Tag: greenhouse

Posted in Friesland Farm

A new month, a sonic boom 😲 and of course, flowers 💐

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 27th February 2023: Not sure where February went it usually feels longer than that. After getting the eggs sorted and the cats and dogs fed I got on with some cleaning 😝 All the joys of cleaning, hoovering, polishing, dusting, cleaning hair out of the shower trap 😂 You would not believe how many times John tells me that people don’t realise they have to do this, he will get a call because the water is not running away in the shower cubicle and first thing he asks is do you clean the trap 🙄

I have procrastinated a little this afternoon, is it really procrastination if you are listening to a podcast or reading up about something interesting? Or is it an elected, find something gentle but educational to do because I can’t be bothered to exert myself today, exercise 🤷‍♀️ Knowledge is key is all areas and I am one of those who is constantly googling something I have seen or heard but didn’t know about. We are watching the series ‘Gold’ at the minute, as soon as we started watching it I was googling the Brinks-Mat robbery to find out who, what, why, when, I like to know all the details. That’s not a bad thing and it certainly helps when you are watching quiz programs 😂

I did actually sow some veg seeds at the weekend, we are limited to what can be sown now but if you take you hints from your flower garden you will know that lupins are beginning to sprout greenery so peas/beans which are from the same family should be ok to start sprouting in a cold greenhouse, just don’t over soak them or they will rot. The timings of sowings will be restricted to what space you have to move them onto once they get bigger. I think pre sprouting is a fab option at this time of year, just soak the peas or beans in water (drain of any excess) rinse them a couple of days in a row until they begin to sprout (a root will appear first so you know which is the bottom) then pop them into compost to grow on, those that don’t sprout are duds so you can throw them on the compost heap. Also beginning to grow now are alliums, the green leaves are about 5inches high in my garden so I can plant up my onion sets into trays to bring those on, again making sure they are not too wet. Ruby Chard is another I have sown, this is a multifunctional vegetable and so it’s worth doing, not only can we eat it but the torts/Guinea/poultry eat it too (we only have one Guinea left now) so if there is a glut then somebody is happy somewhere. I also have been looking at those who use it in flower arrangements, there is a movement called ‘abstract flower arranging’ that is gaining momentum and uses all kinds of things including fruit and veg. The stalks are a beautiful red colour but if you don’t like the slightly bitter taste then strip the greenery from the stalks and just use that, feed the stalks to the wildlife/pets.

Tuesday: It’s Shelley’s birthday today we will pop round later to celebrate her special day, born in a leap year she was lucky to get the 28th, the Gregorian calendar plays a cruel trick to those born on the 29th 😂 Birthdays are days I stop and reflect and look at the amazing Women our girls are, generally speaking things continually improve for girls and women in terms of equality but it is always a battle. We have three daughters and they were encouraged and nurtured to be strong, capable and independent if necessary and they are. The next generation (granddaughters) will grow up in a different time where things are changing even more but that doesn’t stop me from telling them that they can be anything they want to be, they can achieve whatever it is they want to achieve if they work for it. There is one song that I played and sang with Mia which is a Katy Perry song ‘Roar’ it was a time when she was feeling a little uncertain about the big world she was in especially school and all the emotions that brings with it. We sang the song together and I told her that is Nanas song for her, it doesn’t mean you need to be fierce but that you can be who you want to be with confidence and if you set your mind to it you can achieve whatever it is you want to achieve whether that is a big or a small thing.

I put washing on last night in the hopes that I could dry it today but looks like I miss calculated that as it is fairly damp out 😏

I did a good morning’s work outside doing various things, I potted up some of the ranunculus that have been pre sprouting in the kitchen they are now inside a propagator (unheated) in the greenhouse. I finished off cutting some dead stuff back on one of the bigger beds and then moved into the big tunnel as I was getting a bit cold. In there I planted up some phlox (sherbet 😁) watered the ranunculus and anemone that are growing, the anemone are actually flowering but on fairly short stems. I then had to shut the dogs away so that I could staple gun some bubble wrap around the doors in the tunnel, I could feel a cold draught and anything growing might appreciate an extra bit of warmth instead. I sowed a second lot of sweet pea seed that had pre sprouted, I will keep sowing these in succession every couple of weeks. The sweet peas last year had fairly short stems but I have since then seen the whole plant stem used with great effect so I will give them another go. Seeds I have on the windowsill indoors include antirrhinum, clary sage and sweet peas, we are getting there slowly 😁 Meanwhile John went out to do a small job this morning before returning and getting on with some concreting and we have also had a delivery of materials, the flower workshop will soon be taking shape.

I have flowers to deliver to a customer today and I will also be taking some round to Shelley when we go to see her later for cake 🎂😁

Inbetween doing things I have also done a bit of reading up, don’t ask me why but this question popped into my head ‘will gold be any use after an apocalypse’ I like to know these things 🤪 The answer in case you haven’t worked it out is no, fairly obvious really but I needed to have the definitive answer 🤷‍♀️ Skills, food, building materials etc will all be of value rather than gold. It didn’t end there though because it took me on to an article about billionaire preppers 😲 did you even know there was such a thing. Interesting that they would think that their money would still be of use to employ security etc, when it was pointed out that it wouldn’t they resorted to tactics such as having a combination lock to large food supplies thereby making people do what they are told or those perimeter electric shock dog collars to stop them leaving, sounds like a fabulous work opportunity doesn’t it 😂 There are apparently large self sufficient farms that have bunkers for the wealthy to run to in their time of need (not in the UK as far as I am aware) who is going to do the hard graft I would like to know. It is all very well having the money to buy a place to hide but you need skills to survive and if your money is worthless then…🤔

Wednesday: Is it only midweek 🙄 John went off to work this morning despite having said he will be working at home this week! I have flower club tonight and it’s the first meeting this year, there is a competition as well as a demonstration so I have thrown myself into the task. Safe to say that flower arranging in the conventional sense is not really my forte, I prefer free form or natural rather than triangles and fans 😝 but it does mean that I have to push myself and come up with something I am happy with. So I have spent an hour or more arranging, I made the mechanics last week just to see if it would work and tweaked it the other day so it’s all set to go and enter the competition lol. The title is spring in a basket and I hope I have achieved the brief and even if I haven’t I have done something different and learnt along the way so it’s all good.

Yay I got first prize 😁

It is St David’s day today and all about the daffodils, leeks and being Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 The other day that is creeping up is Mothers Day and this year I am ready to offer flowers. One thing I know is that it is frantic on the flower wholesale market, who knew that behind the scenes there are order dates and lists and then cut off dates for your orders too. I feel I may have slightly overreached on my cut off date which is the 12th but something I have already learnt for next year 😁

Thursday: John was at home all day today working on the workshop while I pottered about doing anything that needed doing. I didn’t have the twins today as Mia was not well so not going swimming. I spent the evening making up the bunches of flowers and a bouquet order for tomorrow.

Friday: Up early to get up and get on, get the eggs sorted and out along with the flowers. Mum called over for a visit and a cup of tea and in the afternoon I went out for tea and cake with Sam and the twins and Charlie and Oscar.

Saturday: One of the reasons John has been home is because he is having to work today, he doesn’t normally do weekends but this is in a building that can’t be worked on during the week.

Around 12.30 the whole place shook, I have felt this once before and was pretty sure it was a sonic boom. I messaged the girls, they hadn’t felt it but five minutes later social media was awash with it so at least I know I am not going mad. Normally it means that jets have been scrambled due to an anomaly in our air space but I guess we will find out in time.

I have been checking on the greenhouse growing and so far so good, some seedlings are beginning to emerge others not yet.

Went down to the local pub for a meal last night, it was lovely, we haven’t been down since the new owners took over so we thought it was about time. I love what they have done with the ladies loo it right up my street, Thomas crapper China and recycled boards on the wall, love it. The food was great too, the fish was beautifully fresh and the batter deliciously light and then there was sticky toffee pudding, always a winner and this one was no exception. Nice atmosphere we will definitely be going more often 😁

Sunday: Colder today and I think it tried to snow a few flakes this morning 🙄 hopefully after this cold snap we will be getting something a bit warmer. Just in case it’s really cold I have fleeced up the trays of tulips, daffodils and allium that are coming up nicely and I also did the same for the anemone and ranunculus in the poly tunnel, I don’t want to lose them at this stage. I cut some hellebore, miniature daffodils and some of the anemone this morning along with foliage for a memorial wreath I have to make today. I also hoovered the boot room, it gets unbelievably dusty with the dogs and cats in there.

