Month: September 2019

Posted in Friesland Farm

A missing kitten 😔 a new arrival 😀 & nuts 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 24th Sept: We arrived back at around 10pm last night, it was raining most of the day in Guernsey, all the way home it has rained non stop and it’s still raining this morning. I woke at 5, I think I heard rumbles of thunder, and it has not stopped at all, it’s now 8.30 and I really should go out and let all the birds out, it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop at all today so best get on with it.

Oh the joys of getting back to work 🙄 wet and muddy out there today lol. All seems to be well with the farm, I found a few eggs that Shelley wouldn’t have known where they lay as I forgot to tell her but it was checked on Thursday so they are still ok. The only thing out of order at the moment is that we can’t find one of the kittens, TC, I haven’t seen him at all since we got back and I have checked all the sheds and called him but as yet no sign of him, I’m hoping he turns up sometime today. On the other hand Diesel who has not been around for about a week has turned up for feeding this morning, I know cats are a law unto themselves but they sure cause worry 😏

The geese have still been laying while we were away, not sure what is going on there but never look a gift horse in the mouth as they say.

10.30 still raining, quite heavily too, I guess that summer is over then 😏

Shelley has been collecting the walnuts as they have been dropping while we were away, I thought the squirrel was getting them but obviously not which is great for me 😀

Still no sign of the cat and you feel out of sorts when something isn’t where it’s supposed to be, I have checked in all the outbuildings just to make sure he’s not locked in somewhere, I’ve checked the roadside to make sure he hasn’t been run over, it’s odd because he is always the one under my feet and the pair of them haven’t really ventured very far as yet. Benny is on his own for the first time ever and keeps sleeping in the dog bed, good job the dogs don’t mind him bunking in with them 😀 hopefully TC will just show up after being off for a wander 🙄

John and I spent two hours tonight once everything had gone to bed and it was quieter, trying to listen and see if TC was stuck anywhere. I kept thinking I could hear faint miaowing and we searched every tiny space we could find, up in the roof space, down the walls, behind the walls, under wood stacks, up pipes, literally every inch was searched but no luck and the noise I thought I heard occasionally never got louder the closer we got to anything. At one point John fell over and knocked all the grass seed everywhere and hurt his shoulder, the opposite one to the one he hurt last year falling over in the duck pen. To be honest it could have been anything that I heard, John would say can you hear that bird, nope, my hearing is not that great since I’ve had tinnitus 🙄

Wednesday: I feel despondent this morning, the cats missing, one day back at work and John is feeling tired and achy, it’s been raining so it’s wet and muddy everywhere, these are the kind of days I think ‘yep let’s give it all up’ 😏

On a brighter note our new resident arrived last night just as it was getting dark, Biscuit, the Shetland pony 😀 she is a lovely, obliging little pony who likes to be brushed and fussed. Her long term field companion died of a stroke a few weeks ago and her owners were looking for a new home for her, we went and had a look at her and she is very sweet and the perfect height for the grandchildren to interact with plus a gentle temperament. Jack has not met her yet as she is in the stable for the moment but hopefully he will be happy to have a ‘little’ company 😋

I did the rounds this morning then onto some picking, still plenty of tomatoes and courgettes, also some cucumber and a melon. I need to pick the grapes soon and I have been collecting more walnuts.

Shelley came over to help have a quick look for the cat but nothing. Sam arrived with the twiglets and we skipped out Biscuits stable then took 9 pallets up to the small back paddock to protect the trees I planted as the geese are going in there for a while. I had to drill a new hole for the bolt in their hut and put in some clean bedding, that was all in between rain showers and feeding the babies 👶 👶 After they left I cleaned out the stable that the chickens and ducks are in, put clean bedding in the other duck pen house, somewhere in amongst that I got the dinner ready. John came home and put a piece on the bottom of another stable to make it fox proof as I will be moving the light Sussex into there before dispatch.

After dinner and putting the birds to bed I had a customer come to pick up some plants, John went to get a bit of shopping and Shelley came back to listen in the dark when it’s much quieter to see if we could hear the cat, she has much better hearing than we do 🤣 we spent about an hour or so out here but couldn’t hear anything that sounded like a cat 😏

Thursday: Although it’s rained overnight it has been a fine sunny morning this morning. I did the morning rounds changing bits of electric fencing as I went round, the front hens now have free range of the whole paddock, they were getting out anyway so might as well make it easy for them 😂 I checked on Biscuit who is still in the stable at the minute and all the hens have had a scoop of calcium and grit to boost shell and gut health. Then onto the garden, I had quite forgotten just how abundant this time of year is, not only are there thousands of blackberries and hundreds of nuts but I picked a whopping load of tomatoes and a basket full of grapes. I just have to decide what to do with them all, some grapes have been frozen, I ate some with my lunch, some have gone into a jelly for John and some out for sale, I will give the girls some and have told the wider family if they want any grapes or tomatoes to pop by. At some point I’m going to have to do passata lol and I did think about dehydrating some grapes for raisins for cooking or snacking. Fruit leather is another thing I really want to try so if I get a bit of time I will do that as well, plenty of berries around to try that with at the moment. The elderberries are abundant though I haven’t actually picked any of those yet but I will hopefully get to some before the birds do.

