Month: January 2013

I don’t seem to be able to get on this morning probably because I have a lot to do and don’t know where to begin!

The snow has gone and with the torrential rain that came after it is now disgustingly muddy around the farm. It occurred to me last week when I went into town to do some shopping that snow on the ground in town is not the same as snow on the ground in the countryside, in town the paths are cleared and the roads are useable, at the farm we were still trying to get around in 6 inches of snow 5 days after it first fell and the lane was like a rink for that long as well. We don’t clear it because it would take too long without a plough of some sort and we don’t use salt because of the danger to the animals and the fact that it breaks up the concrete, so we just have to struggle around in it until it goes. Once it begins to thaw the mess gets worse, not helped by more rain, I put on clean work clothes this morning and within half an hour had lovely great mud splashes all up my legs. For me the mud is just an inconvenience but for the animals it is a health risk, especially as it does not seemed to have dried up for months now. The chicken pens have, what I can only described as sludge in them this morning, and we are forecast more heavy bursts of rain over the next few days. Trying to decide what to do with them is a difficult decision as the whole place is squelching, we can only try and ride it out and hope that there is better weather around the corner.

I have never seen the paddocks so trashed over the winter, they will come back but the recovery will be longer than we would hope for, this will mean feeding the horses great amounts of hay for longer than usual, not to mention the fact that they constantly keep trying to get out because there is no grass left where they are. The electric fencing has been useless in the cold because the batteries freeze and so don’t have any power output resulting in escapes particularly my little Shetland! We have had so much surface water this winter that it keeps running into the stable block through the walls, the hay barn and feed room have been under water three times already, this is the first year while we have been here that this has happened. I long for the hazy days of a seventies summer, I was young but the summers seemed to be endless, the first year we came here we had a summer like that but it has been all downhill since then.

The egg numbers have picked up again now that the temperatures have risen and even the ducks are laying again. I took the bottom trays out of the small chicken houses so that the muck just falls straight on the floor, this saves me trying to clean them out in this weather, the house can just be moved to clean ground and the nest boxes cleared out. As the weather gets warmer I will have to start treating for red mite again, they can lay dormant for up to eight years no wonder its a problem that is hard to deal with. They reproduce every ten days and so that’s how often you have to treat the houses otherwise you are are on a hiding to nothing, little vampires is what they are, they don’t like the light and come out at night to suck blood from the chickens, yuk. If left untreated they make the chickens very ill and at worst can kill them, it is nearly impossible to totally eradicate them and I have no idea where they come from in the first place because we never had them for over 10 years and suddenly last summer an infestation!

The sheep are less noisy now that the grass has been uncovered from its blanket although they are still on hay every day and a small amount of feed now and again. It appears that it is better to have sheep that are on the lean side when lambing than ones that are fat, it make delivery easier apparently, only time will tell. My lambing kit arrived at the weekend, it consists of lubricating gel and arm length gloves, iodine, colostrum, a ewe drink in case she gets exhausted, umbilical clamps and an emergency syringe of meds for ailing lambs, I also have a lambing rope at the ready, it’s a bit scary but I am looking forward to it no matter what the outcome is.

The veg garden has been mostly neglected all winter, apart from the fact that it is very wet under foot, the cold weather gives me no inclination whatsoever to go out and do anything, I am in essence a fair weather gardener, nothing wrong with that as long as you are prepared to work harder once its warmer. I have ordered a tripod to go over my fire pit so that I can boil the kettle while I am outside working and don’t have to come indoors where the temptation would be to finish for the day. I will also order a Dutch oven which is a pot that hangs own the chain, I like the idea of cooking soup outside and it will be great for BBQ nights if we get any decent weather.

We still have plenty of plans to finalise, we never seem to get very far before the phone rings or something interrupts us, we want to reorganise the front paddocks and the orchard area, the chickens keep escaping because they can jump up into the trees then over the six foot fence. They are then free to roam which is fine in the winter but would be a disaster in the spring when the new veg plants go in. It will also mean that the land would be cross grazed which is much better for the health of the grass and keeps the worm count down for each species that uses it.

I had better go and get on, plenty to do today not enough time to do it as always!

