Still too wet but improving!

  What can I say? Very little done over the last week. Too wet. The ground is too wet to do any work on. I have cleared the perennial beds and tried to light a bonfire a couple of times with limited success! Of course, soon as I wrote that the weather has taken a turn for better! Dry, overcast and a cold wind but at least the ground is drying out a bit! I have apples still to pick and weeds that need removing not to mention a vine to prune and bullock hoof impressions and mole tunnels to fill in to mention some of the tasks still waiting to be done and Christmas is around the corner!

Clearing the perennial beds and bonfire

   Unfortunately the farmers bullocks got out of their field and wandered into the garden. Ten or more bullocks weighing probably half a ton each wandering around on saturated turf did not do the ground any good at all! At least I was able to keep them off the majority of the garden but there are some hoof prints in a couple of the plots. Minor damage to the garlic and the rest is just cosmetic. Where they walked on the grass though is a mess and will require some tender loving care in the spring. Man! Bullocks and moles not a good combination.
   Autumn/winter animal husbandry moves on. The white turkey was starting to unsteady on her legs and was being picked on by the others so we decided to dispatch her. After processing we got 6kgs (14lbs) of meat. Next to go will be are old cockerel, Wally2, who is looking his age. One of our chicks who we believe is a cockerel will replace him. Coq-au-vin is on the menu! 
   In the outside veggie garden last of the early leeks and carrots have been pulled. Spinach, fennel, orbis,beetroot, celeriac (small but edible), celery, carrots, leeks, Jerusalem artichokes still available. In the poly tunnel I have planted french shallots (as an experiment) and there is lettuce, cauliflower, kohl rabi, celery, fennel, sweet peppers and herbs. Not a sniff of my Christmas potatoes. What is the betting that they grow straight after Christmas.