Monday 6th December: Today was a bit of a write off, I went out and did the morning rounds but started feeling a bit dizzy and nauseous halfway round, that feeling didn’t leave me all day and so apart from the absolute basics I didn’t do anything except sit or lie down. I was hoping it would pass quickly, I had the same thing on Sunday morning which went after about an hour but this time it didn’t shift until around 2pm. So I didn’t get anything done at all really and am hoping it’s a passing thing.
Tuesday: I haven’t got the dizziness today but I still feel a bit like my head is a dough ball. That I can cope with, the dizziness not so much, I am guessing it’s sinus related and that it doesn’t last too long. Going from the warm, out to the cold and then back into the warm makes it worse. It was a lot colder than I thought when I did the morning rounds, it didn’t look that cold but my fingers and toes were telling me something different 🙄 We have another storm warning, high winds, cold weather, possibly snow, at the minute it is quite calm but likely to be a different story by the end of the day. I would have liked to get on with doing the rest of the pantry but we only just picked up the door yesterday and I don’t want to put any food source in there until I can keep any animals out, cats, dogs and mice included, so that will have to wait, John is putting the door on when he come home from work later. I think I may make mince pies today, seems like a good day to get that done and another thing I can tick off my list.
Early evening we got the door lining in and the door on the pantry so it is pretty much finished now, I am super chuffed with it. Everything in there is something we already had, it looks like it’s been there for years which was the intention and I have plenty of space to be able to store everything I am going to grow next year plus hang dried flowers and stock up on extra things that I can’t usually get in the kitchen cupboards, yep happy, happy me 🥰
Now I have the space I have ordered some apples direct from an orchard in the UK, I have long since finished my apples as there were not that many. My intention is to do the same with whatever produce I can as well as oranges direct from the grower in Spain, I am cutting out the middlemen that make a big fat profit while producers get paid a pittance for their goods. At least if I do that then all the money goes to the farmers, growers and producers and not the supermarket chains.
Wednesday: Windy today and cold rain with it at times, I got the morning jobs sorted and then out to do the morning feeding and watering. I just got back in when Sam called to see if I wanted to go to the garden centre, the twins were at nursery and it is one of the first times she has had a morning to herself since they were born so off we went 😁 When I got back I sorted through the Christmas presents I have already got so that when I go shopping on Friday (I made John book a day off 😂) I will know what I still need to get. Then I started sorting through things to put in the pantry, I have things all over the place and so it will be great to have it all in one place and know where it is and what I have got. I am going to have a field day next year, drying, dehydrating, pickling, jamming, jarring and storing oodles and oodles of different things. I have started a list of different combinations of jams, dehydrated vegetables for soup mixes (thus relying less on the freezer) yep the pioneer women in me will be in her element 😂 I will definitely be hoping for the best but preparing for the worst case scenario as you never know what is around the corner. A bit ott maybe? But maybe not 🤔 China are the biggest producers of tin cans in the world and they are having crisis after crisis with energy supplies which in turn means they keep shutting down factories, including the tin can ones. You may think that won’t affect you but the knock on effect is that there will be a shortage of them, knock again means there will not be as many tinned products on the shelf, people start buying dried goods, shortages occur, people start panic buying or stocking up, the supply chain is easily affected all the way to us as individuals. You only have to look at the fuel panic to see how quickly things get ridiculous, whichever way things pan out, I will either have plenty to keep us fed or plenty to keep us going if needs be. Being prepared is not about being a weirdo with a massive underground bunker stocked with supplies (although I admit that would be awesome 😝) it is about looking ahead and asking yourself ‘what would I do if ? happened) and then trying to give yourself a buffer against that scenario. In the last twenty years that kind of thinking has completely fallen by the wayside and we have a ‘live for today culture’ which on the surface of it is fine but hopefully we have plenty of tomorrow’s ahead of us as well so it makes sense to look beyond today, I guess a lot will find that out the hard way eventually 😏
In the afternoon as well as doing the usual I also got the horses in, the farrier is coming at 9am tomorrow and I don’t want to be under pressure when Jack starts to give me the run around in the paddock🙄
Thursday: Had to be up and about pretty sharpish this morning so I could get the morning rounds done before the farrier arrived. I was halfway through them when he turned up early lol lucky that I did get the horses in overnight then. Jack was a right prat today, normally he is good as gold for the farrier but not today 😏 he messed him about a fair bit and then once he had finished and moved on to do biscuit Jack decide to lob his hay net at my back while I was talking, no idea how he managed to get it undone let alone toss it in my direction 😂 he was ‘hoofing’ the ground and snorting, very impatient to get back out to the paddock. Once I took him back out there he had a good welly around to get it out of his system.
Once the farrier had gone I got on with the rest of the rounds and skipped out the stables so they are ready for next time they need to come in. Next I was due to have my hair cut but the hairdresser had messaged me the night before to say she had double booked me with an mot for her car lol, that’s fine, it gave me breathing space that I otherwise wouldn’t have had. The reason for that was because Sam was arriving with the twins much earlier than usual today, it was Mia’s Christmas play and as with most schools only one person from the family was allowed to attend so that meant the twins needed to be looked after. They came over just after lunch and they too were in high spirits today, must be something in the air! I had the twins right through to around 5.30 and I honestly don’t know how Samantha copes, it’s pretty simple with one toddler but with two that go in different directions, are much more nimble than I am and so that much faster it’s like trying to catch a room full of bouncing balls 😂 I just stop one from doing one thing and the other is already up to something they shouldn’t be and added to that George has quickly worked out the round and round the table game when he doesn’t want to be caught 🤪
Once they had all gone home I could make my dinner and relax for the evening that’s the beauty of being a grandparent, the children go home and are someone else’s hard work 😁
Friday: John has more or less finished for Christmas now and so I had booked him for the day to go Christmas shopping in Oxford. We got the animals all done and off we went, might as well stayed at home really as the shop didn’t have what I wanted and I sat in the coffee shop and ordered it online to be delivered 😂 We did actually get a few other things but it was hard going, no wonder the high street is suffering when their stores don’t have the stock but the warehouses do 🤷♀️ That took up much of the daylight hours really and so apart from the afternoon feeding there is not much else to report for today.
Saturday: I did the morning rounds while John started clearing some more of the back bit, there was a last bit of old roofing that had to be cut off and taken down. Once we were both done John went to make coffee, he came back and I used his favourite phrase ‘I have a plan, you are not going to like it’ 😂 His plan was to move everything else we had left to the storage caravan, I thought this was a waste of time because it is stuff we will be using and it will have to come back over at some point. My argument is why move it twice? ‘because we have nowhere to put it’ is his reply, well that’s my plan, we build a cupboard 🤪 And so that’s exactly what we spent Saturday morning doing, building a cupboard, we used all the odd bits of wood and cut offs from the ply and now we have a very useful cupboard with a worktop that has the vice bolted to it, brilliant, even if I do say so myself. In the afternoon we popped over to see Shelley and the Children and had tea and cake with them before coming back to do the afternoon rounds. The days are very short in the Winter for animal work, no sooner have you had lunch and it’s time to start thinking about feeding them and shutting the up for the night but we are marching towards the Winter solstice and then the days will very slowly start to stretch out again 😁
One box of oranges arrived today but I don’t know where the other box has got too 🤷♀️
Sunday: John helped with the animals this morning and then gave the gutters a clean out now most of the leaves have fallen. Meanwhile I planted some pretty pink cyclamen bulbs I got in a sale and also some persica which were originally marked at £45 for five bulbs 😮 but I got them for £5 so a bargain indeed. Then John went off to the tip with a broken fridge and a broken microwave, I cleaned out the greenhouse and got the dahlia bulbs all brushed off now they are dry and I have them stored in boxes under the staging in the greenhouse, hopefully they will survive. In the afternoon John went to watch the Grand Prix round at Maccas and I did some crafting, I did have the race on though and it was an exciting and controversial race, good job nobody was here to see me jumping around and shouting at the final lap 😂
That’s another week over, it was mild ending weatherwise, we have had everything so far this winter from snow and ice to wind, rain and sunshine, the temperatures have so far ranged from just below freezing up to 14c 🙄 that seems to be how things are these days, all over the place 🤪
It is Wednesday and I realise I have not written a single thing for the blog! The main reason for that is that I have had other things on my mind and plenty to do that is not Smallholding related.
Tomorrow is Charlotte and Maccas wedding day 🥰 and so as you can imagine I have had lots of things to get ready and sort out for that. Couple that with half term and going out with the grandchildren and there is not much time for writing or anything else really. On Monday afternoon we went on a pumpkin trail that a local farm/cafe/campsite had put on for free in their woodland area, the kiddies really enjoyed finding the pumpkins and the treat at the end of the trail.
On Tuesday morning I went with Sam, Mia, George and Lucie for a photo shoot, part of a competition Sam won on social media. That was a fun morning until the twins got tired and fractious. Back home for lunch and then Sam and Mia went out into the front paddock to move the fencing for the horses again as they had eaten off the little bit extra I had given them on Sunday.
This morning I have mostly been organising my bag for staying away overnight ready for the big day tomorrow. I also had to nip round and make sure the rabbits, Guineas and the birds in the orchard were all topped up with feed and water, make sure the horses water was full up and that all slip rails and gates were closed just in case 🤪
Thursday: Charlie’s wedding day 🥰🥰
Friday: It’s going to be a short blog this week 😂 Wednesday afternoon, Sam, Shelley, Charlie and I left for the The Wheatsheaf hotel in Northleach where we spent the night before the wedding. Lovely hotel and the food was superb, the staff were friendly and very accommodating. The next morning we were up early and had breakfast before the hairdressers, make up lady and photographer arrived. We spent a wonderful and surprisingly relaxed morning getting ready before John and the cars arrived and we were off to the venue. Stone Barn near Bibury, again another fantastic venue, the staff were amazing and know their job well, the food was outstanding and the day was filled with love and laughter, an absolutely delightful day celebrating the marriage of two wonderful people who make an awesome couple. An amazing day full of so many thoughtful little touches, a day of many amazing moments for my memory bank, just perfect 🥰
My very beautiful youngest daughter Charlie and her new husband Sam aka Macca
Saturday: After doing all the usual jobs we spent the rest of the day taking down old bits of the back area and putting up new stud work for the pantry. A very exciting project as far as I am concerned because it’s were I get to store everything I grow or make and hang flowers and herbs to dry 😁 That literally took us all day to get that sorted.
Sunday: Oh my days, rain, torrential rain, non stop torrential rain! Then flooding in the back area because the outside drain was blocked, John normally keeps it clear but because of everything else he has been doing it got left. We had water coming in everywhere out the back 😏 Then the electric tripped, we went round trying to find out what had tripped it, it took six goes of turning it back on only for it to go again before we found the culprit which was an extension lead to one of the freezers, it was getting wet and electrics do not like that 😂 Eventually after spending time in the pouring rain, John managed to get the water to run away. We then got on with the job we had originally gone out there to do which was take down some more of the old stuff at the other end of the building where Johns pool table will be going. It’s like playing rubics cube at the minute because we have to keep moving everything from one place to another in order to get any further forward, eventually it will all fall into place.
We went out with Sam, Luke and the kiddies for a Sunday roast, it’s Luke’s birthday tomorrow so it was nice to have a bit of time out with them to mark the occasion.
The clocks went back last night and it’s Halloween or Samhain today. Samhain marks the end of the natural year really, everything is now harvested including nuts and berries and growth naturally dies back ready for the winter sleep. Having something hearty to eat is appropriate, it is a season to celebrate feasting now, not too much though or else or your stores will be gone before the next growing season gets underway 😂 I will miss the summer days and temperatures but I also enjoy the darker nights and frosty mornings, hunkering down and staying cosy as much as possible. I still have plenty to do outside in the garden but at this time of year if it doesn’t get done it can wait until spring, I can find plenty to occupy me inside if needs be.
Have a good week and find lots of things to do that give you that cosy feeling, Winter has arrived 😬
Monday 27th September 2021: Autumn made itself known this morning, we have had sunshine and warm temperatures for a few weeks now but this morning we woke to windy, rainy weather and the temps are a tad lower than they have been. The sun did break through though and most of the day was nice apart from a sudden shower just after I put the washing out 😜
I have been busy today trying to catch up with jobs that I couldn’t do Friday and Saturday. Firstly though I had promised John a roast dinner so I got that all sorted, veg, potatoes all from the garden and beef from Emma, apples for an apple crumble from the garden as well. I had promised John apple pie but discovered I had no flour left, lucky I made some crumble mix for the freezer last week. Then I made some elderberry syrup with a batch I picked and put in the fridge last week, knocked it over as I was bottling it, swore, then mopped it all up, lucky I didn’t lose too much of it but it was a messy clear up job.
Once that was done I set about sizing up and ordering the last electric radiator we need, John took the last old one out of the living room and I need to get the new ordered and in before the cold weather sets in. After some lunch I went out to the greenhouse and potted up all the herbs I dug up yesterday, some will be for the relocation of the herb bed and some will be for sale next Spring. Back indoors and I had an hour sit down before making a couple of loaves of bread. I want to try and utilise the energy I am using as well as possible and so the bread making was timed to bake them while I am cooking the roast dinner and the crumble. I need to be more aware this winter, not having the Rayburn anymore is going to change how I have to do the cooking and drying the washing (yep the rain shower wasn’t helping today on that score) I don’t actually have to be energy efficient in terms of paying for it but I chose to do it for the sake of the planet, hopefully I am doing the right thing, it won’t always work but at least I am trying.
