Tag: self sufficient

Posted in Friesland Farm

Afternoon tea, potatoes planted & Jobs list ticked off.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 2nd March 2020: The beginning of Johns week off, the weather is on our side for today at least. We both did the morning rounds then straight on with the job of the day, the fence at the end of the veg garden. This is a job that had to be completed in one day otherwise the dogs and the ducks would be all over it. We kept at it all day with a few interruptions by way of Johns phone, going to get some gravel boards then a quick trip to the solicitor to sign some papers, a few cups of tea and by 3pm we had finished 22m of fencing and tidied up. I am pretty pleased with the result, the fence had to keep the ducks/dogs out which it will and it looks a whole lot tidier to boot. I will look forward to working this part of the garden now, it has been a bit neglected in the last couple of years and so brambles and stingers have taken hold but I managed to dig most of them out, I will have to weedkiller any new growth but it shouldn’t be much and the area outside the fence is now clear enough to mow so that will keep them down on that side. I gained an extra bit of planting space as we had a gate halfway along the fence but never used it so have taken it out, now the pathway leading to the previous gate can become planting area. Indoors for something to eat, a cuppa and a quick rest before lighting the Rayburn, feeding the birds and collecting and sorting the eggs, getting the dinner. Day one, ✅ 😀

Tuesday: The weather is holding though it’s a tad colder today, we did the morning rounds and then got on with today’s jobs. First make a raised bed in the polytunnel out of wood we have lying around, the ground in the tunnel has a clay seam running thorough and one side is particularly difficult to manage when it dries out, I found low raised beds gives better results. I now have a 10ft x 3ft bed to fill with compost from the heap. Then onto moving the strawberry troughs, these are about 8ft long and a foot wide but they are up on legs, the problem is there is a lot of ground underneath that I can’t get too so we took them off the legs and moved them to the sides of the beds. This was harder than it sounds as they are very heavy, the second one we had to use bars to roll it along and get it in position. Then onto making the arches, for the morning glory etc, a bit more secure than they were, this still needs a bit more work but it’s nearly there. Shelley called in with Florence and bought cake so we stopped for a cuppa and then I had a phone call from a friend to see if I wanted to go for afternoon tea, yep, not gonna turn that invite down. I still had a couple of hours spare so I planted up the area that is now free of the strawberry troughs. I had potted up enough plants from last year to fill it, stocks, chrysanthemums, delphiniums, achillea, aster, campion, verbascum, huechera and some more that I have forgotten at this minute. The bed will be for cutting flowers for birthdays and to bring in the house 😀 John went off to do some tidying elsewhere, objective achieved today 😀 And now I am off out for afternoon tea ☕️ perfect day, it’s not normally something I would be able to take advantage of but as luck would have it and John is off to hold the fort and I’m going lol.

Afternoon tea was a lovely affair, plenty of tea, cake and sandwiches and of course chit chat with my friends, by the time I got back John had fed the birds and done the eggs so that looks like the rest of the day off for me 😀

The turkey stag has started covering the hen, hopefully eggs will follow soon. If you have never been close to a turkey come and get a look at ours, the stag is pretty impressive with his ‘snoods’ and the sounds are even better, the ‘gobbling’ that everyone knows but also a low ‘booming’ sound, at first I wondered what the heck it was then I realised it was coming from within him lol. A description I read referred to it as guttural which is pretty accurate and scientists don’t 100% understand how the noise is made. They are originally forest dwellers and love to forage for insects, slugs and snails, berries and fruit, seeds, nuts and green foliage or buds so a pretty comprehensive list.

We decided to call them Bonny & Clyde
(photos from Sally 😋)

Wednesday: Despite rain being forecast it didn’t arrive until about 1.30pm which meant we were able to get a fair bit done beforehand. With the morning rounds done by John while I put on some washing and did some general tidying we then set about sorting out the rest of the compost heap and tidying that up. John went off up the back to burn some rubbish and get the rest of the mirror structure down while I pottered in the garden. Making good the extra area we created by doing away with the path, filling it with compost, putting an edge board up and topping up the wood chip in that area. It looks good and I have decided to fill it with flowers, as you enter the garden at the other end it’s the long view down and it would be nice to see a splash of colour. Again I have plenty of plants, rudbeckia, lupins, geum, probably some aquilegia and maybe some foxgloves as it has the Mulberry bush for canopy.

We filled the bed in the tunnel with compost and I have put a washing up bowl at the end with a piece of gutter and a stone in there, this is because I know we have frogs (I found a few today while I was working) and I know they like to live in the tunnel during growing season when it has plenty of foliage and gets watered daily. The bowl will be filled with rain water and the frogs can help keep the slugs down, win, win 😀 I did a fair bit of sorting out, plants that never made it through winter and picking up stuff that had been blown about by the winds. In the greenhouse I did a bit of watering and had a look at the seeds I sowed last week, most are showing signs of sprouting so I’m happy with the progress so far.

