Monday: 3.30pm just sat down with a cuppa after a bit of a day, I’m back on a daily dose of painkillers at the minute, hands hurt, muscles hurt, pain in the arse, not literally but it’s difficult to get stuff done when bits of you won’t work properly! Anyhow, this mornings shocker was, wait for it, two more baby rabbits just born, although they were both dead, this means that the rabbits were getting out for longer than I had suspected. Did the feeding rounds then went and gave both the rabbits and Guineas a good clean out and I really needed to round up these babies that are getting behind the boarding and out into the field. Samantha and Mia came over mid morning and we set about trying to catch them by means of lying in wait for them one at a time, We caught two and caged them, by his time Mia was getting a bit bored so we decided to wait until after lunch when she had her nap, to finish the job. In the end we managed to round up 5 of them, one has a chunk missing from its ear and one has managed to get a wound on its back probably from scrabbling in and out of the small gap, two are still on the loose. We think one of them is now too big to get back through the gap and as it could be seen on the other side of the fence nibbling grass, if we don’t manage to catch it, it will have to fend for itself. This morning I had to turn the horse out without a rug on because I couldn’t do the fastenings, see these pains are really inconvenient, but as the sun was looking like it was coming out Jack didn’t mind too much, Sam mucked out the stable then did his field and put his rug back on and all is well again. I planted the pea and bean seeds I had growing on the windowsill and fingers crossed nothing will eat them 😜
Caught another one when I was putting the birds to bed, just one more to go.
Tuesday: Rainy day 😕 on and off rain so bad luck if you get caught like I did doing the afternoon feeding. I had a 10 minute window to feed and collect the eggs as Mia was asleep and John came home before he had to go to the dentist. I quickly discovered that my waterproof needs reproofing, I was only out 10 minutes and was soaked through literally to the skin in places, urghh need to sort out wet weather gear as well as the cold gear. I remember why I hate the winter now, I could be heard muttering about having only a few chickens for self sufficiency purposes rather than a large flock. The rain is coming over the top of the guttering inside the stable block, I did tell John he needed to clear them a couple of weeks ago when I did the ones I could reach, need to start those lists again I think 😝 At least I had already lit the fire so it was nice and warm when I came back in.
Wednesday: Cold this morning but at least it’s not raining. Did the morning stuff, put the eggs out for sale and had a conversation with a regular customer who is retiring to the coast next week so will no longer be coming. I wished him all the best and hope he finds a nice little farm to buy his eggs from where he is going. I have been remiss about making bread for the last couple of weeks, I just didn’t have the time or the inclination but I’m back on track with that again, I may even make a cake today 😀
Definitely got my cooking head on as I decided to prepare a lamb stew for tomorrow which will cook in the Rayburn this evening, an apple and blueberry sponge pudding, a batch of dumplings, some for the stew and some to freeze for another day and some fully loaded potatoes that cook in the slow cooker to go with the pork chops later. Stews are great because you just make it up as you go along with whatever you have, this one is stewing lamb, potatoes, butternut squash, onions, rosemary, thyme, garlic, salt, pepper, red wine, some pontack sauce, vegetable stock and cornflour.
I would have done more cooking but I had Mia from lunchtime so Bing and babies were on the agenda instead.
Thursday: I plan to pack a fair bit into today so I was up early and got the bathroom and living room cleaned before daybreak came 😜 Then out to do the morning feeding etc, the grass in the back paddock particularly, is like a skating rink so we have decided to move the hens from there and put them into the POL pen for the winter as nothing else will be going in there. They will be let out to free range every day but not until mid morning that way we will hopefully get the eggs laid all in one place instead of all over the farm. But my first job on the list is to make a secure pen within the rabbit run for the babies, bit of a mission as they can seemingly squeeze through the tiniest of gaps, an hour later, a roll of chicken wire, staple gun, wire cutters, scratched hands, dirty knees and the sides of a run and objective achieved 😀 I can now let them out into a bigger area and assess their health etc. After that it was on to prepare the POL run for the hens, my plan is to get it all cleaned, put in a dust bath made up of diatomaceous earth, wood ash, louse powder and shavings, extra nesting boxes which will be plastic buckets and tubs, and lure them in at the afternoon feed with corn. I very nearly managed to get all but about 10 hens in so that’s not bad, the rest we will gather up when we have time or hopefully they may follow suit later tomorrow.
Meanwhile I have been making a list of jobs for John to do at the weekend and a shopping list of things we need for the Farm, lightbulbs for the hay barn, rat poison, I’m determined to not have the same problem we had last year and the cats seem completely useless, feed, including wild bird feed because the little birds that have grown in number are raiding the rabbit food to the extent that there are bird droppings galore in there, might as well get something to feed them as it’s costing me which ever way I do it 😜
Josh and Shelley came over in the afternoon and helped me to feed the rabbits some fresh veggies and feed the horse, I didn’t get round to cleaning the rest of the house but there is always tomorrow😀
The stew, complete with dumplings was superb, only I forgot to get a photo before we ate it 😝
Friday: Up early again as I forgot to put the dustbin out last night so need to get it out before 6am, not that they come before 8 but on the day I don’t do it you can bet your life they will be early! John was also up early so he went out and cleaned out the front hens, fed the and let them out, saves me a job 😀
The weather yesterday, by the way was cracking for early November, this mornings sky is dark and ominous, however it is windy so I’m hoping the dark clouds will blow around us and not towards us.
