fruit cage – frieslandfarm (flowers)

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

Posted on July 26, 2020July 27, 2020 by frieslandfarm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friesland Farm

A pick ‘n’ mix of a week 😜

Posted on July 13, 2020July 19, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th July 2020: It was a sunny start though the sun seems to have disappeared behind clouds now which is great for me. I did a bit of picking first thing this morning, rhubarb, dwarf beans, courgettes, a marrow, beetroot, salad turnips, French breakfast radish and white globe radish plus a few blueberries and raspberries. The little birds are still getting into the fruit cage though I can’t see where they are managing to get in, i did think that the raspberries were not producing very much, they are being eaten before I even get out of bed!

It’s ‘Bees need’ week this week and there are five simple things you can do to help the plight of our most important creatures. Grow more flowers (the open type, not multiple petals as they can’t reach the nectar) Leave some wild areas, weeds are not favoured by humans but the bees love them and we need the bees to survive otherwise we won’t 🙄 Don’t cut the grass so often, I know it looks a bit unsightly but we managed without hairdressers and barbers for a while and it didn’t hurt did it 😜 Don’t disturb nests and hibernation places, if you find a bees nest just leave it, they won’t bother you if you don’t bother them, of course I am not talking about a swarm, that does need sorting but on the whole solitary bees will move on once the young have hatched. Don’t use pesticides, this in my opinion is the biggest problem for insects, nurture nature to get a good balance in your garden instead of resorting to pesticide. Those are the main five things but there are other things you can do to help when it’s really hot, leave a dish of topped up water for insects to find and quench their thirst. When it’s turning cold provide areas for them to overwinter, bug houses are all the rage but areas that have not been tidied are just as good, resist the temptation to tidy and leave it until spring 😀

This morning I have been doing a bit of this and a bit of that in the garden. I planted up the pak Choi and the chicory into the polytunnel for the colder months and I sowed a new bed of mixed lettuce leaves which will be quick growing. The bed I pulled all the carrots from has now got a layer of mushroom compost on it to condition the soil and I have sown some lambs lettuce and winter purslane (I think) in the bed that the radish were in. The bulb fennel seeds I sowed in there failed to materialise 🙄 After that it was onto re potting some plants I bought at the weekend, ornamental grasses. The area in the front that I cast lots of wildflower seeds onto has not really done much, I have some things in pots but I think the seeds and small plants I put there have been eaten by earwigs or woodlouse as it has a layer of wood chip covering, ideal for pests to live in 😜 So I bought some grasses and will put them in pots over there the idea being that they set seed and do the job for me, I can’t dig into the ground as it was an area used to put types of aggregate and now is a solid bed of stones.

Update: something is eating the pak Choi and something has dug up a couple of the chicory plants, why do I bother lol

I was looking forward to lunchtime because today is the day I get to eat the first couple of ripe tomatoes in a cheese sandwich, that is always a day to look forward to 😀 as I always say grow/find yourself some home grown toms they taste a hundred times better than shop bought ones especially if they are freshly picked after being warmed by the sun ☀️

I’m not sure what’s on the agenda for the afternoon yet, I seem to run out of steam after lunch, definitely not got the ooomph I had when I was on the steroids 😏

I got this evenings dinner on the go, I like to do it either first thing or at least by lunchtime otherwise I feel disinclined to sort anything at the actual time. I don’t know how people come in from work and decide what to have, we would end up with something on toast every night 😜 Tonight’s dinner is lamb shank (just one is enough for the two of us) cooked in the slow cooker with veg from the garden, broad beans, dwarf beans, turnips, potatoes, peas, garlic I grew and is now stored and rosemary from the garden, along with some lamb stock from the freezer. The lamb is from a local smallholder so it’s entirely a smallholder meal 😀 For pudding (or dessert if you are posh) we have mixed fruit crumble, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants and rhubarb, all from the garden, as I have said before, we eat like kings here 👑

John has gone to work today which enables me to get on a bit I think, I am certainly more organised when he is not here, I think it’s the fact that I can’t entirely get on with what I want to do as there is usually something to be discussed or looked at and he is inclined to come in for lunch and turn the tv on to watch the news so I sit down and watch it too, something I don’t do when I am here by myself (except in the winter months)

John has been in the wars at work today, a piece of tile he was chopping off the wall flew and caught his middle finger between the knuckle and the hand. He came home with a couple of bloody plasters on it. He went off to do the egg collecting and came back in swearing, he saw a rat in the duck pen, picked up an iron bar to whack it, missed and blood starting pouring out of his finger again, he says pouring I say dribbling. He is quite dramatic in his descriptions ‘ I had a bad accident at work today’ seriously, you cut your finger, ‘it’s really deep’ can’t be that deep or your finger would be hanging off! You can see I’m not the sympathetic type 😜 so when I had to clean it up and re dress it and he is hanging onto the sink saying ‘I feel sick and dizzy’ my answer is ‘strap a pair on will you’ 🤪 I don’t really understand those who feel sick and dizzy at the slightest cut, I am of a mind to think it’s all in the head but maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s a real thing that I have just never experienced being made of sterner stuff 😀

Tuesday: Today is a long awaited day, I get a hair cut 😂 not that I am one who regularly has a hair cut just when it gets on my nerves which it is doing at the minute. Two reasons, one it has got a bit long and is annoying when it’s wrapping itself round my neck when I’m sleeping 🙄 and two it is falling out, probably due to the new meds but I think a good cut will help a bit, I’m hoping anyway 🤞

John is working again today, this will probably be the norm now, mostly working with the odd day off here and there, even though he wants to spend more time at home, the phone keeps ringing, well his mobile anyway as the house phone you know about already! I have slung the Hoover round and done a bit of wiping over and topped and tailed the gooseberries I picked the other day ready for the freezer. Topping and tailing is pretty time consuming luckily it’s only gooseberries that need it, blackcurrants don’t really as the ‘bit’ is the remainder of the flower and so perfectly fine to eat, saves a lot of time. I feel tired today and lethargic, I am wondering what to do next and then wondering if I can be bothered 😕

A new law comes into effect next week and we will have to wear face masks in shops, some people already do but I never have, the choice is wear a mask or don’t go shopping 😜 hmmm I think I prefer the latter.

