Tag: sunshine

Posted in Friesland Farm

Nice weather to begin with, then wind and rain and then just continuous wind 😝

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th March 2021: Good morning and good morning to all those children who are finally returning to school today and big high five to the parents who have been home schooling ✋ Hopefully today marks the beginning of the road to some kind of normality later this year 🙏 When I think about the last year of our lives it all seems surreal, governments have ordered people to stay home and paid them to do so, made travel illegal, isolation and quarantine have become normal words in a conversation, furlough is a newly invented word for being paid to stay home, shortages of toilet roll and other vital supplies 🙄 No seeing your family, no hugs, no birthday celebrations, no weddings, funerals that couldn’t give people the send off they deserved, people dying by the millions all over the world, scientists working flat out to come up with a vaccine, NHS working round the clock in extreme circumstances, shops, bars, clubs, pubs, theatres, sports grounds all closed for the duration, and this time last year we had no idea what was coming!

John was up and did the animals before going off to work this morning. I swung the hoover round and did a bit of polishing, that will make me feel better when I go outside and spend most of my time in the garden 😀

Good grief is it still Monday 🙄 seems like a very long day today. Been busy in the garden first thing, raking up and burning garden debris, nothing quite like a garden bonfire in Spring. Then I was digging up more deep rooted weeds before they start to flower and set seed. Sam came and I looked after the twins for an hour while she went food shopping. Carried on in the garden after she left and John came home, we got the last bit of compost riddled and what didn’t fit in the new compost bins went on the garden. It will all end up on the garden I am just not ready for it yet. I cleaned the small poly tunnel cover with the algae remover, did a few more bits before sowing the first two rows of carrots for the year 😀 covered them with environmesh because the cats are getting round to playing in the garden and we have a storm coming Thursday apparently, so if they are covered nicely the seeds should not get to disturbed. Environmesh is an expensive outlay initially but it is very long lasting, I have had mine for years and it can be used for a multitude of coverings including brassicas. Checked the postbox and Johns call up for the vaccine had arrived, he was invited to go to the Kassam stadium but booking it online was a right ole rigmarole 🙄 by the time you had chosen a date and pressed next, the times had all been allocated and it was back to square one, in the end he phoned and spoke to a human and got it all booked 😀 Then it was time to get the eggs done and light the Rayburn, get the dinner sorted etc etc. I did pull up a few good beetroot today so I need to decide what to do with them, normally I would leave them in the ground to get bigger but I really wanted to clear the area for a fresh start.

In this area there is the apricot tree a cherry tree which is out of shot then rhubarb, a thornless blackberry some horseradish and asparagus but I have plenty of room to plant other crops, I am just not sure what that will be yet. To the right you can just see the runner bean frames so they also grow here. Last year I grew pumpkins in this space which just meandered around everything else which worked well.

It won’t be long until I can start picking some of this years produce, the rhubarb I have been forcing is looking brilliantly vibrant and there are enough stalks to pull, I really need to have custard with mine 😀 The purple sprouting broccoli has a few little heads appearing, I think by next week there will be enough for a picking. The leeks I planted last year have been slow but they are just about big enough to be useful if pulled from here on in, it’s all looking promising and I can’t wait for that fresh, home grown, full of flavour goodness. As a side note there are plenty of things growing that we could eat right now but they are from days long gone and are mostly considered weeds, plantain, dandelion, goose grass, chick weed, nettles, but always worth remembering just in case you ever need to know 😜

This forced rhubarb looks amazingly vibrant (no filter needed here) can’t wait to have some with custard 🥰

We are getting near to the end of the veg I froze last year but I still have loads of frozen fruit left mostly plums. The plums won’t be ripe until late August, early September so no rush to use them but I will probably make some more jam with half of them, there are also a few bags of mixed berries which again I will use to make jam as we have run out.

After five whole days of our broadband and phone being fixed it’s back to dropping out again so that more time wasted contacting BT, seriously they are shockingly shite! I would change provider but that doesn’t really solve the problem as Open Reach service the lines anyway not matter who the provider is so I can’t imagine it would be any better 🤷‍♀️

Tuesday: A sunny morning with a frost, it should burn off and be a pleasant day. I am trying to get as much done as possible during this dry period, we have wind and rain approaching in the second half of the week so making the most if it. Once the weather turns I can do a bit of baking, haven’t done any in a long while so John will be pleased. BT are coming out tomorrow to fix the problem, just like they did the last three times 🙄 not holding out much hope there 😜 We had another power cut the night before last, not for long but still, our services seem to be getting worse and worse with each passing year.

The big news today is the Megan and Harry interview, I am trying to avoid it but it crops up everywhere 😂 suffice to say my opinion, for what it matters, is that there are better ways of dealing with things than airing your dirty linen on a worldwide scale, they haven’t done themselves any favours. I had supported them in everything they decided to do until now.

It’s 1.30 and I have just come in and had some lunch after a very pleasant morning in the garden. I have been doing various bits but nothing too hard which is why it was so nice I think, pottering is the best term for it. I have sown some more seeds, firstly some flowers, sunflowers and echinops to be precise and then in the big tunnel I have also sown some little gem and winter gem lettuce, some spring onions and some white radish. I have cut back some of the hazel that overshadows the small tunnel, I think looking at them they need a really good cut back, I will have to sacrifice nuts this year. Then I thought I ought to sort out my seeds, they seem to be in complete disarray and I am forever going through all of them to find something. Now they are all in tubs for various types, root veg, squash, salad, you get the idea. The one thing I haven’t got is courgettes, none at all so I will have to get some and some more broad beans while I am at it. I have made sure that any flyawayables are secure for this wind we have coming, shame the weather is going to break but we have had a good run over the last week. It doesn’t sound like I have done much but I have done other bits as well such as retrieve the goose eggs and fill up their water bucket, sort out the eggs and the returned egg boxes, not much but it has filled my morning with only a quick coffee break when John came home to get something he needed. Yep a very pleasant morning indeed.

My guilty pleasure on such a lovely day 😜

I spent another hour in the greenhouse, I didn’t intend to, I went in to give the next size up propagator a clean ready for moving seedlings on but I got listening to a story on radio 4 and so I couldn’t leave until it was finished 😂 I found plenty of little things to do while I was listening 😀

Wednesday: It’s not as cold this morning but we have drizzle and a slight wind, worse to come later according to the weather forecast 😕 John was up and down the animals before going off to work, the builders merchant lorry arrived with the remaining top soil for the last bed, it has taken 15 of the big builder bags, I am not sure how much they weigh but that’s a lot of top soil. John arrived back home as he saw the lorry passing him and came back to help unload which was great as I was not looking forward to that. They hold the bags up on a grab over the bed and then cut underneath to let the soil fall but even so I struggle to cut the bag with my rusty old Stanley knife 😂 They all left and I came in to finish the washing up and then out to take the soil as flat as I could, we have a small mound left in the middle and I will let John decide wether to rake it over or take it off (heavy work lol) I seem to have lost a lot of strength over the last year, I keep trying to build it back up but then everything hurts, at the minute I have shooting pains now and again up the middle of my lower palm and into the wrists. I need to book some more blood tests for next week to see how the white cells are doing, hopefully they have not gone too low, that could be causing the problems I am having which are only minor but still inconvenient. I am also waiting for BT to arrive again today, we will see what they can find this time 🙄

As the weather is not favourable I had decided I will probably do some baking today, it will keep the kitchen nice and warm and keep me busy. It also means I will have things in the freezer that I can just grab to defrost once the gardening season is well under way and I have less time indoors to do stuff like cooking 😜

I have baked scones, biscuits, two fruit cakes and a mincemeat slice pudding for dinner tonight to go with out delicious looking shoulder of lamb 😀

I will freeze a fair bit of this for another day 😀

It was nice and warm in the kitchen while I was cooking and moving around but a short while after I had finished I could feel the cold so it was time to light the Rayburn. Another valid reason that I will be glad when I no longer have to do that is this scenario: It is pretty windy today, the wind is coming up from a south westerly direction and whipping past the back door, the Rayburn is next to the back door and when I empty the ash pan I go straight outside, you can put two and two together there can’t you 😝 And also a good reason for lighting it mid afternoon is to do with the wind, we already had one power cut this week and one the week before I think it was so the potential for another is high. The winds are forecast to reach up to 70 miles an hour on the coast, they will be less fierce by the time they come this far inland but still could reach 50 miles an hour and that will be more than enough to bring down a tree onto a power line. If I warm the house up now at least we won’t be freezing if it does happen later 🙄 Always pay to have a plan 😉

Thursday: Good grief what a night, I was going to sit and blog at 4.30 this morning but decided not to bother. Due to the winds I was awake at 1.30, 3, 4, 5 which is when I made a cuppa, went back to bed and the alarm went off at 6.30 but I went back to sleep as the winds had subsided a little by then. Seriously it was roaring all night, the metal roof occasional banged, the wooden building flexed, creaked and groaned, each time I nodded off there would be a loud creak or bang and I would be wide awake again. By 6am my eyes were stinging where I was tired. The local station recorded 47mph peak, their elevation is 88m ours is 101m with an open west aspect which is the direction the winds came from most of the night so I reckon we probably could have recorded 60mph or more at times here. Loud is an understatement, I was trying to compare it, I think it was mix of a big waterfall and a fast speed train 😂 It never let up all night long and this morning is lighter but still blowy, it changed in speed and direction around 6am. On a good note though it’s not raining this morning no yet anyway, I had expected a lot more rain than we have had 🤷‍♀️ By contrast, John slept through the lot 🙄 Amazes me because if he can hear the second hand of a clock he can’t sleep apparently but rip roaring winds not a problem, he was the same when the children were little, never heard the baby cry or the dog bark to go out but would complain that the clock on the oven downstairs made a noise!

John was up before me and do the animals, I got up and had a cuppa, then I made another one and thought, John will be in any minute from doing the rounds so I made him one, I drank mine and thought, where has he got to? I then realise that his phone and glasses were no on the table and so I looked out the window and his van was gone, he had left for work before I even got up 😂

I whizzed round and got a few things done, made an appointment for bloods next week, sorted out the eggs, the Guineas, cats and dogs, put the rubbish out, give the place a check over to make sure no trees had come down then had a coffee. After that I went to town to get some fruit from the market, takeaway coffee and a pastry from the local coffee shop musing over how lovely it will be to be able to go in and sit down for coffee eventually 🥰 A quick trip into the supermarket and the bakery, I haven’t managed to make bread so I bought some. Then over to see Sam and the twiglets in time to help feed lunch. Back home for 2pm and I could have lit the Rayburn but then I am tied to it for an hour so instead I spent an hour in the greenhouse checking things over. I also sowed some night scented stock seeds, these flowers are vital to things like moths and night flyers, they need nectar too. I got caught up listening to another afternoon story and couldn’t leave until it had finished 😂 The cardboard over the seedlings hack is looking promising, so much so that I have mow covered all seeds with it. I am not sure why I have never come across this before but if it works well it’s a keeper hack. I thought I then ought to light the Rayburn but first I had to get a few barrowfulls of wood into the back, saves going out in the dark and cold to get it later on. We will have two extra areas once the Rayburn is gone, one just out the back in the undercover area where we bring the wood into and then the big undercover area outside where we keep all the chopped wood, it’s big enough to fit a horse box or tractor in so quite a decent size, I am sure we will figure out what to do with them pretty quickly.

Friday: Friday again already 😜 John did the morning rounds and then went off to work. I had lots of little things to get sorted before the farrier arrived at 10am. All sorted indoors it was outside to get some hay in nets to hang for the horses on the hard standing and then into the paddock to get them in. As always Biscuit was a good good and came biddingly and Jack was an arse 😜 finally managed to get his head collar on and lead him in. I picked out their feet and waited for the farrier who was running late. Just as he turned up so did Sam with the twins, got that sorted and the twins had a little sit on the back of biscuit which they both seemed to like and then it was time for a sing song before lunch. A while after lunch I went with Sam in the car to sit with them while she got some shopping, it was around their afternoon nap time so that worked in well. By the time I got back John was home and he had even got the Rayburn lit. The wind is rather cold today but at least not as fierce, we have had a good bit of rain which has refilled some of the water tanks so that’s good, it’s amazing how quickly it gets used during a dry period. We have not got much else done this afternoon but we have a busy weekend ahead of us weather permitting so it’s fine to have a little rest now and again.

Early evening and it’s raining, it think we have rain for most of the night.

Saturday: Pretty windy again this morning, we got the morning jobs done including moving the light Sussex back out to their outdoor enclosure so that we could move the hens from the point of lay pen back into the stable ready for the batch of POL coming in this week. I also completely cleaned out the Guineas pig run and observed them for a while, I don’t think it’s mites that the guinea has got I think it’s being bullied by the other one. The reason I came to this conclusion is that the other one shows no signs of mite and he is constantly chasing the other one off, need to monitor that and do something about it soon. We also have one cockerel bullying another, it was fine while the other one was young but now it’s grown and on someone else’s territory it’s not so good, also need to do something about that 🙄 It’s always the male of the species that are a problem 😂 the females live together in relative harmony 🤔 We then went to the garden centre so that I could buy some plants for the final bed, I have a lot that I have previously grown ready or already had but I wanted a few more smaller plants for infilling, this bed is (hopefully) a nod to a cottage garden style, roses, Hardy geranium, delphiniums, dahlias, stocks, saxifrage etc, each bed should have a different look eventually.

While I was out there planting things I had a look at something I planted in the other bed, it hadn’t made it through the winter which was strange as it’s a huechera which are fairy Hardy. I dug it up thinking I might be able to recuse it and was horrified to see lots of little grubs in the soil. My first thought was cut worm and if it is in the topsoil then we are buggered as it will undone all the work we have done already, chewing through the roots of everything and killing it all off. I lifted the plant, and all the surrounding soil making sure I found every little grub that I could, this all went in the skip, there was another plant that was similar so I dug that up and yep one or two grubs in there to 🤦‍♀️ My next thought was that if it’s in the compost I am also buggered as I have used that for everything! A quick scan round and everything else is fine so I think it is localised luckily, I googled it and it’s not cut worm but vine weevil grubs which will be easier to deal with, they like pots of things so I imagine an adult has crawled in when I had stuff in pots and laid it’s eggs. Not so bad because it means it’s not in everything and I can get nematodes to water in and deal with them, panic over 😅

Besides that I had a lovely time planting everything in between hail storms and rain that is and of course the never ending wind. In the end I got fed up of being buffeted and went into the greenhouse for some respite from it lol.

Once I had finished that it was indoors to do a quick bit of hoovering all round and get the Rayburn ready for lighting. John had been out the back giving the POL pen a power wash so it’s all ready for next week and then came in and made a cuppa.

We booked our first post covid overnight stay away 🥰 when I say we, I don’t mean John and I 😂 Ever since our eldest turned 30, the three girls and I have a new tradition of having a spa break at a 5* boutique hotel in the Cotswolds. Last April we were booked to go for Charlie’s 30th but it got cancelled due to the pandemic and so after a whole year of waiting we were able to book it again for the end of July 👏 So looking forward to finally being able to go so fingers crossed the rest of the year goes as planned 🙏 I will have to look for somewhere for John and I to go, it’s only fair 😂

Sunday: Still windy, getting tedious now lol, it’s more tiring working against the wind all the time 🙄 Still, not to be deterred we got up, I have to say I had the most amazing breakfast by strength_chef delivered from Charlie and Macca, then got the animals done and then out the front to get some more bits tidied up. Sam arrived with Mia to do the horses and bought some beautiful primula to plant in my new flower bed along with some seeds for the butterflies and bees. Mia went home with a goose egg for her breakfast 😜 Shelley popped over to drop off a present and that was a lovely little recycled notebook that is impregnated with seeds that you can plant when you have finished using it and some amazing blondies from Indulge by Amy, find her on Facebook, fab cakes 🥰 Feeling the love today from my amazing girls, love them all to the moon and back 💕 💕 💕

Mia with her dippy goose egg 😀

We did a bit more outside after I lit the Rayburn, it’s pretty chilly today, John laid a few slabs and sorted out some of the driveway, it needs raking off and levelling, I collected empty flower pots that had blown around and we moved the fig tree and the olive tree to the fruit cage. The birds pinch all the emerging buds on both so I never get anything, hopefully in the cage I will stand more of a chanice of a harvest.

Eventually in the early afternoon we had both had enough outside and so a well earned Sunday afternoon sit down was in order.

Not long until the spring equinox 👏 👏 👏 happy days ahead 🥰 Have a fabulous week whatever you are doing x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Weeding, tidying, plenty to do.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday March 1st 2021: An altogether different day today, the heat and the sun have disappeared and it is quite a bit colder, the sun came out in the afternoon but there is still a distinct chill in the air. February has been a crazy month weatherwise, we have gone from days and days of below zero, to a lot of rain and then at the end highs of around 15c with plenty of warmth. We don’t know if we are coming or going 😂 the last four days are what is known as a fools spring, we were looking forward to more sunshine and heat but wham it’s gone just like that.

Although there are things to be done out in the garden I really wanted to get some of the Lino prints that have been ordered done and a few more to put out for sale. So that’s what I did for the first part of the morning, Sam phoned to see if I could mind the twins while she went and got her food shop, that’s what I did for the second part of the morning, the wheels on the bus and round and round the garden mostly 😜

John came home around 1pm he had a dentist appointment to go to, lunch for me around 2pm after I had checked the egg shed and done a few bits and pieces.

