Now I know I said I wasn’t going to blog over Christmas but some days just warrant an jot down. Today Dec 21st is a day like that, first John gets the animals done and goes off Christmas shopping, I do a few little house bits and then set up to wrap presents. First I have to move bits of the rubic cube to get to the wrapping paper, scissors, tape etc, a bit of intense searching for a few things and I’m ready to go, shit I have forgotten to put the eggs out and there is a customer waiting, I also forget to put a note out explaining the lack of honesty box, back in, do that and I am good to go. I pick up the sellotape block, you know the unit that is very easy to use, drop it, break it and now it doesn’t roll and won’t tear off nicely leaving an end. I carry on each time trying to find the end of the sellotape, I try sticking the end to the table but if it falls off once it falls off a hundred times. I remember that at 11am a hay delivery is coming oh ffs John has gone off in the car and left the van parked right in front of the gate (I don’t drive) never mind I will open the side gate that will eventually be the driveway and oh another bloody rubic cube scenario, move planks of wood so the gate can open, move bits and pieces left by John so the truck and trailer can manouvre properly, move a bloody great pile of hedge clippings and debris so it can actually get through, sometimes I hanker for an ordinary life 😝
Monday 27th December 2020: It snowed! Despite Alexa giving a totally different weather forecast it began to snow early Monday morning and then it started to settle and overnight it froze and it has being frozen each day so far.
Wednesday 30th December 2020: I felt compelled to write today as it is a milestone day, the UK Astrazenica vaccine has been approved and will begin roll out next week. Although we already have the Pfizer one that needs special handling at extremely low temperature whereas this new one can be kept in a fridge making it much easier to transport and handle. It hasn’t come a day too soon here as we were just learning (through social media) that the virus is taking a real hold in the nearest town to us. During the first wave it was as if the virus wasn’t even real, hardly anybody we knew had it, just one or two people, and everything seemed fairly normal in the circumstances. We did wonder if the whole thing was real back then but now it has become obvious that it is spreading very fast indeed here. The NHS is under extreme strain and for that reason alone it is a whoop whoop day, bring on the vaccine and let’s get back to normal, more importantly, people will stop dying from it 🥰 We can finally think about toasting in a better New Year 😀
December 31st 2020: New Years Eve, not many celebrations going on but at midnight we went outside and rang the bell we used to ring on a Thursday night for the NHS, we could hear others ringing bells and shouting Happy New Year and there was a good show of fireworks from various areas, job done now kiss goodbye to 2020 and off to bed.
Friday January 1st 2021: Welcome to a new year, hopefully the vaccine and a little more freedom than we have had over the last nine/ten months, I seriously hope so, until then we carry on with the new normal 😜
Saturday January 2nd: We did the animals, the ground is still frozen and so it’s a case of breaking water and making sure all the animals are all ok. We have had torrential rain and floods and then snow and freezing cold weather and a glimpse of winter sun at times as well, a smorgasbord of weather. John has been doing the office and so he then went off to get insulation and plasterboard so we can carry on and hopefully get it finished soon. Meanwhile I cleaned out the Rayburn, for two days I have been saying to John that it was not burning right and definitely not behaving as it normally does. I get told I am not doing it properly even though I have now been running this thing for nearly eleven years. Anyway I found the reason that it has not been performing as it should, the oven was getting too hot too quickly, the water and radiators were not getting very hot at all and I couldn’t for the life of me keep the flue temperature up. It was fine up to the day before yesterday, he fire bricks had cracked, not just cracked but one of them was in six different pieces 😩 Great, it’s freezing, it’s Saturday so no next day delivery available and we have no Rayburn. John is still out and I remember that we have another set of fire bricks in the shed, they are the summer bricks that go over the top of the winter bricks but we don’t use it in the summer so never use the bricks either. The only problem is that they are a different size, John arrives home and I give him the options, go without heating etc until Monday, try sticking the fire bricks back together with fire cement or, and I rather think this is a stroke of genius on my part, cut down the fire bricks that we already have as a temporary measure u til the new one arrives. They are shorter and wider than the correct ones but we can cut them to width and use the leftover bit to make them longer. That’s what we did and it has been successful though it will be better once the correct fitting bricks arrive. We then got on with insulation the office and getting up a few sheets of plasterboard, we will get there eventually after all there is not a lot else to do at the minute 😂 The virus is spreading rapidly and we have made the decision not to go anywhere that we don’t really need to, I have made a few loaves of bread and put them in the freezer, I also made some butter from the cream we didn’t use on Boxing Day, we have plenty in the freezers to keep us going and the milkman delivers the milk so apart from some bananas and the plasterboard we have not had to go anywhere yet.
Butter made from the cream we didn’t use, both the butter and the buttermilk are in the freezer ready to use at a later date.
Sunday: Still doing all the usual jobs as well as getting the office done, keep coming up against problems in there, the radiator has been leaking, probably for months and the floor is rotten in one area, I said in the first place we should just knock the place down and start again 🙄 The Rayburn is holding although the fire brick keeps falling forward, hopefully tomorrow the new ones will arrive. We have also ordered our first electric radiator to venture into cleaner heating, we will see how well they heat the room before we go any further with the project. I said to John I have no idea what I will do with all the extra hours it usually takes me to look after the Rayburn 😜
On the amazing side of things, I grew oranges whoo hoo, no mean feat in the UK I can tell you and what’s more they are ripe and they taste great, there were just two but two is a win and two that are edible is a great achievement so I am blowing my own trumpet 😀
Have a good week, covid is still on the rampage, even more so now 🙄 so stay safe everyone.
Monday 23rd November 2020: An atmospheric foggy morning this morning and it had been cold enough overnight for a frost. It’s almost noon and I haven’t stopped this morning until now. With the mornings getting ever darker I said to John that I would take over the morning feeding etc so that he can get off to work on time so this morning was my first for a long time that I have done everything. Feed and water all the animals, clean out the ducks, fill up the wild bird feeders, put the washing on, get the milk in, take the rubbish and empty milk bottles out, you get the idea. I got a chicken out of the freezer yesterday for tonight’s dinner and so I figured as I was going to have the oven on I might as well make good use of it. At the moment I have bread on the second prove and two cakes in the oven and some fruit stewing ready for the crumble topping I also made, busy busy.
One of the cakes was a simple quick fruit cake the second was a honey and ginger cake which is lovely. The reason I made this one is because it used natural yoghurt and I had some that needed using up, win, win, it’s a River Cottage one and I would definitely make it again. It’s light not heavy, not too much sugar in it so not too sweet.
The only thing I didn’t use was the cloves, not sure I would like that and I know for sure John wouldn’t 😜A foggy, finger nipping start to the week this morning.
Watching Countryfile last night I was pleased to see a section on hedgerows and how important they are to our wildlife. Trees, we know are hugely important but not many people think about hedgerows, these are wildlife corridors and when they were ripped out for the war effort that was a tragedy, a necessary one admittedly but there should have been provision to put them back in at a later date. I listen in polite horror when people talk about ripping them out to get a better view, of what, the next field, the wildlife and the hedgerows beyond? oh the irony of it 😏 Anyway I am glad that this topic has been bought firmly to the fore and hope that many thousands of miles of hedge get planted in the future. Hedges are great windbreaks, they are micro climates for thousands of insects and ideal nesting and roosting places for our native birds. Someone once said to us when we moved here ‘you should take out that row of trees so your view is better’ that’s a row of hazels they were talking about, its a native small tree/hedge that provides food and shelter for a plethora of wildlife, Humans 🙄
Last night we got two lots of the hens in from the paddock and also moved the light Sussex to the outdoor pen so that made feeding a bit easier this morning. We crated up the first lot just as dusk arrived, 19 in that hut, we then crated up the second lot, 10 to a crate, it was heavy pushing the wheelbarrow with two crates so we left one in the field while we took the other. When we got back they had escaped and we had to load them all over again, luckily when they got out they just went back into the hut as it was dark by this time, there was about thirty of that second lot, can’t precisely remember the number but roughly. The light Sussex we rounded up easily and we have 9 of those well 11 actually but the other two live with Ted 🙄 I counted the front lot this morning when I let them out and there are 36 of them, just over 100 in total and we are only getting about 48 eggs a day, some of them are free loading 😂
Fabulous news of an effective vaccine from Oxford University today, very proud to be Oxfordian born and bred, Oxford University Hospitals are our local hospitals and we are incredibly lucky to have world class services provided by them 😀
Looks like we will come out of lockdown into a tiered system again, still no definite idea of what we are allowed to do for Christmas though but all non essential shops and businesses can now open again so at least they will get their Christmas trade. The numbers of infected people are falling and so are the deaths but that’s because we have been in a lockdown, what will happen over the next couple of months is anyone’s guess, still, with a few vaccines looking promising there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Tuesday: An altogether different morning this morning, much milder and the sun was shinning first thing though it has disappeared now. It was shinning beautifully on the hazel tree outside the back door, the leaves were glowing golden 😀
I did the morning rounds, feeding and letting out, collecting the duck eggs, today I have all three shifts to do, morning, evening and putting to bed as John has a job he wants to get finished, normally he is home in time to put them away.
I went into the small tunnel to water the carrot seedlings, I was hoping we would have carrots for Christmas but something keeps eating the tops off 😏 a mouse I suspect, honestly you think it would be a simple enough thing to do but others have different ideas. I am not sure what to do really, I don’t want to trap it but I do want my carrots 🙄
I ordered some roots trainers for the sweet pea but they took ages to arrive so I potted them up, two days later the root trainers came 😜 so I may start off an early batch of eating peas in them and see how that pans out. Again it’s the little critters that are the problem, they love pea and bean seeds and I think there is a mouse in the greenhouse too as the sunflower seeds I spread out to dry also got eaten 😖 I think I will have to trap as at this rate I will end up with nothing.
I haven’t decided what I will do today but I have plenty of choices, it’s mild enough to be outside working, I have left over chicken to use and make into soup or pie or both and I need to go through the presents I have bought and see what else I need to get, that last one can wait for a rainy day I think 🤔
Lyra Silvertounge is not the only one who wants to know about dust! Apologies to anyone who isn’t watching ‘His dark materials’ as you won’t have a clue who that is but I would also like to know where all the bloody dust comes from! I know the wood burner is probably a big culprit and the low winter sun shining in doesn’t help but seriously 😩
In the end I decided to sort the presents and see what I still need to get and then as I figured I hadn’t really done much I ought to go for a walk and get some exercise. I also spent far too long looking for some new lampshades for the living room online 🤪 I made up for it when I got back as I got the dinner sorted for this evening, lit the Rayburn, fed the birds, collected the eggs, sorted them and put them out and then went back out to put the birds to bed once it was dark. My new book by my fav author arrived hot off the press today so I have that to look forward to reading but first I am part way through another one so I need to finish it, that’s what the dark winter nights are for, that hot chocolate 🥰
Wednesday: Is it only Wednesday 😏 the weather is horrible this morning, raining and wet underfoot, I have already had my first soaking of the day even my knees are wet! It probably won’t be the last time I get wet either if it rains all day I have another two lots of rounds to do later but for now at least everything is fed and watered 😀 I have left the front lot of hens in this morning, I will let them out later, I want to see exactly how many eggs they are laying and if any of them are laying elsewhere such as the hedgerows etc. I will have to repeat this for a few days as they can hold onto their eggs if they are not getting to their favourite laying sites.
Meanwhile I have come in and I am having a well deserved coffee now, I took a photo of the hazel tree outside the back door, it’s the same one that was shinning golden yesterday and today looks wet and forlorn. The three photos are Monday, Tuesday and today just goes to show exactly how changeable our weather is here in the UK and justifies our obsession with talking about it don’t you think?
I really should have done outside work yesterday but I didn’t and so now I have missed that opportunity nevertheless I still went round and checked a few things. The carrots that are having the tops nibbled, the oranges which are still ripening and the onions and garlic I planted. I am pleased to say they all have little green shoots, the shallots have multiple shoots and only about five of them came out of the ground, they are now firmly back in place. The cauliflower plants are also being nibbled, urgh the struggle is real, I am still thinking mice as they are under cover and just the nice green leafy bits have been eaten, I need to rescue those otherwise they won’t produce anything at all 😏
I indulged myself with an hour or so of reading this morning but then I thought I really ought to do something.
If we dont have our own chicken in the freezer I buy organic or high welfare chicken direct from other farms. These are expensive compared to the mass produced ones from the supermarket but I prefer to know that what I am eating has had a decent life. We are probably talking at about £12-£15 a bird, what! I hear you cry, but for that reason alone I make sure I get every last bit of use from it that I can. From the roast chicken we had on Monday John has taken chicken sandwiches two days in a row and there is a bit for tomorrow’s sandwich as well. Last night John had chicken casserole and I had cold chicken with baked potato and salad, today I have taken the carcass apart and any spare meat has gone into a pan with leeks and vegetables, stock and thickener and is basically a chicken pie filling although I am going to put mashed potatoes on the top much like a shepherds pie. We will have that tonight for dinner and there is a spare single portion that I will freeze for another day, the carcass is now in the slow cooker along with celery, onion, garlic, bay, parsley and black pepper which will make a tasty chicken stock that I can freeze for another day. It doesn’t end there though as I peeled off all the remaining skin and this will be fed to the dogs later, all that will be left is the bones. So that is seven portions of a decent sized meal, three lots of sandwiches and stock, if you only counted the main meals that works out from a £15 bird at £2.15 per person, very good value indeed I reckon, but you have to work at it 😀
This afternoons jobs were a bit of a clock watch game, I had decided not to light the Rayburn until late because it was fairly mild and didn’t feel cold indoors. The problem came when the first go at lighting it failed, I had primed it with a natural firefighter, kindling and wood and lit it, left it to get going came back and it had gone out 🙄 This then put me under a bit of pressure because by now it is about 4.15 and it’s starting to get dark and I need to go and shut the birds up for the night. The dilemma is do I go out and do the birds and light the fire when I get back in and not use the oven to cook the dinner or do I light the fire, wait for it to get up to temperature but risk the birds getting caught by any fox that might be around 🤷♀️ In the end I decided to light the fire but it didn’t draw very well and took ages to get going. That’s when I end up clock watching and waiting for it to get going, nervous that the darker it gets the more likely it is that something will come along, eventually the flue got up to temp and I was able to shut it down and go out to put everything away for the night, note to self, light the fire earlier next time 😜
It’s been a long couple of days and I will be glad to see the end of this second lockdown. It hasn’t really been a tight lockdown and many people are still going to work, school etc but if you don’t do the school run and don’t go to an external workplace, only go to the shop once a week and don’t see people it’s a very long day and week!
