Tag: poly tunnel

Posted in Friesland Farm

What day is it? 😂 a missing guinea pig, did the cat do it? 🤔

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I Monday 30 March 2020: And just like that it’s Monday again 😜 albeit different Mondays to what we once had as obviously John is at home. This morning he went out first thing to get the van an MOT, the government announced, the day after he had booked it in, that MOTs would be extended for 6 months but as it was already booked he went ahead with it as once things get back to normal he can just get on with work. It went through without any problems so that’s a bonus. He had to walk around outside for an hour while they did it and he was freezing when he got back, we went through the usual questions, did you wipe everything down before you touched it, 5e handles, the steering wheel, the gearstick, the keys 😂 such a lot to remember to do, but yes he was thorough he said. Meanwhile I did the morning rounds and once he was back he cut up some more of our (now shrinking rapidly) mountain of wood. I spent the first half of the morning sorting out the hazel trees at the side, they are grown and pruned the old fashioned way, I know this because I was told by an arborist that ‘you don’t see them done like that these days’. I have tried to research it but there is not much information out there, they have six trunks each and any growth is pruned off at the bottom third. They were like this when we came so we have kept them the same except the odd trunk that has fallen or the ones we pruned right back to allow summer light to the poly tunnels. They end up with a fair amount of debris under them so I pruned all the new unwanted growth out and then John helped me to shred the prunnings, rake out underneath, sweep the pathway and find nails 🙄 The nails are from the ash which is riddled out of the Rayburn, we use all kinds of wood and a lot of pallets so there are nails, screws, staples etc in the ash. We have a big magnet and the idea is to go through it often and get them out but as it’s usually cold over winter that job gets overlooked and so it ends up a spring job and today was a good enough day to do it. We came in at 2pm for some lunch and then John went to deliver some eggs, doorstep delivery, stand back and wait for the customer to put the money on the step and go back in, strange times but necessary distancing.

In the afternoon or what was left of it I made bread, and double choc chip cookies and lit the Rayburn while John did the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. Then it rained, only a quick shower so not too bad at least the ground will remain dry, it’s so much nicer without mud underfoot lol.

It seems that all this social distancing and closing of bars, clubs, restaurants etc has given a glimmer of hope in that the numbers going into hospital and the numbers that are dying has slowed very slightly. It’s a strange world we find ourselves in where we can’t see family members or friends, we can’t go out to places we normally would go, we can only do the necessary and that is shopping, an hours walk for exercise (and no driving to your destination), or going for medication/doctors appointments, work if it’s necessary and you can’t do it at home. Most people I know are adhering to this but I’m sure there are plenty out there who are not, I expect further restrictions will come soon.

Tuesday: The days are beginning to blur into any old day lol. Dry again today, sunny spells and warm when the sun is out but cold when it’s hiding behind the clouds. We did the morning rounds and then got on with moving the wood chip (it’s finished 😀😀) well actually John moved the wood chip while I did some hoeing/weeding and cutting back dead stuff, watering the greenhouse and the seeds I have sown, generally pottering is what I have been doing. The turkey hen looks a little off colour, I have given her a good check over and can’t see anything wrong with her, she isn’t egg bound and she doesn’t have an impacted crop, I’m hoping it’s a blip and she will perk up, she is still eating and drinking just a little unhappy looking. We have another anomaly that I haven’t worked out, a missing guinea pig, one disappeared a few weeks ago and we bolstered up the run to make sure they couldn’t get out and now another has gone 🤔 no sign of fur and it definitely can’t get out, my theory is the cat, there is a bit where the cat could get in if it really wanted to, we will be shutting them in the hut tonight which they are not used so that will be fun trying to catch them.

We did plenty of little jobs about the place in the afternoon, I did some weeding and tidying of borders and John did something though I’m not sure what. At dusk I went out to put the rabbits/guineas away and yes that was a mission, the rabbits went in fine but guineas a very fast when they want to be lol in the end I dropped a tea towel over the end of its tunnel and caught it li,e that bit I spent a good 10 mins trying to catch it before hand.

Wednesday: Dry again although it was pretty cold over night, the temperature was not bad though, workable. After the morning rounds I went and got the turkey a bowl of warm water with garlic powder, oil and cider vinegar as she is definitely not right, I also gave her some meds in case it’s cocci which it may well be and if it is we will probably lose her. There is usually blood in the poo if it’s cocci and she doesn’t have any, could be that she has eaten something that she didn’t ought to have but there is only her food and grass/bugs etc 🤷‍♀️

Then I spent a lovely morning tidying up some rough areas of the garden, we get a lot of broken branches over winter so I had a fire in the incinerator and raked up dead wood and leaves. I have unpacked and laid out my seep hoses ready for watering the beds, I bought three last year as I really don’t want to spend so much time doing it this year, they need to rest once unpacked otherwise they coil back up again, I found a mouse in one of the bags, nice little nest it had in there lol. John found some metal grill to cover up the hole into the rabbit run. We have never had a problem before and the hole is above waist height and very narrow so a fox couldn’t get through, however a cat well that’s another thing altogether. My suspicions got stronger later when I saw Benny slink along the paddock fence towards the back of the rabbit run, I watched from a distance but then he spotted me and came running over, I’m pretty sure the cat has been snacking on guinea pig 🤬.

We had a birthday FaceTime party this morning, for Mum this time, everyone recorded birthday messages and sent them via the family chat and then video conferencing took place lol, we can’t all get on at the same time but with people dropping in and out I think everyone managed at some point.

Thursday: Another day in paradise 🙄 we have slowed our pace a little now, still doing jobs but pottering rather than going full steam ahead. John is still cutting wood 😂 it will be great to see it all cut up and stacked for next winter. I am pottering doing household bits and gardening bits depending on how the mood takes me. This morning I have potted on some of the seedlings, patty pan, pumpkins and some morning glory. I keep looking to see what else I can start sowing but at the minute the greenhouse is pretty full. I will have to do some more cucumbers as I forgot to turn the heated propagator on one evening and they suffered because of it, some are hanging in there but some have had it, roll on some warmer days. Everything else is growing well, the aubergine, peppers and tomatoes are going strong g as are the peas and beans. I have salad lettuce on the go and some leek seeds I found have sprouted, plenty to keep me busy, on top of that there are flower seedlings and plants to nurture. The dahlias look like they are waking up which is fab as I didn’t think they would make it, these are the ones I left in pots, the tubers I stored have not shown any signs yet but it’s early days for them as they need to establish a root system first.

I had a phone call this morning from Dad to say that his partner Sue is in hospital after falling and smashing her kneecap, it’s about the worst time that could happen. I will be phoning him every day to see how he is doing on his own but he does have good neighbours who are already looking out for them. He can’t visit Sue as the hospital says no visits, they are probably going to operate and hopefully they will get her home again quickly. Its a worry as we can’t get to them to visit or help out 😏

I am making bread again today and spent a whole evening trying to find bread flour online in the end I managed to get 10kg so that will keep us going. I was disgusted to see people profiteering from the shortage, I have seen 1kg of flour for sale on eBay for £50 AND it had bidders, what is this world coming to, sheer greed, sad individuals 😢

We have taken to watching the live daily updates from Downing Street, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson is himself one self isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 so at the moment it’s other ministers delivering the updates. What is amazing is the way industries and companies that wouldn’t normally work together, are pulling out all the stops to get new products or products they don’t normally make, up and running, hats off to them and just goes to show what can be achieved in a short space of time when it’s really needed. Tonight the country will go outside and clap in appreciation of the NHS and all the key workers that are keeping the country running, it’s quite emotional to hear the sound of people uniting for a cause.

Getting the dinner tonight I realise that today is the first day I am feeling bored with all this which sounds petulant but it’s just how I’m feeling, I know we can’t change it but I am thinking how nice it would be getting a takeaway or going out to eat instead of doing the cooking every day lol. I am missing my family, FaceTime is not quite the same as real hugs. Tomorrow night I have Gardeners’ world to look forward to lol and tonight after dinner I may treat myself to a cherry coke and some chocolate 😝

Friday: Normally I love Fridays, they are the last day of the working week for us and a prelude to the weekend, now one day is pretty much like another 😜 and every day is the weekend! This morning we have done the usual rounds and then John fixed a few little things that needed doing, a gate that didn’t shut properly, the weatherboard on my greenhouse door before returning to cutting wood. Meanwhile I did one of my favourite jobs of the day now things are growing well and that is picking herbs and weeds for the rabbits/guineas. Today they had a mix of parsley, grass, dandelion, dead nettle, mint and sprouting broccoli that had gone to seed, the reason I love it is the smell, it’s amazing and then there are the delighted squeals from the guineas 😀 I did a bit of potting on in the greenhouse and sowed some more peas and some sunflowers.

In the afternoon I started off tidying up the front driveway, the edges get over grown and the debris from winter is usually stuck to the ground, John came and gave me a hand for a little while before it was time to collect the eggs. Charlie and Macca came over to drop off some shopping they got for us, just a few bits mostly for John, sausages, bacon and cheese, some bananas for me and a cherry coke.

I had a phone call in the afternoon and it was great to hear Sue on the other end, she has had her kneecap pinned back together and they have let her go home which is great news.

Saturday: A fine warm day is on the cards for today so we should get some jobs done. John did some wood cutting 😂 I did some seed sowing and some planting of seedlings outside. I am concentrating on fast growing crops such as micro greens (broccoli, celery, cabbage) which I mixed together and sowed into a container in the small tunnel and then covered with a pane of greenhouse glass so the mice don’t eat them. I sowed various lettuce/salad leaves in the big tunnel and covered with bubble wrap. I also planted a two rows of beetroots plantings and some mangetout outside. I spent a bit of time weeding the big tunnel and laying membrane down, it dose t look pretty but it will mean I can spend more time of the plants I want rather than the weeds I don’t. I found a froglet in there, that’s my slug control sorted 😀

I asked John to power wash the decking area as using it is his favourite job 😝 and he also reconnected the main water pipes outside, if it looks like the weather might turn to freezing we will have to undo them again but for now they will be useful for filling up water tubs as the big water tanks are getting low.

The longer this virus situation goes on the more bizarre it feels 🙄 hopefully a once in a lifetime occurrence but if not they will know what to or what not to do next time.

I made some yoghurt, well it is in the process of being made, I don’t make it from scratch I’m not that much of a yoghurt lover but I do have a yearning for something different to eat and I don’t have to go to the shops to get it. I bought a yoghurt maker over a year ago when I was eating it for breakfast regularly (a phase I go through now and again) I buy the sachets and mostly they are plain Greek yoghurt but I think there was a free trial of coconut and mango so that’s what I have on the go. I’m glad we already had food stocks and haven’t had to get very much at all, it’s fresh fruit and salad stuff that I yearn for, for John it’s sausages, bacon and cheese. We are lucky that the girls will get what we need and deliver it, charlie dropped off some bits yesterday but it’s not the same and strolling along the isles deciding what you fancy 😜

Sunday: Well what can I say about today that I haven’t already said for every day lol, eat, sleep, work, watch evening tv, repeat 😂 Actually it has been quite a nice day although the weather didn’t really live up to my expectations, wind wasn’t factored in to sunny weather. This morning we had a visit from my sister and her hubby, they came to gets eggs but it means we can have a chat over the gate. They bought their own mugs so we could make them a cuppa 🤣 the scenario goes something like this: she places the cups on the ground and steps back, I get the cups, I go inside wash hands (because I touched the cups) make the tea, put their cups on a tray, wash hands (now I can carry the tray) take it outside place tray on the floor, they pick up the cups by the handle, voila I think we got it covered 🤔 It was a nice interlude and a lovely chat in the morning sunshine.

Other jobs of the day included stripping the bed and getting the washing out on the line, good job it was breezy as it dried in no time, making bread and rock cakes and I took an hour off to sit outside on the newly cleaned decking to read my book. It’s an I interesting book, I got it for Christmas but it’s especially poignant now as it is a post apocalypse novel. When I say post I mean around 1000 years after something terrible wiped out society as we know it, the lastest clue (as I’m only a third of the way through) is that the ‘episode’ happened in 2025, how appropriate is that and it seems to be a disease that wiped them out though that remains to be seen 🙄 It’s now one and a half thousand years later and life has very much gone backwards! John as usual has been cutting wood 😂 and apparently (I haven’t actually looked yet) he cleaned and hoovered the back toilet, wonders will never cease.

A selection of veg plants growing nicely and lovely temps in the greenhouse 😀
Posted in Friesland Farm

Muddling on, madness & Mothers Day

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday March 16th 2020: A cold start to the day but it yielded a glorious day which I took full advantage of. I started off indoors hoovering and polishing so that I could dedicate more time to outside 😋 Once the animal rounds were done I took the dahlia tubers from the back toilet and potted them up in order to begin waking them up, they are now in the large tunnel. The dahlias are a bit of a faff but I am enjoying growing them so until I get fed up of digging them up and storing them I will continue. I also potted up some of the freesia bulbs, I experimented by digging half up and leaving half in the ground, the ones in the ground have done well and not rotted so that’s a win. I’m hoping the temps keep climbing as sharing the floor in the greenhouse with Big Billy is proving difficult lol, and he keeps lying behind the door so it’s hard to get in, also I remembered that Voldertort likes to go for feet, luckily he hasn’t come out yet but when he does they will have to go outside I think. I did a bit of weeding and planted a couple of plants and some more garlic bulbs which have started to sprout. It was lovely working out in the warm, the kind of weather I have been waiting for 😀

The afternoon was a much more frantic affair, we had a delivery of 40 pullets and a large delivery of feed which will keep us going for a couple of months. To be fair if we ran out of feed the birds would just have to manage on forage, they would lay less eggs but they wouldn’t starve. At about this point, which was 3pm ish we ran out of chicken eggs, this is because within two customers this morning most of the eggs were gone! I’m hoping it was a fluke and that people are not panic buying them, the hens lay every day and so the same number are always available, no need to stash them. So while I am trying to get water and feed for the new hens (which will hopefully start to lay pretty quickly) a customer was shouting over the gate because we had run out of eggs. I hate being put under pressure and we have had a good run of being able to keep the egg shed stocked but I then had to think about doing the egg collecting sharpish.

