Tag: grow your own

Posted in Friesland Farm

A finished room, cleaning out the birds and a bit of pollarding.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 11th January 2021: Another start to another week, it doesn’t really seem like a new year does it? I think we anticipated that 2021 was going to bring us the freedom we were used to before the pandemic but it seems to be worse now than ever before. The only difference is that mass vaccination is starting to get going, Shelley has volunteered to help with the local vaccination centre, helping to direct cars and people in the right direction. I do hope it will all start to make a difference soon for the sake of my sanity as well as everyone else’s I’m sure.

You may be wondering about the birds, they are still in lockdown and last time they were not allowed out until April 🙄 To be honest it’s better for us as we don’t have to worry about fox attacks, if it really wanted to it could dig under but it would be hard going for most of the stables, it’s also easy and quick to nip out to the stable block for feeding and egg collecting plus it’s warmer than going to the paddocks. Having said all that I doubt very much the birds think it’s better, locked up day and night and not free roaming, not able to peck at the grass or any worms/insects, roll on spring for all manner of reasons including the welfare of the birds.

John finally finished the last bit of the floor last night, yay, now we can begin to paint and wallpaper it and lay some flooring on the top of the new floor. I am glad that is the last of the dusty work done, did I mention the dust 🤣🤣 Every individual thing will need to be dusted or cleaned before it goes back onto the shelves, I did say to John at one point ‘you are not working in an empty house ya know’ meaning he could have covered things up with dust sheets before he started, but no, let’s just get the saw out and start cutting 😖 small thing I know and let’s face it I do have plenty of time on my hands but still 🙄

I put a picture up of the kittens last week though they are getting big now but we also still have Diesel, the difference is that he does not come anywhere near the house, he eats and sleeps outside, mostly in the hay barn where he makes himself a tunnel into the hay, I imagine that is lovely and warm 😀

The fire bricks arrived, can’t remember if I said that last week or not but by the old ‘law of the sod’ the Rayburn has settled right down and our temporary bricks are doing fine so for that reason we have not installed the new ones as yet but we will do soon.

We got the animals done first thing and then we went off to the diy shop to get paint and all that we need to do the job and get the wallpaper hung. So we have spent hours rubbing bits down and then painting the first coat and then the second coat. The painting is mainly my job, John does not like doing it, nor do I really but someone has to 🙄 John is far too impatient for that kind of job, as it is he keeps rushing me to get the next coat on, you have to wait for the last one to dry first I keep telling him. At the moment everything has had two coats of white and part of the mdf has been primed, still a long way to go yet but we are getting there. Today it has been Johns job to do the afternoon rounds and get the fire sorted and keep it going, it will be interesting to see what he gets us for dinner 😜

I decided we will paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls, it is quite a light colour and I honestly can’t see the point of painting it white just because that is what is always done, I may have made an error but we will see. Painted it now and it’s a bit darker than we thought but I quite like it, it’s my she cave 😂 It will be less of an office and more of a workroom for sewing, ancestry research, crafting, reading and a little bit of paperwork plus the grandchildren will have their toys and books in there in there so a playroom as well, multifunctional 🥰

I always like to do things a bit differently 😜 when I was in my early teens I had my Mum hang my wallpaper sideways because I preferred the look, it was late seventies and the wallpaper was stripes with a kind of bump in it so I thought it would look awesome sideways on, like a heartbeat trace 😀

Tuesday: I am pleased with the painting even the ceiling, it looks great and you can hardly tell it’s the same colour as the walls. John did the outside jobs then went off to get some feed as we have completely run out. Meanwhile I had a shower, got some washing on and filled and painted a couple of bits that needed doing plus cleaned the windows. We are ready to wallpaper the one wall, it’s been a few years since I did any wallpapering so I am a bit apprehensive especially as the one roll of paper I bought cost an arm and a leg 😜 It was exactly what I wanted though and so I figure it justified the price, I now have to make sure I don’t cock up 🙄 and there is not much room for error with just one roll 😂 no pressure!

Wallpapering done 😀 it was a tense few minutes getting the first one right but it went well and looks great. Then I had to pop to the doctors to get a blood test, the practice is very busy getting ready for mass vaccinations starting on Friday. Then it was back home to begin another mammoth painting session, this time the shelving and desk area that John built in, first it needed a primer coat and then the first coat of paint, lots of nooks and crannies to paint round this time so it took a good couple of hours. John was on Rayburn and animal duty and even dinner and washing up duties today. Tomorrow Martin is coming to fit the door on the cupboard which is great and earlier than we expected him to be able to do it, so it should all be nearly finished by the end of the week I think, John will pick up some flooring to lay and then it will just be skirting board and put the door back on and voila, we can get on with another job 😜

Wednesday: We did the animals and then John went off to get a piece of mdf for the cupboard door that Martin is coming to fit. After that he went to get flooring, being very careful at the minute to sanitise hands all the time, the merchants like most shops are pretty good at controlling numbers and being covid secure. I got the Rayburn lit and do a bit of rubbing down ready for the last coat of paint on the shelving etc.

We had slightly worrying message this morning as my sister has tested positive for covid, hopefully she won’t suffer too much and recover quickly.

Spent the best part of the day still painting and getting the final floor covering down. I realise I made two mistakes on this project, first, letting John talk me into Matt paint, error, I should have stuck to my guns and gone with silk, and second, letting John go and get the flooring. I thought it would be safe enough after all we had seen it in the flesh and agreed on it and I sent him with a photograph of it and gave him the name of it 🙄 I go in when he has half laid it and say that does not look right it’s too light, nope this is the one he says, I look it up, no it’s not, definitely not. He tells me the name, nope that’s not the name I gave you! Anyhooo I am not going to change any of it now, I can’t be arsed, I just want to get it finished and everything back in so that I can have the living room back and get tided up.

Thursday: John does the morning outside rounds while I do the morning inside rounds 😝 and then he goes off to get another pack of flooring as he miscalculated 🙄 and I do some of the touch up painting which will hopefully be the last of the walls and desk area, just the skirting left to paint once we get it. John comes back and starts to get the last three bits of floor down, I can hear lots of swearing and grunting, it appears the last bits are being a bit of a pig to get it 😜

14th January 2013 we had to have our old dog Max put to sleep, his back legs went one morning and he just sat on the mat looking up at us 😢 The decision is never an easy one but we would always put the animals welfare before our feelings, no matter how much we loved him or how much we would miss him we made the call and that was the end of Max’s time with us. We had a difficult phone all to make first, our youngest, Charlotte was in Australia, she was very attached to Max, he was her childhood pet, we wanted to let her say goodbye first. We call the little paddock at the back Max’s paddock, that’s where our memories of him are, it’s fast becoming the memorial paddock as it has the trees for Johns Mum and Dad planted there as well 🥰 Felix the original farm cat is also buried up there, Milly who was my dog is buried in the garden under the lawn, we also have Gilbert who was my sisters cat buried under the oak tree, quite a cemetery we have here lol.

Ta da finally finished the room, hours of work, sweat and toil and it is all done bar the shouting 😜 It is looking amazing and I can wait to start using it, first though we will need to concentrate on the birds, cleaning out etc as they have not been done this week, that is the weekend taken care of then 🙄

Friday: Yay Friday 😀 even in a lockdown Friday feels good 😂 John did the morning rounds and then had a call out to a leak and another to a blockage 🙄 Meanwhile I have been busy cleaning, at last I can clean and hoover and polish and get everything put back where it is supposed to be. I got the living room back to normality and the spare room, all the grandchildren’s toys have been cleaned and hoovered and now sit waiting for the day they can come to Nanas again 🙃 I just realised I have the big cupboard in the office to clear and clean too, it got an awful lot of dust in there before the door went on, that might take me a while but I can have another clear out while I am doing it. I am being ruthless (well as ruthless as I get) when sorting stuff, why do we keep stuff we never use or don’t know what to do with 🤷‍♀️ Is it because the minute we throw it out we know we will need it? Or, as in my case, can’t bring myself to throw things away that still have a use (just not to me) and the charity shops are not open at the minute so we can’t take it there either.

Turns out I am not very ruthless 😂 I threw some things out really I did but not many 🙄 I carried on cleaning and putting away then John arrived home just before 12, he says everyone is so careful at the moment and hardly any one is going out anywhere. My sister keeps us updated daily and she is doing ok, she does not feel well, like she has flu, but at the moment she is ok.

After a spot of lunch I lit the Rayburn and John went outside to get some wood in and then the plan is to take all the rubbish from doing the office up to the skip and get decorating stuff put away. I have ordered another electric radiator for the spare room as John disconnected that radiator as well, it was back to back with the one in the office and we are not sure which one was leaking so they both went. I have to say the electric radiator is great, I said to John that although we will have them in all rooms I don’t think we will need them on very high at all and certainly some can probably be turned off for days if we don’t need them on. These are not like a storage heater they are notorious for chucking out heat when you do need it and not being on when you do, nor are they like the little portable electric heaters that are filled with oil. The radiators have a ceramic core and hold the heat well, they are quick to heat up and slow to cool down once the thermostat turns them off plus they can be programmed differently for every hour of every day, that’s progress for you, you can also use a remote control or connect to wifi and have smart heaters but we didn’t go for those options as they have a habit of going offline at any given moment 😂 Just the basic switch in at the wall will do for us.

Saturday: Phew busy day when we finally got up that is 😜 We we’re not too late up just about an hour later than normal but it does put you a bit behind. First jobs as always was get the animals fed and watered then it was off to town to get a few things done, the post office to post a parcel, the supermarket to get some bits of greenery for the chickens and a couple of household bits, the petrol station to fill up with fuel, a quick Costa, back to get some wood shavings from the farm shop next door and we are ready to get on with the task of the day. Cleaning out all the birds was top of the agenda, four hours later and all the birds have been mucked out, had clean bedding put down, topped up the grit holders, cleaned the water buckets and had a treat of an iceberg lettuce or some cabbage. The Guineas also had a partial clean out, I don’t like to take it all out in the winter as they have made a very cosy bed for themselves, it can all come out when the temperatures begin to climb. They also got treats of cabbage, apple, swede and carrot, the horses had carrot and apple, the geese had cabbage and apple and Ted the Turkey had cabbage, the only ones I forgot to give anything to were the ducks but I don’t suppose they noticed 🙄 I topped up the wild bird feeders while I was at it and now everything should feel loved and cared for 🥰 The strange thing that happened today was that I was declined four icebergs I was only allowed three, it seems they are having trouble getting hold of them and so limiting customers. It’s a pain that the birds are locked down in winter as come spring I would have plenty growing to be able to give them without having to buy it but that’s they way it is and they really enjoyed their treat demolishing them in seconds flat! We also bought a large pecking block, we will rotate it round the hens, at the minute the first lot are not interested in it at all but they may have a go at it later on. Trying to find things to keep them amused is difficult and actually what we are trying to do is to stop them getting bored as that often leads to egg eating and bullying. I did throw a carrot in as that will keep them amused for ages, it can’t easily be eaten so will last a lot longer.

When we had finished out there it was mid afternoon and time to come in and get the Rayburn lit, do the washing up from this morning, have a cup of tea and then John watched some snooker. He has been so busy he has not been able to watch it at all so it only seems fair to agree to him watching it this afternoon, I can find plenty of other things to do and may even retreat into my new room to do some of them 😀

While we were driving through town we took a sneaky photo of Shelley in her high vis, she had volunteered to help man the vaccination arrivals at the health centre, it’s for her covid memory book and she could hardly take one of herself could she 😂 Its a shame I couldn’t volunteer, you can’t be in a vulnerable category otherwise I would have, the more people that get on board with helping the smoother things will go and the quicker we will all receive our vaccinations making getting back to normal more of a reality.

Sunday: Another busy day, lockdown doesn’t really matter for us as there is always plenty to do round here. Today after doing the morning rounds we set about pollarding the willows at the very front of the driveway. I left them last year to see what they would look like and the answer is too big 😜 There was also the twisted hazel outside the gateway that had grown a fair few straight whips and they needed to come out as well. That took us the best part of the day to get them all cut down, shredded/chipped and tided up, some of the ends that were too big for the shredder were cut and have been stacked. They will be left to rot down giving invertebrates plenty of laces to hide, live and feed eventually. The shredding were also put back on the ground, these will get covered by grass growth in spring and also rot down, feeding the ground as it does so. There was one other that needed doing which is the chestnut that came down in the wind a couple of years ago, it has thrown up multiple shoots and they need cutting back before they get too big, ideally the stump needs grinding out but that’s a job for another day.

Once we finished and put everything away it was indoors for a cup of tea, light the Rayburn and a sit down for an hour before doing the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. It is actually days like this that I am glad of the early evenings because once everything is shut away you can relax entirely 😀

It looks drastic but they soon grow back 😀

I have been thinking about the growing year ahead and thinking of the things I would like to do more of this year, last night we had a shoulder of lamb and although I had mint sauce I rather prefer mint jelly which we have run out of so I will defiantly be making a few jars of that. Then I was thinking I would like to do a lot more dehydrating this year, I did a fair amount of dried herbs which has seen me over winter but I’m sure there are plenty of other things that I could be drying and using, I will have to make a list or I will not remember.

Have a good week, stay safe, stay home if you can, the better weather is coming I promise (just not yet 😜)

Posted in Friesland Farm

Happy New Year, here is to a much better 2021 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Now I know I said I wasn’t going to blog over Christmas but some days just warrant an jot down. Today Dec 21st is a day like that, first John gets the animals done and goes off Christmas shopping, I do a few little house bits and then set up to wrap presents. First I have to move bits of the rubic cube to get to the wrapping paper, scissors, tape etc, a bit of intense searching for a few things and I’m ready to go, shit I have forgotten to put the eggs out and there is a customer waiting, I also forget to put a note out explaining the lack of honesty box, back in, do that and I am good to go. I pick up the sellotape block, you know the unit that is very easy to use, drop it, break it and now it doesn’t roll and won’t tear off nicely leaving an end. I carry on each time trying to find the end of the sellotape, I try sticking the end to the table but if it falls off once it falls off a hundred times. I remember that at 11am a hay delivery is coming oh ffs John has gone off in the car and left the van parked right in front of the gate (I don’t drive) never mind I will open the side gate that will eventually be the driveway and oh another bloody rubic cube scenario, move planks of wood so the gate can open, move bits and pieces left by John so the truck and trailer can manouvre properly, move a bloody great pile of hedge clippings and debris so it can actually get through, sometimes I hanker for an ordinary life 😝

Monday 27th December 2020: It snowed! Despite Alexa giving a totally different weather forecast it began to snow early Monday morning and then it started to settle and overnight it froze and it has being frozen each day so far.

Wednesday 30th December 2020: I felt compelled to write today as it is a milestone day, the UK Astrazenica vaccine has been approved and will begin roll out next week. Although we already have the Pfizer one that needs special handling at extremely low temperature whereas this new one can be kept in a fridge making it much easier to transport and handle. It hasn’t come a day too soon here as we were just learning (through social media) that the virus is taking a real hold in the nearest town to us. During the first wave it was as if the virus wasn’t even real, hardly anybody we knew had it, just one or two people, and everything seemed fairly normal in the circumstances. We did wonder if the whole thing was real back then but now it has become obvious that it is spreading very fast indeed here. The NHS is under extreme strain and for that reason alone it is a whoop whoop day, bring on the vaccine and let’s get back to normal, more importantly, people will stop dying from it 🥰 We can finally think about toasting in a better New Year 😀

December 31st 2020: New Years Eve, not many celebrations going on but at midnight we went outside and rang the bell we used to ring on a Thursday night for the NHS, we could hear others ringing bells and shouting Happy New Year and there was a good show of fireworks from various areas, job done now kiss goodbye to 2020 and off to bed.