I think someone somewhere has thought, right you haven’t got enough to write about in your blog so here you go have some of this 🤪

I messaged Charlie yesterday and said I am going to rename this place Chaos, no explanation needed and today it’s still the same. A busy morning and a busy afternoon as well, then Samantha came over with the twins and Mia as Mia wanted to see biscuit. They skipped her stable out and gave her a swede to chew on, took her into the ménage for a frolic and then out to meet jack for the first time, which incidentally went very well. Time to get her back in, she caught well and off went Sam back to the stable while I minded the twins and Mia, next thing Biscuit is dragging Sam back down to the paddock ‘I’d forgotten how strong they are’ she said 😂 I run and get an apple cut it into four pieces and we are leading her back with the proverbial ‘Apple instead of carrot’ in front of her nose to get her back, meanwhile the twins are crying and so is Mia. They leave and I get on with prepping dinner and hoovering the floor which has mud clumps from my wellies where I have been in and out all day, inbetween I am messaging people who want to buy plants. John comes home with the inserts for the tap that has been dripping for a fortnight, filling a small saucepan overnight, I kid you not the minute he walks in with his tools the tap fails to drip and we watch it and watch it but no drip, this often happens to customers he tells me, they say my tap is dripping badly and when he gets there nothing but at least he knows how badly this one has been dripping so that’s something at least even if it is a bit bizarre. Dinner is cooking and I get a message from the chap with the rabbit to say he is bringing it round now, ok, we quickly get dinner on the table and munch that down just in time for when he arrives. He comes in with the rabbit and I put the kettle on, I’m busy making a cuppa and we are chatting next thing we hear is a very loud crash right beside us, We have a recess alcove behind the hob and the top bit, so the ceiling of it, has just fallen off and landed on the hob knocking all my bottles of oil and herbs everywhere 🙄 What the actual 🤬 We go and get the rabbit hutch in and he has bought a glove to handle the rabbit, it’s four months old, it doesn’t bite but growls due to not being handled very much 😋 I wasn’t expecting that 🙄 so as this rabbit is intended for Josh and Flo I shall have to handle her until she is petable lol. The day is still not over yet, I cleaned one of the other stables this afternoon which is where the light Sussex are going, to clean them up and fatten, so off we go to round up 12 rather large chickens which make the most horrendous noise when they are caught, honestly anybody would think we were dispatching there and then.

If you can imagine that as this is all happening usually the dogs are barking at something or other, the phone is going, there are chickens and ducks getting under my feet, customers are turning up for plants and this has been a daily occurrence this week you can see why it’s chaos, I won’t even go into the two nightmares I had last night and woke in absolute terror at one of them, all adds to the mix 😜

Have you ever seen that picture of an aging lady in wellies and a straw hat on a farmyard with all the animals everywhere, that’s me I think 🤣

Once we put the animals to bed we nipped to Charlie’s for a cuppa.

Friday: After the morning rounds I spent nearly two hours processing the walnuts we have been picking up. First they need to be taken out of their green coat, sometimes they are already out but not often and sometimes the coat has turned to brown mush. So I spent a good deal of time in the greenhouse doing that then it’s into the boot room and put some white vinegar in the sink and tumble the nuts with my hands, this does two things, get any remaining casing bits off and makes sure there are no bacteria/mould on the shell. When you buy walnuts in the shell from the supermarket they will have been treated with a food grade bleach which is why they are a lot cleaner than mine will be in the end, I could do this but I prefer the vinegar and it works very well. Next the nuts are dried, I put them in a towel and roll a few at a time, and then they will need to air dry so they need to be somewhere that is not damp, the kitchen works well as long as the air can get all round the basket. If you put them in a container that the air can’t circulate in they will form mould again, my thoughts are that if the mould is on the outside it could penetrate to the inside which could potentially make you ill if you eat them like that. I generally keep them in their shells until after the New Year when I have more time to shell them for storage in jars, you can eat them straight after picking, they are called wet walnuts and that means the nut meat hasn’t dried, if you leave them to cure they become the walnut you are probably more familiar with and then they store much better. I like the taste of wet walnuts many people don’t but I see it as a bit of a foragers treat. The whole process may seem bothersome for many people but for starters the nuts are free 😀 (expensive in the shops) and then there is the fact that they are a great brain food so it would be a little idiotic for me not to do it, besides the fact that I end up with very dark brown fingers and thumbs (walnut is a great dye) it’s rewarding to have a store of nuts I have gathered and prepared and that will last well into the next year for snacks and cooking.

Luckily the hazelnuts do not need the same amount of work, they just need to be stored in damp free conditions until they are ready to be eaten or cracked for storing and using.

Sam, Shelley and the children came over in the afternoon to see Biscuit and the rabbit 😀

When they left I did the afternoon rounds and collected the eggs for putting out as usual. Yesterday I had put out a punnet of grapes and covered them in cling film and was pretty annoyed to find that someone had lifted the film and pinched a few grapes from the bunch, I could see they had been taken as they leave that little mushy tail behind, what kind of a person does that? I bought them back in and won’t be putting anymore out, last week it was the cherry tomatoes, I could tell one or two had been nicked and sure enough when I bought the punnet back in and weighed it there were some missing 😡

Dinner done and dusted we are having a quiet night tonight, famous last words 😋

Saturday: It’s forecast to be dry today which is good after the last few days of on off rain. I had a plan to keep the hens in the stable shut in this morning because I have no idea where they are laying their eggs, John and I talked about it last night and this morning he went off up the back to do the geese and hens in the small back paddock. Meanwhile I came out and fed and watered the ones in the stable being kept in and then went round to do the ducks in the side pen, next thing I see is are the hens out everywhere, there followed an exchange of words, mostly ‘you never bloody listen’ & ‘I forgot’ 😜