When the rain came I came indoors to put on more washing, light the Rayburn and think about dinner later while John went off to get some diesel for the tractor as it’s nearly out. It looks as though rain will stop play as it’s pretty heavy and not much fun to be working out in.

I spent 4 hours, yes that long, trying to pair my new camera with my phone, eventually giving up after reading that the operating software on the phone has a problem with the app I am using to pair, an app created by the camera manufacturer so that’s buggered that, eventually I tried it with Johns phone which is different and voila, first time 😝 I have two choices as I see it, use the camera and download to the laptop as I did with the old one or wait until I’m due an upgrade and choose a different phone, for the time being I will just get taking some pictures. My old camera is around 30 years old and I love it but the quality of pictures on the new cameras is amazing and I want to start cataloging the wildlife here not just the birds but everything I see really.

Thursday: Still cold but not raining. John did the morning rounds while I got on with some household bits and got something out of the freezer for dinner tonight. John has been busy tidying up the back area and we had a lot of scrap metal bits, old tin sheets and chicken wire that has now thankfully gone to the scrap an and earned us a whopping £14 🙄 He has also been busy stacking wood in the back, you can do an awful lot of work and it doesn’t look like you have done much but we know it’s done so that’s what matters. Meanwhile after sorting indoor stuff out I went to the poly tunnel and planted up the chitted potatoes. I decided as these were first earlies, which I don’t normally do, I would grow them under cover, we have had a lot of rain and I would hate for them to rot away. They are now in 6 bags that have compost in and each time the greenery pokes its head above the compost I will cover with more compost, this way i am hoping to get nice clean early potatoes with very thin skins. I also moved a few things round, the citrus have now gone from the greenhouse and into the tunnel which gives more more room to move in the greenhouse. The bottom end of the tunnel is becoming my ‘exotics’ area, with the citrus, lemon grass (if it survives) cape gooseberries, grape vine, lemon verbena and a pineapple guava, if only I could grow bananas and avocados I’d be set for life oh and chocolate of course 😜. Other than that I sowed a few flower seeds, these were free so might as well give them a go, dwarf delphiniums, rudbeckia, dahlias and amaranth. When John went off to the scrapyard I came in and lit the Rayburn and got the dinner sorted for later, we have shepherds pie and an apple and blackberry crumble for dessert.

Chitted seed potatoes, Kestral, I think

Random thought of the day, how come the turkey stag only ‘covers’ his hen and doesn’t try it on with the chickens?

I have been listening to the radio talk about stockpiling, it never ceases to amaze me how much food people buy especially at Christmas or snow days, do people really eat that much or does a lot of it get wasted. I try very hard not to waste anything if I can help it, but I am aware of the need to have a few things in the cupboard just in case. For me it’s extra flour and dried milk because with what I already have in the freezers or cupboards I can pretty much knock something up, we don’t eat pasta or rice really so what I have will suffice and we seem to have accrued a few tins of fish in various forms so that will do us in a crisis. We did buy extra tea bags and coffee and I still have my 5ltr of olive oil from the Brexit crisis 😂 Luckily we are going into the growing season 😀 and I have plenty of seeds on the go for that so hopefully we should muddle through any problems in the supply chain. I agree it is a worry, I mostly worry about the grandchildren and that they will be able to get enough food, I’m sure it’s just people panicking and it will all be ok in the end 🤞‘don’t panic Mr Mannering’ I can hear the Dads Army cast saying lol.

On the topic of not wasting anything I had a net of clementines which were sour, you know the ones that make your face twist lol, not wanting to waste them I made a jar and a quarter of jam with them, hopefully it will taste better than the initial ingredient 😀

We made it all the way through to Thursday before John got a call out to an emergency, that’s pretty good going, this one was someone deciding to take the shower apart and now they can’t stop the water from flowing 🙄 He had his ‘not happy’ face on when he left lol, though I think he secretly likes to be a super hero plumber 😜

I am keeping an eye on the rhubarb, it’s getting there but it’s not quite long enough to start picking just yet, we could do with some warming sun on it after all the rain we have had, that would give it a spurt of growth I think. I can’t see any in the weather radar for a couple of weeks yet so just have to hope it’s not far away.

Friday: I can’t actually remember what we did in the morning but in the afternoon we had the twins while Mia went to her swimming lesson and then Shelley and the kids called in.

Saturday: Today’s the day, the new sofas are arriving and I’m a bit nervous that they won’t fit through the doorways lol. John did the rounds and then we got the old sofas out, I then cleaned the room while John did some outside jobs. We got a phone call to say that the delivery was only 5 mins away, they arrived, a lovely couple of chaps, easily got the sofas in, phew, put them together, tidied up and took the packaging, easy as that we now have new sofas though we are not allowed to sit on them in our work clothes 😂 Now they are in it is noticeable how shabby the old ones had got and I am delighted with the new look.

