Tag: chickens

Posted in Friesland Farm

Micro veg masterclass, pricking out & the first crop harvests of the year.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 15th March 2021: It’s Florence’s 3rd birthday today 😀 it is such a terrible shame that we have not been able to spend the time with all our grandchildren the way we would want to 😞 hopefully this coming summer we can make up for lost, precious time.

March 15th is synonymous with ‘beware the ides of March’ the warning given to Julius Caesar before he was assassinated on that very day but did you know there is an ides of every month. It is the full moon of the month and in other months falls between the 13th and the 15th, it was also the deadline for settling your monthly debts. So it was a dark and gloomy day for Caesar and anyone who owed anything but not so much these days, we can overlook any foreboding I think 🤔 🤞😂

The weather is not too bad this morning, we had heavy rain during the last evening but the sun is out this morning though the cold wind is still here, it has abated a little today mind you so that’s good. John did the animals and went to work, I did some housework bits and my plan is to go into the greenhouse and sow some flower seeds this morning. It should be nice in there, out of any wind and warmed a little from the sunshine. As with the vegetable seeds I seem to have amassed a lot of flower seeds too, I might as well sow them and either sell them or use them where I can. My favourite time of the gardening year is seed sowing I think, like Christmas Eve it’s the anticipation of wonderful things to come. Once everything has grown it gets a bit manic planting it all and then tending it all so seed sowing is the calm before the storm 😜

I did sew a few seeds, some more broad beans some of which will go out for sale when the plants are big enough and then some flower seeds. I need to sow flowers that don’t need the extra heat at the minute because I need the propagators for the tomatoes and peppers etc. But I did sow some orange poppies, cornflower, red flax and some sweet rocket. I have moved some of the plants that are growing nicely outside to the cold frames, lupins, some cuttings of hardier plants and some broad beans that are already a good size, these will all harden off, which basically means get used to the outside temperatures, before planting. There wasn’t as much to do as I thought I could because the timing is still not quite right for a lot of things. The tomato plants, although some of them have their true leaves, can do with a few more days before pricking them out and moving them to the bigger propagator, the same applies to the peppers and chilli plants. I have got some flower plants to pot on and after a coffee I may well do that job, first I had to replenish the egg shed. I rarely see customers arriving unless I am out there and then I go to the shed and it’s nearly empty 🙄 I forgot to get some garden canes at the garden centre so I have ordered some online, I have seen a good set up for growing peas that I want to try. Peas grow pretty straggly unless you are constantly moving the growth to where you want it to go. This neat little system also allows easy access, well easier than I ever make it anyway, in my mind it will work well, we shall see. The cardboard hack I am impressed with, that works a treat, definitely a keeper, if you are sowing rows straight into the ground you can use lengths of wood which work the same way. I do still have to work out where everything is going to go this year which is not something I have put very much thought into yet, I need to get my skates on with that one. The notebook that shelley bought me I am going to use to write down all the things I want to do with the produce this year, I often have ideas but then forget all about them and then think, oh I was going to do that. So far in the book is mint jelly and drying more herbs, I am sure I will think of plenty of other things along the way.

I did go back out to the greenhouse, I got the bigger propagator in place and then pricked out the tomato seedlings and the jalapeños, the pepper are a little too small at the minute. Once I had a bit of space in the smaller propagator I sowed some outdoor cucumber seeds. I also potted on a couple of the outdoor plants I have left over from planting the beds up and watered the seedling in the poly tunnels that I sowed last week, the spinach is already coming up. I am not sure if I just don’t have the energy today or if I feel the weather in not ideal for working out in the open but I have no inclination to do anything on the beds at the minute 🤷‍♀️

Remember the little red areas I said I have on my finger tips and around the nail bed, well a discussion with my Mum leads me to believe they may be chilblains. I never knew you could get them on your fingers as well but yes that is what they look like so I will look after my hands accordingly and see if they go.

Tuesday: The sun was out for a bit this morning, the wind has dropped and so it felt pleasant enough, when the sun disappears behind cloud it is obviously not so warm but still warmer than it has been in that cold wind.

John had a text from the local surgery offering a vaccine so he has taken that offer as it is for tomorrow and will cancel the one next week on he other side of Oxford, he was t really looking forward to driving back from there after he had it, this is five minutes from home rather than an hour round trip.

The micro veg on the windowsill didn’t go very well but I think I have learnt a bit from doing it. The lettuce seed was too sparsely sown and the peas kept drying out consequently I kept giving the peas water which was soaking up into the compost do the lettuce. The compost got too wet and in the end so did the pea seeds and although some of them grew, some went mouldy. Back to trying to get a balance, keeping different types of seeds in different trays is what I have learned I need to do. I have found a supplier of bigger quantities of seeds and have ordered some more and will keep trying until I can get somewhere near the desired result. You think it would be easy enough but I think there are things like ratio of compost to seeds and then watering techniques to take into account to get a good even growth rate.

I watched an hour long masterclass on micro greens and what I had thought I had done wrong was exactly what I had, plus I picked up a few other tips including this new (to me at any rate) idea of excluding light initially. So now I have set up another tray as per the video and I will monitor it to see how it goes. I had about five packets of half used sprouting broccoli so I have used those seeds for the trial. They are one of the most nutritious micro greens you can have and growing brassica to their full size takes up a lot of room and they have a lot of pest problems so if I can successfully grow them like this it’s a win, win situationist reckon. I have bought them in onto the kitchen window sill which is not necessary it it means I can monitor them more easily and a daily basis. Looking at the lists of micro greens most of them don’t need any extra heat which is a bonus, they are all crops that would normally grow without being under cover. There are so many types you can grow, turnip, beetroot, brassica, chives, nasturtiums, sunflower, peas and of course various lettuce, a whole lot more besides. One of the best things is the tiny amount of space you need to grow a good crop of nutritious greens, a small area of sideboard space and you are away. If you wanted to do it a little more seriously, a small shed so that you could keep them growing on rotation and a cheap led light would be all you needed I think.

I ordered some larger quantities of seed yesterday but looking at the array of micro greens you can grow is quite exciting really, it difficult not to get carried away, first steps first, let’s see how well this trial goes. It will be up to 10 days before I can harvest it but that is insane compared to how long you wait for your big veg to grow. I can see it is definitely the way forward to feeding ever increasing populations, plus as you will probably have seen, they can be grown in disused underground areas but for me there is nothing better than traditional veg gardening, outside in the fresh air, a bit of hard graft now and again and nature all around 🥰

I will just add to what I have learnt this morning, there are a couple of ways to grow micro veg, one way is without soil at all, actually three ways that I can think of. Hydroponically, that is with a pumped water system, they usually use fish in the water as well for cleaning and nutrients, the roots grow in water not soil, that tends to be a larger system than most people have room for. Then there is a soil based system like I am trying, which I prefer, and finally the sprouting type system. Probably twenty years ago or more it became trendy to sprout seeds of all types, a jar or special unit was used and the same principles are applied to the micro veg except that you allow the seedling to grow a lot bigger. Sprouting is exactly that it is the tiny shoot from the seed and you eat the whole lot. Two problems I found with this, one, that you have to remember every day to wash the seeds so that you don’t get a build up of pathogens in the water turning it sour and two which is relevant to me and my disease is that I can’t have Alfa Alfa which is one of the most popular sproutings, it increases inflamation. In a slight twist it’s one of the reasons that John mainly does the morning feeding, the chicken feed contains Alfa Alfa and does give off dust so the more I avoid it the better.

Rubbish micro veg beginner method, then after a masterclass a much better result. I will keep you posted on the process but as you can see after only a few days the seeds are sprouting.

I did go back into the greenhouse (because it’s such a nice day) and sowed some more flower seeds and a couple of small trays for micro greens, garlic chives as I already had them.

I had a few invoices to do for John and get those sent off and tidy up some old files on the laptop which I rarely use any more (the files and the laptop)

John came home just after lunch and we had a new batch of POL delivered at 2pm luckily no one is collecting any today so we went off to get a bit of food shopping. I have said it before but I am not sure how ‘we don’t need much’ transfers to a small trolley full 😂 I guess it’s mostly perishables and then things to stock up on plus we seem to buy a lot of cat milk 😜 Back home and I unpack everything while John goes and does the afternoon rounds, we had already lit the Rayburn before we went out. It is getting to that time of year when it can be warmer outside than in especially if the sun is out.

Wednesday: Not sunny, not raining, not windy and not cold, whoop lovely day for working outside which is exactly what I have been doing. John did the morning rounds and went off to work, I went out and put in clean bedding for the geese, ducks and the chickens in the stables plus topped up the grit and oyster shell. Then on to getting the Guineas some fresh greens, it’s a bit sparse at the minute but I found some sorrel, chard and dandelions plus some hazel twigs so they were happy. Someone came to pick up some point of lay hens. Then onto gardening which I spent the rest of the time doing. First off we have an area that is umm difficult shall we say, it is a triangle in the front but over the year everything had been put there, hard core, gravel, wood chip, if it got delivered that’s where it went and so digging plants in is difficult. Not to be deterred I got the shovel and moved stones and hardcore out and managed to plant the things I was hoping to plant. A forsythia, a buddliea, some ornamental grasses and a few other bits that look dead so I can’t actually remember what they are 🙄 This is not a formal bed and the intention is for it to look a bit wild. Then onto the other garden and I have lots of things that have self set so I have been digging them up and either transplanting them to the beds or potting them up for selling later in the spring. A couple of plants that have got big I have dug up and divided, they will also be put out for sale unless I need to fill a space. I took down the arch area that I put up last year, the metal arches have broken in so many places it’s not worth trying to cobble them back together. I was delighted to see that the mini kiwi is still alive though and have put an ornamental metal trellis there for it to grow up this year, hopefully we can get something else in place by the time it gets bigger. Plenty of weeding and hoeing got done and so I am happy with progress today 😀 A quick sit down mid afternoon

John will be home late afternoon as he has his vaccination today 😀 and I have two more lots of people coming for hens at some point.

I lit the Rayburn, John came home, he did the egg rounds and then went off to get his vaccine. He had the AstraZeneca, although there is controversy in some countries he said he places his faith in the science not the politicians lol, my brother noted that with the numbers vaccinated and the numbers affected by blood clots the chance is 0.0000005% chance of an issue, so the chance of getting covid is far, far greater 🙄 Just after he arrived home the next lot of people came for their new hens and then we just about managed to get a cup of tea before the next lot came for theirs. We still have 14 left to sell, this time last year they would have been sold just like that, I think we sold around 250 hens possibly more I haven’t done the books yet and so haven’t totted it up. Then it was time for some dinner and a restful evening, fingers crossed John doesn’t have any side affects.

Thursday: Up and about early this morning, John did the rounds while I did the inside jobs and then it was off for the first appointment of the day to get my bloods done. Grabbed a takeaway coffee on the way back and on with the rest of the day. Most of the day, until mid afternoon, I spent pottering in the polytunnel and greenhouse. I had some bits to tidy up and sort out in the tunnel, pots with things that had died in them and pull up the radicchio. I tasted it but I don’t like it, it’s too bitter for me and so I gave it to the Guineas, the space is now being used for a big water butt that I will fill from the tap to water any seedlings in there. In the greenhouse I have sown some basil seeds and utilised a rack unit to place over the top of the propagator so that any rising warmth will benefit the plants above it. I picked the first crop of the year, the forced rhubarb, a bunch I put out for sale and some I will stew down with some honey and have that with custard for my pudding later 💕

I know I keep banging on about it but I can’t tell how impressed I am with using this cardboard technique, seriously, the germination rate is nearly 100%, compare that to sporadic germination of around 70% of previous years and you can see why I am cock a hoop with it 😂

Seedlings grown under the cardboard, I took the cardboard off the beetroot on the left yesterday and the night scented stock this morning, tomorrow the stock will be upright and have colour now they are able to photosynthesise.

I was struggling to upload photos to the blog, for the last ten years I have been using the free site, in order to continue being able to have photographic content and not have to delete previous photos, I have had to start paying to use the WordPress site 😂 At the moment I have not engaged with any advertising or traffic payment but I may do that in the future to cover costs, I am loathe to as I personally find it really annoying to have pop up ads everywhere. I may try it and then undo it depending on the annoyance 😜 The blog will now appear under a new domain name of http://www.frieslandfarm.com instead of the WordPress appendage. I do have another website but I rarely use it and so I think I will close that one down and use this one instead.

Apologies if in previous blogs any pictures did not appear.

Friday: Fairly non weather again, to be honest I was expecting a plunge in temps but that seems to have changed which is great. I spent a large part of the morning doing some paperwork, it’s the time of year for renewals, cancellations, updates, mot, tax etc etc, all costly of course 😜 Towards midday I went into the greenhouse and spent an hour pricking out seedlings, dill and coriander. Dill is not something I have used much until last year when I discovered how tasty it is, I even dried some for use over winter.

I have two electric propagators on at the minute and I am thinking I need a third one 😜 I really want to get off to a flying start and quite a few things that could be started early need the heat. We don’t have constant temperatures indoors so another propagator seems the ideal solution. Any plants that get too much for the greenhouse can be transferred to the polytunnel to wait until planting time so I have the space to move them on, maybe I should just do it instead of thinking about it 😂

Tonight sees the long awaited return of Gardeners World and the soothing tones of Monty Don telling us what we should be doing at the weekend, always my favourite bit 😀 I have still been listening to podcasts on and off, mostly garden or environment related, I was astounded to find out that mowing the lawn with a petrol mower for an hour relates to driving 100 miles in carbon emissions, that is a shocking statistic 😱 If we had an electric point out there I would definitely change to an electric mower.

I couldn’t find the motivation to get stuck into anything much in the afternoon, consequently I felt the cold and so I lit the Rayburn early afternoon. I will probably have a busy weekend so I guess a gentle afternoon is allowed. Thought I didn’t do anything physical my mind is constantly whirring, all kinds of things rattling around, things I want to get done when the weather is slightly warmer, this to sow, plant, things I want to do with the harvests I hopefully get, yep plenty going on in my head 😂

At some point though the dates escape me, we will be allowed a little more freedom to see people which will be fabulous, as I say we have booked our spa stay and we have discussed a holiday which we can hopefully book first thing Monday morning. It is exciting to think we may leave the shire in the not too distant future, I can’t wait for some r & r or even just to sit down in a cafe for coffee would be nice.

Another exciting time on the distant horizon is 2022, from a genealogy point of view anyway, it’s the date the 1921 census information gets released. That will mean that I will be able to look up information on my grandparents and build a better picture of where they lived. Back to the now and we have the census this Sunday March 21st, do fill it in won’t you, it makes life so much easier for descendants who are researching you 😂

Saturday: Another non weather day, would have been nice to see the sun though. After the animals were done, John got the water taps sorted out, they get turned off over winter as they freeze and burst otherwise. We may have to watcher the forecast in case the temps dip below freezing but hopefully we should be fine now. After that I wanted him to sort out the runner bean frame, last year he put it up but not quite how I wanted it and consequently it didn’t work as well as it should have 🙄 now he has altered it to the way I wanted it in the first place. Meanwhile I laced back together any holes in the fruit cage netting and some other things though I can’t remember what now 😂 Mid morning someone bought us a shed that was going to be burnt but luckily they recognised it was too good for that. It is almost like new and so we will use it here for something no doubt, love a free shed 😀 John felt tired in the afternoon so he had a rest while I carried on pottering out side. This time of year it’s all about getting reading for the season ahead and so I have put in rows of canes and string for the peas and sat and had a look at the garden to see where everything is going to go. I remember what else I did earlier, I picked more rhubarb and some purple sprouting, the first picking of that.

And today I took the cover off of the micro veg and they now look like this:

Good germination over all, no damping off as yet, I will take photos every couple of days to compare the change but it seems like a successful trial, all I need to do now is sow some more so that I have a continuous supply.

Came in mid afternoon to light the Rayburn, John did the egg rounds, got some wood in, sorted out the rain tank tap and then had to shoot out to a call out.

I had a wander round the front paddock this morning, the hens will be allowed back out on April 1st so I thought I would just check it over. I was delighted to see the wild garlic leaves have made an appearance, I will wait until they get a little bigger and maybe pick a few for a salad one evening.

Sunday: Weather is the same, occasional peek from the sun but not much. Did the usual bits and pieces, went to get some food shopping. In the afternoon I did some weeding a bit of planting and sowed some leek seeds in the greenhouse but apart from that not a lot else really.

