I thought I would do a quick round up of the photos of produce I took over the 2020 growing season in date order so you can see how the year progressed. I love how vibrant the colours all are and can’t wait to start harvesting again this year. What I really should do is weigh everything to see exactly how much I get, the photos represent probably 1/2 of what I actually harvest so it would be interesting to have an accurate record.
Monday 3rd August: This morning I whizzed around and got a few things done ( made two banana loaves and a greengage and vanilla tart) before going out for lunch in Oxford with Charlie as a birthday treat. We went to The Alchemist, the food was delicious and it all felt very safe and social distancing was well in hand. I haven’t been to Oxford centre for a least 6 years if not a lot longer. The new shopping centre is light and airy and the rooftop terrace where all the eateries are is a delightful place to eat. Afterwards we went on the tourist trails and into the back streets to find lovely park areas and beautiful architecture. A lovely way to spend an afternoon 🥰
When I got back John was already home and had been working on the new fence which is very nearly finished.
Early evening I went out into the paddock John is working in and had a look round. We discovered bees in a hollow of the apple tree, these might be bees that have swarmed and set up home here or they may be native bees but they are definitely honey bees 🐝 happy days, hopefully it will start oozing out lol.
We still have no internet and it’s due to be connected tomorrow, the equipment arrived safely yesterday morning due to the fact that our postie knows everyone so well that he delivers it to the named recipient not the address which is just as well. Trying to bounce off the hot spot on my phone is very tiresome I can tell you and I do find the reliance on the internet more than a little disconcerting. As I have written before in previous blogs, an apocalypse (disaster, pandemic) was always on my radar and one of the worst would be if the internet went down, we would be totally screwed I can tell you that so it would be prudent to look at what you use the connection for and always make sure you have an alternative 🙄 That is self reliance 😀 One other way to make sure you stay connected is the telephone line. We have cordless telephone handsets but I always keep a corded set in the cupboard because if we have a power cut we still have a phone, you may think that’s ok I have my mobile but trust me the amount of time I have no battery when the power goes is nobody’s business 😜
Tuesday: Picking produce was this mornings task, more plums, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, dwarf beans, beetroot, turnips, snowball radish and a few potatoes, I am quite literally drowning in veg lol.
1.30pm and I’m sitting down to give my back a rest lol, I have spent all this time prepping nearly everything I picked this morning. Beans, carrots and turnips chopped and open froze, beetroots and radish peeled and chopped for a few days of salad meals and greengage plums stoned and made into jam. Lots of the veg were weighed and bagged up to go out for sale and I still have Victoria plums to make more jam with but not today 😜
After a short rest I went out and cut back one of my two sage bushes, the leaves are now drying in the dehydrator ready for putting in a jar and using over Winter. The other bush I will leave for now and cut it back later in the season and continue to use the fresh leaves when I need to. John came home just as I had finished and put the kettle on, I swear he must hear it being turned on as his timing is impeccable 🤪
Early evening I had a phone call from our neighbour, we have travellers in the area and they have been doing what they usually do and targeting work vans. They tried to break into her husbands van and when challenged by her Hubby the person lunged at him with a screwdriver, threw a walling brick at him (which missed luckily) and jumped into a waiting car which drove off. There is a serious problem here at the moment and it seems the police are not getting on top of it at all, I have seen reports on Facebook all day of people/vans/businesses being hit in broad daylight 🤬
Wednesday: Phone saga: So this morning I had an email to say we were good to go, I checked the phone, dead, I looked at the hub, red light, not good to go 🙄 I phoned them (another hour on the phone) and they said the line is live, no it’s not I told them. Another transfer to a different department and to cut a long story short we now have to wait until August 14th for an engineer to come out, meanwhile they will send me a 4G mini hub so I don’t have to use data on my phone. Well that’s good because I am using it as a hotspot and that is painful as I have said before, 3G is all we get and that drops out pretty frequently 🤪
When I finally got off the phone to them I thought I ought to try and get some work done. I can’t remember what else I did but I did make six more jars of Victoria plum jam 😀
We had to take Benny to the vet early evening, luckily I had got him in at lunchtime and shut him in. We put him into a carrier and set off, 10 minutes down the road the cat pooped, 🤣🤣🤣 OMG it was hilarious, I thought John was going to be sick, he was actually gagging, he pulled a mask out of the side pocket and put it on and then we found a safe place to pull over. John held the cat while I sorted it out and we went on our way. The upshot is that it looks like he has been clipped by a car and it has put his hip out ‘Ouch’ this is going to be expensive 🙄 he has to go back tomorrow for an X-ray and they will decide if he needs surgery (possibly amputation depending on injury) 😏
Thursday: Funny kind of a morning, it’s warm but as I was out picking plums it’s started a fine misty rain and just as I am typing the this the sun is coming out and I think it is going to be hot 🥵 (10 minutes later it has gone back in again)
John did the rounds and then went off to work with Wonky Benny to drop him at the vets this morning, I do hope he doesn’t poo again as John is on his own this time 😂
First jobs on the list were watering the pots, the tunnels and the greenhouse as the forecast is anywhere up to 30c+ over the next few days. Then making sure the animals all have got plenty of fresh water just in case, they have fresh water anyway but we tend to double up when the weather is very warm. After finding food for the torts it was on to a bit of plum picking, if I told you the trees are dripping with plums it would be no lie, it’s a bumper crop this year right across the varieties. The Victoria tree is always abundant, the greengage not so much, except for this year, the damsons, never seen so many on there and the new tree (the variety escapes me) is also loaded and very tasty they are too.
At this time of year my kitchen just isn’t big enough for all the produce I am bringing in on a daily basis and I always have baskets and trays of it stacked in various corners until I can get round to sorting them out. At the minute I have cooking apples to be sorted as well, the ones that are damaged will be peeled and cooked for the freezer and any that are in good condition will be stored out the back. This is when I could do with some cool storage as the back area heats up quickly due to the tin roof out there. It would be nice to have a little brick built store shed or at least a heavily insulated wooden shed, but I like the brick shed idea better 😀
So what am I going to do with all these plums? Good question 😜 some will be frozen for winter puddings, some will be made into more jam I think, always good for presents or exchanges, some will be given away to family and friends and some will be sold in the shed. In the past I have made plum sauce and plum chutney and if I get the enthusiasm I may do some this year.
As if I didn’t have enough to do I have come up with another job lol, I have ordered Almond oil as a carrier which arrived this morning and I am going to infuse it with lavender as a quick way of making it, I haven’t done it before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. You can then add the oil to the bath or use it on your skin.
I harvested some lavender and tied it in bunches to dry on the rack in the kitchen ready to use when it has dried out.
