Tag: lavender

Posted in Friesland Farm

Flowers, strawberries & the ying and yang of life.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 26th June 2023: A new week and a fairly busy one too as far as flowers go. It is British Flowers Week and I have the intention of doing something for it but not sure what yet. I was up early to get a bit more watering done, I did have the irrigation hoses on in the front beds last night and just wanted to get the pots watered properly. Each year I think, it can’t be as hot and dry as last year can it? and the answer is yes, yes it can 😜 After doing the watering I had a shower and breakfast, did the eggs, put on a wash load and then went out to cut some more lavender. I also cut some fairy roses for drying, they dry beautifully and are always worth doing. The lavender I have plans for once that is dry but I have sold a few bunches too. Then it was onto social media updates as you have to keep those going constantly for the algorithms 😂 plus it’s good to update customers or potential customers as to what is going on or what is available. I had the undertaker to ring for the funeral flowers on Friday, I just needed to know what time they could be delivered, then answer a message from my doctors surgery who wanted a blood pressure reading. That was not great, it is on the high side (even though I feel better today than I have for ages lol) and I now have to do morning and evening readings for a week to see what it is doing over time or if it was because I have been up working since 5am 😜 After doing that I planted up two roses that we got for our anniversary, one is called rambling Ruby and the other is called, As Good as it Gets ( a compact floribunda) now both planted and watered in. Next a sit down to do a few modules of my online course, which is mostly just watching at the minute to be honest so it is not taxing my brain. Then onto making up the flowers to be delivered later today and google the address so I know where to deliver to. It is not even noon yet.

We have geese and we have approx 4 acres they can roam in and sit wherever they like in those 4 acres but guess where they have decided is best 🙄 Right outside the door of my flower workshop, yep let’s sit and crap here all day, not even to the left or the right of the door but right smack bang in front 🤦‍♀️

The ducks have also decided they would rather like to come in the front drive, climb up on the raised beds (flattening everything with their flat feet as they go) and lay eggs there instead of in their hut. John says the ducks are not laying many eggs, I say they are laying them somewhere else, he says no I don’t think so, I find a pile of eggs in my flower beds 🤔 At the minute they are confined to their run, which is a pretty big area but they are not free ranging all over the place and especially not on my flower beds 😜

Tuesday: The whole blood pressure thing is not great, I have to send in readings and they are still up this morning. This is likely to be related to my medication although I will be making adjustments to my diet 😂 On the whole I don’t eat or do things that are bad for my blood pressure, I don’t smoke, I rarely drink and I cook most thing from scratch so salt is limited. What I have been over the last couple of months is sedentary due to the shingles and I do eat more biscuits and chocolate than is necessary 😜 but not big quantities. I was actually feeling pretty good yesterday until I took the first reading 😂

This morning I have been doing lots of different things starting with giving the flower room a clean, tidy, sweep and wash the buckets plus hang any unused flowers up to dry. Then onto some weeding in the garden, the weather is ideal for me today but I am really hoping we get some rain again soon it is very dry.

Wednesday: I planned on doing one thing and then did something entirely different 😜 But first I cut some foliage for a funeral sheaf I am making for Friday, this requires strong foliage such as a tree branch and they need as much conditioning as possible to take up plenty of water and stay looking good. Charlotte came over with Oscar before going to baby group and also to collect some flowers ordered by her friend, she delivered them for me on her rounds. Then I had planned on doing some gardening but instead I did the rest of the online course and then went I to the flower hut to do some practice 😁

We had dinner in the evening and after I went outside to pick a bowlful of strawberries for dessert 🍓 yum. I then spent an hour in the flower hut making a fresh lavender wreath which will now hang to dry as it is.

Thursday: We had a bit of rain early this morning, not much but again it will freshen everything up in a way that watering can’t do. I had some more flowers to cut, the rest of them for the funeral sheaf I will make tonight and then some for other orders.

After that I decided I really ought to do some cleaning. Initially the girls came and do it for me, changing the bed sheets etc as well but eventually I was able to help and now I am able to do it on my own again yay 😜 I did a deep clean of the bathroom the other week and then with Shelley’s help the same in the living room as I was not able to move the sofas by myself but now I need to do the bedrooms. Move everything, dust, clean, hoover and put stuff away that has been sat around for far too long. Same with the spare room where everything gets dumped, everything is now lovely and I will wait for the sun to move round before cleaning the windows which also have not been touched for a good few months lol. I still have the office, boot room and the kitchen to tackle but that can wait for another day as my hand is smarting a little so best not push it too far.

Knowing my luck the minute I hang the sheets out on the line it will rain 😂

It didn’t rain and the sheets dried beautifully 😁 In the evening it was to make up the sheaf of flowers for tomorrows funeral. It is always delightful to do flowers for people to receive but there is something profoundly humbling to be asked to do flowers for someone’s final journey.

Friday: After breakfast the first job of the day was to cut flowers for a wholesale bucket customer this tomorrow and while I was doing that Charlie and Oscar arrived. They had walked over and Oscar had his breakfast here before they walked back home again before it rains. The forecast says rain, the rain radar says rain and it looks like it will rain but as yet nothing has fallen from the sky 🙄 I did the final touches to the sheaf before delivering it to the funeral director in Witney. The flowers I do are as always fully compostable except the little cellophane cover on the message card and that is only there in case it rains so as not to smudge the writing. Natural, sustainable, seasonal, compostable 🥰

Once back home I made a cuppa and sat down, I have just had another order come in and have had to delay until Monday or Tuesday (which is fine with the customer) as I have pretty much used or will have used most of what I have growing this weekend. The flowers are at a switch over stage, the early summer flowers are still blooming but desperately need some rain and the showy summer flowers are in bud but not quite out yet, they need some rain too!

I went back outside and got on with some cutting back and weeding, the lupins and delphinium have had their first flush and I can see new growth at the base, cutting them right back will hopefully produce a second flush in a couple of months time. Cutting back plants that are going over also means that you let more light into those that are yet to bloom or have got overshadowed by the stars of the show. I cut back the nepeta which gets unruly and the campanula which grows tall then flops everywhere, the tall daisy’s are getting a bit unruly too so they got thinned out. I have the biggest patch of echinops growing, once they start to colour up I will be cutting them and that plant will need dividing, I should get some good plant material to pot up from it, grow it on and either plant elsewhere next year or sell some or both.

Early afternoon I had a delivery and not one that I had ordered this time. This was a gift from friends who came to our anniversary party, it was afternoon tea from the Cornish company 🥰 freshly baked scones, Cornish jam and cream, tea grown in Cornwall and Cornish biscuits, delicious so thank you very much Sally and Ian x

As John was 60 this year he knows a lot of 60 year olds 😜 so we are off out to a 60th birthday party tonight , the theme is 1920’s or black and white, we opted for black and white 😂

Early evening and still no sign of the rain they have been forecasting all day 🤷‍♀️🙄😏 probably pour down just as we step out of the door later 😂

Saturday: Started with cutting this morning for orders tomorrow, put the watering on in the small tunnel for the cucumbers and tomatoes, then the twins came to stay for an hour while Sam took Mia to her riding lesson. Shelley and Flo popped in and Shelley helped with a bit of technology that had me flummoxed 😶 Customers arrived to collect their orders and then I pottered around doing I have no idea what for the afternoon. Meanwhile John has been busy digging up dock and a few bits of ragwort from the bigger paddock, he did the small one the other day, then dragged it and topped it and that is looking good.

Popped out for a few hours early evening to visit my sister and on our return found a card and some strawberries in the shed for the ‘hen humans’ how lovely was that. While getting the washing in I was thinking that the universe/cosmos must listen and for every Ying there is a Yang. Just lately I have felt that some humans have no thought for anyone but themselves 😏 couple that with the loss of hens, we started with 70 when we came back from holiday and are down to 25 and it can feel quite depressing at times and then out of the blue, a lovely gesture which restores my faith in my fellow humans 🥰 thank you 🙏

Sunday: A new day and a better frame of mind today, still no rain mind you 🙄 I had flowers to get ready for customer collection mid morning but then I pottered around doing the usual, watering, weeding and watching lol. Watching to see what is about to come out, I have plenty in bud at the minute they just need a burst of rain or sun or both to chivvy them along. Once the flowers were collected we went to get some food shopping, I keep telling John to go on his own as it is mostly stuff for him, I can mange with the garden and the freezers 😂

We went over to Shelley’s for a bite to eat mid afternoon then once back I got the hose connected to do some more watering. I then wandered round and did some cutting for drying, nice red colours today which will hopefully be nice for winter arrangements. John was going to put a lot more hooks up for me but he has been doing the paddocks and changing the broken pump on the water tanks so I guess they will have to wait.

