I totally lost my way when it came to the blog during the last year, I started writing a piece so many times that I have a plethora of drafts I now need to delete!
What was wrong? Writers block, lack of confidence, nothing to say? A combination of those and more I suppose but I really lost my way.
It is not that we didn’t do anything at all it’s just that I couldn’t work out what I was trying to say or how I was trying to say it, had I over complicated my thoughts? I think I did and so I decided to go back to basics, after all it’s the advice I give the girls when they have a problem. Think back to the beginning of the problem (and this works for all issues) try and strip back the layers until you can see a clear way forward and begin from there.
How does that work in reality? Well if you take a food problem, one that is causing you discomfort or manifesting in other issues such as skin irruptions then strip your diet right back to basics. Literally whole foods in their simplest form and eat nothing more than that, you should be able to work out which food group (if any at that stage) is the issue. You gradually add in other foods one by one until you understand how they are affecting you and hopefully you eventually work out what the problem is.
If a pet has a behavioural issue then think of the pet as its ancestral relative (wolf in the case of dogs) think about natural, wild behaviour. Is the behaviour a natural instinct that the pet is displaying? If it is then the problem doesn’t lie with the pet but the way you are expecting the pet to live and basically the problem is us, or more to the point our lack of understanding. And then there is the food we feed pets today, back to example 1 👆
Financial problems, granted they are not so easy to fix but is it a case of making the same mistakes over and over again resulting in the same problems over and over again? Take an honest look at things, this is stripping back all the excuses we give ourselves, and see where the cycle can be broken.
Issues are complex but trying to strip them back will help to see a clearer way forward with most things.
What does this have to do with my blog? Well despite the detailed musings I have just written I realised that I started the blog as a recording of my day to day life and somewhere along the way I managed to complicate things and I need to go back to basics.
I would be writing about a topic and would realise that the topic was huge and too big to get my thoughts down in a way that was coherent and was anybody bothered anyway? That then gave me a crisis of confidence and so I would abandon the piece I was writing.
So back to basics it is, possibly with a little extra thrown in now and again because I can’t help myself 🤪
And so I begin with Happy New Year to you all and I hope you had a great festive season.
I had a very busy year last year in fact when I look back at photographs I can’t help but feel blessed. We had some fabulous family times and the flower side of things was incredible.
It is a new year but there is not a stop to one year and start another, it continuous and so my preparations for this year began way back in the summer.
Over the holiday we have been putting up a new fence, the old one was dilapidated and needed to come down before the horses could just wander into the garden of their own accord. We have taken that opportunity to increase the growing area slightly, I have a few events already booked for this year that will need a lot of flowers and I don’t need any other reason than that to grow more. I also want to get back to growing a lot more veg than I did last year so I need space for that too.
The weather was pleasant when we started the new fence and we managed to finish it before the cold and the snow came, however it has been frozen for the last few days and so work on taking the old one down and clearing the ground has stopped for now.
In one of the named storms we had a huge 40/50 year old willow come down 😔 John has been busy cutting it up into logs but the stump, although partially ripped out of the ground, was going to be a beast to deal with. With a bit of lateral thinking he has been burning it from underneath, there was a huge cavity and some of the tree was rotten, it has been a great way to keep warm out there on the freezing cold days.
Yesterday we actually did nothing but the basics, the snow was still on the ground, it was cold and not pleasant working conditions so we stayed in and watched everything we wanted to catch up on. Did I feel guilty about not doing anything? Yes is the answer, to begin with I couldn’t settle but eventually gave in, not a bad thing to do because today I am eager to get on and accomplish something useful.
I had a plan but once I looked out at the weather this morning I realised I need to shift my focus slightly. So rather than digging up a few things I want to reposition, I will focus on working in the greenhouse and tunnels. I have some autumn grown plants that are overwintering well in the greenhouse but some are flagging and need attention, possibly a bit of bottom heat. At one time I didn’t want to use excess energy to grow plants but I end up losing too much so what is worse, a small amount of energy or wastage of time and resources 🤷♀️ I stripped back my thoughts and repetitive patterns and will go in a different direction. Of course it could fail again and then I will have three lots of waste but I have to try 🙄
We got some new laying hens last autumn, yes I know I said I wasn’t going to 🤪 but I had a long think about it and it had got to the stage where we didn’t have any eggs to use because I was putting them all out for customers and what was the point of that. So a new batch arrived and they have started laying well and I can bake whenever I want to now. We still have the same old situations where we either have lots of eggs or everyone comes at the same time and we don’t have enough but that is not something I can control so I am no longer worrying about it, it is what it is.
The geese, or one of the geese, has continued spasmodically laying throughout the winter, that plus plenty of other signs, rings my climate change warning bell. The climate is as unpredictable these days as the goose laying her eggs, we just have to work with whatever comes our way. I don’t think the powers that be will ever sort it out, there are a lot of meetings, conferences and innovative ideas but I am not sure they solve anything because it always comes down to the money. How much they want to spend, how much they can spend and how much somebody somewhere can make seem to be the driving forces behind never achieving the goals. Maybe they need to strip it all back to basics and start again 😬 That will not happen because for every person that wants to heal the world there is another that wants to profit from it and the money (greed) usually wins.
The ducks are getting old and are basically living out their retirement in the best ducky style. They don’t lay anymore but they do spend their whole day wandering around the place eating grubs and slugs with a few naps in between.
The cats are still busy catching plenty of mice, luckily they are not big on catching birds 😊 they also spend a lot of time sleeping but only after a busy night. Diesel is getting old, (he is 16 now) at one point I thought that he wouldn’t see winter out but he seems to have got a second wind and is back on form again.
Patch, the dog, is still daft as a brush and a constant companion when John is working outside. Mia on the other hand is showing signs of deterioration, we noticed back in the summer that she was stone deaf and now it is apparent that her eyesight is very poor. She is still eating and drinking normally but she stumbles a fair bit and bumps into things, we have to keep a close eye on her so she does not wander off and can’t find her way back. Her genetics are not great, something I didn’t realise until after we got her and I did a bit of research on the breed, specifically the merle gene.
The horses are still going strong, getting older every year just like the rest of us but they are healthy and happy and living their best life really with no expectations from them apart from mowing the paddocks 😂
It is a quiet time of year but I will try and do a quick round up on Mondays of what I have been up to and what I have planned. That was the aim of the original blog, a diarised snapshot of life on the Smallholding with one or two bigger issues thrown in because they affect life in general.
Monday 29th November: Oh what a lovely Monday morning 🤪 snow on the ground, flipping freezing and as yet (2pm) it has not thawed 🙄 A different routine this morning, the birds are now all housed and so that means there is no point John doing them in the morning before he goes to work, it becomes my job 😏 I was glibly thinking ‘I don’t need to go out until mid morning’ but then realised that I actually would have to go out first thing of course (silly me) The horses need hay, the water buckets need the ice broken and although we had filled up the feeders in the stable block and for the ducks, the others in the orchard will still need feeding and watering. So I donned my big ‘duvet’ coat, my isotherm wellies (they keep your feet warm down to -10 🥰) and my leather gloves because if they get wet it doesn’t go through to my fingers and make them freezing cold. I did all the feeding and watering and then had to set up a small run for the light Sussex hen with the chick, everything needs to be enclosed and no wild birds should be able to get to the food or water, this is quite a task but luckily, as it happens year on year now, we are prepared. Once I had finished outside it was back indoors to divide up some blocks of mature cheddar for the freezer and get those in along with some blocks of butter and a carton of milk. I am not stocking up honestly lol, the milk I asked John to get on top of our regular delivery because he seemed to be drinking a lot of tea. In the end we didn’t use it and had our normal delivery this morning so I need to freeze it and save it for another day. The butter I am going to need when I start making mince pies by the dozen and if I have them in the freezer ready then I can do them when I want to. The cheese is because John only eats mild cheese which is not much good for flavouring something like cauliflower cheese so if I put it in the freezer I always have some handy and it’s not going hard in the fridge. I have been a Jack of all trades today because after that job I went and painted the pantry. I say painted and John is going to tell me it’s not finished but that is the look I am going for 😂 he will hate it, I will love it, it’s my pantry and once the door is on I doubt he will ever go in there 😂 Then I spent a bit of time trying out new bits of crafting, I want to make some decorations for myself and so have been having a go at cone trees, not pine cone trees but cone shaped trees, I haven’t finished yet but if I am pleased with the result I will take photos. A quick sit down with a cup of tea and then onto the next job of the day, caramelised red onion chutney making 😁
With the chutney on the go, the dinner prepped ready for this evening and an apple and blueberry crumble also made, I got all togged up to go outside and do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. Luckily the outside taps had thawed and I was able to get more water to the ducks, geese and horses who also had more hay. The shift took me far longer than it did to write about it 😂 I had planned on coming in for a cuppa before shutting them away at dusk but by the time I had finished that, collected the post, checked the egg shed, fed the dogs and the cats it was getting dark and so I shut down doors etc before coming back inside and taking off my artic gear. I just got into the kitchen when John arrived home, typical that he arrives just as everything is done. He asked if I had painted the pantry, I told him yes but he won’t like it, he said and I quote ‘it’s your pantry, you can paint it how you like’ 😮 As we went through to have a look, John shouted at the dog who was busy helping herself to eggs from the bucket! Normally I put the bucket of eggs in the sink but there was the paint tray in there so I put it on the floor, I won’t make that mistake again 😂 The reason I don’t box up the eggs right away is because then the cat sits on the boxes which is ok-ish when the weather is dry but if it’s wet she gets the boxes dirty. Sometimes I feel the battle is already lost before I even get up 🤪 I complain all the time that the geese eat all the chicken food (because they should not be down in the stable block) the dog eats the cat food (he reaches up on the side to sneak it out of their bowl) the chickens eat diesels cat food (big no no) if the he hasn’t eaten it all and now the dog is eating the eggs, I need some sort of order back with the feed routine which will be easier now the birds are all shut away.
Hens on lockdown 😏
I think I am just going to relax this evening, once the dinner is made, eaten and washed up that is! I hope it thaws overnight, Smallholding life is a lot harder when it’s freezing outside.
Tuesday: i did the rounds again this morning and it has all thawed thank goodness, it was hard work over the last few days 🙄 The art of the job is getting in through the stable doors without letting any hens out 😂 this morning just as I opened the door and ducked down to go in, one of them flew straight at me from where she was perching, I did t have the heart to tell her she has a very long time until she can go outside again 😏
I didn’t have anything in particular planned for today which was just as well as Sam came over with the twins and Shelley and Flo came after Flo finished nursery so it was a few hours of chaos and cacophony 😝 Once they had all left to do the school run I sat in total silence enjoying the moment 🤪
I did have time to make a cake before anyone arrived though, it was a recipe I wanted to have a go at, pumpkin cake with a cream cheese frosting. The verdict from the little ones was ‘nah’ the verdict from Sam was ‘not bad’ I can’t decide if I like it or not 🤷♀️ I think if I did it again I would doctor the recipe somewhat as it is quite heavy, more like a pudding texture but chances are I won’t make it again lol.
Wednesday: Busy day today, first up, the morning rounds and sorting out fresh water, feed etc then onto digging up the dahlia bulbs and putting them to dry out in the greenhouse before storing for the winter. The smaller ones I have left in the ground to see if they survive but the big star ones and the cafe au lait I have dug up as I don’t want to lose those. Some of them have got massive over summer and so I should be able to get lots more plants from them in spring. I also found a couple of lupin seed heads which I have drying in the kitchen now, also for sowing again next spring. I had quickly painted the remaining bits I needed to do in the pantry before doing the gardening and so once that was dry I went back to get some bits of furniture cleaned and moved in there. The apple rack is going to live in there and needed the dust cleaned from it, also a cupboard that needed a hoovering to get the dust off. The rest of the day until feeding time I spent cleaning out screws and nails from the workbench which is also going to be going in there. The bench is one that we inherited at our old house from the previous owner, it is old, heavy and well used, it will look fab once it is cleaned up. But before I can do that I needed to clean out the little cubby holes at the back which were full of screws and nails, some of which have been there for well over twenty years I imagine 😂 I sorted through thousands of screws and nails of all different sizes and types, lots were rusty and so have been thrown away, lots are still very useable and indeed we are always looking for nails and screws so sorting them all out will be a good job, well done. I have now ordered a screw organiser thingy that will go on the wall and I can sort them out into sizes hopefully. I came in for a s quick sit down before having to go out and do the afternoon rounds and saw what I thought was an egg customer sat in the car, I went out with more eggs as we have had a few visitors to the shed today. He got out and asked for Samantha, my thought were now whirring as the horses were due to have the dentist visit but I didn’t think it was today, I asked him if he was the dentist and yes he was 🙄 A quick phonecall to Sam and it seems she had the wrong day written down 🤪 he agreed to come back tomorrow bless him, which is when Sam thought he was coming. The reason that I couldn’t supervise is because Sam doesn’t know how Jack is going to react, previously he had to be sedated to have his teeth rasped and it’s not something I would be confident overseeing. I finally got a sit down for about half and hour before starting with the afternoon rounds and egg collecting.
Huge dahlia tuber root, hopefully I can get a lot more plants from it next spring.
I am not quite sure where Thursday and Friday went lol or what I did on those days except that the horse dentist came back to do their teeth and it’s good to finally get a rough idea of biscuits age, apparently somewhere around 20 years old. She is in good oral health though which is good to know, Jack also has no problems and his lameness has gone so that is good as well. I have had the twins three times since Thursday morning so no wonder I have no idea what else I have done 🤪 Friday (I think) I went into town with Shelley and Flo for a mooch round the charity shops and to get a nice coffee. I found a few bargains including a gorgeous Rumtopf pot, I did already have one but this one was so lovely I couldn’t leave it sat there so I bought it 😁 I gave the other one to shelley so she can have a go at it next year. Traditionally you fill the rumtopf with layers of fruit, rum and sugar, the fruit can be a complete mixture which means to can add to it as the season progresses. You then eat the boozy fruit around Christmas time. I tend to use plums and brandy but any combination works just as well if you fancy giving it a go.
