Author: frieslandfarm

February has finally arrived, the shortest month on the calender, but physcologically the longest month of the year! Why? because we get a glimpse of things to come when the Sun peeps through but its far too early to begin any preparations for sowing, there is always a chance that the weather will bite you on the backside if you get too keen. The Sun is shinning gloriously today as it was yesterday and you can feel Spring in the air but at the begining of the month the temperatures were low, we went down to around -9 at night here which resulted in a burst pipe in the tack room, water, water everywhere, luckily it had not been flowing for long, around ten minutes before someone noticed it.

I have ordered (and they have arrived) all my seeds ready for the moment I deem fit for planting, I have included some new (to me) items such as Samphire, Cucamelon, and Watercress, I am also contemplating Water Melon, those together with all the usual suspects will keep me busy during the early Spring. Also waiting patiently are the seed potatoes, garlic and onion sets, I did very well last year and still have onions and garlic to use up so I may end up having plenty of those to sell this coming season.

We have had some wildlife visitors, some welcome, some not so. I have been feeding the geese pellets because of the shortage of grass and the local population of pheasants have cottoned on to this, it started with five and at the last count there were sixteen. Obviously I cant afford to feed that lot so there are days when I dont feed the geese but let them out to free range the farm instead, this seems to stop the pheasants for a couple of days but they soon know when the menu is back up and running. The other visitor is the Fox, with my cctv I am able to playback and two  nights running seen the fox trying to get at the Quail, I was told last week that they had shot a couple over the back from me and for the past couple of nights there has been no sign of them so thats reassuring.

The puppies are now eight weeks and as I write this four of them have gone to thier new homes, we are just waiting for someone to look at the last one tomorrow and then they will all be gone. I have enjoyed looking after them, well mostly, last week they all had the runs and I didnt know if I was coming or going, I will miss thier cuteness but will be glad to get back to routine and so I suspect will Mia.

As for everything else, its pretty much the same as the last blog really, we are getting plenty of eggs from the hens, the ducks are being a bit lazy and I have customers waiting for duck eggs but you cant make them lay so they will just have to wait a while. Bella the kitten continues to settle in, well she is pretty much settled really, she knows the routine now and Diesel is allowing her to be in the same vicinity at last, she takes most things in her stride, nearly always hitching a lift on the back of the horse out to the paddock, I must try and get a photo of that to post for next time.

Indoors we have been busy decorating for the past few months and are very nearly at the end of that so Hubby will be back on outside duties which have suffered a bit, well you cant do everything at once can you, dont let him know I said that otherwise he will use it as an excuse to slow down!

So thats about it for this time, I will go back to planning the veg plot, think about ordering some compost, maybe even get the propagator out and get something on the go such are my itchy fingers, not too hasty though or it will backfire, sure as eggs are eggs!

 

Well Blue Monday came and went, to be honest I can’t see what is so depressing about it, at least we are on the right side of the year for a return of Spring 🙂 We have plenty of signs that the circle of life is continuing, the bulbs are beginning to push their way through the frosty crust of earth, little tips of green peeping out are a good reminder that warmer days will come eventually. I have a shrub that we planted in the driveway last year, the name escapes me, but it has just started to flower, when I saw the little white blossom I literally broke out into a smile, the fragrance is strong too, which is why we decided to put it there, even if it’s not for long we should get wafts of perfume when walking by.

Today I spotted Fallow deer in the field behind us, about six of them in all, we tried to get a bit closer but their senses are sharp and we only got halfway across our paddock before their heads came up and they ran off, they will be back I am sure. We also have about five hen pheasants that have been coming for breakfast everyday in the goose paddock, they are eating the grain that the geese leave. It started off with just one and each day another would arrive and now it’s a party!

We have had a flutter of Snow, luckily it was only a layer, just enough to look pretty but not so much it causes a mess when it melts. On the morning of the snowfall it was still dark when I got up, I opened the door to look out and realised it was snowing, everything was totally still and quiet and you could nearly hear the shuffle of the snow when it hit the ground, it’s almost eerie.