In the evening we went to get a few bits of shopping for Johns lunch next week, pretty bemused to see some of the shelves are empty of goods, not a piece of chicken to be had, no ibrufen and the toilet roll shelf was empty 🙄 I guess the panic buying is in full swing then, there was no bread flour and no yeast, this is a big uptake of people who are suddenly going to bake their own bread, I buy these all the time and never struggle to find them normally. I’m not sure which camp I am in to be honest, on the one hand it’s selfish behaviour because there are those that can’t bulk buy, either because they don’t have the money or they physically can’t get it home and on the other hand I think, what if we have to self isolate, you are going to need supplies. For the time being we will just carry on shopping as normal I think and if push comes to shove we will have to make do. On a bonus note I was looking for a lightbulb under the the kitchen sink and I found a box of face masks ( I had these when we had bird flu in the country and used them when cleaning out the birds)

We have in fact also taken around a third more on eggs this week, a good week or an indicator?

Sunday: More rain overnight and the wind is cold today but if you can stand in a sheltered spot when the sun is out there is heat in it so it won’t be long before we get some nice Springlike weather hopefully. John did the morning rounds and I did some potting on in the greenhouse, then I mentioned the ducks needed cleaning out which I had intended to help with, the next thing I know John has done it (I like having a helper lol)

We are on the last day of Johns week off and we haven’t managed to strangle each other in fact we have done quite well with hardly a cross word between us 😜 although he does do some things differently to me which I find annoying such as marking up the egg boxes the wrong way round (because he is left handed) I kept quiet 😝 I will miss having him around to do the daily tasks while I get on with other things but I will also look forward to having my space back 😋

We pretty much got everything done that was on the list though there are always many more jobs to do, they can wait until Easter weekend now. ✅ 😀

Have a good week and stay well 🤞

Posted in Friesland Farm

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

Posted on by frieslandfarm

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

It will be interesting to see if John notices 😜

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great week everyone.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Cold winds, fence repairs, my seed stash and storm Dennis 😏

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 10th Feb 2020: Oooooh it’s Monday again 😏 Some Monday’s I don’t mind, the ones where the weather is fair to good but it’s cold out and we still have the blustery remnants of the storm so I’m not really feeling this one lol.

Still the winds blew over night, not quite so fierce but still audible, I found some ear plugs last night though and so managed a good nights sleep 😴 in fact John was up, breakfasted and gone to work by the time I dragged my sorry backside out of bed! I can already tell this will be a ‘non’ week, a week where I won’t be able to achieve very much outside due to the weather. This is a month of hope and then disappointment, ah we’ll roll on Spring.

John and I watched the woodpecker yesterday, I spotted it on the oak tree just outside the black door and called John over and we were both amazed when the woodpecker started to walk backwards down the tree trunk 😮 right to the bottom it went then onto the ground. Well I have never seen that before we both said and this morning I have tried to find out a bit more but apart from the fact that they have two toes that point forwards and two that point backwards I can’t find any reference to them walking down backwards as standard behaviour.

I went out and did the morning rounds and surveyed the place, a few small branches down but apart from that no major damage I am glad to say 😀

I picked some purple sprouting, I was mindful that it needed picking and didn’t want to waste it, it’s now soaking in cold water to get any bugs out then I will either blanch and freeze it or have with dinner tonight I haven’t quite decided which yet. There are still some Brussel sprouts to be picked and there is curly kale too, I need to make an effort to remember to pick them for dinner this week.

Next job on the list was to try and shift some duck eggs online, that’s always frantic backwards and forwards messaging but tonight we will be delivering trays of duck eggs and a few quail eggs so that’s a result 😀 The aim is to get customers coming to the farm but every now and then we are willing to go out and deliver to those a bit further away and so that people get to know where we are and we can then shift the eggs faster, I don’t like them hanging around for more than a couple of days lol.

I thought about making a quiche with one of the goose eggs and scoured around for ingredients, I only had a small pot of sour cream though so I will wait until I can get a big pot of proper cream. In the end I made a Madeira cake, one of Johns favourites and I decided we would eat the purple sprouting for dinner, might as well eat it while it’s fresh and full of nutrients.

The brassica cage is not going to be used for brassicas this year as I have already used it at least two years in a row and I don’t want pests and disease to build up in the soil. I had a big problem with whitefly in there last summer and need to break their cycle. That leaves me with two dilemmas , what to grow in there this year? And where to grow the brassica? The cage is permanent as we found a flimsy structure that is moveable doesn’t keep out the cabbage white butterfly very well so we built a more robust structure that did the job, however we can’t move it 🙄 I need to use it for something that at least needs either a bit of protection or a bit of shelter as the environmesh does slightly increase the temperature, you can feel the difference when you go in there. At the moment I haven’t thought about it very much and so have no idea on either problem. A lot of things don’t need protection of that kind but I’m sure I will think of something that does. Meanwhile, where to grow the brassica if at all, it would be a shame not too but they do need absolute netting otherwise they just get decimated.

