The day after

Looks a lot better than yesterday..

Today the rain came so we had been very lucky with the weather. The last week of sun had dried out the fields around the hedge which could only be cleared by driving the equipment over it. When the hedge was cut in the autumn, the big 4WD Fendt was slipping and sliding about. On the part of the garden shown in the Blip, we could luckily use paved paths.

However yesterday was not the last of clearing up Storm Niklas' damage. Angie took off to the dentist for her annual check up and then to Memmingen. I did the dogs and then hitched up the car trailer to clear up the branches from our huge old (probably 50-60 years old) poplars lining the east side of the property alongside a stream and a farmers grass field. the grass isn't too high yet but thanks to the warmth last week and now the rain, it will probably explode next week when it is due to be sunny and warm.

Managed to get a full trailer and did consider dumping it in a copse of trees on the other side of stream which is actually our property but to which we normally have no access except by foot and wading through the stream. However on driving up to the copse noticed their are three large spruce trees leaning over and one very large one where the trunk has even half split. They will need to be felled but I will try to wait until autumn as they will fall on the farmer's field. So will offload the trailer tomorrow at the council recycling yard and take the chance to get a big chunk of what the local cheese dairy insist is Cheddar but call it Chester. I have given up trying to explain. Their Chester is still a good alternative.

Farmer will be pleased his mowing machine won't be fighting with too many branches. He always tell me that I should fell the poplars and what a great price I would get for the wood (you can't give the stuff away). Of course he wants more sunlight on his field and to be honest I would like to fell them too as they are getting dangerous, the huge old branches falling off for no reason at all on a still sunny warm day. The branches are often 20cm thick. I would like to have an English style field hedge but maintenance might be a problem as no farmer has a flail hedge cutter (grass yes). Probably the only ones here are used by the councils for the sides of the roads (remember here we have posts every 50 meters so they need an arm attached flail mower).

Hoping tomorrow sees the sun back as I need to spend some time on "normal" garden work. Spring is here. Also want to give the beehives a good check up before the major dandelion season starts, probably later this week. Think the girls have been a bit frustrated last 10 days or so of warm weather. Lots of pollen but no nectar. For some reason they have taken a liking to some rosemary plants I bought recently, more on bee journal.

That was more or less today, the rain putting paid to any work outdoors. I fell asleep on the sofa for an hour before Angie woke me with a delicious steak dinner. Since then haven't been able to sleep and been up all night. However despite yet again only having one walk today, the dogs were dead beat too as Angie posted on her journal