I hope you have all had a lovely festive time and I wish you a very happy 2022. We still have Covid (who would have thought it 🙄) but we are getting to grips with living with it on a daily basis, let’s hope this year coming is a little more like life used to be 😁
We have wined and dined, loved and laughed, rested and recuperated, felt grateful for what we have, watched endless Christmas tv and generally had a fabulous time. All the while of course, we have had to continue doing the daily routines with animal feeding and care no matter what day it was but that is ok it’s what we signed up for.
I have also spent some considerable time thinking about how we move forward with the Smallholding this coming year. I had mused over cut flowers and that is still very much part of the plan I just need to put it into practice now. As well as the usual bunches of flowers I saw a lovely jam jar posy while I was researching and thought ‘oooo yes, I like those’ they very much they fit in with the ethos here, the jam jars can be returned time and time again for refilling, they are small enough to fit on any table or surface if you don’t have a large enough area for a full vase of flowers and all kinds of up-cycled embellishments can be used including the customers own if they want a particular ribbon used, yep I really like this idea, ‘Flowers @ Friesland Farm’ is in its newborn phase 🥰 Locally grown, no pesticides or artificial fertilisers used, minimal miles, grown with love and pride, doesn’t get better than that does it 😁 Add to that the plants I divide or grown from seed to sell at the gate and the direction for the year is looking good, just got to hope the weather is kind 😜
Betwixtmas: 😂 We we’re not idle (not all the time anyway) over the holidays, the chickens and ducks keep on laying, the horses need checking over, the other non laying lot still need feeding and watering as do the dogs and cats as well as ourselves. We have been busy most days with cleaning out and cleaning up, the huts that the birds were moved out of when the avian flu came have now been cleaned and power washed. The hard standing has been cleared of leaves and debris and power washed, the leaves all over the driveway have been raked and piled under the trees and we have been moving woodchip onto the paths in the garden. We also moved plenty of barrowfuls to the orchard where the ground deteriorated very quickly once the rain came. When the weather permitted we worked on the veg garden to get ahead ready for spring, putting home made compost on the beds, harvesting leeks, carrots and beetroots, we still have kale and cabbages in the ground, the broad beans are growing nicely as are the garlic and onions. Flower bulbs are beginning to appear which is always a lovely sign that the wheel keeps on turning. There were also plenty of times when we sat and watched a film or saw family and ate up all the festive food 🥰 No matter how hard I try not to have too much food in, there always seems to be too much, none of it is wasted though. John had bubble and squeak on Boxing Day and I have three more portions frozen as well as cooked veg which will make soup at some point. I have some cake from an unexpected visit that I also froze because we have Christmas cake and Christmas pudding to eat up first and of course plenty of chocolate to get through 🤪
Once all the festive food is used up I have set myself a bit of a challenge (in fact I have started it even though we still have stuff left) I am not doing ‘veganuary’ but I am intending to make vegetables as much, if not the biggest, part of our meals. Sounds easy right but I also want to use seasonal and mostly what I have grown myself, this is a lot easier said than done. I searched for some inspirational recipes online but most of them overlook the seasonal and there are plenty of ingredients that have come from far flung corners of the world which I want to avoid. So you see keeping it interesting is a challenge. I will be using store cupboard goods that I have already such as rice and pasta (though I could make my own pasta if I run out) As it is winter then soup is the easiest go to lunch, packed with home grown veg, very nutritious and healthy which is what is needed after the indulgences lately.
The first recipe was lovely and lacto-vegetarian (it seems there are different versions of vegetarianism) John did not eat this 😂 but I fried off some butternut squash (cubed) along with some garlic and some dried sage in olive oil. Fry just enough to get them coated and then add a splash of water to flash cook until the squash is soft, then add chopped mushrooms until it all caramelises, add to cooked pasta and I crumbled blue cheese on top though you could use whatever cheese you like such as Parmesan. Twas delicious I have to say and what’s more it felt like comfort food which is all the more important during the winter months. I also got some vegetable soup going in the slow cooker, turnip, butternut squash, carrots and onions from the garden, I added celery (which I had bought for Christmas) some mushrooms and some peas, veg stock, bouillon powder and pepper. Cooked it down for a good few hours until everything was soft then turned it off overnight, blitzed it and reheated in a pan for lunch the next day, delish and I felt I had already had my five for the day 😁 Let’s hope I can keep up the momentum 😝
Butternut squash quickly fried in olive oil with garlic and sage, add water to flash cook, once soft add mushrooms and cook, add to cooked pasta and crumble cheese of your choice on top 🥰
New Year’s Eve went without a bang this year in fact we went to bed at 11.30 lol, well it arrives wether you wait up to see it or not doesn’t it and I think it was pretty muted everywhere this year. New Year’s Day we started off well, John started to build a plant table for me, for the plants I will have for sale this year coming and I sorted out all the pots of English Bluebells which will be the first plants to go out, and then it started to rain quite heavily 🙄 So we came in for coffee and waited for the rain to stop, it didn’t, so we took down the Christmas decorations and hoovered and polished instead 😝 Years ago I would have cooked a roast dinner on NYD but ever since the kids were late teens and too hungover the next day, I haven’t bothered. The place looks bare with the docs down and I can’t remember what went where beforehand 🤷♀️ but it’s a job done and quite literally ‘dusted’ 😝 sorry, not sorry.
