Autumn Ghosts

Our second Autumn at Greencliff Farm and I can’t believe we have been here a year. Our windows still don’t close properly and the barn roofs are still leaking, but we have agreed an excellent design with the planners for the house and have our builders ready for disruption in the new year. The barn conversions are at the top of the planners list just about to be signed off…. or so I hope!

Autumn Harvest

As last year we took our ample apple crop for squeezing to the lovely people at Mc G Juice in Dolton. RHS Rosemoor identified our apple trees at their vibrant Apple Weekend in October. We found out our bright red early ripening apples are Tydeman’s Early and we have Brambley, Bramley seedlings, Keswick Codlin, Newton Wonder and a Dumelow seedling.

We think of the apple tree as part of our pastoral heritage, but they actually evolved on the border of Kazakhstan and China thousands of years ago in a huge wild apple forests and were dined on by birds and bears (it’s thought the bears may have preferentially selected the sweeter varieties from the sour and encouraged more sweet varieties of tree!). The travellers along the silk road and the Romans brought the apples into Europe and Britain as they were easy to transport and store. In Europe the Greeks and Romans interbred them with the crab apple and today there are nearly 7,500 recognised varieties. The wild apple forest has sadly been mostly destroyed during the Soviet era, but some small fragments are now protected. In my opinion one of the best things to plant in a small (or large) garden is an apple tree. Supermarket apples may look shiny and uniform, but they have been intensively grown in an insect barren environment (which means no birds); a typical Cox’s apple is sprayed 13 times with fungicide spray, 5 times for growth, 5 for insecticides, 2 herbicides and 1 urea. Lots of different chemicals are used in each spray including organophosphates which cause nerve and brain damage. Dave Goulson’s book – The Garden Jungle is a fabulous read for all things organic and wholesome in the garden and I highly recommend it.

Something Magic

Early evening while taming the brambles around the pond I glanced up and caught the eye of a beautiful silent white ghost above me. I was amazed, dropped the secateurs and took myself off to the tuftiest field to see if I could see it again. And there it was, now in the growing gloom taking runs up and down Lay Field hunting for mice and voles. It was an absolutely magical experience and since that evening I’ve been out looking and seen it almost every night. About a week ago I was camped out watching for the owl and saw we had two!

We have two barn owl boxes put up by the Barn Owl Trust in 2009 and the last time we looked they were occupied by pigeons, but it could be the owl has recently pushed them out or made a home in one of the barns without a box. I’m not sure if they are a pair or both coming from different homes to our unkempt thatchy field…. The Barn Owl Trust have told me that barn owls tend to pair up in February and March, but can mate whenever they feel there is enough food to support a family, so we may have baby owlets, but I don’t think so as I’ve not heard them……

We are so excited to share our home with these amazing animals and although we did plan to cut the field for grazing have decided to keep it long for the owls to feed.

Flutters

Along with the wonderful news of the owls we have some very sad news of the beloved member of our family Ollie who we had to say goodbye to last week. He was a very clever, stubborn, beautiful, tireless, and constant companion of ten years for us. He loved it on the farm, he loved to try to dig up the rabbits which live in our hedge, loved to lead the way on short walks to the sea and long walks along the coast path, loved to lie under our kitchen table while we ate, loved to find the draughty corner of the living room, loved to meet and greet all the posties and delivery drivers and check their vans for food, loved to sneak off to find a bed to rest, loved to check all the BBQ spots on the beach for left over sausages and I like to think loved us too and knew how much we loved him. We miss him very much but know he is in a better place.