Tag: ducklings

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain 😀 a few jobs done & a trip to Wales

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 27th May: Bank Holiday. Although it looked like rain threatening all day, it never came.

We did some cleaning out this morning, John did the the two big hen huts while I cleaned out the now vacant rabbit pen. The other rabbit is still looking fine which rules out my two suspicions of how they might of got infected, one being the forage I collected from the field but she also had it so can’t be that, and two, taking her for a walk, her contracting it and passing it to them through the grille, obviously not. Their pen can easily be reached by wild rabbits and maybe some nose to nose contact through the bars, her pen cannot be reached so that’s the conclusion I have got to so far.

In the afternoon we went to the local steam and vintage rally which was a nice break although the wind was a bit chilly, great to see all the old vehicles and steam engines, from a bygone era. When we got back I watered the poly tunnels and the recently planted stuff and that was it for the day lol.

I took some Clematis cuttings, I have been taking cuttings of everything and anything 🤪

All the things I am growing at the moment 😲 no wonder I’m busy!

Garlic, onions, beetroot, bulb fennel, dwarf beans, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, sprouts, turnips, swede, broad beans, peas, tomato, cucumber, melons, carrots, salad leaves, spinach, radish, spring onion, strawberries, parsley, coriander, peppers, cape gooseberry, grape, lemon grass, raspberries, blackcurrants, blackberries, blueberries, kiwi, apricot, cherry, apple, pear, honey berry, Logan berry, runner beans, pumpkins, courgettes, potatoes, garlic, chives, mint, fennel, caraway, sweet cicely, horseradish, rosemary, oregano, sage, lovage, lemon balm, lemon verbena, asparagus, rhubarb, artichoke, red currant, cranberries, olives, fig, peach, plums, choke berry, loofah, gooseberry (red and green) mulberry, Angelica, bay, thyme, amaranth, quinoa, tree spinach, and then there are things like small leaves limes, Hostas, day lilies also edible, flowers/trees and shrubs for the beneficial insects a mixture of native wildflowers and trees and of course weeds 😝 something for every living thing here 😀

The rain came at 9pm and yessss it came down in bucket loads which will help to fill the rain tanks ready for more hot weather predicted for next weekend. It got torrential just at the time that John went out to put all the birds to bed 😬 ooops, I put the fire on and made a hot drink for when he came back in, he was soaked! It just happens that it’s his job to do the putting away as I’m am usually clearing up or washing up or typing up my blog notes 📝 still I spent many years walking the kids to back and forth to school and clubs in the rain so do I fell bad…..nah 🤪

I have been reading up on biochar, the good and the bad, I haven’t made up my mind which wins yet yet but I do think that with practice you could make it yourself rather than buy it.

There are four geese sat on four nests of goodness knows how many eggs in them! Typically because I wasn’t planning on having goslings this year it will probably be a successful hatch and there will be loads of them 😝

Tuesday: It’s half term so Sam is not working and I don’t have Mia today, I can crack on with a few jobs, John is also home so he can get stuck in to some work as well. After doing the morning stuff he started to make a base and fit one of the IBC tanks on the POL pen, this had a water barrel but it doesn’t hold much so a tank of this size (1000ltr) will be great. Then he started adapting the pen so we can put the ducklings out in it. Some draught proofing is needing but that’s about all it needs, the remaining five hens in there will move out into the paddock with the laying hens. Meanwhile I started tidying up the orchard pen, raking the ground and moving stuff that had been used and just got left and cleaning out any cages that are now also vacant. The little light Sussex that I hatched out, are inside a pen, inside the orchard pen if you see what I mean but I have been letting them out into the bigger area which they are loving.

In the afternoon, Shelley came over with Josh and Florence, Shelley and Martin have both got a vomiting bug 😷 so I took the kids out for a wander round the farm for an hour or so while Shelley got a bit of sleep, it got them out in the fresh air and running off a bit of steam as well. We saw a Little Blue butterfly which are quite common here and another small pretty one that I don’t know the name of and I didnt have my phone with me so couldn’t photograph it. One year we had some orchids growing in the big paddock so I had a look for those but couldn’t see any sign of them, maybe one year they will appear again. I may go back out later with a camera and see what I can photograph.

I have just been reading an article on how it would be possible to be self sufficient in fruit and veg in this country. I have had this conversation with people before, some saying it isn’t possible but I really think it is, if we utilise what spaces we have well, then food can easily be grown in the garden. There are small patio fruit trees and bushes these days making it easier for small gardens and you would be surprised with just how much you can pack into small areas. We import 70% of the apples consumed into this country, which is ridiculous given that our climate is perfect for growing them and in Autumn the amount you see lying on the ground is criminal. The same can be said for nuts, perfect climate, they grow in abundance yet we are importing them, go figure 🙄 If you want to but think, I can’t, I don’t know how, then just push yourself a little bit, learn or just try and see what happens, most plants want to grow they just need you to look after them, water is essential for all plants and some need more warmth or a bit of protection from birds etc but it’s really not that hard. Start with the easy stuff like herbs, this time of year even tender herbs will thrive, Then there are tomatoes, given plenty of water they will do well in a grow bag by the back door and there is nothing better than a sunwarmed ripe tomato, dwarf beans, easy again, get the plants make sure they stay watered and voila fresh veg. Ok you will still need to go shopping but you may just get the bug and want to learn/grow more 😀 There is no magic, green fingers help but we don’t all have those 🤣 yes you need to water but imagine standing outside with your wine or tea in your hand while doing it, perfect.

If you want to know more or learn I am more than happy to show you round my veg plot and you can ask as many questions as you like and endeavour to help you get going 😀

We moved the ducklings to their new abode, they are loving the extra room.

John moved a load of muck with the tractor from the back to the front, hopefully we will get the back cleared and a fence up, that’s the plan anyway.

We have an old caravan which was here when we came and it has lots of stuff stored in it mostly crap lol, I made the mistake of going in there and then one thing led to another and I started going through stuff 🙄 It’s been on the to do list for about 8 years 🤣 you never know I may finally complete the job.

I don’t need to water today yay, so after dinner I got a few hours off 😀

Wednesday: Rain again today so that’s fabulous, we are heading to high temps at the weekend apparently.

John has gone to work today so I get a bit of peace and quiet 🤪 Did all the morning feeding, letting out, filling up water troughs etc, the ducklings are fine despite being outside overnight so that’s good. Then I collected a couple of bucketfuls of herbs and weeds, one for the rabbit and guinea pig and one for the hens in the stable, not sure what I am going to do with them yet but I can’t have them on the veg garden so for now they have to stay there.

I moved the big poly tunnel around a bit so that I could plant some more cucumbers in the ground also a couple of tomatoes and some dill. I didn’t really think it through when I said no rush about finishing the greenhouse because everything that was in there is stored in the tunnel, including a very long potting bench and now I need to be planting into the ground I can’t 😬

The rain came so I went indoors to do a bit of cleaning, polishing, hoovering, washing all the boring stuff lol.

On Friday we are going to Llandeilo in Wales to see Dad and Sue, we are using Airbnb for the first time and staying on a smallholding which I am very excited about, I will tell you all about it later. Shelley and Sam will be here for the day on Friday to look after things then Charlie will be staying here Saturday and Sunday to look after things. It means I have to sit down and write a list of the routines and jobs that need doing, fairly straightforward except for the idiosyncrasies that everyone has lol such as the tap that is connected to the rain water tanks. It is connected to a pump but that is playing up and you have to turn it on then off again before connecting the hose otherwise the pump won’t kick in, then when you turn it off the pump keeps running so you have to listen out for that and turn the tap on then off again and it goes off, if you don’t it will blow the electrics by keep running, haha these are things I know but need to remember to tell others!

Quick cuppa and a natter with my neighbour in the afternoon who bought me a bag of bottom shearings (they are off of her sheep not her 😂) which I will use as a mulch, added bonus are the dags which are basically poo caught up in the wool, extra fertiliser 😀

I made a schoolboy error of not putting my wellies on when I went to do the afternoon feed and egg collection, I know have wet feet and trouser bottoms, div 🤪

When John came in from putting everything to bed he said he couldn’t find one of the light Sussex hens and she hadn’t gone to bed by herself, he looked everywhere 🙄 I went out and found her fairly quickly, you have to think like a chicken, she is too heavy to go up so she will hunker down in a corner somewhere which is exactly how I found her.

Thursday: The sun is back this morning after a couple of chiller, wet days. John is home again today and we did the morning routine between us.

This morning I have a blackbird that seems fascinated by the bag of sheep’s wool, I have now idea why by it keeps hopping up to it tweeting away, maybe it wants some of it for a nest.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the forest garden approach, I’m struggling with letting go of the control of the garden, it’s better for me because I’m not stressing trying to keep everything together but still there is that part of me that wants to clean, tidy, hoe, rake, cut back lol. At the moment it looks like organised chaos, eventually, and I know it’s a process that can’t be hurried, it will all make sense but getting there is taxing me 😝 Of course is going to be so much better in the long run, especially for the wildlife, I can see the sense in it, even though I haven’t used pesticides or artificial fertilisers etc for years the difference that not having bare earth between veg rows makes is noticeable both for the plants and the insects/birds. One day I will achieve ‘forest garden’ gold 😂 Meanwhile I am busy learning as much as I can about it.

Friday: We were up and busy doing the feeding and letting out before we set off for Wales to visit Dad and Sue.

We had booked through Airbnb to stay on a smallholding which was absolutely delightful, very rural and very quiet. We had a homemade honey topped cake on arrival which was delicious and ate heartily at Dad and Sues plus a trip to Aberglasny gardens.

