Monday 20th January 2020: Morning 😀 another hard frost last night, lovely jubbly. John has gone off to ‘real’ work this morning leaving me to do the morning rounds which I don’t mind in the least when the ground is firm underfoot 😜
I listened to another podcast this morning, gardening related naturally, this one was about a innovative lady called Joy Larkham, she wrote ‘creative vegetable gardening’ but it was the journey in life she took that was quite fascinating and ahead of time, resulting in many of today’s well known vegetables/salads being available to everyone to grow/buy. I found a paperback version on Amazon for £3.20 which is a bargain I reckon 😀
You may wonder why I am pleased to have a frost, you may not wonder and if not scroll past this bit 😜 Frost, as we all know when we have lost some precious plant to it, can be damaging but it is also very beneficial to the garden as a whole. Frost is caused by cold air trapped close to the ground, this happens when there is no cloud cover (so the heat from the days sun escapes back up into the atmosphere) and no wind (so a clear, still night) if cold enough (freezing point) the temperature of the ground and the temperature of the cold air just above it freeze and tad dah, frost. (a hoar frost, which is my absolute favourite, is slightly different, if we have one I will write a bit about it)
You probably all remember the school lessons about freeze/thaw and thought ‘when am I ever going to need to know that’ 🙄 You were probably right, I mean do you a actually need to know, not especially, it happens, you deal with it and move on until it happens again 😝 The freeze/thaw bit is the bit that is great for the soil, the moisture gets in between the particles, freezes, bursts the particles apart and voila, finer soil which is easier to work with than lumps or clods. The frozen air and soil also interrupt the breeding cycles of soil borne pests keeping the numbers in check so that there is not an epidemic in the spring. So you see it is very beneficial in the gardening cycle.
I can’t really talk about frosts without mentioning ‘Jack’ we have all heard of the mythical being that spreads the frost, usually depicted as a mischievous waif having fun. There isn’t an awful lot on the web about how the stories originated but it is interesting that most countries that have frosts have a folklore character connected with it 🌬
It seems to be the day for discovery for me as I have just discovered someone else or rather something else that I will be looking into in more depth. John always says ‘you spend far too much time on that thing’ the iPad, but that’s because there is so much out there to read and discover and that’s mostly what I am doing. Even Facebook has a wealth of information that is shared, its true that some of it is utter crap, a lot of it is best to scroll on past but there are some gems and one thing it does do well is link together common interests wether that be friends, family or topics. My brother tagged me in a link he thought I would be interested in and he was right 😀 I read the link, which happened to be to plug a book but it was the topic and then the author that got me intrigued. Next step was watching a video that he had made and from there onto the website where a wealth of information is available. It’s not just the topic it’s his whole way of looking at things that I really like. Not a conventional path to where he is now and not terribly politically correct, and not out to build an empire from what he does, just to pass on knowledge (and pay the bills 😜) So what and who I hear you ask, well his name is Robin Harford and the topic is foraging and the website is eatweeds.co.uk just in case you want to look it up. I like to forage, I never let the seasons pass without collecting free food in the form of blackberries, elderflower/berries, wild garlic and nuts but there is a huge array of other plants that we have lost touch with or that we might know are edible but don’t know what to do with them, I will be delving into this site to glean as much information as I can 😀
I started off doing this blog as a way of journaling our change of lifestyle and the challenges we came up against, the stories of things that happened and then as I learnt more, a way of passing that knowledge on with no expectations other than someone, somewhere may get something out of reading it. You may read it because you know me and want to know what I get up to, you may read it because you would like or do have a similar lifestyle, you may read it for the occasional recipe or for gardening tips, there are many reasons why and hopefully somebody, somewhere gets something useful from it (I invite you to let me know 😀) My point really is that I like to share information about the things I know about, I like to read stuff and in turn share my discoveries with people who also might like to discover it. It’s important to pass knowledge in all forms on and I’m looking forward to learning a lot more about weeds, watch this space there will be a weed based recipe at some point in the future I’m sure lol.