Saturday: I had the twins for a couple of hours while Sam and luke went to a meeting and then it was time to go to the family Christmas party. Each year (except last year) my sister hires the hall in Kelmscot and we have a big family get together, there are a lot of us and we need a big space for everyone to be able to come 😂 This year it was mainly centred around the children having fun so there was a disco and games and a sack of gifts for them all, we all did something for a buffet and as always there was plenty to eat and drink 🥰 It is important for the children to get together as a good few of them have only known pandemic conditions which is really quite sad.
Sunday: Up and about early this morning and after getting all the Smallholding jobs done, feeding, watering etc, and then the household things done, washing on, rubbish out etc, I could finally get on with the job I was excited to get started, the pantry 🥰 We had moved some of the cupboards in yesterday but we could finally get started on fitting shelves and fixtures. I am delighted with how it is going so far, I have plenty of shelves and storage space and I have lots of hanging space for drying flowers or storing onions and garlic. I have tried to use everything I already had here and have easily achieved that, I still have a fair amount to put in there but here is a sneak preview 😁 I can’t wait to start stocking it with goodies 😍
Monday 22nd November: The temperatures have dropped to normal levels now and so I think our run of mild weather is gone for good. I don’t mind a cold dry winter it is much better than a mild wet one 🙄 Even though it is colder the sun was out shining away and eventually it warmed the ground up enough to get rid of the frost, I had already decided I was going to be doing a bit outside and the sun was an added bonus. Bearing in mind it has got colder I filled up a tonne bag with straw and took it to the orchard where I used it for the Guineas, rabbit, quail, lovely gut Sussex and the turkeys. All the pens and huts are now filled with a good amount of straw for them to burrow into if they need it. I also filled up all the wild birds feeders so that they have plenty to keep them going on a frosty morning.
After that it was on to the big job of the day, planting all the tulip bulbs as well as some giant alliums. I think there were about 450 tulips bulbs if my memory serves me correctly, they have all now been planted in various places and should look splendid come the spring. Some of them I used to plant up some pots that will go out for sale next spring, most of them went into the raised flower bed in front of the house, a sprinkling of them went into various other pots and then a good amount went into one of the raised beds in the veg garden. Those ones will be specifically for cut flowers and once they have been cut the bulbs will be discarded. This is what happens in the industry, once the flower is cut it can’t send goodness back to the bulb, normally you would allow the foliage to die back so that the bulb can get a good recovery ready for the next year, but picking or cutting the flower means that doesn’t happen and so the bulbs are discarded. This means that once all the tulips have been picked I can clear the bed out and use it for veg later. The pots of tulips I have had to put under a metal run that we use for chickens sometimes, this is to protect the, from all and sundry, chickens from digging in the pots, squirrels from hiding nuts in the pots and this disturbing the bulbs, I know foxes will dig up bulbs, not sure if they eat them or just dig to see what else is under there. Best to try and protect them as much as possible otherwise all the work ends up being for nothing. I still have a small box of gladioli bulbs to plant as well, I need to decide where they will go. I had to books I ordered arrive today, ‘the flower farmers year’ and a flower arranging book, plenty to read and I will probably find I have already done something wrong but I had to put the bulbs in before the book arrived and certainly before I had chance to read it through.
I did notice that although the garlic I planted is coming up but that the same cannot be said for the onions, something has been pulling them out so I have now covered them with environmesh to give any remaining ones a bit of a chance. I also can’t see any sign of the broad beans I sowed, I am thinking that the mice may have got them, I really should have sown them in pots first and then planted them out 🙄
We had a rich beef stew in the slow cooker for dinner tonight and an apple and blackberry crumble, definitely getting into comfort food season now. The Christmas pudding has been boiling away on the hob for two hours, it has another two hours to go before allowing it to cool and then store it ready for its main event on Christmas Day. I also got a soup veg bag out of the freezer this morning and made a batch of soup, should be enough for the next couple of days and a welcome warm lunch on cold days. I think soup is the best thing during the winter months, full of goodness and it warms you right through to the core 🥰
Tuesday: Early morning appointment for blood tests this morning so I was up and at it as soon as the alarm went off. I had I intended to come back home and get on with some things but Shelley suggested a trip into town and so that’s where we went. We had a lovely morning mooching around and getting a few Christmas presents sorted, plus a coffee stop which is always a pleasure. We stopped to collect Flo from nursery on our way back and I spotted some amazing looking ginkgo biloba leaves, when I started gathering them up they made the most beautiful and natural pompom 🥰 The leaf collecter lorry arrived shortly after so we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time 😁
Nature is a wonderful thing 😍
Once back home I got on with sorting out dinner for the evening and then a bit of card making u til it was time to do the afternoon rounds. The day finishes early at this time out year (outside at any rate) by around 4.30 it is starting to get dark. I decided the dark evenings are a blessing and they give me time to make things and so this evening I made a dried flower wreath. The wreath is from last Christmas, I leave it to dry all year and you end up with a lovely dried moss ring perfect for adding dried flowers that I picked in the summer months and hung to dry.
I seem to have lost a couple of days in between lol, suffice to say that I didn’t do much outside stuff mainly inside. I have been filling any gaps in the walls of the pantry and my sister came over with a drawing she has done of how it will look when it’s done. I need to give the walls a miss coat of paint, just enough to take the blockiness out of the ply walls and make it look rustic.
I think it was Wednesday that the APHA announced that poultry must all be housed and bio security measures put in place from Monday, here we go again. To be fair we were expecting it as we do nearly every year now, one of the reasons it hardly seems worth continuing with poultry 🙄 Hardly good for them when they have to spend months locked away, let’s hope it’s only them this year and not us again.
Thursday: My plan was to paint the pantry but first I wanted to get some cleaning done, the low sun at this time of year drives me nuts as it shows up all the dust 😂 After lunch Shelley, Flo, Sam, Lucie and George called in after their morning at soft play. Later that afternoon Sam was back with all the kiddies including Mia and the twins stayed here while Mia went for her swimming lesson.
Jack (horse) is lame 😒 no apparent cause at the minute, no cuts or heat in his leg, it’s possible he has knocked it or kicked it himself. He will be monitored for a couple of days to see how he goes, no point bringing him in as he will just kick the stable door and that won’t do his leg any good as it is one of his front ones. He is bearing some weight on it but clearly has an issue, I cut him some fresh willow to see if that helps at all, he is better off to continue moving at this stage we think.
Friday: I still haven’t got the pantry painted and I had no intention of doing it today either, it’s blooming cold out there so I would rather be inside doing something else 😜 Mostly that consists of making Christmas cards etc, trying out new ideas, making bread and cooking. The weather took a dive at lunchtime, windy, rainy, cold, not nice today at all, I was not looking forward to going out and doing the rounds late afternoon. In a couple more days that will not be an issue as they will all be penned up in the stable block so I will only have to nip across the hard standing.
John has just phoned to say he is in the queue for a booster vaccination at a walk in clinic, that means I will probably have to go outside again to shut everything away for the night 🥶
Josh and Flo are coming to tea tonight and staying over, it’s been a long time since they have stayed at Nanas, before the pandemic they would regularly come and stay and then everything went sideways and we have never really quite got back on track with sleepovers 😏 Spaghetti Bolognese and a jam sponge pudding for dessert is on the menu.
You may wonder (or you may not) how I am getting on without the Rayburn, well I have a lot more time to do the things I like doing and I thought I would miss the heat but I don’t. The only thing I really miss is being able to dry the washing each night but it’s a small price to pay compared to the amount of work it took all year to run and maintain it.
Saturday: Oh my days what a night 🙄 gale force winds were roaring and kept me and plenty of other people awake half the night,seriously strong gusts at times, scary stuff but no damage though as I write this Saturday evening the winds have not actually stopped all day and are still pretty fierce. Add to that snow, yes bloody snow and it was not at all nice out there, the wind was bitingly cold. I had to go out and top up the horses water and also give them some hay, on the way back I made up the stables in case the snow didn’t clear and I had to bring them in. John went off to get feed once he had done the morning rounds and then in the afternoon he reluctantly went out to fasten down some of the roof that had come loose from constant buffering. At 4pm shelley came over with Martin and the kids and we walked up to the farm next door where they were having the Christmas craft Fayre ooosh the wind was strong and cold but it all added to the adventure, we met Mum up there, had hot chocolates and mulled wine, bought some raffle tickets and then walked home again. I will be glad when I don’t have to go outside anymore tonight 🥶
This is my pantry which at the moment is a blank canvass but it will look super and be a great place to store all my produce and things. Beautiful but could do without it lol
Sunday: It started off as a normal enough day, we did the animals, Sam and Mia came over to check the horses and rug up Jack. We had a discussion about where and when we will move them next but at the minute they are staying as they are. We went to the farm shop to get some bales of sawdust ready to shut the birds away and then we went out. Basically I dragged John round a couple of garden centres and a Christmas craft Fayre. I am doing well buying locally made gifts for the girls, I can’t really do it for the grandchildren but whenever I can I try and buy local. We bumped into Charlie and Macca at one of the centres so we stopped and had coffee and cake with them. Up to that point things were grand 🤪 We got home, unloaded and then the power went 🙄 I spent too much bloody time trying to get through to the power company, they are very busy due to the storm we had and so basically send you round and round in circles trying to report the outage and find out any info about when it would be back on. We had the big job of moving all the birds to do so we got togged up and went out to get that started. We put in clean bedding, blocked up any escape holes, put in water, feed, dust baths, perches and grit bowls as well as making nice little nest box areas. We also moved the ducks this time, they have gone into the point of lay pen, obviously they don’t roost so I made a little sleeping/egg laying area out of hay bales and straw for them. By this time it is starting to get dark and we have no lights 😂 we got the geese back up into the back paddock where they will stay for the duration and we herded the ducks from their current abode to their new des res. Then it was time to move all the hens, some of them had already been living in the stable block so they were easy enough. A few stragglers in the side paddock had gone to their usual hit and so we gathered those up a d put them in with the others. Then onto the big hut in the front paddock, we filled the first two poultry crates and took them to the stable, when we came out the lights were back on in the house yippee 🙌 We collected the last two poultry crates of birds and put those in the stable and finally we were done. It’s a pain having to shut the birds away for what is likely to be a few months but it’s what we have to do. On the flip side it makes them all easier to look after and of course they won’t get eaten by the fox plus we shall be able to find all the eggs. I have given them some extra treats, sunflower seeds and dried seaweed and I have used diatomaceous Earth in their feed as a wormer and in their bedding and dust bath, it’s like a five star poultry hotel 😂 Once that was done it was time to come in and get that cup of tea we had been looking forward to when we came home earlier in the day.
Woke up to snow, not just a few flakes but more than we have had in the wintertime 😂 As if this past year hasn’t been crazy enough 😜
John was up, fed and let out the birds and gone to work by 8am this morning, he should be back by lunchtime. I had the Rayburn lit by 8.30, not because it’s particularly cold, I always think it feels warmer with snow on the ground, but more because it will be soggy which means we will get soggy. Soggy gloves, hats, coats, and so it is useful to have somewhere to dry everything and warm up hands and feet when we get back inside.
I have so far only done the indoor bits and pieces but I need to get outside and bring the torts back in. They must wonder the heck is going on, they have already been digging themselves into the ground at night but of course the day time (especially if the sun comes out) they are wandering around. I left them because I kept thinking, it will warm up today, ha, so I give up and will put them back indoors.
Today we also get more freedoms in the form of non essential shops opening including hairdressers, barbers, salons and outside eating and pub gardens😂 What a day for it to snow, I feel sorry for those businesses that have waited all this time to wake up to a blanket of snow this morning, it was bad enough that it is colder than average and certainly much, much colder than this time last year! We should be having warm spring sunshine and be able to comfortably sit outside having some refreshments 🤷♀️
Just sat down for a quick break after cleaning the spare room, I have come to the conclusion (again 😂) that I have too much stuff. We make extra storage to store stuff we hardly, if ever, use, what is that all about. I hate to get rid of it though, you never know when you will need it 😜 In all seriousness I do need to find new homes for a lot of it, now the charity shops are open again at least I can take stuff there, someone else might be able to make use of some of it. Whatever ‘it’ is ai need to go through it all and thin it all out.
The next electric radiator has just arrived eeeek, I am looking forward to this one because it’s for the kitchen which means that on chilly mornings it should be warmer in there than it is when I haven’t lit the Rayburn 🥰
Time seems to be passing slowly today I don’t know why, maybe because I have been cleaning and they say time passes quickly when you are having fun so the opposite must be true too 😜
Tuesday: Totally different day today, cold start but the sun is shining and it’s quite warm 🥰 John has gone to work again today but did the animals before leaving. I spent the first couple of hours indoors sorting out some of the ‘stuff’ and also taking up a pair of curtains to hang in the spare room. Then outside to get on with the jobs of the day, first off the water buckets, it was frozen this morning when John went to do them. Another reason for getting the indoor stuff done first, by the time I go out pipes have thawed and it’s warmed up a bit. I water the plants growing in the tunnels, cut a couple of bunches of rhubarb but most of the time I spent in the greenhouse sowing seeds. This morning it was runner beans, dwarf French beans and sweetcorn as well as pricking out some echinops for the flower beds. I feel like I am really behind, I say that every year but I still have work to do on some of the beds as they are not ready for planting yet although it won’t take long I am still aware that they are on the todo list. A bit of weeding in the front flower beds and then inside to get the washing up done and a quick sit down before I get a haircut yay 😁
Hair cut done ✅ after a spot of lunch it was back outside to try to gain some ground, which I feel I have done. I have planted the peas and the mangetout, I just have a few pea left to find a space for, I also planted and covered two rows of beetroot (chigoya, stripey) and two rows of swede. The root veg I have sown in multi crop blocks which basically means more than one seed in each sowing, they like it apparently and you thin out later once they are swelling up. Each sowing was watered in with some organic plant food and hopefully they will get going pretty quickly. Most of the peas were sown outside, four rows, but two rows I have sown in the poly tunnel. I am hoping I will get an earlier drop from these, if I don’t and it fails at least the compost they are in will get some goodness from the nitrogen nodules. I figured that the tomatoes won’t be going in for a while and even then will take a while to get big enough to out grow the peas so we will see what happens. I also had some more broad beans left over so I have planted them next to the swede, might as well mix it up a little and see what results we get.
