Tag: Smallholding

Posted in Friesland Farm

Man down and ‘the hobble’

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th January: It’s 10.45 and mission accomplished this morning, after doing the feeding the job was to fully secure the rabbit run and make sure that when the babies start moving about they can’t get out! We have 2inch square welded mesh around the run so the adults can’t get through it BUT baby rabbits can and do or did last time but not this time mwaahaha I have boarded and wired every escape route (hopefully)

I really need to have outside shoes to hand as I had just come in taken off my coat and wellies made a coffee and the bell rang at the gate 😜 even if I nip out in my indoor shoes they get covered in mud and that is the second time in 24hrs I have de robed only to have to go back out.

I had a wonderful view of a buzzard ‘big bird’ as we call him or her, sat on the fence outside the bedroom window this morning, the photo is not great taken with my I pad but I went to get my proper camera and the battery was flat. This bird is the one that is around all the time especially in the early mornings, either in the paddocks or sat on the fence, I will try and get a better picture, I should carry my camera round with me, there were deer in the field to the side of us the other morning it would be great to get some photos of the wildlife around us.

Tuesday: Hard frost this morning and brrr very chilly but the sun broke through so that was nice to see.

Did the usual morning feeding and egg collecting, nothing amiss thank goodness, then did a bit of tidying up outside before coming in to light the fire and make some soup. The long tailed tits have made an appearance this morning, nice to see them back again though I always say they indicate bad weather 😝

Had lots of visitors today, Sam dropped off Mia before going to work, Charlie was here on her last day off before returning to work, Mum, Gill and Zeri came for tea and cake, Shelley, Martin and Josh came round later to pick up some things for Charlie and Luke arrived later to pick up Mia so ‘full house’ today. Lucky I made cake in the morning, I used the orange and sultana recipe except that Charlie had a dried toffee apple/nut concoction that was out of date and she was throwing away so I used it up in the cake instead, smelt amazing and tasted pretty good too 😀 I made some chicken/veg soup in the morning which was also pretty good. John came home early and got some more wood in from outside and did the birds.

Wednesday: Well I am so over Winter ❄️I was trying to get everything done in the house so was a bit later out this morning than usual, I spotted the biggest black cloud and thought I might just be able to outrun it and get the front birds done, nope, bloody hailstones smacking me in the face like someone firing peppercorns through a tube at me. I slipped in the paddock spilling the chicken feed all over the ground, not the best start to a day, please hurry up Spring I am trying to be patient but it’s wearing thin 😝 We have plenty of eggs as the hens have now ramped up their laying, chicken, duck, goose, quail just waiting for the bantams to start as well. Some Salvia seeds I ordered arrived today, White Sage, I am hoping to grow them for smudging bundles, we will see how it goes, the blueberry bushes I ordered also arrived these are early fruiting to prolong the picking season, just need to get some ericaceous compost to pot them into unless I can find the right ingredients to make my own, pine clippings usually does it but not sure how much I would need and how long it would take to bring the ph levels down, apparently, oak leaves and coffee grounds will also work but with the time constraints it might be easier to go and buy some for now 😀

Sometimes when I write these blogs what you read is all about the swan gliding steadily along the river 😜 what you don’t read, because on the whole I don’t write all of it, is the feet furiously paddle away underneath the water trying to get somewhere! Today is one of those days, I have numerous tasks to do including keeping the Rayburn going, looking after Mia, meanwhile the phone is ringing multiple times, the doorbell is ringing, I need to make an urgent phonecall and then wait for a return call, the dog (not mine) keeps jumping the gate every time an egg customer arrives, a family situation that is very stressful, to deal with over the phone and internet…………I have a headache 🤕

