Monday 4th June: Rain first thing, I watered last night so that seems a waste of time but you never know how things are going to go! John is back as his proper job this week so I am on my own doing the feeding etc this morning. When I finished that it was onto the veg garden and I did a bit of weeding before doing some picking, there is not much in the way of offerings at the moment but I did pick some broad beans, peas, asparagus, rhubarb, rainbow chard and 5 baby cauliflower. This all bodes well as I got a piece of gammon from the freezer last night so for dinner with it we are having cauliflower cheese, peas and broad beans, the other veg was put out for sale and gone within half an hour. The broad beans I have gone to the extra length of skinning them as well, not sure that’s the right term, so they are taken out of the pod first then the whiteish skin on each bean is also taken off and you are left with a bright green bean, worth it so I am told, I will let you know.
Sam and Mia came over and they cleaned out the rabbits while I got on with some more hoeing, it’s a constant activity with all this sunshine then rain, I did joke to John that I should maybe sell fat hen, chickweed and dandelion leaves as bagged salad, all are perfectly edible, his face said what most customers would say I think 🤪 There are plenty of people out there who regularly eat this kind of thing and some who exclusively eat ‘weeds’ and forage but I’m not sure we are ready for that just yet although most veg as we know it are just hybrid weeds 😝
On a positive note the garlic have formed beautiful large heads and the onions are doing very well, normally with all that rain they would start to rot but in the raised beds this year they are sitting pretty.
Tuesday: A pleasant enough day today, overcast, average spring temps so a good day to get stuff done. The morning routine went as per usual then onto the garden, I spent a good couple of hours in the big poly tunnel tying up tomatoes, beans, weeding etc, then Mum popped in for a coffee and I had a chat with her about a couple of problems in the garden, I have ordered some Epsom salts to try and combat some of the issues. Then onto hoeing in the fruit cage, it’s like a jungle in there, then Sam and Mia, Shelley, Josh and Flo arrived and made lunch, after they left I did the egg collection and afternoon feed, then a bit of hoovering and tidying and the day is done, well sort of as after dinner I did some more hoeing and sexed the goslings, I think they are both female, happy days 😀
At some point in the day I candled the eggs in the incubator, I removed nine that were not fertile, fingers crossed that the rest all hatch, I think there are 15 left in there.
Wednesday: A warmer day with sunshine from early on, I did the morning stuff then a bit of watering in the small tunnel then onto hoeing the pathways. Yesterday my muscles in my legs and arms were playing up but I took some paracetamol and all was well until later in the evening. This morning I took paracetamol a bit later and then did the hoeing but found I couldn’t manage much more than two pathways, always listening to what my body is trying to tell me, I gave it up and went and had a sit down instead, no point trying to do something I can’t and if I rest it should help.
I put the baby goslings out for an hour in a run on the lawn, I don’t think they quite knew what to make of it, I need to figure out what I am going to put them in as they are getting too big for the brooder unit.
Thursday: June 7th Johns Birthday 🎂 Overcast this morning but good temperatures. I did the morning routine, then picked some forage for the rabbits and a bit of watering, I looked over the garden to see what is coming in, tiny little courgettes forming, globe artichoke, heads of broccoli beginning to form so not too bad. I smile when I go past the onions and garlic as they are doing fabulously in the raised beds, we have been given some big pieces of timber that will be ideal to raise up more of the beds and we really need to put a lot of effort into soil structure come autumn. I have decided that polyculture is definitely the way forward for me, mixing up the veg with fruit trees/bushes and flowers, for the main part anyway, I will still need to heavily cover the brassicas.
Friday: You can probably tell by the lack of any thing written that I haven’t done much these past few days, that’s because of my joints/muscles, I don’t know what is wrong with them but they are not working properly. It could be the Lupus or it could be the virus John had at the beginning of the month, either way it’s has steadily got worse until this morning John had to do the animals as I couldn’t bear weight at all on my legs, plenty of painkillers and a bath hasn’t made much difference but I can at least walk again albeit slowly, I certainly cannot bend my knees though and it’s not just my legs affected one side of my jaw is stiff, some fingers and the palms of my hands, very random! I have to keep moving though otherwise it’s worse so some slow pottering is the order of the day. It gives me time to think about things and one of those is the goslings, looking back over the blog posts I realise the eggs can’t be much good the goose has been sat for too long now so tonight all being well I will try swapping the live goslings in and take the eggs out, who knows how this will go, I can only try and it will be the best option for all of them.
8pm and operation swap goslings for eggs gets under way, first John went out with some corn to entice the goose off her nest while I put the goslings in a bucket and covered them with a towel so they stayed silent. Corn thrown, off goosey gets, in I nip and unload the goslings into the nest and cover them with nest debris, remove the eggs, they start chirping and John shouts ‘she’s coming’ get out quick as the whole family is coming, lots of noise going on in there but they are not attacking so that’s a good sign. I watched for a few minutes before deciding to shutting them in once everything quietens down. I will have a look later and see how it’s going. I break open the eggs against a tree, oh my god what a stink with half grown embryos, they were never going to hatch so the right decision was made as long as all goes well.
Saturday: Still having trouble with my muscles/joints meaning I’m fairly incapacitated first thing in the morning, I got up at 6am to take painkillers and went back to bed to let them work then got up at 7am. John did the animals this morning before going off to get some dog food, a tap for the water butt and to do his Mum.
I am delighted to tell you that the adoption of the baby geese is going really well and today they are all out grazing happily together, I will definitely be doing that again next year, more successful all round.
Once the continuous painkillers were in action I managed to get some jobs done, it’s better to keep moving, once I stop it all seizes up again. I did a bit of weeding and gave that to the rabbits then planted up the rest of the tomato plants I had in the greenhouse, they are excess plants but I figured I may as well plant them out and might even get a crop from them before they get blight. I picked a bunch of asparagus, some strawberries, peas and some rainbow chard, watered the carrot seedlings and that was about it for the morning. John cleaned out the goose hut now everything is going well, then connected up a water butt to the guttering he put up on the rabbit run so there should always be water available for them now providing it rains occasionally that is lol.
Struggled a lot today, do a bit, sit down, do a bit, lay down, do a bit, sit down again, pants I hope this moves on quickly! Just finished watering the garden when it started to rain, I did check the forecast first and it was something like 5% chance 😝oh well.
Chickens are the most annoying things, John put a whole bale of straw in when he cleaned out the goose hut, tonight it’s all across the bloody paddock, scratched out by the hens!
Sunday: Still rather incapacitated so John has done all the jobs again while I lie around and take painkillers 😩 After the usual stuff and going to sort his Mum out he came back and turned my compost heap with the tractor, there is some great looking stuff in there and I want to be able to use it on the beds this autumn so it needs regular turning. Charlie is cooking a roast later so that leaves me free to sit around and not do much lol, eventually I got bored of that and suggested a trip to the garden centre which John readily agreed to as it means he can get out of working in the heat. I wanted to get some flowering plants of various descriptions, in the end the haul included the most amazing smelling rose and a patio grape with tons of fruit already forming on it, some plants came from the casualty dept and I have split and planted some of them and taken cuttings as well.
Hopefully I will start to feel better very soon as I have jobs I want to get on with 🤪
frieslandfarm (flowers) 