Friday, or is it Thursday? Well this morning I thought it was Friday so I took my Friday concoction of meds, one of which I only have take on a Friday. Any other day I mixed up would not matter but a Friday lot means I can’t sit or stand still for at least an hour after taking it, not that it’s a problem as I have plenty to do 😀
Anyway it definitely is Thursday which I figured out after about an hour 😜 There was a hard frost this morning and even though the sun came out it was still nippy doing the rounds. The goose door I couldn’t even get open to start with as it was frozen to the frame. None of the water taps are working so I will have to do those later, must remember to do them in the afternoon so I don’t have that problem again 🙄
We have a lot of duck eggs at the minute, at one time we were struggling to keep up with demand for them and now that demand has dropped off the cliff edge, typical, over all our egg customers have reduced in number, probably because it’s winter but I suspect that a farm just up the road which is going the way of a farm shop is where some of our custom has gone. I had a think about this and thought ‘Am I bothered?’ and the answer is no not really, I always knew that a farm shop would take off really well here and if I had wanted to do it I would have but I don’t, I am happy tickling along as we are. In the beginning the plan was only ever to be self sufficient, the fact that it increased to egg and veg sales means that I cover the cost of what we are eating and planting which is a bonus and life is not too stressful at that so all in all that will do.
Gosh it was very chilly at 4.30 when I was putting the birds to bed, I reckon it was very near to freezing then so goodness knows what the overnight temps will go down to.
Some seeds I ordered arrived today, I think I have all I need for next year now, I don’t want to get caught out like I was last spring when the virus hit, this time I think it will be more to do with Brexit though so I’m trying to get ahead of the game.
Friday, definitely Friday today: Jeez if I thought it was cold yesterday it’s totally Baltic this morning. I have just come in from doing the morning rounds and my toes need thawing out 🙄 Very glad I did the water yesterday although I still had to break it all this morning. Everything is covered in white and the air is heavy with fog, it is pretty but only if you are inside looking out. I was feeding the horses in the paddock and just goes to show how much warmth they have in their bodies as Jack finished his breakfast he decided on a roll on the frosty ground, his body heat immediately thawed the grass, then he got up and had a bit of a welly round the paddock, lovely sight to see on a morning like this. Biscuit on the other hand was not so keen to move and I had to go across the paddock to take her breakfast, I am wondering how well she can see actually, just a couple of things she does makes me wonder, like not coming for her food, although she could just be stubborn of course, I will monitor more closely.
The new cladding on the front and insulation has done wonders for the indoor temps because normally on a day like today, when the fire goes out overnight, it would feel cold but it is not at all.
First thing this morning we had a delivery of six tonnes of top soil for the raised bed, grossly underestimated that we are going to need at least another six tonne if not eight 🤔
Had blood tests again this morning, hoping the situation has changed a little bit will have to wait and find out on Monday/Tuesday.
Saturday: Had a pig of a morning tidying up and burning the hawthorn cuttings from the hedge at the side. If you have ever handled it you will know the thorns are long and sharp and the branches intertwine, both these things make moving the stuff hazardous. I got a smack on the head from one particularly thick bit, countless scratches on my legs, hands and face, a thwack to the lip drawing blood and as if that wasn’t enough a burning piece of leaf went down my collar, I could smell my hair singe and feel my neck burning simultaneously. I hastily unzipped my coat and threw it on the floor and at that point all I really wanted to do was cry. Said clipping are now all burnt and we can continue to tidy the side up at our leisure 😜
Sunday: It was foggy when I got up, foggy at lunchtime and still foggy at dark, just a foggy dreary day. We did some bits of tidying out side after doing the rounds but it wasn’t at all nice working in the dank weather so we had the afternoon off apart from feeding and shutting away.
There ends another week and at the end of next week at least all the shops will be open again but also it means we will be able to go out for breakfast again one morning 😀 I didn’t realise how much I have missed a holiday until this week, I really could do with someone else doing the cooking, at least when we do finally get away it will seem like a real treat.
Monday 9th November 2020: First thing this morning I have a repeat blood test as my last lot are showing low leucocytes again 😏 That means increased risk of infection so I need to be a bit careful.
Last night I was reading that the house sparrow is on the red list for conservation which surprised me greatly, we have a good flock of them here, around twenty I would say. I need to make sure they have everything they need, food through the winter and housing, I put up new sparrow flats for them when we took the old boxes down but they haven’t been seen in them as yet. What they have been doing is going in the roof where we haven’t put the capping back on (it’s ordered but not arrived yet) and I was complaining that they have pulled out bits of fibreglass which are now on the ground in the front. I think I will look to see where else we can put the old bird boxes until they decided to move into the new ones.
I was quite depressed at the thought that this is only day five of the lockdown, seems longer, and how I was going to pass the time but if this morning is anything to go by I needn’t worry. First the blood test, then Shelley walked over to get eggs so we had a chat over the gate (odd that last week they could all come in and this week they can’t 🙄 but rules is rules) then I thought I will phone Sue and see how she is doing, five minutes in and the straw and hay delivery arrived so I said I would call her back. Went out to sort where it was all going came back in to get the payment and realised I had left my soup on high, luckily it wasn’t burning, called Sue back for the rest of our chat, did some hoovering, sat down for my soup and John popped in between jobs. The time has shot past today and hopefully it will be like that every day.
I was feeling quite anxious and emotional this morning, mainly I think because of these white cells or rather, lack of them. It’s important because they lead to a condition called leucopenia and even when we don’t have a viral pandemic you are advised to wear a mask as you are highly susceptible to bacterial and viral infections as the immune system is not functioning. With the Lupus and the meds you take for it you can swing from a very over aggressive immune system to one that can’t even be bothered 😂 So you can see why it’s a worry, obviously the ideal would be a level system but that never seems to work because too many other factors can intervene. A morning of interaction and I feel more emotionally stable now thank goodness.
I had planned on doing a few things outside but the hours have passed and other things occurred instead, I did water the carrot seedlings, they don’t seem to be growing very fast though and I checked on the oranges which look nearly ready to pick 😀 I hope they are sweet enough and not sharp, that will be very disappointing.
I prepped dinner Nr lit the Rayburn, monitoring the time all the while but John came home early and he did the feed rounds and egg collecting so that was a happy bonus and with the extra time I made a raspberry pudding for dessert 😀
Shelley decided that through hers and Martin’s businesses they would like to spread a little cheer and have donated selection boxes, people can nominate someone they think could do with a little cheer either because they are alone, have lost their job or are struggling for some reason or other. The gift is in the giving and so we have donated from both the farm and the plumbing business as well and she is getting offers from lots of people to also donate, it’s amazing and so many people need to know that others are thinking about them at this difficult time and that although we are all socially distanced they are not on their own.
Helping people out gives you much more pleasure than you can imagine and is good for the soul and at time brings unexpected returns, some of my favourite memories are from people giving me things because I had helped them out. I have told these before but I love them so here they are again, one was when a chap stopped to get duck eggs when we first started out, duck eggs are difficult to find and so he was delighted but he didn’t have enough money. No problem just drop it in next time you are passing and we are talking about 40p or something like that. About 8 weeks later he arrived with his 40p and a trailer full of hay bales, would you like these he asked me, how much I said, for free he replied, I was flabbergasted, amazed, delighted 😁 The other times are also to do with eggs, people often want eggs for hatching but they don’t need many, one lot was for a Duke of Edinburgh award and some other lots were for children to hatch at childcare facilities, for activities like these I give them for free as they are learning opportunities which I am all for 😀 Never expecting anything in return I was humbled when I received chocolates/cards/flowers thanking me. They were such small giving moments but they grow of their own accord, the excitement and the chance to encounter nature doing what it does best and then the learning activities around it and finally the knowledge they gain from the experience, it’s all priceless and very rewarding. So you see a small gesture of kindness naturally grows into bigger things for everyone involved 😀
News just released of a real potential vaccine which gives us hope for the future, 90% effective apparently, obviously they will proceed with caution but it’s a chink of light on the horizon.
Tuesday: It’s lunchtime and it is lovely and sunny and quite mild out there, it wasn’t first thing mind you, the minute I put my coat on to go out it started raining but it soon cleared up. This morning I have spent a large part of the time rearranging electric fencing for the horses, during spring and summer we have an area fenced off for biscuit that she periodically goes into to prevent laminitis and that has worked well this year. Now we don’t need it for her but we need it for Jack, basically to keep him off the yard, as the grass gets more sparse he starts looking further afield which means he breaks out, plus I want to fence off the big side paddock so the hens don’t end up living in a bog. Horses feet churn up the wet ground and basically trash it and it quickly becomes a big muddy puddle, the ground recovers in Spring but it’s good to have some grass for the hens. I took all the fencing down from one area and then put it all up where I need it now, I connected everything up closely watched by Jack who was like my shadow the whole time, I went in to plug into the mains and when I came out he had got two of the slip rails down in that short time 🙄 I put them back up and then turned on the fence energiser, click, click, the minute Jack heard that noise he knew the game was over and he turned and wandered away. Up to that point he was probably thinking wayhay I can escape but the horses are very familiar with electric fencing and once they hear that noise they know there is no use hanging around anymore.
After that and a quick coffee I went into the greenhouse, might as well make good use of a nice day. I spent my time cleaning up the tubers I dug the other day, the dahlias still need to dry off a bit more and I brushed off the dirt from the yacon and Oca. Some off them will come indoors to be used in cooking and some will dry off and I will store them to plant next year. I have hedged my bet four ways with the yacon as I don’t know much about them, first I have put one lot in the ground and will see how they get on through winter, the next I have potted up and that will stay in the greenhouse, the third lot are smaller tubers that I will dry and store and the last lot are the plant roots that I will also dry and store, hopefully out of that lot one or more will be successful. I picked some of the runner beans that are now ready to store, the pod goes brown and papery on the vine, pick them, get the seeds out and dry before storing overwinter somewhere dry. I have dwarf French beans doing the same, and little piles of other seeds drying on the side waiting to be stored in the dry. I usually bring the seeds inside and keep them in the spare room in the dark, it gets too damp anywhere outside and I find that works well. I then did a couple of hardwood cuttings of my fig tree hoping to get a few new plants for next spring.
Collecting seed is a great way to get free plants next spring, it is also an important part of self reliance and sufficiency. We saw shortages of available seed and plants this year, propagating by various means can absorb the shock in times like these and help keep you producing vegetables and flowers 🌸
Wednesday: John knocked on the bedroom window from outside, get a look a the sunrise he said, Wow, it was fiery and orange and usually thats what the sunset looks like but this was first thing in the morning, breathtaking.
An unusual sunrise this morning more in keeping with a sunset.
I got up and dressed and on with the day, various jobs to do, clean the boot room and the back toilet, sort out dinner for this evening, nothing very exciting on the to do list today. Shelley walked over and we stood and had a chat over the gate but apart from that and a hardware delivery nothing much eventful happened. I did decided to make a Slimming World Diet Coke chocolate cake, one word, don’t 😝 It went in the bin it was that bad, I think I would rather have a normal one and eat less of it 😂 It got me thinking about healthy bakes and trying to find recipes that look vaguely like they would taste good but they are all full of weird ingredients. I think the closest I find to a good recipe are probably diabetic recipes, at least the substitutions are usually honey or maple syrup not some reconstituted husk of a hitherto unheard of vegetable or grain 😏
John called, he will be later than normal can I put the birds to bed, looks like I will have to. I hate the early dark evenings when he comes home after dark and then goes to work before the light, it feels like you have no one to share the daylight hours with.
