Monday 23rd October 2023: I am gearing up for future workshops and so spent a couple of hours sending out messages and payment links plus checking what I need to order. I need to make sure I have all the sundries plus enough pairs of secateurs for each session. I was under the impression it would be raining this morning so I was glad to see that it wasn’t and by the time I finished my admin tasks it was warm enough to go out and get some work done on the garden.
4.30pm and I am knackered 🤪 I have been working on one of the big beds that I couldn’t control this spring and summer because of my arm. I have dug, cut, weeded, pulled, cleared, planted and barrowed all day long and if bind weed was a cash crop I would be rich 😂 I have to make a decision about the asparagus because that is the bed that it is in, the crowns are now around 8/10 years old and did not produce well this spring. It could have been the weather or it could be that bindweed is all around the roots 🤷♀️ should I dig it up or leave it? A quick bit of research and the jury is still out, several sites says anywhere from 10 to 20 years 🙄 I could feed them but I will also be feeding the bindweed lol.
I still have some bulbs to plant but I am waiting to lift some of the dahlias and then the tulip bulbs can go into that bed. After that first frost the weather has been mild again and so the dahlias are still flushing but not for much longer I suspect.
Tuesday: Oscar day 🥰
Wednesday: I spent most of the morning tidying up the flower room because I have workshops this weekend and besides it needed a tidy. Putting things away, throwing stuff out, sweeping, hoovering and washing buckets, it is now ready. Sam and the twins arrived just before midday and Mia was at pony club just down the road. The twins have discovered ‘snap’ but trying to teach them the rules is hilarious, Lucie is a big cheat but eventually she got the hang of it and how to play without cheating 😂
Sam went to collect Mia and she came home with a 1st rosette so she was very pleased with herself 🥰 After they left I went back to the room to trial one of the pumpkins, just cutting it because the outside seemed quite tough and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be too difficult for workshoppers, I needn’t have worried once through the skin it was just as easy as other types.
Late afternoon I watered the poly tunnels and greenhouse and had a look round at what flowers I might be cutting tomorrow, it has been lovely and sunny and lots have come out including more cosmos 😊
Thursday: Drizzle this morning which is a shame because I did think about cutting flowers late yesterday but in the end I didn’t, now I have to cut them and get wet at the same time 😣 You see plenty of social media images of people cutting in lovely sunshine and not so many in the rain but it has to happen sometimes.
It took me the best part of the morning to cut everything g I need for flower orders and workshops this weekend. After a quick lunch and a sit down with a cuppa I went back out to the flower hut and sorted out all of my dried flowers. Quite a bit needed to be thrown out either because they didn’t Ho,d colour very well or the stems were weak but now I have sorted it all I can use the material I have left to get on and make things. I have a table top sale to do first week of November so I need to have something to put on the table top 😜
John came home and bought me a cuppa while I carried on and by 4.30 I was able to sit down again and give my back a rest but I have no finished for the day yet, apart from getting dinner I still need to make up a bouquet order that is going out tomorrow and a jam jar for a birthday at the local residential home, I will do those this evening, oh and I have a zoom meeting too 🤦♀️
Friday: Up early to get sorted and all jobs done before Sam arrives with the kiddies as I am looking after them for a few hours while she goes to work. We did plenty of colouring, watched Harry Potter and Horrible Histories they had lunch and then Sam collected them mid afternoon.
I now had to get on and finalise everything for the workshop later, I went into the flower room only to find that the celebration flowers I had wrapped and boxed had leaked everywhere 🤦♀️ Oh ffs, I cleared everything up, cut new wrapping, got out a new box and got it sorted, again. I had also had another phonecall for flowers and so needed to get those made up as well as anther bouquet for Saturday morning. Once they were done I concentrated on making sure I had everything I needed for later. John came home and we went off to deliver two lots of the flowers locally and then to get a small amount of shopping, we just needed a few essentials so it was a quick whizz round. Back home and get dinner then out to the workshop to put everything in place, clean up the goose poo right outside the door, yep they are still sitting there everyday 🙄 and then wait for people to arrive.
It was a great evening and the arrangements all looked fabulous and round two again tomorrow night.
Saturday: The weather was not too bad for most of the day and so I spent the morning doing some work in the garden, John was busy riddling one of the big compost heaps.
Mid afternoon we went over to my niece who was having a Halloween party for all the kiddies, the decor was brilliant, plenty of sweets and food for the kids and drink and food for the adults. The dressing up was epic by some and all added to the occasion, we left early because I needed to get ready for the second pumpkin flower workshop that evening. The weather turned filthy, heavy rain showers all evening although luckily just at the times everyone was arriving and leaving it had stopped but before and inbetween it hammered down 😂
Is everyone gathered for a funeral 😂 nope its Halloween 🎃 The second workshop of pumpkin flowers 🥰
Sunday: The weather was not too bad today just the odd shower, I spent he morning in the flower hut tidying up from last night and then getting some of the dried flowers ready for selling. I also made a couple more of the little dried flower fairies, they are fiddly though so not sure how many I will get made. I have a table at the coffee morning next week so I need some stuff to sell which is why I have been getting the dried flowers ready.
The clocks went back last night and so today seems long, I came in at what I thought was around 1pm only to find it was just midday, I had done enough though and so had John so we downed tools and went out to get something to eat. The rest of the afternoon was spent chilling because you can’t work all the time can you lol.
Monday 24th October 2022: Ok I have been a little tardy with the blog posts apologies for that. I am feeling very ‘meh’ about everything at certain points in the day, generally late afternoon and evening when I would usually do the write up. I am more tired than usual, it’s starts off ok in the morning but slowly goes downhill through the day. So what has been happening, well not much really, all the usual day to day stuff that goes on in anyones life, all the usual day to day stuff that goes on in Smallholding life and none of it is very interesting 😂
I have decided I need to streamline my social media pages, I have one for the farm and one for the flowers but I think I will amalgamate them in the New Year. That will give me less of a fractured approach to posting provided the amalgamation goes smoothly that is. We have some small changes afoot here, nothing major and I will write about those when the times comes. I am awaiting the inevitable instruction to fully house the poultry at some point, a surveillance zone is already in force across the UK so it’s only a matter of time.
To be honest it feels like the whole world is caving in, the bird flu is affecting thousands of species of birds across Europe and maybe further I haven’t really looked it up. This could mean extinction for some species and that’s not an over exaggeration. Watching the Frozen Planet series about the ice melt all over the world and the accelerated rate it is happening is frightening. At the rate it is going now in 200 years time the sea level will be seven metres higher 😔 They say we could still slow this down if we all lived sustainably but that is not about to happen is it? There are individuals out there doing what they can and there are bigger organisations doing what they can but when a big majority don’t think it is going to affect them and carry on regardless then things will not change. Add to that the world governments obsessed with economic growth, which is basically consumer spending and investment, fine as long as they are mindful investments and expenditures it a big proportion won’t be, and you can see we are basically screwed. Then there are those demented power crazy lunatics in charge of some of the countries, we all know who they are they don’t need clarifying with names 🙄 All in all I feel we are on a road to disaster and I can’t shake the feeling, it’s a worry to be sure.
On a lighter note the flowers are still coming, the weather has been mild which is great for the dahlias. I have been making more pumpkin arrangements and I have a farewell wreath to make this week too.
Wednesday: Oops tardy again 🙄 I have been busy though especially today, pumpkin flower arrangement made first thing this morning then out to cut lots of lovely flowers for a farewell wreath for tomorrow and then hours and hours of paperwork 🤪 Each year I make myself a promise to keep on top of it, I always used to but these days work and life take over and I don’t have the time. Not quite true of course, I could make time, the truth is it’s not a job I want to be doing but then we get to that time of year when it becomes imperative that I get it sorted. That time is now, before life gets busy with festive preparations and so that is what I have been doing, all day long. I have at least another days work to do and then John can take it all to the accountant and I can breathe a sigh of relief.
Thursday: First things first this morning, the wreath of flowers for a farewell today. This was personal as it was for Sue’s ashes internment and I was nervous about doing it but very much wanted to do it justice. I was delighted with the outcome, a beautiful and bright tribute to a life now passed. Once I had done that it was time to cut flowers for pumpkin arrangements and then more paperwork. I only had a few hours but I was determined to break the back of the income and expenditures and get things all in order. I didn’t quite make it but only have a couple more hours to do and then the books will be finished and can go to the accountant. A quick shower mid afternoon and then off to the churchyard for the internment, the sun shine beautifully and it was a lovely autumn afternoon, very mild for the time of year too. We had some refreshments afterwards at a local pub and it was great to be able to put some names to faces. Many people I had heard about over the years but never actually met, some I had spoken on the phone to but never actually met and today we were able to get to know and understand who was who and where we all slotted in to the lives of Dad and Sue.
Friday: I spent the first half of the morning doing pumpkin flowers and then finished the last few bits of the bookkeeping to go to the accountant next week ✔️ Typing this up on Sunday I actually have no idea what else I did 🤷♀️
Saturday: I spent most of the day sorting out dried flowers, going through them all and throwing those that had broken, bent or just didn’t look good. Once I had done that I made another dried flower wreath and then sorted out all the things I had made that I will be taking to the table top sale next week. I just about hoovered and tided when the whole tribe descended upon us, Shelley and the kids, Sam and the kids and then Charlie, Macca and Oscar 😁 The kids had been to a party and so were full of sugar 🤪 Nice to have them all at once but the volume gets a bit loud 😂
Sunday: I watered the tunnels and greenhouse this morning as I still have flowers growing in those. Then onto cutting and weaving willow wreaths ready for the workshops. I actually managed to do a time lapse video of the process. John cleaned out the ducks and then concrete the next part of the path and then we went out get some lunch. Popped into Mums on the way home for a cuppa. Have to be home earlier today as the clocks went back last night and so it will be dark around 5ish today 🫤 bye bye summer.
