Tag: tomato soup

Posted in Friesland Farm

Seed sowing, apple picking and the weather is swinging back and forth.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 26th September 2022: Arrghh where is the year disappearing too 🙄 I will try to be a bit more efficient with writing the blog this week 😂 Today the weather is squally, windy, rainy at times with the sun occasionally appearing and definitely a tad cooler. I did think though that today would be a good day to get some washing dry and apart from one dash to retrieve it from the line I managed to get two lots dry 😁 I also planted up a few plants, three to be precise before the rain started, and I have sown some sweet pea seeds (long stem) The dinner was in the slow cookers early on, chicken stew with dumplings for John and Parmesan chicken for me. I do love this time of year, it’s when you get to reap the rewards for all the veg growing and foraging. I also made a sponge pudding which will be cooked in the microwave, I cooked down some blackberries with sugar, they went into the bottom of the pudding basin and then a basic sponge mix with added diced apple mixed in went on the top. That will take only a few minutes to cook and voila, dessert, it’s not corden bleu I know but it will be tasty and filling and that’s all that it needs to be 🥰

I checked the bulbs I planted in the big tunnel, the last time I looked a mouse or something had dug up an anemone bulbs and chewed on it 😡 but luckily it does not look as though any more have been got at. I did leave the door open so that the cats could patrol it and help out a little. It is kind of coming to the end of the cut flower season, having said that I had prepared in advance for flowers to take me up into December, chrysanthemums are ideal for this and I have them planted in tubs so that I can move them under cover if I need to. I have early spring bulbs in pots that can be forced in stages for the new year and I am much more aware of what needs to be done than I was this time last year 😂 I would say my first cut flower season has been a success, I have sold flowers and plenty of them, next year I plan to build on that by reviewing what I have learnt, honing my skills and learning more over the winter months. I have a new planner for 2023, one that means I can keep all the information in one place, what, where, when, how, who and I am looking forward to using it fully. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and my only regret is that I didn’t start years ago 🙄 It was a pretty rough introduction with the weather we have had this summer but as with veg growing, no two years are ever the same and so next year it will be different obstacles to overcome, bring on the challenge 🤪

Tuesday: Dmard bloods first thing this morning, it will be interesting to see if they show anything, been feeling quite fatigued, stiff finger joints, cramp everywhere, sore feet. I could of course just be getting old and falling apart 🤪 Once I got back I started on my project for the day, an indoor one today. Operation thermal lined curtains 😂 I will say first off that I can sew and I have in the past sewn all my curtains and fitted bedcovers. I spent a good few years sewing coats in a local factory when I left school so am well practised but I didn’t want to sew these. I wanted to do a no sew project and see how it came out and so I bought some thermal curtain lining and some stick on Velcro, it’s pretty successful! The lining does not fray so needs no seam sowing and the Velcro sticks well, so I cut it to the size I wanted, put the Velcro on and then the opposite on the back of the curtain and ta da, thermal lined curtains the easy way. The curtains are already lined and it was a toss up between buying new thermal curtains or using the curtains I have already and putting another lining on, I went for the latter. It is almost impossible to detect that I have done it, you wouldn’t know unless I showed you really. You may wonder why bother, well because every little helps as they say, plus in the summer they will work in reverse (keeping the heat out) win, win I reckon 🥰 We already had thermal door curtains for the back door and the door between the kitchen and the boot room. I got those a couple of years ago because we did have draughty spots around those doors, they don’t stay up all year but today I got them out and put them up for the winter 🥶 I rather like making sure that we are as cosy and toasty as possible for as little money as possible and as I have said before, I like to challenge myself to do better.

Wednesday: Mid afternoon sit down 😁 This morning I got the dinner ready to go in the slow cooker, the last bit of hogget from the freezer. It was a breast and I have rolled it and put in plenty of rosemary and garlic. I also made some flatbreads for my soup at lunchtime, Greek yoghurt and self raising flour, mix it up, pat it out and dry fry, easy peasy. Then I had a hair cut and after that I was able to get out side and get some work done. I have planted plants, sown seeds, dug up self seeded plantlets and potted those, dug up the scented pelargoniums (they will not survive outside) and potted those up. I have taken some cuttings of those in case the plants don’t make it through. They don’t even like being in an unheated greenhouse and so they are going to Mums as she has a conservatory 😂 There is a ton of work to do still 🤪 but I am getting there slowly, I need to write this down every day just so I know where I am at 😁 The bed that had the pelargonium has been cleared and now has direct sown seed of pink love in a mist, some daucus and something else that I have completely forgotten already. I covered the bed and hopefully they will sprout over autumn and winter and I won’t need to tend to those until next spring. There are plenty of flowers still growing but you always have to be thinking six months ahead otherwise you miss the timings. For instance I already have my dahlia tubers ordered and paid for but they won’t be delivered until next year.

Thursday: Quick sit down mid afternoon before a customer comes for their flowers. I have made lamb and sweet potato soup today in the slow cooker, left over lamb from yesterday plus anything else that needed using up, courgettes, mushrooms etc. I left the juices form the lamb last night to cool down and have taken off the solidified fat which I will freeze for roasting potatoes another day and the delicious jelly that is left behind is incorporated into the soup mix. I have sown some Ammi seeds today, picked courgettes and around 160, yes 160 eating apples from a dwarf tree that is growing in the veg garden. Wowsers, it cropped heavily this year 😁 Approx two thirds are storable so they will be wiped and dried and then wrapped individually in newspaper and stored in the apple rack in the pantry. They are delicious 😋 I had one with a chunk of Stilton for lunch.

All the apples are now sorted and those that will store are wrapped and safe in the apple rack. It’s this time of year I get my ‘squirrel’ head on 😂 I don’t know what it is but I like to start stocking up, it’s not like we live in the back of beyond or anything so I guess it is a primal trait 🤪 A well stocked pantry is a thing of beauty especially when a lot of it is home grown, it feels like a great accomplishment, bring on six foot of snow I am ready for it 🥰

Sunday: Ooops missed a couple of days lol. Friday we went out with George and Lucie to show them the fish at the garden centre and have cake of course 😁 Saturday I spent the morning doing a dried flower wreath and the afternoon dividing and potting up achillea plants ready for next spring. Today was another lovely sunny day, Charlie, Macca and Oscar came over in the morning and in the afternoon John carried on with boarding out the back area, all the gaps where the wind blows in are nearly filled now. I spent some time in the greenhouse potting up self sown rock soapwort or tumbling Ted and planting a couple of plants in the beds. I had a customer come for flowers, I have done quite a few bunches and bouquets this week and I don’t really want the season to change, the leaves are beginning to die back of lots of things 😢 I guess that is what it is all about though, the changing seasons and so we will move into the next season and who knows I may even love it.

Have a great week 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Wood chip, garden bounty & a change of plans.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 11th October 2021: Must try harder to write every day and not forget like I did last week 🤪

Already this morning the plans I had have changed and it’s only 9.30 am. I had a phone call from a tree company who are working in the area had want to bring wood chip😁 I am on a site where they can ring and ask if you want some, I said yes please and now I have three loads coming 🙄 so I need to decide where they are going to dump it and what I will do with it. We use a lot of it on the pathways in the veg garden, it’s ideal for suppressing weeds and does need renewing each year. We used to use a lot of it in the ménage but that has just become a weed bed at the minute so I can put it straight on there although I will probably put it there when I get time to sort it all out. So the jobs I had on my list go by the way and make way for a different job today, sometimes that’s just how things go. I might have another cup of coffee before having to get stuck in to moving it all.

I have spent most of the day shifting wood chip onto the pathways (still a long way to go yet) I spent the rest of the time, cutting things down or pulling things up. I have tidied up the hoses and anything I left lying around which is always a fair amount of stuff 🤪 and I worked right until it was dark. I did have a short interlude when Shelley came over with Josh and Flo and we cooked sausages on the fire pit (Shelley moved a few barrows of wood chip for me as well)

Tuesday: Another busy one in the garden, I was going to move more woodchip but I was thinking while I was falling asleep last night that I needed to get the fruit cage in order so that I could woodchip in there. If I did all the paths around it first I would find it hard to push the barrow, so I spent the morning tidying, weeding, cutting back and repotting the blueberries and the yellow raspberries. I topped up all the pots with compost and added some pelleted chicken manure and some carbon at the same time. I did actually find a few raspberries 😁 only around 15 but still that’s a win. The raspberries have on the whole been terrible this year but there is a late flush, due to the weather I imagine and so I might get a few more before the weather turns.

I did plan to sit down after that but found I had more energy so I changed jobs and barrowed some of the homemade compost onto the smaller raised beds that John put in for me. I got three of them filled, added some carbon and covered them with membrane, they will stay like that until I either decided to plant into them for winter or leave them until spring. I have a lot of much smaller beds now which is time consuming at this end of the year but will be much easier to look after in the growing season hopefully.

I did get the dinner on first thing in the morning and got the ducks some clean bedding before I started all of that lol.

Wednesday: Another good lot of work in the garden today although I did sit down at 1.30 for a good hour or so, the more I do the more tired I feel the next day 🙄 But I feel like I am really getting somewhere and making good progress with the preparation which in turn will make next spring a lot easier hopefully. I started off in the greenhouse picking any remaining chillies and peppers then putting the plants outside, they will go in the compost bin when there is room. I cut all the lemon grass, took the tops to the rabbit and Guineas and kept the rest of the stems, some are for sale some I will find a use for. I also took one of the plants inside to overwinter along with another ginger plant. I dug up part of the horseradish, it has got huge and I don’t want it taking over, some of the root I put out for sale the rest I will grate and freeze. Next I fixed the side of one of the long beds, the wood had rotted and the side collapsed and then onto a fair amount of weeding. I picked all the remaining courgettes, they are small but still useable. All the while I was popping back and forth to the kitchen because I was baking bread. While I was waiting for the bread to cook I made a batch of tomato soup all with home grown ingredients, garlic, carrot, basil, tomatoes and a lovely red pepper. Back outside to get some more bits done before moving 4 barrows of woodchip. I think I earned the sit down lol.