Friday January 1st 2021: Welcome to a new year, hopefully the vaccine and a little more freedom than we have had over the last nine/ten months, I seriously hope so, until then we carry on with the new normal 😜

Saturday January 2nd: We did the animals, the ground is still frozen and so it’s a case of breaking water and making sure all the animals are all ok. We have had torrential rain and floods and then snow and freezing cold weather and a glimpse of winter sun at times as well, a smorgasbord of weather. John has been doing the office and so he then went off to get insulation and plasterboard so we can carry on and hopefully get it finished soon. Meanwhile I cleaned out the Rayburn, for two days I have been saying to John that it was not burning right and definitely not behaving as it normally does. I get told I am not doing it properly even though I have now been running this thing for nearly eleven years. Anyway I found the reason that it has not been performing as it should, the oven was getting too hot too quickly, the water and radiators were not getting very hot at all and I couldn’t for the life of me keep the flue temperature up. It was fine up to the day before yesterday, he fire bricks had cracked, not just cracked but one of them was in six different pieces 😩 Great, it’s freezing, it’s Saturday so no next day delivery available and we have no Rayburn. John is still out and I remember that we have another set of fire bricks in the shed, they are the summer bricks that go over the top of the winter bricks but we don’t use it in the summer so never use the bricks either. The only problem is that they are a different size, John arrives home and I give him the options, go without heating etc until Monday, try sticking the fire bricks back together with fire cement or, and I rather think this is a stroke of genius on my part, cut down the fire bricks that we already have as a temporary measure u til the new one arrives. They are shorter and wider than the correct ones but we can cut them to width and use the leftover bit to make them longer. That’s what we did and it has been successful though it will be better once the correct fitting bricks arrive. We then got on with insulation the office and getting up a few sheets of plasterboard, we will get there eventually after all there is not a lot else to do at the minute 😂 The virus is spreading rapidly and we have made the decision not to go anywhere that we don’t really need to, I have made a few loaves of bread and put them in the freezer, I also made some butter from the cream we didn’t use on Boxing Day, we have plenty in the freezers to keep us going and the milkman delivers the milk so apart from some bananas and the plasterboard we have not had to go anywhere yet.

Butter made from the cream we didn’t use, both the butter and the buttermilk are in the freezer ready to use at a later date.

Sunday: Still doing all the usual jobs as well as getting the office done, keep coming up against problems in there, the radiator has been leaking, probably for months and the floor is rotten in one area, I said in the first place we should just knock the place down and start again 🙄 The Rayburn is holding although the fire brick keeps falling forward, hopefully tomorrow the new ones will arrive. We have also ordered our first electric radiator to venture into cleaner heating, we will see how well they heat the room before we go any further with the project. I said to John I have no idea what I will do with all the extra hours it usually takes me to look after the Rayburn 😜

On the amazing side of things, I grew oranges whoo hoo, no mean feat in the UK I can tell you and what’s more they are ripe and they taste great, there were just two but two is a win and two that are edible is a great achievement so I am blowing my own trumpet 😀

Have a good week, covid is still on the rampage, even more so now 🙄 so stay safe everyone.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Christmas is coming, covid is still here & thieving gits!

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th December 2020: Good morning everyone, did you spot my error on last weeks blog? I forgot to finish the title off and just left it hanging so apologies for that 😝

Not a bad start to the day early on, John was off today (kind of) and we had one particular job to get done and that was the office. So I did the morning rounds while he went off with his cutting list to the local merchant, when he got back we set about altering the desk we had already (a big heavy double ended desk) to fit the nook we intended it to go in. Then got all the panels in place, they had to all come back out because something wasn’t square 🙄 I left him to it while I went with Samantha to help her do her weekly shop, this is harder than you think and had both the checkout lady and I in fits of laughter. Firstly going shopping with one toddler is enough but with two in a trolley the isles become obstacle courses, you have to stay in the middle of the isle otherwise arms from each side grab at goods on the shelf. Once the trolley begins to fill up their interest turns from the shelves to the trolley and what they can reach, my job was to try and keep them entertained (distracted basically) by the time Sam is packing the shopping away and trying to pay they have turned around just enough to start pulling things out of the bags, crisps, bag of peppers etc and throwing on the floor, by the time I had picked up one lot the other had grabbed something and thrown that on the floor, you wouldn’t believe that the seemingly quick job of paying at the checkout is long enough for mayhem to ensue, still, Sam said, at least this week there were no little nibble marks on the courgettes 🤣🤣

New desk area which will be much tidier and give more space in the rest of the room for activities, either mine or the grandchildren’s 😂

Sam dropped me back home and John had got the panels in and the desk fitted and levelled up, he had also lit the Rayburn. He measured up for the shelves, wrote down his second cutting list and went off and that was the last I saw of him until 4pm, oh I just had to do a little job for Martin while I was out he said but the good news is I have the shelves in the van. Bloody good job as I don’t want this dragging on over days with the contents of the office still in the living room.

Once he got back I put the dinner on and fed the cats and dogs, he shut the birds away and we got on with fitting the shelves, I must say I am very pleased with how it has turned out. What is done at the minute is for the interim and we will get to doing it properly after Christmas, for the time being we have a room that two travel cots will now fit in plus any other equipment that they need 😀

Tuesday: It’s 9.30 I have already done over 5000 steps and had a busy morning. The weather is sunny and feels mild, wet under foot I heard torrential rain a couple of times overnight consequently the mud is getting muddier 😏 The farrier came first thing this morning and so before I did any of the the usual rounds I got the horses in and hosed off their legs and feet, fed them and gave them some hay to keep them occupied. They are a bit like having twins, one won’t come in making life harder, then while they are tied up ready they poop in succession one after the other multiple times so I am constantly going backwards and forwards with a poop scoop clearing up. The farrier was going to be ten minutes late so I started on the birds, feeding, cleaning water buckets etc, once the farrier was there I carried on and did the rest of the jobs. Once he had finished it was time to turn the horses back out and clear up the debris from a hoof trim and hay spread everywhere. Then to clean the duck eggs, take out the rubbish, take some stuff from the office to the skip and finally get a cup of coffee. Now my aim is to get the rest of the stuff in the office sorted and that will be the end of that until after Christmas. John has gone to work today (supposed to have finished work for Christmas 🙄) Actually I think I will have a bowl of porridge before starting the next job 😀

So I spent a large part of the middle of the day sorting stuff out in the office, bear in mind that we don’t have a loft and so the usual loft occupants are stored in the office. I have tried to be ruthless and throw stuff out really I have but you can’t throw away old photos and bits of memories can you? I got sidetracked looking through one box of old stuff that I had forgotten was there, I started to look through it piece by piece then thought ooops I had better box it for looking at another day and get on. Then there are the toys, well all Nanas have toys for the grandchildren, and books, many of which were the girls when they were little. I need to work out where and how to put them, books and small part toys up out of the reach of the twiglets 🙄 toddler toys within their reach so they can play, it’s not as easy as it sounds accommodating everything in a 12 x 12ft room 😏 Then it is also the room we keep the hoover and the steam mop, I considered buying a cordless job that hangs on the wall but after getting opinions from family it seems they are not strong on suction. I am sure I will get it all sorted eventually and some of it is fairly temporary, the kids will eventually grow out of the toys and prefer to watch the tv 😂

I did some hoovering once I finally got everything out of the living room then sat down for lunch, when I moved the remote control the telly came on by accident and a film was just starting so I watched that 😜 Then time to light the Rayburn and feed the animals, collect the eggs, John came home, measured up for some timber for the ceiling went off to get that, I shut the animals away as it got dark and bam that’s another day over but this evening we are not doing any work just going to relax, after I have fed the cats, dogs, got the dinner then washed up of course 🙄

Wednesday: Today’s plan was to go Christmas shopping in Witney but first thing Johns phone rang and someone had water all over the bathroom floor and so he puts on his magic plumber cape and went off to the rescue. Marvellous that leaves me doing the rounds stomping round slightly pissed off, never a good start to the day 😜 He returned about 45 mins later and we set off shopping, it was a grey, drizzly morning that got slowly worse, a tad cold to boot. We walked round and noted how many of the shops had closed their doors for good and then at lunchtime stopped at a pub for something to eat. Fearing that we may have had to book in advance and that there may not be any spaces we tentatively went in to find out. Well you could have knocked me down with a feather as the place was practically empty, this is a big pub that is normally very busy and it was practically dead, it really hit home then how bad things are for local shops and hospitality businesses it was a very sad realisation 😢 We have not been to town since before the first lockdown and in fact we hardly go anywhere when I think about it, the upside was a couple of new boutique shops have opened and the food at the pub was excellent and the staff upbeat, John had his first pint for more than six months and he commented that it tastes just how he remembered, what times we live in 😏

Back home and we lit the Rayburn sat down and John promptly fell asleep, that’s what having a pint at lunchtime does 😂

To be honest it does not feel very much like Christmas is approaching 🙄 I guess it is up to us to get into the spirit, a Christmas film or two or three is in order I think and then of course I need to get my tree up and now I have the space I can get on with it.

Thursday: It’s a Misty morning but still mild and it supposed to stay dry so that’s good. I am on my own again today as John has to work (he was supposed to have finished now 🙄) I know it’s paid the bills all these years but at times I hate being the plumbers wife as you always come at the bottom of the list! Not that I really need him at home I have plenty to do that he will only get in the way of 😂 I am sat writing this little bit first thing as I have a bad lower back and waiting for the painkillers to kick in before I go and start the rounds, it started at the weekend and has got slowly worse but there is no chance of resting it today and hopefully moving around will help it get better, we shall see 🤷‍♀️

I am getting nowhere fast, I have plenty to do but as I decide what to do next there is always something else that needs doing first before I can commence 😜 I want to get the decorations up but John has the timber for the ceiling joists and I know that if I put stuff up and he then carries them through the house something is going to get broken or knocked over so I will wait. I have stuff to wrap but again I am waiting for the office to be cleared of diy debris to put stuff in there 🙄 hopefully tomorrow the ceiling timbers will go in and then I can start to get sorted in earnest. I like to time Christmas, I don’t like it to peak too early but I also don’t like to be rushing around at the last minute, maybe I will make some lists as at the minute as per usual it’s all tumbling around in my head. I have some linen napkins but for the life of me I have no idea where they are, all I know is that they are here somewhere and I will find them eventually, I need to figure out how the Christmas table will look this year, I have ordered something to make a different centrepiece but at the minute that’s as far as I have got, I am sure it will all come together in the end.

I did write lists, Christmas dinner lists, Boxing Day food lists, to do lists and then I managed to get a click and collect slot for food shopping so I have done that and now feeling a little less panicked the only other things I will need to get are those with a short shelf life such as fresh fruit for the trifle 😀 oh and I found the napkins so I can think about the table layout, always an important feature in our house, if you are going to have a mid winter feast you want to make it special rather than just a Sunday roast with crackers 😂

Unbelievably I was looking for a reference to something in my old blogs and more precisely this time last year, reading through it the similarities are uncanny, it appears that this time last year I had the entire contents of the boot room in my kitchen while John was laying the floor AND I was having more frequent blood tests because my white cells had dropped, I didn’t find the thing I was looking for but it was weird 😝

Friday: John is off again today and the plane is to get the ceiling timbers in and then the numerous wires for all the technological paraphernalia up over the timbers out of the way of small people 😜 He got on with that while I went out and did the morning feeding rounds, I also cleaned out the light Sussex pen and put new bedding in for the ducks and some of the hens in the stable. I noticed that something had been trying to dig I round the back of the stable and made quite a big hole, big enough for a hen to get through. I went round the back and could smell fox and they have tried to dig in there before, we had covered the ground with wire and heavy stones but for some reason this bit was not done so I spent my time doing that, as always your defences are only as good as the weakest part of them and they soon get exposed. Did that came I had coffee fed the dogs and the cats and helped John to get one of the cables through the wall to the tv area, I was hoping he would not touch any cable until I came back in but nope there were some of them unplugged which is all very well but John does not do technology and has no idea where they all plug back into! Quickly tidy up and hoover the room, put things away again and off to get my blood tests done. My house is like a Rubic cube I was thinking, you have to move one bit before another can be put in p,ace and there is a lot of fiddling around to get it right 😜 At least now I can get the tree up tonight and start wrapping presents etc.

And finally I can get the tree up and the Christmas decorations out 😀

Saturday: Another busy day moving bits of the rubic cube around 😂 but first we did the morning rounds and then John got on with tidying up the back area, putting stuff away, burning rubbish as well as popping out to get some dog food and a few shopping essentials, his not mine as it included chocolate biscuits 🙄 Meanwhile I got the office into a little bit more order so that I could do some last bits of paperwork before Christmas and then I could sort the spare room and the kitchen table and finally I am all sorted for the time being.

I did a little furniture hack that I am pretty pleased with, I wanted a small side table next to a chair in the office but it needed to be pretty stable as the kids will use it as a playroom. So I bought a waste paper basket and a small round tray, turned the basket upside down and stuck the tray on, now I have a lovely little table that looks high end, I think it’s a winner and it will certainly do the job.

Corona Virus, it hasn’t gone away in fact it has mutated and the new variant is spreading faster than ever 😏 We are waiting for an update form the Prime Minister to see what tougher measures will be put in place. As it stands at the minute we can have three households together for Christmas and most people have made their plans around that criteria including us. Breaking news: The update means that we can now only spend Christmas Day with the other people 😏 when will this shit be over 😢 Luckily John had already decided not to work in January so he will be off which is just as well I think, I can see more lockdowns on the horizon.

Sunday: Started off pretty well, we did the morning rounds and then decided to go to the garden centre where they have 50% off the Christmas decorations and I had seen a few that I wanted to get. We mooched about and then John decided that he fancied breakfast, they had almost finished serving it but we got in just in time. Did a few other bits and returned home, I checked the egg shed as usual, delivery from Amazon in there but the rest of it looked bare, the bloody honesty box was gone! Some low life scum had nicked it, ripped it clean off the base it was screwed to, gone, box, padlock and the money inside 🤬 luckily it was only this mornings egg money so amounted to just over a tenner but that’s not the point, we now have no box for anyone to put the money into until we get something sorted again. I sincerely hope Karma pays them a visit, puts you on edge as it is rare that both John and I are not here at the same time, I’d like to think it was just a chancer and not someone watching the place 😏

On that note I am going to sign out for this week and indeed for the rest of this year, so I will wish you all a very merry Christmas, hope you all stay safe and I will be back in 2021. I will leave you with a picture of something nice I found in the egg shed this week, we do have lovely customers.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Fog, rain, sunshine, Mincepies &

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 7th December 2020: I have had a busy but highly productive day today and smashed 10,000 steps by 3pm. First there was the morning routine and jobs, today that included cleaning out the ducks, cleaning out the guinea pigs and moving the one on his own into the cage inside the pen that the other two are in. I can’t put them together as they are all boars and if they haven’t grown up together will fine to the end if you know what I mean. I am kinda hoping that the longer he is there and they can see and smell each other through the grill they may in the end tolerate one another, time will tell. Burn some more bits of rubbish, seems to mount up all the time and I wanted to get that done at the weekend but other things got in the way. I also filled up all of the wild bird feeders and I turned Biscuit back out into the paddock with Jack, she was very happy to be back out and did a fair bit of running around for five minutes as well as a lovely roll so she can’t be feeling too bad can she. I mucked out the stable, mucking is different from skipping lol, mucking involves taking out all the soiled bedding rather than just taking out the poop. The bed is clean again for the next time they need to come in, always better to prepare as you never know when you will need the stable.

After finishing outside it was indoors to strip the bed and give the bedrooms and good Hoover and polish and remake the bed, put the wash loads on, light the Rayburn and sort some of the Christmas presents. Then lunch which was butternut squash and chilli soup and then an afternoon of organising the last few bits I need for Christmas, a few little presents, presents to send in the mail, presents for John, wrapping paper etc etc. I am almost finished just one more present to get for one of the grandchildren, though I do find it difficult to stop buying when I see things that I think someone might like.

