Author: frieslandfarm

The week has been one of weather watching and waiting for some rain, which thankfully came so that I don’t have to spend each evening watering wilting plants, picking what produce is available and weeding. It has also been routine as far as the animals are concerned, feeding, watering cleaning out, making sure they are as happy as possible so that the hens lay eggs, which they are in abundance, and that everything else is enjoying life as it should be. We have taken in a drake, which was left behind at a local establishment after a function, he settled in very quickly with the older ducks so I guess he is staying. The pesky fox is still around every night but our birds are locked away securely so it is only the disturbance of the dog barking at it that is a pain, however it did strike next door and I think it won’t be long before it strikes in the day here so we are always on guard and the dog has got very good at going looking at the certain times of day and evening.

Now to the headline event! The muck heaps have become a bit of an issue building up to huge piles that need tidying and sorting out, we have three on the go at various places around the farm. The main one at the back has collapsed and as yet has not been tackled, the one to the side has begun to spread much further than it ought to and was the one we tackled first. Our youngest daughter got the tractor out and as mentioned before is pretty good at manoeuvring it, Hubby was busy tiling the kitchen and so we left her to get on with it. Job done in that area it was time to move on to the front pile, this is the oldest and it was decided to remove the boards and push it through to the orchard where the chickens will hopefully scatter it about eventually, she spent a happy afternoon moving most of the muck successfully with no problems at all. At the end of the day there was still a bit left to move but as we were nearly out of diesel we decided it would wait until the next day.
Cue Hubby’s turn to use the tractor in the muck heap! Bear in mind that doing this job the day before had been without incident and you will understand why I decided to include this in the blog.
A beautiful sunny Sunday morning, one of those mornings when it is a delight to get outside and do a bit of work, Hubby goes off to get some fuel and on his return fills up the tractor and sets to work moving the remaining muck so that it is cleared ready to start again. After only one hour, yes one hour, he has got the tractor firmly stuck, there is no traction on the tyres as they are covered in wet muck, the tractor is slipping and sliding to the side every time he tries to reverse it out of the hole he has now created. I very helpfully try to shovel some of it out of the way to see if that helps, it doesn’t, but he keeps trying to reverse anyway causing the ruts to get deeper and deeper. GO ROUND THE SIDE he shouts AND PUSH THE TRACTOR SIDEWAYS AS I TRY TO REVERSE IT, Oh that is sure as hell is going to work isn’t it, me in my half century year trying to push half a ton of tractor in a direction it doesn’t want to go but as the dutiful wife I am, I give it a go, if only to prove him wrong, which of course it does and I almost get a hernia. We turn the tractor off and have a coffee and decide what’s to be done next, if you move what’s in front of you, I suggest, you can go forwards into the orchard and turn around, I will try digging it out he says completely ignoring my comment, ok get on with it then I think to myself. After about an hour of him digging and trying to reverse he has not got very far and is in the shit proper, our youngest daughter has left by this time to go to a festival but our eldest daughter arrives, why don’t you get the rope and use the van to pull it out she says. I would have thought he would jump at this suggestion but no he thinks his digging will work better, while we go off to have croissants, he continues by various means to try and reverse the tractor out, failing miserably. We enjoy our breakfast and discuss his reluctance to do anything other than frantically try and dig the tractor out and keep trying to move the tractor but slipping and sliding and getting nowhere, it s been like this for thirty years I explain to my daughter, he doesn’t listen, the only person he makes it hard for is himself and I usually give up the ghost and go to find something more productive to do.
Croissants and coffee finished, I excuse myself and go to the toilet, this may seem irrelevant but when you think about how long it takes to pee you will see why I included it, by the time I come back outside I can see eldest daughter triumphantly holding the rope in her hands, a big smile on her face and the tractor is freed ready to carry on the days work. In my estimation it took less than two minutes, why, why, why would you spend over an hour trying unsatisfactory methods of extraction when it could have been as painless as that!!! MEN, when will they learn that we ARE always right 😉
I can report that the rest of the clearance went without incident and Hubby’s only remark was ‘alright alright’ you bet we are, I muttered under my breath.