Mid morning Samantha arrived with the children and it turned into a busy afternoon. We needed to get a big round bale of hay out to the paddock for the horses so that if it snows they will have plenty of hay to feed on. Even if it doesn’t it is going to be cold and there is not much grass left for them to munch on now until it starts growing again, now they will be very happy. Then as it has been unseasonably dry Sam decided to drag the paddocks, good call really because once it rains the grass will begin to grow and it will be harder to do. Once they had all gone home I had to get started on a memorial wreath that is being picked up this evening, a lovely, natural, seasonal 100% compostable wreath 🥰

A natural, seasonal, 100% compostable wreath by flowers at Friesland Farm, Shilton, Oxon
Seasonal and 100% compostable wreath.
Posted in Friesland Farm

Colder weather, batch cooking & local honey 🍯

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th February 2023: The weather is holding so I took the opportunity to do a good mornings graft this morning. I went backwards and forwards collecting and depositing woodchip to mulch the smallest of the raised beds although that still took six full barrow fulls. Next I cut back the two buddliea that are in the shrubbery bed, they are huge and they make an arch where they meet, in order to see down the driveway I need the archway clear so I cut them back to achieve this. The other reason for cutting them back is that they attack me at every opportunity when I am trying to work under them weeding or planting 😂 After that was done I needed to tidy the cuttings so I got the shredder out only that had seized over winter so I had to WD40 it and keep trying it until it freed up which it did eventually. A pile of shredding later and it was past lunchtime so that was my cue to go inside for a cuppa some toast and a sit down, I feel like I have accomplished something this morning 😁 I did a bit more in the greenhouse in the afternoon and then John came home early so I sorted out an early dinner. We went round to Mums for a cuppa in the evening.

Tuesday: Yesterday I delved into the freezers and pulled out items to do some batch cooking today. After getting some washing on and all the usual morning jobs I got two big batches of Bolognaise and mice and potatoes into the slow cookers. They will get boxed up and go into the freezer for another time but I wanted to use up some veg and mushrooms before they went over. Tonight we have some lovely chicken breast but I haven’t decided how we are having it yet. The next project on my mind was something I need to do for flower club next week. My imagination sometimes makes big demands on me and often I fail to deliver but this time I am pretty pleased with the result. I had an idea in mind and apart from a few restarts and some trouble with the hammer I managed to succeed and produce exactly what I was after 😁 No pictures until after the event but I think you will be impressed lol. I was surprised that by the time I had finished it was mid afternoon so I sat down with a cuppa for a quick rest.

I have had a discussion with Shelley about growing as much veg as possible this year as I neglected it last year due to the fact I was busy with the flowers. I then had a message from a friend highlighting the fact that there will be shortages on imports this year due to the bad weather in Europe and Africa especially tomatoes, great that I am good at growing those then 😁 I still find it crazy that we have the ability in this country to grow so many edibles and yet they are imported in huge quantities 🤷‍♀️ maybe once there are shortages people will realise that they don’t need Italian tomatoes or Spanish cucumbers and eat British grown in season 🙄 On that note I am off to check my seed stash and make sure I have enough of everything to sow.

Wednesday: We didn’t eat the chicken in the end as we went to my great nephews to celebrate his third birthday where plenty of food was on offer including pancakes 😁 After the lockdowns you really appreciate being able to get together and the children can all play with their cousins and second cousins keeping family ties alive 🥰

That meant I needed to do something with the chicken this morning and so I have some more batch cooking going on already. A hearty chicken stew in one slow cooker with frozen veg that I grew last year. In the other one there are blueberries and apple cooking down with some honey ready to make a batch of crumbles for the freezer. The apples are the last of the stored cooking apples, all but one of them was any good and so they have done really well to last this long. Going back to potential veg/salad shortages, we don’t eat a lot of fresh produce through the winter, most of what we do eat was grown, processed and frozen back in the growing season. It makes the menu slightly more limited because some produce does not hold its structure but it does mean that we are still eating great produce all the way through to the next lot of harvesting. Rhubarb will be the first to come through and there is always plenty of it so some will be used fresh and some will be frozen for next winter, some of it gets sold and some gets given to family members. If you are venturing into growing your own then rhubarb has to be right at the top of your list, it will be three years before you can fully harvest from a new plant but in the first year you can still harvest a few stalks, the second year even more and the third every single stalk 😁

It is raining today and we really do need some rain, we haven’t had any since around 11th Jan I think when we had days and days of it lol. As it is not a very nice day to be working outside I may even batch bake some cakes. I did bake cakes 3 x date and walnut loaves as healthy as I could make them, I used unrefined brown sugar and sunflower oil but I only had white flour so I had to use that 😏

I felt really tired early evening but I also had a Zoom meeting to attend so I couldn’t really have a nap 😏 Yet again, even though I have been gardening for a lot of years, I learnt something 😁 The speaker was amply qualified having written a book for the RHS on propagation and as I have said before cuttings are a hit and miss area for me. I now feel that I have all the information I need to have good success in this area so watch this space 👀 🤞

Thursday: It was colder overnight than it has been of late and there was a slight frost this morning. I had planned to get a bit done but I had visitors and deliveries and then the twins so in the end not much got sorted. I did spend the evening making up the flower bunches to go out tomorrow though.

Friday: It’s Friday flowers today and I had an early appointment so I had to get everything organise before going for that. Eggs done and out into the shed and then the flowers plus the social media side of it to let everyone know they were available. I quickly sold all the daffodils and narcissi so I had to get those back in ready to drop off locally later. It has been over thirty years since I was employed on the cards in any sense and so one thing I am noticing is that the activity is higher on payday week which I hadn’t given much thought to before now 🙄

British grown flowers and foliage available at Friesland Farm Shilton
Gorgeous tulips in this weeks bunches 🥰

Dave the beekeeper bought some supplies of local honey which will go out into the shed in the morning, it’s nice to be able to offer that produce again.

Saturday: Ooosh that wind is cold, only a week or so ago we were walking up the lane in beautiful sunshine and it almost felt like spring. I just hung out the washing as it is breezy so it should dry but it is cold too. Shelley, Martin and the kids came over just before lunch and spent the afternoon here.

Sunday: I got a good bit done in the garden, I attempted to wash down the outside of the greenhouse and poly tunnel but really I need to wait until we can connect the hose again (once the threat of freezing passes) and then I can hose it off afterwards so I’ll try again in a week or two. Lots of cutting back and clearing up in the torts area oh and I also washed Johns van so that you can tell it’s actually white 😝 Sam and the children came at lunchtime and were here for a couple of hours and then Charlie, Macca and Oscar visited so we have had the full compliment this weekend 🥰

That’s about it for this week, if the weather is ok I will mostly be tidying up and cutting back dead stuff and getting the beds ready for planting up or I can be found in the greenhouse on chiller days mostly just mooching 🤪

Posted in Friesland Farm

Plenty of hearts and flowers this week 🥰

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 6th February 2023: The temps dipped to below freezing again last night but the sun is out so that makes you chirpy. I jumped in the shower after breakfast and when I came back to the kitchen John told me the horse had got into the front paddock. They are only allowed in there when it is electrified so that they don’t eat my fruit trees that have been growing for five years. I dried my hair in quick fashion and went out to get hay and get the horse back where it belonged, I needed to find a spare rail as it had been broken during the escape to pastures new, not greener as it was all frozen just like the rest of the paddocks. When I got back inside after getting that done I felt my hair, some of it was frozen where it hadn’t quite dried 😂 I was only out there for a maximum of 15 minutes.

Tuesday: Another frosty frozen morning but I was up early to get some tribute flowers done for a customer first thing then once I had done that and then the eggs plus feed the cats and dogs I sat down with tea and toast 😁

I got some hoovering and polish done and then the girls arrived along with Oscar and we went out for a walk. The sun was shining though it was still on the cold side but nice enough. We saw a small herd of around 10 deer in one of the fields, they all stood watching us from afar but you could still make out the stag with his antlers standing proud above all their heads. I think they were red deer, they looked dark in colour rather than pale like fallow deer but we were quite far away so couldn’t be certain. They were definitely big unlike the muntjac that we always see plenty of when we are driving around the lanes.

Natural, heart shaped, 100% compostable, sustainable, tribute flowers.
Natural and 100% compostable tribute flowers for a customer today.

