Tag: trees

Posted in Friesland Farm

Happy New Year 🥳

Posted on by frieslandfarm

I totally lost my way when it came to the blog during the last year, I started writing a piece so many times that I have a plethora of drafts I now need to delete!

What was wrong? Writers block, lack of confidence, nothing to say? A combination of those and more I suppose but I really lost my way.

It is not that we didn’t do anything at all it’s just that I couldn’t work out what I was trying to say or how I was trying to say it, had I over complicated my thoughts? I think I did and so I decided to go back to basics, after all it’s the advice I give the girls when they have a problem. Think back to the beginning of the problem (and this works for all issues) try and strip back the layers until you can see a clear way forward and begin from there.

How does that work in reality? Well if you take a food problem, one that is causing you discomfort or manifesting in other issues such as skin irruptions then strip your diet right back to basics. Literally whole foods in their simplest form and eat nothing more than that, you should be able to work out which food group (if any at that stage) is the issue. You gradually add in other foods one by one until you understand how they are affecting you and hopefully you eventually work out what the problem is.

If a pet has a behavioural issue then think of the pet as its ancestral relative (wolf in the case of dogs) think about natural, wild behaviour. Is the behaviour a natural instinct that the pet is displaying? If it is then the problem doesn’t lie with the pet but the way you are expecting the pet to live and basically the problem is us, or more to the point our lack of understanding. And then there is the food we feed pets today, back to example 1 👆

Financial problems, granted they are not so easy to fix but is it a case of making the same mistakes over and over again resulting in the same problems over and over again? Take an honest look at things, this is stripping back all the excuses we give ourselves, and see where the cycle can be broken.

Issues are complex but trying to strip them back will help to see a clearer way forward with most things.

What does this have to do with my blog? Well despite the detailed musings I have just written I realised that I started the blog as a recording of my day to day life and somewhere along the way I managed to complicate things and I need to go back to basics.

I would be writing about a topic and would realise that the topic was huge and too big to get my thoughts down in a way that was coherent and was anybody bothered anyway? That then gave me a crisis of confidence and so I would abandon the piece I was writing.

So back to basics it is, possibly with a little extra thrown in now and again because I can’t help myself 🤪

And so I begin with Happy New Year to you all and I hope you had a great festive season.

I had a very busy year last year in fact when I look back at photographs I can’t help but feel blessed. We had some fabulous family times and the flower side of things was incredible.

It is a new year but there is not a stop to one year and start another, it continuous and so my preparations for this year began way back in the summer.

Over the holiday we have been putting up a new fence, the old one was dilapidated and needed to come down before the horses could just wander into the garden of their own accord. We have taken that opportunity to increase the growing area slightly, I have a few events already booked for this year that will need a lot of flowers and I don’t need any other reason than that to grow more. I also want to get back to growing a lot more veg than I did last year so I need space for that too.

The weather was pleasant when we started the new fence and we managed to finish it before the cold and the snow came, however it has been frozen for the last few days and so work on taking the old one down and clearing the ground has stopped for now.

In one of the named storms we had a huge 40/50 year old willow come down 😔 John has been busy cutting it up into logs but the stump, although partially ripped out of the ground, was going to be a beast to deal with. With a bit of lateral thinking he has been burning it from underneath, there was a huge cavity and some of the tree was rotten, it has been a great way to keep warm out there on the freezing cold days.

Yesterday we actually did nothing but the basics, the snow was still on the ground, it was cold and not pleasant working conditions so we stayed in and watched everything we wanted to catch up on. Did I feel guilty about not doing anything? Yes is the answer, to begin with I couldn’t settle but eventually gave in, not a bad thing to do because today I am eager to get on and accomplish something useful.

I had a plan but once I looked out at the weather this morning I realised I need to shift my focus slightly. So rather than digging up a few things I want to reposition, I will focus on working in the greenhouse and tunnels. I have some autumn grown plants that are overwintering well in the greenhouse but some are flagging and need attention, possibly a bit of bottom heat. At one time I didn’t want to use excess energy to grow plants but I end up losing too much so what is worse, a small amount of energy or wastage of time and resources 🤷‍♀️ I stripped back my thoughts and repetitive patterns and will go in a different direction. Of course it could fail again and then I will have three lots of waste but I have to try 🙄

We got some new laying hens last autumn, yes I know I said I wasn’t going to 🤪 but I had a long think about it and it had got to the stage where we didn’t have any eggs to use because I was putting them all out for customers and what was the point of that. So a new batch arrived and they have started laying well and I can bake whenever I want to now. We still have the same old situations where we either have lots of eggs or everyone comes at the same time and we don’t have enough but that is not something I can control so I am no longer worrying about it, it is what it is.

The geese, or one of the geese, has continued spasmodically laying throughout the winter, that plus plenty of other signs, rings my climate change warning bell. The climate is as unpredictable these days as the goose laying her eggs, we just have to work with whatever comes our way. I don’t think the powers that be will ever sort it out, there are a lot of meetings, conferences and innovative ideas but I am not sure they solve anything because it always comes down to the money. How much they want to spend, how much they can spend and how much somebody somewhere can make seem to be the driving forces behind never achieving the goals. Maybe they need to strip it all back to basics and start again 😬 That will not happen because for every person that wants to heal the world there is another that wants to profit from it and the money (greed) usually wins.

