Author: frieslandfarm

You know what, this week I was gonna write an informative piece about the rain and the leaching in the soil and what I am planning to do to correct that, in fact I had it all typed up BUT I just can’t hold it in anymore, I have to moan. I have tried really hard not to do that this Winter, after all lots of people have far bigger mountains to climb and my mud is trivial, however, mud and rain and the chaos it causes  is my mountain! I am so pissed off trudging and slipping around in what can only be described as slurry, that’s animal shit on top of wet mud, I am trying, I really am, to face each day with a smile,  but inside I am thinking, when will all this be over. Every night I watch the weather forecast and pray for minus figures but no, just more rain is forecast, I know there are people far worse off with flooding but it doesn’t make the daily tasks any easier here, and right on cue as I write this, more rain is coming down, it’s exasperating. 

Some people have the good fortune to fall in shit and come up smelling of roses, I have never been one of those people, nope, I just stink of shit and look like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards! I try, I really try, Christmas Day I got all dressed up to go out to dinner, to get to the car you have to open the gate, the wooden gate that has been rained on for weeks now, it’s covered in an inconspicuous green slime, at this point it is now all over my hands and I have no where to wipe it off, why did I bother? That’s why most times, I don’t bother, you will never see me all nicely dressed with a full face of makeup around the farm, more likely I am splattered in slurry from head to toe. 

I don’t just feel sorry for myself mind you, I feel sorry for the birds, well chickens in particular, it was all going so well up to the beginning of December, I had transferred them to nice grass, that is just a big slurry pit now, I do have the other half that is green but I am trying to save it for when the weather turns so that they at least have good pasture to move to.  I am having to use it to turn the horse out now and again but I can’t put him out for long as it is so soft under foot it would be wrecked in no time at all. The liveries have had to move to spring paddocks already because the horses keep losing shoes in the suction of the mud, that means that come spring none of the paddocks will be in a good state, it’s a sorry state of affairs to be sure. 

The Ducks of course love it, they don’t care how muddy they get wallowing around in it, the more it rains, the more they wallow, the muddier it gets, the geese don’t care either BUT I DO. It’s like trying to get up the stairs when you are three and a half sheets to the wind and some bastard has greased your shoes! I just hope there is a change of weather on the horizon, I don’t care which, frozen ground or warmer to dry up the ground but it really can’t come soon enough as far as I am concerned. In the mean time of course I will just keep on doing what I am doing, trudging, slipping, sliding and getting splattered, hanging on to side rails to try and get some traction and despairing each time I go out there. 

When I come in I spend my time planning for better times, and how to sort the leaching problem on the veg patch, that’s if there is any soil left after all this, fingers crossed we don’t have a wet Spring as well or we are doomed, doomed I tell you 😜

I have a spare five minutes to sit and ‘blog’ 😃 I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year and all that it brings. Our Christmas present arrived on the Solstice, 22nd December, a totally gorgeous little grandson, Mum and Baby doing fine, we did think we would still be waiting but he decided to get here before the festivities, just! 

Daily chores still have to be done regardless of new arrivals or eating, drinking and making merry. We had Christmas dinner at our eldest daughters and the youngest daughter very kindly looked after the animals in the afternoon and evening so that we did not have to rush back, very much appreciated it was too. 

At this time of year we are pretty much ‘treading water’ so to speak, feeding, cleaning, feeding, cleaning, that goes for the animals inside as well as out 😉 although I must say we have had some lovely sunny days that have prompted a bit of weeding and some general tidying up to be done. I would get excited and say that the daffodils are coming up nicely and that the primroses have flowered but I know that this is likely to be disasterous if we get a cold snap now, everything has been lulled into a false sense of security, even the pigeons are ‘at it’ 

We are expecting storm Frank over the next 48 hours, hopefully it will only mean some rain and and bit of wind for us, those further North are not so lucky and I can’t imagine what it must be like to be battered and flooded over and over again, bad enough in towns and cities but for small holdings and farms times will be difficult and hard work. 

I had an unexpected phone call from the owner of one of Mia’s puppies (Dave, that’s the puppy not the owner lol) to let me know he is doing well, they were a year old on the 14th December, it was lovely to hear from them and they are hoping to come and visit sometime in the new year so I will look forward to that although it may be chaos 😝

A Happy 2016 to you all, and I for one will delight in the nights drawing out again as we move into the New Year. 

