Tag: Vegetables

Posted in Friesland Farm

Kind words, the Rayburn is out and Kittens 🐱

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday June 7th 2021: It’s Johns birthday today and he has this week off so naturally I am making him work here 😂 First off we got the morning stuff done and John let out the new batch of hens, they have been in over a week so time for them to explore. Unfortunately although they have plenty of acreage at the back to roam in they decided to come down to the front area 😜 I was not too happy with that as they will soon be scratching about in my new flower beds, we found some stock fence and corralled them back up towards the back and put them fence in place to prevent them coming down again. How long will it be before they find a way I’m not sure but for now they are not being a nuisance. Then John decided he was going to take out the old heating, he was going to wait until tomorrow but changed his mind, that’s why he is working on his birthday, not because I am making him really. He has disconnected the radiators and the heating pipes in the airing cupboard and will wait until tomorrow before draining the hot water cylinder because there is still a full tank that he can use tonight, best not to waste the energy that was used to heat it up 🙄 So from now on we are reliant on electric only, I think I will really miss the Rayburn itself but not the wood cutting, fetching loading and cleaning it out lol. While John was doing all that I was watering and then picking, peas, strawberries and asparagus today, I think that will probably be the last picking of the asparagus now, I wasn’t going to let it go to fern this year but I think it will be better for the health of the plant if I do. Then I went onto do some planting and tidying up in the very front bed just outside the gate, it has a few gaps so I planted some dwarf rudbeckia, chrysanthemums, a pheasant grass and a yellow daisy, should fill it all up nicely. Already growing are delphiniums, foxgloves, sweet peas, jacobs ladder, wall flowers (they have gone over now mind you) dianthus, day lilies and a few other things that escape my memory at the minute. By then it was lunchtime and Shelley and Florence came over with Rosie the rabbit, we had a cuppa and I trimmed Rosies nails, she will probably be coming to live here as she isn’t getting on with the guinea pig, she keeps biting it, they are not happy living together 🙄 We set up a run and had her out on the lawn and she seemed very content in there by herself. Shelley left and it was time for an afternoon sit down, I have bought just a neck massager for John for his birthday as he keeps having a real problem with his shoulder and neck. He has had it checked over by the doctor and had Bowen on it but it still gives him grief so a neck massager might just help.

Johns brother came round to visit just before dinner and then after we had eaten Sue and Shane popped round to say happy birthday on the actual day even though they were round yesterday with the others 😁

Tuesday: The sun gets higher quicker at this time of year so I am having to rush round to get stuff done. This morning was no exception, John did the animals and then went to do a small job he already had booked in, on his way back he is picking up materials to get the airing cupboard changed and sorted. After a quick shower I have been rushing about watering poly tunnels, pots, horses, doing the eggs, washing, sorting out plants and weed killing the side drive where some type 1 to dust has got to go down, can’t put it down with weeds on here or they will just grow through anyway. Quick sit down and an apple before I start again. The washing line is still a dilemma I can’t make a decision to save my life at the minute. It needs to be in the morning sun but by afternoon in the shade so that I can get it in without standing in the full summer sun. I was thinking that most people don’t get it but if you swapped the sun for Covid rays, imagine if they were rays and you had to protect your skin from them, then you might get some idea of what I have to do. Even factor 50 sun block only goes half way to stopping the reaction I get if I am caught out in it for more than five minutes and then add to that the amount of times I have to move around in between shade spots and you kinda of get the picture hopefully. I very rarely have bared skin apart from hands and face, my legs are usually fine, as is my torso and on the whole my arms though they do get affected even with long sleeves, but my hands, face, head and neck are all areas of concern. Ears are particularly difficult, putting sunblock on the ear is fiddly if I miss a bit I end up with itchy spots. Hats are great but in the heat I do end up with a headache from wearing it constantly, the neck cowl I have has been brilliant so far this year as that is a very sensitive area. You can see why in the heat of the day I prefer to be inside, it’s to hot outside with all those clothes on 😂 I really need to start setting the alarm for a lot earlier than 6.30 probably more like 5am, at the height of summer it will be 4am 🙄 just so I can get stuff done outside lol.

We are coming to the end of asparagus season but I did pick some yesterday along with some peas, I didn’t get to use them yesterday what with one thing and another so I am eating them today. I just googled asparagus and peas and a plethora of recipes came up, mostly risotto which I am not keen on. But one recipe caught my eye and that’s what I am making for my lunch, the dressing alone is amazing 🤩 and could easily be used instead of Mayo for potato salad or coleslaw. 1tbls Greek yoghurt, half teaspoon of honey and a teaspoon of mustard plus a squeeze of lemon. I use the Fage 0% so it’s really healthy as well 😁 Then chop the asparagus, and some bread (I just used half a bread roll) coat in a tbls of olive oil and roast in the oven. Hard boil two eggs and when they are all cooked toss in the dressing along with some peas, add a bunch of green salad and voila a seasonal salad. In my case most of it is home produced so that makes me even happier, the whole lot comes in at around 400 calories depending on the various amount you chose to use, I had 1/4 cup peas and 100g asparagus.

Trying to think what I did in the afternoon, pootled about a bit maybe. Although John was supposed to be off he had a job to go and do in the morning, then he came home around 11.30 had a cup of tea and had to go and do another job that he had forgotten he had booked in, it’s no wonder we never get anything finished around here 🙄 Eventually he came home, had a shower to use up the hot water and then drained down the cylinder, we got it out and he had take out some of the pipe work. The airing cupboard needs refitting and boarding out which is what he is doing at the moment (7.30pm) Meanwhile I had to go and feed the hens and collect the eggs, I had to leave it until the heat had gone out of the sun but it was still quite warm. I got the washing in as well which is also in the sun and now my energy levels have dipped quite a bit and I feel lethargic to say the least. It is really rather rotten sometimes I feel quite trapped inside when I really want to be outside.

Oh I remember what took me a while in the afternoon, downloading our coronavirus vaccination status, easy on my phone, not so easy on Johns 😜 And to add to the confusion both the Astra Zeneca and the Pfizer have now had their names changed, when you read it you think, that’s not the jab I had, but it is, they have just changed identity 🤷‍♀️

I put the animals to bed tonight as John was still working, I topped up the waters ready for the morning as I went and I also got Biscuit in from the paddock and put her on restricted grazing again. She does really well, she has had laminitis in the past where she was before but so far since we have had her we have managed to keep it under control. Jack is next for restriction as he is getting a bit fat, he won’t like that but he has no choice if he carries on as he is he will explode lol. I saw a barn owl flying low in the field behind while I was bringing biscuit in 🥰🦉

Wednesday: Lovely day, plenty of sunshine. Kicked of the day with the usual jobs then John got on with the airing cupboard and I went straight outside. I didn’t come back in for breakfast until nearly 10 as I wanted to catch as much shade as possible to get things done. I did get John to help me move the gazebo to an area I wanted to work on that gets the sun pretty quickly. I watered a few things first and the lovely Elodi clematis I planted the other day has been scratched up by something and broken pieces off, I have now covered it with a cloche and taken in the broken bits to see if I can root them in water. After watering one of the first jobs I wanted to get done was the big tunnel, don’t want to be in there once it starts to get hot 🥵 I weeded it all, despite putting down barrier to try and keep them under control they still managed to grow round the edges of the tunnel. And then I sorted out the strawberries, so far I have picked two bowls of them but the wood lice and slugs always manage to ravage them so I have tied the plants up in an effort to lift the berries away from the ground and hopefully that way I will get lots more. I had a few tomato plants that were in there that haven’t been planted, they are still in pots but there is no more room so I decided to plant them outside and if they produce, that’s great and if not it doesn’t matter much. The cucumbers are romping away in the tunnel but the melons are struggling, I need to do a bit of research to see what exactly are the best conditions as I never seem to get much from them. On then to the fruit cage, this is an area where bindweed is prolific, it strangles everything but once it is growing well I just go in and rip it up, it doesn’t stop it, I have tried for years to stop it, but it does knock it back and give the fruit bushes a chance. After that I weeded the broad bean bed and nipped out the tops of the plant, it already is showing signs of blackfly and taking the tops out will also slow the blackfly down so that the plant can do what it is supposed and produce beans. The blackfly is quite bad this year, I have noticed it on lots of things, I intend to blast them off with the hose later this evening. The last job before lunchtime was pricking out foxglove seedlings and potting on some dwarf rudbeckia, most of these will be going into the front beds when they are big enough, might as well fill them with what I have rather than going buying something else 😜 Going round today I have noticed how dry everything is again, we haven’t had rain for a few weeks, we don’t have any forecast for the next couple of weeks and the temps are set to keep climbing, looks like I will be watering a lot 🙄

When Kellee came to visit last week she took some lovely photos of the place, something I never really do and furthermore she wrote something quite lovely about her visit, I know she won’t mind me sharing:

and then there is the flourishing Frieslands Farm which is still in the family, owned, massively improved and tended by Dawn Pearse and her hubby John who have made this place a harmonious, ecologically perfect garden of Eden favouring the natural life cycles of all the creatures! How I thrill every time I witness this beautiful relationship Dawn has with this sacred land. Thank you Dawn. You are such a tremendous inspiration to me and hopefully hundreds of other people who care about the health of our planet. 💚

It was fairly overcast in the afternoon so after lunch and a sit down I was able to get on with some more bits and pieces outside though I can’t remember what lol. In between getting the dinner cooked I watered the front beds as some things are struggling with the dry, a lot of it is fine but recently planted needed a boost. I also planted some more dwarf rudbeckia in the front bed and one or two other things I have been growing on in pots, might as well fill it full, keeps the weeds down. Around 7.30 I went to water the fruit cage, I have a lot in pots, Bush cherry, olive, fig, blueberries and some yellow raspberries, they were all looking dry. I could see some storm clouds on the horizon, I could smell the rain and hear the thunder but I watered anyway, I have been here before where I have left it thinking the storm will come our way but it always goes round. It did spit a little while I was doing it but not much. Then shelley FaceTimed, well Josh actually, to tell me he passed his grading at martial arts 🥰 and it was raining well at her place. That is only a mile or so as the crow flies but as yet we still have not had a decent wetting here 😝 We are quite high up compared to the surrounding area, not high enough to have a magnificent view mind you but about 400m higher, that and the fact that the brook runs round us at a much lower level about 1/2 a mile away seems to be the reason that the weather fronts go around, they follow the lay of the land. So it’s 8.30pm and it looks like I will have to go out and finish doing the watering after all as I can see clear sky on the horizon now, bugger that 🤪

I went out and watered the squash as the rain never made here 🙄

Thursday: The week is whizzing past! Overcast from the start this morning but still warm, typical because today is the day of the partial eclipse but does not look like we will see much due to the amount of cloud cover.

John did the animals and then got on with the airing cupboard, putting it all back in and re fitting the shelves which have all had to be altered. The problem with the cupboard was the dust, because it’s in the boot room the dust seeps into the airing cupboard. Now he has reboarded it all and sealed all the joints so that it hopefully stays dust free, he has had to move the heater switch as well, it was on the inside and difficult to reach, now it’s very accessible outside 😁 I watched him do the copper pipe work last night, brought back plenty of memories of when I would go to work with him at the weekends way before we had children, he is still good at it although as I said to him, I remember when bending the pipe was a lot less effort than it seems now 😂 He has also taken off the ladder rails in the bathroom which were on the wet system, drained them down, cleaned them out and refilled them with thermal oil, they will also now be electric.

Meanwhile I was outside mostly weeding the front beds, I set an alarm on my watch for 11.05 to see if I could see any sign of the eclipse. I have mostly been weeding the ‘weedy’ bed, this one is slowly going how I want it to, it’s mostly a flowering shrub border but has other things that will readily self seed in there too. Love in a mist, poppies, verbena, forget me not, foxglove, sweet woodruff, creeping phlox, the idea is based on woodland really, a garden copse I suppose you might call it and I want it to evolve as naturally as possible. I have taken some photos and you will see that there are big gaps but I am hoping the shrubs will fill these (eventually) and the self setters will fill in the smaller gaps. I don’t want to rush this bed but it does mean I have to weed it all the time until the plants establish well enough, this time next year it should be fairly full.

The other beds also have their own personalities although these I am happy to keep adding to with plants I have grown or ones that take my fancy when I am at the garden centre 😜

This one is a cottage garden bed, full of roses, delphinium, lupin, nepeta, primroses, stocks, chrysanthemum, dahlia, Hardy geranium etc, still work in progress and yet to look at its best but getting there.
A different view of the same bed.

The third one which is in front of the building doesn’t really have a character as such but it is becoming a favourite of mine. It is full of spring bulbs which have now mostly gone over and a lot of my favourite plants, salvia, geum, achillea, huechera, aliums, asters. It also has a lot of summer flowering bulbs in plus bedding plants and the forest pansy tree, a mish mash of all things wonderful. Again a lot of this will fill out massively so by the end of the season it will look full and colourful. No doubt there will be things I want to move come autumn but that’s all part of the fun of gardening 🥰

My alarm went off at 11.05 and I stood up to have a look skyward, nothing but clouds so I carried on for another 20 mins. I stood up to stretch and voila a break in the cloud and I could see the eclipse, my phone was on the table by the door so I ran to get it and by the time I had the cloud was back 😂 However there was another tiny break coming up so I waited and…….

……here it is, the partial eclipse of the Sun lol.

I did a bit more weeding before stopping for lunch, I made John a sandwich as well and then Shelley and Florence arrived to help do some gardening. Shelley did some weeding in the fruit cage for me while I introduced Florence to vegetable growing 😁 we looked at the peas, picked a pea pod, opened it and ate them, then we went onto doing the same with the carrots and finally onto the strawberries growing in the tunnel. Florence’s words when she saw them were ‘oh my goodness’ it is fabulous to be able to teach children not only where their food comes from, how it is grown but also how amazing it tastes when it’s freshly picked. If I can pass on just a little bit of knowledge and spark of interest then who knows it may develop into a passion for growing their own 🥰

I seriously can’t say it loud enough or often enough, growing your own fruit, veg, herbs is one of the most rewarding things, the sense of achievement when you taste your first crop of the year never diminishes, not for me at any rate. That first strawberry, tomato, pea, apple, plum, carrot, whatever it is, is pure delight. The wait seems like forever in fact I was thinking the other day that if people even knew how long a crop of something takes to grow they probably wouldn’t waste anything. The onions alone have now been in the ground for about 8 months, they should soon be ready to harvest and dry for storing but don’t waste that half an onion people, use it for something else or chop it and freeze it 😜

John went off at just gone 4 to collect a clothes airer someone is selling for a fiver, bargain. I have one already and have decided that the line can go and will use these outside the back door which gets all the morning sun and then is shady in the afternoon meaning I will be able to get it in without shrivelling up in the blaring rays on blue sky days.

I am thinking I really need to give the house a clean but at the minute the weather is not too bad for me to be outside getting stuff done, at the weekend it looks like wall to wall blue skies again and even warmer so I will wait until then. Besides I have the contents of the airing cupboard stacked around the place at the minute, I need to go through it all. Why do we (I) keep so much, the trouble is I have cushion inserts and covers from the old sofas (approx 12) well they are feather you know and who knows when I might need them 😂 Also some lovely candy stripe flannelette sheets from years ago, why do I still have them, well wouldn’t you keep them if you could 🤣 a BIG stack of tea towels, most of them came from Johns Mums house, all new, I will never have to buy another tea towel for as long as I live but will I live as long as the amount of tea towels I have 🤪 Cleaning cloths, another pile, how many do I need in reality, I am only going to use a maximum of two at any given time I suspect, the other forty are just sat there waiting for their turn 😬 They have all been used at some point, at least I am rotating them I guess. Then there are the weird and wonderful things you keep, tablecloths that hardly ever get used but too good to let go of, cooking aprons of all different types just in case I get flamboyant 🙄 a couple of costumes last used many years ago, one a dramatic Halloween queen type affair (yes I did wear that) and one is an authentic, vintage Austrian costume that belonged to Johns Mum, she gave me it many years ago and there is not a hope in hell that my matronly bust will ever, ever fit into the tiny blouse, but what do I do with it 🤷‍♀️ And then there is the bedding, duvet cover sets, as Shelley said earlier today, do we hold on to them in case we crap the bed, not once or twice but three times or more one night 😱 We might need those extra four sets over and above the two we use on a regular basis, you never know 😝 How many hot water bottles 😮well one less now as that made a ‘crispy’ noise when I moved it so that can go in the bin. Then there are the single muslin sheets 🤔 at some point in the past they have been beautifully darned, not by me I can tell you, but you don’t see those anymore so I had better keep them, a double, white cotton sheet, well you never know when you will need a ghost costume do you! Two sleeping bags, a relic of the children’s sleepover days I assume, can’t see we will be needing those anytime soon, we prefer five star these days, but they may come in handy 🤣 The mysteries of the (my) airing cupboard, I reckon I could write a book on the contents therein! I have actually made a start on clearing out, no honestly I have, I have a small pile of ‘rag bin’ stuff mostly old tea towels and cleaning cloths, that’s it so far oh and the crispy hot water bottle 😬 oh and a pile of tea towels in the washing machine to go to the charity shop (depending on how good they look when they are dry) Is there a name for the condition ‘you never know when that will come in useful’ 😖

Friday: Omg what a day 😬 After all the usual jobs I began to put all the contents of the airing cupboard back where it belongs, that was relatively easy, there is more space than before and I have got a ‘pile to go’ 😁 While I was doing that John started on decommissioning the Rayburn ready to get it out, well that has taken us nearly all day what with one thing and another. First up was disconnecting the pipes, easy, then onto taking off the tiles on the wall so that they didn’t fall off and damage the Rayburn, fairly easy as many had come loose from the heat anyway. Then onto getting the flue down, hmmm not so easy, in fact hours of pushing, pulling, heaving, tooing and froing, sawing and unscrewing, plus a bit of brute force, it was inside a fireproof box which John built and let’s just say he used the belt and braces method when he built it. After a good few hours, filthy dirty hands, getting hit on the head by debris and soot, some swearing and some tetchy moments, we finally got it out and cleared the boxing. Then It was onto trying to heave the 340kg cooker onto rollers in order to move it into the boot room where it is currently sat. Finally we got that done, tidied away, filled the skip with the rubbish, John wanted to make a cuppa and sit down and I said, just one more job lol. I have a pine cabinet I wanted to put in place of the Rayburn so we got that in, cleaned it and put it in place. We have parts of the tiled fooor missing and a chunk of the ceiling missing, a battered plasterboard bit of wall is visible but the job is a good un. Now we just need to sell the Rayburn. I have ordered new tiles for the floor, luckily they still do them but I think it will be a while before it is all ‘made good’ 🙄

We went round to see Shelley, Martin and the children in the evening.

Saturday: Looks like it is going to be warm today and getting warmer everyday through to Wednesday. Got all the usual jobs sorted first thing as well as cleaning out the Guineas and then onto sorting out the back area. This is where my store room will go, it is on the North facing side of the building so it’s ideal for keeping cool, John will build it out of ply but the concrete floor will stay as that will help to keep the temperature down in the summer months. There is a lot of tidying and sorting out to do, we plan to only have one chest freezer instead of two, using the store room will mean I can keep root veg, onions, garlic and squash without having to freeze any of it, so one freezer should be fine 🙃

That and a quick pop to the shop took up most of our day. Around 5pm I noticed some tiny meewing noises in the boot room, what I haven’t told you before now is that Jill the cat is pregnant. I knew she was getting near time and so when we sorted the airing cupboard we also rearranged an area in the boot room to put a bed up higher in the hopes she would have them there and she did 😁 The last lot of kittens we had a few years back we’re born in the stable roof which was very difficult lol, we were afraid they were going to fall down between the walls and get stuck, so this is a result. She has had four beautiful tabby kittens, two are grey tabby 🥰 It is very difficult to find genuine farm kittens these days, ones that are bred to live outside the home, are comfortable in a farm/rural environment and are good at their job. Our two came from a farm, taught to mouse by their mother and they are very good at it which is what farms and smallholders need. They don’t need cats that have come from sleeping on the bed or the sofa and are used to being stroked all day long 😂 That’s not to say that they can’t go on to be domestic petted cats just that if they learn their craft first they will be better farm cats.