I have another natural heart to make but this time it is for valentines to hang on the front door ❤️

Wednesday: It is like a Winter wonderland out there this morning, very cold but very beautiful. The fog is heavy and white and everything is frozen in time, beautiful frozen spider webs hanging everywhere 😍 The horses were vocal when I took their hay out to them, it was only 7.30 but I am sure they were saying ‘about time too’.

Not sure what I am going to do today, I am hoping the sun will come out and burn off the fog but it’s pretty heavy so I don’t know if that will happen. It is very cold out there so I am not planning on any outside jobs at the minute 🙄

Almost midday and the fog is worse I think 😂 and it is still freezing out there so I have spent the morning working on business posts and ideas for the flowers. I have a few orders coming in which is fabulous but it’s always a good idea to generate future work 😁 My head is buzzing with ideas and I often think about going on a floristry course but I also think that I love having the unrestrained free flowing ability to create things how I want to and not how it’s taught, the jury is still out on that one 🤪

The sun broke through mid afternoon ☀️ better late than never.

I have had some ranunculus corms soaking on the windowsill, I planted some in autumn outside in the tunnels but I kept some back just in case. The mice love to eat the corms and the weather reeks havoc with the foliage so I hedged my bets and saved some for spring planting. I planted them up yesterday into a shallow tray of soil and covered them, they are in the kitchen and hopefully I can pre sprout them before planting out in a few weeks time. That’s the plan anyway, ranunculus are the most beautiful flowers and it would be nice to get a really good crop this year so I am trying everything. I dug up a couple of stinging nettles that had taken hold on one of the raised beds. I couldn’t dig it out when everything was growing madly but I also had a job to cut the flowers near the stingers 🤪 so I have waited until all the foliage has died back and then dug them out. It’s surprising how quickly they become a strong plant very often growing away nicely through winter when everything else has died back. Nettles are of course a good indicator of fertile soil so that’s a bonus but even so I don’t want them there.

Thursday: Not frozen this morning yay 😀 I had looked at the weather and the sun will be out and so I got three loads of washing done so that I could get it on the line a d dry as much as possible outside. I also made two heart bases for flowers that have been ordered for this weekend, working with natural materials mean you never get exactly the same thing twice, that’s what makes them natural and bespoke.

These are the bases that the flowers are then attached to, same material, but two slightly different shapes emerge.

Friday: Up early to get the Friday flowers all arranged, wrapped and then out for sale. Once I finished that then tidied away and got all the other jobs done I just had time for a cuppa before Oscar arrived. I looked after him today while Charlie and Macca had some r&r which was Maccas birthday present.

Saturday: Not frosty this morning 😁 and some average temperatures for the time of year forecast today. Once again after getting all the morning jobs done and putting flowers out for sale I got on with an order for a year that is being collected later. I also did one yesterday that will be going on a door for valentines ❤️

I spent a very happy few hours in the greenhouse 😁 first of all cleaning down the shelving, sweeping away cobwebs and dust, sorting any rubbish and putting things away neatly. Then onto potting up some plants that had arrived at the end of last year and I hadn’t got round to doing. Luckily they are fine and there are actually signs of growth on them all, they are all perennials that will be part of the flowers for cutting. Flower farming is a combination of annual flowers which tend to be quick growing, bright and showy but short lived, perennials which are slower growing but flower over a longer period and of course come back each year. Then there is foliage which is generally perennial (evergreen & deciduous) but takes an age to get to any size which is where herbs come in, quicker growing, perennial and they smell amazing 🥰 Many gardeners grow a combination of all these the trick when you are ‘farming’ them is to make sure you have successional sowings and blooms, easier said than done 🤪

Sunday: Another decent day weather wise though we didn’t get much done outside. A quick food shop first thing followed by coffee and breakfast out, back home to unpack the shopping and get a few things done (I can’t even remember what) John tided up some bits in the front driveway and then once finished we went to the garden centre as there were some seeds I wanted to get (and I also got some I didn’t even know I needed 😂) I could not believe the price of seeds, mostly I save seed from what I grew before but there were a couple of annuals that I couldn’t get seed from because I left it too late. I do have a good selection of collected seed though and I think I might package some to put out for sale. Once back home we sat down for a cuppa just as Shelley, Martin and the children arrived followed not long after by Charlie, Macca and Oscar. Charlie had come to collect a heart that I had made for her for Valentine’s Day, this one will hang on her front door. Shelley and Martin had been over to Diddly Squat Farm, we have been binge watching the second series. Sadly I am not shocked at the way the planners and some of the locals have treated the whole situation. They need to look beyond the fact that he is a celebrity and wether you like him or not he is doing a fantastic job sticking up for British farming. Planning have thwarted him at every turn and the ridiculous situations and procedures that farmers have to follow regarding TB, bird flu, moving dirt from one area of the farm to another borders on hysterical except we know that it’s not funny because farmers are going under. We need to take a good long look at farming in the UK, remember back during the war when the country really needed them and their skills to keep everyone alive well it’s not beyond the realms of reality that the same could happen again 🙄

A heart for Valentines, for the front door this time 🥰
Posted in Friesland Farm

A disappearing dog and a trip away.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday January 23rd 2023: It’s still bloody cold outside 🥶 I can’t wait for it to warm up a bit, the areas in the shade are not even thawing out during the daytime at the minute. Mentally I am ready to get on with the work outside but physically I know my hands and feet will suffer so I am holding off.

Apparently between 5 & 6pm tonight there will be a big demand on energy due to the cold weather, if you are signed up (and you need a smart meter) you can get paid to reduce your consumption considerably during this hour. Even if you are not signed up perhaps it would be a good idea to help reduce the load anyway, going forward I think we will be seeing a lot more of this kind of request. We are quite careful with our energy consumption but there is always more we could and should be doing. One problem I find is that the damn plugs for everything are always behind the appliances meaning it is difficult if not impossible to get to some of them and switch them off at the wall.

Tuesday: Still cold 🥶 around -8 last night and I am officially sick of the freezing temps now lol. Luckily there is nice bright blue sky and sunshine today but it still feels very cold indeed.

I had a phone call mid afternoon from a vet to say that someone had picked up Mia on the road near the Cotswold wildlife park and taken her to them. This is so weird, Mia never goes anywhere as a general rule. The only time she has run off before is when I used the staple gun and we soon realised that she didn’t like that noise and so were always careful to shut her in if anything like that was ever going to be used. So for her to have not only run off but to have gone so far down the way is odd. I imagine she has gone across the fields which eventually ends up on the A361, luckily she was just sat there, a man watched for a while to see if anyone was with her and decided they weren’t so put her in his car and took her to the nearest vets. The horses were also a bit frisky in the paddock so I am wondering if there was something or someone out there 🤷‍♀️ but I couldn’t see anything at all. I will have to watch her all the time now for a while just to make sure she doesn’t do it again. It could have been that she heard me talking to John about giving her a bath last night 😂 she really needs one but it’s a bit cold at the minute.

Thursday: It’s definitely a little warmer than of late but not much, the sun made a splendid appearance though which was a welcome sight. I have been keeping a very close eye on the dog and I have had to call her for quite a while a least once. Goodness knows what she is up too but is obviously in the furthest part of the farm 🤷‍♀️ Charlie and Oscar visited today, they are looking after the place tomorrow through to Saturday while we go away over night. Sam also came over and we popped to town for a mooch and a coffee. Once back home I sorted out the Guinea pig who is on his lonesome now his friend has died and sorted the horses water as well as plenty of other general jobs before the twins arrived for their Thursday sesh. Last night I had a zoom meeting for an hour and a half and I have another one tonight on growing flowers in the polytunnel. There is plenty of info out there about growing veg in a tunnel but very little on extending the flower season in a tunnel, something something that the group I am with is trying to change 😁

Friday: We went away overnight, not very far but it was nice to do something different. We went to Chipping Cambden which is only about 40 minutes away, never been there before but it is a delightful Cotswold town full of lovely old buildings, boutique shops and places to eat. It is definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the area and I can recommend the Eight Bells for great food, great service and great atmosphere.

Chipping Cambden

Saturday: We retuned home just before lunchtime, Charlie and Macca had been looking after the place and done a great job. We had the afternoon to sort ourselves out before Josh and Florence came over at tea time for a sleep over.

