Wormer, propagators and Laaaandon Town.

Apologies if anyone received a messed up copy of this weeks blog, I had a malfunction 🤪

Here is the correct one 😀

Monday 5th March: Pleasant enough this morning if a tad colder than yesterday. On the rounds this morning I was thinking we now have a lot of cleaning to do as the snow which drifted into every available area has made it all wet and horrible, the rabbit pens have wet straw on the floor, the goose hut needs cleaning as does the duck shed, looks like a busy day ahead. I also noticed when I was cleaning the floor in the front hen house, a worm, not your common garden worm but I’m guessing one passed by a chicken! So having finished up my last lot of wormer back in November I set about trying to get some more, easier said than done, it seems, as with everything they have now withdrawn the bigger stronger tubs of wormer from sale, this means buying smaller tubs of lesser strength more frequently or buying pre medicated feed. Both of these options are way more expensive, there is a surprise, as far as I am concerned this is another way to squeeze out the small producers making it too expensive to run a going concern. I spent well over an hour trying to track some down to no avail and in the end I have had to order the feed which is approx £3/4 a bag dearer than normal feed, not a problem if you just have a few chickens but when you need 7 bags to worm your flock and they recommend (due to the lack of potency) that you worm every 3 months you can see it will start to get expensive. If we have to go down this route which it looks like we will, then we will have to put up the price of the eggs 😐

I got some beef and vegetable soup on the go in the slow cooker and went off outside to begin the task of cleaning out everyone. Ducks done, geese done, rabbits done and I discovered that the bantams are laying at long last hurrah, I have 4 gold laced Orpington bantams that seem all to be cockerels 😝 and three white silkies only one of which is a cockerel hopefully, well at least one is a hen, that was a rubbish hatch batch! I have a couple of egg customers that like bantam eggs so they will be happy.

AND the Sun is out oh boy happy to see that, in fact I got so warm cleaning out I took my coat off 😀😀 happy days. Couldn’t resist nipping into the greenhouse, it was a whopping 22c in there whoop whoop 😀 I just gave everything a watering, tempting to sow some seed but I will wait a while I think and wait for the weather to settle. I did pot on some of the aubergines to bring back indoors as I think the problem is soil depth they were in a shallow seed tray so I have potted up 6 of them and I will see how they go.

And then the rain came 😟lots of it so everywhere is soggy! On the evening session of putting everything away I also filled up all the rat bait boxes and filled known rat holes with poison, they are persistent little feckers seem to have permanently moved in in one area.

Not sure if I mentioned the glue traps for rats last week, anyhow after some discussion online with people I have decided not to use them, to be honest the picture looked grim and I was reluctant when I saw it and have now been persuaded not to use them so I won’t.

Tuesday: Not a bad morning weather wise, it’s dry for the moment and the temps are acceptable for the time of year. During the morning rounds I checked the rat poison nothing eaten yet so maybe the waterlogging has driven them off, we can hope anyways 😜 I was pretty productive yesterday with Farm stuff and household bits so I am trying to continue the trend today! Busied round and got everything done, then we were given some freshly caught Sea Bream, actually we swapped it for some of our rump steak, the bream is as I type marinading in olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic and dried oregano (as I don’t have fresh available). I’m looking forward to tasting it, I will do some green beans to go with it and probably have to do John some potatoes, love a good swap 😀 I have also been busy on social media this morning selling trays of eggs, what with the lack of customers during the snow we have around ten trays that need shifting, does not take long for them to start stacking up when they are laying three trays a day, it’s good to keep them turning over.

Took me an age to get the Rayburn going, I am out of newspapers and was down to recycle rubbish which didn’t go too well, although in the end with much puffing it finally caught the wood and is now going strong. I have put out a call for papers on Facebook, we don’t have them but someone somewhere will have a stack of them I’m sure.

