Making an entrance

At last, the painting in the front porch is complete, which I an very pleased about. It's a lovely shade of pink, which looks really nice in today's bright sunshine :) The only thing left to do is the floor, but that'll be MrL's department, taking up the old tiles and putting down slate ones to match the hall.
The coat rack came from the tip :) - it just needed a good clean up and a wax, and although one of the top rungs is slightly wonky, it's a great find a while back. I'll put a basket on the top for gloves, dog leads, etc, then there'll be umbrellas and coats on the pegs, with teh shoe rack underneath on the floor.The front door opens against this, so will hide it a bit if it does become a bit of a jumble. On teh other side, we bought a very nice piece of oak, which MrL cut to size, and I polished up with homemade beeswax polish - even the shelf smells lovely! I've put up my celtic blessing roundel there, and a jug of spring flowers, and spruced up my sampler which bears the sage wisdom of "Dull women have immaculate houses" LOL

Feast day of St Zita

I love these quirky Saint's days, this one being especially relevant to me LOL. St Zita is the patron saint of housewives, servants and bakers, and is sometimes invoked by people who cannot find their keys.

More here:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/ZITA.htm

I will be baking a cake in her honour later today, and doing some of the never-ending housework!!

On balance...........

I believe there are more good, decent people in the world than bad; maybe it's just because I've had a good day, but I believe this to be ture.

What say you?

Bardsey apple

Great excitement here - my little Bardsey apple has two flower buds on!!! :)

See here for more info on Bardsey apple:

http://www.bardsey.org/english/subs/apples.htm

Making compost

If you leave living/dead plant material in a heap for long enough, it will rot down and become compost, returning to feed the earth. No science, no artfulness, no alchemy, no mystery really, all the work is done for you. The only rule I follow is to give it a good mix occasionally, ensuring there are no big piles of any one material in one place - mix it through to distribute it evenly, keep it open to the elements, and there you go.

What's in the picture is two years old, and has just been emptied out of the bins we are replacing. They were falling apart, having been in place for about 9 years now, so no complaints there. Once the site is cleared, I'll build a new one asap and off we go again!Everything goes on to mine - teabags, coffee grounds, wine making left overs, eggshells, old dishcloths, cotton clothing, wool and odd bits of otherwise useless fleece, paper, cardboard, grass, orange peel, spent hops, the lot. I don;t put naything cooked on, though, anbd try to avoid perennial weeds, although the heaps can get hot enough in the centre to destoy them, but I try to avoid where I can.

The picture shows it spread on one of the veg beds, now ready for planting.

Off to pick dandelions for wine in the glorious sunshine now :) Hope everyone's weather is as nice.

Tree audit

I've just taken half an hour in the early morning April sunshine to do a tree audit. I did one a couple of years back, I think, but we've added a few since then.
Here's the result:

Davidia involucrata, snake bark maple, contorted willow x2,lilac,catalpa,tulip tree,miniature ornamental cherry, pawlonia, field maple, conifer,Judas tree, maple, blackthorn x 2, bullace, crab apple x 3, quince, pear, cherry, greengage, damson,elder, eating apples x 3, plum x 3, sorbus x 2 mulberry x 1, medlar, hazels x 8, black elder, white elder, sugar maple, cider apple x 3 perry pear, holly, birch, bay silver birch x 5, willow, oak x 2 white horsechestnut, red horsechestnut, evergreen oak, ash x 6, hawthorn.

These were here before us:

elder x 6, lilac x 3, hazel x1, hawthorn x 1

To save you the bother (lol), that's 71 trees planted by us (mostly me), and 11 already here, totalling 82 in all. That's a lot of trees. All I'm hankering after now is a cooking apple tree and a walnut, but am really of a mind there won;t be room!

The best time to plant a tree is 40 years ago; the next best time is today (old Chinese saying)

Earth Day, 2009

Today is Earth Day - what are you going to do for the planet today? Leave a comment and let us know, it's always inspiring and thought-provoking to read others' thoughts and actions.

Thanks.