Well the weather got proper shitty 😜 still blustery and then a good dose of rain thrown in for good measure, at one point I thought it might even snow it certainly looked that way.

I feel a bit tired and could do with an evening relaxing but we are off out to deliver some trays of duck eggs after dinner.

Tuesday: It’s a bitterly cold wind today, the wind hasn’t actually stopped for a few days now it’s just got colder and colder 😏 I didn’t do much in the way of the farm today mostly hoovering, polishing and I looked after the twins for an hour while Sam went for physio.

Wednesday: A cold frosty start to the day but the wind has dropped however we have another storm rolling in at the weekend, storm Dennis 🙄

I did the morning rounds, topping up straw bedding in the ducks and geese as I went, taking a sack of hay to the horses and then a bagful to the rabbit/guineas, still no sign of the other one, completely disappeared. I noticed the fence inbetween the side paddocks is nearly touching the floor having gone over, this didn’t happen during the worst of the winds but must have happened yesterday evening or I would have seen it. I have phoned John and asked him to come home an hour early so we can get it back up and temporarily fixed in position, the horses will soon be through to the side paddock if we don’t get it sorted ASAP.

The grass has definitely been growing, I can tell by the little flakes of grass left in the water bucket by the geese and also John moved the chicken fence the other week and that ground has completely recovered with a growth. There are other tell tale signs, the geese and the horses can be seen more often with their heads down gleaning the new blades of grass emerging, all good signs that we are moving towards Spring.

Here is my random thought of the week lol, I was reading an article about Jane Fonda and the fact that she has reused a dress for an award ceremony 😲😲 shock horror surely not 😜 and I’m not knocking her it’s great that she is doing her bit but I was slightly concerned to read that she spent 7 hours having her hair completely transformed. I am guessing that she has not used very environmentally friendly products to achieve what is a splendid look, that got me onto thinking about nails, not natural nails that everybody once used to have but these horrible little bits of plastic stuck on in place of a perfectly adequate nail underneath. How many millions of bits of plastic are used daily in the pursuit of the desire to look glamorous I wonder? I have had them once, for Shelleys wedding 6 years ago, I wouldn’t have them again as the state of my real nails when they came off was awful. Is there a compostable or biodegradable product out there? I have no idea🙄

I put my coat on mid morning and went outside to see what could be done and have a look at how things are going. On the plus side the carrot seedlings in the poly tunnel are coming up and so are a few peas, the garlic in the small tunnel are growing well and so is the parsley, I gave them all a light watering. On the downside something has chewed one of my seed potatoes in the greenhouse and looking at the tooth marks I’m thinking rat 😝 I need to get rid of that, it can only get in under the door so something needs to be done though I’m not sure what just at the moment. The broad beans spin the greenhouse are also coming through and the over wintering plants in there are doing fine. The arches I put up were bending in the wind a fair bit during the storm so I have strengthened them for the time being although I have discussed with John about concreting some stronger posts in to help. Needless to say the wind has picked up again so I wasn’t out there very long as my fingers and toes were freezing so I came back in a lit the Rayburn. This is what I mean about February, it teased with some lovely weather at the beginning of the month and ever since then it’s been a right sod 😏 The seedlings on the window sill are just starting to emerge, I guess all in all I am winning 😀 I would just like some warmer, still days to get ahead 😬

John came home early and we got the fence propped back up as a temporary measure, the ground is too wet to get the tractor on there to do a proper job for now but we need to time it right when we do, too dry and the posts won’t go in.

I did the afternoon feed rounds and egg collecting while John cut up some more wood, we have piles of it out there to get through and so he has decided an hour here and there is better than a whole day doing it. I sorted out the eggs, fed the dogs and got something out for dinner later, then had a sit down, I am struggling with stiff hip joints at the minute and I’m hoping it’s just the cold weather. They are not painful, just don’t want to work, squatting down to chop kindling is hard work, getting back up is hard work, lifting my leg over the chicken fence is proving hard going 🙄 and to think that last week I was thinking it was the best I had felt in a few years, hey ho.

Thursday: It’s milder this morning, the downside of that is rain, we have had torrential downpours during the night and have the beginnings of the lake in the side paddocks again 🙄

I felt unwell this morning but after taking a coup,e of ibrufen feel a lot better now, I had blood tests tomorrow and am hoping it’s a passing bug and nothing more.

The seedlings that showed tiny progress yesterday have burst through with more growth today, not all of them, I’m still waiting for the aubergine and water melon to show up lol.

I have had all my seeds out this morning, going through them to see what I have and try to organise what will go in first. I could do parsnips and swede now straight into the ground but I know my garden and so I am going to wait a couple more weeks as a too cold/wet start will only rot the seeds off. I have ordered a totally new vegetable (to me anyhow) and that is yacon, it is also perennial and so will go in the permanent bed although it seems I may have to dig the tubers up for overwintering. I also ordered multicoloured beetroots seeds to give those a go and I still need to find some of these round radish I grew last year though I can’t remember what they were called which is a shame. They were free seeds and far better than the breakfast radish that is usually grown.

