July 2020 – frieslandfarm (flowers)

A trip down memory lane, the twins 1st birthdays and the phone line saga continues 🤬

Posted on July 26, 2020July 27, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th July 2020: John is working again this week, I am not sure when he will next have any time off now things seem to be getting back to normalish. Before he went he did the morning feeding and letting out, I did the horses water and found some greens for the guineas, quail and light Sussex. I had a little wander around the fields, no point having land if you don’t wander aimlessly round it now and again. I had a good look at the hedgerow, at the minute there are plenty of blackberries but if the horses get to them later in the year I will have to find another source. I did a little bit in the garden, some watering and I picked three good sized cucumbers. I then went down to the very front of the driveway on the lane, I needed to cut back some dog rose and over hanging tree branches that make it difficult to turn out as you can’t see traffic coming up the lane clearly and they do tend to go fast even though we have a new 30 mile an hour speed limit 🙄 After that it was indoors to make some bread and some biscuits although I made a bit of a mistake. I was reading one recipe and decided to follow another but put the amount of butter from the first into the recipe I was doing if that makes sense. I thought it seemed a bit short and my fear was that they would spread and be crumbly but as it happened they were fine, I’d say they were more like small cakes than biscuits but they taste great which is the main thing.

I also ordered a new kettle, if you go back in my blog about five years, maybe even six, you will read about my lovely new kettle. I had done some research because I was sick of buying £20 kettles that leaked everywhere within the year so I had splashed out and paid £100 for a decent one 😯 One that I hoped would last five years and so cost the same in real terms, well it has, did I should say, it still doesn’t leak water from the spout but the lid has broken and is unfixabke so I have ordered a new one. The only difference is that it is a different colour (black) as the new colours are about £30 more expensive and I’m not paying that just for a trendy colour 😂 I have gone for exactly the same model as it is a beautiful ergonomic design that is easy on the eye, can you tell how much I love it yet 😜 Of course at this point you will want to know which kettle, it’s a Delonghi and it’s the scultura model. I would have purchased a matching toaster but we don’t really need a new one of those so I will wait until we do 😀

Tuesday: Another sunny day ahead which is lovely if a little restricting for me. I do miss not being able to be in the sun for any length of time, quite often if I feel cold I will go and stand out in it to warm up not for too long though 😜 I would love to be able to go for a walk in the sunshine especially on days like today where it’s not unbearably hot just pleasant. In order to do that I would need to cover every part of me with some clothing and a hat, sunscreen is not enough to stop the rays causing havoc!

John did the morning rounds and I watered the tunnels and the greenhouse, I watered the pots out in the driveway and checked over the plants in the gravelled area out the front. The wood chip I nicely swept and tided last week has been scattered everywhere by some hens that have decided to escape every day 🙄 I’m trying not to let it bother me 🤪 John told me this morning that the duck I had noticed was missing (though I didn’t think the fox had got it) was sitting on a nest under the hedge at the side 😀😀😀 yay this makes me very happy indeed, in all the years I have kept ducks I have never had one sit on a nest and hatch ducklings successfully, fingers crossed it happens this time, I will be cock a hoop even though we don’t need any more ducks lol.

Up to lunchtime I haven’t really done much except pottering, I am still feeling tired 🤷‍♀️ but I’m not worried as there are times when I’m not, it’s hopefully a passing phase. I have plenty of phases during and after a flare especially when I go on to new meds, it’s always a delight figuring out what’s what 😜

John came home early which was nice, after spending weeks and weeks with someone here most of the time I think I have found it difficult being back on my own for most of the day everyday. After doing the afternoon feeding and egg collection we popped to town quickly to pick up my prescription and early evening we went to Sam and Luke’s to water the garden while they are on holiday.

So the medicine wheel thing is getting interesting 🤔 today the discussion was about Karma/rules and self concept. It’s all about how you see yourself and the boundaries you perceive to be there, either put there by you or your interpretation of what others have put there for you and more importantly exploring them and either mentally moving/changing them or accepting them, deep I know lol, but quite liberating actually 😀 It rather blew my mind to realise that I had created boundaries for myself over the years and just by thinking about them thoroughly I can change them 🙄

Wednesday: Another lovely day ahead, John did the morning rounds and then went off to work. I did some picking this morning, the French beans are beginning to produce good quantities now, I picked about 1/2kg of those, a couple of cucumbers, a few courgettes and some toms to ripen on the windowsill.

I went out for coffee this morning with Shelley, the kids and my Mum also met us there. It was in the village I grew up in and afterwards we had a walk around the recreation area which was a great playground for us as youngsters as it had a small stream running alongside, we spent hours down there catching minnows, bullheads and crayfish. Sadly these days there is not much sign of any life in it 😏

When I got back my brother phoned as he had acquired a plant and some seed heads from a lady where he was working. Salsify, a Victorian vegetable which is rarely used these days, it tastes like oysters apparently and is also known as the oyster plant. He was passing and so dropped off some seeds for me 😀 I will definitely have a go at growing these, they were a very useful winter crop when not much else was available. They belong to the dandelion family which is very evident from the seeds, so they should be great for wildlife as well.

I was reminded that although my veg seems to be really slow this year (which frankly has been depressing me) the wildlife has come on in leaps and bounds 😀 I am determined to be grateful for that at least 🥰

Luckily my appetite seems to have returned 😀 😅 I’m not sure where it went or why but it’s back again which is great because I can start looking through recipes with some degree of interest.