The first of our daily updates from the government indicates that life is about to get difficult, we are advised to avoid social contact, unnecessary contact and travel, work from home if possible ✅ to isolate the whole house for 14 days if one person has symptoms, and that vulnerable people should be shielded for up to 12 weeks, that’s anyone who it’s recommended has a flu jab, that’s me 😏 I don’t mind telling you, it’s a real worry, I worry about Mum and Ken so far away from any of us, I worry about Charlie who is an NHS dental nurse, I worry about Shelley and Sam and the kiddies, strange times indeed. We are all trying as hard as we can to isolate ourselves, John is on a job for two weeks but when that’s done, if not before, he will not go to work anymore for the time being.

Tuesday: A duller morning but not too bad at the minute, dry but rain coming later. I did the rounds and put out what few eggs I picked up but they are getting snapped up quickly, even the duck eggs are flying off the shelf which is unheard of 🤔

I spent the morning in the greenhouse, watering and sowing a few seeds, wallflowers, ranunculus corms and some leek seeds I had saved from last year. I also sowed a row of little gem lettuce and some wild rocket inbetween the rows of garlic in the poly tunnel. I shall keep sowing as much as I can, it keeps me busy and hopefully will keep us fed.

The situation in this country and others is changing fast every day sometimes minute to minute. Many people I know are practising significant social distancing already and I imagine it’s going to get a lot tougher in the next couple of weeks.

Wednesday: I was determined to get outside and away from any media this morning, I’m finding that I end up with a headache at the end of the day probably due to heightened anxiety and some outdoor work is the cure 😀 This morning after doing the rounds I did end up with umpteen messages pinging back and forth but after that I went out and did some hand weeding. It’s therapeutic at the best of times and a welcome interlude today, I weeded and tided the asparagus bed as these will be the next veg to start making an appearance although I did notice a small artichoke forming so that’s good news as well.

I try and run my day so that I do outside work in the morning when I have plenty of energy and then come in for lunch and do household stuff in the afternoon before having to go back out to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting, it seems to work well enough.

I’ve had to put a notice on the egg shed as we are selling out of chicken eggs quickly each time I put them out, I have noticed a few ‘new’ customers I hope they keep coming even after the crisis is over 🤔

I get a lot of time to think about things and one thing I hope people take on board is having a buffer for future events, it strikes me that so many people spend everything they have on ‘stuff’ bigger houses, newer cars, more holidays, all the gear, that they are totally reliant on that pay check coming in to keep them going. I guess it will be a lesson well learnt to figure out that there are there are things that can put that all into jeopardy and in a short space of time to. I guess what I am trying to say is people need to be more self reliant across the board if you get my meaning.

Had a stressful couple of hours this afternoon, I had an egg customer sat waiting for eggs after I put out a notice due to the shortages at times, so was under pressure to get the eggs out in the shelf, meanwhile the carbon monoxide alarm was going off 😮 so open all doors and windows, I think a seal has gone on the flue. In between that I was trying to arrange a payment for something in Spain and probably because I was rushing I kept getting locked out of online banking 🤷‍♀️ All sorted in the end, I hate it when everything happens at once, I want my orderly days back lol.

Thursday: It’s raining this morning which is a bummer because I went to bed thinking about the jobs I would do in the morning and now they are scuppered as they were mostly on the garden 😏

At the moment although I am social distancing, John is still working, he is working at one house and limiting contact with anyone else, though I think by the weekend we will be more restricted. He did go out to the shop last night, I asked for oranges and bananas and some cucumber for the torts, there was 1 orange left, no bananas and two halves of marked down cucumber, he did manage to get two Easter eggs 😂 some bread rolls and some cheese. Although we are face timing, I miss seeing the children and grandchildren in the flesh lol, the kids kind of understand that we have to do this until the virus is gone but it’s hard going and we are only at the beginning. Mum and Ken have decided to sit tight in Spain, they might as well as driving through Spain and France at the minute would be extremely difficult and they would be going from one bad situation into another as it stands now they will be through this before us and at least they will have some nice weather 😀

It’s rumoured that the army are on standby to be deployed here, doing what is yet to be seen, the schools and colleges are closing from Friday only key worker and vulnerable children will attend, its all closing down slowly. I fully agree with the way the government are listening to scientists and doing what needs to be done at the right time, their strategy seems logical to me.

Not only have the chicken and duck eggs sales gone barmy now we have people looking for chickens to keep 🙄 Obviously I will not be selling hens to anyone that hasn’t kept them before, the hens welfare is always top priority but more so in times like these.

I’m going to have to change a few things around here as we have hit barmyville today 😝 First off as mentioned a sharp increase in enquiries of hens for sale, going to have to protect the ones we have I think 🤔 I had someone come to buy 4 I made them wait at the gate while I got them, standing six feet away while I left the wheelbarrow with the crate of hens then got them to put the money in the barrow, then I had an older customer who has been coming for years came and the only eggs I had were ones not yet put out so I hid them in an amazon box and took them out to her so anyone arriving would not see I had given them to her. Finally despite a note in the shed saying if we are sold out do not ring the bell, I had a customer come marching across the drive to the door, I went out the back and pretended I didn’t hear the knock, it seems no matter what you tell people they don’t listen, I say finally but after putting eggs out I was making a cuppa, I could see people who obviously had never been before, they had three boxes of eggs and when I checked the money later after sales it was short 😤 Could have been anyone but it’s bad form people. So I think tomorrow I will shut the very front gate with a closed until 4pm sign, take the roadside board in so we are not getting people who have not been before and then limit customers to a dozen eggs, not really what we should have to do, seeing the best and the worst of people at the minute.

History in the making is what we are witnessing in these fraught times, the interest rates here have been cut again to the lowest EVER 0.1% We see countries in lockdown all over the world, the armies are out on the streets in some of them, you can’t find a toilet roll for love nor money, crazy times people.

Unbelievable, I thought my day of fucktardness had finished but no, I asked John to shut the very front gate as we had sold out of eggs, a while later a car pulls up to the gate someone gets out realises the gate is shut and they can’t open it and then proceeds to climb over the fence and walk up the driveway!

Friday: Still cold but dry this morning. After yesterday’s shenanigans we made the decision to close the front gate with a notice saying ‘closed, eggs will be available at 4pm’ this gives me peace of mind that I am not going to be hunted down and that I am not constantly worrying about people arriving to no eggs. The fact that I have seen reports on poultry groups that people are having their hens stolen is another worry, honestly what the hell is wrong with people 😏 John is finishing today, he is in the middle of doing a bathroom but if he leaves it now it is still fully functional just not finished, if he carries on next week and the suppliers shut down he will be scuppered so makes sense to stop at a good point.

This morning I did the usual rounds then a few bits of tidying up on the yard and in the stable block, and took the horses some hay putting up at the far end of the paddocks so that they actually have to move from the front, right to the back to get it lol, since they discovered the side paddock was open they haven’t left it at all🙄

I’m sat here in the afternoon hiding again, a planned one this time as Sam has come over to get the horses in because the farrier is coming first thing in the morning. I am hiding because she has Mia with her and if she knows I am in she will want to come in and see me, she won’t understand why that can’t happen, it’s so sad that we have to do this but we are protecting not just myself but others in the family with health issues. I hate that this virus has deprived me of precious time with the grandchildren we still FaceTime but it’s not like real hugs and kisses

So the gate was opened at 4pm and it was mental, by 4.15 we had sold all the duck and chicken eggs, it was car after car coming in, add to that the amount of enquiries about point of lay chickens and people coming to get them, just bonkers today 🙄

Saturday: A cold start but dry and with the promise of some sunshine. We did the morning rounds, the farrier was here bright and early at 7.30am then onto the jobs of the day. John went off to get some fire cement for the flue and then replaced the broken fire cement and the fire rope of the flue. He then went to get some compost so I can carry on potting on and seed growing, after that he spent most of the day cutting up wood. I topped up bedding in the duck and goose house then cleaned out the quail, after that I was free to potter in the greenhouse, watering and potting on. I also had a look round at what I had, a few leeks that didn’t get planted last year, same with a tray of garlic and some welsh onions that I separated at the end of last year. All of these I have now planted, not wasting anything this year so spaces were found to pop them in. I also have some strawberry plants that I had put out for sale but I got them back in and potted them up, I will need as much as I can grow especially soft fruit for the grandchildren so might as well use them myself. I have raspberry/blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes that I potted up last year that I can also use to increase yields. We got ready for the 4pm onslaught again today but it was much less frantic more of a steady stream.

People are starting to understand that we need to stay home more and more but there are plenty out there who are not getting it (usually in a supermarket queue).

I am hugely proud, and also terrified at the same time, to tell you that our youngest daughter Charlotte, who is an NHS dental nurse, has put herself forward and will be working with a dedicated team in a dedicated surgery to provide emergency dental care for patients with confirmed covid-19. As soon as I heard there was a possibility that her practice had been designated I knew she would volunteer to be on the team, that’s my girl 🥰 and there are thousands of NHS workers doing the exact same thing so please don’t go out unnecessarily, flatten the curve and give them a fighting chance to deal with this crisis.

Sunday: A cold start again but that soon blossomed into a beautiful day, the wind was still cold at times but the heat of the sun could be felt which is the main thing. It is of course Mother’s Day and the 2020 version is very different to previous years, a quote I like is ‘who would have thought that the best thing you can give your Mother today is distance’ sad but true. Despite the distancing we have managed, I managed to find somewhere in Spain to get a pot plant to my Mum, my girls have managed to get an afternoon tea delivery to me (and some for John of course 😜) Charlie and Macca walked over and we stood in the driveway having a conversation with distance between us, we exchanged goodies by placing them on the floor then stepping back lol, the likes of these things only ever seen in movies before now.

Other than that John is still cutting wood, he said he ‘liked being forced not to have to go to work’ I think it’s different to taking a week off and feeling under pressure about the workload he would have to go back to. I know it will be stressful for a lot of people but for a few it will relieve the stress. Meanwhile I have been baking some bread and doing some bits of gardening, getting the beds ready for planting into when the time comes to plant out. We are keeping a very close eye on the weather so that we can drag the fields as soon as possible, the ground is slowly drying out which will make living conditions for the birds a lot easier than it has been all winter.

I wish you all well this week coming and never have I written that before with more sincerity than now.

Posted in Friesland Farm

A pandemic, turkey eggs & the first rhubarb

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th March 2020: Well it’s me on me tod this morning and it’s been an interesting start to the day. Firstly, the horse was out, how come it happens on my shift? This time of the year the grass is growing but not very fast and to be honest there is not a lot of foraging left in the paddock they are the in so I have opened up the side paddock for them as well although by lunchtime they still hadn’t noticed 😂 The second event was the helimed trying to land, it came low over our place and our neighbours twice, at this point I had not let the chickens out so I waited to see where they wanted to go, they landed further up the lane. I messaged my neighbour to make sure she was alright and nothing had happened at her place, I later found out it was an elderly lady just up the lane and I hope she is alright.

Excitements over I finished the morning rounds and then did a bit of pottering round the place, a few barrowfulls of compost on the veg beds, moving the branches from the pruned apple tree, nothing much but a little bit here and there. At lunchtime someone came to get duck eggs, these I have been saving for them to hatch out as part of child minding activities fingers crossed they are viable.

Sam came over in the afternoon with the children, we talked about the corona virus situation as it’s on everybody’s mind (makes a change from the weather) I think it’s prudent to have at least some idea of the measures you would take if the situation gets worse, though of course we can’t make definite plans as no one really knows how this will pan out.

I made bread in the afternoon, turned out really well, not the usual bread flour I buy nor the usual yeast as none of that was available at the shop but a happy discovery of a better product 😀

Tuesday: A quiet morning rounds this morning, the rain was hard in the night knocking off the electric 🙄 but a flick of a switch and it was back on. The wind is strong this morning hopefully that will dry up some of the ground and we are forecast a sunny afternoon so I will wait with anticipation to see if that is the case.

The Coronavirus situation is worsening daily especially in Italy which is virtually locked down, is this nature’s way of getting its house in order I wonder sometimes 🤔 We can only watch and wait to see what happens, ‘keep calm and carry on’ is an English mantra we are used to guess it’s time to practice it 😀 Naturally I am worried as I am on immunosuppressive medication, I wonder if I stopped taking it, if I got the virus, it would kick it into touch, does it work like that? I have no idea, I guess I would find out if I do get infected 😏

In light of the situation and the fact I have plenty of room to grow food, I will be growing as much as possible this year, I think it’s prudent to do so. The ground is still too wet to be sowing directly into so module sowing is the way forward for me this year.

Tuesday: A morning where the weather can’t quite make up its mind, it’s mild so that’s a good start, sometimes sunshine, sometime spits of rain a little wind every now and again a mixed bag it’s fair to say. I did the morning rounds topping up the goose hut with new straw, then onto the rest of the feeding and I found our very first turkey egg (well chuffed). After that it was into the greenhouse to sow a few seeds and generally have a look how things are progressing in there (doing well) onto watering the garlic and then have a look at the potatoes in their sacks and we have greenery appearing already so I gave them some water. I wanted to get a particular area weeded so I tried hoeing but it’s too wet still so I hand weeded a couple of other small areas, I really want to stay on top of it so that there is not all to do at once. I also checked the tortoises as I would have expected movement from them by now, I tentatively had a looked and I am pleased to say that a foot moved so that’s a good sign, they are still alive at least. I am waiting for this elusive sun to move them outside and also the quail, they have been in the back all winter and I just need it to warm up a little before putting them back outside in the fresh air.

1st Turkey egg 😀
1st picking of this years rhubarb 😀

Wednesday: I seem to have lost a day lol no idea what I did today 😜

Thursday: I am so sick of this weather now, this morning was vile, yesterday the ground was beginning to show good signs of drying out and then in the evening the rain started and didn’t stop all night. This morning it’s raining and blowing a hoolie, vile and I am delaying going out to do the morning rounds.