Grown not flown, natural, seasonal, local flowers 🥰
Posted in Friesland Farm

Fox attacks, summer solstice and our Ruby wedding anniversary.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th June 2023: After the bit of rain last night everything is nice and fresh this morning and it’s not so hot that it all just evaporates. My first garden job was to cut some of the taller stems that I will need later in the week, the reason is that we are expecting much more rain tomorrow and I don’t want them bashed down by any heavy rain. These are flowers that are perfect for cutting now with just a few buds open, the rest will continue to open in time for making up the bouquets. I am cutting flowers daily and not always for orders but because in order to keep them coming they need cutting otherwise if they go to seed they will stop producing and I don’t want that. It is one of the reason that a cutting garden is not filled with flowers as people expect, quite the opposite as they have been cut for using one way or another, fresh or for drying.

At lunchtime I had some customers arrive to talk about wedding flowers for the end of the year, a small wedding which I can easily do 😁 The afternoon was overcast enough to get some cutting back and tidying up done.

The evening was again spent getting watering done, the bit we had the other day was good enough to freshen up but not much else, we need some prolonged rain that will soak right into the ground. I was right last year when I said we need to catch as much as possible going forward, two years running now we have had prolonged, hot weather with no rain. It doesn’t help that our pump burnt out on the water tanks at the weekend and as yet John has not replaced it, I am sure he will if I keep in moaning enough 😜 I cut yet more flowers this evening after watering the beds they were growing in, flowers are coming thick and fast and I keep cutting them. I also walk around thinking, I need to change this or that, there will be plenty to do come autumn. Having done a full year and a bit I can now see what I did right and what I did wrong, I also know which flowers I like and what is not worth growing. The annuals were pretty much a no go this year due to me being ill and I have found I can do without most of them, yes they are lovely but there are other flowers that are just as good and perennial, saving me lots of time and worry.

Tuesday: I can’t function today, I tried but I cannot. Almost 8 weeks since the shingles broke out and I am still getting pain on one side of the wrist, hand and fingers. The skin is healing and the new skin is tender, the stinging feeling never goes away, never dulls even with painkillers, consequently it is very tiring, on the up side my eye seems to have got better by itself 🤷‍♀️ I would just like a day when I wake up in the morning and feel full of beans and ready to get going, not too much to ask is it?

We have had two daytime fox attacks today and lost around 10 birds, I heard the first commotion around lunchtime, went out and there were hens upon the egg shed, up on the fence and all making a racket. I walked round the front paddock to check it over but couldn’t see anything. An hour later another commotion and a similar scenario, we are down to 30 hens, half of those don’t lay anymore either so we will be very short on eggs and resigned to the fact that we are coming to the end of our egg selling days. Yes I know people love our eggs but we do not love the constant battle that it takes to provide them ☹️

No watering tonight as we had a good load this morning and I am glad of the rest.

Wednesday: Solstice. A better day functioning 😁 so I got on with lots of flowery things, I know I should have done cleaning but hey that can wait 😜 I started my online course and did two modules and then John came home at lunchtime. After a cuppa and a quick sit down we went out to try and find something I wanted to do flower things in, couldn’t find what I was looking for but I found a few plants instead 😂

Back home and after another sit down, John did some weeding in the driveway. I keep telling him he is wasting his time as he is doing it by hand, by the time he finishes one bit the last bit will have grown again but it falls on deaf ears 🤷‍♀️ He did stop to make me some wooden boxes to fit jam jars in, I was trying to find plastic wallpaper paste troughs earlier but can’t find any so wood will do, actually they are probably much nicer. Dinner eaten then back out to get some watering in the tunnels done, do the horses water and that basically is the end of the longest day. There was no spectacular sunset, indeed no sunset at all otherwise I would have taken a photo.

Thursday: Mostly I have been doing flowery things 😂 well there is something new 😜 Cutting a bucketful first thing this morning and then to the online course which is soooo good I keep doing module after module. I did take a few break to go and cut some drying material after every three or four modules because I needed to move around a bit.

I spent the evening making up two living vase bouquets for delivery first thing in the morning, plus flowers for Friday.

Friday: After delivery the flowers this morning we set off for a day out to Stratford on Avon, Shakespeare country. When Sam and Luke got married last year they gave us and Luke’s parents the gift of Afternoon tea and a river cruise which was lovely of them. We booked it a couple of months ago and today was the day that we got to go and enjoy the gift. We met Luke’s parents there and enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea at The Arden Hotel, the service was impeccable, the sandwiches, cakes and scones were delicious and the surroundings had a relaxed elegance. The day was very relaxed as it often is when you are next to or on the river I think, the only downfall was the volume of traffic on the journey home 😜 The weather was perfect for me to be able to wander round, overcast but warm

Saturday: I had an early night last night so that I could get up early and do some watering this morning. Pyjama gardening early in the morning is one of my favourite activities lol. Again it was overcast and so I was able to spend quite a few hours getting some gardening done including weeding, planting and harvesting berries and lavender. I was also able to wear a short sleeved t shirt which is rare for me in the summer.

1st of the lavender harvest
Juicy redcurrants full of lycopene and so good for you

I had a phone call mid morning and unbelievably I have an order for flowers from Aberdeen 😂 to be delivered locally obviously but how amazing is that.

After bundling up lavender to hang for drying and de stalking red currants it was time for a quick sit down before having a shower and getting ready to go out again. The girls are taking us out for our 40th wedding anniversary which is tomorrow.

Forty years! Where has that gone 🤷‍♀️ we met on a blind date at the Masons Arms in Brize Norton, we got engaged on my 18th birthday party which was at Bradwell Grove (when it was still a hospital) social hall, we had our hen and stag do in the Rose and Crown in Shilton and then we got married in the Holy Rood Church at Shilton. We haven’t traveled far have we 😂 not in terms of miles anyway.

The life road we have navigated has been scenic, lots of hills climbed and plenty of freewheeling downhill, we have hit plenty of pot holes and bumps on the road. The travellers we have met along the road have been many, some travelling with us and some travelling in the opposite direction but all have enriched our life journey in one way or another. At times we barely had enough fuel to keep going or the means of buying the fuel and at other times we have had enough to propel us many more miles than we ever thought we could get. We have taken turns in navigating, when one is tired or just can’t, the other takes over. We are as different as chalk and cheese and you would think that could never work but actually it works very well, I would say we are both different pieces of the same jigsaw 😂 We have accumulated some fantastic passengers on our journey, our three amazing and beautiful daughters, they invited their own passengers along, three fabulous husbands and six adorable children between them so far. Would I do anything differently, of course I would, maybe some of the turns we took were wrong turns, maybe some of the ones we didn’t take, we should have 🤷‍♀️ but I wouldn’t change who I was travelling with, on the whole considering we have travelled all that way without a map I think we are doing ok 🥰

STOP PRESS: We thought we were going out for a meal with the family, turns out they had organised a surprise party 🎉 It really was a surprise I can tell you 😂 Friends and family were waiting to greet us, a table laden with food, old photos, cake, music and a bar, what a lovely afternoon we had (once I got over the shock) We had lots of lovely cards and presents which was very kind of people, just a lovely thing to do and I can’t believe nobody gave the secret away.

Us as fresh faced teenagers 😂 our life map is now recorded in wrinkles 😜

Sunday: Another scorcher of a day ahead, at 8am this morning when I was putting out the eggs it was already very warm, normally at that time of the morning it is a pleasant temperature still but not today.