I have been through all my seeds to see what I needed to get, turns out I have rather a lot of them and don’t need much else at all. For the few seeds I did want, we popped to the garden centre to get them there, I also picked up some first early seed potatoes. I am good to go now and as always I am chomping at the bit but I also know it doesn’t pay to get started too early. Our weather at the minute is ridiculously warm, 17c which is insane for Winter but I am also aware that it can take a real plummet at any point and if I have over sown I will be struggling for space so it’s best to hold fire and wait a while. There are a few things I can get started, some extra broad beans, there is still time to sow those and on the flower front, sweet peas can still be started off now.
Sunday: The weather was kinder today up until just after lunch, we got busy, John finished the plant table while I sorted out more plants to put out for sale. Once that was sorted and John cleared up the wet leaves on the drive he came to help me on the bed that was the herb bed and needs clearing. It has taken quite a while, many of the bigger herbs such as fennel and lovage had very big strong roots and I needed to wait for the ground to be soft enough to dig them up. There were a few other things to salvage, ice plants which I have potted up and will move to the tortoise run for them to feed on, a blackcurrant sage which I wanted to get out in good condition, that has now been replanted elsewhere and also a large patch of aster which has now been dug up and divided into many plants 😁 On the whole the area is now ready to clear ready to put grass down. The project after that which is also rattling round in my head at the same time is the cut flower patch, forming a plan on what to put in and how many of each plant. John and I also talked about putting the patch in the front paddock but we decided that for this year it will be better in the veg garden and we will work towards moving it next year. The idea being that it gets sun all day, it can be seen and even accessed on a pick your own basis if needs be plus it will look lovely but I need to see how well this year does before investing in fencing etc.
Have a great week, still one more bank holiday to go 😁
Monday 24th May 2021: Starting the week after being out last night and a beer sounds like a recipe for disaster luckily it was at The Harry Potter Studios and it was Butterbeer 😁 so I am ok this morning 😂 All I can say was it is epic! I didn’t really know what to expect and it exceeded expectations by a mile, just realising the amount of work and talent that went into producing these films is mind blowing, the detail and the scale is incredible. As for the physical side of the the road trip all I can say is 😳 The traffic was so heavy it took us and hour and a half to get to stokenchurch (which normally would be approx 40 mins) let alone the rest of the way to Watford. Coming back at 10 was even worse but not because of the traffic this time, it was the horrendous rain, seriously it was like driving in a monsoon!
This morning started off with the sun shinning in through the window but that soon disappeared, from the looks of the forecast this should be the last day of crap weather. I think the jet stream is on the shift finally, for two months now I have been thinking, along with everyone else I’m sure, it will be better next week, next week arrives and nope it is no better and sometimes worse lol.
John had his 2nd vaccine on Friday and has not had any side affects this time round which is good. In my opinion vaccines are the only way out of this and if you are a non vaccine person well that’s your choice as well, historically though vaccines are what safeguard the population, I doubt there would be many people walking round on this planet without modern medicine and I for one am very grateful.