Shelley and the children came over and we dug some potatoes for their dinner later, picked some peas and ate them from the pod 😀 I love to teach the children about where food actually comes from. Josh and I had an interesting conversation about flies eyes and how they have 360o vision, I managed to get him off the subject of superheroes for a minute or two 😜

Wednesday: An overcast but pleasant enough day, some very slight drizzle first thing that soon went. First thing I did was water the greenhouse and feed the torts, then move the grasses I re potted to their position out in the front area. I decided to give the whole area a bit of a tidy up, weeding, sweeping, dead heading cutting back and mowing the grass in the driveway, it’s looking a lot better now. At times I feel overwhelmed by the weeds and amount of tidying it will take to get it looking immaculate, then I remind myself that it’s good for the wildlife and I shouldn’t be too tidy 🙄 It’s been a difficult transition that has taken years to let go, in our old place I opened the garden once a year so everything was immaculate all the time but that is exhausting as well as time consuming. Part of me likes a tidy well turned out garden but another part of me loves the overgrown look, if I could achieve a combination of the two that would be a great result, I will keep working on it 😜 A Gardeners’ work is always a life time road I think, it changes direction sometimes but it is a constant motion when it’s in the blood I reckon 🙂

I have just discovered the medicine wheel, literally just discovered it last night when I joined a balanced life group. I am curious to see how this can help with life and felt drawn to it for some reason so am following. I have talked before about how I see life, in circles, the minute, the hour, the day, the year, after some discussion and thought, the month is not seen the same but as part of a circle that forms the year. Apparently lots of people see these in linear form, so stretching ahead of you, have you ever thought about it? And if you have after reading this, which one are you? If you are a circle person you are much more in touch with your life balance than you think but you can have blockages which is where the medicine wheel comes in, I am looking forward to the discovery of any blockage I have and as a bonus it’s always good to learn something new 😀

In the afternoon the girls came over with the kiddies and we went for a walk up the local lane. I like to keep an eye on a couple of apple trees and a plum tree along there, we have had some very tasty fruit from those trees and they are loaded again this year I am glad to see. We had a few incidents, Josh turned the hose on and got Flo all wet, then on the walk Florence walked into a blackberry runner so had scratches all over her face, when we got back Mia turned the hose on and got Josh wet (that’s Karma we all explained to him 🤪) the only difference was that whereas Josh readily apologised to Flo, Mia has enormous difficulty saying sorry. It ends up with her having a total meltdown, by this time the twins are crying as well, poor Sam, Mia still won’t apologise no matter how much you try and coax her or tell her and then she melts down further because Shelley, Josh and Flo are going to feed the chickens but she is not allowed because she won’t say sorry. The horse pesters Shelley (she doesn’t like horses) so she feeds the hens but abandons the egg collection, Mia goes with Josh, Flo and Shelley to do the front hens, Sam goes to pick the eggs up where shelley couldn’t and the geese arrive and harass Samantha, eventually all situations are resolved but it’s pure carnage when it’s going on 😂 When they have all gone it’s time for a quiet cuppa before I start again.

We all commented on how cold it was for the time of year, it really is very noticeable especially if there is a breeze, it’s going to jump up 6 degrees tomorrow that is quite a difference from one day to the next.

We went to the supermarket this evening and although we have not worn masks before we thought now would be a good time to get used to doing it. I can tell you my future trips will be as little as possible, my glasses kept steaming up so I couldn’t see anything, resulted in keep moving them from my face to my head and that involves touching 🙄 I felt more at ease when I wasn’t wearing one, I may see if there are any delivery slots available yet 😏

Thursday: I did a bit of picking this morning, the usual culprits lol but it does look like I may have found where the little birds get in the fruit cage because I blocked up a hole and this morning I have quite a few raspberries 😀 After doing the picking I cut the lawn but I confess I am a bit tired today, I need to remember that though I have come out the other side of a flare and I am on meds, I still have lupus and I still get tired. So today I a, winky going to rest and hopefully build up some reserve energy for tomorrow. I bought a gardening magazine yesterday so I will read it at my leisure I think 😀

Remember the cuttings I took back in May, well I can report that most of them didn’t take 🤪 but some did 😀 I think I had eight pots of four cuttings and I have ended up with six plants 🙄 still, six free plants is better than none, a couple of them I am really chuffed about, a clematis and a climbing rose 😀 the others are a sage, a japonica, elderflower (nigra). The dahlias I took cuttings from took really easily and I now have four in a pot out the front so hopefully they will flower and I would definitely do those again but some of the other stuff I think is easier to grow from seed/root/dividing, still it was good to give it a go and I had some measure of success.

Friday: A beautiful summer morning, just how summer should be, a fresh but sunny start with the promise of more warmth as the day progresses but not so hot that you can’t function properly 🤣 I started with watering the pots out the front then onto the poly tunnels so that they can cope with any heat, the greenhouse and the pots on the decking and in the cold frames, in fact anything that is in a pot got a watering. I picked a few raspberries and blueberries and there are still a few strawberries to be had, a handful of tomatoes were ready as well. I did pick a coup,e of cucumbers a while back and the rest are still too small to pick but there are plenty of them. I had a good look round and although everything seems slow it is producing, just not in vast quantities, I’m not sure why but others have said the same this year, in contrast I see others who have said it’s a bumper year, I guess it just depends on where you are. I sat with a coffee and watched all the wildlife, goldfinches, blackbirds (pinching the choke berries) a wren that had got herself into the greenhouse and then couldn’t find the bloody great doorway to get back out 😂 I have noticed an increase in butterflies and I aim to get some photos at some point, I still think the smaller insects are a bit thin on the ground which is a worry, normally I would see hoverflies, dragonflies, lacewings etc but they seem to be absent, maybe now the sun is here they will come out to play.

I am feeling less tired today thankfully, I’m not sure what it was, could be anything from air pressure to the Lupus, who knows but today I feel as though I can get on which is great.

Saturday: I spent most of the morning picking, watering and cutting back. I picked all the peas/mangetout I could find and then gave the plants a good cut back. You can still sow seeds at this time of year so I thought as the plants are already growing I might as well just cut the existing ones back and see what’s happens. I have done it with the broad beans and they are flowering again already, hopefully I will get a second crop. I don’t sell peas in the shed, the reason being we use a lot of them, they are labour intensive mind you and you end up with much more empty pod than peas but worth the bother I think. You can make pea pod wine apparently but I have never tried. I picked about 1/2 kg of dwarf French beans, some out for sale and some in the freezer, the more you pick beans and peas the more the plant will produce, once you stop picking they will stop producing so it’s best to keep taking them off. I also,picked courgettes, tomatoes, radish, cucumber, peppers, quite a haul this morning. A bit of watering to keep everything going and then into the kitchen to process it all.

