Life at Waen: Drought, vegetables, ducklings and trips back to the north :-)

Well holiday season is upon us and we are lucky that we get to share with lots of our chums this lovely weather and beautiful place. We have had loads of guests and its been mega busy in the garden too.. I have randomly decided to join the village open garden on 28th July .. so in a mad dash to make it look smart :-)

I have still got to sort the woodland and one last flower bed that in fact turns out to just be a bed of buttercups so I have one week of hard graft ahead .. I had a head start though when the Ali sisters came to stay and spent a day helping me shred and chip loads of wood as I mowed the woodland.. have lost my newly planted orchard to waist high grass so this week I must crack on!!

There is sad news on the duckling front we are down to only 7 but they are growing fast and so should be big enough to defend themselves soon.. shame though but still mummy duck has done very well they now come up to feed at with the chickens and Sophie and Blueberry and its dead cute to watch them though Mr W not content to only watch ended up in a severe groin pecking from mummy duck (Fergie) when he just had to pick one up!!

The weather whilst beautiful is taking a toll on life.. our well water is very low but lovely farners are topping it up! and so its no more baths for aching bones GRR.. and the flowers are flopping but I refuse to complain even though a part of me wants to!

In other news its non stop in the veg patch we are eating all of our growing now and I am PARTICULARLY proud of a turnip (still in the ground) which is fairly huge... not quite the enormous turnip yet but you never know.

I was a complete bumpkin last week and set off in pursuit of elder flowers to make Christmas wine with (stand by friends) there is a definite difference in the country to city life in that I pottered around the woods carrying a kitchen knife and a 3 litre jug and no-one even thought it was odd.. in the city I suspect I would have been arrested for the same action but thankfully not and having successfully foraged my flowers the wine is now under way.. mind you separating those tiny flowers from their stalks.. complete pain in the backside :-) I then used a load of mint that I dug out of the penultimate patch of garden and made 4 jars of mint sauce.. check me out!

I have been up north a few times in the last couple of weeks, to see my mam and dad was one trip (felt very overdue) then to see a person I used to work with graduate.. very emotional and then for a work meeting / catch up with my fab work chums.. so that's been nice.. after all .. all gardening and no play makes Ms Waen knackered.. and also even though I have lots of visits and stay in touch I do miss my chums :-(

Anyway now for the photo's ........

ok so they are hard to peel but they are MY carrots and I love them :-)
Mr W declared them to be carroty carrots ??

Peas.. Mr W podded them and declared that he used to do this for his mum (I was surprised he could remember that far back). I have saved the pods in the freezer to make pea pod wine.