Today is actually our anniversary day but we dont have anything planned so the usual jobs got done first thing. I then had flowers to cut for a delivery tomorrow and John has been digging out docks from the paddocks. Biscuit broke out of her paddock the other day but as there is not a lot of grass around due to lack of rain we have left her in with Jack. That meant John could then top and drag the small paddock while she is not in there, meanwhile I gave the kitchen a bit of a clean. My hand is just about at the stage where I can manage most things now, though I still can’t make a fist at least the pain has gone and I am just left with an constant uncomfortable tingling which will hopefully go soon. Our plan was to get done in the morning and then nothing for the rest of the afternoon but stay in the cool of the house and hope that some rain comes our way 🙄 We also have cake to eat 😂 so invited anyone who wants some over for a cuppa.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Lavender season 🥰 early starts, flowers & family time.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th June 2022: New week, new energy and hopefully better internet connection 😂 It is sunny this morning but not as hot as it was at the end of last week, a comfortable summers day. That means I can get on and I have a lot to do as always, last night I was trying to get to sleep but the list of things I wanted to get done were running through my head for ages. This morning I thought I had better get on and get some of them ticked off the list so first up was getting the eggs sorted and out for sale, then onto getting the washing done and hung out to dry. Once they were sorted I went out and cut flowers for a bouquet I have to do for tonight plus a couple of extra cuttings for putting out for sale. Sometimes you pick a combination and think ‘wow’ that is stunning, well I think so any way, they are calendula (a rusty orange, can’t remember the name but need to look it up) and ami Majus in flower, just beautiful and I added some mint for contrast. Next it was on to pick mangetout, strawberries, raspberries and redcurrants plus some tea leaves for drying. I hadn’t finished there because after that I harvested a good lot of lavender which was bundled up and put out for sale and then I cut two big bundles of flower heads for drying, the first was love is a mist and the second poppy. I am aiming to dry as many flowers as I can this year to extend the range of material I have available. With that in mind I have been reading up and researching the different ways of drying and preserving flowers, there are a few different techniques and I am going to give them all a go to find out which are the most successful.

If the internet connection is playing ball you might even get photos this week 🤪

Freshly harvested lavender and some of the redcurrants 🥰

I still have plenty of jobs to do, it’s continuous at the minute but I want to get some more seeds sown before it’s too late both flowers and veg and I have plants that still need to go into the ground 🙄

Just one of the flower combos I cut this morning and arranged this afternoon.

I got the dinner prepped and ready to go later, I have someone coming to collect some plants, someone coming to get a chicken dispatched, someone coming to pick up a bouquet, watering in the tunnels to do and more picking of flowers for drying later if I have time.

The last for the plants found me eventually, the chicken sadly died during the day and the flowers were collected. Just about time to cut some more flowers for drying while the dinner is cooking, quick sit down after eating and then I will go out and water.

Tuesday: Summer Solstice. Another fine and sunny day 😏 that means only half a day outside for me before I came in from the sunshine but I did get a good bit done. First up was cutting for a bouquet tomorrow then some picking, mostly fruit today including a good haul of redcurrants. Sam and the twins came in the afternoon and I sat in the shade while they played with water and had ice lollies. After dinner I went with some friends to a local wood to celebrate the summer solstice with some singing and dancing, making the most of the longest day and connecting with Mother Nature 🥰

Wednesday: Up early to make up a bouquet for collection first thing this morning and then cut some flowers for a bouquet delivery tonight. I harvested some more lavender for drying and I intend to make some lavender bags. I bought muslin bags and I used the flower pounding method to decorate them, entirely environmentally friendly and when they no longer have any scent they can be composted without any problem. I also gathered some rose petals and put those in the drying bag and hung it out on the oak tree, it takes a lot of petals to make a small amount but they would only end up in the compost so might as well make good use of them. I have made a video of the flower pounding technique but I am not sure if it uploaded to the page or got lost in the web so,where because as yet it has not appeared 😂

I sat down for lunch and had just finished when the doorbell rang, I went out and a lovely couple were enquiring about the name Friesland, they were Dutch of course and we had a laugh about the fact that they were not the first ones to stop in and ask and I doubt they will be the last. I really must try to find out what the connection is but I have a feeling it goes a very long way back. We are not in ‘danelaw’ territory as such but I know that around the late 800’s the Danes pushed further during various attacks and some then settled in Dorset so my best guess is that maybe it is named after a settler or settlers from that period 🤷‍♀️ I have had various contact from people over the years but if anyone can throw extra light on my theory or indeed blow it out of the water then please do get in touch I would be very interested to hear anything.

I spent an hour or so in the evening weeding and then doing a corsage workshop which produced some lovely work and in different styles. The sunset was amazing so it’s worth coming just to see that 😁

Thursday: I was up early because I wanted to get some serious weeding and cutting back done and I wasn’t sure if the sun would come out today or not. As it was it was mainly overcast all morning which meant I could get a lot done, it also meant I completely knackered myself out by 11.30am 😂 that was a fair stint though with a 5.30am start. I weeded the front three beds plus cut back anything that was going over or getting too thuggish. Then out to the veg garden to get the tulip bed cleared, I slowly went from bed to bed weeding, clearing and cutting anything that was no longer looking good or had finished producing a crop. I harvested new potatoes for dinner this evening as well as mangetout and broad beans, then strawberries, raspberries and red currants, plenty for eating later. By this point even though it was still overcast I really had to come in and take a proper break otherwise I will not be much good for anything later on 🙄 So many jobs both outside and indoors, I guess some will just have to wait. There are heavy downpours forecast today, I hope we get a bit of it but not too much, it certainly feels very close sometimes and then it seems to clear.

I was sitting on the bench having a coffee looking at the garden when it suddenly dawned on me that I have reached the point when I can safely say ‘I have a food forest’ 😁 after working towards it for a few years now it is beginning to come of age, it looks fabulous.

Had a sleep at lunchtime so that I had enough energy to carry on in the afternoon and evening, it’s pretty relentless right at this moment and I hardly have time to do anything else.

Friday: Oh my days I am exhausted today lol, another early start to cut loads of flowers for orders today and tomorrow. I had an enquiry come in for 3 x bouquets the first week of July, quite pleased because she had asked a local florist for British flowers and they said they couldn’t do it so she told them she would look elsewhere then and got in touch with me 😁 I had an extremely busy morning bombing around trying to get everything done including hoovering and polishing the house, picking veg and fruit, watering the tunnels, still no sign of this rain that we had been warned about 🤷‍♀️ A hundred and one jobs later and Sam arrived with the twins, we went into town, I took Lucie to the park while George went to the barbers and then we all went to the cafe for lunch. Back home and Charlie came to meet Sam and they went off to look at wedding dresses for Sam. By the time they came back I was frazzled 😂 the twins wore me out but my day hadn’t finished yet. Time to get dinner sorted and while it was cooking water the front beds because still no sign of any rain and things are looking pretty dry, I need flowers 😆 Then once dinner was eaten, out to do a good bit of weeding while John cut some more of the front paddock with the limp along lawn mower 😝 Indoors, wash up, write a shopping list for the morning which John will have to do because I have flowers to arrange and the spare room to clean as Josh, Flo and Mia are coming to stay. Finally sit down at 9.30pm and try not to fall asleep 😴

A charming hand held posy for a customer today 🥰

Saturday: Up early to get as much done as possible, still no rain as yet 🙄 One of the main things I wanted to get done was to plant some plants that had been sat a while waiting to go in. Dahlias that I grew from cuttings and some twizzled penstemon, can’t wait to see what they look like, also some knautia. I still have chrysanthemums to plant up but I want to get those inside, they are a late variety which will flower right up to Christmas and hopefully beyond if grown under cover. Meanwhile John went off early to get feed before yet another price rise of 90p a bag, corn has also gone up massively. When he came back he cut some more of the paddock while waiting for a customer to come and collect new hens. By this time I was inside making up two bouquets going out to orders today and some jam jars with the stems I didn’t use in the bouquets. Then John went off to get some shopping while I changed the beds and got ready for the grandchildren to come and stay, just about managed a cup of coffee and a pastry before they arrived. The rest of the day was given over to entertaining and feeding them 🥰 It is actually our 39th wedding anniversary today 😲 whaaat, where did all those years go 😂 I told John I am expecting rubies next year 😝

Back to the feed costs and it is becoming unsustainable to keep poultry for selling the eggs. We did some calculations and we make about £34 a week and that doesn’t include our time, if we factored that in we are definitely running at a loss. The other side of that is that hens are becoming harder to get hold of, October is the earliest our supplier can get some more, normally he is turning over 3,000 birds every 6/8 weeks. Not sure what the outcome of all this is going to be over the whole country 🤷‍♀️

A busy and tiring day, fish and chip supper, bathtime for the kiddies and I have no idea what time they will eventually go to sleep 🛌

Sunday: Kids finally went to sleep around 10pm and were up at 6am 😂 we had pancakes then they went with Grampy to do the feed rounds, played outside for a while, indoors for a snack and a drink, back outside to play in the paddock and see the horses, back in for a drink and a snack, I think they enjoyed themselves. Certainly tired themselves out judging by the photos of them sleeping in the afternoon once they had gone home 🥰 John and I then shot off to get some bits from the DIY shop and had a timely return, couldn’t have timed it any better if we tried because just as we turned into the driveway the fox was creeping across it and heading towards the front hens 🤬 that was about 4pm. It was definitely the youngster again, luckily John has trained the hens to go back in when he takes the corn feed to them. We are going out for Sunday lunch at 5pm so he rounded them up and got them in, can’t afford to lose any more 😳

I didn’t get anything done other than the above today and that was tiring enough but it was lovely and the children behaved themselves so well. I know they are my grandchildren but I was impressed with their manners, thanking my sister for bringing the fish and chips and asking to get down from the table each time they had finished eating, no prompting required, well done parents 😁

In the week ahead I have flowers to do every day except Friday 😲 amazing and very grateful for the support of customers especially as it’s only my first year. I can already see what mistakes I have made, what has gone well, what I would grow again and what I won’t be or what I will grow differently. I am loving it and wish I had done it years ago, next year will be bigger, more organised and I will have a better understanding of what I will have available and when. The combinations of flowers is unlimited it’s only my time and my purse that prevents me planting up the whole five acres 😂 but who knows 😝

Thanks for reading, have a great week, hopefully we will get a tad more rain 🤞

Posted in Friesland Farm

Busy picking, busy doing, generally just a busy week 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday July 5th 2021: I always have the urge to sing ‘Monday, Monday’ when I am writing up the first day of the weeks blog lol.

