Author: frieslandfarm

Never was a fan of them as a band and not a fan of the weather when it’s so wet either. It seems like every day we have a downpour which means the ground is not even getting the slightest chance of draining and drying up. I just keep telling myself we are on the forward march to Spring and all will be ok in the end. We have got to the point where suction nearly pulls off your wellies when turning out the horses, I could do with spikes on the bottom of my wellies!

We have been so busy over the last three days that we decided to give ourselves the Sunday off, which is when I have written this Hubby has not been mentioned much in the last few blogs as they have all been about the farm and he has been busy doing things to the house. Originally it was a store shed albeit a large one and over the years has been upgraded to a dwelling but we want to insulate it more as there are gaps that let the draught in and just get it to a good standard that is nice to live in. We did talk about possibly building a new house an in the future we may still consider it but for now we will upgrade this one a little more, consequently Hubby has had a lot of DIY to do while I carry on with the farm.

The fox problem was quickly sorted at the beginning of the week although I was made aware by my neighbour that there is another one on the prowl, at this time of year there is not much of a let up from them, mostly youngsters finding their way in the world on their own.

The pigs went to the slaughterhouse on Friday morning, this meant bringing them in on Thursday evening overnight so that they were clean enough to go in the morning. They have to be of reasonable state when they get there otherwise they are rejected, if that happens because they have been moved they can’t come back to the farm and you have lost your meat! A vet checks them over on arrival to make sure they are in good health and this year for the first time they were moved by electronic transfer, which means all the paperwork is done online, which I thought was very easy and very quick, I then get a carcass report back from the food standard agency which was also returned the same day with nothing to report, so good healthy pigs. They have been fed the best of vegetables, apples and tree clippings etc from the farm as well as pellet food, they have not had any medication, it is routine to give pigs antibiotics in the pork industry, they were quite big by the time they went and so the pork should be lovely. I enjoyed having them here and they were no trouble at all, the biggest problem was loading them on the morning of departure, they were not difficult just slow and did not really want to go up the ramp into the trailer, it took about twenty minutes of coaxing them with brassica stalks and a feed bucket but eventually they were on and ready to go. On return from the slaughterhouse the trailer has to be power washed and cleaned out, that is a hefty fine if you don’t do it and they can come and check so it’s best to get it done as soon as possible before it’s put away again.
We have already decided not to have any larger animals this year as we a have plenty in the freezer to keep us going for over a year and so it’s not necessary.

What we have decided to order though are ducks and geese, these will arrive as day olds in April and May, I need a new blood line for the ducks as I am not able to hatch any of my duck eggs due to the suspected infertility of the drake, and I miss having the geese around, plus it is nice to be able to offer a goose egg or two for sale as it increases the diversity of produce. Sixty point of lay hens that will be for sale are also on order and will be arriving in the second week of April, that will be a busy time. We have planned a little in advance and ordered a large tarpaulin to cover the runs for the new hens as they are only here temporarily, but can make a big mess if it rains. If my Quail hatch is successful I will also have those to look after so this year will be all about the birds. The eggs numbers are continuing to go go up from the existing hens although they are paddling in mud topped paddocks they are obviously happy and producing well. The wild birds also get a mention this week, I have seen the return of the Woodpecker and also noticed the Blue Tits checking out the nest boxes on the front of the building, it seems early so maybe we are in for an early Spring, all the signs are there just need to keep our fingers crossed.

I keep looking at the veg plot to see if it is possible to get on there and do a bit but it is still too wet to do much, although the temperatures are mild and it would be perfect gardening weather the two things are just not coming together, so for now it is a case of planning and waiting until the opportunity arises. I have started a couple of notebooks which are quickly filling up, one for farm jobs, fencing that needs repairing or hedges that need cutting back, lights that need replacing, that book is for Hubby to refer to when he gets a spare minute lol. The other book is for the veg and fruit garden, it is full of lists that we can get stuck into when the time is right, I have also completed the crop rotation plan for this year so we definitely ready to get going, chomping at the bit would be a good description.

You will remember that our youngest returned home at Christmas from her two years of travelling in Australia, she has been home a month now and has helped every day on the farm and in the house with the cooking and cleaning, tomorrow is her first day of returning to the world of work in a new job and so I will be back to doing it on my own again, it has been lovely having someone around to help so thank you and good luck.

We have have had an eventful and sad weekend this week more about that later.

The rat problem seems to have gone, at least there are no more signs of them in the muck heap and I did find a dead one in the paddock, this may only mean that they have moved to drier ground after the amount of rain we have had. I will soon find tell tale signs elsewhere If that is the case. One problem is nearly always replaced by another though and after months of no trouble with foxes, we have one on the rampage, he took two that had got out of the enclosure and we have seen him regularly each day since then and now we are on guard each day around 10.30 am as that is when he seems to visit, although he has not been able to take any more birds it is a worry until he is caught.

