Monday 21st May: John is off again this week so he did most of the morning round, I followed behind doing the things he forgets to do! Then he spent the morning cutting wood and cleaned the floor of the POL pen in between. I did a bit of early morning hoeing and collected weeds for the rabbits and a bucketful for the POL hens. Then I remodelled a small chicken house for the Welsh Harlequin ducks I want to separate off, they will be going into the orchard to hopefully raise some ducklings or if they don’t I will have to incubate them but at least they will be pure bred ones. By lunchtime it was getting too hot for me to work out in the sun, I’m hoping we get a little bit of cooler weather sometime, seems to be all or nothing 😝
Made an apricot and walnut cake, I bought the apricots when we were shopping as I really fancied something with them in, cake wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but with John home this week I thought I’d better make some goodies for him to eat. My apricot tree has missed the frosts this year and there is a decent amount of fruit on it, yippee, fresh home grown apricots 😀
Simple recipe, and I as always just bung it all in together 😝
I also still had some biscuit dough in the freezer so got that out to bake biccies.
I am making peppercorn and mushroom sauce to go on my steak later, I will make it with cream cheese, the healthier option 😀
There is a 20% chance of rain later, fingers crossed 🤞 as the rhubarb has all but stopped growing since I picked the last lot over a week ago.
Whoop whoop, a downpour 😀 a pretty good one at that, it should partly fill up the water tanks and more importantly refresh the grass and veg garden, nothing better than rain the chivvy things along a bit 😀
Moved the Welsh Harlequin ducks this evening to their new quarters and I ordered Large Fowl Light Sussex hatching eggs, two lots from different ends of the country, I have tried to find some locally and failed so I will hatch out, it doesn’t matter how many cock birds I end up with because they will be for the table. I watched back to the land tonight and the herb fed hens struck a chord, I thought we do it with the rabbits, why not the hens? Not all of them, the egg layers are hybrid, high performance and need layers but the slower growing birds well that’s a whole different matter, now I just need to divide up my herbs to increase what’s available.
Tuesday: After the morning duties, which included letting the Welsh Harlequin ducks out into their new surroundings, it was time to sort out the quail hatchlings. They need to move on as I hopefully will need the brooder for goslings in a couple of days time, so we have got a hutch inside the back area and put them in there for the time being, they look pretty happy and there is much more space for them. John then did some more wood cutting while I did some gardening, planted up a few things including a melon that had been in a pot in the tunnel, sowed some more lettuce and spinach seeds, did a bit of tidying and just uncovered the bed to plant some peas when Mia arrived so that can wait until tomorrow now.
Found a frog 🐸 first a toad last week and now a frog actually a froglet as it was quite small, contemplating putting in a small wildlife pond somewhere but it needs careful consideration as to where to place it.
I seem to have large areas that still have not been planted up, though I have been better at successional sowing this year instead of everything in at once and consequently all producing at once! I find I am doing more pottering this year rather than full on back breaking work and obviously I’m enjoying that a lot more.
After Mia went home and we had our dinner it was time to do the watering which takes an age but is necessary until things are established, quickly sowed some peas and put netting up before sundown and time to put the animals to bed.
I ordered some perennial plug plants which arrived today for my flower bed area, I’m looking forward to having lots of colour in the garden.
Wednesday: John had some small plumbing jobs to do first thing so I did the morning rounds today, then picking for the rabbits, mostly cow parsley, dock, lemon balm and the broad bean foliage from those I was growing in the greenhouse over winter. Then onto a bit of gardening, weeding mostly, saving all the edible weeds in a bucket for the rabbits to have later on, clipping the bottom foliage from the hazel trees, also saving it for the rabbits (they dine like kings and queens) We keep some of our Hazels the traditional way which from my research can barely be found any more, it seems they grow them from a single stem these days. Ours were maintained like this before we inherited them and we have just kept it up, we strip the bottom for many reasons the main one was originally for security purposes so that we could see and be seen (nothing better than a hedge for an unwanted to hide behind) latterly we need to keep the light for the poly tunnels and it also makes collecting the nuts easier and now the rabbits will benefit too 😀
I have set the wildlife pond idea in motion, picked a site, it will just be very small and on one corner of the flower bed. Basically it will be a large container set in the ground, I have ordered small native pond plants and that’s it, build it and they will come as the saying goes 😀
I was out watering at about 7pm, I heard the chickens making a distinctive noise looked over the fence and there was a fox chasing one of my hens, it ran straight past me and didn’t even bat an eyelid when I bellowed FOOOOOOOXXXXXXXX, the dogs had been shut in as we had some visitors to the farm so John ran in the back to let them out, they chased it fast and furiously across two paddocks but inevitably it was faster and got away. Hopefully it’s had a bit of a scare and won’t come back but I doubt it, it was a youngster probably last years cub now they have been turned out.
