Month: January 2019

Posted in Friesland Farm

Mixed weather, a unexplained death and a bit of baking.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 21st Jan: I was up early to get a look at the Moon, sadly it was too cloudy and I couldn’t see anything at all ☹️ Today is labelled as Blue Monday, it’s a Monday morning in January they are all blue 🥴 The upside of the last nights cloud cover is that it is not frosty this morning which makes the morning water rounds much easier 😀 And hopefully it will mean our man will be here to do some brickwork on the greenhouse as he had said weather permitting, I don’t know much about this subject but it looks like ideal conditions to me 😀

I didn’t do much worthy of writing about for the rest of the day except the normal routine stuff really. When I did the afternoon feeding I made sure all the water was filled up and extra hay in for the rabbits as it’s supposed to be very cold overnight.

Tuesday: It was not cold as I was expecting it to get and the sun is shinning this morning so although there is a frost it’s not that hard and should be quite a pleasant day. The moon is huge and still out it’s a shame I couldn’t see it yesterday 🙄 I have Mia today so as usual on a Tuesday I won’t be doing much more than entertaining her 😀

I did do one thing today 😝 I signed up for an online learning course and to become a citizen scientist, it’s about understanding soil and exploring global environmental soil issues, climate, food growing, technology, and the environment, it begins in February I will let you know more about it then.

Although the weather is not up too much I can still think and plan for the growing year ahead, the fruit bushes and trees need some sustenance and I have asked Shelley to save the ash from her fire, we can’t use our ash as it has all kinds of things in it but her are logs so are ok. Ash is high in potassium and so will encourage flowering which is what you want from fruit, I will sprinkle it about and lightly fork it in. It does make the soil more alkaline though so not near the blueberries which prefer acid soil. I am also waiting to cover up the bean bed that we mucked up the other week but while it’s cold and dry I am letting nature do its thing, as soon as it turns wet I will cover it over.

I already have broad beans and peas growing but this is the time of year to get them underway if you want to. Chillies, Aubergine and sweet peas are started off indoors now as well, I will probably do some sweet peas but I haven’t decided wether to just buy a couple of chilli plants this year instead of raising from seed. I don’t have much window sill space so being selective is the way forward. I saved the sweet pea seeds from last years display a lovely very dark purple called ‘dark knight’ I think. I have had a look through the seed catalogue and probably marked off far more than I really need, I will go through what I have saved and thin the order out a bit 😜 One thing I do need to order soon is the seed potatoes, last year I was late and couldn’t get the varieties I wanted as they were sold out, there is quite a decision to be made with which potatoes to go for, mostly wether they bake, roast or boil and if they are waxy or floury lol, I prefer a floury type and they have to be multi purpose 😀

The tips of the daffodil bulbs are just beginning to push through the soil in the back paddock, remember the 950 Mum, Ken and I planted 😀 well they are still there and doing ok much to my Dads relief who has been asking me every week if there is any sign of them yet lol.

Wednesday: We had a dusting of snow, just like icing sugar 😀 it’s cold and frozen but the sun is shinning. I had a busy couple of hours, firstly lighting the Rayburn, sorting the eggs and washing up, then out to feed the birds and let them out, break the water buckets etc, on my way round I found the smaller Guinea pig dead, back indoors to keep the fire going, make a quick coffee and just as I made that the hay delivery turned up😜 I leave the coffee go out open up the gates and direct Micheal as to where I want it, one reel was going straight into the field shelter as Jack is waiting. That takes about 15/20 minutes and luckily when I get in my coffee is still warm enough to drink lol, sort the fire out, get something in the slow cooker for dinner tonight and get some bread made up to the first proving.

Now back to the Guinea pig, it has no signs of injury and it does not have rigor and considering how cold it was over night it is not frozen either, a conundrum? Well I have seen something like this before so my plan was to bring him in and place him somewhere warmer just in case it’s hibernation, I must add that he is not curled up but fully stretched which is the only reason I am in doubt. We had a hamster that we thought had died so I put it in a bag and out in the shed to wait for the burial ceremony for the children, unfortunately it poured with rain for two days and by the time it was dry enough to do it, the hamster was sat on the mat looking at us!! You can see why I am reluctant to bury it just yet 😜 The other pig is fine so I don’t know what has happened to this one, although a quick bit of research tells me that they do not hibernate but I will keep him there for a day or two anyway.

Thursday: Another cold and frosty morning but it quickly thawed so it must be warmer than yesterday as the ground in places never even thawed.

I did the morning jobs as well as putting clean bedding in for the front hens and the geese I also moved the separator in the goose hut, his just divides the laying area in two as hopefully it won’t be long before they begin laying.

As it did not feel so cold today I delayed lighting the Rayburn and did a bit of baking instead, I made a cherry pie, a batch of pear and plum crumble, some for the freezer and a batch of buttermilk scones. The buttermilk was what I saved from turning pots of cream (reduced in price) into butter and the left over liquid is buttermilk. It gives the scones a distinct sour smell but they taste wonderful 😀 At that point I ran out of butter and milk so any more cooking will wait for another day. Last year with the fruit produce I made the decision to freeze it whole and then get it out to cook it down and use it but in reality it didn’t really work so I will go back to cooking it off then it is always ready to get out and make into pies/crumbles etc, if I batch make pastry and crumble too then I can quickly make a pudding in no time at all.

While I was cooking I noticed out of the window that one of the geese had got stuck in the poultry fencing so I picked a convenient moment, put on my coat, hat, wellies and gloves and went out to rescue it, by the time I got to the front fence it had freed itself 😝

Lit the Rayburn at lunchtime and sat down to enjoy some crustless quiche that shelley bought over for me yesterday, it was packed with different things, mushroom, tomato, bacon, sweet corn, cheese, very tasty.

