Hawthorn Hill Nature Diary: October 21
The month begins with the bee loud sound of the ivy. The day is bright. Warm for October. The ivy wrapped trees are covered in flowers.
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Why Farms Were Less Lonely in the Fifties
We came round to a farmer over the hill. Out the road. Past seventy. His tractor rigged with strings and pulleys, hoists and straps for getting in and out, a place to stow his crutches
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Tree Sap Syrup
I’ve a mind to make syrup from tree sap on the farm. I’m combing the hedgerows and woodlands for good sized Alder, Sycamore, Beech, Poplar and Lime
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Hawthorn Hill Nature Diary September 21
The swallows gather, flock above the field and go. Summer holds its breath for one more year. The month has been warm. We have fresh grass. The lambing field is almost knee deep in rippling green.
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Honeybees, failing hives and why we farm holistically for bees
We have two hives remaining One colony gone. Dead. A thin drift of bees on the hive floor. Late to swarm, and light on bees. A small swarm. It was cold and wet before they swarmed.
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Shetland Sheep – Why They Work For A Sustainable Smallholding
Shetland Sheep. Small, tough, smart good mothers. A short blog on what’s good, and not so good and why we chose them
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Small Farms Build Community. Industrial Farms (often) Don’t. Here’s why.
Small farmers live where we work. And we love where we work. We live with our choices, and their results and consequences. In the land we live in.
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Hawthorn Hill Farm Nature Diary: August 2021
The heat broke in late July. Rain came. In great sheets. In misting drizzles. In grey swirls. In torrents. In floods. It has rained almost every day since. The stream that runs down under the road and down the shoulder of the farm to the valley floor has become thunderous. Its water is clear though. […]
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Hawthorn Hill Farm Nature Diary: July 2021
The air shimmers with swallows and insects. The birds trace a path above me as my passing sends up insects for their hunt. The ash and sycamore trees creak
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Bees at last! Bees at last! Thank the Swarms I’ve bees at last!
I had said in a past post that bees were a constructive kind of mid life crisis for me. Something of me. For me. Totally new. Beyond my comfort zone and outside my experience. A challenge to prove I am still equal to things. But a good one. A positive one. One with concrete, meaningful […]
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