At the smallholding old habits die hard and I was up at 6am each morning sitting outside on the patio with my coffee, just the birds, a few sheep, a goat and some cows a couple of fields away for company total bliss 😀 On the first morning John got up about 7 and we went for a walk along the lane lol, not a soul around, we will definitely stay then when we go back again. Doug and Stella were our hosts, friendly and very easy to chat with and ‘The Cartshed’ was just perfect.

BIG thank you’s to Shelley, Sam and Charlie for looking after things superbly while we were away.

Posted in Friesland Farm

No rain, lemon yoghurt cake, still no rain 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th May: We didn’t get any more rain yesterday despite the forecast saying there were heavy showers around 🙄 It’s slightly worrying that the pattern seems similar to last year in terms of lack of rain which is one of the reason I am trying to move in a different direction with the gardening. Large bare areas that are ready to plant/sow veg into are not ideal any more, the ground needs to be covered either with planting, mulching, or material cover or a mixture of all three. The weeds are getting a bit out of control BUT where there is a weed density the plants are thriving so there is a compromise to be had there.

I did the morning rounds and had made a mental note to not work on the garden today, giving my time to other things, initially I stuck to this and got some cleaning done and some bread on the go, then I got sidetracked in the garden 🤪 a bit of planting, some watering and some mulching.

Massage evening 😀😀😀 fabulous 😀😀😀 good for the mind, body and soul.

More watering when I got back 😝

Tuesday: I had Mia today so 99% of it revolves around her lol, however we did manage to get one half of the ducklings outside so they could splash around in a bowl of water and clean/preen themselves which they seemed to enjoy, the other half will have to wait a couple of days. Not sure if we did anything else apart from playing and reading etc.

Once she had gone home it was time to get the watering going, honestly I really wouldn’t expect to be watering quite so much at this time of year already but this is the second year in a row, the water butts are sounding hollow so nearly empty already. We are hopefully picking up 4 IBC tanks this week which will be another 4000 litres but they will be for the smaller buildings and hold water for the hens etc.

The comfrey has flowered and was teeming with bees 🐝 tonight which is fabulous 😀 I was about to cut some of it back but I couldn’t bring myself to do it with that much activity on it.

We dispatched two more of the rabbits tonight as they were definitely infected with Mitzi, the other, last one, is in a separate cage with the guinea pig and doesn’t look at all like she is but only time will tell.

Well I sat down around 8.45, typed up this then is was out to sort the ducklings, turned on the heat lamp, bulb blew, tripped the fuse out there and blew the fuse in the plug, so they are on a 60w bulb 🙄 hopefully the temps don’t get too cold tonight!

Wednesday: Nice morning again, up early and had my cuppa outside 😀 Did the ducklings then the morning feeding and letting out. John didn’t shut the ducks away last night, the ones in the pen, and this morning there was a dead duck, well headless actually, so guessing the fox got in, how on Earth we didn’t lose the whole lot is anyone’s guess!

Into the garden to get the last of the planting bits done, I am going to have so many courgettes this year lol. I planted almost the last of the beans to go out, ying yang and haricot beans, then planted a bed with the tree spinach, amaranth and quinoa looking forward to seeing how they turn out, probably self seed everywhere 😜

I watched the medals episode of Chelsea Flower Show, then did the ducklings again, then I got ready for my hospital appointment in the afternoon. I checked the post box, there was a live plant package in there, tomatoes and cucumber, oooops. I thought I had ordered some but couldn’t find the e-mail so grew some and bought some, now I have loads, ah well better to have too much than not enough, just need to find spaces for them 🙄

An afternoon getting to, having the appointment and getting home again, all my vital signs are good 😝 so onwards and upwards, just got to come off the steroids now.

When I got back John had got the ducks outside for some fresh air and a splash about, they really are mucky and I have scoured the internet to find ways of making it less so but it seems that’s what you have to put up with lol.

The tomato and cucumber plants that arrived had been soaking in the sink so I put them outside on the table in their plastic carriers which detailed from left to right which plants were which, but I hadn’t quite closed them tightly enough and a gust of wind blew them off the table and now I have no idea which is which variety 🤪 After dinner I got them potted up and left them to soak.

I had a very excited Shelley FaceTime me with her very first homegrown radish 😀😀

Thursday: Up a bit late today 🙄 7.30 so chasing my tail a bit and quickly ran out of cooler/shady weather so after doing hot ducklings and feeding etc I thought a bit of cake making might be the order of the day.

I had some Greek yoghurt, from the batch I made, to use up so I made a lemon yoghurt cake, very simple, just how I like it, mix up the ingredients and cook, I also made a batch of scones, they taste great but didn’t t rise very well lol.

Mix dry ingredients, then mix eggs with the milk and add, then add the oil and mix ….cook, I baked it at about 160c until the knife came out clean. Then make a mix of icing sugar and lemon juice up and pour over the top, amount depends on how much you want on it 😀

Went off to a farm a few villages away to pick up the IBC tanks, I’m pretty pleased with these, to collect as much rain water as possible has to be the way forward. Pop to the shop to get a few bits afterwards, home for dinner, then out to do the watering and finally cut the driveway grass and use for mulching.

So many jobs, so little time 😝

Friday: How is it Friday already!

Up at the crack of sparrows this morning and been running around ever since trying to get all the ‘must do’ jobs done then I can concentrate on the ‘should do’ ones 😜 The ducklings, as you can imagine are taking up quite a lot of cleaning, moving, watering, feeding time and growing fast. Hopefully we have some people coming this weekend to take a few of them so a little less work but not by much. They are having daily sessions outside now, it means I can put deeper water out there for them for splash in and wash and preen and I don’t have to clean the brooder box every few hours! Boy are they messy lol.

I swapped some plants with my neighbour this week so I have been planting up some more veg that I didn’t grow myself, swedes mostly, she also gave me some more pumpkins and cucumbers, I will try and sell some on but I may be planting them in the ménage to see if they will grow in there, just need John to fix the gate so the ducks can’t get at them.

I have a fig tree in a pot, it’s not huge at the moment but it will get bigger, a couple of the branches hang low down to the ground so I am going to layer them, this just means pegging them down into a pot of soil/compost and waiting, for quite a long time lol for them to put out some roots.

Apparently we may get a shower today but the sky is looking so blue that I wonder if it will all just pass us by 😏 The ground is dustbowl dry and in desperate need of some rain, plus it would be nice to get the tanks filling up again.

I had a coffee and a slice of lemon yoghurt cake, it has a texture like Madeira so quite dry and not sweet so if that how you like cake it’s a good one to try. Over the last few years I have really gone off cakes with icing, I find them far too sickly, except for an iced bun of course 😂

Saturday: Another fine morning, still no sign of any rain 🙄 We got up and got on with the mornings jobs, John went off to pick up some bits from the local building merchants and I watered the polytunnels and picked food for the remaining rabbit and guinea pig. I got Jack in as he is getting too fat on the grass that is available, he is not happy in the stable with just hay, kicking the billio out of the door. I sorted out some plants to go out for sale at the front and we had someone come to buy some ducklings 😀

Some sweet corn plants arrived in the post (more plants that I had forgotten I had ordered) and some mangetout seeds. I planted up the corn and sowed the peas round them, the peas can use the sweet corn stems for support. With everything I have planted and sown this year we will definitely not be going hungry 😋 and I may even be able to do veg boxes at the height of the season which would be amazing.

I have been out eyeing up the elderflower to see if they are open enough to start harvesting some, not quite ready just yet but the ones that are open smell amazing 😀 I am going to make a simple elderflower syrup and some jam this year as I think that will be more versatile, you can make a multitude of things with it including champagne. Apparently elderflower is very good for the immune system and if you infuse it in honey it makes a good flu buster for the winter months.

I haven’t forgotten the limoncello, I have the vodka ready, I am just waiting on the lemon verbena plant I bought to put on a bit more growth then I will be making it, we tasted it added to Prosecco and it was delicious even though I don’t drink Prosecco very often it will make great gifts for those that do 😀 I will be more inclined to add the elderflower syrup to gin and tonic 😀

I spent an hour or so shelling the last of the walnuts and hazelnuts that I had stored from last autumn, they will be nice in salads or just as a snack, they have kept well and not very many had dried up, bit of a faff collecting/washing/drying/ storing them at the time, but I’m glad at this time of year that I did.

Did some grass cutting, some watering of the plants I put in today and some of the pots, 6pm time to come in and cook the dinner 🙄 knackered today.

I felt some spots of rain but so far that’s it and only an 18% chance, I’m not taking the risk on that as the sun has been blaring for the best part of the day!

Meanwhile John has been moving wood from down the back and staining the capping for the greenhouse, cleaning out the ducks and various other jobs on the never ending job list 😝

Spag bol for me with a sauce I made and froze last year with fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil and John has mince with freshly picked peas and broad beans, the only thing that would be better than that would be new potatoes freshly dug but they are not ready yet. Still reaping the rewards of last years growing season 😀 To be fair we still have loads of fruit and veg left in the freezer and when I went shopping the other night it was just for basics like cat food and washing liquid as I am trying to make an effort not to buy anything unnecessary which will force me to look in the freezers and use it up, it’s too easy to just buy more and add to the amount we already have in there which is hardly the point of what I am trying to do here.

Sunday: The rain has been teasing us today, a sprinkle here and there but nothing substantial as yet 🙄 Did the morning things and a bit of potting on while John fixes one of the gates. Then we went to visit his Mum and afterwards to visit my brother and sister-in-law, popped in the see Sam, Luke and Mia on the way home. By the time we got back it was feeding and egg collecting time again and someone came to buy a couple of ducklings, the numbers are going down slowly. We have been putting them outside in a pen which they are enjoying but have to get them in when we go out as we can’t risk leaving them, so it’s in, out, in, out lol. I’m sat here writing this, the sky is black and I’m willing it very hard to pour down 🤪 the saplings I planted in the autumn are also beginning to struggle, they went through winter with no problems but with the wall to wall sunshine we have had without any rain the problems are starting to show.