I think it was last Monday that I was deciding between baking and housework, well I chose baking last time so I figured I’d better do housework this time. Hoovering, cleaning, polishing, in the hopes that as the week progresses the weather will get better and more time will be spent outside 🙄
One of my aims this year is to have much more dried produce, I want to rely less on the freezer to be able to keep the produce I grow throughout the year. Obviously jams, chutneys and fermenting are one way along with bottling (canning) but drying is also a method that is underused, by me at least. So today I picked some herbs to get started, I want create mixes as well as individual dried herbs, an Italian mix being the most useful to me alongside the traditional mix that you would use for stews and casseroles. I also am going to aim to create dried veg stock mixes, I think meat ones might be a bit too far but you never know. I began with the picking, actually I began last week with cleaning the dehydrator, and once the herbs were picked it it just a case of arranging them on the different shelves and turning it on. I will give you a quick overview of dos and dont’s just in case you want to have a go : Do pick your herbs before they start to flower, this is when they are at their best. Ideally dry the same herb on all the racks but if you don’t have enough to do that you can dry mixed batches. This has a couple of minor problems, the thickness of each herb is different so the drying times will be different. I generally put the thicker stalked of leaved herbs near the bottom and the finer ones at the top, that way they will hopefully all finish at the same time and you won’t have to waste electric on empty racks. The main thing to remember is that herbs all look similar when they are dry and green 🙄 so do try to remember what went in which rack (write a list to remind you) also as they dry they get very small, teeny tiny some of them, if they fall through the gaps they will fall onto the next layer of herbs. If you don’t mind then that’s fine but if you wanted a pure blend then it will matter. You don’t have to use a dehydrator of course, you can use a very low oven or you can hang to dry, the problem with hanging is dust, it gets everywhere and it will get on your drying herbs lol. I intend to pot them all up separately to begin with until I have enough of what I want and then I will blend them accordingly. By the way, what looks like a huge bunch when you pick it will probably only fill a tablespoon or two when it’s dry so if you want a lot then pick a lot! This morning I have picked, lovage, fennel, oregano, chive and parsley to get going with. I mentioned the Italian mix I want to make but also I think something like dill with dried lemon zest and black pepper will make an excellent mix for chicken, fish or pasta. The vegetable stock mix can be an assortment of whatever you have, just make sure that the pieces are all roughly the same size for drying. I am thinking, onion, celery, carrot, leek, garlic to start with and whatever is to hand maybe sweet potato, turnip, parsnip. Once they are dried they get whizzed in the processor and they will be ready to put in a jar and store, you can add salt and pepper or even chilli flakes if you want, just go for it and experiment. All of these things can also be dried separated of course, you would be surprised how handy a jar of celery or onion powder is and I will be making mushroom powder again this year as a flavour enhancer. The dried herb world is my oyster 😁
Drying herbs, a word of caution, make a note of what is on which tray, once dried they can all just look like dried green stuff 😜
Made some rhubarb and orange jam in the afternoon, the rain showers just keep appearing and it’s a tad cold out there, ridiculous for the end of May.
We lit the Rayburn again the other day when it rained all day long but I can’t ever remember having it going this late in the year before. We are at the stage when, if I light it the house gets way to hot but without it the house is a tad cold and feels damp in this weather. We do have the radiators in four rooms now but I don’t really want to be turning them on 😂 they are set low at around 16/17c so if it gets too cold they kick in but at this time of year, seriously 😐
It was my one of my brother in laws birthdays today so we went round saw a few other family members and had the best laughs, so good to be able to get back to some kind of normal and enjoy ourselves again.
Tuesday: I started prepping for this mornings main activity yesterday afternoon. Out of the freezer I got a lamb shank, two packs of chicken thighs, minced beef and a lump which I thought was stewing beef and luckily it was. Overnight I cooked the lamb shank in the slow cooker while everything else defrosted and so this morning I have been batch cooking. I fried off a large pan of onions, garlic and celery first and then got organised with various dinners a ready for the freezer. I am waiting for some to finish and one lot will be in the slow cooker again today but so far I have four shepherds pies, three lamb and sweet potato curries, three chicken casseroles and two chicken in lemon and garlic plus probably four or five portions of slow cooked beef stew as well as a lamb casserole for Johns dinner tonight. 18 meals all cooked and ready to freeze which will save me a lot of time over the summer months, I have used up bits from the freezer such as turnip, swede and spinach as well as pulled a few leeks from the garden and I have used some of my freshly dried herbs, I could have used fresh but I wanted to try them out. It will save cooking time and it will mean that I have something I like as well, normally I just cook and eat what John likes to save time. I realised while I was cooking that I am going to need a lidded casserole pan suitable for the hob, this will be useful because it means I don’t have to turn the whole oven on just to do Johns dinner, it can be done on the hob which is more energy efficient. I am aiming for efficiency, not because I have to but because I want to for the sake of the planet and our bank balance 😜 I use the foil dishes with the cardboard lids but I also have small plastic containers with lids, it’s a toss up really over which is better for the planet. The plastic ones can be used over and over again but they are plastic and they can get fragile in the freezer. The foil and cardboard ones are one use and so less cost effective but recyclable and in that respect better for the planet. I haven’t really come across a complete answer yet, obviously the best thing would be not use freeze anything and use everything fresh but that is a tall order in today’s busy life. Once I have used up the freezer contents in one freezer the plan is just to have a single freezer. Until now we have run two large chest freezers but we no longer have the need, we don’t rear our own meat much any more and I plan on being able to store anything I can in the store room that is yet to be built. Mostly for me this is an exercise in ‘let’s see what is possible’ let’s see how much I can preserve/store without the aid of electric and always in the back of my mind is the rest of that sentence ‘because one day we might need to’ 🤔 Never say it will never happen, this last year should have taught us that much at least.
Yesterday was the first day of the Hazel, trees have important roles in ‘lore’ of all kinds, country, Norse, Celtic, pagan, Druid to name a few. The Hazel is no exception, it is a sacred tree, divining rods are often made of hazel, it is a tree of protection from all manner of things, a tree that is a gateway to spring and the bounty it’s brings with it including birth, plenty of catkins, plenty of prams was a well known country saying until a few decades ago 😁
Popped over to see Charlie and Macca in the evening and when we got back at 9pm the first thing we heard when we got out of the car was a fox calling. John said he heard it last night as well so good job we came home well before dark and shut the hens in.