With the rest of the birds and animals sorted it was onto the jobs for the morning, I sorted out the egg shed and picked a few bits for putting out along with some pumpkins and a couple of spaghetti squash. I pulled all the remaining carrots, at this time of year if you don’t get them out either the rain starts to rot them or the slugs start to eat them. Johns job was to deep clean the Rayburn ready for lightening when we need it, it’s a pretty big job it includes sweeping the flue and pulling all the grates out and a mucky job to boot 😀 I cleaned all the carrots then sliced and diced them, blanched them and they will go in the freezer to open freeze once they are cool.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with these grapes and Pinterest isn’t giving me much inspiration on that front lol

I decided to have a go at dehydrating some of the grapes to see how well they would do and of course raisins, which is what they will be, will come in handy for cooking. I put a few of the hybrid blackberries in to see how well they do, then I started thinking about Christmas mincemeat and how lovely it would be with the raisins, dried blackberries and some of our chopped hazels/walnuts in there as well mmmm just got figure out a way to make it low sugar enough to still taste good but I think it’s entirely do able, it’s a shame I didn’t get the cherries this year as they could have gone in as well, but all that together with our own apples and I am looking forward to making it.

Sunday: It rained heavily last night and is lighter but still raining this morning, as I always say, once it’s here it doesn’t stop 😜 John was up early breakfasted and out doing the morning rounds before I got up 😀 that is an unusual but welcome occurrence, it means I don’t have to go out and get wet until later 😂 He has now gone off to visit his Mum picking up Shelley on the way, I am having the twins for an hour this morning while Sam does the food shopping.

I realised that we had lost the lights in the kitchen and out the back, normally after heavy rain the pump from the water tank is the culprit but not this time, so far I have unplugged and turned off everything outside in the stable block but it’s still tripping, John is not back yet and so I decided to wait until he is otherwise it’s numerous trips backwards and forwards to the fuse box to figure out what exactly is causing the problem, freezers, tumble dryers, washing machine who knows at this point 🙄

John Home problem sorted, it was the pump after all, it just took a while to settle for some bizarre reason.

Today has had a definite winter feel to it 😏 wind and rain although the sun did shine occasionally.

Still no sign of TC, I find the whole thing a bit odd to be honest, he was extremely friendly and always here, I guess we may never know what happened to him 😔

Posted in Friesland Farm

The farm, The fair & then to Guernsey 🇬🇬

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 16th Sept: Not a bad morning, overcast but warm enough and perfect for me to be getting on doing some jobs I want to get sorted. First the usual rounds, feeding, watering and letting out. Then onto watering some seedlings, winter spinach, radish and french beans, water the poly tunnels and then pick a few bits. The raspberries have picked up no end since we sorted the cage and I managed to pick a good few along with some blackberries. I went in a made a sugar free jelly with the berries added, it’s a favourite of Johns and he will be happy to have that considering he has had to forgo any cakes and chocolate 😜 I cleared 4 wheelbarrows of stuff we have been clearing in the garden and took it to the bonfire area. My compost heap is overflowing and some of this has bindweed in and the leaves from the courgettes have mildew so although burning is not the best option sometimes it has to be done. While going round I noticed that one of the hens has scratched up my freesias 🤬 so I replanted them, watered them then made a temporary cage around them so they can’t do any more damage, I honestly could wring their necks sometimes! I cut the lawn, it’s been getting on my nerves lol but the hot sunny days are no good for me to do it so today was perfect.

I had Josh and Flo for the afternoon while Shelley and Martin went to a wedding. Yesterday Flo walked in front of a swing at the park causing a bloody nose and only 20 mins into my Nana stint while I was washing up it seems Josh tried to pick her up from a sitting position on the floor, Flo resisted and then bang her head hits the floor, we have hard floors 😟 luckily it wasn’t too hard of a bang but it made her cry, then Josh cried because he had made her cry, I picked her up to carry her to the living room not realising that Josh has crouched down on the floor right in front of me, I didn’t trip but caught his arm with my foot, oh my days, we spent the rest of the afternoon safely on the soft sofa watching telly 😬

I love it when I am brilliant 😂 not that it happens very often but just sometimes I am 😜 Our cctv had gone wrong last week, there were no images on the screen from any of the three cameras. John, not understanding how it works at all ( I was the one that installed it all) says ‘just turn it off and on again’ ok I’ll try that 🙄 nope not working (obvs) Three cameras all individually coming back to the box have lost image so turning it off and on again just wasn’t going to achieve much but hey I’m happy to humour him. Next I made sure all the cables were attached and working bearing in mind this system has been fine for at least 2 years, took the box apart and did a hard reset, nope nothing changed, tried taking off input cables one by one and moving them around in case there was a dodgy connection, nope, by this time I am flummoxed. I have established it’s not the box so not the hard drive, not the batteries, not the connections and it’s not the cameras themselves and apparently not the cables coming back. As an off the cuff remark to my sister who I was messaging to get ideas, I said maybe it’s the splitter cable, tried that with independent spare camera and splitter cable nope still the same by this time I am right back down to only one component, the power to splitter cable, changed it and alleluia we have images again, yes I am chuffed I worked that out 😀😀