🎄🍼👶

We have been here six years last month and finally got round to do something we have put off all that time! The time had come to dispatch the duck with the bad foot, I had tried to help it recover but it was getting worse meaning that he was mostly flapping around on his belly which was very unfair on him. He was only just over a year old and a dual purpose Cherry Valley  duck and so I felt that it would be sacralige to just cull and dispose of him and so the intention was to eat him. In all the time we have been here we couldn’t bring ourselves to eat the ducks, they have very soulful eyes you know, we have raised and eaten many chickens but not the ducks lol.

We made a snap decision to do the deed and decided that as the necks are pretty strong, decapitation would be the best way, this is still legal although not ideal but as we don’t have a bolt gun then an axe it would have to be. To be honest it was not that bad and very quick as you can imagine, once we had got over it I went on to pluck it, hang it and eviserate it the next day, then it went in the oven that evening with garlic, celery, bay leaves and oranges,  it was delicious and I am glad we didn’t waste it. We probably will do ducks again but I am not in any hurry to rush out to the pen and round them up they will be delighted to know 😝

On a whim I decided to add six bunnies to our farm, we had already decided to get some next spring and build an outdoor area for them, but an opportunity to good to miss presented itself and within two hours they had arrived. Someone was looking to re home, a male, two unrelated females and three of their babies, plus two huge hutches, some may think I am mad to do that, I think I would be mad not to 😁 

I learnt two very important things this week related to farming in general, firstly last month saw the end of grandfather rights. For those that have never heard of these, it gave anyone born before 1964 the right to buy and use various chemical sprays without a certificate, Hubby just came into that category and secondly that rodencides will come under strict regulation next year, you will also need a certificate to buy and use those. How will this affect us? Well as we  only use chemicals as last resort, and only once in the last six years, the spraying probably won’t be a problem, besides our eldest daughters partner has the correct certificate if we need to call on him, but the rodenticide issue is a different matter. I have already noticed the increase in rat activity on the farm, as soon as winter arrives they tend to move closer to a food source and with chicken feeders around,  the obvious place to set up home are under the huts. Even a concreted floor does not stop them digging under and squating, waiting till dark and coming out to pick up any leftovers. Obviously good husbandry is the key but getting the amount of food right so that the chickens have enough to keep them full and not leave any is a tricky balance. A rat population can explode pretty quickly, at the moment it’s not a problem here but I need to keep putting bait down to prevent it getting out of hand. Sometimes I use bait boxes but you have to put them in the direct path the rats use otherwise they won’t go near them, usually I locate their exit hole and fill it with bait and then place a stone securely over it so that the chickens can’t get at the bait, you would be amazed at how much the rats will eat every day. So next year I don’t know how we will go about getting rid of them, paying a contractor to come in is not going to be cost effective on a place this small, we may have resort to sitting out at night and shooting them or getting a small dog for ‘ratting’  purposes! To be honest I haven’t fully looked into the rodenticide issue you may still be able to buy household strength poison but I will cross that bridge when we get to it. 

We are still waiting for the arrival of our Grandson, the due date is tomorrow, hopefully for our daughters sake I will have news on that front in next weeks blog, we also found out last week that our other grandchild due next April, will be a little girl, how lucky are we to be blessed with one of each 😘

  
  
Have a fab week 🐭🐇🍗

Good morning 😃 the sun is shinning beautifully this morning which is cheery although the downside is that I can see how much my windows need cleaning 😜 We have been luckier than our Northern neighbours with the weather and my heartfelt wishes go out to those who have lost livestock in the floods this week.

The strong winds have continued to dry up the ground which is very welcome and given me an entertaining moment one blustery morning when letting out the geese. Normally when I let them out they have a little run and stretch their wings and I don’t know who was more surprised me or the one of the geese when she suddenly became airbourne and went up about eight foot lol. 

The guniea fowl that arrived by them selves decided to leave by themselves just like that, I went out to feed one afternoon and they had gone, I did think I had heard them in the back field that day but it didn’t really register until I went out later and there was no sign of them. Something has killed two of the quail, something small enough to get through a 1/2 inch square wire so I am guessing stoat or weasel, luckily two others were hidden in the house and I have now moved them to a place of safety indoors. 

Hubby finished work early on Friday and so I took the opportunity to get the apple tree in the front drive pruned. It was last done two years ago and so needed about a third taken out, it was a bit windy and at times drizzly but we persevered. The result is not quite as I would have liked as far as shape is concerned but it’s quite difficult giving instruction to someone up a tree but it’s not bad. 

