Bank Holiday Monday 2nd April: Still raining 🌧 rained heavily in the night and as a consequence we now have the lake we usually have AND a tributary stream flowing into it across all the side paddocks, the hay barn is flooded, the stables are flooded, in fact, everywhere is bloody flooded. I know I said we need it but this is beyond a joke and still rain forecast every day up until Thursday! The fact that the farm slopes downwards towards the side paddock is our only saving grace really as at least it doesn’t stay up the top here very long.
We did the mornings rounds and slopped everything out, can hardly call it mucking out today as it just wet runny s**t 😜
John can’t finish the fruit cage as he needs a bit more wood and the wood yard is closed today, and even if he had it the holes he dug are filled with water. There is no chance whatsoever of getting on the garden as that is waterlogged and the problem is that it will be all to do once it starts to dry up and I will be back to single manpower.
At least we don’t have the snow that other parts of the country have had, I think I would just about blow my top lol.
I decided to hatch out some more quail so I ordered eggs from eBay as ours are not laying enough to use those and besides I could do with new bloodlines. I got the incubator out, last time the automatic humidity pump packed up and we still can’t fix it, dilemma, buy a new pump which is 1/3rd of the cost of a new machine and find out it’s the incubator circuit board that is causing the problem or buy a whole new set up and test the old pump on the new machine, that way if it works we will know exactly which part we need to buy, opted for whole new set up, I will need to do lots of hatching and selling to get my money back 😜
John spent a lot of time making sure that any more rainfall has an escape route and we don’t end up flooded, then he cleaned out the front hen house, meanwhile I did lots of washing and some research on various topics 😝
Tuesday: Shall I mention the weather, no need really, I’m sure you can guess what it’s like 😝 I have look at the long term forecast and we are due a lovely week of sunshine soon, though we all know how things can change 😜 John did the animals this morning while I sorted out the recycling, washing up, Rayburn, washing, tidying, made bread etc etc, then he went off to his Mums and get some more posts for the fruit cage, I sure am hoping that it gets finished this week! We have been totally hampered by the weather, I was hoping that the cage would be finished at the end of the week as there are other jobs to get done, it does not look like they will now, then I was hoping that as all the jobs were finished John would then have time to help with the veg garden sometimes and I don’t think that is going to happen.
All the framework is finished and concreted in, ordered the wire online but it won’t be here until next week 😐 Oh and we had bouts of sunshine inbetween rain showers today so that’s what I call improvement.
Wednesday: A dull start but at the time of writing it’s not raining, however I don’t expect that to last as it is forecast! I have a hospital appointment today, normally it’s at the JR in the morning but the Professor has inconsiderately decided to retire and the clinic has been moved to the Nuffield in the afternoons 😜 ok while it’s Easter hols but in future it will be a nightmare on the road. It appears that the discoid Lupus (which is what I was originally diagnosed with) is active which is why I have a permanent rash on my arms and some marking on my face, the doctor was really lovely and gave me a prescription for lotions and potions to help get it under control, luckily the systematic Lupus is still asleep 😴
Picked up Mia on the way back home.
Thursday: Well the long awaited and promised sunshine day has arrived and not disappointed (first things first, on with the factor 30) John fixed the small rabbit run roof that blew off in the last lot of gales, then he replaced one side of the muck heap where the timbers have all but rotted away, our chap with the wood arrived with some more to add to the mountain. Meanwhile I went into the greenhouse to see how everything is doing, moved stuff around, potted on, sowed some cucumber seeds and watered. Watered both the poly tunnels, the peas are beginning to get some flowers 😀 I put some Guinness down in the big tunnel in the slug traps, cut back the Japanese honeysuckle and pruned the gooseberry bushes, a bit late but they should be fine and I don’t want them sprawling. Then John and I discussed how and where we are going to grow the brassicas but we need to wait for the fruit cage wire before we can do that as we will build something off the side of the cage. Next a job that I was not looking forward too and that was the dispatch of the poorly duck 🙁 got to be done as she could barely get about any more, and then onto dispatching and plucking one of the bantam cockerels, we have four, I tried selling them, nothing and so might as well eat them, not much on them but it will provide a meal for two and leftovers for soup or something. The man with the wood came back with a second load! And then time for a well earned sit down (didn’t last long)
Potted on some more tomato seedlings and melon, they are getting a bit leggy with the lack of sunlight up to now, I can’t hold them back anymore or they will be too spindly, fingers crossed they survive otherwise I think I will just give up!
The new incubator is now up, running and primed ready for the eggs whenever they get delivered 😋
The nice weather looks short lived according to the forecast, however the temperatures look set to remain above 6c for most of the time which is fabulous as it means the grass should grow and cover up the mud in the paddocks 😀
John went out to change a set of taps, beforehand he had unloaded the feed he got the other day, when he got to the job and opened the back of the van he had a stowaway, a chicken had hopped in while he was emptying it lol.
Friday: Hopefully another dry day today. We did the morning rounds, I cleaned out the duck house and the small rabbit run while I was at it. I took a wander round the fields to have a look and see what kind of state they are in after the endless rain we have had, not too bad and will come back quite quickly once it stays dry. John chopped up and stacked some wood and then went off to his Mums, today it’s the hairdressers and shopping so he won’t be back until lunchtime. The bantam I dispatched and plucked yesterday needed processing so this was a good time to do that. I have done many a chicken before but not a bantam and I did wonder if it was too small to bother, however people eat smaller birds than that so better not waste it. I found the gutting much more difficult than a standard size chicken due to the small body cavity and I have small hands, so in the end I decided to spatchcock it and remove the insides after cutting up the back. This is still a delicate procedure with the insides as the last thing you want to do is burst any of the intestines or bowel, so I was very careful and luckily successful. I was going to freeze the bird but figured I might as well cook it today now that it has been done as I haven’t got anything else out of the freezer anyway.