Thursday: I’m having a quick coffee break and a sit down, it’s 10.30 and I have been busy since 6.30 this morning. Firstly sorting and putting out plants for sale, I had a bit of a lull because during the lockdown I sold everything I had almost and so had to wait for things to come on again 🙄 After doing a few other bits outside it was indoors to do some cleaning, oh joy, but it did need doing, I am doing half today and half tomorrow to break up the monotony 😂 Going through the place I keep thinking I must get rid of stuff we don’t use anymore as it’s taking up space. I have a cupboard full of cushions and blankets that have accumulated over time, sometimes I use them outside for the children but I also have a load more in the airing cupboard 🤪 pretty sure I don’t need that many do I? One thing I put up for collection were some magazines to do with gardening and smallholding, the lady that wanted them turns out to have moved in nearby and is collecting them later, it will be nice to meet someone likeminded 😀

The telephone line saga continues and I now know who’s number we have, the cottage up the road! A service engineer called to confirm his appointment this afternoon, he thought I was the person from the other property, I explained the whole situation to him and he is also coming here later to see if he can help sort the whole mess out. Basically he says that someone has switched the wrong lines, I do hope he can help us because at the moment they have no phone line and we have theirs😏

It’s the twins 1st birthday today 🥰🥰 where did that year go! They are developing their little characters, both entirely different, Lucie is the happiest baby I have ever come across and George just wants crawl, walk, run, climb and is very cheeky lol.

All the grandchildren are growing fast, this summer was going to be the summer before the two oldest start school and so we were going to have plenty of farm time fun but the virus got in the way 😏 Never mind we still have a bit of time left.

I heard somewhere that it takes 10,000 hours to master something and so become a master in that field so to speak, if you do three hours a day it would still take you nine years to ‘master’ whatever it is. From this I realise that I am a master of many things 😀 Definitely a master gardener, It probably only took me three years to get that far, I am a master parent having spent at least sixteen years 24/7 parenting 😂 I am a master housekeeper, in fact I must be, along with many others, a supreme master at that having spent the last 37 years doing it! There are so many things that we spend almost a lifetime doing and so become masters, they may seem like trivial topics but let’s face it some people fail miserably at them so take your credit where it’s due 😘

The phone line saga: So the engineer came out, he was brilliant and went above and beyond the call of duty but he still couldn’t sort it for us although the two of us spent another two hours on the phone to BT. The upshot is that the cottage had their line de activated at the beginning of lockdown because it is a holiday let 🙄 then they re activated it, meanwhile we received a letter 9 days late due to the Swindon depot being closed due to coronavirus, consequently they had already sent out open reach to do whatever it is they do to the line BUT somehow they switched the cottage number to our line and disconnected ours, are you keeping up? The anomaly in this is why did BT think our line was theirs, no idea! They also sent the letter out addressed to us but have the owners name on file for the service call, you think someone would have noticed the difference, clearly not😏 So as it stands we have to wait until their fault is cleared that means their number connected to them and then we will be completely disconnected and have to apply for a new line, beggars belief doesn’t it, but it’s still not guaranteed that we will get our old number back because they are ‘Pooled’ for two weeks then reused 😯 WTAF! None of this is in anyway our fault but we are paying for other people’s decisions and incompetencies, not happy. Nor apparently is the chap in the holiday let as he was complaining that he was supposed to be working online and can’t, so I guess the owners will get grief from him, not that I am in any way sympathetic after all we have been jumping through hoops for the last two and a half weeks with no sign of it getting resolved very soon. All I am waiting for now is for someone to try and charge us for the other line then I will be f…ing fuming and the wrath will be unleashed 🤬

On a more gentle and country living note 😜 we saw a baby hedgehog tonight, about the size of a tennis ball, so not only do we have at least three adults we have babies as well, how good is that 😀 we are a hedgehog breeding ground 🥰

Friday: Up early to get things sorted, John did the rounds and I started on some cleaning. Sue is visiting today which will be the first time we have been able to see each other since Dad died. I had planned yesterday afternoon to go to the local Smokery and get some smoked chicken for dinner but BT put paid to that so thanks again, not that I am becoming bitter or anything 😜 The weather is not bad, I don’t think it will be hot today, it’s warm but overcast at the minute.

Saturday: Short and sweet report today as you can imagine I have been busy being sociable 😀 We had a very decent downpour or two today, a bit of thunder thrown in for good measure. All good for the veg garden.

Sunday: Out for breakfast this morning with Sue and then a visit to see the twins in the afternoon meant that apart from the essentials nothing else got done around the place. Although John and I did agree on a plan to re develop the front area once we have altered to access point to the yard behind the house which we are moving from one side to the other, I will take before and after photos this time 😀

Friesland Farm

A pick ‘n’ mix of a week 😜

Posted on July 13, 2020July 19, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th July 2020: It was a sunny start though the sun seems to have disappeared behind clouds now which is great for me. I did a bit of picking first thing this morning, rhubarb, dwarf beans, courgettes, a marrow, beetroot, salad turnips, French breakfast radish and white globe radish plus a few blueberries and raspberries. The little birds are still getting into the fruit cage though I can’t see where they are managing to get in, i did think that the raspberries were not producing very much, they are being eaten before I even get out of bed!

It’s ‘Bees need’ week this week and there are five simple things you can do to help the plight of our most important creatures. Grow more flowers (the open type, not multiple petals as they can’t reach the nectar) Leave some wild areas, weeds are not favoured by humans but the bees love them and we need the bees to survive otherwise we won’t 🙄 Don’t cut the grass so often, I know it looks a bit unsightly but we managed without hairdressers and barbers for a while and it didn’t hurt did it 😜 Don’t disturb nests and hibernation places, if you find a bees nest just leave it, they won’t bother you if you don’t bother them, of course I am not talking about a swarm, that does need sorting but on the whole solitary bees will move on once the young have hatched. Don’t use pesticides, this in my opinion is the biggest problem for insects, nurture nature to get a good balance in your garden instead of resorting to pesticide. Those are the main five things but there are other things you can do to help when it’s really hot, leave a dish of topped up water for insects to find and quench their thirst. When it’s turning cold provide areas for them to overwinter, bug houses are all the rage but areas that have not been tidied are just as good, resist the temptation to tidy and leave it until spring 😀

This morning I have been doing a bit of this and a bit of that in the garden. I planted up the pak Choi and the chicory into the polytunnel for the colder months and I sowed a new bed of mixed lettuce leaves which will be quick growing. The bed I pulled all the carrots from has now got a layer of mushroom compost on it to condition the soil and I have sown some lambs lettuce and winter purslane (I think) in the bed that the radish were in. The bulb fennel seeds I sowed in there failed to materialise 🙄 After that it was onto re potting some plants I bought at the weekend, ornamental grasses. The area in the front that I cast lots of wildflower seeds onto has not really done much, I have some things in pots but I think the seeds and small plants I put there have been eaten by earwigs or woodlouse as it has a layer of wood chip covering, ideal for pests to live in 😜 So I bought some grasses and will put them in pots over there the idea being that they set seed and do the job for me, I can’t dig into the ground as it was an area used to put types of aggregate and now is a solid bed of stones.

