frieslandfarm

A finished room, cleaning out the birds and a bit of pollarding.

Posted on January 17, 2021 by frieslandfarm

Monday 11th January 2021: Another start to another week, it doesn’t really seem like a new year does it? I think we anticipated that 2021 was going to bring us the freedom we were used to before the pandemic but it seems to be worse now than ever before. The only difference is that mass vaccination is starting to get going, Shelley has volunteered to help with the local vaccination centre, helping to direct cars and people in the right direction. I do hope it will all start to make a difference soon for the sake of my sanity as well as everyone else’s I’m sure.

You may be wondering about the birds, they are still in lockdown and last time they were not allowed out until April 🙄 To be honest it’s better for us as we don’t have to worry about fox attacks, if it really wanted to it could dig under but it would be hard going for most of the stables, it’s also easy and quick to nip out to the stable block for feeding and egg collecting plus it’s warmer than going to the paddocks. Having said all that I doubt very much the birds think it’s better, locked up day and night and not free roaming, not able to peck at the grass or any worms/insects, roll on spring for all manner of reasons including the welfare of the birds.

John finally finished the last bit of the floor last night, yay, now we can begin to paint and wallpaper it and lay some flooring on the top of the new floor. I am glad that is the last of the dusty work done, did I mention the dust 🤣🤣 Every individual thing will need to be dusted or cleaned before it goes back onto the shelves, I did say to John at one point ‘you are not working in an empty house ya know’ meaning he could have covered things up with dust sheets before he started, but no, let’s just get the saw out and start cutting 😖 small thing I know and let’s face it I do have plenty of time on my hands but still 🙄

I put a picture up of the kittens last week though they are getting big now but we also still have Diesel, the difference is that he does not come anywhere near the house, he eats and sleeps outside, mostly in the hay barn where he makes himself a tunnel into the hay, I imagine that is lovely and warm 😀

The fire bricks arrived, can’t remember if I said that last week or not but by the old ‘law of the sod’ the Rayburn has settled right down and our temporary bricks are doing fine so for that reason we have not installed the new ones as yet but we will do soon.

We got the animals done first thing and then we went off to the diy shop to get paint and all that we need to do the job and get the wallpaper hung. So we have spent hours rubbing bits down and then painting the first coat and then the second coat. The painting is mainly my job, John does not like doing it, nor do I really but someone has to 🙄 John is far too impatient for that kind of job, as it is he keeps rushing me to get the next coat on, you have to wait for the last one to dry first I keep telling him. At the moment everything has had two coats of white and part of the mdf has been primed, still a long way to go yet but we are getting there. Today it has been Johns job to do the afternoon rounds and get the fire sorted and keep it going, it will be interesting to see what he gets us for dinner 😜

I decided we will paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls, it is quite a light colour and I honestly can’t see the point of painting it white just because that is what is always done, I may have made an error but we will see. Painted it now and it’s a bit darker than we thought but I quite like it, it’s my she cave 😂 It will be less of an office and more of a workroom for sewing, ancestry research, crafting, reading and a little bit of paperwork plus the grandchildren will have their toys and books in there in there so a playroom as well, multifunctional 🥰

I always like to do things a bit differently 😜 when I was in my early teens I had my Mum hang my wallpaper sideways because I preferred the look, it was late seventies and the wallpaper was stripes with a kind of bump in it so I thought it would look awesome sideways on, like a heartbeat trace 😀

Tuesday: I am pleased with the painting even the ceiling, it looks great and you can hardly tell it’s the same colour as the walls. John did the outside jobs then went off to get some feed as we have completely run out. Meanwhile I had a shower, got some washing on and filled and painted a couple of bits that needed doing plus cleaned the windows. We are ready to wallpaper the one wall, it’s been a few years since I did any wallpapering so I am a bit apprehensive especially as the one roll of paper I bought cost an arm and a leg 😜 It was exactly what I wanted though and so I figure it justified the price, I now have to make sure I don’t cock up 🙄 and there is not much room for error with just one roll 😂 no pressure!

Wallpapering done 😀 it was a tense few minutes getting the first one right but it went well and looks great. Then I had to pop to the doctors to get a blood test, the practice is very busy getting ready for mass vaccinations starting on Friday. Then it was back home to begin another mammoth painting session, this time the shelving and desk area that John built in, first it needed a primer coat and then the first coat of paint, lots of nooks and crannies to paint round this time so it took a good couple of hours. John was on Rayburn and animal duty and even dinner and washing up duties today. Tomorrow Martin is coming to fit the door on the cupboard which is great and earlier than we expected him to be able to do it, so it should all be nearly finished by the end of the week I think, John will pick up some flooring to lay and then it will just be skirting board and put the door back on and voila, we can get on with another job 😜

Wednesday: We did the animals and then John went off to get a piece of mdf for the cupboard door that Martin is coming to fit. After that he went to get flooring, being very careful at the minute to sanitise hands all the time, the merchants like most shops are pretty good at controlling numbers and being covid secure. I got the Rayburn lit and do a bit of rubbing down ready for the last coat of paint on the shelving etc.

We had slightly worrying message this morning as my sister has tested positive for covid, hopefully she won’t suffer too much and recover quickly.

Spent the best part of the day still painting and getting the final floor covering down. I realise I made two mistakes on this project, first, letting John talk me into Matt paint, error, I should have stuck to my guns and gone with silk, and second, letting John go and get the flooring. I thought it would be safe enough after all we had seen it in the flesh and agreed on it and I sent him with a photograph of it and gave him the name of it 🙄 I go in when he has half laid it and say that does not look right it’s too light, nope this is the one he says, I look it up, no it’s not, definitely not. He tells me the name, nope that’s not the name I gave you! Anyhooo I am not going to change any of it now, I can’t be arsed, I just want to get it finished and everything back in so that I can have the living room back and get tided up.

Thursday: John does the morning outside rounds while I do the morning inside rounds 😝 and then he goes off to get another pack of flooring as he miscalculated 🙄 and I do some of the touch up painting which will hopefully be the last of the walls and desk area, just the skirting left to paint once we get it. John comes back and starts to get the last three bits of floor down, I can hear lots of swearing and grunting, it appears the last bits are being a bit of a pig to get it 😜

14th January 2013 we had to have our old dog Max put to sleep, his back legs went one morning and he just sat on the mat looking up at us 😢 The decision is never an easy one but we would always put the animals welfare before our feelings, no matter how much we loved him or how much we would miss him we made the call and that was the end of Max’s time with us. We had a difficult phone all to make first, our youngest, Charlotte was in Australia, she was very attached to Max, he was her childhood pet, we wanted to let her say goodbye first. We call the little paddock at the back Max’s paddock, that’s where our memories of him are, it’s fast becoming the memorial paddock as it has the trees for Johns Mum and Dad planted there as well 🥰 Felix the original farm cat is also buried up there, Milly who was my dog is buried in the garden under the lawn, we also have Gilbert who was my sisters cat buried under the oak tree, quite a cemetery we have here lol.

Ta da finally finished the room, hours of work, sweat and toil and it is all done bar the shouting 😜 It is looking amazing and I can wait to start using it, first though we will need to concentrate on the birds, cleaning out etc as they have not been done this week, that is the weekend taken care of then 🙄

Friday: Yay Friday 😀 even in a lockdown Friday feels good 😂 John did the morning rounds and then had a call out to a leak and another to a blockage 🙄 Meanwhile I have been busy cleaning, at last I can clean and hoover and polish and get everything put back where it is supposed to be. I got the living room back to normality and the spare room, all the grandchildren’s toys have been cleaned and hoovered and now sit waiting for the day they can come to Nanas again 🙃 I just realised I have the big cupboard in the office to clear and clean too, it got an awful lot of dust in there before the door went on, that might take me a while but I can have another clear out while I am doing it. I am being ruthless (well as ruthless as I get) when sorting stuff, why do we keep stuff we never use or don’t know what to do with 🤷‍♀️ Is it because the minute we throw it out we know we will need it? Or, as in my case, can’t bring myself to throw things away that still have a use (just not to me) and the charity shops are not open at the minute so we can’t take it there either.

Turns out I am not very ruthless 😂 I threw some things out really I did but not many 🙄 I carried on cleaning and putting away then John arrived home just before 12, he says everyone is so careful at the moment and hardly any one is going out anywhere. My sister keeps us updated daily and she is doing ok, she does not feel well, like she has flu, but at the moment she is ok.

After a spot of lunch I lit the Rayburn and John went outside to get some wood in and then the plan is to take all the rubbish from doing the office up to the skip and get decorating stuff put away. I have ordered another electric radiator for the spare room as John disconnected that radiator as well, it was back to back with the one in the office and we are not sure which one was leaking so they both went. I have to say the electric radiator is great, I said to John that although we will have them in all rooms I don’t think we will need them on very high at all and certainly some can probably be turned off for days if we don’t need them on. These are not like a storage heater they are notorious for chucking out heat when you do need it and not being on when you do, nor are they like the little portable electric heaters that are filled with oil. The radiators have a ceramic core and hold the heat well, they are quick to heat up and slow to cool down once the thermostat turns them off plus they can be programmed differently for every hour of every day, that’s progress for you, you can also use a remote control or connect to wifi and have smart heaters but we didn’t go for those options as they have a habit of going offline at any given moment 😂 Just the basic switch in at the wall will do for us.

Saturday: Phew busy day when we finally got up that is 😜 We we’re not too late up just about an hour later than normal but it does put you a bit behind. First jobs as always was get the animals fed and watered then it was off to town to get a few things done, the post office to post a parcel, the supermarket to get some bits of greenery for the chickens and a couple of household bits, the petrol station to fill up with fuel, a quick Costa, back to get some wood shavings from the farm shop next door and we are ready to get on with the task of the day. Cleaning out all the birds was top of the agenda, four hours later and all the birds have been mucked out, had clean bedding put down, topped up the grit holders, cleaned the water buckets and had a treat of an iceberg lettuce or some cabbage. The Guineas also had a partial clean out, I don’t like to take it all out in the winter as they have made a very cosy bed for themselves, it can all come out when the temperatures begin to climb. They also got treats of cabbage, apple, swede and carrot, the horses had carrot and apple, the geese had cabbage and apple and Ted the Turkey had cabbage, the only ones I forgot to give anything to were the ducks but I don’t suppose they noticed 🙄 I topped up the wild bird feeders while I was at it and now everything should feel loved and cared for 🥰 The strange thing that happened today was that I was declined four icebergs I was only allowed three, it seems they are having trouble getting hold of them and so limiting customers. It’s a pain that the birds are locked down in winter as come spring I would have plenty growing to be able to give them without having to buy it but that’s they way it is and they really enjoyed their treat demolishing them in seconds flat! We also bought a large pecking block, we will rotate it round the hens, at the minute the first lot are not interested in it at all but they may have a go at it later on. Trying to find things to keep them amused is difficult and actually what we are trying to do is to stop them getting bored as that often leads to egg eating and bullying. I did throw a carrot in as that will keep them amused for ages, it can’t easily be eaten so will last a lot longer.

When we had finished out there it was mid afternoon and time to come in and get the Rayburn lit, do the washing up from this morning, have a cup of tea and then John watched some snooker. He has been so busy he has not been able to watch it at all so it only seems fair to agree to him watching it this afternoon, I can find plenty of other things to do and may even retreat into my new room to do some of them 😀

While we were driving through town we took a sneaky photo of Shelley in her high vis, she had volunteered to help man the vaccination arrivals at the health centre, it’s for her covid memory book and she could hardly take one of herself could she 😂 Its a shame I couldn’t volunteer, you can’t be in a vulnerable category otherwise I would have, the more people that get on board with helping the smoother things will go and the quicker we will all receive our vaccinations making getting back to normal more of a reality.

Sunday: Another busy day, lockdown doesn’t really matter for us as there is always plenty to do round here. Today after doing the morning rounds we set about pollarding the willows at the very front of the driveway. I left them last year to see what they would look like and the answer is too big 😜 There was also the twisted hazel outside the gateway that had grown a fair few straight whips and they needed to come out as well. That took us the best part of the day to get them all cut down, shredded/chipped and tided up, some of the ends that were too big for the shredder were cut and have been stacked. They will be left to rot down giving invertebrates plenty of laces to hide, live and feed eventually. The shredding were also put back on the ground, these will get covered by grass growth in spring and also rot down, feeding the ground as it does so. There was one other that needed doing which is the chestnut that came down in the wind a couple of years ago, it has thrown up multiple shoots and they need cutting back before they get too big, ideally the stump needs grinding out but that’s a job for another day.

Once we finished and put everything away it was indoors for a cup of tea, light the Rayburn and a sit down for an hour before doing the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. It is actually days like this that I am glad of the early evenings because once everything is shut away you can relax entirely 😀

It looks drastic but they soon grow back 😀

I have been thinking about the growing year ahead and thinking of the things I would like to do more of this year, last night we had a shoulder of lamb and although I had mint sauce I rather prefer mint jelly which we have run out of so I will defiantly be making a few jars of that. Then I was thinking I would like to do a lot more dehydrating this year, I did a fair amount of dried herbs which has seen me over winter but I’m sure there are plenty of other things that I could be drying and using, I will have to make a list or I will not remember.

Have a good week, stay safe, stay home if you can, the better weather is coming I promise (just not yet 😜)

Friesland Farm

Another lockdown, freezing, snowy weather and jobs indoors.

Posted on January 3, 2021January 10, 2021 by frieslandfarm

Monday 4th January 2021: Having decided we will go to the shop as minimally as possible I am busy ploughing through the freezers, luckily they are full of all kinds of things especially veg and fruit, what we don’t buy I can make, bread, biscuits, cakes, pies, yep we are pretty sorted and to be honest I am rather enjoying wondering what on Earth each lump of frozen stuff is 😂 The veg, you will remember from last year, was all chopped and open froze so that’s easy to identify, sometimes I get out what I think is soup only to find it’s stock or in one case tomato juice instead of tomato soup but they are small matters that can easily be used regardless. This is when being self sufficient/reliant comes into its own in a big way and it’s what I love about what we do, I can’t wait to get started on the next growing season 😀

There is not much that can be done outside on the veg garden at the minute, if you are starting from scratch and have an area identified or built you can cover with cardboard and mulch to keep the weeds down, it’s to cold, wet, frozen to do much else for now. It will soon be time to start off pepper, aubergine and tomato seeds but only if you have good heat and good light otherwise you will be wasting your time and end up with leggy, weak seedlings, I usually wait until the beginning of March and even then only if the weather is not too cold and dull. The onions, garlic and shallots I planted at the end of the last season are doing well, plenty of top growth on them if they carry on I expect to get a good harvest from them. I still have the brassicas growing in the cage, I think they are sprouting broccoli and they should soon begin to sprout, the foliage is about 5/6 feet tall so if nothing appears that will be disappointing 😜 only another few weeks and the rhubarb and asparagus will start to appear and the whole process of growing our own will begin again.

