Monday 14th August 2023: Another not so great summers day, I know it’s late summer but seriously it was more like autumn today. I am not sure we are going to get much of summer now, it would matter so much but Winter is loooooong and depressing enough on it’s own 😜
I decided to do something constructive today and as outside was a right off and I have spent more than enough time on flowers I thought I ought to clean the boot room. We have a proper boot room, not one of those you see in a glossy magazine that is all pristine and neat as if the occupant has no real idea what a boot room is for 😂 It is a working boot room and not for show or somewhere you keep clean wellies. The wellies still have mud on them, the coats would probably be thrown in the rag bin if you gave them to a charity shop and there is ‘stuff’ dumped everywhere. The dogs and cats eat and sleep in there and it gets pretty dusty or wet mud splattered on every surface. Saying I clean it is probably going a bit far, I hoover every nook and cranny, wipe down wipeable surfaces and give the dog beds a wipe over with disinfectant (because it smells like cherries and is lovely) it still takes me well over an hour to do just the basics though. I think the hoover is on the way out, we only use that hoover for that room and when that breaks we buy a new house one and the house one becomes the boot room one. We keep them separate because hoovering up pet hair and dust makes it smell a bit musty and I don’t want that lingering in the house. A couple of times after turning it off it would not turn on again until a few minutes later 🙄 I told John when he came home and he helpfully said ‘is the bag full’ ‘nope I changed that before I started so it’s not that’ looks like I will be buying g a new house hoover soon.
John did some more strimming when he came home from work while I got the dinner sorted and then we went to mums for a cuppa. When we got back a friend had dropped round two crates full of Victoria plums, the bough of her tree had snapped under the weight of them and she didn’t want them to go to waste. Our tree has not been that prolific this year and so I can definitely use some of them, the rest will be given away to various family and friends that want them. At one time I would have done a big batch cook up with them or made sauce or jam but these days I am not so inclined 😜 I will freeze plenty to use in the winter and probably make a few jars of jam.
Tuesday: Oscar day today and he was very clingy and whingy all day lol. My sister came round with her granddaughter for a play date but Oscar was not having any of it and in the end I put him down for a sleep. We will try again another day but today was not a success 😂
In the evening I did a bit of dried flower work but really was too tired to do much else.
Wednesday: I whizzed round and got a few things done before Shelley came to pick me up and we went to meet Sam and Charlie at a sunflower field on a local farm. I didn’t even know it was there to be honest but it’s a little gem of a place, a lovely cafe with good food, great coffee, delicious ice cream and sunflowers too. Of all the cloudy days we have had over summer today was t really one of them 🙄 there was intermittent cloud but when the sun was out boy it was hot 🥵 not the best for me but I did have my hat and sun cream on because as you can imagine there is no shade where sunflowers grow.
We all had a wonderful time playing in the pathways that had been cut through the sunflowers and then ice cream while watching the harvested grain being sent up the shute to the silo. George was in his element with all the tractors and trailers coming and going, he is crazy mad about tractors and definitely wants to drive one when he is older 🥰
Pretty tired again this evening after today lol.
Thursday: I did quite a bit this morning in the poly tunnel, clearing dying mint foliage and weeds, trying to stake chrysanthemums which are leaning over and then dead heading anything that needed doing. Next I dug some bits of apple mint up to propagate, I had planted it with two other types of mint but it seems to be the weaker one and got a bit smothered. I definitely want much more of it for next year so need to propagate it now before it disappears altogether. I watered the small tunnel and then turned on the water in the big tunnel.
Sam arrived with the children and I was having them for a few hours while she did some work. They were full of boundless energy today and Nana not so much. We went and looked for blackberries in the small paddock at the back but the grass is so long the gate hardly opens so we came back down to find things to pick in the garden. We found tomatoes, cucumbers and a few logan berries, George had spotted the cooking apples and wanted to take some of them home to make ‘pudding pie’ 😂 It is lovely that they know they can find things to eat in my garden but there is not a lot left when they do!