Update: something is eating the pak Choi and something has dug up a couple of the chicory plants, why do I bother lol

I was looking forward to lunchtime because today is the day I get to eat the first couple of ripe tomatoes in a cheese sandwich, that is always a day to look forward to 😀 as I always say grow/find yourself some home grown toms they taste a hundred times better than shop bought ones especially if they are freshly picked after being warmed by the sun ☀️

I’m not sure what’s on the agenda for the afternoon yet, I seem to run out of steam after lunch, definitely not got the ooomph I had when I was on the steroids 😏

I got this evenings dinner on the go, I like to do it either first thing or at least by lunchtime otherwise I feel disinclined to sort anything at the actual time. I don’t know how people come in from work and decide what to have, we would end up with something on toast every night 😜 Tonight’s dinner is lamb shank (just one is enough for the two of us) cooked in the slow cooker with veg from the garden, broad beans, dwarf beans, turnips, potatoes, peas, garlic I grew and is now stored and rosemary from the garden, along with some lamb stock from the freezer. The lamb is from a local smallholder so it’s entirely a smallholder meal 😀 For pudding (or dessert if you are posh) we have mixed fruit crumble, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants and rhubarb, all from the garden, as I have said before, we eat like kings here 👑

John has gone to work today which enables me to get on a bit I think, I am certainly more organised when he is not here, I think it’s the fact that I can’t entirely get on with what I want to do as there is usually something to be discussed or looked at and he is inclined to come in for lunch and turn the tv on to watch the news so I sit down and watch it too, something I don’t do when I am here by myself (except in the winter months)

John has been in the wars at work today, a piece of tile he was chopping off the wall flew and caught his middle finger between the knuckle and the hand. He came home with a couple of bloody plasters on it. He went off to do the egg collecting and came back in swearing, he saw a rat in the duck pen, picked up an iron bar to whack it, missed and blood starting pouring out of his finger again, he says pouring I say dribbling. He is quite dramatic in his descriptions ‘ I had a bad accident at work today’ seriously, you cut your finger, ‘it’s really deep’ can’t be that deep or your finger would be hanging off! You can see I’m not the sympathetic type 😜 so when I had to clean it up and re dress it and he is hanging onto the sink saying ‘I feel sick and dizzy’ my answer is ‘strap a pair on will you’ 🤪 I don’t really understand those who feel sick and dizzy at the slightest cut, I am of a mind to think it’s all in the head but maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s a real thing that I have just never experienced being made of sterner stuff 😀

Tuesday: Today is a long awaited day, I get a hair cut 😂 not that I am one who regularly has a hair cut just when it gets on my nerves which it is doing at the minute. Two reasons, one it has got a bit long and is annoying when it’s wrapping itself round my neck when I’m sleeping 🙄 and two it is falling out, probably due to the new meds but I think a good cut will help a bit, I’m hoping anyway 🤞

John is working again today, this will probably be the norm now, mostly working with the odd day off here and there, even though he wants to spend more time at home, the phone keeps ringing, well his mobile anyway as the house phone you know about already! I have slung the Hoover round and done a bit of wiping over and topped and tailed the gooseberries I picked the other day ready for the freezer. Topping and tailing is pretty time consuming luckily it’s only gooseberries that need it, blackcurrants don’t really as the ‘bit’ is the remainder of the flower and so perfectly fine to eat, saves a lot of time. I feel tired today and lethargic, I am wondering what to do next and then wondering if I can be bothered 😕

A new law comes into effect next week and we will have to wear face masks in shops, some people already do but I never have, the choice is wear a mask or don’t go shopping 😜 hmmm I think I prefer the latter.

Shelley and the children came over and we dug some potatoes for their dinner later, picked some peas and ate them from the pod 😀 I love to teach the children about where food actually comes from. Josh and I had an interesting conversation about flies eyes and how they have 360o vision, I managed to get him off the subject of superheroes for a minute or two 😜

Wednesday: An overcast but pleasant enough day, some very slight drizzle first thing that soon went. First thing I did was water the greenhouse and feed the torts, then move the grasses I re potted to their position out in the front area. I decided to give the whole area a bit of a tidy up, weeding, sweeping, dead heading cutting back and mowing the grass in the driveway, it’s looking a lot better now. At times I feel overwhelmed by the weeds and amount of tidying it will take to get it looking immaculate, then I remind myself that it’s good for the wildlife and I shouldn’t be too tidy 🙄 It’s been a difficult transition that has taken years to let go, in our old place I opened the garden once a year so everything was immaculate all the time but that is exhausting as well as time consuming. Part of me likes a tidy well turned out garden but another part of me loves the overgrown look, if I could achieve a combination of the two that would be a great result, I will keep working on it 😜 A Gardeners’ work is always a life time road I think, it changes direction sometimes but it is a constant motion when it’s in the blood I reckon 🙂

I have just discovered the medicine wheel, literally just discovered it last night when I joined a balanced life group. I am curious to see how this can help with life and felt drawn to it for some reason so am following. I have talked before about how I see life, in circles, the minute, the hour, the day, the year, after some discussion and thought, the month is not seen the same but as part of a circle that forms the year. Apparently lots of people see these in linear form, so stretching ahead of you, have you ever thought about it? And if you have after reading this, which one are you? If you are a circle person you are much more in touch with your life balance than you think but you can have blockages which is where the medicine wheel comes in, I am looking forward to the discovery of any blockage I have and as a bonus it’s always good to learn something new 😀

