Tag: rabbits

Posted in Friesland Farm

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

Posted on by frieslandfarm

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

It will be interesting to see if John notices 😜

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great week everyone.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Crap weather, Dotty Iron Man rabbit & decisions, decisions.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

A bit late, sorry 😜 normal service will return when I feel better 🤒

Monday 17th Feb 2020: We are back round to Monday again how did that happen 😜 The remnants of storm Dennis have still been felt, lashings of rain, some gusts of winds, to be honest I expected the lake to have become a reservoir this morning but to my surprise it had receded quite a bit instead 🙄 and the river has almost gone too.

I did the morning rounds as per usual, the horses were still in their stables so I took them some hay and topped up the water buckets. I cleaned out the quail and then did a little bit outside, planted the pretty primroses and the miniature iris that I bought at the weekend. It was cold but not freezing, however, when my fingers and toes started to get cold I came back in. Paperwork was calling to me and I really needed to be able to see the top of the desk so I got on with sorting it out, doing some invoices and paying some bills.

Sam, Mia and the twiglets arrived mid afternoon and Sam had a look over the horses before turning them back out, she said they almost ran out lol, they don’t like being in.

I eventually got the Rayburn lit just before it was time to go out and do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting.

In the evening we went to pick up a new member of the pet menagerie, a little black and white rabbit, very sweet little girl and our other rabbit seems to like her, don’t worry I have checked and it’s definitely a girl 😜 The guinea pigs totally ignored her prefering to squirrel away the cabbage leaves I had given them to share lol.

Tuesday: An altogether better morning this morning, it’s not raining that’s a big bonus, it’s not too cold and the sun keeps trying to come out. The ground underfoot is awful, squelchy, sodden, sticky, muddy hopefully we will have a few dry days now.

I’ve just spent and hour and a half cleaning the bathroom 🙄 a proper clean, all the walls, toothbrush and white vinegar in the difficult areas, behind the towel rails etc. This is because we have 5 downlights and two of them had blown, the one in the shower cubicle over a year ago, we replaced them yesterday (long story as to why we hadn’t done it before now) and suddenly I could see all the areas that had got grubby 😮 so I decided to give it a right good clean, just as well I didn’t decide to work outside as the rain returned 😏

Shelley, Josh and Florence came round in the afternoon for a while and in the evening I had a Bowen therapy session booked.

Wednesday: A typical February day, dull, slightly cold and trying to rain. Before going out this morning I got some dinner going in the slow cooker, a rich beef stew if I get time I will pop in some dumplings.

Then out to do the animals, the new baby rabbit has been locked in her cage for the time being, I couldn’t quite believe it yesterday when I went out and couldn’t find her in the run with the others, turns out she is small enough to squeeze through a 2″ square mesh and she was in with the light sussex hens. I would have left her there but that run is not as secure as the other one and there are small gaps she could get out of so for her safety and my sanity she is in the cage which is within the run.

I pottered about for a little bit, putting clean bedding in the duck shed and checking the seed potatoes in the greenhouse. Again they have been nibbled, I thought it was a one off but no, not only the potatoes but the second lot of broad bean seeds have also been eaten along with the sweet peas 😡 I removed the seed potatoes and put them in a dark cupboard indoors and I have set a mouse trap, judging by the droppings it’s not a rat or a squirrel but a mouse which means it has probably set up home in there somewhere so I need to exterminate it 😕 sorry.

I contemplated finding more to do outside but it started to drizzle and as the ground is already waterlogged, tramping about compacting it won’t do much good either so I came inside. I have a stupid dry cough and feel a little under par so I think I will potter about indoors and listen to a few podcasts 😋

Having spent the day inside in the warm I was reluctant to go out and do the afternoon feed and egg collection but it has to be done. It is about this time of year (every year) when I am trudging round in the cold and the mud (which is worse this year than any other) thinking ‘why am I doing this’ and thinking perhaps selling up is a good idea. I know once the sunshine comes and the ground dries up I will think this is the best place in the world to be but right here right now it’s not 😏

Thursday: (and I had to change that as I keep thinking it’s Friday) Another vile day 😕 I got everything done and dusted by 8.30 as I had Josh and Florence for the morning while Shelley had her hair done. She had it cut short and had been growing it to donate her pony tail to the Princess trust who make wigs for children with cancer. We had planned, along with Sam, Mia and the twiglets, to go to Blenheim Palace for the afternoon but the weather was just horrible so we stayed home instead. We made a super hero’s den for the kids in the spare room and set up a picnic blanket for them, then Shelley went off to the shop to buy the kind of goodies you need on a day like today, chocolate, biscuits, an activity magazine and apple juice, while the adults had baked Camembert and chocolate 😜 They played very well together all afternoon and tidied up with the tidy up song while I went out to feed the animals and collect the eggs. The weather had cheered up a bit by then, still a little windy but the Sun had come out, after I had finished the afternoon rounds I went and got the new rabbit and bought it indoors to show the children. What shall we call her? everyone chipped in and now she has the name Dotty Iron Man Rabbit 🤣

Friday: It’s definitely Friday 😀 I went out to do the morning rounds and Jack had managed to get his rug off, a horse rug is basically like a straight jacket with many buckles and belts so how the heck he has done this I have no idea 🙄 On with the rest of the rounds and nothing much to report which is always a good thing 😀 I then spent a couple of hours in the greenhouse, first I set up the heat mat and I put some staging up higher to make use of any rising heat. Then I set up an electric propagator and the tomatoes and cucumber I had growing on the kitchen windowsill have now been potted on and are in the warmth in there. I am trialling this so it may be that I have peaked too soon but nothing ventured is nothing gained as they say. I have also put a couple of tomato plants on their own and a few in bunches as they grew, I want to see if they do better with other plants as company. The next job was to hunt for this damn mouse but I couldn’t find it living anywhere, at the moment I am filling the mouse trap and it is eating it all so it must be quite small and light, I will feed it up until it gets heavy enough to spring the trap 😜

Back indooors to light the Rayburn as I have the twins later while Mia goes for a swimming lesson and some great news on the family chat as my niece had her baby last night 😀 a little boy (well 8lb 12oz, ouch) lovely news 😀

It’s been a bit of a boring week to write about to be honest and I have had a horrible cold coupled with a hacking cough, I am kind of hoping that my bug will do one right about the same time as the crap weather and what a joyful day that will be 😀

Saturday: Another crap weekend with the weather, seriously, the wind and the rain have been going all night long and have not eased this morning. I am weather weary now, feeling so poorly doesn’t help, I can’t breathe through my nose, the cough is hacking, my head feels like it will explode, wake me up when it’s spring.

We ran the feed right out this week, it’s good to empty the feed bins totally now and again, and so John has gone off to get supplies, we can’t do any feeding until he gets back and so no point letting them out either. I also have a hay delivery coming this morning, we are at that stage when the horses are hungry but the grass is non existent especially this year with all the rain. We will be rolling a big round bale into the field and hoping it will keep them going for a couple of weeks until the weather settles and the new grass comes through.

Fingers crossed that the week I have booked for John to be at home is a decent week. It’s a shame really as we could have been getting ahead of ourselves but it looks like it will be all to do at once 🙄

Sunday: Yesterday I felt really ill but it seems to have turned a corner this morning thank goodness. The weather has not really got any better, still blowing a hoolie with rain now and then for good measure, I am so done with this weather stream as are many other people. I know we have a lot to be grateful for as our home is not flooded and everything is intact but even so I have had enough of the relentless wind and rain it’s been going on for around three weeks with hardly a break.

Whinging over 😜 John did the morning rounds and then we measured up for some fencing that has come down at the bottom need of the veg garden, the posts have been going for a coup,e for years and now they have gone and all that is holding the fence up is the wire. We thought about picket fencing and went off to the diy shop to have a look but when we priced it up decided it wasn’t worth it so we bought some more wire with smaller holes to stop the ducks getting in and then went to get some breakfast at a local garden centre. We met Shelley, Martin and the kids there and they joined us, I bought a couple of pots for the daphne and another shrub I got the last time I went. I want to keep them in pots for now as I am not sure where I want them to finally end up and besides they are quite small so need a bit of looking after to being them on. The rest of the day we spent discussing and researching various topics such as solar panels and electric boilers, mulling around ideas of wether to apply for planning for a house and what kind or, as this one is perfectly adequate and just need some upgrading, wether we just upgrade it, we went round and round until our brains were frazzled, we discovered what we don’t like but not what we do.

I will try and do better with the blog next week, hopefully I will feel a little more up to it by then, have a good week.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Lots of rain, passata & baked beans 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is what I found:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Friesland Farm

A missing kitten 😔 a new arrival 😀 & nuts 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 24th Sept: We arrived back at around 10pm last night, it was raining most of the day in Guernsey, all the way home it has rained non stop and it’s still raining this morning. I woke at 5, I think I heard rumbles of thunder, and it has not stopped at all, it’s now 8.30 and I really should go out and let all the birds out, it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop at all today so best get on with it.

Oh the joys of getting back to work 🙄 wet and muddy out there today lol. All seems to be well with the farm, I found a few eggs that Shelley wouldn’t have known where they lay as I forgot to tell her but it was checked on Thursday so they are still ok. The only thing out of order at the moment is that we can’t find one of the kittens, TC, I haven’t seen him at all since we got back and I have checked all the sheds and called him but as yet no sign of him, I’m hoping he turns up sometime today. On the other hand Diesel who has not been around for about a week has turned up for feeding this morning, I know cats are a law unto themselves but they sure cause worry 😏

The geese have still been laying while we were away, not sure what is going on there but never look a gift horse in the mouth as they say.

10.30 still raining, quite heavily too, I guess that summer is over then 😏

Shelley has been collecting the walnuts as they have been dropping while we were away, I thought the squirrel was getting them but obviously not which is great for me 😀

Still no sign of the cat and you feel out of sorts when something isn’t where it’s supposed to be, I have checked in all the outbuildings just to make sure he’s not locked in somewhere, I’ve checked the roadside to make sure he hasn’t been run over, it’s odd because he is always the one under my feet and the pair of them haven’t really ventured very far as yet. Benny is on his own for the first time ever and keeps sleeping in the dog bed, good job the dogs don’t mind him bunking in with them 😀 hopefully TC will just show up after being off for a wander 🙄

John and I spent two hours tonight once everything had gone to bed and it was quieter, trying to listen and see if TC was stuck anywhere. I kept thinking I could hear faint miaowing and we searched every tiny space we could find, up in the roof space, down the walls, behind the walls, under wood stacks, up pipes, literally every inch was searched but no luck and the noise I thought I heard occasionally never got louder the closer we got to anything. At one point John fell over and knocked all the grass seed everywhere and hurt his shoulder, the opposite one to the one he hurt last year falling over in the duck pen. To be honest it could have been anything that I heard, John would say can you hear that bird, nope, my hearing is not that great since I’ve had tinnitus 🙄

Wednesday: I feel despondent this morning, the cats missing, one day back at work and John is feeling tired and achy, it’s been raining so it’s wet and muddy everywhere, these are the kind of days I think ‘yep let’s give it all up’ 😏

On a brighter note our new resident arrived last night just as it was getting dark, Biscuit, the Shetland pony 😀 she is a lovely, obliging little pony who likes to be brushed and fussed. Her long term field companion died of a stroke a few weeks ago and her owners were looking for a new home for her, we went and had a look at her and she is very sweet and the perfect height for the grandchildren to interact with plus a gentle temperament. Jack has not met her yet as she is in the stable for the moment but hopefully he will be happy to have a ‘little’ company 😋

I did the rounds this morning then onto some picking, still plenty of tomatoes and courgettes, also some cucumber and a melon. I need to pick the grapes soon and I have been collecting more walnuts.