The phone rang and it was John, I figured at 11am it’s not good news and I was right. The vet had called him and Benny’s hip socket was smashed to bits, they couldn’t amputate because they would need to remove too much. The next option was a specialist and even then there was no guarantee he would walk again and so John made the decision to put him to sleep which is exactly what I would have done. The vet said she couldn’t believe he had been walking on it and she had never seen any bone that smashed 🙄 So RIP Benny, I am so very sorry that your wonderful life as our farm cat was cut short and I will miss your very vocal presence. I am done with cats for a while, we still have Diesel (who is getting on in years) but we have been through a few other cats over the last few years, they either get hit by cars or disappear never to be seen again! Molly was the only other cat that saw her last few years out here and died peacefully.
I am waiting patiently for this 4G mini hub to turn up from BT it comes with a sim and unlimited data until the problem is sorted. I have tried uploading last weeks blog but like the photos there is not enough umph to do it.
We went over to Sams late afternoon and took Mia out for ice cream and a play at the park just to give Sam a bit of a break from three children to two 😂
Friday: Today the temps are set to rise well above 30c not hot for some countries but not what we are used to here in the UK 😜 I opened the windows early to let the cool morning air in and then shut them as the sun came round, closing the curtains at the same time to hopefully keep the worst of the heat out 🙄 I was up early and outside picking first thing, marrow, beans, peas, mangetout, carrots, cauliflower and a bucketful of eating apples from a dwarf tree! As soon as the torts were fed I was off inside to start prepping. The veg have all be cleaned chopped and open froze, and the apples have all been wiped over sorted into perfect and blemished piles. The perfects will store nicely for a few weeks and the blemished (which won’t store well) will be either used in chutney etc or fed to the animals as a treat. The marrow I am undecided about, many people eat stuffed marrow, I can’t see the point personally 😂 my Dad always told me to make marrow rum, your pour rum into the marrow, hang it for a few days and then let the liquid out from the bottom, again I can’t see the pint, just drink the rum! I will say that I have never tasted either of these so I may be missing something wonderful but I somehow doubt it 😜 Why grow the marrows you may ask, I had the seeds, it’s as simple as that, and if nothing else the hens will enjoy a good feast on them 😀 They will store for weeks mind you so I may decide to have a go at a curry or even use them in a chutney, I don’t have to decide just yet.
I have just received notice that my 4G mini hub will be delivered today thank goodness, it’s a hub supplied by BT (when you have connection problems 😂) that has a sim and unlimited data (free of course) so I should then be able to upload pictures etc. Last weeks blog randomly uploaded while I was typing this up, I have been trying to upload it for days and gave up in the end 🙄
I made plum chutney, love a bit of chutney in a cheese sandwich 😀 Apparently the temps at Heathrow are already 31c and it’s only lunchtime, however Charlie has just sent me a video as she is on the way home from Devon and it’s pouring with rain, ah gotta love the extremes of our climate, it’s not like it’s a big island in comparison to some but the difference in weather from one end to another is hilarious sometimes 😁 It’s nearly 1pm and still pretty cool in the house hopefully it will stay that way 🙄
Yay the mini hub arrived, very mini, not much bigger than a business card in size I was expecting something bigger lol. I now have full WiFi signal 😀 hopefully I can now upload photos.
Saturday: Set to be very hot today so we were up early to get a bit done first thing, John went off to get a few and al supplies and order some bits of fencing he was short of. In the afternoon we went over to my brothers for the first real birthday BBQ this year. John came back mid evening to put the birds to bed and then came back and we stayed until late evening with the fire pit lit and watching the stars, lovely day. Luckily there was a lot of shade and a good breeze so it was t too u comfortable.
Sunday: A bit late up today lol, 8am which is late for us. After the feeding rounds John cracked on with the last remaining bit of fencing and I went out to pick plums and do a bit of weeding. It was overcast for a good part of the morning and although it was still warm it gave me a chance to get some things done. Mum and Ken came over after lunch to pick some plums , I gave them a bagful of dwarf beans a marrow to go home with as well. It is at that stage where I have so much produce I either don’t know what to do with it all or I am sick of processing it all so start giving it away by the bagful 😜
Monday 12th August: A decent morning considering last nights storms, I helped John do the animals then got on with tidying up the hay bay in the barn. The hay gets everywhere once it’s opened, we have the big round bales, and most of it is now gone but I bagged up the last bits which makes it look tidier. I don’t want to tidy too much as somewhere round there is where the hedgehog is living or at least passes through. In the bay is also a double height rabbit hutch which had fallen apart, it got worse when a hen snuck in there overnight and the fox trashed it getting at her. I have now taken it apart and put it back together, making it stronger as I went and I have a usable hutch again. At the moment I have just put some hay in and left the doors open so that the free roaming hens can lay in there if they wish to and we can actually find the eggs🤞
I have plenty of other jobs to do but feeling a bit tired after those jobs, not a good sign really 😟 I have a few other minor issues I am monitoring at the moment hoping they are all individual things that will clear up one by one, wishful thinking maybe 🤔
Dinner is going in the slow cooker today so that is one less thing to do later on and frees up my day no end 😀
Just lost the electric for a second or two, it happens quite regularly here after heavy rain 🙄
Afternoon chaos with Sam, Shelley and the children lol, the babies are doing well, not even at their due date just yet but putting on the weight well.
Early evening John cleaned out the hens in the side paddock while I got the dinner ready, braised beef, mash and runner beans, followed by rhubarb crumble and ice cream 😀
Tuesday: A lovely sunny morning, the temps are below average and it feels a bit autumnal. I am buzzing today as everything seems to to ready to harvest all at once lol, more runner beans and tomatoes but also plums, pears and apples.
I spent an hour or so picking greengages, got to get them just before they are ripe so that the wasps haven’t had them all, pears, which need picking when they are mature but they don’t ripen on the tree only once picked, tomatoes and beans which are in abundance now and the apples.
Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and we had a glorious time picking eating apples 😀 I didn’t think there were many on the tree, I kept looking at the side by the driveway, but when I went round to the other side my goodness it was loaded 🍎 They are keeper apples so will store well if they last that long lol, as I don’t have any cooking apples I intend to use these instead.
I had a lunch of pasta, feta, freshly picked basil and tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and a twist of black pepper and then sat down to have a look at what kind of recipes I will use the produce for. Though the skins on the pears are not very cosmetically pleasing the flesh underneath will be perfect for freezing, baking, bottling whatever I decide. I have three types of tomatoes, small Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, your average red tomato and a black variety, I can’t remember the name and I have no idea how to tell when it’s ripe lol. I never put my tomatoes in the fridge they taste so much better if they are kept on a sunny windowsill until needed.
I love this time of year and all the possibilities of using the fresh produce, not to mention the amazing smells, I picked some fresh basil popped it into a bag and straight into the freezer for use in the winter months, smells divine.