Sunday: A rainy start so I needn’t have done any watering yesterday 😂 We got the usual jobs done and then went out for breakfast, on the way back we popped in to see Mum and Ken and when we got home Charlie and Macca were here so we sat and had coffee with them. We sat down for a while and then my mobile rang and it was BT complaints dept about the complaint I made last Sunday after getting nowhere. I then spent two and a half hours more on the phone going form dept to dept, the upshot is we have been ‘slammed’ I think that is their term for massive cock up. Basically they disconnected the wrong line and now we are having to spend hours trying to get it reinstated, I reordered it once but that order has been cancelled because they have the line under the wrong address and the other person cancelled the order. I have been from the complaints dept to the faults dept to the ‘I have no idea’ dept and finally to the order dept explaining I have been through all this already and won’t it just happen again, they assured me it won’t, I somehow don’t believe them 🙄 Watch this space………

Consequently we have not done much else today except that John spent half an hour digging up ragwort from the paddocks before it goes to seed. He did start some chainsaw work this morning but the chain snapped, luckily it stayed on the blade otherwise it could have been a day spent at the hospital instead!

Have a good week and as always, stay safe x x

Friesland Farm

Sowing and growing, reading & Easter 🐣

Posted on April 12, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 6th April 2020: And here we are again back round to Monday 😜 The weather is fair to good and so we were again working outside while we can.

I spent the morning watering the greenhouse, moving things around, potting some bits on etc and then planting the first lot of mange-tout out in a bed. I put a load of manure on the flower plants I put in the other week and then I did some watering because although we had a bit of rain last night it wasn’t nearly enough and the ground is really dry. Who would have thought that after weeks and weeks of endless rain we would be complaining 😜 Meanwhile John was cutting wood lol, burning some of the stuff that is no good and separating some of it, there are some big pieces that will make good raised beds but they are attached to ply and each other as they were from some type of shuttering. The nails I’m told are a right b*****d to get out so it’s kept him busy.

You may have noticed that I have slowed down a bit from the first week we were off, mostly this is due to the fact that I have had to stop the meds and it plays havoc with my systems, I feel tired a fair bit, my muscles get stiff and I’m am bloody freezing even when the sun is out lol, to the point I am sat writing this with three layers on 🙄 I generally do my work up to about 1pm and that’s it for the day, I have lunch, I read for an hour and then I have a nap if I’m really tired. Good job John is here though to be honest when he is not (in more usual times) I still do the same if I am not feeling up to it but everything has to wait if it can.

The turkey hen is still with us and I’m hoping she recovers fully, at times she must feel like me and does a lot of sitting around and then there are times when she is wandering about, I still can’t see anything that is physically wrong with her 🤷‍♀️ The torts are enjoying the warmer temps and have started to eat now, I’m picking any dandelion flowers I find as they love those.

Tuesday: Another nice day weather wise, not too hot but warm enough. We’ve done the usual jobs, I made bread and hovered and polished this morning then outside to water things in pots and the young veg plants, water the greenhouse and the polytunnels. It’s crazy all the rain we had a month or so back and now I’m watering because the ground is so dry. John meanwhile has been….you guessed it chopping wood lol, we have slipped into the easy routine of working till around 1pm and then lunch and a gentle afternoon which consists of a nap or some reading before egg collecting and feeding around 3pm ready for putting out at 4pm. After that we usually come in grab a cuppa and watch the update from Downing Street, of course we are all wishing Boris well and hope he makes a speedy recovery, whatever your politics are it’s not nice to fear for someone’s life at a time like this especially when he is the Prime Minister 🙏.

I have had a phone consultation with a friend that knows all about birds in the hope he can shed some light on what might be wrong with the turkey hen. She has no neurological symptoms, no respiratory problems, no mucky bum, she is not crop bound and she is not egg bound so I am struggling a little to work it out. She is pooing dark green and he tells me that’s because the stomach is empty (at least I learnt something new in all this) He suggested checking her over for ticks and mites and so John and I went out and picked her to check her over, she is a big bird and to double check she wasn’t egg bound and to get a look under her wings we carefully tipped her upside down. At this point clear fluid began to run out of her beak so I massaged her crop some more and more fluid came out, one of my suspicions was that she had a blockage further down which seems to be borne out by the fluid emptying out. The blockage must be further down possibly in her intestines and if that’s the case I won’t be able to do much more for her, I have given her a fair bit of vegetable oil in her water in the hopes it can help to move any blockage and it’s possible that gravity may have dislodged something, we will try again tomorrow and see what happens. Its such as shame as she was going great guns laying her eggs, and all of a sudden she stopped so it makes sense as nothing else fits the symptoms.

Wednesday: Another fine, dry day and we got a couple of jobs sorted, I started off by watering g the greenhouse and the newly planted stuff, I don’t know what John was doing but I couldn’t hear him cutting wood lol. Then I roped him into helping me, I had an elder tree that had started growing in one fo the beds, Mum tried to get it out last year but the roots were quite big so got John to dig it out 😜 The next job was to build a frame for the runner beans to grow up. For the last few years I have grown them the same in a dedicated bed up wigwam hazel poles but each year they grow well and then the wind blows them over eventually. This year I have decided to move them and I had a plan, this needed some muscle so John was on hand. We now have long lengths of wood leaning against the side of the fruit cage and stock fencing nailed to it, this will do three things, first, the wind can blow as much as it likes they won’t blow over, second, they will give shade to the raspberries and stop them drying out too much and third, the beans should hang down inside the frame so that I can pick them more easily 😀 It doesn’t look pretty but it is strong and functional and eventually will be covered by foliage 😀

The other job was to re cover the fruit cage with netting, quite a task which takes two of us and gets caught up in every single pokey thing around 😝 It has a few holes in which I will have to mend and sadly a bird had got tangled up in it at some point and died 😢 But it is now up and secured which is great because the Bush cherry I bought last year has flowers 😀😀😀 so I may get cherries this year.

I’m enjoying my ‘book hour’ it’s so quiet and totally relaxing. I sit and contemplate for a while after I finish reading and It occurred to me that if ever there was a moment in life to stop and re evaluate your life or areas of it, then this ‘situation’ is the perfect opportunity to do so. It has pushed to the front those that are considered lowly in their work and those that were taken for granted by many, and rendering useless those that are put on a pedestal or consider wealth/status to be the aim of life. I have always looked to the past to consider what is important in a ‘society’ take a large estate for instance, the people sat in the ‘big house’ on the whole were always mindful that without all the, ever decreasing in size, boulders underneath them they would be bought crashing down in an instant, they are nothing on their own, we are nothing on our own, we all need each other and each other’s skills (mostly 😜) for life as we know it to run smoothly. Long gone are the days when we each held all the skills needed to get by in life, those skills are now spread among all of us, we should remember this going forward.

