Tag: Courgettes

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sooo hot 🥵 a stuck hedgehog & more ash die back 😞

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th July 2021: And just like that it’s Monday again but not any old Monday, today is Freedom day 🤷‍♀️ That’s what they have named it anyhow 🙄 we are not free of the virus and we won’t be for a very long time yet but I guess it is time to get on with life as best we can under the circumstances. Who would have guessed this time a couple of years ago we would have had such a restriction on our liberties 😮 My personal opinion is that at some point we have to get on with life, we can’t keep locking down but I would say we still have to be very careful. I do know of double vaccinated people who have since caught Covid, their symptoms were not as bad as they may have been back in the beginning but they have had symptoms that are flu like and still lost the sense of taste. Proceed with caution is the advice we should have had.

Enough of that 😂 It is another hot day, set to be a scorcher of a week and you know what that means for me, yep I will mostly be found indoors! I was up early this morning and by 9.30 I had done four hours of work and come inside to do some more, I will probably nap mid afternoon as I will be out till dark once it cools down enough, if it does 😜 No picking today I am going to wait a couple of days until there is plenty to pick, so that left watering and weeding which is what I did as well as feeding the usual bunch of inmates. John got up after me but did the birds before going off to work.

Once I came in I decided it was going to be way too hot most of the week to put another coat of paint on the ceiling so I have abandoned that and started putting the bits and pieces back where they belong, at least the kitchen won’t be upside down any more which will make me feel calmer about things lol.

Apart from putting the kitchen bits back up and sorting dinner for later I didn’t do much else until much later, had an afternoon nap obvs 😂

Once we had dinner and done all the late afternoon/evening jobs, I went out to get some watering done. Although it is very hot because I have watered the tunnels and greenhouse everyday without fail, they are doing pretty well. The veg in the beds are also doing better than I had expected, all that rain at the beginning of the season and plenty of cover on the ground (including weeds) is keeping things going. I am looking at changing the beds a bit for next year and I think I will order some bulk mushroom compost at the end of the year, that seems to help keep moisture locked in. While I am at it I will incorporate some bio char as well, that’s the plan anyway, as always things don’t always go according to plan but I can see how far I get with it.

Tuesday: Another scorcher in store today 🙄 up with the alarm at 5am, lovely and cool at that time of the morning. I watered last night so this morning it was picking to concentrate on, I picked French beans and the first lot of runner beans, beetroot, carrots and from one of the small raise beds a good haul of potatoes, also a few blueberries. Fed the torts and Guineas, sorted out the boot room and gave it a Hoover, cleaned out the litter trays that the kittens have now started to use and then made a coffee. I could then hear Patch barking a ‘come and see this bark’ I checked to make sure he wasn’t locked in anywhere as he didn’t come when I called him at first. I went out the back and he ran off towards the paddock so I followed him knowing that something was amiss, a hedgehog was stuck firmly in the stock fencing, back up to get some gloves and wire cutters and back down to release the hog and make the hole in the fence ‘fat hedgehog friendly’ 😜 Back up to drink my coffee and sort out this major I go haul of goodies. The problem with the hot weather is that I don’t really want to eat carrots, beans and potatoes but they need picking and pulling so I am going to have to prepare them for freezing or storing, I also have onions and garlic (which can’t be stored due to the leaf miner) to get started on. I did want to dehydrate some onion rings but it will be a bit warm to have that on at the minute, I reckon the sun is warm enough to sun dry tomatoes here for once!

Oo I have done a thing lol, like I do, on a whim, I have listed our small back paddock as a Wildpoint camping site (tent only)l Well there are plenty of people staying in the country for holidays this year so might as well utilise some of our area and share the wonderful sunsets with them 🥰

I’m crying, I’m not sad, I’ve been chopping the onions 😂

Popped out this evening for a therapy treatment then stopped off in the village at the pond as Shelley, Martin and the kids were there with some friends and then back home to water the tunnels and the greenhouse. It is a bit cooler this evening which is nice and after watering I sat in the garden, a hedgehog ran across the lawn and there were two baby hogs in the paddock, they looked like large conker casings 😂 I have filled up a dish of water for them and put it on the lawn, probably struggling to find water in this heat wave. I hope it breaks soon, the struggle is real trying to keep everything going just at the time when fruits and veg are forming 🙄

Wednesday: Guess what, yep it is bloody hot again today 😂 It was nice and cool around 5am though and there was a slight dew on the plants which is great. I got started on some garden work almost straight away, only picked peas today and then cut back the tops that were not producing yet to see if I can stimulate a flush growth from them. Then it was into the fruit cage to cut back any dead steam from the summer raspberries, plenty of bindweed to pull up and water the fruit that is in pots. I suddenly realised how dumb I was 🤪 I have an oblong galvanised water tank on one side of the cage and it is on the opposite side to everything that is in pots and needs water most, derr, what was I thinking, well I clearly wasn’t thinking that’s for sure so I need to remedy that. The tank gets filled up with water from the bigger rain storage tanks and then it also fills naturally from any rainfall so there is usually plenty in there I just have to fill up the watering can and take it to the plants. It would be a whole lot easier if the plants were nearer 😂 The rest of the day, once I had finished outside, I have done next to nothing 🙄😬🥴 saving my energy for later tonight and the watering sesh.

Thursday: Same heat if not hotter certainly in the house anyway. I spent the early morning checking the veg garden and watering where necessary but I didn’t do any picking I decided to leave it another day and pick a lot at once rather than bits and pieces. The development of some veg is slow due to the heat and lack of moisture, rain forecast for the weekend which should wake it all up a bit. I spent a large part of the day inside as always but I was busy. We have a holiday booked and I was getting the paperwork printed sorted, emailing enquires etc, that seemed to take hours what with one thing and another. We are going on a weeks cruise to nowhere 😂 seriously we get on the ship in Southampton and it sails around the south coast and the French coast, no stops and then comes back, but that’s fine, we just need to get away. Good food and drink, relaxing and reading is just about all I will be doing and I can’t wait 🥰 Everyone boarding needs proof of both vaccines (and the nhs site was down 😜) we will all have to be tested at the terminal (courtesy of P & O) we need Covid travel insurance, health declaration forms, passports (even though we are not getting off) car parking booked, tickets and labels and umpteen forms to fill in lol, didn’t get all of it done for one reason or another but nearly there. We weighed up all the pros and cons, the ship is not filling to capacity (50%) we don’t have to go to the inside venues if we don’t want to, there are plenty of opportunities to eat outside, protocols are all in place and so because we feel we need to get on with life a little bit, we booked up. If I am honest I did think it might have all calmed down a lot more by now, I didn’t reckon on the football being a point of super spreading 🥴 Still, we are going and I still feel despite everything that it will be ok 🤞hopefully not famous last words!

In the evening it was supposed to be the usual jobs after dinner, watering, but we sat down and John out a film on so that was that as I got interested in it lol. I did go out around 9.30 just before the light faded and watered the greenhouse, it was so much cooler outside than indoors so we sat out there for a good while before ending the day.

Friday: It feels cooler today more like what we are used to in the summer. I got up at 5 and started watering, I splashed a bit round the front beds as well, they are flagging in this heat now. Then onto the veg garden and watering the tunnels before launching into picking. Cucumber, courgettes, tomatoes, runner beans, French beans, aubergines, peppers, chillies and some blueberries, raspberries and Logan berries, not many but enough for us. Once that was done and I had done the horses water and let out the ducks it was indoors to prep the stuff I had picked. Some went out for sale, Shelley and Charlie both wanted a few items and the rest I podded, chopped and peeled either for dinner tonight or for the freezer. It is the twins 2nd birthday today and we will be popping over there later this afternoon and so I have put dinner in the slow cooker, that way it is either ready before we go or I can leave it until we get back depending on how hungry John is 😁

Just typing this up I have now been working for almost six hours and it’s only 11 am, sometimes I wonder why I feel so tired by midday 😂

I had a delivery, it’s a birthday present for me from Sam and family and it arrived early as they will be away. The delivery man said, as is etiquette for the British, ‘isn’t it a lovely day’ to which I replied ‘yes it is but I’m glad it is a bit cooler than it has been’. Mistake really, normally I would just say, yes it’s lovely but for some reason this other sentence came out of my mouth today 🤷‍♀️ We shouldn’t complain about the weather, we don’t get it often enough’ he said (nicely I will add) I could tell he liked his sunshine, tanned, shorts on, t shirt etc, for some inexplicable reason I felt the need to defend my sentence 😆 So I tried to explain about UV and my skin, ‘oh right’ he said as he waved and walked away 🤣 Two things spring to mind here, he doesn’t understand it and nor do millions of people probably, and also I feel like I am ‘that person’ who has a hundred different allergies when I start to explain why it’s a problem 😕 I don’t want to be that person, I am not that person but I am becoming more disillusioned by the lack of awareness and understanding lately 🙄 Especially when it has been as hot as the last few days, when things get back to normal (eventually) there will be so many things I would love to do but can’t because it’s out in the blaring sunshine 🤦‍♀️

Saturday: John cleaned and tided the back area which always needs doing every few weeks due it being a dumping ground as we pass through. I did a bit of picking and then we went off to meet Shelley and the children at a local event and then had a coffee in town. Writing this on Sunday I can’t actually remember what else we did but we did something 😂

Sunday: Still haven’t had any rain, there was loads forecast but it has missed us almost entirely, we had a short burst of rain but that is it so far which is not what I need, really need some decent downfall. After doing indoor stuff I went up the back and burnt the rubbish and I used the scythe to cut down stinging nettles, found a clutch of eggs which we will save to give the dogs and cats. I also discovered that one of the ash trees that I thought would be fine for a couple of years, has got disease right at the bottom and half the trunk is gone. We need to get it down soon before it comes down of its own accord. Meanwhile John cleaned out the front hens and then pulled up some of the bigger weeds from the side driveway in readiness for some type 1 to be delivered. In the afternoon we went off to get me a birthday present, chuffed with my new fire pit that has cooking facilities 🥰 later in the afternoon I made some steak and onions on there, converted John finally to campfire cooking as he said it tasted soooo good 😁 Popped out to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa and then when we got back I pulled some of the dead stuff in the front beds and gave it a good watering, finished around 9.30pm, very tired now.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Spring Bank Holiday 😁 glorious sunsets & the first peas.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 31st May 2021: Bank Holiday Monday, Sam and Luke are coming over today, Luke is helping John with a few things round the farm that he can’t do by himself including taking down the ash tree in the garden next to the greenhouse 🙄 I was going to do a roast but it was forecast to be quite hot so we scrapped that idea, we do t really do bbq, neither of us like standing there cooking over hot coals when it’s hot 🥵 so we are having a picnic in style. I cooked a leg of lamb in the slow cooker overnight we will have that cold in rolls along with various salads including an aubergine and chickepea salad which I have prepped this morning. Great use of that aubergine I was given, cut into thick slices, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill, then do the same to the other side. Meanwhile rinsed a can of chickpeas, make a dressing from paprika, honey, olive oil and lemon juice, chop up some onion, I used spring onions but any will do, chop some coriander, mix all together and add the quartered aubergine slices, mix again, enjoy.

Before prepping food I went out and picked purple sprouting and a few asparagus spears that were long enough, John did the morning feeding and letting out before creosoting some rails. I am not too happy about creosoting these days but the preservative they use these days is awful and the wood does not last more than a couple of years. When you pay a lot of money for the fencing you really want it to last as long as possible. Some of our boundary fences are original and they would have been put up in the seventies, ore soaked in old oil, bad I know but that’s what they did then and they do last a very, very long time because of it.

This years bank holiday is definitely going to be a ‘spring’ for everyone, last year we were locked down, this year we have a lot more freedom and I am sure people will be taking full advantage of it 🥰 I just heard that next year we will have a four day spring holiday to celebrate 70 years since the ascension to the throne of our Queen, big parties will be planned all over the country I think.

Well what a fabulous day we have had today, Luke came over and got some welding done and then moved onto cutting down the ash tree. Shelley, Josh and Flo popped in and helped to load the trailer and had a ride in it. They left then Sam arrived with the children, I was getting lunch ready when Charlie and Macca also popped in, together with my sister who was working on the caravan we all sat and had a lovely lunch in the garden. Sue went back to the caravan work, John and Luke carried on cutting the trunk up, Sam filled up a washing bowl with water for the kids to play in and I remembered we had a paddling pool from last year so we got that out, the kids stripped off and played the rest of the afternoon in there 🥰 Lovely day indeed, we are now knackered 😂

But it doesn’t end there for us lol, even if we are knackered there is still the afternoon jobs to get done, some tidying up left to do, a quick bite to eat and then out in fox patrol for the evening. Usually I do the watering in the greenhouse and tunnels, plus the newly planted veg. John wanders round checking on everything and then eventually we can get the birds into bed and relax. Tonight I have set up the wildlife camera to see if I can capture and footage of anything 👀 it will be interesting viewing in the morning hopefully.

