Monday 12th Feb: What a fabulous day, after the endless miserable weather we have had today was welcomed with, let’s get busy, thoughts. To begin with it was still frozen but without that cold wind, so I began tidying up, putting away, picking wind blown paraphernalia up. By mid morning it was thawing but still frozen so into the greenhouse, which by the way was a balmy 17c thanks to the bubble wrap 😀I potted on the blueberry bushes, some primula and pansies, sowed some pak Choi seeds before going on to dig out a huge patch of stingers that have taken over the orchard area. Before I did all that this morning I had put up some temporary fence and let the orchard pen birds out into the whole of the orchard, they had a great time as I was digging and pulling up nettle roots.
Also inbetween all that I had lit the fire and got the dinner ready for tonight, a slow roasted breast of lamb, well it was supposed to be slow roasted except that the Rayburn was in full flo today and by the time I came back inside the oven was up to roast and the lamb was cooking too fast 😩 I have come to the conclusion that you can either work outside and neglect inside or you can work inside and neglect outside but trying to do both doesn’t work very well. The lamb will be fine in the end I’m sure but the best laid plans and all that 🤪
I would have carried on until I had done all the nettles, there is a small patch left to do, but I though I would have an hour sat down before beginning the afternoon session, good job or the lamb would have been crispy 😝
Tuesday: I’ve got wind again! Nope it’s not something I have eaten 🤪 it’s outside battering the heck out of the farm. Winters, I find, are usually defined by the weather that prevailed the most, you know, it was a wet winter, it was a dry winter, it was a cold winter, well this is the first time I will write, it’s been a windy winter, I have never known so many wind storms and strong ones at that. The weather, always a constant topic on this island and even more so among those who work outside, is not as reliable as it used to be, even going back eight years you could work around what was likely to be but these days nothing is certain, climate change or weather patterns that stretch over millennia? I personally think a bit of both, I mean, you can’t say that all the weather deviations are caused by climate change and ignore the greatest power on Earth, Mother Nature, and although we as a species are always pushing the boundaries of knowledge, there is so much more in the Universe we don’t understand yet. 🌍 we’ve had Ice Ages and mini ice ages, I know those could not have been stopped even by the greatest of brains, what if we are now on a naturally warming cycle, ok we would be contributing to it massively but we wouldn’t be able to stop it. Who knows, not us because ‘since records began’ is a tiny nano second in comparison to the age of the Earth.
I ordered some grass seed today for the chicken paddocks, we have different seed for different grazing, the poultry mix has a short ryegrass which is hard wearing and grows pretty quickly, combined with clovers and fescue we have been really impressed with how well the grass has stood up to the weather this winter, as it grows quite quickly and goes to seed fairly early it also is thickening up the ley as it does so, providing the hens don’t eat all the seed!
Wednesday: Crap weather again, did the basics outside in the morning, went to lunch at Shelley’s with Sam, did the basics in the afternoon and John put the birds away, well most of them as there are remnants on Thursday morning of chicken feathers 😟
Thursday: Nice sunny start, soon started spitting with rain 🌧 I will be honest I’m struggling, physically and mentally today. This thing with my hands is becoming a nuisance, I have to take anti inflammatory in the morning just to be able to get stuff done, not good, coupled with trudging/slipping my way through the feeding rounds. I have buckets of eggs to wash but after carry heavy buckets of feed and scrapping the hen hut floor my hands are just not willing and neither am I 🙄 I’m tired after being awake half the night with chronic acid reflux, my own fault as I spent a couple of hours bent over cutting up felt pieces for some craftwork, should have used a higher table. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day 😐
Gave my arse a kick and cleaned out the geese, the sun came back out 🌞 makes a difference.
Friday: After doing the usual routine I spent a lot of time in traffic going to and from the hospital with Shelley and Josh as Shelley went for her 36 week scan 😀 I am amazed at how technology has come on, in my day you could only hear babies heart beat now you can see pictures, see what sex they are, tell if they have hair and roughly how much they weigh amazing! Josh was convinced it was a hippo he could see on the screen instead of his baby sister 😜
Saturday: Had a more productive day today, I cleaned out the ducks while John did the rest of the feeding, then some tidying and clearing outside, that’s all we seem to do and don’t get anywhere! I then decided I needed a small fence round my plants outside the back door as the dogs keep knocking over the pots and digging holes in the dirt so I set about making a fence as you do lol. It turned out ok and serves the purpose I need it for.
John cleaned out the front hen hut and cut up some wood plus got a few wheelbarrow fulls inside for next week, we are slowly getting through the wood mountain.
This morning we also caught up all the baby rabbits and took them to the far corner paddock where we released them into some scrub, it was that or raise them for meat and I didn’t really want to do that, if we lived a frugal life I would have but we don’t need to so they can run free. The babies that were born under the decking or shed I’m not sure which, have not been seen for days, I did find remnants of one in the stable block so I’m guessing that the cats have caught them, along with a headless pheasant I found in the stables too, now if they could just catch a few mice and rats that would be awesome 😀
Tomorrow we are off to The Pig in the Wood for an overnight stay that the girls bought us for Christmas so we are looking forward to a bit of R & R. The girls will be looking after the farm and taking over from John looking after his Mum so a huge thanks to them all 😘😘
This store room at the place we stayed was amazing, all the produce that was grown on site then pickled, dried or made is store here until needed, I am so going to have one of these 😀
frieslandfarm (flowers) 