Just after 2, as the sun was shining, I decided to do an hours weeding, a wise man once said to me, do a little bit every day and it will soon be done, actually it was my brother in law but still very wise words and I always think of him saying it when I chose that mantra. When I came in it was 4pm! It was so pleasant out there that I had got lost in time and thought 😀 I did a couple of other things out there as well such as moving some small clumps of ‘Johnny Jump Up’ which are viola, they had self set around the veg garden so I might as well use them in the front beds they will make good ground cover. I also checked the seedlings in the greenhouse, it was lovely and warm in there, the shinny backing I have used is working well as the seedlings are not leggy nor are they leaning for light. I checked the sprouting broccoli, remember I couldn’t actually recall what it was just that it was tall, well it’s purple sprouting and there are a few little heads beginning to appear. I sowed some seeds straight onto the ground in the tortoise pen, this is specific tortoise food, fingers crossed it grows.

By the time I came in I thought I better get the Rayburn lit and think about what we would have for dinner. John had gone to do an outside tap after his dentist appointment but he arrived home not long after I lit the fire, he went out and did the feeding and egg collecting.

Tuesday: Much colder today and not much hope of it warming up either, grey and overcast. John did the birds before going off to work, I did my jobs and then set about mounting the Lino prints I did yesterday, I put them out for sale, if they are not out there I will never know if anyone wants them or not lol. I have never really been one for ‘stepping out of the shadow’ is how I think of it, I would never push myself forward or raise my head above the parapet not unless I am 100% sure about whatever it is, then and only then I will. But as I get older I tend to think ‘f**k it’ what have I got to lose 😜 I think that is one of the pleasures of getting older, you give less of a damn about what anyone else thinks about what you do 😂

I feel like I have had a good day today and I wasn’t even expecting to 😀 As I said it was pretty cold this morning but around 11 I thought I would go out and do a few things that needed doing. The drops arrived for the Guineas, I managed to catch two of them and get them done but the third is elusive and I need John to help me corner him, no point only doing the two. Then I figured I would do a little bit of weeding/clearing and ended up doing that until 4 o clock. The sun made an appearance mid afternoon and it was rather too nice to give up so I carried on. I also checked the torts, we have legs out and movement when I touched them so that is good news, they have made it through the winter, they just need to warm up now before they start moving around, it will be a while before they go outside mind you. I have dug up and split plants that need moving, now is a great time to divide clumps of plants and re plant them where you want them, I have potted up several thornless blackberries that have rooted themselves, I have sown some rocket and baby spinach seeds in the small tunnel as a quick crop, yep I have had a lovely, productive day. Time to come in and do the house jobs, such as light the Rayburn, sort out washing, hang it to dry over night, dry up etc etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do only what you wanted to do rather than what you have to do 😜

Just a recap of what I have sown so far this year for anyone wanting to get going and not really sure when to do that. All seeds so far have been grown under cover of poly tunnel or greenhouse because I have found that my particular plot is around 2/3 weeks behind usual sowing times, this is due to the slight incline that faces west, as our winds are mainly westerlies this causes a chill area 🙄 Peas and broad beans sown in the greenhouse, the peas are in root trainer pots and the broad beans in seed tray inserts, I think they are about 2” inch square something like that. I have sown rocket and spinach in the poly tunnel straight on top of the soil, in this case in old recycling boxes. I have potatoes chitting in a dark box ready to plant out, traditionally that would be good Friday but a lot depends on the temperatures around that time as easter is early this year, if it’s cold I will leave it another couple of weeks. I have tomatoes, chilli and pepper seeds in the greenhouse inside a heated propagator, they need that warmth for quite a while so having a bigger propagator to move them to is also needed. I have dill, garlic chives and coriander in trays in the greenhouse with no heat, again because my plot is too cold and wet for them to be sown straight into the ground at this time of year. I have a good deal more to get sown but I also have plenty of preparation to do in the garden as well so it’s a case of weighing up what needs doing first and generally seeds will catch up easily even if they are sown late.

Wednesday: Grey, foggy, a bit on the cold side this morning but you never know it may burn off and be nice at some point. I have been out to do the egg shed and collect the milk and the sparrows are using the new nesting flats 😀 I was a bit worried they would be too upmarket for them but it seems not. They have also been investigating the old boxes which I have placed in various other places in the front area, I didn’t want to waste them but they were a bit tatty to go on the new house front.

Today is a day that is necessary but not nice lol, septic tank emptying day. I did learn the lesson in the first year, do not have it emptied when it is likely to be a hot day, the stench hangs around both inside and out for a couple of days 😂 A cool day in early Spring is a much better time of year to have it done 😜 Still, keep all windows and doors shut ☑️

The wagon came just after lunch (luckily 😜) and there is a lingering whiff but not too bad 😂

As it was a tad cold out I decided this morning I would take a look through the photos that I need to get sorted. We had some from when Johns Mum died and then some from when Dad died, some from an older relative a few years ago and plenty that were already here but stuffed in various places while we got the office sorted. Now it’s done I need to get them in some kind of order along with the bits and pieces of ancestry stuff. I also thought it might be a good idea to write the names on the backs of photos because although we may know who they are now, future generations probably won’t and that information is lost forever. I have plenty of photos of great Aunts and Uncles but on some of them I am not 100% sure who is who 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: Dank, is the way to describe the weather today 😜 I spent the first couple of hours trying to upload the photos for the mid week surprise, doing jobs inbetween, seemed to take forever. Then it was on with the rest of the day. The first main job was a dangerous one, retrieve the eggs from the goose nest 🙄 I went up to see if they were all out but one was still on the nest so I left it until later. Instead I decided to clean the inside windows of the greenhouse and give the top shelves a clean and tidy up. It is a delicate balance at this time of year because there are lacewings and ladybirds overwintering in the nooks and crannies but there are also other insects you don’t really want hanging around such as wood louse, slugs, greenfly etc. I moved everything and gave the windows a clean, checked the heat mat as I thought it wasn’t working but it’s fine, watered anything that needed watering, sowed a few more pea seeds all while listening to Radio 4 😀 There was an interesting section about bread and how for centuries the whiter your bread the higher ranking in society you were, of course the whiter they made it, the less nutritious it became and the poor were left with the wholemeal bread which was obviously not as good 🤣 oh how times have changed. Once I had finished all the intended jobs I began to ‘faff’ a sure sign that what I was trying to do was not the right time to be doing it, luckily I recognised that behaviour and left the greenhouse 😀 Back to the dangerous job, the geese’s were all now out in the paddock grazing, good that means I can nip in and collect the eggs but this comes with the aforementioned danger element. The gander, quite rightly, is there to protect his ladies and their eggs but he has missed the memo regarding the fact that I feed, water and clean them as well as give them a lovely place to live and so those eggs are mine 😝 At the moment he is merely in the warning phase, he makes a run for you but not with any great intent, as the season goes on and his ladies decide they may like to sit he will become pretty aggressive and when he comes at you then he means every bit of it!For now a little bit of extra scratch corn and a stick with a piece of flapping bag on it keeps him at bay and he wanders back to the corn, another month and we probably won’t be gathering eggs any more, life is too precious 😂

After putting the goose eggs out for sale I went back to the POL pen where our ladies are still being held captive due to avian flu. I shovelled up buckets of deposited poop and dug over the soil area which had become wet and horrible due to the water being left on by John. There was much drier soil underneath and the hens will have a great afternoon scratching about to find any insects and seeds, back in for lunch, is it only lunchtime 😆

John came home just after lunch, that’s the nature of his work at the minute, bitty so I never know when he will be here, he was planning on staying but he had been waiting for the electrician to be able to fit in a socket on the job he did this week and he called and was available so off John went. He did get the flue swept when he first came back though which is good as it was getting a bit sooty. He has estimated we have about a months worth of wood left so we are hoping it has warmed up enough by then to stop lighting the Rayburn. That will be the end of an era here, I will be a little bit sad not to have that comfortable heat from it but I will be a lot happier not to have to do my Cinderella duties day in and day out 😝

I took a bit of time out to watch a few you tube videos on gardening hacks, a good one to watch is Huw Richards he has some really good hacks a couple of which I will be trying this year. Another good gardening you tuber is Liz Zorab, I have been following her since she started really as she was already on one of the groups I am in, she has built up a steady following and has just published her first book called Grounded. Both are experienced vegetable gardeners if you are looking for hints and tips. You are never too old to learn and I always say every day is a school day, the hack of placing a plank or cardboard over your seedlings until they emerge is one I will definitely try and the other is growing potatoes in a different medium. Basically you put the potatoes in soil but instead of using more and more soil to Earth up you use hay, straw, wood chip etc. As I am going to use pallet collars this year I was thinking it is going to take a lot of compost but if I use hay or straw that will be a whole lot easier and cheaper plus the potatoes will be lovely and clean when harvested.

Friday: Cold and grey but dry at least. John is off today and so he says ‘I am all yours, what jobs do you want doing?’ I start talking about how I want to get the garden cleared a bit and sort out the compost heaps, I just have to go and get feed first he says, and I have to sort out the van first. So that is half an hour sorting out the van, and hour round trip to get feed and half an hour unloading, half an hour for a coffee when he has finished that, that’s two and half hours down already and he will probably get a phone call at some point and have to go out to work. He wonders why I never bother relying on him to help me with what I have to do, sometimes I would rather he didn’t ask in the first place 🤦‍♀️

We did get some work done on the compost heap but not quite as much as I would have liked but there is always tomorrow. To be honest when I first went outside to get some work done it was so cold that my fingers and toes hurt so I came back in until it warmed up a little. I did sowed a tray of beetroot seeds, the nice striped ones, and I have trialled this covering with cardboard hack to see how well that works. The idea is that you dampen the compost, sow the seeds and then cover with cardboard, this stops the compost drying out so no more watering is needed until the seedlings appear, I am intrigued to see how well it works. While John was digging the compost heap over I was weeding one of the other beds, I am getting there slowly, I just have one and a half more beds to do and then they are ready for whatever I decided to put in them. I needed to top dress the asparagus as they will be one of the first veg to harvest, sprouting broccoli, rhubarb and asparagus are the first three treats to look forward too. This year I have forced some of the rhubarb and that is looking like it’s nearly ready to pick 😀

I have a little light reading to do ‘The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments’ 🤣 which is about how to achieve greater biological activity and mineral availability, increase resistance, yields and nutrient density 🙄 I do believe that every day is a school day and there is always more to learn, I will let you know how it goes.

Today is the last day that parents are having to home school, I know from watching my children with their children that it has been hard work, rewarding at times and fun but also stressful, fractious and emotional at times, well done, you did it, you should be very proud of yourselves it was a big ask 🥰 I imagine the whoops of joy on Monday morning will be very audible all over the shires 😂

Saturday: Busy, busy day, it will make up for all those days when I wasn’t busy 😂 First I started off digging up some deep rooted weeds and comfrey which seems to have spread itself everywhere. John was busy riddling the compost heap and tidying that up, then he went off to take a card to his brother for his birthday and onto a small call out job. I got tired of digging up weeds so I decided to give the outside of the greenhouse a wash. I have an organic algae wash, I found the bucket and the extendable brush and got to work on that, next clean out the gutters and then onto the cold frames, clean the tops and clean inside, move all the plants over so that next time it rains they get a watering. John came back and we attempted to lift the water butt which had fallen over sometime during the winter, it was wedged and still full of water so a heavy tricky job. With that finished John went back to the compost heap and I began the mammoth task of tidying up the pots 🙄 I have hundreds of them, literally, I asked for any plastic pots last year and people bought them all summer long and now I have so many I will never use them all lol. I have had to put a notice up saying ‘no more pots’. That took me all afternoon and I had five bags of broken, split, rubbish pots to put in the skip. At some point John did the egg collecting and when I came in around 4pm I lit the Rayburn. We had a cuppa and I said it would be a good time to give the grass a first cut, it had got long but today had dried out better than it has on other days. I got the mower out and gave it some wd40 but it wouldn’t start, the throttle cable had stretched and was not opening up whatever it is it opens up 😝 So John has to come and pull back the spring every time I wanted to restart it after emptying the grass box. It actually wouldn’t turn off either unless you put it back to choke, need to get the cable sorted as it’s a hard enough job without any added complications. The problem with our lawn is that it was once rough terrain, so it’s not level and the front of the mower tends to dig in, add to that the cramp I get in my hands and let’s just say it’s not a job that I find any pleasure in 😜 John kindly offered to do it again tomorrow, course you will, I’ve just don’t he hard bit doing the long grass first cut! Back indoors, and it’s do you want to do the washing up or the eggs, John chose the washing up, I get the eggs. Finally sat down at 5pm.

At the end of the season last year, one of the last crops to dig up are the Oca, they like a frost on the leaves before they are dug. I dug them and bought them in, my intention was not to eat them this year but to get increase the amount of tubers to replant. I kept them in the back, they don’t go green like potatoes and so are fine in the light, I noticed yesterday that they have started to chit, it’s a bit early for them to go in yet but I am glad they are doing well. Oca otherwise known as New Zealand yam or the ‘lost crop of the Incas’ are incredibly versatile, raw, baked, fried, roasted, grilled any way you like, it’s a wonder we don’t use them more in the UK. They are nutritionally rich and very easy to grow, they are not an invasive plant, tolerate our weather really well, practically the perfect vegetable.

Sunday: It turned out to be a nicer day than I thought it was going to be, the sun came out and soon warmed the air up but not too much. We have had another busy day and John has sieved around two ton of compost which is now neatly stacked in compost bins made from the pallet collars. It means I will be able to go and shovel into the wheelbarrow with ease and use it round the garden. I spent part of my time sowing more peas and mangetout and now I think I have sown too many 😂 I have also been digging up feverfew which has self set everywhere and trying to clear and tidy one of the beds. I made a mound of twigs and sticks and debris and tried to burn it, twice I had to light it but it’s kind of smouldering and burning the bits near the flame then just goes out. I wanted to get it burnt while it was dry because if it rains tomorrow I won’t be able to do it until it all dries out again. We have had lots of visitors by that I mean people coming to get plastic pots, people coming to borrow things and people coming to get other things I was giving away. Of course each time we stand and have a chat and so that lost us plenty of good working hours 🤣 however there is always tomorrow and it’s nice to have time to stop and chat with people maybe just not all on the same day!

At the end of each day there is always still more work to be done, the Rayburn, the washing up, the eggs, hanging the washing to dry overnight, the dogs and cats to feed and the dinner to get. At one point I was diving between getting the Rayburn lit and keeping the small bonfire going outside, back and forth between the two of them at least four times. That’s the end of another day and another week, hopefully we can get as much done next week as we have this one 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sunshine ☀️ a vaccine & finally some gardening.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 22nd February 2021: Just like that in a blink of an eye it’s Monday again. Another drizzly, grey morning, still quite mild for the time of year though. I do wish the weather would turn a little drier though, and if the sun could make an appearance that would be great. It seems like I am always wishing for different weather and generally I am, my ideal would be a dry sunny day of around 18c with rain overnight just in case anyone is listening and can do that for me 😜

John is working again this week and he did the rounds before he left. I sorted out the eggs, the hens are laying like crazy and we have plenty of them to try and shift. I did a few routine household bits and also phoned the septic tank company to get ours emptied, it did not get done last year due to covid so I really need it done this year to prevent any problems.

After chatting with our youngest daughter, Charlotte, I might have more of a go at growing micro greens. She is having a go at doing them for herself and she asked me what kind of seeds she needed to do it, I have plenty of spare seeds so I gave her a selection to get her going. It started me thinking that this would be a fairly easy way to grow a crop of tasty nutritious food, I just need to see if I can find a bulk seed company, buying the small packets is fine if you are doing it for yourself but on a bigger scale I need bigger quantities of seed to make it worthwhile. I have got pea shoots and garlic chives on the go for myself as mini salad leaves but the choice is huge really and so I think I am missing a trick here.

I take back what I said about it being mild, I went out to the greenhouse to do a couple of bits and to check on plants and it is colder than yesterday I think. I did organise a punnet of micro salad greens which are now on the kitchen window sill along with some peas that are just sat in the punnet, no compost, I have wetted the both of them and we will see how they get on. The peas I did in the greenhouse (which were in compost) have already started to rot, it’s just too cold for them at the minute, if at first you don’t succeed try something else 😆 The broad beans are coming up though and funnily enough the peas in the root trainers are too just not the ones in a seed tray 🤷‍♀️ too much moisture and too cold I think.

John came home just after lunch, I never know if I am coming or going theses days, I thought he was out for the day so was just hoovering the floors ready to give them a wash but that scuppered my plans. The reason becomes obvious when he is eating and drops some of it on the floor, why bother 😜

Boris set out the journey we are to take to come out of this long lockdown, it’s not quick but by 21st June we should be totally restriction free providing all goes well. On the downside it means that Charlotte and Maccas wedding will not go ahead on May 7th and restrictions will still be in place 😞 We will see if they are able to move it to later in the the year.

Tuesday: Not a bad day, slight frost to begin with but it soon warmed up a bit, grey and overcast mostly and windy but no rain 😀 John did the animals then went off to do a job, I got on with a bit of weeding and then moving some pots to clear the area where the next bed is going out the front. John came back and we carried on clearing the area, there were bags of compost, empty pots, pots with plants in, bit of debris etc etc and a pile of slabs. We cleared everything but the slabs and then set about giving the hazel trees a good prune, we didn’t do them last year and they have got a bit big and unruly. Now they are all cut nice and neatly, the branches all shredded and put back under the trees to put goodness back into the ground and give the mini beasts some cover. That pretty much took us well into the afternoon, the some lunch, a sit down, light the Rayburn, do the afternoon rounds and that’s another day over.