Tonight we are having chicken and potato bake I think, that will be a new one on John but hopefully he will like it, I will only put parsley on half of it as he does not like parsley 🙄
Lunch finished, sit down finished, now time to process runner beans for the freezer 😜
Usual afternoon routines done and I had intended to go out in the evening and do a bit but I was quite tired so I didn’t 🤪
Wednesday: Oh what a different morning this morning! Pouring down with rain, it’s not cold though and I don’t mind doing the animals in a bit of summer rain. We had planned on an hour round trip to collect a lamb for the freezer but as it happens they were coming out this way and delivered it first thing so that saved us a trip out. We used to do our own lambs but after a terrible year what with one thing and another we gave up and now try to buy from other local producers. I was thinking that I should set up some kind of page for local produce to advertise because although it is shared on the Smallholders site I run, not everyone has access to the page. Primarily it’s for Smallholders to network and not for the general public so how would the public know what produce is available locally unless it is sold at some outlet like a farm shop or local shop, there must be plenty of farm/garden gate sales like ours that locals would use if they knew they were there. I think that is something I will mull over for the next few days and see what I can come up with.
After planting 1000 daffodil bulbs last Autumn I thought I would expand a little and get some tulips to plant this year, not quite as many though, only 125 lol.
The rain is set to be here for the day so the choices are tidy and sort out the office or bake, yep baking it is then 😜 I made, choc chip shortbread biscuits, good old rock cakes, the faithful Marry Berry Orange and Sultana cake and a Gingerbread loaf. I started at 10 and finished washing up at 1pm it’s surprising how long everything takes which is why I police Johns eating of them, they are not McVities 50p a pack biscuits rattled out in a massive factory in 20 seconds flat you know!
Thursday: One of those days when you never quite get on, windy but dry, are we going to just go straight into autumn, it seems these days that we don’t have any gentle ride into the seasons, just boom, Winter, boom Spring, boom Summer and now boom Autumn , we are ver hopeful in the UK that we will get an ‘Indian summer’ well we have been known to have a day or two in the past 😂
Firstly, I did the animals this morning as John and I were mulling over some invoices first thing which made him later than he likes to be. He doesn’t have to be anywhere on time as he is self employed but he had good work ethics and likes to be at a job early.
Animals done I had just made a coffee and someone came to buy point of lay hens, sorted that out and sat down to drink my coffee, almost finished it when someone else came about a cockerel that needs rehoming, we have enough already though so it’s a no from me. Someone else came for veg and eggs but we are all sold out so I shouted a rough time when there will be more available and figured I better get on with some picking. Runner beans, courgettes, beetroot, cucumbers and some purple sprouting broccoli. Not all of that will go out for sale as we will use some things and the girls will have some of it too. I was thinking about what has done well this year, Runner beans, until the wind knocked them over, the French beans, though I should have planted more, cucumbers, they are going strong as are the tomatoes, the courgettes and the spaghetti squash too although they are not ready to harvest yet, I had a few broccoli and cauli, and the broad beans, asparagus and rhubarb did well. What has not done so well, carrots, sporadic, soft fruit, weather related? Peas, hmmm never seem to get those right, globe artichoke, plenty of heads but the plant was too big and went over in the wind, the brassica cage has white fly so that’s no great and a caterpillar or two as well.
Still going strong but yet to harvest much are the peppers, cape gooseberry and melon and one success I am rather chuffed with is the lemon grass, not ready to harvest yet but growing well and some ginger I bought from the shop has sprouted and going strong for the time being, with the latter two it’s always winter that is the tricky part of keeping them going, I’m hoping the new greenhouse will aid that greatly. I had a rogue chickpea plant come up and that has done well in the greenhouse so maybe next year I will try those again.
I am acutely aware that the garden is like a jungle at the moment, I have not had time to keep fully on top of everything and it shows, I got to a point when I thought ‘ah sod it, I will tidy it all up at the end of the year’ I know I was going in for forest gardening but it has got a bit out of hand lol. It looks like a jungle, feels like a jungle and when I can hear the monkeys from the wildlife park down the road, it sounds like a jungle 🤣
Friday: We had broken sleep last night and here is why: John turns the light on in the bedroom and starts getting dressed, what time is it? I say, 1am he replies, what are you doing? I heard a van pulling away from our drive, how do you know it was a van? It sounded sluggish like a van. Now considering the rural crime rate in the Thames Valley is high and at the moment activity just across the border is very active plus we have a big local gypsy fair coming up which always increases the crime rate, it makes sense to be on alert for these things. Can you check the cctv footage he asked, well I can but there is a 15 minute delay between recording and playback so I probably won’t see anything yet, I oblige anyhow and go into the office to look at the footage while John goes outside to check his van and anything else. The cctv as predicted is not available yet and I can’t see any other activity on there, meanwhile John comes back into the kitchen from outside and I go to the kitchen from the office. The first thing I see on the side is 3 bottles of milk and a bottle of orange juice, the milkman, you heard the bloody milkman ffs 🤣 Well at least I heard him John replies, I reply, he has been coming three times a week for the last year!!
Luckily this morning we don’t have to rush around and get to work because we are taking Joshua and Mia to the above mentioned Wildlife Park for the day 😀 Just the big kids to give the Mummies a break and to help the both of them feel grown up now that they have little sisters and brothers that they have to share the attention with, and the fact that it’s school holidays which seem very long to parents and children alike 😜
It’s overcast and just started to rain so not quite sure what kind of a day we will have but we will make the best of it 😀
Well it wasn’t too bad of a day, we got a bit soggy and a bit muddy, a bit tired but a lot happy 😀 Lovely day and the children were super good all day 😘
Saturday: Slightly better weather today although it’s still drizzled a little eventually the sun came out, now all we need it to do is dry up the wet mess the rain has left. John did the animals while I picked veg, I got a soggy pair of gloves and sleeves for my efforts 😜 If it dries up some more I can get on the garden and start tidying up a bit but at the moment it’s too wet. John fixes the pop hole on the duck shed which has been broken for a while and then did the guttering on the greenhouse, that’s the final bit for that and then we need to make tops for the cold frames. I have some cleaning out of cages to do but again I need to wait for the ground to be a little drier, no point traipsing muddy boots in and out 🙄 We have three out of the six turkeys left and they have been good for a week now and looking strong (famous last words) it looks like we have two stags and a hen judging by the tail displays 😀 One of the quail died in the week but I think that has to do with the cold wet weather, they are more exposed here than where they came from, they are laying well though so that’s a bonus.
Sunday: I was well peed off this morning to find that it was raining 😏 I was hoping to get up and get on a little bit and the rain hampered us a little bit not too much. After doing the usual we set about cleaning out the goose hut, putting some cover on the ridge of the quail hut as it’s been letting in rain, pulling up stinging nettles in the orchard and tidying that area, tidying and clearing the orchard pen including dismantling a falling apart hut and lastly but not least cleaning out the turkey pen. The turkeys have just begun to make the distinctive gobbling noise which makes me laugh every time I hear it 😆
John went off mid morning to visit his Mum and I did a bit of tidying of dead and dying stuff on the veg garden and fruit cage. I got stung in places I didn’t know existed by 5ft nettles 🤪
After lunch I did a bit more tidying and clearing before calling it a day, it’s windy and that really gets on my nerves after a while lol.
