Monday 9th July: Up at 4.30am! Needed the toilet, starving, that’s the steroids, there was daylight so I figured I might as well get up an on. It was so wonderfully fresh and cool at that time of the day, even better than late at night, a welcome break from the daytime heat. Diesel also ate breakfast with me, not too close though as his was a mouse 😜 Of course there are plenty of people who are regularly up then, but as a general rule not me, though I would love to be an early bird it’s totally forced 😜
By 7am I have hung out the washing, cleaned out the outdoor quail, sorted and boxed yesterday’s eggs, filled up the pool and sorted the outside duck pen, moved the sprinkler several times over, done the washing-up/drying and putting away, stripped the bed, put more washing on, starving again now 😝 more breakfast, trying to eat well, toast first thing now yoghurt, blackcurrant sauce and walnuts.
By 8am I have hung out the second lot of washing and put a third load on, done some hoeing, collected weeds and forage for the rabbits and moved the sprinkler two more times, I need a sit down, what I should have is a glass of orange juice, what I will have is a coffee 😋 So far it’s cooler than previous days, I hope it stays like that for a few hours.
So after my busy early morning things went a bit downhill ☹️ I am on a short burst of steroids tapering off by 5mg every 5 days taking 20 days in all, I have 7 days left and I feel that things are slowly sliding backwards again, consequently I sat down at 12, laid down at 12.30 and didn’t do anything else until 7 when the days steroids had kicked back in. At 1.45 we lost our electric 😡 again, luckily I called John he came home and set up the generator to plug the incubator in, we also had to connect up the electric fence round the hens as the farmer over the back lost 17 hens on Saturday afternoon to the fox, normally I would be able to do the generator myself but not at the moment.
So after my next dose of steroids I am able to function again, there was a nice breeze this evening though it’s still muggy, feeling better I got on with hoovering and polishing the bedroom, changing the covers, not that we need any at the minute 😝 and cleaning the shower, then outside to get some watering done. I had a good look around at the veg plants, tiny runner beans are beginning to grow, there are tomatoes and cucumbers just coming along I think it will be ‘al rite’ in the end. I made a mental note to pick the morello cherries in the morning, they are not quite as dark as I would like but from last years experience if I don’t get them now the birds will strip the tree while I’m not looking, the cherries are plump and soft to the touch, that’ll do for me, I am looking forward to cherry jam 😀 One year I made glacé cherries with them, that’s a long (2 week) process and well worth the effort but I’ve decided on jam (I think 😝)
The apricots are also nearly ready, my most favourite is apricot preserve, it reminds me of three weeks spent on a French exchange when I was a teenager, real French bread, butter and apricot preserve, delish 😋
Off to bed for another early start tomorrow.
Tuesday: Well I woke at 3.30 decided that was far too early 🤪 the alarm went off at 4.30 and I eventually got out of bed at 4.50! Straight out and turn on the watering, you are probably thinking ‘why don’t you get a timer’ well there are many answers to that question lol. I do have a timer but in the past it’s failed in some way, either water pressure issues or just not turned on, so reliability is the first reason, secondly, the way we set things out originally isn’t very ergonomic for getting the maximum watered by the minimum amount of movement from the sprinkler, basically the area is spread out too far with obstacles in the way blocking the water flow, so constant moving of the sprinkler is what I need to do. We never really envisaged ending up growing so much so never thought about a whole sprinkler system in the first place plus as the main source of water we use is harvested rainwater it’s more difficult to pump it and get the pressure needed. Soaker hose is the next best option and we do have one on the bean bed but that’s it and because the raised beds are all separated by paths we can’t run a continuous hose so I would still have to go out and disconnect the hose and reconnect elsewhere, all these issues need to be looked at.
There were a couple of jobs I wanted to get done, the cherries and picking the apricots, objective achieved 😀 That’s the best haul of apricots I’ve ever had, around 50/60 up to now there have only been about 10 so I’m well chuffed with that, I left a few on there for the birds and insects, same with the cherries. The trees will need pruning now that the fruit is harvested, I need to raise the height of the lower branches slightly so I can get a guild growing and I need to just keep the height and spread of the trees in check so that I can still pick the fruit. Established stone fruit trees are done in early summer to minimise any chance of silver leaf, a fungal disease that can affect them. I hoed the fruit cage which had got quite weedy and the rabbits had a huge haul of mixed weeds. By then it as 7am and I am already flagging and needing to sit down ☹️ not the direction I was hoping I would be going in by now 😏
I did, well, practically nothing until about 3pm, except rest and sleep. Sam and Mia came over and when I woke up from sleeping the cleaning fairy had been 😁 how lovely. I spoke to the doctor and he suggests not dropping the dose on the next change over in two days time but to carry on with the same level and it will probably be for longer, also need more blood tests to check the CRP levels, that’s C-reactive protein which are markers for inflammation.