The ducks are getting old and are basically living out their retirement in the best ducky style. They don’t lay anymore but they do spend their whole day wandering around the place eating grubs and slugs with a few naps in between.

The cats are still busy catching plenty of mice, luckily they are not big on catching birds 😊 they also spend a lot of time sleeping but only after a busy night. Diesel is getting old, (he is 16 now) at one point I thought that he wouldn’t see winter out but he seems to have got a second wind and is back on form again.

Patch, the dog, is still daft as a brush and a constant companion when John is working outside. Mia on the other hand is showing signs of deterioration, we noticed back in the summer that she was stone deaf and now it is apparent that her eyesight is very poor. She is still eating and drinking normally but she stumbles a fair bit and bumps into things, we have to keep a close eye on her so she does not wander off and can’t find her way back. Her genetics are not great, something I didn’t realise until after we got her and I did a bit of research on the breed, specifically the merle gene.

The horses are still going strong, getting older every year just like the rest of us but they are healthy and happy and living their best life really with no expectations from them apart from mowing the paddocks 😂

It is a quiet time of year but I will try and do a quick round up on Mondays of what I have been up to and what I have planned. That was the aim of the original blog, a diarised snapshot of life on the Smallholding with one or two bigger issues thrown in because they affect life in general.

Ta ta for now.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Time to release Hilda, everywhere is parched & still no significant rain.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 1st August 2022: Last night Hilda had her first slug supper 🥰 I was glad she dived straight on it and devoured it because it means she knows what she should be eating and will be able to feed herself when she is released. She is also self anointing now which is another sign that she is capable of taking care of herself, I don’t know if they fully understand why hogs do his but they basically regurgitate and cover their spines in it 😝 Thoughts are that they cover their spines with toxins to protect from predators so I would say she is very ready to move on. I weighed her and she weighed 340g 😲 I have been making sure that we have as little interaction with her as possible and that I only feed her at night so that she doesn’t get used to food on tap during the day when she ought to be asleep. Basically I have made sure that the conditions she has been under were as close to her natural routine as possible to give her the best chance when she goes it alone. So it was release time 😁 I took her out in the dark and put her down near the shed and watched her for a while, she spent all the time I was watching, rubbing along the ground and self anointing which I guess is her way of marking territory 🤷‍♀️ I made sure there was water nearby and there are usually cat biscuits out by the door where diesel gets fed so I will also make sure that she can find those if she needs to. Job done ✔️ successfully reared and released and I will keep a look out for her to make sure she is doing ok, go forth and hedgehog Hilda 😂

Busy day today, John was home as my labourer 😂 so I set him to work on the compost area which had got a bit out of control. Meanwhile I did plenty of planting up and mulching, one bed of delphinium and one bed of Veronica and saliva. I also planted up various other plants that I got from the sale section at the garden centre 🥰 I sat down on my root bench mid morning and moved the blanket that had fallen on the floor and guess who was under it 😂 yep, Hilda, so I got my gloves and moved her to under the shed. We worked hard most of the day, even when the sun came out I found some jobs to do in the shade, a sit down late afternoon, cook dinner and then back out in the evening. We spent a couple of hours watering, weeding and then mulching the shrub bed in the front, this bed has suffered more than most for some reason, the two enormous orange ball budhliea probably sap all the moisture from the ground around them. Once that was done I went on to watering some of the beds in the garden area and then fill up the horses water. Just after dinner we were going out to do a bit and guess who came wandering towards us, Hilda 😂 I went and got her some soaked cat biscuits which she readily tucked into though she did eat a few slugs I found in a nearby pot as well. Once I had finished for the evening I sat on the bench outside, picked up the blanket which had fallen again and guess who was underneath 😂 yep you guessed it, Hilda 🤪 I have now made her a little house stuffed with straw which is next to the bench seeing as how that where she seems to want to be. I guess eventually she will be brave enough to wander off but for the time being she is still happy to be around me though she really does need to learn what exactly ‘nocturnal’ means 😝

Tuesday: Busy morning doing the usual then Charlie called in for a coffee and then Sam and the kids arrived. I was pretty tired today and so not a lot else got done to be honest apart from cooking dinner. No sign of Hilda today, she has gone off to hedgehog by herself hopefully 😁

Wednesday: Busy day 🙄 I began at 5.30am (and then I wonder why I am shattered by 2pm 😂) It was lovely and cool this morning, these humid, windy, overcast days are hard work 😓 The best time of the day is very early, quiet and peaceful as well as cool and fresh. This morning has been all about cutting flowers and harvesting veg, loads of both! Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and courgettes, flower of every colour and size and foliage to compliment them. Flowers and grasses for hanging to dry were also on my to do list, loving dried flowers, if you have a go at them then rip up the rule book and try anything. One of my favourite so far is antirrhinum and I wish I had done more but the truth is I just did one to see how it went 🙄 Once everything was gathered it was sorting the veg to go out for sale, tying up the flowers for drying and hanging those up and then onto making up jam jar flowers plus three bouquets and two bunches. I definitely need a separate workshop for this but at the minute because it’s indoors at least I clean up after myself, I can imagine not bothering in a workshop situation as I would think ‘I will do it after the next lot’ 🤪