It will be March next week and that’s when many more seeds can be sown, I need to start in earnest making sure the beds are ready. I still have some flowers growing in some of them, once I can work out exactly what they are I will start transplanting them. We start the final bed out in the front area tomorrow, a smaller bed in a triangle shape, I am thinking this will be roses and romantic flowers like bleeding hearts, creeping phlox and agapanthus but I need to plan it properly first.

Wednesday: Blowy, grey, overcast, but not raining and fairly mild. John did the animals then went off to do a job and also pick up some sleepers for this last bed in the front area. It will be nice to get that done and I may have to have a trip to the garden centre to find some nice things to put in there.

This morning I have been preoccupied with a chance discovery, the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place as it were. I can’t prove a thing but it all makes sense to me, I am talking about the theft of the honesty box and money before Christmas. This is what I think, we had a delivery two weeks or so previous to the theft, the delivery driver and his appearance and van rang alarm bells (your intuition is high when you live rurally on a farm, you recognise certain traits 🙄) When I went to the gate and realised it was a delivery I felt a little better, however I thought I recognised the driver from way, way back, I had said to John at the time, I reckon that was ….. but I couldn’t be sure. The person in question didn’t always lead a static life shall we say, except when incarcerated at her majesty’s pleasure. Two weeks later when we were out for about three hours we returned home to find the honesty box and contents ripped from the shed, there was also a delivery in the shed. At the time John said I reckon it was the delivery person but we had no cctv evidence and no way to prove anything. Then this morning a post on Facebook which made me look at the profile more closely and there is the delivery driver that came here! It was who I thought it was, as I say I can’t prove a thing but it’s all a bit coincidental in my eyes.

It’s mid afternoon and we have spent till now working out on the front area, I did a lot of weeding in the first bed and I have a couch grass problem there that I need to bring under control. John and I have moved slabs, positioned sleepers and started building the bed. Shelley came to get her food from the freezer now hers has been fixed and Sam came with the kids so they all played in the front paddock to run off some steam and get some fresh air. Indoors at 2 for lunch and to light the Rayburn, we’d to be on target this afternoon with jobs and dinner as I have my vaccination early evening 😀

The first bed is looking good, I mean it’s still a bit dead due to the time of year but I can see things beginning to bud and grow, the bulbs I planted have all come up, crocus, snowdrops and tête-à-tête, only a few this year but year on year they will multiply and it will look amazing. I need to wait and see how well the areas are filled with what I have already planted, the temptation is to cram a lot in but I really want space for plants/shrubs to look their very best. Each bed will have a different character and the first one is full of flowering shrubs and bulbs, fragrant, berries and plenty of nectar for the bees.

Thursday: Well it’s 2pm and so far I have had no side effects from my vaccine last night, hopefully it will stay that way. John did the animals this morning and then went to do a little job but was back by 10am. We got started out the front again, I added an extra job to Johns list of beds 😜 About two years ago or whenever it was he put up the new front fence, I made a temporary bed in front of the fence. By temporary I mean pots of flowers all stood behind a piece of wood 😂 This morning I asked nicely if we could perhaps make it into a permanent one, it didn’t actually take long, we had the materials, plants and top soil to do the job. Around an hour or so later it was ready for me to take the plants out of the pots and plant them in the bed, hopefully it will look lovely in a few weeks time. The beds will save me a lot of time watering, when things are in pots they dry out very quickly, with the beds a good soaking once a week should be adequate.

Oh and the weather was beautiful 🤩 sunny, mild, dry practically perfect.

It is so nice to have flowers I have waited a long time to have proper flower beds again and the reward today was watching the bees feeding on the crocus 🐝 and he cat trying to catch the bees in mid air 😂

We have moved down from alert level 5 to alert level 4 today, a good sign that things are going in the right direction and the pressure on the NHS has eased somewhat, it hasn’t gone but it’s good news.

Friday: Gorgeous morning, frosty start then lovely sunshine ☀️ I had planned to get out on the veg garden but I woke up with a rash this morning, arms and chest, not sure if this is the vaccine or being in the sun yesterday so I figured I better avoid it today. That leaves housework, oh joy 😜 Gave the bedroom a good clean, pull out the bed and dust everything within an inch of its life, then wash the floors in the living room and kitchen. I did think about doing more than that but the momentum left me 😆

Watching the birds at the seed feeder this morning I spotted one I haven’t seen before, a coal tit, it’s quick and I barely managed to get a pic of it but I am chuffed we have another new type of garden bird around 😀

John was back and forth between jobs today and I mainly pottered around not achieving very much, bit tired today and I have learned that when tired don’t do too much, I have the luxury of being able to do that I know but I still think it’s sound advice I give myself 😜

Continue reading “Sunshine ☀️ a vaccine & finally some gardening.” →
Posted in Friesland Farm

Freezing 🥶 Thawing & Valentines 💘

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 8th February 2021: Morning 😀 it’s 9.30am and I have sat down to have a coffee. I have already been out and rolled a wheel of hay to the paddock with John and fed the horses, lit the Rayburn, got a loaf of bread proving, got lunch and this evenings dinner organised, put some washing on, fed the cats and dogs, made an appointment for bloods at the end of the week and a multitude of other little jobs that needed doing. It’s cold outside brrrr , last night the wind gusts kept waking me up, around 10 times I would say as the roof rattles with each one 🙄 It is a crisp, dry cold morning though with a light dusting of snow, actually not a bad morning, at least it’s not raining 😝 John has gone off to work this morning but he doesn’t have a lot on this week so he will be here quite a lot, he said the less he goes to work, the less he wants to go! Not sure what I am going to do today, I plan to sling the hoover round quickly and I have some bits of paperwork to sort out and file, too cold to do much outside so that’s off the list, maybe I will work out what I am going to plant this year and where also what I need to do in order to get going when the time is right. That last bit will be a long list as nothing has been done in preparation as yet, there is cutting back, weeding, mulching and re positioning to do. I had planted a flower bed in the veg garden, that’s because I didn’t have anywhere else to put flowers but now we have the front beds I could move a lot of the bigger stuff and just leave good pollinating plants behind. The calendula which readily self set everywhere are great for the veg plots but the delphiniums, rudbeckia, dahlias etc will be better in the front I think. Each week I wait and hope that the weather will be kind enough to get going and so far each week it hasn’t been, I am sure I will get there in the end 🙄 I have another raised bed to think about at the side now, this one is fairly small in comparison to the others, 8 x 4ft and only one sleeper high. There is a sumac that grows there which I would like to see back again, it has got ravaged when the trees came down but should recover, it’s just a small one but if left could get lovely and big, there is also an elderflower that self set and if I keep that smallish that will be nice too, under those I plan to plant hellebore, snowdrops, for winter interest and probably some good ground cover. I want that bed to be fairly maintenance free if I’m honest as I have plenty of others to keep in order. I also plan to have a bench the other side because we get some fantastic early morning sun there and in the early hours of a summer morning it would be nice to sit and have coffee before the sun gets too hot. If I remember I will get some pics today so that I have before and after, when it eventually gets finished that is 😀

10.30 and it’s trying to snow 🙄 good job I got some leek and potato soup out for lunch today 😀

Snow flurries all day but nothing much is settling so far luckily but by golly it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!

Mostly I pottered indoors, John came home at lunchtime and did do a bit outside but it was soo cold he gave up and came in. He did the animals in the afternoon while I got the dinner cooked and that’s it for Monday. I rather think that will be similar most days with these temperatures, can’t really do a lot out there and can’t go anywhere else 😂

Tuesday: Oh god it’s only Tuesday 😂 pretty much a Groundhog Day, or same shit different day type of day lol. John did most of the animals this morning before nipping out to do a quick job, I did the horses, Guineas, cats and dogs plus the normal household stuff. I spent a hour getting a shepherds pie ready for dinner this evening, all the while thinking, this will take John approximately 3 minutes flat to wolf down 🙄 Got some veg soup made from my frozen stash, made a couple of cards and did a Lino print. In the afternoon it’s feeding, egg collecting, egg sorting, dinner and that is pretty much the day. Very boring at the minute, can’t really do much outside, it’s freezing, very cold dry air and a cold wind to go with it, not nice and not much to be able to achieve really. John did have a little go at some more of the side driveway but even he got fed up and cold and came in for the afternoon.

I did a fair bit of research in the evening after watching Rick Stein in France where he watched someone pressing their nuts 😛 Walnuts to be exact and I thought well maybe I could do that with our nuts, why not, makes sense to use the resources we have here. What I already knew was that cold pressed oils are better than hot pressed though I wasn’t sure why. Now I know that as the nut meat is heated ready for extraction they lose a lot of their goodness , it was obvious really if I had thought about it enough. The oil industry uses heat as it can extract much more volume but the quality is poorer whereas cold pressed yields lower volumes of higher quality oil. I always buy cold pressed olive oil, we went to an olive grove once in Tuscany and I understood that cold pressed was the best quality you could get so ever since then that’s what I have bought. The harder part of my research was trying to find the best method of extraction, I suppose here in the UK it is not something that is done on a small scale. I imagine that in warmer a Mediterranean climate many homes would have olive trees etc and practise pressing 🤷‍♀️ but here in the UK I think that is rare 😂 I found a few worktop machines that are available, they vary in price and I could not decide if they were worth the investment or not. Then I started thinking about how you could do it with a ready made machine which would be a better option, the nuts need to be crushed and then pressed. Crushing would be easy enough, you could do small batches in the food processor, but the pressing is harder to work out. You can use a hand operated press but my experience with pressing is that you need good hand grip and wrist strength both of which are long gone for me 🙄 some kind of hydraulic aid is needed, I did ask John if it would be possible to convert the log splitter which has 400lb of pressure, it might be an option, I will keep looking to see if there is anything that might work, or I may end up buying a machine 😜

Wednesday: Still really cold, still dry but the sun is shining this morning which makes everything feel better doesn’t it. John did the morning rounds and then went off to do a small job. I had a shower and sorted a few bits before venturing out to sort out the rest of the motley crew. Two years ago today we went on holiday, as it turns out it was the last holiday we had to date 😔 had we known we would have booked in another one later that year lol. Still it was an adventure, we sailed the high seas, and at times they were high 🤢 we crossed the Artic Circle (tick that off the bucket list) and we went to right up to Alta in search of the Northern Lights (storm Eric scuppered those plans 😣) what I would give for a holiday right now 😜

Sorted out what I needed to outside then back in to light the Rayburn which was troublesome today 🙄 I took me over an hour to get it stabilised which is a pain in the arse quite frankly. John has left over shepherds pie for dinner tonight but I got out some gooseberries to make a crumble with and one of our home produced chickens for tomorrow’s dinner. Then I went online to order some more bread flour, during the first lockdown when it was hard to come by I ordered from a whole food company and it is by far the best flour I have used for making bread so far. I ordered bread flour and also plain and self raising as well as a few other bits and pieces. I had a good look through the range they offer and it was a huge range, I was struck by three things. First that 60/70% of the people I know wouldn’t have a clue what half of them were, second that 80/90% of people I know wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway and third that I 100% don’t make full use of everything I grow here! That actually all adds up to a forth and that is that on the whole we, as a ‘modern, white, first world’ population have entirely lost touch with good food ingredients, I can’t include ethnic minorities in that statement because I believe that they still know and do use the majority of these ingredients in cooking. Yes I realise that a percentage of people use fresh ingredients but I also think that they are very basic in their choices as indeed am I really, when you start to really look at what is available we use such a tiny proportion. I shall have to set myself a mission to widen my ingredient usage and really look at the things I grow and broaden the ways I can use/store/preserve them. If you are wondering what the hell is she on about (admit it you were 😜) it’s is things like drying kale and using the powdered form or de hydrating much more produce for use during the winter or really drying plenty of beans and pulses for the same reasons. I have dabbled a little bit, the fruit powders were not terribly successful as I found they burnt a little bit maybe I should try again, and I have done beans and pulses but I should do many more I think. There are so many things I grow both in the veg garden and the flower garden and indeed also includes weeds like plantain, cleavers etc that I don’t use fully and maybe I really should.

That’s what happens when it is too cold outside to get anything much done, I start thinking and looking and learning and then churning it out but it’s a good thing I think, certainly brightens up the day to have a project in mind 😂

I went out in the afternoon and did a few bits mainly defrosting the water tap and hose so that I could get a decent amount of water up to the horses, when they are on ad lib hay they drink a lot. I had to bring the hose connector in and run it under the hot tap, when I finally got it off the tap that was, nothing is easy when it’s freezing weather, I think the temps go down to around -5 at night if not lower. I filled up all the wild bird feeders, they are also eating a lot at the minute as there is nothing else available. Then it was on to putting fresh bedding in for the geese and ducks, I had a look at the hens, I will be so glad when they can get back outside but I’m not expecting that to happen until April really. The stables are ok but not the best environment for them and they need clean bedding every couple of days which has a knock on effect on running costs. Back indoors to top up the Rayburn although when you come in from outside it feels like a sauna 😂 Make a cup of tea and after that I will probably go back out to do the egg rounds and probably put clean bedding in for the hens too.

I had an online discussion about pressing nut oils and it would seem that I can use my Apple scratter and press to do the job so I will probably give that a go later in the year, I don’t have anything to lose by trying it out.

Thursday: I have no idea what the temperature went down to overnight but it was mightily cold this morning! John did the animals while I got dinner in the slow cooker and sorted out the washing etc then it was off to town to have my blood tests. Even though it was market day it was very quiet everywhere, we did a bit of shopping while we were there and then back home.

I wish this cold grip would move on, it’s getting tedious now, hard to get anything done outside, bloody freezing when you do go out and large parts of the day spent indoors where it’s lovely and warm but it makes you feel tired.

My new tree arrived today but I can’t plant it until the frozen weather moves on.

The news is all very depressing 😔 goodness knows when this whole situation will get any better, I think most people are really feeling quite low at the minute. I never thought I would hear the words ‘it is illegal to go on holiday’ 🙄 It is not looking like we have very much to look forward to in the first half of the year at least, fingers crossed for a few months respite in the summer.

I have 30 pallet collars arriving tomorrow 1200 x 1000 we will be using them to re organise the veg beds. Much easier to deal with smaller raised beds that great swathes of garden.

I feel quite despondent today, can you tell 😜 so I bought a gardening magazine to cheer myself up and I think tomorrow I will start writing a list of seeds to start sowing at the beginning of next month. There is plenty to organise really and I will have all these pallet collars to start putting in as well, organising what I will grow where might give me the boost I need at the minute to get me through the rest of this month.

Friday: I got over my self indulgent melancholy and had a pretty busy morning.

Last night the the wind was constant and the metal roof was banging about, for almost three hours I laid awake until I decided to sleep in the living room, that got a bit cold in the early hours so I went back to the bedroom where the wind was somewhat quieter for a while.

John got started on the morning rounds while I whizzed round and did a few things inside before joining him on the yard to get going on cleaning out the hens. We moved the light Sussex from the POL pen into the stable that flooded but is now dry, we moved the hens that were in the small dark stable out to the POL pen so they can get some natural light and air, we then cleaned out that stable. Probably around seven to eight wheelbarrows full of sawdust and chicken poo 😝 We then put in all clean sawdust and moved half of the hens from the stable at the back into the smaller stable, the rest will stay where they are, the reason being that the fewer hens in one place the less meets they get in or at least it takes longer to get in a mess. They also tend to break a lot of eggs when there is 30 of them all in together, hopefully now they all have more space there will be less breakages as well. The other lot of hens in a different stable keep relatively clean as there are only about 16 of them, while I was in there putting in fresh straw for laying in one was about to lay, I got my phone out and took a video, it’s rare you actually see an egg being laid 😮

The chap came and dropped off the pallet collars I ordered and then it was time to come in and light the Rayburn, it’s still pretty bitter and the wind has not let up at all, hopefully it will be above freezing tomorrow as we still can’t use the outside taps or hoses🙄

Afternoon rounds consisted of egg collecting, feeding and bucketing water up to the horses and geese. John thinks the geese are getting close to laying as the gander is getting more fierce by the day, geese begin to lay around Valentine’s Day so hopefully they will be right on cue this weekend 🥰

Tomorrow we will clean out the remaining stable, ran out of time today and that will be them all done for at least a week 😝 We can also look at where the pallet collars will be going as I haven’t quite decided on a design yet.

Saturday: Up and about, John went out to do the feeding and I sorted stuff out indoors before going out to help with the last stable cleaning. My god it was bloody freezing, I mean freezing 🥶 the wind chill even at 9.30 must have been around -6, it is the wind that is the problem, even barrowing back and forth I could not warm up my finger tips and hips even with good clothing on. In the end I said to John I can’t do this its too cold so I came in to light the Rayburn and get dinner sorted for this evening while he carried on. I think this problem I have been having with the ends of my fingers is the problem, they hurt like billyo even inside thick warm gloves. Hopefully this evening the temperature is going to come up to 1c and stay above freezing, our average winter temps are between 1c and 7c so you can see why a whole week of continuous below freezing is unusual and hard work. Some where in Scotland it went down to -21 I think, that’s insane for the UK 🙄 Our weather seems to become more extreme year on year, record heat, record cold and record rainfall is becoming normal and the seasons seem to be shifting slightly too, any veg grower will tell you that they need to adapt all the time for growing and harvesting.