The rain blew over quickly so it looks like I will be watering tonight 😝

We have a breast of lamb, rolled with garlic and rosemary, in the slow cooker for dinner so I haven’t got much prep to do, just as well as I was hoping I wouldn’t be doing the watering tonight.

That’s it for this week 😀 a bit boring really, I will try and pep it up a bit next week lol.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Asparagus frittata, grapes forming & the ducks are a no show ☹️

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th April: I’m feeling full of positive energy today 😀 The Sun is shinning and before doing anything else other than breakfast and showering, I have been out and cut the asparagus and rhubarb to put out for sale. Some of the asparagus I have kept back and made an asparagus frittata/crust less quiche, whatever you want to call it. I am making an effort to do a bit of clean(er) eating this week and as the asparagus is coming through plentiful and we have eggs I thought this would be ideal for lunch. I used 3 eggs, a bundle of asparagus, a clove of garlic, grated cheese, a spoonful of sour cream I needed to use up, pinch of salt and a shake of black pepper, bake at 160c ish for 30mins give or take and voila, lunch is done for a couple of days before I’ve even fed the chickens 😀

So what have I been doing all morning, well first I wrote myself a list of things I wanted to get done, and then worked through it, nearly all gardening things but a couple of others too boot. Firstly I wanted to feed a tree that is in the front paddock, Cherry, it’s been in all winter but I felt it needed a bit of a boost as the soil is very shallow out there and probably not many nutrients either. While I was out there I wandered over to look at the wild garlic which has now flowered 😀

Burn a bit of cardboard rubbish that has been piling up, sort out plants I am putting out for sale, dig up the last few leeks ready to chop and freeze for later use, one I have left as it’s going to seed so I can collect that at the end of the year. Hang the washing loads out, should dry well today, pay an outstanding bill online, hand weed the carrot bed and sow more carrots. The carrots I sowed a few weeks back have not been very good, it was a shorter, early variety that I was trying but the seedlings are sparse so I have intersown with a more familiar variety (Nantes) and then the other half of the bed with a later variety. I potted on more plants that are steadily growing and starting to put everything hardy enough outside to acclimatise. The more tender plants will stay in for probably another week then I can start hardening them off. I planted a couple of pepper plants in the small tunnel, the other three are still in pots in the large tunnel until I decide where to grow them. I looked up in the large tunnel and was cock a hoop to see the grape vine has tiny bunches of grapes growing 😀

I have seen a couple Pinterest posts with sweet potato slips being grown suspended over water so I am giving that a try to see if it works.

I bought one of those boxes of scatter and sow seeds at the weekend so I have done exactly that and watered them in, I’m not sure these really work, I have tried before with not great results but fingers crossed these just might.

There are still of jobs on the list to do lol but I’m getting through them as best I can 😜 and of course keep adding to the list all the while.

In the afternoon I did some slightly more gentle pottering, last year I decided that I wouldn’t do pots of things as it was bloody hard work trying to keep everything alive but today I changed my mind 🙄 so I have been finding bits to put into pots to go on the decking area. While I was down there I spotted a rat! I thought the torts were eating rather a lot 😝 so I will be giving the rat(s) supper tonight 😜 John had other ideas about trying to shoot it though, I say trying, it was an entertaining hour watching him stalking the thing, he has no patience to sit and wait for it to come out, he is also by his own admission ‘a crap shot’ added to that he kept moaning he couldn’t see through the sight, needless to say I’m still going to ‘feed’ it tonight 😛

Tuesday: Nice sunny morning, looks like a promising day 😁 I had Mia today and roped her in to help pick/cut some food for the rabbits and guinea pig and get some sacks filled with hay for them. She bought a marble painting kit with her that she got as a present for her birthday, it’s a great little kit, well thought out, we expanded the idea a little with splodge pictures and got messier and messier 😆

I received the invoice for the ducklings this morning and suddenly realised that has crept up on me fast 😂 I now need to think about moving the chicks to another pen, they should be able to go outside in the next few days as they are all feathered up now 🙂

I’m glad a did the whole ‘pond’ thing last year although it needs some work again now as the chickens decimated the planting, hopefully I will be rehoming some froglets to add to it so I need to make sure the area is damp and dark for them, natural slug patrol 😁

After Mia went home and John came home, I gave him the job of feeding the birds and collecting the eggs while I went out to water the poly tunnels, feed the citrus trees and pot a couple of things on, by the time we ate it was nearly 8pm 😜

Wednesday: Cooler this morning with a nice heavy dew, good for the garden 😁 Got the animals all sorted and picked a few bunches of asparagus which will go out for sale today.

When I went to collect the post from the end of the drive I could hear grasshoppers 😁 that made me smile 😀

I showed you a picture of a guild last week that I had planted, here is one that has more or less sprung up by itself so I have let it carry on, this is a cherry tree, feverfew, comfrey, some sweet cicely, there are daffodils and violet in there as well as a bit of horseradish, quite a combination! All doing very well although the feverfew is a bit thuggish. One of the asparagus beds runs behind it along the back

I should have been full steam ahead this morning but I’m taking it a little slower, I have been experiencing a high heart rate at times and trying to work out why, obviously it’s to do with the medication and I had stopped the anti inflammatory because I didn’t think I needed it anymore but maybe I still do, so a quieter day back on that and see what happens.

I have mainly pottered about doing bits and pieces, I sowed a couple of rows of beetroot, I need to find out what I can plant along side them to do them some good, I moved a few things around and then I picked some chard to take to the hens in the stable block. As I came out I whacked my head a good un on the closed top bit, why I don’t know because I KNOW ITS THERE and even stooped to miss it but not far enough it seems 🤕 ouch, one those when you just want to cry, I even checked to make sure I hadn’t cut it open, luckily not, just as well I took the anti inflammatory 🙄

It seems that beans and peas can be pretty much grown with anything so I have sowed some more dwarf bean seeds to use dotted around the garden as companions, I sowed some yarrow, potted on courgettes and melons and sorted out plants for Shelley, she has a terrific little courtyard garden which has the potential to grow lots of food as it is sheltered and parts are a sun trap.

I just witnessed first hand the ‘crow’ problem that is causing concerns throughout the countryside. I opened the pen for the light Sussex to get out further than normal earlier, this afternoon I can see about 15 crows in there, the problem (for the crows) is that the wire roof slants upwards and they cannot figure how to get out once they are disturbed. I haven’t been able to see yet if they have attacked the eggs the hen is sat on or if they were drawn in because the eggs have hatched (due any day) or if they were after feed. What I witnessed was two very angry cockerels attacking any crow that came down to the ground, one crow was attacked four or five times, but they are pretty tough as it still got out eventually! And then they all came back but the cockerel got the better of one of them this time though it took a bit of doing, if you are wondering why I didn’t intervene, not a chance I am going in there with a cockerel on a mission like that, and the fact that there are two cockerels in there having a go is a definite no way.

Tonight for my dinner I have chicken with coconut rice and a mango and avocado salsa 😀

Thursday: I got the morning stuff done, then moved the little chicks out to where the quail used to be to make room for the ducklings which are arriving tomorrow morning first thing. Then it was off to Shelley’s for the day to help her with her garden it’s a lovely little courtyard garden but full of weeds and building rubble from their renovations, now it’s all tided up, weeded and pots filled with edibles from patio trees and fruit bushes to vegetables 😀 we forgot to take before and after photos though 🤪

John got the ducks some starter crumb and the chicks some growers pellets on the way home. I cleaned out the brooder this morning so we are good to go with duckies.

Friday: Well it started off well, I was up early, got the brooder lamp on, opened a new bag of starter crumb and was making a duckling proof waterer at 7.30am all ready for the delivery of ducklings, get a phone call at 7.45 to say they are not coming because the hatch was 300 short ☹️ I’m a bit pissed off to be fair 🙄 All that work in making brooders, getting feed in (a 20kg bag which I opened minutes before the phonecall) not to mention the anticipation, all for nowt. They are going to ring back on Tuesday to see what they can do, it may mean waiting for another hatch but I’m guessing they have already allocated those to customers 😕 meanwhile the ducks I have are laying poorly at the minute so not many duck eggs. The last lot I bought in Ffairfach when I was down at Dads and that was a few years ago, we are going down at the end of this month and I may have to see if I can find some in that area to bring back with us, honestly, who knew it would be so hard to get hold of ducks lol.

I did the morning rounds and got everything else sorted all the while thinking about how things look rosy for a while and then bump, down you come with a thud lol.

I spent the morning in the poly tunnel sulking 😝 lol, well potting on etc then I did some planting of perennials that I had split last autumn and overwintered. Sam and Mia came over at lunchtime, ‘do you fancy lunch out’ I said, ‘yep’ then let’s go 😀

Got back and did the feeding and eggs, I have sold 12 goose eggs today 😁

After that I had a sit down and I need a new purse as mine is on its last legs, well we are back to the light bulb saga for choice, it seems these days you really need to have a purse that is RFID blocking to prevent unauthorised scanning 😏 I need it big enough to get a medication card (I have to carry around with me) in it, I would quite like one big enough to get my phone in it if I am not taking my bag with me, and of course a multitude of loyalty cards, (mostly for garden centres 😂), some old one pound notes I was given as a birthday present many years ago and never spent 🤣, I choose one eventually and then found I could get it half price if I buy one in damaged packaging, yep that will do fine I throw that bit away anyhow!

