Month: December 2019

Posted in Friesland Farm

A timely encounter, festive preparations and the Solstice 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 16th December 2019: I feel that this blog deserves a full date as it will be the last one for this year. I was going to do a round of pictures and I will if I can but the upload times are probably going to be very long so I may abandon it 😜

Yesterday I made the cranberry sauce and today I did a quick blog post with because I figured if I left it until next Sunday it might be a bit late if anyone wanted to give it a go.

Friday was supposed to be Johns last day but obviously there were things to organise which ate into the working week so he has had to go today and then hopefully that’s it until early January. Meanwhile after having the weekend off from doing the daily outside routine it was back to me doing it today. The turkeys have been confined to quarters after they were out on the lane yesterday when we came back from a bit of shopping 🙄 I am worried that they might ‘disappear’ at this time of year, rural crimes of this sort have sharply increased over the last couple of years and I don’t want them to be a statistic, besides, one of them will be our Christmas dinner, though I admit I have had difficulty thinking about that particular deed!

Do you believe in coincidence or fate 🙄 I just had the most timely encounter with a chap who knocked on my door looking for something that I didn’t happen to have BUT he had something that I need at this particular time, knowledge. It turns out that he is visiting from New Zealand and back there he had been a butcher for 40 years so not wishing to pass up an opportunity I asked him about doing the Turkey. I had been in discussions online about when to do it because it seems that you hang turkeys like you do for game or red meat and I was really dubious about the process, anyway he gave me the answers I had been looking for and some great tips for other birds including surplus male quail. I know it may sound mad but I can’t help smiling from ear to ear thinking ‘oh my days how timely was that’ 😀

Tuesday: A mixed bag of a day starting with the rounds, then a hour or so with the Chaplin discussing the arrangements for the funeral, then into Witney to get a few bits of Christmas shopping, back home get the Rayburn lit, I made a batch of mince pies and I just had a discussion with John and neither of us can remember what else we did!

Wednesday: Another mixed day but most of it on the farm. Straight after breakfast I gave the quail cage a proper clean out and checked the horses. Then we had Florence for an hour after that we went out and John dug the holes for the two apple trees while I collected up the stakes and ties plus some mycorrhizal granules and some well rotted manure to put in the hole and give the trees a good start. We decided in the end to plant the trees in the small back paddock, the front paddock would ah e been nice but the ground there is not very good as it is where the MOD buildings used to be and the top soil is non existent and there are foundations all over the place. The small back paddock already has a plum tree and beam let apple tree and a chestnut so now with two more apple trees we have the beginnings of a mini food farm 😀 Trees planted and back filled I left John to put wood chip around the base to mulch and put up pallets around them so that nothing has a nibble of them. Fingers crossed they will take and do well, while he was doing that I went inside and got the Rayburn lit. Once it was going and bedded down it was time to do the deed of the year, now I’m not gonna lie I was not looking forward to doing this and all it would have taken was for John to waiver as well and we would be eating beef or lamb on Christmas Day. John reminded me though that this is what we had got them for and so it was off to the turkey pen to select the roast 🙄 I pulled up my big girl pants and we got on and did the job in hand, it went very well, it was a very quick, clean dispatch and I was happy with that. Then I spent the next hour plucking it before it will be left to hang overnight, I think I made an error in cutting the head off to let it bleed out, it should have been left on to hang for a week and now I’m thinking I will have to dress it and put it in the fridge rather than hanging as it is open to bacteria, you live and learn.

Sam, Mia and the twiglets popped by late afternoon then it was time to get the dinner, go for some Bowen therapy and get my eyebrows done at Shelleys.

My job load is obviously halved when John is at home as he tends to do the rounds but it’s still a busy day.

Thursday: One of the jobs on Johns holiday list was the boot room floor, I have been stepping over the soil pipe for five years now and rather think that’s enough, it’s right smack bang in the middle so there is no escaping it. The plan was that Martin would be booked in for two days to build a more suitable cupboard and seating with a lid to store the hats, gloves etc plus some hanging for the coats. In order to do that the floor needed doing, I was under the impression that it would be done between the Christmas and New Year but no John has decided that today is a good day 🙄 So my kitchen currently has the entire contents of the boot room in it, not exactly how I had planned the run up to Christmas as I haven’t even got the tree up yet. The contents of the store cupboard are what is bothering me most, we have that much alcohol in there it’s ridiculous, you can tell we don’t drink much as it just all gets put in there, and that’s not all of it, there are two fridges full of various bottles of cider, wine etc as well. At this point I have a battle with John as he is the epitome of Scrooge when it comes to giving stuff away, we don’t need it or use it but he doesn’t like giving it to someone who will, go figure, anyhow I have won the battle and various bottles of spirits will be given to people leaving us with a more reasonable amount (that still won’t get drunk) but at least we can offer it 😂 Then there are the preserves and chutneys to sort out, some with a well past best date have gone into the bin, some with acceptable dates will be kept and hopefully once I can get into a cupboard I can see in I will start to use some of it up. There are jars of jam in there and John keeps buying it at the shop, we will be using those up in future, they just are not his favourite flavour 😏 which is strawberry but I think he can manage blackcurrant and raspberry flavours if he tries hard enough 😬 Meanwhile, I am cleaning dust off the jars and bottles and wondering what to keep and what to bin, and allocating those precious bottles of alcohol to various people 😜

