Our Christmas Day

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Stonehurst Farm Victorian Christmas

On the way to Stonehurst Farm Victorian Christmas weekend we dropped into the local garden centre to pick up an axe for Bruce's birthday on Tuesday (lucky man eh!) and have a reccy at their Christmas trees. All I can say is that this Father Christmas was prophetic, their prices were astronomical starting at £40!

This was a very welcome sight at the entrance to the farm.

As you can see there was a lot of mud, I could have done with these boots that I have just bought on ebay, the only things likely to fit me for a while.

This sheep was very eager to get at the food,

and some speed feeding was going on here!

And this cutie enjoyed a good scratch behind the ears.

I was surprised to see these babies at this time of year.

In the petting shed we witnessed this demonstration of keenness to be petted,

There was however lots of petting going on, Beth could have stayed her for hours but we persuaded her to leave in order to look for food saying we would come back but we forgot. Will have to go again but maybe wait till it is warmer.

Beth got these very seasonal hair clips in a lucky dip for 50p, quite a bargain, it wasn't divided by gender and it did set me wondering what a boy of the same age would have made of them?

And who could be expected to resist a ride on this!

She actually hit a pack of cards but the cork 'bullets' were too light to knock them off.

And of course this is always fun.

And don't we all agree that this is the perfect way to finish off a freezing cold and clammy visit to a farm?

And if you haven't had more than enough there are more pictures here.

Halloween

One of the gift pumpkins became a new style for us of Jack o lantern.  I saw some beautiful examples of lanterns where the skin was partially cut away rather than completely just to let the light shine through on Flickr and showed them to Beth thinking to help her make one later.  But when I eventually wheeled  into the kitchen it was done and dusted much to my surprise and a very good effort I think it was.

 Beth had great fun making a blood transfusion pouch for her vampire self, unfortunately face paint now makes her face itchy so we couldn’t go the whole hog.

 She absolutely adores trick or treating, something quite alien to us and something we have resisted.  She has been out with the older kids in previous years, they complain about doing this as we wouldn’t let them do it but usually help out, but this year neither of them were available so Bruce swallowed his reservations and took her.  She had a great time as usual getting a large hoard of sweets and some money and coming back glowing with the cold and the excitement of it all.

The evening was finished off with a not too bad pumpkin soup, for some reason I can never find the last recipe we used so have to look for a new one  each year.  This was not the best one I have ever made but it was Ok, but not one to save so I will be in the same position next year, and will probably be wondering why I haven’t saved last years!

And Jamie took my camera out and took these lovely pictures of the moon.

And just for the record I am still non weight bearing and using a wheelchair here.

In the Garden

It was a beautiful day so we made it into the garden to try out the new chimnea.  My access to the garden includes two wheelchairs an ikea office stool and some very undignified and at times quite scary acrobatics, but it is worth it.

However, getting a good blaze going in the chimnea proved to be far from simple.  It is sold as a wood burner and we have plenty of that lying about since my fall stopped play in August and nothing but the most essential tasks have been done.  Possibly it was because the wood was a little damp having been left out in the weather or maybe bits of folded paper are not a good way to start it although we also used dried out foliage and cardboard.  It was very smokey and I felt sorry for the neighbours but we did eventually get it giving out some heat.

We still have much to learn about using it.  We were supposed to be burning the blighted tomato plants but didn’t get that far but we did harvest the last of the tomatoes.  This year some of them survived the blight and although we have had blight for about a month we have still been able to harvest the tomatoes though in smaller quantities.

The light was beautiful,

and I was able to steer myself around, camera round neck and get some shots of the autumn colour that we have been planting for, for the last few years.

Fothergilla

Amelanchier

Cotinus

Acer

Callicarpa

The peppers have been absolutely fantastic this year and we haven’t bought any for a while.

Not quite justified the cost of a £200 greenhouse but give it a few years!

I managed to get to the back of the garden and have a dig around for the garlic that I was sure was there but no one else could find.

I also harvested seed from some of them and was stupidly surprised to find that the seeds look like little garlic cloves.

So I planted some up and got Bruce to put them in the greenhouse to see what happens.  I hope it will be the obvious.  The fist time in nearly three months that I have got my hands in compost and hopefully a taste of things to come.

While down at the veg beds I noticed this taking over, it is very pretty but I have no idea what it is.

And as we were out so was Beth at least for some of the time, getting some much needed sunshine and fresh air.

And while we were out one of our neighbours asked the kids if they would like a couple of pumpkins from their allotment, a very kind gesture which reassured me that we hadn't annoyed them too much with our smoke.

Jack o lanterns and pumpkin soup here we come.