That’s a term often heard in farming, well this year as far as the vegetables go it is definitely a famine year! In my last blog I was optimistically awaiting the arrival of plenty, that has fallen short, the cold spring followed immediately by the hot weather has meant that plants are struggling. Last year I was picking up to 40 cucumbers a day, this year I have grown two different batches of cucumber plants, planted them out and they have both failed in succession, I have two plants left that are looking sickly to say the least so we may not get any at all this year.

I garden naturally, and that is a term I chose to use as opposed to organically, a word that has been snapped up by the industry and you have to pay a hefty price to use. Because we use nature to nurture our produce success is always in the hands of the weather, we do not heat the greenhouse, we do not use automatic watering systems and we do not use artificial growth products, we get what we are given, and this year it’s not a lot. The cold spring has forced the plants to bolt, you may be surprised to learn that a vegetable plant is not growing to give you as much produce as you can eat, on the contrary it’s sole aim is to reproduce, it is only the methods we use that prolong the flowing and subsequent fruiting i.e. picking the produce daily that force it to flower again and again. Bolting is the plants way of getting its offspring to grow and set seed very fast, this is what has happened this year, the plants early on detected that they may not get much of a chance and so have bolted. The onions have done exactly this, trying to flower well before the bulb has swollen, we can cut the flower heads off and we do, but this means that the onions will not store as well as they usually do and may well start to rot around mid winter, the lettuces, parsnips and spinach are at it too. The other vegetables such as peas and beans are beginning to flower on short stems, rather than putting on tall green growth this means short stumpy plants with not much produce.

The fruit is not much better, what is there, and that is not much compared to previous years, is small, the black currants are practically non existent, the raspberries are trying but the fruits are small, only gooseberries and strawberries seemed to have been successful, they obviously enjoyed the earlier conditions.

The strawberry harvest is one that I keep for myself, they never go out for sale, that’s because I make jam from them, plenty of jars that will keep us going all year, sometimes they may be given as a present or in return for a favour but mostly they are kept in my cupboard for future use. I also use them for making ice cream, strawberry sauce, puddings etc, the best part of the year for me is using the strawberries even if it can take up a lot of time processing them.

The farmyard birds are all doing well, I had to make a note of their ages this week to make sure they are being fed correctly, the Norfolk Greys are now 16 weeks old, I ended up with four cockerels and three hens so will need to find homes for the cockerels in the near future. The hubbards are 10 weeks old and gaining weight rapidly it won’t be long before they are ready to process, they are enjoying the outdoor life at the minute in a grass pen, they took to it very readily and were quicker than all of the other birds put together when it came to learning about bedtime and going in, it only took one night of putting them inside and they cracked it. The laying flock are still being displaced from under the coop every night and encouraged up the ramp to bed and they have been here two years lol.

I did aim to make elderflower champagne this year but have missed the flowers, we have been busy doing the kitchen and there was not enough space for brewing paraphernalia as well so that will have to wait until next year now. I have picked and dried herbs ready for winter use though so that was an achievement and I have pulled the garlic and hung that to dry ready to string. I can’t believe we are already over halfway through the year and I am thinking about storing for winter where has the time gone.

The season of plenty is upon us and the crops are beginning to come in, over the next few weeks it will be glut after glut, a lot I manage to sell at the farm gate and the rest is processed in one form or another for use later in the year.

As I write this I am waiting patiently for Rhubarb, Orange and Ginger marmalade to reduce down, the smell is wonderful and it’s a very easy recipe, 750g of rhubarb chopped, two oranges peeled and chopped, an inch of ginger finely chopped, some of the orange peel finely chopped, and bung it in a pan with 1.2kg sugar, bring to the boil then simmer for 1 to 2 hours, put into warmed sterilised jars! Simples

The strawberries are beginning to ripen and so I have made a strawberry torte for pudding tonight, gluten free of course as it lends itself nicely to that with ground almond as one of the main ingredients. This is also a very easy recipe, 175g of ground almond, self raising flour or gf, sugar and butter, 1 egg and 1 yolk, luckily I had a double yolker so I figured that was the same! Mix the ingredients up until combined, then put half into a loose bottomed tin that has been greased and lined, it is quite thick so needs spreading, then put 450g of strawberries on top and finish with the rest of the mix, does not matter if the strawberries poke through. Cook for about an hour at 180 degrees, when cool dust with icing sugar. It will become a favourite with the family I can assure you.