Babysat Florence in the evening while Shelley and Martin took Josh to see Madagascar the musical which he absolutely loved 😁😁

Saturday: A cold North wind this morning, apparently it’s the coldest May bank holiday weekend for however many years, the weather patterns are so up and down this year. John went off to get feed and I did the feeding etc. I had a few larger plants in pots that needed moving to bigger pots and so thats what I did, meanwhile John cleaned out his van which took nearly all morning, I washed it as he was just going to park it back on the driveway and it was filthy! In the afternoon we went over to Cheltenham to visit our niece whose birthday was this week and she has just moved into a new flat there, good to get out and about, back home for an hour then over to Sam and Luke’s for a burger and some pooling of ideas for their garden which is about to have a huge transformation. That’s pretty much it for the day 😀

I have managed to find a couple of kittens not too far away and hopefully will be going to look at them next weekend 😀

Sunday: Brrrr still colder than it should be by now. Morning rounds first then I did some hoeing, the weeds are beginning to sprout everywhere, John went off to visit his Mum and when he came back he got the mower out to do the front paddock. We have kept the chickens off this paddock to give it a rest and get the sward thickened up, it’s looking pretty good although there are still some bare patches. He got bored after a couple of goes round so I took over while he got on with taking out a gate post near the back door that had rotted out and needed renewing. Halfway through that job we decided to go out and get something to eat, came back and he finished the job off while I did some pricking out and potting on lol my favourite jobs at the minute. I have put some runner beans out for hardening off as they will need to be planted up soon, I did put an extra cover of bubble wrap over the top though as it’s unseasonably chilly 😏

We had to light the Rayburn as it’s a tad too cold in the house, come back sunshine 🌞

Mostly garden tasks this week lol at the expense of everything else but I’m loving it so I’ll carry on regardless 😜

Have a good week everyone x

Posted in Friesland Farm

‘Timeless simplicity’, tortoises & pasta sauce.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday August 6th and the year is rolling on😜 By 9am this morning I had already done a 4hr stint in the garden! Watering the bits I didn’t get done last night and tidying away pots, I have a place where I keep them all over winter then as they get used I tend to chuck them down by the front of the greenhouse along with anything else I have been using 🤪 I figured it was time to tidy it all up, I also demolished one of the narrow raised beds in front of the greenhouse. Over the years it has had various different things growing in it, mostly flowers but the trees have got a bit big and it’s too shady, I did however shove the potatoes in there when I could finally get them in after the wet spring, they have not amounted to anything so that was waste of time, the wood at the bottom was rotting and coming away so it’s time to remove them. As always I didn’t take a before photo so this one is of the remaining bed so you get the idea of what I am talking about and the nice clear space I have now made. I contemplated doing the other one straight after but sitting here having my coffee I’m thinking that was probably enough action with the lump hammer and spade for today.

You can see that I have mounded up the soil in the background and covered it with black plastic, the soil was dead, there was hardly any life in it at all so covering will help to bring it back to life and get some composting done.

And then I finished my coffee and thought, sod it, in for a penny, in for a pound, and got on with demolishing the other one 🤪 although as fast as I was trying to rake up the chickens were in there scratching it all about! The asters that were growing on the end have been put in a tub of water, each year I kept meaning to divide them as they have been struggling for a couple of years, so now after a good drink I will pot the, up ready for selling or planting in various areas. Once the soil has broken down a bit I will be re using it on other projects I have in mind or to top up any existing raised beds, that area is going to have a small compound and house built for my new arrivals so that they are nice and close for the grandchildren to help feed and watch.

After collecting some eggs, as trade is brisk this morning, and finishing tidying stuff away it was 10.30 and time for a well earned rest and catch up with my fave tv programme at the moment 😀

Tuesday: Lay in, Up at 6am 😜 I only did a small amount of watering today I will do more tonight but the night are much cooler and full of moisture so it’s not as needed as it was. Picked a good amount of veg, 14 cucumbers lol, they have been hiding I think, beans, mangetout, tomatoes that will ripen out in the open sun and some baby corn. Then I got on with removing another raised bed that is under the trees and doesn’t get much light or rain so things struggle, actually the hens all scratch in in too so most things have died off. I moved it to the front, dug up all the soil, added some rotted manure and planted it up with the plants I bought ages ago and haven’t been able to sort yet and gave it all a good soaking. Then I made a coffee and sat down for five minutes peace, I got to about three and Sam, Mia and Alfie arrived. Sam and Mia helped to put the run up and move the ducklings outside for the day, they had great fun splashing, washing and preening themselves, the bigger ducks came to have a look and it’s got me wondering if I could get them to adopt the same way the geese did, it’s worth a try I reckon. Then we fed the rabbits a couple of the cucumbers and the light Sussex chicks some spinach and a few weeds, I collected up some eggs as customers keep on coming this morning and then it was time for Sam to go to work and Mia and I to entertain ourselves 😀

We have some roast chicken left over so I am going to make a curry with that today, John won’t eat curry so I will have to come up with something else for him.

While Mia was asleep I made a chicken and broccoli bake for John, the recipe suggests breadcrumb on top but I will just use potato and cheese. When Mia woke up we went outside to hang out the washing and pull some carrots to go with Johns dinner and then we fed the chickens and collected the eggs, Mia very carefully carried the quail eggs back and put them in the egg box, none broken 😀 Then we had a well earned rest and watched Wisspa 😜

Not many eggs to put out this afternoon and we had completely sold out, they have dropped in numbers by about 20 a day which is a lot!

Oooo when is it ever going to rain again, just keeping everything alive is bloody tiring, sometimes I look at how dry the ground is and think shall I just stop? The paddocks have now gone from brown to starting to blacken, I know they will come back as soon as it rains for long enough but honestly I don’t want another summer like this one!

We made a decision to put the ducklings in a hutch outside with the run around them, they are only three weeks old but they haven’t been under the lamp for the last week and the nighttime temps are not cold, in springtime I wouldn’t have taken the risk but at this time of year, with the weather as it is, it should be fine.

Wednesday: Noticeably cooler this morning though the rain forecast for the end of the week has disappeared off the radar again! Did a bit of watering and Mum arrived early to do some more hoeing, it’s great because I would never keep on top of it all otherwise, so thanks Mum 😘 I tidied up the small bed in front of the front gate, a bit of chopping and cutting back, clip the grass edges (the only bits of grass growing) planted up one of the lime trees in a pot and put that out there and pulled out no end of shasta daisies they are so thuggish and take over entirely. A quick cup of coffee and then set about sorting out the greenhouse, throwing away stuff I don’t need, taking down the staging that is in there, it will be burnt, it’s not very good as it had to be screwed to the frame to stop it falling over! Plenty of stuff to keep but I need to sort out the shed so I can get it in there lol, always a knock on job, once it’s cleared it will be ready to take down then John can put the base down and I can get it ordered, we have some very large tree branches to remove as well so that will be quite a big job. We pick up my new pets tomorrow and they will be living in there temporarily until we get sorted for them. Molly the cat has disappeared again, sometimes she does this for a few days but as she is quite ancient I know one day she won’t return.

The evening sky was totally awesome tonight, we were driving back from my brothers (another birthday 😀) and the view across the Windrush valley was fantastic, it reminded me of a Wild West sunset (not that I’ve ever seen one except in films) I did say to John that we are lucky to see things like that, people living in cities and big towns don’t get to see it very often and we see great sunsets every evening, I did try and get a photo but my phone camera just does not capture the magnificence of it at all.

Thursday: Awake early because it’s become the norm and I can’t turn it off now 😜 This morning we are off to pick up the two new members of the menagerie 😀 I will introduce them later.

On one of the smallholding pages during a discussion about meat production and all that comes with it, was a quote from a book, a book that I have now ordered and look forward to reading.

‘The industrialist was horrified to find the fisherman lying beside his boat, smoking his pipe.

“Why aren’t you fishing?” said the industrialist.

“Because I have caught enough fish for the day.”

“Why don’t you catch some more?”

“What would I do with them?”

“Earn more money. Then you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. That would bring you money to buy nylon nets, so more fish, more money. Soon you would have enough to buy two boats, even a fleet of boats. Then you could be rich like me.”

“What would I do then?”

“Then you could sit back and enjoy life.”

“What do you think I’m doing now?” ‘

from ‘Timeless Simplicity’ by John Lane

The hens are looking decidedly worse for wear with this continuing lack of rain and consequently a lack of green grass! In the industry they are kept for 52 weeks from point of lay and we are nearing that point so have some decisions to make, difficult because around 60 of them are still laying and I think if we had better ground the others would probably still be but the relentless heat has taken its toll as well, do we get a new batch at a cost and retire the others but that means twice as much work, do we sell off the older birds cheap even then we would have a cross over period of waiting for the eggs to get big enough, hmmm we will ponder on it for a while I think. It will be better to get new birds later in the year so that they carry us through the summer months when demand is higher but that means keeping more birds than would be ideal through the winter months. It is not just the hens, the ducks have dropped off too, with this in mind I have ordered feed with wormer in the hopes that keeping them in the best condition possible will help bring them back into lay, then of course you have the added problem of the daylight hours getting shorter all the while, it’s not easy 😝

So we went on a road trip, not long, about an hour and look what we bought back with us, meet Billy, who we shall call Big Billy and Voldertort or Voldy for short, currently they are in the fruit cage on weed patrol. Their owner is relocating out of the country and was looking for new owners and we were chosen 😀😀😀

In the afternoon I carried on clearing out the greenhouse, goodness knows why I’ve got so much stuff in there but I do use most of it at times, I have tidied up the shed a bit so I can get some stuff, that shouldn’t be getting wet, in there, the rest is outside! Hopefully I can get John started on taking it down this weekend and then the base can go down ready for the new one.

