Oct. 4, 2025

I followed my energy this week and did a lot of work in the field. I now have two hugel mounds built, one down field in a large semi-circle that will one day look at on a large vegetable patch, potentially for strawberries and potatoes. The second hugelmound is in the middle right in front of the water pump, also in a slight semi-circle shape. 

Within the concave space of the circle, I dug a long, narrow trench, about 2.4m long, 30cm deep, and 40cm wide. The ground is now soft enough that I can do it, though it’s always going to be an effort to battle with the flint stones; they’re everywhere. 

Anyway, I finished it off, looks awesome. I connected up a hose to the pump, put down a tarp lining in the trench (trough) and filled it up with water. This was such a satisfying moment; it’s been months of planning and working to get to this stage. I feel like I've spoken about my trough idea so often, and probably no one has understood what I really meant / what I’m doing it for. But this week, ladies and gentlemen, I can show you, because it’s done! The trench got filled with water, I put in willow sticks to soak for two days, then came back and wove a large basket.

The basket will be turned upside down, and put around the pump to cover it / hide it from view / protect it. What a long journey to get here and now it’s here. I’d like to make the pump area neat, clean, natural etc, so a lot of tidy up is required, including digging in the pipes to hide them from view, and getting another waterproof storage box to house the pump cable, generator, hose etc. One day the pump area will be a gathering point.

That was a big win this week. My next jobs are tidying up, beautifying some spaces. I will get a lawn mower and cut the grass down uniformly everywhere, which will be a big visual upgrade.

I did do some crafting at home, though not a huge amount… I finally did one of the borders of the Harry Potter cross-stitch badges. I still have two more to go.

I have started a knitting project, which is a blanket of squares. I’m going for geometric patterns, not sure what the origin of these patterns is, but something old. I’m loving how it's turning out so far. I’m designing the squares myself, i.e. putting together the patterns and colours in the right size and shape. It’s a lot of colourwork that makes it go quite slowly and needs a lot of attention to the pattern.

I’ll be away all of next week, but I’ll be bringing my knitting and cross-stitch along, and I’m sure I’ll be cooking up the next phases in the forest.

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