I spent a morning doing a bit of baking, the result was a couple of fruit cakes, a lemon and lime drizzle cake, two bakewell puddings, a Brazil and cherry cake and a Victoria sandwhich, not a bad mornings work. My aim was to use up as much as I could from my baking cupboard, which I think I achieved. We are trying to make an effort to use up what we already have rather than buy something else, so as long as I have made cakes and puddings Hubby is not allowed to buy any when we go shopping. We are getting through some of the fruit and veg that was frozen last year, which is good because it won’t be long before we are picking again. The temptation to grab something quick off the shelf in the supermarket is great especially when you are busy and don’t have much time, but the reward of making and eating your own produce is much greater in my opinion and it tastes soo much better.

Hubby and my Stepdad have been busy concreting the feed room floor, up to that point all the feed bins were on pallets of various heights and sizes, some of the wood had broken and it was a bit of a hazard to say the least. Often the room would flood during heavy rainfall, but now we have a lovely level dry surface to walk on, a small thing but it makes all the difference to the start of the day if you can go about your business without twisting your ankle 😉

Bella, the kitten, fast becoming a small cat, has continued to settle in, and Diesel seems to be much more tolerant of her now, although he has not quite got to the stage where he will share milk with her, he does at least let her sit within a couple of feet of him and let her watch. Eventually they will become good friends and go off hunting together I am sure.

Mia’s puppies are growing super fast and all developing their own characters, they are five weeks old now and when I let them all out of the pen it’s pure carnage. They take up a fair bit of time through the day as Mia is only feeding them morning and before bed, the rest of the time, about three times a day, I let them out to eat hard feed, then there is a constant round of mopping up after them. As soon as I turn to clear up one lot another appears and they have now got to the age where, trying to grab the tissue as I clear up, is a great game. Then they need a little playtime, so they have carrots to chew on, cardboard tubes and empty plastic tubs to push around and a ball to figure out, who says you need fancy toys, after that comes the best bit, cuddle time, I am making the most of it while they are still here.

I made an attempt at looking through the seed catalogues last week, normally I am very keen to get my order in, that in turn makes me a bit too keen to get planting and inevitably the weather prevents this from happening so I end up disappointed, maybe I am learning finally not to be too hasty, or maybe I am just procrastinating, I haven’t made my mind up yet lol. Either way when I finally do get to start on the garden, I have ordered a fetching little number called a ‘facekini’ google it, that way you won’t be too afraid if you turn up a the farm and see me out in it, who knew something like that even existed, I am hoping it will mean I can spend longer outside in the sunshine, even if I frighten all the locals!

The CCTV is nearly operational, I say nearly because although I have managed to connect it all up to make sure it works, the only camera I have on is perched in the windowsill. I am still waiting for one or two things I need before locating them outside. I must say I am rather impressed with the quality of the picture both in the daytime and at night. It’s mostly for watching the wildlife around the farm, it will be interesting to see what is lurking, and if we manage to catch any two legged lurkers while we are at it then all the better 🙂

Well I haven’t blogged for ages, the new year seems a good place to start again, I will try and blog once a fortnight depending on what there is to say, once a week is too much and by the time once a month comes round I have forgotten everything 😉

We are in the depths of Winter, to be honest it has not been too bad as yet although I know there will probably be worse to come. The paddocks didn’t take long, once the rain came, to turn to mud baths, even the chicken footfall has caused a mushy field. We have reorganised the duck pen temporarily, that had turned into a slurry pit, mostly because the rain from the stable roof was flowing straight through it, Hubby has redirected the pipe to flow straight into the pond and we have penned them into drier ground for the time being. The plan is to dry it out, dig the pond out further down and hope we get the water flow right so that if it overflows it continues on down to the paddocks. Channeling water away from areas is a topic we have been discussing over the festive break, it seems we have more and more water sitting around and the plan is to channel it down to the hedge, when that will happen is anyone’s guess! Hubby had two weeks off and plenty of wood got chopped up, on frosty mornings the resting paddock was mucked ready for dragging when the ground firms up. We took down the fence in the middle of the front two paddocks so that we could move the electric fencing with more efficiency. One lot of chickens are now on fresh clean grass, the others have a bit more grass but we were unable to move the main of it off of the mud because there is nowhere else for them to go.

