March 2017 – frieslandfarm (flowers)

Rain, Sun and naughty dogs.

Posted on March 26, 2017 by frieslandfarm

Monday: Back from a weekends rest although we did a lot of walking, but the change of scenery was very nice.The quail seem to be thriving now and having a quick glance at them I am hopeful there are a fair few females amount them although I won’t know for sure for another week or so and they could be famous last words!

After the morning rounds I went straight into the greenhouse with the fuchsias that arrived while I was away, I ordered some hardy fuchsia plugs, 20 in total, I just need a couple for the front boxes and I plan to bring them on and sell the rest at the farm gate. It was very satisfying potting them on and they will just need a little nurturing before going outside to grow on. I came in a researched each type and made notes that can be printed off for information if anyone buys any. Fuchsia flowers can be eaten as can the berries they produce, some of these will make stunning additions to the salad bowl or cake decorations as well as a beautiful display in the garden.

I am pretty sure Mr Fox has had an escaped chicken overnight as there are feathers in the yard 😖

We have plenty of eggs at the minute, the hens have gone into mega lay lol, I may need to do a bit of cake baking to use some of them up, quiche would be ideal but neither John nor I particularly like them so will have to think of something else.

I decided to do a bit of using up, I had some bread to make into crumbs and then made a treacle pudding and put the other crumbs in the freezer for using later, then a use up of fridge stuff, bits of cheese, mushrooms, some salami I bought at Christmas and never used, half a bag of fresh coleslaw veg, a good handful of herbs, half a carrot two decidedly seen better days spring onions, plus 9 eggs and made a frittata which will hopefully taste good (it did 😀) and serve me well for a couple of lunches. I intended to make some Yorkshire pudding batters for the freezer but of course you never have the right ingredients in the cupboard when you need them 😝 I fancy a go at scotch eggs so the breadcrumbs will come in handy for those when I get round to it and of course I could make fresh pasta, but I need 00 flour so that will have to wait, I also need to borrow a pasta machine, I have hand made it in the past but if it’s thick it’s not so good. Oh my days did that ever chuck it down this afternoon, hurry up back springlike weather please.

Tuesday: Did the morning routine, all seems well. Then came in to make some Yorkshire pudding batters up for the freezer to try and use up some of these eggs. Sam got me some flour yesterday so I made up 4 batches using 16 eggs in total. It makes sense really as there are times when we don’t have any eggs at all because the chickens have gone off lay or the customers have bought them all. Then I had a go at curing eggs, I’ve wanted to do this for a while, they are all the rage in fancy restaurants at the moment, basically you take the yolks and bed them in a mix of salt and sugar for 4 days in the fridge then dry them and use them grated on salads or pasta, we will see how they turn out. With the whites I made an angel food cake.

Then I had a most unexpected, unwanted incident that made me fly out of the door shouting like a banshee, I could hear Kai making a racket but thought it was because Sam was out in the front paddock collecting eggs, until I looked up and saw the two dogs, Mia and Patch tearing an escaped chicken apart, furious does not even come close I can tell you. I flew out of the door, growling at them to get round the back, when I got them in they had a good few belts with my shoe on the backside and on the nose, all the while I am still growling ‘how dare you’ ‘you disgust me’ not that they understand that but they know I am furious with them. Then I put them both in the cage and shut the door, the ultimate in ‘you did a bad thing’ round here. I can’t quite believe it, Mia is nearly 5 and never done anything like that ever, nor Patch who is just over 2, in fact I have never had to raise my voice to them let alone a hand. The plan is that they will not be allowed out unless I am out there for a few days and we will see how it goes, not sure what I will do if they decided to do it again, the trouble I’m guessing is they have far too much freedom to run around as they please, I’m hoping they just got a bit over excited and that’s it. On the chicken front, I went back out once I had confined them, expecting to retrieve a dead body but while there were plenty of feathers everywhere there was no chicken! Despite having a look round for it I couldn’t find it at all, so it must have got up and run off in which case it possibly wasn’t too badly hurt, I will have another good look round once the cake is out of the oven.