I put in an order at our local flour mill for different types of flour, plain, self raising and bread flour, that should arrive tomorrow and I also have a delivery of chicken, in various forms plus sausages and bacon from a farm arriving tomorrow as well. With all the problems around CO2 and now fuel John said ‘I think we should go shopping and stock up’ no we don’t need to do that I told him, we have enough here in one form or another to keep us going. I prefer to make sure we can manage with what we have rather than rely on the supply chains as they seem dodgy at the moment lol.
With that in mind I have been thinking ahead to Christmas, we are already being told there will be shortages, think laterally then, eat something different, it doesn’t have to be the same as every other year just because that’s what we usually do. I shall be checking over my stores etc and see what I can use as replacement ingredients for things like the Christmas pudding and mincemeat just in case we can’t find the usual ingredients, in fact I may not even look for the usual ingredients and use what I have which is the whole idea of a life of self sufficiency really.
Tuesday: Today I wanted to get the new project area planted up but I felt I needed to get the ‘must do’ jobs done first, that way I could enjoy the time doing what I wanted to get done. Mainly it was all the usual stuff and then some bill paying etc before finally getting outside to plant up. The area is in front of the dog kennels, they are no longer used and the plan was to take them down and build an arbour but as that is not an urgent job I can’t see it getting done anytime soon so I started growing things up the kennel instead 😜 The hop looked so lovely that I thought I would add some more bits to it and that’s when the plan formed. I had a big wooden box that my brother was getting rid of one day when we were visiting, I will have that please 😁 It’s been sat there a while but today I lined it all filled it with some well rotted manure and a few bags of compost and planted it up with a hydrangea I bought in the summer. Everything I used was something I already had, plants, box, manure, just the compost I bought to do the job. It looks good, the hydrangea is a bit lost at the minute but next year it should look brilliant if I do say so myself. I now have a wisteria, hop, climbing rose and a jasmine which will grow up and over the kennels, the hydrangea in the box along with some huechera and bronze grass, various pots with small trees in to give shade to the hydrangea in the afternoon and a pot of tulip bulbs which will add a lovely splash of colour come spring, I planted some small dahlias in the pot on top of the bulbs for now. I think I will move some pots of daffodils out there to at some point.
Next Spring this should all look lovely and colourful and a lot more full. A nice way to hide the dilapidated kennels 😁
Once I had finished that I had a quick sit down and then got on with other jobs. The beef we had yesterday was quite a good sized joint and I don’t want to waste any of it. I have used half of what is left, chopped it up and along with onion, swede, turnip, carrots and potatoes, added some beef stock, mustard powder, flour, black pepper, tomato purée, Pontack sauce, rosemary sprigs and a bay leaf and piled it into the slow cooker. Once it is cooked I will freeze it in portions for another day. I had a delivery of fresh, free to roam chicken in various forms, a couple of whole ones and then breast, thighs and diced plus some marinated strips as well as some pork chops, sausages and bacon. That all came from Blackwall Farm in Dorset, I sorted out what we would have for dinner later and got the rest sorted for the freezer. I am pretty much stocked for the next few months with everything really, I have flour coming form the local mill and I have 5kg of sugar delivered lol. Every time we go to the shop there is no sugar so I ordered some and will have to find a space to keep such a big bag.
I am not sure what I will do with the chicken thighs yet, I would have liked to make a korma with some but also don’t want to waste energy cooking two different meals as John won’t eat curry, maybe if I cook a big enough batch I can freeze some for another day 🤔
I did intend to go out and pick runner beans in the afternoon but the rain came in and didn’t really stop long enough to get out there, it is definitely turning towards autumn now, hopefully John will get the wall plastered tonight where he took the old radiator off and we can get the new electric one on, we might need it soon.
In the end I did decide to make a batch of curry, some for dinner tonight and some for freezing for another day. With Johns chicken I made a spring chicken pot lol, in autumn 🙄 It’s just basically chicken, potatoes and runner beans in veg gravy, I fried off onions and garlic then browned his chicken before taking it out with a few onions and then I added mine chopped along with tikka spices and a tin of tomatoes, smells good hopefully it will taste good. I think I have a garlic naan lurking in the freezer somewhere so I will have that instead of doing rice.
I do love the Autumn not just for the amazing colours but also because as the weather changes I love being in the kitchen cooking up lots of delicious dinners and treats, I was thinking I may even make a harvest loaf just because I can 🥰
And the rain has well and truly set in today 🌧 When that happens and I can’t go outside to get stuff done I generally browse online for ideas on many different things. Today’s ‘ooo I think I might have a go at that’ is homemade bouillon cubes, I have most of the ingredients already as I have made powered onion, garlic and mushroom, I have herbs I can dry and powder and I have paprika in the cupboard, the only thing I would need to buy is nutritional yeast flakes and voila I would have my own bouillon cubes which could be used in soups and stews etc or can be added to hot water for a tasty warm up drink in the winter, watch this space 😜 I am definitely a prepped at heart I think 😂 I was also looking to see if could make hazelnut flour, turns out you can 🤷♀️
Wednesday: A better day today, I did some picking, it’s getting fewer and further between now but there are still things to pick.
Thursday: Blood tests this morning so I got up and got on then out early to the docs, had my flu jab at the same time so that’s ticked off the list. John dropped me at the docs then went off to do a small job so I had a look round the charity shops and then had a coffee before he returned to pick me up. He is at home today and so has been plastering the wall that the old radiator came off, then drilling through the wall in order to get electric cable to where the new one will go, hopefully the electrician won’t take too long to come round 🙄 he then had to make good the floor and skirting and we will think about decorating in the new year, until then it will stay as it is . Meanwhile I pottered about tidying bits up and sorting the office area out but all the while being on hand as the labourer 😂 When he went off to get some more supplies I set about making some bouillon powder. I had all the dried herbs so thought I would give it a go, I just needed nutritional yeast flakes which arrived yesterday. Blended it all up and it’s now stored in a jar on the side for use whenever I need it. I tasted the powder and it tastes delicious so I think I will be drying more herbs and making bigger batches of that 🥰
Friday: Not a bad day, the sun was out but it was slightly colder than of late. I spent the morning in the greenhouse sorting out the chilli and pepper plants. A lot of them have all but finished now, still a few that are producing but in all honesty I don’t need any more than I have got stored and I only sell a tiny amount of them. Half of them I removed from the greenhouse, some have succumbed to whitefly and greenfly, half of them I have left in to finish off the fruits that are still growing. I moved all the trays and are moved the capillary matting as they don’t need constant damp now and besides I found an army of slugs and their eggs hiding under it 😜 I bought one of the ginger plants indoors to see if I can keep it going over winter so it has a good head start next year. The other one I will put in the poly tunnel and see what happens, it will depend on how cold the winter gets as to its survival. I have some seedlings growing in there which I need to pot on next week, some herbs, parsley, coriander and basil and also some winter lettuce which I need to plant up in the tunnel once it’s cleared of cucumbers and tomatoes. I also have some annuals already growing for next spring. Sam came over with the twins, Charlie popped in and then Shelley came with Flo, John was home as well so we had a houseful in the afternoon. 🥰
Saturday: Oh such a different day today lol, we knew it was coming 🙄 Before the rain broke through John cleaned out the ducks and geese and I did the quail, rabbit, light Sussex and turkeys, topping up all the pens and huts with fresh straw. Two reasons, one because as their minder you want them to be warm and comfy 😜 two because it will make the eggs less muddy in all this rain. I put a load of straw in the tortoise hut and placed them inside, they have been digging into the ground so are definitely getting ready to hibernate. Then I got the hop up and the apple picker and went out to pick the remaining apples from the cooking apple tree. To be honest I didn’t think there were many but in the end I got two bucketfuls so I am happy with that this year. Into the kitchen then where I chopped up a butternut squash and made some soup for lunch and I made a big batch of mincemeat ready to jar up and store for December when I will begin making mince pies 😁 John grouted the tiles in the living room, the electric radiator is now in place and the area round it made good just need an electrician to put a socket in. Apart from the necessary jobs of afternoon feeding and egg collecting I doubt very much we will do anything for the rest of the afternoon, just sit and relax I think.
Sunday: Not too shabby today although it feels colder, still some sunshine in the showers though. John was up early enough, surprising really as he went out last night for a pre wedding drink with the lads and had much more than one too many sherberts 🤣 While he was doing that I made bread, an apple pie and prepped for a roast later. That seemed to take me a lot of the morning as I can’t think I did much else other than peeling and mixing 🤪 Mid afternoon a chap called in to drop some honey off, the honey we had been selling has now finished but he is just down the road and had supplies and so we struck up a deal and now have more honey in the egg shed to sell 🥰
Home made mincemeat batch, 8lb and most of it will be gone by new year 😂
Thursday: Yes it’s Thursday before I even realised I hadn’t written a single thing for the blog 🤣 Thats because I ha e been so busy I haven’t even had time to think about it at all.
Most of the early week was wall to wall blue sky and it was pretty hot so that meant the usual scrabble round in the mornings and get done what I could outside. Picking and some watering, all the usual feeding, watering, cleaning out jobs. I did remember to take some photos mind you so something ran through my mind at least 🙄
This time of year is very busy with picking and harvesting and prepping everything ready for the winter, mostly chopping and freezing but it takes up a fair amount of time. I have made a couple of soup bags up as well, I was really happy with this one as it was very colourful.
Runner beans, tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, onion, garlic chives and celery leaves, should make a tasty, healthy soup in mid winter 🥰
This morning I picked some elderberries but I had to wash them and freeze them as I dont have time at the minute to make some syrup which is what I want to do with them. I also chopped up windfall apples and bagged and froze those. I cooked sweetcorn in the microwave, still in the husk, which is a fab way to do them. When they are done, cut the bottom off and peel of the leaves, easy and quick. I then vacuum packed these so they will last a long time in the freezer without getting frosted. I still have not quite got fully to grips with the vacuum sealer but I am getting the hang of it and it’s a great gadget. I weighed up the pros and cons of the fact that it uses plastic but it does keep the food in a better quality for longer and I can always re use the bags for smaller quantities another time.
This weeks blog will be short and sweet as I have forgotten to do half of it and I will not be around to do the other half of it 😜 We have Charlie’s hen weekend this weekend, so Friday I will be busy getting ready for that and then the weekend itself. John will be in charge here, I will be enjoying myself 😁
Friday: An unbelievable coincidence has occurred and I am very excited about it. My neighbour messaged me this morning about a watercolour she had seen on another site, she recognised it instantly and blow me down if it wasn’t our paddock with the old hen huts in and Jack grazing. It is beautiful and in a style I love. I am in touch with the artist, he has agreed to sell it to us and it should be here shortly, so chuffed, it’s brilliant and I love it so it will go for framing and hang in my kitchen 😁 Happy Days 😁
By the time this is published on Sunday eve, Charlie will know all about her hen do so I can safely write this on Friday 😜 The reason I can’t write much about the Smallholding is because this week especially we have been working absolutely flat out to organise a hen do extraordinaire, I asked ‘can we do this’ the reply was ‘with bells on’ and so we have pulled off a boho bell tent, hen do village, with a hundred and one little touches that Charlie will hopefully love, everything we have organised and arranged was with her love of these things in mind 🥰 no doubt there will be plenty of pictures coming up very soon. High fives 🙌 to everybody who helped, spending hours with planning and building the hen weekend, you are bloody awesome 🤩
Monday 9th August 2021: It’s lunchtime and I have just sat down for a little rest after bombing around this morning trying g to get all kinds of things done. Picked 7 cucumbers 🙄 about the same amount of courgettes and some blueberries before going on to tidy a few things up. I did a slug hunt in the greenhouse last night and after cutting back some foliage and watering this morning I have found a few more, serious invasion 😛 Onto weeding the big tunnel which is where I picked the cucumbers, I assessed the tomato plants, at first I thought they had bought but I don’t think it is or if it is it’s early stages but I am inclined to think it’s not but some other kind of problem or natural die back as Lenny of the foliage is fine and green. Then onto clearing some of the debris in the fruit cage that I had cut back and left on the ground for pick g up another day (that’ll be today then 🤪) Let the ducks out when I remembered, collect and wash the eggs and put out for sale. Sort some ordering out online, back into the garden to clear/weed and pick a bit more before having a sit down. I have plenty more to get on with today and all the rest of the week.
I put the Turkey eggs out for sale and they went as quick as that so anybody else will have to wait a while now. When I was looking under the squash plant foliage I found and enormous banana squash, I guesstimated around 10lb in weight, it was actually 10 and a half lbs so not a bad guess at all, good job I spotted it as I was t expecting them to be ready just yet and it would have been huge by the time I went looking. Though banana squash can grow to something like 100lb in weight that is not very practical for home growing 😝 10lb is about as big as I would want to harvest them. There are plenty of recipes online for them and of course they are a squash so can be used just like butternut squash or pumpkin, curry, stews, soup, one that I might try is a squash and tomato bake as a side dish for chicken maybe 🤔
My foot is so you can get an idea of the size 😂 and yes don’t judge me, I wear crocs 🤪
Shelley came over last night for a walk through of the things that need to be done, in what order and who gets fed what, she made three pages of notes and that should just about cover it 🙄 I did a bit of hoeing on the weedy front bed and I will try again towards the end of the week so that it’s not a j gone when we get back.
