Monday 19th July 2021: And just like that it’s Monday again but not any old Monday, today is Freedom day 🤷♀️ That’s what they have named it anyhow 🙄 we are not free of the virus and we won’t be for a very long time yet but I guess it is time to get on with life as best we can under the circumstances. Who would have guessed this time a couple of years ago we would have had such a restriction on our liberties 😮 My personal opinion is that at some point we have to get on with life, we can’t keep locking down but I would say we still have to be very careful. I do know of double vaccinated people who have since caught Covid, their symptoms were not as bad as they may have been back in the beginning but they have had symptoms that are flu like and still lost the sense of taste. Proceed with caution is the advice we should have had.
Enough of that 😂 It is another hot day, set to be a scorcher of a week and you know what that means for me, yep I will mostly be found indoors! I was up early this morning and by 9.30 I had done four hours of work and come inside to do some more, I will probably nap mid afternoon as I will be out till dark once it cools down enough, if it does 😜 No picking today I am going to wait a couple of days until there is plenty to pick, so that left watering and weeding which is what I did as well as feeding the usual bunch of inmates. John got up after me but did the birds before going off to work.
Once I came in I decided it was going to be way too hot most of the week to put another coat of paint on the ceiling so I have abandoned that and started putting the bits and pieces back where they belong, at least the kitchen won’t be upside down any more which will make me feel calmer about things lol.
Apart from putting the kitchen bits back up and sorting dinner for later I didn’t do much else until much later, had an afternoon nap obvs 😂
Once we had dinner and done all the late afternoon/evening jobs, I went out to get some watering done. Although it is very hot because I have watered the tunnels and greenhouse everyday without fail, they are doing pretty well. The veg in the beds are also doing better than I had expected, all that rain at the beginning of the season and plenty of cover on the ground (including weeds) is keeping things going. I am looking at changing the beds a bit for next year and I think I will order some bulk mushroom compost at the end of the year, that seems to help keep moisture locked in. While I am at it I will incorporate some bio char as well, that’s the plan anyway, as always things don’t always go according to plan but I can see how far I get with it.
Tuesday: Another scorcher in store today 🙄 up with the alarm at 5am, lovely and cool at that time of the morning. I watered last night so this morning it was picking to concentrate on, I picked French beans and the first lot of runner beans, beetroot, carrots and from one of the small raise beds a good haul of potatoes, also a few blueberries. Fed the torts and Guineas, sorted out the boot room and gave it a Hoover, cleaned out the litter trays that the kittens have now started to use and then made a coffee. I could then hear Patch barking a ‘come and see this bark’ I checked to make sure he wasn’t locked in anywhere as he didn’t come when I called him at first. I went out the back and he ran off towards the paddock so I followed him knowing that something was amiss, a hedgehog was stuck firmly in the stock fencing, back up to get some gloves and wire cutters and back down to release the hog and make the hole in the fence ‘fat hedgehog friendly’ 😜 Back up to drink my coffee and sort out this major I go haul of goodies. The problem with the hot weather is that I don’t really want to eat carrots, beans and potatoes but they need picking and pulling so I am going to have to prepare them for freezing or storing, I also have onions and garlic (which can’t be stored due to the leaf miner) to get started on. I did want to dehydrate some onion rings but it will be a bit warm to have that on at the minute, I reckon the sun is warm enough to sun dry tomatoes here for once!
Oo I have done a thing lol, like I do, on a whim, I have listed our small back paddock as a Wildpoint camping site (tent only)l Well there are plenty of people staying in the country for holidays this year so might as well utilise some of our area and share the wonderful sunsets with them 🥰
I’m crying, I’m not sad, I’ve been chopping the onions 😂
Popped out this evening for a therapy treatment then stopped off in the village at the pond as Shelley, Martin and the kids were there with some friends and then back home to water the tunnels and the greenhouse. It is a bit cooler this evening which is nice and after watering I sat in the garden, a hedgehog ran across the lawn and there were two baby hogs in the paddock, they looked like large conker casings 😂 I have filled up a dish of water for them and put it on the lawn, probably struggling to find water in this heat wave. I hope it breaks soon, the struggle is real trying to keep everything going just at the time when fruits and veg are forming 🙄
Wednesday: Guess what, yep it is bloody hot again today 😂 It was nice and cool around 5am though and there was a slight dew on the plants which is great. I got started on some garden work almost straight away, only picked peas today and then cut back the tops that were not producing yet to see if I can stimulate a flush growth from them. Then it was into the fruit cage to cut back any dead steam from the summer raspberries, plenty of bindweed to pull up and water the fruit that is in pots. I suddenly realised how dumb I was 🤪 I have an oblong galvanised water tank on one side of the cage and it is on the opposite side to everything that is in pots and needs water most, derr, what was I thinking, well I clearly wasn’t thinking that’s for sure so I need to remedy that. The tank gets filled up with water from the bigger rain storage tanks and then it also fills naturally from any rainfall so there is usually plenty in there I just have to fill up the watering can and take it to the plants. It would be a whole lot easier if the plants were nearer 😂 The rest of the day, once I had finished outside, I have done next to nothing 🙄😬🥴 saving my energy for later tonight and the watering sesh.
