The spring is truly remarkable, and here you can see the meadow growing from about 1 inch in late (22nd) April to over 1m in less than six weeks. It is remarkable – that’s why I just remarked on it.

Now here is the in early (4th) June

I think you will agree that that is pretty darn amazing. The only sucky thing (it’s a pretty big sucky thing as it goes) is that of the 20 or so varieties of wild flowers I planted (including 60 plugs), the meadow is pretty much only corn cockle.

Of course there is the odd other thing, like corn marigold, poppy, corn chamomile and corn flower, but while these number in the 3′s and 4′s the corn cockle is in the hundreds.

Let’s talk about the meadow, because that is of course what you are reading this for.

Firstly, it’s coming along. I cannot yet say what is coming or whether it will be a success, but looking at the the marvellous display on offer from the Dandelion, I am hopeful.

Sure dandelions are an annoying weed, and I have been actively trying to rid “the meadow” of it, but who can argue with it’s perfect yellowness. I think if I were a bee I would exclusively harvest dandelions. They are mesmerising.  The joke of it all is that I’ve been busting my balls to cultivate a wild flower meadow, it seems the garden has other plans!!

Anyway, the meadow itself survived the winter, and as you will see (below), there is life; although not exactly how I planned it!! In the meadow only one species established itself over the wicked winter. Although there are other signs of life, and many other little shoots appearing, 95% of what is growing is (what I now believe to be) Corncockle. Not ideal, but not terrible either. These plants germinated last October, literally days after we sowed the meadow, and I am amazed that they survived days upon days of thick frost and some brutal -10C temperatures.

Corncockle!?!

A couple weeks ago, a bit disheartened by the lack of variety I thought I’ld chuck some money at the problem and ordered some plugs (young plants that you just plug into the ground). So last weekend we planted:

• 30 ox-eye daisy
• 10 red campion
• 10 ragged robin
• 10 lesser knapweed

On later inspection I reaslised that the ragged robin and lesser knapweed may not flower for 2 years, so that wasn’t very smart, but watch this space 2011!!

So here it is as I captured it today. This includes the plugs that we planted over last weekend. I also ordered some more wild-flower seed, and am tempted to throw some more seed down, but I have so far resisted. We also added some rocks so that the boys can walk through the flowers… if they ever get going.

I’ve been watching the meadow weekly, waiting for the spring, and I can now say that the wait is over.

The plot is covered in stuff, in particular a weird and unidentified looking plant has just about taken over, but I have not lost hope yet. The spring is late this year and there are many signs that there is life coming, but the wait is painful.

I have envisaged a million ox-eye daisies and musk mallow, apparently, both of these “easy to grow”, but as yet I am doubtful if any of the four thousand seeds  of these species have taken root. I blame the harsh winter.

I haven’t given up hope, because I have been growing some plants from seed indoors, and also I bought some plugs (more tomorrow). So I will have a meadow this year. But this is n’t as easy as I first imagined.

• it requires little maintenance
• we are in a field, it makes sense
• if it was spring time, I may have done tomatoes and/or beans, as they grow quickly and the boys would love it, but it isn’t spring, it’s autumn.
• I love poppies
• wildlife is fun and who knows what insects we may get visiting.

So I ordered the seed from www.meadowmania.co.uk

I got lots of seeds. I don’t intend to sow all the seeds but wanted to keep my options open.

Wild Flower I

Wild Flower II

Grasses

Cornflower mix

I also got some extra Ox-Eye Daisy

and some Musk Mallow

because they are awesome.

Sadly, I didn’t take these snaps, I just knicked them from flickr

Before we get into the hoeing, just check out G being awesome.

Second off, I’ve nearly done with with the grass digging and the soil turning and I will be sowing in the next 10 days or so.

It’s been hard work to say the least and really, and it is quite easy to see why tractors were invented. The plot measures 2.2 m * 6.8 m and it’s probably taken about 16 man hours to get in into this state. I have been able to buy some awesome tools from a local shop (Groves -  honestly the best garden centre ever). Imagining people doing this without iron tools is humbling. Although please keep in mind that even though I wasn’t built for manual labour, I still envy those tool less people who didn’t have to drive for 3 hours a day to sit in front of a computer for another 7.

Anyways, I digress.

Above you can see the state of play last weekend.

Boom, tonight at around 18:00.

I also ordered the flowers, I’ll write about that in more detail while I am at work. My right arm is killing me, that’s my forking arm. The hoeing hasn’t been easy either.

There are a lot of brambles around. These things are annoying, so they get burnt. Blackberries too.

Last weekend I bought a hoe, and we have started digging out a patch where I intend to make a mini meadow, with poppies and other cool stuff that I like but don’t yet know the names of . The idea is to populate it more or less English meadow flowers, and not too cultured either, I want it to be crazy and natural.

The hoe and fork

D is interested in digging, G is interested in wiggly worms, K is interested in keeping the boys happy (including myself), but I like gardening. I don’t actually care about growing food, maybe as I get older that may be something that I want to to do, but for now it is a completely frivolous activity, aimed primarily at becoming something fun to do, and hopefully nice to look at. Peggy says that we can plant and grow lettuce in six weeks, so I may try this, as I don’t expect that there will be any meadow activity till next spring.