My morning went from bad to worse in every way, the cake cooked I went out to look for the chicken, I went into the front paddock and have a look in the chicken hut to see if it ran in there, I couldn’t see any distressed or injured chicken so came back out, the gander headed straight for me head down and neck outstretched so I shot back inside the hut and shut the door. I will sneak past I thought phahaha nope, he came for me again so for the second time I ran back to the chicken hut and shut the door, he was getting pretty close I was sure I was gonna feel him grab the back of my leg, I then picked up the floor scrapper I use which has a long handle and armed myself with it to get out of the paddock, laughing nervously all the way back. Then I turned out the cake, I hadn’t read the instructions properly and instead of folding in gently I had whisked in rapidly, result, flat cake 😝 I think I will start today over again 😭😭

I have Mia this afternoon but she was tired and fell asleep pretty quickly enabling me to get some dinner made for later, chicken casserole for John and chicken and mushroom stroganoff for me 😀 I then got the dehydrator out and gave it a wash, I’m out of mushroom powder and need to make some more plus there are some herbs I want to start picking and drying and the garlic I grew last year which has been hanging up is starting to ‘green’ in the middle, I have about 4 bulbs left and once they go like this they can get bitter so I thought I should probably dry them and grind them to powder before they start to shoot. I really ought to try using the bottom of the Rayburn but I have had less than great results with it in the past and at least the dehydrator is temperature controlled, as long as I pack it full and get the best use out of it that’s ok isn’t it?

Wednesday: The foul weather isn’t getting much better but apparently the weekend will be warmer so I will hold onto that fact 😄
I sneaked into the goose hut this morning to see how many eggs are in the nest, 10 so far, one of the geese is spending more time on the nest, not much but enough to indicate that she will sit soon. As we still have goose eggs for sale I will probably leave them in there now and see what happens. We have sold nearly 60 eggs so that’s not bad at all. So far this morning the dogs have been on their best behaviour in fact Patch is hardly leaving my side bless him, I am really hoping they just got a bit over excited and have learnt a lesson, still no sign of which hen it was so maybe it was more of a rough game than a kill mode. I bought a couple of large punnets of mushrooms yesterday which are now in the dehydrator.

I went out and spent an hour or so in the greenhouse, sowing more seeds and splitting the herbs I bought last week at the garden centre. I noticed one of my rhubarb crowns has been ravaged by something, sawfly I think, but I have not come across this before so have asked opinions on garden pages, it something I need to sort but I need some idea of what I am dealing with and google is not coming up with anything.

It is a filthy day today, it reminded me of childhoods days like these when the only entertainment was racing raindrops down the window pane 😛I lit the fire early, it will make it cosy indoors and I won’t mind the rain so much. Then I think I will scour Pinterest for slow cooker recipes, I bought one yesterday after chatting with facebookers about the merits of owning one, the general consensus was that it was worth having, my reasoning was that it uses up a lot less electric than turning the oven on in the summer months when the Rayburn is not lit and now I’m going to compile a page of recipes for it, what better day to do that than a wet soggy one. ☔️ First into the pot is breast of lamb, when you buy a whole lamb this is included, sadly in our house it’s nearly always left in the bottom of the freezer, until the slow cooker that is because slow cookers make the very best of the cheaper cuts of meat, at least that’s what I keep reading so we will see. I plan to stuff it with sage and onion stuffing, chuck in chunky veg and some garlic and herbs including rosemary of course and see what happens, I’m just a little bit excited about using one for the first time lol.

Thursday: Well the slow cooker was a success, the lamb just fell apart and tasted fabulous, I need to get a little bit more informed about using it, there were no instructions other than turning it on and how to use an electrical item, so I had to search and find out if you use liquid in it or not lol, I’m such a novice but hopefully will learn fast.

I candled some of the duck eggs tonight, out of ten at least eight were fertile and growing, 2 looked clear, I will candle them all again next week and remove any clear ones.

Saw 2 red legged partridge in the paddock today, it’s funny as I only see them at certain times of the year but they must be around all year long.

Friday: Did a bit of clean bedding this morning on the rounds, one of the geese is beginning to sit every day on her eggs now there are about 10 in there I think. The pump in the incubator has packed up, this means water is not longer being pumped in and the humidity had dropped to 37%, it should be 44%, I will have to manually add water to keep the humidity up for the next 15 days. I can’t turn the pump off and have a look to fix it as it is fed by the same flex as the thermometer so we will see how things progress, it shouldn’t be too bad as I have had incubators without automatic functions before where you manually top up the water to keep humidity up, just a pain only 10 days in 😝

I wish the wind would die down, I’m getting a headache being buffeted in the time I’m out there 💨

Looking at the quail this morning I think there are 7 females, they all have spotted chest feathers, of the other three one is definitely male, plain chest feathers, the other two are a colour I was not expecting (almost lavender) and so I have no idea what sex they are until they are old enough to vent sex them when a male will produce white foam.