This week I have also got on with bottling the Christmas presents, sloe gin and rumtopf, the latter tastes amazing and I am glad there was enough left for us to drink at Christmas. I didn’t throw the sloes away, I have reused them in a whisky infusion for sloe whisky next year, I think I will do an apple brandy as well, a good duo I think. 

The egg situation has not picked up yet and the chooks are just about coming to the end of their moult now, I have mixed together all the powdered spices I ordered and they had their first batch last night which went down very well. They have aniseed, fenugreek, ginger and turmeric, I coat some wholewheat in oil then put a spoonful of powder in and that sticks to the oil. I hope egg numbers will improve soon as the amount of customers far outweighs the amount of eggs at the moment, already this morning five cars had driven up before 8.30! We have become very popular over the last year however I am reluctant to increase the number of birds as it would take us to the next level of regulations which would enevitably increase costs, besides it was never part of the plan to become an ‘egg station’. 

The photos are before and after, plus Hubby up the tree lol and the Christmas tipple bottles.    
    
   
Have a great week 🐓 🍏

What has been happening for the past two weeks? Well we have had a mixed bag of weather, rain, wind, mild, freezing you name it we have had it. The wind bought a tree down in the front driveway and to be honest we were lucky to get away with just that, at one time I did think the roof was going to go it was banging about so much. The rain has of course made the mud much worse and a new pastime of mud skating has been invented, it takes much more effort to get too and from the paddocks and at times with a horse in each hand it’s downright hairy stuff! 

Hubby had flu, not really but you know what they are like, a sniffle and a cough and anyone would think the insurance policies needed dusting off 😉 obviously his legs were incapacitated because of it and so not much got done that particular weekend. 

The geese have been my main focus over the past few days, the grass is fast running out now and it’s time to turn to other forms of feeding for them. The large quantity of fallen cooking apples that are too small for using in cooking have been a godsend, at least 6 wheelbarrow fulls have kept them going, there is grass in the front paddocks but it is not stock fenced and right next to the road and they can’t be trusted not to roam, the fencing is on the list but we have not got round to it yet. In the meantime I have just ordered some waterfowl feed and some ingredients to make a poultry spice, you can buy it ready made in pellet form but it’s much cheaper to get the ingredients and mix them. I have been sat today making notes to make the best use of the herbs I could use from the garden next year, the trouble is that when they are growing the grass is abundant and they are not needed so I need to look at drying them or harvesting the seeds to grind to a powder ready for Winter use. I have sweet cicely growing and I can probably grow fenugreek and ginger and use those next year, well that’s the plan at the minute.

The dogs are filthy every day and need to be bathed before they come in, luckily we have a great set up in the form of a plastic bath and hot and cold taps with a shower attachment, they don’t know how lucky they are but judging by their aversion to the word ‘bath’ you would think they were about to be whipped 😝 We did reach a milestone however when Patch finally got in the bath by himself instead of having to be dragged out from the back of his cage, he was rewarded with much praise and treats 😄

I have made my Christmas mincemeat, I almost forgot which would have been sacrilege as I haven’t bought shop mincemeat for years. I had a quick look through the cupboards, gathered together odds and sods plus my homemade glacé cherries and voila, four jars of mincemeat ready for the feast of mince pies which I traditionally start making on the 1st of December. I normally make the Christmas pudding as well but this year we are at our eldest daughters so no need to do that and I gave up making Christmas cake a few years ago when it took longer to eat it all up than it did to make it and feed it for a few weeks.

With the shortening of daylight hours comes the drop in the number of eggs laid by the chickens, fortunately they are still laying enough to cover the cost of feed at the moment, not much longer until the shortest day thank goodness and the nights will draw out again, it is one of the dates during the year that is firmly set in my memory as we limp through the colder months. 

Have a great week 🐶

Hands up if you have been watching Hugh’s programme about waste food that is still perfectly edible, I have and frankly I am appalled! I am aware food is wasted both by the supermarkets and in homes but the scale has flabbergasted me. All of us have busy lives and it’s easy to slip into that kind of behaviour but we need to make a concerted effort to use up what we buy instead of throwing it away.