One more week finished and one more week nearer to some kind of freedom albeit small, at least the weather should keep improving. We aim to book a holiday tomorrow morning, that’s if the web site doesn’t go down with all the traffic 😂 fingers crossed because it would be nice to have a holiday to look forward too x

Have a good week 👋

Posted in Friesland Farm

Weeding, tidying, plenty to do.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday March 1st 2021: An altogether different day today, the heat and the sun have disappeared and it is quite a bit colder, the sun came out in the afternoon but there is still a distinct chill in the air. February has been a crazy month weatherwise, we have gone from days and days of below zero, to a lot of rain and then at the end highs of around 15c with plenty of warmth. We don’t know if we are coming or going 😂 the last four days are what is known as a fools spring, we were looking forward to more sunshine and heat but wham it’s gone just like that.

Although there are things to be done out in the garden I really wanted to get some of the Lino prints that have been ordered done and a few more to put out for sale. So that’s what I did for the first part of the morning, Sam phoned to see if I could mind the twins while she went and got her food shop, that’s what I did for the second part of the morning, the wheels on the bus and round and round the garden mostly 😜

John came home around 1pm he had a dentist appointment to go to, lunch for me around 2pm after I had checked the egg shed and done a few bits and pieces.

Just after 2, as the sun was shining, I decided to do an hours weeding, a wise man once said to me, do a little bit every day and it will soon be done, actually it was my brother in law but still very wise words and I always think of him saying it when I chose that mantra. When I came in it was 4pm! It was so pleasant out there that I had got lost in time and thought 😀 I did a couple of other things out there as well such as moving some small clumps of ‘Johnny Jump Up’ which are viola, they had self set around the veg garden so I might as well use them in the front beds they will make good ground cover. I also checked the seedlings in the greenhouse, it was lovely and warm in there, the shinny backing I have used is working well as the seedlings are not leggy nor are they leaning for light. I checked the sprouting broccoli, remember I couldn’t actually recall what it was just that it was tall, well it’s purple sprouting and there are a few little heads beginning to appear. I sowed some seeds straight onto the ground in the tortoise pen, this is specific tortoise food, fingers crossed it grows.

By the time I came in I thought I better get the Rayburn lit and think about what we would have for dinner. John had gone to do an outside tap after his dentist appointment but he arrived home not long after I lit the fire, he went out and did the feeding and egg collecting.

Tuesday: Much colder today and not much hope of it warming up either, grey and overcast. John did the birds before going off to work, I did my jobs and then set about mounting the Lino prints I did yesterday, I put them out for sale, if they are not out there I will never know if anyone wants them or not lol. I have never really been one for ‘stepping out of the shadow’ is how I think of it, I would never push myself forward or raise my head above the parapet not unless I am 100% sure about whatever it is, then and only then I will. But as I get older I tend to think ‘f**k it’ what have I got to lose 😜 I think that is one of the pleasures of getting older, you give less of a damn about what anyone else thinks about what you do 😂

I feel like I have had a good day today and I wasn’t even expecting to 😀 As I said it was pretty cold this morning but around 11 I thought I would go out and do a few things that needed doing. The drops arrived for the Guineas, I managed to catch two of them and get them done but the third is elusive and I need John to help me corner him, no point only doing the two. Then I figured I would do a little bit of weeding/clearing and ended up doing that until 4 o clock. The sun made an appearance mid afternoon and it was rather too nice to give up so I carried on. I also checked the torts, we have legs out and movement when I touched them so that is good news, they have made it through the winter, they just need to warm up now before they start moving around, it will be a while before they go outside mind you. I have dug up and split plants that need moving, now is a great time to divide clumps of plants and re plant them where you want them, I have potted up several thornless blackberries that have rooted themselves, I have sown some rocket and baby spinach seeds in the small tunnel as a quick crop, yep I have had a lovely, productive day. Time to come in and do the house jobs, such as light the Rayburn, sort out washing, hang it to dry over night, dry up etc etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do only what you wanted to do rather than what you have to do 😜

Just a recap of what I have sown so far this year for anyone wanting to get going and not really sure when to do that. All seeds so far have been grown under cover of poly tunnel or greenhouse because I have found that my particular plot is around 2/3 weeks behind usual sowing times, this is due to the slight incline that faces west, as our winds are mainly westerlies this causes a chill area 🙄 Peas and broad beans sown in the greenhouse, the peas are in root trainer pots and the broad beans in seed tray inserts, I think they are about 2” inch square something like that. I have sown rocket and spinach in the poly tunnel straight on top of the soil, in this case in old recycling boxes. I have potatoes chitting in a dark box ready to plant out, traditionally that would be good Friday but a lot depends on the temperatures around that time as easter is early this year, if it’s cold I will leave it another couple of weeks. I have tomatoes, chilli and pepper seeds in the greenhouse inside a heated propagator, they need that warmth for quite a while so having a bigger propagator to move them to is also needed. I have dill, garlic chives and coriander in trays in the greenhouse with no heat, again because my plot is too cold and wet for them to be sown straight into the ground at this time of year. I have a good deal more to get sown but I also have plenty of preparation to do in the garden as well so it’s a case of weighing up what needs doing first and generally seeds will catch up easily even if they are sown late.

Wednesday: Grey, foggy, a bit on the cold side this morning but you never know it may burn off and be nice at some point. I have been out to do the egg shed and collect the milk and the sparrows are using the new nesting flats 😀 I was a bit worried they would be too upmarket for them but it seems not. They have also been investigating the old boxes which I have placed in various other places in the front area, I didn’t want to waste them but they were a bit tatty to go on the new house front.

Today is a day that is necessary but not nice lol, septic tank emptying day. I did learn the lesson in the first year, do not have it emptied when it is likely to be a hot day, the stench hangs around both inside and out for a couple of days 😂 A cool day in early Spring is a much better time of year to have it done 😜 Still, keep all windows and doors shut ☑️

The wagon came just after lunch (luckily 😜) and there is a lingering whiff but not too bad 😂

As it was a tad cold out I decided this morning I would take a look through the photos that I need to get sorted. We had some from when Johns Mum died and then some from when Dad died, some from an older relative a few years ago and plenty that were already here but stuffed in various places while we got the office sorted. Now it’s done I need to get them in some kind of order along with the bits and pieces of ancestry stuff. I also thought it might be a good idea to write the names on the backs of photos because although we may know who they are now, future generations probably won’t and that information is lost forever. I have plenty of photos of great Aunts and Uncles but on some of them I am not 100% sure who is who 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: Dank, is the way to describe the weather today 😜 I spent the first couple of hours trying to upload the photos for the mid week surprise, doing jobs inbetween, seemed to take forever. Then it was on with the rest of the day. The first main job was a dangerous one, retrieve the eggs from the goose nest 🙄 I went up to see if they were all out but one was still on the nest so I left it until later. Instead I decided to clean the inside windows of the greenhouse and give the top shelves a clean and tidy up. It is a delicate balance at this time of year because there are lacewings and ladybirds overwintering in the nooks and crannies but there are also other insects you don’t really want hanging around such as wood louse, slugs, greenfly etc. I moved everything and gave the windows a clean, checked the heat mat as I thought it wasn’t working but it’s fine, watered anything that needed watering, sowed a few more pea seeds all while listening to Radio 4 😀 There was an interesting section about bread and how for centuries the whiter your bread the higher ranking in society you were, of course the whiter they made it, the less nutritious it became and the poor were left with the wholemeal bread which was obviously not as good 🤣 oh how times have changed. Once I had finished all the intended jobs I began to ‘faff’ a sure sign that what I was trying to do was not the right time to be doing it, luckily I recognised that behaviour and left the greenhouse 😀 Back to the dangerous job, the geese’s were all now out in the paddock grazing, good that means I can nip in and collect the eggs but this comes with the aforementioned danger element. The gander, quite rightly, is there to protect his ladies and their eggs but he has missed the memo regarding the fact that I feed, water and clean them as well as give them a lovely place to live and so those eggs are mine 😝 At the moment he is merely in the warning phase, he makes a run for you but not with any great intent, as the season goes on and his ladies decide they may like to sit he will become pretty aggressive and when he comes at you then he means every bit of it!For now a little bit of extra scratch corn and a stick with a piece of flapping bag on it keeps him at bay and he wanders back to the corn, another month and we probably won’t be gathering eggs any more, life is too precious 😂

After putting the goose eggs out for sale I went back to the POL pen where our ladies are still being held captive due to avian flu. I shovelled up buckets of deposited poop and dug over the soil area which had become wet and horrible due to the water being left on by John. There was much drier soil underneath and the hens will have a great afternoon scratching about to find any insects and seeds, back in for lunch, is it only lunchtime 😆

John came home just after lunch, that’s the nature of his work at the minute, bitty so I never know when he will be here, he was planning on staying but he had been waiting for the electrician to be able to fit in a socket on the job he did this week and he called and was available so off John went. He did get the flue swept when he first came back though which is good as it was getting a bit sooty. He has estimated we have about a months worth of wood left so we are hoping it has warmed up enough by then to stop lighting the Rayburn. That will be the end of an era here, I will be a little bit sad not to have that comfortable heat from it but I will be a lot happier not to have to do my Cinderella duties day in and day out 😝

I took a bit of time out to watch a few you tube videos on gardening hacks, a good one to watch is Huw Richards he has some really good hacks a couple of which I will be trying this year. Another good gardening you tuber is Liz Zorab, I have been following her since she started really as she was already on one of the groups I am in, she has built up a steady following and has just published her first book called Grounded. Both are experienced vegetable gardeners if you are looking for hints and tips. You are never too old to learn and I always say every day is a school day, the hack of placing a plank or cardboard over your seedlings until they emerge is one I will definitely try and the other is growing potatoes in a different medium. Basically you put the potatoes in soil but instead of using more and more soil to Earth up you use hay, straw, wood chip etc. As I am going to use pallet collars this year I was thinking it is going to take a lot of compost but if I use hay or straw that will be a whole lot easier and cheaper plus the potatoes will be lovely and clean when harvested.

Friday: Cold and grey but dry at least. John is off today and so he says ‘I am all yours, what jobs do you want doing?’ I start talking about how I want to get the garden cleared a bit and sort out the compost heaps, I just have to go and get feed first he says, and I have to sort out the van first. So that is half an hour sorting out the van, and hour round trip to get feed and half an hour unloading, half an hour for a coffee when he has finished that, that’s two and half hours down already and he will probably get a phone call at some point and have to go out to work. He wonders why I never bother relying on him to help me with what I have to do, sometimes I would rather he didn’t ask in the first place 🤦‍♀️

We did get some work done on the compost heap but not quite as much as I would have liked but there is always tomorrow. To be honest when I first went outside to get some work done it was so cold that my fingers and toes hurt so I came back in until it warmed up a little. I did sowed a tray of beetroot seeds, the nice striped ones, and I have trialled this covering with cardboard hack to see how well that works. The idea is that you dampen the compost, sow the seeds and then cover with cardboard, this stops the compost drying out so no more watering is needed until the seedlings appear, I am intrigued to see how well it works. While John was digging the compost heap over I was weeding one of the other beds, I am getting there slowly, I just have one and a half more beds to do and then they are ready for whatever I decided to put in them. I needed to top dress the asparagus as they will be one of the first veg to harvest, sprouting broccoli, rhubarb and asparagus are the first three treats to look forward too. This year I have forced some of the rhubarb and that is looking like it’s nearly ready to pick 😀

I have a little light reading to do ‘The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments’ 🤣 which is about how to achieve greater biological activity and mineral availability, increase resistance, yields and nutrient density 🙄 I do believe that every day is a school day and there is always more to learn, I will let you know how it goes.

Today is the last day that parents are having to home school, I know from watching my children with their children that it has been hard work, rewarding at times and fun but also stressful, fractious and emotional at times, well done, you did it, you should be very proud of yourselves it was a big ask 🥰 I imagine the whoops of joy on Monday morning will be very audible all over the shires 😂

Saturday: Busy, busy day, it will make up for all those days when I wasn’t busy 😂 First I started off digging up some deep rooted weeds and comfrey which seems to have spread itself everywhere. John was busy riddling the compost heap and tidying that up, then he went off to take a card to his brother for his birthday and onto a small call out job. I got tired of digging up weeds so I decided to give the outside of the greenhouse a wash. I have an organic algae wash, I found the bucket and the extendable brush and got to work on that, next clean out the gutters and then onto the cold frames, clean the tops and clean inside, move all the plants over so that next time it rains they get a watering. John came back and we attempted to lift the water butt which had fallen over sometime during the winter, it was wedged and still full of water so a heavy tricky job. With that finished John went back to the compost heap and I began the mammoth task of tidying up the pots 🙄 I have hundreds of them, literally, I asked for any plastic pots last year and people bought them all summer long and now I have so many I will never use them all lol. I have had to put a notice up saying ‘no more pots’. That took me all afternoon and I had five bags of broken, split, rubbish pots to put in the skip. At some point John did the egg collecting and when I came in around 4pm I lit the Rayburn. We had a cuppa and I said it would be a good time to give the grass a first cut, it had got long but today had dried out better than it has on other days. I got the mower out and gave it some wd40 but it wouldn’t start, the throttle cable had stretched and was not opening up whatever it is it opens up 😝 So John has to come and pull back the spring every time I wanted to restart it after emptying the grass box. It actually wouldn’t turn off either unless you put it back to choke, need to get the cable sorted as it’s a hard enough job without any added complications. The problem with our lawn is that it was once rough terrain, so it’s not level and the front of the mower tends to dig in, add to that the cramp I get in my hands and let’s just say it’s not a job that I find any pleasure in 😜 John kindly offered to do it again tomorrow, course you will, I’ve just don’t he hard bit doing the long grass first cut! Back indoors, and it’s do you want to do the washing up or the eggs, John chose the washing up, I get the eggs. Finally sat down at 5pm.

At the end of the season last year, one of the last crops to dig up are the Oca, they like a frost on the leaves before they are dug. I dug them and bought them in, my intention was not to eat them this year but to get increase the amount of tubers to replant. I kept them in the back, they don’t go green like potatoes and so are fine in the light, I noticed yesterday that they have started to chit, it’s a bit early for them to go in yet but I am glad they are doing well. Oca otherwise known as New Zealand yam or the ‘lost crop of the Incas’ are incredibly versatile, raw, baked, fried, roasted, grilled any way you like, it’s a wonder we don’t use them more in the UK. They are nutritionally rich and very easy to grow, they are not an invasive plant, tolerate our weather really well, practically the perfect vegetable.

Sunday: It turned out to be a nicer day than I thought it was going to be, the sun came out and soon warmed the air up but not too much. We have had another busy day and John has sieved around two ton of compost which is now neatly stacked in compost bins made from the pallet collars. It means I will be able to go and shovel into the wheelbarrow with ease and use it round the garden. I spent part of my time sowing more peas and mangetout and now I think I have sown too many 😂 I have also been digging up feverfew which has self set everywhere and trying to clear and tidy one of the beds. I made a mound of twigs and sticks and debris and tried to burn it, twice I had to light it but it’s kind of smouldering and burning the bits near the flame then just goes out. I wanted to get it burnt while it was dry because if it rains tomorrow I won’t be able to do it until it all dries out again. We have had lots of visitors by that I mean people coming to get plastic pots, people coming to borrow things and people coming to get other things I was giving away. Of course each time we stand and have a chat and so that lost us plenty of good working hours 🤣 however there is always tomorrow and it’s nice to have time to stop and chat with people maybe just not all on the same day!

At the end of each day there is always still more work to be done, the Rayburn, the washing up, the eggs, hanging the washing to dry overnight, the dogs and cats to feed and the dinner to get. At one point I was diving between getting the Rayburn lit and keeping the small bonfire going outside, back and forth between the two of them at least four times. That’s the end of another day and another week, hopefully we can get as much done next week as we have this one 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sunshine ☀️ a vaccine & finally some gardening.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 22nd February 2021: Just like that in a blink of an eye it’s Monday again. Another drizzly, grey morning, still quite mild for the time of year though. I do wish the weather would turn a little drier though, and if the sun could make an appearance that would be great. It seems like I am always wishing for different weather and generally I am, my ideal would be a dry sunny day of around 18c with rain overnight just in case anyone is listening and can do that for me 😜

John is working again this week and he did the rounds before he left. I sorted out the eggs, the hens are laying like crazy and we have plenty of them to try and shift. I did a few routine household bits and also phoned the septic tank company to get ours emptied, it did not get done last year due to covid so I really need it done this year to prevent any problems.

After chatting with our youngest daughter, Charlotte, I might have more of a go at growing micro greens. She is having a go at doing them for herself and she asked me what kind of seeds she needed to do it, I have plenty of spare seeds so I gave her a selection to get her going. It started me thinking that this would be a fairly easy way to grow a crop of tasty nutritious food, I just need to see if I can find a bulk seed company, buying the small packets is fine if you are doing it for yourself but on a bigger scale I need bigger quantities of seed to make it worthwhile. I have got pea shoots and garlic chives on the go for myself as mini salad leaves but the choice is huge really and so I think I am missing a trick here.