I need to order autumn planting garlic bulbs, I didn’t have nearly enough this year and don’t want to be short again, garlic is so good for you that you should include it in everything that you can 😀 and roasted garlic is the bomb 😋 Drizzle a whole bulb in olive oil sprinkle a little salt on and roast until soft, one very important tip, don’t eat the whole thing (tempting though it will be once you have tried it) as you WILL get stomach ache, take it from someone who knows 🤪

Tuesday: A Lovely morning and Samantha’s Birthday today 😀 I did the morning rounds and the thought I would ‘potter with purpose’ in the garden as it’s such a lovely morning. I picked tomatoes and cut back foliage in the big tunnel so the sunlight can get in and ripen off the rest of them. I found a few strawberry runners in the tunnel that had started to throw roots even though they were just sitting on the path so I potted those up, not sure where they will go next year but I can always sell the plants on. Next I started tidying up the area where the coldframes are, at the moment they have no tops so the plants are just sat in there but that has been useful as I can now see how I want them to work and I think I will only put tops on half the space and leave the other half open, I may change my mind come spring but we will see. I found the fattest frog in there 🐸 good chap, keep the slugs down, I also found that my lupin plants all have aphid that’s why they are not doing very well so I have squished those and will have to do it every day for a while to get the numbers right down. All the while I am picking up hazels and putting them in my pockets 😀 I had a look at the torts, during that cold weather they went off inside the hut but with the temps climbing again they have reappeared, there are lefty of tomatoes and cucumbers to feed them at this time of year along with weeds of all kinds, I will give them some of the aloe vera plant just to give them some extra nutrients before they think about hibernation.

Whereas I was tired last week and dejected 😔 this week I am not tired and so thinking ahead to Spring next year and what/where to plant things, I need to remember that when I am tired again it will pass lol.

Johns ailments are taking a while to right themselves as he is still very tired, he is doing pretty well though considering he has had to totally change what he eats really, I told him that the sugar withdrawal will be a real thing and he will feel the effects of that but will begin to feel so much better once that has passed. He is still having a bit of sugar but probably reduced it by 90% so that’s a lot for the body to get used to.

The great thing is that we are going away for a long weekend with my sister and brother in law on Friday, we are off to Guernsey to follow the ‘Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society’ trail and delve into all the other treasures that the island has to offer 😀 A lovely little break which we are looking forward to.

Wednesday: Another lovely day, we got the Indian Summer after all, the ground is very dry though as we have not had rain for what seems like weeks. I did the morning rounds and then a bit of hoeing in the garden. The big raised bed that had carrot in it has now finished and I weeded it and covered it with weed suppressant, it will probably stay like that until spring now. It’s not really situated in the best place as the hazel trees cast shade over it for the last part of spring and most of summer so I really need to decide what would do the best in there before next year.

Thursday: Cracking morning again 😀 loving the sunny mornings and the warm days. Mostly today has been about getting things done ready for going away tomorrow, although Shelley will be moving in I like to make things as easy as I possibly can for her.

I started off doing all the morning rounds, then onto washing and ironing clothes we will be taking with us, packing then making sure the veg garden area runs smoothly by putting things away (small children and lump hammers/secateurs don’t mix lol) a bit of cleaning, get the dust bins out, watering the tunnels and greenhouse etc. Then Shelley came over and we walked through the rounds, it changes all the time so a walk through just ensures that she knows where everything is and what they have. She will have help from Sam and Charlie which is great, we are very lucky that they are willing to farm sit for us otherwise we would probably never go away. In the afternoon the feeding and egg collection was done, then watering some of the plants in pots out the front, top up all the water buckets so tomorrow morning is a bit easier for her etc. By the time I have finished with everything I am so ready for a break lol, it takes a fair bit of organising, and even then I am messaging with bits of info I have forgotten to give her when she was here 😜

Shower and early to bed as we have an early start to get down to the ferry.

Friday, Sat, Sunday, Monday: An amazing weekend in Guernsey, we packed a huge amount into our few days there and saw a lot of the island and its treasures and a large slice of Island life. The scenery is incredible and we had the first two days of glorious sunshine which made it even more beautiful, the people are lovely and very friendly. We went on the Potato Peel pie trail, up and down steep hills and cliff tops, we learnt so much about the occupation is was mind blowing. The fortifications are on a massive scale for such a small island and I was struck by how they have just been incorporated into every day life, in gardens, as museums, even a school has been built near one and the gun area changed into a mini amphitheatre with a garden. By chance we were there when a hill climb time trial was going on, on our walk we encountered a local wedding, we happened to be there at exactly the right time for a rare visit inside a gun battery. The weather changed on the Sunday but it still wasn’t too bad but Monday it rained all day lol and that continued through our travels home and it’s still raining here this morning, back to real life for me today and it’s time to go out and get some work done and get a soaking by the looks of it 🤪

Posted in Friesland Farm

Bindweed, hazelnuts & a goose egg!

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th September: I have a diary that belonged to someone that lived in the cottage just up the road from where we live now, my Dad found it when Sue bought it and renovated it. It covers two years and is mostly about the weather, the routine, and small daily happenings, nothing unexpected, nothing untoward and nothing extraordinary, which in itself is extraordinary as it was written right smack bang in the middle of WWll 😮 I have searched every day that was written and there is not a single mention of the war. I always thought this was very odd indeed until I began to write this blog, on the whole you won’t find a mention of anything much other than what happens here, even though our country is engulfed with BREXIT we have it morning, noon and night, it is the main topic on nearly every news broadcast every day. I guess that I feel this is not the platform for it and that this blog is my little bubble, one that I control the content of, so now I understand the diary and the writers omission of the bigger things happening around them.

