Month: June 2013

Over the last week, I have literally done the bare minimum, get up, feed, water and sort eggs, then spend the days on the sofa! I came down with a bug which alternated between violent shivering and sweating profusely, my muscles had nothing in them to give and so I relented and just rested in between feed sessions. At first I resisted but in the end thought, my body is telling me something and so I listened, I am feeling much better this week although still got a couple of aches and pains in my joints but nothing a couple of paracetamol can’t sort out.

The weather has not been very inspiring, it is still cold in the evenings, I can’t ever recall a summer as chilly as this one although I am sure the records would reveal otherwise. As a consequence, the veg growth is very slow, I have managed to pick some new potatoes, carrots and mange tout from the poly tunnel but nothing on the scale we would normally be picking. I keep hoping there will be something to sell out in the little shed but it is sadly lacking at the moment. We have had a good few bowls of strawberries but they are not as sweet as I would expect them to be, still pretty good with some sugar, cream and a splash of balsamic vinegar though which is my favourite way to eat them.

We have eggs in abundance, and today’s task is to try and find something to do with them all, these are mostly smaller eggs from the pullets that have just started laying, customers, given the choice, naturally go for the bigger eggs and so the small ones get left over and over again. I now have a good few dozen sat on the side and I really don’t want to waste them, there is only so much scrambled egg or omelette one can eat in a week. Hubby does not like quiche or egg puddings or custard so it is difficult to come up with something. I may just bake quiche and freeze them for an occasion such as birthdays, we have plenty of those in our family, maybe individual little ones then I can eat them for lunch. I could use the yolks for lemon curd and the whites for meringues but Hubby does not eat those either, I think I need to swap the Hubster really for someone less fussy!

We had a rare and much needed day out yesterday, our middle daughters, Boyfriends dad is a member of the 2013 Great Britain rifle team and yesterday they had a friends and family day at the National Shooting Range in Bisley. Hubby, daughters boyfriend and his brother took part in shooting various arms including the old fashioned muskets which they thoroughly enjoyed. Us girls went along to spectate and it was a great day, the hospitality was fabulous as was the food, the boys got very competitive between them as you would expect, if we get to go again, I would definitely like to have a go at the shooting although the rifles are a bit scary, the noise was phenomenal as there are many ranges all around and guns going off all the time. The actual place was like a snapshot in time, many of the buildings and especially the clubhouses are very colonial and have not changed much in over a hundred years or more, it was lovely, and nice to have entirely new experiences. The rifle team will be off to Canada in August and I wish them good luck and hope they win, they are a lovely bunch even though they brandish lethal weapons lol.

It feels like we are constantly playing a waiting game with the sun, I think we need to change our mind set to use whatever is thrown at us instead as I have heard that this weather pattern is going to be with us for about 10 years! We can either be depressed by the thought or we can get on with it and work with it which is easier said than done I will admit. The one thing you can’t do here is predict the weather accurately though, we are just as likely to prepare for the cold and then have a heat wave or vice versa that’s the difficulty with a temperate climate, so I have given up listening to the forecast and just wait to see what the weather is like when I get up that seems much more sensible than planning in advance. I have to say that for me personally this summer, just like last summer has been great, although I would like a bit of warmth, the sun can stay behind the clouds for as long as it likes, it means I can at least get outside during the middle of the day rather than having to come indoors and clean!

Our haul for dinner on Saturday, should really be getting much more than this at this time of year but something is better than nothing and it tasted great 🙂

Sadly, despite our best efforts, Frank died yesterday, he had picked up a little in the week and we thought he was going to make it but he took a turn for the worst on Sunday morning and by the evening he was gone. Having reared bottle lambs for a few years in a row and never losing any, this year has seen three lambs not making it, it’s quite a blow, both emotionally and financially, in terms of profit that’s nearly £500 lost. Emotionally, the loss is also there, I had got quite fond of Frank as he was a proper battler and greeted me every morning demanding his bottle, I feel sad that we couldn’t save him. Onwards and upwards as they say and touch wood the others are all fine and enjoying the grass with a morning feed thrown in for good measure.

We have had a gentler pace of life this week compared to the last few which were at times, manic! The only job we had pencilled in for this weekend was to move all the laying hens to the front paddocks in one big house and run. This meant moving the coop out from the orchard, taking the fence down in order to do so, and putting the fence back up with a gate in it for easy access. First we had to move the hens that were occupying it out into one of the runs, it was something that we had to do over the two days and on the Saturday we moved the coop etc and on the Sunday we put up the electric fencing and moved all the hens to their new abode. It is quite nice because now anyone coming to buy eggs can see the hens that lay them, see how much room they have to roam and see what conditions they live in, giving them confidence in our product hopefully. I love to stand a watch the hens when they are moved to pastures new, there is always great excitement from them with a lot of running around and squawking. The idea around moving them is to give the back paddock a rest from chickens, and the front paddocks a rest from the horses, parasites and worms build if you keep the same species on the same ground for too long and this is an ideal way to break the cycle.

