Author: frieslandfarm

Were did that week go?? The Summer Solstice is almost upon us and still not much in the way of a Summer and certainly not flaming June! Still at least the hosepipe ban has been lifted, I should think so too :p

We have had some new arrivals on the farm this week, the first were 3 ducklings, not naturally hatched out here but at a local hotel. We were asked if we could re home them as their pond is not big enough to sustain their parents and them also the threat of them being eaten by a fox was high and they didn’t want them to come to that kind of end so they have come to live with us. They settled in very well and after the first few hours were eating and splashing about in the water, they can’t go out with our existing ducks yet as they are too young and not fully feathered plus they need to be isolated just in case they have any infection they could pass on. At the moment they are in the back stable but I am hoping to put them out in a run on the lawn later today weather permitting. It was quite heartbreaking when we took them away from Mum, we put them in a box and carried them to the van but Mum could hear them chirping and followed us out to the car park 😦 I am sure after a day or two she will have settled down back into life without them, probably lay some more eggs to hatch!

The other new arrivals are the chicks that were in the incubator, the Cream Legbars and Splash Orpingtons, so far, six have hatched not bad considering they were not due to hatch until today, fingers crossed for a few more. The Cream Legbars are the Blue egg layers and they are a pretty chicken with a little tufted crest on their head, I already have one hen that I hatched out last year so any cockerel in this batch will be a useful addition for breeding. I ordered two batches from different suppliers so that I could mix the bloodlines but at the moment not one of the second batch has hatched, such is life!

We had a busy weekend, my middle daughter was here on the Saturday to lend a hand, moving all the debris from the plum trees that I had pruned in the week. I left the branches on the floor for a few days for the chickens to pick over any grubs and pests, they also like to eat the leaves, I gave some of the branches to the Rabbits as they also like to eat the leaves and chew on the wood of fruit trees, it does their teeth good and gives them variety in their diet. The plum pruning was a bit drastic and I have probably sacrificed what little harvest we would have got but hopefully they will be rejuvenated for next year. I have seen a couple of news reports about the weather affecting the fruit crop this year, Apples especially seem to be down in numbers, and although our Strawberry plants were heaving with flowers earlier in the year, the fruits are small and with all this wet weather they are succumbing to fungal problems very quickly. I did manage to pick a handful yesterday and took them up to hubby who was turning the muck heap, we stood and had a little snack while admiring the view, those are the moments that make me feel very lucky 🙂

Fathers day here does not mean a day off  although we did take it a little easier, on the Saturday, Hubby started to build a multipurpose house and run which we will probably use for the Quail when it is finished, we also had a few bits of hedge to cut back, they had started blocking the entrances to various animal houses making it awkward to get in. In the evening we had a family get-together to celebrate Fathers day, that included the youngest via Skype, although it was 5.30 in the morning for her and she looked a little sleepy 🙂 The girls and one of the boyfriends stayed over and on the Sunday morning we got up and had bacon and egg sarnies and sat around chatting until lunchtime, which is a very rare event for us but one we thoroughly enjoyed 🙂

Last year I bought a food dehydrator and never got round to using it and so I was determined not to do the same this year. In the week I picked bunches of herbs and set about drying them, I was chuffed with the results and managed to make up five small jars of mixed herbs. It was very easy to do and so I am on a mission to do many more, the next batch is a combination of Red Basil and Oregano for an Italian flavour, I have ordered plenty of small jars and hope to do a few different mixes for fish sauces etc. If I end up with too many I may even put them out in the shed to sell. I am very glad I ordered the little shed as it can take many more boxes of eggs and also produce at the bottom as well, this months egg money was the most ever and Hubby calculated that we sold 85 dozen eggs last month!! Because the duck eggs are out there too I also seem to be selling more of them to the public than before, hopefully the Quail eggs will soon be on the board as well as Courgettes which have just started to grow and I usually put freshly picked Rhubarb in there a couple of times a week. I get great pleasure from being able to provide fresh good quality produce even if it is only a small amount, it is very satisfying and I try to charge just enough to cover the costs of seed and time spent. People often say, you should open a farm shop, but for me it is about being outside growing it and looking after it not in a shop selling it, so until the time that I could afford to pay someone to do that, it will be in the little shed at the top of the drive!

We are entering the season of plenty, or rather we should be but the weather is still holding everything back, very little growth on any of the legumes, and from what I have seen when I am out and about, it is common, the high winds we have suffered also cause a setback for any veg plants as they need to be healthy and strong in order to produce any decent harvest, instead they are looking distinctly battered. The winds have once again taken the roof panels off of my greenhouse and I need to find a way to stop it happening every time. I replaced the glass with poly carbonate after the last storms sent the whole roof crashing down, but the panels are light and are easily taken up by strong gusts I may need to resort to using silicon to keep them in place! Most trees and perennial plants are reveling in all the rain of course and we have a very green and pleasant land at the moment, the Elderflowers are bursting out all along the lanes and it is time to make cordial or champagne, it makes a lovely refreshing drink, perfect for these long sunny days in June :s The grass in our paddocks is growing exceptionally well and the bottom corner one that we have manured and seeded is now waist height in various grasses and common wildflowers, it is lovely to walk in, although I did spot a couple of Ragwort which will need to be dug up as it is fatal for horses to eat. One of the liveries has also spotted a Bee Orchid in the margins of her paddock, a delightful little flower and I hope it will colonise.