All home brown ingredients for tomato soup, can’t show you the finished article because we ate it all up 😋

Thursday: Mostly busy indoors today which was unexpected, I was quite tired so I had already decided to potter today rather than get stuck into anything big. But the day didn’t pan out like that, Luke came to rebuild the end side of the building which is the undercover outer area, we had a discussion however an decided to completely remodel the whole thing 🤣

Friday: Gotta love Friday and especially a sunny one 😁 I got busy straight away with putting some bits up for sale to make room in the back covered area and then I started dismantling the worktop and anything around it in the area where the door will now be going. I also rang the surgery as I had notification from nhs vaccine that I need to get a third vaccine booked. There is some confusion over if this is the booster or a third primary vaccine but a bit of research showed that the booster is the same as the origin vaccine so I can’t see it makes much difference really except that I am then supposed to have a booster in six months time as well 🤷‍♀️ Luke is busy out the back opening up the new doorway and re fitting the doors, can’t believe we didn’t do it years ago it would have made much more sense lol. I have barrowed a few loads of woodchip as well today, if I do some every day then eventually I will get it done.

Lemon grass tea, full of antioxidants and goodness and so easy to grow in the UK

Saturday: Did a bit of pottering about first thing, I was waiting for someone to arrive who was coming to buy some equipment we were selling. They were a lovely young couple eager to get started on some land for their smallholding dreams, it was lovely to chat and show them around listening to their enthusiasm 😁 I totally forgot I had a loaf of bread proving mind you 🤣 all was not lost and after I had baked the loaf I went outside and cleaned the Guineas and quail. This was a big clean out ready for the coming winter months, mostly they get skipped out, that’s just the messiest bits clean up but this was a complete job for both pens. The quail often come inside for winter as they will keep laying then but I think this winter we will leave them out and they can rest from egg production. I put in fresh hay for the rabbit and cleaned out all the water and feed bowls. A quick bite to eat and a little sit down before going out to sort the light Sussex pen and the Turkey pen.

Sunday: Been busy today helping John do the side of the building, it coming along nicely now but still a fair amount to get done yet as always 😜

Thai chillies in various stages of drying out
Still managing to harvest a few things though the summer veg is coming to and end now.
The flower garden is still giving up its bounty, this has been one of the best decisions I have made, they brighten up the garden and the house 😁

The summer veg garden is almost finished but there are still things growing for winter, I have leeks in as well as kale and brassicas and winter lettuce.

As we have been redoing the side of the building I thought it would be a good idea to buy a bat box, we have plenty flying around at night and so a box seemed like a good idea. It all adds to the diversity of the wildlife we have here.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Tomato soup, a picture & a relaxing weekend.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th September 2021: The morning after the weekend before 😂 and while it took us a week to put up the hen do village it only took a couple of hours to take a lot of it back down. There is a lot left to remove and sort out mind you and that is mostly what I have been doing today. Sorting out all the things that have been borrowed from other family members, washing up plastic storage tubs to return, putting everything in piles for people to collect. That took up most of the day apart from Smallholding things I had to get done in between. Early evening John came home and we took down two of the tents ready to store and bought in as much as we could from the field to get it all in the dry because it is due to rain tomorrow.

When we were planning the hen weekend I wanted to make sure that as much as possible was eco friendly in one way or another. That meant either reusable, recyclable, biodegradable, compostable, begged and borrowed rather than bought new. Some things we had to buy but things like plates and cutlery were bamboo and wooden, doilies and wallpaper for table settings, lots of fresh greenery and flowers in with artificial ones that some of us already had, we did pretty well with that side of things I think but it is quite difficult to cover everything on a tiny budget. I often say that I don’t have any food left overs and we also did quite well in that department, this week will be one of only a couple of times a year I put it out, it is small but it is not full up. One of the reasons it has anything in at all is because I accidentally left a tub outside over night and didn’t want to risk using or freezing the meat and cheese that was in there even though it had a lid on.

Tuesday: Today I really needed to get out on the garden and get some picking done, not least because a customer had asked why there were no vegetables available lol. So I picked, cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes, jalapeños, peppers, Thai chilli, runner beans and French beans. I am definitely going to save seed from the French climbing beans, they produce lovely long slender beans and because they grow upwards are much easier to harvest than getting down on the ground to pick dwarf beans 🙄 I sorted all the veg out and put out for sale anything I wasn’t going to use or prep for the freezer. I then went on to sort produce I had picked last week but hadn’t managed to get sorted, apples, pears and tomatoes mostly. Some were beginning to spoil or go soft so I made a batch of tomato soup and then some apple and pear butter which cooked in the slow cooker for about 6 hours. Chop up apples and pears, add maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger and a little bit of water, leave to cook on low and then whizz when it’s done. I put it into sterilised jars but it needs keeping in the fridge or freezing as it won’t store for more than three weeks in the fridge. Use to spread on toast or ice cream or in yoghurt, whatever you like really. The tomato soup is now in the freezer, another batch which will be lovely on a cold winters day. It absolutely poured day for a good part of the day so I spent most of the rest of the time indoors sorting stuff out, putting away, putting washing on, although that had to be tumble dried today 😕 Later in the afternoon Charlie came to pick me up and we went off for her final dress fitting, very exciting and it all looks beautiful. When I got back John was home and so he went out to feed the birds and collect eggs and then we shot off to get some shopping as I haven’t been able to get to the shop for over a week due to being busy with people coming and going here. Before we went we had to get the cage into the boot room and get Jill the cat safely shut in the cage as she is going to the vets tomorrow to be spayed, she isn’t impressed 🙄 but I don’t want to risk her disappearing like Jack did 😂 After shopping, dinner then John put the birds to bed while I jarred up the fruit butter and the tomato soup and popped them into the freezer.

Another batch of homegrown tomato soup.

I have so many jobs in the garden to get on with that I haven’t got round to yet, seeds to sow, plants to dig up, plants to pot up, plants to chop down, weeding, dead heading, rearranging the garden, I am trying to get a little bit done each day here and there and hopefully eventually it will.

Wednesday: Trying to think what I did first thing this morning lol, a fair bit of deadheading in the front flower beds as I haven’t done that for a few days. At some point John came home and we got the cat in a basket and she went off to the vets to be spayed. I fed the Guineas/rabbit and torts (mindful that they need a clean out but not sure when I am going to have time to do that) Still tidying up stuff from the hen weekend, oh yes that’s it, I was trying to get one of the tents down and packed up but the breeze was making it difficult by myself lol. Eventually got it rolled and then it was too big for the bag 🙄 had to get it back out in the evening and will try again tomorrow. The postman arrived with a special package, the painting of the paddock had arrived, painted by a chap called Duncan Ball https://m.facebook.com/duncanball.art/ It is lovely and such an amazing find by my neighbour 🥰

The cat was picked up mid afternoon and then I went to watch Josh get his yellow belt with a white stripe in his Martial Arts grading ceremony 🥰 Then when I got back we had to repack one of the tents that we had laid out earlier to dry the bottom off as it wasn’t quite dry enough. After that I went out and started getting up the flooring, I have a few people coming to get pieces of it so it will have another use instead of getting thrown away. By this time it was dark and so I went in and got something to eat before finally having a sit down. So many things to do, so little time to get them all done lol. I was hoping to get some seeds sown, annual flowers for next year and some spinach and parsley but that will have to wait for another day now.

Thursday: A Misty start to what turned into a lovely day. I started off with housework, I wanted to get the hoovering and polishing done and clean the bathroom as it was driving me nuts that I hadn’t been able to do it all week long. I let the ducks out around 10am and then went into the greenhouse and sowed some seeds. Annual flowers including Cerenthe Major and Californian poppies, I saved the seed from the latter, initially the seed came from Sarah Raven and I was so impressed with the quality that I have subsequently ordered from there again including the cerenthe. I also sowed some winter crops and herbs, dill, coriander, winter lettuce and corn salad. Then I went on to dig up some of the mint that has to come up from the herb bed I am going to move and after a spot of lunch and a sit down I went out to do some more tidying up in the paddock. It has taken me ages to clear things away, there was an army of people putting it up but mostly it has been me on my own until John gets home then we work until it’s dark getting more stuff put away. Every night this week we have worked until dark outside, then a bit more inside until bedtime, we have eaten snack food for tea because I haven’t had time to make anything. Tonight we had fish and chips and my sister and her hubby came over along with Shelley to get it knocked on the head. Hopefully tomorrow I just need to get the tents out to dry right off and it’s mostly then done. John keeps complaining I am grumpy every evening, that’s because I am hot and tired, ‘we’re not doing this again are we’ he said, exactly what was running through my head was the reply 🤣 we had a fabulous weekend but the clear up operation has taken its toll 😜 Due to the extra help this evening we have actually managed to sit down at 8pm whoop, whoop, probably fall asleep in the chair now.