Wednesday: The sun made an early appearance this morning, 4.50 I woke up thinking it must be later and the daylight was already streaming in through the curtains. Although the sun continued to make itself seen there was a lot of cloud as well which lowered the temperature at times. After doing the eggs, dogs, cats, milk bottles, breakfast, shower, stretching exercises, I went straight out to get something done in the garden. To be honest it’s overwhelming, it’s like a jungle out there and I really had no idea where to start, but start I needed to so I picked watering the tunnels first. Then I went onto covering a large bit of weedy soil that is behind the big tunnel, I have used weed membrane and pegged it down. This will kill off the weeds and keep them controlled until I get round to planting it up. Then onto weeding the beetroot and swede rows, actually I ended up just pulling off the tops as there are so many, I am really trying to just slow them down until I have time to get on there for a good hour or more. Sam arrived with the twins mid morning, she has no electric today due to some work in the village and it’s not much fun without electric all day and two toddlers. Shelley came over with Florence after lunch and we all went for a walk along the local lane. George was fascinated by a spider he found on the ground and trying to jump in puddles, Lucy and Florence were happy running along picking flowers (dandelions) and looking at the horses and sheep. I know there is a whole gender neutral movement but the difference is something that is within some children quite naturally and that shouldn’t be neutralised for the sake of over thinking or over compensation which is what happens in some society circles today in my opinion 🙄 They can be whatever they want to be but let them be what they want not what society thinks they should want. I am quite glad I never grew up with all the pressures that the media (in all forms) force upon today’s parents, I am glad that rightly or wrongly, I knew my own mind and I wasn’t reduced to a gibbering wreck when trying to make parental decisions, even if I say so myself my girls turned out to be amazing adults so I must have done something right 🥰
I did a bit of weeding before dinner, the peas needed doing (as does everything else really) and then after dinner I walked over the lawn and decided it was dry enough to cut. No mow May was almost achieved but really the lawn has got way too long and besides we are only a few days off 😜 I cut half of it and John cut the other half, Sod’s law the sun came out full on and we were sweating buckets trying to mow foot tall grass! The weather as always is unreliably British, half the day I felt cold especially when the sun went behind the clouds, the second half I was boiling trying to work in the evening sun 🌞 Not complaining though it’s nice to see it and we are getting more as the week goes on, but then……..there is another cold front plunging in from Scandinavia according to the long range forecast, goodness knows what weather June is going to bring us and I still haven’t got some of the veg planted up yet.
Thursday: Oh what a lovely morning, wall to wall blue skies first thing and warm sunshine 🌞 John had a couple of hours work to do after he had done the birds and I went almost straight out into the garden. First off I have covered some more bare soil with weed membrane, I intend to plant the sweetcorn there but until I do I don’t want hundreds of weeds popping up all over the place. I watered the plants in the greenhouse hopefully they will get some warmth today and shoot up a bit more, it mostly peppers, chillies and aubergine left in there apart from some smaller squash plants that are just coming on. Then I opened a package that had arrived about four weeks ago and I hadn’t had chance to use it but oh my it’s a game changer for me. I don’t know why I didn’t buy one years ago, it’s a UV pop up gazebo and today I have spent 3 hours on my hands and knees weeding in the sunshine and get this bit, in a short sleeve t-shirt which is unheard of! I had the best three hours lol, the only problem with it is that I can’t easily move it to a new area by myself, today John was around but in future I will need to plan a lot better to maximise the use I can get out of it.
I spent the three hours weeding the asparagus bed which is also interplanted with strawberries, three rhubarb plants grown at the end of the bed and the herb area is at the top. The weeds are insane , the constant rain didn’t slow their growth at all so it was good to be able to get down and really clear them out. The strawberries that grow there probably won’t get harvested, I have other beds in the fruit cage that shouldn’t get eaten but these are out in the open and it won’t take the blackbirds long to figure out they are there. At least I can see where the asparagus is growing now I have thinned it all out a bit, it was like looking for needles in a haystack before.
At 2pm we had a delivery of POL hens, most of these are our own new stock but there are 20 that have been pre ordered by customers. John dealt with the unloading of those and the feed delivery and around 2.30 I came in to get some lunch. We have the twins today while Mia goes to her swimming lesson and I have a massage booked early evening so I needed to eat before chaos ensues 😂
The twins came, we played a little bit and then it was ‘unch unch’ after that we went outside to feed the torts and play in the sunshine. Sam dropped me off for my massage on their way back home.