Sunday: I was up early, the sun was shinning in through the curtains and so I got up around 5.30, did some watering and sat with a cuppa in the early morning sun, bliss. We are off out for an early breakfast this morning which I am looking forward to.

Lovely breakfast out and then a mooch round the garden centre, got back around 11 and pretty much did nothing the rest of the day until about 4 as it was too bloody hot 🥵 John fed the birds and I sorted the eggs and then we went round to see Sam and family who had been away for the week on holiday.

Got back had a quick bite to eat and then began a mammoth watering session which lasted until 8.30 😬 I said to John that I’m sure when I first started this, nearly 12 years ago, I didn’t have to water like I do now 🤷‍♀️ The heat from the sun seems more relentless during the day than ever before, the things I planted back in autumn and early spring are mostly fine but anything that has been planted recently needs constant watering just to keep it going 🙄

I have written this before and I’m sure I will again but everyday is a school day and if you haven’t learnt something by accident that day then find something to learn, it’s good for you. Back to today’s lesson, as Gardeners we tend to learn from the experts, watching programmes, reading about things but sometimes it’s a good idea to jump track and listen to the amateurs. I have begun to follow a few people who are not trained Gardeners’ or horticulturists but regular people who have gardened for a long time. Strawberries, we are taught, do not ripen off the plant, wrong says one chap who daily picks his strawberries (many kgs) when they only have a touch of colour on them and ripens them in the dark. This is very exciting to hear because when you wait for them to ripen, so is everything else and by that I mean slugs, wood lice, birds so you only get a small percentage of your crop. Today I have picked mine twice, once this morning and once this evening, they are sat on the side in a tub under a cloth and hopefully by morning they will be ripe. If this works, this is another game changer just like the other game changers I learnt, also from amateur Gardeners. I will let you know how it goes, or try it yourself and see what happens.

That’s it for this week, I am pooped, it is muggy, gonna be a horrible muggy night, oh joy 🤪

Posted in Friesland Farm

Spring Bank Holiday 😁 glorious sunsets & the first peas.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 31st May 2021: Bank Holiday Monday, Sam and Luke are coming over today, Luke is helping John with a few things round the farm that he can’t do by himself including taking down the ash tree in the garden next to the greenhouse 🙄 I was going to do a roast but it was forecast to be quite hot so we scrapped that idea, we do t really do bbq, neither of us like standing there cooking over hot coals when it’s hot 🥵 so we are having a picnic in style. I cooked a leg of lamb in the slow cooker overnight we will have that cold in rolls along with various salads including an aubergine and chickepea salad which I have prepped this morning. Great use of that aubergine I was given, cut into thick slices, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill, then do the same to the other side. Meanwhile rinsed a can of chickpeas, make a dressing from paprika, honey, olive oil and lemon juice, chop up some onion, I used spring onions but any will do, chop some coriander, mix all together and add the quartered aubergine slices, mix again, enjoy.

Before prepping food I went out and picked purple sprouting and a few asparagus spears that were long enough, John did the morning feeding and letting out before creosoting some rails. I am not too happy about creosoting these days but the preservative they use these days is awful and the wood does not last more than a couple of years. When you pay a lot of money for the fencing you really want it to last as long as possible. Some of our boundary fences are original and they would have been put up in the seventies, ore soaked in old oil, bad I know but that’s what they did then and they do last a very, very long time because of it.

This years bank holiday is definitely going to be a ‘spring’ for everyone, last year we were locked down, this year we have a lot more freedom and I am sure people will be taking full advantage of it 🥰 I just heard that next year we will have a four day spring holiday to celebrate 70 years since the ascension to the throne of our Queen, big parties will be planned all over the country I think.

Well what a fabulous day we have had today, Luke came over and got some welding done and then moved onto cutting down the ash tree. Shelley, Josh and Flo popped in and helped to load the trailer and had a ride in it. They left then Sam arrived with the children, I was getting lunch ready when Charlie and Macca also popped in, together with my sister who was working on the caravan we all sat and had a lovely lunch in the garden. Sue went back to the caravan work, John and Luke carried on cutting the trunk up, Sam filled up a washing bowl with water for the kids to play in and I remembered we had a paddling pool from last year so we got that out, the kids stripped off and played the rest of the afternoon in there 🥰 Lovely day indeed, we are now knackered 😂

But it doesn’t end there for us lol, even if we are knackered there is still the afternoon jobs to get done, some tidying up left to do, a quick bite to eat and then out in fox patrol for the evening. Usually I do the watering in the greenhouse and tunnels, plus the newly planted veg. John wanders round checking on everything and then eventually we can get the birds into bed and relax. Tonight I have set up the wildlife camera to see if I can capture and footage of anything 👀 it will be interesting viewing in the morning hopefully.

Oh my feet hurt 🦶

Tuesday: Another lovely day, I was up with the early alarm even though we didn’t need to be as John is off today, still I find it’s easier to get on in the cooler mornings than later in the day. I started off indoors though as I wanted to get the boot room hoovered, the dust and debris on the floor was getting a bit much. Put some washing on and then outside, do the egg shed, water the plants in pots out there then onto some early morning weeding, hang the washing out at one point, prick out some foxglove seedlings etc etc. Once the heat gets up and the sun gets round I generally give up usually around lunchtime and besides I have work to do later in the day so I need some down time as well. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo at lunchtime, they bought lunch with them and then played in the garden for a few hours. We played a board game and then with the bubbles and then onto some drawing, they can’t use the garden at home at the minute as they are having building work done lol. All the while John was busy sorting out scrap ready to take to the scrapyard for weighing in. When he got back he came and sat in the garden with us all.

We had a rest in the cool in the afternoon before commencing with the afternoon jobs around 5, a quick bite to eat and some paperwork and then I went out to do some watering, the greenhouse, the tunnels, the newly planted squash, bean and sweetcorn plants. I then got some more straw and filled up the trial potato beds, I am not sure how this is going to work out, so far I’m not convinced but time will tell. One mistake I made was writing on the wooden surround the names of the potatoes, well that has all but washed off in the rain so it’s guess the variety time 😜 Last job of the day was to go and water the squash in the ménage, John did it last night for me but I think he missed a few 😂 not surprising really as he wouldn’t know what they look like anyway. One thing to note is that the plants I actually planted have faired a lot better than the ones I sank in pots so I may go and plant those properly tomorrow. Something has been digging near them again though none have been damaged so far.

It’s just gone 9pm, I have just come in to write this and John is still out of fox watch and putting to bed duties.

I have been trying to find an answer to a question I have about the hazel trees, at this time of year the leaves are sticky (if you walk, under a low branch it gets in your hair) I assume it is honeydew, everything I Google tells me it’s honeydew. Honeydew is caused by insect infestation of one sort or another and supposedly it’s not good for the tree, but and it’s quite a but, we have this every year and every year we still get a fantastic haul of Hazel’s and the trees are in great condition. Other observations over time include the amount bees that are attracted to the trees presumably because of the honey dew and birds that are attracted to them because of the insects. So my question was, is this a natural secretion? I can’t see any sign of infestations and the whole thing seems to be beneficial rather than detrimental. One year I actually thought there was a swarm there was such a hum but it was a lot of individual bees feeding 🙄 Is this natural, I mean, Google doesn’t know everything does it 😂 maybe it’s a long forgotten occurrence 🤷‍♀️ If you know then do tell me.

Wednesday: Oosh it’s warm today touching 26c, muggy with it and thunderstorms are forecast later. That will be good as I won’t have to do any watering. Apart from the basics we have both had the day off today, we got up early got jobs done and then went out before it got too warm. We had breakfast out and I bought a couple of plants, had a wander about before setting off back home. On the way back we called into a local village recreation ground where Shelley, Flo and Josh were having cake at the cafe. When we got home it was lovely and cool indoors, it’s like we have air conditioning 😂 nice when it’s so hot outside. Early afternoon we went off to another local park where Shelley, Sam and all the kids were meeting up for lunch and a play together, we played for a short while before leaving them to it and coming back home again.

The weather was really oppressive, enough to cause a headache or maybe it’s just me 🤪 We had the tiniest rain shower and then it stopped, I’m hoping we get a bit more overnight.

While I was out watering the plants that are out for sale I noticed the apple tree has powdery mildew 😖 there is always something 🙄 It is a combination of things that has caused it, firstly the mild winter hasn’t done any good because pests and disease haven’t died off. I know it was a long winter but it wasn’t that cold, secondly we had all that rain, again not the best conditions and thirdly we didn’t prune it back when we should have done which means the growth it a bit thick and the air can’t flow as it should, resulting in powdery mildew this time. I have pruned off the worst of it, the tree is huge and luckily most of it is near the bottom so I have done what I can for now. I need to spray it and I will either use milk which apparently works well or neem oil, I have both so a case of deciding which I think will be better 🤷‍♀️ I can’t spray the whole tree obviously but I can spray some of it and hope for the best.

John thinks we have lost a few more hens, seriously I am at the point where I wonder, what is the point.

Thursday: John is having a week off this week BUT it was Bank Holiday on the Monday, today he has gone to work for the whole day and tomorrow he is working the whole day and Tuesday he spent sorting out plumbing stuff, great week off!

He did the morning rounds before leaving and then it’s me on me tod so I sorted out washing to put on, the eggs to put out and then go some bread on the go.

While I was waiting for the bread to go through the two proves I did a bit of hoeing in the front beds and planted the two new plants I bought. One is a ground cover clematis which should look amazing once it gets going the other is a gorgeous low growing pink flowering shrub that the bees are already feeding on. Back indoors to decide on what will be for dinner this evening.

The bread is now baked and meanwhile I have been making a Moroccan rice salad to go with my lamb chop later, ordering a birthday present for John, his birthday is on Monday and organising a gathering for Sunday. Luckily we have plenty of room here for 30 plus other paddocks which could technically hold 30 more each 😜 We have a big family, if we all get together (which is rare) there are 60 of us 🤪 that is just Mum and Ken, their children (me included) their grandchildren and their great grandchildren, most of us live close by and so we see each other all the time especially birthdays 😂

I went out to the greenhouse mid morning, it’s overcast but warm today with the occasional peek of the sun. I potted on two tomato plants which I will grow on in the greenhouse, I have a bit of everything everywhere this year, I am hoping to find out which is the best place to grown certain things. Normally all the tomatoes go in the tunnels and one or two outside but leaving some in the greenhouse will give me an idea of if that is also any good for them or if it is too hot. The peppers and chilli love it in there, I think tomatoes might struggle a bit but we will see. I also planted out two more courgette plants and then some climbing French beans, nearly finished with the planting now. I do have two more small trays of runner beans though, no idea what I will do with them 🙄 I will keep them going just in case any that are planted out fail I think. I just have a few more squash to plant out once they have hardened off, crown Prince which are the lovely blue pumpkins and a couple of spaghetti squash and butternut squash, one table king and the musque de something or other 🤷‍♀️ that’s it for planting out then, but there will still be work to do. The purple sprouting is coming to an end, John and I had it the other night and the stems are getting a little bit too stringy for eating. The rest of the plant will feed the Guineas so no waste there, one I will leave to go to seed and collect that ready to sow some more for next year. It is such a useful crop to have when there is nothing else around even though it takes forever to mature. The ground it is on I will clear and leave to recover, I will probably put some home made compost on there and then cover it. I have been growing in that ground continuously for three years I think so it needs rest and rejuvenation. I dug up a mini kiwi that has tried twice to come into leaf in the garden but each time the frost has got it, I will pot it up and see if I can rescue it and then overwinter it in the tunnel before putting outside next spring well after the frosts have gone.

I picked some asparagus spears in the afternoon, I had spotted them earlier when I was planting courgettes and thought, I need to pick those. They grow at a great rate of knots and if you miss them they become a fern, we also have asparagus beetle here and so picking the spears is a good way to knock back the numbers. The beetles lay little tiny eggs on the spear stems but they can easily be wiped off with your finger, no harm done, to the asparagus at any rate 🙄 I dug up a few leeks earlier, they have been in the ground all year and need to come out before they spoil. I often use leeks in place of onion, no point going to buy onions when I have leeks to use up. On the side in the kitchen I now have leeks, asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce and the acquired butternut squash, I need to figure out what I am going to do with it all. I think the asparagus will be a side dish for dinner later, I may cook it and stir it into my rice dish while John can have it with his chop and potatoes. The lettuce can go into salad which I will have with the rice and a chop, I can also use some more of the peppers I also acquired, that leaves the rhubarb the leeks and the squash to sort out.

I thought I would take a quick look in the small tunnel to see if any peas were ready, yes they were 😁 so John will have asparagus and peas with his dinner tonight. Peas need picking regularly, they will then produce more peas, if you don’t pick them they think their job is done 🙄 The pea pod is the seed for next years plants after all and once they have successfully produced some pods they don’t need to do anymore, as a grower (and avid pea eater) we trick the plant into making more by taking the ones they have already produced, damn and blast it they think, I will have to produce more flowers now and ultimately more pea pods 😂 This applies to a lot of veg, take away this years seed and it will do its upmost to produce more, good eh, well for us anyway.

A bit of a sit down after dinner and then I went out to potter around in the garden and do a bit of watering in the tunnels. I also watered the fruit cage, well the fruit in pots anyway. It keeps trying to rain but never really amounts to much. I took a few lavender cuttings while I was out there, I will take a few every now and again and see if they amount to anything. The setting sun was glorious tonight, it bathed the next field in a golden glow, it bathed everything it touched in a warm golden glow it was a sight to behold. How lucky are we to see that on a regular basis 🥰

Friday: Not a bad day again, overcast but warm most of the day. I started off doing the usual bits in doors, loading the egg shed for the day, watering the squash plants, making sure the horses had plenty of water and potting up some more lemon grass seedlings. I also watered a few of the things that have been recently planted just to keep them going, not rain forecast for a while yet. Then I had a quick half hour catch up with a friend over from the US before Shelley came to pick me up to go out for lunch. We went to Bourton on the Water, it was packed, Shelley said on the way there, it will be nice to see the place without hundreds of tourists 🤣 I have never seen it so busy, it’s one of those places we take for granted, we have always visited there right from when I was a child as my Aunt and cousins lived there, I guess you forget it is a tourist destination. We had a lovely lunch and then a wander round and an ice cream before heading for home again. Luckily for me it was overcast, a nice change to walk round without shade searching for once. When I got back I had to reload the egg shed, it had been busy while I was away and almost empty.

Saturday: Another wall to wall blue sky day 😜 I wanted to get some food shopping done as early as possible this morning so by 8.30 we were off to the shops, I am going to do a cold buffet for any family that want to come over tomorrow afternoon. It will be one of a very few times we have had the opportunity to do this at all in a year, looking forward to it.

Although it didn’t take long to get the shopping I am always aware that the temperature is going up and the sun is getting higher giving me less time to get stuff done outside in the garden. So after putting the shopping away it was straight outside to get on, a bit of watering, some potting on, John cut the lawn and suddenly I’m out of shade and so I have to come inside 🙄 I could move the gazebo but it’s already to hot for me to be out there moving stuff around, sometimes it’s just the moving between shade areas that I can feel the sun prickling my skin, nightmare really, John said I need an indoor job but I like being outside 😂

We are all waiting to see what is going to happen on June 21st, it’s supposed to be the end of all restrictions but I don’t think that will be the case. For us it’s fine as it is at the minute, we feel that we have all the freedoms we need, we can go places, see people and do the things we like doing. I feel that at some point we have just got to learn to live with the virus being around, if when the majority of people have been vaccinated we still can’t have total freedom then what is the point of vaccinating 🤷‍♀️

I put some lemon grass plants out for sale, not sure if they will sell or not, it’s not something people commonly use unless they do a fair bit of Asian cooking. But it is a beautiful grass in its own right and has an amazing smell to boot so what’s not to like. Lemongrass is a powerful antioxidant and anti inflammatory, it would make a great lemon tea, it would also flavour vodka nicely I imagine, refreshing at any rate. I was surprised at how well it grew the first time I tried growing it but it does need to be brought in over the colder months.

It is so peaceful here today totally blissful. I think having spent last summer lockdown and not much interaction the rest of the year I have forgotten how noisy places can get. Yesterday was busy and consequently noisy, today in the shop it was noisy and here all I can really hear is nature, birds mostly. Starting to go out in the world again a bit makes me thankful that we live where we do, not sure why we would ever want to go anywhere else to be honest lol.

We lost more chickens today while we were putting the shopping away this morning I think, the birds were making a noise but I thought it was because we had let the dogs back out but then we found a pile of feathers a bit later on.

Sunday: Overcast today and the threat of rain later in the afternoon, bloody typical, when you want it, it’s nowhere to be seen, when you don’t want it, whoosh he it comes 😂 We got the morning jobs done and then I spent a couple of hours, picking, watering, weeding, hoeing and at the same time diving in and out of the kitchen cooking food for later on. Meanwhile John was burning, staining, tidying, and then came round to help me edge the lawn and tidy that up. Then indoors for a rest before I start sorting out food and drink for 3pm, I already got a head start by slow cooking the lamb overnight again, it was delicious last time so may as well do it again.

June is a fabulous month in both the flower garden and the veg garden, the flowers are beginning to bloom so we have nice splashes of colour everywhere this month. The veg will slowly start to come on a s by the end of the month we should be picking a selection of peas and beans plus the onions and garlic will be ready to harvest, dry and store. One of the best things in June is elderflower, the wonderful heady smell on a sunny day is a joy, taking those heads and making cordial is a delightful treat, the taste of summer is around the corner.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Herbs, Hazel Hedges & Hens

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Monday 24th May 2021: Starting the week after being out last night and a beer sounds like a recipe for disaster luckily it was at The Harry Potter Studios and it was Butterbeer 😁 so I am ok this morning 😂 All I can say was it is epic! I didn’t really know what to expect and it exceeded expectations by a mile, just realising the amount of work and talent that went into producing these films is mind blowing, the detail and the scale is incredible. As for the physical side of the the road trip all I can say is 😳 The traffic was so heavy it took us and hour and a half to get to stokenchurch (which normally would be approx 40 mins) let alone the rest of the way to Watford. Coming back at 10 was even worse but not because of the traffic this time, it was the horrendous rain, seriously it was like driving in a monsoon!

This morning started off with the sun shinning in through the window but that soon disappeared, from the looks of the forecast this should be the last day of crap weather. I think the jet stream is on the shift finally, for two months now I have been thinking, along with everyone else I’m sure, it will be better next week, next week arrives and nope it is no better and sometimes worse lol.

John had his 2nd vaccine on Friday and has not had any side affects this time round which is good. In my opinion vaccines are the only way out of this and if you are a non vaccine person well that’s your choice as well, historically though vaccines are what safeguard the population, I doubt there would be many people walking round on this planet without modern medicine and I for one am very grateful.

