Monday: I thought I would take you on a pictorial walk of the ‘morning routine’ that I always mention.
First up a visit to the feed room to be greeted by the cat waiting for his breakfast.
Take hay down to Jack and check his water buckets
Then onto the older hens at the back, fill the water buckets, feed and let them out, collect any eggs they have already laid.
Back to the feed room where the cat is hoping (in vain) for seconds. Fill up the feed bucket for the ducks, go round, do their water, let them out and collect the eggs.
Take eggs to the boot room and return to feed room to get feed for the hens/quail in the front. Feed the hens, quail and chicks in the orchard pen, check water, feed/water rabbits and onto the front paddock.
Fill up the water buckets and feeders, let the hens out, scrape and clean the floor in the henhouse, collect any eggs.
Let the geese out.
Back to the boot room to wash the duck eggs.
Put out the clean ones for sale and feed Kai
Feed the other two
And time for cwaffee with homemade bread and jam, perfick.
Charlie had a day off work today so we spent a few hours in Chippy looking round the shops and having a cream tea 😀
Lit the Rayburn in the evening as it’s a tad chilly with the wind blowing 💨
Tuesday: Lovely sunny morning, did the feed round with one or two minor differences, extra sawdust in the nest boxes as the chickens had kicked a lot of it out, there was a dead chicken in the orchard, as I was up at 4.15 because the dog was barking in that direction I’m guessing the fox got it but it escaped then died. I will be setting the wildlife camera up to see if I can find out what is going on out there in the dark. Then I needed to plant the wild garlic bulbs that arrived a couple of days ago, so I took my spade and went out along the front hedge line and planted all 50 of them. They naturalise well, to the point where they can be invasive but out there is fine and hopefully we will have wild garlic on the menu next year. While I was there I couldn’t help but notice all the beautiful brown shiny conkers and so when I got back in I started to look and see what else you can do with them except putting them on a bit of string and bashing them together 😜 Obviously they make great autumnal decorations but they also contain saponin and so you can make soap 😀 it appears to be a very easy method and so I am giving it a go, Viking soap apparently, if it’s successful I will do another batch and some pictures.
Wednesday: A sunny start though I don’t think it will last. Went out in my PJs to collect the sd card as I had set up the camera, all it had on it was a wild rabbit peering into the camera lol. Did the feed rounds and came in for coffee and some paracetamol as my hands, especially my thumbs are giving me jip today, I’ve had it before not sure why it happens but it’s surprising how limiting it can be 😕
We have trays of pullet eggs piling up so I went on a local selling site and have sold 10 trays to be delivered on Friday eve, I can always manage to shift fresh eggs on there easily and it’s a great outlet with minimal effort. The pullets are laying 90 eggs a day now so the numbers soon build up.
Thursday: Well we survived the night lol that was a windy night to be sure, and I was just thinking at least it hadn’t rained much when the heavens opened and dumped a load of wet stuff. I thought I would wait for it to blow over and do some ironing and domestic bits, by the time I went out to do the rounds the Sun was shinning 😀 No apparent damage anywhere so that’s good.
Decisions, decisions, do I go and work outside though my hands are no so good and the ground is wet, because there is a lot to do tidying the veg garden up or do I work indoors, cleaning, cooking etc and hope the ground dries out for the weekend and my hands improve……… In the end I did neither 😜 I thought I would quickly log into the farm website and do a bit of updating, ha, took me over half an hour and every combo of logging in before I finally got in, I haven’t used it for a long while so forgot the log in details and ended up not changing anything anyway! Then I went onto setting up and printing some cards to put with the egg deliveries we will be making Friday, why oh why does technology take so long and not behave in the way you expect to, so after half a day wasted on that it was onto the next job. While I was out chatting to an egg customer the wooden box that will be turned into an honesty box arrived, great I can get that sorted. You would think that would be straight forward enough wouldn’t you after all all the hardware for it had already arrived, it starts with trying to find the right tools for the job, after an hour or so faffing about trying to find the right size spade bit or any drill bit really that might possibly, remotely do the job, it wasn’t a pretty route but I did get the slot made and the hasp lock on so it’s good to go. I was going to pretty it up and decoupage it but in the end I thought, sod it, it will only get damp and mouldy anyhow so I left it bare and screwed it down to the shelf. Its only to stop anyone grabbing and running and as 99.9% of our customers and visitors are honest to goodness people it’s probably overkill, but people do like to put the notes somewhere safe so now they have the facility 😀
Made gingerbread men for the grandchildren 😀
Friday: A bit chilly this morning but dry and looks set to be a bit sunny, did the rounds and then went for a walk up the lane with Josh and Shelley, came back made some bread Sam and Mia arrived to do Jack, then went to Swindon with Shelley to get some new bed covers for Josh’s room, got home and John had done the afternoon feeding and collecting the eggs. Had 11 trays of eggs to deliver and that when the evening got absurd! At the very first stop I got the wrong house and while I was looking for the right one John parked up in a side road, a man who lived on the corner was reversing his car but he was so busy watching John, presumably wondering what he was up to, that he reversed straight into the barrier surrounding the green, crunching sounds could be heard! Onto the next few without incident, then two in the same road, I did one, John did the other, the lad answered the door and the dogs came out, John came out to get a £1 change the dogs shot out of the gate and ran off with no intention of coming back when called so John and the lad ran after them quite a way, I was waiting in the car, John came running back into the road still chasing one of the dogs, he was puffing and panting (John, not the dog) and eventually the dogs went in, on the way back home a van just randomly stopped in the road and put his hazards on, no warning, no apparent reason unless he was lost, we were glad to get back to the country lol.
Saturday: John did the morning routine and then we popped off to get my flu jab done which I almost forgot about good job John remembered. Martin is here putting the doors on the new egg shed, business is brisk this morning. When I got back I made some rosehip syrup with hips we picked on our walk yesterday, great for soothing coughs or even just pouring on ice cream or pancakes 😀John made a start cutting up the mountain of wood we have, I potted up some bargain plug plants I had ordered, 40 for £5, and then back in to put some apple turnovers in the oven for the workers 😀 The weather was a bit drizzly this morning but it has cleared up for the time being.
Sunday: Misty morning but the sun soon burnt it off and it turned into a rather splendid day weather wise. John did some more wood cutting while I did a bit of gardening. I cut down and cleared the asparagus and then weeded the bed, there was also a banana squash growing in there so I’ve cleared that as the foliage had begun to collapse, I now have a giant banana squash I have no idea what to do with, I figured if anyone has a big family to feed then they are most certainly welcome to it, it would definitely do a vegetarian curry for around 10! Charlie popped in to say hello before going off to do a shift and then we went out to a birthday party for our great niece, lovely afternoon 😀 when we got back the lawn was dry enough to cut, it really needed doing but it gets wet and only dries out if the sun stays out for the afternoon which it has so quickly got that sorted. I hope we have a few more days like today I will be able to get a fair bit of tidying done on the veg beds before the weather turns for the worst.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 