Friday: I love Friday, no idea why really as work is done seven days a week here lol but it has a different feel about it maybe it is the palpable relief of all those who do have Monday to Friday jobs who knows. It’s weird because I was saying to someone the other day that having done this for 10 years now I would be able to tell (almost) what day of the week it is without a calendar, Fridays, Saturdays and definitely Sundays all have a different feel about them, Monday has it own feeling, only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday would be hard to distinguish between, the time is also something I can roughly manage without looking at a clock, even in the middle of the night.

Morning jobs done, I have opened the side opening between the two paddocks to try and encourage the geese to move out a little as they keep getting behind the poultry netting, this probably means they are running out of nutritional grass so encouraging them to move to pastures new will be better for all of us 😜 I topped up all the wild bird feeders, we have a lot of garden birds here and I want to keep them around, they are part of our little ecosystem now 😀 I know that pigeons are too but the numbers keep growing and I want to keep a good balance so for that reason some will be dealt with.

It’s much milder today just as well as I am popping out for coffee and cake with Shelley mid morning so the fire won’t get lit until lunchtime.

This fox thing is getting beyond a joke, we put the hens in barricade stables, it has tried digging in under the stable doors so we barricaded them more now I discovered it has been trying to dig in from the outside wall. I thought I could see daylight so I went round the back to have a look and it has been digging away, I called John to see when he would be home so that we could move a whole load of hardcore into the hole it has dug, it’s getting very tiresome 😞 On the upside I did get a glimpse of Cruella De Vil through the tack room window, I am going to set the camera tonight to see if she is actually coming out at night or not, we need to encourage her to venture a bit further as life will be very boring for her otherwise.

Saturday: A dreary morning, milder again. John got up and did all the outside jobs as well as getting in quite a few barrows of wood for the fire then went off to get the feed. I did the eggs and stocked up the egg shed and then had a look at the footage from the camera which I set up last night. The cat does come out which is good, I could also see that the fox hangs around ALL night, there are captures of it from 8pm right through to 5.30am, even going in and out of the tack room through the cat hole. That means I’m feeding the fox cat biscuits as well 😛 poor cat, I wonder how much she is getting?

I am off to Winchester today for an afternoon tea hen do with our future sister in law, i am looking forward to a little road trip and some tea and cake 😀 John will hold the fort and hopefully do some of the jobs on the list 😀

Just as well I don’t have to do much today, I’m quite tired and my hands are a bit swollen and hurt so a day off is needed.

The egg sales have ramped up again this week we have sold all yesterday’s by lunchtime today and have now put out today’s 🙄 if they all sell this afternoon there won’t be anything for tomorrow 🥴 It’s not something you can gauge at all, one week it will be very slow, the next we can’t keep up!

Sunday: WINDY! Very windy, all night and today, talk about getting a buffeting, did the morning stuff then went for breakfast locally 😀

Cleaning out the stable that has had 45 hens in it for a couple of weeks was on the list today, we let them out and barrowed out 6/7 full barrows of straw and poo and now it’s all nice and clean with fresh straw back in.

Trying the keep the Rayburn on an even keel has been a challenge today, the wind is making it draw too much so it’s burning away quickly but if you shut it down that’s not ideal either as it just dies off, the struggle is real people 😂

And that is pretty much the end of another week, one step closer to Spring 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Gardening, cooking, clearing out, a little bit of everything this week.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th January: Another non weather morning, slightly cold but dry, I keep waiting for some ‘weather’ to arrive and am keeping my eye on the long term reports. Not from the press as they are always predicting some major event that never happens but from the met office, there has been some ‘catastrophic’ event in weather terms but because of ‘blocking’ they are not sure if it will reach here or not, so not much info there either! It’s just wait and see I reckon 😛

Well it was so mild out there I decided to get stuck in to a bit of gardening so I moved a few barrows of muck into the fruit cage, planted up the rhubarb I had divided back in Autumn and cut down and shredded the Autumn raspberry canes. I also cut back the thornless blackberry and then dug up and potted some raspberry runners, the thornless blackberry had also layered itself into the ground so another free plant there 😀 I got so warm I had to come in and take a layer off!

I actually can’t remember a January like it for years to be honest, this time last year it was ‘the beast from the East’ causing chaos this time it’s just so mild and dry that it’s been a pleasure so far.

I spent the afternoon confirming and finalising paperwork for our upcoming holiday to Norway, we are good to go when the day arrives 😀

Then back out at 3pm to do the feeding and egg collection, the bonus with hens living inside is clean eggs so no washing them, though it may have more to do with the dry ground outside than anything else, I guess once it rains I will find out 😝

I have cold pork, baked potato, salad and lashings of homemade chutney for dinner, John has bubble and squeak, his favourite after a roast dinner 😀

I have finally ordered our SmartWater pack, this is a long lasting traceable liquid that has a unique code visible under ultraviolet light, basically you splatter it on high value items and equipment and if it gets stolen and recovered its traceable back to you. The village as a whole has registered and within that registration each person that signed up gets their own code, hopefully it’s a deterrent if nothing else.

Tuesday: I have Mia today so whizzed round and get the feeding done quickly, the guy turned up to start putting the base down for the greenhouse. Gramps biscuit tin was empty much to Mia’s disappointment so we made a batch and shared them with Josh when he came over with Shelley and Florence 😀 I made a loaf of bread, pretty good one today if I may say so myself.

Wednesday: I am clearly feeling much better and fitter and have clarity (one of the things about Lupus is brain fog) lol, this morning I have done the feeding etc then moved a few barrows of muck onto the veg beds, then onto sorting stuff out. Must be a Spring/New Year thing because I am finally getting round to listing stuff for sale/free that has been lying around for ages, or chucking stuff I no longer need.