Weaving willow wreath bases from willow grown here on the Smallholding 🥰
Monday 3rd October 2022: What a beautiful morning, it started off with a pink sky which bathed everything in a glow at dawn this morning and then the sun came out in glorious autumn fashion. I decided a creative morning was in order and so I gathered up plenty of foliage to make an autumn wreath to hang on the door and then made a jam jar arrangement with what was left. There is so much vibrant colour at this time of year, tones and shades of red, orange, yellow and brown, just glorious. 🍂 I then cut some asters and chrysanthemums for drying, not sure what I will do with all this dried wonderfulness but I am hooked on the process. I then decided that as it was such a beautiful day I would go for a walk around the village. At this time of year the sun is lovely but it is not strong enough to do much harm and so off I went. I get out of the house and off the farm for a bit, I get a very pleasant wander round and I fulfil my target on my activity monitor as well as boosting my step count. The hedges were audibly buzzing with bees and insects all enjoying the Ivy, I didn’t see anyone else apart from some workmen and it was so peaceful it was good for the soul.
Did a bit more playing with flowers 😂 and then some bulb planting, allium this time. They will be for cutting next year but I did plant some in the ornamental beds 😉 I think I am becoming obsessed with all things flowery 😂
I have had a thoroughly enjoyable day today 😁 I would quite like to spend my whole time doing nothing but flowers 😂 This week I have flower club again and we are doing flower arrangements in a pumpkin. At first I was like ‘hmm not my sort of thing’ but I now I am looking forward to giving it a go and besides it’s all good practice.
Tuesday: Not such a nice day today as far as the weather goes. I was waiting for a delivery today and then got an email at lunchtime to say it is not co ing until tomorrow now. I hate it when that happens, I plan the day around something and it doesn’t happen 🙄 in this case it was a big job because it was whole fresh farm reared chickens being delivered and I had planned to portion them all before freezing. One of them was going to be roasted for dinner and at the same time I would have been cooking a batch bake of cakes for the freezer so you can see why my plans were messed up lol. Now I will be doing all that tomorrow instead. I decided to sow some vegetable seeds for winter and I have ordered onion sets and garlic bulbs to plant. I have come to the conclusion that things are going to get worse rather than better so let’s make sure we can at least eat even if it means cooking on the fire pit outside 🤪 I cut flowers today as well and while I was doing that I spotted a deer sat in the paddock, it’s a bit unusual for it to be sat in broad daylight in an open field. My thought was that it was injured so I shut the dogs away and went to have a look, it let me get quite close before getting up and running off, not injured thank goodness, it was obviously just basking in the sun that happened to be out at that time.
It let me get fairly close and didn’t seem too fazed 😍
Wednesday: I did a bouquet up in the morning ready for delivery later, popped out for an hour with Sam and just after I got back my meat delivery arrived. It took me a good couple of hours to portion out four fresh, free to roam chickens. I now have plenty of different portion types of chicken in the freezer, breast, thigh, drumsticks, wings plus the carcasses and the giblets. I roasted one of them whole for dinner in the evening and I also left another whole for a different day. The carcasses went into the slow cookers along with some thyme, onion, celery and carrot to make stock for soups, gravy, stews and broth. I also bought large packs of sausages and bacon and split those into portions for ease, everything was vacpacked and that will last months in the freezer. I do it like this because it’s more cost effective, I have the freezer space and I like higher welfare products, these were from Field & Flower as they guaranteed that the meat would be sent out fresh not frozen which meant I could portion it all out.
My Mum called in for a cuppa in the afternoon and to pick up some bulbs that I had dug up, gladioli and liatris plus I gave her some new bulbs of narcissi, I have way too many😂 Most of the rest of the day was taken up with cooking the dinner and tidying up before going to flower club in the evening. We made flower arrangements in a pumpkin, I have to say they all looked really colourful all together at the end of the evening 😁
Thursday: This morning I am wondering what the heck is happening to the country at the minute, it is almost as if gremlins are causing turbulence 😂 It’s like a pile of pick up sticks, a jumbled intertwined mess that seems impossible to unpick 🙄 More unions talking of strike action, at this rate it will only be the self employed that are working. We work without the safety of sick pay, holiday pay, maternity/paternity pay or pension contributions from elsewhere, we work long hours and work hard to keep businesses going. We have no direct representative, we do all our own bookkeeping and pay tax and national insurance just like everyone else. It is more difficult to get a mortgage when you are self employed and you jump through hoops to provide the proof and paperwork they want to make sure you can make the payments. There is no one to work in your place if you are off for whatever reason so a holiday is a double whammy, no wages, no holiday pay. We are not moaning, we are a tough breed and yes we chose to be self employed and face the difficulties. We do have freedom though, we are not bound by the rules, regulations, work hours or the etiquette of the workplace. Maybe that is why we are happy 🤷♀️
Friday: I went out for a couple of hours with Sam and the twins, we called in to see Charlie and Oscar and I bought some pumpkins to do some arrangements in as they seem pretty popular 😁
Saturday: A lovely day, warm for October and so I did a fair amount of work outside. Pulling some stuff up that has no more to give or that will collapse at the first frost, planting up plants in the beds and some in the big tunnel which will now be a flower tunnel. Clearing, weeding, tidying are the jobs that need doing at this time of year but not too tidy, the wildlife still need a lot of it left so they can get through winter.
I have been asked to sell my wares at a local Christmas table top sale. Never having done one before I thought, oh I don’t think I can do that 😂 then I had a word with myself and thought, of course I can 🙄 I am not sure what it is, I mean I am quite happy to sell them from the sanctuary of the Smallholding but actually getting out there and doing it seems a scary thought which is ridiculous I know but there you have it 🤷♀️
I am babysitting Oscar tonight 🥰 that in itself will be lovely but also means I get the remote control all to myself 🤪
Sunday: Another lovely autumn day and so I spent most of the day in the garden. Plenty of tidying up and cutting back but always leaving enough cover for the wildlife overwinter in. Some planting up, some seed collecting, some seed sowing and some cutting of flowers for drying. A very pleasant days work indeed followed by a delicious roast cooked by Charlie and Macca x
Monday 24th May 2021: Starting the week after being out last night and a beer sounds like a recipe for disaster luckily it was at The Harry Potter Studios and it was Butterbeer 😁 so I am ok this morning 😂 All I can say was it is epic! I didn’t really know what to expect and it exceeded expectations by a mile, just realising the amount of work and talent that went into producing these films is mind blowing, the detail and the scale is incredible. As for the physical side of the the road trip all I can say is 😳 The traffic was so heavy it took us and hour and a half to get to stokenchurch (which normally would be approx 40 mins) let alone the rest of the way to Watford. Coming back at 10 was even worse but not because of the traffic this time, it was the horrendous rain, seriously it was like driving in a monsoon!
This morning started off with the sun shinning in through the window but that soon disappeared, from the looks of the forecast this should be the last day of crap weather. I think the jet stream is on the shift finally, for two months now I have been thinking, along with everyone else I’m sure, it will be better next week, next week arrives and nope it is no better and sometimes worse lol.
John had his 2nd vaccine on Friday and has not had any side affects this time round which is good. In my opinion vaccines are the only way out of this and if you are a non vaccine person well that’s your choice as well, historically though vaccines are what safeguard the population, I doubt there would be many people walking round on this planet without modern medicine and I for one am very grateful.
I think it was last Monday that I was deciding between baking and housework, well I chose baking last time so I figured I’d better do housework this time. Hoovering, cleaning, polishing, in the hopes that as the week progresses the weather will get better and more time will be spent outside 🙄
One of my aims this year is to have much more dried produce, I want to rely less on the freezer to be able to keep the produce I grow throughout the year. Obviously jams, chutneys and fermenting are one way along with bottling (canning) but drying is also a method that is underused, by me at least. So today I picked some herbs to get started, I want create mixes as well as individual dried herbs, an Italian mix being the most useful to me alongside the traditional mix that you would use for stews and casseroles. I also am going to aim to create dried veg stock mixes, I think meat ones might be a bit too far but you never know. I began with the picking, actually I began last week with cleaning the dehydrator, and once the herbs were picked it it just a case of arranging them on the different shelves and turning it on. I will give you a quick overview of dos and dont’s just in case you want to have a go : Do pick your herbs before they start to flower, this is when they are at their best. Ideally dry the same herb on all the racks but if you don’t have enough to do that you can dry mixed batches. This has a couple of minor problems, the thickness of each herb is different so the drying times will be different. I generally put the thicker stalked of leaved herbs near the bottom and the finer ones at the top, that way they will hopefully all finish at the same time and you won’t have to waste electric on empty racks. The main thing to remember is that herbs all look similar when they are dry and green 🙄 so do try to remember what went in which rack (write a list to remind you) also as they dry they get very small, teeny tiny some of them, if they fall through the gaps they will fall onto the next layer of herbs. If you don’t mind then that’s fine but if you wanted a pure blend then it will matter. You don’t have to use a dehydrator of course, you can use a very low oven or you can hang to dry, the problem with hanging is dust, it gets everywhere and it will get on your drying herbs lol. I intend to pot them all up separately to begin with until I have enough of what I want and then I will blend them accordingly. By the way, what looks like a huge bunch when you pick it will probably only fill a tablespoon or two when it’s dry so if you want a lot then pick a lot! This morning I have picked, lovage, fennel, oregano, chive and parsley to get going with. I mentioned the Italian mix I want to make but also I think something like dill with dried lemon zest and black pepper will make an excellent mix for chicken, fish or pasta. The vegetable stock mix can be an assortment of whatever you have, just make sure that the pieces are all roughly the same size for drying. I am thinking, onion, celery, carrot, leek, garlic to start with and whatever is to hand maybe sweet potato, turnip, parsnip. Once they are dried they get whizzed in the processor and they will be ready to put in a jar and store, you can add salt and pepper or even chilli flakes if you want, just go for it and experiment. All of these things can also be dried separated of course, you would be surprised how handy a jar of celery or onion powder is and I will be making mushroom powder again this year as a flavour enhancer. The dried herb world is my oyster 😁
Drying herbs, a word of caution, make a note of what is on which tray, once dried they can all just look like dried green stuff 😜
Made some rhubarb and orange jam in the afternoon, the rain showers just keep appearing and it’s a tad cold out there, ridiculous for the end of May.
We lit the Rayburn again the other day when it rained all day long but I can’t ever remember having it going this late in the year before. We are at the stage when, if I light it the house gets way to hot but without it the house is a tad cold and feels damp in this weather. We do have the radiators in four rooms now but I don’t really want to be turning them on 😂 they are set low at around 16/17c so if it gets too cold they kick in but at this time of year, seriously 😐
It was my one of my brother in laws birthdays today so we went round saw a few other family members and had the best laughs, so good to be able to get back to some kind of normal and enjoy ourselves again.
