Tag: shilton

Posted in Friesland Farm

Goose eggs,

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 22nd January: Well once again after thoroughly disgusting weather yesterday, today is not a bad day, warmer, dry for the time being, bit wet under foot but hey it’s winter can’t expect much else. The impending floods that threatened to come in the back, didn’t, so John did a good job there (just stopped typing in my tracks as I could hear a chewing noise, this is in the wall right in the middle of the house, we are used to things living in the outside walls but really, this takes the bloody biscuit ffs)

I did the feeding and collected the eggs, we got the first goose egg of the season today 😀 the ducks have laid 10 eggs so they are either happy to be in or they were laying outside and the birds were eating them as we were only getting 5/6. Then lit the Rayburn, then outside to the greenhouse to make a hot bed, I’m hoping it will work and raise the temp of the greenhouse a little, if it doesn’t work I will have dry manure to add to my compost so either way is a winner. I moved the citrus trees to the smaller poly tunnel, I have nurtured and cosseted them each winter and at the moment if all goes well I should have lemons this year coming 🍋

Caught the remaining five hens from the pol pen and gave the pen an initial clean out and dug over the earth in the middle, John likes to power wash it clean so that is now ready for him to do when he gets time. Somebody is selling a Gauloise trio so I messaged them and hopefully we can go collect them at the weekend as it’s not too far away, they will be bred for the table.

Tuesday: Temps set to be up to 12 today (oo summer I joked) you can feel the difference though I started sweating with my big coat on. No goose egg today so that means only one is laying as they lay every other day but I’m sure the others won’t be far behind. 6 eggs from the ducks today so yesterday was either a fluke or John didn’t pick up the day before? My seed order arrived yesterday, hopefully I will get some time to look through them and possibly start off the earlier ones such as aubergine.

Spent a pleasant couple of hours doing various things in and around the greenhouse. Got a barrowful of compost in to dry out and sowed the aubergine in a half size tray, that will fit on the kitchen windowsill nicely and as it is constantly the warmest place they should germinate. Sorted out the pots of tête-à-tête mini daffs that I divided last year and put them out for sale at 50p a pot. Sorted the plants that have been overwintering next to the greenhouse, some are in standing water, most are covered in dead leaves so cleared all that and then fenced them off as the escaped bunny has taken to having a munch on everything 🐇 Although it’s fairly mild outside it is so wet that just walking is causing damage let alone wheeling a heavy barrow over it so I will just do little bits here and there till it dries up, whenever that will be lol

Image is from google just for reference as they are not in flower yet but they always brighten up the winter no end when they start.

Wednesday: This Winters weather certainly hasn’t been dull, everyday is a different day and once more overnight I wondered if we were going to end up in Oz, the winds are coming from a different direction to the last lot so at least they are warmer from the south west.

Made an orange and raisin cake as I was a bit peckish and a loaf of bread, had Mia in the afternoon.

Thursday: A pleasant day weather wise, sunshine, mild, a good day to get something done😀 After doing the usual morning stuff it was on to dismantling the rest of the fruit cage, John is at home today so I have some muscle power to fall back on 😀 We finished that job then I sent John on a trail of little jobs that needed sorting while I dug up a row of Autumn raspberries, I have far too many to be able to pick in a morning when they are ripe so I decided to lessen the burden and dig a row up, in fact that’s two rows I have taken out as I took one out at the end of last season. We intend to make the fruit cage 8ft bigger than it was before so it will be a whopping great area to grow soft fruit in. Then I cleaned the outside of the small polytunnel, I was thinking it’s probably better to do it in the rain but a quick wash will do for now.

John finished his instructed jobs 😜 and started dismantling the chicken hut in the pol pen, he power washed it all down yesterday but we decided that the hut in there is too big and clumsy and they really don’t need it as generally speaking it is a transient pen.

Sowed some broad beans in pots, they will stay in the greenhouse until they sprout, by the time they are big enough it should be warmer outside and I can transplant them.

Came in for a cuppa and a sit down then on to give the boot room a bit of a clean and wash the dogs, I didn’t move fast enough after bathing dog 1, result, I got covered in wet dog shake uurgh 😜

Friday: Uber busy day, did the usual to start with then finally on to sorting out the rabbit run, that took us most of the day to get the bunnies shut in, get all the existing mesh on the floor out, dig off the soil that had built up, level it and finally put some boarding back down so there is nowhere for them to dig 😜 hopefully! John altered the lid of their house as it was just one big piece of ply and heavy, so he cut it in half and hinged it, put a door that you can close and shut on the house as before it just had two tunnel entrances one each side, now one is closed off and the other shuts so that I can round them up, shut them in and clean without them under my feet or trying to get out of the main doorway. He has also blocked up any holes that babies will be able to get into and get stuck, I just need to wire up the sides so the babies can’t escape and we are done. The job took longer than expected but worth doing it all in one go.

Later on in the day while John did the egg collecting and feeding I started clearing the spare room so that Charlie and Macca can move back in next week, books are the main problem, I have far too many and not enough bookshelving lol so I am getting John to put some more shelves up tomorrow in the office. As I was looking through the books I realised how many I would actually like to have time to read, books from memoirs of local folk, books on herbs, books on most smallholding subjects, gardening, maintaining fields, wildflowers, native trees as well as a few novels I haven’t had time to look at yet, and children’s books, some that my girls had when they were younger and some that I have got for the grandchildren, books everywhere 📚

Saturday: Another Uber Uber busy day today, first get animals done, then get John to put up new shelves in the office so I can move stuff out of the spare room and have a place to put it all. Then dismantle the big sofa in the living room, we have had the sofas nearly 20 years and they are past their best, well one is, it is making way for Charlie and Maccas sofa and chair so they don’t have to store it. While I am busy moving everything around and cleaning and trying to find homes for way too much stuff, John went with Luke to collect the other sofa and chair, meanwhile Richard and Debbie turned up to put a new battery on the car so that is now usable again 😀 In-between that I am fielding phone calls about MIL and messages about raspberry canes I offered for free on various sites, despite numerous messages of ‘I will be there’ as yet not one person has turned up! Doesn’t sound a lot of work when I type it but as well as the domestic chores like washing and cleaning I have run around like a headless chicken today 😜

John cleaned out the hens in the front in the afternoon, removed the cardboard traps for the red mite and put some new ones in, I’m hoping this method will keep on top of them this year. No idea where our egg customers have disappeared to this week as we have not had many, I have a theory that they go away before any school holidays as they are mostly the older generation, I’m sticking to that one 😀

Finally sat down at 3.30, after getting the dinner underway, to write this, still got the dogs to wash as they are bloody filthy and wait for anyone who bothers to show up for these raspberry canes 🤪😁

The geese have laid two more eggs, it’s early, I’m hoping it’s an indicator for an early spring 🙏

The weather was crap today, drizzle all day long, not much change for tomorrow by the looks of things, in fact the weather for the week ahead looks pretty grey and dull.

Sunday: Not bad weather wise but still muddy underfoot, did the morning routine then another busy day ahead but first nip and get a bit of shopping in as we are out of everything. When we got back, John cleared away all the debris we have made over the last few days doing the rabbit run and the fruit cage while I got the fire lit. Then I went outside and got a bit done in the garden, well mostly the poly tunnel, I have been inspired by someone on a smallholding group and thought it was about time I got my arse into gear. I moved a large pot of strawberries into the tunnel and then planted up some hanging baskets with strawberry plants from last year, apparently if you put them in the tunnel after the first frosts of the year they will do well and produce early so here’s hoping. I also moved my fig tree into the tunnel, it has limped along outside so nothing ventured nothing gained, I cleared a few more raspberry bushes and potted up some Japanese wine berry canes to sell on at a later date. I have put one of the raspberry canes in a pot that I intend to put out by the eggs shed for people to try before they buy 😀 I got some mange-tout seeds sown and put them inside the propagator although it’s not turned on it’s just to stop the mice eating them before they have even sprouted.

