onions – Page 2 – frieslandfarm (flowers)

Something different, something new & the return of the cat 😁

Posted on June 28, 2021July 4, 2021 by frieslandfarm

Monday 28th June 2021: It is overcast but that’s fine for me, just how I prefer it, overcast but still warm 😂 I did a thing as Jeremy Clarkson would say 😜 I thought I would do a voice memo as I was going round this morning, actually I thought initially it would be for note taking but on playback I rather liked it. Then began the next couple of hours trying to get it onto some kind of platform so that I could transfer it to WordPress. You will see below that despite everything I did do exactly that, although I would have like to merge the recordings that seems a bit beyond the basic free apps, maybe I will pay for a good one so that next time it is seamless 😬 But here is a first ever audio of life on the farm, this is me with my local accent (which will sound strange to those readers in far off lands 😂) My voice is slightly huskier than normal due to this bug I have, normally it’s a lot tinnier, I prefer this husky one personally lol

Apart from faffing around for a long time trying to upload, download, offload the files 😜 I have done other bits of picking, chatting to a customer who came especially to get some fresh veg, organising what will be for dinner later, video call with shelley, and probably a few other things that I have completely forgotten about by now. The day has shot past, it’s already mid afternoon. At some point today I also whizzed up some strawberries to pour into an ice cube tray and freeze so that I can use them in smoothies. The strawberries are all little ones and so ideal for using up this way, you could always use the small amounts to add to fruit crumbles or defrost and add a bit of sweetness for a couli to have with ice cream or yoghurt, so many other things you can use them for really.

So as is typical of me once I had recorded that snippet for the blog I thought ‘I wonder if I can do a podcast’ 🤣 so guess what? That’s exactly what I did, yep seriously I found platform called Anchor and I recorded a podcast, well I would probably call it a shamble ramble actually but I was pretty pleased with the end result if I do say so myself. If you like podcasts and want a listen I will see if I can work out how to get the link on here. It is a little different to the blog, to start with it is about how we got to where we are and why. It is also a lot easier to talk about and convey your thoughts and ideas more easily than trying to write it at the end of the day when you are knackered. Basically that’s what I spent the rest of the afternoon doing except for the moment I spotted a fox! I had just finished recording a section and was sorting some interlude music when I looked out the door and thought, is that a fox? I couldn’t quite tell if it was or if it was a clump of dock heads but as I moved closer I could see it was a fox with its eyes firmly fixed on some hens in the paddock. I shouted it looked up at me and then back at the hens, I shouted again and by this time the dog had run round so the fox scarpered back through the hedge. This is the one that has black tinges and obviously the day time raider as it was only 4pm. I grabbed a stick and went out the the hedgeline and made as much noise as possible in the hopes it would bugger off, I then had to wait out in the garden until John came home in case it came back. Once John was back we got some corn and rounded up as many as possible for damage limitation and we house the geese as well. At the minute here are around 10 hens still out so we still have to be a bit vigilant.

There is still no sign of the cat and so I have had to call the vet again to cancel all future appointments 😕 One of the other jobs that need doing fairly urgently is moving the kittens and mum from up on the side in the boot room down to floor level. The reason being that the kittens, who now have their eyes open, began to start gentle exploration today out of the cosy little cat house they have been living in. In fact when one of them saw me it started mewing and coming towards me so it won’t be long before they are leaping about.

John is watching Andy Murry play at Wimbledon and keeps asking me ‘oh why is he using that drop shot’ or saying ‘he needs a double fault’ I am just trying to watch it in peace 😜

We bought in a dog crate and set it up on the floor then moved mum and the kittens along with their cosy little cat house down into the crate. I know what would have happened if we had left it any longer, we would have gone into the room to find one of them had fallen from the worktop 😏 we did a risk assessment and altered the situation for a better outcome 😜 We have left one door on the edge of the cage wedged open, the dogs can’t get past it but the cat can jump up and out so all should be fine for at least a week. They have started playing with each other now so won’t be long before they explore further.

Tuesday: Still overcast this morning but it’s warm enough, again it is rather a perfect day for me in mid summer 😬 I think it rained overnight, bonus because I don’t have to worry about watering 😁 I still have this dammed ‘thing‘ it’s really not that surprising because being on immune suppressants everything takes ages to clear up but I really wish it would do one so that I can have a clear head for once. In an effort to try and shift it I did do a simple sinus rinse this morning, ewwww, yes it is ewww but it gets rid of a lot of mucus and crap, still don’t feel much better but at least I can breathe through my nose now 🙄 I found a pot of eucalyptus oil last night which is more potent thank the jar of vicks and although it clears for a couple of minutes it is back to being blocked before very long.

What is on the agenda today? Good question, at the minute I am sitting having a decaf coffee, I am pretty tired from being awake half the night coughing so I am going to amble through the day I think 🤔 The ducks need clean bedding so that is on the list, I try not to set too much in stone because things change or I might spot something else that needs doing or I fancy doing and if I plan my day too rigidly it can become stressful and who wants stress 🤷‍♀️ I need to pick strawberries, they are coming in thick and fast now as expected it is Wimbledon fortnight after all. As always one job will lead to another so I won’t be idle just pacing myself. Oh and of course I will have to keep an eye out for the fox, we managed to get all the birds inside early last night, around 7 they were all safely locked away. We had put the geese in a stable about 5 as they were in that area anyway so we just herded them in. This morning John went out to let everything out for the day and he told me that when he got to the goose pen up in the small paddock he thought ‘oh shit we forgot to put them to bed’ he had totally forgotten that we had locked them somewhere different and had a slight panic for a moment 😂

So I actually achieved next to nothing today, not on the Smallholding anyway, I did manage to pick a good haul of strawberries and that was about it. Sam came over with the twins and we went out to a local garden centre to see the fish and have tea and cake. The crazy thing is that although the twins are nearly two, this is the first time they have done that 😢 it is very sad really that for the last year and a half they have not been able to do the things that their older sister was able to enjoy doing. So we went out on a socialising the twins mission 😂 I have to say they were really well behaved for a couple of toddlers on reins who suddenly are allowed to go out in the big wide world bless them 🥰

When we got back which was around 1.30pm, John was home and Shelley and Flo were visiting as well. Once they left I had to help John get a wire through the wall from the bathroom into the bedroom so that we could get the electric radiator in the bathroom working. We still have another to do in there and one in the living room but we need an electrician for those. A quick chat with a customer at the gate and then a cuppa in the garden as it was about the right time for the fox to make an appearance. John fed the birds, I put some lemon verbena and mushrooms in the dehydrator, then I took out the mushrooms because I don’t want the lemon verbena smelling like fungi 😂 I will dry them separately later, the verbena was almost dry from hanging in the kitchen I just need to crisp it up a bit. Lemon Verbena tea is supposed to be good for joint mobility, acne, soothing the stomach, anxiety and inflammation as well as a few other things, there is science to back some of it up and the rest is what people report back after taking it but there are drawbacks as well, it can have a laxative effect on some people and it is a diuretic so anyone with kidney problem should avoid it. Most if not all articles will say that you should seek advice from a doctor if you have an underlying illness or are on medication before consuming anything in the herbal section. That is great advice but not terribly practical is it 🤷‍♀️ I mean I am hardly going to give the practice a call for everything I want to try, I would probably try a little bit see if all seems well and go from there, but that’s me 😬

The kick off for the football is about to happen, England v Germany always a big match in whatever tournament they are playing. This is how seriously we take football in our house, the anthems play, John goes out for a smoke, he comes back in, they are about three minutes into the game, the conversation goes something like this: John ‘have we won yet?’ Me ‘yes game is over’, John ‘what colour are we playing in?’ Me ‘Pink’ John shouts are the telly a couple of times before leaving to go out and price up a job 😂 Not really football fans and quite honestly I would prefer to be watching the tennis.

We won! Many chants and posts of ‘it’s coming home’ yeah don’t count your chickens before they hatch 😜

We weighed up the fox situation and decided to pop to Mums for a cuppa, as John said we can’t just be here the whole time in case he comes, we did put the geese away first but the hens we left out as they are far more troublesome to round up, impossible even. As we drove back towards ours I could see that the verges had been cut and I was horrified to see that ours had been cut too. There are orchids growing out on the verge as well as in the front paddock, ffs what is wrong with the world wanting to cut everything back all the time, not the contractors fault I know but urrrgh humans 🤬 Luckily we have plenty this year inside our boundaries but still I am dumbfounded really, it’s not as if it’s on a blind bend, I could understand the need to cut it back but on a perfectly straight road it is not necessarily to do it until the end of the summer 🤷‍♀️ The hens were fine by the way, no visit from the pesky marauder this evening 😁

Wednesday: Another good day weather wise for me, sorry about the lack of sun folks but I’m fine with that lol. We did some very brisk trade at the egg shed yesterday in fact we pretty much sold out of everything we had which is fab. It did mean though that I need to be up and about early enough to put out the eggs for today before the customers, who call in on the way to work, get here. John did the animals and went of to work, this semi retired has pretty much gone out of the window as he is now booked up to mid August 😏 I did a bit of picking, not much today, a few peas and that’s it, I need to wait for the braid beans to fatten in the pods before a pick any more of those and everything else is slowly but surely forming. I then went to put some clean bedding in for the ducks and move the electric fence for the horses, I a, going to have to extend the tape again soon and put in more stakes as I am running out of ‘give’ with this lot. Onto the guinea pigs, I gave them a clean out, swept the floor, got them some fresh hay 🤔 That is one of those terms that is a paradox isn’t it 😂 fresh hay, it hadn’t occurs to me before now but dead grass is fresh hay 🤪 Anyway I sorted that lot out and picked them some fresh mint, lemon balm, dandelions and sow thistle they are very happy with that lot.

Back inside then to check the mushrooms I have had in the dehydrator, a lot of them are ready but some are still a bit soft. I took out the lot that were ready to whizz into powder, put that in a jar and left the rest to continue drying, they will be added later. Whenever you dry anything it starts off as quite a bit of bulk but by the time it’s dried it has shrunk to around 1/3rd of it original size and then once powdered the amount is minuscule, but it packs a punch with flavour which is the main thing.

My first ever podcast 😬 has been well received by family members and I didn’t even have to pay them or anything 😜 so I have already drafted up the second one ready to go next Monday. If you are interested or like podcasts you can find it on Spotify titled, Our Smallholding life warts ‘n’ all. I was going to keep it similar to the blog but I changed my mind as it gave me an opportunity to do something slightly different but there are cross overs on both.

In the early afternoon I went up to the back point of lay pen where we are keeping the new hens. For the last couple of days they a have been kept in because of the fox and I will have to be vigilant today now I have let them out. I let them out so I could clean the pen out, the water drinker they have works well unless they stand on the side and then it leaks out onto the mud part of the pen and then it becomes a stinking mess 🤪

Today has been the first time I have been able to sit for any length of time without coughing, and I mean coughing, the whole can’t stop, eyes streaming coughing fits 😷 So with my re-found ability I sat and watched the ladies tennis which was well worth a watch even though our girl didn’t win. Then as it went on longer than expected I could be bothered to start making dinner so we had boiled eggs 😂 Once we had finished and had a cuppa I got on with doing something with the fruit I picked earlier, raspberries, recur rants and strawberries are at this minute in the ice cream maker and we will have summer fruits sorbet in about half an hour. The ice cream maker I used to think was a bit of a faff because I used to keep the bowl in the cupboard but now I keep it in the freezer so it is always ready when I need it. I picked this one up second hand at a car boot sale a few years ago and if you have a lot of soft fruit it’s well worth looking out for one. It saves all that freezing, getting it out, stirring it round, freezing it again before doing the whole process at least one more time. Summer fruit sorbet, any fruit sorbet is easy really, this was 500g of mixed fruit, 185g caster sugar, 185ml water and the juice of a lemon. Heat the sugar and water together until the sugar dissolves then turn up the heat and boil a little to get a soft syrup, allow it to cool, then blend the fruit, lemon juice and cooled sugar syrup in a liquidiser and put through a fine sieve to get rid of the pips and stalks etc. Get the ice cream maker plugged in and going and pour in the liquid mix, probably takes 30/40 minutes depending on what consistency you want. Eat immediately if you want to or freeze in a suitable container. I think I will get some of those wafer cones and we can use it instead of ice cream, also great for those dairy intolerant of course 😁

So after saying the the machine will make light work of the sorbet, it failed to freeze it very well 😂 so I had to resort to freezing in a tub and in about an hour or so I will have to remember to go and give it a mix before leaving it over night 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: Yet another warm but overcast day, can’t say I haven’t had my fill of workable days this week can I 😂 This morning we were late up, the alarm went off, we fell back asleep and an hour later it ‘oh shit’. It doesn’t really make much difference to me but obviously John has places to be (even though he is supposed to be semi retired, I am going to mention that a lot 🤪) So in a good will gesture I offered to go round and do the morning jobs as long as I didn’t have to haul buckets of feed around, he assured me that only two lots needed feed. So off he went to work and I bumbled round letting everything out and feeding the ones that needed it, topping up water containers as I went. Then I sorted out the washing and got that on before doing the eggs and the egg shed and getting on with some watering and picking. Then I confess I recorded a podcast, I now have three in the bag, one published the other two scheduled. The problem is that once a topic starts rattling round in my head I have to get it sorted. Hopefully now I can have a week or two without thinking about it, is that likely, nope 😂 too much say!