I take back what I said about it being mild, I went out to the greenhouse to do a couple of bits and to check on plants and it is colder than yesterday I think. I did organise a punnet of micro salad greens which are now on the kitchen window sill along with some peas that are just sat in the punnet, no compost, I have wetted the both of them and we will see how they get on. The peas I did in the greenhouse (which were in compost) have already started to rot, it’s just too cold for them at the minute, if at first you don’t succeed try something else 😆 The broad beans are coming up though and funnily enough the peas in the root trainers are too just not the ones in a seed tray 🤷‍♀️ too much moisture and too cold I think.

John came home just after lunch, I never know if I am coming or going theses days, I thought he was out for the day so was just hoovering the floors ready to give them a wash but that scuppered my plans. The reason becomes obvious when he is eating and drops some of it on the floor, why bother 😜

Boris set out the journey we are to take to come out of this long lockdown, it’s not quick but by 21st June we should be totally restriction free providing all goes well. On the downside it means that Charlotte and Maccas wedding will not go ahead on May 7th and restrictions will still be in place 😞 We will see if they are able to move it to later in the the year.

Tuesday: Not a bad day, slight frost to begin with but it soon warmed up a bit, grey and overcast mostly and windy but no rain 😀 John did the animals then went off to do a job, I got on with a bit of weeding and then moving some pots to clear the area where the next bed is going out the front. John came back and we carried on clearing the area, there were bags of compost, empty pots, pots with plants in, bit of debris etc etc and a pile of slabs. We cleared everything but the slabs and then set about giving the hazel trees a good prune, we didn’t do them last year and they have got a bit big and unruly. Now they are all cut nice and neatly, the branches all shredded and put back under the trees to put goodness back into the ground and give the mini beasts some cover. That pretty much took us well into the afternoon, the some lunch, a sit down, light the Rayburn, do the afternoon rounds and that’s another day over.

It will be March next week and that’s when many more seeds can be sown, I need to start in earnest making sure the beds are ready. I still have some flowers growing in some of them, once I can work out exactly what they are I will start transplanting them. We start the final bed out in the front area tomorrow, a smaller bed in a triangle shape, I am thinking this will be roses and romantic flowers like bleeding hearts, creeping phlox and agapanthus but I need to plan it properly first.

Wednesday: Blowy, grey, overcast, but not raining and fairly mild. John did the animals then went off to do a job and also pick up some sleepers for this last bed in the front area. It will be nice to get that done and I may have to have a trip to the garden centre to find some nice things to put in there.

This morning I have been preoccupied with a chance discovery, the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place as it were. I can’t prove a thing but it all makes sense to me, I am talking about the theft of the honesty box and money before Christmas. This is what I think, we had a delivery two weeks or so previous to the theft, the delivery driver and his appearance and van rang alarm bells (your intuition is high when you live rurally on a farm, you recognise certain traits 🙄) When I went to the gate and realised it was a delivery I felt a little better, however I thought I recognised the driver from way, way back, I had said to John at the time, I reckon that was ….. but I couldn’t be sure. The person in question didn’t always lead a static life shall we say, except when incarcerated at her majesty’s pleasure. Two weeks later when we were out for about three hours we returned home to find the honesty box and contents ripped from the shed, there was also a delivery in the shed. At the time John said I reckon it was the delivery person but we had no cctv evidence and no way to prove anything. Then this morning a post on Facebook which made me look at the profile more closely and there is the delivery driver that came here! It was who I thought it was, as I say I can’t prove a thing but it’s all a bit coincidental in my eyes.

It’s mid afternoon and we have spent till now working out on the front area, I did a lot of weeding in the first bed and I have a couch grass problem there that I need to bring under control. John and I have moved slabs, positioned sleepers and started building the bed. Shelley came to get her food from the freezer now hers has been fixed and Sam came with the kids so they all played in the front paddock to run off some steam and get some fresh air. Indoors at 2 for lunch and to light the Rayburn, we’d to be on target this afternoon with jobs and dinner as I have my vaccination early evening 😀

The first bed is looking good, I mean it’s still a bit dead due to the time of year but I can see things beginning to bud and grow, the bulbs I planted have all come up, crocus, snowdrops and tête-à-tête, only a few this year but year on year they will multiply and it will look amazing. I need to wait and see how well the areas are filled with what I have already planted, the temptation is to cram a lot in but I really want space for plants/shrubs to look their very best. Each bed will have a different character and the first one is full of flowering shrubs and bulbs, fragrant, berries and plenty of nectar for the bees.

Thursday: Well it’s 2pm and so far I have had no side effects from my vaccine last night, hopefully it will stay that way. John did the animals this morning and then went to do a little job but was back by 10am. We got started out the front again, I added an extra job to Johns list of beds 😜 About two years ago or whenever it was he put up the new front fence, I made a temporary bed in front of the fence. By temporary I mean pots of flowers all stood behind a piece of wood 😂 This morning I asked nicely if we could perhaps make it into a permanent one, it didn’t actually take long, we had the materials, plants and top soil to do the job. Around an hour or so later it was ready for me to take the plants out of the pots and plant them in the bed, hopefully it will look lovely in a few weeks time. The beds will save me a lot of time watering, when things are in pots they dry out very quickly, with the beds a good soaking once a week should be adequate.

Oh and the weather was beautiful 🤩 sunny, mild, dry practically perfect.

It is so nice to have flowers I have waited a long time to have proper flower beds again and the reward today was watching the bees feeding on the crocus 🐝 and he cat trying to catch the bees in mid air 😂

We have moved down from alert level 5 to alert level 4 today, a good sign that things are going in the right direction and the pressure on the NHS has eased somewhat, it hasn’t gone but it’s good news.

Friday: Gorgeous morning, frosty start then lovely sunshine ☀️ I had planned to get out on the veg garden but I woke up with a rash this morning, arms and chest, not sure if this is the vaccine or being in the sun yesterday so I figured I better avoid it today. That leaves housework, oh joy 😜 Gave the bedroom a good clean, pull out the bed and dust everything within an inch of its life, then wash the floors in the living room and kitchen. I did think about doing more than that but the momentum left me 😆

Watching the birds at the seed feeder this morning I spotted one I haven’t seen before, a coal tit, it’s quick and I barely managed to get a pic of it but I am chuffed we have another new type of garden bird around 😀

John was back and forth between jobs today and I mainly pottered around not achieving very much, bit tired today and I have learned that when tired don’t do too much, I have the luxury of being able to do that I know but I still think it’s sound advice I give myself 😜

Continue reading “Sunshine ☀️ a vaccine & finally some gardening.” →
Posted in Friesland Farm

Valentine’s 💘 goose eggs & seed sowing begins.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 15th February 2021: I am feeling more optimistic this morning about the weeks ahead, I think the weather really does have an effect on my moods and outlook. Today it is much milder, yes we have had rain and yes that is a pain going straight from a frozen solid week to a soggy one but everything feels a little lighter today. John has a full week at work this week so I will mostly be here by myself for the best part of the daytime but he did do the animals before he went this morning which means I can get on and get some things done indoors. I started off by changing the bedsheets and some washing, everybody loves clean sheets day don’t they lol.

Valentine’s Day is the day traditionally that geese start to lay and lo and behold we had the first goose egg of the season yesterday 🥰 it is a short season and by mid May they will have stopped or they will be sitting one or the other. We never have much luck with them sitting and hatching naturally, they always end up kicking eggs out of the nest. This year I think I am going to house them in a stable and let them free range, this will be after the hens are allowed back out of course. The stable will have much more room, one of the problems is that there are usually three geese trying to nest in a small space which is problematic, hopefully more space will help that situation but we will see. I would be nice to have goslings wandering around the place. It is one of those weird things in life that mean most of the domestic geese around the country begin to lay on the same day, I can’t explain it, I doubt if anyone else can either but they are pretty accurate in their timing 🤷‍♀️

Yesterday evening I started doing a bit on my online beekeeping course, I have chosen to look firstly at modern beekeeping methods which is what most people practice. However the more I learn the less I like it, it is basically farming whereas I would prefer the bees to live a natural life and so I will also be looking at natural beekeeping methods. The difference is that the bees are allowed to live as naturally as possible and you only harvest honey if there is enough for the bees to live on during the winter, if here isn’t you don’t have honey. As it takes a lifetime for a bee to produce a tiny drop of honey I think this is only fair really, there are a few other things that I am not keen on, wing clipping and generally suppressing the hive so that it doesn’t swarm. You know me by now and I prefer all things to have as natural life as possible I mean nature knows best doesn’t it and I would rather keep bees for pollination and survival purposes rather than harvesting lots of honey although a smidge of it would be nice now and again. Bees are fascinating creatures, even if you are not thinking of keeping them I would urge you to read up about them and their life it is amazing stuff. I will keep you posted on the topic and let you know what I decided, I am hoping that my tree bees will have survived the winter, I haven’t seen any sign of them yet but I will keep an eye out for them. It will be a major win if they have, proving that they can manage rather than be managed.

I went out and did a bit outside, planted the silver birch, I will get a picture in the spring as it’s basically a dead stick at the minute 🙄 John came home because the materials for the job were wrong so he concreted in some of the posts for the fence and then got called out to take a radiator off. The sun came out and it was really warm, the temperatures are forecast to be around 15c next weekend lol talk about a swing. I had a walk round and made some good observations on what needs doing but I felt it was t quite the right time just yet. You get a feel for when is a good time to start things and when it’s too early, either that or I am being lazy 😜 no seriously though I found a couple of big pots of bulbs growing but the soil is still frozen beneath the surface layer so it will have to wait for a few days more I think. I would have got and weeded that front bed but with the rain straight after the frost I don’t think that’s a good idea, looks like I will have a lot to do next weekend instead. One thing I have realised is that I don’t like working when I am encumbered with a winter coat on, the less layers I have to wear the better I work, I think he winter coat is heavy and it makes me a bit sluggish so roll on some nicer weather when I only need thin layers. I checked the greenhouse out, everything needed a bit of water but on the whole most things have survived well even that last week of extreme cold. The orange and lemon tree look a little worse for wear, they need some water but I will wait for warmer temps before I do that, I don’t want to water them and then if it gets cold again the soil freezes, better for the roots to just be dry than frozen. I had a good look round to see where these pallet collars will go and I think some major reorganisation needs to happen but again I can’t do that while the ground is still a bit frozen. I am looking forward to getting going once conditions are right though, bring on the growing season 😀

I did go out and do a bit more in the greenhouse as it’s such a lovely day I didn’t want to waste it. I did a bit of tidying and brushing off, pulled off dead leaves that sort of thing. There has been a mouse in there so I have put some grain down to see if it’s still there or not, if it is I need to get it gone before I start seed sowing in earnest. I did try and pull some weeds in the garden but the ground is still frozen underneath, I should have listened to my inner self really. I decided to come in and light the Rayburn and get a loaf of bread on the go before having some lunch and a quick sit down.

As I had some bread on the go I decided to make some cheese as well, not a snap decision, I had bought some milk when I went shopping the other day specifically to have a go. If you have some milk that you need to use up it worth thinking about making cheese, not a complicated process and in fact ‘farmers cheese’ is a simple thing to do with ingredients you probably have in the cupboard. Gently heat the milk in a thick bottomed pan, when it begins to froth and bubble (but not boil) take it off the heat and add white vinegar, this splits the milk into curds and whey. All you do is drain the curds, I use muslin (you can buy the organic baby ones which work great) then add salt and any flavour you want, chives, thyme, minced garlic, the options are endless. Squeeze all the liquid out and then shape it on a plate and weight it down with another plate. Thats it, simple enough and a great skill to have up your sleeve. The whey can be used in bread making or other recipes and the cheese will keep for a week in the fridge or can be frozen for use in recipes later. I think a slice of fresh bread and some freshly made soft cheese will make a delicious supper. I actually added salt and pepper to mine, I have a thing for pepper at the minute, no idea why but I tend to listen to my body, if it wants pepper, it gets pepper 😜

Tuesday: At last a day when I can get outside and get busy, and that’s exactly what I did. John did the animals first thing and then started on some more of the drive way area. When I had done indoor stuff I came out and planted the seven cherry plum trees, this is easier than it sounds as they are small whips and so pushing a spade in the ground and making a slit is all that is required for these. Then I spent the morning planting things in the new raised bed, this included digging some stuff up from elsewhere (those that I could recognise at the minute) After that I started on the fruit cage and cut back all the autumn fruiting raspberry canes and some weeding in the fruit cage. After that I went on to the very back bed to sort that out, this is quite a big job, it has a dual pear tree, a cherry tree, an apple, a mulberry and then four gooseberry bushes and three blackcurrant. Over time the gooseberries and blackcurrants have got a bit out of hand so I started by cutting them right back, this will mean no fruit this year from them but that’s fine we have plenty in the freezer from last year still. One of the currant bushes has a horse chestnut tree sapling growing through it so that will need to be dug up and detangled before replanting the bush. There is also a golden hop that has also got a bit out of hand and is spreading everywhere, I wouldn’t mind if it grew along the fence but it keeps choking the fruit trees so I have been trying to dig it out but it’s quite hard work. I haven’t quite decided wether I should completely dig the gooseberries out or not yet, they make it difficult to pick the top fruit as some of the thorns are wicked. I am glad I have a plan now though, that bed is the one that gets all the sun from early morning until evening which means it is a bed I have trouble getting to in the summer months, it is also a bed that will need no attention once I have cleared and cleaned it up so a good place to start I think. It is also the very back bed so I can work methodically towards the front end which will help when I am deciding what job to tackle, otherwise I tend to wander aimlessly from job to job and that never looks like I have achieved much.

I have some really tasty yellow raspberries ‘Autumn Gold’ if you get the chance to try some then do they are sweeter than red ones, I am hoping to divide my plants this year so I have even more of them to harvest later in the year. At the moment they are in pots but I am thinking of making a bed just for these in the fruit cage.

A bonus today is that I don’t have to cook dinner, the bad part of the story is that Shelley’s freezer has broken and so she is having to cook off some of her food including some pork, so tonight we will be picking up a takeaway roast from Shelley’s 😀 She has been able to put some of it in our freezer until hers gets fixed so it’s not too bad, she also made some crumbles and a curries and she has kindly given some to us 🥰

I did think that I would go back outside after stopping for a cuppa at 2.30pm but I think I should take it slowly, after a winter of not doing much I don’t want to over do it and burn myself out. The weather is looking fair for most of the week and positively tropic at the weekend so there will be plenty of time to get stuff done.

There is a rodent of some sort in the greenhouse as all the grain I put down yesterday is gone, I think it is living in with the hibernating torts 🙄 I have set a trap to try and catch it otherwise I won’t be able to sow any pea or bean seeds as they will get eaten. Thinking about the torts, the weekend temperatures that are forecast will probably wake them up so I had a quick look over their outdoor pen and I need to get their out door house ready, some of the hens have been using it over winter in the pol pen. While I was weeding I decided to leave any dandelions where they are for now as I can dig them up for feeding to the torts once they are awake.

John went out to do the afternoon rounds and the heavens opened, he was not happy 😆 but I am as it means anything I have planted today will get a good watering in 😀

Of course it is pancake day today and when the girls were at home I always made pancakes for tea. John doesn’t like pancakes though 🙄 so I didn’t bother today but maybe I will make some for my dessert tomorrow.

Wednesday: John has gone to do a full days work today but he did the animals first. I was not far behind him out on the smallholding, putting in fresh bedding for the ducks, geese and Ted, feeding the Guineas etc. Then I went into the greenhouse for about an hour and a half to get some early seeds sown. The peas and beans that were sown a couple of weeks back are starting to show some shoots and I sowed another couple of batches of peas, we are talking about eight at a time as I don’t want to suddenly have so many that I can’t deal with them. That is one of the restraints you have to place on yourself, not sowing too much at once. This morning I have set up the propagator and have sown, peppers, jalapeño and tomatoes, these all need a long growing period. If you are thinking of getting yours in make sure you will be able to accommodate them with extra heat as they get bigger, the temptation to sow lots of seeds quickly turns into a disaster when the plants are much bigger and you have nowhere warm to bring them on. I have three varieties of tomato in at the minute, indigo cherry which are like the indigo rose only smaller, then some tigerello which are stripy tomatoes and then some yellow cherry tomatoes. I have also sown some garlic chives, dill and coriander, the garlic chives are for adding to pea shoots for salads.