Jam jar flowers

Gosh it’s Sunday evening 9.30pm and I haven’t written anything since Wednesday 😂 I now have to try and think of what I have been up to. Nothing unusual really, some seed sowing, flower cutting, apple picking, watering, watering, watering, a few bouquets and a couple of jam jars. A morning out with Sam, Mia, George, Lucie and Charlie, a walk round the woods and then coffee and cake, a tip to the garden centre with John to get some specific plants, all the usual household jobs and anything else that needed doing 😁

I haven’t seen Hilda again at all so I guess she has gone on her merry way somewhere although there is always water out for any animal that needs a drink and I think it’s pretty hard to find at the minute so please put water out if you haven’t already. A shallow dish with stones in for the wasps and bees, a dish that is kept topped up for the birds, a bigger dish for anything bigger that comes your way, foxes, deer, cats, hedgehogs etc. Its pretty dire out there, the trees are very stressed and dropping leaves already to conserve moisture, the only things still going are the bloody perennial weeds 🙄 I was just out filling up the horses buckets and looking at the paddocks, I have never seen them so dead and brown 😏 We had to let the horses into the winter paddock the other night as there is nothing left in the ones they were in. That means unless we get some rain in time for the grass to grow again we will be feeding hay for the first time in a couple of years. Up to now the system has worked well, leave the big paddock at the back as standing hay and they fast on that most of the winter, last year we didn’t even have to supplement with any hay at all, this year looks like it will be a different story all together.

I think we had a tiny bit of rain at some point this week, about a five minute burst but then the sun came out again and it was dried up before we knew it. Just imagine if it doesn’t rain ever again, nothing is impossible as the last few years have shown, we will be up s**t creek without a paddle 😬 There is no sign of rain in the forecast for at least another two weeks either, this green and pleasant land is now brown and thirsty 😔

I am now well into the stage of selecting what gets watered and what doesn’t, a couple of areas are very dead, the wild area under the weeping birch tree has been dying back for a while and so I have left it unwatered, just hoping that any seed will be viable enough for next spring. The area where I have the thornless blackberry, some of the rhubarb, and where I planted herbs in the spring has also not been watered for weeks and so most of that is dying back too. The three fruit trees at the bottom of the patch, the cherry, dual pear and apple tree are looking stressed but I have not watered them, that would take gallons and not very responsible but the mulberry bush is still thriving and that is in the same area 🤷‍♀️

John cut the grass in the walkway this evening, it’s not green grass it’s just dead long grass 😂 but might as well tidy it up anyway. One bonus in all this is that all the annual weeds have died so that has saved us a job.

It’s a crazy year in more ways than one and now we are also heading for recession, way back I did say I thought we were in for a bumpy few years and I wasn’t wrong was I!

Posted in Friesland Farm

Sooo hot 🥵 a stuck hedgehog & more ash die back 😞

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th July 2021: And just like that it’s Monday again but not any old Monday, today is Freedom day 🤷‍♀️ That’s what they have named it anyhow 🙄 we are not free of the virus and we won’t be for a very long time yet but I guess it is time to get on with life as best we can under the circumstances. Who would have guessed this time a couple of years ago we would have had such a restriction on our liberties 😮 My personal opinion is that at some point we have to get on with life, we can’t keep locking down but I would say we still have to be very careful. I do know of double vaccinated people who have since caught Covid, their symptoms were not as bad as they may have been back in the beginning but they have had symptoms that are flu like and still lost the sense of taste. Proceed with caution is the advice we should have had.

Enough of that 😂 It is another hot day, set to be a scorcher of a week and you know what that means for me, yep I will mostly be found indoors! I was up early this morning and by 9.30 I had done four hours of work and come inside to do some more, I will probably nap mid afternoon as I will be out till dark once it cools down enough, if it does 😜 No picking today I am going to wait a couple of days until there is plenty to pick, so that left watering and weeding which is what I did as well as feeding the usual bunch of inmates. John got up after me but did the birds before going off to work.

Once I came in I decided it was going to be way too hot most of the week to put another coat of paint on the ceiling so I have abandoned that and started putting the bits and pieces back where they belong, at least the kitchen won’t be upside down any more which will make me feel calmer about things lol.

Apart from putting the kitchen bits back up and sorting dinner for later I didn’t do much else until much later, had an afternoon nap obvs 😂

Once we had dinner and done all the late afternoon/evening jobs, I went out to get some watering done. Although it is very hot because I have watered the tunnels and greenhouse everyday without fail, they are doing pretty well. The veg in the beds are also doing better than I had expected, all that rain at the beginning of the season and plenty of cover on the ground (including weeds) is keeping things going. I am looking at changing the beds a bit for next year and I think I will order some bulk mushroom compost at the end of the year, that seems to help keep moisture locked in. While I am at it I will incorporate some bio char as well, that’s the plan anyway, as always things don’t always go according to plan but I can see how far I get with it.