An hour later and the sun was shinning although the wind is still blowing and it’s a cold wind, come on already we just want some warmer, drier days, it’s been a very long few months.

The turkey laid again today 😀 can’t wait to put them out for sale and see who is willing to try them, I need to eat one first just so I can say what they taste like. I’m not expecting them to be much different to a chicken egg to be honest but people do ask so best to be prepared with an answer.

Apart from the usual I have been watching the news bulletins and as I write this an emergency Cobra meeting is taking place to decide the next steps and measures. Today the USA has banned flights from Europe which has caused uproar but I’m of the opinion that they may be right to do so, I can’t understand the seemly lax attitude here to travellers arriving from affected areas 🤷‍♀️ Ireland has now moved to closing schools and colleges and banning large gatherings, I’m guessing we may be following suit fairly soon.

Friday: A glorious start to the day, warm enough to venture to the egg shed in just a long sleeved t-shirt but it hasn’t lasted and the sun has now gone in lol. Morning rounds done and dusted, eggs sorted, it was time to go and get my bloods checked 🙄. I think I can safely say that the nervousness is palpable especially in a doctors waiting room, interestingly, I have more than the usual bloods today, checking thyroid levels and blood pressure plus questions, a more overall look at my health I would say.

I make no apologies for continuing to write about the situation the world has found itself in, this after all is a diary blog and at the moment it is a very big part of life. Although we are not at the self isolate stage we are practising social distancing that means we will not be putting ourselves in a position of being with people more than is very necessary. A play I was due to see next week has sensibly been cancelled and we will avoid any social gatherings, we were due to go on a cruise in June, that will now be cancelled. To me this is not over reaction it is sensible precaution and I don’t understand why a lot of people are just not getting the potential of the seriousness of this pandemic 🤷‍♀️ We are apparently 4 weeks behind Italy and they are in a dire situation, life is not as we know it and we need to adjust our thinking. One thing I have found out about myself is that I am much more in the self sufficient group than the smallholder group, I realise they are two different things with some overlap but definitely different. Self sufficiency is just that, it’s about relying on your own efforts to maintain a living/life, it’s about having the skills to do what needs to be done and not relying on others to do it for you, paid or otherwise and fundamentally it’s about having an attitude of self preservation. With all that in mind I have ordered a large first aid kit the reason is that when this epidemic is at its height the NHS will be stretched to the maximum and beyond so it is prudent to have to hand a kit that will cover any emergency until help arrives or basics so that a trip to the doctors is not necessary immediately. I like being self sufficient/reliant I think it’s good for the soul to know you can manage if TSHTF 😜

Well it definitely feels more spring like out there today thank goodness. I did some pottering in the greenhouse, a bit of watering and turning, I also have some hardy fushia plug plants arrive that I have potted up. Fifteen of them lol, I won’t be keeping all of them some will be sold on but that will pay for the ones I keep. I am really pleased with how well the greenhouse is performing it’s made such a difference to getting things successfully started, I have high hopes this year, now if I can just stop everything eating it I will be very happy.

Saturday: If I open the top of my stable door in the kitchen, as I often do, and look out to the garden and paddocks, it seems like any ordinary day, like hundreds before, except it’s not and we are in unchartered territory. There are countries going into lockdown and panic buying in the shops 🙄 We went yesterday to get some bits (cat milk because he doesn’t know there is a problem and still yowls for his milk) and some of the shelves were just ransacked, not all there is still plenty of fresh fruit and veg but canned goods were sparse in some sections, there are no ibrufen or paracetamol to be had, no sanitiser or antibacterial goods, there were toilet rolls but only a few packs, still no bread flour or any flour for that matter. I’ve e no doubt the shop will have restocked by now but it’s flying out as fast as it comes in!

My Mum and Ken went to Spain for three months after Christmas, they were due to start driving home on the 30th March, it looks like they will be staying longer than planned. It’s a worry because we can’t get to them if they become ill but they have managed to get a few provisions and we will see how this pans out, it’s all we can do, I know she reads this blog so lots and lots of love to you Mum and stay well 😘😘

Meanwhile on the farm John and I have been working and if you don’t have the radio or tv on you would be forgiven for not having a clue as to the events unfolding. John went to get a new blade for his saw so that if he is off for any length of time he can cut up wood 😂 He also picked up dog and cat food to keep us going. When he came back he power washed the side pathway this is because as I was going out to the egg shed I slipped and fell with a thud. The path is east facing and in the winter doesn’t dry out much and so algae builds up and makes it slippery, I think I will ache tonight but luckily I didn’t break anything.

After that we spent a good couple of hours mending the roof on the outdoor tortoise house. I heard a shuffling in the greenhouse this morning and Big Billy has woken up proper and was trying to get out of the cage. I got him some water and some bits of aloe Vera in case he was hungry and then thought I need to fix the roof, so that’s what we did, and a pretty good job we did of it even if I do say so myself 😀 John then carried on cutting up wood while I lit the Rayburn and got some lunch. Charlie and Macca called in for a coffee and some eggs.

We were expecting patchy rain today but we are into early evening and no sign of it so we had a good run of getting some things done. The ground is beginning to dry out faster than it was before bough it is still soggy.

Sunday: It’s raining heavily this morning and so not a very nice morning at all, to be honest the weather is now the least of our worries 😏 John did the morning rounds while I did the indoor bits, we lit the Rayburn early and we are not planning on doing much today except visit Florence for cake later as it’s her 2nd birthday today 😀

I’m feeling rather vindicated this morning, if you have been reading my blogs for a long time you will have read about my thoughts on an ‘apocalypse’ 🙄 at times I thought maybe I was a bit batty going on about preparing for a ‘situation’ such as this but it seemed obvious to me that something would happen eventually. This situation is a virus but potentially it could have been war or a terrorist attack on the ‘grid’ both of which would have been much worse as far as human nature goes, at the moment it’s toilets rolls, hand sanitiser and ibrufen people are fighting over 🤔

Stay well people, I have a feeling that we will all be seeing a lot less of each other for a while, I am certainly minimising my contact with the outside world from here on in, I am in the lucky position to be able to do that and I have plenty to occupy my time so it will pretty much be business as usual for me 😝

Posted in Friesland Farm

Afternoon tea, potatoes planted & Jobs list ticked off.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 2nd March 2020: The beginning of Johns week off, the weather is on our side for today at least. We both did the morning rounds then straight on with the job of the day, the fence at the end of the veg garden. This is a job that had to be completed in one day otherwise the dogs and the ducks would be all over it. We kept at it all day with a few interruptions by way of Johns phone, going to get some gravel boards then a quick trip to the solicitor to sign some papers, a few cups of tea and by 3pm we had finished 22m of fencing and tidied up. I am pretty pleased with the result, the fence had to keep the ducks/dogs out which it will and it looks a whole lot tidier to boot. I will look forward to working this part of the garden now, it has been a bit neglected in the last couple of years and so brambles and stingers have taken hold but I managed to dig most of them out, I will have to weedkiller any new growth but it shouldn’t be much and the area outside the fence is now clear enough to mow so that will keep them down on that side. I gained an extra bit of planting space as we had a gate halfway along the fence but never used it so have taken it out, now the pathway leading to the previous gate can become planting area. Indoors for something to eat, a cuppa and a quick rest before lighting the Rayburn, feeding the birds and collecting and sorting the eggs, getting the dinner. Day one, ✅ 😀

Tuesday: The weather is holding though it’s a tad colder today, we did the morning rounds and then got on with today’s jobs. First make a raised bed in the polytunnel out of wood we have lying around, the ground in the tunnel has a clay seam running thorough and one side is particularly difficult to manage when it dries out, I found low raised beds gives better results. I now have a 10ft x 3ft bed to fill with compost from the heap. Then onto moving the strawberry troughs, these are about 8ft long and a foot wide but they are up on legs, the problem is there is a lot of ground underneath that I can’t get too so we took them off the legs and moved them to the sides of the beds. This was harder than it sounds as they are very heavy, the second one we had to use bars to roll it along and get it in position. Then onto making the arches, for the morning glory etc, a bit more secure than they were, this still needs a bit more work but it’s nearly there. Shelley called in with Florence and bought cake so we stopped for a cuppa and then I had a phone call from a friend to see if I wanted to go for afternoon tea, yep, not gonna turn that invite down. I still had a couple of hours spare so I planted up the area that is now free of the strawberry troughs. I had potted up enough plants from last year to fill it, stocks, chrysanthemums, delphiniums, achillea, aster, campion, verbascum, huechera and some more that I have forgotten at this minute. The bed will be for cutting flowers for birthdays and to bring in the house 😀 John went off to do some tidying elsewhere, objective achieved today 😀 And now I am off out for afternoon tea ☕️ perfect day, it’s not normally something I would be able to take advantage of but as luck would have it and John is off to hold the fort and I’m going lol.

Afternoon tea was a lovely affair, plenty of tea, cake and sandwiches and of course chit chat with my friends, by the time I got back John had fed the birds and done the eggs so that looks like the rest of the day off for me 😀

The turkey stag has started covering the hen, hopefully eggs will follow soon. If you have never been close to a turkey come and get a look at ours, the stag is pretty impressive with his ‘snoods’ and the sounds are even better, the ‘gobbling’ that everyone knows but also a low ‘booming’ sound, at first I wondered what the heck it was then I realised it was coming from within him lol. A description I read referred to it as guttural which is pretty accurate and scientists don’t 100% understand how the noise is made. They are originally forest dwellers and love to forage for insects, slugs and snails, berries and fruit, seeds, nuts and green foliage or buds so a pretty comprehensive list.

We decided to call them Bonny & Clyde
(photos from Sally 😋)

Wednesday: Despite rain being forecast it didn’t arrive until about 1.30pm which meant we were able to get a fair bit done beforehand. With the morning rounds done by John while I put on some washing and did some general tidying we then set about sorting out the rest of the compost heap and tidying that up. John went off up the back to burn some rubbish and get the rest of the mirror structure down while I pottered in the garden. Making good the extra area we created by doing away with the path, filling it with compost, putting an edge board up and topping up the wood chip in that area. It looks good and I have decided to fill it with flowers, as you enter the garden at the other end it’s the long view down and it would be nice to see a splash of colour. Again I have plenty of plants, rudbeckia, lupins, geum, probably some aquilegia and maybe some foxgloves as it has the Mulberry bush for canopy.

We filled the bed in the tunnel with compost and I have put a washing up bowl at the end with a piece of gutter and a stone in there, this is because I know we have frogs (I found a few today while I was working) and I know they like to live in the tunnel during growing season when it has plenty of foliage and gets watered daily. The bowl will be filled with rain water and the frogs can help keep the slugs down, win, win 😀 I did a fair bit of sorting out, plants that never made it through winter and picking up stuff that had been blown about by the winds. In the greenhouse I did a bit of watering and had a look at the seeds I sowed last week, most are showing signs of sprouting so I’m happy with the progress so far.

When the rain came I came indoors to put on more washing, light the Rayburn and think about dinner later while John went off to get some diesel for the tractor as it’s nearly out. It looks as though rain will stop play as it’s pretty heavy and not much fun to be working out in.

I spent 4 hours, yes that long, trying to pair my new camera with my phone, eventually giving up after reading that the operating software on the phone has a problem with the app I am using to pair, an app created by the camera manufacturer so that’s buggered that, eventually I tried it with Johns phone which is different and voila, first time 😝 I have two choices as I see it, use the camera and download to the laptop as I did with the old one or wait until I’m due an upgrade and choose a different phone, for the time being I will just get taking some pictures. My old camera is around 30 years old and I love it but the quality of pictures on the new cameras is amazing and I want to start cataloging the wildlife here not just the birds but everything I see really.

Thursday: Still cold but not raining. John did the morning rounds while I got on with some household bits and got something out of the freezer for dinner tonight. John has been busy tidying up the back area and we had a lot of scrap metal bits, old tin sheets and chicken wire that has now thankfully gone to the scrap an and earned us a whopping £14 🙄 He has also been busy stacking wood in the back, you can do an awful lot of work and it doesn’t look like you have done much but we know it’s done so that’s what matters. Meanwhile after sorting indoor stuff out I went to the poly tunnel and planted up the chitted potatoes. I decided as these were first earlies, which I don’t normally do, I would grow them under cover, we have had a lot of rain and I would hate for them to rot away. They are now in 6 bags that have compost in and each time the greenery pokes its head above the compost I will cover with more compost, this way i am hoping to get nice clean early potatoes with very thin skins. I also moved a few things round, the citrus have now gone from the greenhouse and into the tunnel which gives more more room to move in the greenhouse. The bottom end of the tunnel is becoming my ‘exotics’ area, with the citrus, lemon grass (if it survives) cape gooseberries, grape vine, lemon verbena and a pineapple guava, if only I could grow bananas and avocados I’d be set for life oh and chocolate of course 😜. Other than that I sowed a few flower seeds, these were free so might as well give them a go, dwarf delphiniums, rudbeckia, dahlias and amaranth. When John went off to the scrapyard I came in and lit the Rayburn and got the dinner sorted for later, we have shepherds pie and an apple and blackberry crumble for dessert.

Chitted seed potatoes, Kestral, I think

Random thought of the day, how come the turkey stag only ‘covers’ his hen and doesn’t try it on with the chickens?

I have been listening to the radio talk about stockpiling, it never ceases to amaze me how much food people buy especially at Christmas or snow days, do people really eat that much or does a lot of it get wasted. I try very hard not to waste anything if I can help it, but I am aware of the need to have a few things in the cupboard just in case. For me it’s extra flour and dried milk because with what I already have in the freezers or cupboards I can pretty much knock something up, we don’t eat pasta or rice really so what I have will suffice and we seem to have accrued a few tins of fish in various forms so that will do us in a crisis. We did buy extra tea bags and coffee and I still have my 5ltr of olive oil from the Brexit crisis 😂 Luckily we are going into the growing season 😀 and I have plenty of seeds on the go for that so hopefully we should muddle through any problems in the supply chain. I agree it is a worry, I mostly worry about the grandchildren and that they will be able to get enough food, I’m sure it’s just people panicking and it will all be ok in the end 🤞‘don’t panic Mr Mannering’ I can hear the Dads Army cast saying lol.

