Monday June 7th 2021: It’s Johns birthday today and he has this week off so naturally I am making him work here 😂 First off we got the morning stuff done and John let out the new batch of hens, they have been in over a week so time for them to explore. Unfortunately although they have plenty of acreage at the back to roam in they decided to come down to the front area 😜 I was not too happy with that as they will soon be scratching about in my new flower beds, we found some stock fence and corralled them back up towards the back and put them fence in place to prevent them coming down again. How long will it be before they find a way I’m not sure but for now they are not being a nuisance. Then John decided he was going to take out the old heating, he was going to wait until tomorrow but changed his mind, that’s why he is working on his birthday, not because I am making him really. He has disconnected the radiators and the heating pipes in the airing cupboard and will wait until tomorrow before draining the hot water cylinder because there is still a full tank that he can use tonight, best not to waste the energy that was used to heat it up 🙄 So from now on we are reliant on electric only, I think I will really miss the Rayburn itself but not the wood cutting, fetching loading and cleaning it out lol. While John was doing all that I was watering and then picking, peas, strawberries and asparagus today, I think that will probably be the last picking of the asparagus now, I wasn’t going to let it go to fern this year but I think it will be better for the health of the plant if I do. Then I went onto do some planting and tidying up in the very front bed just outside the gate, it has a few gaps so I planted some dwarf rudbeckia, chrysanthemums, a pheasant grass and a yellow daisy, should fill it all up nicely. Already growing are delphiniums, foxgloves, sweet peas, jacobs ladder, wall flowers (they have gone over now mind you) dianthus, day lilies and a few other things that escape my memory at the minute. By then it was lunchtime and Shelley and Florence came over with Rosie the rabbit, we had a cuppa and I trimmed Rosies nails, she will probably be coming to live here as she isn’t getting on with the guinea pig, she keeps biting it, they are not happy living together 🙄 We set up a run and had her out on the lawn and she seemed very content in there by herself. Shelley left and it was time for an afternoon sit down, I have bought just a neck massager for John for his birthday as he keeps having a real problem with his shoulder and neck. He has had it checked over by the doctor and had Bowen on it but it still gives him grief so a neck massager might just help.
Johns brother came round to visit just before dinner and then after we had eaten Sue and Shane popped round to say happy birthday on the actual day even though they were round yesterday with the others 😁
Tuesday: The sun gets higher quicker at this time of year so I am having to rush round to get stuff done. This morning was no exception, John did the animals and then went to do a small job he already had booked in, on his way back he is picking up materials to get the airing cupboard changed and sorted. After a quick shower I have been rushing about watering poly tunnels, pots, horses, doing the eggs, washing, sorting out plants and weed killing the side drive where some type 1 to dust has got to go down, can’t put it down with weeds on here or they will just grow through anyway. Quick sit down and an apple before I start again. The washing line is still a dilemma I can’t make a decision to save my life at the minute. It needs to be in the morning sun but by afternoon in the shade so that I can get it in without standing in the full summer sun. I was thinking that most people don’t get it but if you swapped the sun for Covid rays, imagine if they were rays and you had to protect your skin from them, then you might get some idea of what I have to do. Even factor 50 sun block only goes half way to stopping the reaction I get if I am caught out in it for more than five minutes and then add to that the amount of times I have to move around in between shade spots and you kinda of get the picture hopefully. I very rarely have bared skin apart from hands and face, my legs are usually fine, as is my torso and on the whole my arms though they do get affected even with long sleeves, but my hands, face, head and neck are all areas of concern. Ears are particularly difficult, putting sunblock on the ear is fiddly if I miss a bit I end up with itchy spots. Hats are great but in the heat I do end up with a headache from wearing it constantly, the neck cowl I have has been brilliant so far this year as that is a very sensitive area. You can see why in the heat of the day I prefer to be inside, it’s to hot outside with all those clothes on 😂 I really need to start setting the alarm for a lot earlier than 6.30 probably more like 5am, at the height of summer it will be 4am 🙄 just so I can get stuff done outside lol.