Tuesday: Another scorcher in store today 🙄 up with the alarm at 5am, lovely and cool at that time of the morning. I watered last night so this morning it was picking to concentrate on, I picked French beans and the first lot of runner beans, beetroot, carrots and from one of the small raise beds a good haul of potatoes, also a few blueberries. Fed the torts and Guineas, sorted out the boot room and gave it a Hoover, cleaned out the litter trays that the kittens have now started to use and then made a coffee. I could then hear Patch barking a ‘come and see this bark’ I checked to make sure he wasn’t locked in anywhere as he didn’t come when I called him at first. I went out the back and he ran off towards the paddock so I followed him knowing that something was amiss, a hedgehog was stuck firmly in the stock fencing, back up to get some gloves and wire cutters and back down to release the hog and make the hole in the fence ‘fat hedgehog friendly’ 😜 Back up to drink my coffee and sort out this major I go haul of goodies. The problem with the hot weather is that I don’t really want to eat carrots, beans and potatoes but they need picking and pulling so I am going to have to prepare them for freezing or storing, I also have onions and garlic (which can’t be stored due to the leaf miner) to get started on. I did want to dehydrate some onion rings but it will be a bit warm to have that on at the minute, I reckon the sun is warm enough to sun dry tomatoes here for once!

Oo I have done a thing lol, like I do, on a whim, I have listed our small back paddock as a Wildpoint camping site (tent only)l Well there are plenty of people staying in the country for holidays this year so might as well utilise some of our area and share the wonderful sunsets with them 🥰

I’m crying, I’m not sad, I’ve been chopping the onions 😂

Popped out this evening for a therapy treatment then stopped off in the village at the pond as Shelley, Martin and the kids were there with some friends and then back home to water the tunnels and the greenhouse. It is a bit cooler this evening which is nice and after watering I sat in the garden, a hedgehog ran across the lawn and there were two baby hogs in the paddock, they looked like large conker casings 😂 I have filled up a dish of water for them and put it on the lawn, probably struggling to find water in this heat wave. I hope it breaks soon, the struggle is real trying to keep everything going just at the time when fruits and veg are forming 🙄

Wednesday: Guess what, yep it is bloody hot again today 😂 It was nice and cool around 5am though and there was a slight dew on the plants which is great. I got started on some garden work almost straight away, only picked peas today and then cut back the tops that were not producing yet to see if I can stimulate a flush growth from them. Then it was into the fruit cage to cut back any dead steam from the summer raspberries, plenty of bindweed to pull up and water the fruit that is in pots. I suddenly realised how dumb I was 🤪 I have an oblong galvanised water tank on one side of the cage and it is on the opposite side to everything that is in pots and needs water most, derr, what was I thinking, well I clearly wasn’t thinking that’s for sure so I need to remedy that. The tank gets filled up with water from the bigger rain storage tanks and then it also fills naturally from any rainfall so there is usually plenty in there I just have to fill up the watering can and take it to the plants. It would be a whole lot easier if the plants were nearer 😂 The rest of the day, once I had finished outside, I have done next to nothing 🙄😬🥴 saving my energy for later tonight and the watering sesh.

Thursday: Same heat if not hotter certainly in the house anyway. I spent the early morning checking the veg garden and watering where necessary but I didn’t do any picking I decided to leave it another day and pick a lot at once rather than bits and pieces. The development of some veg is slow due to the heat and lack of moisture, rain forecast for the weekend which should wake it all up a bit. I spent a large part of the day inside as always but I was busy. We have a holiday booked and I was getting the paperwork printed sorted, emailing enquires etc, that seemed to take hours what with one thing and another. We are going on a weeks cruise to nowhere 😂 seriously we get on the ship in Southampton and it sails around the south coast and the French coast, no stops and then comes back, but that’s fine, we just need to get away. Good food and drink, relaxing and reading is just about all I will be doing and I can’t wait 🥰 Everyone boarding needs proof of both vaccines (and the nhs site was down 😜) we will all have to be tested at the terminal (courtesy of P & O) we need Covid travel insurance, health declaration forms, passports (even though we are not getting off) car parking booked, tickets and labels and umpteen forms to fill in lol, didn’t get all of it done for one reason or another but nearly there. We weighed up all the pros and cons, the ship is not filling to capacity (50%) we don’t have to go to the inside venues if we don’t want to, there are plenty of opportunities to eat outside, protocols are all in place and so because we feel we need to get on with life a little bit, we booked up. If I am honest I did think it might have all calmed down a lot more by now, I didn’t reckon on the football being a point of super spreading 🥴 Still, we are going and I still feel despite everything that it will be ok 🤞hopefully not famous last words!

In the evening it was supposed to be the usual jobs after dinner, watering, but we sat down and John out a film on so that was that as I got interested in it lol. I did go out around 9.30 just before the light faded and watered the greenhouse, it was so much cooler outside than indoors so we sat out there for a good while before ending the day.

Friday: It feels cooler today more like what we are used to in the summer. I got up at 5 and started watering, I splashed a bit round the front beds as well, they are flagging in this heat now. Then onto the veg garden and watering the tunnels before launching into picking. Cucumber, courgettes, tomatoes, runner beans, French beans, aubergines, peppers, chillies and some blueberries, raspberries and Logan berries, not many but enough for us. Once that was done and I had done the horses water and let out the ducks it was indoors to prep the stuff I had picked. Some went out for sale, Shelley and Charlie both wanted a few items and the rest I podded, chopped and peeled either for dinner tonight or for the freezer. It is the twins 2nd birthday today and we will be popping over there later this afternoon and so I have put dinner in the slow cooker, that way it is either ready before we go or I can leave it until we get back depending on how hungry John is 😁

Just typing this up I have now been working for almost six hours and it’s only 11 am, sometimes I wonder why I feel so tired by midday 😂

