Tag: shilton

Posted in Friesland Farm

Lots of rain, passata & baked beans 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is what I found:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Friesland Farm

A missing kitten 😔 a new arrival 😀 & nuts 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Friesland Farm

Jammin, not the musical kind 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I decided to change the theme layout of the blog this week to keep,you on your toes 😋

Monday 2nd September: Oooo we are proper rolling into Autumn now. Dad and Sue enjoyed their week and did some helpful jobs around the place, mowing, picking, weeding etc John was off as well and got a few jobs done, not ones that were on my list for him mind you!

It turned out that mostly, the plums on the Victoria tree were fine so I have been picking those, some were stoned and frozen for winter use and this morning I have made some jars of jam. I love the colour of Victoria jam, a beautiful jewel colour and you know Autumn is just around the corner when you can start the blackberry picking in earnest.

I like whole fruit jams rather than jelly, the latter is made by cooking the fruit then straining it overnight through a jelly bag to get the liquid, if you like seedless then that’s what you would do but firstly I can’t be bothered with the faff and I rather like to use all of the fruit, with the exception of apple, I’m not keen on the texture and so apple jelly is altogether nicer in my opinion.

I have still been regularly picking tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beetroot, runner beans, carrots, courgettes, raspberries and hybrid blackberries, I keep testing the grapes for sweetness and they are almost ripe, the melons are doing nicely and the pumpkins and spaghetti squash are beginning to ripen.

Last week I dug up my blueberries and repotted them, they have not done well where they are, I don’t know why, but time to move them and see if I can get a better crop from them. This is the time of year to sort out the strawberry beds and so that is on the to do list as are a hundred and one other jobs lol, seed collection, dividing and a bit of planning for next year.

I made a ‘chuck it in’ sauce for the freezer, I used courgette, tomato, celery, garlic, onion, green pepper, carrot, oregano, basil, parsley, salt and pepper. I used what I had that was ripe and ready or needed using up, no particular quantities just what I had available, the tomatoes were blanched and skinned but apart from that everything else was just chopped and chucked, I sweated it off with a bit of avocado oil and then it will simmer gently down in its own juices. With all that in there it can’t fail to taste good, each different batch would of course taste slightly different but I will freeze it and use it for pasta or even as a base for soup in the winter. I always freeze, I have never got round to thinking about canning on a serious level though I probably should some day.

Tuesday: One of the first jobs this morning was to re boil the jam as it didn’t set! Pain in the bum as all the jars need re sterilising etc, it’s done now and looks like a set has been reached, I did throw a lemon in with it to help it on its way. I have a feeling that the fruit has a lot more water content this year than previous years as too much liquid seems to be the problem. I am going to Swindon with Shelley this morning so I will look for a new thermometer as the bubble keeps separating in mine which can’t help much either 🙄

I still have this ridiculous cough, I had it all week while Dad and Sue were here, it is getting better but slowly, last night I was up two or three times and consequently am tired already today and it’s only 9am 😏

While I was in Swindon Mum was here working away on the strawberry bed, I have strawberries all over the place and they need consolidating, the bed also needed raising as the slugs were getting most of them as they were trailing on the floor. This is the right time of year to sort out the strawberries and thin out any old ones and use the new runners as fresh plants.

Wednesday: Rain overnight which is good because the garden needed a sprinkle 😀 I am making more jam this morning 😜 plenty of berries to be picked at the moment and this is mainly blackberry but there are a few raspberries, mulberries, blueberries and a couple of cherries in there too so this is a mixed fruit jam.

This time of year is packed with preparing and storing the harvest, berries, top fruit, veg, nuts it’s an abundant time of year and a busy one. I have a basket full of tomatoes to do something with not quite sure what yet maybe soup, you can’t beat some fresh tomato soup in the depths of winter.

The hens are laying very well now and we have an abundance of eggs 🤪 I also have some pears to use up and when I see the words ‘one bowl, no fuss’ that’s a recipe I know I’m going to love so I made a cinnamon spiced pear cake.

We went over to my brothers after dinner as John had to pipe up a couple of radiators for him, when we got back it had rained again and it felt decidedly wintery 😏 so a good mug of hot chocolate was in order, soon be Hygge time again 😀

Thursday: Sunny but chilly this morning, looks like it will be a nice day though so I got some washing on first thing. Slight problem with that at the moment as a spider has taken up residence in the wash basket 🙄 I tentatively pull clothing out knowing that any minute a 10ft hairy eight legged monster is going to leap out at me 🤪

The wildlife is still abundant round here, each morning when I open the side door around 20/30 sparrows are startled and start flying from bush to bush, it’s quite a sight. They appear to be feeding on the ground in the gravel at the front so bang goes my notion to weedkiller it at the end of the month, I am not really sure what to do, leave it all to grow and mow it?

I watched John for five minutes trying to catch an escaped chicken in vain on his way to his van this morning, I could have gone out and helped but it was much more fun to spectate 😂

Not sure what I am going to do today, that’s the beauty of this place and my life, I can decide in a moment ‘to do or not to do’ I write that glibly as very often a situation arises that needs sorting or something comes up that really can’t wait.

The rabbits and guinea are still on their green diet, I have not bought a bag of hard feed since way back in spring, nor should it be necessary really with all the forage there is available. The kittens are doing well and are right at home here now, we have seen a lot less of them this week mind as Alfie (Sams dog) has been staying and he, for the want of a better word, is a tit 😬 continually chasing the birds, horse, cats, anything that might move and give him a game, the kittens, quite sensibly stay out of the way when he is around. I am keeping a close eye on the torts, they will begin to eat less now the heat has gone out of the ground, they will wind down until it’s time for them to sleep for the winter. If you think about it, it’s half a life, the sensible half mind you in the warmth of Spring and Summer 😀 Everything else is doing well, the three remaining turkeys are growing and occasionally make that gobbling noise which is funny to hear, the light Sussex are getting to the point where we will have to do what was intended with them 🙄 the laying hens are laying well and we have plenty of eggs available every day, just the young ducks that are slacking and still have not produced a single egg between them yet 😏

I went out and did a bit of picking, mainly courgettes 😂 they grow like weeds! I don’t even eat them but they sell well and if they get too big the chickens love them 😀 I had a pot of agapanthus that came from Johns Mums and it was well and truly pot bound so I have divided it up into about seven new plants, now is a good time to do it, when they have gone over agapanthus need deadheading and feeding for six weeks according to Monty Don so splitting them and putting them into fresh compost will serve them well hopefully.

The wind is still cold and I feel a bit tired today which in turn makes me despondent 😭 gets me wondering, why I am doing all this, what/who am I doing it for? Shall I cut back massively but I know it’s just today and tomorrow if it’s warm and I feel good I will be back on track 😀 When we started this journey the Lupus was not even on the radar and I was used to hard graft, in our previous house I had not only dug out the footings for a very large extension with only a jack hammer to aid me but completely transformed a large mostly lawned garden into a wonderful space with interest and abundance. The garden was opened once a year for viewing to aid a local charity and that meant being on top of things all the time, when we moved here the momentum to achieve something great was intensified but year by year it waned until I was so poorly that my system completely collapsed and another chapter in my life began, living with Lupus 🙄 However, I am not and never have been a quitter, always in it for the long haul and I still am but days like these when I am too tired to motivate myself leave me wondering, how about a small house and garden, lots of holidays and free time lol.

I found a little bit of energy later in the afternoon to do the egg collecting and feeding and a few other little jobs, the sun was shinning and the wind had dropped so it was quite lovely outside. Part of the tiredness is a this bloody stupid cough I have got, I have to sleep practically sitting up and wake up coughing a couple of times a night so it’s no wonder really but it is getting slowly better.

Friday: We were up late and so it was me doing the animal rounds this morning, John has been doing it for ages and doing a sterling job. I’m not complaining 🙄 about his routine but……the birds have been getting away with murder, well not murder exactly 😜 but they have been left to become a bit delinquent, so this morning I reigned in some control 😮 Not just let out to run wild but kept in to eat and drink before being let out to run wild 😂

Then onto a good few hours work in the fruit cage, pruning, cutting back, trying to dig up stinging nettles, until my legs felt like jelly, I haven’t done that much hard work for a long while 😀

I had to reach into the back of the wardrobe this afternoon, no door to Narnia in there but there was a long woolly cardi with my name on it 🥶 I can’t quite believe that just over two weeks ago the temperatures were so high, it’s like a roller coaster ride, slow ride to the top then whooosh we are hurtling headlong into Winter in a split second, that’s a temperate climate for you, bloody temperamental it should be called 😏 Now I am sporting a very fetching look of long cardigan with my gillet over the top for no other reason than I love my gillet and can’t let go of it just yet 🤣

Saturday: More work in the fruit cage and Mum came to help so we got it all done, looks a whole lot tidier and more manageable now, I have put a fair bit of weed membrane down on the side that is troubled with stinging nettles and bindweed I fed all the raspberries in the pots, I was going to put them in the ground but that’s a whole lot of work and they spread like crazy so I decided to leave them in the pots and look after them a bit better 😜 I harvested a load of carrots, I intend to make some tomato soup so will need some for that but the rest will be prepped for the freezer. Then I picked some blackberries and open froze them for using later and then a sandwich and a sit down, got to conserve energy as I have Josh and Flo this afternoon and overnight while Shelley and Martin go to a wedding lol, and we are taking the kids with us to an 18th birthday bbq 🤪

Sunday: Pretty much a non day for me on the smallholding, I stayed over at Shelleys with the grandchildren last night so John was in charge all day 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

The wrong shoes, plum moth and hard working Mums 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th August: whoo hoo Monday again 😬 Not a bad day weatherwise so far, cool enough, a touch of sun, no rain and no wind 😀 After doing the morning stuff I got on in the garden, not veg gardening, today I am giving that a rest but flowers instead. I have a few plants that are struggling where they are and I wanted to save them so I have dug them up, a fushia, delphinium, lupin and gaura, and potted them in fresh compost and put them in the greenhouse for a boost. Then I went out to the front by the egg shed and hoed and weeded, dead headed and brushed, so it looks a bit more presentable now 😀 The ranunculus have died back and I want to try and store the bulbs over winter as they were pretty special so I have bought in the pot to sort them out and in its place I have put a dahlia which should flower soon.