I picked the first two lots of rhubarb this morning and put them out for sale thinking if they don’t go I will make rhubarb and ginger jam with them, needn’t have worried, they were snapped up within an hour!

The cured eggs are ready to be cleaned off and transferred to the oven to dry and will then be ready to use, will be interesting to see what they taste like!

I will have an extra pair of hands helping out on Fridays in a couple of weeks time, Elena used to help out before in exchange for veg and will be returning on Fridays, many hands make light work and all that 😀

Saturday: Busy day as the weather was fabulous, first of all I thought I’d better get the house cleaned otherwise I wouldn’t want to do it later. I worked mostly in the garden, watering, sowing, weeding, tidying, grass cutting and mending the fence yet again after the wind destroyed it, its only reed fencing so it doesn’t take much but I have bolstered it up now with some fence panels we had. I cut the front drive grass for the first time this year as well, I was fair tuckered after that lol. Popped down the pub for a couple of G & T’s before coming back to feed the birds.

Sunday: Mother’s Day, I hope all you Mums were thoroughly looked after, the girls came home to cook up a big breakfast for us which was lovely. Another beautiful day and John cleaned out the chicken run that the selling birds live in, we moved the others to the front hut last night when it got dark, we have got 25 point of lay coming in although I’m told they are already laying as things have been slow for the supplier during the lock down, goodness knows what we are going to do with yet more eggs!The egg sales are going well but so is the laying, we are getting around 80/90 eggs a day from the hens alone, that’s a fair amount to shift. The goose on the nest has not left for three days now so that’s it for goose eggs, I am not going in there to try and retrieve any lol. The quail are growing well they are about 20 days old now, a few more weeks until they begin to lay yet.

In the afternoon I cleaned out the chickens in the orchard and the rabbits, plus the hut in the front which didn’t get done this morning, then I went on the hunt for weeds, grass tufts and dandelions for the rabbits plus some chick weed for the hens in the orchard, then onto a bit of hoeing, loving the lighter evenings as it means I can be out there longer although I can feel that I have been bitten by midges 😝

We have a problem this year with either ash or sycamore saplings, I’m not sure which as we have both trees here, but the conditions must have been just perfect for them because there are thousands of little saplings all over the place, in the paddocks, in the garden, on the driveway, everywhere! We have never had it before like this and I’m not sure how we are going to tackle getting rid of them, they probably need to be mown in the paddock but they are not quite tall enough yet and my worry is if we leave them too long (more than two leaves, the cotyledon) the root, will have got strong enough to sprout even if we do mow them.

Have a fabulous week people 😀

Sun, sea and sand (not all at once though)

Posted on March 19, 2017March 20, 2017 by frieslandfarm

Monday: Another quail died overnight so we are down to 12 now. The weather forecast is set to be fair all week with high temperatures for the time of year 😀 This morning as I walk round feeding, the sun is shinning and it feels great to be where I am, the day is my oyster 😜 There are plenty of little birds flitting around, wrens, sparrows and long tailed tits plus the ever present robin of course. Rabbits running around at the bottom of the paddock and we have seen an increase in pheasants over the last few days as well. During a cold snap one of the arms on my washing line snapped so I had to go and buy a new one which I will put up today as it promises to be a good drying day I think, and as we are lighting the Rayburn later and later in the day I need to start drying outside instead of inside overnight. Remember when I told you about all the different coats well I have been swapping the winter coat for my gilet in the middle of the day whoop whoop I much prefer to work unencumbered. Spent the first part of the morning cleaning out the rabbit run and sorting them out, I let the chickens back into the penned area in the orchard, I feel much happier about where they are all living now, I also moved the rabbit that lives on her own into the big rabbit run but she is living in a hutch, I figured it was better than not being able to see the others.

Then onto some gardening, well you have to on a day like this don’t you? I concentrated on the fruit cage, tying in all the raspberry canes and cutting back any that I didn’t want, then weeded it and dug out the couch grass, weeded round the blueberries, one had a branch that had rooted so I cut that off to pot up, I don’t have any ericaceous compost so I mixed in some conifer clippings for the time being to lower the acidity. After that I went into the greenhouse, the temperature was up to a crazy 25 in there, I showed some celeriac and outdoor tomato seeds, it was a bit warm to spend too long in there. I really wanted to stay outside but time was getting on and I still had bread to make so I went indoors and got that started, made some jelly with strawberries I got out of the freezer last night ( they smell amazing) and made some chocolate chip and marshmallow muffins 😀 what a fabulous day I have had.