I have been busy organising and ordering veg seeds for the Spring, the majority of the order has arrived and I am also expecting a bulk delivery of compost today, as soon as the weather picks up we will be ready to get planting for the new season which is always a great time of year. I have also ordered most things I can think of that will be needed, environmesh for the brassica cage to keep the butterfly out, weed barrier to put around the strawberry plants, mostly to keep the fruits off of the soil and maximise the crop potential. I bought a new pair of loppers with a voucher I had for Christmas as my old pair were bent and not much good any more. I have a sulphur candle ready to fumigate the greenhouse as soon as I repair the glass that blew out during the storms and I am still I decided as to wether or not I heat the greenhouse with a paraffin heater and get the season started early.

I spent a couple of hours weeding in the poly tunnel in the week and the broad beans, peas and garlic are growing nicely, the strawberries that are in there have got diseased and so need to come out, the idea was to have early strawberries but I don’t think they like the environment and so I will stick to outdoor grown in future.

This week I treated myself to a new incubator, fully automatic which means it heats, turns and humidifies itself, it is also a lot quieter than my old one which had got to the stage of making an awful rattling racket. I ordered four dozen button quail eggs and they are safely installed and hopefully fertile. I had duck eggs in my old one but after ten days I candled them and they were not fertile, this is he second time I have tried and so I have come to the conclusion that my drake is either not interested or not fertile, so I will never get ducklings from him. I do need to replace my laying ducks as they are coming up for four years old and will drop in egg numbers, if I hatch some this Spring they will be laying nicely by the end of the year. I am also considering getting day old geese as I do miss having them around, they are funny birds and can be aggressive but if you get them young they can be brought under control lol.

On Saturday evening while I was busy looking for new livestock on the internet we heard a lot of banging coming from the stable block, when we went out there is was very apparent that one of the livery horses was in big trouble, a frantic ring around began to get hold of the owners and the vet was called. The banging was due to the fact that the horse had cast himself, which basically means he had rolled and got stuck on his back, the concern was why he had done this and the fact that he continued to keep trying to do it. It was one of the coldest nights we have had so far this winter and after four hours of the vet trying various things the decision was made to put him to sleep. He was a good age around 26, coupled with a long term illness, meant that surgery was not an option for him. It was, as you can imagine a distressing time for the owners but it was more distressing watching the poor horse in pain. It will be a difficult time for his owners as looking after a horse takes up a large part of your life, twice daily visits to the yard to feed, muck out and turn out, with this suddenly gone there will be a big void to fill, not to mention the companionship you get from a horse. They have been here long before we bought the place and we have been here five years, I do hope they will continue to come down and visit as I will miss them too.

RIP Jet, enjoy running pain free in that nice green paddock in the sky x x

I hope you all had a wonderful time over the festive season. We had the arrival of our youngest on Christmas Eve back from her two years away travelling, lovely to have her home again, how long for before she gets itchy feet who knows, meanwhile I have extra help which is always appreciated.

The Christmas period is always a great family time for us, we have a couple of birthdays within the holidays and so life is one long social whirl, plenty of eating, drinking and making merry, trips to visit relatives further away and this year we had a family party with the wider family, just because we can!

The weather at the moment is terrible, after the great Summer and Autumn has come a deluge of what seems like non stop rain. The paddocks have been flooded more than once and we are at saturation point now, the run off is beginning to affect even the higher up areas of the farm. At the weekend Hubby had to build a impromptu water barrier to stop it coming in the back of the house, it is running off of the fields next door like I have never seen before. We are still better off than a lot of folks though so I count my blessings, the high winds we have also had have been a little worrying, we don’t normally get them coming from the South, usually they are Westerlies and we have plenty of windbreaks in the form of trees to slow the wind down a little, but are more vulnerable from other directions. Luckily we have only had a branch of a a conifer down so far, although it did sound like the roof might come off at any minute during one storm.

The animals as usual just cope with whatever is thrown at them, the chickens are puddling around in mud, the ducks think we have put a new lake in just for them, the horses are in more than they are out and the pigs are enjoying wallowing. Mia is having to be bathed every night before she is allowed in, bath is her least favourite word of the day but she is always filthy after tearing around all day.

We have been able to do a few jobs around the place when the weather has been good, I have pruned the big cooking apple tree in the front drive, we last did it about three years ago and it was overhanging the driveway quite a bit. Then I spent the day chipping up all of the prunings to put on the paths in the veg garden. Hubby has been moving the pile with the tractor after we finally got it started, he has also moved old muck down to the veg garden ready to start spreading as soon as the weather improves. On the rainy days I have been going through the seed catalogues and writing down my order for the coming Spring, and making notes about the garden, what needs doing and what we need in order to get it done. One rainy day I spent time teaching our eldest daughter how to make bread, the result was extremely good and I hope she carries on to develop her newly acquired skills.

My New Years resolution is to ‘do it’ this year, so if someone asks if I want to do something in particular then instead of thinking I don’t have time, just say yes and work round it, also instead of walking round the farm thinking, that needs doing or this needs fixing, figure out what we need and how to go about it and ‘do it’ I have already started making lists of things to do! So a positive, pro active attitude is in order, I wonder how long it will last 😉

The pigs really need to be going off to slaughter soon, they could have gone before Christmas but it is always a busy time for the meat trade and so I decided to wait until after the rush, but now I need to organise myself and get it done.