John came home early afternoon which I wasn’t expecting but he is not here for the rest of the day as he has to pop back out again apparently. We had lunch and a cuppa together, watched the news and I now have the tennis on. Meanwhile John is bashing something about in the kitchen, I can’t even be bothered to go and find out what at the minute 😜 I can hear it involves a hammer and chisel so I guess it’s the rest of the tiles that he is taking off from the wall. I did ask, nicely I have to say, if we could perhaps finish the making good where the Rayburn came out 😬 I want to give the kitchen a good clean but there is no point doing that if the very next day he starts bashing about and plastering, so I’m guessing he has taken the hint and is getting on with it 😁

Bits of broken tiles all over the floor and John shouts are the grandchildren coming today? I do t think so I said 🤔……shit, it’s Thursday and the twins will be arriving any minute now 😂 hastily get the hoover out and all broken tiles down to the skip, cleaned up just in time 😜 It was a lovely day so they had their tea as a picnic outside before helping me feed weeds to the torts. George got a bit carried away and starting pulling off strawberry leaves from my plants to feed them 🤦‍♀️

After dinner my sister and her hubby called in for a cuppa and we sat on the decking in the garden. We spent over an hour watching a pair barn owls systematically going up and down the field next door and occasionally diving down once they found something tasty to eat, they are such graceful birds to watch.

Friday: Yet another overcast but warm enough day so I am having to make the most of it. It’s 10.30 I have just sat down for my first coffee break having been up and about since 6.30 this morning. First on the agenda was to buy a big walk in 6m x 3m metal chicken run. I said to John shall we get one of these be cause we can’t keep not going anywhere because of the fox or worrying when we absolutely have to go out. This one will attach to the front hut and it will mean that if we know we are going out we can let them out into the fresh air but they will be secure. It’s not being enough to do that all the time but it will be great to have the option. After I had orders that I got on with the usual bits, feeding, picking, watering, washing up, putting the eggs out, slug hunting 🙄 Something has made a hole in one or two of the little peppers in the greenhouse, picking up the pots and looking underneath them all I found about 10 small slugs in all. I fired them out onto the grass, I tend not to kill them after all they are only doing what slugs do to survive but they can go and do it on something less precious than my peppers 😜 I need to let the ducks into the garden in the autumn so they can hoover up as many as possible mind you we do have hedgehogs, I see the deposits on the grass in the mornings so at least they have something to eat. I still have this bloody silly cough though each day it is getting better but the minute I sit down I start coughing, standing up all day is the only answer 🤪

The goose died 😢 sadly despite doing what I could it died overnight. In my experience by the time you realise there is something wrong with a goose it’s already too late. Geese are extremely good at concealing the fact that they are unwell or injured unless it’s a blatantly obvious injury. It occurred to me that she may have received a puncture wound in the fox attack but stupidly I didn’t think to check for that, also in my experience a puncture would from a fox is pretty fatal anyway, the germs from the bite would be enough to cause infection. Then there is the site of any wound, depending on where that is, which would be hard to see under all that down, it is likely to cause maximum damage. But in all honestly I don’t know why she has died except that she was not in top form for some reason.

Once my coffee break and sit down are over I have to go out to the paddock and extend the electric fencing for the horses, I need add more tape and stakes again as I can’t get much more slack out of what is there already so that will be a hour or so to do that, good job it’s overcast, actually if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be doing it!

Did that job came back in sorted out peas ready to freeze and strawberries for pudding later. Sam and he twins came over and so did Shelley and Flo, they at school pick up time and I went in to watch the tennis 😜

I think we may have found the cat 😁 a local animal rehoming charity has put up a picture of a cat that has been at their place, he fits the description and matches the photo so fingers crossed we will get him back, and I will have to call the vet again and book him in once more 😂

Jack waiting for me to release the food 😂

Saturday: After emails back and forth the local rescue centre were satisfied that Jack was our cat and we made arrangement to pick him up mid morning. He had turned up a few days ago and being a rescue centre they thought he had been dumped, they managed to trap him and put out on social media which is where we saw him. He has now been chipped by them, I gave them a donation for doing that, and we bought him home. You would think that he had been away for months as at first he seemed very agitated and un settled and I was worried he would take off again. We fed him some very tasty sardines and within a couple of hours he had calmed down and realised he belonged here, even being uber friendly with the dogs much to their disgust as he wandered past them, brushing against them with his tail in the air, I am sure he was purring, it’s my family 😂

The rest of the day we spent getting a bit of food shopping and doing things like depositing cheques at the post office, paying a invoice at the wood yard, I paid some online bills and did a bit of paperwork while John made good the site the Rayburn came out ready for plastering tomorrow.

In the afternoon we discovered that the fox had taken two of our new hens 😕 We had left the one in the front locked away because he keeps going there but let the back ones out and he had been to the back and had those 🤬

One of the reasons we left them in was because we wanted to go out in the evening to watch the football and while we can get the hens at the back in easily, we can’t do them same with the front ones so they stayed in. Once everything was safely shut away around 6 we went off to collect fish and chips, go round to my sisters and we watched England play Ukraine and win! Hoorah, we seem to have a great team at the minute and there are high hopes that they will go far 🤞

Sunday: John was up early to watch the qualifying for the F1 as we were too late home to watch it yesterday, if he doesn’t watch it early he is likely to hear the results on the radio and then he gets mad 😂 He then did the animals and got on with plastering the bits of the wall and ceiling he made good yesterday. Meanwhile I did my usual bits and then went out to move the fence for the horses and dig up ragwort. There seems to be a bit more of it this year than previous years and I did a big barrowful but it started to rain quite a bit and so I will either do some more later or tomorrow. I just need to get it up before it goes to seed, it’s only just started flowering so we are ok for a few days. We don’t spray our fields as you can imagine and it is teeming with insects and a huge variety of different vegetation is growing. Many people prefer to just have grass for their horses but I like ours to have a good range to graze, clover both red and white, plantain, so many different types of grasses, various types from the dandelion family as well, it’s diverse which is great for them and the wildlife. Mind you it absolutely stinks of fox down in the corner of the paddock 🙄

Hopefully once John has finished plastering and it is left to dry we can go and get some paint, I can start to give the kitchen a good clean, spruce up the bits that need doing and give it a new coat or two of paint next week 😁 That will be another job ticked off the never ending list ✔️

Johns patching up, got to wait for it to dry and then painting can commence

Podcast number two will be released tomorrow if you are interested, let me know what you think 🤔

Just been pottering in the garden, it July and the weather is not July weather lol, it started spitting and then was obvious it was going to hammer down and that’s exactly what it did, it’s absolutely pouring down 🙄

In the end we didn’t go and get paint as we have some to do the undercoat and can pick some up one evening in the week when the shop is quieter.

Have a great week 🥰

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/our-smallholding-life-warts-n-all/id1574503311

Friesland Farm

Mid Summer, a rotten cold & a missing cat, again!!

Posted on June 22, 2021June 28, 2021 by frieslandfarm

Monday 21st June 2021, Summer Solstice: The birds will all be kept in today and possibly tomorrow and the day after that, actually for as long as needs be, I am hoping the foxes will move on and be a problem for someone else and that they manage to get them dealt with because so far they have evaded all our efforts.

Been keeping myself busy this morning with some picking, strawberries, peas, mange tout, chard, baby beetroot and some carrot thinnings, not a bad little haul, some has gone out for sale some will be for dinner tonight. It takes a lot longer than you realise to pick it all and it will only be ramping up from here on in but it’s a lovely job to do, very fulfilling knowing you have grown it from seed to feed 😁 I did a bit of weeding around one of the rows of beetroot and then I have sown another lot of beetroot plug plants, trying to get this succession thing successfully working this year. Then it was onto planting the last of the squash plants, five more courgette plants (lol I have no idea what I will do with that lot as I have nine plants in total 🤪) Then I planted the rest of the squash plants in the menage, more pumpkins, spaghetti squash, crown Prince, table king and musque de something or other (I really must learn the name) Again if all these growq and produce I am going to have an awful lot of squash 😂 I had a look at what else is coming on, the broad beans have good sized pods but I can feel that the beans have not swelled enough to pick just yet. The tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, melon all have tiny fruits forming in good quantities, the aubergine are flowering, the runner beans, dwarf beans and French beans are all flowering. I am waiting for the onions, garlic and shallots to start dying off so I can pull them and dry them, another couple of weeks before that happens I think. I am picking a good big bowlful of strawberries every day and the yellow raspberries are starting to ripen as is the red currant. The blackcurrant bushes are loaded with berries still green at the minute though. The early potatoes are only just starting to flower, they are way behind 🙄 The rhubarb is still producing plenty though it will be time to slow down picking that soon. The sweetcorn are doing well and growing strong, I think that covers most things apart from herbs and salad which are tickling along nicely without much fuss. Next I will be panicking that there is so much I haven’t got time to sort and process it all 😂

I have started accounting for exactly what is put out on a daily basis and what has sold so that I can see what we should be taking, I say should because takings seem to be down despite selling well 🤷‍♀️ another depressing realisation that we are probably too slack and the honesty box is great for the honest but not so great for the no so honest 🙄

Despite the fact that we will not be replacing any more birds we still have nearly 80 in various forms so we will be continuing and I still will be growing veg so they will still go out for sale along with any plants I have grown. Who knows what other opportunities will arise or become apparent, today even though I am trying to chivvy myself along I feel as though I am going uphill backwards 😬

I did do a positive step forward job this morning, I booked our male cat, Jack, in for the chop 😋 he is not the father of the kittens but it wouldn’t be very long before he would be and I don’t want that. Besides we don’t want him wandering as they always tend to wander towards the road instead of the acres and acres towards the back 🤷‍♀️ Once Jill’s kittens are weaned I will book her in as well, this little accident was exactly that and we don’t want hundreds of kittens running around, that’s how populations get out of control. There is always a drawback though, we have spent hundreds on getting cats spayed and neutered only for them to either disappear or get hit by a car, another thing we may give up on if it all goes pear shaped again besides with less birds we won’t get as many mice hopefully. Lol I sound as though I am ready to throw in the towel on the whole lot but this time of year is the time I find I am furiously trying to combat one pest or another and trying desperately to keep my head above water.

After some lunch I managed to get the petrol strimmer working and strimmed the walkway between the menage and the big paddock at the back. One of the problems with the fox is that the grass is long enough for it to hide in, where I strimmed is exactly where John nearly tripped over the fox munching on one of our hens, neither of them saw each other until the last minute! I would have done more but it was making my arm ache from holding it and the vibration in my hand only stopped about half and hour after I did lol.

I prepped the bits of veg I picked this morning ready for dinner later, John will have fresh garden peas and baby carrots with chicken and potatoes and I am having a garden salad made up of chopped beetroot and the beet leaves, chopped baby carrots, mange tout, white icicle radish sprinkled with a few red currants I picked the other day which I will also have with chicken.

I have decided that his year I will use what I pick while it’s fresh, sell anything I won’t be using and not do massive batch freezing like I have in previous years. The reason being I grow so much we don’t get through it before the next lot is ready 😂 Also having now got just one smallish chest freezer and a back up under counter freezer I am not going to have the room to hoard 🙄 so I either use it, sell it, give some of it to the family or I process it to store in a different way by either drying it of jamming, chutneying it etc, I am not keen of fermenting we won’t eat it and I still haven’t had the courage to try canning, though I really ought to give myself a stern talking to in that department. One of the problems is in the UK they don’t make canning equipment it would have to be bought from the US.