So this photo is of the spatchcocked bantam (actually I am not putting the picture up because quite frankly it is the most ridiculous photo I have ever seen 🤣it should look like this
Except that I didn’t break the breastbone enough and it looks like this one but with attitude 🤣🤣🤣
I slathered it with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon 😀 it won’t look like a shop bought bird for two reasons, one, it is not pumped full of water to make it look nice and plump (as above)so the skin is quite dry and wrinkly, and two, it has not been bleached with a food grade bleach like they are in a processing unit, but it will taste 10 times better 😀 I cleaned up the feet and will roast those along with the neck and livers for the dogs. When I finished everything I used gets a wash in detol so as not to spread germs and voila, done.
Ok I will put the photo up but try not to fall off the chair laughing
I am aware that it looks a little like it’s sat there with it’s hands in the air 🤣🤣🤣
I went outside to burn some rubbish and the entrails of the bantam and needed to move the burning barrel as the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, sparks could either end up in the straw or burn small holes in my polytunnel. I tried moving it but it’s quite full of ash and heavy and hurt my shoulder so I thought that’s fine I will use the sack truck, looks for sack truck, nowhere to be found! Goes to phone hubby and his phone is on the side, bloody Nora, not even a simple task is possible when people don’t put things away or remotely even where they can be found! I really need that BIG shed with an even BIGGER paddock to stop things going walkabout 😡
Turns out the sack truck is somewhere under the mountain of wood, I ask you, ejit 🤪
John made the door frame for the fruit cage, I will try and gets some pics when I get a minute, and I did some bits in the garden including putting hoops over one of the raised beds ready for planting up, the chickens will be straight on it if I don’t cover it, I also planted some garlic bulbs and sowed some pumpkin seeds. Sam, Mia, Shelley, Josh and Florence came in the afternoon, Josh wanted to look for vegetables and so I introduced him to some bits in the garden, he happily chomped away on some chives and some pea shoots from the garden, Mia spat them out 😂
Made bread in the evening and set the quail eggs into the incubator, out of 48, three were broken in transit, not bad considering they have gone through the Royal Mail handling system!
Saturday: Did the morning stuff, John cleaned out the back hens and went to get sawdust and feed after going to his Mums, I got one of the hits ready for the ducks we are picking up later today, then I did cleaning indoors, bedroom, bathroom and living room, full move everything clean, not got time for the kitchen today as that will take a few hours it will have to wait for another day😜 Weather is not as bad as I expected it to be, had a small shower this morning but it has been dry since then 😀
Picked up the pekin duckies, in the end we were allocated eight rather than ten but that’s fine, these are ex commercial ducks, two years old and have never been able to immerse themselves fully in water! They have only ever had enough to submerge their heads into, as a consequence on their first time in water they are not yet waterproof, they soon will be once they start to preen and use their oil gland but for tonight they will stay in a stable so they don’t get cold. They are nice looking, clean (now they have been able to bath) healthy birds, I hope they enjoy their retirement with us and hopefully want to continue laying eggs 😀
Sunday: Today has been a fab day 😀 not particularly weatherwise but work wise it has been productive. Firstly the new ducks, we got 5eggs out of the 8 and they are big eggs at that, considering I didn’t think they would lay until they had settled in that’s a result. I moved into the outdoor run and closed the gate, the others had already been let out and gone off down the paddocks, however the drakes soon came running back up when they realised there was fresh talent around lol. I opened the gate later in the afternoon but they have chosen to stay where they are all day.
Next job was to go into the side paddock and remove all the electric fence stakes and tape and tidy it up, there was a few years worth of ‘bits of string’ which had been used to tie up various posts etc etc, all cut off and thrown away now. Then we cut a ‘gateway’ in the two fences to enable the chickens to move freely from the paddock they are in, we have put poultry netting up the length of the paddock close to their hut to shut off the front paddock so that we can drag it and seed it when the time is right.
I have drawn a lovely picture in the hopes it makes sense 😝
While we were out there we had a visit from a chap I have been in touch with on social media about the rats under the hut. Basically there is a group that take their dogs out and go ‘ratting’ it’s all done for free and watching the dogs work was an absolute treat, I say work, but they didn’t actually find any, the reason being that we have been so waterlogged that I think the rats moved out, it will only be temporary though as soon as it’s dry enough they will be back and so will the dogs!
Back to the paddock work and we then netted three sides of the bottom half of the side paddock, mainly to stop the hens wandering especially onto the roadside. It doesn’t sound like much but it takes forever to gather up fencing stakes and roll up the tape and we had to bring the poultry net down from the small paddock at the back so it took a fair amount of time all in all but very satisfying to get it done. Then John cleaned out the front hen house and burnt all the cardboard mite traps, while I went and took down some more tape and stakes (and oodles of string) from another part of the paddock, and neatly bundled and tied up all the stakes and tape, a fair amount of string and broken tape went in the bin. John did the afternoon feeding and the eggs then he lit the fire, Macca is cooking the dinner so I carried on pootling about outside, fed the horse, tidied up some more bits of rubbish and voila the day is done, almost, just got to put them all to bed later 😋
frieslandfarm (flowers) 