Getting the office sorted was the job of the day today, we (I say we but mostly John) have had to make good any of the walls ready for plaster boarding. For some reason five years ago we never got round to finishing the room and so it was half done and left like that for years 🙄 anyhow after a lot of hard graft today the walls, ceiling and window surround are now ready for plastering and John is plastering the ceiling as I write. We do have a problem with the floor where a radiator has been leaking and part of it will have to be replaced as it is rotten, the floor is also not level it appears and so that needs to be rectified as well, all doable I am told so I am letting the expert get on with it and I am there as a dead man or cleaner or labourer or tea maker whatever is needed 😜 That has taken up most of the day with the usual jobs slotting in when they need to be.

I did go out into the poly tunnel and pull up some pak Choi this morning, not for us to eat but for the hens, they have now been inside for quite a while and so giving them greens now and again will hopefully help with boredom and lack of natural foraging. I still have a fair bit of lettuce type plants growing in there and I will continue to pull them for the birds they are more in need of it than me I think.

It is early evening and we have an announcement at 8pm from the Prime Minister 🙄 another lockdown? I think it will be and luckily John had already decided to have January off and hopefully he will still be able to get materials to get on with the office, if not there are plenty of other jobs to do 🤣

Tuesday: So we are into another full lockdown which will be reviewed in seven weeks! Oh my days seven weeks, luckily we have plenty to occupy us. As I type John is taking out the second radiator, not sure that January is a good time to be taking out radiators but who am I so comment lol, the first electric one will be arriving today so we can see how well that is going to work. I am also waiting for him to clean the flue so I can get the fire lit as it is a tad cold this morning 🥶

Rayburn lit and outside jobs done, I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon doing not a lot but not nothing if you see what I mean. We had butternut squash soup for lunch and I tried making a fruit loaf. This is the second or third attempt I have made at doing this but yet again it is failing to rise on the first prove so I think I will give up and never try it again. I don’t like to give up on anything but sometimes the constant failing at it wears you down to despondency, John would be the only one that eats it, I would try a slice but that’s it, and so maybe leave that to the mass production, they seem to manage it easily enough. I am saying all this but I know that I will want to nail it one day 😜

I did think about going down the driveway and pollarding the willow trees now they are dormant, but and it is a but, if I got lost in doing the job and forgot the time the Rayburn would be out when I came back in, it needs feeding every hour or so to keep it up to temperature and as John is plastering he dose t really have time to watch it. Maybe I will wait for a warmer day, today is pretty chilly with a North/East wind and you can really feel the bite in the air.

The fruit bread didn’t fail after all, I put it in the warming oven in the Rayburn and although it took a couple of hours it finally started to rise 😀 it was just on a go slow, it’s not the best loaf ever but it is edible and that’s the main thing.

Wednesday: I have to double check what day it is at the minute 🙄 John had a call out early this morning so it was down to me to do the morning rounds. It was cold but actually it was quite nice to get outside in the fresh air rather than being indoors in the warm. I fed everything and made sure all the water buckets and holders were topped up, collected a few eggs that had already been laid. John came home with a takeaway coffee as the job was at a local coffee shop where they do great coffee, I was delighted that the cup was 100% compostable as well as warming me up on a cold winters day. He left again shortly afterwards to another call out hopefully that will be it for the rest of the day as he has a couple more walls to plaster. So far the ceiling, one wall and two of the window reveals are done now all that is left is the top window reveal and two walls, time to start thinking about paint then 😀 I already have some wallpaper I want to put up on one wall, oh I forgot, the floor has to be done first before painting begins, it seems never ending but it hasn’t taken long really and we have waited five years to get it done so a few more days won’t hurt.

John is having to be very careful when he goes to jobs both for the customers sake and ours, the covid numbers are climbing so rapidly it’s crazy and the reports of the hospitals at breaking point is a big worry so the safer we can keep everyone the better.

I had an email to say the firebricks are with the Royal Mail so I am holding off lighting the Rayburn to see if they arrive with the postman this morning, the oven is reaching ridiculously high temperatures with our makeshift bricks in there and so the sooner we can get the right ones in the better it will be for the boiler.

I keep thinking I will get outside on the garden and do some work but it’s still rather cold at the minute, when I came in from doing the animals the top of my legs were blue 😧 there is plenty of time and I’m sure the temperature will rise slightly soon. I did look at the rhubarb that I am forcing, it’s growing nicely, the other plants have barely started so forcing is a good idea and it will mean an early crop which is good when there is not much else about. I think I will get the broad bean seeds sown sooner rather than later and I might try some salad leaves in the greenhouse as I the heat mat I have had on in there seems to be doing a great job of keeping the frost out.

The postman came and went and no fire bricks so I lit the Rayburn it’s too cold to wait anymore. Midday and John is still out fixing a leak, it’s a hole in a lead pipe so that means replacing the very old pipe with new or trying to find a fitting that will connect old to new which is rare these days. Meanwhile I decided I would have a look and order some seed potatoes, normally I only do maincrop but this year I am going to do first earlies so the sooner I order them the better. I ordered, Charlotte, swift and Vivaldi and I will probably set at least one lot in the polytunnel for an even earlier crop. I also ordered the main crop potatoes at the same time to save on postage, I have gone for Cara, I have had them before, they have a good yield and are fairly disease resistant plus the longer you leave them in the bigger they get which is perfect for baking potatoes. I always think I don’t grow enough potatoes but they do need quite a bit of space if grown traditionally. I have found that growing them in tubs is a hit and miss affair and never the yields you see in the photographs 🙄 Having said that I will be growing the earlies in tubs or potato bags I think, it’s easier and you can put them in a corner of the tunnel where they won’t interfere with later growing, that’s the plan anyway. The main crop will go in the ground I just need to decided where they will go this year.

Once John was back and the Rayburn had settled I decided to go for a quick walk around the village, might as well it’s the only out and about time I will be getting. It was Baltic as I walked along the lane towards the village but once I was surrounded by buildings it wasn’t too bad. I noticed all the bulbs forcing their way upwards, some daffodils already have flower buds waiting to open, mine by contrast have not even appeared above ground yet. The village was quiet, not a soul to be seen, all tucked up in the warm I expect. The sun is trying to shine, hopefully we will se more of it soon it has been very shy of late 🙄

John bought me a Monty Don book for Christmas and it is a lovely gentle read about the wildlife he sees in his garden, it is an ideal read for this time of year when you can’t really get out in the garden for very long, it’s called My Garden World and I highly recommend it.

Well you couldn’t dream up what happened in the USA today and we watched the news all night as events unfolded and demonstrators stormed Capitol Hill all spurred on by the current President, it is not our politics to comment on but I will be glad when the 20th January arrives and a new President is sworn in, the integrity of America can hopefully be repaired from then on in.

Thursday: Bloody hell it’s cold! We woke up to freezing fog which did not lift all day, a day shrouded in mist, an eerie landscape.

The office and its problems went from bad to worse, where the floor had been getting wet for a very long time the timbers underneath were also rotten. These are timbers that the whole floor sits on, luckily the main strut that sits on concrete blocks was sound but the rest had to be replaced and John has spent the day doing the first third of the floor we still have two thirds to lift, replace timbers, insulate and re-lay flooring. At least once it’s done it will be sound for a good few years again. The problem goes further than the office as we have discovered and the spare room next door will also have to have the floor lifted and repaired but that can wait until warmer weather comes along as it’s not very warm with the floor missing and freezing temperatures outside 😜

I have formed a childcare bubble with Samantha and the children so that once a week I can help look after the twins and Mia. Being locked down with three under fives is hard work and mentally wearing especially when there is an expectation to do home learning with Mia. I have seen for myself the difficulties Sam has encountered and I feel it’s only right to step in and help out. Essential childcare bubbles are legally allowed, I think they consider looking after children while parents are working as essential but I also consider this to be essential and until someone tells me differently that’s what we will be doing 🙄 So that’s what I was doing for most of the day, helping with Mia’s school work, doing some baking with her and going for a walk, and also playing with the twiglets who are a complete handful at the minute 😂

Friday: It snowed overnight, not too much, more of a dusting than anything but still everywhere is white this morning. We kept the Rayburn in overnight last night, partly because it was cold outside and partly because having no floor in place and no heating in two rooms it was cool indoors and so keeping it in overnight seemed like the best option. It was still going this morning after using our overnight Lekto fuel and so it started up easily this morning. I got it going while John went out and started the animal rounds and then I went out to help him. The horses are getting increasingly hungrier and so I decided we would try and get one of the big round bales out to the paddock. We huffed and puffed and heaved and rolled the 370kg round bale until it was in place, harder than it sounds when you have to negotiate it round corners and also when the cat thinks it’s a great fairground ride to be taken advantage of 😝 Outside jobs done it was time for a quick coffee before John went off to deal with a badly leaking tap that an elderly lady has and pick up some more flooring etc from the merchants. Meanwhile I hoovered and polished, the dust that comes from taking up the floor is considerable and the more I can keep it down the better in the long run, I will be glad when the floor is finally finished. Its slow going even though John is working all hours to get it sorted, good job we are in lockdown and can’t go anywhere else really otherwise it would probably take twice as long as it is already 🙄

Dug out the broad bean and pea seeds and had intended to sow them by now but as yet I haven’t got round to doing it, probably just as well to wait a while for the weather to warm up just a little bit more. I always find that February is a lot colder than we expect it to be, the thinking is, it’s a new year and we are approaching spring but in reality we are still in the throes of late winter so it shouldn’t be a surprise when the temperature plummets 😂

While John was out I got the dinner on the go, diced lamb in the slow cooker along with home grown veg, I added potatoes as well, might as well put it all in one pot than I don’t have to faff about later. The perfect dinner for a day like today especially as it has starting snowing again, no idea how long it will go on for or if it will settle. Shelley, who lives just ten minutes away in town said they only have the tiniest hint of snow not a layer like we have here, I guess that’s the differencein temperatures in towns/cities and rural areas, I have mentioned before that it is always 2/3 degrees colder here 🥶

John came home and got on with the job in hand and just while we are in chaos the electrician turned up. I am not complaining though as normally we have to wait an age for things to get done, that’s the problem when you are trade and your mates are all trade, you have to wait for them to do their real work first 😂

The electrics are done which is good because all the office equipment was running off an extension lead before and I now have usb points as well 😀 The floor is a tad slower 🙃 obviously because other stuff was happening it meant that John couldn’t get on as fast as he would have liked, last night he worked until about 8.30pm but tonight he has called it a day at 5.30pm we can start again fresh in the morning, it’s taking a whole lot longer than I had hoped but hey at least it is getting done 😀 We have put the electric radiator on the wall and turned it on but despite several readings of the instructions to programme it we have so far failed and it is just on permanently 😜

I made a mixed fruit pie to go along with the lamb stew tonight, a proper winter meal on what feels like another very cold night again tonight.

Saturday: Busy day today, first and foremost the animals and we are still having to bucket water to the ones outside as the taps and pipe are frozen. Then John is back on the office floor job and I am carting old flooring out and getting it burnt along with the feeds bags and the Christmas rubbish, as well as a few barrow fulls of wood to bring in for the Rayburn. Needless to say I was on afternoon duties and by the evening I was tired and when I get tired I get grumpy lol. We had a restful evening and recharged our batteries for tomorrow.

Sunday: It’s still all frozen this morning though last night I was able to fill up the water buckets as the tap defrosted during the day. Looking forward to slightly warmer weather though that will probably bring rain with it 😏 We did the animals and then went to get our click and collect shopping from the supermarket, restock on things that have run out and it’s actually a very easy, stress free process, hopefully covid dodging as well 😜 We had breakfast out and by that I mean a takeaway Costa coffee and bacon roll in the car in the car park 😂 I had some shopping to drop round for Mum and then it was back home to get on with lighting the Rayburn and the final bit of the floor to come up and new to go down. It’s mid afternoon as I write this and the final new timbers are going in. Meanwhile I spent a good couple of hours giving the bathroom a right good clean, wash down all the walls, shelves, windowsill, turn out the cupboards and throw away all the out of date stuff and things we don’t use anymore, a good use of my time I reckon.

I will be glad when this job is finished and so will John I think 😂

Just as I was typing the electric tripped, it did it once already and the usual culprit is the pump outside that takes the water from the tanks to the garden so we unplugged it but it tripped again. This meant going though all the things we have plugged in to figure what was causing it, at one point we thought it was one of the big freezers which would be a disaster as we could never eat all that in 24 hrs. Luckily we figured out that it was the electric to the fencing out in the paddock that is keeping the horses in, I need to sort it out sooner rather than later as it won’t take Jack long to figure out that there is no current running through the tape and he will be pulling it down in no time. It has been fine while everything was frozen but as it starts to thaw I’m guessing moisture has got into the reel and caused it to trip.

We bought the cats a Christmas present as you can see from the main photo, not sure it was a good idea though as they hardly leave it except for feeding time 😂

That’s another week done and dusted and who knows what is going to happen over the next week, I am quite expecting further restrictions to be put in place as the numbers are scary at the minute. I always say it could be worse and of course there are worse situations to be in but during the Winter months I think many people are struggling emotionally and mentally with things. If that is you then put on your favourite uplifting song and dance and sing as if no one is watching, tomorrow is another day, we will keep battling forward until we have got this thing nailed 🥰 Stay safe x

Friesland Farm

Happy New Year, here is to a much better 2021 😀

Posted on January 3, 2021January 3, 2021 by frieslandfarm

Now I know I said I wasn’t going to blog over Christmas but some days just warrant an jot down. Today Dec 21st is a day like that, first John gets the animals done and goes off Christmas shopping, I do a few little house bits and then set up to wrap presents. First I have to move bits of the rubic cube to get to the wrapping paper, scissors, tape etc, a bit of intense searching for a few things and I’m ready to go, shit I have forgotten to put the eggs out and there is a customer waiting, I also forget to put a note out explaining the lack of honesty box, back in, do that and I am good to go. I pick up the sellotape block, you know the unit that is very easy to use, drop it, break it and now it doesn’t roll and won’t tear off nicely leaving an end. I carry on each time trying to find the end of the sellotape, I try sticking the end to the table but if it falls off once it falls off a hundred times. I remember that at 11am a hay delivery is coming oh ffs John has gone off in the car and left the van parked right in front of the gate (I don’t drive) never mind I will open the side gate that will eventually be the driveway and oh another bloody rubic cube scenario, move planks of wood so the gate can open, move bits and pieces left by John so the truck and trailer can manouvre properly, move a bloody great pile of hedge clippings and debris so it can actually get through, sometimes I hanker for an ordinary life 😝

Monday 27th December 2020: It snowed! Despite Alexa giving a totally different weather forecast it began to snow early Monday morning and then it started to settle and overnight it froze and it has being frozen each day so far.

