The rain has returned over the last couple of days, can’t really complain though, its been such a dry summer so far.
Our biosurvey volunteers have made a great job of surveying the meadows, and today are entering data from the survey onto the computers as well as making a few shingles for the Speckled Wood project.
Meanwhile on the build site the framing team have understandably been sheltering from the weather. This has meant a move inside the newly membraned roof to get on with a few jobs where it is nice and dry.
The first fix electrics have been going in, and the inside of the roof has been plasterboarded. The small black squares you can see in the plasterboard are where our rooflights will be going. Each of the upstairs bedrooms will have one, and there is another one which will end up over the upstairs gallery.
The rain will be doing the world of good to all sorts of plants and trees which had been starting to feel a bit parched, I should think the orchards here at Swan barn Farm will be particularly gratefull for it. Most of the trees in our new Speckled Wood Orchard are doing well. In the other orchard, which backs on to Haslemere High Street I have been really pleased to see how much fruit there is growing this year. We planted it about six years ago, and it looks like this year it is going to produce our first decent crop.
The denistons superb gage tree has brances weighed down with gage’s and just near this one of my favourite apples is having a great year as well.
Its a knobby russet, probably the ugliest, whilst also being one of the tastiest apples you will ever see. Its skin is so heavily russeted that it cracks and folds and goes knobbly all over, a very unpromising looking thing, but later in the year eaten with a glass of cold cider and some bread and blue cheese it is sheer apple heaven.