All the poultry are doing fairly well considering the weather, I nearly lost a goose a couple of months a go, it was very unwell but with some tlc and medication it made it through thankfully. I am still not sure how many males and females I have, I will have to wait until Spring and see how many eggs I get, if any.

I was standing looking out of the back door this morning looking at the wild birds, they seem to have faired well too, I noted that they look quite fat which will be important if we have a severe cold snap, we have a pair of partridge that have move onto the premises, I see them most days wandering around and there are a lot of pheasants nearby, they often wander in and pick up any seed that the chickens missed. We have not had any fox attacks as yet, although I did have a call from a neighbour to say that they had seen a large and healthy fox in the area so we need to be on our guard. We religiously shut our birds away at dusk and we don’t let them out until it’s light, so hopefully we won’t suffer any loses.

One of the hardest things to understand for people is the commitment when you are running a small holding, your social hours change greatly through the year, for instance during the winter, you need to be here an hour before sundown to feed the poultry, that means if you are going out you need to be back by around 3 in the afternoon, on the flip side you can go out to parties in the evening. During the summer months the day is a lot longer but the evenings are interrupted, so if you have been invited to an occasion that starts at 7, you go for a couple of hours before or after dark depending on how you feel, occasionally I have sent Hubby home to put the birds away while I stay at the party but that’s not very often. All in all I wouldn’t want it any other way, and of course when you have the parties here it’s no problem at all 🙂

Sadly we have lost two of the domestic animals in the last month, first Felix, the black and white cat, he got run over in the lane, by the time a passer by got him to the vets he had died. Felix was born on the farm about 10 years ago, he was almost feral when we moved in and over the last five years he had come to trust us and stay around for the occasional stroke if he was in the mood. The second was Moloko, the black and white Husky, he developed a tumour on his leg approx a year ago, they are prone to this type of illness. He was nearly 10 and by the time we noticed the tumour it had probably already got into the bone, so the options were to have the leg amputated, it may still have spread, or to leave it until the time came to have him put to sleep. We chose the latter because for an old dog, especially a running dog, to have his leg off would be traumatic, as it was he had a good year without discomfort and then it became apparent that the time had come. It was a good call and he went to sleep very peacefully.
We felt that the remaining cat, Diesel, would be lonely so in came Bella, a black kitten who has made herself totally at home and wreaks havoc outside, she is full of energy and as soon as humans appear she leaps on their shoulder and purrs very loudly, she is very active, agile and fast, we have already seen her catch a mouse and so she will be an asset, Diesel is just about tolerating her now although at first it was hate at first sight lol.
Mia has had puppies, they were born on December 14th, an hour before I was expecting the whole family over, she wasn’t due until the 17th so Sod’s law kicked in, they are now 3 weeks old and there are five little fat bundles of cuddliness 🙂

The new year seed catalogues have arrived, which always make me very happy, deciding on what to grow for the year is something I love doing, I try not to do it too early as it can be demoralising waiting endlessly for the weather to change and get stuck in, but this time of year is great for planning as there are plenty of ‘indoor’ days to do it. I have a Facebook contact that has a small holding in Norway and they have to be fully self sufficient, I love reading about their place and the things they do, I find it quite inspiring to read about other like minded people and their day to day happenings, it spurs me on to think of all the things I ought to be doing but haven’t quite got round to yet. I don’t have new year resolutions as such but I resolve to ‘do things’ for instance one year I decided to say yes to invitations instead of saying, I will let you know or I am not sure if i will have time, I had a very sociable year! This year I have resolved try to do things I would like to have a go at, cheese making for instance, I have been saying for the past 3 years that I will have a go, so this is the year I will get it done. Having a go at smoking is another, garlic, meat whatever I fancy, building a pizza oven is another although I am not sure where to put it that’s the dilemma with that one, and getting my food hygiene certificate so that I can sell preserves at the farm gate. These are all things I intend to do, we will see how many of them I achieve over the next year.

A New Year is full of hope and promise so I hope you achieve the things you set out to do and I promise try try and achieve mine 🙂 Happy New Year to you all. X

Today seems like a good day to blog after being absent for a while, we have had a long and glorious Summer and so no complaints in that department, however the Winter has arrived and there seems to be no let up in the downpours and the subsequent mud!