Tuesday: It’s been a busy morning so far, the farrier was coming first thing and so I needed to get all the morning jobs done first. Sam had bought the horses in late yesterday afternoon so when he came I just had to get them out of the stable and tie them up ready. While he was working I skipped out their stalls and replenished the hay and water, Sam is coming over later to give them a brush before they are turned back out. Just as I was giving Jack his hay I could see a post office delivery van in the driveway, I didn’t want him to drive off but anyone with horses knows full well that they don’t want to wait either 😂 Luckily the van was just reversing and not driving off and I finished what I was doing g and went to collect the parcel.
It was the bare root hedging plants I ordered last week, I have a few spaces in mind for these, I ordered forsythia, alder, June berry and a holly. Typically the ground is frozen solid so I won’t be able to plant them just yet, they are currently say in a bucket of water out the back. I need to remember to get them out of the water before the temps drop again tonight, I don’t want to freeze the roots.
Back indoors to sort the eggs (while listening to a pod cast, loving these) and then on to light the Rayburn, I got a barrow full of logs in while I was outside earlier. Once the fire had stabilised I set about making the pastry fro the Cornish pasties, I made a few errors with this project. Firstly, I thought I had the correct flour but didn’t so I couldn’t make them yesterday, Sam picked me up the correct flour yesterday afternoon so I could do them today. Secondly I didn’t look at the amount of beef skirt I would need and so only have 2/3 of the amount for the recipe 😏 Not to be deterred I prepped and weighed out all the vegetable ingredients I needed and then bagged half of it for another time, I will freeze this along with half the pastry. The other thing that was difficult was finding good old fashioned lard, I wanted to make a decent pasty and so lard is needed, hmmm that is not an item that is stocked where I shop so I bought an alternative. Unfortunately it contains palm oil and I didn’t read the ingredients until I had bought it, now I have it I have to use it up but will be more careful next time. The pastry is made and needs resting for three hours in the fridge, I hope these taste good as it’s been a task and a half lol, mostly because of my errors.
I also made some delicious soup made from tomatoes, celery and carrots plus veg stock, very tasty. The pasties look and taste great though they could have done with more seasoning and in the end I did use all the filling and pastry, I looked at it and thought there was enough meat to go round after all we are supposed to be cutting down on red meat.
Wednesday: Not so cold over night and we have fog this morning, got to love a bit of fog, the mysterious veil that can prod the imagination, wondering what is inside that cloak or what might come wandering out of it 👀
Today’s trivia, I learnt this on a pod cast lol, did you know that female ants can live up to thirty years!
I went out and did the morning rounds, before letting out the hens at the front I cut down some suckers from the fruit trees, they seem to be everywhere. And then I tried putting up some wire to keep the hens out of my garden. We are failing big time at this, John has put up a six foot fence they are still getting in, I put up another bit of fencing as they were going round the side and hopping over the lower fence, they are still getting in. I don’t mind admitting that two minutes after I had put the fence up and one hopped over a space further down, I wanted to cry 😭 I am getting exasperated by this, it’s not like there are just one or two of them, by the time I go to do afternoon feeding there are about fifteen of the f***kers in there 😤 I did think, well that’s ok we can just build mini wire frames to protect everything, and we can, it’s just that I can’t even rake the ground and sow the seeds without being swarmed by them. It’s got to the point that I bloody hate the things and it’s not even their fault 😜 Answers on a postcard please 😏
My seed potatoes arrived along with some more garlic bulbs. The garlic I planted in Autumn are doing really well in the small tunnel but you can never have enough of the stuff can you lol. The seed potatoes will be set now to chit which basically means that the little eyes you get on them begin to sprout growth. When they have done this it will be time to plant them up and as they are earlies I will be doing them in potato sacks in the big tunnel. I was thinking I probably won’t plant any main crop as we usually have a lot of self setters however if I want enough to get us through next winter I may have to rethink that.
I went out to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting and had a nice chat with a customer over the gate 😀
Egg sales have been brisk today which is unusual for mid week.
