Tag: poly tunnel

Posted in Friesland Farm

Procrastination, lots of rain & leftovers.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Captains Stardate 7th October 2019 😜 Monday again already, I’m pretty sure that along with the rest of you, I’ve no idea how time flies by so fast so enjoy every day, enjoy the little things that make you smile, a favourite tune with the volume up, take a few seconds to really feel the sun, rain, wind on your face (this might not make you happy but they are a confirmation that you are alive and well, which should) put your wellies on and jump in a puddle, go on really have a good splash around, look around on your journey and take note of something you have passed by a million times and never really seen before, life is precious and can change in a split second so make the most of everything.

It’s raining this morning 🤪 I procrastinated a little by cleaning the area around the hob where the piece of kitchen fell down, it’s now back up but the area needed tidying and the dust wiping down. I should have gone out and done the rounds first though as by the time I did it was raining much heavier 🙄 A quick round, as John had already topped up all the water buckets last night, and back inside to have a coffee and a think about what to get done today.

I picked up some garlic bulbs yesterday when we went to the garden centre to get some more compost, I need to divide up a few plants and pot them ready for spring time. The circle of the year constantly turning never ceases to amaze me as already the saffron crocus and the muscari are pushing up some tiny shoots of green, spiderwort tips are also beginning to emerge though of course they will all slow right down in mid winter it’s nice to see they have hope lol. The sunrise this morning was a vibrant pink, though if you had only looked out of the front windows you would have said it was grey, different aspect gives a different outlook.

I rather feel I am procrastinating again sat here typing away so I’d better get on with something useful 😏

So firstly I set to making the red tomato chutney:

2 1/2 lbs ripe tomatoes all sizes cut the bigger ones

7floz red wine vinegar, cider vinegar if you don’t have red

6oz muscavado sugar or any sugar will do you just get a different colour result

4 small onions chopped

4 small cloves of garlic chopped

1 cooking apple chopped

A couple of handfuls of sultanas, I used the ones I made from the grapes

A sprinkle of ginger powder

A sprinkle of paprika

Put it all in the pan bring to the boil then reduce and simmer for approximately 1 to 1 1/12 hours, put into sterilised jars, they will store for at least a year if not longer.

Did you know that 24 million slices of bread are wasted every single day in the UK! This house is no exception when it comes to leaving the crusts, generally I throw them out for the birds but today I have about 4 crusts, a hunk of bread and a couple of flatbreads that should have been eaten over the weekend and weren’t so I made a bread pudding. I’m am not keen on the traditional looking pudding with slices of bread, the edges always seem to end up hard so I did it the other way. The bread was whizzed up into crumbs, we had a seeded loaf but that’s fine, all adds to the flavour 😀 I added milk, sugar, sultanas, egg, mixed spice, melted butter and let it all soak in so the mixture is soft and then bake it for a delicious pudding or as a cold slice with a cup of tea. You could doctor this anyway you want to, orange, lemon, cinnamon, ginger, cherries, dried fruit of any type, even chocolate chips whatever flavours you have or fancy. The basic measurements were, 250g bread, 300ml milk, 50g melted butter, 1 large egg, 70g brown sugar, the rest is up to you 😀 John doesn’t like bread and butter pudding he says, my guess is he has never had it and I won’t tell him what it is just leave on the side until he asks if he can have some lol, I’ll let you know what happens, if he really doesn’t like it all the more for me in the freezer 😀

I have been taste testing the chutney as it reduces, I think this one is going to be one that needs to mature, the temptation is to add more sugar but I’m going to leave it and hope that after a couple of months in store the flavour has deepened.

I’m on a roll now with the whole ‘making’ things, especially with leftovers today, next was the vegetable box at the bottom of the fridge 😀 A few sticks of celery, some wrinkled mushrooms, and I am on my way to making vegetable stock for soups over winter. We all have those bits that need using up and there is no better way than throwing them all in a pan with some herbs and seasoning, simmering it for a couple of hours to end up with a useful pan of goodness that can either be drunk as a gut healer or used in winter soups like leek and potato. When you peel your veg put all the scraps in a bag and pop it in the fridge until you have enough, nothing is off limits here, peelings, provided you have washed them, from sweet potato, carrots, swede, parsnip, etc, anything remotely vegetable like that is lurking and unlikely to get used otherwise, add a chopped onion, some garlic, a tomato or pepper, brassica, literally anything (except beetroot unless you want a red stock 🙄) You will get a different result each time probably but all will be tasty. Separate the veg from the juice and either use the juice or freeze it, don’t discard the veg, whizz them up and use them in your soup recipes as well. You can of course just whizz up the whole lot at the end of simmering and use that but if you want a separate stock for any reason that’s the way to do it.

Tuesday: I got woken up at 5.30 by a peculiar noise a bit like someone trying to shoulder a door in but it wasn’t, I got up and looked out but it was pitch black and I could see anything or hear anything more, it’s a mystery. The next odd thing was Benny wasn’t around, he is usually there miaowing away in the morning for his breakfast, by the time John had gone he still wasn’t there. I went out and called him and he came running from the haybarn, phew, I guess the nice comfy bed of hay is a lovely place to sleep 😴

I am also buzzing this morning with an idea given to me by a visitor yesterday. Kellee is over from the USA and she used to live here on the farm with her Mum (Sue, my Dads partner) and her sister Robin. She loves to come and visit as it bring back childhood memories, she mentioned Airbnb experiences where people get a unique experience in the things they are interested in. I have looked it up this morning and am thinking, yep, I could easily do that here, gardening, grow your own, smallholding, chicken keeping, any number of things really, it’s all buzzing round in my head now lol but it definitely something to think seriously about.

I did a stint in the big tunnel, weeding cutting back getting the dead stuff out then picked a few raspberries, the Autumn ones are doing well if you can get them before the rain spoils them. After having a good few days of feeling quite able, by lunchtime today I was flagging. Being able to recognise the fact that I am feeling tired is helpful because I no longer push myself to the limits and end up much worse, these days I go and have a sit down and maybe even a short nap 😀 to recharge my batteries.

It hammered down in the afternoon, just as well that Shelley, Josh and Flo called in after picking Josh up from school. After the left I did a bit of hoovering and then sorted the walnuts out again 🙄 I had washed them and dried them all then put them on a rack, from the apple storage, but some of them still developed a mould so I wiped them all over with a dry cloth and I have put them in the oven on 50c probably for an hour to try and dry out the shells better. I don’t want the nut inside to dry too much though I want that to dry naturally. I did think about shelling them now but the not meat is still too soft and it’s a bit of a mission just to get one out.

Wednesday: It rained quite heavily in the night and so it was a bit soggy this morning 🙄 I did the morning rounds and I’m keeping the stable birds I for a few days as they have become freeloaders 😜 actually, I have no idea where they are laying and we could do with the eggs. I then went into the greenhouse and picked all the remaining peppers, the foliage is starting to fall off and so that’s pretty much the end of those. There were plenty to pick, mostly small but they will still be useful, I then thought I may as well do the same to the courgettes and cucumbers, if we get a sharp drop in the overnight temperatures they won’t be much good after so pick them now while they still have a bit of substance to them. I also cut some lemongrass, that has grown really well and I would definitely grow it again, it has such a wonderful smell 😀 if you like Thai cooking I would encourage you to grow it or even if you just want to make limoncello 😀 I need to find out what other things I can do with it.

I had quite a few smallish cucumbers so I have begun to make some cucumber relish, ideal for hot dogs, at the moment they have been finely chopped along with onion and red pepper and are sat in salt to draw out the moisture, I can then make the relish tomorrow.

I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before so apologies if I have but going back to the peppers, I have never had much luck with them, I usually end up with one tiny pepper lol, but this year in the new greenhouse, wow, they have done really well and they didn’t even go in there until quite late so I’m excited to plan again for them next year, maybe even a few chillis and I may even try an aubergine again 😜 Just goes to show that the right tools for the job is the way forward.

I also pulled a few ‘mooli’ radish, these are the round ones, accord I think, I got free seeds and thought I might as well give them a go, well they taste great and they grow bigger than a French breakfast radish (size of a golf ball or you can grow them to tennis ball size) but don’t ‘blow’ so they don’t get hollow and woody, these will be a definite regular from now on, they will replace the more familiar red and white radish.

I am off out to Sudely Castle tonight for a audience with my favourite author Phillipa Gregory, very much looking forward to that and we are having Tudor tapas, the mind boggles but I will let you know what they consist of tomorrow lol. In the meantime I have got shepherds pie ready for an early dinner and I will be doing the rounds earlier than usual.

I am hoping that we have a couple of dry days in store so that I can get out on the garden and give it a good tidy, plus I need to dig up the self set potatoes before they rot in the ground.

This afternoon we were sat having a cup of tea in the living room when I spotted a Hummingbird moth on the Verbena which was bobbing about in the breeze, amazing little moth, though I had to have a look at a picture online as they don’t stay still long enough to see what they actually look like lol.

This is a pic from the internet not mine 😬

Thursday: A lovely sunny morning, slightly chilly but hopefully it will warm up a tad over the course of the day.

Last nights outing to hear Phillipa Gregory was fabulous, a talk on the hidden women in history, which was most of them as they were only recorded either through their husbands, through work they may have done and thus recorded in household journals or through crime, was riveting and I could have listened to her for hours. The Tudor tapas were venison sausages in onion chutney, kipper on top of bruschetta and a veg option of avocado on bruschetta followed by a lemon posset/parfait type dessert, fab evening 😀 I do have her new book (signed 😀) to read but I shall resist the temptation during the daytime unless is raining in which case I think that’s allowable lol.

I have bloods this morning and my flu jab 🙄 I have had varying reactions to the jab each year, sometimes nothing at all, sometimes a very sore arm that flared up every few weeks, sometimes decidedly unwell, however I think the alternative doesn’t really bear thinking about especially if there is an epidemic, we have all seen how it can move through animal populations rapidly (bird flu especially) the devastation it would cause in the human population doesn’t bear thinking about, so off I go.

Friday: Ooo what a terrible morning, it’s raining, sometimes hard and it’s blowing a hoolie. At first I thought urgh I don’t want to go out in that but then I had an attitude adjustment and figured at least it will be refreshing and might wake me up a bit lol. We have a long wait until Spring so I am going to have to make the most of what Winter brings, dark mornings and dark evenings, wet weather, cold weather, freezing weather, ice maybe even snow. It also brings the opportunity to get things done indoors, a bit of crafting maybe, reading, catch up on films I have missed over the summer, planning for next years veg. There are also a few of my favourite times of year to celebrate, All Hallows Eve, Bonfire night, Winter Solstice, a few winter birthdays and of course the great Winter Feast that is Christmas.

I started growing pumpkins the year before the first grandchildren were born I think and now it has become a must grow item for me to be able to carry on the tradition lol. I tend to grow small ones that are also suitable for eating but might have to move into the realm of giant pumpkins later on 🎃

I procrastinated a little until the weather looked more acceptable then went out and fed and watered everything letting them all out as I went. It was actually quite mild out there and I wanted to get a couple of jobs done, the first was to divide up my hardy geranium and get some small plants on the go ready for next spring. I got 11 in total, I won’t need most of them so they will go out for sale next year providing they take and make through the winter. The next job was to dig up some self set potatoes, these particular ones come every year in the same place, they are from a batch of Red Duke of York that I planted about 5 years ago. Each year they grow back, strong, healthy plants, no sign of blight no scab they just do really well and they are mostly growing in old manure! It just goes to show that you really don’t need to faff about with some veg they will make it anyway and without any problems. They produce whopping big spuds, ideal for a hungry worker who wants a baked potato 😀 the only problem that does occur is slug damage to some of them because they are growing in something that holds moisture which is why I wanted to get them dug up sooner rather than later. Those were the two things I really wanted to achieve today and so job done ✅ I had a few more walnuts in the greenhouse that I cleaned the outer cases off last week so I bought those in and gave them a wash in some white vinegar and then dried off the shells in a very low oven for about an hour. It should be air drying but I found that because we don’t have constant heating, mould starts to appear on the shells so properly drying them off is a must.

Went out with Sam, Shelley and the children for coffee and cake in the afternoon.

Got a hammering from the rain when the heavens opened at feeding time 🌧 I was trying to find the turkeys who had wandered off, the rain was pouring, splattering onto my glasses which were steaming up, the wind was blowing wet hair onto my face despite having my hood up, urgh hate times like that lol times like that I think what the actual ‘bleep’ am I doing 😜 Came indoors and went straight to the kettle for a nice hot cuppa ☕️

Saturday: Wet, nothing more to say about it than that! John did the morning rounds which gave me a chance to catch up with all the bits indoors that needed doing, the usual mundane stuff such as hang up clothes, put the rubbish out, wash up, a plethora of small jobs that all add up to an hour or two of busy 😜

I had a phone all from the doctor last night about my blood results and no wonder I have been feeling tired, my white cells have dropped too low again 🙄 great, there never seems to be an even keel these days, at least I know why I haven’t been up to speed I suppose but it gets me wondering about exactly how to handle this disease 🤔

We didn’t do a lot more today other than go and get some bits of food shopping and visit Mum and Ken, the afternoon rounds when we got back and light the Rayburn.