Thursday: It’s dry but the wind is cold brrrr. After feeding etc I cleaned out the single rabbit run and the baby boy rabbits, still no idea what we will do with these 😜 and now more of them! After doing that and sorting the egg shed with today’s eggs I did a bit in the greenhouse. Its still very cold in there so can’t do much but I did sow the white sage seeds and the pomelo seeds, they are now indoors on the windowsill as they won’t germinate out there. I made a bit of a boo boo though because there was I gaily putting seeds on the warm south facing windowsills completely forgetting that the glass in them stops the UV rays doh, still they will get light and the indoor warmth so that’s better than outside. I ordered some more blueberry bushes which have now arrived so I unpacked them and they are in the greenhouse until I get them planted up. My old plants struggled last year and I have no idea why, I tested the soil it wasn’t that, I will have to wait and see if they come back this year, they have been fine for about three years so I’m at a loss as to why they failed.

I put new batteries in my small camera and took it out with me this morning, I took photos of the rabbits and the runs and a cheeky hen who is always right under my feet no matter what I’m doing. I also took photos of the greenhouse, garden and large poly tunnel, my thought is to take them on the first of each month and have a round up later in the year to see the progress over time.

Then I came in for a coffee and to warm up my toes, I’ll wait for the sun to warm things up a bit before going out again.

Did a bit of tidying up and lit the fire and then things went tits up about 2.30! I was just going out the boot room door to get some more wood for the fire, put my foot down straight onto a 5”long, 2” round stick that the dog had left there and went over on my ankle with horrible pain, then crash down onto my kneecap with horrible pain and ended up in the dog bed and dog hair in my mouth not that it mattered as I first shouted f***ing dogs, at that point they scarpered, then the pain fully kicked in and all I could do was let out loud primal moans. At this point I could not stand up and proceeded, after moaning for a good minute or so, to drag myself back inside the kitchen and half up to the table to grab my phone and call John who luckily was on his way home anyway. 3 hours later, I have iced, rested, elevated and compressed the ankle, taken painkillers and arnica and assessed that I have not broken anything as far as I can tell, but badly sprained the ankle and bruised the kneecap.

Friday: Not the day I planned to have, the weather is going to be better than yesterday and I had planned on getting the veg garden tidied up 😩instead I am doing what can only be described as ‘the hobble’. Everything takes three times as long so simple tasks like going backwards and forwards to the recycling bin, getting wood for the fire, anything really is slow. First thing is to do the morning routine, John can’t because at the moment he is going round to his Mums to get her up and I can’t load any more stress onto him this week! It is painfully clear my welly won’t go on, nor will Johns which are 3 sizes bigger nor Maccas which are bigger still, so the only option is to wear slip on garden shoes, good job it’s not freezing out there today. The ground is fairly dry and hard though that has its problems because it’s lumpy so having to be very careful where I tread, I did the bare minimum needed and the only thing I couldn’t do was clean the front hens floor because the mud in front of the door is still wet and deep enough to cover my shoes, never mind the slip hazard!

Then it was time to put egg in the shed, well this would be interesting as I needed to carry trays of eggs lol, luckily the eggs and I survived the hazard trip negotiating 3 gates and a shingle driveway. It becomes evident how much you actually do when suddenly you are encumbered and are only doing half a job.

I sat down with a coffee after that and will rest it now for an hour or so before I start again, plenty of resting bits in between and anti inflammatory/arnica and I will be swinging from the trees before you know it. I have ordered an ankle strap and put out a plea to the family for a pair of boots that might be suitable oh my days life is complicated sometimes.

