it hehe!

one of the beautiful views from the coastal walk

Another view

The rent-a-dog that we seemed to acquire on our expedition.

One of the views through Phils sunglasses

Phil on one of the cliff edges

Sunday:

This is the day we really got stuck in making the polytunnel usable again. We covered the floor with a thick polythene and then put the old black plastic back. After that we started to make the framework for the benches. I also learned what T junctions in wood working are actually useful for, my tutor at college made us all make one but he never explained why?!

On Monday we got to help with sorting the sheep. We separated the males from the females, and gave them general health check and feet trim. None of the sheep we particularly impressed with the attention paid to them (except lampchop who was in every batch since he kept coming back. The Ram lambs were particularly vocal about their displeasure however the ewes were relatively unbothered by their separation from their male lambs. After lunch we did a check on the bees.

The green manure (that we sowed on the first day) germinating

Tuesday was our last proper day at Rhyd-y-Gwin. We got on finshing as much of the benching as we could. Matt did a massive amount of sawing and me and Phil were drilling and securing the slats into place. I was very excited because I got to learn to use a drill and electric screwdriver! My day was not even marred by being stung by an agitated bee! Now I know that I am not allergic to bees so yay!

On Wednesday we got up and fed the chickies and lambchop for the last time and said goodbye to them. After breakfast we said our good byes (Katie did not like the look of all the bags, she knew this to be a bad omen) and got on with our 10 hour journey home.