Tuesday: I started prepping for this mornings main activity yesterday afternoon. Out of the freezer I got a lamb shank, two packs of chicken thighs, minced beef and a lump which I thought was stewing beef and luckily it was. Overnight I cooked the lamb shank in the slow cooker while everything else defrosted and so this morning I have been batch cooking. I fried off a large pan of onions, garlic and celery first and then got organised with various dinners a ready for the freezer. I am waiting for some to finish and one lot will be in the slow cooker again today but so far I have four shepherds pies, three lamb and sweet potato curries, three chicken casseroles and two chicken in lemon and garlic plus probably four or five portions of slow cooked beef stew as well as a lamb casserole for Johns dinner tonight. 18 meals all cooked and ready to freeze which will save me a lot of time over the summer months, I have used up bits from the freezer such as turnip, swede and spinach as well as pulled a few leeks from the garden and I have used some of my freshly dried herbs, I could have used fresh but I wanted to try them out. It will save cooking time and it will mean that I have something I like as well, normally I just cook and eat what John likes to save time. I realised while I was cooking that I am going to need a lidded casserole pan suitable for the hob, this will be useful because it means I don’t have to turn the whole oven on just to do Johns dinner, it can be done on the hob which is more energy efficient. I am aiming for efficiency, not because I have to but because I want to for the sake of the planet and our bank balance 😜 I use the foil dishes with the cardboard lids but I also have small plastic containers with lids, it’s a toss up really over which is better for the planet. The plastic ones can be used over and over again but they are plastic and they can get fragile in the freezer. The foil and cardboard ones are one use and so less cost effective but recyclable and in that respect better for the planet. I haven’t really come across a complete answer yet, obviously the best thing would be not use freeze anything and use everything fresh but that is a tall order in today’s busy life. Once I have used up the freezer contents in one freezer the plan is just to have a single freezer. Until now we have run two large chest freezers but we no longer have the need, we don’t rear our own meat much any more and I plan on being able to store anything I can in the store room that is yet to be built. Mostly for me this is an exercise in ‘let’s see what is possible’ let’s see how much I can preserve/store without the aid of electric and always in the back of my mind is the rest of that sentence ‘because one day we might need to’ 🤔 Never say it will never happen, this last year should have taught us that much at least.
Yesterday was the first day of the Hazel, trees have important roles in ‘lore’ of all kinds, country, Norse, Celtic, pagan, Druid to name a few. The Hazel is no exception, it is a sacred tree, divining rods are often made of hazel, it is a tree of protection from all manner of things, a tree that is a gateway to spring and the bounty it’s brings with it including birth, plenty of catkins, plenty of prams was a well known country saying until a few decades ago 😁
Popped over to see Charlie and Macca in the evening and when we got back at 9pm the first thing we heard when we got out of the car was a fox calling. John said he heard it last night as well so good job we came home well before dark and shut the hens in.
Wednesday: The sun made an early appearance this morning, 4.50 I woke up thinking it must be later and the daylight was already streaming in through the curtains. Although the sun continued to make itself seen there was a lot of cloud as well which lowered the temperature at times. After doing the eggs, dogs, cats, milk bottles, breakfast, shower, stretching exercises, I went straight out to get something done in the garden. To be honest it’s overwhelming, it’s like a jungle out there and I really had no idea where to start, but start I needed to so I picked watering the tunnels first. Then I went onto covering a large bit of weedy soil that is behind the big tunnel, I have used weed membrane and pegged it down. This will kill off the weeds and keep them controlled until I get round to planting it up. Then onto weeding the beetroot and swede rows, actually I ended up just pulling off the tops as there are so many, I am really trying to just slow them down until I have time to get on there for a good hour or more. Sam arrived with the twins mid morning, she has no electric today due to some work in the village and it’s not much fun without electric all day and two toddlers. Shelley came over with Florence after lunch and we all went for a walk along the local lane. George was fascinated by a spider he found on the ground and trying to jump in puddles, Lucy and Florence were happy running along picking flowers (dandelions) and looking at the horses and sheep. I know there is a whole gender neutral movement but the difference is something that is within some children quite naturally and that shouldn’t be neutralised for the sake of over thinking or over compensation which is what happens in some society circles today in my opinion 🙄 They can be whatever they want to be but let them be what they want not what society thinks they should want. I am quite glad I never grew up with all the pressures that the media (in all forms) force upon today’s parents, I am glad that rightly or wrongly, I knew my own mind and I wasn’t reduced to a gibbering wreck when trying to make parental decisions, even if I say so myself my girls turned out to be amazing adults so I must have done something right 🥰
I did a bit of weeding before dinner, the peas needed doing (as does everything else really) and then after dinner I walked over the lawn and decided it was dry enough to cut. No mow May was almost achieved but really the lawn has got way too long and besides we are only a few days off 😜 I cut half of it and John cut the other half, Sod’s law the sun came out full on and we were sweating buckets trying to mow foot tall grass! The weather as always is unreliably British, half the day I felt cold especially when the sun went behind the clouds, the second half I was boiling trying to work in the evening sun 🌞 Not complaining though it’s nice to see it and we are getting more as the week goes on, but then……..there is another cold front plunging in from Scandinavia according to the long range forecast, goodness knows what weather June is going to bring us and I still haven’t got some of the veg planted up yet.
Thursday: Oh what a lovely morning, wall to wall blue skies first thing and warm sunshine 🌞 John had a couple of hours work to do after he had done the birds and I went almost straight out into the garden. First off I have covered some more bare soil with weed membrane, I intend to plant the sweetcorn there but until I do I don’t want hundreds of weeds popping up all over the place. I watered the plants in the greenhouse hopefully they will get some warmth today and shoot up a bit more, it mostly peppers, chillies and aubergine left in there apart from some smaller squash plants that are just coming on. Then I opened a package that had arrived about four weeks ago and I hadn’t had chance to use it but oh my it’s a game changer for me. I don’t know why I didn’t buy one years ago, it’s a UV pop up gazebo and today I have spent 3 hours on my hands and knees weeding in the sunshine and get this bit, in a short sleeve t-shirt which is unheard of! I had the best three hours lol, the only problem with it is that I can’t easily move it to a new area by myself, today John was around but in future I will need to plan a lot better to maximise the use I can get out of it.
I spent the three hours weeding the asparagus bed which is also interplanted with strawberries, three rhubarb plants grown at the end of the bed and the herb area is at the top. The weeds are insane , the constant rain didn’t slow their growth at all so it was good to be able to get down and really clear them out. The strawberries that grow there probably won’t get harvested, I have other beds in the fruit cage that shouldn’t get eaten but these are out in the open and it won’t take the blackbirds long to figure out they are there. At least I can see where the asparagus is growing now I have thinned it all out a bit, it was like looking for needles in a haystack before.
At 2pm we had a delivery of POL hens, most of these are our own new stock but there are 20 that have been pre ordered by customers. John dealt with the unloading of those and the feed delivery and around 2.30 I came in to get some lunch. We have the twins today while Mia goes to her swimming lesson and I have a massage booked early evening so I needed to eat before chaos ensues 😂
The twins came, we played a little bit and then it was ‘unch unch’ after that we went outside to feed the torts and play in the sunshine. Sam dropped me off for my massage on their way back home.
Friday: Dull today, no sun, but the temperature is just fine 😁 I stripped the bed and put that onto wash, went out an freshened up the roadside egg board and then into the garden where I have spent the rest of the morning. Finally getting somewhere with the veg planting, I have sown all the sweetcorn, I kept a few back in case of losses. They have been sown in a block because they are wind pollinated and I have cut into the weed membrane to plant them as this bed is tricky, very heavy clay and very weedy. I am doing all I can to minimise the weeding and enable me to concentrate on the growing and harvesting when the time comes. I covered them in environmesh because animals and birds like to eat young corn greenery 🙄 After that I had a search to find something for a hack I had seen on you tube, this again is a game changer for me. The plastic weed membrane is awful, but I already have it so don’t want to waste it, when the wind gets under it shredding occurs, I have pegged it down with the raw ends tucked under so this doesn’t happen and then implemented my hack for planting. You use a weed wand or similar burner, find a metal circle though you can use a wooden template, I used a cylinder spanner, the diameter is about 6” then place it on the membrane and use the burner to burn a hole. This is hugely effective because the heat seals the edges of the circle so no shredding 😁 and a lovely little circle to dig and plant into, the membrane stays in place to keep the weeds down and again it’s hugely time saving. I have planted dwarf French beans the other end of the sweetcorn bed and butter nut squash and spaghetti squash behind the big tunnel. I also planted banana squash with the French beans as they can ramble on the ground through the beans and sweetcorn, also a couple planted near the runner beans, making full use of all the space available. I planted some courgettes near the rhubarb bed and I still have more of those to go in as well as more dwarf French beans but they are not big enough yet. So as it stands I have most things planted, I just need to get the hundreds of pumpkin and other squash plants in the ménage and the remaining courgettes in the garden once they are big enough to transplant. Feet hurt now so time for lunch.
John came home just as I was hoovering mid afternoon, at least I wasn’t sat down 😉 he was waiting for a floor to go down before going back to he job to put the toilet in, we had a cuppa and then Shelley and Flo came, they were going to help in the garden but it had started spitting with rain by then. John went back off to work, Shelley went to collect Josh from school and I went outside to water the small tunnel and then did a bit of weeding. I came in and re made the bed before going out to do the egg collecting as John will be late back. It has tried to rain on and off but not really amounted to much at all.
There is talk about June 21st and if the full reopen will go ahead or not 🙄 the Indian variant is transmitting at a rate of knots but the vaccine programme is also romping along its a race between the two at the minute. Mostly it feels as though everything is pretty much getting back to normal, it would be hard if we had to go back a step now, I have booked a couple of days out and a hair cut plus we have a holiday booked along with most of the rest of the country. We are looking forward to being able to see people on their birthdays and maybe a couple of bbqs, fingers crossed we keep going forward.
I went out and did the egg collecting and afternoon feeding rounds, then I went back and cleaned out the guinea pigs and the quail, I also cleaned out all the water buckets in the orchard pen. I need to get that lot all sorted out, we have a hen and a cockerel living with Ted, a cockerel and four hens living together then a single cockerel living out in the paddock with the flock. Two of the cockerels need to go so that I can let the others back out, at the minute they fight like billio if they get near one another 🙄 And Ted is not happy living with them, I had found him some ladies but the chap had a problem with his phone on the day we were due to meet him and collect and so far I haven’t heard anymore from him.