Not much is different since the last time I posted, the veg patch has given it’s last bounty and all that is left are a few winter crops. Time to begin preparing the beds for next spring, some of them have had a heavy layer of muck added, some have had a top up of compost and some are still waiting for their tlc. We have plenty of veg and fruit in the freezer to keep us going until the fresh produce is available again and as that is always the aim we have succeeded.

The ducks are enjoying the constant wet weather, but their pen is turning into a quagmire so preparations are under way to move them temporarily and dry the run out, dig the pond a little further away from their house so that we can round them up more easily at bedtime. At the moment it is a case of sliding around in circles which is getting quite tiresome.
One of the geese went down off its legs a couple of weeks ago, we bought it in and put it on antibiotics which have done the trick and it is now back outside happily wandering with the other four.

The chickens have been moulting and so we are not getting many eggs from them, I do feel under pressure to ensure there are enough out in the shed for sale but with the best will in the world I can’t make them lay all I can do is keep looking after them and feeding them until the egg numbers go back up. During the latter end of the Summer we discovered we had a thief pinching eggs from the shed this made me both sad and angry at the same time. Sad that someone would do that and angry because they think they can get away with it, we took the eggs in for a while to hopefully discourage them and potentially catch them out and it seems to have worked fingers crossed. It is disheartening because we don’t make much money on the egg sales, if you included my time cleaning them out and the items that keep them in good condition such as wormer, grit, garlic the profit probably wouldn’t even be there to be honest. You would then ask why bother? Sometimes I ask myself that especially when people also short change you or worse put foreign coins in, but on the whole I have a terrific bunch of customers that love coming to get their fresh eggs and in the Spring and Summer it also provides a customer base for the veg so that’s why I do it.
Then this mornings news that bird flu is back in the country put everything into jeopardy again, hopefully it’s an isolated case that can be contained quickly, I have to give a thought to the duck breeder who is having to cull 6000 ducks today, it will be a devastating day for him indeed.

Christmas is approaching fast and I do hope we get some cold weather with it, last year we didn’t get the cold snaps that we need to get rid of pests and diseases that affect the veg and fruit crops, then a wet cold Spring added to the difficulties, as a gardener I am always optimistic about the next year, hopefully it will be a good one. The Winter months are usually a time for making and baking but I have not quite got into that yet, I can’t find the motivation and no idea where I put it last 😉
I have included a couple of photos that I have taken in the last few weeks, one of the sunrise which at this time of year can be very uplifting and one of All Hallow’s Eve, because it was so mild we decided to light the fire pit and sit out side for the evening something we don’t often get to do at that time of year, you have to make the most of things when you can 🙂

Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while but to be quite honest I couldn’t be bothered!
I was a the point where I was just writing the same old stuff over and over, well it felt like it anyway, an attitude adjustment was needed I decided, but which direction to move in is the dilemma.

Firstly I will give you a quick update on what has been happening, the long and glorious summer and autumn, rudely interrupted this weekend, has meant that we have been very busy. I can’t even count the amount of butternut squash I have harvested or how many lLbs of runner beans I have picked, safe to say it is many and of course once you pick them all they have to be processed one way or another. Cooked and frozen if I am keeping them for the freezer, stored well if they are to be kept over winter or bagged up and labeled if they are to be sold. We are now coming to the end of the harvest and I have a very full freezer as well as dried herbs, garlic, onions, potatoes, cooking apples and nuts to feast on through the darker months.

I have no idea what drove me to this kind of lifestyle choice, I only know that once in the cycle I am driven to planting, growing, harvesting, processing as much as possible without waste. I read somewhere that only another self sufficient pioneer would understand and I think that is quite true.

