Home, home on the range

The little homestead is looking more ready for summer, and less battened down for the winter. Baby plants are growing in pots, four chickens (Welsummers, for the chuck aficionados) are ordered and the chuck house has been given two coats of preservative and is clean. Two days ago it was three inches deep in water and I was wondering whether to buy ducks...or dolphins. Anyway, Welsummers lay better (than dolphins, no-one lays better than the ducks I used to have) and various foodstuffs have been planted. The whole thing makes me feel better. The best news is, I have several bowls of cherries growing in my baby tree, and with a bit of luck and the judicious use of a net curtain, they are ALL MINE.

The book has been shared with beta readers D and B, who have a million better things they ought to be doing but are kind enough to help by reading through the book for me. Hopefully I am down to minor edits, repetitions, typos and the odd clunky sentence. I may have to share my bowls of cherries...though I don't think they would survive the postal service. I will be reciprocating.

Meantime, I have written 2200 words of the rationale for my dissertation, the 'why I did what I did' bit. I've finally heard the message my tutor's been telling me - just write it and send it in. So I will.

Here is Kid 5 and 6 painting the chicken shed in the back yard. We literally back onto a cliff so the yard is quite sheltered.

And this is the raised beds the kids weeded for me, all bursting with seeds and plants (and wigwams).