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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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

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 [...]

Farter’s day

  The Ranch - is a routine of comfort in a sea of madness and rising darkness. Planting; weeding; tidying; concrete [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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

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 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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