Oh my feet hurt 🦶

Tuesday: Another lovely day, I was up with the early alarm even though we didn’t need to be as John is off today, still I find it’s easier to get on in the cooler mornings than later in the day. I started off indoors though as I wanted to get the boot room hoovered, the dust and debris on the floor was getting a bit much. Put some washing on and then outside, do the egg shed, water the plants in pots out there then onto some early morning weeding, hang the washing out at one point, prick out some foxglove seedlings etc etc. Once the heat gets up and the sun gets round I generally give up usually around lunchtime and besides I have work to do later in the day so I need some down time as well. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo at lunchtime, they bought lunch with them and then played in the garden for a few hours. We played a board game and then with the bubbles and then onto some drawing, they can’t use the garden at home at the minute as they are having building work done lol. All the while John was busy sorting out scrap ready to take to the scrapyard for weighing in. When he got back he came and sat in the garden with us all.

We had a rest in the cool in the afternoon before commencing with the afternoon jobs around 5, a quick bite to eat and some paperwork and then I went out to do some watering, the greenhouse, the tunnels, the newly planted squash, bean and sweetcorn plants. I then got some more straw and filled up the trial potato beds, I am not sure how this is going to work out, so far I’m not convinced but time will tell. One mistake I made was writing on the wooden surround the names of the potatoes, well that has all but washed off in the rain so it’s guess the variety time 😜 Last job of the day was to go and water the squash in the ménage, John did it last night for me but I think he missed a few 😂 not surprising really as he wouldn’t know what they look like anyway. One thing to note is that the plants I actually planted have faired a lot better than the ones I sank in pots so I may go and plant those properly tomorrow. Something has been digging near them again though none have been damaged so far.

It’s just gone 9pm, I have just come in to write this and John is still out of fox watch and putting to bed duties.

I have been trying to find an answer to a question I have about the hazel trees, at this time of year the leaves are sticky (if you walk, under a low branch it gets in your hair) I assume it is honeydew, everything I Google tells me it’s honeydew. Honeydew is caused by insect infestation of one sort or another and supposedly it’s not good for the tree, but and it’s quite a but, we have this every year and every year we still get a fantastic haul of Hazel’s and the trees are in great condition. Other observations over time include the amount bees that are attracted to the trees presumably because of the honey dew and birds that are attracted to them because of the insects. So my question was, is this a natural secretion? I can’t see any sign of infestations and the whole thing seems to be beneficial rather than detrimental. One year I actually thought there was a swarm there was such a hum but it was a lot of individual bees feeding 🙄 Is this natural, I mean, Google doesn’t know everything does it 😂 maybe it’s a long forgotten occurrence 🤷‍♀️ If you know then do tell me.

Wednesday: Oosh it’s warm today touching 26c, muggy with it and thunderstorms are forecast later. That will be good as I won’t have to do any watering. Apart from the basics we have both had the day off today, we got up early got jobs done and then went out before it got too warm. We had breakfast out and I bought a couple of plants, had a wander about before setting off back home. On the way back we called into a local village recreation ground where Shelley, Flo and Josh were having cake at the cafe. When we got home it was lovely and cool indoors, it’s like we have air conditioning 😂 nice when it’s so hot outside. Early afternoon we went off to another local park where Shelley, Sam and all the kids were meeting up for lunch and a play together, we played for a short while before leaving them to it and coming back home again.

The weather was really oppressive, enough to cause a headache or maybe it’s just me 🤪 We had the tiniest rain shower and then it stopped, I’m hoping we get a bit more overnight.

While I was out watering the plants that are out for sale I noticed the apple tree has powdery mildew 😖 there is always something 🙄 It is a combination of things that has caused it, firstly the mild winter hasn’t done any good because pests and disease haven’t died off. I know it was a long winter but it wasn’t that cold, secondly we had all that rain, again not the best conditions and thirdly we didn’t prune it back when we should have done which means the growth it a bit thick and the air can’t flow as it should, resulting in powdery mildew this time. I have pruned off the worst of it, the tree is huge and luckily most of it is near the bottom so I have done what I can for now. I need to spray it and I will either use milk which apparently works well or neem oil, I have both so a case of deciding which I think will be better 🤷‍♀️ I can’t spray the whole tree obviously but I can spray some of it and hope for the best.

John thinks we have lost a few more hens, seriously I am at the point where I wonder, what is the point.

Thursday: John is having a week off this week BUT it was Bank Holiday on the Monday, today he has gone to work for the whole day and tomorrow he is working the whole day and Tuesday he spent sorting out plumbing stuff, great week off!

He did the morning rounds before leaving and then it’s me on me tod so I sorted out washing to put on, the eggs to put out and then go some bread on the go.

While I was waiting for the bread to go through the two proves I did a bit of hoeing in the front beds and planted the two new plants I bought. One is a ground cover clematis which should look amazing once it gets going the other is a gorgeous low growing pink flowering shrub that the bees are already feeding on. Back indoors to decide on what will be for dinner this evening.

The bread is now baked and meanwhile I have been making a Moroccan rice salad to go with my lamb chop later, ordering a birthday present for John, his birthday is on Monday and organising a gathering for Sunday. Luckily we have plenty of room here for 30 plus other paddocks which could technically hold 30 more each 😜 We have a big family, if we all get together (which is rare) there are 60 of us 🤪 that is just Mum and Ken, their children (me included) their grandchildren and their great grandchildren, most of us live close by and so we see each other all the time especially birthdays 😂

I went out to the greenhouse mid morning, it’s overcast but warm today with the occasional peek of the sun. I potted on two tomato plants which I will grow on in the greenhouse, I have a bit of everything everywhere this year, I am hoping to find out which is the best place to grown certain things. Normally all the tomatoes go in the tunnels and one or two outside but leaving some in the greenhouse will give me an idea of if that is also any good for them or if it is too hot. The peppers and chilli love it in there, I think tomatoes might struggle a bit but we will see. I also planted out two more courgette plants and then some climbing French beans, nearly finished with the planting now. I do have two more small trays of runner beans though, no idea what I will do with them 🙄 I will keep them going just in case any that are planted out fail I think. I just have a few more squash to plant out once they have hardened off, crown Prince which are the lovely blue pumpkins and a couple of spaghetti squash and butternut squash, one table king and the musque de something or other 🤷‍♀️ that’s it for planting out then, but there will still be work to do. The purple sprouting is coming to an end, John and I had it the other night and the stems are getting a little bit too stringy for eating. The rest of the plant will feed the Guineas so no waste there, one I will leave to go to seed and collect that ready to sow some more for next year. It is such a useful crop to have when there is nothing else around even though it takes forever to mature. The ground it is on I will clear and leave to recover, I will probably put some home made compost on there and then cover it. I have been growing in that ground continuously for three years I think so it needs rest and rejuvenation. I dug up a mini kiwi that has tried twice to come into leaf in the garden but each time the frost has got it, I will pot it up and see if I can rescue it and then overwinter it in the tunnel before putting outside next spring well after the frosts have gone.

I picked some asparagus spears in the afternoon, I had spotted them earlier when I was planting courgettes and thought, I need to pick those. They grow at a great rate of knots and if you miss them they become a fern, we also have asparagus beetle here and so picking the spears is a good way to knock back the numbers. The beetles lay little tiny eggs on the spear stems but they can easily be wiped off with your finger, no harm done, to the asparagus at any rate 🙄 I dug up a few leeks earlier, they have been in the ground all year and need to come out before they spoil. I often use leeks in place of onion, no point going to buy onions when I have leeks to use up. On the side in the kitchen I now have leeks, asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce and the acquired butternut squash, I need to figure out what I am going to do with it all. I think the asparagus will be a side dish for dinner later, I may cook it and stir it into my rice dish while John can have it with his chop and potatoes. The lettuce can go into salad which I will have with the rice and a chop, I can also use some more of the peppers I also acquired, that leaves the rhubarb the leeks and the squash to sort out.

I thought I would take a quick look in the small tunnel to see if any peas were ready, yes they were 😁 so John will have asparagus and peas with his dinner tonight. Peas need picking regularly, they will then produce more peas, if you don’t pick them they think their job is done 🙄 The pea pod is the seed for next years plants after all and once they have successfully produced some pods they don’t need to do anymore, as a grower (and avid pea eater) we trick the plant into making more by taking the ones they have already produced, damn and blast it they think, I will have to produce more flowers now and ultimately more pea pods 😂 This applies to a lot of veg, take away this years seed and it will do its upmost to produce more, good eh, well for us anyway.

A bit of a sit down after dinner and then I went out to potter around in the garden and do a bit of watering in the tunnels. I also watered the fruit cage, well the fruit in pots anyway. It keeps trying to rain but never really amounts to much. I took a few lavender cuttings while I was out there, I will take a few every now and again and see if they amount to anything. The setting sun was glorious tonight, it bathed the next field in a golden glow, it bathed everything it touched in a warm golden glow it was a sight to behold. How lucky are we to see that on a regular basis 🥰

Friday: Not a bad day again, overcast but warm most of the day. I started off doing the usual bits in doors, loading the egg shed for the day, watering the squash plants, making sure the horses had plenty of water and potting up some more lemon grass seedlings. I also watered a few of the things that have been recently planted just to keep them going, not rain forecast for a while yet. Then I had a quick half hour catch up with a friend over from the US before Shelley came to pick me up to go out for lunch. We went to Bourton on the Water, it was packed, Shelley said on the way there, it will be nice to see the place without hundreds of tourists 🤣 I have never seen it so busy, it’s one of those places we take for granted, we have always visited there right from when I was a child as my Aunt and cousins lived there, I guess you forget it is a tourist destination. We had a lovely lunch and then a wander round and an ice cream before heading for home again. Luckily for me it was overcast, a nice change to walk round without shade searching for once. When I got back I had to reload the egg shed, it had been busy while I was away and almost empty.

Saturday: Another wall to wall blue sky day 😜 I wanted to get some food shopping done as early as possible this morning so by 8.30 we were off to the shops, I am going to do a cold buffet for any family that want to come over tomorrow afternoon. It will be one of a very few times we have had the opportunity to do this at all in a year, looking forward to it.

Although it didn’t take long to get the shopping I am always aware that the temperature is going up and the sun is getting higher giving me less time to get stuff done outside in the garden. So after putting the shopping away it was straight outside to get on, a bit of watering, some potting on, John cut the lawn and suddenly I’m out of shade and so I have to come inside 🙄 I could move the gazebo but it’s already to hot for me to be out there moving stuff around, sometimes it’s just the moving between shade areas that I can feel the sun prickling my skin, nightmare really, John said I need an indoor job but I like being outside 😂

We are all waiting to see what is going to happen on June 21st, it’s supposed to be the end of all restrictions but I don’t think that will be the case. For us it’s fine as it is at the minute, we feel that we have all the freedoms we need, we can go places, see people and do the things we like doing. I feel that at some point we have just got to learn to live with the virus being around, if when the majority of people have been vaccinated we still can’t have total freedom then what is the point of vaccinating 🤷‍♀️

I put some lemon grass plants out for sale, not sure if they will sell or not, it’s not something people commonly use unless they do a fair bit of Asian cooking. But it is a beautiful grass in its own right and has an amazing smell to boot so what’s not to like. Lemongrass is a powerful antioxidant and anti inflammatory, it would make a great lemon tea, it would also flavour vodka nicely I imagine, refreshing at any rate. I was surprised at how well it grew the first time I tried growing it but it does need to be brought in over the colder months.

It is so peaceful here today totally blissful. I think having spent last summer lockdown and not much interaction the rest of the year I have forgotten how noisy places can get. Yesterday was busy and consequently noisy, today in the shop it was noisy and here all I can really hear is nature, birds mostly. Starting to go out in the world again a bit makes me thankful that we live where we do, not sure why we would ever want to go anywhere else to be honest lol.

We lost more chickens today while we were putting the shopping away this morning I think, the birds were making a noise but I thought it was because we had let the dogs back out but then we found a pile of feathers a bit later on.