With that in mind today’s dinner is made up of yesterday’s lamb bones, a sweet potato that was in danger of drying up, tomatoes that have been in the fridge for a couple of weeks, some bits of veg (and the stalks) and some Oca which is a new veg that I have just harvested. I also scraped up the meat juices that have solidified in the roasting pan, it smells great and makes me feel good for using everything up. 

Going back to the new vegetable I trialed this year, Oca is a tuber from the Wood Sorrel family and is highly nutritious, vitamin c, iron, zinc and vitamin B to name a few of the beneficial components, it can be boiled, fried, stir fried, roasted or eaten raw a good all rounder. The type I grew are a golden colour but they also come with a pink tinge, the young leaves and shoots can be eaten early on as well if you prefer. As yet I have only put them in today’s soup but I will be experimenting with them over the next few weeks.

  

When Dad went home last week I sent him off with some pig trotters that I had in the freezer, I’ve never tried them and they don’t really appeal to me and I usually give them to the dogs but I know he loves them and so I had a phone call in the week to say he had cooked them and they were delicious lol. He was also amazed that you can find just about anything at the touch of a button on the Internet and after a conversation about a bread my Nan used to make we found the recipe, it’s called Stottie Cake although it is a bread. When he was a boy they used to eat it warm with treacle and he phoned the following day to say that he had made some and that it was just as good as his boyhood memory, I have not had a go yet but I think I will, there are numerous recipes on google and we went for a more authentic version without olive oil as I doubt they had it back then! 

The farm in general is ticking along as usual although a lot muddier now, I just have to remember that it’s not forever in fact I will be looking forward to frozen mornings although they bring their own problems such as frozen water buckets and frozen finger tips. I have noticed rat holes under the chicken house and so have put down bait to knock those on the head quickly, I have not seen any all summer and so they must have moved residence to be nearer to an easy food source i.e chicken feed. The last of the veg have been harvested, artichoke and the oca and apart from windfall apples that’s this years crop done, next month it will be time to work out the crop rotation for next Spring and think about what I want to grow. Next year will be a busy one as I will have not one but two grandchildren, one due in five weeks and  our eldest daughter and her partner are also expecting a baby in April, just think how many hands I will have to help when they get older 😁 I hope they find the farm a wonderful place to visit and grow up around and that when they are in their seventies like Dad they too have memories of freshly baked bread and cakes as well as muddy wellies and mucky hands. 

Have a fabulous week and don’t forget to use everything up, it’s great soup weather 🍲

My Dad came over from Wales to stay for a week last week and so apart from the basics of feeding, watering, egg collecting etc, I didn’t get much else done including blogging as we spent a great deal of time chattering and making tea for visitors who had not seen him for a while.

Dad used to live here before we bought the place so was very familiar with everything, the sad thing is that he has got a bit too old to do anything now but he did go around oiling and sharpening tools because they hadn’t been done. On Friday afternoon Hubby went to get the tractor out to move the muck heap but on starting it there was a noise that did not sound good! Dad was in his element, it seems that the fan was hitting the casing this was caused by the engine having moved on its mounting, Hubby is very good at a multitude of tasks but machinery is not one of them. If it had been left entirely to Hubby he would have just bent the fan so that it no longer hit and not bothered to find out why it had moved, luckily Dad was here and pointed out that the engine was loose! When I took out a cup of tea to them I found them both up to their elbows in greasy, dirtyness and big grins, they were having a great time. In time honoured practice a ‘temporary repair’ was made using bale string and a spanner as a tourniquet to hold the engine in the correct position, I must add that the bolts were tightened as well but it appears that the bushes have worn? While the tractor was out I had a lesson in tractor maintenance from Dad, honestly with just Hubby and I looking after  the tractor it’s like the blind leading the blind. Although I can look after and service my lawn mower, even sharpen the blades, a tractor is a whole new ball game. We found an old grease gun left behind when dad moved, and I had a lesson on using it to grease the nipples, who knew there were even such things on a tractor lol, not me that’s for sure. 

The next thing we learnt was that the small covered area was built to house the horse box (we usually keep the tractor there) our box had been parked round the back of the stables and tarpaulined up for the Winter but someone wanted to borrow it one evening last week and after trying to push it out in the dark we decided to park it in the intended spot, it could then be towed straight out and back in again, easy, Why hadn’t we thought of it before? However our box was a little too tall, literally 2″ too tall, so Hubby got the pick axe and set about digging out two ruts for the wheels to go in. I found the whole scenario quite amusing, you know how it is ladies, your trying to do something and the other half is always giving instructions on how he thinks it should be done, a bit straighter, quicker, higher, lower, whatever the task there is always a comment, well in this instance Hubby had a taste of his own medicine as Dad was giving instructions on straightening up a bit or needs to be deeper or too deep or too close to the uprights. I could tell by his face he was irritated but too polite to say anything, I stood watching with my tea in my hand giving him a ‘now you know how I feel’ smirk. 

