Monday 9th March 2020: Well it’s me on me tod this morning and it’s been an interesting start to the day. Firstly, the horse was out, how come it happens on my shift? This time of the year the grass is growing but not very fast and to be honest there is not a lot of foraging left in the paddock they are the in so I have opened up the side paddock for them as well although by lunchtime they still hadn’t noticed 😂 The second event was the helimed trying to land, it came low over our place and our neighbours twice, at this point I had not let the chickens out so I waited to see where they wanted to go, they landed further up the lane. I messaged my neighbour to make sure she was alright and nothing had happened at her place, I later found out it was an elderly lady just up the lane and I hope she is alright.
Excitements over I finished the morning rounds and then did a bit of pottering round the place, a few barrowfulls of compost on the veg beds, moving the branches from the pruned apple tree, nothing much but a little bit here and there. At lunchtime someone came to get duck eggs, these I have been saving for them to hatch out as part of child minding activities fingers crossed they are viable.
Sam came over in the afternoon with the children, we talked about the corona virus situation as it’s on everybody’s mind (makes a change from the weather) I think it’s prudent to have at least some idea of the measures you would take if the situation gets worse, though of course we can’t make definite plans as no one really knows how this will pan out.
I made bread in the afternoon, turned out really well, not the usual bread flour I buy nor the usual yeast as none of that was available at the shop but a happy discovery of a better product 😀
Tuesday: A quiet morning rounds this morning, the rain was hard in the night knocking off the electric 🙄 but a flick of a switch and it was back on. The wind is strong this morning hopefully that will dry up some of the ground and we are forecast a sunny afternoon so I will wait with anticipation to see if that is the case.
The Coronavirus situation is worsening daily especially in Italy which is virtually locked down, is this nature’s way of getting its house in order I wonder sometimes 🤔 We can only watch and wait to see what happens, ‘keep calm and carry on’ is an English mantra we are used to guess it’s time to practice it 😀 Naturally I am worried as I am on immunosuppressive medication, I wonder if I stopped taking it, if I got the virus, it would kick it into touch, does it work like that? I have no idea, I guess I would find out if I do get infected 😏
In light of the situation and the fact I have plenty of room to grow food, I will be growing as much as possible this year, I think it’s prudent to do so. The ground is still too wet to be sowing directly into so module sowing is the way forward for me this year.
Tuesday: A morning where the weather can’t quite make up its mind, it’s mild so that’s a good start, sometimes sunshine, sometime spits of rain a little wind every now and again a mixed bag it’s fair to say. I did the morning rounds topping up the goose hut with new straw, then onto the rest of the feeding and I found our very first turkey egg (well chuffed). After that it was into the greenhouse to sow a few seeds and generally have a look how things are progressing in there (doing well) onto watering the garlic and then have a look at the potatoes in their sacks and we have greenery appearing already so I gave them some water. I wanted to get a particular area weeded so I tried hoeing but it’s too wet still so I hand weeded a couple of other small areas, I really want to stay on top of it so that there is not all to do at once. I also checked the tortoises as I would have expected movement from them by now, I tentatively had a looked and I am pleased to say that a foot moved so that’s a good sign, they are still alive at least. I am waiting for this elusive sun to move them outside and also the quail, they have been in the back all winter and I just need it to warm up a little before putting them back outside in the fresh air.
Wednesday: I seem to have lost a day lol no idea what I did today 😜
Thursday: I am so sick of this weather now, this morning was vile, yesterday the ground was beginning to show good signs of drying out and then in the evening the rain started and didn’t stop all night. This morning it’s raining and blowing a hoolie, vile and I am delaying going out to do the morning rounds.
An hour later and the sun was shinning although the wind is still blowing and it’s a cold wind, come on already we just want some warmer, drier days, it’s been a very long few months.
The turkey laid again today 😀 can’t wait to put them out for sale and see who is willing to try them, I need to eat one first just so I can say what they taste like. I’m not expecting them to be much different to a chicken egg to be honest but people do ask so best to be prepared with an answer.
Apart from the usual I have been watching the news bulletins and as I write this an emergency Cobra meeting is taking place to decide the next steps and measures. Today the USA has banned flights from Europe which has caused uproar but I’m of the opinion that they may be right to do so, I can’t understand the seemly lax attitude here to travellers arriving from affected areas 🤷♀️ Ireland has now moved to closing schools and colleges and banning large gatherings, I’m guessing we may be following suit fairly soon.
Friday: A glorious start to the day, warm enough to venture to the egg shed in just a long sleeved t-shirt but it hasn’t lasted and the sun has now gone in lol. Morning rounds done and dusted, eggs sorted, it was time to go and get my bloods checked 🙄. I think I can safely say that the nervousness is palpable especially in a doctors waiting room, interestingly, I have more than the usual bloods today, checking thyroid levels and blood pressure plus questions, a more overall look at my health I would say.