Sunday: Overcast today and the threat of rain later in the afternoon, bloody typical, when you want it, it’s nowhere to be seen, when you don’t want it, whoosh he it comes 😂 We got the morning jobs done and then I spent a couple of hours, picking, watering, weeding, hoeing and at the same time diving in and out of the kitchen cooking food for later on. Meanwhile John was burning, staining, tidying, and then came round to help me edge the lawn and tidy that up. Then indoors for a rest before I start sorting out food and drink for 3pm, I already got a head start by slow cooking the lamb overnight again, it was delicious last time so may as well do it again.

June is a fabulous month in both the flower garden and the veg garden, the flowers are beginning to bloom so we have nice splashes of colour everywhere this month. The veg will slowly start to come on a s by the end of the month we should be picking a selection of peas and beans plus the onions and garlic will be ready to harvest, dry and store. One of the best things in June is elderflower, the wonderful heady smell on a sunny day is a joy, taking those heads and making cordial is a delightful treat, the taste of summer is around the corner.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Ash die back, plenty more rain (seriously that will do now thank you) & basically it’s all about the weather and how crap it is 🤣

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I Monday 17th May 2021: New week, new mindset 😁 Starting today we can now eat inside cafes, restaurants and pubs etc, whoop, moreover we can go inside other people’s houses and we can hug. Yeah I will skip the last part if you don’t mind, apart from direct family I wasn’t a hugger before and I won’t be changing that outlook now just because we can 😂 The weather is good today, good for me at any rate, not raining, not windy, not too sunny and warm but not too warm, winning combination. I have therefore been busy outside all morning, I started off with the usual things like stocking the egg shed, feeding the Guineas and then I moved onto sorting out cardboard rubbish and burning that. I have pulled up stingers and blackberry saplings and cut down the grass outside the pol pen which we will be using for a permanent flock when they arrive in a couple of weeks time. After that it was into the greenhouse, put some plants out for sale, prick out some seedlings, pot on more peppers and water everything. Then onto the big tunnel where I have now planted the rest of the melons, still have some tomato plants but I may put those outside. Then I planted some spare broad bean plants in an area I have decided to just put anything that is t going somewhere else 😜 and finally onto sorting the ground where the runner beans are going. I have bindweed there, I have spent many years trying to painstaking eradicate it but I am now thinking, just live with it, sure makes life a lot easier that’s for sure. I will regularly pull it but you can’t stop the unstoppable! Then it was time for lunch and a cuppa, I am trying to get back on track I with tracking my food and I have put my Fitbit back on to encourage me to see how many steps a day I can achieve. Mind you scrabbling around on the ground digging and weeding is work as well but that doesn’t register as activity lol. Very typically as I take my break and sit down, well try too, the doorbell goes, a delivery arrives (and it’s not always for me) and the dogs start barking so I keep getting up to look out the window. As I went out to collect a delivery that was for me the thunder started so looks like we are in for a storm, shame I didn’t get the beans in beforehand as the ‘charge’ of a storm would have done them good. It looks like any work outside this afternoon is now off the cards so I will switch to an indoor job.

I did have to sort out a squabble this morning too, it’s not just siblings that fight 🙄 Ted has taken to picking on the cockerels and I let the light Sussex out this morning so they could mooch in the orchard area. Big mistake as Ted immediately started on the cockerel while I was feeding the Guineas. So much so that I had hold of Ted while Ted had firm hold of the cockerels comb in his beak and would not let go, no amount of persuasion and cajoling, I just had to wait until he decided to let go and then they continued fighting through the wire fence 🙄 We do have two surplus to requirement cockerels which we were going to dispatch but haven’t got round to it but this other one is my main man of the flock and I don’t want to have to get rid of him. I am going to have to have a good think about whether we keep Ted, he would be fine I think if we could find him a lady friend but they are rare as hens teeth if not rarer 😜

The chap came out to look at the ash trees and it’s not good news 😔 the one I thought had it does but so do the other three as well, I am gutted it’s fair to say. Just at a time when the world needs more trees I am going to have to take four big trees down, one will come down as soon as he can fit the job in and the other three can probably go another two years and then will have to come down. The only consolation I can find is that the trees are not functioning as they would normally do anyway because they are diseased. He said it is spreading rapidly through the ash trees and even some other species of tree, quite a worry, it is an airborne fungus so no chance of stopping it. Trees can either be taken down or they will eventually fall down, as the three at the back pose little risk to anything or anyone they get a short reprieve but I think we will eventually take them down so that there are no ‘freak accidents’. The other ‘Sod’s law’ coming into play is the wood lol, ash is the kings wood, the best burning wood you can get and we are taking out the Rayburn, you couldn’t make it up could you 😂 We will keep some of the wood for the fire pit and probably sell the rest on unless we get a small wood burner for heat only.

I pootled around indoors in the afternoon as the thunder rumbled and occasionally the rain showered, cleared out some bits from various drawers. John came home around three and then an old work colleague of his dropped round for a cuppa, which we could have indoors yay.

We had spoken to a local chap a couple of months back about doing some fencing in the paddocks for us and tonight he came round to have a look a chat about what we want doing. John will measure up and order the fencing and then Dan will come and put the fencing up when he has time. Once upon a time we definitely would have just done it ourselves but as we get older and because we don’t have the equipment also John is busy with other work we might as well give someone else the work and keep the economy ticking over. We have done it in the past but manually and the posts all end up falling over so it really needs a hydraulic rammer. We are changing the traditional slip rails to gates, slip rails work ok to a point but the rails are heavy to move and cumbersome when you have a horse in one hand already 😜

When I got back in a started on fixing some of my broken jewellery, well that was the plan anyway. I suspect plenty of people have broken chains and odd earrings lying around, well I got mine altogether and thought I would try repairing them. Turns out that was not as easy as I thought it would be and the upshot is I will sell the old and broken gold chains/earrings/rings and buy a new chain. There are a couple of rings that were Johns, they had to be cut off at various times, mostly due to him wearing them at work, which he no longer does as it is pretty dangerous and he has come close to losing a finger which is why they were cut off in the first place 🙄

Tuesday: Oooo the weather looks promising today, sunshine from the off 😁 I have put the towels in the washing machine so it better stay like that 😜 John has gone off to work after doing the feeding, I have put out eggs and fed the cats and dogs so far, now I just have to decide what jobs I am going to do today 😁 Hopefully I can get the runner beans planted up and then use the space they were in to put the squash plants out to harden off, then I need to take a look at where I am going to grow them all. I have around 20 plants (probably more) of various types, butternut, spaghetti, banana, crown Prince, pumpkin, mini pumpkin, gourmet squash and of course courgettes and I will grow them in the ménage as there is plenty of space in there. I will plant one or two in the veg garden just in case they get wrecked by something in there as I can’t cover them to protect them at all, trial and error, let’s hope it’s not error 🤪

I sat outside having a morning coffee in the sunshine and saw a kestrel hovering over the front paddock, kestrels used to be common place hanging round at the side of the roads but these days they are in decline and p on the amber list so it was a rare sighting indeed. By the time I nipped in to get my camera it had gone 😔

Once outside I watered the tunnels and then picked rhubarb ready to bundle and put out for sale. I got the runner beans planted which was a job I was determined to get done and the squash plants out into the cold frames, I rather underestimated how many I had lol, I said twenty it’s more like thirty 😜 Samantha arrived with the twins, we played a while outside and then inside, then it was lunch time and then we went for a walk in the village. We met Uncle Shane and cousin Joe and then we saw Grampy, haha how many people you know can you see in a tiny village, plenty it seems. We watched minnows swimming, floated a head of cow parsley and watched it go down the stream then we walked up the hill to the church yard where we could see ‘the whole world’ well that’s what it must look like to a toddler. By the time we got back it was peeing down with rain but they were asleep, Sam went out to get the horses in ready for the farrier and Charlie called in for a cuppa as well, seems like old times again now. They left and I waited for the fairies but he was running very late, I managed to get the dinner prepped just as he arrived. Horse pedicure complete I turned them back out by which time John had arrived home.

Lovely walk to the churchyard

Dusk, John goes out to put the birds to bed, he comes back in and asks me to give him a hand as one of the geese has decided to sit on the eggs laid today, the only trouble is that they are in the open part of the stable block and so it’s not safe. My plan was to open one of the stables and see if we can get her to go in, nope she is not having any of it and even though I am trying to manoeuvre her with the aid of a handy rake she gets flighty and fighty! In the end she decides to leave the nest and go back up to the back paddock and the hut where all the others are. Tomorrow we will leave the stable door open and hopefully she will lay in there and then she can stay there because it is secure.

Wednesday: Although I was up and ready to get started on the day after going out to the dustbin I then spent far too long trying to identify a flock of birds. My conclusion is that they were a flock of juvenile starlings, they had gathered in the hedge then flown to the Apple tree making a racket because there was a Kite flying high above. At first I couldn’t work out what they were, I thought they were starling from a distance because of the number of them but then when I got close I couldn’t see the distinct flecks so then spent ages online trying to work out what they were. I think they are starlings but they are brown at the minute so that leads me to believe they are fledglings 😁

This mornings activities were mostly in the veg garden 😂 to be honest it was lovely, very relaxed, the sun was shining, the ground is damp but not too bad. I spent the first part in the greenhouse potting on and pricking out, I seem to have an army of dwarf rudbeckia seedlings 🙄 Then out onto the the garden where I spent the time on my knees hand weeding the onion bed. Onions don’t like weeds (I don’t know why 😜) so keeping the ground clear is better for them. They are doing really, really well I am very pleased, the garlic is strong too so that is looking good, the shallots are doing what shallots do. The red onion I planted a few weeks ago have now rooted and thrown up green shoots, all this rain is good for them at the minute though it could do with being a lot drier later for the onion family otherwise they get problems. I had a coffee break mid morning, I actually sat down with it rather than keep picking up while I was doing other things, and now I have come in for some lunch and a short rest. I weeded a little bit of the bed with the beetroot and swede in but decided it was a little too wet and I would achieve more once it was drier. I really enjoyed myself this morning which is rare as I am usually rushing about trying to get things done but today was definitely a slower pace and therefore more enjoyable.

After my rest I went outside to do a bit more but the wind had got up and the sky was looking black 🙄 Instead I went into the office and got out my card making stuff and made a few cards, the ones in the shed have nearly all sold 😁 I was tying to think how many I have made so far and I think it must be nearly 200! John came home a short while later and we sat outside and drank tea, then I thought as I was out there I might as well weed. I weeded two of the front beds and got a good start on the third until my back started aching and then I gave up. The ground is pretty wet, not in the raised beds, they are just damp but the one that is actually ground level, the worst one for weeds, is saturated and so I only weeded what I could reach from the hard standing as I don’t want to compact it too much. The cats were out there happily weaving in and out of my legs and arms while I was trying to work, and the birds that have nested in the boxes I propped in the buddliea bushes were sounding the alarm calls, in the end I moved so that the cats would move and the birds could relax a bit lol. We have blue tits and sparrow nesting in those boxes, sparrow nesting in the other boxes and in the gaps in the roof space. I have seen baby sparrow sat on the edge of the roof calling, you can tell they are babies because they have fluff poking out from between the feathers ☺️

Popped round to Mums for a cuppa after dinner.

John was telling me that a customer of his that also comes to get eggs here saw what she thought was a large cat the other evening, up by us 🙄 Bigger than a domestic cat, lynx size, ooo eeeer, I need to get the wildlife camera up and running see if I can catch anything on camera.

Thursday: The weather forecast for tomorrow is horrendous, 40/50mph winds, torrential downpours urgh. With this in mind I have made sure that I have done everything I need to do out there this morning, topped up feed for the Guineas and quail, horses, watered the greenhouse and poly tunnels and picked everything I need to pick today. If it turns out to be not to bad then I am ahead of the game and if it is that bad I will be sat inside making more cards 😂 With all that done this morning I am off to the local market with Shelley for a mooch round and hopefully a nice coffee. I have got tonight’s dinner out already and we had some duck breast in the freezer so I am using up that, John won’t have a clue what he is eating so as long as it’s not too way out there all should be well, I am planning on doing them in orange and honey with new potatoes and purple sprouting 🥰

The weather turned vile in the afternoon, the wind got up and the rain started, it feels quite a bit colder than it was yesterday, our weather is really seasonally off at the minute 🙃

We have the twins at teatime today again today while Mia goes for her swimming lesson, the minute Sam went out the door George was trying to get the kitchen chair out from under the table saying ‘unch, unch’ 😂 No not yet George you only just got here 😜

I spent a large part of the evening doing two things, liaising with a chap about a piece of farm equipment that John and Luke are going to look at later this afternoon and taking a look at domestic windmills 🙄 In light of the winds we get here John has decided (you note I said John, more about that later) that a windmill might be better to generate power than solar panels. Researching everything to do with them was my job, we figure a 2/3KW is about right and even if it doesn’t provide all our electric it will pay for some of it. I said John because I have never been keen on having one, the one over the back from us is huge and there is no way I want something like that here. Having looked into it a bit more, there are of course much smaller ones and I can see the logic but I am still not that keen to be honest. One point I insist on though are storage batteries, there is no point harnessing power if when there is a power cut you still have no electric 🙄

Friday: had to check the date today, the bins go out and I thought it can’t be the 21st May already but guess what 🤔 The weather is shocking for the time of year and it wouldn’t be so bad if we had already had some good weather but it hasn’t been great, so I reckon we have had nearly 7months of Winter weather this year, depressing stuff. Like many people I wake up each day hoping that it will be at least a pleasant day but we have only had a handful and the whole forecast for the weekend ahead is dire. Of course I know exactly what will happen, the minute it changes it will be so hot I will struggle to get any hours in outside 😂 but at least we will feel warmth and it will lift the spirits massively.