Thursday: This morning began with a Group FaceTime call to our nephew in Australia who has his birthday today, they are practising social distancing but his friends came to the street to sing happy birthday and have cake, at a safe distance from each other of course 😀

Yesterday afternoon I had a FaceTime call from Mia and she cried and said ‘I miss you’ damn near broke my heart and definitely made me teary. So this mornings mission was to do a video of the farm and the animals so that the grandchildren know that everything is as they saw it last, I walked around chatting and showing them everything including Grampy cutting wood and then I tried to send it lol, too long apparently so I had to cut it into sections and send it and hope they came through in sequence 🤣

After that I got on with doing some bits in the garden, water the greenhouse had moving stuff around, it’s going to be hot today and I need to make sure everything gets it’s chance to grow well. I did some potting on, the squash family are doing really well and needed re potting. After that I planted a row of petit poi outwice, might as well get them out while the weather is good. I’ve just realised I haven’t sown and runner bean seeds yet so I need to do that later, I like to get them going inside as the mice usually eat them otherwise. I picked a couple of bunches of rhubarb to go out for sale and by that time the air was really heating up and I could feel the sun started to make my skin itch so it’s time to duck inside. Sometimes I hate this disease, just when I could really be getting on outside I have to go in, then I think the weather is bound to break eventually and I will be able to spend longer outside. Yesterday it was warm but cloudy so that was ideal, not many clouds today though so too risky for me. Had I known I was going to end up with this I would have sited the veg garden more in the shade but then you have the problem of what to grow as some things really would struggle.

I am in the middle of making hot x buns, well trying anyway the dough doesn’t seem to be rising 😏 at the moment I have the dough in a low oven to see if I can activate it a little, shame as the dough smells amazing, fingers crossed it rises a little other wise it will be hot x flatbread 🤣

Friday: Easter weekend, bank holidays, lovely weather, normally everyone would be over the moon but this year is very different, we need to stay home and help the NHS to save lives, I seriously hope people are doing just that.

I’m struggling a bit today, I can always tell as I go out to do some jobs and tend to end up just looking at things that need doing lol. This, I’m sure is because I am off the meds and normally I would take some anti inflammatory but I’m not quite sure about the information that is flying around about avoiding it at the moment 🙄 I came indoors and sat for a while and then decided to make a chocolate cake for the weekend, I hope it turns out better than my flat x buns which were a disaster, I baked it anyway and we have eaten a slice of it this morning, it tastes fine but is heavy.

Saturday: I have decided to take ibrufen, it’s definitely inflammation due to coming off the meds and as my blood test is not until next week I have to do something inbetween and with the ibrufen at least I can carry on. So this morning I have been very busy, watering everything and then I looked for my runner bean seeds and couldn’t find them anywhere, I am without runner bean seeds 😳 I looked online and some places are charging three times the amount they normally cost, my regular supplier haven’t even got any nor any seed potatoes and demand overall for seeds is huge. Two conflicting things I feel about this, one, I’m obviously delighted that people are growing their own, after all I am always banging on about it, two, I’m a bit peed off that I can’t get what I need lol. That will teach me to save far more seed in future years, it’s part of food security and I need to observe it more closely. So I have sown extra peas and dwarf beans, some basil, cauliflower and purple sprouting plus some seeds I saved from the welsh onions. I have planted more petit poi’s out and earthed up the potatoes I have growing in sacks. I sent John to get some more compost, luckily they sell it at a farm just up the road from us and I will carry on sowing and planting just in case we need it, if we don’t it will feed the animals so nothing lost there.

By 11.30 it was too hot for me to work on the garden so I came inside and to be honest didn’t do much inside either 😝 At 5pm I decided it was ok enough for me to go out and cut the grass on the lawn and the driveway. John offered to do it which is rare as in the thirty something years we have been married he has hardly ever been the one to mow the lawn, he thinks I’m stupid and don’t know that he was hoping I would cook dinner while he did it 🙄 Nope I can manage now you run inside and do the dinner, something else he has rarely done over the years, we had boiled eggs 😝

Easter weekend, definitely different to all the other Easters we have ever had and the same for everyone else I’m sure. Still the main thing is that we are staying home, protecting the NHS and saving lives, though many have lost the battle already 😢

I must include this in my blog, it was written by my middle daughter and it’s just so lovely 😊 and totes approp. Written by Shelley Silver 🥰🥰

Nana, when you watch the sunrise, we also watch it too, we also feel the same spring breeze that passes over you.
The buzz of the first few Bees, we know you hear the same, and in the sky when you look up we see the same grey plane.
Even though it’s been too long since we have played at yours, know that we are still connected through the great outdoors.
When you go to bed tonight, just look at up the moon and keep forever in your heart that we will see you soon.

Sunday: Easter Day, we have decided to have a day off apart from feeding the animals of course but the rest of the day we have done nothing but sit around enjoying some leisure time. I could get used to this way of life very easily except for not seeing the family bit. We did pop out to see if we could get some bananas and some carrots, had to go to two different places but both were fairly quiet and there was hardly anything on the roads. We also went to de bunk the theory that we might be the only ones left in the world as it is soooo quiet 😜 I have a leg of lamb in the oven for dinner later, then we will have it cold tomorrow, I found some pastry in the freezer so will also be making a pie, living it up today 😂

The weather has been amazing, very warm, very dry but to be honest I’m looking forward to it cooling a little so that I don’t feel so tired and can get on and do some more in the garden and if we could just have a little bit of moisture so that the rhubarb and asparagus come on a bit, that would be perfect 👌

As always have a good week and stay home, stay safe x x

Friesland Farm

Back to normal, stuff to sort & Winter flowering shrubs.

Posted on January 12, 2020 by frieslandfarm

Monday 6th January 2020: I have enjoyed having John at home for three weeks but this morning I am also happy to have the place back to myself as he goes off to work early. I think it’s the sense of back to normality and there is definitely a lot to be said for doing things the way I want them done instead of compromise or argument 😜

So what will I be doing with my time? Good question, I always say ‘I never make plans’ they go awry quite quickly I find so a loose idea of what I want to achieve with an indefinite time frame is a much better option lol, it also give me room to completely change my mind 😀 Today’s tasks are to get the morning rounds done, finish setting up the heat pad in the greenhouse now I have found everything I need, possibly move a bit more wood chip (nearly done) a few household tasks such as hoovering, dinner prep, lighting the Rayburn (they all take time) and probably a million other little things along the way. I have a couple of other jobs in mind that need doing such as cleaning out the quail and the ducks and they are the kind of job that are on the list but can be flexible as long as I get them done at some point within the next couple of days.

