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.
Now I know I said I wasn’t going to blog over Christmas but some days just warrant an jot down. Today Dec 21st is a day like that, first John gets the animals done and goes off Christmas shopping, I do a few little house bits and then set up to wrap presents. First I have to move bits of the rubic cube to get to the wrapping paper, scissors, tape etc, a bit of intense searching for a few things and I’m ready to go, shit I have forgotten to put the eggs out and there is a customer waiting, I also forget to put a note out explaining the lack of honesty box, back in, do that and I am good to go. I pick up the sellotape block, you know the unit that is very easy to use, drop it, break it and now it doesn’t roll and won’t tear off nicely leaving an end. I carry on each time trying to find the end of the sellotape, I try sticking the end to the table but if it falls off once it falls off a hundred times. I remember that at 11am a hay delivery is coming oh ffs John has gone off in the car and left the van parked right in front of the gate (I don’t drive) never mind I will open the side gate that will eventually be the driveway and oh another bloody rubic cube scenario, move planks of wood so the gate can open, move bits and pieces left by John so the truck and trailer can manouvre properly, move a bloody great pile of hedge clippings and debris so it can actually get through, sometimes I hanker for an ordinary life 😝
Monday 27th December 2020: It snowed! Despite Alexa giving a totally different weather forecast it began to snow early Monday morning and then it started to settle and overnight it froze and it has being frozen each day so far.
Wednesday 30th December 2020: I felt compelled to write today as it is a milestone day, the UK Astrazenica vaccine has been approved and will begin roll out next week. Although we already have the Pfizer one that needs special handling at extremely low temperature whereas this new one can be kept in a fridge making it much easier to transport and handle. It hasn’t come a day too soon here as we were just learning (through social media) that the virus is taking a real hold in the nearest town to us. During the first wave it was as if the virus wasn’t even real, hardly anybody we knew had it, just one or two people, and everything seemed fairly normal in the circumstances. We did wonder if the whole thing was real back then but now it has become obvious that it is spreading very fast indeed here. The NHS is under extreme strain and for that reason alone it is a whoop whoop day, bring on the vaccine and let’s get back to normal, more importantly, people will stop dying from it 🥰 We can finally think about toasting in a better New Year 😀
December 31st 2020: New Years Eve, not many celebrations going on but at midnight we went outside and rang the bell we used to ring on a Thursday night for the NHS, we could hear others ringing bells and shouting Happy New Year and there was a good show of fireworks from various areas, job done now kiss goodbye to 2020 and off to bed.
Friday January 1st 2021: Welcome to a new year, hopefully the vaccine and a little more freedom than we have had over the last nine/ten months, I seriously hope so, until then we carry on with the new normal 😜
Saturday January 2nd: We did the animals, the ground is still frozen and so it’s a case of breaking water and making sure all the animals are all ok. We have had torrential rain and floods and then snow and freezing cold weather and a glimpse of winter sun at times as well, a smorgasbord of weather. John has been doing the office and so he then went off to get insulation and plasterboard so we can carry on and hopefully get it finished soon. Meanwhile I cleaned out the Rayburn, for two days I have been saying to John that it was not burning right and definitely not behaving as it normally does. I get told I am not doing it properly even though I have now been running this thing for nearly eleven years. Anyway I found the reason that it has not been performing as it should, the oven was getting too hot too quickly, the water and radiators were not getting very hot at all and I couldn’t for the life of me keep the flue temperature up. It was fine up to the day before yesterday, he fire bricks had cracked, not just cracked but one of them was in six different pieces 😩 Great, it’s freezing, it’s Saturday so no next day delivery available and we have no Rayburn. John is still out and I remember that we have another set of fire bricks in the shed, they are the summer bricks that go over the top of the winter bricks but we don’t use it in the summer so never use the bricks either. The only problem is that they are a different size, John arrives home and I give him the options, go without heating etc until Monday, try sticking the fire bricks back together with fire cement or, and I rather think this is a stroke of genius on my part, cut down the fire bricks that we already have as a temporary measure u til the new one arrives. They are shorter and wider than the correct ones but we can cut them to width and use the leftover bit to make them longer. That’s what we did and it has been successful though it will be better once the correct fitting bricks arrive. We then got on with insulation the office and getting up a few sheets of plasterboard, we will get there eventually after all there is not a lot else to do at the minute 😂 The virus is spreading rapidly and we have made the decision not to go anywhere that we don’t really need to, I have made a few loaves of bread and put them in the freezer, I also made some butter from the cream we didn’t use on Boxing Day, we have plenty in the freezers to keep us going and the milkman delivers the milk so apart from some bananas and the plasterboard we have not had to go anywhere yet.