I lost my glasses somewhere in the garden this morning, where my hair has got thinner (oh yes there are more joys to his than you can imagine 😜) they keep falling backwards off my head, and you know that feeling that you know are supposed to be there but they are not well I kept getting it thinking I must have left them indoors but nope they are lost, they are not my new ones thankfully 😅
In the evening after I got the watering under way I sat and pitted the cherries with the little cherry stone pitter which John thought was a very clever tool. I ended up with 5 cups of them so not a huge haul but enough to do something with, I said I would make jam BUT when I was FaceTiming Shelley and telling her about them and a pic I had seen of a lovely looking Cherry pie, a little Joshy voice piped up and said ‘ooo yes please nana’ 🤣🤣 so cherry pie it will be 😀 I have also got some mixed berries straining to make sauce for ice creams, yoghurt, jellies etc. I’m left with a couple of handfuls of cherry pits (stones) apparently you can process these and then grind they will be almond in flavour BUT stones contain cyanide so it’s quite a process, you can use the pits whole which will still have cherry flesh on them and infuse cream with them and turn into a whip or fool type pudding, I had already washed them though so I am going to keep washing them until they are clean enough, then dry them and make one of those little cherry stone bags for headaches or warming your hands on a cold day.
I finally plaited the first of the onions, the plaits are not expert and a bit loose but I’m not looking to win any shows with them just store them for use, I put around 12 in a plait, that’s heavy enough to lug around. I have more onions to bring in and cure but I wish I had planted double the amount given that the growing conditions and curing conditions have been perfect this year, still you never know how it will go, there have been years where the moisture in the air is too much and some of them end up rotting so I will take what I have. The garlic has also cured nicely, again I wish I had planted a whole lot more, I have hard neck garlic so they won’t plait but they will be cleaned up and stored in a net, they store well until mid winter when they are likely to go hard, (it won’t last that long anyhow) once the temperatures have cooled down in the house (Autumn) they will all hang in the boot room ready for use. A final bit of watering before it gets too dark to see and I’m done for the day, the cherry pie filling is cooling hopefully I will get the chance/ be able, to make some lovely sweet pastry in the morning and couple them together. I did read a recipe that said to drop in almond essence once it was cooked but I’m a bit of a purist with my flavours, I like to taste exactly what it is, I did look for some essence as I was going to mix a tiny bit and see what I thought but I don’t have any so that sorted that out 😋
Wednesday: Up and out to water early, it is noticeably cooler this morning meaning the watering will have much more effect than in recent mornings. I cleaned and netted the garlic, small haul but nevertheless a home grown one 😀 I have rushed about a bit this morning trying to get some stuff done, pastry for the cherry pie, cook the berry sauce with some sugar for keeping in the fridge, actually made the first loaf of bread in weeks, lots of washing up, you’d be amazed how much there is just doing a few little things, sort and put the eggs out. Towards the end of the jobs I can feel myself going down, I start to feel cold, get a headache then very tired, so I had a hot shower, and am now sitting on the sofa with a decaf coff 😋
I did manage to make the cherry pie and I think Josh was pretty chuffed with it, Mia had some after her sleep but has a sweeter tooth than Josh and preferred the pastry and the ice cream to the cherry filling lol
We had decided we were not going to go on holiday this year but we really need one so I booked one 😀 it is at this point I part with my ethics somewhat because we cruise, have done for over 20 years, John hates flying and on the three occasions in 35 years that he has it’s not much fun sitting beside him 😜we spent the early part of the children’s life holidaying in places like Cornwall but in all honesty that is not a holiday for me what with still having to do the cooking and tidying up, organising picnics etc etc. So we went on our first cruise in 1997, it was fabulous, we get to eat the different foods we each like, someone else does everything except get us dressed for the whole time, we can do as much or as little as we want to, yes there are environmental issues as with all forms of transportation, yes there are waste issues, there are issues in every quarter but the industry is working hard to counteract or remedy these and we have actually seen the difference over the years, so there you have it my Achilles heal as it were! There will be no shopping trip for new clothes though, I take the ones I have had for years, evening dresses from the charity shop (bargains lol) John has had the same tuxedo and shirts for 20 years 😜 though he did have new trousers two years ago, we’ve earned this and are looking forward to a relaxing break 😀
I’m watering the garden again this evening as it’s overcast I can start a bit earlier, dashing out to move the hose at half time, England’s hopes are riding high tonight with this game and I doubt there are many countrymen/women/children that are not watching it 😀⚽️ 🏴
Thursday: Up early as usual watering, I think with the temps having dipped I am on top of this for a while a least, picked a very small amount of raspberries then went back to bed for 2 hours as I didn’t feel well, I have more bloods test this morning so we will see what the markers are doing and hopefully get sorted as I was doing well on 15mg but 10 is not enough.