I had a delivery, it’s a birthday present for me from Sam and family and it arrived early as they will be away. The delivery man said, as is etiquette for the British, ‘isn’t it a lovely day’ to which I replied ‘yes it is but I’m glad it is a bit cooler than it has been’. Mistake really, normally I would just say, yes it’s lovely but for some reason this other sentence came out of my mouth today 🤷‍♀️ We shouldn’t complain about the weather, we don’t get it often enough’ he said (nicely I will add) I could tell he liked his sunshine, tanned, shorts on, t shirt etc, for some inexplicable reason I felt the need to defend my sentence 😆 So I tried to explain about UV and my skin, ‘oh right’ he said as he waved and walked away 🤣 Two things spring to mind here, he doesn’t understand it and nor do millions of people probably, and also I feel like I am ‘that person’ who has a hundred different allergies when I start to explain why it’s a problem 😕 I don’t want to be that person, I am not that person but I am becoming more disillusioned by the lack of awareness and understanding lately 🙄 Especially when it has been as hot as the last few days, when things get back to normal (eventually) there will be so many things I would love to do but can’t because it’s out in the blaring sunshine 🤦‍♀️

Saturday: John cleaned and tided the back area which always needs doing every few weeks due it being a dumping ground as we pass through. I did a bit of picking and then we went off to meet Shelley and the children at a local event and then had a coffee in town. Writing this on Sunday I can’t actually remember what else we did but we did something 😂

Sunday: Still haven’t had any rain, there was loads forecast but it has missed us almost entirely, we had a short burst of rain but that is it so far which is not what I need, really need some decent downfall. After doing indoor stuff I went up the back and burnt the rubbish and I used the scythe to cut down stinging nettles, found a clutch of eggs which we will save to give the dogs and cats. I also discovered that one of the ash trees that I thought would be fine for a couple of years, has got disease right at the bottom and half the trunk is gone. We need to get it down soon before it comes down of its own accord. Meanwhile John cleaned out the front hens and then pulled up some of the bigger weeds from the side driveway in readiness for some type 1 to be delivered. In the afternoon we went off to get me a birthday present, chuffed with my new fire pit that has cooking facilities 🥰 later in the afternoon I made some steak and onions on there, converted John finally to campfire cooking as he said it tasted soooo good 😁 Popped out to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa and then when we got back I pulled some of the dead stuff in the front beds and gave it a good watering, finished around 9.30pm, very tired now.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Seeds, Snow and Stars

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 28th Jan: Trees, or rather planting trees, is very much in focus at the moment as far as the government and environmental departments are concerned. Do you remember a few months ago I put some cherry pips into the fridge to undergo stratification, a period of cold that will simulate Winter, well it’s time to get them out and get them planted up and hope that they grow 😀 I also put some spindle-berry in at the same time so they will also be planted and fingers crossed they will amount to something. Not all gardens are big enough to plant full size trees but there are plenty of ‘patio’ trees available these days especially fruit trees and all you have to do is make sure they stay watered, so it is possible to have trees and grow your own produce even in a small space, a ‘micro garden’ can be highly productive.

Cold and sunny this morning, I did the morning rounds and then onto a couple of phone calls I needed to make. The second call was to do with water, because we are commercial a different company took over from Thames Water over a year ago, we had notification but as the accountant pointed out we’ve never had a bill. Turns out they had no idea there was a water supply here……doh….. if I had left it we would never have had a bill or would we? Eventually they would have realised I’m sure and then who knows how much we would have owed 😝 as it is we will end up with a back dated bill of probably a few hundred pounds 😲

Today seemed like a good day to go through what seeds I have already got, either seed I have saved or seeds left from last year and yen to order what else I wanted to grow this year.

This is what I have already:

GRAIN:

Millet

Quinoa

Wheat

Amaranth

BEANS/PEAS:

Haricot beans

Dwarf French beans – purple

Dwarf French beans

Ying Yang beans

Red kidney beans

Pea

Broad beans

Chickpea

SQUASH

Spaghetti squash

Butternut squash

Pumpkin

Luffa

Courgette – round

Banana squash

SALAD:

Mixed salad leaf

Spinach

Radish

Cucumber

Tomato

Pepper – Hot

Pepper -sweet

ROOT:

Carrot – Early Nantes

Beetroot

Parsnip

Celeriac

BRASSICA:

Cauliflower

Broccoli

ONION:

Leeks

Spring onion

HERBS:

Coriander

And this is what I ordered:

Turnip

Courgette – long

Fennel

Melon

Swede

Potato

Brassica plants

Now I just have to decide where everything is going to go lol, I’ve decided not to do sweet corn this year as they are quite a lot of faffing about to get them ready, I also decided not to do aubergine, they nearly always fail so I am giving them up as a lost cause, I don’t eat them anyway they were for selling on so I’m better off using the space for something else. Someone once said to me that I should buy in veg wholesale to sell on, um that’s not the point, the point is to grow things that we (or the wider family) eat and to sell any surplus to cover the costs. Firstly, I am then confident on how it’s grown and that it is first class, ripe, freshly picked fruit and veg and secondly it doesn’t cost us or the customer the earth 😀

Tuesday: Mia day so only the basics and playing with stickers, pretend friends and cuddles today 😀

Wednesday: Cold and frosty, no sign of the snow/sleet yet though. I did the morning feeding, watering, letting out, collecting eggs, last week we couldn’t keep up with customers, this week it’s slow again 🤷‍♀️ Before I went out I sprayed cleaner round the bathroom and back toilet, that would ensure that I had to get on with cleaning them when I came back in which I duly did. Having a quick coffee now before I get on with cleaning the rest of the place 😀

The greenhouse walls are nearly finished, it’s unfortunate that we have had some very cold frosty nights and building walls is not ideal as the mortar freezes so best to do it when the temps are up and are staying up, the process is slower but a better result in the end.