I made a bit of a boo boo as I had a delivery yesterday and it was three boxes that said ‘live plants’ now as I am expecting some plants I naturally thought that’s what they were and so left them out overnight. When I looked this morning, bearing in mind it was a damp drizzly morning, it was the cardboard egg boxes I had ordered 😛 luckily two of the three boxes had them wrapped in plastic as well and only the third box was soggy which also luckily hadn’t affected the contents, good job it wasn’t pouring down!

We have so much clutter that I am determined to shift one way or another so I have a box for the charity shop, a pile of textiles for the recycling, various items up for free on social media, fingers crossed I go on as I have started 😝

The chap doing the base has come back to concrete it today, yesterday it was set it out and fill with some hardcore, tomorrow or probably the next day he can begin the dwarf wall and then it will be over to the boys for the timber work when they have time 😀

I checked the post box and the smartwater had arrived so I went round with my little swab, dabbing items with the forensic coding 😀 we don’t really have items of high value but they are all things we use regularly and collectively any theft would stop us getting on with jobs around here.

And the random thoughts are happening again 😛 When we were at school (back in the dark ages 😝 seriously my first teacher had a mortarboard and cloak and must have been 100) why did the teacher ask a question, the watch half the kids put up their hands to answer but always ask someone who hadn’t put up their hand? I would have been one who didn’t put up her hand, it didn’t mean I didn’t know the answer just that I wasn’t confident enough, nothing has changed there either so it’s not confidence building I still wouldn’t put myself forward in most circumstances, and if the person who hasn’t put up their hand didn’t know it what was the point of singling them out? You can learn a lot just as easily listening to other people’s answers and thoughts, back in the days when it was fashionable to sew patches over the holes in your jeans (and yes I am from the double denim era) I had one that said ‘help me keep by big mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about’ I’ve pretty much kept to that my whole life, with probably the occasional slip up 😝 I don’t take part in debates unless I have a clear idea of what I want to say and even then there is much to be learnt from the other persons point of view.

I didn’t light the Rayburn until about 1.30pm by that time it had started to rain and the air temp had dropped noticeably, according to the met office we have a couple of coldish nights ahead, a bit more like Winter ought to be, a couple of frosts would be good to break down the muck on the veg beds.

Some comfort food is in order so we have cottage pie tonight.

Thursday: I was expecting quite a hard frost this morning going on the forecast but we didn’t have one, the ground is wet not frosty, good for us as the concrete base has been curing overnight and it’s better if it didn’t freeze. I find our weather can sometimes be a bit of an anomaly here, we are approx 350ft above sea level according to an app, and the paddocks to the west slope down a fair bit. When we moved here Dad did say to me the best place for a veg garden would be the far right/top corner and if I had been a more experienced vegetable gardener then I would have paid attention, it’s only 10 years later I realise how right he was and that where we eventually chose to site it is a frost pocket! However it is a central location and I can keep an eye on things from there whereas the other position would have been too far out of the way to answer the bell or keep an eye on things.

I did the morning feeding and letting out, put some fresh bedding in for the geese, I want to move these soon to a stable, they will begin laying soon and also it will make life easier while we are away. Then I cleaned out one of the stables with the hens in and put in fresh bedding for them.

Later on I washed the car because I was sick of it looking so filthy, I don’t drive it, I don’t drive, I passed my test about 20 years ago, drove for a couple of months, absolutely hated it and so never drove again not on public roads anyhow, but John never washes it so I figured I had better do it.

Friday: A frost this morning, not a hard one but at least it will help to break up the soil a little bit. My plan today is cleaning 😛 and sorting stuff out so not much will be done outside apart from the necessary.

Well it’s lunchtime and I have sat down with a cuppa, I haven’t actually got any cleaning done as yet but I have got plenty of sorting out and throwing away achieved including the airing cupboard 😝 I have added to the charity shop box and got a large bag of textiles for recycling. I did eventually get round to cleaning and I bought a new polish a while back, the ‘Method’ wood polish, it smells fab, it has almond oil in it, one of my favourite smells in products and how sad is this, I washed all my dusters and cloths last week, it was great getting out a clean duster to do the job with 😂 I am not a manic cleaner, not anymore, I used to be someone that had a regular cleaning routine and bleached/washed/polished everything even scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand but eventually I realised that life is too short to worry and these days as long as I do it once it gets on my nerves then that’s fine after all there are a million more interesting things to do in life 😀 Having said that, once I have done it I do feel more relaxed and clearheaded so maybe I haven’t quite let go entirely 😝

Saturday: I’m a bit tired and things ache today 🙄 not sure why, it started late yesterday afternoon and my right arm was pretty uncomfortable, hopefully it will pass quickly. A wet drizzly morning and the temperature has dropped quite a bit over the last couple of days too, I had planned a list of things to get done but John has had to go into work to finish the job he was on after a cock up by the suppliers so they will now have to wait 😡 not happy, I have wait all week to get the jobs that I can’t manage on my own done and then I still can’t get them done!

The concrete base for the greenhouse has cured nicely so hopefully I will get some walls next week. The base is more than just a floor it is part of the thermal mass that will help to absorb the heat of the sun in the daytime and then release it overnight, of course this will only be needed during the cooler parts of the year but considering we never know exactly what kind of weather we will get it may be useful all year round. I have changed the position of the new greenhouse to run a NW to SE direction so that I get maximum use of the sun down the left side of it for cold frames, before it was in a East to West position which left a north facing side (outside) that you couldn’t put to good use. I’m so looking forward to this new space I may have to put a chair and a radio in there and get a billy can to make tea 😀

Sunday: John had done the animals by the time I got up at 8! Very nice, thank you 😀 he then went onto clean out the flue and the Rayburn as it’s not burning very well. Meanwhile I potted up some lavender plants I had ordered, these were Monday 14th January: Another non weather morning, slightly cold but dry, I keep waiting for some ‘weather’ to arrive and am keeping my eye on the long term reports. Not from the press as they are always predicting some major event that never happens but from the met office, there has been some ‘catastrophic’ event in weather terms but because of ‘blocking’ they are not sure if it will reach here or not, so not much info there either! It’s just wait and see I reckon 😛

Well it was so mild out there I decided to get stuck in to a bit of gardening so I moved a few barrows of muck into the fruit cage, planted up the rhubarb I had divided back in Autumn and cut down and shredded the Autumn raspberry canes. I also cut back the thornless blackberry and then dug up and potted some raspberry runners, the thornless blackberry had also layered itself into the ground so another free plant there 😀 I got so warm I had to come in and take a layer off!

