I have just come in from walking the dogs on what is a lovely spring morning and I found the first violets flowering in a crevice of a wall. Everywhere else around the gardens and along the drive the daffodils are looking superb and although the hens have been put to range freely in the orchard they are not damaging the daffodils that grow there in profusion. I have also seen the first primroses and wild strawberry flowers. A few days of fine weather and everthing will be bursting into life. It is wonderful when the hedges start toget their first flush of green and the trees begin to have their stark winter outlines blurred by their emerging leaves. The birds are singing madly, I had a robin trilling away in an apple tree the other afternoon as I worked in the garden and the chaffinches and blackbirds are just filling the air with arpeggios.There are woodpeckers yammering away in the woods and the sound carries all around the valley.
A trio of Canada geese have taken up residence on one of our larger ponds but it is unlikely they will nest there as there is very little cover for them. The pond is only a year old and has yet to establish plants along its rim though we shall be planting flag irises and I hope to get some water lilies in the pond itself.
Yesterday KT purchased a gypsy caravan which is very exciting. She & her father drove up to Manchester to collect it and arrived home last evening when the Farmer helped to unload it into one of our barns where it will stay while work is done on it to make it suitable as a quirky holiday accommodation. The caravan is in very good condition and just needs some re-painting and the traditional queenie stove to be installed and for the soft furnishings to be renewed. It has a pull out double bed and will be be a lovely space when we've finished the work on it. KT and I will do the painting and making of curtains and re-covering mattresses and cushions. The site for it has already been decided, in a small copse of trees looking out across our lovely valley. A little cabin will be built nearby to accommodate a kitchen/sitting room & a shower room which the Farmer is already planning.
It is weekend of a lot of travelling for some members of the family as Elder Son & KT (together with her father & brother ) have gone up to Halifax today to dismantle and bring home a milking parlour. Our current parlour is in need of renovation and Elder Son found a very good second-hand one that had all the necessary requirements but it is near Halifax which is very long way from West Wales. However, they left at 6 o'clock this morning and we expect them back late tonight. and very tired they will be, no doubt.
Later.
The Farmer & I have had a very busy day. We have just planted a row of rowan trees of various coloured berries, on the walk to the ponds and a copse of silver birch near one of the ponds. We have also put a good large walnut tree in place of a huge & very old conifer that blew down two years ago. I have still to plant a number of camellias to form a hedge at the end of the garden, which in few years time should look rather wonderful.
We have further plans for more tree-planting, mainly specimen trees on a grassy terrace overlooking the new pond and hopefully we may get that done before too long. Now is the perfect time to plant things though we must water them regularly for the first couple of weeks if we do not get any rain for a while now.
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