I got dinner sorted for later, we had a roast chicken yesterday and got to use it all up lol so I will be having a baked potato/salad with mine and John will be having a throw it all in the pot and reheat job 😀 I also made a summer fruit pudding crumble with the blackberries and raspberries I picked this morning, I mixed them up with some greengages and I meant to take a photo before putting the crumble mix on top as the colours were vibrant, but I forgot 🙄

The Victoria plums, I have discovered have plum moth 😟 I had a trap in the damson tree which is about 20ft away and I thought it would cover it but it seems not 😏 so I have ordered some more traps and grease bands to do as many fruit trees as possible. It’s a pain in the arse to wait all year only to find they have moth in them grrrr

I keep eyeing up the mulberry tree and there are loads on there but the blackbirds are beating me to them every morning, mulberries turn very quickly, red one day, black and very squishy the next, hard to get them at the right time, I have not had one single berry yet 😏 The biggest problem with the soft fruit is that the birds will eat them before they are ripe enough to pick!

When John came home he noticed some of the new hens had got out and on further investigation a big hole has been chewed in the netting, I think the geese are to blame but also the charge was not going through so John spent 2 hours fixing it. I went out when he had just about finished and he asked if I was going to help him put the birds to bed, I said, I haven’t got the right shoes on. Anyone who works outside especially in and around paddocks/stables will know you need the right shoes, anyhow I obliged and went to the stables block to lock the birds in, I turned on the main light, turned around and caught my foot under the rubber matting which was slightly proud. I kind of flew, hands sprawled out in front of me and then belly flopped onto the hard ground beneath me, I cried out and then just lay there whimpering until John found me, concerned at first but then laughed when he realised I was grazed but not broken 😜 I feel lucky that I didn’t break anything, especially my wrist which took the brunt and lucky that I had taken some ibrufen an hour before for my sinusitis (I know, I’m a walking disaster at the minute) I’m sitting here typing with bits of me smarting and I can imagine in the morning it will hurt or at the very least be stiff🙄

Tuesday: A little sore this morning but nothing much thank goodness 😅 I spent a good deal of the morning trying to get the fruit cage under some sort of control, the bindweed has been awful this year and has rampaged through the raspberries smothering everything. I did other things but forgot to write them down and now poof, can’t remember 🙄

Wednesday: I got busy doing some cutting back and tidying in the garden, then Mum came over and also got busy doing some weeding and tidying and suddenly it’s all starting to look a bit more under control lol. I think I have decided that I am going back to the way I gardened before 😜 I will plant trees and shrubs in among things but I need a bit of order 🤪 and can’t really cope too well with what seems like haphazard gardening. I think we have decided I should garden to what suits me and not try and follow a regime as such, much better for my sanity lol.

Some more plum moth traps arrived today so I have put them up in the trees to catch the males, I have until early September to trap them and hopefully slow down the numbers.

Thursday: A bloody good session outside this morning 😀 following on from Mums sterling work on the feverfew, which has gone beserk and taking over everywhere, I did a bit more to the same area and the pathway which is so weedy it’s a job to distinguish from the garden! Then onto the hazel trees at the side of the house, normally at this time of year nothing needs doing to them but last autum we cut three of them back to let light into the tunnels on the other side. You can image how much growth they have put on and the tomatoes in the tunnels are struggling to ripen so I have cut back some of this years foliage and the stinging nettles to hopefully help with the light issues. Then I noticed that the ripe hazels are beginning to fall so I raked the area clean, it’s easier to spot them that way 😀

Yesterday and today I have felt fit and well whoo hoo hence some hard graft, have to be careful though as wham it will hit me when I’m not looking lol.

I went on chicken watch because despite John spending another hour last night fixing holes, they have still got out today, so I am sat waiting to see where exactly they are doing it, luckily the sun isn’t out 😀 At the moment the hens are behind electric that’s because they are only just starting to lay and we want them to lay in the nest boxes. If we let them free range straightaway they would just lay anywhere and we will not find the eggs, chicken training, who knew there was such a thing 😜

I been sat here for 20 mins and no one has made a bid for freedom but I know as soon as I turn my back they will be out 🙄

I spent the evening sorting out, or trying to sort out, the office, going through old paperwork that we no longer need so that I can find any paperwork we do need!

Friday: It’s lunchtime and so far I have split my time between cleaning the bathroom and doing some washing, picking veg and sowing some winter seeds.

I am cleaning because Dad and Sue are coming to stay for a week, they arrive Sunday, I am not cleaning because they will mind the a bit of dust but because I would like it to be nice and clean when they are here lol. My thoughts reminded me about a conversation with Johns Dad once, asking me if Women dressed for Men or for themselves pffft, themselves of course (most women anyhow) quite conceited of the male of the species to think that we dress for them 🤣 We used to have some good conversations, generally we saw things from opposing angles which you would think put us at odds with each other, not in the slightest, we enjoyed discussing our different opinions and often learnt from each other’s views, and he always enjoyed playing devils advocate 😜

The winter veg I have sown are not very exciting but will hopefully provide some fresh veg in the ‘hungry gap’ some winter spinach which is always useful, sweetheart type cabbage which will be ready next spring and some mooli radish. The latter I have never grown before and they were free seeds, from experience weird and wonderful veg rarely grow well but no harm in trying, they grow as big as a tennis ball so will make great additions to soups and stews over winter.

I have picked a bit of veg this morning but to be honest it’s meagre pickings, that’s because whatever I haven’t used or frozen has sold out quickly and now I’m struggling to keep finding things to put out, there are worse problems to have I know 🙄

Saturday: Turned out to be a scorcher of a day with more to come over the next few days! We were up early because we wanted to get into town and get some shopping before it got too hot. Just before we left another early bird was up and over here, Mum came to do some more work on the weeds, it’s all now looking pretty good largely due to her hard work 😓 so thanks Mum 😘 I did a bit when I got back and John did a few jobs but by lunchtime it was very hot and in the afternoon the temp gauge in the greenhouse was off the scale which stops at 50c 🙄 Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and we sat in the shade until that even got too hot, after they had gone it was just basic jobs that got done.

I was babysitting Mia and the twins for a few hours while Sam went off in search of her sanity 🤣 with Luke to their local pub. I said to her ‘hats off’ I don’t know how she gets everything done, it took two hours to feed, wind and change them both then another two hours to settle them and in fact Lucie didn’t settle for the whole evening. Mia was fab, patient, helpful and obliging at bedtime which made it a whole lot easier.

Sunday: An early sign off this week, temps are set to climb even higher today although at the moment it’s overcast so we will see what happens. Again we were up early, I got straight on with watering as I couldn’t do it last night and somethings are struggling, amazing that this time last week it had been raining for days! Then the last bit of cleaning before Dad and Sue arrive for the week, I probably won’t blog much if at all as I will be very busy entertaining etc 😀

Have a great Bank Holiday 🌞

Posted in Friesland Farm

Apple picking, baking day & the Wildlife Park day out 🦁

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 12th August: A decent morning considering last nights storms, I helped John do the animals then got on with tidying up the hay bay in the barn. The hay gets everywhere once it’s opened, we have the big round bales, and most of it is now gone but I bagged up the last bits which makes it look tidier. I don’t want to tidy too much as somewhere round there is where the hedgehog is living or at least passes through. In the bay is also a double height rabbit hutch which had fallen apart, it got worse when a hen snuck in there overnight and the fox trashed it getting at her. I have now taken it apart and put it back together, making it stronger as I went and I have a usable hutch again. At the moment I have just put some hay in and left the doors open so that the free roaming hens can lay in there if they wish to and we can actually find the eggs🤞

I have plenty of other jobs to do but feeling a bit tired after those jobs, not a good sign really 😟 I have a few other minor issues I am monitoring at the moment hoping they are all individual things that will clear up one by one, wishful thinking maybe 🤔

Dinner is going in the slow cooker today so that is one less thing to do later on and frees up my day no end 😀

Just lost the electric for a second or two, it happens quite regularly here after heavy rain 🙄

Afternoon chaos with Sam, Shelley and the children lol, the babies are doing well, not even at their due date just yet but putting on the weight well.