I actually can’t remember a January like it for years to be honest, this time last year it was ‘the beast from the East’ causing chaos this time it’s just so mild and dry that it’s been a pleasure so far.

I spent the afternoon confirming and finalising paperwork for our upcoming holiday to Norway, we are good to go when the day arrives 😀

Then back out at 3pm to do the feeding and egg collection, the bonus with hens living inside is clean eggs so no washing them, though it may have more to do with the dry ground outside than anything else, I guess once it rains I will find out 😝

I have cold pork, baked potato, salad and lashings of homemade chutney for dinner, John has bubble and squeak, his favourite after a roast dinner 😀

I have finally ordered our SmartWater pack, this is a long lasting traceable liquid that has a unique code visible under ultraviolet light, basically you splatter it on high value items and equipment and if it gets stolen and recovered its traceable back to you. The village as a whole has registered and within that registration each person that signed up gets their own code, hopefully it’s a deterrent if nothing else.

Tuesday: I have Mia today so whizzed round and get the feeding done quickly, the guy turned up to start putting the base down for the greenhouse. Gramps biscuit tin was empty much to Mia’s disappointment so we made a batch and shared them with Josh when he came over with Shelley and Florence 😀 I made a loaf of bread, pretty good one today if I may say so myself.

Wednesday: I am clearly feeling much better and fitter and have clarity (one of the things about Lupus is brain fog) lol, this morning I have done the feeding etc then moved a few barrows of muck onto the veg beds, then onto sorting stuff out. Must be a Spring/New Year thing because I am finally getting round to listing stuff for sale/free that has been lying around for ages, or chucking stuff I no longer need.

I made a bit of a boo boo as I had a delivery yesterday and it was three boxes that said ‘live plants’ now as I am expecting some plants I naturally thought that’s what they were and so left them out overnight. When I looked this morning, bearing in mind it was a damp drizzly morning, it was the cardboard egg boxes I had ordered 😛 luckily two of the three boxes had them wrapped in plastic as well and only the third box was soggy which also luckily hadn’t affected the contents, good job it wasn’t pouring down!

We have so much clutter that I am determined to shift one way or another so I have a box for the charity shop, a pile of textiles for the recycling, various items up for free on social media, fingers crossed I go on as I have started 😝

The chap doing the base has come back to concrete it today, yesterday it was set it out and fill with some hardcore, tomorrow or probably the next day he can begin the dwarf wall and then it will be over to the boys for the timber work when they have time 😀

I checked the post box and the smartwater had arrived so I went round with my little swab, dabbing items with the forensic coding 😀 we don’t really have items of high value but they are all things we use regularly and collectively any theft would stop us getting on with jobs around here.

And the random thoughts are happening again 😛 When we were at school (back in the dark ages 😝 seriously my first teacher had a mortarboard and cloak and must have been 100) why did the teacher ask a question, the watch half the kids put up their hands to answer but always ask someone who hadn’t put up their hand? I would have been one who didn’t put up her hand, it didn’t mean I didn’t know the answer just that I wasn’t confident enough, nothing has changed there either so it’s not confidence building I still wouldn’t put myself forward in most circumstances, and if the person who hasn’t put up their hand didn’t know it what was the point of singling them out? You can learn a lot just as easily listening to other people’s answers and thoughts, back in the days when it was fashionable to sew patches over the holes in your jeans (and yes I am from the double denim era) I had one that said ‘help me keep by big mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about’ I’ve pretty much kept to that my whole life, with probably the occasional slip up 😝 I don’t take part in debates unless I have a clear idea of what I want to say and even then there is much to be learnt from the other persons point of view.

I didn’t light the Rayburn until about 1.30pm by that time it had started to rain and the air temp had dropped noticeably, according to the met office we have a couple of coldish nights ahead, a bit more like Winter ought to be, a couple of frosts would be good to break down the muck on the veg beds.

Some comfort food is in order so we have cottage pie tonight.

Thursday: I was expecting quite a hard frost this morning going on the forecast but we didn’t have one, the ground is wet not frosty, good for us as the concrete base has been curing overnight and it’s better if it didn’t freeze. I find our weather can sometimes be a bit of an anomaly here, we are approx 350ft above sea level according to an app, and the paddocks to the west slope down a fair bit. When we moved here Dad did say to me the best place for a veg garden would be the far right/top corner and if I had been a more experienced vegetable gardener then I would have paid attention, it’s only 10 years later I realise how right he was and that where we eventually chose to site it is a frost pocket! However it is a central location and I can keep an eye on things from there whereas the other position would have been too far out of the way to answer the bell or keep an eye on things.

I did the morning feeding and letting out, put some fresh bedding in for the geese, I want to move these soon to a stable, they will begin laying soon and also it will make life easier while we are away. Then I cleaned out one of the stables with the hens in and put in fresh bedding for them.

Later on I washed the car because I was sick of it looking so filthy, I don’t drive it, I don’t drive, I passed my test about 20 years ago, drove for a couple of months, absolutely hated it and so never drove again not on public roads anyhow, but John never washes it so I figured I had better do it.

Friday: A frost this morning, not a hard one but at least it will help to break up the soil a little bit. My plan today is cleaning 😛 and sorting stuff out so not much will be done outside apart from the necessary.