I gave the grandchildren a goose egg each, Mia made cake with hers, Sam said it was the best tasting cake she had ever made. Josh and Florence decided to eat theirs, Josh had scrambled egg and Florence had a dippy egg almost as big as her 😂

I really am busting to get out and get something done that is productive on the garden, keeping my fingers crossed for some better weather though it doesn’t look like it’s heading our way any time soon, must try not to be so impatient. I am feeling instinctively that the greenhouse will soon be ready to use mind you as everything in there has either survived the winter really well or is starting to grow (broad beans). The tooth marks I thought were rat I’m now thinking are actually squirrel, I see him daily and I think he could easily squeeze under the door to nibble on my seed potatoes, I need to sort that ASAP, we have a weather board to go on the bottom of the door which should solve it but it’s in Johns van and I keep forgetting to ask him for it.

Friday: I feel ok this morning, I was worried yesterday in case it was all going ‘Pete Tong’ but all seems well and I had blood tests this morning so that should pick up any anomalies.

After that we went to yet another independent cafe, Humble Bumble cafe in Brize Norton, it’s in the old cricket pavilion and is just charming, the coffee is good and I had toasted banana bread with Greek yoghurt and honey, delish 😋 A quick trip to the shop to get something for dinner later and then back home to light the Rayburn. The wind is already picking up a bit and the forecast says we are going to get a battering of 49/50/60 mph winds and 100% chance of lashing of heavy rain for a 24hr period, oh the joys of the English weather systems. It’s further north I feel sorry for they have already had floods and are likely to be hit hard again, I can’t imagine how they feel with another storm warning to close to the last poor people 😢

It’s Valentines Day today and no I won’t hold my breath waiting to receive a card or flowers 😂 if I did that I would have died about 20 years ago which is around the time John stopped buying me anything. To be honest it’s not quite the same as when you were a teenager and you opened that card with a big ? and really had no clue as to who sent it 💕 ah those were the days 😀 I am not the kind of wife who presses John into buying me anything either, you know, like saying, ‘don’t forget it’s Valentines day’ there is no joy or delight in knowing that you nagged someone to show you their undying love 😜 besides he would say ‘I love you every day, not just on Valentines day’ well of course you do 🙄 but it would be nice to be surprised once every few years 😬 I did get a box of Maltessers from Josh and Florence though, ‘Happy Birthday Nana’ he said ‘thank you and Happy Valentine’s Day to you’ ‘I do know it’s Valentine’s Day but I like to say Happy Birthday’ Josh said, lol that suits me fine 😀

Saturday: What a totally crappy day so far weather wise, it’s horrible out there. I helped John do the morning rounds so that neither of us got too wet and then Shelley picked me up and we went to a second hand book sale where I picked up a book of wildlife gardening and a book on caterpillars and butterfly’s for the kids to learn from.

Shellley came in for a cuppa when we got back and Charlie and Macca called in as well so we had a nice little gathering round the kitchen table and tried to ignore the weather 😀

We nipped to the local diy centre to pick up some paint for the kitchen, I have been wanting to freshen it up for a while and as we can’t get much done outside we might as well go and get items we need. We also went to the local nursery to pick up some plants and have coffee and cake. I wanted a Daphne as they smell amazing and as I said before I wish I had bought the one I had at the old place with me when I moved. At the time I was focussed on smallholding and so flowers and flowering shrubs didn’t really fit into the picture but as time has gone on I have realised that they should and so I’m on a mission to fill the place with a wide variety of plants, shrubs and trees. Of course I couldn’t walk past the bright colours of the primroses and picked up a pack of those to cheer up a dull day. I also hatched a plan to fill some of the gravel areas out the front with low growing creeping plants so I bought a few of those to see if my plan will work, I need to keep the chickens off them while they establish but once they have they should be fine, I also think that if they spread enough It won’t matter if they get walked on now and again as long as it’s not constant treading. And then there were these miniature iris that I just couldn’t resist 😜 I actually went back to get them as they were so endearing, no idea where I will put them yet but that’s not a big issue.

I think I will grow the plants on a while and then divide them to give me twice as many little plants to dot around.

Sunday: Ooooo it’s lunchtime and we have already been busy thanks to storm Dennis 🙄 remember the fence we propped back up in the week, well it was back down again this morning, properly down, the horses had escaped as well. I rounded them up and got them into the stables and after feeding and letting everything else out we picked up the post rammer and went out the the field to repair it again. A little more robustly this time, the post rammer is a very heavy piece of equipment to use and the ground is soft so we (I say we, John was on the rammmer lol) got some new posts bedded well into the ground and re nailed the rails back up. I don’t mind telling you it was a filthy, cold, wet, windy job that I would rather not have had to do. The stream we get runs through that bit and at one point John dropped a post, it went into the muddy water and guess who got a splattering 😜 I have researched a petrol driven rammer that I think we might invest in as we are not getting any younger and after each post John tells me he is too old for this 😂 We have plenty of fences to do this year and so now might be a good time to get one, it also would make it easier for my plan to have double fences so that we can grow hedges in between them. This idea would, stabilise the ground, provide shelter/shade for the horses, provide a buffer from the winds and be a wildlife corridor, I wish I had done it ten years ago but hey you live and learn.