The tortoises spent all afternoon trying to get out of the fruit cage, Billy is very astute, he knows where the door is and if I’m in the garden he comes over or follows me while I’m walking round the outside. He also likes feet lol, especially ones in flip flops and kept making a beeline for Sams toes. We just (by a whisker) got their hut sorted with dry bedding in it before the rain came down, they had taken themselves off to bed about 6, into the trug with the straw in it which wouldn’t have held off the rain, so they are now nice and cosy for the night.

I found a great list of what torts like to eat, it’s very extensive and we have plenty of most of that on and around the farm 😀

IT RAINED 😀😀 not a huge amount but enough to wet the ground and hopefully we will get a bit more before the night is over.

Friday: Still raining 😀 giving the ground a good soak, I did intend to get a fair amount done but with the rain to begin with then visitors it ended up with nothing, not outside anyhow, I made bread and used fresh tomato/basil/ garlic to make bolognese and a batch for the freezer for another day. Picked some veg and weeds for the tortoises who were slow to wake today with temps dipping so much, then picked more herbs and weeds for the rabbits.

Saturday: Dry and sunny today and after getting all the morning chores done I went off to Worcester with our next door neighbour to a sheep sale 😀 Yvonne has Oxford Down sheep and this was a special sale of that breed.

John had instructions to clean out the ducks, geese, and hens and we discussed creosoting one of the moveable huts so that we can move it to the side paddock and purchase some news hens to overlap the older ones.

By the end of the sheep sale if I never hear another sheep bleating again that will be fine 😜 it was a very interesting day mind you and the whole operation is very slick. I spent the day wandering around and watching some judging and some of the sales and people watching too, fascinating day all in all, and with a few purchases made and loaded we headed home.

Rain in the evening.

Sunday: Wet start maybe it will dry up later on, John did the birds then went off to work for a couple of hours. I made pasta sauce for the freezer, tomatoes, basil, onions and garlic all homegrown mixed with salt, pepper and olive oil then roasted in the oven, cooled blitzed and frozen. I also had some bananas to use up so I made a GF banana, chocolate (cocoa powder) and peanut butter loaf, a basic chuck in the bowl and mix along with maple syrup and some coconut oil, baking powder so it’s dairy free and low in calories as well 😀

Sam and Luke stayed overnight as they went to a function locally and we looked after Mia so we had Mia to entertain us this morning 😀

We are off out for a Sunday roast later with Shelley, Martin, Josh and Florence so depending on the weather we might not get much more than the routine things done today.

Molly returned.

Well as usual once it starts raining it doesn’t flipping stop, it always goes from one extreme to the other!

Posted in Friesland Farm

Ducklings, a Blood Moon Lunar eclipse & finally some rain ☔️

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday night: I’m officially exhausted tonight, it’s close looks like it should rain but I don’t think it’s going to. There were a few other things I should have written on the blog but the technology was playing up and I was too tired to bother! Firstly that I picked around 2kg of blackcurrants as well this morning, plenty that are going over went to the chickens and quail, when they have stripped them the branches will go to the rabbits to chew on and I need to get up early to process them before the heat sees them off. Secondly the sheep two fields away have obviously been separated from their lambs for weaning as they have been bleating for nearly 72 hrs straight poor things, not that the noise bothers us, it doesn’t but they do sound distressed 😩 I keep looking at the forecast for the next two weeks, it keeps changing, firstly it looked like thunder storms, now they have disappeared and the rain forecast on the one day is next Monday which happens to be my birthday, cheers for that 🤪 still it will probably change again before that.

Monday 23rd July: Up with the larks to get on, Ive decided I will keep all the curtains closed today to try and keep the house a bit cooler than outside but first thing in the morning it’s already warm in here though cool outside! I got on with extracting the juice from the blackcurrants and fruit I picked yesterday, not sure what I will do with the juice yet probably a few different things but there is plenty of time to decide while it’s straining. Another duckling had hatched and there are more pipping so hopefully I will be able to move them this afternoon, always a tricky thing to decide because a hatchling can go 24hrs without food and water as it has absorbed the egg yolk which will feed it for that amount of time, however the others are still hatching and it’s best not to open the incubator at all, instinct is all you can go on really.

I made a very stupid schoolboy error this morning, I wanted to clean the bathroom and have limescale remover which I thought was already diluted, when I was halfway round the bathroom I realised it wasn’t and the smell was overpowering, so much so that I had to get out. I went back in with a wetted towel over my face, seriously it was that strong! The other thing that happened was intense pain in the two fingers that still have not quite recovered, it’s like neuralgia, oh my days on a scale of one to ten it was right up there I didn’t know what to do with myself 😩 I can only assume it’s nerve endings responding to the undiluted limescale remover, what an absolute twonk, I won’t be doing that again I can assure you.

6 ducklings by mid evening and some more have pipped.

Watering begins as soon as there is a bit of shade covering and goes on until dark 😜 along with picking, I also planted up two things that arrived today, the saffron crocus bulbs and the tea plant 😀 I tasted one of the mulberries, not ready yet, too sharp but I need to keep an eye on them or the birds will have them before me. The tree itself has got a bit out of control and I need to give it a prune to get it back in order but it obviously likes it’s situation which is great, I bought it about 10 years ago and it was in our old garden but there was no way I was going to leave it behind so we dug it up and moved it hoping it would take and it did 😀 Mine is the King James cultivar and only started producing fruit about 3 years ago but they are very succulent and delicious 😋

John cleaned out the hens in the front paddock, normally he does it on a Sunday but was a bit tired so did it today instead, he has to wait until it’s cool enough to be able to get out there otherwise it’s like being in an oven, I can’t wait to be able to plant some trees in the front there but we will have to wait until autumn for the best results.

At 9pm I started making jam! It is just not cool enough to do it before that so inbetween moving the hose, washing up, tidying up I’m carefully watching for the sugar to dissolve then onto a rolling boil, then of course there is all that washing up to do as well because you don’t want to leave it till morning or you will regret it 😝

The late news is all about the heatwave and the impact it is having or will have especially on the farmers and of course we all rely on them for our food, it is severe, the fields are parched so no grass for the animals. I’m guessing the grain harvest was ok but the straw length will be short having a knock on effect for winter bedding, it all has an effect in food prices in the end 😏

As you will have worked out all my work is either done at one end of he day or the other so I’m off to bed for another early start tomorrow.

Tuesday: The air temp was deliciously fresh this morning at 5am 😀 so I cracked on with a bit of watering and some picking, the moisture in the air over night is still pretty good so what I had watered last night was still damp. At 7am Mum arrived to help with some hoeing and weeding and she dug up a fair few self seeded blackcurrant plants. I potted these up in bio degradable pots ready for planting later on in the year along with some Verbena Bonariensis which had also self set, this verbena is one of my favourite plants, tall, graceful and just keeps going, easy to cultivate and look after, what’s not to like, oh and the bees love it.

I moved the last duckling to the brooder, 7 hatched in all, they are sex linked and it’s looking like I only have two females, pants, never mind I’m happy with the hatch overall, I cleaned the incubator and put it away as that’s the last hatching for this year, then I made coffee and Mum asked what time it was, about 11 I said but I will check, 9.30 🤣🤣🤣 it’s only 9.30.

I have been surveying the veg that is lurking underneath thick growth, namely the squash, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, pumpkins and the other squash who’s name escapes me but tastes like sweet potato, and they are all doing really well, plenty of tiny fruits beginning to swell, the spaghetti squash already has two or three large fruits, looks like a good year 😀

I gave myself the night off of watering tonight, I may regret it but hopefully one night won’t hurt.

Wednesday: It’s very much cooler this morning, I felt a bit chilly in my shorts and t-shirt 😂 I did a bit of watering, not so much as of late because the ground seems to be holding it better for now at least, still no sign of rain though ☹️

The melons in the poly tunnel are finally getting bigger, they were peanut sized and for a while I thought they were not going to produce anything much at all.

Going round every night and every morning I can definitely see the changes that I need to make in order to improve yields and for the garden to be more sustainable, it is pretty sustainable as it is but there are a few areas that need looking at and rectifying. I need more height in the form of trees, not huge ones and they need to produce something either for us or for wildlife. Then I need a layer underneath them in the form of shrubs, again they must have a use one way or another which is why I think currant bushes are the ideal option, the layers below that are easier I have plenty of options from what I already have growing. The fence line needs addressing, it is just that, a fence, nothing growing on it, around it or up it, in fact I have a fair few fences like that which will also be getting some planting to produce two things, food and habitation for whatever decides to take up residence 😀 however none of this can be done at the moment, I tried digging into the ground, nope, not a hope, too hard so I wait and watch and plan. I think by far the biggest thing and the most difficult to achieve in terms of hard graft is the use of rain water, not from the roof into tanks, that’s easy but the surface water and run off, slowing it down so that a) it’s not causing erosion and b) it’s being held back long enough to permeate more slowly, on a small scale in the veg plot that’s not too bad, on a bigger scale over the farm it’s a whole different thing 😝

I have Josh and Florence this morning for a few hours so I won’t be getting much (anything) else done apart from entertaining and feeding them lol, if I manage to get a coffee or a wee I will be lucky 🤪 Then I had Mia in the afternoon, exhausted today.

Watering in the evening and while I was out there I thought I would take some photos of the flower bed I planted up, it is a delightful mash up of cultivated/wild/herbs/veg the bees love it and I have let it do it’s thing, I haven’t kept it in check at all because I want to collect the seed from it all this year so that I can plant up other areas like it next year. The tiny water pond I put in at the beginning of the year is also there though it’s totally hidden by vegetation, I haven’t seen anything in it yet but I’m sure in time there will be life 😀 I want to put another one in somewhere but haven’t decided quite where just yet.