Sunday: Oh my days it has been raining heavily all through the night, there hasn’t been much let up for a couple of weeks now so you can imagine what that brings 🙄 I woke up at 6.30 that was not the first time mostly due to the noise of the rain on the tin roof, I got up and made a cuppa then went back to bed and did a bit of reading. I couldn’t sleep because I was wondering what we would be greeted with out there come daybreak and what to do about it. The horses have been grazing a large paddock all summer but it has no overhanging shelter apart from trees at one end, there is plenty of windbreak from the hedges but that doesn’t help in these conditions, we had left the other paddocks to work as standing hay hoping that by the time we needed it the grass would be exactly that. But needs must when the weather drives and this morning I need to move them to a field with a shelter, I couldn’t bring them in as they are already soaking and would get cold standing in a stable, we don’t have luxury features such as a dryer lol. When I first went out to the paddocks the water that is standing came over the foot of my welly by the time I had got the hay nets and gone back out a river had formed down through the middle of the all the side paddocks and the rain is not letting up 😏 I moved the horses and they seem happy to be in a field with grass but they can’t gorge on too much grass all at once, I don’t have an alternative at the moment though.

Delighted that I just managed to secure a load of wood chip from a tree surgeon next week 😀 that will go on the veg garden paths, they are in desperate need of doing especially with all the rain.

The rain eventually eased off though how long for is anyone’s guess.

My brother went to a garden centre that was selling off all its stock ready for a refit, he picked up some packets of seeds for me at 10p a packet, I think I need to plough up a field 🤣

Posted in Friesland Farm

Lots of rain, passata & baked beans 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 30th Sept: Oh don’t you just love Monday mornings 🙄 I wanted to get on but the gremlins are at it again, half way into feeding the electric trips again 😏 Our electric consists of 4 fuse boxes each one reaching further out into the farm, so the main box is in the kitchen, then we have another in the outer building another in the stable block and then one in the hay barn. This means multiple trips backwards and forwards to discover which fuse is actually causing the problem, I unplug everything and turn everything off and go through a process of elimination backwards and forwards, plugging back in as I go until I am left with the stable fuse box which is knocking out the main box in the house. Eventually I find the individual fuse that is causing the problem so now we have everything working except the sockets in the stable block, everything is unplugged but it’s still not staying on so I’m guessing it’s actually a socket that is the problem but which one 🤪 The problem is that this ring of sockets are the ones out to the electric fencing in the side paddock so I’m hoping the horses and the chickens don’t work it out until we get it sorted 🙄 At least I can make a coffee now 😀

I spent the rest of the morning out in the veg garden, it is supposed to rain later so I’m taking advantage of the dry morning. First some weeding and tidying of the small poly tunnel and then onto some small raised beds, all the weeds went to the rabbits and turkeys who were happy to have some greens. I’m covering beds with weed membrane as I clear them, it will save me a whole heap of time in the spring and I did a couple of beds last year and it worked well, besides if I don’t get round to planting into them they will stay manageable. I squished a few caterpillars in the brassica cage, mainly on the sprouts, John loves them and so I grow 2/3 plants each year for Christmas. Then onto picking a few things, I still have plenty of tomatoes, a few courgettes, some peppers, the odd cucumber, thousands of hazelnuts on the floor 😂 so I’m still gathering in the harvest so to speak. I picked a few raspberries then some blackberries and by this time it’s lunchtime so I made an almond milk, banana, raspberry and blackberry smoothie and had a quick sit down before starting on tidying the house 🙄

The rain came on cue as I was hoovering 😏 so I spent some more time tidying up and sorting out tonight’s dinner, then out to do the afternoon rounds and collect the eggs.

I saw Cyril the squirrel tip toeing across my lawn, I said ‘I can see you Cyril’ at which point he stood stock still lol, then I said ‘it’s ok you can have the rest of the nuts I’m done collecting’ 😜 and he scuttled off towards the walnut tree.

John came home and we deduced that is one of the actual sockets that is causing the electric to trip, we now have to figure out which of the sockets it is and what’s causing it. As they are all inside at a guess something has got inside but that’s the best guess we have at the minute. The electric fencing will have to be plugged in the back here instead of the stable block and it needs doing before the horses realise it’s not on so that is Johns job later as I am going for a massage 😜

The lady and little girl that we got the pony from came over to see how she had settled in, very well so no worries there. We were in the field when a VERY LOW FLYING Chinook came right over where we were standing, you can imagine how the horses reacted not to mention the chickens flying everywhere. That has to be the lowest I have seen one fly and it’s bloody dangerous for both the horses and people when you are in the field and that happens. I sent a complaint via the website e-mail but it was returned as undelivered, typical, I have complained by phone in the past and found it doesn’t make any difference anyhow, so in future if I hear a helicopter I will get out of the field quickly!

Tuesday October 1st 😮 We are trying to get up earlier, we have been getting up around 7.15 which is quite late really. Last night I set the alarm but apparently did not turn it on 🙄 so again today it was around 7.15 before we got up. I like to think it’s the natural body clock and that it’s something we should follow and perhaps if we were both working here we would but John has to be at peoples houses before they go to work so that’s out of the window, for him at any rate 😜 I got the morning rounds done and it was already spitting with rain, by 9am we had a full on downpour and I think it’s set for most of the day so I haven’t made any plans to go back outside until necessary at feeding and egg collecting time later this afternoon. I have plenty I can turn my hand to indoors, some very outstanding paperwork, making some kind of sugar free goodies, checking thoroughly through the cctv to see if I can find out what actually happened to the cat. The more I think about it the less I think he just took off, I think he would have returned by now if that was the case, so I’m left with an accident of some sort or he has been taken, by what or who I don’t know and maybe the cctv can help, but there are nearly 100 hours of footage to look through 😏

I just had a quick look at the forecast, heavy rain right through to 9pm 😮

So rather than wall to wall rain, the sun actually came out ? By that time I was knee deep in paperwork 😏 but on the plus side the farm accounts are up to date, just need to do the plumbing ones but that can wait for another day, my eyes are tired, not used to doing a days paperwork anymore lol.

I felt the need for some stodgy food for dinner so we had a beef slice with homegrown mash potatoes and broccoli and then I made a sugar free pudding, basically I made a fruit sponge pudding with stevia instead of sugar, we had a small amount of ice cream with it and felt very full and satisfied. I know there are many people moving to a plant based diet but I wonder how many of them do a proper physical job, heavy lifting, digging, carrying 20kg sacks, lugging stuff about all day, working outside in the cold, I would bet not many, you really need some excellent fuel when you are doing jobs like that I think. Not one to write something and then carry on regardless, I looked it up, it seems you can do manual labour but supplements are mentioned and careful balancing of the diet is a must.

Wednesday: I had finished the morning rounds and was just finishing my coffee when Mum arrived to do some work 😀 I’m sure she has more than enough work of her own but she comes over to help when she can, love her 😘 Rather than work on the veg garden which is sodden we decided to sort out the plants directly in front of the house. When I put them all out there I had a definite idea of how I wanted it to look, which never really transpired due to one thing or another and now it’s looking, frankly, a muddle at the very least. So we moved pots around and took things out and put other pots in then got some of the weeds out of the gravel until it looked more structured and less cluttered. The sun was shinning so it was a good location to be working in.

John came home for lunch and a cuppa then after he left I cleaned out the rabbit which Josh has named Rosie and she is doing really well he even held her on his lap yesterday 😀 Then I went out and planted a few of the tulip bulbs in the driveway grass area, a bit of cheer for spring, we planted some crocus under the apple tree a month or so ago so it should be nice and cheery in the early part of the year. It’s getting near to (but not quite time for) feeding and so when I go out at this time of day I have stalkers 😋 the pitter patter of tiny hens feet and sometimes they are not even that subtle, launching themselves on a bucket if I happen to have one in my hand no matter what is in it!

By the way it’s a fab day, the sun is shinning and it’s not cold a real boost after the last week of rain.

Thursday: A frost again this morning, that’s two in a row and so the high water content veg will soon be showing signs of going over, the courgettes and outdoor tomatoes especially, the rhubarb leaves which were already wilting will fall off, the leaves on the trees will begin to brown and fall quicker 😔 There is no stopping the march of time into Winter 😜

Cor blimey that is a tad chilly out this morning, I came back in and put my wax jacket on instead of my gillet and even the ends of my fingers were feeling it inside my gloves 🙄 I flicked the electric fire on in the living room to take the chill off the air. John and I discussed lighting the Rayburn but it’s a difficult time of year to get it right, the building does not take much to heat it up so having the Rayburn on would make it too warm in here but without it it’s decidedly chilly in the evenings and early morning especially when it’s a cold night like last night. The temps today are forecast to be up to 13c but that is even through the night which would then be too warm and we would be sweating lol, ideally once the Rayburn is lit it wants to be kept going so it’s game of wait and see how long we can tolerate the chill for. The lucky thing is that the year before John cut enough wood for two winters, this will be the second one so he will have to cut more next Spring, lucky because he hasn’t felt well for a few months and so would never have got it done and we would have had to buy in. The good news is that he is feeling and looking much better, he is getting the hang of a healthier diet and rarely has cake, choc or biscuits and has cut down to around 5 cups of tea a day, anyone who knows him will realise what a big change that has been 😜 But he is much better for it 😀

I am having a coffee contemplating what jobs to do today, topping up bedding straw in some of the sheds/huts is a definite, especially as it’s got colder and wetter, the torts need to be monitored closely now to watch for them closing down towards hibernation. They need clean straw packed into their hut which they will spend more and more time in, when they no longer come out they will be packed away and put in the shed until next spring. There are the tomatoes of course lol, I will probably have a go at the Passata today, the last of the walnuts need cleaning up and drying ready for use and there is plenty I could do on the garden, some self set potatoes that need digging up and always at this time of year clearing of dead or dying stuff ah decisions decisions 🤔

I decided that first off, as I have been talking about it long enough and besides it was still a tad cold out, that I would make the passata. As I was doing it I was still thinking that I would freeze it but I have taken the plunged and put it jars and then in a water bath whoo hoo go me 😜 I will put two jars in the fridge just to be on the safe side but the other I will put in the dark preserves cupboard and leave it a while to see how it stores. I did the traditional Italian method (almost) but I think I would change a couple of things next time, the Italian way is processing the fresh tomato so no blanching to remove the skins as a lot of the flavour is in the skin apparently. I used some overripe toms and some just ripe but I would always use overripe in future as they are much easier, the bigger toms I used had a lot of flesh so they were fine but the smaller ones probably should have been scooped out and the middles put to the side, only small changes but things I think would make it better, the Italians by the way do scoop out but these were cherry toms so a bit fiddly. I kept the pulp pure so no basil or garlic because I may use it for chilli which won’t require basil. Not having a mooli 🙄 I used, firstly a steamer pan and squished them through the bigger holes then a sieve and the back of a wooden spoon to get as much as I could from them, a bit of effort required but not too bad with a small batch. I didn’t weigh the tomatoes but I ended up with three 1lb jars which I felt was a good ratio for the tomatoes I used. The pan has a clean tea towel in the bottom and wrapped round the jars to stop them moving about and as a bonus my tea towel gets a good boiling, win win I say 😀 It smells like a Chinese laundry in the kitchen with the tea towel boiling away, I know the smell because pre children I used to work in one (not a Chinese one but I like the saying) it reminded me of the hot washed sheets as they went through a huge roller machine that would dry and press them at the same time, funny how smells can bring back long ago memories.

Well I got the jars out of the water bath and the passata has separated 😏 nothing was ever mentioned in anything I have read so I did some further research and it seems that blanching the tomatoes is a very good idea, I didn’t do it remember, it’s a good idea because it destroys an enzyme that cause the separation of tomato and liquid, so in future I will definitely be blanching, apparently it’s still fine to use, it just doesn’t look good in the jar lol.

This is what I found:

‘During storage, pulp and juice in home canned tomatoes may separate, especially in sauce or juice made with crushed or puréed tomatoes. Separation is caused by an enzyme, Pectose (Pectinesterarse), found in high concentrations in tomatoes. The enzyme is activated when tomatoes are cut. To reduce separation, heat tomatoes quickly over high heat to 82 C (180 F) to destroy the enzyme’

We decided with the weather forecast for this evening, windy and wet, that we would light the Rayburn and so not one to waste the use of free cooking I cooked the first dinner of the winter on the top 😀 It will be nice to have warm dry towels and a overall warmth in the house.

