365 opportunities to do something awesome...

So, 2017 is here! It came with a subtle sort of fizz here at The Keep - mainly because my head and my heart have been focused on the months ahead for ages anyway. The turn of the new year was merely a speck on my internal life planner, I did celebrate with a glass or two though of course!

Did we all have a good Christmas? Did santa bring us something nice? Did we get through the big day without setting the new kitchen on fire? The answer to all is yes,yes our first Christmas in our beautiful new home was absolutely as lovely as we intended it to be and here's to many, many more to come.

Now, though, I can barely contain my manic planning and researching and selecting and mass purchasing for all things backyard farm!! My ebay purchases list reads like an ' edible plants guide for dummies' everything from savoy cabbage to phacelia tanacetifolia, if it's a seed that grows into something edible or beautiful it is currently on it's way to my letterbox!! I ache for a vaguely warmer day when I can spend a couple of hours putting together the raised bed boxes that I've had in storage for what seems like a lifetime. The posts for the next chicken coop poke fun at me every time I walk past them and empty seed trays in the greenhouse practically slap me when I glance at the blatant lack of anything taking root in them. I want to scream at 2017 to hurry up! Be done with January where everything is dormant and freezing it's cockles off, let February be unseasonably mild to give me chance to prepare a little and then rock on March when a few of my seed packets say I can begin planting the first miracle-inducing seeds that will become the beginning of the amazing thing that will be our garden! Our wonderful, grow it - pick it - eat it, hard working, clucking, buzzing, organically grown GARDEN.

2016 bought so many things and a whole heap of inspiration - I just want to fill 2017 with everything I learned and yearned for.

Along with the extraordinary list of seeds that are on their way I've also begun eyeing up some new members for our little clan... I collected our hens from their 'Christmas holiday home' (we were away a lot so we boarded them at Paige's Poultry at Barton-under-needwood again - fabulous people with an even more fabulous flock, look them up if you are over this way!) and when I went for a little wander around, as I do when I'm there, I spotted the most dazzling little bantam Orpington cockerel that would suit my little girls a treat. He's one that bounced back to them for rehoming too, so it would even be a 'good deed' to take him on. There were also some really pretty little geese... I know I want some form of waterfowl for The Keep, but have been ummin and arring of exactly what to go for. I adore geese, the big, grumpy guard-dog kind,but realise we can't really offer enough space for those, little ones could be a game changer though... we'll see.

Probably the grandest edition to our creature features this year will be the bees. D chipped in with most of our family to raise the money to buy me a hive for my birthday the year before last, but with all the moving about we were doing we couldn't really get the bees. This year though they will have the perfect spot amongst the many bee-attracting plants I have lined up for them and should, with any luck, produce some lovely honey-a-la-chook-hook.

I know I haven't stuck to the weekly updates I had, at first, promised to do - my only excuse is that for every time I didn't log on and write something it was because I was DOING something instead! So I won't apologise too profusely. This year, however, you're probably going to get sick of me... here's to 365 opportunities to inspire you, to produce and provide, to raise and ripen, to work hard and make something awesome! oh and eeerrm get married at some point!

Come rain or shine it'll still be mine.

G