Sunday: Be careful what you wish for! The temperature finally came up above freezing sometime during the night and as a consequence we had a burst pipe out the back on the dog shower, good job we have a live in plumber 😜 It had drained all the hot water so the shower I was going to have didn’t happen, it was still cold this morning and I was looking forward to a hot shower. I lit the Rayburn first thing, not in the best of moods when it’s cold and I can’t warm up at all. It’s Valentine’s Day, not that it makes much difference in our house, although I organised a dine in for two on Friday evening and have organised afternoon tea for today, John as usual did nothing, no flowers, no card, no nothing, thanks pal, that has not made my mood any better I can tell you 😜 It’s no surprise really, I used to have tell John to take his Mum flowers or she would never have got any then he would take all the credit when his Mum was delighted 🙄 Like many women, for the first probably 25 years after we got married I always organised the birthday presents and cards etc then one year I said to him that he needed to take over remembering his Mum and Dads birthday and getting them something, that resulted in his Mum getting a bunch of artificial flowers and he never even noticed the difference 😂

It’s definitely warmer by a few degrees and guess what, it’s raining, jeez can’t we just have a nice day, Winter seems sooo long at the best of times but this year it is just endless.

We had our afternoon tea, although there was quite a lot of it so we have saved some for another time, then it was time to do the animals again and that is another week done and dusted. Time relentlessly marches on regardless of anything in its path, that is the one consistent thing in life, time and tide waits for no man 😜 same time next week, see ya 👋

Posted in Friesland Farm

Christmas is coming, covid is still here & thieving gits!

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 14th December 2020: Good morning everyone, did you spot my error on last weeks blog? I forgot to finish the title off and just left it hanging so apologies for that 😝

Not a bad start to the day early on, John was off today (kind of) and we had one particular job to get done and that was the office. So I did the morning rounds while he went off with his cutting list to the local merchant, when he got back we set about altering the desk we had already (a big heavy double ended desk) to fit the nook we intended it to go in. Then got all the panels in place, they had to all come back out because something wasn’t square 🙄 I left him to it while I went with Samantha to help her do her weekly shop, this is harder than you think and had both the checkout lady and I in fits of laughter. Firstly going shopping with one toddler is enough but with two in a trolley the isles become obstacle courses, you have to stay in the middle of the isle otherwise arms from each side grab at goods on the shelf. Once the trolley begins to fill up their interest turns from the shelves to the trolley and what they can reach, my job was to try and keep them entertained (distracted basically) by the time Sam is packing the shopping away and trying to pay they have turned around just enough to start pulling things out of the bags, crisps, bag of peppers etc and throwing on the floor, by the time I had picked up one lot the other had grabbed something and thrown that on the floor, you wouldn’t believe that the seemingly quick job of paying at the checkout is long enough for mayhem to ensue, still, Sam said, at least this week there were no little nibble marks on the courgettes 🤣🤣

New desk area which will be much tidier and give more space in the rest of the room for activities, either mine or the grandchildren’s 😂

Sam dropped me back home and John had got the panels in and the desk fitted and levelled up, he had also lit the Rayburn. He measured up for the shelves, wrote down his second cutting list and went off and that was the last I saw of him until 4pm, oh I just had to do a little job for Martin while I was out he said but the good news is I have the shelves in the van. Bloody good job as I don’t want this dragging on over days with the contents of the office still in the living room.

Once he got back I put the dinner on and fed the cats and dogs, he shut the birds away and we got on with fitting the shelves, I must say I am very pleased with how it has turned out. What is done at the minute is for the interim and we will get to doing it properly after Christmas, for the time being we have a room that two travel cots will now fit in plus any other equipment that they need 😀

Tuesday: It’s 9.30 I have already done over 5000 steps and had a busy morning. The weather is sunny and feels mild, wet under foot I heard torrential rain a couple of times overnight consequently the mud is getting muddier 😏 The farrier came first thing this morning and so before I did any of the the usual rounds I got the horses in and hosed off their legs and feet, fed them and gave them some hay to keep them occupied. They are a bit like having twins, one won’t come in making life harder, then while they are tied up ready they poop in succession one after the other multiple times so I am constantly going backwards and forwards with a poop scoop clearing up. The farrier was going to be ten minutes late so I started on the birds, feeding, cleaning water buckets etc, once the farrier was there I carried on and did the rest of the jobs. Once he had finished it was time to turn the horses back out and clear up the debris from a hoof trim and hay spread everywhere. Then to clean the duck eggs, take out the rubbish, take some stuff from the office to the skip and finally get a cup of coffee. Now my aim is to get the rest of the stuff in the office sorted and that will be the end of that until after Christmas. John has gone to work today (supposed to have finished work for Christmas 🙄) Actually I think I will have a bowl of porridge before starting the next job 😀

So I spent a large part of the middle of the day sorting stuff out in the office, bear in mind that we don’t have a loft and so the usual loft occupants are stored in the office. I have tried to be ruthless and throw stuff out really I have but you can’t throw away old photos and bits of memories can you? I got sidetracked looking through one box of old stuff that I had forgotten was there, I started to look through it piece by piece then thought ooops I had better box it for looking at another day and get on. Then there are the toys, well all Nanas have toys for the grandchildren, and books, many of which were the girls when they were little. I need to work out where and how to put them, books and small part toys up out of the reach of the twiglets 🙄 toddler toys within their reach so they can play, it’s not as easy as it sounds accommodating everything in a 12 x 12ft room 😏 Then it is also the room we keep the hoover and the steam mop, I considered buying a cordless job that hangs on the wall but after getting opinions from family it seems they are not strong on suction. I am sure I will get it all sorted eventually and some of it is fairly temporary, the kids will eventually grow out of the toys and prefer to watch the tv 😂

I did some hoovering once I finally got everything out of the living room then sat down for lunch, when I moved the remote control the telly came on by accident and a film was just starting so I watched that 😜 Then time to light the Rayburn and feed the animals, collect the eggs, John came home, measured up for some timber for the ceiling went off to get that, I shut the animals away as it got dark and bam that’s another day over but this evening we are not doing any work just going to relax, after I have fed the cats, dogs, got the dinner then washed up of course 🙄

Wednesday: Today’s plan was to go Christmas shopping in Witney but first thing Johns phone rang and someone had water all over the bathroom floor and so he puts on his magic plumber cape and went off to the rescue. Marvellous that leaves me doing the rounds stomping round slightly pissed off, never a good start to the day 😜 He returned about 45 mins later and we set off shopping, it was a grey, drizzly morning that got slowly worse, a tad cold to boot. We walked round and noted how many of the shops had closed their doors for good and then at lunchtime stopped at a pub for something to eat. Fearing that we may have had to book in advance and that there may not be any spaces we tentatively went in to find out. Well you could have knocked me down with a feather as the place was practically empty, this is a big pub that is normally very busy and it was practically dead, it really hit home then how bad things are for local shops and hospitality businesses it was a very sad realisation 😢 We have not been to town since before the first lockdown and in fact we hardly go anywhere when I think about it, the upside was a couple of new boutique shops have opened and the food at the pub was excellent and the staff upbeat, John had his first pint for more than six months and he commented that it tastes just how he remembered, what times we live in 😏

Back home and we lit the Rayburn sat down and John promptly fell asleep, that’s what having a pint at lunchtime does 😂

To be honest it does not feel very much like Christmas is approaching 🙄 I guess it is up to us to get into the spirit, a Christmas film or two or three is in order I think and then of course I need to get my tree up and now I have the space I can get on with it.

Thursday: It’s a Misty morning but still mild and it supposed to stay dry so that’s good. I am on my own again today as John has to work (he was supposed to have finished now 🙄) I know it’s paid the bills all these years but at times I hate being the plumbers wife as you always come at the bottom of the list! Not that I really need him at home I have plenty to do that he will only get in the way of 😂 I am sat writing this little bit first thing as I have a bad lower back and waiting for the painkillers to kick in before I go and start the rounds, it started at the weekend and has got slowly worse but there is no chance of resting it today and hopefully moving around will help it get better, we shall see 🤷‍♀️

I am getting nowhere fast, I have plenty to do but as I decide what to do next there is always something else that needs doing first before I can commence 😜 I want to get the decorations up but John has the timber for the ceiling joists and I know that if I put stuff up and he then carries them through the house something is going to get broken or knocked over so I will wait. I have stuff to wrap but again I am waiting for the office to be cleared of diy debris to put stuff in there 🙄 hopefully tomorrow the ceiling timbers will go in and then I can start to get sorted in earnest. I like to time Christmas, I don’t like it to peak too early but I also don’t like to be rushing around at the last minute, maybe I will make some lists as at the minute as per usual it’s all tumbling around in my head. I have some linen napkins but for the life of me I have no idea where they are, all I know is that they are here somewhere and I will find them eventually, I need to figure out how the Christmas table will look this year, I have ordered something to make a different centrepiece but at the minute that’s as far as I have got, I am sure it will all come together in the end.

I did write lists, Christmas dinner lists, Boxing Day food lists, to do lists and then I managed to get a click and collect slot for food shopping so I have done that and now feeling a little less panicked the only other things I will need to get are those with a short shelf life such as fresh fruit for the trifle 😀 oh and I found the napkins so I can think about the table layout, always an important feature in our house, if you are going to have a mid winter feast you want to make it special rather than just a Sunday roast with crackers 😂

Unbelievably I was looking for a reference to something in my old blogs and more precisely this time last year, reading through it the similarities are uncanny, it appears that this time last year I had the entire contents of the boot room in my kitchen while John was laying the floor AND I was having more frequent blood tests because my white cells had dropped, I didn’t find the thing I was looking for but it was weird 😝

Friday: John is off again today and the plane is to get the ceiling timbers in and then the numerous wires for all the technological paraphernalia up over the timbers out of the way of small people 😜 He got on with that while I went out and did the morning feeding rounds, I also cleaned out the light Sussex pen and put new bedding in for the ducks and some of the hens in the stable. I noticed that something had been trying to dig I round the back of the stable and made quite a big hole, big enough for a hen to get through. I went round the back and could smell fox and they have tried to dig in there before, we had covered the ground with wire and heavy stones but for some reason this bit was not done so I spent my time doing that, as always your defences are only as good as the weakest part of them and they soon get exposed. Did that came I had coffee fed the dogs and the cats and helped John to get one of the cables through the wall to the tv area, I was hoping he would not touch any cable until I came back in but nope there were some of them unplugged which is all very well but John does not do technology and has no idea where they all plug back into! Quickly tidy up and hoover the room, put things away again and off to get my blood tests done. My house is like a Rubic cube I was thinking, you have to move one bit before another can be put in p,ace and there is a lot of fiddling around to get it right 😜 At least now I can get the tree up tonight and start wrapping presents etc.

And finally I can get the tree up and the Christmas decorations out 😀

Saturday: Another busy day moving bits of the rubic cube around 😂 but first we did the morning rounds and then John got on with tidying up the back area, putting stuff away, burning rubbish as well as popping out to get some dog food and a few shopping essentials, his not mine as it included chocolate biscuits 🙄 Meanwhile I got the office into a little bit more order so that I could do some last bits of paperwork before Christmas and then I could sort the spare room and the kitchen table and finally I am all sorted for the time being.

I did a little furniture hack that I am pretty pleased with, I wanted a small side table next to a chair in the office but it needed to be pretty stable as the kids will use it as a playroom. So I bought a waste paper basket and a small round tray, turned the basket upside down and stuck the tray on, now I have a lovely little table that looks high end, I think it’s a winner and it will certainly do the job.

Corona Virus, it hasn’t gone away in fact it has mutated and the new variant is spreading faster than ever 😏 We are waiting for an update form the Prime Minister to see what tougher measures will be put in place. As it stands at the minute we can have three households together for Christmas and most people have made their plans around that criteria including us. Breaking news: The update means that we can now only spend Christmas Day with the other people 😏 when will this shit be over 😢 Luckily John had already decided not to work in January so he will be off which is just as well I think, I can see more lockdowns on the horizon.

Sunday: Started off pretty well, we did the morning rounds and then decided to go to the garden centre where they have 50% off the Christmas decorations and I had seen a few that I wanted to get. We mooched about and then John decided that he fancied breakfast, they had almost finished serving it but we got in just in time. Did a few other bits and returned home, I checked the egg shed as usual, delivery from Amazon in there but the rest of it looked bare, the bloody honesty box was gone! Some low life scum had nicked it, ripped it clean off the base it was screwed to, gone, box, padlock and the money inside 🤬 luckily it was only this mornings egg money so amounted to just over a tenner but that’s not the point, we now have no box for anyone to put the money into until we get something sorted again. I sincerely hope Karma pays them a visit, puts you on edge as it is rare that both John and I are not here at the same time, I’d like to think it was just a chancer and not someone watching the place 😏

On that note I am going to sign out for this week and indeed for the rest of this year, so I will wish you all a very merry Christmas, hope you all stay safe and I will be back in 2021. I will leave you with a picture of something nice I found in the egg shed this week, we do have lovely customers.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Fog, rain, sunshine, Mincepies &

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 7th December 2020: I have had a busy but highly productive day today and smashed 10,000 steps by 3pm. First there was the morning routine and jobs, today that included cleaning out the ducks, cleaning out the guinea pigs and moving the one on his own into the cage inside the pen that the other two are in. I can’t put them together as they are all boars and if they haven’t grown up together will fine to the end if you know what I mean. I am kinda hoping that the longer he is there and they can see and smell each other through the grill they may in the end tolerate one another, time will tell. Burn some more bits of rubbish, seems to mount up all the time and I wanted to get that done at the weekend but other things got in the way. I also filled up all of the wild bird feeders and I turned Biscuit back out into the paddock with Jack, she was very happy to be back out and did a fair bit of running around for five minutes as well as a lovely roll so she can’t be feeling too bad can she. I mucked out the stable, mucking is different from skipping lol, mucking involves taking out all the soiled bedding rather than just taking out the poop. The bed is clean again for the next time they need to come in, always better to prepare as you never know when you will need the stable.

After finishing outside it was indoors to strip the bed and give the bedrooms and good Hoover and polish and remake the bed, put the wash loads on, light the Rayburn and sort some of the Christmas presents. Then lunch which was butternut squash and chilli soup and then an afternoon of organising the last few bits I need for Christmas, a few little presents, presents to send in the mail, presents for John, wrapping paper etc etc. I am almost finished just one more present to get for one of the grandchildren, though I do find it difficult to stop buying when I see things that I think someone might like.

Get the dinner sorted for later and then out to do the feeding and egg collecting. Now we are putting them out in the morning instead of 4pm I don’t feel under such pressure to multi task 😀 it will be back out around 4.15 to shut them away for the night and then I think I will have a sit down before I need to start cooking the dinner, though I do need to hang the washing to dry, do some washing up, a girls work is never done really 😜

Oh and I forgot to tell you that the doc finally got in touch and I have to come off the meds for two weeks then have another blood test as the white cells have not improved. Is there any sign of Lupus activity he asked me, nope none whatsoever, must be the meds then. I do feel a little tired today not sure if that’s all the running round I have been doing or not 🤔

Tuesday take 1: Today is a milestone day, this morning the first vaccine was administered in the UK to a 90 year old lady, hopefully we are at the beginning of the end of what has been a tough year for everyone.

Tuesday take 2: Ooo it’s cold and foggy this morning, I didn’t realise there was ice until I went to put the eggs out, I thought it was just fog. I came back in and lit the Rayburn before going out to do the animals this morning, it was nice and toasty when I came back in and it means my coat, which hangs on the radiator in the boot room, will be warm when I go back out later. I fed everything and broke ice on outside water buckets, nothing to report today, all is well.

When I checked the egg shed this morning I found that some of my cards and tags have sold, that made me very happy 😃 nice when someone wants to buy something you have produced, normally it’s veg and eggs but branching out feels good.

As if getting the front done and the outside beds wasn’t enough, we have decided to try and get the office sorted before Christmas 🙄 when we did the place about five years ago the office ended up half done, it has walls that are half insulated and half plaster boarded, it needs the ceiling insulated and boarded and the remaining bits including round the window done. This room is cold and you can really feel it when you open the door to go in, It would make an ideal craft/sewing/ancestry research/ reading room but it’s either too cold in winter or too hot in summer. I also actually don’t need an office like I did before now that the plumbing company no longer exists, sole traders have much less paperwork 😜 and so I can reduce the desk area to a minimum which will give me room to be able to put up a folding table when I need it and there will be room for a single sofa bed or similar. I am not expecting to get it all done by Christmas just the insulation and the built in desk area then it will be ready to plaster and decorate next year sometime 🤞

We are only 13 days away from the shortest day 🥰 and the daylight hours will begin to increase again, tiny increments but I will take whatever it gives.

There is a lot of talk about climate change and how we may not see snow again in parts of the UK. I am not particularly keen on snow, a hard frost or even better a hoar frost is my favourite, I don’t mind the snow but hate the mess it makes once it starts to thaw 😝 undoubtedly our day to day life contributes massively to carbon emissions and the effect on the climate but little is ever reported about the other things that influence the weather massively such as solar activity or rather the lack of it. Scientists say we are entering a Grand Solar Minimum, in the last hundred years the sun was at its weakest in 2019 and 2020 is the beginning of the GSM with decreased activity possibly up to 2053. Forgive me if I seem naive but although our atmosphere is affected by carbon emissions I can’t see the the sun activity is, that’s a power all of it own and so it has to affect what happens here on earth, stratospheric conditions are also an important factor. On this day in 1938 the highest temperature for December was recorded in La Mesa, California, that surely couldn’t be climate change that was a direct cause of carbon emissions way back then could it 🤷‍♀️ I think during the climate change dialogue we have forgotten about natural cycles mostly because we have no idea what they have been over the last few millennia, apart from the really big changes such as the ice age, we have only monitored the last couple of hundred years, and yes we have exceptional technology but there is a lot more to learn yet in my tiny opinion. None of that means I don’t believe in climate change and the effects it is having, I do, and I believe we are massive contributors that should be doing all we can to put the brakes on, but I also think that there is more than one factor (maybe many) affecting our weather patterns. Only way in the future will they be able to look back and tell.