Saturday: Overcast this morning with spitting rain but nothing much. John did the animals and then got ready to go out for the morning with Macca to get suits for the wedding 😁 I told him not to fall over at the price 🤣 been a long time since he bought a suit! That leaves me here to potter about which is what I have been doing in the garden, I bit of tidying up rubbish and broken bits, putting the squash plants in the trolley to take to the ménage and moving over plants outside to the cold frame. It was not until I started moving the squash that I realised how many I have 😜 if they all grow there will be a squash mountain here, banana, spaghetti, butternut, pumpkin, crown Prince, de musque, and some cute little ones that I can’t remember the name of. I have hedged my bets when putting them in the ménage because I can see something has been digging. If it’s fox looking for worms then that’s not too bad but if it’s rabbits then that’s a different story, the larger plants I have just sunk the pots into the ground, I figure that way they don’t get a growth check, the roots will still continue to find there way out of the pot and into the ground and they may not get damaged. The smaller plants I have planted properly, we will see what the difference is when they start growing, they all had a good feed and water beforehand. I hope it works well, if it does I may think about using that space again to grow things, the weeds are still there in force and I thought that I could get a couple of Pygmy goats to put in there next year and they would do well at eating it all or pigs but they would do a lot more rootling around which may be detrimental, I will ponder on that one. The plants I have now been able to move outside are garden plants I have grown from seed, I have some lupin, rudbeckia and a yellow daisy that seeds everywhere, I did have it labelled at achellia but I realise it is not that even thought the leaves are very similar.
Yesterday on social media someone was giving away some padron peppers they had received in a veg box but didn’t want, I said if no one else wanted them I would love them, in return I offered a jar of rhubarb and orange jam which was gratefully accepted. When the lady turned up with the peppers today she also bought an aubergine and a butternut squash that she didn’t want either so I did well with that swap. I just need to decide what I am going to make with them now 😁
Growing your own gives you the best ingredients for your meals and they don’t have to be complicated affairs. This lunchtime I popped out to the tunnels and picked some baby spinach, some pea tops, lettuce, dill and coriander, chopped it all up and added chopped baby tomatoes, grapes and blueberries, and a thinly sliced baby bel cheese, no dressing needed (I am not keen on dressing anyway) because it was packed with flavour, fresh, flavoursome, healthy what could be better than that 😁
Popped round to Mums for a cuppa this afternoon and did the birds when we got back. On Saturday evenings we have fish and chips with my Sister and Brother in Law, today it was nice enough to sit outside. We had finished eating and were sat chatting when Shane looked across the paddock and said bloody heck (or words to that effect 😜) a fox has just grabbed a chicken. John got up and ran across with the dogs but he was long gone with his supper, we settled back down and then could hear the fox calling out the back. John got up and ran off in that direction and a large dark fox went running down the paddock and into the next field. When John was putting them to bed he noticed that about 4/5 hens have been had, feathers in the paddocks in various places. That all took place around 7pm, two hours before the hens go to bed and he kept coming back.
Sunday: Lovely sunshine first thing this morning then it disappeared behind thick cloud and hasn’t come back as yet and it’s 11am. We got sorted and then went to get a bit of food shopping first thing, Sam and Luke are coming over tomorrow, Luke is going to help John get a few things done and we will have a big picnic 😁
I was thinking of going out somewhere nice today but the foxes have scuppered that idea, we can’t go out for a few hours and leave the hens unsupervised, we wouldn’t have any left when we got back probably. That’s the problem with a free range flock and predators, we are kind of tied to the place daily. We may start to think about winding down the egg sales altogether over the next couple of years, things have definitely slowed right down here anyway. We may keep a lot less birds that can be penned to keep them safe if we want to go out for the day 🙄
A friend told me it’s national hedge week this week, hedges are hugely important to our insects, birds and wildlife, they provide much, much more than people realise. They are an ecosystem in their own right especially hedges of a decent age, they provide shelter, protection, food, soil stability, flood control, wildlife homes for pollinators, pest predators, pests themselves (valuable food sources) they keep livestock in or out and are of course a carbon sink. When humans want to rip out hedges they are only thinking of themselves and not what else shares this world with them. Most of it is because they don’t understand fully the detrimental effect it will have on the wildlife, usually the wildlife they have moved to the country to see, I find it ironic that people rip out hedges to get a better view of the surrounding countryside, um, that is part of the countryside 😂 The times people have said to us ‘you should take that hedge out so you have a better view’ of what? fields without hedges 🤷♀️ I would rather build a platform to get up higher. Replacing hedges with garden centre plants that are not even native does nothing at all to help, it’s like sticking a plaster over a hole in the side of a ship. Thank goodness there are folk out there who are rewilding though I doubt they can keep up with the ones that are destroying, it needs a whole mindset change, education is key, understand how your actions impact your environment. I talked about managed hedges as well, anything that is managed is purely for human benefit and control. Though managed hedges look good (to the human eye) are they really beneficial? A hedge if left will grow, get old, break down and regrow, it’s a cycle that we no longer allow, we feel that we are doing the best thing for the hedge keeping it tamed and in ‘good condition’ but there is more to the cycle. The deadwood is vital to ground dwelling insects, which in turn are vital to airborne insects and birds and guess what the hedge will regrow by itself if left. We have a classic example down on the far side of the bottom paddock, once there was a stone wall, I guess the hedge wasn’t there when it was erected by farm hands many many years ago. A hedge has grown up over the years (by itself mostly) and now it has got old and is dying, there is a lot of dead wood and the wall is falling down. Trying to get John, or any bloke (sorry for the sexist remark but this is my experience) for that matter, that stands and talks about it, to see beyond clearing it right out completely and starting again is like pushing a stubborn elephant uphill! Why, why would you want to clear out an established multifunctional wildlife habitat that is thriving, there are companies that charge a small fortune to replicate that 😂 I stand there and point out the obvious, the hedge is regrowing from the ground by itself why scrub all that out and start again, better to leave a tumbling down wall, dead wood and let the hedge sprout up naturally surely, it’s not rocket science is it 😜 But no, humans seems to need to ‘tidy’ everything back to a clean area and then fill it up again with something no where near as useful 😬 Put it this way if the human race disappeared tomorrow completely the wildlife would carry on and thrive without us ‘managing’ everything in fact it would probably be much much better off, sad but true.
How weird is this after I wrote about thinking along the lines of winding down the chickens John came home from getting fuel and said ‘I think we might start winding down the chickens and egg sales’ lol, seriously. Now we are other completely in tune with each other after so many years together or, which is more likely, we are both astute enough to see the situation as it is. At times over the years we have been so rushed off our feet with all that comes with egg sales that we haven’t had time to stop but lately it has completely slowed right down, I am pushing them but the response is not there. There are two reasons I think for this, one, we sold a lot of chickens during the lockdown last year, some of these were egg customers though not all that many, two, the farm shop next door has taken off really well and they are also selling eggs. If someone is going to call in to get bacon for their breakfast they might as well get eggs while they are there, they sell a lot of other things too and again you may as well pick up eggs while you are at it. This will be sad for our loyalist of customers and we do have some very loyal ones but we can’t keep going at something that is not making any money much as we might enjoy it. It will free up our time hugely, the time spent looking after the birds isn’t even in the ‘profit’ entry because I am here anyway but if it was we would have been running at a loss for years 😂 It was never our intention to sell eggs we just kind of fell into it, have enjoyed it but the time has come to start thinking about giving it up. We have just had a new lot of hens delivered and so will be running for at least another year yet, don’t panic, but gradually we will be winding down that side of things.
I am not sure yet where that will leave my blogging, it probably won’t affect it, I will still keep blurbing after all it’s more of a life diary than anything. It is a way of getting things out of my head when necessary (see hedges above 😂) It’s a written record of day to day life in rural Oxfordshire, not very exciting but it is a snapshot of real life.
Late afternoon early evening we were down in the big paddock taking out a fence, this is one of two cross fences being replaced, it also meant we were down where the foxes (there were two different ones) were seen last night. Once we had finished that we had to stay on patrol for the rest of the evening, taking it in turns to come inside and get something to eat before swapping back over, John is still out there now. No sign of anything today but they are known as cunning for a reason, they will be watching and the minute you are not that’s when they strike 🤪
Enjoy the bank holiday, hopefully the sun will shine, if it does you will find me eating my picnic in the shade 😂
I thought I would do a quick round up of the photos of produce I took over the 2020 growing season in date order so you can see how the year progressed. I love how vibrant the colours all are and can’t wait to start harvesting again this year. What I really should do is weigh everything to see exactly how much I get, the photos represent probably 1/2 of what I actually harvest so it would be interesting to have an accurate record.
Monday 11th Nov: On the 11th hour of the 11th Day in the 11th month We will remember them.
It’s another cold November day, it rained heavily overnight again but this morning the ‘lake’ has shrunk, it disappears quickly it’s just a case of too much volume too fast and it collects at a low point of which our paddock happens to be a part.
I am having a coffee before I venture out this morning 😀
Did the rounds, checked on the ‘spring’ and even though the water has receded from there it’s still bubbling up? Took the rabbit/guineas a big bag of hay to make nests in or eat, then the egg shed needed a bit of attention. I found water sitting in one of the boxes of duck eggs this morning, where the rain has blown in I presume, so found a piece of Perspex to line to back wall with and hopefully that should stop it. The duck eggs are useless for sale now so they will have to go to the dogs for their breakfast.
I had decided while I was out that some pancakes would be a good idea for breakfast when I got in, I was so busy with an online discussion while I was making them that I forgot the flour 🤪 so in effect they were sweet omelettes lol still tasted ok though with a mug of coffee 😀
The sun is out but it’s cold, the crazy thing is that while it’s cold and flooding here, in Australia where my brother and his family are, there are bush fires all around, there are wild fires in California, there are storms wreaking havoc in Europe and plummeting Siberian temperatures reaching further than ever before, one thing is for sure were are in a climate emergency, wether its man made or not it’s very real 🙄
I did some hoovering and polishing then lit the Rayburn, then gathered together a load of vegetables from the freezer to make a pan of soup, might as well make good use of the heat. Most things in there, potatoes, leeks, broad beans, turnip, carrots, cauli, are from the garden, just some celery & garlic that isn’t. Veg soup is a very good way to get some of your 5 a day in you though I do wonder how much goodness is really left after cooking, still something is better than nothing 🙄
I observed the silence at 11am, I’m not sure if it was 1 minute or 2 these days but even though I am here by myself and it’s silent anyway, I stood still and quiet to reflect and remember those who have given their lives so that we can live ours, not forgetting of course all the animals that also perished for different reasons during the world wars especially.