All the birds have ramped up their laying but we seemed to be short on customers, last week the sales were down and so far this week it’s the same, I hope they come back soon lol, it’s typical when you have limited eggs the customers come thick and fast and when you have loads of eggs you are eagerly waiting for them to buy 🤪

Sam and Shelley came over in the afternoon and did some of the jobs for me while I pretty much rested my ankle, then John came home and did the afternoon feeding and egg collecting and got me some dinner 😀

Saturday: The resting did me a whole lot of good as I can walk around fairly normally now, however I still can’t get my wellies on so John did the morning routine and then went to his Mums and I got on with de cluttering and cleaning our bedroom. I had decided January was going to be the month to get sorted and get rid of stuff but never got round to it, so today seems like a good day, a bag full of clothes that i never wear for the charity shop, some for the rag and shoe bin, some stuff for the dustbin and voila it’s done. Meanwhile John is getting barrowfulls of wood into the back area and Macca is cleaning the bathroom, happy days 😀

Sunday: Still no chance of me getting anything other than a slip on shoe on this foot, bearing in mind the mud out there it means John has to do the morning routine again today. Poor John is working flat out at the minute, looking after his Mum having to do what I can’t do and he is not even complaining 😐

I have been doing what I can inside including up dating the chalk board we have out by the egg shed, well I would if I could get the last lot of writing off! I scoured the internet for tips, tried everything from nail varnish remover, hob cleaner, white vinegar, a rubber and plain old water but there is still ‘ghost’ writing. I have ordered a ‘magic eraser’ to see if that helps but what is the point of a board that you can’t re use? I can’t use water based chalk pens because that will just wash off in the rain, ah well there are bigger problems to have I suppose. I made fresh bread, did the washing etc etc, if the ground would only dry up enough I could be outside 😀 I bought some ericaceous compost yesterday for the blueberries but I will have a go at making a batch to see if it’s worth doing, the biggest problem will be getting the ph right and seeing how long the ph levels stay like that because from what I have read without peat it reverts back to neutral after 4/6 months or so which is not a lot of good.

This is fanny, she is a pain in the butt, she is constantly under my feet when I am in the orchard pen, she follows me round (very closely) pecking at my feet, coat, hands wherever she thinks she might get a morsel or two 😝

The little birds that have taken to roosting in our boxes all winter, there are loads of them, they even roost in the vent from the hob extractor hood and behind loose house boards!

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

Rouge ferret, sad goodbyes and an eco egg.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday PM: Just got back from my away day with the girls and a fabulous time was had by all of us 😀

Update on the Guinea pig versus ferret episode:

Saturday night, I heard the guinea pig squealing at around 10pm went out with a torch to see a ferret chewing on his neck, the ferret disappeared quickly and I got the pig out and bought him in to do some first aid on him and put him in a box out the back for the night.

Sunday morning I got an old cage, cleaned it up and put the guinea pig in there to get better, the damage surprisingly was not to bad just superficial. Bearing in mind I was due to go away it was all hands to the pump to set a live trap and try to catch this ferret otherwise it would be starting on my rabbits and bantams! John called later in the day to say it had been caught, though I never got to see it, it was obviously a pet as it was quite tame and must have been on the run for a while as it was also underweight and had lice.

Back to Monday: John has done a sterling job looking after everything albeit only for 24 hrs lol, it’s still a big responsibility 😀 and decisions have to be made and he has booked Kai in to see the vet for tonight. Kai has been off his food for nearly a week, is limping and is reluctant to leave his bed, these are not good signs, if he has a temperature and needs antibiotics that will be he best outcome, if it’s not that then it’s more serious and we will be saying goodnight to him.

Well he returned with Kai and he has had a shot of painkiller and antibiotic although the vet could not find anything obvious wrong with him except the tenderness he is feeling in his front leg. However he needs to eat in the morning, if he doesn’t he is not going to get any better and an appointment has been made for tomorrow night just in case.

Tuesday: Obviously my first thought for the day was to feed Kai and see if we can get him to eat, success, he seems a little perkier and has eaten a bowl of wet food, the call to cancel the appointment can be made and we can pick up some more medication. It doesn’t mean he is out of the woods yet though, if the meds don’t help him to improve then we are back to square one and decision time so fingers crossed. He is twelve this coming year, which doesn’t seem old but it is for a husky and he has lived outside all his life and so is bound to suffer with his joints more readily than a house dog. We bought him indoors yesterday evening until his appointment but it is clear that it’s unfair on him to change his surroundings, especially when it’s a lot warmer than he is used to.