Tuesday: So far it’s been a mixed bag of weather, warm sunshine, cloud cover, humid the rain 🤷♀️ I have been going round tidying things up so they are not potential hazards for Shelley and the children when they are here. Also things really need a tidy up but I never get round to half of it except when it becomes necessary, like now. I have done all the usual morning things and also contacted the honey people as we have sold all but two jars so hopefully there is more coming soon. I picked a load of tomatoes, watered the big tunnel, tried to sever the bind weed from their roots, half of me thinks left it get on with it but it does strangle everything so not such a good idea. I tried to keep on top of it at the beginning of the season but once the jobs ramp up there is not time and it soon gets a hold, I have tried for years to eradicate it and now I am just learning to live with it and knock it back whenever possible. Charlie called in for a coffee and to get some fresh produce 🥰 I had just fed the torts any tiny toms when it started to rain so I took that as my cue to come in and have some lunch and a sit down.
Had to walk into the village to return something a customer had dropped and on the way back I spotted some cherry plums so I came in and grabbed a bag and went back to pick some. In the evening I took a bag up the other Lane and picked some yellow cherry plums that in knew were there, love a good forage 😁
Cherry plum foraging 😁 hood year for them this year.
I spent some of the afternoon sorting clothes for packing but I can’t remember what else lol, did a few bits in the evening outside but mostly tidying.
Wednesday: This morning I got all the jobs done, washing on, cooked down some blueberries for purée ing and putting into the ice cube tray for later use. I was diving here there and everywhere doing all the little things before getting my hair cut mid morning. Sam came for a short visit with the kiddies and then I sorted all the last bits for packing, some ironing, shoe cleaning, ticking everything off as I went along, mostly it’s all done and ready to be zipped up. Both John and I did a lateral flow test today which were negative, we will do one of Friday as well, might as well test before we leave as there is no point travelling if any were positive 🙄
A squirrel has suddenly appeared over the last few days, nicking my nuts no doubt, it makes a funny noise though, never heard one make a noise like that before I wondered what it was to start with. A cross between chuntering and growling 😂
Ooosh I have been busy this morning 🙄 started out with all the usual feeding, egg shed, washing up, get some washing on etc etc then outside to get cucumbers picked and watered (which reminds me I have left the hose on, deliberately but still) picked some courgettes, get the things I won’t use out to the shed for sale. Prep some beans for open freezing and the whizz up some cucumber for pouring into ice cube trays, I deal for juices or smoothies or Gin and Tonic ice cubes 😁 next it was onto cleaning the bathroom and the living room, hoovering and polishing. Shelley did say leave it but you can’t can you lol, when someone else is coming to live here it’s nice for it to be clean and tidy when they arrive.
I had a few bits of veg that were not much use for anything other than a soup bag, a small white beetroot, a couple of knobbly runner beans and a small courgette, now chopped and frozen.
OMG what an afternoon 🤪 Sam came over to help move all the electric fencing to keep the horses in while we are away, at just about THE ONLY POINT in the afternoon, day even, when it decided to fing lash down. Mia was with Sam and we were all completely soaked through right to the underwear, we had a short window as Mia had to go swimming and wouldn’t you just know it 🤣🤣 almost when we finished the sun came out, yeah thank you for that Mother Nature, we love you too 😘 As I got wetter and wetter I totally forgot that the lady was coming to drop off more honey as well 🥴 dangnabit what a twit. Soaked through we came in and started stripping off to get clothes in the tumble dryer, Mia sat in my dressing gown to get warm again, just at that point John came home from work, at least he made a nice cup of tea for us 🥰 You couldn’t write a more perfect ‘sods law’ story than reality sometimes 😝
Friday: I keep thinking it’s Saturday because John is at home lol, he has spent the time creosoting the POL pen because it has red mite, we have moved the hens to the stable for the week while they mite die off and they will go back out when we get back. They had severely gone off lay because of the mite and so might as well bite the bullet and sort it out now, at least they will hopefully then lay well into the winter months. We had to nip to town to do some bits, return and item at the post office, pick up a couple of bits of shopping, pick up my prescription, have a costa 😁 I spent the morning sorting the last bits of putting stuff away before we go away and making sure all is in order. When we got back from town Sam was here with the kiddies and we poo picked the eaten off restricted paddock and then mowed the areas that had got tufty grass (it bloody rained while we were doing some of it 🙄) I found another big banana squash that had escaped from the veg garden and was growing in the walkway down to the paddocks, 9lb in weight this time. I don’t have time to do anything with it today so I will leave it for Shelley to use.
Having a sit down now for an hour before we do the afternoon rounds and zip up the cases ready for the off tomorrow morning.
I picked some more flowers from the garden this morning, so far I have been able to have totally different displays which is lovely.
This will be it for this week as I will hopefully be sipping champagne this time tomorrow 😋 Have a good week 🥰
Monday 2nd August 2021: It is actually Wednesday morning as I type this, I have missed a couple of days due to external matters that needed my time. On those days I have done only the necessary basics here, feeding and watering animals, picking and sorting veg and household bits so there was not much to report anyway. I did move the horses from the restricted paddock which is all but eaten off now, they are in the side paddock but at some point I need to put the electric fencing up in there so that they don’t gorge themselves.
Today I can get on and as yet I haven’t quite decided what I will do although the cloud looks quite thick at the moment so I should be able to get out for a good part of the day. I had been feeling down and disillusioned with everything as well as very tired, some of that was due to other things going on and some of it just whatever is going on in my body at the minute but today I feel I can bounce back a little bit and focus 😁
Wednesday: A did a really good stint at weeding the veg beds, most of the morning in fact. When we go away shelley will be living here and although I can tell weeds from the veg it’s not so easy for anyone else 😂 so I have made it easier to see what things are and what needs to be picked hopefully. I did a bit of picking, runner beans and some blueberries and Loganberry and then the grandchildren arrived at lunchtime for a couple of hours. We saw some deer in the field beyond ours which was nice for the kiddies (and adults) and the weather was pretty good, not too hot. After they left John arrived home early from work but I still had a lot that I wanted to get done. I needed to cut the lavender before it rains again as I want to dry it off for later in the year, I did some more weeding and then picked tomatoes ready for putting out tomorrow.
I forgot to let the ducks out this morning and didn’t remember until mid afternoon which is really bad of me and I’d better not do that again 😕
Thursday: Weather started off ok but by lunchtime it had turned cold and started raining quite a bit 🙄 First thing I did some more picking, courgettes, jalapeños and peppers, the jalapeños are growing thick and fast and I really need to find a good recipe for them as I don’t really eat them as they are. Once I had done all I needed to I sat down for a quick coffee and publish my weekly round up podcast and then Josh and Flo arrived as I was looking after them for a couple of hours. I love 4/5 year olds, the conversations you can have with them is priceless as are the things they come out with, under that age it’s a bit more basic and over that age they obviously know a lot and don’t need to ask you any more 😂 I think I would phrase it as the ‘conversation gold’ part of early childhood 🥰
Shelley arrived back and we had some soup for lunch before they left to get on with their day and I got on with mine. By this time is was raining heavily and I needed to get some paperwork sorted so an indoor afternoon.
Spent a ridiculous amount of time on the phone (with a very pleasant lady mind you) getting some holiday insurance and all the extra Covid cover we need this time round, but it’s done now all I have to do is think about packing, sort out the farm ready to leave it and not catch Covid beforehand 🙄 Oh and try and find some flat shoes as the ones I ordered are too small 🤪
It carried on peeing down most of the afternoon and into the evening so I found plenty of indoor jobs to be getting on with 🤪
Friday: It started off with rain first thing which cleared up but we still had these blustery winds with some pretty strong gusts at times 🙄 One thing I am glad of is that last year we changed how we grew runner beans as each year the winds would blow the ‘wigwams’ down when the plants were full of foliage and heavy with beans. John built a better permanent frame and this year I have not had to worry about them going over. These are the kind of modifications I am trying to get in place each time to make life easier. I did all the usual morning jobs but no picking this morning as I thought I would leave it and do a bigger pick tomorrow. That gave me time for a more leisurely shower and smoothie morning 😁 Mid morning Sam came over with the children and we went out for lunch to a local child friendly pub. There were plenty of toys to keep the children occupied and active and we ate outside, all part of re introducing the children to social activities that have been lacking, certainly for most of the twins 2 years of life, crazy isn’t it?
Later after returning home I had a quick nap, still feeling tired at times but not as much as before and no blips on my blood tests, well I haven’t been contacted so I assume there aren’t 🤔 John came home early again today and so after a cuppa and catch up we got on with afternoon feeding rounds, poultry, cats, dogs and humans 😁 Popped out to visit Mum in the evening but she wasn’t in so we went up to see my sister, while we were there my sister, John and my nephew fixed the car door. The passenger front door would not open from the inside or out and we couldn’t work out how on Earth we were going to fix it but between the three of them they did it. I have had to sit in the back for the last month so it was nice to sit in the front again. However when we got back home I couldn’t get out 😂 it wouldn’t open from the inside again, luckily it opened from the outside. We keep talking about getting a new car but John loves this one and although it’s old it is a really good car (apart from the door)
I had a notification from WordPress that 67 people now read the blog 😲 oh my goodness that is crazy, that is just on WordPress I know a fair few others read it straight from the Farm Facebook page or my personal page. I would just like to thank anybody that has ever read it, I think it has been going about 10 years now, it has only ever been about sharing the journey with anyone who wanted to come along. When I began it I didn’t have Lupus, life has changed in various ways time and time again, I have got older, grown an extraordinary amount of fruit and veg in that amount of time, probably baked tons of cakes, made hundreds of jars of jam and chutney, tried out a book full of new recipes, laughed, cried, been knocked down and got back up numerous times, I have enjoyed doing it and will keep blogging for as long as I can. I have recently dipped my toe into the podcast pool which I am enjoying as well though sometimes I wonder what on Earth I think I am doing 😂 but it’s just a different way of sharing this life.
Just listening to the late night news and weather forecast 🙄🤪 rain, thunder storms and blustery winds, are we sure it is actually August?? Time for bed and mull over tomorrow’s jobs before I fall asleep 😴
Saturday: Had to crack on this morning and get some picking done, tomatoes, cucumbers, pepper, chillies, French beans, some to go out for sale some to sort out for the freezer. I picked about 1kg of tomatoes 😲 and put a few punnets out in the shed, some are continuing to ripen on the windowsill and some I have frozen whole on trays to bag up once they are solid. I have done the same with the jalapeños, they will be fine for adding to soups, stews and sauces, I will probably make some tomato soup to freeze with the rest, I have made sauces in the past but I rarely use them, soup is more my thing. After picking and sorting I did a bit of slug hunting in the greenhouse, found about 15 of the little blighters, then it was indoors to clean the spare room, strip the bed and get that all washed before laying out the suitcases ready to fill for our holibobs 🥰🥰 I spent a large part of the afternoon trying on clothes and making piles of what to take. It’s been such a long time since our last holiday I had almost forgotten what we need so I’m just packing everything lol.
John has been to collect some hay bales today ready for winter feeding, I like to have in some of the small bales as well as the big round ones, they are easier to move around for the smaller animals, not much hood for the horses as they would it them in one sitting lol.
The red onions, I am pleased to say, did not succumb to the alium leaf miner so they are now pulled and drying off, they will store unlike the white onions which I have had to chop and freeze.
The rain just couldn’t help itself today and there were some pretty sharp showers at times, it is supposed to settle down after tomorrow with some warmer weather on the horizon. It has been the weirdest of summer seasons so far who knows what else is in store 🙄
The turkeys have been laying well, one more and I will be able to put them out for sale 😁
Jalapeños Tigerello tomatoes
Sunday: Bit of a busy day off the farm today, after all the morning jobs were done someone arrived to collect the first of the kittens to go, I have had an update and she is settling in well her new home 😁 As soon as she had left we went to Witney to get a few bits of shopping for the holiday (did I mention we are going on holiday 😂) then back home again just after lunch to let the dogs out and do a few bit before going off to my brothers for the afternoon into early evening for his birthday celebrations. It is the first time that so many of us have been together and not everyone was there but we all had a lovely time. Once back home there was a bit to sort out, I took some hay to the Guineas and rabbit and got them fresh feed and water, and the quail. My main aim in the orchard was to separate the lonesome light Sussex hen that leaves with Ted and his ladies and get her in with the light Sussex flock. I watched her the other day and she has been plucking out Teds feathers that were newly growing through after his moult 😲 I managed to get her out but had to leave putting her in with the others until it was nearly dark. We had some other hens that have been in quarantine, they were also moved to the main flock once it was nearly dark, then on to do the water for the horses, feed the dogs and cats and then on to do another slug hunt in the greenhouse. The slugs are flipping getting to every pepper but I was able to see them by torchlight and get them out, probably still plenty more but if I keep doing it I might be able to sabotage their efforts.
Another week over and onto the next one, it will be a short blog as I am going on holiday (did I mention that 🤪) Only one obstacle to overcome and that is the testing centre at the terminal, fingers crossed 😁
Monday 26th July 2021: It is noticeably cooler today though we still have had no rain and the sun is out which means I have been watering this morning. We have seen only a drizzle of all the rain that was forecast, I was hoping we would get a lot more but as yet nothing so from here until we do I am going to have to start watering the veg beds in order to keep things alive and producing. I don’t want to, the aim of self sufficiency they way I do it is to be able to grow food without too much intervention but needs must. To be honest I have got away much more lightly this year than last so I can’t complain.