I did the animals, topping up the duck bedding as I went round, finding the rabbit/guineas some lovely greens and then figured I may as well strike while the iron is hot with a bit of outside work. I chose to do the rest of the wood chip laying in the fruit cage, the plan was to get the wood chip down, weed and mulch the pots of summer raspberries and cut back the autumn canes. I was about six barrowfuls in when I felt decidedly shaky, stupidly I had only eaten a banana for breakfast like I have been for the past couple of weeks but with some hard work on top the banana didn’t cut it 😜 I can only assume it’s blood sugar levels, I have had it before when I haven’t eaten enough to fuel the jobs I’m doing, I went in and had a large bowl of bran flakes, and a couple of shortbreads, 15 mins later I felt better but still a bit shaky so I made a coffee and sat down a while.

Once I had recovered I went back out and got the job in hand finished in the fruit cage, the areas that needed wood chip are all done, the summer raspberries have a mulch layer of wood chip on top of their pots, I have cut down the autumn raspberry canes and did a bit extra pruning of the blackcurrant bushes. I got half a trug of weeds out which will go to the rabbit/guineas for tomorrow’s snack. I secured the posts and canes and then shut the gate, that is all that will need doing in there now until well into spring except a bit of potash feeding for the strawberries to encourage flowering.

A midway through and finished picture of the fruit cage.

Indoors to light the Rayburn, John called in for a cuppa and I will have a quick sit down before a chap arrives mid afternoon to collect some hens.

Just as I am about to get back into working outside the weather is on the turn, the forecast over the next couple of days is for warm temps but accompanied by rain and possible high winds 🙄 urgh. Not to be deterred I have rainy day jobs in mind including getting the big poly tunnel up together and ready to plant into.

And right on cue just as I wrote this, it began to rain 😂

Tuesday: I have enjoyed another great morning outside getting things done, I am really enjoying myself at the minute, the weather is fairly kind and I have the energy and strength, fabulous. First up as always was the morning rounds and this time while I was doing them I cleaned out the goose hut, I have to then close the door all day as the chickens would get in there and scratch it all out again 🙄 Then onto the garden or more precisely the big poly tunnel, I tidied it up a little, pruned the grapevine, tidied up the strawberries and topped up the compost they are growing in. I made sure everything else was tidied up and added extra compost, I have chard and flat leaf parsley growing nicely. The other things overwintering in there are the lemon grass and the Chinese gooseberries, I am hoping they come through the winter ok along with the basil and the lemon verbena. All look ok at the minute so fingers crossed. I cut up some old compost bags and used them for weed suppressant round the edges and then I topped up an empty raised bed and sowed some early carrot seeds. I have covered them with fleece and we will see if they germinate or not, nothing to lose as they are some seeds I found from last year so if they don’t grow it’s not a big loss. I sorted out the potato bags and I need to order some first earlies, I am going to grow these in the tunnel as well, I don’t normally do earlies but it’s good to change things about now and again.

Early in January it’s mostly about preparation for the months ahead, there is not much that can be sown until early next month. It’s a good month to get your crop rotation plan sorted and write down anything you would really like to grow. Sit with a cuppa and order your seeds, onion sets, garlic bulbs and seed potatoes. I have just ordered mine, the plants are despatched to you at the appropriate times for planting so you can’t go wrong really. I have also ordered some grafted plants, water melon and aubergine, two plants I find difficult to get going from seed as a general rule. Often with the amount I order I get a ‘deal’ of some kind, this time I have opted for 36 geranium plug plants for £2.99 I probably won’t keep them myself but what I will do is grow them on and put them out for sale for a couple of quid each depending on size, that way I will hopefully cover the costs of the veg I have bought. That’s what I always aim to do with the veg/fruit I sell at the gate, if I can cover the cost of the seeds, growing them and harvesting what we need then I am doing myself a favour plus providing some tasty home grown veg/fruit for customers, a win, win situation 😀

Indoors at lunchtime to grab a sandwich and get the Rayburn lit, decide what to have for dinner later and prep it.

Wednesday: The weather is holding beautifully which means after doing the animals I was able to get another morning out in the veg garden. I started off tidying the greenhouse a little bit, moving stuff around, sowing a few broad bean seeds then out onto the beds. I lay awake last night thinking about what beds I had done and what still needed to be tackled, a bit sad lol but at least I got up this morning knowing what I wanted to achieve. You may remember last year I tried the ‘chop and drop’ thing, well not this year, I didn’t really like the untidy look and more importantly it didn’t give a feeling of an end and a beginning if that makes sense, I also found that I felt I had a lack of control over the garden which persisted all season long. So this year I am clearing and tidying which is what I have been doing this morning, I am happy with what I have done and whilst doing it I am mentally making a note of what will go where which I felt unable to do last year. As it stands out there I just have two more areas to sort out, I do have to replenish the soil with homemade compost or manure but once everything is cleared I can get that done. Both the compost heap and the manure pile are very wet at the moment which in turn makes heavy work so I will wait a while and hope it continues to dry out some more. I still have a few bits of produce growing, the winter spinach and a few tiny cabbages that the birds have been at, I have now put protection over them so they can continue to grow. There is of course curly kale still in the ground and the sprouting broccoli which I am able to get a few bits off of. The babbington leeks are pushing up through, they are a perennial leek and at the moment I’m not quite sure how that works. With conventional leeks you plant one and pull it when it’s bigger the perennial leeks should keep produce off shoots I suppose but as yet that hasn’t happened. I pulled up some radish, I need to try and find out which variety these are as they are far better than the usual French types. They are white and grow to golf ball size, tasty and more importantly they don’t bolt and go woody, a winner as far as I am concerned and a definite to grow again. Oh and the rhubarb is beginning to grow 😀😀

I have to order some more weed membrane to block out the light on the growing beds so that weeds don’t become a big problem. At the moment I am using black plastic which I reuse each year until it falls apart so although it’s not the option I would like it’s the one I take. The reason being that the thin fabric stuff gets absolutely ripped apart by the winds up here, the thicker stuff is very costly and I need quite a lot of it. I will keep searching, I may eventually find an alternative.