Dennis was pretty horrendous through the night as well, the strong gusts kept waking me up and in the end I listened to some soothing music on my headphones just so I could actually get some sleep.

When we finished doing the fence I came in and lit the Rayburn while John cleared the drains, they soon get silted up with rain like we have had, then I sent him off with a shopping list for some essentials while I waited for someone to come and collect a tray of duck eggs which they duly did. I think we have earned the afternoon in the warm on the sofa don’t you lol.

I took a photo of the geese in the week then I played with the filters, love the result they almost look cartoon like.

I think that’s me done for this week, if you drive past you will probably see me with my nosed pressed up against the window looking for some nicer weather 😝

Posted in Friesland Farm

Minor mishaps, more rain & a jobs list 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 21st October: We are rattling through the year now, always seems slower at this end than the warm end 😜

Weekdays mean I’m on the duty rota for the feeding and letting out of the birds. I do it slightly differently to John and prefer to keep the birds shut in while they eat their feed and go back and let them out after. This is for two reasons, 1, they eat the feed otherwise they are off out to play and the feed is left meaning they are not getting the nutrients they need to be healthy or to lay well, reason 2 is that they are then not all under my feet while I am going from pen to pen, John lets them out as he goes.

When I have finished I look forward to a cup of coffee and I usually sit down and take the time to try and learn something new by reading up a topic that has caught my eye or ear over the weekend. Today though I am having an in depth look at quail, their natural habitat and feeding. Our quail seem a bit unhappy at the minute, they were fine until I introduced new males to the females and now the ladies have stopped laying 🙄 Potentially this is coincidence as the light levels drop and the temps drop but I want to make sure I am not missing anything vital. Having read up I am going to up the amount of seed in various forms and see what happens, I will also pick them up one of their favourite treats of mealworm for extra protein. If that fails to get them laying I may have to bring them in under a lamp as they may just be too cold and using all their energy to keep warm.

I did a trial growing of amaranth, millet and quinoa this year to see how they did, the amaranth was fine and grew well although it didn’t ripen, the un ripe seed will still get used to feed the quail probably, the millet was less successful producing only one stem though I think that has more to do with how I grew it (a trial bed was too small an area and got crowded with the amaranth and tree spinach) the quinoa was totally unsuccessful and nothing grew, again I think a larger area would have been more beneficial. If it taught me anything it’s that the amaranth can indeed be grown in a garden setting while the other two need more agricultural conditions I would say and that’s what trialling is for 🙄

A great spotted woodpecker landed on an oak tree bough outside the kitchen door with a beak full of grubs/caterpillars, I wondered if it had young somewhere nearby which would be completely the wrong time of year, I couldn’t find any information other than they lay eggs March to May so hopefully he was hoarding for himself otherwise any young probably would do well at this time of year. Having said it’s the wrong time of year one of my clematis have also reflowered? This one is an early flowering variety and had already flowered once back in April, further proof, as if we needed it, that the seasons are all over the place 🤔

I did a few hours outside including moving more wood chip 😜 I also moved the torts hut into the greenhouse where they will spend the winter in hibernation, I had to cut a pop hole a bit bigger as Billy was trying to ram himself through it without much luck. I potted up a couple of kiwi that had rooted in the pathway and a Japanese honeysuckle, I cleared some dead stuff and pulled some weeds for the rabbits/guineas.

Sam came over in the afternoon with the twiglets and Mia, we made some gingerbread men although I might find a different recipe next time as this one seemed to have a lot of molasses in it which overpowered the ginger so I guess they were actually molasses men 😂

Oh and I was really surprised to see the garlic I planted only last week has already begun to shoot 😀

Tuesday: It looks promising for a fine, sunny October day today 😀

Every morning when I come in after doing the rounds I make coffee and stand at the stable door in the kitchen for a bit having a look out, and everyday for the past few weeks I have been having a conversation with Cyril 🐿 A one sided conversation obviously 😜 not that far gone yet! ‘Morning Cyril, what are you collecting today’ at this point he either stands stock still hoping I can’t see him or he shoots off up to the top of the oak tree faster than the speed of light lol.