In the afternoon the girls came over with the kiddies and we went for a walk up the local lane. I like to keep an eye on a couple of apple trees and a plum tree along there, we have had some very tasty fruit from those trees and they are loaded again this year I am glad to see. We had a few incidents, Josh turned the hose on and got Flo all wet, then on the walk Florence walked into a blackberry runner so had scratches all over her face, when we got back Mia turned the hose on and got Josh wet (that’s Karma we all explained to him 🤪) the only difference was that whereas Josh readily apologised to Flo, Mia has enormous difficulty saying sorry. It ends up with her having a total meltdown, by this time the twins are crying as well, poor Sam, Mia still won’t apologise no matter how much you try and coax her or tell her and then she melts down further because Shelley, Josh and Flo are going to feed the chickens but she is not allowed because she won’t say sorry. The horse pesters Shelley (she doesn’t like horses) so she feeds the hens but abandons the egg collection, Mia goes with Josh, Flo and Shelley to do the front hens, Sam goes to pick the eggs up where shelley couldn’t and the geese arrive and harass Samantha, eventually all situations are resolved but it’s pure carnage when it’s going on 😂 When they have all gone it’s time for a quiet cuppa before I start again.

We all commented on how cold it was for the time of year, it really is very noticeable especially if there is a breeze, it’s going to jump up 6 degrees tomorrow that is quite a difference from one day to the next.

We went to the supermarket this evening and although we have not worn masks before we thought now would be a good time to get used to doing it. I can tell you my future trips will be as little as possible, my glasses kept steaming up so I couldn’t see anything, resulted in keep moving them from my face to my head and that involves touching 🙄 I felt more at ease when I wasn’t wearing one, I may see if there are any delivery slots available yet 😏

Thursday: I did a bit of picking this morning, the usual culprits lol but it does look like I may have found where the little birds get in the fruit cage because I blocked up a hole and this morning I have quite a few raspberries 😀 After doing the picking I cut the lawn but I confess I am a bit tired today, I need to remember that though I have come out the other side of a flare and I am on meds, I still have lupus and I still get tired. So today I a, winky going to rest and hopefully build up some reserve energy for tomorrow. I bought a gardening magazine yesterday so I will read it at my leisure I think 😀

Remember the cuttings I took back in May, well I can report that most of them didn’t take 🤪 but some did 😀 I think I had eight pots of four cuttings and I have ended up with six plants 🙄 still, six free plants is better than none, a couple of them I am really chuffed about, a clematis and a climbing rose 😀 the others are a sage, a japonica, elderflower (nigra). The dahlias I took cuttings from took really easily and I now have four in a pot out the front so hopefully they will flower and I would definitely do those again but some of the other stuff I think is easier to grow from seed/root/dividing, still it was good to give it a go and I had some measure of success.

Friday: A beautiful summer morning, just how summer should be, a fresh but sunny start with the promise of more warmth as the day progresses but not so hot that you can’t function properly 🤣 I started with watering the pots out the front then onto the poly tunnels so that they can cope with any heat, the greenhouse and the pots on the decking and in the cold frames, in fact anything that is in a pot got a watering. I picked a few raspberries and blueberries and there are still a few strawberries to be had, a handful of tomatoes were ready as well. I did pick a coup,e of cucumbers a while back and the rest are still too small to pick but there are plenty of them. I had a good look round and although everything seems slow it is producing, just not in vast quantities, I’m not sure why but others have said the same this year, in contrast I see others who have said it’s a bumper year, I guess it just depends on where you are. I sat with a coffee and watched all the wildlife, goldfinches, blackbirds (pinching the choke berries) a wren that had got herself into the greenhouse and then couldn’t find the bloody great doorway to get back out 😂 I have noticed an increase in butterflies and I aim to get some photos at some point, I still think the smaller insects are a bit thin on the ground which is a worry, normally I would see hoverflies, dragonflies, lacewings etc but they seem to be absent, maybe now the sun is here they will come out to play.

I am feeling less tired today thankfully, I’m not sure what it was, could be anything from air pressure to the Lupus, who knows but today I feel as though I can get on which is great.

Saturday: I spent most of the morning picking, watering and cutting back. I picked all the peas/mangetout I could find and then gave the plants a good cut back. You can still sow seeds at this time of year so I thought as the plants are already growing I might as well just cut the existing ones back and see what’s happens. I have done it with the broad beans and they are flowering again already, hopefully I will get a second crop. I don’t sell peas in the shed, the reason being we use a lot of them, they are labour intensive mind you and you end up with much more empty pod than peas but worth the bother I think. You can make pea pod wine apparently but I have never tried. I picked about 1/2 kg of dwarf French beans, some out for sale and some in the freezer, the more you pick beans and peas the more the plant will produce, once you stop picking they will stop producing so it’s best to keep taking them off. I also,picked courgettes, tomatoes, radish, cucumber, peppers, quite a haul this morning. A bit of watering to keep everything going and then into the kitchen to process it all.

Sunday: A rainy start so I needn’t have done any watering yesterday 😂 We got the usual jobs done and then went out for breakfast, on the way back we popped in to see Mum and Ken and when we got home Charlie and Macca were here so we sat and had coffee with them. We sat down for a while and then my mobile rang and it was BT complaints dept about the complaint I made last Sunday after getting nowhere. I then spent two and a half hours more on the phone going form dept to dept, the upshot is we have been ‘slammed’ I think that is their term for massive cock up. Basically they disconnected the wrong line and now we are having to spend hours trying to get it reinstated, I reordered it once but that order has been cancelled because they have the line under the wrong address and the other person cancelled the order. I have been from the complaints dept to the faults dept to the ‘I have no idea’ dept and finally to the order dept explaining I have been through all this already and won’t it just happen again, they assured me it won’t, I somehow don’t believe them 🙄 Watch this space………

Consequently we have not done much else today except that John spent half an hour digging up ragwort from the paddocks before it goes to seed. He did start some chainsaw work this morning but the chain snapped, luckily it stayed on the blade otherwise it could have been a day spent at the hospital instead!