One of the brown rabbits was dead this morning, there is no sign of fly strike, injury, myxomatosis and body condition is good, the others are fine so I am putting it down to age, we had them from someone re-homing them and I don’t know how old they are exactly though we have had them nearly three years and I do believe they were a few years old then.
Haven’t done anything else all day except rest and sleep and then watering in the evening ☹️
Friday: Alarm went off, I didn’t get up, not for another half hour anyway, so 5.30 I went out to turn on the water and the hens were making such a racket I thought there must be something in with them, I went over but nope they were just very vocal so I let them all out. In between moving the sprinkler around I pruned the apricot tree, just as bit so that the branches don’t get too heavy next year and break, well that was the plan but the tree has canker 😩 It had it in the trunk last year and I treated it with Bordeaux mixture but it has appeared on the branches, this is not good, the tree will have to be removed and burnt, gutted as it produced a good amount of fruit this year. There are no other controls available and if it was just in the branches it could be cut back to clean wood but being in the trunk already means it’s fate is sealed and it will come down so that it doesn’t spread to the other stone fruit trees 😪 I will probably order another tree, a more resistance variety, of course it cannot be planted in the same place and I have yet to think what I will put there instead.
One of the ‘news’ items currently circulating is regarding the government stockpiling food ready for Breixt, I have no idea if this is true, probably a nano comment made had been blown all out of proportion by the press as is usual and although I wouldn’t advocate storing large amounts of food, but given the ‘panic buying’ culture in his country it does make sense to have some reserves. I suppose as someone who strives for self sufficiency this is part and parcel of what we do, we grow, plant, harvest and process for the leaner months, obviously not everyone is able to do this but there are small changes you can make to your habits that would help in a temporary shortage of any kind. Just picking up an extra tin or dry goods packet when you shop, I’m not suggesting you do it every time otherwise you end up with a bulging cupboard but just making sure you always have 2 tins/packets instead of 1, things that have a long use by date on them are useful to have on standby, dried milk powder, jelly for instance, given the long, hot, dry spell, bottled water might be a good idea, things that if you don’t need to use in an emergency, will still get used, we don’t want wastage here 😀 It’s not scaremongering, it’s just good practice to think about how you would manage given an emergency situation, whatever that situation happens to be.
Needless to say I am monitoring this expected rain very closely today, I’m not sure why, I’m just hoping it doesn’t disappear off the radar and there is not much I can do about it if it does! Please rain, is not something I would ever normally utter but PLEASE RAIN 🌧🤪
I have to tell you what a total success the brassica cage has been, it was a belt and braces job, if you have ever tried to grow them you will know why 😝 I grew broccoli because that’s what we like and the early planted ones have done amazingly well, first a nice round head on each of them and now they are producing florets galore. The later planted ones have done nothing but keep going to seed despite me constantly cutting them back (continuous rabbit forage though) There is not one single butterfly in there and so no caterpillars borne out in the blanching water which has nothing floating in it except bit of broccoli, big success 😀
One thing I want to get made this year is a ‘souper mix’ it is basically vegetable stock, any combination of veg and herbs, blitzed to within an inch of its life in a processor then preserve with salt in a jar, the actual recipe can be found in the River Cottage handbook No2 but you can make it up as to what you have and I found it will keep longer than 6 months or you could always freeze it in batches, you need about 2 tsp per 500ml liquid, a great base for soups and stews and packed full of nutrients instead of preservatives.