A sit down at 1pm phew, I have been busy cleaning, mostly giving the kitchen a good going over, pulling everything out, I have discovered that we have had a small rodent visitor at some point since I last did it. I haven’t heard anything or even seen anything it’s just left a few calling cards behind the microwave 😂 I will move it all again in a coup,e of days and see if it’s still coming or not. The sun is shinning beautifully today and I don’t feel cold, probably all the running around I have been doing, I still have the office and the boot room to do but maybe they can wait until tomorrow 😝

Just in case you’ve been wondering what Molly is up to she can still be found permanently located in a dog bed in the boot room 🙄 She has now taken on that air that most cats do eventually, hooman you are here to serve me 🐈 It is now her job to get under my feet every time I go through the door, she hasn’t worked out that she gets fed twice a day not every time she sees me!

I have lost three ducks now, daytime losses 😞 why do they always take the laying ducks and not the surplus to requirements drakes so bloody annoying, two ducks are from separate trios and the other ducks are quacking and looking for them ☹️

I was just reading about our starry skies and how the light pollution affects the ability to see them, one of the most amazing things about living here is the amount of stars we can see on a clear night, not wishing to keep this all to ourselves if anyone wants to come down one evening and have a look just get in touch or if you want to get a look at a meteor shower when they are happening then let me know 😀

Total coincidence after I wrote this but John came in after letting the dogs out at 10pm and said “I‘ve just seen a shooting star” 😀

Thursday: My goodness that is cold out there this morning 🥶 I don’t know what it went down to but it’s still -6 at 7.30am so I am guessing about -8/9 or possibly lower in the night. I know that’s not cold compared to some areas of the world but it is for us lol, I have decided to light the Rayburn early and warm the house before going outside today, I’m waiting for the Sun to do some of its magic. It might be cold but it is also very beautiful out there 😀

I need to top up the small bird feeders and put some water out in the sun, the little birds are well catered for but I need to find out about the ground feeders like blackbirds, robins and wrens, I threw some scones out this morning but they were gone quickly, the magpies have pinched the lot, I want to be able to feed the blackbirds without the magpies stealing everything. Having a quick look on google I improvised and found a bicycle basket which I have staked down so it can’t be moved by bigger birds and then I have bought a fat block that I cut into four and will place it in the middle hopefully out of reach of long beaks.

The mouse came back last night and I think I can see where it’s coming in so I will be setting a trap in the kitchen tonight and getting John to fix the tiniest of cracks between the wall and the worktop, because the building moves the worktop has come away and somehow this has let it in.

A cold afternoon routine, the water hasn’t really thawed and neither have the outside taps, the ice was pretty thick in the water buckets this morning and although I did manage to break them they are still mostly frozen. With the threat of snow we have topped everything up and put in extra feed/hay etc just a waiting game now ⛄️ I got some shopping in earlier just in case and I made bread so we are all ready for at least six foot of the white stuff 😂

I took a photo I have been meaning to show you for a while, just proving that plants don’t need much to grow, just a bit of determination 🤣 of course they wouldn’t amount to much like that if left and I may try to see if I can plant them and see what happens.

I haven’t talked much about Brexit mainly because well how much can you say that’s not being said all over social media by one group or another and neither can agree. There is a lot of scaremongering from both sides going on but one thing I do think is that if the shelves are barer and food is more expensive, on the whole I see that as a good thing. Obviously not for those struggling already but where we live you don’t see much of that to be honest, it’s an affluent area and for a good few years now it astounds me how much food people buy, do they eat it all or do they waste a lot of it? I think curbing excessive spending on foodstuffs you don’t really need is good and I think a lesson in where your food comes from, how it gets here and how you could/should be buying British can only be a good thing too. So if the shelves in your local supermarket look bare take a trip to your local farm shop & eat seasonably it may cost you more but it’s better quality and learn how to make it go further than you normally would. ‘That’s all I have to say about that’ 😝

Friday Feb 1st: And we had a dump load of snow 🙄 great this will make life fun out there this morning 😝 John has gone to work because nothing stops him going to work 😜 to be fair he is only working in the next village along and he drives very well in snow but that leaves me here in slightly more difficult circumstances today 🥴 One of the first jobs will be to knock the snow off the top of the polytunnels and fruit cage, too much weight would cause a collapse. Then onto the animals, the hens probably won’t come outside all day, the ducks and geese will, the dogs are loving it the cats not soo much in fact I caught Molly peeing on the cardboard recycling as she obviously didn’t want to get her feet cold, she got short shrift! Jack, the horse would probably like to be out in it especially if I took his rug off so he could have a good roll but that’s more trouble than it’s worth so he will be staying in, he came in last night and will most likely kick the door all day long in frustration. I moved the quail indoors yesterday afternoon, mostly because they are not laying so a bit of extra warmth in the back might kick start them. Then it will be back inside and hunker down for the day until afternoon time. Snow days probably would be fun under different circumstances 😜