I find that some weeks tend to be dominated by one particular element of the farm and this week it was definitely the poultry, we have had the arrival of some naturally hatched chicks, 6 in total, of which 4 were promptly eaten on the day they came out of the hut! We suspect it was the cats as the next morning when we went to let the chickens out the cats were sat suspiciously in the paddock waiting, not really their fault, they are hunters after all and one small bird smells very much like another I expect, our fault for not protecting Mum and her offspring a little better 😦

The cockerels have finally been dispatched and in fact I have just finished dressing them for the freezer, not a pleasant job and one I am glad to have got out of the way, the only job left to do is give the kitchen a good clean and airing as the smell tends to linger long after the remains have gone out to the bin. We have also had a couple of deaths amongst the new hens, at the moment we are unsure as to why but the bio security measures are stepped up and as we have had a new delivery this morning we spent yesterday preparing a new area for them to keep them separate and stall any spread of possible infection.

The quail are doing well now after losing a few in the beginning, this is usual after hatching out, you will find there are those  that fail to make it to full growth, those that are unable to hatch on their own and then those that do hatch and die soon after, it’s all part of natures plan ‘survival of the fittest’. The temptation is to help the poor little ones out of the shell when they are unable to do it by themselves but over the years I have learnt that these very often die soon after anyway so best to leave it to nature.

The ducks have all been moved in together to make way for the new hens, at the moment they are a bit like the Capulets and Montague’s, each group busying themselves around the pen avoiding each other as far as possible and then an altercation or two when they bump into each other. One of the female ducks has been limping for a few days, I did take her out asses her and try to rest her for a while but she was fretting so I have put her back, I would think that the damage has been done by the over amorous drake as there are no signs of actual injury, hopefully she will recover soon.

I had a lovely surprise when I opened the back door one evening last week, a Roe Deer was browsing for supper along the hedgeline of the paddock directly in front of me, I resisted the temptation to go and get the camera, I did that before and by the time I got back they had gone, so this time I just stood and watched while it carried on munching away, a lovely moment on a quiet evening.

Not such a quiet event here were the Jubilee celebrations, we had intended to picnic in the paddocks but after looking at the long-range forecast we decided to go with the wet weather plan! We decorated the back stable the day before, put up a large gazebo, plenty of bunting and flags and decided to go with a street party theme instead, it’s a good job we did as the rain came by the bucketful on the day. It didn’t stop up having an excellent time though, we came in fancy dress with anything English being the order of the day, we played plenty of nostalgic tunes, ate a mountain of food and although it wasn’t hot we still had a thirst that sank a good few bottles of refreshments 🙂 A thoroughly good time was had by all and indeed by the rest of the country as well  by all accounts.

Up to this point in this blog I have (almost) avoided the obvious topic of conversation, the weather! My theory is that all travel brochures for the UK will now include the paragraph ‘ avoid the monsoon season’  by my reckoning that will be from September through to August!!! There isn’t much we can do about it but it doesn’t stop us moaning, the fruit that was looking promising are now looking a bit small due to lack of any Sunshine, the beans and the peas are struggling to get going and to be honest I don’t think the harvest from them will amount to much at all unless we get a break. Add to that the wind damage and it is all in a pretty sorry state, apart from the poly tunnel of course which is  brilliant, no wonder they are a taking over areas of our countryside, it is the only way to beat our great British weather!

I had better go and get on with cleaning the kitchen and also check on the new arrivals, they probably looked like drowned rats by now and are stood wondering what the heck happened as this morning they would have been in a huge dry shed, next stop Shilton, outside in a run and in the pouring rain, they do have huts they can go into but chickens are not that clever! I will leave you with some photos of the Jubilee knees up and the thought that the rain will have to stop eventually, wont it?

 

It is all systems go on the farm at the moment, we spent last week getting all the rest of the veg plants in the ground so apart from one bed, which is a bit too much like clay and therefore difficult to plant, every available inch of space has been filled! The process for the next few weeks will be weeding and watering with the hopes of a good harvest to come. The potatoes have been earthed up to encourage more root growth and therefore more tubers, the peas and beans all tied in so that they can romp away as soon as the roots take hold, and the poly tunnel produce has settled in and begun to put on growth, all is well with the garden  🙂 Actually this is the easy part really the next battle that will begin is with the slugs and bugs, Cabbage White butterflies have already been spotted looking for a good cabbage to lay their eggs on and no doubt there will be an army of green-fly invading very shortly! Luckily our ‘life balance’ is pretty good and the Ladybirds and Lacewings will not be far away ready to help as soon as they are needed.

The Strawberries are still loaded with flowers, the bed just needs weeding now and any new runners kept under control, we should be eating the first few in the middle of June, that will be the first treat of the year, sadly they wont quite be ready for Jubilee weekend but never mind.

The quail are coming on in leaps and bounds there are still 31 left so a good number, I have had to upgrade their accommodation as they were getting too big for the small brooder in doors, they are now in a larger one in the back stable, they still need a light and will do for another couple of weeks yet. The bigger they got the more they poo the smellier they get and in this weather you don’t want them indoors for too long!! The hens that are sat on eggs in the back paddock have still not hatched anything but still keep laying so I will just leave them until something appears. The other hen in the run had hatched out two chicks but sadly one has since died, it is amazing that they grow and spend all that time hunched in a tight ball, hatch out then proceed to keel over and die without any obvious reason but it is the survival of the fittest and from experience I know it does not do any good to try and save them as they usually die in the end anyway 😦

Hubby and I had a weekend off this week, we left our eldest and her boyfriend in charge and went to Wales to visit my Dad. They did a good job and the farm looks tidy after they had strimmed all the grassy areas and the menage had a rake over, nothing died so that was a bonus!