I made apricot jam, I am functioning better today and really wanted to get it made, jam sessions are never the same twice and today was no different this came to a set point quicker than softer fruits. Tips, get your jars ready before you start, by that I mean if you are re-using jars, clean them first and get them ready for sterilising don’t put the fruit on to soften and then realise the jars you want to use need the labels soaking off! I have some sticky stuff remover which is fab but I really should have done it before I put them away lol. Secondly EVERYTHING is hot and I mean hot, especially if you are using kilner type jars with metal on them so be very careful in your procedures, thirdly always prepare extra jars, todays batch made more than I was expecting so I had to quickly find two more jars to sterilise, last but by not means least I find the right equipment is key to having continually successful jam sessions, heavy based pan, thermometer (one where part of the bubble has not gone on its own holiday 🤪) metal funnel, and never leave the jam to answer the phone or the door 😝 Oh boy am I looking forward to tasting this one 😀 one quick thing I used a large orange for pectin, just because I didn’t have a lemon or any lemon juice, it will work just as well, apricot have a medium amount of pectin but are low in acid meaning they need added extra to help the gelling process.
Although I feel a lot more with it today I still took it easy for the afternoon, blood results were back and had an appointment with the doc, the inflammation markers are up higher than they were before but with no symptoms, so no pain??? The problems I have had seem to be from the reducing of the steroids so we have slowed it down to see what happens and more blood test next week, in the meantime I carry on when I can and rest when I can’t.
The rain I was hoping for was nothing more than a ‘piddle’ and didn’t even wet the air let alone the ground so watering duties will continue for the foreseeable future 😋 I know we are far luckier than some countries where it’s a life or death situation but it does make life difficult.
Saturday: Well at 4.30 this morning it was very foggy, great because it means there was moisture in the air overnight for the plants to absorb however watering must still commence as the temps are set to be high again today. Other jobs included digging up a hardy fushia that isn’t doing so well where it was, I’ve potted it and will give it some tlc before repositioning it, to be honest I think the dog has been laying on it! I had a reg legged partridge right outside the kitchen window and a cricket on a plant out there too, pretty sure one was looking for the other 😜 I picked a random selection of different beans, they are just starting to come through but not enough of anything to sell yet, my best veg customer came and I gave them to him for free as a taste of things to come seeing how he has been so patient! I finally managed to move the quail from out of the back area to the orchard, it was a case of dismantling two cages to make one decent one, I put a ramp in so they can get to the top area, an upside down covered hanging basket which I’m hoping they will lay in and a dust bath, hopefully they will be very happy there. The odd silkie chick that survived a throwing against the trees stump as an egg is now pretty big, and a cockerel 😜 he has been living with the quail but he has also now got freedom to move and it in the orchard. We will probably allow him to roost in the trees and come and go whenever he pleases. I candled the duck eggs in the incubator, only one was infertile, they are due to hatch next week.
I picked a big bunch of basil, washed it and waiting for it to dry off a bit before I chop it and mix it with olive oil to freeze in an ice cube tray for winter use, I made bread, I’ve taken to making a traditional cottage loaf which I rather like the look of, and then had a well earned couple of hours sit down as my feet are beginning to hurt.
The last couple of days the air temperature early in the morning has been much cooler and then the fog today, you can see the difference in the plants just from that little bit of relief, they are suddenly more upright and not flagging so much, there is rain forecast next week, well there would be, bang on cue for the summer holidays!
We are directly in the airspace between the Royal International Air Tattoo and RAF Brize Norton and the air show is this weekend so it’s pretty noisy at times but we get random displays flying over every now and again so, the best one I have ever seen while we were here was a formation of about 12 helicopters flying directly towards us, it was a pretty awesome sight.
Standing at the back door a got a whiff of bonfire 🤔 had a look round and yep someone close by has one going, now we have had no rain for weeks, the ground is parched and as dry as I have ever seen it, personally I would think I was very stupid if I lit a bonfire in this climate, fingers crossed it stays under control!
We had a rare evening out, thanks to Shelley and Martin for coming over to shut the birds away, The Great British Summer Garden Party at Blenheim Palace, a wonderful evening, very relaxing, great entertainment and fireworks to finish with a round of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory, perfick 😀
Sunday: Despite a long day yesterday I was still awake at 6 so I got up and went out to get the watering underway, the moisture in the air over night lately has done wonders for both the lawn and the plants, they are not needing quite so much watering as before. I used the lawn edger and tidied it up putting all the sods into the bucket for the rabbits, then cut the grass as it was looking rather strangely with long bits and dead bits all mingling in, at least they are all the same length bits now 😋 A quick cat nap after that just to recharge, I’m pretty tired today so will be taking it steady, I don’t want to be overdoing it, though there is so much I want to be getting on with, it can wait a bit longer.
John is out there this evening cleaning out the hens, he has to wait until it’s cooled down enough to be in there, just watching the countryfile weather and things are getting fresher, now if we could just have a touch of rain too please that would be marvellous 😜