We have worrying confirmation of six different cases of Avian Flu in the country, more worryingly is that they are fairly spread out in different counties all around the UK, many more cases and there will be a lockdown for poultry as well as us 🙄
We went food shopping tonight, I just needed a few things but seemed to end up with a lot of things. When I was packing it away I began to wonder if I was subconsciously stocking up, genuinely not doing it on purpose but I have definitely more than three tins of baked beans in the cupboard 😂
Our egg customers have gone awol again, really weird how it goes through phases, each day this week we have had hardly any customers, other days we are inundated with them, one week we can hardly keep up with duck egg sales and this week they are stacking up in the shed 🤷♀️
Thursday: Do you ever think that when things start to go wrong they go wronger and wronger 😏 This morning started off ok as far as the smallholding goes, jobs done, things sorted and all that. I need to get my prescription picked up and the plan was I would call the pharmacy to make sure it was ready then call John and have him collect it later, first fly in the ointment is that John has left his phone here 🤷♀️ so that plan goes out the window, luckily I call Shelley and she is in town and collects it for me, I will get John to collect from her later tonight (I need it for the morning). Second is the doctor calls re the blood results but only has half of them in will call again later when they have them, fine I go to the loo and the phone rings again, damn it, luckily they then tried the house phone and having finished my function I was able to answer. Terribly sorry but there has been a mix up at the lab and we will need to redo the full blood count, ffs, I am going to have an arm like a drug addict at this rate, your thinking that I could change the arm, nope the other arm doesn’t appear to have a vein that can be tapped 😂 so I now have to get over first thing in the morning for another blood test. On top of those life misdemeanours we have the more worrying aspect of the Avian Flu to sort out, it is now a legal obligation to make sure our biosecurity is in order. For the hens that means that we need to feed inside (which we do anyway because of the crows) and we will also need to keep their water inside away from wild birds. The ducks will also have to be fed inside but their water is a problem, ducks and water go together like bread and butter so more difficult to implement that, they need constant water to keep their nostrils clean after dabbling in the undergrowth. That is stage one, along with foot baths for anyone coming into the farm but that is not an issue at the minute is it 😜 The next is that I will have to stop feeding the wild birds, this is the saddest bit for me but the idea is to not encourage them to be anywhere near the flock as they will be the carriers/transmitters of the disease. We then need to make plans in case a full lockdown is required which given the spread of it is highly likely this year. That means all birds will be shut in for the foreseeable future, if they have an outdoor run it needs to be netted so that wild birds cannot get in. We have the POL run which is suitably netted after the last outbreak a few years ago, but the rest will be in the stables, luckily we have them spare, not ideal but at least they will have room. I remember last time we tried to tarp the orchard run, gee, we had the wettest, muddiest winter and it was soul destroying stuff but the stable block is dry and has windows so at least they can see outside 😜 Keep chickens they said, it will be fun they said 😏 Apart from all that, the sun is shinning and it’s not a bad day so I will take the good along with the bad today. Sometimes life seems like a scrabble, it’s like scrabbling up the rock face until you get to a level plateau again 🤦♀️
Went for a stroll round the village with Mum at lunchtime which was very nice, the sun was shinning and it wasn’t too cold, saw a couple of people to say hello to which lifts the spirits 😀
John came home early and spent a couple of hours cleaning and tidying out his van 🤷♀️ still it was nice to know someone else was around.
Friday: Another sunny and not too cold start to the day although it rained heavily during the night. Got a few bits done then off to get yet another blood test done 😜 hopefully this one will come back all in one piece and I can move forward in whatever direction I need to go.
I heard a couple of very strange wildlife stories this week, the first was of a fox taking a small dog somewhere near where Mum lives, this was witnessed by a gentleman although it seems they don’t know who’s dog it was. The second was the discovery of a dead otter, what is curious about that is that to my knowledge we don’t have otters around here, not for miles as far as I know. I have seen the photo and agree that it does not look like and English otter, it’s a mystery as to how it got there and why it died but it has been called in to wildlife experts and a university is taking it to do a post mortem to find out more if they can.
I have decided that I will keep feeding the wild birds but I will be moving the feeders to an area that is about as far from the hens as I can get it, it’s likely that the poultry industry will go into lockdown if reports of confirmed cases keep coming in anyway and once they are shut away there will be little risk of contamination. Worrying times with two major viruses in the country, if the two collide 😳 (and that could happen) we would be up shit creek without a paddle!
Saturday: The weather started off ok and then took a complete dive until it was vile out there. John was busy digging out the rest of the raised bed area on the tractor until it began to rain so heavily he had to stop, there is no cab so he was getting pretty wet. I went out and put new bedding in the geese, duck and light Sussex housing and then put up the hooks for the bird feeders and moved them well out of the way, hopefully the birds will soon find them. I also put up the remaining old nest boxes give them somewhere to roost over winter. I then spent two hours looking for something I knew we had but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It’s a leather stamping kit, so basically letters on the end of metal sticks in a box, you hit the stamp and it punches it into leather, marking it with a postcode or name. I wanted it to make some Christmas decorations but I can’t find it anywhere and I had pulled out boxes, opened drawers, looked inside everything, nope nowhere to be seen. I have ordered a new set but you can bet your bottom dollar it will now appear.
We came in for lunch and lit the Rayburn, drank tea and watched the news, hopefully the weather will clear a little and we can carry on outside. 😏
It didn’t clear up much but John went out to do what he could anyway, me I stayed in to stoke the Rayburn 😜
I spent an evening do a bit of Christmas craft, I sometimes wish I was more artistic as there are so many things I would like to have a go at. In my minds eye I see what I want but the reality is nothing like it, I still remember my art o level piece, I knew exactly how I wanted it to look right from the beginning but it was a big fat fail lol. Nevertheless I still have a go at a few things when the moment takes me, tonight it was gift tags, I have a large amount of buttons which were in Johns Mum sewing stuff, I doubt I will be sewing buttons on anything any time soon so I made gift tags instead 😀
Sunday: It was vile weather overnight and vile this morning but eventually the rain moved on and the sun even came out at times though it’s a tad cold at around 8 degrees. John did the morning rounds and then attempted inbetween rain showers to carry on with the raised bed, he almost abandoned it altogether when a stiff breeze came along and blew the rain along. Meanwhile I have been doing the usual morning jobs, a bit of washing and sorting dinner for later, I did pop out to feed the guineas and have a look in the polytunnels and then back in to get the Rayburn lit. No point me trying to help John as he is levelling and squaring p, not my strong point and I would probably be more of a hindrance than help on this job. So I supply the cups of tea, a sandwich, make sure there is hot water and a hearty supper for later on 😀 Slow roasted lamb shank today 🥰
Just sitting having a cuppa and have been watching a short video on biodiversity on the smallholding (or it could even be related to a garden/allotment) It became obvious that I have been doing everything that was suggested and this talk was given by someone who gets paid to advise large farms and parks with their biodiversity projects so I am quite chuffed that I am on point with my plans to increase wildlife in all forms. The only thing I haven’t ever done is record it either by writing it down or logging it with various surveys. I will start a log I think, I can recall right back to the beginning when we first came that even though we are surrounded by countryside, there was not much going on here, mostly due to routine spraying I suspect. I have seen a big increase in wildlife especially over the last four or five years and each year I am surprised by more arrivals, like the bees in the hollow this year which incidentally are still going in and out, and the snake, it’s a great feeling to be able to make a difference however small.
Quick update on the kittens, both are doing well, exploring further and further outside but they can often be found curled up on a cushion in the boot room. They get on well will the dogs, by that I mean they tolerate them and are not afraid of them, the dogs don’t take much notice of them unless they go to close to a food bowl with biscuits in or if they make a sudden playful dash, on the whole though it’s lovely to see them all sleeping in the same room together proving that cats and dogs don’t always fight 😀
I went outside about 2pm and helped John, we now have the raised bed finished (except the top soil) and the ground all levelled back out again. Only thing was with the shovelling and raking I have twinged my lower back 😕 Today I did the afternoon feed round and egg collection while John got the tractor round to finished moving and levelling the driveway. We have got a way to go yet, topsoil needs delivering and then we need to build the last bed which is much smaller, then a layer of clean gravel needs to go down, some cutting back of the hazel trees (the planting up will have to wait till spring) then there is the side driveway to start on 😂 always another job on the horizon 😜
Have a good week and stay safe, keep your chin up and keep smiling, we will get through this eventually (the winter & covid) 😃
Monday 12th October 2020: The pandemic continues though I have to say it seems like it is happening elsewhere and I hope they don’t end up being famous last words 🙄 Seriously though we seem to be in a bit of a bubble here, the last outbreak before and during lockdown didn’t really seem to hit our rural area very hard and hopefully the same will be said for this second wave. Today the Prime Minister will announce new measures to try and curb the virus, we wait to see what those will be 😏
Meanwhile life is as normal as is possible and today I have VIP’s coming for tea, the grandchildren are coming after school for sandwiches, cake and jelly and ice cream 😀 I busied myself with getting things tidied, put away (always seems to be things to put away) getting some washing on, sorting the kittens, then making jelly and cake.
The sourdough starter seemed to have a life of its own overnight, it grew so much that it leaked out of the sides, that’s a good thing 😀 I guess it was due to the heat from the Rayburn in the kitchen as this morning it has calmed back down again although it still has life (bubbles) so I have fed it again. The sourdough dough I had in a bowl which didn’t seem to rise was showing signs of activity this morning so I baked it to see how it came out. I can tell you that if I was about to attack a local castle keep I would consider using it in the catapult 😂 it’s a bit solid, however I cut it and it smells like sourdough though heavy in structure, I tasted it and it has that sour taste so I’d say it’s about 70% successful, just need to improve on the technique now.
The measures have been announced and we are going into a three tired system of medium, high and very high risk with various rules for each of those but not a complete lockdown, I’m not sure if any of this will do any good the numbers still seem to be climbing and climbing 🙄
Tuesday: A cold but dry morning this morning. John did the morning rounds before going off to do some proper work 😂 I spent the morning organising food by various means, first I got some butternut squash soup on the go for my lunch today, that’s basically a butternut squash, onion, sweet potato, chicken stock, black pepper and a grating of nutmeg, I will taste it later and see if it needs a sprinkle of anything else such as curry powder or my new fav thing to use smoked paprika 😀 Then I ordered a box of beef from a local smallholder, hhttps://www.emmasewesfulacres.com I have had it from her before and when she delivers I will probably have a look to see what lamb she has on the van. That will keep us going through Autumn and Winter, we have our own chicken and duck in the freezer already plus some venison, goat meat and fish that I still have to use up. Once I had ordered that I sorted out dinner for this evening which tonight is salmon, I will have mine with a honey, sesame oil, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar marinade, then orzo, bell pepper, broccoli, garlic and ginger stir fry while John will have his with potato and veg, we are worlds apart when it comes to food. In light of the fact he will hate having salmon (but will eat it) I got tomorrow’s dinner underway as well (go me) a hearty oxtail stew in the slow cooker. Oxtail isn’t something that many use any more but it has great flavour, it has gone in with carrots, potato, onion, tomato paste, black pepper, beef stock, Worcester sauce and thyme, again I will give it a taste test to see if anything else needs adding. I will slow cook it all day, turn it off over night and then turn it on again around lunchtime tomorrow, stews taste better if they are made one day and eaten the next, so they say anyway, certainly gives it time for all those flavours to mingle.
Butternut squash soup (no filter) lovely vibrant colour packed with vitamin A, C, E & beta carotene, also contains many important minerals 😀
I have let the kittens out this morning, up to now they have only had the run of the boot room but today the door is open to the back undercover area. To begin with they went out and I couldn’t see them anywhere but the next time I went out, there they were and they came in for some dreamies so that’s a good sign that they will stay close by (for the time being) even if I don’t know where they are. Eventually they will get more adventurous and go further afield but hopefully always coming back for some food.
I have come to the conclusion that the sourdough starter does not do very well in our house because we don’t have a stable constant temperature, it gets warm in the evening after we have lit the Rayburn mid afternoon but we let it out mid evening so it doesn’t get too hot over night. The starter seems to be reacting to these temps, first it grows well during the evening but by morning it’s flat again because it’s much colder. I have fed it again this morning and will see what happens later, I thought about making the bread in the evening but again sourdough takes longer to prove than normal bread so that may not work either. I don’t even eat very much bread of any kind so I’m not sure why I am doing it to be honest 😜 just because I wanted to have a go, I may give up on it though and buy the odd loaf now and again 🤷♀️
I have also been busy over the last week or so ordering Christmas presents, who knows exactly what is going to happen over the next few months, might as well get ahead just in case it all goes haywire. It’s crazy when you really think about it all, weeks in total lockdown, who ever thought that would happen, now we are all wearing masks when we go out into town, we can only meet a few people at a time, some places have tighter restrictions than others, as I have said before I can’t wait to see the blockbuster film that will inevitably be made about this lol, not quite as scary as The Walking Dead but just as unbelievable (well it will be when they look back in history) Yes indeed we are living through some very strange times 😏
After lunch I went out to the post box and realised it was nice and warm in the sun, it’s often colder indoors than outside here, so I decided to get my gear on and do a bit of garden work. I spent a happy couple of hours cutting back dead stuff and pulling up veg that has now gone over, digging up comfrey (as it’s seeded everywhere) I did stop short on one patch when I spotted ladybirds, probably trying to find a place to hibernate for winter, better make sure I don’t tidy too much 🙄 Back indoors for a quick coffee and a sit down before the afternoon rounds begin. I have seen no more signs of snakes and also sadly I have not seen any frogs all summer, even in the dank areas, I think the snakes have eaten them all 😢 either that or they are hiding well.
While I was working away I was also pondering on what I had learnt this year in the garden, no matter how much you know there is always more to learn. I learnt that yacon are pretty easy to grow here and that they taste very good, I learnt that often when you think a veg plant is ‘spent’ it surprises you with more offerings (I’m thinking about the loofah here) I learnt that the weather can throw you curve balls ( actually I know that but this years was the biggest yet) and that I need to do more to prepare for weather anomalies. I learnt a bit about myself, I like to grow things in order, I am not good with what seems to be chaos in the veg garden but I know I need to learn to cope with it as it’s a better way of growing 😂
I am hearing more and more worrying reports of people who have had COVID for a second time, that’s just plain unlucky and I think we were hoping that if you get it once you won’t get it again. The ‘Long COVID’ is also a worry, people dealing with the effects of it long after they have recovered from it, maybe this virus is every bit as bad as they say it is, I hope we never find out.
