Month: November 2013

The nights are drawing in ever earlier, now while I enjoy cosy Winter evenings it does make the working day a lot shorter and therefore more has to be packed in to a certain timeframe. The birds need feeding at least an hour before the sun goes down, this is so that they can digest what they have eaten before they roost for the night as the lack of activity in the hen can cause the grain to begin fermenting which In turn can have a knock effect in the gut. If I feed around 3.30 that means I only have an hour before I have to go back out and shut everything away, this then interferes with cooking the dinner, normally we would eat around 5.30/6 but during darker days it’s more like 7. Generally, slow cooking is the answer, either a stew, casserole, hearty soup or a piece of meat that can be left to its own devices until we are ready to eat.

The piggies are getting much bigger now and more demanding, Alvin practically launches himself at the gateway and was very nearly over it the other day, the only thing I had in my hand at the time was the feed bucket full of feed, as a reflex action I went to bop him on the nose with it and the feed went everywhere, not a good idea. I have tried creeping up on them so they don’t get too excited but to no avail, they know when it’s feed time and the racket they make let’s everyone else in the area know too. We are coming to the end of apples and veg now so I have asked family members to save their veg peelings for them and any fruit and veg that has gone past it’s best if they are not going to use it. We recorded Downtown while we were away so I have not seen it yet but I am told that some of it was filmed at Cogges and that the pigs looked like ours, Oxford Sandy and Blacks, that’s because the pigs at Cogges are loaned to them by the same person we had ours from so they are related to TV stars lol.

I have embarked on a week long worming programme for the poultry, the wormer has to be carefully weighed and then mixed into the feed over a period of seven days, there is no egg withdrawal period thank goodness as we are selling them as fast as ever. The numbers are going up very slowly and quite a few of the birds are finally growing feathers signalling the end of their malting period, they had better get laying then as we are discussing if it is worth the cost of feeding them. People keep telling us how wonderful the eggs are, we never get to eat any because they are always sold, I can’t remember the last time I had an egg, it always seems to be a seesaw game, no eggs, customers go elsewhere, then lots of eggs and no customers. Short of leaving a radio on for them to listen to and building a fire for them to sit in front of, I have done pretty much everything I can to make sure they are happy and healthy enough to lay each day.

This weekend Hubby began the task of concreting around the stable block to prevent the rain just running in, he has also concreted a new step outside the small doorway with a pipe running underneath to carry away any excess rain, we have to wait for it to rain now to see if it has worked! There is still a long run to finish and a very large conifer to chop down in the process but at least we have made a start on the worst bit before it is too wet or frozen.

Today I have cleaned out the flue ways in Rosie the Rayburn, firstly because she has been lit for a few weeks now and build up of tar has occurred, secondly, as it was quite mild this morning it seemed like a good day to do it before he weather turns cold and we need to crank her up a notch or two, we have set fire to the chimney before and I don’t want that happening again. I did make a ‘schoolboy error’ as hubby would say, I used the Hoover and the plastic attachment, you know the one that can get down the side of the car seats, put it down into one of the flue ways which are about 2 inches square, pulled the Hoover nozzle out and the plastic bit was stuck down the flue :s I did asked myself out loud , what an earth possessed me to think that was even a remotely good idea lol, twenty minutes later after trying to retrieve it with BBQ tongs, I figured out it would be easier to push the cleaning brush upwards from the fire box into the flue and, with more than a bit of relief, out it shot, I would not have lived that one down for a while.

I ordered a new shed last week and it arrived today, I had ummmed and ahhhhed about it as we do have old bits of shed that I could have used to build another but they are all at least ten years old and so we have had good use out of them. Bite the bullet, I thought, and buy a new one, so I have, this one is for the garden area so that I can have everything in one place, at the minute I have stuff in the greenhouse, stuff in the shed by the back door, stuff in the back building and I can never remember what is where. I have already got the hooks and shelving to start organising it as soon as it is up 🙂 it’s the little things that make me happy. We are planning on putting it up tomorrow, weather permitting, I will say that there was a notable drop in temperature at lunchtime compared with this morning, maybe this cold snap they are predicting is really on its way, although I sincerely hope that, the worst Winter for a hundred years as told by the press, is not!

Good morning bloggers, I am home from holidays, fully relaxed and refreshed! We had a lovely time away but are glad to be home again.

I expect you want to know how the farm sitters got on while we were away, well they did pretty well, we only had a few deaths, a couple of chickens, both killed by the dogs, and an accidental duck death, which drowned! I had to dispatch another hen on the day we got back, she had a growth on the side of her face and was looking very unhappy hunched up in the corner, kinder to do the deed as soon as possible. Not bad all things considered lol, the place was still standing after the high winds that were forecast while we were away and the place is a bit soggy and muddy after the torrential rain bursts that occurred, incidentally, it does not seemed to have stopped raining since we returned, apart from yesterday which was a glorious day.