Charlie and Macca called in for a cuppa and then we went over to visit my brother and his wife and came back with some blackberries 😀
Oh the pullets started laying today as well 😀😀
That’s another week over, thanks for reading, have a good week and I hope the world is kind to you wherever you are 😘
Monday 7th Jan 2019: A whole new year to start planning for 😀and we are already well under way with the plans for the new greenhouse which I am very excited about, I do sometimes think if I had my time all over again I would have liked to work in the walled garden of a big house with a Victorian greenhouse, I’m sure the fantasy far outweighs the reality but there you have it 😜 There is just something about greenhouse work that I love, it’s by far my favourite bit of gardening.
As you know for a large part of last year I wasn’t up to much and John had to take over doing the birds before he went to work, well now I am feeling fit again I have taken the plunge and told him I will do it 🙄 I am going to be knackered by the end of each day I reckon but it’s good to feel well enough to have a go.
Well I managed the morning rounds with ease although John did go out and put all the buckets of feed in position for me bless him 😀 I watched big bird soaring above me for a while until the crows came and saw it off that is.
I put some fresh bedding the the stable for the hens in there, then scrapped and cleaned the pen at the back and put fresh bedding in then indoors to hoover the fire flues and get it lit, hoover the floors generally, give the bathroom a quick clean, strip the bed and wash the covers, hang up previous wash load to dry, wash up the breakfast dishes and sit down with a cuppa for an hour before starting again 😜
The first part of the afternoon rounds begin at about 3 which takes about an hour then just time for a quick cuppa before the night draws in and it’s time to go and shut everything away for the night. I have done lots of other little things in between all this so I am beginning to see why I tie myself up in knots trying to do it all! For instance at this point in the day I have not made any bread and I have not organised any dinner for tonight, and there were a few more jobs on the ‘mental list’ that didn’t get done, ah well, we have to get a bit of shopping tonight so I will buy bread and pick up dinner, I do have something out for tomorrow already so I’m not doing too badly 😀
Tuesday: I had Mia today so apart from the morning rounds and letting the hens out at lunchtime we didn’t do much other than playing, until she became ill that is! I say became ill, I should have known something was amiss as she normally eats for England but not today and she was unusually cuddly, then in the afternoon she started saying her head hurt and her temperature went up ☹️ luckily Sam finished work early and came home to find her baby cuddled in a blanket on the sofa.
I fed the birds and gathered the eggs to put out for sale and then thought about what to have for dinner, I got some chicken out yesterday so John will have that with potatoes and runner beans. I am trying to be good with eating, not on a diet but more mindful so I am stir frying my chicken with garlic, mushrooms, and noodles all tossed in sweet chilli, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and wine vinegar. I made a quick crumble with pears from the freezer and as an added precaution to any illnesses going around some elderberries as well, load it with vitamin c lol, I have no idea what it will taste like, I’ll let you know later 😛
It was yummy totally different but totally yum.
Wednesday: A dance around the Mulberry Bush morning 😀 I am not complaining though as in a month we are off to Norway for a holiday (seemed like a good idea at the time 😂) so we have been out and purchased appropriate clothing, merino base layers, fleece layers and warm coats and boots. Mornings like this give me the ideal opportunity to do a try out and to wear my boots in, everything is very toasty except my face 🙄 not sure what you do about that, I will have to look it up.
Went outside and did a bit of tidying up and putting away, Johns Mums house is up for sale as she has gone into a home and they have been clearing stuff out. There was a lot of gardening stuff which we bought home and needed somewhere to live until I can sort it all out. I did some litter picking around the front of the place, it’s amazing how much gets blown about, I just can’t reach right under the hedge with my litter picker gadget so I need a long pole to oik it out then it will look tidier. It’s is tempting this time of year to start cutting back dead stuff etc, especially now the sun has come out, but I’m resisting so that the beneficial insects still have plenty of places to hide, I guess there will more than enough time once spring gets here 🙄
With my apparent need to tidy I decided to tackle the cupboard under the sink, that dark place where things get shoved, never to see the light of day again lol. It wasn’t too bad and didn’t take as long as I thought it might but I do wonder why I have so many dusters 🥴 and I found things in there that I had bought, forgotten about and bought some more! A large bottle of Castile hand soap, light bulbs that we couldn’t find so had to buy some more, half used rolls of bin liners, you know the kind of things. I have a fair few cupboards like this to tackle, the airing cupboard is so rammed that I dread opening it to get a clean tea towel out, maybe that’s the next one on the list 😜
The snowdrops have made an appearance 😀 always a pleasure to see their little white heads bobbing away, oh and the grass is growing! It’s an oddity in January, I first noticed it at the beginning of the week when I took over doing the birds in the morning. The goose water bucket has little bits of grass in where the geese have been grazing and washed off their beaks in the water, this does not usually occur during the winter months as the grass is not long enough, reading various online posts confirms that others are agreeing, the grass is growing 😜 that’s good news if you have grazing animals but not so good if you have to cut the lawn a lot earlier than normal lol.
Night time rounds done, I reckon it’s gonna be a cold one tonight.
I am going to have a shower tonight, why do you need to know that? Well you don’t really but it’s a change from my usual routine, I have decided if I don’t like something just change it, I always shower in the morning but it’s usually a tad cold as the fire has gone out overnight, so instead of not looking forward to it I’ll change it lol, I did similar this afternoon, the sun, which was lovely, was shinning in and showing the dust so I shut the blinds 😂 small things but they make life more enjoyable.
Thursday: Before I’m even dressed this morning John comes back in from outside to tell me we have lost a chicken to the fox overnight, worryingly this was inside the electric fence. My fault as I shut them away last night and one must have been under the hut but I hold up my hands and say, I didn’t check 🙄
I was scrolling through social media and saw this quote:
‘A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit’ ELTON TRUEBLOOD
It’s appears I have started the journey to discovery 😀 I said to someone one day that I was going to plant Sweet Chestnuts and that they would take at least 60 years to get to full height and spread, what is the point, you won’t get to see it they said, well that is the point, to plant it, enjoy it growing and leave it for someone else to sit under. If everybody thought that first thought we would never have huge beautiful old trees to marvel at and we certainly would not have a few large estates to wander round and admire, after all Capability Brown, and the landowners that paid him were NEVER going to be around to see his amazing landscaping come into it’s full glory. The more I mull it over the more impressed I am with his vision, he must have had an inbuilt CAD going on inside his head.
It’s random thought day today 😝 I have no idea where this came from but I started wondering about the term vegetable, applied to a humans actually, I thought, that term is hardly fair on a vegetable lol then I thought, these days we call it a vegetative state which is more appropriate but not quite:
Definition: A vegetative state is absence of responsiveness and awareness due to overwhelming dysfunction of the cerebral hemispheres, with sufficient sparing of the diencephalon and brain stem to preserve autonomic and motor reflexes and sleep-wake cycles.