The broad beans that over wintered are growing well in the greenhouse, not sure weather to move them or leave them be for now.

My head is buzzing with ideas for the new growing season and I’m eager to get started with what I can, I have ordered some new blueberry bushes to lengthen the harvesting season and some white sage to grow for smudging which is something I would like to have a go at doing. I would also like to have a weekend during the height of the season to open the garden for customers to come and have a look around and see the veg they buy in situ just an idea and I would want the garden to be in tip top form for that lol so we will play that one by ear!

I ate a pomelo this week for the very first time ever 😀 it is a cross between a grapefruit and orange, I have saved the seeds and will have a go at growing them to see what happens.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Seed order, missing dog and red mite remedies.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th Jan: It’s cold but dry this morning, did the morning rounds, one of the hens from the front paddock seems to have a bad leg so I got her in and put her in a stable with some water and food. She wasn’t walking very far so wouldn’t be able to get to the feed and water buckets, not sure what is wrong but if I give her rest and food hopefully it will sort itself out.

Had to have two goes at lighting the Rayburn this morning as the first attempt failed, most unusual but second time around it went well.

I contemplated doing a bit outside this morning but it really it too chilly to wander round looking for jobs, it’s ok if you have something you can get stuck into and warm up a bit, I decided the seed catalogue might be a better and warmer option, I do need to order sooner rather than later or the favourites will be sold out.

I noticed over the weekend that the geese are getting into the water bucket, a sure sign that mating season is starting for them, although I couldn’t top it up this morning as the hose was frozen, I will do it later on when it’s hopefully thawed a bit.

A package arrived his morning with some goodies in as a thank you from our Christmas guests, that was a lovely surprise.

I forgot to put the grey bin out even though I had marked it on the calendar, the bin men stopped at the end of the drive and then came looking for the bin, what a fab crew 😀 very grateful for that and messaged the local authorities to let them know how thank full we were, I’m sure they are always getting grief for things that go wrong so a bit of positivity will even it up a little.

It seems to have warmed up a little this evening so I took the opportunity to fill up and clean the water buckets, the hen I put in the stable is no longer there but I found a dead one in the back hut, not sure if it’s her or if she has just wandered off, I will keep an eye out for a limping hen tomorrow!

Trying to organise a delivery of straw bales as we will run out soon and our normal farmer does not have any left 😜 For some reason I didn’t keep the telephone number of the chap we used before, I looked all through my messages/contacts but can’t find any reference so having to track him down by other means, must be more organised 😝

Tuesday: Definitely milder today, I couldn’t see any sign of limping hen this morning so I’m guessing it was her that died. I put fresh bedding in for the ducks while I was on my rounds, made a quick coffee and took it outside with me to do a few bits in the garden. I read an article yesterday that said don’t do any gardening while to mud sticks to your boots lol so I will heed that and just Potter when necessary. I still have carrots growing and wanted some for tea so pulled those and weeded the bed a little, they work well in a raised bed, it doesn’t get waterlogged so they haven’t rotted and it’s high enough for the carrot fly not to be able to reach them and lay eggs, I also dug up some celeriac although something has been eating the tops off of them, my escaped rabbit I expect, she is still loose. I gave the carrot tops to the rabbits and went back in to make apple and celeriac soup and a chicken casserole. To be honest the soup was a little bit too sweet for my liking and I would probably leave out the apples next time but as it was packed with goodness I still ate it for lunch along with some Parmesan croutons I made from the last bit of the loaf I made the other day, they were delish 😀 I made a new loaf and got some apple and blackberries out of the freezer for a crumble for John later. I have a lot of fruit to use up, I’m am going to have mine with a blob of creme fresh I think. I had Mia and while she was asleep I looked through the rest of the seed catalogue and put markers on the ones I want to purchase so just need to sit down and put the order through now.

Did the afternoon feed and collected the eggs, the numbers have now gone up as we relented and put a light in with the front lot, it made a difference within a couple of days so we will carry on doing it, the light is rechargeable and dies sometime during the night so they are not on 24hr egg laying duties 😝 I need to put oyster shell and grit on the feed shopping as a fair few of the eggs from the ladies at the back are breaking readily when they are washed, the oyster shell helps to harden up the egg shells and they are obviously not getting enough even though they free range.

Wednesday: Today felt like Groundhog Day, I asked Alexa if it was, she said ‘no’ which made me laugh and be grateful that I woke up even if it was to the same old routine or so I thought. I did the morning feeding and then went into the greenhouse to contemplate what needs doing, I went through the seeds to bring indoors so that I don’t over order something I already have, I also bought in the clear covers for the seed trays to give them a good wash along with two propagators, and a big load of seed markers, though where the rest are is a mystery, I had hundreds of them. I went to the postbox and on the way back wondered why there was only one dog waiting at the gate, I called the other one, nothing, 45 mins later after me searching everywhere including up and down the lane she finally turned up, it is not something she has ever done before and she is definitely in the dog house 😡 I ordered some shelving to make the most of the space in the greenhouse, there is plenty of higher up space that doesn’t get used to it’s full potential so I am rectifying that.

The sun was lovely this afternoon, I was almost fooled into thinking that spring was in the air, it would be nice to have a few more afternoons like that.

Thursday: I am off out for lunch with Shelley and Josh today so got the morning feeding done, lit the fire, got tonight’s dinner sorted and cleaned the two propagators for the greenhouse before I went.

After doing the afternoon egg collection and shutting the birds away John phoned to say he would be late so I took the opportunity to sit quietly and order my seeds, a bulk tonne bag of multipurpose compost and some miscellaneous bits for the greenhouse including capillary matting. I can’t wait to get started on the growing season, though I can’t believe the prices of some things these days, I thought the garden centre would be cheaper but nope it turns out ordering online is.

When I use the multipurpose compost for seedlings I will add vermiculite, sand or well composted bark, you could use leaf mould if you have it too, it doesn’t need any extra nutrients for seeds just good drainage. When I use it for potting on I will add either some well rotted manure that has dried out or something like blood fish and bone for slow release nutrients. I do have large quantities of compost I made last year and then grew the potatoes in but I will be needing that to fill up some new raised beds I have planned.

Friday: I had a busy day planned so got the rounds done as quickly as possible then onto sorting out the greenhouse, I wanted to move it around, clean it inside and out and tidy up any rubbish, all was going well, I had planned to come in at around 10.30 to light the Rayburn as it’s not too cold today and Mum was coming for a coffee. Then at about 10.20 life went a little haywire for a moment or two! Apart from the fact that my cordless screwdriver decided not to work, an egg customer came and left empty handed, I had forgotten to put the eggs out 😝 cue a mad dash to get them out there, a fox shot across the back, the dogs were in because Mia slunk off again, and at this point I’m guessing she has been doing her job and chasing off foxes, the skip lorry arrived and as I looked for fox footage on the cctv I found it hadn’t been working! A little bit later and a riderless horse went galloping down the road but thank goodness it wasn’t one of ours. Everything settled back down for the rest of the day, the greenhouse is now looking tidy, clean and I have maximised the useable space for growing, with the hazels down there is much more light getting in so I should have a good seed germination, that’s the hope anyway. John is looking at a job tonight so it’s down to me to do the feeding and then the shutting away when it gets dark.

