Sunday evening: We moved 74 hens in the dark lol, each crate takes 12 hens and we have two crates, the last crate we squeezed the extra in as it’s not very easy pushing the loaded wheelbarrow through the wet mud 😜 They are now in the back pen which is fox proof, just as well as the little sod was out there at 3pm this afternoon, we also moved the garden ducks to the stable just until the weather changes again. Most birds are now on dry ground for the nighttime, after a couple of days they will be allowed out to roam, they will know where they belong by then hopefully.
Monday 10th December: Up early and got everything done ready for my trip out 😀 It was a beautiful sunny morning driving through Gloucestershire to Stroud for my morning of wreath making with The Cotswold Flower Company at Miserden Nursery, a gorgeous little nursery, we were welcomed with coffee and cake, I had a cappuccino with chocolate and cinnamon just to add to the festive feel, beautifully presented cakes, with gluten free and vegan options and two lovely ladies running the morning. One grows the flowers and the other is the florist, a perfect combination and add to that the provenance of being Prince Charles florist for ten years and you know it’s going to be good 😀 Learning something from an expert is always going to be fun, informative and educational, I was pretty pleased with the end result and it smells divine so I have hung it indoors where I can relish the fragrance. The girls were all here so put the tree and decorations up 🎄
Tuesday: Noticeably colder this morning, a low fog hanging about, the sun was very bright today mind you.
I had Mia as usual and Shelley came over with Josh and Flo but poor Josh was sick on the drive before he got in then sick again so they didn’t stay very long.
I had a tub of double cream in the fridge that I bought back from the family feast, as we won’t use it as cream I sat and shook it into buttermilk and butter which we will use. John is a bit disappointed as I just have not had time to make mince pies yet! Normally I start making them the first week of December.
Wednesday: Today we went to do a bit of Christmas shopping in Swindon, it was gloriously quiet lol and we had a nice few hours wandering around with ease.
Thursday: A colder morning today, John did the animals first thing then went to work, he is not supposed to, he finished Tuesday, then I get, I just have to do a few small jobs 😏 I need to clean out the quail and rabbits so that is on my agenda and lighting the fire a bit earlier today, yesterday because we were out it never seemed to get warm enough in here by lighting it later on.
Looking out of the stable door this morning I could see that the long tailed tits have made a re appearance which made me smile, of all the little birds we have, those and the wrens are my favourite although the long tailed usually only return when bad/cold weather is on the cards so we shall see. I had a phone call yesterday from the chap who is coming to do some rabbiting, weather permitting he will be here first thing Sunday morning to keep the rabbit numbers in check as they are a bit out of control at the moment.
I had to come back in and get a second pair of gloves on this morning the nip in the air was noticeable though the sun came out later. It’s a good feeling to get cages/runs completely cleaned out and all fresh new cosy bedding down, the rabbits/Guineas also had a good handful of chard and big pile of hay and some twigs to chew on, they should be happy bunnies today 😀
I think I need to start looking for a new farm cat, Mollys eyesight is not so good now and she is quite an old lady approx 15 this year, Diesel keeps going awol I think he has found someone to feed and fuss him lol. The problem is that a farm cat needs to have been raised semi feral by that I mean only had the minimum of interaction from a human, born to a farm mother would be ideal. I have had recuse cats in the past that are labeled as feral but they usually tend to be just very frightened, kittens that are born and raised in a household are not ideal either as they have usually had lots of cuddles etc and want to come inside. Don’t get me wrong the cats have somewhere warm to sleep, in fact I just found Diesel deep inside the hay pile, they get fed once a day, they are wormed and fleaed but they don’t come inside and they don’t have lots of lap time lol, they have to earn their keep, finding a cat like this is quite difficult.
The peas plants finally arrived so I planted them straight away in the small tunnel along with the broad beans, roll on next spring when I can harvest them. I could probably do with about 3 or 4 times as many really especially peas they must be the no 1 favourite vegetable and so good for you. I find growing them overwinter avoids the pea moth getting at them then I usually follow them with mange-tout which also avoid the moth as they are picked before they swell and attract any insects.