I have ordered an electric thermostatically controlled windowsill propagator, I took the plunge because our house temperature varies so much and the seedlings that were doing well are beginning to flag. It costs £30 but considering how much effort I have been putting in to these seedlings, for them to keel over is a waste of effort and time so that’s where my thoughts have taken me. There are a few models out there but I went for a fully closed in model, some of the other models have up to 7 smaller propagators in a tray all with their own lids, the downfall I feel with these is that the heat base then has escaping heat inbetween the trays.

This is the one I went for

This one is the one with separate propagators which might be handy but the heat source is underneath and so all the spaces inbetween each unit is also being heated and therefore escaping if you see what I mean 😜 Also it is not thermostatically controlled so the heat is constant, it costs about the same but wastes energy I think.

I will at least be able to get some more seedlings on the go, the problem with starting them too early is where do you move them onto if the weather and the temperatures have not got up to a reasonable level and you don’t have a heated greenhouse, by the time it arrives I think it will be a good time to get everything going.

The first real crop that will be arriving soon will be rhubarb mmmm so with that in mind while Mia was asleep I started looking for recipes to compile, rhubarb and ginger jam I will have to try and of course a rhubarb and custard cake but plain old stewed rhubarb and custard is not one to be overlooked in my opinion, always reminds me of childhood days 😀 last year Josh amazed us all by just chewing on a stick of rhubarb, I wonder if he will still like it this year?

Wednesday: The Sun is out 😀 but it was nippy first thing, still it should warm up a little. Did the morning feeding, watering, letting out and cleaning the front coop floor. The nest boxes need a clean as we couldn’t do it last weekend because of the snow and the chickens not leaving the hut lol it is impossible to do it with 100 hens round your feet! I will see if I can get it done tomorrow as I have Mia later today. We are on the Home run as far as the muddy paddocks are concerned, as the sun gets stronger it should dry the ground faster which will enable the grass to come through, it will only grow above 6c and we are getting those temperatures but the saturation of water means it still gets muddy with footfall all over it. The daffodils are beginning to peak out and once we see some blossom on the trees we will know the winter is behind us thank goodness.

The two good days I had have taken their toil on me and I am back to feeling rubbish, stiff joints, headache, generally unwell 🤒 I need to have more bloods tests to monitor the inflammation levels and if they are still high I guess they will investigate why. I was trying to eat healthy and cut out complex carbs, sugar etc but in return I end up with chronic acid reflux instead, at the moment this is a no win situation and I hope it passes soon as I want to be able to crack on 😝 It sure has been a difficult couple of months lately! Lupus is complex, it’s different for every sufferer and to manage it you need to really be in tune with your body but sometimes it gets a little out of control and takes a while to bring back into line.

Made some bread and another batch of fruit buns and a gluten free chocolate cake while I was waiting for Mia to arrive. Anyone who doesn’t know us may wonder why I cook with conventional AND gluten free flours, our youngest daughter who is now 26 was diagnosed a coeliac when she was 18 months old, for all the years she lived at home I mostly cooked gluten free, when she left home I gradually went back to wheat flours and now she is back home for a few months I cook with both again. Day to day cooking is still mostly gluten free, and she cooks for herself most of the time, most things I cook from scratch so I am still in the habit of mostly cooking with naturally gluten free ingredients it’s just bread and cakes that on the whole I use wheat flour for.

Thursday: It’s a bit nasty out there today, apparently the ‘pest from the west’ lol though we haven’t had the snow that other parts have had, we have had rain and it’s windy and a tad cold with it. I was hoping for a half decent day that would be pleasurable but alas it’s not to be, I wanted to get some work done in the garden but it’s very wet underfoot so best left hopefully the wind will dry it out as long as we don’t get any more rain. I am waiting on a couple of things to arrive so I can start seedlings off in the greenhouse, the compost I ordered is great but it needs to be finer for seedlings and I don’t have a fine riddle so I have ordered one and also I am still waiting for the windowsill propagator then I can start off things like the tomatoes and cucumbers etc. I feel it’s going to be a late start this year for most things, still, provided the weather gets better it should all catch up eventually.