Well it’s lunchtime and I have sat down with a cuppa, I haven’t actually got any cleaning done as yet but I have got plenty of sorting out and throwing away achieved including the airing cupboard 😝 I have added to the charity shop box and got a large bag of textiles for recycling. I did eventually get round to cleaning and I bought a new polish a while back, the ‘Method’ wood polish, it smells fab, it has almond oil in it, one of my favourite smells in products and how sad is this, I washed all my dusters and cloths last week, it was great getting out a clean duster to do the job with 😂 I am not a manic cleaner, not anymore, I used to be someone that had a regular cleaning routine and bleached/washed/polished everything even scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand but eventually I realised that life is too short to worry and these days as long as I do it once it gets on my nerves then that’s fine after all there are a million more interesting things to do in life 😀 Having said that, once I have done it I do feel more relaxed and clearheaded so maybe I haven’t quite let go entirely 😝

Saturday: I’m a bit tired and things ache today 🙄 not sure why, I started late yesterday afternoon and my right arm was pretty uncomfortable, hopefully it will pass quickly. A wet drizzly morning and the temperature has dropped quite a bit over the last couple of days too, I had planned a list of things to get done but John has had to go into work to finish the job he was on after a cock up by the suppliers so they will now have to wait 😡 not happy, I have wait all week to get the jobs that I can’t manage on my own done and then I still can’t get them done!

The concrete base for the greenhouse has cured nicely so hopefully I will get some walls next week. The base is more than just a floor it is part of the thermal mass that will help to absorb the heat of the sun in the daytime and then release it overnight, of course this will only be needed during the cooler parts of the year but considering we never know exactly what kind of weather we will get it may be useful all year round. I have changed the position of the new greenhouse to run a NW to SE direction so that I get maximum use of the sun down the left side of it for cold frames, before it was in a East to West position which left a north facing side (outside) that you couldn’t put to good use. I’m so looking forward to this new space I may have to put a chair and a radio in there and get a billy can to make tea 😀

A chap called round to discuss some pest control on the farm, we already have someone controlling the rabbit numbers but he is going to control pigeon and rats, rats are not too much of a problem we are not over run but it would be good to get a few taken out without using poison and the pigeon numbers have also shot up, he eats pigeon so nothing wasted there 😀

Tonight while putting the birds away we had the torch with us so I thought I would just shine it across the paddocks to see if foxy was around, what I saw were about six pairs of eyes looking up from the field behind, as they walked away I could see the white rumps so I’m guessing they were fallow deer, certainly they were large enough. We have three big ash trees at the back there and John and I talked about building a platform around one of them, somewhere you could sit in the dark and see what is going on around you without being seen yourself, great idea I think.

Sunday: John had done the animals by the time I got up at 8! Very nice, thank you 😀 he then went onto clean out the flue and the Rayburn as it’s not burning very well. Meanwhile I potted up some lavender plants I had ordered, these were ‘misshaped’ plants from a Nursery so reduced considerably, they worked out at £1.39 each and I bought 10, they are great, a good size, good root system on them and they should romp away come spring, very pleased 😀.

We have duck legs for dinner tonight so I have been looking at various recipes, I will probably take a combination of a couple and mix them up according to our taste. I wanted to do these legs justice so I chopped up finely, onion, garlic, celery and mushroom then some thyme, rosemary and flat leaf parsley, softened them in butter and black truffle oil then seared the legs quickly on both sides and put into a pot that I added chicken stock and tomato paste to. Most of the recipes call for alcohol like wine or beer, which we hardly ever have in and I did consider apple juice but I tasted the liquid and it was sweet enough, apple juice would have made it too sweet, I want this to be more earthy. We will just have to wait and see how it comes out, I’m planning on mash potato and peas to go with it.

It tasted great 😀

It would be worth getting up early tomorrow morning to look at the Super Blood Wolf Moon: total lunar eclipse, a rare event, weather permitting, about 5am though the eclipse will last about an hour 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Random thoughts, tree pruning, and fox v hens.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 7th Jan 2019: A whole new year to start planning for 😀and we are already well under way with the plans for the new greenhouse which I am very excited about, I do sometimes think if I had my time all over again I would have liked to work in the walled garden of a big house with a Victorian greenhouse, I’m sure the fantasy far outweighs the reality but there you have it 😜 There is just something about greenhouse work that I love, it’s by far my favourite bit of gardening.

As you know for a large part of last year I wasn’t up to much and John had to take over doing the birds before he went to work, well now I am feeling fit again I have taken the plunge and told him I will do it 🙄 I am going to be knackered by the end of each day I reckon but it’s good to feel well enough to have a go.

Well I managed the morning rounds with ease although John did go out and put all the buckets of feed in position for me bless him 😀 I watched big bird soaring above me for a while until the crows came and saw it off that is.

I put some fresh bedding the the stable for the hens in there, then scrapped and cleaned the pen at the back and put fresh bedding in then indoors to hoover the fire flues and get it lit, hoover the floors generally, give the bathroom a quick clean, strip the bed and wash the covers, hang up previous wash load to dry, wash up the breakfast dishes and sit down with a cuppa for an hour before starting again 😜

The first part of the afternoon rounds begin at about 3 which takes about an hour then just time for a quick cuppa before the night draws in and it’s time to go and shut everything away for the night. I have done lots of other little things in between all this so I am beginning to see why I tie myself up in knots trying to do it all! For instance at this point in the day I have not made any bread and I have not organised any dinner for tonight, and there were a few more jobs on the ‘mental list’ that didn’t get done, ah well, we have to get a bit of shopping tonight so I will buy bread and pick up dinner, I do have something out for tomorrow already so I’m not doing too badly 😀

Tuesday: I had Mia today so apart from the morning rounds and letting the hens out at lunchtime we didn’t do much other than playing, until she became ill that is! I say became ill, I should have known something was amiss as she normally eats for England but not today and she was unusually cuddly, then in the afternoon she started saying her head hurt and her temperature went up ☹️ luckily Sam finished work early and came home to find her baby cuddled in a blanket on the sofa.

