Finishing the old, starting the new

I at last have finished the Rag Doll that I started weeks ago, every time I started work on it something else cropped up, I feared I would not have it finished in time for a friend's two year old's birthday. But it is done,

I hope she likes it, it's the  last of the craft work until the Autumn, time now to concentrate on the garden.

The smoke house has done it's job, the bacon looks and smells as it should we have yet to try it, maybe tomorrow or maybe we will let it hang a little longer if we can resist the urge to try it.

The first of the rabbit kits are now enjoying life in the outside run,  the other mother, Snowdrop who is a European Giant has six kits, they made their first foray into the run today, if the weather stays mild they will be spending most of their time out of the nest. All the kits are so cute, as most young things are.

Work has now started on the pig run, the run will in fact be two runs, the first one encloses the bramble patch that we want cleared, the second one will be nearest the exit, with the house situated between the two, the house will have two doors, so it will not have to be moved to rotate the pigs, this way the first paddock will have been rested for nine months before the second lot of pigs arrive the following year. having two doors will make cleaning out easier as well. We have decided against using tin for the house, it has very little insulating properties so would offer little protection against the hot sun in the summer (ever the optimist) it also tends to sweat with warm body's inside and cooler air on the outside. We have opted for marine ply covered with stock board, this is made from re-cycled plastic, extremely tough and durable, we will also use this on the wooden floor, it will make it easy to clean and comfortable for the pigs.

When we first moved here we were told by a local nursery that we would not be able to grow Camellias , I was a bit upset about this as we had brought three of our bushes with us from Spain. Well the first year they bloomed even though they were still in pots,

this year having been moved into their permanent beds they are a mass of blooms and buds, I might have a go at propagating them this year, they are supposed to be quite easy to do.
According to a UK government think tank, civilization has just fifteen years left before it implodes, this conclusion  was partly drawn from a detailed report from NASA. The NASA report states that the rich will survive, the rest of us don't count, or words to that effect. This comes as no surprise to us, after all what can you do when governments give grants for farmers to build bio digesters to produce gas to make electricity, this would be fine if the digesters were using waste products from animals and the millions of tons of food waste that people chuck away each year, but these farmers are also growing crops, maize potatoes and beets to feed these digesters. This is not just happening in far away countries, where rain forests are being destroyed to grow palms for palm oil and sugar canes for the same reason, this is happening in the UK where over 50% of the food consumed is imported ( using yet more fossil fuels) Total madness.