Month: January 2015

Well Blue Monday came and went, to be honest I can’t see what is so depressing about it, at least we are on the right side of the year for a return of Spring 🙂 We have plenty of signs that the circle of life is continuing, the bulbs are beginning to push their way through the frosty crust of earth, little tips of green peeping out are a good reminder that warmer days will come eventually. I have a shrub that we planted in the driveway last year, the name escapes me, but it has just started to flower, when I saw the little white blossom I literally broke out into a smile, the fragrance is strong too, which is why we decided to put it there, even if it’s not for long we should get wafts of perfume when walking by.

Today I spotted Fallow deer in the field behind us, about six of them in all, we tried to get a bit closer but their senses are sharp and we only got halfway across our paddock before their heads came up and they ran off, they will be back I am sure. We also have about five hen pheasants that have been coming for breakfast everyday in the goose paddock, they are eating the grain that the geese leave. It started off with just one and each day another would arrive and now it’s a party!

We have had a flutter of Snow, luckily it was only a layer, just enough to look pretty but not so much it causes a mess when it melts. On the morning of the snowfall it was still dark when I got up, I opened the door to look out and realised it was snowing, everything was totally still and quiet and you could nearly hear the shuffle of the snow when it hit the ground, it’s almost eerie.

I spent a morning doing a bit of baking, the result was a couple of fruit cakes, a lemon and lime drizzle cake, two bakewell puddings, a Brazil and cherry cake and a Victoria sandwhich, not a bad mornings work. My aim was to use up as much as I could from my baking cupboard, which I think I achieved. We are trying to make an effort to use up what we already have rather than buy something else, so as long as I have made cakes and puddings Hubby is not allowed to buy any when we go shopping. We are getting through some of the fruit and veg that was frozen last year, which is good because it won’t be long before we are picking again. The temptation to grab something quick off the shelf in the supermarket is great especially when you are busy and don’t have much time, but the reward of making and eating your own produce is much greater in my opinion and it tastes soo much better.

Hubby and my Stepdad have been busy concreting the feed room floor, up to that point all the feed bins were on pallets of various heights and sizes, some of the wood had broken and it was a bit of a hazard to say the least. Often the room would flood during heavy rainfall, but now we have a lovely level dry surface to walk on, a small thing but it makes all the difference to the start of the day if you can go about your business without twisting your ankle 😉

Bella, the kitten, fast becoming a small cat, has continued to settle in, and Diesel seems to be much more tolerant of her now, although he has not quite got to the stage where he will share milk with her, he does at least let her sit within a couple of feet of him and let her watch. Eventually they will become good friends and go off hunting together I am sure.

Mia’s puppies are growing super fast and all developing their own characters, they are five weeks old now and when I let them all out of the pen it’s pure carnage. They take up a fair bit of time through the day as Mia is only feeding them morning and before bed, the rest of the time, about three times a day, I let them out to eat hard feed, then there is a constant round of mopping up after them. As soon as I turn to clear up one lot another appears and they have now got to the age where, trying to grab the tissue as I clear up, is a great game. Then they need a little playtime, so they have carrots to chew on, cardboard tubes and empty plastic tubs to push around and a ball to figure out, who says you need fancy toys, after that comes the best bit, cuddle time, I am making the most of it while they are still here.

I made an attempt at looking through the seed catalogues last week, normally I am very keen to get my order in, that in turn makes me a bit too keen to get planting and inevitably the weather prevents this from happening so I end up disappointed, maybe I am learning finally not to be too hasty, or maybe I am just procrastinating, I haven’t made my mind up yet lol. Either way when I finally do get to start on the garden, I have ordered a fetching little number called a ‘facekini’ google it, that way you won’t be too afraid if you turn up a the farm and see me out in it, who knew something like that even existed, I am hoping it will mean I can spend longer outside in the sunshine, even if I frighten all the locals!

The CCTV is nearly operational, I say nearly because although I have managed to connect it all up to make sure it works, the only camera I have on is perched in the windowsill. I am still waiting for one or two things I need before locating them outside. I must say I am rather impressed with the quality of the picture both in the daytime and at night. It’s mostly for watching the wildlife around the farm, it will be interesting to see what is lurking, and if we manage to catch any two legged lurkers while we are at it then all the better 🙂

Well I haven’t blogged for ages, the new year seems a good place to start again, I will try and blog once a fortnight depending on what there is to say, once a week is too much and by the time once a month comes round I have forgotten everything 😉