Sunday: I haven’t done much today apart from a few rounds of breakfast

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain, lots of learning & and holibob booked.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 10th January 2023: I am feeling a lot better now but the weather leaves a lot to be desired doesn’t it? I am of an age now though when I am totally at peace with ‘what doesn’t get done today will eventually get done at some point’ so don’t stress over it life is too short for that. There is plenty that I could be doing outside but it’s too wet and so it can wait until it is pleasant enough to go out and do it which will be far more enjoyable. I can find lots to do inside and I can find lots to research, read up on or plan which is exactly what I have been doing. I have done some costings for the workshops and roughly planned the times of the year when I will do them, I have made a note of significant flower dates through the year so I know when they are and I have brushed up on some skills so you see I have not been idle at all. Yesterday morning I spent the time sorting out all of the dried flowers I had hung at the end of the season, they are now all nicely stored and ready to do something with when the time comes and the dried flower area is clear ready for hanging the next lot though that won’t be for a while yet. I invested a tiny amount of my profit in a lighting ring to take better photos, I did one practice photo this morning and it is going to make such a difference. All I did was take a snap of clutter on the side but the with and without shots are so different that I can see it was a worthwhile purchase. I also bought a ground auger which attaches to a drill to plant bulbs, again a game changer as you can plant soo many more in less time plus the auger is doing all the hard work for you (especially on this ground which is very difficult to dig in places) I have a lot of bulbs left over and want to put them all down the driveway but having planted some before I know that it is hard work, hopefully this will be a much easier way 🤷‍♀️ I do keep looking at the garden thinking I need to do some cutting back and some weeding but I am also aware that plenty of insects will be hibernating or overwintering in all that dead stuff so I don’t want to disturb them too early, I need to get the balance right. The insect population is in massive decline 😞 we need to be doing all we can to increase diversity in our garden areas. We all know about what plants butterfly’s and bees like but there are thousands more insects that need our support, ground dwellers need healthy soil and plenty of cover or decaying debris, pollinators need a wide range of different types of flowers and foliage. I believe it is up to us to provide a rich diverse garden area to increase the different species of insects and their volume, this is regeneration.

Friday 13th: The weather is shocking lol, rain and lots of it, plenty of water sitting in our paddocks and the Ford in the village is about to spill over I think 🙄 especially if we get as much as is forecast tomorrow. What have I been up to over the past couple of days, well I would like to say I had been outside working on the garden but I haven’t. I figure that it will all wait until the weather is a little more settled and nicer, I have become a fair weather gardener over the last few years. I no longer want to get soaked or end up with chilblains on my feet or have hands that are so numb they take an age to get the feeling back, nope I am definitely moving into my wiser years 😂 Instead I have been finding plenty of jobs indoors including clearing through my entire wardrobe and finally getting rid of stuff I either don’t like or doesn’t fit (and I hang on to it in case one day it miraculously does 🤪) all gone and it feels great. I will be continuing to move through the house with the same determination to declutter everywhere.

I was unaware it was Friday 13th until I typed the date ☝️ up there but it seems fitting somehow that today was the day I chose to begin an online course in funeral flowers 🤷‍♀️ I have no idea what really prompted me to do it but I figured it was another string to my bow. The course is all about sustainable, compostable methods and is geared towards, but not exclusively for, natural or green burials, it seemed fitting somehow and I figured any skills and tips were transferable to other areas so it was a no brainer really 😁

Saturday: More rain, high winds urrrggh I am so done with winter already 🤪 It does offer me the opportunity to stay in the warm and do something useful though. So plenty of learning on the online course which I have to say is very comprehensive and informative I am so glad I decided to do it and as I suspected there are skill transfer opportunities all the way through so great value for money in my opinion. I have also spent some time researching various plants and flowers as well as looking through lots of social media (flower related naturally) watching you tube sessions and listening to podcasts of various types. Yes that is what winters are for I think but still I eagerly await the warmer days. I have also ordered some British grown flowers so that I can have a play and a practise doing a few things 🥰 that will feed my flower habit for a bit. To be honest I have to do some homework/task for the online course using what is available at this time of year, I do have some bits in the garden but I don’t have any narcissi out yet and I want to have a go at using those as well so I ordered some in. I was really saddened to see that one of the cottages in the village was having some landscaping done and had all the mature shrubs ripped out 😢 omg I used to walk past and think ‘look at those lovely specimens, I would love to be able to cut some of those’ I wish I had been there when they started ripping them out, I would have told them I will come and get them, a piece with a root would have been enough. I don’t know what they are replacing the lovely old walls and shrubs with but I can hazard a guess that it will be pretty sterile now 😔 There should be laws against it lol or at least proper consultation with someone who has half an idea about nature 😭

Sunday: Not a bad day weather wise, no rain at least 🤪 I did a quick online workshop for making reels 🙄 this has become more important as time has gone on as the algorithms favour these kind of posts over stills. To be honest I just like to keep up (as best as possible) with technology and it’s avenues, it is surprising how quickly you get left behind otherwise. I put some beef in the slow cooker and we went to my sisters for a mid morning coffee where we got waylaid and booked a holiday while we were there 😁 John is very happy now we have one on the calendar and we will be booking another for later in the year. It is a big year for us, John will be 60 😳 in June and we will have been married for 40 years (how the heck did that happen 🤷‍♀️) I have secured myself some rubies to mark the occasion 😉 and I feel we deserve a few nice holidays and day trips this year of all years 🥰 Shelley, Martin and the children walked over to visit in the afternoon (I did invite them for dinner but they were already going to Martins Mums) and once they had gone we had a lovely roast dinner with a crumble for after. The temperatures are set to plummet tonight, a lot lower than they have been anyway but with that should come sunshine tomorrow ☀️ so I will look forward to that.

No photos this week as I haven’t taken any but I will try and remedy that, in the meantime:

Posted in Friesland Farm

2023 🥳 Happy New Year

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Friday 6th January 2023: We are already the first week into the new year, a time for new beginnings, hopes, dreams and plans. I will briefly recap what happened since I last blogged.

The day after returning from Lapland I came down with a bug, nothing surprising there really but it went on for days and days, nausea, cold, shivering, extreme tiredness, not really what you want in the run up to Christmas as I could barely function. Couple that with the minus temperatures all week long and the difficulties of getting water to the animals every day and life was a tad difficult for a while. I had Christmas table decorations to get made for orders but I could hardly function normally let alone creatively. I had also agreed to make something for the church pulpit from dried flowers.

Thursday 15th December: The temp on the van was registering -10 at 7.30am this morning so what it went down to overnight is anyones guess. This year has definitely been extremes in temperature, I think that might be the coldest we have had here. Hopefully today it is going to get above 0 which will be a massive help because trying to get water to all the animals is bloody difficult I can tell you.

At one point I did think I would have to cancel the Christmas orders or at least put them off but by the designated date I was able to get them all made and off to customers so that was good. It made me realise that I probably would strike weddings off my possibility list because if the Lupus flared I would not be able to fulfil the order and I wouldn’t want that.

I just about felt well enough by the 20th to go out and get the last of the Christmas shopping bits and I never normally leave it that late. By the 23rd I was feeling normal and looking forward the the festivities, we had Christmas carols that evening round the pond which has a Christmas tree in the middle which was a lovely start to Christmas. A lovely relaxed Christmas Eve, Charlie, Macca and Oscar for Christmas Day and then everyone for Boxing Day breakfast and round to Shelley’s for supper in the evening. I was feeling very content, happy and lucky, we went round to my sisters the day after Boxing Day and by now I had developed a tiny irritating cough but nothing too much. Well the cough got worse, much worse, to the point where I was having to hold my side during coughing fits as I was afraid it would herniate, I couldn’t sit down or lie down without spasmodic coughing fits that became continuous. Along with this came sinusitis, a fuzzy head, loss of hearing and I went though a whole pack of toilet rolls just getting rid of the mucus. I felt pretty sorry for myself and was mostly confined to the sofa for what seemed like an eternity. It’s a good job we didn’t have NYE plans and we were supposed to go to Charlie for New Year’s Day dinner but she was ill and so we didn’t go until the following day. All in all Christmas has been about illness and not just for me as I know lots of people who have had similar experiences and are struggling to shrug the bugs off.