Friday: I did the morning rounds and then mostly had the day off 😜 I went with Shelley, Josh and Flo to soft play where we met Sam, Mia & the twiglets as they have become affectionately known. By the time we got back in the afternoon John was already home and had lit the Rayburn, he went and got a few bits of shopping and then did the afternoon rounds while I did some tidying and hoovering. Shelley, Martin and the kids came over after tea and picked up Rosie the rabbit to take back to theirs and then early evening Charlie came over and we had cheese, wine and a proper natter, day done, bedtime 😴

Saturday: We got the rounds done had a coffee then went off to a local tractor spares jumble sale 😀 not just tractor parts there I should say but plenty of old and interesting bits and pieces too. I bought some lovely old tools, the craftsmanship is so much better than today’s stuff, a lovely old back hoe, I have been wanting to get one for ages and a lovely old fork, nice and light, little and beautifully made, no doubt it was a much loved tool for somebody. I also bought an old galvanised paint bucket, yesterday I went to the garden centre looking for something to plant into and everything is so expensive for what it was. This cost me a fiver, a bit of time cleaning it up and making holes in the bottom and voila a lovely planter for a splash of colour, happy as a pig in poo this morning 😀

When we returned John went to power wash the POL pen and I went into the garden, the outdoor tomatoes have blight which is a shame as there are loads of fruit on them, some beefsteak and some cherry but none of them any good so I pulled them all up and took them to the burning pile. I watered the poly tunnel, I keep forgetting that it needs doing now that the rain is doing the job outside 🤪 and I weedkiller the pathways, they are just too weedy to hoe and I’m not sure what else to do with them, I need a whole load of wood chip delivered ideally then I could use that to smother the weeds perhaps.

I still have plenty of tomatoes ripening I the tunnels and greenhouse but there are also a lot of green ones as well, that’s where green tomato chutney recipes are useful. I do though have a lot of very small cherry tomatoes that are ripe but smaller than average, I think I might do a ripe tomato chutney with these 😀

Sunday: Up and out to do the rounds, I was doing the orchard when I heard John chatting away and wondered who he was talking to, I suddenly remembered that the lads with the ferrets were coming this morning to do a bit of rabbiting lol. John went off to visit his Mum and I took a coffee out to the greenhouse, the sun is shinning this morning so it was a nice place to be for an hour or so. I spent my time, potting up some Chinese lantern that I had grown from seed but not yet divided and they were becoming a bit crowded in the one pot. The rest of the time I spent shelling beans and this is where the baked beans come in, they are haricot beans which I trialled and they did very well considering the few plants I grew. I also did a few kidney beans which also grew well, they have both been drying in the greenhouse waiting for the moment for me to shell them and now they are done. There are not many of each but it just shows that I could plant plenty more and they would be a good crop. I don’t think we use dried beans and pulses in this country as much as we should, me included. There seems to be divided opinion on wether to soak your dried beans prior to cooking or not, I think I may have to excitement with the soak and no soak methods and see which I prefer. I think I would err on the side of caution for the Kidney beans mind you as they contain a toxin that needs to be extracted before eating apparently but I shall still look forward to making a chilli with them at some point in the future, provided I remember to soak them prior to thinking, I’ll have chilli today 🤪

I let the turkeys out into the orchard pen today and the first thing they did was fly over the top! So they are currently grazing in the front paddock, turkeys are quite sweet birds, much more gentle than I thought they would be and quite timid, the chickens soon see them off and tasty morsel lying around.

With the daylight hours ever decreasing the egg numbers are dipping drastically too, I think currently we are feeding twice as many birds than are laying 😏 The last new lot have never got up to speed with only 38 eggs out of 50 and now they have dropped down to around 28. We have tried leaving them in until lunchtime to make sure they are not laying elsewhere, they have a light on for a few extra hours in the evening but it’s not helping much. They have been a ‘rouge’ batch from the beginning, the first day half of them flew over the electric fencing and we have not been able to keep them in despite multiple attempts at various things including heightening the fence, a lost cause is what they are I think.

Posted in Friesland Farm

The wrong shoes, plum moth and hard working Mums 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th August: whoo hoo Monday again 😬 Not a bad day weatherwise so far, cool enough, a touch of sun, no rain and no wind 😀 After doing the morning stuff I got on in the garden, not veg gardening, today I am giving that a rest but flowers instead. I have a few plants that are struggling where they are and I wanted to save them so I have dug them up, a fushia, delphinium, lupin and gaura, and potted them in fresh compost and put them in the greenhouse for a boost. Then I went out to the front by the egg shed and hoed and weeded, dead headed and brushed, so it looks a bit more presentable now 😀 The ranunculus have died back and I want to try and store the bulbs over winter as they were pretty special so I have bought in the pot to sort them out and in its place I have put a dahlia which should flower soon.

I got dinner sorted for later, we had a roast chicken yesterday and got to use it all up lol so I will be having a baked potato/salad with mine and John will be having a throw it all in the pot and reheat job 😀 I also made a summer fruit pudding crumble with the blackberries and raspberries I picked this morning, I mixed them up with some greengages and I meant to take a photo before putting the crumble mix on top as the colours were vibrant, but I forgot 🙄

The Victoria plums, I have discovered have plum moth 😟 I had a trap in the damson tree which is about 20ft away and I thought it would cover it but it seems not 😏 so I have ordered some more traps and grease bands to do as many fruit trees as possible. It’s a pain in the arse to wait all year only to find they have moth in them grrrr

I keep eyeing up the mulberry tree and there are loads on there but the blackbirds are beating me to them every morning, mulberries turn very quickly, red one day, black and very squishy the next, hard to get them at the right time, I have not had one single berry yet 😏 The biggest problem with the soft fruit is that the birds will eat them before they are ripe enough to pick!

When John came home he noticed some of the new hens had got out and on further investigation a big hole has been chewed in the netting, I think the geese are to blame but also the charge was not going through so John spent 2 hours fixing it. I went out when he had just about finished and he asked if I was going to help him put the birds to bed, I said, I haven’t got the right shoes on. Anyone who works outside especially in and around paddocks/stables will know you need the right shoes, anyhow I obliged and went to the stables block to lock the birds in, I turned on the main light, turned around and caught my foot under the rubber matting which was slightly proud. I kind of flew, hands sprawled out in front of me and then belly flopped onto the hard ground beneath me, I cried out and then just lay there whimpering until John found me, concerned at first but then laughed when he realised I was grazed but not broken 😜 I feel lucky that I didn’t break anything, especially my wrist which took the brunt and lucky that I had taken some ibrufen an hour before for my sinusitis (I know, I’m a walking disaster at the minute) I’m sitting here typing with bits of me smarting and I can imagine in the morning it will hurt or at the very least be stiff🙄

Tuesday: A little sore this morning but nothing much thank goodness 😅 I spent a good deal of the morning trying to get the fruit cage under some sort of control, the bindweed has been awful this year and has rampaged through the raspberries smothering everything. I did other things but forgot to write them down and now poof, can’t remember 🙄

Wednesday: I got busy doing some cutting back and tidying in the garden, then Mum came over and also got busy doing some weeding and tidying and suddenly it’s all starting to look a bit more under control lol. I think I have decided that I am going back to the way I gardened before 😜 I will plant trees and shrubs in among things but I need a bit of order 🤪 and can’t really cope too well with what seems like haphazard gardening. I think we have decided I should garden to what suits me and not try and follow a regime as such, much better for my sanity lol.

Some more plum moth traps arrived today so I have put them up in the trees to catch the males, I have until early September to trap them and hopefully slow down the numbers.

Thursday: A bloody good session outside this morning 😀 following on from Mums sterling work on the feverfew, which has gone beserk and taking over everywhere, I did a bit more to the same area and the pathway which is so weedy it’s a job to distinguish from the garden! Then onto the hazel trees at the side of the house, normally at this time of year nothing needs doing to them but last autum we cut three of them back to let light into the tunnels on the other side. You can image how much growth they have put on and the tomatoes in the tunnels are struggling to ripen so I have cut back some of this years foliage and the stinging nettles to hopefully help with the light issues. Then I noticed that the ripe hazels are beginning to fall so I raked the area clean, it’s easier to spot them that way 😀

Yesterday and today I have felt fit and well whoo hoo hence some hard graft, have to be careful though as wham it will hit me when I’m not looking lol.

I went on chicken watch because despite John spending another hour last night fixing holes, they have still got out today, so I am sat waiting to see where exactly they are doing it, luckily the sun isn’t out 😀 At the moment the hens are behind electric that’s because they are only just starting to lay and we want them to lay in the nest boxes. If we let them free range straightaway they would just lay anywhere and we will not find the eggs, chicken training, who knew there was such a thing 😜

I been sat here for 20 mins and no one has made a bid for freedom but I know as soon as I turn my back they will be out 🙄

I spent the evening sorting out, or trying to sort out, the office, going through old paperwork that we no longer need so that I can find any paperwork we do need!

Friday: It’s lunchtime and so far I have split my time between cleaning the bathroom and doing some washing, picking veg and sowing some winter seeds.

I am cleaning because Dad and Sue are coming to stay for a week, they arrive Sunday, I am not cleaning because they will mind the a bit of dust but because I would like it to be nice and clean when they are here lol. My thoughts reminded me about a conversation with Johns Dad once, asking me if Women dressed for Men or for themselves pffft, themselves of course (most women anyhow) quite conceited of the male of the species to think that we dress for them 🤣 We used to have some good conversations, generally we saw things from opposing angles which you would think put us at odds with each other, not in the slightest, we enjoyed discussing our different opinions and often learnt from each other’s views, and he always enjoyed playing devils advocate 😜

The winter veg I have sown are not very exciting but will hopefully provide some fresh veg in the ‘hungry gap’ some winter spinach which is always useful, sweetheart type cabbage which will be ready next spring and some mooli radish. The latter I have never grown before and they were free seeds, from experience weird and wonderful veg rarely grow well but no harm in trying, they grow as big as a tennis ball so will make great additions to soups and stews over winter.

I have picked a bit of veg this morning but to be honest it’s meagre pickings, that’s because whatever I haven’t used or frozen has sold out quickly and now I’m struggling to keep finding things to put out, there are worse problems to have I know 🙄

Saturday: Turned out to be a scorcher of a day with more to come over the next few days! We were up early because we wanted to get into town and get some shopping before it got too hot. Just before we left another early bird was up and over here, Mum came to do some more work on the weeds, it’s all now looking pretty good largely due to her hard work 😓 so thanks Mum 😘 I did a bit when I got back and John did a few jobs but by lunchtime it was very hot and in the afternoon the temp gauge in the greenhouse was off the scale which stops at 50c 🙄 Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and we sat in the shade until that even got too hot, after they had gone it was just basic jobs that got done.

I was babysitting Mia and the twins for a few hours while Sam went off in search of her sanity 🤣 with Luke to their local pub. I said to her ‘hats off’ I don’t know how she gets everything done, it took two hours to feed, wind and change them both then another two hours to settle them and in fact Lucie didn’t settle for the whole evening. Mia was fab, patient, helpful and obliging at bedtime which made it a whole lot easier.

Sunday: An early sign off this week, temps are set to climb even higher today although at the moment it’s overcast so we will see what happens. Again we were up early, I got straight on with watering as I couldn’t do it last night and somethings are struggling, amazing that this time last week it had been raining for days! Then the last bit of cleaning before Dad and Sue arrive for the week, I probably won’t blog much if at all as I will be very busy entertaining etc 😀

Have a great Bank Holiday 🌞

Posted in Friesland Farm

A fledgling, a rat, hopscotch and turkeys 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday again! 15th July: A pleasant enough overcast morning so great for me to get some stuff done. I mostly did picking and weeding, courgettes, French beans, broccoli , a pepper 😀 some cucumbers, raspberries, a few strawberries and blueberries and some flowers for the kitchen. I potted up a few strawberry runners for next year and pulled up the onions and garlic. I have no idea what I was thinking was with the garlic as there are only 6 lol, that won’t keep us going very long. I only have about 15 onions but that’s fine because I have welsh onion, which is perpetual and babbington leeks which are also perpetual. The welsh onion and the bab leeks have seeded so I collected those to grow some more next year, with the welsh onion you just pull what you need and they grow like bunch onion so more will grow and the leeks you just cut off at the base and they will regrow 😀

Then I decided that before the sun made an appearance I would cut back some grass areas with the ride on mower, well it started fine and I got it out of the stable block to where I wanted it, engaged the cutter and it stopped 😜 I couldn’t get it going again so I sat for a while waiting for it to do whatever it was thinking of doing and hoping by resting it that I could start it again, suddenly I heard patch yelping and some squealing (which I knew was a rat) I went round the corner, patch had a bleeding nose and the rat was dead 🙄 I took patch inside, cleaned his nose with, dettol, then hibiscrub then I sprayed it with purple spray, moved the rat to the burning barrel, went back to the mower and it started 😀 Patch 1 rat 0, Dawn 1 grass 0 I call that a successful morning.

The Sun appeared so that will do outside for now unless it clouds over again.

Tuesday: John was up late! That meant I was on my own this morning and the Sun was already out 🙄 I didn’t mind though and quite enjoyed myself, making sure everything was well fed, watered and clean and tidy as I went. I did a bit of watering in the tunnels and that was pretty much it as the skies were blue and not a cloud in sight. Sam and Mia came over and we went to visit Charlie and Macca who have a week off work, then we met Shelley, Josh and Flo at the shake shop before coming back here for the afternoon.

Did a bit of grass cutting in the evening and watched the partial eclipse of the blood moon.

We also had a very tiny chap appear right by the back door late evening, seemed too small to be out but we couldn’t find any sign of a parent bird so I put it in a box in the greenhouse and will let it out first thing in the morning, hopefully it will make it, I think it’s a baby goldfinch judging by its beak and a tiny flash of yellow on its wing.