Shelley came over to help have a quick look for the cat but nothing. Sam arrived with the twiglets and we skipped out Biscuits stable then took 9 pallets up to the small back paddock to protect the trees I planted as the geese are going in there for a while. I had to drill a new hole for the bolt in their hut and put in some clean bedding, that was all in between rain showers and feeding the babies 👶 👶 After they left I cleaned out the stable that the chickens and ducks are in, put clean bedding in the other duck pen house, somewhere in amongst that I got the dinner ready. John came home and put a piece on the bottom of another stable to make it fox proof as I will be moving the light Sussex into there before dispatch.

After dinner and putting the birds to bed I had a customer come to pick up some plants, John went to get a bit of shopping and Shelley came back to listen in the dark when it’s much quieter to see if we could hear the cat, she has much better hearing than we do 🤣 we spent about an hour or so out here but couldn’t hear anything that sounded like a cat 😏

Thursday: Although it’s rained overnight it has been a fine sunny morning this morning. I did the morning rounds changing bits of electric fencing as I went round, the front hens now have free range of the whole paddock, they were getting out anyway so might as well make it easy for them 😂 I checked on Biscuit who is still in the stable at the minute and all the hens have had a scoop of calcium and grit to boost shell and gut health. Then onto the garden, I had quite forgotten just how abundant this time of year is, not only are there thousands of blackberries and hundreds of nuts but I picked a whopping load of tomatoes and a basket full of grapes. I just have to decide what to do with them all, some grapes have been frozen, I ate some with my lunch, some have gone into a jelly for John and some out for sale, I will give the girls some and have told the wider family if they want any grapes or tomatoes to pop by. At some point I’m going to have to do passata lol and I did think about dehydrating some grapes for raisins for cooking or snacking. Fruit leather is another thing I really want to try so if I get a bit of time I will do that as well, plenty of berries around to try that with at the moment. The elderberries are abundant though I haven’t actually picked any of those yet but I will hopefully get to some before the birds do.

I think someone somewhere has thought, right you haven’t got enough to write about in your blog so here you go have some of this 🤪

I messaged Charlie yesterday and said I am going to rename this place Chaos, no explanation needed and today it’s still the same. A busy morning and a busy afternoon as well, then Samantha came over with the twins and Mia as Mia wanted to see biscuit. They skipped her stable out and gave her a swede to chew on, took her into the ménage for a frolic and then out to meet jack for the first time, which incidentally went very well. Time to get her back in, she caught well and off went Sam back to the stable while I minded the twins and Mia, next thing Biscuit is dragging Sam back down to the paddock ‘I’d forgotten how strong they are’ she said 😂 I run and get an apple cut it into four pieces and we are leading her back with the proverbial ‘Apple instead of carrot’ in front of her nose to get her back, meanwhile the twins are crying and so is Mia. They leave and I get on with prepping dinner and hoovering the floor which has mud clumps from my wellies where I have been in and out all day, inbetween I am messaging people who want to buy plants. John comes home with the inserts for the tap that has been dripping for a fortnight, filling a small saucepan overnight, I kid you not the minute he walks in with his tools the tap fails to drip and we watch it and watch it but no drip, this often happens to customers he tells me, they say my tap is dripping badly and when he gets there nothing but at least he knows how badly this one has been dripping so that’s something at least even if it is a bit bizarre. Dinner is cooking and I get a message from the chap with the rabbit to say he is bringing it round now, ok, we quickly get dinner on the table and munch that down just in time for when he arrives. He comes in with the rabbit and I put the kettle on, I’m busy making a cuppa and we are chatting next thing we hear is a very loud crash right beside us, We have a recess alcove behind the hob and the top bit, so the ceiling of it, has just fallen off and landed on the hob knocking all my bottles of oil and herbs everywhere 🙄 What the actual 🤬 We go and get the rabbit hutch in and he has bought a glove to handle the rabbit, it’s four months old, it doesn’t bite but growls due to not being handled very much 😋 I wasn’t expecting that 🙄 so as this rabbit is intended for Josh and Flo I shall have to handle her until she is petable lol. The day is still not over yet, I cleaned one of the other stables this afternoon which is where the light Sussex are going, to clean them up and fatten, so off we go to round up 12 rather large chickens which make the most horrendous noise when they are caught, honestly anybody would think we were dispatching there and then.

If you can imagine that as this is all happening usually the dogs are barking at something or other, the phone is going, there are chickens and ducks getting under my feet, customers are turning up for plants and this has been a daily occurrence this week you can see why it’s chaos, I won’t even go into the two nightmares I had last night and woke in absolute terror at one of them, all adds to the mix 😜

Have you ever seen that picture of an aging lady in wellies and a straw hat on a farmyard with all the animals everywhere, that’s me I think 🤣

Once we put the animals to bed we nipped to Charlie’s for a cuppa.

Friday: After the morning rounds I spent nearly two hours processing the walnuts we have been picking up. First they need to be taken out of their green coat, sometimes they are already out but not often and sometimes the coat has turned to brown mush. So I spent a good deal of time in the greenhouse doing that then it’s into the boot room and put some white vinegar in the sink and tumble the nuts with my hands, this does two things, get any remaining casing bits off and makes sure there are no bacteria/mould on the shell. When you buy walnuts in the shell from the supermarket they will have been treated with a food grade bleach which is why they are a lot cleaner than mine will be in the end, I could do this but I prefer the vinegar and it works very well. Next the nuts are dried, I put them in a towel and roll a few at a time, and then they will need to air dry so they need to be somewhere that is not damp, the kitchen works well as long as the air can get all round the basket. If you put them in a container that the air can’t circulate in they will form mould again, my thoughts are that if the mould is on the outside it could penetrate to the inside which could potentially make you ill if you eat them like that. I generally keep them in their shells until after the New Year when I have more time to shell them for storage in jars, you can eat them straight after picking, they are called wet walnuts and that means the nut meat hasn’t dried, if you leave them to cure they become the walnut you are probably more familiar with and then they store much better. I like the taste of wet walnuts many people don’t but I see it as a bit of a foragers treat. The whole process may seem bothersome for many people but for starters the nuts are free 😀 (expensive in the shops) and then there is the fact that they are a great brain food so it would be a little idiotic for me not to do it, besides the fact that I end up with very dark brown fingers and thumbs (walnut is a great dye) it’s rewarding to have a store of nuts I have gathered and prepared and that will last well into the next year for snacks and cooking.

Luckily the hazelnuts do not need the same amount of work, they just need to be stored in damp free conditions until they are ready to be eaten or cracked for storing and using.

Sam, Shelley and the children came over in the afternoon to see Biscuit and the rabbit 😀

When they left I did the afternoon rounds and collected the eggs for putting out as usual. Yesterday I had put out a punnet of grapes and covered them in cling film and was pretty annoyed to find that someone had lifted the film and pinched a few grapes from the bunch, I could see they had been taken as they leave that little mushy tail behind, what kind of a person does that? I bought them back in and won’t be putting anymore out, last week it was the cherry tomatoes, I could tell one or two had been nicked and sure enough when I bought the punnet back in and weighed it there were some missing 😡

Dinner done and dusted we are having a quiet night tonight, famous last words 😋

Saturday: It’s forecast to be dry today which is good after the last few days of on off rain. I had a plan to keep the hens in the stable shut in this morning because I have no idea where they are laying their eggs, John and I talked about it last night and this morning he went off up the back to do the geese and hens in the small back paddock. Meanwhile I came out and fed and watered the ones in the stable being kept in and then went round to do the ducks in the side pen, next thing I see is are the hens out everywhere, there followed an exchange of words, mostly ‘you never bloody listen’ & ‘I forgot’ 😜

With the rest of the birds and animals sorted it was onto the jobs for the morning, I sorted out the egg shed and picked a few bits for putting out along with some pumpkins and a couple of spaghetti squash. I pulled all the remaining carrots, at this time of year if you don’t get them out either the rain starts to rot them or the slugs start to eat them. Johns job was to deep clean the Rayburn ready for lightening when we need it, it’s a pretty big job it includes sweeping the flue and pulling all the grates out and a mucky job to boot 😀 I cleaned all the carrots then sliced and diced them, blanched them and they will go in the freezer to open freeze once they are cool.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with these grapes and Pinterest isn’t giving me much inspiration on that front lol

I decided to have a go at dehydrating some of the grapes to see how well they would do and of course raisins, which is what they will be, will come in handy for cooking. I put a few of the hybrid blackberries in to see how well they do, then I started thinking about Christmas mincemeat and how lovely it would be with the raisins, dried blackberries and some of our chopped hazels/walnuts in there as well mmmm just got figure out a way to make it low sugar enough to still taste good but I think it’s entirely do able, it’s a shame I didn’t get the cherries this year as they could have gone in as well, but all that together with our own apples and I am looking forward to making it.

Sunday: It rained heavily last night and is lighter but still raining this morning, as I always say, once it’s here it doesn’t stop 😜 John was up early breakfasted and out doing the morning rounds before I got up 😀 that is an unusual but welcome occurrence, it means I don’t have to go out and get wet until later 😂 He has now gone off to visit his Mum picking up Shelley on the way, I am having the twins for an hour this morning while Sam does the food shopping.

I realised that we had lost the lights in the kitchen and out the back, normally after heavy rain the pump from the water tank is the culprit but not this time, so far I have unplugged and turned off everything outside in the stable block but it’s still tripping, John is not back yet and so I decided to wait until he is otherwise it’s numerous trips backwards and forwards to the fuse box to figure out what exactly is causing the problem, freezers, tumble dryers, washing machine who knows at this point 🙄

John Home problem sorted, it was the pump after all, it just took a while to settle for some bizarre reason.

Today has had a definite winter feel to it 😏 wind and rain although the sun did shine occasionally.

