as busy as

It's all go, planting and digging, bodging and building.
Main crop tatties went in today, first earlies a week back, on the ground the pigs cleared last year just in front of the polytunnel. I am rather pleased with the long arching raised beds I've formed - practical yet aesthetically pleasing. Behind these beneath the birch and rowan trees I've planted a guild of fruit bushes, marching onions, and mint. I am undecided as yet whether to cover the bare soil between the plants with straw or a green manure - perhaps something to produce some chicken food.
The polytunnel looks great, all straight lines and neat sowings, in stark contrast to last years winding path and jungle feel. I'm told that your polytunnel says a great deal about you, so either I have changed, or am in the process of doing so, eh Tom? Or more likely just expressing another side of my personality. In any case I think we will produce alot more of the right kinds of food this year, rather than taking up so much space growing green tomatoes and pumpkins.
I've also built a chicken tractor to work some ground in the absence of pigs; we've decided not to get any this year as the freezer is full and we want to maximise use of the area cleared by the last lot. Pancetta is still plentiful too, nice and dry now so I hope it will stay good even as the weather warms up.
Our other focus for this year are the bees. We still have one colony, having lost the other over the winter. They left quite a store of heather honey, a consolation being greatly enjoyed by all the family, especially Hannah on her Lenten sugar fast. Not long to go now. We need to get the bees from the neighbouring field onto our land. This would have been easy during the winter when they were not flying, but now we are back to the 3 feet or 3 miles rule - either we step them 3 feet at a time, which would mean them slowly marching past our front door some time in July, or we seal up the hive and take it down the road for a while before bringing it back home. So of course the latter is in order. I will do this soon so that I can get on with multiplying the colony. We will lose out on honey, but I hope to end the year with 4 happy hives. More on this later as I work out how it all happens.