Wednesday 30th December 2020: I felt compelled to write today as it is a milestone day, the UK Astrazenica vaccine has been approved and will begin roll out next week. Although we already have the Pfizer one that needs special handling at extremely low temperature whereas this new one can be kept in a fridge making it much easier to transport and handle. It hasn’t come a day too soon here as we were just learning (through social media) that the virus is taking a real hold in the nearest town to us. During the first wave it was as if the virus wasn’t even real, hardly anybody we knew had it, just one or two people, and everything seemed fairly normal in the circumstances. We did wonder if the whole thing was real back then but now it has become obvious that it is spreading very fast indeed here. The NHS is under extreme strain and for that reason alone it is a whoop whoop day, bring on the vaccine and let’s get back to normal, more importantly, people will stop dying from it 🥰 We can finally think about toasting in a better New Year 😀

December 31st 2020: New Years Eve, not many celebrations going on but at midnight we went outside and rang the bell we used to ring on a Thursday night for the NHS, we could hear others ringing bells and shouting Happy New Year and there was a good show of fireworks from various areas, job done now kiss goodbye to 2020 and off to bed.

Friday January 1st 2021: Welcome to a new year, hopefully the vaccine and a little more freedom than we have had over the last nine/ten months, I seriously hope so, until then we carry on with the new normal 😜

Saturday January 2nd: We did the animals, the ground is still frozen and so it’s a case of breaking water and making sure all the animals are all ok. We have had torrential rain and floods and then snow and freezing cold weather and a glimpse of winter sun at times as well, a smorgasbord of weather. John has been doing the office and so he then went off to get insulation and plasterboard so we can carry on and hopefully get it finished soon. Meanwhile I cleaned out the Rayburn, for two days I have been saying to John that it was not burning right and definitely not behaving as it normally does. I get told I am not doing it properly even though I have now been running this thing for nearly eleven years. Anyway I found the reason that it has not been performing as it should, the oven was getting too hot too quickly, the water and radiators were not getting very hot at all and I couldn’t for the life of me keep the flue temperature up. It was fine up to the day before yesterday, he fire bricks had cracked, not just cracked but one of them was in six different pieces 😩 Great, it’s freezing, it’s Saturday so no next day delivery available and we have no Rayburn. John is still out and I remember that we have another set of fire bricks in the shed, they are the summer bricks that go over the top of the winter bricks but we don’t use it in the summer so never use the bricks either. The only problem is that they are a different size, John arrives home and I give him the options, go without heating etc until Monday, try sticking the fire bricks back together with fire cement or, and I rather think this is a stroke of genius on my part, cut down the fire bricks that we already have as a temporary measure u til the new one arrives. They are shorter and wider than the correct ones but we can cut them to width and use the leftover bit to make them longer. That’s what we did and it has been successful though it will be better once the correct fitting bricks arrive. We then got on with insulation the office and getting up a few sheets of plasterboard, we will get there eventually after all there is not a lot else to do at the minute 😂 The virus is spreading rapidly and we have made the decision not to go anywhere that we don’t really need to, I have made a few loaves of bread and put them in the freezer, I also made some butter from the cream we didn’t use on Boxing Day, we have plenty in the freezers to keep us going and the milkman delivers the milk so apart from some bananas and the plasterboard we have not had to go anywhere yet.

Butter made from the cream we didn’t use, both the butter and the buttermilk are in the freezer ready to use at a later date.

Sunday: Still doing all the usual jobs as well as getting the office done, keep coming up against problems in there, the radiator has been leaking, probably for months and the floor is rotten in one area, I said in the first place we should just knock the place down and start again 🙄 The Rayburn is holding although the fire brick keeps falling forward, hopefully tomorrow the new ones will arrive. We have also ordered our first electric radiator to venture into cleaner heating, we will see how well they heat the room before we go any further with the project. I said to John I have no idea what I will do with all the extra hours it usually takes me to look after the Rayburn 😜

On the amazing side of things, I grew oranges whoo hoo, no mean feat in the UK I can tell you and what’s more they are ripe and they taste great, there were just two but two is a win and two that are edible is a great achievement so I am blowing my own trumpet 😀

Have a good week, covid is still on the rampage, even more so now 🙄 so stay safe everyone.

Friesland Farm

Christmas is coming, covid is still here & thieving gits!

Posted on December 15, 2020December 20, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th December 2020: Good morning everyone, did you spot my error on last weeks blog? I forgot to finish the title off and just left it hanging so apologies for that 😝

Not a bad start to the day early on, John was off today (kind of) and we had one particular job to get done and that was the office. So I did the morning rounds while he went off with his cutting list to the local merchant, when he got back we set about altering the desk we had already (a big heavy double ended desk) to fit the nook we intended it to go in. Then got all the panels in place, they had to all come back out because something wasn’t square 🙄 I left him to it while I went with Samantha to help her do her weekly shop, this is harder than you think and had both the checkout lady and I in fits of laughter. Firstly going shopping with one toddler is enough but with two in a trolley the isles become obstacle courses, you have to stay in the middle of the isle otherwise arms from each side grab at goods on the shelf. Once the trolley begins to fill up their interest turns from the shelves to the trolley and what they can reach, my job was to try and keep them entertained (distracted basically) by the time Sam is packing the shopping away and trying to pay they have turned around just enough to start pulling things out of the bags, crisps, bag of peppers etc and throwing on the floor, by the time I had picked up one lot the other had grabbed something and thrown that on the floor, you wouldn’t believe that the seemingly quick job of paying at the checkout is long enough for mayhem to ensue, still, Sam said, at least this week there were no little nibble marks on the courgettes 🤣🤣

New desk area which will be much tidier and give more space in the rest of the room for activities, either mine or the grandchildren’s 😂

Sam dropped me back home and John had got the panels in and the desk fitted and levelled up, he had also lit the Rayburn. He measured up for the shelves, wrote down his second cutting list and went off and that was the last I saw of him until 4pm, oh I just had to do a little job for Martin while I was out he said but the good news is I have the shelves in the van. Bloody good job as I don’t want this dragging on over days with the contents of the office still in the living room.

Once he got back I put the dinner on and fed the cats and dogs, he shut the birds away and we got on with fitting the shelves, I must say I am very pleased with how it has turned out. What is done at the minute is for the interim and we will get to doing it properly after Christmas, for the time being we have a room that two travel cots will now fit in plus any other equipment that they need 😀

Tuesday: It’s 9.30 I have already done over 5000 steps and had a busy morning. The weather is sunny and feels mild, wet under foot I heard torrential rain a couple of times overnight consequently the mud is getting muddier 😏 The farrier came first thing this morning and so before I did any of the the usual rounds I got the horses in and hosed off their legs and feet, fed them and gave them some hay to keep them occupied. They are a bit like having twins, one won’t come in making life harder, then while they are tied up ready they poop in succession one after the other multiple times so I am constantly going backwards and forwards with a poop scoop clearing up. The farrier was going to be ten minutes late so I started on the birds, feeding, cleaning water buckets etc, once the farrier was there I carried on and did the rest of the jobs. Once he had finished it was time to turn the horses back out and clear up the debris from a hoof trim and hay spread everywhere. Then to clean the duck eggs, take out the rubbish, take some stuff from the office to the skip and finally get a cup of coffee. Now my aim is to get the rest of the stuff in the office sorted and that will be the end of that until after Christmas. John has gone to work today (supposed to have finished work for Christmas 🙄) Actually I think I will have a bowl of porridge before starting the next job 😀

So I spent a large part of the middle of the day sorting stuff out in the office, bear in mind that we don’t have a loft and so the usual loft occupants are stored in the office. I have tried to be ruthless and throw stuff out really I have but you can’t throw away old photos and bits of memories can you? I got sidetracked looking through one box of old stuff that I had forgotten was there, I started to look through it piece by piece then thought ooops I had better box it for looking at another day and get on. Then there are the toys, well all Nanas have toys for the grandchildren, and books, many of which were the girls when they were little. I need to work out where and how to put them, books and small part toys up out of the reach of the twiglets 🙄 toddler toys within their reach so they can play, it’s not as easy as it sounds accommodating everything in a 12 x 12ft room 😏 Then it is also the room we keep the hoover and the steam mop, I considered buying a cordless job that hangs on the wall but after getting opinions from family it seems they are not strong on suction. I am sure I will get it all sorted eventually and some of it is fairly temporary, the kids will eventually grow out of the toys and prefer to watch the tv 😂

I did some hoovering once I finally got everything out of the living room then sat down for lunch, when I moved the remote control the telly came on by accident and a film was just starting so I watched that 😜 Then time to light the Rayburn and feed the animals, collect the eggs, John came home, measured up for some timber for the ceiling went off to get that, I shut the animals away as it got dark and bam that’s another day over but this evening we are not doing any work just going to relax, after I have fed the cats, dogs, got the dinner then washed up of course 🙄

Wednesday: Today’s plan was to go Christmas shopping in Witney but first thing Johns phone rang and someone had water all over the bathroom floor and so he puts on his magic plumber cape and went off to the rescue. Marvellous that leaves me doing the rounds stomping round slightly pissed off, never a good start to the day 😜 He returned about 45 mins later and we set off shopping, it was a grey, drizzly morning that got slowly worse, a tad cold to boot. We walked round and noted how many of the shops had closed their doors for good and then at lunchtime stopped at a pub for something to eat. Fearing that we may have had to book in advance and that there may not be any spaces we tentatively went in to find out. Well you could have knocked me down with a feather as the place was practically empty, this is a big pub that is normally very busy and it was practically dead, it really hit home then how bad things are for local shops and hospitality businesses it was a very sad realisation 😢 We have not been to town since before the first lockdown and in fact we hardly go anywhere when I think about it, the upside was a couple of new boutique shops have opened and the food at the pub was excellent and the staff upbeat, John had his first pint for more than six months and he commented that it tastes just how he remembered, what times we live in 😏

Back home and we lit the Rayburn sat down and John promptly fell asleep, that’s what having a pint at lunchtime does 😂

To be honest it does not feel very much like Christmas is approaching 🙄 I guess it is up to us to get into the spirit, a Christmas film or two or three is in order I think and then of course I need to get my tree up and now I have the space I can get on with it.

Thursday: It’s a Misty morning but still mild and it supposed to stay dry so that’s good. I am on my own again today as John has to work (he was supposed to have finished now 🙄) I know it’s paid the bills all these years but at times I hate being the plumbers wife as you always come at the bottom of the list! Not that I really need him at home I have plenty to do that he will only get in the way of 😂 I am sat writing this little bit first thing as I have a bad lower back and waiting for the painkillers to kick in before I go and start the rounds, it started at the weekend and has got slowly worse but there is no chance of resting it today and hopefully moving around will help it get better, we shall see 🤷‍♀️

I am getting nowhere fast, I have plenty to do but as I decide what to do next there is always something else that needs doing first before I can commence 😜 I want to get the decorations up but John has the timber for the ceiling joists and I know that if I put stuff up and he then carries them through the house something is going to get broken or knocked over so I will wait. I have stuff to wrap but again I am waiting for the office to be cleared of diy debris to put stuff in there 🙄 hopefully tomorrow the ceiling timbers will go in and then I can start to get sorted in earnest. I like to time Christmas, I don’t like it to peak too early but I also don’t like to be rushing around at the last minute, maybe I will make some lists as at the minute as per usual it’s all tumbling around in my head. I have some linen napkins but for the life of me I have no idea where they are, all I know is that they are here somewhere and I will find them eventually, I need to figure out how the Christmas table will look this year, I have ordered something to make a different centrepiece but at the minute that’s as far as I have got, I am sure it will all come together in the end.

I did write lists, Christmas dinner lists, Boxing Day food lists, to do lists and then I managed to get a click and collect slot for food shopping so I have done that and now feeling a little less panicked the only other things I will need to get are those with a short shelf life such as fresh fruit for the trifle 😀 oh and I found the napkins so I can think about the table layout, always an important feature in our house, if you are going to have a mid winter feast you want to make it special rather than just a Sunday roast with crackers 😂

Unbelievably I was looking for a reference to something in my old blogs and more precisely this time last year, reading through it the similarities are uncanny, it appears that this time last year I had the entire contents of the boot room in my kitchen while John was laying the floor AND I was having more frequent blood tests because my white cells had dropped, I didn’t find the thing I was looking for but it was weird 😝

Friday: John is off again today and the plane is to get the ceiling timbers in and then the numerous wires for all the technological paraphernalia up over the timbers out of the way of small people 😜 He got on with that while I went out and did the morning feeding rounds, I also cleaned out the light Sussex pen and put new bedding in for the ducks and some of the hens in the stable. I noticed that something had been trying to dig I round the back of the stable and made quite a big hole, big enough for a hen to get through. I went round the back and could smell fox and they have tried to dig in there before, we had covered the ground with wire and heavy stones but for some reason this bit was not done so I spent my time doing that, as always your defences are only as good as the weakest part of them and they soon get exposed. Did that came I had coffee fed the dogs and the cats and helped John to get one of the cables through the wall to the tv area, I was hoping he would not touch any cable until I came back in but nope there were some of them unplugged which is all very well but John does not do technology and has no idea where they all plug back into! Quickly tidy up and hoover the room, put things away again and off to get my blood tests done. My house is like a Rubic cube I was thinking, you have to move one bit before another can be put in p,ace and there is a lot of fiddling around to get it right 😜 At least now I can get the tree up tonight and start wrapping presents etc.

And finally I can get the tree up and the Christmas decorations out 😀

Saturday: Another busy day moving bits of the rubic cube around 😂 but first we did the morning rounds and then John got on with tidying up the back area, putting stuff away, burning rubbish as well as popping out to get some dog food and a few shopping essentials, his not mine as it included chocolate biscuits 🙄 Meanwhile I got the office into a little bit more order so that I could do some last bits of paperwork before Christmas and then I could sort the spare room and the kitchen table and finally I am all sorted for the time being.

I did a little furniture hack that I am pretty pleased with, I wanted a small side table next to a chair in the office but it needed to be pretty stable as the kids will use it as a playroom. So I bought a waste paper basket and a small round tray, turned the basket upside down and stuck the tray on, now I have a lovely little table that looks high end, I think it’s a winner and it will certainly do the job.

Corona Virus, it hasn’t gone away in fact it has mutated and the new variant is spreading faster than ever 😏 We are waiting for an update form the Prime Minister to see what tougher measures will be put in place. As it stands at the minute we can have three households together for Christmas and most people have made their plans around that criteria including us. Breaking news: The update means that we can now only spend Christmas Day with the other people 😏 when will this shit be over 😢 Luckily John had already decided not to work in January so he will be off which is just as well I think, I can see more lockdowns on the horizon.