I took some pictures of my Dad’s veg patch which he is very proud of, it is a small but very productive patch and the lines are very regimental! He is out there every morning weeding and watering and very good it looks too. They live on the side of a hill overlooking a valley and then going up the other side are the Black mountains, the view he has while he is working out there is fantastic and I am very envious of it. They also have a 9 acre wood, which is lovely now, 7 years ago when they moved in it was completely overgrown and difficult to get into, now it is a working wood, it has been cleared, tidied and copiced, all the trees that had to come down have been used for firewood, the branches for kindling and the result is a beautiful serene wood with an abundance of Bluebells, Wood Anenomes, Orchids and many other wild flowers. I went for  a walk through it and heard the unmistakable sound of the Woodpecker, as I got closer to one tree I could hear the chirping of chicks high up in a hole, the nearer I got the louder the Woodpecker chirped to warn me off so I left her in peace.

As you are all no doubt aware this weekend coming is Jubilee Weekend and although we will be working for some of it we are having a few hours off to celebrate, we are having a fancy dress (anything English) Jubilee picnic in the front paddock and the drive will be festooned with bunting and balloons, there will be picnic food to share, jugs of pimms and Aunt Sally to play, whatever you are doing have a great time and enjoy the celebrations, if you haven’t got anything to do bring a picnic and come and join us on the Sunday afternoon you would be most welcome. I wont be blogging next Monday as it will still be holiday time and no doubt I will be clearing up and possibly have a sore head :p, so I will catch up the week after and hopefully have some pics of us lot in fancy dress!

Good Morning, well nearly afternoon, I had to go to the dreaded dentist this morning and have only just got back so by the time I have written and published it will probably be afternoon.

We had another busy weekend finishing off the poly tunnel, we had some help from my Stepdad which was much appreciated or I don’t think it would have been finished, as it was I could not believe how quickly the day went and was inclined to think he was fibbing when he said it was 5.40pm and time to go home, I had thought it was only about 3.30! We weeded it yesterday and it is now ready to be planted up which I will try to get around to this afternoon and evening. Probably the first things going in will be tomatoes as they are quite far behind for the time of year and hopefully they will go full steam ahead once they are in there.

During the week my Mum came over and we planted up the brasicca bed, that is now full of cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli, the plants are a bit small due to lack of Sun but hopefully as we are predicted some warmth they will pick up quickly.

We have a few strange visitors to the farm now and again and this weekend was no exception, while we were doing the tunnel a car full of people arrived and got out, normally people are here to buy eggs or chickens, but this family wanted a look round and a cup of tea!!! They thought we were a farm cafe, I have no idea why as there is no such indication on the board outside, maybe it was the horse hotel bit that made them think so, needless to say we had quite a chuckle at that one 🙂

Talking of summer visitors, the swifts are back again this year, they come every summer and nest in the large stable block, we always keep an eye on them as they have a habit of nesting where the cats can reach or where the nest will be blown off the ledge  by the wind. At the moment they are scouting for a good spot, dive bombing people while they are doing it, one livery nearly had a head on collision with one on Saturday, as she came out of the side door, the swift was flying in.

I had a moment of hope on the Tortoise front last week, I looked up from the greenhouse where I was doing some potting on and saw the tortoises out in the garden, great I thought, they have woken up but when I went to look they were definitely dead and something must have pulled them out of their hut. Sadly that is the end of them, I can only think that they must have woken during a warm spell, eaten, and then gone back to sleep which is fatal if the temperature drops again.

Two lives have ended but we have plenty of new life here, the Quail caught me by surprise on Sunday morning as I had not expected them to hatch until tomorrow. In total 34 have hatched so far, that’s pretty good, they are tiny little things and I had to quickly get the brooder box sorted out, normally chicks go out into a box in the stable with a lamp but these are so small we made a special one that can stay indoors, it is made of a plastic storage box with a red bulb screwed to the inside, it means that we can keep them indoors and has the added bonus of being able to watch and observe them. They wriggle about like a tub of worms, each one trying to get nearest the warm spot. I have taken a couple of pictures, one is of them in the brooder box and the other is of little ones that have just hatched, they stay in the incubator until their feathers dry out then they are moved in with the others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had expected the hens to have hatched out chicks by now but as yet there is no sign of any, they have been messing about swapping eggs here and there and so I took some from one hen and put them under a different broody in another pen, remember the one that kept going broody but I had to make her get off as her eggs would not be fertile, well I decided that as she was persistently sitting there I would help her out a bit, hopefully she will manage to hatch one or two.

I had a quick trip to the garden centre on Sunday to pick up some more seeds, I went to get Melon plants but actually theirs were no further forward than mine so I decided not to bother, it seems even the professionals are having problem getting plants to put on any growth. While I was there I thought I would take a look at the chickens they were selling, I got the shock of my life when I saw that they had Crested Cream Legbars for sale at £54.99!!!!!!!!!!! OMG these are the next lot of eggs I will be hatching out but I will not be charging anywhere near that price, the phrase ‘rip off britain’ is spreading into the chicken market!

 

Another Monday morning, another wet weather forecast for the week ahead, but at least we had a half decent weekend and as always when the weather is good we work hard!