Tonight’s tea will be the first this year of entirely our own produce, a day which I am always glad to see, pork chops, new potatoes, broad beans, carrots and asparagus, followed by strawberry torte, delicious. Growing your own comes with this warning however, you will never be a size 10!

We are in the process of fitting a new kitchen which I am very excited about after spending 5 years using only one short piece of worktop!
I am considering getting a food hygiene certificate then I will be able to sell the home made produce along with the home grown, this would be very useful as there are only so many jars of home made preserves you can eat in one year 🙂

These next few weeks will be a mixture of hard work and contentment in that order, there are so many recipes I want to try, some of them will work, others probably won’t but it will be a fun process. The possibilities are endless, however Hubby’s palette is not, another reason to sell it on if possible 🙂

The rest of the farm is ticking along nicely, the geese are just beginning to honk, verbally, not smelling! The ducklings are very nearly full grown ducks although a couple more months away from laying yet, the chicks I hatched out are all doing well and I have some particular favourites in the lemon Pekins, they are just too cute for words. The laying flock are producing well as are the point of lay birds that are for sale, the chicks we bought in to rear for the table are putting on weight nicely, they have been moved to the stable so they can run around and flap their wings, I will be moving them to an outside run as soon as I have time.

The wildlife is abundant, we have Swallows nesting in the stables, a thrush that continually makes an appearance on the fence, I have tried to see where she goes but she is very good at losing anyone tailing her. Lots and lots of little birds nesting in the hedgerows, from yellow hammers to finches, blackbirds to robins. The Blue tits must have fledged in that awful wet period, I heard them when they hatched but didn’t see them go, I am just glad that the dogs didn’t get them. We have a bee nest in the side wall of the house, I am happy to let them carry on, there will be a queen and her eggs then a few workers, it won’t get huge and so we should all be able to get along nicely (famous last words) the biggest threat they have at the minute is the dog trying to bite them when they fly past.

The weather forecast is set to be fair, we just look out of the window each morning, far more reliable than watching TV, good growing weather then with a bit of luck, it has been quite cold up to now and the plants have struggled a bit but should pick up nicely from here on in.

Been busy doing the usual things over the last two weeks, plenty to do not enough time to fit it all in!

I thought this week I would tell you a little story cos you couldn’t write it if you tried, which was the first comment I made in this particular occasion. You will remember that my son in law has fixed up the chicken coop, hopefully there will be pictures of before and after if this app plays nicely today, well yesterday evening we moved it to the front paddock where it will stay for the next year at least. I got to drive the tractor with the coop attached to the back, of course I had instructions bellowed at me at all times during the operation despite the fact that I could barely hear over the noise of the engine! This then resulted in lots of hand waving in the form of useless signals from Hubby, eventually we got it into position and went indoors to relax until dusk. It is easier to move the birds when they have gone to roost, and we had forty of them to dust with lice powder one by one and move to the newly refurbished coop in the next paddock. The first one I picked up and dusted no problem, handed it to Hubby who duly let go of it, this is gonna be a long night, I am thinking by this time. Thirty nine more birds later and the job was done, it’s now pitch black and so no more can be done until morning.