When I first went out this morning I could hear the Lions roaring really loudly today, I got my phone out to try and record it but by the time I had done that they had stopped. It must have been breakfast time for them or something and I thought, crikey if it’s that loud here (approx a mile away) how loud must it be stood right near them 🤔

First major job on the list was to put up electric fencing in the next paddock for the horses to eat off, we did put them in there last week but they bust through into the large paddock so they went back to the side paddock until I could get it sorted. Jack has been charging at me for the last two days so I’m guessing he is hungry. A few minor hiccups, the electric sockets in the stable block still don’t work so had to work out how to get the cable to the other side of the field and still get power. While doing this and feeding the cable along side the paddock, I got to the field gate pulled the cable and the plug end caught the top of the gate, flicked up and smacked me clean on the forehead, 😣 Next plug in the fence charger and make sure it works, yep clicking loudly, move the box so it can be covered from rain and doh second whack from the electric pulse 🤬 have I earned the rest of the day off yet 😜 probably not but I am going to find something pleasant to do 😀

So I spent a good few hours in the garden weeding and clearing, spreading wood chip, the asparagus bed was the main target, it was lovely out there and I have dirty knees to prove I did indeed do a bit 😀

Last year I did chop and drop but I’m not doing that this year lol, I found it was too messy come spring so this year I’m clearing but I have left a pile of asparagus fern choppings where the rhubarb is so that anything that needs a winter home has got one available.

You know when you think 🤔 ah well the day will get better I’m sure, nope, so after my two minor mishaps this morning I had a third (hopefully we are done now) I was doing the feeding and collecting eggs, I stopped to take a photo of the cat, Benny, drinking out of the horse bucket, I thought it would provide a little amusement 😜 I carried on with my rounds and tripped over fresh air, yes fresh air, well there was nothing else around and I hadn’t had any wine it was only four o’clock! That wasn’t the end of the mishap, oh no because if that wasn’t bad enough I put my hand out to stop my face from hitting the dirt and it went straight into the bucket of eggs I had just collected 🤬 and faster than a Kit Kat disappears at a weight loss meeting Benny was in the bucket snacking on broken eggs 😭

My thoughts went like this ‘ffs I’m done today’ ‘I want to cry’ ‘have I broken anything’ ‘nope, better carry on then’ My knee hurts and I have a bit of a headache, hoping that isn’t the head injury this morning 🙄

I am actually going to blame varifocals, I would like a formal inquiry into the correlation of varifocal wearers and minor accidents like mine 😬 I can’t see clearly without them but my spacial awareness is not as accurate as it used to be when I’m wearing them, hence I’m always bumping my head when I have to duck under something, seriously I think there is definitely something in this, either that or my glasses are just crap 🤓

Wednesday: I thought it was going to warm up today but the sun never actually burnt through the mist and by lunchtime I decided I should light the Rayburn. It’s dry though so I am not complaining 😀 Apart from the usual I haven’t actually done much today 🙄 I have done a fair bit of reading up on various topics, cut flowers, autumn gardening jobs and how many sexes there are 😜 a random one that but something came up on my news feed and I just had to look further into it lol, scientists have a blob that is neither a fungus nor a plant/animal and it has 720 sexes, what, how, those questions and more are what I asked myself so I had to find out. I actually didn’t get very far as the explanation was beyond my understanding so I’m leaving that particular topic alone for now lol.

Thursday: It’s 11.45 and it’s raining 🌧 fear not though it has been pretty dry all morning and I have been very busy 😀 After the rounds I went straight out to the veg garden and got stuck into clearing one of the beds. This one is behind the fruit cage next to the brassica cage and I have decided that this is where I will grow flowers, a strange choice maybe as it can’t be seen from the seating areas but there is method in my madness. The beds at the far end are difficult for me to manage, they get the first lot of sun in the morning and then all day until the sun goes down, I very often can’t get out there because it’s too hot and there is no shade. So my plan is to plant perennial flowers on most of it along with some annuals, this will be my cut flower bed 💐 I cleared the bed which had beetroot and fennel still growing in there and then a good few barrows of well rotted manure went on top, I didn’t weed because I then put on a weed membrane and secured it with pegs. By the time I got to the end it was beginning to spit but undeterred I then tackled the other end of the bed, this end I have decided to try a thick layer of wood chip, as I have plenty, and see how that turns out compared to the membrane and manure. It will be a good comparison, it might work better, it might not, only time will tell, the winter weather can now do it’s work and hopefully under the membrane all the insects will be doing their bit as well. Just as I had finished it started to rain heavily so that was good timing. One thing I realised this morning, in fact all this week is that I am only limited by the Lupus, by that I mean I can still do a good mornings hard graft, I was beginning to think I couldn’t and would maybe have to give a lot of it up but no, it seems that if and that’s a BIG IF, if I can keep the disease on an even keel I can do the jobs I want to get done. I have repeat bloods again tomorrow to see if my white cells are going back up before I go back on the meds but I am wondering now if the meds are too much as I keep see sawing on them, might be time to have a conversation with my consultant about the dosage.