Thursday: Same heat if not hotter certainly in the house anyway. I spent the early morning checking the veg garden and watering where necessary but I didn’t do any picking I decided to leave it another day and pick a lot at once rather than bits and pieces. The development of some veg is slow due to the heat and lack of moisture, rain forecast for the weekend which should wake it all up a bit. I spent a large part of the day inside as always but I was busy. We have a holiday booked and I was getting the paperwork printed sorted, emailing enquires etc, that seemed to take hours what with one thing and another. We are going on a weeks cruise to nowhere 😂 seriously we get on the ship in Southampton and it sails around the south coast and the French coast, no stops and then comes back, but that’s fine, we just need to get away. Good food and drink, relaxing and reading is just about all I will be doing and I can’t wait 🥰 Everyone boarding needs proof of both vaccines (and the nhs site was down 😜) we will all have to be tested at the terminal (courtesy of P & O) we need Covid travel insurance, health declaration forms, passports (even though we are not getting off) car parking booked, tickets and labels and umpteen forms to fill in lol, didn’t get all of it done for one reason or another but nearly there. We weighed up all the pros and cons, the ship is not filling to capacity (50%) we don’t have to go to the inside venues if we don’t want to, there are plenty of opportunities to eat outside, protocols are all in place and so because we feel we need to get on with life a little bit, we booked up. If I am honest I did think it might have all calmed down a lot more by now, I didn’t reckon on the football being a point of super spreading 🥴 Still, we are going and I still feel despite everything that it will be ok 🤞hopefully not famous last words!
In the evening it was supposed to be the usual jobs after dinner, watering, but we sat down and John out a film on so that was that as I got interested in it lol. I did go out around 9.30 just before the light faded and watered the greenhouse, it was so much cooler outside than indoors so we sat out there for a good while before ending the day.
Friday: It feels cooler today more like what we are used to in the summer. I got up at 5 and started watering, I splashed a bit round the front beds as well, they are flagging in this heat now. Then onto the veg garden and watering the tunnels before launching into picking. Cucumber, courgettes, tomatoes, runner beans, French beans, aubergines, peppers, chillies and some blueberries, raspberries and Logan berries, not many but enough for us. Once that was done and I had done the horses water and let out the ducks it was indoors to prep the stuff I had picked. Some went out for sale, Shelley and Charlie both wanted a few items and the rest I podded, chopped and peeled either for dinner tonight or for the freezer. It is the twins 2nd birthday today and we will be popping over there later this afternoon and so I have put dinner in the slow cooker, that way it is either ready before we go or I can leave it until we get back depending on how hungry John is 😁
Just typing this up I have now been working for almost six hours and it’s only 11 am, sometimes I wonder why I feel so tired by midday 😂
I had a delivery, it’s a birthday present for me from Sam and family and it arrived early as they will be away. The delivery man said, as is etiquette for the British, ‘isn’t it a lovely day’ to which I replied ‘yes it is but I’m glad it is a bit cooler than it has been’. Mistake really, normally I would just say, yes it’s lovely but for some reason this other sentence came out of my mouth today 🤷♀️ We shouldn’t complain about the weather, we don’t get it often enough’ he said (nicely I will add) I could tell he liked his sunshine, tanned, shorts on, t shirt etc, for some inexplicable reason I felt the need to defend my sentence 😆 So I tried to explain about UV and my skin, ‘oh right’ he said as he waved and walked away 🤣 Two things spring to mind here, he doesn’t understand it and nor do millions of people probably, and also I feel like I am ‘that person’ who has a hundred different allergies when I start to explain why it’s a problem 😕 I don’t want to be that person, I am not that person but I am becoming more disillusioned by the lack of awareness and understanding lately 🙄 Especially when it has been as hot as the last few days, when things get back to normal (eventually) there will be so many things I would love to do but can’t because it’s out in the blaring sunshine 🤦♀️
Saturday: John cleaned and tided the back area which always needs doing every few weeks due it being a dumping ground as we pass through. I did a bit of picking and then we went off to meet Shelley and the children at a local event and then had a coffee in town. Writing this on Sunday I can’t actually remember what else we did but we did something 😂
Sunday: Still haven’t had any rain, there was loads forecast but it has missed us almost entirely, we had a short burst of rain but that is it so far which is not what I need, really need some decent downfall. After doing indoor stuff I went up the back and burnt the rubbish and I used the scythe to cut down stinging nettles, found a clutch of eggs which we will save to give the dogs and cats. I also discovered that one of the ash trees that I thought would be fine for a couple of years, has got disease right at the bottom and half the trunk is gone. We need to get it down soon before it comes down of its own accord. Meanwhile John cleaned out the front hens and then pulled up some of the bigger weeds from the side driveway in readiness for some type 1 to be delivered. In the afternoon we went off to get me a birthday present, chuffed with my new fire pit that has cooking facilities 🥰 later in the afternoon I made some steak and onions on there, converted John finally to campfire cooking as he said it tasted soooo good 😁 Popped out to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa and then when we got back I pulled some of the dead stuff in the front beds and gave it a good watering, finished around 9.30pm, very tired now.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 