Monday: Sporting the wet look this morning, not in a sexy way no, in a frizzy hair, disheveled kinda way 😜First job was to move the little bantams outside, they have got too big for the cage and will appreciate a bit more room, when I left them they were tentatively peeking out the door. Then off to do the feed rounds, this morning I am letting the chickens that are at the back, out into the wider area because the paddock it getting a bit poached and sick, not good for the paddock or them and the egg numbers are dropping off quickly, this may give them a bit of a boost especially if they find the muck heap, happy days 😀
Come in to make a coffee and a lorry pulls up the drive and turns round, normally it’s lost folk looking for the stone yard but this didn’t feel right and they stopped near the skip and started loading scrap. I marched out and asked them what they were doing and they said they had a phone call to come and pick it up, now I know this is not true so I challenged them and they kept say that someone phoned, wait there I will make a call I said, and don’t load up any more scrap, with that I came in and they drove off! Got the adrenaline pumping I can tell you, and although I can see it on the cctv I can’t get the number plate clearly so we need to move the camera closer to the drive!
The rest of the day was without incident thankfully 😀
Tuesday: A foggy morning that promises to burn off, did the animals, John cleaned out the hens at the back before nipping off to take his Mum for an appointment. I did a bit of clearing up in the veg garden, picked a few odds and sods that are still going, beetroot, runner beans and corn on the cob, put them out for sale along with some cooking apples that I picked, the windfalls are free to gather but the unblemished have to be worth a quid don’t they? I was getting a bit wet from the foliage so I decided to come in and cook off the rest of the tomatoes wth some garlic, basil and olive oil, I will sieve it later for passata. Mia arrived and having been to toddler group was already tired so a bit of book reading, playing and a walk down the drive to get the post and she was ready for a nap. The babbington leeks (wild) have arrived, I decided to have a go at growing these perennial leeks rather than neat rows of hybrid ones, I have also ordered 50 bulbs of wild garlic to plant round the farm hopefully they will be shooting and ready to harvest next year and then continually after that, I am trying to plant things that don’t need much looking after but will still be useful.
I looked out of the front window to see two beautiful cock pheasants in the front paddock with the hens lol, I’m not sure which bunch will think their luck is in, the ladies with two handsome chaps visiting or the pheasants with all those ladies paying them attention 😝
Wednesday: Another good day weather wise, I did the morning rounds, found a dead hen, not sure what happened but she is an older bird so could be anything, then started a bit of tidying up in the back bit where all manner of junk gets dumped on a weekly basis. Mum arrived in her boots ready to do a bit of gardening and we got stuck into clearing and tidying, the squash plants have mostly now collapsed and gone mushy so they needed clearing away and there was plenty of weeding to do, the onion sets arrived in the post so I planted those up, pulled up some parsnips and carrots which we will have for dinner later, Mum picked a load of runner beans, some for selling some for drying and some for the chickens. Mia arrived after lunch she helped in the garden for a while and then it was time to come in. As I write this in the evening John is out in the pouring rain on the tractor tidying up the muck heap, the chickens at the back have been busy on it all day and scattered it everywhere, still it all helps with breaking it down faster.
Kai got hold of one of the hens tonight, it didn’t go back to its bed and John hadn’t seen it sitting in the front area, quick as a wink he grabbed it, eventually John persuaded him to let go and he put it in the orchard with the others, we shall see how it faired in the morning 😏
Thursday: Another nice day on the cards by the looks of it 😀 Did the morning rounds, cleaned out the ducks and the geese while I was at it, the hen didn’t make it probably died of shock and a most likely a bite wound 😔
Came indoors and caught up on an episode of Outlander 😀 then I decided to have a ‘normal’ day 😜 sounds odd I know but normal for me is outside doing outside stuff and animals, today I got the iron out to do some ironing whilst listening to the radio, put some washing on and do a bit of baking, all with the sun shining through the windows and the stable door open, birds singing, it really was lovely 😊 I made some bread, an orange and sultana tray bake and a lemon drizzle cake, we have plenty of eggs so now is a good time to make cakes for freezing although I suspect the lemon drizzle won’t get as far as that 😝 Chicken pie made for dinner from the left over roast chicken yesterday and time for a sit down I think.
Friday: A wet start and I don’t think it’s going to improve much today, did the morning feed round, nothing untoward today 😀
Came inside did a bit of hoovering and polishing then onto sorting the walnuts, I have done a fair bit of reading about storing them and the process and I have tried many things over the years. This year, gathering them was the easy bit, the squirrel has not bothered with the walnut tree at all so I have able to gather them from the ground once the outer husks have split, so far so good as normally I have to gather them green and wait for them to split which can be a right mess in a bucket, previously I have left them out for nature to do it but the squirrel found the stash. The shells tend to go mouldy pretty quickly even if stored in an airy position, so this year I washed them and dried them and guess what, the shells still went mouldy. A bit more reading up later I find that shop bought walnuts are bleached with a food grade hydrogen peroxide, not having any of that to hand I also read that soaking them for 5 mins in white vinegar will kill off any bacteria, that is what I have just done, soaked them in vinegar and dried them off, now to wait and see what happens, if they still go mouldy then next year it will either be hydrogen peroxide or shelling the whole lot and freezing them, I may even still have to do that this year. Walnuts are a complete faff but so worth it in the long run as they have so many health benefits it would be stupid to leave them for the squirrels 😜
Went for a day out to Farmer Gows which is not far away, it’s great to see how other farms work and what animals are kept and how, you can always learn something new 😀
We appear to have a broody quail hen, I have mentioned before that quail rarely brood their own and it’s early days, if she goes the term I will be ‘cock a hoop’ but I’m not holding my breath lol.
The bantam chicks we hatched out have now been outside for 5 days they seem to have adjusted well though we haven’t had cold nights yet but I’m sure they will be fine, the next stage will be to let them out of the cage and have the run of the orchard pen, more problematic than it sounds as the older bantams keep getting out and I need to leave the gate open for the hen to get back in to lay so we will need to remedy that somehow.
Saturday: We had a great day, a productive day, a good sales day 😀 We got the other side of the fence done and moved the eggs and veg to the new egg shed, it seems to be working an absolute treat, egg sales were brisk including trays of pullets eggs and more encouragingly the veg sales were booming, I think because they were displayed better and can be seen, happy days 😀 The shed still needs some doors on and it’s all coming along nicely 😀
Sunday: A drab start to the day and the beginning of October, I have made bread this morning and as a quick nod to the end of harvesting, decorated the loaf with a sheath of corn and a mouse. I have in the past made full sheaths but in all honesty they are difficult to cut for toast or sandwiches 😂 Yesterday I donated some overgrown veg and corn stalks to the ladies doing the church decor for the month, hopefully they will add something to the harvest celebrations. I’m not in any way religious myself, if I had to categorise I would lean towards being a simple pagan (Earth worshipper) but that for me it’s a ‘feeling’ about how nature works and the changes to the seasons and moons, nothing else.
I was out in the front putting the galvanised planters in place by the fence when I noticed all the little birds, the ones I told you about that had been squabbling over roosting places. I watched them going into lots of little spaces including the bird boxes on the front of the house, they had gone in the vent, behind loose cladding everywhere they could get in. We have a ton of wood so I got John to cut some for bird boxes, how hard can it be lol, turns out impromptu bird box building is not as straight forward as I thought, however we did manage to cobble together two boxes, they are a bit cumbersome and the hole would allow at least a blackbird size in so we will see if they start to use them, I’m not holding my breath as it took a couple of years for them to use the others that we put up, but I think we will now make lots more for around the farm just be a bit more choosy about the size of wood we use.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 