So far this Winter the weather has been very mild, the squirrel has still not hibernated, and the blue bottles have woken up again already, I did say that there were not many nuts and so I didn’t think we would have a harsh Winter, although we still have a few weeks to go yet and I may be proved wrong. My Dad says that we will have an early Spring because the Blue tits are busy feeding already, I do hope he is right, it would be nice to see signs of Spring sooner rather than later 🙂

I skipped a week or two of blogging as there is not much to report at this time of year, the weather is always the main event! After such a long run of dryness we are back to wind, rain and the mud 😦 always a depressing thought, still not much longer until the shortest day and then we are back on the turn towards Spring again 🙂 . In-between of course, we have that wonderful mid winter celebration to look forward too, for me it is about a little bit of cheer in the darkest days, a nice a warm kitchen and plenty of mince pies on offer, I have never really bought into the whole commercial side of it thank goodness and even one day of shopping among the hoards was enough to send me scuttling back to do any remaining shopping via the internet.

The animals all manage fine with the changes in weather, although up to now it has been very mild and we have not had to spend time breaking ice so they can get to water, the pigs are still cosy under the conifer trees, we did think about sending them to slaughter before Christmas but to be honest it’s a busy time of year for the meat trade and it will be much easier and quieter in the new year. There are often stories told of people not getting their own animals back and I considered that the risk would be much lower of that happening if the turnover is not as great. I have fed these pigs on the best of the veg in the garden and definitely want to be tasting my own pork, if they are not as busy I may be able to get some sausage meat done as well which would be terrific, in the past we have just had joints and chops.

The chickens are doing well in the front paddock, they have enough space not to be churning it up too much which is good for them and for me, the egg numbers still have not increased much though but I have given up worrying about it, we have what we have and when they are gone that’s it! I normally worry that we are not supplying enough for the customers but in reality I can’t do any more than I am, luckily the ducks are laying fairly consistently and since we concreted the bottom of their house, no eggs are being stolen in the night 🙂 . We still have a rat population though and I have bait boxes all around the farm, they have not been in them at all though so I have resorted to tipping poison down the rat holes, not ideal but it is being eaten and the evidence is in the rat poo which is now a black/ green colour which tells me it is them eating the blue poison.

The hen with no feathers is back in isolation after the others decided to have a good peck at the back of her head, I will keep her there until Spring I think and see if there is any improvement at all.
I have been thinking about hatching ready for spring, on the list are ducks and quail, it is a risky time of year for fertility but ideally I want them ready to lay by the end of April so incubation may be a bit hit and miss to begin with.

I told you there was not much to write about so the only thing left to do is wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR, enjoy the festivities and if you feel like you have over indulged and want to shift a few pounds, we have a cracking outdoor gym, feel free to come up and move a few barrows of muck!
I will be back in 2014 x x

The nights are drawing in ever earlier, now while I enjoy cosy Winter evenings it does make the working day a lot shorter and therefore more has to be packed in to a certain timeframe. The birds need feeding at least an hour before the sun goes down, this is so that they can digest what they have eaten before they roost for the night as the lack of activity in the hen can cause the grain to begin fermenting which In turn can have a knock effect in the gut. If I feed around 3.30 that means I only have an hour before I have to go back out and shut everything away, this then interferes with cooking the dinner, normally we would eat around 5.30/6 but during darker days it’s more like 7. Generally, slow cooking is the answer, either a stew, casserole, hearty soup or a piece of meat that can be left to its own devices until we are ready to eat.

The piggies are getting much bigger now and more demanding, Alvin practically launches himself at the gateway and was very nearly over it the other day, the only thing I had in my hand at the time was the feed bucket full of feed, as a reflex action I went to bop him on the nose with it and the feed went everywhere, not a good idea. I have tried creeping up on them so they don’t get too excited but to no avail, they know when it’s feed time and the racket they make let’s everyone else in the area know too. We are coming to the end of apples and veg now so I have asked family members to save their veg peelings for them and any fruit and veg that has gone past it’s best if they are not going to use it. We recorded Downtown while we were away so I have not seen it yet but I am told that some of it was filmed at Cogges and that the pigs looked like ours, Oxford Sandy and Blacks, that’s because the pigs at Cogges are loaned to them by the same person we had ours from so they are related to TV stars lol.

I have embarked on a week long worming programme for the poultry, the wormer has to be carefully weighed and then mixed into the feed over a period of seven days, there is no egg withdrawal period thank goodness as we are selling them as fast as ever. The numbers are going up very slowly and quite a few of the birds are finally growing feathers signalling the end of their malting period, they had better get laying then as we are discussing if it is worth the cost of feeding them. People keep telling us how wonderful the eggs are, we never get to eat any because they are always sold, I can’t remember the last time I had an egg, it always seems to be a seesaw game, no eggs, customers go elsewhere, then lots of eggs and no customers. Short of leaving a radio on for them to listen to and building a fire for them to sit in front of, I have done pretty much everything I can to make sure they are happy and healthy enough to lay each day.