I think it was last Monday that I was deciding between baking and housework, well I chose baking last time so I figured I’d better do housework this time. Hoovering, cleaning, polishing, in the hopes that as the week progresses the weather will get better and more time will be spent outside 🙄

One of my aims this year is to have much more dried produce, I want to rely less on the freezer to be able to keep the produce I grow throughout the year. Obviously jams, chutneys and fermenting are one way along with bottling (canning) but drying is also a method that is underused, by me at least. So today I picked some herbs to get started, I want create mixes as well as individual dried herbs, an Italian mix being the most useful to me alongside the traditional mix that you would use for stews and casseroles. I also am going to aim to create dried veg stock mixes, I think meat ones might be a bit too far but you never know. I began with the picking, actually I began last week with cleaning the dehydrator, and once the herbs were picked it it just a case of arranging them on the different shelves and turning it on. I will give you a quick overview of dos and dont’s just in case you want to have a go : Do pick your herbs before they start to flower, this is when they are at their best. Ideally dry the same herb on all the racks but if you don’t have enough to do that you can dry mixed batches. This has a couple of minor problems, the thickness of each herb is different so the drying times will be different. I generally put the thicker stalked of leaved herbs near the bottom and the finer ones at the top, that way they will hopefully all finish at the same time and you won’t have to waste electric on empty racks. The main thing to remember is that herbs all look similar when they are dry and green 🙄 so do try to remember what went in which rack (write a list to remind you) also as they dry they get very small, teeny tiny some of them, if they fall through the gaps they will fall onto the next layer of herbs. If you don’t mind then that’s fine but if you wanted a pure blend then it will matter. You don’t have to use a dehydrator of course, you can use a very low oven or you can hang to dry, the problem with hanging is dust, it gets everywhere and it will get on your drying herbs lol. I intend to pot them all up separately to begin with until I have enough of what I want and then I will blend them accordingly. By the way, what looks like a huge bunch when you pick it will probably only fill a tablespoon or two when it’s dry so if you want a lot then pick a lot! This morning I have picked, lovage, fennel, oregano, chive and parsley to get going with. I mentioned the Italian mix I want to make but also I think something like dill with dried lemon zest and black pepper will make an excellent mix for chicken, fish or pasta. The vegetable stock mix can be an assortment of whatever you have, just make sure that the pieces are all roughly the same size for drying. I am thinking, onion, celery, carrot, leek, garlic to start with and whatever is to hand maybe sweet potato, turnip, parsnip. Once they are dried they get whizzed in the processor and they will be ready to put in a jar and store, you can add salt and pepper or even chilli flakes if you want, just go for it and experiment. All of these things can also be dried separated of course, you would be surprised how handy a jar of celery or onion powder is and I will be making mushroom powder again this year as a flavour enhancer. The dried herb world is my oyster 😁

Drying herbs, a word of caution, make a note of what is on which tray, once dried they can all just look like dried green stuff 😜

Made some rhubarb and orange jam in the afternoon, the rain showers just keep appearing and it’s a tad cold out there, ridiculous for the end of May.

We lit the Rayburn again the other day when it rained all day long but I can’t ever remember having it going this late in the year before. We are at the stage when, if I light it the house gets way to hot but without it the house is a tad cold and feels damp in this weather. We do have the radiators in four rooms now but I don’t really want to be turning them on 😂 they are set low at around 16/17c so if it gets too cold they kick in but at this time of year, seriously 😐

It was my one of my brother in laws birthdays today so we went round saw a few other family members and had the best laughs, so good to be able to get back to some kind of normal and enjoy ourselves again.

Tuesday: I started prepping for this mornings main activity yesterday afternoon. Out of the freezer I got a lamb shank, two packs of chicken thighs, minced beef and a lump which I thought was stewing beef and luckily it was. Overnight I cooked the lamb shank in the slow cooker while everything else defrosted and so this morning I have been batch cooking. I fried off a large pan of onions, garlic and celery first and then got organised with various dinners a ready for the freezer. I am waiting for some to finish and one lot will be in the slow cooker again today but so far I have four shepherds pies, three lamb and sweet potato curries, three chicken casseroles and two chicken in lemon and garlic plus probably four or five portions of slow cooked beef stew as well as a lamb casserole for Johns dinner tonight. 18 meals all cooked and ready to freeze which will save me a lot of time over the summer months, I have used up bits from the freezer such as turnip, swede and spinach as well as pulled a few leeks from the garden and I have used some of my freshly dried herbs, I could have used fresh but I wanted to try them out. It will save cooking time and it will mean that I have something I like as well, normally I just cook and eat what John likes to save time. I realised while I was cooking that I am going to need a lidded casserole pan suitable for the hob, this will be useful because it means I don’t have to turn the whole oven on just to do Johns dinner, it can be done on the hob which is more energy efficient. I am aiming for efficiency, not because I have to but because I want to for the sake of the planet and our bank balance 😜 I use the foil dishes with the cardboard lids but I also have small plastic containers with lids, it’s a toss up really over which is better for the planet. The plastic ones can be used over and over again but they are plastic and they can get fragile in the freezer. The foil and cardboard ones are one use and so less cost effective but recyclable and in that respect better for the planet. I haven’t really come across a complete answer yet, obviously the best thing would be not use freeze anything and use everything fresh but that is a tall order in today’s busy life. Once I have used up the freezer contents in one freezer the plan is just to have a single freezer. Until now we have run two large chest freezers but we no longer have the need, we don’t rear our own meat much any more and I plan on being able to store anything I can in the store room that is yet to be built. Mostly for me this is an exercise in ‘let’s see what is possible’ let’s see how much I can preserve/store without the aid of electric and always in the back of my mind is the rest of that sentence ‘because one day we might need to’ 🤔 Never say it will never happen, this last year should have taught us that much at least.

Yesterday was the first day of the Hazel, trees have important roles in ‘lore’ of all kinds, country, Norse, Celtic, pagan, Druid to name a few. The Hazel is no exception, it is a sacred tree, divining rods are often made of hazel, it is a tree of protection from all manner of things, a tree that is a gateway to spring and the bounty it’s brings with it including birth, plenty of catkins, plenty of prams was a well known country saying until a few decades ago 😁

Popped over to see Charlie and Macca in the evening and when we got back at 9pm the first thing we heard when we got out of the car was a fox calling. John said he heard it last night as well so good job we came home well before dark and shut the hens in.

Wednesday: The sun made an early appearance this morning, 4.50 I woke up thinking it must be later and the daylight was already streaming in through the curtains. Although the sun continued to make itself seen there was a lot of cloud as well which lowered the temperature at times. After doing the eggs, dogs, cats, milk bottles, breakfast, shower, stretching exercises, I went straight out to get something done in the garden. To be honest it’s overwhelming, it’s like a jungle out there and I really had no idea where to start, but start I needed to so I picked watering the tunnels first. Then I went onto covering a large bit of weedy soil that is behind the big tunnel, I have used weed membrane and pegged it down. This will kill off the weeds and keep them controlled until I get round to planting it up. Then onto weeding the beetroot and swede rows, actually I ended up just pulling off the tops as there are so many, I am really trying to just slow them down until I have time to get on there for a good hour or more. Sam arrived with the twins mid morning, she has no electric today due to some work in the village and it’s not much fun without electric all day and two toddlers. Shelley came over with Florence after lunch and we all went for a walk along the local lane. George was fascinated by a spider he found on the ground and trying to jump in puddles, Lucy and Florence were happy running along picking flowers (dandelions) and looking at the horses and sheep. I know there is a whole gender neutral movement but the difference is something that is within some children quite naturally and that shouldn’t be neutralised for the sake of over thinking or over compensation which is what happens in some society circles today in my opinion 🙄 They can be whatever they want to be but let them be what they want not what society thinks they should want. I am quite glad I never grew up with all the pressures that the media (in all forms) force upon today’s parents, I am glad that rightly or wrongly, I knew my own mind and I wasn’t reduced to a gibbering wreck when trying to make parental decisions, even if I say so myself my girls turned out to be amazing adults so I must have done something right 🥰

I did a bit of weeding before dinner, the peas needed doing (as does everything else really) and then after dinner I walked over the lawn and decided it was dry enough to cut. No mow May was almost achieved but really the lawn has got way too long and besides we are only a few days off 😜 I cut half of it and John cut the other half, Sod’s law the sun came out full on and we were sweating buckets trying to mow foot tall grass! The weather as always is unreliably British, half the day I felt cold especially when the sun went behind the clouds, the second half I was boiling trying to work in the evening sun 🌞 Not complaining though it’s nice to see it and we are getting more as the week goes on, but then……..there is another cold front plunging in from Scandinavia according to the long range forecast, goodness knows what weather June is going to bring us and I still haven’t got some of the veg planted up yet.

Thursday: Oh what a lovely morning, wall to wall blue skies first thing and warm sunshine 🌞 John had a couple of hours work to do after he had done the birds and I went almost straight out into the garden. First off I have covered some more bare soil with weed membrane, I intend to plant the sweetcorn there but until I do I don’t want hundreds of weeds popping up all over the place. I watered the plants in the greenhouse hopefully they will get some warmth today and shoot up a bit more, it mostly peppers, chillies and aubergine left in there apart from some smaller squash plants that are just coming on. Then I opened a package that had arrived about four weeks ago and I hadn’t had chance to use it but oh my it’s a game changer for me. I don’t know why I didn’t buy one years ago, it’s a UV pop up gazebo and today I have spent 3 hours on my hands and knees weeding in the sunshine and get this bit, in a short sleeve t-shirt which is unheard of! I had the best three hours lol, the only problem with it is that I can’t easily move it to a new area by myself, today John was around but in future I will need to plan a lot better to maximise the use I can get out of it.

I spent the three hours weeding the asparagus bed which is also interplanted with strawberries, three rhubarb plants grown at the end of the bed and the herb area is at the top. The weeds are insane , the constant rain didn’t slow their growth at all so it was good to be able to get down and really clear them out. The strawberries that grow there probably won’t get harvested, I have other beds in the fruit cage that shouldn’t get eaten but these are out in the open and it won’t take the blackbirds long to figure out they are there. At least I can see where the asparagus is growing now I have thinned it all out a bit, it was like looking for needles in a haystack before.

At 2pm we had a delivery of POL hens, most of these are our own new stock but there are 20 that have been pre ordered by customers. John dealt with the unloading of those and the feed delivery and around 2.30 I came in to get some lunch. We have the twins today while Mia goes to her swimming lesson and I have a massage booked early evening so I needed to eat before chaos ensues 😂

The twins came, we played a little bit and then it was ‘unch unch’ after that we went outside to feed the torts and play in the sunshine. Sam dropped me off for my massage on their way back home.

Friday: Dull today, no sun, but the temperature is just fine 😁 I stripped the bed and put that onto wash, went out an freshened up the roadside egg board and then into the garden where I have spent the rest of the morning. Finally getting somewhere with the veg planting, I have sown all the sweetcorn, I kept a few back in case of losses. They have been sown in a block because they are wind pollinated and I have cut into the weed membrane to plant them as this bed is tricky, very heavy clay and very weedy. I am doing all I can to minimise the weeding and enable me to concentrate on the growing and harvesting when the time comes. I covered them in environmesh because animals and birds like to eat young corn greenery 🙄 After that I had a search to find something for a hack I had seen on you tube, this again is a game changer for me. The plastic weed membrane is awful, but I already have it so don’t want to waste it, when the wind gets under it shredding occurs, I have pegged it down with the raw ends tucked under so this doesn’t happen and then implemented my hack for planting. You use a weed wand or similar burner, find a metal circle though you can use a wooden template, I used a cylinder spanner, the diameter is about 6” then place it on the membrane and use the burner to burn a hole. This is hugely effective because the heat seals the edges of the circle so no shredding 😁 and a lovely little circle to dig and plant into, the membrane stays in place to keep the weeds down and again it’s hugely time saving. I have planted dwarf French beans the other end of the sweetcorn bed and butter nut squash and spaghetti squash behind the big tunnel. I also planted banana squash with the French beans as they can ramble on the ground through the beans and sweetcorn, also a couple planted near the runner beans, making full use of all the space available. I planted some courgettes near the rhubarb bed and I still have more of those to go in as well as more dwarf French beans but they are not big enough yet. So as it stands I have most things planted, I just need to get the hundreds of pumpkin and other squash plants in the ménage and the remaining courgettes in the garden once they are big enough to transplant. Feet hurt now so time for lunch.

John came home just as I was hoovering mid afternoon, at least I wasn’t sat down 😉 he was waiting for a floor to go down before going back to he job to put the toilet in, we had a cuppa and then Shelley and Flo came, they were going to help in the garden but it had started spitting with rain by then. John went back off to work, Shelley went to collect Josh from school and I went outside to water the small tunnel and then did a bit of weeding. I came in and re made the bed before going out to do the egg collecting as John will be late back. It has tried to rain on and off but not really amounted to much at all.

There is talk about June 21st and if the full reopen will go ahead or not 🙄 the Indian variant is transmitting at a rate of knots but the vaccine programme is also romping along its a race between the two at the minute. Mostly it feels as though everything is pretty much getting back to normal, it would be hard if we had to go back a step now, I have booked a couple of days out and a hair cut plus we have a holiday booked along with most of the rest of the country. We are looking forward to being able to see people on their birthdays and maybe a couple of bbqs, fingers crossed we keep going forward.

I went out and did the egg collecting and afternoon feeding rounds, then I went back and cleaned out the guinea pigs and the quail, I also cleaned out all the water buckets in the orchard pen. I need to get that lot all sorted out, we have a hen and a cockerel living with Ted, a cockerel and four hens living together then a single cockerel living out in the paddock with the flock. Two of the cockerels need to go so that I can let the others back out, at the minute they fight like billio if they get near one another 🙄 And Ted is not happy living with them, I had found him some ladies but the chap had a problem with his phone on the day we were due to meet him and collect and so far I haven’t heard anymore from him.

Saturday: Overcast this morning with spitting rain but nothing much. John did the animals and then got ready to go out for the morning with Macca to get suits for the wedding 😁 I told him not to fall over at the price 🤣 been a long time since he bought a suit! That leaves me here to potter about which is what I have been doing in the garden, I bit of tidying up rubbish and broken bits, putting the squash plants in the trolley to take to the ménage and moving over plants outside to the cold frame. It was not until I started moving the squash that I realised how many I have 😜 if they all grow there will be a squash mountain here, banana, spaghetti, butternut, pumpkin, crown Prince, de musque, and some cute little ones that I can’t remember the name of. I have hedged my bets when putting them in the ménage because I can see something has been digging. If it’s fox looking for worms then that’s not too bad but if it’s rabbits then that’s a different story, the larger plants I have just sunk the pots into the ground, I figure that way they don’t get a growth check, the roots will still continue to find there way out of the pot and into the ground and they may not get damaged. The smaller plants I have planted properly, we will see what the difference is when they start growing, they all had a good feed and water beforehand. I hope it works well, if it does I may think about using that space again to grow things, the weeds are still there in force and I thought that I could get a couple of Pygmy goats to put in there next year and they would do well at eating it all or pigs but they would do a lot more rootling around which may be detrimental, I will ponder on that one. The plants I have now been able to move outside are garden plants I have grown from seed, I have some lupin, rudbeckia and a yellow daisy that seeds everywhere, I did have it labelled at achellia but I realise it is not that even thought the leaves are very similar.

Yesterday on social media someone was giving away some padron peppers they had received in a veg box but didn’t want, I said if no one else wanted them I would love them, in return I offered a jar of rhubarb and orange jam which was gratefully accepted. When the lady turned up with the peppers today she also bought an aubergine and a butternut squash that she didn’t want either so I did well with that swap. I just need to decide what I am going to make with them now 😁

Growing your own gives you the best ingredients for your meals and they don’t have to be complicated affairs. This lunchtime I popped out to the tunnels and picked some baby spinach, some pea tops, lettuce, dill and coriander, chopped it all up and added chopped baby tomatoes, grapes and blueberries, and a thinly sliced baby bel cheese, no dressing needed (I am not keen on dressing anyway) because it was packed with flavour, fresh, flavoursome, healthy what could be better than that 😁

Popped round to Mums for a cuppa this afternoon and did the birds when we got back. On Saturday evenings we have fish and chips with my Sister and Brother in Law, today it was nice enough to sit outside. We had finished eating and were sat chatting when Shane looked across the paddock and said bloody heck (or words to that effect 😜) a fox has just grabbed a chicken. John got up and ran across with the dogs but he was long gone with his supper, we settled back down and then could hear the fox calling out the back. John got up and ran off in that direction and a large dark fox went running down the paddock and into the next field. When John was putting them to bed he noticed that about 4/5 hens have been had, feathers in the paddocks in various places. That all took place around 7pm, two hours before the hens go to bed and he kept coming back.

Sunday: Lovely sunshine first thing this morning then it disappeared behind thick cloud and hasn’t come back as yet and it’s 11am. We got sorted and then went to get a bit of food shopping first thing, Sam and Luke are coming over tomorrow, Luke is going to help John get a few things done and we will have a big picnic 😁

I was thinking of going out somewhere nice today but the foxes have scuppered that idea, we can’t go out for a few hours and leave the hens unsupervised, we wouldn’t have any left when we got back probably. That’s the problem with a free range flock and predators, we are kind of tied to the place daily. We may start to think about winding down the egg sales altogether over the next couple of years, things have definitely slowed right down here anyway. We may keep a lot less birds that can be penned to keep them safe if we want to go out for the day 🙄

A friend told me it’s national hedge week this week, hedges are hugely important to our insects, birds and wildlife, they provide much, much more than people realise. They are an ecosystem in their own right especially hedges of a decent age, they provide shelter, protection, food, soil stability, flood control, wildlife homes for pollinators, pest predators, pests themselves (valuable food sources) they keep livestock in or out and are of course a carbon sink. When humans want to rip out hedges they are only thinking of themselves and not what else shares this world with them. Most of it is because they don’t understand fully the detrimental effect it will have on the wildlife, usually the wildlife they have moved to the country to see, I find it ironic that people rip out hedges to get a better view of the surrounding countryside, um, that is part of the countryside 😂 The times people have said to us ‘you should take that hedge out so you have a better view’ of what? fields without hedges 🤷‍♀️ I would rather build a platform to get up higher. Replacing hedges with garden centre plants that are not even native does nothing at all to help, it’s like sticking a plaster over a hole in the side of a ship. Thank goodness there are folk out there who are rewilding though I doubt they can keep up with the ones that are destroying, it needs a whole mindset change, education is key, understand how your actions impact your environment. I talked about managed hedges as well, anything that is managed is purely for human benefit and control. Though managed hedges look good (to the human eye) are they really beneficial? A hedge if left will grow, get old, break down and regrow, it’s a cycle that we no longer allow, we feel that we are doing the best thing for the hedge keeping it tamed and in ‘good condition’ but there is more to the cycle. The deadwood is vital to ground dwelling insects, which in turn are vital to airborne insects and birds and guess what the hedge will regrow by itself if left. We have a classic example down on the far side of the bottom paddock, once there was a stone wall, I guess the hedge wasn’t there when it was erected by farm hands many many years ago. A hedge has grown up over the years (by itself mostly) and now it has got old and is dying, there is a lot of dead wood and the wall is falling down. Trying to get John, or any bloke (sorry for the sexist remark but this is my experience) for that matter, that stands and talks about it, to see beyond clearing it right out completely and starting again is like pushing a stubborn elephant uphill! Why, why would you want to clear out an established multifunctional wildlife habitat that is thriving, there are companies that charge a small fortune to replicate that 😂 I stand there and point out the obvious, the hedge is regrowing from the ground by itself why scrub all that out and start again, better to leave a tumbling down wall, dead wood and let the hedge sprout up naturally surely, it’s not rocket science is it 😜 But no, humans seems to need to ‘tidy’ everything back to a clean area and then fill it up again with something no where near as useful 😬 Put it this way if the human race disappeared tomorrow completely the wildlife would carry on and thrive without us ‘managing’ everything in fact it would probably be much much better off, sad but true.

How weird is this after I wrote about thinking along the lines of winding down the chickens John came home from getting fuel and said ‘I think we might start winding down the chickens and egg sales’ lol, seriously. Now we are other completely in tune with each other after so many years together or, which is more likely, we are both astute enough to see the situation as it is. At times over the years we have been so rushed off our feet with all that comes with egg sales that we haven’t had time to stop but lately it has completely slowed right down, I am pushing them but the response is not there. There are two reasons I think for this, one, we sold a lot of chickens during the lockdown last year, some of these were egg customers though not all that many, two, the farm shop next door has taken off really well and they are also selling eggs. If someone is going to call in to get bacon for their breakfast they might as well get eggs while they are there, they sell a lot of other things too and again you may as well pick up eggs while you are at it. This will be sad for our loyalist of customers and we do have some very loyal ones but we can’t keep going at something that is not making any money much as we might enjoy it. It will free up our time hugely, the time spent looking after the birds isn’t even in the ‘profit’ entry because I am here anyway but if it was we would have been running at a loss for years 😂 It was never our intention to sell eggs we just kind of fell into it, have enjoyed it but the time has come to start thinking about giving it up. We have just had a new lot of hens delivered and so will be running for at least another year yet, don’t panic, but gradually we will be winding down that side of things.