The sun rises and so up we get to go and move the electric fencing from one paddock and position it around the coop in the new paddock, I am busy moving various objects, hubby informs me that one of the chickens didn’t get put away last night and was out, pick it up then I say looking straight at him, he stands looking around the paddock for the chicken, it’s right under your nose I say and he looks down at his feet where the chicken is teasing him. I know this because I catch them all the time, he bends down to pick it up and it takes off like road runner, eventually he catches it, someone else happens to be down at the farm watching this so I share the joke, you couldn’t write it if you tried to which she nods in agreement with a smirk to boot. It gets better, the next task hubby takes on is to pull up the electric fence ready to move, he goes over and grabs hold of it, a cry of pain is heard and I see him leap into the air, it’s on, I say, trying to stifle a belly laugh, remember you told me to leave it on last night to keep the fox away. He gets over that little bit of excitement and proceeds to gather up the fencing, now there is an easy way to do this so that it does not get tangled, and to my surprise he does it the easy way, I’m impressed, for a short while anyway. It’s all gathered nicely which means all the stakes are at one end and the netting is looped in turn, the loops are around two feet in length, meanwhile I am filling the feed section of the coop when I hear a profanity or two, I look round to find that as hubby is walking over with the fencing but he has got, not one, but both feet firmly entangled in the netting, WTF, and as I say, you could actually write this stuff.

I think I was pretty good, because not once did I laugh out loud, I offered the correct sympathies each time and turned my head away to grin like the Cheshire Cat. Somehow I don’t think he will offer to help do that again, even though I was very grateful and it was all his own doing not mine. And I am quite sure that this little nugget of our week was much more entertaining than letting you know how the peas are doing : D

Trying to get jobs done when the sun is soo glorious is a bit of a problem, especially for me, for the past few days I have been chasing the shade, getting up early to get the feeding done then working in the shade as much as possible until I have to give up and go in. Last night we had a fox attack inside the electric fence, a chicken obviously hid at bedtime and so it was taken. This morning I have been trying to mow the grass around the edge of the fence to try and move it a little bit, but getting the stakes in the ground at this time of year is hard work if not impossible. The grass is growing so quickly that it is causing the electric to ark out and thus render the fence useless, the problem is, with rain due this week it is only going to get longer. Our mower packed up on Saturday and so we bought a new one yesterday morning but had to go out in the afternoon so couldn’t get it done then, I have tried to get a bit done this morning but the sun is getting stronger all the time and is only half of the job is completed, I am hoping for a bit of cloud cover later or I will be doing it in the dark!

I got up as soon as the dog began barking last night and went out to see a pile of feathers on the ground, I also saw the fox in the front paddock, I followed it round with the torch to the side paddocks, at this point I let the dog out to chase it off, then the dog buggered off! While I was searching for him, I spotted more eyes in the dark looking over the wall, and I could hear at least three more foxes calling in next doors field, my god we are surrounded by them, eventually the dog came back and all settled down for the rest of the night, but hence my urgency to get the fence wacking out full power for tonight.

We have had a delivery of new point of lay hens who are in the back runs and although they have three small houses, it’s not quite enough so hubby has been building a new bigger one this weekend but it’s not finished and secure so that’s an added worry as the chickens insist on roosting in there before completion. The ducklings are now about 4 weeks old and have gone into an outside run, they are enjoying having a water pool to splash in and trees to sleep under in the afternoon. I timed the purchase of these just right as we have now had two deaths in the ducks pen over the last few weeks, this is just because they are getting old. I have twelve ducklings and hope at least half of them turn out to be female although I won’t know for a while yet. Any hatchlings that can be moved have been put outside, the quail are now out in their run, the bantams are doing well outside as are the Norfolk Greys , all that is left inside under lamps are the goslings in the stable and the Hubbard meat birds which are in the back covered area. So after my initial panic about where to put them all, it’s working out ok!

The veg garden is in full swing and I feel a little bit behind with the planting as some of the seeds failed, I think this is because they got wet in the greenhouse if you remember back in late winter. I have bought some new courgette, runner bean and cucumber seeds and a couple of already established plants just to get a head start. I did intend just to buy all the plants but it’s hard to part with the cash when you know how easy it is to grow them from seed and how much more you get for your money. We had a tutor once that said exactly the same to us, once you have grown from seed it’s difficult to justify buying the plant and he is right, well in my case anyway.

Our son in law has also been here putting new timbers on the roof of the old coop, it’s not quite finished yet but as soon as it is I will post the before and after pictures, it’s looking great and will hopefully give us a good few more years use out of it.