The big job this weekend was to get the polytunnel under construction, we made good progress and the frame went up within a few hours, next came the job of digging the trench all the way round, this is then backfilled and holds the cover taught. The digging was going well for the first 8 inches or so then we hit clay, it then took hubby the whole of Sunday to dig out just one side, clay is normally quite soft to dig, if a little heavy, but this is rock solid, probably because the water table is so low. While he was doing that job I busied myself putting down the path in the middle, as luck would have it we had been asked in the week if we wanted any slabs that someone was taking up, talk about timing! Hopefully the rest of the tunnel will be finished off next weekend, and we can begin to plant into it. The addition of a tunnel will extend the growing season by a month at each end of the season and because the site in general is quite exposed it means we will be able to plant more tender veg plants a lot earlier than usual with better results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also put together the new egg shed this week and it is now in place at the front instead of the plastic box. I didn’t get round to my fanciful painting and decorating ideas so it’s just a shed, not only will it be used for eggs but there is space in the bottom for any produce that I have picked or jars of chutney and jam that I have too many of!

Looking back through my posts just now I think the hen has been sitting for about 3 weeks on her egg clutch, she is now sitting very tightly, not getting off to eat or drink, so I think that by next week I may be able to report that she is a Mum, fingers crossed. The chickens appreciated the welcome break in the rain over the weekend, they were literally puddling in mud, even out on the paddocks the water was sitting and making life a bit miserable for them. The ground dries very quickly and so they were able to  dust bath and just enjoy soaking up the sunrays for a couple of days. The ducks have never had it so good in Spring and I keep hoping that one of them will go broody, it would be lovely to have ducklings following their Mum around the yard but no sign of that at the minute.

The horses have had a lucky break too and we are now borrowing the field next door, their fields were beginning to look as though we had ploughed them and there was not much grass left at all, but they are now happily munching away on a couple of acres of lovely long grass. The little Shetland, however has been banished to live with the sheep for a while as he would be ill if he was allowed to eat large quantities of grass like that, also it is the only field that is fully stockfenced so he wont be able to escape for a while. In the two weeks beforehand, he has been giving us the right run around, escaping left, right and centre, we barricade one part and he finds another weak spot to escape through, the paddock was beginning to look like Fort Knox, we were getting to the stage where barbed wire and search lights would be next on the list 😉

All this rain has done wonders for the permanent veg and fruit this year, the strawberry plants are absolutely loaded with flowers and hopefully it will be a bumper crop if we get some more sunshine to ripen them, the asparagus and the Rhubarb have also shot up and the fruit trees have been laden with blossom, the gooseberries, Blue berries and Black currants are also heavily laden so all in all a good crop to be had this year but it will depend on the Sun coming out a bit more often than it has up until now. The veg plants that need to go in the garden are still under cover of the greenhouse and the onions have not even gone in yet as the soil is too wet and cold, they would just rot away. The  plan for the onions and garlic is that they will go straight into the poly tunnel, anything that needs the protection and a long growing season will be going in there as a priority, Peppers and Tomatoes and also a crop of Runner beans, hopefully by the time they have grown the weather will have improved enough to put a crop outside too.

Every year since we have been here there has been a different challenge to face and overcome, the first two years were the coldest on record but the weather was good enough in the Spring and Summer to grow veg and fruit easily, this year we have had a mild Winter but the Spring has been cold and continues to delay planting.  We have previously had failures with veg plants because the wind had been cold and so we put in place a windbreak all the way around the garden to help protect them, watering was a long and laborious job and so we installed more outside taps and set up a watering system which due to the rain we have not needed to use at all yet! I sometimes wonder if we will ever get it just right, I suppose that is part of the attraction to beat all the odds, weather, insects, disease and still have a decent crop at the end of it. I find myself thinking that it would be easier just to shop at the supermarket, then I remember the trolley wars, that very irritating background music to make you forget what you came in for so that you buy more, putting it in the trolley, unpacking on to the belt, packing it back into the trolley, packing into the car then unpacking it when you get home, then when you cook it the disappointing taste of not a lot! You can’t beat the taste of a freshly picked corn on the cob or a Sun warmed Tomato, or lettuce that actually does have a flavour, that’s when I remember that it is all worth it, the real taste of food is worth all the backache, frustrations and challenges, very worth it indeed 🙂

Well we knew the weather was bad but now reports of a Tornado over parts of West Oxfordshire have completely topped it! I have to say that the hailstones were big and the wind whipped up but luckily the Tornado did not touch ground here thank goodness 🙂

During one of the two dry days we have had this week, we have been very busy outside as you would expect, Hubby and Daughters Boyfriend spent all day Saturday clearing the remains of the tree felling that we did a couple of months ago, this was no easy task as the pile of branches to be stripped and burnt was huge, but they worked all day, had a huge bonfire going and now it is all clear. The area we are left with is quite big, bigger than the average back garden, there are four trees remaining and the Lilac bushes that were struggling underneath have begun to sprout all over the area. The plan is to plant Daffodils and Primroses for Spring next year. A new fence will be going up next weekend as the old one was completely rotten and then just leave the area to its own devices and see what it does.

The amount of rain we have had should certainly help the farming crops and I know that the Rape is probably going to be a bumper crop this year, this should also be good news for the hay provided the rain stops at some point! Over the last two years the farmer that supplies us with hay has struggled to get a decent crop and he finally ran out of bales last month. This meant that we had to try to find a new supply and quickly, luckily we had a contact who had some bales to spare and so now the hay barn is stacked with those, hopefully they will take us beyond the first cut of the year. When hay is first cut it is ‘green’ this means that the sugar content is too high to feed to the horses straight away and it has to sit a while before its ready for them to digest without causing problems.