One of the jobs in the mornings that I do now is laying the fire in the Rayburn ready for lighting as soon as I think it’s getting cold, at the moment that’s usually around 1pm as the heat from the night before slowly ebbs away, we have been burning pure logs for a while as I have been saving the wood ash for the chicken dust baths and for the garden. It needs to be good wood and not wood with nails for obvious reasons and it needs to be untreated, then it’s perfect for all sorts of uses around the farm.
I went out to do the rest of the feeding and discovered there are only 3 baby rabbits in the run, ffs! They have chewed through one of the ties, pulled the metal fencing forward and escaped, I think that’s my lot with them they can take their chances in the wild 😩
Gave the windows a clean, I say that rather loosely, not my forte, window cleaning 😜 I hate it but at this time of year with the low sun you can see all the dirt and eventually it starts to really annoy me so out comes the bucket, cloth and the window rubber thing, my windows are small and few but I do need the hop up to reach the top, and now I have cleaner windows with a few smears, that will do for me 😝😝 I have better things to do than spend an age getting them smear free 😏
I started thinking about the Mid Winter feast and the various components, the meat is in the freezer as are the veg, I have all the ingredients for making the pudding, I just need to pick a good time that incorporates, the soaking of the fruit, the children coming to stir it and the hours of steaming it will need, I went onto testing the sloe gin I made last year, yep 10am I’m on the booze, well a little sip at least, I think I need to add a bit of sugar syrup and I might add a cinnamon stick to give it a deep, warming quality, not that it doesn’t have that already 😀 but I fancied giving it a go. The mincemeat has been developing nicely for a few weeks now and in our house we traditionally start making, and eating mince pies from Dec 1st, I don’t usually make a Christmas cake as we are always still eating it for weeks after we have got fed up of it but we will have visitors this year so I shall make one very soon. Obviously we have the nuts I gathered and plenty of fruit in the freezer to make many a splendid dish with 😀 We shall eat like kings🤴 and queens 👸
Once I began thinking about it I couldn’t resist getting the Christmas cake underway, so I dug out all the dry ingredients I needed and set them to soak in brandy, as usual I went off piste and used what I had so instead of currants I used dried figs and some sorry looking satsumas in the fruit bowl went in as well, I whizzed both lots up separately in the food processor, and in they went, along with sultanas and raisins, I don’t have glacé cherries at the minute but the soaking is a three day process so plenty of time to get some and put them in. I am loosely following a Mary Berry recipe just to get the weights and I didn’t have any oranges hence the satsumas, I also don’t like waste so the whole lot went in not just the juice, the membrane can be taken out once the flesh has fallen off and incorporated, just pick it out.
Saturday: Today I thought it was high time to tackle the office come dumping ground! That was a big job that took most of the day, everything pulled out sorted out, piles for the charity shop, piles for the rubbish bin, piles for giving or selling on. It is a multifunction room really and most things are stored in there, grandchildren paraphernalia, Christmas stuff, photo albums, hoover, spare chair, fold out bed, a small chest of drawers filled with stuff we haven’t worn for a few years, cctv monitor, music system as well as the desk, filing cabinet, folders of paperwork, printer etc you get the idea, it’s pretty rammed. As a consequence when I am cleaning I kind of look in there hoover the floor and shut the door so it was well over due for a de webbing and dusting too. I felt it was a great and worthy achievement when it was finished, how long it will stay like that is anyone’s guess 😝 Meanwhile, John took care of all the outside work and feeding, cleaning gutters out, tidying the muck heap, burning rubbish, all the jobs on my list and a few more besides 😀
The rain has put us squarely back into winter mode and the dogs were filthy by the end of the day so they had their first bath in a while, they were not happy but what’s not to like they have a bath to stand in AND hot water to boot, can’t please some.
Sunday: The weather is windy today so that should dry things up a little, I went out and checked the baby rabbits but apart from that John did the rest, including cleaning out the ducks. I came in and got started on mixing up the Christmas cake ready to go in the oven.
https://pin.it/r-sJ9dP
I’m on a roll with the Christmas eating ideas now and I think I will try a pork pie with hot crust pastry, never done it before so excited about giving it a go.
Apart from the usual domestic chores and going down to do the horse that was pretty much it for the day and we are having dinner at Charlie and Maccas tonight so I don’t even have to cook 😀
The photos are the stages of the cake, it smells divine, now just got to decide how to decorate it in a few weeks time.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 