Thursday: After a few days away, which was a fabulous little break with plenty of eating and drinking, fine company and interesting ports, the first day back got off to a good start. I had forgotten to order straw before I left and quickly sent a text on the evening we returned to the farmer that supplies us and he turned up this morning with two big round bales, however he did tell me that he has over sold this year and that these were the last two bales he has 😝 I had also forgotten that we have a shortage of straw in this region so that might be interesting later on in the Winter, until then the two bales will keep us going for a couple of months hopefully. Before he delivered them I needed to get the area tidied up as the chickens have been scratching it about all over the place, I filled up two dump bags of the stuff that was all over the floor, I will save that for the duck/goose house, waste not want not. Then Mia and Sam arrived but I still needed to go out and feed the rabbits and top their beds and run up with hay as snow is predicted this afternoon. We all got our winter gear on and chopped up some apples and parsnip, loaded the trolley with feed and Mia sat in the back and went off to the rabbit run, on the way through I dug up two celeriac to give the rabbits as well. I stuck the fork back in the ground but misjudged and caught my big toe which made me yelp, while we were in the run the snow began to come down, just a little at first then a big flurry of it, Mia did laugh at first but the more it settled on her the less she laughed, got that done quickly and went back indoors to get the Rayburn lit. Shelley FaceTimed so that Josh could tell us about the snow and we told her our little story and included the fork in the foot bit, I took my shoe off to have a look and there was blood all over my sock, took my sock off and had a lovely cut right across the bottom of my toe, obviously it had gone through, I didn’t think it had, at this point I was more annoyed that I will have a hole in my wellies 😜 I shall have to get John to silicone it up or they won’t last the Winter.
Not sure what happened to Friday and Saturday lol, lots of the usual things to do and catch up with washing, shopping etc.
Sunday: Oh a different day altogether, you probably noticed we had a lot of snow overnight, that means a fair bit of work to do. Firstly none of the birds want to come out so water and feed needs to go to them inside, the ducks ventured out and the geese but none of the hens. The main thing we first noticed was the cracking and falling of tree boughs, not just the odd one but a fair few of them all over the place, luckily you get an audible warning ⚠️ . The weight of the snow means that the greenhouse roof and the poly tunnels needed sweeping off and any other flat roofs like the point of lay house and the rabbit run. The snow has also collapsed my fruit cage into a heap, you will remember that we were saying it needed re doing but thought it might last another season, nope, it’s over 😝 Wet clothing means dripping clothing once we come inside so the Rayburn is lit early to dry everything out, my feet are frozen and so for the first time this year, slippers go on as well, typically because of my poorly toe I can’t get my iso therms on just when I needed to most 😜
Unbelievably egg customers are still turning up this morning and actually cleared out the shed, one arrived with a big pile of snow on the roof of the car! If I didn’t have to go out on foot I certainly wouldn’t let alone in a vehicle.
Spent most of the day indoors watching tv lol a rare occurrence indeed, just out again to feed in the afternoon, collect eggs and then put away at dark.
Monday morning: Still a heavy layer of snow though it is melting, I took a shovel and dug away the snow in paths so that the hens would at least come outside even if they don’t venture very far.
This is my fruit cage 😝
The middle picture is of the paddock and one of my fave things, unadulterated snow on the ground, nothing more beautiful than that I reckon.
This is just one of the boughs that have gone and there are a fair few more, I would have said it’s because we cut the other trees down around it but we have untouched trees that stand on their own where the boughs have snapped inside the canopy. We will need to be very careful of those in any windy weather we get as we won’t get the audible warning again they will just come down.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 