I made John a chicken casserole with some stock I made from yesterday’s duck carcass and I will have chicken with baked potato and some salad bits from the poly tunnel, John will have jelly and ice cream while I will have macerated strawberries and ice cream, we both eat totally differently but it’s ok as long as I am organised enough to sort it out. We both love chocolate muffins 😀

Tuesday: The old lady duck died overnight and also another quail chick, one other is looking weak despite me keep making it drink and eat. I turned on the turner for the duck eggs yesterday so it’s a waiting game now. Sat outside drinking my morning coffee and today’s garden birds are blue tit, great tit and chaffinch, obviously we always have fat pigeons, collared doves, crows and little brown jobs as my lecturer always called them. I got some jobs done this morning before Mia arrived, put the seed potatoes in, sowed some Swede and parsnip and some perpetual spinach and coriander outside. I have two ton bags of compost from the heap so I planted the seed potatoes straight into them rather than decanting them onto the beds and putting the potatoes there, I couldn’t see the point and as potatoes seem to grow well in the heap they should do ok in the sacks 😀While Mia had her lunchtime nap I managed to get a shepherds pie made along with a chilli, several portions for the freezer too for the days I am working long hours in the garden.

Wednesday: The weather is looking ok again today, a misty start and hopefully the sun will burn it off. John and I discussed dragging the big paddock at the end of the week if it stays dry, I will have a walk over it today and see how it’s doing, it could probably do with a top seed as well. I’m am unsure about dragging the chicken paddock, it has a fair amount of moss in some areas so I guess it does need doing really, it’s just that it looks so good undisturbed.

All is well on the rounds this morning, a quail chick died yesterday I think we are left with ten but overnight, no more fatalities. As I was coming back in from the front I saw the sparrow sat on top of his nesting box with a big fluffy feather in his beak ready to line the nest, he looked very pleased with himself and I’m sure the missus will appreciate such comfort 😀

Had a good morning in the garden, got the washing line post secured, I was going to cement it in but instead I used the spike from the old one as the cement we had was set hard in the bag! Then onto fixing up the fencing that storm Doris blew down, this included a post that I had to use the post rammer to get back in, heavy piece of equipment that is 😜 then I set up a climbing net in the poly tunnel and planted some sugar snap peas for a (hopefully) early crop, I also planted some yin yang beans and some asparagus peas which I have not grown before. Did a bit of hoeing and also took some cuttings from a clematis I have growing over the shed, hopefully they will strike, though I do love growing food to eat, I do miss a bit of ‘proper ‘ gardening. 😀 I have Mia this afternoon and we are off to ‘soft play’ obviously Nana is going for the coffee and cake 🎂

Thursday: Cracking weather yesterday hoping for more today! Did the rounds this morning everyone seems happy enough, I gave the rabbits some of the willow whips I cut the other day and they have been chewing on them, I must make little bundles for them all through the year, it’s one way to use the whips. I have in the past tried to grow a willow wigwam which didn’t take and used them for edging which did take though I didn’t want it to lol you can’t win.

Sam came over late morning and we got the tractor and chains out and dragged the paddocks, this does a couple of things, pulls out dead thatch and hay, breaks up and clumps of mud, spreads any poo lying on the ground and tells the grass to WAKE UP and start growing lol. We got the tractor stuck in a particularly wet part but brute force and a puff of black smoke got us out and we avoided that bit from then on. An hours catch up with The Walking Dead and a cuppa then onto the afternoon feeding rounds.

I took my phone out with me this morning to get some photos then got side tracked with the hay delivery so I will really try to get some photos of anything otherwise just words are a bit boring 💤

Lamb chops for dinner tonight, I think that is the last of them, I will have to start using up breast of lamb otherwise they get left for ages, only because I never really know what to do with them, will have to Pinterest it, unless anyone has any good recipes they can offer me 😀 I have just ordered a book for 99p from Amazon called ‘it’s raining plums’ which has been recommended by another smallholder blog, seasonal recipes and at 99p it’s a steal.