Have a good week and as always, stay safe x x

Friesland Farm

Hedgehogs…plural 😀😀 gremlins & the weather 😜

Posted on July 13, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 6th July 2020: Oh my days where is the year going 😏 July already and the world is still in the grips of the pandemic. The UK has eased lockdown measures and at the weekend pubs opened their doors for the first time in over three months. We did not rush out to go lol, nor have we rushed to the shopping centres or anywhere else really, a good coffee somewhere nice is treat enough for me 🤪

First thing this morning I watered the poly tunnels and greenhouse, the garden could do with a water but rain is forecast Thursday and I will see how damp the ground is in the morning before I decide if it needs it before then or not. Meanwhile the task of the day was mostly cleaning, dusting, hoovering, polishing and putting things away, the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen all had a going over and at least I don’t have to think about that for the rest of the week. I also made a loaf of bread and an orange and sultana cake, got dinner organised and prepped and made a rice pudding with some milk that needed using up. That took me through to about 2.30, John went to work today but was coming home at 3 so I finished just in time. A quick cuppa and then when John came home we did the eggs.

I had noticed a damp patch on the wall between the spare room and the office and it was getting worse so I got John to have a look at it. This resulted in smashing holes in both walls to find a joint on the heating pipe had been leaking and for a long time by the looks of it 🙄 The whole thing now has to dry out before it can be ‘made good’. While he was sorting that out I did a bit of weed pulling in the garden and cut back some plants that have got much too big and were falling over squashing other plants.

It’s quite cold today I think, the wind has toned down to a stiff breeze but it’s still there, funny weather for July lol.

Nice loaf 😀 you can make the crust softer by placing a clean tea towel over it when it has just come out of the oven, also, always place your cooling loaf on a wire rack otherwise the underside will sweat.

The rat poison we have been putting down is taking effect, I saw one that was obviously dying as flies were beginning to land on it even though it’s head was still moving. Unfortunately Johns gun won’t fire and needs looking at so we couldn’t put it out of its misery. When I went back out to look for it a little later it had gone but it’s definitely not going to last long.

I have spotted the first tomato that is almost ready to pick 😀 it’s beaten the runner beans as they are no where near ready yet 🙄 The ladybird larvae I bought seem to be doing their job although I can’t see any of them nor adult ladybirds but the aphid problem has gone 😀 so they must be there somewhere.

Oh and after abandoning the aubergine plants outside, because they became pest infested and didn’t look like they were going to do much, they actually have baby aubergines on there 😂 Preening and cosseting them is obviously not neeeded just abandon them and voila lol.

Tuesday: I did a bit out in the garden this morning, the weather was nice, overcast but warm enough. I dug up some self set potatoes and some carrots that were in small raised beds, I have now cleared and weeded them ready for something else to go in. I did a bit of hoeing to keep the weeds under control and watered the bean bed as the ground is quite dry. At 10.30 Shelley arrived with the kids and my Mum arrived as we had planned to go for a walk somewhere different. We found a lovely village not too far from us and a lovely riverside walk under the trees. By lunchtime though the weather had turned quite cold, for July it’s freezing lol, not actually freezing obviously but it’s pretty chilly. All that hot, hot weather we had back in spring seems to have disappeared for summer 🙄 We came home for a nice cuppa and a slice of cake and Sam and the kiddies were here so we all sat outside enjoying the cold 🤣

Very excited to tell you that we have not one, but three hedgehogs, all spotted on the same night as John was doing his rounds, in three different areas of the farm, one in the orchard, one near the hay barn and one in the front. Whoo hoo that means they will probably breed or are breeding, this is fabulous news for a declining population. John, who is not normally on board with the whole ecological side of things said, well we have a lot of weeds but it’s definitely worth it 😀 I think I may have converted him 😀😀😀

Wednesday: It has been raining overnight and is still raining this morning, that’s great because the ground was so dry again, the wind really takes the moisture out of the ground when it’s that blowy. It means I don’t have to water anything outside and it will hopefully give the veg and fruit a boost of growth (also the weeds of course 😏) I have been out and watered and fed the poly tunnels and I sowed some autumn cauliflower seeds, hopefully they will produce heads around November time. I don’t normally bother with winter veg but you never know what this pandemic is going to do and so I am preparing just in case.

As it’s wet I decided to give the boot room a bit of a clean up and then have a look in the freezers and sort those out. As I said before the thing about freezing small amounts at a time is that they add up to larger than you think amounts eventually. I was surprised to find that I had a couple of kgs of strawberries in there ready for jam, I had thought I didn’t have many. I also have quite a bit of fruit left from last year, mainly plums but also some blackcurrant so I will make a couple of batches of jam with those. I am just waiting for the jam sugar to arrive as it’s still not available in the shop, although I haven’t tried other shops to be honest so might just be the one I frequent 😜

The top fruit are looking great this year, no scab on the apples or pears and the plums are abundant in all the trees, the walnut tree is loaded and looks like a bumper crop if I can get there before the squirrel and even the cooking apple, that didn’t have anything last year after it’s trim, has some big, healthy looking apples on it., hence the need to clear out last years haul from the freezers lol.

I bought some gram flour which is chick pea flour, I bought it so I can make vegetable pakoras, I think they are great little snacks and an ideal way to get your veg intake up. They will freeze nicely and be ideal for gatherings (when we are finally allowed to have one).

I was supposed to go to the hospital for my consultant appointment today but it was changed to a telephone consultation so I had to wait all afternoon for that, the phone eventually rang about 3.30 and all appears well apart from the rash on my arms. I am using elocon ointment but have only started using it consistently for the last couple of days, if it doesn’t clear up I have to get an appointment with dermatology which apparently will be via video link somehow 🙄 how times have changed but it beats driving up to Oxford with all that traffic and if the system works efficiently enough I imagine they might continue with it.