Well the snow is still laying on the ground and I prefer it to the rain and the mud but just at the moment we could do without it. With numerous members of the family hoping to fly away to warmer climates it is touch and go as to wether the flights are going or not. Our eldest has managed to make it to the Caribbean and hopefully is enjoying the Sun, we are dog sitting Alfie for them while they are away and he is getting used to the routine of the place, it is nice for Mia to have someone to run around with who has as much energy as she does. Our youngest is hoping her flight will take her back to Australia tomorrow so that she can do her second year travelling, she has been a great help and we are going to miss her when she has gone 😦

The horses are being turned out in the day now the snow has stopped falling, they are coming in at night though as the temperatures are falling so low, it was -5 at 9pm last night so goodness know what it went down to in the middle of the night. It’s not too cold in the shed as long as we can get the Rayburn to kick into action, but yesterday it took me until gone one in the afternoon to get it to burn. I had to light it four times in all, sometimes when there is a low cloud base this stops the chimney pulling and the fire just dies, very annoying to say the least.

The chickens are hardly venturing outside, they don’t like the white stuff and as a consequence they are not laying many eggs at the moment, I think we picked up five yesterday, luckily they were laying well before and we have a good stock. I took a look at the sheep, I still can’t tell if they are in lamb but they still have another 10 weeks to go, I could have a look at the teats but I want to leave it a while longer so as not to upset them too much at this stage.

We are not able to do much else around the farm, everything is frozen and covered in snow, there is only so much cleaning one can do and I have started on a mission to lose a bit of weight and so baking is out as well. I have looked through the seed catalogues this week and made a list of what I want to grow this year, I have also ordered a roll of wire to put around the bottom of the fruit cage where the rabbits have chewed holes so I am progressing even if it is a little slower than normal. I need to look at the rotation plan for last year and update it for this year so that when we can get going we know what we are planting where.

As there is not much to tell you about the farm I thought I would tell you a bit about our journey and how we ended up here.

It started over twenty years ago really when our youngest was born and was ‘failing to thrive’ after weaning, it took a few months more for them to diagnose her with Coeliac disease which is an intolerance to gluten. This is when I had to start looking at the ingredients that pre packaged food contained. I was mortified one day when I discovered drinking chocolate that contained flour, obviously used as a bulking agent to make more money. I slowly learnt that better quality products were more nutritious but there were an awful lot of foods that were normally fed to children that my child could not tolerate. So that she did not feel left out I had to make these things from scratch, fish fingers, burger, cakes, I even had a go at making doughnuts once. I realised that you did not have to have food full of fillers, hidden fats and salt, they could be easily made using fresh, wholesome products. At about the same time my interest in gardening began and when we moved to a house with an established vegetable garden and fruit patch I began to grow my own produce, then I was given six bantams by the next door neighbour and we were having fresh eggs for the first time. Up to that point I was gardening the old way using slug pellets and numerous chemicals to eradicate pests and disease because that’s the information that was passed on by other gardeners. I decided that was not for me and began to garden more naturally, letting nature take care of itself, it took about three years but there was a definite increase in bird activity in the garden and gradually the ladybirds took care of the greenfly so I knew I was on the the right track.

I signed up for an Organic gardening course to learn more about the techniques I could use and about biodiversity, the course was one day a week for a year and I learnt so much in that year that I was eager to move forward and live on the land. The only problem was that we needed to move away from the area in order to do this and a strong family bond made me wonder if I could go ahead with it. A friend had a smallholding in a village nearby and every time I went there I would wistfully image myself living somewhere like that. During a conversation with her she asked if her ewe gave birth to triplets as they suspected, would I be prepared to take it under my wing at home and bottle feed it for her for six weeks, of course I jumped at the chance. The lambs were born and we took one home to hand rear, that was us hooked and although he returned back to their farm when he was old enough I knew then that was what I wanted to do. By that stage we had started to eat organically, I grew some veg but we also ordered a weekly veg box from a well known producer and started buying organic meat. I became very aware of the conditions that animals for meat consumption were kept in and tried to buy welfare friendly products though that was not always possible back than as the whole movement was still considered to be a bit hippyish. Out of the blue we were given the opportunity to buy the farm, it was five acres and close to where we lived, how could we turn down a chance like that, we couldn’t, we didn’t really know what we were doing but we went for it anyway!