Friday: Very cold this morning brrr, John did the outside jobs while I did a few bits inside, then Shelley Josh and Florence came over and we had pancakes with berries, Florence had to go to hospital last night as she has been unwell since last Saturday but after checking her over and giving her some fluids they let her back home again.
I have been in contact with a group re homing cats and we are going to see a six month old with the right criteria (semi feral) tomorrow morning, then they will come and give us a home visit and hopefully we will have a new cat for the farm.
The frost has not lifted much today.
I finally made a batch of mince pies.
We went to Mia’s Christmas play and then to visit Johns Mum who has now moved to a nursing home.
I had a go at needle felting and made a hare, I did buy a kit because I have some wool that came as packaging and I wanted to see how easy or difficult it was to do. It is a very forgiving medium to work with and my hare is not bad, now I just need to use the other wool and see what I can make with it.
Saturday: Cold again this morning the hoses are frozen and there is a forecast of snow later 😜 I lit the fire early as we are going out to have a look at and potentially bring home a new farm cat, she is semi feral so I may be able to get a photo of her or maybe not 😝 I think the timing is good as Molly is behaving oddly especially the last few days and today she has come into the boot room and taken up residence on patch’s cushion which he is none to happy about. In my experience cats either run off to die or seek you out more which is what Molly is doing, she is very thin and as I said her eyesight seems to be going either that or she has just decided ‘sod the stable block, I’m off indoors’.
We went to see the new cat and bought her home with us, she is absolutely semi feral in that gloves are needed to handle her 😝 they called her Cruella and I am giving her the full title of Cruella de Vil as I feel she fully deserves a grand name. She is not a cat that can be rehomed to a family so a place like ours is ideal for her, she can have as much or as little contact with people as she chooses and hopefully will ‘work’ for us as well.
We built the fire up in the Rayburn and hunkered down for a couple of hours in the afternoon, it’s perishing out there, even the geese had their heads tucked away under their wings today.
Normally at this time of year I would be knee deep in cooking preparations for the big Winter feast but this year we are not hosting so it’s over to others lol, I already had some jars of mincemeat in the cupboard which I made last year, I have plenty of chutney and pickles etc and even got pudding that I made for the family feast. The only things I will buy extra is a ham, various cheeses, crackers a few other bits but not much at all, we have all we need 😀
It has been and continues to be a vile day, it’s cold and wet and disgusting lol, half the hens we moved the other day keep going back to the old hut so we decided we would move them and put them in a stable where they will stay shut in for at least a week this time so that was the plan for the evening. I took some hay up the back to Jack but I could see that as he came across the paddock he was lame so I needed to get him in, I grabbed his head collar and one of the hay nets and just as I was about to go in the field and get him I spotted the fox! Shouting fox as loud as I could I dropped everything and ran down the yard, the dogs were in the back but came out when they heard me, John was sat indoors, get your coat on the fox is out here 🦊. Eventually we got the horse in got the hens captured and in and we were done, cold and wet time to go back in to the warm for the evening 😀
Sunday: Up late and totally forgot the chap was coming to do some rabbiting today 😝 As I opened the blind he had just arrived with two colleagues plus a Harris Hawk called Ethel, a ferret and a dog. By this point we would normally have been up and let all the dogs and birds out but we hadn’t done any of that, so quickly let our dogs out for a wee and a stretch then got them back in. They flew the Hawk but she didn’t catch anything and then they used the dog and the ferret, they got six, quite fat rabbits so they were happy with that and will be back in the New Year. They were off home to make rabbit curry, excellent, that’s how it should be, hunt and eat what you hunt, and only as much as you need to keep you going. By sheer coincidence Missi the Hawk was being worked by her owners on the farm over the back, fantastic, I love it, I wish I had come to this life a lot earlier and maybe it would have been me with the Hawk and the ferrets but at least there are people around who still do it.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 