I have just googled to see if there is a general trend towards panic buying again, not on the same scale as we saw before but it is there it seems. This would tie in with the increase of egg customers we have had, there have been weeks when we didn’t have a single customer for two or three days and now suddenly we are inundated again, I have seen customers wearing masks again which had all but stopped so there must be some unease out there. Unfortunately it’s the time of year when we have less eggs than usual due to the shortening of daylight time so there will never be enough eggs to go round 🙄 John and I discussed what we would do if we went into another lockdown as the gate sales were crazy and of course we had people who had never been before and haven’t been back since which was really unfair on our regular customers but we were unable to stop it as it came upon us pretty swiftly. It’s a difficult one to determine because although we do know most of our regulars especially the ones that have been coming for years, there are some that we couldn’t readily identify. I think we would initially just shut the gate and have a think about it 😂
Wednesday: Is it only mid week, seems like it’s been a long week already and we are only halfway there 😏 The sun was shinning beautifully this morning but by 9am when I went out to put the rubbish out the sky was looking moody and five minutes later a rain shower appeared, I think that is how the day will unfold today. I thought that perhaps today was not going to be an outside work day so I set about cleaning out the fridge, not a massive task but it’s amazing how many things get left from week to week and before you know it they have been there months. So out went anything that looked well past it’s date, I will keep and use some things that have gone past the best before date especially if they are still sealed but today was a clear out day. Out went a half jar of mincemeat probably used last Christmas, a half jar of plum sauce I made last year and a half jar of pickled onions also probably last used at Christmas, none of them showing any signs of mould but time to throw them anyway. There were the usual culprits in the bottom drawer, soggy cucumbers and shrivelled apples, any thing half decent will go to the geese and guineas the rest will go for composting. Amazing how satisfying it is to see a clean tidy fridge 😂 I also made the decision to abandon the sourdough starter 😭 things were not going well with it and so time to admit defeat, I think if I want sourdough I will buy it 😂
Another thing that occurred to me was that you may be wondering about Ted’s fate as we move closer to Christmas, rest assured he will not be joining us for dinner 😜 he is now part of the smallholding family and has a name so will continue to live freely here. He is totally oblivious to the fate of his fellow turkians though and as a result is not in the least bit grateful still making John walk him back to his pen each night 🙃
Well it didn’t rain in fact it was very pleasant out there and consequently I have had a very productive morning. At first I had no idea what to do, to be fair we have so much to do that it can be overwhelming at times, in those circumstances it’s an idea to pick a starting point and work from there. Did I do that, nope I flitted from job to job BUT I still made progress , or at least I feel like I did. First I tidied up the egg shed area where I put out plants for sale, then I took down some fencing that was screwed to other fencing that will be coming down eventually. I went to put the plant shelves (that were out by the egg shed) away and the shed they go into was a tip so I cleaned out the shed and threw away a wheelbarrow full of ‘crap’ and now I can walk into the shed easily 😀 After that I had a walk round the veg garden and started clearing some bits away, I picked a few tomatoes and then moved onto the big tunnel. I cleared away the cucumber vine which all but spent, there were about five small cues on there so I picked them first, the skins are toughening now and so I could have kept the vine going but the cues would not be very nice. Then I cut back and pulled out the cape gooseberry plants which have turned into triffids over the last two years and I decided I don’t want them in there any more. I must be in a ‘cleansing’ mood at the minute as it feels good to get it all sorted. At times with many diseases but especially Lupus you get ‘brain fog’ this is a real thing just in case you have ever wondered. Brain fog takes away the ability to be able to focus and think clearly hence the standing there wondering where to begin on many occasions 😜 I never used to be like that, I always had a definite plan of attack and some days I still do but others I just have to muddle through as best as possible and hope for a good result 😀
I collected some seeds while I was going about my jobs, some morning glory, which have been splendid and some Sarah Raven California poppies which are just the most beautifully delicate little poppies (must remember that those are still in my jacket pocket 🙄) Seed collecting is one of the pleasures of gardening and an important part of self sustainability, buying the seeds just once should ensure a lifetimes supply of that plant unless something goes horribly wrong. The same can be said with perennials, once you have them they can be divided over and over and you never need to buy it again. Many vegetables will produce seed if left long enough and again collecting those ensure you will have a crop next year, something I need to make more of an effort to do especially after this year when everyone was buying them and suddenly they were scarce. With that in mind, at my trip to the garden centre I bought some seeds that I had not been able to get hold of this year just in case. Red cabbage was one, I tried and tried to find the seeds but I couldn’t get any, the other seeds I picked up were for an indigo tomato. I bought a plant this year and it has been amazing, you may find this in shops but they would have to be niche I think. These toms are delicious and again because of their colour they are packed with vitamins and antioxidants, they have more flesh than a regular tomato and so do not go to mush when they are cut.
Indigo Rose tomato, a superfood 😀
I need to go through my veg seeds and see what I have left, what I have collected so far and what needs to be ordered. I have some little gem lettuce that are going to seed at the minute so I will be collecting those hopefully. The French beans are drying in the greenhouse and the runner beans are still on the plant, when they look ready I will get them in to dry, I have pepper seeds drying on the windowsill and there are some chick peas to be harvested which grew from just three seeds, I have trebled them this year 😀 In theory I need never buy seeds again but where is the fun in that 😜
Thursday: A bright, sunny morning but a bit of a chill in the air, so far this morning I have just pottered about doing various household tasks. Sam and the twins are going to come over today so we will probably go out for a walk round the village, got to make the best of the good days while we can and also spend time together while we can as who knows what this winter will be like with Covid lurking round every corner.
I hatched a plan last night, in fact it is something I thought of doing this year but didn’t so I am definitely doing it next year. I will use the ménage to grow pumpkins and squash and to make sure I do I have already ordered a good selection of squash seeds. Butternut, spaghetti, banana, acorn, and a selection of pumpkin varieties, this year because the ménage has not been used the weeds have taken hold, if I use it to grow sprawling veg that will at least lessen that problem. It’s a massive area for growing roughly 40 x 20 metres 😮 the surface has always been woodchip and it constantly breaks down so there should be some good loam under there, probably the best growing site on the Smallholding 😂
Just had a news update come through and London is moving to tier two on the restrictions 🙄
Went on a walk around the village with Sam, George and Lucie, on the way back we stopped and saw Grampy (John) who was in the village working. Sam fed the kids their dinner when we got back and she had literally left when Shelley and Florence arrived 😀
They said it was going to be warmer today than yesterday but I don’t think it is, there is a definite chill in the air even when the sun is out.
Friday: Dry, overcast and not too cold this morning. Just stopped for a coffee, we are total creatures of habit aren’t we? I was working outside and thought, time for coffee, without even looking at my watch I find that it’s exactly the time I would have a coffee if I was indoors 🤷♀️ This morning I have meditated, had a shower with a blast of cold water at the end, fed the quail, the horses and the Guineas extra rations, put clean bedding in for the ducks and the geese plus all the usual routine jobs. The horses are being given extra feed now as the grass is getting sparse, you can tell by the way they start to hang around the gateways that they are getting hungrier. We are trying to give biscuit a mix of cod liver oil, turmeric, black pepper and ginger as she is getting on a bit and it might just help her with her old bones. The problem is Jack (greedy git that he is) I feed them and have to guard her feed as Jack scoffs his quickly and she takes a lot longer, he is then trying to get to hers 🙄 I spotted one the kittens up a tree while I was out there, they are getting more adventurous but luckily they do come running back if I appear. We see Diesel every couple of days, I have no idea where he disappears to but he eventually comes home, not much good at keeping the mice down round the farm though if he is off wandering.
The garlic, onions and shallots I ordered a few weeks back have arrived so I need to think about getting those in, hopefully I will do that today.
I have been listening to a pod cast that is very funny, it’s Lee Mack and his friend ‘I can’t believe it’s not Buddha’ it’s a hilarious chat about a path they are both following with serious intention, if you see me laughing out loud with my headphones in, that’s what I will be listening to 😜
I spent a wonderful two hours weeding and clearing the bean bed. The top quarter I had already done as that’s where the cauliflower are now planted but the rest of the bed needed doing. At the beginning of the year I had some self seeded yellow daisies growing in there so I let them carry on but I had forgotten how big the plants got as a consequence they over shadowed a lot of the peas I had growing so I won’t let them stay there next year. I pulled out the remains of these daisies, a Swiss chard ( I dug that up and gave it to the guineas) that had self set, hundreds of weeds of all types and the dead foliage of bean and pea plants. I had intended to put the onions, garlic and shallots in here but the side of the bed has collapsed and needs re doing (cue John 😜) so I will wait until I get that sorted before planting them. I am glad I have cleared it all as there were a lot of white fly probably settling down to overwinter, they tuck themselves right down in the foliage near to the roots ready for a comfy sleep I suspect, not any more 🙄 I say a wonderful two hours because it was lovely, the weather was just right, warm enough, no sun, no wind, no rainy bits and the ground is dry enough to work on without getting very dirty 😀 I still have plenty more work to do out there but that will be enough for today, time for lunch and a sit down before getting on with the afternoon jobs.
The healthy eating is going well (most of the time) I have lost a stone and a half! Impressed, yep me too 😀 I amazed actually 😜 Many years back I started WW and got to goal then spent about 10 years clerking for them but gradually the weight crept back on and then some. I know what to eat I just didn’t know why I wasn’t doing it even though I wanted to shift the ‘back fat’ and the third boob, the girls will know what I mean by that 😉 So when I started seeing ads for Noom I was intrigued by the psychology aspect it was presenting, two weeks free trail, what did I have to lose 🤷♀️ The two weeks came to an end and I thought might as well carry this on, so I did, I am. There is no miracle to losing weight, it’s mainly persistence but I think the Noom app helps an awful lot with that, there are lessons and information every single day digging into your own psychology (sometimes you dig so deep you surprise yourself) learning the best food balance for you and your situation, it’s not a diet as such more the re-set of your mind when it comes to food choices. I am obviously not affiliated to them nor do I suggest you rush out and join, just telling you my experience of it, I think it’s a great thing to follow, it took me a while to get my head around it, I thought I knew all there was to know about dieting but it seems not 😝
I babysat Mia and the twins although the twins were already in bed so MIA and I had fun taking photos, dancing and singing 😀
Saturday: Another dry, reasonable day today, John did the animals and then had to go off to do a quick plumbing job. When he got back he began to dig out the last bit of the path, but I needed his help fixing the side of the veg bed that had collapsed. So we sourced some wood, dug it out and put in new sides, I got on with back filling the bed while he went to finish what he started. I raked and riddled the bed, took out as much bindweed root as I could find and then I needed Johns help again 😂 and I wonder why he takes so long over jobs 😝 I wanted to bury the soaker hose in the soil, it was partly buried but over time had come up, it was also too long and curled around on itself in places, first I had to cut it to length which meant the end now had no stop. The stop on the original bit had failed (I always wondered why there was a puddle) so I asked John if he had anything that would work, being a plumber I was pretty sure he would. It did mean filing down the outside of the soaker hose though so the bit could be fitted, once it was done we tested it and voila it works well. He went back to his job (again) and I got on with burying the pipe down the centre of the bed, this will give me a more even watering than I had before. After that I planted all the onions, shallots and garlic bulbs, 20 shallots, 16 garlic and I lost count of the onions after 40 but I think there are about 50 in total. That’s not the end of the job because of course I then have to cover them so that the chickens don’t scratch them all up which given that they love freshly turned soil, is a dead cert. I got some lengths of environmesh and pegged them down this will also stop the birds thinking the tops of the onions are worms and pulling them out, it won’t stop the worms pushing them up and out though 😂 So that’s all done and I probably won’t have to do anything to them until next spring unless it gets very weedy between now and then. Environmesh is great stuff and well worth the investment, don’t use environ fleece as that just breaks up, the mesh lets the light and the rain in but keeps the birds off it also creates a micro climate by trapping any warm air a bit like a string vest 😜
Hopefully there will be more days like these when the weather is favourable enough to be able to get the rest of the beds under control and prepared for next spring. I have done that bed and one third of another bed only four and two thirds more to go 😣 In total I have the fruit cage, the two tunnels, the brassica cage, five very large beds, one long thin one, a separate raised bed and the birds, bees and beer bed, I need to start pulling my finger out I think 🤔
Sunday: Man o man I am knackered 😜 I have spent all day from about 9 this morning, it’s now 4pm, burning wood 🙄 The cladding that came off the front of the building needed burning so that was today’s job, there were a few branches from some trees that had been there a while as well. First I had to sort through the pile as it all just got dumped there, there was a pile of painted stuff that needs to go in the skip, a pile of wood that was ok and would come in handy at some point and a pile of gravel boards. I then sorted the wood into smaller and longer bits, the smaller bits I started off in the burning barrel but about two hours in the side started to give so then I started a pile on the ground. The reason I didn’t do this in the first place was the wood was too close to where I would be burning and I like a controlled burn, John, like most men I suspect, would have just had a twenty foot pile of wood and set fire to it 😜 Also he would not have thought about the insects and any small animals that might be under the wood whereas I do so if I move it then they have a chance of getting away first. In fact I was stood there and a little mouse came creeping out of the ground, saw the fire and high tailed away elsewhere 🐭 Meanwhile John was busy creating next weeks burning load, he has given the hedge, where we had the trees cut down, a good pruning both the top and the sides as the branches had got long and straggly. Come spring they should bush out really well as well as grow higher, they have good big roots on them so that will help.