Did the afternoon rounds later than I normally do now I don’t have to put the eggs out at 4pm, so at 3.45 I fed everything and collected the eggs then at approx 4.20 I went round and shut everything away from the night, back in to get the dinner underway and that’s another day done.

Wednesday: Not so cold this morning, it rained last night and is damp this morning, no sign of frost. Today marks another milestone, a personal one this time. I said the the girls do you think it’s time for new jeans when you can take them off without unbuttoning them, actually I new it was time, the pairs I had been wearing had got very baggy everywhere, so I took the plunge and ordered new jeans. The fact that I had to order a size 12 is the milestone, I don’t think I have been in that size for over 25 years, so I’m blowing my own trumpet here, whoop, whoop 🙌 go me 😀 Now if I could lose a couple of sizes from my ample bust (which I have always hated) I will be very happy indeed. It’s funny isn’t it, if you have straight hair you want curly, if you have a flat chest you’d like bigger boobs, if you are a stick you would like some curves and all of this works in reverse. Once you accept what you have and work with it life becomes happier, but the one thing I have always said I would like to have is tailor made clothes that fit properly, sleeves that are not too long, shoulders that are not too wide etc, at 5’3 I neither fit the petite range nor the regular lol, misfit that’s me 😜

Phew a busy morning, anyone would think it was the bake off tent 😀 I have made three dozen mince pies, a mincemeat slice and a loaf of bread. I had already made three lots of shortcut pastry yesterday but the morning went as follows: Come in and light the Rayburn, while it’s getting going start the bread off in the mixer, then roll out the first dozen mince pies, sort the Rayburn with more wood and shut down, bread is now on the first prove, roll out the next dozen pies, fill and get into the pre warmed oven. While I am at it I might as well make a mincemeat slice which is a recipe given to me a few years back, roll out the next dozen pies, make the pastry for the slice, get the first 2 lots out of the oven, knock back the bread dough for the second prove, wash the mince pie tins, fill the third and get into the oven, roll out the slice and fill ready for the oven, put some more wood on the fire, have a coffee, get the last lot out of the oven and the slice in. ,are a quick phone call, get the slice out and put the bread in the oven to cook, wash up, phew 😂 The slice is a great alternative to mince pie and is good for a pudding, it is basically a shortcrust pastry with egg, milk and sugar added, divide into two, roll out and put one half in an 8inch tin, add a layer of mincemeat then top with the other half of the pastry, brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar and bake until it’s done which is about 20 minutes.

Thursday already! Did a bit around the house before venturing outside to do the feeding and letting out , collected a few eggs while I was at it, another routine morning. Routine is boring but also welcome, it means nothing is afoot, disastrous, problematic, be grateful for routine 😀 It’s milder again today, no sign of frost of a cold wind, just rather pleasant for a December morning, on this day last year we woke up to snow according to the memories on Facebook. Yesterday we were told that if conditions were favourable we might be able to see the Northern Lights in the UK even this far south, there was cloud cover, disappointing but there is a chance over the next two nights so I will keep looking 😀

A lovely story about the Winter solstice came upon my news feed today, little fairies mourning the death of the Sun King on the solstice are told by the Wise Old Mother that though the old sun king has died they should not be sad, on the very same day a tiny new Sun King is born, he is small but with each day he grows bigger and stronger. I thought that was a lovely way to view the winter, once we reach the solstice, every day will be a tiny step nearer to the warmth of the sun again 🌞

I have just been reading a report about the vaccination from Lupus UK, it looks like we will be vaccinated after the 65 yr olds, so first came the over 80s and healthcare/frontline workers, then it’s the over 75s, then the over 70s, followed but the over 65s then anyone 16 – 64 with underlying health conditions that are on the list and Immunocompromised patients are one of those, who knows how long that will be until we get it 🤷‍♀️

Friday: Did the morning rounds, nothing untoward to report. Then I set about clearing leaves from the driveway, this is the only place I clear leaves from as it can get slippery with wet leaves sat there and nobody wants a twisted ankle or worse. On the rest of the smallholding the leaves stay where they are and like some little miracle by spring they are all gone. This is because the worms and microbes spend their time pulling them down into the ground then breaking them down to feed on, the result is better quality soil and all done by nature, no need for a leaf blower. You could of course rake them up and make a leaf mulch bin which eventually makes excellent soil improver but I prefer to let it happen naturally and besides it far less work 😜

I came in then and had some breakfast and truth be told I am feeling pretty tired 😏 My hands, wrists and elbows are hurting a little from shovelling and none of this is a very good sign. I can’t work out why when I am on the meds but my white cells are low, I feel great, but I come off them and a week later some not very welcome symptoms begin to appear 🤷‍♀️ I was getting on fine and now I’m thinking I don’t want to be exhausted all over the Christmas holiday 😔

I looked at the 14/16 day forecast looks like we in for rain and gales, great, not much sign of snow but we may get some frosty weather close to Christmas Day.

The rest of the day was as per usual, nothing exciting or unusual happening here 😂

Saturday: The weather was lovely today and after we did the morning rounds John went out to finish off levelling the soil on the front bed and I did some clearing up of bits and pieces and taking stuff the skip. I then decided that we would be better pooling our efforts and getting one thing done instead to two separate ones and so I went to help John. We got the soil levelled, took off what we didn’t need and bagged it up for the other bed and then set about planting some of the plants I have in pots. I have loads of them but of course at this time of year it’s a job to remember exactly what some of them are, they all look dead. Some of them are recognisable though and so we planted up the things I could identify including my forest pansy tree which I am excited to see burst into flower early next spring. It’s a small tree so won’t get to large for the site, it’s great for bees as the flowers arrive early and before the leaves come out, good food for bees when there is not much else around. It is a big flower though and although I have a lot to go in there I think I made need to buy or grow some more 😜

Here is a sneak preview of what we have been doing, it is still work in progress though and we still have plenty to do before it’s finished. As you can see it was a beautiful day today, blue skies and warm for mid December.

John went off to have his flu jab mid afternoon, he is allowed it this year as he is in the over 50 bracket 😂 I had mine back in October as I always do having underlying health conditions and all that 🙄

When he came back we went in for a sit down and apart from collecting the eggs, feeding and lighting the Rayburn we didn’t do much else, oh except watch the snooker, well John watches the snooker, I have to suffer the running commentary from him even if I don’t want it.

We have discussed sorting the office out and that work will begin on Monday providing nothing else comes up.

At dark we moved the last lot of hens from outside to the stable block where they will now stay until the Avian Flu lockdown ends. It’s good for us as it means that the winter feeding etc won’t be such a chore, inside the stable block is much better than out in the paddocks but not so good for the birds really as they won’t have the freedom they normally enjoy 😏

Sunday: This morning we did the usual routine and then set about starting the office makeover, it will be small part office, small part craft sewing room, a place to do the ancestry searching, a place to keep the grandchildren’s toys and books, a bit of everything really. Mid morning we went to the DIY shop and picked up some storage containers and a chair that I really liked at a bargain price. That set me on the journey of planning the rest of the room and I found some very expensive wall paper 🙄 luckily we only need one roll for the wall I want to do. Up to Christmas it will just be a case of getting it sorted so there is room for two travel cots for the twins on a Christmas Day but after Christmas we will start in it properly. Charlotte phoned and asked if we had our Christmas tree up yet and when I said no she wanted to know why not, the entire contents of the office are in the living room I told her, oh I will let you off then she said lol. I am not quite sure what we did the rest of the day apart from the normal things, the day seemed to go really quickly and that is the end of another week 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Seeds, avian flu & an amazing sunrise.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th November 2020: First thing this morning I have a repeat blood test as my last lot are showing low leucocytes again 😏 That means increased risk of infection so I need to be a bit careful.

Last night I was reading that the house sparrow is on the red list for conservation which surprised me greatly, we have a good flock of them here, around twenty I would say. I need to make sure they have everything they need, food through the winter and housing, I put up new sparrow flats for them when we took the old boxes down but they haven’t been seen in them as yet. What they have been doing is going in the roof where we haven’t put the capping back on (it’s ordered but not arrived yet) and I was complaining that they have pulled out bits of fibreglass which are now on the ground in the front. I think I will look to see where else we can put the old bird boxes until they decided to move into the new ones.

I was quite depressed at the thought that this is only day five of the lockdown, seems longer, and how I was going to pass the time but if this morning is anything to go by I needn’t worry. First the blood test, then Shelley walked over to get eggs so we had a chat over the gate (odd that last week they could all come in and this week they can’t 🙄 but rules is rules) then I thought I will phone Sue and see how she is doing, five minutes in and the straw and hay delivery arrived so I said I would call her back. Went out to sort where it was all going came back in to get the payment and realised I had left my soup on high, luckily it wasn’t burning, called Sue back for the rest of our chat, did some hoovering, sat down for my soup and John popped in between jobs. The time has shot past today and hopefully it will be like that every day.

I was feeling quite anxious and emotional this morning, mainly I think because of these white cells or rather, lack of them. It’s important because they lead to a condition called leucopenia and even when we don’t have a viral pandemic you are advised to wear a mask as you are highly susceptible to bacterial and viral infections as the immune system is not functioning. With the Lupus and the meds you take for it you can swing from a very over aggressive immune system to one that can’t even be bothered 😂 So you can see why it’s a worry, obviously the ideal would be a level system but that never seems to work because too many other factors can intervene. A morning of interaction and I feel more emotionally stable now thank goodness.

I had planned on doing a few things outside but the hours have passed and other things occurred instead, I did water the carrot seedlings, they don’t seem to be growing very fast though and I checked on the oranges which look nearly ready to pick 😀 I hope they are sweet enough and not sharp, that will be very disappointing.

I prepped dinner Nr lit the Rayburn, monitoring the time all the while but John came home early and he did the feed rounds and egg collecting so that was a happy bonus and with the extra time I made a raspberry pudding for dessert 😀

Shelley decided that through hers and Martin’s businesses they would like to spread a little cheer and have donated selection boxes, people can nominate someone they think could do with a little cheer either because they are alone, have lost their job or are struggling for some reason or other. The gift is in the giving and so we have donated from both the farm and the plumbing business as well and she is getting offers from lots of people to also donate, it’s amazing and so many people need to know that others are thinking about them at this difficult time and that although we are all socially distanced they are not on their own.

Helping people out gives you much more pleasure than you can imagine and is good for the soul and at time brings unexpected returns, some of my favourite memories are from people giving me things because I had helped them out. I have told these before but I love them so here they are again, one was when a chap stopped to get duck eggs when we first started out, duck eggs are difficult to find and so he was delighted but he didn’t have enough money. No problem just drop it in next time you are passing and we are talking about 40p or something like that. About 8 weeks later he arrived with his 40p and a trailer full of hay bales, would you like these he asked me, how much I said, for free he replied, I was flabbergasted, amazed, delighted 😁 The other times are also to do with eggs, people often want eggs for hatching but they don’t need many, one lot was for a Duke of Edinburgh award and some other lots were for children to hatch at childcare facilities, for activities like these I give them for free as they are learning opportunities which I am all for 😀 Never expecting anything in return I was humbled when I received chocolates/cards/flowers thanking me. They were such small giving moments but they grow of their own accord, the excitement and the chance to encounter nature doing what it does best and then the learning activities around it and finally the knowledge they gain from the experience, it’s all priceless and very rewarding. So you see a small gesture of kindness naturally grows into bigger things for everyone involved 😀

News just released of a real potential vaccine which gives us hope for the future, 90% effective apparently, obviously they will proceed with caution but it’s a chink of light on the horizon.

Tuesday: It’s lunchtime and it is lovely and sunny and quite mild out there, it wasn’t first thing mind you, the minute I put my coat on to go out it started raining but it soon cleared up. This morning I have spent a large part of the time rearranging electric fencing for the horses, during spring and summer we have an area fenced off for biscuit that she periodically goes into to prevent laminitis and that has worked well this year. Now we don’t need it for her but we need it for Jack, basically to keep him off the yard, as the grass gets more sparse he starts looking further afield which means he breaks out, plus I want to fence off the big side paddock so the hens don’t end up living in a bog. Horses feet churn up the wet ground and basically trash it and it quickly becomes a big muddy puddle, the ground recovers in Spring but it’s good to have some grass for the hens. I took all the fencing down from one area and then put it all up where I need it now, I connected everything up closely watched by Jack who was like my shadow the whole time, I went in to plug into the mains and when I came out he had got two of the slip rails down in that short time 🙄 I put them back up and then turned on the fence energiser, click, click, the minute Jack heard that noise he knew the game was over and he turned and wandered away. Up to that point he was probably thinking wayhay I can escape but the horses are very familiar with electric fencing and once they hear that noise they know there is no use hanging around anymore.

After that and a quick coffee I went into the greenhouse, might as well make good use of a nice day. I spent my time cleaning up the tubers I dug the other day, the dahlias still need to dry off a bit more and I brushed off the dirt from the yacon and Oca. Some off them will come indoors to be used in cooking and some will dry off and I will store them to plant next year. I have hedged my bet four ways with the yacon as I don’t know much about them, first I have put one lot in the ground and will see how they get on through winter, the next I have potted up and that will stay in the greenhouse, the third lot are smaller tubers that I will dry and store and the last lot are the plant roots that I will also dry and store, hopefully out of that lot one or more will be successful. I picked some of the runner beans that are now ready to store, the pod goes brown and papery on the vine, pick them, get the seeds out and dry before storing overwinter somewhere dry. I have dwarf French beans doing the same, and little piles of other seeds drying on the side waiting to be stored in the dry. I usually bring the seeds inside and keep them in the spare room in the dark, it gets too damp anywhere outside and I find that works well. I then did a couple of hardwood cuttings of my fig tree hoping to get a few new plants for next spring.

Collecting seed is a great way to get free plants next spring, it is also an important part of self reliance and sufficiency. We saw shortages of available seed and plants this year, propagating by various means can absorb the shock in times like these and help keep you producing vegetables and flowers 🌸

Wednesday: John knocked on the bedroom window from outside, get a look a the sunrise he said, Wow, it was fiery and orange and usually thats what the sunset looks like but this was first thing in the morning, breathtaking.

An unusual sunrise this morning more in keeping with a sunset.

I got up and dressed and on with the day, various jobs to do, clean the boot room and the back toilet, sort out dinner for this evening, nothing very exciting on the to do list today. Shelley walked over and we stood and had a chat over the gate but apart from that and a hardware delivery nothing much eventful happened. I did decided to make a Slimming World Diet Coke chocolate cake, one word, don’t 😝 It went in the bin it was that bad, I think I would rather have a normal one and eat less of it 😂 It got me thinking about healthy bakes and trying to find recipes that look vaguely like they would taste good but they are all full of weird ingredients. I think the closest I find to a good recipe are probably diabetic recipes, at least the substitutions are usually honey or maple syrup not some reconstituted husk of a hitherto unheard of vegetable or grain 😏

John called, he will be later than normal can I put the birds to bed, looks like I will have to. I hate the early dark evenings when he comes home after dark and then goes to work before the light, it feels like you have no one to share the daylight hours with.

We have worrying confirmation of six different cases of Avian Flu in the country, more worryingly is that they are fairly spread out in different counties all around the UK, many more cases and there will be a lockdown for poultry as well as us 🙄

We went food shopping tonight, I just needed a few things but seemed to end up with a lot of things. When I was packing it away I began to wonder if I was subconsciously stocking up, genuinely not doing it on purpose but I have definitely more than three tins of baked beans in the cupboard 😂

Our egg customers have gone awol again, really weird how it goes through phases, each day this week we have had hardly any customers, other days we are inundated with them, one week we can hardly keep up with duck egg sales and this week they are stacking up in the shed 🤷‍♀️

Thursday: Do you ever think that when things start to go wrong they go wronger and wronger 😏 This morning started off ok as far as the smallholding goes, jobs done, things sorted and all that. I need to get my prescription picked up and the plan was I would call the pharmacy to make sure it was ready then call John and have him collect it later, first fly in the ointment is that John has left his phone here 🤷‍♀️ so that plan goes out the window, luckily I call Shelley and she is in town and collects it for me, I will get John to collect from her later tonight (I need it for the morning). Second is the doctor calls re the blood results but only has half of them in will call again later when they have them, fine I go to the loo and the phone rings again, damn it, luckily they then tried the house phone and having finished my function I was able to answer. Terribly sorry but there has been a mix up at the lab and we will need to redo the full blood count, ffs, I am going to have an arm like a drug addict at this rate, your thinking that I could change the arm, nope the other arm doesn’t appear to have a vein that can be tapped 😂 so I now have to get over first thing in the morning for another blood test. On top of those life misdemeanours we have the more worrying aspect of the Avian Flu to sort out, it is now a legal obligation to make sure our biosecurity is in order. For the hens that means that we need to feed inside (which we do anyway because of the crows) and we will also need to keep their water inside away from wild birds. The ducks will also have to be fed inside but their water is a problem, ducks and water go together like bread and butter so more difficult to implement that, they need constant water to keep their nostrils clean after dabbling in the undergrowth. That is stage one, along with foot baths for anyone coming into the farm but that is not an issue at the minute is it 😜 The next is that I will have to stop feeding the wild birds, this is the saddest bit for me but the idea is to not encourage them to be anywhere near the flock as they will be the carriers/transmitters of the disease. We then need to make plans in case a full lockdown is required which given the spread of it is highly likely this year. That means all birds will be shut in for the foreseeable future, if they have an outdoor run it needs to be netted so that wild birds cannot get in. We have the POL run which is suitably netted after the last outbreak a few years ago, but the rest will be in the stables, luckily we have them spare, not ideal but at least they will have room. I remember last time we tried to tarp the orchard run, gee, we had the wettest, muddiest winter and it was soul destroying stuff but the stable block is dry and has windows so at least they can see outside 😜 Keep chickens they said, it will be fun they said 😏 Apart from all that, the sun is shinning and it’s not a bad day so I will take the good along with the bad today. Sometimes life seems like a scrabble, it’s like scrabbling up the rock face until you get to a level plateau again 🤦‍♀️

Went for a stroll round the village with Mum at lunchtime which was very nice, the sun was shinning and it wasn’t too cold, saw a couple of people to say hello to which lifts the spirits 😀

John came home early and spent a couple of hours cleaning and tidying out his van 🤷‍♀️ still it was nice to know someone else was around.