Still no sign of TC, I find the whole thing a bit odd to be honest, he was extremely friendly and always here, I guess we may never know what happened to him 😔

Posted in Friesland Farm

No rain, lemon yoghurt cake, still no rain 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

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

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

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

More watering when I got back 😝

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So many jobs, so little time 😝

Friday: How is it Friday already!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Friesland Farm

Plenty of sun, plenty of work & plenty to say 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Oooo I’ve a lot to say this week 😀 must be feeling better 😁

Sunday evening: Although I had already published this weeks blog I just wanted to tell you that the rhubarb is coming thick and fast and I really fancied some stewed rhubarb and custard for pudding tonight 😀 Nothing better than popping out to the garden to pick it fresh, and I’m looking forward to the next few months of being able to do that with all sorts of produce 😀

John went out to put the birds to bed and we have suffered yet more fox attacks, ffs😡😡😡 this has to be when we nipped out, in broad daylight because the feathers were not there when John fed them earlier. It’s fast becoming unsustainable and for anyone who thinks foxes are cute furry things I’m here to tell you they f…ing well are not, we paid £400 for new hens just a couple of weeks ago, the fencing is hooked up to the mains power, we are always here to shut them up at night, often missing out on social events depending on the time of year, how much more do we need to do, even John, who is not easily defeated is ready to throw in the towel. We have NEVER had such a problem as bad as this year, it’s been getting worse every year but this is unbelievable. Fuming, depressed, defeated, lost as to what we do next, short of investing 100s of pounds, which again is unsustainable, we may be coming to the end of our tether!!!

Monday 8th April: Getting towards the middle of the month, from then on we don’t expect to have much of a frost and certainly not a hard frost, could be famous last words mind you with the weather patterns these days who knows lol. It’s raining this morning, just what you want, A wet Monday morning 😕 I was hoping to get some pottering in the garden done but unless the sun comes out later it will be a bit muddy, so it will have to be a bit more cleaning yay.

You know how life has a way of coming along and giving you a kick up the arse every now and then well that just happened to me, after ranting about the fox attacks and feeling a bit dejected what with the tiredness and lack of sunshine today, I find out that someone died ☹️ someone only a third of the way through life and suddenly those things don’t matter in the slightest anymore, because they really don’t do they, ok they are annoying and sometimes get to you but in the grand scheme of things they are blips.

I must be feeling better, by 12 I had already done a few bits and bobs and got the dinner ready for this evening. We had a slow cooked leg of lamb yesterday and there is plenty left on it, John has taken sandwiches to work and has lamb casserole for dinner and I made a lamb biryani. Now I have never even eaten a biryani before so I have no idea what it’s supposed to taste like lol, I found a recipe, thought, yeah I quite fancy that and so I made it. The secret to being able to do these things is a well stocked cupboard, I don’t actually have any curry powder but I do have all the separate powders that go into making curry powder, plus I substituted a couple of things, tomato/onion chutney instead of mango chutney for instance, it can’t make that much difference, well I’m hoping not lol.

The chap that was fixing our mower bought that back this morning, it looks all nice and clean not filthy and dusty like the embarrassing condition it was in when he collected it 😜 just need some dry weather and I can top the smaller paddock to keep it under control.

You will remember that we had the big apple tree pruned and the prunings left for us to deal with, which we have never got round to 🙄 we moved them from in the paddock to just over the fence in the front yard, the idea was to eventually shred them. I have watched the birds absolutely loving these piles of twigs, I don’t know if it’s insects in there or if they like the cover but they are having a ball with it so I’m inclined to leave them for the time being, they are not hurting anything, not particularly unsightly and anything that creates that much wildlife interest probably needs to be left untouched for a couple of seasons at least.

Stick pile that the birds are loving

I discovered last night that the glass rope seal on the Rayburn flue has come away, that’s not ideal, the rope on the other flue is also loose and we haven’t changed the door one for a couple of years, we have a bit of rope and glue left but I have ordered some more to get all three of them up to scratch, that will be a filthy job to look forward too 😝 I was hoping the weather was going to warm up bough not to need it for a day or two but it seems not as we are forecast a day of rain tomorrow 🙄

I made a favourite cake, Mary Berry’s orange and sultana cake, the goose I thought was sitting tight turned out not be to be, I collected up 20 eggs yesterday which had to be discarded and today there were four fresh ones but as I picked one up I dropped it onto another and they both have cracks, waste not want not, time for a cake 😀 The other egg just had a chip out of it so I hard boiled it for snacking on 😀 I thought about lots of different things to make with it but mostly I’m lured towards something sweet and with the steroids at the moment that’s best to be avoided 😜

Tuesday: I have Mia today and we have just had a quiet day of films really as I had a bout of double vision last night which is a bit of a worry, never had it before, I didn’t feel unwell and it only lasted about 10 mins but I’m wary today. I will need to get it checked out, probably to do with the first lot of new meds but it wants investigation.

During the quiet day I had a strange visitor, I say strange more odd really, a young lady called to ask for work with horses she said she was living in her car with her dog at the moment 😕 first impressions were that she was a respectable person then I was worried that she may be a vulnerable person or missing person? In the end I reported it on the W Oxon RCRG which is like neighbourhood watch just in case, I listened to my instinct for a change 🙄

The difference between rain in the Winter and rain in the Spring: Winter, it’s cold, wet and grey, Spring it’s not so cold, still wet but everything looks green and lush, definitely a more pleasant outlook lol and we get glimpses of sun occasionally.

Wednesday: Dry, the sun is trying to come out, still a tad cold though we could do with some heat. I spent an hour trying to log into an app, you know the routine, we don’t recognise your username or password, funny that as you are taking my money 😝 please reset the password, the password should be numbers and letter only, they f..ing well are 🙄 this session has timed out please try again 😡 we don’t recognise your username (or the new password you just reset) 🤬 eventually I got in, I love a bit of technology but sometimes it tries the patience of a saint!

I went outside to get a few jobs done, feed the rabbits, torts, etc, water the plants in the poly tunnel, much easier now John has connected the water up, put some clean bedding in with the ducks, round up the geese from the front yard because John left the gate open 🙄 Enough of that, back inside for a cup of coffee and a sit down, I think I am trying to run before I can walk here so recognising the need for rest is vital.

I sit down with my coffee, think, ooo I will catch up with The Walking Dead, oh no you won’t, the smart hub is updating, please try later 😣 Well I tried later and on and off it took till 3pm to get everything back up and running as it should, who has time for all this sh*t, bloody smart tv, not that smart because it fails to recognise the firetv stick which decided that as the tv didn’t want to know, neither did it 😣 unplug it, plug it back in, unplug it again, wait for it to load (forever) then just freeze and do nothing, unplug it, plug it back in and so it goes on, eventually for no reason that I can figure out it suddenly decides, ooo I think I will work now. I am pretty good with the technology on the whole (and when I say good I mean I can find my way around jargon and get stuff downloaded and set up, stuff like free streaming, I can get that up and running so I’m not a technob 🙄) but this has driven me buggy today 😡 Anyhooo all done now at least John will be able to record the F1 this weekend, now he is a technob, he constantly points the wrong remote at the box shaking it wondering why it won’t work, that’s why we now have a smart remote, one remote, many tasks but not many buttons and it doesn’t take much to mess with his lack of tech skills 😜 but he always insists on holding the remote and asking me how to do stuff 🤣

I had a few visitors today, Mum called in the morning and she was going to do some work in the garden but to be honest the wind was a bit cold so we had coffee and a chat instead, Shelley, Josh and Flo came in the afternoon and then Charlie popped in after work.

Inbetween those welcome faces I did the afternoon feeding and the egg shed then spent an hour in the tunnel potting some overwintered stuff on. It was nice and sunny and very warm in there by about 4pm so I took my guilty pleasure with me, a bottle of Dr Pepper, I can’t drink alcohol any more as it doesn’t agree with the meds and mostly I drink defcaf coffee, tea or water so I buy a small bottle when we go shopping and save it for the right time 😁

I have a lightweight cold frame that the top plastic has long since gone on and wanted to put some environmesh on it to stop the hens getting at the plants. A simple enough job you would think 🤣 except that I just wanted to quickly staple gun the mesh on, the problem is that Mia, the dog, does not like the staple gun. She happily throws a ball round Johns feet when he is using the chainsaw, gets in the way of the tractor or any other vehicle, doesn’t mind the hedge trimmer, wood chipper, log splitter or any other type of tool but she does not like the staple gun and takes off when she hears it. I only needed to put about 5 staples in so I took the chance, but as soon as the first one went in she shot off up the back so I had to call her, get her in the back and shut the door. Couple this with hens trying to get in the shed the minute I opened the door to get said staple gun out and the risk of the fox coming because the dogs are not out and you can see how a simple, two minute job, is very far from it 😝 Objective finally achieved, normal service resumed 😀

Frost is forecast tonight, -1, I did go round and have a look at the blossom on the top fruit trees but I have rather too many to cover them all so I figure that nature will have to take its course and hope it’s not too hard a frost and not too much blossom suffers, I don’t know how they manage in commercial orchards, I’m guessing they don’t cover rows and rows of trees so there must be a balance there somewhere.

Thursday: ‘oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day’ absolutely 😀 I spent the morning pricking out seedlings, cauliflowers mostly lol, I seem to have a lot of them 😝 I planted up three rows of onions, covered various things to stop the hens scratching it all up again. I have come to the conclusion that the hens do more good than harm provided I cover vulnerable plants because they are doing a great job of weeding and manure going as they go plus they are eating up insects along the way, probably beneficial ones too but you can’t have it all 😜 Remember the lady who is going to hatch out chicks with the children she looks after, well she collected her eggs today and I’m looking forward to hearing about the progress and fingers crossed a good batch.

Sat having a cuppa at 5pm, I’ve had one of the best days especially of late, no pain, I feel well (famous last words) I have energy to get stuff done, but been pacing myself 😁 just a glorious day for doing stuff in the garden. In the afternoon Sam and Shelley came over with Josh, Flo and Mia and we had a fab afternoon, firstly giving the tortoises a sponge bath to get the winter dust off them, then washing their play car and having a go in it, then up to the small paddock at the back to pick daffodils for the Mummy’s and dandelions, grass and sticky willy (goosegrass) for the rabbits, back down to feed the rabbits, brilliant 😀 After they had gone I collected the eggs, filled up all the water buckets, picked up some bits and pieces to put away and then came in for me cuppa 😀 Loving life today 😘

John came home and I went and mowed the strip between the paddock and the manège as I don’t want the grass to get too long down there, the geese will be able to graze it nicely now and hopefully keep it down a bit. Job done, day done, well nearly, just the dinner to cook 👩‍🍳

Shelley took some lovely photos yesterday, we have a temporary viewing platform on the farm and the views are fabulous, I don’t like heights so I have only climbed halfway up but she went right up and took this:

View across the paddock and beyond, from a platform 😀

It’s Friiiiiiiiiiday 😀: I don’t know why because it doesn’t really make much difference to us we are always working but Fridays still seem like the best day of the week 😀 The sun is shinning this morning so that makes all the difference, although it’s cold and was pretty cold overnight too, we didn’t light the Rayburn as it had been so warm in the day, that was a mistake 🙄 I will be lighting it tonight lol

I have my first lot of blood tests this morning since starting the new meds so am just pottering about before I get them done then I will crack on later.