As for the rest of the morning, the guinea pig is doing well and I was going to put him back with the rabbit BUT on my morning rounds I found a dead baby bunny, one of the ones that had escaped and we hadn’t been able to catch. A bit of detective work and I could see that it had been bitten out in the paddock as there was a patch of fur, it has then made a dash for the orchard pen as it can get through the pheasant wire and died in there. Question is, what has bitten it in the first place? Possibly a fox has tried to catch it or we maybe have more than one ferret on the premises so I have reset the live trap to see if anything else is caught. Always something 😜 The chickens, ducks and geese are all tickety boo thank goodness. I filled up the wild bird feeders and have turned on the wildlife camera to see if I can get some footage of how many there are and what type.

The wildlife camera in the day was a disaster the only footage I got was of me opening and closing it! I will try again maybe at dusk.

Kai seems to have made quite a remarkable recovery, he is back to barking, wolfing his dinner down (with the meds in) and hardly limping, fingers crossed it stays like that.

Wednesday: The weather continues to be mild which makes going outside pleasant enough and at least the wind is drying things up a little.

Not much on the to do list today, Mia arrived and did a bit of baking, a crazy, wacky chocolate cake, no eggs, no dairy so great for Josh to share when he arrived later in the morning.

Put some more rat bait down when I put the birds to bed and that was pretty much it, just as well as the weather has turned quite foul out there, the wind was blowing a hoolie all night long. Went out to get a bit of shopping after dark and saw two tiny baby deer on the side of the road, goodness knows what they were doing out and hopefully Mum was not far away.

Thursday: The wind is still going, though not so fierce, got the morning rounds done, cleaned out the smaller rabbit run and the girl baby rabbit cage while I was at it. Then inside to make some bread, I made whole meal the other day but it was a bit like lead lol so gone back to white with a bit of whole meal flour mixed in as I now need to use it up. John came home at lunchtime and cut up some of the wood mountain 😝 while I cleaned and tidied up the boot room a little, it gets so dusty and cluttered in there that it needs a sort now and again.

I heard or read a saying ‘a story told is a life lived’ that has stuck with me all week (I googled it and it was from Outlander!) For some reason it struck a chord with me and I am glad to be able tell my daily story albeit a cutting room floor version, trust me you wouldn’t want the full blown ‘life of Dawn’ version, to start with it would take a week to read and secondly I would probably get a lot of hate mail due to the sarcastic tone I would inevitably adopt 😜 Maybe one day under a pseudonym, invitation only, those who have a strong mind and a sense of humour 😉

I did the afternoon feeding and John did the putting to bed, ‘put the grey bin out and feed the dog’ I tagged in as he was going out of the door, 34 years and the training is only just kicking in 😁

The temperature has dropped rapidly outside tonight so looks like a cold start tomorrow morning, I follow a page called Reality Weather which looks at very long range forecast and the movements of weather fronts, blockages etc, we might be in for an extremely cold and prolonged snap either this winter or next, yep that’s how long range it is, they can’t tell exactly because it depends on how the fronts move but it seems there is some unusual movement going on in the Northern hemisphere which will eventually wreak havoc! I look forward to that 😝 and in the light of the information I will make sure we are well stocked up in wood and food just in case 😀