We have increased our fruits trees by four, one lovely morning we planted, 2 apples trees and 2 plum trees in the front paddock, hopefully they will make it to next spring and give us a nice bounty. One of the apples is a red fleshed apple which I am very excited about, one of the plums trees is a cherry plum, we had one at our last house and I do miss the small but beautifully sweet fruits. We have taken delivery of 30 pol of lay hens to increase our egg numbers as the amount of customers we are getting is still growing. When we are not harvesting we are mending and fixing or adjusting various parts of the farm. We have had some help over the summer in the form of volunteers who work hard for the day In return for produce, this is the most fabulous exchange as far as I am concerned, we spent one day culling and dressing the meat birds and they went off with a chicken for dinner, most times it’s a mix of veg and eggs but hopefully a win win situation for both parties.
We have had some unsavoury happenings as well, as from today I am asking customers to ring the bell for eggs as we have had some stealing, it’s a sorry state of affairs the one or two of the dregs of society ruin it for everyone else. We have also had someone wandering around at night, letting the horses and geese out, I am waiting for CCTV to arrive, we will be able to see what wildlife is mooching around and also if they are any unwelcome moochers. One night the front gate was either left open (although hubby swears he shut it) or someone opened it and the dog got out and killed all my little pekin bantams and the ducklings, some weird goings on of late that’s for sure.
In the past the blog has consisted purely of happenings on the farm, and not all of them at that because we occasionally have some right funny buggers turning up in the day. I don’t usually include these stories as they involve outsiders from the farm but I think in future if we have one of these random happenings I will include it for sheer entertainment value because it can be very entertaining. I am also not very political but obviously I have views especially when they affect the lifestyle choice we have made, normally I would not comment on these issues but if they do have an impact on our way of life then I may voice my opinion, be assured it is just my opinion and I am not seeking a debate over the issue although I am always keen to hear other points of view. One topic that is current at the moment is that of hazelnuts, the price of them will be higher this year as will things like chocolate/nut spread, because the harvest in Turkey has been bad this year, this is where we import most of the nuts from. This makes me cross as in this country we have millions of nut trees, many cultivated orchards but also millions of wild trees as well, why are we importing when they grow so well here? This year on the farm we have had a bumper crop of hazelnuts and if we could have a system like the French where all small producers take their harvest to a collective point there would be no need to import at all.

In the beginning I did set up a recipe page but I have not added to it for a long time, I will try to rectify this in the future, the recipes are not my own, I am not that adventurous but they will be recipes that I have tried and am happy with, on the whole I like my recipes simple and easy to whip up quickly so that anyone can have a go. I have been given a recipe for green tomato cake, I was also given a slice of the cake at the same time so I can safely say it was lovely and a new way to use up the glut that usually happens at the end of the season, I will add this one soon.

I have at last got a sourdough starter on the go, I have been meaning to do it for a couple of years but it is a five day process that I never quite got off the ground, I am on day four today, once you have the culture started it can be kept and reactivated for years even passed on through the generations. I love sourdough with soup, no idea why it tastes so good like that, it could be that the first time I had it was with leek and potato soup in the Blue
Mountains in Australia and the memory has stuck with me.
Luckily, although I was a bit late with winter veg, I managed to find some leek plants at the local garden centre which I was very happy about, the best soup on a cold winters day has got to be leek and potato a firm favourite with all the family.
The photo this week is a rhubarb and custard cake that I made with the last of the rhubarb and some of the hazelnuts that I roasted the flavour of those was incredible. They are now in the freezer to use whenever I need them.

Have a fabulous week whatever the weather, to be honest I am glad to see a bit of rain and I quite enjoyed the sharpness of the frosty morning we had in he week as well. I will be back with a blog soon, if I can be bothered 🙂

September 1st already, where has the year gone? The nights are drawing in again, the early morning and evening temperatures are dropping and we are grateful to see any Sun at this time of year.