There are so many jobs that need doing I need octopus arms lol, the veg garden needs a good tidy up but then I’m inclined to think I will wait in case we get any more windy weather which just blows everything all over the place again, the poly tunnels need the algae cleaning off to let maximum light in, of course the fruit cage is still in a heap and that needs looking at before stuff starts to grow, there is still a lot of stuff to cut back, weed membrane to put down to suppress weeds and warm the soil, rigging up fencing to keep the ducks and the escaped rabbit off the garden, clean the rabbit runs out, clean the ducks out, fresh bedding for the geese, look at the cctv, tidy the hay barn, do some paperwork, cleaning, cooking, washing, light the fire and keep it going, I’m exhausted just thinking about it all 😂 where is my list?

As John wasn’t back yet I thought it would be a good opportunity to sort out some paperwork and get the desk cleared, made some bread as well.

Before and after photos of the tidy up and reshuffle. The things under the green covers are my orange and lemon trees, I have two lovely lemons growing which should be ready to harvest later this year.

Saturday: Normally John is here at the weekends but today he is working to finish a job, first though he went to collect feed. I did the morning feeding and put some fresh bedding in for the ducks on the way round, then as John arrived back the postman also arrived with some of the bits I had ordered for the greenhouse, happy me 😀 It was the greenhouse shelving and some yellow fly strips so I got on with putting together the shelving and hanging up sticky paper to catch anything lurking in there. The shelving is going to give me some much needed extra space for seedlings, an extra layer up high, they come as a four shelf unit but I have used it in half and it can easily be put back together as I need space for growing on outside so a win win buy I think. I also potted up the Autumn Gold raspberry canes I bought at the end of last year, I am intending to pot most of the raspberries I grow to stop the runners taking over the whole patch. The fruit cage is the next job on Johns list so he tells me whoo hoo I need to get that up and running again before things start to grow, this time the posts will be concreted in, the last ones were just rammed into the earth but they have rotted away although they did last about 5 years so that’s not too bad. The new one though should be altogether more stable and not move and rock in the windy weather which is a bonus as the door will also stay firm, the old door moved a lot and sometimes I couldn’t even shut it properly. I put some net up for the peas in the small poly tunnel to climb up, I have grown them in there because if I did it outside they would have been eaten by now, I will hopefully get a good crop of early peas 😀 Daffodil bulbs have pushed through as have the garlic and onions, I feel positive for the year ahead, for now at least 😝

I sat down with a cuppa and through various trails of reading I ended up reading a report of trials to control red mite in the poultry industry (a little light reading 🤣🤣) it was very interesting though and here is the link http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/4506/1/S0043933909000403a.pdf for any other poultry keepers in case you want to have a look. Apart from chemical controls there are other methods used such as high heat 45c, fungus (entomopathogenic fungi) which if I could find any for sale would be very useful, good old diatomaceous earth (silica, which basically cuts the exoskeleton on the mites) and also simple things like cardboard traps which I am definitely going to try out when we next clean the boxes.

Try and learn something new as often as you can is something I have always done, not necessarily have a go at it just reading and digesting the information is good enough to keep the grey cells from slipping into a coma.

Sunday: A busy morning doing the usual stuff, then putting a windbreak up around the veg garden mostly to stop the ducks coming in now that we are gearing up to grow stuff and it will also help to create a micro climate for the veg so a double bonus although I needed to order more as there is not quite enough. It doesn’t look pretty but needs must, no point putting stuff out for the ducks to walk all over it or worse, eat it! I cleaned out the three rabbit pens, and the bantams house, we spent a mad 15 minutes trying, in vain, to catch the rabbit that is still loose, she is now eating any available crops in the garden including the celeriac and carrot tops. A delivery of 50 straw bales turned up so those had to be stacked, the cat presented its arse with a worm hanging out so that had to be sorted luckily I had stocked up on wormer so they have both been done 😝 John cleaned out the hens at the front and cut up cardboard to try this new technique of trapping red mite, it’s not full season yet but might as well start as we mean to go on. Bird flu is in the country albeit a different strain from last year so we need to be mindful of that and keep up to date with any bulletins, they do send a text by landline but Facebook is much quicker at letting us know.

And then out for lunch 😀

Well that turned into a long lunch and we were late back, the fire had gone out and the chickens were waiting for their tea, the eggs had sold out so it was action stations for a mad half hour and then relax 😀

That’s it, the end of another week, have a good one, make each day count, learn something you never knew TTFN 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018 and the bits in-between 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I thought I may as well make a few notes over the festive period, so Christmas went really well, our visitors enjoyed themselves immensely, objective achieved 😀. Most of what went wrong was technology, Alexa crashed on Christmas Day due to the overload of her system with all the new ones I’m guessing, and the day after Boxing Day we lost our landline and internet connection so couldn’t catch up with programmes we had hoped to watch. As you know I am a great advocate of modern technological developments but when they go wrong it’s a big fat fail. To begin with trying to get hold of a human being to report a phone line down is hard work, it keeps directing you to the website, all very well but we don’t have any internet either, the fact that we don’t get much mobile signal compounded the issue further, still I eventually made contact with the outside world, probably India 😜 and reported that we and our neighbours had a problem, an engineer (grumpy by all accounts) is fixing it as I type, thank you 😊

John held the fort outside doing ALL the feeding, egg collecting and putting to bed, while I held the fort inside doing all the cooking and hosting. One of our house guests insisted on doing all the washing up every time there was any to do and I was very grateful for that. We have had 4 family birthdays over the Christmas week as well so have been extremely well fed and no doubt we are all looking forward to the new year clear out of bad habits etc to have a fresh start. I got the ball rolling by clearing out my baking cupboard, specifically the ‘cake making box’ full of out of date food colouring (2011) sprinkles of various descriptions, gelatine sachets and two full tubes of liquid glucose? A bottle of vegan rennet? About 20 half burnt cake candles 😝 I even found a dead spider though how it got in there in the first place is a total mystery. It’s all cleaned out now and at least I know if I need supplies for birthday cakes I shall have to go and buy some and as we are on a septic tank the pretty colours going down the sink might show up in the excess run off and give us a laugh 😂

The weather has been up and down, nothing new there, 11 degrees on Christmas Day, snowing and bloody freezing two days later, lashings of rain and some cold winds thrown in for good measure. Our guests left yesterday and this morning I ventured out to give John a hand for the first time in almost a week, the first thing I did was put my foot down on what I thought was a puddle, it was in fact ice, the foot slipped forward causing me to crash down on the opposite knee looking like I was waiting to take a well deserved knighthood, **#@£&!!? bloody good start that was, heat and pain shot up my leg to my hip and after a few minutes it eased off and thankfully after quickly taking some ibrufen no lasting damage has been done.

Marvellous job, the phone line/broadband has been restored, message on the answerphone from BT thanking me for reporting the fault and that they will be out to fix it and ring me to keep me updated!!! Some serious joining up of thought needs to be done in that company me thinks 😜

It seems like a continuous round of sorting leftovers, some to the dogs, some sliced for the freezer, some to use up as soon as possible and reluctantly some for the food waste bin, I only use that when we have had a ‘gathering’ as most things are processed as above in various ways but once things like pate/dips have been opened and left on the table for a few hours I prefer not to keep them especially when multiple knives with other stuff has been in and out of it!