Wednesday: Not such a cold start this morning g and the sun was already out first thing. I whizzed round and did the indoors stuff before going outside around 9.30. Watering the veg I planted yesterday and then some pricking out of dill and coriander. Onto hoeing the onion bed and one of the asparagus beds. John came home at lunch time and we popped to the shops to get a few bits, it was manic, I had forgotten what it was like when everybody in the whole world was out shopping 😩 busy, manic, everyone fighting for a car parking space, queues, bring back lockdown 😂
Thursday: Still cold for the time of year and so I am holding off a few jobs, besides the fact it’s chilly to work outside unless you have a job that keeps you warm, the ground is too cold to plant much. Likewise I can’t move things on in the greenhouse because what would normally now move to the bench is still on a heat mat 🙄
We haven’t done much today, John has done a bit of tidying up, the wood store is now empty and John has cleared the ground ready to put the tractor in there, that will free up a bay in the hay barn, for what I don’t know yet. I have pottered about doing not much really, Charlie came over and bought lunch with her, it’s her birthday today so we had lunch outside but it was a tad cold when the sun went behind the clouds. Sam and the kids came over in the afternoon and the kids played with bubbles, a piece of board on the ground (jumping up and down) and the wheelbarrow, who needs expensive toys 😂
Friday: Temps are about a degree warmer than yesterday and for an hour at least this morning the sun was glorious, unfortunately it disappeared and as yet has not reappeared but the chilly wind has dropped and so it feels much better today. John went to work and I spent my time in the garden after going round and doing the water buckets which were frozen when John tired to do them first thing. In the greenhouse I am still waiting to be able to move things along but the constant cold nights mean I won’t chance it yet. I pot on some of the cucumber plants and the courgettes so at least something is happening. I have also sown some more flower seeds, rudbeckia and lupin, they will go out for sale once they are big enough. On the garden itself I have done some weeding, well that’s mostly all I did, weeding lol. I put out a couple more plants for sale but as yet it’s too cold to put some of the others out so they will have to wait a while longer.
Before coming in for a sit down at 3pm I picked some purple sprouting for dinner later and had a quick look at the asparagus which is just starting to appear above ground but not big enough to cut yet.
I have seen the forecast for next week the temps are going to climb nicely and then plummet with an artic blast again! I think I am just going to have to go ahead as best I can with planting up and moving on then try to protect the plants as best as possible and see what happens. I can always start sowing some more just in case the first lot get affected and if they don’t then I can sell the second lot of sowings when they get bigger. If I keep waiting will be at the end of the season before we know it lol, a difficult year but then every year seems to have its challenges nowadays.
Saturday: The weather looks promising today, despite a frosty start there is wall to wall blue sky. Today was one of those days when you have a plan and probably shouldn’t have bothered 🙄 A job that should have been first thing and 10 mins didn’t get completed until midday for various reasons. Last night I cooked up bramley apples and mint along with some cider vinegar to make mint jelly, that all went well and I left it overnight to strain hoping to get it boiled and jarred up first thing. I had just got the sugar in and dissolved when BT arrived and almost at the same time Martin, Josh and Flo called in to see us. As I always say, everything stops for grandchildren and so I set the pan aside to return to it later once they had gone. We had coffee outside and played with the kids, all the while the BT man is checking equipment. He goes off at some point believing he has detected this elusive fault. Martin and the children leave so I go back inside and get the pan back on the boil only it has developed a skin which I skimmed off first (I think it was from the vinegar) The engineer returns as I am carefully watching the mixture boil and get up to temperature, I barely look at him when he is telling me, he thinks that is now sorted and I shouldn’t have any more problems, yep I have heard that one before 😂 He leaves and I carry on until I am happy I will get a set and then put it into jars than have not been in the oven sterilising for over two hours 😜 Job done I go outside to get started out there as I haven’t had a chance to do that as yet. I go into the orchard to started getting water for the Guineas, quail, Turkey and light Sussex, only to find the water is not coming out of the tap, that means a leak somewhere. I go back into the garden and can hear it pouring out of the main tap, it has been going a while as the paddock has a slick of water across it 🥴 Luckily just as I discovered it, John, who had popped to the shop for some milk, returned, there were three joints in total that had popped off from the freeze thaw process 🙄 Once we got those sorted and I may say it wasn’t without incident as John lost one of the washers down a hole in the ground (yeah I know, you couldn’t make this stuff up) I finished getting the water buckets etc sorted and then it was onto watering some of the veg plants I have planted recently. It is not as bad as it was this time last year when we had record high temps and no rain for weeks but this year it’s cold and no rain for weeks 🤷♀️ always a situation to overcome, hopefully it will all be fine in the end and we will get veg!
Mint jelly, not quite as clear as I would have liked and I forgot to turn it when it was part set so the mint bits are all at the top but it will still be delicious 😋 The jelly you buy in the shop will have green food colouring added to it to make it more appealing 🙄 this is the colour it actually should be 😀
I checked the greenhouse and opened the vents, all seems well in there so there was nothing to be getting on with. I came in for a cuppa around 1.30 and did a bit of researching of various plants, we will watch Prince Phillips funeral later this afternoon though John is annoyed as the snooker is starting as well but I have already bagged the tv 😋
Sunday: Lovely day, sunshine, warm fabulous. Today is the first anniversary of the passing of Dad and so tinged with a little sadness, but not too much as there are so many things I remember that make me smile or laugh. I often wondered when people said they think of them every day, how that was possible but it really is, in the littlest things you catch yourself thinking about a chuckle or a ‘wise word’ or just the appreciation he would have had for something like a good home cooked dinner. We went to the grave and gave him a toast with his favourite tipple, had a little sing song and a jig, he would have loved that 😂
For the best part of the day I have not done much other than clean out the Guineas and a trip to the garden centre and a visit to my brother for a cuppa on the way over. I attempted to do something about one part of the veg bed that I had turned over to wildlife, it needs sorting but apart from pulling out nettles I abandoned the job, I will get back to it at some point but not today. John meanwhile has been doing the usual jobs, feeding, watering, egg collecting. He did start the very last raised bed at the side in the driveway, until I pulled him away to go to the garden centre that is but he didn’t offer up much objection to abandon tools 😜
Early evening I went out and checked the greenhouse to make sure everything was alright and then I watered the herb bed. It is so dry that nothing is really bursting into life like it should be at this time of year. There are a couple of plants I want to lfit and so giving them a soaking will help immensely when I go out in the morning to dig them up and move them.
I can’t quite believe that right at the very beginning of this week we had a covering of snow and now the days are bright, sunny and warm lol. I think we have a few more days of warm weather before it gets cold again 🙄 not sure how long that will last but these things are sent to try us and they certainly do!
Monday 25th January 2021: Morning campers 😀 it is a fine sunny morning this morning though the snow is still on the ground and it’s freezing the Sun is glorious ☀️ Amazing how it lifts your spirits even in the depths of Winter.
Early morning geese, I keep looking but they have not started laying yet.
As you can guess, this morning was all about breaking water buckets and making sure everything has enough food to keep them warm, the horses can’t get at any available grass so they are having a good breakfast and plenty of hay, the Guineas are getting plenty of hay as well as their regular feed and the chickens, ducks and geese are also getting plenty. So are the rats, well one at least, John disturbed one in the duck feeder this morning. I was round the other side and heard a shout I thought he had fallen over so went to find him and he was trying to get the dogs to catch the rat but it was too quick. His plan is to sneak up on it tomorrow morning with the dogs ready, good luck with that one 😂
I went for a look round the front paddock and found fox tracks, I followed them in a circle around the paddock, sometimes it had stopped and had a dig in the grass and then carried on, it went all the way round the paddock and back to the goose hut that is not in use at the minute, that is where it had marked territory, the unmistakable stink of fox 🦊
Beautiful crisp, sunny morning ☀️
Back inside to have breakfast and a coffee, get the Rayburn lit put some washing on and then I got something out of the freezer for dinner and I made two batches of crumble mix. I had some flour I needed to use up and John has been hankering after pudding (I did suggest he learn to bake but that fell on deaf ears) so tonight there will be mixed fruit crumble for pudding 😀 and plenty of pre mix in the freezer for others days. Makes life a lot easier when you can just grab pre prepared and throw it all together. You would think today would be a good soup day but I had some sausage rolls in the freezer (they were for the Christmas festivities that never happened so might as well eat them up, well John anyway. He is out doing some more fencing, I did think the ground would be too hard but he said once you break the surface it’s soft so that’s good news, the fence can continue.
John had to go and sort a quick leak, someone damaged a pipe 🙄 and when he came back he started on digging out for the driveway with the tractor. Meanwhile my card blanks came and so I got started making them, I find it very relaxing and the results quite pleasing 🥰 Some will be for sale in the egg shed and some will be sold online via social media.
Tuesday: Really, it’s only Tuesday 🙄 We did the usual this morning, nothing untoward, John didn’t see his rat 😂 Then it was on with the jobs of the day, John has spent most of the day as happy as a pig in the proverbial, on the tractor digging (making a bloody muddy mess actually) but it looks like progress, sort of. He is taking off the top layer off what was a grass area, it will be the drive to the yard eventually, only taken about ten years to get round to it but hey we are nearly there now 😜 Meanwhile I have also spent the day doing happy things, making cards, I had an order for a few and also a special commission for quite a few ‘hug’ cards. I have really enjoyed myself and it’s easy to be in there for hours doing them, I have used 50 card blanks already and had to order more, luckily there is not much else to be done except keep the Rayburn going and make cups of tea for John.
We received a lovely letter in the post today from our little niece Zeri, it was delightful and so I have sent her a card in the post with all our news and a picture of the horses. It is actually really nice to get good old fashioned letters, I doubt many do any more with e mail and social media, I think there should be a revival 🥰 With that in mind I made some for the grandchildren and posted them off too 😀
COVID-19 deaths have gone over 100,000 in the UK 😔 back in March at the beginning of this the hope was to limit deaths to around 40,000
Wednesday: Much milder this morning and drizzly to go with it but that’s fine at least the taps work and watering the animals is much easier. John did the animals and when he came back in we talked about what we would do today, Sam had messaged me and asked if I could go over and help her out so that’s what I did for the day while John stayed here and did some wood stacking and dug a hole for one of the gate posts.
Just listening to the news and schools will not be going back before the first week of March 🙄 pretty tough on parents with school age children I reckon. I have seen how difficult it is to cope with three under fives at home especially when one of them has school work to complete and there are I am sure much more complex families and problems all over the country especially if the parents have to work from home and school their kids. At the same time I think it is necessary to have as many people stay at home as possible with the daily figures still high, we are paying the price for Christmas gatherings. It does not help when gatherings of 300/400 people are still having to be broken up, what’s wrong with people surely these things can wait, I wonder if they would be so keen if they were denied treatment should they become ill 🤷♀️
Thursday: It’s a lovely sunny mild morning this morning despite the fact that we had torrential rain for most of the night, consequently the lake is back in the side paddock and it’s bigger than I have ever seen it before. As always though it will disappear within a couple of days unless we get more heavy rain. We seem to get concentrated bursts of rain these days, I remember when you would have rain then it would stop and start often through the day or night, now it’s all or nothing as far as I can see, climate change?, I don’t know but I do know it’s different.
We did the animals and then John went off to do a little job for someone while I got dinner for tonight sorted and various household jobs. I would like to get out on the first front bed and weed it but I will have to wait for a gap in the weather when it’s not frozen and not soggy, might be waiting a while and all the time the weeds are growing. I have seen plenty of bulbs coming up too, that always brings a smile to my face at this time of year, hardy little things that keep on pushing up no matter what the weather is doing 🥰
Oh how lovely to see you 😍 it means Spring is on the way 😀
The rest of the day was spent by John putting up more posts and fencing, right where one of the posts was going he found a huge slab of concrete about four inches down so he was on the kango for a while to break through it. No idea what it is or why it’s there, part of the MOD site I guess, I was hoping and am always hoping we will find an underground bunker one day, oh the possibilities 😜 root storage, wine cellar, underground home lol. I spent my time sorting the Rayburn, making cards and keeping an eye on the braised beef in the slow cooker (yeah I know it doesn’t really need keeping an eye on 😂)
Friday: Whoo Friday, except that yesterday I kept thinking it was Saturday so that makes Friday, Sunday doesn’t it 😜 Anyway whatever day it is it’s bloody raining again, not just drizzle oh no full on straight down rain, been raining on and off all night, never mind after this we are forecast……snow again.