I have just received an e-mail to say that the poly tunnel has been despatched, how exciting 🙂 We probably wont be that excited when we are trying to put it up! Many years ago when I had an allotment with my Mum we chose a lovely day to put up a small tunnel, the weather was great until the last couple of hours, by this time we were in too deep to stop and so when the heavens opened we were on our hands and knees trying to backfill  the trench and get the polythene taut, when we had finished we were totally plastered in mud from head to foot, but still laughing, one of those times you will never forget 😉 I have also had a call to say that my new shed will be delivered this week, it will be the ‘egg’ shed, it is just a small one to put out the front and keep the eggs in. At the moment I am using a plastic tub which only holds 3 dozen and it is not very good when the sun shines as the inside sweats, so I decided to buy a little 4ft high shed to use instead. I have to confess I got a little carried away with the project and was going to paint the inside and give it a vintage look, by the time I had finished planning it, the shed had turned into a summer house with vintage furniture, tools, terracotta pots etc, well at least I was enthusiastic!

With luck we will have chicks galore in a few weeks, the broody hen is still sitting tight and at a guess she is sitting on over twenty eggs, I have had to put square baskets in the coop for the others to lay in now, if they lay near her she will just keep gathering eggs underneath her and then you decrease the chance of them hatching as she will move them around and some may get left in the cold. If this carries on day after day the chances are that at some point all of them will go cold and fail to hatch, the hen would have no idea and still keep sitting on them so it is best to encourage the others to lay elsewhere for the time being. Last week I ordered 48 quail eggs and set those in the incubator, I have been trying to find live birds for a while but no luck so this is the next best thing. That may seem like a large number of eggs but up to a third will fail to hatch for various reasons, from the rest that do hatch, probably half will be cock birds and then there will inevitably be some fatalities in the weeks that follow, realistically I am hoping to end up with approx 8-10 females for egg laying. Quail hatch on day 17 which is fairly quick, they are mature by the time they are 50 days old and so within a couple of months I should have quail eggs to sell, all being well.

We managed to put the horses out for a couple of days this weekend, the good thing about our soil, which has clay seams running through, is that it does dry up pretty quickly once the sun comes out, yesterday morning however, I went out to give them breakfast and hay nets and noticed that my Shetland was quite lame. It could have had something to do with the fact that he had escaped into the next paddock and probably hurt himself in the process. I decided to bring him in and take a look, I left Jack in the field with his breakfast and all of the haynets to himself, you would think that being the greedy horse that he is he would be in his element, WRONG,  I had barely got to the stable block with the Shetland when Jack decided to join us! He had jumped the paddock fence into the drive and was not about to be left outside while his field companion was in, so they both spent the day inside while the Shetland had a bit of medication to help with the pain. He looks as right as rain this morning and is back to chomping merrily on the hay, he seemed to have shoulder pain which would tie in with the fact that he uses his front leg to pull at the rails until he moves them and is free!

On the veg front we have managed to get the broad bean plants in the ground and the bean poles up ready for planting when the weather breaks, I also managed to get some weeding done during the sunny spell at the weekend. Everything else is being grown on inside at the moment, which is working quite well, of course it does mean a shortage of space and we have moved some of the brassicas out into the cold frame to harden off. The courgettes have been planted out into the hot box, which is basically a box filled with layers of horse muck and straw then topped with soil. The courgettes are planted into the soil and the idea is that as the muck breaks down it gives off heat which encourages growth. Courgettes are very hungry plants and as the roots go down into the straw and muck mix they will be very well fed, this is a bit of an experiment and hopefully it will work well, the Victorians used the method with great results so fingers crossed.

Quail eggs, I forgot that one was broken so there are in fact 47!

 

 

 

Hot Box

Today I will be writing the blog while on my coffee breaks, so this may not get published until late, the reason being that today is the first dry day that we have had in well over a week and I really need t get some jobs done while I can!!

The week seems to have gone by very slowly and some days all I could do was look out of the window in despair wondering when the heck is all this rain going to stop, and apparently it isn’t, not just yet anyway we just have a respite for a day so I need to make the most of it. During the early part of the week I decided to do some cooking as there was not much I could do outside. I picked an armful of Rhubarb and set about finding a recipe, I settled on a Rhubarb and Custard cake as this sounded delicious, the first thing to do was roast the Rhubarb which I had never done before but the flavour is much more intense and would definitely recommend it, basically you just pop it in the oven with sugar and roast until the juices are sweet. I didn’t have any ready-made custard which the recipe recommends (it is thicker) so I made some from scratch which was delicious also 🙂

Rhubarb & Custard Cake: 180c/fan 160c / gas 4

400g of Rhubarb – roasted

250g butter

150g pot of ready made custard

250g self raising flour

1/2tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

1tsp Vanilla extract

250g caster sugar

Icing sugar to dust

Reserve 3tbls of custard in a bowl for later, beat the rest of the custard with the butter, flour, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and sugar until creamy.

Spoon one third of the mix into a 23cm tin, add some Rhubarb, then dot with another third of mixture and spread it out, top with more Rubarb then spoon over the rest of the mixture, put the rest of the Rhubarb on top of that layer then dot the custard that you kept back over the top. Bake for 40 mins until risen and golden then cover with foil and bake for a further 15-20 mins, dust with icing sugar when cool.