The next preparation is for NYE, we are gathering with some of the village and eating, drinking, making merry, I shall be making a large beef stew, I hate cooking for other people, just in case it doesn’t come up to expectations, and have never been a natural hostess (or even sociable some may say) type but I am making an effort, it’s the least I can do once a year 😜

I will not be making any resolutions, I’ve NEVER kept one I have made in he past so gave that up as a bad job years ago, what I will do is probably make a list of objectives and see how many I can achieve, I’ll make them reasonable, no point failing before I begin. I have been looking at the seed catalogues, not rushing into buying them this year, I will look carefully at each variety, see what their strengths are and see how well they can be used in specific areas of the garden. After all there is no point having sugar sweet peas that take forever to grow to a reasonable size when we have such exposed conditions here, what I need is something of acceptable taste that can withstand a wind chill, that’s the kind of thing anyhow. On the garden subject the fruit cage or rather replacement of it will need to go on the list and a possible relocating of it if I feel there is a better place for it to go.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND WELCOME 2018

The second day of the New Year, I was busy cooking dinner for the family yesterday and watching films 😜

This morning it’s raining but we still had work to do so off we went outside, I did the rabbits etc while John did the others, then I decided to rake up the leaves from the drive next to the house it been bugging me for ages. I blocked off a particularly muddy bit, that the dogs keep running in, with some sheep hurdles and swept the area clean, very satisfying but I was actually soaked through to the skin by the time I finished.

John went off to the dentist to have a tooth out so that’s him done for the day today and he will probably spend the rest of it in bed, I set about looking for a new waterproof coat! I decided on a wax coat as they are obviously made for lots of outdoor use, I didn’t go for a brand name however, they are extortionate in price but for one about a third of the price. John has had one for years so I know they do the job, I also ordered some waterproof gloves that are intended for cycling but should be just as good for farm work though I may need to replace them regularly as the finger tips tend to wear away quite quickly.

I had Mia for a few hours so got the house warm and we watched The Gruffalo for the umpteenth time 😝 could be worse, could have been Peppa Pig 😩

John got up eventually and probably should have stayed in bed, it’s not easy having to look after someone who has had a major operation like an amputated leg, oh, wait it wasn’t, it was a tooth out, honestly, I had a caesarian section then looked after a new baby and two other children while he was at work, I can see a kick up the arse coming, obvs I will wait till he has healed a little bit 😜

Wednesday 3rd Jan: Storm Elenor is currently roaring away outside, she could be heard all the way through the night here but as yet no damage luckily. John is into his last week of three weeks off, to be honest we are getting to the end of each other’s tether 😝 coupled with the fact he had a tooth out yesterday and hasn’t had a smoke for nearly 24hrs he is getting on my nerves, I am getting on his nerves lol roll on Monday when we will be out of each other’s hair for a good 8 hours a day 😝 It makes me wonder how retired couples get on, badly, I’m guessing, at least to begin with.

My hands were a bit swollen from raking and brushing yesterday, that’s typical of the Lupus and very annoying, I get the bit between my teeth, do a job and then wham there is a price to pay.

Thursday: The winds dropped last night but are back with some force again today 💨 John is off to do some work later but stayed to do the animals this morning first, he did the usual stuff while I cleaned out the goose hut and the ducks. The goose hut has a separator in there for spring use when they start to lay eggs so that they are not all laying in one nest, that becomes a problem when one starts to sit as the other eggs can’t be collected, this way we stand a chance until they all decide to sit. The duck pen is basically a giant muddy puddle and hopefully that’s one good use for the wind it will help dry it up a bit in between rainfalls😝 I tided it up as best I could given the circumstances, it’s a waiting game for a dry or cold period to give us some respite now.

My new coat arrived this morning and I can’t wait to put it on and go out to play lol. The old one has seen much better days, been repaired goodness knows how many times and the zip is at best barely functional and at its worse downright stubborn. I’m not one for throwing things away too quickly mind you so I shall attempt another repair job and use it when the weather dries up a bit, but for now I am happy with my new waterproof, windproof coat, I hope it doesn’t get too dirty too quickly 😩.

I am waiting for a calm, dry day so that I can get in the greenhouse, empty it out and give it a clean ready for spring. I know a lot of people do it at the end of the season but I’ve done that before and had to do it again as the wet/damp weather just creates more green algae so no point wasting energy better to pick the right time.

It is at this time of year gardeners are chomping at the bit to get going and I’m no exception, I have already clocked the emergence of the snowdrops and noted dead stuff that needs cutting back or clearing when the time is right. The seed catalogue takes the main place on the coffee table pile though I haven’t finalised my decisions yet it won’t be long 😀 The broad beans and peas I planted in Autumn appear to have survived and are doing fairly well as are the garlic and onions, I haven’t ventured into the poly tunnels yet but as they are a dry space I really ought to get started on them, I can feel a list coming on 😜 John has a couple of jobs on his list that need doing, the post that holds the big gate open by the back door got ripped out of the ground by the last winds and I am having to hold it open when anything drives through so that’s a priority and the stable bolts all need adjusting again as the water table has gone up and pushed the posts up slightly, we are always adjusting them depending on the water table lol.

Got some homemade veg soup out of the freezer and made some bread, definitely a day to appreciate it, I think more scanning of the seed catalog is in order this afternoon apparently the winds will not die down until tonight and I can’t take a day of buffeting so indoor stuff until it’s necessary to go out again.

Well we must have had a very strong gust of wind, when I was doing the afternoon feed rounds I could hear something banging away and looked over towards the rabbit run, one of the roof panels had come off together with the wood that it was screwed to, phoned John to let him know he had a job waiting for him before dark 😝 We managed to patch it up enough that it should hold overnight and not let the rain in, the garden chairs had all gone flying as well but I have left them where they are until the wind dies down.

Spent most of the evening looking for chickens of certain varieties, they are proving elusive or a days journey away! I am after a utility breed, Large Light Sussex, Ixworths or what would be best of all Le Bresse, these would be to rear the cockerels as table birds, I may have to purchase hatching eggs which is not a problem just takes much longer to get what you want.

Friday: John has gone to work today so it’s down to me to do the morning routine for the first time since before Christmas. My nice new coat didn’t stay clean very long, I let the ducks out, one flapped it’s wings sending mud splattering all over me including my face 😜 After that job I cleaned out the quail hut completely and put in fresh bedding and floor covering plus a nice dust bath bowl for them to play in. They have laid all through winter not as many as in the summer months but that’s to be expected. The egg numbers in general are going back up thankfully just waiting for the geese to start laying and we will have a full range for sale again.

One thing about having someone else around is that I can never find my equipment, the time I have spent looking for something that hasn’t been put back where I left it is nobody’s business, drives me insane, this morning it’s the shovel, the light weight one I bought for myself because the heavy one is, well, too heavy!

I took photos of the silkies this morning, I have asked online for an opinion on which sex they are, I can normally sex chickens easily however these have a full head of fluff and not many obvious features that are different. I looked online for the answers but it’s a bit vague so needs must, or I can just wait to see how many eggs I get or if any start crowing.