And we have goslings piping in the incubator, in fact we have one that is now born 😀
Thursday: Rain, and plenty of it 😀 that’s great it means I don’t have to spend hours watering everything tonight. This morning while John did the rounds I got the brooder ready for the gosling, it is still a lone gosling at this present time, I also had to find out another lamp for the quail I moved as the temps suddenly took a dip and they were cold, everyone is happy for the time being 😀 The light Sussex eggs arrived super quickly so I’m hoping the goose hatching doesn’t go on for too long as I will need to get the next batch of eggs in 😝
In the afternoon I ‘knocked up’ the wildlife pond as the aquatic plants arrived this morning, I’m just waiting for an oxygenating one to arrive, everything else I used, I had lying around, I know at the minute it looks like I knocked it up lol but over the next couple of weeks it will fill out and look great. Around the edge I planted Solomons seal, lily of the valley, aquilegia and a huechera, all plants I had in pots doing nothing much else, the slates are for cover for wildlife to hide under, I also tied together 3 pieces of waste pipe that are under one of the slates, more hidey holes and a random statue that looks like a woman with a beard 🤣 I will clean it up for the next photo shoot. Your eyes do not deceive you there is a potato growing there too, self set so I have left it. There are big stones in the water for things to get in and out or for birds and insects to stand on for a drink, I’m looking forward to seeing what visits and hopefully the froglet and the toad will take up residence.
Tonight there is another family birthday, yep another one lol 😜
Friday: Feeling pretty hopeless this morning, the fox scaled the six foot enclosure and, violently, that’s the only word for it, ripped apart the cage my silkie chickens were in and massacred them. This over eight months of hatching, growing, nurturing, feeding, cleaning down the f**king drain and it didn’t even take all the bodies. Now we have to review every enclosure and hut because picking off ones wandering about is one thing but ripping apart doors and roofs to get in is an entirely different game altogether! Just giving up and giving in is on the agenda today.
A small upside today is another gosling has hatched in the incubator, though it was a long hatch and it’s pretty exhausted, fingers crossed it makes it through.
It’s tipping down again this morning, all or nothing as usual, weeks of nothing but sunshine and now days and days of nothing but rain.
Feeling pretty low about the whole thing, wondering what’s the point actually, I know what I should be doing is being pro active but in all honesty I don’t have the energy for it, I can’t see how I am going to beef everything up enough to stop something that aggressive, short of locking every bird away all day and all night the answers are just not there. I thought we could live in harmony with predators as long as we lock everything away which we do, always leaving a gathering early so that they are safely tucked up for the night, 365 days a year and you would think that would be enough but nope. Foxes are getting bigger, stronger, more aggressive and brazen, eventually that’s only going to go one way…………..🤔
Tonight we have put the ducks in with the rabbits and the pekin ducks have an extra bigger bolt on their door, I’m still worried that the strength this fox seems to have he will be able to rip the door off the goose hut or even the mesh off the rabbit cage but we have done what we can for the time being. I have set the camera up to try and catch what we are dealing with on film, might be something g larger for all we know.
Saturday: First thing I did was to go and get the sd card and have a look, def a fox not sure if it’s two different ones, one visit at 11pm and another visit at 2.30am, luckily nothing has been got so it’s a good day today 😀 Raining to begin with but not much, John did the feeding while I sorted out the baby quail and goslings, we now have two, the other eggs seems to have stopped developing at some point during incubation but at least they have each other. Then I went into sorting and potting on some plants in the greenhouse and planting some more brassicas before coming in and disinfecting the incubator ready for the next batch of eggs which are LF Light Sussex for our table birds.
Around 4pm the doorbell rang and a lady had come in to tell us that a fox had just gone into our front hedge, ffs at 4 in the afternoon! John did a walk round with the dogs and then I did another ten minutes later, they didn’t pick up any scent though, you can’t rest on your laurels for a minute.
Publishing a day early this week as we are off early in the morning down to Wales to visit Dad and Sue and the Welsh game fair will be on so we shall spend a daythere.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 