Of course that definition strictly applies to the human form, I am certain that a perennial vegetable has an ‘awareness’ and its core workings are not ‘dysfunctional’, they are just doing what they need to do in order to conserve energy and be ready to ‘wake up’ when the conditions are right.
🤣🤣 I told you it was random, just a little insight into what goes on in my head when there is no one about to talk to 😜
I went out to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting and discovered two bodies in the paddock hut, I phoned John to ask if he had looked inside this morning or just opened up without looking, turns out he just opened up, at least this is not a daytime attack then but these poor hens have had their legs chewed off and consequently died. We will now spend the evening moving them to somewhere safer, into a stable, because the fox is getting over the electric fence and he will just keep going until he breaks into the hut. Another thought is that it’s possible I didn’t leave one outside but he has pulled one through the wooden bars from the inside, the huts have narrowed spaced bars so that the poo can fall through onto the ground and then you move the hut to clean ground every now and then, that’s the theory anyway, we tried boarding it out but it’s difficult to clean and ends up in a mess. Back to square one, I have never yet come across a small scale system without problems of one kind or another.
So tonight when John got home from work it was straight outside to make another stable secure and then move 52 hens in the dark once again, these are a different lot, our younger more prolific layer hens, that took us about 2 hrs 🙄 We also set up the wildlife camera to see exactly what is getting in as the rabbiting boys had told us there was a stray ferret in the copse the next field along from us so it could be that and not a fox. The two bodies I had put by the fence had gone by the time we went out to start moving the live hens though and they were big, heavy birds so fox is my first guess.
Friday: My first job this morning is to check the footage on the wildlife camera and yep it’s a fox, yes it’s going over the electric fence which is on the mains so we are going to have to do something about it but for now the hens are safe in the stable block. The second job on my list is to prepare the front drive and paddock as I have someone coming to give the cooking apple tree a good prune, it has got so big and intertwined that it’s difficult to pick the apples now. It’s too big a job for John and I partly because he doesn’t know what he is doing, I do but I can’t do it 😜 so easier to get someone who knows and can do it. I have had to shut the front gate to egg customers so as not to put them or the workers at any risk, I also needed to move some electric fence so that the geese don’t attack the workers lol.
I made bread, it seems like ages since I last did it, then mostly I did bit of paperwork that needed doing or bills that needed paying, the insurance is always due in January 🥴 that’s public liability and product liability as well as all the usual insurance cover. I also ordered some white clover seeds, we have plenty of grass seed left to over-sow the paddocks in March but I wanted to add in clover. We have it growing in the back paddocks both red and white but not in the front and I will plant a patch somewhere to feed the tortoises on, if I can wean them off of their favourite snack of peppers that is 🙄
I am onto a new piece of loofah for washing up, the last bit lasted ages but it’s had its day, if you are trying to reduce man made items then I would recommend swapping your washing up sponge for a piece of loofah they work really well and if I ever manage to grow any you can buy it locally too 😀
It’s lunchtime and the tree pruning is going well they have reduced it hugely, when I look at it now I wonder why we hadn’t had it done before and I am also looking at the other trees that need doing lol, John and I will be able to manage those it’s just that I need that particular tree to continue to be productive whereas the others don’t matter quite as much.
Saturday: Milder than of late so a good day to do a few jobs, John and I had discussed what we wanted to achieve the night before but come morning he had forgotten so instead of getting some temporary fencing up to stop the chickens and ducks wandering next door all the time he went ahead and let them all out meaning that job could not be done 🥴 Onwards and upwards, instead I cleaned out the front hens and the geese while John moved some more manure from the heap to the garden. Then I cleared the bean bed of dead bean stalks and sticks and both John and I (more John it has to be said) barrowed muck to the bed until it was done. Everything seems like flipping hard work lately, not sure if that’s because I haven’t done it for a while or I’m just getting too old for this malarkey! We didn’t do the veg beds last year so they were in dire need of some nourishment but we need to look at ways of making it easier, hopefully everything will romp away in the new season.
We have someone coming to put the base down and build a dwarf wall for the greenhouse next week, I’m looking forward to it getting underway. We went to chose the bricks this morning a nice cream colour that we both instantly agreed on, it’s funny because we are such opposites in so many ways but when it comes to choosing stuff we are exactly the same.
We had two events to go to tonight, one a family birthday, surprise, surprise, we must hold the record for family birthdays I reckon, the second was a BBQ at a house in the village, it may seem like a strange time of year but as long as you wrap up warm it’s good fun, it is still quite mild at the moment so we didn’t feel the cold at all.
We got home about midnight and could hear a fox screaming, we had taken a torch with us in case we decided to walk home, John shone it down the side of the house and there it was, he went up to the back paddock and when he came back he said there were three of them up there 🥴 we are really up against it at the minute.
Sunday: This morning we got the temporary fencing put up that I wanted to do yesterday, it seems to have done the trick especially at keeping the ducks inside the farm boundaries, the hens will probably eventually jump over but for now they are staying put as well. Then we dispatched three of the drakes, we have nine excess drakes altogether and at this time of year they relentlessly hound the females, it can be quite distressing to watch, these were drakes we had hatched out last year and ended up with too many. John then did a few bits of tidying up and wood cutting while I cut out the duck breasts and took off the legs, plucking them without any mechanical aid at this time of year when they are fully feathered with a double layer is a long job so I have just taken the best bits to use. I saved the feet to roast for the dogs to eat and I saved a liver from the last duck, I just forgot to do the other two but duck liver may come in handy for a recipe sometime. We aim to do three more next week and the ladies should be a lot happier, seriously they try to hide in an effort to get away from them lol.
We had an easy afternoon, well you have rest sometime 😋 we have got roast pork in the oven and I really fancied a good old fashioned syrup sponge and custard for pudding.
I forgot to take any photos at all this week 🥴 so here is one from roughly the same time last year of the garden, it looks pretty much the same this year 😋
Monday 27th August, Bank Holiday Monday 😀 only thing is for us it is just another day lol, John has actually gone to work today to catch up with all the plumbing before he has the week off next week when his phoned will be switched off for a fortnight 😜
Dry this morning after yesterday’s downpours, the temps are still fairly low though, it’s all or nothing in a temperate climate like ours, I said to John yesterday wouldn’t it be nice to have steady weather lol.
I must just show you a picture of these, I bought them home from the picnic yesterday, Home made scotch eggs made by my Auntie Louie, I can tell you they are delish, which is why I didn’t hesitate to have the leftovers 😀 One day I will get round to making some and hope they taste this good.
I fed the orchard birds and the rabbits have had hay, apples, pears and plums today, we have started a week of worming the birds in order to get them in top top condition going into the Winter, a fair few of them are in a moult so I need to get a spice mix made up as well to help with recovery. I make my own it’s cheaper than buy special tubs of it, I just buy the ingredients wholesale and mix it all, smells the same and a bit of a treat for them when the weather changes.