Saturday: What a day, 2.30pm and I have only just come inside or indeed sat down since 8.30 this morning! After doing the morning feeding we decided to ‘cut back’ the two big bushes in the front, why stop there we thought, might as well do the hazels while we are here with all the equipment out 😝 we have cut back hard this year, previously we have just trimmed so they are not in the way so in for a penny in for a pound we set ourselves loose. As the hazels were quite tall it was an ideal opportunity to make some bean and pea poles with the debris, so with the billhook and loppers in hand I spent many hours making them. My back, legs and hands are aching but it’s an excellent job done and I will be thankful when I need some supports in the garden I’m sure. I don’t think I will be able to move again for a while now I have sat down lol.

Sunday: Got the usual stuff done then it was on to burning all the debris from cutting the bushes back and sorting out my bean poles into sizes. The wind was bitter, but we kept going, well I did until lunchtime when I came and put some sausage rolls in the Rayburn, once they were done I took them out to John with a cuppa and he suggested I go inside as I was pretty cold. I did a bit of cleaning and some washing and was grateful to be in the warm. The sun has been shinning nicely and with the tops out of the hazels lots more light is streaming into the house, unfortunately that shows the dust 😝 but dust is always there no matter how much I polish and I have better things to do than worry about it too much.

In-between all the other jobs John concreted in a new post to hold the gate open it is much better than the last one so I’m very pleased.

Hazels cut right back this year

Hazel poles for beans and peas

Poles sorted into sizes

John still outside burning the cuttings 😜

Posted in Friesland Farm

Steaming the pudding, more unwelcome visitors and cuddling a chicken

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I picked up some reduced cranberries in the supermarket, had to be a bargain at only 5p 😀 I will probably use them to make a cranberry and orange sauce to go with cold meats at Christmas as we are not having turkey this year. I may pick up some more if they have any next week they will always be useful for making something different.

Monday: Cold start again today so I made sure I had thick socks on, plenty of layers 1and thick gloves as well. To give the hens a bit of heat I mixed in some poultry spice with their feed this morning. I make my own as it’s cheaper than buying the pots that you can buy, they contain turmeric, fenugreek, garlic and one other ingredient that I can’t remember at the minute, but I just looked on the pot and ordered bulk individual items and mixed them in a tub, it makes loads. Hopefully it might boost egg production which has dropped off considerably due to the lack of daylight hours and the cold temps. I did a bit of cleaning out of nest boxes as I went, that helps to keep the eggs clean and makes my job easier when I am boxing them up later in the day. I checked the baby rabbits and fed all the small animals, we now have five in there so one of the escapees has come back! The small garden birds have discovered the feeding station that now has bird seed in and judging by the excited chirping this morning they are very grateful. I am going to make a couple more seed holders as I only have one and there are a lot of birds, easily around 20 I would say and these are the ones living in and around the nest boxes (and gaps in the cladding)on the front of the house.

Then on to feed the dogs and give Kai’s kennel a clean out and give him a nice clean duvet for his bed for the colder months.

Inside then to light the Rayburn and the temperature is not going to go much above 4 degrees today ❄️ and I want to try and stay warm to see if it helps my hand problems, I think it does as yesterday they were fine until I had to go outside then all evening they were playing up.

I fed the Christmas cake some brandy and it will now be wrapped up and stored for a couple of weeks when I will get it out again and lace it with more brandy 😀

Tuesday: The day of epic boiling of the Christmas pudding, 8 hours of bubbling water to cook it so an early start is needed, and I better put the timer on as I will probably forget over the course of the day how long it has been in. Again I followed a Mary Berry ‘figgy pudding’ recipe. I made bread, leek and potato soup and some rock buns while I was at it. Had Mia from lunchtime and Shelley and Josh came for a visit, I can nip out and feed the hens and collect eggs while Shelley is here so that’s what I did. John came home in time to put the birds to bed and found a bag of live chickens dumped at the gateway! Going through the the cctv we could clearly see who it was and they are known to us so John will be calling in there tomorrow for a few stern words 😤 Clearly they don’t want to look after them so there is no point taking them back to him and after all it’s not the chickens fault, but there is the risk of contamination to my flock so they will all have to be wormed and de loused/mited just in case. Very unfair on us and the chickens.

On the upside I have found a home for any of the baby rabbits that are female so I just need to sex them and see how many that is, just the boys to find homes for as there are definitely both sex’s among them.

Wednesday was lost somewhere 😝

Thursday: I have a fair few jobs I want to get sorted today, the main one being separating the boy and girl rabbits! I’ll tell you though you couldn’t write this stuff, I went out and fed them caught the three up that are in the run I made, the others have escaped 😜 then I looked at the one in the guinea run, 2 boys, 2 girls great, I go off to prepare a separate hutch for the boys and when I get back I check the bunnies again in the run and remove the boy, go to get the one from the guinea hut and it’s gone!!! I’m sure it will be back but it means I don’t get the job done and dusted just yet. One of the babies died, I don’t know why, it was looking quiet yesterday, can’t see any obvious signs of anything but they have been getting out and so anything could have happened to it at some point. Just having a quick coffee then I have 10 sweet chestnut trees to decide what to do with. Some will be potted up for sale, some will be planted in the hedgerow.

Among many other jobs on the list today, the rat poison arrived so I needed to put that down just as it got dark, the rubbish needs to go out though I have no idea what colour week we are on 😝 had another look for the baby rabbit but that one is right under the hutch and I can’t reach it, meanwhile another is out in the paddock chomping on grass but I can’t find the net to catch it with.

Friday: ❄️ brrr very cold this morning! Did the rounds quickly lol, topped up the wild bird feeder as they will be hungry in this weather as well, thought about working outside but gave it a miss and did indoor stuff instead. Had a visitor drop in for a chat and as we were talking at the gate another egg customer pulled up, good job because two minutes later a very dodgy couple in a old van who couldn’t speak any English pulled up. They were trying to buy 1 chicken??? Well that was what they were gesturing but as I have said before you know when someone doesn’t seem right, the chap wouldn’t take no for an answer and I was grateful that there were others there with me, one took the registration number and the other wrote down directions to go and find chickens for sale, I don’t think they were real directions lol. They left and my visitor stayed around for 10 more minutes just to make sure they didn’t come back. With all the activity in the area at the moment you got to keep your wits about you 😜 As a consequence I am now spending every five minutes looking out of the window just in case, puts you right on edge. The egg customer came back twice, once to give me the reg number she had jotted down although I had already committed it to memory and then again to tell me they were still hanging round the village an hour later so they clearly didn’t head off to look for chickens for sale, at this point I rang 101 to report the incident just in case they were up to no good.

Saturday: The weather started off ok and slowly deteriorated 😟 John was away early this morning on an errand so it was just me manning the place. Did the morning rounds and found that something had attacked my guinea pigs and killed one of them, poor Stuart Little, Herbie the other one I bought in and tended his wounds which were superficial and purple sprayed him and put him back out, hoping that whatever it was doesn’t come back and if it does he can fend it off as I don’t have anywhere else for him to go. I’ve half a mind to think it was the baby boy rabbit that was in with them but he didn’t have any blood on him and the neck had been eaten out so looks like stoat maybe, if it was a rat they are usually only interested in food and there was some in the bowl. The boy rabbit has now been put in with the other boy, so now girls and boys are separate thank goodness, so we won’t have any mishaps!

We often have some strange customers and visitors as this week has already shown 😜 and today’s request did not let that custom down, ‘can I cuddle a chicken’ luckily it was John who was out there and he can be very obliging lol and so the lady’s request was granted 😝

The rain continued to come down and once I had finished the housework and John had finished outside we called it a day and watched a film in the warm and dry 😀

And that’s it for this week as I am off with the girls tomorrow morning for some great food, great drink, spa treatments, relaxation and general time out leaving John in charge for the time I’m away.

