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 - [...]
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 [...]
Northward bound
We’ve come on holiday by mistake. Past the old toll house on the right. Past the caravan park where they used [...]
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 [...]
Tractor action
The Ranch: It's Sunday and I'm just back from the ranch. The snow has all gone in the town but [...]
Revolution of the reasonable
The Ranch: A freeze serendipitously embraces the New Year period. A raw, bruised, brutal beauty embraces the ranch. A blanket [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]