Get the dinner sorted for later and then out to do the feeding and egg collecting. Now we are putting them out in the morning instead of 4pm I don’t feel under such pressure to multi task 😀 it will be back out around 4.15 to shut them away for the night and then I think I will have a sit down before I need to start cooking the dinner, though I do need to hang the washing to dry, do some washing up, a girls work is never done really 😜

Oh and I forgot to tell you that the doc finally got in touch and I have to come off the meds for two weeks then have another blood test as the white cells have not improved. Is there any sign of Lupus activity he asked me, nope none whatsoever, must be the meds then. I do feel a little tired today not sure if that’s all the running round I have been doing or not 🤔

Tuesday take 1: Today is a milestone day, this morning the first vaccine was administered in the UK to a 90 year old lady, hopefully we are at the beginning of the end of what has been a tough year for everyone.

Tuesday take 2: Ooo it’s cold and foggy this morning, I didn’t realise there was ice until I went to put the eggs out, I thought it was just fog. I came back in and lit the Rayburn before going out to do the animals this morning, it was nice and toasty when I came back in and it means my coat, which hangs on the radiator in the boot room, will be warm when I go back out later. I fed everything and broke ice on outside water buckets, nothing to report today, all is well.

When I checked the egg shed this morning I found that some of my cards and tags have sold, that made me very happy 😃 nice when someone wants to buy something you have produced, normally it’s veg and eggs but branching out feels good.

As if getting the front done and the outside beds wasn’t enough, we have decided to try and get the office sorted before Christmas 🙄 when we did the place about five years ago the office ended up half done, it has walls that are half insulated and half plaster boarded, it needs the ceiling insulated and boarded and the remaining bits including round the window done. This room is cold and you can really feel it when you open the door to go in, It would make an ideal craft/sewing/ancestry research/ reading room but it’s either too cold in winter or too hot in summer. I also actually don’t need an office like I did before now that the plumbing company no longer exists, sole traders have much less paperwork 😜 and so I can reduce the desk area to a minimum which will give me room to be able to put up a folding table when I need it and there will be room for a single sofa bed or similar. I am not expecting to get it all done by Christmas just the insulation and the built in desk area then it will be ready to plaster and decorate next year sometime 🤞

We are only 13 days away from the shortest day 🥰 and the daylight hours will begin to increase again, tiny increments but I will take whatever it gives.

There is a lot of talk about climate change and how we may not see snow again in parts of the UK. I am not particularly keen on snow, a hard frost or even better a hoar frost is my favourite, I don’t mind the snow but hate the mess it makes once it starts to thaw 😝 undoubtedly our day to day life contributes massively to carbon emissions and the effect on the climate but little is ever reported about the other things that influence the weather massively such as solar activity or rather the lack of it. Scientists say we are entering a Grand Solar Minimum, in the last hundred years the sun was at its weakest in 2019 and 2020 is the beginning of the GSM with decreased activity possibly up to 2053. Forgive me if I seem naive but although our atmosphere is affected by carbon emissions I can’t see the the sun activity is, that’s a power all of it own and so it has to affect what happens here on earth, stratospheric conditions are also an important factor. On this day in 1938 the highest temperature for December was recorded in La Mesa, California, that surely couldn’t be climate change that was a direct cause of carbon emissions way back then could it 🤷‍♀️ I think during the climate change dialogue we have forgotten about natural cycles mostly because we have no idea what they have been over the last few millennia, apart from the really big changes such as the ice age, we have only monitored the last couple of hundred years, and yes we have exceptional technology but there is a lot more to learn yet in my tiny opinion. None of that means I don’t believe in climate change and the effects it is having, I do, and I believe we are massive contributors that should be doing all we can to put the brakes on, but I also think that there is more than one factor (maybe many) affecting our weather patterns. Only way in the future will they be able to look back and tell.

Did the afternoon rounds later than I normally do now I don’t have to put the eggs out at 4pm, so at 3.45 I fed everything and collected the eggs then at approx 4.20 I went round and shut everything away from the night, back in to get the dinner underway and that’s another day done.

Wednesday: Not so cold this morning, it rained last night and is damp this morning, no sign of frost. Today marks another milestone, a personal one this time. I said the the girls do you think it’s time for new jeans when you can take them off without unbuttoning them, actually I new it was time, the pairs I had been wearing had got very baggy everywhere, so I took the plunge and ordered new jeans. The fact that I had to order a size 12 is the milestone, I don’t think I have been in that size for over 25 years, so I’m blowing my own trumpet here, whoop, whoop 🙌 go me 😀 Now if I could lose a couple of sizes from my ample bust (which I have always hated) I will be very happy indeed. It’s funny isn’t it, if you have straight hair you want curly, if you have a flat chest you’d like bigger boobs, if you are a stick you would like some curves and all of this works in reverse. Once you accept what you have and work with it life becomes happier, but the one thing I have always said I would like to have is tailor made clothes that fit properly, sleeves that are not too long, shoulders that are not too wide etc, at 5’3 I neither fit the petite range nor the regular lol, misfit that’s me 😜

Phew a busy morning, anyone would think it was the bake off tent 😀 I have made three dozen mince pies, a mincemeat slice and a loaf of bread. I had already made three lots of shortcut pastry yesterday but the morning went as follows: Come in and light the Rayburn, while it’s getting going start the bread off in the mixer, then roll out the first dozen mince pies, sort the Rayburn with more wood and shut down, bread is now on the first prove, roll out the next dozen pies, fill and get into the pre warmed oven. While I am at it I might as well make a mincemeat slice which is a recipe given to me a few years back, roll out the next dozen pies, make the pastry for the slice, get the first 2 lots out of the oven, knock back the bread dough for the second prove, wash the mince pie tins, fill the third and get into the oven, roll out the slice and fill ready for the oven, put some more wood on the fire, have a coffee, get the last lot out of the oven and the slice in. ,are a quick phone call, get the slice out and put the bread in the oven to cook, wash up, phew 😂 The slice is a great alternative to mince pie and is good for a pudding, it is basically a shortcrust pastry with egg, milk and sugar added, divide into two, roll out and put one half in an 8inch tin, add a layer of mincemeat then top with the other half of the pastry, brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar and bake until it’s done which is about 20 minutes.

Thursday already! Did a bit around the house before venturing outside to do the feeding and letting out , collected a few eggs while I was at it, another routine morning. Routine is boring but also welcome, it means nothing is afoot, disastrous, problematic, be grateful for routine 😀 It’s milder again today, no sign of frost of a cold wind, just rather pleasant for a December morning, on this day last year we woke up to snow according to the memories on Facebook. Yesterday we were told that if conditions were favourable we might be able to see the Northern Lights in the UK even this far south, there was cloud cover, disappointing but there is a chance over the next two nights so I will keep looking 😀

A lovely story about the Winter solstice came upon my news feed today, little fairies mourning the death of the Sun King on the solstice are told by the Wise Old Mother that though the old sun king has died they should not be sad, on the very same day a tiny new Sun King is born, he is small but with each day he grows bigger and stronger. I thought that was a lovely way to view the winter, once we reach the solstice, every day will be a tiny step nearer to the warmth of the sun again 🌞

I have just been reading a report about the vaccination from Lupus UK, it looks like we will be vaccinated after the 65 yr olds, so first came the over 80s and healthcare/frontline workers, then it’s the over 75s, then the over 70s, followed but the over 65s then anyone 16 – 64 with underlying health conditions that are on the list and Immunocompromised patients are one of those, who knows how long that will be until we get it 🤷‍♀️

Friday: Did the morning rounds, nothing untoward to report. Then I set about clearing leaves from the driveway, this is the only place I clear leaves from as it can get slippery with wet leaves sat there and nobody wants a twisted ankle or worse. On the rest of the smallholding the leaves stay where they are and like some little miracle by spring they are all gone. This is because the worms and microbes spend their time pulling them down into the ground then breaking them down to feed on, the result is better quality soil and all done by nature, no need for a leaf blower. You could of course rake them up and make a leaf mulch bin which eventually makes excellent soil improver but I prefer to let it happen naturally and besides it far less work 😜

I came in then and had some breakfast and truth be told I am feeling pretty tired 😏 My hands, wrists and elbows are hurting a little from shovelling and none of this is a very good sign. I can’t work out why when I am on the meds but my white cells are low, I feel great, but I come off them and a week later some not very welcome symptoms begin to appear 🤷‍♀️ I was getting on fine and now I’m thinking I don’t want to be exhausted all over the Christmas holiday 😔

I looked at the 14/16 day forecast looks like we in for rain and gales, great, not much sign of snow but we may get some frosty weather close to Christmas Day.

The rest of the day was as per usual, nothing exciting or unusual happening here 😂

Saturday: The weather was lovely today and after we did the morning rounds John went out to finish off levelling the soil on the front bed and I did some clearing up of bits and pieces and taking stuff the skip. I then decided that we would be better pooling our efforts and getting one thing done instead to two separate ones and so I went to help John. We got the soil levelled, took off what we didn’t need and bagged it up for the other bed and then set about planting some of the plants I have in pots. I have loads of them but of course at this time of year it’s a job to remember exactly what some of them are, they all look dead. Some of them are recognisable though and so we planted up the things I could identify including my forest pansy tree which I am excited to see burst into flower early next spring. It’s a small tree so won’t get to large for the site, it’s great for bees as the flowers arrive early and before the leaves come out, good food for bees when there is not much else around. It is a big flower though and although I have a lot to go in there I think I made need to buy or grow some more 😜

Here is a sneak preview of what we have been doing, it is still work in progress though and we still have plenty to do before it’s finished. As you can see it was a beautiful day today, blue skies and warm for mid December.

John went off to have his flu jab mid afternoon, he is allowed it this year as he is in the over 50 bracket 😂 I had mine back in October as I always do having underlying health conditions and all that 🙄

When he came back we went in for a sit down and apart from collecting the eggs, feeding and lighting the Rayburn we didn’t do much else, oh except watch the snooker, well John watches the snooker, I have to suffer the running commentary from him even if I don’t want it.

We have discussed sorting the office out and that work will begin on Monday providing nothing else comes up.

At dark we moved the last lot of hens from outside to the stable block where they will now stay until the Avian Flu lockdown ends. It’s good for us as it means that the winter feeding etc won’t be such a chore, inside the stable block is much better than out in the paddocks but not so good for the birds really as they won’t have the freedom they normally enjoy 😏

Sunday: This morning we did the usual routine and then set about starting the office makeover, it will be small part office, small part craft sewing room, a place to do the ancestry searching, a place to keep the grandchildren’s toys and books, a bit of everything really. Mid morning we went to the DIY shop and picked up some storage containers and a chair that I really liked at a bargain price. That set me on the journey of planning the rest of the room and I found some very expensive wall paper 🙄 luckily we only need one roll for the wall I want to do. Up to Christmas it will just be a case of getting it sorted so there is room for two travel cots for the twins on a Christmas Day but after Christmas we will start in it properly. Charlotte phoned and asked if we had our Christmas tree up yet and when I said no she wanted to know why not, the entire contents of the office are in the living room I told her, oh I will let you off then she said lol. I am not quite sure what we did the rest of the day apart from the normal things, the day seemed to go really quickly and that is the end of another week 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Foggy, frosty & freezing brrr, Winter has arrived.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 23rd November 2020: An atmospheric foggy morning this morning and it had been cold enough overnight for a frost. It’s almost noon and I haven’t stopped this morning until now. With the mornings getting ever darker I said to John that I would take over the morning feeding etc so that he can get off to work on time so this morning was my first for a long time that I have done everything. Feed and water all the animals, clean out the ducks, fill up the wild bird feeders, put the washing on, get the milk in, take the rubbish and empty milk bottles out, you get the idea. I got a chicken out of the freezer yesterday for tonight’s dinner and so I figured as I was going to have the oven on I might as well make good use of it. At the moment I have bread on the second prove and two cakes in the oven and some fruit stewing ready for the crumble topping I also made, busy busy.

One of the cakes was a simple quick fruit cake the second was a honey and ginger cake which is lovely. The reason I made this one is because it used natural yoghurt and I had some that needed using up, win, win, it’s a River Cottage one and I would definitely make it again. It’s light not heavy, not too much sugar in it so not too sweet.

The only thing I didn’t use was the cloves, not sure I would like that and I know for sure John wouldn’t 😜
A foggy, finger nipping start to the week this morning.

Watching Countryfile last night I was pleased to see a section on hedgerows and how important they are to our wildlife. Trees, we know are hugely important but not many people think about hedgerows, these are wildlife corridors and when they were ripped out for the war effort that was a tragedy, a necessary one admittedly but there should have been provision to put them back in at a later date. I listen in polite horror when people talk about ripping them out to get a better view, of what, the next field, the wildlife and the hedgerows beyond? oh the irony of it 😏 Anyway I am glad that this topic has been bought firmly to the fore and hope that many thousands of miles of hedge get planted in the future. Hedges are great windbreaks, they are micro climates for thousands of insects and ideal nesting and roosting places for our native birds. Someone once said to us when we moved here ‘you should take out that row of trees so your view is better’ that’s a row of hazels they were talking about, its a native small tree/hedge that provides food and shelter for a plethora of wildlife, Humans 🙄

Last night we got two lots of the hens in from the paddock and also moved the light Sussex to the outdoor pen so that made feeding a bit easier this morning. We crated up the first lot just as dusk arrived, 19 in that hut, we then crated up the second lot, 10 to a crate, it was heavy pushing the wheelbarrow with two crates so we left one in the field while we took the other. When we got back they had escaped and we had to load them all over again, luckily when they got out they just went back into the hut as it was dark by this time, there was about thirty of that second lot, can’t precisely remember the number but roughly. The light Sussex we rounded up easily and we have 9 of those well 11 actually but the other two live with Ted 🙄 I counted the front lot this morning when I let them out and there are 36 of them, just over 100 in total and we are only getting about 48 eggs a day, some of them are free loading 😂

Fabulous news of an effective vaccine from Oxford University today, very proud to be Oxfordian born and bred, Oxford University Hospitals are our local hospitals and we are incredibly lucky to have world class services provided by them 😀

Looks like we will come out of lockdown into a tiered system again, still no definite idea of what we are allowed to do for Christmas though but all non essential shops and businesses can now open again so at least they will get their Christmas trade. The numbers of infected people are falling and so are the deaths but that’s because we have been in a lockdown, what will happen over the next couple of months is anyone’s guess, still, with a few vaccines looking promising there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Tuesday: An altogether different morning this morning, much milder and the sun was shinning first thing though it has disappeared now. It was shinning beautifully on the hazel tree outside the back door, the leaves were glowing golden 😀

I did the morning rounds, feeding and letting out, collecting the duck eggs, today I have all three shifts to do, morning, evening and putting to bed as John has a job he wants to get finished, normally he is home in time to put them away.

I went into the small tunnel to water the carrot seedlings, I was hoping we would have carrots for Christmas but something keeps eating the tops off 😏 a mouse I suspect, honestly you think it would be a simple enough thing to do but others have different ideas. I am not sure what to do really, I don’t want to trap it but I do want my carrots 🙄

I ordered some roots trainers for the sweet pea but they took ages to arrive so I potted them up, two days later the root trainers came 😜 so I may start off an early batch of eating peas in them and see how that pans out. Again it’s the little critters that are the problem, they love pea and bean seeds and I think there is a mouse in the greenhouse too as the sunflower seeds I spread out to dry also got eaten 😖 I think I will have to trap as at this rate I will end up with nothing.