Another glorious morning working in the tunnel and outside. I was pottering about taking some leaves off of an apple tree that I have already moved once and is still struggling, it has powdery mildew and it’s best to pick off the infected leaves to try and control it, anyway I looked up across the paddock and saw Jack in the field then I saw another horse which looked a bit too close to be in the field opposite. I went into the front paddock and realised that the horse was loose on the road, I ran (I say that lamely) to the lane, by this time a couple of cars had stopped and the occupants trying to find out who it belonged to, not me for a change 😝 the loose horse was charging up and down the lane trying to get back to where it came from, it went up and along to the farm track opposite, I met the young girl who lives there, she was walking back home with the dog and we tried to corale it into a nearby gateway, nope it wasn’t haven’t any of it, eventually it stopped by another gateway and the young lady opened the gate and got it in, good for her, I was pretty useless really as I couldn’t keep up with the horse. It took about 15 mins but any accident was avoided and the horse was safe back behind a gate, not the gate it’s supposed to be behind but still that’s for the owner to sort out later.

I carried on with my day, potting on, covering plants, then I remembered I hadn’t secured the gate I went through when the horse was loose so I went for a wander into the paddock, picked some wild garlic, had a quick look at a couple of things I planted in the hedgerow and wandered back. I’m going to have some pasta, cream cheese and wild garlic for lunch 😀

The flat leaf parsley has done well over winter in the tunnel so I have picked a bunch and hung it to dry, gave the rabbits some of the limper bits that are dragging on the soil, which they loved, hopefully the parsley will flush again now, I have curly parsley too but prefer the flat leaf variety, the smell is fabulous.

Lost my mojo around 1pm, all that running I suspect 😜 time for a nap me thinks 😁

It seems every one has a different plan, egg customers, deliveries, you name they come a calling when I just nod off so onto plan B a cuppa and a piece of cake and see what daytime tv is putting out these days 😝 Find it, fix it, flog it, there is inspiration for all the junk we have lying around here, now where did I put my tools?

Eventually I go out and do the feeding and egg collection, pick some rhubarb for the little shed and then think, I have a spare hour I will mow the small back paddock. The mower worked perfectly fine last night and I was thinking how much easier life is when things work properly (it’s just had it’s service) but no the damn thing does not want to start, the brake is on, the choke is on, there is fuel in in, the cutter is not engaged, all checks done, it turns over but won’t fire up 🤬 why, why oh why can’t some things just be straight forward. There is another way to start it, with the pull cord but that takes two people and there is just me, I could put something heavy on the seat (safety feature, has to have weight on it .i.e my arse) but when I take the weight off it will stop, I swear to god they make these things just to piss people off 😣 ‘Right said Fred, we’ll ave a cuppa tea’ and try again in a moment or two 🙄

Tried again, still won’t start, abandon that job from my head then 😕

Picked a whole bunch of stuff for the rabbits and Guinea pig who seemed very happy with their supper, they had : Dead nettle, Lilac, Raspberry shoots, Hazel, Lovage, Grass,Dandelion, Mint, Comfrey, Groundsel and chard, got to be a whole lot better than the generic pellets and there is an abundance growing now so that’s good. I decided I will let mint, strawberries, dead nettle and groundsel grow wherever it likes from now on as it’s all free food for the rabbits.

John came home, got on the mower and started it first time, course he did, FML😣 he went in and made a cuppa while I went off to mow the grass and ran out of petrol halfway round, yes, this is a real day 🙄 He went off to get some more petrol because of course we don’t have any left while I light the fire, do the washing up, hang up the washing to dry, feed and water the hatchlings and wait for him to return hopefully with some dinner as well 😜

Ate dinner, finished off the mowing, job done ✅

Next door had all her hens and her duck wiped out by the fox late yesterday afternoon, she is very upset and I know just how she feels ☹️

Saturday: Cold but sunny already 😀 John went off to help Shelley and Martin with their bathroom first thing so I did the morning rounds. That’s the first time I have done it all for weeks, I was going round thinking, have I done everything, lol, it was quite nice to have a purpose again 😀 after the feeding, watering, eggs etc I made a coffee and wandered up to the small paddock with my coffee to pick daffodils 🌼 lovely 😊 We haven’t sold loads of bunches but we sold a few and that’s cheered up someone’s day so it’s all good.

Busy morning in the garden planting stuff up and hoeing weeds down, bucketfuls for the rabbits though 😀 We are going to have to do something about the 40 free range hens though, I can’t see me being able to grow much with them all over the place, they are either eating stuff or treading on it and breaking it! I would have liked the front paddock to recover before them going back out on it but it’s looking likely that we are going to have to put them back out there sooner rather than later for my sanity and the sake of home grown fruit and veg 🙄

I am right here with a fork trying to dig over the ground 😂

John came back in the afternoon and we set about starting the brooder for the ducklings, we were given some big sturdy ply boxes (that aeroplane wheels come in) a couple of years ago and have stored them ever since wondering what we could use them for, well now we know they will make excellent brooders 😀 so we got the basic size and shape made up then went to Witney to find some small gauge mesh to make the top with, I accidentally bought a wisteria while we were there 🙄 I have done a full shift today because John then went back to Martin and Shelleys to finish some pipe work, came home and went off out for a drink! To be fair he/we hardly ever go out socially but it is farewell drinks for a company he has been using for over 30 years and they have now closed down, end of an era, he started using them went he was a very young plumber, it was a independent business so you get to know each other well, they know our family, have been in the know when all the girls were born and Sam even went to work for them for a few years so it was a lengthy and personal connection 😀 Anyway it means I put the birds to bed tonight AND I GET THE REMOTE 😜

We have made plans for getting the free range hens into the small back paddock behind electric fencing with added strand fencing, hopefully the fox won’t like that but I do have to get them out of my garden! I know that last night a very mangey fox was shot in the vicinity, it wasn’t in good condition and that’s what happens when they are not controlled, not all foxes are healthy and well, there are a lot out there that are diseased, maimed from vehicle incidents, generally in bad condition, controls are needed to keep the remaining population healthy, not hunting, that’s fine, I don’t necessarily agree with that but culling and controlling, yes that needs to happen for the sake of a healthy population.

Sunday: Not a bad morning a tad colder than of late but the Sun is out. John did the outside morning stuff while I did the inside stuff. Then we went off early to do a few things including a stint at the garden centre as I have some vouchers that were burning a hole in my pocket now it’s growing weather. HOWEVER I could not believe the prices of plants 😲 shocking! I think this is definitely something to get into, it’s money for old rope providing you have the space to bring them on, honestly I couldn’t bring myself to buy some of the things I would have liked (even though I have vouchers lol) I thought ‘I’m not paying that for a bog standard shrub or plant that I could propagate’ 😜 having said that the place was rammed with buyers. I did get a few things and I will definitely be splitting them come Autumn and selling them on next year lol, in the meantime I will be visiting plant stalls at the local fetes where you should still get a bargain or two 🙄

Back home and John is cold so lighting the fire midday, I must admit the wind is a bit cold but it can only get better can’t it?

In then out again to get some food shopping, John thinks if the biscuit barrel is empty we need a full shop 😝 we only needed a few things but spent most of the time chatting to people we hadn’t seen for a while 🙄 I picked up four plants while I was at the supermarket at about an 1/4 of the price they are in the garden centre 😬 crazy.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Gardening, cooking, clearing out, a little bit of everything this week.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th January: Another non weather morning, slightly cold but dry, I keep waiting for some ‘weather’ to arrive and am keeping my eye on the long term reports. Not from the press as they are always predicting some major event that never happens but from the met office, there has been some ‘catastrophic’ event in weather terms but because of ‘blocking’ they are not sure if it will reach here or not, so not much info there either! It’s just wait and see I reckon 😛

Well it was so mild out there I decided to get stuck in to a bit of gardening so I moved a few barrows of muck into the fruit cage, planted up the rhubarb I had divided back in Autumn and cut down and shredded the Autumn raspberry canes. I also cut back the thornless blackberry and then dug up and potted some raspberry runners, the thornless blackberry had also layered itself into the ground so another free plant there 😀 I got so warm I had to come in and take a layer off!

I actually can’t remember a January like it for years to be honest, this time last year it was ‘the beast from the East’ causing chaos this time it’s just so mild and dry that it’s been a pleasure so far.

I spent the afternoon confirming and finalising paperwork for our upcoming holiday to Norway, we are good to go when the day arrives 😀

Then back out at 3pm to do the feeding and egg collection, the bonus with hens living inside is clean eggs so no washing them, though it may have more to do with the dry ground outside than anything else, I guess once it rains I will find out 😝

I have cold pork, baked potato, salad and lashings of homemade chutney for dinner, John has bubble and squeak, his favourite after a roast dinner 😀

I have finally ordered our SmartWater pack, this is a long lasting traceable liquid that has a unique code visible under ultraviolet light, basically you splatter it on high value items and equipment and if it gets stolen and recovered its traceable back to you. The village as a whole has registered and within that registration each person that signed up gets their own code, hopefully it’s a deterrent if nothing else.

Tuesday: I have Mia today so whizzed round and get the feeding done quickly, the guy turned up to start putting the base down for the greenhouse. Gramps biscuit tin was empty much to Mia’s disappointment so we made a batch and shared them with Josh when he came over with Shelley and Florence 😀 I made a loaf of bread, pretty good one today if I may say so myself.

Wednesday: I am clearly feeling much better and fitter and have clarity (one of the things about Lupus is brain fog) lol, this morning I have done the feeding etc then moved a few barrows of muck onto the veg beds, then onto sorting stuff out. Must be a Spring/New Year thing because I am finally getting round to listing stuff for sale/free that has been lying around for ages, or chucking stuff I no longer need.

I made a bit of a boo boo as I had a delivery yesterday and it was three boxes that said ‘live plants’ now as I am expecting some plants I naturally thought that’s what they were and so left them out overnight. When I looked this morning, bearing in mind it was a damp drizzly morning, it was the cardboard egg boxes I had ordered 😛 luckily two of the three boxes had them wrapped in plastic as well and only the third box was soggy which also luckily hadn’t affected the contents, good job it wasn’t pouring down!

We have so much clutter that I am determined to shift one way or another so I have a box for the charity shop, a pile of textiles for the recycling, various items up for free on social media, fingers crossed I go on as I have started 😝

The chap doing the base has come back to concrete it today, yesterday it was set it out and fill with some hardcore, tomorrow or probably the next day he can begin the dwarf wall and then it will be over to the boys for the timber work when they have time 😀

I checked the post box and the smartwater had arrived so I went round with my little swab, dabbing items with the forensic coding 😀 we don’t really have items of high value but they are all things we use regularly and collectively any theft would stop us getting on with jobs around here.

And the random thoughts are happening again 😛 When we were at school (back in the dark ages 😝 seriously my first teacher had a mortarboard and cloak and must have been 100) why did the teacher ask a question, the watch half the kids put up their hands to answer but always ask someone who hadn’t put up their hand? I would have been one who didn’t put up her hand, it didn’t mean I didn’t know the answer just that I wasn’t confident enough, nothing has changed there either so it’s not confidence building I still wouldn’t put myself forward in most circumstances, and if the person who hasn’t put up their hand didn’t know it what was the point of singling them out? You can learn a lot just as easily listening to other people’s answers and thoughts, back in the days when it was fashionable to sew patches over the holes in your jeans (and yes I am from the double denim era) I had one that said ‘help me keep by big mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about’ I’ve pretty much kept to that my whole life, with probably the occasional slip up 😝 I don’t take part in debates unless I have a clear idea of what I want to say and even then there is much to be learnt from the other persons point of view.