There are so many Cade lambs being advertised at the minute I’m almost tempted lol, then I remember about bottle feeding and the routine and wind my neck back in 😜 maybe next year when the grandchildren are older.

Friday: This will be the last entry from the farm this week as John and I are off to the coast again for the weekend, Shelley will be looking after the farm. This morning after the rounds I gathered up any paper/cardboard rubbish to burn then weed killed the front driveway, it’s surprising what is already growing, from a distance it just a green haze but up close its weeds and tufts of grass. Cleaned the chicken run at the back, put in fresh bedding for the ducks and cleaned the front chicken hut. Then I felt hungry so I decided on eggs and coffee, I scrambled a goose egg, sooo creamy. It’s only 10.30 so I may while away some time in the greenhouse 😀

Saturday : Shelley and Josh came over to look after the place and we set off for Lymington for an over night stay, we took a detour through the New Forest and saw all the ponies and a few donkeys before arriving at our destination. It was quite nice weather, well not raining at least and the temperatures were warm enough, we wandered down to the old cobbled quay area and to the marina, stopped for a drink and a pasty before checking in to our room at The Angel and Blue Pig, had another wander round the town and then went back to watch the Rugby and eat steaks and drink plenty of bottles of beer.

Sunday: Up and breakfasted then decided to drive along no the coast to Bournemouth, we stopped at Milford on Sea for a coffee, it was mightily windy lol but nice to watch the waves come crashing in. Then we drove onto Bournemouth, we haven’t been there for over 30 years, I don’t think it’s changed an awful lot, still very windy but pleasant enough. After that we headed on home but via the A roads rather than the motorways, I like to see a bit of the countryside, the change of the colour of bricks and stone that the houses are built from, the difference between, the forest, the plains and the downs, none of which is obvious from the motorway which is a faster but sterile route 😝 and back home ready to start again tomorrow 😀

The big paddock

Friesland Farm

Hatchlings, seedlings and ducks

Posted on March 12, 2017 by frieslandfarm

Monday: Today I shall be mostly checking the incubator every hour or so for signs of hatching! The sun is out so I need to get outside and do a bit in the garden area while I can. Washed down and swept out the greenhouse and gave it a good tidy up inside and around the outside. I transplanted the broad beans, which are doing very well, into the poly tunnel and put some more seeds in to germinate hopefully giving a succession of beans. I also sowed, some sweet corn, sugar snap peas, comfrey and sorrel seeds as well as a free pack of sunflower seeds I had. The sun was fabulous today and really made me feel that it was worth doing, I hope it was. Then I spent another hour and a half on the veg beds, weeding, clearing, tidying, half knowing that the next chance I get to go out there the weeds will be back again 😝One job I am really forward to is that first cut of the lawn when it’s dry enough, then I know Spring is sprung. I don’t mind telling you I was fair tuckered when I came in, 10 minutes rest before I start on the afternoon routine, at least my fav magazine arrived today Home Farmer so I will enjoy a sit down to read it tonight, if I can stay awake that is!

Tuesday: Feeling a bit rubbish this morning, the cough came back last night and now my ear is blocked again 😫 I started taking some multi vits last week, I wouldn’t bother normally but this has lingered for nearly three months on and off so going to try and kick it into touch. I was starting to think that the quail were not going to hatch for whatever reason, maybe they were not fertile eggs, usually eggs would be candles at 10 days incubation but because of the colour and pattern on quail it’s very difficult to tell so I let them run. Anyway this morning I can hear cheeping so as long as they can do the job and get themselves out of the shell we should have quail sometime today, at least one anyhow! The eggs sales are up so much it’s hard to keep up, I checked around 3.30 yesterday, there were around 4 dozen in there, by 5.30 they were gone and I had refilled the shed in the morning, it’s great but hard to keep up, luckily we have the eggs it’s just the man power that’s slow 😜

A glorious day out there today, few and far between at the moment but I am hopeful there will be more in the weeks ahead. I had Mia so no work outside and she was poorly bless her so plenty of tlc and cuddles. 1 chick has at last hatched I will leave it in the incubator and hope some more hatch overnight.

Wednesday: Rain 😖 we have 4 hatchlings this morning, I’m hoping we get more than that eventually. I will prepare the bigger cage with the brooder lamp and transfer them over sometime this morning where they will be able to access food and water.