You should end up with something like this ! It was delicious, even Hubby ate it although I told him it was just Rhubarb cake because he does not like custard 😉

 

 

 

 

Just come in for another coffee break, although its dry today the wind is still fairly strong, I discovered that I had lost a roof panel from the greenhouse and I eventually found it, however I can’t replace it at the moment because the gusts of wind are too strong for me to do it by myself so I will have to wait for reinforcements later. The ground is still pretty waterlogged so still can’t get on the veg patches to do any weeding, roll on some nice dry weather. We decided this weekend that as the long-range forecast is dismal we are going to get a poly tunnel, a 20ft x 10ft will enable us to keep growing no matter what the weather and also extend the growing season at both ends. In future years we will be able to get the crops started early and also keep growing some crops right through the Winter months, including potatoes for Christmas 🙂

The title of today’s blog ‘ oooo Ducky’ is dedicated to the duck that got stuck in the water bucket! You may remember I told you that I had wandered up the back with my in laws one afternoon and she was stuck in a bucket, you would think that as she had done it once she wouldn’t bother again, no, she has no brains! When Hubby came in one night after shutting everything away, he reported that we were a duck missing, he had a look but was unable to find her as it was getting pretty dark. The next morning after I had finished feeding and letting them out I went to look for her or signs that the fox had got her. I went down to one of the bottom paddocks and there she was sat in the horse water bucket, she had been there all night and was clearly weak and cold. I took her in and put her in a box next to the Rayburn to warm up, she was still shivering a while later so I got out the hairdryer and gave her a blast with it. We decided that the warmest place was the bathroom and so I left her in there while I went shopping, meanwhile my eldest daughter returned home from work and got a bit of a shock when she went to the loo 🙂 Eventually she was warm enough and strong enough to go back out with the others, none the worse for her all night antics.

 

 

 

 

I have a little farming story that I would like to share with you although it’s not mine but my youngest daughters. She is travelling in Australia and has been in Perth for the best part of 4 months. She decided to go to Brisbane along with her friends and get an agricultural job to extend their visa, they flew out there one day and started work the next day, apple picking, unfortunately after 9 straight hours of picking with no breaks they realised that the job was not what it seemed, the money they earnt in the 9 hours was not even going to cover their accommodation. When they went back to their bunks at the end of the first day they decided to leave, they packed their backpacks left under cover of darkness and got the first bus to Melbourne! LOL if you are going to run away, do it in style I say 😉

Hopefully next week I will be able to report that we have at last had some half decent weather, but I wont hold my breath, I may just go Blue!

Well clearly ever since the hosepipe ban was announced we haven’t needed it anyway!!! The water butts are full to overflowing, the fields are very quickly saturated each time we have a downpour and everything we planted in the garden over the last few weeks has not dried out at all. According to the weatherman its going to get worse next week, now if anyone is listening I really would like a Spring please 🙂 Having said that the patches of Sun we get in between are also doing wonders for the grass in the paddocks although we have been keeping the horses off because with all the wet they would just trash them and turn them into mud within a couple of hours.

There are some areas of the farm that I have to use weedkiller on, the farm tracks and the front drive etc otherwise we would be overrun with them, but I can’t even do that at the minute as I need a 2hr dry window which certainly is not happening at the moment. The only occupants that are totally happy are the ducks, they are in their element, the pond is full and there are plenty of puddles for them to dabble in and fish out worms and slugs.

The Hens on the other hand are hating it, they tend to hide inside when its raining as their feathers are not waterproof, if they stay out they end up looking like drowned rats! I have a couple of hens that are showing signs of going broody which is good as I decided not to incubate any this year, two of the hens I have to keep moving off the eggs as they have no hope of hatching anything because they don’t run with a cockerel, one is happy to get off when I move her and run out to eat with the others, the other one makes the most terrific racket you would think I was killing her, if she shows signs of true brooding I may put in some fertile eggs for her to sit on. The only one that would be able to hatch is the Gold Laced Orpington, every time I go in to collect eggs she is sat on them, in the morning she gets off to go and eat, eventually when she goes properly broody she wont get off at all and then providing all goes well she will have a hatch 21 days after that. The only problem at the moment is that all the other hens are still laying in the same place and so there are about 15 eggs under her, what I will need to do is mark hers and possibly put in some laying boxes for the others to lay in so that she is left alone.

Two failures so far this year appear to be the Geese who are not laying, just continuing to terrorise the chickens and the Tortoises who sadly have not woken up 😦 I know we are in for a cold May and it is possible that they somehow sense this but I have my doubts as they really should be awake by now. For some reason although they have always survived Winter before this year has been different maybe it was the prolonged cold or maybe during a warm patch they woke up which can be fatal whatever the reason I will miss them more than I thought I would.

The dogs don’t usually get a mention apart from their incessant barking or when they have killed something but this week the oldest dog Max escaped, nothing unusual in that except that it was at night this time. I normally let them out of the back door and side gate but as I had just come in from putting the animals to bed I decided to let them out the back and down the side, not realising that someone had left the other gate open. I went inside to make a cuppa and went to get them back in before I sat down to drink it, I called them, silence, nothing, I then realised the gate was open and they had run off, Milly will come back when she is called and I found her standing near the access to the side paddocks, this told me that Max had gone that way. By this time it was pitch black and starting to rain, so I get my coat and wellies on and grab a torch and go looking for Max, there I am in the fields, in the dark, looking for a black dog who is deaf and can’t hear me!! After 20 mins or so I catch a pair of eyes in the hedgeline of the field that belongs to the farm next door, I scramble over the fencing and through the hawthorn, under their electric fence, which thankfully is not on, and into the field only to find that he has disappeared, now anyone that knows me will know that by now my face is like thunder and the amount of expletives are rising steadily!! I decided at this point I needed extra help, so I stomp off up the field back to the house to call Hubby who is off playing pool with his Dad, ‘ok I will be home in five minutes’ he says, and he was, luckily for him! I am still down in the field when the lights swing round the corner and a couple of minutes later he comes down to the field, I explain where I think Max is and he takes over with the torch, locates him within a couple of minutes, calls him, and the bloody dog comes wandering over to the fence!!!!!! It takes us a couple more minutes to coax him under the fence and lo and behold within ten minutes of himself arriving, the dog is back in the warm and dry, ‘what was difficult about that’ he asks, arrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The thing is that this is a dog who hates the rain and barks like a big girl the minute a drop touches him, I guess with the thought of total freedom he threw all caution to the wind 😉 I know one of my readers is going to completely identify with this topic, don’t laugh too much G, it will be your turn again before long, I think we should invest in flashing collars!!!