This morning it was overcast but dry, no chance of seeing the sun rise on solstice day today 🙄 By mid afternoon it was raining, I’m not too bothered as I got the bit of strimming done and it’s watering in the squash I planted BUT it’s gone a tad chilly with it 🤪 the radiators are set at 18c and some of them have come on, I am sure I am feeling it because we had got used to nearly 30c and now it’s dropped dramatically but still 🤷‍♀️ There is definitely no relying on a standard weather pattern anymore.

So I did a fair bit of reading up about canning and decided against it lol, still,worries me and when I spoke to John he said ‘it’s a bit like having a bomb sat on the stove top’ 🙄🤪😂 which put me completely off even though I’m sure they are not that dangerous 🤷‍♀️ Anyhow I also researched vacuum packing and have bought a home use machine. I know this will use plastic which I didn’t really want to do but it will also preserve the food a lot longer than putting it into freezer bags as it does end up with freezer burn after a while. As I said before there is no easy answer to making the most of storing the harvest, I just have to pick what is going to work best for me. Shelley said ‘you can’t save the world everyday’ and she is right though I should still be mindful of what I am doing not just do it because that’s the way it’s always done. So methods of preservation I will be using are: dehydration, freezing including vacuum packed, it will also include jams and chutneys though for long term storage I will be processing the jars in a water bath to make them safer.

Tuesday: It was raining when I first got up but the sun ☀️ made a breakthrough before 9am so it should be a nice enough day. I got some indoor morning jobs done, washing, cleaning the countertop in the boot room, putting out rubbish, breakfast etc etc. Then I did a bit of printing out for my Mum who was struggling to get her printer to work, I know how that feels 😂 see previous blogs for that story) I still don’t feel 100%, the cold is still lingering although the throat and the cough have almost gone now, I have a hair appointment this afternoon so anything I want to achieve today needs to be done this morning. We also have someone coming later to see if they can deal with the fox problem so that we can let the birds back out, it wasn’t so bad while the weather was cool and wet but if it gets hot I don’t really want them inside all day for any longer than necessary.

I spent the morning doing various bits including sowing some more seeds, his time I have sown dill, coriander and basil for continuity and also some pak Choi and Chinese cabbage for sale later on. The reason being that the little gem and oak leaf lettuce I have growing will soon be smothered in greenfly, that my past experience anyway, so if I get some replacements on the go now I should have some salad leaves once that happens. Pak Choi will grow in the tunnel even when it’s getting colder, I haven’t grown the Chinese’s cabbage before so it will be interesting to see how well it does, might become a favourite who knows. I also watered both the tunnels, it’s tempting to not do them when nothing growing outside needs water but that can be downfall of the fruit that has already set so best to keep doing it even if it’s only a small watering and not a soaking. Then it was round to the paddock to move the electric fencing out a bit for the horses, they soon eat off the strips they are given 😂 the idea though is that they are not able to just gorge on everything and anything, Jack was getting a bit porky and restricting him will slow that down. If, like last year, we just had weeks of sunshine it wasn’t necessary because the grass was dying off due to lack of moisture anyway and so it was more like hay but this year with the rain it is lush and green and full of sugar which is not ideal. He is not happy and tells me when I need to move the fencing 🤪 he sees me out in the garden, starts neighing at me and I think, ah time to move the fence a little, actually I did throw some hay in today as well because the fence is almost as far as I can move it without getting more tape and extending it but I also need to bring them in later when they come to deal with the fox and if I leave them in overnight I can extend it in the morning before I turn them back out again.

Went out for the afternoon to get my hair done. During lockdown, like everybody, my hair didn’t get cut, it got longer and longer, it also got greyer and greyer but I kind of liked it. When I was young my hair was blonde, as a young adult it was golden brown as a much older adult I had resorted to dying it light brown 🤷‍♀️ So now I had long hair that was grey on the top and light brown on the bottom, the dilemma was do I continue to grow the grey or do I return to the box dye that I had always done. I bought the dye and it sat there and sat there and sat there, it was a rolling decision not to dye each week and eventually I thought I like it like it lighter so I will stay grey. As I said the problem was the bottom of my hair was a washed out light brown that I didn’t want to cut short, so the answer was highlights apparently. I say apparently because I have no clue about these sort of things, seriously, I had my hair coloured once in a salon about 15 years ago and that’s it 🙄 So now after being ‘done’ I have long hair that is even in light colour all over, fabulous, let’s see how long I keep it up for 🤪

Once back home there is no time to enjoy swishing my new locks around as it was straight out to get the horses in while John fed the birds. Then a job that I imagine a lot of people would refuse to do including John but I am not squeamish, never have been, I am one of those weird people who rather likes getting maggots off a sheep’s backside or pus out of a nasty cut, I am quite happy to watch brain surgery or open heart surgery on TV so this job was a breeze. We have dead hens, you know how that happened, and I gathered up bodies in the aftermath of the attack and bought them in overnight. The chaps are coming later to see if they can help sort the problem out but they need bait, cue dead hens, they need bait that isn’t easy to run off with though and so we took out a hammer and tent pegs and yes I hammered the tent pegs through the dead bodies to secure them to the ground. I don’t see this as a problem at all but John flat refused to do it and wouldn’t even look 👀 Let’s hope the chaps get here before the fox makes a meal of the skewered hens!

We are pretty diverse here in terms of things going on, personal house things, veg things, flower things, poultry things, pet things, Smallholding things, family things, so sometimes I completely forget to double back and update on things I may have mentioned in the blog. One of those things is a Smallholding thing that we did a round four years ago, might be three, definitely three maybe more 😂 The front paddock we decided would no longer be for grazing the horses, it would be for chickens/poultry only and with that in mind we planted a few more fruit trees, plum, cherry and apple and we used a grass seed which was especially for chickens. The grass is shorter and so matures quickly and sets seed readily, the idea behind this is that it self sows as you leave it long enough. There were also a mixture of herbs and wildflowers in it, herbs in the form of things like plantain not sage or mint 😜 and wildflowers in the form of what most would call weeds not pretty cornflowers etc, we also added red clover separately. The idea was firstly to provide the hens with a good range of more natural forage and secondly to build up the thickness of the sward as it had got rather sparse from constant grazing and the fact that during the war there were buildings on there and the foundations are pretty much still there just buried under the surface and not that far down either 🙄 Three (or maybe four) years later it is doing really well, the variety in there is amazing, mostly just looks like grass but if you walk through it you can really see the variety of plants that are growing. It is buzzing with insects which again is great for the hens they love to run and jump and catch flying insects. It has been a successful attempt to get a much healthier paddock than it was previously.

The only problem is that we don’t have the equipment to cut long grass lol, the ride on mower would just give up on grass that long and thick. We discussed cutting it by hand when the time comes and then leaving it to dry before stacking it or making a home made box to bale it, something I will have to look into. John thinks a strimmer will do, it probably would but wouldn’t it be nice to use a scythe 😁

Wednesday: It’s nearly 12 noon and I am having a little sit down. We were up early this morning, the sun was shining and it looked like it was going to be a warm day so we got on. Cup of tea first mine you 😂 Then John did the feeding rounds while I went out to the paddock and altered the electric fencing to give the horses some more grazing, I had to get extra stakes and electric tape as we had got to the limits of the first lot. 6.30am out in the paddocks it was quite lovely though I could already hear the traffic from the A40, all those commuters buzzing backwards and forwards, glad it’s not me. Then it was onto looking for the bodies that we pegged last night, rookie error here as I only found one body, and only 4 out of 8 metal skewers 🙄 The chaps never saw a fox at all last night but they are definitely here otherwise the bodies would not be missing. If they stay active only at night then that’s fine but I have a feeling they are chancers and will come anytime we are not around. We haven’t let our new birds out but the older lot are back wandering around, I have no idea where we go from here to be honest, I fully expect more attacks but these foxes are as cunning as they are elusive.

That done it was onto sorting the eggs and the egg shed and then some picking of peas. I woke this morning with the cold I had now pestering my sinuses and if you have ever had inflamed sinus you will know how I was feeling. At this point I came in and laid on the bed for half an hour as I felt truly awful, I had taken some up the nose spray so was waiting for it to work which it did after a short while. Once I felt I could actually breathe again I went out to clean the dustbin, I had noted a while back that it was in a shocking state 😜 so I was determined not to forget to give it a power wash and a scrub out while it was empty. I used some Zoflora and now it smells lovely. The next job was fed the Guineas and give the light Sussex pen a spruce up and a clean out. I raked the floor to get up debris which was still there from the ash tree we cut down, cleaned out the house, sprayed it with some diluted jeyes fluid and put in fresh straw. I also hung a piece of shading on the door to the run, not to shade but to keep the damn magpies and rooks from eating the feed. The top of the door has a metal grid but it’s big enough for them to get in, but it seems they are way to stupid to get back out again and then when they land of the floor the chickens attack them. Hopefully that will sort the issue and I no longer have to listen to the racket they make. The rest of the morning I spent watering the greenhouse and potting on some plants that I had grown from seed. I also sorted out a few plants that I have been bringing on for a while and composted anything that hadn’t made it, gave it all a good feed and a drink and then in for my sit down which I think I have earned.

Well I have tried on and off to get a few bits done outside this afternoon but the cloud cover is sparse 🙄 I did manage to dig up a few verbena seedlings and pot them but that was about as far as I got. I am hoping it will be a fair bit cooler later and I can get out and do some more then.

We did manage to get out again after dinner, we wanted to get some of the grass around the front chicken hut cut to try and give the hens a bit of a chance to see the fox coming 👀 It is a bit too long for the mower so we only did a small bit, I need to order that scythe 😂 My sister and brother in law popped over and we had a cuppa in the garden, we did a bit of target practice with the air gun, turns out I am better than I thought I would be. We were only shooting at a plastic plant pot but it’s good to practise.

My vacuum packing machine arrived and I can’t wait to use it, it should make the space in the freezer a lot more useable plus we won’t end up with freezer burn.

Oh yeah nearly forgot, had a panic moment when John opened the post to find that we had not paid the electric bill and they were threatening action. I never had a bill in the post, nor a red letter I searched for it everywhere but we just haven’t had one so no wonder I haven’t paid it! Paid it now so all is well.

Thursday: I keep waking up each day expecting to feel better but it’s not happening and this morning I feel worse. All over body worse not just my sinuses which makes me think that it could be inflammation throughout. I feel cold too, not the kind of cold that putting on an extra jumper will sort out, it is one of those ‘if you know, you know’ feelings meaning only anyone who gets chronic inflammation will know exactly what I mean. My muscles ache this morning and bending down getting the oat milk out of the fridge my lower back muscles felt like they were dried out bits of leather someone had just bent 😕 I do hope this is not the beginning of a flare and that it is the immune response to this lingering cold. Only time will tell, in the meantime I will up the anti inflammatory foods and see if that helps. Most of what I eat does come under the anti inflammatory section, plenty of fresh veg and fruit, low fat Greek yoghurt, wholemeal or whole grain foods, olive oil etc etc but there are a few things I could ramp up on specifically such as turmeric and ginger, maybe a orange, carrot, ginger shake with a touch of turmeric or a banana, pear, blueberry & cinnamon or even spinach, pear, red grape, celery, all good choices.