Early evening John cleaned out the hens in the side paddock while I got the dinner ready, braised beef, mash and runner beans, followed by rhubarb crumble and ice cream 😀

Tuesday: A lovely sunny morning, the temps are below average and it feels a bit autumnal. I am buzzing today as everything seems to to ready to harvest all at once lol, more runner beans and tomatoes but also plums, pears and apples.

I spent an hour or so picking greengages, got to get them just before they are ripe so that the wasps haven’t had them all, pears, which need picking when they are mature but they don’t ripen on the tree only once picked, tomatoes and beans which are in abundance now and the apples.

Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and we had a glorious time picking eating apples 😀 I didn’t think there were many on the tree, I kept looking at the side by the driveway, but when I went round to the other side my goodness it was loaded 🍎 They are keeper apples so will store well if they last that long lol, as I don’t have any cooking apples I intend to use these instead.

I had a lunch of pasta, feta, freshly picked basil and tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and a twist of black pepper and then sat down to have a look at what kind of recipes I will use the produce for. Though the skins on the pears are not very cosmetically pleasing the flesh underneath will be perfect for freezing, baking, bottling whatever I decide. I have three types of tomatoes, small Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, your average red tomato and a black variety, I can’t remember the name and I have no idea how to tell when it’s ripe lol. I never put my tomatoes in the fridge they taste so much better if they are kept on a sunny windowsill until needed.

I love this time of year and all the possibilities of using the fresh produce, not to mention the amazing smells, I picked some fresh basil popped it into a bag and straight into the freezer for use in the winter months, smells divine.

Tonight we are having chicken and potato bake I think, that will be a new one on John but hopefully he will like it, I will only put parsley on half of it as he does not like parsley 🙄

Lunch finished, sit down finished, now time to process runner beans for the freezer 😜

Usual afternoon routines done and I had intended to go out in the evening and do a bit but I was quite tired so I didn’t 🤪

Wednesday: Oh what a different morning this morning! Pouring down with rain, it’s not cold though and I don’t mind doing the animals in a bit of summer rain. We had planned on an hour round trip to collect a lamb for the freezer but as it happens they were coming out this way and delivered it first thing so that saved us a trip out. We used to do our own lambs but after a terrible year what with one thing and another we gave up and now try to buy from other local producers. I was thinking that I should set up some kind of page for local produce to advertise because although it is shared on the Smallholders site I run, not everyone has access to the page. Primarily it’s for Smallholders to network and not for the general public so how would the public know what produce is available locally unless it is sold at some outlet like a farm shop or local shop, there must be plenty of farm/garden gate sales like ours that locals would use if they knew they were there. I think that is something I will mull over for the next few days and see what I can come up with.

After planting 1000 daffodil bulbs last Autumn I thought I would expand a little and get some tulips to plant this year, not quite as many though, only 125 lol.

The rain is set to be here for the day so the choices are tidy and sort out the office or bake, yep baking it is then 😜 I made, choc chip shortbread biscuits, good old rock cakes, the faithful Marry Berry Orange and Sultana cake and a Gingerbread loaf. I started at 10 and finished washing up at 1pm it’s surprising how long everything takes which is why I police Johns eating of them, they are not McVities 50p a pack biscuits rattled out in a massive factory in 20 seconds flat you know!

Thursday: One of those days when you never quite get on, windy but dry, are we going to just go straight into autumn, it seems these days that we don’t have any gentle ride into the seasons, just boom, Winter, boom Spring, boom Summer and now boom Autumn , we are ver hopeful in the UK that we will get an ‘Indian summer’ well we have been known to have a day or two in the past 😂

Firstly, I did the animals this morning as John and I were mulling over some invoices first thing which made him later than he likes to be. He doesn’t have to be anywhere on time as he is self employed but he had good work ethics and likes to be at a job early.

Animals done I had just made a coffee and someone came to buy point of lay hens, sorted that out and sat down to drink my coffee, almost finished it when someone else came about a cockerel that needs rehoming, we have enough already though so it’s a no from me. Someone else came for veg and eggs but we are all sold out so I shouted a rough time when there will be more available and figured I better get on with some picking. Runner beans, courgettes, beetroot, cucumbers and some purple sprouting broccoli. Not all of that will go out for sale as we will use some things and the girls will have some of it too. I was thinking about what has done well this year, Runner beans, until the wind knocked them over, the French beans, though I should have planted more, cucumbers, they are going strong as are the tomatoes, the courgettes and the spaghetti squash too although they are not ready to harvest yet, I had a few broccoli and cauli, and the broad beans, asparagus and rhubarb did well. What has not done so well, carrots, sporadic, soft fruit, weather related? Peas, hmmm never seem to get those right, globe artichoke, plenty of heads but the plant was too big and went over in the wind, the brassica cage has white fly so that’s no great and a caterpillar or two as well.

Still going strong but yet to harvest much are the peppers, cape gooseberry and melon and one success I am rather chuffed with is the lemon grass, not ready to harvest yet but growing well and some ginger I bought from the shop has sprouted and going strong for the time being, with the latter two it’s always winter that is the tricky part of keeping them going, I’m hoping the new greenhouse will aid that greatly. I had a rogue chickpea plant come up and that has done well in the greenhouse so maybe next year I will try those again.

I am acutely aware that the garden is like a jungle at the moment, I have not had time to keep fully on top of everything and it shows, I got to a point when I thought ‘ah sod it, I will tidy it all up at the end of the year’ I know I was going in for forest gardening but it has got a bit out of hand lol. It looks like a jungle, feels like a jungle and when I can hear the monkeys from the wildlife park down the road, it sounds like a jungle 🤣

Friday: We had broken sleep last night and here is why: John turns the light on in the bedroom and starts getting dressed, what time is it? I say, 1am he replies, what are you doing? I heard a van pulling away from our drive, how do you know it was a van? It sounded sluggish like a van. Now considering the rural crime rate in the Thames Valley is high and at the moment activity just across the border is very active plus we have a big local gypsy fair coming up which always increases the crime rate, it makes sense to be on alert for these things. Can you check the cctv footage he asked, well I can but there is a 15 minute delay between recording and playback so I probably won’t see anything yet, I oblige anyhow and go into the office to look at the footage while John goes outside to check his van and anything else. The cctv as predicted is not available yet and I can’t see any other activity on there, meanwhile John comes back into the kitchen from outside and I go to the kitchen from the office. The first thing I see on the side is 3 bottles of milk and a bottle of orange juice, the milkman, you heard the bloody milkman ffs 🤣 Well at least I heard him John replies, I reply, he has been coming three times a week for the last year!!

Luckily this morning we don’t have to rush around and get to work because we are taking Joshua and Mia to the above mentioned Wildlife Park for the day 😀 Just the big kids to give the Mummies a break and to help the both of them feel grown up now that they have little sisters and brothers that they have to share the attention with, and the fact that it’s school holidays which seem very long to parents and children alike 😜

It’s overcast and just started to rain so not quite sure what kind of a day we will have but we will make the best of it 😀

Well it wasn’t too bad of a day, we got a bit soggy and a bit muddy, a bit tired but a lot happy 😀 Lovely day and the children were super good all day 😘

Saturday: Slightly better weather today although it’s still drizzled a little eventually the sun came out, now all we need it to do is dry up the wet mess the rain has left. John did the animals while I picked veg, I got a soggy pair of gloves and sleeves for my efforts 😜 If it dries up some more I can get on the garden and start tidying up a bit but at the moment it’s too wet. John fixes the pop hole on the duck shed which has been broken for a while and then did the guttering on the greenhouse, that’s the final bit for that and then we need to make tops for the cold frames. I have some cleaning out of cages to do but again I need to wait for the ground to be a little drier, no point traipsing muddy boots in and out 🙄 We have three out of the six turkeys left and they have been good for a week now and looking strong (famous last words) it looks like we have two stags and a hen judging by the tail displays 😀 One of the quail died in the week but I think that has to do with the cold wet weather, they are more exposed here than where they came from, they are laying well though so that’s a bonus.

Sunday: I was well peed off this morning to find that it was raining 😏 I was hoping to get up and get on a little bit and the rain hampered us a little bit not too much. After doing the usual we set about cleaning out the goose hut, putting some cover on the ridge of the quail hut as it’s been letting in rain, pulling up stinging nettles in the orchard and tidying that area, tidying and clearing the orchard pen including dismantling a falling apart hut and lastly but not least cleaning out the turkey pen. The turkeys have just begun to make the distinctive gobbling noise which makes me laugh every time I hear it 😆

John went off mid morning to visit his Mum and I did a bit of tidying of dead and dying stuff on the veg garden and fruit cage. I got stung in places I didn’t know existed by 5ft nettles 🤪

After lunch I did a bit more tidying and clearing before calling it a day, it’s windy and that really gets on my nerves after a while lol.

Charlie and Macca called in for a cuppa and then we went over to visit my brother and his wife and came back with some blackberries 😀

Oh the pullets started laying today as well 😀😀

That’s another week over, thanks for reading, have a good week and I hope the world is kind to you wherever you are 😘

Posted in Friesland Farm

Courgette soup, new hens, stormy weather & Tussie Mussies.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday eve: I took a couple of ibrufen and as John was watching the F1 I decided to go outside and do a bit of pottering. Firstly I watered the tunnels and was delighted to see that the cucumbers and melons have begun to grown quite quickly, then I potted in some plants, blackcurrants, lupins and a few other bits, they will all be left to overwinter and hopefully be good strong plants next spring.