Friday: Samantha’s birthday today 🥰 I had lots of jobs planned but in the end I spent around two hours wrestling with bell tents, trying to get the last bit of any moisture from the bottom and then the mammoth takes of trying and failing miserably to get them resembling the size and shape of the bag they came out of. Two hours of my life I won’t get back, two hours of sweating (had to do it in the sun, no choice there) and swearing profusely, two hours of wondering why I was the only donkey doing the job 🙄😜 I would have given myself the day off except I had forgotten to let the ducks out and it was now midday, I shall be glad when I can focus on this place entirely once again 🥰

Most of the rest of the paraphernalia finally got picked up which means I will be able to let the geese back out again, I couldn’t do it while there was stuff still around as they like to nibble at everything just to see if it’s tasty or not 😜 We went over to see Sam early evening and then back again before dark to put every to bed.

Saturday: Whoop, whoop we finally got to the spa weekend, up shower, pack my bags and off in the car with Sam, Shelley and Charlie for a lovely relaxing time and treatments at a spa in Malvern. I left John in charge 😁

Sunday: Arrived home at lunchtime, I have no idea what went on while I was away but all seemed fine on my return and that’s the main thing. John has been busy cleaning out the birds and tidying some parts of the front. The cat is looking well after her op, the sun is shining and I feel very rested and relaxed, ready to start another week with renewed energy tomorrow, as for the rest of today, I am still in chill mode 🤣 so probably won’t get anything else done.

I was sat outside watching and listening to the bees buzzing round all the asters, it is literally swarming with them which is fantastic. I need to photograph as many different types as I can so I know what is visiting.

I have been fairly preoccupied with the recent events and we now have a good few weeks before the wedding itself so I should have more time to focus on the Smallholding and a bit more in depth blogging (it’s been a bit sparse 🙄) Have a great week and hopefully this lovely sunshine will continue a bit longer 🥰

Posted in Friesland Farm

Harvest time, home grown flowers & plenty of jobs to do 😝

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 22nd August 2021: Well we had the best weeks holiday 😁 the weather was just right for me, the sea was as calm as a lake all week long, the food was out of this world good and we rested and relaxed a lot, job done now back on with the work 😂

Shelley has looked after the farm beautifully, everything was in order and then some as her and Sam had done some mowing and weeding and clearing, it all looked lovely on our return. In order to keep up the good work we have not been idle since arriving home and have been trimming the front hedge, hoeing, sweeping and tidying, still a fair bit more to do but it’s looking loved again. Hopefully we can get quite a bit achieved this week as John has another week away from his plumbing and we can crack on here with tidying, strimming, cutting back, mowing, weeding, lol it’s never ending 🤪

We were up early and ready to crack on, I got some picking done and checking over everything to see what needed doing. John got busy with the morning jobs and then back to the front driveway which he has gone to town on, really pulling out and raking up all the stinging nettles and weeds. I picked another lovely bunch of flowers for the kitchen, beautiful pink dahlias this week 😁 We worked until almost lunchtime then John took me over to Sams to look after the kiddies while she went for her second vaccination. John was supposed to come back home and do some work but he made a cuppa sat down and had a sleep instead 😂 Once he had picked me up and we came home it was my turn for a quick kip, I was exhausted after and early start and grandchildren sitting 🤪 John went out and cut the middle paddock and gave the back paddock a better cut while I had a sleep. Once awake I picked some raspberries and blueberries, I still think birds are getting in the fruit cage as there is not a red raspberry to be seen, normally there are loads, I think I will definitely grow more yellow ones next year as the birds don’t touch them 🤷‍♀️ I picked a cucumber, tomatoes, garlic chives, celery greens, and carrots for dinner this evening, John has chicken with runner beans which I had already picked, plus the home grown carrots and potatoes while I have chicken with salad and baked potato and some home grown fruit with yoghurt for dessert including a home grown melon 🥰

Shelley did some daily recordings for the podcast if you are interested in listening to that, I do a weekly round up on a Thursday and then on a Mondays I cover a topic of one type or another, https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/our-smallholding-life-warts-n-all/id1574503311 or it can be found on Spotify. I am really enjoying doing them, I think it is a completely different perspective when you can hear me talking about things rather than reading them.

Tuesday: We got off to a flying star with all the usual morning jobs and then John continued with the driveway, it’s hard work but he is doing a great job and it looks fab. I picked some flowers this morning to go out with the produce and eggs, I definitely want to be doing more flowers and plants for sale. With that in mind I collected some seeds from a lovely soft pink snap dragon I have growing and I took some cuttings from some pinks, if I do a little bit every day I will soon have plenty of plants to put out next Spring. I have a large order of tulip bulbs arriving in September, most will go into the garden but a lot will be potted up and hopefully ready for Easter next year. I picked courgettes and lots of tomatoes this morning though the tomato plants are coming to the end now as they definitely have something wrong with them, I think it is from spray watering, I really need to get set up to water at ground level really. The lads from Wildpoint arrived to take some photos, they are working hard to get the website off the ground and have already had a piece in the Guardian and have been approached by a main tv station to do a bit on one of their daily programmes which is great for them. Exciting stuff and they were very enthusiastic about our little Wildpoint campsite 🥰

Mid morning we went to the garden centre for a mooch around and some lunch and then round to Mums for a cup of tea or two before returning home. As the sun was out we decided to wait until later in the day to carry on outside. Once it was cool enough John went out to put some things in the skip, it was changed over this morning and we always have plenty to fill a new one up 😂 I went out to pick some plums, the greengage and Victoria’s are ready and I think I will make jam with those. While I was in the vicinity I did all the water bowls for the animals in the orchard, rabbit, quail, light Sussex and turkeys plus the guinea pigs. Sadly I found one of the pigs in the last throes of dying, I have no idea why as it was fine yesterday although he is the one I had to separate because the others bullied him. Maybe they knew there was something wrong, animals have the instincts to detect things we can’t even see and I’m guessing this was something internal as there were no external signs of anything 😢

When we were driving to Mums I spotted a compost bin that had been put out on the pavement ‘free to take’ yay, I had been looking round the farm for something to use in the front area so that I didn’t have to keep taking it round the back and so that little find was perfect 👍

Wednesday: Busy day today, it was overcast so I made the most of being able to be outside all day 😁 Mostly I was weeding and clearing, the peas have finished so I took down the canes and cleared away dead foliage, weeded the bed and I will cover it to stop the cats using it as a toilet area and keep new weeds at bay. There is plenty of weeding to do, it’s amazing how much time it all takes lol I spent most of the day doing that. Meanwhile John was finding things that needed to go in the skip and burning the hedge clippings and all the weeds he has been digging up. It doesn’t sound like we did a lot but we really did 😂 we were tired by 3.30 so went in for a sit down and a cheeky nap 🤪 After I had cooked dinner and we had finished eating I used the tomatoes I picked yesterday to make some quality tomato soup. I used a BBC Good Food recipe as it does not have any extras such as flour as I don’t think it’s needed. Most of the ingredients were home grown, tomatoes, onion, carrots, celery and bay leaves, just the addition of vegetable stock, tomato purée and a pinch of sugar (which reduces the acidity of the tomatoes) were needed to finish it off, lovely jubbly. That will go into some pour and store bags ready for the winter.

Home grown ingredients for tomato soup, I love making this and then getting it out of the freezer on a cold winters day 🥰
I also strung up the red onions to store, these were a good crop unlike the white onions which won’t store and those have been chopped and frozen instead.

Thursday: Had a busy morning, first up after the usual stuff then onto blending up the tomato soup, I left it to cool down overnight so I could do it this morning and then freeze it in four portions of approx 500ml each in pour and store bags. Then straight onto making 4lbs of Victoria plum jam and 3lbs of garden chutney plus a ‘compost cake’ 😂 I found a lovely site with both these ‘formulas’ rather than recipes, formulas because she just talks about the basics and the ingredients are whatever you have. The garden chutney this time had courgettes, onion, apple and runner beans in it and the compost cake had banana, kiwi, plums and a satsuma as the ingredients. Basically it’s a cake that uses up fruit that is probably about to go into the compost, as long as it’s not mouldy or dry as a bone it can go in, the banana was black on the outside but still useable inside, the kiwi was a bit squidgy (it was one from the fruit bowl on holiday lol) the plums were the cherry plums I picked before we went away and so needed using up and there were a few grapes that went in as well. Makes a lovely, fairly heavy cake with is almost like a bread pudding texture, I had mine with some yoghurt when it was still warm 🥰 The chutney has a basic chutney base (sugar, vinegar, apples, onions) and then whatever you have to use up which in my case was some wonky courgettes and some tougher runner beans, I threw in some sultanas for good measure and I added some powdered allspice but you could use any combination of spices that you prefer.

Meanwhile John was very busy tidying up the stable block, over time lots of things had got put away (dumped) in there and now everything has been put away neatly and it looks great, he then went on to start cutting up a huge pile of wood that we still have. We decided to keep the wood and use it on the fire pit, should be enough to last about 5 years 😂

In the afternoon we had a rest, did a bit more late afternoon and then some dinner, out to get a bit of shopping and a bit more when we came back. Watering the greenhouse, feeding the cats and dogs, putting the birds away etc etc, feels like the jobs never end sometimes.

