Feeding the fire

We had a lovely quiet Easter, mostly at home. For the first time in many years I didn't go to the Folk Festival - I had a pang of missing out when I saw it on the news though, so maybe next year. I just didn't feel like people and travel, despite all the wonderful music. So my Easter travel was riding my bike into town twice and that was it.

The cat has been very happy because the nights have been cool enough to put the fire on ... although our threshold is low, because we just love having a fire. And we do really have mountains of wood. Most of  yesterday was spent in wood management. I am happy to use the little battery chainsaw, and my husband uses the slightly bigger electric chainsaw, but he says we need a proper petrol one to get through the big stuff.

We are both happy to wield the splitter for about ten minutes ... then we're puffed. Or, in my case, my sciatica flares up, because I grew two actual babies and my ligaments are stuffed. But splitting wood is a very satisfying business, so I still do it.

In less successful gardening stories, my seeds were not germinating very well and then I realised that the you beaut seed trays have liners that you're meant to use to hold the soil... I had put it all straight into the plastic trays with NO DRAINAGE and then religiously watered them for weeks until it was just a potting mix soup.

I am not sure if this adequately captures the morass these poor seeds were left in. Anyway I transplanted the ones that had germinated - despite them being way too small - into other pots, and some into newspaper pots so I didn't have to transplant them yet again. 

I am not sure about newspaper pots, I think they will disintegrate, but I saw some youtube videos that seemed fine. Sigh. I really don't know what I'm doing. At least the Manuchurian pears are starting to get their beautiful autumn colour. 

Dad, rest easy, I'm not going to have a vegie bed under the trees. I just wanted to put broad beans in there to see if they'd come up - long term it will be shade loving perennials. Possibly hellebores, or we might even go native grasses. And yes, it is a full electric car, we don't see the point of hybrids. Also, you were right about autumn sowing for the lawn, none of the spring stuff did very well but I'm having way more luck with the patching that I've done in the last few weeks. Other than that, the cat would like me to stop taking photos and let her get back to her nap.