I fed the birds and gathered the eggs to put out for sale and then thought about what to have for dinner, I got some chicken out yesterday so John will have that with potatoes and runner beans. I am trying to be good with eating, not on a diet but more mindful so I am stir frying my chicken with garlic, mushrooms, and noodles all tossed in sweet chilli, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and wine vinegar. I made a quick crumble with pears from the freezer and as an added precaution to any illnesses going around some elderberries as well, load it with vitamin c lol, I have no idea what it will taste like, I’ll let you know later 😛

It was yummy totally different but totally yum.

Wednesday: A dance around the Mulberry Bush morning 😀 I am not complaining though as in a month we are off to Norway for a holiday (seemed like a good idea at the time 😂) so we have been out and purchased appropriate clothing, merino base layers, fleece layers and warm coats and boots. Mornings like this give me the ideal opportunity to do a try out and to wear my boots in, everything is very toasty except my face 🙄 not sure what you do about that, I will have to look it up.

Went outside and did a bit of tidying up and putting away, Johns Mums house is up for sale as she has gone into a home and they have been clearing stuff out. There was a lot of gardening stuff which we bought home and needed somewhere to live until I can sort it all out. I did some litter picking around the front of the place, it’s amazing how much gets blown about, I just can’t reach right under the hedge with my litter picker gadget so I need a long pole to oik it out then it will look tidier. It’s is tempting this time of year to start cutting back dead stuff etc, especially now the sun has come out, but I’m resisting so that the beneficial insects still have plenty of places to hide, I guess there will more than enough time once spring gets here 🙄

With my apparent need to tidy I decided to tackle the cupboard under the sink, that dark place where things get shoved, never to see the light of day again lol. It wasn’t too bad and didn’t take as long as I thought it might but I do wonder why I have so many dusters 🥴 and I found things in there that I had bought, forgotten about and bought some more! A large bottle of Castile hand soap, light bulbs that we couldn’t find so had to buy some more, half used rolls of bin liners, you know the kind of things. I have a fair few cupboards like this to tackle, the airing cupboard is so rammed that I dread opening it to get a clean tea towel out, maybe that’s the next one on the list 😜

The snowdrops have made an appearance 😀 always a pleasure to see their little white heads bobbing away, oh and the grass is growing! It’s an oddity in January, I first noticed it at the beginning of the week when I took over doing the birds in the morning. The goose water bucket has little bits of grass in where the geese have been grazing and washed off their beaks in the water, this does not usually occur during the winter months as the grass is not long enough, reading various online posts confirms that others are agreeing, the grass is growing 😜 that’s good news if you have grazing animals but not so good if you have to cut the lawn a lot earlier than normal lol.

Night time rounds done, I reckon it’s gonna be a cold one tonight.

I am going to have a shower tonight, why do you need to know that? Well you don’t really but it’s a change from my usual routine, I have decided if I don’t like something just change it, I always shower in the morning but it’s usually a tad cold as the fire has gone out overnight, so instead of not looking forward to it I’ll change it lol, I did similar this afternoon, the sun, which was lovely, was shinning in and showing the dust so I shut the blinds 😂 small things but they make life more enjoyable.

Thursday: Before I’m even dressed this morning John comes back in from outside to tell me we have lost a chicken to the fox overnight, worryingly this was inside the electric fence. My fault as I shut them away last night and one must have been under the hut but I hold up my hands and say, I didn’t check 🙄

I was scrolling through social media and saw this quote:

‘A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit’ ELTON TRUEBLOOD

It’s appears I have started the journey to discovery 😀 I said to someone one day that I was going to plant Sweet Chestnuts and that they would take at least 60 years to get to full height and spread, what is the point, you won’t get to see it they said, well that is the point, to plant it, enjoy it growing and leave it for someone else to sit under. If everybody thought that first thought we would never have huge beautiful old trees to marvel at and we certainly would not have a few large estates to wander round and admire, after all Capability Brown, and the landowners that paid him were NEVER going to be around to see his amazing landscaping come into it’s full glory. The more I mull it over the more impressed I am with his vision, he must have had an inbuilt CAD going on inside his head.

It’s random thought day today 😝 I have no idea where this came from but I started wondering about the term vegetable, applied to a humans actually, I thought, that term is hardly fair on a vegetable lol then I thought, these days we call it a vegetative state which is more appropriate but not quite:

Definition: A vegetative state is absence of responsiveness and awareness due to overwhelming dysfunction of the cerebral hemispheres, with sufficient sparing of the diencephalon and brain stem to preserve autonomic and motor reflexes and sleep-wake cycles.

Of course that definition strictly applies to the human form, I am certain that a perennial vegetable has an ‘awareness’ and its core workings are not ‘dysfunctional’, they are just doing what they need to do in order to conserve energy and be ready to ‘wake up’ when the conditions are right.

🤣🤣 I told you it was random, just a little insight into what goes on in my head when there is no one about to talk to 😜

I went out to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting and discovered two bodies in the paddock hut, I phoned John to ask if he had looked inside this morning or just opened up without looking, turns out he just opened up, at least this is not a daytime attack then but these poor hens have had their legs chewed off and consequently died. We will now spend the evening moving them to somewhere safer, into a stable, because the fox is getting over the electric fence and he will just keep going until he breaks into the hut. Another thought is that it’s possible I didn’t leave one outside but he has pulled one through the wooden bars from the inside, the huts have narrowed spaced bars so that the poo can fall through onto the ground and then you move the hut to clean ground every now and then, that’s the theory anyway, we tried boarding it out but it’s difficult to clean and ends up in a mess. Back to square one, I have never yet come across a small scale system without problems of one kind or another.

