November was a big month as far as the man of the house was concerned because it was this month that we became a farm in his eyes ..

Tractor day had come !! BOOM

After lots of trawling machinery and livestock online sites , discussing at great lengths with anyone with any knowledge a suitable machine was found and bought.. since it was delivered to the end of our mile of lane on a week day it was up to me to get it down to the farm ..

I learned to drive in the city centre ,and had to drive whatever came off the company car park first, so driving new stuff generally doesn’t phase me, however this was a whole new ball game!!

Getting bounced around a cab as it negotiated the pot holes was a bit unnerving but a lot of fun.. funnily enough there are no photos to insert here ..note to self “eat more pies”.

The sheep were happy doing what sheep do when there is Handsome boy Ram about .. say no more

The pigs however were fast outgrowing their current home.. a cooker hood re purposed to make a strange and rather tactless shelter .. I know we didn’t miss the irony here .

One morning we found them cuddled up but rather soggy so I set to with pallets , a drill , and a very strong will to get them a temporary improvement whilst I got some pig ark steel on order ..

 

 

 

they loved their new (dance) floor in the cooker hood , and it saw us through until a really great joiner  we know, made them a proper real pig house ..

The pigs are definitely Andy’s favourite livestock , and I’m not sure if its due to his love of bacon or if its because they are so much fun to be around.. but a lovely job of house building  he did .. dontcha’ think ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half term brought some lovely friends and an excuse to have a few days out ,Wendy and Brian arrived first. Wendy is my Forest School buddy , and for a number of years

we were virtually joined at the hip training , setting up then working together so

I had really missed her ..

Then as you can see George and Ali also came so we had a lovely house full..

I kind of met George first at school and some of you may know the story but we entered George for the RHS young school gardener of the year back in 2014. He won, (beating entrants from over 19,000 schools !)and  did so well promoting the RHS, and their school gardening campaign that they asked him to become their first young ambassador. Joining the ranks with the likes of some less known peeps like Mary Berry, Nick Knowles, Alan Titchmarsh, James Wong, Adam frost etc …

Anyway name dropping over .. with all this house full ..

It was time for food, Ali is my cooking chum and true to form she came armed with a goody bag full of all sorts of lovely treats, every time we looked she was rummaging about in a carrier bag or the fridge and rustling up something gorgeous..

(A rare couple of photo’s of Ali without her shades)

we also found an excuse to take a trip over to Kittys Tearoom in New Galloway.. Ali and me were both impressed with the fat nan (naan) and to know what we are on about you’ll have to visit and sample it yourselves ! There are no photos here cos we snaffled em up pronto ..

Ali and me became friends partly because of George but also because we were both interested in delivering teaching projects to different groups. Operation farm  was something I just got drawn into and really enjoyed being part of for a short time. Another part of Ali’s life I sneaked into, and my  favourite work was with the People First Tameside an amazing project all about teaching skills and enjoying life to adults with differences, after loving working in schools for years I’m sorry to say I found a new favourite ! I can’t tell you how much I miss my gardening gang …

Katie, Jimmy, Daz ,Darrel, Ellie ..and everyone else too of course.

 

 

Anyway machinery was the topic this month and we end it with another lump of clattering mechanics !

Grobdale has a lot of hills, water , culverts and a quarry all of which need a Digger .. so again lots of internet trawling went on and before I knew it I was stood at the end of the track waiting for a low loader carrying yet another thing I had to drive down to the farm..

There’s a pattern forming 

here I think..

 

 

 

When it was unloaded onto the main road it came with three buckets (the scoopy up things) obviously they are not all attached at the same time ! So they were wedged between the attached one and the pusher bar at the bottom .. only problem is as I set off down the track , and the waggon plus knowledgeable driver had vamoosed ,vanished, beggared off .. I couldn’t ask him which lever or button to move to make the blimmin thing go faster !! I didn’t dare start trying things out so.. a very sloooow boring judder of a journey we went hence the knee photo , I learned to drive with my feet and take photos and watch the wildlife ..

Taking it easy in Grobdales  new digger ..

 

(little tiny footnote) Hubby thought I’d driven into a ditch and died a horrible death it took so long .