Two words dominated the summer at Carmel:

Water

and

Grass

The hot summer months meant that our newly planted trees and hedge plants needed lots of help to keep healthy and that meant watering as often as possible.  Fortunately we had help through the provision of a couple of water tanks (thank you Mick!) and a pump, although it took till the end of the summer before we finally rigged up a hose as well.  We will remember it as the summer of driving round the field….very slowly… with a trailer and a water butt to deliver buckets of water to the trees.

On top of that, the grass kept growing!  So regular haircuts were in order and again, we had the provision of a tractor and grass cutter (thank you Bob!).

And while this was all going on, Ashley was still working away in the background, devising plans and thinking about how the field would become a garden…