I have been looking at IBC tanks for water storage they seem the cheapest option and they can be more easily moved should we need to, if I could collect another 4000lt from the roof that would help in times like this and even when we don’t have a heatwave it will be better to use rainwater.

Thursday: The alarm goes off, I don’t really want to get up but needs must 🤪 it’s cool again this morning either that or we have got used to the temperatures! I did lots of picking, runner beans, cucumbers, baby corn, mangetout, carrots and broccoli, some has gone out for sale and the rest I will process for the freezer. Then foraging for the rabbits and guinea pigs, it’s easy at the moment as there are plenty of sow thistles, plantain, dandelion some chard and half a bed of rocket that has been decimated by the flea beetle coming in off the harvested field next door. Their squeals of delight are pure pleasure to listen to when I start unloading the goodies in their pen 😀 I have also been feeding some to the light Sussex chicks, they too now look forward to what is coming and all wait at the gate lol.

I was reading a post on one of the Facebook pages I am on about raw diets for dogs, we used to feed ours a raw diet, we had 5 dogs at the time and a friendly butcher who lived over the road so the meat/bones were plentiful and free, he died, we moved and the dogs have been on kibble since then, they do get raw meat from time to time, but it got me thinking about putting them back on a fully natural, raw diet. It would be so much better for them, as it is we have to avoid one particular flavour of the brand we use because it dyes Mia’s underbelly brown!

Suns out so I’m in, I should be doing housework or something but instead I am researching, learning, absorbing, back to the permaculture and what we need to do, I have realised there is no definitive answer because every one has a different aspect/soil condition/ climate etc etc so it’s really down to the individual to observe, learn and implement. I have not used a mind map for very many years and there are a lot revolving around permaculture but for me to get my head around what I need to do I think I am going to have to use one 😝

My fig tree has produce a few fruits this year, about 11 or so, the first one is very nearly ready to pick, I shall savour the moment my teeth sink into it 😀 The grapes are also doing well this year I might get a few bunches. I potted on my citrus trees, I did deliberate as to when I should do this but with a full moon tomorrow I figured now was as good a time as any, I didn’t want to wait until they were dormant as they need a bit of careful treatment over winter and watering them to establish root growth wouldn’t be ideal then, besides they have outgrown their pots!

Very beautiful sunset tonight and I tried to get a photo but in all honesty it didn’t do it justice.

Friday: Up early, got Jack in ready for the farrier, even at 5 this morning the flies are awful so hopefully he will enjoy being in for a few hours. Watering begins, there were a few drops of rain last night, about 4 to be precise, and I thought this is it, great but nope nothing more than that, I think when I finally comes I am going to stand outside in it!

Some plants arrived this morning, redcurrant, cranberry and honeyberry, some of the red currant I will be using in the fence lines for the hens to forage on along with blackcurrants, the honeyberries will go in the fruit cage as will the cranberry. I cut some willow whips this morning and have put them in a bucket of water, hopefully they will sprout roots, if they do they will be for the formation of a ‘fedge’ along the duck pen, a living fence, the beginnings of my permaculture plan for the ducks.

The cat, Diesel, frightened the life out of me this morning when he leapt over the fence with his breakfast in his mouth (baby bunny today) at least he is helping to keep the rabbit population down.

Had a chat over the gate to a neighbour who had come to find out where his son had got to with the eggs, he was playing with our dogs, the carrier arrived an hour early and a workman who is with a bunch that are digging up the road in front of our drive came to ask to use the loo, lol all or nothing here that’s the way it goes. When I went back inside I realised I was hungry and that I had forgotten to have breakfast this morning, yesterday I had a hankering for some pancakes but didn’t make them so I made them this morning. As a general rule we don’t eat pancakes except on Shrove Tuesday so it felt like a nice little treat with a cup of coffee 😀

Well tonight I was hoping to write about the amazing Blood Moon Lunar eclipse but for the first time in weeks we had thick cloud and couldn’t see a darn thing 😏

Saturday: I got woken up by the wind, hoping it was rain I shot out of bed to look, barely a wetting, still the day is not over and showers are forecast I just hope we get at least one of them! After breakfast (I remembered this morning 🤪) I went out and picked a few kgs of runner beans, they are selling well as always, I picked a small amount of other things, courgette, cucumber, mangetout and baby corn and put them out for sale. I sell them for two reasons mainly, 1. to cover the costs of seeds and therefore what we eat and 2. we couldn’t possibly eat all that is produced even though it is not huge quantities, but mostly it is to give people a taste of what real veg should be, sometimes wonky in terms of shape and size but ALWAYS the best tasting veg you can get no exceptions 😀 Nearly everything you buy in the supermarkets is severely lacking in the true flavour, if you have never grown your own before make next year the year you try, it doesn’t have to be much, a small pot of French beans is probably one of the easiest to do or a raspberry cane in a pot and you would be surprised about how much you can get into a tiny area if that’s all you have, or plant in amongst your flowers and shrubs.

Had to pop to Witney to pick up my new reading glasses and some bits, on the way home the sky was black and foreboding, the rain fell freely and fast, but it appeared not in Shilton! Just another wetting, nothing substantial as yet, it keeps trying and thunderstorms are forecast for tomorrow, I hope we get a decent soaking soon, there are now more apples on the ground with this wind and lack of water, than are on the tree ☹️

When we got home John got on with cleaning out the front hens as it’s much cooler today and not raining it’s the ideal opportunity, he also had to repair the duck house pop hole ramp as it broke yesterday evening and we had to barricade them in. Some small brown envelopes had arrived in the post and I started collecting seed to put in them, I want to collect as much seed as possible (close the loop, at least as far as plants and veg are concerned) from almost anything I can this year and I found it oddly satisfying, more than I thought I would, some seed will be for me to propagate and some seed will be for sale should anyone want any. So far I have collected, white foxglove, white delphinium, salvia, love in a mist, viola, aquilegia and calendula, plenty more to come I just need to keep a close eye on them 😀

FINALLY a bloody good downpour and the sweet smell of petrichor 😀 That will fill up the water tanks nicely and give a much needed boost to the vegetation because although mains water keeps it alive, rain water brings oxygen, nitrates and carbon dioxide and when it comes into contact with the soil it helps to release minerals, win, win 😀

Sunday: More rain 😀 that means a bit of a lie in until 6.45 lol, I’ve got too used to waking up early me thinks. John did the feeding and watering while I did a few household bits then we went out and tidied up the stable block and the back area, they have needed doing for ages so now was a good time while I wasn’t preoccupied with the garden. The winds have been quite strong, blowing everything about, leaves, buckets and most of the apples off of the cooking Apple tree ☹️

Tomorrow is my birthday so apart from the stuff that has to be done and preparing food for the family then not a lot else will get done 😀

Have a great week 😀😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Endless watering, plenty of picking and Cornish mackerel for dinner.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 16th July: The dry, hot spell looks set to continue with no sign of rain 😏 although as I have said there is moisture in the air overnight so there is some respite for the plants. We were discussing the last summer we had like this which was 2006, very hot and dry though not as prolonged as this one, the other that I remember well was 1976. A childhood memory of a long hot idyllic summer holiday, I would have been 12 and we lived in a village then, going off all day with a sarnie and a drink to play in the local park or abandoned railway line all day long, catching crayfish, minnows or bullheads, making dens on the edge of a crop field (naughty) water fights and paddling pools, a time gone by and lost forever for most children I fear 😩

I did a bit of watering in the morning and harvested some courgettes, everything is starting to ramp up a gear at long last, I can see the cucumbers beginning to grow bigger and the beans are getting longer so it’s all finally going in the right direction. While I am out there I am constantly planning for times ahead, I can’t do anything at the minute not least because the ground is so hard and anyway best time will be autumn to move things around, I really need to start a list so I don’t forget anything. The peach tree I ordered arrived yesterday so I have repotted it and stood it out the front which is south facing, it has one peach on it, hopefully many more next year, I also moved the orange and lemon tree out there and the fig, with all this sunshine I may as well make the most of it. The grapevine has loads of grapes on it, I’m very excited about that lol and I’m thinking the olive tree would probably do better out there to. I have ordered some big pots with handles so that they can all be moved back inside for overwintering as they won’t survive otherwise and I ordered some seaweed fertiliser as a bit of a boost for the plants, it’s full of minerals, shame I don’t live closer to the sea, I could harvest my own.

Dad and Sue popped in, they are en route to Suffolk and made an overnight stop here so we chatted for the afternoon and drank tea then went out for dinner in the evening, they will be back again on Friday. I obviously didn’t water as I was out so an early start in the morning.

Tuesday: Up early to get the watering done, at this point I realise I have left the polytunnel water on all day and all night 😝 uh oh, it won’t need watering for at least a week I should think, still at least I know it got enough!

I picked the first of the runner beans, not the traditional ones but the dwarf ‘yin yang’ ones, I grew them last year and kept them for the black and white seeds but this year I’m harvesting them in their young form, they are exceptionally sweet and juicy for a bean.