It’s been a funny year for growing here on the farm, I know others have struggled too. Most things were very slow to start and some never even got off the ground, literally, cucumbers most noticibly, failed to thrive here this growing season, the runner beans were slow but have now picked up and with the September sun that is forecast I am expecting a ‘flush’ of them. Peas were a non event entirely and now that the picking season is here for fruit I am finding that most fruits have maggot or in the case of nuts, have rotted in the shell. All in all a disappointing year and one I will be glad to see the back of as far as gardening is concerned.
Having said that I have been picking and processing a fair amount for the months ahead, I have already made the mincemeat for Christmas, I used the damson plums that a friend bought round and some of the better cooking apples, the smell was as always, divine, and I can’t wait to start making pies with it in December. The Rumtopf is steeping various types of fruit in Brandy and sugar, this should make a lovely fruit brandy by the middle of winter, just the thing for coughs and colds and, well a tipple or two for no reason at all!
I have been drying various crops in a dehydrator, lots of herbs to use in soups and stews, I dried onions because they will not store for winter after bolting in the spring, the risk of rotting was high and so drying chopped onions was a way of saving them. I also tried drying mushrooms, shop bought as I am not expert enough to forage my own, once dried I ground them down into a powder form, very successful. You may wonder why bother but Hubby cannot digest mushrooms and I do miss the flavour they provide, this way we can have the best of both worlds, flavour without a trip to the hospital 😉

I had a boiled egg for my breakfast this morning, it’s news worthy because we don’t often eat eggs, not because we don’t like them but because they are in such demand that there are never enough left, occasionally we have a glut but not very often. The hens have had a splendid summer out in the front paddocks, long lazy summer days wandering around, jumping to catch flying bugs, dust bathing in the dry dirt and now that we have had a splash of rain they are happily pulling worms up from the softer ground. We have doubled the laying flock to nearly 100 birds and still can’t keep up with demand. At this time of year I need to start to prepare them for the cold months ahead, I start by oiling their scratch feed and adding crushed garlic to help with their immune systems, then I will start to add cider vinegar to their water to help with the bacteria balance in the gut, they will also have a good dusting with powder to make sure that external parasites do not get the chance to build up and of course they will also be wormed over the course of a week. All this preparation will hopefully enable them to lay a sufficient amount of eggs throughout the Winter. In the Spring we had a successful hatch of bantams and they are now beginning to lay although the eggs are tiny and you need quite a few to get a meal of scrambled egg!

The ducks that I bought in as day olds are now reaching maturity although not laying yet, and I have a few too many boys in the mix, some of them will have to go in the freezer, when the time comes it will be a first for us having never done ducks before, I will let you know how that goes. The geese that were tiny when they arrived are now out in their own paddock, in previous years I have made the mistake of continuing to feed the geese but with this lot I turned them out and let them get on with eating grass only, they seem to be thriving and they do not come running and calling at the gate every time they see me like the last lot used to. What I want from these geese is their eggs, to sell at the gate although this won’t be until next spring and hopefully they will rear a few of their own offspring to increase the numbers.

Activity on and around the farm has been high in various forms over the last few weeks, the swallows have reared their young and are now beginning to collect together in readiness for their long migration back, they are most definitely the biggest indicators of summer arriving and leaving around here. The farmers have been very busy harvesting and hay making, one of the last fields to be cut was right next to us and they did that yesterday afternoon, there was a rising cloud of dust for a couple of hours while the combine was there and then quiet and still again. We have also had some unwelcome activity of the human kind, late one evening we went out with torches because one of the horses was clearly upset and charging around the paddock, we looked all around but could not see anything, we went off to bed and in the morning the geese were out of their hut and the other horses were in a different paddock with the slip rails down.
We thought no more of it except weird until my neighbour phoned and asked if there had been any funny business here the night before she found there had been some goings on with her horses as well and so at that point I decided to phone the police and let them know, no crime as such had been committed except perhaps trespass but if there is activity in the area it’s better that they are aware of it, ‘keep em peeled’ is the motto at this time of year.

I have managed to find a spare minute to blog! It’s been pretty hectic on the farm for various reasons over the last couple of weeks, firstly I turned into my half century year, oh my goodness, where have 50 years gone 🙂 We celebrated in style with a party in the paddock, rock band, ice cream van and fish and chip van as well as a pimms tent and cake, thank you to my lovely daughters for arranging the surprise. I then spent my actual birthday beside the sea, it was lovely to paddle me tootsies in the salty water, take a stroll along the pier and have lunch on the seafront albeit a bit blustery it was a glorious day.

