It's stopped raining!

Dashed out between the showers to see if there was some blue sky to blip and saw the rainbow! An added bonus!

This is the lawn at the side of the house, looking North East. Some people like to know these things! It is pretty open and catches all the easterly wind so we've fenced it and put up old pallets to try and protect it. I've got willows and hebes planted in it, and some clumps of pampas grass to add some height and movement.

All this bit of garden used to be rough and used for grazing the goats. Before that it had been a stack yard, and so there were big circles of stones laid out to build hay stacks on. Trying to hammer in tethering spikes, usually at the last minute first thing in the morning as I dashed out for work, was maddening as I kept hitting buried stones!

My goat keeping days are long over now, but I do miss them. They were great company and were very dog like, in that they would follow me around and come for walks quite happily. When my last goat, Ginny, died of old age I decided I wouldn't have any more.

Finding someone to milk them when I was away was getting more and more difficult, and finding homes for the kids each year was almost impossible. If you don't put them in kid, you don't get milk but what do you do with unwanted kids? I was left with awful decisions to make every spring.

I don't miss getting up early and milking every day, it has to be done at the same time every day and as near to 12 hourly as possible, so that was quite tying too. After nearly 20 years the novelty had worn off a bit, but writing about it now I am starting to remember all the good things!