Friday: Dull today, no sun, but the temperature is just fine 😁 I stripped the bed and put that onto wash, went out an freshened up the roadside egg board and then into the garden where I have spent the rest of the morning. Finally getting somewhere with the veg planting, I have sown all the sweetcorn, I kept a few back in case of losses. They have been sown in a block because they are wind pollinated and I have cut into the weed membrane to plant them as this bed is tricky, very heavy clay and very weedy. I am doing all I can to minimise the weeding and enable me to concentrate on the growing and harvesting when the time comes. I covered them in environmesh because animals and birds like to eat young corn greenery 🙄 After that I had a search to find something for a hack I had seen on you tube, this again is a game changer for me. The plastic weed membrane is awful, but I already have it so don’t want to waste it, when the wind gets under it shredding occurs, I have pegged it down with the raw ends tucked under so this doesn’t happen and then implemented my hack for planting. You use a weed wand or similar burner, find a metal circle though you can use a wooden template, I used a cylinder spanner, the diameter is about 6” then place it on the membrane and use the burner to burn a hole. This is hugely effective because the heat seals the edges of the circle so no shredding 😁 and a lovely little circle to dig and plant into, the membrane stays in place to keep the weeds down and again it’s hugely time saving. I have planted dwarf French beans the other end of the sweetcorn bed and butter nut squash and spaghetti squash behind the big tunnel. I also planted banana squash with the French beans as they can ramble on the ground through the beans and sweetcorn, also a couple planted near the runner beans, making full use of all the space available. I planted some courgettes near the rhubarb bed and I still have more of those to go in as well as more dwarf French beans but they are not big enough yet. So as it stands I have most things planted, I just need to get the hundreds of pumpkin and other squash plants in the ménage and the remaining courgettes in the garden once they are big enough to transplant. Feet hurt now so time for lunch.
John came home just as I was hoovering mid afternoon, at least I wasn’t sat down 😉 he was waiting for a floor to go down before going back to he job to put the toilet in, we had a cuppa and then Shelley and Flo came, they were going to help in the garden but it had started spitting with rain by then. John went back off to work, Shelley went to collect Josh from school and I went outside to water the small tunnel and then did a bit of weeding. I came in and re made the bed before going out to do the egg collecting as John will be late back. It has tried to rain on and off but not really amounted to much at all.
There is talk about June 21st and if the full reopen will go ahead or not 🙄 the Indian variant is transmitting at a rate of knots but the vaccine programme is also romping along its a race between the two at the minute. Mostly it feels as though everything is pretty much getting back to normal, it would be hard if we had to go back a step now, I have booked a couple of days out and a hair cut plus we have a holiday booked along with most of the rest of the country. We are looking forward to being able to see people on their birthdays and maybe a couple of bbqs, fingers crossed we keep going forward.
I went out and did the egg collecting and afternoon feeding rounds, then I went back and cleaned out the guinea pigs and the quail, I also cleaned out all the water buckets in the orchard pen. I need to get that lot all sorted out, we have a hen and a cockerel living with Ted, a cockerel and four hens living together then a single cockerel living out in the paddock with the flock. Two of the cockerels need to go so that I can let the others back out, at the minute they fight like billio if they get near one another 🙄 And Ted is not happy living with them, I had found him some ladies but the chap had a problem with his phone on the day we were due to meet him and collect and so far I haven’t heard anymore from him.
Saturday: Overcast this morning with spitting rain but nothing much. John did the animals and then got ready to go out for the morning with Macca to get suits for the wedding 😁 I told him not to fall over at the price 🤣 been a long time since he bought a suit! That leaves me here to potter about which is what I have been doing in the garden, I bit of tidying up rubbish and broken bits, putting the squash plants in the trolley to take to the ménage and moving over plants outside to the cold frame. It was not until I started moving the squash that I realised how many I have 😜 if they all grow there will be a squash mountain here, banana, spaghetti, butternut, pumpkin, crown Prince, de musque, and some cute little ones that I can’t remember the name of. I have hedged my bets when putting them in the ménage because I can see something has been digging. If it’s fox looking for worms then that’s not too bad but if it’s rabbits then that’s a different story, the larger plants I have just sunk the pots into the ground, I figure that way they don’t get a growth check, the roots will still continue to find there way out of the pot and into the ground and they may not get damaged. The smaller plants I have planted properly, we will see what the difference is when they start growing, they all had a good feed and water beforehand. I hope it works well, if it does I may think about using that space again to grow things, the weeds are still there in force and I thought that I could get a couple of Pygmy goats to put in there next year and they would do well at eating it all or pigs but they would do a lot more rootling around which may be detrimental, I will ponder on that one. The plants I have now been able to move outside are garden plants I have grown from seed, I have some lupin, rudbeckia and a yellow daisy that seeds everywhere, I did have it labelled at achellia but I realise it is not that even thought the leaves are very similar.