We are coming to the end of asparagus season but I did pick some yesterday along with some peas, I didn’t get to use them yesterday what with one thing and another so I am eating them today. I just googled asparagus and peas and a plethora of recipes came up, mostly risotto which I am not keen on. But one recipe caught my eye and that’s what I am making for my lunch, the dressing alone is amazing 🤩 and could easily be used instead of Mayo for potato salad or coleslaw. 1tbls Greek yoghurt, half teaspoon of honey and a teaspoon of mustard plus a squeeze of lemon. I use the Fage 0% so it’s really healthy as well 😁 Then chop the asparagus, and some bread (I just used half a bread roll) coat in a tbls of olive oil and roast in the oven. Hard boil two eggs and when they are all cooked toss in the dressing along with some peas, add a bunch of green salad and voila a seasonal salad. In my case most of it is home produced so that makes me even happier, the whole lot comes in at around 400 calories depending on the various amount you chose to use, I had 1/4 cup peas and 100g asparagus.
Trying to think what I did in the afternoon, pootled about a bit maybe. Although John was supposed to be off he had a job to go and do in the morning, then he came home around 11.30 had a cup of tea and had to go and do another job that he had forgotten he had booked in, it’s no wonder we never get anything finished around here 🙄 Eventually he came home, had a shower to use up the hot water and then drained down the cylinder, we got it out and he had take out some of the pipe work. The airing cupboard needs refitting and boarding out which is what he is doing at the moment (7.30pm) Meanwhile I had to go and feed the hens and collect the eggs, I had to leave it until the heat had gone out of the sun but it was still quite warm. I got the washing in as well which is also in the sun and now my energy levels have dipped quite a bit and I feel lethargic to say the least. It is really rather rotten sometimes I feel quite trapped inside when I really want to be outside.
Oh I remember what took me a while in the afternoon, downloading our coronavirus vaccination status, easy on my phone, not so easy on Johns 😜 And to add to the confusion both the Astra Zeneca and the Pfizer have now had their names changed, when you read it you think, that’s not the jab I had, but it is, they have just changed identity 🤷♀️
I put the animals to bed tonight as John was still working, I topped up the waters ready for the morning as I went and I also got Biscuit in from the paddock and put her on restricted grazing again. She does really well, she has had laminitis in the past where she was before but so far since we have had her we have managed to keep it under control. Jack is next for restriction as he is getting a bit fat, he won’t like that but he has no choice if he carries on as he is he will explode lol. I saw a barn owl flying low in the field behind while I was bringing biscuit in 🥰🦉
Wednesday: Lovely day, plenty of sunshine. Kicked of the day with the usual jobs then John got on with the airing cupboard and I went straight outside. I didn’t come back in for breakfast until nearly 10 as I wanted to catch as much shade as possible to get things done. I did get John to help me move the gazebo to an area I wanted to work on that gets the sun pretty quickly. I watered a few things first and the lovely Elodi clematis I planted the other day has been scratched up by something and broken pieces off, I have now covered it with a cloche and taken in the broken bits to see if I can root them in water. After watering one of the first jobs I wanted to get done was the big tunnel, don’t want to be in there once it starts to get hot 🥵 I weeded it all, despite putting down barrier to try and keep them under control they still managed to grow round the edges of the tunnel. And then I sorted out the strawberries, so far I have picked two bowls of them but the wood lice and slugs always manage to ravage them so I have tied the plants up in an effort to lift the berries away from the ground and hopefully that way I will get lots more. I had a few tomato plants that were in there that haven’t been planted, they are still in pots but there is no more room so I decided to plant them outside and if they produce, that’s great and if not it doesn’t matter much. The cucumbers are romping away in the tunnel but the melons are struggling, I need to do a bit of research to see what exactly are the best conditions as I never seem to get much from them. On then to the fruit cage, this is an area where bindweed is prolific, it strangles everything but once it is growing well I just go in and rip it up, it doesn’t stop it, I have tried for years to stop it, but it does knock it back and give the fruit bushes a chance. After that I weeded the broad bean bed and nipped out the tops of the plant, it already is showing signs of blackfly and taking the tops out will also slow the blackfly down so that the plant can do what it is supposed and produce beans. The blackfly is quite bad this year, I have noticed it on lots of things, I intend to blast them off with the hose later this evening. The last job before lunchtime was pricking out foxglove seedlings and potting on some dwarf rudbeckia, most of these will be going into the front beds when they are big enough, might as well fill them with what I have rather than going buying something else 😜 Going round today I have noticed how dry everything is again, we haven’t had rain for a few weeks, we don’t have any forecast for the next couple of weeks and the temps are set to keep climbing, looks like I will be watering a lot 🙄