Thursday: A quick whip round to do the necessary this morning and then a day spent with the grandchildren, Sam and Shelley at the local wildlife park. It was a great day and the only shower we encountered was when we sat down to eat our picnic lunch 😜

Friday: Today has been one of those uphill days 🙄 John was off and after we waited for a delivery to arrive we went out for a coffee and to have a look at a little project we were thinking of doing. The company whose goods we wanted to look at were no longer in the location they once were though their advertising still has that location lol. We eventually found them about 20 miles away and when we got there it was appointment only 😏 though they did give us some leaflets lol. Then on returning home I had a phone call, unusual on my mobile but apparently the house phone no longer works! Yesterday when I returned home I found a letter in the postbox that was dated 1st July informing us that another service provider was taking over our line and to call before 2pm (I got home at 3.30pm) We phoned BT and told them this was incorrect and that we hadn’t authorised this and they said that’s fine they would just cancel it, then today the phone doesn’t work 🤬 John phoned them (outgoing calls work fine) and spoke to someone she said it’s fine and that the change had been cancelled and that she didn’t know why our line won’t work and she will ring us back on the open line, it cut off and we still have no incoming call facility 😜 Then I had a new phone delivered and you know how that goes lol, I thought technology should get easier but no, not really, umpteen passwords and sign ins later and we are nearly set up. Then the tv box decided to pack up or at least unpair with the smart remote, wtf is going on today, gremlins everywhere!

I did do a bit of picking before we went out this morning, peas, mange tout, dwarf beans, a few tomatoes, a few blueberries and some gooseberries. I have left the gooseberries a bit too long and this morning I was in competition with plenty of wasps 🤪 Not only do I need to be careful of the thorns on the Bush but I also need to make sure I don’t grab hold of a jasper in the process, anyone else call them jaspers? I don’t know why we used to call them that or where the term comes from. One thing I have discovered is that wasps are useful after all, we saw one wrestling and winning with a fly, it gathered it up and flew off with it, so they eat flies, a winner in my book. Back to the gooseberries, I don’t want all of them just enough to put in the freezer for winter use, the wasps can have the rest along with the birds as there will be plenty of other fruit to use and I don’t want to be greedy lol.

I still can’t get hold of egg boxes that are not massively hiked in price, it’s disgusting they are three times the price I normally would pay for them. We have asked customers to bring any clean ones back so that we can re use them, we are not short of them at the moment but some of the wholesalers are saying no new stock until November. I might have to look at other ways to package eggs.

It’s still chilly for July, the Sun was doing it’s best to shine today but the breeze is cold, our weather is all over the place at the minute. We had the best weather during the main of the lockdown which was a good thing I suppose, can you imagine what it would have been like if it happened in the middle of winter, I imagine depression would have been at an all time high 🙄 Still, I would like it to warm up a tad, I don’t mind overcast, in fact I prefer it, but some warmth in the air would be most welcome. I was thinking it almost felt like an autumn morning this morning, I hope that doesn’t arrive too soon, this year has been a disaster as it is 😂

We bought one of those ‘ring’ doorbells for the front gate, it’s great, the picture is clear and I get a notification (tinkling noise) when motion is detected by the egg shed. I can see who is about without having to stop what I am doing as I can’t really see from the garden so constantly going out to the front when the dogs bark is a pain as usually they re barking at nothing. If anyone rings the bell I can talk to them from the house lol, I can talk to them even if they don’t ring the bell which might give them a bit of a fright 😜 If you were thinking of getting one I can highly recommend it.

Saturday: The weather is a bit more promising today and certainly slightly warmer 😀 I have been busy, 8500 steps worth of busy by 12 noon, cleaning out the guinea pig run. Total clean out, move the hutch and everything, then onto the quail hut, and then the other guinea hutch. We also moved the other hutch into the light Sussex pen, this is so that the guinea is more secure and we dont have to shut him up at night. The two guineas have now moved to the bigger run and the single guinea is in the hutch in the chicken pen. I don’t really want him to be on his own but introducing other boars is tricky and we dont want a female, so for the time being he is alone. John cleaned out the ducks and the geese and then went off to get a new Perspex roof panel for the guinea run as the wind broke it off awhile back, all in the dry again now. A quick rake over of the orchard ground and it’s all done.

A few views of the garden which is looking full at the moment 😀

Sunday: The weather is set to be fair again today although just like all week long the mornings are chilly, reminiscent of autumn if you ask me. We got the main routine done early on and the John started on cutting down one of the remaining conifers, this has been an ongoing job (a couple of years I think 🙄) the trees are huge with many multiple big branches so it has to be done a bit at a time. If we did it all at once there would be an awful lot to clear up, cut a bit, clear a bit is the best option. We are going to change the entry way to the yard, at the moment the driveway goes to the left and past our back door, it will go to the right of the building and straight to the back which will be a lot easier with less corners to negotiate for any vehicles. That’s the plan, how long it will take to implement is anyone’s guess lol.

I spent 2 hrs of my life on the phone to BT this evening, we couldn’t have any calls coming in, but could phone out, then suddenly the phone rang, it was BT checking the line, great I thought, it’s working again. I tried to call our number just to double check and nope still not working, so I called them and that’s where the trouble all began! It seems, and nobody can really explain why, that we have a different number now 🙄 plenty of discussion and being passed round and in the end we have had to order a new package as if we were transferring to a new property, not only that but we can’t have our old number back yet, unbelievable, especially when they wanted to charge for some things, luckily the ladies on the other end were fabulous and all the charges will be reimbursed, I should think so, none of this is our fault in any way what so ever. It means we are on a temporary number until the end of July and then a different number will be allocated and then after 24hrs I can ring and see if I can get our old number back, though there is no guarantee, we have had the same number for over 35 years, beggers belief. What I also can’t understand is how come it takes so long to sort it out, it didn’t take them long to cancel it 🤪 even though they were not authorised to do so! Technology, fabulous when it’s going right but when it’s not look out 😏

Because it is sunny and I still have a rash on my arms, which I am trying to clear up, I avoid going outside during the mid part of the day, even at 6pm it was hot enough for me to be able to feel the effect on my skin so I have to wait until it’s cool enough to go back out in the evening, it’s a real bind but there are worse things in life I suppose.