I decided I was sick of looking like a middle aged, dragged through a hedge backwards mess, so this morning I spritzed a little perfume, straightened my fringe (hair has got so long it goes in a pony tail everyday) put on a tiny bit of slap and got ready to go out in the rain 😝 Animals done and sorted, back in for breakfast and a coffee and then John went off to pick up some POL hens for a customer who doesn’t want to wait until Spring when we will get the big batch in. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to get them mid winter in an avian lockdown but hey each to their own 😀 Meanwhile I need to decided what’s for dinner tonight, I get really, really bored of that particular decision, I guess that’s why holidays are so looked forward too, someone else has decided and even giving you a menu with a choice 😂 Sigh, holidays, remember those, we haven’t had one for nearly two years now, this time two years ago we were getting ready for our adventure to cross into the artic circle. The next holiday is going to be amazing and so much more appreciated than ever before I think 🥰
Saturday: I have never known this much rain, it’s concentrated and relentless, the standing water is worse than ever before. I know I shouldn’t moan as it does not affect our house in any way but one of the stables is flooded, the hay barn is flooded (this normally happens once a year if that, that’s twice this week 🙄) the paddocks at the side have a bigger, wider lake than I have ever seen and there is water running everywhere. I know as soon as it stops raining it will drain away but in the meantime it’s rather depressing and we can’t do anything to stop it raining 🌧 I was talking the other day with Sue and we were saying that in Winters past it was usually cold and not much rain now we have torrential rain In autumn, Winter and Spring, 2007 I think it was in July we had similar, unprecedented rain and serious flooding in July!
Just looking through the photos of the last year at all the produce I grew and cannot wait for this years growing season to get going, so looking forward to seed sowing and growing which is one of my favourite parts, waiting for everything to grow is mediocre and then picking and using all the fresh ingredients is the pinnacle of the hard work that goes into it all, roll on Spring.
Oh good grief now it’s snowing! Gotta laugh or else I might cry, there is a flood warning for Shilton according to Alexa, I know we are on higher ground so not such a problem for us but the village is at risk of flooding 😔
As the weather is crap I decided to do something creative, Sam bought me a lino cutting kit for Christmas, I haven’t done that since I was a primary school and that was a VERY long time ago 😂 I got everything out and had a go, it is a lovely medium to work with and I really enjoyed it. I was quite pleased with my first effort, needs some adjustments, the moon looks like it’s an eclipse but all in all a good effort I reckon, can’t wait to do some more.
Sunday: I have no idea where that week went but gone it is! We did the animals this morning and I put clean bedding in for the ducks, geese, Ted the Turkey and the Guineas. I was just taking some sawdust to the hens in the stable when I heard foxes screeching, this was about 9.30am, I looked to my neighbours paddock and there were two foxes playing, bold as brass in broad daylight, I guess they were playing it didn’t look like fighting more a game of chase. I gave her a quick ring just in case her hens were out in the run, it does not take much for a fox to dig up or tear down something in its way and it was frozen this morning so not much other food available. After they disappeared I carried on with the job in hand and then back indoors to light the Rayburn and get lunch and dinner sorted out, made a few cards that had been ordered. I got John to clean the flue before I lit the Rayburn and in-between that and the animals he has been digging another post hole for the new gateway. Hard digging as first an old post had to be removed and then the new one had to go down about two foot as it’s a big gate, it is looking rather fab though and we are going to build a small planter as well which will look lovely.
It started snowing again mid afternoon but nothing much just some flurries and hopefully it won’t try any harder 🙏 John returns to work tomorrow and that will be me on me tod again 🙄 mixed blessings 🥴
Monday 18th January 2021: I like typing 2021 it feels very futuristic 😂 Monday morning again and the weather is ok, you can tell when the weather is just ok as the English don’t mention it, we tend to talk about extremes, isn’t it hot or it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, we mostly always mention the rain though, we state the obvious, wet today isn’t it 😝 We are definitely weather obsessed as a nation and that’s because it is usually all over the place, you can’t guarantee that Spring will be spring like or that summer will be warm and dry you have to wait and see what comes our way and we can change it but what we can do is use it as a conversation starter 😀
John has had to go and change a set of taps for an elderly disabled lady this morning but first we did the morning feeding and watering. Once he had left I did some household bits plus get some bread on the go, since the beginning of this lockdown we have not bought bread at all I have made every loaf.
I did contemplate going out to the front and cutting back dead foliage on the flower bed by the front gate but I think I will wait, there will be plenty of insects hibernating still and although I am keen to get tided up I don’t want to disturb them just yet.
We need to decide what job we are going to get sorted next, the side driveway is on our radar but that will be weather dependant, when it’s dry we can get on, if it’s pouring down (and there is rain on the radar) then there won’t be any point as it will just make more of a mess than necessary plus who wants to get a soaking when you don’t need to.
I am on a roll this morning, whilst having bread on the go I have also got some bits of paperwork done, Bill paying, filing, sending out invoices etc and lit the Rayburn and got soup on for lunch. One of the things I did last year for the first time was the bags of frozen mixed veg for soup and I am so pleased I did they have been great and will definitely be doing them again for next Winter. This mix has courgettes, celery, turnip, onion, carrot and runner beans in it, mostly they were odd veg that I couldn’t do much else with and so I chopped them and open froze then put them all in one bag to use as a soup mix. If you have the odd carrot or stick of celery in the fridge do the same, you will soon have a soup bag ready for when you need it, anything can go in even the odd potato. I tend to cook mine down until the veg collapse then whizz with a hand blender, add stock of your choice and voila lunch is ready in no time, we have ours with freshly baked bread today which is a bonus 😀
We got lots of little bits done in the afternoon, the door stop and door handle, I have a fold up table that we have hung neatly on the back of the door, that’s for when I need extra room for crafting or sewing etc. The next radiator got delivered and that was put up in the spare room. I know it is a little thing but I am loving the heat from these radiators, it’s hard to explain but the room feels all over gently heated rather than what we have now from the wet system 🤷♀️
Dinner tonight consists of left over roast lamb so John has a throw it in the pot dinner with lamb, potatoes, carrots and mixed veg plus stock and cornflour, throw it all in and put it in the Rayburn until cooked. Not sure why so many recipes faff about with preparation when these dinners always come out smelling delicious 😋 I on the other hand am having a healthy version of lamb korma made by marinating the lamb in yoghurt and a korma spice, I will add ground almond to it when I cook it, having that with whole grain rice, a cucumber and grape salad and a wholemeal pitta bread, together with a diet Cherry coke I can almost kid myself I have had a lovely takeaway 🤣
John did the afternoon rounds while I got the dinner ready and that is Monday almost done and dusted, just the evening to relax and enjoy, this lockdown lark is quite enjoyable really 😜
The vaccine rollout is well under way and over 4million people have already been vaccinated, they are vaccinating a higher number than those that are testing positive so that’s a great thing. They have started to call in the over 70s as well now, hopefully it won’t be long until we get ours. As I said before Shelley has been a volunteer at the local vaccination centre and she said people are very emotional about receiving their jabs, for some of them it has been their first trip out since last March 😔
Tuesday: Busy again today, it’s much easier to keep busy while the days pass than sit doing nothing though I appreciate some don’t have the choice. First up John did the morning rounds, I had a shower and then did some hoovering, fed the cats and dogs, put out the rubbish those kind of jobs. Then onto the main events of the day and we had two, John was on concrete duties, we have an areas just outside the double doors in the back bit, for some reason the paths ends before it reaches the doors and so I wanted to get it extended to keep the mud down when we come in from the yard. Meanwhile I spent an hour in the greenhouse sowing broad bean seeds and some peas, the peas will be for harvesting the shoots as I am rather partial to pea shoots in my salad. After that I decided the big poly tunnel could be done, the garden itself is too wet but the tunnel is perfect for working in at this time of year. I spent a good couple of hours, weeding, pulling up anything that was still growing, salad mostly, and then putting barrowfulls of mushroom compost on the beds. Last year I left things to grow on but I feel that was a bit of mistake as I never really had a starting point, I was always trying to work round everything, the salad leaves went to the chickens in the stable, judging by the scuffles they were very happy to have something to peck over. I have beds in there because after we sited it I discovered it was on a clear seam and a big one at that, year after year I tried growing straight into it but it was hard work with little return. We cobbled together beds out of what we had lying around and the difference was amazing, I get good crops now, the left hand corner near the doorway is fine, that has lovely soil and so does not need any type of bed, funny how the soil type can change within centimetres 😜
It’s mid afternoon and I haven’t lit the Rayburn yet, it’s positively balmy at around 11 degrees today 😜
I discovered that the kittens or at least one of them is as much use as a chocolate teapot 😝 I was digging mushroom compost from the big tonne bag when a couple of mice suddenly appeared. No sign of the cats outside so I went into the boot room and picked one up and took it back with me (Jack) I put him in the bag and he jumped straight out without even looking. I the tried to catch him again but he wasn’t having any of it so I caught the mouse, I put it down on the floor, the cat was looking, the mouse ran, the cat looked and only once the mouse had disappeared under the fence did the cat venture forward and sniff where the mouse had been 🤣 I said to John I am going to have to train them I think!
John had covered up his concrete as it’s right outside the door but as I am always telling him your defences are only as good as your weakest point, the dog went out and stood on the tiny bit that was not covered 🤣🤣 which caused some swearing 😜 To be fair he has been lucky with the weather today as storm Christoph is battering the UK and until about 4pm we hadn’t really seen any sign of it at all. As it is at the minute we have a bit of rain but nothing much, it may progress through the night mind you 🙄
I realised after looking through my seeds that I didn’t have any peas, I had a few, those I sowed this morning but nowhere near enough to grow a decent amount of peas for the year. I ordered, mangetout, snap peas and a dwarf early variety which I will probably sow in pots and then transfer to the tunnel. The carrots I was hoping to have in the small tunnel never got very far, they sprouted but something and I suspect that is a mouse, keeps eating the greenery so not much chance of anything developing underneath. I also ordered some lemon grass seeds, I really loved growing it though I didn’t use much of it and need to rectify that. I love the smell of anything lemony, the lemon verbena has survived the winter so far and it smells amazing even in the depths of the dormant season.
The onions, garlic and shallots are doing well as I said last week, I got a photo so you can see how they are coming along.
Onions, garlic and shallots, I thought it was a lot when I planted them but will probably find it’s not enough 😂 Broad beans sown, the others are plants I have had on the heat mat through the winter which seems to have worked well 😀
The weather took a turn for the worst during the evening, heavy rain and high winds, hopefully it will have blown over by the morning 😀
Wednesday: Ewww storm Christoph got going overnight, I think I was woken three or four times with the wind or the rain making a racket and all today has been nothing less than a washout with constant rain. John attempted to dig a hole for the first post of the fence that will run down the side of the new driveway but he gave up, too wet, who wants to work in the rain. Apart from the necessary we didn’t do much else.
We did spend a fair bit of the day watching CNN, the outgoing President and the incoming President, how different the two ceremonies were 🙄 I hope the USA manages to heal the differences that have set them so far apart from each other ❤️ 🇺🇸
Thursday: OMG excuse my language but that was fucking awful out there doing the animals this morning! After around 36 hours of constant rain and gusts of wind battering the place, it was wet, soggy, windy, raining, blowing a hoolie and bitterly cold to boot, one of the worst mornings so far. At one point it looked as though the sun was coming out and it was clearing up but just as I left the stable block to go and do Ted I did an about turn and ran back. The sky turned black, the wind whipped up from nowhere and the rain lashed down for all of around one to two minutes then it was gone again but I still got wet and windswept. I am so over winter already lol, we have the usual lake and river in the side paddocks, that is becoming a much more frequent feature as the years go by. Early on it was an occasional thing, eleven years later and we get it about four to five times a year, every year 🙄
We had decided to go into town this morning, the local market is on a Thursday and I wanted to get some fresh fruit and a few bits of veg. I got leeks, mine are still in the ground and still rather small, potatoes as I didn’t grow enough to last us and then fresh fruit for snacking on. We saw Shelley, Josh and Flo down there so we bought some cakes and went and got a takeaway coffee to stand and drink. I haven’t seen Josh and Flo except when they are in the car or on messenger so it was lovely to interact with them 😀 We went to the butchers where I got some chicken breast and then to the supermarket where we bought more than we thought we originally needed 🙄 I dropped off some leeks to Mum on the way back and a bunch of flowers , great news she had her jab yesterday and Ken had his today. Then it was back home to a warm house as we lit the Rayburn before leaving, I didn’t want to come home to a cold house on a day like today. It had stopped raining by the time we went out mind you but it was still a cold day. By the time we got back it was early afternoon and so not much point starting anything, I have chopped up some potatoes, leeks and celeriac and put that in the slow cooker for tomorrow’s lunch, it will cook the rest of the afternoon and all evening then I will turn it off overnight and turn it back on in the morning ready for lunchtime.
That will probably be it for today except for the afternoon rounds which John is doing as I type, an evening snuggled up in the warm either reading or watching a film maybe. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry and Sunny although still quite cold, I will spend some time thinking about what job I can be doing in the garden or polytunnels.
Friday: A sharp frost this morning. We went out to do the rounds and discovered that Jack had bust out of the field, the electric still had not been turned back on, big mistake 😜, and he had worked it out. He has had a good wander round the place and broken into the hay barn 🙄 We got him back in the paddock, sorted the fencing, turned it on and hopefully he will stay there for a while. They have finished their big roll of hay so I will have to get some more delivered, I doubt very much the grass will start growing anytime soon. In the meantime I will have to fill up sacks and drag them out to the field. John did most of the birds and I went over to do Ted and the Guineas, in with Ted are the two light Sussex that hatched first last year, the female has laid her first egg today 😀 it’s always lovely to get the first egg from a pullet (young female) no matter how many times you have seen it. I went into the small poly tunnel where I set the mousetrap yesterday and result, two in the trap 😀 I will have to reset it, and I tried but it kept going off, there are bound to be more around eating all my veg, these two are the ones that have been nibbling the carrot tops all winter long.
I came indoors to do the washing up, hoovering and get the Rayburn ready for lighting later, meanwhile John carried on with digging the holes for the side fence and he has now gone off to get cement to have a rest from the digging lol. I have a bit of a headache this morning, hopefully nothing but I can’t seem to shake it off, normally I guess, nobody would worry but at the minute you never know what you have picked up even being very careful on the limited times you go out 🙄
The pea seeds I ordered have arrived and so have the seed potatoes, I will get the earlies ready to chit and they will go in the big tunnel, also I will start of early peas and grow them on in the big tunnel as well I think. I have some garlic chive seeds that can be sown anytime so I will go and get them done later. The sun is shining beautifully now and the greenhouse will be a lovely place to be working in about another hours time I reckon 😀 It might even be warm enough in the to pretend it’s spring 😜
We have the leek and potato soup for lunch today so I do t have to stop and think about what I need to be doing for that.