Sunday: Still doing all the usual jobs as well as getting the office done, keep coming up against problems in there, the radiator has been leaking, probably for months and the floor is rotten in one area, I said in the first place we should just knock the place down and start again 🙄 The Rayburn is holding although the fire brick keeps falling forward, hopefully tomorrow the new ones will arrive. We have also ordered our first electric radiator to venture into cleaner heating, we will see how well they heat the room before we go any further with the project. I said to John I have no idea what I will do with all the extra hours it usually takes me to look after the Rayburn 😜
On the amazing side of things, I grew oranges whoo hoo, no mean feat in the UK I can tell you and what’s more they are ripe and they taste great, there were just two but two is a win and two that are edible is a great achievement so I am blowing my own trumpet 😀
Have a good week, covid is still on the rampage, even more so now 🙄 so stay safe everyone.
Sunday Evening after publishing 😜 I forgot to update you in last weeks blog that Diesel returned just in case you were worried. He had a good feed, some extra treats and is fine. He is getting on though so I guess one day he won’t come back but for the time being he is around again 😀
Monday 14th September 2020: A glorious day with high temps and for me that means staying inside or shade dodging 😜 I chose staying in and had already decided to do the cleaning, mainly the kitchen. Normally I start in the bathroom and then do the living room and bedrooms and by the time I get to the kitchen it gets a quick going over. So today I started in the kitchen and gave it a good clean, all the walls, cupboard doors, move everything, clean behind things, I didn’t go as far as cleaning out all the cupboards but I did clean the windows and the grill, probably give myself a B+ 😂 I had a phone call from the surgery and I need an phone appointment with the doc to discuss blood results, crap, that won’t be great then 🙄
We need more trees in this country, I know there are groups that have been saying this but I can tell you from personal experience that we don’t have enough. When I travel any distance in a car or try to go for a walk on a sunny day I note the complete lack of trees for shade. If the climate prediction is anything to go by the world will get hotter, another reason to have more shade available and of course it would be great for wildlife. But let’s not plant any old tree, make them native or food trees, I never understand why new housing estates don’t plant a better combination of trees and shrubs than the non producing, standard type they go for, cheaper I guess, I would like to think it was more than lack of imagination 🙄
I did decide to clean the food cupboards out in the afternoon as well as the cutlery drawer, we only have one small under counter cupboard and a shelf in the other cupboard for tins as most of it is in the freezers or the satire cupboard. At least I now know what is in them and for some reason I seem to have three pots of cardamon, I hardly ever use it so I don’t know why 🙄 Then John arrived home and we did the eggs, had dinner and I went to babysit Mia, Lucie and George while Sam went out for a meal with Luke for her birthday which is on Thursday. That’s Monday finished, as a bonus John is at home tomorrow after a job he is on isn’t ready yet.
Tuesday: As I said John is off today after he has gone to do a small job that is 🙄 I got on with some picking and finally had a decent haul of runner beans, lots of people have been saying how poor they are this year so if yours were good you are in the minority. I picked a couple of courgettes, some raspberries & nuts, did a fair bit of watering as it’s so dry and getting pretty hot during the day (ah that Indian summer 😀) then indoors to sort it all out and decide what’s for dinner this evening. Meanwhile John returned and got on with some more work on the front of the building.
Last night a delivery of bulbs arrived, snowdrops, tête-à-tête daffodils and dwarf iris, these will all go under the newly planted shrubs in the new border. Hopefully they will spread and give a good show in early spring when nothing else is growing, that’s the plan anyway along with some taller willowy drifts of things like verbena, Dierama (angels fishing rods), guara (bee blossom) and red flax.