So tonight when John got home from work it was straight outside to make another stable secure and then move 52 hens in the dark once again, these are a different lot, our younger more prolific layer hens, that took us about 2 hrs 🙄 We also set up the wildlife camera to see exactly what is getting in as the rabbiting boys had told us there was a stray ferret in the copse the next field along from us so it could be that and not a fox. The two bodies I had put by the fence had gone by the time we went out to start moving the live hens though and they were big, heavy birds so fox is my first guess.

Friday: My first job this morning is to check the footage on the wildlife camera and yep it’s a fox, yes it’s going over the electric fence which is on the mains so we are going to have to do something about it but for now the hens are safe in the stable block. The second job on my list is to prepare the front drive and paddock as I have someone coming to give the cooking apple tree a good prune, it has got so big and intertwined that it’s difficult to pick the apples now. It’s too big a job for John and I partly because he doesn’t know what he is doing, I do but I can’t do it 😜 so easier to get someone who knows and can do it. I have had to shut the front gate to egg customers so as not to put them or the workers at any risk, I also needed to move some electric fence so that the geese don’t attack the workers lol.

I made bread, it seems like ages since I last did it, then mostly I did bit of paperwork that needed doing or bills that needed paying, the insurance is always due in January 🥴 that’s public liability and product liability as well as all the usual insurance cover. I also ordered some white clover seeds, we have plenty of grass seed left to over-sow the paddocks in March but I wanted to add in clover. We have it growing in the back paddocks both red and white but not in the front and I will plant a patch somewhere to feed the tortoises on, if I can wean them off of their favourite snack of peppers that is 🙄

I am onto a new piece of loofah for washing up, the last bit lasted ages but it’s had its day, if you are trying to reduce man made items then I would recommend swapping your washing up sponge for a piece of loofah they work really well and if I ever manage to grow any you can buy it locally too 😀

It’s lunchtime and the tree pruning is going well they have reduced it hugely, when I look at it now I wonder why we hadn’t had it done before and I am also looking at the other trees that need doing lol, John and I will be able to manage those it’s just that I need that particular tree to continue to be productive whereas the others don’t matter quite as much.

Saturday: Milder than of late so a good day to do a few jobs, John and I had discussed what we wanted to achieve the night before but come morning he had forgotten so instead of getting some temporary fencing up to stop the chickens and ducks wandering next door all the time he went ahead and let them all out meaning that job could not be done 🥴 Onwards and upwards, instead I cleaned out the front hens and the geese while John moved some more manure from the heap to the garden. Then I cleared the bean bed of dead bean stalks and sticks and both John and I (more John it has to be said) barrowed muck to the bed until it was done. Everything seems like flipping hard work lately, not sure if that’s because I haven’t done it for a while or I’m just getting too old for this malarkey! We didn’t do the veg beds last year so they were in dire need of some nourishment but we need to look at ways of making it easier, hopefully everything will romp away in the new season.

We have someone coming to put the base down and build a dwarf wall for the greenhouse next week, I’m looking forward to it getting underway. We went to chose the bricks this morning a nice cream colour that we both instantly agreed on, it’s funny because we are such opposites in so many ways but when it comes to choosing stuff we are exactly the same.

We had two events to go to tonight, one a family birthday, surprise, surprise, we must hold the record for family birthdays I reckon, the second was a BBQ at a house in the village, it may seem like a strange time of year but as long as you wrap up warm it’s good fun, it is still quite mild at the moment so we didn’t feel the cold at all.

We got home about midnight and could hear a fox screaming, we had taken a torch with us in case we decided to walk home, John shone it down the side of the house and there it was, he went up to the back paddock and when he came back he said there were three of them up there 🥴 we are really up against it at the minute.

Sunday: This morning we got the temporary fencing put up that I wanted to do yesterday, it seems to have done the trick especially at keeping the ducks inside the farm boundaries, the hens will probably eventually jump over but for now they are staying put as well. Then we dispatched three of the drakes, we have nine excess drakes altogether and at this time of year they relentlessly hound the females, it can be quite distressing to watch, these were drakes we had hatched out last year and ended up with too many. John then did a few bits of tidying up and wood cutting while I cut out the duck breasts and took off the legs, plucking them without any mechanical aid at this time of year when they are fully feathered with a double layer is a long job so I have just taken the best bits to use. I saved the feet to roast for the dogs to eat and I saved a liver from the last duck, I just forgot to do the other two but duck liver may come in handy for a recipe sometime. We aim to do three more next week and the ladies should be a lot happier, seriously they try to hide in an effort to get away from them lol.

We had an easy afternoon, well you have rest sometime 😋 we have got roast pork in the oven and I really fancied a good old fashioned syrup sponge and custard for pudding.

I forgot to take any photos at all this week 🥴 so here is one from roughly the same time last year of the garden, it looks pretty much the same this year 😋

Posted in Friesland Farm

Welcome to 2019 at Friesland Farm 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Twixmas 😝

I will be honest, in the run up to Christmas we didn’t do much apart from the necessary, we went out for breakfast a few times and went shopping mid week while it was quiet, all things we never usually do so it was quite a nice gentle stroll up to the big day. We had Christmas Day at Charlie and Maccas along with Sam, Luke, Mia, Shelley, Martin, Josh and Florence so that was fabulous, the other days were quiet and we did a lot of sitting about lol.