I had a jumble of jobs to get sorted in my head this morning, picking, potting on, watering, cutting back. I have achieved some but not all, I have picked tomatoes, cucumber, chillies, runner beans, French beans and young ying yang beans as well as some peas and beetroot. We will have some of the beans and peas with our dinner tonight along with potatoes I dug up the other day and I will pull some carrots later. I potted on a couple of plants that I had out for sale, bought them in potted them on and have left them to soak, I put some others out instead, foxgloves, verbena, geums and rudbeckia. I have a pile of onions to get sorted still, I have done half of them, and I have garlic to peel and chop for the freezer in one form or another, I will also freeze some whole cloves, the reason being I had to pull them early and so they are not going to store as they are. It is 11am and I already feel tired enough that I could have a nap 😂 dilemma, do I keep going half heartedly or do I stop and nap and then get on later 🤷♀️
Spotted this bumble bee on a sunflower this morning 🥰 🐝
Booked a Dmard blood test for later in the week, it’s due but I also feel as I am getting quite tired there may be a touch of inflammation going on 🙄
Peeled all the garlic cloves, two thirds I made into paste and froze flat then marked out sections on the bag (like noughts and crosses) so I can just break a bit off when needed, the other third is in the dehydrator and that will become powder. I chopped some onions to go in there too, half will be crispy onion and half will be powered. I still have some onions that I think will keep for a couple of weeks and so they are in a basket in the store cupboard. Did a bit of tidying away and some hoovering also a bit of un bountiful paperwork, ie I didn’t get anywhere with the results I was after 🙄 just a lot of chasing around. Time for a sit down before John comes home and I have to get the dinner on. Oh I did pick some more fresh flowers for my kitchen 🥰 Still got soo much to get sorted but rest first I think.
Tuesday: Today I have accepted that I am struggling, I am so tired it is unreal and my legs feel heavy, my feet hurt and I am incredibly grumpy about everything, all signs that something isn’t quite right 🙄 Hopefully it’s just a blip, I have taken some ibrufen along with my meds this morning and I will make an anti inflammatory smoothie of orange carrot and turmeric later, also make sure that what I eat is plain and fresh so that my digestive system doesn’t have to work too hard in order to leave the energy for my body to use for healing instead, that’s the plan lol. So unless the ibrufen kicks in I will not be doing much today except resting, luckily I have blood tests on Thursday so should be able to pick anything up quite early on although the lupus is like an iceberg by the time you can see the top, underneath has grown massively.
I went out and did the necessary it proper struggling now 😕 fed the Guineas and torts plus cleaned them all out and got new hay and straw for them and the light Sussex and cleaned Teds pen. Then picked some fat hen for the Sussex who don’t come out until later when Ted goes away otherwise Ted and the cockerel fight 🙄 After that I wanted to get some washing on the line. I took the rotary down when it was Johns birthday but the bottom broke and everything since I have been using the airer but when I want to dry bigger things that’s not practical. So I tried getting it back up as best as possible, it took a lot of effort to lump hammer what was left into the ground, then it wouldn’t go up which took me four or five attempts then once I had the washing on there it started to fall over 🤬 ffs I wedged a piece of wood behind it but that has just about finished me off and I could easily have a sleep. Washing lines have been the bane of my life, anyone else? Just me probably, never had a rotary that actually stayed upright and when we moved to one place it had those nice concreted posts at each end, fabulous I though till John decided they were in the way and dug them up and then it was back to rotary 😭 Although we have plenty of area I can’t actually find a good spot for a retractable one that isn’t under trees!
I did find some energy eventually so I went out and had a go at scything some of the grass in the front drive, came in and had a good look at technique on you tube plus how to peen the blade as well as sharpen it.
We finally had some much needed rain although by the time I realised it was raining my washing had got wet and to add to that the washing line had fallen over with all the washing on it 🤬 I have mow ordered a new screw in ground spike hopefully that will work 🙄
I spent the afternoon and evening sorting yet more stuff out for the holiday, I have had real trouble with the booking number 😂 not being able to log in, trying umpteen times, finally getting on and u able to print out the tickets, finally managed to do that and we are nearly good to go, so much extra paperwork this year all designed for contactless check in I think. Fed the cats and dogs at 7.30 and finally got something to eat before sitting down, no pressure to water this evening thank goodness because I don’t think I could manage it.
Wednesday: I have Josh and Flo today so whizzed round and did all the necessary things before spending some quality time with them. As we had rain in the day I didn’t need to water anything except the uncover stuff which was a blessing. Had a disaster though as the UV gazebo was flipped by the wind and landed on the pea canes making a hole in the gazebo and ripping up the peas 🤬 n the positive side John managed to get my washing line up securely in a place that is mor easy for me to get the washing in when it’s very hot.
Thursday: Blood tests this morning, good job as I feel totally exhausted at times, I can’t really explain it to anyone who does not have total fatigue but if you do you will understand. Firstly I feel incredibly tired, I can feel my words slurring, my eyes are really heavy and I guess it’s like you have been given sleeping tablets (wouldn’t really know as never had them but that’s what I am guessing) and then for I have a nap I have a real job waking up, it’s quite surreal to be honest and a little bit scary. I remember when I was having a really bad flare, I couldn’t rouse myself from sleeping just kept falling back to sleep and remember thinking ‘is this how you die, just drift off to sleep and that’s it’ 🙄 not that bad this time at the moment but definitely something is not right.
Having said that I did the jobs I needed to get done before going for the tests and then for a birthday treat Shelley, Josh and Flo took me to Buscot tea rooms and then we walked along to the weir and the lock, lovely area and never been there before but really wanted to go, glad we did. When I got back I literally sat down and then went to sleep 😴 for over an hour.
Friday: It’s my birthday 🥳 it’s been raining most of the day and I have been here by myself most of the day but I have done a few things on top of the usual jobs. After feeding my job lot I picked a few things, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapeños, then I met a chap from a local farm museum who has two females turkeys to rehome and hopefully they will be coming here on Sunday 😁 Indoors then to make a super smoothie which was raw beetroot, a pear, some blueberries, some honey and then oat milk, blend and drink, full of goodness 🥰 I cooked some jalapeños and chopped onion in water until soft (but not mushy) then blended them and added avocado oil to make a chilli sauce for sausages later on. Then I still have plenty of stuff in the big freezer to get used up and so a whole load of things went into a pan to make a batch of soup, swede, sweetcorn, baby potatoes, beetroot, onions, leeks and some spinach together with veg stock and black pepper.
Shelley, Josh and Flo came round in the afternoon with a birthday cake for me and stayed until later in the evening, John came home early from work then everyone came round at 6ish, the weather was on off rain, then very windy, but luckily it settled a bit by the time we lit the fire pit, oh yes and the cat stole one of the raw sausages waiting to go in the pan 😂
I had cooked the soup earlier intending to freeze it but the weather was so shockingly bad in the evening that everyone had soup before their sausages 😂 the jalapeño sauce went down really well and so did the s’mores 🥰 lovely evening round the fire on a cold July evening 🤷♀️
Saturday: Early start as Charlie and Macca were coming round to pick us up and take us out for breakfast as a birthday present, I had no idea where we were going. We arrived in Oxford just after 8.30 and had breakfast at the Breakfast Club, delish French toast with pecans and and banana for me, traditional English for John, pancakes for Charlie and Macca, the coffee was lovely (I really appreciate a decent tasting coffee) fresh orange was exactly that and also delicious, once we had stuffed our faces we came home 🥰 When we got back we had a quick cuppa and then cut the front drive grass with the mower, apart from the areas I scythed it was long and difficult that was added to by the weather, one minute the sun was out, next it was a shower and this carried on until we had finished. Needs another tidy once it dries, whenever that might be 🙄
It carried on with some torrential downpours all afternoon so most other jobs apart from the necessary were just abandoned, ridiculous weather 🤪
Sunday: More showers in and around grey skies and occasional peeks of sunshine. Mostly I spent the first couple of hours picking and then sorting veg out one way or another. John did the morning rounds and then some weeding and I am delighted to tell you that Ted now has some lady friends 🥰 we have rehomed two female turkeys from Cogges Manor Farm and although it’s early days and they are giving each other a wide berth 😂 we hope they will all get on together. It’s lovely for Ted to finally have some of his own kind 😁
Tedalena and Tedaliscious 😂
Very tired, grumpy and disillusioned today 😕 and the constant rain showers don’t help because I can’t really get on with anything, never mind maybe a nap will help 🤪
Have a great week, and if you are reading this on my personal Facebook page please note that from next week it will only be available on the Friesland Farm Facebook page or you can subscribe for free on WordPress which will deliver it to your email inbox 😁
Monday 28th June 2021: It is overcast but that’s fine for me, just how I prefer it, overcast but still warm 😂 I did a thing as Jeremy Clarkson would say 😜 I thought I would do a voice memo as I was going round this morning, actually I thought initially it would be for note taking but on playback I rather liked it. Then began the next couple of hours trying to get it onto some kind of platform so that I could transfer it to WordPress. You will see below that despite everything I did do exactly that, although I would have like to merge the recordings that seems a bit beyond the basic free apps, maybe I will pay for a good one so that next time it is seamless 😬 But here is a first ever audio of life on the farm, this is me with my local accent (which will sound strange to those readers in far off lands 😂) My voice is slightly huskier than normal due to this bug I have, normally it’s a lot tinnier, I prefer this husky one personally lol
Apart from faffing around for a long time trying to upload, download, offload the files 😜 I have done other bits of picking, chatting to a customer who came especially to get some fresh veg, organising what will be for dinner later, video call with shelley, and probably a few other things that I have completely forgotten about by now. The day has shot past, it’s already mid afternoon. At some point today I also whizzed up some strawberries to pour into an ice cube tray and freeze so that I can use them in smoothies. The strawberries are all little ones and so ideal for using up this way, you could always use the small amounts to add to fruit crumbles or defrost and add a bit of sweetness for a couli to have with ice cream or yoghurt, so many other things you can use them for really.
So as is typical of me once I had recorded that snippet for the blog I thought ‘I wonder if I can do a podcast’ 🤣 so guess what? That’s exactly what I did, yep seriously I found platform called Anchor and I recorded a podcast, well I would probably call it a shamble ramble actually but I was pretty pleased with the end result if I do say so myself. If you like podcasts and want a listen I will see if I can work out how to get the link on here. It is a little different to the blog, to start with it is about how we got to where we are and why. It is also a lot easier to talk about and convey your thoughts and ideas more easily than trying to write it at the end of the day when you are knackered. Basically that’s what I spent the rest of the afternoon doing except for the moment I spotted a fox! I had just finished recording a section and was sorting some interlude music when I looked out the door and thought, is that a fox? I couldn’t quite tell if it was or if it was a clump of dock heads but as I moved closer I could see it was a fox with its eyes firmly fixed on some hens in the paddock. I shouted it looked up at me and then back at the hens, I shouted again and by this time the dog had run round so the fox scarpered back through the hedge. This is the one that has black tinges and obviously the day time raider as it was only 4pm. I grabbed a stick and went out the the hedgeline and made as much noise as possible in the hopes it would bugger off, I then had to wait out in the garden until John came home in case it came back. Once John was back we got some corn and rounded up as many as possible for damage limitation and we house the geese as well. At the minute here are around 10 hens still out so we still have to be a bit vigilant.
There is still no sign of the cat and so I have had to call the vet again to cancel all future appointments 😕 One of the other jobs that need doing fairly urgently is moving the kittens and mum from up on the side in the boot room down to floor level. The reason being that the kittens, who now have their eyes open, began to start gentle exploration today out of the cosy little cat house they have been living in. In fact when one of them saw me it started mewing and coming towards me so it won’t be long before they are leaping about.
John is watching Andy Murry play at Wimbledon and keeps asking me ‘oh why is he using that drop shot’ or saying ‘he needs a double fault’ I am just trying to watch it in peace 😜
We bought in a dog crate and set it up on the floor then moved mum and the kittens along with their cosy little cat house down into the crate. I know what would have happened if we had left it any longer, we would have gone into the room to find one of them had fallen from the worktop 😏 we did a risk assessment and altered the situation for a better outcome 😜 We have left one door on the edge of the cage wedged open, the dogs can’t get past it but the cat can jump up and out so all should be fine for at least a week. They have started playing with each other now so won’t be long before they explore further.
Tuesday: Still overcast this morning but it’s warm enough, again it is rather a perfect day for me in mid summer 😬 I think it rained overnight, bonus because I don’t have to worry about watering 😁 I still have this dammed ‘thing‘ it’s really not that surprising because being on immune suppressants everything takes ages to clear up but I really wish it would do one so that I can have a clear head for once. In an effort to try and shift it I did do a simple sinus rinse this morning, ewwww, yes it is ewww but it gets rid of a lot of mucus and crap, still don’t feel much better but at least I can breathe through my nose now 🙄 I found a pot of eucalyptus oil last night which is more potent thank the jar of vicks and although it clears for a couple of minutes it is back to being blocked before very long.
