Autumn at Clun

The recent winds and rain have virtually stripped the trees, and given us gentle encouragement to batten down the hatches and turn our thoughts to working on the inside of the house again. This winter we hope to get the two downstairs rooms reworked, refloored and decorated... its quite ambitious, but that's the plan.

Of course there are still the outside jobs that need doing as and when the weather permits. Today we made a start on the chicken / duck enclosure. Getting the posts in is going to be quite a challenge but the thought of fresh eggs is spurring us on - we just need a couple of weekends and the right kit to get the job done. Thing is, we haven't quite worked out exactly what we need! Past experience says you never have the thing you need, no matter what you've got to hand.

Last week the sheep that found their way into our field finally got picked up, not before one of them managed to get itself well and truly stuck in the fence though. It's true they are remarkably stupid , and continually looking for new ways to die! Thankfully we spotted it and got it out of its rather ridiculous predicament, unfortunately the fence didn't fare so well.

Changing Times

Autumns here ... and properly I mean. Not the nice sunny late September, the weird up and down, one minute its raining and the next its blazing, type autumn that makes keeping Tom dry, warm but not too warm sooooo difficult!

Anyway, the raspberries continue in force. Every dry day is a picking day, and the freezer is now brimming with this year's harvest. Which is just as well as we just have a few odds and ends coming in now, even the tomatoes are nearly all gone (but not quite!).

With the chicken house all painted, we are designing the run that will hopefully keep the new recruits nice and safe as well as giving them a great area to play around in. Can't wait until we are able to actually go and get some!

The darker evenings are turning our thoughts towards the inside of the house once more. Having totally abandoned work inside since about May, we're itching to get the sledgehammer and paintbrushes out again. What will be first? Whatever it is it's sure to mean some pretty drastic changes of use for rooms upstairs and down, whether they become permanent we'll just have to wait and see!

What a wonderful weekend ...

So we thought we'd have a weekend off ... of course we didn't, but we did have a lovely weekend anyway doing camping the Clun farm way and the only way that camping or indeed glamping should be done...in a field with bunting!

At last we had a couple of nights of beautiful night skies, perfect for catching ISS as it travelled about 350km overhead

Check out the night sky pics here...

Saturday we had a very successful, if long, blackberry pick.

While Sunday was taken up with "a little light gardening", or hedge slaying, and wall building

All in all a lovely, rewarding and slightly less hassled weekend. Thanks sunshine!