Keeping the wolf from the door

new fenceWell, hopefully it will keep the deer and the hares from the vegetable garden. We have a new fence.

Isn’t it handsome? It’s made of simple chestnut stakes wired together. I like the fact that it is unfussy. And made of local ingredients. This is a chestnut farm after all.

Getting the stakes into the ground every two metres was the hardest part.  We are trying to put wooden stakes into ground right next to a rock wall. So that means trying to sneak the wood in between the stones.  But it’s solid and safe and I’m delighted.

I still have to put up the one of the other side of the garden.  But I will have to buy more upright stakes first.  new pool

This morning I thought I was going to race down to the vineyard to finish weeding.  But the pool man came to do the last work on the new pool liner. So I felt I had to hang around in case he needed me to sign a cheque (I’m the cheque signing queen this year with all the flood damage repairs).

So I kept myself busy with planting out all sorts of little treats into the shade garden bank.

I have seven santolinas (primrose gem) in a shady part under the chestnut tree; plus more euphorbias, more lavenders.

And I decided to plant out all the kangaroo paws in the terrace bank behind the potting shed.  They have to cope in the dry conditions. And if they flower this year I promise to do a mad dance around the pool.

Artur spent the Entire Day snoozing in his new box in the potting shed. So he wasn’t much company today.  But he was drooling with happiness and kept breaking out into spontaneous purring whenever I came near.  So I hope that’s a good sign.  He doesn’t look wobbly from the tick bites.

By late afternoon after the fence was done and the plants were in I had no excuse. Down to the vineyard I went.  It’s achingly slow.  And by the end of the day I can look at that wretched vineyard and see that I have just three rows to go.

Not the way I expected to spend my 50th birthday. But why not? This farm is exactly where I want to be. Even if it does involve weeding a vineyard and getting lacerated by brambles and zinging from nettle attacks.