Monday 5th Aug: I feel like s**t 🙄 no other way to put it lol, I have a cold, I think, I can’t breathe, well obviously I can a little or I wouldn’t be here typing this but I can’t breathe through my nose at all, it’s blocked which makes my head feel thick and heavy. I got up had a shower had my breakfast laid down and went back to sleep for a short while, got up had coffee, put some chicken, bones and veg in the slow cooker to make a broth. My throat gets dry then I start coughing away 🤧 sneezing, the works, urgh. The insult to injury is that I can’t take cold and flu remedies due to other meds so the broth mix contains garlic, turmeric and ginger along with chicken, veg and herbs, hope it helps 😜

Tuesday: Feeling a bit better today so I cracked on outside with an early start. I thought I would concentrate on flower gardening so I started with the front area, weeding, deadheading, cutting back and digging up any self seeded things and anything that is struggling. I had a happy time listening to the radio in the greenhouse potting up foxgloves, huechera and a couple of struggling lavenders. Then onto cutting the lawn and hoeing the paths around it, a bit of weeding and taking out the borage which has gone over and a few weeds from the herb bed. Sit down and have coffee and a bagel 😀 Going well and it’s only 10.30!

Shelley came over with Josh and Flo and picked some runner beans, Josh and I dug up potatoes and then Shelley made courgette soup which was delicious and I would definitely make it again.

500g courgettes (we used yellow)

Garlic chopped or minced

Olive oil

450ml of chicken stock, could use veg stock

Fresh parsley

Fresh basil

Salt

Pepper

Pinch of nutmeg

Chop courgettes and soften in olive oil, add stock and cook until soft enough to blitz or mash, add chopped parsley and basil and the pinch of nutmeg. Serve warm with Parmesan cheese and crusty bread 😀

Simple and good for you.

We popped over to see Sam, Mia and the babies.

Rain on and off all afternoon and into the evening but we have to get the fencing up ready for the chickens arriving tomorrow 😜

John finally got the strimmer working, I had sprayed the carburettor with cleaner but couldn’t start it, John had a go then he cleaned out the end of the pipe going into the fuel tank and voila it now works 😀

Wind is predicted for Friday, my first thought was ‘oh no’ that won’t be good for the runner beans, nor the fruit and nuts on the trees 😏

Wednesday: A bits and bobs day, flitted about doing various things but not one big job. First I burnt the paper feed bags and any paper rubbish we had lying around, then I put sawdust and feeders in the POL for sale pen, then I collected a few eggs, washed out and filled up Jacks water trugs, got the mower out and cut some areas that needed doing ( I tried starting the strimmer but I couldn’t get it going 😤) weighed out some veg to put out for sale, picked a few cucumbers, hoed an area that was getting overgrown, weeded the carrot bed, watched the kittens catch their first mouse, fed the rabbits/guineas and torts with the weeds all before noon 😀 Quick sit down before the afternoon begins.

I am trying to get my head around Instagram at the minute lol, not much to figure out I am sure but I never have more than a few minutes to glance at it #clueless 🤪

The new hens arrived in the afternoon, John gets a bit cocky with new arrivals and puts them outside saying ‘they will go in when it gets dark’ well nine times out of ten they do but not this lot! We had to catch all 50 in the front pen and put them inside on the perches, once we had done them we separated off to do the others, I went up the back and John did the side paddock and the duck pen. The other new lot (20) were in the sale pen up the back but they had all collected on the floor near the front of the cage, we have had this before and the fox can nip at them through the mesh, I called John to help but he had already buggered off indoors 😲 Eventually he came looking for me, just as I picked up number 20 😜

Thursday: We have had weather warnings for a storm, quite a big one by all accounts, they have actually cancelled some big events by the coast so they are taking the threat seriously, and so am I. I have been picking as many runner beans as I can manage because the wigwams will be the first thing to be blown down if the wind is that strong, I’m hoping that inland we won’t get hit so hard. With the runner beans I have made some chutney, I will freeze some beans, sell some and give some away to family. I have picked more courgettes 😜 and I’m contemplating having another go at jam, I reckon it would taste really nice but I don’t want another non set disaster, maybe I will make half the quantity as a test run.

At the moment the weather is lovely outside, sunny, calm, not too hot just pleasant, and great drying weather for the washing, I figured get it done today as the next couple of days don’t look good lol.

Despite having plenty of other things to do I did decide to have a go at the courgette jam, 1/2 quantity just in case, it smells amazing as it has lemon zest in it as well and I picture a vanilla sponge with the jam and some whipped cream in the middle and a dusting of icing sugar on top, 😋 I also had a go at another recipe I came across, sugar free caramel sauce, I had a can of coconut milk in the cupboard, it’s been in there for ages and all you add to it is 7tbls of some kind of syrup like agave, or in my case maple, boil it and reduce it down, easy, it tastes good and I think if I had used full fat coconut milk instead of the reduced fat which is what I had, it would be thicker but it’s still a nice pouring consistency.

The new hens went into the hut early today because it was raining so it was an opportunity to shut them in and not having a repeat of carrying them in one by one 😂

Friday: Rather boring but I did the cleaning today, you know when it just starts to make you feel uncomfortable seeing the dust and dirt kicking around lol. I am sat typing this up and it smells lovely, in fact sometimes I just open a door to a room just to take in the fresh clean smell 🤣

We have had three people this week who were supposed to come and collect stuff they had asked for, chickens and veg, all of them no shows 😏 I’m sure people think we have nothing better to do than wait for them to finally decide they might bother, it is one of the reasons that on the whole I do not save eggs for people. Many have asked in the past but I won’t do it, firstly sometimes as above, those people don’t turn up and secondly we have many customers who have been coming for years and take their luck on wether there are any available or not and I feel I owe them that loyalty back.

While I am getting bugbears off my chest the other one is when we have sold out of eggs, in the past I have had huffs and puffs because the ‘sold out’ sign isn’t displayed, this is because I don’t have time to run out every five minutes to see if the last customer took the last box of eggs! While I am on a roll here….we are not a supermarket, we have what we have and when it’s gone, it’s gone 😜 Hopefully, very soon, we will have an abundance of eggs but until then they are a bit thin on the ground. One last small tiny bugbear 🤪 we have plenty of fair weather customers who come in the summer but again the loyal ones come all year long but it’s always the summer ones that complain lol.

The courgette jam, although it smells and tastes amazing, is a soft set and that’s using the term loosely 🙄 I may incorporate it into a cake recipe I think.

Went out for tea and cake with Shelley, Josh and Florence this afternoon, the weather today has not been as bad as I expected but apparently there is worse to come tomorrow 🙄

I have made enquires today about getting some more quail, hopefully I have found some I can pick up at the weekend, that will please the quail egg customers.

Saturday: Windy this morning but as yet no rain. We started off well got the animals sorted and then John got the tractor out and moved loads of muck from the pile at the back to the pile at the front lol. One of the reasons we decided to do this is because two mornings running there have been duck egg shells enroute from the stables to the muck heap so I am convinced there must be at least one rat in there, John thinks not but then he never believes that we have rats about even when the dog kills one 🙄 No rats appeared so maybe he is right about them not being in there but they are living somewhere round there for sure. I did a bit of picking, cucumbers and tomatoes are coming thick and fast now, I picked a few French beans and I planted out some more that will hopefully grow pretty fast and we can get a harvest at the end of September. I also put some in modules in the greenhouse just in case the outdoor ones get eaten by mice though I am hoping the kittens are onto them 😜 I have some cabbage and some winter spinach to sow at some point as well. I went to Mums last night and came back with a seed pod from a peony, I read up about growing them from seed and they can take up to five years that will be a long wait 🙄 I had a walk around the boundaries to see if there were any blackberries ready, nope still small, I have heard people saying they are picking but I don’t know where as round here they are not ready yet.

I clipped back the lavenders and made a few bunches, one each for Sam and Shelley, Charlie has lots of lavender in her garden so I picked some of my precious freesias and a few other flowers to make a Tussie Mussie (small bunch of flowers or aromatic herbs) for her.

Sunday: It’s 3pm and we have had a busy day and I need to sit down as my legs are feeling wobbly 😜 We started off doing the usual rounds and then an early morning trip to Bicester to buy some laying quail, a good journey and we made a great contact there, a butcher with a smallholding 😀 On the way back home we called I to the DIY shop to get a solar powered security light for the front, recommended by my brother who has some, quick pit stop for a takeaway coffee 😀 Back home and straight to work, John put up the light and then got on the tractor to move the last of the muck pile. Meanwhile I worked in the garden, flitting about between indoors and outdoors with the on off rain showers and cloud cover. I potted up some willow that I had taken cuttings of (very easy to strike) I intend to grow them on into trees to use around the place, I cut back the sage, it’s getting old and gnarly so I gave it a hefty prune, there were three pieces that had taken root so I dug those up and potted them. The high winds yesterday have caused a bit of damage but not much, a big bough has come down from my weeping birch tree and 4 lots of runner bean wigwams are down. I have picked all the beans I can from them as they probably won’t recover from the whipping 🙄 I picked cucumbers which are now coming thick and fast and a couple of courgettes lol. John picked up the eggs and fed the birds and I sorted and boxed them, that’s when I felt the need to have a sit down.