I made an orange, carrot, turmeric, ginger and, because I had it left from breakfast, half a banana smoothie, which was delicious and packed with beta carotene. Often over the years before I was diagnosed with Lupus I had researched my skin condition. It started when I was 21 and pregnant with out eldest daughter, the midday sun began to affect my bared skin, it would erupt in thousands of tiny blister like spots. I would look around and see who else had this problem and there was nobody, I could see heat rash but this was different. Back then there wasn’t really the wealth of information available like there is today on the internet so it was difficult and I ploughed through a lot of reading. I concluded I had polymorphic light eruptions, I didn’t go to the doctor back then as it was definitely seasonal but I tried a plethora of creams and oils including rose hip oil, beta carotene seemed to be a dominant ingredient in many things alleged to help. None of them really helped very much and so I just became used to either avoiding the daytime sun or suffering with the rash. The eruptions are the same as I get now if I am caught out but the Lupus diagnosis comes from the presence of a high level of antibodies which were obviously not there back then or they would have picked that up in blood tests during subsequent pregnancies. There are other symptoms they look for as well most noticeably the butterfly shaped redness across the nose and cheeks, actually it is not where near as pretty as a butterfly 🤣 and not much similar in shape but 🤷‍♀️ I plan to have a purely plant based day today, we don’t eat that much meat, well I don’t anyway and we had fish yesterday, I hardly ever eat processed food and I rarely drink so I should kick this in to touch pretty quickly fingers crossed 🤞 #igotthis 😋

Oh what a full on day I have had and not finished yet as it’s twin sitting day today 🤪🤪 I have been prepping and cooking, one of the things that happens when I, but probably anyone, who is not on form, is meals kind of go out of the window. Generally once I am hit by fatigue I can’t function but what I need more than anything is some goodness so I have been sorting that out today. I started off with the smoothie which as I said was delish, then I moved on to making a few things that can be frozen and easily thawed so that I still get some good nutrition. I have made a couple of batches of butternut squash soup, this one is just roasted butternut squash, sautéed onions, a teaspoon of make syrup and a grating of nutmeg, plus salt and pepper. I worried a little about what it was going to taste like but it’s lovely, and it’s nutritious and that’s the main thing. Then I made a large batch of roasted butternut squash and pasta, I roasted it with onions and garlic but also some pecan nuts and edamame beans, then cooked some wholewheat spaghetti and wilted spinach into it and mixed the whole lot together. One lot I have for dinner tonight the other two lots were vacuum packed and frozen. There were a few issues with the vacuum packing, user error I have to say but I got there in the end, actually ‘we’ got there as Shelley was here at the time. Again nutritious and easily cooked by reheating in a pan of hot water. I have also made some pork mince, which is exactly that with spinach, carrots, edamame (because I had them out) and a sweet potato mash to go on the top. John will have some for tea and any other portions I can freeze for another day. Of course there is always room for crumble in the freezer and so I made a blackberry and apple crumble, one portion for John later and possibly tomorrow and two portions for the freezer. Go me, and on top of all that I have been busy organising and booking a couple of things for later in the year and moving the rabbit hitch out into the orchard for Rosie (Shelley’s rabbit) to come and stay.

Literally just sat down with a cuppa and hope to get it finished before the bundles of mischief arrive 😂

Evening jobs were move the electric fencing for the horses, Jack was telling me it was time 😂 then watering the tunnels and the greenhouse before going back in to wash up do the egg sorting and feed the boot room crew, 9pm sit down, surprised I didn’t fall asleep.

Friday: Up early to get some picking done so I can put it out with the eggs, mange tout, peas and a punnet of strawberries today, not much today but hopefully soon there will be loads of produce available. Then onto a job I have been trying to get at for a few days but failed, cutting back the dying flowers on the lupin, delphiniums, geums etc, if I cut of the flowers that have gone over, they will make more, it’s like magic 😁 I also dead headed the roses and cut back the early flowering clematis as well as digging up a few self self verbena and planting them elsewhere. The clematis had quite a bit of foliage that I have taken some cuttings from, not too good at cuttings but nothing ventured nothing gained as they say 😜 Back indoors at 11 for a coffee that I really fancied, absent kindly made myself tea 🤷‍♀️ Absent minded because I was thinking I must find the cat (Jack) as he has his vaccination this afternoon at 2.30 and I haven’t seen him this morning yet 🙄 Need to give myself plenty of time to locate him or the vet plenty of cancellation notice if I can’t find him 😬

I couldn’t find the cat, not a sign of him and yet he is usually always there when I am gardening or pottering about, it’s like he knew 🙄 I have rebooked the appointment for next week and I will capture him the day before and keep him confined 😂

The weather turned out to be not as bad as I had heard, it was North winds and cold but it has been fine, great for me really because mostly overcast. When I was feeding the torts I spotted some lovely strawberries growing so I grabbed a pot and picked them. Along with others I had already picked I made some jam, Strawberry jam always smells amazing when it’s cooking 🧑‍🍳 I just made two jars both of which will never leave our kitchen as John is a strawberry jamaholic 😜John came home just after lunch, with some flowers I might add, it is our 38th wedding anniversary, after a cuppa he started taking up the broken tiles on the kitchen floor where we had taken out the Rayburn and the cupboard next to it. We managed to find some tiles that are almost identical, not an exact match but it will be difficult to tell the difference unless you know, apart from the fact that the new ones will be a lot cleaner 😂

The new tiles are now down and if you can’t really tell which are the new and which are the old ones so that’s good. The cat still have not a made and appearance at feeding time which is a worry as we have been here before, more than once and nearly always when we have a marauding fox about. They get to an age where they go a bit further around the edge of the paddocks, because they are not big cats, still only a year old and so fairly petite, I am convinced the fox has them, I mean I can’t be sure and I haven’t seen them do it but the cats disappear into thin air when they have been cats that are nearly always around 🙄

Saturday: I have the most ridiculous cough which has kept me awake a lot of the night and consequently I am not Mrs Happy this morning 😬 My sinuses are still playing up that’s the cause and the effect is constant coughing, whenever I sit down or lie down the coughing starts so I just have to be upright most of the day 😜 We started off with all the usual jobs then shot off to get a bit of shopping, stop and Shelley’s for coffee and to sort a couple of bits out then back home to get some work started. Moving the electric fence for the horses was first on the list and then John started digging up docks in the bit they have eaten off. Try the strimmer was my suggestion, it will be quicker, we got it out the line jammed, we took it apart and went back to digging them out because we couldn’t get it back together. I got the antique scythe out, John tells me I am doing it wrong, he has a go and breaks it clean in half, don’t why I bother sometimes, I left him to carry on digging them out with his spade 🙄 he is still digging mid afternoon 😂 Meanwhile I found other jobs to do, take down some bits in the kitchen ready for when John plasters the wall, a picture needed to come down and the ‘Shelia’ I don’t know if that’s the right name it’s what I have always known it as but it is one of those farmhouse airers that go over a fire and it has pulleys to lower it and higher it, anyway it’s down now. Then I went out and had a look at the onions, rather mortifyingly I find they have a ‘miner bug’ ffs, I think it’s allium miner, either way I have to pull them to stop any further damage. I will see what they are like when dried out a bit and see what can be salvaged and how. It means I won’t be able to store them but I will be able to either dehydrate them, freeze them or vacuum and probably a combination. The shallots are also affected though not as much and the garlic is only slightly affected but it has other issues. Where we had so much rain the garlic cloves have begun to grow again before the tops have died off ready for picking 😂 ha you couldn’t make this up, I seriously am considering having a year off veg gardening next year, it is too hit and miss with some things. The good thing is that the red onions I planted in spring seem unaffected, I am not sure if that is because of the colour or because they have not been in long enough to be affected. That is a problem with over wintered veg it has had longer to harbour pests, the struggle is real, oh well there is always next year 🤪

Sunday: An overcast day that, although rain threatened constantly, stayed dry until during the night. I am typing this up Monday morning so I’m a bit late but I actually couldn’t sit down without constant coughing so I spent most of my day up on my feet so give my ribs a rest (they ache like billio from all the coughing) I keep thinking, today it will move on surely, but nope each day here it still is like the unwelcome wasp buzzing round your head. It is getting a little better each day but I still feel thick in the head and sinus, once that goes I shall be fine 🤞

Between us we have grouted some of the floor tiles back in, cut the lawn, dug up docks, picked peas, weeded, hoed and swept the front driveway, investigated a collapsed manhole we found that we had no idea was there, I think it was from the MOD days as it doesn’t appear to be linked to anything current, as well as all the usual jobs that need doing daily.

I have cleared the peas that were growing with the tomatoes in the small tunnel, they worked well as an experiment, I had a good picking of peas shoots initially and then a decent crop of peas after but now they have got leggy and straggly and are blocking light from the tomatoes so it’s time to cut them back. One of two things will happen, they will either die off and release nitrogen into the soil or they will start to grow again, I suspect the latter and I will monitor that to see if I need to take them completely out or leave them for another crop it just depends on how well the tomatoes are getting on at the time.

That’s yesterday in a nutshell really, I still don’t feel well enough to expand on that lol.

Peppers, aubergine, melon, ginger are just some of the fruits beginning to swell in the greenhouse.

Have a good week, hopefully next time you read the blog the cough will have gone 🙄😬

Still no sign of the cat 😢

Friesland Farm

Ash die back, plenty more rain (seriously that will do now thank you) & basically it’s all about the weather and how crap it is 🤣

Posted on May 18, 2021May 23, 2021 by frieslandfarm

I Monday 17th May 2021: New week, new mindset 😁 Starting today we can now eat inside cafes, restaurants and pubs etc, whoop, moreover we can go inside other people’s houses and we can hug. Yeah I will skip the last part if you don’t mind, apart from direct family I wasn’t a hugger before and I won’t be changing that outlook now just because we can 😂 The weather is good today, good for me at any rate, not raining, not windy, not too sunny and warm but not too warm, winning combination. I have therefore been busy outside all morning, I started off with the usual things like stocking the egg shed, feeding the Guineas and then I moved onto sorting out cardboard rubbish and burning that. I have pulled up stingers and blackberry saplings and cut down the grass outside the pol pen which we will be using for a permanent flock when they arrive in a couple of weeks time. After that it was into the greenhouse, put some plants out for sale, prick out some seedlings, pot on more peppers and water everything. Then onto the big tunnel where I have now planted the rest of the melons, still have some tomato plants but I may put those outside. Then I planted some spare broad bean plants in an area I have decided to just put anything that is t going somewhere else 😜 and finally onto sorting the ground where the runner beans are going. I have bindweed there, I have spent many years trying to painstaking eradicate it but I am now thinking, just live with it, sure makes life a lot easier that’s for sure. I will regularly pull it but you can’t stop the unstoppable! Then it was time for lunch and a cuppa, I am trying to get back on track I with tracking my food and I have put my Fitbit back on to encourage me to see how many steps a day I can achieve. Mind you scrabbling around on the ground digging and weeding is work as well but that doesn’t register as activity lol. Very typically as I take my break and sit down, well try too, the doorbell goes, a delivery arrives (and it’s not always for me) and the dogs start barking so I keep getting up to look out the window. As I went out to collect a delivery that was for me the thunder started so looks like we are in for a storm, shame I didn’t get the beans in beforehand as the ‘charge’ of a storm would have done them good. It looks like any work outside this afternoon is now off the cards so I will switch to an indoor job.

I did have to sort out a squabble this morning too, it’s not just siblings that fight 🙄 Ted has taken to picking on the cockerels and I let the light Sussex out this morning so they could mooch in the orchard area. Big mistake as Ted immediately started on the cockerel while I was feeding the Guineas. So much so that I had hold of Ted while Ted had firm hold of the cockerels comb in his beak and would not let go, no amount of persuasion and cajoling, I just had to wait until he decided to let go and then they continued fighting through the wire fence 🙄 We do have two surplus to requirement cockerels which we were going to dispatch but haven’t got round to it but this other one is my main man of the flock and I don’t want to have to get rid of him. I am going to have to have a good think about whether we keep Ted, he would be fine I think if we could find him a lady friend but they are rare as hens teeth if not rarer 😜

The chap came out to look at the ash trees and it’s not good news 😔 the one I thought had it does but so do the other three as well, I am gutted it’s fair to say. Just at a time when the world needs more trees I am going to have to take four big trees down, one will come down as soon as he can fit the job in and the other three can probably go another two years and then will have to come down. The only consolation I can find is that the trees are not functioning as they would normally do anyway because they are diseased. He said it is spreading rapidly through the ash trees and even some other species of tree, quite a worry, it is an airborne fungus so no chance of stopping it. Trees can either be taken down or they will eventually fall down, as the three at the back pose little risk to anything or anyone they get a short reprieve but I think we will eventually take them down so that there are no ‘freak accidents’. The other ‘Sod’s law’ coming into play is the wood lol, ash is the kings wood, the best burning wood you can get and we are taking out the Rayburn, you couldn’t make it up could you 😂 We will keep some of the wood for the fire pit and probably sell the rest on unless we get a small wood burner for heat only.

