March Thoughts & Feelings 🌱🌧️☀️
Added 2025-03-27 08:28:11 +0000 UTCHello lovely people 💖 We have had CONSTANT rain for over three weeks and to say we’ve got cabin fever is a slight understatement 😅🤦🏻♀️ Trying to keep Sage entertained in one room has been a challenge. There’s been dens, crane building and we have almost got through all the Shrek movies. We are SO delighted that there is such an abundance of water, but my gosh, a day or five of sunshine would be much appreciated. (The weather on the coast is dramatically different to here, even though it’s only 45 minutes away, so we did manage one day out of the clouds last week!)
We ran out of dry logs this month, and to make matters worse, the chainsaw broke. So poor Robbie has been going out every morning with his hand saw chopping trees. When you live in a cloud, and it’s 85% humidity, burning wet, fresh wood is not ideal. So I am working on Robbie, trying to get him interested in building a wood shelter! Wish me luck🤞🏻
After borrowing a friend’s trailer for the past few years, we finally took the plunge this month and bought our own trailer! I’ve been doing countless trips down the mountain to pick up organic horse manure, and with all this rain it’s already well on its way to breaking down! I am SO excited for the summer garden, after last year’s horrendous drought, I am feeling very optimistic for this season! Going outside at the moment means spending most of the time hiding in the polytunnel, which obviously means I have totally overdone it on the tomatoes.
As always, THANK YOU SO MUCH for your continued support. BIG LOVE to you all.
(We also wanted to say thank you to Charles Hilliard, who sent us a lovely children’s book all the way from California! It only took three months, but it finally arrived and we adore it ❤️)
Comments
Thank you Michael! Really appreciate your comments and support! The clouds are so epic, we hope one day soon we'll buy a good camera and a long distance lens so we can capture them better, the clouds are such a big aspect of our lives being on the mountain, they're so cool, today we're completely in the mist and can't see a thing, and the nightingale started singing for the first time this year, it's quite a magical! 🧡
Emilia Fenton
2025-04-03 09:33:09 +0000 UTCThanks Charles! Sage is really pushing his limits these days, he wants to try everything, he gets into quite a lot of trouble, but just manages to get himself out of danger at the last minute, which is good to see! Learning on his own. We still want to get a few goats and sheep, for sure there will be a big fire risk this summer with all the growth after the rains. Thanks for the article it looks interesting - wow there really are a lot of different breeds, we'll make sure to give it a full read before we buy some! We need a breed of goat that doesn't destroy our terrace walls when they jump up and down them (so perhaps a smaller goat better for this), can protect themselves from dog attacks (because they will have GPs collars/ 'no fence' they call it - so perhaps a bigger goat needed for this!), and eat all the big spikey bushes (bigger goat better) but not too much of the trees (so again, maybe a smaller goat breed better for this - like the Nigerian Dwarf one at the top of that list). So it's quite complicated haha! We have found a company in Spain that sell the No Fence GPS collars and the prices seem to be coming down as they grow in popularity around the world. We also want to build a nice shelter for them, like the one we're making for the chickens, so that will take some time as well, but it's definitely at the forefront of our minds! 🧡
Emilia Fenton
2025-04-03 09:29:34 +0000 UTCThank you Arthur for your comment and all your wonderfully kind support for our little family! Definitely words of wisdom there - this month has been crazy, the number of things that have gone wrong, or need fixing... we've spent such little time filming, sometimes it feels like we'll never get another video out again because fixing everything is a full time job on a piece of land this big! The problem with the chainsaw ended up just being the spark plug, we did buy a new one and tried fitting it but still couldn't get it to start, the repair shop put another new one in and it worked.... Robbie spent several days playing around with the spark plug and cleaning the air filter, and checking fuel pipe etc! We just hope that soon we can get Sage to help us with all the farm maintenance jobs! 🧡
Emilia Fenton
2025-04-03 09:20:29 +0000 UTCOne thing about Homesteading, is that just when you need something, it breaks ;( I look forward to the continuation of your adventures after your long "Spa" week. Love you all, Art in Calif.
Arthurs Realm
2025-03-30 20:39:36 +0000 UTCThat was refreshing!! And Sage is at such an enchanting age--the star of the post. Adding the names of the birds is a welcome touch. Any updates on goats or sheep? Here's a post/article from Country Living Magazine that details features of popular dairy goats: https://search.app/qXcVj While you may not have exactly the same breeds in Spain, perhaps it will be helpful in thinking about how to assess different breeds for the features you most value if you do end up going forward with goats.
Charles Hilliard
2025-03-28 03:57:09 +0000 UTCLiving in the clouds
Michael Leonard
2025-03-27 14:02:58 +0000 UTC
