Monday 10th August: Monday again, it comes round with prompt regularity 🤪 I set the alarm for an early morning as it’s been so hot and I really need to get a few jobs done. I did hit the snooze button three times before I finally got up at 5.30am. The air was deliciously cool outside so I know I made the right decision. A quick breakfast and then straight out into the garden, I spend such an amount of time picking and processing at the moment that little time is left for maintenance aka weeding 😀 I cleared out plants from the greenhouse that were not doing well or that I hadn’t had time to pot on, mostly veg plants and I don’t really need any more veg than I have now. Then onto the weeding, the bean bed first, I got sidetracked on the way to the compost heap and ended up weeding random areas. I really wanted to have a methodical approach so that the results were obvious but it dose t really matter as long as it gets done. I spent an hour and a half at that before onto some picking, a small batch of petit poi, some runner beans, mange-tout and courgettes. I spent a good couple of hours last night watering so I didn’t have to do that this morning. Processing next so back into the kitchen and pod the peas, chop the beans, put the courgettes and some cucumbers out for sale, de stone some Victoria and greengage plums for the freezer and peel, chop and cook down some cooking apples I had been given. Once that was done I took the Apple peelings up to the geese and the other peelings etc went onto the compost heap, nothing gets wasted round here, if the animals don’t it eat it goes back into the soil system 😀
I need to have a good think about the veg garden, I feel it’s too big for me to manage (or at least to keep in good order) I thought about cutting out one whole bed and laying more lawn but that would mean moving the asparagus and it’s only halfway through it’s productive life so maybe not. I’m sure I will come up with some idea eventually 🙄 At this time of year I always think ‘what a mess’ but come Autumn when everything is spent or cut back ready for Winter it dose t seem so bad, maybe it’s an attitude adjustment I need 😜
We have point of lay hens arriving today, as with previous batches since lockdown, these are all sold before they even arrive and most of them will not be on the premises for more than a few hours. In more normal times we buy a batch of forty in at the beginning of summer and gradually sell them on, this summer we have sold 180 in various sized batches and the turnaround times have broken all records here!
I haven’t mentioned the pandemic for a couple of weeks, that’s because most things feel fairly normal or at least the new normal. It’s amazing how quickly we can change and adapt, I am avoiding the shops as much as is possible and everything else just seems like the usual thing to do. If we meet up with family it’s mostly outside because the weather is favourable, if we go out to eat, it’s a little bit different but everyone quickly got the hang of it and now it feels normal, yep I’d say we are definitely comfortable with the new normal lol. The cases are rising again slowly but then with more people moving around that is obviously going to happen, it’s just something we will have to get used to living with unless they find a vaccine.
I cleaned out the fridge, soggy celery, buttermilk I forgot was in there, a dribble of cream in the bottom of the carton. There is now room to put fruit in there because the fruit flies around the fruit bowl are doing my head in. I know they are only around for a short while but the little wafts of them every time you pick up a banana is annoying lol.
The chickens arrived and that meant an evening of people arriving to collect which in the blazing sun was hot work, for John anyway, I stayed in the shade 🤪
Tuesday: Is it only Tuesday lol. I have no idea what the temps are out there at the moment (9.45am) but I am already sweating. Up and at it, not quite so early this morning, I suspect like most people last night, I didn’t get a lot of sleep as it was so warm. As I said it’s 9.45 and I have already first proved the bread I made, it’s now on its second prove, I have sorted dinner for this evening and it’s in the slow cooker, made a plum sponge and cooked that in the oven so we can just reheat it later, put a wash load on and hung it out to dry, gone round and made sure all the animals have plenty of water, fed the torts and the Guineas some high water content bits such as cucumber and apples and slung the hoover round. I am just waiting for the bread to finish proving so I can put it in the oven for 25 minutes and then I don’t need to turn the oven on later when it gets very hot 🥵. I am on my third glass of water, got to keep hydrated especially as I seemed to have picked up a summer cold, fabulous, nothing more sinister than that as far as I can tell 😬 it’s all nasal and sinus. The plan for the rest of the day is to stay as cool as possible indoors. I do have jam to make but I am not even going to attempt that today 😋
The phone line saga: lol you thought it had gone away didn’t you, nope, we were expecting to be connected this Friday but I’ve just had a text to say it’s delayed until 26th August, are you f**king kidding me 🤬🤬 angry does not even come close to how I am feeling now and I have just emailed them to tell them. Bloody joke, if that’s what you get for being a loyal customer of thirty years plus you can shove it where the sun don’t shine!!!!! I went onto the BT Facebook page and I despair at ever getting the correct connection judging by the complaints on there 😏 at least I have the mini hub with unlimited data at their expense I suppose 😋 although we can’t connect the tv or Alexa buy hey!