Yesterday on social media someone was giving away some padron peppers they had received in a veg box but didn’t want, I said if no one else wanted them I would love them, in return I offered a jar of rhubarb and orange jam which was gratefully accepted. When the lady turned up with the peppers today she also bought an aubergine and a butternut squash that she didn’t want either so I did well with that swap. I just need to decide what I am going to make with them now 😁
Growing your own gives you the best ingredients for your meals and they don’t have to be complicated affairs. This lunchtime I popped out to the tunnels and picked some baby spinach, some pea tops, lettuce, dill and coriander, chopped it all up and added chopped baby tomatoes, grapes and blueberries, and a thinly sliced baby bel cheese, no dressing needed (I am not keen on dressing anyway) because it was packed with flavour, fresh, flavoursome, healthy what could be better than that 😁
Popped round to Mums for a cuppa this afternoon and did the birds when we got back. On Saturday evenings we have fish and chips with my Sister and Brother in Law, today it was nice enough to sit outside. We had finished eating and were sat chatting when Shane looked across the paddock and said bloody heck (or words to that effect 😜) a fox has just grabbed a chicken. John got up and ran across with the dogs but he was long gone with his supper, we settled back down and then could hear the fox calling out the back. John got up and ran off in that direction and a large dark fox went running down the paddock and into the next field. When John was putting them to bed he noticed that about 4/5 hens have been had, feathers in the paddocks in various places. That all took place around 7pm, two hours before the hens go to bed and he kept coming back.
Sunday: Lovely sunshine first thing this morning then it disappeared behind thick cloud and hasn’t come back as yet and it’s 11am. We got sorted and then went to get a bit of food shopping first thing, Sam and Luke are coming over tomorrow, Luke is going to help John get a few things done and we will have a big picnic 😁
I was thinking of going out somewhere nice today but the foxes have scuppered that idea, we can’t go out for a few hours and leave the hens unsupervised, we wouldn’t have any left when we got back probably. That’s the problem with a free range flock and predators, we are kind of tied to the place daily. We may start to think about winding down the egg sales altogether over the next couple of years, things have definitely slowed right down here anyway. We may keep a lot less birds that can be penned to keep them safe if we want to go out for the day 🙄
A friend told me it’s national hedge week this week, hedges are hugely important to our insects, birds and wildlife, they provide much, much more than people realise. They are an ecosystem in their own right especially hedges of a decent age, they provide shelter, protection, food, soil stability, flood control, wildlife homes for pollinators, pest predators, pests themselves (valuable food sources) they keep livestock in or out and are of course a carbon sink. When humans want to rip out hedges they are only thinking of themselves and not what else shares this world with them. Most of it is because they don’t understand fully the detrimental effect it will have on the wildlife, usually the wildlife they have moved to the country to see, I find it ironic that people rip out hedges to get a better view of the surrounding countryside, um, that is part of the countryside 😂 The times people have said to us ‘you should take that hedge out so you have a better view’ of what? fields without hedges 🤷♀️ I would rather build a platform to get up higher. Replacing hedges with garden centre plants that are not even native does nothing at all to help, it’s like sticking a plaster over a hole in the side of a ship. Thank goodness there are folk out there who are rewilding though I doubt they can keep up with the ones that are destroying, it needs a whole mindset change, education is key, understand how your actions impact your environment. I talked about managed hedges as well, anything that is managed is purely for human benefit and control. Though managed hedges look good (to the human eye) are they really beneficial? A hedge if left will grow, get old, break down and regrow, it’s a cycle that we no longer allow, we feel that we are doing the best thing for the hedge keeping it tamed and in ‘good condition’ but there is more to the cycle. The deadwood is vital to ground dwelling insects, which in turn are vital to airborne insects and birds and guess what the hedge will regrow by itself if left. We have a classic example down on the far side of the bottom paddock, once there was a stone wall, I guess the hedge wasn’t there when it was erected by farm hands many many years ago. A hedge has grown up over the years (by itself mostly) and now it has got old and is dying, there is a lot of dead wood and the wall is falling down. Trying to get John, or any bloke (sorry for the sexist remark but this is my experience) for that matter, that stands and talks about it, to see beyond clearing it right out completely and starting again is like pushing a stubborn elephant uphill! Why, why would you want to clear out an established multifunctional wildlife habitat that is thriving, there are companies that charge a small fortune to replicate that 😂 I stand there and point out the obvious, the hedge is regrowing from the ground by itself why scrub all that out and start again, better to leave a tumbling down wall, dead wood and let the hedge sprout up naturally surely, it’s not rocket science is it 😜 But no, humans seems to need to ‘tidy’ everything back to a clean area and then fill it up again with something no where near as useful 😬 Put it this way if the human race disappeared tomorrow completely the wildlife would carry on and thrive without us ‘managing’ everything in fact it would probably be much much better off, sad but true.
