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 [...]
Making a hay wain
Ranch: I open the door after a week away. Everything is overgrown and all the beds need weeding. The embers [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
Starry night
The Ranch: High gardening season has crept up quietly. Now, with a few exceptions (beans and squashes) it's time to plant, [...]
Noble Art
Ranch: As a child, I remember arranging my pillows round my head and imagining that I was in an aeroplane [...]