I didn’t light the Rayburn until about 1.30pm by that time it had started to rain and the air temp had dropped noticeably, according to the met office we have a couple of coldish nights ahead, a bit more like Winter ought to be, a couple of frosts would be good to break down the muck on the veg beds.

Some comfort food is in order so we have cottage pie tonight.

Thursday: I was expecting quite a hard frost this morning going on the forecast but we didn’t have one, the ground is wet not frosty, good for us as the concrete base has been curing overnight and it’s better if it didn’t freeze. I find our weather can sometimes be a bit of an anomaly here, we are approx 350ft above sea level according to an app, and the paddocks to the west slope down a fair bit. When we moved here Dad did say to me the best place for a veg garden would be the far right/top corner and if I had been a more experienced vegetable gardener then I would have paid attention, it’s only 10 years later I realise how right he was and that where we eventually chose to site it is a frost pocket! However it is a central location and I can keep an eye on things from there whereas the other position would have been too far out of the way to answer the bell or keep an eye on things.

I did the morning feeding and letting out, put some fresh bedding in for the geese, I want to move these soon to a stable, they will begin laying soon and also it will make life easier while we are away. Then I cleaned out one of the stables with the hens in and put in fresh bedding for them.

Later on I washed the car because I was sick of it looking so filthy, I don’t drive it, I don’t drive, I passed my test about 20 years ago, drove for a couple of months, absolutely hated it and so never drove again not on public roads anyhow, but John never washes it so I figured I had better do it.

Friday: A frost this morning, not a hard one but at least it will help to break up the soil a little bit. My plan today is cleaning 😛 and sorting stuff out so not much will be done outside apart from the necessary.

Well it’s lunchtime and I have sat down with a cuppa, I haven’t actually got any cleaning done as yet but I have got plenty of sorting out and throwing away achieved including the airing cupboard 😝 I have added to the charity shop box and got a large bag of textiles for recycling. I did eventually get round to cleaning and I bought a new polish a while back, the ‘Method’ wood polish, it smells fab, it has almond oil in it, one of my favourite smells in products and how sad is this, I washed all my dusters and cloths last week, it was great getting out a clean duster to do the job with 😂 I am not a manic cleaner, not anymore, I used to be someone that had a regular cleaning routine and bleached/washed/polished everything even scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand but eventually I realised that life is too short to worry and these days as long as I do it once it gets on my nerves then that’s fine after all there are a million more interesting things to do in life 😀 Having said that, once I have done it I do feel more relaxed and clearheaded so maybe I haven’t quite let go entirely 😝

Saturday: I’m a bit tired and things ache today 🙄 not sure why, it started late yesterday afternoon and my right arm was pretty uncomfortable, hopefully it will pass quickly. A wet drizzly morning and the temperature has dropped quite a bit over the last couple of days too, I had planned a list of things to get done but John has had to go into work to finish the job he was on after a cock up by the suppliers so they will now have to wait 😡 not happy, I have wait all week to get the jobs that I can’t manage on my own done and then I still can’t get them done!

The concrete base for the greenhouse has cured nicely so hopefully I will get some walls next week. The base is more than just a floor it is part of the thermal mass that will help to absorb the heat of the sun in the daytime and then release it overnight, of course this will only be needed during the cooler parts of the year but considering we never know exactly what kind of weather we will get it may be useful all year round. I have changed the position of the new greenhouse to run a NW to SE direction so that I get maximum use of the sun down the left side of it for cold frames, before it was in a East to West position which left a north facing side (outside) that you couldn’t put to good use. I’m so looking forward to this new space I may have to put a chair and a radio in there and get a billy can to make tea 😀

Sunday: John had done the animals by the time I got up at 8! Very nice, thank you 😀 he then went onto clean out the flue and the Rayburn as it’s not burning very well. Meanwhile I potted up some lavender plants I had ordered, these were Monday 14th January: Another non weather morning, slightly cold but dry, I keep waiting for some ‘weather’ to arrive and am keeping my eye on the long term reports. Not from the press as they are always predicting some major event that never happens but from the met office, there has been some ‘catastrophic’ event in weather terms but because of ‘blocking’ they are not sure if it will reach here or not, so not much info there either! It’s just wait and see I reckon 😛

Well it was so mild out there I decided to get stuck in to a bit of gardening so I moved a few barrows of muck into the fruit cage, planted up the rhubarb I had divided back in Autumn and cut down and shredded the Autumn raspberry canes. I also cut back the thornless blackberry and then dug up and potted some raspberry runners, the thornless blackberry had also layered itself into the ground so another free plant there 😀 I got so warm I had to come in and take a layer off!

I actually can’t remember a January like it for years to be honest, this time last year it was ‘the beast from the East’ causing chaos this time it’s just so mild and dry that it’s been a pleasure so far.

I spent the afternoon confirming and finalising paperwork for our upcoming holiday to Norway, we are good to go when the day arrives 😀

Then back out at 3pm to do the feeding and egg collection, the bonus with hens living inside is clean eggs so no washing them, though it may have more to do with the dry ground outside than anything else, I guess once it rains I will find out 😝

I have cold pork, baked potato, salad and lashings of homemade chutney for dinner, John has bubble and squeak, his favourite after a roast dinner 😀

I have finally ordered our SmartWater pack, this is a long lasting traceable liquid that has a unique code visible under ultraviolet light, basically you splatter it on high value items and equipment and if it gets stolen and recovered its traceable back to you. The village as a whole has registered and within that registration each person that signed up gets their own code, hopefully it’s a deterrent if nothing else.

Tuesday: I have Mia today so whizzed round and get the feeding done quickly, the guy turned up to start putting the base down for the greenhouse. Gramps biscuit tin was empty much to Mia’s disappointment so we made a batch and shared them with Josh when he came over with Shelley and Florence 😀 I made a loaf of bread, pretty good one today if I may say so myself.

Wednesday: I am clearly feeling much better and fitter and have clarity (one of the things about Lupus is brain fog) lol, this morning I have done the feeding etc then moved a few barrows of muck onto the veg beds, then onto sorting stuff out. Must be a Spring/New Year thing because I am finally getting round to listing stuff for sale/free that has been lying around for ages, or chucking stuff I no longer need.

I made a bit of a boo boo as I had a delivery yesterday and it was three boxes that said ‘live plants’ now as I am expecting some plants I naturally thought that’s what they were and so left them out overnight. When I looked this morning, bearing in mind it was a damp drizzly morning, it was the cardboard egg boxes I had ordered 😛 luckily two of the three boxes had them wrapped in plastic as well and only the third box was soggy which also luckily hadn’t affected the contents, good job it wasn’t pouring down!

We have so much clutter that I am determined to shift one way or another so I have a box for the charity shop, a pile of textiles for the recycling, various items up for free on social media, fingers crossed I go on as I have started 😝

The chap doing the base has come back to concrete it today, yesterday it was set it out and fill with some hardcore, tomorrow or probably the next day he can begin the dwarf wall and then it will be over to the boys for the timber work when they have time 😀

I checked the post box and the smartwater had arrived so I went round with my little swab, dabbing items with the forensic coding 😀 we don’t really have items of high value but they are all things we use regularly and collectively any theft would stop us getting on with jobs around here.

And the random thoughts are happening again 😛 When we were at school (back in the dark ages 😝 seriously my first teacher had a mortarboard and cloak and must have been 100) why did the teacher ask a question, the watch half the kids put up their hands to answer but always ask someone who hadn’t put up their hand? I would have been one who didn’t put up her hand, it didn’t mean I didn’t know the answer just that I wasn’t confident enough, nothing has changed there either so it’s not confidence building I still wouldn’t put myself forward in most circumstances, and if the person who hasn’t put up their hand didn’t know it what was the point of singling them out? You can learn a lot just as easily listening to other people’s answers and thoughts, back in the days when it was fashionable to sew patches over the holes in your jeans (and yes I am from the double denim era) I had one that said ‘help me keep by big mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about’ I’ve pretty much kept to that my whole life, with probably the occasional slip up 😝 I don’t take part in debates unless I have a clear idea of what I want to say and even then there is much to be learnt from the other persons point of view.

I didn’t light the Rayburn until about 1.30pm by that time it had started to rain and the air temp had dropped noticeably, according to the met office we have a couple of coldish nights ahead, a bit more like Winter ought to be, a couple of frosts would be good to break down the muck on the veg beds.

Some comfort food is in order so we have cottage pie tonight.

Thursday: I was expecting quite a hard frost this morning going on the forecast but we didn’t have one, the ground is wet not frosty, good for us as the concrete base has been curing overnight and it’s better if it didn’t freeze. I find our weather can sometimes be a bit of an anomaly here, we are approx 350ft above sea level according to an app, and the paddocks to the west slope down a fair bit. When we moved here Dad did say to me the best place for a veg garden would be the far right/top corner and if I had been a more experienced vegetable gardener then I would have paid attention, it’s only 10 years later I realise how right he was and that where we eventually chose to site it is a frost pocket! However it is a central location and I can keep an eye on things from there whereas the other position would have been too far out of the way to answer the bell or keep an eye on things.

I did the morning feeding and letting out, put some fresh bedding in for the geese, I want to move these soon to a stable, they will begin laying soon and also it will make life easier while we are away. Then I cleaned out one of the stables with the hens in and put in fresh bedding for them.

Later on I washed the car because I was sick of it looking so filthy, I don’t drive it, I don’t drive, I passed my test about 20 years ago, drove for a couple of months, absolutely hated it and so never drove again not on public roads anyhow, but John never washes it so I figured I had better do it.

Friday: A frost this morning, not a hard one but at least it will help to break up the soil a little bit. My plan today is cleaning 😛 and sorting stuff out so not much will be done outside apart from the necessary.

Well it’s lunchtime and I have sat down with a cuppa, I haven’t actually got any cleaning done as yet but I have got plenty of sorting out and throwing away achieved including the airing cupboard 😝 I have added to the charity shop box and got a large bag of textiles for recycling. I did eventually get round to cleaning and I bought a new polish a while back, the ‘Method’ wood polish, it smells fab, it has almond oil in it, one of my favourite smells in products and how sad is this, I washed all my dusters and cloths last week, it was great getting out a clean duster to do the job with 😂 I am not a manic cleaner, not anymore, I used to be someone that had a regular cleaning routine and bleached/washed/polished everything even scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand but eventually I realised that life is too short to worry and these days as long as I do it once it gets on my nerves then that’s fine after all there are a million more interesting things to do in life 😀 Having said that, once I have done it I do feel more relaxed and clearheaded so maybe I haven’t quite let go entirely 😝

Saturday: I’m a bit tired and things ache today 🙄 not sure why, I started late yesterday afternoon and my right arm was pretty uncomfortable, hopefully it will pass quickly. A wet drizzly morning and the temperature has dropped quite a bit over the last couple of days too, I had planned a list of things to get done but John has had to go into work to finish the job he was on after a cock up by the suppliers so they will now have to wait 😡 not happy, I have wait all week to get the jobs that I can’t manage on my own done and then I still can’t get them done!