Sunday: Started off pretty well, we did the morning rounds and then decided to go to the garden centre where they have 50% off the Christmas decorations and I had seen a few that I wanted to get. We mooched about and then John decided that he fancied breakfast, they had almost finished serving it but we got in just in time. Did a few other bits and returned home, I checked the egg shed as usual, delivery from Amazon in there but the rest of it looked bare, the bloody honesty box was gone! Some low life scum had nicked it, ripped it clean off the base it was screwed to, gone, box, padlock and the money inside 🤬 luckily it was only this mornings egg money so amounted to just over a tenner but that’s not the point, we now have no box for anyone to put the money into until we get something sorted again. I sincerely hope Karma pays them a visit, puts you on edge as it is rare that both John and I are not here at the same time, I’d like to think it was just a chancer and not someone watching the place 😏

On that note I am going to sign out for this week and indeed for the rest of this year, so I will wish you all a very merry Christmas, hope you all stay safe and I will be back in 2021. I will leave you with a picture of something nice I found in the egg shed this week, we do have lovely customers.

Friesland Farm

Fog, rain, sunshine, Mincepies &

Posted on December 8, 2020December 13, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 7th December 2020: I have had a busy but highly productive day today and smashed 10,000 steps by 3pm. First there was the morning routine and jobs, today that included cleaning out the ducks, cleaning out the guinea pigs and moving the one on his own into the cage inside the pen that the other two are in. I can’t put them together as they are all boars and if they haven’t grown up together will fine to the end if you know what I mean. I am kinda hoping that the longer he is there and they can see and smell each other through the grill they may in the end tolerate one another, time will tell. Burn some more bits of rubbish, seems to mount up all the time and I wanted to get that done at the weekend but other things got in the way. I also filled up all of the wild bird feeders and I turned Biscuit back out into the paddock with Jack, she was very happy to be back out and did a fair bit of running around for five minutes as well as a lovely roll so she can’t be feeling too bad can she. I mucked out the stable, mucking is different from skipping lol, mucking involves taking out all the soiled bedding rather than just taking out the poop. The bed is clean again for the next time they need to come in, always better to prepare as you never know when you will need the stable.

After finishing outside it was indoors to strip the bed and give the bedrooms and good Hoover and polish and remake the bed, put the wash loads on, light the Rayburn and sort some of the Christmas presents. Then lunch which was butternut squash and chilli soup and then an afternoon of organising the last few bits I need for Christmas, a few little presents, presents to send in the mail, presents for John, wrapping paper etc etc. I am almost finished just one more present to get for one of the grandchildren, though I do find it difficult to stop buying when I see things that I think someone might like.

Get the dinner sorted for later and then out to do the feeding and egg collecting. Now we are putting them out in the morning instead of 4pm I don’t feel under such pressure to multi task 😀 it will be back out around 4.15 to shut them away for the night and then I think I will have a sit down before I need to start cooking the dinner, though I do need to hang the washing to dry, do some washing up, a girls work is never done really 😜

Oh and I forgot to tell you that the doc finally got in touch and I have to come off the meds for two weeks then have another blood test as the white cells have not improved. Is there any sign of Lupus activity he asked me, nope none whatsoever, must be the meds then. I do feel a little tired today not sure if that’s all the running round I have been doing or not 🤔

Tuesday take 1: Today is a milestone day, this morning the first vaccine was administered in the UK to a 90 year old lady, hopefully we are at the beginning of the end of what has been a tough year for everyone.

Tuesday take 2: Ooo it’s cold and foggy this morning, I didn’t realise there was ice until I went to put the eggs out, I thought it was just fog. I came back in and lit the Rayburn before going out to do the animals this morning, it was nice and toasty when I came back in and it means my coat, which hangs on the radiator in the boot room, will be warm when I go back out later. I fed everything and broke ice on outside water buckets, nothing to report today, all is well.

When I checked the egg shed this morning I found that some of my cards and tags have sold, that made me very happy 😃 nice when someone wants to buy something you have produced, normally it’s veg and eggs but branching out feels good.

As if getting the front done and the outside beds wasn’t enough, we have decided to try and get the office sorted before Christmas 🙄 when we did the place about five years ago the office ended up half done, it has walls that are half insulated and half plaster boarded, it needs the ceiling insulated and boarded and the remaining bits including round the window done. This room is cold and you can really feel it when you open the door to go in, It would make an ideal craft/sewing/ancestry research/ reading room but it’s either too cold in winter or too hot in summer. I also actually don’t need an office like I did before now that the plumbing company no longer exists, sole traders have much less paperwork 😜 and so I can reduce the desk area to a minimum which will give me room to be able to put up a folding table when I need it and there will be room for a single sofa bed or similar. I am not expecting to get it all done by Christmas just the insulation and the built in desk area then it will be ready to plaster and decorate next year sometime 🤞

We are only 13 days away from the shortest day 🥰 and the daylight hours will begin to increase again, tiny increments but I will take whatever it gives.

There is a lot of talk about climate change and how we may not see snow again in parts of the UK. I am not particularly keen on snow, a hard frost or even better a hoar frost is my favourite, I don’t mind the snow but hate the mess it makes once it starts to thaw 😝 undoubtedly our day to day life contributes massively to carbon emissions and the effect on the climate but little is ever reported about the other things that influence the weather massively such as solar activity or rather the lack of it. Scientists say we are entering a Grand Solar Minimum, in the last hundred years the sun was at its weakest in 2019 and 2020 is the beginning of the GSM with decreased activity possibly up to 2053. Forgive me if I seem naive but although our atmosphere is affected by carbon emissions I can’t see the the sun activity is, that’s a power all of it own and so it has to affect what happens here on earth, stratospheric conditions are also an important factor. On this day in 1938 the highest temperature for December was recorded in La Mesa, California, that surely couldn’t be climate change that was a direct cause of carbon emissions way back then could it 🤷‍♀️ I think during the climate change dialogue we have forgotten about natural cycles mostly because we have no idea what they have been over the last few millennia, apart from the really big changes such as the ice age, we have only monitored the last couple of hundred years, and yes we have exceptional technology but there is a lot more to learn yet in my tiny opinion. None of that means I don’t believe in climate change and the effects it is having, I do, and I believe we are massive contributors that should be doing all we can to put the brakes on, but I also think that there is more than one factor (maybe many) affecting our weather patterns. Only way in the future will they be able to look back and tell.

Did the afternoon rounds later than I normally do now I don’t have to put the eggs out at 4pm, so at 3.45 I fed everything and collected the eggs then at approx 4.20 I went round and shut everything away from the night, back in to get the dinner underway and that’s another day done.

Wednesday: Not so cold this morning, it rained last night and is damp this morning, no sign of frost. Today marks another milestone, a personal one this time. I said the the girls do you think it’s time for new jeans when you can take them off without unbuttoning them, actually I new it was time, the pairs I had been wearing had got very baggy everywhere, so I took the plunge and ordered new jeans. The fact that I had to order a size 12 is the milestone, I don’t think I have been in that size for over 25 years, so I’m blowing my own trumpet here, whoop, whoop 🙌 go me 😀 Now if I could lose a couple of sizes from my ample bust (which I have always hated) I will be very happy indeed. It’s funny isn’t it, if you have straight hair you want curly, if you have a flat chest you’d like bigger boobs, if you are a stick you would like some curves and all of this works in reverse. Once you accept what you have and work with it life becomes happier, but the one thing I have always said I would like to have is tailor made clothes that fit properly, sleeves that are not too long, shoulders that are not too wide etc, at 5’3 I neither fit the petite range nor the regular lol, misfit that’s me 😜

Phew a busy morning, anyone would think it was the bake off tent 😀 I have made three dozen mince pies, a mincemeat slice and a loaf of bread. I had already made three lots of shortcut pastry yesterday but the morning went as follows: Come in and light the Rayburn, while it’s getting going start the bread off in the mixer, then roll out the first dozen mince pies, sort the Rayburn with more wood and shut down, bread is now on the first prove, roll out the next dozen pies, fill and get into the pre warmed oven. While I am at it I might as well make a mincemeat slice which is a recipe given to me a few years back, roll out the next dozen pies, make the pastry for the slice, get the first 2 lots out of the oven, knock back the bread dough for the second prove, wash the mince pie tins, fill the third and get into the oven, roll out the slice and fill ready for the oven, put some more wood on the fire, have a coffee, get the last lot out of the oven and the slice in. ,are a quick phone call, get the slice out and put the bread in the oven to cook, wash up, phew 😂 The slice is a great alternative to mince pie and is good for a pudding, it is basically a shortcrust pastry with egg, milk and sugar added, divide into two, roll out and put one half in an 8inch tin, add a layer of mincemeat then top with the other half of the pastry, brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar and bake until it’s done which is about 20 minutes.

Thursday already! Did a bit around the house before venturing outside to do the feeding and letting out , collected a few eggs while I was at it, another routine morning. Routine is boring but also welcome, it means nothing is afoot, disastrous, problematic, be grateful for routine 😀 It’s milder again today, no sign of frost of a cold wind, just rather pleasant for a December morning, on this day last year we woke up to snow according to the memories on Facebook. Yesterday we were told that if conditions were favourable we might be able to see the Northern Lights in the UK even this far south, there was cloud cover, disappointing but there is a chance over the next two nights so I will keep looking 😀

A lovely story about the Winter solstice came upon my news feed today, little fairies mourning the death of the Sun King on the solstice are told by the Wise Old Mother that though the old sun king has died they should not be sad, on the very same day a tiny new Sun King is born, he is small but with each day he grows bigger and stronger. I thought that was a lovely way to view the winter, once we reach the solstice, every day will be a tiny step nearer to the warmth of the sun again 🌞

I have just been reading a report about the vaccination from Lupus UK, it looks like we will be vaccinated after the 65 yr olds, so first came the over 80s and healthcare/frontline workers, then it’s the over 75s, then the over 70s, followed but the over 65s then anyone 16 – 64 with underlying health conditions that are on the list and Immunocompromised patients are one of those, who knows how long that will be until we get it 🤷‍♀️

Friday: Did the morning rounds, nothing untoward to report. Then I set about clearing leaves from the driveway, this is the only place I clear leaves from as it can get slippery with wet leaves sat there and nobody wants a twisted ankle or worse. On the rest of the smallholding the leaves stay where they are and like some little miracle by spring they are all gone. This is because the worms and microbes spend their time pulling them down into the ground then breaking them down to feed on, the result is better quality soil and all done by nature, no need for a leaf blower. You could of course rake them up and make a leaf mulch bin which eventually makes excellent soil improver but I prefer to let it happen naturally and besides it far less work 😜

I came in then and had some breakfast and truth be told I am feeling pretty tired 😏 My hands, wrists and elbows are hurting a little from shovelling and none of this is a very good sign. I can’t work out why when I am on the meds but my white cells are low, I feel great, but I come off them and a week later some not very welcome symptoms begin to appear 🤷‍♀️ I was getting on fine and now I’m thinking I don’t want to be exhausted all over the Christmas holiday 😔

I looked at the 14/16 day forecast looks like we in for rain and gales, great, not much sign of snow but we may get some frosty weather close to Christmas Day.

The rest of the day was as per usual, nothing exciting or unusual happening here 😂

Saturday: The weather was lovely today and after we did the morning rounds John went out to finish off levelling the soil on the front bed and I did some clearing up of bits and pieces and taking stuff the skip. I then decided that we would be better pooling our efforts and getting one thing done instead to two separate ones and so I went to help John. We got the soil levelled, took off what we didn’t need and bagged it up for the other bed and then set about planting some of the plants I have in pots. I have loads of them but of course at this time of year it’s a job to remember exactly what some of them are, they all look dead. Some of them are recognisable though and so we planted up the things I could identify including my forest pansy tree which I am excited to see burst into flower early next spring. It’s a small tree so won’t get to large for the site, it’s great for bees as the flowers arrive early and before the leaves come out, good food for bees when there is not much else around. It is a big flower though and although I have a lot to go in there I think I made need to buy or grow some more 😜

Here is a sneak preview of what we have been doing, it is still work in progress though and we still have plenty to do before it’s finished. As you can see it was a beautiful day today, blue skies and warm for mid December.

John went off to have his flu jab mid afternoon, he is allowed it this year as he is in the over 50 bracket 😂 I had mine back in October as I always do having underlying health conditions and all that 🙄

When he came back we went in for a sit down and apart from collecting the eggs, feeding and lighting the Rayburn we didn’t do much else, oh except watch the snooker, well John watches the snooker, I have to suffer the running commentary from him even if I don’t want it.

We have discussed sorting the office out and that work will begin on Monday providing nothing else comes up.

At dark we moved the last lot of hens from outside to the stable block where they will now stay until the Avian Flu lockdown ends. It’s good for us as it means that the winter feeding etc won’t be such a chore, inside the stable block is much better than out in the paddocks but not so good for the birds really as they won’t have the freedom they normally enjoy 😏

Sunday: This morning we did the usual routine and then set about starting the office makeover, it will be small part office, small part craft sewing room, a place to do the ancestry searching, a place to keep the grandchildren’s toys and books, a bit of everything really. Mid morning we went to the DIY shop and picked up some storage containers and a chair that I really liked at a bargain price. That set me on the journey of planning the rest of the room and I found some very expensive wall paper 🙄 luckily we only need one roll for the wall I want to do. Up to Christmas it will just be a case of getting it sorted so there is room for two travel cots for the twins on a Christmas Day but after Christmas we will start in it properly. Charlotte phoned and asked if we had our Christmas tree up yet and when I said no she wanted to know why not, the entire contents of the office are in the living room I told her, oh I will let you off then she said lol. I am not quite sure what we did the rest of the day apart from the normal things, the day seemed to go really quickly and that is the end of another week 😀

Friesland Farm

Foggy weather, human lockdown lifted, avian lockdown imposed 😖

Posted on December 6, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 30th November 2020: Monday again 🙄 a good Monday this week as we come out of the second lockdown so by Thursday things will feel fairly normal again hopefully. The infection rate has decreased by a third over the last couple of weeks which is good news but we are still not out of the woods yet, when they start to roll out the vaccine we will be on the up and up 🤞

It’s still foggy this morning but it’s fairly mild, it doesn’t feel too cold at all out there. I did the morning rounds, let everything out, fed and watered everything collected the duck eggs, not much to report on that front.

Did a fair few bits indoors, routine stuff really, washing, cleaning out the fridge, clean the boot room. I lit the Rayburn about 12.30 as it felt a tad cold and John called in for some lunch about 1pm, I had FaceTime chats with Sam and Shelley in the afternoon, a bit of reading and then it was time to go out and feed/collect the eggs. I was reluctant to go out, it was nice and toasty inside but actually it wasn’t too bad at all. John was home before 4pm so he will be shutting the birds away tonight, lovely 😊 it’s a bit of a pain having to go back out so soon after the feed rounds especially when I am trying to get the dinner sorted for the evening.