After school finished I left John to work by himself while Shelley picked me up and took me back to hers to do my nails. I rarely (that is only once ever) get my nails done, I don’t like false nails as they are too thick and I can’t always do things with them on and besides it’s little bits of plastic 😏 and I can’t (or couldn’t) have nail polish because of the UV salons use. Shelley recently did a course to qualify and during the course looked at options for light sensitive skin, LED can also be used and is less likely to cause problems (though you should still be careful) so today was a good day to give it a go. Shelley also bought gel polish that didn’t need curing with light but after applying it all it didn’t work terribly well so we took it back off. Then we tried the proper nail polish and using the LED lights. The base layer was cured with hands under the lights for 30 seconds, the colour layers I kept my hands just outside of the light box for 60 seconds each layer and the top coat was also for 30 seconds inside the light box. This worked a great 😀 the idea was not to over expose the skin to the lights in case a reaction occurred. Nice to have lovely looking nails, a real treat for me so thank you Shelley 😘
Wednesday: Another lovely sunny day ahead 🙄 don’t get me wrong I like the warmer weather rather than the cold but wall to wall sunshine means I can’t get out and about much.
I started off in the big tunnel as it needed watering, while I was in there I harvested about 5 cucumbers, accidentally pulled up some raddicchio (which I will now have with my dinner later) and cut back the monster that is the cape gooseberry. It has got huge so I cut plenty of it back and picked a load of the berries, not sure what I will do with those yet, I might freeze them and think about it. At the back is a wonderful smelling lemon verbena, it’s smell is divine so I cut some of that and will probably make a syrup which I can then use in lots of things. When I finished in there I cut back the lavender in the garden and now have a huge bunch of lavender drying. I pulled up some swede, cut some chard and picked some courgettes which will all be prepped one way or another for the freezer (probably soup mix). I came in and de husked the cape gooseberries and made a coffee. I felt tired just doing that bit this morning which is not a good sign, I have noticed I feel more tired over the last few days, I’m guessing that’s the white cells dropping again 🙄 pants! It’s a condition called Leukopenia and it’s caused by the medication I take for the Lupus which is why they will probably take me off of it so the body can repair BUT the Lupus can also kill off white cells and so they need to be sure which one is doing it and the medication suppresses the Lupus, it’s catch 22 by the looks of it.
Thursday: A lovely morning, sunshine ahead but that lovely fresh September start to the day is something I love. Today is Sam’s birthday, my eldest, 35 years, where the heck did they all go 😜 and now she is a mother of three herself 🥰🥰🥰 I always say being a Mum was the most rewarding and important job I ever had, I loved every minute of it and now I love every minute of being a grandparent too 😀 Happy Birthday Sam x
I whizzed round and got a few things done this morning, picking runner beans and raspberries, grabbing a few hazelnuts along the way. Prepped and froze some bits and pieces that have been hanging around on the side for a few days including some cooking apples which are now cooking down with the raspberries. Some swede, courgettes, chard and onion are open freezing for soup or roasted veg, more swede frozen separately with some runner beans, swede chopped for dinner later along with runner beans. Took all the off cuts and ends to the guineas, other softer bits to the torts, also picked them some lettuce and tomatoes.
Sam and Shelley came over with the little ones that are not at school and we had lunch together. Florence insisted on getting me some flowers in the shop, pink roses for Nana 🥰
Late afternoon we went over to see Sam the reason being that Mia had been at school all day and I didn’t want her to think we had missed her Mums birthday 😀 She had made some little chocolate covered fairy cakes for everyone bless her.
Friday: Another sunny day ahead. I started off getting some wash loads on, picking raspberries and planting 220 bulbs of various descriptions in the front border. Snowdrops, dwarf iris, crocus and tête-à-tête , hopefully that will be lovely and cheery from Jan through to March when not much else is around. I sorted dinner for later and made an apple and raspberry crumble, had a coffee and typed this up while waiting for the washing to finish spinning so I can get it out on the line. The postman came with parcels, cauliflower plants and an expandable hose, hoses are a big bug bear for me as they catch and kink all the time which drives me mad lol. The cauliflower I will have to get planted up ASAP, I need to work out where they will go, I think the best place will be where I had the broad beans, in fact yes that’s defiantly where I will plant them.
Just before lunchtime I planted the cauliflower plants, 10 in all which will be all we need. First I hoed the area and raked it over, riddled the rakings to get the stones etc out and then planted the plants. I have covered them with environmesh not to keep off butterflies but to stop the pigeons and chickens eating the greenery. Then I spent a little while husking walnuts they are now drying in the greenhouse.