When Kellee came to visit last week she took some lovely photos of the place, something I never really do and furthermore she wrote something quite lovely about her visit, I know she won’t mind me sharing:
and then there is the flourishing Frieslands Farm which is still in the family, owned, massively improved and tended by Dawn Pearse and her hubby John who have made this place a harmonious, ecologically perfect garden of Eden favouring the natural life cycles of all the creatures! How I thrill every time I witness this beautiful relationship Dawn has with this sacred land. Thank you Dawn. You are such a tremendous inspiration to me and hopefully hundreds of other people who care about the health of our planet. 💚
It was fairly overcast in the afternoon so after lunch and a sit down I was able to get on with some more bits and pieces outside though I can’t remember what lol. In between getting the dinner cooked I watered the front beds as some things are struggling with the dry, a lot of it is fine but recently planted needed a boost. I also planted some more dwarf rudbeckia in the front bed and one or two other things I have been growing on in pots, might as well fill it full, keeps the weeds down. Around 7.30 I went to water the fruit cage, I have a lot in pots, Bush cherry, olive, fig, blueberries and some yellow raspberries, they were all looking dry. I could see some storm clouds on the horizon, I could smell the rain and hear the thunder but I watered anyway, I have been here before where I have left it thinking the storm will come our way but it always goes round. It did spit a little while I was doing it but not much. Then shelley FaceTimed, well Josh actually, to tell me he passed his grading at martial arts 🥰 and it was raining well at her place. That is only a mile or so as the crow flies but as yet we still have not had a decent wetting here 😝 We are quite high up compared to the surrounding area, not high enough to have a magnificent view mind you but about 400m higher, that and the fact that the brook runs round us at a much lower level about 1/2 a mile away seems to be the reason that the weather fronts go around, they follow the lay of the land. So it’s 8.30pm and it looks like I will have to go out and finish doing the watering after all as I can see clear sky on the horizon now, bugger that 🤪
I went out and watered the squash as the rain never made here 🙄
Thursday: The week is whizzing past! Overcast from the start this morning but still warm, typical because today is the day of the partial eclipse but does not look like we will see much due to the amount of cloud cover.
John did the animals and then got on with the airing cupboard, putting it all back in and re fitting the shelves which have all had to be altered. The problem with the cupboard was the dust, because it’s in the boot room the dust seeps into the airing cupboard. Now he has reboarded it all and sealed all the joints so that it hopefully stays dust free, he has had to move the heater switch as well, it was on the inside and difficult to reach, now it’s very accessible outside 😁 I watched him do the copper pipe work last night, brought back plenty of memories of when I would go to work with him at the weekends way before we had children, he is still good at it although as I said to him, I remember when bending the pipe was a lot less effort than it seems now 😂 He has also taken off the ladder rails in the bathroom which were on the wet system, drained them down, cleaned them out and refilled them with thermal oil, they will also now be electric.
Meanwhile I was outside mostly weeding the front beds, I set an alarm on my watch for 11.05 to see if I could see any sign of the eclipse. I have mostly been weeding the ‘weedy’ bed, this one is slowly going how I want it to, it’s mostly a flowering shrub border but has other things that will readily self seed in there too. Love in a mist, poppies, verbena, forget me not, foxglove, sweet woodruff, creeping phlox, the idea is based on woodland really, a garden copse I suppose you might call it and I want it to evolve as naturally as possible. I have taken some photos and you will see that there are big gaps but I am hoping the shrubs will fill these (eventually) and the self setters will fill in the smaller gaps. I don’t want to rush this bed but it does mean I have to weed it all the time until the plants establish well enough, this time next year it should be fairly full.
The other beds also have their own personalities although these I am happy to keep adding to with plants I have grown or ones that take my fancy when I am at the garden centre 😜
The third one which is in front of the building doesn’t really have a character as such but it is becoming a favourite of mine. It is full of spring bulbs which have now mostly gone over and a lot of my favourite plants, salvia, geum, achillea, huechera, aliums, asters. It also has a lot of summer flowering bulbs in plus bedding plants and the forest pansy tree, a mish mash of all things wonderful. Again a lot of this will fill out massively so by the end of the season it will look full and colourful. No doubt there will be things I want to move come autumn but that’s all part of the fun of gardening 🥰
My alarm went off at 11.05 and I stood up to have a look skyward, nothing but clouds so I carried on for another 20 mins. I stood up to stretch and voila a break in the cloud and I could see the eclipse, my phone was on the table by the door so I ran to get it and by the time I had the cloud was back 😂 However there was another tiny break coming up so I waited and…….