Next weeks pile of burnings 😜
Charlie and Macca called in for a cuppa before go out for the afternoon, we should do something I said to John but in the end we carried on working 😂
Monday 5th October 2020: After the dismal weather at the weekend, this morning the sun was shinning thank goodness, it’s soggy ground underfoot but at least it’s not raining for the moment. John did the morning rounds and my first job was to tidy the boot room and give it a bit of a clean, sort out the kitten area and hoover. From that I went out to give the horses a small breakfast and turn them back out, they won’t appreciate being in when the sun is out, then muck out the stables ready for the next lot of bad weather. I did a quick whip round the veg garden picked some very small courgettes, a handful of runner beans and a couple of punnets of raspberries, I contemplated doing more out there but the ground is so wet I think it’s best left to dry off a bit. It won’t hurt to leave for a while and it will do damage by compact I g the ground if I walk on it while it’s wet so decision made. I had ordered some archive boxes and they arrived yesterday so I went into the office and started to do some sorting out in there. Plenty of paperwork that can be boxed up and stored out in the old caravan until it needs to be burnt ( about 7 years time 🙄) I don’t even know if you need to keep it that long anymore, I guess as most things are now digital it would be possible to find them online if needed but old habits die hard 😂 Why do we keep so much stuff, that’s what I have been wondering over the past couple of weeks, I think I would like to go minimalist but we would need about five skips to get rid of it all I reckon 😜 I am that person that keeps the boxes things come in just in case I decide to sell them, only I never sell them as most things get thoroughly used. Today I have managed to sort all the boxes out and flatten them for recycling, sorted out Christmas decorations I don’t want and put them in an ever growing pile for the charity shop, looked through a pile of other stuff and put it back on the shelf 😏 And still there is plenty of ‘stuff’ I don’t know what to do with lol, I need to get tougher I think and increase the charity pile 😀 You know what it’s like though, the minute you get rid of something, you inexplicably need it!
Good morning sunshine 🌞 nice to see you after a dismal weekend of rain.
I took a break from doing that job and put a home reared chicken in the slow cooker with homegrown garlic and herbs, together with home grown spuds and veg and we will have home grown raspberries for dessert, that’s what I spend my life doing….growing dinner 🥰
I got a sourdough starter on the go, I have been wanting to do this for ages but the process is long and so I could never be bothered, well today I started 😀 I did do it years ago but turned to fast yeast instead for time saving, now we are going into Winter I will have more time so it seems like a good opportunity. It’s very easy, just mix flour with water leave the jar open for a while to ‘catch’ wild yeast (its floating all around us) and then ‘feed’ it for the next six days (not an instant food) then it will be ready to bake with. I put it on the window sill because it needs a bit of warmth to stimulate it, I will close the lid in about an hours time and let it do it’s thing. You can buy fresh starter online but by the time it gets delivered you could be four days into your own batch.
The beginning of a sourdough starter 😀
Another thing I spend time doing is getting into discussions on various topics, the latest one was ‘what time does evening begin’? I would say 6pm others have different opinions but of course this then leads to the ‘time does not exist’ theory. Time doesn’t exist, it’s only what man had created in order to…well, keep order 🙄 There is change, change over a day, night, month, year, decade, millennium but it’s not time, I will just leave that there for you to ponder 😂
Something else that I keep meaning to have a go at and that is fruit leathers, today I finally got round to doing it, never done it before but I have a feeling if it works out well I will be doing a lot more. The main reason I have done it now is because we are lighting the Rayburn daily so I may as well use it to it’s full advantage. The fruit leathers are easy enough to prepare, I used raspberries I picked this morning, put them in a sieve and used a spoon to crush them and squeeze the juice through leaving behind all the little seeds. Line a Swiss roll tin with grease proof paper and pour the juice in, this then went into the warming oven at the bottom of the Rayburn to dry. I’m not sure how long they will take, the warming oven doesn’t get direct heat it basically harnesses the heat from the oven above, it’s not a lot of heat as the oven is well lined but it’s a gentle warm, dry heat ideal for this kind of thing. I often put things in there and totally forget they are there mind you 😂 I have just taken the walnuts out as I put them into dry off, if you left them in for weeks they would be shrivelled up 🙄 like the orange slices I did they were more orange bullets when I eventually found them.
Fruit leather (raspberry) going in the Rayburn for drying
I know it’s only October but I am starting to think about Christmas, more specifically the Christmas cake, I need to get it made soon, that will give me plenty of time to feed it 😀 I always made one, then I had a few years when I didn’t bother and now I make them again. It’s true that it lasts for weeks, John has usually gone back to work after the Christmas break and is still having it in his lunchbox 😂 but it’s great to have if you unexpectedly have guests and nothing else in the cupboards. I will probably use our walnuts and hazels instead of almonds and I still have some dried apple rings from last year in the cupboard so I will use those along with the bought dried fruit, mmmm can’t wait to get it started now, I love the smell of the fruit soaking in orange and brandy 🥰 The Winter months are when I get to use all those wonderful things I have been growing/making all year long, that’s as it should be, traditionally long before the time when you could pop to the supermarket or have stuff on next day delivery, you would have worked towards stocking up your winter stores and especially for that marvellous mid winter feast that has now been thoroughly taken over by commercialism 😏 I try, as much as possible, to still have a traditional Christmas, it’s all about good food and good company and I think I have successfully passed on that to my children just as my Mum did to me 😘
I have to do the feed and egg collecting rounds today as John is still working, bloody typical then that it has just started spitting with rain 😜
Tuesday: Dry and sunny again this morning although it did rain a little last night. This morning I got up had breakfast, a shower, sorted the cats out, got something I prepared earlier out of the freezer for dinner tonight, fed my sourdough starter, put some washing on and hoovered up. Now I am off out for a walk around Blenheim, we bought annual passes this time last year 🙄 luckily or unluckily depends on how you see it, they were extended until April next year, not because of Covid and the fact we couldn’t use them for half the year but because they cocked up sending them to me in the first place, not once but three times! Basically the only times we have been able to use them is when the weather is cold 😂 even then we have to advance book an entry place, never mind at least we can 😀
The sun was shinning the rain stayed away and we had a lovely walk around the Blenheim grounds, George even did a little bit of the walk himself 😀
Back home it was time to do the egg rounds, get the Rayburn lit and get the dinner on but not before a lovely cup of tea ☕️
John was telling me that this morning when he went out to do the birds there were two large white birds in the standing water in the paddock, from his description (shame he didn’t have his phone and get a pic) and looking online we think they were a pair of Little Egrets. There is only a heron that looks similar and they are grey, he said these were pure white.
Stock photo of a Little Egret
Wednesday: Cold but dry this morning. I have fed the sourdough starter and it’s beginning to take form, you can see the yeast is working that’s producing the bubbles and the smell is acidic which is exactly what we want it to be at this point.
I went outside and picked a few raspberries and a courgette, that’s about all there is as the moment, I bought in a butternut squash and I think I will have some of it roasted for dinner tonight with a lamb chop and other veg. It’s a tad cold and as I don’t have to work in the cold I thought I would wait until it warms up a bit. That’s the joy of being my own boss with nobody waiting for me to do anything 😀 I have the complete freedom to do what I like when I like although as I have mentioned before you do have to be a little bit disciplined otherwise nothing would get done at all.
The fruit leather didn’t work out, my fault as there was not enough pulp so it was a very thin layer which basically just stuck to the greaseproof paper, I will try again at a later date.
Charlie called in for a cup of coffee, she has a week off and so that was a lovely interlude that we don’t get very often 🥰 After that I went out and had a look at the bird boxes that we had taken down when we did the front. I want to put them back up somewhere but I’m not sure where is high enough for their safety, I cleaned them out and I will keep looking for places to put them. Then onto the veg garden, I find if I don’t have a definite plan I bimble a bit, so I started off bimbling 🙄 and then got into my stride. I have now cleared all the small raised beds, put mushroom compost on the top of them and covered them with the bio degradable black plastic, that’s how they will stay for overwintering. I then cleared the rest of the dwarf French beans and put a few of them in the greenhouse for drying, I can use the seeds again next year. Then lunch and a podcast Charlie had sent me a link to. I feel a bit tired today and on those days have to force myself to do things and also to eat well, the temptation to grab anything is high but I got myself something nutritious and so after a small rest I will hopefully be re energised 😀
Next job was to soak the dried fruit for the Christmas cake, it’s an easy five minute job and the fruit can be left until you are ready to get the cake mixed, I will probably leave it 24hrs. I have 1kg dried fruit, orange zest and juice, a good splash of fresh orange juice, and then some alcohol if you like it, if not add more orange juice. I used some rumtopf I had left from last year and a tiny bottle of blackberry wine that I had in the cupboard. You can use whatever you like really, it’s all going to taste great in the end🥰
Various stages, soaking the fruit, the mixture and the end product.
I made a skinny version of banana bread, all I can say is don’t bother not if you are expecting it to taste delicious anyway 🙄 I did have a piece but I squirted some skinny syrup (0 calories) on it and it filled a hole and was ok but only ok 😏
I’ve prepped the dinner, lit the Rayburn, fed the chickens, collected the eggs and then sorted them out to go into the shed. I am feeling tired or glum not sure which one precedes which, I try and chivvy myself along but the pep talk does not work so I guess it’s tiredness.
Butternut squash, ever tried it? I have had it before but usually in a stew or similar, well tonight I roasted it 😮 oh my days that took the taste of it to a whole new level for me, delicious 😋 I will definitely be looking at different ways to have this vegetable though my fav is going to be roasted I can just tell 😀
The nights are drawing in very quickly now, it’s dark by 7pm, we have a few weeks yet before it’s dark by 4.30 😏 and we have the clock change coming at the end of the month, always buggers everyone up doesn’t it 😂 I hate it when people say ‘yeah but really it’s *o’clock’ no, no it’s not because the clocks have changed so that is what time it is 😝 It’s usually the same kind of people that like to let you know that while you were on holiday and the weather was not what it could be, they had glorious sunshine back at home, you know the type, and if that type is you….just don’t 🤣
Thursday: Its raining again and it has been raining overnight but on the upside I feel in good spirits today so I must have been tired yesterday. I need to always remember that even if I look well there are things going on inside my body that upset the balance from time to time, it usually results in feeling tired and grumpy 🤷♀️ so a good rest can often sort things out 😀 Not sure what I will get done today, I need to feed the starter and I have got some washing on but apart from that I have not many any definite decisions yet, oh I need to sort the Christmas cake so I will probably get that done this morning.
The kittens will have been here two weeks by the weekend and I think they are getting a little bit bored of being in the boot room so we will have to let them start exploring. Jack is fine I don’t have any worries about him, I think he will come when called but Jill is a different story. She has always been and still is reserved, she doesn’t come to greet any of us when we go into the room, she sits firmly in the corner and her head goes down when we stroke her, it is a bit of progress though as when she first came as she would growl at us. I don’t particularly want them to be over friendly just as long as they come for food and don’t clear off for good 😜
The Christmas cake is mixed and in the oven 😀 once cooked and cooled it will be stored and then bought out weekly to feed it with some alcohol or other. The smell of the mixture was amazing and I tasted the spoon 🙄 delicious, to be honest in my opinion the raw mixture is better than the cooked cake but it’s not very good for you 😂
The sourdough starter is smelling sour, that’s a good thing, it is working a treat. I can remember the first time I had sourdough bread, July 2006, I can be that precise because I was up in the Blue Mountains, I had taken Charlie to Australia to visit my Brother Joe and his wife Monique. We took a trip up to the mountains to have Christmas in July, we had some real laughs due to the place we had booked not being a bit like the online photos 😝 We checked out and went elsewhere and in the process of finding new accommodation we stopped for soup in a little cafe. Soup and sourdough bread with unsalted butter, well I was hooked from then on. At that time over here in the UK it wasn’t something you could find on a regular menu, it seemed to me that the Australians were so far ahead of us with food choices and outlooks, I am glad to say that we have caught up with them, almost 🙄
As I was doing the Christmas cake my thoughts turned to Christmas crafts, I am not terribly artistic (that’s an understatement 😝) but I do like to have a go at something for the occasion. I want to get the office all sorted so that I can sit in there in the evening and do things like crafting or my other passion, ancestry 😀 one day I will get it sorted. I quite like the darker nights for doing that kind of thing, I can’t wait to get started however I have to do the books up for the year first 🥴 I had an email saying they were due (they are very overdue 🙄) so I need to get my house in order before I can begin to enjoy myself.
I have no idea what is going on but we have had an increase in the number of customers coming to get eggs, today it was 19! That is unheard of apart from during lockdown, 2/3rds of them will have been disappointed to find the egg shed empty. For a few weeks now we have always had eggs available most times of the day but over the last three or four days they have sold as soon as they go out 🙄
Friday: Always a welcome day, a happy day and today is a sunny day which makes it even better 😀
Sometimes I get philosophical that’s not always a good thing as it generally occupies all of my thinking for a few hours at least 😜 Why have I chosen to do what I do? It’s not something I always wanted to do it is something that evolved over time and you have to wonder why? Fundamentally I despair of the human race as a collective, not as individuals, there are millions and millions of good people but collectively humans seem to tread the same path I guess I retreated to this lifestyle because (in my opinion) its wholesome, with it comes a responsibility to look after nature or at least to not do it any harm, but then if that were the case you would think I would be vegetarian and I’m not, life is confusing isn’t it. See what I mean, it doesn’t do to start thinking lol. Sometimes I just need to write these things down so thank you for accommodating my thoughts for today, of course the whole subject is wider and deeper than that but it’s a weekly blog not a year long one 😂
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein
Sam and Shelley came over with the little ones that are not at school and we went for a walk down a local lane, I looked for apples on a tree but they had all gone, there are a few blackberries left but most have started to shrivel up, it’s beginning to look and feel like autumn 🍂 Though we do get compensation in the way of awesome sunsets at this time of year 😀
I opened my sourdough starter this morning and it has liquid on the top, this apparently is called hooch and means the starter needs feeding 🙄 it’s like having a baby 😂 The hooch is alcohol produced by the yeast but by all accounts you wouldn’t want to drink it, I don’t think I took enough of the starter away yesterday which meant the ratio wasn’t right which in turn produced the hooch. All is not lost though you just stir it in and feed it more flour, it is a living thing with wants and needs 😝
John left his phone on a job he has been doing in town so in the evening we went back to collect it and then nipped round to see Mum and Ken for a cuppa.