We are also struggling with the egg demand, the chickens can’t lay them quick enough for the customers, the point of lay have not quite kicked in with their laying yet, only two of them at the minute, as soon as they do however we will probably have more than we know what to do with, typical feast or famine that often happens in this kind of lifestyle.

The wildlife is a pleasure to watch at this time of year (apart from the foxes, oh and the crows) the Swallows have returned to nest in the stables again, I love watching them dart in and out, this year they have picked a good place for the nest, well out of the way of the cats or the wind so a successful hatch should be on the cards for them. The Blue Tits eggs have hatched in the bird box out the front, I can hear the little chicks cheeping waiting for mum and dad to bring back tasty morsels, I have seen them coming back with lots of caterpillars 🙂 The crows, as mentioned are a pain at the minute, we have managed to stop most of them eating the chicken food but the still sit around the fences calling, and they can make a proper racket I can tell you, they usually carry on until lunchtime then go back to wherever they came from and peace resumes until the evening then they start again. They don’t go on all year though so I can only assume that they have bought youngsters out to show them the ropes, it does remind me of ‘The Birds’ sometimes though lol.

I am keeping an eye on the elderflower trees to make sure I get the blossom at the optimum time for making the champagne, I am quite excited about getting it started I just hope it goes well. The cider I made has now been sat for at least a year so I need to pour some of it and see if it’s still any good, if it has gone over at least I can use is as vinegar in the chicken water, waste not want not.

Having had a very busy few days and with the amount of bank holidays we have had lately I have decided to blog mid week for a change. Today, apart from the basics I have given myself the day off from any major jobs. Over the last week we have been very busy tidying up, strimming, dragging, rolling, moving things around, together with some major DIY and looking after the animals and the garden as well as spending a day on Luna, yep she is still in progress.

I came to the conclusion that I have rather over stretched myself with the arrival of day old birds and hatchlings, the fun part is trying to juggle them around to accommodate everything and their particular needs at that time. Some of the hatchlings that are now seven weeks and four weeks have been moved to bigger pens outside. The ducklings have been moved to a stable where they have more room and I am waiting for the imminent arrival of six, day old goslings and twelve day old hubbards (meat birds), I also have quail hatchlings in the brooder, although they are so tiny they can remain there for a week or more yet.

We spent a day on the veg garden, planting hardened off veg plants and making room to harden off some more. I also picked the very first peas of the year, tender, juicy and sweet, I can at last offer some of the first veg of the year for sale in the little shed, 300g for £1 an absolute bargin. The egg sales are hard to keep up with, the minute they are put out there they are gone, the ducks typically have decided to ‘go slow’ and I am only getting four eggs a day instead of seven or eight but at least the hens and the quail are continuing to lay a reasonable amount. The new pol hens should start very soon which will be a welcome boost to the numbers.

The scarecrow, Gus is doing a great job, so much so that I have got two more, one in the duck pen, ducks are not too keen mind you, probably why they are not laying, and one on the garden for the time being. I have had to move Gus as the crows started to creep back, but as soon as he was moved they stopped again, I think a change of clothing will be the next thing or the addition of tools or a makeshift gun might do the trick.

Sunday was an incredibly productive day with both the eldest and youngest daughters on hand to help out. It turns out that the youngest has taken to driving the tractor like a duck to water, even hubby had to admit that she was very good indeed, high praise if you know hubby at all. We have pulled the other big chicken coop out of the back paddock and down to the yard for an overhaul, it needs a new roof but apart from that and a coat of creosote it is still very solid, I am hoping that my son in law will be able to help us put the new roof on, hubby’s carpentry skills are ok but I need this to last another few decades yet.

The weather is a bit up and down, one minute sunny and warm, the next clouded over and raining, it is also quite cold at times although I am hoping that the frosts are now behind us. Rosie is being lit in the evening if it’s cold enough, during the day if we light her and the sun comes out it’s a bit too warm so if we don’t light her and it’s cold in the day we just have to put on extra clothing!