Cheeky little Anna cat playing hide and seek, she will go to Shelley’s once they are back from their holiday, no doubt she will keep them on their toes 😂

Friday: Another busy, busy day today, got to make the most of John still being at home 😉 He started off with the feed rounds and then went off to get a feed load, meanwhile I did the usual morning things and then set about picking which was a big session 🙄 Cucumbers, courgettes, beetroot, tomatoes, sweetcorn, jalapeños, all went out into the Little Shed along with some plum jam and garden chutney. Then I got started on covering an area that I cleared yesterday where the peas were, I don’t want the cat using it as a toilet so I have put down membrane to also prevent the weeds growing until I decided what to do with it. Then I was looking at the old bean bed, we moved the runner beans last year and it has been successful (with a modification) and now this bed needed repairing and tidying up, cue John 🤪 I called him over to help decide what was the best thing to do and we spent until gone 2pm taking out the old sides, digging in pallet collars and tidying the whole bed up. It will now be a one of these collars, which make great raised beds, instead of one long bed. It will be easier to cover individual boxes when they are not being used and also easier to make frames to put netting or environmesh over. We did have to leave some things in situ as I have leeks growing at one end and brassicas growing halfway down but we have put in four new collars and will do some more tomorrow. I am thinking that I will use some of the beds for some of the cutting flowers for next year but the decision has not yet been finalised.

Late afternoon we went round to water Shelley’s plants while she is away and then drop some veg off to Mum and have a quick cuppa. Back home for dinner and a restful evening (well except the putting to bed stint)

Saturday: A bit late up this morning, we have our daughters dog while they are away and it howled all night long 🤪 Once we were up and about and had got all the morning feeding and letting out done John cleaned out the ducks while I prepped some dwarf beans for the freezer. Mid morning we went out, there was a carnival on in the next town so we went for a mooch about, I won a nice ha dang, a hatching dinosaur egg and a bottle of wine on the tombola stall 😂 I also pledged to go along to the local flower arranging group which is starting up again on Wednesday evening, I am really looking forward to that, I have wanted to do it for a few years now and so I seized the opportunity to have a chat with them and said I would go along, the lady said I will probably be the youngest one there 😂 the way I see it that just means there is a lifetime of knowledge I can glean information from 😁 When we got back we decided to mostly take the rest of the day off as we have been working so hard this week, and we are tired from not getting a decent sleep during the night 🙄

Sunday: After having a more relaxed day yesterday we got on with it again this morning, after all the feeding and letting out was done John did another of the raised beds in the garden, I did a lot of dead heading and cutting back on the flower garden. Shelley, Martin and the children came over to collect the last little kitten who is called Anna and then we went to the DIY shop to get some bags of compost. On the way back we called in to see my brother and his wife for a coffee and came back mid afternoon so up to that point we didn’t actually get much done at all 😂 John continued with that theme by having a sit down but I got on with clearing some of the bed in the veg garden that will make way for more lawn. It has all the herbs in there but also some plants left from when I used it as a nursery bed before the flower garden got finished. My plan was to dig up all the seedlings and plants that were left in there and pot them up ready for next spring either to use or sell on. So far I have potted up 79 plants 😲 of one type or another and there are plenty more to do. I have hundreds of strawberry plants and runners to dig up, some I will save, some will be given away and some will be potted up for selling next spring. The same goes for all the herbs I will be digging up and dividing. John did come back out eventually and did two more boxes/beds, I think he said there will be 11 in all so that is 13.2m long (approx 43ft) by a metre wide, each box is 1.2m x 1m and I think it will be much easier to cover the boxes individually with different things depending on what is growing and what stage they are at. I carried on digging bits up and potting them until I felt I needed a sit down 🤪

Bank holiday tomorrow, it’s always nice when the weekend is extended, then job is back to the day job on Tuesday and I will be back on me tod again 🙄 Things get very busy in the garden at this time of year, harvesting everything that seems to be coming in fast and furiously, taking cuttings, collecting seeds, dividing plants, planting bulbs, cutting back, pruning, planting winter veg, prepping, freezing, drying, jams, chutneys, sauces, syrups, yep it’s a busy time for sure but it keeps me out of trouble.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Lavender oil, a lovely walk and plenty of walnuts.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 28th September 2020: Would you look at that, we are back round to Monday again 🙄 Some tasks just happen without any planning of them and that’s what I have been doing this morning, an unplanned task, still one that needed doing just wasn’t on my radar. The cleaning out of the greenhouse, two reasons for doing it, one, the season is coming to its end and lots have gone over and need adding to the compost heap, second reason is that the tortoises will need to begin hibernation soon. They hibernate in the greenhouse in a hutch over winter but they need to wind down first, they are already beginning to ‘dig in’ in the outside run, a good sign that they are ready for the long winter sleep. They will probably spend the next three weeks awake and I will slowly withdraw food from them although they are pretty good at regulating themselves. They can’t go into hibernation with food in their stomach as it will either ferment or freeze, neither has a good outcome 😏 On a warm day in the greenhouse they will still be active but as the temps drop they will become less so until they are fully hibernating and then we wrap them up until I can hear them shuffling around next spring.

I spent a few hours in the greenhouse moving things, sweeping down, cleaning and throwing stuff away, discovering many spiders but luckily no mice 😀 There are still a few things hanging on in there, chillies, although I picked most of them this morning, a couple of peppers still growing and again I picked the bigger ones already this morning, I have a few plants that are overwintering in there ready for next spring and there are walnuts, hazelnuts, lavender and tomatoes all either drying or ripening off. I also have some thermal foil ordered to put on the North side to help reflect the heat/light back towards what is still growing. At this time of year it’s easy to lose plants to the cold in the greenhouse so I am doing everything I can to keep them going including standing them on celeotex to stop cold drafts at the base of the plants. I may even make a thermal shelter out of the foil and a cardboard box to protect anything really vulnerable. I did think about heating it but in all honestly it’s a waste of money until the growing season begins again in Spring.

After a spot of lunch I went into the big tunnel to finish tidying up after pulling the tomato plants. Plenty of weeding in there, despite the fact that I put black plastic all round the edges the weeds crept through. I almost got one side finished and decided it was time for a sit down, I spent so much time on my knees each time I stood up I felt dizzy 🥴 that’s not good is it. I also found a clutch of eggs while I was tipping stuff onto the compost, we found a clutch in the straw in the stables but the minute you find them the hens move quarters and it’s hide and seek until you locate them. I can bet my bottom dollar that once I pick them up later they won’t lay there again and it will be back to hunting for them. I said to John we were loads of egg down in the daily count 😂

John came home and set about shifting all the wood we had taken off the front of the building and there was a lot of it. That left me to do the egg/feed rounds, pick some runner beans, pick some raspberries and get the dinner sorted. By 6pm my back was aching and with the washing up done it was time for a sit down thank goodness 😅

The animals we picked up on Saturday in case you hadn’t already guessed were two little black and white kittens. Yes I know I said I was done with cats for a while but we really need them to keep the mouse and potentially rat population under control. So we collected Jack and Jill (original I know 😜) and they have been settling in well. Today for the first time one of them came to meet me when I went through to the boot room which is where they are, sometimes locked in a cage because the dogs also have free range of the room and sometimes the dogs are locked out and the kittens get to stretch. It didn’t take them long to start climbing and finding hidey holes.

Tuesday: I started off the day by burning a bit of rubbish, paper feed sacks and cardboard boxes etc, then I had half an hour to kill so I thought that would be a good time to infuse the lavender I have been drying. I have used almond oil as a base, stuffed the jar three quarters full with lavender heads and covered it with the oil. That will sit on the window sill for about three weeks with the occasional shake and then be ready to bottle, a lovely soothing relaxing oil for all kinds of uses. I finished that and my cup of coffee and went out to the paddocks to bring in the horses ready for the farriers visit. Sam arrived with the twiglets, after the horses were sorted and back out we had some lunch and then went on a walk along the local downs. Again the scenery was beautiful, there was plenty to admire, spindleberry and flax, plus a bonus snack as we saw some great looking apples growing on a tree in the hedge, they were the best apples we had tasted for years 🍎

Spindleberry and flax two of my favourites to see while out walking.

When John came home we took down a chain link fence to the side of the building as we have someone coming to take the trees down tomorrow hopefully, as the weather is supposed to be terrible 🙄 It will be great once they are down as we can finally move the access to the yard, at the minute you drive past the front of the house and round in a big C shape which can be tricky when towing a trailer, this one will go straight up the side and the turning/reversing point will be much easier than it is now. Then it will be a case of a new fence and gate, the jobs are piling up lol.

Wednesday: Today is the day the remaining trees come down at last, I was a bit worried as I hadn’t heard from the people doing it and I hadn’t contacted them but they turned up as planned so that’s brilliant.

The weather is supposed to be awful later this week, high winds and rain urgh I think summer is done 😏 It’s going to be a long Winter what with all the restrictions as well as the long dark nights but I’m sure we will get through it. Funny how spring and summer seem to go faster than the autumn and winter 🙄 I do love autumn mind you, I love Halloween and bonfire night though I don’t think there will be much going on this year, we will have to make it the best we can in the circumstances, maybe a hot chocolate and a scary film (not too scary 😂) with the fire going will help.

I stayed indoors out of the way of machinery and trees being felled 🙄 mostly I did a fair bit of sorting out, things to go to the charity shop, things to throw away, old paperwork to burn. Mid afternoon I lit the Rayburn, it started raining around lunchtime and I think it is supposed to get worse later, might as well have a warm cosy house especially as I will be doing the feeds rounds later and likely to get a soaking 😜

The trees are down and we now have a huge pile of woodchip and tree trunks, it was surprising how oppressive the trees were even just the four that were left.

Now you see them, now you don’t 😀
All this from just four trees, though they were huge 😜

Nice and toasty indoors with the Rayburn going, we will only have it lit for a few hours and then let it out or we will be sweating buckets tonight 😂

We are into the second wave of the virus now, they said it would come, we hoped it wouldn’t but here it is spreading rapidly I expect more restrictions will be added over the next few weeks.

