The primroses are flowering like mad all along the banks on the lanes around here. Being stuck behind a very large tractor is positively pleasurable as you can gaze at the primroses, daffodils that are presumably garden fugitives, celandines and all those little white things whose names I cannot remember. I put one field of alpacas out on the lawn (ha ha) yesterday to avoid any mowing. They do wreck the shrubs while they are at it as they seem to like walking through them – umm. Still no one can accuse us of having a proper garden so it doesn’t really matter. Every so often I take the pruning saw to stuff but this is a random occurrence. I have tried to get a gardener but no one wants to do it when they realise the size. It is not big at all but I guess they just want to tackle very small gardens.
I do have a vegetable garden in the making though, now vey nicely covered with well rotted alpaca poo. I have got to get round to chucking some seeds into it very very soon. Last year I put a load of cougette seeds in the top of the alpaca poo mountain and they did very nicely. My trouble is that I get bored with the idea of labelling rows so until the plants get bigger have no idea what is in there. And my rows are never straight, a source of great irritation to the men in my life, who like to see straight lines and can even draw them – amazing.
We have managed to get our entries off for the Royal Bath & West show classes. It is very difficult choosing young animals now for a show in June as their fleeces will change a lot in the intervening period. Also the organisers have decided to bang up the alpacas at the show from Thursday to Saturday which we really disapprove of as it is stressful for them and seems totally unnecessary. We have complained but have been ignored. I wanted to pull out but Chas says we have to go, our local show and all that. Suspect some of our animals will find their way home on Friday night!
I have to finish as we are off to the building site to measure up for bathroom floor tiles as there are some very cheap at Sainsbury’s Homebase this weekend. I went there yesterday to get some indoor pots for these enormous bulbs I bought in Amsterdam and have still not planted. Then its back to the computer as I have to write three articles for Country Smallholder pronto, copy date almost immediately.