I am feeling surprisingly relaxed about things in the veg garden though despite everything, even the weeds, it’s too wet on the ground to get on and pull them and just hoeing is a waste of time in this weather as they just regrow quickly. I am resigned to doing it when the time is right and not worrying that I will have so much to do I won’t cope, this is a big change for me 😜 I am happy that so far I have got everything out that needs going out, that which is already in is doing well and I have not had to water any of it outside. The tunnels are mostly now planted up and because the sun is not appearing the plants are not drying out rapidly so they are getting a good chance to establish, these are all the silver linings from all the clouds we have had. No mow May is working out well as it’s been too wet to mow anyhow 😂 The grass is green and lush and so are the weeds but hey who cares anymore, not me 🙃

All the rhubarb and orange jam I made has sold so I need to make some more, apparently it’s a real winner though I haven’t actually tried it yet, I will hopefully get time to make some more this weekend.

Not really got an awful lot done today, I did do a bit of baking, some rock cakes and some lemon biscuits. Then I did make a few cards and did a bit of experimenting with various designs. John came home at lunchtime and had to take the entire contents out of his van including the racking in order to go and fetch something later this evening. Then he had to go and have his second jab mid afternoon, he had a good lunch beforehand, mainly because he has to go out this evening. We had a discussion and a look at where my store pantry will be going, that is going to be a good project if the rain carries on for a few more weeks 🤣 That will be dual purpose, it will store root veg, garlic, onions, chillies, squash, apples, pears etc over winter instead of freezing everything, it will also give me room for plenty of dried goods, jam, chutneys, any bottled juice and canned goods and anything else I can think of. It will also be a place I can hang flowers and herbs to dry 🥰 Researching what I want I found that I am probably a ‘kitchen witch’ fine by me 😁 my Mum is definitely a hedge witch and so I am following in good footsteps, hopefully I will pass the baton on.

This is the picture from Pinterest I will be creating my room ideas on 🥰

I bought an ‘echo’ which arrived today, we have Alexa in the main living room but I needed something for the bedroom. We used to have a clock radio which was great but for years now we have been using this small, frankly rubbish, little digital clock with a light that is barely visible 🙄 The alarm is set on Alexa for the morning but when it goes off that means the morning starts off with John hollering ‘Alexa off’ more than once if she doesn’t hear the first time, you can imagine that does not make for a gentle start to the day 😜 So I bought the echo, and I have now set the alarm with a gentle wake up that steadily gets louder, much better for the nerves I think. We can also then play sleep music at bedtime, John has difficulty getting to sleep as his mind is always whirring. The other night I played a sleep story just to see if it helped and it did so that is another reason to purchase. When I am not well I will be able to lie and listen to some relaxation music or I can listen to healing meditation whatever takes my fancy, or I could even just lay in bed and listen to the radio or and audio book, the world is my oyster. I could of course do all this with my phone but it often goes off with message notifications so this way it should all be undisturbed listening 😁

Saturday: A busy day today, first off, the usual stuff then John went off to the wood yard to order fencing for the paddocks. I put in fresh bedding for the geese as I had noticed that all of them were out grazing, good time to nip in and do the job. Fresh bedding for the ducks as well, all this rain is making the hut a right muddy mess 🙄 Then the wood delivery turned up, quick eh, yes we knew they were having a delivery today but didn’t expect them to deliver straightaway lol anyway that left John to help unload 70 rails and 50 posts 😜 meanwhile I tidied a few things up in the back area and then went out to the greenhouse and garden where I spent most of the rest of the day. Moving and potting on in the greenhouse, trying to find final positions for the peppers and aubergine, potting on more peppers and some melons, watering and a bit of tidying up. Then in the garden I planted about 36 leeks, the rest I have put at the end of the onion bed and planted them in clumps, I will pull them as baby leeks, waste not want not. I then planted some peas I have left over from the main planting, I have also watered both tunnels and picked purple sprouting at some point today. Inbetween all that there was washing up, loading the washing machine, getting the washing dry, making endless cups of tea, checking the torts, feeding the guinea pigs, stocking up the egg shed, sorting the eggs in the afternoon, looking for random goose eggs and discussing the store room, etc etc etc, pooped.

Sunday: The weather has been ok up to this very point, I had just come in, eaten my lunch and then the heavens opened 🙄 This morning we nipped to get a few bits from the the shop, it took less than 20mins from getting out the car to getting back in 😂 When we got back John started creosoting the new posts, the tannilised wood these days is rubbish right throughout the industry (it is widely acknowledged) and so when we are paying a fortune for it we want it to last more than a couple of years before it starts to rot. Meanwhile I have been in the greenhouse sowing some more courgettes as I only had three plants come up, then I planted some echinop plants in the front border and after that I spent my time weeding the front beds, four bucketfuls so far and still a bit more to do. There are some ‘weeds’ I leave such as any poppies that have self set and forget me nots but any deep rooted seedlings need to come out such as dock, nettles, grass etc. There is Bryony growing and I have to keep pulling that up as it’s a bit of a thug, I don’t mind once everything is growing but not while it is trying to get established.

I have managed to locate not one but two lady friends for Ted finally 😁 so I have been liaising with their owner as to when we can pick them up or get them delivered here.

This afternoon I am off to Harry Potter World with Shelley, Martin and the kiddies, out of the Shire for the first time in nearly a year 😜 I am leaving John in charge, he declined the invitation to come along lol.

Have a good week, hopefully we will see a bit more sunshine on the horizon, I am looking forward to an early morning cuppa out there without feeling cold 🥶

Posted in Friesland Farm

Surprise! Mid week interlude 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I thought I would do a quick round up of the photos of produce I took over the 2020 growing season in date order so you can see how the year progressed. I love how vibrant the colours all are and can’t wait to start harvesting again this year. What I really should do is weigh everything to see exactly how much I get, the photos represent probably 1/2 of what I actually harvest so it would be interesting to have an accurate record.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sunny days, tidying up and ‘surprise’ x 3 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday Evening after publishing 😜 I forgot to update you in last weeks blog that Diesel returned just in case you were worried. He had a good feed, some extra treats and is fine. He is getting on though so I guess one day he won’t come back but for the time being he is around again 😀

Monday 14th September 2020: A glorious day with high temps and for me that means staying inside or shade dodging 😜 I chose staying in and had already decided to do the cleaning, mainly the kitchen. Normally I start in the bathroom and then do the living room and bedrooms and by the time I get to the kitchen it gets a quick going over. So today I started in the kitchen and gave it a good clean, all the walls, cupboard doors, move everything, clean behind things, I didn’t go as far as cleaning out all the cupboards but I did clean the windows and the grill, probably give myself a B+ 😂 I had a phone call from the surgery and I need an phone appointment with the doc to discuss blood results, crap, that won’t be great then 🙄

We need more trees in this country, I know there are groups that have been saying this but I can tell you from personal experience that we don’t have enough. When I travel any distance in a car or try to go for a walk on a sunny day I note the complete lack of trees for shade. If the climate prediction is anything to go by the world will get hotter, another reason to have more shade available and of course it would be great for wildlife. But let’s not plant any old tree, make them native or food trees, I never understand why new housing estates don’t plant a better combination of trees and shrubs than the non producing, standard type they go for, cheaper I guess, I would like to think it was more than lack of imagination 🙄

I did decide to clean the food cupboards out in the afternoon as well as the cutlery drawer, we only have one small under counter cupboard and a shelf in the other cupboard for tins as most of it is in the freezers or the satire cupboard. At least I now know what is in them and for some reason I seem to have three pots of cardamon, I hardly ever use it so I don’t know why 🙄 Then John arrived home and we did the eggs, had dinner and I went to babysit Mia, Lucie and George while Sam went out for a meal with Luke for her birthday which is on Thursday. That’s Monday finished, as a bonus John is at home tomorrow after a job he is on isn’t ready yet.

Tuesday: As I said John is off today after he has gone to do a small job that is 🙄 I got on with some picking and finally had a decent haul of runner beans, lots of people have been saying how poor they are this year so if yours were good you are in the minority. I picked a couple of courgettes, some raspberries & nuts, did a fair bit of watering as it’s so dry and getting pretty hot during the day (ah that Indian summer 😀) then indoors to sort it all out and decide what’s for dinner this evening. Meanwhile John returned and got on with some more work on the front of the building.

Last night a delivery of bulbs arrived, snowdrops, tête-à-tête daffodils and dwarf iris, these will all go under the newly planted shrubs in the new border. Hopefully they will spread and give a good show in early spring when nothing else is growing, that’s the plan anyway along with some taller willowy drifts of things like verbena, Dierama (angels fishing rods), guara (bee blossom) and red flax.

After school finished I left John to work by himself while Shelley picked me up and took me back to hers to do my nails. I rarely (that is only once ever) get my nails done, I don’t like false nails as they are too thick and I can’t always do things with them on and besides it’s little bits of plastic 😏 and I can’t (or couldn’t) have nail polish because of the UV salons use. Shelley recently did a course to qualify and during the course looked at options for light sensitive skin, LED can also be used and is less likely to cause problems (though you should still be careful) so today was a good day to give it a go. Shelley also bought gel polish that didn’t need curing with light but after applying it all it didn’t work terribly well so we took it back off. Then we tried the proper nail polish and using the LED lights. The base layer was cured with hands under the lights for 30 seconds, the colour layers I kept my hands just outside of the light box for 60 seconds each layer and the top coat was also for 30 seconds inside the light box. This worked a great 😀 the idea was not to over expose the skin to the lights in case a reaction occurred. Nice to have lovely looking nails, a real treat for me so thank you Shelley 😘

Wednesday: Another lovely sunny day ahead 🙄 don’t get me wrong I like the warmer weather rather than the cold but wall to wall sunshine means I can’t get out and about much.

I started off in the big tunnel as it needed watering, while I was in there I harvested about 5 cucumbers, accidentally pulled up some raddicchio (which I will now have with my dinner later) and cut back the monster that is the cape gooseberry. It has got huge so I cut plenty of it back and picked a load of the berries, not sure what I will do with those yet, I might freeze them and think about it. At the back is a wonderful smelling lemon verbena, it’s smell is divine so I cut some of that and will probably make a syrup which I can then use in lots of things. When I finished in there I cut back the lavender in the garden and now have a huge bunch of lavender drying. I pulled up some swede, cut some chard and picked some courgettes which will all be prepped one way or another for the freezer (probably soup mix). I came in and de husked the cape gooseberries and made a coffee. I felt tired just doing that bit this morning which is not a good sign, I have noticed I feel more tired over the last few days, I’m guessing that’s the white cells dropping again 🙄 pants! It’s a condition called Leukopenia and it’s caused by the medication I take for the Lupus which is why they will probably take me off of it so the body can repair BUT the Lupus can also kill off white cells and so they need to be sure which one is doing it and the medication suppresses the Lupus, it’s catch 22 by the looks of it.

Thursday: A lovely morning, sunshine ahead but that lovely fresh September start to the day is something I love. Today is Sam’s birthday, my eldest, 35 years, where the heck did they all go 😜 and now she is a mother of three herself 🥰🥰🥰 I always say being a Mum was the most rewarding and important job I ever had, I loved every minute of it and now I love every minute of being a grandparent too 😀 Happy Birthday Sam x

I whizzed round and got a few things done this morning, picking runner beans and raspberries, grabbing a few hazelnuts along the way. Prepped and froze some bits and pieces that have been hanging around on the side for a few days including some cooking apples which are now cooking down with the raspberries. Some swede, courgettes, chard and onion are open freezing for soup or roasted veg, more swede frozen separately with some runner beans, swede chopped for dinner later along with runner beans. Took all the off cuts and ends to the guineas, other softer bits to the torts, also picked them some lettuce and tomatoes.