I am not sure yet where that will leave my blogging, it probably won’t affect it, I will still keep blurbing after all it’s more of a life diary than anything. It is a way of getting things out of my head when necessary (see hedges above 😂) It’s a written record of day to day life in rural Oxfordshire, not very exciting but it is a snapshot of real life.

Late afternoon early evening we were down in the big paddock taking out a fence, this is one of two cross fences being replaced, it also meant we were down where the foxes (there were two different ones) were seen last night. Once we had finished that we had to stay on patrol for the rest of the evening, taking it in turns to come inside and get something to eat before swapping back over, John is still out there now. No sign of anything today but they are known as cunning for a reason, they will be watching and the minute you are not that’s when they strike 🤪

Enjoy the bank holiday, hopefully the sun will shine, if it does you will find me eating my picnic in the shade 😂

Posted in Friesland Farm

More rain 🌧 some planting up & my 2nd vaccine 😁

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 10th May 2021: OMFG! I have just typed up today’s page and accidentally discarded it 🤬 so I have to start again, I was initially distraught then I realised it was only Monday so I hadn’t lost that much 😂

The weather looked promising this morning, not cold, not too warm, not too sunny and not raining, breezy which rose to pretty windy during the afternoon but all in all an ok day.

I started off this morning cleaning the boot room surfaces, sorting out the dehumidifier, putting out eggs, putting on washing etc etc, then as per my plan I went into the greenhouse.

Sorting out plants was my main objective, moving them to the tunnels, moving them to the cold frames, discarding anything that hadn’t made it and resowing anything that had gaps (mostly dwarf beans) I rang John who was working in Oxford and asked him to get some compost on his way back as I have plenty that need potting on. The rest of the time I have spent in the big tunnel planting cucumbers and tomatoes. They have had plenty of tlc as I don’t want to plant them up half hearted and not get a good return, so each plant has some spent mushroom compost at the base, some pelleted chicken manure, more mushroom compost on top and then I have covered the soil with black fabric weed membrane which will not only keep any weeds under control but keep the roots warm and some moisture in as well. If I don’t get a good haul from that lot then there is no hope. The tomatoes have had the same treatment, firstly I had to put in some pallet collars as raised beds because when I dug down the clay was just under the surface. When we sited the tunnel years ago we didn’t do a test dig (big mistake) and soon realised it was on a wide clay seam 🙄 I have tried for a few years to improve the soil but to no avail, so enter pallet collars and raised beds. The collars are great, these are 1200 x 1000 and just the right height to grow in, we also use them stacked to put sieved home made compost in as well, they can then be taken down as we use the compost and they fold so stack neatly away.

I have got some tomato plants left so I will squeeze them in where I can, you can never have too many tomatoes 🍅 I have rather lost the plot when sowing tomato seeds though as I have another tray coming on in the greenhouse, I will have to put them out for sale as I really don’t need any more 😂

There is always a sense of satisfaction when you turn garden trimmings, duck bedding and old plants into useable compost 😁

I have now put the runner beans and sweetcorn plants out in the cold frame they should be fine, the only plants not out there yet are the squash plants because they are quite fleshy and any frosty nights will not be good for them, they can wait a while longer. That will just leave the pepper, chilli and aubergine plants in the greenhouse which is where they will stay to grow on and produce fruit, they like the incredible heat that the greenhouse gets in the summer months.

Planted up the other box with tomatoes in the afternoon, John came home around 3.30 so I stopped for a cup of tea and a sit down, then someone came to get some plants I had put by, then it was time to get dinner sorted. I have had dinner and am toying with the idea of doing another stint this evening, as yet undecided, I may get too comfy sat here 😜

May 10th is World Lupus Day, I have Lupus, it does not have me, it is the wolf within, rears it’s ugly head sometimes but with fabulous Doctors and Consultants we manage to get it under control. Before I was diagnosed I had never heard of it 🤷‍♀️ if you haven’t, look it up 😁 🦋

Tuesday: John has gone to work again today but did the feeding and letting out of the birds before he went. Meanwhile I sorted a hotchpotch dinner for later, not really that much of a mash up but various bags of half used veg and a previously cooked chicken leg have now gone into the slow cooker with some frozen chicken stock. Then it was onto getting washing sorted, rubbish out, eggs out, feed cats and dogs, go out and feed the horses and Guineas before starting on watering the tunnels. After that I finally got into the greenhouse and potted on the peppers, some cucumbers that have gone out for sale along with some tiny tomato plants. I sowed some more squash, runner beans and French beans, might as well have too many than not enough. Then onto the front beds and plant up some quick filler plants I bought, snapdragons, pinks and verbena. I also planted some flowers I grew from seed in a different bed, Californian poppies, cornflower and sweet rocket which have all gone in the flowering shrub bed. That bed will look as near to ‘woodland/wild’ as I can get it to look and it is full of nectar rich plants for the insects. Then it began to rain, up to then it had been a nice day, some sunshine, not windy and not cold, at least the rain will water everything in but I was hoping to get some weeding done, that will now have to wait. I will have a quick lunch break and then probably plant up the melons in the big tunnel.

It’s 2pm, to be honest I thought it was later than that, I didn’t do the weeding, instead I have spent two hours filling up the last raised bed which is by the new fence and gate at the back. We still have the drive to finish but John built the bed a while back, today I put down weed membrane and then filled it with soil. The soil came from various places, leftover mushroom compost, leftover topsoil, pots that had bulbs in them and left over soil (ones I didn’t plant in the other beds) and then a couple of barrowfuls from the compost heap. Then it was onto planting, there is an elderflower and a sumac that grows there and I wanted to leave those in, everything else was just plants I had lying around waiting for something to happen to them. I am going to call this the Bertie Basset bed as it has all sorts in it 😜 There is no plan to this bed it is just what I have lying around, stocks, achillea, crocosmia, viola, Hardy geranium, a couple of things I have no idea what they are yet, some pots of cornflower and poached egg seeds, dill, coriander, a tamarisk, and another shrub that I think is an ornamental currant but time will tell, there are also some sweet peas for good measure. All plants I had potted up to use at some point, I also dug up some forget me not which will readily self seed over time. I then netted it over for a day or two because the cats will think that ‘the lady that feeds’ them has built a new deluxe toilet area for them 😂 It will be interesting to see how this bed develops, some things are thuggish but they can be dug up or dug out in the autumn if they take over too much. The seeds I have put in pots and then sunk the pots, this is because there will be weeds growing in this soil and so if I know where the seedlings are they won’t get massacred in the weeding process. Job done it is time for a sit down, my feet are hurting, always a good cue for time out.

I did go back out with a cup of tea and did some hand hoeing on the broad bean and onion bed just before John came home.

Did you know that Oxfordshire is probably the most historically rich county in England, no nor did I until I was reading up about a few things. My brother has made an exciting and potentially important discovery near to where he lives, he was tidying a hedge and trying to get water to run away when he made a find, most people would have thought it was just rubble. The potential is great so much so that geophysics were done and now some trenches are being dug and explored, can’t say much more than that at the minute but the experts are excited and if it turns out to be what they think then my brother will get some of thecredit for the find, how fab is that 🥰 I got interested when geophysics were mentioned lol, I love the thought of what is under our feet from hundreds if not thousands of years ago, we bumble along with absolutely no idea of what has gone before which I find fascinating. I remember the point I became intrigued when I discovered that although the Romans built extensive settlements here and had all kinds of statues and monuments, by the time the Vikings arrived, a difference of around 3/400 years, nobody really knew who these artefacts belonged to, mind blowing, you’d think the knowledge would have been passed on but we seemed to go into regression, again I find that fascinating. I guess it goes hand in hand with my interest in the apocalyptic because of course that is exactly what would happen if civilisation was brought to its knees, we would have to start again and that would take hundreds of years to rebuild current systems by which time a lot of knowledge is lost 🙄

Wednesday: Whoop whoop 2nd vaccination day 😁 I felt quite emotional getting that done which took me a bit by surprise must have had some tension even though I didn’t realise it. We were up early as I had it booked for 8.40, it was busy when we got there but the efficiency was incredible and I went straight in, waited my 15 minutes and then left, job done.

Back home I decided not to do anything strenuous, I had two big glasses of water and some paracetamol just in case 🙄. I have spent the last two days in the garden so today I can take a more relaxed approach to jobs. Yesterday I got some frozen plums and some elderberries out of the freezer so this morning I made some elderberry syrup for Charlie and three small plum crumbles, one for Johns dessert later and two for the freezer and then an extra batch of crumble mix to freeze for later use. I know I am trying to get the freezers emptied but converting produce into easy grab items will work the same way. I intend to harvest a lot of elderberries this season, they are so good for you and can be added to crumbles, smoothies, or made into syrup for a good winter vitamin c shot everyday, very beneficial.

I went out and watered the greenhouse and the tunnels then apart from cooking the dinner I haven’t done anything else really. My arm is a little sore from the injection but so far so good 😊

I ordered another radiator, for our bedroom this time.

Thursday: Up and about fairly early, John did the animals and then went off to work, I got on with the usual bits indoors and then out to feed the quail and Guineas, top up the egg shed and pick asparagus, rhubarb and lettuce to put out for sale this morning. I have saved some asparagus to have for lunch with a couple of hard boiled eggs and I will pick more lettuce to go with it, a self sufficient lunch 🥰 I have to pop out this morning to do someone a favour for an hour but as it’s raining already I won’t be missing out on outside jobs , it feels as though the rain is set in for the day. Everywhere is looking very lush and green, the hedges, the trees, the shrubs are all bursting into life and it looks wonderful.

John or rather Patch discovered a hedgehog nest the other night, very happy that they are still around, each year you never know if they have made it through or not and each year it is delightful to discover that they have 😁 The dogs can’t get at it as they have made it under pallets in the hay barn but they know they are there and John has seen them too. We are still doing no mow May though everything is looking a bit untidy I will persevere for as long as I can. The only problem will be that the grass will be long come June which will make it more difficult to cut, might even be hay by then 😜

I still have no side affects from the vaccine yesterday morning apart from a heavy feeling at the site of the vaccine, fingers crossed it stays that way 🙄

Plenty of rain today 🤪 I lit the Rayburn mid day just to take the chill off and keep the damp at bay.

Some torrential downpours 🌧

I had the twins at teatime while Sam took Mia for a swimming lesson, great for them to be able to do something a bit normal again, Shelley took Florence swimming the other day and Josh has started martial arts 😁

Friday: Heavy rain overnight and into the morning again, I thought I might wake up to find we had floated away 🙄 The overall temperature is slowly rising though, it’s no where near as cold as it was a week or so ago. Everything is looking very lush due to the rain but it would be nice to see a bit of sunshine to really show of the colours, I am not holding my breath, thundery showers are on the forecast again today.

Am feeling a little sluggish this morning, I think that’s the vaccine but it is difficult to tell as it is pretty much the same as an off day with the Lupus.

Apart from checking the tunnels and greenhouse for watering (with no sun appearance they won’t have dried out at all 😂) I doubt I will do much outside today, no point cleaning anything out in this weather, it just makes things worse, can’t really do much on the soil as again it would make things worse, so it looks like it might be cleaning the house, oh joy 🤪

I keep looking at the clock and thinking, has it stopped 🙄, I have had breakfast, put dinner in the slow cooker, topped up the egg shed, washed up, washed the duck eggs, fed the dogs and cats, put the bin out, whizzed round with the hoover and polish and wiped the bathroom round and it’s still only 9.30, I honestly thought the clock was wrong 😂 Better find some other jobs to do 😜

I cleaned out the fridge, always a great job to do lol and then as I had stuff to use up I did some baking. Two loaves of bread are now on the first prove and I have mixed up a date and pecan nut loaf ready to cook at the same time as the bread. I also had a chicken thigh in the fridge to use up and that is now in a mini roasting tin along with some asparagus, spinach, garlic, lemon, veg stock a knob of butter and some black pepper. Makes sense to make full use of the the oven heat once it’s switched on, I had better get used to doing this I think, with the Rayburn it didn’t matter as the wood was all free and some the heat was free but once that goes I need to be more energy efficient.

Omg the chicken smelt so delicious that I ate it for lunch and it was amazing, I don’t say that about many things, I cut a slice of freshly baked bread to mop up and I reckon it was a gourmet dish 👌 No pictures because I gobbled it up before thinking about it 😂

Saturday: Still damp with threats of rain and it’s not going to change much over the next few days it seems. This morning John has gone off to get feed while I sort out the usual bits and pieces.

Yesterday while I was getting the dustbin in I noticed how wonderful the lilacs were looking. We have three different colours here, a white (which is not so spectacular) a light lilac and a deep lilac which is my favourite, most of those blooms are double headed. I picked a few of each to bring some colour indoors.

The current rain and warmer temps are making the natural world look fabulous I think, it is like you have put a vivid filter on everything 😂

Looking out of the kitchen window at the minute is a pleasure 🥰 No filter needed on this!

John came back mid morning and we got the radiator on the wall and I sorted out ‘stuff’ more stuff that I have no idea why I keep it, half empty tubes of hand cream, body lotion, hair grips that have seen better days 😂 things I have had for years but also not used for years either 🙄 I need to be a bit more ruthless about moving stuff along, either to the charity shop or selling on. Then we popped out to get a bit of shopping and round to Mums to see Ken as it is his birthday today.

The rain was off and on, on more than it was off 🤪

Spent the afternoon trying to get my head around some online media pages 🤪 I am not a technophobe by any means, I come from the generation that started out on a manual typewriter, moved to a word processor and then onto dial up internet. I learnt to programme in the early days though it is way beyond me now, I wonder how many people reading this would even know what a punched card was, we used to have them in IT lessons, not that I could ever work out what we were doing with them mind you 🤣 Despite all this and trying to ‘keep up’, some of the more recent social media sites leave me a little bit fluffed 😬 The connectivity of some of them don’t seem to flow well, or maybe it’s just me 😜

Still no significant side affects from the vaccination.

The news around the world makes for depressing viewing at the minute, we’ll always but especially at the minute, I despair of the human race, I really do, peace and harmony is what I would like to see.

Sunday: A drier start to the day but still damp underfoot and still the threat of showers.

John did the morning rounds and then unloaded the feed he got yesterday and also cleaned out the ducks. Meanwhile I sorted out indoor stuff before going out and picking purple sprouting and asparagus for dinner this evening. After that I went into the greenhouse and pricked out some dwarf rudbeckia and watered the plants, gave them a check over to make sure all is well. The risk of frost should end mid May (which is now upon us) and looking at the forecast for the next week I think I will put the squash plants out to start hardening off. If I give them just over a week they should be fine but I will need to watch the weather forecast carefully just in case.

Talking about all being well and watching out for things, we have four ash trees here, I don’t know if you have heard but there is a big problem with ash die back in the south of the country. Potentially it will wipe out the ash tree population very much like Elm tree disease did with those trees, it is sad that there are generations of people who will not be able to recognise an Elm 😔 One of my ash trees is looking as though it may have succumbed but I am not entirely sure, I have been in touch with someone who will be able to tell me if it is dieback or natural splitting, my suspicions are it’s the first one of the two but I am no expert. This will mean the tree will have to come down which is tragic, I will however plant at least three or four more trees to try and make up for it 🙄

Have pottered about checking over the tomato plants and taking the side shoots off, watering, feeding them. Then planted up an aubergine in the big tunnel along with three sweet pepper plants, might as well spread things around a bit and see which gives the best results. I am surprised to see the tomato plants flowering already, that’s early in my experience usually is ma waiting ages for them to flower. The peas I planted in the small tunnel with the toms are romping along, already flowering and producing pea pods, I imagine these will peak quickly due to the heat but it’s an experiment and that’s what experiments are for, to see what happens. Going back to the aubergine, if you are growing them they do a little better if you hand pollinate them with a paintbrush, unless there are plenty of bees going in with them, doing it manually is a sure fire way to make sure they are pollinated. 🐝

Posted in Friesland Farm

A cold week, plenty of rhubarb & delicious mushrooms.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 3rd May 2021: Bank Holiday Monday, in a normal year there would be plenty of days out to choose from but this year 🤔 add to that the weather forecast and well let’s just say we might as well stay at home 😂 Which is of course exactly what we are doing, I have stopped for a coffee break and John is out on the tractor trying to finish off the side driveway, I wonder how long it is before he gets rained off. Meanwhile I have been in the greenhouse, sorting out plants, tidying up, throwing stuff away, recycling spent compost, moving plants outside to harden off. I really need to move some of the plants on and so have taken the risk even though the temps are still down, they can’t stay down forever surely 🤷‍♀️ It is still only mid morning so I am going to have to find other projects to get my teeth into but planting up is not going to be one of them. I have got some potting on to do maybe that is the direction I will go in today.

I did go back into the greenhouse, might as well as it’s not bad in there, I put some of the basil seedlings into a big pot ready to move to the tunnel. I have grown red and green basil this year for a lovely contrast, I also moved the garlic chive seedlings all into one big pot and was just about to do the dill when Shelley arrived with Josh and Flo so we stopped for a cuppa.

Midday and I have lit the Rayburn, it is not very nice out there and it’s only going to get worse. It seems like we have had a very long winter and we are not out of it yet, I am starting to feel slightly suffocated by it all. where are the warm mornings and lovely spring days, not on the horizon yet sadly.

One thing I have done indoors is take photos of the Rayburn ready for when we sell it, we had thought we would be finished with it by now but that is not the case. We will move to warmer weather eventually though and that’s when it will go up for sale, part of me will be sorry, the other part will be glad, and we move on to different things, hopefully some solar panels soon as well.

Tuesday: It is still very windy this morning but at least the rain has stopped. The day after a bank holiday is always a funny one I feel, you have relaxed a little too much to really get going like you would on a Monday morning. John has gone off to do some work so I am on my own today, I have two jobs in mind but as yet have not decided which to concentrate on. First is housework, needs a Hoover and a polish all through but I am also contemplating getting the big tunnel sorted and possibly planted up. A look at the weather forecast shows that it is not going to improve that much over the next week and we are now into May, time to stop dallying I think. I have half heartedly got the housework on the list as I am really leaning towards the tunnel just procrastinating 😜

The cucumbers will go into the tunnel along with some more tomato plants but I will also hedge my bets with peppers though most of those will stay in the greenhouse which gets the best heat over summer. The pots of basil and coriander will also go in there and the lemon grass once that is big enough to transplant, I already have some early strawberries growing and a few rows of little gem lettuce. The orange and lemon tree are looking terrible, I have fed them but I think the prolonged cold is reeking havoc and although I have tried to stabilise them I am not sure if they are going to make it to be honest. I may have to get them out of the pots to make sure there is no other reason for their demise such as vine weevil.

Melons will also be going into the tunnel and again I might have to cover the doors with extra fleece to keep out any draught. This year has certainly thrown up totally different weather patterns and trying to level the growing conditions is a challenge 🙄 Everything growing outside is fine on the whole it’s just the tender plants that struggle. The squash plants definitely won’t be going out for quite a while yet, maybe even next month before that happens

Yesterday I bought some mushrooms from my sister, I openly admit to having failed at home grown mushrooms but her partner has worked hard for the last couple of years perfecting the art of growing them. Look at these beautiful clusters, they smell amazing, the colours are beautiful and I am about to have some for breakfast so I will let you know how they taste.