Doing the animals was pretty easy and as predicted the hens won’t come out, but on my way round I saw that the fruit cage was under a lot of snow and it’s still snowing, so I had to get it off pretty quickly which resulted in getting snow showered for a while (I did chuckle until I started to get cold) 😝 I should have and indeed had said out loud to myself that I needed to get the netting off before any snow but never got round to it so that serves me right really. I’m just waiting for my clothes to dry off before going out and trying to sort it out. The brassica cage netting is too heavy for me to push it off so I will probably have to get a ladder out and do it that way, such fun 😫

After days and days of the Rayburn running in a similar way, today it’s changed and I was having trouble with it just roaring away meaning all the heat is just going up the flue, so I have had to adjust the heat/cook combo normally we just run it on heat and the cooker gets up to temp anyway but it’s now on half and half and has settled down. One thing we discussed if we ever build or move is underfloor heating providing its run by solar panels, I look forward to that day, I am coming to the end of my love affair with wood burning heating and cooking lol.

The long tailed tits have gathered, they always turn up when is snows, beautiful little birds 😀

Saturday: The Sun is out but it’s not thawing the snow very quickly however it is beautiful out there, I took a walk across fresh snow in the paddock, the snow glistens like diamonds and in the shade it takes on a blue hue 😀 John did most of the animals except the horse so I went out and fed him then turned him out into the snowy paddock, he will come back in later as it’s going to get very cold overnight. I took out some feed for the wild birds including the ground feeders, I bought one of those blocks of fat with insects in hopefully it will help during this very cold snap.

With not much to be done outside I decided to make some little chocolate fairy cakes with mini eggs on top, I will be totally honest here and say that I bought the eggs with cakes in mind but ate half the packet before I got round to doing the cakes 🤣

We had Josh to stay last night and the plan was to wait till dark and then go out and look at the stars, his Mummy had packed some cookies for when we came back in. I looked out of the window and said it looks dark enough now, he came and had a look and then said ‘that’s enough can we have cookies now’ 🤣 we did wrap up and go out for all of five minutes, he was scared because it was so dark lol.

Sunday: I was hoping the Sun was going to melt most of the snow today although I’m not looking forward to the sludge that comes after, it melted a fair bit but still a lot left. The temps are set to climb a little after tonight but with it comes the rain 🙄 Josh came out and helped with the feeding though John did most of it, we had great fun using a small hammer to break all the water buckets 😀

That was pretty much it for the day apart from the usual stuff, and that is pretty much it for the week, we are into February so onwards and upwards 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Daffodils planted ✔️ trees planted ✔️ and a bucket of twigs.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday November 12th: A pleasant November morning, sunshine, not too cold, a little bit of mist hanging low over the fields.

John did the animals and birds and I did a bit of early morning tidying up, we had coffee then he went off to work and I sat down to order some lightbulbs for the kitchen light fittings. You would think that would be a straightforward fairly easy task wouldn’t you, it used to be, years ago, can I have a 40 or 60 w light bulb please with bayonet fitting, not any more. Bayonet, skinny screw in, fat screw in, LED, halogen, Edison filament, 5, 7, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60w (I’m making these up 😝) candle shape, vintage, globe, spiral, warm white, winter white, coloured, colour changing, dimming, non dimming, WiFi smart, I JUST WANT A BLOODY LIGHT BULB THAT LIGHTS UP THE KITCHEN WHEN I FLICK THE SWITCH, life has become far too complicated, I blame interior designers 🤪it’s as complicated as ordering a coffee these days!

Light bulbs now ordered, they look a bit like the one I took out with practically the same numbers so fingers crossed 🤞

I made another coffee, milk, one sugar, hot water, simple 😀

I prepped Johns dinner for later, he is having braised beef, I fancy beef and broccoli stir fry, then I got the Rayburn lit, a bit temperamental today so had to have two goes at it, then I went outside to feed the rabbits etc and check the traps. The rats traps have not caught anything yet but the mouse trap in the poly tunnel has its first victim, I do feel sorry for it but I need to grow peas and beans in there and not have them feasted on by mice 🐭 there are plenty of other places it could have set up home but no, it chose my raised beds in the tunnel, I guess it though it would be safe and warm in there 😝 I didn’t come out of resetting the traps without pain mind you so a bit of karma maybe, not that the trap got me but they are very sensitive and go off easily, while I was trying to place it, keeping my fingers firmly out of the way, it sprung, flipped up and smacked my little finger. This is one of the fingers I had trouble with back in the summer when I had a flare and it is still highly sensitive to cold and pain! It took about twenty minutes of deep breathing until the sensation died down, I am going to have to be very aware of it in the Winter months when the extremities get cold, I might need an extra ‘finger jumper’ under my gloves 😛

I need to start sorting out the ducks, well drakes to be precise, we have far too many, 5 Welsh Harlequinns and about 4 Khaki Campbell’s, I have put them up for sale on various duck sites but if they don’t go then I will have to process them for the freezer. We have the rescue ducks which are doing a great job in the garden, they are safe from ‘any further action’ and I have decided to invest in 12 new point of lay Campbell’s next spring as ours are getting past their prime laying age now and so we are only getting 5 eggs a day at a push from about 20 females.