I make no apologies for continuing to write about the situation the world has found itself in, this after all is a diary blog and at the moment it is a very big part of life. Although we are not at the self isolate stage we are practising social distancing that means we will not be putting ourselves in a position of being with people more than is very necessary. A play I was due to see next week has sensibly been cancelled and we will avoid any social gatherings, we were due to go on a cruise in June, that will now be cancelled. To me this is not over reaction it is sensible precaution and I don’t understand why a lot of people are just not getting the potential of the seriousness of this pandemic 🤷♀️ We are apparently 4 weeks behind Italy and they are in a dire situation, life is not as we know it and we need to adjust our thinking. One thing I have found out about myself is that I am much more in the self sufficient group than the smallholder group, I realise they are two different things with some overlap but definitely different. Self sufficiency is just that, it’s about relying on your own efforts to maintain a living/life, it’s about having the skills to do what needs to be done and not relying on others to do it for you, paid or otherwise and fundamentally it’s about having an attitude of self preservation. With all that in mind I have ordered a large first aid kit the reason is that when this epidemic is at its height the NHS will be stretched to the maximum and beyond so it is prudent to have to hand a kit that will cover any emergency until help arrives or basics so that a trip to the doctors is not necessary immediately. I like being self sufficient/reliant I think it’s good for the soul to know you can manage if TSHTF 😜
Well it definitely feels more spring like out there today thank goodness. I did some pottering in the greenhouse, a bit of watering and turning, I also have some hardy fushia plug plants arrive that I have potted up. Fifteen of them lol, I won’t be keeping all of them some will be sold on but that will pay for the ones I keep. I am really pleased with how well the greenhouse is performing it’s made such a difference to getting things successfully started, I have high hopes this year, now if I can just stop everything eating it I will be very happy.
Saturday: If I open the top of my stable door in the kitchen, as I often do, and look out to the garden and paddocks, it seems like any ordinary day, like hundreds before, except it’s not and we are in unchartered territory. There are countries going into lockdown and panic buying in the shops 🙄 We went yesterday to get some bits (cat milk because he doesn’t know there is a problem and still yowls for his milk) and some of the shelves were just ransacked, not all there is still plenty of fresh fruit and veg but canned goods were sparse in some sections, there are no ibrufen or paracetamol to be had, no sanitiser or antibacterial goods, there were toilet rolls but only a few packs, still no bread flour or any flour for that matter. I’ve e no doubt the shop will have restocked by now but it’s flying out as fast as it comes in!
My Mum and Ken went to Spain for three months after Christmas, they were due to start driving home on the 30th March, it looks like they will be staying longer than planned. It’s a worry because we can’t get to them if they become ill but they have managed to get a few provisions and we will see how this pans out, it’s all we can do, I know she reads this blog so lots and lots of love to you Mum and stay well 😘😘
Meanwhile on the farm John and I have been working and if you don’t have the radio or tv on you would be forgiven for not having a clue as to the events unfolding. John went to get a new blade for his saw so that if he is off for any length of time he can cut up wood 😂 He also picked up dog and cat food to keep us going. When he came back he power washed the side pathway this is because as I was going out to the egg shed I slipped and fell with a thud. The path is east facing and in the winter doesn’t dry out much and so algae builds up and makes it slippery, I think I will ache tonight but luckily I didn’t break anything.
After that we spent a good couple of hours mending the roof on the outdoor tortoise house. I heard a shuffling in the greenhouse this morning and Big Billy has woken up proper and was trying to get out of the cage. I got him some water and some bits of aloe Vera in case he was hungry and then thought I need to fix the roof, so that’s what we did, and a pretty good job we did of it even if I do say so myself 😀 John then carried on cutting up wood while I lit the Rayburn and got some lunch. Charlie and Macca called in for a coffee and some eggs.
We were expecting patchy rain today but we are into early evening and no sign of it so we had a good run of getting some things done. The ground is beginning to dry out faster than it was before bough it is still soggy.
Sunday: It’s raining heavily this morning and so not a very nice morning at all, to be honest the weather is now the least of our worries 😏 John did the morning rounds while I did the indoor bits, we lit the Rayburn early and we are not planning on doing much today except visit Florence for cake later as it’s her 2nd birthday today 😀
I’m feeling rather vindicated this morning, if you have been reading my blogs for a long time you will have read about my thoughts on an ‘apocalypse’ 🙄 at times I thought maybe I was a bit batty going on about preparing for a ‘situation’ such as this but it seemed obvious to me that something would happen eventually. This situation is a virus but potentially it could have been war or a terrorist attack on the ‘grid’ both of which would have been much worse as far as human nature goes, at the moment it’s toilets rolls, hand sanitiser and ibrufen people are fighting over 🤔
Stay well people, I have a feeling that we will all be seeing a lot less of each other for a while, I am certainly minimising my contact with the outside world from here on in, I am in the lucky position to be able to do that and I have plenty to occupy my time so it will pretty much be business as usual for me 😝
frieslandfarm (flowers) 