The concrete base for the greenhouse has cured nicely so hopefully I will get some walls next week. The base is more than just a floor it is part of the thermal mass that will help to absorb the heat of the sun in the daytime and then release it overnight, of course this will only be needed during the cooler parts of the year but considering we never know exactly what kind of weather we will get it may be useful all year round. I have changed the position of the new greenhouse to run a NW to SE direction so that I get maximum use of the sun down the left side of it for cold frames, before it was in a East to West position which left a north facing side (outside) that you couldn’t put to good use. I’m so looking forward to this new space I may have to put a chair and a radio in there and get a billy can to make tea 😀

A chap called round to discuss some pest control on the farm, we already have someone controlling the rabbit numbers but he is going to control pigeon and rats, rats are not too much of a problem we are not over run but it would be good to get a few taken out without using poison and the pigeon numbers have also shot up, he eats pigeon so nothing wasted there 😀

Tonight while putting the birds away we had the torch with us so I thought I would just shine it across the paddocks to see if foxy was around, what I saw were about six pairs of eyes looking up from the field behind, as they walked away I could see the white rumps so I’m guessing they were fallow deer, certainly they were large enough. We have three big ash trees at the back there and John and I talked about building a platform around one of them, somewhere you could sit in the dark and see what is going on around you without being seen yourself, great idea I think.

Sunday: John had done the animals by the time I got up at 8! Very nice, thank you 😀 he then went onto clean out the flue and the Rayburn as it’s not burning very well. Meanwhile I potted up some lavender plants I had ordered, these were ‘misshaped’ plants from a Nursery so reduced considerably, they worked out at £1.39 each and I bought 10, they are great, a good size, good root system on them and they should romp away come spring, very pleased 😀.

We have duck legs for dinner tonight so I have been looking at various recipes, I will probably take a combination of a couple and mix them up according to our taste. I wanted to do these legs justice so I chopped up finely, onion, garlic, celery and mushroom then some thyme, rosemary and flat leaf parsley, softened them in butter and black truffle oil then seared the legs quickly on both sides and put into a pot that I added chicken stock and tomato paste to. Most of the recipes call for alcohol like wine or beer, which we hardly ever have in and I did consider apple juice but I tasted the liquid and it was sweet enough, apple juice would have made it too sweet, I want this to be more earthy. We will just have to wait and see how it comes out, I’m planning on mash potato and peas to go with it.

It tasted great 😀

It would be worth getting up early tomorrow morning to look at the Super Blood Wolf Moon: total lunar eclipse, a rare event, weather permitting, about 5am though the eclipse will last about an hour 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Rain, mud and rabbits and rats 🤪

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday December 3rd : Oh what a dismal morning, never mind, onwards and upwards. At some point last night the electric tripped on the sockets in the office, I can’t find the offending item as everything seems to be fine now?

After the epic family feast yesterday I don’t feel too bad considering, I thought I would hurt all over but only my left hand is a bit swollen and stiff so I will call that a win 😀

As John has a pile of leftovers for bubble and squeak tonight I don’t have to think about dinner so that will free up some of the day, I have yet to decide what I will do, there are plenty of jobs indoors and considering the weather I think that’s where I will stay until feeding time.

The sun came out a bit later, I’m not keen on sun this time of year though as it’s low and shows up all the dust 🤣 no matter how much dusting it always comes back with a vengeance!

In the end I did go outside for about an hour until it started raining again, I did a few jobs that needed doing, replenishing the straw in a duck hut and a chicken hut, filling up the rat traps with peanut butter. I moved one of the traps to the greenhouse as I can see that there is activity around there, also rabbits have dug in under it 😝 We have a chap coming with ferrets soon to reduce the rabbit numbers but the rats are a different problem. I went out to the back pen which we cleaned out in the summer and I have put traps in there as you can see where they have ‘front doors’ under the concrete and I am hoping to put the hens that are in the front paddock in there over Winter, it’s the one used for selling hens but we have not got any at the moment and although I did say we wouldn’t do them anymore we may decide differently come spring. I want to move the ducks out of the big pen as well, into a stable probably, they will all be let out during the day but the pens just get really messy at this time of year so the less of a mess we can make the better and it gives the paddocks and pens a rest. The light Sussex are living in mud also, this was never the plan and we have a spare kennel out the front that I have my eye on to move them to, not sure how well it will work but it’s got to be better than what they are in now. Roll on the frozen weather (hush my mouth, did I really say that 🥴) seriously though it’s a lot easier when the ground is frozen.

The ducks in the veg garden will stay there, they are doing a sterling job of eating insects and weeds whilst manuring it all for me 😀 I just need to move their hut around a bit I think to stop the ground getting poached in certain areas. I ordered a sack truck to move the hut with, we have a really old one, and I mean really old, with cast iron wheels and all but it’s also extremely heavy before you start even loading stuff onto it lol.

I went out again to make secure one of the stables and take a broken hinge off of the kennel door, Sam and Mia arrived while I was out there and literally just as we were coming in the heavens opened with a vengeance lol, three sopping wet people 😝

Sam did the feeding and got the eggs in when she went out to check on Jack, and I managed to singlehandedly herd the ducks from their pen into the stable before putting everything else to bed for the night. That is quite a task because once ducks know where they are supposed to be going they are easy to move but when you want them to go somewhere new it’s panic stations lol. They will go into the stable overnight and be let out during the day to wander, the idea is that they can play in the mud and the rain, which they love, but they can go to a dry stable at night which is easier for me. The wet mud is slippery and quite frankly it’s depressing sliding around in it day after day! I have another stable to clear out and get ready for one lot of hens and the back enclosure for the other lot, they will all be allowed to free range during the daytime but again will come in off the mud for bedtime, as these are all under cover it should make life easier all round plus if we need to keep them shut up for the odd day we can meaning that probably Christmas this year we won’t have to leave anywhere early to go home 😀 that’s the plan anyhow 🤪

Johns Mum is still in hospital and he has gone straight from work to visit her tonight.

I’m am LOVING the bone broth I made, not so much the chicken one but the beef one is fabulous, I will definitely be making this on a regular basis, I didn’t think I would like it so it a bonus that I love it as it’s nice and warming on a cold day, as well as doing my gut good. I didn’t waste what meat was on the bones either, that goes into casseroles or stews for John.

Tuesday: Had Mia today

Wednesday: Up early because there are a few things I want to get done and I have an appointment at hospital this afternoon. First on the agenda is to get the kennel ready for the light Sussex, put a new hinge on the door, put down bedding and put in a perch, get some food and water in there and move the birds over. It all went well, although I nearly lost the first two as they made a bid for freedom towards the door I had just come in lol good job my reactions were quick! I have given them a pumpkin as an extra treat and it’s 100% improvement on the run they were in 😀

We lost a cockerel to the fox the night before last, it had scaled the 6ft fence again and got into the orchard where this lone cockerel perched up in the tree, it’s a shame as he was a lovely little fella.

I planted 60 broad bean plants in the polytunnel, hoping I have got rid of all the mice now otherwise they will be munched! They could go outside but there are too many beaks around that will eat them not to mention the rabbit that has set up in the greenhouse and I have spotted roaming the garden lol, also the weather here is pretty harsh at times so I figured they would have the best chance in the tunnel really. I’m still waiting for pea plants to arrive.

Then I went to clear out one of the stables, this one was made secure from the fox last winter and hopefully we can put at least 30/40 hens in there as their overnight accommodation. You can see by the picture of the other pen just how muddy it gets over winter and if we can eliminate some of that it’s better for all of us 😀

Great news at the hospital, all my bloods are bang on and looking very boring as the consultant said, which is a good thing😀 excellent, I must admit this week I have felt ‘normal’ so I knew it was all going in the right direction at last, onwards and upwards 😀

Thursday: As I am feeling pretty good now it’s time to start helping John in the mornings again, so he does the two lots of laying hens and I do the ducks, quail, light Sussex etc, I will probably be back to do all of it soon but just at the moment the feed buckets are a bit heavy, I need to build up to it lol. I checked the rat traps, nothing but def signs of activity still, I haven’t caught a single one in these traps and may have to go back to poison which is not what I want but then nor do I want to be overrun with them. The light Sussex seem happy, a little bemused at their new lodgings, but it’s so much cleaner and therefore better for their health. I did discover yesterday, not sure if I mentioned it but the fox also had one lot of quail, it has broken through the wire in the cage and had the lot so I only have one lot left now ☹️ I burnt some cardboard/feedbag rubbish, checked that my broad beans hadn’t been munched overnight and checked the daffodil bulbs and trees I planted. The small leaved lime tree has been eaten down to the ground 😫 I think I will grow the others in pots until they are bigger then plant them out. The wind must have blown the tree guard off and it’s got eaten as the other three trees are fine so far, there is still root in the ground though so maybe if I cover it, it will still grow, I can but try. No sign of the bulbs pushing up yet but it is a tad early for that, the ground does not look like it has been disturbed at all so that’s good.

Friday: I went out with Shelley to do a bit of Christmas shopping 😀 we both got annoyed by 11.30 when it started to get busy so went for lunch lol.

Saturday: A dry start to the day which makes a bit of a change, honestly it doesn’t seem to have stopped raining over the last few days and water is sitting on the surface everywhere 😜 As it was dry the job of the day was the flue and fire, both needed a good clean, so John got the sweep brush out and did the main flue, I had intended to do the rest but was busy doing a few other things so John did it. Now I’m very grateful for the help, no really I am 🤪, BUT….. when I do it I have dust limitation damage in mind so I’m very careful with everything, the first thing I see when I come into the kitchen is a big black soot mark on the wall where he has got his sleeve dirty then lent on the wall while cleaning out the back flue FFS, I cleaned it off and bugger me if he didn’t go and do it again when replacing the cover!!!!! And breathe……😀 He wasn’t having a very good morning to be fair because the outside light wasn’t working, he changed the bulb, nope, changed fuse, nope, tested the power to the unit, nope no power the cable is knackered, still no light after all that and the back door has moved again meaning it’s not shutting properly so he had to fix that, he only did it last weekend but the winds were quite strong and they shift the whole building slightly at times, roll on the day when we maybe get solid concrete foundations and these jobs don’t have to be done anymore. He has gone off to visit his Mum in hospital now so I get a couple of quiet hours to myself 😀

Sunday: It’s definitely getting a bit colder day by day, still rain most days though. Did all the usual jobs this morning, John got a few barrows of wood in and stacked, I cleaned out the duck hut in the orchard. Then we decided to go out for breakfast 😀 which was a nice treat, we went and got the Christmas tree at the same time though it won’t go up until next weekend, I managed to get a few little Christmas presents too. When we got back we lit the fire and sat down for the afternoon, John watching the snooker final and I did some online Christmas shopping and a bit of scrabble 😜

We have decided to move the hens in the front paddock to the back pen and will have to do this later at dusk as that will be the easiest time to catch them all up and transport them over.