I have looked at the weather forecast for the end of the week after Samantha mentioned it was going to get cold, looks like we might even get some snow ⛄️

Tuesday 1st December: White rabbits 🐇 This morning if I stood in a particular place in the kitchen I could see the moon through the back door and the emerging sunrise through the front window, it was pretty cool 😀

It’s the first day of December and the radio has back to back Christmas songs this morning 😏 I am not a fan of starting too early with the festive stuff, my tree will not go up for another couple of weeks, if I put it up now I would be bored of it by the time Christmas arrives not to mention the dust that will accumulate on the baubles 😂 I did buy an advent calendar this year a chocolate one which is normally something I refuse to do, I prefer the old fashioned ones with a picture behind the door lol, but this year is different and we do need a little bit of cheer, however I forgot to get it out this morning before John went to work so looks like he will have to go second this year 😜

This morning I did the rounds as per usual and all is well. Then I finally got round to getting the heat mat on in the greenhouse, this means I have to run an extension cable to it. With hindsight we should have dug out and put a cable underground but at the time I had no intention of using electric in there. Now however I have changed my mind (a woman’s prerogative ya know 😜) and if I want to keep certain plants alive over Winter then needs must. We had a chat last night with a local company about solar PV and battery storage and hopefully that will be something we install next year so in theory we will be creating our own electric to run the greenhouse and the house itself.

I then spent a large part of the morning doing some crafting, I have plenty of buttons to use and so along with some recycled card I have been making cards as well as gift tags. It’s fun and different to something I would normally be doing although I was proving and baking a loaf of bread at the same time 🥰

Wednesday: A beautiful sunrise this morning it was positively glowing through the windows.

It went from orange to pink, just beautiful.

It is National tree week this week, there are lots of initiatives to get people planting trees, visiting trees or pledging to nurture trees. I have said before, there are not enough trees in this country purely from personal experience there is not enough shade and if the climate hots up we are going to need that shade. Over the years we have planted about 20 new trees here that have successfully taken and a few that haven’t but even on our five acres that’s a drop in the ocean, we still have room for plenty more. I like to plant trees that are either productive or native but now and again there is room for a non native decorative tree. I have a few trees in pots, some that I know where they will be going and some that I have no idea about yet but I will find a place for them eventually.

Today is the first day out of lockdown but we are straight into the tier system and we are tier two. That means we can pretty much do everything except visit inside others homes, the pubs and restaurants are open for table service meals, the beauty industry is open again, the non essential shops are open as are many other services and events as long as they are covid secure. Just think, this time last year we had no idea what was coming, our existence is fragile, though as a species we think we are top of the tree. We have watched politicians try to pick their way through the crisis and be slammed with criticism whatever path they took. At first people were concerned about the health of their friends, family and neighbours, then that kind of wore off and they were worried more about the economy and finally about their freedom. It’s a funny mix, from where I stand I’m not too worried about the economy but I don’t have a young family and a mortgage otherwise I might think differently. I sit on the fence with the rules really, on the one hand I follow them on the other hand I think ‘you don’t own me and I am capable of making intelligent decisions for myself’ no good getting irate about it all, it is what it is and they are doing what they think is the best for everyone. The first vaccine has been approved today so here begins the road to normality, not that I think our normality is a good thing, it’s not, the all consuming, regurgitating species that we are will definitely be the downfall of this planet, if something else doesn’t get us first that is 🙄 It should have been a wake up call but it just became an inconvenience.

Did the mornings rounds, it is chillier than I thought it would be out there, definitely felt a nip in my fingers, should have worn gloves definitely will tomorrow. I came in and rang the surgery, I am still waiting for the results of my bloods, I called yesterday as I hadn’t heard anything, still with the doctor, I called today and still with the doctor. What does that actually mean I asked, it means the receptionist can’t see the results as the doctor either hasn’t looked at them yet or is reviewing them. I am hoping that means he has been in touch with my Rheumatologist to figure out what to do, either that or the results are fine and carry on as before needs no rushing, however it would be nice to know 🙄

I am going out for a coffee this morning, because I can, it will be nice to see other human beings even if my tolerance of them is low 😂 I used to think that I would like to be living on a remote island somewhere away from civilisation but in fact this years episodes have shown me that I am not a hermit and I do like small, well tiny interactions with my species after all 😜

I really need to find some recipes for duck eggs, we have loads of them, they sell much more slowly than the chicken eggs and the ducks have been laying well consequently I have about seven dozen to do something with 🤣

I have been making more cards today after I had an order for 10, then another order for 10, I figured I’d better get on and make some. I am finding it very addictive and rather wish I had somewhere I could leave it all out so that when I had a spare hour I could just sit and do them.

I did the afternoon rounds and collected the eggs, I will be glad when they don’t have to go out at 4pm as this will give me a little bit of leeway on my time and what I can get done.

John came home with a bag full of biscuits p, he had been to do a job where the lady makes them, it started as a hobby apparently and now she takes orders for them, there is hope for my card empire yet 😜

Thursday: Did the morning rounds in the rain 🌧 it was too bad it’s not pouring just raining 😝 It mostly went the same as every morning except one of the little light Sussex chicks was not well. I have been watching it for a couple of days and yesterday it was still eating fine although a little static at the end of the day. This morning it was obviously in trouble, I guess the cold nights didn’t help, I scooped it up and bought it in, gave it some sugar water but I could tell it was too far gone and so had to dispatch it. They can go down very quickly, with lots of fluffed up feathers it’s easy to miss the signs of wasting underneath but this one had got quite thin. Neck dislocation is a very quick and precise method of dispatch and one I have been doing for over twenty years now so I am proficient, never a nice thing to do but often the kindest. It was a lot smaller than the others that hatched at the same time so I am guessing there was something wrong with it from the start, sometimes it can take weeks or even months to become evident.

Samantha came over to get the horses in, it is wet and cold and we are supposed to have snow/sleet showers tomorrow so they can come in for a bit of a break and a warm up especially Biscuit who is getting on and we all know how you feel the cold the older you get.

I spent a few happy hours making more cards as I have sold all the ones I made so far 😀 it’s fun, I enjoy doing it and it’s a job in the warm 😀 In-between making them I did the afternoon rounds and was supposed to do the shutting away but John was home in time so I carried on card making while he went out and did it instead bless him.

Friday: Busy couple of hours first thing this morning, the horses came in overnight and that adds to the job list, they need feeding, watering and skipping out (removing the poop) Jack will probably go back out later today as he is not too happy at being in but depending on the temperature Biscuit will stay in a little longer. The rest of the rounds were done without incident and John was here to take charge of another eight tonne of topsoil for the raised bed which is now full I am pleased to say. Charlie popped over before going to work to collect a card order that I made for someone at her work and bought me a juice of carrot, celery and ginger, lovely. I am having Florence this morning as part of the essential child care we are allowed to do, Shelley can now work again and there are a lot of clients on the waiting list, so I said I would look after Florence while she gets some of the back log sorted.

Went for a walk with Florence, first to the post box to post a letter, I have to fill in a sheep and goat inventory annually even if I don’t have either at the moment, then we carried on down to the village Ford where there is a Christmas tree in the middle of the water, then all the way round church lane w

The announcement came yesterday that as from 14th December all poultry and captive birds must be housed so that the wild birds cannot get near them. This is essentially lockdown for the birds, so we are not the only ones with a virus rampaging. Last time this happened we were not prepared, I had never had to do it before and we were caught off guard. The things we put in place turned out to be awful (tarpaulins covering the runs) it was wet and muddy and a disaster. This time we are on top of the game 😀 we have enough spare stables to house all 90 laying hens plus outside pens that can be closed off and netted, they have solid roofs already. The weekend will be all about preparing, moving, and cleaning out. I feel bad for Ted as he is a big bird but his pen is fairly large, he is in the big rabbit run which is 10ft square probably bigger guessing measurements is not my forte 😜 I want to move the big guinea hut he out of there and put the single pig somewhere else but not sure where just yet. The quail are already in the back area under cover. That just leaves the ducks and the geese, the ducks could go in a stable once the horses go back out and if we needed it back they would have to go back outside. The geese however are more of a problem, they are big birds and they eat grass as their staple diet, they will be confined to the small back paddock for the time being. We also have to have foot dips which have to be used before entering any pen, run, stable block, oh the joys of poultry keeping. I seriously wonder if it is really worth the effort sometimes 🤔

Afternoon rounds included turning Jack back out into the paddocks and moving Biscuit into Jacks stable because it’s bigger than hers. Then put the birds all to bed and off to get a bit of shopping. When we got back and after we had eaten we booked a holiday 😀😀😀😀😀😀 it’s not until 2022 mind you but boy it feels good to have something to look forward to 🥰

Saturday: Turned the alarm off last night so not such an early start today. John did half the rounds while I did the other half and sorted out Biscuit. The next job was cleaning the flue although it has been burning clean and didn’t need much doing, I definitely can’t wait for electric heating next year though. A few more odd jobs to get done and then it was time to go and pay our respects to a friend on his last journey 😢

Unexpected things that happen in life give you cause to evaluate what really is important and what are the things that would not matter if they were gone. It is important to enjoy whatever it is you have decided to do, the small things and the bigger things, if you are not loving it then change it, you only get one go at this life make the most of it.

We met one of our new neighbours over the road today they moved in about a week ago so that was nice.

Sam came over in the afternoon to check Biscuit over, she definitely is not keeping herself as warm as she ought to be which is worrying really, could be something major going on. The vet will be coming soon to rasp Jacks teeth so we can get them to give her a look over and see what they think. I am no expert but I think by the way she puffs a bit and the fact she is not staying warm it’s going to be her heart but I might be wrong, when she goes back out she will be having a rug on this year.

Sunday: Suddenly realised its mid evening and I haven’t signed this week off yet 🙄 We did the morning rounds and then John moved a load of timber that was stacked in front of the stable we were going to use for the third lot of hens. Meanwhile I did a few other little bit and pieces, I went to have a looked and we realised that the stable would not be secure enough from the fox and we would also have to put up netting to stop the hens escaping, so we went to plan b. We will use the stable that Biscuit was in as that is secure, it means that John moved all the timber for nothing but hey Ho sometimes it goes like that. After that we went out for breakfast, yay finally we can go out to eat on our way back we picked up the Christmas tree which we bought from the farm in the village. It won’t be going up just yet but at least we have it ready. The weather was foggy, grey, drizzly and a tad cold so we decided not to do anymore outside work today, we watched a couple of films instead, that’s what Sunday afternoons are for isn’t it lol.

Friesland Farm

Foggy, frosty & freezing brrr, Winter has arrived.

Posted on November 25, 2020November 29, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 23rd November 2020: An atmospheric foggy morning this morning and it had been cold enough overnight for a frost. It’s almost noon and I haven’t stopped this morning until now. With the mornings getting ever darker I said to John that I would take over the morning feeding etc so that he can get off to work on time so this morning was my first for a long time that I have done everything. Feed and water all the animals, clean out the ducks, fill up the wild bird feeders, put the washing on, get the milk in, take the rubbish and empty milk bottles out, you get the idea. I got a chicken out of the freezer yesterday for tonight’s dinner and so I figured as I was going to have the oven on I might as well make good use of it. At the moment I have bread on the second prove and two cakes in the oven and some fruit stewing ready for the crumble topping I also made, busy busy.

One of the cakes was a simple quick fruit cake the second was a honey and ginger cake which is lovely. The reason I made this one is because it used natural yoghurt and I had some that needed using up, win, win, it’s a River Cottage one and I would definitely make it again. It’s light not heavy, not too much sugar in it so not too sweet.

The only thing I didn’t use was the cloves, not sure I would like that and I know for sure John wouldn’t 😜

A foggy, finger nipping start to the week this morning.

Watching Countryfile last night I was pleased to see a section on hedgerows and how important they are to our wildlife. Trees, we know are hugely important but not many people think about hedgerows, these are wildlife corridors and when they were ripped out for the war effort that was a tragedy, a necessary one admittedly but there should have been provision to put them back in at a later date. I listen in polite horror when people talk about ripping them out to get a better view, of what, the next field, the wildlife and the hedgerows beyond? oh the irony of it 😏 Anyway I am glad that this topic has been bought firmly to the fore and hope that many thousands of miles of hedge get planted in the future. Hedges are great windbreaks, they are micro climates for thousands of insects and ideal nesting and roosting places for our native birds. Someone once said to us when we moved here ‘you should take out that row of trees so your view is better’ that’s a row of hazels they were talking about, its a native small tree/hedge that provides food and shelter for a plethora of wildlife, Humans 🙄

Last night we got two lots of the hens in from the paddock and also moved the light Sussex to the outdoor pen so that made feeding a bit easier this morning. We crated up the first lot just as dusk arrived, 19 in that hut, we then crated up the second lot, 10 to a crate, it was heavy pushing the wheelbarrow with two crates so we left one in the field while we took the other. When we got back they had escaped and we had to load them all over again, luckily when they got out they just went back into the hut as it was dark by this time, there was about thirty of that second lot, can’t precisely remember the number but roughly. The light Sussex we rounded up easily and we have 9 of those well 11 actually but the other two live with Ted 🙄 I counted the front lot this morning when I let them out and there are 36 of them, just over 100 in total and we are only getting about 48 eggs a day, some of them are free loading 😂

Fabulous news of an effective vaccine from Oxford University today, very proud to be Oxfordian born and bred, Oxford University Hospitals are our local hospitals and we are incredibly lucky to have world class services provided by them 😀

Looks like we will come out of lockdown into a tiered system again, still no definite idea of what we are allowed to do for Christmas though but all non essential shops and businesses can now open again so at least they will get their Christmas trade. The numbers of infected people are falling and so are the deaths but that’s because we have been in a lockdown, what will happen over the next couple of months is anyone’s guess, still, with a few vaccines looking promising there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Tuesday: An altogether different morning this morning, much milder and the sun was shinning first thing though it has disappeared now. It was shinning beautifully on the hazel tree outside the back door, the leaves were glowing golden 😀

I did the morning rounds, feeding and letting out, collecting the duck eggs, today I have all three shifts to do, morning, evening and putting to bed as John has a job he wants to get finished, normally he is home in time to put them away.

I went into the small tunnel to water the carrot seedlings, I was hoping we would have carrots for Christmas but something keeps eating the tops off 😏 a mouse I suspect, honestly you think it would be a simple enough thing to do but others have different ideas. I am not sure what to do really, I don’t want to trap it but I do want my carrots 🙄

I ordered some roots trainers for the sweet pea but they took ages to arrive so I potted them up, two days later the root trainers came 😜 so I may start off an early batch of eating peas in them and see how that pans out. Again it’s the little critters that are the problem, they love pea and bean seeds and I think there is a mouse in the greenhouse too as the sunflower seeds I spread out to dry also got eaten 😖 I think I will have to trap as at this rate I will end up with nothing.