Later I went up the back where John was clearing and burning some wood, we heard a rumble of thunder then the heavens opened, proper thunderstorm 😀

We have been out then in then out then undercover, then out then in and have now abandoned trying to tidy up at the back, the bonfire is still going well but it’s so wet out there now I doubt it will go anywhere it shouldn’t !

Posted in Friesland Farm

My birthday 🎂 caterpillar missiles, Lammas & a corn dolly.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th July: Lovely morning, sunny but cool enough early on, John did the birds while I fed the torts and the rabbits/guineas, then I got straight on with some cleaning as Sam, Mia, George and Lucie are coming for the day today. As I have said before the self employed don’t get holiday pay, sick pay or for that matter paternity leave and customers can be very demanding 😜 so Luke is going back to work for a few days and while Sam still finds it difficult to move quickly they will come here so that I can help out and keep an eye on the farm at the same time.

The veg sales have at last picked up a bit, last year I couldn’t get them out there fast enough but this year has been slow, so much so that I had thought I won’t do it next year, then all of a sudden they start selling. I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of eggs so customers stopped coming as we were often sold out. At the end of the week we will be getting 50 pullets in and at the end of next month 22 ducks should start laying 😂 we will be overrun with eggs hopefully lol.

Although the veg sales are lower, the plant sales have been brisk, so when one door shuts, another door opens as they say. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo to help pick runner beans and see Sam, Mia and the babies and Mum came over to see them all as well.

I noticed yesterday that my freesia are starting to flower, you have no idea just how much joy that gives me, I put them in late and didn’t think they would flower this year and as they are probably my favourite flower I am dead chuffed to say the least.

There are few things in the veg plot I have got wrong this year with the whole forest garden thing, one being the sweet corn I planted along side the asparagus. Asparagus, if not picked as spears eventually turn to a fern and they are quite large I didn’t think this through and as sweet corn are wind pollinated and they can’t move in between the asparagus fern, they won’t pollinate, simple as that so I need to cut the ferns down and allow the sweet corn to move. The other problems are smaller, like overcrowding, but I need to make sure next year that doesn’t happen, it’s fine when the plants are all small but once they get going and smother other plants that’s not so good as the yield from the smaller stuff will be down.

Tuesday: Today is my birthday 🎂I am 55 years old, how the hell did that happen 😜

Consequently it’s my turn to do Birthday tea, sandwiches, cake and nibbles this time and by 7am I have a ham roasting in the oven, I think it will be quite hectic this afternoon lol, Sam is getting dropped off here again today, Shelley will be over later to help with sandwiches, my friend is popping in and the Midwife is coming to see Sam and the babies at some point too 😀

Of course the best present I could have near my birthday was the safe arrival of our grandchildren but the next best thing was Johns present which was a solar powered dab radio 😀😀 that means I can listen outside and the batteries will not run out during a crucial/interesting bit of broadcasting 😀 Solar is a theme as my sister bought me some solar Edison style lights for my new decking area 😀 I shall be able to sit out with my lights on listening to an evening play, lovely.

Normally I would make all the cakes etc but this time round I have bought them lol, too many other things going on. One exception is a cake that is sugar free, when I thought about it we have quite a few diabetics in the family either type 1 or type 2 so my mission today was to make a sugar free cake. By Jove I think I’ve done it 😀 I looked at a recipe for a gluten free, sugar free cake and adapted it (almost so it’s nothing like the original) I wanted to get a handle on the quantities and how they worked together. I have just taken it out of the oven and a) it has risen and b) it looks and smells lovely, when it cools I will make a sugar free buttercream for the top and have a taste test before I unleash it on anyone else. I thoughtfully wrote down the recipe just in case it came out ok lol

Sugar free Honey cake:

4 1/2 oz of SR flour

1/2 cup of runny honey

3oz butter melted

Splash of vanilla

Pinch of salt

2 medium eggs

Mix up altogether into a batter

Bake @ 180c for approx 15/20 mins

Small 1/2lb tin

The cake was a big hit and the recipe has been passed around for those who want to have a go themselves.

I had lots of lovely presents including a hammock from the girls to while away some sunny hours (chance will be a fine thing lol) and a huge chocolate brownie stack made by Indulge by Amy, I have had to freeze some of it as even with the rest of the family we didn’t manage to get through it all!

The weather was pretty vile all day, mostly it just hammered down 🙄

Wednesday: A quiet day today, just me on my own I think (as you never know) I have a fair bit of catching up to do, with all the rain yesterday I imagine the courgettes have gone bonkers and there are other veg/berries to pick and prep for the freezer. John fed all the birds and let them out before going to work, I need to pick some forage for the rabbits/guineas and torts.

I keep looking at jobs as I walk round thinking this needs doing, that needs doing lol too many jobs and not enough hours (or not enough energy) as usual.

Quiet it may have been but I certainly had a busy morning, firstly picking, courgettes, French beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, blueberries and Logan berries. Most of the courgettes went straight to the chicken as I already have enough for the time being. Then on to some cleaning out of pens, first the stable block where I had to get on the tools to repair a few things, so a hammer and nails, cordless screwdriver and even the chopsaw were in use. Clean out the nesting boxes and put in fresh straw, hopefully that will encourage to lay eggs in there where I can find them 🙄 Next the duck pen where the new ducklings are, the fence we use to section it off didn’t hold up so I took that down and cleaned out the shed and put in fresh bedding. Next was the light Sussex hen in the paddock, she has been on her own since the fox got her friend but I have made plans to put a couple of the younger Sussex hens in with her along with a cockerel. The rest of them will now be kept separate and fattened on corn ready for processing in about a month, that’s the plan anyway. I cleaned out their hut and put up a rail for them to roost outside if they choose to, that’s how I always wanted to rear them, free range and open sleeping.

Then lunch, cheese toastie from the leftover sarnies 😀 and a little rest 😜

In the afternoon I harvested another bed of potatoes, there are some good big ones in there so ideal for baked potatoes, I also picked some carrots although there are not many ready at the minute. John came home and we had a cuppa and cake and then he strimmed the front paddock ready for the new laying birds next week, meanwhile I prepped and froze the produce I picked earlier on.

I looked at the Victoria plum tree today and yet again it is heavy with plums, this tree has consistently given full yields for the past 10 years that we have been here, it’s amazing. The nut trees were full of nuts until the wind the other day, now there are a lot on the floor, not ripe yet so no point saving them, there are still plenty on the trees but we were looking at a bumper harvest before that lol. The cooking apple tree that we had pruned last year does not have many apples but I would not have expected it after a heavy pruning, the eating apple tree, which is a keeper apple, (good for storing over winter) in the front paddock has plenty and the pear trees look pretty good as well, top fruit has done well this year.

So this evening I decided to strim a few things with my strimmer except it wouldn’t work! A you tube video or two later we decide it’s probably the carburettor that needs cleaning and having no cleaner switched to the electric one. That bloody thing just keeps locking up the spool so after about an hour and a half of trying we gave up, maybe weedkiller IS the answer we are thinking, then when putting the animals to bed Patch found a hedgehog in the hay barn and I was reminded as to why we try not to use it any more 😀

Thursday: It’s Lammas, a celebration of the first cutting of the harvest, though I have noticed that most of the fields have already been cut over the last couple of weeks here. Still I have a few stalks of grain growing here (self set) that I will cut today and give to the hens 😀 to honour the day.

Not much got done today apart from the usual things and watering the tunnels, I had bloods at 10am and then Sam, Mia, Lucie and George we’re here along with Shelley, Florence and Josh, a seemingly endless round of feeding, winding and changing the babies, Shelley took the older ones for a walk after lunch so Sam could have a sleep. I kept an eye on the babies and sat in the garden for a bit, while I was sat there suddenly a fat caterpillar landed on the ground, then another and another, the caterpillars I had seen a couple of weeks ago in the Oak tree were now huge and dropping down to go and find a place to pupate, they are buff tip caterpillars 🐛

I had a little try out on my hammock 😀 very comfy.

Friday: I am a bit tired today lol I didn’t get a good nights sleep at all and consequently feeling it this morning.

Had a shower first thing and while I was in there remembered that I forget to put the dustbin out 🙄 got dried and dressed and went straight out to do it. Having a cuppa outside and heard the bin men driving back up the lane meaning I had missed them BUT they stopped and emptied it anyway 😀 We have great bin men, that’s not the first time they have done that and even come up the drive to get the bin when I have totally forgot 😜

Picked stuff for the rabbits/guineas and then picked some courgettes before they get too big.

Sam decided to stay at home today and see how she got on so that gave me the day free, however I felt so tired that I didn’t do much at all! The sun when it came out from behind a cloud was pretty hot, it makes me feel very sluggish, I can feel a total difference when I’m in the shade or the sun goes in. I pottered a little and napped a little and did the eggs at 3pm that’s about it, oh I did sit and make a rudimentary corn dolly 😀 and cleaned up the onions that have been drying in the greenhouse.

