Best laid plans....

We had a fair weather and a wet weather plan for this week. The start of the week has the best weather so we should have been out moving the pigs to the next plotted area and constructing a tree cage for our planned orchard today.

Except when we looked at the pig moving we decided that with six pigs it is no longer feasible to have them roaming for the half hour or so between dismantling the old fence and setting up the new one. When it was just Tom and Barbara it was fine as they mostly hung out with us anyway and then went into the new pen with the lure of a handful of pig nuts. But with the four piglets too it is mayhem and chaos and needs further planning. So we have ordered some extra posts and have a plan to extend the pen and then take out the divide.

I did some more research on apple trees for our orchard and learnt mostly that we need to do more research! If we're going to spend over £100 on 8 trees then we need to be sure they are the right trees for here and do all the proper preparation work for the arriving, including working out the best location and constructing a deer proof area for them. I have sorted out stock for the fruit cage though and have a selection of raspberry, blueberry, cranberry, white currant, gooseberry etc arriving to add to the stock of raspberry, gooseberry, blackcurrant and red currant already in there. That will have it fully stocked and hopefully fruiting for 2014.

After lunch of a using up the last of the veg before today's order arrived soup (red onion, carrot, sweet potato, ginger) and fresh rolls Ady and I headed down to the village to put a wash on. The car is almost officially dead and so we had to come back a couple of hours later carrying our fruit and veg for the week, a full load of washing and various things from the freezer including 4 pints of milk, a pack of butter and some cheese. My head hurts from carrying the veg box on my head after Ady insisted it was the correct way. We struggle to survive without a vehicle and given we have a huge delivery of animal feed, compost and fence materials arriving later this week which would take us about 12 hours of hard labour to carry to the croft from the pier I am hoping we can get this sorted asap.

It is times like these when there is no breakdown cover or mechanic we know who can do a good bodge job that we curse that chunk of sea between us and the mainland. Well that and our own lack of mechanical know-how.