The Orchard

 I’m noting here which tree is which so we don’t forget! 

All are from left to right starting from the top

1st row: Old apple, Old fallen over apple, 5 year old Bramley apple

2nd row: New Falstaff, 5 year old Falstaff (which may be just rootstock as it died back), 5 year old Rubinette, Old russet apple, Crab Apple

3rd row: New bramley, 5 year old rosette, new rubinette, new winter gem

4th row: New boscoop, going to add a new rosette here

We need to get some protection round the new trees for when the sheep pass through

... and the winner is...

 ... and the winner is... Poppy!

Nice little walk, 35 mins up, 35 seconds down!

Best Christmas card ever!

 Painted specially for us, how lucky are we!

She’s called Nathalie... (though really Nathalie the cow is brown and white). She was created by Nathalie the human’s daughter. Genius!

I hope Santa and his flying cow were generous!

Hay day

Snow in slow mo. It was actually driving in quite fast. Brrr!

Perfect day to have arranged to get hay 😳

We normally get small bales as they are easy to move around, but he guy has run out so we had to roll it through the snow to the stables. Soooooo cold on our hands.

The ducks were having a nice bathin their mini pond watching us. Crazy!

First time brushing a hay bale!

The horses were please so that is what matters...

This should last them about a week. Between the cows and the horses they will get through 15 more of these 80 more small ones and 6 like this that the farmer delivers in the the field for the cows (he can’t spare more than that unfortunately)

Mince Pie Recipe

 I keep trying to find the perfect pastry recipe for mince pies. I’ve been using this one a few times so better write it down before I forget it!

375g plain flour

250g butter

125g caster sugar

1 egg

Crumb together flour and butter

Add the sugar and stir

Add the egg and mix till it comes together. Don’t over work.

Chill for a while and then roll out. It should be able to go quite thin if you prefer more mincemeat than pastry in your pies!

Crochet Christmas Tree

I kind of made it up as I went along, so take everything with a pinch of salt ;)

The stand is a piece of wood with a hole in it and a 15cm piece of 6mm dowel.

There are 7 rounds of branches. They are just flat circles that start with 6 sc in a magic circle and another row is added for each one bigger. Each row has 6 more stitches than the previous one to keep the circle flattish (I’ve tried to explain differently below)

When you finish off the center of each circle you need to pull the magic circle pretty tight, but make sure there is anough of a hole for the dowel to go through, but you don’t want it so lose it doesn’t grip in place.

I used a 4.5 hook and Cascade Mirafloras wool which is a somewhat spiky alpaca wool that says a 5.5 hook as I wanted it to come out quite compact and stiff.

The star is Adriafil Mirage which takes a 4 to 4.5 hook and I used the same 4.5mm hook.

Smallest ‘branch’

Round 1: 6 single crochet in a magic circle and join last to first with a slip stitch. I start with a single chain, but you don’t have to as long as you end with 6 stitches (6 stitches)

Round 2: chain 1, then sc 2 stitches in each of the 6 stitches. Join last stitch to first with a slip stitch (12 stitches)

Next bigger ‘branch’

Round 1 and 2 same as the smallest.

Round 3: chain 1, then * 1 sc in next 2 stitches and 2 sc in 3rd stitch. Repeat from * all the way round. Join last stitch to first with a slip stitch.

Next bigger one

Round 1, 2, 3 same as 2nd branch

Round 4 chain 1, then * 1 sc in next 3 stitches and 2 sc in 4th stitch. Repeat from * all the way round. Join last stitch to first with a slip stitch.

... and so on until you have done all 7

For the star you need to do 2 and sew together with blanket stitch leaving a gap for the dowel to go in to.

When you make the picot (the chain 3 and slip stitch in to the first of the chain) you need to experiment a little with which oart of the stitch you do the slip stitch through, because otherwise the point of the star sticks sideways and when you try to join the two back to back they don’t match up.

Star

Round 1:In to a magic circle, * sc, dc, ch3, slip stitch in to the 1st stitch in thr chain, dc.

Repeat from * 4 more times, slip stitch in to the bottom of the first sc. Pull magic circle tight and finish off

The Star of Bethlehem!

We thought it was going to be cloudy and we wouldn’t see it, but then it magically cleared and we did!

https://www.space.com/great-conjunction-jupiter-saturn-christmas-star-2020-nasa-tips

This is the view by day (just happened to be on the camera!)

and this is it by night. The church is obvious, then to the right of it is the folly/chapel on the mount, both lit for Christmas. Then further right and down is our friend Emma’s, then the ‘star’.

Before that we had a nice lunch with friends, nice to feel a little bit of nomal... 

Cute huh!

Yummy spicy chicken and noodles...

Chicken Massacre

Some horrible beast (fox? pine marten?) got in to the chickens and killed 17 chickens and 2 ducks. It left behind 9 chicken corpses, some without heads. The rest and the ducks disappeared without trace.

They were mostly ones we raised this year (some were to be sold and some eaten by us) but we also lost the cockerel and 3 of the laying hens. All the remaining 7 are female, but none are now laying, 4 of them are young and haven’t started yet, and the 3 that were laying are too traumatised. The 1 remaining female duck has also stopped laying. We are going to need to buy eggs! 

It is very sad, and such a terrible waste, whatever it was didn’t even eat that many of them 😢

The electric fence had blown over in the night in the storms and the shock power was very low which is presumably how it happened. We have cranked the power up (by depowering some other fences) and not (yet) had a repeat visit. Fingers crossed...

These are the survivors (plus another ginger one). Not quite decided what to do yet, but we need a new cockerel. May buy one or buy some eggs to hatch in the Spring.

New Trees

Possibly our last delivery ever from the UK (hopefully not, but it felt fortunate they made it through all the chaos. Companies are now telling me they can’t now post to the EU from the UK, some temporarily due to lack of clarity and some permanently due to high costs - so good to be seeing the benefits of brexit!)

We got a few new apple trees and a crab apple to go in the orchard below the house, also a mini apricot, plum and cherry to go in the potager garden with other fruit. Hopefully one day under a fruit cage. We have some other mini trees that aren’t doing well on the bank, so we plan on moving some of them to this spot too.

This pear in the orchard is rubbish, so Doug is chopping it down to make room for the crab apple.

These are the mini trees for the potager

They all look like twigs

I dug a hole, we decided it was in the wrong place, so I filled it in. Poppy unfilled it again, how helpful!

It’s snowing!

 In La Mongie, not at home...

I’m busy painting the bathroom and bedroom ready for the day we are allowed to stay up there again. 

Doug has been making various wooden bits for improvements and repairs.

Poppy isn’t tremendously helpful at painting or making things, but she does love the snow.

... and it tires her out nicely so she rests while we do useful things...