We said goodbye to two wonderful wwoofers this morning, sorry that they could not stay longer to see the polytunnel put up. Their help, humour and conversation will be missed as we complete that task without them. Tom and Angelika spent much of their week with us digging over the area and picking out couch grass roots. It was tedious and laborious, and we were all greatly relieved when the final row was finished. We have created an enormous pile, perhaps 3 cubic metres of solid couch grass! Of course as we then began to level the site those roots still popped up everywhere - I suspect they will for some time yet. Yesterday we marked out the footprint with pegs and string, and got two posts cemented in. Now we await Ron and his John Deere to lift the ton of sand up the hill, and so save us alot of back-breaking haulage.
Today was a day of rest, other than planting seeds, cleaning out the chicken house and hunting the web for a human-powered water pump. I like the look of the treadle pumps popular in India, and various bicycle powered pumps, any of which should do the job of bring water up the 5 metres or so from the burn to a reservoir above the tunnel.
Our first eggs began appearing this week, first duck eggs left all over the place, often in the burn, then lovely brown chicken eggs left in the nesting boxes by our otherwise errant hen. Maybe she can stay after all. The cockerels have been hunted almost to extinction now, bringing a quieter life (and a tasty casserole).

Polytunneling

It's arrived - piles of galvanized hoops and rolls of polythene, plus a plethora of other bits and bobs. It's like a giant mechano kit - hooray! Tom and Angelika arrived last night to wwoof for the week, and are currently in the sunshine digging out the couch grass roots that the pigs left behind. And there are alot of them, especially up the latrine end - those tidy Tamworths were careful not to dump and root in the same areas. So, one more going over and it will be time to build the frame.

There are suddenly a thousand other things to be getting on with now the spring has finally arrived. Amy, another wwoofer planted a good many seeds last week (lettuce, cabbage, beans, sprouts, some flowers) but there's more to get going now. We also got most of the trees planted last week - two sweet chestnuts, the wonderfully named hawthorn 'Ellwangeriana', a Shipova (a cross between a rowan and a pear, with a plum-like fruit), some honeysuckles and a fuchsia with edible berries, a holm oak, and optimistically, an almond. In fact I am being optimistic in planting many of the above at 225m in central Scotland, but with our favourable micro-climate, and a bit more global heating perhaps we'll get some exotic fruits for a while before meltdown.

Other jobs include finally ridding ourselves of the last of the roaming feral cocks, who's competitive adolescent crowing begins a little after 5am now. No neighbours have complained as yet, but I can't help but think someone must be grumbling angrily over her porridge.

The holding is alive with life - buds are bursting, birds are singing, and I'm away to be a part of it all.