Friday: Another sunny and not too cold start to the day although it rained heavily during the night. Got a few bits done then off to get yet another blood test done 😜 hopefully this one will come back all in one piece and I can move forward in whatever direction I need to go.

I heard a couple of very strange wildlife stories this week, the first was of a fox taking a small dog somewhere near where Mum lives, this was witnessed by a gentleman although it seems they don’t know who’s dog it was. The second was the discovery of a dead otter, what is curious about that is that to my knowledge we don’t have otters around here, not for miles as far as I know. I have seen the photo and agree that it does not look like and English otter, it’s a mystery as to how it got there and why it died but it has been called in to wildlife experts and a university is taking it to do a post mortem to find out more if they can.

I have decided that I will keep feeding the wild birds but I will be moving the feeders to an area that is about as far from the hens as I can get it, it’s likely that the poultry industry will go into lockdown if reports of confirmed cases keep coming in anyway and once they are shut away there will be little risk of contamination. Worrying times with two major viruses in the country, if the two collide 😳 (and that could happen) we would be up shit creek without a paddle!

Saturday: The weather started off ok and then took a complete dive until it was vile out there. John was busy digging out the rest of the raised bed area on the tractor until it began to rain so heavily he had to stop, there is no cab so he was getting pretty wet. I went out and put new bedding in the geese, duck and light Sussex housing and then put up the hooks for the bird feeders and moved them well out of the way, hopefully the birds will soon find them. I also put up the remaining old nest boxes give them somewhere to roost over winter. I then spent two hours looking for something I knew we had but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It’s a leather stamping kit, so basically letters on the end of metal sticks in a box, you hit the stamp and it punches it into leather, marking it with a postcode or name. I wanted it to make some Christmas decorations but I can’t find it anywhere and I had pulled out boxes, opened drawers, looked inside everything, nope nowhere to be seen. I have ordered a new set but you can bet your bottom dollar it will now appear.

We came in for lunch and lit the Rayburn, drank tea and watched the news, hopefully the weather will clear a little and we can carry on outside. 😏

It didn’t clear up much but John went out to do what he could anyway, me I stayed in to stoke the Rayburn 😜

I spent an evening do a bit of Christmas craft, I sometimes wish I was more artistic as there are so many things I would like to have a go at. In my minds eye I see what I want but the reality is nothing like it, I still remember my art o level piece, I knew exactly how I wanted it to look right from the beginning but it was a big fat fail lol. Nevertheless I still have a go at a few things when the moment takes me, tonight it was gift tags, I have a large amount of buttons which were in Johns Mum sewing stuff, I doubt I will be sewing buttons on anything any time soon so I made gift tags instead 😀

Sunday: It was vile weather overnight and vile this morning but eventually the rain moved on and the sun even came out at times though it’s a tad cold at around 8 degrees. John did the morning rounds and then attempted inbetween rain showers to carry on with the raised bed, he almost abandoned it altogether when a stiff breeze came along and blew the rain along. Meanwhile I have been doing the usual morning jobs, a bit of washing and sorting dinner for later, I did pop out to feed the guineas and have a look in the polytunnels and then back in to get the Rayburn lit. No point me trying to help John as he is levelling and squaring p, not my strong point and I would probably be more of a hindrance than help on this job. So I supply the cups of tea, a sandwich, make sure there is hot water and a hearty supper for later on 😀 Slow roasted lamb shank today 🥰

Just sitting having a cuppa and have been watching a short video on biodiversity on the smallholding (or it could even be related to a garden/allotment) It became obvious that I have been doing everything that was suggested and this talk was given by someone who gets paid to advise large farms and parks with their biodiversity projects so I am quite chuffed that I am on point with my plans to increase wildlife in all forms. The only thing I haven’t ever done is record it either by writing it down or logging it with various surveys. I will start a log I think, I can recall right back to the beginning when we first came that even though we are surrounded by countryside, there was not much going on here, mostly due to routine spraying I suspect. I have seen a big increase in wildlife especially over the last four or five years and each year I am surprised by more arrivals, like the bees in the hollow this year which incidentally are still going in and out, and the snake, it’s a great feeling to be able to make a difference however small.

Quick update on the kittens, both are doing well, exploring further and further outside but they can often be found curled up on a cushion in the boot room. They get on well will the dogs, by that I mean they tolerate them and are not afraid of them, the dogs don’t take much notice of them unless they go to close to a food bowl with biscuits in or if they make a sudden playful dash, on the whole though it’s lovely to see them all sleeping in the same room together proving that cats and dogs don’t always fight 😀

I went outside about 2pm and helped John, we now have the raised bed finished (except the top soil) and the ground all levelled back out again. Only thing was with the shovelling and raking I have twinged my lower back 😕 Today I did the afternoon feed round and egg collection while John got the tractor round to finished moving and levelling the driveway. We have got a way to go yet, topsoil needs delivering and then we need to build the last bed which is much smaller, then a layer of clean gravel needs to go down, some cutting back of the hazel trees (the planting up will have to wait till spring) then there is the side driveway to start on 😂 always another job on the horizon 😜

Have a good week and stay safe, keep your chin up and keep smiling, we will get through this eventually (the winter & covid) 😃

Posted in Friesland Farm

The mighty Oak, lots of paperwork 😏 & procrastination 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th October 2020: Good morning Monday 😀 here you are again, I don’t get the Monday morning blues mostly because I’m not obligated to be at a place of work 😝 So it’s a lovely morning, dry, not too cold, the sun is trying to shine but there is quite a bit of cloud cover. It’s coffee break time but I have already been very busy this morning, making jelly and a lemon curd cake for the VIPs, getting Johns dinner prepped ready for the oven later and making a healthy version of chicken tikka for me. I have put a wash load on, sorted the kittens, taken the recycling out and tidied some bits and bobs, pretty good before 10.30 I reckon. I need to clean out the Rayburn a little, do some hoovering and wiping round and then I will probably venture outside and find some jobs to do out there.

Here is a fact I heard that I find fascinating, I keep trying it and it’s true 😜 you don’t breathe through both nostrils at the same time, each nostril takes it in turn, one will have a rest while the other is working 😮 how did I get to 56 and not know that 😂 And now you are all trying it aren’t you 🤣🤣 your welcome 😀 And now you are googling it just to check it’s correct 😝

I had a shower this morning and again turned the water to cold to finish, at first I thought I won’t be able to do this but I go in with the idea that I will totally enjoy the hot shower and then embrace the cooler water. This is doubly difficult because we don’t have standard heating and so the house is tad cold in the mornings. As the weather gets colder I don’t think I will carry on doing it, but just this morning I heard a report that a study on older people who go into the cold water seem to develop proteins (I think) that help the brain, the study was looking into dementia specifically, interesting stuff 🤔 The reason I had a go at it in the first place was because Charlie was telling me about Wim Hof and his methods, though they are more extreme than I am willing to do, but the whole breathing techniques (not his specifically) I have been doing for over a year now as a stress reliever or a relaxation method so I thought I might as well add another technique to see what it’s like. It’s true that you can only focus on the then and there, the cold water, you can’t think about anything else so effectively it clears your mind I suppose and I do feel refreshed which is great for the day ahead but I wouldn’t be doing it in the evening when I need to wind down.

The logistics of my Monday afternoons have to be on point with the children arriving for their tea at 3.30. I have the Rayburn to light, the hens to feed and eggs to collect sort and put out, the table to lay and sandwiches to make. Sounds easy right but on days like today when it’s not too cold out but I still need to light the Rayburn, the timing is everything, too early and it’s too hot in here, too late and it’s freezing. So my aim is to light the Rayburn about 1.45 that gives me 45mins to get it going, up to temp and then shut back down for it to continue a slow burn. Then I can whip out and do the hens, collect the eggs and sort them out, after that lay the table and make the sandwiches so that tea is ready when they arrive after a busy day at school 😝

I have just sent for a brochure on electric heating and solar panels as this is what we want to move to, it will make my life a whole lots less complicated I can tell you 😂

Tuesday: A more autumnal day today though the sun was out this morning and it’s not cold by any means. After doing the usual household bits this morning I decided on the task of my wardrobe 🙄 going through it and clearing out which took me most of the morning. Neither John nor I are fashionistas 😂 in fact we both have some clothes that are well over twenty years old and probably older, we are not label people either but I do like clothing that lasts and washes well. There comes a time in every wardrobe though when things are way past their best and when your tiny granddaughter says ‘Nana you’ve got holes in that’ you know it’s time to bin it 😀 Two bagfuls for the charity shop and one for the rag bin because no one wants to wear your holey castoffs. Only two items from Johns wardrobe went, that’s because if I throw things out he will ask where they are even though he hasn’t worn them for years, there was a lot more I would like to get rid of but I would be in big trouble if I did 😂 The wardrobe is now sorted and tidy and I know where to find short sleeve good T-shirts, long sleeve good T-shirt’s, short sleeve work T-shirts, long sleeve work T-shirts, good jumpers, work jumpers, you get the idea 😝 I still have another smaller wardrobe to sort but that one can wait, that is the holiday wardrobe, mostly evening wear and who knows when we will be able to get back on a ship 😏

The woodpecker is back, it’s a great spotted woodpecker and I haven’t seen it through the summer months but I first heard it when I was burning the wood. It’s call is very distinctive once you know it and if they are calling they are usually right at the very top of a tree, then as it takes flight the undulating motion is unmistakable, it looks like an undulating torpedo. This morning it is back exploring the Oak tree outside the kitchen door, they say an Oak trees supports more life forms than any other tree. We have many conifers here as well as other trees and yet the one Oak tree is home and host to more than all the other trees put together. There were a few acorns on it this year, I have only seen one mast year in all the time we have been here, that is a year that has a bumper crop of acorns, it happened to coincide with having pigs that were raised for the freezer, they were happy piggies with all those acorns to eat.

Wednesday: Well what can I say, the weather was appalling, rain all day long but that meant I had the perfect day to do paperwork. Well a whole years books actually for both Johns plumbing and the farm, the farm is simple enough, the plumbing not so 😝 When John had a limited company I did it every Friday because there was PAYE, VAT, CITB and CIS to sort as well as suppliers and customers but once that was closed down there was not anywhere near as much to do so it kinda got left 😏 and then the weeks rolled into months and before you know it that’s a year gone 🙄 I spent the best part of the day getting the paperwork in order that’s before I can even start to get it written down. I know I ought to sort myself out a bit and make sure it’s written every week and I will pledge to do that from here on in but we will see how long it lasts 😉

I did do the usual jobs inbetween the paperwork, that’s what makes it difficult really as I have to keep stopping mid flow to do other jobs at certain times.

Thursday: We (that includes John when he got home) continued to work on the books until 10pm last night and so today I am having some time off. I went out with Shelley and Flo, the aim was to find a two piece skeleton outfit for Josh for Halloween day at school. Most rising five year old boys would not even think about the need to pee and how difficult that might be in a one piece suit, but Josh had and wanted a two piece for comfort breaks 😀 Objective achieved we did a little bit of retail therapy before having lunch out, I have to say everywhere was fairly quiet and it felt safe enough to be out and about. Once back home it was time to do the egg rounds, get the Rayburn lit (although it’s fairly warm today) and get tonight’s dinner sorted. The daylight hours are getting shorter and shorter and the clocks change soon, there is talk about postponing it but I can’t see that happening to be honest, the hens are usually in bed by 6.15ish which gives us our evenings back, not that there is much to do socially 😂

Friday: What have I done today, well I did a few household bits then got the paperwork out, yep I’m still doing it and this is why: I’d done about an hour of sorting out what was what ready to (eventually) get it all down in order, Samantha messaged ‘what are you doing today’ I replied ‘paperwork but I’m happy to pack it away’ 😜 and so she came over with the children and I packed it away 😂 We went to the park, played on the swings and slide, had a whip round the supermarket for a few bits and then back home, that’s why the paperwork is taking so long because I’m happy to stop anytime 🤣 There is always tomorrow 🙄

The twiglets George and Lucie

Saturday: I turned the alarm off this morning as yesterday it was going for ten minutes and John didn’t turn it off (it’s for him not me) eventually I had to get up and do it so I thought this morning I will turn it off. John eventually gets up an hour after it would normally go off and started complaining, he was waiting for it to go off before he got up 🤷‍♀️ The thing is that the light can be seen through the curtains they are not blackout ones and so I said surely you know roughly what time it is by the daylight coming through, or is it just me?

Anyway eventually he got up and he got on with the rounds while I sorted out washing, rubbish bins etc. Then I thought I would get the paperwork out and get on with it, I turned off the radio for total peace and quiet, about half an hour in John comes in to make a cuppa but not quietly, oh no, making as much noise as possible then starts asking me inane questions, I stopped what I was trying to do. Tea drunk I managed to pack him off to get some feed and take some bits to the charity shop, I got back on with the paperwork. He returns and does a bit of cleaning out of chicken huts then comes in and decides he is going to watch the news on the tv 🙄 I am trying to concentrate and all I can hear is a reporter with a very irritating voice going on and on and on, so I packed it all away, I give up trying to get this done in peace 😏

In the afternoon his new phone arrived, the old one wasn’t charging and he was due an upgrade, only problem is he is not gadget savvy and so I have to set it all up for him. The problem with that is it’s android which I am not used to and the transfer of information is not as easy as my device. Luckily Shelley, Martin and the kids arrived for a cuppa and Shelley managed to transfer it all from one phone to another, though she did have to google it first. She then sorted out another problem with my e mail, I could get it on my phone but not my iPad, all very irritating but sorted now 😀

I haven’t actually done very much on the smallholding this week at all have I ? Just the basics, sometimes I have weeks like that and this is one of them.

Tonight I am off round to a friends for dinner to celebrate two of our other friends birthdays, I am looking forward to seeing them all again, haven’t seen them since before the lockdown, lots to catch up on.

Sunday: A dry sunny day, lovely actually until about 3pm when it got colder and started raining. The clocks went back last night giving us an extra hour in bed so when we got up it was light again but the downside is that it will be dark earlier tonight.

We had a chap come round and cut the front hedge as it has got rather big and John couldn’t really do it with the electric hedge trimmer. We had a delivery of beef from Emma’s ewesful acres although I was going to get some lamb off the van but we were out when she delivered so I will have to order it and wait for her to be delivering out this way again.

We went out for breakfast this morning and met my sister and brother in law there, lovely breakfast, a bit later than we are used to having it but it was a nice change not to be working. When we got back John got out the hedge trimmer to do some other bits of hedge but it kept raining on and off and the sky is ‘moody’ so I guess that’s how it is going to be for the rest of the day. Charlie and Macca called in for a cuppa and when they left I got the Rayburn lit and the dinner prepped, quite a bitty kind of day but a lovely one none the less 😀

Consequently after having a week of not getting stuff done I now have a head full of jobs that I am thinking about and that will need doing next week 😝 I suppose, because we are usually constantly doing something, that having an easy week is allowed now and again 😀

That’s another week of 2020 done and dusted, I would say that along with millions of others I will be glad to see the back of this year but I have a feeling that next year may not be as great as we are all hoping, unless they get that vaccine. The numbers are climbing and climbing all over the world and seemingly more rapidly that the first outbreak. I still can’t decide what is the best plan of attack really, let people go about their daily business or keep them locked down in various ways, I guess the first option would overwhelm the hospitals and then we would be in even bigger trouble 🙄

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, stay safe and have a good week 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

I’ll give the sourdough a miss 😝 butternut squash soup and indigo rose tomatoes 🍅

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 12th October 2020: The pandemic continues though I have to say it seems like it is happening elsewhere and I hope they don’t end up being famous last words 🙄 Seriously though we seem to be in a bit of a bubble here, the last outbreak before and during lockdown didn’t really seem to hit our rural area very hard and hopefully the same will be said for this second wave. Today the Prime Minister will announce new measures to try and curb the virus, we wait to see what those will be 😏

Meanwhile life is as normal as is possible and today I have VIP’s coming for tea, the grandchildren are coming after school for sandwiches, cake and jelly and ice cream 😀 I busied myself with getting things tidied, put away (always seems to be things to put away) getting some washing on, sorting the kittens, then making jelly and cake.

The sourdough starter seemed to have a life of its own overnight, it grew so much that it leaked out of the sides, that’s a good thing 😀 I guess it was due to the heat from the Rayburn in the kitchen as this morning it has calmed back down again although it still has life (bubbles) so I have fed it again. The sourdough dough I had in a bowl which didn’t seem to rise was showing signs of activity this morning so I baked it to see how it came out. I can tell you that if I was about to attack a local castle keep I would consider using it in the catapult 😂 it’s a bit solid, however I cut it and it smells like sourdough though heavy in structure, I tasted it and it has that sour taste so I’d say it’s about 70% successful, just need to improve on the technique now.