It is sunny today thought not a typical July day, it’s cooler than average I would say and we have constant threat of showers, a real topsy Turkey weather year this year, random 🤷‍♀️ I haven’t been up to much this morning apart from all usual jobs and one very important job first thing. That was get on the phone ASAP to get the cat booked in which I am glad to say they can do tomorrow I just hope the little bugger turns up for his dinner tonight so I can crate him ready to go 🤪 He has stuck around since we picked him up so I have no reason to think otherwise but you never know!

This morning a letter was released from Buckingham palace, the NHS has collectively been awarded the George Cross, the highest civilian gallantry award and covers the 73 years of dedicated service and for courageous service of healthcare workers during the Covid 19 pandemic, a great honour and richly deserved 🥰

I haven’t mentioned the restrictions for a while I feel like we are all treading water but hopefully mid July all restrictions will be lifted. I am guessing that those who wish to carry on with restrictions will but those that don’t will have the freedoms that have been sorely missed over the last year and a half. My opinion is that once the majority have been vaccinated we may as well carry on as normal otherwise there is no point in the vaccinations 🤷‍♀️

The sun is out today and although I have been out doing a bit of picking in it I soon get tired, that is my system saying we need to attack 😏 and so it’s not long before I go back indoors. Luckily it’s Wimbledon fortnight so I can rest out of the sun while watching something interesting. I would be doing something but I feel very tired, I can’t explain that to anyone who doesn’t experience it, it’s total fatigue it happens when I go out in the car on a sunny day too. Good job I don’t drive really isn’t it, I have no idea how people who have Lupus and do drive manage because the heat in the car and the sun rays totally floor me sometimes.

I picked soft fruit, a mix of raspberries, red currants and strawberries which we will probably have later for dessert, I generally have mine with some Greek yoghurt John will either have his just with sugar or with some ice cream depending on what he fancies.

In the evening before I sorted out our dinner I wanted to get the cat sorted and locked in! He appeared as he always did before he went and so I sorted out feed for him, water, a blanket and a litter tray and then we put him in a large dog crate. John said we should leave it out in the back bit I said no because he might get through the gaps at the bottom. He didn’t think that he could get his head through the gap, I said I have been here before with cats 😂 and so we moved the crate into the boot room, closed the window and shut and locked the cat flap. If he does get out of the cage, he can’t get anywhere else this time. The problem is that the dogs can’t get in (it’s actually a dog sized flap) and it means that Jill can’t get out either but it’s only for a short time, I have to make sure I have the cat to take to the vets tomorrow 🤪

Tuesday: Up with the alarm to get sorted before packing the cat safely off to the vets 😁 The usual jobs before he went except feeding the others because I thought that was a bit unfair as he was not allowed to eat from 9pm last night so I fed them after he had left with John. Outside then to let the ducks out, John had let everything else out but the egg numbers have gone down and sometimes when they are let out too early they lay outside and the crows eat them. However, they had still only laid half a dozen so I guess some of them are just on a break 🙄 Out then to do a bit of picking, broad beans mainly this morning, I picked approximately one and a half kgs of course once you have shelled them it’s a lot less. Some went out for sale some for dinner tonight and some for the freezer along with a few peas. I also grabbed an onion and some carrots, we have slow roasted shoulder of lamb and that will do nicely for dinner later. I went into the big tunnel to check in there and was horrified to find I had left the hose on, shit, ah well it won’t need water for a week in there now, I did pick a lovely big cucumber which went out for sale as I won’t be needing that today and there are plenty more forming for when I do.

At this point the sky turned dark and it looks like it is going to rain heavily at some point this morning. We have had heavy downpours overnight, great for the veg garden, not so good for the flowers as they have had a bit of a battering from it, can’t win them all I suppose. I now need to decide what I am going to get done today, the plaster still hasn’t finished drying in places so I won’t bother about painting yet, I still need to go and get paint and one or two other bits anyway so I’m not quite ready myself 😂 I still need to sort out the other freezer, I keep trying to use bits up in there but there is a fair amount still left to use or transfer to the freezer we are keeping.

I did order a couple of things online this morning as well, egg boxes, we are nearly out of those and so I have ordered 600 more and I ordered a scythe 🙄 The strimmers are a total pain if you can even get them going that is, they make a heck of a mess and so I d died in my wisdom 🤪 to order a brand new Austrian scythe, it doesn’t need any fuel and it doesn’t make a racket or a mess. My plan was to do a day course but as with most things this year they are either booked up or cancelled, Sod’s law that the three dates available near me are the only three days I can’t do all summer long 😂 so if anyone knows someone who uses a scythe on a regular basis let me know, I could do with some tuition especially on sharpening and preening the blade. Hopefully the walk in run will arrive either today or tomorrow and we can get that sorted, at least we will be able to go and get paint without worrying about the fox wiping out the hens while we are away. I am not sure if I a, honest what we are going to do about the increasing attacks, we can’t keep the hens locked up forever. My plan is that we keep the hens in until any foxes move on 🤷‍♀️lol not sure that will work but it might so we have to try.

I prepped the veg and meat for dinner later then made some biscuits, honey, pecan and orange, the raw biscuit dough was delicious and the biscuits themselves are too but when I was putting the ingredients in (from a recipe) I thought ‘this is a lot of sugar’ they came out flat and chewy lol. I will see if I can hone the recipe next time, meanwhile anyone need to exercise their jaw 😂

John came home at lunchtime with a box of quail egg boxes, the chap at the job he was on had them lying around and so gave them to him 😁 The delivery of the walk-in run arrived but it is raining so we won’t put that together unless it brightens up later. Shelley is picking up the cat from the vets for me and then dropping Josh and Flo with me for a couple of hours while she does some work.

John and I got the tiny paddock at the back cut again, actually I cut it while John cleaned out the chickens in the back pen. Just about finished when I ran out of petrol 🙄 Shelley arrived with Josh and Flo and the cat which she had picked up from the vets for us. I put the cat in the dog crate he was in last night, he has one of those big collars on and the first thing he did was go in the litter tray, which has sawdust in it because that all we have, dipped his head down, for what purpose I have no idea, and scooped up a ton of sawdust into his collar 😜 He didn’t like this and then proceeded to try shaking it out and knocked over his water bowl. So the nice tidy cage with a clean snuggly blanket in is now covers in water and sawdust 😂 I actually wish I had filmed it because it was a comedy sketch for sure, he has to stay in the cage until Thursday when I take him back for them to check him over, and the pain meds came in a syringe, I said to Shelley I don’t have to inject him do I 🤔 no it goes in his food, Phew 😥

Josh and Flo were here for a couple of hours and while Josh went with Grampy to feed the chickens, Flo was keen to go into the garden. I think Florence is going to be the next generation gardener in the family, she doesn’t want to play out there she wants to go round the veg garden looking at the fruit and veg, finding out what it is and having a taste test, yay I think the baton has been passed on already 🥰 Definitely going to have to nurture her interest 😁

Wednesday: The metal wire run got delivered yesterday but we didn’t get chance to put it up, hoping we can later this evening but the weather is all over the place. I spent the morning prepping and painting a mist coat on the bits John has replastered, then when I finished I went out to get some work done in the garden. I started off with some hoeing as the weeds are getting out of hand on the pathways, then onto the leek bed but it suddenly starting raining, I say suddenly it’s been grey and looming all morning. I went back indoors and it stopped, I came out and it started again so I have abandoned any work on the garden unless it clears up at some point.