Saturday: A dry day some sunshine now and again, not too cold. John did the rounds and then started on digging out a path along the front of the building. We are putting a flower bed in but I wanted a path so that I can still get to the windows easily to clean them. When we first came there were thorny roses along there which was difficult, then I had to put up a fence around the area as Kai kept digging everything up when he was alive, now we can clear it and have it looking nice, only taken 10 years 😂 Meanwhile I got started on the beginning of winter clearing up in the garden, first all the plants that I have been bringing on, they are now safely in the cold frames, after that onto the tort run and some cutting back and chipping up, putting the clippings back on the ground. Inbetween all that I was making bread so diving backwards and forwards between the garden and the kitchen. I tried the sourdough but I don’t think I paid enough attention to it and it’s not rising at all, I will habe a look later and see if I can salvage it in any way 😏 I also made a regular loaf as I was not sure how the sourdough was going to do, good job I did 😜 More tidying away in the garden and potting up some bits, I really need to dig a few things up and divide them but by lunchtime my hips were hurting, the wind had got up and the sun gone in so I think the cold got into them. Time to come in and do some washing up and tidying, that’s the trouble when I am working out side, the kitchen becomes a dumping ground for everything while I go about my work.
Popped round to have a cuppa with Shelley and the kiddies in the afternoon before coming back and lighting the Rayburn. John did the feed round and I sorted the eggs, he then went out to clean out the hen huts in the paddock…..just as it started to rain and I mean really rain 🥴 luckily for him I had got the fire going nicely and there was plenty of hot water for a nice bath.
The sourdough dough is a bit of a disaster but I’m not giving up just yet, I still have starter so I will continue feeding it and try again on a day when I have more time to apply myself 😜 I may well have to do a fair bit of reading up before I attempt a second go 🙄
Sunday: Today’s plan was to go to the garden centre and get breakfast, actually my plan was to get some new gardening gloves and have a mooch about but to get John to readily agree I have to mention getting breakfast 😜 We picked up a few bits for Christmas but the gloves were all medium and I have very small hands. It’s not much fun gardening in gloves that have about an inch extra as I can’t grab hold of thing properly and the extra bit always gets trapped. The lack of small gloves in one centre meant I had to go to another one as well 😀😀 where I am glad to say I successfully purchased a selection of gloves in a small size. The first centre was relatively quiet, the second more popular and upmarket (and therefore overpriced) centre was very busy 🙄 While I was waiting to pay I was looking at the dried flower collection, I cant believe people pay that much for dead stuff 😂 here is me chopping it down and putting it on the compost heap, I said to John we are missing a trick here 😝
Monday 28th September 2020: Would you look at that, we are back round to Monday again 🙄 Some tasks just happen without any planning of them and that’s what I have been doing this morning, an unplanned task, still one that needed doing just wasn’t on my radar. The cleaning out of the greenhouse, two reasons for doing it, one, the season is coming to its end and lots have gone over and need adding to the compost heap, second reason is that the tortoises will need to begin hibernation soon. They hibernate in the greenhouse in a hutch over winter but they need to wind down first, they are already beginning to ‘dig in’ in the outside run, a good sign that they are ready for the long winter sleep. They will probably spend the next three weeks awake and I will slowly withdraw food from them although they are pretty good at regulating themselves. They can’t go into hibernation with food in their stomach as it will either ferment or freeze, neither has a good outcome 😏 On a warm day in the greenhouse they will still be active but as the temps drop they will become less so until they are fully hibernating and then we wrap them up until I can hear them shuffling around next spring.
I spent a few hours in the greenhouse moving things, sweeping down, cleaning and throwing stuff away, discovering many spiders but luckily no mice 😀 There are still a few things hanging on in there, chillies, although I picked most of them this morning, a couple of peppers still growing and again I picked the bigger ones already this morning, I have a few plants that are overwintering in there ready for next spring and there are walnuts, hazelnuts, lavender and tomatoes all either drying or ripening off. I also have some thermal foil ordered to put on the North side to help reflect the heat/light back towards what is still growing. At this time of year it’s easy to lose plants to the cold in the greenhouse so I am doing everything I can to keep them going including standing them on celeotex to stop cold drafts at the base of the plants. I may even make a thermal shelter out of the foil and a cardboard box to protect anything really vulnerable. I did think about heating it but in all honestly it’s a waste of money until the growing season begins again in Spring.
After a spot of lunch I went into the big tunnel to finish tidying up after pulling the tomato plants. Plenty of weeding in there, despite the fact that I put black plastic all round the edges the weeds crept through. I almost got one side finished and decided it was time for a sit down, I spent so much time on my knees each time I stood up I felt dizzy 🥴 that’s not good is it. I also found a clutch of eggs while I was tipping stuff onto the compost, we found a clutch in the straw in the stables but the minute you find them the hens move quarters and it’s hide and seek until you locate them. I can bet my bottom dollar that once I pick them up later they won’t lay there again and it will be back to hunting for them. I said to John we were loads of egg down in the daily count 😂
John came home and set about shifting all the wood we had taken off the front of the building and there was a lot of it. That left me to do the egg/feed rounds, pick some runner beans, pick some raspberries and get the dinner sorted. By 6pm my back was aching and with the washing up done it was time for a sit down thank goodness 😅
The animals we picked up on Saturday in case you hadn’t already guessed were two little black and white kittens. Yes I know I said I was done with cats for a while but we really need them to keep the mouse and potentially rat population under control. So we collected Jack and Jill (original I know 😜) and they have been settling in well. Today for the first time one of them came to meet me when I went through to the boot room which is where they are, sometimes locked in a cage because the dogs also have free range of the room and sometimes the dogs are locked out and the kittens get to stretch. It didn’t take them long to start climbing and finding hidey holes.
Tuesday: I started off the day by burning a bit of rubbish, paper feed sacks and cardboard boxes etc, then I had half an hour to kill so I thought that would be a good time to infuse the lavender I have been drying. I have used almond oil as a base, stuffed the jar three quarters full with lavender heads and covered it with the oil. That will sit on the window sill for about three weeks with the occasional shake and then be ready to bottle, a lovely soothing relaxing oil for all kinds of uses. I finished that and my cup of coffee and went out to the paddocks to bring in the horses ready for the farriers visit. Sam arrived with the twiglets, after the horses were sorted and back out we had some lunch and then went on a walk along the local downs. Again the scenery was beautiful, there was plenty to admire, spindleberry and flax, plus a bonus snack as we saw some great looking apples growing on a tree in the hedge, they were the best apples we had tasted for years 🍎
Spindleberry and flax two of my favourites to see while out walking.
When John came home we took down a chain link fence to the side of the building as we have someone coming to take the trees down tomorrow hopefully, as the weather is supposed to be terrible 🙄 It will be great once they are down as we can finally move the access to the yard, at the minute you drive past the front of the house and round in a big C shape which can be tricky when towing a trailer, this one will go straight up the side and the turning/reversing point will be much easier than it is now. Then it will be a case of a new fence and gate, the jobs are piling up lol.
Wednesday: Today is the day the remaining trees come down at last, I was a bit worried as I hadn’t heard from the people doing it and I hadn’t contacted them but they turned up as planned so that’s brilliant.
The weather is supposed to be awful later this week, high winds and rain urgh I think summer is done 😏 It’s going to be a long Winter what with all the restrictions as well as the long dark nights but I’m sure we will get through it. Funny how spring and summer seem to go faster than the autumn and winter 🙄 I do love autumn mind you, I love Halloween and bonfire night though I don’t think there will be much going on this year, we will have to make it the best we can in the circumstances, maybe a hot chocolate and a scary film (not too scary 😂) with the fire going will help.
I stayed indoors out of the way of machinery and trees being felled 🙄 mostly I did a fair bit of sorting out, things to go to the charity shop, things to throw away, old paperwork to burn. Mid afternoon I lit the Rayburn, it started raining around lunchtime and I think it is supposed to get worse later, might as well have a warm cosy house especially as I will be doing the feeds rounds later and likely to get a soaking 😜
The trees are down and we now have a huge pile of woodchip and tree trunks, it was surprising how oppressive the trees were even just the four that were left.
Now you see them, now you don’t 😀All this from just four trees, though they were huge 😜
Nice and toasty indoors with the Rayburn going, we will only have it lit for a few hours and then let it out or we will be sweating buckets tonight 😂
We are into the second wave of the virus now, they said it would come, we hoped it wouldn’t but here it is spreading rapidly I expect more restrictions will be added over the next few weeks.
Thursday: After the torrential downpours last night we woke to a beautiful morning, sunny, warm, delightful 😀 I seem to have my clearing out head on at the moment and so went out into the back area and started tidying up and clearing any rubbish, putting things away properly, that sort of thing. Then I got distracted, the daughter of someone I know has started a business transferring old vhs to digital. We have a few that I would like to get done so I went searching for them, our wedding video is the main one and then there are Christmas and holiday videos. Plenty of them have nothing written on them so I needed a player to have a look, I found one in the caravan which must have been dads as it has been here since we first bought the place. No plug on it 😂 this is typical as, like John, Dad probably robbed the plug for something else, however John also takes the plugs off defunct electricals and keeps them so I found one in a drawer. I am of the era that were taught how to wire a plug, I have no idea if they still teach that or not but it was one of the more useful things I ever learnt 😜 and so I put on a new plug and voila it works, I say works, it lights up and turns on anyway, the next phase is to hook up to a tv and see if it actually plays. Oh the fun I am going to have watching all these memories 🥰
After doing that I had to sort out the POL pen as we are expecting a delivery of hens this afternoon, it just needed sweeping out and some weeds pulling, that took me up to lunchtime and time for a half hour sit down I reckon.
I decided to rig up the video recorder and see what was on some of the tapes, the quality is not too good now, well they have been sat there for nearly thirty years (some of them anyway) but they are watchable, I just need to go through all of them and see what is what. It’s a long time since I hooked up a video player to the tv and had to google it 😂
John came home just in time for the arrival of 50 hens and the feed delivery so he sorted all that out
Josh wanted to come over after school and be left here on his own with us so Mummy and Flo had to push off 😂 not quite like that but you get the gist. He helped Grampy with the egg collecting and then he helped me gather some walnuts, I thought the squirrel would have most of them but there were loads on the floor so we picked them all up. Then things got hectic for a couple of hours as we had people arriving to collect hens and some people arriving to collect wood, what with that and answering messages about the wood it was all hands on deck, Josh even helped me load some wood in a wheelbarrow for someone. Eventually everything was done and sorted, Josh went back home, John put the birds to bed and that’s the end of another day 😀
Friday: It couldn’t be a more different day compared to yesterday’s sunshine, it’s been raining through the night and this morning it’s grey, dull, breezy and constant rain, yuk. Luckily I don’t have to be out and about in it at the moment, John did the rounds this morning before going to work, I stayed inside with a cup of tea 😂
I whizzed round and got a few household jobs done and then it was time to go and have my blood tests done, and get my flue jab, after that I went for coffee and cake with Shelley and Flo and then onto have a routine mammogram 😏 Just my luck that the software wasn’t playing ball and had to have one side done three times! If you have never had one before they compress your boob in various positions and it’s pretty uncomfortable so to have to have it done three times is not very nice at all but very necessary 🙄 Back home and light the Rayburn as it’s cold and rainy, if I can get it lit and settled before I have to go out and do the feed rounds I don’t have to nip in halfway round to check on it. Apart from that we have someone coming to pick up hens at 4pm and a cosy night in the warm is in order I think.
Saturday: Wet and rainy overnight, still drizzling this morning, a rather dank, dull day 🙄 John did the animals and then went off to pick up the tractor part that needed repairing, hopefully he will get that fitted today. I pottered around indoors sorting washing, drying, various other tasks, I am thinking of all the jobs to get done outside so that I am not wandering around wondering what needs doing. When it’s raining it’s best to have a clear itinerary that way I don’t end up either coming in and out of the house or standing round outside getting wet and cold.
Yesterday the world was informed that Donald Trump had covid, this morning we were told he has been hospitalised. From his actions and sentiments I don’t think he really believed it was a threat, I hope for his sake that he can overcome it 🙄
Nuts! I haven’t gone nuts but I do have a good haul of them, hazels and walnuts. The hazels are easy as you pick them and put them in a basket, they just keep like that all year. The walnuts though are a different kettle of fish, they need washing and drying successfully, if you just leave them they grow a mould in the outside which permeates inside and that’s not good. I have tried various methods over time but this year I have washed them off and because the Rayburn is lit I have put them in pans on the warming shelf to dry gently. I tried selling some last year but to be honest because you don’t what’s inside them until you crack them open it’s not really fair on customers especially if they get a few with nothing inside. I guess the industry xrays them or something like they do with eggs for cracks or anomalies. I try just picking up what I will use but seeing them on the ground the urge to gather is too strong so now I have quite a lot 😜 I was. Reading that you can freeze them though or even keep them in the fridge so I might have a ‘cracking evening’ soon and then they will be on hand to use quickly in cakes or for snacking. I have no idea how they don’t go rancid in the packing they are sold in 🤷♀️ if anyone has a clue let me know.