The caterpillars are still launching themselves off the Oak tree 😜

The grapes are doing great in the poly tunnel, unlike the melons, although the plants are growing and tiny melons are on there they do not seem to be getting very big!

Saturday: Todays job on the list was to get the front paddock cut ready for the arrival of 50 hens on Wednesday, John had already strimmed a bit of it but this morning we used the ride on mower to chop up the grass that was laying and cut a bit more of a bigger area. I noticed there is a tomato plant growing in there complete with tomatoes lol, that will be from throwing the chickens tomatoes last year, just goes to prove they don’t need any molly codling 😜

We have a bit of a problem with the turkeys at the minute, two have died, I think its coccidiosis and I am waiting for a treatment to arrive. In the meantime a regime of cleaning, disinfecting, foot baths (for me not them) and giving them everything I have available that is natural. Tea tree and thyme oil, garlic, kelp and brewers yeast powder, apple cider vinegar and lots of fresh herbs in the hope that it will help with the immune system and they can get over it. I have not had a case of cocci for about 6 years so it’s not great to have it now 😏 The majority of our hens come from the industry and are vaccinated against it but of course smaller breeders, including myself, don’t vaccinate because it’s not cost effective, the batches of vaccine are big and costly and most people don’t breed enough to warrant it.

We had a family lunchtime event today so off we went for that and when we got back we had to catch a couple of the ducklings which were being sold. I have now sold 31 of them so I am happy with that, we made a good profit plus 20 ducks, winner, now all they need to do is begin laying lol. In the evening we went over to my brother to sit by the fire pit and eat pizza, chillaxing 😀

Sunday: We started off with good intentions today, early on we went up to the small back paddock to take down the electric fencing (we need it for the new hens at the front) and while I cut the grass up there, John pulled up a bunch of stinging nettles and some docks, then we had a visitor and stood chatting for about an hour and a half lol. Off to get a bit of shopping, John went to visit his Mum and when he got back Shelley, Martin, Josh and Flo popped in for a visit, so we didn’t get much done today. After they left I should have gone out and done some garden stuff, picking etc but I don’t feel too well, I seem to have picked up a cold, John said, just go and have a sit down because you can’t work when you are dead 🙄 ok I don’t need any more excuse than that lol.

I’m still,using loofahs for washing up and cut some new bits yesterday, the old bits will go in the compost, they seem to have lasted for ages.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Twins 😍😍 and most other jobs can wait 🤪

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 22nd July: Overcast this morning but muggy, I did the morning rounds but just before that and before we let anything else out we moved the ducklings, who are now 11 weeks old, round to the duck pen where they have more space and a bath they can get in if they want too 😀 I have sold 29 of them and have 22 left which I will probably now keep so we should have a never ending supply of duck eggs in about a month or so 😀 Ducks are pretty easy to move, even if they have never been out before, because they herd easily, so job done and onto letting out the rest of the rabble.

Then on with some picking, this morning it’s French beans, courgettes, broccoli, cauliflower, some berries, broad beans and a few peas, indoors to blanch and process them for freezing keeping a few bits back for dinner later today. The courgette jam didn’t set and I was going to re boil it but I have left it a bit long and so abandoned the whole pan 😏 Will I try again hmmm maybe but as other jams are far easier probably not.

Tuesday: I am writing this on Wednesday am as we had an eventful day yesterday starting with a 4am phonecall from Sam to say her waters had gone, so we gather ourselves together and drive over. I must say it was such a lovely morning, the mist was hanging over the valley and it was cool at that time of the day. Sam and Luke went off to the hospital, John went back to do the animals and I stayed and waited for Mia to wake up, she was good, she had been prepped and all she was worried about was getting dippy eggs and toast so that what we made 😀 Sam messaged later in the morning to say that the babies had arrived and were good weights and well, she had a caesarean due to the boy being a footling breech, she is also well despite some minor hiccups. I stayed with Mia for the morning at theirs and then John picked us up and we came back to the farm so that Mia could play with Josh and Flo in the paddling pool, we took her back to hers at bath and bedtime and then I waited until Luke came home, a 17 hr shift lol, knackered was an understatement 🤪

Wednesday: I’m still knackered 😂 Mia is going to Luke’s parents today but I need to catch up with a few jobs like the ever growing courgettes, it only takes a day and boom they are marrows. We had a terrific thunderstorm in the night, it seemed to go on for a couple of hours, I woke at 3 and could see lightening through the curtains then later I could hear rain hammering down. Hopefully it won’t be as hot today as it was yesterday but we still have hot days and thunderstorms to come apparently. Sweating has taken on a whole new level these last few days, I would hate to live in a hot country and I looked forward to the cooler days that are in the distance.

Despite feeling knackered I have whizzed round with the hoover and done a bit of tidying, it’s proper clammy and I don’t know if it because it’s hot or I’m tired or both but getting narky with John over a few things 😜

We moved the ducklings and obviously John has been in charge because I wasn’t here or otherwise occupied with Mia, anyhow he says this morning that they are not eating any food and diving off to the end of the pen and staying there all day, firstly I note that he has just poured more food on top of the stuff they already haven’t eaten then instead of seeing a problem and rectifying it he decided to get the tractor out and start on something else 🙄 after words 🤪 we sectioned off the pen to keep them up near the food and water and hope they will get more confident. Yesterday when I got back in the afternoon, bearing in mind it was boiling, I checked with him that he had fed the torts and rabbits, no I don’t usually do that you do, yes but I wasn’t here was I 😬 another word exchange. Again in the afternoon yesterday he decided he would go an have a nap because he had been up since 4am YES PAL SO HAVE I, I know it’s not all men so I won’t put that label on it but oooosshh sometimes I could slap him lol, that said he has done a sterling job at everything else and everyone has their limits of thoughtfulness I guess 😛

We went to the hospital to visit and get our grandparent fix 😍😍 they are beautiful of course, when we came back we didn’t do much but nap, then some shopping later on in the evening before popping into Mums to give her an update. It’s a bit cooler tonight but not much. I watered the tunnels, the plants are like triffids at this time of year and taking up lots of water to keep them going.

Thursday: Well today was set to break the record for the hottest recorded temperature but I have been inside all day so I have no idea how hot it is out there. I got up at 5 and got on with watering the tunnels and picking courgettes, French beans and the first picking of runner beans, I fed the torts and rabbits while John did the rest. When I had finished I came inside about 8am closed all the windows and shut all the curtains and it has been fairly cool in here, I haven’t even had the fan on. I have got dinner in the slow cooker as I figured that would give off less heat than anything else and am feeling pretty comfortable. I had Josh and Flo for an hour this morning but the rest of the day I haven’t done anything at all except read and watch the news 😁 We did have a short burst of rain mid afternoon, it lasted about 2 seconds!

In the evening we went over to visit Sam, Luke and the kiddies as they have been discharged from hospital, we took the dog back, he has been staying here while events took place, I think the kittens will be glad he is gone 🤣 he likes to chase them so we haven’t seen much of them over the last few days.

Friday: Oooo so much cooler this morning after a very warm night, I got up and on with watering the tunnels, feeding etc John did the main of the feeding before going to work, I did a few domestic bits and sorted out some plants to put out for sale.

I hadn’t planned on it but I ended up going over to Sams and helping out and let’s face it I’d rather be helping out with Mia and the twins than doing stuff here 😂

Saturday: We had Josh for a sleepover last night so John did the animals as it was raining and Josh didn’t have his coat with him. Typical that it rained as we had planned to do some repairs to the driveway, over the years a hole has got bigger and bigger until it couldn’t be ignored anymore. We gave the customers a weeks notice that the drive would be shut and there would be no egg sales, the hole was right in front of the gateway so it had to be shut off. It stopped raining about 10am so John cracked on with getting that down while Josh and I did some tidying up in the covered back area. We went to see how Grampy was getting on and Josh stood straight in the wet concrete 🤣 I have now put a notice on the gate saying closed until 8am tomorrow, it will be nice to have peace and quiet, the dogs usually bark every time someone comes to get eggs 😀

After Josh went home John and I cleaned and tided the covered back area, it’s now an open space again (ready for dumping more stuff down probably 🤣) John burnt some rubbish and I gave the dogs a brush, Mia needed it most, she is long haired and a ‘fox poo roller’, Patch keeps fairly clean. John fed the birds and did the eggs while I picked courgettes and French beans, some beans went out for sale and some were prepped for the freezer, I picked a few tomatoes as well, they are delicious and it’s about the only time of year I eat them, I rarely get shop bought ones they just don’t have the taste of home grown ones.

It feels ludicrously cold tonight compared to the middle of the week, it’s at least 10 degrees cooler this evening than the night before last.

Sunday: Up and doing the usual rounds then we went out for breakfast with Shelley, Martin, Josh and Flo, came back and then I messaged Sam to see if she needed any help and while John went to visit his Mum I went to give Sam and Luke a hand, it’s like a tag team 😂 still no definite names to announce yet but they are trialing the two names that Mia has chosen lol.

Hopefully next week they will have names and I can show you some photos 😍😍

LATE EDIT: Lucie and George 😀😀

I am very sorry but I have been having real problems uploading photos to the blog for a couple of weeks now and not really had time to sort out why it’s happening, hang on in there and I will hopefully sort it soon 😀 thanks for reading.

