Month: October 2015

Hubby unexpectedly had a week off last week after finishing a job early, that’s great I thought we can get a few more jobs finished. I should have known better if I thought we could finish off the jobs already started instead he decides to investigate  the blockage in the drainage tube that runs under the hard standing and is supposed to run out onto the veg garden. Now this would have been fine as we had purchased two 5000ltr water tanks back in the summer and they needed installing  in roughly the same area, the problem was that he chose the worst two days of weather in goodness knows how many dry weeks to do it. He dug up the pipe which was under around two foot of mud and disconnected the existing tanks to use elsewhere, so that meant, as it practically rained non stop for 48 hours, hundreds of litres of rain coming off the roof straight into the mud mound he had made! Not to be deterred he carried on working out in it and eventually I heard a whoop of joy when a tennis ball came floating out,  of course all that tramping around was making the whole area muddier and muddier, I think he just likes to make a mess and that’s fine but when I get called out there to help lift the tanks into place I am not best pleased at working in the rain slipping around and trying to grab hold of a cylindrical tank with no obvious grip holds when it is soaking wet 😜 a real ‘good life’ moment if it had been filmed.

Having said that when the tanks are all in place we will be able to save nearly 8000ltrs of rain water and that has got to be worth the effort. Not only that but I am told there will be a pump fitted so that I can water the veg garden in next to no time so brownie points for Hubby. I just wonder why he didn’t pick a dry day😬

He spent the rest of his week off, cutting up wood and altering gateways and fencing, because we are on clay seams in places, the posts move a lot during Winter months and the gate to the jump paddock in particular was  practically non openable because of the post listing. In the same area we a have a bit of rough ground that we have now incorporated into the goose paddock with new fencing and gates  and it’s all looking very tidy.While I was explaining exactly what I wanted with the fence and gates I had Pygmy goats in mind lol, I think if I mention it often enough he will come round to the idea 😋

Meanwhile apart from having to make endless cups of tea and coffee, I have been busy trying to get the veg plot up together, I had hoped for a little help but Hubby keeps finding other jobs that ‘need doing before winter’ well that’s true so I set about the jobs by myself. I have cleared bed after bed of exhausted veg plants, asparagus , beans, potato tops, squash, I have cleared out tomato and pepper plants, cucumber, melon etc from the poly tunnels and given them a wash down. I cleared the fruit cage of wanton raspberry runners (potted some up) and weeds and tided up the canes that will bear fruit next year and I have lump hammered wobbly posts back into the ground, despite the ‘lump’ bit keep falling off the broken handle! The compost heap now looks like a green mountain and is about six foot high, it will shrink down over the next few months once the weather has worked on it, I will probably give it a helping hand in a couple of weeks time by treading on it to compact it and agitate it to start working. Having done all that there is still more to do, two more beds need weeding and all the dead stuff cut away, hops to be precise, they grow like weeds and have suffocated the patio fruit trees this year so I may have to think about relocating them. The rest of the carrots need pulling up and processing for the freezer, I have tried storing them in previous years but to be honest freezing is the better option just a little more time consuming. Normally I would then think about overwintering veg but I am considering giving myself the Winter off this year and just start early next year. I usually do brassicas over winter because they don’t get decimated by caterpillars but then I end up with cauliflowers all at once and I don’t like them frozen they have an odd taste, the other veg I do are broad beans and peas, garlic and onions but I have enough from this year to see me through so I think I will leave the ground fallow for a change. 

We have discovered the beginnings of the the dreaded red mite in the new chicken hut, dam and blast it 😖 so this week after the feed round in the morning and before I set to on the garden I have been trying to creosote the nest boxes in rotation doing four of them each morning, there are sixteen altogether. Trying to block them off so the hens don’t go in them is a challenge but I am winning and have four left to do tomorrow, it won’t get rid of them all but it will knock the numbers back considerably and hopefully the rest of the little b******s will freeze to death in the winter 😜

This morning I have had to catch hold of a poorly duck, at first I thought it had a broken leg as it was dragging it behind but when I looked it over it was bearing weight on it and I couldn’t detect any sign of a break or dislocation. It is sat in the quiet of the stable until I go out and investigate further. The ducks, like the chickens have been moulting and this one is also having trouble with its new pin feathers coming through, sometimes they can cause bleeding at the point of exit through the skin, it’s not having a good day so some TLC is in order and we will see if it gets better or not. 

There has been a definite nip in the air the last two mornings, I am not sure if we had a frost or not this morning, an extra layer was needed as well as gloves and a hat, and the late afternoon temps seem to plummet quickly. Since she came back into action we have been lighting the Rayburn around 3pm and letting it go out over night but I don’t think it will be long before she is running constantly. 

Whatever you are doing this week, have a good one 🐔

Of course I am talking about the weather! We can’t complain really we have had the most glorious few weeks of early Autumn sunshine and reasonable temperatures but it looks like that has come to an end and we would be lucky to get that back again anytime soon. 

So with the sun beaming down every day I have been very busy tidying up the vegetable plot, cutting grass, cleaning out pens and so on. I went away for a short stay to a Spa hotel with my daughters as a birthday treat for one of them which was fabulous, when I came home I had a renewed vigour for work. Unfortunately I wore myself out and by this weekend I was down to pottering to conserve energy, that’s the Lupus, it’s best not to go flat out at anything but with the weather on my side I couldn’t help myself lol. 

The cat has still not returned and so I imagine she has been hit by a car which leaves Desiel on his own, not that he seems to mind, I did contemplate getting another yard cat but I think I will leave it for the time being and see if Desiel manages to keep the mouse population down by himself. I say mouse population but in actual fact we don’t have many, every time we clear an area I expect to see something small a furry thing shoot out or the remains of a nest but it’s never there, I assume he is very good at his job 😃

I had what I considered ‘the perfect moment’ the other morning, I had been clearing the potato patch and burning the tops and any weeds, I sat down on the bench to drink my coffee, the morning sun was shining, the smoke from the bonfire was wafting gently, as I looked up across the field through a gap in the hedge I could see the local herd of deer grazing on the stubble, that’s just perfect,  I thought to myself I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else other than right here, right now, lucky me 😀

I picked the last of the patty pan squash, there were small ones still on there but they were not going to get any bigger so they went to feed the chickens, then I pulled up the plants which over the summer had got huge, there are still courgettes forming so have left those for the time being, butternut squash are the next lot to be harvested although they are quite small this year they will still have enough on them to be useful. I had a customer ask me if the butternut squash were imported as her daughter had told her that you can’t grow squash in this country! Of course it delighted me to inform her that everything for sale in the little shed is grown right here on the farm and that squash are easily grown here. I thought people were more clued up these days about the food they eat but obviously there are still folks out there who are not and educating people about where their food comes from and how it it grown is part of what I try to do. At this point there is a whole essay forming in my mind about, fresh, local, seasonal produce, food miles, chemicals and how supermarkets are massive buildings of brainwashing, but I am not going to to go there today, I will save it for another time, maybe even a different blog site entirely, this one is for the lighter side of farm life 😜

It is as we move through these next two seasons that all our hard work will seem worth it, plenty of wood cut up to keep us warm on the cold days, and plenty of produce in the freezers for making fruit pies and crumbles, slow cooked stews and soups. As yesterday was a foggy cold start I thought I would cook a roast, I don’t bother in the summer as I am usually too busy, as always, I sent a group text to the children and their other halves to see who wanted one, the replies came in like quick fire, yes, yes, yes, faster than they ever reply to anything else 😜 and so the evening was spent with everyone round the table tucking into a Sunday roast, a great end to a great week. 

Here’s hoping you have a great week 🍂