Children Working - Moving Firewood

I've been trying to clear the fallen trees and branches from the storms damage this winter. 

I'm also trying to be better with future fire wood and process it before I store it. That way it'll season better and I won't be left with huge rings of wood that harden and are far more difficult to split. 

So I've been out there a few hours at a time and when out there I've been dividing my time with half and hour on the chainsaw and half an hour on the maul splitting the wood I've just cut. I can cut far more than I can split though! 

So my plan has been to leave some of the splitting until the evenings when I've got the kids back from school or nursery. That way I can split the wood while they're either playing or helping and it's great to keep them outdoors on these nice evenings. 

 As it turns out they didn't want to play at all, they were so keen to help me it was lovely! As I was splitting the wood they were loading it onto the trailer, they worked as a team and helped each other, they didn't even moan once!

 They did the full load themselves, I couldn't quite believe it.
They loved ridding in the trailer as well, bouncing around! Something I have fond memories of as a child as well.

They then helped me unload it when we got back to the house and didn't stop until it was all in the shed. They then ran off and played outside whilst I cooked tea, making disgusting mixtures on the patio, great to see kids being kids. 

Great to have my little helpers with me today. The fact that a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a a 6 year old actually can help and saved me lots of time this evening is amazing. I'm lucky to have such helpful kids! Long may it last!

A Tour Of The Coppice

The garden and the sheep (and the children) take up most of my time around here, but I have got a few other areas growing on quietly in the background. 

The coppice is one of those, it's quiet happy being neglected  but it's looking better every year. I did make some extra plantings this year and I plan to plant even more this next winter/spring - I'll clear an area of grass by leaving plastic on it and then plant it up with self seeding annuals or perennial herbs and bushes. 

Here's a little walk around of what it's looking like at the moment.

Let me know what you think!

What would you plant in there?

Fruit Tree Nursery 2014

Last weekend I finally managed to finish grafting and planting all of my fruit trees.

 I planted them in two separate beds quite close together to try to encourage them to grow straight and true. I 've also experimented a little bit as one lot was planted through some old weed suppressant matting I had left from ages ago and the other will be mulched with straw

In these two little beds is hopefully my future cider orchard, some apricots and nectarines to see if I can get them to grow in our cold spot, cherries so we can have delicious stone fruit in the summer, plums and pears to grow around the veg garden and some more apple trees to grow and sell.

140 in total this year, should be interesting to see how they do.

Did anyone else get round to doing any grafting this year?