You may notice the shiny stuff behind the propagator, this is to reflect as much light as possible back towards it because the light levels are low at this time of year. I do need to get on and clean the windows of the greenhouse which will help immensely 😜

After a cup of coffee at 10.30, the time is relevant because I find each day without even looking at a clock, I come in for coffee and it’s always around 10.30 🤷‍♀️ Anyway after the coffee I went back outside until 1pm and did a good mornings work I think. First I started with following my plan of yesterday but the soil was claggy, I got as much as I could done before giving up, I had thick layers of mud in my boots, the fork handle and my gloves, on to plan B. I did find a little gooseberry bush growing (self set) so dug that, put it in a big pot and will grow it in the fruit cage where I can prune it more easily. Plan B was to work at the opposite end of the garden to what I had decided yesterday and weed the herb bed, that’s what I spent the rest of the morning doing. The feverfew although it is a herb, is a pain and spreads everywhere so I pulled it all up from there, there are nettles that are growing so they got pulled up as well, it’s very satisfying pulling out a long root of nettle I think, there were plenty of dandelions that thought they were going to make it, nope, out they came and I ended up with a wheelbarrow full of weeds and debris. I did find a couple of ladybirds hibernating so I relocated them to the greenhouse and the beginning of my ladybird empire 😂 1pm and it’s lunchtime and time for an hours sit down before lighting the Rayburn, sorting out dinner for this evening and today it’s my job to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. I am pretty pleased with what I have got done out there today, the weather makes such a difference as it was very pleasant, a small amount of rain at one point but nothing major, hopefully there will be plenty more days ahead to get working after a long winter.

Good call coming in and staying in as it is now raining quite well 😜 might do a bit of research or reading for an hour.

So my afternoon panned out rather differently than expected, my good old friends BT and I spent two hours chatting and figuring out why my internet keeps dropping out, apparently an engineer is coming tomorrow 🙄

And I got the call up for my vaccine yaaaaaaaay, next week I will have my first vaccination, it’s amazing actually how emotional it was to get the text, I think it signals the beginning of the end, we have a long way to go still but hopefully at some point this year things will be as near normal as we can get.

Thursday: Oooo an altogether different morning, wet, grey and breezy, not very nice, I am glad I got out on the garden when I could this week. It is still mild though, last night it was around 11c at 9pm 🙄 Looks like today I will mostly be doing indoors stuff 😜

Did some hoovering and polishing, the sun came out in the afternoon but it is a chilly breeze. By that time I was waiting for a cake to cook and getting the Rayburn lit. Take two black bananas, and two overripe pears, mix with some flour, sugar, oil, eggs and chocolate chips and voila something lovely from something not so appetising 😀

BT turned up as they said they would so that’s a bonus, tested everything this end, no faults with equipment so it must be a fault somewhere on the line in the lane 🙄 Internet is still dropping in and out constantly, I reported the same fault last month and they supposedly came out and fixed it, not so well or they wouldn’t be back again would they. Hopefully this time they will do a proper job and sort it once and for all, we had the gigaclear installed through the village a couple of years ago, I might see how much that is or I even considered satellite internet at one point, rural broadband is not the best I can tell you.

After the broadband appeared to be fixed properly, no more drop outs, the rest of the afternoon and early evening went along as usual. We settled down to watch some tv and boom the power went, after establishing it was not anything here that had tripped I called the power company. They had a main cable down and it would be two hours before they could get it back on, darn it, luckily I had charged everything I needed and also the mini hub that BT gave me is a unit you charge so I still had internet and I still had a device 😀 Just as well because I wanted to watch the robot landing on Mars. The power did not come back on after two hours so we went to bed, it came on at 1am 😜 We have on average around four power cuts a year nearly always in the winter months, so we have got used to being prepared, keeping essentials like phone and torches charged and if push came to shove we could always light a campfire to cook dinner and boil a kettle on. I am just glad the power cut was not last week as we would have been freezing 🥶

Friday 😀 Happy Friday everyone, the electric is back on this morning which means we can have cwaffee 🥰 that is good, a morning without coffee is a miserable morning.

It is what is known as a filthy day today, rain on and off all day, wind, grey, altogether ‘orrible 😜 So for the main part I have been making cards, I had some that had been ordered and then I made a few birthday cards as well. Sitting in my little workspace with the radiator on was lovely but I forgot about the rest of the house and when I came out it was cold so I got the Rayburn lit just after lunch. I did the feeding and egg collecting this afternoon, first I had to get a few wheelbarrows of wood from the outside store to the inside area, then on to do the rounds. I noticed the gate to the goose paddock was open, this meant one of two things, either John had forgotten to let them out or he had not shut the gate properly this morning. As I walked up there the tell tale signs of goose footprints told me they were out somewhere, that was ok though as it meant I could get into the nest and retrieve the eggs without having to watch my back! Fed the horses, fed everything else, collected the eggs, got the wood in, got the post in and checked the egg shed ☑️ time for a cuppa ☕️

Saturday: A much better day today, grey and overcast cast but mild and dry. The last couple of weeks of February and the whole of March are the long hard slog towards Spring, it’s almost like you have done a very, very long walk and the last bit is up a steep hill that is wet and muddy, you have to keep going, it’s the end of a difficult journey 😜

We spent the morning cleaning out huts and tidying up paddocks ready for Spring. I cleaned out the ducks, the quail hut, the pol pen, new bedding in the goose hut, cleaned out teds pen, some empty houses etc and John tidied things away from the front paddock, netting that we had taken down and then power washed the front hen hut ready for when they are allowed back out again. We had planned more but decided did we needed to get a bit of shopping in so went off to do that, the jobs will wait until tomorrow.

Today is my youngest sisters 40th birthday 🥳 I was sixteen when she was born, it’s crazy that I had lived a whole childhood before she even came along 😂

Sunday: Oh what a morning we have had, weather is ok, still grey but mild and not raining, well spitting now and again but nothing much. Last night we couldn’t find one of the cats so we left the cat flap undone hoping he would be there this morning, nope. He was there last night at around 7/8 but by 10 he wasn’t, we looked all around, in sheds and outbuildings, I opened Johns van, we called him, nothing. We got on with the morning jobs and then went out the the side paddock, taking down chicken netting, stakes etc and then opened it up for the horses to come into. They have been hanging near the fence for a couple of days, they can see and smell the grass growing and it wouldn’t be long before they bashed the fence down to get in so easier to get it sorted before they take matters into their own hands. After that we came in for a coffee and then John had to go and give his van a bit of a tidy out while I cleaned out the Rayburn ready to light it. John opened the door of the van and guess who jumped out, the cat, why it didn’t come this morning when I looked in there and called it I don’t know but I am glad he is found and safe. I was convinced that as it had just vanished that the fox had taken him but all’s weep that ends well.

I saw a little Jenny wren gathering feathers for nesting this morning, wrens are the most common breeding bird in the UK but they are very quick and tend to keep low to the ground when they are about.

I caught another mouse in the trap in the greenhouse, that’s three so far 🙄 must be a whole colony living in there!

Tomorrow we get an update on how the country will begin to come out of the lockdown, I think it will be a lot slower than people are hoping 🙄

Posted in Friesland Farm

Freezing 🥶 Thawing & Valentines 💘

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th February 2021: Morning 😀 it’s 9.30am and I have sat down to have a coffee. I have already been out and rolled a wheel of hay to the paddock with John and fed the horses, lit the Rayburn, got a loaf of bread proving, got lunch and this evenings dinner organised, put some washing on, fed the cats and dogs, made an appointment for bloods at the end of the week and a multitude of other little jobs that needed doing. It’s cold outside brrrr , last night the wind gusts kept waking me up, around 10 times I would say as the roof rattles with each one 🙄 It is a crisp, dry cold morning though with a light dusting of snow, actually not a bad morning, at least it’s not raining 😝 John has gone off to work this morning but he doesn’t have a lot on this week so he will be here quite a lot, he said the less he goes to work, the less he wants to go! Not sure what I am going to do today, I plan to sling the hoover round quickly and I have some bits of paperwork to sort out and file, too cold to do much outside so that’s off the list, maybe I will work out what I am going to plant this year and where also what I need to do in order to get going when the time is right. That last bit will be a long list as nothing has been done in preparation as yet, there is cutting back, weeding, mulching and re positioning to do. I had planted a flower bed in the veg garden, that’s because I didn’t have anywhere else to put flowers but now we have the front beds I could move a lot of the bigger stuff and just leave good pollinating plants behind. The calendula which readily self set everywhere are great for the veg plots but the delphiniums, rudbeckia, dahlias etc will be better in the front I think. Each week I wait and hope that the weather will be kind enough to get going and so far each week it hasn’t been, I am sure I will get there in the end 🙄 I have another raised bed to think about at the side now, this one is fairly small in comparison to the others, 8 x 4ft and only one sleeper high. There is a sumac that grows there which I would like to see back again, it has got ravaged when the trees came down but should recover, it’s just a small one but if left could get lovely and big, there is also an elderflower that self set and if I keep that smallish that will be nice too, under those I plan to plant hellebore, snowdrops, for winter interest and probably some good ground cover. I want that bed to be fairly maintenance free if I’m honest as I have plenty of others to keep in order. I also plan to have a bench the other side because we get some fantastic early morning sun there and in the early hours of a summer morning it would be nice to sit and have coffee before the sun gets too hot. If I remember I will get some pics today so that I have before and after, when it eventually gets finished that is 😀

10.30 and it’s trying to snow 🙄 good job I got some leek and potato soup out for lunch today 😀

Snow flurries all day but nothing much is settling so far luckily but by golly it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!

Mostly I pottered indoors, John came home at lunchtime and did do a bit outside but it was soo cold he gave up and came in. He did the animals in the afternoon while I got the dinner cooked and that’s it for Monday. I rather think that will be similar most days with these temperatures, can’t really do a lot out there and can’t go anywhere else 😂

Tuesday: Oh god it’s only Tuesday 😂 pretty much a Groundhog Day, or same shit different day type of day lol. John did most of the animals this morning before nipping out to do a quick job, I did the horses, Guineas, cats and dogs plus the normal household stuff. I spent a hour getting a shepherds pie ready for dinner this evening, all the while thinking, this will take John approximately 3 minutes flat to wolf down 🙄 Got some veg soup made from my frozen stash, made a couple of cards and did a Lino print. In the afternoon it’s feeding, egg collecting, egg sorting, dinner and that is pretty much the day. Very boring at the minute, can’t really do much outside, it’s freezing, very cold dry air and a cold wind to go with it, not nice and not much to be able to achieve really. John did have a little go at some more of the side driveway but even he got fed up and cold and came in for the afternoon.

I did a fair bit of research in the evening after watching Rick Stein in France where he watched someone pressing their nuts 😛 Walnuts to be exact and I thought well maybe I could do that with our nuts, why not, makes sense to use the resources we have here. What I already knew was that cold pressed oils are better than hot pressed though I wasn’t sure why. Now I know that as the nut meat is heated ready for extraction they lose a lot of their goodness , it was obvious really if I had thought about it enough. The oil industry uses heat as it can extract much more volume but the quality is poorer whereas cold pressed yields lower volumes of higher quality oil. I always buy cold pressed olive oil, we went to an olive grove once in Tuscany and I understood that cold pressed was the best quality you could get so ever since then that’s what I have bought. The harder part of my research was trying to find the best method of extraction, I suppose here in the UK it is not something that is done on a small scale. I imagine that in warmer a Mediterranean climate many homes would have olive trees etc and practise pressing 🤷‍♀️ but here in the UK I think that is rare 😂 I found a few worktop machines that are available, they vary in price and I could not decide if they were worth the investment or not. Then I started thinking about how you could do it with a ready made machine which would be a better option, the nuts need to be crushed and then pressed. Crushing would be easy enough, you could do small batches in the food processor, but the pressing is harder to work out. You can use a hand operated press but my experience with pressing is that you need good hand grip and wrist strength both of which are long gone for me 🙄 some kind of hydraulic aid is needed, I did ask John if it would be possible to convert the log splitter which has 400lb of pressure, it might be an option, I will keep looking to see if there is anything that might work, or I may end up buying a machine 😜

Wednesday: Still really cold, still dry but the sun is shining this morning which makes everything feel better doesn’t it. John did the morning rounds and then went off to do a small job. I had a shower and sorted a few bits before venturing out to sort out the rest of the motley crew. Two years ago today we went on holiday, as it turns out it was the last holiday we had to date 😔 had we known we would have booked in another one later that year lol. Still it was an adventure, we sailed the high seas, and at times they were high 🤢 we crossed the Artic Circle (tick that off the bucket list) and we went to right up to Alta in search of the Northern Lights (storm Eric scuppered those plans 😣) what I would give for a holiday right now 😜

Sorted out what I needed to outside then back in to light the Rayburn which was troublesome today 🙄 I took me over an hour to get it stabilised which is a pain in the arse quite frankly. John has left over shepherds pie for dinner tonight but I got out some gooseberries to make a crumble with and one of our home produced chickens for tomorrow’s dinner. Then I went online to order some more bread flour, during the first lockdown when it was hard to come by I ordered from a whole food company and it is by far the best flour I have used for making bread so far. I ordered bread flour and also plain and self raising as well as a few other bits and pieces. I had a good look through the range they offer and it was a huge range, I was struck by three things. First that 60/70% of the people I know wouldn’t have a clue what half of them were, second that 80/90% of people I know wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway and third that I 100% don’t make full use of everything I grow here! That actually all adds up to a forth and that is that on the whole we, as a ‘modern, white, first world’ population have entirely lost touch with good food ingredients, I can’t include ethnic minorities in that statement because I believe that they still know and do use the majority of these ingredients in cooking. Yes I realise that a percentage of people use fresh ingredients but I also think that they are very basic in their choices as indeed am I really, when you start to really look at what is available we use such a tiny proportion. I shall have to set myself a mission to widen my ingredient usage and really look at the things I grow and broaden the ways I can use/store/preserve them. If you are wondering what the hell is she on about (admit it you were 😜) it’s is things like drying kale and using the powdered form or de hydrating much more produce for use during the winter or really drying plenty of beans and pulses for the same reasons. I have dabbled a little bit, the fruit powders were not terribly successful as I found they burnt a little bit maybe I should try again, and I have done beans and pulses but I should do many more I think. There are so many things I grow both in the veg garden and the flower garden and indeed also includes weeds like plantain, cleavers etc that I don’t use fully and maybe I really should.

That’s what happens when it is too cold outside to get anything much done, I start thinking and looking and learning and then churning it out but it’s a good thing I think, certainly brightens up the day to have a project in mind 😂

I went out in the afternoon and did a few bits mainly defrosting the water tap and hose so that I could get a decent amount of water up to the horses, when they are on ad lib hay they drink a lot. I had to bring the hose connector in and run it under the hot tap, when I finally got it off the tap that was, nothing is easy when it’s freezing weather, I think the temps go down to around -5 at night if not lower. I filled up all the wild bird feeders, they are also eating a lot at the minute as there is nothing else available. Then it was on to putting fresh bedding in for the geese and ducks, I had a look at the hens, I will be so glad when they can get back outside but I’m not expecting that to happen until April really. The stables are ok but not the best environment for them and they need clean bedding every couple of days which has a knock on effect on running costs. Back indoors to top up the Rayburn although when you come in from outside it feels like a sauna 😂 Make a cup of tea and after that I will probably go back out to do the egg rounds and probably put clean bedding in for the hens too.

I had an online discussion about pressing nut oils and it would seem that I can use my Apple scratter and press to do the job so I will probably give that a go later in the year, I don’t have anything to lose by trying it out.

Thursday: I have no idea what the temperature went down to overnight but it was mightily cold this morning! John did the animals while I got dinner in the slow cooker and sorted out the washing etc then it was off to town to have my blood tests. Even though it was market day it was very quiet everywhere, we did a bit of shopping while we were there and then back home.

I wish this cold grip would move on, it’s getting tedious now, hard to get anything done outside, bloody freezing when you do go out and large parts of the day spent indoors where it’s lovely and warm but it makes you feel tired.

My new tree arrived today but I can’t plant it until the frozen weather moves on.

The news is all very depressing 😔 goodness knows when this whole situation will get any better, I think most people are really feeling quite low at the minute. I never thought I would hear the words ‘it is illegal to go on holiday’ 🙄 It is not looking like we have very much to look forward to in the first half of the year at least, fingers crossed for a few months respite in the summer.

I have 30 pallet collars arriving tomorrow 1200 x 1000 we will be using them to re organise the veg beds. Much easier to deal with smaller raised beds that great swathes of garden.

I feel quite despondent today, can you tell 😜 so I bought a gardening magazine to cheer myself up and I think tomorrow I will start writing a list of seeds to start sowing at the beginning of next month. There is plenty to organise really and I will have all these pallet collars to start putting in as well, organising what I will grow where might give me the boost I need at the minute to get me through the rest of this month.