We never factored horses into the equation when we were dreaming but as this was a working livery yard we had to work with what we had, nearly everything we have done was for the the first time without much guidance and so we have made a few mistakes along the way. The pigs did not go to slaughter when they should have and got a bit too big to handle, we have built things in the wrong place and had to move them again, we bought individual bottles to hand feed the lambs and discovered that you could expect a stampede as they got older and so we changed it to a bucket with teats. We have had fox attacks because we did not secure the fencing correctly, fly strike in older sheep because we were not vigilant enough. Time and time again we get things
wrong and have to put them right, but we always learn from our mistakes so that we can move forward, we have amassed a wealth of information much to great to write about on here.

We still have a long way to go on our quest, we are hampered by the usual things like the weather and a lack of funds, we would like to go completely off grid with all things including water, I would like to increase my flock so that we are producing more meat, and I would like a permanent pig pen, again to increase our meat production, the meat would then be sold to cover the costs of our own meat. I would even like a house cow so that we could produce our own milk, butter and cheese, I would like to be able to cut and make our own hay one day, we would never produce anywhere near as much as we needed but it would good to try. All these things need investment of time and money so we may never get to do some of them but its great to dream and who knows so far some of our dreams have come to pass maybe the rest of them will too 🙂

Well this morning we were greeted with a lovely carpet of snow, that has now turned to rain and is currently being washed away. If the forecast is correct we can expect a fair bit of snow over the next three weeks, I would rather have that than rain at least the animals enjoy playing in it.

Looking forward is the object at the moment although I have yet to find any enthusiasm for looking through the seed catalogues which is unusual for me as I have normally done it by now, must be the weather that’s putting me off.

We have been doing a bit of tidying up and cutting back, a row of nut trees at the front were invading the driveway more and more so we decided to cut them down by half, the amount of light that now floods into the kitchen is amazing, however the downside is that they were a good noise filter and we now hear more of the general sounds of traffic than we did before. At the latter end of the year we noticed that the five large mirrors in the school were swaying in the wind and so took them down before they fell down, this weekend they went back up with nice new wood to keep them secure. It was a freezing cold day and the boys did an excellent job under the conditions.

The sheep are having to be fed now, at the very least they are having hay each day and on colder days a scoop of ewe nuts, the trick is to keep them healthy for lambing but not let them put on too much weight or the lambs could be too big and difficult to birth naturally. The grass is nutritionally poor at this time of year plus with all the rain there is not much of it left under the mud patches. I was going to bring them in to lamb but an older and wiser soul than me advises that they are best left out, they don’t like being penned inside, as the lambs are hopefully due and the beginning of April it might be ok weather wise, if its takes a turn for the worst they will come in, I don’t fancy sitting out in the field with a torch when it’s cold or wet!

The chickens are still laying well and the egg numbers have only just started to tail off over the last few days, the lengthening of the daylight hours should encourage them back to full production soon, this has been the first year we were able to supply a decent number of eggs all through the Winter and I think it was to do with bringing the in beforehand and getting them in good condition.

Mia has enjoyed her first Christmas and New Year, she likes to get as dirty as doggly possible every single day! Her favourite games are still pestering the cats, even when she gets a swipe from one of them, and chasing chickens. The chicken game started out in good humour but she was caught red handed with the leg of a chicken in her mouth yesterday, the chicken was still attached and very much alive but I wonder how long it will be before she realises they could be a tasty snack! She will need some close monitoring and some stern discipline so that she does not become a killer 😦

I have had some much appreciated help from our youngest daughter while she has been home although her time is nearly up and she will be jetting off for another year in Oz all to soon, we shall miss her greatly but it’s an opportunity not to be missed. On Saturday I spent a day away from the farm with our middle daughter, her fiancé and his mother, looking at wedding venues for next year. We had talked about having a marquee at the farm for the reception but they want to get married in March and that is probably not a good month as far as the ground is concerned. We found a lovely barn venue with a country feel and that is what they have decided to use. It’s all excitement for the girls at the minute as the eldest is jetting off on her holiday at the end of the week, lots of much needed sunshine in the Caribbean, alright for some.