Tomorrow I am off out on a Christmas pressie day that the girls bought me so you will find out all about that next week.

I thought I would just add this photo it’s not great but if you look carefully enough you can make out the buzzard on the gate post, it didn’t let me get near enough to take a great shot but it is around most days so I will try again another time.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Runner beans, runner beans and more runner beans 😝

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th August: Not Up so early this morning, the urgency to water everything has now gone as the drizzle keeps on coming, they say the heatwave will be back but I have my doubts about that. John did the feeding, I went out and got started with the picking, the runners have not been picked for a couple of days so there are plenty to harvest, a few courgettes, some mangetout, I also put out some Victoria plums as I still have plenty in the freezer from last years bumper crop. Egg customers come earlier and earlier in the hopes of getting eggs but what they don’t realise is that if we sell out the day before there will not be any more until around 10am as the hens only get going about 8.30/9 The ducks always lay first thing but even they are on a go slow at the minute, the only ones laying like crazy are the quail.

The book I ordered ‘ Timeless Simplicity’ by John Lane arrived and I have read a couple of pages, I can see me quoting from it left, right and centre there is already so much in it that I identify with that I wish I had read it many years ago!

The grass is coming back through 😀 it’s amazing resilient stuff, the paddock was almost black with dead grass and now there is a haze of green across it which will make the geese very happy indeed and the hens will benefit too because although they eat layer pellets they do eat the tips of the blades and of course the insects will return so we should see them skipping across the area trying to catch them 😀 The ducks were put in there as a temporary measure and it doesn’t really suit them so I need to move them out, beside the geese have now taken to attacking another one so the sooner the better really. I would do it myself but the hut won’t go through the gateway into the orchard so it needs a bit of muscle to man handle it round. The ducklings are making a proper mess now it has rained so I need to sort them out too and I also need to pick some more plums, better finish this coffee and get on with it I think 😀

By lunchtime I had made a slow but sure start on the orchard area, I managed to herd the other ducks through to there and I let the ducklings out of their run into the whole area. I began planting up the fence line which will be an edible/wildlife attractant hedge so far I have planted 3 blackcurrant, which are in degradable pots, some feverfew, comfrey, lemon balm, a dog rose and a thornless blackberry, I also planted a kiwi root I found growing in the path, under the greengage tree, bonus if this takes and grows. I planted some marigold seedlings in and around various places and I have a buffalo currant in a pot which I have placed under the damson tree for now. So I have a good mix now and all they have to do is grow, easier said than done when the first thing that appears is a chicken because I have disturbed the ground and they think it’s a scratch and freeforall 😝 I have protected a few of the plants and will do the rest later. Hopefully come spring it will have all settled and be growing nicely providing shade, food and cover not just for the ducks but for all manner of things.

I moved Billy into the big tunnel to do some foraging plus it’s a bit warmer in there and as him and Voldy don’t seem to get on too well he will welcome the break I think. I did move the melons up from the floor, I don’t want him tucking into those 😋

I picked some plums and grabbed hold of a wasp in the process, luckily I didn’t get stung, they are everywhere at the moment especially on the greengage but I managed to pick a handful of those that have not been eaten just yet.

Did the afternoon feeding and picking and filled up the water buckets, then went on the search to find something to put it over the plants in the orchard, we were given some water containers like the ones in offices they make great cloches when you cut the bottoms off and I also use the bottoms to stand pot plants in when they need extra watering.

Just when you think you know what birds are around you another surprise pops up, unfortunately this one had got trapped and died some time ago but when I saw it my first thought was a baby green woodpecker, after doing a bit of googling I discovered it was in fact a goldcrest the smallest of the UKs birds, I shall keep an eye out for live ones from now on.

Tuesday: A dry day, warm enough, John did the main of the birds this morning while I did the birds in the orchard of which there are quite a lot now lol, ducklings, two lots of ducks, two lots of quail, the light Sussex chicks and the rabbits and Guineas, I think it’s full 😀 The orchard, just to give you an image, has three plum trees, greengage, damson and Victoria, a pear tree, an apple tree and a huge walnut tree, so plenty of scope to begin under planting for a forest garden.

I did quite a bit of picking and harvesting

The potatoes were from a self setter, I think I am going to give up cultivating them and just leave the self setters to spring up around the place they do far better than the cosseted lot.

Yesterday I didn’t feel as well as I had been doing and feel that some of the symptoms are creeping back slowly, especially in my feet so today I am loading up on the anti inflammatory foodstuffs to see what happens. I will take serapeptase in the mornings and today I am having turmeric tea then later I will have pineapple and see if any of that helps at all. I make the turmeric tea with almond milk, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper and maple syrup if you like chai, you will like this, spicy and warming with the added bonus hopefully.

I had some Megrim sole delivered with the fish from Cornwall and we had it tonight for dinner, Sam cooked it for us which was very kind of her 😀 John had his with potatoes and peas but I had a salsa of cucumber, tomatoes, garlic and pine nuts, in a balsamic dressing, with mine, she pan fried it in butter, salt, pepper and a couple of rashers of back bacon, it was delish. Megrim is the poorer relation to Dover sole in as much as it’s not so in demand but actually the flavour is good and it’s a sustainable fish 🎣

I was thinking about making a carrot relish of some type and it seems there is a popular sandwich sold by a well known food store, Wensleydale cheese and sweet carrot chutney, (sounds amazing) so there is demand 😀 I also need to have a go at the caramelised red onion chutney that everyone seems to love although I didn’t grow red onions this year and seems pointless buying them in so I will put it on my list to grow next year. I also want to try getting a pickle as close to the country’s favourite, Branston, I wonder if it’s possible?

I absolutely adore Pinterest, I’m pinning all the time lol, anything you have an idea about can be found on there, my folders take nearly as long to get through as the site itself 🤣

Wednesday: Dry again today, temps are average, overcast. Got the usual morning jobs done and then dug out a tub of fence paint and started painting the fence near the back door, random? , not really as Mum and my niece Anna are coming over this morning to do some jobs 😀 So I thought I would set them onto sorting out the front yard space, as I said before it had always been just left because of Kai but now he has gone I can tart it up a bit. It needed an awful lot of weeding and a good bit of tidying and so painting the fence and gate will make it look a whole lot better to boot! I also made another little raised bed out of the ones I took down, at the moment I have only put pots in it but I will get round to planting it up soon. Mum found four little buddleja saplings growing and has potted them up for use somewhere else or selling on, mine is the yellow, ball type and I would like to get the more common purple one at some point, superb for the butterfly population.

Thursday: Raining this morning, normally I would make rainy days, baking days, but I need to do the cleaning instead 😜 Before going outside I had cleaned the washing machine, Charlie was complaining it’s stinks, it did, so I cleaned out the drawer and put a solution through it, cleaned all the sink plug holes nearby and it smells much better now. I sprayed the bathroom ready to give it a clean later, and the back toilet, got the dinner underway (braised beef with garden veg) and a pudding, plum crumble, John will be very happy tonight 😀 put some washing on then went out and did the orchard animals before coming back in and getting on with it. Mid morning my cousin came with a bag of seaweed from his holiday, I had asked for some to make my own fertiliser. I had to put the sold out sign up because we are out of eggs until this afternoon as I don’t have time to keep going out and collecting them besides we would never catch up if I did. There has already been a steady stream of customers, we can never seem to get this balance right, too many customers, not enough eggs, too many eggs, not enough customers, I don’t know what the answer is?

My vest veg customer came twice this morning, I saw his car, but there was nothing out there mainly because I was not going to go out in the pouring rain and pick it! A quick lunchtime sit down before I carry on 😋

I had a brief look in the office/playroom/junkroom and decided that was a whole mornings work on its own so I shut the door again 😜 I think I need to employ the services of a professional de-clutterer! Besides the Sun is out again now so I may go out and do a bit of picking, I will just have a quick browse on Pinterest first 😋

Well looking on there mad me hungry cos it’s mostly food that comes up on my feed lol, luckily I had got some soup out of the freezer and ate that, then I really needed to have a bit of a rest because things are playing up a bit and I’m having to take ibrufen to get anything done ☹️ so I popped a couple of pills and had a lie down on the sofa 😀 But not for long, I think I will get a ‘do not disturb’ sign for the gate 😜

Fed the birds, picked up the eggs, picked some runner beans, cucumbers and tomatoes, I am trying to decide if the melons are ready, I think I shall have to pick one and cut it to see, I’m not sure what variety they are and it’s not totally clear if they have ripened. The rain and now the sunshine will give everything a bit of a growth spurt hopefully as it has dwindled a little bit, better be careful what I wish for because it will take me longer to pick everything lol. I think another batch of runner bean chutney is needed as the last lot went fairly quickly.

I made some Greek yoghurt in the yoghurt maker, another packet I’m afraid as I haven’t got round to reading how to do it without but I will, beside it does taste delicious 😀

Friday: Beautiful morning, fresh to begin with, no idea what the temps went down to overnight but must have been fairly low, then warm sunshine which looms as though it’s here for the day 😀

Got all the orchard animals fed and watered, I did a good bit of foraging for the rabbits so they have some diversity in their diet, I cut a melon to test for ripeness, its not quite ready but not far off so I gave it to the torts and some to the light Sussex chicks, who are now getting to a good size. Some of the runner beans are now getting older and so I made a batch of chutney with those and I am just investigating ‘shucking’ which is removing the bean from the pod and possibly then blanching the beans and taking off the outer layer leaving a lovely green bean that splits in two, can’t be much different from a pea really.

The kitchen smells amazing 😀 as well as the chutney I have tomatoes, onion, garlic, carrot, basil and oregano, salt, pepper all tossed in olive oil, reducing down in the oven for a sauce, delish. A bit of an indulgence really as John doesn’t like pasta so the sauce is all for me and whoever I share it with, it’s a bit of a shame because if I’m honest it is the part I love the most about harvesting it all is making lovely goodies to eat either fresh or later in the winter time.

Saturday: Dull as far as the weather goes though not cold. I spent a fair bit of the morning chatting with various customers but in between that did some picking, runner beans, courgettes and broccoli. The brassica cage is still holding up really well against the cabbage white so I am able to harvest quite a few sproutings, I also filled a trug with old leaves and bits that have ‘blown’ as I call them, there was also a cabbage in there which was supposed to be broccoli but isn’t, I gave that to the light Sussex chicks to pick over, it should keep them busy for most of the day. I need to put some kale in for overwinter and will definitely be using the cage for that. I noticed the other day that the few French beans plants I planted had got more flowers on so I thought I will leave them a few days and then pick the beans, well something has been eating them ☹️ at first I thought rabbits, but they would have eaten the whole bean and this is just the end so something that can’t quite reach all the way up, possibly a mouse which will be more difficult to protect them from.

I was walking down the garden and heard a familiar noise, oh shit, I had left the water on in the poly tunnel, for 24hrs 😜 damn, it won’t need watering for quite a few days now but hopefully it will swell the melons!