Sorry the blog is a tad late, have a great week and as always stay safe this thing is no over by a long shot in my opinion 😏

Friesland Farm

Windy weather, picking and freezing & John returns home.

Posted on July 5, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th June 2020: It very windy today, I’m sure we don’t normally have winds as strong as this in June 🙄 yesterday was the same, strong enough to damage plants and whip bits off of trees 😏

I spent the night on my own here which is only the second time in 11 years I think. I can be pretty scary as we are a bit out in the sticks but to be honest I was so tired that I went straight to sleep anyhow. This morning I was up early, showered and out to do the animal rounds, I walked round the garden thinking I would do a bit outside but the buffeting from the wind soon put me off 😂 I decided to get a few bits done indoors and at 9am John called to say he could come home. I arranged with Shelley to go and pick him up and by 11am he was back home again. They are not sure why it happened and not sure if it will happen again 😏 but in the meantime we go about life as normally as possible. John had something to eat, a cup of tea, a nice bath and at the moment is having a sleep, you know what it’s like trying to sleep in hospital so he is a bit tired today.

I am still doing the glacé cherries they take 10 days and I had missed a couple of days, which doesn’t matter as long as you continue the process for the number of days rather than in succession, I should be on day 7 but am only on day 6 in the process.

The last topic in last weeks blog was the link to the grow.foodrevolution.org and I did say I would come back to the subject. In my opinion anyone who eats 🙄 has children, grandchildren or cares about their future generations really ought to be looking more closely at how food is grown, what the processes are and why it should change. Remember way back in my blogs I always said I was prepared for an apocalypse of some kind and then the pandemic came. Up to that point even I thought maybe I was a bit barmy but it happened and life was not how we had always known it to be, to me it just confirmed that we shouldn’t be complacent, never mind being alert during a pandemic, we should be alert at all times, or at the very least awake to the problems in the world.

Declining soil fertility is a real worldwide problem, one that you should be aware of, the over use of pesticides, weedkillers and artificial fertilisers has depleted the soil of its vitamins and minerals and turned the vast growing acres into dust bowls with no nutrition in them or at least only enough to last a few decades longer. Years ago farmers would spread muck back onto the fields (and some still do) but the bigger the farm the less likely they are to do this and of course it’s the big farms that provide a vast quantity of the crops we eat in one form or another. Mono cropping is also an issue, vast areas with one crop do nothing for biodiversity, which should be all part of a healthy system. The fruit and vegetables you buy from the supermarkets, that you think are giving you a good healthy diet, are not providing anywhere near the amount of nutrients that they used to 50 years ago because of the reduced soil fertility. What can you do? It’s my firm belief that as individuals all doing our bit we make a strong collective, and that goes for any issue. You don’t need to be an activist or an ‘alternative’ or join a cause, all you need to do is understand the issue and adjust your thoughts and actions accordingly, in my mind it really is that simple.

Getting the fertility back into the soil is relatively easy on a small scale and should be done even in the flower garden, composting your own green waste rather than sending it to the council to compost is a great way to ensure that you know what is going back into the ground. With communal composting schemes they don’t ask you not to put waste that has been treated with weedkiller or pesticides in, that means there is a possibility that residue is left in the end product, the product which is then bagged up to be sold or sold in bulk, makes you think doesn’t it. Even organic compost only has to be organic in origin not organically treated. Once upon a time every garden owner would have had a heap and that would all eventually go back into the garden, it’s my belief that every garden over a certain size (a size that can accommodate a small compost bin) should not be allowed a green bin 😏 (and I did write to our local council to suggest that idea) I’m not sure where it all went wrong when as a nation of Gardeners’ we forgot the basics of gardening!

Tuesday: Not raining, not windy, not sunny, happy me it means I can get on. John did the rounds with me but he was tired afterwards and so went in for a sit down. I got on with some picking, mangetout, peas, carrots, rhubarb, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackcurrants and cherries. I wasn’t going to pick any more cherries but the urge to gather is irresistible 😜 The peas and carrots are for dinner later, the strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and raspberries are going into a mixed fruit crumble for pudding 😀 After doing a few other bits we went to town to get a little bit of shopping, but they still don’t have any jam sugar on the shelves, I will have to see if I can get a bulk buy. When we got back John had another rest lol and I prepared a shepherds pie and the crumble for later on. A quick rest and a cuppa and I got on with making some blackcurrant jam, I had some sugar in the cupboard already but will need more before the season is out.

Be careful what you wish for lol, remember I said I was hoping to get some cherries, well the morello tree is loaded with them and although the black bird is having some there are hundreds 🙄 I have already picked quite a lot and today I couldn’t resist picking some more. The problem with cherries is they do not continue to ripen once picked and you can’t leave them to get the very dark colour (the birds get there first) but they are ripe at the cherry red colour so that’s when they get picked. I have some cooked and in the freezer, the glacé cherries are still on the go and now I have about another kg to do something with. I have told Mum to come and pick some tomorrow if she wants some, I hate to see them wasted.