I haven’t decided what I will do today but I have plenty of choices, it’s mild enough to be outside working, I have left over chicken to use and make into soup or pie or both and I need to go through the presents I have bought and see what else I need to get, that last one can wait for a rainy day I think 🤔

Lyra Silvertounge is not the only one who wants to know about dust! Apologies to anyone who isn’t watching ‘His dark materials’ as you won’t have a clue who that is but I would also like to know where all the bloody dust comes from! I know the wood burner is probably a big culprit and the low winter sun shining in doesn’t help but seriously 😩

In the end I decided to sort the presents and see what I still need to get and then as I figured I hadn’t really done much I ought to go for a walk and get some exercise. I also spent far too long looking for some new lampshades for the living room online 🤪 I made up for it when I got back as I got the dinner sorted for this evening, lit the Rayburn, fed the birds, collected the eggs, sorted them and put them out and then went back out to put the birds to bed once it was dark. My new book by my fav author arrived hot off the press today so I have that to look forward to reading but first I am part way through another one so I need to finish it, that’s what the dark winter nights are for, that hot chocolate 🥰

Wednesday: Is it only Wednesday 😏 the weather is horrible this morning, raining and wet underfoot, I have already had my first soaking of the day even my knees are wet! It probably won’t be the last time I get wet either if it rains all day I have another two lots of rounds to do later but for now at least everything is fed and watered 😀 I have left the front lot of hens in this morning, I will let them out later, I want to see exactly how many eggs they are laying and if any of them are laying elsewhere such as the hedgerows etc. I will have to repeat this for a few days as they can hold onto their eggs if they are not getting to their favourite laying sites.

Meanwhile I have come in and I am having a well deserved coffee now, I took a photo of the hazel tree outside the back door, it’s the same one that was shinning golden yesterday and today looks wet and forlorn. The three photos are Monday, Tuesday and today just goes to show exactly how changeable our weather is here in the UK and justifies our obsession with talking about it don’t you think?

I really should have done outside work yesterday but I didn’t and so now I have missed that opportunity nevertheless I still went round and checked a few things. The carrots that are having the tops nibbled, the oranges which are still ripening and the onions and garlic I planted. I am pleased to say they all have little green shoots, the shallots have multiple shoots and only about five of them came out of the ground, they are now firmly back in place. The cauliflower plants are also being nibbled, urgh the struggle is real, I am still thinking mice as they are under cover and just the nice green leafy bits have been eaten, I need to rescue those otherwise they won’t produce anything at all 😏

I indulged myself with an hour or so of reading this morning but then I thought I really ought to do something.

If we dont have our own chicken in the freezer I buy organic or high welfare chicken direct from other farms. These are expensive compared to the mass produced ones from the supermarket but I prefer to know that what I am eating has had a decent life. We are probably talking at about £12-£15 a bird, what! I hear you cry, but for that reason alone I make sure I get every last bit of use from it that I can. From the roast chicken we had on Monday John has taken chicken sandwiches two days in a row and there is a bit for tomorrow’s sandwich as well. Last night John had chicken casserole and I had cold chicken with baked potato and salad, today I have taken the carcass apart and any spare meat has gone into a pan with leeks and vegetables, stock and thickener and is basically a chicken pie filling although I am going to put mashed potatoes on the top much like a shepherds pie. We will have that tonight for dinner and there is a spare single portion that I will freeze for another day, the carcass is now in the slow cooker along with celery, onion, garlic, bay, parsley and black pepper which will make a tasty chicken stock that I can freeze for another day. It doesn’t end there though as I peeled off all the remaining skin and this will be fed to the dogs later, all that will be left is the bones. So that is seven portions of a decent sized meal, three lots of sandwiches and stock, if you only counted the main meals that works out from a £15 bird at £2.15 per person, very good value indeed I reckon, but you have to work at it 😀

This afternoons jobs were a bit of a clock watch game, I had decided not to light the Rayburn until late because it was fairly mild and didn’t feel cold indoors. The problem came when the first go at lighting it failed, I had primed it with a natural firefighter, kindling and wood and lit it, left it to get going came back and it had gone out 🙄 This then put me under a bit of pressure because by now it is about 4.15 and it’s starting to get dark and I need to go and shut the birds up for the night. The dilemma is do I go out and do the birds and light the fire when I get back in and not use the oven to cook the dinner or do I light the fire, wait for it to get up to temperature but risk the birds getting caught by any fox that might be around 🤷‍♀️ In the end I decided to light the fire but it didn’t draw very well and took ages to get going. That’s when I end up clock watching and waiting for it to get going, nervous that the darker it gets the more likely it is that something will come along, eventually the flue got up to temp and I was able to shut it down and go out to put everything away for the night, note to self, light the fire earlier next time 😜

It’s been a long couple of days and I will be glad to see the end of this second lockdown. It hasn’t really been a tight lockdown and many people are still going to work, school etc but if you don’t do the school run and don’t go to an external workplace, only go to the shop once a week and don’t see people it’s a very long day and week!

Friday, or is it Thursday? Well this morning I thought it was Friday so I took my Friday concoction of meds, one of which I only have take on a Friday. Any other day I mixed up would not matter but a Friday lot means I can’t sit or stand still for at least an hour after taking it, not that it’s a problem as I have plenty to do 😀

Anyway it definitely is Thursday which I figured out after about an hour 😜 There was a hard frost this morning and even though the sun came out it was still nippy doing the rounds. The goose door I couldn’t even get open to start with as it was frozen to the frame. None of the water taps are working so I will have to do those later, must remember to do them in the afternoon so I don’t have that problem again 🙄

We have a lot of duck eggs at the minute, at one time we were struggling to keep up with demand for them and now that demand has dropped off the cliff edge, typical, over all our egg customers have reduced in number, probably because it’s winter but I suspect that a farm just up the road which is going the way of a farm shop is where some of our custom has gone. I had a think about this and thought ‘Am I bothered?’ and the answer is no not really, I always knew that a farm shop would take off really well here and if I had wanted to do it I would have but I don’t, I am happy tickling along as we are. In the beginning the plan was only ever to be self sufficient, the fact that it increased to egg and veg sales means that I cover the cost of what we are eating and planting which is a bonus and life is not too stressful at that so all in all that will do.

Gosh it was very chilly at 4.30 when I was putting the birds to bed, I reckon it was very near to freezing then so goodness knows what the overnight temps will go down to.

Some seeds I ordered arrived today, I think I have all I need for next year now, I don’t want to get caught out like I was last spring when the virus hit, this time I think it will be more to do with Brexit though so I’m trying to get ahead of the game.

Friday, definitely Friday today: Jeez if I thought it was cold yesterday it’s totally Baltic this morning. I have just come in from doing the morning rounds and my toes need thawing out 🙄 Very glad I did the water yesterday although I still had to break it all this morning. Everything is covered in white and the air is heavy with fog, it is pretty but only if you are inside looking out. I was feeding the horses in the paddock and just goes to show how much warmth they have in their bodies as Jack finished his breakfast he decided on a roll on the frosty ground, his body heat immediately thawed the grass, then he got up and had a bit of a welly round the paddock, lovely sight to see on a morning like this. Biscuit on the other hand was not so keen to move and I had to go across the paddock to take her breakfast, I am wondering how well she can see actually, just a couple of things she does makes me wonder, like not coming for her food, although she could just be stubborn of course, I will monitor more closely.

The new cladding on the front and insulation has done wonders for the indoor temps because normally on a day like today, when the fire goes out overnight, it would feel cold but it is not at all.

First thing this morning we had a delivery of six tonnes of top soil for the raised bed, grossly underestimated that we are going to need at least another six tonne if not eight 🤔

Had blood tests again this morning, hoping the situation has changed a little bit will have to wait and find out on Monday/Tuesday.

Saturday: Had a pig of a morning tidying up and burning the hawthorn cuttings from the hedge at the side. If you have ever handled it you will know the thorns are long and sharp and the branches intertwine, both these things make moving the stuff hazardous. I got a smack on the head from one particularly thick bit, countless scratches on my legs, hands and face, a thwack to the lip drawing blood and as if that wasn’t enough a burning piece of leaf went down my collar, I could smell my hair singe and feel my neck burning simultaneously. I hastily unzipped my coat and threw it on the floor and at that point all I really wanted to do was cry. Said clipping are now all burnt and we can continue to tidy the side up at our leisure 😜

Sunday: It was foggy when I got up, foggy at lunchtime and still foggy at dark, just a foggy dreary day. We did some bits of tidying out side after doing the rounds but it wasn’t at all nice working in the dank weather so we had the afternoon off apart from feeding and shutting away.

There ends another week and at the end of next week at least all the shops will be open again but also it means we will be able to go out for breakfast again one morning 😀 I didn’t realise how much I have missed a holiday until this week, I really could do with someone else doing the cooking, at least when we do finally get away it will seem like a real treat.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Grey days, dark nights, roll on mid winter 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Thursday 19th November 2020: It’s a dry day with some sunshine although it’s colder and breezier than it has been lately. I have been waiting everyday for the weather to be nice enough to go outside but the rain was persistent and it’s not much fun in the wet. Today however I got up, got on with the morning tasks, went for a brief walk and then returned with the determination to get some stuff done. I cleaned out the quail and the guinea pigs and then went into the greenhouse to sort out seeds and look over the plants that are still in there. I planted up some sweet pea seeds that I had started off on the kitchen windowsill and then bought all the seeds in to go through later today. I seem to have got a huge amount of them 🙄 and I need to go through them all and may as well do it indoors in the warm. I also picked the tiny loofah, cleared the plant foliage and a bought that in to dry on the windowsill, I think that potentially it will go mouldy if I leave it in the greenhouse.

Teeny tiny loofah, pen for comparison, still I will notch that up as a win 😀

I wasn’t going to blog at all this week, on Monday a friend had a tragic and life altering day and I couldn’t bring myself to write about my trivial daily life but I found that as I was going round doing things I kept thinking ‘I must put that in the blog’ and it is a diary so eventually I found myself today writing it down again.

I have also started the list of wildlife we have here and even writing things from the off the top of my head I realise that we have a lot going on. Today a small flock of long tailed tits arrived, they always appear when the temperatures dip. My aim is to also get photographs but the little birds are far quicker than me or my shutter speed 🙄

Friday: Once upon a time I looked forward to Fridays and the weekend just around the corner, now in lockdown every day is pretty much the same except this time round John is out working and the weather is s**t. This morning we have the grey drizzle again and it’s noticeably colder no wonder people are putting up their Christmas decs early lol. I still won’t be putting mine up until Christmas week though 🙄 John asked if we are having a tree this year 🤷‍♀️ not sure if it’s worth the bother to be honest, it’s a squeeze to get a tree in here and still be able to see the tv 😂 but I don’t really want to break with tradition, you can’t beat the smell of a real tree indoors lol. I briefly considered an artificial one (hush my mouth) I have never in my entire life had a fake one, not when we were kids and not as a adult with my own home but I did think about it, then quickly dismissed it, it’s a real one or none at all 😀 I am still planning for a family Christmas though we have no idea if that will actually be the case this year. The Christmas cake is done and needs feeding again, my sister made mincemeat and gave me a big jar and I also have a small jar in the store cupboard from last year, I usually make the pudding and we have ‘stir up’ and the kids make wishes but that won’t happen this year and so I bought one from a posh supermarket instead and I indulged and bought some celebrity chef stollen for me as John hates it. We have discussed Christmas dinner it will be a bit sad if it’s ‘dinner for two’ 🙄 I also just ordered myself some Asbach Brandy, traditionally made in Oak barrels it’s my favourite brandy, not that I drink much of it anymore but I figure a treat is in order this year 🥰

Sometimes life changes drastically in less than a minute and other times it’s a long slow process. This morning I went down the Lane to say goodbye to our nieghbours over the road. We are all about a field or two away from each other here but still we are neighbours, they are moving today to retire to a warmer climate and I will miss having them over the road. They have been there long before us but I used to take Samantha there for riding lessons when she was little, they started out living in a caravan in the field and over the years built up a business and a house and now they are retiring, I wish them a long and happy retirement.

Saturday: Still grey and gloomy outside though not raining but it is damp. John did the feed rounds and then went off to collect more feed, he hasn’t had to do that for nearly nine months as we were having it delivered at the same time we had point of lay hens delivered, but we won’t be having any new birds over Winter. The avian flu that I thought would get out of hand appears to be contained and I haven’t heard of any further outbreaks which is good news. We are however still planning to bring the birds in for a couple weeks, mainly so that the ground can be rested and the mobile coops cleaned out properly, we can also keep a good eye on the health of the birds, worm them if necessary, give them a good dust bath area and see exactly how many eggs we are getting 🙄 With that in mind John also went to get bales of sawdust to deep litter them.

After he had done that we set about the job I really wanted to get done today, chop out the floor in the kitchen by the back door so that I can get a mat down for wiping feet on. Up to now the door was too low to be able to put a mat there and open the door, so that mat had to be about three feet inside which as you can imagine is a pain in the proverbial as that always means muddy foot prints up to it. It’s the little things that make the difference and that is one of them though it did take over an hour to chop it all out 😜 The next job was the electrics in the stable, the wet weather keeps knocking it out and we think it is because of one of the plugs though we can’t pinpoint it. By the time the electrician gets here it’s always dried out and working fine but as soon as it rains heavily it goes again. We will need the lights for the darker evenings and so at the minute the light circuit is on but the socket circuit, which we don’t use very often, has been isolated, another little job that helps the day run smoothly🤞

We nipped into town just to get something and grab a costa while we were there. As we arrived there was an ambulance and it appeared that a car had reversed from a parking space and hit a pedestrian, then a police car arrived on blue lights, then another, then another and then another, I am full of support for our boys in blue but seriously that’s over doing it I think 😂

Back home and get the Rayburn lit, get the eggs collected and sorted, it’s getting dark around 4.15/30 and that will be another day done and dusted, time seems to have shot past today.

Sunday: We have been busy little bees today 😀 first all the morning jobs to get done and then to Witney to pick up my new glasses and a few little pressies. Then back home where John got on with putting the metal coping on the front of the building, it’s a 90 degree piece that goes on the roof then down the front to cover the ends of the roofing sheets. They look good, we got them colour coded to match the paintwork 😀 Meanwhile I spent my time burning the paper rubbish which seemed to grow by the day, feed bags and cardboard boxes etc, after that I got two of the stables ready to move the hens to and the outside POL pen which we will put the light Sussex in for a while as their run has no solid roof and the ground is dire after all the rain. In the afternoon Emma arrived with a delivery of her award winning lamb, that will keep us going for a few months along with the beef we had from her last month.

After collecting the eggs and a bite to eat it will be time to shut the hens away and we will move two lots tonight, maybe three we will se how dark and cold it gets 😝

We are heading towards mid winter and the shortest day, after that the nights will draw out slowly again, the wheel keeps on turning and one thing is for sure, Spring is on its way even though it’s a way off yet 😏

Stay safe and have a good week 🥰

Posted in Friesland Farm

Seeds, avian flu & an amazing sunrise.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th November 2020: First thing this morning I have a repeat blood test as my last lot are showing low leucocytes again 😏 That means increased risk of infection so I need to be a bit careful.

Last night I was reading that the house sparrow is on the red list for conservation which surprised me greatly, we have a good flock of them here, around twenty I would say. I need to make sure they have everything they need, food through the winter and housing, I put up new sparrow flats for them when we took the old boxes down but they haven’t been seen in them as yet. What they have been doing is going in the roof where we haven’t put the capping back on (it’s ordered but not arrived yet) and I was complaining that they have pulled out bits of fibreglass which are now on the ground in the front. I think I will look to see where else we can put the old bird boxes until they decided to move into the new ones.

I was quite depressed at the thought that this is only day five of the lockdown, seems longer, and how I was going to pass the time but if this morning is anything to go by I needn’t worry. First the blood test, then Shelley walked over to get eggs so we had a chat over the gate (odd that last week they could all come in and this week they can’t 🙄 but rules is rules) then I thought I will phone Sue and see how she is doing, five minutes in and the straw and hay delivery arrived so I said I would call her back. Went out to sort where it was all going came back in to get the payment and realised I had left my soup on high, luckily it wasn’t burning, called Sue back for the rest of our chat, did some hoovering, sat down for my soup and John popped in between jobs. The time has shot past today and hopefully it will be like that every day.

I was feeling quite anxious and emotional this morning, mainly I think because of these white cells or rather, lack of them. It’s important because they lead to a condition called leucopenia and even when we don’t have a viral pandemic you are advised to wear a mask as you are highly susceptible to bacterial and viral infections as the immune system is not functioning. With the Lupus and the meds you take for it you can swing from a very over aggressive immune system to one that can’t even be bothered 😂 So you can see why it’s a worry, obviously the ideal would be a level system but that never seems to work because too many other factors can intervene. A morning of interaction and I feel more emotionally stable now thank goodness.

