Summer holiday...sort of.

While catching up on some of my favorite blogs, I have just stumbled upon my last post and realised that once again, a whole month has slipped by since I last posted.

In my defence, it has been summer, and although we haven't gone anywhere (I wish!), I have felt like we have had a bit of a holiday from the hard slog of running a smallholding. In summer there is not much to be done besides mowing and picking - it has been so wet that things have watered themselves. 

It is lovely around here at this time of the year and most evenings I try to get out for a mooch in the surrounding countryside, just taking in the summer . This is what it looks like round these parts:

The hedgerows cast dappled shadows on the baking tarmac lanes...

Pretty wild flowers brighten up the long grass...

Even at 8pm the sun is really powerful...

Footpaths across fields become more like corridors (anyone seen the film 'Signs'? Shudder!)...

The sweetcorn tassels are still fresh and pinky...but will soon darken and shrivel when the corn is ready.

The fields are golden as far as the eye can see with scratchy, rustling wheat...

...which is ripening nicely.

Not to mention the festivals - this was the excellent Farmfest:

Possibly the most relaxed, unpretentious and non-commercial festival you will find...

...and almost certainly the only one with a giant inflatable cow atop the main stage. This is how we do it in the Westcountry! 

I have also moved jobs to a much better, closer and even more importantly - part time, job. After five years of relentless commuting and never having enough time, we have decided that, with food and energy prices rising at a stupendous rate, it is time to make a real go of being self sufficient. So I am now home two days a week to concentrate on the farmstead - and to be a better blogger too! Still a Part Time Smallholder, but a much less stressed and more productive one.

Till next time.