Cracking hazel nuts

Ranch: Scudding clouds. Warm winds. Lots of sunny spells. A few showers. That's been the weather recipe this week here in [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Vaccus

Ranch: I feel so grateful to live on the edge of a big park, with a wonderful Elizabethan Hall and museum [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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