We are in the depths of Winter, to be honest it has not been too bad as yet although I know there will probably be worse to come. The paddocks didn’t take long, once the rain came, to turn to mud baths, even the chicken footfall has caused a mushy field. We have reorganised the duck pen temporarily, that had turned into a slurry pit, mostly because the rain from the stable roof was flowing straight through it, Hubby has redirected the pipe to flow straight into the pond and we have penned them into drier ground for the time being. The plan is to dry it out, dig the pond out further down and hope we get the water flow right so that if it overflows it continues on down to the paddocks. Channeling water away from areas is a topic we have been discussing over the festive break, it seems we have more and more water sitting around and the plan is to channel it down to the hedge, when that will happen is anyone’s guess! Hubby had two weeks off and plenty of wood got chopped up, on frosty mornings the resting paddock was mucked ready for dragging when the ground firms up. We took down the fence in the middle of the front two paddocks so that we could move the electric fencing with more efficiency. One lot of chickens are now on fresh clean grass, the others have a bit more grass but we were unable to move the main of it off of the mud because there is nowhere else for them to go.

All the poultry are doing fairly well considering the weather, I nearly lost a goose a couple of months a go, it was very unwell but with some tlc and medication it made it through thankfully. I am still not sure how many males and females I have, I will have to wait until Spring and see how many eggs I get, if any.

I was standing looking out of the back door this morning looking at the wild birds, they seem to have faired well too, I noted that they look quite fat which will be important if we have a severe cold snap, we have a pair of partridge that have move onto the premises, I see them most days wandering around and there are a lot of pheasants nearby, they often wander in and pick up any seed that the chickens missed. We have not had any fox attacks as yet, although I did have a call from a neighbour to say that they had seen a large and healthy fox in the area so we need to be on our guard. We religiously shut our birds away at dusk and we don’t let them out until it’s light, so hopefully we won’t suffer any loses.

One of the hardest things to understand for people is the commitment when you are running a small holding, your social hours change greatly through the year, for instance during the winter, you need to be here an hour before sundown to feed the poultry, that means if you are going out you need to be back by around 3 in the afternoon, on the flip side you can go out to parties in the evening. During the summer months the day is a lot longer but the evenings are interrupted, so if you have been invited to an occasion that starts at 7, you go for a couple of hours before or after dark depending on how you feel, occasionally I have sent Hubby home to put the birds away while I stay at the party but that’s not very often. All in all I wouldn’t want it any other way, and of course when you have the parties here it’s no problem at all 🙂

Sadly we have lost two of the domestic animals in the last month, first Felix, the black and white cat, he got run over in the lane, by the time a passer by got him to the vets he had died. Felix was born on the farm about 10 years ago, he was almost feral when we moved in and over the last five years he had come to trust us and stay around for the occasional stroke if he was in the mood. The second was Moloko, the black and white Husky, he developed a tumour on his leg approx a year ago, they are prone to this type of illness. He was nearly 10 and by the time we noticed the tumour it had probably already got into the bone, so the options were to have the leg amputated, it may still have spread, or to leave it until the time came to have him put to sleep. We chose the latter because for an old dog, especially a running dog, to have his leg off would be traumatic, as it was he had a good year without discomfort and then it became apparent that the time had come. It was a good call and he went to sleep very peacefully.
We felt that the remaining cat, Diesel, would be lonely so in came Bella, a black kitten who has made herself totally at home and wreaks havoc outside, she is full of energy and as soon as humans appear she leaps on their shoulder and purrs very loudly, she is very active, agile and fast, we have already seen her catch a mouse and so she will be an asset, Diesel is just about tolerating her now although at first it was hate at first sight lol.
Mia has had puppies, they were born on December 14th, an hour before I was expecting the whole family over, she wasn’t due until the 17th so Sod’s law kicked in, they are now 3 weeks old and there are five little fat bundles of cuddliness 🙂

The new year seed catalogues have arrived, which always make me very happy, deciding on what to grow for the year is something I love doing, I try not to do it too early as it can be demoralising waiting endlessly for the weather to change and get stuck in, but this time of year is great for planning as there are plenty of ‘indoor’ days to do it. I have a Facebook contact that has a small holding in Norway and they have to be fully self sufficient, I love reading about their place and the things they do, I find it quite inspiring to read about other like minded people and their day to day happenings, it spurs me on to think of all the things I ought to be doing but haven’t quite got round to yet. I don’t have new year resolutions as such but I resolve to ‘do things’ for instance one year I decided to say yes to invitations instead of saying, I will let you know or I am not sure if i will have time, I had a very sociable year! This year I have resolved try to do things I would like to have a go at, cheese making for instance, I have been saying for the past 3 years that I will have a go, so this is the year I will get it done. Having a go at smoking is another, garlic, meat whatever I fancy, building a pizza oven is another although I am not sure where to put it that’s the dilemma with that one, and getting my food hygiene certificate so that I can sell preserves at the farm gate. These are all things I intend to do, we will see how many of them I achieve over the next year.

A New Year is full of hope and promise so I hope you achieve the things you set out to do and I promise try try and achieve mine 🙂 Happy New Year to you all. X