A chilly September 2021 update from Rails farm
How quickly the summer passed and autumn arrived, at least from the meteorological point of view. The stars will follow on the 21st September, solstice, when day and night have the same length.
What did Rails Farmer achieve?
The pond has been finished and the first organisms have moved in. With a few donated plants we settled in a dragon fly larva. Pond skaters are active, and a huge dragon fly visited the pond, hopefully to lay her eggs. Our naughty ducks are taking baths, and the birds like to come for a drink. Considering that all our bath and wash basin water feeds the ponds, surprisingly there is no smell of ammonia from the pond. The sweet grass has established and is possibly already doing its job of cleaning the water.
All electric
Rails farm is now almost fully electric
. We scrapped our 18-year-old Citroen and are now happy owners of a Nissan Leaf. It drives like a dream, no more petrol station queues, no more idling when in a traffic jam and most importantly, no more exhausts, neither soot (diesel), NOx or CO2 and no consumption of oxygen either. I also converted our second bicycle into an E bike. 
So, the two of us can cruise either on our separate two wheelers or all of us in our new four-wheeler.
Healthy & happy trees
Our tree warden Annabelle has moved on and her successor has already done many good jobs to help us with our vegetation. Almost all trees planted last winter survived.
Another tasty harvest
Our tomato harvest was good despite a blight infestation, and other vegetables were also successful. The bean crops, however, were rather limited due to bunny attack on the plants. We harvested delicious honey, with the apple harvest next on the agenda.
German language group
Finally, I would like to start a German 
chat group, maybe once a month on a Saturday morning. The idea is to meet up with coffee and biscuits and exercise the language in a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere. Listening and speaking skills are the alpha and omega of a language. Please contact me if you are interested.
Cheerio,
Christoph