May corona?
Ranch: Sitting quietly, I watch a pair of long-tailed tits hanging upside down under the lean-to, picking off little corner pockets [...]
Turnip
The Ranch: Spring hurtles in, full throttle, thwarted by snowy East-Beast snaps. It's been a funny old winter. Blue Monday [...]
Ten thousand hours
Ranch: Snow from a week ago remains frozen after a spate of minus tens. I follow the footprints of a [...]
Beaver moon
Ranch: Sitting quietly for a moment, I spot movement to my left. Something tiny scurries from under the black polythene - [...]
Earth, water, fire and air
Ranch: Summer went, giving way to a musky autumn with the first frost already delivered a couple of weeks ago on [...]
Queen
Ranch: I'm awake at 5:20 on Tuesday 13th September 2022, after a rare solid night's sleep. From dawn, the sky is [...]
Making a hay wain
Ranch: I open the door after a week away. Everything is overgrown and all the beds need weeding. The embers [...]
Punk Rock Party
A basking baking smouldering heat reigns supreme and I can stand any amount of it. The English, famed for their complaining [...]
Where are the sparrows and WWTD?
Ranch: We get back from Beatherder late on Monday and it's still searingly hot. Helen has watered the greenhouse, and apart [...]
Ticker le Punk
'I never even liked punk'. I said. 'Cover your ears Carmen'. Said Ticker. Louise was in the kitchen making a cup [...]
Birdwatching
I forfeit my usual trip up the mountain in favour of heading north from the top of the lake. Up the [...]
The Chattering of Sparrows
The heady, exotic, musky, smutty scent of valerian flowering from mid-May heralds summer full-steam-ahead. The plants grow as tall as 8 [...]
Beltane and The Vulgarians
Ranch: May has always been my favourite month and I'm sure it's no coincidence that its beginning is marked with celebrations [...]
Springtime
Nothing compares to the shimmering light bright green of spring as it rapidly coats the bare brown branches of the hedges. [...]
Another reset
Ranch: I have an impressive 4cm double-furrowed cut across the top of my forehead, courtesy of barbed wire – an inevitable [...]
A triumphant February beginning
Ranch: In the grey midwinter, a tawdry clinging cold pervades, yet spring heralds in the shape of brand new electric-green hawthorn [...]
Wassailing?
Ranch: Christmas and New Year have been and gone and now if ever, is the time for January blues. We had [...]
Everything is Energy and Plan C
The Ranch: ...Is dismal in its cold clinging greyness and seemingly endless slutchy muddy wet. As I walk round, jobs beckon [...]
Walking common ground and the totality of evidence.
A freezing Sunday: Dawn - Sunday 28th November 2021 From my window, I watch a thin streak of crystal light powder [...]
Going out without a bang
The Ranch: is autumnal. There are characteristic drizzly rainy days but also bright sunny ones. The greenhouse is infested with greenfly [...]
Intellectual curiosity and the spirit of critical thinking
Ranch: For the benefit of my new readers, 'The Ranch' is the name I jokingly gave to my allotment many years [...]
Back to Rossendale
Ranch: The weather broke into our characteristic Northern blustery drizzle, and I psychologically hunkered down for winter but then it broke [...]
Unsubscribing and a new beginning
The Ranch: I’m on the ranch in demi-shed A. It’s raining. The long late run of balmy September sunshine has come [...]
Northward bound
We’ve come on holiday by mistake. Past the old toll house on the right. Past the caravan park where they used [...]
Harvest Moon
The Ranch: A basky balmy sordid humid heat intoxicates me for weeks and I'm relieved when it's over and the rains [...]
Sagefest 2
The Ranch: I’m on the ranch, living a dream come true. I’m sitting at the bar of demi-shed-A, writing at my [...]
Shed joy
The Ranch: It rained properly on Thursday night and I swear that the plants all grew an extra couple of inches [...]
Duties of a Doctor?
The Ranch: It’s raining. It started around 3am and is now just fizzling out at 6am. It wasn’t much, but exciting [...]
Don’t mess with the kids
Salutation to the dawn: The chorus begins at half-past three with a funny sounding bird whose song I don’t recognise – [...]
Repair and the Car Boot
The Ranch: There is nothing sweet and tender about these hooligans. They are merciless. Stealthily, the patriarch eyes track me silently. [...]
May day and the thousand pound tomato
Ranch: Hazy warm sunshine dawns after a frostier than ever April and early May. Of course the English weather obsessives have [...]
Reincarnation of The Lizard
Ranch: On Saturday 10th April and into Sunday morning it snowed heavily - big white fluffy flakes. The dawn was crispy [...]
odmorden and the gin terrace.
The Ranch ... is a scruffy field and a scruffy allotment above the arsehole corner of an arsehole Northern town. Once [...]
Starry night
The Ranch: High gardening season has crept up quietly. Now, with a few exceptions (beans and squashes) it's time to plant, [...]
Where is The Love?