The floor is half down which was the plan as the other half involves moving the washing machine and fridge out which would push into another day and that can wait until after Christmas.

Friday: I haven’t mentioned the rain lately, it has been raining constantly for days, I have never known such a wet start to the Winter, the fields were already saturated after the last stretch of wet weather and this will just compound the problem. Luckily apart from the water sitting in the fields it hasn’t really affected us massively although I am now thinking that getting the horses in might be a good idea, they won’t like it but we probably need to get their feet dry for a short while. There is not a cold snap in sight but as John pointed out, it’s better than being surrounded by everything burning, such a contrast going on in the world at the minute.

I had bloods first thing and it looks like my white cells have come up so that’s good news. Back home to clean the living room and bathroom, I still haven’t got the tree up yet but I have other stuff to do first like the horses and sort the turkey, I still need to get a couple of presents, I was hoping I would be done by now but plans change. John has gone to Witney to do a few errands and a bit of present shopping, and it’s still raining 🌧 🌧 🌧 so I need an absolute plan for the horses.

I went out and got the stables ready for them to come in, at least they will be able to get dry feet for a couple of days and not look so forlorn stood under the hedge like they are at the minute 🙄 Biscuit will probably like coming in, Jack will hate it and will kick the door every time he sees anyone passing but it will just be for a day or two then I will turn them back out for the Christmas days and if it’s still raining get them back in after that, this may be the new routine for a while 😜

I hadn’t planned on having to deal with the horses in such a way as it’s usually frozen some of the time around now but this year is different, this has a knock on effect to my ‘to do’ list as I have to prioritise obviously and anything living and incapable of looking after themselves (animals) have to come first, living and capable (husband, children, family) come next and non living at the bottom, by that I’m talking about garden, fencing, hedging, trees etc etc.

Saturday: ‘Twas the day to get stuff done, that was the plan and it was fairly well executed lol. John did the animals and the only problem of the day was when Jack got out of the stable as I was trying to skip it out, there he was charging round the place in his stable rug (basically his pyjamas), I managed to catch him eventually and get on with the rest of the day. This mostly involved finally getting the tree and the decorations up and wrapping the last of the presents.

The egg sales have gone berserk today, in fact all week it has been brisk and I think we will probably sell out early tomorrow but that’s good, better than them hanging around.

Tonight we have a Christmas get together with a neighbour to go to, looking forward to that, it will kick start the festivities 🥳

Sunday: Solstice 😀 the turn in the year back towards the Spring, very happy about that lol.

We did the animals that included turning the horses back out which they were very happy about and spent 5 minutes running around like they had been locked up for weeks 😜 Then we went off to get the last bits of shopping done and called in to see Josh for his 4th birthday today.

All that is left for this year is to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, enjoy every moment, have a great New Year and I will be with you on the other side when it will be 2020! It sounds like a sci fi date doesn’t it!

Posted in Friesland Farm

Cranberry Sauce

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Just a quickie blog post 😀

Yesterday I made the Cranberry Sauce to go with our Christmas dinner and of course it goes well with pork pie or even on a baked Camembert and it is the easiest thing to make. So if you want to feel that some of your dinner is indeed home produced I would choose this item.

I bought the cranberries, I do have a plant but it only produced 1 berry this year lol so I had to buy.

300g fresh cranberries

Approx 1 cup of orange juice

Approx 1/2 cup of sugar, or add to taste

Put it all in a saucepan, simmer gently until the sugar is dissolved and the cranberries begin to break up, I then crush it with the back of a spoon or a potato masher would work well. Then bring to the boil for a couple of minutes, stirring all the time as you don’t want it to catch and burn on the base of the pan.

That is it folks and it smells divine, taste fabulous and feels like a big achievement when you present it at the Christmas feast.

