Monday 22nd November: The temperatures have dropped to normal levels now and so I think our run of mild weather is gone for good. I don’t mind a cold dry winter it is much better than a mild wet one 🙄 Even though it is colder the sun was out shining away and eventually it warmed the ground up enough to get rid of the frost, I had already decided I was going to be doing a bit outside and the sun was an added bonus. Bearing in mind it has got colder I filled up a tonne bag with straw and took it to the orchard where I used it for the Guineas, rabbit, quail, lovely gut Sussex and the turkeys. All the pens and huts are now filled with a good amount of straw for them to burrow into if they need it. I also filled up all the wild birds feeders so that they have plenty to keep them going on a frosty morning.
After that it was on to the big job of the day, planting all the tulip bulbs as well as some giant alliums. I think there were about 450 tulips bulbs if my memory serves me correctly, they have all now been planted in various places and should look splendid come the spring. Some of them I used to plant up some pots that will go out for sale next spring, most of them went into the raised flower bed in front of the house, a sprinkling of them went into various other pots and then a good amount went into one of the raised beds in the veg garden. Those ones will be specifically for cut flowers and once they have been cut the bulbs will be discarded. This is what happens in the industry, once the flower is cut it can’t send goodness back to the bulb, normally you would allow the foliage to die back so that the bulb can get a good recovery ready for the next year, but picking or cutting the flower means that doesn’t happen and so the bulbs are discarded. This means that once all the tulips have been picked I can clear the bed out and use it for veg later. The pots of tulips I have had to put under a metal run that we use for chickens sometimes, this is to protect the, from all and sundry, chickens from digging in the pots, squirrels from hiding nuts in the pots and this disturbing the bulbs, I know foxes will dig up bulbs, not sure if they eat them or just dig to see what else is under there. Best to try and protect them as much as possible otherwise all the work ends up being for nothing. I still have a small box of gladioli bulbs to plant as well, I need to decide where they will go. I had to books I ordered arrive today, ‘the flower farmers year’ and a flower arranging book, plenty to read and I will probably find I have already done something wrong but I had to put the bulbs in before the book arrived and certainly before I had chance to read it through.
I did notice that although the garlic I planted is coming up but that the same cannot be said for the onions, something has been pulling them out so I have now covered them with environmesh to give any remaining ones a bit of a chance. I also can’t see any sign of the broad beans I sowed, I am thinking that the mice may have got them, I really should have sown them in pots first and then planted them out 🙄
We had a rich beef stew in the slow cooker for dinner tonight and an apple and blackberry crumble, definitely getting into comfort food season now. The Christmas pudding has been boiling away on the hob for two hours, it has another two hours to go before allowing it to cool and then store it ready for its main event on Christmas Day. I also got a soup veg bag out of the freezer this morning and made a batch of soup, should be enough for the next couple of days and a welcome warm lunch on cold days. I think soup is the best thing during the winter months, full of goodness and it warms you right through to the core 🥰
Tuesday: Early morning appointment for blood tests this morning so I was up and at it as soon as the alarm went off. I had I intended to come back home and get on with some things but Shelley suggested a trip into town and so that’s where we went. We had a lovely morning mooching around and getting a few Christmas presents sorted, plus a coffee stop which is always a pleasure. We stopped to collect Flo from nursery on our way back and I spotted some amazing looking ginkgo biloba leaves, when I started gathering them up they made the most beautiful and natural pompom 🥰 The leaf collecter lorry arrived shortly after so we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time 😁
Once back home I got on with sorting out dinner for the evening and then a bit of card making u til it was time to do the afternoon rounds. The day finishes early at this time out year (outside at any rate) by around 4.30 it is starting to get dark. I decided the dark evenings are a blessing and they give me time to make things and so this evening I made a dried flower wreath. The wreath is from last Christmas, I leave it to dry all year and you end up with a lovely dried moss ring perfect for adding dried flowers that I picked in the summer months and hung to dry.
I seem to have lost a couple of days in between lol, suffice to say that I didn’t do much outside stuff mainly inside. I have been filling any gaps in the walls of the pantry and my sister came over with a drawing she has done of how it will look when it’s done. I need to give the walls a miss coat of paint, just enough to take the blockiness out of the ply walls and make it look rustic.
I think it was Wednesday that the APHA announced that poultry must all be housed and bio security measures put in place from Monday, here we go again. To be fair we were expecting it as we do nearly every year now, one of the reasons it hardly seems worth continuing with poultry 🙄 Hardly good for them when they have to spend months locked away, let’s hope it’s only them this year and not us again.
Thursday: My plan was to paint the pantry but first I wanted to get some cleaning done, the low sun at this time of year drives me nuts as it shows up all the dust 😂 After lunch Shelley, Flo, Sam, Lucie and George called in after their morning at soft play. Later that afternoon Sam was back with all the kiddies including Mia and the twins stayed here while Mia went for her swimming lesson.