They were delish, I had mine cooked in a little butter and black pepper on some wholemeal toast with a coffee, nice and simple but absolutely delicious 😋

I went out after breakfast and gave biscuit some hay and stored out their water buckets, generally speaking, these days John does most of the poultry and I do the others, the others are cats, dogs, horses, guinea pigs, torts, quail any other waifs and strays we happen to have at the time. I used to do all of them every day twice a day but on top of housework, cooking, paperwork, gardening, veg growing and prepping it got too much and stressed me out a little so with John easing back on his plumbing he began to take on some of the jobs, and still does them even when he has a days work to do 🥰

Jeez that is hard work out there, the winds are so strong, it 10.30am and I am done being buffeted, I look like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards! I did get a bit done, I decided that the cucumber plants are still way too small to go in the ground, we need the sun to come through, it wouldn’t matter about the wind and the rain if we had some warmth to go with it. In the tunnel I did get things ready for planting later in a couple of weeks time I think. I also had a good look at the orange and lemon tree, nothing in the roots that looks ominous but they are damp, considering I only watered them well once in the last couple of weeks this is not a good thing. They like a good long water just once a week but it is not warm enough for the excess to get soaked up and so they are sitting in damp soil, no wonder they don’t look well. To remedy this I have provided them with a duvet experience lol. They look ropey even to an untrained eye but on closer inspection there are lots of tiny new leaves just starting to appear so I am not too worried.

I have trimmed them up and wrapped them in bubble wrap and a fleece hat 😜 hopefully they will appreciate the tlc.

Sam popped in for an hour or so with the twins and when she left I figured I would get some cleaning done after all, then I will sort out dinner for later and get the Rayburn ready to light….again🙄

After Sam had left I got on with some hoovering, polishing and cleaning the bathroom, not a full clean but a whip round so that I feel it is clean enough for the next few days at least and I sorted out dinner for this evening. I pondered while I was hoovering, as you do, mulling over the last year or so and what if anything it has taught me. There is plenty I was already aware of more so than others I think, I was always aware that life could so easily go wrong on a big scale, a pandemic, a natural catastrophe, some sort of apocalyptic happening and so when covid hit it was no surprise to me, more than that, my previous musings on the subject were no longer a laughing matter for John 😂 It was a reality and all the while I have thought, as bad as it has been, it could have been a whole lot worse 🤔 That is something for future generations to remember, I hope they do but the chances are that it will be so far back in their history they won’t put in to place the lessons we have learned (and I’m not talking about stocking up on toilet paper) maybe they will, who knows. The one thing we have all learnt is that things don’t always go the way we think they will just because that has been the norm all our lives, things change, events occur and we have to adapt. Life in the here and now is important is what I have learnt, and the simpler the life the easier it is to adapt to change. I need to stop hoovering 🤣

As I have mentioned before, the past six/seven months have been the windiest I have ever known it to be, such a curious year weather wise and no chance of planning anything. At the moment we have a draught blowing through the back door, the whole building moves over time and as a consequence the doors end up either not opening or closing properly or a gap appears suddenly which is what has happened lately. I am trying to find the best kind of product to use for now as we are planning on getting a new door at some point.

I went out the the greenhouse with the intention of potting on, when I went in it was 36c the sun came out and within two minutes it had climbed to 40c, too hot to stay in there lol, can’t win at the minute. It did make me think though because I came back indoors and it’s cold, we should be using more passive solar on the house somehow, difficult when I can’t tolerate UV rays though 🤔

A friend messaged in the early evening to say there was a street food wagon parked up at a local caravan park, normally that is not something that we would go and get but I hadn’t put the dinner in yet and I thought, why the heck not, let’s go 😁 It was Sri Lankan and it was lovely and even John tried one or two things, ooosh it’s spicy he said 🤣 but he did eat it, there is hope yet.

Wednesday: It’s a promising start to the day, the sun is shining the wind has dropped to a breeze and I can feel that it is not as cold as it has been of late, though still below average. Whoop, the world is my oyster today and the weather is favourable now I just need to decide exactly what to do, or I may just glide through the day picking and choosing as I go.

I went out and began by doing some picking, 5 bundles of rhubarb that went out for sale, a good haul of purple sprouting some of which went out for sale and some I have kept back for dinner tonight along with a bundle of asparagus. The asparagus is slow this year I think I need to give it a good feed and mulch at the end of the season. I then had a job in mind but got waylaid talking to a customer and by the time I got back in the garden I had forgotten all about it and went on to something else 😂 That something else was pottering in the greenhouse again 🥰 moving things around, potting some things on, watering and feeding the hungry plants with an organic feed. There is still a bit of a chill in the air even though the sun is out but it is pleasant enough and warm enough for me to work which is the main thing.

Thursday: Late afternoon and I have just sat down after a busy day of bit and pieces. I started off by sorting out my jam jar stash ready for jam season. Sorting out what lids fit and what jars I have got, the upshot was that I needed to order more jars so that is in hand and they are arriving tomorrow. Then onto picking some rhubarb and some purple sprouting, the rhubarb I picked today were the thin stalks that I can’t really put out for sale but they are ideal for jam. On then to jam making, rhubarb and orange again as that has gone down well with people and especially Josh who said it was delicious. Mum came over to grab some material and then Shelley came over to get the purple sprouting, both of them went away with a bag full of stuff from my freezers, mainly fruit but also some pasta sauces I froze last year and a few other bits and pieces that I won’t get round to using for various reasons. Most years I can run one freezer down, give it a clean out and then turn it on again when the season gets underway. Last year however I could not feed the family for Sunday lunches etc and so the stock pile stayed piled up. We have used most of the veg but there was a lot of fruit and going through the freezer I can see I need to have a big cook up and use some of the contents up. Once that was done I made a quick rhubarb crumble for pudding later, sat down and John came home. What is funny about that is that when he comes in and I am sat down he says ‘just sat down then’ to which I always reply yes I have actually, this time I had literally just written the first line of this paragraph when he appeared 😜

I sweetened the rhubarb with honey instead of sugar, although there was still sugar in the crumble topping, it was lovely just the right balance, not sweet but not tart either, winner 😁

One of our hens is laying a whopper egg every day, 100g + 🙄 we had them for dinner tonight and of course they were double yolkers. For comparison a medium size egg would weigh between 57 & 67g anything over 66g goes in a large box and on avaerage they are around 72g so you can see what a huge difference the 100g ones are, xxl I think.

Friday 7th May 2021: I make a special note of the date today because it should have been Charlie and Macca’s wedding day, I should have been the Mother of the the Bride and we should have been celebrating. Covid has taken a lot of lives around the world which is tragic in itself but it has also taken lots of hopes and dreams which I know can all be postponed for another time but it still impacts on those that had their plans and dreams in place. The wedding will still go ahead it will just be towards the later end of the year and we keep our fingers crossed that things continue to move in a forward direction.

The sun has made an appearance this morning and it is warm enough to wander outside with my morning cuppa and have a look over the front flower beds which I duly did. Today is one of only two or three mornings where it has been nice enough to do that and this is a short interlude. Tomorrow’s forecast is horrendous, high winds and heavy rain, you gotta laugh or you would just cry. I am glad it is nice today as we are going out for a family lunch with Charlie and Macca as a way of marking the day, we couldn’t really ignore it like it was never booked.

I whipped out and gave the guinea pigs a quick clean out, fed them, gave them hay and fresh water, picked up the quail eggs on the way back through. Went to the hay barn to get hay for biscuit and found a goose egg under the hay, John said one had started laying there, first it was in the stable black now the hay barn but I have shut that off so she will have to go back to the stable. Three other geese are now sitting tight, one other is laying the other two, well if they are laying I have no idea where 🙄

A chap came to collect something I had up for sale and was saying what a lovely place and that he and his girlfriend would like to do something similar. As I always say to people, go for it, you get one life so do what makes you happy. Then I thought about our journey over the years, it’s never straight forward, you learn at lot, your emotions get battered at times but it’s hugely rewarding and it’s a great lifestyle choice, well I think so anyway. The only thing is you have to learn to move the goalposts if necessary, that does not come easily for me especially once I get into ‘ideology’ mode. Self sufficient to me was exactly that, nothing that you can’t produce yourself or swap/barter, self reliance is also a major factor, making sure you can do everything you need to. These ideals are of course ridiculous especially if it’s just one person doing it (which until the last year it has been, just me for 80% of the time) Still I busted a gut trying to do it until eventually you can’t and you take a step back and think ‘ah what the hell’ and suddenly life becomes more enjoyable. You stop busying yourself for 18hrs a day making sure you, plant, grow, harvest, process, make, bake, store, dry, as much as you possibly can and you do what you can when you can, it is a lot more harmonious and that’s how it should be otherwise you are still on that hamster wheel of life just one with different objectives. These days life is a lot more relaxed, I settle for self sufficientish and I think the pandemic and the lockdowns have had a lot to do with our attitude shift, what doesn’t get done today, will wait until tomorrow (obviously that does not include feeding animals 😂) I suppose what I am saying is, if you are starting out on this journey, here speaks the voice of experience, at times be prepared to take a different road to the one you had mapped out. If this last year has taught us anything at all it is that things don’t always go the way you think they will 🥰

Saturday: Urgh what a truly horrid day today, I heard the rain all through the night, it’s just gone midday and it hasn’t really eased up for longer than half an hour. At the minute rain is driving from south to north so at least it’s not as cold as it would be the other way round 🙄 At the moment we don’t have the strong winds I thought we were getting I may have been wrong about those or they may come later. We made a decision not to bother doing too much today, can’t really do a lot outside, except John has cut some more wood. We went and got some food shopping first thing, not much just mostly stuff that John eats. I want to start using up a lot of the freezer contents so I have warned him there may be some strange meals coming his way 😂 and probably plenty of soup which is ideal at the minute.

I lit the Rayburn at lunchtime to keep the damp at bay and just take any chill off, probably won’t have it going all day as it will get too warm. I need to order the next electric radiator and John is going to convert the ladder rails int the bathroom by filling them with oil and then they will be connected to the electric. The ladder rails will be so much better on electric because we can’t dry the towels over summer normally so it will be a great improvement on that score.

Sunday: Not too bad a day today, it was a little windy overnight but that has settled to a stiff breeze 😜 and no rain, mostly cloudy which is fine by me, feels a lot warmer than previous days. We or rather I, had already decided we were going out today to do something different, I am fed up of not doing anything away from here. So we went to an antiques centre for a shuffty round, had an ice cream from the van in the car park and then John sat in the car while I mooched a little round the garden centre. I found a craft area and bought a couple of bits for doing something with but I did resist any plants today, go me 😁

Back home and time to get the leg of lamb prepped, pick some fresh greens from the garden, purple sprouting, asparagus and some mangetout from the tunnel. Really they are undeveloped pea pods but they will taste great and there were only about five of them, I pinched out the tops of the pea plants to get more shoots from the bottom and waste not want not they will go in with the greens as well. By eck, people pay a fortune for straight to the table from the garden dinning and here we are doing it on a daily basis 🥰 With a flourless chocolate cake made for dessert we are living the dream here 😜

Have a great week, I am hoping the weather will be a little more seasonal than it has been of late but I don’t want it to go straight into wall to wall sunshine as I won’t get on very well in that either 😂

Posted in Friesland Farm

Jam, asparagus soup & May Day 🥰

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 26th April 2021: Still on the chilly side for April and no sign of it warming for the next two weeks. Best to dress for the cold and take layers off I think 🤔 This week John has a full week of ‘proper’ work so I will mainly be here on my own bimbling away. This morning I set to making the dandelion honey from the flowers I picked yesterday, if you are going to try then pick them from a place you know has t been sprayed with anything and preferably where animals have not been 🙄 Mine have come from the garden where no animals are allowed and definitely no spraying, pick them in the sunshine so they are fully open and warmed by the sun. You can either take your time and pull off all the petals or you can keep them whole with the green bits attached (not the stalks) because you are going to strain it so it won’t make much difference in the end. Just give the flowers a good shake so any insects have time to escape before you boil them 😜 Simmer for 15 mins with a slice of lemon and then leave overnight to steep. Strain and squeeze out all the juice you can, measure the liquid, you want a pound of sugar for every pint of liquid. Then simmer (a good simmer not gentle) for 15 mins before putting into hot, sterilised jars. That’s it, liquid gold, sunshine in a pot, it is not as thick as honey more of a sauce but still very delicious and worth having a go just so you can say you have done it. Back in the day dandelions were a very important flower/crop and far from removing them from lawns they were actually planted up. They are a great source of nectar for bees and other insects, a great food source for many small mammals and you can even make a reasonable coffee from the dried roots (I have read this but never tried) Part of what is wrong with today’s thinking is we want perfect lawns and grass areas, what is perfect, that’s the question 🤷‍♀️ To me a perfect lawn is full of wild flowers, they are not weeds, they serve a purpose just not to humans, unless you make use of them that is.

It is mid morning and one of my plans today is to get my tomato plants in the polytunnel. I have looked at the long range forecast and even though the temps are below average it looks like the overnight temperature will remain above freezing for most of the time. I may have to put an extra fleece over the plants if I think it’s going to go below 0c but it’s looking hopeful.

I spent the rest of the morning in the small tunnel planting the tomato plants, 14 in total a mix of sweet million, tigerella and cherry indigo. I have to confess I don’t know which plant is which because though I labeled the rows when they were growing I muddled them up once they were potted up, I didn’t think carefully enough and whoops error made. Still have more plants, some will go into the big tunnel and I always try some outside to see how they do. I have staked them all and tied them in and the run string from the stake to the crop bar in the roof of the tunnel. These measures will hold them upright and hopefully take the weight when they are loaded with tomatoes. Because the temperatures are not up to seasonal average at the minute I have taken the precaution of fleecing the inside of the door ways to provide extra protection from the night temperatures, I have also cut extra fleece to put over them at night. It’s nice and warm in there at the minute, around 25c but you can feel the difference once you step outside so best to Molly coddle them as much as possible at the moment, I don’t want to lose them after spending so long getting them growing from seed.

I came indoors then for a bite to eat, I am not sure if it was the heat in the tunnel or what but I didn’t feel too well, a bit sick. I have had it before and wonder if it is my blood sugars dipping too low for some reason. Usually if I come in and have something to eat and a sit down it passes after a while 🤷‍♀️ I have regular blood test so if it was a permanent problem I think they would have seen it in the results before now. It tends to be when I am busy but it doesn’t happen often, I always have a good breakfast of oats and banana so it’s not that I have skipped breakfast or anything like that.

It is very quiet here today, not much noise outside at all and we have probably had one egg customer all day 😔 We worked out that we need to sell £7 worth of eggs a day just to cover the feed costs that doesn’t even include bedding or our time and the egg boxes we buy and it certainly doesn’t cover times when we have to worm the hens (which we only do if necessary). If business gets much slower I think we will have to have a serious discussion about wether to carry on with it or not 🙄 We might have to come up with a different idea altogether. I think it is because we are used to not being able to keep up with egg demand lol and it has certainly dropped for some reason. Not that I am too worried, the intention was always to be self sufficient and the egg thing just started as a sideline to move extra eggs but it’s nice to have people come and have a chat and put the world to rights sometimes.

Cup of tea and a sit down mid afternoon, I have just finished making some rhubarb and orange jam. Hoping it will set, there is not much mystery to jam making except the set lol and a lot depends on how much moisture is in the fruit you use. Really once you get it to a rolling boil and a temperature of 105c it theoretically should set but there is always the unknown. I never do the freezer test because quite frankly I can’t be arsed, our freezers are right out the back so by the time I got the plate in it would have warmed up a bit and so no good anyway. I prefer to get it to temp and hope🤞 generally it’s fine but sometimes if we have had a lot of rain and the fruit has taken up a lot of water it can be more tricky but nothing a re-boil couldn’t sort out. I went with orange in the end as that is what I fancied doing, the vanilla option can work out a tad expensive as you are supposed to put half a bean in and they cost a fair bit plus to me that’s a bit of a waste of a vanilla bean 😜

The dandelion honey is a little runny so more of a pouring sauce, it will still be great with ice cream or even pancakes/yoghurt etc but no so good to spread. The one I made last time was a better, thicker consistency and was so yummy that finger dipping was a must.

The jam was a good set, I can tell after only 10 mins because even though in the hot jars it’s still runny, in the bottom of the pan it’s nicely cooled and thick and sticky. I used to wash the pan straight away but it is good way of finding out how the set has gone so I leave it to cool and then wash it.

I sometimes think it would be good to do it for a living but I am a bit of a perfectionist, there is no way I would sell anything that wasn’t exactly right. I can imagine if it was yays to the left and nays to the right (or which ever way round it goes) that I would have a bigger reject pile than a sellable pile 😂 That goes for anything I do really. I think another reason I would like to do something is because I love to look for new recipes for things I grow but half of it John wouldn’t eat so there is not much point making it just for me, I would look like a roly poly pudding (even more than I do now) maybe I will just start making it and hope that he likes the look, but no, I don’t think that will work, we have such totally different tastes in food it’s ridiculous 😬

Oo John saw a shooting star last night, there is meteor activity at the minute, the eta aquariids, so that’s most likely what he saw.

Just in case you thought I was finished with the making today, nope, I made some asparagus soup. I had a bunch that I picked the day before yesterday and put in the shed but it hadn’t sold and so I got it back in. It had gone a bit limp so no point leaving it out there, I picked another fresh bunch and made soup. A simple soup that is big on flavour and of course would be delicious with a hunk of fresh bread and some Parmesan shavings. You could add cream to the soup but I like simple soups and beside it’s less fattening 😬 Just chop up and onion and a clove of garlic, sauté in a knob of butter and a drop of olive oil, the butter gives it a richer flavour but you can leave it out if you want. Add pepper and the chopped asparagus and then stock of your choice, either veg or chicken. Simmer until the asparagus is soft then either serve like that or whizz it with a blender stick. I don’t add extra salt because of the stock cube but add salt to taste if you like. Simple, nutritious, delicious and can be dressed up or down depending on the occasion. You can freeze this but not with the cream added, leave it out and add it later if you are freezing it.

Tuesday: I feel like I have been on the go fours and it’s only 9.30am. Mostly I have been doing household bits, the mundane stuff that has to be done also sort the egg shed, feed the dogs, put out the rubbish etc. Time for a quick coffee and contemplate what jobs I will do today, it’s still cold only about 5c at the minute, getting up to 14c at some point but at least the cold wind has dropped today which is a bonus. I haven’t checked the poly tunnel yet but I think the plants will have been ok, I have some out for sale in a little greenhouse and they are fine this morning so the Molly coddled ones should be cosy. The pepper plants and cucumbers are not big enough to transplant yet, they will go into the big tunnel, I had considered doing that today but they need to wait a while yet.

I decided as it was pretty cool outside I would sit and make some cards which is what I did for a couple of hours.

John came home as he had left his phone somewhere and had to phone around to find out where it was, eventually located it and will pick it up later.

I then went onto doing paperwork as I have got a bit behind and needed to catch up. Doing the household stuff and the farm receipts was the easy bit, doing Johns plumbing was painful. ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here’ springs to mind. I took a lunch break and went back to it but I honestly can’t make head nor tail of some of it. It appears we don’t have all the statements, some of the invoices and I can’t for the life of me match up payments for one supplier 🙄 It drives me to despair the amount of times I have tried to get John to organise supplier and payment records might as well bash my head against a brick wall. I am sure we will get there eventually as it’s usually all filed in Johns head but that’s not much use to me when he isn’t here. He tells me he has a book that he writes it down in now, I can’t wait to see that! Probably won’t be able to make head or tail of that either, it will be in special ‘John’ code 😜

Typical of me as I can’t leave a job alone until it’s done even when I know I can’t finish it so I have been going back and forth to the paperwork 😂 I have managed to chip away at little bits so I have less of it buzzing round in my head. This is all just to get it straight ready for getting in order for the accountant, that is yet to come 😩

I lit the Rayburn around 3pm, we haven’t had it lit for the last few days and relied on the electric blow heater in the living room but it’s just too cold overnight and so today I have decided to light it. Chances are we will be roasting by mid evening but we can always let it go out again.