Hubby has had the job of putting our other house on the market, with a bit of luck we will sell it this time (sale fell through before) and we will have a much clearer idea of how we can move forward with the farm. The original plan was to sell it at the time we bought this but the housing market collapsed and we ended up with both, luckily we were able to rent it out but it meant that we did not have any disposable income to invest in the farm as we had planned, we may eventually get that much converted tractor yet!

I have noticed the bulbs are beginning to shoot up in various corners of the garden, that’s always a favourite indicator of mine that the warmer weather will soon be coming our way, (fingers crossed) though what we will have to endure in the mean time is anybody’s guess. I am not convinced by the arguments about global warming, climate change, yes definitely, but maybe it’s all part of the bigger picture, one that as a species we are far too inconsequential to be consulted by Mother Nature about!

We made it, the world didn’t end, we didn’t kill each other because we spent too much time with one another over the holiday, though the temptation was there I am sure, and as yet we have not been washed away by the rain!

Thankfully the latter has taken a hike for the time being although it is taking a while for everything to dry out, we got into a bit of a muddy state for a while and it is still tacky but getting better, as long as it stays away for a bit longer we should be fine. The fields look like they have been ploughed but that should all come back in the Spring provided Mother Nature is kind to us.

I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year, we had a lovely time and it was full of surprises for some members, firstly our youngest daughter came home from her travels to spend the holidays with us, that was the longest secret I have ever had to keep, we surprised our other daughters with her arrival on the Sunday night before Christmas and it was lovely to have them all back together. Secondly, our middle daughter was surprised with an engagement ring on Christmas morning, she has been with her partner for nearly 8 years so it was a long time coming but they got there in the end and this coming year will be full of wedding plans for 2014. Luckily the eldest daughter was not left out of surprises either, her partner had booked a Caribbean cruise for the pair of them as a present and so she is jetting off to warmer weather at the end of this month. Hubby and I got socks! (just kidding girls)

The farm has tickled along over the hols and not much has changed, we have had a visit from Mr Fox at night and he managed to get a hen that had snuck off to roost elsewhere, silly girl. I have moved the sheep to a drier paddock and begun to feed them a little in preparation for the Spring and hopefully arrival of newborns.

The main focus for the next couple of weeks will be planning and deciding how to move forward through the year. We have been here for four years now and have made a few mistakes along the way, its time to rectify these, nothing serious just putting pens in the wrong place and not utilising areas properly. We also need to plan for the apparent climate change that is heading our way, if, as they say the summers will be wetter and the winters wetter still, we need to improve our drainage so that the water moves around the buildings and not through them! This is also the time of year to plan what I want to grow and what to move, what to do again and what to not bother with. I have already started by planting the patio fruit trees in the end bed, this gets all day sun and is too hot (in a normal summer) for me to work on during the day and the fruit trees will just get on with it as long as they get watered in the evenings. The wind has blown out a lot of the greenhouse panels and it keeps happening to one particular one and so it is time to assess if it is needed and if so how to prevent it happening again, if not we will take it down.

The Christmas tree sales are another area to discuss and plan, we almost broke even, selling forty-three trees, not bad for our first year although with hindsight we bought too many, we will do them again next year but cut the number to around  fifty. I have to say they were lovely trees, every one that I have heard from said what a lovely shape they were and I can vouch for the fact that they were indeed non-drop.

I don’t make New Year resolutions because they nearly always get broken, instead I have changed it to aims, and my main aim this year is to look at how efficient things are, including me, what works, what doesn’t, what needs more organisation, the paperwork is first on the list and I have started well by using the diary to record incomings and outgoings, hopefully I will keep up with that one and wont have a big sorting out job when the books are next due. Everything will be under scrutiny, is there a better way to do that job, if so what to we need to do to make it happen, all sounds so simple, I will keep you posted on that one.

I think that is enough of my ramblings for now, welcome back and I hope you continue on my journey with me during the next year 🙂