Another text from the Doctor telling me that my white cell count has still not gone up enough 🙄 this is a bit of a worry to be honest, I have had it before but it usually comes back up pretty quickly but not this time 🤔 It means I am more prone than most to infections and that the symptoms of infection may not show up 😏 I have the consultant on Wednesday so I will have to wait and see what he has to say about it all.
Putting the animals away tonight I went up to the back paddock to do the geese and noticed Biscuit just stood in the middle of the big paddock and I couldn’t see Jack anywhere. I shut the geese and hens away and she was still stood there so I wondered if she was ok as Jack was not there and it’s unusual for them to be very far apart from each other. I went into the field and most of the way down, I walked into the field adjacent which is also open to the horses and looked in the field shelter for Jack, nothing, at this point I’m thinking we have lost a horse 🤔 I walk over to Biscuit to see if she is ok and Jack moves out from the shadow of the hedgeline I feel I must explain that at twilight it’s very difficult to spot a bay horse lurking in the shadows 😂
I had a massage tonight, amazing as always, sometimes I have Bowen therapy and sometimes a massage depending on how things are going and as I have no aches or pains at the minutes a lovely warm, soothing massage was just the ticket. I love a bit of alternative therapy and if a monthly massage was given on the NHS I reckon there would be a lot more people in a healthier state of mind and body 😀
Tuesday: My first thought when typing this was, is it only Tuesday’ lol seems as though it should be later.
The sun was shinning this morning and I set to doing a few extras after the feeding rounds, clean straw for the geese and for the ducks, then move the quail to a cage that is in the back area as they seem to be unhappy at the moment. The cage is smaller but it’s in out of the wind, a little warmer and I have plugged a heat lamp in for them just to see if that helps. They have stopped laying altogether and maybe a change of address will help get them laying again. Then I made coffee and went into the greenhouse to have a bit of a tidy up and sort out, some of the plants in there can go out for the winter but I was just giving them a bit of a head start first. I do have some plants left in there that I am trying to nurture, peppers, tomato, ginger, to see if they will make it through the cold and into Spring.
Back indoors to light the Rayburn, just as the weather did a complete turnabout, rain and wind turned the day very wintery but it only lasted for half an hour or more, weird.
I got the slow cooker going this morning with braised beef and vegetables in there so I don’t need to think about dinner until much later today, although it’s the kind of day I rather fancy a pudding so I might make a quick jam sponge later 😀
Sam thinks it might be a good idea to bring the horses into the stable for a day and a night and I’m inclined to agree, just to get their feet off the wet ground for a while. They are not standing in the water but the ground is constantly wet at the moment, they won’t like it much but it’s for their own good lol. My outlook on animals is to let them be just that, animals, don’t project human feelings and wants/needs onto them, I don’t feel it’s right but that’s just my opinion obviously. Our horses live out in all but the worst of weather and they are just fine, they grow a nice woolley coat to deal with the cold, they have access to shelter to get out of the wind and the rain should they choose to and they have space to wander so they can keep warm and supple. We have just had bonfire night (which goes on for days) and we don’t bring them in they stay out in the paddocks, they are fine, horses are flight animals and I feel confining them in a stable while fireworks are going off makes them more nervous than leaving them out. When they are out they can see and hear what is happening and deal with it in a matter of fact way. The same applies to our dogs, over the years we have had six dogs and only one was afraid of fireworks, (he came from a rescue centre so I had no idea of what he might have been subjected to in that dept so it’s understandable) but all the others have been well adjusted and are not bothered by the noise, they also don’t live indoors mind you so they don’t have access to a sofa or god forbid the humans bed 😝they have all had and do have access to a warm dry area to sleep but it’s definitely a dog area not human 🙄
At approx 6.30 we had a power cut 🙄 it’s not unusual in fact I have said that living here I have never known so many power cuts since the 1970’s miner strikes! John was in the bath when the lights went out so that leaves me to determine wether it’s our power or a bigger problem, the torch is in the fuse board cupboard so I quickly find out that there is no power coming in meaning it’s the electric board at fault somewhere. Next move is to find the telephone number to report or find out about a fault, John shouts from the bathroom ‘can you bring me the torch’ ‘are you getting out’ no but I can’t see’ then no pal, I can not, I need it to move around the pitch black house and find the number in the office, you just lay there in the bath and relax…in the dark 😝 I call the number and a recorded message tells me we have no power in our area (yeah I knew that) and hopefully it would be back on by 9.40 but may be later! As it was it was back on less than ten minutes later 😀
Wednesday: Slightly different morning this morning, for starters Johns first job was cancelled due to the wrong parts being delivered which meant he was here to help and that gets the jobs done twice as fast 😀 Secondly I have a hospital app at 3.50 in Oxford today 😏 that is a difficult time due to a number of factors, the school run and although we don’t have to do it there will be plenty of cars on the road that do. It will also mean that we are either still in Oxford or trying to get back when it gets dark so we are not here to shut the animals away, the Fox only needs one opportunity and it will wipe you out. It’s not possible to ask the girls to do it as it’s right at the time when the kiddies will all want their dinner and so for today the birds will remain shut in, all except the ducks in the pen and the geese because they will be easy to round up before we go. The ducks and hens in the stable, the side paddock, the front paddock and the turkeys will remain safely shut in as they would be impossible to round up while it’s still light. All have feed and water inside and it will be a minor inconvenience for them for one day and peace of mind for us.
After doing the morning rounds John got on with bringing in some wood loads, we are going through it more rapidly now, and I cleaned the flues and the ash pan and hoovered the kitchen and the boot room, put some washing on etc. John went off to the bank and to pick up some sawdust and rabbit feed and I looked at the clock to see how much time I had to do things, it was only 9 o’clock lol, I thought it was later than that!
Woody the woodpecker has been very active here the last few days, as with Cyril the squirrel I always say good morning but unlike Cyril who stands stock still when he hears my voice, woody just carries on climbing up the oak tree. I started feeding the garden birds again at the first sign of frost so a week or so now, I don’t feed them all summer as there are plenty of pests for them to feast on in and around the farm especially the veg patch but as it gets colder I want to encourage them to hang around so feeding them is a good way. They are still loving the dead hedges, I can’t believe that something so simple can attract so many birds, it’s wonderful and I will definitely have more of these when we have the next apple tree pruned.
I have lit the Rayburn early, again because we won’t be here from about 2.30 I need to get the place warmed up as we won’t be able to keep it going when we are not here it will probably go out. Ideally the Rayburn should run 24/7 but John has insulated this place so well that if we did that we would be living in a permanent sauna, I’m not complaining about the insulation we need it but it means that we can’t run the Rayburn as it should be really. You can run it on coal but we have free wood so there is not much point besides when they say multi fuel it doesn’t mean you can run it on wood and coal at the same time, it has interchangeable plates for different types of fuel so we stick to wood and that is a bigger commitment daily lol.
I still haven’t planted the tulip bulbs and there is a good reason for that, I have been trying to do a bit of research on tulips. Most modern advice is that they are treated as annuals so the whole tulip is harvested along with the bulb and the bulb then discarded 🙄 Well I understand this because if you take the flower and the leaves there is nothing to feed the tulip bulb so that it can restore energy BUT there must be another way which is what I have been trying to find out. It seems that tulips only do well in their first year after that they are not so good even if they don’t get picked and are left in situ, I can’t quite get my head around that because how then would they multiply/naturalise and if they didn’t then we wouldn’t have any? My thinking is that this is a modern answer to solving a problem in the flower industry, but it’s not a very sustainable one so more reading up is needed to find the answer which must be out there somewhere hidden in the archives of time. Maybe it’s just modern types and I suspect old types are better at producing each year though probably not as striking.
The traffic was epic in and around Oxford I’m glad we don’t have to do that very often 😜 Just when I thought I understood this disease of mine I’m thrown again lol, I thought that logically the meds I am on to suppress the immune system had been too high a dose which is why the white cells dropped but no it seems that the Lupus can do that all by itself 🤔 regardless of the meds, so at the moment I am no further forward as more blood tests at the hospital should reveal wether it’s the meds or the Lupus that is causing the drop. The consultant thinks its the Lupus as normally coming off the meds would rectify the blood count, it’s a waiting game now for the results and the action they want to take, meanwhile I feel pretty good, no aches and pains, no tiredness to speak of just more than normal hair loss🙄
Thursday: Oh my word what can I say about this morning 🤔 It rained heavily last night and we are predicted rain all day today but when we woke up and looked out we had snow! Yes snow lol, not a massive amount but a layering although it quickly began to rain again so then we had slush. I got sorted and went out, it wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be but I had dressed appropriately and felt toasty. I fed and let almost everything out, not the turkeys as I have a feeling today will be troublesome enough without having to get them in from the driveway every couple of hours so they can stay put, they have a big run and plenty of room. The next job on the agenda was to get two stables ready for bringing in the horses just to give them a bit of relief from the rain and constant wet underfoot. After that it was to try and address some areas that are holding water, I honestly haven’t seen it this bad for about 7 years, the hay barn floor is flooded that’s the second time in a week, luckily everything is up off the floor on pallets and we concreted the feed room floor way back after the last serious flood issues. I say serious flood of course it’s not affecting the house (yet) and it shouldn’t because we are on higher ground however the paddock next door is slightly higher than us and as a result it runs off of there onto us and then continues down the slope to the lowest point. But it does affect the barn and the stables because where the floor gets worn over time dips are created and the water finds its natural course and gets in there. The lake and the river are back again and I spent a while digging small ditches to get water that was sitting to run downwards, behind the stable block we have a 5000ltre water tank which is full to capacity and overflowing causing problems in one of the stables so I have opened up the tap to let it all go and dig out small trenches towards the duck pen where it will collect in the pond before overflowing and carrying on down to the river/lake. As long as I can get the water to move downhill we should be fine and it’s only spitting at the minute if we have a deluge I’m not sure any of the measures will cope at all 😏 We do have some small issues each year but this is definitely the worst for many years and winter has only just begun that the worrying bit 😔
I couldn’t get the Rayburn lit, typical when you want it to dry out your coat and gloves, so I abandoned that and made some pancakes to go with my coffee instead 😀 Typically John is working pretty far away today so if we have any disasters I’m on my own, normally he would be in the next town or village so I can call him if needed and he can arrive quickly but not today 🤞
I gave Mia the dog a haircut this morning as she has ‘mud locks’ a bit like dreadlocks only much muckier 😜 she is fairly low to the ground and long haired so gets messy in weather like this.
