Monday 29 February 2016

Orchard planting, corral post tagging and the horse drawn travel blogger


The new apple orchard has now been planted - 25 Galloway Pippins and 2 of them sponsored already! The latest tags have been fitted to the fence posts around the corral and today, Leap Day 29th February, we caught up with Michael, Angus and Bob as they made their way along the country lanes in the direction of Frugaldom.

Horse drawn travels with Micheal, Angus and Bob
Michael hitching up Tarateeno, aka Angus. You can read his blog at http://horsedrawntravel.blogspot.co.uk

The weekend was sunny and dry, so we set off for Frugaldom to plant the new orchard and tag a few more posts around the corral, while also taking the time to gather more wood for the next Ecoarts sculpture. Now that the latest horse has been completed, I'm eagerly awaiting news of what the next one could be. As luck would have it, the weather soon returned to miserable, wet and windy, so we decided to call a halt to wood collecting and get back to Thrift Cottage. It was a soggy scene that met us when we were homeward bound.

Seeing the little horse drawn cavalcade, we stopped for some photos and a chat with Michael. We have seen him in previous years while he's been in nearby Port William, so I have given him directions to Frugaldom and am hoping he may still be there when I return with the next lot of tags for the fence posts. Who knows, maybe the hitching post will be ready in time for his next visit to the area.

Scruffy the cat sitting on Angs, the wooden horse
 
This being the weekend that the latest sculpture was completed - a 'cat' horse wink - we have decided to name it 'Angus', after the little cart horse who crossed our path this morning - the black and white cob pulling the colourful bowtop wagon.)

Angus the cob

As soon as H completed 'Angus', the sculpture was given a coat of wood preserving treatment, while the sun shone, then we began gathering together what was needed for the caravan and our Frugaldom trip.

This was the first weekend of the season, but I didn't get much time to catch up with many others on site, as it was a case of getting the tree planting done as quickly as possible, as the next packs of trees are scheduled to arrive here next week. As per the events pages, we intend starting to plant the next new hedge weekend of 12th & 13th Match.

Galloway Pippin heritage aple trees being planted at Frugaldom

Between us, for the new orchard, we dug the 25 holes needed for eight two-year-old and seventeen one-year-old apple trees, all genuine alloway Pippins, a heritage variety believed to have originated in nearby Wigtown. We lived there for a few years after it became Scotland's national book town.

These apple trees had to be bought in specially, so a little bit of an investment was needed to help get this orchard up and running as part of our Galloway heritage project. For this reason, we have offered the trees up for sponsorship at a cost of just £15 each, to help cover initial costs. (See www.frugaldom.com for link to the details.)

Tag a post at the Frugaldom corral

The latest tag-a-post engravings have been done, so these have each been fitted to their posts around the corral. With Frugaldom aiming for absolute financial self-sustainability, every sponsorship, membership or tagged post helps cover the costs of setting up the project and then, once we have Frugaldom up and running, it will hopefully become a trading post where the main currency will be whatever we all make, do, mend, grow or harvest. I'm hoping to get back over there to fit the next batch of tags later this week. (Tree sponsors also get an engraved tag on the Frugaldom corral fence.)

The pond at Frugaldom

After completing the tagging and planting, I had a walk around Frugaldom to check on the previously planted trees and the recently planted willows, then wandered along the river to the pond area. It will eventually make a fantastic location for a wildlife hide or picnic spot, but we are a long way off that stage just yet.


We spotted our first leveret of the year! These tiny hares are born fully furred with their eyes open, so many people can understandably mistake them for deserted baby rabbits. You can see this one looks just like last year's baby, complete with tiny white star on its head.

I think this about sums up my weekend and I am trying to make the most of this extra day in the year by catching up with blogging, baking and planning my next trip to Frugaldom. I should probably be planning the next bit of renovation work in the house and kitchen garden, but my excuse is that it's still cold and wet outside, so nobody will want to travel to work here. laugh (If you do, please get in contact - we still need a joiner, a plumber, a builder, a plasterer and an electrician.)

Don't forget you can share more of the Frugaldom project news in the forums, on Facebook and on Twitter.

 

5 comments:

  1. Excellent work and love the sculptures!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, DC, with so much to do it becomes difficult knowing where to start, so we are simply trying to keep up with fair weather jobs just now. Finding anyone to do any of the jobs we can't do ourselves is proving difficult as jobs are either too small for big companies to travel, or too remote for anyone to come stay without transport. Trying social media in an attempt to get as someone, anyone, to share news in effort to find required help.

      Delete
    2. Thanks, DC, with so much to do it becomes difficult knowing where to start, so we are simply trying to keep up with fair weather jobs just now. Finding anyone to do any of the jobs we can't do ourselves is proving difficult as jobs are either too small for big companies to travel, or too remote for anyone to come stay without transport. Trying social media in an attempt to get as someone, anyone, to share news in effort to find required help.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Plenty more photos in the forums, if you want to take a look. :)

      Delete

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