Oh dear, today is not a good day mentally lol, it started with not being able to light the Rayburn, not even the paper would catch to start with, then I got soot all over my sleeve reaching further in trying in vain, eventually it got going but then I dropped the stack of wood I was bringing in on the floor I had just hoovered 😝 The train of thought then goes something like this, what the hell am I doing having to light a dirty bloody fire every day, why don’t I just move somewhere with all mod cons, what on Earth am I trying to achieve, am I achieving anything, ever, or am I just on a bloody hamster wheel going round and round and round! I know when spring arrives I will feel differently but the winters seem longer and harder each passing year, at the moment with various other things going on we are just treading water and trying to keep our heads above it, something will eventually give one way or another. John is flat out trying to catch up after having multiple days off with his Mums illnesses, snow days when he couldn’t finish the job he was on, then came burst pipes and multiple phone calls, he is looking stressed, I am trying to hold the fort here which is fine but the weather hampers everything and I am limited by what I can physically do, maybe we should just sell up, we won’t, it’s just one of those days 😩 I will make a list and a plan, that will help me find the way forward 😋

Did a few bits and pieces, wandered into the greenhouse, the seedlings I planted a while back are coming up, broad beans, cabbage, pak Choi the peas are slow but the temperature is around 20c in there again with the sun shining in but I decided against sowing much else for the time being. It is still very windy but not as cold as this morning.

Friday: Today is a better day all round 😀 even though yesterday felt dire and got worse when John went to deliver eggs and a tyre blew on the car, all very well except that we are off to London tomorrow which gives only a very tight time to get the tyre fixed and John is already flat out trying to squeeze everything else in! That said I still woke with enthusiasm today and the wind has dropped, the temperature is pleasant, as yet it’s not raining 🌧 One of the jobs John normally does is clean out the nesting boxes in the front hen house, normally every weekend but last weekend the snow meant the hens would not go out and so it was impossible. As I said we are away tomorrow so this really needed to be done before we go, we have been trialling these cardboard traps for red mite and it needs regular cleaning to be successful, so first thing before I did any of the other jobs I went out and cleaned them and burnt the old material, replaced with new cardboard, bedding and diatomaceous earth, then I fed and let out the rest of the animals.

The rain came later but I haven’t let it dampen my spirits 🤪 did the usual afternoon stuff then delivered 300 eggs in the evening 😜

Saturday: Today we are London bound to watch Les Miserables and stay over, John got it for me for Christmas and looking forward to it but first the animals have to be done. John went off the check on his Mum than go and pick up a special order of feed with the wormer added that the supplier had round earlier to say was now in, best to get it started as soon as possible. The girls are looking after everything in various measures so we are grateful for that.

I haven’t been to London for about 8 years, lol it’s a culture shock to say the least, at most I see about 5 people a day and I know all of them 😝 this is thousands of people all seemingly coming in the opposite direction, on the phone, gazing up, hell bent on getting somewhere, however I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, we saw the ‘Million Women’ march, went to China Town, watched people dancing to a busker at 11.30pm and of course watched the spectacular show Les Miserable, I confess, I cried at the scene where Jean Valjean was dying and I don’t think I stopped then till the end 😢fantastic show well worthy of the standing ovation. Being there with all those people, tall buildings blocking out the sky and the general pace of things, did make me appreciate our 5 acres of relaxed space and skies though and I returned with a new fondness for home 😀

Just as we were leaving on Saturday my windowsill propagator arrived and so once we had visited our respective Mothers for Mother’s Day and got back and lit the fire, I set about setting it up and sowing the seeds I wanted to go in there. Tomato, 3 varieties, good old Money Maker, a beefsteak variety and a plum tomato which will be great for freezing a sauces. I also sowed some pepper seeds, I know I wasn’t going to but these were free seeds of long sweet peppers so I thought I might as well try them out. I watered everything in the greenhouse and the peas and citrus trees in the small poly tunnel and feel like we are getting nearer to the time when plenty of outside work will get done, the Sun made a welcome appearance for a time today which brings plenty of hope with it 🌞

P.s. there is cherry blossom on the trees in London, obviously due to the higher temperatures there but yey spring is springing finally.