Wednesday: First job of the day was to let the little bird out, I put it back where I found it, went in to make tea and when I came back out it was gone 😀 The general advice if you find a fledgling is to leave it alone, this was late in the evening and it was at ground level so I was worried it wouldn’t make it alive through the night so I did what I thought was the best thing for it and hopefully it will thrive.

It’s overcast but muggy this morning, it meant I could get on though so I did a bit of hoeing, raking and tidying up. Then I put up a temporary fence between the orchard and the garden so that I could let the younger light Sussex out into the orchard to scratch and forage which is what I had always intended they should do. We had a temporary fence there before but eventually it fell over so I took it up and it has taken me this long to put one back 😜 The weeds have grown high in there so I might as well make use of the birds to clear it, save me doing it.

I picked another load of courgettes 😝 I gave most of them to the young birds to peck away at but kept some as I intend to use them for cake and jam.

I had the best of intentions to make cake and jam however I used all the sugar I had in the jam 🙄 so no cake today, I made flapjack instead and that nearly didn’t happen as I had no syrup but I substituted maple syrup and treacle instead. The maple syrup was too runny on its own so I figured sticky treacle would help, its cooking at the minute I will let you know how it tastes later. The jam smells amazing, that’s the grated lemon rind that goes in but I’m thinking this will be a lovely light flavoured jam, it has to sit for a few hours for the courgette to absorb the sugar and lemon flavour so I will boil it up later on and see how it tastes.

I made bread as well today.

So I have boiled the jam and jarred it up but even though it reach the right temperature I can’t see it setting somehow, we will wait and see.

Thursday: It rained a little overnight, not much but enough for a wetting and again it will liven things up a bit plus keep the dust down. The jam didn’t set, I followed the recipe but I kind of knew it wasn’t going to, I couldn’t t see it being thick enough I should have followed my instinct and not added the water, courgettes are wet enough as it is. I have some added pectin sugar and may try boiling it up again with some of that in and see how it goes, if it doesn’t work that’s a bit fat fail 😜

I have Mia today while Sam goes for a scan and to see the consultant, she is now 36 weeks and huge, poor girl, she is only 5ft 1” so it’s quite a weight for her to carry around, although she is looking very well apart from that and swollen feet. Hopefully they will give her a date today as she is having a section due to the lowest baby being breech. It will be ‘all hands on deck’ when the time comes, one baby is enough to look after especially when you already have a toddler but two, that’s a whole new ball game 🤪

I showed Mia how to play hopscotch 😀 and we watched a caterpillar crawl and crawl and crawl, Mum came over and did some bits in the garden 😀 Once Sam had picked up Mia I went out and collected the eggs etc and then I went to water the polytunnel. The minute I had turned on the hose and walked into the tunnel the Sun, which has been absent most of the day, decided to blaze 🙄 it was boiling in there 🥵 and I had to crouch and hide behind any available foliage I could find 😜 You may wonder why I was watering so early (4.30) well I am going out for dinner with my girlfriends tonight (yes I have friends lol) and won’t have time later I also need a bit of time to make myself look acceptable for a rare public appearance 🤪

Friday: It’s raining this morning 😀 not a downpour but steady enough to get you wet which is very welcome. John did the animals so all I had to do was get some feed for the rabbits and torts, job done by 7.40 lol. I have a bit of paperwork I can get done today and also have a haircut, it’s got long and driving me mad so I think I will get it all chopped off.

Finally some proper rain, grey, cold, depressing looking day, lovely jubbly, I’m not a killjoy it’s just that the ground was in desperate need not to mention the water tanks 😜 The dogs have confined themselves to the boot room and I shall be doing indoor stuff like paperwork, filing, freezing produce, possibly some cooking and some cleaning without feeling guilty that I should be outside working lol.

I had the hair cut and blow dried and I did say ‘you know it is probably the only time it will look that good’ as I am not very good at blowdrying lol anyhow before long I was outside doing the animals it started raining and boom frizz bomb hair 🤣

As the weather had already ruined the look I carried on outside, this time of the year is the best time to dig up the ragwort, it stands out splendidly and is easily spotted. We don’t have much of it, I pulled about 20 lots over the whole 5 acres, it’s biennial so it grows the first year and flowers the next, it doesn’t spread fast unless you let it go to seed, failure to prevent the spread of ragwort is a criminal offence and can land you in court, I would say that the local councils seem oblivious to this ruling though as they never seem to clear their verges 🙄

Saturday: Up fairly early, John did the animals while I sorted out clothing for today I am off to the Fantasy Forest Festival 😀 I have to pack for every eventuality 😜 find loose but cover all clothing 🤪 pack sunscreen, uv clothing and umbrella in case it’s very sunny, and all the other usual stuff too. John meanwhile will be busy on the cement mixer concreting the hen shed in the front paddock ready for the arrival of new hens. We did contemplate concreting it when we first converted it and decided not to but we should have as now we are having to do it anyway.

The fantasy festival was fabulous what more can I say, the costumes on some were amazing, real labours of love and we loved the eclectic mix of people that all mingled with a happy disposition that gave the festival a great feel.

Sunday: Exciting day today as we pick up the turkey poults 😀 6 x 6 week old Red Bourbon turkeys, we have always talked about getting some but never have and then the opportunity arose this year so we jumped in with both feet. Before we went to collect them the animals needed feeding and letting out and I did a bit of picking as well, French beans and some tomatoes plus a basket full of courgettes 🙄

Turkeys collected and we housed them in the spare rabbit pen for the time being, there is plenty of room in there, it’s under cover so hopefully they will be very happy for a few weeks until we let them out to free range.

The temps are set to climb pretty high next week, 34c oh my goodness that’s hot for this country lol, I will be planning to get up very early and get done so that I can hide inside in the cool for the rest of the day 🥵🥵

If you have never been to the UK and live in a much hotter country than ours I apologise if I sound like a wimp lol I guess it’s just what you get used to 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Kittens, Fairy’s & Bon Jovi lol

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 17th June: Perfect day for me finally, no rain, no sun 😀 so I spent until 2pm out in the garden, mostly weeding, a huge trugfull for the rabbits and Guineas one for the little chicks, some juicy thistles etc for the torts, yep plenty of weeding done today lol. I planted some more sweet corn that Shelley gave me, and watched the little robins darting back and forth to the nest with worms, this is the second brood they have raised in my plant pot holder, I disturbed a little frog under a pile of weeds, good to know the wildlife is abundant 😀

I picked more courgettes today, I was looking at all the plants thinking omg I am going to have a lot of courgettes lol but the hens will eat them so will the torts and the rabbit and guineas so what ever we don’t use or sell will still be of use. The cucumbers I planted out when it was warm are struggling with all the wet weather so I dug one up and moved it indoors, one looks like it may be ok and the other three, well I don’t think they will make it 😏 I do have three more in the big tunnel that are doing fine so should have plenty of cues 😀 There are tomatoes beginning to form on one of the plants and plenty of flowers on the other plants, most things are just beginning to get going now, it always seems like a long wait and then there will be gluts of everything 😜

Just watching ‘The War on Plastics’ again, horrific, it goes from bad to worse! Wet wipes 🙄 Flannels, cloths, cotton rounds, water and baby lotion are the way forward!

Tuesday: Dry so far this morning although the rain is forecast this afternoon 😛 Mia day today, last one as Sam goes on maternity leave after this week. This cold I have gets better one day and comes back the next so I have a headache today, better than a blocked nose I suppose. A quick look round the garden with my coffee in hand, picked a few raspberries and a couple of strawberries but not many.

We had a lovely lovely day, the rain mostly stayed away, Mia was a fairy in the morning lol and then my Mum came over to do a bit of gardening and Mia was her little helper, well more talking her ears off but it was lovely listening to the pair of them while they were working.

I picked all of the remaining broad beans from the plants that have been growing since last autumn and as mentioned the early potatoes have blight so I dug most of them up, there is half a row that as yet is untouched by it. It wasn’t a bad haul from a small space and I will now use that space to grow more carrots I think.

In the evening we went to collect two new animal members of the farm, meet TC and Benny, you will have to be of a certain age to get the names 😜 but it was one of Johns favourite cartoons.

Wednesday: Strange day as far as the weather goes, it seems like it’s going to rain but hasn’t yet, dreary but warm, I know there are big thunderstorms going on in the UK but we don’t seem to be getting anything. I did the morning rounds and then a quick check of the veg garden. Some hoovering and prepping the dinner later, home grown potatoes, carrot and broad beans, yum. Played with the kittens a couple of times to get them used to me, they were born on a farm in a shed and did have humans but being taken away must be quite frightening so I am trying to settle them in gently and hope they realise we are nice 😀

We are fast approaching the longest day, summer solstice, and haven’t even had any summer yet! Hmmm we could definitely do with a bit more warmth for the toms cucumbers and peppers, the rest will tickle along nicely as it is.

The kittens are in a large dog cage in the boot room, I thought they were secure 😂 I watched them earlier climbing up the cage and thought, ah how cute, when John went out the back later he said ‘the kittens are out, do you know’? Now maybe the fact that the cage door was still bolted might have given him some kind of indication that, no, I didn’t know! It seems they have climbed up and got out of a gap at the top, obviously a cage made for a large dog isn’t going to keep two tiny kittens in, duh, I should have thought it through more thoroughly. Gap now plugged it remains to be seen if they can squeeze through any other gaps, the problem with letting them out is that we have a large pipe running surface on the floor, right in the middle to be precise and it has to be stepped over every time 🙄 it was temporary about 5 years ago, and until the exit areas of the pipe are checked I have no idea if they are sealed when they meet the walls. John is busy eating an ice cream so can’t do it at the moment 😜 priorities. All checked and secured, kittens now back inside the cage hopefully they will remain there 😏

TC is the friendliest one who will come for a stroke and purrs, Benny doesn’t, he hides away and so he is the one we need to work on.

One thing really bugging me at the moment is the integral fridge, it is freezing everything so at the weekend we are going to pull it out clean all around it and see if that makes a difference.

Thursday: Writing this at the end of the day and can’t actually remember what I have done, can’t be that memorable 😏

I do know that I prepped the dinner early on this morning, I had a random minced pork in the freezer, I probably bought it for stuffing at some point and never used it so tonight John has ‘piggy pie’ a pork version of shepherds pie and I made meatballs to go with some garlic, basil and tomato sauce that I made last year and froze.

The kittens have been given free reign of the boot room, well they were escaping every time we shut them in the cage anyhow so might as well let them out. It does mean the dogs can’t have the door open to come and go like they usually do though, I don’t think they are too bothered and they don’t seem bothered by the kittens who have found themselves a perch high up out of the way 😜

Friday: Summer solstice, It looks set to be a warm day today 😀 I did the morning rounds cleaning out the ducklings on the way round, they are getting big now and have almost feathered up and are definitely quacking instead of cheeping lol. I did a bit of watering, it’s surprising just how quickly things dry out even after a week long of rain showers. The other ducks have been left inside the stable today as we are off to Wembley to watch Bon Jovi tonight, looking forward to that, as the ducks tend to roam far and wide I thought it would be safer if they were in😀 Charlie will be coming after work to let the dogs out and put the birds to bed.

It’s befitting that we are going to a concert today on the solstice, a day of celebration which traditionally combines feasting, music, and enjoying the company of others, yep I think that covers it, I have of course taken time to just enjoy the outdoors and wander amongst the flowers, herbs and veg, stroking some of them so that they release their scents, listen to the birdsong, watch the butterflies and bees flying around and appreciating it all, that’s the main thing, you’d be surprised how many people can be right in the middle of nature and not really notice anything and there is such a lot going on even in the smallest of spaces.

I have begun to pick a few raspberries, not many at the moment but enough to have with a bit of cream after dinner 😀

I did a bit in the poly tunnel, some potting on of plants to put out for sale when they get big enough and some potting on of others that I either will plant eventually or keep to gather seed from. Having been out of ‘flower gardening’ for a long time I am re kindling my love affair with certain flowers, Cerinthe is one that I love, it’s not showy or particularly fabulous but I like it for its understated beautiful purple drop like flowers.

One thing I have discovered while looking up some plants is I seem to be drawn to the ‘wort’ family, cerinthe is honeywort, I have motherwort, soapwort, spiderwort, dropwort (in fact the dropwort was the plant I thought was growing and turned out to be ragwort) and the drop wort was growing next to it. Worts have medicinal uses, must be the hedgewitch in me that is drawn to them 😜

The concert was amazing 😀 Manic Street Preachers were the warm up band, all you can eat food and all you can drink bar, we didn’t overdo it though lol, many thanks to my sister and brother in law for the opportunity x x

Saturday: So busy today that it’s 9.30pm before I sit down and type this up 😜 We have at last got all the glass in the greenhouse and we have 2 out of 3 benches in plus my potting bench that John bought me a few years ago, although I use it as a work station because it’s too nice to use for anything else 😂. Basically that’s what we have been doing most of the day with cups of tea and a bite to eat in between, we went to the DIY shop to get a sander and some storage boxes and called in to see Sam, Luke and Mia on the way back.

It has been hot today although we did have occasional cloud passing over, with the temps rising the forecast is for thunderstorms tomorrow evening ⛈

Sunday: Today we finished off the benches/staging in the greenhouse and now I am as happy as a pig in poo 😝 I have just come in from sitting in there with a cuppa and listening to classic fm, did you know they had a classics chart countdown on a Sunday evening, nope neither did I lol.