I think I might have a go at elderflower champagne this year, I have done the cordial before which was lovely but as it’s my fiftieth this year I thought I would make something celebratory. It does not look difficult, I think the hardest part seems to be not letting it explode lol, luckily I have somewhere to keep it out of the way just in case 🙂

The photos are of everyone busying themselves moving the coop, you can see what a state it’s in, when we have done it up I will post the ‘after’ pics for comparison.

Two of our daughters had a fun afternoon making GuS Gus which is what they have named him, he is a scarecrow designed to keep the crows away from the chicken feed in the paddock, and it’s working. The crow numbers descending upon the food I was putting out, were growing by the day and once again we were spending our day clapping loudly every few minutes to get rid of them, along came Gus Gus and not a single crow has landed since then, brilliant, now I need one for the duck pen as well.

Easter weekend is a distant memory now and the weather really ought to be warming up but I hear we have a cold snap on the horizon and so the fleece I was going to remove from the fruit bushes and trees will remain in place for a little while longer. The rain we have had seems to becoming a typical Spring, although the air temperature is quite mild the rain once it sets in does not want to leave and it is soggy for days. The two together mean that the grass is growing nicely but it does not dry off in time to be able to cut it before the rain starts again, this is fine in the paddocks for the horses but for the lawn and the front drive it begins to look scruffy.

We have had some dry days inbetween and on one of those I managed to plant the potatoes, in fact it was quite sunny at times and so I had to wait for it to cloud over and dig the channels while the sun was in, then when it came out go sit in the shade, that’s just because I did not have the right clothing on nor did I put my suntan lotion on and I just wanted to get the job finished. I have four different types of potato this year, King Edward, Maris Bard, Casablanca, and Maris Piper, I still have room for some more if I can find any seed potatoes left in the stores.
The pear tree and the blueberry bushes are full of blossom so I am hoping for a good harvest from them this year, the pear tree is only a couple of years old and last year produced it’s first and only pear, this year hopefully there will be a few more. As I weeded the strawberry bed I noticed the flowers were beginning to form on those too, I need to get the timing right when netting them, too soon and the bees won’t be able to pollinate them, too late and the birds will eat the forming fruits. We also had our first picking of Asparagus for the year, which was delicious, it’s very nice raw and even better boiled and buttered! At the moment in the little shed I am able to offer, Rhubarb, Asparagus, Quail, Hen and Duck eggs, all of which get snapped up almost immediately. It won’t be long before the peas and broad beans are ready to go out there as well, I love it when I have plenty to sell and the comments are always positive which is a real feel good factor.

The ducklings are growing quickly and the decibels are getting louder when they see you and are ready for food or water, it’s almost deafening. The idea of getting the ducklings was to start replacing my existing flock as they are getting on for five years old, I am glad we decided to do this as one of the ducks died last week and so I think I have got the timing just right. The Norfolk Grey chicks are growing nicely and will soon need to be moved to a bigger area which I need to get ready for them this week. I have Quail in the incubator about to hatch any time today or tomorrow and I already have a waiting list for those so I hope it’s a successful hatch. Business has been brisk with the sale of the point of lay hens that came in a couple of weeks ago, I have more due in the middle of May along with goslings which I am looking forward to seeing. We have decided to increase our laying flock by 20 more birds to keep up with the demand for eggs, we are selling them as fast as the hens can lay them and with the weather warming up demand will get greater and so rather than having to put out the ‘sold out’ sign, we will just provide more eggs for sale, it might even mean that we get to eat some occasionally, as with most people who sell eggs at the gate you tend to put the customers first and yourselves second.

Photos of the rows of potatoes, some Lily of the Valley, and Gus Gus 🙂

It’s been an interesting week, I have been out and about with my neighbour who was looking for a particular hen. First we went to Evesham only to find that the person we were going to meet had got their times mixed up which meant we had to meet him at the poultry auction later in the week. Now I always get a bit excited about going to the auction, you never know what you will find, as it is the school holidays it was very busy, which always pushes up the prices, however we did manage to come home with the hen that was being sought as well as a duck and some baby Cayuga ducklings. The hen and the duck are my neighbours and the ducklings we are sharing although she is looking after them at hers, the reason being that she wants her ducks to be friendly. If you get ducks when they are older they have a tendency to think you are some kind of alien and run away flapping and quacking from you, the younger you get them the tamer you can make them. If you hatch out ducklings and they are the first thing you see, they will imprint on you and you become Mum, this has it’s ups and downs though as they tend to follow you everywhere and if you go out of sight they make a complete racket!