Sam came over with the twins and got the horses in for a bit of respite care 😀 Luckily the forecast rain has not materialised giving us and everyone else a bit of a break from all the water standing. The rest of the days jobs passed without incident thankfully.
Friday: Forgot to jot anything down and no idea what I did apart from the usual and then going with Sam, Shelley and the kiddies to soft play for a couple of hours 😀
Saturday: Just sat down it’s 5.30 pm oh my days what a day of hard graft we have had but also a very positive one getting jobs done that have needed doing for a while. We started off with the normal rounds and then gathered up the ex laying ladies from the stable and put them in the point of lay pen. The reason being that we are selling off any birds that are no longer out with the laying flocks both chicken and duck. Normally they just retire and are free to wander around but it doesn’t really make much sense feeding and housing them over winter, it’s just more work than necessary, so I put them up for sale. We had a pretty quick response and managed to move 10 hens and 5 ducks on before lunchtime so that was great. We moved one of the Campbell drakes in with the laying ducks in the vain hope some may produce a batch of ducklings next year 🙄 We have fixed the rabbit run roof which had a hole in it and the rain gets in, the run is pretty big mind you and it was only wet at the door end but even so it needed doing. John cleaned out the hens in the front and I cleaned out the turkey run. We moved the water tank from the back of the stable block, this holds around 5000ltrs which I had to empty out the day before in order for us to move it to inside the duck pen. This was no mean feat, it’s not particularly heavy but it is large, round and awkward 😜 plus it wouldn’t go past the fir tree trunks so we had to man handle it up a slope (the ladder) and get it over the five foot fence into the duck run and then get it into situ on the other side so that John could reconnect the pipe work to the guttering that feeds it. After all this we had a sit down for about half an hour before I lit the Rayburn, fed the birds and collected the eggs. Meanwhile John got the tractor out and he turned the compost heap, I was convinced this was where any rats would be living but not one appeared so they must be elsewhere though I’m stumped as to where. The compost heap is an amazing little miracle of mother nature’s, you put all your prunings, old plants, clippings in there and voila it turns back into some wonderful soil that goes back onto the garden in Spring, we found a few potatoes in there which is always a Brucey Bonus 😀 A friend turned up with some pumpkins for the birds, they are from a local farm and so still whole which will be great for the hens as the seeds are supposed to be good for worming and in return he had some duck eggs, love a bit of bartering 😀 We had planned to move the geese back to the front paddock as they have now eaten the small back paddock down and I want them out before the daffodils begin to come up as their big feet will flatten them, but by the time we had finished chatting it was dark and they had put themselves to bed, this never happens 😂 so we will move them tomorrow instead.
Our egg sales are down this week, I’m guessing because the road was flooded and the rain was relentless, typically the egg numbers have begun to go up. It’s never a balanced thing with the eggs, in summer sales are brisk in winter no so much but still good normally so where is everyone 🙄 Where are those customers that audibly tut or huff when you have sold out (most don’t, just a few) and I still smile pleasantly and apologise 😜
I have to say that the weather today was glorious for a winters day, sunny, not windy and no rain, not even cold really, it was a pleasure to be out there and those are the days I feel a very lucky person indeed.
I know I should have put something in the slow cooker first thing but I had a hankering for some good old fish and chips tonight so that’s what we are having 😀
We finished our fish and chips and I thought that was it, cosy down for the evening until John went to lock up his van and couldn’t find his keys 🙄 It’s ok he says I have a spare set never been used, they don’t work 🙄 We go through the day to figure out when he last had them and then he goes out in the dark with a torch to try and find them. I went out the back and thought ooo it’s a bit cold I will stay in here in case they suddenly present themselves 😂 Eventually I decided I ought to go and help as he still hasn’t found them, two sets of eyes are better than one especially when one set belongs to a bloke 🤪 No offence but in our family we call it a ‘man scan’ you know, when you ask them to get something out of the cupboard and apparently it isn’t there and you go and look and it’s right in front of his eyes 🤔 I go round to all the places he has been today, the hay barn, the rabbit run, the back area, the van, I find them on floor next to the van 😬 I am always telling him not to just chuck stuff down on the floor perhaps he will listen from now on 😝
Sunday: I had planned on having an easier day today with a good few hours of doing not a lot BUT it hasn’t turned out that way lol. We were woken by Johns phone ringing and someone having water all over their bathroom floor, turns out they had had some heating work done the day before and it had disturbed the flush pipe on the toilet which is why water was all over the floor! So that left me doing the rounds this morning on me tod. Then we had the barefoot trimmer arriving to do the horses feet, that was a bit of a last minute thing as we couldn’t get hold of the usual farrier and their hooves were getting longer than is acceptable🙄 Meanwhile John had tried to start the tractor to finish the last bit of the compost heap but the battery was dead so he went off to visit his Mum, when he got back the battery still wasn’t ready so we popped out to get some bits of shopping, including ingredients for stir up Sunday next week. We get back I unload the shopping and get the Rayburn lit while John manages to get the tractor started and finish that job off. It will then be time for a bit of dinner, then do the feeding and egg collection, round to a relative for some birthday cake back to put the animals all to bed then we are out on a rare evening to the Theatre in Oxford, no rest for the wicked and we certainly must be pretty wicked 😜
I still haven’t got round to planting the tulips and haven’t moved any wood chip (nearly done) 🙄 I am also a bit tired and can’t see a gap for a power nap, I sure hope the I don’t fall asleep during tonight’s show lol.
Dawn Pearse over and out for this week 😀 have a good one 😘
Monday 15th October: The year seems to be racing past now! Yesterday afternoon while just straightening cushions on the sofa my back twinged and now I am suffering with lower back pain, ffs does it never end 😝 It’s not massively painful, I can move but it’s a constant nagging even when I have taken numerous pills for it so today’s progress will be slow 🤪 This went from bad to worse through the day and eventually I couldn’t sit down for longer than a couple of minutes, luckily standing/Walking is fine but I hope after a nights sleep this has gone!
We need to sort out the duck situation, we have a lot of free loaders at the minute, the drakes that we hatched out, some older ducks that no longer lay and some who just refuse to lay no matter what we do.
I made a batch of ‘use it up’ soup which is basically anything that looks like it needs using, veg some chicken even 1/4 tin of baked beans, along with some herbs, mushrooms and tomatoes and that’s what is for dinner along with some freshly baked bread and an apple crumble.
Tuesday: Ok so this is sciatica I think! Very painful to sit down for more than 2/3 minutes, luckily standing, walking and bending is fine and mostly lying down is ok except it woke me this morning with lots of pain 😝 I have done some stretches and taken aspirin which has taken the edge off of it and I have contacted a fabulous lady that does massage and Bowen, hopefully she will be able to help sort it out. I have Mia today and tomorrow this week so that’s going to be a bundle of fun 🤪
Yesterday I got fed up with the hops that were in the kitchen drying on an oven tray, I have been waiting for about a month for some cotton sacks to put them in, no sign of them so I threw the hops away as the potency would be gone by now and guess what turns up today, yes, the sacks 😤 never mind I will keep them for the lavender harvest next year if I ever get a decent amount lol. I wanted to make slumber sacks with hops and lavender, maybe I still will I can probably order some online, mine did not seem to have much of an odour to them anyhow so maybe they were not quite ripe enough or overripe, who knows?
Thursday: I have spent two days with an ice pack on my sciatic nerve, oh my goodness how painful is sciatica, at times I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I asked for tips and was amazed at how many sufferers there were out there. After trying various things I settled with ice packs and anti inflammatories, plenty of lying down or walking around as I couldn’t sit up at all. Luckily in our waste not want not life I had ice packs from when the fish was delivered that I kept for just such an occasion lol. Poor Mia wondered what an Earth was going on when instead of sitting down with her I had to lie down, still we entertained ourselves by me pretending to be her baby, I have seen every episode of Baby Joy Joy, that’s a new one on me, and somehow we managed to get through the two days 😋 Consequently I have done nothing else, John even had to do the orchard lot.
Today it is so much better, just a small nagging which reminds me to be a little bit careful, I doubt I am going to be sitting down for long periods anyhow as I have plenty of catching up to do.
Charlie and Macca should, fingers crossed, complete on their new house tomorrow and so it will be moving day for them, their excitement is palpable and hopefully it will all go according to plan and by the weekend they will be in their own house and I will have a spare room back again 😀
I ordered some haricot beans which have arrived, 500g, I will use some of them for cooking and then save some for planting next year, that’s the plan anyway, now all I have to do is learn to make good baked beans 😝
The geese have finally discovered that they can get into the side paddock, it’s only taken them about three months! When the grass was scarce we opened up the rails for them to go through but they wouldn’t pass the tape that was up on the top, any other barrier we don’t want them to go through seems fair game but when you want them to do something they won’t, go figure, anyhow they are now wandering in there but seemed obsessed about getting into my garden as they linger, looking longingly through the fence for a large part of the day, there is no logic to a birds thinking I have learnt over the years 🤪
I wanted to let the ducks out of the duck pen to forage around under the crab apple tree but I needed to secure a few areas into the veg garden first to make sure they don’t get in there, the veg garden will be for the orchard ducks when I have finished harvesting everything. After that I set about harvesting some of the veg that needed picking, butternut squash, courgettes, some tomatoes, spaghetti squash and a token aubergine! I always have trouble growing aubergine and this year was no different really, I keep trying but for some reason they don’t like it here, except for one plant which is thriving, in fact it’s still flowering, I have only had two fruits from it mind you.
The butternut squash are all different sizes from very small to large but they will all be used one way or another. One of the things I love about growing is being able to bring it in and make something fresh with it, today it’s butternut squash soup, and I am proud to say that every ingredient bar one is Home produced, onions, garlic, carrots, sage, rosemary, and of course the squash itself, the only thing that wasn’t grown here is the celery, not bad and definitely from farm to fork or spoon in this case, with a freshly made loaf of bread that will do nicely for lunch 😀 I had a thought that I could put together all the items needed for the soup and sell it as a package, I wonder if it would sell?