This weekend Hubby began the task of concreting around the stable block to prevent the rain just running in, he has also concreted a new step outside the small doorway with a pipe running underneath to carry away any excess rain, we have to wait for it to rain now to see if it has worked! There is still a long run to finish and a very large conifer to chop down in the process but at least we have made a start on the worst bit before it is too wet or frozen.

Today I have cleaned out the flue ways in Rosie the Rayburn, firstly because she has been lit for a few weeks now and build up of tar has occurred, secondly, as it was quite mild this morning it seemed like a good day to do it before he weather turns cold and we need to crank her up a notch or two, we have set fire to the chimney before and I don’t want that happening again. I did make a ‘schoolboy error’ as hubby would say, I used the Hoover and the plastic attachment, you know the one that can get down the side of the car seats, put it down into one of the flue ways which are about 2 inches square, pulled the Hoover nozzle out and the plastic bit was stuck down the flue :s I did asked myself out loud , what an earth possessed me to think that was even a remotely good idea lol, twenty minutes later after trying to retrieve it with BBQ tongs, I figured out it would be easier to push the cleaning brush upwards from the fire box into the flue and, with more than a bit of relief, out it shot, I would not have lived that one down for a while.

I ordered a new shed last week and it arrived today, I had ummmed and ahhhhed about it as we do have old bits of shed that I could have used to build another but they are all at least ten years old and so we have had good use out of them. Bite the bullet, I thought, and buy a new one, so I have, this one is for the garden area so that I can have everything in one place, at the minute I have stuff in the greenhouse, stuff in the shed by the back door, stuff in the back building and I can never remember what is where. I have already got the hooks and shelving to start organising it as soon as it is up 🙂 it’s the little things that make me happy. We are planning on putting it up tomorrow, weather permitting, I will say that there was a notable drop in temperature at lunchtime compared with this morning, maybe this cold snap they are predicting is really on its way, although I sincerely hope that, the worst Winter for a hundred years as told by the press, is not!

Good morning bloggers, I am home from holidays, fully relaxed and refreshed! We had a lovely time away but are glad to be home again.

I expect you want to know how the farm sitters got on while we were away, well they did pretty well, we only had a few deaths, a couple of chickens, both killed by the dogs, and an accidental duck death, which drowned! I had to dispatch another hen on the day we got back, she had a growth on the side of her face and was looking very unhappy hunched up in the corner, kinder to do the deed as soon as possible. Not bad all things considered lol, the place was still standing after the high winds that were forecast while we were away and the place is a bit soggy and muddy after the torrential rain bursts that occurred, incidentally, it does not seemed to have stopped raining since we returned, apart from yesterday which was a glorious day.

We plunged straight back into work and before long it didn’t seem like we had been away at all, back to the feeding routine although I nearly forgot to feed the Quail, takes a little while to remember what, when and when. The sheep went off to their final destination on the Thursday before we went away and our eldest daughter picked them up the following week. The weights were quite a mix from 11kg to 18kg for the lambs, but the two ewes made 28 & 30 kg which was excellent, two of the lambs were sold off, the smallest was divided up between our two daughters and we have the two ewes (mutton) in the freezer to keep us going for a year or so as we won’t be having any lambs next Spring so the field can rest and we get a break from the worry of them. We had some chops for tea the other night, very tasty.
The pigs are doing well and have got very hairy while we have been gone, they are still out in the little area under the conifers trees and I am surprised it is not more trashed to be honest, but they are great little housekeepers, they have a dry clean area with hay beds and they have a messy toilet area elsewhere. Alvin has turned out to be the most boisterous of the three, jumping up at the rail at feed time and squealing until he starts eating, they are still having the remains of the veg patch, large woody beetroots don’t last five minutes when you throw them in. There are still plenty of apples falling from the trees so they are enjoying those as well, the last of the windfall nuts have now gone so I may have to scout around the hedgerows for berries for them, it all adds to the final flavour 🙂

The egg numbers have dropped a bit, probably a combination of change of routine and the colder wetter weather. As yesterday was so lovely I spent the morning, cleaning out water buckets, topping up the grit and oyster shell pots, and making little rain shields for the top of the feeders, I am hoping this will save me money on feed. I cut off the bottom of some handle less buckets, and fixed the bottoms to the top of the feeders so that I can fill the feeders up fully and keep the bird well fed. We also got the tractor out and moved the large coop as the grass around it was beginning to get trashed and muddy, I put some new perches inside so that they don’t have to sleep on the floor and nailed up some sacking over the nest boxes to make it darker. I am hoping they will like the dark private area enough to lay all their eggs in there instead of getting out and laying them randomly around the farm, I live in hope lol, the darker it is the more they like it. I am also hoping that any egg eaters we have will not be able to see the eggs (they have poor eyesight in the dark) and that will also boost the egg numbers up again.
The tractor did not want to start to begin with, the battery was eventually flattened completely and we had to use one from elsewhere to get it going. Once up and running though it made light work of moving the coop, so glad as at this time of year the van does not have enough traction to move it and so in the past we have had to resort to pushing it by hand. It was no fun although probably looked hilarious to any passer by as it suddenly lurched forward, you lost your footing and ended up in the mud!