We plunged straight back into work and before long it didn’t seem like we had been away at all, back to the feeding routine although I nearly forgot to feed the Quail, takes a little while to remember what, when and when. The sheep went off to their final destination on the Thursday before we went away and our eldest daughter picked them up the following week. The weights were quite a mix from 11kg to 18kg for the lambs, but the two ewes made 28 & 30 kg which was excellent, two of the lambs were sold off, the smallest was divided up between our two daughters and we have the two ewes (mutton) in the freezer to keep us going for a year or so as we won’t be having any lambs next Spring so the field can rest and we get a break from the worry of them. We had some chops for tea the other night, very tasty.
The pigs are doing well and have got very hairy while we have been gone, they are still out in the little area under the conifers trees and I am surprised it is not more trashed to be honest, but they are great little housekeepers, they have a dry clean area with hay beds and they have a messy toilet area elsewhere. Alvin has turned out to be the most boisterous of the three, jumping up at the rail at feed time and squealing until he starts eating, they are still having the remains of the veg patch, large woody beetroots don’t last five minutes when you throw them in. There are still plenty of apples falling from the trees so they are enjoying those as well, the last of the windfall nuts have now gone so I may have to scout around the hedgerows for berries for them, it all adds to the final flavour 🙂

The egg numbers have dropped a bit, probably a combination of change of routine and the colder wetter weather. As yesterday was so lovely I spent the morning, cleaning out water buckets, topping up the grit and oyster shell pots, and making little rain shields for the top of the feeders, I am hoping this will save me money on feed. I cut off the bottom of some handle less buckets, and fixed the bottoms to the top of the feeders so that I can fill the feeders up fully and keep the bird well fed. We also got the tractor out and moved the large coop as the grass around it was beginning to get trashed and muddy, I put some new perches inside so that they don’t have to sleep on the floor and nailed up some sacking over the nest boxes to make it darker. I am hoping they will like the dark private area enough to lay all their eggs in there instead of getting out and laying them randomly around the farm, I live in hope lol, the darker it is the more they like it. I am also hoping that any egg eaters we have will not be able to see the eggs (they have poor eyesight in the dark) and that will also boost the egg numbers up again.
The tractor did not want to start to begin with, the battery was eventually flattened completely and we had to use one from elsewhere to get it going. Once up and running though it made light work of moving the coop, so glad as at this time of year the van does not have enough traction to move it and so in the past we have had to resort to pushing it by hand. It was no fun although probably looked hilarious to any passer by as it suddenly lurched forward, you lost your footing and ended up in the mud!

I had a long list of jobs to get through before we went away and managed most of them, the important ones anyway, but on our return, I realised how many more tasks there were to still do. A fair bit of tidying up is needed and Hubby began some of that at the weekend with a bonfire, and we need to make a start on the drainage around the stable block before the worst of the weather sets in. We seem to have a lot of standing water, I don’t know if it has got wetter over the years or if the ground is becoming compacted and worn leaving pockets for the water to sit, either way it is constantly flooding the stable block and the hay barn and so something needs to be done. The
ballast and cement is on order for delivery so next weekend I will be on mixing duty, it’s more productive than going to the gym to shift the holiday pounds I suppose 😉
The rats are an ongoing problem, I don’t think there are many of them just a few persistent little sods, so I have bought a huge tub of rat poison, I have read that they like peanut butter and so put some of the poison in the bottom of a nearly empty jar and gave it a good shake so that it all sticks together, then I pushed it into a hole that I know they are using (incidentally, did you know you can buy tracking powder so that you can see where they are running, it’s like fairy dust lol) I will stop them pinching eggs, one way or another.

Well, Venice is a distant memory and the pile of ironing is shouting at me from the corner so I intend to do that this afternoon whilst listening to a play on the radio. I always have the radio on. It’s the first thing I do when I walk into the kitchen in the mornings, I got a bit of a jarring when I turned it on the morning after we returned and Kiss FM was blaring out at me, I quickly retuned to Radio 2 and felt soothed lol. I have been listening while typing this and of course it is the 11th of November and as the radio fell silent at 11am, even though I am here all by myself I stopped what I was doing and stood silently to remember all those that fought for our freedom, so that in this day and age we can go about our business without fear.

Whatever you are doing, enjoy your week, enjoy any peeks of sunshine even if it is chilly, if you can try and find some enjoyment in the rain (difficult I know) as a comedian on holiday said, ask anyone in the graveyard, they would swap places with you whatever the weather, it was funny at the time honest 🙂