I am still not well, better but not well and as luck would have it I had a telephone appointment with the rheumatology dept on the 4th. That was actually pretty constructive and thorough, the upshot is that because I am on the immune suppressants my body can’t fight off the bugs successfully. I have also had an ongoing UTI which at this point I have had three lots of antibiotics for but I can’t shift it. No wonder I feel so poorly, there will be a meeting to discuss how to treat me, it will be a tightrope walk 🙄 Basically in order for my body to fight these infections I will probably need to come off the immune suppressants in order for the antibiotics to work but that in turn could then trigger a Lupus flare, I am stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. Obviously I need my body to repair and I don’t think it is going to do that while I am on the medication, the gamble will be how long to I stop it for before it becomes too long 🤷‍♀️

What else happened over Christmas, well we had a weird thing happen when I couldn’t find Diesel’s bowl one morning. He gets fed by the back door and has a stainless steel bowl, this particular morning it was gone and despite searching for it I could not find it. So I found another bowl and used that for his morning and the night feed, the next morning that bowl was gone as well 🤪 I imagine it was a fox that carried them off but where too that is the question. We did find one right at he back in one of the paddocks but never found the other yet. One of those nights I woke up at 1.30 with a coughing fit and could hear something up on the roof, I went into the boot room and the dogs and cats were fast asleep so it wasn’t any of them, also not human otherwise the dogs would have been barking. It was definitely heavier than squirrels or birds so again I am thinking the fox was up there maybe eating the last of the apples that were on the roof still. I told John in the morning and he said ‘didn’t you go out and have a look’ no I bloody didn’t lol, I have watched too many horror films to be that stupid 😂

John has been busy, while I was incapacitated, taking down the partitions in the stable area in order to rebuild it into a work shop for the flowers. He also had to do everything else bless him as I literally could not do anything. Normally I would have spent the time planning the year ahead and working out what I want to get done, what needs planting/sowing and this year what workshops I want to offer but I have not been able to do any of that at all. I have bulbs that arrived that are just sat outside, I have not checked on any of the seeds or bulbs I had already sown for at least a month now but none of that can be helped and I am sure I will catch up at some point. The weather apart from that very cold snap has been mild, mild means plenty of rain, plenty of rain means the front paddock has a lake in it, standard stuff for winter.

That in a nutshell is how the last month has gone for me, illness, Christmas, more illness and not a lot else getting done at all. But as always I am not one to be defeated and so I will keep doing what I can in bite size pieces until I get to where I need to be 😁 I want to be offering various flower workshops this year coming, I want to increase the amount of flowers I sell and I want to make sure I have flowers available on a regular basis so that customers know when they can come and get them. I am looking forward to this next year and seeing what it brings plus I will be getting back on track with the home grown veg which went a little by the by last year, those are my plans at least, we will see how they go.

Today I am going to be clearing and tidying the office/craft room which has become clogged with all manner of things. Dried flowers, craft stuff, Christmas stuff, it all needs sorting and putting away so that I can see what is what in there again. I was going to go out with the girls today but I have decided that I need to limit the possibility of picking up any more bugs. Firstly I don’t think my body can handle much more and secondly I would worry about my chances if I had to end up in hospital with the state of things at the minute 😔 I don’t think the outlook would be good to be honest. The state of the NHS has been a hotly talked about topic as you can imagine, my take on it is that undoubtedly there has been a lack of funding but I also think there is far more to it than that. Purely from a laypersons point of view the system is broken in so many areas it would be difficult to know where to start. It needs looking at from a fresh point of view instead of trying to patch up the holes, easier said than done but maybe that is what happens with anything, a system reaches capacity, collapses and a new system is born.

We have had the first goose egg of the year, that is ridiculously early but as it is so mild not unexpected to be honest.

We are well into the New Year and so as I publish this today I have some exciting plans to look forward to and implement, I already have enquiries coming in which is both fabulous and daunting at the same time 😂 but ‘go big or go home’ Charlie has told me so here I am jumping in both feet first 🤪

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain, wreath evenings & wet feet.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 21st November 2023: What a soggy miserable day it was today, rain from dawn to dusk and beyond. I was not about to go outside and do anything in that sort of weather so I busied myself indoors for the morning, finding any little job that needed doing. Charlotte came over at lunchtime, we had some soup and then I went with her while she did her weekly shop, me pushing Oscar and Charlie pushing the trolley. I did get a diary and a calendar for next year while I was there, it has got to that time of year when dates need writing down.

Tuesday: A better day today, dry, sunny but cold. I spent most of the day cutting various foliage including rose hips which all had to be de thorned 😂 I am hoping that there will be enough diversity to appeal to everyone and that individual personality will shine through in each wreath made 🥰

Wednesday: Another filthy day 😂 honestly torrential downpours, hail, wind, yuk. Consequently I did not do much outside 🤪 sod that for a game of soldiers, I spent my time indoors cleaning and finding indoor jobs to get on with. I am aware that the year is passing buy so quickly and I have got plenty to do outdoors but I also reason with myself that a lot of it can wait until spring. There is nothing wrong with leaving all the dead stuff standing in situ in fact it is more beneficial to the wildlife that way. There will be plenty of insects overwintering in dead foliage and they are best left undisturbed. It is also better for the soil structure if it has partial covering, cleared ground gets pounded, compacts and then you get run off and leaching of nutrients all the more reason to wait. Besides I have plenty of other jobs to get sorted now we are fast approaching December with all the usual festive food to think about plus gift shopping.

Thursday: First thing this morning I spent an hour talking to myself 🤪 there was a good reason and I am not going mad. It was time to get sorted and ready to teach the wreath workshops tomorrow so I spent an hour talking to myself as a result 😂 I missed up and mad up one wreath just to practise what I was going to say, then I spent the next hour cleaning up the pool room and sorting out as John would be using the table tonight. I had the twins after school and then dashed off for some Bowen therapy early evening. It was a good session with plenty worked on and it tired me out so I spent the evening on the sofa relaxing.

One thing I have been doing is looking up as much as I can about operation Grapple. These were nuclear tests done out in Christmas Islands during the latter half of the 1950’s, the reason I am interested is because my Dad was there serving in the Royal Navy at the time. The powers that be have now decided to recognise these veterans with a medal (Dads will be posthumous) I have applied for his service records and hopefully they will be found, they will be an interesting read. It’s is pretty shocking stuff to be honest, Dad went into national service and would have been 17/18 going on an adventure of a lifetime. It was an adventure and he loved it but I can’t help thinking that they were inadequately dressed and exposed to massive amounts of radiation 😔 Dad was one of the lucky ones and never had any illness resulting from his time there but thousands of servicemen did and many of their offspring too. It is also sad that it has taken this long to recognise their service at that time and that many of them are no longer here to personally receive that recognition. Does not matter if you agree with Nuclear testing or not those service personal had no choice but to do as they were ordered. They were allowed to take personal photos and I have seen the ones Dad took though he always told us that because he had signed the official secrets act they were to remain unseen by others. There are some there where the only clothes they have on are shirts and t shirts 😳 and the protective clothing would be laughed out of the storeroom these days. It is what it is and they did what they did and I am glad they are finally recognising it but did it have to take so long?

Friday: The sun is shining thank goodness, we have had some horrendous downpours, that’s all we get these days, torrential or nothing 🤪 I have been busy this morning preparing everything for the first wreath workshop tonight 🥰 I am looking forward to it, the mince pies are cooked, the mulled wine is ready to go, the foliage is all waiting to be used, the Christmas song playlist is good to go, bring on the fun and creativity.

One thing I have been mulling over was a post on social media whereby someone was looking for a ‘ reasonably priced’ wreath workshop. These things always start me thinking about how detached people are from the real cost of things, we are so used to cheap goods that we fail to see the value in anything worthy. Behind each workshop there is a lot of work that goes on, a lot of organising and there are costs. Most people doing workshops have already invested in learning how to make a wreath many years before then there are costs like insurance, heating, lighting, renting a space if you don’t have one. The cost of sundry materials such as wire, frames, fir cones, ribbon, feathers, dried oranges, moss and foliage or the time it takes to gather moss and foliage and in my case to cut and weave the willow frames. Then there is the setting up, the teaching and the clearing away. I am not sure that people fully understand what is involved but it’s not just a bit of greenery on a frame 😬 And besides once you have done a workshop you have the skill for life 🥰

In the evening I had the first of three wreath evening workshops and I can honestly say I really enjoyed it, I was a bit nervous at first but once into my stride I loved it. It was great to see people having never done one before produce something very worthy of hanging on the door during advent 😁

Saturday: I had round two of workshops in the evening but I mostly spent the day making wreaths and tidying up, collecting more greenery etc, it’s surprising how much it uses 😂 Saturday nights participants also went away with fabulous wreaths.