I had planned on doing a few things outside but the hours have passed and other things occurred instead, I did water the carrot seedlings, they don’t seem to be growing very fast though and I checked on the oranges which look nearly ready to pick 😀 I hope they are sweet enough and not sharp, that will be very disappointing.

I prepped dinner Nr lit the Rayburn, monitoring the time all the while but John came home early and he did the feed rounds and egg collecting so that was a happy bonus and with the extra time I made a raspberry pudding for dessert 😀

Shelley decided that through hers and Martin’s businesses they would like to spread a little cheer and have donated selection boxes, people can nominate someone they think could do with a little cheer either because they are alone, have lost their job or are struggling for some reason or other. The gift is in the giving and so we have donated from both the farm and the plumbing business as well and she is getting offers from lots of people to also donate, it’s amazing and so many people need to know that others are thinking about them at this difficult time and that although we are all socially distanced they are not on their own.

Helping people out gives you much more pleasure than you can imagine and is good for the soul and at time brings unexpected returns, some of my favourite memories are from people giving me things because I had helped them out. I have told these before but I love them so here they are again, one was when a chap stopped to get duck eggs when we first started out, duck eggs are difficult to find and so he was delighted but he didn’t have enough money. No problem just drop it in next time you are passing and we are talking about 40p or something like that. About 8 weeks later he arrived with his 40p and a trailer full of hay bales, would you like these he asked me, how much I said, for free he replied, I was flabbergasted, amazed, delighted 😁 The other times are also to do with eggs, people often want eggs for hatching but they don’t need many, one lot was for a Duke of Edinburgh award and some other lots were for children to hatch at childcare facilities, for activities like these I give them for free as they are learning opportunities which I am all for 😀 Never expecting anything in return I was humbled when I received chocolates/cards/flowers thanking me. They were such small giving moments but they grow of their own accord, the excitement and the chance to encounter nature doing what it does best and then the learning activities around it and finally the knowledge they gain from the experience, it’s all priceless and very rewarding. So you see a small gesture of kindness naturally grows into bigger things for everyone involved 😀

News just released of a real potential vaccine which gives us hope for the future, 90% effective apparently, obviously they will proceed with caution but it’s a chink of light on the horizon.

Tuesday: It’s lunchtime and it is lovely and sunny and quite mild out there, it wasn’t first thing mind you, the minute I put my coat on to go out it started raining but it soon cleared up. This morning I have spent a large part of the time rearranging electric fencing for the horses, during spring and summer we have an area fenced off for biscuit that she periodically goes into to prevent laminitis and that has worked well this year. Now we don’t need it for her but we need it for Jack, basically to keep him off the yard, as the grass gets more sparse he starts looking further afield which means he breaks out, plus I want to fence off the big side paddock so the hens don’t end up living in a bog. Horses feet churn up the wet ground and basically trash it and it quickly becomes a big muddy puddle, the ground recovers in Spring but it’s good to have some grass for the hens. I took all the fencing down from one area and then put it all up where I need it now, I connected everything up closely watched by Jack who was like my shadow the whole time, I went in to plug into the mains and when I came out he had got two of the slip rails down in that short time 🙄 I put them back up and then turned on the fence energiser, click, click, the minute Jack heard that noise he knew the game was over and he turned and wandered away. Up to that point he was probably thinking wayhay I can escape but the horses are very familiar with electric fencing and once they hear that noise they know there is no use hanging around anymore.

After that and a quick coffee I went into the greenhouse, might as well make good use of a nice day. I spent my time cleaning up the tubers I dug the other day, the dahlias still need to dry off a bit more and I brushed off the dirt from the yacon and Oca. Some off them will come indoors to be used in cooking and some will dry off and I will store them to plant next year. I have hedged my bet four ways with the yacon as I don’t know much about them, first I have put one lot in the ground and will see how they get on through winter, the next I have potted up and that will stay in the greenhouse, the third lot are smaller tubers that I will dry and store and the last lot are the plant roots that I will also dry and store, hopefully out of that lot one or more will be successful. I picked some of the runner beans that are now ready to store, the pod goes brown and papery on the vine, pick them, get the seeds out and dry before storing overwinter somewhere dry. I have dwarf French beans doing the same, and little piles of other seeds drying on the side waiting to be stored in the dry. I usually bring the seeds inside and keep them in the spare room in the dark, it gets too damp anywhere outside and I find that works well. I then did a couple of hardwood cuttings of my fig tree hoping to get a few new plants for next spring.

Collecting seed is a great way to get free plants next spring, it is also an important part of self reliance and sufficiency. We saw shortages of available seed and plants this year, propagating by various means can absorb the shock in times like these and help keep you producing vegetables and flowers 🌸

Wednesday: John knocked on the bedroom window from outside, get a look a the sunrise he said, Wow, it was fiery and orange and usually thats what the sunset looks like but this was first thing in the morning, breathtaking.

An unusual sunrise this morning more in keeping with a sunset.

I got up and dressed and on with the day, various jobs to do, clean the boot room and the back toilet, sort out dinner for this evening, nothing very exciting on the to do list today. Shelley walked over and we stood and had a chat over the gate but apart from that and a hardware delivery nothing much eventful happened. I did decided to make a Slimming World Diet Coke chocolate cake, one word, don’t 😝 It went in the bin it was that bad, I think I would rather have a normal one and eat less of it 😂 It got me thinking about healthy bakes and trying to find recipes that look vaguely like they would taste good but they are all full of weird ingredients. I think the closest I find to a good recipe are probably diabetic recipes, at least the substitutions are usually honey or maple syrup not some reconstituted husk of a hitherto unheard of vegetable or grain 😏

John called, he will be later than normal can I put the birds to bed, looks like I will have to. I hate the early dark evenings when he comes home after dark and then goes to work before the light, it feels like you have no one to share the daylight hours with.

We have worrying confirmation of six different cases of Avian Flu in the country, more worryingly is that they are fairly spread out in different counties all around the UK, many more cases and there will be a lockdown for poultry as well as us 🙄

We went food shopping tonight, I just needed a few things but seemed to end up with a lot of things. When I was packing it away I began to wonder if I was subconsciously stocking up, genuinely not doing it on purpose but I have definitely more than three tins of baked beans in the cupboard 😂

Our egg customers have gone awol again, really weird how it goes through phases, each day this week we have had hardly any customers, other days we are inundated with them, one week we can hardly keep up with duck egg sales and this week they are stacking up in the shed 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: Do you ever think that when things start to go wrong they go wronger and wronger 😏 This morning started off ok as far as the smallholding goes, jobs done, things sorted and all that. I need to get my prescription picked up and the plan was I would call the pharmacy to make sure it was ready then call John and have him collect it later, first fly in the ointment is that John has left his phone here 🤷‍♀️ so that plan goes out the window, luckily I call Shelley and she is in town and collects it for me, I will get John to collect from her later tonight (I need it for the morning). Second is the doctor calls re the blood results but only has half of them in will call again later when they have them, fine I go to the loo and the phone rings again, damn it, luckily they then tried the house phone and having finished my function I was able to answer. Terribly sorry but there has been a mix up at the lab and we will need to redo the full blood count, ffs, I am going to have an arm like a drug addict at this rate, your thinking that I could change the arm, nope the other arm doesn’t appear to have a vein that can be tapped 😂 so I now have to get over first thing in the morning for another blood test. On top of those life misdemeanours we have the more worrying aspect of the Avian Flu to sort out, it is now a legal obligation to make sure our biosecurity is in order. For the hens that means that we need to feed inside (which we do anyway because of the crows) and we will also need to keep their water inside away from wild birds. The ducks will also have to be fed inside but their water is a problem, ducks and water go together like bread and butter so more difficult to implement that, they need constant water to keep their nostrils clean after dabbling in the undergrowth. That is stage one, along with foot baths for anyone coming into the farm but that is not an issue at the minute is it 😜 The next is that I will have to stop feeding the wild birds, this is the saddest bit for me but the idea is to not encourage them to be anywhere near the flock as they will be the carriers/transmitters of the disease. We then need to make plans in case a full lockdown is required which given the spread of it is highly likely this year. That means all birds will be shut in for the foreseeable future, if they have an outdoor run it needs to be netted so that wild birds cannot get in. We have the POL run which is suitably netted after the last outbreak a few years ago, but the rest will be in the stables, luckily we have them spare, not ideal but at least they will have room. I remember last time we tried to tarp the orchard run, gee, we had the wettest, muddiest winter and it was soul destroying stuff but the stable block is dry and has windows so at least they can see outside 😜 Keep chickens they said, it will be fun they said 😏 Apart from all that, the sun is shinning and it’s not a bad day so I will take the good along with the bad today. Sometimes life seems like a scrabble, it’s like scrabbling up the rock face until you get to a level plateau again 🤦‍♀️

Went for a stroll round the village with Mum at lunchtime which was very nice, the sun was shinning and it wasn’t too cold, saw a couple of people to say hello to which lifts the spirits 😀

John came home early and spent a couple of hours cleaning and tidying out his van 🤷‍♀️ still it was nice to know someone else was around.

Friday: Another sunny and not too cold start to the day although it rained heavily during the night. Got a few bits done then off to get yet another blood test done 😜 hopefully this one will come back all in one piece and I can move forward in whatever direction I need to go.

I heard a couple of very strange wildlife stories this week, the first was of a fox taking a small dog somewhere near where Mum lives, this was witnessed by a gentleman although it seems they don’t know who’s dog it was. The second was the discovery of a dead otter, what is curious about that is that to my knowledge we don’t have otters around here, not for miles as far as I know. I have seen the photo and agree that it does not look like and English otter, it’s a mystery as to how it got there and why it died but it has been called in to wildlife experts and a university is taking it to do a post mortem to find out more if they can.

I have decided that I will keep feeding the wild birds but I will be moving the feeders to an area that is about as far from the hens as I can get it, it’s likely that the poultry industry will go into lockdown if reports of confirmed cases keep coming in anyway and once they are shut away there will be little risk of contamination. Worrying times with two major viruses in the country, if the two collide 😳 (and that could happen) we would be up shit creek without a paddle!

Saturday: The weather started off ok and then took a complete dive until it was vile out there. John was busy digging out the rest of the raised bed area on the tractor until it began to rain so heavily he had to stop, there is no cab so he was getting pretty wet. I went out and put new bedding in the geese, duck and light Sussex housing and then put up the hooks for the bird feeders and moved them well out of the way, hopefully the birds will soon find them. I also put up the remaining old nest boxes give them somewhere to roost over winter. I then spent two hours looking for something I knew we had but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It’s a leather stamping kit, so basically letters on the end of metal sticks in a box, you hit the stamp and it punches it into leather, marking it with a postcode or name. I wanted it to make some Christmas decorations but I can’t find it anywhere and I had pulled out boxes, opened drawers, looked inside everything, nope nowhere to be seen. I have ordered a new set but you can bet your bottom dollar it will now appear.

We came in for lunch and lit the Rayburn, drank tea and watched the news, hopefully the weather will clear a little and we can carry on outside. 😏

It didn’t clear up much but John went out to do what he could anyway, me I stayed in to stoke the Rayburn 😜

I spent an evening do a bit of Christmas craft, I sometimes wish I was more artistic as there are so many things I would like to have a go at. In my minds eye I see what I want but the reality is nothing like it, I still remember my art o level piece, I knew exactly how I wanted it to look right from the beginning but it was a big fat fail lol. Nevertheless I still have a go at a few things when the moment takes me, tonight it was gift tags, I have a large amount of buttons which were in Johns Mum sewing stuff, I doubt I will be sewing buttons on anything any time soon so I made gift tags instead 😀

Sunday: It was vile weather overnight and vile this morning but eventually the rain moved on and the sun even came out at times though it’s a tad cold at around 8 degrees. John did the morning rounds and then attempted inbetween rain showers to carry on with the raised bed, he almost abandoned it altogether when a stiff breeze came along and blew the rain along. Meanwhile I have been doing the usual morning jobs, a bit of washing and sorting dinner for later, I did pop out to feed the guineas and have a look in the polytunnels and then back in to get the Rayburn lit. No point me trying to help John as he is levelling and squaring p, not my strong point and I would probably be more of a hindrance than help on this job. So I supply the cups of tea, a sandwich, make sure there is hot water and a hearty supper for later on 😀 Slow roasted lamb shank today 🥰

Just sitting having a cuppa and have been watching a short video on biodiversity on the smallholding (or it could even be related to a garden/allotment) It became obvious that I have been doing everything that was suggested and this talk was given by someone who gets paid to advise large farms and parks with their biodiversity projects so I am quite chuffed that I am on point with my plans to increase wildlife in all forms. The only thing I haven’t ever done is record it either by writing it down or logging it with various surveys. I will start a log I think, I can recall right back to the beginning when we first came that even though we are surrounded by countryside, there was not much going on here, mostly due to routine spraying I suspect. I have seen a big increase in wildlife especially over the last four or five years and each year I am surprised by more arrivals, like the bees in the hollow this year which incidentally are still going in and out, and the snake, it’s a great feeling to be able to make a difference however small.

Quick update on the kittens, both are doing well, exploring further and further outside but they can often be found curled up on a cushion in the boot room. They get on well will the dogs, by that I mean they tolerate them and are not afraid of them, the dogs don’t take much notice of them unless they go to close to a food bowl with biscuits in or if they make a sudden playful dash, on the whole though it’s lovely to see them all sleeping in the same room together proving that cats and dogs don’t always fight 😀

I went outside about 2pm and helped John, we now have the raised bed finished (except the top soil) and the ground all levelled back out again. Only thing was with the shovelling and raking I have twinged my lower back 😕 Today I did the afternoon feed round and egg collection while John got the tractor round to finished moving and levelling the driveway. We have got a way to go yet, topsoil needs delivering and then we need to build the last bed which is much smaller, then a layer of clean gravel needs to go down, some cutting back of the hazel trees (the planting up will have to wait till spring) then there is the side driveway to start on 😂 always another job on the horizon 😜

Have a good week and stay safe, keep your chin up and keep smiling, we will get through this eventually (the winter & covid) 😃

Posted in Friesland Farm

I’ll give the sourdough a miss 😝 butternut squash soup and indigo rose tomatoes 🍅

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 12th October 2020: The pandemic continues though I have to say it seems like it is happening elsewhere and I hope they don’t end up being famous last words 🙄 Seriously though we seem to be in a bit of a bubble here, the last outbreak before and during lockdown didn’t really seem to hit our rural area very hard and hopefully the same will be said for this second wave. Today the Prime Minister will announce new measures to try and curb the virus, we wait to see what those will be 😏

Meanwhile life is as normal as is possible and today I have VIP’s coming for tea, the grandchildren are coming after school for sandwiches, cake and jelly and ice cream 😀 I busied myself with getting things tidied, put away (always seems to be things to put away) getting some washing on, sorting the kittens, then making jelly and cake.

The sourdough starter seemed to have a life of its own overnight, it grew so much that it leaked out of the sides, that’s a good thing 😀 I guess it was due to the heat from the Rayburn in the kitchen as this morning it has calmed back down again although it still has life (bubbles) so I have fed it again. The sourdough dough I had in a bowl which didn’t seem to rise was showing signs of activity this morning so I baked it to see how it came out. I can tell you that if I was about to attack a local castle keep I would consider using it in the catapult 😂 it’s a bit solid, however I cut it and it smells like sourdough though heavy in structure, I tasted it and it has that sour taste so I’d say it’s about 70% successful, just need to improve on the technique now.