I have been saddened to read online that the whole shop local frenzy of last year seems to have died. Plenty of egg sellers wondering where the customers have gone 🤔

I just need to have a small moan and get something off my chest here: I have just seen a social media post regarding garden waste and the fact that you have to pay to get your waste taken away. A garden tax, was someone’s description, excuse me 🙄 but it’s your garden and your garden waste and yet you think you shouldn’t have to pay to get it removed kerbside, here is an idea COMPOST IT YOURSELF THEN! Thanks for listening 😜

Seriously though there is a mind set that is pretty ugly when you look at it, everything is someone else’s fault or responsibility, the wider picture is never looked at or considered 🙄

It’s 8.45, John has gone out to put the birds to bed and if I had any nuts I would be sweating them off by now 😂 bloody roasting in here even though we didn’t put any more wood on the fire after 7pm as it was already getting a bit warm, all or nothing!

Wednesday: It started raining persistently last night with a few heavy bursts overnight and it’s still raining this morning. This is about one of the only times I will put a smiley face for rain 😁 we haven’t had any for weeks and the ground was really, really dry. The beds we planted up were holding up just about, I had been giving the plants a quick pick me up sprinkling with the hose but they really needed a soaking and now they have had one. Of course, not only will the plants put on some lush growth but so will the weeds 😂 ah well you can’t win them all and at least they might be easier to pull than they have been lately.

I have been delighted with the tulips this year, we don’t have many but they have been bright and cheery and really lift the spirits more so than the daffodils I think. So I had a mad idea lol and thought it would be nice to plant up pots of tulip bulbs and perhaps sell them, they would make great Easter and Mother’s Day presents ours birthday or general have a nice day gifts. Of course one thing led to another and my enthusiasm spread to, wouldn’t it be nice to have the bed in front of the window filled with tulips so I bought 500 bulbs, yep 500 lol, it’s the daffodil episode all over again. Obviously I have missed the boat this year but next year they are going to look fantastic and there will be enough bulbs to pot some up for sale. The 1000 daffodil bulbs I bought and planted along with Mum and Ken are doing well, they come up each year in a block of beautiful yellow but they always seem to be a bit late pr than most. They are up in the back paddock too which means they can’t really be seen, on hindsight I should have planted them in the driveway grass, never mind I can always start dividing them, this is the third year of flowering so I could start lifting some later in the year.

BOO! I just want to conduct a little experiment lol to see how many people read the blog all the way through. So if you could add Boo to the comments I would very much appreciate it 😁

Don’t forget to Boo 👻😜

Went out mid morning to do the horses and the guinea pigs, I watered the greenhouse and checked on the polytunnel. Where my hands got wet I could really feel the cold it’s not much warmer out there and there is not much I can be doing at the minute so I came back in to organise dinner tonight. I did get chased by the gander and at one point I thought I was cornered but found a hazel stick on the floor, a wave of that and he went off haughtily with his women, 😅

I have avintage flower press that I picked up at a boot sale years ago just because I loved it. I have never used it, until now, this morning I have picked some tiny flower heads and pressed them, no idea what I will do with the yet but it will be fun to think of something.

Saturday May 1st 2021: May Day, Beltane, a time to celebrate the arrival of summer 🙄 (thats a bit iffy here in the UK 😂) Still it is the time to enjoy nature at its finest, the blossom on the trees, the flowers, the hedgerows, the lush green grass. Birds, insects and animals everywhere are busy reproducing. These days we barely give May Day a second thought which is really sad, there was a time when a maypole was a permanent features in towns and villages and May Day was a day of celebration.

I had a very productive morning and part of the afternoon. I have been weeding, digging out deep rooted weeds, raking, having a bonfire and putting down membrane on the difficult for me to get too bed. It’s a good job I had been busy as you will notice nothing written for Thursday and Friday, that’s because apart from basic jobs I did bigger all really 😜

Sunday: Productive again, I know, two days in a row 😂 On the job list this morning apart from the usual was to get a spot of shopping, we were there at 9.30 and gone by 9.55 😜 Luckily the supermarket we use allows self service before 10, as we drove past another supermarket they were still queuing to get in. Back home unload and put away and then off to the DIY store for some fencing. We have an area just outside the back door that the old drive way cuts through, across the drive is the gate to the garden. I wanted to fence the drive off part way down, firstly this will mean that the area is secure for the toddlers and children to move between the house and the garden. Second but no less important it means the dogs can’t get into that area, they knock the kids over half the time and the other half of the time they dig holes. The holes then become ankle twisting areas that you don’t always see, usually because I am carrying something. The dogs can come in when we allow them but it means we can also shut them behind the fence if we don’t want them there. The other reason is the free range mobster geese, they have no manners, crap everywhere and nibble on everything plus they are pretty scary to children being much bigger than them. In fact they are pretty scary to me at the minute so the last thing I want is to open the back door to find them there 😜

Have a great week, hopefully the weather will warm up just a tad and everyone will be happy 😃

Posted in Friesland Farm

A pub lunch 😁 eggs galore & a Fox attack 😩

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 19th April 2021: Monday again yay 😜 Today it is Mia’s 5th birthday so we will be popping over to see her later 🎂 John went to work this morning after doing the rounds and I have mostly been pottering out and about in the garden. I have had to do some watering as even the plants that like it dry are beginning to struggle a little. Most of the plants that are in the beds or in the ground are fine, anything I had recently planted needed water and plants in pots need some water. I don’t have many pots now as most of them have gone into the new beds but there are still a few that I haven’t put anywhere yet or that will stay in pots elsewhere. I watered the veg plants I put in last week and also the raspberries and blueberries that are all in pots. Everything else will still be able to get some overnight moisture or deep ground moisture hopefully. There is no rain on the radar at all 🥴 certainly no sign of any April showers 🙄

I dug up the few plants I wanted to move, the water I gave them last night has done well and the rootball was still damp this morning. Some I have planted straight in the ground and some have gone into pots to bring on either to sell or plant where I have a bare patch. I have tried to get a broad a range of flowering plants and shrubs as possible, this includes different heights, strength of fragrances, some with evening fragrance, different colours and sizes of flowers but nearly all are single open flowers which are what the insects need, I do have a few flowers that are double but not many. In other areas I have included grasses for the wildlife that prefer those and I have the small (tiny) pond which has water plants. I keep contemplating a bigger pond, the one I have is literally a large tub but it works well enough as a wildlife pond. As long as I have water areas around I suppose they don’t need to look like a pond just do the same job.

I had my lunch sat outside which was glorious, all I could hear were the birds and myself crunching on an apple 😀 beautiful day. John came home mid afternoon so we went over to Sams early so that she could go and pick Mia up from school while we looked after the twins, and then saw Mia and gave her some birthday presents.

Back home and I cut the grass in the front driveway, I have left some squares so that the grass gets long, the insects will appreciate that. John then cut the lawn before we had something to eat, we had a delivery of an old cupboard I have bought to put where the Rayburn is once that goes and then we popped round to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa as it was such a nice evening.

The amount of eggs the hens and ducks are laying is verging on ridiculous 🙄 we have about six trays to try and shift. At one time I could advertise on Facebook but the algorithms have put paid to that as soon as you mention any animal species, I even heard of someone having a horse manure post declined. I think I will have to make lemon curd, lime curd and orange curd and give it to people, then a batch of cakes for the freezer maybe some pickled eggs, John is already eating eggs for breakfast every day 😂

Tuesday: Beautiful morning 🥰 Last night driving back from Mums the sun was a fireball and early this morning it was the same.

By 7.30 I had breakfasted, dressed, got the first load of washing on and cleaned the windows. With the sun finally shining the dusty windows were getting a bit annoying, I am not fanatical about my windows but they have not been done all winter, we don’t have many and they are not very big so any light I can get inside is welcome. I don’t spend too long faffing just a soapy cloth over and then the squeegee any marks left behind can stay, they will soon get dirty again and I can think of better things to do than meticulously getting them to be perfect, besides, I don’t stay inside on a sunny day looking out of the window 😜

I spent the next two hours outside sorting out a few plants, re potting some shrubs that I have now placed in an area that is looking pretty bare. Under the Oak tree is fenced off because there was a hawthorn there, which has mow died off after years of cutting back and also a dog rose which I cut back hard each year, both of these have viscious thorns and I don’t want the children getting tangled in them. It means I have a fenced area with not much in it, over the years I have filled it with pots of things but now most of that has been planted in the beds. I did have mock orange, a dogwood, a euonymus and a white buddliea which I have grown from very small plants, these are now bigger, potted up and sitting nicely in that bare space. The white buddliea was quite big, about three feet but it was really struggling where it was and so I dug it up the other day, put it in a bucket of water with some feed ready to move elsewhere. It was only when I was looking around for things to fill the space that I decided it could go in a big pot and hopefully it will like it in its new place. I also scattered a few packets of flower seeds to see how they do, it should look nice and full by mid summer.

John came home mid morning, I hung the washing out and then we decided not to waste the day so we went out for lunch! Oh how fabulous was that to sit outside by the river having a pub lunch and a cold drink, very fabulous I can tell you 🥰 People were happy to be getting out and about and doing something normal, we went for a short walk along the river before returning back to town to get some shopping.

Wednesday: It’s mid afternoon and I have come in for a sit down after a very productive morning doing various jobs in the garden. I have to pace myself otherwise I won’t have the energy to haul myself around later this afternoon and get the dinner etc. I know when it’s time to stop as my feet hurt and my legs won’t carry me much more, definitely sit down time. So what have I been doing? Well I started off planting four rows of root veg, two rows of turnips and two more rows of beetroot, that’s four lots of beetroot at the moment and we don’t even eat that much but it does sell well and it makes a great chutney. After that I watered it all in and watered a few other bits and then planted more potatoes, that’s all of them in now so it’s just a case of waiting. I checked the carrots and as always they are spasmodic so I topped up the rows with more carrot seed, I am determined to have a lot of carrots this year. I have done some hoeing (a lot actually 🙄) I have fixed down weed membrane in unused areas like the compost area so that I don’t have to worry about weeds growing everywhere and I have tried to dig out the comfrey root on one of the beds that has not been planted yet. If you get comfrey, and it is a great plant, make sure you get the bocking 14 which does not readily seed everywhere and cause a big problem later on like the one I have 😂 I have dug up a trug full of dandelions to feed to the torts and Guineas and I have picked purple sprouting and asparagus for dinner later. There are probably lots of other little things I have done but can’t recall now that the time has passed. I feel like I have definitely made some headway and no longer feel that I am lacking behind. I have had a good look at the areas that are still to plant up and decided what will go where, I just need to wait for the tender plants to get bigger and the weather to stop plunging back into artic mode 😜

Everything in the greenhouse is doing well, although we are getting a lot of frosts the temperature over night in there must be staying reasonably above freezing which is great. I was tempted to plant the tomatoes in the tunnels but as they would be directly into the ground that might not be such a good idea so I will hold my horses. Talking about horses, I observed that biscuit was lying in the paddock this morning when I started gardening, a couple of times I spoke to her as she was just the other side of the fence, she didn’t seem overly unhappy, but after she had been there at least two hours I went into the paddock to give her a thorough check over. I gave her a nudge to see if she would get up, nope, I gave her a shove to see if she would get up, nope, so I walked a way to go and get a head collar to put on her and see if I could force her to get up that way. By this time I was slightly concerned that she couldn’t get up of her own accord, I turned and walked away and up she jumped 😂 little sod was just having a lovely sunbathe and resented my intrusion I think lol.

Oh my days we have so many eggs at the minute I am seriously going to have to do something with them. Not sure where all our egg customers have gone 🤷‍♀️ two regulars that always had a lot of eggs each we have moved recently so that makes a difference and I guess so does the fact that we sold so many chickens last year 😂 Right I am off to find out what recipes use an enormous amount of eggs up, I guess I could make pasta but we don’t eat that much of it so it will have to be cake for the freezer!

Thursday: Lovely sunny morning again, a tad cold first thing but soon warmed up. It’s 9.30 and as yet I have not done anything else except have my breakfast and make stuff. I have a batch of lemon curd on the go in the slow cooker, yep in the slow cooker, I could have stood and made it but I figured this way I could get on with other things. In the oven at the moment I have the fail safe Mary Berry orange and sultana cake and a lemon drizzle cake, 16 eggs used in total so far 😜 I know what will happen, I will use all these eggs and then the hens will go on strike and we won’t have enough eggs 😂 can’t win, it’s never a dead cert either way so I am just rolling with it. At the moment I have not pickled any eggs, I need to check I have enough vinegar to do a large jar full, not quite sure what I will do with them then as John doesn’t eat them and it’s not something I would think about having very often but luckily the boys in the family do like them so they will probably go to them 😀 Great with a pint and a packet of crisps I am told though never tried lol. I also made some little cakes for the children, light lemon flavoured ones. I know lemons are not grown here so technically not sustainable but I need to use up eggs somehow and so lemons it is 😜 On the subject of lemons, it is possible to grow them here so I’m not sure why it’s not done on a bigger scale to be honest, plenty of people have them in the conservatory and they produce half decent lemons, maybe it would cost too much on a commercial scale 🤷‍♀️

John has gone off to work again today, that’s two in a row lol he will be tired out by the end of the week. The semi retired thing is working well so far but I wonder how long it will be until he is booked up again.

The wind is a bit chilly and if you are in the shade or not moving around very fast it can feel colder than the impression the sunny bright blue sky is giving. In the greenhouse though the temp has hit 40c which is amazing, it feels lovely in there as long as you don’t spend too long inside 😜 You can definitely feel the difference when you come out again.

Sam came over with George and Lucie for a couple of hours over lunchtime, we went for a wander round the farm introducing them to all the animals, George spends his time saying cock-a-doodle do and Lucie gets busy exploring everything she can.

The cakes and the lemon curd are resting nicely on the side, I am hoping the curd does set, home made lemon curd is totally amazing, zingy, tasty and not over sweet like the shop bought stuff so if you ever get a hankering to make it then go for it you won’t regret it.

Lemon curd, sooo delicious 😋

I spent more time, much more time, than I would want to, trying to sort out a printing problem, basically I eventually found out that my iPad would not talk to my printer for some reason, kids 🙄 A few updates and resets later (and you all know how long they take) and I was back in business. The object of the printing was to print pictures of the plants I had out for sale, it’s all very well putting greenery out there but if someone has no idea what it will look like eventually then they probably won’t bother, well now they know 😊

Friday: Another lovely day of wall to wall sunshine (if you can tolerate that sort of thing) I never have a plan of what I am going to do, I may have a vague idea of things I want to get done but these days I don’t stress over it. I wanted to strip the bed and get the covers washed first thing and on the line, one bit of cleaning leads to another and before you know it the morning has largely passed. That is a bit of a school boy error for me because ideally I should get outside while it’s still cool. Anyhow I didn’t and so mid morning I decided to then get out on the garden. The birds, bees and beer bed has done well for around five years with hardly any work needed. Lately it has got a little wayward, stingers have taken hold and are big strong plants, I have a tree growing through a blackcurrant bush, the golden hop has gone berserk and twined round everything, the gooseberries are suffering due to not enough air circulating. It is time to address the problems, we began back at the beginning of the year by digging out one of the gooseberry bushes and trying to get the roots of the hop out but it was so wet and claggy it was near on impossible so I have left it. Today I started to tackle it again but it is incredibly dry 😂 and digging is almost impossible. The sun was getting hotter and hotter and there is no shade there, it is one of the beds that is most difficult for me to tend because it gets all day sun right from the off. There are four trees which are now pretty big, a cherry, an apple, a mulberry and a dual pear, plus three blackcurrant bushes and three gooseberry bushes, there are wild strawberries growing on the ground in one area but the rest has weed membrane down because I can’t get to do it easily. There is rhubarb and the hop as well, it is a very productive area and mostly I leave it for the birds and bees, the hop part was for the beer but that has never happened yet 🙄 Over time the trunks have got large and round and the membrane has come away allowing the stingers, docks, keck and dandelions to take hold. The idea was to get all those out and then adjust the membrane to cover the soil again, but I can’t dig a lot of it out as it is entwined in the fruit bushes, the dilemma is, do I forsake the bushes and start again or leave it for the time being and tackle it at the end of the year when the ground will be softer. I would have to make a proper plan as I will need Johns strength to help get those plants out, the roots will be deep. I was enjoying doing what I could but I could feel the sun and the heat beginning to affect my skin, (a kind of prickling feeling) there is nothing more I would enjoy than being in a vest top digging away and to be honest it pisses me off that I can’t but I also don’t want to induce a flare so I am limited in what I can do. For today I have now left it, I have been able to adjust some of the membrane and cover gaps but that’s about it, still, every little helps I suppose.

John was home mid afternoon, with flowers 💐 at this point I can here you asking ‘what has he done wrong’ because that’s exactly what I would think normally except that we had had one of those conversations the night before. You know the ones, long time married discussions, he says to me that I am a pessimist and so I explain that once upon a time I was an optimist but was regularly disappointed and eventually because a realist 😜 One of the points I made was that he prided himself on the fact that he bought me flowers ‘once every twenty five years’, each birthday, Valentine’s Day, anniversary I would hope to get flowers and they never came so eventually you stop hoping and face reality. I’m not sure if that shocked him to hear that but the result was a lovely bunch of flowers today so I’ll take that 😁

I picked a few bunches of rhubarb in the afternoon and a bunch of asparagus all of which went out for sale as I won’t be using it today. I noticed quite a few spindly stalks of rhubarb so I will probably pick those and make rhubarb jam either with vanilla, orange or ginger haven’t quite decided which one yet. Ginger might be too wintery and I don’t have an orange thinking about it so it will most likely be vanilla lol.

Saturday: Ooosh busy morning this morning doing various garden jobs, lots of potting on, putting plants out for sale, various other bits up for sale, trying to move on some of the ‘stuff’ we have lying around 😂 We had a tragic start to the day mind you as sometime overnight the fox has got into one of the huts in the paddock and slaughtered 17 hens 🙄 At first we couldn’t work out how it got in but further investigation shows that he has some how managed to lift a very heavy side panel and get through some tight bars to get access. That’s the end of that lot and I won’t show you the graphic photo of the aftermath I will leave that to your imagination 💭 They were our oldest lot of hens but they were still laying well and that’s about 12 eggs a day we have now lost 😠 Typically I literally just sold the 13 point of lay hens we had left otherwise we would have just kept those, the old law of the sod and all that.

John has been on the tractor moving heavy stuff around to tidy up and also cleaning out some of the other birds as well as the morning jobs of feeding, watering and egg collecting.

It is sunny with blue skies today but there is quite a breeze and it’s a tad cold. April is normally a month you can enjoy with warming temperatures and showers but this one has been cold all the way through, I do hope May has better things in store for us. There is no sign of rain for at least a couple more weeks and the wind direction is predicted to be either from the north or the east so it will stay chilly. Not until the first week of May does the wind start coming from the west 🙄

Blimey trying to get the washing off the line in this wind was a mission 😂

Sunday: We started off well this morning, no frost but still windy and it’s coming from the East but with the sun out as well it’s not bad. John did the feeding, no more Fox attacks, and then he got on with cleaning out the point of lay pen. This pen we built around five years ago at a cost of around £1000 and when the batches come in for sale that’s where they go. We have now decided because it is fox proof we will house one of the two permanent flocks in there and let them out in the daytime and use a stable for the point of lay when they come in. Makes much more sense to not loose our flocks overnight, the huts are great, they are over 100 years old though and they were used back in the day when foxes were controlled as that is no longer the case we have to move with the situation.

While John was doing that I started a bonfire to burn some paper rubbish, dirty shavings and some bits of wood. While I was doing that I noticed that biscuit was lying down again, this time I decided to get her in as that is not normal daily behaviour for her. She is a bit pottery on her feet, the ground is rock hard due to the lack of rain and her feet need looking after as it is so I got her into the stable. I didn’t want to leave her there because she is better off outside but I needed to put up the electric stakes and tape. This would have been a ten minute job if John had not just gathered it all up and dumped it in a heap when we dragged the fields. Anyone who has ever had to untangle electric horse tape will know this is a pig of a job 😂 I got that sorted and moved the water bucket, got John to fix a piece of the fence that was broken and got biscuit back outside with some hay. All the time she was in Jack was wellying up and down the paddocks making a racket, if you regularly see two or more horses in a field and then one on it’s own going a bit mental, the reason is because they have been separated from their friend 🙄 Once they were both settled again we shot off to get a little bit of shopping.