A good morning in the garden after doing the animals, Mum arrived to dig up a row of raspberries, these are outside the fruit cage and I hardly get the berries because the birds eat them all before I can 🤪 I did some digging up of self set potatoes, cut the pumpkins and spaghetti squash and put them to ripen in the greenhouse before the hens start pecking at them, I pulled up the kidney, haricot beans and a sunflower and they are also drying in the greenhouse, I picked cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, beetroot and blackberries. Then into the kitchen to sort it all out, I bagged up some goodies for Mum to take home with her and sliced and blanched the carrots I pulled on Saturday. Our dinner tonight I am chuffed to say is very low on miles, the veg all came from the garden, the lamb from a local smallholder, the berries and pears for pudding were grown here so only the sugar, flour and butter have any miles at all and they are all of British origin 😀 smugness overload 😋

I’m feeling the cold today, sure hope this Indian summer comes along 🙄

This afternoon I had a message from a friend which quickly spiralled into potentially having a new member on the farm, can’t say anymore at the minute but watch this space 😜

On the way home from shopping the other day we were listening to the radio as usual and there was someone on there talking about all kinds of skin remedies. One of them caught my attention because working out in the winter air causes my hands to become chaffed and split and this was about a hand cream developed by a farmer, or his daughter can’t remember which, that would help. If someone who knows the problems developed something to help it’s got to be worth a try right? Obviously I ordered some straightaway lol and we will see how good it is, if you suffer with ‘winter’ hands it’s called ‘O Keefes’ and it feels a lot different to normal hand creams, here’s hoping it’s not just spin 🤪

Tuesday: A cracking morning this morning shame I didn’t think to take photos but I was just enjoying the moment. A misty morning but with the sun leaking through, quiet and peaceful 😀 We were up a little earlier today 😜 so John did the feeding while I put some washing on and then got on with burning the paper rubbish and a pile of bindweed roots that Mum dug up yesterday. Then I did a bit of this and a bit of that, some picking, some hoeing, and cutting back the long new tendrils of the thornless blackberry. I try and keep it under control so it’s easier to pick the berries and cover with netting so the birds don’t eat them all. A bit more hoeing on the pathways and then indoors to get the hoovering done. I wanted to get that sorted as it was annoying me and the sad fact is that today I can feel that I won’t be able to do a stint in the garden and then come in and do the hoovering as I am already feeling fatigued. The problem with this disease and many others is that I don’t look ill and I’m not, not as ill as I can be but I do have to listen to what my body is telling me at times. That has been a hard lesson to learn, as someone that has always been on the go it’s difficult to reign yourself in, however needs must as my system can’t cope with me pushing it if it isn’t firing on all cylinders 🙄

After hoovering, a catch up with gardeners world, a couple of blogs I follow and a coffee 😀

It’s nice to read other blogs especially ones who live similar lives to us, they always inspire me to do something, passata is something I really want to try but I’m a little afraid of ‘canning’ it in case I end up with botulism or something! I love the rows of jars stored ready for use when you want them. I have ventured into dried beans that’s a start and of course the freezer is always fit to bursting, last year I collected, dried, shelled and stored as many nuts as I could and I felt a sense of achievement when I could reach for a handful of nuts back in April or May 😀 We do not live in an isolated area like some of the blogs I read, I could easily pop to Morrison’s as many times a week as I want to but I don’t want to and that’s the whole point of being self sufficientish.

Watching gardeners world reminded me of a couple of jobs I wanted to get done, one was collecting the seeds from some beautiful apricot coloured wallflowers that I had growing outside the gate and also some deadheading to prolong any flowering so off I went and did those couple of little jobs.

While I was working in the garden I heard a noise and wondered what it was, I looked over the fence and saw the geese cracking open hazelnuts lol, the dogs do it too, I was wondering why I wasn’t finding that many on that side of the fence 🤣 I shall have to start picking them off the tree to get my quota!

Wednesday: Not a bad day a bit dreary but dry and not cold so that’s a bonus. I did the morning routine this morning, then onto collect some greenery for the rabbits/guineas. They had an assortment of fruit bush cuttings, weeds and herbs, I also try and give some to the turkeys who love green stuff and the quail and the light Sussex. Then I watered the poly tunnels they don’t need much now but they do need a bit of watering to keep them going. I studied the grapes in the big tunnel, they are nearly ready to harvest, it will be all at once lol so goodness knows what I am going to do with them all. There are not enough to warrant getting the press out for juice so I will have to have a search and see what the next best thing is. I am aware that there are lots of jobs to do and I am wandering round thinking this needs doing, that needs doing but I never really get anywhere so a coffee and a list is in order. I find that if I have a list I will go down it and cross things off one by one, very satisfying. The tomato harvest is in full swing and I am getting a good variety and plenty of them, I keep banging on about passata but today I decided to make fresh bread and fresh tomato soup 🥣 for my lunch. John has been feeling a bit under the weather and has had some blood tests which he is awaiting the results for so I dug out a chicken carcass (always save them) and bundled that with various veg, garlic and turmeric into the slow cooker, chicken soup you can’t beat it if you are off kilter 😀

For the tomato soup I have just bunged it all in lol, I chopped up tomatoes, a fair few, I didn’t weigh or count them, 3 cloves of garlic, a stick of celery, a few carrots (grated) salt, pepper and olive oil, that’s it. Basically it is on a low heat until it all breaks down and then I will whizz it and possibly strain it depending on how many seeds I can see but I’m not really bothered by them so they may stay. One thing, don’t take the skins off of your tomatoes, a lot of the flavour is in the skin, I have just had a taste while it’s still cooking and mmmm it’s delish it won’t even need any stock it’s that good already. Some of the tomatoes I have grown are beefsteak so they have a fair bit of flesh to them if you decided to use shop bought you may want to scoop the middle out so you just have flesh and not too much liquid.