Lots of walnuts 😀
I decided to have a go at doing something with the nuts so I made some snacking nuts, a Keto recipe to be precise, whatever that is, it uses granulated sweetener instead of sugar. I cup of hazels, 1 cup of walnuts and 1 cup of cashews that I had in the cupboard. 1/4 cup of water, 1 cup of truvia, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp sea salt, 1tsp vanilla extract. Put everything except the nuts in a saucepan on medium heat, heat until dissolved then add nuts, keep stirring until the mixture crystallises, cool, eat, but I portioned it at around 15 portions which works out at 165 calories 😂 not for an everyday snack but as a treat it will be well worth it I reckon. It will store for a couple of months in an airtight jar or freeze, can be chopped into smaller pieces to top yoghurt or an apple crumble as always you are only limited by your imagination 😀
A word or two of advice (warnings 😜) don’t leave it in the pan to cool tip it out onto a tray, it’s difficult to get out of the pan once it’s set 🥴 if you like nice flat pastry when you roll, don’t use your rolling pin to bash the bottom of the pan it ends up with dents 🤣 and it’s very moorish so put it away in the cupboard or that will 500 calories gone before you know it 😝
The wood is nearly gone, we have had a couple of people come and cut it up and take it away, actually one bloke has been back three times already 😀
Sunday: Oh my days we have had nearly 48hrs of constant rain some of it pretty heavy at times. I woke about five times in the night and each time I could hear it pouring down, consequently this morning we have our usual river and lake in the fields. My aim was to get the horses in so I got the stables ready, John went off to pick up some hay bales as we haven’t got any in yet and I also bought the quail inside as they were looking rather glum. Biscuit was happy to be coming in, Jack however was a total prat and was adamant he wasn’t going to play ball until I got him a bowl of chaff feed that is then he decided it might be a good idea after all 🙄 we were a bit soggy after the morning out in it all. We came in and lit the fire and then popped round to see Mum and Ken and drop some videos off that are going to be converted to digital. When we got back, Shelley, Martin and the kiddies had dropped round for a cuppa and a chat. Then it was time to do the feed rounds and egg collection, the day has whizzed past today despite the depressing weather.
That’s another week done and dusted, I feel like it was a bit of a bitty week and nothing really consolidated, I don’t know why, it just feels like that. Hopefully next week I will feel a bit more in control, who knows what the week will bring though 😂 Have a good one whatever you are doing 🥰
Monday 21st Sept 2020: You may remember, but probably not lol, that I bought a tea bush (sapling actually) Camellia Sinensis, well it’s been steadily growing and although it’s still not very big it does have quite a few leaves on it. Hopefully it will get big enough to make both green tea and black tea, wouldn’t that be an achievement ‘grow your own tea’ I can’t wait to try, maybe next year 😀
Another sunny day ahead and I had been doing a bit of cleaning on Mondays but the weather is set to break quite hard around midweek and so I wanted to get some outside housekeeping done. Firstly though start the bread making process, while the first prove was happening I watered everything out the front and everything in pots in the main garden. Then during the second prove I cleaned out the guineas and quail. While the bread was baking I put together a new feeder we have bought, I did get it for the chickens but am trying it out in the duck pen. After the bread came out of the oven I put clean bedding in the goose hut and cleaned the water bucket refilling it with fresh water, I cleaned out the duck hut and put in new bedding and I cleaned the floor in the chicken hut out the front.
I came in and tried to catch up with the briefing on the virus, it’s not good news as we kind of knew it wouldn’t be 😏 Cases are rising and the government is keen to get control of it, it’s not looking good. But what is annoying me is that we have been really good, doing all the right things during lockdown and the easing measures. We have only socialised with family, we haven’t been out and about at all really except food shopping and the garden centre 🙄 and yet it is going to be the likes of us that are penalised I think and by that I mean families. You can go to work, school, pub, restaurant, swimming, sport activities, even get on a bloody plane and go abroad but you probably won’t be able to have family over for dinner, I am guessing here but if that ends up being the case it’s really going to piss me off 😏 We wait with baited breath for the next update!
It’s quite a depressing outlook what with Winter literally on the doorstep and the possibility of further measures. I am usually the one that says ‘it could be worse’ and of course there are much, much worse situations to be in but still the thought is a gloomy one. I see a few pod cast and box set catch ups coming 😜
Early evening Charlie came round to help paint the cladding, we are getting nearer to the rain coming and it would be good to get it all done before then. I did some bits of clearing up and making the cups of tea, one of my jobs is to tun the magnet over the ground and pick up and old nails or new screws and nails that have been dropped (plenty of those as John is not the tidiest of workers 😜) I ordered some sparrow flats which have arrived, I could have used the bird boxes I made but some nice new ones will look better. Sparrows like to nest and roost in colonies and these are three boxes all in one unit, I bought two of them and am just hoping they are delighted with them. The old boxes will still be used somewhere else, they did use them and so hopefully they will again 😀
Tuesday: Autumn equinox, equal amount of day and night, a time for celebrating the harvests 🌾 and the turning of the wheel, The feast of Avalon, Mabon, blessed be 🥰 It is a lovely sunny morning and so first thing I picked raspberries and then went up the back to pick blackberries. I love the fact that I can pick blackberries from our own hedges, I know they have not had anything sprayed on or near them and they are as good as you can get, full of vitamins and minerals, potassium, magnesium and calcium as well as vit A, C, E & B vitamins and of course they are great antioxidants 😀
I spent a good couple of hours in the garden. Firstly in the big poly tunnel, the tomatoes in there have succumbed to blight so it’s a case of save what I can and pull up the rest. They are now ripening (hopefully) in the greenhouse, any green ones I will probably make chutney from. Then it was onto picking anything that will get hit by frost, we have had some fabulous weather but any day now it will turn. The first frosts will affect anything that has a high water content such as courgettes so I might as well pick them now. I also harvested the pumpkins, again I don’t want the rain to affect them and I don’t want the birds to start eating them once they get ripe enough, they are now stored in the small tunnel. I only got four butternut squash and they were tiny 😜 bit of a disaster as far as they go but hey ho there is always next year 🙄 There were a few cucumbers to pick, they are much smaller now and the skins get tougher but they will still taste good. I picked runner beans and pulled some beetroot and the last of the corn cobs. I then came in and got straight onto sorting it all for the freezer, mostly soup mixes today, I’ll look forward to cooking and eating those in the colder months.
There are a couple of other things to harvest but not until the frosts come, they are Oca and Yacon. I had a little look at the yacon, I found one tiny tuber under one plant 😏 however, I did taste it and it’s lovely, sweeter than I thought it would be so definitely something to try and bring on again next year I think. The Oca get left until after the frost kills off the top growth, I am not expecting great harvests from them though as it has been so dry. I could leave them in the ground and they will be fine and grow again next year with maybe a better harvest.
I need to tidy up the poly tunnel now that I have cleared the tomatoes but I thought it would be better left as a rainy day job. I have basil that needs cutting and drying, some of it I am going to leave to go to seed and hopefully collect that, the more seed you can collect from things the cheaper and more sustainable growing your own becomes 😀 I will give it a good tidy and take out things I don’t want in there, like the cape gooseberry, and then see what I could sow for winter use.
Wednesday: It rained overnight, not much but the weather has definitely broken this morning. Last night we went out (out, out lol) that is the first time since the beginning of lockdown way back in March. We went with Charlie and Macca, Maccas Mum nad her friend Jackie, it was a tasting evening at the venue Charlie and Macca have booked for their wedding next year. The healthy eating went out the window 😜 as canapés were followed by starters, main course and pudding, all the choices on the menu and a taste of all the wines to go with them. The food was amazing, the wine was a treat to try, so many including Prosecco and champagne, the venue is delightful and we had a great time. I only hope that all those that have booked weddings next year will get to have their day 🙄 That will probably be the end of our nights out until next year 😂 The world felt normal (well apart from the one way system) for a few hours 😀
This morning even though it was very fine drizzle, I decided to get a bit of clearing done on the veg garden. First I tided up the compost area so that I could get in there to put more stuff in and then I set about the area with the sweetcorn. Although I had a few cobs, I didn’t have as many as I usually get and I also think that the baby corn would be a more versatile option next year. I found another butternut squash which takes the total to five 🙄 I pulled up plenty of weeds and got stung by stinging nettles and dug up some self set potatoes. We planted some red (Duke of York I think) about four years ago and every year any small tuber left in the ground produces about half a large bucket of spuds, no work needed, brilliant 😀 I have cleared it and piled the compost heap high, I just need to go back and pull any weeds that are left but it started raining a bit more heavily so I decided that was enough.
On the sunny days when there is no cloud cover at all, John has been coming home early to feed the hens and collect the eggs but yesterday and today I have done it as it’s overcast and I can easily move around outside. Yesterday I found a hen with her legs chewed off from underneath the hut which must have happened overnight. Today I suspect we have lost some more, we had four broody hens that get turfed off the eggs each day as they are not viable eggs, today there is no sign of them and the eggs were a mess. It takes ages to break brooding and so I can’t imagine that all four have suddenly decided to stop 🙄 That means a daytime fox which is always bad news.
Thursday: It rained heavily last night for a short while and then again this morning but the sun is out, it’s a cold breeze though. John did the morning rounds and I have spent the early part of the morning prepping lunch and dinner. Tomato soup for lunch, tastes amazing and shepherds pie for dinner this evening.
Fresh tomato soup: 1 onion chopped, 3 carrots chopped, 1stick of celery chopped, 5 good sized tomatoes chopped, I tsp olive oil, black pepper to taste, 1/3 of a chicken stock cube. Sweat down the onions in the olive oil, add the other ingredients and cook on low until soft, then blend. At this point you can sieve out the seeds and any bits of tomato skin if you want but I leave them in. I have been precise with the measurements because if you are calorie counting this is for two people and 1 portion is 111 calories 😀
Fresh tomato soup, easy, nutritious, low in calories 😀 I added a teaspoon of low fat black pepper cream cheese 😀
Home made soups are the easiest thing in the world, they taste much better than tinned soups, you can put almost anything in them but the best three ingredients to start of any soup are, onion, carrot and celery call them your base ingredients, if you can’t have onion (I know peeps with IBS struggle) use leek or spring onions instead, then add whatever you have, a great way to use up stuff in the fridge even half tins of beans/hummus etc. Normally it will be veg I use but bacon is a lovely addition, cook it crispy and sprinkle on and of course chicken bones often have very tasty bits of meant firmly stuck to them, just simmer the bones to release the meat. The soup season is nearly here so get experimenting, it’s a great way to get some or all of your five a day 😀
We have new measures in place to limit the spread of the virus, the rule of six indoors and outside also extends to restaurants and bars with table service only and they have to close by 10pm. Apart from that I think it’s much the same, again people have been asked to work from home if they can and hand washing, the social distancing and face masks are all still being encouraged. A new app was launched today for track and trace, how many people will download it is yet to be seen, there are plenty of conspiracy theorists about warning people not to do it 🙄 I wonder about their theories especially the whole ‘the virus isn’t real’ one, I mean what government in their right mind would pay everyone to stay at home and governments all over the world are doing the same, doesn’t really sound like something they would do unless they had to does it? I would also ask any of them ‘what is the ultimate aim if what you say is true’ because I can’t see what they would gain from it personally.
Urgh it’s that time of year where you put the washing out and suddenly a downpour arrives, which is exactly what happened today 😏 I toyed with the idea of putting it in the tumble dryer but decided on the line would be better, wrong 😝
This years failures are next years compost, I was listening to a pod cast when I heard this, it’s fabulous and I love it, so true and a reminder that nothing is wasted except maybe some of your time 🥰
Friday: You can feel the temperature drop even though the sun is out, it’s a cold wind today. Some days I know what I am going to be doing and some days I have to think about what to do, today was a ‘What shall I do day’. I don’t want to waste the day but I don’t feel like getting outside to do any gardening (even though I really should 😜) I went for a walk, good for the mind, good for my health especially as we live at the top of a pretty steep hill 😂 I took a few photos on the way round, it’s a typical Cotswold village full of creamy stone cottages, very pretty even on a day like today, very quiet though I didn’t see a single soul in the thirty five minutes it took me 🙄
When I got back I set about making some bread and cake, two loaves of whole meal bread, one for now and one for the freezer and two wholemeal flour sultana cakes again for for eating this weekend and one for the freezer. I have switched to using wholemeal as it’s better for you, organic, even better and if you can find organic stoneground flour that’s the cherry on the cake so to speak 😀 luckily for us we have a local mill that does.
Saturday: We went out, not just out but out of the shire out 😮 We were supposed to go to Wales for the weekend but that had to be cancelled so we decided to go on a road trip. We went to Stonehenge, haven’t been there for well over twenty odd years and it’s all different now, not the stones obviously they are still the same but the visitor centre has moved. When we last went you could park right next to them now you have to walk a mile to see them, you can get a shuttle bus but it was a dry day so I made John walk 😂 We did get the bus back though as it was incredibly windy and although the sun was out it was cold. Then we were going to go to the coast but we went to Marlborough for lunch instead and had a walk round, after that it was time to go to Goring on Thames where we had a couple of animals to pick up, more about that in a couple of weeks time 😀 Not quite the weekend we had planned but it was nice to get out and about and see some different countryside. We see a lot of country side because if I am navigating I avoid the bigger roads, John likes to go from A to B in as little time as possible, me I like the scenic route 😜
The iconic Stonehenge 🥰
It’s getting much colder now, almost October so we will have to think about lighting the Rayburn soon, it’s tricky to get it right, we don’t run it all year like some people do as it would be way too hot in here so it will be a case of lighting it mid afternoon for a few hours to build heat then let it out. This is not ideal for this kind of boiler but needs must, eventually it will be on all the time.