The measures have been announced and we are going into a three tired system of medium, high and very high risk with various rules for each of those but not a complete lockdown, I’m not sure if any of this will do any good the numbers still seem to be climbing and climbing 🙄

Tuesday: A cold but dry morning this morning. John did the morning rounds before going off to do some proper work 😂 I spent the morning organising food by various means, first I got some butternut squash soup on the go for my lunch today, that’s basically a butternut squash, onion, sweet potato, chicken stock, black pepper and a grating of nutmeg, I will taste it later and see if it needs a sprinkle of anything else such as curry powder or my new fav thing to use smoked paprika 😀 Then I ordered a box of beef from a local smallholder, hhttps://www.emmasewesfulacres.com I have had it from her before and when she delivers I will probably have a look to see what lamb she has on the van. That will keep us going through Autumn and Winter, we have our own chicken and duck in the freezer already plus some venison, goat meat and fish that I still have to use up. Once I had ordered that I sorted out dinner for this evening which tonight is salmon, I will have mine with a honey, sesame oil, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar marinade, then orzo, bell pepper, broccoli, garlic and ginger stir fry while John will have his with potato and veg, we are worlds apart when it comes to food. In light of the fact he will hate having salmon (but will eat it) I got tomorrow’s dinner underway as well (go me) a hearty oxtail stew in the slow cooker. Oxtail isn’t something that many use any more but it has great flavour, it has gone in with carrots, potato, onion, tomato paste, black pepper, beef stock, Worcester sauce and thyme, again I will give it a taste test to see if anything else needs adding. I will slow cook it all day, turn it off over night and then turn it on again around lunchtime tomorrow, stews taste better if they are made one day and eaten the next, so they say anyway, certainly gives it time for all those flavours to mingle.

Butternut squash soup (no filter) lovely vibrant colour packed with vitamin A, C, E & beta carotene, also contains many important minerals 😀

I have let the kittens out this morning, up to now they have only had the run of the boot room but today the door is open to the back undercover area. To begin with they went out and I couldn’t see them anywhere but the next time I went out, there they were and they came in for some dreamies so that’s a good sign that they will stay close by (for the time being) even if I don’t know where they are. Eventually they will get more adventurous and go further afield but hopefully always coming back for some food.

I have come to the conclusion that the sourdough starter does not do very well in our house because we don’t have a stable constant temperature, it gets warm in the evening after we have lit the Rayburn mid afternoon but we let it out mid evening so it doesn’t get too hot over night. The starter seems to be reacting to these temps, first it grows well during the evening but by morning it’s flat again because it’s much colder. I have fed it again this morning and will see what happens later, I thought about making the bread in the evening but again sourdough takes longer to prove than normal bread so that may not work either. I don’t even eat very much bread of any kind so I’m not sure why I am doing it to be honest 😜 just because I wanted to have a go, I may give up on it though and buy the odd loaf now and again 🤷‍♀️

I have also been busy over the last week or so ordering Christmas presents, who knows exactly what is going to happen over the next few months, might as well get ahead just in case it all goes haywire. It’s crazy when you really think about it all, weeks in total lockdown, who ever thought that would happen, now we are all wearing masks when we go out into town, we can only meet a few people at a time, some places have tighter restrictions than others, as I have said before I can’t wait to see the blockbuster film that will inevitably be made about this lol, not quite as scary as The Walking Dead but just as unbelievable (well it will be when they look back in history) Yes indeed we are living through some very strange times 😏

After lunch I went out to the post box and realised it was nice and warm in the sun, it’s often colder indoors than outside here, so I decided to get my gear on and do a bit of garden work. I spent a happy couple of hours cutting back dead stuff and pulling up veg that has now gone over, digging up comfrey (as it’s seeded everywhere) I did stop short on one patch when I spotted ladybirds, probably trying to find a place to hibernate for winter, better make sure I don’t tidy too much 🙄 Back indoors for a quick coffee and a sit down before the afternoon rounds begin. I have seen no more signs of snakes and also sadly I have not seen any frogs all summer, even in the dank areas, I think the snakes have eaten them all 😢 either that or they are hiding well.

While I was working away I was also pondering on what I had learnt this year in the garden, no matter how much you know there is always more to learn. I learnt that yacon are pretty easy to grow here and that they taste very good, I learnt that often when you think a veg plant is ‘spent’ it surprises you with more offerings (I’m thinking about the loofah here) I learnt that the weather can throw you curve balls ( actually I know that but this years was the biggest yet) and that I need to do more to prepare for weather anomalies. I learnt a bit about myself, I like to grow things in order, I am not good with what seems to be chaos in the veg garden but I know I need to learn to cope with it as it’s a better way of growing 😂

I am hearing more and more worrying reports of people who have had COVID for a second time, that’s just plain unlucky and I think we were hoping that if you get it once you won’t get it again. The ‘Long COVID’ is also a worry, people dealing with the effects of it long after they have recovered from it, maybe this virus is every bit as bad as they say it is, I hope we never find out.

I have just googled to see if there is a general trend towards panic buying again, not on the same scale as we saw before but it is there it seems. This would tie in with the increase of egg customers we have had, there have been weeks when we didn’t have a single customer for two or three days and now suddenly we are inundated again, I have seen customers wearing masks again which had all but stopped so there must be some unease out there. Unfortunately it’s the time of year when we have less eggs than usual due to the shortening of daylight time so there will never be enough eggs to go round 🙄 John and I discussed what we would do if we went into another lockdown as the gate sales were crazy and of course we had people who had never been before and haven’t been back since which was really unfair on our regular customers but we were unable to stop it as it came upon us pretty swiftly. It’s a difficult one to determine because although we do know most of our regulars especially the ones that have been coming for years, there are some that we couldn’t readily identify. I think we would initially just shut the gate and have a think about it 😂

Wednesday: Is it only mid week, seems like it’s been a long week already and we are only halfway there 😏 The sun was shinning beautifully this morning but by 9am when I went out to put the rubbish out the sky was looking moody and five minutes later a rain shower appeared, I think that is how the day will unfold today. I thought that perhaps today was not going to be an outside work day so I set about cleaning out the fridge, not a massive task but it’s amazing how many things get left from week to week and before you know it they have been there months. So out went anything that looked well past it’s date, I will keep and use some things that have gone past the best before date especially if they are still sealed but today was a clear out day. Out went a half jar of mincemeat probably used last Christmas, a half jar of plum sauce I made last year and a half jar of pickled onions also probably last used at Christmas, none of them showing any signs of mould but time to throw them anyway. There were the usual culprits in the bottom drawer, soggy cucumbers and shrivelled apples, any thing half decent will go to the geese and guineas the rest will go for composting. Amazing how satisfying it is to see a clean tidy fridge 😂 I also made the decision to abandon the sourdough starter 😭 things were not going well with it and so time to admit defeat, I think if I want sourdough I will buy it 😂

Another thing that occurred to me was that you may be wondering about Ted’s fate as we move closer to Christmas, rest assured he will not be joining us for dinner 😜 he is now part of the smallholding family and has a name so will continue to live freely here. He is totally oblivious to the fate of his fellow turkians though and as a result is not in the least bit grateful still making John walk him back to his pen each night 🙃

Well it didn’t rain in fact it was very pleasant out there and consequently I have had a very productive morning. At first I had no idea what to do, to be fair we have so much to do that it can be overwhelming at times, in those circumstances it’s an idea to pick a starting point and work from there. Did I do that, nope I flitted from job to job BUT I still made progress , or at least I feel like I did. First I tidied up the egg shed area where I put out plants for sale, then I took down some fencing that was screwed to other fencing that will be coming down eventually. I went to put the plant shelves (that were out by the egg shed) away and the shed they go into was a tip so I cleaned out the shed and threw away a wheelbarrow full of ‘crap’ and now I can walk into the shed easily 😀 After that I had a walk round the veg garden and started clearing some bits away, I picked a few tomatoes and then moved onto the big tunnel. I cleared away the cucumber vine which all but spent, there were about five small cues on there so I picked them first, the skins are toughening now and so I could have kept the vine going but the cues would not be very nice. Then I cut back and pulled out the cape gooseberry plants which have turned into triffids over the last two years and I decided I don’t want them in there any more. I must be in a ‘cleansing’ mood at the minute as it feels good to get it all sorted. At times with many diseases but especially Lupus you get ‘brain fog’ this is a real thing just in case you have ever wondered. Brain fog takes away the ability to be able to focus and think clearly hence the standing there wondering where to begin on many occasions 😜 I never used to be like that, I always had a definite plan of attack and some days I still do but others I just have to muddle through as best as possible and hope for a good result 😀

I collected some seeds while I was going about my jobs, some morning glory, which have been splendid and some Sarah Raven California poppies which are just the most beautifully delicate little poppies (must remember that those are still in my jacket pocket 🙄) Seed collecting is one of the pleasures of gardening and an important part of self sustainability, buying the seeds just once should ensure a lifetimes supply of that plant unless something goes horribly wrong. The same can be said with perennials, once you have them they can be divided over and over and you never need to buy it again. Many vegetables will produce seed if left long enough and again collecting those ensure you will have a crop next year, something I need to make more of an effort to do especially after this year when everyone was buying them and suddenly they were scarce. With that in mind, at my trip to the garden centre I bought some seeds that I had not been able to get hold of this year just in case. Red cabbage was one, I tried and tried to find the seeds but I couldn’t get any, the other seeds I picked up were for an indigo tomato. I bought a plant this year and it has been amazing, you may find this in shops but they would have to be niche I think. These toms are delicious and again because of their colour they are packed with vitamins and antioxidants, they have more flesh than a regular tomato and so do not go to mush when they are cut.

Indigo Rose tomato, a superfood 😀

I need to go through my veg seeds and see what I have left, what I have collected so far and what needs to be ordered. I have some little gem lettuce that are going to seed at the minute so I will be collecting those hopefully. The French beans are drying in the greenhouse and the runner beans are still on the plant, when they look ready I will get them in to dry, I have pepper seeds drying on the windowsill and there are some chick peas to be harvested which grew from just three seeds, I have trebled them this year 😀 In theory I need never buy seeds again but where is the fun in that 😜

Thursday: A bright, sunny morning but a bit of a chill in the air, so far this morning I have just pottered about doing various household tasks. Sam and the twins are going to come over today so we will probably go out for a walk round the village, got to make the best of the good days while we can and also spend time together while we can as who knows what this winter will be like with Covid lurking round every corner.

I hatched a plan last night, in fact it is something I thought of doing this year but didn’t so I am definitely doing it next year. I will use the ménage to grow pumpkins and squash and to make sure I do I have already ordered a good selection of squash seeds. Butternut, spaghetti, banana, acorn, and a selection of pumpkin varieties, this year because the ménage has not been used the weeds have taken hold, if I use it to grow sprawling veg that will at least lessen that problem. It’s a massive area for growing roughly 40 x 20 metres 😮 the surface has always been woodchip and it constantly breaks down so there should be some good loam under there, probably the best growing site on the Smallholding 😂

Just had a news update come through and London is moving to tier two on the restrictions 🙄

Went on a walk around the village with Sam, George and Lucie, on the way back we stopped and saw Grampy (John) who was in the village working. Sam fed the kids their dinner when we got back and she had literally left when Shelley and Florence arrived 😀

They said it was going to be warmer today than yesterday but I don’t think it is, there is a definite chill in the air even when the sun is out.

Friday: Dry, overcast and not too cold this morning. Just stopped for a coffee, we are total creatures of habit aren’t we? I was working outside and thought, time for coffee, without even looking at my watch I find that it’s exactly the time I would have a coffee if I was indoors 🤷‍♀️ This morning I have meditated, had a shower with a blast of cold water at the end, fed the quail, the horses and the Guineas extra rations, put clean bedding in for the ducks and the geese plus all the usual routine jobs. The horses are being given extra feed now as the grass is getting sparse, you can tell by the way they start to hang around the gateways that they are getting hungrier. We are trying to give biscuit a mix of cod liver oil, turmeric, black pepper and ginger as she is getting on a bit and it might just help her with her old bones. The problem is Jack (greedy git that he is) I feed them and have to guard her feed as Jack scoffs his quickly and she takes a lot longer, he is then trying to get to hers 🙄 I spotted one the kittens up a tree while I was out there, they are getting more adventurous but luckily they do come running back if I appear. We see Diesel every couple of days, I have no idea where he disappears to but he eventually comes home, not much good at keeping the mice down round the farm though if he is off wandering.

The garlic, onions and shallots I ordered a few weeks back have arrived so I need to think about getting those in, hopefully I will do that today.

I have been listening to a pod cast that is very funny, it’s Lee Mack and his friend ‘I can’t believe it’s not Buddha’ it’s a hilarious chat about a path they are both following with serious intention, if you see me laughing out loud with my headphones in, that’s what I will be listening to 😜

I spent a wonderful two hours weeding and clearing the bean bed. The top quarter I had already done as that’s where the cauliflower are now planted but the rest of the bed needed doing. At the beginning of the year I had some self seeded yellow daisies growing in there so I let them carry on but I had forgotten how big the plants got as a consequence they over shadowed a lot of the peas I had growing so I won’t let them stay there next year. I pulled out the remains of these daisies, a Swiss chard ( I dug that up and gave it to the guineas) that had self set, hundreds of weeds of all types and the dead foliage of bean and pea plants. I had intended to put the onions, garlic and shallots in here but the side of the bed has collapsed and needs re doing (cue John 😜) so I will wait until I get that sorted before planting them. I am glad I have cleared it all as there were a lot of white fly probably settling down to overwinter, they tuck themselves right down in the foliage near to the roots ready for a comfy sleep I suspect, not any more 🙄 I say a wonderful two hours because it was lovely, the weather was just right, warm enough, no sun, no wind, no rainy bits and the ground is dry enough to work on without getting very dirty 😀 I still have plenty more work to do out there but that will be enough for today, time for lunch and a sit down before getting on with the afternoon jobs.

The healthy eating is going well (most of the time) I have lost a stone and a half! Impressed, yep me too 😀 I amazed actually 😜 Many years back I started WW and got to goal then spent about 10 years clerking for them but gradually the weight crept back on and then some. I know what to eat I just didn’t know why I wasn’t doing it even though I wanted to shift the ‘back fat’ and the third boob, the girls will know what I mean by that 😉 So when I started seeing ads for Noom I was intrigued by the psychology aspect it was presenting, two weeks free trail, what did I have to lose 🤷‍♀️ The two weeks came to an end and I thought might as well carry this on, so I did, I am. There is no miracle to losing weight, it’s mainly persistence but I think the Noom app helps an awful lot with that, there are lessons and information every single day digging into your own psychology (sometimes you dig so deep you surprise yourself) learning the best food balance for you and your situation, it’s not a diet as such more the re-set of your mind when it comes to food choices. I am obviously not affiliated to them nor do I suggest you rush out and join, just telling you my experience of it, I think it’s a great thing to follow, it took me a while to get my head around it, I thought I knew all there was to know about dieting but it seems not 😝

I babysat Mia and the twins although the twins were already in bed so MIA and I had fun taking photos, dancing and singing 😀

Saturday: Another dry, reasonable day today, John did the animals and then had to go off to do a quick plumbing job. When he got back he began to dig out the last bit of the path, but I needed his help fixing the side of the veg bed that had collapsed. So we sourced some wood, dug it out and put in new sides, I got on with back filling the bed while he went to finish what he started. I raked and riddled the bed, took out as much bindweed root as I could find and then I needed Johns help again 😂 and I wonder why he takes so long over jobs 😝 I wanted to bury the soaker hose in the soil, it was partly buried but over time had come up, it was also too long and curled around on itself in places, first I had to cut it to length which meant the end now had no stop. The stop on the original bit had failed (I always wondered why there was a puddle) so I asked John if he had anything that would work, being a plumber I was pretty sure he would. It did mean filing down the outside of the soaker hose though so the bit could be fitted, once it was done we tested it and voila it works well. He went back to his job (again) and I got on with burying the pipe down the centre of the bed, this will give me a more even watering than I had before. After that I planted all the onions, shallots and garlic bulbs, 20 shallots, 16 garlic and I lost count of the onions after 40 but I think there are about 50 in total. That’s not the end of the job because of course I then have to cover them so that the chickens don’t scratch them all up which given that they love freshly turned soil, is a dead cert. I got some lengths of environmesh and pegged them down this will also stop the birds thinking the tops of the onions are worms and pulling them out, it won’t stop the worms pushing them up and out though 😂 So that’s all done and I probably won’t have to do anything to them until next spring unless it gets very weedy between now and then. Environmesh is great stuff and well worth the investment, don’t use environ fleece as that just breaks up, the mesh lets the light and the rain in but keeps the birds off it also creates a micro climate by trapping any warm air a bit like a string vest 😜

Hopefully there will be more days like these when the weather is favourable enough to be able to get the rest of the beds under control and prepared for next spring. I have done that bed and one third of another bed only four and two thirds more to go 😣 In total I have the fruit cage, the two tunnels, the brassica cage, five very large beds, one long thin one, a separate raised bed and the birds, bees and beer bed, I need to start pulling my finger out I think 🤔

Sunday: Man o man I am knackered 😜 I have spent all day from about 9 this morning, it’s now 4pm, burning wood 🙄 The cladding that came off the front of the building needed burning so that was today’s job, there were a few branches from some trees that had been there a while as well. First I had to sort through the pile as it all just got dumped there, there was a pile of painted stuff that needs to go in the skip, a pile of wood that was ok and would come in handy at some point and a pile of gravel boards. I then sorted the wood into smaller and longer bits, the smaller bits I started off in the burning barrel but about two hours in the side started to give so then I started a pile on the ground. The reason I didn’t do this in the first place was the wood was too close to where I would be burning and I like a controlled burn, John, like most men I suspect, would have just had a twenty foot pile of wood and set fire to it 😜 Also he would not have thought about the insects and any small animals that might be under the wood whereas I do so if I move it then they have a chance of getting away first. In fact I was stood there and a little mouse came creeping out of the ground, saw the fire and high tailed away elsewhere 🐭 Meanwhile John was busy creating next weeks burning load, he has given the hedge, where we had the trees cut down, a good pruning both the top and the sides as the branches had got long and straggly. Come spring they should bush out really well as well as grow higher, they have good big roots on them so that will help.