About 10 this morning while I was painting I suddenly realised I hadn’t let the ducks out so I went and did that and found 12 eggs today which is a lot better, maybe we will leave them in until that time every day.

Didn’t get any more done outside, I pottered about inside instead, then John called and said he would be late and could I feed the birds and do the eggs, not while it is pissing down says I 😜 I waited for the rain to ease and shot out to do the job before coming back in and organising dinner. There was no chance we would get this pen up tonight, two reasons, one it was still peeing down on and off and two, the semi finals are on 😁

England only went and won, oh my days I don’t think we can quite believe it 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 I am not a football fan generally but I will watch England play and I am hugely patriotic so the excitement and pride are all there, well done lads, let’s bring this home we have waited long enough 🏆

Thursday: Up, shower, do the morning jobs and then get the cat into the cat carrier to take him to the vet.

He gets the all clear, his collar can come off and he is allowed to go out again but I leave him shut in the back bit as I am going out with Shelley and Flo for a coffee and then over to see Sam and the twins. He will be better if he has a bit more rest without his collar and I will let him out on my return.

I didn’t get an awful lot done when I got back in the afternoon, I had a good a chat with a friend I haven’t seen for a while over the gate and then the twins arrived and we looked after them while Mia went swimming. Sam did the horse fence when she came back, we had a very quick dinner and then outside to finally get something done today. While I was busy watering and picking peas, broad beans, beetroot, strawberries and raspberries, John cut the lawn and then went in to do the washing up. After I finished outside I came in to pod the peas and beans and get them in the freezer, the fruit I will be making some jam with at some point tomorrow. I actually managed to find some jam sugar in town today, it’s like gold dust at times. Put the bins out while John is putting the birds to bed and finally sit down around 9.30. Not finished there though as I have to order some predatory mites that feast on red mite, hopefully they will work as they are quite expensive! I am contemplating setting the alarm for 5am in the morning, setting it and actually get up at that time are two different things though but that time of the morning is really lovely so I ought to make the most of it.

Friday: I did t get up earlier 😂 I did get up just before the alarm though so around 6.20 and I got straight on with the day after breakfast, there was no ambling about this morning. I did a bit more picking, quite a bit of rhubarb and there is more to be picked, I need to start freezing some of it for winter use really. I also cut one of the lavender bushes, put some bunches out for sale, you never know somebody might like one, the rest I will either give to the girls or put indoors. The was just one lavender bush I have a fair few growing in different areas but these are in the veg garden to attract beneficial insects and to harvest for drying etc. I pottered about a bit more and then John arrived home, he is working today but he had also gone to collect feed while he was out and had a couple of hours spare when he came back. We got on with the job of putting the hen run together although I had to keep sitting in the shade when the sun made an appearance. It worked well though, me sitting there giving John instructions 😆 Even when I am reading them from the manual he is questioning what I am telling him 😂

Mid afternoon and the sun seems to be out for a while so I have come indoors, I am a bit cross with myself because I put the washing on yesterday evening so it was ready to put out this morning. I got it out of the machine and put it on the kitchen table so I didn’t forget to do it and then forgot 🤪 It’s nearly 3pm and I only just put it out, hopefully it will still dry enough for me to put into the airing cupboard to finish off 🙄 John had to go back out to do a couple of jobs but will be back when he has finished and we can get on.

John didn’t get back until gone 6pm which really annoyed me as I had three things I wanted to get sorted, we managed one of them in the time we had left in the evening. We got the rest of the run covered in mesh so that we can at least go out without worrying about the hens being attacked by the fox. We worked until it was dark and we literally couldn’t see what we were doing anymore.

Saturday: Rain to begin with but it cleared and stayed dry, at times it was muggy but still overcast. I had a list of jobs I wanted to get done today so John went off early to grab a few bits from the builders merchants so I could do them. Then he went off with Macca and the best men to collect his suit for the wedding. Meanwhile I put on a couple of wash loads, did all the usual morning stuff, let the ducks out sorted their eggs, did the horses electric fencing and back inside to start prepping the walls and ceiling for painting. I didn’t get very far as Sam messaged to see if I was in and come over with the twins, so I did the jobs I could get done before they arrived, feeding the Guineas and rabbit and hoovering. They stayed for a couple of hours and John arrived back, once Sam had gone we went to the diy store (finally) to get the paint for the kitchen and a couple of other bits we need to do the job, no idea when I will get chance to do that at the minute 🙄

Take a look at this lovely rose, the photo doesn’t actually do it justice , it is a rose that Shelley bought me on the anniversary of Dads death and it is called the simple life which is very apt.

Well we didn’t get much done the rest of the day once we got back from getting the paint, we made a cuppa, sat down and promptly fell asleep, me for over an hour, John a little less. He went and did the afternoon rounds while I was still sleeping, I feel like I have something coming and the cough and sinus thing still hasn’t completely gone away yet. I am wondering if it was a combination of the sun yesterday, although I did try to keep out of it, and working until late last night. I did say to John at one point during the evening, my leg is shaking and I have no idea why 🤷‍♀️ I hope it’s just a bit of tiredness and his whole thing is not going to flare up again or indeed the Lupus is not going to flare, I really haven’t got time for that at the minute and neither has John!

Talking of time, the year is whizzing past quickly I feel, already mid July, where has that gone.

Sunday: I regrouped and got on with the day, worked hard to get picking done early on and a plethora of other jobs before getting back out to the field to finish off the chicken run so that we can have some sense of being able to go out with out too much worry. To be honest it is not going to stop a full on attack but it will stop a chancer nipping in and picking a few off when we are not here, hopefully 😜

Now to the real topic of the day, the week, the month, the year, the century COME ON LADS, BRING IT HOME.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Have a fabulous evening and I hope to report that England won in tomorrow’s blog 😁

Nice pic of the geese to round off 😁
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 🥰

Posted in Friesland Farm

Courgette soup, new hens, stormy weather & Tussie Mussies.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday eve: I took a couple of ibrufen and as John was watching the F1 I decided to go outside and do a bit of pottering. Firstly I watered the tunnels and was delighted to see that the cucumbers and melons have begun to grown quite quickly, then I potted in some plants, blackcurrants, lupins and a few other bits, they will all be left to overwinter and hopefully be good strong plants next spring.

Monday 5th Aug: I feel like s**t 🙄 no other way to put it lol, I have a cold, I think, I can’t breathe, well obviously I can a little or I wouldn’t be here typing this but I can’t breathe through my nose at all, it’s blocked which makes my head feel thick and heavy. I got up had a shower had my breakfast laid down and went back to sleep for a short while, got up had coffee, put some chicken, bones and veg in the slow cooker to make a broth. My throat gets dry then I start coughing away 🤧 sneezing, the works, urgh. The insult to injury is that I can’t take cold and flu remedies due to other meds so the broth mix contains garlic, turmeric and ginger along with chicken, veg and herbs, hope it helps 😜

Tuesday: Feeling a bit better today so I cracked on outside with an early start. I thought I would concentrate on flower gardening so I started with the front area, weeding, deadheading, cutting back and digging up any self seeded things and anything that is struggling. I had a happy time listening to the radio in the greenhouse potting up foxgloves, huechera and a couple of struggling lavenders. Then onto cutting the lawn and hoeing the paths around it, a bit of weeding and taking out the borage which has gone over and a few weeds from the herb bed. Sit down and have coffee and a bagel 😀 Going well and it’s only 10.30!

Shelley came over with Josh and Flo and picked some runner beans, Josh and I dug up potatoes and then Shelley made courgette soup which was delicious and I would definitely make it again.

500g courgettes (we used yellow)

Garlic chopped or minced

Olive oil

450ml of chicken stock, could use veg stock

Fresh parsley

Fresh basil

Salt

Pepper

Pinch of nutmeg

Chop courgettes and soften in olive oil, add stock and cook until soft enough to blitz or mash, add chopped parsley and basil and the pinch of nutmeg. Serve warm with Parmesan cheese and crusty bread 😀

Simple and good for you.

We popped over to see Sam, Mia and the babies.