Thursday: After the torrential downpours last night we woke to a beautiful morning, sunny, warm, delightful 😀 I seem to have my clearing out head on at the moment and so went out into the back area and started tidying up and clearing any rubbish, putting things away properly, that sort of thing. Then I got distracted, the daughter of someone I know has started a business transferring old vhs to digital. We have a few that I would like to get done so I went searching for them, our wedding video is the main one and then there are Christmas and holiday videos. Plenty of them have nothing written on them so I needed a player to have a look, I found one in the caravan which must have been dads as it has been here since we first bought the place. No plug on it 😂 this is typical as, like John, Dad probably robbed the plug for something else, however John also takes the plugs off defunct electricals and keeps them so I found one in a drawer. I am of the era that were taught how to wire a plug, I have no idea if they still teach that or not but it was one of the more useful things I ever learnt 😜 and so I put on a new plug and voila it works, I say works, it lights up and turns on anyway, the next phase is to hook up to a tv and see if it actually plays. Oh the fun I am going to have watching all these memories 🥰

After doing that I had to sort out the POL pen as we are expecting a delivery of hens this afternoon, it just needed sweeping out and some weeds pulling, that took me up to lunchtime and time for a half hour sit down I reckon.

I decided to rig up the video recorder and see what was on some of the tapes, the quality is not too good now, well they have been sat there for nearly thirty years (some of them anyway) but they are watchable, I just need to go through all of them and see what is what. It’s a long time since I hooked up a video player to the tv and had to google it 😂

John came home just in time for the arrival of 50 hens and the feed delivery so he sorted all that out

Josh wanted to come over after school and be left here on his own with us so Mummy and Flo had to push off 😂 not quite like that but you get the gist. He helped Grampy with the egg collecting and then he helped me gather some walnuts, I thought the squirrel would have most of them but there were loads on the floor so we picked them all up. Then things got hectic for a couple of hours as we had people arriving to collect hens and some people arriving to collect wood, what with that and answering messages about the wood it was all hands on deck, Josh even helped me load some wood in a wheelbarrow for someone. Eventually everything was done and sorted, Josh went back home, John put the birds to bed and that’s the end of another day 😀

Friday: It couldn’t be a more different day compared to yesterday’s sunshine, it’s been raining through the night and this morning it’s grey, dull, breezy and constant rain, yuk. Luckily I don’t have to be out and about in it at the moment, John did the rounds this morning before going to work, I stayed inside with a cup of tea 😂

I whizzed round and got a few household jobs done and then it was time to go and have my blood tests done, and get my flue jab, after that I went for coffee and cake with Shelley and Flo and then onto have a routine mammogram 😏 Just my luck that the software wasn’t playing ball and had to have one side done three times! If you have never had one before they compress your boob in various positions and it’s pretty uncomfortable so to have to have it done three times is not very nice at all but very necessary 🙄 Back home and light the Rayburn as it’s cold and rainy, if I can get it lit and settled before I have to go out and do the feed rounds I don’t have to nip in halfway round to check on it. Apart from that we have someone coming to pick up hens at 4pm and a cosy night in the warm is in order I think.

Saturday: Wet and rainy overnight, still drizzling this morning, a rather dank, dull day 🙄 John did the animals and then went off to pick up the tractor part that needed repairing, hopefully he will get that fitted today. I pottered around indoors sorting washing, drying, various other tasks, I am thinking of all the jobs to get done outside so that I am not wandering around wondering what needs doing. When it’s raining it’s best to have a clear itinerary that way I don’t end up either coming in and out of the house or standing round outside getting wet and cold.

Yesterday the world was informed that Donald Trump had covid, this morning we were told he has been hospitalised. From his actions and sentiments I don’t think he really believed it was a threat, I hope for his sake that he can overcome it 🙄

Nuts! I haven’t gone nuts but I do have a good haul of them, hazels and walnuts. The hazels are easy as you pick them and put them in a basket, they just keep like that all year. The walnuts though are a different kettle of fish, they need washing and drying successfully, if you just leave them they grow a mould in the outside which permeates inside and that’s not good. I have tried various methods over time but this year I have washed them off and because the Rayburn is lit I have put them in pans on the warming shelf to dry gently. I tried selling some last year but to be honest because you don’t what’s inside them until you crack them open it’s not really fair on customers especially if they get a few with nothing inside. I guess the industry xrays them or something like they do with eggs for cracks or anomalies. I try just picking up what I will use but seeing them on the ground the urge to gather is too strong so now I have quite a lot 😜 I was. Reading that you can freeze them though or even keep them in the fridge so I might have a ‘cracking evening’ soon and then they will be on hand to use quickly in cakes or for snacking. I have no idea how they don’t go rancid in the packing they are sold in 🤷‍♀️ if anyone has a clue let me know.

Lots of walnuts 😀

I decided to have a go at doing something with the nuts so I made some snacking nuts, a Keto recipe to be precise, whatever that is, it uses granulated sweetener instead of sugar. I cup of hazels, 1 cup of walnuts and 1 cup of cashews that I had in the cupboard. 1/4 cup of water, 1 cup of truvia, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp sea salt, 1tsp vanilla extract. Put everything except the nuts in a saucepan on medium heat, heat until dissolved then add nuts, keep stirring until the mixture crystallises, cool, eat, but I portioned it at around 15 portions which works out at 165 calories 😂 not for an everyday snack but as a treat it will be well worth it I reckon. It will store for a couple of months in an airtight jar or freeze, can be chopped into smaller pieces to top yoghurt or an apple crumble as always you are only limited by your imagination 😀

A word or two of advice (warnings 😜) don’t leave it in the pan to cool tip it out onto a tray, it’s difficult to get out of the pan once it’s set 🥴 if you like nice flat pastry when you roll, don’t use your rolling pin to bash the bottom of the pan it ends up with dents 🤣 and it’s very moorish so put it away in the cupboard or that will 500 calories gone before you know it 😝

The wood is nearly gone, we have had a couple of people come and cut it up and take it away, actually one bloke has been back three times already 😀

Sunday: Oh my days we have had nearly 48hrs of constant rain some of it pretty heavy at times. I woke about five times in the night and each time I could hear it pouring down, consequently this morning we have our usual river and lake in the fields. My aim was to get the horses in so I got the stables ready, John went off to pick up some hay bales as we haven’t got any in yet and I also bought the quail inside as they were looking rather glum. Biscuit was happy to be coming in, Jack however was a total prat and was adamant he wasn’t going to play ball until I got him a bowl of chaff feed that is then he decided it might be a good idea after all 🙄 we were a bit soggy after the morning out in it all. We came in and lit the fire and then popped round to see Mum and Ken and drop some videos off that are going to be converted to digital. When we got back, Shelley, Martin and the kiddies had dropped round for a cuppa and a chat. Then it was time to do the feed rounds and egg collection, the day has whizzed past today despite the depressing weather.

That’s another week done and dusted, I feel like it was a bit of a bitty week and nothing really consolidated, I don’t know why, it just feels like that. Hopefully next week I will feel a bit more in control, who knows what the week will bring though 😂 Have a good one whatever you are doing 🥰

Posted in Friesland Farm

Harvesting, soup making and a trip out of the shire 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 21st Sept 2020: You may remember, but probably not lol, that I bought a tea bush (sapling actually) Camellia Sinensis, well it’s been steadily growing and although it’s still not very big it does have quite a few leaves on it. Hopefully it will get big enough to make both green tea and black tea, wouldn’t that be an achievement ‘grow your own tea’ I can’t wait to try, maybe next year 😀

Another sunny day ahead and I had been doing a bit of cleaning on Mondays but the weather is set to break quite hard around midweek and so I wanted to get some outside housekeeping done. Firstly though start the bread making process, while the first prove was happening I watered everything out the front and everything in pots in the main garden. Then during the second prove I cleaned out the guineas and quail. While the bread was baking I put together a new feeder we have bought, I did get it for the chickens but am trying it out in the duck pen. After the bread came out of the oven I put clean bedding in the goose hut and cleaned the water bucket refilling it with fresh water, I cleaned out the duck hut and put in new bedding and I cleaned the floor in the chicken hut out the front.

I came in and tried to catch up with the briefing on the virus, it’s not good news as we kind of knew it wouldn’t be 😏 Cases are rising and the government is keen to get control of it, it’s not looking good. But what is annoying me is that we have been really good, doing all the right things during lockdown and the easing measures. We have only socialised with family, we haven’t been out and about at all really except food shopping and the garden centre 🙄 and yet it is going to be the likes of us that are penalised I think and by that I mean families. You can go to work, school, pub, restaurant, swimming, sport activities, even get on a bloody plane and go abroad but you probably won’t be able to have family over for dinner, I am guessing here but if that ends up being the case it’s really going to piss me off 😏 We wait with baited breath for the next update!