You can see why they use these vibrant cherries to glacé 😀

Wednesday: First it’s hot, then it’s not, then it is again, one of those days when the jumper is on, off, on, off and sometimes a raincoat is needed too 😜 John did the morning rounds and I got on with some picking, as well as the things I have already been harvesting, I picked peppers, some small courgettes, some beetroot and a very small handful of dwarf beans. The beans were cut up and frozen along with the peas I picked yesterday and I also froze the mixed fruit. I still need to do something with the beetroot, I was thinking of grating it and freezing, that would be quite useful I think. The courgettes and peppers can wait and I may use them tomorrow or put some out for sale. One job I wanted to get done was to repot the yellow raspberry, it was getting a bit big for the pot it was in. When I took it out of the old pot the soil was really dry, even though we had the rain this week so I gave all the rest of the pots of raspberries a good soak. I grow them in pots because the runners take over the garden otherwise although you do get far more berries if they are in the ground, I think I should identify a raspberry patch and let them romp away lol. Mum and Ken came up to pick some cherries and blackcurrants, the timing was not great as it started to rain as they got here and slowly got heavier but with Ken on the cherry tree and Mum on the blackcurrants they soon had enough to be going on with 😀

Thursday: Busy morning for me again, John did the morning rounds then went to have a lie down. I have been working on the decorative side of the garden instead of the growing side. I edged all the lawn and then gave it a cut, cut back some overhanging branches, potted up some self sown plantings and put some bits out for sale. John bought coffee out mid morning and we discussed getting some fence panels for the decking area as the wind blows right across there from a westerly direction. He went off to get some now that the suppliers are open but had to get someone to help him lift them in as he didn’t have the strength on his own 😏 It takes a lot longer than you think to recover from something like that.

The rest of the day was spent pottering, some of the time in the poly tunnel where I dug out the flat leaf parsley, it had got huge and was taking over, I managed to save a root to pot up. I seem to be lacking momentum at the minute, I am ok in the mornings but by mid afternoon I’m flagging lol.

One thing I forgot to mention is that John saw a hedgehog the other night, I know we have them but rarely see them and then you wonder if they have moved on but nope they are still here, all part of my lovely little eco system 😀

Friday: Not sure what kind of a day it’s going to be weatherwise, at the moment it’s overcast and dry but the sky is moody and looks like it is threatening to rain. We could do with a bit, the wind that we have had has dried the ground so quickly and we have stronger winds tomorrow apparently 😏 What happened to summer? I am certain the seasons are shifting, the ants are on the move and they don’t normally start until the beginning of August but I think the next lot of warm sunny weather and they will be flying.

I have been doing various things this morning, picking mangetout and broad beans, then some sour cherries to put out for sale. I picked a big bunch of basil which is now in the dehydrator and smells amazing, I prepped everything I picked ready for the freezer, I am only getting small quantities at the minute but they soon become a big batch if you do it daily. I find open freezing the best way to do them and I have started mixing up the veg and fruit as I think I would be more inclined to use it like that besides it makes it easier for soups and stews. I pulled a few baby turnips, one I grated along with beetroot and carrots chopped a baby pepper and that with a hard boiled egg will be my lunch, all home produced 😀 I potted up a few bits I dug up in the polytunnel yesterday, some bits of mint, flat leaf parsley and aquilegia which had been growing in there for a couple of years. I seem to have a few things that have self set or have been sown but got huge and are happily growing in there but I really need to have a clear out as there is less and less space for the things I want to grow. I want to have a go at pak Choi (I have sown seeds which have come up nicely) this winter and also get some more salad leaves sown to take us through the end of the summer and into autumn. Looking at the weather forecast there is less than 50% chance of rain, much less at times, so I’m thinking I will have to water some of the veg growing outside, the courgettes and patty pan seem to be taking ages to get going so a bit of extra watering might help boost them along a bit. Really I should weigh everything I pick and add it up at the end of the season, that would give me more of an idea of how much is actually produced I think. Picking it daily and then freezing some, eating some or putting some out for sale, it doesn’t seem like a lot bit it probably adds up to much more than I think.

It struck me when eating my lunch that we probably eat as well as folks who dine in a fancy restaurant, without the price tag 😋 The presentation isn’t as good I grant you that, but it’s all fresh, hand picked and prepared, organic, yep we feast like kings here 😀 It also occurred to me that the phrase, you are what you eat, is not strictly true 🙄 I, we, have eaten fresh homegrown produce for 11 years, the ten years or so before that I bought organic and yet I ended up ill, I would probably be worse if it were not for the good food but it means that environmental factors play a part as well, in that I would include stress. Stress plays a very large part in your health as far as I can see, I was the person who worried about things, even little things and the big things, well they sent me into overload lol. These days I am more of a ‘couldn’t give a toss’ type 🤪, I learnt not to worry about things that hadn’t happened (nor were likely to) and only to worry and then deal with things that did actually happen. That’s a far better way to live and certainly better for your health, so if you recognise yourself in there take a tip from me, stop worrying. Be kind to others but be kind to yourself as well, Life is too short to spend it worrying.

Rain stopped play in the afternoon but at least I won’t have to water tonight 😀

Saturday: I have done very little outside today, picked some greens for the Guineas and clean out the water buckets for the horses and that’s about it. I spent a lovely morning with Charlie at a wedding dress shop trying on dresses, Charlie not me obvs lol. She was the shops first appointment since the lockdown and it was by appointment only 😀 Afterwards we went to a local independent coffee shop where the new normal is to give your details, when ordering for sitting in, so that they can track and trace if necessary, social distancing in place and it all seems to work well. Considering more shops and the pubs are allowed to open today, the town was still not very busy, I feel this is all going to take longer than we first thought to get back to the old normal 😏

Sunday: A very windy but dry day today. John put up the fence panels around the decking area, it was to hopefully reduce the wind but it has still blown the chairs around 🙄 I did some picking again this morning, rhubarb, mange tout, broad beans, dwarf beans, courgette and a few blueberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries. The it all had to be sorted and either put out for sale or prepped for the freezer. We went round to see Mum and Ken and have a coffee, not sure what else we have done today lol. I need to organise myself a bit better to get jobs done as I have slacked a bit lately. One job is to sort the freezers out, with the picking prepping and freezing I tend to just find any space for it to go but then everything is all over the place and I have no idea what I have. I usually use sacks in the bottom of the big freezers, one for veg, one for fruit at least that way I know which sack to look in, I might not know what is actually in there, but I know if it’s one or the other 😜 The white woven sacks (from the builders merchant) are ideal if anyone is thinking of doing it as they don’t stick to the side of the freezer at all.

Have a great week, I think the weather is going to improve, hopefully this wind will do one 😋 Stay safe, stay alert.