It depends on when you make it as to what you do with it, it will last a few days in the fridge easily enough, or as I have done, you can freeze it and get it out the night before it’s needed and put it in the fridge.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Windy, a passing & a family feast.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th December: Oooo we are getting closer, not to Christmas but to the Solstice 😀 I am writing this at 7.30am on Monday morning ( that’s approx 15 hrs of darkness 🙄) and it’s still dark outside 😏 I have bumbled round and done as many indoor jobs as I can and am waiting for it to get light before going outside. I could let everything out while it’s dark and indeed some people don’t have any choice as they have to get off to work, luckily I don’t have to do that and so I can wait. I’m sure that people have been caught out many a time by the fox in circumstances like the one above so I won’t risk it.

It’s been pretty windy overnight so I have no idea what I will find once I get out there, hopefully no damage anywhere just stuff scattered.

I’ve just come back in and all in all it’s ok out there, no damage that I can see just stuff blown around, if there was a leaf on any tree there sure isn’t anymore lol. One thing that I spotted which has been exposed by the leaf fall is a drey 🙄 I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was until I came back in a looked up some pictures but it definitely is, it is in the tree in the front paddock. A squirrel nest, not sure what I think about that to be honest, on the one hand I’m thinking ‘how lovely’ on the other I am thinking ‘thieving little sods living a bit too close for comfort’ 😜 It will remain of course and I will have to up my security over the veg garden, they don’t just pinch your nuts they steal fruit as well 😂 especially strawberries. Luckily I already have squirrel proof bird feeders, actually I got them initially because the crows were stealing all the bird food but I was a good move. This morning I have filled up the feeders with suet pellets as it getting a little bit harder for the birds to find food and they need a bit of extra help over the coldest months.

The wind exposes your weaknesses, loose window panes, ill fitting doors, gates that don’t quite shut properly, fences that are not as secure as they should be, things you haven’t put away properly, the wind is out to show you what you haven’t done properly. Even if you think you have it sorted the wind will come from a different direction and prove you wrong 🙄 We are pretty exposed to the westerlies here which are our prevailing winds and we are used to those but today’s wind was northerly meaning different problems with things that don’t normally get affected. We rarely get an easterly, when we do it comes with artic weather and we rarely get a southerly either. Then there are the Squallies as I would call them, that is wind that seems to come from all directions at once and just buffet you constantly, I don’t know what the technical name is for them but that’s what I have named them lol. There is a silver lining to the wind as it dries up all the ground so it’s not all bad 😀

Mid morning I had a call from John who had a call from the nursing home, after her turn on Sunday his Mum has taken a turn for the worst and they said that they should probably come in and see her. He spent the rest of the day there, came home had dinner and a bath and then we went back in the evening for a short visit.

Wednesday: Ok so I have missed out pretty much all of yesterday and today the reason being as you might have guessed is that Johns Mum passed away very late last night. Sadly it was only an hour until her 85th birthday but she didn’t quite make it, just over a year ago she suffered a stroke which left her paralysed down one side and sent her into decline, a peaceful end was reached yesterday.

Meanwhile the daily routines still have to be carried out, animals need feeding and cleaning out, eggs need collecting and sorting and home life has similar routines to continue as well, all in all it’s possible I won’t get much else written this week depending on what is happening, there are obviously many things to sort out and finalise and paperwork to do so I will see what other time I have left.

Oh and we have the election to contend with and an outbreak of avian flu in the country again, could be a tough end to the week this week 🙄

Thursday: The weather is appalling, bursts of heavy rain with light rain inbetween not very nice out there at all. I’m hoping that I am at the tail end of this bug now so that I can crack on with things and although I did clean out the ducks on my way round this morning, I haven’t done anything but the necessary out there.

John, the girls and I have discussed planting trees in memory of both Johns Mum and Dad, at first we thought about a scheme in a woodland but in the end we decided on planting two apple trees here. John said it would be good to be able to see the trees whenever you went past them and also with apple trees you would get something back from them in a few years time. So I have ordered the varieties Greensleeves and Rosette, we had a greensleeves apple tree at our old house and the apples were plentiful and tasty, the Rosette is a new one on me but it apparently produces pink apple juice which will be pretty 😀

Saturday: Gaps again, sorry about that but really not much has been happening, the weather is awful with what seems like constant rain and indeed we have a mini lake back in the paddock and the hay barn has water on the floor. I haven’t been doing much in the way of anything, where I was all geared up to get ready for the festivities this cold and sinus thing has cocooned my thinking, I can’t hear much other than ringing in my ears and muffled noises, it’s surprising how debilitating that can be. John has now finished for the Christmas break so he will be here doing a few jobs, at the moment he is re stocking the wood pile out the back to keep us going over the holidays.