I did go out into the greenhouse and sowed a few peas, I also tided up the small tunnel though it didn’t need much doing but it was still very cold on my feet and my toes began to hurt so I gave that up. Instead I set about fixing the egg board which usually sits out on the front of the driveway. It got blown over during one windy night a few weeks ago and the leg came apart so I fixed it back together re wrote it and put it back out.
Saturday: I have been feeling a bit urgh the last couple of days, can’t put my finger on it but I think it’s to do with the Lupus, I have tiny red hives on my fingers and toes and they hurt if I knock them against anything. I feel tired and lethargic and have a borderline headache, I actually didn’t realise that there is such as thing as a ‘Lupus headache’ and what I need to watch for is vasculitis, oh joy another thing to keep an eye on and not so easy at the minute when the doctors are really busy with a pandemic. It all seems a bit trivial to bother the doc with but if it gets worse I will have to get it looked at, of course with Lupus it can sometimes just clear up and go away of its own accord which is what I am hoping it will do.
It’s cold and frosty this morning, because I have been feeling sluggish John left me to sleep in and did the animals this morning 🥰 I am grateful that I have someone to pick up the reins if needs be. He then went out and started on the fence again while I did the usual household tidying bits, rubbish, recycling, milk bottles all those little jobs. I had just made coffee when he came back in, his feet were too cold working out there so he drank his coffee and went off to the merchants and the bank, hopefully the sun will have warmed the ground by the time he returns.
According to some news reports a hospital in Kent is trialling elderberry as a treatment for covid, I imagine it runs alongside other more conventional treatments but finally the medical world wakes up to alternative treatments. I make plenty with elderberries, pies, syrups and Pontack sauce, I will definitely be picking them and putting them out for sale this year lol.
I have had a lovely day, I have been in my little room designing cards for Valentine’s Day, I can’t make them yet as I am waiting for the recycled card to come but they are along the same lines as the button Christmas cards I made. It’s very therapeutic and just what I needed today when I don’t have the energy for much else.
I did go outside mid afternoon and attempt to fill the water buckets up at the back the the hosepipe was still frozen so I took buckets of water up. I also put down some clean bedding for the geese and the ducks. I am hoping the geese will begin to lay very soon, it’s a short season for goose eggs and like duck eggs you either love em or hate em and luckily we do have customers that love em 🥰 I also lit the Rayburn quote early and have been keeping that going all day as well as getting in a couple of loads of wood from the store, we are due snow tomorrow so best to keep it all topped up.
It’s a fish and chip supper tonight from the chip shop, I am really looking forward to it, one day when I don’t have to think about what to get for dinner 😜
Sunday: got up and had a look out of the window around 6.30am, nothing to report, went back to bed, got up at 8am and we had a good layer of snow and it was still snowing 🌨 The forecast says we will get around 5 to 8cm 🙄 and it will snow most of the day. So we donned our snow gear and went out to do the animals, I love pristine snow but the dogs always get there first at least it will clean their coats nicely. Then I made John go for a walk in the side paddock, a couple of snowballs thrown and we went back in. Snow days mean no days for us, we can’t do a lot outside and I am wondering what on Earth people do all day long 🤷♀️ it will a marathon tv watch or reading which I will be so bored of by the end of the day 🙄 I lit the Rayburn, John got some bacon sizzling on the hot plate and that will probably be it for us until the animals need doing later. In normal years the kids might have come over but this year the at is not an option sadly, we did get the sledge out but I couldn’t pull John on it 🤣 Years ago when we lived at a different house the kids had plastic ones and when they came in to warm up, someone nicked them so my dad made them a wooden one but we never really had any decent snowfall for years after so it never got used, we got it out today but it has woodworm 😝 it is still sound enough but too small for either of us to use, maybe one year it will get used by children again.
Afternoon rounds done and dusted, the snow is still on the ground only slightly melted and the forecast is for a very cold night possibly -5 so we made sure we filled up water buckets ready for the morning, we will have to break ice but at least there will be water. Dinner is in the Rayburn, the curtains are now shut and the house is nice and warm. Have a great week, stay safe and stay warm x x
Monday 4th January 2021: Having decided we will go to the shop as minimally as possible I am busy ploughing through the freezers, luckily they are full of all kinds of things especially veg and fruit, what we don’t buy I can make, bread, biscuits, cakes, pies, yep we are pretty sorted and to be honest I am rather enjoying wondering what on Earth each lump of frozen stuff is 😂 The veg, you will remember from last year, was all chopped and open froze so that’s easy to identify, sometimes I get out what I think is soup only to find it’s stock or in one case tomato juice instead of tomato soup but they are small matters that can easily be used regardless. This is when being self sufficient/reliant comes into its own in a big way and it’s what I love about what we do, I can’t wait to get started on the next growing season 😀
There is not much that can be done outside on the veg garden at the minute, if you are starting from scratch and have an area identified or built you can cover with cardboard and mulch to keep the weeds down, it’s to cold, wet, frozen to do much else for now. It will soon be time to start off pepper, aubergine and tomato seeds but only if you have good heat and good light otherwise you will be wasting your time and end up with leggy, weak seedlings, I usually wait until the beginning of March and even then only if the weather is not too cold and dull. The onions, garlic and shallots I planted at the end of the last season are doing well, plenty of top growth on them if they carry on I expect to get a good harvest from them. I still have the brassicas growing in the cage, I think they are sprouting broccoli and they should soon begin to sprout, the foliage is about 5/6 feet tall so if nothing appears that will be disappointing 😜 only another few weeks and the rhubarb and asparagus will start to appear and the whole process of growing our own will begin again.
Getting the office sorted was the job of the day today, we (I say we but mostly John) have had to make good any of the walls ready for plaster boarding. For some reason five years ago we never got round to finishing the room and so it was half done and left like that for years 🙄 anyhow after a lot of hard graft today the walls, ceiling and window surround are now ready for plastering and John is plastering the ceiling as I write. We do have a problem with the floor where a radiator has been leaking and part of it will have to be replaced as it is rotten, the floor is also not level it appears and so that needs to be rectified as well, all doable I am told so I am letting the expert get on with it and I am there as a dead man or cleaner or labourer or tea maker whatever is needed 😜 That has taken up most of the day with the usual jobs slotting in when they need to be.
I did go out into the poly tunnel and pull up some pak Choi this morning, not for us to eat but for the hens, they have now been inside for quite a while and so giving them greens now and again will hopefully help with boredom and lack of natural foraging. I still have a fair bit of lettuce type plants growing in there and I will continue to pull them for the birds they are more in need of it than me I think.
It is early evening and we have an announcement at 8pm from the Prime Minister 🙄 another lockdown? I think it will be and luckily John had already decided to have January off and hopefully he will still be able to get materials to get on with the office, if not there are plenty of other jobs to do 🤣
Tuesday: So we are into another full lockdown which will be reviewed in seven weeks! Oh my days seven weeks, luckily we have plenty to occupy us. As I type John is taking out the second radiator, not sure that January is a good time to be taking out radiators but who am I so comment lol, the first electric one will be arriving today so we can see how well that is going to work. I am also waiting for him to clean the flue so I can get the fire lit as it is a tad cold this morning 🥶
Rayburn lit and outside jobs done, I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon doing not a lot but not nothing if you see what I mean. We had butternut squash soup for lunch and I tried making a fruit loaf. This is the second or third attempt I have made at doing this but yet again it is failing to rise on the first prove so I think I will give up and never try it again. I don’t like to give up on anything but sometimes the constant failing at it wears you down to despondency, John would be the only one that eats it, I would try a slice but that’s it, and so maybe leave that to the mass production, they seem to manage it easily enough. I am saying all this but I know that I will want to nail it one day 😜
I did think about going down the driveway and pollarding the willow trees now they are dormant, but and it is a but, if I got lost in doing the job and forgot the time the Rayburn would be out when I came back in, it needs feeding every hour or so to keep it up to temperature and as John is plastering he dose t really have time to watch it. Maybe I will wait for a warmer day, today is pretty chilly with a North/East wind and you can really feel the bite in the air.
The fruit bread didn’t fail after all, I put it in the warming oven in the Rayburn and although it took a couple of hours it finally started to rise 😀 it was just on a go slow, it’s not the best loaf ever but it is edible and that’s the main thing.
Wednesday: I have to double check what day it is at the minute 🙄 John had a call out early this morning so it was down to me to do the morning rounds. It was cold but actually it was quite nice to get outside in the fresh air rather than being indoors in the warm. I fed everything and made sure all the water buckets and holders were topped up, collected a few eggs that had already been laid. John came home with a takeaway coffee as the job was at a local coffee shop where they do great coffee, I was delighted that the cup was 100% compostable as well as warming me up on a cold winters day. He left again shortly afterwards to another call out hopefully that will be it for the rest of the day as he has a couple more walls to plaster. So far the ceiling, one wall and two of the window reveals are done now all that is left is the top window reveal and two walls, time to start thinking about paint then 😀 I already have some wallpaper I want to put up on one wall, oh I forgot, the floor has to be done first before painting begins, it seems never ending but it hasn’t taken long really and we have waited five years to get it done so a few more days won’t hurt.
John is having to be very careful when he goes to jobs both for the customers sake and ours, the covid numbers are climbing so rapidly it’s crazy and the reports of the hospitals at breaking point is a big worry so the safer we can keep everyone the better.
I had an email to say the firebricks are with the Royal Mail so I am holding off lighting the Rayburn to see if they arrive with the postman this morning, the oven is reaching ridiculously high temperatures with our makeshift bricks in there and so the sooner we can get the right ones in the better it will be for the boiler.
I keep thinking I will get outside on the garden and do some work but it’s still rather cold at the minute, when I came in from doing the animals the top of my legs were blue 😧 there is plenty of time and I’m sure the temperature will rise slightly soon. I did look at the rhubarb that I am forcing, it’s growing nicely, the other plants have barely started so forcing is a good idea and it will mean an early crop which is good when there is not much else about. I think I will get the broad bean seeds sown sooner rather than later and I might try some salad leaves in the greenhouse as I the heat mat I have had on in there seems to be doing a great job of keeping the frost out.
The postman came and went and no fire bricks so I lit the Rayburn it’s too cold to wait anymore. Midday and John is still out fixing a leak, it’s a hole in a lead pipe so that means replacing the very old pipe with new or trying to find a fitting that will connect old to new which is rare these days. Meanwhile I decided I would have a look and order some seed potatoes, normally I only do maincrop but this year I am going to do first earlies so the sooner I order them the better. I ordered, Charlotte, swift and Vivaldi and I will probably set at least one lot in the polytunnel for an even earlier crop. I also ordered the main crop potatoes at the same time to save on postage, I have gone for Cara, I have had them before, they have a good yield and are fairly disease resistant plus the longer you leave them in the bigger they get which is perfect for baking potatoes. I always think I don’t grow enough potatoes but they do need quite a bit of space if grown traditionally. I have found that growing them in tubs is a hit and miss affair and never the yields you see in the photographs 🙄 Having said that I will be growing the earlies in tubs or potato bags I think, it’s easier and you can put them in a corner of the tunnel where they won’t interfere with later growing, that’s the plan anyway. The main crop will go in the ground I just need to decided where they will go this year.
Once John was back and the Rayburn had settled I decided to go for a quick walk around the village, might as well it’s the only out and about time I will be getting. It was Baltic as I walked along the lane towards the village but once I was surrounded by buildings it wasn’t too bad. I noticed all the bulbs forcing their way upwards, some daffodils already have flower buds waiting to open, mine by contrast have not even appeared above ground yet. The village was quiet, not a soul to be seen, all tucked up in the warm I expect. The sun is trying to shine, hopefully we will se more of it soon it has been very shy of late 🙄
John bought me a Monty Don book for Christmas and it is a lovely gentle read about the wildlife he sees in his garden, it is an ideal read for this time of year when you can’t really get out in the garden for very long, it’s called My Garden World and I highly recommend it.
Well you couldn’t dream up what happened in the USA today and we watched the news all night as events unfolded and demonstrators stormed Capitol Hill all spurred on by the current President, it is not our politics to comment on but I will be glad when the 20th January arrives and a new President is sworn in, the integrity of America can hopefully be repaired from then on in.
Thursday: Bloody hell it’s cold! We woke up to freezing fog which did not lift all day, a day shrouded in mist, an eerie landscape.
