New Fruit Trees Arrive:  Early this month our consignment of apple trees and other assorted fruit plants arrived from Frank P. Matthews Nursery in England.  The new field is ready to plant, and it is just a matter of waiting for the weather and the soil to be suitable for digging and planting.

Got the Fox!  After devising a 'fox-detection-and-alert system' in the chicken run, we finally got the fox which had been becoming ever bolder and braver in his visits to the chicken coop, posing a threat to the chickens both before dusk and after dawn.  On a Saturday morning, around 7am, my fox-alarm in our bedroom woke me up, whereupon I immediately jumped out of bed and opened the bedroom window. the beam of light from the torch I shone in the darkness in the direction of the chicken coop revealed a pair of glowing eyes, and I swiftly pulled the 30 metre cord which released the shutter to trap the animal inside the chicken run.  When I scarpered downstairs, threw on a coat, grabbed my gun, and ran out to the chicken run, the torchlight confirmed that the trapped creature was indeed a fox, a large adult male.  I now had to do the unpleasant but necessary thing, and I pulled the trigger.  After so much mental energy going into the problem of this fox over three or so weeks, it was such a relief, and a pleasure, to finally catch him.