I had a long list of jobs to get through before we went away and managed most of them, the important ones anyway, but on our return, I realised how many more tasks there were to still do. A fair bit of tidying up is needed and Hubby began some of that at the weekend with a bonfire, and we need to make a start on the drainage around the stable block before the worst of the weather sets in. We seem to have a lot of standing water, I don’t know if it has got wetter over the years or if the ground is becoming compacted and worn leaving pockets for the water to sit, either way it is constantly flooding the stable block and the hay barn and so something needs to be done. The
ballast and cement is on order for delivery so next weekend I will be on mixing duty, it’s more productive than going to the gym to shift the holiday pounds I suppose 😉
The rats are an ongoing problem, I don’t think there are many of them just a few persistent little sods, so I have bought a huge tub of rat poison, I have read that they like peanut butter and so put some of the poison in the bottom of a nearly empty jar and gave it a good shake so that it all sticks together, then I pushed it into a hole that I know they are using (incidentally, did you know you can buy tracking powder so that you can see where they are running, it’s like fairy dust lol) I will stop them pinching eggs, one way or another.

Well, Venice is a distant memory and the pile of ironing is shouting at me from the corner so I intend to do that this afternoon whilst listening to a play on the radio. I always have the radio on. It’s the first thing I do when I walk into the kitchen in the mornings, I got a bit of a jarring when I turned it on the morning after we returned and Kiss FM was blaring out at me, I quickly retuned to Radio 2 and felt soothed lol. I have been listening while typing this and of course it is the 11th of November and as the radio fell silent at 11am, even though I am here all by myself I stopped what I was doing and stood silently to remember all those that fought for our freedom, so that in this day and age we can go about our business without fear.

Whatever you are doing, enjoy your week, enjoy any peeks of sunshine even if it is chilly, if you can try and find some enjoyment in the rain (difficult I know) as a comedian on holiday said, ask anyone in the graveyard, they would swap places with you whatever the weather, it was funny at the time honest 🙂

What a difference in the weather, only last week we were enjoying the end of a beautiful Summer and this week suddenly Winter is upon us. We have had high winds and lashing rain, I don’t care as I said because at the end of the week we are off to the sunny Mediterranean 🙂 this time next week we will be somewhere on the high seas sailing into a port, visiting Venice, Dubrovnik or the lovely islands of Sicily and Malta. I can’t say I will be thinking of you all back home, we have waited over two years for this holiday and will be totally immersed in fine dinning, relaxing and sightseeing 🙂

Meanwhile, I have a lot to get done this week before the off, the sheep tags finally got sorted out and arrived, they have now been booked in for Thursday morning. The problem appeared to be that if I kept them over 12 months old they should have been double tagged, they make it a complicated system, why not just have one tag for always and a replacement if lost! Once they have gone that will free up another paddock for Winter use for the horses, although with just the small amount of rain we have had so far the place is beginning to get muddy already, oh joy 😦

For some reason the wildlife becomes more obvious at this time of year, this week the woodpecker is back pecking holes in the telegraph pole outside the back door, I spotted the Little Owl on the fence one morning about 8.30, I also saw the Squirrel running along the back fence, I suspect he is pinching eggs from the Orpington pen, as they have been laying well each day then none on the day I saw him so I need to pick up the eggs regularly from there until he goes into hibernation. The sound of pheasants can be heard most mornings in the nearby fields, October is the beginning of hunting season for game birds so it’s odd that they are more vocal now than all summer. The small garden birds are more noticeable, probably because the leaves are beginning to thin out on the trees or they need to come closer to civilisation to find food, whatever the reason it’s lovely to see them especially the tiny little Wren which is probably my favourite.

I have been collecting Walnuts from the ground all week long, the wind does a great job of dislodging the ones that are ready, I have been storing them outside in a Squirrel proof cage because they need to split before I can wash and dry them. Each year I try to find an easy and clean way to get this done so far without much luck, if you have ever picked up a Walnut still in its green case and opened it you will know that it stains your hands brown and it’s difficult to remove. I have tried leaving them in the greenhouse but they just dry out, leaving them outside on the floor but the Squirrel pinches them, cutting into them when they are still green but that stains your hands, so the idea this year was to leave them as close to a natural situation as possible for them to shed their outer case and hopefully the process will work, fingers crossed.
We are still having a small problem with young rats, although the cats have caught a couple this week and I have found one drowned in the water bucket in the sheep field. Two weeks ago they were pinching duck eggs from the front of the hut, I put a barrier in the way and also the bait box, that stalled them for a few days, then they decided to go around the back of the hut and steal them through a small hole in the back. I know this is happening because on a couple of nights they choose the biggest egg and it got stuck in the hole which meant they could not move any more through, I have now blocked up that hole and am waiting to see where they get in next!