So scrap what I have just written, I am going to trial jute, it’s a natural fabric, it will have a limited life span but it’s better for the environment, hopefully it will do a similar job to the plastic in cutting out the light. I also am thinking I can use off cuts of it as strawberry mats or cut holes in it to plant into, watch this space and I will let you know how it performs 😀

Thursday: The weather is a bit more feisty today lol but despite having lots of rain overnight, this morning it is dry and windy. I had already decided not to work on the garden today there are other jobs that are calling. One of those was my jam jar cupboard, I have a cupboard dedicated to jam jars, bottles, Kilner jars and any other glass container that might come in handy, some have been bought, some given and some had goodies in them made by others so it’s quite a collection. Over time they just get washed and stuffed anywhere that is not in the way and that means that I don’t really know what is in there 🙄 so sorting and tidying the cupboard was a job that needed doing, I can also then see what if anything I need to get for the coming seasons. I made a coffee, went out there and got so engrossed in what I was doing I forgot the coffee and it went cold 😏

That actually didn’t take as long as I thought it would and now I need to find some other jobs to get on with.

I’m not sure what triggered the next job but it took me a lot longer than I had thought 🙄 I think I started off by thinking I will tidy up the office, another area that just gets stuff dumped until you can hardly get in the door to find stuff. My aim was to get some of the things under the bed in the spare room but then I looked under the bed and pulled out stuff that was under there. Stuff that came from Johns Mums and to be honest I have no idea why we still have it, other stuff that we no longer use and have nowhere else for it to go, that all got sorted and out into piles, charity shop, free sites, selling sites. The space was then ready for the things like the travel cot which is stored in the office but can go under the bed. That then led me onto all the other stuff in the office lol, again things we no longer use or that are broken so more piles for recycling or selling on or putting on the free sites. I am not saying the office is now clutter free because there are still things in boxes to be gone through but I have made a dent in it.

Friday: Today has been an altogether different day, Josh arrived early morning to help with the morning rounds 😀 he was all kitted out in mud proof gear and keen as mustard to help me. We fed everything and let them out, collected a few eggs then took some hay to the horses. What made me laugh is that he is a little afraid of the chickens and ducks but no fear whatsoever of the horses. Once we had finished outside we came in for a juice break and chatted about the types of food he likes, then I asked ‘shall we make a cake’ ‘oooooo can we make pie’ he replied lol. I let him choose the fruit and he decided on apple, plum & blackcurrants 🙄 it actually tasted quite nice if a little sharp. He did a good job of rolling out the pastry and even made a pastry triceratops head to go with it 😂 Mid morning, just before Shelley came to pick him up, Sam arrived with Mia and the twiglets, everybody (except the twiglets) had pie 🥧 I looked after the twins and Mia while Sam went off to get some food shopping in peace and then it was time to do the afternoon feeding and egg collection. A lovely day.

When I walk down the driveway at this time of year I always stop when I am halfway back to smell the Winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) that has been growing for a few years now. The amazing sweet scent of this otherwise unremarkable shrub is delicious and a real treat at this time of year. It goes by some other rather sweet names such as kiss-me-at-the-gate or sweet breath of spring 😀 I took a few sprigs indoors to put in a pot on the windowsill for a natural room scent and I also took a couple of cuttings, I’m not sure if they will take this time of year but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

At our old place I had a Daphne and really wish I had dug it up and bought it with us as you could smell its lovely scent long before you got anywhere near it. I think sweet smelling winter shrubs are under used probably because by the time people go to the garden centres en mass it’s late spring and they have passed their best and don’t look particularly engaging but they are definitely worth a thought if you are looking for something to fill a gap and the reward is uplifting in the depths of winter.

Saturday: 😀 yay the weekend, great because John does the rounds in the mornings giving me a break from it. I get on with other things and besides the household chores I spent a small amount of time in the garden. A quick job of tidying the bird, butterfly and beer bed, I call it this because it has a pear, apple, cherry and mulberry tree in it as well as Japanese honeysuckle, blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes which pretty much feed the birds and hopefully some butterflies, the beer comes in with the hop I have growing there though I have never used it for that purpose as yet lol. It was a quick visit outside because it’s a bit blowy and a tad cold so my fingers soon felt the nip in the air. I had intended laying the jute weed fabric but when it’s windy trying to do that by yourself is a tricky job and John has gone off to get feed.

When he gets back the jobs on the sheet are to brush the flue and clean out the Rayburn and then he is building a gate for a new fence in the orchard as the one I put up keeps falling down. I need to stop these demented hens in the front paddock from reaching my veg garden. At first just a couple made it there then a few and now about 15 of them, most of the wood chip I put down on the pathways has been scratched into piles or onto the lawn 🙄 I want to get well ahead with keeping them at bay so that gardening is an altogether pleasant affair this year instead of an angry one because they have scratched up all my hard work.

The gate didn’t get built but John re loaded the wood pile in the covered area just out the back then we actually had a few hours off before starting again with the afternoon rounds, Charlie and Macca walked over for a cuppa, we went and got a bit of food shopping and called in to see Shelley, Martin and the kids to deliver a tray of eggs. By 8.30 I was asleep on the sofa, feeling tired after a busy week 💤

Sunday: The weather was filthy overnight, lashing rain and strong winds but all is settled this morning. Again, John did the morning rounds while I had a shower and did the household chores. A quick coffee and John went out to power wash the POL pen now that we have moved our ex laying hens on to a new home. I don’t know what it is about that job but as soon as it needs doing he moves it directly to the top of the list 🙄 still once it’s done it can be left until we buy in the next batch of POL for selling probably in March.

The plan for the rest of the morning is to go out for breakfast at a local plant nursery, John gets a cooked brekkie and I get to look round at the plants it’s a win, win 😀

I bought an evergreen shrub at the nursery, only a small specimen, I can’t bear to part with the amount of money they want for things when I can grow it on lol. If I specifically wanted something for a certain space then I would but this will go in a pot for now and be put out the front, I’m trying to get a bit of colour out there as it’s all very dead and brown looking. On the way back we called into my Sisters for a cup of tea, one cup lead to another cup and before we knew it we’d been there a couple of hours 😜 We booked a trip to the theatre while we were there, some sort of interactive ghost show 👻 it is billed as ‘not for those of a nervous disposition’ 😝 it will get the adrenaline pumping and blow away the cobwebs lol.

We got back, I lit the Rayburn, I had to pop along the road to get some natural fire lighters as we only had one left. These are rolled up wood shavings and I think they have a extremely thin layer of wax on them, I was finding it more difficult to get hold of newspapers as we don’t ever have them and so these are a great alternative, they also light first time and are very easy to use. Meanwhile John went and finished cleaning the POL pen then he fed the birds and collected the eggs then he finally got on to making the gate and I got tonight’s dinner sorted which is shepherds pie.