The veg garden has kept us busy too, plenty of picking now and with that comes the processing and freezing, the runner beans finally got going although I have yet to pick a cucumber. We are also picking tomatoes, peppers, beetroot, carrots, courgettes, red cabbage, raspberries and blueberries on a regular basis. The plums in the orchard have begun to ripen and for the first time ever I have beaten the wasps and birds to the greengages, they are beautifully sweet if a little scabby, the damsons have also been picked and I am just waiting for a time to be able to make jam with those. The cooking apples are coming off the tree as windfalls on a daily basis so we have been making use of those and I need to spend a good day prepping some for the freezer. The thing I have noticed though is that all the fruit tree fruits are maggoty, I have tried the sticky wraps around the trunk and will have to try codling moth traps in the spring to see if we can sort the problem. All the fruit trees are getting on for forty years old and the plum trees are showing signs of their age, I have tried rejuvenating them but to no avail, so I made a decision to invest in some new ones and plant a new mini orchard. This will be an exciting project, the trees will arrive in September and we have decided to use the lower part of one of the front paddocks. The old trees will remain where they are for the time being until the new have become firmly established.

I have started to dispatch some of the meat birds although they have not got as much on them as I would have liked this year, I think that’s because we have given them more space to move around, it’s kinder to them but reduces the weight by quite a bit. I have now sold out of point of lay birds, the remainder are being kept back to increase the laying flock, it’s just as well really as we sold 45 dozen eggs last week! For a while we had a backlog of eggs then all of a sudden we had a rush on and now we are back to waiting for them to lay before we can put anymore out. The young ducks are showing signs of maturing, lots of head bobbing going on, this is a sign to imminent mating, and therefore egg laying should commence soon as well. I do have a few too many males though and so some will have to be dispatched for the freezer, this will be the first time I have ever done ducks and I don’t expect it will be as easy as chickens so I will let you know how it goes.

Hubby is in the middle of two weeks off and getting lots of DIY done, we have been given a share in a few lorry loads of wood, off cuts from a workshop, the pile is building up nicely and each time a load arrives we have to sort it, bag it and put it neatly away in the wood area. It should keep us nice and toasty this winter. A few rails in the paddock need mending and the fences in general need straightening up, the wind and the wet ground has taken it’s toll on them over the past couple of years and they are decidedly wonky so that’s another job for him to do. There are a couple of areas that need concreting, and another pile of logs to saw up, should keep him busy until he has to go back to work 😉

I am having the weekend off this week and leaving him in charge totally :s I am off to the Green Man Festival, hubby bought me the ticket for my birthday. I am very much looking forward to it and it’s a tick off my bucket list, camping, bacon sarnies and a mug of hot tea on the campfire, music, probably rain, great atmosphere, brilliant. I will try and get a few photos to post next time. Hopefully once hubby goes back to work I will get back into the routine of blogging weekly again, doing it sporadically means I probably forget half of what we have been doing!

We have a full moon at the minute and a supermoon at that, this coincides with the perseid meteor shower, so a great spectacle in the night sky at the minute for anyone who wants to get outside and watch 🙂

Facebook is a many sided media sending out messages of doom and gloom, weirdness, hilarity, social connection and education.

This morning I watched a video intended to educate, one of the more positive sides of the application, the snippet was about a supermarket chain in France that was selling ‘inglorious’ fruit and veg, at a reduced rate in comparison to ‘perfect’ fruit and veg. Fabulous is my reaction, do you realise how many thousands of tons of fruit and veg are thrown away almost as soon as they are picked because they don’t conform!

The more I thought about the video the wider my thought net was cast, is it us as consumers or is it the supermarkets that are driving this need for perfect looking produce. Either way we should be ashamed of ourselves, firstly for wanting straight carrots or oval potatoes that get chopped up or mashed anyway and secondly if it is the supermarkets, for allowing them to lead us in that direction while we follow without thought.

During the war thousands of men and women died so that we had freedom, that includes the freedom to think for ourselves and act on it, thousands of families during that time would have given their eye teeth for a misshapen carrot or a deformed apple, what have we done with the gift that they gave us, demanded perfect fruit and veg? Are we that fickle?

