A satisfactory weekend - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Sunday 1 February, 2004

by Dan at 9:34pm in Anything goes Comments closed

There have been times on a winter's Sunday evening when I've looked back at the weekend past and reflected on how little I've achieved in the smallholding. There were some good reasons - inclement weather, family commitments, work commitments - but there were also bad excuses, and plain laziness. Since we both work full-time I tell myself that it's important to get some rest at the weekend, and I'm sure that's true, but it's always disappointing when you achieve less than you feel you should have, in whatever field.

No such worries this weekend. Yesterday as planned we hired a van, drove to Perth through the blizzards and found our way to McCash's Country Store. We'd never been before and I can highly recommend it to anyone in the area looking for anything for the outdoors, horses or pets. We collected our new hen ark, 4 bales of Hemcore to try as bedding for the hens and Smokey, and various other bits and pieces of clothing, horse treats and confectionary (they sell it all!). Drove home through the blizzards and found that Beatsons had delivered the sand, cement and gravel I'd ordered on Friday.

Today I got tore into the concrete mixing and got all but 3 of the fence posts for the new pig pen cemented in. Then it was inside to watch Chelsea beat Blackburn 3-2, the Arsenal beat Man City 2-1, a bath, some tea and an hour with Homer planning the vegetable beds for this coming year (he's improving quickly and when relaxed is a lovely cat). So tonight I have a sense of quiet satisfaction. Hopefully I can pull it off again next weekend - would another Chelsea win be too much to ask for too?