The long range weather forecast shows no freezing temperatures in sight so looks like we are going to have a mild winter (famous last words) I must admit that although we always think we need a bit of freezing weather to break dormancy and kill off any pests, I am rather enjoying a milder season. Though it does means I am really wanting to get my teeth sunk into some sowing, I’m like a race horse that is being held back at the minute 🐎 I have learnt from many years experience not to be too hasty in that department though as it can all go horribly wrong 🤪

Whatever you are doing this week have a good one, do something outside your comfort zone if you can, as I say to Josh ‘put your brave hat on and go for it’ TTFN 👋

Friesland Farm

Amazing smells of Spring, First pick of Rhubarb and new Guinea pigs.

Posted on April 15, 2018 by frieslandfarm

Monday 10th April : Damp this morning with fine drizzle 😐 however it feels ok temperature wise.

Did the morning rounds, 1 egg from the new ladies and evidence of eaten shell, I suspect as we moved them into the outdoor run, we actually do have a rat nicking them, no other reason for them to go from 5 to 1 egg so I need to remedy that and possibly move them back to the stable until further notice and see how many they lay there.

Put out the eggs in the shed which is looking very full of every type of egg we do 😀 and then went round to collect some bits for the rabbits, dandelion I have been growing into a big plant, bits of hazel, blackcurrant and some lovage. I have ordered a book called ‘beyond the pellets’ to learn about feeding rabbits naturally all year round with fresh produce but also ‘tree hay’ which is basically chopped and dried twigs, leaves etc for the winter feed. A mention of it of one of the smallholding sites sparked my interest in being able to feed the bunnies without buying pelleted feed, they get fed a lot of fresh greens during spring and summer but not winter so it will be an interesting read and hopefully a way forward to natural feeding.

I picked the very first lot of rhubarb 😃😃 that makes me very happy and now I just need to decide what I am going to do with it, of course stewed rhubarb and custard is a must as I always say, if you haven’t tried it since childhood do give it a go now you are older, it is delicious.

Then a task I wanted to try all spring but didn’t get round to it and I saw a quick easy way to have a go so that’s what I have done, tapped the maple tree, only I haven’t bored a hole in the trunk and done it that way, I have cut a small branch and taped a glass bottle onto it, fingers crossed I’m not too late for the rising sap and get at least a bit to try. I will check it later to see if I am going to get anything.

The smells this morning have been enough to lift the spirits, the black currant is very strong even just brushing past it, the rhubarb smells divine, the blossom on the trees is heavy, it’s all full of promise and deliciousness 😀

Now going to look at all the rhubarb recipes I have been collecting 😀

Made rhubarb crumble and extras for the freezer, a rhubarb tea bread (simple and quick (except soaking the fruit bit) recipe) and I have some stewed rhubarb and vanilla ready to eat with custard 😀 also made a loaf of bread today.

Rhubarb Tea Loaf

• 300g sultanas

• 200g roasted rhubarb (see note below)

• 300ml strong earl grey tea

• 100g dark brown sugar

• 275g self-raising flour

• 1 egg, beaten

Method

1. Mix the sultanas, rhubarb and sugar together in a large bowl. Cover with the tea and leave to soak overnight.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 150°C(fan)/170°C/gas mark 3. Grease and baseline a 2lb/900g loaf tin. Stir the flour and egg into the fruit mixture. Pour into the prepared tin.

3. Bake in the oven for 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cover the top with foil if it’s getting too brown.

4. NB: to roast the rhubarb chop into 2cm pieces, toss with 20g caster sugar (or more if you prefer it to be sweeter – I don’t think it needs more sugar in this recipe), cover and roast for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, in an oven preheated to 200°C.

This is a recipe from sneakyveg.com as always I used what I had rather than what’s in the recipe so instead of Earl Grey tea I used a Green Tea and a Tetley tea bag and steeped them for about 10 mins, I used currants instead of sultanas and I added a splash of orange juice (just because 😜) I also did not wait overnight for the fruit to soak, I did two hours soaking because I couldn’t be bothered to wait 😝 it will still turn out fine I’m sure.

Tuesday 10th April 🤣🤣 spot the error, I figured I would leave it as it was and it’s turning into Groundhog Day round here as regards to the rain anyhow!

Wet, muddy, slippery, I’m beginning to think this is our lot, seriously, it has rained pretty much every day for nearly 3 weeks at least, how much more is there?

Although there is evidence of the grass growing through the mud so that’s a more positive outlook, more grass = more grass roots = something to soak up the rain 😀

According to the forecast (though it seems to change daily) tomorrow is the last day of rain for a while, fingers crossed 🤞

Cleaned out the duck shed with the help of Mia while Sam was doing the horse, Mia was plastered in mud by the time she finished but she enjoyed helping out, I think she will be a great asset as she gets older as she likes to get stuck in ‘I help’ is what she says 😀 After that we went for a well earned costa 😀

Fed the chickens late afternoon and collected the eggs, we are managing to keep up at the moment and we have some fall back in the form of pullet eggs as they are all laying now. We moved the new ducks back into the stable overnight to see what was happening with the eggs as I only got 1 yesterday, I think it’s because they don’t lay as early as my established lot, they have all laid by 8am which is when I let them out. The new ones seem to lay all during the morning and so yesterday they would have probably laid outside and the birds would eat them. I opened the stable at midday and they have gone for a wander so I may have to keep putting them in the stable for the time being otherwise I won’t get any eggs at all.

The book about feeding rabbits naturally arrived and I have part read it, very interesting, there is a lot of fresh food that I knew they could have of course but also some that I had no idea about. I think I have an abundance of assorted material that I will be able to feed them on and save money on pelleted feed, as I have said Spring and summer will be easy it’s the winter and autumn will be more difficult. With that in mind I have knocked up a herb drying screen, it’s rudimentary but it does the job and I made it with stuff I had lying round so free as well 😀 It will be for drying summer herbs that I can make a herb hay with in time. When I started researching it I was amazed that you can buy freshly cut willow sticks for your rabbit online at £12.99kg and dried raspberry leaves, two resources that I usually assign to the compost heap, not anymore, everything will be assessed for rabbit fodder!