I pootled around indoors in the afternoon as the thunder rumbled and occasionally the rain showered, cleared out some bits from various drawers. John came home around three and then an old work colleague of his dropped round for a cuppa, which we could have indoors yay.

We had spoken to a local chap a couple of months back about doing some fencing in the paddocks for us and tonight he came round to have a look a chat about what we want doing. John will measure up and order the fencing and then Dan will come and put the fencing up when he has time. Once upon a time we definitely would have just done it ourselves but as we get older and because we don’t have the equipment also John is busy with other work we might as well give someone else the work and keep the economy ticking over. We have done it in the past but manually and the posts all end up falling over so it really needs a hydraulic rammer. We are changing the traditional slip rails to gates, slip rails work ok to a point but the rails are heavy to move and cumbersome when you have a horse in one hand already 😜

When I got back in a started on fixing some of my broken jewellery, well that was the plan anyway. I suspect plenty of people have broken chains and odd earrings lying around, well I got mine altogether and thought I would try repairing them. Turns out that was not as easy as I thought it would be and the upshot is I will sell the old and broken gold chains/earrings/rings and buy a new chain. There are a couple of rings that were Johns, they had to be cut off at various times, mostly due to him wearing them at work, which he no longer does as it is pretty dangerous and he has come close to losing a finger which is why they were cut off in the first place 🙄

Tuesday: Oooo the weather looks promising today, sunshine from the off 😁 I have put the towels in the washing machine so it better stay like that 😜 John has gone off to work after doing the feeding, I have put out eggs and fed the cats and dogs so far, now I just have to decide what jobs I am going to do today 😁 Hopefully I can get the runner beans planted up and then use the space they were in to put the squash plants out to harden off, then I need to take a look at where I am going to grow them all. I have around 20 plants (probably more) of various types, butternut, spaghetti, banana, crown Prince, pumpkin, mini pumpkin, gourmet squash and of course courgettes and I will grow them in the ménage as there is plenty of space in there. I will plant one or two in the veg garden just in case they get wrecked by something in there as I can’t cover them to protect them at all, trial and error, let’s hope it’s not error 🤪

I sat outside having a morning coffee in the sunshine and saw a kestrel hovering over the front paddock, kestrels used to be common place hanging round at the side of the roads but these days they are in decline and p on the amber list so it was a rare sighting indeed. By the time I nipped in to get my camera it had gone 😔

Once outside I watered the tunnels and then picked rhubarb ready to bundle and put out for sale. I got the runner beans planted which was a job I was determined to get done and the squash plants out into the cold frames, I rather underestimated how many I had lol, I said twenty it’s more like thirty 😜 Samantha arrived with the twins, we played a while outside and then inside, then it was lunch time and then we went for a walk in the village. We met Uncle Shane and cousin Joe and then we saw Grampy, haha how many people you know can you see in a tiny village, plenty it seems. We watched minnows swimming, floated a head of cow parsley and watched it go down the stream then we walked up the hill to the church yard where we could see ‘the whole world’ well that’s what it must look like to a toddler. By the time we got back it was peeing down with rain but they were asleep, Sam went out to get the horses in ready for the farrier and Charlie called in for a cuppa as well, seems like old times again now. They left and I waited for the fairies but he was running very late, I managed to get the dinner prepped just as he arrived. Horse pedicure complete I turned them back out by which time John had arrived home.

Dusk, John goes out to put the birds to bed, he comes back in and asks me to give him a hand as one of the geese has decided to sit on the eggs laid today, the only trouble is that they are in the open part of the stable block and so it’s not safe. My plan was to open one of the stables and see if we can get her to go in, nope she is not having any of it and even though I am trying to manoeuvre her with the aid of a handy rake she gets flighty and fighty! In the end she decides to leave the nest and go back up to the back paddock and the hut where all the others are. Tomorrow we will leave the stable door open and hopefully she will lay in there and then she can stay there because it is secure.

Wednesday: Although I was up and ready to get started on the day after going out to the dustbin I then spent far too long trying to identify a flock of birds. My conclusion is that they were a flock of juvenile starlings, they had gathered in the hedge then flown to the Apple tree making a racket because there was a Kite flying high above. At first I couldn’t work out what they were, I thought they were starling from a distance because of the number of them but then when I got close I couldn’t see the distinct flecks so then spent ages online trying to work out what they were. I think they are starlings but they are brown at the minute so that leads me to believe they are fledglings 😁

This mornings activities were mostly in the veg garden 😂 to be honest it was lovely, very relaxed, the sun was shining, the ground is damp but not too bad. I spent the first part in the greenhouse potting on and pricking out, I seem to have an army of dwarf rudbeckia seedlings 🙄 Then out onto the the garden where I spent the time on my knees hand weeding the onion bed. Onions don’t like weeds (I don’t know why 😜) so keeping the ground clear is better for them. They are doing really, really well I am very pleased, the garlic is strong too so that is looking good, the shallots are doing what shallots do. The red onion I planted a few weeks ago have now rooted and thrown up green shoots, all this rain is good for them at the minute though it could do with being a lot drier later for the onion family otherwise they get problems. I had a coffee break mid morning, I actually sat down with it rather than keep picking up while I was doing other things, and now I have come in for some lunch and a short rest. I weeded a little bit of the bed with the beetroot and swede in but decided it was a little too wet and I would achieve more once it was drier. I really enjoyed myself this morning which is rare as I am usually rushing about trying to get things done but today was definitely a slower pace and therefore more enjoyable.

After my rest I went outside to do a bit more but the wind had got up and the sky was looking black 🙄 Instead I went into the office and got out my card making stuff and made a few cards, the ones in the shed have nearly all sold 😁 I was tying to think how many I have made so far and I think it must be nearly 200! John came home a short while later and we sat outside and drank tea, then I thought as I was out there I might as well weed. I weeded two of the front beds and got a good start on the third until my back started aching and then I gave up. The ground is pretty wet, not in the raised beds, they are just damp but the one that is actually ground level, the worst one for weeds, is saturated and so I only weeded what I could reach from the hard standing as I don’t want to compact it too much. The cats were out there happily weaving in and out of my legs and arms while I was trying to work, and the birds that have nested in the boxes I propped in the buddliea bushes were sounding the alarm calls, in the end I moved so that the cats would move and the birds could relax a bit lol. We have blue tits and sparrow nesting in those boxes, sparrow nesting in the other boxes and in the gaps in the roof space. I have seen baby sparrow sat on the edge of the roof calling, you can tell they are babies because they have fluff poking out from between the feathers ☺️

Popped round to Mums for a cuppa after dinner.

John was telling me that a customer of his that also comes to get eggs here saw what she thought was a large cat the other evening, up by us 🙄 Bigger than a domestic cat, lynx size, ooo eeeer, I need to get the wildlife camera up and running see if I can catch anything on camera.

Thursday: The weather forecast for tomorrow is horrendous, 40/50mph winds, torrential downpours urgh. With this in mind I have made sure that I have done everything I need to do out there this morning, topped up feed for the Guineas and quail, horses, watered the greenhouse and poly tunnels and picked everything I need to pick today. If it turns out to be not to bad then I am ahead of the game and if it is that bad I will be sat inside making more cards 😂 With all that done this morning I am off to the local market with Shelley for a mooch round and hopefully a nice coffee. I have got tonight’s dinner out already and we had some duck breast in the freezer so I am using up that, John won’t have a clue what he is eating so as long as it’s not too way out there all should be well, I am planning on doing them in orange and honey with new potatoes and purple sprouting 🥰

The weather turned vile in the afternoon, the wind got up and the rain started, it feels quite a bit colder than it was yesterday, our weather is really seasonally off at the minute 🙃

We have the twins at teatime today again today while Mia goes for her swimming lesson, the minute Sam went out the door George was trying to get the kitchen chair out from under the table saying ‘unch, unch’ 😂 No not yet George you only just got here 😜

I spent a large part of the evening doing two things, liaising with a chap about a piece of farm equipment that John and Luke are going to look at later this afternoon and taking a look at domestic windmills 🙄 In light of the winds we get here John has decided (you note I said John, more about that later) that a windmill might be better to generate power than solar panels. Researching everything to do with them was my job, we figure a 2/3KW is about right and even if it doesn’t provide all our electric it will pay for some of it. I said John because I have never been keen on having one, the one over the back from us is huge and there is no way I want something like that here. Having looked into it a bit more, there are of course much smaller ones and I can see the logic but I am still not that keen to be honest. One point I insist on though are storage batteries, there is no point harnessing power if when there is a power cut you still have no electric 🙄

Friday: had to check the date today, the bins go out and I thought it can’t be the 21st May already but guess what 🤔 The weather is shocking for the time of year and it wouldn’t be so bad if we had already had some good weather but it hasn’t been great, so I reckon we have had nearly 7months of Winter weather this year, depressing stuff. Like many people I wake up each day hoping that it will be at least a pleasant day but we have only had a handful and the whole forecast for the weekend ahead is dire. Of course I know exactly what will happen, the minute it changes it will be so hot I will struggle to get any hours in outside 😂 but at least we will feel warmth and it will lift the spirits massively.

I am feeling surprisingly relaxed about things in the veg garden though despite everything, even the weeds, it’s too wet on the ground to get on and pull them and just hoeing is a waste of time in this weather as they just regrow quickly. I am resigned to doing it when the time is right and not worrying that I will have so much to do I won’t cope, this is a big change for me 😜 I am happy that so far I have got everything out that needs going out, that which is already in is doing well and I have not had to water any of it outside. The tunnels are mostly now planted up and because the sun is not appearing the plants are not drying out rapidly so they are getting a good chance to establish, these are all the silver linings from all the clouds we have had. No mow May is working out well as it’s been too wet to mow anyhow 😂 The grass is green and lush and so are the weeds but hey who cares anymore, not me 🙃

All the rhubarb and orange jam I made has sold so I need to make some more, apparently it’s a real winner though I haven’t actually tried it yet, I will hopefully get time to make some more this weekend.

Not really got an awful lot done today, I did do a bit of baking, some rock cakes and some lemon biscuits. Then I did make a few cards and did a bit of experimenting with various designs. John came home at lunchtime and had to take the entire contents out of his van including the racking in order to go and fetch something later this evening. Then he had to go and have his second jab mid afternoon, he had a good lunch beforehand, mainly because he has to go out this evening. We had a discussion and a look at where my store pantry will be going, that is going to be a good project if the rain carries on for a few more weeks 🤣 That will be dual purpose, it will store root veg, garlic, onions, chillies, squash, apples, pears etc over winter instead of freezing everything, it will also give me room for plenty of dried goods, jam, chutneys, any bottled juice and canned goods and anything else I can think of. It will also be a place I can hang flowers and herbs to dry 🥰 Researching what I want I found that I am probably a ‘kitchen witch’ fine by me 😁 my Mum is definitely a hedge witch and so I am following in good footsteps, hopefully I will pass the baton on.

This is the picture from Pinterest I will be creating my room ideas on 🥰

I bought an ‘echo’ which arrived today, we have Alexa in the main living room but I needed something for the bedroom. We used to have a clock radio which was great but for years now we have been using this small, frankly rubbish, little digital clock with a light that is barely visible 🙄 The alarm is set on Alexa for the morning but when it goes off that means the morning starts off with John hollering ‘Alexa off’ more than once if she doesn’t hear the first time, you can imagine that does not make for a gentle start to the day 😜 So I bought the echo, and I have now set the alarm with a gentle wake up that steadily gets louder, much better for the nerves I think. We can also then play sleep music at bedtime, John has difficulty getting to sleep as his mind is always whirring. The other night I played a sleep story just to see if it helped and it did so that is another reason to purchase. When I am not well I will be able to lie and listen to some relaxation music or I can listen to healing meditation whatever takes my fancy, or I could even just lay in bed and listen to the radio or and audio book, the world is my oyster. I could of course do all this with my phone but it often goes off with message notifications so this way it should all be undisturbed listening 😁

Saturday: A busy day today, first off, the usual stuff then John went off to the wood yard to order fencing for the paddocks. I put in fresh bedding for the geese as I had noticed that all of them were out grazing, good time to nip in and do the job. Fresh bedding for the ducks as well, all this rain is making the hut a right muddy mess 🙄 Then the wood delivery turned up, quick eh, yes we knew they were having a delivery today but didn’t expect them to deliver straightaway lol anyway that left John to help unload 70 rails and 50 posts 😜 meanwhile I tidied a few things up in the back area and then went out to the greenhouse and garden where I spent most of the rest of the day. Moving and potting on in the greenhouse, trying to find final positions for the peppers and aubergine, potting on more peppers and some melons, watering and a bit of tidying up. Then in the garden I planted about 36 leeks, the rest I have put at the end of the onion bed and planted them in clumps, I will pull them as baby leeks, waste not want not. I then planted some peas I have left over from the main planting, I have also watered both tunnels and picked purple sprouting at some point today. Inbetween all that there was washing up, loading the washing machine, getting the washing dry, making endless cups of tea, checking the torts, feeding the guinea pigs, stocking up the egg shed, sorting the eggs in the afternoon, looking for random goose eggs and discussing the store room, etc etc etc, pooped.