... sang the Black Eyed Peas in 2003. (and Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway in 1972) Is there love on [...]
Noble Art
Ranch: As a child, I remember arranging my pillows round my head and imagining that I was in an aeroplane [...]
Tractor action
The Ranch: It's Sunday and I'm just back from the ranch. The snow has all gone in the town but [...]
Down the rabbit hole again
The Ranch: 12 days of snow and ice, with temperatures as low as minus 8. Then a thaw and heavy rain. [...]
Revolution of the reasonable
The Ranch: A freeze serendipitously embraces the New Year period. A raw, bruised, brutal beauty embraces the ranch. A blanket [...]
A solstice celebration
Ranch: On Monday I'm exhausted. The last thing I feel like doing is going to the ranch. Who else is [...]
Vaccus
Ranch: I feel so grateful to live on the edge of a big park, with a wonderful Elizabethan Hall and museum [...]
Christmas tree butt plug?
... and baking bread: The cosmic cycle rolls on, as day is barely distinguishable from night. It's been an [...]
How science can help the ordinary gardener
Ranch: I haven't had much time to get up there this week. However, even a couple of hours at a time, [...]
How to grow your own food during a pandemic – anyone can do it – 10 tips GalleryHow to grow your own food during a pandemic – anyone can do it – 10 tips
Common ground, coronavirus, Emergency Medicine, Friends and family, NHS, older post, organic gardening, Science, self-sufficiency, tree planting, wellness, work life balance
How to grow your own food during a pandemic – anyone can do it – 10 tips
Earth, water, air, fire: That's it. That's the secret. That's the answer. That's how to do it. The four [...]
Fenny
The Ranch: ... is a clay one-and-a-half acre hillside organic plot in the North of England. At the moment it's [...]
Donald Trump underpants?
The Ranch: Toast? Via the Self sufficiency, permaculture and sustainable living group, I've managed to secure a small quantity of [...]
Please sir, can I have some more?
The Ranch: 1st November It's sometimes tricky to romanticise ordinariness. Each and every day Linda mucks out her stable into [...]
How do you fit a square peg into a round hole?
The Ranch: What's that? Er it's a construction. What's it for? It's for putting stuff in. So it's yet [...]
Tip-toeing, tapestry and The Law
The Ranch: It's me and the trees. I walk through the park and they are putting on their annual autumn [...]
Medicine and Rock & Roll
The Ranch: Once again, the weather catches me out. I'm all psyched up for settling into my curmudgeonly Autumn and Winter [...]
The Common Ground project
Birthday to birthday: I thought that the 21st of Sept was going to be our last warm sunny day of [...]
How to start a revolution with just six people GalleryHow to start a revolution with just six people
100% DIY, Common ground, coronavirus, Derry Girls, Emergency Medicine, End of an era, Food, Friends and family, Irish, Making a film, NHS, older post, organic gardening, permaculture, Revolution, self-sufficiency
How to start a revolution with just six people
A perfect sunny day: Monday (the 21st of Sept) was a perfect Indian summer day. It started cool and crystal blue [...]
Ergot of rye, blues and Rock & Roll.
Ranch: The mild, muggy, rainy, northern summery weather is breaking into autumnal gales and horizontal rain and the harvest is [...]
Sick of being normal? I failed my A-levels
Ranch: A spell of sultry, clinging, steamy heat punctuates an otherwise mediocre summer. Hot, hot, sleepily hot. Then come the [...]
Common ground and the House of Turds.
Wheels: Northwards! Along the bypass. Past the college. Past the toll-house. Past the tower on the hill on the right. [...]
Kick out the jams
A fortnight of rain and drizzle gives way to a promising weekend with warm weather forecast. I always forget what [...]
On the road again
The Ranch - It’s Sunday and I’m on the ranch. The laptop is on the workmate and the stove is [...]
Farter’s day
The Ranch - is a routine of comfort in a sea of madness and rising darkness. Planting; weeding; tidying; concrete [...]
Rioting for beginners
The Ranch - May has been and gone - my all-time favourite month. Hot, hot, hot and heady. Now we [...]
Valerian and beans
Certain events punctuate the gardening season. Valerian flowering is one of them and planting out the beans is another. The [...]
Duck weed and walnuts
The four-foot-deep well in the main allotment is completely dry for the first time since I dug it many years ago. [...]
Hey app! Sense and censorship.
I've been slowly levelling off an area next to the greenhouse in anticipation of a poly-tunnel, by emptying wheelbarrow [...]
Forty days
Phew. Grey clouds spill heavy rain, heralding the return to baseline North-westness. The ground sighs relief, marking the end of a [...]
Corridors
Hot hot sunny weather earlier in the week coincides with three days off. The ranch bursts with life and there [...]
Missing my family
A lot of my friends and colleagues have lost access to the things that mentally help charge their batteries - [...]
The best, the worst. Corvus corone!
I'm sitting in the green plastic chair, capturing a transient moment of March sunshine. A bee lands close by [...]