Again in the evening I was tired but I really needed to do a few things, we are forecast thunderstorms and rain tomorrow and I wanted to get some flowers cut before then, and some orach cut for drying. The weather is really a pain in the arse at the minute, it is either raining or bloody hot, not much inbetween. I know it is much better than some places in the world but it is not great for the flowers, if you get sunshine it brings the flowers out and then the next day it rains and spoils them 🙄 If we get the rain tomorrow I have plenty of indoor jobs to do but it would be nice to have a couple of (not too hot or not raining) days in a row doing outside jobs.
Friday: It is 7.30 am and already heavy rain 🙄 it’s dark enough to need the lights on indoors, a snapshot of what lies ahead in the darker months. I quite like the seasons for that, even though we have not had much of a summer, when the time comes to close the curtains early and put the lights on it’s quite comforting. As I said I have a long list of indoor jobs to choose from so hopefully I will still have a productive day.
Oscar has to go to hospital today for an operation which is a shame because tomorrow is his first birthday and a party was all planned. That had to be moved to next week, it’s best to take the date you are offered in the current climate of strikes and post covid hangover problems.
I decided to get apples and plums prepped for the freezer, always takes a lot longer than you think especially peeling the apples when my hand is still not 100% yet. I would have gone the whole hog and made crumbles etc but there is no sugar in the cupboard so that will have to wait. I now have about 5kg of plums frozen 😂 and endless amounts of apples still to do, I am thinking of all the yummy puddings in the depths of winter and will be glad of them then. I keep toying with the idea of am,ing plum jam but John doesn’t like plum jam nor any other jam except strawberry, raspberry at a push so my efforts are wasted on him. The same applies to chutney, he won’t touch that at all no matter what is in it 😜 so not much point making that either 😏
While I was indoors it meant I could get a signal and wait to hear about Oscar and he has returned from surgery safely thank goodness 🥰 no matter what the operation it is one of the longest wait for parents especially when they are so little.
Saturday: We spent the best part of the day doing jobs around the farm, I have plug plants to pot up plus plenty of weeding and hoeing. I also spent a good deal of time hoovering the flower room, a quick sweep each time is ok but occasionally it needs more. I was thinking while I was doing it that it’s no good doing this if you don’t like spiders and creepy crawlies because they often can be found on the flowers and foliage and then get bought inside where they set up home 😂 Meanwhile John has been busy strimming and mowing, with all the rain everything has gone mad plus when we did get chance the mower broke. Now that is mended and the weather is more settled (mostly) we can at least get a handle on things and the place is starting to look much tidier than before.
Mid afternoon we went over to see Oscar for his 1st birthday 🥳 He was asleep for the first hour or so when we were there but eventually he woke up and we were able to give him his present and sing happy birthday to him. I think he was a bit bemused wondering why everyone was looking at him and singing lol.
Back home in the evening and we watched a film rather than doing any more work.
Sunday: The weather was nice and we had a lot of work to do so got on with it early. I had a flower workshop at 10am for a couple of hours then some lunch before sorting out the flowers for the hats I needed to do. I was worried that the flowers were not going to go overnight without water, initially the customer wanted to collect them tonight for tomorrow but I rang and said I would be happier dropping them off early in the morning so that they could stay in water overnight and I can attach them to the hats just before they get delivered. I have tried to use flowers that will do well enough out of water for a few hours which is a challenge, things like sedum and Pom Pom dahlias have more of a tolerance than things like cosmos which would just keel over.
Again John spent his time strimming and mowing 😜
Lately I have seen a couple of insects that I haven’t seen before, flying insects one I would class as a bee type and the other a moth but I didn’t have my phone either time so couldn’t get a photo. I don’t recognise either of them so I am hoping I will see them again when I have my phone with me. John is also sure he saw…..wait for it…… a door mouse 😮 if that is indeed what it was then oh my days that would be epic. He is used to seeing field mice and wood mice and it wasn’t the same though again we have no photo to clarify. The reason he saw it was because it was underneath the Guinea pigs bowl which had upturned otherwise he wouldn’t have. We do have plenty of hazel trees and when I say plenty I mean at least 15 all in one place and then plenty all around the rest of the farm so it is possible that we might have them, I will have to check the fallen nuts this year to see if they have been chewed. It would be very exciting but chances are it is some other type like harvest mouse or something lol.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 