Yesterday, to get back on schedule, I went out to check the upper loop of the farm. Monica had arranged for us to attend the Manchester Eurobal in the afternoon so there wasn’t time to beat up many trees. I did take a good look at every planting, though, and almost everything in the woodland and the coppices is now growing strongly, which was brilliant to see. The remaining fig is likely to die, I think, and I’m still too cowardly to survey the forest garden but, in all, we have to be pleased with the health of the farm.
One job I did get done was to mark out the boundaries of the coppices with yellow stakes. I was a little surprised at the shape of the south oak and ash coppices: they seem to stretch wider at their lower boundary than Keith’s original drawings, all the way across to and behind Warland Barn. I must take a look at my Google Earth diagrams to check.
The dance was fun, though a bit under-attended. Angelika and Noel, from Cottage Antiques, came along, too, and Claire was there. We learned a couple of weird Swedish dances, by accident, mistakenly thinking it was an all-Breton affair.
Today, pretty exhausted from the dancing and climbing, I had an easy morning working towards completing the blanket box, then knackered myself again by carrying fence-poles up to where I’ll be using them to reclaim the Lost Field.
The blanket box finally left the Joinery this evening. The new apron makes the legs properly strong enough and I’ve added touches of Ralphery to it. Rather than leaving the boards square, I gave the front a Lydgate arch and arrassed the sides and back. A nice job, though I say so myself. It’s good to get to the joinery.