Sam, Mia, George and Lucie plus Shelley, Josh and Florence came in the afternoon so it was a full and chaotic session lol. I had made a cake which pleased the children, I made it with oil as I didn’t have any butter left, it was a normal jam sponge and tasted great 😀

In the evening we popped to the shop to get some bits and I have been eyeing up an apple tree half way down the lane, I made John stop on the way back so I could pick a couple and see what they are like. I think they are a cox apple and they are not quite ripe yet but they are not sour or sharp so should be lovely once they ripen, I will be going back to get some more 😀

Thursday: I thought it was going to be a good day today, for the washing that is, so I put on a couple of loads but found it was a very fine drizzle when I went out and that hasn’t let up yet so the washing is still in the basket 🧺

I did the animals and then a bit of picking, the courgettes are still coming though getting smaller now, cucumbers can apparently keep producing until December if they are indoors so I am still harvesting and looking after those, the tomatoes are in full swing, and the cultivated blackberries are doing well now I have netted them to stop the birds. One thing I always wonder is why salad stuff I.e toms, peppers, cucumbers all come at what is virtually the end of the season when you don’t really want a salad lol, I know there is plenty of other stuff that can be grown and used as well it’s just that these mainstay salad items seem to be maturing at the wrong end of the season 🙄

Off to get my bloods done this morning, the last lot were all normal and I expect theses will be too, I can usually tell if something isn’t right. I get tired but that’s just part of the condition either that or I am very unfit (a considerable possibility 🤪) or due to the fact that I am getting on in age although I still try and pack as much in as when I was 30 lol. I never want age to be a factor in slowing down, I don’t want to be that person who says ‘I’m an old age pensioner now you know’ My Mum still does a lot and can still dig over the garden, haul things around, put a good day in, I never consider her to be an ‘OAP’ because she doesn’t come across as one and that’s how I would like to be 😀

I finally got round to picking some flowers from the garden 😂 a bit late in the season but hey at least I have done it and hopefully I can continue to do it for a few weeks more. I was always of the opinion that flowers belong out in the garden and not in the house but I guess attitudes change over the years and now I am looking at each plant with new eyes, would that look good in a vase? It brightens up the table and makes me smile so they are as good as any reasons for doing it.

John had some blood tests last week as he was feeling extremely tired, the results show he is low in folic acid and is pre diabetic 🙄 Hmmm ‘I told you so’ springs to mind, considering the amount of crap he eats it’s no wonder, till now he has always been able to mostly eat what he wants and burn it off but as you age the body processes things differently or not at all and so a diet overhaul is in place 😀 It’s not at home that he eats it well apart from the cakes and puddings that I make occasionally but when he is driving around for work it’s crisps, cake, chocolate not to mention the obligatory umpteen cups of tea on a plumbers must have list! Cutting down to just three cups of tea a day will save on approx 20 teaspoons of sugar, I kid you not 😬

Friday: I heard the gate go quite early in the morning and Mum was back to get the rest of the bindweed out 😀 I think that’s two full wheelbarrows of the stuff now 🙄 it has been burnt on the bonfire so it can’t infest anywhere else. That won’t be the last of it either the stuff is a pain in the arse, we will have to keep on top of it all the time, I did try weedkiller on it twice in spring but still it persisted and swamped everything in its path.

I did some bits around the rest of the garden and I need to have a good think about how to rearrange things. It didn’t work at all this year with bits here there and everywhere so I will probably go back to a more orderly way of veg gardening with some blocks of flowers but I have the winter to think about it 😀

Saturday: The weather has once again switched and we are back to summer temperatures although the mornings and evenings are much cooler. Today’s jobs on the list were clean outs. John did the two mobile hen huts while I did the turkeys, rabbits/guineas, light Sussex and quail, 6 houses/pens in all. So nice when it’s all done 😀 inbetween doing them the deliveries of hay and straw arrived, we haven’t had any for a while so a nice chat and catch up with the supplier was in order 😋 We had lunch and a sit down to recharge for some more cleaning out in the afternoon but Sam, Mia and the babies arrived and then Shelley, Josh and Flo, a friend came with her husband to pick sloes for her sons wedding favours of sloe gin next year and by the time everyone left that was the afternoon done lol. The eggs needing collecting the birds feeding, the dinner getting on and before you know it the evening has arrived and that’s another day over.

At the moment I am collecting hazelnuts, I usually have pockets full of them and yesterday I spent some time collecting them off the tree, well a hour and a half to be precise, I couldn’t believe I had spent that long it only seemed like half an hour. I have cut the mesh to lay in the bottom of the apple racks so that they can dry out with air all around them, they still have a lot of moisture in them and so they sweat if they are in a container and that leads to mould which you don’t want.

