Trio Of Carved Toolboxes

 I've written a lot of magazine articles now, well over a hundred, and very occasionally I might hear back from someone who has read one. 

One of my first articles in Woodcarving magazine was about making a carved tool box for my daughters 9th birthday, this was a few years back now, so it was lovely to hear from Gordon in Ireland who had read my article and decided to make one.

He has now made three of them! I think the his use of colour on them is amazing! Talk about making  a project your own. 

April Homestead Tour

 I love this time of year. It's been a challenging spring so far (I know we're not even very far into it yet either!), but the sun was shining so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to go for a walk around the smallholding and have a look at what we've got going on. 

In this walk around you can see our downed oak tree as well as the garden ramping up production, everything is looking very green and lush, but we're still having lots of cold nights, so don't be fooled and get too much going too early! 

Let me know what you think (I'd love for you to leave a comment on YouTube as well if you would - helps loads! Even just a thumbs up is a big thing on that platform). 

Thanks for watching!

Stored Apples In April

Although we still have some good, tasty apples left in the store we have started buying some the last few weeks. 

The stored ones just don't travel well now and as four of the five of us go off every day and need to take lunch the apples look very bruised an unappetising by the time it's lunch! 

so although I'm eating ours from the (apple) store, the other's aren't. It's shame, I could do with growing some that travel a bit better at this age. The middlest still takes dried appple with her every day though. 

I think it might be worth stewing up some of these and dehydrating the better ones before they loose too much condition. I had a go through the other day and I think the mild weather has made a few of them start to turn. 

If you store apples how are yours looking this year?

 

Greenhouse Upgrade - Building The Base

 I've mentioned this before on the blog, but the little 8x6 greenhouse needed a bit of an upgrade this year. 

The base I put in some 12 years ago, it was just some 8x2 treated softwood I had left over from a job. It made a good temporary base and I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. 

The little greenhouse started it all off in the garden when we first moved here, it wasn't long until I got the bigger greenhouse, but it's always been useful. It's just the last few years it's fallen on a bit of disrepair and missed out on the love, becoming a bit of a dumping ground. As the base rotted out I just used it less and less. 

Oak Tree Downed By The Wet

I was a bit broken hearted the other day. My daughter noticed the tree on our drive to school, it had gone over. 

This oak was always a little stunted, trying to grow out from the huge veteran alongside it. Always leaning over.