Surprisingly, even though it’s raining it quite pleasant out there, the temperature is mild and I didn’t get too wet, the ducks are laying like crazy, 20 eggs today! The chickens are are laying well, and we have nearly collected 40 eggs from the geese since they started laying 😀

So I transferred the 4, I can hear cheeping from the unhatched eggs so hopeful there will be more. The first thing that happened in the big cage was a bid for freedom from the oldest and noisiest chick, can you believe it, only a day old and it had identified the highest area, which is where the water bottle is as I made steps up to it, and it tried to get out through the bars! I have had to put pieces of cardboard along the edge to stop it lol, even when I put it back in the middle with the others it made straight for the getaway area, I guess survival instincts are very strong, it doesn’t know it’s better off in there 😜

Thursday: We now have 11 hatchlings with more still trying to get out, I’ve never had a hatch over so many days before but at least they are hatching.

I’ve have read two things over the past couple of days that set me thinking about the beginning of our journey into smallholding and the influences that sent me in that direction. First and foremost my parents both have ‘green fingers’ and I guess if you grow up with parents who garden it becomes part of who you become, we lived in villages and grew up with village/country ways. Second came Hugh and River Cottage and the chance to move to a house with a huge garden with an established fruit and veg bed, then came Ernie, the most inspirational man I have ever met when it comes to horticulture and wildlife, listening to him on the days I went to college were some of the best days I ever had and I could listen and question him for hours. Throw into that mix a friend who asked if we could look after any triplet lambs that were born one year, I leapt at the chance and we hand reared a lamb for 8 weeks keeping him in the garage and garden. We already had chickens and at that point I knew this is what I want to do on a bigger scale so here we are today. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how or even why you started on a particular road, but if you look back and realise that it still makes you feel that way (mostly) then you took the right path. When I talk to people who are just starting out I usually don’t stop talking and realise the enthusiasm I had all those years ago is still there, it’s just buried under day to day stuff.

It promises to be a super sunny day today, let’s hope we are not disappointed and I can spend long hours outside 😀

Before I went outside, I increased the humidity in the incubator by another 10% as I can hear chicks tapping at the shell but not breaking them so we will see later if that helps. It’s hard not to help them out but if you do you risk them haemorrhaging and if you don’t they die inside the shell 😔 so it’s best left to nature and a little intervention fromthe incubator.

So far in the garden today I have pruned the other gooseberries, repaired path edges that have come away, built a new compost bin, done a bit of hoeing and put down some weed membrane on the bed John built last year. While I am not a great lover of swathes of black plastic, neither to I want to spend most of my time in the garden weeding so on goes the membrane until the bed is needed.

Having written that, I then spent two hours weeding 😂😂 all but the fruit cage and two beds are now weed free, one of them was too wet to do and I got too tired to do the others. The cabbages I planted last autumn have had 50/50 results, one lot are fine the other lot have either rotted away because it was too wet for them or are struggling to put on any growth, still it means the bed is empty enough for planting into rather than waiting so that’s what I will do.

Came in for an hours sit down, then thought it’s way too nice out there not to go back out so I set about dividing and potting up some chives (which smelt amazing) oregano and mint then walked over the lawn and it was dry enough to give it a cut on the highest setting, planted the garlic and weeded the flower troughs, phew, now time to feed, water and collect the eggs 😜 That was definitely a dirty fingernails day 😀 love it.

I think the final number of quail is 11 the other eggs are fertile but they are not hatching, weak chicks, one I helped out but it has not absorbed its yolk properly and probably won’t make it though I will leave it in there and give it a chance. Eventually I will turn off the incubator and they will go cold and die, sounds harsh but they won’t make it either way at this stage 😔.

Friday: well you could knock me down with a feather this morning as the quail that had not absorbed properly is alive and fairly well this morning, good job I didn’t turn the Incy off as there is also another one hatching lol, I’ve never known anything like it in all the hatches I have done, I guess the survival instinct is strong, so we are looking at 13 and I will leave it running just in case.

Burnt all the paper rubbish and feed sacks this morning, it’s quite pleasant and mild out despite no sunshine.

Number 14 and 15 hatched although in the long run they didn’t make it 😔 and I have now turned off the incubator ready to clean, disinfect and think about ducklings 🐥

In the morning I went down to the front of the driveway to cut back the willow whips, I also have a contorted hazel which throws up reverted stems so they needed cutting out as well, while I was there, the dustbin men came, a walker with a dog, an egg customer and the postman, the only cheery one was the postie, who is always cheery no matter what, they were all polite enough lol just not very chirpy.