I had some visitors one day this week which is always pleasant, especially when they come with a seasonal recipe 🙂 my Dad’s cousin and his Wife popped in for coffee and gave me a recipe for Pumpkin cake and yesterday I had a bit of time to have a go at making it. There is only half of it left! It is a lovely moist cake that could easily be made as a Christmas cake and frozen ready for the festivities, I definitely think that is what I will be doing this year. It is quick and easy to prepare and only takes about an hour and a half to cook, if you want the recipe let me know and I will pass it on.

Rosie is in full use now, although she can be a bit temperamental at times, usually when I want to use the oven to cook, I find she is on a go slow, I love cooking on her but do need the reliable electric oven as a back up source if she decides not to play ball. Usually it is an external factor such as the wind that inhibits her, it’s not entirely her fault to be fair, the high winds effected her by drawing the heat up the chimney and so she was burning quite fiercely, the oven temperature went up higher than I have ever managed before but of course, Sod’s law, I was not using the oven that day!

I am leaving the farm in the capable hands of our eldest daughter, her boyfriend and my Mum, hopefully the animals will not run too many rings around them, they will all need a holiday by the time we get back I am sure. The freezers are full of all sorts of produce for them to use while we are away, although I have requested they don’t eat too many of the steaks from our shared cow that came back from slaughter this week 😉 and please don’t wash the dog in my new bath!
I won’t be blogging for three weeks after today, yes three weeks, I told you we need this holiday, I hope all goes well this end but I am sure there will be plenty to report either way.
Got to get on I have a hundred and one things to do, Walnuts, apples and pears to sort out, washing and ironing to do, packing and cleaning as well as get on top of paperwork before I go anywhere. I will give you an update on Luna when I return, all the men have been having a good chuckle at our expense over the renovation of this caravan, but they will be laughing on the other side when we have done it and are sitting in her having afternoon tea with a full compliment of sandwiches and cakes 😉

Half a pumpkin cake, cos we have already eaten most of it!

We have had quite a bit of fog over the past couple of days but it has burnt off to give beautiful Autumn days so we can complain. The temperatures have been well above average for the time of year and I hope it continues for a while longer!

Having said that the night time temps have begun to dip quite low and with this is mind we lit Rosie, however, with the sun shinning during the day it became a bit too hot indoors and so it was a case of lighting her about three in the afternoon and then letting her go out over night. That is one problem with solid fuel heating it is not very adjustable, but it’s lovely to smell the wood smoke wafting through the air again. As soon as she is lit I begin to use her to maximum effect, drying the washing on the lazy Sheila overhead, cooking the dinner and keeping the kettle on simmer, normally all this would be done using free wood but we are having to buy some in this year as we have not had time to chop up the piles of tree stumps we have lying around, it’s probably for the best as they could do with drying out for a bit longer anyway.

All of the chickens have now been moved to one area for Winter, any hens that we had for sale have gone into the laying flock and will remain there, there are approximately forty five in total so they should keep us going in eggs through the Winter. I need to give them some poultry spice to help with the cold days ahead and will put cider vinegar in their water to keep the gut healthy. They have a large area to roam around in but that does not stop a couple of them with wanderlust and I have been finding clutches of eggs in the hedge or long grass, a bit of detective work is needed, when I hear the unmistakable cackle of a hen that has just laid I take note of where it came from and stalk her until I find the eggs!
The ducks are still laying well but we have rats stealing the eggs at night, I now put a bait box right in front of the hole they are using each night and take it away in the morning hopefully they will not be a problem much longer, the cats have caught four young rats this week already and hopefully it’s just one family we have and not a plague 😦

We have made a couple of decisions for the rest of this year and the next already, firstly the sheep would normally get ready to go to the tup but we are not keeping them and we will not be having any more in the Spring either. This is mostly because of the problems we have had with them this year, whatever could affect sheep, they got it and it was quite stressful to be honest so we are giving ourselves time off from that particular area. This means that we will have a freezer of mutton though which we are looking forward to tasting.

We also decided not to do the Christmas trees again this year, we didn’t quite break even last year, we bought too many and ended up burning a fair few, if we carried on this year I have no doubt that we would have got the numbers right and at least got our money back but the amount of work involved at a very busy time of year means we are giving it a miss. When we looked at it last year not many places were doing trees but as soon as they arrived we discovered lots of sale sites and so will leave it to those places to provide the festive greenery.

The weekend has been a busy one as usual and the edges of the paddock that the chickens are in needed tidying up, the electric fence is about a foot or so in from the perimeter and so the grass grows long, this is where the hens have been laying, first hubby decided to use the strimmer and quickly found it was blunt and then decided to move onto the lawn mower, he got half way round and broke the pull cord when trying to restart it. He spent a good few minutes fixing it went to start it again and pulled the cord straight off, he is not having a good week with machinery, I have offered to fix it properly! I was trying to keep my nails and hands in good order for when we go away in a couple of weeks but I think that will go out of the window once I start taking the mower apart.