On the topic of not wasting anything I had a net of clementines which were sour, you know the ones that make your face twist lol, not wanting to waste them I made a jar and a quarter of jam with them, hopefully it will taste better than the initial ingredient 😀

We made it all the way through to Thursday before John got a call out to an emergency, that’s pretty good going, this one was someone deciding to take the shower apart and now they can’t stop the water from flowing 🙄 He had his ‘not happy’ face on when he left lol, though I think he secretly likes to be a super hero plumber 😜

I am keeping an eye on the rhubarb, it’s getting there but it’s not quite long enough to start picking just yet, we could do with some warming sun on it after all the rain we have had, that would give it a spurt of growth I think. I can’t see any in the weather radar for a couple of weeks yet so just have to hope it’s not far away.

Friday: I can’t actually remember what we did in the morning but in the afternoon we had the twins while Mia went to her swimming lesson and then Shelley and the kids called in.

Saturday: Today’s the day, the new sofas are arriving and I’m a bit nervous that they won’t fit through the doorways lol. John did the rounds and then we got the old sofas out, I then cleaned the room while John did some outside jobs. We got a phone call to say that the delivery was only 5 mins away, they arrived, a lovely couple of chaps, easily got the sofas in, phew, put them together, tidied up and took the packaging, easy as that we now have new sofas though we are not allowed to sit on them in our work clothes 😂 Now they are in it is noticeable how shabby the old ones had got and I am delighted with the new look.

In the evening we went to get a few bits of shopping for Johns lunch next week, pretty bemused to see some of the shelves are empty of goods, not a piece of chicken to be had, no ibrufen and the toilet roll shelf was empty 🙄 I guess the panic buying is in full swing then, there was no bread flour and no yeast, this is a big uptake of people who are suddenly going to bake their own bread, I buy these all the time and never struggle to find them normally. I’m not sure which camp I am in to be honest, on the one hand it’s selfish behaviour because there are those that can’t bulk buy, either because they don’t have the money or they physically can’t get it home and on the other hand I think, what if we have to self isolate, you are going to need supplies. For the time being we will just carry on shopping as normal I think and if push comes to shove we will have to make do. On a bonus note I was looking for a lightbulb under the the kitchen sink and I found a box of face masks ( I had these when we had bird flu in the country and used them when cleaning out the birds)

We have in fact also taken around a third more on eggs this week, a good week or an indicator?

Sunday: More rain overnight and the wind is cold today but if you can stand in a sheltered spot when the sun is out there is heat in it so it won’t be long before we get some nice Springlike weather hopefully. John did the morning rounds and I did some potting on in the greenhouse, then I mentioned the ducks needed cleaning out which I had intended to help with, the next thing I know John has done it (I like having a helper lol)

We are on the last day of Johns week off and we haven’t managed to strangle each other in fact we have done quite well with hardly a cross word between us 😜 although he does do some things differently to me which I find annoying such as marking up the egg boxes the wrong way round (because he is left handed) I kept quiet 😝 I will miss having him around to do the daily tasks while I get on with other things but I will also look forward to having my space back 😋

We pretty much got everything done that was on the list though there are always many more jobs to do, they can wait until Easter weekend now. ✅ 😀

Have a good week and stay well 🤞

Posted in Friesland Farm

Painting, pancake day, leap day and plenty of rain 🌧

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 24th February 2020: Another Monday, another crap weather day, still blowing around and still raining on and off. Never mind though I had a project to do today, paint the kitchen, just the bottom end as the rest is tiled. It’s a good way to wonder where on Earth the hours disappeared too mind, I started at 9.30 after doing the morning rounds and the next thing I am listening to the 2 o’clock news thinking ‘what, where did the time go’ and no I didn’t do the ceiling 😜 It was a lick to freshen the place up a bit. I just about left myself enough time to tidy up, light the Rayburn and sit and have a cuppa while the fire bedded in before going out to do the afternoon rounds.

It will be interesting to see if John notices 😜

Tuesday: Pancake day, or more accurately Shrove Tuesday, we all know about pancake day the best day of the year when we were kids, we had no idea of any religious background to it in our house we were just happy to jump on the delicious bandwagon of pancakes, syrup, lemon and sugar, these days often chocolate spread as well. It’s is generally known that Ash Wednesday follows but did you know there are other named days in that week? Collop Monday when you used up your meat stores, Shrove Tuesday, eggs and flour stores, Ash Wednesday, depending on where in the country you were, Fritter Thursday, (apples and pears) or Bloody Thursday when you used up your black pudding and Kissing Friday. As with many traditions they have all got muddled in with different religions and regions but pancake day remains steadfast across all areas 😀

The morning started off damp and drizzly and I wasn’t really feeling it, I think I rather overdid it yesterday and consequently suffered with many aches and stiffness. I had breakfast, a couple of ibrufen and sat and listened to a podcast from Conversations of Inspiration with Holly Tucker founder of Not on the High Street. This podcast caught my eye because she was interviewing Robin Hutson who is the founder of The Pig hotels, if you have never been to one of these hotels I urge you to go, pricey but well worth it, the whole ethos of each hotel is fabulous and I loved staying at The Pig in the Forest.

After waiting for the ibrufen to kick in I went for a shower, seriously I was struggling to move but luckily the warmth of the water eased my overworked muscles and by the time I got out of the shower the sun was shinning ☀️ Well I was not about to pass up that little nugget of delight so I whizzed round doing the animals and then straight into the garden. Into the greenhouse to be exact because I knew it was going to be lovely in there with the rays of the sun. The sun didn’t actually last that long but it had the desired effect of firing up my engines and so there was no stopping me 😀 Seed sowing was the job I had in mind and this year I am sowing into smaller modules, most years I would wait and sow into the ground but it’s so wet that I am taking a different approach this year. I sowed beetroot, swede and turnip, 50 of each then 10 each of patty pan, courgette, loofah, pumpkin and butternut squash, 15 sweet corn and 50 each of mangetout and petit poi’s. I have bought in the metal shelves I had last year so that I can get layers of trays all going at the same time and use the excess heat from the heat mat at the same time. I am really pleased with the way the seedlings I started on the windowsill are doing now that they are in a heated propagator, I managed not to let them get too spindly and the cucumbers are putting on their second set of leaves. I had a hunt round for this elusive mouse and thought I had found its house but it was empty, I have moved everything that is high enough for it to move from the ground area up to the bench area and hopefully that will stop it eating any seeds I have sown. I also took the added measures of covering the seed trays with see through lids or putting them up on the shelving and unless the dear little soul is a gymnast it shouldn’t be able to get up there.

After doing that lot I checked on the poly tunnel and the carrots and peas are doing well. Then I picked some purple sprouting broccoli, kale and a few small Brussel sprouts which we will have with dinner tonight.

We will have some of the greens with mashed potato and lamb chops but some I will use for tomorrow as I have also got a chicken carcass out of the freezer, I never throw them away I always freeze them and use them for soups, broth or stock.

This is the daphne I bought the other week, I wish they would get round to inventing smelly vision as it smells amazing, you will just have to take my word for it.

The sun came back out in the afternoon and I popped back into the greenhouse to pot up the melon seedlings and put those in the propagator as well. I am chuffed that the melon seeds from Josh’s water melon have sprouted, I am going to give these a real good go which will please him no end as it’s just about his favourite thing to eat. The temperature in the greenhouse was a whopping 25c, amazing!

Wednesday: Not a bad morning, by the time I got out there the sun was shinning though it was cold but not too bad. Before I went out I watched Ben Fogle: A new life in the country, John watched it last night but I fell asleep and this morning he said you really need to watch it so I did. What an inspirational person Miss Puffin (not her real name) is, she moved at the age of 43 from London where she was a nanny to John O Groats to run a petting farm, farm shop, b & b with no experience of animals, business or Scotland, all on her own, now that is life changing, challenging and ultimately hugely rewarding despite the lows. The Facebook page is Puffin Croft if you want to look her up.

Feeling inspired and cheerful I went out to sort out our menagerie, feeding, letting out and topping up bedding etc. I sorted out the eggs and put some trays of duck eggs up for sale on the selling sites as they are stacking up again. The goose egg sales are a bit slow, I find this happens every year, then suddenly they take off and people continue asking for them well into summer when of course they are no longer available 🙄 Thinking ahead to next week when John will be here instead of his normal work and he will constantly want to eat 😜 I decided to bake a couple of fruit cakes using the goose eggs.

I took a photo of what is my favourite view at the moment, it’s our side window in the kitchen and there is normally not much to see to be honest but this week Mr Robin has shown his wife this little house and she has decided it’s a good place to raise her young so they have been very busy moving in 😀 This box has been there for about 5 years and never had any occupants before so I’m very excited to watch the comings and goings and hopefully catch sight of the fledglings when the time comes.

You can just see the bird box on the back of the shed where a robin family have decided to move into.

Thursday: What can I say about today’s weather lol, it’s wet but snowing, not settling thankfully. It was a thicker socks and thicker gloves morning and I got the rounds done early, I was back in lighting the Rayburn at 8.30 I figured I might as well feel warm all day before I have to go back out later on. This bug I have is lingering, one day I feel ok the next I feel washed out and tired, still coughing but not as much and still got a blocked nose and ears making my head feel thick 🙄 I may just have a rest day today or a mostly rest day anyhow.

What does one do on a rest day, well watch a film, pay a few bills and order new sofas of course 😜 I was thinking I should hoover and polish the living room and then started thinking that I need to wash the sofa covers but I don’t honestly think they will make it through in one piece so I went all in and ordered them lol We have had them for over 25 years so I think it’s allowed don’t you.

Friday: Back to the wet horrible weather and surprise we have a storm rolling in for the weekend. This one is called Jorge as it was named by the Spanish (it’s visiting there first 😜) I got on and did the animals first thing then sorted out the eggs to fill the shed up completely and then a few house keeping bits and pieces before having Josh and Florence for the afternoon. It’s Shelleys birthday and Martin is taking her out for lunch 😀

The Corona virus situation is getting worse, I’m not sure if they have declared a pandemic yet but they will be very soon if not. I include this in my blog because you never know what is going to happen world wide and so it seems a good idea to have a written record of what is happening.

Saturday 29th Feb: A bonus day 😜 all I can think it’s and extra day of rain! We had some real downpours through the night and we are sodden this morning with more heavy rain due sometime this afternoon. Couple that with high winds again and well it’s becoming a regular weekend thing. My cold is not shifting very quickly it’s now blocking my sinuses, so a constant thick head means I find it difficult to concentrate on much more than what I have to. All in all a pretty depressing outlook for the weekend 🙄 a

Well it’s midday and so far the weather hasn’t been too bad, the sun is shinning though it’s cold and the wind has just picked up though not as much as was predicted…..yet🙄

We went round to Shelleys in the evening for a joint birthday cake with my sister who had her birthday last week. I got to see my newest great nephew Theo, a beautiful little bundle of cuteness 😀

Sunday: I’m starting to feel better thank goodness, this has dragged on and on and I really want it gone as John is off for the next week so we can get some jobs done. I wanted to drag the fields but that is not going to happen as they are very wet still so we started with the rabbit run, boarding up the mesh so that little Dotty Iron Man rabbit can come out and be with the other rabbit and guineas. I did a full clean out while we were at it, over winter I deep litter them which basically means putting fresh stuff in on top of the old but eventually it all needs to come out. Then it was on to sort the ménage mirrors out and take the framework down, over the years the wind has rocked them and now they are cracked and one had fallen out and so we decided to take them out altogether. In between that I did a bit of seed sowing and moved the aubergines and peppers into a heated propagator, I now have a free windowsill again. We popped to the garden centre to pick up some compost as the seed potatoes are ready to go in the bags but the garden compost is soaking wet. We had visits from Charlie and then from Sam, Luke, Mia and the twiglets Lucie and George, I wonder how long they will get called twiglets for lol, we used to call Josh sausage but that didn’t stick lucky for him 😜 Some of the wood that was used for the mirror frames will be reused as sides for a long raised bed in the polytunnel, on one side there is a clay seam which is difficult to use given the heat in there in the summer so I am putting a bed on top of it to give the plants a better chance.

I’m hoping, along with the rest of the country I’m sure, that we will have a bit more sunshine next week 😀😀😀

Have a great week everyone.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Stormy weather, goose eggs & pod casts.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th January: I had a cracking evening last night, by that I mean cracking nuts not having a good time 😜 I thought I’d better get started on the nuts if I do half an hour here and there I will soon have plenty of nuts to snack on or use in cooking. Turns out that only approx 60% of the walnuts are any good but that’s still useful, I haven’t started on the hazels yet. John spent late afternoon getting the gate finished and hung, he is getting very good at gates now, if you put his first effort next to the latest you would laugh and wonder how on earth it ever kept anything in or out let alone shut properly. Our skill set has widened massively over the years, hopefully we can pass some of them on to the next couple of generations you never know when they will need them.

I did a few extra jobs while I was on the rounds this morning, topping up the duck house bedding, moving the electric fence for the hens out in the side paddock and I had to fix the turkey pen fence. Something, probably a Fox has had a go at pulling the fence and there was a gap in it next to the doorway, basically it had been pulled out of the wood pinching it together. I grabbed a hammer and some u nails and fixed it, good job I saw it other wise the turkeys would have been got.

When I finished that I thought I would see what could be done in the garden, the weather is nice enough this morning and I feel like these are bonus days and shouldn’t be wasted. I got the jute out that I ordered and set about putting that down on a bed I cleared last week. I have reservations about using it, on the one hand it’s natural and therefore environmentally friendly, biodegradable, compostable so plenty going for it, it also does not flap about in the wind like the plastic and it would stabilise the soil if left in situ with more compost put on top. On the other hand it’s quite expensive monetarily speaking and I doubled it up because I’m not sure it will exclude the light with just one layer. It is an experiment so we will see how it goes.