This part of the garden by the way is where I was trying out the permaculture and I had my first guild, the comfrey did fantastically every thing else not so, the apple tree eventually died but it had been moved once already because it was failing so I’m guessing it just wasn’t meant to be. Never be afraid to admit when things don’t work out and you have to start over 😏

Friday: By the time I’d finished the morning rounds of feeding watering and letting out it was raining 🌧 hmm I was hoping for a dry day but it’s not to be so I turned my thoughts to chutney. Remember the basket full of green tomatoes that I was hoping would ripen, well they haven’t lol and so chutney making is on the cards. Luckily I had picked a bucket full of apples from the front tree, these are eating apples but they will be fine in a chutney as they are keeper apples and are pretty firm. I surveyed the tree while I was picking and it really needs a good prune and I’m wondering if John and I are up to it or if I get the chap who did the cooking apple last year to come and do it. It’s a case of money expenditure versus strength/energy expenditure, I will see what John says. It needs doing because most of the apples, around 60/70% were tiny and in clumps, a fair few were a double apple so an apple with an extra lump and out of the rest which were all ok there were quite a few with maggot.

Bloods this morning before I can decide what to get on with.

I didn’t get anything else done lol as Shelley and the children came back with me then Sam and the children came over, just as well as it wasn’t a very nice day out, Sam and Mia did the feeding and egg collecting in the afternoon so I didn’t even have to do that 😀

There were a large flock of long tailed tits in the oak tree today, I always say they arrive when the weather is about to get very cold (snow even) so we will see over the next few days if I am right.

Saturday: It was a filthy night last night, rain, wind, orrible, and it’s not any better this morning though not as windy. We did the morning stuff then John went off to get some feed and I sorted some bits in the greenhouse, beetroot and swede I had pulled up when I did the bed ready for winter. It doesn’t look like we will do much outside at all today but that’s fine, we need to get a list sorted of jobs that need doing eventually such as the greenhouse leak and the electric sockets in the stable block. I have messaged the chap about pruning the tree as John decided he didn’t want to do it and we have some beef arriving from a smallholder this afternoon.

I ordered a baby burco so that we can scald these chickens and get them done and in the freezer, I have got to an age where I don’t want to be doing it and I don’t mean because I’m getting too old but I am getting too soft 😏 It’s always been a fine line that you tread when raising your own meat and the older I have got the more I dislike doing the deed but I also am not ready to give up eating meat yet and so the option is meat from the supermarket or from another smallholder. I can easily get lamb and beef, we don’t really eat much pork except bacon and sausage, but chickens are more difficult to get unless you get them from a farm shop and then they are pretty expensive. The expense I have to say is justified as usually they are quite big chickens and you can get three meals out of it and of course they are much more tasty, not pumped full of water and not bleached either so worth the spend but not when you can raise your own.

It turned into an busy couple of hours in the afternoon, John decided to clear the drain that runs across the driveway because the water was not getting away, the rain has not let up at all and now we have the river and lake back in the side paddocks. My nephew and nephew in law arrived with a lorry full of wood for the Rayburn, it has to be cut up yet but it’s old oak from a roof and so it will burn nicely. Then my beef delivery turned up, we ordered from smallholder Emma’s Ewesful Acres ://www.emmasewesfulacres.com/news she does lamb as well but we already have some, I made some rock cakes as a treat and got the Rayburn going, then there was the feeding and eggs to do so rather than sitting down doing a bit of reading like I planned I was busy as a bee 🐝

We have a nice grass fed steak for dinner tonight 😀

Sunday: Clocks went back. A pleasant, sunny morning after a cold night and a frost bit at least no rain 😀 John did the morning rounds while I cleaned out the Rayburn flues and did some hoovering.

Yesterday I made a list of jobs that need doing and this morning we have got on with some of them, disconnect the water pipes from the veg garden before we get a big freeze and a pipe burst ✅ Put the horse box up for sale as we don’t really need it ✅ John has added a few of his own jobs and of course prioritised those 😏 so at the moment only one of the jobs on my list for him has been done 🙄

I am a little bit excited to tell you that I have booked a workshop for myself at a local organic farm and I will be learning about sustainable floristry, I am not planning on going into floristry in a big way lol but I would like to know a bit more about sustainable cut flowers and arranging them so I treated myself 😀

After identifying yet another job that was not on my list I managed to steer John onto one that was 😂 We have a 6ft wide gate by the side of the house that has a smaller 4ft one as well, in the spring the posts rotted away and the small gate post got done but not the bigger one, we don’t open it much anyway but when we do it has to be lifted off the ground so that post needed doing which I have managed to get him working on, he has also loaded up the wood store so he has earned some brownie points today 😬 Meanwhile I have been barrowing wood chip to the paths in the veg garden 🙄 I still have plenty left to do but I have managed to cover a large part of it already.

Sam, Luke, Mia and the twiglets came over and took Biscuit for a walk up the road and Mia had a sit on her back while she was led around the school. Biscuit was exceptionally good once we managed to get her away from the field, I think she thought she would never see Jack again, they have become firm friends.

Light the fire, get the dinner sorted and it’s dark just after 5pm 😏 roll on to the shortest day 🙄

Have a fabulous week everyone 😀