Posted in Friesland Farm

A fledgling, a rat, hopscotch and turkeys 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday again! 15th July: A pleasant enough overcast morning so great for me to get some stuff done. I mostly did picking and weeding, courgettes, French beans, broccoli , a pepper 😀 some cucumbers, raspberries, a few strawberries and blueberries and some flowers for the kitchen. I potted up a few strawberry runners for next year and pulled up the onions and garlic. I have no idea what I was thinking was with the garlic as there are only 6 lol, that won’t keep us going very long. I only have about 15 onions but that’s fine because I have welsh onion, which is perpetual and babbington leeks which are also perpetual. The welsh onion and the bab leeks have seeded so I collected those to grow some more next year, with the welsh onion you just pull what you need and they grow like bunch onion so more will grow and the leeks you just cut off at the base and they will regrow 😀

Then I decided that before the sun made an appearance I would cut back some grass areas with the ride on mower, well it started fine and I got it out of the stable block to where I wanted it, engaged the cutter and it stopped 😜 I couldn’t get it going again so I sat for a while waiting for it to do whatever it was thinking of doing and hoping by resting it that I could start it again, suddenly I heard patch yelping and some squealing (which I knew was a rat) I went round the corner, patch had a bleeding nose and the rat was dead 🙄 I took patch inside, cleaned his nose with, dettol, then hibiscrub then I sprayed it with purple spray, moved the rat to the burning barrel, went back to the mower and it started 😀 Patch 1 rat 0, Dawn 1 grass 0 I call that a successful morning.

The Sun appeared so that will do outside for now unless it clouds over again.

Tuesday: John was up late! That meant I was on my own this morning and the Sun was already out 🙄 I didn’t mind though and quite enjoyed myself, making sure everything was well fed, watered and clean and tidy as I went. I did a bit of watering in the tunnels and that was pretty much it as the skies were blue and not a cloud in sight. Sam and Mia came over and we went to visit Charlie and Macca who have a week off work, then we met Shelley, Josh and Flo at the shake shop before coming back here for the afternoon.

Did a bit of grass cutting in the evening and watched the partial eclipse of the blood moon.

We also had a very tiny chap appear right by the back door late evening, seemed too small to be out but we couldn’t find any sign of a parent bird so I put it in a box in the greenhouse and will let it out first thing in the morning, hopefully it will make it, I think it’s a baby goldfinch judging by its beak and a tiny flash of yellow on its wing.

Wednesday: First job of the day was to let the little bird out, I put it back where I found it, went in to make tea and when I came back out it was gone 😀 The general advice if you find a fledgling is to leave it alone, this was late in the evening and it was at ground level so I was worried it wouldn’t make it alive through the night so I did what I thought was the best thing for it and hopefully it will thrive.

It’s overcast but muggy this morning, it meant I could get on though so I did a bit of hoeing, raking and tidying up. Then I put up a temporary fence between the orchard and the garden so that I could let the younger light Sussex out into the orchard to scratch and forage which is what I had always intended they should do. We had a temporary fence there before but eventually it fell over so I took it up and it has taken me this long to put one back 😜 The weeds have grown high in there so I might as well make use of the birds to clear it, save me doing it.

I picked another load of courgettes 😝 I gave most of them to the young birds to peck away at but kept some as I intend to use them for cake and jam.

I had the best of intentions to make cake and jam however I used all the sugar I had in the jam 🙄 so no cake today, I made flapjack instead and that nearly didn’t happen as I had no syrup but I substituted maple syrup and treacle instead. The maple syrup was too runny on its own so I figured sticky treacle would help, its cooking at the minute I will let you know how it tastes later. The jam smells amazing, that’s the grated lemon rind that goes in but I’m thinking this will be a lovely light flavoured jam, it has to sit for a few hours for the courgette to absorb the sugar and lemon flavour so I will boil it up later on and see how it tastes.

I made bread as well today.

So I have boiled the jam and jarred it up but even though it reach the right temperature I can’t see it setting somehow, we will wait and see.

Thursday: It rained a little overnight, not much but enough for a wetting and again it will liven things up a bit plus keep the dust down. The jam didn’t set, I followed the recipe but I kind of knew it wasn’t going to, I couldn’t t see it being thick enough I should have followed my instinct and not added the water, courgettes are wet enough as it is. I have some added pectin sugar and may try boiling it up again with some of that in and see how it goes, if it doesn’t work that’s a bit fat fail 😜

I have Mia today while Sam goes for a scan and to see the consultant, she is now 36 weeks and huge, poor girl, she is only 5ft 1” so it’s quite a weight for her to carry around, although she is looking very well apart from that and swollen feet. Hopefully they will give her a date today as she is having a section due to the lowest baby being breech. It will be ‘all hands on deck’ when the time comes, one baby is enough to look after especially when you already have a toddler but two, that’s a whole new ball game 🤪

I showed Mia how to play hopscotch 😀 and we watched a caterpillar crawl and crawl and crawl, Mum came over and did some bits in the garden 😀 Once Sam had picked up Mia I went out and collected the eggs etc and then I went to water the polytunnel. The minute I had turned on the hose and walked into the tunnel the Sun, which has been absent most of the day, decided to blaze 🙄 it was boiling in there 🥵 and I had to crouch and hide behind any available foliage I could find 😜 You may wonder why I was watering so early (4.30) well I am going out for dinner with my girlfriends tonight (yes I have friends lol) and won’t have time later I also need a bit of time to make myself look acceptable for a rare public appearance 🤪

Friday: It’s raining this morning 😀 not a downpour but steady enough to get you wet which is very welcome. John did the animals so all I had to do was get some feed for the rabbits and torts, job done by 7.40 lol. I have a bit of paperwork I can get done today and also have a haircut, it’s got long and driving me mad so I think I will get it all chopped off.

Finally some proper rain, grey, cold, depressing looking day, lovely jubbly, I’m not a killjoy it’s just that the ground was in desperate need not to mention the water tanks 😜 The dogs have confined themselves to the boot room and I shall be doing indoor stuff like paperwork, filing, freezing produce, possibly some cooking and some cleaning without feeling guilty that I should be outside working lol.

I had the hair cut and blow dried and I did say ‘you know it is probably the only time it will look that good’ as I am not very good at blowdrying lol anyhow before long I was outside doing the animals it started raining and boom frizz bomb hair 🤣

As the weather had already ruined the look I carried on outside, this time of the year is the best time to dig up the ragwort, it stands out splendidly and is easily spotted. We don’t have much of it, I pulled about 20 lots over the whole 5 acres, it’s biennial so it grows the first year and flowers the next, it doesn’t spread fast unless you let it go to seed, failure to prevent the spread of ragwort is a criminal offence and can land you in court, I would say that the local councils seem oblivious to this ruling though as they never seem to clear their verges 🙄

Saturday: Up fairly early, John did the animals while I sorted out clothing for today I am off to the Fantasy Forest Festival 😀 I have to pack for every eventuality 😜 find loose but cover all clothing 🤪 pack sunscreen, uv clothing and umbrella in case it’s very sunny, and all the other usual stuff too. John meanwhile will be busy on the cement mixer concreting the hen shed in the front paddock ready for the arrival of new hens. We did contemplate concreting it when we first converted it and decided not to but we should have as now we are having to do it anyway.

The fantasy festival was fabulous what more can I say, the costumes on some were amazing, real labours of love and we loved the eclectic mix of people that all mingled with a happy disposition that gave the festival a great feel.

Sunday: Exciting day today as we pick up the turkey poults 😀 6 x 6 week old Red Bourbon turkeys, we have always talked about getting some but never have and then the opportunity arose this year so we jumped in with both feet. Before we went to collect them the animals needed feeding and letting out and I did a bit of picking as well, French beans and some tomatoes plus a basket full of courgettes 🙄

Turkeys collected and we housed them in the spare rabbit pen for the time being, there is plenty of room in there, it’s under cover so hopefully they will be very happy for a few weeks until we let them out to free range.

The temps are set to climb pretty high next week, 34c oh my goodness that’s hot for this country lol, I will be planning to get up very early and get done so that I can hide inside in the cool for the rest of the day 🥵🥵

If you have never been to the UK and live in a much hotter country than ours I apologise if I sound like a wimp lol I guess it’s just what you get used to 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Found me Mojo, the kittens explore & ‘crappy to happy’

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th July: John is at home today and so he did the morning rounds and then went off to get feed, it meant that I could get straight on with the job of the day, housework 😜 not just a quick flick of the duster and a whizz with the hoover but strip the sofa covers and bed covers and wash them all then hoover and polish everything to within an inch of its life. This was it, I had committed myself and taken the plunge 🙄 I only actually managed the bathroom, living room and bedroom fully before feeling exhausted, those sofa covers are heavy and cumbersome and hard work, the kitchen got a hoover and a wipe round and the floor washed and there is still the boot room and office to do but they can wait until another day. Around lunchtime because that was enough housework for anyone lol, I prepped, blanched and open froze, the carrots, broad beans, turnip, peas and potatoes that I picked yesterday and didn’t use for dinner last night. Potatoes are something I haven’t frozen before so I did a bit of reading up about it, but as John pointed out chips come frozen so they should be fine. I wanted to use them all as I ran out halfway through winter last year and then had to buy them from the shop although by that time I did have a bucket full of small ones all sprouting like they do. The bigger potatoes are safely in dark potato bags hanging in the boot room but if I did that with the tiny ones I know I wouldn’t use them so pre preparing them and freezing them will guarantee they will get used.