Rain on and off all afternoon and into the evening but we have to get the fencing up ready for the chickens arriving tomorrow 😜

John finally got the strimmer working, I had sprayed the carburettor with cleaner but couldn’t start it, John had a go then he cleaned out the end of the pipe going into the fuel tank and voila it now works 😀

Wind is predicted for Friday, my first thought was ‘oh no’ that won’t be good for the runner beans, nor the fruit and nuts on the trees 😏

Wednesday: A bits and bobs day, flitted about doing various things but not one big job. First I burnt the paper feed bags and any paper rubbish we had lying around, then I put sawdust and feeders in the POL for sale pen, then I collected a few eggs, washed out and filled up Jacks water trugs, got the mower out and cut some areas that needed doing ( I tried starting the strimmer but I couldn’t get it going 😤) weighed out some veg to put out for sale, picked a few cucumbers, hoed an area that was getting overgrown, weeded the carrot bed, watched the kittens catch their first mouse, fed the rabbits/guineas and torts with the weeds all before noon 😀 Quick sit down before the afternoon begins.

I am trying to get my head around Instagram at the minute lol, not much to figure out I am sure but I never have more than a few minutes to glance at it #clueless 🤪

The new hens arrived in the afternoon, John gets a bit cocky with new arrivals and puts them outside saying ‘they will go in when it gets dark’ well nine times out of ten they do but not this lot! We had to catch all 50 in the front pen and put them inside on the perches, once we had done them we separated off to do the others, I went up the back and John did the side paddock and the duck pen. The other new lot (20) were in the sale pen up the back but they had all collected on the floor near the front of the cage, we have had this before and the fox can nip at them through the mesh, I called John to help but he had already buggered off indoors 😲 Eventually he came looking for me, just as I picked up number 20 😜

Thursday: We have had weather warnings for a storm, quite a big one by all accounts, they have actually cancelled some big events by the coast so they are taking the threat seriously, and so am I. I have been picking as many runner beans as I can manage because the wigwams will be the first thing to be blown down if the wind is that strong, I’m hoping that inland we won’t get hit so hard. With the runner beans I have made some chutney, I will freeze some beans, sell some and give some away to family. I have picked more courgettes 😜 and I’m contemplating having another go at jam, I reckon it would taste really nice but I don’t want another non set disaster, maybe I will make half the quantity as a test run.

At the moment the weather is lovely outside, sunny, calm, not too hot just pleasant, and great drying weather for the washing, I figured get it done today as the next couple of days don’t look good lol.

Despite having plenty of other things to do I did decide to have a go at the courgette jam, 1/2 quantity just in case, it smells amazing as it has lemon zest in it as well and I picture a vanilla sponge with the jam and some whipped cream in the middle and a dusting of icing sugar on top, 😋 I also had a go at another recipe I came across, sugar free caramel sauce, I had a can of coconut milk in the cupboard, it’s been in there for ages and all you add to it is 7tbls of some kind of syrup like agave, or in my case maple, boil it and reduce it down, easy, it tastes good and I think if I had used full fat coconut milk instead of the reduced fat which is what I had, it would be thicker but it’s still a nice pouring consistency.

The new hens went into the hut early today because it was raining so it was an opportunity to shut them in and not having a repeat of carrying them in one by one 😂

Friday: Rather boring but I did the cleaning today, you know when it just starts to make you feel uncomfortable seeing the dust and dirt kicking around lol. I am sat typing this up and it smells lovely, in fact sometimes I just open a door to a room just to take in the fresh clean smell 🤣

We have had three people this week who were supposed to come and collect stuff they had asked for, chickens and veg, all of them no shows 😏 I’m sure people think we have nothing better to do than wait for them to finally decide they might bother, it is one of the reasons that on the whole I do not save eggs for people. Many have asked in the past but I won’t do it, firstly sometimes as above, those people don’t turn up and secondly we have many customers who have been coming for years and take their luck on wether there are any available or not and I feel I owe them that loyalty back.

While I am getting bugbears off my chest the other one is when we have sold out of eggs, in the past I have had huffs and puffs because the ‘sold out’ sign isn’t displayed, this is because I don’t have time to run out every five minutes to see if the last customer took the last box of eggs! While I am on a roll here….we are not a supermarket, we have what we have and when it’s gone, it’s gone 😜 Hopefully, very soon, we will have an abundance of eggs but until then they are a bit thin on the ground. One last small tiny bugbear 🤪 we have plenty of fair weather customers who come in the summer but again the loyal ones come all year long but it’s always the summer ones that complain lol.

The courgette jam, although it smells and tastes amazing, is a soft set and that’s using the term loosely 🙄 I may incorporate it into a cake recipe I think.

Went out for tea and cake with Shelley, Josh and Florence this afternoon, the weather today has not been as bad as I expected but apparently there is worse to come tomorrow 🙄

I have made enquires today about getting some more quail, hopefully I have found some I can pick up at the weekend, that will please the quail egg customers.

Saturday: Windy this morning but as yet no rain. We started off well got the animals sorted and then John got the tractor out and moved loads of muck from the pile at the back to the pile at the front lol. One of the reasons we decided to do this is because two mornings running there have been duck egg shells enroute from the stables to the muck heap so I am convinced there must be at least one rat in there, John thinks not but then he never believes that we have rats about even when the dog kills one 🙄 No rats appeared so maybe he is right about them not being in there but they are living somewhere round there for sure. I did a bit of picking, cucumbers and tomatoes are coming thick and fast now, I picked a few French beans and I planted out some more that will hopefully grow pretty fast and we can get a harvest at the end of September. I also put some in modules in the greenhouse just in case the outdoor ones get eaten by mice though I am hoping the kittens are onto them 😜 I have some cabbage and some winter spinach to sow at some point as well. I went to Mums last night and came back with a seed pod from a peony, I read up about growing them from seed and they can take up to five years that will be a long wait 🙄 I had a walk around the boundaries to see if there were any blackberries ready, nope still small, I have heard people saying they are picking but I don’t know where as round here they are not ready yet.

I clipped back the lavenders and made a few bunches, one each for Sam and Shelley, Charlie has lots of lavender in her garden so I picked some of my precious freesias and a few other flowers to make a Tussie Mussie (small bunch of flowers or aromatic herbs) for her.

Sunday: It’s 3pm and we have had a busy day and I need to sit down as my legs are feeling wobbly 😜 We started off doing the usual rounds and then an early morning trip to Bicester to buy some laying quail, a good journey and we made a great contact there, a butcher with a smallholding 😀 On the way back home we called I to the DIY shop to get a solar powered security light for the front, recommended by my brother who has some, quick pit stop for a takeaway coffee 😀 Back home and straight to work, John put up the light and then got on the tractor to move the last of the muck pile. Meanwhile I worked in the garden, flitting about between indoors and outdoors with the on off rain showers and cloud cover. I potted up some willow that I had taken cuttings of (very easy to strike) I intend to grow them on into trees to use around the place, I cut back the sage, it’s getting old and gnarly so I gave it a hefty prune, there were three pieces that had taken root so I dug those up and potted them. The high winds yesterday have caused a bit of damage but not much, a big bough has come down from my weeping birch tree and 4 lots of runner bean wigwams are down. I have picked all the beans I can from them as they probably won’t recover from the whipping 🙄 I picked cucumbers which are now coming thick and fast and a couple of courgettes lol. John picked up the eggs and fed the birds and I sorted and boxed them, that’s when I felt the need to have a sit down.

Later I went up the back where John was clearing and burning some wood, we heard a rumble of thunder then the heavens opened, proper thunderstorm 😀

We have been out then in then out then undercover, then out then in and have now abandoned trying to tidy up at the back, the bonfire is still going well but it’s so wet out there now I doubt it will go anywhere it shouldn’t !

Posted in Friesland Farm

Gardening, cooking, clearing out, a little bit of everything this week.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th January: Another non weather morning, slightly cold but dry, I keep waiting for some ‘weather’ to arrive and am keeping my eye on the long term reports. Not from the press as they are always predicting some major event that never happens but from the met office, there has been some ‘catastrophic’ event in weather terms but because of ‘blocking’ they are not sure if it will reach here or not, so not much info there either! It’s just wait and see I reckon 😛

Well it was so mild out there I decided to get stuck in to a bit of gardening so I moved a few barrows of muck into the fruit cage, planted up the rhubarb I had divided back in Autumn and cut down and shredded the Autumn raspberry canes. I also cut back the thornless blackberry and then dug up and potted some raspberry runners, the thornless blackberry had also layered itself into the ground so another free plant there 😀 I got so warm I had to come in and take a layer off!

I actually can’t remember a January like it for years to be honest, this time last year it was ‘the beast from the East’ causing chaos this time it’s just so mild and dry that it’s been a pleasure so far.