The thermometer is registering 26c in the kitchen that’s with the windows closed and the blinds shut 🙄 outside a thermometer that is just outside the back door but under a sun umberella says 35c 🥵 We officially have tropical weather, apparently that is when the temps remain above 20c overnight for five days in row or something like that, most peculiar to us Brits no wonder we can’t cope, this time next month we will be moaning because it’s freezing 😂
We had our dinner early as we were both hungry, glad I made the slow cook decision. I had cooked the plum sponge earlier too so just needed to reheat in the microwave, do we have any ice cream left? I asked John, as he has been eating it all week. Yes there are two tubs, one nearly empty and a new one, have you started the new one? I asked, there was a look of horror on his face and he said, NO! that’s more than my life is worth 🤣🤣 37 years of training and it’s starting to pay off finally 😜
Wednesday: Well that was a hot night as far as the air temps go anyway 😜 Apparently there was an amazing silent lightning storm but it seems we were looking out of the wrong window, we have windows on the East and south side not the North and on the west side we would have to go out past the trees to get a view. The North was where it was all happening it would seem 🙄
Again the temps are set to climb and climb 🥵 Most of the birds freely roam around the place and so can find their own shade. The new arrivals that are waiting to go to new homes however are in a pen and most of the day there is shade but late afternoon and evening there is none so I have made a temporary shade shelter for them. Chickens are descendants of jungle fowl and so while they are used to heat, it’s shaded heat not blaring sunshine ☀️
I picked some tomatoes this morning and some cape gooseberries, you may be familiar with these as a ‘flourish’ on top of your dessert but they can be grown in good quantities even in the UK under cover. I say under cover as I haven’t tried them outside, I guess in a year like this they would be successful but they have a long growing season and I’m not sure if they would ripen in a ‘normal’ year. They can of course be eaten as they are or they apparently make good jam 😀
My goodness that got hot today lol, 37c was recorded in the south, we are south east by definition but right on the border of south west, so any way you look at it we are south 😜 Shelley, Sam and the children came over to sit under the shade of the trees in the garden. Who knew you could have so much fun with two washing up bowls of water and a sprinkler 😀 The twins had a mighty time splashing themselves and everyone else and thought it was incredibly funny 😂 Needless to say I did not do anything else except sit in the garden, keep hydrated and trying to keep cool. By mid afternoon it was too hot to stay out any longer, the girls went home and John arrived home and evening indoors was like a sauna, hot and muggy.
The weather finally broke with thunder, lightening and rain, it was so nice we actually went out and stood in it lol, the only time I am happy to be rained on 😕 It was still uncomfortably hot indoors though so I kept going outside to cool off!
Thursday: It’s cooler this morning but I don’t think it’s going to stay cool as the day goes on. I have no idea how people in hot countries deal with this on a daily basis 🥵 and working in it, well that’s unfathomable. I guess developed countries have air con, not many places have it in the UK and generally speaking we don’t need it 😂 I have observed there are two types in this country, those who like it hot, the hotter, the better and then those who don’t, there don’t seem to be many inbetween. There are still thunderstorm warnings for the next two days and some places have had torrential downpours, it’s all very tropical at the moment. The one thing I am glad of is that I don’t need to water the garden 😀
I picked a few courgettes and then sorted out veg and fruit I had already picked before it got hot, I needed to process it all before it spoilt. I made some more Victoria Plum jam, always useful for giving and then plenty for the winter stores. The next lot of plums are looking ready and I haven’t finished picking the Victoria’s yet 😬 it’s been such an abundant year we will be sick of plums by spring lol.
I really need to get back a healthy eating regime, like large percentage of the population during lockdown my habits have slid down a slippery slope 😏 I am trying to re educate myself, I don’t really need to do that, I know what I should and shouldn’t be eating 😂 Two of the biggest problems I have is tiredness, when I cant be arsed to sort something good out and so reach for the easy things which are usually carb heavy 🙄 and the fact that I grow such a lot of my own. You wouldn’t think this was a problem would you but even though I grow a lot the selection is limited (to my mind at least) and I won’t buy anything lol. Things are not always ready at the same time, so a chopped salad of tomatoes and cucumber would look great with sweetcorn but it isn’t ripe yet, do you get where I’m coming from, and sprinkled with nuts, that are also not ready yet, now you are getting the picture 😜 I don’t do myself any favours by being such a purist I know! The other problem is that things come in such gluts they need to be frozen and that’s not much good when you want fresh stuff. I just need to get my head around it a bit I think. As a result of moving in that direction I have some Greek yoghurt on the go, freshly frozen berries and yoghurt make a great breakfast or pudding 😀
I took a photo of a plant I have grown, I grew it because the seeds came in a multipack with morning glory which I wanted to grow for the bees. The other seeds in there were something called Spanish Flag, Ipomoea lobata, I have never grown it or even seen it before but it has turned out to be one of my most favourite little flowers 😀 It is a climber and not a very strong or dominant one, it’s rather delicate, but it is exquisite especially when the sun is shinning on it. It reminds me of festival flags and its one of those that makes me smile when I walk past it.