After Boxing Day we decided we had sat around long enough lol and so dismantled the greenhouse, there is no going back now. To be honest I don’t know how it was still up it was so rotten, we cleared, cleaned, threw out and burnt everything until there was just an empty space. Next we decided that the ash tree had to come down, I had a wobble about this as I had watched Dame Judi Dench on trees just the evening before and finding out a lot more about trees than I already knew, I was in two minds. Obviously a tree that size is a great carbon sink but I have planted a good few more recently so hopefully that will help, an Ash tree, if you didn’t know is a most revered tree both spiritually and practically, it was used to make bow and arrows, oars, so an important wood. It is dense and low in moisture so it burns very well and was considered the ultimate firewood and to that end it was in the past only used for Kings and Queens, or the lords of the manor, if you were a mere peasant you had to make do with something that smoked a whole lot more!

Bearing all that in mind I was determined not to waste any of it, so the larger stuff will be logs for the Rayburn, the smaller stuff will be kindling and the bits and pieces were all shredded to put down a pathway in the orchard that had got a bit too muddy. The other ash tree will be pollarded but not cut down entirely and again the wood will all be used, if I can manage to save the right type of branch I would quite like to make a rambling stick with it.

We had the first frosty morning in weeks, it’s has been until now unseasonably mild, not that I’m complaining as it hasn’t rained either so it’s not a muddy mess everywhere. It amazes me how each season through the years can be entirely different to the same ones in previous years, that’s a temperate climate for you I guess, you never know what you are going to get!

One of our favourite programmes at the minute is Escape to the Chateau with Angel and Dick Strawbridge, between the two of them there is not much that they can’t achieve. I love watching it, the recycling, repurposing is impressive enough but when you see the end results it’s just amazing and very inspirational. One of the resources in their vast garden is eucalyptus which I also happen to have and so for New Years Day dinner which I was cooking for the family I gathered a bunch of it and put it in a vase, it looked fab even if I do say so myself lol.

Cruella de Vil seems to have disappeared, she was eating and using the toilet tray fine now suddenly, not, she may return, after all she knows she can get a meal here and sometimes feral cats do go for days at a time ☹️ Molly is still hogging the boot room, honestly she hardly ever leaves, I think I will have to give her some marching orders soon, every time I try to get out the door I’m falling over her or stepping on her, roll on warmer weather when she can find a sunny spot outside to sleep all day in.

As the temps dropped I had a go at making the cashmere gloves, it was a trial and error attempt, it erred more on the side of error it has to be said 😝 It seems like a simple enough task but I guess you need to know a bit about knitting and how it all holds together, which I don’t! I have learnt some valuable lessons though and I will give it another go using different techniques I think and see how that turns out. I just need to find something to do with the rest of the jumper now I have cut half the arms off 😜 And I will use the ones I made though I don’t think the stitching will last very long, I will see how warm they keep my hands and go from there.

With a little bit of extra time to think things over I have been able to hone my thoughts to exactly which direction I want to take the produce gardening in. Definitely for me it’s forest gardening, I feel more comfortable with the idea than permaculture as a whole although they obviously both integrate with each other but the way I see it the whole permaculture thing is promoted on a higher level than I am prepared to study lol whereas forest gardening seems like a simple, more natural approach which sits very comfortably with me, my aim this year will be to try and fit this into every area I can, however I can, I think that should work.

It’s Wednesday 2nd Jan 2019 and we have spent the afternoon working outside, taking down more branches from trees that are shutting out light from the place the greenhouse will go and also the polytunnels. We have a line of hazelnut trees and have pollarded a couple of those in strategic places to let the sunlight flood the tunnels when the time is right. It’s back breaking work but quite cathartic and I really enjoy being outdoors as long as it’s not raining and I am busy enough to keep warm. We now have another big pile of logs which will need seasoning 😀 it all adds to the free heating/hot water and cooking for next winter 😀 We have tidied up as we go with each tree, normally John gets a bit trigger happy with the chainsaw and it all comes down at once then you just have a colossal pile to sort out. As I say to him, anyone can make a mess it’s the clearing up that takes the time but I finally got him to see that doing it this way is a lot less soul destroying lol.

Second error of the day happened when I tried to make some mayonnaise, it split so I used it like a dressing instead, I have tried to make it once before when it also split so I may give that one a miss in future and stick to Heinz!

John went for his over 50s MOT today 🤣 it’s amazing how someone who eats quite a lot of ‘crap’ can have blood pressure that is on the button and is slightly underweight! Flipping unbelievable, mine is on Friday and I know this will not be the case for me even though I try really hard to eat fairly well, there is no justice 🙄

My brother gave me some chestnuts that he had bought and wouldn’t get round to using, now when I say some, what I really mean is about 10kgs 😝 he likes a bargain does Kev lol, anyhow apart from roasting them you can make a chestnut purée which can be used for all sorts of cooking (chocolate and chestnut cake will be a definite) as well as spreading, sweet chestnut spread. I also intend to make the delicacy Marron glacé which are preserved chestnuts, they take about four days to do so not as long as glacé cherries thank goodness. I looked at the sacks and decided to pass one sack to Shelley as a challenge to find something to do with them. They can be boiled then frozen for use at a later date which I may well do with half of them.

Well I did do some of the chestnuts but I should have left more time as I was trying to multitask 😜 I made the purée, it’s not really my thing so I probably won’t try it again but I will have a go at the glacé when I get a minute, it’s the peeling them that takes a fair amount of time.

Sunday 6th Jan: The boys we’re here from Wales to do a bit of rabbiting this morning, they caught 7 so were happy with that, we set out the framework for the base of the greenhouse and then went off for breakfast and did a bit at Johns Mms house on the way home.

Last night I put the wildlife camera in the tack room just to make sure that it was Cruella de Vil that is eating the cat food, yep she is definitely still around although we never see her, to be honest that’s my kind of cat 😝

Tomorrow John goes back to work so everything is back to normality, not sure if I am looking forward to it or not, we have had a pleasant month with no time constraints, coming and going more or less as we please and either getting things done or not it was entirely up to us, now everything will be squeezed in around Johns work again lol.