Needless to say as I didn’t get much done last week I have a fair bit to catch up on, this morning as well as the usual jobs, I have deep cleaned the duck houses and the quail house, cleaned out the goose hut, wormed and fleaed the dogs and cat, bought the horses in to clean off the mud from their feet, raked up fallen apples from the front drive and captured an escaped Guniea Fowl! Just got time to write this, have a spot of lunch and then it will be time to light the Rayburn, feed the animals, collect the eggs and cook the dinner!

Dads parting words to Hubby were “don’t forget to get those bushes sorted, it’s only a temporary repair”, we will see how long it stays like that or if anyone knows a good tractor mechanic send them our way 😜

Have a great week and enjoy bonfire night 💥

Hubby unexpectedly had a week off last week after finishing a job early, that’s great I thought we can get a few more jobs finished. I should have known better if I thought we could finish off the jobs already started instead he decides to investigate  the blockage in the drainage tube that runs under the hard standing and is supposed to run out onto the veg garden. Now this would have been fine as we had purchased two 5000ltr water tanks back in the summer and they needed installing  in roughly the same area, the problem was that he chose the worst two days of weather in goodness knows how many dry weeks to do it. He dug up the pipe which was under around two foot of mud and disconnected the existing tanks to use elsewhere, so that meant, as it practically rained non stop for 48 hours, hundreds of litres of rain coming off the roof straight into the mud mound he had made! Not to be deterred he carried on working out in it and eventually I heard a whoop of joy when a tennis ball came floating out,  of course all that tramping around was making the whole area muddier and muddier, I think he just likes to make a mess and that’s fine but when I get called out there to help lift the tanks into place I am not best pleased at working in the rain slipping around and trying to grab hold of a cylindrical tank with no obvious grip holds when it is soaking wet 😜 a real ‘good life’ moment if it had been filmed.

Having said that when the tanks are all in place we will be able to save nearly 8000ltrs of rain water and that has got to be worth the effort. Not only that but I am told there will be a pump fitted so that I can water the veg garden in next to no time so brownie points for Hubby. I just wonder why he didn’t pick a dry day😬

He spent the rest of his week off, cutting up wood and altering gateways and fencing, because we are on clay seams in places, the posts move a lot during Winter months and the gate to the jump paddock in particular was  practically non openable because of the post listing. In the same area we a have a bit of rough ground that we have now incorporated into the goose paddock with new fencing and gates  and it’s all looking very tidy.While I was explaining exactly what I wanted with the fence and gates I had Pygmy goats in mind lol, I think if I mention it often enough he will come round to the idea 😋

Meanwhile apart from having to make endless cups of tea and coffee, I have been busy trying to get the veg plot up together, I had hoped for a little help but Hubby keeps finding other jobs that ‘need doing before winter’ well that’s true so I set about the jobs by myself. I have cleared bed after bed of exhausted veg plants, asparagus , beans, potato tops, squash, I have cleared out tomato and pepper plants, cucumber, melon etc from the poly tunnels and given them a wash down. I cleared the fruit cage of wanton raspberry runners (potted some up) and weeds and tided up the canes that will bear fruit next year and I have lump hammered wobbly posts back into the ground, despite the ‘lump’ bit keep falling off the broken handle! The compost heap now looks like a green mountain and is about six foot high, it will shrink down over the next few months once the weather has worked on it, I will probably give it a helping hand in a couple of weeks time by treading on it to compact it and agitate it to start working. Having done all that there is still more to do, two more beds need weeding and all the dead stuff cut away, hops to be precise, they grow like weeds and have suffocated the patio fruit trees this year so I may have to think about relocating them. The rest of the carrots need pulling up and processing for the freezer, I have tried storing them in previous years but to be honest freezing is the better option just a little more time consuming. Normally I would then think about overwintering veg but I am considering giving myself the Winter off this year and just start early next year. I usually do brassicas over winter because they don’t get decimated by caterpillars but then I end up with cauliflowers all at once and I don’t like them frozen they have an odd taste, the other veg I do are broad beans and peas, garlic and onions but I have enough from this year to see me through so I think I will leave the ground fallow for a change. 