This afternoon we have our family Christmas get together, last year we did a full on four course roast dinner for around 50 people, this year we have decided to do a buffet lol. The men, of course, were heard to mutter and moan that they wanted the roast but most of them put absolutely no effort into helping achieve that and so they will have to put up with what they get this year 😜

A lovely time was had by all we feasted and made merry. I received what I think will be one of my all time favourite gifts from one of my Sisters, a hand made plaque with meaning 😀

The rain has been relentless again and we have water standing everywhere but it’s not really affecting us overall so I am not going to worry about it.

Today’s plans are mainly for us and not for the farm so I will finish this earlier than usual and hope you have an excellent week.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Cat & mouse, cockerels & the Sky.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday evening Dec 1st: Sometimes on a Sunday evening after the blog has been published there are things I like to tell you about, tonight is one of those evenings. A real live game of cat and mouse was played out in the undercover back area. I think we don’t have many mice as I never really see any, however Benny the cat is a super duper mouser and he is always catching them. This evening I witnessed the classic cat catches mouse and then plays with the terrified little thing until he finally gulps it down in one go 🙄 It’s why we have cats here I suppose but we don’t usually witness the events as he mostly hunts out and about at night.

Monday 2nd December: So the first job on the list is obviously the animals, I made sure as it was a pretty cold morning, that everything had plenty of feed and water and the horses and the rabbit/guineas had a pile of hay to keep them going. I noticed a whole bunch of feathers in the front paddock, there were so many that I thought one of my geese had perhaps not gone to bed and been got by the fox but it was the lone cockerel from the school hatch back in spring. He roosted in the walnut tree, he chose not to live with 50 women 😜 and I assume he has come down too early this morning and been got 😏

After that it was straight inside to get the cockerels prepped for the freezer, three of them anyhow the forth will be prepped for dinner tonight. The cockerels we breed do not have a massive amount of meat on them but there is enough for a roast, then a curry or casserole and finally soup so you can get 3 good meals from them easily, then of course there is broth/stock to be made as well. I have been ‘doing’ our own chickens for over 10 years now, I went on a course along with Sam many years ago to find out how to do it properly and I think we pretty much have it nailed these days. I consider it a skill set, you never know when you might need it, and over time I have also taught Shelley and Charlotte, my sister Gill and her friend how to do it as well. I can also paunch a rabbit, without a knife if necessary so you see I am a very useful person to know 😂

The bird I selected for dinner tonight is now slavered in olive oil, sage, garlic and black pepper with onion in the cavity and that will be slow roasted, also cooking are the other bits that will go to the dogs, the feet, the hearts, the livers, the gizzards and the necks. Every bird is different, some are narrow some are wide, some carry more fat than others and of course even though they are the same age and have had the same life some are heavier than others 🙄 but all have had a good life, mostly free roaming and living a near to natural life as possible.

I may have to have a sleep at some point today, I seem to have got Johns cold and all the back of my throat and nose is inflamed meaning I didn’t get much sleep during the night as I could breathe properly and sleep at the same time 😜

Tuesday: Feel slightly better today and had a better nights sleep so that’s helpful. It’s not as cold this morning as the past few mornings and the sun is shinning, always a bonus. The long range forecast that I follow suggests that we won’t have a cold snap this side of the new year, even though I have read that I still sorted out my winter under layers just in case lol.

I did the morning rounds and also put in some clean bedding for the ducks and cleaned out the quail, who have now started laying again.

I watched a short film on gratitude and it mentioned that we rarely look at the sky, not true here, I am always looking skywards lol, it helps that we can see the sunset clearly and there are some spectacular ones to see at times, especially over the last few nights, I can also see the sunrise so I get a double bonus. I watch the cloud formations on different days and I like to look at the stars at night as we have very little light pollution here so a clear night is full of twinkling ✨ I usually think of one or two songs when I’m looking at the stars, Starry, Starry Night by Don McLean a fabulous song about Vincent Van Gogh and I only have eyes for you by The Flamingos, probably because it was always played at school discos in my youth and it mentions the stars 😂 I have been known to sing out loud on occasion and why not no one is around usually lol.

Had a quick meeting with the chap who pruned our cooking apple tree last year, he is coming to do the eating apple tree, hopefully on Thursday if he has time. The tree produces some great ‘keeper’ apples, some type of cox I think, but this year though there were hundreds of apples, a lot of them were tiny and so the tree could do with a good prune and hopefully we will get less apples but of a better quality, possibly not next year but the year after, sometimes you have to make sacrifices in order to get better benefits.