Just sat down for a coffee, it’s 11.30, I have been picking and prepping and processing 😀
John has got a one pot chicken dinner for tonight, basically everything goes in the pot at once and cooks in the oven, that’s it very easy and he likes it 😀 veg in there that I picked this morning, carrots, beans, broccoli, potatoes, some leftover chicken from yesterday, stock and cornflour, simple and tasty with all the fresh veg packing in the flavour. Then a jumble crumble, I just invented that, for pudding, which is a mix of blackberry, apples and plums, I was going to have scotch egg and salad but Macca and I ate them this morning 😝 thinking about it they make a very good breakfast on the go, egg, sausage and bread, I really need to get on and make some of these, I want to try them with the quail eggs as a small snack, maybe in the winter when I have more time. It’s surprising how much time everything takes to do, picking, prepping, blanching, freezing, no wonder we love Birds Eye (other frozen brands of veg are available 😆) really they are a working woman’s/mans saving grace and I have watched the process they really are very fresh when frozen, I see no shame in using them.
Tuesday: Dry again, did the orchard lot and a bit of tidying then I thought I better take a look at the mobile coop John is repairing. I did say to him last night that he needed to get it creosoted as time was ticking away and it needs at least a week or so to dry before the hens move in there. Personally I would have creosoted first then done the repairs as time is of the essence but it’s still sat there so I got the brush out and started the job especially in the nest box area. Then Mia arrived and that was the end of that job or any other for that matter lol.
When John came home we spent a couple of hours creosoting the chicken coop, him on the inside and me on the outside 😋
Tonight for dinner we had sea trout with a breadcrumb & pine nut crust which was delish and I take no credit for because Samatha made it before she went home, I need to get the exact ingredients off her so I can make it again.
Wednesday: Small amount of rain over night by the looks of it. Like a lot of people I sit and check my phone first thing in the morning, mostly to make sure there are no urgent messages and the to catch up with any goings on. This morning I had notification through from the neighbourhood watch scheme that another vehicle that was involved in poaching and ramming a game keeper just up the road has been caught and crushed, they caught one last week and they have crushed 5 in 3 weeks linked to rural crimes 😀 That’s a great result because rural crime is endemic round here and most rural areas feel the same I suspect. We are in a particularly affluent area and so it attracts those of a dubious nature from far and wide, and we are always on the alert for ‘strange or unusual’ behaviour. It’s funny how your senses become honed after a while and you can definitely get a feel for something that isn’t quite what it seems, you know instantly when a vehicle pulls in if it is a legitimate customer or not. Sometimes they are lost and that’s fine we can help them with that but sometimes they are up to no good and I have had to deal with this on a few occasions, mostly when you march out there and ask what they are doing they back off quickly, like the time they were rifling though our skip, and sometimes they are more persistent, luckily I had two egg customers with me when one lot were very shifty and not taking no for an answer, eventually we got rid of them, took the number plate and reported it to the police. So remember if you ever pull into a farm/rural gateway/driveway, to use the phone, have a smoke break, change the baby’s nappy (yep we have had that one too) that somebody will be clocking you and taking down your reg number 😋 of course if you are genuine that’s as far as it goes unless it’s a regular occurrence, and if you are not genuine you are probably not reading this anyway 🤪
Did the orchard lot and got a bale of straw from the hay barn to top up all the nest/housing boxes, filled up the rabbit ‘burrow’ etc as the night are getting a little chiller, now I have tiny bits of prickly straw all stuck in my clothing 😝
We have had notification of an increase in feed prices in September then another increase in October 😏 this means we will be putting up the price of the eggs. Demand for feed is going to be high, the yield was lower than usual and most farmers have used their Winter feed already due to the lack of rain and the heatwave over Summer, it is going to have a real knock on effect for food prices, the news said approx £7.50 per month for each household but I think it’s likely to be higher than that in the long run.
When Sam came back from work yesterday we set about taking down the fence at the side of the building and starting to clear the wood that is there. A couple of years ago we started taking down the huge conifers that are just inside the boundary fence, unfortunately we didn’t get round to doing all of them as the ground in front built up with felled limbs, then the grass grew over it all and it was just a mess which is really annoying. So we have begun to clear it, we have someone coming in next week to help John cut up and tidy it up so hopefully we will eventually reach our aim of getting all the trees down and opening up that side of the property to use as the main entrance to the yard at the back. At the moment we use the other driveway which goes right past the back door and curves around the building making it a bit difficult for deliveries such as hay and straw trailers, only taken us about 5 years so far 😝
Thursday: Dry but noticeably fresher, the past few mornings have been slightly warmer than this one however the Sun is already up and doing its thing. Shelley, Josh and Flo are coming over this morning to help with some jobs and I have the ideal one in mind for Josh as he loves to use the broom, the stones all need sweeping back from the drive onto the hardstanding area 😀
A friend dropped off a jar of honey that is produced in the village, so food miles are minimal, well for us not sure how far the bees fly 😜 I couldn’t resist dipping my finger in the jar, oh my, totally delicious 😋
Had a busy day all in all with the hoeing and sweeping and raking and tidying, Shelley picked and processed some runner beans as well and then it was time to go to yet another family birthday 😜 The only thing is at this time of year we always have to leave early (before the cake, much to Johns annoyance) because the chickens have to be shut in before foxy sniffs them out!
Friday: Another lovely early Autumnal morning which turned out to be very warm. Mum came over and set about clearing one side of the poly tunnel, the tomatoes have not been ripening properly and the leaves have gone funny, now I would say it’s blight but these have only ever been watered with mains water so I’m puzzled by that. Anyhow they might as well come out as I have plenty more growing in other places, not least the ‘extra’ plants I shoved in the ground outside which have done better than all the rest! Just goes to show that mollycoddling them isn’t necessary. Meanwhile I did some picking and also cutting back the herbs on the herb bed, later Mum dug up and divided the bee balm, Monarda, and replanted, potting up the other divisions to be planted elsewhere later in the year or maybe in the spring depending on how far I get with things.
Sam and Mia came over in the afternoon and I rested with Mia while Sam did some jobs, then we collected the eggs and did the feeding in the afternoon.
In the evening John and I went to babysit Josh and Florence while Mummy and Daddy went out for a couple of hours.
Saturday: Fresh and sunny this morning, I think it will be another very warm day, did the animals then John went off to sort his Mum out, I need to start getting sorted for our holiday next week as in between that Dad and Sue are coming to stay, they will be staying in Charlie’s room as her and Macca are away in Cyprus for a wedding 😀
I am really looking forward to getting away, more than most holidays in recent years, as soon as we get there it will be ‘and relax’ 🤪
Cut the grass in the driveway and had to wait to cut the lawn as it was pretty sunny out there, when I could do it, it was hard going because the bottom end had got long and thick, it’s the only grass in the place that has grown 😝 John carried on fixing the hen coop ready for delivery of hens next week, had to do some watering as it has got amazingly dry again. I have a resident frog in the big poly tunnel, goodness knows why he has set up in there but he has been there a couple of weeks now. In light of the fact that Mum cleared it yesterday and most of his cover has gone, I filled up a bowl of rain water, put a brick in it and another on the outside, found a piece of slate to cover it put it under the melon foliage and hopefully he will be very happy 😃 great slug eaters so I’m glad he is in there.