I did a bit more weeding before stopping for lunch, I made John a sandwich as well and then Shelley and Florence arrived to help do some gardening. Shelley did some weeding in the fruit cage for me while I introduced Florence to vegetable growing 😁 we looked at the peas, picked a pea pod, opened it and ate them, then we went onto doing the same with the carrots and finally onto the strawberries growing in the tunnel. Florence’s words when she saw them were ‘oh my goodness’ it is fabulous to be able to teach children not only where their food comes from, how it is grown but also how amazing it tastes when it’s freshly picked. If I can pass on just a little bit of knowledge and spark of interest then who knows it may develop into a passion for growing their own 🥰
I seriously can’t say it loud enough or often enough, growing your own fruit, veg, herbs is one of the most rewarding things, the sense of achievement when you taste your first crop of the year never diminishes, not for me at any rate. That first strawberry, tomato, pea, apple, plum, carrot, whatever it is, is pure delight. The wait seems like forever in fact I was thinking the other day that if people even knew how long a crop of something takes to grow they probably wouldn’t waste anything. The onions alone have now been in the ground for about 8 months, they should soon be ready to harvest and dry for storing but don’t waste that half an onion people, use it for something else or chop it and freeze it 😜
John went off at just gone 4 to collect a clothes airer someone is selling for a fiver, bargain. I have one already and have decided that the line can go and will use these outside the back door which gets all the morning sun and then is shady in the afternoon meaning I will be able to get it in without shrivelling up in the blaring rays on blue sky days.
I am thinking I really need to give the house a clean but at the minute the weather is not too bad for me to be outside getting stuff done, at the weekend it looks like wall to wall blue skies again and even warmer so I will wait until then. Besides I have the contents of the airing cupboard stacked around the place at the minute, I need to go through it all. Why do we (I) keep so much, the trouble is I have cushion inserts and covers from the old sofas (approx 12) well they are feather you know and who knows when I might need them 😂 Also some lovely candy stripe flannelette sheets from years ago, why do I still have them, well wouldn’t you keep them if you could 🤣 a BIG stack of tea towels, most of them came from Johns Mums house, all new, I will never have to buy another tea towel for as long as I live but will I live as long as the amount of tea towels I have 🤪 Cleaning cloths, another pile, how many do I need in reality, I am only going to use a maximum of two at any given time I suspect, the other forty are just sat there waiting for their turn 😬 They have all been used at some point, at least I am rotating them I guess. Then there are the weird and wonderful things you keep, tablecloths that hardly ever get used but too good to let go of, cooking aprons of all different types just in case I get flamboyant 🙄 a couple of costumes last used many years ago, one a dramatic Halloween queen type affair (yes I did wear that) and one is an authentic, vintage Austrian costume that belonged to Johns Mum, she gave me it many years ago and there is not a hope in hell that my matronly bust will ever, ever fit into the tiny blouse, but what do I do with it 🤷♀️ And then there is the bedding, duvet cover sets, as Shelley said earlier today, do we hold on to them in case we crap the bed, not once or twice but three times or more one night 😱 We might need those extra four sets over and above the two we use on a regular basis, you never know 😝 How many hot water bottles 😮well one less now as that made a ‘crispy’ noise when I moved it so that can go in the bin. Then there are the single muslin sheets 🤔 at some point in the past they have been beautifully darned, not by me I can tell you, but you don’t see those anymore so I had better keep them, a double, white cotton sheet, well you never know when you will need a ghost costume do you! Two sleeping bags, a relic of the children’s sleepover days I assume, can’t see we will be needing those anytime soon, we prefer five star these days, but they may come in handy 🤣 The mysteries of the (my) airing cupboard, I reckon I could write a book on the contents therein! I have actually made a start on clearing out, no honestly I have, I have a small pile of ‘rag bin’ stuff mostly old tea towels and cleaning cloths, that’s it so far oh and the crispy hot water bottle 😬 oh and a pile of tea towels in the washing machine to go to the charity shop (depending on how good they look when they are dry) Is there a name for the condition ‘you never know when that will come in useful’ 😖
Friday: Omg what a day 😬 After all the usual jobs I began to put all the contents of the airing cupboard back where it belongs, that was relatively easy, there is more space than before and I have got a ‘pile to go’ 😁 While I was doing that John started on decommissioning the Rayburn ready to get it out, well that has taken us nearly all day what with one thing and another. First up was disconnecting the pipes, easy, then onto taking off the tiles on the wall so that they didn’t fall off and damage the Rayburn, fairly easy as many had come loose from the heat anyway. Then onto getting the flue down, hmmm not so easy, in fact hours of pushing, pulling, heaving, tooing and froing, sawing and unscrewing, plus a bit of brute force, it was inside a fireproof box which John built and let’s just say he used the belt and braces method when he built it. After a good few hours, filthy dirty hands, getting hit on the head by debris and soot, some swearing and some tetchy moments, we finally got it out and cleared the boxing. Then It was onto trying to heave the 340kg cooker onto rollers in order to move it into the boot room where it is currently sat. Finally we got that done, tidied away, filled the skip with the rubbish, John wanted to make a cuppa and sit down and I said, just one more job lol. I have a pine cabinet I wanted to put in place of the Rayburn so we got that in, cleaned it and put it in place. We have parts of the tiled fooor missing and a chunk of the ceiling missing, a battered plasterboard bit of wall is visible but the job is a good un. Now we just need to sell the Rayburn. I have ordered new tiles for the floor, luckily they still do them but I think it will be a while before it is all ‘made good’ 🙄
We went round to see Shelley, Martin and the children in the evening.