Friday: I have just done a good mornings work, the weather is soo much cooler and we had heavy rain in the night but it’s not raining now. I cleaned out the quail and then the guineas, then spent ages looking for the animal nail clippers as one of the quail has grown a long bendy nail so it need soy come off. I couldn’t find them anywhere and so I have had to order a new pair and we all know what will happen once they arrive don’t we 🙄 the other pair will miraculously turn up somewhere unexpected 😂 After doing that it was into the jungle, that’s what I have been calling the poly tunnels for the last couple of weeks. The foliage from tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and cape gooseberries has gone mad and I could barely get into the big tunnel. I spent the rest of the morning cutting back long tendrils from the cucumbers/melons and lots of bottom leaves from the tomatoes, I also snipped off the tops of the plants so that they can put all their energy into the fruits that have already set rather than new ones. I thought I didn’t have many tomatoes but once I cut it all back I could see plenty 😀 I don’t hold out much hope for the melons, they seem to have tiny fruits which then die off and the same with the loofahs. It’s a shame as this was the year I was hoping to grow my own washing up scrubbers 😜 I may give them one more go next year but after that I will quit, I have spent far too much time on them already. There are quite few things I will scale back next year I have decided, I just need to remember that I had decided that come seed buying time 🤣 I am going to concentrate on things we eat a lot of, for instance carrots, beans, peas, potato, brassicas, leeks, onions, garlic, root veg and also things that the torts eat, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers but things like chillies, aubergines, globe artichoke I won’t do at all and courgettes I will just buy one plant, pumpkins I will still grow for the children but I might give the sweetcorn a miss as it’s only me that eats it, these are my mullings anyway, we will see what happens next year.
Do you ever think things have a way of finding you, John always says animals will find you if you are meant to have them lol. Anyway this ‘finding’ regards my previous paragraph and the wobbles I have been having about growing my own, if I was waivering about what I am doing and why a pod cast I came across has slammed home the message good and proper. GMO’s Glyphosphate and gut health, some of it I knew already but some I didn’t and it has given me a much clearer picture of how one affects the other. It’s and hour and forty minutes long but if you are remotely interested then do listen, if you are not then you should be because as the saying goes your are what you eat’ quite literally as it turns out 🙄 its The Rich Roll Podcast you can find it on you tube but I couldn’t paste a link sorry 😜
Saturday: A damp overcast morning but despite yellow warnings we hadn’t had any rain by lunchtime. John did the feed rounds and then finished off the last bit of fence. The whole job is not finished by a long shot as the rest of the old fence needs to come down and then start on the shrubbery that will go in front of the fence. He then went on to clean out the ducks and dig up the last few bits of ragwort before nipping out to get some guinea pig food.
Meanwhile I started some picking, beans courgettes, cauliflower, turnip, swede, beetroot and the more Victoria plums and some damsons which are not ripe yet but someone I know wants some and I had a bit of time to do it so I did 😀 Indoors then to sort out bits for putting out for sale and processing the rest. I have two trays of beans peas and cauliflower plus five purple carrots (that’s all that grew from a whole row) all chopped and open freezing. The turnip, courgettes, swede, beetroot, some carrots I already picked along with an onion and a stick of celery have all been chopped and bagged as soup mix for the freezer. Then I chopped loads of veg to go with some locally reared mince beef in the slow cooker for dinner later and finally I put the sage I had been drying into jars for storage and winter use 😀 Morning done sit down and have a couple of hard boiled eggs for lunch and a coffee 😜
Listening to that podcast has really sharpened my thoughts on what we eat and although generally speaking it’s good as far as home grown goes there is considerable room for improvement. I have decided not to waste anything and by that I mean eat even the things we don’t really like very much, hence the soup mixes, they will be a permanent feature as you can disguise the bits you don’t like but still get the goodness.
Sunday: Although rain was forecast it never really arrived and so in the morning we got plenty of work done. John has finished off the fence and we started clearing g the old fence and giving the bushes a bit of a trim. We debated about taking them down as they re very old and parts of the multiple trunks are rotten, however the bees and butterflies love them , the birds use them to roost in the winter and the decay is great for the insects so we decided they can stay 😀 We had the afternoon and evening off apart from doing the eggs, to recharge our batteries for a new week.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 