Friday: I got over my self indulgent melancholy and had a pretty busy morning.

Last night the the wind was constant and the metal roof was banging about, for almost three hours I laid awake until I decided to sleep in the living room, that got a bit cold in the early hours so I went back to the bedroom where the wind was somewhat quieter for a while.

John got started on the morning rounds while I whizzed round and did a few things inside before joining him on the yard to get going on cleaning out the hens. We moved the light Sussex from the POL pen into the stable that flooded but is now dry, we moved the hens that were in the small dark stable out to the POL pen so they can get some natural light and air, we then cleaned out that stable. Probably around seven to eight wheelbarrows full of sawdust and chicken poo 😝 We then put in all clean sawdust and moved half of the hens from the stable at the back into the smaller stable, the rest will stay where they are, the reason being that the fewer hens in one place the less meets they get in or at least it takes longer to get in a mess. They also tend to break a lot of eggs when there is 30 of them all in together, hopefully now they all have more space there will be less breakages as well. The other lot of hens in a different stable keep relatively clean as there are only about 16 of them, while I was in there putting in fresh straw for laying in one was about to lay, I got my phone out and took a video, it’s rare you actually see an egg being laid 😮

The chap came and dropped off the pallet collars I ordered and then it was time to come in and light the Rayburn, it’s still pretty bitter and the wind has not let up at all, hopefully it will be above freezing tomorrow as we still can’t use the outside taps or hoses🙄

Afternoon rounds consisted of egg collecting, feeding and bucketing water up to the horses and geese. John thinks the geese are getting close to laying as the gander is getting more fierce by the day, geese begin to lay around Valentine’s Day so hopefully they will be right on cue this weekend 🥰

Tomorrow we will clean out the remaining stable, ran out of time today and that will be them all done for at least a week 😝 We can also look at where the pallet collars will be going as I haven’t quite decided on a design yet.

Saturday: Up and about, John went out to do the feeding and I sorted stuff out indoors before going out to help with the last stable cleaning. My god it was bloody freezing, I mean freezing 🥶 the wind chill even at 9.30 must have been around -6, it is the wind that is the problem, even barrowing back and forth I could not warm up my finger tips and hips even with good clothing on. In the end I said to John I can’t do this its too cold so I came in to light the Rayburn and get dinner sorted for this evening while he carried on. I think this problem I have been having with the ends of my fingers is the problem, they hurt like billyo even inside thick warm gloves. Hopefully this evening the temperature is going to come up to 1c and stay above freezing, our average winter temps are between 1c and 7c so you can see why a whole week of continuous below freezing is unusual and hard work. Some where in Scotland it went down to -21 I think, that’s insane for the UK 🙄 Our weather seems to become more extreme year on year, record heat, record cold and record rainfall is becoming normal and the seasons seem to be shifting slightly too, any veg grower will tell you that they need to adapt all the time for growing and harvesting.

Sunday: Be careful what you wish for! The temperature finally came up above freezing sometime during the night and as a consequence we had a burst pipe out the back on the dog shower, good job we have a live in plumber 😜 It had drained all the hot water so the shower I was going to have didn’t happen, it was still cold this morning and I was looking forward to a hot shower. I lit the Rayburn first thing, not in the best of moods when it’s cold and I can’t warm up at all. It’s Valentine’s Day, not that it makes much difference in our house, although I organised a dine in for two on Friday evening and have organised afternoon tea for today, John as usual did nothing, no flowers, no card, no nothing, thanks pal, that has not made my mood any better I can tell you 😜 It’s no surprise really, I used to have tell John to take his Mum flowers or she would never have got any then he would take all the credit when his Mum was delighted 🙄 Like many women, for the first probably 25 years after we got married I always organised the birthday presents and cards etc then one year I said to him that he needed to take over remembering his Mum and Dads birthday and getting them something, that resulted in his Mum getting a bunch of artificial flowers and he never even noticed the difference 😂

It’s definitely warmer by a few degrees and guess what, it’s raining, jeez can’t we just have a nice day, Winter seems sooo long at the best of times but this year it is just endless.

We had our afternoon tea, although there was quite a lot of it so we have saved some for another time, then it was time to do the animals again and that is another week done and dusted. Time relentlessly marches on regardless of anything in its path, that is the one consistent thing in life, time and tide waits for no man 😜 same time next week, see ya 👋

Posted in Friesland Farm

A LOT of rain 🙄, a bit of creativity & Spring is coming (I promise 🥰)

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 25th January 2021: Morning campers 😀 it is a fine sunny morning this morning though the snow is still on the ground and it’s freezing the Sun is glorious ☀️ Amazing how it lifts your spirits even in the depths of Winter.

Early morning geese, I keep looking but they have not started laying yet.

As you can guess, this morning was all about breaking water buckets and making sure everything has enough food to keep them warm, the horses can’t get at any available grass so they are having a good breakfast and plenty of hay, the Guineas are getting plenty of hay as well as their regular feed and the chickens, ducks and geese are also getting plenty. So are the rats, well one at least, John disturbed one in the duck feeder this morning. I was round the other side and heard a shout I thought he had fallen over so went to find him and he was trying to get the dogs to catch the rat but it was too quick. His plan is to sneak up on it tomorrow morning with the dogs ready, good luck with that one 😂

I went for a look round the front paddock and found fox tracks, I followed them in a circle around the paddock, sometimes it had stopped and had a dig in the grass and then carried on, it went all the way round the paddock and back to the goose hut that is not in use at the minute, that is where it had marked territory, the unmistakable stink of fox 🦊

Beautiful crisp, sunny morning ☀️

Back inside to have breakfast and a coffee, get the Rayburn lit put some washing on and then I got something out of the freezer for dinner and I made two batches of crumble mix. I had some flour I needed to use up and John has been hankering after pudding (I did suggest he learn to bake but that fell on deaf ears) so tonight there will be mixed fruit crumble for pudding 😀 and plenty of pre mix in the freezer for others days. Makes life a lot easier when you can just grab pre prepared and throw it all together. You would think today would be a good soup day but I had some sausage rolls in the freezer (they were for the Christmas festivities that never happened so might as well eat them up, well John anyway. He is out doing some more fencing, I did think the ground would be too hard but he said once you break the surface it’s soft so that’s good news, the fence can continue.

John had to go and sort a quick leak, someone damaged a pipe 🙄 and when he came back he started on digging out for the driveway with the tractor. Meanwhile my card blanks came and so I got started making them, I find it very relaxing and the results quite pleasing 🥰 Some will be for sale in the egg shed and some will be sold online via social media.

Tuesday: Really, it’s only Tuesday 🙄 We did the usual this morning, nothing untoward, John didn’t see his rat 😂 Then it was on with the jobs of the day, John has spent most of the day as happy as a pig in the proverbial, on the tractor digging (making a bloody muddy mess actually) but it looks like progress, sort of. He is taking off the top layer off what was a grass area, it will be the drive to the yard eventually, only taken about ten years to get round to it but hey we are nearly there now 😜 Meanwhile I have also spent the day doing happy things, making cards, I had an order for a few and also a special commission for quite a few ‘hug’ cards. I have really enjoyed myself and it’s easy to be in there for hours doing them, I have used 50 card blanks already and had to order more, luckily there is not much else to be done except keep the Rayburn going and make cups of tea for John.

We received a lovely letter in the post today from our little niece Zeri, it was delightful and so I have sent her a card in the post with all our news and a picture of the horses. It is actually really nice to get good old fashioned letters, I doubt many do any more with e mail and social media, I think there should be a revival 🥰 With that in mind I made some for the grandchildren and posted them off too 😀

COVID-19 deaths have gone over 100,000 in the UK 😔 back in March at the beginning of this the hope was to limit deaths to around 40,000

Wednesday: Much milder this morning and drizzly to go with it but that’s fine at least the taps work and watering the animals is much easier. John did the animals and when he came back in we talked about what we would do today, Sam had messaged me and asked if I could go over and help her out so that’s what I did for the day while John stayed here and did some wood stacking and dug a hole for one of the gate posts.

Just listening to the news and schools will not be going back before the first week of March 🙄 pretty tough on parents with school age children I reckon. I have seen how difficult it is to cope with three under fives at home especially when one of them has school work to complete and there are I am sure much more complex families and problems all over the country especially if the parents have to work from home and school their kids. At the same time I think it is necessary to have as many people stay at home as possible with the daily figures still high, we are paying the price for Christmas gatherings. It does not help when gatherings of 300/400 people are still having to be broken up, what’s wrong with people surely these things can wait, I wonder if they would be so keen if they were denied treatment should they become ill 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: It’s a lovely sunny mild morning this morning despite the fact that we had torrential rain for most of the night, consequently the lake is back in the side paddock and it’s bigger than I have ever seen it before. As always though it will disappear within a couple of days unless we get more heavy rain. We seem to get concentrated bursts of rain these days, I remember when you would have rain then it would stop and start often through the day or night, now it’s all or nothing as far as I can see, climate change?, I don’t know but I do know it’s different.

We did the animals and then John went off to do a little job for someone while I got dinner for tonight sorted and various household jobs. I would like to get out on the first front bed and weed it but I will have to wait for a gap in the weather when it’s not frozen and not soggy, might be waiting a while and all the time the weeds are growing. I have seen plenty of bulbs coming up too, that always brings a smile to my face at this time of year, hardy little things that keep on pushing up no matter what the weather is doing 🥰

Oh how lovely to see you 😍 it means Spring is on the way 😀

The rest of the day was spent by John putting up more posts and fencing, right where one of the posts was going he found a huge slab of concrete about four inches down so he was on the kango for a while to break through it. No idea what it is or why it’s there, part of the MOD site I guess, I was hoping and am always hoping we will find an underground bunker one day, oh the possibilities 😜 root storage, wine cellar, underground home lol. I spent my time sorting the Rayburn, making cards and keeping an eye on the braised beef in the slow cooker (yeah I know it doesn’t really need keeping an eye on 😂)

Friday: Whoo Friday, except that yesterday I kept thinking it was Saturday so that makes Friday, Sunday doesn’t it 😜 Anyway whatever day it is it’s bloody raining again, not just drizzle oh no full on straight down rain, been raining on and off all night, never mind after this we are forecast……snow again.

I decided I was sick of looking like a middle aged, dragged through a hedge backwards mess, so this morning I spritzed a little perfume, straightened my fringe (hair has got so long it goes in a pony tail everyday) put on a tiny bit of slap and got ready to go out in the rain 😝 Animals done and sorted, back in for breakfast and a coffee and then John went off to pick up some POL hens for a customer who doesn’t want to wait until Spring when we will get the big batch in. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to get them mid winter in an avian lockdown but hey each to their own 😀 Meanwhile I need to decided what’s for dinner tonight, I get really, really bored of that particular decision, I guess that’s why holidays are so looked forward too, someone else has decided and even giving you a menu with a choice 😂 Sigh, holidays, remember those, we haven’t had one for nearly two years now, this time two years ago we were getting ready for our adventure to cross into the artic circle. The next holiday is going to be amazing and so much more appreciated than ever before I think 🥰

Saturday: I have never known this much rain, it’s concentrated and relentless, the standing water is worse than ever before. I know I shouldn’t moan as it does not affect our house in any way but one of the stables is flooded, the hay barn is flooded (this normally happens once a year if that, that’s twice this week 🙄) the paddocks at the side have a bigger, wider lake than I have ever seen and there is water running everywhere. I know as soon as it stops raining it will drain away but in the meantime it’s rather depressing and we can’t do anything to stop it raining 🌧 I was talking the other day with Sue and we were saying that in Winters past it was usually cold and not much rain now we have torrential rain In autumn, Winter and Spring, 2007 I think it was in July we had similar, unprecedented rain and serious flooding in July!

Just looking through the photos of the last year at all the produce I grew and cannot wait for this years growing season to get going, so looking forward to seed sowing and growing which is one of my favourite parts, waiting for everything to grow is mediocre and then picking and using all the fresh ingredients is the pinnacle of the hard work that goes into it all, roll on Spring.

Oh good grief now it’s snowing! Gotta laugh or else I might cry, there is a flood warning for Shilton according to Alexa, I know we are on higher ground so not such a problem for us but the village is at risk of flooding 😔

As the weather is crap I decided to do something creative, Sam bought me a lino cutting kit for Christmas, I haven’t done that since I was a primary school and that was a VERY long time ago 😂 I got everything out and had a go, it is a lovely medium to work with and I really enjoyed it. I was quite pleased with my first effort, needs some adjustments, the moon looks like it’s an eclipse but all in all a good effort I reckon, can’t wait to do some more.

Sunday: I have no idea where that week went but gone it is! We did the animals this morning and I put clean bedding in for the ducks, geese, Ted the Turkey and the Guineas. I was just taking some sawdust to the hens in the stable when I heard foxes screeching, this was about 9.30am, I looked to my neighbours paddock and there were two foxes playing, bold as brass in broad daylight, I guess they were playing it didn’t look like fighting more a game of chase. I gave her a quick ring just in case her hens were out in the run, it does not take much for a fox to dig up or tear down something in its way and it was frozen this morning so not much other food available. After they disappeared I carried on with the job in hand and then back indoors to light the Rayburn and get lunch and dinner sorted out, made a few cards that had been ordered. I got John to clean the flue before I lit the Rayburn and in-between that and the animals he has been digging another post hole for the new gateway. Hard digging as first an old post had to be removed and then the new one had to go down about two foot as it’s a big gate, it is looking rather fab though and we are going to build a small planter as well which will look lovely.

It started snowing again mid afternoon but nothing much just some flurries and hopefully it won’t try any harder 🙏 John returns to work tomorrow and that will be me on me tod again 🙄 mixed blessings 🥴

Posted in Friesland Farm

Winter jobs, winter food, winter weather.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 18th January 2021: I like typing 2021 it feels very futuristic 😂 Monday morning again and the weather is ok, you can tell when the weather is just ok as the English don’t mention it, we tend to talk about extremes, isn’t it hot or it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, we mostly always mention the rain though, we state the obvious, wet today isn’t it 😝 We are definitely weather obsessed as a nation and that’s because it is usually all over the place, you can’t guarantee that Spring will be spring like or that summer will be warm and dry you have to wait and see what comes our way and we can change it but what we can do is use it as a conversation starter 😀

John has had to go and change a set of taps for an elderly disabled lady this morning but first we did the morning feeding and watering. Once he had left I did some household bits plus get some bread on the go, since the beginning of this lockdown we have not bought bread at all I have made every loaf.

I did contemplate going out to the front and cutting back dead foliage on the flower bed by the front gate but I think I will wait, there will be plenty of insects hibernating still and although I am keen to get tided up I don’t want to disturb them just yet.

We need to decide what job we are going to get sorted next, the side driveway is on our radar but that will be weather dependant, when it’s dry we can get on, if it’s pouring down (and there is rain on the radar) then there won’t be any point as it will just make more of a mess than necessary plus who wants to get a soaking when you don’t need to.