Wednesday: A pleasant enough morning, early drizzle but that went and after the morning rounds I got on with some things in the garden. I put some water in a large bucket and then a sack full of manure in the water to make some manure feed, I still have some concentrate left from last year but no time like the present to make some more. Planted up some of the Pak Choi seedlings, some in the large tunnel and some in the small, the weaker seedlings I have planted in a square mushroom container to grow on for the rabbits, I doesn’t matter if they don’t survive but if they do that a bonus. Uncovered and moved the citrus trees into the large tunnel also gave them a feed, they haven’t done too badly over winter and two lemons are still clinging on in there, then tidied up the small tunnel where they have been overwintering. Pinched out the tips of the broad bean plants now that they have started to flower, the soft fleshy tops attract black fly and they are good to eat so they will be wilted and I will eat them with fish later today. Everything else is still a bit slow but hopefully once the temps climb they will burst into life 😜 Still all too wet to do much on the garden itself, too wet to hoe, to wet to walk on really so it’s a waiting game. I read an article about earthing up potatoes, ha, they haven’t even gone in the ground yet! I collected some forage bits for the rabbits to eat, I am looking at everything as potential rabbit feed now 🤣 I even thought about giving them the bean tops then decided against it, they can have the plants when they go over and I will have the tops 😝

Thursday: Got a little bit excited when my weather ap said 24 and sunny today, then it quickly corrected itself and went to 7 and light rain 😩 It’s grey and misty/damp out this morning hey ho beginning to get used to it now. Still waiting for the wire to arrive for the fruit cage otherwise I could have got on with that at least. The nighttime temperatures are no longer dropping so that’s a bonus, it means I don’t need to worry too much about the seedlings in the greenhouse as they should be fine, I can’t see a frost forecast for the next two weeks, famous last words 😜

Went in the greenhouse after feeding and pricked out the broccoli seedlings, once again I have about 50 plants lol don’t know what I’m going to do with all those! I also potted on the Aubergines and moved them into the large poly tunnel underneath another cloche, I have no idea if they will survive or not but they have got too big for the windowsill and there is no where else to move them to at the moment. I did the same with some pepper plants, the tomatoes I did last week seem to be holding their own, waiting for some warmth like the rest of us. The courgettes I had in the propagator on the window sill rotted away, I have never known a year like this one, normally things can be slow but this is ridiculous! There are things that are growing however so all is not lost, the strawberries in the tunnel have grown some flowers 😀 the garlic has sprouted that I planted out last week, the peas in the small tunnel have flowers on, the rhubarb is getting bigger, hope springs eternal, as Pope said.

Came in about 11.30 with the intention of doing some baking but the Sam arrived and we went out to clean the tack room and throw a whole load of crap away, then sorted out all the fencing stakes and electric tape so that it was all in one place finally. Then the rain came, again 😟

Came indoors to make an egg/dairy/gluten free cake, sounds like a recipe for disaster and may well be, it’s still in the oven but I’m not hopeful that this mix is going to bind together while cooking 😝

Then out to do the pm feeding and egg collection, take a couple of photos of the quail house on my way round for someone who wants an idea on how to build their own, then off to look at a property with Shelley and Martin, busy day 🤪

Friday: Road trip 😀 actually it was five minutes down the lane to the Cotswold Wildlife Park, so I got the morning rounds done quickly and off we went, picnic packed, plenty of layers on, had an exhausting day but thoroughly enjoyed by all of us😀

Back home in time to do the afternoon feeding but not before a well earned cup of tea and a sit down.

Did the feeding, collected the eggs, fed the horse then cleaned out the POL pen at the back, John came home halfway through doing it so gave me a hand and then we went to pick up some new pets 😀

You will remember the story of what a rogue ferret did to my guinea pigs back in November, well I have two news ones, meet Tinker and Tucker, two little boars from a friends of ours that breeds them.

I ordered 100g of wild flower seeds for heavy shade, we have put poultry fence all along the roadside of the side paddock, it has a lot of trees along there and we decided it was heavily shaded and as it is fenced off at the moment hopefully the seeds will grow.

Saturday: Cracking day, Sun, Sun, Sun all day long 😀 After feeding this morning we got on with wiring the fruit cage as the rolls had arrived finally. In my search for the right size hole and the right height and length as I wanted 25m long 1m high x 2 I didn’t check the quality of the wire and as a consequence it was not really a great quality, the top and bottom wires were pulled too tight causing bagging in the middle, however we have put it on and it dose not look too bad. Just got the netting to put over the top and the door to wire then it’s finished 😀

Grand National Day, and whatever your thoughts are on horse racing, in our house the GN has always been a big day, normally we would all be in the living room screaming at the telly (except last year when none of us had any horse anywhere near finishing) this year we had a group FaceTime as Charlie is in Italy and Sam was at her house, Shelley and Martin came to ours for the event, Martin and I both had the winner this year 😀 However I made the mistake of doing the bet online, not the same I would rather go and collect cash winnings from the bookies. And that was pretty much it especially as I had to spend a couple of hours on hold while trying to unlock my betting account (which I opened for the occasion) having cocked up signing in in the first place 😝

I was hoping tomorrow was going to be similar to today but rain is forecast ffs!

Sunday: Well it’s not too bad to wake up to, it’s dry at the moment and though obviously a lot cooler than yesterday, it’s not bad at all. Got the feeding done, cleaned out the geese and put fresh bedding in for the ducks, then it was on to finish the fruit cage. We joined together the two lots of wire, top and bottom and then got the net out to put over the roof, John had tensioned two wires across to support the netting. Almost immediately it became apparent that the net was a bit too short, we turned it round and nope it was not quite going to stretch, umming and arghing we decided to put up what we could and we would have to get another piece and stitch it together, not ideal but we had already bought this piece. At this point John decided to measure the length and width, now I did ask him to do this in the beginning and he told me it was definitely 8m x 5m, on measuring it properly this time he admitted it was 8.5m long, no wonder it won’t reach 🤪 I made an executive decision to reorder a piece big enough to cover the whole thing and will use the other netting elsewhere.

After we couldn’t finish that, John went to clean out the hens at the front and I did some hoeing on the veg beds, the asparagus is just starting to poke through so I weeded that bed and a couple of others. I no longer think weeding is a chore as it is now seen as rabbit fodder, I always used to give them the dandelions but now they are having nearly every weed and tuft of grass, two birds with one stone comes to mind. Then I did a bit of work on a new bed I have made at the bottom of one of the raised veg beds, I decided I don’t have enough flowers and so marked that area off at the end of last year for the purpose. I have a small raised bed in front of it which is also filled with primula, cowslips, dwarf lavender and a rose, I put some tete a tete bulbs in there so it will mostly be a spring bed and the first to give colour. Most of the plants I have chosen to go in there will be single flower because that is best for the insects and especially the bees, they can’t gather pollen from double headed flowers. There won’t be much uniformity to it, it will be what I have got already and planted haphazardly (until it gets on my nerves then I will re arrange it all 😜) It began to rain while I was doing this last part but it wasn’t cold so I carried on until the rain became a bit too heavy, no point damagingthe soil by treading it down.