How weird is this after I wrote about thinking along the lines of winding down the chickens John came home from getting fuel and said ‘I think we might start winding down the chickens and egg sales’ lol, seriously. Now we are other completely in tune with each other after so many years together or, which is more likely, we are both astute enough to see the situation as it is. At times over the years we have been so rushed off our feet with all that comes with egg sales that we haven’t had time to stop but lately it has completely slowed right down, I am pushing them but the response is not there. There are two reasons I think for this, one, we sold a lot of chickens during the lockdown last year, some of these were egg customers though not all that many, two, the farm shop next door has taken off really well and they are also selling eggs. If someone is going to call in to get bacon for their breakfast they might as well get eggs while they are there, they sell a lot of other things too and again you may as well pick up eggs while you are at it. This will be sad for our loyalist of customers and we do have some very loyal ones but we can’t keep going at something that is not making any money much as we might enjoy it. It will free up our time hugely, the time spent looking after the birds isn’t even in the ‘profit’ entry because I am here anyway but if it was we would have been running at a loss for years 😂 It was never our intention to sell eggs we just kind of fell into it, have enjoyed it but the time has come to start thinking about giving it up. We have just had a new lot of hens delivered and so will be running for at least another year yet, don’t panic, but gradually we will be winding down that side of things.
I am not sure yet where that will leave my blogging, it probably won’t affect it, I will still keep blurbing after all it’s more of a life diary than anything. It is a way of getting things out of my head when necessary (see hedges above 😂) It’s a written record of day to day life in rural Oxfordshire, not very exciting but it is a snapshot of real life.
Late afternoon early evening we were down in the big paddock taking out a fence, this is one of two cross fences being replaced, it also meant we were down where the foxes (there were two different ones) were seen last night. Once we had finished that we had to stay on patrol for the rest of the evening, taking it in turns to come inside and get something to eat before swapping back over, John is still out there now. No sign of anything today but they are known as cunning for a reason, they will be watching and the minute you are not that’s when they strike 🤪
Enjoy the bank holiday, hopefully the sun will shine, if it does you will find me eating my picnic in the shade 😂
When I published last weeks blog I had a quick look at my stats, I have posted 237 blogs, it is mostly read on a Monday (49%) at 9am (32%) and there are 206 followers on Facebook 😀 how about that.Monday: Foggy start, hope it burns off and we have another fabulous day, I put a duck and some veg in the slow cooker before starting my rounds this morning. By 12 it was still cloudy, where has the sun gone 😕 I got on with some major weeding on the bed where the brassicas were last year. Yesterday we picked up and repaired the cage which had been blown down and broken by storm Doris, I don’t have much faith it will last out a whole season but it was free in the beginning and we have had three years use from it so not too bad. I tried a three pronged attack on the weeding, pulling those with shallow roots, digging those with deep roots such as a patch of stingers and hoeing off any others. It will need another hoeing in a couple of days but for now it’s looking clean and ready for planting probably with sweet corn and squash. The brassica cage has been moved to the other end of the bed as you shouldn’t grow them in the same place twice due to the build up of diseases such as club root. The carrot seeds that were sown outside last week have come up and the asparagus is starting to poke through the soil too. I dug up some summer raspberry runners and potted them up along with some strawberry runners hopefully I can sell them at the gate. ( I’ve no idea what I was on when I wrote about carrots, they are not carrots at all but swede!)
We now have 2 geese sitting 😀 hopefully the place will be full of goslings this year.
Gave the big poly tunnel a wash in the afternoon to get the green off and let more light into the plants then gave the dog, Mia, a good bath, being mostly white and long haired she was decidedly grubby looking, patch was looking worried but he is taller and short haired so doesn’t get as filthy looking so he escaped for today 😜
Desperately trying to flog eggs now lol as we have an awful lot! Well putting it on the local selling page worked a treat my Facebook pingers are working overtime and sold seven trays 😀 11 trays sold by 9pm 😀 it’s good because we are getting three trays a day and had a bit of a backlog.
Tuesday: Bit of a frantic morning replying to orders for eggs but good to get them sold, John will be delivering for days lol. A vibrantly coloured cock pheasant casually wandering past the front window and across the yard this morning totally unfazed by dogs, chickens, me, gotta love Spring 😀 Tried to chuck some food in for the two sitting geese this morning as they won’t get off the nests even to eat from a bowl I put just inside the door, next challenge is to get some water near them 😆
Got a skip arriving today so we can start clearing up junk and rubbish like the over ordered bags of cement that have now gone hard as rock 😝don’t ever lecture me about too many pairs of boots Mr Pearse, at least I use my purchases 😉
John did some tidying up in the front and finished off cleaning the back hen pen, then he went off to deliver more trays of eggs, have to slow down on online sales now as there won’t be enough for our farm customers otherwise 😂
Wednesday: Mild but overcast with the threat of rain by the looks of it today. After feeding I did a bit of weeding in the poly tunnel, fine weeds so hand plucked them, some of the seeds I have sown are now sprouting, the beetroot, radish, lettuce and there are one or two spring onions peeking through, when they get a little bigger I will sow the next lot. The chick peas I am trying have sprouted, well you expect this as they are for sprouting but I am aiming to grow them on into full size plants and harvest fresh chick peas. The dwarf runners are also growing but the peas I planted straight into the ground don’t seem to be doing anything so I have sown some in pots in the greenhouse as a back up plan. Picked some more rhubarb for selling and the asparagus is poking its head through the soil so it won’t be long before I’m harvesting that.
