February 18th

 Not a lot of  news for this week’s newsletter, as I was off with Erin and Calum on Wednesday and Thursday with school Holidays.

So on Wednesday, we made the most of the poor Scottish mountain winter, and headed off to the Lecht for probably their last ski day of the year, both Erin and Calum loved it. And on Thursday we spent biking, training for Erin’s second Cyclecross race.

And on Sunday,  Erin done a Cyclecross race in Ballater, and she came in second, they are both keen bikers, and have been mountain bike racing all year, But cyclecross is a new event for Erin, and she loves it.

So back to the farm, as I have been gallivanting away enjoying myself on the school holidays,  Rab has been busy working away. Along with harvesting. He has now sown all the fifty thousand onion’s, and fifty thousand red onion seeds, normally he would have sown more.  If he had a more reliable worker to help, rather than someone gallivanting off skiing and biking on the school holidays.

One big job that I do need to tackle this week, when I eventually do some work, is to re plum up our water pump to the irrigation system. A couple of weeks ago we had some strong west winds that blew over a broken part of our windbreak onto the pump house shed. This shed is where our pump sits for watering all our tunnels.

On Monday and Tuesday , before my school holidays fun, I moved the pump to a new location, but this also ment ordering more irrigation piping, which I now need to plumb in to the irrigation and get the pump working again, and pumping water.

Usually at this time of the year, this job wouldn’t be that important, but with warmer than usual temperatures for this time of the year, the trays that are full of seeds in the tunnels, will be needing some water.  

We have been getting temperatures around 8 to 12 degrees outside, this makes the tunnels feel tropical inside, and the newly sown seeds, will need a wee water.

Well it looks like I haven’t left enough room for a recipe this week.  After being off for most of the week with Erin and Calum, I sat down thinking I don’t have much to say,  but I have been babbling away, and I now haven’t left enough room for a recipe.

So I’ll make up for it next week, with a super tasty recipe.