The office and its problems went from bad to worse, where the floor had been getting wet for a very long time the timbers underneath were also rotten. These are timbers that the whole floor sits on, luckily the main strut that sits on concrete blocks was sound but the rest had to be replaced and John has spent the day doing the first third of the floor we still have two thirds to lift, replace timbers, insulate and re-lay flooring. At least once it’s done it will be sound for a good few years again. The problem goes further than the office as we have discovered and the spare room next door will also have to have the floor lifted and repaired but that can wait until warmer weather comes along as it’s not very warm with the floor missing and freezing temperatures outside 😜
I have formed a childcare bubble with Samantha and the children so that once a week I can help look after the twins and Mia. Being locked down with three under fives is hard work and mentally wearing especially when there is an expectation to do home learning with Mia. I have seen for myself the difficulties Sam has encountered and I feel it’s only right to step in and help out. Essential childcare bubbles are legally allowed, I think they consider looking after children while parents are working as essential but I also consider this to be essential and until someone tells me differently that’s what we will be doing 🙄 So that’s what I was doing for most of the day, helping with Mia’s school work, doing some baking with her and going for a walk, and also playing with the twiglets who are a complete handful at the minute 😂
Friday: It snowed overnight, not too much, more of a dusting than anything but still everywhere is white this morning. We kept the Rayburn in overnight last night, partly because it was cold outside and partly because having no floor in place and no heating in two rooms it was cool indoors and so keeping it in overnight seemed like the best option. It was still going this morning after using our overnight Lekto fuel and so it started up easily this morning. I got it going while John went out and started the animal rounds and then I went out to help him. The horses are getting increasingly hungrier and so I decided we would try and get one of the big round bales out to the paddock. We huffed and puffed and heaved and rolled the 370kg round bale until it was in place, harder than it sounds when you have to negotiate it round corners and also when the cat thinks it’s a great fairground ride to be taken advantage of 😝 Outside jobs done it was time for a quick coffee before John went off to deal with a badly leaking tap that an elderly lady has and pick up some more flooring etc from the merchants. Meanwhile I hoovered and polished, the dust that comes from taking up the floor is considerable and the more I can keep it down the better in the long run, I will be glad when the floor is finally finished. Its slow going even though John is working all hours to get it sorted, good job we are in lockdown and can’t go anywhere else really otherwise it would probably take twice as long as it is already 🙄
Dug out the broad bean and pea seeds and had intended to sow them by now but as yet I haven’t got round to doing it, probably just as well to wait a while for the weather to warm up just a little bit more. I always find that February is a lot colder than we expect it to be, the thinking is, it’s a new year and we are approaching spring but in reality we are still in the throes of late winter so it shouldn’t be a surprise when the temperature plummets 😂
While John was out I got the dinner on the go, diced lamb in the slow cooker along with home grown veg, I added potatoes as well, might as well put it all in one pot than I don’t have to faff about later. The perfect dinner for a day like today especially as it has starting snowing again, no idea how long it will go on for or if it will settle. Shelley, who lives just ten minutes away in town said they only have the tiniest hint of snow not a layer like we have here, I guess that’s the differencein temperatures in towns/cities and rural areas, I have mentioned before that it is always 2/3 degrees colder here 🥶
John came home and got on with the job in hand and just while we are in chaos the electrician turned up. I am not complaining though as normally we have to wait an age for things to get done, that’s the problem when you are trade and your mates are all trade, you have to wait for them to do their real work first 😂
The electrics are done which is good because all the office equipment was running off an extension lead before and I now have usb points as well 😀 The floor is a tad slower 🙃 obviously because other stuff was happening it meant that John couldn’t get on as fast as he would have liked, last night he worked until about 8.30pm but tonight he has called it a day at 5.30pm we can start again fresh in the morning, it’s taking a whole lot longer than I had hoped but hey at least it is getting done 😀 We have put the electric radiator on the wall and turned it on but despite several readings of the instructions to programme it we have so far failed and it is just on permanently 😜
I made a mixed fruit pie to go along with the lamb stew tonight, a proper winter meal on what feels like another very cold night again tonight.
Saturday: Busy day today, first and foremost the animals and we are still having to bucket water to the ones outside as the taps and pipe are frozen. Then John is back on the office floor job and I am carting old flooring out and getting it burnt along with the feeds bags and the Christmas rubbish, as well as a few barrow fulls of wood to bring in for the Rayburn. Needless to say I was on afternoon duties and by the evening I was tired and when I get tired I get grumpy lol. We had a restful evening and recharged our batteries for tomorrow.
Sunday: It’s still all frozen this morning though last night I was able to fill up the water buckets as the tap defrosted during the day. Looking forward to slightly warmer weather though that will probably bring rain with it 😏 We did the animals and then went to get our click and collect shopping from the supermarket, restock on things that have run out and it’s actually a very easy, stress free process, hopefully covid dodging as well 😜 We had breakfast out and by that I mean a takeaway Costa coffee and bacon roll in the car in the car park 😂 I had some shopping to drop round for Mum and then it was back home to get on with lighting the Rayburn and the final bit of the floor to come up and new to go down. It’s mid afternoon as I write this and the final new timbers are going in. Meanwhile I spent a good couple of hours giving the bathroom a right good clean, wash down all the walls, shelves, windowsill, turn out the cupboards and throw away all the out of date stuff and things we don’t use anymore, a good use of my time I reckon.
I will be glad when this job is finished and so will John I think 😂
Just as I was typing the electric tripped, it did it once already and the usual culprit is the pump outside that takes the water from the tanks to the garden so we unplugged it but it tripped again. This meant going though all the things we have plugged in to figure what was causing it, at one point we thought it was one of the big freezers which would be a disaster as we could never eat all that in 24 hrs. Luckily we figured out that it was the electric to the fencing out in the paddock that is keeping the horses in, I need to sort it out sooner rather than later as it won’t take Jack long to figure out that there is no current running through the tape and he will be pulling it down in no time. It has been fine while everything was frozen but as it starts to thaw I’m guessing moisture has got into the reel and caused it to trip.
We bought the cats a Christmas present as you can see from the main photo, not sure it was a good idea though as they hardly leave it except for feeding time 😂
That’s another week done and dusted and who knows what is going to happen over the next week, I am quite expecting further restrictions to be put in place as the numbers are scary at the minute. I always say it could be worse and of course there are worse situations to be in but during the Winter months I think many people are struggling emotionally and mentally with things. If that is you then put on your favourite uplifting song and dance and sing as if no one is watching, tomorrow is another day, we will keep battling forward until we have got this thing nailed 🥰 Stay safe x
Monday 11th Nov: On the 11th hour of the 11th Day in the 11th month We will remember them.
It’s another cold November day, it rained heavily overnight again but this morning the ‘lake’ has shrunk, it disappears quickly it’s just a case of too much volume too fast and it collects at a low point of which our paddock happens to be a part.
I am having a coffee before I venture out this morning 😀
Did the rounds, checked on the ‘spring’ and even though the water has receded from there it’s still bubbling up? Took the rabbit/guineas a big bag of hay to make nests in or eat, then the egg shed needed a bit of attention. I found water sitting in one of the boxes of duck eggs this morning, where the rain has blown in I presume, so found a piece of Perspex to line to back wall with and hopefully that should stop it. The duck eggs are useless for sale now so they will have to go to the dogs for their breakfast.
I had decided while I was out that some pancakes would be a good idea for breakfast when I got in, I was so busy with an online discussion while I was making them that I forgot the flour 🤪 so in effect they were sweet omelettes lol still tasted ok though with a mug of coffee 😀
The sun is out but it’s cold, the crazy thing is that while it’s cold and flooding here, in Australia where my brother and his family are, there are bush fires all around, there are wild fires in California, there are storms wreaking havoc in Europe and plummeting Siberian temperatures reaching further than ever before, one thing is for sure were are in a climate emergency, wether its man made or not it’s very real 🙄
I did some hoovering and polishing then lit the Rayburn, then gathered together a load of vegetables from the freezer to make a pan of soup, might as well make good use of the heat. Most things in there, potatoes, leeks, broad beans, turnip, carrots, cauli, are from the garden, just some celery & garlic that isn’t. Veg soup is a very good way to get some of your 5 a day in you though I do wonder how much goodness is really left after cooking, still something is better than nothing 🙄
I observed the silence at 11am, I’m not sure if it was 1 minute or 2 these days but even though I am here by myself and it’s silent anyway, I stood still and quiet to reflect and remember those who have given their lives so that we can live ours, not forgetting of course all the animals that also perished for different reasons during the world wars especially.
Another text from the Doctor telling me that my white cell count has still not gone up enough 🙄 this is a bit of a worry to be honest, I have had it before but it usually comes back up pretty quickly but not this time 🤔 It means I am more prone than most to infections and that the symptoms of infection may not show up 😏 I have the consultant on Wednesday so I will have to wait and see what he has to say about it all.
Putting the animals away tonight I went up to the back paddock to do the geese and noticed Biscuit just stood in the middle of the big paddock and I couldn’t see Jack anywhere. I shut the geese and hens away and she was still stood there so I wondered if she was ok as Jack was not there and it’s unusual for them to be very far apart from each other. I went into the field and most of the way down, I walked into the field adjacent which is also open to the horses and looked in the field shelter for Jack, nothing, at this point I’m thinking we have lost a horse 🤔 I walk over to Biscuit to see if she is ok and Jack moves out from the shadow of the hedgeline I feel I must explain that at twilight it’s very difficult to spot a bay horse lurking in the shadows 😂
I had a massage tonight, amazing as always, sometimes I have Bowen therapy and sometimes a massage depending on how things are going and as I have no aches or pains at the minutes a lovely warm, soothing massage was just the ticket. I love a bit of alternative therapy and if a monthly massage was given on the NHS I reckon there would be a lot more people in a healthier state of mind and body 😀
Tuesday: My first thought when typing this was, is it only Tuesday’ lol seems as though it should be later.
The sun was shinning this morning and I set to doing a few extras after the feeding rounds, clean straw for the geese and for the ducks, then move the quail to a cage that is in the back area as they seem to be unhappy at the moment. The cage is smaller but it’s in out of the wind, a little warmer and I have plugged a heat lamp in for them just to see if that helps. They have stopped laying altogether and maybe a change of address will help get them laying again. Then I made coffee and went into the greenhouse to have a bit of a tidy up and sort out, some of the plants in there can go out for the winter but I was just giving them a bit of a head start first. I do have some plants left in there that I am trying to nurture, peppers, tomato, ginger, to see if they will make it through the cold and into Spring.
Back indoors to light the Rayburn, just as the weather did a complete turnabout, rain and wind turned the day very wintery but it only lasted for half an hour or more, weird.
I got the slow cooker going this morning with braised beef and vegetables in there so I don’t need to think about dinner until much later today, although it’s the kind of day I rather fancy a pudding so I might make a quick jam sponge later 😀
Sam thinks it might be a good idea to bring the horses into the stable for a day and a night and I’m inclined to agree, just to get their feet off the wet ground for a while. They are not standing in the water but the ground is constantly wet at the moment, they won’t like it much but it’s for their own good lol. My outlook on animals is to let them be just that, animals, don’t project human feelings and wants/needs onto them, I don’t feel it’s right but that’s just my opinion obviously. Our horses live out in all but the worst of weather and they are just fine, they grow a nice woolley coat to deal with the cold, they have access to shelter to get out of the wind and the rain should they choose to and they have space to wander so they can keep warm and supple. We have just had bonfire night (which goes on for days) and we don’t bring them in they stay out in the paddocks, they are fine, horses are flight animals and I feel confining them in a stable while fireworks are going off makes them more nervous than leaving them out. When they are out they can see and hear what is happening and deal with it in a matter of fact way. The same applies to our dogs, over the years we have had six dogs and only one was afraid of fireworks, (he came from a rescue centre so I had no idea of what he might have been subjected to in that dept so it’s understandable) but all the others have been well adjusted and are not bothered by the noise, they also don’t live indoors mind you so they don’t have access to a sofa or god forbid the humans bed 😝they have all had and do have access to a warm dry area to sleep but it’s definitely a dog area not human 🙄
At approx 6.30 we had a power cut 🙄 it’s not unusual in fact I have said that living here I have never known so many power cuts since the 1970’s miner strikes! John was in the bath when the lights went out so that leaves me to determine wether it’s our power or a bigger problem, the torch is in the fuse board cupboard so I quickly find out that there is no power coming in meaning it’s the electric board at fault somewhere. Next move is to find the telephone number to report or find out about a fault, John shouts from the bathroom ‘can you bring me the torch’ ‘are you getting out’ no but I can’t see’ then no pal, I can not, I need it to move around the pitch black house and find the number in the office, you just lay there in the bath and relax…in the dark 😝 I call the number and a recorded message tells me we have no power in our area (yeah I knew that) and hopefully it would be back on by 9.40 but may be later! As it was it was back on less than ten minutes later 😀
Wednesday: Slightly different morning this morning, for starters Johns first job was cancelled due to the wrong parts being delivered which meant he was here to help and that gets the jobs done twice as fast 😀 Secondly I have a hospital app at 3.50 in Oxford today 😏 that is a difficult time due to a number of factors, the school run and although we don’t have to do it there will be plenty of cars on the road that do. It will also mean that we are either still in Oxford or trying to get back when it gets dark so we are not here to shut the animals away, the Fox only needs one opportunity and it will wipe you out. It’s not possible to ask the girls to do it as it’s right at the time when the kiddies will all want their dinner and so for today the birds will remain shut in, all except the ducks in the pen and the geese because they will be easy to round up before we go. The ducks and hens in the stable, the side paddock, the front paddock and the turkeys will remain safely shut in as they would be impossible to round up while it’s still light. All have feed and water inside and it will be a minor inconvenience for them for one day and peace of mind for us.
After doing the morning rounds John got on with bringing in some wood loads, we are going through it more rapidly now, and I cleaned the flues and the ash pan and hoovered the kitchen and the boot room, put some washing on etc. John went off to the bank and to pick up some sawdust and rabbit feed and I looked at the clock to see how much time I had to do things, it was only 9 o’clock lol, I thought it was later than that!
Woody the woodpecker has been very active here the last few days, as with Cyril the squirrel I always say good morning but unlike Cyril who stands stock still when he hears my voice, woody just carries on climbing up the oak tree. I started feeding the garden birds again at the first sign of frost so a week or so now, I don’t feed them all summer as there are plenty of pests for them to feast on in and around the farm especially the veg patch but as it gets colder I want to encourage them to hang around so feeding them is a good way. They are still loving the dead hedges, I can’t believe that something so simple can attract so many birds, it’s wonderful and I will definitely have more of these when we have the next apple tree pruned.
I have lit the Rayburn early, again because we won’t be here from about 2.30 I need to get the place warmed up as we won’t be able to keep it going when we are not here it will probably go out. Ideally the Rayburn should run 24/7 but John has insulated this place so well that if we did that we would be living in a permanent sauna, I’m not complaining about the insulation we need it but it means that we can’t run the Rayburn as it should be really. You can run it on coal but we have free wood so there is not much point besides when they say multi fuel it doesn’t mean you can run it on wood and coal at the same time, it has interchangeable plates for different types of fuel so we stick to wood and that is a bigger commitment daily lol.