I strained the pear and spices in the vodka and now I just have infused alcohol, so I have added sugar and this will now go into a dark cupboard for a couple,e of months, the colour is wonderful, a bit like sherry, can’t wait to try it on a cold night.
Sunday: Another fresh but sunny morning no doubt temps will climb again today, after doing the morning bits and some bits round the house, I am going out for the day 😀 Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire has a Catherine Parr day and I am going with my Mum, Sister and Niece, a rare day off, Johns in charge 😝
We had a lovely very day and I thoroughly recommend a visit if you are in the area. I made a good discovery though as I was beginning to think that all the work here was what was causing problems with my feet and hands but nope, even on a day out without any work my feet/ankles swelled and hurt and my hand, not really sure where that gets me but at least I know and can report this to the consultant next week.
Monday 20th August: I’m thinking that maybe we should have opening times for the egg shed as last night someone arrived at 7.45pm expecting there to still be eggs available!
A dull but warm morning so after the orchard animals were sorted and I went round checking for randomly laid duck eggs I decided to plant the sambucus nigra which is a black elderflower tree, it has beautiful pink flowers in the spring which make pink elderflower champagne 😀 I want to get it in the ground while there is still some growing time to be had, it’s going in the front yard area to cast a bit of shade by the gateway so that I can stand and chat to customers lol. I dug the first spadeful of dirt out and low and behold a chicken appears, they are fast when they think there are worms to be had, sadly this is a hard area and no worms to be seen. I got it the ground and put some rotted muck in the hole to give it a bit of a boost and then cut some mesh to go around the base to stop the chickens scratching up the loose dirt and exposing the roots otherwise it won’t do very well at all.
Next job was to weed killer the ménage as it has got a bit out of control and with it overcast it’s an ideal time, some of the taller weeds I hand pulled, two barrow loads, and as it looked like the sun was going to come out I then got on with spraying the rest. I can’t use the weed burner in there because of the wood chip, it would be a blazing inferno! Would you bloody coco it though, it seemed like the sun was going to come out and then when I had finished (about an hour) it started to drizzle, now, I need about a 2 hour clearance on this so I’m not a happy bunny ☹️ When you want rain, nothing, when you don’t want it……🌧
I have been busy planning what veg to grow over winter, onions, broad beans, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, I think I should put in some more garlic as well, I’m also waiting for some leek plants to arrive but they seem to have disappeared in the post! All I have to do now is decide where I am going to plant all this as I also need to heavily muck the beds to get the best soil I can for next springs plantings.
Then I did a bit of picking, tomatoes, courgettes, more runner beans and some purple French beans (I really need to grow many more of these next year) and half a bucket of elderberries which are beautifully ripe now. I made elderberry syrup with them, for pouring on ice cream or with yoghurt in the mornings, it’s packed with vitamin c and extremely good for you, the syrup can also be used if you have a cough or mixed with a bit of honey as a hot drink for some tlc when you have a cold.
I had a bit of an accident later in the afternoon, when Sam and Mia came over they had picked me some blackberries and so I took Mia out to get some cooking apples off the tree for her to take home for crumble, then when Josh came over I went out with him to get him some apples as well, only this time I failed to see a low (head height) stumpy branch and walked straight into it with a thump, it jarred my neck and put me on the floor 😏
Tuesday: Dull again with that very fine drizzle, almost just a misting really, it was like that yesterday, it couldn’t quite make up its mind what it was going to do. Foraged for the rabbits this morning, a big bucket full of herbs and weeds, some dandelions for the torts along with some fallen apples and a couple of small courgettes. I have watered anything in pots as it is quite dry, I’m contemplating watering the veg later on if the sun comes out as they say it should. Lots of jobs I really should be doing but I’m quite tired even though I only got up a couple of hours ago, it will be interesting to see what the blood results are later this week, I feel like I’m always bordering on getting a cold 😏
I have been constantly looking for something to make another small water garden with and the answer was under my nose all the time, we have some old metal water tanks and one of them by the kennels is no longer connected to any drainpipe so I think I will use that I just need to empty it and drag it into the garden, fill it back up and put some of the pond plants in it, I think it will work fine, if I can summon up some energy I will do it later, It’s mostly to attract insects and increase the diversity in the garden. I might even put some fish in it, I need to measure it and make sure it’s deep enough that it doesn’t freeze in winter though.
In the big raised bed between the poly tunnels I have sown some winter grazing rye, mostly this will be for the rabbits over winter but the roots will stabilise the soil structure and then be dug in as a green manure when the time comes, I have had the packet for a couple of years and never got round to sowing it so hopefully it’s still viable.
I noticed that the dogs are eating the hazelnuts, that fall on the ground much more frequently now, and a quick look on the trees tells me that they are definitely ready which is about 2/3 weeks earlier than normal, it looks like everything is going to come at once now, apples, plums, pears, blackberries and nuts, busy times 😋
Back to the water garden thing and I also realised that I have the perfect opportunity in a tank that is already in the fruit cage so I filled it right up with rainwater and pulled some water plants from the other small pond to transfer over, the pond plants help to keep the water clean and aerated. I will have mini water gardens all over the place at this rate 😀
Shelley, Josh and Florence came over and I had Mia today so we arranged to go blackberry picking along Scrubbs Lane, Shelley and I got a tub full each, Mia and Josh ate every single one they picked 🤣🤣 The plum tree (lovely yellow plums) that is along there is sadly riddled with plum moth this year so we didn’t get any, never mind we will try again next year.
Ooops so I did this thing, I ordered 1000 daffodil bulbs 🤪 guess that’s another job on the list of things to do when they arrive! Next spring however we will be selling bunches of daffs at the gate 😀
Wednesday: A bit cooler today and overcast but just right for me 😀 John did the main feeding etc although I noticed later that he had forgot to let the geese out and turn off the water into the duck pond! I collected rabbit greens and sorted out the orchard birds then Mum arrived to do some gardening, some tidying and some weeding, it’s that time of year when it looks looms a bit scruffy and now it’s looking a lot better 😀 I picked some Victoria plums, on one side of the tree there is no moth that has burrowed in so they are fine, I had the plums picked and made into jam and jarred up in an hour 😀 cant get better than that and it’s a beautiful pink colour, fabulous, I gave Mum a jar in return for her hard work.
Then Mia arrived for the day and she played outside for a bit until she tripped over the hose and hit her face on the wheelbarrow handle ☹️
Out in the evening for curry with my friends.