I am loathe to keep banging on about the weather but we are back to awful again, that Jet Stream has a lot to answer for, wet and windy and quite cold for June. Each year I hope to be able to sell excess fruit and veg and each year we seem to be hampered by something, the growth of veg is very slow and I wonder if we will get much at all. The poly tunnel is most productive, with the broad beans beginning to pod up, the garlic is doing well and we have had a good couple of pickings of Strawberries, I am going to see if there are any potatoes under the abundance of greenery later, it will be good to have some for tea if there is. The fruit blossom this year was great but if we don’t get any sun to ripen the haul, it will be small and not produce much sugar thus tasting a little sharp. The farmers are already talking about shortages due to the cold and together with the struggle to harvest last year we could be in for a knock on effect with prices rising quite a bit.

On a lighter note, I am about to set some quail eggs in the incubator, my neighbours daughter wants to keep some and I said I would hatch some out for her. I was going to put duck eggs in but they will have to wait, supply and demand takes over 🙂 The splash Orpingtons are still sat on their clutch of eggs and I did try shutting the other hens out but they just got confused about where to lay their eggs so it was a bit chaotic, I reopened the hut and just hope they actually manage to produce a few chicks otherwise that would have been another waste of 21 days sitting. I keep telling Hubby he needs to build a broody coop but even that has its drawbacks, half the time if you move the hens and their eggs they just abandon them anyway that’s why we incubate, it’s more successful usually!

Life should settle down to a quiet routine now with all our other distractions out of the way, the tractor needs a service and then we can set about using it for all the jobs that have been needing heavy machinery, such as digging ditches out and creating gullies for the rain water to run away more quickly, hopefully that will stop the flooding that we had last Winter in the stables, that’s the plan anyway! Maybe now with more time I will be able to have a go at a few new challenges, such as making cheese, I bought a kit a couple of years ago and never managed to get around to doing it, of course it would be lovely to do that with our own milk supply, but I think I would just be setting myself up for a lot of work if I went down that road, maybe when Hubby retires 😉

I hear we are going to have a least one hot day this week! The tomatoes could certainly do with a bit of heat, they are flowering but a little bit of heat would push them on to produce some fruit a little bit quicker. I often think it is weird that toms, cues and peppers are ready at the end of the season when your thoughts are turning to winter food rather than salads, and runner beans are usually ready mid summer seems a bit topsy turvey to me.

Have a great week and enjoy ‘the’ sunny day :p

It is now two years since I began blogging, mostly for my own sanity and partly to share the ups and downs of farm life with anyone who cares to read it, we have had new life, and deaths, good times and bad times, busy times and relaxing times, good harvests and rubbish ones, cold Winters, wet Winters and one dry Winter, the one thing I cant write is that we have had a glorious Summer, it just has not happened and so far this year is proving no exception to the rule! 

We had a great weekend here on the farm as Hubby had his 50th Birthday Bash, we set up party tents and bbq gazebo’s, used hay bales for sitting on, plenty of drink, plenty of food and a great band, luckily the weather held and it did not rain, however  it was not the hot sunny day that had been forecast either. It was sunny enough although a tad windy and the temperature soon dropped at night, we lit the fire pits to keep us warm so all in all a great day. 

This morning I was hoping it would be warmer but still the air temperature is lacking and it is showing in the veg garden, everything is struggling to put on any growth, there are some signs but the veg that needs a longer growing period may not have a harvest this year if it does not warm up a little bit more. The poly tunnel is producing though so that is a bonus, this morning I have picked a big bowl of strawberries and the broad bean pods are beginning to form, the potatoes are flowering and the carrots have some good top growth though the roots have yet to reach any decent size. Last week we planted some cucumbers and peppers in there, they have established now and will put on some growth quite quickly.

We have plenty of grass growth in the paddocks and the sheep are munching away merrily, unfortunately, Frank has the scours from the rich grass and so his back end is very mucky, I don’t want him to end up the same way as Betty and so have been washing him down every other day and spraying his back end to prevent fly strike. the other lambs are doing well and are all clean thank goodness otherwise it would take me ages! 

The new hens have settled in well although not producing any eggs yet, they should not be far away though, egg sales are manic at the moment and we are selling as fast as they can all lay! The next project is to move the laying flock from the back paddocks into the front and collate all the layers in one area rather than spread round in various pens. This will be much easier for me as it will only mean one lot of feeding, watering and cleaning out, at the moment they are in eight different areas and it takes up a good amount of time to sort them all out. The surplus cockerels will end up in the freezer to either feed us or the dogs depending on their weights, they have had a good run but we have too many of them now. The White Orpington, in with the Black and Splash orps, is sitting on eggs and I hope her hatch is more successful than the Gold Laced. I cant decide whether to keep my little flock of pure breeds just to keep breeding or to give them up, they are not very productive as far as eggs are concerned as they are always going broody, but I like the look of them and it is nice to have a pretty little hobby flock though it increases the work load. 