What is on the agenda today? Good question, at the minute I am sitting having a decaf coffee, I am pretty tired from being awake half the night coughing so I am going to amble through the day I think 🤔 The ducks need clean bedding so that is on the list, I try not to set too much in stone because things change or I might spot something else that needs doing or I fancy doing and if I plan my day too rigidly it can become stressful and who wants stress 🤷♀️ I need to pick strawberries, they are coming in thick and fast now as expected it is Wimbledon fortnight after all. As always one job will lead to another so I won’t be idle just pacing myself. Oh and of course I will have to keep an eye out for the fox, we managed to get all the birds inside early last night, around 7 they were all safely locked away. We had put the geese in a stable about 5 as they were in that area anyway so we just herded them in. This morning John went out to let everything out for the day and he told me that when he got to the goose pen up in the small paddock he thought ‘oh shit we forgot to put them to bed’ he had totally forgotten that we had locked them somewhere different and had a slight panic for a moment 😂
So I actually achieved next to nothing today, not on the Smallholding anyway, I did manage to pick a good haul of strawberries and that was about it. Sam came over with the twins and we went out to a local garden centre to see the fish and have tea and cake. The crazy thing is that although the twins are nearly two, this is the first time they have done that 😢 it is very sad really that for the last year and a half they have not been able to do the things that their older sister was able to enjoy doing. So we went out on a socialising the twins mission 😂 I have to say they were really well behaved for a couple of toddlers on reins who suddenly are allowed to go out in the big wide world bless them 🥰
When we got back which was around 1.30pm, John was home and Shelley and Flo were visiting as well. Once they left I had to help John get a wire through the wall from the bathroom into the bedroom so that we could get the electric radiator in the bathroom working. We still have another to do in there and one in the living room but we need an electrician for those. A quick chat with a customer at the gate and then a cuppa in the garden as it was about the right time for the fox to make an appearance. John fed the birds, I put some lemon verbena and mushrooms in the dehydrator, then I took out the mushrooms because I don’t want the lemon verbena smelling like fungi 😂 I will dry them separately later, the verbena was almost dry from hanging in the kitchen I just need to crisp it up a bit. Lemon Verbena tea is supposed to be good for joint mobility, acne, soothing the stomach, anxiety and inflammation as well as a few other things, there is science to back some of it up and the rest is what people report back after taking it but there are drawbacks as well, it can have a laxative effect on some people and it is a diuretic so anyone with kidney problem should avoid it. Most if not all articles will say that you should seek advice from a doctor if you have an underlying illness or are on medication before consuming anything in the herbal section. That is great advice but not terribly practical is it 🤷♀️ I mean I am hardly going to give the practice a call for everything I want to try, I would probably try a little bit see if all seems well and go from there, but that’s me 😬
The kick off for the football is about to happen, England v Germany always a big match in whatever tournament they are playing. This is how seriously we take football in our house, the anthems play, John goes out for a smoke, he comes back in, they are about three minutes into the game, the conversation goes something like this: John ‘have we won yet?’ Me ‘yes game is over’, John ‘what colour are we playing in?’ Me ‘Pink’ John shouts are the telly a couple of times before leaving to go out and price up a job 😂 Not really football fans and quite honestly I would prefer to be watching the tennis.
We won! Many chants and posts of ‘it’s coming home’ yeah don’t count your chickens before they hatch 😜
We weighed up the fox situation and decided to pop to Mums for a cuppa, as John said we can’t just be here the whole time in case he comes, we did put the geese away first but the hens we left out as they are far more troublesome to round up, impossible even. As we drove back towards ours I could see that the verges had been cut and I was horrified to see that ours had been cut too. There are orchids growing out on the verge as well as in the front paddock, ffs what is wrong with the world wanting to cut everything back all the time, not the contractors fault I know but urrrgh humans 🤬 Luckily we have plenty this year inside our boundaries but still I am dumbfounded really, it’s not as if it’s on a blind bend, I could understand the need to cut it back but on a perfectly straight road it is not necessarily to do it until the end of the summer 🤷♀️ The hens were fine by the way, no visit from the pesky marauder this evening 😁
Wednesday: Another good day weather wise for me, sorry about the lack of sun folks but I’m fine with that lol. We did some very brisk trade at the egg shed yesterday in fact we pretty much sold out of everything we had which is fab. It did mean though that I need to be up and about early enough to put out the eggs for today before the customers, who call in on the way to work, get here. John did the animals and went of to work, this semi retired has pretty much gone out of the window as he is now booked up to mid August 😏 I did a bit of picking, not much today, a few peas and that’s it, I need to wait for the braid beans to fatten in the pods before a pick any more of those and everything else is slowly but surely forming. I then went to put some clean bedding in for the ducks and move the electric fence for the horses, I a, going to have to extend the tape again soon and put in more stakes as I am running out of ‘give’ with this lot. Onto the guinea pigs, I gave them a clean out, swept the floor, got them some fresh hay 🤔 That is one of those terms that is a paradox isn’t it 😂 fresh hay, it hadn’t occurs to me before now but dead grass is fresh hay 🤪 Anyway I sorted that lot out and picked them some fresh mint, lemon balm, dandelions and sow thistle they are very happy with that lot.
Back inside then to check the mushrooms I have had in the dehydrator, a lot of them are ready but some are still a bit soft. I took out the lot that were ready to whizz into powder, put that in a jar and left the rest to continue drying, they will be added later. Whenever you dry anything it starts off as quite a bit of bulk but by the time it’s dried it has shrunk to around 1/3rd of it original size and then once powdered the amount is minuscule, but it packs a punch with flavour which is the main thing.
My first ever podcast 😬 has been well received by family members and I didn’t even have to pay them or anything 😜 so I have already drafted up the second one ready to go next Monday. If you are interested or like podcasts you can find it on Spotify titled, Our Smallholding life warts ‘n’ all. I was going to keep it similar to the blog but I changed my mind as it gave me an opportunity to do something slightly different but there are cross overs on both.
In the early afternoon I went up to the back point of lay pen where we are keeping the new hens. For the last couple of days they a have been kept in because of the fox and I will have to be vigilant today now I have let them out. I let them out so I could clean the pen out, the water drinker they have works well unless they stand on the side and then it leaks out onto the mud part of the pen and then it becomes a stinking mess 🤪
Today has been the first time I have been able to sit for any length of time without coughing, and I mean coughing, the whole can’t stop, eyes streaming coughing fits 😷 So with my re-found ability I sat and watched the ladies tennis which was well worth a watch even though our girl didn’t win. Then as it went on longer than expected I could be bothered to start making dinner so we had boiled eggs 😂 Once we had finished and had a cuppa I got on with doing something with the fruit I picked earlier, raspberries, recur rants and strawberries are at this minute in the ice cream maker and we will have summer fruits sorbet in about half an hour. The ice cream maker I used to think was a bit of a faff because I used to keep the bowl in the cupboard but now I keep it in the freezer so it is always ready when I need it. I picked this one up second hand at a car boot sale a few years ago and if you have a lot of soft fruit it’s well worth looking out for one. It saves all that freezing, getting it out, stirring it round, freezing it again before doing the whole process at least one more time. Summer fruit sorbet, any fruit sorbet is easy really, this was 500g of mixed fruit, 185g caster sugar, 185ml water and the juice of a lemon. Heat the sugar and water together until the sugar dissolves then turn up the heat and boil a little to get a soft syrup, allow it to cool, then blend the fruit, lemon juice and cooled sugar syrup in a liquidiser and put through a fine sieve to get rid of the pips and stalks etc. Get the ice cream maker plugged in and going and pour in the liquid mix, probably takes 30/40 minutes depending on what consistency you want. Eat immediately if you want to or freeze in a suitable container. I think I will get some of those wafer cones and we can use it instead of ice cream, also great for those dairy intolerant of course 😁
So after saying the the machine will make light work of the sorbet, it failed to freeze it very well 😂 so I had to resort to freezing in a tub and in about an hour or so I will have to remember to go and give it a mix before leaving it over night 🤷♀️
Thursday: Yet another warm but overcast day, can’t say I haven’t had my fill of workable days this week can I 😂 This morning we were late up, the alarm went off, we fell back asleep and an hour later it ‘oh shit’. It doesn’t really make much difference to me but obviously John has places to be (even though he is supposed to be semi retired, I am going to mention that a lot 🤪) So in a good will gesture I offered to go round and do the morning jobs as long as I didn’t have to haul buckets of feed around, he assured me that only two lots needed feed. So off he went to work and I bumbled round letting everything out and feeding the ones that needed it, topping up water containers as I went. Then I sorted out the washing and got that on before doing the eggs and the egg shed and getting on with some watering and picking. Then I confess I recorded a podcast, I now have three in the bag, one published the other two scheduled. The problem is that once a topic starts rattling round in my head I have to get it sorted. Hopefully now I can have a week or two without thinking about it, is that likely, nope 😂 too much say!
John came home early afternoon which I wasn’t expecting but he is not here for the rest of the day as he has to pop back out again apparently. We had lunch and a cuppa together, watched the news and I now have the tennis on. Meanwhile John is bashing something about in the kitchen, I can’t even be bothered to go and find out what at the minute 😜 I can hear it involves a hammer and chisel so I guess it’s the rest of the tiles that he is taking off from the wall. I did ask, nicely I have to say, if we could perhaps finish the making good where the Rayburn came out 😬 I want to give the kitchen a good clean but there is no point doing that if the very next day he starts bashing about and plastering, so I’m guessing he has taken the hint and is getting on with it 😁
Bits of broken tiles all over the floor and John shouts are the grandchildren coming today? I do t think so I said 🤔……shit, it’s Thursday and the twins will be arriving any minute now 😂 hastily get the hoover out and all broken tiles down to the skip, cleaned up just in time 😜 It was a lovely day so they had their tea as a picnic outside before helping me feed weeds to the torts. George got a bit carried away and starting pulling off strawberry leaves from my plants to feed them 🤦♀️
After dinner my sister and her hubby called in for a cuppa and we sat on the decking in the garden. We spent over an hour watching a pair barn owls systematically going up and down the field next door and occasionally diving down once they found something tasty to eat, they are such graceful birds to watch.
Friday: Yet another overcast but warm enough day so I am having to make the most of it. It’s 10.30 I have just sat down for my first coffee break having been up and about since 6.30 this morning. First on the agenda was to buy a big walk in 6m x 3m metal chicken run. I said to John shall we get one of these be cause we can’t keep not going anywhere because of the fox or worrying when we absolutely have to go out. This one will attach to the front hut and it will mean that if we know we are going out we can let them out into the fresh air but they will be secure. It’s not being enough to do that all the time but it will be great to have the option. After I had orders that I got on with the usual bits, feeding, picking, watering, washing up, putting the eggs out, slug hunting 🙄 Something has made a hole in one or two of the little peppers in the greenhouse, picking up the pots and looking underneath them all I found about 10 small slugs in all. I fired them out onto the grass, I tend not to kill them after all they are only doing what slugs do to survive but they can go and do it on something less precious than my peppers 😜 I need to let the ducks into the garden in the autumn so they can hoover up as many as possible mind you we do have hedgehogs, I see the deposits on the grass in the mornings so at least they have something to eat. I still have this bloody silly cough though each day it is getting better but the minute I sit down I start coughing, standing up all day is the only answer 🤪
The goose died 😢 sadly despite doing what I could it died overnight. In my experience by the time you realise there is something wrong with a goose it’s already too late. Geese are extremely good at concealing the fact that they are unwell or injured unless it’s a blatantly obvious injury. It occurred to me that she may have received a puncture wound in the fox attack but stupidly I didn’t think to check for that, also in my experience a puncture would from a fox is pretty fatal anyway, the germs from the bite would be enough to cause infection. Then there is the site of any wound, depending on where that is, which would be hard to see under all that down, it is likely to cause maximum damage. But in all honestly I don’t know why she has died except that she was not in top form for some reason.
Once my coffee break and sit down are over I have to go out to the paddock and extend the electric fencing for the horses, I need add more tape and stakes again as I can’t get much more slack out of what is there already so that will be a hour or so to do that, good job it’s overcast, actually if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be doing it!
Did that job came back in sorted out peas ready to freeze and strawberries for pudding later. Sam and he twins came over and so did Shelley and Flo, they at school pick up time and I went in to watch the tennis 😜
I think we may have found the cat 😁 a local animal rehoming charity has put up a picture of a cat that has been at their place, he fits the description and matches the photo so fingers crossed we will get him back, and I will have to call the vet again and book him in once more 😂
Jack waiting for me to release the food 😂
Saturday: After emails back and forth the local rescue centre were satisfied that Jack was our cat and we made arrangement to pick him up mid morning. He had turned up a few days ago and being a rescue centre they thought he had been dumped, they managed to trap him and put out on social media which is where we saw him. He has now been chipped by them, I gave them a donation for doing that, and we bought him home. You would think that he had been away for months as at first he seemed very agitated and un settled and I was worried he would take off again. We fed him some very tasty sardines and within a couple of hours he had calmed down and realised he belonged here, even being uber friendly with the dogs much to their disgust as he wandered past them, brushing against them with his tail in the air, I am sure he was purring, it’s my family 😂
Jack safely back with Jill 🥰
The rest of the day we spent getting a bit of food shopping and doing things like depositing cheques at the post office, paying a invoice at the wood yard, I paid some online bills and did a bit of paperwork while John made good the site the Rayburn came out ready for plastering tomorrow.
