Monday 4th July 2022: Happy 4th of July to any Americans reading 🥳 Meanwhile back in Blighty I have been as busy as a bee. I have plenty of jobs on the list and was hoping to sear through a good few of them today but I got to lunchtime and my feet hurt, my back hurt and I was tired, hungry and thirsty so I sat down for an hour or so. If I do t sit down and rest I am not very productive for the rest of the day and evening so I may as well sit, rest and refuel. I started off this morning watering because although it rained where we were on Saturday it didn’t rain much here 😏 It keeps looking like it is going to rain but we are not getting anything and the ground is drying up very quickly when we do get something. It’s weird at the minute because it July for goodness sake but it’s like the weather doesn’t know that and it was even chilly in the late evening, almost frost weather I would go as far as to say 🙄 It’s not going to last though as temps will be climbing again by the weekend, to ridiculous degrees 😝 all or nothing that’s the UK weather these days. Next I went on to do some weeding and then some harvesting of various crops, potatoes, carrots, broad beans, peas, elephant garlic (just the one) artichoke, courgettes, kohlrabi, then strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants and gooseberries. I then spent an hour harvesting all the blackcurrants that are growing on one bush, a big haul. I have two bushes (two that I use, the others I leave for the birds) so I cut the branches off on one bush and harvest the blackcurrants that way, the other does not have any on because I did the same to that one last year and the currants grow on two year old wood. Now I have a pile of goodies sitting in the kitchen that I need to process lol. I wanted to get the rest of the red currants harvested and the gooseberries but I needed a rest first. I also have plants I want to get planted up, cuttings to take, seeds to sow and I have no idea how I thought I would get all that done in one day 😂
We have had issue with the fox as you know, John dragged out the trap and we caught it and had it dealt with. Less than an hour later I was working in the garden when I heard a hen doing a ‘I am being chased noise’ I went to the fence and by then patch was tearing across the field after, yep, another bloody fox 🤬 I got a bucket of corn, went to the front and got all the hens inside the safety of the outside run, I had only just let them out because I thought it would be safe for the day, bloody relentless! They are clearly urban because it’s rare to see a country fox out in the broad daylight, they know better than that, these are not scared of people being around and they are not scared when you get up close which indicates they are used to people. I am thinking they have been ‘relocated’ which is a pretty cruel practice if you ask me. If pest control are called out to deal with foxes in someone’s garden, they should be dealt with there and then, but what happens is the householder asks for it to be trapped and released 😏 This is not good for a fox who is used to being able to find leftover McChicken in bins, they are hungry, they don’t understand the pitfalls of the countryside, they get injured and maimed and catch mange, there is no kindness in this at all. The numbers are so great they are competing for what little food there is available and so they go for an easy target, our hens, in the middle of the day no less, it’s never going to end well 😞 This is only my opinion of course, but it is based on fact because I live and work in the countryside and I don’t mean in a posh house with an office at the end of the garden!
Finally sit down at 9.30pm, oh my days every time I turn round there is another job to do and another and another and none of them can really wait. I spent the evening in the garden, planting up and watering and then I thought I will sort out the plants in the cold frame that are potted up. I get plenty of failures and so I went through them and threw out the ones that were dead or dying or I couldn’t be bothered to keep anymore, I discovered leather jackets! No wonder things are not growing very well 🤬 if it isn’t one thing it’s something else but at least I now know it’s not my incompetence 🙄 The nematodes I got for the vine weevil in the front beds worked really well and everything is now growing as it should so I have ordered nematodes for the leather jackets and hope that works just as well. Leather jackets are crane fly larvae (daddy long legs) the adults don’t do any harm but the larvae munch on plant roots, normally you would find them in the lawn but for some reason I have an infestation in my pots 🤷♀️ Next spring I will arm myself with nematodes before growing begins 😝 I still haven’t got round to doing the cuttings yet but I will get there eventually. Tomorrow I have a big bouquet to cut for and some really nice flowers are now coming on, there are a few cosmos for pops of colour as well as zinnia and even a few dahlias. One thing I have discovered is that I much prefer the spring flowers to the summer ones even if the summer ones are the showstoppers 🥰