Sam and Shelley came over with the little ones that are not at school and we had lunch together. Florence insisted on getting me some flowers in the shop, pink roses for Nana 🥰

Late afternoon we went over to see Sam the reason being that Mia had been at school all day and I didn’t want her to think we had missed her Mums birthday 😀 She had made some little chocolate covered fairy cakes for everyone bless her.

Friday: Another sunny day ahead. I started off getting some wash loads on, picking raspberries and planting 220 bulbs of various descriptions in the front border. Snowdrops, dwarf iris, crocus and tête-à-tête , hopefully that will be lovely and cheery from Jan through to March when not much else is around. I sorted dinner for later and made an apple and raspberry crumble, had a coffee and typed this up while waiting for the washing to finish spinning so I can get it out on the line. The postman came with parcels, cauliflower plants and an expandable hose, hoses are a big bug bear for me as they catch and kink all the time which drives me mad lol. The cauliflower I will have to get planted up ASAP, I need to work out where they will go, I think the best place will be where I had the broad beans, in fact yes that’s defiantly where I will plant them.

The pumpkin patch almost ready to harvest now the foliage has all died back. I need to get them in before the birds start pecking at them 🙄

Just before lunchtime I planted the cauliflower plants, 10 in all which will be all we need. First I hoed the area and raked it over, riddled the rakings to get the stones etc out and then planted the plants. I have covered them with environmesh not to keep off butterflies but to stop the pigeons and chickens eating the greenery. Then I spent a little while husking walnuts they are now drying in the greenhouse.

10 tiny cauliflower plants

Hopefully come late winter, early spring, I should have cauliflower, purple sprouting, leeks, winter spinach and chard all growing fresh, plus a freezer full of beans of all types, peas, swede, turnip and many types of fruit. I have garlic dried and stored, nuts that will be dried and stored, potatoes, butternut squash and pumpkins in store, jars of jam and chutney in the store cupboard, tomatoes/passata puréed and frozen, soup mixes already chopped and frozen, we have a store of chopped and dried wood ready, yep I am all good to go for 10ft of heavy snowfall 😜

Saturday: Martin came over to help John again today and as Shelley was working I entertained Josh and Flo. First we cooked egg and sausage sandwiches for the workers then we went to check on the horses and clean out and fill up the water buckets and then we made raspberry and chocolate chip cakes. After that in between making cups of tea and coffee we watched a bit of tv and played some superhero games, I get instructions from Josh as I have no idea what I am doing having had three girls 😂 Shelley came over mid afternoon and they all went home at 4pm. At 4.30 Sam arrived with Mia, George and Lucie as Mia is staying for a sleepover tonight 😀 John went to the chip shop and got some fish and chips and the it was bath time, we played tunes on Alexa and had fun getting her to burp and sneeze, then story time and bed, I’m knackered 😂 Apart from a bit of painting the cladding first thing this morning I didn’t get anything else done on the farm 😜

Sunday: Mia stayed over and slept well 😀 I did think she may want to go home but nope she was fine. This morning we got up had breakfast got dressed and went out to see the horses, after that we picked raspberries, collected a few eggs, picked up some hazelnuts and found some conkers, those are all for her to take home with her. The blackberries we picked up in the back paddock she ate en route 😜

After Sam collected her mid morning I went out to do a bit of picking, runner beans, courgettes, chillies and tomatoes everything has slowed considerably now. I got three lovely surprises as I was going round, one, the carrot seeds have already started to sprout so I should get some for Christmas even if they are baby carrots 🥕 Two, I have a loofah 😀😀😀 I had given up on these and even stopped watering them, I was watering the peppers and thought ‘that’s a funny shape pepper then realised it was a tiny loofah. And three, my oranges are beginning to ripen 😀😀 whoop whoop, we are moving towards orange season, late winter, early spring so fingers crossed, I hope they taste good.

If you look closely you can just see the carrot seedlings appearing.
My first ever loofah, it won’t be big but it’s an achievement 😀
Oranges beginning to ripen whoop whoop 😀 Also a big achievement in our climate though this year has been ideal for them.

We have had no rain for what seems like weeks, everything is very dry although the overnight dew is keeping things going I do have to water every now and then.

John has been busy again on the front of the house, when it’s finished I will post the before and after pictures. I am reserving judgment on the colour,

Posted in Friesland Farm

A trip down memory lane, the twins 1st birthdays and the phone line saga continues 🤬

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th July 2020: John is working again this week, I am not sure when he will next have any time off now things seem to be getting back to normalish. Before he went he did the morning feeding and letting out, I did the horses water and found some greens for the guineas, quail and light Sussex. I had a little wander around the fields, no point having land if you don’t wander aimlessly round it now and again. I had a good look at the hedgerow, at the minute there are plenty of blackberries but if the horses get to them later in the year I will have to find another source. I did a little bit in the garden, some watering and I picked three good sized cucumbers. I then went down to the very front of the driveway on the lane, I needed to cut back some dog rose and over hanging tree branches that make it difficult to turn out as you can’t see traffic coming up the lane clearly and they do tend to go fast even though we have a new 30 mile an hour speed limit 🙄 After that it was indoors to make some bread and some biscuits although I made a bit of a mistake. I was reading one recipe and decided to follow another but put the amount of butter from the first into the recipe I was doing if that makes sense. I thought it seemed a bit short and my fear was that they would spread and be crumbly but as it happened they were fine, I’d say they were more like small cakes than biscuits but they taste great which is the main thing.

A better looking loaf today 😀

I also ordered a new kettle, if you go back in my blog about five years, maybe even six, you will read about my lovely new kettle. I had done some research because I was sick of buying £20 kettles that leaked everywhere within the year so I had splashed out and paid £100 for a decent one 😯 One that I hoped would last five years and so cost the same in real terms, well it has, did I should say, it still doesn’t leak water from the spout but the lid has broken and is unfixabke so I have ordered a new one. The only difference is that it is a different colour (black) as the new colours are about £30 more expensive and I’m not paying that just for a trendy colour 😂 I have gone for exactly the same model as it is a beautiful ergonomic design that is easy on the eye, can you tell how much I love it yet 😜 Of course at this point you will want to know which kettle, it’s a Delonghi and it’s the scultura model. I would have purchased a matching toaster but we don’t really need a new one of those so I will wait until we do 😀

Tuesday: Another sunny day ahead which is lovely if a little restricting for me. I do miss not being able to be in the sun for any length of time, quite often if I feel cold I will go and stand out in it to warm up not for too long though 😜 I would love to be able to go for a walk in the sunshine especially on days like today where it’s not unbearably hot just pleasant. In order to do that I would need to cover every part of me with some clothing and a hat, sunscreen is not enough to stop the rays causing havoc!

John did the morning rounds and I watered the tunnels and the greenhouse, I watered the pots out in the driveway and checked over the plants in the gravelled area out the front. The wood chip I nicely swept and tided last week has been scattered everywhere by some hens that have decided to escape every day 🙄 I’m trying not to let it bother me 🤪 John told me this morning that the duck I had noticed was missing (though I didn’t think the fox had got it) was sitting on a nest under the hedge at the side 😀😀😀 yay this makes me very happy indeed, in all the years I have kept ducks I have never had one sit on a nest and hatch ducklings successfully, fingers crossed it happens this time, I will be cock a hoop even though we don’t need any more ducks lol.

Up to lunchtime I haven’t really done much except pottering, I am still feeling tired 🤷‍♀️ but I’m not worried as there are times when I’m not, it’s hopefully a passing phase. I have plenty of phases during and after a flare especially when I go on to new meds, it’s always a delight figuring out what’s what 😜

John came home early which was nice, after spending weeks and weeks with someone here most of the time I think I have found it difficult being back on my own for most of the day everyday. After doing the afternoon feeding and egg collection we popped to town quickly to pick up my prescription and early evening we went to Sam and Luke’s to water the garden while they are on holiday.

So the medicine wheel thing is getting interesting 🤔 today the discussion was about Karma/rules and self concept. It’s all about how you see yourself and the boundaries you perceive to be there, either put there by you or your interpretation of what others have put there for you and more importantly exploring them and either mentally moving/changing them or accepting them, deep I know lol, but quite liberating actually 😀 It rather blew my mind to realise that I had created boundaries for myself over the years and just by thinking about them thoroughly I can change them 🙄

Wednesday: Another lovely day ahead, John did the morning rounds and then went off to work. I did some picking this morning, the French beans are beginning to produce good quantities now, I picked about 1/2kg of those, a couple of cucumbers, a few courgettes and some toms to ripen on the windowsill.

I went out for coffee this morning with Shelley, the kids and my Mum also met us there. It was in the village I grew up in and afterwards we had a walk around the recreation area which was a great playground for us as youngsters as it had a small stream running alongside, we spent hours down there catching minnows, bullheads and crayfish. Sadly these days there is not much sign of any life in it 😏

When I got back my brother phoned as he had acquired a plant and some seed heads from a lady where he was working. Salsify, a Victorian vegetable which is rarely used these days, it tastes like oysters apparently and is also known as the oyster plant. He was passing and so dropped off some seeds for me 😀 I will definitely have a go at growing these, they were a very useful winter crop when not much else was available. They belong to the dandelion family which is very evident from the seeds, so they should be great for wildlife as well.

I was reminded that although my veg seems to be really slow this year (which frankly has been depressing me) the wildlife has come on in leaps and bounds 😀 I am determined to be grateful for that at least 🥰

Luckily my appetite seems to have returned 😀 😅 I’m not sure where it went or why but it’s back again which is great because I can start looking through recipes with some degree of interest.

Thursday: I’m having a quick coffee break and a sit down, it’s 10.30 and I have been busy since 6.30 this morning. Firstly sorting and putting out plants for sale, I had a bit of a lull because during the lockdown I sold everything I had almost and so had to wait for things to come on again 🙄 After doing a few other bits outside it was indoors to do some cleaning, oh joy, but it did need doing, I am doing half today and half tomorrow to break up the monotony 😂 Going through the place I keep thinking I must get rid of stuff we don’t use anymore as it’s taking up space. I have a cupboard full of cushions and blankets that have accumulated over time, sometimes I use them outside for the children but I also have a load more in the airing cupboard 🤪 pretty sure I don’t need that many do I? One thing I put up for collection were some magazines to do with gardening and smallholding, the lady that wanted them turns out to have moved in nearby and is collecting them later, it will be nice to meet someone likeminded 😀

The telephone line saga continues and I now know who’s number we have, the cottage up the road! A service engineer called to confirm his appointment this afternoon, he thought I was the person from the other property, I explained the whole situation to him and he is also coming here later to see if he can help sort the whole mess out. Basically he says that someone has switched the wrong lines, I do hope he can help us because at the moment they have no phone line and we have theirs😏

It’s the twins 1st birthday today 🥰🥰 where did that year go! They are developing their little characters, both entirely different, Lucie is the happiest baby I have ever come across and George just wants crawl, walk, run, climb and is very cheeky lol.

Happy, smiley Lucie
Let me get at it George

All the grandchildren are growing fast, this summer was going to be the summer before the two oldest start school and so we were going to have plenty of farm time fun but the virus got in the way 😏 Never mind we still have a bit of time left.