I then tried to dig up the blackberry and stingers that have taken hold near the far fence 🙄 hmm I found I wasn’t strong enough to get right to the bottom of the roots nor to pull them so I am going to have to get John to help with that as some point. It does need a new fence there so we will probably do both jobs at the same time. While I was mooching about I found a piece of guttering and had a lightbulb moment, I would use it to plant some peas into in the tunnel. Mice usually bugger up my plans for early peas but you can hang a piece of gutter from the cross bars and that means the little sods can’t reach the seeds 😀 Even if I just use the shoots for salad they will be welcome early greens. The gutter didn’t have any stop ends so I got two plant pots and used those instead, filled it with compost and planted the seeds, it’s not pretty but it is functional and will hopefully work well.

The weather is about to get a bit nasty, we have a very deep depression coming in from the west which will bring strong winds and rain according to the forecasters but the temperatures are still well above average for the time of year.

So I just joined the group NFFN which stands for Nature friendly farming network, I don’t normally randomly join groups but this one seems to be aimed at exactly what I am trying to achieve here which is living off the land but not to the detriment of all other living things that are also here, sustainable farming, not that I farm in the general sense but I do have land that needs managing.

In the run up to Christmas the egg sales went berserk and we couldn’t pick them up and get them out fast enough, the week between Christmas and New Year was pretty steady but since the New Year it’s safe to say it has slowed down considerably and non existent on some days. In order to have a good turn around I have been trying to sell the duck eggs on the sale pages, normally they get snapped up but nothing doing today so I need to look up ways of using them up lol.

Tuesday: It’s calm this morning but we have another weather front coming in apparently so we are in the calm between storms. Here in the UK the storms are named in alphabetical order yesterday’s was storm Brendan so we are only just into storm weather, it usually gets to around g/h/i/j/k but there are 21 storm names allocated each year, if they surpass that I don’t know what they do lol.

I did the rounds this morning, again doing a bit extra as I go, this time it’s a sack full of hay for the rabbit/guineas and two sackfuls of fresh straw for the light Sussex pen, a quick coffee and sort out the egg shed and it will be time to clean out the quail who are still in the back area under cover as they seem to be laying much better in there. Not that we need the eggs, as I said yesterday the customers seem thin on the ground at the minute, I have been plugging them on the sale sites though so hopefully we will get a few new customers to help keep the eggs turning over quickly.

Sat and watched the horses frolicking in the paddock, I don’t know what had got into them but they were having a fine time of it 😀

I have some strawberry plants and some pots of tête-à-tête daffodils to put out for sale but I am kind of holding off until the storms pass as they will just get blown everywhere 💨 The winds were quite strong last night probably around 55-60mph (not strong in comparison to some countries) further up country they were reaching 85mph, but coming up from the south west and from that direction they don’t seem to affect us hugely.

I cleaned out the quail, one of them gets hard little balls of muck stuck to its toes so I had to soften that and get it off, it only happens to one I don’t know why. Then I collect up the daffodils and strawberry plants took them into the greenhouse and gave them a tidy up before putting them up for sale on the sites. The minute I got into the garden I was swarmed by hens all thinking that hopefully it’s three o’clock and I am going to feed them, not a hope it’s only 11am. I don’t know why they do it as they have feed inside the hut so if they were really hungry they could go and get that 🙄 Then is was inside to get the Rayburn lit, the weather though it started off ok has declined and it’s now wet with a breeze, I can tell it’s colder because I wanted to light the Rayburn at 10am but held off to get things done outside first.

I got myself ready to leave the warmth of the house to do the afternoon rounds, I stood at the back thinking ‘bloody heck it’s rough out here’ when all of a sudden crack and a bough came down, good job the wind is blowing so that the bough went along the fence and not towards the house, this is exactly the reason we started taking these down, we really need to finish the job 😏 Just before I went out, as I was getting my coat on, we lost the electric, just for a minute and it came back on but I’m pretty sure it will go again at some point.

We lost power at 4.45 after a couple of flickers, I just knew it was going to go 🙄 luckily I had kept the Rayburn low so there was not much in the fire box which is good as no power means no pump to take the hot water away from the boiler!

John came home and we went out to get something to eat and called into my sisters to get a cup of tea, when we got back at 8pm the electric was still off so John had a bath by candlelight while I sat in the living room with a torch and did some reading. All good fun, this is when we could do with a small wood burning stove that would be like the 1970s when Mum used to make toast on the parkray during power cuts 😀

Wednesday: Is it only Wednesday lol, the power did not come back on until 10.30pm by which time we had given up and gone to bed, it was starting to feel a tad cold and likely that the torch would run out of power so called it a night at 10pm.

It is a calm pleasant morning again, and this mornings survey of the place found no other damage but we do have the big lake back in the side paddock. This normally appears after days of relentless rain and not overnight, there was nothing there yesterday. The chap was due to come Sunday morning for rabbiting but I have warned him it might not be worthwhile as the rabbits have either drowned or fled the burrows.

I keep thinking we must be able to utilise this transient feature somehow but you can bet your bottom dollar that the minute we decide to male it into a permanent wildlife pond we will have a drought 😜

One good thing is that I was unable to cook dinner last night so I am ahead of the game with what to have tonight 😂 I have also lit the Rayburn earlier than usual as you can feel the cold having had no heating during the previous evening.

Thursday: It was colder overnight and I thought we would see a frost but at 6.30 this morning I couldn’t see any sign of one.

Out to do the rounds once it was light enough and nothing untoward but I did find the first goose egg of the season 😀 John had said he thought he saw something when he was shutting them away last night and he was correct. This is nearly a month earlier than usual and I can only assume that the mild winters as contributed to that. Normally the winter would be full of days when the ground is frozen or at least frosted but we have had less than a handful of days like that so the geese have been able to steadily graze grass constantly which is unusual. It means that they have been able to get good nutrition throughout and therefore start laying early which is great for them and a bonus for us.

One of the things I started listening to when the electric was off were podcasts, the selection out there is phenomenal and every type of subject is available. This morning I listened to an hour long podcast about growing and storing enough food to feed your family for a year, it was interesting and the best thing is that on the phone it’s mobile, I just take the phone with me whatever I am doing and can carry on listening. I got dressed, I did the washing up, then out to sort and box the eggs, all the while taking the phone with me and listening to something that interests me, much better than listening to the radio or the cat meowing 😜 I think I will definitely include podcasts as a part of my day.

Friday: I have blood tests this morning, these are for monitoring the effects of the drugs I have to take, they are disease modifying drugs and can have all sorts of side effects so need keeping an eye on. When I feel really well, like I do at the minute, I question wether I even have anything wrong but in truth if I came off the drugs I think things would plummet pretty quickly.

So the weather has been pretty atrocious this week I think it’s fair to say, today is not much better but we do have some sunshine in the forecast for the weekend, hopefully it will make an appearance, if for no other reason than to bring a bit of cheer to what seems like a very long month. We have about six weeks to go before we can get uplifted by the fact that spring will actually begin to spring. I watched a programme last night and the clip with the birds singing and the green grass made me realise how much I long for that time of year. I said to John yesterday that I look forward to the weekends when he takes over the feeding, if I had to do it seven days a week I think I would give up the birds entirely 🙄 We have customers that say ‘don’t give up doing this, we love your eggs’ but I reckon if they spent even one day in the wet, wind and mud they might think differently lol.

After the deluge of rain we have had this last week one serious thought I have been having is about exactly how to stabilise the ground. You can visibly see serious amounts of run off (as we are on a slight incline) and consequently the erosion of the soil especially on the veg garden. If the past few years have taught me anything it’s that this problem is getting worse and I don’t really have the expertise or knowledge so I am going to have to read all I can and work it out. The problem would not doubt be easily solved if we did not have grazing animals on the land and by that I mean the horses and the geese. They would eat most of anything you plant unless it is well protected, heavily protected in the case of the horses. I think I need to, and indeed want to, increase the hedging especially in the side paddock at the front by the lane. We have discussed putting up a fence to keep the horses away from anything newly planted but the geese would get through that and so would the chickens and they would scratch up round the roots so you see what I am up against here, multiple procedures are needed. In the meantime if anyone can point me in the direction of some serious land management articles involving erosion and how to prevent it I would be very grateful 😀

Saturday: A good hard frost overnight whoop, nice and fresh and crisp this morning and we did need it. Those plants that go dormant over winter need the cold so that they recognise when to break dormancy as it gets warmer plus it kills off a few pests and diseases. Of course along with the frost generally come a sunny day and that is exactly what we got, cold but sunny. John did the animals then had to shoot off and sort something out on a job he is currently on. Meanwhile I sorted out the morning household jobs and then went out to give hay and some carrots to the horses, top up the wild bird feeders and feed Diesel who had actually bought his own breakfast along in the form of a dead mouse 🙄 glad to see he is still earning his keep. When John came back he got to work on the fence that runs along from his new gate, digging holes and putting in fence posts, not a great job for a cold day so I made a batch of biscuits to keep him ticking along. Shelley, Josh and Florence came over, Josh wanted to help with some jobs. Always keen to take up the offer of some help as you never know when they will stop wanting to, we put some clean bedding in for the ducks, checked the growing daffodils and fruit trees at the back, had a tour around the veg garden, Josh was very interested in what was growing he kept asking ‘what’s this plant Nana’ lol, we went to watch Grampy do a bit then they found a nice icy puddle to jump up and down in which entertained them no end 😀

Back indooors for a cup of tea and some lunch and we had an episode that is the only time it is acceptable to hit a child, choking, Josh got a whole hula hoop stuck and was choking, Shelley whacked him a few times nothing, she looked at me saying ‘Mum’ and I went round and took over, three hard whacks, nothing, rapidly going through my head was after this next one if it doesn’t budge I am going to have to do it much harder and roll my fist up under his rib cage, thankfully it budged and came out. It was probably seconds but it feels like a lifetime and so many thoughts are running through your head mostly what your next stage of action will be. Of course a hula hoop will eventually go soft but at the time, the child is panicking and in this case Florence was also screaming because we were whacking Josh. Object removed, sighs of relief, then come the lectures lol, don’t talk with your mouthful, chew your food properly, and sit still while you are eating, all the things countless generations of mothers have said to their children, there is a very good reason for that 😜

I listened to another pod cast this morning while I was sorting eggs, one from the RHS about Wisley, very interesting and it got me intrigued, I definitely want to go and visit this year if I can. They have an attraction called ‘The giant houseplant takeover’ I am not really keen on houseplants but listening to the pod cast I was thinking how very clever the idea is as they explained what it was all about. John will be delighted lol, I’m sure they have a good cafe he can sit in and while away the time 😝

I made a pan of vegetable soup, nice and warming on a day like today and obviously very good for you, get your five a day all in one hit lol. I will probably whizz it up as I have put herbs in there and what John doesn’t know won’t hurt him 😜

I really have a hankering for a Cornish pasty lol, I might just have to make some.

I cleaned the windows, I thought it would probably be better if I could see through them 😝

The sky is kind of purple tonight, love the spectacular sunsets and sunrises the cold weather brings.

Sunday: Another hard frost, harder than yesterday I would say, but again the sun is shinning brilliantly and it looks magical shinning on the frozen branches and ground. John did the morning rounds and cleaned out the front hens, I sorted eggs etc.

This morning we are going to Blenheim Palace for a walk around the grounds and a coffee. We are very lucky to have this magnificent stately home only 20 minutes down the road and this year I bought annual passes for us and the girls so that it can be enjoyed all year round.

Well that turned into quite a chunk of the day visiting ‘The Kingdom’ as Josh called it 😂 I bought family passes for presents and I think we will definitely get our monies worth going there regularly, there is plenty of ground to cover and lots to do as well as the events they put on.

We got back at 3 and it was then a rush to grab a sandwich (long story as the cafe was packed as were the palace grounds) and scoot round to visit Charlie and Macca for his birthday. A quick cuppa with them then back home to do the afternoon feeding, egg collecting and light the Rayburn. The place gets pretty cold when there is no heating all day 🙄

Posted in Friesland Farm

Back to normal, stuff to sort & Winter flowering shrubs.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 6th January 2020: I have enjoyed having John at home for three weeks but this morning I am also happy to have the place back to myself as he goes off to work early. I think it’s the sense of back to normality and there is definitely a lot to be said for doing things the way I want them done instead of compromise or argument 😜

So what will I be doing with my time? Good question, I always say ‘I never make plans’ they go awry quite quickly I find so a loose idea of what I want to achieve with an indefinite time frame is a much better option lol, it also give me room to completely change my mind 😀 Today’s tasks are to get the morning rounds done, finish setting up the heat pad in the greenhouse now I have found everything I need, possibly move a bit more wood chip (nearly done) a few household tasks such as hoovering, dinner prep, lighting the Rayburn (they all take time) and probably a million other little things along the way. I have a couple of other jobs in mind that need doing such as cleaning out the quail and the ducks and they are the kind of job that are on the list but can be flexible as long as I get them done at some point within the next couple of days.

I did the animals, topping up the duck bedding as I went round, finding the rabbit/guineas some lovely greens and then figured I may as well strike while the iron is hot with a bit of outside work. I chose to do the rest of the wood chip laying in the fruit cage, the plan was to get the wood chip down, weed and mulch the pots of summer raspberries and cut back the autumn canes. I was about six barrowfuls in when I felt decidedly shaky, stupidly I had only eaten a banana for breakfast like I have been for the past couple of weeks but with some hard work on top the banana didn’t cut it 😜 I can only assume it’s blood sugar levels, I have had it before when I haven’t eaten enough to fuel the jobs I’m doing, I went in and had a large bowl of bran flakes, and a couple of shortbreads, 15 mins later I felt better but still a bit shaky so I made a coffee and sat down a while.

Once I had recovered I went back out and got the job in hand finished in the fruit cage, the areas that needed wood chip are all done, the summer raspberries have a mulch layer of wood chip on top of their pots, I have cut down the autumn raspberry canes and did a bit extra pruning of the blackcurrant bushes. I got half a trug of weeds out which will go to the rabbit/guineas for tomorrow’s snack. I secured the posts and canes and then shut the gate, that is all that will need doing in there now until well into spring except a bit of potash feeding for the strawberries to encourage flowering.