It’s quite a depressing outlook what with Winter literally on the doorstep and the possibility of further measures. I am usually the one that says ‘it could be worse’ and of course there are much, much worse situations to be in but still the thought is a gloomy one. I see a few pod cast and box set catch ups coming 😜

Early evening Charlie came round to help paint the cladding, we are getting nearer to the rain coming and it would be good to get it all done before then. I did some bits of clearing up and making the cups of tea, one of my jobs is to tun the magnet over the ground and pick up and old nails or new screws and nails that have been dropped (plenty of those as John is not the tidiest of workers 😜) I ordered some sparrow flats which have arrived, I could have used the bird boxes I made but some nice new ones will look better. Sparrows like to nest and roost in colonies and these are three boxes all in one unit, I bought two of them and am just hoping they are delighted with them. The old boxes will still be used somewhere else, they did use them and so hopefully they will again 😀

Tuesday: Autumn equinox, equal amount of day and night, a time for celebrating the harvests 🌾 and the turning of the wheel, The feast of Avalon, Mabon, blessed be 🥰 It is a lovely sunny morning and so first thing I picked raspberries and then went up the back to pick blackberries. I love the fact that I can pick blackberries from our own hedges, I know they have not had anything sprayed on or near them and they are as good as you can get, full of vitamins and minerals, potassium, magnesium and calcium as well as vit A, C, E & B vitamins and of course they are great antioxidants 😀

I spent a good couple of hours in the garden. Firstly in the big poly tunnel, the tomatoes in there have succumbed to blight so it’s a case of save what I can and pull up the rest. They are now ripening (hopefully) in the greenhouse, any green ones I will probably make chutney from. Then it was onto picking anything that will get hit by frost, we have had some fabulous weather but any day now it will turn. The first frosts will affect anything that has a high water content such as courgettes so I might as well pick them now. I also harvested the pumpkins, again I don’t want the rain to affect them and I don’t want the birds to start eating them once they get ripe enough, they are now stored in the small tunnel. I only got four butternut squash and they were tiny 😜 bit of a disaster as far as they go but hey ho there is always next year 🙄 There were a few cucumbers to pick, they are much smaller now and the skins get tougher but they will still taste good. I picked runner beans and pulled some beetroot and the last of the corn cobs. I then came in and got straight onto sorting it all for the freezer, mostly soup mixes today, I’ll look forward to cooking and eating those in the colder months.

There are a couple of other things to harvest but not until the frosts come, they are Oca and Yacon. I had a little look at the yacon, I found one tiny tuber under one plant 😏 however, I did taste it and it’s lovely, sweeter than I thought it would be so definitely something to try and bring on again next year I think. The Oca get left until after the frost kills off the top growth, I am not expecting great harvests from them though as it has been so dry. I could leave them in the ground and they will be fine and grow again next year with maybe a better harvest.

I need to tidy up the poly tunnel now that I have cleared the tomatoes but I thought it would be better left as a rainy day job. I have basil that needs cutting and drying, some of it I am going to leave to go to seed and hopefully collect that, the more seed you can collect from things the cheaper and more sustainable growing your own becomes 😀 I will give it a good tidy and take out things I don’t want in there, like the cape gooseberry, and then see what I could sow for winter use.

Wednesday: It rained overnight, not much but the weather has definitely broken this morning. Last night we went out (out, out lol) that is the first time since the beginning of lockdown way back in March. We went with Charlie and Macca, Maccas Mum nad her friend Jackie, it was a tasting evening at the venue Charlie and Macca have booked for their wedding next year. The healthy eating went out the window 😜 as canapés were followed by starters, main course and pudding, all the choices on the menu and a taste of all the wines to go with them. The food was amazing, the wine was a treat to try, so many including Prosecco and champagne, the venue is delightful and we had a great time. I only hope that all those that have booked weddings next year will get to have their day 🙄 That will probably be the end of our nights out until next year 😂 The world felt normal (well apart from the one way system) for a few hours 😀

This morning even though it was very fine drizzle, I decided to get a bit of clearing done on the veg garden. First I tided up the compost area so that I could get in there to put more stuff in and then I set about the area with the sweetcorn. Although I had a few cobs, I didn’t have as many as I usually get and I also think that the baby corn would be a more versatile option next year. I found another butternut squash which takes the total to five 🙄 I pulled up plenty of weeds and got stung by stinging nettles and dug up some self set potatoes. We planted some red (Duke of York I think) about four years ago and every year any small tuber left in the ground produces about half a large bucket of spuds, no work needed, brilliant 😀 I have cleared it and piled the compost heap high, I just need to go back and pull any weeds that are left but it started raining a bit more heavily so I decided that was enough.

On the sunny days when there is no cloud cover at all, John has been coming home early to feed the hens and collect the eggs but yesterday and today I have done it as it’s overcast and I can easily move around outside. Yesterday I found a hen with her legs chewed off from underneath the hut which must have happened overnight. Today I suspect we have lost some more, we had four broody hens that get turfed off the eggs each day as they are not viable eggs, today there is no sign of them and the eggs were a mess. It takes ages to break brooding and so I can’t imagine that all four have suddenly decided to stop 🙄 That means a daytime fox which is always bad news.

Thursday: It rained heavily last night for a short while and then again this morning but the sun is out, it’s a cold breeze though. John did the morning rounds and I have spent the early part of the morning prepping lunch and dinner. Tomato soup for lunch, tastes amazing and shepherds pie for dinner this evening.

Fresh tomato soup: 1 onion chopped, 3 carrots chopped, 1stick of celery chopped, 5 good sized tomatoes chopped, I tsp olive oil, black pepper to taste, 1/3 of a chicken stock cube. Sweat down the onions in the olive oil, add the other ingredients and cook on low until soft, then blend. At this point you can sieve out the seeds and any bits of tomato skin if you want but I leave them in. I have been precise with the measurements because if you are calorie counting this is for two people and 1 portion is 111 calories 😀

Fresh tomato soup, easy, nutritious, low in calories 😀
I added a teaspoon of low fat black pepper cream cheese 😀

Home made soups are the easiest thing in the world, they taste much better than tinned soups, you can put almost anything in them but the best three ingredients to start of any soup are, onion, carrot and celery call them your base ingredients, if you can’t have onion (I know peeps with IBS struggle) use leek or spring onions instead, then add whatever you have, a great way to use up stuff in the fridge even half tins of beans/hummus etc. Normally it will be veg I use but bacon is a lovely addition, cook it crispy and sprinkle on and of course chicken bones often have very tasty bits of meant firmly stuck to them, just simmer the bones to release the meat. The soup season is nearly here so get experimenting, it’s a great way to get some or all of your five a day 😀

We have new measures in place to limit the spread of the virus, the rule of six indoors and outside also extends to restaurants and bars with table service only and they have to close by 10pm. Apart from that I think it’s much the same, again people have been asked to work from home if they can and hand washing, the social distancing and face masks are all still being encouraged. A new app was launched today for track and trace, how many people will download it is yet to be seen, there are plenty of conspiracy theorists about warning people not to do it 🙄 I wonder about their theories especially the whole ‘the virus isn’t real’ one, I mean what government in their right mind would pay everyone to stay at home and governments all over the world are doing the same, doesn’t really sound like something they would do unless they had to does it? I would also ask any of them ‘what is the ultimate aim if what you say is true’ because I can’t see what they would gain from it personally.

Urgh it’s that time of year where you put the washing out and suddenly a downpour arrives, which is exactly what happened today 😏 I toyed with the idea of putting it in the tumble dryer but decided on the line would be better, wrong 😝

This years failures are next years compost, I was listening to a pod cast when I heard this, it’s fabulous and I love it, so true and a reminder that nothing is wasted except maybe some of your time 🥰

Friday: You can feel the temperature drop even though the sun is out, it’s a cold wind today. Some days I know what I am going to be doing and some days I have to think about what to do, today was a ‘What shall I do day’. I don’t want to waste the day but I don’t feel like getting outside to do any gardening (even though I really should 😜) I went for a walk, good for the mind, good for my health especially as we live at the top of a pretty steep hill 😂 I took a few photos on the way round, it’s a typical Cotswold village full of creamy stone cottages, very pretty even on a day like today, very quiet though I didn’t see a single soul in the thirty five minutes it took me 🙄

When I got back I set about making some bread and cake, two loaves of whole meal bread, one for now and one for the freezer and two wholemeal flour sultana cakes again for for eating this weekend and one for the freezer. I have switched to using wholemeal as it’s better for you, organic, even better and if you can find organic stoneground flour that’s the cherry on the cake so to speak 😀 luckily for us we have a local mill that does.

Saturday: We went out, not just out but out of the shire out 😮 We were supposed to go to Wales for the weekend but that had to be cancelled so we decided to go on a road trip. We went to Stonehenge, haven’t been there for well over twenty odd years and it’s all different now, not the stones obviously they are still the same but the visitor centre has moved. When we last went you could park right next to them now you have to walk a mile to see them, you can get a shuttle bus but it was a dry day so I made John walk 😂 We did get the bus back though as it was incredibly windy and although the sun was out it was cold. Then we were going to go to the coast but we went to Marlborough for lunch instead and had a walk round, after that it was time to go to Goring on Thames where we had a couple of animals to pick up, more about that in a couple of weeks time 😀 Not quite the weekend we had planned but it was nice to get out and about and see some different countryside. We see a lot of country side because if I am navigating I avoid the bigger roads, John likes to go from A to B in as little time as possible, me I like the scenic route 😜

The iconic Stonehenge 🥰

It’s getting much colder now, almost October so we will have to think about lighting the Rayburn soon, it’s tricky to get it right, we don’t run it all year like some people do as it would be way too hot in here so it will be a case of lighting it mid afternoon for a few hours to build heat then let it out. This is not ideal for this kind of boiler but needs must, eventually it will be on all the time.

Sunday: We went out for breakfast, I know, we only went out yesterday you are thinking lol, but we were supposed to be away for the weekend so I thought a good cooked breakfast this morning would keep John going as we have plenty to do today. When we got back John started on the last leg of the cladding and I got on with cleaning Rosie the Rayburn. She has sat patiently all spring and summer getting covered in dust, had baskets of veg and fruit dumped on her and now it was her turn to shine. Shine she does, she looks as good now as when she was installed all those years ago, mind you it has taken me a good few hours, the flue had to be swept, all the grate taken out and cleaned a general hoover out, check all the fire ropes, replace the ones that were no good, replace the rock wall where it’s needed and finally give the outside a good clean.