I heard somewhere that it takes 10,000 hours to master something and so become a master in that field so to speak, if you do three hours a day it would still take you nine years to ‘master’ whatever it is. From this I realise that I am a master of many things 😀 Definitely a master gardener, It probably only took me three years to get that far, I am a master parent having spent at least sixteen years 24/7 parenting 😂 I am a master housekeeper, in fact I must be, along with many others, a supreme master at that having spent the last 37 years doing it! There are so many things that we spend almost a lifetime doing and so become masters, they may seem like trivial topics but let’s face it some people fail miserably at them so take your credit where it’s due 😘

The phone line saga: So the engineer came out, he was brilliant and went above and beyond the call of duty but he still couldn’t sort it for us although the two of us spent another two hours on the phone to BT. The upshot is that the cottage had their line de activated at the beginning of lockdown because it is a holiday let 🙄 then they re activated it, meanwhile we received a letter 9 days late due to the Swindon depot being closed due to coronavirus, consequently they had already sent out open reach to do whatever it is they do to the line BUT somehow they switched the cottage number to our line and disconnected ours, are you keeping up? The anomaly in this is why did BT think our line was theirs, no idea! They also sent the letter out addressed to us but have the owners name on file for the service call, you think someone would have noticed the difference, clearly not😏 So as it stands we have to wait until their fault is cleared that means their number connected to them and then we will be completely disconnected and have to apply for a new line, beggars belief doesn’t it, but it’s still not guaranteed that we will get our old number back because they are ‘Pooled’ for two weeks then reused 😯 WTAF! None of this is in anyway our fault but we are paying for other people’s decisions and incompetencies, not happy. Nor apparently is the chap in the holiday let as he was complaining that he was supposed to be working online and can’t, so I guess the owners will get grief from him, not that I am in any way sympathetic after all we have been jumping through hoops for the last two and a half weeks with no sign of it getting resolved very soon. All I am waiting for now is for someone to try and charge us for the other line then I will be f…ing fuming and the wrath will be unleashed 🤬

On a more gentle and country living note 😜 we saw a baby hedgehog tonight, about the size of a tennis ball, so not only do we have at least three adults we have babies as well, how good is that 😀 we are a hedgehog breeding ground 🥰

Friday: Up early to get things sorted, John did the rounds and I started on some cleaning. Sue is visiting today which will be the first time we have been able to see each other since Dad died. I had planned yesterday afternoon to go to the local Smokery and get some smoked chicken for dinner but BT put paid to that so thanks again, not that I am becoming bitter or anything 😜 The weather is not bad, I don’t think it will be hot today, it’s warm but overcast at the minute.

Saturday: Short and sweet report today as you can imagine I have been busy being sociable 😀 We had a very decent downpour or two today, a bit of thunder thrown in for good measure. All good for the veg garden.

Sunday: Out for breakfast this morning with Sue and then a visit to see the twins in the afternoon meant that apart from the essentials nothing else got done around the place. Although John and I did agree on a plan to re develop the front area once we have altered to access point to the yard behind the house which we are moving from one side to the other, I will take before and after photos this time 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Windy weather, picking and freezing & John returns home.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th June 2020: It very windy today, I’m sure we don’t normally have winds as strong as this in June 🙄 yesterday was the same, strong enough to damage plants and whip bits off of trees 😏

I spent the night on my own here which is only the second time in 11 years I think. I can be pretty scary as we are a bit out in the sticks but to be honest I was so tired that I went straight to sleep anyhow. This morning I was up early, showered and out to do the animal rounds, I walked round the garden thinking I would do a bit outside but the buffeting from the wind soon put me off 😂 I decided to get a few bits done indoors and at 9am John called to say he could come home. I arranged with Shelley to go and pick him up and by 11am he was back home again. They are not sure why it happened and not sure if it will happen again 😏 but in the meantime we go about life as normally as possible. John had something to eat, a cup of tea, a nice bath and at the moment is having a sleep, you know what it’s like trying to sleep in hospital so he is a bit tired today.

I am still doing the glacé cherries they take 10 days and I had missed a couple of days, which doesn’t matter as long as you continue the process for the number of days rather than in succession, I should be on day 7 but am only on day 6 in the process.

The last topic in last weeks blog was the link to the grow.foodrevolution.org and I did say I would come back to the subject. In my opinion anyone who eats 🙄 has children, grandchildren or cares about their future generations really ought to be looking more closely at how food is grown, what the processes are and why it should change. Remember way back in my blogs I always said I was prepared for an apocalypse of some kind and then the pandemic came. Up to that point even I thought maybe I was a bit barmy but it happened and life was not how we had always known it to be, to me it just confirmed that we shouldn’t be complacent, never mind being alert during a pandemic, we should be alert at all times, or at the very least awake to the problems in the world.

Declining soil fertility is a real worldwide problem, one that you should be aware of, the over use of pesticides, weedkillers and artificial fertilisers has depleted the soil of its vitamins and minerals and turned the vast growing acres into dust bowls with no nutrition in them or at least only enough to last a few decades longer. Years ago farmers would spread muck back onto the fields (and some still do) but the bigger the farm the less likely they are to do this and of course it’s the big farms that provide a vast quantity of the crops we eat in one form or another. Mono cropping is also an issue, vast areas with one crop do nothing for biodiversity, which should be all part of a healthy system. The fruit and vegetables you buy from the supermarkets, that you think are giving you a good healthy diet, are not providing anywhere near the amount of nutrients that they used to 50 years ago because of the reduced soil fertility. What can you do? It’s my firm belief that as individuals all doing our bit we make a strong collective, and that goes for any issue. You don’t need to be an activist or an ‘alternative’ or join a cause, all you need to do is understand the issue and adjust your thoughts and actions accordingly, in my mind it really is that simple.

Getting the fertility back into the soil is relatively easy on a small scale and should be done even in the flower garden, composting your own green waste rather than sending it to the council to compost is a great way to ensure that you know what is going back into the ground. With communal composting schemes they don’t ask you not to put waste that has been treated with weedkiller or pesticides in, that means there is a possibility that residue is left in the end product, the product which is then bagged up to be sold or sold in bulk, makes you think doesn’t it. Even organic compost only has to be organic in origin not organically treated. Once upon a time every garden owner would have had a heap and that would all eventually go back into the garden, it’s my belief that every garden over a certain size (a size that can accommodate a small compost bin) should not be allowed a green bin 😏 (and I did write to our local council to suggest that idea) I’m not sure where it all went wrong when as a nation of Gardeners’ we forgot the basics of gardening!

Tuesday: Not raining, not windy, not sunny, happy me it means I can get on. John did the rounds with me but he was tired afterwards and so went in for a sit down. I got on with some picking, mangetout, peas, carrots, rhubarb, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackcurrants and cherries. I wasn’t going to pick any more cherries but the urge to gather is irresistible 😜 The peas and carrots are for dinner later, the strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and raspberries are going into a mixed fruit crumble for pudding 😀 After doing a few other bits we went to town to get a little bit of shopping, but they still don’t have any jam sugar on the shelves, I will have to see if I can get a bulk buy. When we got back John had another rest lol and I prepared a shepherds pie and the crumble for later on. A quick rest and a cuppa and I got on with making some blackcurrant jam, I had some sugar in the cupboard already but will need more before the season is out.

Mixed fruit crumble mix

Be careful what you wish for lol, remember I said I was hoping to get some cherries, well the morello tree is loaded with them and although the black bird is having some there are hundreds 🙄 I have already picked quite a lot and today I couldn’t resist picking some more. The problem with cherries is they do not continue to ripen once picked and you can’t leave them to get the very dark colour (the birds get there first) but they are ripe at the cherry red colour so that’s when they get picked. I have some cooked and in the freezer, the glacé cherries are still on the go and now I have about another kg to do something with. I have told Mum to come and pick some tomorrow if she wants some, I hate to see them wasted.

You can see why they use these vibrant cherries to glacé 😀

Wednesday: First it’s hot, then it’s not, then it is again, one of those days when the jumper is on, off, on, off and sometimes a raincoat is needed too 😜 John did the morning rounds and I got on with some picking, as well as the things I have already been harvesting, I picked peppers, some small courgettes, some beetroot and a very small handful of dwarf beans. The beans were cut up and frozen along with the peas I picked yesterday and I also froze the mixed fruit. I still need to do something with the beetroot, I was thinking of grating it and freezing, that would be quite useful I think. The courgettes and peppers can wait and I may use them tomorrow or put some out for sale. One job I wanted to get done was to repot the yellow raspberry, it was getting a bit big for the pot it was in. When I took it out of the old pot the soil was really dry, even though we had the rain this week so I gave all the rest of the pots of raspberries a good soak. I grow them in pots because the runners take over the garden otherwise although you do get far more berries if they are in the ground, I think I should identify a raspberry patch and let them romp away lol. Mum and Ken came up to pick some cherries and blackcurrants, the timing was not great as it started to rain as they got here and slowly got heavier but with Ken on the cherry tree and Mum on the blackcurrants they soon had enough to be going on with 😀

Thursday: Busy morning for me again, John did the morning rounds then went to have a lie down. I have been working on the decorative side of the garden instead of the growing side. I edged all the lawn and then gave it a cut, cut back some overhanging branches, potted up some self sown plantings and put some bits out for sale. John bought coffee out mid morning and we discussed getting some fence panels for the decking area as the wind blows right across there from a westerly direction. He went off to get some now that the suppliers are open but had to get someone to help him lift them in as he didn’t have the strength on his own 😏 It takes a lot longer than you think to recover from something like that.

The rest of the day was spent pottering, some of the time in the poly tunnel where I dug out the flat leaf parsley, it had got huge and was taking over, I managed to save a root to pot up. I seem to be lacking momentum at the minute, I am ok in the mornings but by mid afternoon I’m flagging lol.

One thing I forgot to mention is that John saw a hedgehog the other night, I know we have them but rarely see them and then you wonder if they have moved on but nope they are still here, all part of my lovely little eco system 😀

Friday: Not sure what kind of a day it’s going to be weatherwise, at the moment it’s overcast and dry but the sky is moody and looks like it is threatening to rain. We could do with a bit, the wind that we have had has dried the ground so quickly and we have stronger winds tomorrow apparently 😏 What happened to summer? I am certain the seasons are shifting, the ants are on the move and they don’t normally start until the beginning of August but I think the next lot of warm sunny weather and they will be flying.

I have been doing various things this morning, picking mangetout and broad beans, then some sour cherries to put out for sale. I picked a big bunch of basil which is now in the dehydrator and smells amazing, I prepped everything I picked ready for the freezer, I am only getting small quantities at the minute but they soon become a big batch if you do it daily. I find open freezing the best way to do them and I have started mixing up the veg and fruit as I think I would be more inclined to use it like that besides it makes it easier for soups and stews. I pulled a few baby turnips, one I grated along with beetroot and carrots chopped a baby pepper and that with a hard boiled egg will be my lunch, all home produced 😀 I potted up a few bits I dug up in the polytunnel yesterday, some bits of mint, flat leaf parsley and aquilegia which had been growing in there for a couple of years. I seem to have a few things that have self set or have been sown but got huge and are happily growing in there but I really need to have a clear out as there is less and less space for the things I want to grow. I want to have a go at pak Choi (I have sown seeds which have come up nicely) this winter and also get some more salad leaves sown to take us through the end of the summer and into autumn. Looking at the weather forecast there is less than 50% chance of rain, much less at times, so I’m thinking I will have to water some of the veg growing outside, the courgettes and patty pan seem to be taking ages to get going so a bit of extra watering might help boost them along a bit. Really I should weigh everything I pick and add it up at the end of the season, that would give me more of an idea of how much is actually produced I think. Picking it daily and then freezing some, eating some or putting some out for sale, it doesn’t seem like a lot bit it probably adds up to much more than I think.

It struck me when eating my lunch that we probably eat as well as folks who dine in a fancy restaurant, without the price tag 😋 The presentation isn’t as good I grant you that, but it’s all fresh, hand picked and prepared, organic, yep we feast like kings here 😀 It also occurred to me that the phrase, you are what you eat, is not strictly true 🙄 I, we, have eaten fresh homegrown produce for 11 years, the ten years or so before that I bought organic and yet I ended up ill, I would probably be worse if it were not for the good food but it means that environmental factors play a part as well, in that I would include stress. Stress plays a very large part in your health as far as I can see, I was the person who worried about things, even little things and the big things, well they sent me into overload lol. These days I am more of a ‘couldn’t give a toss’ type 🤪, I learnt not to worry about things that hadn’t happened (nor were likely to) and only to worry and then deal with things that did actually happen. That’s a far better way to live and certainly better for your health, so if you recognise yourself in there take a tip from me, stop worrying. Be kind to others but be kind to yourself as well, Life is too short to spend it worrying.