I haven’t decided what I will do today but I have plenty of choices, it’s mild enough to be outside working, I have left over chicken to use and make into soup or pie or both and I need to go through the presents I have bought and see what else I need to get, that last one can wait for a rainy day I think 🤔

Lyra Silvertounge is not the only one who wants to know about dust! Apologies to anyone who isn’t watching ‘His dark materials’ as you won’t have a clue who that is but I would also like to know where all the bloody dust comes from! I know the wood burner is probably a big culprit and the low winter sun shining in doesn’t help but seriously 😩

In the end I decided to sort the presents and see what I still need to get and then as I figured I hadn’t really done much I ought to go for a walk and get some exercise. I also spent far too long looking for some new lampshades for the living room online 🤪 I made up for it when I got back as I got the dinner sorted for this evening, lit the Rayburn, fed the birds, collected the eggs, sorted them and put them out and then went back out to put the birds to bed once it was dark. My new book by my fav author arrived hot off the press today so I have that to look forward to reading but first I am part way through another one so I need to finish it, that’s what the dark winter nights are for, that hot chocolate 🥰

Wednesday: Is it only Wednesday 😏 the weather is horrible this morning, raining and wet underfoot, I have already had my first soaking of the day even my knees are wet! It probably won’t be the last time I get wet either if it rains all day I have another two lots of rounds to do later but for now at least everything is fed and watered 😀 I have left the front lot of hens in this morning, I will let them out later, I want to see exactly how many eggs they are laying and if any of them are laying elsewhere such as the hedgerows etc. I will have to repeat this for a few days as they can hold onto their eggs if they are not getting to their favourite laying sites.

Meanwhile I have come in and I am having a well deserved coffee now, I took a photo of the hazel tree outside the back door, it’s the same one that was shinning golden yesterday and today looks wet and forlorn. The three photos are Monday, Tuesday and today just goes to show exactly how changeable our weather is here in the UK and justifies our obsession with talking about it don’t you think?

I really should have done outside work yesterday but I didn’t and so now I have missed that opportunity nevertheless I still went round and checked a few things. The carrots that are having the tops nibbled, the oranges which are still ripening and the onions and garlic I planted. I am pleased to say they all have little green shoots, the shallots have multiple shoots and only about five of them came out of the ground, they are now firmly back in place. The cauliflower plants are also being nibbled, urgh the struggle is real, I am still thinking mice as they are under cover and just the nice green leafy bits have been eaten, I need to rescue those otherwise they won’t produce anything at all 😏

I indulged myself with an hour or so of reading this morning but then I thought I really ought to do something.

If we dont have our own chicken in the freezer I buy organic or high welfare chicken direct from other farms. These are expensive compared to the mass produced ones from the supermarket but I prefer to know that what I am eating has had a decent life. We are probably talking at about £12-£15 a bird, what! I hear you cry, but for that reason alone I make sure I get every last bit of use from it that I can. From the roast chicken we had on Monday John has taken chicken sandwiches two days in a row and there is a bit for tomorrow’s sandwich as well. Last night John had chicken casserole and I had cold chicken with baked potato and salad, today I have taken the carcass apart and any spare meat has gone into a pan with leeks and vegetables, stock and thickener and is basically a chicken pie filling although I am going to put mashed potatoes on the top much like a shepherds pie. We will have that tonight for dinner and there is a spare single portion that I will freeze for another day, the carcass is now in the slow cooker along with celery, onion, garlic, bay, parsley and black pepper which will make a tasty chicken stock that I can freeze for another day. It doesn’t end there though as I peeled off all the remaining skin and this will be fed to the dogs later, all that will be left is the bones. So that is seven portions of a decent sized meal, three lots of sandwiches and stock, if you only counted the main meals that works out from a £15 bird at £2.15 per person, very good value indeed I reckon, but you have to work at it 😀

This afternoons jobs were a bit of a clock watch game, I had decided not to light the Rayburn until late because it was fairly mild and didn’t feel cold indoors. The problem came when the first go at lighting it failed, I had primed it with a natural firefighter, kindling and wood and lit it, left it to get going came back and it had gone out 🙄 This then put me under a bit of pressure because by now it is about 4.15 and it’s starting to get dark and I need to go and shut the birds up for the night. The dilemma is do I go out and do the birds and light the fire when I get back in and not use the oven to cook the dinner or do I light the fire, wait for it to get up to temperature but risk the birds getting caught by any fox that might be around 🤷‍♀️ In the end I decided to light the fire but it didn’t draw very well and took ages to get going. That’s when I end up clock watching and waiting for it to get going, nervous that the darker it gets the more likely it is that something will come along, eventually the flue got up to temp and I was able to shut it down and go out to put everything away for the night, note to self, light the fire earlier next time 😜

It’s been a long couple of days and I will be glad to see the end of this second lockdown. It hasn’t really been a tight lockdown and many people are still going to work, school etc but if you don’t do the school run and don’t go to an external workplace, only go to the shop once a week and don’t see people it’s a very long day and week!

Friday, or is it Thursday? Well this morning I thought it was Friday so I took my Friday concoction of meds, one of which I only have take on a Friday. Any other day I mixed up would not matter but a Friday lot means I can’t sit or stand still for at least an hour after taking it, not that it’s a problem as I have plenty to do 😀

Anyway it definitely is Thursday which I figured out after about an hour 😜 There was a hard frost this morning and even though the sun came out it was still nippy doing the rounds. The goose door I couldn’t even get open to start with as it was frozen to the frame. None of the water taps are working so I will have to do those later, must remember to do them in the afternoon so I don’t have that problem again 🙄

We have a lot of duck eggs at the minute, at one time we were struggling to keep up with demand for them and now that demand has dropped off the cliff edge, typical, over all our egg customers have reduced in number, probably because it’s winter but I suspect that a farm just up the road which is going the way of a farm shop is where some of our custom has gone. I had a think about this and thought ‘Am I bothered?’ and the answer is no not really, I always knew that a farm shop would take off really well here and if I had wanted to do it I would have but I don’t, I am happy tickling along as we are. In the beginning the plan was only ever to be self sufficient, the fact that it increased to egg and veg sales means that I cover the cost of what we are eating and planting which is a bonus and life is not too stressful at that so all in all that will do.

Gosh it was very chilly at 4.30 when I was putting the birds to bed, I reckon it was very near to freezing then so goodness knows what the overnight temps will go down to.

Some seeds I ordered arrived today, I think I have all I need for next year now, I don’t want to get caught out like I was last spring when the virus hit, this time I think it will be more to do with Brexit though so I’m trying to get ahead of the game.

Friday, definitely Friday today: Jeez if I thought it was cold yesterday it’s totally Baltic this morning. I have just come in from doing the morning rounds and my toes need thawing out 🙄 Very glad I did the water yesterday although I still had to break it all this morning. Everything is covered in white and the air is heavy with fog, it is pretty but only if you are inside looking out. I was feeding the horses in the paddock and just goes to show how much warmth they have in their bodies as Jack finished his breakfast he decided on a roll on the frosty ground, his body heat immediately thawed the grass, then he got up and had a bit of a welly round the paddock, lovely sight to see on a morning like this. Biscuit on the other hand was not so keen to move and I had to go across the paddock to take her breakfast, I am wondering how well she can see actually, just a couple of things she does makes me wonder, like not coming for her food, although she could just be stubborn of course, I will monitor more closely.

The new cladding on the front and insulation has done wonders for the indoor temps because normally on a day like today, when the fire goes out overnight, it would feel cold but it is not at all.

First thing this morning we had a delivery of six tonnes of top soil for the raised bed, grossly underestimated that we are going to need at least another six tonne if not eight 🤔

Had blood tests again this morning, hoping the situation has changed a little bit will have to wait and find out on Monday/Tuesday.

Saturday: Had a pig of a morning tidying up and burning the hawthorn cuttings from the hedge at the side. If you have ever handled it you will know the thorns are long and sharp and the branches intertwine, both these things make moving the stuff hazardous. I got a smack on the head from one particularly thick bit, countless scratches on my legs, hands and face, a thwack to the lip drawing blood and as if that wasn’t enough a burning piece of leaf went down my collar, I could smell my hair singe and feel my neck burning simultaneously. I hastily unzipped my coat and threw it on the floor and at that point all I really wanted to do was cry. Said clipping are now all burnt and we can continue to tidy the side up at our leisure 😜

Sunday: It was foggy when I got up, foggy at lunchtime and still foggy at dark, just a foggy dreary day. We did some bits of tidying out side after doing the rounds but it wasn’t at all nice working in the dank weather so we had the afternoon off apart from feeding and shutting away.

There ends another week and at the end of next week at least all the shops will be open again but also it means we will be able to go out for breakfast again one morning 😀 I didn’t realise how much I have missed a holiday until this week, I really could do with someone else doing the cooking, at least when we do finally get away it will seem like a real treat.

Friesland Farm

Grey days, dark nights, roll on mid winter 🙄

Posted on November 19, 2020November 22, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Thursday 19th November 2020: It’s a dry day with some sunshine although it’s colder and breezier than it has been lately. I have been waiting everyday for the weather to be nice enough to go outside but the rain was persistent and it’s not much fun in the wet. Today however I got up, got on with the morning tasks, went for a brief walk and then returned with the determination to get some stuff done. I cleaned out the quail and the guinea pigs and then went into the greenhouse to sort out seeds and look over the plants that are still in there. I planted up some sweet pea seeds that I had started off on the kitchen windowsill and then bought all the seeds in to go through later today. I seem to have got a huge amount of them 🙄 and I need to go through them all and may as well do it indoors in the warm. I also picked the tiny loofah, cleared the plant foliage and a bought that in to dry on the windowsill, I think that potentially it will go mouldy if I leave it in the greenhouse.

Teeny tiny loofah, pen for comparison, still I will notch that up as a win 😀

I wasn’t going to blog at all this week, on Monday a friend had a tragic and life altering day and I couldn’t bring myself to write about my trivial daily life but I found that as I was going round doing things I kept thinking ‘I must put that in the blog’ and it is a diary so eventually I found myself today writing it down again.

I have also started the list of wildlife we have here and even writing things from the off the top of my head I realise that we have a lot going on. Today a small flock of long tailed tits arrived, they always appear when the temperatures dip. My aim is to also get photographs but the little birds are far quicker than me or my shutter speed 🙄

Friday: Once upon a time I looked forward to Fridays and the weekend just around the corner, now in lockdown every day is pretty much the same except this time round John is out working and the weather is s**t. This morning we have the grey drizzle again and it’s noticeably colder no wonder people are putting up their Christmas decs early lol. I still won’t be putting mine up until Christmas week though 🙄 John asked if we are having a tree this year 🤷‍♀️ not sure if it’s worth the bother to be honest, it’s a squeeze to get a tree in here and still be able to see the tv 😂 but I don’t really want to break with tradition, you can’t beat the smell of a real tree indoors lol. I briefly considered an artificial one (hush my mouth) I have never in my entire life had a fake one, not when we were kids and not as a adult with my own home but I did think about it, then quickly dismissed it, it’s a real one or none at all 😀 I am still planning for a family Christmas though we have no idea if that will actually be the case this year. The Christmas cake is done and needs feeding again, my sister made mincemeat and gave me a big jar and I also have a small jar in the store cupboard from last year, I usually make the pudding and we have ‘stir up’ and the kids make wishes but that won’t happen this year and so I bought one from a posh supermarket instead and I indulged and bought some celebrity chef stollen for me as John hates it. We have discussed Christmas dinner it will be a bit sad if it’s ‘dinner for two’ 🙄 I also just ordered myself some Asbach Brandy, traditionally made in Oak barrels it’s my favourite brandy, not that I drink much of it anymore but I figure a treat is in order this year 🥰

Sometimes life changes drastically in less than a minute and other times it’s a long slow process. This morning I went down the Lane to say goodbye to our nieghbours over the road. We are all about a field or two away from each other here but still we are neighbours, they are moving today to retire to a warmer climate and I will miss having them over the road. They have been there long before us but I used to take Samantha there for riding lessons when she was little, they started out living in a caravan in the field and over the years built up a business and a house and now they are retiring, I wish them a long and happy retirement.

Saturday: Still grey and gloomy outside though not raining but it is damp. John did the feed rounds and then went off to collect more feed, he hasn’t had to do that for nearly nine months as we were having it delivered at the same time we had point of lay hens delivered, but we won’t be having any new birds over Winter. The avian flu that I thought would get out of hand appears to be contained and I haven’t heard of any further outbreaks which is good news. We are however still planning to bring the birds in for a couple weeks, mainly so that the ground can be rested and the mobile coops cleaned out properly, we can also keep a good eye on the health of the birds, worm them if necessary, give them a good dust bath area and see exactly how many eggs we are getting 🙄 With that in mind John also went to get bales of sawdust to deep litter them.

After he had done that we set about the job I really wanted to get done today, chop out the floor in the kitchen by the back door so that I can get a mat down for wiping feet on. Up to now the door was too low to be able to put a mat there and open the door, so that mat had to be about three feet inside which as you can imagine is a pain in the proverbial as that always means muddy foot prints up to it. It’s the little things that make the difference and that is one of them though it did take over an hour to chop it all out 😜 The next job was the electrics in the stable, the wet weather keeps knocking it out and we think it is because of one of the plugs though we can’t pinpoint it. By the time the electrician gets here it’s always dried out and working fine but as soon as it rains heavily it goes again. We will need the lights for the darker evenings and so at the minute the light circuit is on but the socket circuit, which we don’t use very often, has been isolated, another little job that helps the day run smoothly🤞

We nipped into town just to get something and grab a costa while we were there. As we arrived there was an ambulance and it appeared that a car had reversed from a parking space and hit a pedestrian, then a police car arrived on blue lights, then another, then another and then another, I am full of support for our boys in blue but seriously that’s over doing it I think 😂

Back home and get the Rayburn lit, get the eggs collected and sorted, it’s getting dark around 4.15/30 and that will be another day done and dusted, time seems to have shot past today.

Sunday: We have been busy little bees today 😀 first all the morning jobs to get done and then to Witney to pick up my new glasses and a few little pressies. Then back home where John got on with putting the metal coping on the front of the building, it’s a 90 degree piece that goes on the roof then down the front to cover the ends of the roofing sheets. They look good, we got them colour coded to match the paintwork 😀 Meanwhile I spent my time burning the paper rubbish which seemed to grow by the day, feed bags and cardboard boxes etc, after that I got two of the stables ready to move the hens to and the outside POL pen which we will put the light Sussex in for a while as their run has no solid roof and the ground is dire after all the rain. In the afternoon Emma arrived with a delivery of her award winning lamb, that will keep us going for a few months along with the beef we had from her last month.