I may be getting carried away with the possibilities that this weather could bring but I have ordered a couple of random plants to try out, the first is kumquat which, according to most places, is pretty easy to grow here, the next is saffron crocus, can’t hurt to give it a try and thirdly but by no means a runner up is Camellia sinensis, tea! I thought, let’s just see how it does, the plant I ordered is small and so about £5 plus postage, worth a go, you never know Shilton might be just the place for a tea plantation 😂 or saffron fields, you never know until you try and I am always trying 😀

One of the benefits of feeding the birds through the winter is they drop seed and it grows, we have sunflowers randomly popping up and also flax (linseed) I used to have some flax growing at our old house and when I saw it I wondered why I hadn’t thought of growing it here, when you see fields of blue, that’s flax, it’s such a beautiful little flower and of course the seeds are hugely useful, and now we will hopefully have a bird seed mix growing of it’s own accord, bonus 😀

Wednesday: Up early to do some gardening bits, watering, picking and then sort out the brooder unit for the ducklings which will hopefully hatch on Friday. I had supper out with my girlfriends last night and even though it was a gentle evening it has taken its toll on me today, by 9am I was already tired and trying to get some extra bits done but eventually I decided to lay on the sofa 😜 That was pretty much it for the day until early evening when after resting I get a second wind and can do a bit more. Shopping was on the agenda, I have been sending John for bits and pieces while I was ill but you know you get to a stage when you need to replenish a few things and you know full well that what you put on the list will not be what he comes home with, a bit like the replacement items in an online shop! The reduced basket had pots of extra thick double cream reduced to 90p so I bought a couple of pots and I will make butter with them, I will have some buttermilk leftover from make it so it’s a win, win for me.

Watering again this evening, I can’t believe how much it dries out good job the hosepipe ban is not in force as yet though I don’t think it will be long before we get notification and goodness knows what we will do then, abandon ship I reckon 🤪

Last week or the week before, I can’t remember when, I said I was making an effort try eliminating plastics wherever possible and I had bought loofahs to use for washing up etc, well they are working out really well, I’m so pleased much better than the artificial sponge thingys. I did try growing them but they didn’t germinate, given how great I find them I will give them another go next year.

Just found Jack wandering around the yard, Sam had put him out on a bit of grass outside his field and he decided he would go on tour 😝 I have now put him in the little paddock where there is plenty of grass both dead and alive for him to munch on overnight.

Thursday: Usual routine of early morning watering, a bit of picking and then off for some more blood tests.

Mostly spent the rest of he day resting, though I did watch ‘An inconvenient Truth’ and apparently there is another film out which I will look up and watch that too. I briefly mentioned before about my thoughts on global warming and climate change, undoubtably we are contributing massively towards this and accelerating it at a colossal speed but I do believe there are natural cycles at force as well, after all Mother Nature is ALL about cycles, those cycles we can’t stop or slow down but the choices we make can have an impact good or bad on climate change. If you don’t know anything about it, learn, if you do know, learn a bit more and make the changes that you can, and make a conscious effort to work towards those that are a little bit more elusive. We only have one life, live it, but we only have one planet, look after it while you are here.

Friday: Up at the crack of sparrows 😀 there was a good bit to pick this morning, runners, beetroot, courgettes, a few apricots I missed, some mangetout but one thing I really needed to pick was a few remaining gooseberries. Dad and Sue are back this evening and we had arranged to go out to eat but I thought with all the amazing produce I have here I might as well cook. We are having the mackerel from Cornwall along with a medley of seasonal veg and new potatoes, I wanted to make a gooseberry sauce to compliment the fish so that’s what the gooseberries were for, good job there were some left. The sauce calls for horseradish sauce which I don’t have to hand but I do have horseradish growing, it was a measly woody bit but it will do the job so I made a tiny amount of horseradish sauce to go in the gooseberry sauce 😋 we we have Madagascan vanilla ice cream with homemade mixed berry sauce for dessert washed down with a Sauvignon blanc 😀

Oh my days it finally rained, thank you Mother Nature, it means I can have an extra couple of hours in bed in the morning 😝

My blood tests came back normal and the first of the duck eggs in the incubator has pipped, happy Friday 😀

Saturday: Well it was only a small amount of the rain that was needed but it was enough to mean I could have a lie in 😀 Having got so used to being up early I was still up by 6.30 😝 but the damp ground d meant I could get on with other things instead of watering. The first on the agenda was a proper clean out of both the rabbit cages, they actually were not as bad as I had feared they would be but now they are nice and clean. Then on to clearing up debris from the orchard pen and making a mini compost heap next to the light Sussex chicks so that when they are let out into the bigger pen they can scratch about in it to their hearts contents and hopefully that will lead to great tasting chicken. John also fixed a little hut up for the ducks so they don’t have to go in with the rabbits anymore and put a catch on the inside of the chicks hut so that when I go in the door doesn’t swing open and they all escape. He put a top on the water barrel that is connected to the gutter on the rabbit run so that the leaves don’t all fall in, the water we managed to catch yesterday was no good at all because it was full of debris.

As it is predicted that the temps will go up as high as 33c next week I really needed to get a handle on the garden so firstly we moved anything that is in a pot onto spaces on the veg beds so that they get watered at the same time, cutting down on having to water the pots by hand thus saving time. Then I got a bale of straw from the stable and mulched the potatoes, they were hastily planted into some raised beds that were previously used for flowers ( I dug them up last autumn and divided them, potting them up for future use, most have been put into the flower bed area now) The potatoes are struggling but there are some there, firstly they struggle because they are under a huge tree and secondly because they need watering separately to the rest of the garden and I often just run out of time, so they were mulched and soaked and hopefully we will get something from them later in the year. The rest of the bale I used to mulch anything in a pot, they will dry out pretty quickly and hopefully this will help, it includes the raspberry bushes that I potted up early in the year, I need to mulch as much as possible to make life a lot easier but by then it was lunchtime and then time for a rest. I am finding I need about and hour and a half sleep in the daytime and then I am good to go again. My blood results came back as ‘no action required’ which means the inflammation has gone down which is great and I no longer have any pain, also great but I guess this is a convalescent period where I need to build my strength back up, each day I can work a bit longer without feeling ill or tired so I am on the upward road touch wood.

Still waiting for the first duckling to hatch 🐣

The Large Fowl Light Sussex in their new run, I will be adding pots of foliage when the weather changes, at the moment I have lovage and a hazel tree ready but would like to get a currant bush in there as well so that they can forage for themselves, I have also been putting a barrowful of rotted manure in for them which they love scratching around in. We need to put in a roosting tree for them so that they can sleep outside if they choose to. In the Autumn, Winter and early Spring they will free range in the orchard and veg garden to help with pests, hopefully they will have as near to natural diet/life as possible.

Did a bit of picking in the evening as everything I put out today has gone! I picked 1kg of runner beans and that’s just the first picking once they get going there will be many more, the first veg I ever sold were runners and they continue to be the best selling item closely followed by the rhubarb. I picked a large punnet of berries, blue, raspberry, blackcurrant and Logan berries I might make a mixed jam with those, I found a cucumber that I had missed and it’s very fat lol, the tomatoes are just beginning to ripen and for the first time of trying I may even have some aubergines this year 😀

Sunday: Guess what I did this morning? Yep, watering I think I’m officially sick of doing it now, a ‘surprise’ shower would be just wonderful 😝

Apart from watering I also picked the baby corn, the stalks are around 8ft high and I thought there were no cobs but they suddenly shot through yesterday, I got John to take a short video of me harvesting them, which I will have to post separately as it won’t upload here, anyone who gets this emailed can try looking on Facebook under Friesland Farm 😀 hopefully it will be on there.

The first duckling hatched this afternoon, there are others pipping so fingers crossed for a good hatch 🐣

Posted in Friesland Farm

Stuck duck, hatching ducks and baby ducks (warning cuteness alert) 

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: Into April we go and a lovely start it is today, if all mornings could be like this it would feel like utopia 😀 Got the feeding done then put on a couple of loads of washing as it promises to be a good drying day. Took some early morning photos and gave the dogs a brush as they are beginning to moult and look ‘fluffy’, all before 9am. Moved a few barrows of manure onto the fruit cage.
Went out to Fairytale Farm with Sam and Mia and decided I would like some guinea pigs lol Watch this space! 

Tuesday: Bad mood warning ⚠️ not sure why but everything was annoying me this morning, slow hose filling the duck pen, chooks getting under my feet, must be hormones 😝
Anyhow plodding on is the answer so this morning I have moved the quail to the outside house, they are been off heat for a few days now so should be fine besides the ducklings are due to hatch, cleaned out the brooder cage ready for when they do, fingers crossed. There are five female quail for definite, one definite male and the other four I think are male but as one is a lovely lavender colour I’m not sure about it yet. Watered the poly tunnel and checked the seedlings in the greenhouse which didn’t need any today, hope the sun comes out later to help them along a bit. Had Mia and when she is asleep I peruse Pinterest for ideas, looking at rhubarb, asparagus and slow cooker recipes today. 

I bid on some vintage trouser hangers on eBay which arrived today, they are the perfect thing for drying herbs, or anything you need to hang really, I might have a go at juzzing them up 

Wednesday: The quail survived the night in the outdoor run so it’s all good 😀 Had a busy morning cutting rhubarb, asparagus, leeks and herbs for sale in the little shed, love it when I can start putting fresh produce out. I also cut some big bunches of lovage, sage and mint to hang and dry for use during the winter months or using in syrups, sugars etc. 

We have a rat stealing eggs in the pen with the new chickens who have started laying already, I saw two eaten eggs and fresh rat poo, evidence enough! I need to sort that out quickly with some bait. 
Made some bread, real fruit jelly and a cake with fresh strawberries from the freezer and I had a go a some quick cream cheese, which is Greek yoghurt mixed with salt, drained in muslin overnight, why bother I hear you ask, well for one, because I can and two I’m hoping it tastes much better, you can add herbs or flavourings to it and it’s handy to know how just in case you ever need some 😀 The cured eggs got a BIG thumbs up from trial tasters, taking a meal right up to a ’10’ apparently so that’s an exciting thing, though I have not tried it yet lol. 