Picked some cabbage leaves for dinner later with shepherds pie. If you cut a cabbage leave the stalk in the ground and slice the top of it 4 ways you should get sproutings later on.
Lovage: I grow this as it’s a lovely plant to grow but I never really use it, this year however I am going to make sure I do, it has a flavour similar to celery and the leaves can be used in salads or flavour for soups and stews, the roots can also be use but can cause photosensitivity so I for one will be steering clear of those.
The more I’ve read about it the more I discover, the seeds can be used like you would use coriander or fennel seeds and best of all a cordial can be made and was traditionally mixed with brandy for a winter sup 😀Time to make full use of this herb I think.
Another herb new to me is English Mace, I bought it because I had never grown it before, it’s a member of the yarrow family but on researching it an old name for it was ‘the carpenters herb’ because it was known to stem the flow of blood from injury! It’s not great for cooking unless you use the very young tender leaves after that it becomes bitter however it blooms for a very long time providing something for the bees all summer.
I candled the duck eggs today to take out the duff ones (4 in total) as they are due to start hatching next week. You can see from the photos, an empty egg with an undeveloped yolk and an egg that has developed, the space has filled and has the air sac at one end.
The black and white photo is the one with the embryo inside.
Thursday: Supposed to be a fine day today, no sign of it at 9am but it feels warm already. John was home this morning and helped out with the morning feed and cleaning out, I’m feeling tired in the mornings lately and carrying 20kg of feed around in various bucket sizes is not helping so glad of the assistance. The bathroom company has finished now and he is on his own so can please himself about coming and going, he is enjoying the freedom I think 😀
I decided to spend the day doing the end of month/year/company paperwork 😝ALL day and still not finished some of it.
Got bit to pieces by the evening midges tonight yuk.
Friday: Wet start but clearing up, windy but sunny. It’s beginning to look a lot like spring, the cherry blossom, damson plum blossom and the apricot blossom is all out, the blackthorn all along the hedgerows are blossoming, looking lovely out there. John picked up 25 POL hens this morning for selling on as we have had a few enquiries, they have settled into a nice clean pen this afternoon. Not much else to report really, the seedlings are coming along slowly in the greenhouse and the poly tunnel, I had a look at the asparagus beds today one or two bits that are big enough but not enough to cut and sell.
Saturday: The sun was shining blindingly into the bedroom this morning when I got up and disappeared by 8.30 😕 hope it comes back again. John did most of the feeding this morning and I cleaned out the rabbit cage and hutch, I gave it to the hens to scratch about it as there was a fair bit of rejected rabbit feed in it, just what the hens like to pick over. John also spent some time putting legs onto the outside quail hut, we will need to move them this week to make room for ducklings 🐥 and the legs will hopefully stop rats getting in and worrying/killing them! It’s now high off the ground, I did joke that we probably needed planning for it, it looks huge. Sold the first lot chickens this year 😀
Sunday: A cold windy start but the sun came out and it was fairly pleasant, John did a few minor fixing jobs and then got the tractor out to move some muck into the veg garden, all was going well when suddenly, diesel starting spewing out all over the ground, on further inspection the pipe had come off goodness knows how but it’s fixed with a piece of wire holding it on now 😝We then fixed up the brassica cage again 😖 we had stood it up temporarily and fixed it but the wind blew it over, anyhow this time we have secured it properly and it is all netted ready to go, I also limed the soil as I had a box handy, from where I don’t know cos I wouldn’t have bought it, must have been given it at some point. I will only grow brassicas if I am sure the butterflies can’t get in as there is nothing more disappointing than growing them from seed watching them come on nicely then get decimated by caterpillars 🐛 this means pegging every side down well and making sure there are no gaps at all in the netting. John also got the water connected back up in the garden, hopefully the risk of freezing is past us, though lots of swearing could be heard as firstly the connector was split, so he went and got a new one from the van, then when he turned it on the pipe was split so he had to go and get more connections and cut the split pipe out, he was swearing about the tooing and froing he had to do. Meanwhile I was busy hoeing, mending, weeding and fixing various bits and pieces. Sold some more hens and had an enquiry for some and they are coming back in the week. The long tailed tits are back, playing in the trees and the wrens have been flitting around on the ground all day. Picked some carrots, cabbage and asparagus for tea to go with lamb chops and also pulled some rhubarb to stew and have with custard 😀
frieslandfarm (flowers) 