I haven’t got any photos this week and I was looking back through them to see if I could find one or two of general interest, what I decided was that I will do a blog just of past photos sometime next week, it’s interesting to look back at what we have done form year to year, keep your eyes peeled for that 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Naughty bunnies, rainy days and Winter celebrations. 

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: 3.30pm just sat down with a cuppa after a bit of a day, I’m back on a daily dose of painkillers at the minute, hands hurt, muscles hurt, pain in the arse, not literally but it’s difficult to get stuff done when bits of you won’t work properly! Anyhow, this mornings shocker was, wait for it, two more baby rabbits just born, although they were both dead, this means that the rabbits were getting out for longer than I had suspected. Did the feeding rounds then went and gave both the rabbits and Guineas a good clean out and I really needed to round up these babies that are getting behind the boarding and out into the field. Samantha and Mia came over mid morning and we set about trying to catch them by means of lying in wait for them one at a time, We caught two and caged them, by his time Mia was getting a bit bored so we decided to wait until after lunch when she had her nap, to finish the job. In the end we managed to round up 5 of them, one has a chunk missing from its ear and one has managed to get a wound on its back probably from scrabbling in and out of the small gap, two are still on the loose. We think one of them is now too big to get back through the gap and as it could be seen on the other side of the fence nibbling grass, if we don’t manage to catch it, it will have to fend for itself. This morning I had to turn the horse out without a rug on because I couldn’t do the fastenings, see these pains are really inconvenient, but as the sun was looking like it was coming out Jack didn’t mind too much, Sam mucked out the stable then did his field and put his rug back on and all is well again. I planted the pea and bean seeds I had growing on the windowsill and fingers crossed nothing will eat them 😜

Caught another one when I was putting the birds to bed, just one more to go.


Tuesday: Rainy day 😕 on and off rain so bad luck if you get caught like I did doing the afternoon feeding. I had a 10 minute window to feed and collect the eggs as Mia was asleep and John came home before he had to go to the dentist. I quickly discovered that my waterproof needs reproofing, I was only out 10 minutes and was soaked through literally to the skin in places, urghh need to sort out wet weather gear as well as the cold gear. I remember why I hate the winter now, I could be heard muttering about having only a few chickens for self sufficiency purposes rather than a large flock. The rain is coming over the top of the guttering inside the stable block, I did tell John he needed to clear them a couple of weeks ago when I did the ones I could reach, need to start those lists again I think 😝 At least I had already lit the fire so it was nice and warm when I came back in. 
Wednesday: Cold this morning but at least it’s not raining. Did the morning stuff, put the eggs out for sale and had a conversation with a regular customer who is retiring to the coast next week so will no longer be coming. I wished him all the best and hope he finds a nice little farm to buy his eggs from where he is going. I have been remiss about making bread for the last couple of weeks, I just didn’t have the time or the inclination but I’m back on track with that again, I may even make a cake today 😀

Definitely got my cooking head on as I decided to prepare a lamb stew for tomorrow which will cook in the Rayburn this evening, an apple and blueberry sponge pudding, a batch of dumplings, some for the stew and some to freeze for another day and some fully loaded potatoes that cook in the slow cooker to go with the pork chops later. Stews are great because you just make it up as you go along with whatever you have, this one is stewing lamb, potatoes, butternut squash, onions, rosemary, thyme, garlic, salt, pepper, red wine, some pontack sauce, vegetable stock and cornflour. 


I would have done more cooking but I had Mia from lunchtime so Bing and babies were on the agenda instead.

Thursday: I plan to pack a fair bit into today so I was up early and got the bathroom and living room cleaned before daybreak came 😜 Then out to do the morning feeding etc, the grass in the back paddock particularly, is like a skating rink so we have decided to move the hens from there and put them into the POL pen for the winter as nothing else will be going in there. They will be let out to free range every day but not until mid morning that way we will hopefully get the eggs laid all in one place instead of all over the farm. But my first job on the list is to make a secure pen within the rabbit run for the babies, bit of a mission as they can seemingly squeeze through the tiniest of gaps, an hour later, a roll of chicken wire, staple gun, wire cutters, scratched hands, dirty knees and the sides of a run and objective achieved 😀 I can now let them out into a bigger area and assess their health etc. After that it was on to prepare the POL run for the hens, my plan is to get it all cleaned, put in a dust bath made up of diatomaceous earth, wood ash, louse powder and shavings, extra nesting boxes which will be plastic buckets and tubs, and lure them in at the afternoon feed with corn. I very nearly managed to get all but about 10 hens in so that’s not bad, the rest we will gather up when we have time or hopefully they may follow suit later tomorrow. 

Meanwhile I have been making a list of jobs for John to do at the weekend and a shopping list of things we need for the Farm, lightbulbs for the hay barn, rat poison, I’m determined to not have the same problem we had last year and the cats seem completely useless, feed, including wild bird feed because the little birds that have grown in number are raiding the rabbit food to the extent that there are bird droppings galore in there, might as well get something to feed them as it’s costing me which ever way I do it 😜

Josh and Shelley came over in the afternoon and helped me to feed the rabbits some fresh veggies and feed the horse, I didn’t get round to cleaning the rest of the house but there is always tomorrow😀

The stew, complete with dumplings was superb, only I forgot to get a photo before we ate it 😝

Friday: Up early again as I forgot to put the dustbin out last night so need to get it out before 6am, not that they come before 8 but on the day I don’t do it you can bet your life they will be early! John was also up early so he went out and cleaned out the front hens, fed the and let them out, saves me a job 😀 
The weather yesterday, by the way was cracking for early November, this mornings sky is dark and ominous, however it is windy so I’m hoping the dark clouds will blow around us and not towards us.

One of the jobs in the mornings that I do now is laying the fire in the Rayburn ready for lighting as soon as I think it’s getting cold, at the moment that’s usually around 1pm as the heat from the night before slowly ebbs away, we have been burning pure logs for a while as I have been saving the wood ash for the chicken dust baths and for the garden. It needs to be good wood and not wood with nails for obvious reasons and it needs to be untreated, then it’s perfect for all sorts of uses around the farm. 

I went out to do the rest of the feeding and discovered there are only 3 baby rabbits in the run, ffs! They have chewed through one of the ties, pulled the metal fencing forward and escaped, I think that’s my lot with them they can take their chances in the wild 😩

Gave the windows a clean, I say that rather loosely, not my forte, window cleaning 😜 I hate it but at this time of year with the low sun you can see all the dirt and eventually it starts to really annoy me so out comes the bucket, cloth and the window rubber thing, my windows are small and few but I do need the hop up to reach the top, and now I have cleaner windows with a few smears, that will do for me 😝😝 I have better things to do than spend an age getting them smear free 😏

I started thinking about the Mid Winter feast and the various components, the meat is in the freezer as are the veg, I have all the ingredients for making the pudding, I just need to pick a good time that incorporates, the soaking of the fruit, the children coming to stir it and the hours of steaming it will need, I went onto testing the sloe gin I made last year, yep 10am I’m on the booze, well a little sip at least, I think I need to add a bit of sugar syrup and I might add a cinnamon stick to give it a deep, warming quality, not that it doesn’t have that already 😀 but I fancied giving it a go. The mincemeat has been developing nicely for a few weeks now and in our house we traditionally start making, and eating mince pies from Dec 1st, I don’t usually make a Christmas cake as we are always still eating it for weeks after we have got fed up of it but we will have visitors this year so I shall make one very soon. Obviously we have the nuts I gathered and plenty of fruit in the freezer to make many a splendid dish with 😀 We shall eat like kings🤴 and queens 👸 

Once I began thinking about it I couldn’t resist getting the Christmas cake underway, so I dug out all the dry ingredients I needed and set them to soak in brandy, as usual I went off piste and used what I had so instead of currants I used dried figs and some sorry looking satsumas in the fruit bowl went in as well, I whizzed both lots up separately in the food processor, and in they went, along with sultanas and raisins, I don’t have glacé cherries at the minute but the soaking is a three day process so plenty of time to get some and put them in. I am loosely following a Mary Berry recipe just to get the weights and I didn’t have any oranges hence the satsumas, I also don’t like waste so the whole lot went in not just the juice, the membrane can be taken out once the flesh has fallen off and incorporated, just pick it out. 