Did some late evening gift shopping in Swindon, bliss without the crowds of people lol.

Wednesday: Another cold frosty morning, I am rather enjoying these mornings though as they are very pretty to wander round in. I did give out extra rations to those that need it, generally I don’t feed the geese as they graze the grass but when it’s frozen they need some kind of sustenance so they have layer pellets on mornings like this.

I have pretty much procrastinated this morning, kind of, I have done a little reading up or watching videos of regenerative agriculture which I think has to be the way forward, it’s basically using a combination of local ecology, permaculture and farm animals. It’s a no brainier but I think it will take many years before mainstream agriculture gets on board with it so in the meantime it’s up to the smaller producers/land owners and those farmers willing to stride out ahead of the rest to fly the flag, lets face it many people thought Prince Charles was a bit nutty 20+ years ago when he championed Organics and now its mainstream so there is always hope 😀

In the afternoon I thought I’d better do something rather than nothing lol so I got a hearty beef stew on the go ready for dinner tonight and then a bit of crafting. I had some polystyrene balls in a box, I’ve had them for about six years, no idea where they came from but I also had some wool packaging from some meat I had delivered back in spring, an idea formed 😀 At this time of year I get an urge to do something creative, I guess it’s not really wanting to do something outside as it’s too cold so needing to find something to do indoors preferably not cooking or cleaning 😝 So I gathered up all the things I needed and felted these Christmas baubles, I was pretty chuffed with how they turned out.

I went out to do the feeding then the shutting away for the night, another lovely sky, pink this time though the photos don’t really do it justice. As I was in the side paddock I looked across to the back paddock and couldn’t see it, the mist was rolling in and it was a complete white out, by the time I had gone round to the front paddock and put them away, walked back to the side, the long side paddock was also beginning to mist up, so it’s gonna be foggy tonight. I love a bit of fog, not if we have to drive anywhere obviously but if we are at home a foggy night has a magic all of its own.

Thursday: As predicted it’s a foggy morning this morning but not too cold. I got the feeding etc done then lit the Rayburn and I have got a blood test mid morning. I was telling the nurse about my cold and she said I need to be careful as my white cell count is low so I will be keeping a close eye on how it develops as I will struggle to fight off any infection that occurs, at the moment it has gone into my sinus and causing pressure in my ear and jaw, hopefully it will just blow over and I can get on with things.

This afternoon the chaps came to give the eating apple a good prune, it’s looking good and hopefully will bear some good fruit next year or the year after. I need to remember to do the plums trees next June but as that’s always a busy month I keep forgetting year on year 🙄 The pruning s from the tree will again be use as dead hedge especially now I know just how much the little birds love it and use it all year round either for roosting or nesting in.

We had a bit of a back log of duck eggs but I managed to sell them easily enough on the selling sites, if I hadn’t been able to I had made a contingency plan anyway, I ordered some big jars and some apple cider vinegar to pickle them in.

Friday: Ok so this sinus thing got worse I I felt like s**t I still dragged myself around and got the feeding done but that was about it for the day.

Saturday: Feeling slightly better today, I was worried that each day I woke up I was getting worse but hopefully the worst is now over and it will improve hugely, by Thursday pm I couldn’t even hear properly as my ears had blocked and could feel the pressure in my jaw as well as my ear. Onwards and upwards though and as it’s Saturday John is here and so he did the morning routine, then he went off to get some feed while I did a bit of cleaning, lit the Rayburn and got some bread on the go.

My seed order arrived in the post this morning so I had a quick look through and then stashed it away until spring. I am going to have a go at purple carrots and liquorice this year, radical hey lol.

I am feeling pretty accomplished as far as the big Winter Feast season goes, the sprouts are firming up nicely out in the garden, the rest of the veg is in the freezer, we have potatoes stored, the turkey is wandering around the farmyard, the cake and the pudding are done, we have a store of home grown walnuts and hazelnuts and I still have some jars of homemade mincemeat from last year to use when I finally get round to making mince pies. On top of that I have numerous bottles of slow gin, pear liqueur made with fruit from the farm so if by any chance we get so snowed it that we can’t move we will feast well 😀 something to be proud of I reckon, I just think I need that house cow to make the list complete with cream lol.