Hopefully come late winter, early spring, I should have cauliflower, purple sprouting, leeks, winter spinach and chard all growing fresh, plus a freezer full of beans of all types, peas, swede, turnip and many types of fruit. I have garlic dried and stored, nuts that will be dried and stored, potatoes, butternut squash and pumpkins in store, jars of jam and chutney in the store cupboard, tomatoes/passata puréed and frozen, soup mixes already chopped and frozen, we have a store of chopped and dried wood ready, yep I am all good to go for 10ft of heavy snowfall 😜
Saturday: Martin came over to help John again today and as Shelley was working I entertained Josh and Flo. First we cooked egg and sausage sandwiches for the workers then we went to check on the horses and clean out and fill up the water buckets and then we made raspberry and chocolate chip cakes. After that in between making cups of tea and coffee we watched a bit of tv and played some superhero games, I get instructions from Josh as I have no idea what I am doing having had three girls 😂 Shelley came over mid afternoon and they all went home at 4pm. At 4.30 Sam arrived with Mia, George and Lucie as Mia is staying for a sleepover tonight 😀 John went to the chip shop and got some fish and chips and the it was bath time, we played tunes on Alexa and had fun getting her to burp and sneeze, then story time and bed, I’m knackered 😂 Apart from a bit of painting the cladding first thing this morning I didn’t get anything else done on the farm 😜
Sunday: Mia stayed over and slept well 😀 I did think she may want to go home but nope she was fine. This morning we got up had breakfast got dressed and went out to see the horses, after that we picked raspberries, collected a few eggs, picked up some hazelnuts and found some conkers, those are all for her to take home with her. The blackberries we picked up in the back paddock she ate en route 😜
After Sam collected her mid morning I went out to do a bit of picking, runner beans, courgettes, chillies and tomatoes everything has slowed considerably now. I got three lovely surprises as I was going round, one, the carrot seeds have already started to sprout so I should get some for Christmas even if they are baby carrots 🥕 Two, I have a loofah 😀😀😀 I had given up on these and even stopped watering them, I was watering the peppers and thought ‘that’s a funny shape pepper then realised it was a tiny loofah. And three, my oranges are beginning to ripen 😀😀 whoop whoop, we are moving towards orange season, late winter, early spring so fingers crossed, I hope they taste good.
We have had no rain for what seems like weeks, everything is very dry although the overnight dew is keeping things going I do have to water every now and then.
John has been busy again on the front of the house, when it’s finished I will post the before and after pictures. I am reserving judgment on the colour,
We are back from our Artic adventure, it was epic, we had force 11 seas 🤢, hurricane Eric blew in blizzards and cloud cover which meant we didn’t see one single scrap of the Northern Lights ☹️ but we had an amazing time. The scenery was fantastic, the temperatures were not too low except for one night up in the mountains it was -17 and the toes got a bit cold after a couple of hours, the places we visited were fabulous, even Alta which is just about the last outpost before treks to the North Pole😲 The Norwegians carry on regardless of any snow fall and if they come up against mountains they just tunnel through them 😂 they even have a roundabout right in the middle of one tunnel. The food was amazing especially their pancakes and sour cream 😀, the food on the ship was epic especially the lobster 😀 the people are friendly and very hardy lol, all in all a fantastic time away.
When we got home we were straight back into it, piles of washing, shopping, blood tests on the Friday. On Saturday, because the weather was so lovely we spent the day outside sawing up wood and clearing debris and stood burning it until 7pm and even then we didn’t need our coats on.
I discovered around 20 goose eggs, they obviously started laying while we were away and as they bury them quite deep nobody realised they were there. We lost quite a few hens, I think they were being picked off during the daytime as there were no nighttime disasters, I was reluctant to tell Shelley but I did in the end, they were mostly the older hens though as I counted all the younger ones and they are still there. We have made a plan to get some more in March, the quail have started laying again so that’s good news and the light Sussex are laying well so I will be saving those eggs to hatch some more out.
Sunday was again a glorious day with very unusual temps for the time of year, pretty sure this is going to hit back at us hard later on lol. We carried on with tidying the front, this time the hedge in the driveway, it’s the last few days we have to get it cut before the birds begin to nest, we didn’t quite finish it off as we had a lunch appointment at Upton Firehouse and after that a quick visit to Mum and Ken who have just arrived back after a few months in Spain and France in the caravan. When I knew they were coming back at the end of Feb my first request was for some fresh oranges from Spain 😀 Southern Europe oranges are in season now, I know we can get them all year round in the shops but they are often in cold storage for a long time and fresh, unwaxed, in season oranges are something not to be missed, juicy, sweet, just delicious. She also bought back some lemons, limes and almonds 😀
frieslandfarm (flowers) 