After collecting the eggs and a bite to eat it will be time to shut the hens away and we will move two lots tonight, maybe three we will se how dark and cold it gets 😝

We are heading towards mid winter and the shortest day, after that the nights will draw out slowly again, the wheel keeps on turning and one thing is for sure, Spring is on its way even though it’s a way off yet 😏

Stay safe and have a good week 🥰

Friesland Farm

Seeds, avian flu & an amazing sunrise.

Posted on November 10, 2020November 15, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th November 2020: First thing this morning I have a repeat blood test as my last lot are showing low leucocytes again 😏 That means increased risk of infection so I need to be a bit careful.

Last night I was reading that the house sparrow is on the red list for conservation which surprised me greatly, we have a good flock of them here, around twenty I would say. I need to make sure they have everything they need, food through the winter and housing, I put up new sparrow flats for them when we took the old boxes down but they haven’t been seen in them as yet. What they have been doing is going in the roof where we haven’t put the capping back on (it’s ordered but not arrived yet) and I was complaining that they have pulled out bits of fibreglass which are now on the ground in the front. I think I will look to see where else we can put the old bird boxes until they decided to move into the new ones.

I was quite depressed at the thought that this is only day five of the lockdown, seems longer, and how I was going to pass the time but if this morning is anything to go by I needn’t worry. First the blood test, then Shelley walked over to get eggs so we had a chat over the gate (odd that last week they could all come in and this week they can’t 🙄 but rules is rules) then I thought I will phone Sue and see how she is doing, five minutes in and the straw and hay delivery arrived so I said I would call her back. Went out to sort where it was all going came back in to get the payment and realised I had left my soup on high, luckily it wasn’t burning, called Sue back for the rest of our chat, did some hoovering, sat down for my soup and John popped in between jobs. The time has shot past today and hopefully it will be like that every day.

I was feeling quite anxious and emotional this morning, mainly I think because of these white cells or rather, lack of them. It’s important because they lead to a condition called leucopenia and even when we don’t have a viral pandemic you are advised to wear a mask as you are highly susceptible to bacterial and viral infections as the immune system is not functioning. With the Lupus and the meds you take for it you can swing from a very over aggressive immune system to one that can’t even be bothered 😂 So you can see why it’s a worry, obviously the ideal would be a level system but that never seems to work because too many other factors can intervene. A morning of interaction and I feel more emotionally stable now thank goodness.

I had planned on doing a few things outside but the hours have passed and other things occurred instead, I did water the carrot seedlings, they don’t seem to be growing very fast though and I checked on the oranges which look nearly ready to pick 😀 I hope they are sweet enough and not sharp, that will be very disappointing.

I prepped dinner Nr lit the Rayburn, monitoring the time all the while but John came home early and he did the feed rounds and egg collecting so that was a happy bonus and with the extra time I made a raspberry pudding for dessert 😀

Shelley decided that through hers and Martin’s businesses they would like to spread a little cheer and have donated selection boxes, people can nominate someone they think could do with a little cheer either because they are alone, have lost their job or are struggling for some reason or other. The gift is in the giving and so we have donated from both the farm and the plumbing business as well and she is getting offers from lots of people to also donate, it’s amazing and so many people need to know that others are thinking about them at this difficult time and that although we are all socially distanced they are not on their own.

Helping people out gives you much more pleasure than you can imagine and is good for the soul and at time brings unexpected returns, some of my favourite memories are from people giving me things because I had helped them out. I have told these before but I love them so here they are again, one was when a chap stopped to get duck eggs when we first started out, duck eggs are difficult to find and so he was delighted but he didn’t have enough money. No problem just drop it in next time you are passing and we are talking about 40p or something like that. About 8 weeks later he arrived with his 40p and a trailer full of hay bales, would you like these he asked me, how much I said, for free he replied, I was flabbergasted, amazed, delighted 😁 The other times are also to do with eggs, people often want eggs for hatching but they don’t need many, one lot was for a Duke of Edinburgh award and some other lots were for children to hatch at childcare facilities, for activities like these I give them for free as they are learning opportunities which I am all for 😀 Never expecting anything in return I was humbled when I received chocolates/cards/flowers thanking me. They were such small giving moments but they grow of their own accord, the excitement and the chance to encounter nature doing what it does best and then the learning activities around it and finally the knowledge they gain from the experience, it’s all priceless and very rewarding. So you see a small gesture of kindness naturally grows into bigger things for everyone involved 😀

News just released of a real potential vaccine which gives us hope for the future, 90% effective apparently, obviously they will proceed with caution but it’s a chink of light on the horizon.

Tuesday: It’s lunchtime and it is lovely and sunny and quite mild out there, it wasn’t first thing mind you, the minute I put my coat on to go out it started raining but it soon cleared up. This morning I have spent a large part of the time rearranging electric fencing for the horses, during spring and summer we have an area fenced off for biscuit that she periodically goes into to prevent laminitis and that has worked well this year. Now we don’t need it for her but we need it for Jack, basically to keep him off the yard, as the grass gets more sparse he starts looking further afield which means he breaks out, plus I want to fence off the big side paddock so the hens don’t end up living in a bog. Horses feet churn up the wet ground and basically trash it and it quickly becomes a big muddy puddle, the ground recovers in Spring but it’s good to have some grass for the hens. I took all the fencing down from one area and then put it all up where I need it now, I connected everything up closely watched by Jack who was like my shadow the whole time, I went in to plug into the mains and when I came out he had got two of the slip rails down in that short time 🙄 I put them back up and then turned on the fence energiser, click, click, the minute Jack heard that noise he knew the game was over and he turned and wandered away. Up to that point he was probably thinking wayhay I can escape but the horses are very familiar with electric fencing and once they hear that noise they know there is no use hanging around anymore.

After that and a quick coffee I went into the greenhouse, might as well make good use of a nice day. I spent my time cleaning up the tubers I dug the other day, the dahlias still need to dry off a bit more and I brushed off the dirt from the yacon and Oca. Some off them will come indoors to be used in cooking and some will dry off and I will store them to plant next year. I have hedged my bet four ways with the yacon as I don’t know much about them, first I have put one lot in the ground and will see how they get on through winter, the next I have potted up and that will stay in the greenhouse, the third lot are smaller tubers that I will dry and store and the last lot are the plant roots that I will also dry and store, hopefully out of that lot one or more will be successful. I picked some of the runner beans that are now ready to store, the pod goes brown and papery on the vine, pick them, get the seeds out and dry before storing overwinter somewhere dry. I have dwarf French beans doing the same, and little piles of other seeds drying on the side waiting to be stored in the dry. I usually bring the seeds inside and keep them in the spare room in the dark, it gets too damp anywhere outside and I find that works well. I then did a couple of hardwood cuttings of my fig tree hoping to get a few new plants for next spring.

Collecting seed is a great way to get free plants next spring, it is also an important part of self reliance and sufficiency. We saw shortages of available seed and plants this year, propagating by various means can absorb the shock in times like these and help keep you producing vegetables and flowers 🌸

Wednesday: John knocked on the bedroom window from outside, get a look a the sunrise he said, Wow, it was fiery and orange and usually thats what the sunset looks like but this was first thing in the morning, breathtaking.

An unusual sunrise this morning more in keeping with a sunset.

I got up and dressed and on with the day, various jobs to do, clean the boot room and the back toilet, sort out dinner for this evening, nothing very exciting on the to do list today. Shelley walked over and we stood and had a chat over the gate but apart from that and a hardware delivery nothing much eventful happened. I did decided to make a Slimming World Diet Coke chocolate cake, one word, don’t 😝 It went in the bin it was that bad, I think I would rather have a normal one and eat less of it 😂 It got me thinking about healthy bakes and trying to find recipes that look vaguely like they would taste good but they are all full of weird ingredients. I think the closest I find to a good recipe are probably diabetic recipes, at least the substitutions are usually honey or maple syrup not some reconstituted husk of a hitherto unheard of vegetable or grain 😏

John called, he will be later than normal can I put the birds to bed, looks like I will have to. I hate the early dark evenings when he comes home after dark and then goes to work before the light, it feels like you have no one to share the daylight hours with.

We have worrying confirmation of six different cases of Avian Flu in the country, more worryingly is that they are fairly spread out in different counties all around the UK, many more cases and there will be a lockdown for poultry as well as us 🙄

We went food shopping tonight, I just needed a few things but seemed to end up with a lot of things. When I was packing it away I began to wonder if I was subconsciously stocking up, genuinely not doing it on purpose but I have definitely more than three tins of baked beans in the cupboard 😂

Our egg customers have gone awol again, really weird how it goes through phases, each day this week we have had hardly any customers, other days we are inundated with them, one week we can hardly keep up with duck egg sales and this week they are stacking up in the shed 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: Do you ever think that when things start to go wrong they go wronger and wronger 😏 This morning started off ok as far as the smallholding goes, jobs done, things sorted and all that. I need to get my prescription picked up and the plan was I would call the pharmacy to make sure it was ready then call John and have him collect it later, first fly in the ointment is that John has left his phone here 🤷‍♀️ so that plan goes out the window, luckily I call Shelley and she is in town and collects it for me, I will get John to collect from her later tonight (I need it for the morning). Second is the doctor calls re the blood results but only has half of them in will call again later when they have them, fine I go to the loo and the phone rings again, damn it, luckily they then tried the house phone and having finished my function I was able to answer. Terribly sorry but there has been a mix up at the lab and we will need to redo the full blood count, ffs, I am going to have an arm like a drug addict at this rate, your thinking that I could change the arm, nope the other arm doesn’t appear to have a vein that can be tapped 😂 so I now have to get over first thing in the morning for another blood test. On top of those life misdemeanours we have the more worrying aspect of the Avian Flu to sort out, it is now a legal obligation to make sure our biosecurity is in order. For the hens that means that we need to feed inside (which we do anyway because of the crows) and we will also need to keep their water inside away from wild birds. The ducks will also have to be fed inside but their water is a problem, ducks and water go together like bread and butter so more difficult to implement that, they need constant water to keep their nostrils clean after dabbling in the undergrowth. That is stage one, along with foot baths for anyone coming into the farm but that is not an issue at the minute is it 😜 The next is that I will have to stop feeding the wild birds, this is the saddest bit for me but the idea is to not encourage them to be anywhere near the flock as they will be the carriers/transmitters of the disease. We then need to make plans in case a full lockdown is required which given the spread of it is highly likely this year. That means all birds will be shut in for the foreseeable future, if they have an outdoor run it needs to be netted so that wild birds cannot get in. We have the POL run which is suitably netted after the last outbreak a few years ago, but the rest will be in the stables, luckily we have them spare, not ideal but at least they will have room. I remember last time we tried to tarp the orchard run, gee, we had the wettest, muddiest winter and it was soul destroying stuff but the stable block is dry and has windows so at least they can see outside 😜 Keep chickens they said, it will be fun they said 😏 Apart from all that, the sun is shinning and it’s not a bad day so I will take the good along with the bad today. Sometimes life seems like a scrabble, it’s like scrabbling up the rock face until you get to a level plateau again 🤦‍♀️

Went for a stroll round the village with Mum at lunchtime which was very nice, the sun was shinning and it wasn’t too cold, saw a couple of people to say hello to which lifts the spirits 😀

John came home early and spent a couple of hours cleaning and tidying out his van 🤷‍♀️ still it was nice to know someone else was around.

Friday: Another sunny and not too cold start to the day although it rained heavily during the night. Got a few bits done then off to get yet another blood test done 😜 hopefully this one will come back all in one piece and I can move forward in whatever direction I need to go.

I heard a couple of very strange wildlife stories this week, the first was of a fox taking a small dog somewhere near where Mum lives, this was witnessed by a gentleman although it seems they don’t know who’s dog it was. The second was the discovery of a dead otter, what is curious about that is that to my knowledge we don’t have otters around here, not for miles as far as I know. I have seen the photo and agree that it does not look like and English otter, it’s a mystery as to how it got there and why it died but it has been called in to wildlife experts and a university is taking it to do a post mortem to find out more if they can.

I have decided that I will keep feeding the wild birds but I will be moving the feeders to an area that is about as far from the hens as I can get it, it’s likely that the poultry industry will go into lockdown if reports of confirmed cases keep coming in anyway and once they are shut away there will be little risk of contamination. Worrying times with two major viruses in the country, if the two collide 😳 (and that could happen) we would be up shit creek without a paddle!

Saturday: The weather started off ok and then took a complete dive until it was vile out there. John was busy digging out the rest of the raised bed area on the tractor until it began to rain so heavily he had to stop, there is no cab so he was getting pretty wet. I went out and put new bedding in the geese, duck and light Sussex housing and then put up the hooks for the bird feeders and moved them well out of the way, hopefully the birds will soon find them. I also put up the remaining old nest boxes give them somewhere to roost over winter. I then spent two hours looking for something I knew we had but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It’s a leather stamping kit, so basically letters on the end of metal sticks in a box, you hit the stamp and it punches it into leather, marking it with a postcode or name. I wanted it to make some Christmas decorations but I can’t find it anywhere and I had pulled out boxes, opened drawers, looked inside everything, nope nowhere to be seen. I have ordered a new set but you can bet your bottom dollar it will now appear.

We came in for lunch and lit the Rayburn, drank tea and watched the news, hopefully the weather will clear a little and we can carry on outside. 😏

It didn’t clear up much but John went out to do what he could anyway, me I stayed in to stoke the Rayburn 😜

I spent an evening do a bit of Christmas craft, I sometimes wish I was more artistic as there are so many things I would like to have a go at. In my minds eye I see what I want but the reality is nothing like it, I still remember my art o level piece, I knew exactly how I wanted it to look right from the beginning but it was a big fat fail lol. Nevertheless I still have a go at a few things when the moment takes me, tonight it was gift tags, I have a large amount of buttons which were in Johns Mum sewing stuff, I doubt I will be sewing buttons on anything any time soon so I made gift tags instead 😀

Sunday: It was vile weather overnight and vile this morning but eventually the rain moved on and the sun even came out at times though it’s a tad cold at around 8 degrees. John did the morning rounds and then attempted inbetween rain showers to carry on with the raised bed, he almost abandoned it altogether when a stiff breeze came along and blew the rain along. Meanwhile I have been doing the usual morning jobs, a bit of washing and sorting dinner for later, I did pop out to feed the guineas and have a look in the polytunnels and then back in to get the Rayburn lit. No point me trying to help John as he is levelling and squaring p, not my strong point and I would probably be more of a hindrance than help on this job. So I supply the cups of tea, a sandwich, make sure there is hot water and a hearty supper for later on 😀 Slow roasted lamb shank today 🥰

Just sitting having a cuppa and have been watching a short video on biodiversity on the smallholding (or it could even be related to a garden/allotment) It became obvious that I have been doing everything that was suggested and this talk was given by someone who gets paid to advise large farms and parks with their biodiversity projects so I am quite chuffed that I am on point with my plans to increase wildlife in all forms. The only thing I haven’t ever done is record it either by writing it down or logging it with various surveys. I will start a log I think, I can recall right back to the beginning when we first came that even though we are surrounded by countryside, there was not much going on here, mostly due to routine spraying I suspect. I have seen a big increase in wildlife especially over the last four or five years and each year I am surprised by more arrivals, like the bees in the hollow this year which incidentally are still going in and out, and the snake, it’s a great feeling to be able to make a difference however small.