While the oven is cooking bread I might as well make good use of it so I am roasting tomatoes, carrots, garlic, onions, and basil in olive oil and butter, this will probably be the last batch of tomato sauce for the freezer, It’s all chunky or whole as it will be sieved when it’s done.
Also made a quick fruit cake 😀
While I was mixing it I heard a noise that I haven’t heard before, a kind of squawking, a bird, I looked out and in the Oak tree was a Jay, I have never seen one before certainly not here, I was pretty sure it was a jay though and googled it to make sure, yep definitely a jay and to check the call it was making I Googled that as well, I found a video that was titled ‘irritated jay’ lol yep that was the noise it was making, obviously irritated about something, we seem to have a few animals and birds that we haven’t seen before, not sure if it’s the weather or something else but they are welcome additions.
Charlie cooked dinner for us tonight as a thank you, she moved back in with Macca in Feb in order to save a deposit for a house and tomorrow is the day they get the key to their new home 😀
Friday: Moving day 😀 you forget how much waiting around there is on moving day, packing everything up has mostly been done over the last few days and waiting for the go ahead seems like forever 😝
Ground frost this morning and it is a chilly start to the day, John did the main lot and I did the orchard lot then he went off to do some small jobs while I helped here and did a bit of cleaning, then we had a phone call to say that an ambulance had been called for Johns Mum, all the best laid plans and all that.
The move was smooth 😀 they got the keys around lunchtime and with the cars and van loaded up everything was in by about 4pm, we all helped with putting things away and getting it liveable.
Fish and chip supper at the new house.
Johns Mum is staying in for tests we will have to wait and see what the results are.
Saturday: Foggy, quite chilly this morning.
I knew it was coming and it finally arrived, I now have Johns cold 🤒 I think I will write this year off as far as health is concerned, it would be easy to just give up but I will chalk it up to experience instead and carry on regardless 😜 Besides the year is winding down now as far as the veg garden is concerned, and I have already decided not to tidy it too much but to leave it to nature and the ducks to process weeds and debris 😀
The torts have not been out of their hut for a week or more so it will soon be time to pack up the hut and move it to a winter location and leave them until March time.
John had to work first thing but when he got back we got the tractor out to spread some wood chip that we had delivered last week on the ménage. I had been burning some rubbish and some scrap wood and thought I would have a go at spreading it with the shovel, I soon discovered that it had built up heat and was starting to decompose so spreading it will stop that and using the tractor bucket is more efficient than a shovel. After that we went to pick up a sofa from Shelley as we had been using and storing Charlie’s and now she has moved we didn’t have one, a bit of shopping on the way back, then John went to see his Mum in hospital and the day is done.
Sunday: Foggy and chilly again today, I lit the Rayburn quite early, around 10 as it was noticeably cool and low and behold the Sun came out, it turned into a very warm afternoon. There are ladybirds flying around all over the place out there, confused by the warm weather I think. We popped out to collect a set of bedside drawers for the now spare room, when we got back I ordered some pork and a bit of goat meat from a fellow online smallholder which will arrive Tuesday. That made me think I better empty one of the freezers to defrost it so that I can sort them out, we have two large chest freezers and now one of them is rammed full, there is so much good stuff in there and once it’s all sorted I can a) see what exactly is in there and b) start using it to make some great things 😀
I also stood and shelled quite a few walnuts this morning and put them in a jar ready to use when needed or to snack on as and when, with all that going on I can feel a cooking sesh ahead 😀
Monday 24th September: The Autumn equinox has occurred, the end of the light time of the year and the beginning of the dark time is upon us. Time to reflect and look back at what has worked, what hasn’t and a time to look forward and think about what to do next year. A time of myths, legends and rituals of all kinds, harvest is one of my favourite times of year, the word derives from an old English word meaning Autumn. I like the fact that it gets dark early and you can hunker down inside all cosy and warm having fed everyone with a hearty supper, Hygge as the Norwegian and Danish would say.
Talking of myths we heard a lovely one in Guernsey, some of the older houses have a large stone protruding from the chimney of the building, a witch seat, the belief was that a witch out flying on her broomstick could rest on one of these stones and get warmth from the chimney and if you provided one of these you would be spared of any witchy spells she might inflict 🧙♀️
The temps plummeted last night and I think there was a grass frost this morning, good job the Rayburn is ready when we are although the temps are set to climb again during the week.
John did the main of the birds this morning then it was just the orchard lot for me to do, my main thought is to lock up the house while I’m out on the farm, sad times but I’ve heard another report from just down the road that occurred yesterday so there is still skullduggery going on and best to be safe than sorry.
There were plenty of walnuts all over the floor so I have picked them up, washed them off, rinsed them in white vinegar (to stop mould forming) dried them off and put them in open trays in the kitchen to dry off. Quick coffee then outside again to see what else can be done, Sun is shinning this morning though you can feel a real nip in the air.
Managed to get a good bit done, two loads of muck into the polytunnel, plant a shrub in the duck pen and secure round it, plant a bush in the orchard and secure round it, pick a trug full of greens for the rabbits, harvest all the small broccoli florets and collect eggs and put them out for sale, the biggest pain in the arse though is keep locking and unlocking the doors to go in and out!
Tuesday: Mia arrived early in the morning, I had managed to just get the orchard lot fed and watered so that was ok, we did go out about 10am to pick up some eggs but apart from that we spent the day inside. Mia is in the middle of potty training so it doesn’t do to venture too far from the bathroom at the moment although she is doing very well, amazing, as I keep telling her 😀
I am practising Hygge tonight, an extra cardi on, a nice cup of milky coffee and my Norwegian slippers which are very warm and cosy, I have already worn them out once and Mum kindly re-felted the bottoms so I could carry on wearing them 😀
Wednesday: Another sunny, dry day 😀 After doing the orchard lot and re filling some of the bedding in various houses, I decided to try and start sorting out the garden in preparation for the winter. The garden gets ravaged either by the weather, the ducks or the chickens and so putting everything away or securing everything is a must, especially any plants in pots that you want ready for next Spring. The ducks walk over everything squashing it all, the chickens kick everything over then scratch through it and the wind just blows it all around, so it seemed like a good day to start organising stuff. I now have two areas that have plants in that are cordoned off and covered with mesh, I have planted a few more bits along the edible hedge in the orchard, when I say edible that includes food for the birds and bees as well as the chickens and ducks 😀 A bit of egg collecting and sorting in between and suddenly it’s already lunchtime.
I have decided to pull the plug on the new greenhouse for now, we haven’t got round to dismantling it and putting a base down and to be honest I’m not sure I can justify the money really, so I will use the old one again next year and see how things go. No point spending a fortune on something if I’m ill again and can’t get out there to use it to it’s maximum so for now it’s on the back burner.
I’m quite tired after all that so going to have a sit down and maybe a quick nap 😀 I’m am very fortunate to be able to stop and rest when I need to if I had a regular job I think I would have got the sack by now 😝 Don’t get me wrong, what I really want to be doing is ploughing into jobs, the mind is willing, the body is most definitely not!
I tried a little shut eye but I couldn’t so I thought I would read the rest of my book instead, after visiting Guernsey the obvious choice for new reading material was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. What a delightful gem of a book 😀 I thoroughly recommend it if you are a reader, now I just need to watch the film and see if they managed to capture the essence of it? (I watched it, they didn’t)
I have been eyeing up the light Sussex chickens, they are pretty big now but need to put on weight before we process them, ideally I would like them to get a couple of months on the garden free ranging, some will be selected to hold back for breeding for the next batch and I think there are at least 4 cockerels in there. The joy with writing a blog diary is that I can look back and find out exactly when they hatched, on investigation I find that they are 16 weeks so plenty of growing time left yet 😀
Did a bit of hoovering, polishing and cleaning, the place needs a proper good going through really but I will save it for rainy/colder weather.
I’m still picking up walnuts and there are still loads left on the tree, I need to make a real effort to use them this year especially in cooking but by the time I have cracked them all open I have lost the will to cook 😝
Did the afternoon egg collecting, the pullets are laying really well now, at least half of them, though the eggs are small they are still mighty fine eggs 😀
I need to decide about Tuesdays, it proved quite a logistical event especially as its potty training time as well as having to lock the doors behind me, I can no longer, nip out so I’m contemplating putting a notice out to say there will be no egg collections on a Tuesday until further notice, it would give me a bit of a break from the pressure of having to get them out there on time and who knows we may be able to catch up with sales instead of constantly selling out.
Think it, do it, lol, that’s what I have done, put a notice out, no eggs on a Tuesday for the foreseeable future.
I lit the Rayburn 😋 just for a couple of hours to take the chill off the air during the evening and I must admit it will be nice to have dry, warm towels again. The problem with this time of year is that it’s not quite cold enough to have it full on but it’s too chilly not to have it at all, probably be sweating in bed later lol.
It will take a while to get to know how she has decided to perform this year but I’m sure we will all settle into a routine soon enough, the one regret I have is that there is not enough space to have a chair right next to her, that would have been perfick 😋 mind you, you would have found me sat there all Winter long 😝
Thursday: Fabulous morning, sunny with a hint of mist rising from the ground, beautiful. By 8am I had done my morning bits and was stood having a coffee outside. My neighbour had ask if I have anything for the harvest festival display so I went round and had a look, some hops, a few little pumpkins and some sweet corn stalks is about all I have this year, hopefully they will be of use. I cut down all the hops and put some aside and the rest I have harvested ready to dry, I want to make hop pillows and need to dry the heads. They are very tactile little things once they are off the vine and as light as a feather, I will leave them in the sun for today and finish them off drying indoors for a couple of days. I don’t have very many as I try to keep the vine under control, it’s suppose to grow along the fence but it keeps creeping up the pear tree and strangling it!
Did a bit of pottering about which was nice, I watered the shrubs I had planted on the front paddock fence line and the apple tree, collected a couple of ‘keeper’ apples there are not many this year, sat and ate the last pear I found hiding on the tree, beautifully succulent and tasty 😋 picked up some eggs and put them out, saw a dragonfly which made me smile, a fab day for pottering out there.