The measures have been announced and we are going into a three tired system of medium, high and very high risk with various rules for each of those but not a complete lockdown, I’m not sure if any of this will do any good the numbers still seem to be climbing and climbing 🙄

Tuesday: A cold but dry morning this morning. John did the morning rounds before going off to do some proper work 😂 I spent the morning organising food by various means, first I got some butternut squash soup on the go for my lunch today, that’s basically a butternut squash, onion, sweet potato, chicken stock, black pepper and a grating of nutmeg, I will taste it later and see if it needs a sprinkle of anything else such as curry powder or my new fav thing to use smoked paprika 😀 Then I ordered a box of beef from a local smallholder, hhttps://www.emmasewesfulacres.com I have had it from her before and when she delivers I will probably have a look to see what lamb she has on the van. That will keep us going through Autumn and Winter, we have our own chicken and duck in the freezer already plus some venison, goat meat and fish that I still have to use up. Once I had ordered that I sorted out dinner for this evening which tonight is salmon, I will have mine with a honey, sesame oil, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar marinade, then orzo, bell pepper, broccoli, garlic and ginger stir fry while John will have his with potato and veg, we are worlds apart when it comes to food. In light of the fact he will hate having salmon (but will eat it) I got tomorrow’s dinner underway as well (go me) a hearty oxtail stew in the slow cooker. Oxtail isn’t something that many use any more but it has great flavour, it has gone in with carrots, potato, onion, tomato paste, black pepper, beef stock, Worcester sauce and thyme, again I will give it a taste test to see if anything else needs adding. I will slow cook it all day, turn it off over night and then turn it on again around lunchtime tomorrow, stews taste better if they are made one day and eaten the next, so they say anyway, certainly gives it time for all those flavours to mingle.

Butternut squash soup (no filter) lovely vibrant colour packed with vitamin A, C, E & beta carotene, also contains many important minerals 😀

I have let the kittens out this morning, up to now they have only had the run of the boot room but today the door is open to the back undercover area. To begin with they went out and I couldn’t see them anywhere but the next time I went out, there they were and they came in for some dreamies so that’s a good sign that they will stay close by (for the time being) even if I don’t know where they are. Eventually they will get more adventurous and go further afield but hopefully always coming back for some food.

I have come to the conclusion that the sourdough starter does not do very well in our house because we don’t have a stable constant temperature, it gets warm in the evening after we have lit the Rayburn mid afternoon but we let it out mid evening so it doesn’t get too hot over night. The starter seems to be reacting to these temps, first it grows well during the evening but by morning it’s flat again because it’s much colder. I have fed it again this morning and will see what happens later, I thought about making the bread in the evening but again sourdough takes longer to prove than normal bread so that may not work either. I don’t even eat very much bread of any kind so I’m not sure why I am doing it to be honest 😜 just because I wanted to have a go, I may give up on it though and buy the odd loaf now and again 🤷‍♀️

I have also been busy over the last week or so ordering Christmas presents, who knows exactly what is going to happen over the next few months, might as well get ahead just in case it all goes haywire. It’s crazy when you really think about it all, weeks in total lockdown, who ever thought that would happen, now we are all wearing masks when we go out into town, we can only meet a few people at a time, some places have tighter restrictions than others, as I have said before I can’t wait to see the blockbuster film that will inevitably be made about this lol, not quite as scary as The Walking Dead but just as unbelievable (well it will be when they look back in history) Yes indeed we are living through some very strange times 😏

After lunch I went out to the post box and realised it was nice and warm in the sun, it’s often colder indoors than outside here, so I decided to get my gear on and do a bit of garden work. I spent a happy couple of hours cutting back dead stuff and pulling up veg that has now gone over, digging up comfrey (as it’s seeded everywhere) I did stop short on one patch when I spotted ladybirds, probably trying to find a place to hibernate for winter, better make sure I don’t tidy too much 🙄 Back indoors for a quick coffee and a sit down before the afternoon rounds begin. I have seen no more signs of snakes and also sadly I have not seen any frogs all summer, even in the dank areas, I think the snakes have eaten them all 😢 either that or they are hiding well.

While I was working away I was also pondering on what I had learnt this year in the garden, no matter how much you know there is always more to learn. I learnt that yacon are pretty easy to grow here and that they taste very good, I learnt that often when you think a veg plant is ‘spent’ it surprises you with more offerings (I’m thinking about the loofah here) I learnt that the weather can throw you curve balls ( actually I know that but this years was the biggest yet) and that I need to do more to prepare for weather anomalies. I learnt a bit about myself, I like to grow things in order, I am not good with what seems to be chaos in the veg garden but I know I need to learn to cope with it as it’s a better way of growing 😂

I am hearing more and more worrying reports of people who have had COVID for a second time, that’s just plain unlucky and I think we were hoping that if you get it once you won’t get it again. The ‘Long COVID’ is also a worry, people dealing with the effects of it long after they have recovered from it, maybe this virus is every bit as bad as they say it is, I hope we never find out.

I have just googled to see if there is a general trend towards panic buying again, not on the same scale as we saw before but it is there it seems. This would tie in with the increase of egg customers we have had, there have been weeks when we didn’t have a single customer for two or three days and now suddenly we are inundated again, I have seen customers wearing masks again which had all but stopped so there must be some unease out there. Unfortunately it’s the time of year when we have less eggs than usual due to the shortening of daylight time so there will never be enough eggs to go round 🙄 John and I discussed what we would do if we went into another lockdown as the gate sales were crazy and of course we had people who had never been before and haven’t been back since which was really unfair on our regular customers but we were unable to stop it as it came upon us pretty swiftly. It’s a difficult one to determine because although we do know most of our regulars especially the ones that have been coming for years, there are some that we couldn’t readily identify. I think we would initially just shut the gate and have a think about it 😂

Wednesday: Is it only mid week, seems like it’s been a long week already and we are only halfway there 😏 The sun was shinning beautifully this morning but by 9am when I went out to put the rubbish out the sky was looking moody and five minutes later a rain shower appeared, I think that is how the day will unfold today. I thought that perhaps today was not going to be an outside work day so I set about cleaning out the fridge, not a massive task but it’s amazing how many things get left from week to week and before you know it they have been there months. So out went anything that looked well past it’s date, I will keep and use some things that have gone past the best before date especially if they are still sealed but today was a clear out day. Out went a half jar of mincemeat probably used last Christmas, a half jar of plum sauce I made last year and a half jar of pickled onions also probably last used at Christmas, none of them showing any signs of mould but time to throw them anyway. There were the usual culprits in the bottom drawer, soggy cucumbers and shrivelled apples, any thing half decent will go to the geese and guineas the rest will go for composting. Amazing how satisfying it is to see a clean tidy fridge 😂 I also made the decision to abandon the sourdough starter 😭 things were not going well with it and so time to admit defeat, I think if I want sourdough I will buy it 😂

Another thing that occurred to me was that you may be wondering about Ted’s fate as we move closer to Christmas, rest assured he will not be joining us for dinner 😜 he is now part of the smallholding family and has a name so will continue to live freely here. He is totally oblivious to the fate of his fellow turkians though and as a result is not in the least bit grateful still making John walk him back to his pen each night 🙃

Well it didn’t rain in fact it was very pleasant out there and consequently I have had a very productive morning. At first I had no idea what to do, to be fair we have so much to do that it can be overwhelming at times, in those circumstances it’s an idea to pick a starting point and work from there. Did I do that, nope I flitted from job to job BUT I still made progress , or at least I feel like I did. First I tidied up the egg shed area where I put out plants for sale, then I took down some fencing that was screwed to other fencing that will be coming down eventually. I went to put the plant shelves (that were out by the egg shed) away and the shed they go into was a tip so I cleaned out the shed and threw away a wheelbarrow full of ‘crap’ and now I can walk into the shed easily 😀 After that I had a walk round the veg garden and started clearing some bits away, I picked a few tomatoes and then moved onto the big tunnel. I cleared away the cucumber vine which all but spent, there were about five small cues on there so I picked them first, the skins are toughening now and so I could have kept the vine going but the cues would not be very nice. Then I cut back and pulled out the cape gooseberry plants which have turned into triffids over the last two years and I decided I don’t want them in there any more. I must be in a ‘cleansing’ mood at the minute as it feels good to get it all sorted. At times with many diseases but especially Lupus you get ‘brain fog’ this is a real thing just in case you have ever wondered. Brain fog takes away the ability to be able to focus and think clearly hence the standing there wondering where to begin on many occasions 😜 I never used to be like that, I always had a definite plan of attack and some days I still do but others I just have to muddle through as best as possible and hope for a good result 😀

I collected some seeds while I was going about my jobs, some morning glory, which have been splendid and some Sarah Raven California poppies which are just the most beautifully delicate little poppies (must remember that those are still in my jacket pocket 🙄) Seed collecting is one of the pleasures of gardening and an important part of self sustainability, buying the seeds just once should ensure a lifetimes supply of that plant unless something goes horribly wrong. The same can be said with perennials, once you have them they can be divided over and over and you never need to buy it again. Many vegetables will produce seed if left long enough and again collecting those ensure you will have a crop next year, something I need to make more of an effort to do especially after this year when everyone was buying them and suddenly they were scarce. With that in mind, at my trip to the garden centre I bought some seeds that I had not been able to get hold of this year just in case. Red cabbage was one, I tried and tried to find the seeds but I couldn’t get any, the other seeds I picked up were for an indigo tomato. I bought a plant this year and it has been amazing, you may find this in shops but they would have to be niche I think. These toms are delicious and again because of their colour they are packed with vitamins and antioxidants, they have more flesh than a regular tomato and so do not go to mush when they are cut.

Indigo Rose tomato, a superfood 😀

I need to go through my veg seeds and see what I have left, what I have collected so far and what needs to be ordered. I have some little gem lettuce that are going to seed at the minute so I will be collecting those hopefully. The French beans are drying in the greenhouse and the runner beans are still on the plant, when they look ready I will get them in to dry, I have pepper seeds drying on the windowsill and there are some chick peas to be harvested which grew from just three seeds, I have trebled them this year 😀 In theory I need never buy seeds again but where is the fun in that 😜

Thursday: A bright, sunny morning but a bit of a chill in the air, so far this morning I have just pottered about doing various household tasks. Sam and the twins are going to come over today so we will probably go out for a walk round the village, got to make the best of the good days while we can and also spend time together while we can as who knows what this winter will be like with Covid lurking round every corner.

I hatched a plan last night, in fact it is something I thought of doing this year but didn’t so I am definitely doing it next year. I will use the ménage to grow pumpkins and squash and to make sure I do I have already ordered a good selection of squash seeds. Butternut, spaghetti, banana, acorn, and a selection of pumpkin varieties, this year because the ménage has not been used the weeds have taken hold, if I use it to grow sprawling veg that will at least lessen that problem. It’s a massive area for growing roughly 40 x 20 metres 😮 the surface has always been woodchip and it constantly breaks down so there should be some good loam under there, probably the best growing site on the Smallholding 😂

Just had a news update come through and London is moving to tier two on the restrictions 🙄

Went on a walk around the village with Sam, George and Lucie, on the way back we stopped and saw Grampy (John) who was in the village working. Sam fed the kids their dinner when we got back and she had literally left when Shelley and Florence arrived 😀

They said it was going to be warmer today than yesterday but I don’t think it is, there is a definite chill in the air even when the sun is out.

Friday: Dry, overcast and not too cold this morning. Just stopped for a coffee, we are total creatures of habit aren’t we? I was working outside and thought, time for coffee, without even looking at my watch I find that it’s exactly the time I would have a coffee if I was indoors 🤷‍♀️ This morning I have meditated, had a shower with a blast of cold water at the end, fed the quail, the horses and the Guineas extra rations, put clean bedding in for the ducks and the geese plus all the usual routine jobs. The horses are being given extra feed now as the grass is getting sparse, you can tell by the way they start to hang around the gateways that they are getting hungrier. We are trying to give biscuit a mix of cod liver oil, turmeric, black pepper and ginger as she is getting on a bit and it might just help her with her old bones. The problem is Jack (greedy git that he is) I feed them and have to guard her feed as Jack scoffs his quickly and she takes a lot longer, he is then trying to get to hers 🙄 I spotted one the kittens up a tree while I was out there, they are getting more adventurous but luckily they do come running back if I appear. We see Diesel every couple of days, I have no idea where he disappears to but he eventually comes home, not much good at keeping the mice down round the farm though if he is off wandering.

The garlic, onions and shallots I ordered a few weeks back have arrived so I need to think about getting those in, hopefully I will do that today.

I have been listening to a pod cast that is very funny, it’s Lee Mack and his friend ‘I can’t believe it’s not Buddha’ it’s a hilarious chat about a path they are both following with serious intention, if you see me laughing out loud with my headphones in, that’s what I will be listening to 😜

I spent a wonderful two hours weeding and clearing the bean bed. The top quarter I had already done as that’s where the cauliflower are now planted but the rest of the bed needed doing. At the beginning of the year I had some self seeded yellow daisies growing in there so I let them carry on but I had forgotten how big the plants got as a consequence they over shadowed a lot of the peas I had growing so I won’t let them stay there next year. I pulled out the remains of these daisies, a Swiss chard ( I dug that up and gave it to the guineas) that had self set, hundreds of weeds of all types and the dead foliage of bean and pea plants. I had intended to put the onions, garlic and shallots in here but the side of the bed has collapsed and needs re doing (cue John 😜) so I will wait until I get that sorted before planting them. I am glad I have cleared it all as there were a lot of white fly probably settling down to overwinter, they tuck themselves right down in the foliage near to the roots ready for a comfy sleep I suspect, not any more 🙄 I say a wonderful two hours because it was lovely, the weather was just right, warm enough, no sun, no wind, no rainy bits and the ground is dry enough to work on without getting very dirty 😀 I still have plenty more work to do out there but that will be enough for today, time for lunch and a sit down before getting on with the afternoon jobs.

The healthy eating is going well (most of the time) I have lost a stone and a half! Impressed, yep me too 😀 I amazed actually 😜 Many years back I started WW and got to goal then spent about 10 years clerking for them but gradually the weight crept back on and then some. I know what to eat I just didn’t know why I wasn’t doing it even though I wanted to shift the ‘back fat’ and the third boob, the girls will know what I mean by that 😉 So when I started seeing ads for Noom I was intrigued by the psychology aspect it was presenting, two weeks free trail, what did I have to lose 🤷‍♀️ The two weeks came to an end and I thought might as well carry this on, so I did, I am. There is no miracle to losing weight, it’s mainly persistence but I think the Noom app helps an awful lot with that, there are lessons and information every single day digging into your own psychology (sometimes you dig so deep you surprise yourself) learning the best food balance for you and your situation, it’s not a diet as such more the re-set of your mind when it comes to food choices. I am obviously not affiliated to them nor do I suggest you rush out and join, just telling you my experience of it, I think it’s a great thing to follow, it took me a while to get my head around it, I thought I knew all there was to know about dieting but it seems not 😝

I babysat Mia and the twins although the twins were already in bed so MIA and I had fun taking photos, dancing and singing 😀

Saturday: Another dry, reasonable day today, John did the animals and then had to go off to do a quick plumbing job. When he got back he began to dig out the last bit of the path, but I needed his help fixing the side of the veg bed that had collapsed. So we sourced some wood, dug it out and put in new sides, I got on with back filling the bed while he went to finish what he started. I raked and riddled the bed, took out as much bindweed root as I could find and then I needed Johns help again 😂 and I wonder why he takes so long over jobs 😝 I wanted to bury the soaker hose in the soil, it was partly buried but over time had come up, it was also too long and curled around on itself in places, first I had to cut it to length which meant the end now had no stop. The stop on the original bit had failed (I always wondered why there was a puddle) so I asked John if he had anything that would work, being a plumber I was pretty sure he would. It did mean filing down the outside of the soaker hose though so the bit could be fitted, once it was done we tested it and voila it works well. He went back to his job (again) and I got on with burying the pipe down the centre of the bed, this will give me a more even watering than I had before. After that I planted all the onions, shallots and garlic bulbs, 20 shallots, 16 garlic and I lost count of the onions after 40 but I think there are about 50 in total. That’s not the end of the job because of course I then have to cover them so that the chickens don’t scratch them all up which given that they love freshly turned soil, is a dead cert. I got some lengths of environmesh and pegged them down this will also stop the birds thinking the tops of the onions are worms and pulling them out, it won’t stop the worms pushing them up and out though 😂 So that’s all done and I probably won’t have to do anything to them until next spring unless it gets very weedy between now and then. Environmesh is great stuff and well worth the investment, don’t use environ fleece as that just breaks up, the mesh lets the light and the rain in but keeps the birds off it also creates a micro climate by trapping any warm air a bit like a string vest 😜

Hopefully there will be more days like these when the weather is favourable enough to be able to get the rest of the beds under control and prepared for next spring. I have done that bed and one third of another bed only four and two thirds more to go 😣 In total I have the fruit cage, the two tunnels, the brassica cage, five very large beds, one long thin one, a separate raised bed and the birds, bees and beer bed, I need to start pulling my finger out I think 🤔

Sunday: Man o man I am knackered 😜 I have spent all day from about 9 this morning, it’s now 4pm, burning wood 🙄 The cladding that came off the front of the building needed burning so that was today’s job, there were a few branches from some trees that had been there a while as well. First I had to sort through the pile as it all just got dumped there, there was a pile of painted stuff that needs to go in the skip, a pile of wood that was ok and would come in handy at some point and a pile of gravel boards. I then sorted the wood into smaller and longer bits, the smaller bits I started off in the burning barrel but about two hours in the side started to give so then I started a pile on the ground. The reason I didn’t do this in the first place was the wood was too close to where I would be burning and I like a controlled burn, John, like most men I suspect, would have just had a twenty foot pile of wood and set fire to it 😜 Also he would not have thought about the insects and any small animals that might be under the wood whereas I do so if I move it then they have a chance of getting away first. In fact I was stood there and a little mouse came creeping out of the ground, saw the fire and high tailed away elsewhere 🐭 Meanwhile John was busy creating next weeks burning load, he has given the hedge, where we had the trees cut down, a good pruning both the top and the sides as the branches had got long and straggly. Come spring they should bush out really well as well as grow higher, they have good big roots on them so that will help.