Sunday: Pretty much the same as yesterday really, John did the animals, I stayed in and did some indoor bits, he moved a few wheelbarrows of wood chip into the pen that the Turkeys have decided to call home so that it’s not so muddy. They get let out during the day so they are not trashing it but when I shut them in at afternoon feed it would be nice if the ground was clean and so that’s what that is all about.

There was a phonecall to say that Johns Mum had a turn and an ambulance had been called so that meant most of the late morning and lunchtime waiting for return calls to find out what was going on. The paramedics phoned to say she was now ok and that as all her obs were normal they were not going to take her to hospital after all.

I lit the Rayburn early afternoon it was a pretty vile day at times, the Sam came and we had the Twins for an hour while she went food shopping, by the time she got back it was almost time to do the bird feeding and the egg collecting.

Oh I did make some pickled eggs during the day but I stupidly bought 2 1/2 litre jars, do you know how many eggs you need to boil to fill that 🤣 I think I did 14 and that has only half filled the jar 🙄

Round to a family birthday once the birds had been safely shut away for the night.

Still feeling stuffy and a bit rough at times.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Mud, wreaths & the Winter season.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 25th Nov: Firstly I must apologise for not proofreading last weeks post before publishing it, I was under a time constraint but that was enforgivable 😜

Today I am having Josh and Flo while Shelley does a course so I was up early in order to get everything done before they arrived first thing. I half did the rounds in the dark but it soon got light enough to double check everything was as it should be and it was except for one thing, yesterday’s eggs. John did the collection round last night and he has left the bucket of eggs untouched out the back there. So I gave him a quick ring at work to tell him I was thinking of him 😀 and exactly what I was thinking of him 😝 It may seem trivial but it is a bone of contention, when I do the egg collection, I also sort them, box them and put them out, when he does them he shouts ‘eggs are here’ meaning come out and sort the eggs, generally I don’t mind and will do them though if it played out the other way round he would have something to say about it, the point this morning is that he didn’t even say they were there and he had plenty of time to do them while I was otherwise engaged, so that’s why he got the phonecall 😬

Did you know you can eat dahlia tubers? No nor did I until this morning when I was reading a post from another group, every day is a school day 😀

Shelley came back had a quick cuppa and then they left about 3pm, my day was filled with Peppa Pig, Llama Llama (yeah that’s a new one on me too) playing chefs ? matching card games which Josh wins hands down every time 🙄 a bit of spot the difference, some writing and an animated film about Turkeys travelling back in time to the first Thanksgiving to get themselves off the menu 😜 A totally different day to most of my days but a thoroughly enjoyable one 😀

Once they had left it was time to get outside and round up my own turkeys, feed everything and collect the eggs, sort them and put them out for sale (John) a quick cuppa and a piece of Star Wars cake from a party Josh went to yesterday, sling the hoover round and it’s time to go back out and shut everything away for the night.

Whizzing round with the hoover and I’m thinking ‘it’s bloody hot in here’ the fire is going but I’m increasingly finding it stifling as it is pretty mild outside at the moment. Well that’s my thoughts on it anyway, of course I’m probably menopausal, I don’t have hot flushes but I seem to be hot all the time and I don’t mean in a deliciously good looking way 🙄

Tuesday: We had more rain overnight, not heavy but enough on top of what we already had to make it horrible under foot and more rain forecast today 😏 It’s mild for the time of year I think, up to 13c today, would be great if the wet stuff didn’t accompany it lol.

Now I am back on meds (a lower dose) I am not feeling quite as tired as I was which is a good thing, I have other issues such as rashes that appear 🙄 at the moment it’s on the tops of my ears and round my hair line, quite bizarre but only minor so not really a problem.

What did I do today, I’m not really sure lol, I did sort out some Christmas bits and pieces, I also sorted out some stuff for making wreaths at the end of the week, I cleaned off the dahlia & freesia bulbs and have stored them in the back toilet for the time being as it’s dry in there so they won’t rot. Apart from that it was the usual things like lighting the fire, hanging up washing, washing up, drying up, feeding, collecting eggs, sorting out tonight’s dinner, not a very exciting day at all. We do have someone coming tonight to buy some of the ex laying hens so that will be fun in the dark 🙄