I spent a couple of hours with Sam looking at plants and flowers for her back garden, she is in the enviable position of basically starting from scratch with what to plant and where, she likes cottage garden so we went for clematis, roses, perennials and bulbs and got a good deal online, it will look fabulous when established.

Did a quick hoover round and a polish and then out to do the afternoon rounds, all as it should be although I have a duck that is looking a bit sorry for herself, she is one I hatched out a few years back and I can’t quite remember how old she is possibly 5 or 6 so getting on a bit.

Saturday: Finally got round to processing the other 9 drakes, I started at 8 and finished at 1, with a coffee break with Mum and Shelley in between, we now have a freezer full of duck! John did all the routine jobs so I could get straight on with it. When I had finished I went for a much needed break to the garden centre with the girls to help Charlie find plants for her hanging baskets and have a cup of tea 😀 I picked up a couple of herb plants while I was there, parsley and bergamot, also some seeds to sow, basil and coriander.

Another of the quail chicks died this morning so I now have 13 left hopefully that will be all the deaths and the others continue to get stronger. Next batch, ducklings, I have eggs that were collected before the drakes were done so they should all be fertile, I have 3 drakes left with around 15 ducks I think but I need to count them to be sure.

Sunday: We got a good amount done this weekend, cleaning out chickens etc, I cleaned out the incubator then turned it on to wait for it to settle back to the correct temperature and humidity then put in 16 duck eggs, they will be about 25 days before they hatch. I will candle them around 10 days to make sure they are fertile and growing. Roast duck for dinner tonight 😜

Friesland Farm

Rain, rain and more rain ☔️

Posted on March 6, 2017 by frieslandfarm

Monday: A new week 😀 the weather forecast for this week looks awful but will shall wait and see what happens, so far this morning it’s mild with a threat of rain but so far so good. I began worming the chickens this morning, I have to do it over a seven day period and try not to forget otherwise I waste my time. The ducks I decided not to do because I need to ‘do’ the drakes and I don’t want that in the system, it’s perfectly fine to eat the eggs from wormed birds but not sure about the meat and so I will leave them a while, they live separately so it’s not a problem. A week today the quail should start hatching I need to remember to get some chick crumb for them before then so will put it on the list. Everything is laying like billyo and we have plenty of eggs of every kind, hopefully with pancake day tomorrow they will sell well today. On my way round this morning I noticed that some of the panes of glass are very loose on my greenhouse, I need to get back out there straight away to secure them, the winds are still gusting every now and then and I don’t want to lose them. I need to make bread today and I plan to make some rolls to got with leek and potato soup I’m going to make, well that’s the plan anyway. The plan was well executed 😀 we also had apple and strawberry crumble for pudding, I thought I had got raspberries out, but I was quite excited when I realised they were strawberries, a different but hopefully yummy combination.

Tuesday: Horrid day, cold and wet yuk, John is off work today with a bang to the eye he suffered yesterday he can’t open either of them and I have Mia later on. Got the animals done, Jack, the horse is staying in today as the farrier is coming to give him his routine pedicure later 😝 Shelleys birthday today and she is doing a stack of pancakes later yum, meanwhile she has come to collect a tray of eggs with Josh and managed to sell two trays to acquaintances which is great because they are stacking up! Charlie has a week off and she arrived with a birthday cake for shelley which we had with a cuppa, very nice, and Sam arrived with Mia, very rare we are all here together on a weekday 😀

Wednesday: After trying to persuade John to get his eye looked at yesterday he finally relented and went to the hospital this morning as it wasn’t getting any better. I stayed and did the animals while Shelley took him, then went round to visit my Mum who has this horrid virus. John finally got back from hospital around 2pm with iodine running down his cheek and ointment to put in it, turns out he has scratched the eyeball so will be off for a couple of days (getting under my feet).