Sunday: Slightly tired today but once we had done all the morning jobs it was time to go and get my eyes tested. New glasses for me as my eyesight has deteriorated a little in two years which I was aware of. Then we called into my brothers for coffee, they happened to have breakfast on the go so we had a bacon roll as well😁 I had called in to cut some foliage from their garden and once we had cut that it was back home. My feet were soaking wet, I should have taken my wellies but didn’t think about it so although there were plenty of Christmas fayres on today I couldn’t go anywhere else really as I wanted to get back and get dry feet again. I had a restful afternoon as I was feeling pretty tired, I need to conserve energy for the rest of the week.

John has been busy over the weekend cleaning out the birds in various stages, we are only a couple of weeks in and already it feels like it has been going on for ages, poor birds 😔

That’s it this week, have a good one 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Mince pies, flower stand and a rainbow 🌈

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th November 2022: Time seems to be whizzing by 🙄 A dank and foggy morning this morning but we are due heavy rain at some point over the next couple of days and so I needed to cut flowers for a few bouquets mid week. There are still some beautiful flowers growing, the foliage is a little more of a struggle now but a bit of creative thinking does not go amiss. I also cleared the rest of the flowers from the big tunnel and the pepper plants. The peppers did so well this year with all that heat and we don’t even eat them 😂 I do free some just in case I want to use them but they are one of the foods that is not so good for my condition. It’s funny because I am not really keen on them anyway almost a natural instinct I reckon 🤷‍♀️ I then cleared out any flowers from the small tunnel that are not going to produce much from here on in, I tied in the chrysanthemums and cut a few small heads for drying. I am drying with Mother’s Day next year in mind as well as Christmas 😂 I need a site meeting with John to discuss the flower workshop, we will convert one of the stables and then at least everything will be in one place and my kitchen won’t end up in such a mess all the time 🤪 I popped in to make a coffee, opened the fridge to get some milk and the pears that I poached in a vanilla sugar syrup fell out and the syrup went all over the floor and hit every shelf in the fridge 😬 the day was going so well until then!

I spent the afternoon making dried flower wreaths, I wanted to use up what I already have to make way for the next lot that is drying. I am still having difficulty taking photos that do them any justice, wherever I try to take them either the light is bad or there is a shadow 🤷‍♀️

I have lost track of the days 🤪 it’s Wednesday today so what did I do yesterday 🤔 no idea 😂 must have done something though! Today I can remember 😁 I started off shovelling and raking some type one on the driveway. John has now finished the new path and we need to bring the levels up to match and so 6 ton of type one was deposited and John raked some if it. I made an effort and did do a bit before thinking enough was enough and went off to do something else. I cut some contorted hazel ready for the wreath evenings and I collected some eucalyptus bark to use as well. Eucalyptus naturally sheds its bark and is cinnamon in colour, as it dries it rolls and so is perfect for using on wreaths no air miles needed 😁 The farrier came today for the horses pedicures and I got the dinner early before going to have my covid booster and then rest for the evening.

Thursday: It has just rained and rained and now we have a little pond in the paddock, it’s not as bad as it has been in other years mind you as we have had a giant lake before now. Today is supposed to be dry so hopefully we get a bit of respite from getting a soaking all the time. I am going out for a coffee with Shelley so I don’t have much else planned, we may mooch around the shops as well 😬 mooching is pretty much all I will do as I am not a bigger shopper unless I need it I won’t be buying anything but it is nice to have a look round now and again.

The topic occupying my mind this morning is the limiting of eggs to customers in the supermarkets. Firstly the reports that it is down to bird flu is not entirely the whole story but as per usual the media only report the bit that they want to. Remember a good while back I said that feed costs were going up so much that businesses were struggling. Many of the smaller producers have given up and the bigger producers are losing money so it won’t be long before a lot of them give up too and I have seen big housing set ups for sale on the farming sites so it is already beginning 🙄 The next problem is that although the farmers costs have shot up, the price they are being paid by supermarkets has not (and this is not being reported but I can tell you it is very much talked about on social media) and they refuse to pay because eggs are a loss leader in the chains 😔 How sad that someone’s livelihood is a loss leader for others to start with. This is why it is so important to support your local small producers all the time and not just when there is a shortage in the supermarket. I can’t tell you how cross it makes me, back in the summer I was trying to push egg sales like crazy and I struggled to shift them but you can guarantee that I will see people who I haven’t seen before trying to buy eggs from us here now that there is a supply problem 😡 My thoughts then go to our regular, loyal customers and how do I best protect them and make sure there are plenty for them to buy 🤷‍♀️

Friday: Made six batches of shortcrust pastry ready for mince pie making. Sam came over with the twins at lunchtime.

Saturday: I spent the morning making mince pies, I had made batches of pastry late afternoon yesterday and put them in the fridge for today. 48 mince pies now rolled, filled and frozen ready for baking as necessary, I also have plenty of pastry in the freezer for maki g more at a later date. Lunchtime we went round to see Mum who was doing a craft sale of all the things she makes, the money was going to buy winter wear and energy bars for Ukrainian fighters 🥰

Sunday: We had such a good morning 😁 John has continually been raking a levelling type one and shingle and now that was done normal service could resume and so he cleaned out the chickens and the ducks lol. Meanwhile I burnt some rubbish and put some rubbish in the skip plus tidy up the back area. The we went out for breakfast, there was method in madness with that suggestion as I wanted to collect some bracken growing on the side of the road near the place we went to. We got a boot full of bracken and the. Spent the next couple of hours driving g around country lanes foraging for greenery for the wreaths. It was a lovely morning, the sun was out and it was a pleasant enough temperature. I found plenty of fabulous foliage to go with anything I will be cutting here on the farm, very happy with my haul. Came home and sorted it all into buckets of water and then no time to rest we went off to get some shopping as we were out of cat food and a few other bits. Back home and a well earned rest for a couple of hours before going round to Shelley’s for a roast 😁 and that’s the week over already.

At some point in the week my flower stand arrived and I put it together, it holds six buckets and is easily taken a part to transport. The uses I have in mind are for ‘pop up flowers’ if asked to, or for activities such as hand tied bouquet workshops for parties, hen dos or get togethers 🤷‍♀️ I will work on the wording for that 😂

A versatile addition to the flower farm 😁
Lovely rainbow today, driving up the lane we were hoping it was right on our place and the pot of gold would be waiting for us 🤪
Posted in Friesland Farm

It’s definitely Autumn 🍂

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 3rd October 2022: What a beautiful morning, it started off with a pink sky which bathed everything in a glow at dawn this morning and then the sun came out in glorious autumn fashion. I decided a creative morning was in order and so I gathered up plenty of foliage to make an autumn wreath to hang on the door and then made a jam jar arrangement with what was left. There is so much vibrant colour at this time of year, tones and shades of red, orange, yellow and brown, just glorious. 🍂 I then cut some asters and chrysanthemums for drying, not sure what I will do with all this dried wonderfulness but I am hooked on the process. I then decided that as it was such a beautiful day I would go for a walk around the village. At this time of year the sun is lovely but it is not strong enough to do much harm and so off I went. I get out of the house and off the farm for a bit, I get a very pleasant wander round and I fulfil my target on my activity monitor as well as boosting my step count. The hedges were audibly buzzing with bees and insects all enjoying the Ivy, I didn’t see anyone else apart from some workmen and it was so peaceful it was good for the soul.

Did a bit more playing with flowers 😂 and then some bulb planting, allium this time. They will be for cutting next year but I did plant some in the ornamental beds 😉 I think I am becoming obsessed with all things flowery 😂

I have had a thoroughly enjoyable day today 😁 I would quite like to spend my whole time doing nothing but flowers 😂 This week I have flower club again and we are doing flower arrangements in a pumpkin. At first I was like ‘hmm not my sort of thing’ but I now I am looking forward to giving it a go and besides it’s all good practice.

Tuesday: Not such a nice day today as far as the weather goes. I was waiting for a delivery today and then got an email at lunchtime to say it is not co ing until tomorrow now. I hate it when that happens, I plan the day around something and it doesn’t happen 🙄 in this case it was a big job because it was whole fresh farm reared chickens being delivered and I had planned to portion them all before freezing. One of them was going to be roasted for dinner and at the same time I would have been cooking a batch bake of cakes for the freezer so you can see why my plans were messed up lol. Now I will be doing all that tomorrow instead. I decided to sow some vegetable seeds for winter and I have ordered onion sets and garlic bulbs to plant. I have come to the conclusion that things are going to get worse rather than better so let’s make sure we can at least eat even if it means cooking on the fire pit outside 🤪 I cut flowers today as well and while I was doing that I spotted a deer sat in the paddock, it’s a bit unusual for it to be sat in broad daylight in an open field. My thought was that it was injured so I shut the dogs away and went to have a look, it let me get quite close before getting up and running off, not injured thank goodness, it was obviously just basking in the sun that happened to be out at that time.