Had Josh and Florence for a few hours, mostly played with playdough that my sister had made for him, it started off four different colours now it just one 😋

Sunday: Another dull day, not that I’m complaining as it means I can get stuff done outside. John did most of the birds while I did the orchard lot. Today that meant cleaning out most of the huts and runs, putting in clean bedding and washing out the water bowls. Two of the huts needed moving as they don’t have floors they are just on the dirt ground. Meanwhile John has started repairing the movable chicken hut which will go into the side paddock to house a new batch of hens, just 30 in order to keep turning over the laying flock and meet the demand for eggs.

I went for a little wander around the farm to see what blackberries were about, not many they are still red, quite small and look dry due to the lack of rain I suspect. My cooking app,e tree continues to chuck apples all over the drive especially when it’s windy, it’s a shame as the tree showed great promise at the beginning of the year. I picked some more Victoria plums, a fair few of the last lot I picked had codling moth grub in them but the branches on the other side seem fine, it’s my own fault as I didn’t put grease bands around the trunk nor did I put up the moth traps, I definitely will do next time.

Have a great week 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Endless watering, plenty of picking and Cornish mackerel for dinner.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 16th July: The dry, hot spell looks set to continue with no sign of rain 😏 although as I have said there is moisture in the air overnight so there is some respite for the plants. We were discussing the last summer we had like this which was 2006, very hot and dry though not as prolonged as this one, the other that I remember well was 1976. A childhood memory of a long hot idyllic summer holiday, I would have been 12 and we lived in a village then, going off all day with a sarnie and a drink to play in the local park or abandoned railway line all day long, catching crayfish, minnows or bullheads, making dens on the edge of a crop field (naughty) water fights and paddling pools, a time gone by and lost forever for most children I fear 😩

I did a bit of watering in the morning and harvested some courgettes, everything is starting to ramp up a gear at long last, I can see the cucumbers beginning to grow bigger and the beans are getting longer so it’s all finally going in the right direction. While I am out there I am constantly planning for times ahead, I can’t do anything at the minute not least because the ground is so hard and anyway best time will be autumn to move things around, I really need to start a list so I don’t forget anything. The peach tree I ordered arrived yesterday so I have repotted it and stood it out the front which is south facing, it has one peach on it, hopefully many more next year, I also moved the orange and lemon tree out there and the fig, with all this sunshine I may as well make the most of it. The grapevine has loads of grapes on it, I’m very excited about that lol and I’m thinking the olive tree would probably do better out there to. I have ordered some big pots with handles so that they can all be moved back inside for overwintering as they won’t survive otherwise and I ordered some seaweed fertiliser as a bit of a boost for the plants, it’s full of minerals, shame I don’t live closer to the sea, I could harvest my own.

Dad and Sue popped in, they are en route to Suffolk and made an overnight stop here so we chatted for the afternoon and drank tea then went out for dinner in the evening, they will be back again on Friday. I obviously didn’t water as I was out so an early start in the morning.

Tuesday: Up early to get the watering done, at this point I realise I have left the polytunnel water on all day and all night 😝 uh oh, it won’t need watering for at least a week I should think, still at least I know it got enough!

I picked the first of the runner beans, not the traditional ones but the dwarf ‘yin yang’ ones, I grew them last year and kept them for the black and white seeds but this year I’m harvesting them in their young form, they are exceptionally sweet and juicy for a bean.

I may be getting carried away with the possibilities that this weather could bring but I have ordered a couple of random plants to try out, the first is kumquat which, according to most places, is pretty easy to grow here, the next is saffron crocus, can’t hurt to give it a try and thirdly but by no means a runner up is Camellia sinensis, tea! I thought, let’s just see how it does, the plant I ordered is small and so about £5 plus postage, worth a go, you never know Shilton might be just the place for a tea plantation 😂 or saffron fields, you never know until you try and I am always trying 😀

One of the benefits of feeding the birds through the winter is they drop seed and it grows, we have sunflowers randomly popping up and also flax (linseed) I used to have some flax growing at our old house and when I saw it I wondered why I hadn’t thought of growing it here, when you see fields of blue, that’s flax, it’s such a beautiful little flower and of course the seeds are hugely useful, and now we will hopefully have a bird seed mix growing of it’s own accord, bonus 😀

Wednesday: Up early to do some gardening bits, watering, picking and then sort out the brooder unit for the ducklings which will hopefully hatch on Friday. I had supper out with my girlfriends last night and even though it was a gentle evening it has taken its toll on me today, by 9am I was already tired and trying to get some extra bits done but eventually I decided to lay on the sofa 😜 That was pretty much it for the day until early evening when after resting I get a second wind and can do a bit more. Shopping was on the agenda, I have been sending John for bits and pieces while I was ill but you know you get to a stage when you need to replenish a few things and you know full well that what you put on the list will not be what he comes home with, a bit like the replacement items in an online shop! The reduced basket had pots of extra thick double cream reduced to 90p so I bought a couple of pots and I will make butter with them, I will have some buttermilk leftover from make it so it’s a win, win for me.

Watering again this evening, I can’t believe how much it dries out good job the hosepipe ban is not in force as yet though I don’t think it will be long before we get notification and goodness knows what we will do then, abandon ship I reckon 🤪

Last week or the week before, I can’t remember when, I said I was making an effort try eliminating plastics wherever possible and I had bought loofahs to use for washing up etc, well they are working out really well, I’m so pleased much better than the artificial sponge thingys. I did try growing them but they didn’t germinate, given how great I find them I will give them another go next year.

Just found Jack wandering around the yard, Sam had put him out on a bit of grass outside his field and he decided he would go on tour 😝 I have now put him in the little paddock where there is plenty of grass both dead and alive for him to munch on overnight.

Thursday: Usual routine of early morning watering, a bit of picking and then off for some more blood tests.

Mostly spent the rest of he day resting, though I did watch ‘An inconvenient Truth’ and apparently there is another film out which I will look up and watch that too. I briefly mentioned before about my thoughts on global warming and climate change, undoubtably we are contributing massively towards this and accelerating it at a colossal speed but I do believe there are natural cycles at force as well, after all Mother Nature is ALL about cycles, those cycles we can’t stop or slow down but the choices we make can have an impact good or bad on climate change. If you don’t know anything about it, learn, if you do know, learn a bit more and make the changes that you can, and make a conscious effort to work towards those that are a little bit more elusive. We only have one life, live it, but we only have one planet, look after it while you are here.

Friday: Up at the crack of sparrows 😀 there was a good bit to pick this morning, runners, beetroot, courgettes, a few apricots I missed, some mangetout but one thing I really needed to pick was a few remaining gooseberries. Dad and Sue are back this evening and we had arranged to go out to eat but I thought with all the amazing produce I have here I might as well cook. We are having the mackerel from Cornwall along with a medley of seasonal veg and new potatoes, I wanted to make a gooseberry sauce to compliment the fish so that’s what the gooseberries were for, good job there were some left. The sauce calls for horseradish sauce which I don’t have to hand but I do have horseradish growing, it was a measly woody bit but it will do the job so I made a tiny amount of horseradish sauce to go in the gooseberry sauce 😋 we we have Madagascan vanilla ice cream with homemade mixed berry sauce for dessert washed down with a Sauvignon blanc 😀

Oh my days it finally rained, thank you Mother Nature, it means I can have an extra couple of hours in bed in the morning 😝

My blood tests came back normal and the first of the duck eggs in the incubator has pipped, happy Friday 😀

Saturday: Well it was only a small amount of the rain that was needed but it was enough to mean I could have a lie in 😀 Having got so used to being up early I was still up by 6.30 😝 but the damp ground d meant I could get on with other things instead of watering. The first on the agenda was a proper clean out of both the rabbit cages, they actually were not as bad as I had feared they would be but now they are nice and clean. Then on to clearing up debris from the orchard pen and making a mini compost heap next to the light Sussex chicks so that when they are let out into the bigger pen they can scratch about in it to their hearts contents and hopefully that will lead to great tasting chicken. John also fixed a little hut up for the ducks so they don’t have to go in with the rabbits anymore and put a catch on the inside of the chicks hut so that when I go in the door doesn’t swing open and they all escape. He put a top on the water barrel that is connected to the gutter on the rabbit run so that the leaves don’t all fall in, the water we managed to catch yesterday was no good at all because it was full of debris.

As it is predicted that the temps will go up as high as 33c next week I really needed to get a handle on the garden so firstly we moved anything that is in a pot onto spaces on the veg beds so that they get watered at the same time, cutting down on having to water the pots by hand thus saving time. Then I got a bale of straw from the stable and mulched the potatoes, they were hastily planted into some raised beds that were previously used for flowers ( I dug them up last autumn and divided them, potting them up for future use, most have been put into the flower bed area now) The potatoes are struggling but there are some there, firstly they struggle because they are under a huge tree and secondly because they need watering separately to the rest of the garden and I often just run out of time, so they were mulched and soaked and hopefully we will get something from them later in the year. The rest of the bale I used to mulch anything in a pot, they will dry out pretty quickly and hopefully this will help, it includes the raspberry bushes that I potted up early in the year, I need to mulch as much as possible to make life a lot easier but by then it was lunchtime and then time for a rest. I am finding I need about and hour and a half sleep in the daytime and then I am good to go again. My blood results came back as ‘no action required’ which means the inflammation has gone down which is great and I no longer have any pain, also great but I guess this is a convalescent period where I need to build my strength back up, each day I can work a bit longer without feeling ill or tired so I am on the upward road touch wood.

Still waiting for the first duckling to hatch 🐣

The Large Fowl Light Sussex in their new run, I will be adding pots of foliage when the weather changes, at the moment I have lovage and a hazel tree ready but would like to get a currant bush in there as well so that they can forage for themselves, I have also been putting a barrowful of rotted manure in for them which they love scratching around in. We need to put in a roosting tree for them so that they can sleep outside if they choose to. In the Autumn, Winter and early Spring they will free range in the orchard and veg garden to help with pests, hopefully they will have as near to natural diet/life as possible.

Did a bit of picking in the evening as everything I put out today has gone! I picked 1kg of runner beans and that’s just the first picking once they get going there will be many more, the first veg I ever sold were runners and they continue to be the best selling item closely followed by the rhubarb. I picked a large punnet of berries, blue, raspberry, blackcurrant and Logan berries I might make a mixed jam with those, I found a cucumber that I had missed and it’s very fat lol, the tomatoes are just beginning to ripen and for the first time of trying I may even have some aubergines this year 😀

Sunday: Guess what I did this morning? Yep, watering I think I’m officially sick of doing it now, a ‘surprise’ shower would be just wonderful 😝

Apart from watering I also picked the baby corn, the stalks are around 8ft high and I thought there were no cobs but they suddenly shot through yesterday, I got John to take a short video of me harvesting them, which I will have to post separately as it won’t upload here, anyone who gets this emailed can try looking on Facebook under Friesland Farm 😀 hopefully it will be on there.

The first duckling hatched this afternoon, there are others pipping so fingers crossed for a good hatch 🐣