John has been busy as well, he is preparing the floor in the front chicken hut for concreting, we did have wood down but the rats would chew through it and eventually it became hard to clean everyday, hopefully the concrete will be much easier, although rats can still chew through it, it’s less likely 🙄

The weather is not bad today, sometimes over cast and sometimes sunny spells, great for getting those covers dry, we are forecast a spot of rain around 4pm but I won’t be holding my breath.

The kittens have been given free range out the back and I have seen them outside on the grass, they are also getting on really well with the dogs, all walking around in the boot room together with no problems, this is a first for us as usually, cat sees dog, cat runs, dog chases cat, cat leaps up high out of the way, dog sits there all day with stupid anticipation that cat will come down again for another round of chase 🤪 so, long may this new behaviour last 😉

In the afternoon we watched a bit of Wimbledon and then after dinner I went out to do some watering and picked some raspberries.

Tuesday: John was up early today and he had done all the animals before I got up, result 😀 I did have to pick for the rabbit/guineas and the torts but that’s part of weeding anyhow 😜 I did some hoeing and a bit of tidying up then picked some more blackcurrants, some to put out for sale, some to freeze for winter puddings.

I ordered a cherry ‘bush’ this is new on the market and is a bush rather than a tree, it can be kept at 5ft so my plan is to have it inside the fruit cage that way I might, just might get cherries 😀

Moving plants, that I have either grown from seed or cutting or divided, around, I realised I have got to town and now have far more than I had envisaged lol, I need to sell a few more I think.

I had Mia for a short while in the afternoon while Sam went and did a few things. We cleaned the decking area and washed the glass table top, well if you have free child labour might as well use it 😜 afterwards we had a ‘juice break’ and sat at the nice clean table.

I had a klutz moment while collecting the eggs this afternoon, I didn’t lift my leg quite high enough to get over the poultry netting and it got caught, to prevent myself for falling I quickly put the other foot on the fencing as well, unfortunately I was very close to a fence stake (these are flexible plastic stakes) which immediately bent towards me with pace and caught me just under the ear and behind the jaw bone, you know the place where you check to see if your tonsils are inflamed, I hate moments like that they make you want to cry, not so much from the fleeting pain but sheer stupidity.

I have found my flexibility is back to rusty since finishing the steroids, I don’t know what it is about them that helps so much, I guess without them there is still inflammation making tasks more difficult, I am back to doing the shuffle sometimes when getting under things rather than being able to bend low enough and gracefully scoot🙄

Wednesday: John was up early again and did the rounds so I got on with picking and watering, raspberries, artichoke and French beans today.

This morning while wandering round the garden I made the unhappy discovery that the fox had got one of my light Sussex hens, she had laid an egg in my flower bed so I’m guessing was there when the fox got her, I have no idea when during the day that was though, it must have been they day before.

Mum came over and turned a scrappy (from crappy to happy is what I am calling it )bit of garden into something lovely 😊

Some of the potatoes are collapsing and the lack of any water means I am constantly trying to revive them so today I dug one lot up, it means I won’t have any to store for winter, except self setters, but hey ho, needs must.

In the evening I did more watering lol

Thursday: We had a sprinkle of rain overnight and it really was just a sprinkle but it will perk things up a bit. Again John was up early and had the animals all done, not sure what has got into him but I’m not complaining 😀

I went into the garden and planted one of the new buddliea I bought, into the ground, it is a pink one and I have positioned it in front of the torts fence, I also planted a Mock Orange bush in the planter where potatoes normally grow as I could do with a bit of extra shade in that part of the garden. It is a big planter, a crate actually like the ones building stone or slates come in so it will easily accommodate a large bush. It is difficult getting stuff into the ground here because of the brash, when I say difficult I mean bloody hard digging so if there is another way I’m all for it 😀

I also chopped down all the weeds and stingers that have grown up in front of the compost area, I couldn’t get to it at all and now I need access as I begin to clear things away once they have gone over, I had piles of trimmings around the place and so cleared them and threw them on the compost heap.

I am a bit reluctant to clear up too much as the increase in the insects has been huge, by leaving unkempt areas, hundreds and hundreds of ladybirds 🐞 I see my little frog everyday and presume it’s the same one but it may be many 😀 I hope so they will help keep the slugs down.

Leaf cutter bee activity

Cinnabar caterpillar

One insect I have noticed seems to be rampant this year is the earwig, they were everywhere, I say were as they have now moulted and their shed skins are all over the place, I swept out the egg shed this morning which had loads of them in there. I looked up information about them and it seems they are a beneficial insect, they don’t really do a lot of damage and clear up dead and decaying material as well as aphids etc so they can stay 😀 Unusually for insects they are very good mothers apparently, they keep the eggs clean and then feed their young until they can fend for themselves, unfortunately they also eat any young that refuse to left the nest!

I was just getting into the swing of it when the sun decided to make an appearance, it’s pretty intense this time of year and I don’t want to risk another flare up so I came inside for a coffee and a write up. I am sure that sooner or later there will be days that are overcast and I can get a good shift in 😝

For dinner tonight we have our own chicken legs slowed cooked with all our own veg and herbs 😀 For dessert I have made a gooseberry clafoutis, two reasons, one because I have gooseberries to use up and two because I love the word clafoutis 😬It will taste amazing of course so I don’t need to use that as a reason 😂

I did the afternoon rounds and it was a bit weird out there, to begin with there was a nice fresh cool breeze and then it dropped, feels like a storm brewing and it’s certainly got muggy.

Friday: Got to love Fridays 💕 Just for a change I was up early too this morning 😀 My mojo had disappeared for a while but seems like it’s back again now 😜 John did the morning rounds while I put on a load of washing and hung out the washing I did the night before. This morning I have been multitasking so first off I picked the bits for the torts and rabbit/guineas, then I came in and got some bread on the go, after the first kneading I set it to prove for an hour and put the timer on, went out and did some picking, broad beans (cut back the plants at the same time) and French beans, came in weighed them out bagged them up and put them out for sale, ready for the second prove, did that and then went out to pick raspberries and peas and water the small tunnel and greenhouse, back in to put the bread in the oven, meanwhile back out to water the big poly tunnel, back in to get the bread out 😀 I did sit and have a coffee in the shade and watch the clouds, I suddenly remembered how we used to lie on the school field in summer and cloud watch, well we didn’t have phones to constantly stare at back then 🤪

While picking peas in the brassica cage I saw a cabbage white butterfly in there 😲 I have no idea how it got in as the cage is usually secure and butterfly free but after dancing around for a bit I finally caught it and unceremoniously dumped it outside!

Sitting here writing this I am vaguely aware I smell of fox, that’s because I have been picking right near the area where it took my hen from, they do leave a stink wherever they go 🙄

Update on the kittens, they are fast now, very fast and you can’t get in or out of a door before them 😂 Last night they spent their first night out in the back area, that’s because they wouldn’t come in when John had finished putting the birds to bed and brought the dogs in, so we decided they could stay out there. They have been venturing out there during the day for about a week now so they know the area, sometimes they even take a quick tour outside, I have seen them hiding under a log pile, they will get braver and braver soon. Diesel isn’t aware of them yet, mostly because he hardly comes back to the yard at the moment, we do see him down on the boundary wall so we know he is ok and he must be catching lots of rabbits or getting fed elsewhere as he hardly comes back for feeding.

The clouds are intermittent today I’m just waiting for a bit more cover before I go back out and do some more bits 😀

From time to time odd things happen here and I just had one of them this very minute! The dogs barked, they often do and it’s usually the girls or an egg customer so I didn’t look straight away. When I did look an bloke was carrying something and left it by the egg shed and drove off, I went to look and it’s a saddle?? He didn’t ring the bell or anything so I messaged my neighbour to see if she was expecting it, nope, so he has just dumped it!

Inspired by Mums planting I decided to turn another crappy area to happy, I dug in a couple of things and for the moment have stood a couple of things in place just to see if I like them there or not.

Saturday: Up fairly early and John did the animals while I sorted out the rabbit/guineas and torts, then we had a discussion about what to do, we decided on a tidy up day. That only lasted a short while as I decided to turn another crappy area into a happy one 😂 my plan was just to level the ground, cut stuff back and move the table and chairs that we use for our morning/evening coffee, however the ground levels were difficult and so we thought we might as well put a small bit of decking down so that it is all level. That means the job turned into something a little bigger than planned and John went off to get the decking.

The kittens have found their way round to the side of the house, I think mostly because that’s where we are working so they feel safe to do so, they are clambering up and over everything but having great fun doing it.

Sunday: A bit of a rest day today as far as work is concerned, John went to visit his Mum then we went shopping then over to my brothers where John did a teensy bit of plumbing, back home where Charlie, Macca, Shelley, Martin, Josh and Flo had called for a visit. Then an afternoon of F1 and Tennis, the latter is still going on lol.

Over and out for this week 😀