It let me get fairly close and didn’t seem too fazed 😍

Wednesday: I did a bouquet up in the morning ready for delivery later, popped out for an hour with Sam and just after I got back my meat delivery arrived. It took me a good couple of hours to portion out four fresh, free to roam chickens. I now have plenty of different portion types of chicken in the freezer, breast, thigh, drumsticks, wings plus the carcasses and the giblets. I roasted one of them whole for dinner in the evening and I also left another whole for a different day. The carcasses went into the slow cookers along with some thyme, onion, celery and carrot to make stock for soups, gravy, stews and broth. I also bought large packs of sausages and bacon and split those into portions for ease, everything was vacpacked and that will last months in the freezer. I do it like this because it’s more cost effective, I have the freezer space and I like higher welfare products, these were from Field & Flower as they guaranteed that the meat would be sent out fresh not frozen which meant I could portion it all out.

My Mum called in for a cuppa in the afternoon and to pick up some bulbs that I had dug up, gladioli and liatris plus I gave her some new bulbs of narcissi, I have way too many😂 Most of the rest of the day was taken up with cooking the dinner and tidying up before going to flower club in the evening. We made flower arrangements in a pumpkin, I have to say they all looked really colourful all together at the end of the evening 😁

Thursday: This morning I am wondering what the heck is happening to the country at the minute, it is almost as if gremlins are causing turbulence 😂 It’s like a pile of pick up sticks, a jumbled intertwined mess that seems impossible to unpick 🙄 More unions talking of strike action, at this rate it will only be the self employed that are working. We work without the safety of sick pay, holiday pay, maternity/paternity pay or pension contributions from elsewhere, we work long hours and work hard to keep businesses going. We have no direct representative, we do all our own bookkeeping and pay tax and national insurance just like everyone else. It is more difficult to get a mortgage when you are self employed and you jump through hoops to provide the proof and paperwork they want to make sure you can make the payments. There is no one to work in your place if you are off for whatever reason so a holiday is a double whammy, no wages, no holiday pay. We are not moaning, we are a tough breed and yes we chose to be self employed and face the difficulties. We do have freedom though, we are not bound by the rules, regulations, work hours or the etiquette of the workplace. Maybe that is why we are happy 🤷‍♀️

Friday: I went out for a couple of hours with Sam and the twins, we called in to see Charlie and Oscar and I bought some pumpkins to do some arrangements in as they seem pretty popular 😁

Saturday: A lovely day, warm for October and so I did a fair amount of work outside. Pulling some stuff up that has no more to give or that will collapse at the first frost, planting up plants in the beds and some in the big tunnel which will now be a flower tunnel. Clearing, weeding, tidying are the jobs that need doing at this time of year but not too tidy, the wildlife still need a lot of it left so they can get through winter.

I have been asked to sell my wares at a local Christmas table top sale. Never having done one before I thought, oh I don’t think I can do that 😂 then I had a word with myself and thought, of course I can 🙄 I am not sure what it is, I mean I am quite happy to sell them from the sanctuary of the Smallholding but actually getting out there and doing it seems a scary thought which is ridiculous I know but there you have it 🤷‍♀️

I am babysitting Oscar tonight 🥰 that in itself will be lovely but also means I get the remote control all to myself 🤪

Sunday: Another lovely autumn day and so I spent most of the day in the garden. Plenty of tidying up and cutting back but always leaving enough cover for the wildlife overwinter in. Some planting up, some seed collecting, some seed sowing and some cutting of flowers for drying. A very pleasant days work indeed followed by a delicious roast cooked by Charlie and Macca x

Have a great week everyone x

Posted in Friesland Farm

RIP HRH Queen Elizabeth II 😔

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 6th September 2022: I didn’t blog yesterday as I was still at Sam and Luke’s looking after the children until around 6pm, I called in to see Charlie, Macca and Oscar on the way home. We eventually got back in time to get some dinner on, John did the birds and the egg collecting and then an evening of sitting down. It is getting dark much earlier now but I quite like that, it means you actually get some time off rather than continually working. We have one heck of a storm last night, thunder so loud and plenty of lightening to go with it plus very heavy rain, I am not complying I love a good storm plus I am loving the rain 🥰 I was watching the live lightening strike map as it was going on and it covered a huge area of Europe as well as the UK, thousands of strikes, incredible.

This morning we got up and down the usual jobs, John went off to work and I went out into the greenhouse to plant up some plants and sow some seeds. The plants are from the rudbeckia I have already growing, they send out runners under ground and then little plantlets appear, I dug those up the other day put them in some water and this morning potted them up, they will probably go out for sale once established. Then it was onto sowing some ‘snaps’ snapdragon or antirrhinum in various colours, also some white marigolds and a few cornflowers. All in seed trays to bring on over winter, I have still got plenty to direct sow as well. I tidied up the greenhouse a little while I was in there and then inside to do a bit of paperwork. The rain has started again lol same old thing, once it starts…..

The looming energy crisis is a hot topic at the minute and I am trying to look at all angles to see how well we will do. Financially we will manage but that doesn’t mean to say that we shouldn’t be doing all we can to keep the costs down. I read that many people are batch cooking now before the costs go up so that they can just reheat food which makes a lot of sense. I have thought a lot about how I will be doing g the cooking as the oven uses a lot of electric to heat up so slow cooker, microwave and induction hob will be used as much as possible instead. Potentially two slow cookers, one for dinner, one for pudding 😁 they use only as much energy as a light bulb so it makes sense to cook that way. Tiered steamer pans are also a great saver as are microwave steam bags, they work brilliantly. One of the problems that has caught my attention is the possibility of blackouts, this might seems very 1970’s (to anyone old enough to remember the strikes) but the UK producers approx 40% of its energy needs, 30% is bought from Norway. That leaves a shortfall of 30% that we will have to buy from other sources, the problem is that because of the Russian pipelines being closed, all other countries that need it will also be trying to buy it from elsewhere. Two potential problems arise, a price bidding war and a shortage. Europe has already warned of potential blackouts, our government has not but the energy sector is talking about it and so it makes sense to prepare. If the preparations are not needed it doesn’t matter but if they are then I am ready for it. To be fair when we switched over to all electric I prepared then because we do have at least 5 power cuts every winter 🙄 so I bought a small camping gas stove and canisters so that we could still boil a kettle and cook something warming. I do have battery powered lights we can use indoors and we have always have powerful torches for use outside if needed. I just need to make sure we have our thermals to hand and some big blankets 😂 you never know when you will need them 🤪 We have thermal door curtains already which come out in the colder months but I am thinking of getting thermal curtain linings or some material to make some for the the bedroom windows, I figure every little will help this year but in all honesty it’s probably something we should have already been doing before.

I sat down for a couple of hours at lunchtime and got a few things done that made me feel productive, it’s raining outside so might as well get on inside. I looked up thermal curtains etc but in the end I decided to order the material and make the linings myself 🤪 as if I don’t have enough jobs on the to do list already. I did a few bits of paperwork, I say paperwork it’s mostly digital these days but they are done ✔️ I ordered a rug for the spare room, the floor really needs doing in there but I doubt we will get it done before winter so a rug will help with any draughts hopefully. I also ordered a second slow cooker, I a, definitely going down this route lol. I need to write John a list of winter ready jobs, mostly just small ones but they will make a difference

Wednesday: A sunny start so I got the morning jobs done and then out into the garden. First job was to cut flowers for my weekly customers flowers and then into the small tunnel to do plenty of cutting back. Some of the cosmos was beginning to get powdery mildew so I cut them right back and removed the foliage, the flowers went into my collecting bucket and will be used for jam jar flowers. Then onto the big tunnel where I did much the same, though there is no mildew in there the plants were getting big and flopping over onto other plants. I watered the cucumbers and peppers plus fed and watered the flowers and then picked lbs and lbs of tomatoes 😂 plus courgettes, peppers and cucumbers. Inside then to sort all the produce out, weigh it and put some of it out for sale. Then whizz up the tomato sauce I made in the slow cooker yesterday and bag it ready to go in the freezer. Sit down at 1pm for a rest, the heavens opened and right at this minute there is a heavy downpour. It hasn’t really stopped since the drought was broken by the first lot of rain 😂 it is a doubled edged sword because we really need the rain but it would be good to have a dry day inbetween so I can get stuff done. I did also put 200, yes 200 ranunculus tubers to soak, what was I thinking, 200 🤪 I have to find somewhere to plant all of those 😝