Friday: My rounds took longer than usual this morning, firstly I checked on Herbie the guinea pig and his eyes had closed over so I got him out and bathed them, happily they are now open and he looks fine. He is still on the sick ward out the back, apart from his eyes he seems ok still eating and drinking and no sign of infection in fact his neck has healed well though it does look like leather it will probably restore given time. Then it was onto the routine stuff, cleaning out the ducks on the way round, when I let the bantams out in the orchard I noticed one was not looking well, hunched and not running for food like the others. I picked her up and immediately could feel that her crop was full, this should not happen, in the morning a hens crop should be empty as the food they have eaten the day before should have been digested overnight. The first step is to massage the crop to loosen the compaction, then hold the hen upside down and continue massaging, gravity will help to move the obstruction, sure enough though it took about ten minutes, a smelly mess began to appear from her beak, I began to gently pull it to help it along it was a mix of straw and grain. Young chickens can be a bit stupid and eat anything, this one has decided straw might be good, it’s not, and that is what has caused the blockage. I bought her in and I gave her some kefir by syringe, a delicate job as you can accidentally send the liquid into her lungs which would be fatal. Then I made her some scrambled egg and put her in the dog cage in the back room with some water, I can’t make her eat but hopefully she will pick up enough to want to eat. The kefir is a fermented coconut drink which I happen to be taking at the moment, it is full of good bacteria and hopefully will help to process anything left in the crop. The rest of the rounds went with out incident 😀

I have said before that I could do with a little hospital corner, a couple of purpose built in cages that are easily accessible so that anything poorly can be monitored with ease, may put that one on the to do list.

Did some tidying and putting away in the back area, another dumping ground that needs doing every now and then, and then got the bantam out to repeat the upside down massage, not much in there now but she still hasn’t eaten or drunk anything so unless she does she will probably got into heart failure if she is not already on the way.

Had a discussion about Kai this afternoon, although initially he picked up a little, there has been no improvement and this afternoon he started growling at me when I tried to get him up, he has a course of meds and painkiller and we will finish those and see what happens but it’s not looking good he should have improved a fair bit by now.

John came home early and cut up some more of the wood mountain 😝 I put the front birds to bed and he did the back lot, it was bloody freezing even then so we also did the water ready for the morning and there was ice in the hosepipe already brrrrr. I have been putting rat poison down each time the last lot disappears, which it is going alarmingly fast, this time of year they are looking for an easy feed and somewhere dry to sleep, right under the hen house is ideal but I’m determined to knock them on the head quickly.

I bought an eco washing egg, I looked at the reviews and thought I would give it a try, it probably won’t be so good on heavily soiled garments but on normal day to day wear it should be fine, they last for 720 washes apparently and obviously kinder to the environment in terms of chemicals, packaging reduction and general manufacturing, I hope they are good, I will let you know.

Saturday: It’s only 10am and we have had a proper morning of it, had to call the vet to book Kai in today as he is not eating again, this will be his final appointment 😩 and you don’t realise how it affects you until you try to talk to the receptionist on the phone 😪 The Guinea pig has not made it, turns out there was infection under the skin, the bantam doesn’t look like she will make it but I have put her out with the others for today to see if being with them helps pick her up and something upset the horses all around and Jack cleared a 5ft fence into the next paddock! Roll on wine o’clock 😜

On the upside the girl baby rabbits went off to their new home this morning, in one fell swoop we have 4 less mouths to feed now one way or another.

I can’t settle to do the jobs needed, made bread, lit the fire, waiting for John to return with an empty collar and lead, I cried when I put him in the car, he has been an amazing dog, pulling John around the block on the skateboard for his daily exercise a few years back, keeping an eye on everything night and day, driving me mad with his yapping sometimes, he is irreplaceable.

I have just done the first wash with the eco egg and I have to say I’m quite impressed, it was a whites wash and the clothes look clean and fresh, fresher than usual, high hopes for this egg 😀 darks next and we we see how that comes out.

Sunday: A beautiful crisp, sunny but bloody cold morning! John went out and did the feed rounds and reported that there was a dead rat in the front chicken hut, that’s good at least we are managing to kill them off, well one at least 😝 I stayed inside and did a few small household tasks and then the biggy we had on the list today which is sweeping the flue and cleaning out the Rayburn. A very dirty job but very necessary as we don’t ever want a repeat of a chimney fire again, we clean it depending on the amount of use it has had and now was as good a time as any.