I have a large amount of tomatoes to use up so I’m going to roast them with some olive oil and garlic then sieve them and freeze them for winter use, it’s such a good year for them that you can’t even give them away let alone sell them lol.
I ordered a bulb planter for the daffs, it’s a good strong one which I was surprised as it only cost £24, I took it up the back paddock to have a go but the ground is still much too hard! It needs a bit of rain on it dare I say 😋
Friday: No sun as yet this morning but it’s still early, John was up and out to do the birds just as it got light, patch the dog was barking incessantly, I got up to investigate couldn’t see anything, when John came in he told me it was a hedgehog 😀😀😀😀😀 A hedgehog, I couldn’t be more delighted 😁 they are in decline here in the UK and I haven’t seen one on the farm for about 5 years now so it’s an exciting find and puts paid to any idea that I had about using roundup on the veg garden paths, it will have to be hoed instead 😝
The wildlife has steadily increased over the years, frogs, toads, hedgehogs (well at least one of each) multiple different garden birds, the sparrows that seemed to have gone over the last few weeks have suddenly all come back to check out the roosting areas they used last winter, dragonflies, butterflies, insects galore, it’s a great feeling to nurture nature.
I’m walking back from doing the orchard lot and what do I see in the middle of the driveway but a rolled up ball of prickles covered in leaves, the dogs must have managed to roll it out to play football with it! So I went and got appropriate hand wear and picked it up and took it to the greenhouse along with some cat food, it’s not hungry and I’m pleased to say it looks in good condition, no ticks. I watched it walk around looking for a way out and so went and built a quick hedgehog house out of wooden posts and a broken slab with some leaves and straw for bedding, and then popped it in there. Hopefully it will at least hang around, taking care to stay out of the way of the dogs in future 😋
Blood tests this morning, I was supposed to have them last week but didn’t ring up in time.
Popped in to see my Mum and Ken as they have just come back from caravanning in the south west, came home with lots of killer jars and a couple of shrubs 😀
Went for a walk along the downs road with Josh, Shelley and Flo this afternoon, we played hide and seek behind the trees, ‘room on the broom’, ‘pull me out of the rabbit hole nana’ and conker football 😀
The woodpecker is about, I spotted him hammering a tree trunk this morning, then when I was out doing the afternoon feeding I heard him and then saw him take off in the unmistakable, undulating flight back toward this mornings tree. It is a greater spotted woodpecker the green ones tend to stay more in the hedge-line at the side of the long paddock so I don’t see them as often, one day I will get a picture but they are very quick.
Saturday: Another lovey sunny Autumn morning, I know the bubble is going to burst eventually but loving it while it’s here 😀 Today we are off to the local ploughing match, heavy horses, tractors galore and plenty of ‘Old McDonalds’ for Josh to see 😝
Fabulous day, glorious weather and bone dry under foot, we have seen heavy horses in their finery, steam engines galore, tractors old and new, eaten ice creams, doughnuts, hot dogs and baked potatoes (some of us ate some of them, not all of us ate all of them 😜) had a beer, looked at the produce competitions, watched some old crafts, thank goodness there are people who keep these going and chatted to friends and acquaintances, all in all a great time had by all. I am pretty sure Josh will fall asleep early and not wake up till morning, dreaming of the vintage tractor parade 😀
I bought a Hardy plumbago plant while I was there, mine died over winter and it’s a plant that I miss.
Sunday: I almost forgot it’s blog day! Perfect day for me outside for getting some work done, pleasant enough, not much sun but a hint now and again. I have been planting, barrowing, weeding, covering and generally trying to get things in order ready for Winter. Plants that I have bought and needed to plant out or on, barrowing muck from the heap onto beds, weeding the pathways and covering bare soil that has been weeded. By 2pm I was quite exhausted but feel I have achieved something at least. I pulled some carrots, they are in a raised bed and so not getting waterlogged (chance would be a fine thing as rain is mostly a distant memory this year) I’m hoping to get some cooking and baking done this week and tomato soup is still on my radar, carrots add a great bit of flavour to the soup. I am still picking outdoor tomatoes though it won’t be long before the frost gets them, I would make green tomato chutney but we have enough pickles to last us a while. My Dad always says ‘you should try green tomatoes fried’ hmmm not sure on that one, maybe I should at least try them?
John has been busy, tidying up and burning the bits of wood that couldn’t be cut up for the fire, we always seem to have wood lying around that needs burning, then he cleaned out the front hens and he has a plan to move them off of the front paddock and make a bigger pen where the hens for sale used to be housed seeing as we won’t be doing that anymore. He has now gone to do his Mum and I’ve sent him with a shopping list so I don’t have to go 😜
I washed and dried another load of walnuts today, that’s it now I’m not gathering any more! It’s weird because when Johns Dad was alive he used to ask me for walnuts and we never had that many, the two years since he died have been bumper years and the squirrel has been nowhere near, coincidence? Or is he giving me a helping hand?
I saw a green woodpecker flying around the farm today 😀
Definitely going to light the fire tonight, it’s chilly indoors at 3pm already.
I have been writing things down as I go along this week otherwise I usually find I cant remember what I did and write the blog in a haphazard way.
After our weekend away the first job on the list was picking as this had not been done since the Thursday before, there were plenty of beans, cucumbers and tomatoes plus a few raspberries. We also decided to harvest the pumpkins, spaghetti squash and the onions before the first frost catches us unaware, they are now in the small poly tunnel drying off, the skins need to harden on the squash and the onions need to dry so that they can be stored overwinter.
On Tuesday a friend came to visit, remember the one with the bees and lucky me I got a little gift of honey, I have resisted pooh bear behaviour and have not opened it and stuck my finger in, but I can hear it calling me from the cupboard so I am sure it wont be long before I do!
Wednesday was a busy day starting with the usual routine of feeding everything, then I went on to clean out the dog kennels, we have some lovely smelling (bubblegum flavour) disinfectant that we use, I am not sure the dogs like it very much but it makes the chore that little bit more pleasant for me. The dogs had a treat of sardines to help with their coat for the coming months and we were all pretty pleased with ourselves. The pigs are doing a great job at eating up any surplus apples and veg, they have also been given some powdered milk that was left over from the lambs, we also gave some of the powder to the chickens, I mix in some oil with their pellets and then mix in the powder to coat the pellets, they have been moulting and the calcium will give them a bit of a boost with new feather production. I can report that since creosoting the coops the dreaded red mite have gone thank goodness, and we have just been given four containers of creosote so that will keep us going for a while. The battery was a bit low on the chicken paddock and as a result some have found a way out, luckily when they have laid an egg they make a complete racket about it, one was in the front paddock in the long grass laying, one has been in the hay barn laying, I just hope I am finding all the eggs as the numbers are still down, I counted sixty two laying hens and we are getting about twenty four eggs a day, quite a lot are on a free ride at the minute!
We have had a holiday horse for a few days, he was staying in the front paddock, we taped off the apple tree but he soon learnt that there was no electric on there and was helping himself to a free lunch. Our horses have now come off next doors paddock as they are moving, we moved them to the back and decided they could eat of the strip that runs down the side of the ménage as the grass has got quite long, I let them out and within five minutes they had decided the field looked like a better option and jumped the top rail to get to it, we have left them there as it would just be a continuing circle of getting them out and them jumping back in besides that field needs eating off too before the wet weather flattens it all.
A couple of the days were spent having a good tidy up, the other coops that were creosoted in August have now been put away for the Winter, they have been stacked and covered with tarpaulin, when we come to need them again they will have a quick coat applied and be ready to use a couple of days after that. The clearing up included having a bonfire, on a farm it is very wise to pick your moments to do this, obviously it could not be done during the heatwave when everything was tinderbox dry, it is also a good idea to take note of any wind and what direction it is blowing as we have a barn full of very dry hay! It was worrying moment when I had forgotten I had lit it that morning and came out in the afternoon to see smoke, realisation dawned, fleeting moment of panic over.
The temperature had taken a turn for the colder a couple of days ago although it is mild again as I type this, the heater was needed to take the chill off the evening air and so I decided that some comfort food was in order, we had a lovely piece of braised beef with onions, and mashed potato, beans and carrots all from the garden, followed by and apple and raspberry pie, delicious, that’s the only good thing about the winter months, the smell of a long slow cooked piece of meat waiting for you when you come in. I made extra large portions of everything so that some of it could be frozen for those days when I just don’t have time to cook.
I am very aware that there is a lot of picking still to be done, the apples, the plums, blackberries, elderberries, some elderberries will be given to the chickens and they make a nice addition to an apple pie, I also noticed that the sloes were abundant this year, I have not tried anything with those yet but hope to have a go at sloe gin if I get round to picking any. I have a large quantity of green tomatoes still outside, the plants have given me plenty of ripe ones but as the temperature drops they are slowing down, green tomato chutney is delicious with cold ham around Christmas time, if anyone wants any to have a go come and get some. I have been jotting down notes to formulate a plan for the veg garden, what was good, what was not, what needs clearing and mucking and where to plant some winter veg, broad beans can go in soon and the poly tunnel will be used to grow early crops of peas and carrots. I also have some green manure to plant, this grows on a vacant patch and then you dig it back in Spring, it helps in many ways, firstly it prevents any nutrients being washed away by wet weather, secondly it helps to stop any compaction of the soil because the roots are busy finding their way around the dirt and lastly once you dig it back in it feeds the soil ready for the new plants, as long as you don’t forget you planted it and let it go to seed (as I did one year and it spread everywhere) , it is a great help.
Quick update on the leaks last week, the gutter in the stable area was full of debris from the trees and so was blocked up, that has now been sorted and the leak in the kitchen ceiling was caused by Hubby not clearing up after himself when he cleaned to flue from Rosie, he left the deposits on the roof and it caused the rain to back up near a bolt and find its way inside, needless to say he got a telling off and now all is well 😉
The windy weather has taken its toll on the bean stalks, three of them have gone over but I am still picking beans from them as the roots remained in the ground, although with the colder, wet weather the foliage is beginning to deteriorate and it won’t be long before they start to go over. Then the job of tidying up the plot for resting will begin in earnest, I love it when the growing season begins but I also love the satisfaction of clearing it all ready for next time.
Look out for the Harvest Moon this Wednesday 19th, its a bit early this year as the autumnal equinox is on the 22nd, it is just a normal full moon really but I love the fact that it has got a name relating to the time of year in the northern hemisphere.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 