Next weeks pile of burnings 😜

Charlie and Macca called in for a cuppa before go out for the afternoon, we should do something I said to John but in the end we carried on working 😂

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sourdough starter, Christmas cake & a couple of little failures 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 5th October 2020: After the dismal weather at the weekend, this morning the sun was shinning thank goodness, it’s soggy ground underfoot but at least it’s not raining for the moment. John did the morning rounds and my first job was to tidy the boot room and give it a bit of a clean, sort out the kitten area and hoover. From that I went out to give the horses a small breakfast and turn them back out, they won’t appreciate being in when the sun is out, then muck out the stables ready for the next lot of bad weather. I did a quick whip round the veg garden picked some very small courgettes, a handful of runner beans and a couple of punnets of raspberries, I contemplated doing more out there but the ground is so wet I think it’s best left to dry off a bit. It won’t hurt to leave for a while and it will do damage by compact I g the ground if I walk on it while it’s wet so decision made. I had ordered some archive boxes and they arrived yesterday so I went into the office and started to do some sorting out in there. Plenty of paperwork that can be boxed up and stored out in the old caravan until it needs to be burnt ( about 7 years time 🙄) I don’t even know if you need to keep it that long anymore, I guess as most things are now digital it would be possible to find them online if needed but old habits die hard 😂 Why do we keep so much stuff, that’s what I have been wondering over the past couple of weeks, I think I would like to go minimalist but we would need about five skips to get rid of it all I reckon 😜 I am that person that keeps the boxes things come in just in case I decide to sell them, only I never sell them as most things get thoroughly used. Today I have managed to sort all the boxes out and flatten them for recycling, sorted out Christmas decorations I don’t want and put them in an ever growing pile for the charity shop, looked through a pile of other stuff and put it back on the shelf 😏 And still there is plenty of ‘stuff’ I don’t know what to do with lol, I need to get tougher I think and increase the charity pile 😀 You know what it’s like though, the minute you get rid of something, you inexplicably need it!

Good morning sunshine 🌞 nice to see you after a dismal weekend of rain.

I took a break from doing that job and put a home reared chicken in the slow cooker with homegrown garlic and herbs, together with home grown spuds and veg and we will have home grown raspberries for dessert, that’s what I spend my life doing….growing dinner 🥰

I got a sourdough starter on the go, I have been wanting to do this for ages but the process is long and so I could never be bothered, well today I started 😀 I did do it years ago but turned to fast yeast instead for time saving, now we are going into Winter I will have more time so it seems like a good opportunity. It’s very easy, just mix flour with water leave the jar open for a while to ‘catch’ wild yeast (its floating all around us) and then ‘feed’ it for the next six days (not an instant food) then it will be ready to bake with. I put it on the window sill because it needs a bit of warmth to stimulate it, I will close the lid in about an hours time and let it do it’s thing. You can buy fresh starter online but by the time it gets delivered you could be four days into your own batch.

The beginning of a sourdough starter 😀

Another thing I spend time doing is getting into discussions on various topics, the latest one was ‘what time does evening begin’? I would say 6pm others have different opinions but of course this then leads to the ‘time does not exist’ theory. Time doesn’t exist, it’s only what man had created in order to…well, keep order 🙄 There is change, change over a day, night, month, year, decade, millennium but it’s not time, I will just leave that there for you to ponder 😂

Something else that I keep meaning to have a go at and that is fruit leathers, today I finally got round to doing it, never done it before but I have a feeling if it works out well I will be doing a lot more. The main reason I have done it now is because we are lighting the Rayburn daily so I may as well use it to it’s full advantage. The fruit leathers are easy enough to prepare, I used raspberries I picked this morning, put them in a sieve and used a spoon to crush them and squeeze the juice through leaving behind all the little seeds. Line a Swiss roll tin with grease proof paper and pour the juice in, this then went into the warming oven at the bottom of the Rayburn to dry. I’m not sure how long they will take, the warming oven doesn’t get direct heat it basically harnesses the heat from the oven above, it’s not a lot of heat as the oven is well lined but it’s a gentle warm, dry heat ideal for this kind of thing. I often put things in there and totally forget they are there mind you 😂 I have just taken the walnuts out as I put them into dry off, if you left them in for weeks they would be shrivelled up 🙄 like the orange slices I did they were more orange bullets when I eventually found them.

Fruit leather (raspberry) going in the Rayburn for drying

I know it’s only October but I am starting to think about Christmas, more specifically the Christmas cake, I need to get it made soon, that will give me plenty of time to feed it 😀 I always made one, then I had a few years when I didn’t bother and now I make them again. It’s true that it lasts for weeks, John has usually gone back to work after the Christmas break and is still having it in his lunchbox 😂 but it’s great to have if you unexpectedly have guests and nothing else in the cupboards. I will probably use our walnuts and hazels instead of almonds and I still have some dried apple rings from last year in the cupboard so I will use those along with the bought dried fruit, mmmm can’t wait to get it started now, I love the smell of the fruit soaking in orange and brandy 🥰 The Winter months are when I get to use all those wonderful things I have been growing/making all year long, that’s as it should be, traditionally long before the time when you could pop to the supermarket or have stuff on next day delivery, you would have worked towards stocking up your winter stores and especially for that marvellous mid winter feast that has now been thoroughly taken over by commercialism 😏 I try, as much as possible, to still have a traditional Christmas, it’s all about good food and good company and I think I have successfully passed on that to my children just as my Mum did to me 😘

I have to do the feed and egg collecting rounds today as John is still working, bloody typical then that it has just started spitting with rain 😜

Tuesday: Dry and sunny again this morning although it did rain a little last night. This morning I got up had breakfast, a shower, sorted the cats out, got something I prepared earlier out of the freezer for dinner tonight, fed my sourdough starter, put some washing on and hoovered up. Now I am off out for a walk around Blenheim, we bought annual passes this time last year 🙄 luckily or unluckily depends on how you see it, they were extended until April next year, not because of Covid and the fact we couldn’t use them for half the year but because they cocked up sending them to me in the first place, not once but three times! Basically the only times we have been able to use them is when the weather is cold 😂 even then we have to advance book an entry place, never mind at least we can 😀

The sun was shinning the rain stayed away and we had a lovely walk around the Blenheim grounds, George even did a little bit of the walk himself 😀

Back home it was time to do the egg rounds, get the Rayburn lit and get the dinner on but not before a lovely cup of tea ☕️

John was telling me that this morning when he went out to do the birds there were two large white birds in the standing water in the paddock, from his description (shame he didn’t have his phone and get a pic) and looking online we think they were a pair of Little Egrets. There is only a heron that looks similar and they are grey, he said these were pure white.

Stock photo of a Little Egret

Wednesday: Cold but dry this morning. I have fed the sourdough starter and it’s beginning to take form, you can see the yeast is working that’s producing the bubbles and the smell is acidic which is exactly what we want it to be at this point.

I went outside and picked a few raspberries and a courgette, that’s about all there is as the moment, I bought in a butternut squash and I think I will have some of it roasted for dinner tonight with a lamb chop and other veg. It’s a tad cold and as I don’t have to work in the cold I thought I would wait until it warms up a bit. That’s the joy of being my own boss with nobody waiting for me to do anything 😀 I have the complete freedom to do what I like when I like although as I have mentioned before you do have to be a little bit disciplined otherwise nothing would get done at all.

The fruit leather didn’t work out, my fault as there was not enough pulp so it was a very thin layer which basically just stuck to the greaseproof paper, I will try again at a later date.

Charlie called in for a cup of coffee, she has a week off and so that was a lovely interlude that we don’t get very often 🥰 After that I went out and had a look at the bird boxes that we had taken down when we did the front. I want to put them back up somewhere but I’m not sure where is high enough for their safety, I cleaned them out and I will keep looking for places to put them. Then onto the veg garden, I find if I don’t have a definite plan I bimble a bit, so I started off bimbling 🙄 and then got into my stride. I have now cleared all the small raised beds, put mushroom compost on the top of them and covered them with the bio degradable black plastic, that’s how they will stay for overwintering. I then cleared the rest of the dwarf French beans and put a few of them in the greenhouse for drying, I can use the seeds again next year. Then lunch and a podcast Charlie had sent me a link to. I feel a bit tired today and on those days have to force myself to do things and also to eat well, the temptation to grab anything is high but I got myself something nutritious and so after a small rest I will hopefully be re energised 😀

Next job was to soak the dried fruit for the Christmas cake, it’s an easy five minute job and the fruit can be left until you are ready to get the cake mixed, I will probably leave it 24hrs. I have 1kg dried fruit, orange zest and juice, a good splash of fresh orange juice, and then some alcohol if you like it, if not add more orange juice. I used some rumtopf I had left from last year and a tiny bottle of blackberry wine that I had in the cupboard. You can use whatever you like really, it’s all going to taste great in the end🥰

Various stages, soaking the fruit, the mixture and the end product.

I made a skinny version of banana bread, all I can say is don’t bother not if you are expecting it to taste delicious anyway 🙄 I did have a piece but I squirted some skinny syrup (0 calories) on it and it filled a hole and was ok but only ok 😏

I’ve prepped the dinner, lit the Rayburn, fed the chickens, collected the eggs and then sorted them out to go into the shed. I am feeling tired or glum not sure which one precedes which, I try and chivvy myself along but the pep talk does not work so I guess it’s tiredness.

Butternut squash, ever tried it? I have had it before but usually in a stew or similar, well tonight I roasted it 😮 oh my days that took the taste of it to a whole new level for me, delicious 😋 I will definitely be looking at different ways to have this vegetable though my fav is going to be roasted I can just tell 😀

The nights are drawing in very quickly now, it’s dark by 7pm, we have a few weeks yet before it’s dark by 4.30 😏 and we have the clock change coming at the end of the month, always buggers everyone up doesn’t it 😂 I hate it when people say ‘yeah but really it’s *o’clock’ no, no it’s not because the clocks have changed so that is what time it is 😝 It’s usually the same kind of people that like to let you know that while you were on holiday and the weather was not what it could be, they had glorious sunshine back at home, you know the type, and if that type is you….just don’t 🤣

Thursday: Its raining again and it has been raining overnight but on the upside I feel in good spirits today so I must have been tired yesterday. I need to always remember that even if I look well there are things going on inside my body that upset the balance from time to time, it usually results in feeling tired and grumpy 🤷‍♀️ so a good rest can often sort things out 😀 Not sure what I will get done today, I need to feed the starter and I have got some washing on but apart from that I have not many any definite decisions yet, oh I need to sort the Christmas cake so I will probably get that done this morning.

The kittens will have been here two weeks by the weekend and I think they are getting a little bit bored of being in the boot room so we will have to let them start exploring. Jack is fine I don’t have any worries about him, I think he will come when called but Jill is a different story. She has always been and still is reserved, she doesn’t come to greet any of us when we go into the room, she sits firmly in the corner and her head goes down when we stroke her, it is a bit of progress though as when she first came as she would growl at us. I don’t particularly want them to be over friendly just as long as they come for food and don’t clear off for good 😜

The Christmas cake is mixed and in the oven 😀 once cooked and cooled it will be stored and then bought out weekly to feed it with some alcohol or other. The smell of the mixture was amazing and I tasted the spoon 🙄 delicious, to be honest in my opinion the raw mixture is better than the cooked cake but it’s not very good for you 😂

The sourdough starter is smelling sour, that’s a good thing, it is working a treat. I can remember the first time I had sourdough bread, July 2006, I can be that precise because I was up in the Blue Mountains, I had taken Charlie to Australia to visit my Brother Joe and his wife Monique. We took a trip up to the mountains to have Christmas in July, we had some real laughs due to the place we had booked not being a bit like the online photos 😝 We checked out and went elsewhere and in the process of finding new accommodation we stopped for soup in a little cafe. Soup and sourdough bread with unsalted butter, well I was hooked from then on. At that time over here in the UK it wasn’t something you could find on a regular menu, it seemed to me that the Australians were so far ahead of us with food choices and outlooks, I am glad to say that we have caught up with them, almost 🙄

As I was doing the Christmas cake my thoughts turned to Christmas crafts, I am not terribly artistic (that’s an understatement 😝) but I do like to have a go at something for the occasion. I want to get the office all sorted so that I can sit in there in the evening and do things like crafting or my other passion, ancestry 😀 one day I will get it sorted. I quite like the darker nights for doing that kind of thing, I can’t wait to get started however I have to do the books up for the year first 🥴 I had an email saying they were due (they are very overdue 🙄) so I need to get my house in order before I can begin to enjoy myself.

I have no idea what is going on but we have had an increase in the number of customers coming to get eggs, today it was 19! That is unheard of apart from during lockdown, 2/3rds of them will have been disappointed to find the egg shed empty. For a few weeks now we have always had eggs available most times of the day but over the last three or four days they have sold as soon as they go out 🙄

Friday: Always a welcome day, a happy day and today is a sunny day which makes it even better 😀

Sometimes I get philosophical that’s not always a good thing as it generally occupies all of my thinking for a few hours at least 😜 Why have I chosen to do what I do? It’s not something I always wanted to do it is something that evolved over time and you have to wonder why? Fundamentally I despair of the human race as a collective, not as individuals, there are millions and millions of good people but collectively humans seem to tread the same path I guess I retreated to this lifestyle because (in my opinion) its wholesome, with it comes a responsibility to look after nature or at least to not do it any harm, but then if that were the case you would think I would be vegetarian and I’m not, life is confusing isn’t it. See what I mean, it doesn’t do to start thinking lol. Sometimes I just need to write these things down so thank you for accommodating my thoughts for today, of course the whole subject is wider and deeper than that but it’s a weekly blog not a year long one 😂

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein

Sam and Shelley came over with the little ones that are not at school and we went for a walk down a local lane, I looked for apples on a tree but they had all gone, there are a few blackberries left but most have started to shrivel up, it’s beginning to look and feel like autumn 🍂 Though we do get compensation in the way of awesome sunsets at this time of year 😀

I opened my sourdough starter this morning and it has liquid on the top, this apparently is called hooch and means the starter needs feeding 🙄 it’s like having a baby 😂 The hooch is alcohol produced by the yeast but by all accounts you wouldn’t want to drink it, I don’t think I took enough of the starter away yesterday which meant the ratio wasn’t right which in turn produced the hooch. All is not lost though you just stir it in and feed it more flour, it is a living thing with wants and needs 😝

John left his phone on a job he has been doing in town so in the evening we went back to collect it and then nipped round to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa.

