Month: September 2013

The year is disappearing fast, I can’t quite believe its October tomorrow! The festive season will be upon us before we know it, first of all though I have a holiday in the Med to look forward too so I am not wishing the time away too fast.

I started off the week harvesting apples from the trees, Mum came over and we assembled the tower and got busy, we have a pile of both cooking apples and eating apples in the back building, and that was only half of the trees, luckily the eaters store well and I need to find some boxes to put them in. The cookers won’t store quite so well so some will need to be processed for the freezer, any damaged will feed the pigs and chickens but there are still plenty left if anyone wants some. I also have a good few green tomatoes if anyone makes chutney, free for collection, they are out the front so just help yourself. My Dad likes fried green tomatoes, I have never tried that personally but if that’s your fav then you know where to come. I then spent a morning collecting hazelnuts, normally I can fill a whole true with what is there but this year the harvest is small as are the nuts, two theories come to mind, one, that they have not produced because we cut them back when we put up the poly tunnel in Spring and the second, which is the one I am going with, is that we will not be having a long Winter and so the squirrels will not need to store very much, I am banking on that one 🙂 I had a go at making a nut butter with the hazels, but I didn’t get it quite right, it tastes nice enough but it is a bit on the grainy side, more oil next time I think. The piccalilli, and pontack sauce are both now made and in the store cupboard for tasting in a few weeks time, the rumtopf has blackberries, plums and black currants in with a good amount of sugar a few spices and covered in brandy, that one I will particularly look forward to tasting after a couple of months. I found a great little recipe for making a soup mix that you use instead of a stock cube, 1kg of veg, any kind, even your peelings would work, a handful of herbs, and 250g of salt, grind it all up in a processor, bottle and store, how easy is that and much tastier than those little cubes, just add two teaspoons to your soup or stew.

We have an amazing little mini beast at work this week, a dung beetle, well actually there are thousands of them, they are busy in the fields on the muck and of course then transferred when the muck is cleared and added to the pile, they are breaking down the pile at an amazing rate you can actually see the pile moving as they go about their work shredding it and saving us a bit of time in the process. Talking of mini beasts, when I shook the nuts trees to get the nuts a caterpillar fell onto the floor, it was the most vivid green with a pointed pink tail, I then spent about twenty minutes googling it to find out what it was, it turned out to be a Pale Tussock Moth, which I had never heard of.
A rabbit was the next encounter I had, it is unusual to approach a rabbit and it just sits there, it has mixy was my first thought but normally you can tell by the eyes and they were clear, my next thought was that it had been eating the apples under the tree which are decomposing, as it staggered off up the path I thought it may be drunk. I found it later on that day, dead and so mixy is the most likely cause, shame as I would have loved the thought of a group of adolescent bunnies binge eating on my apples and staggering home to the burrow a bit worse for wear the next morning.
Rats are a bit of an issue again, although I don’t think they ever really go away, the cats have caught two baby rats two days in a row, the evidence of them is there to see as they have burrowed under the chicken huts, I move the huts and the next day, new burrows. Between the cats and the poison we should be able to keep them under control, the cats by the way don’t ever eat the rats, they just kill them and leave them for dead so no worries about poisoning the cats.

I may have mentioned we were looking for a vintage caravan as a project that was not farm related, well we found one during the week not too far away and now we have Luna a 1970’s four berth caravan. This is something that I will be doing with my Sister and will keep you updated with photos as we go along.

I discovered that our Oak tree is over 50 years old while listening to Radio 2, apparently they do not produce acorns until they reach that age and ours has been giving us acorns for a few years now so we have a rough idea of its age.
I love to pick food from the hedgerows, free produce like blackberries, nuts, elderberries, rosehips etc are a bonus crop and packed with goodness, the one thing I have not found yet though are sweet chestnuts, so I decided to buy my own tree instead. In 10 years time it will be around 50ft tall and hopefully producing lots of lovely chestnuts for Christmas. We have decided to plant it in the small paddock at the back in memory of Max our mongrel who died earlier in the year, the paddock will be known as Max’s paddock from now on. Hubby has been busy on another project for a few weeks which is why he has not had a mention, yesterday however, he got the tractor out to move the muck heaps, strike while the iron is hot, I thought, and get him to dig the hole with the back actor. He is not used to using this part and so after nearly taking out the side of the covered area before even moving it we went up to dig the hole, I have never laughed so much, it would have been easier to do it with a shovel I think! He can’t quite get his head around how the controls work, I think it may be because he is left handed, we then had a go at levelling some ground near to a ditch, it’s more of a mess than when we started and he abandoned that in favour of a pick axe, but we had a good laugh trying to do it and that’s a good thing.

Photos of the caterpillar, Luna and the chestnut tree, look carefully and you will see the mess behind the tree that Hubby made with the tractor!

Did you take a look at the Moon midweek? It was very bright and lit the night sky beautifully, very useful if you want to keep working in the evening. The big farms around us have been working long days while the weather is dry, ploughing, muck spreading and flailing the hedges, getting everything ready for the next crop whatever that might be. Sadly in the countryside the Moon is also used by the more unsavoury to case farms and equipment, it means they can get a good look around without a torch and so go unnoticed, this time of year is prime time for theft from gardens and farmyards. For the first time I can remember our guard dog did not rush out of his kennel for his breakfast this morning, this is something to make a mental note of because it is unlike him in every way, he did eventually eat it when I called him and he may have just had a busy night, but it is important to be vigilant in the next few days in case he has been given something to make him quieter.