I am hoping that my poultry order will arrive tomorrow, this includes more ducklings lol we will have so many ducks we won’t know what to do with them. A third of the order of hens will be going straight out to a new home and judging by the enquiries I have had the rest won’t be far behind, a quick turnover this month I think.

Our laying flock is in the front paddock and the horses have been in the field next door trimming the grass for me, I decided to let them through and help trim the edges in the paddock the hens are in……..big mistake. The first thing they did despite having plenty of grass to nibble on, was to jump the electric fencing and start eating the chicken food, I then spent a good half an hour trying to coax them out whilst trying to keep the hens in. This was also a bit of a disaster and approx 9 hens spent the day roaming the farm, consequently the egg count was down and no matter how hard I looked I never found any that might have been laid outside the enclosure, I won’t be doing that again.

Hubby managed to get the rotavator started yesterday after two evenings of trying, he has now churned over the patch that the potatoes are going in, he is going to dig in some manure and then it will be ready to plant into, just in time for Good Friday which is traditionally the day that it is done. Meanwhile, the beans, peas and garlic in the tunnel are still growing strongly and hopefully it won’t be long before we start getting a crop from them. The onions and garlic outside are doing just as well and I seem to have gone a bit overboard on the ordering of onion sets as more arrived in the post this week, so plenty to sell at the end of the season hopefully. I have started putting out rhubarb for sale which sells very quickly, I thought most people had a bit of rhubarb growing in their garden and that I would not be able to sell it but that does not seem to be the case.

We have plenty of seedlings growing away in the greenhouse and soon it will be time to get busy planting them, as we are well ahead we seem to have had a bit of a lull lately which is good because family life has been very busy of late, with the wedding and birthdays and family visiting from Australia, everything seems well under control for the time being!

I hatched out another batch of bantam chicks this week, one of them was small and weak and so we spent the day trying to rally it round, unfortunately it was all in vain and it died later on in the evening, it is always worth trying as I have had success before but not this time. The Norfolk Greys I hatched out five weeks ago are doing well and have now been moved outside, mainly because I needed the room for the next lot. Norfolk Greys are on the rare breed list and I was chuffed to hatch seven out of twelve eggs, although I think I have got four cockerels and three hens. I had a stroke of luck during a conversation on Facebook though and someone with an unrelated cockerel is moving just half an hour down the road in the summer so we will be able to exchange birds and get some different bloodlines underway which is great news for the breed. When I lost my other birds to the fox during the storm I wanted a change and it was a good opportunity to do something with rare breeds which is what I have always wanted to do.

We have a full moon this week on the 15th, and a Blood Moon at that, not only that but a Lunar eclipse as well, we have four Lunar Eclipses coming up over the next year, a phenomenon if ever there was one. The rise of a full moon definitely has a affect on the animals and they say on plants too but I have never given the planting to moon phases a go, I can see how it would probably work though, the same as the ebb and flow of the rivers and seas, as plants are nearly all water it makes sense.

Have a good week and watch for that Moon

I keep thinking I will give up writing my blog but to be honest it has become part of my routine and I find it quite therapeutic so for the time being I will carry on.

Unless there is a specific job that has to be done inside a time frame, my days are generally my own to decide what and when or even if I do it, a privileged position to be in I know. I usually get asked in the morning by one family member or another, what are you doing today, I haven’t decided yet is the general answer, most decisions are made around the weather which is pretty unstable at the minute. When the weather is dry we always make the most of it and get on with as much outside as we can, I can tell you that this time last year it was lovely and sunny and we were sorting out the paddocks but this year we have only part done them as the corners are still very wet and we are unable to get into them with the roller without getting stuck. It does not look like it is going to dry up any time soon either, although the air temp is quite mild, the ground is still taking a beating from the rain, so that rules out cleaning out the chickens this week, I don’t want to mess the grass up any more than necessary.