A midway through and finished picture of the fruit cage.

Indoors to light the Rayburn, John called in for a cuppa and I will have a quick sit down before a chap arrives mid afternoon to collect some hens.

Just as I am about to get back into working outside the weather is on the turn, the forecast over the next couple of days is for warm temps but accompanied by rain and possible high winds 🙄 urgh. Not to be deterred I have rainy day jobs in mind including getting the big poly tunnel up together and ready to plant into.

And right on cue just as I wrote this, it began to rain 😂

Tuesday: I have enjoyed another great morning outside getting things done, I am really enjoying myself at the minute, the weather is fairly kind and I have the energy and strength, fabulous. First up as always was the morning rounds and this time while I was doing them I cleaned out the goose hut, I have to then close the door all day as the chickens would get in there and scratch it all out again 🙄 Then onto the garden or more precisely the big poly tunnel, I tidied it up a little, pruned the grapevine, tidied up the strawberries and topped up the compost they are growing in. I made sure everything else was tidied up and added extra compost, I have chard and flat leaf parsley growing nicely. The other things overwintering in there are the lemon grass and the Chinese gooseberries, I am hoping they come through the winter ok along with the basil and the lemon verbena. All look ok at the minute so fingers crossed. I cut up some old compost bags and used them for weed suppressant round the edges and then I topped up an empty raised bed and sowed some early carrot seeds. I have covered them with fleece and we will see if they germinate or not, nothing to lose as they are some seeds I found from last year so if they don’t grow it’s not a big loss. I sorted out the potato bags and I need to order some first earlies, I am going to grow these in the tunnel as well, I don’t normally do earlies but it’s good to change things about now and again.

Early in January it’s mostly about preparation for the months ahead, there is not much that can be sown until early next month. It’s a good month to get your crop rotation plan sorted and write down anything you would really like to grow. Sit with a cuppa and order your seeds, onion sets, garlic bulbs and seed potatoes. I have just ordered mine, the plants are despatched to you at the appropriate times for planting so you can’t go wrong really. I have also ordered some grafted plants, water melon and aubergine, two plants I find difficult to get going from seed as a general rule. Often with the amount I order I get a ‘deal’ of some kind, this time I have opted for 36 geranium plug plants for £2.99 I probably won’t keep them myself but what I will do is grow them on and put them out for sale for a couple of quid each depending on size, that way I will hopefully cover the costs of the veg I have bought. That’s what I always aim to do with the veg/fruit I sell at the gate, if I can cover the cost of the seeds, growing them and harvesting what we need then I am doing myself a favour plus providing some tasty home grown veg/fruit for customers, a win, win situation 😀

Indoors at lunchtime to grab a sandwich and get the Rayburn lit, decide what to have for dinner later and prep it.

Wednesday: The weather is holding beautifully which means after doing the animals I was able to get another morning out in the veg garden. I started off tidying the greenhouse a little bit, moving stuff around, sowing a few broad bean seeds then out onto the beds. I lay awake last night thinking about what beds I had done and what still needed to be tackled, a bit sad lol but at least I got up this morning knowing what I wanted to achieve. You may remember last year I tried the ‘chop and drop’ thing, well not this year, I didn’t really like the untidy look and more importantly it didn’t give a feeling of an end and a beginning if that makes sense, I also found that I felt I had a lack of control over the garden which persisted all season long. So this year I am clearing and tidying which is what I have been doing this morning, I am happy with what I have done and whilst doing it I am mentally making a note of what will go where which I felt unable to do last year. As it stands out there I just have two more areas to sort out, I do have to replenish the soil with homemade compost or manure but once everything is cleared I can get that done. Both the compost heap and the manure pile are very wet at the moment which in turn makes heavy work so I will wait a while and hope it continues to dry out some more. I still have a few bits of produce growing, the winter spinach and a few tiny cabbages that the birds have been at, I have now put protection over them so they can continue to grow. There is of course curly kale still in the ground and the sprouting broccoli which I am able to get a few bits off of. The babbington leeks are pushing up through, they are a perennial leek and at the moment I’m not quite sure how that works. With conventional leeks you plant one and pull it when it’s bigger the perennial leeks should keep produce off shoots I suppose but as yet that hasn’t happened. I pulled up some radish, I need to try and find out which variety these are as they are far better than the usual French types. They are white and grow to golf ball size, tasty and more importantly they don’t bolt and go woody, a winner as far as I am concerned and a definite to grow again. Oh and the rhubarb is beginning to grow 😀😀

I have to order some more weed membrane to block out the light on the growing beds so that weeds don’t become a big problem. At the moment I am using black plastic which I reuse each year until it falls apart so although it’s not the option I would like it’s the one I take. The reason being that the thin fabric stuff gets absolutely ripped apart by the winds up here, the thicker stuff is very costly and I need quite a lot of it. I will keep searching, I may eventually find an alternative.

So scrap what I have just written, I am going to trial jute, it’s a natural fabric, it will have a limited life span but it’s better for the environment, hopefully it will do a similar job to the plastic in cutting out the light. I also am thinking I can use off cuts of it as strawberry mats or cut holes in it to plant into, watch this space and I will let you know how it performs 😀

Thursday: The weather is a bit more feisty today lol but despite having lots of rain overnight, this morning it is dry and windy. I had already decided not to work on the garden today there are other jobs that are calling. One of those was my jam jar cupboard, I have a cupboard dedicated to jam jars, bottles, Kilner jars and any other glass container that might come in handy, some have been bought, some given and some had goodies in them made by others so it’s quite a collection. Over time they just get washed and stuffed anywhere that is not in the way and that means that I don’t really know what is in there 🙄 so sorting and tidying the cupboard was a job that needed doing, I can also then see what if anything I need to get for the coming seasons. I made a coffee, went out there and got so engrossed in what I was doing I forgot the coffee and it went cold 😏

That actually didn’t take as long as I thought it would and now I need to find some other jobs to get on with.

I’m not sure what triggered the next job but it took me a lot longer than I had thought 🙄 I think I started off by thinking I will tidy up the office, another area that just gets stuff dumped until you can hardly get in the door to find stuff. My aim was to get some of the things under the bed in the spare room but then I looked under the bed and pulled out stuff that was under there. Stuff that came from Johns Mums and to be honest I have no idea why we still have it, other stuff that we no longer use and have nowhere else for it to go, that all got sorted and out into piles, charity shop, free sites, selling sites. The space was then ready for the things like the travel cot which is stored in the office but can go under the bed. That then led me onto all the other stuff in the office lol, again things we no longer use or that are broken so more piles for recycling or selling on or putting on the free sites. I am not saying the office is now clutter free because there are still things in boxes to be gone through but I have made a dent in it.

Friday: Today has been an altogether different day, Josh arrived early morning to help with the morning rounds 😀 he was all kitted out in mud proof gear and keen as mustard to help me. We fed everything and let them out, collected a few eggs then took some hay to the horses. What made me laugh is that he is a little afraid of the chickens and ducks but no fear whatsoever of the horses. Once we had finished outside we came in for a juice break and chatted about the types of food he likes, then I asked ‘shall we make a cake’ ‘oooooo can we make pie’ he replied lol. I let him choose the fruit and he decided on apple, plum & blackcurrants 🙄 it actually tasted quite nice if a little sharp. He did a good job of rolling out the pastry and even made a pastry triceratops head to go with it 😂 Mid morning, just before Shelley came to pick him up, Sam arrived with Mia and the twiglets, everybody (except the twiglets) had pie 🥧 I looked after the twins and Mia while Sam went off to get some food shopping in peace and then it was time to do the afternoon feeding and egg collection. A lovely day.

When I walk down the driveway at this time of year I always stop when I am halfway back to smell the Winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) that has been growing for a few years now. The amazing sweet scent of this otherwise unremarkable shrub is delicious and a real treat at this time of year. It goes by some other rather sweet names such as kiss-me-at-the-gate or sweet breath of spring 😀 I took a few sprigs indoors to put in a pot on the windowsill for a natural room scent and I also took a couple of cuttings, I’m not sure if they will take this time of year but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

At our old place I had a Daphne and really wish I had dug it up and bought it with us as you could smell its lovely scent long before you got anywhere near it. I think sweet smelling winter shrubs are under used probably because by the time people go to the garden centres en mass it’s late spring and they have passed their best and don’t look particularly engaging but they are definitely worth a thought if you are looking for something to fill a gap and the reward is uplifting in the depths of winter.

Saturday: 😀 yay the weekend, great because John does the rounds in the mornings giving me a break from it. I get on with other things and besides the household chores I spent a small amount of time in the garden. A quick job of tidying the bird, butterfly and beer bed, I call it this because it has a pear, apple, cherry and mulberry tree in it as well as Japanese honeysuckle, blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes which pretty much feed the birds and hopefully some butterflies, the beer comes in with the hop I have growing there though I have never used it for that purpose as yet lol. It was a quick visit outside because it’s a bit blowy and a tad cold so my fingers soon felt the nip in the air. I had intended laying the jute weed fabric but when it’s windy trying to do that by yourself is a tricky job and John has gone off to get feed.

When he gets back the jobs on the sheet are to brush the flue and clean out the Rayburn and then he is building a gate for a new fence in the orchard as the one I put up keeps falling down. I need to stop these demented hens in the front paddock from reaching my veg garden. At first just a couple made it there then a few and now about 15 of them, most of the wood chip I put down on the pathways has been scratched into piles or onto the lawn 🙄 I want to get well ahead with keeping them at bay so that gardening is an altogether pleasant affair this year instead of an angry one because they have scratched up all my hard work.

The gate didn’t get built but John re loaded the wood pile in the covered area just out the back then we actually had a few hours off before starting again with the afternoon rounds, Charlie and Macca walked over for a cuppa, we went and got a bit of food shopping and called in to see Shelley, Martin and the kids to deliver a tray of eggs. By 8.30 I was asleep on the sofa, feeling tired after a busy week 💤

Sunday: The weather was filthy overnight, lashing rain and strong winds but all is settled this morning. Again, John did the morning rounds while I had a shower and did the household chores. A quick coffee and John went out to power wash the POL pen now that we have moved our ex laying hens on to a new home. I don’t know what it is about that job but as soon as it needs doing he moves it directly to the top of the list 🙄 still once it’s done it can be left until we buy in the next batch of POL for selling probably in March.

The plan for the rest of the morning is to go out for breakfast at a local plant nursery, John gets a cooked brekkie and I get to look round at the plants it’s a win, win 😀

I bought an evergreen shrub at the nursery, only a small specimen, I can’t bear to part with the amount of money they want for things when I can grow it on lol. If I specifically wanted something for a certain space then I would but this will go in a pot for now and be put out the front, I’m trying to get a bit of colour out there as it’s all very dead and brown looking. On the way back we called into my Sisters for a cup of tea, one cup lead to another cup and before we knew it we’d been there a couple of hours 😜 We booked a trip to the theatre while we were there, some sort of interactive ghost show 👻 it is billed as ‘not for those of a nervous disposition’ 😝 it will get the adrenaline pumping and blow away the cobwebs lol.

We got back, I lit the Rayburn, I had to pop along the road to get some natural fire lighters as we only had one left. These are rolled up wood shavings and I think they have a extremely thin layer of wax on them, I was finding it more difficult to get hold of newspapers as we don’t ever have them and so these are a great alternative, they also light first time and are very easy to use. Meanwhile John went and finished cleaning the POL pen then he fed the birds and collected the eggs then he finally got on to making the gate and I got tonight’s dinner sorted which is shepherds pie.

The long range weather forecast shows no freezing temperatures in sight so looks like we are going to have a mild winter (famous last words) I must admit that although we always think we need a bit of freezing weather to break dormancy and kill off any pests, I am rather enjoying a milder season. Though it does means I am really wanting to get my teeth sunk into some sowing, I’m like a race horse that is being held back at the minute 🐎 I have learnt from many years experience not to be too hasty in that department though as it can all go horribly wrong 🤪

Whatever you are doing this week have a good one, do something outside your comfort zone if you can, as I say to Josh ‘put your brave hat on and go for it’ TTFN 👋

Posted in Friesland Farm

A happy and healthy 2020 🥳 to you all.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

New Year’s Day: We have had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year. In between the two we have had Johns Mums funeral, an occasion which is always bitter sweet I think, on the one hand you are saying goodbye to someone you will never see again and on the other hand you meet up with relatives you probably haven’t seen for a while, there you have it, the good and the bad all in one hit lol.

The farm has mostly just tickled along, feeding, watering, egg collecting, cleaning out, the occasional mention of what needs doing over the next few months. Planning is just about all that can be done for the garden at the moment, I did go into the greenhouse and dig out the heat pad I bought back in summer. I need to get it set up and then decide what I shall grow on top of it, mostly peppers, chilli and aubergine as they need a long growing season and so the sooner I can get them started the more chance they will produce something at the end of the year.

I am always chomping at the bit at this time of year, raring to get going with seeds and normally I would have to hold off for quite a while but this year with the new greenhouse AND a heat mat I shall be out of the starting blocks early 😀 There are plenty of things to be done in preparation outside, I still have some clearing to do and some wood chip to put down (nearly done 😝) and maybe some changing around, I will see what I am capable of as I go.