This morning I picked 6 courgettes and some raspberries 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain, rain & that’s it, just rain 😏

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 10th June: An ok morning as far as the weather goes, not sunny but not raining, yet, and not cold although colder than we expect for June. We are stuck in a weather front with the jet stream coming down from the North and the warm air coming up from Southern Europe, result, mostly rain 🙄 We do need a bit of heat now to move the veg along a bit, well those veg that need it any way, the melons for instance in the tunnel are not putting on as much growth as they should be and the tomatoes/peppers like it warm, still we have a couple of months left yet so all is not lost.

After doing the animals I went into the garden and picked peas, broad beans, rhubarb and some kale, I will use all these for dinner later, I did put out some broad beans for sale. The pea plants were put in last autumn and they have nearly finished now so I have pulled them up to make way for something else, the nitrogen nodules on the roots were huge so I pulled them off and put them back into the soil 😀 the leaves and stem I will leave to wilt a while before putting them onto the soil to rot down naturally and feed the soil.

The number of bees, I have noticed is great as are the ladybirds but so are the aphids 😂 I guess that’s what you call a balance of nature!

My soft fruit is a bit dire this year and needs an overhaul, when we had to replace the fruit cage at the end of last year, I think it was, I dug up the raspberry canes (most of them) and put them in pots, I thought it would be good to leave them in there but I was wrong. The problem with raspberries is they send out runners underground, lots of them, but on hindsight it’s easier to just hoe them down than to maintain the plants in pots. The blueberries are struggling yet again and these are new plants, the old ones got wind rock during the winter before last and died off, these are alive but not really bearing many fruits, I need a good think about where to site them as they don’t seem to like it where they are even though they have been cosseted with ericaceous soil and feed. A couple of years back I was picking kilos of strawberries then I changed things about and since then I have not had more than a meagre picking so again I need to sort that out.

The rain came 😏 I took the opportunity to watch the new series of The Handmaids Tale, I know it goes far beyond Margaret Attwoods original novel but I’m loving it.

Omg we have had some torrential downpours! Sam and Mia arrived I could see the car in the drive, Sam waited for an interval in the rain and got out to get Mia out but just as she had fully committed herself down cake another torrential pouring. I grabbed a towel and opened the back door but they were soaked by the time they got in, clothes off and in the dryer, electric fire on, and soup on the go.

OMG what a horrid day, rain, rain, rain, get a soaking, dry off, get a soaking, dry off, get a soaking 😋 peed off 😝 I wouldn’t mind if it was autumn or winter I’d be expecting it but not bloody mid June 😏

Shelley also came over in the afternoon, she has just done a threading course and needed victims er I mean volunteers 🤪 Now not being one to keep up with my beauty regimes I actually had no idea what this was when she said she was going to do it, I thought it was something like weaving hairs into your eyebrows 🤣 I found it fascinating to watch this ancient technique being applied and it didn’t hurt that much 🙄

7.45pm stilling pissing down ☹️ to add insult to injury John was working just two villages over and he said it hardly rained there!

Tuesday: Another grey, rainy morning, yesterday we had about 2” of rain judging by what has been captured in the various buckets around the place. Great because we really needed some rain but really it can stop now and bring back the sunshine 🙄 It’s going to be a long day today, Mia day and no chance of getting outside by the looks of it 😏 looking at the forecast we are not going to get any let up until Friday. Lol I’m aware that I am moaning if it’s too hot and moaning if it’s raining but seriously we don’t seem to be getting much ‘in-between’ weather anymore, just a regular day would be lovely.

I watched Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall on ‘The war on plastic’ last night, it’s shocking stuff to be honest, we really have to make a massive effort to get rid of single use plastics, not just recycle them as clearly it’s just a problem being dumped in someone else’s back yard, but get rid of them totally. I am always appalled at cucumbers, swede, cabbage etc shrink wrapped in plastic, there is no need, when I shop, on the whole, I put the items loose in the trolley if I can. The more I try to avoid it the more I realise just how much is out there, everything is packaged in plastic🥺 I use brown paper bags to sell produce, I do also use plastic fruit containers as I have found it difficult to source cardboard ones at a reasonable price but I do ask people to bring them back so that I can wash and re use them, the same goes for any plants I sell, there is a notice to say plastic plants pots are welcome so that they can be re used.

Wednesday: Hopefully the weather is going to start to be drier from here on in 🙄

I did the morning rounds and cleaned out the ducklings and the hens in the stable, picked some herbage for them and the rabbits/guineas, in between that, put on some washing and drying and checked the garden over. The colder than usual temps are having an effect as nothing is really moving forward and overnight we have lost some of the younger chicks ☹️ A couple of weeks back it was flaming and they were fine but last night they had obviously got cold, gone under the bigger ones and got crushed, bloody weather, although my bad as I should have preempted the situation really. I have a drake missing, I noticed yesterday he was not around, I can’t see any evidence of him being taken but I have no idea what has happened I him.

Now I am coming right down on the steroids I don’t have as much energy as I had before which is a bummer 😏 the difference is very noticeable, I get a bit done and then think, I need a sit down, and could even manage a nap lol, it’s rubbish but it is what it is.

On the plus side the water tanks are all full 😀 even the new IBC tank at the back and I haven’t had to spend hours watering everything, every cloud and all that.

My plan for the rest of the day is housework 😝 might as well do it while the ground is too wet to work on.

I was watching a lecture on regenerative culture and about 2 thirds of the way through I encountered an enlightening moment, really quite profound, SUSTAINABILITY IS A NEUTRAL POINT! WOW, just WOW, I had never thought of it like that before which is why I guess it was such an interesting statement to me. I know it seems that all I do here is potter around with the animals and plants, bake things, make things etc but my aim has always to be self sufficient as far as possible, I’m missing the mark by a mile, I’m aware of that but I’m doing what I can, or am I?

The future of the planet and humanity is dire, it really is, if you having been living with your head in the sand you will not have noticed but when you read, listen to and take note of scientists, ecologists etc you begin to understand what is happening. I am not into activism as such but I’m glad there are groups out there, they are not fanatics or tree huggers or fringe livers they are people who understand ( on the whole) and are trying to get others to take note. Back to the sustainability issue, is it by fluke or is it progression that I had taken onboard the whole forest gardening and tree planting thing because that is the next step forward from sustainability, I can see that now but I had to watch an obscure video to have it spelled out to me!

Do yourself, your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren and so on, a favour and start thinking about your accountability to this planet before it’s too late. Make changes for the better, better for the environment, better for the country, better for the world, you know what they are and if you don’t then learn the information is out there.

I had a hankering for cake so instead of housework I baked 😀 Two fruit loaves and two small date and nut loaves, using our own nuts 😀. I made that many because as I was turning the oven on I might as well get good use from it. I have started doing a few things that can help with saving water, we don’t have a dishwasher so I wash up at the end of the day, just once instead of many times, unless I have a mountain of dishes of course lol, and I don’t flush the toilet every time, every other time or three times, obviously if there is something bigger than a wee in there I will but I figure it all helps even if it’s just a little.

I need to explore the areas that I am not doing well in, John is the biggest one 🤣 he is just not environmentally inclined and it’s difficult to change a lifetime of habits, some things he gets, like not using weed killers and contaminants and after watching the war on plastic he is beginning to realise how ingrained it all is in society but he doesn’t apply that to the things he likes to eat that come in plastic so he won’t change it which is why it has to be a big turnaround from the manufacturers because I think that is how a lot of people think. I have been actively seeking out things that come in glass bottles, things that are cardboard, paper or wax wrapped rather than plastic but some things are difficult and I don’t want to avoid them altogether. I remember a time when toilet rolls came in paper and now it’s all plastic outers 😕 why?

I did do some cleaning, hoovering and polishing in the end, thought I had better 😋

Fed the birds, collected and sorted the eggs, sat down for a cuppa with a slice of cake, I thought the rain had finished as it has been dry all day but it’s just started again 😐 the temperature is warmer today mind you, the wind from the north east has gone.

Thursday: Another day in paradise, in the rainy season that is! According to my forecast it was supposed to dry up but nope it’s still peeing down which means nothing will get done on the veg garden and the weeds will be romping away, after spending last week trying to get them under control it seems futile 🤪 I have just looked at the forecast again and now rain is on the cards for the next few days 😏 Vegetable gardening in these constantly changeable conditions seems like harder work each year, honestly you never have any idea of what is going to be thrown at you and for how long, our seasons are out of whack! Oh well short of putting everything under cover there is not much I can do about it except moan 😜

Doing the rounds this morning I noticed that all of the geese came out and left the area so I quickly grabbed a torch and went to see what was happening with the eggs they are sitting on. Four nests, one with one egg that looks viable, one with two eggs that look viable, one with four eggs that mostly look ok and one with three eggs that are clear so not viable. I took out the unviable ones and swapped in a couple from the other nests, the reason being that typically the goose who has sat the longest is on the dud eggs! The geese may be getting fed up of sitting now which is why they have all come out and I’m not too worried about them hatching anything except for their own good. After I made a coffee I looked out and could see that two of the geese had gone back so we will see what happens, a couple of the eggs are close to hatching by the looks of it, once they do they will abandon the rest of the eggs anyway, they are pretty fickle lol.

I have seen a few pics of wildflower meadows lately and my sisters neighbour has even done it on her front garden in town, now that the grass is not being eaten off I was thinking I would like to do this in some form. I missed the boat a bit because I could have easily turned the front paddock into wildflowers while the hens were not on it but left it a bit too late to think about it.

Prolonged days of rainy weather like this mean the egg numbers will drop from the hens, they hate the rain and are reluctant to get out in the grass and forage naturally, they stay huddled under or in the coop. You would think the opposite would be true for the ducks and to some extent it is, of course they love the rain but they don’t lay any better 😂

Oh it’s horrible out there lol, Sam, Mia and I went for cake, I mean what else can you do on a day like this 😜 When I got back I did the hens and eggs, as I was walking up the back the sun tried to peek through but the rain soon got the better of it! I went into the poly tunnel, I could see large, dark black clouds looming, I had some late tomatoes to prick out and was stuck in there while the heavens opened, everything is soaking, dripping, puddly yuk, yuk, yuk it’s supposed to be summer.

I found a flower in the driveway, I think it may be an orchid (update, it is an orchid, possibly a pyramid orchid) but I’m not sure yet.

Then I remembered that one year we had them in the back paddock so I took a walk and found a bee orchid 😀 delightful.

Friday: Guess what? It’s raining 😝 we are at saturation point now, previously because the ground was so dry it has been soaked up but now we have standing water in areas. We don’t flood as such, we have a corner in the front paddock where all the water runs to which is flooded for a while but soon runs away and if we have volumes of rain and it can’t get away fast enough we have areas that get very wet but not flooding as such which is lucky. I had a wander round the veg garden, everything is doing ok, we could just do with some warmth to push it on a little bit now.

And then the electric tripped 😏 luckily I’ve got used to this and know what causes it, the pump for the water tanks, it always happens when we have a lot of rain.

Made some bread, did the afternoon rounds and put cleaning bedding in for the ducks. The sun made an appearance and it started drying up, I want to clean out the little chicks but not if the rain is going to come back as it would be a waste of time.

I picked the few Strawberries I have and ate them all myself with some sour cream lol

If you are interested in the Sun in anyway apart from bathing in it 😜 you may be interested to know that it has an 11 year cycle with solar maximum and solar minimum, we are entering a solar minimum, that is a minimum amount of sun spots and flares, the jury is out on how much this affects our climate but I’d say (though I am no expert) that it has to has some bearing on our weather even if minimal and they say it will be a deep minimum 🙄 which could have effects up to 30 years, though humans are undoubtedly causing more damage to the climate overall.

In the evening the lads came over to get the greenhouse along a bit.

Saturday: I have officially had enough of his poxy bloody weather now, the plan today was for John and I to finish glazing the roof but although it was supposed to be mainly dry it has in fact been mainly wet!!!! In between showers we got four panels of glass up there and then discovered we were one short 😡 so can’t finish it, the the lead sealant nozzle snapped clean off so it’s game over as far as that is concerned today. Meanwhile I still can’t get any bloody gardening done and the weeds will be like triffids, time to find another direction in life maybe?? This one seems to have far to many hurdles thrown in the way 🙄

I did pick a few things early this morning when it was dry and sunny, the first courgette some kale, rhubarb and artichokes and I picked peas and mangetout in the afternoon.

I took some dianthus cuttings and went into the poly tunnel just as the heavens opened again.

I have been watching two melon plants which have been struggling, two more at the other end of the tunnel are doing fine but these two are not. I had a closer look and they have severed at the root, I’m not sure what has caused this, either a cold spot in the ground or too wet or something has eaten them off underground. I found some wood and built a box, lined it and filled it with compost then planted the only melon plant I have left in there along with some Chinese gooseberry and a pepper, hopefully I have covered all bases and it will be fine 😀

The sweet potato I put in water to root is slowing doing so, however the process has been long so I would need to start it off a lot earlier next year.