Tuesday: Up early as I have a fair few flowers to cut this morning 😁 then onto cutting for drying 😝 then picking soft fruits, gooseberry’s and redcurrants today. Just about got all that done when Sam arrived with the twins for the afternoon. After dinner was done I did an hour or so outside but to be honest I am knackered today so finished at 9pm 😝
Wednesday: I had planned on a relaxed day today, I made up the bouquets that were going out today, let the ducks out, did the eggs and pootled around. Midday and a customer was coming to collect a bouquet, I had a phone call initially and she wanted 3 x bouquets and wanted some pictures sent so she knew what they were like. I sent the pictures and said I can do anywhere from £10 upwards and so she wrote back and said £30 please. I had got her £30 flowers ready and when she collected she was delighted and then asked where the other two bouquets were 😣 We apologised for both miss communicating and I was very professional and said ‘it’s no problem, I can get them cut, conditioned and delivered by this evening’ All the while I was thinking s**t what have I got left in the garden to cut that hasn’t already be allocated to another bouquet 😂 Luckily it was overcast as well because cutting flowers in the midday sun is not ideal, not for the flowers nor for me 🙄 Plus once cut they had a good four hours conditioning, not ideal again but the minimum amount at least. I went round (amazingly enough, not in a panic) and cut anything and everything I could see that I could use including two beautiful gladioli that had been hiding in a bush! All is well and I learnt a very good lesson in precise wording lol. I am very definitely going to be expanding this side of things going forward, I am loving it and so are the customers, I just need to identify a stable for conversion to a workshop now 😝
With all flowers delivered, dinner cooked and eaten it was more work in the garden for the evening.
Thursday: Up and about, flowers to cut for another bouquet plus I cut a lot of shorted stems for jam jars, might as well cut them that encourages another flush of some of the plants but also they don’t just go over and get wasted. Once that was done and a bit of watering plus all the usual morning jobs including letting the ducks out it was time for the farrier to arrive. Sam and the twin arrived just beforehand and while I got the twins to feed the tortoises, Sam got the horses in to have their pedicures 😁 Sam left before they were done as the twins had an afternoon session at nursery so I turned the horses back out. I cleaned out the water buckets and left one to fill up while I took the head collars back to the stables, I picked up a broom and started sweeping down the hard standing where all their hoof clipping were and yep you guessed totally forgot that I had left the water on 😝 Luckily while sweeping I suddenly realised and although it was overflowing it had only been about ten minutes. Once that was done I did a bit in the garden until around 1.30 then went in for some lunch and a sit down. I had just finished making up some jam jar flowers when Sam and the children arrived again this time for Mia’s swimming lesson, the twins stayed here and had their dinner, they were then collected and off they all went. I then had to make up a bouquet for collection this evening and someone was also coming for a jam jar. Dinner then John played pool with the lads while I watered the garden and then watched an online summer flower festival with our flower group. Charlie had come over with Macca and so she did some watering for me and stayed outside doing that while I watched the flower festival which was fab of her, it freed me up to do something I wanted to do but also meant that an important job was still getting done.
Friday: Boy was I up early today 😂 4.45am, well I woke up and thought I might as well get up and get on so I did exactly that in my pyjamas 😝 Mostly watering, some cutting back and some seed sowing, there is still time to sow annual flowers so I did cornflowers, I also sowed stocks which are biennials. They will get big enough to transplant by September into a permanent bed and then they will flower next year. I was just picking courgettes when John called me, it was about 7.30am, there is a tiny baby hedgehog right in the middle of the path by the hay bar he said. So off I went with him to have a look, yep it’s tiny all right, we have a great hedgehog population here and I am used to seeing them about, I am even used to seeing them nearly as small as that but they are usually very near the nest site or their mother, neither of these were nearby. I left it for a few hours just in case mum came back or it made its way home but it was still there when I went back so I gathered it up and took it back with me. First observation was that it had a tick so I removed that, second that it’s eyes were tightly shut so I think it’s around two weeks old, third it only weighed 89g so way to young to be out on its own and probably (almost definitely) still suckling. How it got there I don’t know, I looked around for other siblings but couldn’t see anything and I have no idea where the nest would be at the back. If it was in the side paddock then it will be under the decking as that’s where I regularly see hogs, I have seen them at the back but the hedge row