After a conversation about pickled eggs, I decided to have a go, I have never done them before and as we had a batch of Quail eggs I thought it would be a good idea to use them up. The pickling brine was easy to make and we just have to wait a few weeks to see how they taste, I am not a lover of pickled eggs but for some reason the blokes seem to like them with a pint! I have also made a few jars of Blackberry jam, I spent an hour picking them from the bushes on the lane and it has set well, the berries this year are not soft and mushy like they are most years and so jam making with them is ideal. I could have frozen them but if I make jars of jam they can be used for cakes etc and if needs be I can always add a few spoonfuls to an apple pie and it will do just as well. I have picked few Elderberries, but put them straight into the freezer so that I can use them when I have more time, I want to make Pontac sauce which can be used in stews and gravy, it will give them a rich flavour and we get the benefit of all that Vit C. I also spent a day picking and freezing carrots, sweet corn, broccoli, swede, beans, and tomatoes, both red and green ones, we now have the freezer full and ready to keep us fed. The need to pick things when you see them became apparent yesterday when, having promised some Victoria plums to my sister, the tree was laden on Friday, we approached the tree to find that they had all gone! The birds must have stripped the tree bare on the Saturday, the only ones left were the shrivelled up mouldy ones, note to self, don’t wait too long next year.

The pigs have finally been moved to outside this weekend, they have an area underneath the tall pine trees and they were so excited when they got there, they ran up and down pushing their snouts into the dirt pile, rolling in it, charging around a bit more, it was funny to watch them but also great to see them in a more natural environment than the stable. Hopefully we have secured it enough for them to remain there but they are very strong and will only get stronger, only time will tell if they are able to dig their way out or not. Any bruised windfalls are being used to supplement their feed as well as a few root veg that have not reached a good size and any runner beans that have gone unnoticed and got a bit too big, they are eating well, that will be good for the end result!

The egg numbers have suddenly gone up this week at long last, to start with the eggs remained in the shed as the customers had stopped coming because of the lack of them, or so I thought, but over the weekend we have sold nearly twelve dozen and are thankful that people have returned. The electric fence around the paddock had been a bit neglected over the last few weeks and so the hens had discovered a few gaps, a few, obviously more intelligent ones had decided to sneak out each day and this means I have to go looking for likely places that they would lay, I found two batches, one in the long grass and one around the back of the nut bushes, we test them in water to see if they are fresh or if they have been there a while, an egg will float if it has gone off because the air sac inside increases in volume, we tend to use any found eggs ourselves just in case one slips through the net and we break them individually first to make sure they are alright.

The horses were a little frisky yesterday, charging around the paddocks, that is unusual and something to take note of, it could be anything that sets them off but the answer came later in the day when our eldest went out to refresh the water and poo pick, Hornets! There were about four of them flying around and annoying the horses, who were running around trying to avoid them, luckily in my experience the Hornet season is short and they should soon move on.

It is a very busy time of year for getting in all that produce that has been growing away all Summer, this week it was the turn of the potatoes to be dug up, they are then laid in the poly tunnel to dry off and the skins to harden a little, any with holes will be used up quickly but the rest will be stored in paper sacks to use throughout the Winter. This year we have done so much better than last, the dry weather has made it ideal for potatoes and I have harvested some very large ones that will be used for baked lunch on a cold day, our main crop are King Edwards and they are by far the best all round potato I have ever grown. The tasks ahead for the week coming are apple picking and more hedgerow picking including rose hips for syrup to keep the colds and flu away. For the apples this year I have bought a garden tower so that we can reach the top fruit without having to climb the tree, not a good idea when you are well past your youth, the adventure side of you is willing but the muscles and bones no so 🙂
The nuts are beginning to fall but they will have to wait for collection until the fruit has been done, they will be fine on the floor for a while, until the squirrel realises they are ready of course and then it will be a race between us to see who can gather fastest, remember the plums, I had better not let that happen to the nuts.

The weather has been kind to us over the last few weeks and looks like it will continue at least one more week, I can’t believe how warm it has been, it is perfect for me, warm but not too Sunny, it means I can get on outside without too many problems. I think Sunday morning was the best by far this week, I went out to do the feed round, it was warm and quiet with a waft of a bonfire in the air, a perfect Autumn morning.

One of the big jobs this week was to give Rosie her annual de coke, since letting her out when spring finally arrived she has not been touched, so we took the flue apart and cleaned that then worked downwards taking out all the grate and cleaned all the internal flues. Afterwards I gave her a clean and polish on the outside and now she is all shiny and ready to go whenever the weather decides to turn 🙂

We have been busy enough to cross off a fair few jobs this week including finishing creosoting the big hen coop, we have done everything we can now to get the hens laying again, got rid of the mites, wormed them, given them some poultry spice but still they are reluctant to go into full production. The, dare I say it, lack of rain is probably a factor but there is not much we can do about that, the ground is bone dry and the grass is beginning to die off, the only moisture at the minute is from the dew after the colder nights, not that I am complaining we very much deserved a good summer and this year has been great. One of the benefits of fine weather is the magnificent sunsets we are having, last night was especially good, glowing very red, I took the photograph below last night, and have heard that lots of other people also took photos so it must have been pretty spectacular.

The harvest is stepping up to its most productive now, we have some lovely eating apples from the tree in the front paddock, cooking apples from the tree in the driveway, greengage, damson, and Victoria plums, and the veg garden is still going strong with tomatoes, cucumbers, runner beans, sprouting and sweet corn. There are busy days ahead, picking in the morning and prepping in the afternoon, the nuts will be falling next and collecting them up takes a good hour or so each day. The plum trees have had grease bands wrapped around the trunks, these will catch the codling moth grubs that climb up in the spring and hopefully won’t spoil the fruit next year.

Short and sweet this week as I have a heavy schedule lol, we are off to Devon for the weekend on Friday for two days R and R, bliss, I can’t wait to be by the seaside and watch the waves crashing in.