Style Makeover

In case anyone thought I'd disappeared into thin air, I am in fact still here, but have undergone an inadvertent style makeover. I thought I would try one of Blogger's new template designs, just for a bit of a change, and of course, it made my blog almost unreadable. So I had to spend ages messing about trying to make it ok again. Whilst I enjoy blogging, messing about with computers is not my most favourite occupation, in fact it seems like a bit of a waste of time when you're already up to your eyes in apple based  harvesting activities viz

Amazing how those Ikea bags do come in handy isn't it?

So it was easier to put it to one side as one job to do "later on", like say, hoovering under the spare bed. Fortunately I did eventually get round to sorting it, and it didn't turn into one of those many jobs at Carters Barn whose appointed hour never arrives, like ironing underpants and stuffing mushrooms, or you may never have heard from me again. What a lucky escape you almost had!

Not to mention these vast quantities of climbing french beans that I never got round to picking green, and had consequently produced a harvest of these

I've never had home dried beans before, but there were too many to allow them to go to waste, so they're in the kitchen finishing the drying process, and I will see what they taste like in casseroles and so on. Worst case scenario I'll have a home produced supply of chicken feed!

Happy Birthday To Me

Amazingly, I've just noticed that I've been  writing this blog for exactly a year. I can hardly believe twelve months have passed so quickly, but then I do seem to think that about everything these days, and policemen are getting younger too...

Looking back at that first post I see that a year ago today I was worrying about finding enough space in the garden to fit in all the plants, whereas this year  - I'm wondering where I will find enough space to fit all the plants.... except truth be told,  I did get a bit of an organisational flurry going on last month, and most of the veg garden is now in and growing, and I've even started some new areas, such as the shade garden, and the wild flower patch, so, although there still seems loads to do, all in all I'm able to look around and see -wait for it- yes, an improvement over last year!

One of my ideas in starting the blog in the first place, was to make a kind of diary for my own reference, so that I could look back in smug complacency and see how I've improved, or as it's turned out in certain cases, in furious indignation at my own stupidity. But that was before I realised that there's a whole world of real people out there in the blogosphere, some are experts, some newcomers, young people, old people, slightly loony people, people round the corner, or on the other side of the world (which I still find incredible) and that, even more amazingly, some of them take the trouble to read my tedious ramblings and then at the end having managed to  retain the will to live, still have the enthusiasm to make kind, supportive or helpful comments. So thank you, I've learned masses of stuff about all kinds of things from you, so whether you're an old friend who drops by on a regular basis, or you're a one-post stand, (surely not, you're way too respectable...) I'd like to say I truly value all of your support and feedback and I thank you all for reading, and bearing with my ups and downs over the last year of growing, weeding, rearing, plucking, cooking, baking, and occasionally, burning, at Carters Barn.

I hope you will join me over the next twelve months for more adventures of my life in the pastoral idyll of rural Wiltshire, as I skip through the fields in slow motion with daisies in my hair. My life of harmony with all of nature...well apart from the foxes of course.

Oh and the squirrels

And the mice
And bindweed

And pigeons, I hate pigeons.....