Saturday: Today I thought it was high time to tackle the office come dumping ground! That was a big job that took most of the day, everything pulled out sorted out, piles for the charity shop, piles for the rubbish bin, piles for giving or selling on. It is a multifunction room really and most things are stored in there, grandchildren paraphernalia, Christmas stuff, photo albums, hoover, spare chair, fold out bed, a small chest of drawers filled with stuff we haven’t worn for a few years, cctv monitor, music system as well as the desk, filing cabinet, folders of paperwork, printer etc you get the idea, it’s pretty rammed. As a consequence when I am cleaning I kind of look in there hoover the floor and shut the door so it was well over due for a de webbing and dusting too. I felt it was a great and worthy achievement when it was finished, how long it will stay like that is anyone’s guess 😝 Meanwhile, John took care of all the outside work and feeding, cleaning gutters out, tidying the muck heap, burning rubbish, all the jobs on my list and a few more besides 😀

The rain has put us squarely back into winter mode and the dogs were filthy by the end of the day so they had their first bath in a while, they were not happy but what’s not to like they have a bath to stand in AND hot water to boot, can’t please some. 

Sunday: The weather is windy today so that should dry things up a little, I went out and checked the baby rabbits but apart from that John did the rest, including cleaning out the ducks. I came in and got started on mixing up the Christmas cake ready to go in the oven. 

https://pin.it/r-sJ9dP
I’m on a roll with the Christmas eating ideas now and I think I will try a pork pie with hot crust pastry, never done it before so excited about giving it a go. 

Apart from the usual domestic chores and going down to do the horse that was pretty much it for the day and we are having dinner at Charlie and Maccas tonight so I don’t even have to cook 😀

The photos are the stages of the cake, it smells divine, now just got to decide how to decorate it in a few weeks time. 

Posted in Friesland Farm

Dead duck, disappearing baby rabbits and parsnip cake. 

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: Woke up with a touch of vertigo today so just about got round and did the feeding then mostly tried to sit still all day until the next lot of feeding in the afternoon! Thankfully it had passed by early evening and fingers crossed it won’t come back for a while. Bit of a waste of a day but sometimes the body is just trying to tell you to stop. 

Tuesday: Better today, not dizzy but have a head cold blurhh, sweating as I did the morning rounds. Got a few things done before Mia arrives, some potatoes that needed digging up and put up some protective fencing around the fruit trees in the front paddock, the geese keep trying to strip the bark which will kill them off if I don’t stop it now. 

Wednesday: Lovely sunny morning ☀️ got the feeding done then onto picking the rest of the veg I started getting in yesterday. There are potatoes, parsnip, celeriac, snack peppers, hot peppers. The pepper plants in the poly tunnel are huge but did not produce much, however they are still healthy plants and as peppers are perennial plants I will see what I can do to overwinter them, it would be great to get such a head start on them next year, I also think I need to keep the plants smaller so that they produce fruit quicker, can’t hurt to try. After that I went to clean out the geese and then put fresh bedding in for the ducks, which by the way we are lucky to still have this morning after John did not shut them in, either their house nor their pen, the gate was wide open this morning and they were taking themselves off down to the paddock! Still have a touch of vertigo but not too bad, I think it’s caused by this head cold which is also something and nothing at the moment, hope it doesn’t get worse 😝 

Ordered some ‘meteor’ pea seeds as the last ones I planted got eaten by something, I will be growing them the way we used to in school, well starting them off that way at least, on a wet piece of tissue on the windowsill along with the broad beans. I’m guessing it’s mice pinching the seeds before they even get started, I can’t blame them really but they are interrupting my growing attempts, so starting them off then planting them will hopefully give me a better shot at it. 


I am making roasted celeriac soup today, have not made it before so I am hoping it tastes good, I made fresh bread yesterday so that will be dinner tonight, we try and have a meal in the week that rests the gut a little, besides soup is such an easy and delicious thing to have. There are recipes for apple and celeriac soup but I opted for just the celeriac, with a touch of garlic.

As I was looking for recipes I found one for parsnip Madeira cake, yeah, I will let you know what it tastes like once it’s cooked lol. Next to chocolate cake, Madeira is one of Johns favourite cakes so we will see how it goes down. 

Verdict is still out, it’s edible and not at all unpleasant, John asked me not to tell him what was in it so I haven’t and he has been eating it just fine lol, I quite like it though I wouldn’t put it on my favs list. 

Thursday: Drizzle today, as the mornings are quite dark, before even going out to do the feeding I cleaned the bathroom, after feeding I got on with some washing and cleaning the rest of the house and that was pretty much the day for me, John was home early so he did the afternoon feed and collected the eggs and lit the fire, Sam came over and did the horse, I did do a bit of paperwork that needed doing. 

Goodness I haven’t noted anything for Friday or Saturday lol so I will have to round up, did the usual feeding etc. I can’t actually remember what I did Friday except that I thought all the baby rabbits had gone, turns out they were hiding behind the side of the hut and a wall, so much for me blocking up all the holes! Had Josh in the morning while Shelley and Martin went for a scan on baby, she is a pink one 💕😀 Sam and Mia came over in the afternoon and Charlie came round in the evening. Saturday morning I did a bit of clearing in the poly tunnel, I have cut back all the peppers as they won’t produce anything now, but they are perennial so I have given them a good watering and covered them to see if they will survive winter, no harm in trying.  I also put fleece jumpers on my lemon and orange trees, gave them a good last watering and bubble wrapped the pots they are in, I have about 5 small lemons growing and hoping they make it through the winter. I intend to move them into the large tunnel next year but need to build some raised boxes for them so that they are not in wet cold ground, ideally a conservatory is needed but we don’t have one so  until we do I hope they survive, they did last year but it was fairly mild. 

On one of those days the disabled duck died 😩 she has had a bad leg, I tried rest and all kinds of other things but in the end she just seemed to get on with it as it was, she was eating and drinking fine, she even learnt how to stand on one leg, just using the other which was pretty useless, to balance on but when I opened the hut one of those mornings she didn’t come out and had died overnight. 

Sunday: Sunny but a cold wind, and the clocks have gone back, that will mean dark nights and it really doesn’t seem much lighter in the mornings either! 