I still haven’t planted the tulip bulbs and there is a good reason for that, I have been trying to do a bit of research on tulips. Most modern advice is that they are treated as annuals so the whole tulip is harvested along with the bulb and the bulb then discarded 🙄 Well I understand this because if you take the flower and the leaves there is nothing to feed the tulip bulb so that it can restore energy BUT there must be another way which is what I have been trying to find out. It seems that tulips only do well in their first year after that they are not so good even if they don’t get picked and are left in situ, I can’t quite get my head around that because how then would they multiply/naturalise and if they didn’t then we wouldn’t have any? My thinking is that this is a modern answer to solving a problem in the flower industry, but it’s not a very sustainable one so more reading up is needed to find the answer which must be out there somewhere hidden in the archives of time. Maybe it’s just modern types and I suspect old types are better at producing each year though probably not as striking.
The traffic was epic in and around Oxford I’m glad we don’t have to do that very often 😜 Just when I thought I understood this disease of mine I’m thrown again lol, I thought that logically the meds I am on to suppress the immune system had been too high a dose which is why the white cells dropped but no it seems that the Lupus can do that all by itself 🤔 regardless of the meds, so at the moment I am no further forward as more blood tests at the hospital should reveal wether it’s the meds or the Lupus that is causing the drop. The consultant thinks its the Lupus as normally coming off the meds would rectify the blood count, it’s a waiting game now for the results and the action they want to take, meanwhile I feel pretty good, no aches and pains, no tiredness to speak of just more than normal hair loss🙄
Thursday: Oh my word what can I say about this morning 🤔 It rained heavily last night and we are predicted rain all day today but when we woke up and looked out we had snow! Yes snow lol, not a massive amount but a layering although it quickly began to rain again so then we had slush. I got sorted and went out, it wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be but I had dressed appropriately and felt toasty. I fed and let almost everything out, not the turkeys as I have a feeling today will be troublesome enough without having to get them in from the driveway every couple of hours so they can stay put, they have a big run and plenty of room. The next job on the agenda was to get two stables ready for bringing in the horses just to give them a bit of relief from the rain and constant wet underfoot. After that it was to try and address some areas that are holding water, I honestly haven’t seen it this bad for about 7 years, the hay barn floor is flooded that’s the second time in a week, luckily everything is up off the floor on pallets and we concreted the feed room floor way back after the last serious flood issues. I say serious flood of course it’s not affecting the house (yet) and it shouldn’t because we are on higher ground however the paddock next door is slightly higher than us and as a result it runs off of there onto us and then continues down the slope to the lowest point. But it does affect the barn and the stables because where the floor gets worn over time dips are created and the water finds its natural course and gets in there. The lake and the river are back again and I spent a while digging small ditches to get water that was sitting to run downwards, behind the stable block we have a 5000ltre water tank which is full to capacity and overflowing causing problems in one of the stables so I have opened up the tap to let it all go and dig out small trenches towards the duck pen where it will collect in the pond before overflowing and carrying on down to the river/lake. As long as I can get the water to move downhill we should be fine and it’s only spitting at the minute if we have a deluge I’m not sure any of the measures will cope at all 😏 We do have some small issues each year but this is definitely the worst for many years and winter has only just begun that the worrying bit 😔
I couldn’t get the Rayburn lit, typical when you want it to dry out your coat and gloves, so I abandoned that and made some pancakes to go with my coffee instead 😀 Typically John is working pretty far away today so if we have any disasters I’m on my own, normally he would be in the next town or village so I can call him if needed and he can arrive quickly but not today 🤞
I gave Mia the dog a haircut this morning as she has ‘mud locks’ a bit like dreadlocks only much muckier 😜 she is fairly low to the ground and long haired so gets messy in weather like this.
Sam came over with the twins and got the horses in for a bit of respite care 😀 Luckily the forecast rain has not materialised giving us and everyone else a bit of a break from all the water standing. The rest of the days jobs passed without incident thankfully.
Friday: Forgot to jot anything down and no idea what I did apart from the usual and then going with Sam, Shelley and the kiddies to soft play for a couple of hours 😀
Saturday: Just sat down it’s 5.30 pm oh my days what a day of hard graft we have had but also a very positive one getting jobs done that have needed doing for a while. We started off with the normal rounds and then gathered up the ex laying ladies from the stable and put them in the point of lay pen. The reason being that we are selling off any birds that are no longer out with the laying flocks both chicken and duck. Normally they just retire and are free to wander around but it doesn’t really make much sense feeding and housing them over winter, it’s just more work than necessary, so I put them up for sale. We had a pretty quick response and managed to move 10 hens and 5 ducks on before lunchtime so that was great. We moved one of the Campbell drakes in with the laying ducks in the vain hope some may produce a batch of ducklings next year 🙄 We have fixed the rabbit run roof which had a hole in it and the rain gets in, the run is pretty big mind you and it was only wet at the door end but even so it needed doing. John cleaned out the hens in the front and I cleaned out the turkey run. We moved the water tank from the back of the stable block, this holds around 5000ltrs which I had to empty out the day before in order for us to move it to inside the duck pen. This was no mean feat, it’s not particularly heavy but it is large, round and awkward 😜 plus it wouldn’t go past the fir tree trunks so we had to man handle it up a slope (the ladder) and get it over the five foot fence into the duck run and then get it into situ on the other side so that John could reconnect the pipe work to the guttering that feeds it. After all this we had a sit down for about half an hour before I lit the Rayburn, fed the birds and collected the eggs. Meanwhile John got the tractor out and he turned the compost heap, I was convinced this was where any rats would be living but not one appeared so they must be elsewhere though I’m stumped as to where. The compost heap is an amazing little miracle of mother nature’s, you put all your prunings, old plants, clippings in there and voila it turns back into some wonderful soil that goes back onto the garden in Spring, we found a few potatoes in there which is always a Brucey Bonus 😀 A friend turned up with some pumpkins for the birds, they are from a local farm and so still whole which will be great for the hens as the seeds are supposed to be good for worming and in return he had some duck eggs, love a bit of bartering 😀 We had planned to move the geese back to the front paddock as they have now eaten the small back paddock down and I want them out before the daffodils begin to come up as their big feet will flatten them, but by the time we had finished chatting it was dark and they had put themselves to bed, this never happens 😂 so we will move them tomorrow instead.
Our egg sales are down this week, I’m guessing because the road was flooded and the rain was relentless, typically the egg numbers have begun to go up. It’s never a balanced thing with the eggs, in summer sales are brisk in winter no so much but still good normally so where is everyone 🙄 Where are those customers that audibly tut or huff when you have sold out (most don’t, just a few) and I still smile pleasantly and apologise 😜
I have to say that the weather today was glorious for a winters day, sunny, not windy and no rain, not even cold really, it was a pleasure to be out there and those are the days I feel a very lucky person indeed.
I know I should have put something in the slow cooker first thing but I had a hankering for some good old fish and chips tonight so that’s what we are having 😀
We finished our fish and chips and I thought that was it, cosy down for the evening until John went to lock up his van and couldn’t find his keys 🙄 It’s ok he says I have a spare set never been used, they don’t work 🙄 We go through the day to figure out when he last had them and then he goes out in the dark with a torch to try and find them. I went out the back and thought ooo it’s a bit cold I will stay in here in case they suddenly present themselves 😂 Eventually I decided I ought to go and help as he still hasn’t found them, two sets of eyes are better than one especially when one set belongs to a bloke 🤪 No offence but in our family we call it a ‘man scan’ you know, when you ask them to get something out of the cupboard and apparently it isn’t there and you go and look and it’s right in front of his eyes 🤔 I go round to all the places he has been today, the hay barn, the rabbit run, the back area, the van, I find them on floor next to the van 😬 I am always telling him not to just chuck stuff down on the floor perhaps he will listen from now on 😝
Sunday: I had planned on having an easier day today with a good few hours of doing not a lot BUT it hasn’t turned out that way lol. We were woken by Johns phone ringing and someone having water all over their bathroom floor, turns out they had had some heating work done the day before and it had disturbed the flush pipe on the toilet which is why water was all over the floor! So that left me doing the rounds this morning on me tod. Then we had the barefoot trimmer arriving to do the horses feet, that was a bit of a last minute thing as we couldn’t get hold of the usual farrier and their hooves were getting longer than is acceptable🙄 Meanwhile John had tried to start the tractor to finish the last bit of the compost heap but the battery was dead so he went off to visit his Mum, when he got back the battery still wasn’t ready so we popped out to get some bits of shopping, including ingredients for stir up Sunday next week. We get back I unload the shopping and get the Rayburn lit while John manages to get the tractor started and finish that job off. It will then be time for a bit of dinner, then do the feeding and egg collection, round to a relative for some birthday cake back to put the animals all to bed then we are out on a rare evening to the Theatre in Oxford, no rest for the wicked and we certainly must be pretty wicked 😜
I still haven’t got round to planting the tulips and haven’t moved any wood chip (nearly done) 🙄 I am also a bit tired and can’t see a gap for a power nap, I sure hope the I don’t fall asleep during tonight’s show lol.
Dawn Pearse over and out for this week 😀 have a good one 😘
Monday 4th February: It rained in the early hours and has taken some of the snow with it but there are still large bits of ice underfoot! It’s been a busy couple of hours already, we discovered that Molly had managed to pull down the door where the quail are and had two of them for her breakfast 😡 Partly due to the fact that John had left the dustbin, we keep, the dog food in, out a little way which has given her a way up, guess who is in the dog house 🙄 The hens have been getting everywhere including in the back area and they knock everything over so I have been tidying up that and burning some rubbish.
We have had some success on the larger pest front over the last week and have reduced the numbers by three, there are still a few more around though, apologies to anyone this doesn’t sit well with but when you are inundated like we are at the moment something has to be done, after all our birds are just going about their daily lives as well and we need to protect them. We do as much as possible in terms of making sure that they are locked away and in a secure area but this doesn’t stop predators finding any way it can to get at them including daytime marauding 😫 And believe me the irony is not lost on me as far as the cat is concerned for a split second I considered dispatching her as well 😲
I still have a mouse coming in, it ate all the bait without setting off the trap and judging by the tiniest of cracks I think it’s getting in, it must be very small indeed, I will keep trying though I don’t want a family setting up in the house!
It is much milder today and it is not going to change for a couple of weeks so that will make life easier in terms of getting water to everything though it’s already muddy out there and that will just get worse with the rain that’s forecast, hey ho always something, can’t complain really, up to Christmas time we had a smooth ride into Winter.
We have plenty of eggs to push this week what with the lane being impassable for a couple of days the numbers soon mount up, egg for tea tonight as well 😋
I went for a massage in the evening, I have been looking forward to this for ages 😀 normally I will have a Bowen treatment but opted for a relaxing massage today.
Tuesday: Mia day, some of the conversations we have are so funny and of course very precious. Before she arrives I get the morning stuff done, set the Rayburn for lighting, organise what’s for dinner and get some washing on, I have to get this all done as she likes my full attention lol.
I have been having some inflammation issues over the past week partly my fault as a few times I have forgotten to take my evening medication 🥴 so after talking with my massage therapist who is a fountain of knowledge I am going to have a serious effort at eating anti inflammatory foods, I do this on and off but find Winter is harder to stick to it. Soup is a good way of getting what I need and yesterday I made a lovely vegetable soup and today I have made a specific soup with ginger and turmeric it also contains broccoli and leeks. The leeks I have growing in the garden but the broccoli is from the shop, note to self grow much more broccoli this year, I did grow a fair amount last year but it’s all gone. With a bit of salt and pepper and some chicken bone broth, hopefully it will taste good. I also took the time to set some beans and pulses soaking in water for a few hours, I keep meaning to do this then forget, I want to start using the butter beans I grew, that will be soup for tomorrow.
Going back to the tree theme, I read something the other day that intrigued me, in America studies have shown that trees are moving west, obviously not the trees themselves but the seedlings/saplings, this has baffled scientists as they expected them to move North due to climate change, they don’t know why they are going west. Just proves one thing to me, we don’t know everything even will all the science that we have, at one point in history they thought the world was flat 😝 ‘that’s all I have to say about that’ 😉
Wednesday: A soggy, foggy morning lol, it rained heavily last night and the moisture is hanging in the air this morning. I have blood tests early on so whizz round and get everything done before popping into town to get those done. Picked up a bit of shopping in town and then got some packing done for our trip next week, packed everything but the kitchen sink and probably still will think, I should have packed that lol, I tend to pack, then add to it and then come home with a case of stuff we haven’t worn! Forgot that the farrier was coming so dash out to get Jack into the stable and that seemed like a good time for a coffee break. We have plenty of jobs on the list to get done and make life easier for Shelley who will be living here and Sam who will be helping her. I have been trying to keep my nails nice but it’s just not happening especially when everything is muddy outside and constant washing of hands makes them dry 😝
I had the pulse and beans soup at lunch, pretty tasty actually, the last time I ate those was when I lived at home and Mum used them to make meals goes further, the butter beans probably needed a lot more cooking so I only ate the very soft ones.
It’s very mild out, pleasant after the recent low temps, I didn’t light the Rayburn until 2.30 as the house was warm enough but we do need hot water 😜
Went out to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting then had a stroll up to the small paddock to see, with my glasses on, if I could see any daffs poking up, I went the other day and couldn’t see any and was wondering if they were being eaten. There are a few not many yet fingers crossed they are still ok under there and waiting for the right moment 😜 On the way back down I stopped at the hay barn and tidied up the few straw bales that are left, the chickens have scratched them all about so I put the straw into some tonne bags and covered them with old horse rugs. I found a few eggs that had been laid and fallen down the side of the pallet floor so I threw them into the hedge, no idea how old they are.