I am on a roll this morning, whilst having bread on the go I have also got some bits of paperwork done, Bill paying, filing, sending out invoices etc and lit the Rayburn and got soup on for lunch. One of the things I did last year for the first time was the bags of frozen mixed veg for soup and I am so pleased I did they have been great and will definitely be doing them again for next Winter. This mix has courgettes, celery, turnip, onion, carrot and runner beans in it, mostly they were odd veg that I couldn’t do much else with and so I chopped them and open froze then put them all in one bag to use as a soup mix. If you have the odd carrot or stick of celery in the fridge do the same, you will soon have a soup bag ready for when you need it, anything can go in even the odd potato. I tend to cook mine down until the veg collapse then whizz with a hand blender, add stock of your choice and voila lunch is ready in no time, we have ours with freshly baked bread today which is a bonus 😀

We got lots of little bits done in the afternoon, the door stop and door handle, I have a fold up table that we have hung neatly on the back of the door, that’s for when I need extra room for crafting or sewing etc. The next radiator got delivered and that was put up in the spare room. I know it is a little thing but I am loving the heat from these radiators, it’s hard to explain but the room feels all over gently heated rather than what we have now from the wet system 🤷‍♀️

Dinner tonight consists of left over roast lamb so John has a throw it in the pot dinner with lamb, potatoes, carrots and mixed veg plus stock and cornflour, throw it all in and put it in the Rayburn until cooked. Not sure why so many recipes faff about with preparation when these dinners always come out smelling delicious 😋 I on the other hand am having a healthy version of lamb korma made by marinating the lamb in yoghurt and a korma spice, I will add ground almond to it when I cook it, having that with whole grain rice, a cucumber and grape salad and a wholemeal pitta bread, together with a diet Cherry coke I can almost kid myself I have had a lovely takeaway 🤣

John did the afternoon rounds while I got the dinner ready and that is Monday almost done and dusted, just the evening to relax and enjoy, this lockdown lark is quite enjoyable really 😜

The vaccine rollout is well under way and over 4million people have already been vaccinated, they are vaccinating a higher number than those that are testing positive so that’s a great thing. They have started to call in the over 70s as well now, hopefully it won’t be long until we get ours. As I said before Shelley has been a volunteer at the local vaccination centre and she said people are very emotional about receiving their jabs, for some of them it has been their first trip out since last March 😔

Tuesday: Busy again today, it’s much easier to keep busy while the days pass than sit doing nothing though I appreciate some don’t have the choice. First up John did the morning rounds, I had a shower and then did some hoovering, fed the cats and dogs, put out the rubbish those kind of jobs. Then onto the main events of the day and we had two, John was on concrete duties, we have an areas just outside the double doors in the back bit, for some reason the paths ends before it reaches the doors and so I wanted to get it extended to keep the mud down when we come in from the yard. Meanwhile I spent an hour in the greenhouse sowing broad bean seeds and some peas, the peas will be for harvesting the shoots as I am rather partial to pea shoots in my salad. After that I decided the big poly tunnel could be done, the garden itself is too wet but the tunnel is perfect for working in at this time of year. I spent a good couple of hours, weeding, pulling up anything that was still growing, salad mostly, and then putting barrowfulls of mushroom compost on the beds. Last year I left things to grow on but I feel that was a bit of mistake as I never really had a starting point, I was always trying to work round everything, the salad leaves went to the chickens in the stable, judging by the scuffles they were very happy to have something to peck over. I have beds in there because after we sited it I discovered it was on a clear seam and a big one at that, year after year I tried growing straight into it but it was hard work with little return. We cobbled together beds out of what we had lying around and the difference was amazing, I get good crops now, the left hand corner near the doorway is fine, that has lovely soil and so does not need any type of bed, funny how the soil type can change within centimetres 😜

It’s mid afternoon and I haven’t lit the Rayburn yet, it’s positively balmy at around 11 degrees today 😜

I discovered that the kittens or at least one of them is as much use as a chocolate teapot 😝 I was digging mushroom compost from the big tonne bag when a couple of mice suddenly appeared. No sign of the cats outside so I went into the boot room and picked one up and took it back with me (Jack) I put him in the bag and he jumped straight out without even looking. I the tried to catch him again but he wasn’t having any of it so I caught the mouse, I put it down on the floor, the cat was looking, the mouse ran, the cat looked and only once the mouse had disappeared under the fence did the cat venture forward and sniff where the mouse had been 🤣 I said to John I am going to have to train them I think!

John had covered up his concrete as it’s right outside the door but as I am always telling him your defences are only as good as your weakest point, the dog went out and stood on the tiny bit that was not covered 🤣🤣 which caused some swearing 😜 To be fair he has been lucky with the weather today as storm Christoph is battering the UK and until about 4pm we hadn’t really seen any sign of it at all. As it is at the minute we have a bit of rain but nothing much, it may progress through the night mind you 🙄

I realised after looking through my seeds that I didn’t have any peas, I had a few, those I sowed this morning but nowhere near enough to grow a decent amount of peas for the year. I ordered, mangetout, snap peas and a dwarf early variety which I will probably sow in pots and then transfer to the tunnel. The carrots I was hoping to have in the small tunnel never got very far, they sprouted but something and I suspect that is a mouse, keeps eating the greenery so not much chance of anything developing underneath. I also ordered some lemon grass seeds, I really loved growing it though I didn’t use much of it and need to rectify that. I love the smell of anything lemony, the lemon verbena has survived the winter so far and it smells amazing even in the depths of the dormant season.

The onions, garlic and shallots are doing well as I said last week, I got a photo so you can see how they are coming along.

Onions, garlic and shallots, I thought it was a lot when I planted them but will probably find it’s not enough 😂

Broad beans sown, the others are plants I have had on the heat mat through the winter which seems to have worked well 😀

The weather took a turn for the worst during the evening, heavy rain and high winds, hopefully it will have blown over by the morning 😀

Wednesday: Ewww storm Christoph got going overnight, I think I was woken three or four times with the wind or the rain making a racket and all today has been nothing less than a washout with constant rain. John attempted to dig a hole for the first post of the fence that will run down the side of the new driveway but he gave up, too wet, who wants to work in the rain. Apart from the necessary we didn’t do much else.

We did spend a fair bit of the day watching CNN, the outgoing President and the incoming President, how different the two ceremonies were 🙄 I hope the USA manages to heal the differences that have set them so far apart from each other ❤️ 🇺🇸

Thursday: OMG excuse my language but that was fucking awful out there doing the animals this morning! After around 36 hours of constant rain and gusts of wind battering the place, it was wet, soggy, windy, raining, blowing a hoolie and bitterly cold to boot, one of the worst mornings so far. At one point it looked as though the sun was coming out and it was clearing up but just as I left the stable block to go and do Ted I did an about turn and ran back. The sky turned black, the wind whipped up from nowhere and the rain lashed down for all of around one to two minutes then it was gone again but I still got wet and windswept. I am so over winter already lol, we have the usual lake and river in the side paddocks, that is becoming a much more frequent feature as the years go by. Early on it was an occasional thing, eleven years later and we get it about four to five times a year, every year 🙄

We had decided to go into town this morning, the local market is on a Thursday and I wanted to get some fresh fruit and a few bits of veg. I got leeks, mine are still in the ground and still rather small, potatoes as I didn’t grow enough to last us and then fresh fruit for snacking on. We saw Shelley, Josh and Flo down there so we bought some cakes and went and got a takeaway coffee to stand and drink. I haven’t seen Josh and Flo except when they are in the car or on messenger so it was lovely to interact with them 😀 We went to the butchers where I got some chicken breast and then to the supermarket where we bought more than we thought we originally needed 🙄 I dropped off some leeks to Mum on the way back and a bunch of flowers , great news she had her jab yesterday and Ken had his today. Then it was back home to a warm house as we lit the Rayburn before leaving, I didn’t want to come home to a cold house on a day like today. It had stopped raining by the time we went out mind you but it was still a cold day. By the time we got back it was early afternoon and so not much point starting anything, I have chopped up some potatoes, leeks and celeriac and put that in the slow cooker for tomorrow’s lunch, it will cook the rest of the afternoon and all evening then I will turn it off overnight and turn it back on in the morning ready for lunchtime.

That will probably be it for today except for the afternoon rounds which John is doing as I type, an evening snuggled up in the warm either reading or watching a film maybe. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry and Sunny although still quite cold, I will spend some time thinking about what job I can be doing in the garden or polytunnels.

Friday: A sharp frost this morning. We went out to do the rounds and discovered that Jack had bust out of the field, the electric still had not been turned back on, big mistake 😜, and he had worked it out. He has had a good wander round the place and broken into the hay barn 🙄 We got him back in the paddock, sorted the fencing, turned it on and hopefully he will stay there for a while. They have finished their big roll of hay so I will have to get some more delivered, I doubt very much the grass will start growing anytime soon. In the meantime I will have to fill up sacks and drag them out to the field. John did most of the birds and I went over to do Ted and the Guineas, in with Ted are the two light Sussex that hatched first last year, the female has laid her first egg today 😀 it’s always lovely to get the first egg from a pullet (young female) no matter how many times you have seen it. I went into the small poly tunnel where I set the mousetrap yesterday and result, two in the trap 😀 I will have to reset it, and I tried but it kept going off, there are bound to be more around eating all my veg, these two are the ones that have been nibbling the carrot tops all winter long.

I came indoors to do the washing up, hoovering and get the Rayburn ready for lighting later, meanwhile John carried on with digging the holes for the side fence and he has now gone off to get cement to have a rest from the digging lol. I have a bit of a headache this morning, hopefully nothing but I can’t seem to shake it off, normally I guess, nobody would worry but at the minute you never know what you have picked up even being very careful on the limited times you go out 🙄

The pea seeds I ordered have arrived and so have the seed potatoes, I will get the earlies ready to chit and they will go in the big tunnel, also I will start of early peas and grow them on in the big tunnel as well I think. I have some garlic chive seeds that can be sown anytime so I will go and get them done later. The sun is shining beautifully now and the greenhouse will be a lovely place to be working in about another hours time I reckon 😀 It might even be warm enough in the to pretend it’s spring 😜

We have the leek and potato soup for lunch today so I do t have to stop and think about what I need to be doing for that.

I did go out into the greenhouse and sowed a few peas, I also tided up the small tunnel though it didn’t need much doing but it was still very cold on my feet and my toes began to hurt so I gave that up. Instead I set about fixing the egg board which usually sits out on the front of the driveway. It got blown over during one windy night a few weeks ago and the leg came apart so I fixed it back together re wrote it and put it back out.

Saturday: I have been feeling a bit urgh the last couple of days, can’t put my finger on it but I think it’s to do with the Lupus, I have tiny red hives on my fingers and toes and they hurt if I knock them against anything. I feel tired and lethargic and have a borderline headache, I actually didn’t realise that there is such as thing as a ‘Lupus headache’ and what I need to watch for is vasculitis, oh joy another thing to keep an eye on and not so easy at the minute when the doctors are really busy with a pandemic. It all seems a bit trivial to bother the doc with but if it gets worse I will have to get it looked at, of course with Lupus it can sometimes just clear up and go away of its own accord which is what I am hoping it will do.

It’s cold and frosty this morning, because I have been feeling sluggish John left me to sleep in and did the animals this morning 🥰 I am grateful that I have someone to pick up the reins if needs be. He then went out and started on the fence again while I did the usual household tidying bits, rubbish, recycling, milk bottles all those little jobs. I had just made coffee when he came back in, his feet were too cold working out there so he drank his coffee and went off to the merchants and the bank, hopefully the sun will have warmed the ground by the time he returns.

According to some news reports a hospital in Kent is trialling elderberry as a treatment for covid, I imagine it runs alongside other more conventional treatments but finally the medical world wakes up to alternative treatments. I make plenty with elderberries, pies, syrups and Pontack sauce, I will definitely be picking them and putting them out for sale this year lol.

I have had a lovely day, I have been in my little room designing cards for Valentine’s Day, I can’t make them yet as I am waiting for the recycled card to come but they are along the same lines as the button Christmas cards I made. It’s very therapeutic and just what I needed today when I don’t have the energy for much else.

I did go outside mid afternoon and attempt to fill the water buckets up at the back the the hosepipe was still frozen so I took buckets of water up. I also put down some clean bedding for the geese and the ducks. I am hoping the geese will begin to lay very soon, it’s a short season for goose eggs and like duck eggs you either love em or hate em and luckily we do have customers that love em 🥰 I also lit the Rayburn quote early and have been keeping that going all day as well as getting in a couple of loads of wood from the store, we are due snow tomorrow so best to keep it all topped up.

It’s a fish and chip supper tonight from the chip shop, I am really looking forward to it, one day when I don’t have to think about what to get for dinner 😜

Sunday: got up and had a look out of the window around 6.30am, nothing to report, went back to bed, got up at 8am and we had a good layer of snow and it was still snowing 🌨 The forecast says we will get around 5 to 8cm 🙄 and it will snow most of the day. So we donned our snow gear and went out to do the animals, I love pristine snow but the dogs always get there first at least it will clean their coats nicely. Then I made John go for a walk in the side paddock, a couple of snowballs thrown and we went back in. Snow days mean no days for us, we can’t do a lot outside and I am wondering what on Earth people do all day long 🤷‍♀️ it will a marathon tv watch or reading which I will be so bored of by the end of the day 🙄 I lit the Rayburn, John got some bacon sizzling on the hot plate and that will probably be it for us until the animals need doing later. In normal years the kids might have come over but this year the at is not an option sadly, we did get the sledge out but I couldn’t pull John on it 🤣 Years ago when we lived at a different house the kids had plastic ones and when they came in to warm up, someone nicked them so my dad made them a wooden one but we never really had any decent snowfall for years after so it never got used, we got it out today but it has woodworm 😝 it is still sound enough but too small for either of us to use, maybe one year it will get used by children again.

Afternoon rounds done and dusted, the snow is still on the ground only slightly melted and the forecast is for a very cold night possibly -5 so we made sure we filled up water buckets ready for the morning, we will have to break ice but at least there will be water. Dinner is in the Rayburn, the curtains are now shut and the house is nice and warm. Have a great week, stay safe and stay warm x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

A finished room, cleaning out the birds and a bit of pollarding.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 11th January 2021: Another start to another week, it doesn’t really seem like a new year does it? I think we anticipated that 2021 was going to bring us the freedom we were used to before the pandemic but it seems to be worse now than ever before. The only difference is that mass vaccination is starting to get going, Shelley has volunteered to help with the local vaccination centre, helping to direct cars and people in the right direction. I do hope it will all start to make a difference soon for the sake of my sanity as well as everyone else’s I’m sure.

You may be wondering about the birds, they are still in lockdown and last time they were not allowed out until April 🙄 To be honest it’s better for us as we don’t have to worry about fox attacks, if it really wanted to it could dig under but it would be hard going for most of the stables, it’s also easy and quick to nip out to the stable block for feeding and egg collecting plus it’s warmer than going to the paddocks. Having said all that I doubt very much the birds think it’s better, locked up day and night and not free roaming, not able to peck at the grass or any worms/insects, roll on spring for all manner of reasons including the welfare of the birds.

John finally finished the last bit of the floor last night, yay, now we can begin to paint and wallpaper it and lay some flooring on the top of the new floor. I am glad that is the last of the dusty work done, did I mention the dust 🤣🤣 Every individual thing will need to be dusted or cleaned before it goes back onto the shelves, I did say to John at one point ‘you are not working in an empty house ya know’ meaning he could have covered things up with dust sheets before he started, but no, let’s just get the saw out and start cutting 😖 small thing I know and let’s face it I do have plenty of time on my hands but still 🙄

I put a picture up of the kittens last week though they are getting big now but we also still have Diesel, the difference is that he does not come anywhere near the house, he eats and sleeps outside, mostly in the hay barn where he makes himself a tunnel into the hay, I imagine that is lovely and warm 😀

The fire bricks arrived, can’t remember if I said that last week or not but by the old ‘law of the sod’ the Rayburn has settled right down and our temporary bricks are doing fine so for that reason we have not installed the new ones as yet but we will do soon.

We got the animals done first thing and then we went off to the diy shop to get paint and all that we need to do the job and get the wallpaper hung. So we have spent hours rubbing bits down and then painting the first coat and then the second coat. The painting is mainly my job, John does not like doing it, nor do I really but someone has to 🙄 John is far too impatient for that kind of job, as it is he keeps rushing me to get the next coat on, you have to wait for the last one to dry first I keep telling him. At the moment everything has had two coats of white and part of the mdf has been primed, still a long way to go yet but we are getting there. Today it has been Johns job to do the afternoon rounds and get the fire sorted and keep it going, it will be interesting to see what he gets us for dinner 😜

I decided we will paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls, it is quite a light colour and I honestly can’t see the point of painting it white just because that is what is always done, I may have made an error but we will see. Painted it now and it’s a bit darker than we thought but I quite like it, it’s my she cave 😂 It will be less of an office and more of a workroom for sewing, ancestry research, crafting, reading and a little bit of paperwork plus the grandchildren will have their toys and books in there in there so a playroom as well, multifunctional 🥰

I always like to do things a bit differently 😜 when I was in my early teens I had my Mum hang my wallpaper sideways because I preferred the look, it was late seventies and the wallpaper was stripes with a kind of bump in it so I thought it would look awesome sideways on, like a heartbeat trace 😀

Tuesday: I am pleased with the painting even the ceiling, it looks great and you can hardly tell it’s the same colour as the walls. John did the outside jobs then went off to get some feed as we have completely run out. Meanwhile I had a shower, got some washing on and filled and painted a couple of bits that needed doing plus cleaned the windows. We are ready to wallpaper the one wall, it’s been a few years since I did any wallpapering so I am a bit apprehensive especially as the one roll of paper I bought cost an arm and a leg 😜 It was exactly what I wanted though and so I figure it justified the price, I now have to make sure I don’t cock up 🙄 and there is not much room for error with just one roll 😂 no pressure!

