We have arrived.
We are actually here. I can hardly believe it. All our planning. All the searching. All the waiting. It has totally paid off, and here we are at Westyard Farm. It feels so good to say the name. It feels so right to hear it. I keep walking through the farmhouse and the yard shouting the name at the top of my voice....telling it WE ARE HERE!
Our first weekend has culminated in some really good projects and ideas. Gutters and drains unblocked. Gateways opened and cut back. We have inherited two bantams, apparently who refused to be collected up when the previous owners left. Like the rest of the farm, the chicken run is totally overgrown and what was once a great idea is now prey to the ever increasing jungle of wilderness - mother nature gone feral. Our first job entailed cutting down a chestnut tree that had claimed centrepiece of the run and was rather rudely crowding the joint. It's branches were low slung and sprawling across the run creating lovely shady hidey-holes for the bantams, AND our new enemies......RATS.
While we are not naive to realise that vermin are part of the furniture, it was quite a surprise how many there were once we started to scatter the chicken feed, and quite how brazenly they ran forward to eat it from under our feet.
Having removed the offending chestnut tree ( the main trunk now in the barn awaiting the arrival of a new chainsaw), and cleared and hosed out the chicken house of years worth of poo, our bantams have now decided that it is a suitable residence and are making it home.
Not unlike us. I feel like I have successfully started the flow of our new energy in the property and the grounds. But, I still await the main event. It is part of the cleanse I feel I need to do. And it is not just the ethereal notion of "getting rid of their shit man" - it's a real thing. First thing in the morning we will call the nearest septic tank man to empty 27 years of someone else's crap. Literally. It is 'full to bust' as my old Caribbean pal Tyrone would say.
Our first weekend has culminated in some really good projects and ideas. Gutters and drains unblocked. Gateways opened and cut back. We have inherited two bantams, apparently who refused to be collected up when the previous owners left. Like the rest of the farm, the chicken run is totally overgrown and what was once a great idea is now prey to the ever increasing jungle of wilderness - mother nature gone feral. Our first job entailed cutting down a chestnut tree that had claimed centrepiece of the run and was rather rudely crowding the joint. It's branches were low slung and sprawling across the run creating lovely shady hidey-holes for the bantams, AND our new enemies......RATS.
While we are not naive to realise that vermin are part of the furniture, it was quite a surprise how many there were once we started to scatter the chicken feed, and quite how brazenly they ran forward to eat it from under our feet.
Having removed the offending chestnut tree ( the main trunk now in the barn awaiting the arrival of a new chainsaw), and cleared and hosed out the chicken house of years worth of poo, our bantams have now decided that it is a suitable residence and are making it home.
Not unlike us. I feel like I have successfully started the flow of our new energy in the property and the grounds. But, I still await the main event. It is part of the cleanse I feel I need to do. And it is not just the ethereal notion of "getting rid of their shit man" - it's a real thing. First thing in the morning we will call the nearest septic tank man to empty 27 years of someone else's crap. Literally. It is 'full to bust' as my old Caribbean pal Tyrone would say.
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