Thursday: Last night I went to flower club, totally got my weeks mixed up, not surprising really, I thought it was last week but no it was this week. It was competition week and at 6pm I did think is there anything I can do in the next hour to submit, in the end I thought nope just leave it this time 🤪 John dropped me off as he always does, he went round to Shelley’s to drop off some tomatoes and stopped for a cuppa. He made his way back to ours at dusk, he turned into the downs road which is the lane that connects to ours (about 2 1/2 miles long) he had only driven a short distance along the lane when he thought, oh my god! A little way ahead of him he saw an animal come out of the hedge on one side of the lane, take two bounds and disappear into the hedge on the other side. This is not unusual as we regularly see deer, foxes, badgers, owls, rabbits etc but this appeared to be a big cat 😯 Sadly we don’t have a dash cam but he said it was as tall as an Alsatian, long in the body, black and had the unmistakable rear end of a cat. There have been several sightings in the area over the past couple of months and I have heard first hand from someone else who has seen it in their paddock a few miles from us 🙄 He drove down the lane on the way to collect me later and then we both drove down together on the way home but no more sightings. Internet chatter suggests that because of the drought there have been far more sightings than usual throughout the country, I guess they were looking for water just like all the other wild animals, I may put the wildlife camera up and see what we get.

This morning I have been busy in the kitchen and doing the washing line Hokey Cokey, each time I put it out it rains so I get it back in, at the minute I have given up 😂 I have done a fair bit of batch cooking, I bought a second slow cooker so that I can have two lots going at the same time. Today I have mince,veg and potato in one and I have a spag Bol sauce in the other, that was bulked out with mushrooms, peppers and a tin of salad beans and I used the sauce I made yesterday. Johns was bulked out with plenty of veg including spinach and half a tin of baked beans I opened last night for dinner. Each batch had half a portion of mince in and I think I will get around 5/6 portions from the mince meal and 4/5 portions from the spag Bol meal. Apart from what we eat tonight the rest will be batched and labelled and into the freezer for another day. I then peeled and chopped a load of cooking apples and stewed those down with some blackberries and sugar and I made up a batch of crumble topping. The topping I pre cooked spread out on oven trays and then once the apple mix was cooled and batched up I sprinkled the crumble mix on top. My thinking behind this is that I will be able to get those out of the freezer and because it’s precooked it will only need reheating, saving me time, energy and money. While I did have the oven on to toast the topping I also made a cake and cooked that as well which will also be frozen until needed. I made a batch of chutney with the tomatoes and apples as I have plenty of those, a couple of courgettes some wrinkly grapes, brown sugar, malt vinegar, chopped ginger, onions and some mixed spice went into the mix as well 😁 The cake was a bit of a use it up cake, I had some caramel sauce to use up so I made up a general mix without sugar, added the sauce and some apples and it appears to have baked well, hopefully it will taste ok too. We are not really in the position where we will be worrying about the energy bill too much (I may spit feathers when I see the next bill mind you) but I love a challenge and we should all be more energy conscious no matter what the price of it is shouldn’t we? So I am aiming to trim the costs however I can and batch cooking and baking is definitely one way of doing it. Having two slow cookers is something I should have done years ago I think 😂 because John and I eat totally different things it is much easier to do big batches for each of us at the same time. The above is one example but I am also thinking that while John loves a good stew I prefer a curry or korma so I can do both now plus once it’s all prepped and in I have the rest of the day to get on with other things 🥰

Tomato and apple chutney 🥰

As I sit down to type this up, our Queen has been taken ill and they are concerned for her health, the family is travelling to Balmoral to see her so it’s not looking good. I think even people who are not royalists nevertheless have a deep respect for Her Majesty, for her total dedication to a position she didn’t expect to inherit and one that she has unfalteringly carried out through thick and thin all these years.

Early evening we had the news that we hoped wasn’t coming but in reality we knew it was 😢 HRH Queen Elizabeth II has died peacefully at Balmoral Castle. That is the end of an era, the 2nd Elizabethan Era, it’s pretty profound, we have a new King, King Charles III. The devotion and dedication that The Queen gave to the position that she held was unfaltering and that alone deserves huge respect, what an incredible woman, dignified and constant, a great example to us all. RIP Your Majesty, you will be deeply missed not only by your family but by millions of people around the world. Long Live The King 🇬🇧

Friday: I still feel pretty emotional this morning, it is just sinking in, the magnitude of the event on our historic timeline. When I started blogging it was to diarise the events of our life in a new adventure on a Smallholding, the good things that happened and the bad. Over the years it has included major world events and so it really has become a snapshot of life in the 21st century.

This morning I cut some flowers for jam jars later today, it was drizzling, the rain hasn’t really stopped since last Thursdays break in the drought conditions 😂 The poor flower heads are hoping for a dry day tomorrow as we are forecast sharp showers today and more often than not this week they have come with thunder and lightening. You couldn’t write this stuff, months of no rain, burning temperatures and then straight into torrential downpours and storms 🤷‍♀️

I batched up and got everything in the freezer, I also made a bath of dumplings yesterday which I open froze and they have now gone into a bag to use whenever we have a good stew. Stews and soups are a staple over the winter for us, they are wholesome and warming plus cooking in the slow cooker means I can get on with other things.

Saturday: I spent a lot of the day with my apple picker getting cooking apples from the tree, there are so many 😂 I have been giving plenty of them away. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo and we picked some blackberries and then after they left I went and picked a whole load more. There are loads down in the back paddock and it was so peaceful and quiet, I just have to do something with them all now. I also want to get some elderberries picked and some rose hips to make the syrups which are great for winter, rose hip for coughs and sore throats, elderberries for colds and boosting energy.

Sunday: More picking today, eating apples and pears today as well as digging up some carrots and collecting a few more mulberries. Mum and Ken came over with bags to pick elderberries, I sent them in the direction of the blackberries as well, they also went home with windfall pears, cooking apples and some carrots. Charlie and Macca called in with Oscar, they had been out blackberry picking so I also sent them down to the paddock to get more blackberries and elderberries. To add to their haul were carrots and beetroot that Charlotte had sown back in the summer and they also had some pears and cooking apples. It’s a fabulous time of year and there is plenty to go round, I have been giving away loads of cooking apples but I still have more than I really know what to do with or indeed have time to process. Tomorrow I have pears, cooking apples and carrots to either process for freezing or wrapping for storing, I also want to get some batch cooking done in the slow cookers, chicken this time. John meanwhile has been digging up the ground 🙄 the IBC tanks won’t fit how we would have liked them to so we have had to rethink. While he was exploring his options he decided to re-route the drainage pipe that runs a cross the back of the hard standing. It makes sense because it collects run off rain water and goes off at a 45 degree angle, when it gets blocked this makes it difficult to rod so he decided to straighten it which meant digging out the concrete. For someone who complains about the amount of jobs there are to do he has done a great job of making himself more work 😂

It’s the end of another week but not just any old week, in just one week we have had a wedding, a new Prime Minister, a big cat sighting, the death of The Queen and a new King on the Throne. The mood of the country is double edged. Sorrow for the loss of a very much loved Sovereign who did her duty with total dedication for 70 years and was working right up to the end of her 96 years. Relief and happiness that King Charles III has taken up his rightful position. I don’t know about anyone else but that time in between the announcement of the Queens passing and the address to the nation from King Charles seemed very strange, almost as if I needed to see him to know all would be well and that someone was at the helm of the realm. It would take a whole blog on its own for me to explain how I feel about having a Monarchy, I know not everyone is as enthusiastic but for me it’s a rich tapestry of intricately woven threads forming a scene over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. The traditions, protocol and ceremonies are so old they seem archaic but I like that, it’s some of those rich threads forming a links with the past. I think there are a few Royals at the forefront that are fantastic ambassadors for our country and do far more good than harm. And then there are those who are either completely stupid or self obsessed and don’t have the grace and dignity it takes 🙄 I feel that generally the country is behind King Charles and wishing him the best at such a time of loss, I know I certainly am 🥰 As we leave the second Elizabethan age and move into the Carolean age we can look back with fondness and look forward with hope and what could be better than that?

Have a lovely week x