Next weeks pile of burnings 😜

Charlie and Macca called in for a cuppa before go out for the afternoon, we should do something I said to John but in the end we carried on working 😂

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sourdough starter, Christmas cake & a couple of little failures 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 5th October 2020: After the dismal weather at the weekend, this morning the sun was shinning thank goodness, it’s soggy ground underfoot but at least it’s not raining for the moment. John did the morning rounds and my first job was to tidy the boot room and give it a bit of a clean, sort out the kitten area and hoover. From that I went out to give the horses a small breakfast and turn them back out, they won’t appreciate being in when the sun is out, then muck out the stables ready for the next lot of bad weather. I did a quick whip round the veg garden picked some very small courgettes, a handful of runner beans and a couple of punnets of raspberries, I contemplated doing more out there but the ground is so wet I think it’s best left to dry off a bit. It won’t hurt to leave for a while and it will do damage by compact I g the ground if I walk on it while it’s wet so decision made. I had ordered some archive boxes and they arrived yesterday so I went into the office and started to do some sorting out in there. Plenty of paperwork that can be boxed up and stored out in the old caravan until it needs to be burnt ( about 7 years time 🙄) I don’t even know if you need to keep it that long anymore, I guess as most things are now digital it would be possible to find them online if needed but old habits die hard 😂 Why do we keep so much stuff, that’s what I have been wondering over the past couple of weeks, I think I would like to go minimalist but we would need about five skips to get rid of it all I reckon 😜 I am that person that keeps the boxes things come in just in case I decide to sell them, only I never sell them as most things get thoroughly used. Today I have managed to sort all the boxes out and flatten them for recycling, sorted out Christmas decorations I don’t want and put them in an ever growing pile for the charity shop, looked through a pile of other stuff and put it back on the shelf 😏 And still there is plenty of ‘stuff’ I don’t know what to do with lol, I need to get tougher I think and increase the charity pile 😀 You know what it’s like though, the minute you get rid of something, you inexplicably need it!

Good morning sunshine 🌞 nice to see you after a dismal weekend of rain.

I took a break from doing that job and put a home reared chicken in the slow cooker with homegrown garlic and herbs, together with home grown spuds and veg and we will have home grown raspberries for dessert, that’s what I spend my life doing….growing dinner 🥰

I got a sourdough starter on the go, I have been wanting to do this for ages but the process is long and so I could never be bothered, well today I started 😀 I did do it years ago but turned to fast yeast instead for time saving, now we are going into Winter I will have more time so it seems like a good opportunity. It’s very easy, just mix flour with water leave the jar open for a while to ‘catch’ wild yeast (its floating all around us) and then ‘feed’ it for the next six days (not an instant food) then it will be ready to bake with. I put it on the window sill because it needs a bit of warmth to stimulate it, I will close the lid in about an hours time and let it do it’s thing. You can buy fresh starter online but by the time it gets delivered you could be four days into your own batch.

The beginning of a sourdough starter 😀

Another thing I spend time doing is getting into discussions on various topics, the latest one was ‘what time does evening begin’? I would say 6pm others have different opinions but of course this then leads to the ‘time does not exist’ theory. Time doesn’t exist, it’s only what man had created in order to…well, keep order 🙄 There is change, change over a day, night, month, year, decade, millennium but it’s not time, I will just leave that there for you to ponder 😂

Something else that I keep meaning to have a go at and that is fruit leathers, today I finally got round to doing it, never done it before but I have a feeling if it works out well I will be doing a lot more. The main reason I have done it now is because we are lighting the Rayburn daily so I may as well use it to it’s full advantage. The fruit leathers are easy enough to prepare, I used raspberries I picked this morning, put them in a sieve and used a spoon to crush them and squeeze the juice through leaving behind all the little seeds. Line a Swiss roll tin with grease proof paper and pour the juice in, this then went into the warming oven at the bottom of the Rayburn to dry. I’m not sure how long they will take, the warming oven doesn’t get direct heat it basically harnesses the heat from the oven above, it’s not a lot of heat as the oven is well lined but it’s a gentle warm, dry heat ideal for this kind of thing. I often put things in there and totally forget they are there mind you 😂 I have just taken the walnuts out as I put them into dry off, if you left them in for weeks they would be shrivelled up 🙄 like the orange slices I did they were more orange bullets when I eventually found them.

Fruit leather (raspberry) going in the Rayburn for drying

I know it’s only October but I am starting to think about Christmas, more specifically the Christmas cake, I need to get it made soon, that will give me plenty of time to feed it 😀 I always made one, then I had a few years when I didn’t bother and now I make them again. It’s true that it lasts for weeks, John has usually gone back to work after the Christmas break and is still having it in his lunchbox 😂 but it’s great to have if you unexpectedly have guests and nothing else in the cupboards. I will probably use our walnuts and hazels instead of almonds and I still have some dried apple rings from last year in the cupboard so I will use those along with the bought dried fruit, mmmm can’t wait to get it started now, I love the smell of the fruit soaking in orange and brandy 🥰 The Winter months are when I get to use all those wonderful things I have been growing/making all year long, that’s as it should be, traditionally long before the time when you could pop to the supermarket or have stuff on next day delivery, you would have worked towards stocking up your winter stores and especially for that marvellous mid winter feast that has now been thoroughly taken over by commercialism 😏 I try, as much as possible, to still have a traditional Christmas, it’s all about good food and good company and I think I have successfully passed on that to my children just as my Mum did to me 😘

I have to do the feed and egg collecting rounds today as John is still working, bloody typical then that it has just started spitting with rain 😜

Tuesday: Dry and sunny again this morning although it did rain a little last night. This morning I got up had breakfast, a shower, sorted the cats out, got something I prepared earlier out of the freezer for dinner tonight, fed my sourdough starter, put some washing on and hoovered up. Now I am off out for a walk around Blenheim, we bought annual passes this time last year 🙄 luckily or unluckily depends on how you see it, they were extended until April next year, not because of Covid and the fact we couldn’t use them for half the year but because they cocked up sending them to me in the first place, not once but three times! Basically the only times we have been able to use them is when the weather is cold 😂 even then we have to advance book an entry place, never mind at least we can 😀

The sun was shinning the rain stayed away and we had a lovely walk around the Blenheim grounds, George even did a little bit of the walk himself 😀

Back home it was time to do the egg rounds, get the Rayburn lit and get the dinner on but not before a lovely cup of tea ☕️

John was telling me that this morning when he went out to do the birds there were two large white birds in the standing water in the paddock, from his description (shame he didn’t have his phone and get a pic) and looking online we think they were a pair of Little Egrets. There is only a heron that looks similar and they are grey, he said these were pure white.

Stock photo of a Little Egret

Wednesday: Cold but dry this morning. I have fed the sourdough starter and it’s beginning to take form, you can see the yeast is working that’s producing the bubbles and the smell is acidic which is exactly what we want it to be at this point.

I went outside and picked a few raspberries and a courgette, that’s about all there is as the moment, I bought in a butternut squash and I think I will have some of it roasted for dinner tonight with a lamb chop and other veg. It’s a tad cold and as I don’t have to work in the cold I thought I would wait until it warms up a bit. That’s the joy of being my own boss with nobody waiting for me to do anything 😀 I have the complete freedom to do what I like when I like although as I have mentioned before you do have to be a little bit disciplined otherwise nothing would get done at all.

The fruit leather didn’t work out, my fault as there was not enough pulp so it was a very thin layer which basically just stuck to the greaseproof paper, I will try again at a later date.

Charlie called in for a cup of coffee, she has a week off and so that was a lovely interlude that we don’t get very often 🥰 After that I went out and had a look at the bird boxes that we had taken down when we did the front. I want to put them back up somewhere but I’m not sure where is high enough for their safety, I cleaned them out and I will keep looking for places to put them. Then onto the veg garden, I find if I don’t have a definite plan I bimble a bit, so I started off bimbling 🙄 and then got into my stride. I have now cleared all the small raised beds, put mushroom compost on the top of them and covered them with the bio degradable black plastic, that’s how they will stay for overwintering. I then cleared the rest of the dwarf French beans and put a few of them in the greenhouse for drying, I can use the seeds again next year. Then lunch and a podcast Charlie had sent me a link to. I feel a bit tired today and on those days have to force myself to do things and also to eat well, the temptation to grab anything is high but I got myself something nutritious and so after a small rest I will hopefully be re energised 😀

Next job was to soak the dried fruit for the Christmas cake, it’s an easy five minute job and the fruit can be left until you are ready to get the cake mixed, I will probably leave it 24hrs. I have 1kg dried fruit, orange zest and juice, a good splash of fresh orange juice, and then some alcohol if you like it, if not add more orange juice. I used some rumtopf I had left from last year and a tiny bottle of blackberry wine that I had in the cupboard. You can use whatever you like really, it’s all going to taste great in the end🥰

Various stages, soaking the fruit, the mixture and the end product.

I made a skinny version of banana bread, all I can say is don’t bother not if you are expecting it to taste delicious anyway 🙄 I did have a piece but I squirted some skinny syrup (0 calories) on it and it filled a hole and was ok but only ok 😏

I’ve prepped the dinner, lit the Rayburn, fed the chickens, collected the eggs and then sorted them out to go into the shed. I am feeling tired or glum not sure which one precedes which, I try and chivvy myself along but the pep talk does not work so I guess it’s tiredness.

Butternut squash, ever tried it? I have had it before but usually in a stew or similar, well tonight I roasted it 😮 oh my days that took the taste of it to a whole new level for me, delicious 😋 I will definitely be looking at different ways to have this vegetable though my fav is going to be roasted I can just tell 😀

The nights are drawing in very quickly now, it’s dark by 7pm, we have a few weeks yet before it’s dark by 4.30 😏 and we have the clock change coming at the end of the month, always buggers everyone up doesn’t it 😂 I hate it when people say ‘yeah but really it’s *o’clock’ no, no it’s not because the clocks have changed so that is what time it is 😝 It’s usually the same kind of people that like to let you know that while you were on holiday and the weather was not what it could be, they had glorious sunshine back at home, you know the type, and if that type is you….just don’t 🤣

Thursday: Its raining again and it has been raining overnight but on the upside I feel in good spirits today so I must have been tired yesterday. I need to always remember that even if I look well there are things going on inside my body that upset the balance from time to time, it usually results in feeling tired and grumpy 🤷‍♀️ so a good rest can often sort things out 😀 Not sure what I will get done today, I need to feed the starter and I have got some washing on but apart from that I have not many any definite decisions yet, oh I need to sort the Christmas cake so I will probably get that done this morning.

The kittens will have been here two weeks by the weekend and I think they are getting a little bit bored of being in the boot room so we will have to let them start exploring. Jack is fine I don’t have any worries about him, I think he will come when called but Jill is a different story. She has always been and still is reserved, she doesn’t come to greet any of us when we go into the room, she sits firmly in the corner and her head goes down when we stroke her, it is a bit of progress though as when she first came as she would growl at us. I don’t particularly want them to be over friendly just as long as they come for food and don’t clear off for good 😜

The Christmas cake is mixed and in the oven 😀 once cooked and cooled it will be stored and then bought out weekly to feed it with some alcohol or other. The smell of the mixture was amazing and I tasted the spoon 🙄 delicious, to be honest in my opinion the raw mixture is better than the cooked cake but it’s not very good for you 😂

The sourdough starter is smelling sour, that’s a good thing, it is working a treat. I can remember the first time I had sourdough bread, July 2006, I can be that precise because I was up in the Blue Mountains, I had taken Charlie to Australia to visit my Brother Joe and his wife Monique. We took a trip up to the mountains to have Christmas in July, we had some real laughs due to the place we had booked not being a bit like the online photos 😝 We checked out and went elsewhere and in the process of finding new accommodation we stopped for soup in a little cafe. Soup and sourdough bread with unsalted butter, well I was hooked from then on. At that time over here in the UK it wasn’t something you could find on a regular menu, it seemed to me that the Australians were so far ahead of us with food choices and outlooks, I am glad to say that we have caught up with them, almost 🙄

As I was doing the Christmas cake my thoughts turned to Christmas crafts, I am not terribly artistic (that’s an understatement 😝) but I do like to have a go at something for the occasion. I want to get the office all sorted so that I can sit in there in the evening and do things like crafting or my other passion, ancestry 😀 one day I will get it sorted. I quite like the darker nights for doing that kind of thing, I can’t wait to get started however I have to do the books up for the year first 🥴 I had an email saying they were due (they are very overdue 🙄) so I need to get my house in order before I can begin to enjoy myself.

I have no idea what is going on but we have had an increase in the number of customers coming to get eggs, today it was 19! That is unheard of apart from during lockdown, 2/3rds of them will have been disappointed to find the egg shed empty. For a few weeks now we have always had eggs available most times of the day but over the last three or four days they have sold as soon as they go out 🙄

Friday: Always a welcome day, a happy day and today is a sunny day which makes it even better 😀

Sometimes I get philosophical that’s not always a good thing as it generally occupies all of my thinking for a few hours at least 😜 Why have I chosen to do what I do? It’s not something I always wanted to do it is something that evolved over time and you have to wonder why? Fundamentally I despair of the human race as a collective, not as individuals, there are millions and millions of good people but collectively humans seem to tread the same path I guess I retreated to this lifestyle because (in my opinion) its wholesome, with it comes a responsibility to look after nature or at least to not do it any harm, but then if that were the case you would think I would be vegetarian and I’m not, life is confusing isn’t it. See what I mean, it doesn’t do to start thinking lol. Sometimes I just need to write these things down so thank you for accommodating my thoughts for today, of course the whole subject is wider and deeper than that but it’s a weekly blog not a year long one 😂

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein

Sam and Shelley came over with the little ones that are not at school and we went for a walk down a local lane, I looked for apples on a tree but they had all gone, there are a few blackberries left but most have started to shrivel up, it’s beginning to look and feel like autumn 🍂 Though we do get compensation in the way of awesome sunsets at this time of year 😀

I opened my sourdough starter this morning and it has liquid on the top, this apparently is called hooch and means the starter needs feeding 🙄 it’s like having a baby 😂 The hooch is alcohol produced by the yeast but by all accounts you wouldn’t want to drink it, I don’t think I took enough of the starter away yesterday which meant the ratio wasn’t right which in turn produced the hooch. All is not lost though you just stir it in and feed it more flour, it is a living thing with wants and needs 😝

John left his phone on a job he has been doing in town so in the evening we went back to collect it and then nipped round to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa.

Saturday: A dry day some sunshine now and again, not too cold. John did the rounds and then started on digging out a path along the front of the building. We are putting a flower bed in but I wanted a path so that I can still get to the windows easily to clean them. When we first came there were thorny roses along there which was difficult, then I had to put up a fence around the area as Kai kept digging everything up when he was alive, now we can clear it and have it looking nice, only taken 10 years 😂 Meanwhile I got started on the beginning of winter clearing up in the garden, first all the plants that I have been bringing on, they are now safely in the cold frames, after that onto the tort run and some cutting back and chipping up, putting the clippings back on the ground. Inbetween all that I was making bread so diving backwards and forwards between the garden and the kitchen. I tried the sourdough but I don’t think I paid enough attention to it and it’s not rising at all, I will habe a look later and see if I can salvage it in any way 😏 I also made a regular loaf as I was not sure how the sourdough was going to do, good job I did 😜 More tidying away in the garden and potting up some bits, I really need to dig a few things up and divide them but by lunchtime my hips were hurting, the wind had got up and the sun gone in so I think the cold got into them. Time to come in and do some washing up and tidying, that’s the trouble when I am working out side, the kitchen becomes a dumping ground for everything while I go about my work.

Popped round to have a cuppa with Shelley and the kiddies in the afternoon before coming back and lighting the Rayburn. John did the feed round and I sorted the eggs, he then went out to clean out the hen huts in the paddock…..just as it started to rain and I mean really rain 🥴 luckily for him I had got the fire going nicely and there was plenty of hot water for a nice bath.

The sourdough dough is a bit of a disaster but I’m not giving up just yet, I still have starter so I will continue feeding it and try again on a day when I have more time to apply myself 😜 I may well have to do a fair bit of reading up before I attempt a second go 🙄

Sunday: Today’s plan was to go to the garden centre and get breakfast, actually my plan was to get some new gardening gloves and have a mooch about but to get John to readily agree I have to mention getting breakfast 😜 We picked up a few bits for Christmas but the gloves were all medium and I have very small hands. It’s not much fun gardening in gloves that have about an inch extra as I can’t grab hold of thing properly and the extra bit always gets trapped. The lack of small gloves in one centre meant I had to go to another one as well 😀😀 where I am glad to say I successfully purchased a selection of gloves in a small size. The first centre was relatively quiet, the second more popular and upmarket (and therefore overpriced) centre was very busy 🙄 While I was waiting to pay I was looking at the dried flower collection, I cant believe people pay that much for dead stuff 😂 here is me chopping it down and putting it on the compost heap, I said to John we are missing a trick here 😝