Sunday: Another nice day on the cards, I spotted a squirrel at the end of the driveway early this morning, bad news for me and my walnuts, I did hunk it was odd that there were none on the ground yet 😏 After doing the birds I got on with cleaning out the stable that some of the hens and ducks are while John went off to visit his Mum. When he got back he cleaned out the front hen house while I did some hoovering, washing etc. Then we spent the afternoon at Charlie and Maccas along with Shelley, Martin and the kids and Sam, Luke and the kids, it’s Sams birthday Tuesday so Charlie had made her a birthday cake as she probably won’t get time to make her own 😂

We came back early evening to do the eggs and feeding and John came back from collecting and said ‘you’ll never guess what I picked up’ I went through the list of eggs and it’s a goose egg! Geese are seasonal layers and generally lay from Feb to May sometimes into June and ours stopped laying a couple of months ago but now one has laid again 🙄 it’s definitely a fresh one as we look there every day for hen eggs, I’ve no idea what’s going on with that lol.

I had a nice little blast from the past round at Charlie’s, Macca is very into his music and bought an old turntable, then someone gave him a load of 45’s, oh my days looking through those, the labels, the songs, the bands, bought a whole load of memories flooding back 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Jammin, not the musical kind 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I decided to change the theme layout of the blog this week to keep,you on your toes 😋

Monday 2nd September: Oooo we are proper rolling into Autumn now. Dad and Sue enjoyed their week and did some helpful jobs around the place, mowing, picking, weeding etc John was off as well and got a few jobs done, not ones that were on my list for him mind you!

It turned out that mostly, the plums on the Victoria tree were fine so I have been picking those, some were stoned and frozen for winter use and this morning I have made some jars of jam. I love the colour of Victoria jam, a beautiful jewel colour and you know Autumn is just around the corner when you can start the blackberry picking in earnest.

I like whole fruit jams rather than jelly, the latter is made by cooking the fruit then straining it overnight through a jelly bag to get the liquid, if you like seedless then that’s what you would do but firstly I can’t be bothered with the faff and I rather like to use all of the fruit, with the exception of apple, I’m not keen on the texture and so apple jelly is altogether nicer in my opinion.

I have still been regularly picking tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beetroot, runner beans, carrots, courgettes, raspberries and hybrid blackberries, I keep testing the grapes for sweetness and they are almost ripe, the melons are doing nicely and the pumpkins and spaghetti squash are beginning to ripen.

Last week I dug up my blueberries and repotted them, they have not done well where they are, I don’t know why, but time to move them and see if I can get a better crop from them. This is the time of year to sort out the strawberry beds and so that is on the to do list as are a hundred and one other jobs lol, seed collection, dividing and a bit of planning for next year.

I made a ‘chuck it in’ sauce for the freezer, I used courgette, tomato, celery, garlic, onion, green pepper, carrot, oregano, basil, parsley, salt and pepper. I used what I had that was ripe and ready or needed using up, no particular quantities just what I had available, the tomatoes were blanched and skinned but apart from that everything else was just chopped and chucked, I sweated it off with a bit of avocado oil and then it will simmer gently down in its own juices. With all that in there it can’t fail to taste good, each different batch would of course taste slightly different but I will freeze it and use it for pasta or even as a base for soup in the winter. I always freeze, I have never got round to thinking about canning on a serious level though I probably should some day.

Tuesday: One of the first jobs this morning was to re boil the jam as it didn’t set! Pain in the bum as all the jars need re sterilising etc, it’s done now and looks like a set has been reached, I did throw a lemon in with it to help it on its way. I have a feeling that the fruit has a lot more water content this year than previous years as too much liquid seems to be the problem. I am going to Swindon with Shelley this morning so I will look for a new thermometer as the bubble keeps separating in mine which can’t help much either 🙄

I still have this ridiculous cough, I had it all week while Dad and Sue were here, it is getting better but slowly, last night I was up two or three times and consequently am tired already today and it’s only 9am 😏

While I was in Swindon Mum was here working away on the strawberry bed, I have strawberries all over the place and they need consolidating, the bed also needed raising as the slugs were getting most of them as they were trailing on the floor. This is the right time of year to sort out the strawberries and thin out any old ones and use the new runners as fresh plants.

Wednesday: Rain overnight which is good because the garden needed a sprinkle 😀 I am making more jam this morning 😜 plenty of berries to be picked at the moment and this is mainly blackberry but there are a few raspberries, mulberries, blueberries and a couple of cherries in there too so this is a mixed fruit jam.

This time of year is packed with preparing and storing the harvest, berries, top fruit, veg, nuts it’s an abundant time of year and a busy one. I have a basket full of tomatoes to do something with not quite sure what yet maybe soup, you can’t beat some fresh tomato soup in the depths of winter.

The hens are laying very well now and we have an abundance of eggs 🤪 I also have some pears to use up and when I see the words ‘one bowl, no fuss’ that’s a recipe I know I’m going to love so I made a cinnamon spiced pear cake.