Thursday: I went out this morning to do the rounds and the first thing I see is a horse in the yard, he is supposed to be in the field 😜 Jack has broken out, to be fair I knew it was coming, he has been hanging round the gateways looking longingly at greener grass elsewhere but he can’t have it. For one it’s not that green it’s just greener than his paddock and for two the ground is soft and there are only so many paddocks I want him to trash 😂 The paddocks he is in have served well going this far into winter but they are running out of nibbling areas so we will have to take a roll of hay in for him to keep him happy until the grass begins to grow again. Biscuit will probably manage to steal some now and again but she doesn’t need a great deal. Anyhow, I got him back in the field with some big piles of hay and a carrot, the pictures you see of dangling a carrot are so true 😂
Onto the next jobs of finishing the feeding and letting out rounds and then as it’s mild again, which means I don’t have to light the Rayburn too early and therefore keep an eye on it, I decided to try and sort out this fencing malarkey to stop the chickens. I spent a good couple of hours fixing fencing to existing fencing to make it higher and hopefully stop the bloody things. I am not at all competitive but I don’t like to be defeated, I think they are two different things even if they don’t sound like it. Mission accomplished I went round the back washed off my wellies, went inside to grab the seed potatoes and a kombucha came outside and guess f*****g what, there was a chicken in my garden 😤 I grabbed hold of it and took it back to the paddock then waited to see where exactly it got in. A job is only as good as the weakest point and that ladies and gentlemen is the shed roof it seems 🙄 Damn thing surveyed all the fence line looked up and took flight onto the shed roof and down into the garden, not only that but it bought another bugger with it this time so now there are two in there. Two I can cope with I’m hoping the others are thicker and that there won’t be many more out there later, plus I can sort something out to stop them getting on the shed but it’s beginning to look like stalag 19 which is something I didn’t want.
I unpacked the seed potatoes and put them in a tray underneath the potting bench in the greenhouse, they need a bit of dark and that is a great place to put them, it’s dry and out of the daylight. They will spend a couple of weeks chitting before they are ready to plant. I need to identify exactly where the garlic needs to be planted but there is no great rush to do it today so I came in for lunch and to put this evening dinner in the slow cooker.
One of the reasons I want to keep the hens in their paddock is because I want to plant these bare root shrubs and I know from experience that they easily undo all the hard work once they smell some freshly dug earth. I planted a few plants last year along the fence line and only one or two have survived their constant scratching about.
In the afternoon Sam came over and we popped into town and then round to see Shelley for a quick cuppa.
On the afternoon rounds I found only five hens in the garden so that’s a start at least I have reduced it from fifteen 😀 Never one to be deterred I went and got some scissors and caught up the five as they tried to get some grain and clipped their wings. This doesn’t hurt them it’s like trimming your fingernails, you take the first six or so flight feathers on just one wing and cut them back by about 3 inches. It may stop them it may not but it’s another go at trying to deter them. The upside was that there were no hens in the orchard at all, until I went in there that is and they all tried to get through the bars in the metal gate, I found a piece of wire and fixed it over the top half of the gate, the bottom was already covered. Winning, still winning 🙄
When I went out to shut everything away there were no chickens in the garden whoop, I won’t hold my breath but it’s a start. This is of course the demented batch and they were all still out in the paddock even though it’s dark, we have managed to train them to follow us to the hut. They are fed in the morning then I put the food up out of the way so that when I go in at night and put it back down for them they all coming running in, simples.
Friday: It’s 5pm and I am plum tuckered, I was up early, couldn’t sleep so I got up and got on with stuff. Shelley dropped Josh off about 9am and he helped me with his favourite jobs, feeding Jack and Biscuit and then the Rabbits/guineas, we did some drawing and writing and Shelley came back around lunchtime with Flo, Sam arrived with Mia and the twins. We watched an old DVD of me when I used to do pantomime which was entertaining lol then Shelley, Josh and Flo went home. Sam offered to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting, I stayed indoors with Mia and George and Lucie who were asleep, George woke up and was crying for his bottle which I started to give him, Mia went to the toilet and was shouting ‘Nana I’ve done a poo’ I put George down to go and help her, he is screaming then the phone starts ringing Oh my days, all or nothing lol, eventually all was sorted, but now I’m tired 😜
Saturday: Up and getting on with the jobs this morning as I have a different to usual day ahead, I have the twiglets for the day and overnight 😝 wish me luck lol.
Sunday: Just over 24 hrs of twiglet sitting and it’s been pretty good, they are very much on cue with their feeding and sleeping habits so we all know what’s happening and when lol. John has been on farm duties while I am on baby duties.
The weather is vile today so I’m rather glad I’m not out there 😂
I have my Nieces baby shower to go to this afternoon once the children have been picked up so it’s early feeding and egg collection which John will be doing 😝 🌧
frieslandfarm (flowers) 