Wallpapering done 😀 it was a tense few minutes getting the first one right but it went well and looks great. Then I had to pop to the doctors to get a blood test, the practice is very busy getting ready for mass vaccinations starting on Friday. Then it was back home to begin another mammoth painting session, this time the shelving and desk area that John built in, first it needed a primer coat and then the first coat of paint, lots of nooks and crannies to paint round this time so it took a good couple of hours. John was on Rayburn and animal duty and even dinner and washing up duties today. Tomorrow Martin is coming to fit the door on the cupboard which is great and earlier than we expected him to be able to do it, so it should all be nearly finished by the end of the week I think, John will pick up some flooring to lay and then it will just be skirting board and put the door back on and voila, we can get on with another job 😜

Wednesday: We did the animals and then John went off to get a piece of mdf for the cupboard door that Martin is coming to fit. After that he went to get flooring, being very careful at the minute to sanitise hands all the time, the merchants like most shops are pretty good at controlling numbers and being covid secure. I got the Rayburn lit and do a bit of rubbing down ready for the last coat of paint on the shelving etc.

We had slightly worrying message this morning as my sister has tested positive for covid, hopefully she won’t suffer too much and recover quickly.

Spent the best part of the day still painting and getting the final floor covering down. I realise I made two mistakes on this project, first, letting John talk me into Matt paint, error, I should have stuck to my guns and gone with silk, and second, letting John go and get the flooring. I thought it would be safe enough after all we had seen it in the flesh and agreed on it and I sent him with a photograph of it and gave him the name of it 🙄 I go in when he has half laid it and say that does not look right it’s too light, nope this is the one he says, I look it up, no it’s not, definitely not. He tells me the name, nope that’s not the name I gave you! Anyhooo I am not going to change any of it now, I can’t be arsed, I just want to get it finished and everything back in so that I can have the living room back and get tided up.

Thursday: John does the morning outside rounds while I do the morning inside rounds 😝 and then he goes off to get another pack of flooring as he miscalculated 🙄 and I do some of the touch up painting which will hopefully be the last of the walls and desk area, just the skirting left to paint once we get it. John comes back and starts to get the last three bits of floor down, I can hear lots of swearing and grunting, it appears the last bits are being a bit of a pig to get it 😜

14th January 2013 we had to have our old dog Max put to sleep, his back legs went one morning and he just sat on the mat looking up at us 😢 The decision is never an easy one but we would always put the animals welfare before our feelings, no matter how much we loved him or how much we would miss him we made the call and that was the end of Max’s time with us. We had a difficult phone all to make first, our youngest, Charlotte was in Australia, she was very attached to Max, he was her childhood pet, we wanted to let her say goodbye first. We call the little paddock at the back Max’s paddock, that’s where our memories of him are, it’s fast becoming the memorial paddock as it has the trees for Johns Mum and Dad planted there as well 🥰 Felix the original farm cat is also buried up there, Milly who was my dog is buried in the garden under the lawn, we also have Gilbert who was my sisters cat buried under the oak tree, quite a cemetery we have here lol.

Ta da finally finished the room, hours of work, sweat and toil and it is all done bar the shouting 😜 It is looking amazing and I can wait to start using it, first though we will need to concentrate on the birds, cleaning out etc as they have not been done this week, that is the weekend taken care of then 🙄

Friday: Yay Friday 😀 even in a lockdown Friday feels good 😂 John did the morning rounds and then had a call out to a leak and another to a blockage 🙄 Meanwhile I have been busy cleaning, at last I can clean and hoover and polish and get everything put back where it is supposed to be. I got the living room back to normality and the spare room, all the grandchildren’s toys have been cleaned and hoovered and now sit waiting for the day they can come to Nanas again 🙃 I just realised I have the big cupboard in the office to clear and clean too, it got an awful lot of dust in there before the door went on, that might take me a while but I can have another clear out while I am doing it. I am being ruthless (well as ruthless as I get) when sorting stuff, why do we keep stuff we never use or don’t know what to do with 🤷‍♀️ Is it because the minute we throw it out we know we will need it? Or, as in my case, can’t bring myself to throw things away that still have a use (just not to me) and the charity shops are not open at the minute so we can’t take it there either.

Turns out I am not very ruthless 😂 I threw some things out really I did but not many 🙄 I carried on cleaning and putting away then John arrived home just before 12, he says everyone is so careful at the moment and hardly any one is going out anywhere. My sister keeps us updated daily and she is doing ok, she does not feel well, like she has flu, but at the moment she is ok.

After a spot of lunch I lit the Rayburn and John went outside to get some wood in and then the plan is to take all the rubbish from doing the office up to the skip and get decorating stuff put away. I have ordered another electric radiator for the spare room as John disconnected that radiator as well, it was back to back with the one in the office and we are not sure which one was leaking so they both went. I have to say the electric radiator is great, I said to John that although we will have them in all rooms I don’t think we will need them on very high at all and certainly some can probably be turned off for days if we don’t need them on. These are not like a storage heater they are notorious for chucking out heat when you do need it and not being on when you do, nor are they like the little portable electric heaters that are filled with oil. The radiators have a ceramic core and hold the heat well, they are quick to heat up and slow to cool down once the thermostat turns them off plus they can be programmed differently for every hour of every day, that’s progress for you, you can also use a remote control or connect to wifi and have smart heaters but we didn’t go for those options as they have a habit of going offline at any given moment 😂 Just the basic switch in at the wall will do for us.

Saturday: Phew busy day when we finally got up that is 😜 We we’re not too late up just about an hour later than normal but it does put you a bit behind. First jobs as always was get the animals fed and watered then it was off to town to get a few things done, the post office to post a parcel, the supermarket to get some bits of greenery for the chickens and a couple of household bits, the petrol station to fill up with fuel, a quick Costa, back to get some wood shavings from the farm shop next door and we are ready to get on with the task of the day. Cleaning out all the birds was top of the agenda, four hours later and all the birds have been mucked out, had clean bedding put down, topped up the grit holders, cleaned the water buckets and had a treat of an iceberg lettuce or some cabbage. The Guineas also had a partial clean out, I don’t like to take it all out in the winter as they have made a very cosy bed for themselves, it can all come out when the temperatures begin to climb. They also got treats of cabbage, apple, swede and carrot, the horses had carrot and apple, the geese had cabbage and apple and Ted the Turkey had cabbage, the only ones I forgot to give anything to were the ducks but I don’t suppose they noticed 🙄 I topped up the wild bird feeders while I was at it and now everything should feel loved and cared for 🥰 The strange thing that happened today was that I was declined four icebergs I was only allowed three, it seems they are having trouble getting hold of them and so limiting customers. It’s a pain that the birds are locked down in winter as come spring I would have plenty growing to be able to give them without having to buy it but that’s they way it is and they really enjoyed their treat demolishing them in seconds flat! We also bought a large pecking block, we will rotate it round the hens, at the minute the first lot are not interested in it at all but they may have a go at it later on. Trying to find things to keep them amused is difficult and actually what we are trying to do is to stop them getting bored as that often leads to egg eating and bullying. I did throw a carrot in as that will keep them amused for ages, it can’t easily be eaten so will last a lot longer.

When we had finished out there it was mid afternoon and time to come in and get the Rayburn lit, do the washing up from this morning, have a cup of tea and then John watched some snooker. He has been so busy he has not been able to watch it at all so it only seems fair to agree to him watching it this afternoon, I can find plenty of other things to do and may even retreat into my new room to do some of them 😀

While we were driving through town we took a sneaky photo of Shelley in her high vis, she had volunteered to help man the vaccination arrivals at the health centre, it’s for her covid memory book and she could hardly take one of herself could she 😂 Its a shame I couldn’t volunteer, you can’t be in a vulnerable category otherwise I would have, the more people that get on board with helping the smoother things will go and the quicker we will all receive our vaccinations making getting back to normal more of a reality.

Sunday: Another busy day, lockdown doesn’t really matter for us as there is always plenty to do round here. Today after doing the morning rounds we set about pollarding the willows at the very front of the driveway. I left them last year to see what they would look like and the answer is too big 😜 There was also the twisted hazel outside the gateway that had grown a fair few straight whips and they needed to come out as well. That took us the best part of the day to get them all cut down, shredded/chipped and tided up, some of the ends that were too big for the shredder were cut and have been stacked. They will be left to rot down giving invertebrates plenty of laces to hide, live and feed eventually. The shredding were also put back on the ground, these will get covered by grass growth in spring and also rot down, feeding the ground as it does so. There was one other that needed doing which is the chestnut that came down in the wind a couple of years ago, it has thrown up multiple shoots and they need cutting back before they get too big, ideally the stump needs grinding out but that’s a job for another day.

Once we finished and put everything away it was indoors for a cup of tea, light the Rayburn and a sit down for an hour before doing the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. It is actually days like this that I am glad of the early evenings because once everything is shut away you can relax entirely 😀

It looks drastic but they soon grow back 😀

I have been thinking about the growing year ahead and thinking of the things I would like to do more of this year, last night we had a shoulder of lamb and although I had mint sauce I rather prefer mint jelly which we have run out of so I will defiantly be making a few jars of that. Then I was thinking I would like to do a lot more dehydrating this year, I did a fair amount of dried herbs which has seen me over winter but I’m sure there are plenty of other things that I could be drying and using, I will have to make a list or I will not remember.

Have a good week, stay safe, stay home if you can, the better weather is coming I promise (just not yet 😜)

Posted in Friesland Farm

Fog, rain, sunshine, Mincepies &

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 7th December 2020: I have had a busy but highly productive day today and smashed 10,000 steps by 3pm. First there was the morning routine and jobs, today that included cleaning out the ducks, cleaning out the guinea pigs and moving the one on his own into the cage inside the pen that the other two are in. I can’t put them together as they are all boars and if they haven’t grown up together will fine to the end if you know what I mean. I am kinda hoping that the longer he is there and they can see and smell each other through the grill they may in the end tolerate one another, time will tell. Burn some more bits of rubbish, seems to mount up all the time and I wanted to get that done at the weekend but other things got in the way. I also filled up all of the wild bird feeders and I turned Biscuit back out into the paddock with Jack, she was very happy to be back out and did a fair bit of running around for five minutes as well as a lovely roll so she can’t be feeling too bad can she. I mucked out the stable, mucking is different from skipping lol, mucking involves taking out all the soiled bedding rather than just taking out the poop. The bed is clean again for the next time they need to come in, always better to prepare as you never know when you will need the stable.

After finishing outside it was indoors to strip the bed and give the bedrooms and good Hoover and polish and remake the bed, put the wash loads on, light the Rayburn and sort some of the Christmas presents. Then lunch which was butternut squash and chilli soup and then an afternoon of organising the last few bits I need for Christmas, a few little presents, presents to send in the mail, presents for John, wrapping paper etc etc. I am almost finished just one more present to get for one of the grandchildren, though I do find it difficult to stop buying when I see things that I think someone might like.

Get the dinner sorted for later and then out to do the feeding and egg collecting. Now we are putting them out in the morning instead of 4pm I don’t feel under such pressure to multi task 😀 it will be back out around 4.15 to shut them away for the night and then I think I will have a sit down before I need to start cooking the dinner, though I do need to hang the washing to dry, do some washing up, a girls work is never done really 😜

Oh and I forgot to tell you that the doc finally got in touch and I have to come off the meds for two weeks then have another blood test as the white cells have not improved. Is there any sign of Lupus activity he asked me, nope none whatsoever, must be the meds then. I do feel a little tired today not sure if that’s all the running round I have been doing or not 🤔

Tuesday take 1: Today is a milestone day, this morning the first vaccine was administered in the UK to a 90 year old lady, hopefully we are at the beginning of the end of what has been a tough year for everyone.

Tuesday take 2: Ooo it’s cold and foggy this morning, I didn’t realise there was ice until I went to put the eggs out, I thought it was just fog. I came back in and lit the Rayburn before going out to do the animals this morning, it was nice and toasty when I came back in and it means my coat, which hangs on the radiator in the boot room, will be warm when I go back out later. I fed everything and broke ice on outside water buckets, nothing to report today, all is well.

When I checked the egg shed this morning I found that some of my cards and tags have sold, that made me very happy 😃 nice when someone wants to buy something you have produced, normally it’s veg and eggs but branching out feels good.

As if getting the front done and the outside beds wasn’t enough, we have decided to try and get the office sorted before Christmas 🙄 when we did the place about five years ago the office ended up half done, it has walls that are half insulated and half plaster boarded, it needs the ceiling insulated and boarded and the remaining bits including round the window done. This room is cold and you can really feel it when you open the door to go in, It would make an ideal craft/sewing/ancestry research/ reading room but it’s either too cold in winter or too hot in summer. I also actually don’t need an office like I did before now that the plumbing company no longer exists, sole traders have much less paperwork 😜 and so I can reduce the desk area to a minimum which will give me room to be able to put up a folding table when I need it and there will be room for a single sofa bed or similar. I am not expecting to get it all done by Christmas just the insulation and the built in desk area then it will be ready to plaster and decorate next year sometime 🤞

We are only 13 days away from the shortest day 🥰 and the daylight hours will begin to increase again, tiny increments but I will take whatever it gives.

There is a lot of talk about climate change and how we may not see snow again in parts of the UK. I am not particularly keen on snow, a hard frost or even better a hoar frost is my favourite, I don’t mind the snow but hate the mess it makes once it starts to thaw 😝 undoubtedly our day to day life contributes massively to carbon emissions and the effect on the climate but little is ever reported about the other things that influence the weather massively such as solar activity or rather the lack of it. Scientists say we are entering a Grand Solar Minimum, in the last hundred years the sun was at its weakest in 2019 and 2020 is the beginning of the GSM with decreased activity possibly up to 2053. Forgive me if I seem naive but although our atmosphere is affected by carbon emissions I can’t see the the sun activity is, that’s a power all of it own and so it has to affect what happens here on earth, stratospheric conditions are also an important factor. On this day in 1938 the highest temperature for December was recorded in La Mesa, California, that surely couldn’t be climate change that was a direct cause of carbon emissions way back then could it 🤷‍♀️ I think during the climate change dialogue we have forgotten about natural cycles mostly because we have no idea what they have been over the last few millennia, apart from the really big changes such as the ice age, we have only monitored the last couple of hundred years, and yes we have exceptional technology but there is a lot more to learn yet in my tiny opinion. None of that means I don’t believe in climate change and the effects it is having, I do, and I believe we are massive contributors that should be doing all we can to put the brakes on, but I also think that there is more than one factor (maybe many) affecting our weather patterns. Only way in the future will they be able to look back and tell.

Did the afternoon rounds later than I normally do now I don’t have to put the eggs out at 4pm, so at 3.45 I fed everything and collected the eggs then at approx 4.20 I went round and shut everything away from the night, back in to get the dinner underway and that’s another day done.

Wednesday: Not so cold this morning, it rained last night and is damp this morning, no sign of frost. Today marks another milestone, a personal one this time. I said the the girls do you think it’s time for new jeans when you can take them off without unbuttoning them, actually I new it was time, the pairs I had been wearing had got very baggy everywhere, so I took the plunge and ordered new jeans. The fact that I had to order a size 12 is the milestone, I don’t think I have been in that size for over 25 years, so I’m blowing my own trumpet here, whoop, whoop 🙌 go me 😀 Now if I could lose a couple of sizes from my ample bust (which I have always hated) I will be very happy indeed. It’s funny isn’t it, if you have straight hair you want curly, if you have a flat chest you’d like bigger boobs, if you are a stick you would like some curves and all of this works in reverse. Once you accept what you have and work with it life becomes happier, but the one thing I have always said I would like to have is tailor made clothes that fit properly, sleeves that are not too long, shoulders that are not too wide etc, at 5’3 I neither fit the petite range nor the regular lol, misfit that’s me 😜

Phew a busy morning, anyone would think it was the bake off tent 😀 I have made three dozen mince pies, a mincemeat slice and a loaf of bread. I had already made three lots of shortcut pastry yesterday but the morning went as follows: Come in and light the Rayburn, while it’s getting going start the bread off in the mixer, then roll out the first dozen mince pies, sort the Rayburn with more wood and shut down, bread is now on the first prove, roll out the next dozen pies, fill and get into the pre warmed oven. While I am at it I might as well make a mincemeat slice which is a recipe given to me a few years back, roll out the next dozen pies, make the pastry for the slice, get the first 2 lots out of the oven, knock back the bread dough for the second prove, wash the mince pie tins, fill the third and get into the oven, roll out the slice and fill ready for the oven, put some more wood on the fire, have a coffee, get the last lot out of the oven and the slice in. ,are a quick phone call, get the slice out and put the bread in the oven to cook, wash up, phew 😂 The slice is a great alternative to mince pie and is good for a pudding, it is basically a shortcrust pastry with egg, milk and sugar added, divide into two, roll out and put one half in an 8inch tin, add a layer of mincemeat then top with the other half of the pastry, brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar and bake until it’s done which is about 20 minutes.