Saturday: Looks like it is going to be warm today and getting warmer everyday through to Wednesday. Got all the usual jobs sorted first thing as well as cleaning out the Guineas and then onto sorting out the back area. This is where my store room will go, it is on the North facing side of the building so it’s ideal for keeping cool, John will build it out of ply but the concrete floor will stay as that will help to keep the temperature down in the summer months. There is a lot of tidying and sorting out to do, we plan to only have one chest freezer instead of two, using the store room will mean I can keep root veg, onions, garlic and squash without having to freeze any of it, so one freezer should be fine 🙃
That and a quick pop to the shop took up most of our day. Around 5pm I noticed some tiny meewing noises in the boot room, what I haven’t told you before now is that Jill the cat is pregnant. I knew she was getting near time and so when we sorted the airing cupboard we also rearranged an area in the boot room to put a bed up higher in the hopes she would have them there and she did 😁 The last lot of kittens we had a few years back we’re born in the stable roof which was very difficult lol, we were afraid they were going to fall down between the walls and get stuck, so this is a result. She has had four beautiful tabby kittens, two are grey tabby 🥰 It is very difficult to find genuine farm kittens these days, ones that are bred to live outside the home, are comfortable in a farm/rural environment and are good at their job. Our two came from a farm, taught to mouse by their mother and they are very good at it which is what farms and smallholders need. They don’t need cats that have come from sleeping on the bed or the sofa and are used to being stroked all day long 😂 That’s not to say that they can’t go on to be domestic petted cats just that if they learn their craft first they will be better farm cats.
Sunday: I was up early, the sun was shinning in through the curtains and so I got up around 5.30, did some watering and sat with a cuppa in the early morning sun, bliss. We are off out for an early breakfast this morning which I am looking forward to.
Lovely breakfast out and then a mooch round the garden centre, got back around 11 and pretty much did nothing the rest of the day until about 4 as it was too bloody hot 🥵 John fed the birds and I sorted the eggs and then we went round to see Sam and family who had been away for the week on holiday.
Got back had a quick bite to eat and then began a mammoth watering session which lasted until 8.30 😬 I said to John that I’m sure when I first started this, nearly 12 years ago, I didn’t have to water like I do now 🤷♀️ The heat from the sun seems more relentless during the day than ever before, the things I planted back in autumn and early spring are mostly fine but anything that has been planted recently needs constant watering just to keep it going 🙄
I have written this before and I’m sure I will again but everyday is a school day and if you haven’t learnt something by accident that day then find something to learn, it’s good for you. Back to today’s lesson, as Gardeners we tend to learn from the experts, watching programmes, reading about things but sometimes it’s a good idea to jump track and listen to the amateurs. I have begun to follow a few people who are not trained Gardeners’ or horticulturists but regular people who have gardened for a long time. Strawberries, we are taught, do not ripen off the plant, wrong says one chap who daily picks his strawberries (many kgs) when they only have a touch of colour on them and ripens them in the dark. This is very exciting to hear because when you wait for them to ripen, so is everything else and by that I mean slugs, wood lice, birds so you only get a small percentage of your crop. Today I have picked mine twice, once this morning and once this evening, they are sat on the side in a tub under a cloth and hopefully by morning they will be ripe. If this works, this is another game changer just like the other game changers I learnt, also from amateur Gardeners. I will let you know how it goes, or try it yourself and see what happens.
That’s it for this week, I am pooped, it is muggy, gonna be a horrible muggy night, oh joy 🤪
frieslandfarm (flowers) 