Waste is something I don’t understand, people work hard for their pay packet yet at the end of each day they toss their hard earnings into a food waste bin and the industry as a whole is doing the same. The cost of living would come down if we utilised everything that was grown in this country, the need for importing would be much less, a bonus point for the whole global warming situation, at the very least, those wonky carrots and short fat courgettes should be going to make soup or stock, not rotting away on a food mountain.

I realise that when you look at a situation like this as an individual you can’t achieve much on your own, one lone voice in the giant world of supermarkets is not going to be heard, but if you agree with any of the above and see a petition or a movement in that direction, climb on board, if and I say if, the British supermarkets ever have enough bottle to follow in the footsteps of the French, take a deep breath and buy those ‘inglorious’ offerings, I guarantee the taste will be just as good, if not better because of the way you will feel about yourself for taking the leap, and as a bonus, you might even get a giggle at preparation time, from the distorted shapes you come across and let’s face it, we could all do with a good giggle now and again, couldn’t we?

This morning I am busy hatching a plan, now when Hubby says ‘I have a plan’ I usually groan and in return if I say I have a plan it’s usually ‘no’ because it involves keeping larger animals over winter. If I am honest Hubby is right, it’s easy to think how wonderful it would be while the sun is shinning but the reality in winter is harsh. Having said that, I am still hatching a plan! We usually buy in wearers and rear them on a combination of feed and produce, then they go off to slaughter when the time is right. This works well for us with the larger breed of pig because a) they get BIG, plenty of pork b) they go off to slaughter and job done. However this never gives us the chance to hone our husbandry techniques so my plan is to consider and discuss (note the diplomacy) a smaller breed of pig, Kune Kune, I have always disregarded them in the past because they are much smaller and I figured if you are going to rear pork, might as well fill up the freezer with it, but smaller has it’s advantages too. They are easier to handle and they do not root anywhere nearly as voraciously as bigger breeds, making them ideal to put into small areas that need clearing, granted it would still be quite hard work keeping them over winter but if we could breed from them once a year (PIGLETS :)))))) ) that would add money to the coffers and pork in the freezer. I have been doing a bit of research and ideally I would like to find someone who has some for sale and who is also willing to answer my questions and offer guidance if needs be. This is my plan, watch this space to see how well it is received and if it is a goer 😉

The rest of the farm is as ever ticking over gently, we have now sold nearly all of the point of lay hens that we bought in spring, I am hoping to hold on to about fifteen of them as new laying stock. The meat birds are getting to oven ready size and so it won’t be long before we start dispatching those. The ducks and geese are pretty much full size now, they are in the adolescent stage, I am waiting for Hubby to finish some DIY before he can build a new duck house, there is not enough room in the one we have for all the ducks, the younger ducks will then move in with the older ones and the geese can move to the paddock the young ducks are in at the moment. For now the geese at at the side of the house on what was a lawn lol, they are getting too big for the area so I hope Hubby hurries up.

The veg garden is still slow and I have noticed that the sweet corn which usually grows to about six foot has got to only three foot and start growing cobs, this year is definitely a challenge. I won’t be defeated however and I have planted some brassicas In the poly tunnel along with another aubergine plant. I have also decided to seed more cucumbers and peas, nothing ventured, nothing gained so might as well try and see how they get on.

I found a snake this week, it was dead luckily for me, not so lucky for it! It had got caught in the netting that came off the strawberry plants, I identified it as a grass snake (phew) but it was only a baby and so Mum and Dad must be around somewhere, probably in the compost heap, I will be keeping my eyes peeled when I turn it. The fox has not been giving us any trouble lately, given up for the time being but no doubt it will be back at a later date. We had a real treat coming home one evening, driving down the lane, we had almost got to the drive and we saw the little owl sat on the fence post right next to the road, omg it is so cute a teeny tiny owl, I have heard it’s call for five years, and seen it at dusk on the wing but never seen it sat still and so close, fabulous.

We have had some extra help on the farm this week (besides my Mum, who is an absolute treasure on the veg garden) it will be a regular thing, it makes such a difference, jobs I normally walk past thinking, that needs doing, and never getting round to it, will hopefully finally get sorted. Payment is made by way of produce which is brilliant for both parties I reckon and a way of life I could definitely live with 🙂
Baby grass snake