I woke up with a cold this morning, 🤧 very rare for me, I will blame it on the weather 😛

Sunday: Guess what, it’s raining! John did the animals this morning and finally the ducks have started laying more, I won’t hold my breath though as tomorrow we may be down on numbers again. I noticed yesterday that the potatoes have blight (early blight) ffs, that’s the trouble with all this rain it will cause, fungus of all types, I’m thinking a giant undercover area would be an all round option 🤪 No wonder farmers have developed various methods to get successful crops over the years, even though they turned out to be detrimental to the environment, you cant blame them for trying and it’s very trying at times 🙄

I have come to the conclusion that the way I am gardening veg is not really working for me so I need to tweak it a bit next year, just re arrange a few things and do a bit better on planning and siting. I am finding it a bit too muddly for my organised mind, I am sure there is a better way and I will find it eventually lol.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Last of the planting, some picking & Johns birthday

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 3rd June: Well rested after a weekend away it’s time to crack on 😜 After sorting all the birds out in the morning it was straight into the garden to see what’s been happening and what needs to be done.

I planted the cucumbers, loofahs, some tomato plants and the dahlias, all a bit late going in but it won’t harm them. I put a few more plants out for sale, picked some buckets of weeds and herbs for the rabbits and hens and picked some veg that was ready. Today’s pickings were rhubarb, broad beans and baby turnips, some of which I put out for sale, the turnips I kept back were washed diced and blanched and will be open frozen for use in soups, stews and casseroles. It’s it easier to do it this way then I can grab a handful when I need them, I am aiming to do this will all the root veg if possible. The dwarf kale is reading for picking but I will pick it as I need it. I also cut some flowers for the table, roses, sweet Williams and huechera , it looks pretty and brightens the place up plus the roses smell amazing.

There are one or two strawberries that have ripened while I was away, might as well eat those while I am wandering around lol, there are also plenty of radish and salad leaves to be had at the moment.

We have plaice for dinner, I keep avoiding it in the freezer because I need to fillet it first but today is the day I decided to do it lol, I will cook it with lemon and parsley butter, potatoes and the peas I picked before we went away, delish 😋

Did the afternoon egg collection then cleaned out the ducklings and prepped the dinner, then time for a sit down and a cuppa plus a piece of banana bread that Charlotte made while she was staying here 😀 I taught her to bake from about the age of seven, she was diagnosed as a coeliac at 14 months and the whole family mostly ate gluten free while she was growing up and so teaching her about food was important. In fact all three of the girls know about food, they understand the different food groups and how they go together, they understand the difference between ‘real’ food and processed food (you’d be surprised at how many people don’t) they can all cook and bake from scratch without a jar of sauce or packet mix in sight (I’m not saying they do all the time, just that they can 😝) and most of all on the whole, they enjoy cooking, job done ✅ there I reckon 😀

I pruned the leader branches from the cherry tree, two reason, one I don’t want it to get too big and the other so that when they start to ripen I can still get a net over it to stop the crows from stripping the tree in no time at all!

With stone fruit you should prune in June that’s the general rule so they don’t get silver leaf or canker.

As rhubarb is still in plentiful supply I made a rhubarb pudding cake for dessert, a self saucing pud, easy peasy.

Tuesday: Mia day 😀 I got all the morning jobs done before Mia arrived and then we pretty much played all day lol, picked dandelions for the torts, sat on a blanket on the grass for an hour or so, then the rain came. We are getting the ideal amount of rain as far as the garden goes because I’m not worrying about things not growing, on the contrary they are growing well including the weeds 😝 I’m not quite sure what to do about them they have overtaken my ability to keep them in order at the moment. I saw some cornstarch weed barrier but the price is rather high for my liking so I will carry on hoeing until I come up with a plan! Once the veg start to romp away it will be fine as they will shade out the weeds but until then it’s a constant struggle lol.

Wednesday: Well the weather is certainly not flaming June! Not that I’m complaining because at least I can work out in it but it a tad on the cold side 😜 After sorting out the morning jobs I set to sorting out the poly tunnel so that I could get a couple more melons and tomato plants in, I did a fair amount of hoeing outside so that I could rearrange pots of plants that I am growing on and organised those. Mum came at lunchtime and did some weeding and it looks great especially the fruit cage and I no longer feel like I’m drowning in weeds so thank you Mum you are a star ⭐️ I had Josh for a couple of hours in the afternoon he likes to come and be on his own at the farm with me and help do the jobs lol, we collected the eggs and did the ducklings, pinched the tops off of the broad beans as they have blackfly, sang some songs with Mum and then had to watch tv as we had worked so hard 🤣 his words not mine.

I did a bit of hand weeding late afternoon, the carrots have been sporadic to say the least, we will get some summer carrot but I think I will need to sow some more for winter use.

I made some bread and some choc chunk cookies and I also picked some elderflower which is steeping in water and lemon juice overnight to extract the flavour, I’m intending to make jam with it 😀

The 75th Anniversary of the D Day landings got me interested in learning a bit more about RAF Broadwell, part of our land was part of the dispersed sites, No3 to be precise. When the weather is dry and certainly last summer you can easily see where the foundations of buildings were and when you are trying to get anything in the ground in the front paddock you always hit red brick lol. It would be great if I could find a comprehensive map or old photos of where we are but although there are many photos online and some sites are detailed ours does not seem to be 😏 If we ever found an underground bunker I would consider that we would hit the jackpot lol, it would be cold storage at it best.

Thursday: Did the morning stuff then popped to town to get a few bits, it’s Johns birthday tomorrow and so our turn to feed everyone 😀 the forecast is heavy rain ☹️ so I am doing pulled pork rolls and accompanying salads.

I finally got the limoncello under way, basically it’s lemongrass (bashed with a rolling pin) and lemon verbena, steeped for a few days in vodka then make a sugar syrup to add to it and voila. I have also got elderflower and lemons steeping in water to make elderflower jam. It being a creative kind of day I picked some roses and I am drying the petals, to start them off drying I have put them in the poly tunnel but I won’t leave them in there as it will be too hot and also the light will fade them too much, along with that I have picked some flowers to hang to dry, I’m thinking I need a drying shed 😜 as I would like to dry a whole bunch of things. I want to be making wreaths at Christmas after my day out last year and so drying things to use seems like a good idea, I will experiment with all sorts and see what turns out the best.

Friday, Johns Birthday: I spent most of the day prepping and cooking food! Starting with the birthday cake first thing in the morning after getting the animals done. John had the day off from his regular work but neglected to tell me he was going to be home, consequently I had arranged to get all this cooking done and have a visit from a friend so he sat around like a spare part most of the day🙄 It mostly rained so doing anything outside was a bit pointless for him, it was a surprise he said, yes guess what, surprise, I’m busy all day 🤪 next time tell me in advance and we will go out for lunch and I will do nibbles for the birthday guests not a full on pulled pork feast!

In amongst all that two new Guinea pigs arrived, I wasn’t expecting them until the weekend and so I hadn’t got anything ready, I put them straight in with the rabbit (who is still fine) and the other pig, later in the day when Sam and Mia came they cleaned out the run which I had intended to do tomorrow morning.

Later in the early evening everyone arrived, ate, drank, chatted, sang happy birthday and then went home, Happy Birthday John 😀

We had a bit of thunder and lightening but not much, I love a good storm.

Saturday: Pouring with rain this morning and looks like it has been from early on, June, such a lovely warm month 😂

We are off out to have breakfast this morning with Sam, Charlie & Shelley as a little treat for Sam as she didn’t want a baby shower, the twins are growing well but she could go into labour anytime and she can’t eat a full on meal anymore, no room 🤪 so breakfast is the lighter option.

Breakfast was lovely, I had waffles, bacon and maple syrup 😋 we went to The Old Shed just outside Charlbury, it’s delightful there, shame the weather wasn’t better or we could have eaten al fresco!

We popped in to see my brother and sister in law on the way back, then home, John cleaned out the ducklings while I got Jacks stable ready to get him in for a day or so, with all the rain we have had the grass is going to grow like billyo and he needs restricting so until we make his field smaller, he is coming in and going on hay, he won’t like it one bit but it’s for his own good.

The sun came out but it’s really windy, it makes moving straw a bit of a futile effort, get a load on the end of the pitchfork, turn around to put it in the barrow and you’d be lucky to get half of it in while the other half blows away!

I decided to call the guinea pigs Boris and Donald 🤣 Josh has named the other one socco? Until now he hasn’t really had a name lol, the rabbit is called Peter even though she is a girl, that’s at Mia’s insistence and she is still very well thank goodness. When we went for breakfast they had animals and I noticed that they had double lined the cage with two lots of wire with a gap inbetween, this seems like a good idea as any wild animals could not get nose to nose with the enclosed ones, an idea I think I will implement on future runs.

Sunday: John did the morning rounds while I went out and picked broad beans and rhubarb to put out for sale which went within minutes!

Yesterday Martin came over and did a bit more to the greenhouse and today Luke came over and we got some of the windows in, just a bit more to do and it will be finished.

It’s cold for the time of year this evening, the sun was nice today but now the temps have dipped a bit ☹️

The elderflower I had steeping, and it said 48 hours, went mouldy so I’m going to have to start that again 🙄

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain 😀 a few jobs done & a trip to Wales

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 27th May: Bank Holiday. Although it looked like rain threatening all day, it never came.

We did some cleaning out this morning, John did the the two big hen huts while I cleaned out the now vacant rabbit pen. The other rabbit is still looking fine which rules out my two suspicions of how they might of got infected, one being the forage I collected from the field but she also had it so can’t be that, and two, taking her for a walk, her contracting it and passing it to them through the grille, obviously not. Their pen can easily be reached by wild rabbits and maybe some nose to nose contact through the bars, her pen cannot be reached so that’s the conclusion I have got to so far.

In the afternoon we went to the local steam and vintage rally which was a nice break although the wind was a bit chilly, great to see all the old vehicles and steam engines, from a bygone era. When we got back I watered the poly tunnels and the recently planted stuff and that was it for the day lol.

I took some Clematis cuttings, I have been taking cuttings of everything and anything 🤪

All the things I am growing at the moment 😲 no wonder I’m busy!

Garlic, onions, beetroot, bulb fennel, dwarf beans, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, sprouts, turnips, swede, broad beans, peas, tomato, cucumber, melons, carrots, salad leaves, spinach, radish, spring onion, strawberries, parsley, coriander, peppers, cape gooseberry, grape, lemon grass, raspberries, blackcurrants, blackberries, blueberries, kiwi, apricot, cherry, apple, pear, honey berry, Logan berry, runner beans, pumpkins, courgettes, potatoes, garlic, chives, mint, fennel, caraway, sweet cicely, horseradish, rosemary, oregano, sage, lovage, lemon balm, lemon verbena, asparagus, rhubarb, artichoke, red currant, cranberries, olives, fig, peach, plums, choke berry, loofah, gooseberry (red and green) mulberry, Angelica, bay, thyme, amaranth, quinoa, tree spinach, and then there are things like small leaves limes, Hostas, day lilies also edible, flowers/trees and shrubs for the beneficial insects a mixture of native wildflowers and trees and of course weeds 😝 something for every living thing here 😀

The rain came at 9pm and yessss it came down in bucket loads which will help to fill the rain tanks ready for more hot weather predicted for next weekend. It got torrential just at the time that John went out to put all the birds to bed 😬 ooops, I put the fire on and made a hot drink for when he came back in, he was soaked! It just happens that it’s his job to do the putting away as I’m am usually clearing up or washing up or typing up my blog notes 📝 still I spent many years walking the kids to back and forth to school and clubs in the rain so do I fell bad…..nah 🤪

I have been reading up on biochar, the good and the bad, I haven’t made up my mind which wins yet yet but I do think that with practice you could make it yourself rather than buy it.

There are four geese sat on four nests of goodness knows how many eggs in them! Typically because I wasn’t planning on having goslings this year it will probably be a successful hatch and there will be loads of them 😝

Tuesday: It’s half term so Sam is not working and I don’t have Mia today, I can crack on with a few jobs, John is also home so he can get stuck in to some work as well. After doing the morning stuff he started to make a base and fit one of the IBC tanks on the POL pen, this had a water barrel but it doesn’t hold much so a tank of this size (1000ltr) will be great. Then he started adapting the pen so we can put the ducklings out in it. Some draught proofing is needing but that’s about all it needs, the remaining five hens in there will move out into the paddock with the laying hens. Meanwhile I started tidying up the orchard pen, raking the ground and moving stuff that had been used and just got left and cleaning out any cages that are now also vacant. The little light Sussex that I hatched out, are inside a pen, inside the orchard pen if you see what I mean but I have been letting them out into the bigger area which they are loving.

In the afternoon, Shelley came over with Josh and Florence, Shelley and Martin have both got a vomiting bug 😷 so I took the kids out for a wander round the farm for an hour or so while Shelley got a bit of sleep, it got them out in the fresh air and running off a bit of steam as well. We saw a Little Blue butterfly which are quite common here and another small pretty one that I don’t know the name of and I didnt have my phone with me so couldn’t photograph it. One year we had some orchids growing in the big paddock so I had a look for those but couldn’t see any sign of them, maybe one year they will appear again. I may go back out later with a camera and see what I can photograph.