Thursday: Raining this morning, that’s good because I had started having to water again as it was getting very dry. Spent a couple of hours sorting out insurance and paperwork for our up coming holiday, why does it always take so long, John thinks it’s a 2 minute job! Then did the orchard animals and collected some eggs to put out for sale, I noticed that some of the ducks are growing new wing feathers so hopefully they will come back into lay soon. Out of the 90 hens in the front paddock only around 60 of them are laying at the minute, lots of them are in a moult, that together with the disappearing daylight hours mean egg numbers drop a fair bit but it’s not quite time to put a light in, though we could trial it and see if it helps. I also have wormer ordered and ready to pick up so we will begin a week long dose on Sunday, these hybrids have to kept in tip top condition to perform, just like an F1 car 😜
I picked the apples from my eating apple tree, the wasps have started on them and they are beginning to fall so that tells me they are ready and last year I lost the lot to the birds so I was determined to harvest them this year 🤪 and as they will continue to ripen after picking we are all good, I need to get to the pears as soon as possible too. These are not ‘keeper’ apples so they won’t store all winter but they will last a month in the bottom of the fridge, a bit too many for us so I will be giving some of them to Shelley and Sam for the grandchildren 😀 I also picked a fair few cucumbers, more than I thought were out there, some tomatoes and some French beans which have suddenly decided to kick start production.
Friday: Definite chill in the air this morning though the day itself was not bad. I picked all the pears from my dual pear tree, one side they are fab, the other side they are not so good, scabby and useless, I also picked another load of plums but really need to get some sugar to make jam before they get too ripe. I quickly made a pear and cinnamon cake and then went on a busmans day out with the grandchildren to a farm 😀 While I was there I bought some unhomogenised organic milk and some organic butter, if I get a minute I will try making some cheese with the milk.
Very tired when I got home but I had the afternoon feeding and egg to collect as the egg shed was empty, then as I sit down to type up this and I can hear a bloody mouse or something scratching in the wall cavity. I will either have to set a trap or shut the cat in the back for the night, I really don’t want to use poison because they always choose to die in the wall and then it stinks 😷 besides that it’s not good for the wildlife.
I am aware that I talk about the orchard and the birds/animals in there so I thought I would take some photos from various angles so you can see what it looks like, through the summer it is lovely and shaded, especially useful this summer! The fence along the left hand side in the top pic is the one between the orchard and the paddock and the one I want to plant into an edible hedgeline, so far I have planted a couple of blackcurrants, comfrey, thornless blackberry, feverfew and a dog rose, I have also sprinkled plenty of marigold and love in a mist seeds along there too.
For the first time ever John cooked his own dinner! Now just to clarify he does cook cheese on toast and sausages/bacon and eggs but that’s it, the extent of his culinary talents, so tonight I made him cook his own, from start to finish, peeling the spuds and everything 😜 I didn’t even help him with the timings and voila now he thinks he could manage masterchef 🤣🤣
I found just over half a bottle of vodka in the cupboard and so I figured pear liqueur was a good thing to try, pierce holes in the pear, put in a jar, cover with vodka, add nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and orange peel, leave for two weeks and then add sugar and leave until Christmas time 😀 enjoy on a cold night hopefully 😋
So with all these pears, naturally I have been looking at recipes, one thing I have never tried is canning and I will admit that breaking open a fresh jar of pears in the winter sounds very appealing. Looking at how it’s done it seems simple enough, I’m thinking I can do the water bath method in a large stewing saucepan with a lid, I have a trivet, I just need to dig out my killer jars and I will give it a go even if it’s only a couple of jars. If anyone has experience of canning I would love to hear your tips and methods.
Saturday: After last nights rain it’s sunny this morning but with a chill in the air. Sorted out the orchard lot first and then did some picking as someone requested runner beans yesterday. It’s surprising how long it all takes really and to be fully self sufficient would take an awful lot longer or at the least need two people doing it all, at the minute we kind of muddle through, John doing the maintenance and building runs and coops etc, feeding the birds in the mornings and cleaning out the two main lot of hens weekly, while I do everything else! The list is endless, sowing, growing, hoeing, mowing, watering, harvesting, processing, cooking, cleaning, washing, paperwork, and I have been asked ‘what do you find to do all day’! Well in order to make the most of everything it takes time, effort, perseverance and determination, one day I will write a comprehensive list of everything 🤪 in the meantime that’s what the blog is for, so I can keep a check on what I have done.
The cats have been acting very strangely of late, constantly following us around and meowing, even the pizza delivery guy (wrong address it was for next door) said ‘I think there is something wrong with your cat’ well no, there is nothing wrong with him, he is just weird at the moment, I wormed and flead them just in case, the full moon probably has something to do with it, but they have become a bit needy and follow you round like a dog. John did shut Diesel in the back area last night in the hopes that he will catch whatever it was in the wall, one good thing about him being under your feet, you don’t have to go searching 😀
We sold out of eggs within an hour yesterday afternoon so consequently there is a delay this morning until the girls get going again, I hate it when customers come and there are no eggs but there is not much I can do about it, one customer has asked for more plum jam but I need to pick the rest of the plums first and I need a bigger ladder and preferably another person there, John has had to go to work this morning and also do his Mums breakfast and her shopping first thing so hopefully we can pick them this afternoon.
I have a mother load of pears, some small but most are of a good size, so in the oven at the moment on a low temp are two trays of pear crisps, never done them before so I will be interesting to see how they turn out. I’m hoping the grandchildren will like them, Mia’s first words when she gets here are always ‘I very ‘ungry’ meaning she wants a biscuit 😜 o hopefully they will be a good substitute.
The basil needed picking and so I made some pesto, a small jar for the fridge to be used within a couple of days and then a small tub for the freezer which can be used anytime I need some. Basil smells amazing, it’s one of the best smells I think. The older leaves and stalks I have to the rabbits who have had a good mix of willow and herbs today.
The pear crisps turned out ok, they got the thumbs up from Macca at any rate 😀 I will try them on the grandchildren and they may become a regular thing, great for snacking on.
John helped to pick the rest of the plums and I managed to get the last 4 bags of preserving sugar on the shelf when I went shopping so plum jam is on the to do list.
Sunday: Wet today! We picked around 4kg of plums yesterday taking the final amount to around 6kg from the one tree😀 so this morning I have mostly been processing plums, 3kg of plum jam a jar of plum sauce (plums, onion, garlic, vinegar, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and star anise (take that out before bottling) purée, re heat and bottle) and cooked down some with sugar for the freezer ready for crumbles in the winter.
This afternoon we are on a whole family picnic 😝 only it’s wet but we have booked a hall (there are a lot of us) in the event of wet weather so that’s good or it would be if I hadn’t decided to take bbq food and a disposable bbq, now I’m a bit stuffed with what to do lol. I needn’t have worried there was enough food to feed an army 🤣 fabulous afternoon had by young and old alike.
Have a fabulous week people x
frieslandfarm (flowers) 