When we got back I went out to sort out the guinea pigs etc in the orchard. As I was in there I looked up to see a chap walking up the drive, he spotted me and then turned and walk back out and off down the lane. I said to John something doesn’t feel right and John went across the paddock to the wall by the lane to see where he went, he had carried on and then went off to the left down scrubs lane which is basically a dirt track that goes to a few properties and eventually out across the fields. No problem I thought, it’s just a walker and maybe my intuition was not right. However, 10 minutes later we were stood in the drive talking to Sam and Luke who had pulled up in the car and he walked back past the bottom of the driveway. This then does become odd as if he was out walking I wouldn’t expect him to be back 10 minutes later, it means he didn’t go far before turning round and coming back rather than continuing his walk. He was almost dressed like a Walker but not quite, dark clothes a flat cap and a small backpack, let’s just say he looked like he was trying to blend in with Walker but definitely didn’t. He may have been totally innocent but my instincts were telling me differently and you get a feel for things like that over time. I flagged it up on the rural watch page I am on just in case there are any other reports.

I then spent another hour weeding the front beds, I figured if he came back a third time I couldn’t really be seen until the last minute and might catch him coming up the drive again.

We nipped down to the local pub for a drink in the garden with Sam and Luke who had been to the wildlife park. I did pick some dandelion flowers beforehand and they are now sleeping overnight ready for dandelion honey tomorrow.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Snow! A hair cut & Mint jelly 🥰

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 12th April 2021: WTAF!

Woke up to snow, not just a few flakes but more than we have had in the wintertime 😂 As if this past year hasn’t been crazy enough 😜

John was up, fed and let out the birds and gone to work by 8am this morning, he should be back by lunchtime. I had the Rayburn lit by 8.30, not because it’s particularly cold, I always think it feels warmer with snow on the ground, but more because it will be soggy which means we will get soggy. Soggy gloves, hats, coats, and so it is useful to have somewhere to dry everything and warm up hands and feet when we get back inside.

I have so far only done the indoor bits and pieces but I need to get outside and bring the torts back in. They must wonder the heck is going on, they have already been digging themselves into the ground at night but of course the day time (especially if the sun comes out) they are wandering around. I left them because I kept thinking, it will warm up today, ha, so I give up and will put them back indoors.

Today we also get more freedoms in the form of non essential shops opening including hairdressers, barbers, salons and outside eating and pub gardens😂 What a day for it to snow, I feel sorry for those businesses that have waited all this time to wake up to a blanket of snow this morning, it was bad enough that it is colder than average and certainly much, much colder than this time last year! We should be having warm spring sunshine and be able to comfortably sit outside having some refreshments 🤷‍♀️

Just sat down for a quick break after cleaning the spare room, I have come to the conclusion (again 😂) that I have too much stuff. We make extra storage to store stuff we hardly, if ever, use, what is that all about. I hate to get rid of it though, you never know when you will need it 😜 In all seriousness I do need to find new homes for a lot of it, now the charity shops are open again at least I can take stuff there, someone else might be able to make use of some of it. Whatever ‘it’ is ai need to go through it all and thin it all out.

The next electric radiator has just arrived eeeek, I am looking forward to this one because it’s for the kitchen which means that on chilly mornings it should be warmer in there than it is when I haven’t lit the Rayburn 🥰

Time seems to be passing slowly today I don’t know why, maybe because I have been cleaning and they say time passes quickly when you are having fun so the opposite must be true too 😜

Tuesday: Totally different day today, cold start but the sun is shining and it’s quite warm 🥰 John has gone to work again today but did the animals before leaving. I spent the first couple of hours indoors sorting out some of the ‘stuff’ and also taking up a pair of curtains to hang in the spare room. Then outside to get on with the jobs of the day, first off the water buckets, it was frozen this morning when John went to do them. Another reason for getting the indoor stuff done first, by the time I go out pipes have thawed and it’s warmed up a bit. I water the plants growing in the tunnels, cut a couple of bunches of rhubarb but most of the time I spent in the greenhouse sowing seeds. This morning it was runner beans, dwarf French beans and sweetcorn as well as pricking out some echinops for the flower beds. I feel like I am really behind, I say that every year but I still have work to do on some of the beds as they are not ready for planting yet although it won’t take long I am still aware that they are on the todo list. A bit of weeding in the front flower beds and then inside to get the washing up done and a quick sit down before I get a haircut yay 😁

Hair cut done ✅ after a spot of lunch it was back outside to try to gain some ground, which I feel I have done. I have planted the peas and the mangetout, I just have a few pea left to find a space for, I also planted and covered two rows of beetroot (chigoya, stripey) and two rows of swede. The root veg I have sown in multi crop blocks which basically means more than one seed in each sowing, they like it apparently and you thin out later once they are swelling up. Each sowing was watered in with some organic plant food and hopefully they will get going pretty quickly. Most of the peas were sown outside, four rows, but two rows I have sown in the poly tunnel. I am hoping I will get an earlier drop from these, if I don’t and it fails at least the compost they are in will get some goodness from the nitrogen nodules. I figured that the tomatoes won’t be going in for a while and even then will take a while to get big enough to out grow the peas so we will see what happens. I also had some more broad beans left over so I have planted them next to the swede, might as well mix it up a little and see what results we get.

Wednesday: Not such a cold start this morning g and the sun was already out first thing. I whizzed round and did the indoors stuff before going outside around 9.30. Watering the veg I planted yesterday and then some pricking out of dill and coriander. Onto hoeing the onion bed and one of the asparagus beds. John came home at lunch time and we popped to the shops to get a few bits, it was manic, I had forgotten what it was like when everybody in the whole world was out shopping 😩 busy, manic, everyone fighting for a car parking space, queues, bring back lockdown 😂

Thursday: Still cold for the time of year and so I am holding off a few jobs, besides the fact it’s chilly to work outside unless you have a job that keeps you warm, the ground is too cold to plant much. Likewise I can’t move things on in the greenhouse because what would normally now move to the bench is still on a heat mat 🙄

We haven’t done much today, John has done a bit of tidying up, the wood store is now empty and John has cleared the ground ready to put the tractor in there, that will free up a bay in the hay barn, for what I don’t know yet. I have pottered about doing not much really, Charlie came over and bought lunch with her, it’s her birthday today so we had lunch outside but it was a tad cold when the sun went behind the clouds. Sam and the kids came over in the afternoon and the kids played with bubbles, a piece of board on the ground (jumping up and down) and the wheelbarrow, who needs expensive toys 😂

Friday: Temps are about a degree warmer than yesterday and for an hour at least this morning the sun was glorious, unfortunately it disappeared and as yet has not reappeared but the chilly wind has dropped and so it feels much better today. John went to work and I spent my time in the garden after going round and doing the water buckets which were frozen when John tired to do them first thing. In the greenhouse I am still waiting to be able to move things along but the constant cold nights mean I won’t chance it yet. I pot on some of the cucumber plants and the courgettes so at least something is happening. I have also sown some more flower seeds, rudbeckia and lupin, they will go out for sale once they are big enough. On the garden itself I have done some weeding, well that’s mostly all I did, weeding lol. I put out a couple more plants for sale but as yet it’s too cold to put some of the others out so they will have to wait a while longer.

Before coming in for a sit down at 3pm I picked some purple sprouting for dinner later and had a quick look at the asparagus which is just starting to appear above ground but not big enough to cut yet.

I have seen the forecast for next week the temps are going to climb nicely and then plummet with an artic blast again! I think I am just going to have to go ahead as best I can with planting up and moving on then try to protect the plants as best as possible and see what happens. I can always start sowing some more just in case the first lot get affected and if they don’t then I can sell the second lot of sowings when they get bigger. If I keep waiting will be at the end of the season before we know it lol, a difficult year but then every year seems to have its challenges nowadays.

Saturday: The weather looks promising today, despite a frosty start there is wall to wall blue sky. Today was one of those days when you have a plan and probably shouldn’t have bothered 🙄 A job that should have been first thing and 10 mins didn’t get completed until midday for various reasons. Last night I cooked up bramley apples and mint along with some cider vinegar to make mint jelly, that all went well and I left it overnight to strain hoping to get it boiled and jarred up first thing. I had just got the sugar in and dissolved when BT arrived and almost at the same time Martin, Josh and Flo called in to see us. As I always say, everything stops for grandchildren and so I set the pan aside to return to it later once they had gone. We had coffee outside and played with the kids, all the while the BT man is checking equipment. He goes off at some point believing he has detected this elusive fault. Martin and the children leave so I go back inside and get the pan back on the boil only it has developed a skin which I skimmed off first (I think it was from the vinegar) The engineer returns as I am carefully watching the mixture boil and get up to temperature, I barely look at him when he is telling me, he thinks that is now sorted and I shouldn’t have any more problems, yep I have heard that one before 😂 He leaves and I carry on until I am happy I will get a set and then put it into jars than have not been in the oven sterilising for over two hours 😜 Job done I go outside to get started out there as I haven’t had a chance to do that as yet. I go into the orchard to started getting water for the Guineas, quail, Turkey and light Sussex, only to find the water is not coming out of the tap, that means a leak somewhere. I go back into the garden and can hear it pouring out of the main tap, it has been going a while as the paddock has a slick of water across it 🥴 Luckily just as I discovered it, John, who had popped to the shop for some milk, returned, there were three joints in total that had popped off from the freeze thaw process 🙄 Once we got those sorted and I may say it wasn’t without incident as John lost one of the washers down a hole in the ground (yeah I know, you couldn’t make this stuff up) I finished getting the water buckets etc sorted and then it was onto watering some of the veg plants I have planted recently. It is not as bad as it was this time last year when we had record high temps and no rain for weeks but this year it’s cold and no rain for weeks 🤷‍♀️ always a situation to overcome, hopefully it will all be fine in the end and we will get veg!

Mint jelly, not quite as clear as I would have liked and I forgot to turn it when it was part set so the mint bits are all at the top but it will still be delicious 😋 The jelly you buy in the shop will have green food colouring added to it to make it more appealing 🙄 this is the colour it actually should be 😀

I checked the greenhouse and opened the vents, all seems well in there so there was nothing to be getting on with. I came in for a cuppa around 1.30 and did a bit of researching of various plants, we will watch Prince Phillips funeral later this afternoon though John is annoyed as the snooker is starting as well but I have already bagged the tv 😋

Sunday: Lovely day, sunshine, warm fabulous. Today is the first anniversary of the passing of Dad and so tinged with a little sadness, but not too much as there are so many things I remember that make me smile or laugh. I often wondered when people said they think of them every day, how that was possible but it really is, in the littlest things you catch yourself thinking about a chuckle or a ‘wise word’ or just the appreciation he would have had for something like a good home cooked dinner. We went to the grave and gave him a toast with his favourite tipple, had a little sing song and a jig, he would have loved that 😂

For the best part of the day I have not done much other than clean out the Guineas and a trip to the garden centre and a visit to my brother for a cuppa on the way over. I attempted to do something about one part of the veg bed that I had turned over to wildlife, it needs sorting but apart from pulling out nettles I abandoned the job, I will get back to it at some point but not today. John meanwhile has been doing the usual jobs, feeding, watering, egg collecting. He did start the very last raised bed at the side in the driveway, until I pulled him away to go to the garden centre that is but he didn’t offer up much objection to abandon tools 😜

Early evening I went out and checked the greenhouse to make sure everything was alright and then I watered the herb bed. It is so dry that nothing is really bursting into life like it should be at this time of year. There are a couple of plants I want to lfit and so giving them a soaking will help immensely when I go out in the morning to dig them up and move them.

I can’t quite believe that right at the very beginning of this week we had a covering of snow and now the days are bright, sunny and warm lol. I think we have a few more days of warm weather before it gets cold again 🙄 not sure how long that will last but these things are sent to try us and they certainly do!

Posted in Friesland Farm

Ash before Oak 😏 a bit of creativity and it’s still cold outside 🥶

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 5th April 2021: Bank Holiday Monday and you couldn’t have got a more different day than yesterday 😂 Yesterday we were basking in good temps with wall to wall sunshine and today there is a cold North wind and it actually snowed at one point! To be fair I am writing this at 4.30pm the sky is blue the sun is shining and it is not too bad but the chill in the wind is noticeable 🥶 We started off the day and the week with the usual morning rounds and jobs, I lit the Rayburn at around 8.30am as we didn’t light it yesterday and it was a bit chilly. John got the tractor out and was levelling the drive again although he tells me he is now happy with it, it had a few lumps and dips which he has now sorted out. Meanwhile I spent the morning doing a bit of pirate sewing 🏴‍☠️. I have sown pirate bunting, pirate cushion covers and a pirate table cloth. The sewing skills needed were not great, pinking shears eliminate the need turn over material, fairly basic but overall a good job done for the pirate ship and the grandchildren when they come to play. The rest of the day was spent doing not much at all really, we popped over some strawberry plants to my niece and had a cuppa with my brother and his wife. Then we went to the green with Shelley, Martin, Josh and Florence so that Josh could show us his bike riding skills 🚲 and then back home to do the egg rounds and water the greenhouse and poly tunnels. It is amazing how hot they are even though it’s cold outside, all it takes it the sun and they warm up massively, the greenhouse regularly reaches 30c on a sunny day.

Arrrrgh, all ready for pirate playtimes in the pirate ship.

Tuesday: Brrrr that cold wind is here still and it is positively Baltic out there we even had snow flurries again 🥶 John did the animals and then went off to do a mornings work, I found inside jobs to get on with as I didn’t fancy being out there today. I set about cleaning the kitchen and putting stuff away, throwing out of date stuff away, mostly stuff with 2016/17 dates on them 😂 Cleaning the tiled walls down as I went round, looks a whole lot brighter and less cluttered now. John came home late morning just as I was with a customer who was buying hens. He spent most of the afternoon doing something on the tractor though I am not sure exactly what 🤷‍♀️ I spent the afternoon making cards, the ones I had made and put in the shed all sold so I needed to restock and I might as well stay in the warm and do that. I lit the Rayburn at lunchtime as it was cold in here, no point freezing our nuts off just for the sake of it, I am here so I can keep feeding it every hour or so.

Late afternoon John came in and a delivery arrived, a gel topper for the mattress, John finds the memory foam too hot and I am inclined to agree so after talking to my sister about it we ordered this gel topper. She has one and says it is great, it’s supposed to disperse the heat more evenly, we will find out if it works 🙄

I discovered that John had been removing ivy from the hedge at the back, the trees and shrubs are being choked by it and a lot of them have died. It is a job that is on the to do list, it’s a big job though as there is a falling down stone wall, barbed wire, dead trees, lots of ivy and broken fencing, it is not a quick fix job but it is one that you can take up or leave whenever you want.

Apart from the afternoon rounds and egg collecting that is pretty much it for the day, not much going on outside in these temperatures 😜

Wednesday: Oooooo that was cold last night, we had thick snow flurries mid evening and the temps must have gone down to around -4 overnight. Everywhere was covered in a hard white frost this morning, John did the rounds and then went off to do a mornings work, I got sorted indoors and then out to feed the Guineas and check the torts. Billy was in the hut and Voldertort had dug himself into the ground 🙄 it should be milder from here on in but you never know. I came back in and got some household bits done and I lit the Rayburn, then I spent a good hour looking thorough seasonal recipes so I can make good use of the things I am growing.

To be honest I haven’t done much else today 🥴 I always feel a bit guilty at the end of the day if I haven’t done much but sometimes I think it’s a case of recharging batteries. I did watch the seaspiracy documentary that is a hot topic at the minute, shocking, is the word. We don’t eat a lot of fish but will be eating a lot less now if any at all, if you haven’t seen it then as a consumer you really should 🙄 I watched it with an open mind, I am aware that this kind of reporting is often driven by the vegan section of society but it is undeniably bad even if you only think it’s half true.

Mid evening and still light, looking out of the back door I can see the two cats (that are usually so lazy they don’t go far from the food bowl) down in the hedge line stalking rabbits 😂 They have just got into their hunting stride, last week John said “did you put a dead mouse in the cats bowl”, why he would even think that is something I would do I have no idea! They had caught a shrew and bought it in and put it in to the bowl themselves 🤣

Thursday: Slightly warmer today in a cold sort of way 😜 if the sun had come out it would have been lovely but there is still a chill in the air. John did the morning rounds while I did the indoor bits, he went off to do a quick job in the village while I then did a few outside bits. When he came back we went off to get a bit of shopping from the local market, back home to put stuff away and then over to see Sam and the children and give her a bit of a hand if necessary.

When we got back from the market the sheep from the next field and got past their fencing, through the hedge and were stood inbetween that and our new fence lol, it took the first one a minute or two to work out how to get back but the second one took decidedly longer to work it out 😋

Back from Sams, lit the Rayburn then an afternoon of sorting out Johns van insurance which should have taken two minutes online except it wouldn’t recognise the email address even though they had emailed to that exact address 🙄 unbelievable sometimes. That then took half an hour to do it over the phone 😂 John went off to do another small job this afternoon while I sorted out some online payments and ordered the third electric radiator, this one is for the kitchen. We are getting to the stage that the Rayburn only needs to be lit for a couple of hours, unless it’s really cold, so if we slowly install the electric rads we can begin to use them just to take the chill off the air. We do have to sort out the back door as you can see daylight through it and so that’s not cost effective but we will get that done soon as well.

The blossom is beginning to be noticeable all around the place and the leaves on the trees are also bursting into life. Unfortunately if the old saying is to be believed we have Ash before Oak here which means a wet summer ahead 🙄 Oak before Ash just a splash, Ash before Oak expect a soak, time will tell.

Friday 😀 After doing the morning rounds we spent the rest of the morning doing the pirate ship. I have swept it out and put fairy lights up high in there, I have put the cushions and bunting and table cloth in and hung up some paper parrots. John and I then found some Perspex and put that in the windows, this will stop the wind blowing in and the leaves, make it feel a bit more like a playhouse and hopefully the children will get to play in there this summer.

Arrrgggghhh Jim lad

We came in at lunchtime to the sad news that Prince Phillip had died 😞 I know there were lots of varying opinions on him but he was someone’s husband, father, grandfather and great grand father and they will miss him dearly. He was the Queens Consort, not an easy job by any means, he devoted his life to supporting her and in turn everything she stood for, RIP

After a quick lunch John went off to look at a job and I planted the broad beans plants finally, as well as the Oca. I had to be very quick with the beans as the chickens could smell the Earth I dug for the holes and were there quick as a wink! I managed to get them in and cover them with hoops and netting though I had wanted to get some mulch round the bases but there was no way I would fend them off in time 😂 I can do that another day but at least they are now in. I had a few spare plants and where one or two garlic did not appear I have used the gaps up and put some in between and a couple of rows at the end of the garlic bed. Should be interesting to see if the garlic keeps the blackfly off of the bean plants.

Guess what, broadband and phone line issues again, this is ridiculous I think I will be going to ofcom this time 😡

Saturday: Still cold, not as cold as it has been but still no sign of the sun which we really need this time of year to get the veg plants going. After all the various morning stuff that needs to be done John went off to get feed and I went out into the veg garden. The planting and sowing really ramps up from here on in and this morning I have sown red onion sets. I will have a cracking haul of onions, shallots, garlic and leeks for winter storing hopefully. I then went into the greenhouse to do some pricking out, I have a mix of veg and flower seeds growing and this morning I have pricked out a couple of trays of achillea (summer berries) and I have also sown some celeriac and lemon grass seeds as well as some ginger roots but as I said we really need a bit of warmth soon for those to start growing. The lack of heat also means that the tomato and pepper plants that have come up are not able to move from the propagator to the bench yet, it’s just a tad too cold. I have cucumbers, melon and squash plants all coming on which also need to move out from under cover onto the benches, hopefully any day soon we will feel the temps rise. We also have a lack of rain at the moment 🙄 I can’t recall the last time it rained properly, at least a couple of weeks ago, it is the way things go sometimes and you can never know what kind of spring you are going to get so even the best laid plans get scuppered.

