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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The film
Ranch: I once vaguely considered writing a gardening book but I wouldn't get far - I'm just too gormless and [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]