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 😀
frieslandfarm (flowers) 