I have decided to hatch some ducklings, the group I have at the moment are coming up for three years old and although still laying well, by next year the egg numbers will have dwindled. I have one drake left after selling the other two on, and so now seems like a good time to refresh the stock. As soon as I can find a space to put the incubator I will set around sixteen eggs and see what we get. I was hoping that the ducks would hatch some out themselves but over the years they have never even tried, either the conditions are not right for them or they are having way to good a time to bother with offspring! I have not had a batch of duckling for around four years so it will be a lovely change and they are so very cute 🙂

The wild birds are busy with nests and hatchings all over the farm, if I can manage to get any photos of the fledglings I will certainly put them on here. We are watching the nest box on the front closely, we can hear the Great Tit chicks making a racket all day waiting for their parents to bring them food, the poor parents never stop flying in and out with grubs etc, I have no idea how many are in there but they are definitely high maintenance. We need to keep an eye out for when they start fledging as we intend to keep the dogs away, the poor little things do not last long when they can barely fly and the dog thinks it is a great game, the dog is the winner every time 😦

Have a great week and I hope the Sun shines for you wherever you are 🙂

We have had a mixed bag of weather over the last week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, rain, rain, rain, got a good soaking every time I went out! . I cleaned out two of the chicken runs in preparation for new arrivals that have not arrived yet, so got wet for nothing, on one of the rainy days I baked Chocolate brownies and a pasta bake for one of my lovely cousins, who is recovering from surgery and is on the road to kicking cancers arse into touch, I also kindly lent her my tractor mags, I hope she is enjoying them lol.

Today, however, the rain seems like a very distant memory as we have had the most glorious few days with more predicted, finally. We have had a most productive weekend and I feel like things are back under control, I spent three days hoeing the veg garden and now it’s just veg growing, well mostly, no doubt the weeds are planning a comeback at any minute. Thanks to a lot of hard work from our eldest daughters boyfriend, the dog kennel has got some new felt on the roof, the winds over the past grew years had ripped the old stuff to shreds and the boards were getting wet and rotting, they should last another few years now. He also came over and spent Sunday afternoon spraying the paddocks for broadleaf weeds, our dandelion harvest was out of control, each year it has been getting worse and although we don’t spray as a matter of course, we had to take them in hand this year, as the grass barely had room to grow. It is something we will have to do over a two year period, as the sheep are grazing one of the paddocks and we have no where else for them to go, so those paddock will be done next Spring.

The wild birds have been serenading us ever since the Sun came out, we have the swallows back and they are searching for suitable nesting sites as I write, their chatter is loud and excitable, I have great tits nesting in one of the boxes on the front of the house and take great pleasure watching them diving in and out with food for the youngsters. The crows are the only birds that are not welcome here, thieving tykes they are, they take any opportunity to steal the chicken food or even the sheep food for that matter.

Sadly this morning I discovered the one little chick that the gold laced Orps managed to hatch, dead in the hut, I have no idea why except that it was in there with five large birds so possibly they have sat on it and it has met it’s demise 😦 I have the other mixed Orps sitting on eggs at the moment so lets hope they fair a little better. One of the hybrid hens is winding me up a fair bit, she keeps getting out, no matter what I do to secure the pen she finds another way out, I have even clipped her wing so that she can’t fly but she still gets out, there is always one!

All is well with the sheep at the moment, they have enjoyed the sun, happily grazing in the paddock, I love to watch them looking so content. Most of the animals, like us, enjoy laying around in the heat, the horses lay down and doze in the fields, the chickens dust bath and stretch out their wings to warm up, ah life is good, when the weather is good!

I have had my first sneaky treat of the season, the strawberries in the poly tunnel are coming along nicely and I found a ripe one yesterday, perks of the job I reckon to be the first person to have a taste of what is to come, slurp, trust me when I tell you it was delicious 🙂

I have saved the most exciting news, for us anyway, well alright then for me, until last, we are now the proud owners of a tractor! We picked it up on Saturday after a mention out of the blue that there was one for sale up the road. As everything has to have a name around here I have decided to call him Troy, a good strong masculine name that will suit his job description. Needless to say Hubby has already had a go at turning the muck heaps with him and I have had a little drive round, he needs a service before we put him fully into work but he will be invaluable once he is ready.

I took some photos as its such a lovely day, the first is of the new poly tunnel with offending chicken in the foreground, inside the tunnel all the tomatoes and melons are growing, the other tunnel which is full of crops including those strawberries, a general view of the veg garden, the paddock with the sheep in although as soon as they see me they come running so can’t stay too long to photograph them, and Troy!