Looking good Rosie 😀

I took some photos of the road we go along to get to breakfast this morning, how amazingly lucky are we to live somewhere so beautiful 😍

This green and pleasant land 🥰

In the afternoon we were busy tidying up the front area now John has finished the cladding although we have more to do, we need to find some metal flashing for the top and then put in a row of slabs along the front of the building to make it easier to clean the windows etc. After that another flower bed has to be built and planted up, I bought some new sparrow flats as they like to live in colonies hopefully they will begin to investigate them soon, the satellite dish had to go back up and the security light as well. We have a mountain of wood to move which we will hopefully get done tonight and then on Wednesday we have someone coming to take down the rest of the big conifer trees. We can then start on the side of the building and the new driveway that will go along the side, as well as a new fence and gate, so much to do 😜

Posted in Friesland Farm

Jammin, not the musical kind 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Friesland Farm

Autumn jobs, Autumn food & Autumn weather, must be Autumn 🍂

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 1st October 🎃

I made a batch of tomato soup last night ready for my lunch today, it simmered slowly on the Rayburn hob, lovely. I got thinking about the green tomatoes and looking at something a bit different, enchilada sauce seems like a good way to go, not that we eat enchiladas but the children do so I will give it away, and invite myself for dinner when they make them lol. I also made another batch of granola, with walnuts, almonds and maple syrup this time and a pinch of cinnamon 😀

This morning is one of those beautiful sunny mornings with a hint of mist early on so it’s going to be another lovely day. Just as well because the first job on my list apart from animals is to get my bedroom cleaned, yes kids, even adults have to do their bedroom 😝 For some reason that we have never fathomed it gets very dusty, very quickly and drives me mad, so strip everything, wash everything, Hoover everything, polish everything, job done, almost, because the windows need a clean. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not someone who is fastidious about smear less, sparkling windows but I do like to be able to see out of them 🤣🤣 especially this time of year when the early morning sun beams in through them. The extra blankets go in the wash then it’s out to collect eggs and remember the price increase from today.

I made a lamb hot pot for dinner tonight, we have quite a few bits of lamb breast to use up so it may be a favourite on the menu this winter, for this one I actually used a small shoulder and from the writing on the packaging it looks like it was one of ours, in fact it will be mutton so should taste amazing. It was going to be a cobbler but I don’t have any GF flour so just in case Charlie wants some, I have done it without the ‘cobbles’ if she doesn’t I can’t easily knock up some dumplings and pop them in halfway through cooking 😀

Had a bit of flour to use up some I made some batches of crumble mix for the freezer and a few dumplings hopefully to use later.

My body, at last seems to have caught up with my mind and I am finding I can work easily and without swellings and ache and pains at the end of the day, having said that I can feel my thumbs starting to ache but a couple of ibrufen should sort that out.

After my delicious tomato soup for lunch I got on with sorting out the greenhouse. When we decided to get a new one I cleared it all out and stored the stuff I wanted to keep, throwing out anything I didn’t want. Moving it all back in again was lovely, it felt comfortable and familiar so I’m not in the least bit disappointed. I had got rid of the mish mash of staging I had so I need to sort something else out, we have plenty of wood so it shouldn’t be hard, I started looking at greenhouse interiors to give me ideas and that led onto looking at passive solar and now I’m looking at ways to achieve that! With almost everything out it’s easier to begin again with what I really need to put in, black water tanks for heat storage will be a definite and gravel or slabs on the ground to increase thermal mass & insulate the North facing lower panels, we need to remove some of the tree branches that are blocking out the sun rays on the South side and Bobs your uncle, it should be a whole lot better😀

Tuesday: My day to have Mia so out early to get the feeding done, I wonder how many customers read the memo about no egg collections on Tuesdays 🙄 there are plenty of eggs out there from yesterday though so it’s ok if a few still come.

We watched the BBC 1 programme ‘Drowning in Plastic’ , I am not easily shocked but it’s horrifying, what have we done to the world ☹️

Wednesday: Lovely day with an even temperature, quite pleasant. I have been working in the garden, more tidying and hoeing etc, I pulled up the rest of the outdoor tomatoes and put all the green ones in the poly tunnel, they may ripen, they may not but at the temps are set to dip at the weekend I figured they were nearing the end anyhow. I weeded the brassica cage and that was two jobs in one as the rabbits had a feast of weeds and now the ground is clear. They are still producing loads of florets and the leaves are still nice and green, mostly, I am going to see how long they keep on producing for. I cut back (hacked actually) the kiwi in the fruit cage as it has got a bit out of control, as yet it has never produced a fruit but it adds a good bit of cover and foliage for the time being, maybe one year when all the conditions are right it will surprise me 😀 The torts are still awake though not eating much at all now, the daytime temperatures are pretty warm so it’s no surprise they are still awake but that should begin to change over the next couple of weeks and when they no longer wander around I will put them into a straw filled hutch and then the hutch will go into the shed. I know these are used to fridge hibernation but I have never done that before and was worried about it so decided to stick to what I know. I cut the lawn which will probably be the last cut this year, I also got round to putting some pieces of wood along the barked area so that the chickens don’t keep scratching it out onto the lawn, every time I cut I have to rake the bark off the lawn first and have been meaning to put up a small barrier for a couple of years, job done finally.

I ordered myself some screws, they will be hidden along with my screwdriver bits so that I actually have some to hand when I need them instead of sorting through buckets of old, knackered, rounded off, screws, John says, ‘you can have these’ yes cos they are no bloody good that’s why, cheers for that 😝

Quick rest at lunchtime then back out to plant a couple more shrubs and a tree, then time to pick up and sort eggs, even though they have gone up the sales have not declined in the least!

Then I ran out of steam 😜 at this point it would be mice to sit down with a cuppa and a slice of cake but I haven’t made any for ages so it’s a banana instead 😋 My foot is giving me jip today, the upper surface of it, when I had the flare. Apart from my two fingers that went numb so did the skin on my left foot, it seems to have started to go back to normal feeling but it’s stinging in the process. My little finger is still not quite back to normal yet and the nail beds have also died back about 1/3 from the top of my finger, I tell you the body can do some pretty awful things to you that when it wants to.

I keep meaning to tell you about the ‘loofah’ washing up thingy, the first bit I used has only just gone into the compost bin this week, I can’t find the original blog but it must have been around June time so it lasted approx 4 months, pretty good going I think, I have now cut a new piece 😀

I made an Eves pudding as a treat, I was going to do crumble but thought that was a bit boring, it’s similar ingredients just a different set up 😀

Lovely evening with a super pink sunset 🌅

Thursday: A pleasant enough morning, one that doesn’t need a coat, the sun is not out but the temps are not cold. ‘what jobs are you doing today’ John asked this morning, we’ll pick a job, any number of them really but while the weather is kind I’d better chose an outdoor one so this morning I will be cleaning out the pens/huts in the orchard, washing out water and food bowls, raking the floors, 5 huts and 2 rabbit pens.

Mum came over early morning and did some gardening while I carried on with the cleaning out etc, I let the light Sussex out for the very first time, it’s all bit new for them and there were a couple of scraps but they settled down eventually.

We sat and had coffee about 11.30 and ate some wet walnuts as a snack, delicious, I am still picking them up despite saying I wouldn’t, I can help it, I don’t want to see them going to waste, sometimes I stand on a few so the chickens can pick at them.

Just as well I keep collecting them because I had to throw a tray out, the bottom tray of the stack had mould, probably due to lack of airflow so I have put an empty tray underneath to stop it happening again, mould and nuts are not a good combination and even though it only looks like it’s on the outside it will have got inside so better safe than sorry.

We have had a couple of reports of a drone flying over the village on two separate occasions this week, one was yesterday near me but although I was outside all morning I didn’t see or hear anything. It un nerves people because this is the criminals latest way of finding out what is on a property, and as we are in such close proximity to the air base both the police and air traffic control are keen to find out who is flying it.

Friday: Overcast but pleasant. Occasionally I set to a job that was never in my plan for for the day, not that I ever have much of a plan but a vague idea of what I want to get done. Today on a whim I decided to get the ménage sorted, normally throughout the Spring and Summer I weed killer it to keep it tidy but this summer I had not been able to and it’s out of control. I did weedkiller it about a month ago but it needed doing again and it will need another go in a couple of weeks or it’s just going to end up as waste land. While I was about it and the creosote was to hand I thought I might as well start creosoting the timbers as well, this is no small job 🙄 and I have managed to do one whole end, inside and out and it looks pretty good, just another three sides to go 🤪 I have definitely go some of my mojo back or I wouldn’t have even attempted it. It is due to rain tomorrow and hopefully Sam will be over later to drag the fields if not I will have to coax John into doing it tonight!

Sam did come over and we managed to get the drags on the back of the tractor so that job is done. Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and Josh bought over an apple crumble made with his own hands (Mummy assures me he washed them first 😝)

Spoke too soon about the mojo though lol, my legs are aching like crazy, a cuppa and some inbrufen is in order.

When John came home he had to get the drags back off the tractor as Sam couldn’t undo them, they are very heavy chains and once they have been bouncing around the field they are difficult to undo!