We have discovered the beginnings of the the dreaded red mite in the new chicken hut, dam and blast it 😖 so this week after the feed round in the morning and before I set to on the garden I have been trying to creosote the nest boxes in rotation doing four of them each morning, there are sixteen altogether. Trying to block them off so the hens don’t go in them is a challenge but I am winning and have four left to do tomorrow, it won’t get rid of them all but it will knock the numbers back considerably and hopefully the rest of the little b******s will freeze to death in the winter 😜

This morning I have had to catch hold of a poorly duck, at first I thought it had a broken leg as it was dragging it behind but when I looked it over it was bearing weight on it and I couldn’t detect any sign of a break or dislocation. It is sat in the quiet of the stable until I go out and investigate further. The ducks, like the chickens have been moulting and this one is also having trouble with its new pin feathers coming through, sometimes they can cause bleeding at the point of exit through the skin, it’s not having a good day so some TLC is in order and we will see if it gets better or not. 

There has been a definite nip in the air the last two mornings, I am not sure if we had a frost or not this morning, an extra layer was needed as well as gloves and a hat, and the late afternoon temps seem to plummet quickly. Since she came back into action we have been lighting the Rayburn around 3pm and letting it go out over night but I don’t think it will be long before she is running constantly. 

Whatever you are doing this week, have a good one 🐔

Of course I am talking about the weather! We can’t complain really we have had the most glorious few weeks of early Autumn sunshine and reasonable temperatures but it looks like that has come to an end and we would be lucky to get that back again anytime soon. 

So with the sun beaming down every day I have been very busy tidying up the vegetable plot, cutting grass, cleaning out pens and so on. I went away for a short stay to a Spa hotel with my daughters as a birthday treat for one of them which was fabulous, when I came home I had a renewed vigour for work. Unfortunately I wore myself out and by this weekend I was down to pottering to conserve energy, that’s the Lupus, it’s best not to go flat out at anything but with the weather on my side I couldn’t help myself lol. 

The cat has still not returned and so I imagine she has been hit by a car which leaves Desiel on his own, not that he seems to mind, I did contemplate getting another yard cat but I think I will leave it for the time being and see if Desiel manages to keep the mouse population down by himself. I say mouse population but in actual fact we don’t have many, every time we clear an area I expect to see something small a furry thing shoot out or the remains of a nest but it’s never there, I assume he is very good at his job 😃

I had what I considered ‘the perfect moment’ the other morning, I had been clearing the potato patch and burning the tops and any weeds, I sat down on the bench to drink my coffee, the morning sun was shining, the smoke from the bonfire was wafting gently, as I looked up across the field through a gap in the hedge I could see the local herd of deer grazing on the stubble, that’s just perfect,  I thought to myself I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else other than right here, right now, lucky me 😀

I picked the last of the patty pan squash, there were small ones still on there but they were not going to get any bigger so they went to feed the chickens, then I pulled up the plants which over the summer had got huge, there are still courgettes forming so have left those for the time being, butternut squash are the next lot to be harvested although they are quite small this year they will still have enough on them to be useful. I had a customer ask me if the butternut squash were imported as her daughter had told her that you can’t grow squash in this country! Of course it delighted me to inform her that everything for sale in the little shed is grown right here on the farm and that squash are easily grown here. I thought people were more clued up these days about the food they eat but obviously there are still folks out there who are not and educating people about where their food comes from and how it it grown is part of what I try to do. At this point there is a whole essay forming in my mind about, fresh, local, seasonal produce, food miles, chemicals and how supermarkets are massive buildings of brainwashing, but I am not going to to go there today, I will save it for another time, maybe even a different blog site entirely, this one is for the lighter side of farm life 😜

It is as we move through these next two seasons that all our hard work will seem worth it, plenty of wood cut up to keep us warm on the cold days, and plenty of produce in the freezers for making fruit pies and crumbles, slow cooked stews and soups. As yesterday was a foggy cold start I thought I would cook a roast, I don’t bother in the summer as I am usually too busy, as always, I sent a group text to the children and their other halves to see who wanted one, the replies came in like quick fire, yes, yes, yes, faster than they ever reply to anything else 😜 and so the evening was spent with everyone round the table tucking into a Sunday roast, a great end to a great week. 

Here’s hoping you have a great week 🍂