I have sold a few pumpkins this week which is great but I still have a few left if anyone wants one or two. The veg garden is dwindling with its produce now, we are down to the last few cucumbers, and a handful of beans can still be picked every couple of days as can a courgette or two but apart from the purple sprouting and the leeks it will be time to clear it all away before the cold and wet just make a soggy mess under the foliage. I have got a fair amount stored this year though so I am very pleased with our harvest, bags of onions and potatoes, frozen veg and fruit and jars of jam and pickles, we won’t starve that’s for sure 😉

The year is disappearing fast, I can’t quite believe its October tomorrow! The festive season will be upon us before we know it, first of all though I have a holiday in the Med to look forward too so I am not wishing the time away too fast.

I started off the week harvesting apples from the trees, Mum came over and we assembled the tower and got busy, we have a pile of both cooking apples and eating apples in the back building, and that was only half of the trees, luckily the eaters store well and I need to find some boxes to put them in. The cookers won’t store quite so well so some will need to be processed for the freezer, any damaged will feed the pigs and chickens but there are still plenty left if anyone wants some. I also have a good few green tomatoes if anyone makes chutney, free for collection, they are out the front so just help yourself. My Dad likes fried green tomatoes, I have never tried that personally but if that’s your fav then you know where to come. I then spent a morning collecting hazelnuts, normally I can fill a whole true with what is there but this year the harvest is small as are the nuts, two theories come to mind, one, that they have not produced because we cut them back when we put up the poly tunnel in Spring and the second, which is the one I am going with, is that we will not be having a long Winter and so the squirrels will not need to store very much, I am banking on that one 🙂 I had a go at making a nut butter with the hazels, but I didn’t get it quite right, it tastes nice enough but it is a bit on the grainy side, more oil next time I think. The piccalilli, and pontack sauce are both now made and in the store cupboard for tasting in a few weeks time, the rumtopf has blackberries, plums and black currants in with a good amount of sugar a few spices and covered in brandy, that one I will particularly look forward to tasting after a couple of months. I found a great little recipe for making a soup mix that you use instead of a stock cube, 1kg of veg, any kind, even your peelings would work, a handful of herbs, and 250g of salt, grind it all up in a processor, bottle and store, how easy is that and much tastier than those little cubes, just add two teaspoons to your soup or stew.

We have an amazing little mini beast at work this week, a dung beetle, well actually there are thousands of them, they are busy in the fields on the muck and of course then transferred when the muck is cleared and added to the pile, they are breaking down the pile at an amazing rate you can actually see the pile moving as they go about their work shredding it and saving us a bit of time in the process. Talking of mini beasts, when I shook the nuts trees to get the nuts a caterpillar fell onto the floor, it was the most vivid green with a pointed pink tail, I then spent about twenty minutes googling it to find out what it was, it turned out to be a Pale Tussock Moth, which I had never heard of.
A rabbit was the next encounter I had, it is unusual to approach a rabbit and it just sits there, it has mixy was my first thought but normally you can tell by the eyes and they were clear, my next thought was that it had been eating the apples under the tree which are decomposing, as it staggered off up the path I thought it may be drunk. I found it later on that day, dead and so mixy is the most likely cause, shame as I would have loved the thought of a group of adolescent bunnies binge eating on my apples and staggering home to the burrow a bit worse for wear the next morning.
Rats are a bit of an issue again, although I don’t think they ever really go away, the cats have caught two baby rats two days in a row, the evidence of them is there to see as they have burrowed under the chicken huts, I move the huts and the next day, new burrows. Between the cats and the poison we should be able to keep them under control, the cats by the way don’t ever eat the rats, they just kill them and leave them for dead so no worries about poisoning the cats.

I may have mentioned we were looking for a vintage caravan as a project that was not farm related, well we found one during the week not too far away and now we have Luna a 1970’s four berth caravan. This is something that I will be doing with my Sister and will keep you updated with photos as we go along.

I discovered that our Oak tree is over 50 years old while listening to Radio 2, apparently they do not produce acorns until they reach that age and ours has been giving us acorns for a few years now so we have a rough idea of its age.
I love to pick food from the hedgerows, free produce like blackberries, nuts, elderberries, rosehips etc are a bonus crop and packed with goodness, the one thing I have not found yet though are sweet chestnuts, so I decided to buy my own tree instead. In 10 years time it will be around 50ft tall and hopefully producing lots of lovely chestnuts for Christmas. We have decided to plant it in the small paddock at the back in memory of Max our mongrel who died earlier in the year, the paddock will be known as Max’s paddock from now on. Hubby has been busy on another project for a few weeks which is why he has not had a mention, yesterday however, he got the tractor out to move the muck heaps, strike while the iron is hot, I thought, and get him to dig the hole with the back actor. He is not used to using this part and so after nearly taking out the side of the covered area before even moving it we went up to dig the hole, I have never laughed so much, it would have been easier to do it with a shovel I think! He can’t quite get his head around how the controls work, I think it may be because he is left handed, we then had a go at levelling some ground near to a ditch, it’s more of a mess than when we started and he abandoned that in favour of a pick axe, but we had a good laugh trying to do it and that’s a good thing.