Rain stopped play in the afternoon but at least I won’t have to water tonight 😀

Saturday: I have done very little outside today, picked some greens for the Guineas and clean out the water buckets for the horses and that’s about it. I spent a lovely morning with Charlie at a wedding dress shop trying on dresses, Charlie not me obvs lol. She was the shops first appointment since the lockdown and it was by appointment only 😀 Afterwards we went to a local independent coffee shop where the new normal is to give your details, when ordering for sitting in, so that they can track and trace if necessary, social distancing in place and it all seems to work well. Considering more shops and the pubs are allowed to open today, the town was still not very busy, I feel this is all going to take longer than we first thought to get back to the old normal 😏

Sunday: A very windy but dry day today. John put up the fence panels around the decking area, it was to hopefully reduce the wind but it has still blown the chairs around 🙄 I did some picking again this morning, rhubarb, mange tout, broad beans, dwarf beans, courgette and a few blueberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries. The it all had to be sorted and either put out for sale or prepped for the freezer. We went round to see Mum and Ken and have a coffee, not sure what else we have done today lol. I need to organise myself a bit better to get jobs done as I have slacked a bit lately. One job is to sort the freezers out, with the picking prepping and freezing I tend to just find any space for it to go but then everything is all over the place and I have no idea what I have. I usually use sacks in the bottom of the big freezers, one for veg, one for fruit at least that way I know which sack to look in, I might not know what is actually in there, but I know if it’s one or the other 😜 The white woven sacks (from the builders merchant) are ideal if anyone is thinking of doing it as they don’t stick to the side of the freezer at all.

Have a great week, I think the weather is going to improve, hopefully this wind will do one 😋 Stay safe, stay alert.

Posted in Friesland Farm
Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 11th May 2020, still in the midst of a global pandemic and this feels like the 33rd week we have been at home lol though in reality I think we are going into week 8?

As always there are plenty of jobs to keep us busy here and for that I am very grateful. Today as the weather is not as hot, generally cloudy and a bit windy, it’s perfect for me to get out on the veg garden and get some weeding done. John is also helping with the weeding which is great as we get twice as much done and are managing to get it under control. The weeds are being fed to either the hens or the rabbits/guineas and they are delighted I can tell by the squealing and clucking going on.

Tuesday: I felt tired today so didn’t achieve much, a bit of weeding and that was about it.

Wednesday: I have bloods this morning and don’t feel too bad in fact I was up first. I got dressed and opened the curtains to find a pony munching on the grass outside the window 🙄 Biscuit had managed to get out and was enjoying breakfast, I got her back in and got on with doing the feeding rounds until John came out to help. Then off to get the blood test done, stop in town on the way back to pick up a loaf of bread from the bakery and back home to get on. I watered in the brassicas I planted the other day and watered the tunnels, then some plants arrived so I potted them up and did a lot more weeding. Meanwhile John power washed the side of the stables, we need to sort the front really bit the cladding is powder coated (now peeling) so wants replacing fully I think.

I went with John in the early evening as he had a leaking outside pipe to look at, when we got back home I could see the pony had broken out again🙄 A couple of small rails had come loose and this is where she keeps getting out, when we got round to the paddock we found Jack was out as well. John grabbed a hammer and nails while I coaxed them back into their respective areas, we fixed the fence and then rigged up some electric across the gateway to keep Jack in his field as he has now broken the slip rail posts. To be fair the posts are totally rotten so it doesn’t take much for a half ton horse to push and break them. Looks like fencing will be on the to do list tomorrow 😜

I keep breaking out in little rashes everywhere and they are really itchy and driving me mad, I have had them on my thighs, stomach, arms and hands urgh I will be glad when they can sort out my meds and get back to something near normal.

Thursday: John did the morning rounds while I had a shower 😀 and then he went off to do a small job and I pottered around in the garden. I planted a few little bits and then stood back and had a look at the garden, I’m pretty pleased with how it is all going this year. The notion of a small forest garden is actually staring to come to fruition, the beds are a good mix of flowers, fruit bushes, fruit trees and vegetables, it’s not there yet but defiantly going in the right direction.

I had a call from the doctor and although the white bloods cells have gone up, the platelets haven’t, it’s definitely a Lupus flare and so what they have decided to do is hit it hard with steroids (which is what I always say needs doing in the first place lol) and change my immune suppressant drug. The methotrexate never seemed to control the Lupus and so I am moving onto a drug called Mycophenalate a disease modifying drug that still needs blood tests to monitor the liver and kidneys and make sure they are not adversely affected. We wait with baited breath the see how it goes 🙄

I have realised just how much I have fallen in love with flowers again now that I have plenty more growing. Geums and aquilegia are my favourites at the minute, the geums are delightful, vibrant and bring a lovely splash of colour to the garden, the aquilegia are romantically reminiscent of a garden in an age gone by, probably why they are known as granny’s bonnet 😀

Friday: I have been quite busy today, after waiting in an hour queue for meds that is lol. I have been gardening and planting in between the sun going behind the clouds which is far more difficult than it sounds 😜 I had a look at the long range forecast and have hedged my bets on planting out the squash plants, so courgettes, patty pan, butternut squash are all planted along with the first block of sweet corn. I weeded and hoed the bed that the pumpkins are going into but haven’t planted them yet, I will have to keep and eye on the forecasts and cover them if it looks like a frost but I can’t see one coming for a couple of weeks at least so I’m taking the chance.

Apparently I ordered something called yacon which arrived today lol so I have planted them as well.


‘Part of the gourmet roots collection. Yacon means ‘water root’ in the Aztec language. The largest tuber you can grow in the UK, producing very crisp and juicy red roots. Sweet tasting due to the amount of inulin present, which is good for diabetics as its not sugar. Tall plants which produce sunflower-like blooms. Can be eaten raw or cooked, tastes like fresh pear/water-chestnut.’

Late afternoon the farrier came to do the horses, glad to say they are looking good at the moment and no sign of laminitis fingers crossed they stay that way 🙄

I ordered some anti bird netting for the cherry tree, I am determined to get at least some of the cherries this year, last year it was the blackbirds that stole them and the year before the crows, I don’t mind some of them but they strip the trees before the cherries are even ripe 🙄

We managed to get a claim in for the self employed help from the government, it was just for John as his work has been adversely affected but I won’t be claiming as the Farm did better throughout than it normally does due to high demand for eggs and plants 😀

Saturday: Another nice day and another day dodging the sun between the clouds, makes for a long job I can tell you 😀 I had an objective and that was achieved so I am pleased about that, I wanted to get the rest of the peas in and the dwarf beans, that fills a bed and then I put the drip feed hose on which is buried under ground so that the roots all had a good soak. I did want to get the pumpkins in but not quite managed that today. John has been busy cleaning out the hen hut, just waiting for some creosote to arrive and then he can do that before the hens go back out there. We fixed some of the fencing first thing and then went to pick up the rest of my prescription and called at the garden centre on the way back as I wanted some big pots, the queue was quite long and in the sun so we gave that a miss lol.

I had some daisy type plants arrive in the afternoon so I potted them on, most will be going out for sale once established but some I will keep for the garden. I am enjoying filling blocks of the garden with flowers, in the beginning it was all veg and for a good few years after but now I am changing my outlook and loving it. Some areas of the garden need a total rethink because I can’t get to them to weed them very well, the sun bits first thing in the morning and is there all day long so I need some serious research on what to put there to keep it under control a bit better without too much work.

Sunday: oooooh we had a lay in today, most unusual for us but we didn’t get up until 8.45 😱 A lovely morning though, overcast but warm by the time we got out there, I spent a good while watering a few things just to get them firmly established. Feed the ponies, feed the tortoises, make sure the greenhouse is all watered for a warm day ahead, chat over the gate to eggs customers. John did the rest of the feeding rounds and we have an egg from the new pullets 😀 just need the other 11 to lay now. He did a bit of weeding around the rhubarb, the weeds go to the hens that are inside a secure pen at the minute because of the fox trouble we have been having.

I ordered some Oca tubers to grow, I have done these before and they are small and fiddly but nice tasting and something a bit different.

And then I ordered a takeaway Sunday roast from a local pub as a bit of a treat, roast beef with all the trimmings and a pudding to boot, happy days 😀

Totally delicious and I had a strawberry waffle for pudding so now I’m totally stuffed and need a lay on the sofa for an hour or so 😂

Have a great week and continue to stay safe x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

The wrong shoes, plum moth and hard working Mums 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th August: whoo hoo Monday again 😬 Not a bad day weatherwise so far, cool enough, a touch of sun, no rain and no wind 😀 After doing the morning stuff I got on in the garden, not veg gardening, today I am giving that a rest but flowers instead. I have a few plants that are struggling where they are and I wanted to save them so I have dug them up, a fushia, delphinium, lupin and gaura, and potted them in fresh compost and put them in the greenhouse for a boost. Then I went out to the front by the egg shed and hoed and weeded, dead headed and brushed, so it looks a bit more presentable now 😀 The ranunculus have died back and I want to try and store the bulbs over winter as they were pretty special so I have bought in the pot to sort them out and in its place I have put a dahlia which should flower soon.

I got dinner sorted for later, we had a roast chicken yesterday and got to use it all up lol so I will be having a baked potato/salad with mine and John will be having a throw it all in the pot and reheat job 😀 I also made a summer fruit pudding crumble with the blackberries and raspberries I picked this morning, I mixed them up with some greengages and I meant to take a photo before putting the crumble mix on top as the colours were vibrant, but I forgot 🙄

The Victoria plums, I have discovered have plum moth 😟 I had a trap in the damson tree which is about 20ft away and I thought it would cover it but it seems not 😏 so I have ordered some more traps and grease bands to do as many fruit trees as possible. It’s a pain in the arse to wait all year only to find they have moth in them grrrr

I keep eyeing up the mulberry tree and there are loads on there but the blackbirds are beating me to them every morning, mulberries turn very quickly, red one day, black and very squishy the next, hard to get them at the right time, I have not had one single berry yet 😏 The biggest problem with the soft fruit is that the birds will eat them before they are ripe enough to pick!

When John came home he noticed some of the new hens had got out and on further investigation a big hole has been chewed in the netting, I think the geese are to blame but also the charge was not going through so John spent 2 hours fixing it. I went out when he had just about finished and he asked if I was going to help him put the birds to bed, I said, I haven’t got the right shoes on. Anyone who works outside especially in and around paddocks/stables will know you need the right shoes, anyhow I obliged and went to the stables block to lock the birds in, I turned on the main light, turned around and caught my foot under the rubber matting which was slightly proud. I kind of flew, hands sprawled out in front of me and then belly flopped onto the hard ground beneath me, I cried out and then just lay there whimpering until John found me, concerned at first but then laughed when he realised I was grazed but not broken 😜 I feel lucky that I didn’t break anything, especially my wrist which took the brunt and lucky that I had taken some ibrufen an hour before for my sinusitis (I know, I’m a walking disaster at the minute) I’m sitting here typing with bits of me smarting and I can imagine in the morning it will hurt or at the very least be stiff🙄

Tuesday: A little sore this morning but nothing much thank goodness 😅 I spent a good deal of the morning trying to get the fruit cage under some sort of control, the bindweed has been awful this year and has rampaged through the raspberries smothering everything. I did other things but forgot to write them down and now poof, can’t remember 🙄

Wednesday: I got busy doing some cutting back and tidying in the garden, then Mum came over and also got busy doing some weeding and tidying and suddenly it’s all starting to look a bit more under control lol. I think I have decided that I am going back to the way I gardened before 😜 I will plant trees and shrubs in among things but I need a bit of order 🤪 and can’t really cope too well with what seems like haphazard gardening. I think we have decided I should garden to what suits me and not try and follow a regime as such, much better for my sanity lol.

Some more plum moth traps arrived today so I have put them up in the trees to catch the males, I have until early September to trap them and hopefully slow down the numbers.

Thursday: A bloody good session outside this morning 😀 following on from Mums sterling work on the feverfew, which has gone beserk and taking over everywhere, I did a bit more to the same area and the pathway which is so weedy it’s a job to distinguish from the garden! Then onto the hazel trees at the side of the house, normally at this time of year nothing needs doing to them but last autum we cut three of them back to let light into the tunnels on the other side. You can image how much growth they have put on and the tomatoes in the tunnels are struggling to ripen so I have cut back some of this years foliage and the stinging nettles to hopefully help with the light issues. Then I noticed that the ripe hazels are beginning to fall so I raked the area clean, it’s easier to spot them that way 😀

Yesterday and today I have felt fit and well whoo hoo hence some hard graft, have to be careful though as wham it will hit me when I’m not looking lol.

I went on chicken watch because despite John spending another hour last night fixing holes, they have still got out today, so I am sat waiting to see where exactly they are doing it, luckily the sun isn’t out 😀 At the moment the hens are behind electric that’s because they are only just starting to lay and we want them to lay in the nest boxes. If we let them free range straightaway they would just lay anywhere and we will not find the eggs, chicken training, who knew there was such a thing 😜

I been sat here for 20 mins and no one has made a bid for freedom but I know as soon as I turn my back they will be out 🙄

I spent the evening sorting out, or trying to sort out, the office, going through old paperwork that we no longer need so that I can find any paperwork we do need!