Sunday: The weather has been ok up to this very point, I had just come in, eaten my lunch and then the heavens opened 🙄 This morning we nipped to get a few bits from the the shop, it took less than 20mins from getting out the car to getting back in 😂 When we got back John started creosoting the new posts, the tannilised wood these days is rubbish right throughout the industry (it is widely acknowledged) and so when we are paying a fortune for it we want it to last more than a couple of years before it starts to rot. Meanwhile I have been in the greenhouse sowing some more courgettes as I only had three plants come up, then I planted some echinop plants in the front border and after that I spent my time weeding the front beds, four bucketfuls so far and still a bit more to do. There are some ‘weeds’ I leave such as any poppies that have self set and forget me nots but any deep rooted seedlings need to come out such as dock, nettles, grass etc. There is Bryony growing and I have to keep pulling that up as it’s a bit of a thug, I don’t mind once everything is growing but not while it is trying to get established.

I have managed to locate not one but two lady friends for Ted finally 😁 so I have been liaising with their owner as to when we can pick them up or get them delivered here.

This afternoon I am off to Harry Potter World with Shelley, Martin and the kiddies, out of the Shire for the first time in nearly a year 😜 I am leaving John in charge, he declined the invitation to come along lol.

Have a good week, hopefully we will see a bit more sunshine on the horizon, I am looking forward to an early morning cuppa out there without feeling cold 🥶

Friesland Farm

Surprise! Mid week interlude 😀

Posted on March 4, 2021 by frieslandfarm

I thought I would do a quick round up of the photos of produce I took over the 2020 growing season in date order so you can see how the year progressed. I love how vibrant the colours all are and can’t wait to start harvesting again this year. What I really should do is weigh everything to see exactly how much I get, the photos represent probably 1/2 of what I actually harvest so it would be interesting to have an accurate record.

Friesland Farm

Seeds, Snow and Stars

Posted on February 3, 2019 by frieslandfarm

Monday 28th Jan: Trees, or rather planting trees, is very much in focus at the moment as far as the government and environmental departments are concerned. Do you remember a few months ago I put some cherry pips into the fridge to undergo stratification, a period of cold that will simulate Winter, well it’s time to get them out and get them planted up and hope that they grow 😀 I also put some spindle-berry in at the same time so they will also be planted and fingers crossed they will amount to something. Not all gardens are big enough to plant full size trees but there are plenty of ‘patio’ trees available these days especially fruit trees and all you have to do is make sure they stay watered, so it is possible to have trees and grow your own produce even in a small space, a ‘micro garden’ can be highly productive.

Cold and sunny this morning, I did the morning rounds and then onto a couple of phone calls I needed to make. The second call was to do with water, because we are commercial a different company took over from Thames Water over a year ago, we had notification but as the accountant pointed out we’ve never had a bill. Turns out they had no idea there was a water supply here……doh….. if I had left it we would never have had a bill or would we? Eventually they would have realised I’m sure and then who knows how much we would have owed 😝 as it is we will end up with a back dated bill of probably a few hundred pounds 😲

Today seemed like a good day to go through what seeds I have already got, either seed I have saved or seeds left from last year and yen to order what else I wanted to grow this year.

This is what I have already:

GRAIN:

Millet

Quinoa

Wheat

Amaranth

BEANS/PEAS:

Haricot beans

Dwarf French beans – purple

Dwarf French beans

Ying Yang beans

Red kidney beans

Pea

Broad beans

Chickpea

SQUASH

Spaghetti squash

Butternut squash

Pumpkin

Luffa

Courgette – round

Banana squash

SALAD:

Mixed salad leaf

Spinach

Radish

Cucumber

Tomato

Pepper – Hot

Pepper -sweet

ROOT:

Carrot – Early Nantes

Beetroot

Parsnip

Celeriac

BRASSICA:

Cauliflower

Broccoli

ONION:

Leeks

Spring onion

HERBS:

Coriander

And this is what I ordered:

Turnip

Courgette – long

Fennel

Melon

Swede

Potato

Brassica plants

Now I just have to decide where everything is going to go lol, I’ve decided not to do sweet corn this year as they are quite a lot of faffing about to get them ready, I also decided not to do aubergine, they nearly always fail so I am giving them up as a lost cause, I don’t eat them anyway they were for selling on so I’m better off using the space for something else. Someone once said to me that I should buy in veg wholesale to sell on, um that’s not the point, the point is to grow things that we (or the wider family) eat and to sell any surplus to cover the costs. Firstly, I am then confident on how it’s grown and that it is first class, ripe, freshly picked fruit and veg and secondly it doesn’t cost us or the customer the earth 😀

Tuesday: Mia day so only the basics and playing with stickers, pretend friends and cuddles today 😀

Wednesday: Cold and frosty, no sign of the snow/sleet yet though. I did the morning feeding, watering, letting out, collecting eggs, last week we couldn’t keep up with customers, this week it’s slow again 🤷‍♀️ Before I went out I sprayed cleaner round the bathroom and back toilet, that would ensure that I had to get on with cleaning them when I came back in which I duly did. Having a quick coffee now before I get on with cleaning the rest of the place 😀

The greenhouse walls are nearly finished, it’s unfortunate that we have had some very cold frosty nights and building walls is not ideal as the mortar freezes so best to do it when the temps are up and are staying up, the process is slower but a better result in the end.

A sit down at 1pm phew, I have been busy cleaning, mostly giving the kitchen a good going over, pulling everything out, I have discovered that we have had a small rodent visitor at some point since I last did it. I haven’t heard anything or even seen anything it’s just left a few calling cards behind the microwave 😂 I will move it all again in a coup,e of days and see if it’s still coming or not. The sun is shinning beautifully today and I don’t feel cold, probably all the running around I have been doing, I still have the office and the boot room to do but maybe they can wait until tomorrow 😝

Just in case you’ve been wondering what Molly is up to she can still be found permanently located in a dog bed in the boot room 🙄 She has now taken on that air that most cats do eventually, hooman you are here to serve me 🐈 It is now her job to get under my feet every time I go through the door, she hasn’t worked out that she gets fed twice a day not every time she sees me!

I have lost three ducks now, daytime losses 😞 why do they always take the laying ducks and not the surplus to requirements drakes so bloody annoying, two ducks are from separate trios and the other ducks are quacking and looking for them ☹️

I was just reading about our starry skies and how the light pollution affects the ability to see them, one of the most amazing things about living here is the amount of stars we can see on a clear night, not wishing to keep this all to ourselves if anyone wants to come down one evening and have a look just get in touch or if you want to get a look at a meteor shower when they are happening then let me know 😀

Total coincidence after I wrote this but John came in after letting the dogs out at 10pm and said “I‘ve just seen a shooting star” 😀

Thursday: My goodness that is cold out there this morning 🥶 I don’t know what it went down to but it’s still -6 at 7.30am so I am guessing about -8/9 or possibly lower in the night. I know that’s not cold compared to some areas of the world but it is for us lol, I have decided to light the Rayburn early and warm the house before going outside today, I’m waiting for the Sun to do some of its magic. It might be cold but it is also very beautiful out there 😀

I need to top up the small bird feeders and put some water out in the sun, the little birds are well catered for but I need to find out about the ground feeders like blackbirds, robins and wrens, I threw some scones out this morning but they were gone quickly, the magpies have pinched the lot, I want to be able to feed the blackbirds without the magpies stealing everything. Having a quick look on google I improvised and found a bicycle basket which I have staked down so it can’t be moved by bigger birds and then I have bought a fat block that I cut into four and will place it in the middle hopefully out of reach of long beaks.

The mouse came back last night and I think I can see where it’s coming in so I will be setting a trap in the kitchen tonight and getting John to fix the tiniest of cracks between the wall and the worktop, because the building moves the worktop has come away and somehow this has let it in.

A cold afternoon routine, the water hasn’t really thawed and neither have the outside taps, the ice was pretty thick in the water buckets this morning and although I did manage to break them they are still mostly frozen. With the threat of snow we have topped everything up and put in extra feed/hay etc just a waiting game now ⛄️ I got some shopping in earlier just in case and I made bread so we are all ready for at least six foot of the white stuff 😂

I took a photo I have been meaning to show you for a while, just proving that plants don’t need much to grow, just a bit of determination 🤣 of course they wouldn’t amount to much like that if left and I may try to see if I can plant them and see what happens.

I haven’t talked much about Brexit mainly because well how much can you say that’s not being said all over social media by one group or another and neither can agree. There is a lot of scaremongering from both sides going on but one thing I do think is that if the shelves are barer and food is more expensive, on the whole I see that as a good thing. Obviously not for those struggling already but where we live you don’t see much of that to be honest, it’s an affluent area and for a good few years now it astounds me how much food people buy, do they eat it all or do they waste a lot of it? I think curbing excessive spending on foodstuffs you don’t really need is good and I think a lesson in where your food comes from, how it gets here and how you could/should be buying British can only be a good thing too. So if the shelves in your local supermarket look bare take a trip to your local farm shop & eat seasonably it may cost you more but it’s better quality and learn how to make it go further than you normally would. ‘That’s all I have to say about that’ 😝

Friday Feb 1st: And we had a dump load of snow 🙄 great this will make life fun out there this morning 😝 John has gone to work because nothing stops him going to work 😜 to be fair he is only working in the next village along and he drives very well in snow but that leaves me here in slightly more difficult circumstances today 🥴 One of the first jobs will be to knock the snow off the top of the polytunnels and fruit cage, too much weight would cause a collapse. Then onto the animals, the hens probably won’t come outside all day, the ducks and geese will, the dogs are loving it the cats not soo much in fact I caught Molly peeing on the cardboard recycling as she obviously didn’t want to get her feet cold, she got short shrift! Jack, the horse would probably like to be out in it especially if I took his rug off so he could have a good roll but that’s more trouble than it’s worth so he will be staying in, he came in last night and will most likely kick the door all day long in frustration. I moved the quail indoors yesterday afternoon, mostly because they are not laying so a bit of extra warmth in the back might kick start them. Then it will be back inside and hunker down for the day until afternoon time. Snow days probably would be fun under different circumstances 😜

Doing the animals was pretty easy and as predicted the hens won’t come out, but on my way round I saw that the fruit cage was under a lot of snow and it’s still snowing, so I had to get it off pretty quickly which resulted in getting snow showered for a while (I did chuckle until I started to get cold) 😝 I should have and indeed had said out loud to myself that I needed to get the netting off before any snow but never got round to it so that serves me right really. I’m just waiting for my clothes to dry off before going out and trying to sort it out. The brassica cage netting is too heavy for me to push it off so I will probably have to get a ladder out and do it that way, such fun 😫

After days and days of the Rayburn running in a similar way, today it’s changed and I was having trouble with it just roaring away meaning all the heat is just going up the flue, so I have had to adjust the heat/cook combo normally we just run it on heat and the cooker gets up to temp anyway but it’s now on half and half and has settled down. One thing we discussed if we ever build or move is underfloor heating providing its run by solar panels, I look forward to that day, I am coming to the end of my love affair with wood burning heating and cooking lol.

The long tailed tits have gathered, they always turn up when is snows, beautiful little birds 😀

Saturday: The Sun is out but it’s not thawing the snow very quickly however it is beautiful out there, I took a walk across fresh snow in the paddock, the snow glistens like diamonds and in the shade it takes on a blue hue 😀 John did most of the animals except the horse so I went out and fed him then turned him out into the snowy paddock, he will come back in later as it’s going to get very cold overnight. I took out some feed for the wild birds including the ground feeders, I bought one of those blocks of fat with insects in hopefully it will help during this very cold snap.