We had Josh’s crumble for pudding, delicious, he loves his food and more than that he loves home grown and home cooked food, he is always delighted when I ask him if he wants to take some tomatoes or cucumbers home, ooo yes please Nana lol. Mia on the other hand will try stuff but usually spits it out 🤣 ah well as long as she tries, that’s the main thing.

Did a quick bit of shopping this evening and stood chatting to a neighbour outside the shop, I couldn’t believe how mild it was at 8pm on an October evening.

Saturday: It’s peeing down, can’t say we weren’t warned and looking at the forecast it’s in for the day, we do need it though, I can’t tell you how dry everything is, I’ve never know a year as dry as this one. Tomorrow looks to be dry though, so it’s not the ‘once it gets here it never leaves’ scenario we usually have 😜

John did most of the animals this morning, I did the orchard lot as usual, when the clocks change it will be my turn to do the lot as it will be dark when he leaves in the morning and dark when he gets home at night. It will be rainy day jobs today, I have plenty to choose from, apple processing, cleaning, chutney making, John will probably tackle the end bay in the hay barn or the back area which needs a quick tidy. This afternoon we are off to have drinks and cake with a 90 year old Uncle who is still very spritely, in fact I think he still swims on a daily basis 😀

Well John didn’t pick a job in the dry in fact he didn’t pick a job at all which didn’t really sit well with me but I guess time off now and again is needed and tomorrow is supposed to be dry so hopefully he will do something then 😆 I did a batch of tomato purée for the freezer then a bucketful of apples.

A good evening to light the Rayburn but it seems she is not having any of it today either! It took three goes at lighting to get her going and now she is busy crackling away, I think my longing for the flick of a thermostat is getting stronger each year 😜

Digging about in the bottom of the freezer this morning I found an aitchbone joint of beef which has been in the slow cooker for quite a few hours, what a treat, will probably have it with mashed potato and some carrots from the garden.

Sunday: Bright and dry but chilly this morning. We had a hot air ballon over us this morning, normally they are a bit further in the distance but this one was right over the field next door and then landed in the field over the road, John said he saw about 3 of them when he was driving back from his Mums so it must have been the perfect weather for them. I lit the Rayburn mid morning to take the chill off the place, she went first time today 😜

At the minute John is up the back burning some of the debris from tidying up the wood pile, there is quite a bit still to burn.

I am suffering a bit today as bits of me ache all over and I have no idea why?

So the sun came out and now it’s boiling indoors with the Rayburn going as well 😂😂

John cleaned out the chickens in the afternoon and I moved the tortoises to inside the greenhouse where I can keep an eye on when they slow right down ready to hibernate. Then I decided to get the area ready that they will go into once they wake up again in spring, it needed a couple of things planted in there and some low fencing around the outside so they can’t escape. We have plenty of wood 🤣 so I set about re using some of it, I need to build a couple more pieces before we set it in place next week, then it will be ready when they are next year. It’s quite a big area under the crab apple tree next to the decking, I have put a hut in there for them and some paving slabs so they can heat themselves up, planted a shrub and some herbs for food and shade, I just need to get a deep enough dish for water which will have big pebbles in it, put in a couple of hiding places and maybe a tree stump or two and then it should be tortoise heaven.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Cabbage seeds, cookery books and bird boxes.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 20th Feb: Back to the routine today after a short break and guess what, it’s windy! It woke me up around 4.30am something was banging around luckily I eventually fell back to sleep, woke up again at 7 and it’s still windy. The greatest thing about the wind is that it’s drying up the ground so we are grateful for that. I asked John to take the feed out to the front chickens this morning as at the moment I’m finding two bucketfuls of feed too much to carry. I did the rest then went into the greenhouse to sow some cabbage and comfrey seeds, the cabbage seeds I saved from last year but I can’t remember what type they are 😝 surprise cabbage 😀 I watered the peas that are growing nicely in the small polytunnel and then watered the strawberries and beetroot in the big tunnel. The pea and bean seeds I showed last week are just beginning to sprout and the lettuce in the ‘mini greenhouses’ have also sprouted, maybe in a weeks time I will be able to eat a pea top and lettuce leaf salad.

While I was thinking about salads I ordered some more lettuce seeds and some leeks and thinking back to our stay away some mushroom spawn while I was at it 😀

I had Mia in the afternoon but also I wasn’t feeling too good either so not much more got done.

Wednesday: The wind has dropped today thank goodness and it’s quite a pleasant morning, I bimbled round and did the feeding and watering, I made a horrible discovery, not horrible in any way other than I was horrified with myself. You will remember we let the baby rabbits go, most were from the large run but one was an older boy rabbit from before, we had two in a separate cage and I am keeping one of them but the other was set free, we closed the hutch door to enable us to catch the rabbit, went off down the paddock, let them go, then went away for two days completely forgetting to open the door to the hutch so that the remaining rabbit could get to it’s food and water. I thought it was odd that he hadn’t eaten his carrot then noticed (horrified) the door was still shut, luckily he had plenty of hay in there with him so didn’t go hungry but all the same I can’t believe I forgot 🙄

Still feeling under the weather so keep popping the pills, hopefully it will pass soon, not that I have the luxury of resting up until it does, jobs still have to be carried out.

Thursday: I am up at 5.30 this morning, not because I have something to do but because I don’t feel well, I’m not sure at this point in time if it’s a Lupus flare or if I have a virus or possibly menopausal or all three! I ache and shiver and sweat all at the same time and the welcome cool air of the half opened stable door is refreshing at this time of the morning. I have bloods tomorrow, mostly to check that my meds are not damaging me in any way but if it’s the Lupus they will show up inflammation markers and if it’s not then I am just poorly (that’s what I would prefer). It’s quiet, it’s quite nice, normally I wait till everyone has got up and gone to work before I get up so that I can then just get on.

Once the painkillers and anti inflammatory kicked in I felt totally normal so got on with the jobs in hand and sorted out all the eggs for the shed. I put an extra board roadside to advertise the goose eggs, what normally happens is that people come and ask for them well after the geese have finished laying or begin sitting in earnest, so this way I can notify anyone who is interested that they are available now. I lit the fire and then had the intention of going out to do something but after 10 mins out there I decided it was too cold and there was nothing urgent in the garden or greenhouse that warrants getting frozen for.

I decided to do a couple of jobs that have been nagging at me for a while now, one was my cookery book shelves, they all needed coming off having a good clean, sort out and putting back and the other was the kitchen window blinds. Most of us opt to have the kitchen sink in front of the window but boy it does make it difficult to clean, kneeling on the draining board is a bit ouchy but not too bad but trying to lean over the sink area means training as a contortionist! The blinds haven’t been done properly for a year so took a while to get the dust off, very pleased with myself, in between the two jobs I got out some tomato soup from the freezer that I made back in the summer, what a treat and a great reminder of the growing year ahead😀

Going through the bookshelf was a great exercise, I had forgotten some of the great books I have there, I shall definitely refer to them more this year rather than turning to google, as convenient as it is.

Well of course I didn’t stop there suffice to say that some areas of the kitchen look gleaming 😀

Friday: I don’t know what happened to Friday, I have no notes lol, I had bloods done in the morning and had coffee with Shelley and Josh, Sam and Mia came in the afternoon apart from that we had some off cuts of wood delivered ummm nope can’t remember!

Saturday: It’s a cold start and I’m glad John offered to do the morning rounds, I stayed inside and did a bit of clearing up, then went outside where some more wood was being delivered. This wood is all old cut up pallets etc but it still needs cutting smaller to fit in the Rayburn, it is a mountain of wood, literally poor John will be there for the rest of his life cutting it up 😜 I spotted a lot of it that would be the perfect size for making bird boxes so that is what I started doing, marking them up, getting John to cut the pieces then I put them together, now I know I’m never going to win carpenter of the year 🤪 but I reckon the birds will be pretty chuffed with their little houses and I intend to make as many as I can for all round the farm. It was bitterly cold mind so I had to keep coming in to warm up the ends of my fingers and toes, the workshop area faces North, not so good for working in the Winter.

I made six in total one of which is a robin nest box and they are now in situ waiting for the first occupants of the year 😀

The weather warnings are beginning, the beast from the East is apparently going to hit us hard, oh the joys and it’s a prolonged period of cold probably with snow, just when we thought Spring might appear lol.

Sunday: Lovely sunny but cold morning again today and we have been mostly preparing for the cold weather that has been forecast. First the routine stuff then the cleaning out and bulking up of extra bedding for the rabbits, quail and orchard hens, filling up all available water buckets and vessels as the pipes will be frozen and at least if we have things filled up we can break the ice to retrieve water. On cleaning out the rabbits I found two more newly born babies, I half expected this as the rabbit that was out before we caught her was bound to get knocked up in between times, the saying is certainly true!

I could be heard shouting ‘John, you dickhead’ as he had come in to the orchard pen to bring rabbit feed then locked me in and gone off to do something else 🤪

Then is was my turn to be called something rudimentary as John discovered I had left the rain water hose on to fill up a tub which I estimated would take about an hour, came in and had something to eat, then Shelley, Martin and Josh popped in and I forgot all about it, result, overflow 🤪 ooops at least it wasn’t mains water that we are charged for but still 😜

I also prepare the greenhouse and the citrus trees in the poly tunnel, all with extra fleece covering just in case, I don’t want to risk losing any of the plants or seedlings that are underway so better to be safe than sorry.

While I was in the greenhouse I scattered a bit of mushroom spawn into the hotbox and covered them with soil, I have never been successful growing mushrooms this way but willing to give it another try, you never know.

I think if it does pan out to be as cold as they say I shall mostly be baking and cooking next week, it keeps me busy and warm at the same time 😀