I have just been reading an article on how it would be possible to be self sufficient in fruit and veg in this country. I have had this conversation with people before, some saying it isn’t possible but I really think it is, if we utilise what spaces we have well, then food can easily be grown in the garden. There are small patio fruit trees and bushes these days making it easier for small gardens and you would be surprised with just how much you can pack into small areas. We import 70% of the apples consumed into this country, which is ridiculous given that our climate is perfect for growing them and in Autumn the amount you see lying on the ground is criminal. The same can be said for nuts, perfect climate, they grow in abundance yet we are importing them, go figure 🙄 If you want to but think, I can’t, I don’t know how, then just push yourself a little bit, learn or just try and see what happens, most plants want to grow they just need you to look after them, water is essential for all plants and some need more warmth or a bit of protection from birds etc but it’s really not that hard. Start with the easy stuff like herbs, this time of year even tender herbs will thrive, Then there are tomatoes, given plenty of water they will do well in a grow bag by the back door and there is nothing better than a sunwarmed ripe tomato, dwarf beans, easy again, get the plants make sure they stay watered and voila fresh veg. Ok you will still need to go shopping but you may just get the bug and want to learn/grow more 😀 There is no magic, green fingers help but we don’t all have those 🤣 yes you need to water but imagine standing outside with your wine or tea in your hand while doing it, perfect.

If you want to know more or learn I am more than happy to show you round my veg plot and you can ask as many questions as you like and endeavour to help you get going 😀

We moved the ducklings to their new abode, they are loving the extra room.

John moved a load of muck with the tractor from the back to the front, hopefully we will get the back cleared and a fence up, that’s the plan anyway.

We have an old caravan which was here when we came and it has lots of stuff stored in it mostly crap lol, I made the mistake of going in there and then one thing led to another and I started going through stuff 🙄 It’s been on the to do list for about 8 years 🤣 you never know I may finally complete the job.

I don’t need to water today yay, so after dinner I got a few hours off 😀

Wednesday: Rain again today so that’s fabulous, we are heading to high temps at the weekend apparently.

John has gone to work today so I get a bit of peace and quiet 🤪 Did all the morning feeding, letting out, filling up water troughs etc, the ducklings are fine despite being outside overnight so that’s good. Then I collected a couple of bucketfuls of herbs and weeds, one for the rabbit and guinea pig and one for the hens in the stable, not sure what I am going to do with them yet but I can’t have them on the veg garden so for now they have to stay there.

I moved the big poly tunnel around a bit so that I could plant some more cucumbers in the ground also a couple of tomatoes and some dill. I didn’t really think it through when I said no rush about finishing the greenhouse because everything that was in there is stored in the tunnel, including a very long potting bench and now I need to be planting into the ground I can’t 😬

The rain came so I went indoors to do a bit of cleaning, polishing, hoovering, washing all the boring stuff lol.

On Friday we are going to Llandeilo in Wales to see Dad and Sue, we are using Airbnb for the first time and staying on a smallholding which I am very excited about, I will tell you all about it later. Shelley and Sam will be here for the day on Friday to look after things then Charlie will be staying here Saturday and Sunday to look after things. It means I have to sit down and write a list of the routines and jobs that need doing, fairly straightforward except for the idiosyncrasies that everyone has lol such as the tap that is connected to the rain water tanks. It is connected to a pump but that is playing up and you have to turn it on then off again before connecting the hose otherwise the pump won’t kick in, then when you turn it off the pump keeps running so you have to listen out for that and turn the tap on then off again and it goes off, if you don’t it will blow the electrics by keep running, haha these are things I know but need to remember to tell others!

Quick cuppa and a natter with my neighbour in the afternoon who bought me a bag of bottom shearings (they are off of her sheep not her 😂) which I will use as a mulch, added bonus are the dags which are basically poo caught up in the wool, extra fertiliser 😀

I made a schoolboy error of not putting my wellies on when I went to do the afternoon feed and egg collection, I know have wet feet and trouser bottoms, div 🤪

When John came in from putting everything to bed he said he couldn’t find one of the light Sussex hens and she hadn’t gone to bed by herself, he looked everywhere 🙄 I went out and found her fairly quickly, you have to think like a chicken, she is too heavy to go up so she will hunker down in a corner somewhere which is exactly how I found her.

Thursday: The sun is back this morning after a couple of chiller, wet days. John is home again today and we did the morning routine between us.

This morning I have a blackbird that seems fascinated by the bag of sheep’s wool, I have now idea why by it keeps hopping up to it tweeting away, maybe it wants some of it for a nest.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the forest garden approach, I’m struggling with letting go of the control of the garden, it’s better for me because I’m not stressing trying to keep everything together but still there is that part of me that wants to clean, tidy, hoe, rake, cut back lol. At the moment it looks like organised chaos, eventually, and I know it’s a process that can’t be hurried, it will all make sense but getting there is taxing me 😝 Of course is going to be so much better in the long run, especially for the wildlife, I can see the sense in it, even though I haven’t used pesticides or artificial fertilisers etc for years the difference that not having bare earth between veg rows makes is noticeable both for the plants and the insects/birds. One day I will achieve ‘forest garden’ gold 😂 Meanwhile I am busy learning as much as I can about it.

Friday: We were up and busy doing the feeding and letting out before we set off for Wales to visit Dad and Sue.

We had booked through Airbnb to stay on a smallholding which was absolutely delightful, very rural and very quiet. We had a homemade honey topped cake on arrival which was delicious and ate heartily at Dad and Sues plus a trip to Aberglasny gardens.

At the smallholding old habits die hard and I was up at 6am each morning sitting outside on the patio with my coffee, just the birds, a few sheep, a goat and some cows a couple of fields away for company total bliss 😀 On the first morning John got up about 7 and we went for a walk along the lane lol, not a soul around, we will definitely stay then when we go back again. Doug and Stella were our hosts, friendly and very easy to chat with and ‘The Cartshed’ was just perfect.

BIG thank you’s to Shelley, Sam and Charlie for looking after things superbly while we were away.

Posted in Friesland Farm

No rain, lemon yoghurt cake, still no rain 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th May: We didn’t get any more rain yesterday despite the forecast saying there were heavy showers around 🙄 It’s slightly worrying that the pattern seems similar to last year in terms of lack of rain which is one of the reason I am trying to move in a different direction with the gardening. Large bare areas that are ready to plant/sow veg into are not ideal any more, the ground needs to be covered either with planting, mulching, or material cover or a mixture of all three. The weeds are getting a bit out of control BUT where there is a weed density the plants are thriving so there is a compromise to be had there.

I did the morning rounds and had made a mental note to not work on the garden today, giving my time to other things, initially I stuck to this and got some cleaning done and some bread on the go, then I got sidetracked in the garden 🤪 a bit of planting, some watering and some mulching.

Massage evening 😀😀😀 fabulous 😀😀😀 good for the mind, body and soul.

More watering when I got back 😝

Tuesday: I had Mia today so 99% of it revolves around her lol, however we did manage to get one half of the ducklings outside so they could splash around in a bowl of water and clean/preen themselves which they seemed to enjoy, the other half will have to wait a couple of days. Not sure if we did anything else apart from playing and reading etc.

Once she had gone home it was time to get the watering going, honestly I really wouldn’t expect to be watering quite so much at this time of year already but this is the second year in a row, the water butts are sounding hollow so nearly empty already. We are hopefully picking up 4 IBC tanks this week which will be another 4000 litres but they will be for the smaller buildings and hold water for the hens etc.

The comfrey has flowered and was teeming with bees 🐝 tonight which is fabulous 😀 I was about to cut some of it back but I couldn’t bring myself to do it with that much activity on it.

We dispatched two more of the rabbits tonight as they were definitely infected with Mitzi, the other, last one, is in a separate cage with the guinea pig and doesn’t look at all like she is but only time will tell.

Well I sat down around 8.45, typed up this then is was out to sort the ducklings, turned on the heat lamp, bulb blew, tripped the fuse out there and blew the fuse in the plug, so they are on a 60w bulb 🙄 hopefully the temps don’t get too cold tonight!

Wednesday: Nice morning again, up early and had my cuppa outside 😀 Did the ducklings then the morning feeding and letting out. John didn’t shut the ducks away last night, the ones in the pen, and this morning there was a dead duck, well headless actually, so guessing the fox got in, how on Earth we didn’t lose the whole lot is anyone’s guess!

Into the garden to get the last of the planting bits done, I am going to have so many courgettes this year lol. I planted almost the last of the beans to go out, ying yang and haricot beans, then planted a bed with the tree spinach, amaranth and quinoa looking forward to seeing how they turn out, probably self seed everywhere 😜

I watched the medals episode of Chelsea Flower Show, then did the ducklings again, then I got ready for my hospital appointment in the afternoon. I checked the post box, there was a live plant package in there, tomatoes and cucumber, oooops. I thought I had ordered some but couldn’t find the e-mail so grew some and bought some, now I have loads, ah well better to have too much than not enough, just need to find spaces for them 🙄

An afternoon getting to, having the appointment and getting home again, all my vital signs are good 😝 so onwards and upwards, just got to come off the steroids now.

When I got back John had got the ducks outside for some fresh air and a splash about, they really are mucky and I have scoured the internet to find ways of making it less so but it seems that’s what you have to put up with lol.

The tomato and cucumber plants that arrived had been soaking in the sink so I put them outside on the table in their plastic carriers which detailed from left to right which plants were which, but I hadn’t quite closed them tightly enough and a gust of wind blew them off the table and now I have no idea which is which variety 🤪 After dinner I got them potted up and left them to soak.

I had a very excited Shelley FaceTime me with her very first homegrown radish 😀😀

Thursday: Up a bit late today 🙄 7.30 so chasing my tail a bit and quickly ran out of cooler/shady weather so after doing hot ducklings and feeding etc I thought a bit of cake making might be the order of the day.

I had some Greek yoghurt, from the batch I made, to use up so I made a lemon yoghurt cake, very simple, just how I like it, mix up the ingredients and cook, I also made a batch of scones, they taste great but didn’t t rise very well lol.

Mix dry ingredients, then mix eggs with the milk and add, then add the oil and mix ….cook, I baked it at about 160c until the knife came out clean. Then make a mix of icing sugar and lemon juice up and pour over the top, amount depends on how much you want on it 😀

Went off to a farm a few villages away to pick up the IBC tanks, I’m pretty pleased with these, to collect as much rain water as possible has to be the way forward. Pop to the shop to get a few bits afterwards, home for dinner, then out to do the watering and finally cut the driveway grass and use for mulching.

So many jobs, so little time 😝

Friday: How is it Friday already!

Up at the crack of sparrows this morning and been running around ever since trying to get all the ‘must do’ jobs done then I can concentrate on the ‘should do’ ones 😜 The ducklings, as you can imagine are taking up quite a lot of cleaning, moving, watering, feeding time and growing fast. Hopefully we have some people coming this weekend to take a few of them so a little less work but not by much. They are having daily sessions outside now, it means I can put deeper water out there for them for splash in and wash and preen and I don’t have to clean the brooder box every few hours! Boy are they messy lol.

I swapped some plants with my neighbour this week so I have been planting up some more veg that I didn’t grow myself, swedes mostly, she also gave me some more pumpkins and cucumbers, I will try and sell some on but I may be planting them in the ménage to see if they will grow in there, just need John to fix the gate so the ducks can’t get at them.

I have a fig tree in a pot, it’s not huge at the moment but it will get bigger, a couple of the branches hang low down to the ground so I am going to layer them, this just means pegging them down into a pot of soil/compost and waiting, for quite a long time lol for them to put out some roots.

Apparently we may get a shower today but the sky is looking so blue that I wonder if it will all just pass us by 😏 The ground is dustbowl dry and in desperate need of some rain, plus it would be nice to get the tanks filling up again.

I had a coffee and a slice of lemon yoghurt cake, it has a texture like Madeira so quite dry and not sweet so if that how you like cake it’s a good one to try. Over the last few years I have really gone off cakes with icing, I find them far too sickly, except for an iced bun of course 😂

Saturday: Another fine morning, still no sign of any rain 🙄 We got up and got on with the mornings jobs, John went off to pick up some bits from the local building merchants and I watered the polytunnels and picked food for the remaining rabbit and guinea pig. I got Jack in as he is getting too fat on the grass that is available, he is not happy in the stable with just hay, kicking the billio out of the door. I sorted out some plants to go out for sale at the front and we had someone come to buy some ducklings 😀

Some sweet corn plants arrived in the post (more plants that I had forgotten I had ordered) and some mangetout seeds. I planted up the corn and sowed the peas round them, the peas can use the sweet corn stems for support. With everything I have planted and sown this year we will definitely not be going hungry 😋 and I may even be able to do veg boxes at the height of the season which would be amazing.

I have been out eyeing up the elderflower to see if they are open enough to start harvesting some, not quite ready just yet but the ones that are open smell amazing 😀 I am going to make a simple elderflower syrup and some jam this year as I think that will be more versatile, you can make a multitude of things with it including champagne. Apparently elderflower is very good for the immune system and if you infuse it in honey it makes a good flu buster for the winter months.