Posted in Friesland Farm, Smallholding Life

Sun, sea and sand (not all at once though)

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: Another quail died overnight so we are down to 12 now. The weather forecast is set to be fair all week with high temperatures for the time of year 😀 This morning as I walk round feeding, the sun is shinning and it feels great to be where I am, the day is my oyster 😜 There are plenty of little birds flitting around, wrens, sparrows and long tailed tits plus the ever present robin of course. Rabbits running around at the bottom of the paddock and we have seen an increase in pheasants over the last few days as well. During a cold snap one of the arms on my washing line snapped so I had to go and buy a new one which I will put up today as it promises to be a good drying day I think, and as we are lighting the Rayburn later and later in the day I need to start drying outside instead of inside overnight. Remember when I told you about all the different coats well I have been swapping the winter coat for my gilet in the middle of the day whoop whoop I much prefer to work unencumbered. Spent the first part of the morning cleaning out the rabbit run and sorting them out, I let the chickens back into the penned area in the orchard, I feel much happier about where they are all living now, I also moved the rabbit that lives on her own into the big rabbit run but she is living in a hutch, I figured it was better than not being able to see the others. 

Then onto some gardening, well you have to on a day like this don’t you? I concentrated on the fruit cage, tying in all the raspberry canes and cutting back any that I didn’t want, then weeded it and dug out the couch grass, weeded round the blueberries, one had a branch that had rooted so I cut that off to pot up, I don’t have any ericaceous compost so I mixed in some conifer clippings for the time being to lower the acidity. After that I went into the greenhouse, the temperature was up to a crazy 25 in there, I showed some celeriac and outdoor tomato seeds, it was a bit warm to spend too long in there. I really wanted to stay outside but time was getting on and I still had bread to make so I went indoors and got that started, made some jelly with strawberries I got out of the freezer last night ( they smell amazing) and made some chocolate chip and marshmallow muffins 😀 what a fabulous day I have had. 

I made John a chicken casserole with some stock I made from yesterday’s duck carcass and I will have chicken with baked potato and some salad bits from the poly tunnel, John will have jelly and ice cream while I will have macerated strawberries and ice cream, we both eat totally differently but it’s ok as long as I am organised enough to sort it out. We both love chocolate muffins 😀

Tuesday: The old lady duck died overnight and also another quail chick, one other is looking weak despite me keep making it drink and eat. I turned on the turner for the duck eggs yesterday so it’s a waiting game now. Sat outside drinking my morning coffee and today’s garden birds are blue tit, great tit and chaffinch, obviously we always have fat pigeons, collared doves, crows and little brown jobs as my lecturer always called them. I got some jobs done this morning before Mia arrived, put the seed potatoes in, sowed some Swede and parsnip and some perpetual spinach and coriander outside. I have two ton bags of compost from the heap so I planted the seed potatoes straight into them rather than decanting them onto the beds and putting the potatoes there, I couldn’t see the point and as potatoes seem to grow well in the heap they should do ok in the sacks 😀While Mia had her lunchtime nap I managed to get a shepherds pie made along with a chilli, several portions for the freezer too for the days I am working long hours in the garden. 

Wednesday: The weather is looking ok again today, a misty start and hopefully the sun will burn it off. John and I discussed dragging the big paddock at the end of the week if it stays dry, I will have a walk over it today and see how it’s doing, it could probably do with a top seed as well. I’m am unsure about dragging the chicken paddock, it has a fair amount of moss in some areas so I guess it does need doing really, it’s just that it looks so good undisturbed. 

All is well on the rounds this morning, a quail chick died yesterday I think we are left with ten but overnight, no more fatalities. As I was coming back in from the front I saw the sparrow sat on top of his nesting box with a big fluffy feather in his beak ready to line the nest, he looked very pleased with himself and I’m sure the missus will appreciate such comfort 😀

Had a good morning in the garden, got the washing line post secured, I was going to cement it in but instead I used the spike from the old one as the cement we had was set hard in the bag! Then onto fixing up the fencing that storm Doris blew down, this included a post that I had to use the post rammer to get back in, heavy piece of equipment that is 😜 then I set up a climbing net in the poly tunnel and planted some sugar snap peas for a (hopefully) early crop, I also planted some yin yang beans and some asparagus peas which I have not grown before. Did a bit of hoeing and also took some cuttings from a clematis I have growing over the shed, hopefully they will strike, though I do love growing food to eat, I do miss a bit of ‘proper ‘ gardening. 😀 I have Mia this afternoon and we are off to ‘soft play’ obviously Nana is going for the coffee and cake 🎂 

Thursday: Cracking weather yesterday hoping for more today! Did the rounds this morning everyone seems happy enough, I gave the rabbits some of the willow whips I cut the other day and they have been chewing on them, I must make little bundles for them all through the year, it’s one way to use the whips. I have in the past tried to grow a willow wigwam which didn’t take and used them for edging which did take though I didn’t want it to lol you can’t win. 

Sam came over late morning and we got the tractor and chains out and dragged the paddocks, this does a couple of things, pulls out dead thatch and hay, breaks up and clumps of mud, spreads any poo lying on the ground and tells the grass to WAKE UP and start growing lol. We got the tractor stuck in a particularly wet part but brute force and a puff of black smoke got us out and we avoided that bit from then on. An hours catch up with The Walking Dead and a cuppa then onto the afternoon feeding rounds. 

I took my phone out with me this morning to get some photos then got side tracked with the hay delivery so I will really try to get some photos of anything otherwise just words are a bit boring 💤

Lamb chops for dinner tonight, I think that is the last of them, I will have to start using up breast of lamb otherwise they get left for ages, only because I never really know what to do with them, will have to Pinterest it, unless anyone has any good recipes they can offer me 😀 I have just ordered a book for 99p from Amazon called ‘it’s raining plums’ which has been recommended by another smallholder blog, seasonal recipes and at 99p it’s a steal. 

There are so many Cade lambs being advertised at the minute I’m almost tempted lol, then I remember about bottle feeding and the routine and wind my neck back in 😜 maybe next year when the grandchildren are older. 

Friday: This will be the last entry from the farm this week as John and I are off to the coast again for the weekend, Shelley will be looking after the farm. This morning after the rounds I gathered up any paper/cardboard rubbish to burn then weed killed the front driveway, it’s surprising what is already growing, from a distance it just a green haze but up close its weeds and tufts of grass. Cleaned the chicken run at the back, put in fresh bedding for the ducks and cleaned the front chicken hut. Then I felt hungry so I decided on eggs and coffee, I scrambled a goose egg, sooo creamy. It’s only 10.30 so I may while away some time in the greenhouse 😀

Saturday : Shelley and Josh came over to look after the place and we set off for Lymington for an over night stay, we took a detour through the New Forest and saw all the ponies and a few donkeys before arriving at our destination. It was quite nice weather, well not raining at least and the temperatures were warm enough, we wandered down to the old cobbled quay area and to the marina, stopped for a drink and a pasty before checking in to our room at The Angel and Blue Pig, had another wander round the town and then went back to watch the Rugby and eat steaks and drink plenty of bottles of beer. 

Sunday: Up and breakfasted then decided to drive along no the coast to Bournemouth, we stopped at Milford on Sea for a coffee, it was mightily windy lol but nice to watch the waves come crashing in. Then we drove onto Bournemouth, we haven’t been there for over 30 years, I don’t think it’s changed an awful lot, still very windy but pleasant enough. After that we headed on home but via the A roads rather than the motorways, I like to see a bit of the countryside, the change of the colour of bricks and stone that the houses are built from, the difference between, the forest, the plains and the downs, none of which is obvious from the motorway which is a faster but sterile route 😝 and back home ready to start again tomorrow 😀

The big paddock