I have done three washes with the eco egg and I’m still pretty impressed I have to say, the clothes look fresh and clean, you can add conditioner if you want it to smell nice but I haven’t as yet as I can’t see the point, I’m in the minority camp of liking my bath towels rough not fluffy so I won’t even put some in when I wash those.

Last night was the first night without Kai and I woke up this morning thinking I had heard him bark, which of course I didn’t, makes me wonder how many times I had thought I heard him when he was here when really I didn’t, dreamt it maybe lol.

It remains cold into the afternoon and I am very reluctant to venture outside unless I have to, luckily John volunteered to do the afternoon feeding and collecting of eggs so I’m staying put in the warm, plenty of time for me to be doing it all next week. He said the bantam was eating with the others so at least she is still alive for now.

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

Butterflies, pitta bread & Countryfile Live 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: I was a bit preoccupied last week what with visitors and John off and forgot to mention that I got some bantam eggs and they are now in the incubator, we also had no hot water as the immersion heater went on Friday so cold showers all round until its fixed, I have ordered the part and hope it arrives soon. Strangely enough we suddenly have some luke warm water this morning?? No idea what is going on with that (found out later John had fixed it) 

The sun is shining this morning and the two buddliea globosa, which have orange ball shaped flowers, are dancing with butterflies, mostly painted lady and red admiral, the odd peacock and also plenty of bees, all feeding on the nectar.

Well the day went a bit pear shaped when my neighbour shouted to me over the fence, she thought someone had dumped rubbish in her field but turns out that someone had been trying to nick Johns well hidden scrap from behind the hay barn, they had 30 bags of it lined up ready to go. Luckily John had heard the dog barking around 12.30 last night and got up, turned all the lights on and let the other dogs out, I guess they scarpered! He had to come home and retrieve it from the field, sure hope they don’t come back again it makes you feel very uneasy to know that people are prowling around. Activity has been high in the last couple of weeks as we have had some undesirables move in just a couple of miles down the road. 

Tuesday: All was well overnight thank goodness. A bright sunny start to the day, I did the feed round and then took Kai up to the back paddock for a grooming session, he is moulting like mad at the moment and the field looks like something has been massacred but it’s just fur. Mia arrived and sat out in the garden for a bit while I picked some tomatoes, which she kept pointing to and saying ‘egg’ lol, pulled up some weeds for the bunnies and guinea pigs, then she got bored of that so we went inside. 

Another couple of showers again later on in the day, I really think that might be it for summer now😝 the seasons seem to be all different the last few years, usually the ants start flying around early August but they have already gone a few weeks ago and this mornings mist was definitely autumnal.

Made bread once Mia had gone home, while I was at it I made a batch of ginger biscuits and something I wanted to have a go at for the first time, pitta bread. I don’t like the shop bought pittas, they are at the very least, disappointing 😏 and I have never had one that has been made by someone so I thought I would give it a go. They take 5 mins to mix up, an hour to prove the dough and then 1 and half minutes each to cook, brilliant, the results were mixed, some puffed up, some didn’t but apparently that doesn’t matter unless you want to fill it, but for humous non puffed is fine and they will freeze fine so don’t have to be eaten all at once lol. They are quite delicious and nothing like the cardboard things in the supermarket, they would easily lend themselves to dips, mopping up curry, chilli, stew yep a definite winner. 


Wednesday: Filthy day from start to finish! Didn’t really get much done outside apart from the routine stuff and a bit of picking early on, Mia arrived and Shelley and Josh came over to play and that was pretty much how the day went. Sure hope the rain eases of soon 😜 

John spent the evening outside moving the woodpile to fill the gap that the nighttime visitors were obviously trying to use.

Thursday: Not raining but windy and spitting and overcast, the jet stream is too high up for good weather it seems 😝 Nevertheless jobs need to be done so did the usual feeding routine, sold out of eggs by goodness knows what time this morning 8.30 I think, the earliest customer coming around 7.30! The chap a couple of miles down the road has given up his 150 hens due to ill health and I guess some are coming here however we don’t have enough hens to supply them all. 