I haven’t forgotten the limoncello, I have the vodka ready, I am just waiting on the lemon verbena plant I bought to put on a bit more growth then I will be making it, we tasted it added to Prosecco and it was delicious even though I don’t drink Prosecco very often it will make great gifts for those that do 😀 I will be more inclined to add the elderflower syrup to gin and tonic 😀

I spent an hour or so shelling the last of the walnuts and hazelnuts that I had stored from last autumn, they will be nice in salads or just as a snack, they have kept well and not very many had dried up, bit of a faff collecting/washing/drying/ storing them at the time, but I’m glad at this time of year that I did.

Did some grass cutting, some watering of the plants I put in today and some of the pots, 6pm time to come in and cook the dinner 🙄 knackered today.

I felt some spots of rain but so far that’s it and only an 18% chance, I’m not taking the risk on that as the sun has been blaring for the best part of the day!

Meanwhile John has been moving wood from down the back and staining the capping for the greenhouse, cleaning out the ducks and various other jobs on the never ending job list 😝

Spag bol for me with a sauce I made and froze last year with fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil and John has mince with freshly picked peas and broad beans, the only thing that would be better than that would be new potatoes freshly dug but they are not ready yet. Still reaping the rewards of last years growing season 😀 To be fair we still have loads of fruit and veg left in the freezer and when I went shopping the other night it was just for basics like cat food and washing liquid as I am trying to make an effort not to buy anything unnecessary which will force me to look in the freezers and use it up, it’s too easy to just buy more and add to the amount we already have in there which is hardly the point of what I am trying to do here.

Sunday: The rain has been teasing us today, a sprinkle here and there but nothing substantial as yet 🙄 Did the morning things and a bit of potting on while John fixes one of the gates. Then we went to visit his Mum and afterwards to visit my brother and sister-in-law, popped in the see Sam, Luke and Mia on the way home. By the time we got back it was feeding and egg collecting time again and someone came to buy a couple of ducklings, the numbers are going down slowly. We have been putting them outside in a pen which they are enjoying but have to get them in when we go out as we can’t risk leaving them, so it’s in, out, in, out lol. I’m sat here writing this, the sky is black and I’m willing it very hard to pour down 🤪 the saplings I planted in the autumn are also beginning to struggle, they went through winter with no problems but with the wall to wall sunshine we have had without any rain the problems are starting to show.

The rain blew over quickly so it looks like I will be watering tonight 😝

We have a breast of lamb, rolled with garlic and rosemary, in the slow cooker for dinner so I haven’t got much prep to do, just as well as I was hoping I wouldn’t be doing the watering tonight.

That’s it for this week 😀 a bit boring really, I will try and pep it up a bit next week lol.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Asparagus frittata, grapes forming & the ducks are a no show ☹️

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th April: I’m feeling full of positive energy today 😀 The Sun is shinning and before doing anything else other than breakfast and showering, I have been out and cut the asparagus and rhubarb to put out for sale. Some of the asparagus I have kept back and made an asparagus frittata/crust less quiche, whatever you want to call it. I am making an effort to do a bit of clean(er) eating this week and as the asparagus is coming through plentiful and we have eggs I thought this would be ideal for lunch. I used 3 eggs, a bundle of asparagus, a clove of garlic, grated cheese, a spoonful of sour cream I needed to use up, pinch of salt and a shake of black pepper, bake at 160c ish for 30mins give or take and voila, lunch is done for a couple of days before I’ve even fed the chickens 😀

So what have I been doing all morning, well first I wrote myself a list of things I wanted to get done, and then worked through it, nearly all gardening things but a couple of others too boot. Firstly I wanted to feed a tree that is in the front paddock, Cherry, it’s been in all winter but I felt it needed a bit of a boost as the soil is very shallow out there and probably not many nutrients either. While I was out there I wandered over to look at the wild garlic which has now flowered 😀

Burn a bit of cardboard rubbish that has been piling up, sort out plants I am putting out for sale, dig up the last few leeks ready to chop and freeze for later use, one I have left as it’s going to seed so I can collect that at the end of the year. Hang the washing loads out, should dry well today, pay an outstanding bill online, hand weed the carrot bed and sow more carrots. The carrots I sowed a few weeks back have not been very good, it was a shorter, early variety that I was trying but the seedlings are sparse so I have intersown with a more familiar variety (Nantes) and then the other half of the bed with a later variety. I potted on more plants that are steadily growing and starting to put everything hardy enough outside to acclimatise. The more tender plants will stay in for probably another week then I can start hardening them off. I planted a couple of pepper plants in the small tunnel, the other three are still in pots in the large tunnel until I decide where to grow them. I looked up in the large tunnel and was cock a hoop to see the grape vine has tiny bunches of grapes growing 😀

I have seen a couple Pinterest posts with sweet potato slips being grown suspended over water so I am giving that a try to see if it works.

I bought one of those boxes of scatter and sow seeds at the weekend so I have done exactly that and watered them in, I’m not sure these really work, I have tried before with not great results but fingers crossed these just might.

There are still of jobs on the list to do lol but I’m getting through them as best I can 😜 and of course keep adding to the list all the while.

In the afternoon I did some slightly more gentle pottering, last year I decided that I wouldn’t do pots of things as it was bloody hard work trying to keep everything alive but today I changed my mind 🙄 so I have been finding bits to put into pots to go on the decking area. While I was down there I spotted a rat! I thought the torts were eating rather a lot 😝 so I will be giving the rat(s) supper tonight 😜 John had other ideas about trying to shoot it though, I say trying, it was an entertaining hour watching him stalking the thing, he has no patience to sit and wait for it to come out, he is also by his own admission ‘a crap shot’ added to that he kept moaning he couldn’t see through the sight, needless to say I’m still going to ‘feed’ it tonight 😛

Tuesday: Nice sunny morning, looks like a promising day 😁 I had Mia today and roped her in to help pick/cut some food for the rabbits and guinea pig and get some sacks filled with hay for them. She bought a marble painting kit with her that she got as a present for her birthday, it’s a great little kit, well thought out, we expanded the idea a little with splodge pictures and got messier and messier 😆

I received the invoice for the ducklings this morning and suddenly realised that has crept up on me fast 😂 I now need to think about moving the chicks to another pen, they should be able to go outside in the next few days as they are all feathered up now 🙂

I’m glad a did the whole ‘pond’ thing last year although it needs some work again now as the chickens decimated the planting, hopefully I will be rehoming some froglets to add to it so I need to make sure the area is damp and dark for them, natural slug patrol 😁

After Mia went home and John came home, I gave him the job of feeding the birds and collecting the eggs while I went out to water the poly tunnels, feed the citrus trees and pot a couple of things on, by the time we ate it was nearly 8pm 😜

Wednesday: Cooler this morning with a nice heavy dew, good for the garden 😁 Got the animals all sorted and picked a few bunches of asparagus which will go out for sale today.

When I went to collect the post from the end of the drive I could hear grasshoppers 😁 that made me smile 😀

I showed you a picture of a guild last week that I had planted, here is one that has more or less sprung up by itself so I have let it carry on, this is a cherry tree, feverfew, comfrey, some sweet cicely, there are daffodils and violet in there as well as a bit of horseradish, quite a combination! All doing very well although the feverfew is a bit thuggish. One of the asparagus beds runs behind it along the back

I should have been full steam ahead this morning but I’m taking it a little slower, I have been experiencing a high heart rate at times and trying to work out why, obviously it’s to do with the medication and I had stopped the anti inflammatory because I didn’t think I needed it anymore but maybe I still do, so a quieter day back on that and see what happens.

I have mainly pottered about doing bits and pieces, I sowed a couple of rows of beetroot, I need to find out what I can plant along side them to do them some good, I moved a few things around and then I picked some chard to take to the hens in the stable block. As I came out I whacked my head a good un on the closed top bit, why I don’t know because I KNOW ITS THERE and even stooped to miss it but not far enough it seems 🤕 ouch, one those when you just want to cry, I even checked to make sure I hadn’t cut it open, luckily not, just as well I took the anti inflammatory 🙄

It seems that beans and peas can be pretty much grown with anything so I have sowed some more dwarf bean seeds to use dotted around the garden as companions, I sowed some yarrow, potted on courgettes and melons and sorted out plants for Shelley, she has a terrific little courtyard garden which has the potential to grow lots of food as it is sheltered and parts are a sun trap.

I just witnessed first hand the ‘crow’ problem that is causing concerns throughout the countryside. I opened the pen for the light Sussex to get out further than normal earlier, this afternoon I can see about 15 crows in there, the problem (for the crows) is that the wire roof slants upwards and they cannot figure how to get out once they are disturbed. I haven’t been able to see yet if they have attacked the eggs the hen is sat on or if they were drawn in because the eggs have hatched (due any day) or if they were after feed. What I witnessed was two very angry cockerels attacking any crow that came down to the ground, one crow was attacked four or five times, but they are pretty tough as it still got out eventually! And then they all came back but the cockerel got the better of one of them this time though it took a bit of doing, if you are wondering why I didn’t intervene, not a chance I am going in there with a cockerel on a mission like that, and the fact that there are two cockerels in there having a go is a definite no way.

Tonight for my dinner I have chicken with coconut rice and a mango and avocado salsa 😀

Thursday: I got the morning stuff done, then moved the little chicks out to where the quail used to be to make room for the ducklings which are arriving tomorrow morning first thing. Then it was off to Shelley’s for the day to help her with her garden it’s a lovely little courtyard garden but full of weeds and building rubble from their renovations, now it’s all tided up, weeded and pots filled with edibles from patio trees and fruit bushes to vegetables 😀 we forgot to take before and after photos though 🤪

John got the ducks some starter crumb and the chicks some growers pellets on the way home. I cleaned out the brooder this morning so we are good to go with duckies.

Friday: Well it started off well, I was up early, got the brooder lamp on, opened a new bag of starter crumb and was making a duckling proof waterer at 7.30am all ready for the delivery of ducklings, get a phone call at 7.45 to say they are not coming because the hatch was 300 short ☹️ I’m a bit pissed off to be fair 🙄 All that work in making brooders, getting feed in (a 20kg bag which I opened minutes before the phonecall) not to mention the anticipation, all for nowt. They are going to ring back on Tuesday to see what they can do, it may mean waiting for another hatch but I’m guessing they have already allocated those to customers 😕 meanwhile the ducks I have are laying poorly at the minute so not many duck eggs. The last lot I bought in Ffairfach when I was down at Dads and that was a few years ago, we are going down at the end of this month and I may have to see if I can find some in that area to bring back with us, honestly, who knew it would be so hard to get hold of ducks lol.

I did the morning rounds and got everything else sorted all the while thinking about how things look rosy for a while and then bump, down you come with a thud lol.

I spent the morning in the poly tunnel sulking 😝 lol, well potting on etc then I did some planting of perennials that I had split last autumn and overwintered. Sam and Mia came over at lunchtime, ‘do you fancy lunch out’ I said, ‘yep’ then let’s go 😀

Got back and did the feeding and eggs, I have sold 12 goose eggs today 😁

After that I had a sit down and I need a new purse as mine is on its last legs, well we are back to the light bulb saga for choice, it seems these days you really need to have a purse that is RFID blocking to prevent unauthorised scanning 😏 I need it big enough to get a medication card (I have to carry around with me) in it, I would quite like one big enough to get my phone in it if I am not taking my bag with me, and of course a multitude of loyalty cards, (mostly for garden centres 😂), some old one pound notes I was given as a birthday present many years ago and never spent 🤣, I choose one eventually and then found I could get it half price if I buy one in damaged packaging, yep that will do fine I throw that bit away anyhow!

Babysat Florence in the evening while Shelley and Martin took Josh to see Madagascar the musical which he absolutely loved 😁😁

Saturday: A cold North wind this morning, apparently it’s the coldest May bank holiday weekend for however many years, the weather patterns are so up and down this year. John went off to get feed and I did the feeding etc. I had a few larger plants in pots that needed moving to bigger pots and so thats what I did, meanwhile John cleaned out his van which took nearly all morning, I washed it as he was just going to park it back on the driveway and it was filthy! In the afternoon we went over to Cheltenham to visit our niece whose birthday was this week and she has just moved into a new flat there, good to get out and about, back home for an hour then over to Sam and Luke’s for a burger and some pooling of ideas for their garden which is about to have a huge transformation. That’s pretty much it for the day 😀

I have managed to find a couple of kittens not too far away and hopefully will be going to look at them next weekend 😀

Sunday: Brrrr still colder than it should be by now. Morning rounds first then I did some hoeing, the weeds are beginning to sprout everywhere, John went off to visit his Mum and when he came back he got the mower out to do the front paddock. We have kept the chickens off this paddock to give it a rest and get the sward thickened up, it’s looking pretty good although there are still some bare patches. He got bored after a couple of goes round so I took over while he got on with taking out a gate post near the back door that had rotted out and needed renewing. Halfway through that job we decided to go out and get something to eat, came back and he finished the job off while I did some pricking out and potting on lol my favourite jobs at the minute. I have put some runner beans out for hardening off as they will need to be planted up soon, I did put an extra cover of bubble wrap over the top though as it’s unseasonably chilly 😏

We had to light the Rayburn as it’s a tad too cold in the house, come back sunshine 🌞

Mostly garden tasks this week lol at the expense of everything else but I’m loving it so I’ll carry on regardless 😜

Have a good week everyone x