Thursday already! Did a bit around the house before venturing outside to do the feeding and letting out , collected a few eggs while I was at it, another routine morning. Routine is boring but also welcome, it means nothing is afoot, disastrous, problematic, be grateful for routine 😀 It’s milder again today, no sign of frost of a cold wind, just rather pleasant for a December morning, on this day last year we woke up to snow according to the memories on Facebook. Yesterday we were told that if conditions were favourable we might be able to see the Northern Lights in the UK even this far south, there was cloud cover, disappointing but there is a chance over the next two nights so I will keep looking 😀

A lovely story about the Winter solstice came upon my news feed today, little fairies mourning the death of the Sun King on the solstice are told by the Wise Old Mother that though the old sun king has died they should not be sad, on the very same day a tiny new Sun King is born, he is small but with each day he grows bigger and stronger. I thought that was a lovely way to view the winter, once we reach the solstice, every day will be a tiny step nearer to the warmth of the sun again 🌞

I have just been reading a report about the vaccination from Lupus UK, it looks like we will be vaccinated after the 65 yr olds, so first came the over 80s and healthcare/frontline workers, then it’s the over 75s, then the over 70s, followed but the over 65s then anyone 16 – 64 with underlying health conditions that are on the list and Immunocompromised patients are one of those, who knows how long that will be until we get it 🤷‍♀️

Friday: Did the morning rounds, nothing untoward to report. Then I set about clearing leaves from the driveway, this is the only place I clear leaves from as it can get slippery with wet leaves sat there and nobody wants a twisted ankle or worse. On the rest of the smallholding the leaves stay where they are and like some little miracle by spring they are all gone. This is because the worms and microbes spend their time pulling them down into the ground then breaking them down to feed on, the result is better quality soil and all done by nature, no need for a leaf blower. You could of course rake them up and make a leaf mulch bin which eventually makes excellent soil improver but I prefer to let it happen naturally and besides it far less work 😜

I came in then and had some breakfast and truth be told I am feeling pretty tired 😏 My hands, wrists and elbows are hurting a little from shovelling and none of this is a very good sign. I can’t work out why when I am on the meds but my white cells are low, I feel great, but I come off them and a week later some not very welcome symptoms begin to appear 🤷‍♀️ I was getting on fine and now I’m thinking I don’t want to be exhausted all over the Christmas holiday 😔

I looked at the 14/16 day forecast looks like we in for rain and gales, great, not much sign of snow but we may get some frosty weather close to Christmas Day.

The rest of the day was as per usual, nothing exciting or unusual happening here 😂

Saturday: The weather was lovely today and after we did the morning rounds John went out to finish off levelling the soil on the front bed and I did some clearing up of bits and pieces and taking stuff the skip. I then decided that we would be better pooling our efforts and getting one thing done instead to two separate ones and so I went to help John. We got the soil levelled, took off what we didn’t need and bagged it up for the other bed and then set about planting some of the plants I have in pots. I have loads of them but of course at this time of year it’s a job to remember exactly what some of them are, they all look dead. Some of them are recognisable though and so we planted up the things I could identify including my forest pansy tree which I am excited to see burst into flower early next spring. It’s a small tree so won’t get to large for the site, it’s great for bees as the flowers arrive early and before the leaves come out, good food for bees when there is not much else around. It is a big flower though and although I have a lot to go in there I think I made need to buy or grow some more 😜

Here is a sneak preview of what we have been doing, it is still work in progress though and we still have plenty to do before it’s finished. As you can see it was a beautiful day today, blue skies and warm for mid December.

John went off to have his flu jab mid afternoon, he is allowed it this year as he is in the over 50 bracket 😂 I had mine back in October as I always do having underlying health conditions and all that 🙄

When he came back we went in for a sit down and apart from collecting the eggs, feeding and lighting the Rayburn we didn’t do much else, oh except watch the snooker, well John watches the snooker, I have to suffer the running commentary from him even if I don’t want it.

We have discussed sorting the office out and that work will begin on Monday providing nothing else comes up.

At dark we moved the last lot of hens from outside to the stable block where they will now stay until the Avian Flu lockdown ends. It’s good for us as it means that the winter feeding etc won’t be such a chore, inside the stable block is much better than out in the paddocks but not so good for the birds really as they won’t have the freedom they normally enjoy 😏

Sunday: This morning we did the usual routine and then set about starting the office makeover, it will be small part office, small part craft sewing room, a place to do the ancestry searching, a place to keep the grandchildren’s toys and books, a bit of everything really. Mid morning we went to the DIY shop and picked up some storage containers and a chair that I really liked at a bargain price. That set me on the journey of planning the rest of the room and I found some very expensive wall paper 🙄 luckily we only need one roll for the wall I want to do. Up to Christmas it will just be a case of getting it sorted so there is room for two travel cots for the twins on a Christmas Day but after Christmas we will start in it properly. Charlotte phoned and asked if we had our Christmas tree up yet and when I said no she wanted to know why not, the entire contents of the office are in the living room I told her, oh I will let you off then she said lol. I am not quite sure what we did the rest of the day apart from the normal things, the day seemed to go really quickly and that is the end of another week 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Foggy weather, human lockdown lifted, avian lockdown imposed 😖

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 30th November 2020: Monday again 🙄 a good Monday this week as we come out of the second lockdown so by Thursday things will feel fairly normal again hopefully. The infection rate has decreased by a third over the last couple of weeks which is good news but we are still not out of the woods yet, when they start to roll out the vaccine we will be on the up and up 🤞

It’s still foggy this morning but it’s fairly mild, it doesn’t feel too cold at all out there. I did the morning rounds, let everything out, fed and watered everything collected the duck eggs, not much to report on that front.

Did a fair few bits indoors, routine stuff really, washing, cleaning out the fridge, clean the boot room. I lit the Rayburn about 12.30 as it felt a tad cold and John called in for some lunch about 1pm, I had FaceTime chats with Sam and Shelley in the afternoon, a bit of reading and then it was time to go out and feed/collect the eggs. I was reluctant to go out, it was nice and toasty inside but actually it wasn’t too bad at all. John was home before 4pm so he will be shutting the birds away tonight, lovely 😊 it’s a bit of a pain having to go back out so soon after the feed rounds especially when I am trying to get the dinner sorted for the evening.

I have looked at the weather forecast for the end of the week after Samantha mentioned it was going to get cold, looks like we might even get some snow ⛄️

Tuesday 1st December: White rabbits 🐇 This morning if I stood in a particular place in the kitchen I could see the moon through the back door and the emerging sunrise through the front window, it was pretty cool 😀

It’s the first day of December and the radio has back to back Christmas songs this morning 😏 I am not a fan of starting too early with the festive stuff, my tree will not go up for another couple of weeks, if I put it up now I would be bored of it by the time Christmas arrives not to mention the dust that will accumulate on the baubles 😂 I did buy an advent calendar this year a chocolate one which is normally something I refuse to do, I prefer the old fashioned ones with a picture behind the door lol, but this year is different and we do need a little bit of cheer, however I forgot to get it out this morning before John went to work so looks like he will have to go second this year 😜

This morning I did the rounds as per usual and all is well. Then I finally got round to getting the heat mat on in the greenhouse, this means I have to run an extension cable to it. With hindsight we should have dug out and put a cable underground but at the time I had no intention of using electric in there. Now however I have changed my mind (a woman’s prerogative ya know 😜) and if I want to keep certain plants alive over Winter then needs must. We had a chat last night with a local company about solar PV and battery storage and hopefully that will be something we install next year so in theory we will be creating our own electric to run the greenhouse and the house itself.

I then spent a large part of the morning doing some crafting, I have plenty of buttons to use and so along with some recycled card I have been making cards as well as gift tags. It’s fun and different to something I would normally be doing although I was proving and baking a loaf of bread at the same time 🥰

Recycled card and up cycled buttons 😀

Wednesday: A beautiful sunrise this morning it was positively glowing through the windows.

It went from orange to pink, just beautiful.

It is National tree week this week, there are lots of initiatives to get people planting trees, visiting trees or pledging to nurture trees. I have said before, there are not enough trees in this country purely from personal experience there is not enough shade and if the climate hots up we are going to need that shade. Over the years we have planted about 20 new trees here that have successfully taken and a few that haven’t but even on our five acres that’s a drop in the ocean, we still have room for plenty more. I like to plant trees that are either productive or native but now and again there is room for a non native decorative tree. I have a few trees in pots, some that I know where they will be going and some that I have no idea about yet but I will find a place for them eventually.

Today is the first day out of lockdown but we are straight into the tier system and we are tier two. That means we can pretty much do everything except visit inside others homes, the pubs and restaurants are open for table service meals, the beauty industry is open again, the non essential shops are open as are many other services and events as long as they are covid secure. Just think, this time last year we had no idea what was coming, our existence is fragile, though as a species we think we are top of the tree. We have watched politicians try to pick their way through the crisis and be slammed with criticism whatever path they took. At first people were concerned about the health of their friends, family and neighbours, then that kind of wore off and they were worried more about the economy and finally about their freedom. It’s a funny mix, from where I stand I’m not too worried about the economy but I don’t have a young family and a mortgage otherwise I might think differently. I sit on the fence with the rules really, on the one hand I follow them on the other hand I think ‘you don’t own me and I am capable of making intelligent decisions for myself’ no good getting irate about it all, it is what it is and they are doing what they think is the best for everyone. The first vaccine has been approved today so here begins the road to normality, not that I think our normality is a good thing, it’s not, the all consuming, regurgitating species that we are will definitely be the downfall of this planet, if something else doesn’t get us first that is 🙄 It should have been a wake up call but it just became an inconvenience.

Did the mornings rounds, it is chillier than I thought it would be out there, definitely felt a nip in my fingers, should have worn gloves definitely will tomorrow. I came in and rang the surgery, I am still waiting for the results of my bloods, I called yesterday as I hadn’t heard anything, still with the doctor, I called today and still with the doctor. What does that actually mean I asked, it means the receptionist can’t see the results as the doctor either hasn’t looked at them yet or is reviewing them. I am hoping that means he has been in touch with my Rheumatologist to figure out what to do, either that or the results are fine and carry on as before needs no rushing, however it would be nice to know 🙄

I am going out for a coffee this morning, because I can, it will be nice to see other human beings even if my tolerance of them is low 😂 I used to think that I would like to be living on a remote island somewhere away from civilisation but in fact this years episodes have shown me that I am not a hermit and I do like small, well tiny interactions with my species after all 😜

I really need to find some recipes for duck eggs, we have loads of them, they sell much more slowly than the chicken eggs and the ducks have been laying well consequently I have about seven dozen to do something with 🤣

I have been making more cards today after I had an order for 10, then another order for 10, I figured I’d better get on and make some. I am finding it very addictive and rather wish I had somewhere I could leave it all out so that when I had a spare hour I could just sit and do them.

I did the afternoon rounds and collected the eggs, I will be glad when they don’t have to go out at 4pm as this will give me a little bit of leeway on my time and what I can get done.

John came home with a bag full of biscuits p, he had been to do a job where the lady makes them, it started as a hobby apparently and now she takes orders for them, there is hope for my card empire yet 😜

Thursday: Did the morning rounds in the rain 🌧 it was too bad it’s not pouring just raining 😝 It mostly went the same as every morning except one of the little light Sussex chicks was not well. I have been watching it for a couple of days and yesterday it was still eating fine although a little static at the end of the day. This morning it was obviously in trouble, I guess the cold nights didn’t help, I scooped it up and bought it in, gave it some sugar water but I could tell it was too far gone and so had to dispatch it. They can go down very quickly, with lots of fluffed up feathers it’s easy to miss the signs of wasting underneath but this one had got quite thin. Neck dislocation is a very quick and precise method of dispatch and one I have been doing for over twenty years now so I am proficient, never a nice thing to do but often the kindest. It was a lot smaller than the others that hatched at the same time so I am guessing there was something wrong with it from the start, sometimes it can take weeks or even months to become evident.

Samantha came over to get the horses in, it is wet and cold and we are supposed to have snow/sleet showers tomorrow so they can come in for a bit of a break and a warm up especially Biscuit who is getting on and we all know how you feel the cold the older you get.

I spent a few happy hours making more cards as I have sold all the ones I made so far 😀 it’s fun, I enjoy doing it and it’s a job in the warm 😀 In-between making them I did the afternoon rounds and was supposed to do the shutting away but John was home in time so I carried on card making while he went out and did it instead bless him.

Friday: Busy couple of hours first thing this morning, the horses came in overnight and that adds to the job list, they need feeding, watering and skipping out (removing the poop) Jack will probably go back out later today as he is not too happy at being in but depending on the temperature Biscuit will stay in a little longer. The rest of the rounds were done without incident and John was here to take charge of another eight tonne of topsoil for the raised bed which is now full I am pleased to say. Charlie popped over before going to work to collect a card order that I made for someone at her work and bought me a juice of carrot, celery and ginger, lovely. I am having Florence this morning as part of the essential child care we are allowed to do, Shelley can now work again and there are a lot of clients on the waiting list, so I said I would look after Florence while she gets some of the back log sorted.

Went for a walk with Florence, first to the post box to post a letter, I have to fill in a sheep and goat inventory annually even if I don’t have either at the moment, then we carried on down to the village Ford where there is a Christmas tree in the middle of the water, then all the way round church lane w

The announcement came yesterday that as from 14th December all poultry and captive birds must be housed so that the wild birds cannot get near them. This is essentially lockdown for the birds, so we are not the only ones with a virus rampaging. Last time this happened we were not prepared, I had never had to do it before and we were caught off guard. The things we put in place turned out to be awful (tarpaulins covering the runs) it was wet and muddy and a disaster. This time we are on top of the game 😀 we have enough spare stables to house all 90 laying hens plus outside pens that can be closed off and netted, they have solid roofs already. The weekend will be all about preparing, moving, and cleaning out. I feel bad for Ted as he is a big bird but his pen is fairly large, he is in the big rabbit run which is 10ft square probably bigger guessing measurements is not my forte 😜 I want to move the big guinea hut he out of there and put the single pig somewhere else but not sure where just yet. The quail are already in the back area under cover. That just leaves the ducks and the geese, the ducks could go in a stable once the horses go back out and if we needed it back they would have to go back outside. The geese however are more of a problem, they are big birds and they eat grass as their staple diet, they will be confined to the small back paddock for the time being. We also have to have foot dips which have to be used before entering any pen, run, stable block, oh the joys of poultry keeping. I seriously wonder if it is really worth the effort sometimes 🤔

Afternoon rounds included turning Jack back out into the paddocks and moving Biscuit into Jacks stable because it’s bigger than hers. Then put the birds all to bed and off to get a bit of shopping. When we got back and after we had eaten we booked a holiday 😀😀😀😀😀😀 it’s not until 2022 mind you but boy it feels good to have something to look forward to 🥰

Saturday: Turned the alarm off last night so not such an early start today. John did half the rounds while I did the other half and sorted out Biscuit. The next job was cleaning the flue although it has been burning clean and didn’t need much doing, I definitely can’t wait for electric heating next year though. A few more odd jobs to get done and then it was time to go and pay our respects to a friend on his last journey 😢

Unexpected things that happen in life give you cause to evaluate what really is important and what are the things that would not matter if they were gone. It is important to enjoy whatever it is you have decided to do, the small things and the bigger things, if you are not loving it then change it, you only get one go at this life make the most of it.

We met one of our new neighbours over the road today they moved in about a week ago so that was nice.

Sam came over in the afternoon to check Biscuit over, she definitely is not keeping herself as warm as she ought to be which is worrying really, could be something major going on. The vet will be coming soon to rasp Jacks teeth so we can get them to give her a look over and see what they think. I am no expert but I think by the way she puffs a bit and the fact she is not staying warm it’s going to be her heart but I might be wrong, when she goes back out she will be having a rug on this year.

Sunday: Suddenly realised its mid evening and I haven’t signed this week off yet 🙄 We did the morning rounds and then John moved a load of timber that was stacked in front of the stable we were going to use for the third lot of hens. Meanwhile I did a few other little bit and pieces, I went to have a looked and we realised that the stable would not be secure enough from the fox and we would also have to put up netting to stop the hens escaping, so we went to plan b. We will use the stable that Biscuit was in as that is secure, it means that John moved all the timber for nothing but hey Ho sometimes it goes like that. After that we went out for breakfast, yay finally we can go out to eat on our way back we picked up the Christmas tree which we bought from the farm in the village. It won’t be going up just yet but at least we have it ready. The weather was foggy, grey, drizzly and a tad cold so we decided not to do anymore outside work today, we watched a couple of films instead, that’s what Sunday afternoons are for isn’t it lol.