John is busy finishing off the boot room floor today and at the end of the week Martin is coming to build a cupboard and a seat/storage in there, happy days, I will be getting much more organised which can only be a good thing 😀

I don’t make New Year resolutions, best not to set yourself up for a fall I reckon 😜 I just make a mental note of what needs changing (and then I usually forget all about it 🤣) Must try harder, where have I read that before 🙄 I do think it’s good to set yourself a challenge though, not dry January as we don’t don’t drink enough to warrant giving it up, and that is not denial it’s a fact lol. We probably have around 6 units a month and most months not even that. I object to being told which day to go meat free so we won’t be doing meat free Mondays, I prefer to choose the day we have eggs on toast for dinner 😂 All that leads me to the 2020 challenge of not buying anything new 😮 yeah, I’m contemplating it and then the first thing I think is what about the sofas 😂 I think I will challenge myself to get what I am comfortable with second hand such as egg cups (we only have one left) and try really hard at limiting everything else. Hmmm now I have said it out loud I’m not sure how this will pan out 🙄

Thursday 2nd Jan: The weather, yes you knew I would get back to it soon lol, the weather, after that horrible wet period which seemed to go on forever, has settled into some unseasonable stability. It’s mild, disconcertingly mild for mid Winter I have to say, but never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I have been outside this morning moving wood chip (nearly done 😝) The fist thing I notice is how unfit I have got from not doing outside work for a while, I managed a measly 5 barrows today and then I was aching and puffed, not good. I need to do something every day to build back up to the amount of barrels I shifted a couple of months back.

Meanwhile John is in the boot room putting the units back together, I say units they are not ready made ones just ply that make up sides and shelves plus a worktop. Obviously as the floor was lifted (to get over the soil pipe) everything else had to be lifted as well and then the sink and washing machine needed plumbing back in.

Martin, who is a carpenter, is coming tomorrow to build this cupboard which will store all the chutneys, jams, homemade liqueurs and a whole host of other stuff. Normally John would have built one but, truth be told, carpentry is not one of his strong skills, he manages with DIY carpentry but I want something robust, he is better off sticking to the plumbing, which he is excellent at 😀

I had to make a small sign to go in the grass under the apple tree at the front. Last year we planted crocus bulbs there and people tend to walk over the grass to the fence to look at the chickens etc, we love that they do that but didn’t think about the poor bulbs that are trying to push their way up this spring, so hopefully a polite notice will keep them off that particular area.

Friday: Just when I talked about how stable the weather was, it changed, last night and early this morning lashings of rain, a cold wind and a definite dip in temperature although still not that low. We got the morning jobs all sorted and waited for Martin to arrive laden with materials to build this storage. I cannot tell you how excited I am to see it getting built, I’m cock-a-hoop about the amount of storage space it has given me. I am definitely going to do much more this year in terms of dried herbs, beans etc plus much more jam and preserves 😀

Once the cupboard was finished I started filling it up, it not only stores what was in the old corner cupboard but I am able to get things out of the kitchen cupboards that have been stored there because there was nowhere else for them, freeing up other space and making life a lot easier in terms of finding stuff. There are bits that you end up with that you don’t really know what to do with but don’t want to throw them away in case they come in useful and I will also now be able to bulk buy should I want to as I never had the space before. Oh the possibilities are endless 😜

I also now have a storage box for hats and gloves etc with a lid at the height that the children (and me if necessary) can be sat to put their wellies on and off which will make life easier too, the option before was to sit on the mucky floor or trapse dirty boots into the kitchen.

While that was going on, John cleaned out all the chicken coops and I cleaned various areas indoors. I also started a to do list for the garden side of things and then a list for the farm side of things so that we both know what needs doing and besides a list is a great way to see what has been achieved 😀

Saturday: Martin came to finish off a few bits, a door on the cupboard that John built under the sink, a shelf over the top of the coat hooks and altered the door between the boot room and kitchen. I was going to have a new door but in the spirit of up-cycling or reusing and making an effort not to buy what we don’t need, we decided to put a wood panel over the bottom half of the door which was glass all the way down, a bit of primer and paint and it will definitely ‘do’.

I am not sure about you but January tends to be a time when I like to go through stuff and have a good old clear out, broken things, junk bits, things I no longer need all get sorted and dealt with appropriately. That’s what I spent most of the morning doing while John did a similar thing outside plus burning odds and ends of wood and paper feed sacks. At lunchtime Shelley came over with Florence and we went to Witney for a coffee and a mooch round. I confess I did buy some new shoes, waterproof pumps actually and a jumper in the sale, the next job is to go through my wardrobe and sort out stuff for the charity shop or rag bin. I don’t really buy many clothes at all and they are usually for working in 😂 but I had a favourite old jumper that is really only good for work now and I wanted to replace it with one for ‘best’ lol.

In the evening we went to a BBQ, yep you read that correctly 😜 an annual event by a couple in the village and it’s more fun than you would imagine in January, food cooked outdoors tastes even better when the temperature is low in my opinion.

Sunday: John did the morning rounds, that will be his last day until next weekend, tomorrow it will be my job from morning till night again 🙄 Meanwhile I got sorted indoors and also put a coat of paint on the door. Then we had Mia and the twins for a few hours, when they got back Sam and Luke had dinner with us and that was pretty much the day filled up.

I took a photo of some bulbs coming up, it’s great to see the wheel of the year rolling on towards Spring 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Minor mishaps, more rain & a jobs list 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 21st October: We are rattling through the year now, always seems slower at this end than the warm end 😜

Weekdays mean I’m on the duty rota for the feeding and letting out of the birds. I do it slightly differently to John and prefer to keep the birds shut in while they eat their feed and go back and let them out after. This is for two reasons, 1, they eat the feed otherwise they are off out to play and the feed is left meaning they are not getting the nutrients they need to be healthy or to lay well, reason 2 is that they are then not all under my feet while I am going from pen to pen, John lets them out as he goes.

When I have finished I look forward to a cup of coffee and I usually sit down and take the time to try and learn something new by reading up a topic that has caught my eye or ear over the weekend. Today though I am having an in depth look at quail, their natural habitat and feeding. Our quail seem a bit unhappy at the minute, they were fine until I introduced new males to the females and now the ladies have stopped laying 🙄 Potentially this is coincidence as the light levels drop and the temps drop but I want to make sure I am not missing anything vital. Having read up I am going to up the amount of seed in various forms and see what happens, I will also pick them up one of their favourite treats of mealworm for extra protein. If that fails to get them laying I may have to bring them in under a lamp as they may just be too cold and using all their energy to keep warm.

I did a trial growing of amaranth, millet and quinoa this year to see how they did, the amaranth was fine and grew well although it didn’t ripen, the un ripe seed will still get used to feed the quail probably, the millet was less successful producing only one stem though I think that has more to do with how I grew it (a trial bed was too small an area and got crowded with the amaranth and tree spinach) the quinoa was totally unsuccessful and nothing grew, again I think a larger area would have been more beneficial. If it taught me anything it’s that the amaranth can indeed be grown in a garden setting while the other two need more agricultural conditions I would say and that’s what trialling is for 🙄

A great spotted woodpecker landed on an oak tree bough outside the kitchen door with a beak full of grubs/caterpillars, I wondered if it had young somewhere nearby which would be completely the wrong time of year, I couldn’t find any information other than they lay eggs March to May so hopefully he was hoarding for himself otherwise any young probably would do well at this time of year. Having said it’s the wrong time of year one of my clematis have also reflowered? This one is an early flowering variety and had already flowered once back in April, further proof, as if we needed it, that the seasons are all over the place 🤔

I did a few hours outside including moving more wood chip 😜 I also moved the torts hut into the greenhouse where they will spend the winter in hibernation, I had to cut a pop hole a bit bigger as Billy was trying to ram himself through it without much luck. I potted up a couple of kiwi that had rooted in the pathway and a Japanese honeysuckle, I cleared some dead stuff and pulled some weeds for the rabbits/guineas.

Sam came over in the afternoon with the twiglets and Mia, we made some gingerbread men although I might find a different recipe next time as this one seemed to have a lot of molasses in it which overpowered the ginger so I guess they were actually molasses men 😂

Oh and I was really surprised to see the garlic I planted only last week has already begun to shoot 😀

Tuesday: It looks promising for a fine, sunny October day today 😀

Every morning when I come in after doing the rounds I make coffee and stand at the stable door in the kitchen for a bit having a look out, and everyday for the past few weeks I have been having a conversation with Cyril 🐿 A one sided conversation obviously 😜 not that far gone yet! ‘Morning Cyril, what are you collecting today’ at this point he either stands stock still hoping I can’t see him or he shoots off up to the top of the oak tree faster than the speed of light lol.

When I first went out this morning I could hear the Lions roaring really loudly today, I got my phone out to try and record it but by the time I had done that they had stopped. It must have been breakfast time for them or something and I thought, crikey if it’s that loud here (approx a mile away) how loud must it be stood right near them 🤔

First major job on the list was to put up electric fencing in the next paddock for the horses to eat off, we did put them in there last week but they bust through into the large paddock so they went back to the side paddock until I could get it sorted. Jack has been charging at me for the last two days so I’m guessing he is hungry. A few minor hiccups, the electric sockets in the stable block still don’t work so had to work out how to get the cable to the other side of the field and still get power. While doing this and feeding the cable along side the paddock, I got to the field gate pulled the cable and the plug end caught the top of the gate, flicked up and smacked me clean on the forehead, 😣 Next plug in the fence charger and make sure it works, yep clicking loudly, move the box so it can be covered from rain and doh second whack from the electric pulse 🤬 have I earned the rest of the day off yet 😜 probably not but I am going to find something pleasant to do 😀

So I spent a good few hours in the garden weeding and clearing, spreading wood chip, the asparagus bed was the main target, it was lovely out there and I have dirty knees to prove I did indeed do a bit 😀

Last year I did chop and drop but I’m not doing that this year lol, I found it was too messy come spring so this year I’m clearing but I have left a pile of asparagus fern choppings where the rhubarb is so that anything that needs a winter home has got one available.

You know when you think 🤔 ah well the day will get better I’m sure, nope, so after my two minor mishaps this morning I had a third (hopefully we are done now) I was doing the feeding and collecting eggs, I stopped to take a photo of the cat, Benny, drinking out of the horse bucket, I thought it would provide a little amusement 😜 I carried on with my rounds and tripped over fresh air, yes fresh air, well there was nothing else around and I hadn’t had any wine it was only four o’clock! That wasn’t the end of the mishap, oh no because if that wasn’t bad enough I put my hand out to stop my face from hitting the dirt and it went straight into the bucket of eggs I had just collected 🤬 and faster than a Kit Kat disappears at a weight loss meeting Benny was in the bucket snacking on broken eggs 😭

My thoughts went like this ‘ffs I’m done today’ ‘I want to cry’ ‘have I broken anything’ ‘nope, better carry on then’ My knee hurts and I have a bit of a headache, hoping that isn’t the head injury this morning 🙄

I am actually going to blame varifocals, I would like a formal inquiry into the correlation of varifocal wearers and minor accidents like mine 😬 I can’t see clearly without them but my spacial awareness is not as accurate as it used to be when I’m wearing them, hence I’m always bumping my head when I have to duck under something, seriously I think there is definitely something in this, either that or my glasses are just crap 🤓

Wednesday: I thought it was going to warm up today but the sun never actually burnt through the mist and by lunchtime I decided I should light the Rayburn. It’s dry though so I am not complaining 😀 Apart from the usual I haven’t actually done much today 🙄 I have done a fair bit of reading up on various topics, cut flowers, autumn gardening jobs and how many sexes there are 😜 a random one that but something came up on my news feed and I just had to look further into it lol, scientists have a blob that is neither a fungus nor a plant/animal and it has 720 sexes, what, how, those questions and more are what I asked myself so I had to find out. I actually didn’t get very far as the explanation was beyond my understanding so I’m leaving that particular topic alone for now lol.

Thursday: It’s 11.45 and it’s raining 🌧 fear not though it has been pretty dry all morning and I have been very busy 😀 After the rounds I went straight out to the veg garden and got stuck into clearing one of the beds. This one is behind the fruit cage next to the brassica cage and I have decided that this is where I will grow flowers, a strange choice maybe as it can’t be seen from the seating areas but there is method in my madness. The beds at the far end are difficult for me to manage, they get the first lot of sun in the morning and then all day until the sun goes down, I very often can’t get out there because it’s too hot and there is no shade. So my plan is to plant perennial flowers on most of it along with some annuals, this will be my cut flower bed 💐 I cleared the bed which had beetroot and fennel still growing in there and then a good few barrows of well rotted manure went on top, I didn’t weed because I then put on a weed membrane and secured it with pegs. By the time I got to the end it was beginning to spit but undeterred I then tackled the other end of the bed, this end I have decided to try a thick layer of wood chip, as I have plenty, and see how that turns out compared to the membrane and manure. It will be a good comparison, it might work better, it might not, only time will tell, the winter weather can now do it’s work and hopefully under the membrane all the insects will be doing their bit as well. Just as I had finished it started to rain heavily so that was good timing. One thing I realised this morning, in fact all this week is that I am only limited by the Lupus, by that I mean I can still do a good mornings hard graft, I was beginning to think I couldn’t and would maybe have to give a lot of it up but no, it seems that if and that’s a BIG IF, if I can keep the disease on an even keel I can do the jobs I want to get done. I have repeat bloods again tomorrow to see if my white cells are going back up before I go back on the meds but I am wondering now if the meds are too much as I keep see sawing on them, might be time to have a conversation with my consultant about the dosage.

This part of the garden by the way is where I was trying out the permaculture and I had my first guild, the comfrey did fantastically every thing else not so, the apple tree eventually died but it had been moved once already because it was failing so I’m guessing it just wasn’t meant to be. Never be afraid to admit when things don’t work out and you have to start over 😏

Friday: By the time I’d finished the morning rounds of feeding watering and letting out it was raining 🌧 hmm I was hoping for a dry day but it’s not to be so I turned my thoughts to chutney. Remember the basket full of green tomatoes that I was hoping would ripen, well they haven’t lol and so chutney making is on the cards. Luckily I had picked a bucket full of apples from the front tree, these are eating apples but they will be fine in a chutney as they are keeper apples and are pretty firm. I surveyed the tree while I was picking and it really needs a good prune and I’m wondering if John and I are up to it or if I get the chap who did the cooking apple last year to come and do it. It’s a case of money expenditure versus strength/energy expenditure, I will see what John says. It needs doing because most of the apples, around 60/70% were tiny and in clumps, a fair few were a double apple so an apple with an extra lump and out of the rest which were all ok there were quite a few with maggot.

Bloods this morning before I can decide what to get on with.