Jack (horse) is lame 😒 no apparent cause at the minute, no cuts or heat in his leg, it’s possible he has knocked it or kicked it himself. He will be monitored for a couple of days to see how he goes, no point bringing him in as he will just kick the stable door and that won’t do his leg any good as it is one of his front ones. He is bearing some weight on it but clearly has an issue, I cut him some fresh willow to see if that helps at all, he is better off to continue moving at this stage we think.
Friday: I still haven’t got the pantry painted and I had no intention of doing it today either, it’s blooming cold out there so I would rather be inside doing something else 😜 Mostly that consists of making Christmas cards etc, trying out new ideas, making bread and cooking. The weather took a dive at lunchtime, windy, rainy, cold, not nice today at all, I was not looking forward to going out and doing the rounds late afternoon. In a couple more days that will not be an issue as they will all be penned up in the stable block so I will only have to nip across the hard standing.
John has just phoned to say he is in the queue for a booster vaccination at a walk in clinic, that means I will probably have to go outside again to shut everything away for the night 🥶
Josh and Flo are coming to tea tonight and staying over, it’s been a long time since they have stayed at Nanas, before the pandemic they would regularly come and stay and then everything went sideways and we have never really quite got back on track with sleepovers 😏 Spaghetti Bolognese and a jam sponge pudding for dessert is on the menu.
You may wonder (or you may not) how I am getting on without the Rayburn, well I have a lot more time to do the things I like doing and I thought I would miss the heat but I don’t. The only thing I really miss is being able to dry the washing each night but it’s a small price to pay compared to the amount of work it took all year to run and maintain it.
Saturday: Oh my days what a night 🙄 gale force winds were roaring and kept me and plenty of other people awake half the night,seriously strong gusts at times, scary stuff but no damage though as I write this Saturday evening the winds have not actually stopped all day and are still pretty fierce. Add to that snow, yes bloody snow and it was not at all nice out there, the wind was bitingly cold. I had to go out and top up the horses water and also give them some hay, on the way back I made up the stables in case the snow didn’t clear and I had to bring them in. John went off to get feed once he had done the morning rounds and then in the afternoon he reluctantly went out to fasten down some of the roof that had come loose from constant buffering. At 4pm shelley came over with Martin and the kids and we walked up to the farm next door where they were having the Christmas craft Fayre ooosh the wind was strong and cold but it all added to the adventure, we met Mum up there, had hot chocolates and mulled wine, bought some raffle tickets and then walked home again. I will be glad when I don’t have to go outside anymore tonight 🥶
Sunday: It started off as a normal enough day, we did the animals, Sam and Mia came over to check the horses and rug up Jack. We had a discussion about where and when we will move them next but at the minute they are staying as they are. We went to the farm shop to get some bales of sawdust ready to shut the birds away and then we went out. Basically I dragged John round a couple of garden centres and a Christmas craft Fayre. I am doing well buying locally made gifts for the girls, I can’t really do it for the grandchildren but whenever I can I try and buy local. We bumped into Charlie and Macca at one of the centres so we stopped and had coffee and cake with them. Up to that point things were grand 🤪 We got home, unloaded and then the power went 🙄 I spent too much bloody time trying to get through to the power company, they are very busy due to the storm we had and so basically send you round and round in circles trying to report the outage and find out any info about when it would be back on. We had the big job of moving all the birds to do so we got togged up and went out to get that started. We put in clean bedding, blocked up any escape holes, put in water, feed, dust baths, perches and grit bowls as well as making nice little nest box areas. We also moved the ducks this time, they have gone into the point of lay pen, obviously they don’t roost so I made a little sleeping/egg laying area out of hay bales and straw for them. By this time it is starting to get dark and we have no lights 😂 we got the geese back up into the back paddock where they will stay for the duration and we herded the ducks from their current abode to their new des res. Then it was time to move all the hens, some of them had already been living in the stable block so they were easy enough. A few stragglers in the side paddock had gone to their usual hit and so we gathered those up a d put them in with the others. Then onto the big hut in the front paddock, we filled the first two poultry crates and took them to the stable, when we came out the lights were back on in the house yippee 🙌 We collected the last two poultry crates of birds and put those in the stable and finally we were done. It’s a pain having to shut the birds away for what is likely to be a few months but it’s what we have to do. On the flip side it makes them all easier to look after and of course they won’t get eaten by the fox plus we shall be able to find all the eggs. I have given them some extra treats, sunflower seeds and dried seaweed and I have used diatomaceous Earth in their feed as a wormer and in their bedding and dust bath, it’s like a five star poultry hotel 😂 Once that was done it was time to come in and get that cup of tea we had been looking forward to when we came home earlier in the day.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 