Photos of the caterpillar, Luna and the chestnut tree, look carefully and you will see the mess behind the tree that Hubby made with the tractor!

Did you take a look at the Moon midweek? It was very bright and lit the night sky beautifully, very useful if you want to keep working in the evening. The big farms around us have been working long days while the weather is dry, ploughing, muck spreading and flailing the hedges, getting everything ready for the next crop whatever that might be. Sadly in the countryside the Moon is also used by the more unsavoury to case farms and equipment, it means they can get a good look around without a torch and so go unnoticed, this time of year is prime time for theft from gardens and farmyards. For the first time I can remember our guard dog did not rush out of his kennel for his breakfast this morning, this is something to make a mental note of because it is unlike him in every way, he did eventually eat it when I called him and he may have just had a busy night, but it is important to be vigilant in the next few days in case he has been given something to make him quieter.

After a conversation about pickled eggs, I decided to have a go, I have never done them before and as we had a batch of Quail eggs I thought it would be a good idea to use them up. The pickling brine was easy to make and we just have to wait a few weeks to see how they taste, I am not a lover of pickled eggs but for some reason the blokes seem to like them with a pint! I have also made a few jars of Blackberry jam, I spent an hour picking them from the bushes on the lane and it has set well, the berries this year are not soft and mushy like they are most years and so jam making with them is ideal. I could have frozen them but if I make jars of jam they can be used for cakes etc and if needs be I can always add a few spoonfuls to an apple pie and it will do just as well. I have picked few Elderberries, but put them straight into the freezer so that I can use them when I have more time, I want to make Pontac sauce which can be used in stews and gravy, it will give them a rich flavour and we get the benefit of all that Vit C. I also spent a day picking and freezing carrots, sweet corn, broccoli, swede, beans, and tomatoes, both red and green ones, we now have the freezer full and ready to keep us fed. The need to pick things when you see them became apparent yesterday when, having promised some Victoria plums to my sister, the tree was laden on Friday, we approached the tree to find that they had all gone! The birds must have stripped the tree bare on the Saturday, the only ones left were the shrivelled up mouldy ones, note to self, don’t wait too long next year.

The pigs have finally been moved to outside this weekend, they have an area underneath the tall pine trees and they were so excited when they got there, they ran up and down pushing their snouts into the dirt pile, rolling in it, charging around a bit more, it was funny to watch them but also great to see them in a more natural environment than the stable. Hopefully we have secured it enough for them to remain there but they are very strong and will only get stronger, only time will tell if they are able to dig their way out or not. Any bruised windfalls are being used to supplement their feed as well as a few root veg that have not reached a good size and any runner beans that have gone unnoticed and got a bit too big, they are eating well, that will be good for the end result!

The egg numbers have suddenly gone up this week at long last, to start with the eggs remained in the shed as the customers had stopped coming because of the lack of them, or so I thought, but over the weekend we have sold nearly twelve dozen and are thankful that people have returned. The electric fence around the paddock had been a bit neglected over the last few weeks and so the hens had discovered a few gaps, a few, obviously more intelligent ones had decided to sneak out each day and this means I have to go looking for likely places that they would lay, I found two batches, one in the long grass and one around the back of the nut bushes, we test them in water to see if they are fresh or if they have been there a while, an egg will float if it has gone off because the air sac inside increases in volume, we tend to use any found eggs ourselves just in case one slips through the net and we break them individually first to make sure they are alright.

The horses were a little frisky yesterday, charging around the paddocks, that is unusual and something to take note of, it could be anything that sets them off but the answer came later in the day when our eldest went out to refresh the water and poo pick, Hornets! There were about four of them flying around and annoying the horses, who were running around trying to avoid them, luckily in my experience the Hornet season is short and they should soon move on.

It is a very busy time of year for getting in all that produce that has been growing away all Summer, this week it was the turn of the potatoes to be dug up, they are then laid in the poly tunnel to dry off and the skins to harden a little, any with holes will be used up quickly but the rest will be stored in paper sacks to use throughout the Winter. This year we have done so much better than last, the dry weather has made it ideal for potatoes and I have harvested some very large ones that will be used for baked lunch on a cold day, our main crop are King Edwards and they are by far the best all round potato I have ever grown. The tasks ahead for the week coming are apple picking and more hedgerow picking including rose hips for syrup to keep the colds and flu away. For the apples this year I have bought a garden tower so that we can reach the top fruit without having to climb the tree, not a good idea when you are well past your youth, the adventure side of you is willing but the muscles and bones no so 🙂
The nuts are beginning to fall but they will have to wait for collection until the fruit has been done, they will be fine on the floor for a while, until the squirrel realises they are ready of course and then it will be a race between us to see who can gather fastest, remember the plums, I had better not let that happen to the nuts.

The weather has been kind to us over the last few weeks and looks like it will continue at least one more week, I can’t believe how warm it has been, it is perfect for me, warm but not too Sunny, it means I can get on outside without too many problems. I think Sunday morning was the best by far this week, I went out to do the feed round, it was warm and quiet with a waft of a bonfire in the air, a perfect Autumn morning.