Wednesday: Have I ever told you how much I hate this time of year, more than once I know 😂 it really is quite depressing with the endless mud and short days. You may wonder about the mud, you may not but I’m going to tell you anyway, mud to most people is what you encounter when you decided voluntarily to go on a walk with the dog or a wander across a park or a meadow to clear your head. Mud here is on, not just a daily basis but it’s a three times a day affair, it’s not your average mud either nope this mud is like a species all of its own that has found the right conditions to multiply profusely. Different mud particles have different attributes, there is the runny wet surface (very slippery) mud with the occasional puddle, then there is the trash mud, that is where either animals or humans or even vehicles are constantly moving over an area that used to be nice green grass with firm ground and is now trashed, it is often well over ankle deep and I have seen it deeper than that before now. This mud has the potential to be dangerous, how? I hear you ask, and even if you didn’t I am going to tell you 😜 suction, yes suction is your worst enemy and nightmare. Many a time I have been walking along minding my own business, well doing what I am supposed to be doing, and shlooooop there goes the suction 🙄 now at this point you are of course in mid walk and I can tell you from experience that suction is strong enough to relive you of your welly leaving an exposed, socked foot to go plundering straight down into the rest of the mud that is waiting gleefully for this to happen. I have known it to take prisoners, two feet firmly stuck in the mud waiting for the rescue party to come and help them out, that is trash mud. The wet runny mud has tactics of its own, it lies there looking all innocuous but it uses other animals to get you. There you are walking along again and the dog comes flying by flicking mud up all over you, but it doesn’t stop with the dogs, no, it uses the ducks as well, they get in a flap at letting out or feeding time and slip, slap, slop mud has been flapped all over you before you can make a run for it. If I had a favourite mud (which I don’t) but if I did it would be claggy mud, usually found on the veg beds, this mud sticks to you like a car salesman on a Sunday stroll round the garage forecourt, however it does give back which is very kind of it, being only 5ft 2″ I can easily be getting on for 5ft 5″ when I have finished 😝 So now you know about mud, it’s the smallholders nemesis, I keep trying in vain to work out how to turn it into a tourist attraction but so far I have failed. If by any strange chance YOU would like to fully immerse yourself in the experience of mud do come over and knock yourselves out, it will cost you a quid but it will be the best money you ever spent 😉

And on to today’s mumblings 😀 I did the morning rounds as per usual and then onto cleaning out the duck shed as it gets pretty dirty pretty quickly because of….you guessed it, the mud. The ducks don’t mind it in the least in fact they love it, give them wet sloppy mud and they are in their element. The chickens on the other hand are far more sensible creatures and they loathe the mud but can’t escape it. The light Sussex breeding group I moved only a few days ago, now have a trashed pen due to all the rain, when I put them in there the ground was firm and clean, now it’s a quagmire and it didn’t take long at all for it to get like that. I needed to move them to a pen that won’t get wet so I cleaned out the turkey pen and moved them into there. At this point the turkeys have no idea that I have evicted them 🙄 and I intend to herd them into the stable tonight where they will be based from here on in (famous last words as you will find out). Then as the day was fairly pleasant I did a bit in the garden, watered the garlic which is doing nicely although something has eaten the giant spinach I planted in the same tunnel. I have covered up some more bare ground to prevent weeds, the more I can do at this end of the year the easier it will be for me to get a handle on things come Spring and if for some reason (Lupus, I’m talking to you) I am incapacitated, I won’t fret about the rate of weed growth.

I did think to myself this morning that at this time of year we really are just limping towards the Winter Solstice and the promise of a few extra nano seconds of light each day 🙏 However, as miserable as I may sound 😋 I do try to find something wonderful to look at and in truth there is plenty out there, this morning I noticed the mist rising up from the paddocks as the Sun began to break through, I noticed the horse stood in the middle of the paddock bathed in a patch of said Sunshine and I always love the way the low Winter Sun peaks through the hedgerows at this time of year 😀 You will also be pleased to know that I am never alone here, I am followed constantly by those who think I may have something marvellous to feed them, especially the geese.

Thursday: I can feel that it’s a tad colder this morning and we are due some colder weather from tonight, I look forward to firmer ground lol. After doing the rounds and making sure all the water buckets are topped up, in case it freezes overnight, I set about sorting out cupboards in the kitchen. It wasn’t a job I had intended it just happened and clearly I haven’t done it since 2016 judging by the dates on some of the packets 😝

This evenings putting to bed was a bit of a Benny Hill sketch 🙄 the Turkeys realised they are not living where they were and gave me the run around, so much so that they are now penned up in the run that the light Sussex have just come out of. It never ceases to amaze me how birds that can easily pop over a six foot fence to get out need the bloody gate opened to get back in 🤬 The chickens in the front paddock were a total pain in the proverbial and I went round and round and round the hut so many times I got dizzy, eventually all but one was in and I have left that one to fate because there is only so much I can do, if you were in the vicinity I apologise for the swearing. (John caught it when he came home)

We have excess eggs now that the freeloaders have suddenly bucked up their ideas and that’s an extra 20 eggs per day so I put them on the local selling sites and we deliver them. It goes berserk and it’s difficult to keep up with the messages lol but I have sold 6 trays within half an hour so great result 😀

Friday: It’s Black Friday, oh what a joy 😀😀 I am gearing up to put my order in, no not for a 452″ wide screen tv that cooks the dinner at the same time but I will be putting my seed order in 😜 at £1 a packet I’d be foolish not to.