In the afternoon we discovered that the fox had taken two of our new hens 😕 We had left the one in the front locked away because he keeps going there but let the back ones out and he had been to the back and had those 🤬
One of the reasons we left them in was because we wanted to go out in the evening to watch the football and while we can get the hens at the back in easily, we can’t do them same with the front ones so they stayed in. Once everything was safely shut away around 6 we went off to collect fish and chips, go round to my sisters and we watched England play Ukraine and win! Hoorah, we seem to have a great team at the minute and there are high hopes that they will go far 🤞
Sunday: John was up early to watch the qualifying for the F1 as we were too late home to watch it yesterday, if he doesn’t watch it early he is likely to hear the results on the radio and then he gets mad 😂 He then did the animals and got on with plastering the bits of the wall and ceiling he made good yesterday. Meanwhile I did my usual bits and then went out to move the fence for the horses and dig up ragwort. There seems to be a bit more of it this year than previous years and I did a big barrowful but it started to rain quite a bit and so I will either do some more later or tomorrow. I just need to get it up before it goes to seed, it’s only just started flowering so we are ok for a few days. We don’t spray our fields as you can imagine and it is teeming with insects and a huge variety of different vegetation is growing. Many people prefer to just have grass for their horses but I like ours to have a good range to graze, clover both red and white, plantain, so many different types of grasses, various types from the dandelion family as well, it’s diverse which is great for them and the wildlife. Mind you it absolutely stinks of fox down in the corner of the paddock 🙄
Hopefully once John has finished plastering and it is left to dry we can go and get some paint, I can start to give the kitchen a good clean, spruce up the bits that need doing and give it a new coat or two of paint next week 😁 That will be another job ticked off the never ending list ✔️
Johns patching up, got to wait for it to dry and then painting can commence
Podcast number two will be released tomorrow if you are interested, let me know what you think 🤔
Just been pottering in the garden, it July and the weather is not July weather lol, it started spitting and then was obvious it was going to hammer down and that’s exactly what it did, it’s absolutely pouring down 🙄
In the end we didn’t go and get paint as we have some to do the undercoat and can pick some up one evening in the week when the shop is quieter.
Monday 14th June 2021: Today we find out if any of the restrictions still in place will be lifted or not, not holding out much hope for a full lift 🙄
Another fine day with the temps set to climb up near 30c, you know what that means for me, early morning, so it’s 8.30pm I have stopped for a coffee after already doing a three hour stint this morning. Most of that was picking, peas & mangetout today, a bit of weeding while I was going round, sorting out some plants in the cold frame and picking weeds to feed the Guineas and torts. I also did all the usual jobs of feeding various four legged pets, putting eggs out, a bit of watering out the front etc etc.
This is the month where the harvests begin to come in, they start off slowly but soon there will be so much to pick I won’t know if I am coming or going. And then there is the processing of it all lol, at the minute my plan is to keep back what I want for the day and put the rest out for sale, this morning that only amounted to two bags of mangetout and a tub of strawberries but it will start to come thick and fast especially if we get any rain, doesn’t look very promising at the minute. Of course we have been here before and what will happen next is too much rain that spoils the fruit 🤣 there is no winning this swim only treading water and trying to stay afloat 🤪 I still have some squash to get in the ground but I am waiting until it cools a little first, they will be fine in pots for now. I also have a fair few pepper seedlings and runner beans, I tried selling them but no takers and I hate throwing them away so I am going to have to find a place for them to grow on.
After coffee I did another hour outside which will probably do for today. I have potted on the pepper seedlings, it doesn’t matter if I have 20 pepper plants, I have space for them so may as well grow them, there was a jalapeño plant too, the tomato plants that didn’t sell are also potted on, I may put them back out or plant them up outside who knows yet. I planted up sweetcorn that I had left over, I put those in a bucket for the kids to pick if they get big enough, the corn, not the kids and I sowed some more carrot seeds, some in a bed in between the rows that are nearly done and some in pots again for the kids to pick. They are round carrot so ideal for pots, I picked some of those from the bed for dinner tonight and I found a stray potato which had grown so that will be potato, carrots and peas from the garden as well as strawberries for pudding 🥰 That is what is called the good life and it really is.
I noticed, when I pulled the carrots that the bed was very dry under the initial damp surface so I gave it a good soaking with the rain water hose. It is always worth digging down a bit to see exactly how far the water has penetrated, you will be surprised at dry it really is. A good indicator are ants, if there are a fair few nearby then you can bet there is an ants nest and that will tell you it’s way too dry they don’t like damp soil.
Once indoors I decided to get some polishing, cleaning done and change the bed sheets, I found a great podcast to listen to while doing it, Self Sufficient Hub. There are some interesting topics so if self sufficiency is for you then have a listen or have a listen if it’s it’s not you may get the bug 😁 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/self-sufficient-hub/id1506405294
It’s 1pm and I am a little tired now so I have had a quick lunch and am now going to have a little rest and maybe listen to another podcast.
In the evening after some dinner we went round to Mum and Ken’s for a cuppa and a slice of cake, there is always cake at Mums 🥰
Tuesday: Up earlyish to get the morning jobs done as I have blood tests first thing, they are a little over due but not to worry. Back home and I just about go put the washing hung out when Sam arrived with the twins. She had come over to move the electric fencing and make a bigger restriction paddock that will also now house Jack as well as Biscuit. To be fair Biscuit is looking and doing well but Jack on the other hand is getting too fat, too much grass for him to eat all by himself lol. He will also now be restricted probably for the next 2/3 months depending on the weather. If it stays hot and dry the grass will die off and he can go back out but any rain that we have will ‘flush’ the grass and he will have to stay put. He won’t like it one little bit but he will get I’ll otherwise so it’s for his own good. That took up a couple of hours, once we had got the stakes in place and some electric tape plus the water buckets all filled I took the twins back to the house to get some snacks and a drink while Sam finished it all off.
The twins had such a fun time here that they had to have a bath before going home 🤣 George had by that point, played with horse poo, dirty water in the garden & soil in the veg bed which he delighted in putting all over Lucies back. Lucie had stuck her whole foot in the horses water bucket, sock, trainer and all, thrown her bear in there too and de planted some of Nannys pricked out foxglove seedlings 🤪 All good fun and because there are two of them it can be manic when one goes in one direction to create havoc while the other is off in another direction, hilarious at times as well though 🤣
Wednesday: I was up fairly early and got on with a few jobs before having breakfast, John did the animals and then left for work. Next came a first for me, a covid test, a lateral flow test to be precise, the reason being that I have a sore throat, similar to having swallowed sandpaper 🙄 which is making me cough. I checked my temperature and oxygen levels all normal, I didn’t think for one minute I had covid but I have to check. Two things struck me as I did the test, first on opening I couldn’t help but notice it was all made in China 🙄 if I was a conspiracist I would definitely be jumping up and down saying ‘I told you’ China is probably making a fortune at the minute 😬 Secondly I don’t know if it was just me but I suspect not, I could not help but sneeze, 4/5/6 times while doing the nostril bit. I was thinking good job I am not in a test clinic and positive or else those sneeze spores are going to be all over the place 🤷♀️ I have just checked my test as time is up and it’s negative, I kind of knew it would be but you never know. Actually I have a third point to add, all the pieces of the test are plastic, they go into a plastic bag when you have finished and then that goes in the bin 😖 In a time when we are trying to reduce plastic use this is disastrous really, I know there is probably not a way round it when they are needed so quickly and in great quantities but can you image exactly how many billions of pieces of plastic have been added to landfill over the last year and a half 😢
While I was waiting for the test to ‘ripen’ I went out to water and feed the plants in the greenhouse and then the small tunnel.
Pottered about a bit picking strawberries and peas, a bit of watering and then Shelley arrived with Flo. They had come over to help get some work done in the veg garden, they weeded around the courgette plants and then watered and put down some cardboard mulch as the relentless sun dries the ground so quickly. The we went onto tidying, weeding and sorting the area right inside the gate, I tend to dump pots and tools and everything else there on my way to and from the front garden and never get round to tidying it, well mow it’s all done and feels like a much nicer part of the garden. I have many spaces like that to sort out mind you 😜 Shelley had bought lunch and went inside to make that while I carried on a little more and then we sat down and ate in the garden where there was still some shade. We are forecast thunderstorms and rain over the next couple of days and we could really do it to be honest, everything is flagging a little.
I heard on the radio a report that in this country, and many more around the world I suspect, we are unprepared for the climate chaos that is ahead in the UK. This definitely rings alarms bells for me, I have been saying for a couple of years now that the weather is so much more unpredictable than it was even five years ago. It was never this relentlessly hot for days or even weeks on end, we seem to have our weather in blocks these days and it is nearly always extreme bouts of it too. I seriously need to get a handle on what it is I need to do in order to be able to continue to grow fruit and veg successfully. Trying to stabilise the soil is probably the main thing, the torrential downpours we get now wash the soil downhill. Next would be trying to work out ways to get through drought periods, I may have to use more drought tolerant varieties, I am finding that swede and turnips just keep bolting because of the lack of rain, I either don’t plant them any more or look for better varieties. One thing is certain, a change in thinking and planning is needed to combat whatever the future weather has in store.
I just signed up with a group called Arbtalk where you can register as a tip site for free woodchip if any members are working in your area 😁
After a quick dinner we went over to babysit Mia, George and Lucy for a few hours while Sam and Luke went out for a drink.
Thursday: It’s 9.15am and I have already showered, breakfasted, put on some washing, fed the dogs, cats and Guineas, sorted the eggs and put them out for sale, have three loaves of bread on a second prove and got a lamb stew going in the slow cooker. It rained a little over night but not as much as was forecast and no thunder storms, my plan was to be indoors today as it was supposed to rain heavily most of the morning but as yet nothing🙄 As I am already committed to timings and will have the oven on I am going to make some more rhubarb and orange jam. A couple of years ago I split my three rhubarb plants into six because I couldn’t keep up with the demand for rhubarb, it’s Sod’s law that nobody seems to want much of it this year 🤪 Nobody seems to want much of anything actually lol but that’s fine, more for us and less pressure.
I still feel a bit rough but the throat no longer feels like sandpaper so that’s an improvement 😁
11am and three loaves of bread cooked and cooling as well as five jars of jam and the washing up done. Time for a sit down I think.
Those loaves are bigger than they look in the picture 😂 they are 1lb loaves, I use half white flour and half granary to get a nice loaf, forgot to score the tops of these though 🤷♀️
I emptied, what was left in the small chest freezer, into the big chest freezer and have now turned the smaller one off to defrost. This will be cleaned out and moved to a new position and I will reload it with only what I want to keep and will use. Both of the freezers were half empty or half full depends on how you view it, and both freezers have things in them that I will probably not get round to using before the next lot of produce starts going in. The plan is to throw out what I don’t want, when I say throw out I don’t mean throw away mind you, there is a fair amount in there that I will feed to the dogs, gravy stock for instance, if I don’t think I will be using it within the next couple of months I will defrost and use it to mix with the dog biscuits. The reason being I am bound to be making more so I need to move it on. There are ice packs in there, a drawer full, they have arrived at various times with meat or fish orders and rather than throw them away I have kept them but I don’t need them, what I do need to do is get rid of them 🙄 There are things like frozen buttermillk, pesto, herb portions in there, I need to get good idea of what is available and plan to use it all up. Once the smaller freezer is cleaned and moved I will transfer over and then defrost the bigger one which we will be selling, I have a small under counter front loading freezer which is off most of the time but I will keep it just in case I need extra space 😜 It is always handy to use if you are stocking up for a birthday or bbq anyway.
I went outside and did a bit of weeding in the bed on the side of the driveway, then some picking of peas and watering in the small tunnel. I pulled up the rocket which has now gone over and some early sown baby spinach which has now bolted. These were both in tubs in the small tunnel because they were sown so early, once it gets hot in there they just bolt. I gave the tubs (old recycle bins) a good soaking and then sowed some corn salad in one tub and some celery seeds in the other. The celery will be for snipping like you do with cress, I never was a good enough veg gardener to perfect the art of full grown celery 🤪 but this way is ideal, useful on salads and if I don’t use all of it the leaves will get big enough to pick and dry as celery powder or freeze in packets.
I keep looking at the sky and thinking ‘come on, rain please’ but as usual the weather forecast has changed somewhat and there is no rain in sight until later tonight, so much for heavy downpours, I may have to do a rain dance at this rate. It is seriously beginning to affect some areas now, not everything, some things are plodding away content with the sprinkling they might get when I hose at night or the spitting we had overnight which hardly wet the ground and certainly didn’t penetrate much further into the soil than a nano of a millimetre 🙄 Around the farm I can see the ground beginning to open up with fissures, dry, cracked ground, I think I have been here before 🤔 The water tanks are almost empty now and it’s very definitely going to become a problem is we don’t get some rain soon.
During the afternoon and then in the evening I watered, the signs of rain were there but I it wasn’t really happening and I know from experience that I may as well do it. If the rain comes then it’s a bonus if it doesn’t come then at least the plants get something to drink.