I’ve noticed the ducks are all trying to separate off into pairs and one pair has gone up to the back paddock, they go everyday I just hope they are not laying out in the open as there will be no chance for any eggs they are trying to amass. One of the rescue ducks keeps trying to sit on a clutch in the stable block, I have marked three duck eggs with big black crosses and will leave them each time to see if she continues to sit, she buried them well so it’s a sign she wants to. Still waiting for the appearance of the first goose eggs.
Thursday: It was pretty windy overnight and the rain hammered down again, normally the wind keeps me awake but I must have been pretty tired because I hardly heard it. I unexpectedly had Mia early this morning so John went out and let all the birds out, it’s now 9.30 and I haven’t been able to go out and collect the eggs yet but that’s fine they will be ok, I’m not sure if he has fed them but as they are all free ranging they will find food somewhere! Meanwhile I have some indoor jobs I can get on with.
Friday: A filthy morning 😜 wet, windy just yuk. I had a phone call from the Dr last night about my blood tests, rather than inflammation like I thought it was it seems my white cell count has dropped too low so I am to stop the meds. I explained I was going away as initially he wanted them stopped for one week but I’m going to have to stop them for two weeks, I have no idea how this is going to affect me I’m just hoping its not too much and then we will see what’s happening when I get back 🙄 UPDATE, I have spoken to the Dr again and there should be no adverse effects, things should just go back to normal so my mind is at rest now 😀
John was up early this morning and was in the kitchen when the mouse sauntered across the worktop, he tried to catch it but it ran off the worktop and fell into a plastic bag hanging on the end that has recycling in it, he took the bag out the back and emptied it out but no sign of the mouse, there is a hole in the bag, so goodness knows where it is now 😝
It really is horrible out there, just windy now and I’m hoping it will dry up a lot of the wet but working in the wind is hard work, I want to get the animals cleaned out, moving straw about in this is a recipe for disaster 😂
Well I went out and did a bit, cleaned out the nesting boxes and put fresh sawdust in, I think I will leave the fresh straw until later and do it just before they go into bed, the wind already caught the bucket of sawdust I was carrying and blew half of it down the yard 🤣 I just didn’t want to leave ourselves too much to do tomorrow.
Hot chocolate was definitely the order of the day today 😀
Saturday: So this morning it was supposed to be all hands on deck to get the jobs done and sorted except that John hit himself in the eye yesterday with a piece of plastic pipe and this morning couldn’t open his eyes! I did try to persuade him to go to minor injuries last night but no, this morning he is walking around hands out in front of him trying to feel his way round the place oh ffs. Right that’s it, either we get this eye bathed and open or we are not going away tomorrow, I did try to get him to put an ice pack on it last night but also nope, well not very long anyhow. So we bathe the eye and at least it’s open long enough to get the jobs done outside, but now after a coffee he needs another lie down 🙄 we still have the flue and fire to clean out, get the house straight and finish the packing, or at least I will be finishing my packing, he may be staying here at this rate 😜
Ok well things have improved a bit and we have got everything done and are as ready as we can be so, and I’ve waited an age to say this, we are off to the Artic Circle, arrrggghhh, see you on the other side 😀
Monday 28th Jan: Trees, or rather planting trees, is very much in focus at the moment as far as the government and environmental departments are concerned. Do you remember a few months ago I put some cherry pips into the fridge to undergo stratification, a period of cold that will simulate Winter, well it’s time to get them out and get them planted up and hope that they grow 😀 I also put some spindle-berry in at the same time so they will also be planted and fingers crossed they will amount to something. Not all gardens are big enough to plant full size trees but there are plenty of ‘patio’ trees available these days especially fruit trees and all you have to do is make sure they stay watered, so it is possible to have trees and grow your own produce even in a small space, a ‘micro garden’ can be highly productive.
Cold and sunny this morning, I did the morning rounds and then onto a couple of phone calls I needed to make. The second call was to do with water, because we are commercial a different company took over from Thames Water over a year ago, we had notification but as the accountant pointed out we’ve never had a bill. Turns out they had no idea there was a water supply here……doh….. if I had left it we would never have had a bill or would we? Eventually they would have realised I’m sure and then who knows how much we would have owed 😝 as it is we will end up with a back dated bill of probably a few hundred pounds 😲
Today seemed like a good day to go through what seeds I have already got, either seed I have saved or seeds left from last year and yen to order what else I wanted to grow this year.
This is what I have already:
GRAIN:
Millet
Quinoa
Wheat
Amaranth
BEANS/PEAS:
Haricot beans
Dwarf French beans – purple
Dwarf French beans
Ying Yang beans
Red kidney beans
Pea
Broad beans
Chickpea
SQUASH
Spaghetti squash
Butternut squash
Pumpkin
Luffa
Courgette – round
Banana squash
SALAD:
Mixed salad leaf
Spinach
Radish
Cucumber
Tomato
Pepper – Hot
Pepper -sweet
ROOT:
Carrot – Early Nantes
Beetroot
Parsnip
Celeriac
BRASSICA:
Cauliflower
Broccoli
ONION:
Leeks
Spring onion
HERBS:
Coriander
And this is what I ordered:
Turnip
Courgette – long
Fennel
Melon
Swede
Potato
Brassica plants
Now I just have to decide where everything is going to go lol, I’ve decided not to do sweet corn this year as they are quite a lot of faffing about to get them ready, I also decided not to do aubergine, they nearly always fail so I am giving them up as a lost cause, I don’t eat them anyway they were for selling on so I’m better off using the space for something else. Someone once said to me that I should buy in veg wholesale to sell on, um that’s not the point, the point is to grow things that we (or the wider family) eat and to sell any surplus to cover the costs. Firstly, I am then confident on how it’s grown and that it is first class, ripe, freshly picked fruit and veg and secondly it doesn’t cost us or the customer the earth 😀
Tuesday: Mia day so only the basics and playing with stickers, pretend friends and cuddles today 😀
Wednesday: Cold and frosty, no sign of the snow/sleet yet though. I did the morning feeding, watering, letting out, collecting eggs, last week we couldn’t keep up with customers, this week it’s slow again 🤷♀️ Before I went out I sprayed cleaner round the bathroom and back toilet, that would ensure that I had to get on with cleaning them when I came back in which I duly did. Having a quick coffee now before I get on with cleaning the rest of the place 😀
The greenhouse walls are nearly finished, it’s unfortunate that we have had some very cold frosty nights and building walls is not ideal as the mortar freezes so best to do it when the temps are up and are staying up, the process is slower but a better result in the end.
A sit down at 1pm phew, I have been busy cleaning, mostly giving the kitchen a good going over, pulling everything out, I have discovered that we have had a small rodent visitor at some point since I last did it. I haven’t heard anything or even seen anything it’s just left a few calling cards behind the microwave 😂 I will move it all again in a coup,e of days and see if it’s still coming or not. The sun is shinning beautifully today and I don’t feel cold, probably all the running around I have been doing, I still have the office and the boot room to do but maybe they can wait until tomorrow 😝
Just in case you’ve been wondering what Molly is up to she can still be found permanently located in a dog bed in the boot room 🙄 She has now taken on that air that most cats do eventually, hooman you are here to serve me 🐈 It is now her job to get under my feet every time I go through the door, she hasn’t worked out that she gets fed twice a day not every time she sees me!
I have lost three ducks now, daytime losses 😞 why do they always take the laying ducks and not the surplus to requirements drakes so bloody annoying, two ducks are from separate trios and the other ducks are quacking and looking for them ☹️
I was just reading about our starry skies and how the light pollution affects the ability to see them, one of the most amazing things about living here is the amount of stars we can see on a clear night, not wishing to keep this all to ourselves if anyone wants to come down one evening and have a look just get in touch or if you want to get a look at a meteor shower when they are happening then let me know 😀
Total coincidence after I wrote this but John came in after letting the dogs out at 10pm and said “I‘ve just seen a shooting star” 😀
Thursday: My goodness that is cold out there this morning 🥶 I don’t know what it went down to but it’s still -6 at 7.30am so I am guessing about -8/9 or possibly lower in the night. I know that’s not cold compared to some areas of the world but it is for us lol, I have decided to light the Rayburn early and warm the house before going outside today, I’m waiting for the Sun to do some of its magic. It might be cold but it is also very beautiful out there 😀
I need to top up the small bird feeders and put some water out in the sun, the little birds are well catered for but I need to find out about the ground feeders like blackbirds, robins and wrens, I threw some scones out this morning but they were gone quickly, the magpies have pinched the lot, I want to be able to feed the blackbirds without the magpies stealing everything. Having a quick look on google I improvised and found a bicycle basket which I have staked down so it can’t be moved by bigger birds and then I have bought a fat block that I cut into four and will place it in the middle hopefully out of reach of long beaks.
The mouse came back last night and I think I can see where it’s coming in so I will be setting a trap in the kitchen tonight and getting John to fix the tiniest of cracks between the wall and the worktop, because the building moves the worktop has come away and somehow this has let it in.
A cold afternoon routine, the water hasn’t really thawed and neither have the outside taps, the ice was pretty thick in the water buckets this morning and although I did manage to break them they are still mostly frozen. With the threat of snow we have topped everything up and put in extra feed/hay etc just a waiting game now ⛄️ I got some shopping in earlier just in case and I made bread so we are all ready for at least six foot of the white stuff 😂
I took a photo I have been meaning to show you for a while, just proving that plants don’t need much to grow, just a bit of determination 🤣 of course they wouldn’t amount to much like that if left and I may try to see if I can plant them and see what happens.
I haven’t talked much about Brexit mainly because well how much can you say that’s not being said all over social media by one group or another and neither can agree. There is a lot of scaremongering from both sides going on but one thing I do think is that if the shelves are barer and food is more expensive, on the whole I see that as a good thing. Obviously not for those struggling already but where we live you don’t see much of that to be honest, it’s an affluent area and for a good few years now it astounds me how much food people buy, do they eat it all or do they waste a lot of it? I think curbing excessive spending on foodstuffs you don’t really need is good and I think a lesson in where your food comes from, how it gets here and how you could/should be buying British can only be a good thing too. So if the shelves in your local supermarket look bare take a trip to your local farm shop & eat seasonably it may cost you more but it’s better quality and learn how to make it go further than you normally would. ‘That’s all I have to say about that’ 😝
Friday Feb 1st: And we had a dump load of snow 🙄 great this will make life fun out there this morning 😝 John has gone to work because nothing stops him going to work 😜 to be fair he is only working in the next village along and he drives very well in snow but that leaves me here in slightly more difficult circumstances today 🥴 One of the first jobs will be to knock the snow off the top of the polytunnels and fruit cage, too much weight would cause a collapse. Then onto the animals, the hens probably won’t come outside all day, the ducks and geese will, the dogs are loving it the cats not soo much in fact I caught Molly peeing on the cardboard recycling as she obviously didn’t want to get her feet cold, she got short shrift! Jack, the horse would probably like to be out in it especially if I took his rug off so he could have a good roll but that’s more trouble than it’s worth so he will be staying in, he came in last night and will most likely kick the door all day long in frustration. I moved the quail indoors yesterday afternoon, mostly because they are not laying so a bit of extra warmth in the back might kick start them. Then it will be back inside and hunker down for the day until afternoon time. Snow days probably would be fun under different circumstances 😜
Doing the animals was pretty easy and as predicted the hens won’t come out, but on my way round I saw that the fruit cage was under a lot of snow and it’s still snowing, so I had to get it off pretty quickly which resulted in getting snow showered for a while (I did chuckle until I started to get cold) 😝 I should have and indeed had said out loud to myself that I needed to get the netting off before any snow but never got round to it so that serves me right really. I’m just waiting for my clothes to dry off before going out and trying to sort it out. The brassica cage netting is too heavy for me to push it off so I will probably have to get a ladder out and do it that way, such fun 😫
After days and days of the Rayburn running in a similar way, today it’s changed and I was having trouble with it just roaring away meaning all the heat is just going up the flue, so I have had to adjust the heat/cook combo normally we just run it on heat and the cooker gets up to temp anyway but it’s now on half and half and has settled down. One thing we discussed if we ever build or move is underfloor heating providing its run by solar panels, I look forward to that day, I am coming to the end of my love affair with wood burning heating and cooking lol.
The long tailed tits have gathered, they always turn up when is snows, beautiful little birds 😀
Saturday: The Sun is out but it’s not thawing the snow very quickly however it is beautiful out there, I took a walk across fresh snow in the paddock, the snow glistens like diamonds and in the shade it takes on a blue hue 😀 John did most of the animals except the horse so I went out and fed him then turned him out into the snowy paddock, he will come back in later as it’s going to get very cold overnight. I took out some feed for the wild birds including the ground feeders, I bought one of those blocks of fat with insects in hopefully it will help during this very cold snap.
With not much to be done outside I decided to make some little chocolate fairy cakes with mini eggs on top, I will be totally honest here and say that I bought the eggs with cakes in mind but ate half the packet before I got round to doing the cakes 🤣
We had Josh to stay last night and the plan was to wait till dark and then go out and look at the stars, his Mummy had packed some cookies for when we came back in. I looked out of the window and said it looks dark enough now, he came and had a look and then said ‘that’s enough can we have cookies now’ 🤣 we did wrap up and go out for all of five minutes, he was scared because it was so dark lol.
Sunday: I was hoping the Sun was going to melt most of the snow today although I’m not looking forward to the sludge that comes after, it melted a fair bit but still a lot left. The temps are set to climb a little after tonight but with it comes the rain 🙄 Josh came out and helped with the feeding though John did most of it, we had great fun using a small hammer to break all the water buckets 😀
That was pretty much it for the day apart from the usual stuff, and that is pretty much it for the week, we are into February so onwards and upwards 😀
frieslandfarm (flowers) 