I couldn’t tell you now big the plot we intend to meadow-ify is, but it is probably something like 12ft * 60ft. I have no real idea how big it is, and it is hard to guess distances in grassy fields.  We are aiming to dig out all the way to the tree on the right.

The plot

Sorry this post isn’t very amusing, I just wanted to to note that we had started The Project.

I get in the car at 06:45 sharp. I tell Tom-Tom that I need to be in at 08:00 hours. It says I’m already 4 minutes late. I know the drill. If I avoid the A3066 (like Tom-Tom advises) by the time I hit the A35, I’ll only be 2 minutes late. A couple other micro-optimizations and I get in to work with around 5 minutes to spare.

Work starts at 08:00, some start at 08:45, those losers stay till 17:15. The lucky early birds leave at 16:30.

The sandwich lady arrives at 12:15. I get my lunch (£2.20), we get free fruit and coffee. (Free milk too, but if you are having cereal all day – as a lot of people do – you should buy your own milk). At 13:00 I have my lunch. Sometimes, I go put petrol in the car, sometimes I walk down to the coast. It’s less than a 10 minute walk and the view, even for a hater like me, is awesome.

Life stops again at 14:00, and resumes at 16:30.

The race home.

I tell Tom-Tom get me home for 18:00. I have about  a 1 in 3 chance of making it, and so, sometimes I get in with minutes to spare.

No time for anything, bath the boys, bed time, 1 hour in front my PC, 1 hour for TV and supper, and then it’s sleep time again. It’s a minor miracle if one of the boys doesn’t wake us up. Around 1 in 20 we get an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

I do this 5 times a week, and so far, I’m surviving. I think the novelty of having a real job and living a normal life is so amusing and so fresh to me, that this seems like a vacation. A change is as good as a rest, don’t cha know.

I started the new job and my leisure time has been cut to around 4 minutes per week.  On top of my TWO jobs, I have also taken on a freelance project (out of sympathy, rather that necessity, you understand). Anyways, will update this soon.

There is a family of foxes in the next-door field, and we often see the vixen and her two cubs playing silly games, and I’m sure I’ll have some horror stories to report when the hunting starts , but until then I’m happy to watch them play. It does also make me wonder about how easy it would be to realise my dream of rearing a few chickens.

I’ve also failed to mention that there are also deer, I’ve seen what looks like a doe and her two children. They are extremely timid, and we only see them from about 20 metres (although about three nights ago she came right up to our fence just as the sun was going down), their camouflage is very good in the uncut long grass, so it is quite hard to spot them, but they are there (deer).  Hoee Hee. A pun.

One of my new rituals has been to clear up the boys toys in the garden after they have gone to bed, last night I got a little caught up in Problem 251 (it really is a tricky little bastard) and finally went to clear up the toys just as it was getting dark, a little later than usual. The farmer had only a few hours earlier cut the other field, so the air was thick with the smell of grass.

That’s when the assault happenened. Luckily I had a (sponge) cricket bat in my hand, but it didn’t stop me from screaming. I heard a muffled THUD and felt an IMPACT on my arm. I screamed. I flayed the bat like a mad man.  WTF was invented for this very occasion. I looked around to see what it was.

Yehouahogarhh

I screamed.

A monster.

I shaked my body hard, making certain the little devil spawn was gone and ran inside.

I went to tell K about my ordeal, and asked her if she hadn’t heard me screaming.

She said she hadn’t.  The next bit isn’t too clear, although I do remember not ever being this scared before, certainly not in a city .

It was still on ME.

Arhogghheeeeeeeeeeeeeeraaaaaaagh

I know what the superhuman strength that Bruce (David[sic]) Banner was trying to tap into. I ripped off my shirt, and heard the buttons scatter like Tic-Tacs on a marble floor.  If I hadn’t stopped smoking I would have chained about 20. Once the beast had been caged. I ran for the camera, I can blog this I shrieked (every cloud has a silver lining).

K took the glass cage off for this photograph.

A cloud ii

But I was too scared to face him without some protection

A cloud i

I love it here, but sometimes, I do miss the sanitized world of the city.

We got him a HET200A, I admit it is an odd present (for anyone),  and he loves it more that I think is healthy, but I will deal with his obsession on another day and do a proper post about his vacuum cleaners, so you can fully see the extent of his hoover love.  His godfather is obsessed with levelling, he is obsessed with vacuums. To each his own I say.

Anyways, here is D getting to grips with country life, check out the awesome tractor (thanks Dorko and T). Nice! Note the swing in the top right, I made that with my own bare hands (and a drill and some rope).

When in Rome

I also baked and decorated his birthday cake. I’m sure Peggy is suitably impressed. It’s amazing how little you actually need to know to do something like this.  My thanks go to Dr. Oetker.

Cake, sorted

Anyways, I got to actually go be with D and the rest of the crew now.