Noticeably colder again this morning, the cold was nipping at my fingertips and the end of my nose, the sun is shinning but I don’t suppose it will give off much heat at this time of year. All the morning rounds completed without incident and back indoors to get that Rayburn lit.

I got a large pan of vegetable soup on the go always a good idea through the Winter months, warm, comforting and nutritious what’s not to like about that 😀

Sam and the kiddies came over and she took Mia out to get the horses in, give them a check over and put rugs on them as the temps are set to be quite low tonight. It wasn’t long before Sam bought Mia back in, they had got the horses in easily enough, then Jack, who was probably trying to itch his backside, knocked over the wheelbarrow which startled Mia and set her off crying, game over trying to sort the horses with a crying toddler so she came in.

I gathered some greenery/foliage because tonight we are going to be making wreaths.

John came home just after I had finished putting the animals to bed and as it happens just in time. We had discussed that the job of the weekend would be to clean out the flues on the Rayburn as they need doing, just as John came in the flue caught, by that I mean we had a fire in the back flues, this sends me into a panic I hate anything fire related (long story) and I feel better when someone else is there with me when things go wrong 😝 We shut it down and it soon went out but we were right with our timing on the flues (or maybe not depending on how you see it 😂) so that will be the first job on the list tomorrow lol.

We made wreaths from greenery mostly gathered here and some from Shelleys holly tree, we had a great evening and tomorrow night Charlie will be coming round to do hers.

Saturday: As expected a cold night resulting in the whitest of mornings with the frost widespread and beautiful. Everything looks so delicate when it’s frosted even grass takes on a beauty all of its own. John and I did the morning rounds and then got straight on with cleaning the flues on the Rayburn after last nights oopsie. The job is pretty mucky and starts off with John going up on the roof to sweep down the main flue, that collects in the firebox and is then hoovered out (I have a separate hoover for the fire lol) Then we take out the very heavy cooking plate which is given a hoovering, the fire box is hoovered out and then onto the back flues which are the ones that caused the problem last night. There are five flues along the back all about 2″ sq, four of the five are never any problem, the fifth which is actually the first flue gets pretty blocked/choked up. We brush them then rod them to get as much off as possible, the rest of the Rayburn gets a hoovering and normally that’s it we put it back together. This time though we needed to re stick the fire rope around the back flue cover as it had come off, I should have ordered some new before we started the Rayburn up again for the winter but I didn’t, I have now so next time we clean it we will put a new rope gasket in.

Once that was all done and put back together John went to clean out the front hens while I did some bits then it was off to get some essential shopping and we picked up a Christmas tree grown in a pot at the same time. Hopefully as it will only be inside for just over a week it will survive enough to go back outside and in again next year, that’s the plan anyway 😀

Charlie came round late afternoon to make her wreath and I made another one which I will put out for sale and see what happens.

After Charlie had I gone I set about an idea I had, last years wreath base which had now dried out after being in the shed all year and some flowers from the summer garden that I had picked and dried out, pretty pleased with the result 😀

Sunday: December 1st and the first day of the Winter season, although many think we are already in Winter, December, January and February are the Winter months 🙄 A cold start but not as cold as yesterday. We had a good day all in all, we had decided to go out for breakfast this morning and went to Bampton Garden centre, there we met Shelley, Martin and the kids who had come to get their Christmas tree, and I did a little bit of buying (be rude not too) a couple of shrubs and some tree baubles.

When we got home we lit the Rayburn then went out, set up and got the last four remaining Light Sussex cockerels dispatched and plucked ready for dressing tomorrow.

I have ummmed and arrrred about the turkeys and what to do, in the end I have decided that one we will have for Christmas, after all that’s why we got them, but we only need one so the other two a stag and a hen will get to live on and hopefully the hen will lay eggs come spring. The eggs can either be hatched or eaten and it will be a novelty to provide turkey eggs for eating. John was concerned that nobody will buy them to eat but I know the customers well enough to know that there will be country folk who will eat all kinds of eggs and there will be people who are willing to give something new a try 😀

Over and out for this week, I have had a great week and hope you have too 😀