Yay! Moved to Wales and now have 2 acres!!

[digiveg]

Hi All, and first I have to say a huge THANKS for everyone's good wishes. Makes me feel...well...connected! Except for the fact that I've been working in Guildford all week, so am very late in responding. So, to answer the specifics:

To Purple Dragon - yup, did that. AWbsolutely total silence. Lovely. Haven't had quiet like that since I was up in the hills in California.

To Red: As it's getting a tad wet for digging new beds, we're putting in an orchard next month as our first step. We've found a great place for trees a few miles away. It's a smallholding that has been in cultivation for over 200 years, since the Enclosures acts, and now they sell (compeltely organic) fruit trees / bushes and more. We'll be getting local varieties (i.e. that grow and crop well even in seriously wet earth) of apples, pears, plums etc from them. They have also offered us early / middle / late strawberries (the last of which had nice fruit on them when we visited, in early October fer gawd's sake) and a cutting off their very own grapevine. Reddish grapes, almost completely seedless, and soooooo good. Apparently they make great wine, too.

I'll also be going back to Dorchester around the end of the month to dig up my 5-year old asparagus roots, which will get planted on my return. If the weather holds off tomorrow, as seems likely, I'll be getting that bed ready.

I asked the farmer across the road about a 'whopping great big pile of cow poo', and he promptly dumped a huge load of it right by the garden area - and won't accept anything in return! Lovely people.

To Chickpea: Coffee wine! Wow! Sounds incredible. Does it keep you awake at the same time as getting you tipsy? Good grief. I'll DEFINITELY keep you posted re. smallholdingwarmings! Can I have the recipe???

To Circlecross: About 15 miles to the east of Carmarthen, just beyond Llandeilo. Great area - I bet you loved being up here, too.

To the fee.fairy...certainly will. Just please don't make me dance naked in the rain...I catch cold easily!

And last, but definitely not least, to my good friend Hedgie - yup, just about sorted. And this weekend we have our first houseguest, an old friend from California who is also a Buddhist nun. She's great - has spent 6.5 years in solitary retreat during the last 10 years. So we're having a great time catching up with each other.

And no, we probably won't be renaming the house after the frog, as I released it before finding out what it was called! Give me a call any time over the weekend, except for Sunday a.m. when I'll be driving our friend up to Worcester.

See ya!

[hedgewizard]

Buddhist nun... solitary retreat... I've got an image of Terry Jones naked now, can't help it.

"Of course they brought forth juniper berries - they're juniper bushes! What else did you expect?"

It's a bit late now - I'll give you a buzz once the Outlaws leave tomorrow pm, but I'm finally putting in the leaky pipe etc. Ahhhh.