is so long and the nest site could be anywhere along there 🤷♀️ I tried phoning the British hedgehog society but the phone was constantly busy so I emailed them and they got back to me quickly and gave me a number for the local wildlife rescue lady. She has covid and can’t come out but between reading the rearing pamphlet, the lady’s reply’s to my questions and the fact that we have all the equipment needed here I felt I was pretty well prepared to look after it. First it needed rehydrating with a sugar and salt preparation (carefully weighed out in the correct quantities) not a problem I have made that kind of solution before. Then it needed heat, not a problem we have heat lamps, I found a box, put in some straw and put it in a quiet dark room. Then we needed goats milk, quick phone all to John who arrived with said goats milk. We have tiny syringes so that fine, I sterilised everything before using and gave it some fluid, you will have to use a little force to get it in its mouth the lady had told me (but not too much) yep well I have had fed plenty of baby animals so that was all ok. Once it was time for the milk I warmed it to blood temp filled the syringe with 4ml of the milk and went to feed it. I seriously don’t think I have ever seen anything cuter than a baby hog feeding from and tiny syringe 😍 It drank the first 4ml so I offered it another 2ml and after the first one it even put its little paw on the syringe to move it away, it was full up 🥰 little happy dance done I then had to do the next part. It’s face has to be cleaned after eating or drinking, wipe a cotton bud dipped in a mix of olive oil and water to clean it and keep the skin from drying out and then you have to stimulate it to wee and poop lol just like it’s mother would, luckily I have also done this before with kittens and puppies. Again that is done using a cotton bud dipped in the oil and water. Job done I put it back in the box with an old tea towel for a comfort blanket and left it to sleep. Everything then sterilised again until the next time in around three hours 😂 I seriously hope it makes it and if it does I will be a very happy hog mummy 😁
Oh yes before all of that I went off to get my fifth vaccination and so I had planned on having a restful day 😂
Saturday: Hilda the hedgehog is doing well I am pleased to say, she has opened her eyes and is more mobile though shaky on her legs still, eating well and pooping and weeing so hopefully this will end well. Just a few more weeks of feeding her up and then she can be released.
My vaccination has floored me 😏 totally exhausted, headache, unable to do anything for more than ten minutes before I need a sit down, lie down or indeed a sleep. All the others did not affect me at all but with this one I have a thick head and am on the paracetamol 😝 Not what I needed this weekend, I was supposed to go to my friends 60th birthday party tonight but I was just too tired to function, even eating tired me out, and I feel quite teary 🤷♀️ There is definitely an immune response as I can feel it in my hands and joints so hopefully it’s doing good at least. Tomorrow we have Charlie’s baby shower and I hope I feel better in the morning as I have an awful lot of things to do beforehand. It’s afternoon tea in the garden but still there is furniture to move about, sandwiches to make, crockery to wash, etc, etc and right at this minute I have not got very far at all 🙄 It is also bloody hot today and going to get hotter which means I have no hope of getting anything done outside past 10.30am, so it’s indoors in the dark, cool for me for the foreseeable future. So many events happening this weekend out and about and I won’t be attending any of them for fear of frying and shrivelling and setting off a flare, fml sometimes, I tell myself there are worse situations to be in but that doesn’t really help knowing that I am constantly missing out on life in the sun 😢
Sunday: Luckily I woke up feeling fine this morning, just as well as I had a long list of things to get sorted for the Charlie’s baby shower. We had a traditional English afternoon tea with triangle sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, a selection of delicious cakes and a few other goodies for good measure 😁 We had a busy morning setting it all up then a very relaxing time sitting and enjoying it and then…..a water fight 😂 well it was very hot and the kids had the paddling pool out and one thing led to another 💦
It is set to get seriously hot over the next week, I am having to constantly work to keep some things alive, even well established bushes are beginning to show signs of lack of water and I imagine the grass will be dead before the week is out 🙄 but I will be getting up super early and doing my best to keep it all going lol.
Little Hilda is doing great, she is now on cat food mixed with goats milk and it’s ad lib so she can please herself. I gave her a bigger pen so that she can have a mooch about and stretch her legs. Have you heard the screech they make, it’s like a warning screeching think, she also has sharp teeth and she is already pretty strong, moving the bowl with her snout or forefeet.
Have a great week and try to stay coolio.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 