At teatime I looked after the twins while Sam took Mia for her swimming lesson and then in the evening Sue and Shane popped over for a cuppa and to let me know about a small business arrangement that I may be able to take advantage of, more about that later if it happens 😁
By the time we went to bed, still no rain, we were later to bed than usual as we have been binge watching Clarksons Farm, which is the funniest thing on TV all year, seriously it’s hilarious, definitely watch it if you live around the Cotswolds, the very real characters are worth a watch in their own and together with Jeremys humour it is side splitting 🤣🤣
Friday: Rain 🌧 actual rain, enough to wet the top layer of the soil 😁 hopefully we will get a fair bit today, it will enliven the plants and fill the water tanks. The problem will be getting it to stop 🤪 The forecast is possibly ‘a days rain in an hour’ 🙄 that is definitely climate change, we never had such volumes in such a short time years ago, whatever is causing the change it is undeniably here. Still it means that today I don’t have to water anything outside and as I did the tunnels and greenhouse last night and the sun is nowhere to be seen, it means no watering at all and I can concentrate on other jobs. I still feel a bit rough, still have a sore throat so I am thinking that I will probably have a good rest this afternoon to gather strength for the weekends work ahead.
It’s been steadily raining for a few hours now, nice and steady so far 🙄 which is what we want, heavy rain washes away the top of the soil because we are on a slight slope and that’s not good.
After doing the washing up I went out to mop up the defrosted freezer, what I could have done with was a pile of tea towels 🤪 I knew I needed them for something. I have cleaned all the areas I can get to, inside is done and the front and sides, I need to move it so that I can Hoover off the back and the side ventilation, that will have to wait until John is home, unless I am feeling particularly strong. Actually I don’t think they are that heavy once they are empty just cumbersome due to the size.
I was listening to a couple of podcasts while I was working and I need to get some more veg in for successional sowing, things like French beans and beetroot, but I also need to start off some veg for overwintering such as cabbage maybe. If you sow them now and keep them in modules until later then hopefully you miss the cabbage white butterfly which as you probably know will decimate a crop very quickly. Think I will have my first break now and peruse some catalogue to see if there is anything I haven’t got that I could be sowing for winter.
The business thing I was talking about has happened quickly and so I am able to tell you that from later today we will be selling local honey from the egg shed 🥰 I am delighted to be able to help a small local producer by buying any jars they haven’t sold and then selling them in the shed. It’s a win win situation and I hope it works out well. The bees live in a quiet area on the edge of woodland just 4 miles away at Grove Farm, I am very excited at the opportunity to be able to do this for our customers.
I popped into the greenhouse for half an hour and have sown some swede, turnip, peas, cabbage, cauliflower and French beans as well as some icicle radish. I know I said I wasn’t going to do some of these but I am thinking that later sowings might be better especially for the root veg. By the time they are big enough to go in the ground, then establish and finally begin to put on some growth they won’t have got so big that they need to bolt due to lack of rain or consistent sunny weather 🤷♀️ I will only know if it try it out, I will have the onion bed available at the beginning of next month and then the broad bean bed will also probably be vacant by then, both of these areas I can use to grow veg well into the Autumn or even winter.
The honey arrived and I got sorted making a little notice for the shed and putting it on the Farm Facebook page. I had some on the bread I made yesterday (toasted) I can confirm it is delicious 😋
I have been researching mulches, home made mulches to be precise, to see exactly what you can/can’t should/shouldn’t use as a mulch. Pretty much anything as long as it does have a seed head is the answer, I have plenty of raw material round here it’s just a case of deciding which to use, probably a mixture of a few things would be ideal. I need to get into the habit of shredding everything I cut back but you can even use a shredder to shred cardboard (as long as the blade is sharp enough and the cardboard is dry) Remember the jute I was trialling? Well here is my conclusion, yes it works well for the first year, it doesn’t exclude all light but it is not a bad alternative to plastic membrane, however as expected it does not last through to the following spring, even if you take it up off the garden, the weather has already started to degrade it. I would say if you can get hold of it easily or cheaply then use it but I wouldn’t buy it off the shelf unless you have plenty of disposable income. Next the biodegradable, compostable plastic membrane, this one had good points and not so good. It was flimsy, quite expensive (but hey we are trying to save the planet 😬) Not permeable which is a bit of a drawback if you are using it to grow crops in, however I would think if you made a ridge and furrow type bed, laid the membrane then planted into the top of the ridge the furrows would collect water run off and so water would get to the roots that way. Laying it on the top of a flat bed does not really work if you are growing through it but it is ideal as a weed suppressant on its own. As for it breaking down, I think you could probably get two years out of it, it showed no signs of disintegrating when it came to plant season again this spring though it didn’t feel quite so robust. It is also a bit like cling film, sticks to itself making for a very good comedy sketch if your sense of humour is present that day 😜 So the good points are, it’s good for the environment, not so good, fairly expensive and tricky to use. Cardboard is another one I use, this is pretty good, the thicker the cardboard the better, but slugs do like to have a festival gathering underneath it so make sure you have frogs and hedgehogs to help keep the slugs down. Mostly I am trying whatever I can to suppress weeds and prevent moisture loss, so far the woven weed membrane is ticking all the boxes except the most important one which is the environment.
Went and got some food shopping early evening, when we got back the geese were making a racket so John left the shopping in the front and ran up the back to see what was happening, he couldn’t really see anything and so came back in. When he went to put the birds away the fox has had two full grown geese 🤬🤬 Last night as he was putting away he nearly tripped over the fox who was busy eating one of our new hens 😳 It’s a f…ing nightmare, what are you supposed to do, full grown geese can’t be kept in a fox proof pen, they graze grass and cover large areas while they are doing it 🤷♀️ getting close to the ‘what’s the point’ point 😢
Saturday: It’s overcast and quite a bit cooler today hence why it’s now 5pm and this is the first time I have sat down all day long I even ate my lunch on the move. I spent the first hour or so doing the usual jobs and then picking, peas, mangetout, baby beetroot and rhubarb, while John did the morning rounds. After that I went out to move the horses restricted fencing just a tad so that they have a bit more grass. Then we moved the freezer into its new position and I went to inspect the damage to the geese from the fox last night. He had gone for the goose on the nest and the gander had tried to defend her but he had both of them. The eggs were scattered everywhere last night but this morning they had put them all back in a nest 😢 However we had already decided to get her off the nest as it was now obvious they were not going to hatch, we wait every year but they are nearly always duff. These were the same I threw them in the hedge and most of them exploded eww that stinks. I then said to John we need to get the grass cut in that paddock, one of the reasons they would have not seen the fox was because the grass was long and it could easily sneak up. Once we got the ride on mower going I whizzed round and round until it was done, found the remains of the female goose in the long grass, the fox has been chewing away on it overnight by the looks of things 🤬 John dug up any ragwort and docks for burning. I then went round to the side by the ducks and cut that grass, it’s a walkway really so needed cutting, John meanwhile dug up docks in the side paddock. He then went in for lunch and I made a sandwich while he got the strimmer going, once it was running I finished my lunch quickly and went out to strim. John had a bit of a sit down but not for long, once I had finished that we tided up some rubbish from the back area and sorted out one of the cupboards which had stuff in there I have been keeping ‘just in case’ five years later I haven’t ever needed it and so now it is getting binned. It is nothing special just things like nets that bulbs came in or plastic fruit punnets I had collected by the dozens 🤣 I also had some brewing gear in there but that is going to my niece and her partner, I said he could have it in exchange for a bottle of whatever it is he decides to brew. I did do some brewing once upon a time, not much, a batch of beer and some cider but as neither of us drink very much I haven’t really bothered for years so might as well give it to someone who will. Shelley came over with the children, my sister was here doing the caravan and then my Mum turned up, all at the same time lol so we had a cup of tea 🫖 Then it was time to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting which John did while I cleaned the kitchen up a bit and washed the floor and that lot took us up to 5pm 🤪 At least I can get a good days work in when the weather is like this, here’s hoping it is the same again tomorrow and at this rate everything will be ship shape in no time at all.
Ooo one thing I nearly forgot, I picked some tea 😁 Camellia Sinensis, not much but about 15 leaves, the tips of the plant (hence PG Tips 😜) will dry them out and then wait for some more to grow and pick them and keep doing that until I have enough for a cup of tea 😂 Actually what I need to do is propagate the plant so I have quite a bit to pick at the same time.
I took some pics in the week of all the lovely pink flowers that are coming out 🥰
I love the baby pink lupin, the rose is Hermione, the salvia is pink sensation and I had no idea I had this dusky pink delphinium 😁
And some of the pyramid orchids growing in the long grass in the driveway, that’s why I can’t cut the grass yet 😁
Pyramid Orchid, there are a few in the driveway and quite a few more in the front paddock, hopefully by not mowing they will increase year on year.
Sunday: Father’s Day, we got up and did all the early morning jobs as usual and then Charlie, Shelley, Martin, Florence and Josh came over. They bought all the necessary ingredients to cook a Father’s Day breakfast which we all sat and ate together, lovely. That was a couple of hours of a leisurely breakfast and some Sunday morning chat and then John went off to pick up some tiles we had ordered to repair the floor in the kitchen where the Rayburn had been taken out. A short rest early afternoon and then mid afternoon someone arrived as planned to take the Rayburn and all the fittings. So now Rosie the Rayburn has gone, I am going to have mixed feelings, we were getting to the point where it was bloody hard work, chopping and cutting wood all summer, loading and keep her going all winter but I will miss the cooking facilities and the amazing warm hug that comes from a wood burning stove that you just can’t replicate with any other heat. I have toyed with the idea of having a small wood burner but that is my heart tugging and not my head thinking 😂
Later we are off to Sam and Luke’s for a roast dinner 😁 and this evening a chap is coming to see if he can dispatch the fox for us. Actually it’s two more foxes, he was here last night and saw them but couldn’t get a safe shot as one was in the yard and the other near the goose hut. When we lost the chickens the other week, he got three foxes and now there are two more to deal with, when I say it’s relentless, it really is. And as I will always say we don’t just do it for the sake of it, the nighttime prowlers are perfectly entitled to prowl, the birds are locked away safely, but the daylight ones well they are a different kettle of fish, we can’t afford to just allow the fox to continuously take all our birds. Come the day that happens we will be shutting up shop as there is only so much of a bashing you can realistically take. I know there are people who don’t agree and that’s fine they are entitled to their opinions and while it is still lawful we are entitled to ours. Before we go out we will be locking the geese away, the new hens have been locked away for three days now, the ones out the front are still free ranging but I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose a few of those while we are out 🙄 people like free range eggs but they come at a cost one way or another 😕
Well we have arrived back home about 8pm from having dinner with Sam and Luke, to a massacre 🤬🤬 I don’t even know what to say to be honest, you know when you just feel hysterical and it’s going to go one way or the other, either laugh or scream. There are bodies and feathers all over the front paddock, side paddock and walkway. This is unsustainable, as I say I can’t see how you can keep a free range flock safe any more unless you invest a lot of money and fence them and then they are not really free range are they 🤷♀️ It is soul destroying and we are getting nearer to the end of keeping hens a lot quicker than we had anticipated, seriously we can’t go on like this much more, we can’t even go out for a few hours. The fox numbers are becoming out of control, they will be in competition with each other for food, I have already heard first hand reports of small dogs being snatched, I suspect at least two of our cats were taken when they were small, where does it end ? 😢 When we no longer have birds it won’t be our problem but at the minute it is and it’s a big problem 😡
Monday 31st May 2021: Bank Holiday Monday, Sam and Luke are coming over today, Luke is helping John with a few things round the farm that he can’t do by himself including taking down the ash tree in the garden next to the greenhouse 🙄 I was going to do a roast but it was forecast to be quite hot so we scrapped that idea, we do t really do bbq, neither of us like standing there cooking over hot coals when it’s hot 🥵 so we are having a picnic in style. I cooked a leg of lamb in the slow cooker overnight we will have that cold in rolls along with various salads including an aubergine and chickepea salad which I have prepped this morning. Great use of that aubergine I was given, cut into thick slices, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill, then do the same to the other side. Meanwhile rinsed a can of chickpeas, make a dressing from paprika, honey, olive oil and lemon juice, chop up some onion, I used spring onions but any will do, chop some coriander, mix all together and add the quartered aubergine slices, mix again, enjoy.
Before prepping food I went out and picked purple sprouting and a few asparagus spears that were long enough, John did the morning feeding and letting out before creosoting some rails. I am not too happy about creosoting these days but the preservative they use these days is awful and the wood does not last more than a couple of years. When you pay a lot of money for the fencing you really want it to last as long as possible. Some of our boundary fences are original and they would have been put up in the seventies, ore soaked in old oil, bad I know but that’s what they did then and they do last a very, very long time because of it.
This years bank holiday is definitely going to be a ‘spring’ for everyone, last year we were locked down, this year we have a lot more freedom and I am sure people will be taking full advantage of it 🥰 I just heard that next year we will have a four day spring holiday to celebrate 70 years since the ascension to the throne of our Queen, big parties will be planned all over the country I think.
Well what a fabulous day we have had today, Luke came over and got some welding done and then moved onto cutting down the ash tree. Shelley, Josh and Flo popped in and helped to load the trailer and had a ride in it. They left then Sam arrived with the children, I was getting lunch ready when Charlie and Macca also popped in, together with my sister who was working on the caravan we all sat and had a lovely lunch in the garden. Sue went back to the caravan work, John and Luke carried on cutting the trunk up, Sam filled up a washing bowl with water for the kids to play in and I remembered we had a paddling pool from last year so we got that out, the kids stripped off and played the rest of the afternoon in there 🥰 Lovely day indeed, we are now knackered 😂
But it doesn’t end there for us lol, even if we are knackered there is still the afternoon jobs to get done, some tidying up left to do, a quick bite to eat and then out in fox patrol for the evening. Usually I do the watering in the greenhouse and tunnels, plus the newly planted veg. John wanders round checking on everything and then eventually we can get the birds into bed and relax. Tonight I have set up the wildlife camera to see if I can capture and footage of anything 👀 it will be interesting viewing in the morning hopefully.