Tuesday: I signed a letter today and emailed it to my local MP, it is to ask them to look at Agroecology in the upcoming Agriculture Bill, for the life of me I can’t see why local, sustainable, is not at the top of the list anyway but it’s hasn’t even been included.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroecology

Each Winter I usually make up a spice mix to add to the chicken feed for a few weeks, previously I followed the ingredients that are in a poultry spice ready mix, buy them individually and mix it myself as it’s much cheaper that way. This year I am going to try a few different components, kelp and brewers yeast as well as the usual stuff like garlic, turmeric, and fenugreek just to see if it makes any difference. I don’t think it boosts the egg numbers but I do think it helps with their overall health in the colder months.

You will have noticed that we didn’t mention the red mite very much this year and that is down to the using the cardboard traps and regularly cleaning them out weekly and burning all the bedding and cardboard, it really is working a treat as we have not had the ‘boom’ that the warm weather causes, really pleased with this method.

We have plans to move the hens but John wants to increase the enclosed area first just in case they need to be kept in for any reason, the back muck heap is in the way at the moment so that needs all shifting first. One day we might just get it right lol. On days like today, when I feel ‘normal’ I really want to make plans to increase what we grow, but then on other days, when I am not much good for any work, I give up thinking about it as it all seems like too much work. I would like a few ‘normal’ days in a row really then I could make a bit of a difference, maybe eventually this disease will go back into remission and it will be full steam ahead again 🤔

Wednesday: What a fabulous day, sunny, mild and made all the better for getting all the daffodil bulbs planted. Mum and Ken came over, Ken on the tractor with the back actor digging the trench, about 100ft of it and Mum and I putting the bulbs in and covering the, back over. It really was the most pleasant few hours work I have done in a long time, glorious, I look forward to seeing all the little yellow heads next spring 😀

Thursday: Another half decent day and more planting to be done, this time trees, the ground is just about perfect, although it seems a little late, the weather we have had and are having has made the conditions just right for planting. I have planted a cherry tree (Stella) in the front paddock corner, a pear tree (concord) and an apple tree (Braeburn) in the veg beds and then a plum tree, a brambly apple, a sweet chestnut and a small leaved lime tree in the small back paddock that we planted the daffodils in yesterday. The trees at the back have tree guards on the trunks so the rabbits don’t eat them, the trees in the front areas have mesh around the base so the chickens don’t dig, the easy bit is digging the holes, it’s keeping everything off them that is hard work. I am not too worried about getting fruit from the two at the back they are more for the birds and the bees and to create a little copse, eventually of course the lime and the chestnut trees will be huge but that is very many years away and I probably won’t be around then lol. It will be nice to leave trees behind though for future generations to climb and forage on.

I divided two of the rhubarb crowns, one I will leave and do that next year, now, I can’t decide wether to plant them and have even more rhubarb or not, I think I will definitely plant at least one.

Set some more mouse traps, so far I have caught two in the tunnel and two in the pallet stack out the back, they definitely like peanut butter!

John has chicken casserole tonight and I have korma, rice and peshwari nann, I used to make the korma from scratch when the girls were all living at home but this one is a 1,2,3 packet, I think I will go back to making it and try freezing some of the sauce. Shelley made homemade nann bread the other day and said it was easy to do so I would like to give it a try and as my favourite is peshwari I will def be making the filling 😀

Friday: Mild again, I let the dogs out before it got light and stood outside in my PJs thinking, I’m not even cold!

John did the birds before going off to work and I ended up doing the housework, I hadn’t intended to but I got a bit tired of noticing the dust 🤪 so now I have a sparkly house, well clean enough anyhow.

Saturday: Turned into a lovely day, bit chilly first thing but the sun came out eventually. John did the birds while I put some washing on etc then we went into the garden to move some of the muck mountain onto the veg beds.

I also cut all the tops off of the broccoli plants and fed them to the rabbits, I am going to leave the stalks and see exactly what happens, they may rot away or they may sprout again who knows but there is nothing to lose by trying. They have already been good value because first came the broccoli heads, then after they were cut came the sprouting stalks which went on for ages, now greenery for the rabbits 😀 After that I went on to prune out the gooseberry bushes and the blackcurrants, just thin them all out so that I can pick the fruits more easily next year. I also lifted the canopy of the Mulberry tree, I found it difficult to get into and pick the berries this year as there were a lot of foliage and branches in the way, hopefully I will be able to get under and work upwards next year. All of the woody cuttings from the blackcurrants, mulberry and a few apple branches, I have cut up into smaller pieces for the rabbits, it may look like a bucket of twigs but it’s actually good fodder for them over the winter months.

Sunday: Definitely getting chiller by the day, Josh stayed over last night and so John did the animals this morning while entertained and breakfasted him 😀

Due to various reasons we didn’t get much else done apart from the usual, in the evening Charlie came to pick me up to go to the cinema, just as we walked out the back door she shouted FOX. It was in the front paddock so we sent the dogs off round to chase it away, John had said that a hen had been got inside the electric fence in the side paddock ☹️ that is hooked up to the mains and supposed to keep it out, the battles are never ending. We seem to have a lot of undesirables at the moment both animal and human, theft in the village is rife at the moment with a notification every other day coming in about sheds broken into or number plates nicked or car windows smashed to get at belongings, what’s wrong with people, I despair 😩