I spent the afternoon confirming and finalising paperwork for our upcoming holiday to Norway, we are good to go when the day arrives 😀

Then back out at 3pm to do the feeding and egg collection, the bonus with hens living inside is clean eggs so no washing them, though it may have more to do with the dry ground outside than anything else, I guess once it rains I will find out 😝

I have cold pork, baked potato, salad and lashings of homemade chutney for dinner, John has bubble and squeak, his favourite after a roast dinner 😀

I have finally ordered our SmartWater pack, this is a long lasting traceable liquid that has a unique code visible under ultraviolet light, basically you splatter it on high value items and equipment and if it gets stolen and recovered its traceable back to you. The village as a whole has registered and within that registration each person that signed up gets their own code, hopefully it’s a deterrent if nothing else.

Tuesday: I have Mia today so whizzed round and get the feeding done quickly, the guy turned up to start putting the base down for the greenhouse. Gramps biscuit tin was empty much to Mia’s disappointment so we made a batch and shared them with Josh when he came over with Shelley and Florence 😀 I made a loaf of bread, pretty good one today if I may say so myself.

Wednesday: I am clearly feeling much better and fitter and have clarity (one of the things about Lupus is brain fog) lol, this morning I have done the feeding etc then moved a few barrows of muck onto the veg beds, then onto sorting stuff out. Must be a Spring/New Year thing because I am finally getting round to listing stuff for sale/free that has been lying around for ages, or chucking stuff I no longer need.

I made a bit of a boo boo as I had a delivery yesterday and it was three boxes that said ‘live plants’ now as I am expecting some plants I naturally thought that’s what they were and so left them out overnight. When I looked this morning, bearing in mind it was a damp drizzly morning, it was the cardboard egg boxes I had ordered 😛 luckily two of the three boxes had them wrapped in plastic as well and only the third box was soggy which also luckily hadn’t affected the contents, good job it wasn’t pouring down!

We have so much clutter that I am determined to shift one way or another so I have a box for the charity shop, a pile of textiles for the recycling, various items up for free on social media, fingers crossed I go on as I have started 😝

The chap doing the base has come back to concrete it today, yesterday it was set it out and fill with some hardcore, tomorrow or probably the next day he can begin the dwarf wall and then it will be over to the boys for the timber work when they have time 😀

I checked the post box and the smartwater had arrived so I went round with my little swab, dabbing items with the forensic coding 😀 we don’t really have items of high value but they are all things we use regularly and collectively any theft would stop us getting on with jobs around here.

And the random thoughts are happening again 😛 When we were at school (back in the dark ages 😝 seriously my first teacher had a mortarboard and cloak and must have been 100) why did the teacher ask a question, the watch half the kids put up their hands to answer but always ask someone who hadn’t put up their hand? I would have been one who didn’t put up her hand, it didn’t mean I didn’t know the answer just that I wasn’t confident enough, nothing has changed there either so it’s not confidence building I still wouldn’t put myself forward in most circumstances, and if the person who hasn’t put up their hand didn’t know it what was the point of singling them out? You can learn a lot just as easily listening to other people’s answers and thoughts, back in the days when it was fashionable to sew patches over the holes in your jeans (and yes I am from the double denim era) I had one that said ‘help me keep by big mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about’ I’ve pretty much kept to that my whole life, with probably the occasional slip up 😝 I don’t take part in debates unless I have a clear idea of what I want to say and even then there is much to be learnt from the other persons point of view.

I didn’t light the Rayburn until about 1.30pm by that time it had started to rain and the air temp had dropped noticeably, according to the met office we have a couple of coldish nights ahead, a bit more like Winter ought to be, a couple of frosts would be good to break down the muck on the veg beds.

Some comfort food is in order so we have cottage pie tonight.

Thursday: I was expecting quite a hard frost this morning going on the forecast but we didn’t have one, the ground is wet not frosty, good for us as the concrete base has been curing overnight and it’s better if it didn’t freeze. I find our weather can sometimes be a bit of an anomaly here, we are approx 350ft above sea level according to an app, and the paddocks to the west slope down a fair bit. When we moved here Dad did say to me the best place for a veg garden would be the far right/top corner and if I had been a more experienced vegetable gardener then I would have paid attention, it’s only 10 years later I realise how right he was and that where we eventually chose to site it is a frost pocket! However it is a central location and I can keep an eye on things from there whereas the other position would have been too far out of the way to answer the bell or keep an eye on things.

I did the morning feeding and letting out, put some fresh bedding in for the geese, I want to move these soon to a stable, they will begin laying soon and also it will make life easier while we are away. Then I cleaned out one of the stables with the hens in and put in fresh bedding for them.

Later on I washed the car because I was sick of it looking so filthy, I don’t drive it, I don’t drive, I passed my test about 20 years ago, drove for a couple of months, absolutely hated it and so never drove again not on public roads anyhow, but John never washes it so I figured I had better do it.

Friday: A frost this morning, not a hard one but at least it will help to break up the soil a little bit. My plan today is cleaning 😛 and sorting stuff out so not much will be done outside apart from the necessary.

Well it’s lunchtime and I have sat down with a cuppa, I haven’t actually got any cleaning done as yet but I have got plenty of sorting out and throwing away achieved including the airing cupboard 😝 I have added to the charity shop box and got a large bag of textiles for recycling. I did eventually get round to cleaning and I bought a new polish a while back, the ‘Method’ wood polish, it smells fab, it has almond oil in it, one of my favourite smells in products and how sad is this, I washed all my dusters and cloths last week, it was great getting out a clean duster to do the job with 😂 I am not a manic cleaner, not anymore, I used to be someone that had a regular cleaning routine and bleached/washed/polished everything even scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand but eventually I realised that life is too short to worry and these days as long as I do it once it gets on my nerves then that’s fine after all there are a million more interesting things to do in life 😀 Having said that, once I have done it I do feel more relaxed and clearheaded so maybe I haven’t quite let go entirely 😝

Saturday: I’m a bit tired and things ache today 🙄 not sure why, it started late yesterday afternoon and my right arm was pretty uncomfortable, hopefully it will pass quickly. A wet drizzly morning and the temperature has dropped quite a bit over the last couple of days too, I had planned a list of things to get done but John has had to go into work to finish the job he was on after a cock up by the suppliers so they will now have to wait 😡 not happy, I have wait all week to get the jobs that I can’t manage on my own done and then I still can’t get them done!

The concrete base for the greenhouse has cured nicely so hopefully I will get some walls next week. The base is more than just a floor it is part of the thermal mass that will help to absorb the heat of the sun in the daytime and then release it overnight, of course this will only be needed during the cooler parts of the year but considering we never know exactly what kind of weather we will get it may be useful all year round. I have changed the position of the new greenhouse to run a NW to SE direction so that I get maximum use of the sun down the left side of it for cold frames, before it was in a East to West position which left a north facing side (outside) that you couldn’t put to good use. I’m so looking forward to this new space I may have to put a chair and a radio in there and get a billy can to make tea 😀

Sunday: John had done the animals by the time I got up at 8! Very nice, thank you 😀 he then went onto clean out the flue and the Rayburn as it’s not burning very well. Meanwhile I potted up some lavender plants I had ordered, these were Monday 14th January: Another non weather morning, slightly cold but dry, I keep waiting for some ‘weather’ to arrive and am keeping my eye on the long term reports. Not from the press as they are always predicting some major event that never happens but from the met office, there has been some ‘catastrophic’ event in weather terms but because of ‘blocking’ they are not sure if it will reach here or not, so not much info there either! It’s just wait and see I reckon 😛

Well it was so mild out there I decided to get stuck in to a bit of gardening so I moved a few barrows of muck into the fruit cage, planted up the rhubarb I had divided back in Autumn and cut down and shredded the Autumn raspberry canes. I also cut back the thornless blackberry and then dug up and potted some raspberry runners, the thornless blackberry had also layered itself into the ground so another free plant there 😀 I got so warm I had to come in and take a layer off!

I actually can’t remember a January like it for years to be honest, this time last year it was ‘the beast from the East’ causing chaos this time it’s just so mild and dry that it’s been a pleasure so far.

I spent the afternoon confirming and finalising paperwork for our upcoming holiday to Norway, we are good to go when the day arrives 😀

Then back out at 3pm to do the feeding and egg collection, the bonus with hens living inside is clean eggs so no washing them, though it may have more to do with the dry ground outside than anything else, I guess once it rains I will find out 😝

I have cold pork, baked potato, salad and lashings of homemade chutney for dinner, John has bubble and squeak, his favourite after a roast dinner 😀

I have finally ordered our SmartWater pack, this is a long lasting traceable liquid that has a unique code visible under ultraviolet light, basically you splatter it on high value items and equipment and if it gets stolen and recovered its traceable back to you. The village as a whole has registered and within that registration each person that signed up gets their own code, hopefully it’s a deterrent if nothing else.