With not much to be done outside I decided to make some little chocolate fairy cakes with mini eggs on top, I will be totally honest here and say that I bought the eggs with cakes in mind but ate half the packet before I got round to doing the cakes 🤣

We had Josh to stay last night and the plan was to wait till dark and then go out and look at the stars, his Mummy had packed some cookies for when we came back in. I looked out of the window and said it looks dark enough now, he came and had a look and then said ‘that’s enough can we have cookies now’ 🤣 we did wrap up and go out for all of five minutes, he was scared because it was so dark lol.

Sunday: I was hoping the Sun was going to melt most of the snow today although I’m not looking forward to the sludge that comes after, it melted a fair bit but still a lot left. The temps are set to climb a little after tonight but with it comes the rain 🙄 Josh came out and helped with the feeding though John did most of it, we had great fun using a small hammer to break all the water buckets 😀

That was pretty much it for the day apart from the usual stuff, and that is pretty much it for the week, we are into February so onwards and upwards 😀

Friesland Farm

Cherry pie, apricot jam and still no rain 😏

Posted on July 15, 2018July 15, 2018 by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th July: Up at 4.30am! Needed the toilet, starving, that’s the steroids, there was daylight so I figured I might as well get up an on. It was so wonderfully fresh and cool at that time of the day, even better than late at night, a welcome break from the daytime heat. Diesel also ate breakfast with me, not too close though as his was a mouse 😜 Of course there are plenty of people who are regularly up then, but as a general rule not me, though I would love to be an early bird it’s totally forced 😜

By 7am I have hung out the washing, cleaned out the outdoor quail, sorted and boxed yesterday’s eggs, filled up the pool and sorted the outside duck pen, moved the sprinkler several times over, done the washing-up/drying and putting away, stripped the bed, put more washing on, starving again now 😝 more breakfast, trying to eat well, toast first thing now yoghurt, blackcurrant sauce and walnuts.

By 8am I have hung out the second lot of washing and put a third load on, done some hoeing, collected weeds and forage for the rabbits and moved the sprinkler two more times, I need a sit down, what I should have is a glass of orange juice, what I will have is a coffee 😋 So far it’s cooler than previous days, I hope it stays like that for a few hours.

So after my busy early morning things went a bit downhill ☹️ I am on a short burst of steroids tapering off by 5mg every 5 days taking 20 days in all, I have 7 days left and I feel that things are slowly sliding backwards again, consequently I sat down at 12, laid down at 12.30 and didn’t do anything else until 7 when the days steroids had kicked back in. At 1.45 we lost our electric 😡 again, luckily I called John he came home and set up the generator to plug the incubator in, we also had to connect up the electric fence round the hens as the farmer over the back lost 17 hens on Saturday afternoon to the fox, normally I would be able to do the generator myself but not at the moment.

So after my next dose of steroids I am able to function again, there was a nice breeze this evening though it’s still muggy, feeling better I got on with hoovering and polishing the bedroom, changing the covers, not that we need any at the minute 😝 and cleaning the shower, then outside to get some watering done. I had a good look around at the veg plants, tiny runner beans are beginning to grow, there are tomatoes and cucumbers just coming along I think it will be ‘al rite’ in the end. I made a mental note to pick the morello cherries in the morning, they are not quite as dark as I would like but from last years experience if I don’t get them now the birds will strip the tree while I’m not looking, the cherries are plump and soft to the touch, that’ll do for me, I am looking forward to cherry jam 😀 One year I made glacé cherries with them, that’s a long (2 week) process and well worth the effort but I’ve decided on jam (I think 😝)

The apricots are also nearly ready, my most favourite is apricot preserve, it reminds me of three weeks spent on a French exchange when I was a teenager, real French bread, butter and apricot preserve, delish 😋

Off to bed for another early start tomorrow.

Tuesday: Well I woke at 3.30 decided that was far too early 🤪 the alarm went off at 4.30 and I eventually got out of bed at 4.50! Straight out and turn on the watering, you are probably thinking ‘why don’t you get a timer’ well there are many answers to that question lol. I do have a timer but in the past it’s failed in some way, either water pressure issues or just not turned on, so reliability is the first reason, secondly, the way we set things out originally isn’t very ergonomic for getting the maximum watered by the minimum amount of movement from the sprinkler, basically the area is spread out too far with obstacles in the way blocking the water flow, so constant moving of the sprinkler is what I need to do. We never really envisaged ending up growing so much so never thought about a whole sprinkler system in the first place plus as the main source of water we use is harvested rainwater it’s more difficult to pump it and get the pressure needed. Soaker hose is the next best option and we do have one on the bean bed but that’s it and because the raised beds are all separated by paths we can’t run a continuous hose so I would still have to go out and disconnect the hose and reconnect elsewhere, all these issues need to be looked at.

There were a couple of jobs I wanted to get done, the cherries and picking the apricots, objective achieved 😀 That’s the best haul of apricots I’ve ever had, around 50/60 up to now there have only been about 10 so I’m well chuffed with that, I left a few on there for the birds and insects, same with the cherries. The trees will need pruning now that the fruit is harvested, I need to raise the height of the lower branches slightly so I can get a guild growing and I need to just keep the height and spread of the trees in check so that I can still pick the fruit. Established stone fruit trees are done in early summer to minimise any chance of silver leaf, a fungal disease that can affect them. I hoed the fruit cage which had got quite weedy and the rabbits had a huge haul of mixed weeds. By then it as 7am and I am already flagging and needing to sit down ☹️ not the direction I was hoping I would be going in by now 😏

I did, well, practically nothing until about 3pm, except rest and sleep. Sam and Mia came over and when I woke up from sleeping the cleaning fairy had been 😁 how lovely. I spoke to the doctor and he suggests not dropping the dose on the next change over in two days time but to carry on with the same level and it will probably be for longer, also need more blood tests to check the CRP levels, that’s C-reactive protein which are markers for inflammation.

I lost my glasses somewhere in the garden this morning, where my hair has got thinner (oh yes there are more joys to his than you can imagine 😜) they keep falling backwards off my head, and you know that feeling that you know are supposed to be there but they are not well I kept getting it thinking I must have left them indoors but nope they are lost, they are not my new ones thankfully 😅

In the evening after I got the watering under way I sat and pitted the cherries with the little cherry stone pitter which John thought was a very clever tool. I ended up with 5 cups of them so not a huge haul but enough to do something with, I said I would make jam BUT when I was FaceTiming Shelley and telling her about them and a pic I had seen of a lovely looking Cherry pie, a little Joshy voice piped up and said ‘ooo yes please nana’ 🤣🤣 so cherry pie it will be 😀 I have also got some mixed berries straining to make sauce for ice creams, yoghurt, jellies etc. I’m left with a couple of handfuls of cherry pits (stones) apparently you can process these and then grind they will be almond in flavour BUT stones contain cyanide so it’s quite a process, you can use the pits whole which will still have cherry flesh on them and infuse cream with them and turn into a whip or fool type pudding, I had already washed them though so I am going to keep washing them until they are clean enough, then dry them and make one of those little cherry stone bags for headaches or warming your hands on a cold day.

I finally plaited the first of the onions, the plaits are not expert and a bit loose but I’m not looking to win any shows with them just store them for use, I put around 12 in a plait, that’s heavy enough to lug around. I have more onions to bring in and cure but I wish I had planted double the amount given that the growing conditions and curing conditions have been perfect this year, still you never know how it will go, there have been years where the moisture in the air is too much and some of them end up rotting so I will take what I have. The garlic has also cured nicely, again I wish I had planted a whole lot more, I have hard neck garlic so they won’t plait but they will be cleaned up and stored in a net, they store well until mid winter when they are likely to go hard, (it won’t last that long anyhow) once the temperatures have cooled down in the house (Autumn) they will all hang in the boot room ready for use. A final bit of watering before it gets too dark to see and I’m done for the day, the cherry pie filling is cooling hopefully I will get the chance/ be able, to make some lovely sweet pastry in the morning and couple them together. I did read a recipe that said to drop in almond essence once it was cooked but I’m a bit of a purist with my flavours, I like to taste exactly what it is, I did look for some essence as I was going to mix a tiny bit and see what I thought but I don’t have any so that sorted that out 😋

Wednesday: Up and out to water early, it is noticeably cooler this morning meaning the watering will have much more effect than in recent mornings. I cleaned and netted the garlic, small haul but nevertheless a home grown one 😀 I have rushed about a bit this morning trying to get some stuff done, pastry for the cherry pie, cook the berry sauce with some sugar for keeping in the fridge, actually made the first loaf of bread in weeks, lots of washing up, you’d be amazed how much there is just doing a few little things, sort and put the eggs out. Towards the end of the jobs I can feel myself going down, I start to feel cold, get a headache then very tired, so I had a hot shower, and am now sitting on the sofa with a decaf coff 😋

I did manage to make the cherry pie and I think Josh was pretty chuffed with it, Mia had some after her sleep but has a sweeter tooth than Josh and preferred the pastry and the ice cream to the cherry filling lol

We had decided we were not going to go on holiday this year but we really need one so I booked one 😀 it is at this point I part with my ethics somewhat because we cruise, have done for over 20 years, John hates flying and on the three occasions in 35 years that he has it’s not much fun sitting beside him 😜we spent the early part of the children’s life holidaying in places like Cornwall but in all honesty that is not a holiday for me what with still having to do the cooking and tidying up, organising picnics etc etc. So we went on our first cruise in 1997, it was fabulous, we get to eat the different foods we each like, someone else does everything except get us dressed for the whole time, we can do as much or as little as we want to, yes there are environmental issues as with all forms of transportation, yes there are waste issues, there are issues in every quarter but the industry is working hard to counteract or remedy these and we have actually seen the difference over the years, so there you have it my Achilles heal as it were! There will be no shopping trip for new clothes though, I take the ones I have had for years, evening dresses from the charity shop (bargains lol) John has had the same tuxedo and shirts for 20 years 😜 though he did have new trousers two years ago, we’ve earned this and are looking forward to a relaxing break 😀

I’m watering the garden again this evening as it’s overcast I can start a bit earlier, dashing out to move the hose at half time, England’s hopes are riding high tonight with this game and I doubt there are many countrymen/women/children that are not watching it 😀⚽️ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Thursday: Up early as usual watering, I think with the temps having dipped I am on top of this for a while a least, picked a very small amount of raspberries then went back to bed for 2 hours as I didn’t feel well, I have more bloods test this morning so we will see what the markers are doing and hopefully get sorted as I was doing well on 15mg but 10 is not enough.

One of the brown rabbits was dead this morning, there is no sign of fly strike, injury, myxomatosis and body condition is good, the others are fine so I am putting it down to age, we had them from someone re-homing them and I don’t know how old they are exactly though we have had them nearly three years and I do believe they were a few years old then.

Haven’t done anything else all day except rest and sleep and then watering in the evening ☹️

Friday: Alarm went off, I didn’t get up, not for another half hour anyway, so 5.30 I went out to turn on the water and the hens were making such a racket I thought there must be something in with them, I went over but nope they were just very vocal so I let them all out. In between moving the sprinkler around I pruned the apricot tree, just as bit so that the branches don’t get too heavy next year and break, well that was the plan but the tree has canker 😩 It had it in the trunk last year and I treated it with Bordeaux mixture but it has appeared on the branches, this is not good, the tree will have to be removed and burnt, gutted as it produced a good amount of fruit this year. There are no other controls available and if it was just in the branches it could be cut back to clean wood but being in the trunk already means it’s fate is sealed and it will come down so that it doesn’t spread to the other stone fruit trees 😪 I will probably order another tree, a more resistance variety, of course it cannot be planted in the same place and I have yet to think what I will put there instead.