Thursday: Lovely sunny morning, not cold, just right. Got the animals fed then did some sorting out of the muck pile which is colossal at the minute, needs some rain dare I say, to bed it down a bit. Cleaned out the ducks and noticed one of them was stuck in the pond, well usually it’s a pond, it’s fed by the guttering from the stable block, but as it hasn’t rained for ages it’s now a muddy sludge puddle. Looking at the situation I knew this was not going to end well for one of us! I took a step towards the duck hoping it would move, nope, it appeared quite stuck in the mud, so I took another step, nope, by the time I had got close enough it decided to move, wings flapping, feet going and that caused a splattering of thick stinky mud to be flung backwards straight at me 😝 now I wouldn’t have minded quite so much except that I had put on clean clothes this morning 😩anyhow, said duck is now free and more than a little bit dirty, it will take it a while to clean itself up, as for me, thank goodness for washing machines 😜
Ducklings in the hatcher have started pipping.

Friday: Lovely morning if a little cold, I feel crap this morning after a night of feeling unwell, swollen nasal passage and throat, temperature, hurts to swallow, pants I was looking forward to a productive day and now I feel like I can just about drag myself round, good dose of paracetamol might help a bit. 
The first duckling is out 😀 and it’s dark, not yellow as I was expecting. He was on his own for around 24 hours so we called him Billy and gave him a teddy to cuddle up to. 

We are going away overnight tomorrow so I will be leaving Shelley in charge of overseeing the hatch.

Saturday: I was a bit worried about the timing of the hatch and leaving someone else in charge but I needn’t have been, we had a successful hatch of eight ducklings in total all brown in colour so plenty of Khaki Campbell in them I think. Shelley enjoyed looking after them and watching them hatch, even nurturing one that was looking a bit lethargic until it was up on its feet. 
Sunday: Returned home, delighted to see the ducklings doing so well, fabulous day, after a spot of lunch in the garden we took Josh down to the ford for a paddle, water was very cold (apparently lol) 

Posted in Friesland Farm

Stats, Lovage and ‘the carpenters herb’ 

Posted on by frieslandfarm

When I published last weeks blog I had a quick look at my stats, I have posted 237 blogs, it is mostly read on a Monday (49%) at 9am (32%) and there are 206 followers on Facebook 😀 how about that.Monday: Foggy start, hope it burns off and we have another fabulous day, I put a duck and some veg in the slow cooker before starting my rounds this morning. By 12 it was still cloudy, where has the sun gone 😕 I got on with some major weeding on the bed where the brassicas were last year. Yesterday we picked up and repaired the cage which had been blown down and broken by storm Doris, I don’t have much faith it will last out a whole season but it was free in the beginning and we have had three years use from it so not too bad. I tried a three pronged attack on the weeding, pulling those with shallow roots, digging those with deep roots such as a patch of stingers and hoeing off any others. It will need another hoeing in a couple of days but for now it’s looking clean and ready for planting probably with sweet corn and squash. The brassica cage has been moved to the other end of the bed as you shouldn’t grow them in the same place twice due to the build up of diseases such as club root. The carrot seeds that were sown outside last week have come up and the asparagus is starting to poke through the soil too. I dug up some summer raspberry runners and potted them up along with some strawberry runners hopefully I can sell them at the gate. ( I’ve no idea what I was on when I wrote about carrots, they are not carrots at all but swede!) 

We now have 2 geese sitting 😀 hopefully the place will be full of goslings this year.

Gave the big poly tunnel a wash in the afternoon to get the green off and let more light into the plants then gave the dog, Mia, a good bath, being mostly white and long haired she was decidedly grubby looking, patch was looking worried but he is taller and short haired so doesn’t get as filthy looking so he escaped for today 😜

Desperately trying to flog eggs now lol as we have an awful lot! Well putting it on the local selling page worked a treat my Facebook pingers are working overtime and sold seven trays 😀 11 trays sold by 9pm 😀 it’s good because we are getting three trays a day and had a bit of a backlog.

Tuesday: Bit of a frantic morning replying to orders for eggs but good to get them sold, John will be delivering for days lol. A vibrantly coloured cock pheasant casually wandering past the front window and across the yard this morning totally unfazed by dogs, chickens, me, gotta love Spring 😀 Tried to chuck some food in for the two sitting geese this morning as they won’t get off the nests even to eat from a bowl I put just inside the door, next challenge is to get some water near them 😆
Got a skip arriving today so we can start clearing up junk and rubbish like the over ordered bags of cement that have now gone hard as rock 😝don’t ever lecture me about too many pairs of boots Mr Pearse, at least I use my purchases 😉

John did some tidying up in the front and finished off cleaning the back hen pen, then he went off to deliver more trays of eggs, have to slow down on online sales now as there won’t be enough for our farm customers otherwise 😂

Wednesday: Mild but overcast with the threat of rain by the looks of it today. After feeding I did a bit of weeding in the poly tunnel, fine weeds so hand plucked them, some of the seeds I have sown are now sprouting, the beetroot, radish, lettuce and there are one or two spring onions peeking through, when they get a little bigger I will sow the next lot. The chick peas I am trying have sprouted, well you expect this as they are for sprouting but I am aiming to grow them on into full size plants and harvest fresh chick peas. The dwarf runners are also growing but the peas I planted straight into the ground don’t seem to be doing anything so I have sown some in pots in the greenhouse as a back up plan. Picked some more rhubarb for selling and the asparagus is poking its head through the soil so it won’t be long before I’m harvesting that.

Picked some cabbage leaves for dinner later with shepherds pie. If you cut a cabbage leave the stalk in the ground and slice the top of it 4 ways you should get sproutings later on. 


Lovage: I grow this as it’s a lovely plant to grow but I never really use it, this year however I am going to make sure I do, it has a flavour similar to celery and the leaves can be used in salads or flavour for soups and stews, the roots can also be use but can cause photosensitivity so I for one will be steering clear of those.

The more I’ve read about it the more I discover, the seeds can be used like you would use coriander or fennel seeds and best of all a cordial can be made and was traditionally mixed with brandy for a winter sup 😀Time to make full use of this herb I think. 


Another herb new to me is English Mace, I bought it because I had never grown it before, it’s a member of the yarrow family but on researching it an old name for it was ‘the carpenters herb’ because it was known to stem the flow of blood from injury! It’s not great for cooking unless you use the very young tender leaves after that it becomes bitter however it blooms for a very long time providing something for the bees all summer.  

I candled the duck eggs today to take out the duff ones (4 in total) as they are due to start hatching next week. You can see from the photos, an empty egg with an undeveloped yolk and an egg that has developed, the space has filled and has the air sac at one end. 


The black and white photo is the one with the embryo inside. 

Thursday: Supposed to be a fine day today, no sign of it at 9am but it feels warm already. John was home this morning and helped out with the morning feed and cleaning out, I’m feeling tired in the mornings lately and carrying 20kg of feed around in various bucket sizes is not helping so glad of the assistance. The bathroom company has finished now and he is on his own so can please himself about coming and going, he is enjoying the freedom I think 😀

I decided to spend the day doing the end of month/year/company paperwork 😝ALL day and still not finished some of it. 

Got bit to pieces by the evening midges tonight yuk.

Friday: Wet start but clearing up, windy but sunny. It’s beginning to look a lot like spring, the cherry blossom, damson plum blossom and the apricot blossom is all out, the blackthorn all along the hedgerows are blossoming, looking lovely out there. John picked up 25 POL hens this morning for selling on as we have had a few enquiries, they have settled into a nice clean pen this afternoon. Not much else to report really, the seedlings are coming along slowly in the greenhouse and the poly tunnel, I had a look at the asparagus beds today one or two bits that are big enough but not enough to cut and sell. 

Saturday: The sun was shining blindingly into the bedroom this morning when I got up and disappeared by 8.30 😕 hope it comes back again. John did most of the feeding this morning and I cleaned out the rabbit cage and hutch, I gave it to the hens to scratch about it as there was a fair bit of rejected rabbit feed in it, just what the hens like to pick over. John also spent some time putting legs onto the outside quail hut, we will need to move them this week to make room for ducklings 🐥 and the legs will hopefully stop rats getting in and worrying/killing them! It’s now high off the ground, I did joke that we probably needed planning for it, it looks huge. Sold the first lot chickens this year 😀

Sunday: A cold windy start but the sun came out and it was fairly pleasant, John did a few minor fixing jobs and then got the tractor out to move some muck into the veg garden, all was going well when suddenly, diesel starting spewing out all over the ground, on further inspection the pipe had come off goodness knows how but it’s fixed with a piece of wire holding it on now 😝We then fixed up the brassica cage again 😖 we had stood it up temporarily and fixed it but the wind blew it over, anyhow this time we have secured it properly and it is all netted ready to go, I also limed the soil as I had a box handy, from where I don’t know cos I wouldn’t have bought it, must have been given it at some point. I will only grow brassicas if I am sure the butterflies can’t get in as there is nothing more disappointing than growing them from seed watching them come on nicely then get decimated by caterpillars 🐛 this means pegging every side down well and making sure there are no gaps at all in the netting. John also got the water connected back up in the garden, hopefully the risk of freezing is past us, though lots of swearing could be heard as firstly the connector was split, so he went and got a new one from the van, then when he turned it on the pipe was split so he had to go and get more connections and cut the split pipe out, he was swearing about the tooing and froing he had to do. Meanwhile I was busy hoeing, mending, weeding and fixing various bits and pieces. Sold some more hens and had an enquiry for some and they are coming back in the week. The long tailed tits are back, playing in the trees and the wrens have been flitting around on the ground all day. Picked some carrots, cabbage and asparagus for tea to go with lamb chops and also pulled some rhubarb to stew and have with custard 😀