Tuesday: I have Mia today so whizzed round and get the feeding done quickly, the guy turned up to start putting the base down for the greenhouse. Gramps biscuit tin was empty much to Mia’s disappointment so we made a batch and shared them with Josh when he came over with Shelley and Florence 😀 I made a loaf of bread, pretty good one today if I may say so myself.

Wednesday: I am clearly feeling much better and fitter and have clarity (one of the things about Lupus is brain fog) lol, this morning I have done the feeding etc then moved a few barrows of muck onto the veg beds, then onto sorting stuff out. Must be a Spring/New Year thing because I am finally getting round to listing stuff for sale/free that has been lying around for ages, or chucking stuff I no longer need.

I made a bit of a boo boo as I had a delivery yesterday and it was three boxes that said ‘live plants’ now as I am expecting some plants I naturally thought that’s what they were and so left them out overnight. When I looked this morning, bearing in mind it was a damp drizzly morning, it was the cardboard egg boxes I had ordered 😛 luckily two of the three boxes had them wrapped in plastic as well and only the third box was soggy which also luckily hadn’t affected the contents, good job it wasn’t pouring down!

We have so much clutter that I am determined to shift one way or another so I have a box for the charity shop, a pile of textiles for the recycling, various items up for free on social media, fingers crossed I go on as I have started 😝

The chap doing the base has come back to concrete it today, yesterday it was set it out and fill with some hardcore, tomorrow or probably the next day he can begin the dwarf wall and then it will be over to the boys for the timber work when they have time 😀

I checked the post box and the smartwater had arrived so I went round with my little swab, dabbing items with the forensic coding 😀 we don’t really have items of high value but they are all things we use regularly and collectively any theft would stop us getting on with jobs around here.

And the random thoughts are happening again 😛 When we were at school (back in the dark ages 😝 seriously my first teacher had a mortarboard and cloak and must have been 100) why did the teacher ask a question, the watch half the kids put up their hands to answer but always ask someone who hadn’t put up their hand? I would have been one who didn’t put up her hand, it didn’t mean I didn’t know the answer just that I wasn’t confident enough, nothing has changed there either so it’s not confidence building I still wouldn’t put myself forward in most circumstances, and if the person who hasn’t put up their hand didn’t know it what was the point of singling them out? You can learn a lot just as easily listening to other people’s answers and thoughts, back in the days when it was fashionable to sew patches over the holes in your jeans (and yes I am from the double denim era) I had one that said ‘help me keep by big mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about’ I’ve pretty much kept to that my whole life, with probably the occasional slip up 😝 I don’t take part in debates unless I have a clear idea of what I want to say and even then there is much to be learnt from the other persons point of view.

I didn’t light the Rayburn until about 1.30pm by that time it had started to rain and the air temp had dropped noticeably, according to the met office we have a couple of coldish nights ahead, a bit more like Winter ought to be, a couple of frosts would be good to break down the muck on the veg beds.

Some comfort food is in order so we have cottage pie tonight.

Thursday: I was expecting quite a hard frost this morning going on the forecast but we didn’t have one, the ground is wet not frosty, good for us as the concrete base has been curing overnight and it’s better if it didn’t freeze. I find our weather can sometimes be a bit of an anomaly here, we are approx 350ft above sea level according to an app, and the paddocks to the west slope down a fair bit. When we moved here Dad did say to me the best place for a veg garden would be the far right/top corner and if I had been a more experienced vegetable gardener then I would have paid attention, it’s only 10 years later I realise how right he was and that where we eventually chose to site it is a frost pocket! However it is a central location and I can keep an eye on things from there whereas the other position would have been too far out of the way to answer the bell or keep an eye on things.

I did the morning feeding and letting out, put some fresh bedding in for the geese, I want to move these soon to a stable, they will begin laying soon and also it will make life easier while we are away. Then I cleaned out one of the stables with the hens in and put in fresh bedding for them.

Later on I washed the car because I was sick of it looking so filthy, I don’t drive it, I don’t drive, I passed my test about 20 years ago, drove for a couple of months, absolutely hated it and so never drove again not on public roads anyhow, but John never washes it so I figured I had better do it.

Friday: A frost this morning, not a hard one but at least it will help to break up the soil a little bit. My plan today is cleaning 😛 and sorting stuff out so not much will be done outside apart from the necessary.

Well it’s lunchtime and I have sat down with a cuppa, I haven’t actually got any cleaning done as yet but I have got plenty of sorting out and throwing away achieved including the airing cupboard 😝 I have added to the charity shop box and got a large bag of textiles for recycling. I did eventually get round to cleaning and I bought a new polish a while back, the ‘Method’ wood polish, it smells fab, it has almond oil in it, one of my favourite smells in products and how sad is this, I washed all my dusters and cloths last week, it was great getting out a clean duster to do the job with 😂 I am not a manic cleaner, not anymore, I used to be someone that had a regular cleaning routine and bleached/washed/polished everything even scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand but eventually I realised that life is too short to worry and these days as long as I do it once it gets on my nerves then that’s fine after all there are a million more interesting things to do in life 😀 Having said that, once I have done it I do feel more relaxed and clearheaded so maybe I haven’t quite let go entirely 😝

Saturday: I’m a bit tired and things ache today 🙄 not sure why, I started late yesterday afternoon and my right arm was pretty uncomfortable, hopefully it will pass quickly. A wet drizzly morning and the temperature has dropped quite a bit over the last couple of days too, I had planned a list of things to get done but John has had to go into work to finish the job he was on after a cock up by the suppliers so they will now have to wait 😡 not happy, I have wait all week to get the jobs that I can’t manage on my own done and then I still can’t get them done!

The concrete base for the greenhouse has cured nicely so hopefully I will get some walls next week. The base is more than just a floor it is part of the thermal mass that will help to absorb the heat of the sun in the daytime and then release it overnight, of course this will only be needed during the cooler parts of the year but considering we never know exactly what kind of weather we will get it may be useful all year round. I have changed the position of the new greenhouse to run a NW to SE direction so that I get maximum use of the sun down the left side of it for cold frames, before it was in a East to West position which left a north facing side (outside) that you couldn’t put to good use. I’m so looking forward to this new space I may have to put a chair and a radio in there and get a billy can to make tea 😀

A chap called round to discuss some pest control on the farm, we already have someone controlling the rabbit numbers but he is going to control pigeon and rats, rats are not too much of a problem we are not over run but it would be good to get a few taken out without using poison and the pigeon numbers have also shot up, he eats pigeon so nothing wasted there 😀

Tonight while putting the birds away we had the torch with us so I thought I would just shine it across the paddocks to see if foxy was around, what I saw were about six pairs of eyes looking up from the field behind, as they walked away I could see the white rumps so I’m guessing they were fallow deer, certainly they were large enough. We have three big ash trees at the back there and John and I talked about building a platform around one of them, somewhere you could sit in the dark and see what is going on around you without being seen yourself, great idea I think.

Sunday: John had done the animals by the time I got up at 8! Very nice, thank you 😀 he then went onto clean out the flue and the Rayburn as it’s not burning very well. Meanwhile I potted up some lavender plants I had ordered, these were ‘misshaped’ plants from a Nursery so reduced considerably, they worked out at £1.39 each and I bought 10, they are great, a good size, good root system on them and they should romp away come spring, very pleased 😀.

We have duck legs for dinner tonight so I have been looking at various recipes, I will probably take a combination of a couple and mix them up according to our taste. I wanted to do these legs justice so I chopped up finely, onion, garlic, celery and mushroom then some thyme, rosemary and flat leaf parsley, softened them in butter and black truffle oil then seared the legs quickly on both sides and put into a pot that I added chicken stock and tomato paste to. Most of the recipes call for alcohol like wine or beer, which we hardly ever have in and I did consider apple juice but I tasted the liquid and it was sweet enough, apple juice would have made it too sweet, I want this to be more earthy. We will just have to wait and see how it comes out, I’m planning on mash potato and peas to go with it.

It tasted great 😀

It would be worth getting up early tomorrow morning to look at the Super Blood Wolf Moon: total lunar eclipse, a rare event, weather permitting, about 5am though the eclipse will last about an hour 😀