Quick update on the kittens, both are doing well, exploring further and further outside but they can often be found curled up on a cushion in the boot room. They get on well will the dogs, by that I mean they tolerate them and are not afraid of them, the dogs don’t take much notice of them unless they go to close to a food bowl with biscuits in or if they make a sudden playful dash, on the whole though it’s lovely to see them all sleeping in the same room together proving that cats and dogs don’t always fight 😀

I went outside about 2pm and helped John, we now have the raised bed finished (except the top soil) and the ground all levelled back out again. Only thing was with the shovelling and raking I have twinged my lower back 😕 Today I did the afternoon feed round and egg collection while John got the tractor round to finished moving and levelling the driveway. We have got a way to go yet, topsoil needs delivering and then we need to build the last bed which is much smaller, then a layer of clean gravel needs to go down, some cutting back of the hazel trees (the planting up will have to wait till spring) then there is the side driveway to start on 😂 always another job on the horizon 😜

Have a good week and stay safe, keep your chin up and keep smiling, we will get through this eventually (the winter & covid) 😃

Friesland Farm

The first frost, the last tea at Nanas (for a while) and turf war in the skies above.

Posted on November 8, 2020November 8, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 2nd November 2020: Morning 😀 It was very windy overnight and still some pretty hefty gusts first thing this morning, we are supposed to get drier weather from Wednesday I will look forward to that. This is the week that we potentially go into another semi lockdown, I say potentially as it still has to go through parliament and who knows what could happen there 🙄 I am pretty chipper about it all because, well there is not much choice really is there, do or die, hopefully not that dramatic but you get my drift! I am also feeling pretty smug because I have all but finished my Christmas shopping (hush my mouth 🤭) normally I would not have even thought about it yet, I usually start mid/end of November but this year I started early, mostly because I did not want to be shopping with thousands of others during a pandemic, I’m glad I made that decision now. I have a feeling this lockdown may last longer than expected, food is not an issue I can rustle up Christmas dinner for two easily enough 😜

Today is kids tea at Nanas but it will be the last one for a while sadly, I have made the jelly already and will get the cake on the go shortly. John did the birds this morning and I just need to do the other animals, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, horses, quail, then a bit of cleaning probably, I am waiting for this dry weather to arrive before I do much outside.

Small businesses are busy cramming their last few appointments and opening hours in as much as they can. I just managed to get a hair appointment for a trim otherwise I can see I will resort to doing my own fringe which never works out well 😜 I feel sorry for these businesses, shut, open with caution and conditions, shut again but I also feel it’s necessary for the NHS. Nobody working on the front line wants to be in a position that they have to choose who lives and who dies, that is potentially what would happen if the cases needing to be admitted outstrip capacity, that’s what we all need to remember 🤔 And it’s not just the elderly and vulnerable that are severely affected, I have heard of youngish, fit people that are suffering long after they had the virus, still struggling to walk any great distance, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone so for those reasons I am for the lockdown not against it. The economy will suffer, yep, but life is about more than the economy, though we have interwoven it so tightly that it doesn’t seem like there is anything else. Perhaps I can say that because it won’t affect me much apart from the inevitable tax, vat and price rises, but that’s because of the lifestyle I have chosen I think, self sufficiency is about more than growing your own food it’s about being able to manage and weather the storm when the shit hits the fan as it has this year. I have been saying for a few years now that an economy bust will come, I didn’t expect it to be disease but it was booming, more disposable income than ever before and some quite frankly astonishing pay packets at the higher end of earning, reality tv ‘celebrities’ that have no talents, ordinary people emanating these wannabes who’s highlight of the week is to go out and get hammered 🤷‍♀️ the climate in desperate need of attention but nobody cares enough to change their habits for the better, if you really looked at each individual cog from an outside perspective you would see how depraved it was all getting and eventually it collapses. Greater civilisations than ours have fallen before, everything has a cycle, we are in the throes of the decline of ours in more ways than one, that’s what I think anyway 🤔 I don’t think that ever before have our hopes for a better future been pinned on the youngest generation like they are now, I hope they are a generation that sees things for what they are and not the dressed up gloss that has infiltrated every aspect of life, every photo is filtered, every news report is one sided, false news, false body bits, false…. oh, I am thinking too much, I will depress myself in a minute 😝

The kids came for tea one last time before the lockdown, that’s the saddest part for me not being able to see them whenever I want or they want but hopefully it will only be for a few weeks, I hope it dose t go on any longer than that.

Tuesday: It is noticeably colder this morning, yesterday it was 20c indoors so I didn’t even light the Rayburn until after 5pm, overnight the rain was at times heavy, it woke me at least once and then this morning Sunshine but colder, hopefully it will be drier as well, I’m getting fed up with the rain even though it’s only been on and off it’s still annoying.

I need to think about what I will be doing during the lockdown, life won’t change much except that I will be by myself most of the time so I need projects to occupy me. I guess there is always reading and Netflix box sets to catch up on, that’s what winter is for isn’t it, I may have to look for some good books to read and order them in, any suggestions? I generally browse the prize lists and see what catches my attention. My fav author, Phillipa Gregory has a release soon which I already have on order so I look forward to that, trouble is I can read her books in a couple of days. I love her style of writing and after going to one of her talks last year I got to understand her passion for the hidden women in history and why she likes to tell their stories.

I’m not sure where the hours went yesterday but I seemed to have used them all up lol, haircut, deliveries, FaceTime, feeding rounds, dinner, household chores, rayburn lighting and a bit of reading.

Wednesday: It was a good frost this morning, let’s hope it’s the first of many for winter, we only had a handful if that last year which is not good. Pests and disease are killed off by the cold snaps and last year that didn’t happen, it’s also good for the soil to have that freeze thaw action on the particles.

I was up before the alarm went off and I turned on the TV straight away, along with a large part of the world, I want to see what is happening in the US elections 🙄

I have to admit I have been doing only two things today really, one, turning the tv on periodically to see the updates in the US and two, reading 😜 I have done a few others things in between but mainly those two. About the reading, I have to confess it’s my addiction, once I pick up a book, one that I engage with, I can’t put it down unless I absolutely have to. It’s why I don’t constantly have a book on the go because I don’t like to be interrupted while I’m reading it 😂 and that includes day to day life 🙄 I am the same with a film, I could never be one of those people who can watch a bit of a film and not the rest 🤷‍♀️ I always want to know how the story is panning out and how it finishes.

I finished the book, a good story, The Binding by Bridget Collins, worth a read if you like a bit of escapism and a little bit of magic and mystery in the mix. The next book I have in my sights is called The New Wilderness, it’s on the Booker shortlist so should be a goodie and it’s climate change, survival, dystopia story so right up my street 😀

Thursday: 2nd Lockdown, day 1 😜 I have been a very busy bee this morning, the weather is lovely and so into the garden I go to get some good work done. First the plants that have been affected by that hard frost we had, the yacon can be dug up after the first frost, the foliage on all these plants go black and limp very quickly. I have never grown them before so wasn’t sure what to expect but there were tubers, not masses but enough. Yacon are very good for you they are prebiotic and full of antioxidant, they are sweet but fructose has no calories so great for diabetics, they can be eaten raw or cooked and apparently make a great syrup but you need a lot of them. I have dug up the whole plant and will put the root somewhere dry over winter and hopefully get them going again next year. The smaller tubers need drying off and only washing just as you use them or they will get mouldy. The next veg to harvest were the Oca, similar in that it’s the tubers you eat, little cream coloured knobbly nuggets, also left to dry off before storing for later use. After that I went on to clear and clean the asparagus bed and the rhubarb, these are the first two harvests to begin appearing next spring so getting those done first is a good idea. I have used one of those darlek type compost bins to ‘force’ one of the rhubarb plants, I will get early, sweeter stalks, at least that’s the plan. The bed still needs to have manure put on there but apart from that it’s done, I did dig up the artichoke plants as they get huge, nobody really wants to fiddle about prepping them so I decided they could go though I did replant one elsewhere out of the way. Then it was the turn of the dahlias to be lifted, again they collapse in the frost and so lifting them over winter means I will still have some next year. After that the herb patch, cutting back, weeding, tidying plants up. By then my back was aching a bit and so I did some more gentle jobs, putting stuff away for the winter and finally pulling a few beetroot which are still growing really well. The temptation is to keep going as there is plenty to do but I know if I do that I won’t be any good for tomorrow so I came in for lunch and a sit down before starting on the afternoon shift.

The rest of the day was spent prepping dinner for cooking later, lighting the Rayburn, feeding the birds, collecting the eggs, feeding cats and dogs, putting clean sheets on the bed, doesn’t sound like much but surprising how many hours it all takes 😀 Once the night draws in and the curtains are closed it’s back to some reading or tv, except that, damn it’s Thursday 9pm and I have forgotten the dustbin AGAIN, well done for volunteering John 😘

Friday: We are still awaiting the results of the presidential election in the US, I have never been interested before, not ever, but with this one I find myself waking early to see if there is a result every morning. They are not my politics but I know who I would be voting for in the circumstances.

It’s cold this morning though the sun is shinning so it should warm up a tad 🙄 I should be getting on with stuff but I have the TV on waiting to see what happens next 😂 Beats corona virus and Brexit chatter anyway!

I lit the Rayburn late morning because I don’t think it’s going to warm up very much before it starts to get cold again. I picked up the wood basket and went to open the door out to the boot room and the door fell off! Well not quite all the way off but the top hinge had come away from the frame. The door had been sticking and Martin had a look last time he was here and said you need some more screws in the hinge, it’s not something you really look at regularly is it. I couldn’t find any sign of screws that had come out and I’m wondering exactly how many were in there, I do have a nick name for John when he puts hinges on anything ‘Johnny two screws’ I’m pretty sure there are four holes for a reason but he only ever uses two, well they had both failed 🤷‍♀️ Luckily I have my own cordless screwdriver and can manage the repair on my own, I wedged the door up so that the hinge was in place and I used three screws 😜 that’s because I couldn’t find a forth, but at least the door can be opened and closed again now and as a bonus it no longer sticks 😂

We appear to have some kind of turf war going on in the skies above us here, for about an hour we have had a pair of Red Kite and a pair of Buzzards screeching overhead with some crows joining in occasionally. It’s quite fascinating as I have not seen this behaviour here before. They don’t usually roost or live here but maybe they are looking for new homes 🤷‍♀️ if I work out what is happening I will let you know.

Just look how glorious that sky is today 🥰

I bought myself a lockdown cup 😂 it’s wonky and perfectly reflects life as it is at the moment. There are not many pleasures to be had at the minute but I am enjoying drinking my tea from this 🥰

The horses are getting hungry now as the grass they have eaten off all summer is no longer growing like it was, time to order in hay. They have the free range of all the paddocks during the summer, the chickens are also out on the paddocks with electric fencing and this is not a problem until the grazing gets less and then the horses try to break into the chicken runs. Biscuit has now got caught up three times in the fence, luckily she just stands there until she is rescued but it’s definitely time for hay and putting electric up so they can’t get into that particular paddock.

Every day at 3pm it’s egg collecting time and the hens get fed as well, but I was thinking on the way round this is a silly system. The reason we do that is to put the eggs out at 4pm so everyone knows when they go out and have a chance to get them if they want some. To start with, as I am always telling John, the hens should be fed an hour before dusk especially in the Winter because the grain is to keep them warm overnight. It’s not so important in the summer but you can’t collect the eggs without being mobbed by the hens which is why they get fed. I am going to make an executive decision and change the system this will allow me to keep on working in the spring, summer and autumn months without having to stop what I am doing to go and do something else which is a real bugbear for me. It also will mean that there is no pressure to get the eggs sorted and into the shed for an allotted time because life does not always go to plan and sometimes the turnaround it tight which is stressful, yep I am going to tell john that is what is going to happen in the New Year 😝

I found out why the door fell off, I found a sheared off head of a screw on the floor, doesn’t explain where any others went to but maybe they came off previously, a bit weird but that’s the kind of thing that happens at ‘the funny Farm’ Another weird thing is flies again, they are infesting the boot room, it started yesterday when there were about twenty of them. I hoovered them up as they are drowsy at this time of year, I hoovered four more times yesterday and then twice already today. I have no idea where they are coming from but I have told John that I want every crack and crevice sealed to stop it happening again. They must be in the wall and when it warms up a bit they crawl out, probably something dead in there though I can’t smell anything.

Saturday: Wow what a day, we have been busy outside from first thing this morning only stopping quickly for a speedy lunch of homemade chicken soup. We have been very busy sorting out the front area, building part of the new raised bed that will go under the windows, moving the remaining topsoil and the leftover ballast. Doesn’t sound like much but it has taken us all day to get stuff tidied and built and swept and chipped, dotted with cups of tea, feeding the hens, collecting the eggs. I will eventually get pictures to show you but I want to wait until it’s all done and we have quite a way to go yet so don’t be expecting them anytime soon. My back is aching from digging, shovelling and even a stint on the pick axe. We had a fish and chip supper followed by a chocolate bar to round the day off, it will probably be an early night as we are both pooped.

I didn’t even come in to find out how the election results were going but it seems they didn’t come in until just before we finished anyway, at least there is now confirmation even if it is going to be contested 🙄 What on Earth will be talk about now 😂

Sunday: The usual jobs to get done this morning before going to town to try for a second week in a row to get my eye test. The town was noticeably quieter now the lockdown has commenced. Success this time though it was a mighty thump to the bank balance 🙄 new glasses, varifocal and light reactive this time, also a new 3D scan of the eyeball which showed that they are in excellent condition, thank goodness for that 😀 Back home in time for lunch and by now the drizzle had started so we haven’t bothered doing any work outside, opting for Netflix instead 😂

Apart from the usual afternoon jobs that will be it for us today as far as the smallholding is concerned so that just leaves me to wish you a good week, stay safe and look after your mental health, I think that is going to be very important with a Winter lockdown, practice some good Hygge (pronounced hoo gah) 🥰