A winter walk’s top wildlife sighting!
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Tag Archives: Paul Rainger
It’s Cheese Gromit
January is that time, at the start of a new year, when everyone asks us what our new Wedding Anniversary theme is for the next 12 months.
And the answer for 2026, out of box number ten of our ‘Mystery Moose’ of yearly wedding anniversary themes is… Cheese!
Continue readingSeason’s Greetings 2025
As you know, we no longer send Christmas Cards, in favour of posting our news on our blog – http://www.thesecretacre.com – throughout the year. But, wishing all our friends another Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The Great Escape of Shawn the Sheep
The other weekend, we let the dog out at 7am as usual for her morning pee, then went back to bed with a cup of tea.
Half an hour later, we looked out of the window to see a huge flock of sheep had mysteriously and silently, with military precision, materialised in the garden like a mass of fluffy clouds, as if we had suddenly been transported into a bizarre live action episode of Shawn the Sheep!
Continue readingEvidence of Autumn 2025
Despite the dry summer, autumn dampness seemed to arrive just in time for a spectacular display of seasonal colour.
The autumn fungi seemed to enjoy it too, with an abundance of edible and non-edible varieties popping up around The Secret Acre.
Continue readingRecord Breakers
If you want to be the best, if you want to beat the rest… have a really dry year apparently… certainly some things on the smallholding have enjoyed it more than others… and not necessarily the things you might expect.
Continue readingPower to the People
Another big piece of our original plans for living at The Secret Acre has finally fallen into place, after only ten years in the planning!
We are declaring our energy independence. No more hostage to Putin, dirty fossil fuels, or uneconomically expensive nuclear, and all the evil dinosaur corps that continue to peddle them.
Continue readingThe Big Birthday Pizza Oven
Kitting out the new outdoor kitchen continued this summer with the arrival of a wood-fired outdoor cooking oven.
Continue readingA Summer Round Up
It’s shaping up to have been a pretty good year at The Secret Acre, despite the very dry weather.
Where crops simply failed in last year’s unseasonable rain, at least the gardener has the chance to water things, especially, if like us, you live in a well-managed area like Severn Tent Water, which rarely needs a hosepipe ban.
So most things are back to growing reasonably well, even if the fruits are a bit undersized from the lack of rain.
Continue readingThe Outdoor Kitchen
While we were enjoying our spring equinox BBQ earlier in the year, we were also getting round to starting the final transformation of our rebuilt ‘lean to love shack’ into a new outdoor kitchen.
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The Secret Acre 