Oh my feet hurt 🦶
Tuesday: Another lovely day, I was up with the early alarm even though we didn’t need to be as John is off today, still I find it’s easier to get on in the cooler mornings than later in the day. I started off indoors though as I wanted to get the boot room hoovered, the dust and debris on the floor was getting a bit much. Put some washing on and then outside, do the egg shed, water the plants in pots out there then onto some early morning weeding, hang the washing out at one point, prick out some foxglove seedlings etc etc. Once the heat gets up and the sun gets round I generally give up usually around lunchtime and besides I have work to do later in the day so I need some down time as well. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo at lunchtime, they bought lunch with them and then played in the garden for a few hours. We played a board game and then with the bubbles and then onto some drawing, they can’t use the garden at home at the minute as they are having building work done lol. All the while John was busy sorting out scrap ready to take to the scrapyard for weighing in. When he got back he came and sat in the garden with us all.
We had a rest in the cool in the afternoon before commencing with the afternoon jobs around 5, a quick bite to eat and some paperwork and then I went out to do some watering, the greenhouse, the tunnels, the newly planted squash, bean and sweetcorn plants. I then got some more straw and filled up the trial potato beds, I am not sure how this is going to work out, so far I’m not convinced but time will tell. One mistake I made was writing on the wooden surround the names of the potatoes, well that has all but washed off in the rain so it’s guess the variety time 😜 Last job of the day was to go and water the squash in the ménage, John did it last night for me but I think he missed a few 😂 not surprising really as he wouldn’t know what they look like anyway. One thing to note is that the plants I actually planted have faired a lot better than the ones I sank in pots so I may go and plant those properly tomorrow. Something has been digging near them again though none have been damaged so far.
It’s just gone 9pm, I have just come in to write this and John is still out of fox watch and putting to bed duties.
I have been trying to find an answer to a question I have about the hazel trees, at this time of year the leaves are sticky (if you walk, under a low branch it gets in your hair) I assume it is honeydew, everything I Google tells me it’s honeydew. Honeydew is caused by insect infestation of one sort or another and supposedly it’s not good for the tree, but and it’s quite a but, we have this every year and every year we still get a fantastic haul of Hazel’s and the trees are in great condition. Other observations over time include the amount bees that are attracted to the trees presumably because of the honey dew and birds that are attracted to them because of the insects. So my question was, is this a natural secretion? I can’t see any sign of infestations and the whole thing seems to be beneficial rather than detrimental. One year I actually thought there was a swarm there was such a hum but it was a lot of individual bees feeding 🙄 Is this natural, I mean, Google doesn’t know everything does it 😂 maybe it’s a long forgotten occurrence 🤷♀️ If you know then do tell me.
Wednesday: Oosh it’s warm today touching 26c, muggy with it and thunderstorms are forecast later. That will be good as I won’t have to do any watering. Apart from the basics we have both had the day off today, we got up early got jobs done and then went out before it got too warm. We had breakfast out and I bought a couple of plants, had a wander about before setting off back home. On the way back we called into a local village recreation ground where Shelley, Flo and Josh were having cake at the cafe. When we got home it was lovely and cool indoors, it’s like we have air conditioning 😂 nice when it’s so hot outside. Early afternoon we went off to another local park where Shelley, Sam and all the kids were meeting up for lunch and a play together, we played for a short while before leaving them to it and coming back home again.
The weather was really oppressive, enough to cause a headache or maybe it’s just me 🤪 We had the tiniest rain shower and then it stopped, I’m hoping we get a bit more overnight.
While I was out watering the plants that are out for sale I noticed the apple tree has powdery mildew 😖 there is always something 🙄 It is a combination of things that has caused it, firstly the mild winter hasn’t done any good because pests and disease haven’t died off. I know it was a long winter but it wasn’t that cold, secondly we had all that rain, again not the best conditions and thirdly we didn’t prune it back when we should have done which means the growth it a bit thick and the air can’t flow as it should, resulting in powdery mildew this time. I have pruned off the worst of it, the tree is huge and luckily most of it is near the bottom so I have done what I can for now. I need to spray it and I will either use milk which apparently works well or neem oil, I have both so a case of deciding which I think will be better 🤷♀️ I can’t spray the whole tree obviously but I can spray some of it and hope for the best.
John thinks we have lost a few more hens, seriously I am at the point where I wonder, what is the point.
Thursday: John is having a week off this week BUT it was Bank Holiday on the Monday, today he has gone to work for the whole day and tomorrow he is working the whole day and Tuesday he spent sorting out plumbing stuff, great week off!
He did the morning rounds before leaving and then it’s me on me tod so I sorted out washing to put on, the eggs to put out and then go some bread on the go.
While I was waiting for the bread to go through the two proves I did a bit of hoeing in the front beds and planted the two new plants I bought. One is a ground cover clematis which should look amazing once it gets going the other is a gorgeous low growing pink flowering shrub that the bees are already feeding on. Back indoors to decide on what will be for dinner this evening.
The bread is now baked and meanwhile I have been making a Moroccan rice salad to go with my lamb chop later, ordering a birthday present for John, his birthday is on Monday and organising a gathering for Sunday. Luckily we have plenty of room here for 30 plus other paddocks which could technically hold 30 more each 😜 We have a big family, if we all get together (which is rare) there are 60 of us 🤪 that is just Mum and Ken, their children (me included) their grandchildren and their great grandchildren, most of us live close by and so we see each other all the time especially birthdays 😂
I went out to the greenhouse mid morning, it’s overcast but warm today with the occasional peek of the sun. I potted on two tomato plants which I will grow on in the greenhouse, I have a bit of everything everywhere this year, I am hoping to find out which is the best place to grown certain things. Normally all the tomatoes go in the tunnels and one or two outside but leaving some in the greenhouse will give me an idea of if that is also any good for them or if it is too hot. The peppers and chilli love it in there, I think tomatoes might struggle a bit but we will see. I also planted out two more courgette plants and then some climbing French beans, nearly finished with the planting now. I do have two more small trays of runner beans though, no idea what I will do with them 🙄 I will keep them going just in case any that are planted out fail I think. I just have a few more squash to plant out once they have hardened off, crown Prince which are the lovely blue pumpkins and a couple of spaghetti squash and butternut squash, one table king and the musque de something or other 🤷♀️ that’s it for planting out then, but there will still be work to do. The purple sprouting is coming to an end, John and I had it the other night and the stems are getting a little bit too stringy for eating. The rest of the plant will feed the Guineas so no waste there, one I will leave to go to seed and collect that ready to sow some more for next year. It is such a useful crop to have when there is nothing else around even though it takes forever to mature. The ground it is on I will clear and leave to recover, I will probably put some home made compost on there and then cover it. I have been growing in that ground continuously for three years I think so it needs rest and rejuvenation. I dug up a mini kiwi that has tried twice to come into leaf in the garden but each time the frost has got it, I will pot it up and see if I can rescue it and then overwinter it in the tunnel before putting outside next spring well after the frosts have gone.
I picked some asparagus spears in the afternoon, I had spotted them earlier when I was planting courgettes and thought, I need to pick those. They grow at a great rate of knots and if you miss them they become a fern, we also have asparagus beetle here and so picking the spears is a good way to knock back the numbers. The beetles lay little tiny eggs on the spear stems but they can easily be wiped off with your finger, no harm done, to the asparagus at any rate 🙄 I dug up a few leeks earlier, they have been in the ground all year and need to come out before they spoil. I often use leeks in place of onion, no point going to buy onions when I have leeks to use up. On the side in the kitchen I now have leeks, asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce and the acquired butternut squash, I need to figure out what I am going to do with it all. I think the asparagus will be a side dish for dinner later, I may cook it and stir it into my rice dish while John can have it with his chop and potatoes. The lettuce can go into salad which I will have with the rice and a chop, I can also use some more of the peppers I also acquired, that leaves the rhubarb the leeks and the squash to sort out.
I thought I would take a quick look in the small tunnel to see if any peas were ready, yes they were 😁 so John will have asparagus and peas with his dinner tonight. Peas need picking regularly, they will then produce more peas, if you don’t pick them they think their job is done 🙄 The pea pod is the seed for next years plants after all and once they have successfully produced some pods they don’t need to do anymore, as a grower (and avid pea eater) we trick the plant into making more by taking the ones they have already produced, damn and blast it they think, I will have to produce more flowers now and ultimately more pea pods 😂 This applies to a lot of veg, take away this years seed and it will do its upmost to produce more, good eh, well for us anyway.
A bit of a sit down after dinner and then I went out to potter around in the garden and do a bit of watering in the tunnels. I also watered the fruit cage, well the fruit in pots anyway. It keeps trying to rain but never really amounts to much. I took a few lavender cuttings while I was out there, I will take a few every now and again and see if they amount to anything. The setting sun was glorious tonight, it bathed the next field in a golden glow, it bathed everything it touched in a warm golden glow it was a sight to behold. How lucky are we to see that on a regular basis 🥰
Friday: Not a bad day again, overcast but warm most of the day. I started off doing the usual bits in doors, loading the egg shed for the day, watering the squash plants, making sure the horses had plenty of water and potting up some more lemon grass seedlings. I also watered a few of the things that have been recently planted just to keep them going, not rain forecast for a while yet. Then I had a quick half hour catch up with a friend over from the US before Shelley came to pick me up to go out for lunch. We went to Bourton on the Water, it was packed, Shelley said on the way there, it will be nice to see the place without hundreds of tourists 🤣 I have never seen it so busy, it’s one of those places we take for granted, we have always visited there right from when I was a child as my Aunt and cousins lived there, I guess you forget it is a tourist destination. We had a lovely lunch and then a wander round and an ice cream before heading for home again. Luckily for me it was overcast, a nice change to walk round without shade searching for once. When I got back I had to reload the egg shed, it had been busy while I was away and almost empty.
Saturday: Another wall to wall blue sky day 😜 I wanted to get some food shopping done as early as possible this morning so by 8.30 we were off to the shops, I am going to do a cold buffet for any family that want to come over tomorrow afternoon. It will be one of a very few times we have had the opportunity to do this at all in a year, looking forward to it.
Although it didn’t take long to get the shopping I am always aware that the temperature is going up and the sun is getting higher giving me less time to get stuff done outside in the garden. So after putting the shopping away it was straight outside to get on, a bit of watering, some potting on, John cut the lawn and suddenly I’m out of shade and so I have to come inside 🙄 I could move the gazebo but it’s already to hot for me to be out there moving stuff around, sometimes it’s just the moving between shade areas that I can feel the sun prickling my skin, nightmare really, John said I need an indoor job but I like being outside 😂
We are all waiting to see what is going to happen on June 21st, it’s supposed to be the end of all restrictions but I don’t think that will be the case. For us it’s fine as it is at the minute, we feel that we have all the freedoms we need, we can go places, see people and do the things we like doing. I feel that at some point we have just got to learn to live with the virus being around, if when the majority of people have been vaccinated we still can’t have total freedom then what is the point of vaccinating 🤷♀️
I put some lemon grass plants out for sale, not sure if they will sell or not, it’s not something people commonly use unless they do a fair bit of Asian cooking. But it is a beautiful grass in its own right and has an amazing smell to boot so what’s not to like. Lemongrass is a powerful antioxidant and anti inflammatory, it would make a great lemon tea, it would also flavour vodka nicely I imagine, refreshing at any rate. I was surprised at how well it grew the first time I tried growing it but it does need to be brought in over the colder months.
It is so peaceful here today totally blissful. I think having spent last summer lockdown and not much interaction the rest of the year I have forgotten how noisy places can get. Yesterday was busy and consequently noisy, today in the shop it was noisy and here all I can really hear is nature, birds mostly. Starting to go out in the world again a bit makes me thankful that we live where we do, not sure why we would ever want to go anywhere else to be honest lol.
We lost more chickens today while we were putting the shopping away this morning I think, the birds were making a noise but I thought it was because we had let the dogs back out but then we found a pile of feathers a bit later on.
Sunday: Overcast today and the threat of rain later in the afternoon, bloody typical, when you want it, it’s nowhere to be seen, when you don’t want it, whoosh he it comes 😂 We got the morning jobs done and then I spent a couple of hours, picking, watering, weeding, hoeing and at the same time diving in and out of the kitchen cooking food for later on. Meanwhile John was burning, staining, tidying, and then came round to help me edge the lawn and tidy that up. Then indoors for a rest before I start sorting out food and drink for 3pm, I already got a head start by slow cooking the lamb overnight again, it was delicious last time so may as well do it again.
June is a fabulous month in both the flower garden and the veg garden, the flowers are beginning to bloom so we have nice splashes of colour everywhere this month. The veg will slowly start to come on a s by the end of the month we should be picking a selection of peas and beans plus the onions and garlic will be ready to harvest, dry and store. One of the best things in June is elderflower, the wonderful heady smell on a sunny day is a joy, taking those heads and making cordial is a delightful treat, the taste of summer is around the corner.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 