The arrival of 60 point of lay hens next week means I need to get cracking and sort the pens out ready for them. I have managed to creosote a couple of huts so we are not far off, I also take delivery of 12 day old ducklings which will need a bit more organising. They will need to be under a heat lamp for a few weeks until they feather up, at the minute I have the Norfolk Grey hatchlings still under a lamp at night although it is turned off in the daytime. With the imminent hatching of more chicks we are running a conveyer belt system, incubator, brooder box, then onto the bigger cage with lamp, then outside during warmer parts of the day until finally out all day and night, with each new lot following the last. The next batch of eggs in will be Quail as I have customers waiting to buy them, it all takes a bit of organisation and a lot of cleaning!

I was a little concerned about one of the cats in the week, we had not seen Felix for a couple of days, but he finally turned up one morning strolling across the yard as if he had never been gone. The two cats are proper farm cats, not ferrel, but they live all year outside and I supplement their feed if necessary. At this time of year there is an abundance of food around for them to catch, usually baby rabbits, they eat everything but the fluffy tail which they kindly leave as a present for us, sometimes they catch things you rather wish they wouldn’t such as garden birds, and they are pretty good at waiting outside a nest site for fledgling chicks which is horrible and if I catch them I generally shoo them away but as far as they are concerned they are just doing their job and they keep the rodent population down so I can’t tell them off too much.

We managed to get in a whole day of gardening last week mostly weeding and potting on, I still have not planted the root veg seeds or the potatoes but there is still plenty of time. This year to save time and effort I have ordered tomato, melon, cucumber and aubergines plants which should arrive any time now, they are grafted plants and will be nice and strong when they get here. We have got the poly tunnel ready with old feed bags full of compost and hope they will do well in there. I did get hubby to connect up the watering system a couple of weeks ago bit it happened to be the day before the coldest night we have had this winter and the pipes froze which forced them to come apart and leak all over the garden when it thawed so we disconnected them again for the time being. As soon as those plants are in situ however we will need to try connecting it up again, every little helps and when we first started I would spend most of the day watering which was very time consuming. When I look back I can see how much progress we have made and the mistakes we have learnt from although there are probably still plenty more to make I am sure.

By some miracle the nails I had put on for the wedding are still going strong! I was not sure about having them in the first place and to begin with things were a bit of a task but it is surprising what you can get used to and now I will miss them when the first one breaks or comes off, that does not mean I will be replacing them though, it’s just nice while it has lasted. Looking at the list I have made for the week ahead I wonder how much more they can take, but up to now I have creosoted, weeded, hitched up the heavy roller, mucked out and washed up in them, brilliant!

After a fabulous but exhausting weekend of family celebrations and with the clocks going forward as well, I can hardly bring myself to get started on the farm this morning. Our daughters wedding was fabulous despite some thunder, lightening and rain, then we had lunch the next day with family, Mother’s Day on Sunday and my Mum’s 70th birthday party, I am just about done in!

Our farm sitter did a brilliant job which was much appreciated as we could not have had such a relaxed time away without the knowledge that someone was in charge back home. Everything was as it should be when we returned which she was very relived about.

The difficulty is motivation now after being on such a high all weekend, there is plenty to get on with as I have 70 birds arriving in a couple of weeks and need to get everything organised for them. The veg garden will be a priority as we are behind with some of the planting, but we can soon catch up hopefully. I had nice nails put on for the wedding and they are still on but for how much longer is anyone’s guess, it is quiet difficult to do the nitty gritty jobs with talons lol.

We are still having our sleep interrupted by the dog barking at whatever is mooching around at night, probably a fox but it could be badgers or deer, whatever it is I wish it would find somewhere else to go so we can sleep right through the night for a change.

The egg numbers have increased significantly and even the quail are laying again now, the hatchlings are growing at a steady rate and I have another batch arriving next week, we will have chicks galore hopefully.

The weather is warming up and the trees and shrubs are slowly beginning to burst into bud, nice to see greenery again after the grey months of Winter.

That is about as much as I can muster today, so have a great week everybody x