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So – I’m just not blogging.
In the pre-dawn darkness (but it will probably get finished later, in the light, if at all) I decide to come here, and imagine for a minute, that cat, jane and rachel are around my kitchen table, and we each have a steaming mug of typhoo tea and we’re waiting for daylight and to go down to the barn together.(In reality, Neil just had to leave mega early, the girls are getting dressed and tidying their rooms, while we wait for enough light to turn out the ponies.)
And I’m sipping on my tea and saying … you know, I’m just not blogging. It’s not happening at the moment, and what worries me is, since I’m not a great scapbook maker or journaller or even Flikr addict, that was my record – those were my precious memories of my children’s childhood. And I’m just letting them slip by.
I kind of feel like I have outgrown the person who started the chestnuts blog – apart from anything else we moved house, and although we still rent the land that was ‘chestnuts’, it’s now just home to a couple of dozen sheep, and I seldom go there. Except last week when they escaped 350 tmes and I had to keep going and getting them in.
I was in a phase, when I began it, where a lot of my friends have been, and some still are, where I was fascinated by plain living, by the amish and mennonites, read Scott Savage, kept meaning to read Wendell Berry and didn’t (!) celebrated each new day with some harder less technical way of doing everything. I had flatirons so I used them. Even though I don’t usually iron anything ! I wore long shapeless pinafore dresses and a head square. I’m not knocking anyone who is convicted of headcovering – but I wasn’t, I was playing. Confronting that caused some pain.
Those days are gone. I mourn them in many ways – I wish I still had hopes of seeing both my children in home made plain dresses day in and day out. I wish I spent silent evenings quilting by lamplight. But it’s gone. If I want to do those things, I can do them, but I have to engage with them in the era into which I was actually born. I could improve my sewing and make skirts we would wear. I could machine piece quilts – then maybe one day I’d have time to actually make one, instead of just dreaming!
Anyway here I am now – I started a couple of other blogs, one time and another, and I kind of like them, but I don;’t have the habit, you know? I’m not telling anyone. I’m not telling anyone that H has a new pony – he’s on loan from some people Neil works for – or how school is going -we’re getting there, with a total change of style and approach – or about guides, or about the successes and failures of the harvest. I’m not even telling anyone about an exciting new chance to expand our goat herd into a viable business.
I joined Weightwatchers Online (again) and I’m trying to start over, you know how you do. With church once again causing ripples of concern, and autumn bringing on that reflective, slightly sorrowful, turn of year contemplation, I just want to air my life out of an upstairs window one last time, in the smoky September air, before I batten down the hatches for winter. But I’m just not blogging. I’m not telling anyone.
What do you reckon girls? What shall I do? Oh, and help yourselves to flapjack.
We just got it this year, and this is our first season using it – it’s been interesting, frustrating, you know, all the usual think you know everything, turns out you know squat, stuff. So I’m reprinting my answer, in case anyone might find it useful, and you know, Cat, when I get a minute, I’ll tell about Why the English Don’t Can, too (sounds like a Just So Story ….. Once upon a time, o best beloved, in a scummy kitchen in England …)
Hi Jane
OK, about the polytunnel … well, it has been great, but I have made a lot of mistakes, I would say it’s something you’ve got to really learn about.
One thing I did was overplant, drastically.
I planted it up, and Neil said he felt I didn’t have enough stuff in there, but boy, I promise you, I had way too much. It turned into a jungle, I lost control, and hence the diseases took over – so first tip, start small, be strict about your planting distances, and don’t plant more than you can manage on a regular basis.
You would ideally get the plastic on on a warmish day, which means the plastic goes on taut – but it is essential to be on a windless day, we nearly took off just with our little one.
As to whether you are in the right climate – do people around you use them? I find that to be key, I mean look at me and my pressure canner! Saved for years and imported the thing before I worked out WHY the English don’t can LOL.
Will it extend your season? Will you be able to grow anything in there in the winter? Will it make spring and fall salads available to you that otherwise wouldn’t be? If not, I am wondering why you would have one?
We have them for two reasons – to enable us to grow things which, with your long daylight hours and sunny summers I think you can grow anyway, such as peppers, cucumbers, chillies, and (if you don’t get blight!) tomatoes which ripen before the frost gets them! And secondly, to grow salad crops in winter, and to extend the season of some other green crops and succesional crops. The polytunnel will be in use year round.
So, I would recommend finding a local market garden or CSA grower, and asking them if they use them, and if so why, and if not why not.
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