Saturday: A dry day some sunshine now and again, not too cold. John did the rounds and then started on digging out a path along the front of the building. We are putting a flower bed in but I wanted a path so that I can still get to the windows easily to clean them. When we first came there were thorny roses along there which was difficult, then I had to put up a fence around the area as Kai kept digging everything up when he was alive, now we can clear it and have it looking nice, only taken 10 years 😂 Meanwhile I got started on the beginning of winter clearing up in the garden, first all the plants that I have been bringing on, they are now safely in the cold frames, after that onto the tort run and some cutting back and chipping up, putting the clippings back on the ground. Inbetween all that I was making bread so diving backwards and forwards between the garden and the kitchen. I tried the sourdough but I don’t think I paid enough attention to it and it’s not rising at all, I will habe a look later and see if I can salvage it in any way 😏 I also made a regular loaf as I was not sure how the sourdough was going to do, good job I did 😜 More tidying away in the garden and potting up some bits, I really need to dig a few things up and divide them but by lunchtime my hips were hurting, the wind had got up and the sun gone in so I think the cold got into them. Time to come in and do some washing up and tidying, that’s the trouble when I am working out side, the kitchen becomes a dumping ground for everything while I go about my work.

Popped round to have a cuppa with Shelley and the kiddies in the afternoon before coming back and lighting the Rayburn. John did the feed round and I sorted the eggs, he then went out to clean out the hen huts in the paddock…..just as it started to rain and I mean really rain 🥴 luckily for him I had got the fire going nicely and there was plenty of hot water for a nice bath.

The sourdough dough is a bit of a disaster but I’m not giving up just yet, I still have starter so I will continue feeding it and try again on a day when I have more time to apply myself 😜 I may well have to do a fair bit of reading up before I attempt a second go 🙄

Sunday: Today’s plan was to go to the garden centre and get breakfast, actually my plan was to get some new gardening gloves and have a mooch about but to get John to readily agree I have to mention getting breakfast 😜 We picked up a few bits for Christmas but the gloves were all medium and I have very small hands. It’s not much fun gardening in gloves that have about an inch extra as I can’t grab hold of thing properly and the extra bit always gets trapped. The lack of small gloves in one centre meant I had to go to another one as well 😀😀 where I am glad to say I successfully purchased a selection of gloves in a small size. The first centre was relatively quiet, the second more popular and upmarket (and therefore overpriced) centre was very busy 🙄 While I was waiting to pay I was looking at the dried flower collection, I cant believe people pay that much for dead stuff 😂 here is me chopping it down and putting it on the compost heap, I said to John we are missing a trick here 😝

Posted in Friesland Farm

Lavender oil, a lovely walk and plenty of walnuts.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 28th September 2020: Would you look at that, we are back round to Monday again 🙄 Some tasks just happen without any planning of them and that’s what I have been doing this morning, an unplanned task, still one that needed doing just wasn’t on my radar. The cleaning out of the greenhouse, two reasons for doing it, one, the season is coming to its end and lots have gone over and need adding to the compost heap, second reason is that the tortoises will need to begin hibernation soon. They hibernate in the greenhouse in a hutch over winter but they need to wind down first, they are already beginning to ‘dig in’ in the outside run, a good sign that they are ready for the long winter sleep. They will probably spend the next three weeks awake and I will slowly withdraw food from them although they are pretty good at regulating themselves. They can’t go into hibernation with food in their stomach as it will either ferment or freeze, neither has a good outcome 😏 On a warm day in the greenhouse they will still be active but as the temps drop they will become less so until they are fully hibernating and then we wrap them up until I can hear them shuffling around next spring.

I spent a few hours in the greenhouse moving things, sweeping down, cleaning and throwing stuff away, discovering many spiders but luckily no mice 😀 There are still a few things hanging on in there, chillies, although I picked most of them this morning, a couple of peppers still growing and again I picked the bigger ones already this morning, I have a few plants that are overwintering in there ready for next spring and there are walnuts, hazelnuts, lavender and tomatoes all either drying or ripening off. I also have some thermal foil ordered to put on the North side to help reflect the heat/light back towards what is still growing. At this time of year it’s easy to lose plants to the cold in the greenhouse so I am doing everything I can to keep them going including standing them on celeotex to stop cold drafts at the base of the plants. I may even make a thermal shelter out of the foil and a cardboard box to protect anything really vulnerable. I did think about heating it but in all honestly it’s a waste of money until the growing season begins again in Spring.

After a spot of lunch I went into the big tunnel to finish tidying up after pulling the tomato plants. Plenty of weeding in there, despite the fact that I put black plastic all round the edges the weeds crept through. I almost got one side finished and decided it was time for a sit down, I spent so much time on my knees each time I stood up I felt dizzy 🥴 that’s not good is it. I also found a clutch of eggs while I was tipping stuff onto the compost, we found a clutch in the straw in the stables but the minute you find them the hens move quarters and it’s hide and seek until you locate them. I can bet my bottom dollar that once I pick them up later they won’t lay there again and it will be back to hunting for them. I said to John we were loads of egg down in the daily count 😂

John came home and set about shifting all the wood we had taken off the front of the building and there was a lot of it. That left me to do the egg/feed rounds, pick some runner beans, pick some raspberries and get the dinner sorted. By 6pm my back was aching and with the washing up done it was time for a sit down thank goodness 😅

The animals we picked up on Saturday in case you hadn’t already guessed were two little black and white kittens. Yes I know I said I was done with cats for a while but we really need them to keep the mouse and potentially rat population under control. So we collected Jack and Jill (original I know 😜) and they have been settling in well. Today for the first time one of them came to meet me when I went through to the boot room which is where they are, sometimes locked in a cage because the dogs also have free range of the room and sometimes the dogs are locked out and the kittens get to stretch. It didn’t take them long to start climbing and finding hidey holes.

Tuesday: I started off the day by burning a bit of rubbish, paper feed sacks and cardboard boxes etc, then I had half an hour to kill so I thought that would be a good time to infuse the lavender I have been drying. I have used almond oil as a base, stuffed the jar three quarters full with lavender heads and covered it with the oil. That will sit on the window sill for about three weeks with the occasional shake and then be ready to bottle, a lovely soothing relaxing oil for all kinds of uses. I finished that and my cup of coffee and went out to the paddocks to bring in the horses ready for the farriers visit. Sam arrived with the twiglets, after the horses were sorted and back out we had some lunch and then went on a walk along the local downs. Again the scenery was beautiful, there was plenty to admire, spindleberry and flax, plus a bonus snack as we saw some great looking apples growing on a tree in the hedge, they were the best apples we had tasted for years 🍎

Spindleberry and flax two of my favourites to see while out walking.

When John came home we took down a chain link fence to the side of the building as we have someone coming to take the trees down tomorrow hopefully, as the weather is supposed to be terrible 🙄 It will be great once they are down as we can finally move the access to the yard, at the minute you drive past the front of the house and round in a big C shape which can be tricky when towing a trailer, this one will go straight up the side and the turning/reversing point will be much easier than it is now. Then it will be a case of a new fence and gate, the jobs are piling up lol.

Wednesday: Today is the day the remaining trees come down at last, I was a bit worried as I hadn’t heard from the people doing it and I hadn’t contacted them but they turned up as planned so that’s brilliant.

The weather is supposed to be awful later this week, high winds and rain urgh I think summer is done 😏 It’s going to be a long Winter what with all the restrictions as well as the long dark nights but I’m sure we will get through it. Funny how spring and summer seem to go faster than the autumn and winter 🙄 I do love autumn mind you, I love Halloween and bonfire night though I don’t think there will be much going on this year, we will have to make it the best we can in the circumstances, maybe a hot chocolate and a scary film (not too scary 😂) with the fire going will help.

I stayed indoors out of the way of machinery and trees being felled 🙄 mostly I did a fair bit of sorting out, things to go to the charity shop, things to throw away, old paperwork to burn. Mid afternoon I lit the Rayburn, it started raining around lunchtime and I think it is supposed to get worse later, might as well have a warm cosy house especially as I will be doing the feeds rounds later and likely to get a soaking 😜

The trees are down and we now have a huge pile of woodchip and tree trunks, it was surprising how oppressive the trees were even just the four that were left.

Now you see them, now you don’t 😀
All this from just four trees, though they were huge 😜

Nice and toasty indoors with the Rayburn going, we will only have it lit for a few hours and then let it out or we will be sweating buckets tonight 😂

We are into the second wave of the virus now, they said it would come, we hoped it wouldn’t but here it is spreading rapidly I expect more restrictions will be added over the next few weeks.

Thursday: After the torrential downpours last night we woke to a beautiful morning, sunny, warm, delightful 😀 I seem to have my clearing out head on at the moment and so went out into the back area and started tidying up and clearing any rubbish, putting things away properly, that sort of thing. Then I got distracted, the daughter of someone I know has started a business transferring old vhs to digital. We have a few that I would like to get done so I went searching for them, our wedding video is the main one and then there are Christmas and holiday videos. Plenty of them have nothing written on them so I needed a player to have a look, I found one in the caravan which must have been dads as it has been here since we first bought the place. No plug on it 😂 this is typical as, like John, Dad probably robbed the plug for something else, however John also takes the plugs off defunct electricals and keeps them so I found one in a drawer. I am of the era that were taught how to wire a plug, I have no idea if they still teach that or not but it was one of the more useful things I ever learnt 😜 and so I put on a new plug and voila it works, I say works, it lights up and turns on anyway, the next phase is to hook up to a tv and see if it actually plays. Oh the fun I am going to have watching all these memories 🥰

After doing that I had to sort out the POL pen as we are expecting a delivery of hens this afternoon, it just needed sweeping out and some weeds pulling, that took me up to lunchtime and time for a half hour sit down I reckon.

I decided to rig up the video recorder and see what was on some of the tapes, the quality is not too good now, well they have been sat there for nearly thirty years (some of them anyway) but they are watchable, I just need to go through all of them and see what is what. It’s a long time since I hooked up a video player to the tv and had to google it 😂

John came home just in time for the arrival of 50 hens and the feed delivery so he sorted all that out

Josh wanted to come over after school and be left here on his own with us so Mummy and Flo had to push off 😂 not quite like that but you get the gist. He helped Grampy with the egg collecting and then he helped me gather some walnuts, I thought the squirrel would have most of them but there were loads on the floor so we picked them all up. Then things got hectic for a couple of hours as we had people arriving to collect hens and some people arriving to collect wood, what with that and answering messages about the wood it was all hands on deck, Josh even helped me load some wood in a wheelbarrow for someone. Eventually everything was done and sorted, Josh went back home, John put the birds to bed and that’s the end of another day 😀

Friday: It couldn’t be a more different day compared to yesterday’s sunshine, it’s been raining through the night and this morning it’s grey, dull, breezy and constant rain, yuk. Luckily I don’t have to be out and about in it at the moment, John did the rounds this morning before going to work, I stayed inside with a cup of tea 😂

I whizzed round and got a few household jobs done and then it was time to go and have my blood tests done, and get my flue jab, after that I went for coffee and cake with Shelley and Flo and then onto have a routine mammogram 😏 Just my luck that the software wasn’t playing ball and had to have one side done three times! If you have never had one before they compress your boob in various positions and it’s pretty uncomfortable so to have to have it done three times is not very nice at all but very necessary 🙄 Back home and light the Rayburn as it’s cold and rainy, if I can get it lit and settled before I have to go out and do the feed rounds I don’t have to nip in halfway round to check on it. Apart from that we have someone coming to pick up hens at 4pm and a cosy night in the warm is in order I think.

Saturday: Wet and rainy overnight, still drizzling this morning, a rather dank, dull day 🙄 John did the animals and then went off to pick up the tractor part that needed repairing, hopefully he will get that fitted today. I pottered around indoors sorting washing, drying, various other tasks, I am thinking of all the jobs to get done outside so that I am not wandering around wondering what needs doing. When it’s raining it’s best to have a clear itinerary that way I don’t end up either coming in and out of the house or standing round outside getting wet and cold.

Yesterday the world was informed that Donald Trump had covid, this morning we were told he has been hospitalised. From his actions and sentiments I don’t think he really believed it was a threat, I hope for his sake that he can overcome it 🙄

Nuts! I haven’t gone nuts but I do have a good haul of them, hazels and walnuts. The hazels are easy as you pick them and put them in a basket, they just keep like that all year. The walnuts though are a different kettle of fish, they need washing and drying successfully, if you just leave them they grow a mould in the outside which permeates inside and that’s not good. I have tried various methods over time but this year I have washed them off and because the Rayburn is lit I have put them in pans on the warming shelf to dry gently. I tried selling some last year but to be honest because you don’t what’s inside them until you crack them open it’s not really fair on customers especially if they get a few with nothing inside. I guess the industry xrays them or something like they do with eggs for cracks or anomalies. I try just picking up what I will use but seeing them on the ground the urge to gather is too strong so now I have quite a lot 😜 I was. Reading that you can freeze them though or even keep them in the fridge so I might have a ‘cracking evening’ soon and then they will be on hand to use quickly in cakes or for snacking. I have no idea how they don’t go rancid in the packing they are sold in 🤷‍♀️ if anyone has a clue let me know.

Lots of walnuts 😀

I decided to have a go at doing something with the nuts so I made some snacking nuts, a Keto recipe to be precise, whatever that is, it uses granulated sweetener instead of sugar. I cup of hazels, 1 cup of walnuts and 1 cup of cashews that I had in the cupboard. 1/4 cup of water, 1 cup of truvia, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp sea salt, 1tsp vanilla extract. Put everything except the nuts in a saucepan on medium heat, heat until dissolved then add nuts, keep stirring until the mixture crystallises, cool, eat, but I portioned it at around 15 portions which works out at 165 calories 😂 not for an everyday snack but as a treat it will be well worth it I reckon. It will store for a couple of months in an airtight jar or freeze, can be chopped into smaller pieces to top yoghurt or an apple crumble as always you are only limited by your imagination 😀

A word or two of advice (warnings 😜) don’t leave it in the pan to cool tip it out onto a tray, it’s difficult to get out of the pan once it’s set 🥴 if you like nice flat pastry when you roll, don’t use your rolling pin to bash the bottom of the pan it ends up with dents 🤣 and it’s very moorish so put it away in the cupboard or that will 500 calories gone before you know it 😝

The wood is nearly gone, we have had a couple of people come and cut it up and take it away, actually one bloke has been back three times already 😀

Sunday: Oh my days we have had nearly 48hrs of constant rain some of it pretty heavy at times. I woke about five times in the night and each time I could hear it pouring down, consequently this morning we have our usual river and lake in the fields. My aim was to get the horses in so I got the stables ready, John went off to pick up some hay bales as we haven’t got any in yet and I also bought the quail inside as they were looking rather glum. Biscuit was happy to be coming in, Jack however was a total prat and was adamant he wasn’t going to play ball until I got him a bowl of chaff feed that is then he decided it might be a good idea after all 🙄 we were a bit soggy after the morning out in it all. We came in and lit the fire and then popped round to see Mum and Ken and drop some videos off that are going to be converted to digital. When we got back, Shelley, Martin and the kiddies had dropped round for a cuppa and a chat. Then it was time to do the feed rounds and egg collection, the day has whizzed past today despite the depressing weather.

That’s another week done and dusted, I feel like it was a bit of a bitty week and nothing really consolidated, I don’t know why, it just feels like that. Hopefully next week I will feel a bit more in control, who knows what the week will bring though 😂 Have a good one whatever you are doing 🥰