After feeding I did picking, runner, dwarf beans, courgettes, tomato, swede and beetroot, the veg suddenly seems to be getting snapped up at a great rate too, maybe new customers? I pulled up some weeds and perpetual spinach plus some herbs for the rabbits and guinea pigs and a tub full of herbs for the chickens to peck over. I saw a programme where the local chicken farm was feeding a mix of chopped up leftover herbs from a herb farm so I thought I would try it on mine and see how they like it. Then onto the POL pen as it is getting very muddy with all the rain, I think it is still coming in through the roof and I will have to watch it to see what is happening as John appears not to have fixed it with his two bits of wood propping it up 😜Cleaned up the floor, chucked in some bits for them to scratch around for and changed the low water trough for two buckets as this may be part of the problem, when emptying it you can’t help but tip it all over the floor, better to have buckets that can be carried away for emptying. 

I had to look up two potential problems, one, blood in chicken poop but a chart analysis reassured me that it was just the shedding of lining and normal, thank goodness for that, the hens are all vaccinated but coccidiosis is always a worry, technically they shouldn’t get it but it’s possible one may have escaped the vaccination process and the second problem is the yellowing of the leaves on the tomato plants, it’s not blight and it doesn’t appear to be a nutrient deficiency, at this time of the season it is more likely to be the plants beginning to shut down. They have done their job, grown, produced flowers, then fruit (which is starting to ripen) and that’s a job done as far as they are concerned, I think it’s a little early but then so is everything else this year! 

In the afternoon I cleaned out the quail and then the ducks, both huts are mucky from the wet weather, at this time of year they shouldn’t need cleaning out so much! Then I went on to burn the paper feed sacks etc and remembered I needed to check out the greengage plums. Normally I don’t pick anything until it’s ripe but the greengage are the exception to the rule this year, I usually leave them until they are just about ready but find that the wasps get there first. Gages are the sweetest of plums, there is a scale measurement for fruit sweetness but I can’t find the reference now, gages come pretty high on the scale even though they look like they might be sour, trust me, they are not. I usually end up with a couple of handfuls but this year I have hit the jackpot with them, the damsons on the other hand are not so good and as I still have some in the freezer from last year I may leave them all for the wasps 😀 I also have Victoria’s but they seem, contrary to everything else, well behind schedule ?? Plums grown commercially are picked before they are ripe, then stored, then pumped with ethylene which is the same gas given off by bananas and some other fruit so all I need to do with the gages is leave them on the side next to the fruit bowl to ripen. I will probably put a few out for sale but mostly I will be eating them in their natural state 😀 I just realised that they are also free of coddling moth grubs this year so the traps I put up last year and the sticky bands have done the job, in fact all the top fruit is free of it so well done me 😝 

Friday seems to be lost somewhere 😝

Saturday: Whoop whoop we are off to Countryfile live today so up early to do the animals then off out for the day, Shelley is in charge at the farm 😀

We had a fab day out, it was one of the best shows of that type I have been to, something for everyone, everything to do with the countryside and a little bit more. I learnt a lot, ate a lot, walked a lot and talked to a lot of people. So many people are very passionate about their breed or their product or their skills it was the perfect place to showcase them all. The rare breeds, bees and using a scythe really caught my interest and we both thoroughly enjoyed watching the Stihl Timbersports British Championship. 

Sunday: Lol, John was up early this morning and when he was dressed realised it was Sunday and not Monday as he had thought 😝 The weather looked set to be fair and so we got on with feeding and then a bit of picking for me while John cut up some of the wood from the pile that seems to be multiplying while we are not looking. I swept the front driveway and cut the grass, it does look so much better when it’s done but I can’t help thinking it won’t be long until the Autumn leaves will be making a mess. There are little villages of mushrooms sprouting up all over the place, they look fabulous when they first bloom and add another dimension to the garden areas.