Thursday: It would have been a lovely day to spend in the garden if it wasn’t for the cold wind today, I am longing for a warm, dry day so I can get started out there. In the meantime it’s the usual routine of feeding, watering, cleaning and egg collecting with not much else going on at all really. I didn’t even make bread today, I cheated and bought some when I went shopping 😝 I still have the remnants of this virus, my ear feels blocked and has been like that for three days, I’ve tried a number of things, Shelley found a list of ‘treatments’ on Google including, gargling with salt water, I managed to swallow a small amount and ended up retching, steaming the ear canal with tea tree oil, causing suction and of course good ole olive oil, all to no avail, it’s still there. The consequence of a blocked ear is that I can’t tell where sound is coming from it appears to come from a different direction, which is how I came to shout at the tack room door ‘are you locked in’ when I heard one of the liveries talking, only to realise she was stood to the side of me 😜

Friday: ☔️️☔️️☔️️ what a miserable day it is today! I scuttled round as fast as I could to get the animals done then came in and lit the fire. John went off to work this morning, probably shouldn’t have but the phone rings and people want their work done and so it is. My ear was clear this morning for a couple of hours thank goodness, it’s surprising how much it knocks you off your spot, I could think with a clear head and set about getting the spare room sorted out, it had become a dumping ground and was doing my head in, now it’s all ship shape and clean which is sadly pleasing. I found myself thinking that I had got stuck in a bit of a winter rut, waiting for the weather to change before I tackle anything outside in the garden, silly really as it could be like this for a few weeks yet and so I need to give myself a kick up the arse and just get on with what I can. The first job will be cleaning the greenhouse and getting it ready for using and then maybe cleaning the poly tunnels which have become green over the winter. Once I have washed them they should stay algae free and there is a lot of work I can be doing in the big one so crack on Dawn, crack on 😜 (although I did decide this is what I ought to do, my sub conscience decided otherwise and I stayed inside today 😛)

One of the geese is starting to remain inside on the nest rather than coming out in the mornings, she does come out later but this is the beginning of her getting broody. Last year we lost a goose after she sat for the whole time, she lost a lot of weight and went downhill after the one egg hatched. I need to avoid anything like that happening this year but am not quite sure how to go about it, 4 geese and the gander share the shepherds hut and the gander is quite aggressive now, she will become more aggressive when she starts to sit permanently but I still need to get feed and water to her, I may need some armour, I may get John to make me a shield that might work.

Saturday: A productive day, that’s what we like 😀 John went off to get feed while I did the feeding and watering, then John cleared up various items from the front paddock, electric fencing broken branches from the wind etc while I made two separate areas for the geese to nest in and put up a feeding trough inside so that they will eat while sitting. Then I went into the poly tunnel for a couple of hours weeding (happy chickens with buckets of chickweed) and sowing, beetroot, spring onions, radish and lettuce ( I have started using seed tapes for lettuce and spring onions and they are very successful ) while John cleaned out the duck house and the pond and cleaned all the bowls and boat that they splash in. After that John went off to get a bit of shopping while I lit the fire, then feeding again and time to feed ourselves, which was a fish pie made by Morrisons today as I ran out of time to cook anything. There was a gloriously vivid double rainbow 🌈 accompanied by some very dark moody skies, quickly followed by a downpour when we went out, then 10 minutes later the sun was shinning again ☀️ Really wanted to get more done in the tunnel today but there is only so much time you can spend on your knees at my age 😝

Had Mia for her first sleep over, took her to see Gan Gan and Grampy Ken now gone to bed nicely let’s hope she doesn’t wake in the night lol.

Sunday: what a awful morning weather wise, absolutely tipping down, luckily we have a little ray of sunshine indoors with Mia which means John is on outdoor duty 😜 I checked the incubator today and took out the division bars that hold the eggs all in place, we have a least one chick that has pipped, fingers crossed for more later on. I went to the local garden centre with the intention of buying two hardy fuchsias for the boxes in the front of the gateway but couldn’t find any, the only thing we purchased was tea and cake 😝 Back home I looked on the internet and found a great deal for 20 so decided to buy those and will bring them on and then sell the other 18 at the farm gate hopefully. When I was at college doing gardening many years ago a lecturer once told us that you will end up begrudging paying garden centre prices when you can grow things from seed or cuttings and he was absolutely right! I look at flowers and think, I could grow three times as many for a third of the price hence only purchasing tea and cake, although we could have had that at home for a fraction of the cost too but you got to have some fun 😜The rain showers were intermittent today, some of them quite hefty, the sun was quite strong though so there is light at the end of the winter tunnel. Egg sales have been manic today, we have restocked the shed 3 times this morning, goodness knows why but whoop whoop.

If you look you can just see Mr Sparrow sat on top of the bird box guarding it’s precious contents 🐦