One of the ‘news’ items currently circulating is regarding the government stockpiling food ready for Breixt, I have no idea if this is true, probably a nano comment made had been blown all out of proportion by the press as is usual and although I wouldn’t advocate storing large amounts of food, but given the ‘panic buying’ culture in his country it does make sense to have some reserves. I suppose as someone who strives for self sufficiency this is part and parcel of what we do, we grow, plant, harvest and process for the leaner months, obviously not everyone is able to do this but there are small changes you can make to your habits that would help in a temporary shortage of any kind. Just picking up an extra tin or dry goods packet when you shop, I’m not suggesting you do it every time otherwise you end up with a bulging cupboard but just making sure you always have 2 tins/packets instead of 1, things that have a long use by date on them are useful to have on standby, dried milk powder, jelly for instance, given the long, hot, dry spell, bottled water might be a good idea, things that if you don’t need to use in an emergency, will still get used, we don’t want wastage here 😀 It’s not scaremongering, it’s just good practice to think about how you would manage given an emergency situation, whatever that situation happens to be.

Needless to say I am monitoring this expected rain very closely today, I’m not sure why, I’m just hoping it doesn’t disappear off the radar and there is not much I can do about it if it does! Please rain, is not something I would ever normally utter but PLEASE RAIN 🌧🤪

I have to tell you what a total success the brassica cage has been, it was a belt and braces job, if you have ever tried to grow them you will know why 😝 I grew broccoli because that’s what we like and the early planted ones have done amazingly well, first a nice round head on each of them and now they are producing florets galore. The later planted ones have done nothing but keep going to seed despite me constantly cutting them back (continuous rabbit forage though) There is not one single butterfly in there and so no caterpillars borne out in the blanching water which has nothing floating in it except bit of broccoli, big success 😀

One thing I want to get made this year is a ‘souper mix’ it is basically vegetable stock, any combination of veg and herbs, blitzed to within an inch of its life in a processor then preserve with salt in a jar, the actual recipe can be found in the River Cottage handbook No2 but you can make it up as to what you have and I found it will keep longer than 6 months or you could always freeze it in batches, you need about 2 tsp per 500ml liquid, a great base for soups and stews and packed full of nutrients instead of preservatives.

I made apricot jam, I am functioning better today and really wanted to get it made, jam sessions are never the same twice and today was no different this came to a set point quicker than softer fruits. Tips, get your jars ready before you start, by that I mean if you are re-using jars, clean them first and get them ready for sterilising don’t put the fruit on to soften and then realise the jars you want to use need the labels soaking off! I have some sticky stuff remover which is fab but I really should have done it before I put them away lol. Secondly EVERYTHING is hot and I mean hot, especially if you are using kilner type jars with metal on them so be very careful in your procedures, thirdly always prepare extra jars, todays batch made more than I was expecting so I had to quickly find two more jars to sterilise, last but by not means least I find the right equipment is key to having continually successful jam sessions, heavy based pan, thermometer (one where part of the bubble has not gone on its own holiday 🤪) metal funnel, and never leave the jam to answer the phone or the door 😝 Oh boy am I looking forward to tasting this one 😀 one quick thing I used a large orange for pectin, just because I didn’t have a lemon or any lemon juice, it will work just as well, apricot have a medium amount of pectin but are low in acid meaning they need added extra to help the gelling process.

Although I feel a lot more with it today I still took it easy for the afternoon, blood results were back and had an appointment with the doc, the inflammation markers are up higher than they were before but with no symptoms, so no pain??? The problems I have had seem to be from the reducing of the steroids so we have slowed it down to see what happens and more blood test next week, in the meantime I carry on when I can and rest when I can’t.

The rain I was hoping for was nothing more than a ‘piddle’ and didn’t even wet the air let alone the ground so watering duties will continue for the foreseeable future 😋 I know we are far luckier than some countries where it’s a life or death situation but it does make life difficult.

Saturday: Well at 4.30 this morning it was very foggy, great because it means there was moisture in the air overnight for the plants to absorb however watering must still commence as the temps are set to be high again today. Other jobs included digging up a hardy fushia that isn’t doing so well where it was, I’ve potted it and will give it some tlc before repositioning it, to be honest I think the dog has been laying on it! I had a reg legged partridge right outside the kitchen window and a cricket on a plant out there too, pretty sure one was looking for the other 😜 I picked a random selection of different beans, they are just starting to come through but not enough of anything to sell yet, my best veg customer came and I gave them to him for free as a taste of things to come seeing how he has been so patient! I finally managed to move the quail from out of the back area to the orchard, it was a case of dismantling two cages to make one decent one, I put a ramp in so they can get to the top area, an upside down covered hanging basket which I’m hoping they will lay in and a dust bath, hopefully they will be very happy there. The odd silkie chick that survived a throwing against the trees stump as an egg is now pretty big, and a cockerel 😜 he has been living with the quail but he has also now got freedom to move and it in the orchard. We will probably allow him to roost in the trees and come and go whenever he pleases. I candled the duck eggs in the incubator, only one was infertile, they are due to hatch next week.

I picked a big bunch of basil, washed it and waiting for it to dry off a bit before I chop it and mix it with olive oil to freeze in an ice cube tray for winter use, I made bread, I’ve taken to making a traditional cottage loaf which I rather like the look of, and then had a well earned couple of hours sit down as my feet are beginning to hurt.

The last couple of days the air temperature early in the morning has been much cooler and then the fog today, you can see the difference in the plants just from that little bit of relief, they are suddenly more upright and not flagging so much, there is rain forecast next week, well there would be, bang on cue for the summer holidays!

We are directly in the airspace between the Royal International Air Tattoo and RAF Brize Norton and the air show is this weekend so it’s pretty noisy at times but we get random displays flying over every now and again so, the best one I have ever seen while we were here was a formation of about 12 helicopters flying directly towards us, it was a pretty awesome sight.

Standing at the back door a got a whiff of bonfire 🤔 had a look round and yep someone close by has one going, now we have had no rain for weeks, the ground is parched and as dry as I have ever seen it, personally I would think I was very stupid if I lit a bonfire in this climate, fingers crossed it stays under control!

We had a rare evening out, thanks to Shelley and Martin for coming over to shut the birds away, The Great British Summer Garden Party at Blenheim Palace, a wonderful evening, very relaxing, great entertainment and fireworks to finish with a round of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory, perfick 😀

Sunday: Despite a long day yesterday I was still awake at 6 so I got up and went out to get the watering underway, the moisture in the air over night lately has done wonders for both the lawn and the plants, they are not needing quite so much watering as before. I used the lawn edger and tidied it up putting all the sods into the bucket for the rabbits, then cut the grass as it was looking rather strangely with long bits and dead bits all mingling in, at least they are all the same length bits now 😋 A quick cat nap after that just to recharge, I’m pretty tired today so will be taking it steady, I don’t want to be overdoing it, though there is so much I want to be getting on with, it can wait a bit longer.

John is out there this evening cleaning out the hens, he has to wait until it’s cooled down enough to be in there, just watching the countryfile weather and things are getting fresher, now if we could just have a touch of rain too please that would be marvellous 😜

Friesland Farm

Elderflower, more hatchlings and greenhouse planning.

Posted on June 17, 2018 by frieslandfarm

Monday 11th June: An idyllic day, those are my thoughts of today, of course I haven’t done much again his morning so I can take the time to just enjoy what’s around me, sunshine, birdsong, gentle breeze, totally idyllic, I need to take more time to appreciate it in future I think. It is in fact a perfect morning for collecting elderflower heads, the sun has warmed them and the heady smell is wonderful, it’s something gentle I can do as the tree i use is just out the front, I picked 25 heads, added a couple of slices of lemon and lime and poured on boiling water, it will steep for 24hrs then I will decide what to make with it, cordial, syrup, jelly who knows? It is such an underrated, bountiful tree because of course later on in the year you get those glorious vitamin packed berries as well.

The Epsom salts arrived so I will be using them later providing my joints will co operate.

ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL

Tuesday: I pretty much didn’t do anything other than make some bread and the dinner today. Getting better slowly.

Wednesday: Same again today, I haven’t done much in the way of the farm/garden.

I did however notice something on the dog, Mia, Charlie bathed her on Sunday and said she had a sore, today I noticed another and my suspicions were aroused, mange from a mangey fox, Mia is the only dog who loves to roll in fox poo and seeing as they don’t go off the farm that’s the only way she could have caught it. She is off to the vet tomorrow for confirmation and decontamination will begin!

Mum called in today and bought the aubergine plants I had given her to nurture, they were started at the same time as my others which are in the tunnel but they are three times bigger and flowering! What am I doing wrong I keep asking myself?

Thursday: Feeling capable again today although John still did the morning routine. I got up showered took painkillers and set about a few tasks that needed doing, water the poly tunnels, we have misty drizzle today so outside will be fine. While I was out there I pulled the onions and garlic that are ready and will need a week or so to ‘cure’ there are still onions growing that I planted later so I have left those in. Then empty the brooder unit that the goslings were in as I am expecting a hatch of light Sussex this weekend, onto burning the card/paper rubbish that was piling up. Before all that I had put a wash load on but the red light was telling me that the filter was blocked so I had to drain off the water and empty that, I found two Kirby grips, a piece of wood and a small plastic bag! Time for coffee and a sit down I don’t want to over do it, though I know I’m feeling better as I keep thinking of all the jobs that need doing, I’m not muscly by any means but have noticed some muscle loss especially in my arms from not doing anything all week 😝 I also found some mesh and made a leaf guard for the new bit of guttering John put up over the rabbit run, best to keep as much rubbish out as possible.

The drizzle turned to very windy, great for drying the washing, not so good for plants 😜 normally I would fret about the runner beans being wind ravaged after they had only just been planted out but these were sown straight into the ground and are good strong plants with strong roots hopefully, so I’m not too worried.

In the afternoon Sam came over and we sorted out the dog area and fed the birds before taking Mia to the vets, I ordered some antibacterial shampoo which had arrived by the time we got back which was useful. Mia is on antibiotics as there is a bit of infection on one of the areas, we bathed her, put the spot on for the mites (it kills about a hundred other things too!) then on went the buster collar 😩 and I fed her the antibiotics, Patch and Alfie had a wash and the spot on as well, though they show no signs of having anything, better to be thorough. By this time my feet and ankles were killing and I had a lay down, John made dinner, well eggs on toast, popped to the shop to get some wet food so Mia will take the tablets, quick cuppa at my sisters and the day is done.

Oh, we had a lovely note in the egg money box today, some visitors from Singapore that were staying up the lane wrote to tell us that they had never had farm fresh eggs before and that the absolutely loved them and the children had adored seeing the birds in the front paddock, positive feedback, lovely.

Friday: Up early, painkillers, then a bit of early morning gardening 😀 John did the birds at the front early and I did the others a bit later on.

I did a bit of tidying up, planted some flowers, repotted some bits, picked the rest of the peas in the tunnel and then pulled up the plants, I have sweet potato growing there now, emptied out a large pot that had broken and was full of bulbs, all kinds of little jobs that needed doing. An hours sit down and I’m good to go again 😀

Slightly concerned about Molly the cat, I haven’t seen her for a couple of days, normally she is hanging around the garden, she does go off sometimes but the older she gets the less likely she is to come back and she is around 13/14 years old.

The light Sussex are starting to hatch, at the moment there is just one, I hope I get a few more than that!

Saturday: 10 little fluffy chicks in total, not great from 24 eggs but not too bad all in all. After morning jobs I did a bit of pottering again in the garden, I can’t actually get my teeth stuck into any great jobs as I still can’t bend at the knee terribly well but getting there slowly. Mostly pulling weeds which the rabbits were very grateful for as they have been on pellets all week with John feeding them, well I can’t really ask him to spend half an hour foraging for them on top of everything else he was doing can I 🤣 John did a bit of digging up docks in the big side paddock and then did a bit of weeding in the garden to help out. In the afternoon we went to look at greenhouses 😀 I decided I definitely need to get a new one, have decided which one I want and went to have a look at one that is up just to make sure. All we have to do is put a base down and they will come and install it, so watch this space 😀

Sunday: Father’s Day and we are off out for lunch later on, in the meantime we did a little bit of goodness knows what because I can’t remember but one of the things was make a planter out of an old pallet, I wanted it for lavenders in the front which is an idea I had right from when we first came but couldn’t do it because Kai would have just trodden all over it. Now I’m not so sure that’s what I want or need so I need to rethink what it is I want to achieve 😝 better do it soon as the lavender plants arrived yesterday!

Put the onions and garlic in the greenhouse to cure for a week or so before storing.

This week I have managed to pick broad beans, strawberries, raspberries, broccoli and cauliflower for our meals, I haven’t had much to put out for sale as yet but I’m sure there will be plenty soon.