While I was in the greenhouse I was listening to the radio as always and the topic was the ship that blocked the canal holding up all the freight. It got round to the subject of self sufficiency of the country and if we ought to look into becoming more self sufficient 🤔 hmmm let me think, hell yes! I actually can’t believe that it is not on the ‘must do’ list, it is not rocket science is it 🤷‍♀️ if we produced as much as we could here that would give us food security and help the environment at the same time, why it is not happening as a matter of urgency I don’t know. I would have thought that the pandemic would have taught us big lessons in that department, it seems that we haven’t even felt the ripple effect that will be caused by the ship jam yet, I wonder what kind of panic buying that will result in, we will find out in a few weeks time 🙄

We have lived through history in the making over the last year and today we witness another at midday, a 41 death gun salute to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, a very rare salute to witness especially as it was coordinated right across the UK and Gibraltar as well as HM ships at sea.

Just when I have stated the lack of rain situation we had a little shower, not much but enough to wet the ground which is all we need really 😀

Sunday: I hope we get a better second half to April than the first half, it’s been bloody cold today. At times the sun has made an appearance and it was nice, cool but still nice, but when it disappeared behind clouds the temperature plummeted and at one point it was trying to snow! After doing the morning jobs I went out into the greenhouse to get some bits done but after an hour I had to come back in as my feet were frozen and I haven’t been able to warm up all day. I did get a few things done in there, some rearranging, I sowed some more squash seeds and split and potted some pheasant grass I had growing. In the front I have resealed the bird bath hopefully with some success, it had a crack through it and before I try putting something in it I wanted to see if I could seal it.

I am struggling to function today because I am feeling the cold, I know that is a pathetic statement lol but it’s true. I think I am primed and ready for some warm spring days and they are not forthcoming and so I have gone into idle mode 🤣 I am currently huddled on the sofa, John meanwhile is busy outside tidying his van 🙄 I am literally shivering, hope I am not coming down with anything except ‘whereisspringitis’ 😜

Have a great week, a little more normality is creeping in, this week coming I am having a haircut and a massage whoop whoop, other shops will be open so we have a bit more choice when it comes to buying birthday presents 😜and the pub gardens will be open, not that I want to sit out in the freezing cold 🤣 one step closer to total freedom hopefully.

I think I will start a running list of what I have growing, what I am planting and what I am picking:

  • In the greenhouse:
  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers
  • Chilli
  • Butternut Sqaush
  • Banana sqaush
  • Courgette
  • Crown Prince
  • Pumpkins
  • Cucumber
  • Basil
  • Garlic chive
  • Melon
  • Runner beans
  • Dwarf French beans
  • Sweetcorn
  • In the cold frame
  • Peas
  • Mangetout
  • Swede
  • Turnip
  • Beetroot
  • Planted up outside
  • Broad beans
  • Onions
  • Garlic
  • Shallots
  • Oca
  • Carrots
  • Potatoes
  • In the tunnels
  • Lettuce
  • Baby spinach
  • Rocket
  • Spring onions
  • Radish
  • Flat leaf parsley (already growing from last year)
  • Already growing and harvesting
  • Purple sprouting broccoli
  • Leeks
  • Rhubarb
  • Asparagus (just starting to come through)

Not included on any of those lists are perennials such as herbs, sage, mint, lovage, thyme, oregano. Nor any of the fruit bushes, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, gooseberry, blackcurrant, blackberry, Logan berry, chokeberry, olive, fig. And then there are the top fruit trees, apple, pear, plum, apricot, peach, cherry.

I will keep adding to the lists as I remember as I am sure I have missed a fair few things out already. The lists will change as I move things around and plant up but they will give me an idea of what I have and what I need to be doing such as getting on with sowing the runner beans 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Hollibob booked 😀 an allergic reaction & and a tractor that won’t go 🙄

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 22nd March 2021: What a ridiculous morning and not even smallholding related 🙄 Holidays were being released from 8.30 this morning and so I was ready and good to go, an hour later and it’s obvious the website had crashed spectacularly, nevertheless I continued to refresh, refresh, refresh meanwhile I could see the prices going up meaning they were selling the lower priced accommodation to someone at least. In between all this I was cleaning, cleaning the bathroom, changing the beds, polishing, hoovering, washing, re making the bed. By midday there was still no way to get on the site despite continually refreshing and trying to book, my sister was also trying and she managed to get in the phone queue, as I type this I don’t know how successful she is going to be. It is going to be a nightmare this year for anyone trying to book a holiday, the prices have rocketed, I guess they need to get some revenue back somehow, I think anything you want to go to is going to cost a lot this year and that’s providing we don’t have some sort of monumental relapse 😕 All those that normally go abroad and wouldn’t dream of staying in this country will be competing with those that always holiday here, good luck in that scrum 😂 I did think we should rent out the front field to campers 🤔 The demand is going to be huge wherever you want to go.

Meanwhile on the smallholding 😜 not much different today than other days so far, John did the animals and went off to work, I did the housework as above, the sun made an effort to come out but only for short bursts and that’s about it. John is at home for most of this week after today so hopefully we will get some jobs ticked off the list.

Whoop whoop, all booked for a week in August, after the year we have had it is nice to have a few things to look forward to especially a holiday where someone else does all the work and we relax 🥰

I wish it would warm up just a tad, I know it’s still only March but I do think the country could do with something good. It feels like it has been a long slog through the last 5/6 months, we are luckier than a lot of people, I am always reminding myself of that, but still it doesn’t stop you wishing for things does it, some sunshine would lift our spirits no end and help carry us forward I think.

I have ordered another electric propagator, I kept looking and thinking about what I am growing and what I need to get growing and the outcome every time was that I needed more enclosed heat for at least another month and so I have ordered one. It will mean I can get the courgette and more cucumber plants on the go and give them a good head start.

John came home mid afternoon, then had to shoot out again, then came home again fifteen minutes later 😜 All the while he is waiting for a phone call from the doctor, that is the only way you get an appointment these days, initially at least anyway. He has a big problem with his shoulder which has been going on for a few months now, I think it’s a rotator cuff problem as it does not cause him any trouble during the day but when he sleeps it is extremely painful, so much so that he shouts in his sleep. Finally I got fed up with him moaning and shouting so I made an appointment to get the ball rolling and hopefully get it sorted.

Tuesday: A tad colder today, lots of cloud cover, no sun in the morning but the minute I lit the Rayburn and got it going the sun came out and hung around all afternoon 🤷‍♀️ John was home today and so after the usual morning jobs we sorted out the remaining bit of the bean frame. We needed to put something over the top so that the beans grow up then across, this way the beans should hang down for easier picking. Last year they grew across the top of the fruit cage and I couldn’t reach them. We then had a few things to tidy up and put in the skip and the garden gate to sort out, it had dropped and was dragging on the ground which meant lifting it every time I went through it. There always seems to be stuff to tidy and sort and throw away, probably because I always think, that might come in handy, and then it doesn’t and so eventually it gets thrown out.

Late morning John went to the docs, it is not a joint problem so that is good news, we were a bit worried it might be arthritis but in fact it is a damaged muscle. He really needed to find out what it wasn’t so that he could get it treated properly if that makes sense. Now we know it’s not the joint and it is not ligament damage he can sort out getting some therapeutic massage for it as well as using pain relief gel. Of course he told me the doc said he needs to rest, take it easy and watch the snooker, I’m not buying that though 😂 yep a little less of the hard physical jobs but there is always plenty to do that does not involve heavy lifting or digging. My diagnosis is that he lifts a cup of tea too many times a day 😜

We didn’t really get much else done except the basics and absolutely have to do jobs and tomorrow we are planning on dragging the paddocks before the rain comes on Thursday.

A year ago today is when we first went into total lockdown, it was a bit of a shock, stay home, don’t see anyone, panic buying, not really knowing what the future holds. One year on and we are slowly creeping forward, we have vaccines, we have a bit of hope, we have had one of the hardest years for a generation according to Boris. It has been tough, it has been devastating but it has also at times been uplifting to see courage, bravery, compassion and the sheer determination of people of all ages to get through and help others through as best they can. I hope that future generations learn from the things that went wrong and the things that were right, mostly I hope that they understand that this could easily happen again and most likely will at some point and to always prepared for the ‘what if’. My advice would be to have transferable skills and a bit of self reliance and by that I don’t necessarily mean grow your own (though its useful to know how 😀 ) but be adaptable, learn how to take care and provide for yourself. John has always been self employed, I am self employed, many of my extended family are or have been self employed, you don’t have anything to fall back on, no sick pay, no holiday pay, no cushion whatsoever. You quickly learn how to be self reliant when you choose that path and I really think that has put us in good stead to weather a storm like this one.

Wednesday: Not a bad day, over cast to begin with but mild and then the sun came out in the afternoon and it was lovely, in fact it was 4.30 pm before I came in to light the Rayburn and sort out some dinner. Today’s job was supposed to be dragging the paddocks but the tractor would not start even though the battery had been on charge all night. John had a look at it and decided he had no idea why it wouldn’t start so he went to ask someone who might. He came back had a little tinker but still it would not start, I gave Ken a ring and he called over to have a look at it but it still would not start. By now it is mid afternoon and so that job has gone out of the window, but as ever there are always plenty of other things to do. So I got John to fix the poly tunnel doors, they have dropped and the birds get in and eat any fruit that happens to be growing. Meanwhile I dug up a whole load of strawberry runners and plenty of weeds, I spent a while trying to decide exactly what to do in the garden. Ken had called in with Mum on their way back from the garden centre so over a cup of tea in the garden while they looked at the tractor, we talked about what I could do and what not to do. It is always good to have someone to bounce ideas off (well mostly moan to actually 😂) We have a dilemma with the tractor, we ought to sell it really and just get a quad bike but I like sitting on the tractor dragging the fields. Likewise we could always get someone in to do them but again I like doing it and feel it is part and parcel of what we are about here. Anyway we can’t sell it when it doesn’t go so first things first, I think Ken is coming back tomorrow in his work clothes to have another look. Most of the problem is that John is not very mechanically minded, he has plenty of other strings to his bow just not that one, but that means we have to either know someone who is or pay to get it sorted, neither of which help when you have planned to use it that day 😜

I completely avoid using weedkiller for the best part but there are some occasions when you don’t have much choice. The ménage is overrun with weeds of all kinds including dog rose, I made the decision to weedkiller it today. It is so full that there is not a hope in hell of doing it by hand, the only other option might have been getting in a couple of pigs but we don’t eat pork very much at all so no point having them for that purpose. Hopefully it will just take a one off session, possibly two, to get it back to manageable, it is a space we don’t use for what it was intended for and so gets left to its own devices which is mainly weed growing.

Big Billy woke up this morning, I say woke up, he has probably been awake for a few days but he actually came out of the hut this morning and then in the afternoon, Voldertort came out. I have given them water and a few bits of dandelion but I don’t think they are quite ready for either just yet. I have got their outside run and house already and I am thinking that at the weekend they can probably go outside. Hopefully this year the grandchildren will be able to give them their annual bath, they couldn’t do it last year because of the lockdown but I think this year perhaps around May they could.

I also had to move one of the light Sussex chickens, a cockerel that so far has been fine in with his Dad but just lately he has been sat up high as he is getting picked on. I imagine he probably wasn’t getting much food and water because every time he came down the dad would bully him, so I have moved him to a hut on his own for a few days until I decide to either sell him on or prep him for the freezer.

John was home all day today, he couldn’t go anywhere, well not to work anyway, as his van was in for an MOT, glad to say it passed 😀

Thursday: I think it’s Thursday anyway, one of those moments in the week when I have no idea what day it is 😜 The morning started off with beautiful sunshine but that soon disappeared, it made the occasional appearance in with a shower or two in the morning but by the afternoon the rain was more of a permanent shower for a while.

I had a lovely morning though, I have mostly been digging up and transplanting plants or potting them up for sale later on in the year. I picked a good haul of rhubarb put some out for sale and some is for crumble later. We have some smallholder reared beef, our own leek and purple sprouting which I will slowly cook altogether and with the crumble it will be a proper smallholder feast for dinner tonight.

Ken came over to take another look at the tractor, in his work clothes this time, the upshot is that he thinks the fuel injector pump is not working. We were hoping it would be something simple but it doesn’t look like it and so I have phoned our tractor repair man and he is popping over later this afternoon to give his verdict and hopefully he can mend it. I think once it’s mended we will sell it and get something a little more useful to us, the tractor is wonderful but it’s big and not very manoeuvrable in the fields. Still not entirely sure yet as I just had a thought, we move the big heavy chicken huts with it and I am not sure anything else would be up to the job quite honestly.

The micro veg are doing splendidly and are probably ready to cut and eat, I added a strip of foil to the side furthest from the window to reflect light back so that they didn’t keep leaning towards the light outside, seems to have worked a treat. I would definitely do this again though probably autumn and winter as I have a lot to be doing at this time of year plus I have already sown salad leaves. Early in the year salad leaves are no trouble but later they tend to get greenfly and also they bolt so that might be the time to do the micro veg.

The seeds in the greenhouse are all coming on nicely, the beetroot, turnip and swede are up, you may wonder why I have not put them straight in the ground. For me here it is easier to raise the plants than sow because once the chickens are out they get on the garden and disturb the seeds even if they are covered they find a way of messing up my lovely straight rows so I have given up on that. You have to find the way that works best for you, I don’t sow pea and bean seeds because they get eaten by mice, the only seeds I tend to sow direct are carrots, parsnips, long rooted veg. You can transplant them but it’s a right faff with hundreds of seedlings lol, carrots are spasmodic at germinating anyway so leaving them in situ when they do germinate is best I find. The tomatoes and peppers are doing well though coming to the time I need to pot them on again.

John came home mid afternoon then went back out again 🙄 pit stop for a cup of tea I think. In the afternoon as the rain had moved on and the sun came back out I cleared the debris from the strawberry beds. I have had to pull a lot of runners up, some I have potted up and some have gone to good homes. Halfway through doing that I remembered I had the rhubarb on the stove 😜 luckily it was on low so no damage done. I had two pots of baby leeks that were supposed to get planted last year and never did so I took them all out of the pots, threw away the ones that were too small and took the others indoors for use at a later date.

Baby leeks, or rather leeks that got left in a pot instead of being planted out, still too good not to use though 😀

I am going to have to be much more careful, the sun was shining this morning so I put on factor 50 but as I have come in now I can feel the side of my face itching and burning. It is early in the year but there some real heat in the sun when it does appear. Oh the trials and tribulations of this flipping condition are vexing at times, I have wondered in the past if the sun tan lotion makes it a whole lot worse, not sure if it’s my skin reacting to it or not 🤷‍♀️

Late afternoon the tractor man came, his name is Dave, he spent until the light faded taking bits apart, testing bits and then putting things back together but he will have to come back tomorrow afternoon to see if he can get any further with finding out what is wrong. The fuel injectors were loose but the glow plugs were fine 🤷‍♀️ I have no idea what that means, well I kind of do now as it was explained to me but until he can get it all back together we won’t know if that was the problem or not.

My face is really itching and coming in from outside to the warm indoors makes it a whole lot worse, I’m thinking this is not a good suntan lotion to use, I will have to find another one. None of them seem to work very well so maybe I will have to work with a huge floppy hat on 😂

Friday: Now normally I love Fridays but today I am feeling very sorry for myself and a tad weepy. This is definitely an allergic reaction to the sun spray and my face is red, itchy and swollen in places 😞 I will have to wait until reception opens and see if I can talk to a doctor about taking antihistamine. Jeez it’s a pain in the arse, I have to be so careful about what I use on my skin, face creams, makeup, sun screen, body wash, body lotions, the list is endless, that I usually don’t use anything at all, because this is what happens when I do 😜

Looking out of the kitchen window this morning and spotted a pair of red legged partridge on the beds, first time I have had them this close to the house normally they are out in the paddocks.

Had to take the photo through a rainy kitchen window, if I went outside they would have run away.

So I spoke to the doc and I can take a certain antihistamine which is good, during the conversation he mentioned that my blood results showed my thyroxin level is now up at the borderline level 🤷‍♀️ I have had an under active thyroid for about twenty years and never had an anomaly before, weird.

I just ordered some sunscreen online, it is one I could get on prescription if I asked but I don’t mind paying for it. I had it once before and it is quite thick which is why I stopped using it but looks like I need to up my game a bit. With that in mind I also ordered a new factor 50 top and a face covering, flipping expensive though 😂 I figure as we are all using face coverings I am not going to look out of place anymore 😂

Shelley collected the antihistamine and dropped it over for me and within an hour of taking it most of the heat and puffiness had gone out of my face, just left with the red blotchiness now.

Saturday: Most of my face is fine again now just a little irritation up around the eyes but much better than yesterday. John was up with the lark this morning and had got a lot of jobs done before I even got up 😜 We talked about the jobs for the day and as often happens the job we thought we were going to do didn’t get done but a different one did instead. First we tried to see if the ride on lawnmower would pull the drag chains, we took it out to the field but the chains were too heavy and the back wheels of the mower kept lifting off the ground. Abandon that job and have a coffee, have a wander over the paddocks and we decided that a lot of the growth needed cutting back away from the boundary fence so that what we spent most of the morning doing, we now have a big pile to burn. Mid morning the tractor man turned up, he had come in and got started on the tractor, he turned it over and it fired up, yippee. We went over to talk to him and it seems that at some point the hydraulic lever had been put in the wrong position and that’s why it wouldn’t start. Bless him he had gone home Thursday and thought about what could be wrong, came up with this thought and yep that’s what it was. Simple enough but it probably helped that he cleaned and tightened the injector pipes as well. He is coming back at some point to give it a service as the filters all need changing and it is a bit smokey when it’s running but it’s all good. We will drag the paddocks probably tomorrow now or sometime in the week, we had heavy rain yesterday so it is best to wait for it to dry out a bit otherwise you end up with mud clogging the drag. The drag by the way is a pair of very heavy chains that sit in a square attached to a pull bar, they have prongs I suppose you would call them, they point down and just moved the sods of earth and any poop, it spreads it around and evens out the land a little. Once we finished pruning bits of the hedge-line we came in for lunch, a cuppa and a sit down.

I harvested some of the micro veg today 😀 I had it in a pitta with cream cheese and some green grapes.

I took this photo the other day to show you the difference between forced and unforced rhubarb. Forcing rhubarb gives you earlier, sweeter stalks but also saps the strength from the plant, very vibrant in colour too. I have harvested from both types and now I will let the forced rhubarb get some light and some strength back, if I force next year I will choose a different plant and give this one a rest.

Forced rhubarb on the right, vibrant in colour, sweeter in taste but strength sapping for the plant itself.

I thought after Friday the weather would get a bit warmer but although it’s dry today the wind is cold, I am chomping at the bit to get more things growing and can’t wait for all the front beds to start filling up and out so I can see what else needs to go in there.

Sunday: The clocks sprang forward early morning and we had a lay in until nearly 9am, that should put us right for tonight’s bedtime lol. The morning jobs all got done and we had the day off, no jobs apart from the things that have got to be done. It is still quite a cold wind and so not much fun outside and there is always tomorrow 😜

A gallery view of how the micro greens got on, I am now eating them at every opportunity 😀 That was only 10 days from sowing the seed to ready to harvest, that is a full seed tray which I reckon would do one person probably four days depending on how often you ate them and how. I tend to use in with salad or in a pitta with cream cheese. So in theory you would want to sow every four days to keep a rotation going, more often for more people and of course it depends on the seeds you are growing. Definitely a great growing system for fresh home grown 😀 Now all I have to do is sow some more 😜

That’s all for this week, have a good one.