Mr ‘Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth’ Max!!

 

 

 

 

 

I took the home brew to the family birthday and it was given the thumbs up by Bitter drinkers so I class that as a success, trouble is I now have about 4 gallons of the stuff!! If anyone would like to try some give me a shout and I will bottle some up for you 🙂 I am keen to start some more brewing probably wine this time and the cider can wait until we have our own crop of apples in the autumn, we don’t actually drink very much but I have a feeling that is all about to change 😀

That last week seems to have shot past, the weather has not been up to much has it, cold winds, very cold nights and only one or two days when we saw the Sun, still we make the best of what we have got because we can’t change it!

The most eventful time on the farm this week was of course the ‘sonic boom’ heard and felt over five counties it was a once in a lifetime experience I should think. My very first thought was a colossal clap of thunder, we were sat at the kitchen table when the whole place shook accompanied by a tremendous noise, the horses shot across the fields and I went outside to see if I could hear any more, it was dead silent, no birds singing or flying just silence. The next thought was to check out the back in case of explosion on the neighbouring farm and my daughter suggested I check the home-brew in case that had exploded from its pressurised barrel! Eventually the official explanation was given that two jets were given permission to go supersonic over land and that’s what it was, most people I have spoken to who have heard sonic booms, me included, are sceptical and I guess we may never know, however it gave us a talking subject and an event to remember 🙂

As the home-brew had not exploded and was still firmly in the barrel I thought I ought to test it this morning to see what it was like, not much to report really as I have never drunk a glass of bitter and so have no idea what it is supposed to taste like!! I can only tell you that it does not taste off, or like vinegar, it is drinkable and kind to the palette, I am assuming then that it is a success 🙂 We have a family birthday today so I will pour some off and take it with me, no doubt I will find a couple of bitter experts to give me an opinion. Once I have the thumbs up I will be embarking on my next batch and will probably try lager or wine, something I am a bit more familiar with!

According to the weatherman we are due to get quite a bit of rain this week and it is badly needed all over the South, we had a good rainfall last week, good for the crops anyway and I was informed by my local farmer that it saturated 5 inches into the ground which means that the crops got a good drink, not enough to fill up the reservoirs but at least it did some good. We have put up another water barrel next to the shed in order to collect as much rainwater as possible over the next few months, last weeks rain filled our 1500 litre tank and it began to overflow so I put buckets underneath too, don’t want to miss a drop!

Even though it has been cold I have still been busy outside and have now planted all the potatoes, 1st earlies and main crop, I noted with interest that Monty Don had a bad crop of Red Duke of York last year as did a lot of people including us, apparently due to the weather patterns, they were ok but they just went to mush when they were boiled, so this year I have gone for the old reliable names, King Edward and Desiree for the main crop and Swift and Rocket for the earlies. Mum came over on Friday and planted a few more rows of carrots and parsnips, only the swede are left to go in now at the end of the month. Everything that can be sown into seed trays has been done, some have even been potted on to bigger pots, such as the broad beans, usually these would go straight in the ground but it is too exposed here so this year almost everything will be grown under cover first and hardened off to prevent too much loss. I planted a row of peas straight into the ground, covered them with fleece apart from one patch where the fleece didn’t reach, I inspected it this week and there is no sign of anything growing under the cover but the three that were out in the open are growing fine, I have yet to search in the ground for the seeds but I suspect that this was mice nicking them from under cover! To get over that we have started some off in the greenhouse and they will be planted out later, hopefully by then the weather will be much warmer and they will romp away, providing we can keep the pigeons off! The Asparagus I planted last year had just begun to come through when we had that very hard frost which made the shoots wilt 😦 not to worry though as plenty more will come through over the next few weeks, being only the second year of growth though I can only harvest a third of the shoots, the rest need to be left to help the roots strengthen and provide us with a good crop for the next 20 years!

I have been trying out Eco balls to wash my clothes in this week and I have to say I am quite impressed, obviously they don’t come out smelling highly of anything but cloth but they do actually work! My skin reacts to anything highly perfumed so I thought they were worth a try, I think they would struggle with anything heavily stained or dirty such as Hubby’s work clothes so they still get the chemical treatment but very good for lightly worn and soiled clothing and very economical at £5.99 with they last for 150 washes plus the box came with refills. They work with harmless chemicals such as washing soda and lime and you don’t need any fabric softener as they also contain sodium silicate, they still carry a carbon footprint as they materials are obviously quarried and the balls are plastic but it is a very much smaller footprint than washing powders and fabric conditioners so better for the environment as well as my skin 🙂

The forecast is for quite a bit of rain over the next few days, the weeds will be growing like mad, we did make an effort to weed most beds at the weekend but they are relentless at this time of year especially the thistles 😦  Today however seems to be a bit warmer than the previous few days and the sun is shining so I had better go and get on with a few outdoor jobs while I can, including more weeding!