I didn’t get anything else done lol as Shelley and the children came back with me then Sam and the children came over, just as well as it wasn’t a very nice day out, Sam and Mia did the feeding and egg collecting in the afternoon so I didn’t even have to do that 😀

There were a large flock of long tailed tits in the oak tree today, I always say they arrive when the weather is about to get very cold (snow even) so we will see over the next few days if I am right.

Saturday: It was a filthy night last night, rain, wind, orrible, and it’s not any better this morning though not as windy. We did the morning stuff then John went off to get some feed and I sorted some bits in the greenhouse, beetroot and swede I had pulled up when I did the bed ready for winter. It doesn’t look like we will do much outside at all today but that’s fine, we need to get a list sorted of jobs that need doing eventually such as the greenhouse leak and the electric sockets in the stable block. I have messaged the chap about pruning the tree as John decided he didn’t want to do it and we have some beef arriving from a smallholder this afternoon.

I ordered a baby burco so that we can scald these chickens and get them done and in the freezer, I have got to an age where I don’t want to be doing it and I don’t mean because I’m getting too old but I am getting too soft 😏 It’s always been a fine line that you tread when raising your own meat and the older I have got the more I dislike doing the deed but I also am not ready to give up eating meat yet and so the option is meat from the supermarket or from another smallholder. I can easily get lamb and beef, we don’t really eat much pork except bacon and sausage, but chickens are more difficult to get unless you get them from a farm shop and then they are pretty expensive. The expense I have to say is justified as usually they are quite big chickens and you can get three meals out of it and of course they are much more tasty, not pumped full of water and not bleached either so worth the spend but not when you can raise your own.

It turned into an busy couple of hours in the afternoon, John decided to clear the drain that runs across the driveway because the water was not getting away, the rain has not let up at all and now we have the river and lake back in the side paddocks. My nephew and nephew in law arrived with a lorry full of wood for the Rayburn, it has to be cut up yet but it’s old oak from a roof and so it will burn nicely. Then my beef delivery turned up, we ordered from smallholder Emma’s Ewesful Acres ://www.emmasewesfulacres.com/news she does lamb as well but we already have some, I made some rock cakes as a treat and got the Rayburn going, then there was the feeding and eggs to do so rather than sitting down doing a bit of reading like I planned I was busy as a bee 🐝

We have a nice grass fed steak for dinner tonight 😀

Sunday: Clocks went back. A pleasant, sunny morning after a cold night and a frost bit at least no rain 😀 John did the morning rounds while I cleaned out the Rayburn flues and did some hoovering.

Yesterday I made a list of jobs that need doing and this morning we have got on with some of them, disconnect the water pipes from the veg garden before we get a big freeze and a pipe burst ✅ Put the horse box up for sale as we don’t really need it ✅ John has added a few of his own jobs and of course prioritised those 😏 so at the moment only one of the jobs on my list for him has been done 🙄

I am a little bit excited to tell you that I have booked a workshop for myself at a local organic farm and I will be learning about sustainable floristry, I am not planning on going into floristry in a big way lol but I would like to know a bit more about sustainable cut flowers and arranging them so I treated myself 😀

After identifying yet another job that was not on my list I managed to steer John onto one that was 😂 We have a 6ft wide gate by the side of the house that has a smaller 4ft one as well, in the spring the posts rotted away and the small gate post got done but not the bigger one, we don’t open it much anyway but when we do it has to be lifted off the ground so that post needed doing which I have managed to get him working on, he has also loaded up the wood store so he has earned some brownie points today 😬 Meanwhile I have been barrowing wood chip to the paths in the veg garden 🙄 I still have plenty left to do but I have managed to cover a large part of it already.

Sam, Luke, Mia and the twiglets came over and took Biscuit for a walk up the road and Mia had a sit on her back while she was led around the school. Biscuit was exceptionally good once we managed to get her away from the field, I think she thought she would never see Jack again, they have become firm friends.

Light the fire, get the dinner sorted and it’s dark just after 5pm 😏 roll on to the shortest day 🙄

Have a fabulous week everyone 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

A lot of rain, a lot of wood-chip & a few celebrations 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th October: Not raining this morning and it hasn’t rained overnight 😀 although by 12pm Mother nature just couldn’t help herself 😜 However I did manage to get some good jobs done before the rain started, John had cleaned both the big hen huts over the weekend and so it was my turn to clean out some pens. I started with the duck hut, got all the wet soggy straw out and put nice clean stuff back in although it won’t stay like that very long 😐 next it was the turn of the quail, clean out all the wet, dirty soggy stuff and refresh with clean, dry straw. I also got a piece of polycarbonate (which actually was for another job but I can get some more) and stapled it to the side of the hut, putting the dogs away first of course otherwise Mia would take off 🤪 The polycarbonate is to stop the rain blowing in and this making a nicer environment for the quail, it’s see-through which is perfect for letting light in but keeping the wet off. They seemed pretty happy with it all, I also gave them a bit of a treat with some wild bird seed. Next onto cleaning out the Turkey pen, I let them out to roam as it’s easier to do it without them in there, there are signs of rats so I need to sort that out.

After that is when it began to rain so I tackled the small poly tunnel, Monty Don says the tomatoes won’t ripen anymore and I am inclined to agree with him, so I picked all the remaining tomatoes, green and ripe ones and cleared the plants from the tunnel. I have put the basketful in the shed as he says they may ripen in the dark, I’ll give it a go and if they don’t it’s green tomato chutney time 😀 I put in a top dressing of fresh compost and planted the left side with garlic bulbs, the two small tubs I have sown some giant winter spinach and hopefully they will all grow well. I did notice some mouse activity in there, clusters of eaten hazelnuts and tell tale holes so I have set the mousetrap 😏 I don’t want the garlic bulbs all eaten before they get going.

With that job done I then picked some broccoli and purple sprouting spears for dinner tonight and picked a few bits that had gone to seed and gave them to the rabbit/guineas who squealed with delight lol.

I took a couple of other photos while I was out there, the first was a little ‘shroom village’ I love his time of year when these appear all over the place, I like to imagine that they are indeed little villages 😜 The second photo is of our ducks making the most of the recent downpours which has left a small lake in the corner of the paddock. The river that goes with it has now gone but it has left a playground for them to enjoy. Late last night when we were stood out there we could hear wild ducks also enjoying the temporary feature.

Lunchtime 😀 then tidy and clean the boot room, I have been looking at ways to improve this room, gently showing pictures of a built in thing to John lol. Ideally I would like a bench to sit on when getting boots on and off, mostly for the grandchildren 😉 and I have a few other ideas that would make the room more workable than it is at the moment, we will see, it may never happen but it just might if I’m lucky ☺️

Well that took me all afternoon and then some to tackle the boot room 😜 I managed to bin a black bag full of stuff and a black bag full of old coats, gloves etc for the clothes bin and now it looks a whole lot better than before. I have also secured a date from Martin to do some carpentry out there 😀 Hopefully I will eventually get a room that works rather than a room I have to work around 🙄 The only problem with getting it sorted is that a lot of it got put out into the next undercover bit lol so guess what is on the jobs list for tomorrow.

A bonus of tidying and sorting was that in the preserves cupboard there is mincemeat and I found a couple of bottles of sloe gin I have made either last year or the year before 😀

It hammered down again this afternoon and John came home early to a few jobs lol, the eggs and feeding because I was still knee deep in boot room junk, then rod the drain out the back because the water was starting to come in, change a light bulb (not an ordinary one or I would have done it myself) haha no peace for the wicked 😜

Dinner, animals shut away, dogs washed so they can come into the clean boot room and the day is done. And still it keeps on raining 😏

Tuesday: So as stated the job on the list this morning was the undercover back area but first the animals all need feeding and letting out. On my first trip up to the small back paddock I can see that Jack has let himself out into the large paddock, Biscuit, bless her has stayed where she should. She is a very sweet little Shetland pony, they can have the affectionate term of ‘shitlands’ 😂 but she is not of that ilk…..not yet!

Onto the job in hand and starting to sort out what needs keeping and putting away and what needs throwing out. Over the years we seem to have accumulated a huge array of gadgets and gizmos that do various jobs around the place, sometimes they may only get used once a year, sometimes they are in constant use just depends on what needs doing. One thing we do have a lot of is horse paraphernalia 🙄 anyone who has horses or has someone living with them will know that they don’t throw anything away. They also get given old stuff from people giving up the horses and so it continues until the place is stuffed with numnahs, bridles, head collars, saddles and rugs of every type, one for the wet, one for the cold, one for a bit wetter or a bit colder, one for -5 -10 -15 one for the summer, one for the flies, its endless, pretty sure the horse couldn’t give a flying **** about being trussed up and would love to just run free 😜 That said I have found spaces for it all and the rest of the stuff and it’s looking a whole lot tidier out there which in turn gives me a clear mind and a happy disposition, objective achieved 😬

Yesterday when I was tidying up the boot room I was sighing at the amount of alcohol that was in the preserves cupboard, we don’t drink that much, some of it came from Johns Mums house, most of it from birthdays and parties that didn’t get used and is still there. Then I looked in another fridge we have out the back that is not plugged in and more bottles of various alcoholic beverages, I’m thinking of having a bottle stall 😜

I have discovered a leak in my greenhouse 😏 not a big one but with all the rain we are having it’s finding it’s way in, I have mentioned it to John and it looks like a roof window so as soon as the weather backs off we will fix it.

The sun shone beautifully this afternoon and it was most welcome in fact I went out to the front and just stood there letting it warm me, it had a good bit of warmth in it too considering the time of year. It made doing the afternoon rounds a pleasant job instead of drudgery.

Wednesday: Turned out to be a lovely day full of sunshine. In the morning after the rounds I did a bit in the big tunnel, I can’t do as much as I want to get done because I want to protect the pathways with the wood chip before I start barrowing manure into there, so I did some cutting back and tidying up. I sorted out some tomatoes and the little bit of remaining veg to go out for sale and found a bucketful of greens for the rabbit/guineas.

The guy came with the wood chip which was handy, the pile is huge and he has more if I want it. I got stuck into moving some of it straightaway, 15 shovel fulls in each barrow, around 30 loads, backwards and forwards until I was a bit pooped lol, and hot because the sun was still shinning fiercely. It should easily do all the pathways in the veg garden with a good thick cover which will kill off the weeds and make walking round the garden a lot less messier after the rain 😀 a quick rest and cool down before the afternoon feeding gets done.

It took me half an hour to cool down and another 15 mins to be able to move 🤪

I did think that after doing the rounds I wouldn’t be able to do any more woodchip moving but I found a bit in the reserve tank and did a few more barrowfuls. The sun was beginning to sink lower and lower, as it was still sunny the gnats were up and dancing into the night and I have enough issues to process without all over bites adding to the mix so I called it a day.

At dark John usually puts the animals away to bed, when the clocks change and it gets dark early it will be my job but for now it’s his. Tonight he called on me to help him as Ted was up on the roof, who is Ted I asked him, Ted the Turkey he replied 😂 I had no idea he had named him, just him it seems as he is the only one of the three that won’t go to bed nicely lol.

Thursday: A cold night and a ground frost this morning, I made the mistake of thinking because it was sunny yesterday it would be warm enough not to light the Rayburn, wrong, it was cold and a tad damp which is even worse 🙄 So it will probably get lit every night from here on in and eventually will be running all day and night.

I did the morning rounds and then went to check on the torts as I do each morning, I can’t find Billy 😏 he was there yesterday and they can’t get out, I will do another good search later but judging by the ground disturbance where I last saw him something has taken him, he is pretty heavy mind you and I wouldn’t think an animal would get far with him, also he would be pretty difficult to eat if not impossible.

I went out to get my hair cut with Shelley and when we came back Sam was here with the twiglets. Shelley went to have a look for the tortoise and crisis averted it seems I didn’t look hard enough 😂

The chap with the woodchip came with a second load 😬 and now I literally have heaps of it.

Did the afternoon rounds, lit the Rayburn got the dinner ready and sat down with a cuppa 😀

Friday: Repeat blood tests this morning so up and on with it 😀 I went to Shelleys afterwards where we put together a new toddler bed for Florence and then had some soup before returning home. Shelley stayed for a bit and barrowed some woodchip with Josh and Flo helping until they got bored and cold lol. This evening we are going to Sams for tapas so I made those, I did dates stuffed with sheep’s cheese and wrapped in prosciutto and some gluten free mushroom pin wheels, I also roasted a bunch of grapes to see how they would turn out 🙄

I bought some kefir the last time we went shopping and I had a sup today but I have found it makes me feel sick, it’s the second time I have tried it and the same result so I maybe won’t be trying that again. Kombucha I can tolerate so will stick to that I think.

Saturday: A dry start to the day, John did the morning rounds while I did housework, a bit more in depth than a run around of the hoover and a flick of the duster this time 😂 So that took up a large part of the day and I can now see the top of the kitchen table which had got clogged up with ‘stuff’ John meanwhile did some cleaning out of the hens and cut back some tree branches that snapped off last winter and were overhanging the neighbours field.

In the afternoon we watched the live parliament debates wondering what the heck is going to happen with Brexit and hope that they sort something out sooner rather than later.

It was Johns 40 year school reunion this evening which was great fun, considering it wasn’t my year or even my school I knew quite a few people there, having never moved away we both still see a lot of old school friends locally.

Oooo yes and Charlie and Macca got engaged today 😀😀

Sunday: A clear night last night meant a cold start to the day this morning 🙄 John did the morning rounds while I did some mundane household jobs 🤪 Then we went out for breakfast which made a nice change. John went off to visit his Mum and I took the time to get into the greenhouse and pot up a few plants that my Mum had bought over, some stocks (a nice cottage garden flower) and some dancing ladies which are rose campion but in various different colours. I just need to decide where I am going to plant all these flowers lol and also decide if I am going to totally rearrange the garden (which will be a mighty task) or just to modify it.

Tea and cake in the afternoon at Mums for my niece Zeraphina’s 3rd birthday and not is that another day done but also another week.

Take care and take time to enjoy something everyday however small.