We went over to my brothers after dinner as John had to pipe up a couple of radiators for him, when we got back it had rained again and it felt decidedly wintery 😏 so a good mug of hot chocolate was in order, soon be Hygge time again 😀

Thursday: Sunny but chilly this morning, looks like it will be a nice day though so I got some washing on first thing. Slight problem with that at the moment as a spider has taken up residence in the wash basket 🙄 I tentatively pull clothing out knowing that any minute a 10ft hairy eight legged monster is going to leap out at me 🤪

The wildlife is still abundant round here, each morning when I open the side door around 20/30 sparrows are startled and start flying from bush to bush, it’s quite a sight. They appear to be feeding on the ground in the gravel at the front so bang goes my notion to weedkiller it at the end of the month, I am not really sure what to do, leave it all to grow and mow it?

I watched John for five minutes trying to catch an escaped chicken in vain on his way to his van this morning, I could have gone out and helped but it was much more fun to spectate 😂

Not sure what I am going to do today, that’s the beauty of this place and my life, I can decide in a moment ‘to do or not to do’ I write that glibly as very often a situation arises that needs sorting or something comes up that really can’t wait.

The rabbits and guinea are still on their green diet, I have not bought a bag of hard feed since way back in spring, nor should it be necessary really with all the forage there is available. The kittens are doing well and are right at home here now, we have seen a lot less of them this week mind as Alfie (Sams dog) has been staying and he, for the want of a better word, is a tit 😬 continually chasing the birds, horse, cats, anything that might move and give him a game, the kittens, quite sensibly stay out of the way when he is around. I am keeping a close eye on the torts, they will begin to eat less now the heat has gone out of the ground, they will wind down until it’s time for them to sleep for the winter. If you think about it, it’s half a life, the sensible half mind you in the warmth of Spring and Summer 😀 Everything else is doing well, the three remaining turkeys are growing and occasionally make that gobbling noise which is funny to hear, the light Sussex are getting to the point where we will have to do what was intended with them 🙄 the laying hens are laying well and we have plenty of eggs available every day, just the young ducks that are slacking and still have not produced a single egg between them yet 😏

I went out and did a bit of picking, mainly courgettes 😂 they grow like weeds! I don’t even eat them but they sell well and if they get too big the chickens love them 😀 I had a pot of agapanthus that came from Johns Mums and it was well and truly pot bound so I have divided it up into about seven new plants, now is a good time to do it, when they have gone over agapanthus need deadheading and feeding for six weeks according to Monty Don so splitting them and putting them into fresh compost will serve them well hopefully.

The wind is still cold and I feel a bit tired today which in turn makes me despondent 😭 gets me wondering, why I am doing all this, what/who am I doing it for? Shall I cut back massively but I know it’s just today and tomorrow if it’s warm and I feel good I will be back on track 😀 When we started this journey the Lupus was not even on the radar and I was used to hard graft, in our previous house I had not only dug out the footings for a very large extension with only a jack hammer to aid me but completely transformed a large mostly lawned garden into a wonderful space with interest and abundance. The garden was opened once a year for viewing to aid a local charity and that meant being on top of things all the time, when we moved here the momentum to achieve something great was intensified but year by year it waned until I was so poorly that my system completely collapsed and another chapter in my life began, living with Lupus 🙄 However, I am not and never have been a quitter, always in it for the long haul and I still am but days like these when I am too tired to motivate myself leave me wondering, how about a small house and garden, lots of holidays and free time lol.

I found a little bit of energy later in the afternoon to do the egg collecting and feeding and a few other little jobs, the sun was shinning and the wind had dropped so it was quite lovely outside. Part of the tiredness is a this bloody stupid cough I have got, I have to sleep practically sitting up and wake up coughing a couple of times a night so it’s no wonder really but it is getting slowly better.

Friday: We were up late and so it was me doing the animal rounds this morning, John has been doing it for ages and doing a sterling job. I’m not complaining 🙄 about his routine but……the birds have been getting away with murder, well not murder exactly 😜 but they have been left to become a bit delinquent, so this morning I reigned in some control 😮 Not just let out to run wild but kept in to eat and drink before being let out to run wild 😂

Then onto a good few hours work in the fruit cage, pruning, cutting back, trying to dig up stinging nettles, until my legs felt like jelly, I haven’t done that much hard work for a long while 😀

I had to reach into the back of the wardrobe this afternoon, no door to Narnia in there but there was a long woolly cardi with my name on it 🥶 I can’t quite believe that just over two weeks ago the temperatures were so high, it’s like a roller coaster ride, slow ride to the top then whooosh we are hurtling headlong into Winter in a split second, that’s a temperate climate for you, bloody temperamental it should be called 😏 Now I am sporting a very fetching look of long cardigan with my gillet over the top for no other reason than I love my gillet and can’t let go of it just yet 🤣

Saturday: More work in the fruit cage and Mum came to help so we got it all done, looks a whole lot tidier and more manageable now, I have put a fair bit of weed membrane down on the side that is troubled with stinging nettles and bindweed I fed all the raspberries in the pots, I was going to put them in the ground but that’s a whole lot of work and they spread like crazy so I decided to leave them in the pots and look after them a bit better 😜 I harvested a load of carrots, I intend to make some tomato soup so will need some for that but the rest will be prepped for the freezer. Then I picked some blackberries and open froze them for using later and then a sandwich and a sit down, got to conserve energy as I have Josh and Flo this afternoon and overnight while Shelley and Martin go to a wedding lol, and we are taking the kids with us to an 18th birthday bbq 🤪

Sunday: Pretty much a non day for me on the smallholding, I stayed over at Shelleys with the grandchildren last night so John was in charge all day 😀