Friday: It’s lunchtime and so far I have split my time between cleaning the bathroom and doing some washing, picking veg and sowing some winter seeds.

I am cleaning because Dad and Sue are coming to stay for a week, they arrive Sunday, I am not cleaning because they will mind the a bit of dust but because I would like it to be nice and clean when they are here lol. My thoughts reminded me about a conversation with Johns Dad once, asking me if Women dressed for Men or for themselves pffft, themselves of course (most women anyhow) quite conceited of the male of the species to think that we dress for them 🤣 We used to have some good conversations, generally we saw things from opposing angles which you would think put us at odds with each other, not in the slightest, we enjoyed discussing our different opinions and often learnt from each other’s views, and he always enjoyed playing devils advocate 😜

The winter veg I have sown are not very exciting but will hopefully provide some fresh veg in the ‘hungry gap’ some winter spinach which is always useful, sweetheart type cabbage which will be ready next spring and some mooli radish. The latter I have never grown before and they were free seeds, from experience weird and wonderful veg rarely grow well but no harm in trying, they grow as big as a tennis ball so will make great additions to soups and stews over winter.

I have picked a bit of veg this morning but to be honest it’s meagre pickings, that’s because whatever I haven’t used or frozen has sold out quickly and now I’m struggling to keep finding things to put out, there are worse problems to have I know 🙄

Saturday: Turned out to be a scorcher of a day with more to come over the next few days! We were up early because we wanted to get into town and get some shopping before it got too hot. Just before we left another early bird was up and over here, Mum came to do some more work on the weeds, it’s all now looking pretty good largely due to her hard work 😓 so thanks Mum 😘 I did a bit when I got back and John did a few jobs but by lunchtime it was very hot and in the afternoon the temp gauge in the greenhouse was off the scale which stops at 50c 🙄 Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and we sat in the shade until that even got too hot, after they had gone it was just basic jobs that got done.

I was babysitting Mia and the twins for a few hours while Sam went off in search of her sanity 🤣 with Luke to their local pub. I said to her ‘hats off’ I don’t know how she gets everything done, it took two hours to feed, wind and change them both then another two hours to settle them and in fact Lucie didn’t settle for the whole evening. Mia was fab, patient, helpful and obliging at bedtime which made it a whole lot easier.

Sunday: An early sign off this week, temps are set to climb even higher today although at the moment it’s overcast so we will see what happens. Again we were up early, I got straight on with watering as I couldn’t do it last night and somethings are struggling, amazing that this time last week it had been raining for days! Then the last bit of cleaning before Dad and Sue arrive for the week, I probably won’t blog much if at all as I will be very busy entertaining etc 😀

Have a great Bank Holiday 🌞

Posted in Friesland Farm

Courgette soup, new hens, stormy weather & Tussie Mussies.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday eve: I took a couple of ibrufen and as John was watching the F1 I decided to go outside and do a bit of pottering. Firstly I watered the tunnels and was delighted to see that the cucumbers and melons have begun to grown quite quickly, then I potted in some plants, blackcurrants, lupins and a few other bits, they will all be left to overwinter and hopefully be good strong plants next spring.

Monday 5th Aug: I feel like s**t 🙄 no other way to put it lol, I have a cold, I think, I can’t breathe, well obviously I can a little or I wouldn’t be here typing this but I can’t breathe through my nose at all, it’s blocked which makes my head feel thick and heavy. I got up had a shower had my breakfast laid down and went back to sleep for a short while, got up had coffee, put some chicken, bones and veg in the slow cooker to make a broth. My throat gets dry then I start coughing away 🤧 sneezing, the works, urgh. The insult to injury is that I can’t take cold and flu remedies due to other meds so the broth mix contains garlic, turmeric and ginger along with chicken, veg and herbs, hope it helps 😜

Tuesday: Feeling a bit better today so I cracked on outside with an early start. I thought I would concentrate on flower gardening so I started with the front area, weeding, deadheading, cutting back and digging up any self seeded things and anything that is struggling. I had a happy time listening to the radio in the greenhouse potting up foxgloves, huechera and a couple of struggling lavenders. Then onto cutting the lawn and hoeing the paths around it, a bit of weeding and taking out the borage which has gone over and a few weeds from the herb bed. Sit down and have coffee and a bagel 😀 Going well and it’s only 10.30!

Shelley came over with Josh and Flo and picked some runner beans, Josh and I dug up potatoes and then Shelley made courgette soup which was delicious and I would definitely make it again.

500g courgettes (we used yellow)

Garlic chopped or minced

Olive oil

450ml of chicken stock, could use veg stock

Fresh parsley

Fresh basil

Salt

Pepper

Pinch of nutmeg

Chop courgettes and soften in olive oil, add stock and cook until soft enough to blitz or mash, add chopped parsley and basil and the pinch of nutmeg. Serve warm with Parmesan cheese and crusty bread 😀

Simple and good for you.

We popped over to see Sam, Mia and the babies.

Rain on and off all afternoon and into the evening but we have to get the fencing up ready for the chickens arriving tomorrow 😜

John finally got the strimmer working, I had sprayed the carburettor with cleaner but couldn’t start it, John had a go then he cleaned out the end of the pipe going into the fuel tank and voila it now works 😀

Wind is predicted for Friday, my first thought was ‘oh no’ that won’t be good for the runner beans, nor the fruit and nuts on the trees 😏

Wednesday: A bits and bobs day, flitted about doing various things but not one big job. First I burnt the paper feed bags and any paper rubbish we had lying around, then I put sawdust and feeders in the POL for sale pen, then I collected a few eggs, washed out and filled up Jacks water trugs, got the mower out and cut some areas that needed doing ( I tried starting the strimmer but I couldn’t get it going 😤) weighed out some veg to put out for sale, picked a few cucumbers, hoed an area that was getting overgrown, weeded the carrot bed, watched the kittens catch their first mouse, fed the rabbits/guineas and torts with the weeds all before noon 😀 Quick sit down before the afternoon begins.

I am trying to get my head around Instagram at the minute lol, not much to figure out I am sure but I never have more than a few minutes to glance at it #clueless 🤪

The new hens arrived in the afternoon, John gets a bit cocky with new arrivals and puts them outside saying ‘they will go in when it gets dark’ well nine times out of ten they do but not this lot! We had to catch all 50 in the front pen and put them inside on the perches, once we had done them we separated off to do the others, I went up the back and John did the side paddock and the duck pen. The other new lot (20) were in the sale pen up the back but they had all collected on the floor near the front of the cage, we have had this before and the fox can nip at them through the mesh, I called John to help but he had already buggered off indoors 😲 Eventually he came looking for me, just as I picked up number 20 😜

Thursday: We have had weather warnings for a storm, quite a big one by all accounts, they have actually cancelled some big events by the coast so they are taking the threat seriously, and so am I. I have been picking as many runner beans as I can manage because the wigwams will be the first thing to be blown down if the wind is that strong, I’m hoping that inland we won’t get hit so hard. With the runner beans I have made some chutney, I will freeze some beans, sell some and give some away to family. I have picked more courgettes 😜 and I’m contemplating having another go at jam, I reckon it would taste really nice but I don’t want another non set disaster, maybe I will make half the quantity as a test run.

At the moment the weather is lovely outside, sunny, calm, not too hot just pleasant, and great drying weather for the washing, I figured get it done today as the next couple of days don’t look good lol.

Despite having plenty of other things to do I did decide to have a go at the courgette jam, 1/2 quantity just in case, it smells amazing as it has lemon zest in it as well and I picture a vanilla sponge with the jam and some whipped cream in the middle and a dusting of icing sugar on top, 😋 I also had a go at another recipe I came across, sugar free caramel sauce, I had a can of coconut milk in the cupboard, it’s been in there for ages and all you add to it is 7tbls of some kind of syrup like agave, or in my case maple, boil it and reduce it down, easy, it tastes good and I think if I had used full fat coconut milk instead of the reduced fat which is what I had, it would be thicker but it’s still a nice pouring consistency.

The new hens went into the hut early today because it was raining so it was an opportunity to shut them in and not having a repeat of carrying them in one by one 😂

Friday: Rather boring but I did the cleaning today, you know when it just starts to make you feel uncomfortable seeing the dust and dirt kicking around lol. I am sat typing this up and it smells lovely, in fact sometimes I just open a door to a room just to take in the fresh clean smell 🤣

We have had three people this week who were supposed to come and collect stuff they had asked for, chickens and veg, all of them no shows 😏 I’m sure people think we have nothing better to do than wait for them to finally decide they might bother, it is one of the reasons that on the whole I do not save eggs for people. Many have asked in the past but I won’t do it, firstly sometimes as above, those people don’t turn up and secondly we have many customers who have been coming for years and take their luck on wether there are any available or not and I feel I owe them that loyalty back.

While I am getting bugbears off my chest the other one is when we have sold out of eggs, in the past I have had huffs and puffs because the ‘sold out’ sign isn’t displayed, this is because I don’t have time to run out every five minutes to see if the last customer took the last box of eggs! While I am on a roll here….we are not a supermarket, we have what we have and when it’s gone, it’s gone 😜 Hopefully, very soon, we will have an abundance of eggs but until then they are a bit thin on the ground. One last small tiny bugbear 🤪 we have plenty of fair weather customers who come in the summer but again the loyal ones come all year long but it’s always the summer ones that complain lol.

The courgette jam, although it smells and tastes amazing, is a soft set and that’s using the term loosely 🙄 I may incorporate it into a cake recipe I think.

Went out for tea and cake with Shelley, Josh and Florence this afternoon, the weather today has not been as bad as I expected but apparently there is worse to come tomorrow 🙄

I have made enquires today about getting some more quail, hopefully I have found some I can pick up at the weekend, that will please the quail egg customers.

Saturday: Windy this morning but as yet no rain. We started off well got the animals sorted and then John got the tractor out and moved loads of muck from the pile at the back to the pile at the front lol. One of the reasons we decided to do this is because two mornings running there have been duck egg shells enroute from the stables to the muck heap so I am convinced there must be at least one rat in there, John thinks not but then he never believes that we have rats about even when the dog kills one 🙄 No rats appeared so maybe he is right about them not being in there but they are living somewhere round there for sure. I did a bit of picking, cucumbers and tomatoes are coming thick and fast now, I picked a few French beans and I planted out some more that will hopefully grow pretty fast and we can get a harvest at the end of September. I also put some in modules in the greenhouse just in case the outdoor ones get eaten by mice though I am hoping the kittens are onto them 😜 I have some cabbage and some winter spinach to sow at some point as well. I went to Mums last night and came back with a seed pod from a peony, I read up about growing them from seed and they can take up to five years that will be a long wait 🙄 I had a walk around the boundaries to see if there were any blackberries ready, nope still small, I have heard people saying they are picking but I don’t know where as round here they are not ready yet.

I clipped back the lavenders and made a few bunches, one each for Sam and Shelley, Charlie has lots of lavender in her garden so I picked some of my precious freesias and a few other flowers to make a Tussie Mussie (small bunch of flowers or aromatic herbs) for her.

Sunday: It’s 3pm and we have had a busy day and I need to sit down as my legs are feeling wobbly 😜 We started off doing the usual rounds and then an early morning trip to Bicester to buy some laying quail, a good journey and we made a great contact there, a butcher with a smallholding 😀 On the way back home we called I to the DIY shop to get a solar powered security light for the front, recommended by my brother who has some, quick pit stop for a takeaway coffee 😀 Back home and straight to work, John put up the light and then got on the tractor to move the last of the muck pile. Meanwhile I worked in the garden, flitting about between indoors and outdoors with the on off rain showers and cloud cover. I potted up some willow that I had taken cuttings of (very easy to strike) I intend to grow them on into trees to use around the place, I cut back the sage, it’s getting old and gnarly so I gave it a hefty prune, there were three pieces that had taken root so I dug those up and potted them. The high winds yesterday have caused a bit of damage but not much, a big bough has come down from my weeping birch tree and 4 lots of runner bean wigwams are down. I have picked all the beans I can from them as they probably won’t recover from the whipping 🙄 I picked cucumbers which are now coming thick and fast and a couple of courgettes lol. John picked up the eggs and fed the birds and I sorted and boxed them, that’s when I felt the need to have a sit down.

Later I went up the back where John was clearing and burning some wood, we heard a rumble of thunder then the heavens opened, proper thunderstorm 😀

We have been out then in then out then undercover, then out then in and have now abandoned trying to tidy up at the back, the bonfire is still going well but it’s so wet out there now I doubt it will go anywhere it shouldn’t !