Digging trenches
The primroses, in their exquisite pastel yellows are out on the shady lane, which leads past the ancient 17th [...]
Don’t panic
The start of a week's annual leave on Friday evening coincides with finishing three time-consuming but rewarding back-to-back projects. I'm a [...]
Storytelling
Ranch: Wed 4th March: Today was sunny and spring-like. I fired up the tractor after cold months in the barn [...]
Food?
It's wet. Again. I'm repeating myself. Reporting the same old things every week. It's just that it's wetter than ever ever [...]
Mending a double bass.
Sun 16th Feb: Mending a double bass? The rhubarb is peeping through. The sloping hillside gives some protection against the [...]
I’M IN THE LIBRARY!
I wake up and look out of my window and something is different - the bands of silvery grey are [...]
Computer addiction and the Arts association
Oh well. We're out and February is here. Occasionally daily life gets so overwhelmingly busy that I can't get to the [...]
The film
Ranch: I once vaguely considered writing a gardening book but I wouldn't get far - I'm just too gormless and [...]
Full steam ahead
Ranch: There's a sense of urgency in the air - a sense of nervous fragility. The 'quietest' time for gardening/pseudo-farming is [...]
Mr Fox
Linda, my ranch neighbour gets up at 5 every morning and she's on the land by 5.30 mucking out into my [...]
Pendle Punk and Mad friday
Sun 22nd December 2019: 3:14pm I'm just back from the ranch. It's mild grey. I spotted a small flock of long-tailed [...]
Friday the 13th – mud mud mud
Ranch: Fri 13th December 2019: I'm just back from the ranch and I'm soaked. Really soaked. I had four days without [...]
Letterpress and woodblock printing
Louise read me a Ted Hughes poem last night - Stubbing Wharfe. He's talking about his time with Sylvia Plath and it [...]
Plant-based and poltroontard
Ranch: At work we do tests of change. It's a common sense way of trying out new ways of working to see [...]
More floods and family & friends
Ranch: More floods - Hebden last week then South Yorkshire & Venice plus catastrophic fires overseas. Here, the weather is pretty [...]
Back on the road
Ranch: The beginning of November is the arbitrary time when I start pruning the hedge. Fencing is a big consideration when [...]
Clocks back, end of an era and Derry Girls.
Ranch: 27.10.19 – 13.13 The clocks have gone back. It’s a sharp day with a cool darting wind and long spells [...]
Punk rock and mud
Ranch: Autumn rain and sogginess are so extensive, that the area below the beds in the field is a mud-bath, making [...]
Fig fiend, potato blight, emergency medicine and science.
Ranch: Summer has tumbled into autumn, with a brief late-summer hot and sunny reprieve which has given way to North-west lashing [...]
In which the bees arrive and Sagefest finally happens GalleryIn which the bees arrive and Sagefest finally happens
Digging a well, drainage, Ferguson tractor, Festival, Irrigation, NOTSENSIBLES, organic gardening, permaculture, Punk rock, Rock & Roll, self-sufficiency, soak-hose, The first ever Sagefest, VW split screen
In which the bees arrive and Sagefest finally happens
Ranch: Summer has catapulted along and August is here. North-west English weather remains my favourite: blustery; often grey; patchy rain and [...]
Talking to the bees
Ranch: 7 am. Friday 10th May - computer at home. I have that Friday feeling for a very good reason. I'm [...]
Me and the trees
Ranch: Whenever I arrive at the ranch, I wander round, having a look at everything. I jokingly call it a ward [...]
Transcending the apocalypse
Ranch: I’m cold and wet. I’ve just walked through the park and the blustery March gales delivered a dose of HHWDR [...]
A ‘piece of work’ and frozen ground
Ranch: The ground has been frozen hard for a week. Fortunately, I got all the tree planting done before the cold [...]
A new chapter and relinquishing control.
Ranch Christmas, New Year, Winter, Summer and so on. Do the trees celebrate? Do the foxes and tawny owls have an [...]
Triple Mad Friday, stray cats and settling into the right groove.
Ranch I nearly didn't bother going up today - I'm knackered from trips to the Dirty old Town. I'm glad that I [...]
Edinburgh, The Buzzcocks and Northern Soul.
Ranch I'm just back from the ranch. It's soggy. The weather has settled into its signature North-west dish of fine penetrating [...]
Pea house, well, Roy Bailey.
Ranch It’s 11:27 on the 25th of November 2018. I’m on the ranch. I’m sitting at the table that I made [...]
War time gardening, human spectrum
Sunday 11th November 2018 I normally associate the yellowing of leaves with the end of September but it's nearly mid November [...]
Wild tractor adventure
Monday 5th November 2018 I love this picture – there’s so much going on. Behind is one of the best views [...]
Giant runner beans and a 5 watt valve guitar amp.
Fri 19th October 2018 Ranch The ranch is where it all begins and the rest follows. It’s simple. Grow some food. [...]