A last note is a big Happy Birthday for yesterday to my youngest daughter who is discovering life in Australia at the moment, if she gets bored reading this before she gets to the end she will never know, but we hope you had a lovely day, love you lots x x x

You will remember that I wrote last week about never being able to recall what I had been doing even though I had been busy all week, well this week I decided to write everything down, so now I know exactly what I have done 🙂

Monday started off with writing the blog then going on to do the cleaning and washing, after that I decided to bake that Tea Loaf I told you about, It turned out a bit stodgy so I will have to try again before I pass the recipe on, it still tasted good though and was soon eaten up. Later in the afternoon I thought I would get the brewing kit out and start my first ever brew off, I followed the instructions which were fairly easy although sterilizing a 5 gallon bucket in a tiny sink proved a bit of a task, especially when I had to empty it back out, trying to decant 5 gallons into the sink where the tub was already sat was a bit of a messy mission but in the end the brew was sat nicely with its airlock on and it was not long before it began to bubble away and according to the instructions as long as it is doing that then something good is happening 🙂

On Tuesday as the weather was still quite nice I decided that the lawnmower could do with a service before cutting the grass for the first time this year, it needed a good clean, the air filter was checked and the blade taken off and sharpened, I checked the oil level which was fine, the only thing I could not do was the spark plug as I couldn’t get it off, but as the lawnmower started up with no problems, I figured it didn’t need looking at! I was all ready to cut the lawn but had to abandon that as there was not a drop of petrol in the can 😦  There were plenty of other jobs to choose from and so I filled the rest of the raised flower bed with compost from last years heap, sorted out and connected up the watering system for the vegetable beds and creosote one of the chicken houses inside and out. Luckily I had just finished doing that when the heavens opened and the last of the Sunshine disappeared for a few days.

Wednesday was cold and rainy with a measure of hail thrown in for a laugh so that was the day to spend sewing 🙂 I had ordered the material a few weeks ago to make some new cushion covers and bunting to create a vintage look to the new seating area in the garden, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it and ending up with something pretty at the end of the day was a real joy, as the weather has yet to improve I have not tried them out but the minute it does I will be out there with a cup of tea admiring my handy work 🙂

Mum came up to give me a helping hand on Thursday and together we filled the other flower bed, and planted it up, built a cold frame, potted on the courgettes, planted more salad crops in the greenhouse and made the greenhouse warmer by insulating it with bubble wrap to get the crops growing and also weeded the potato bed which due to the cold still has not been planted.

On Friday morning we woke up to a very hard frost, later inspection around the farm revealed that the Pieris, Buddlia, and Dicentra had all been affected by the frost but they should recover, I was glad to see that the blossom on the plum and pear trees seem to be unaffected and hope we don’t get another frost that hard or it will have an impact on the fruit quantities. Some of the animals had an alternative breakfast that morning, it is good to vary their diet now and again especially if they are on pellets of any kind. The rabbits had a bowl full of carrots and apples, plus some hay instead of their usual food and the dogs had duck eggs.

According to the instructions I could now test the brew as the bubbles had stopped in the airlock, trying to understand the instructions was not so easy this time! I had to use a hydrometer to test the gravity of the brew, according to the meter it was ready to rack off into the barrel but I was unsure if I was using it correctly and the explanation that came with it was beyond my scientific understanding! So I dumbed it down to my level, tipped some of the beer away, added more water thus watering it down and the hydrometer gave a different reading, with my logic I knew I was on the right path 😉 I did decide to leave it another day though just in case :p

I finally managed to get some fuel and cut the lawn, I say lawn but it was really just a bit of rough ground near the veg patch that conveniently grew grass, and it is the only bit of grass in the place that is not grazed by animals thus it became the lawn! I also mowed the grass all down the front driveway and swept the drive so that it looked all nice and tidy for Easter, and it did look lovely especially with the daffodils out. In between mowings I had a couple of people arrive to buy chickens, two little girls who had chosen theirs before they went away on holiday had arrived back and were very excited about collecting thier Easter present, we managed to catch the right ones which had been leg ringed for easy identification, I hope that at least one of them laid an egg for them on Easter day 🙂

On the Saturday I tested the brew again and this time I was confident it was ready, so I sterilised the equipment and racked of the brew into the barrel, I added the sugar as per instructions and it now has to sit for 7 days before we can drink it, by new Monday I will have tasted it and will let you know if it is any good or not!

After the week being fairly quiet, Saturday was an explosion of people at the farm all doing various different jobs, Hubby was busy cutting up wood as always, although I did give him a new job to try, which was sieving the compost that had been dug out from the heap, I knew he would like it even though he says not 😉 My Stepdad was busying bagging up a pile of ballast that we had been given, he keeps his holiday home down here and he is working off his rental. My daughters boyfriend was here with his quad bike dragging the rest of the paddocks so while all that was going on I creosoted the goose house, potted on the Tom’s aubergines and Melons, and paunched and skinned a rabbit that the BF shot at the end of the day.

On Sunday, after feeding the animals, I HAD A DAY OFF 😀

And that is what I did last week!! On top of that of course there were the 11 animals and 75 poultry to feed and water every morning and evening, eggs to collect and box up, the fire to light and wood to get in to keep it going all day, washing, cooking, putting the dustbins out, getting them back in again, cleaning and bits of paperwork to do, the question I am asking myself is, what the heck does everyone else do around here?? 😉