Sunday: We went out for breakfast, I know, we only went out yesterday you are thinking lol, but we were supposed to be away for the weekend so I thought a good cooked breakfast this morning would keep John going as we have plenty to do today. When we got back John started on the last leg of the cladding and I got on with cleaning Rosie the Rayburn. She has sat patiently all spring and summer getting covered in dust, had baskets of veg and fruit dumped on her and now it was her turn to shine. Shine she does, she looks as good now as when she was installed all those years ago, mind you it has taken me a good few hours, the flue had to be swept, all the grate taken out and cleaned a general hoover out, check all the fire ropes, replace the ones that were no good, replace the rock wall where it’s needed and finally give the outside a good clean.
Looking good Rosie 😀
I took some photos of the road we go along to get to breakfast this morning, how amazingly lucky are we to live somewhere so beautiful 😍
This green and pleasant land 🥰
In the afternoon we were busy tidying up the front area now John has finished the cladding although we have more to do, we need to find some metal flashing for the top and then put in a row of slabs along the front of the building to make it easier to clean the windows etc. After that another flower bed has to be built and planted up, I bought some new sparrow flats as they like to live in colonies hopefully they will begin to investigate them soon, the satellite dish had to go back up and the security light as well. We have a mountain of wood to move which we will hopefully get done tonight and then on Wednesday we have someone coming to take down the rest of the big conifer trees. We can then start on the side of the building and the new driveway that will go along the side, as well as a new fence and gate, so much to do 😜
Sunday Evening after publishing 😜 I forgot to update you in last weeks blog that Diesel returned just in case you were worried. He had a good feed, some extra treats and is fine. He is getting on though so I guess one day he won’t come back but for the time being he is around again 😀
Monday 14th September 2020: A glorious day with high temps and for me that means staying inside or shade dodging 😜 I chose staying in and had already decided to do the cleaning, mainly the kitchen. Normally I start in the bathroom and then do the living room and bedrooms and by the time I get to the kitchen it gets a quick going over. So today I started in the kitchen and gave it a good clean, all the walls, cupboard doors, move everything, clean behind things, I didn’t go as far as cleaning out all the cupboards but I did clean the windows and the grill, probably give myself a B+ 😂 I had a phone call from the surgery and I need an phone appointment with the doc to discuss blood results, crap, that won’t be great then 🙄
We need more trees in this country, I know there are groups that have been saying this but I can tell you from personal experience that we don’t have enough. When I travel any distance in a car or try to go for a walk on a sunny day I note the complete lack of trees for shade. If the climate prediction is anything to go by the world will get hotter, another reason to have more shade available and of course it would be great for wildlife. But let’s not plant any old tree, make them native or food trees, I never understand why new housing estates don’t plant a better combination of trees and shrubs than the non producing, standard type they go for, cheaper I guess, I would like to think it was more than lack of imagination 🙄
I did decide to clean the food cupboards out in the afternoon as well as the cutlery drawer, we only have one small under counter cupboard and a shelf in the other cupboard for tins as most of it is in the freezers or the satire cupboard. At least I now know what is in them and for some reason I seem to have three pots of cardamon, I hardly ever use it so I don’t know why 🙄 Then John arrived home and we did the eggs, had dinner and I went to babysit Mia, Lucie and George while Sam went out for a meal with Luke for her birthday which is on Thursday. That’s Monday finished, as a bonus John is at home tomorrow after a job he is on isn’t ready yet.
Tuesday: As I said John is off today after he has gone to do a small job that is 🙄 I got on with some picking and finally had a decent haul of runner beans, lots of people have been saying how poor they are this year so if yours were good you are in the minority. I picked a couple of courgettes, some raspberries & nuts, did a fair bit of watering as it’s so dry and getting pretty hot during the day (ah that Indian summer 😀) then indoors to sort it all out and decide what’s for dinner this evening. Meanwhile John returned and got on with some more work on the front of the building.
Last night a delivery of bulbs arrived, snowdrops, tête-à-tête daffodils and dwarf iris, these will all go under the newly planted shrubs in the new border. Hopefully they will spread and give a good show in early spring when nothing else is growing, that’s the plan anyway along with some taller willowy drifts of things like verbena, Dierama (angels fishing rods), guara (bee blossom) and red flax.
After school finished I left John to work by himself while Shelley picked me up and took me back to hers to do my nails. I rarely (that is only once ever) get my nails done, I don’t like false nails as they are too thick and I can’t always do things with them on and besides it’s little bits of plastic 😏 and I can’t (or couldn’t) have nail polish because of the UV salons use. Shelley recently did a course to qualify and during the course looked at options for light sensitive skin, LED can also be used and is less likely to cause problems (though you should still be careful) so today was a good day to give it a go. Shelley also bought gel polish that didn’t need curing with light but after applying it all it didn’t work terribly well so we took it back off. Then we tried the proper nail polish and using the LED lights. The base layer was cured with hands under the lights for 30 seconds, the colour layers I kept my hands just outside of the light box for 60 seconds each layer and the top coat was also for 30 seconds inside the light box. This worked a great 😀 the idea was not to over expose the skin to the lights in case a reaction occurred. Nice to have lovely looking nails, a real treat for me so thank you Shelley 😘
Wednesday: Another lovely sunny day ahead 🙄 don’t get me wrong I like the warmer weather rather than the cold but wall to wall sunshine means I can’t get out and about much.
I started off in the big tunnel as it needed watering, while I was in there I harvested about 5 cucumbers, accidentally pulled up some raddicchio (which I will now have with my dinner later) and cut back the monster that is the cape gooseberry. It has got huge so I cut plenty of it back and picked a load of the berries, not sure what I will do with those yet, I might freeze them and think about it. At the back is a wonderful smelling lemon verbena, it’s smell is divine so I cut some of that and will probably make a syrup which I can then use in lots of things. When I finished in there I cut back the lavender in the garden and now have a huge bunch of lavender drying. I pulled up some swede, cut some chard and picked some courgettes which will all be prepped one way or another for the freezer (probably soup mix). I came in and de husked the cape gooseberries and made a coffee. I felt tired just doing that bit this morning which is not a good sign, I have noticed I feel more tired over the last few days, I’m guessing that’s the white cells dropping again 🙄 pants! It’s a condition called Leukopenia and it’s caused by the medication I take for the Lupus which is why they will probably take me off of it so the body can repair BUT the Lupus can also kill off white cells and so they need to be sure which one is doing it and the medication suppresses the Lupus, it’s catch 22 by the looks of it.
Thursday: A lovely morning, sunshine ahead but that lovely fresh September start to the day is something I love. Today is Sam’s birthday, my eldest, 35 years, where the heck did they all go 😜 and now she is a mother of three herself 🥰🥰🥰 I always say being a Mum was the most rewarding and important job I ever had, I loved every minute of it and now I love every minute of being a grandparent too 😀 Happy Birthday Sam x
I whizzed round and got a few things done this morning, picking runner beans and raspberries, grabbing a few hazelnuts along the way. Prepped and froze some bits and pieces that have been hanging around on the side for a few days including some cooking apples which are now cooking down with the raspberries. Some swede, courgettes, chard and onion are open freezing for soup or roasted veg, more swede frozen separately with some runner beans, swede chopped for dinner later along with runner beans. Took all the off cuts and ends to the guineas, other softer bits to the torts, also picked them some lettuce and tomatoes.
Sam and Shelley came over with the little ones that are not at school and we had lunch together. Florence insisted on getting me some flowers in the shop, pink roses for Nana 🥰
Late afternoon we went over to see Sam the reason being that Mia had been at school all day and I didn’t want her to think we had missed her Mums birthday 😀 She had made some little chocolate covered fairy cakes for everyone bless her.
Friday: Another sunny day ahead. I started off getting some wash loads on, picking raspberries and planting 220 bulbs of various descriptions in the front border. Snowdrops, dwarf iris, crocus and tête-à-tête , hopefully that will be lovely and cheery from Jan through to March when not much else is around. I sorted dinner for later and made an apple and raspberry crumble, had a coffee and typed this up while waiting for the washing to finish spinning so I can get it out on the line. The postman came with parcels, cauliflower plants and an expandable hose, hoses are a big bug bear for me as they catch and kink all the time which drives me mad lol. The cauliflower I will have to get planted up ASAP, I need to work out where they will go, I think the best place will be where I had the broad beans, in fact yes that’s defiantly where I will plant them.
The pumpkin patch almost ready to harvest now the foliage has all died back. I need to get them in before the birds start pecking at them 🙄
Just before lunchtime I planted the cauliflower plants, 10 in all which will be all we need. First I hoed the area and raked it over, riddled the rakings to get the stones etc out and then planted the plants. I have covered them with environmesh not to keep off butterflies but to stop the pigeons and chickens eating the greenery. Then I spent a little while husking walnuts they are now drying in the greenhouse.
10 tiny cauliflower plants
Hopefully come late winter, early spring, I should have cauliflower, purple sprouting, leeks, winter spinach and chard all growing fresh, plus a freezer full of beans of all types, peas, swede, turnip and many types of fruit. I have garlic dried and stored, nuts that will be dried and stored, potatoes, butternut squash and pumpkins in store, jars of jam and chutney in the store cupboard, tomatoes/passata puréed and frozen, soup mixes already chopped and frozen, we have a store of chopped and dried wood ready, yep I am all good to go for 10ft of heavy snowfall 😜
Saturday: Martin came over to help John again today and as Shelley was working I entertained Josh and Flo. First we cooked egg and sausage sandwiches for the workers then we went to check on the horses and clean out and fill up the water buckets and then we made raspberry and chocolate chip cakes. After that in between making cups of tea and coffee we watched a bit of tv and played some superhero games, I get instructions from Josh as I have no idea what I am doing having had three girls 😂 Shelley came over mid afternoon and they all went home at 4pm. At 4.30 Sam arrived with Mia, George and Lucie as Mia is staying for a sleepover tonight 😀 John went to the chip shop and got some fish and chips and the it was bath time, we played tunes on Alexa and had fun getting her to burp and sneeze, then story time and bed, I’m knackered 😂 Apart from a bit of painting the cladding first thing this morning I didn’t get anything else done on the farm 😜
Sunday: Mia stayed over and slept well 😀 I did think she may want to go home but nope she was fine. This morning we got up had breakfast got dressed and went out to see the horses, after that we picked raspberries, collected a few eggs, picked up some hazelnuts and found some conkers, those are all for her to take home with her. The blackberries we picked up in the back paddock she ate en route 😜
After Sam collected her mid morning I went out to do a bit of picking, runner beans, courgettes, chillies and tomatoes everything has slowed considerably now. I got three lovely surprises as I was going round, one, the carrot seeds have already started to sprout so I should get some for Christmas even if they are baby carrots 🥕 Two, I have a loofah 😀😀😀 I had given up on these and even stopped watering them, I was watering the peppers and thought ‘that’s a funny shape pepper then realised it was a tiny loofah. And three, my oranges are beginning to ripen 😀😀 whoop whoop, we are moving towards orange season, late winter, early spring so fingers crossed, I hope they taste good.
If you look closely you can just see the carrot seedlings appearing. My first ever loofah, it won’t be big but it’s an achievement 😀Oranges beginning to ripen whoop whoop 😀 Also a big achievement in our climate though this year has been ideal for them.
We have had no rain for what seems like weeks, everything is very dry although the overnight dew is keeping things going I do have to water every now and then.
John has been busy again on the front of the house, when it’s finished I will post the before and after pictures. I am reserving judgment on the colour,
Monday 7th September: We’ll here we are again back round at Monday, the children have either gone back or are going back this week. Seems like life is returning to normal except the daily reports of the virus numbers which in some countries are scarily huge 🙄 Cases are rising here, well they are going to with everyone moving around more freely but the deaths are not as staggering as they once were, though that’s not much consolation if it happens to be your family member 😢 Life hasn’t really altered much at all for me in particular, never been one to go shopping or to the pub or do much socialising at all really 😂 life is pretty much as it always was except that now I can see the children, grandchildren and wider family members which is fine by me. I must admit that I was wondering when we could go to a live music event or theatre again but in all honesty I doubt we will be going anywhere before next summer. We have got to make the most of what we do have, it’s the only way to get through this whole episode 🤷♀️
This morning I have been doing a bit of hoovering and polishing and listening to tunes while I do it. My teenage years were the second half of the seventies and I have some music on the iPod from the ‘Jackie’ album so I was listening to some of that. They were good times, the youth club discos would consist of ABBA, Showaddywaddy, The Jackson Five, Paul Nicholas, The Rubettes, Hot Chocolate, Barry White, Status Quo, T. rex, Slade, Suzi Quattro, Lief Garret, Mud, The Osmonds, Bryan Ferry to name a few, a real eclectic mix totally representative of the seventies 😀 We wore platform shoes and Oxford bag trousers, layered skirts and cheesecloth tie up blouses, we used the phone box down the road to call friends or we went round and knocked on the door. We spent weekends staying at mates houses, going home on their school bus instead of our own and we listened to the Top 40 run down on a Sunday night on radio Luxembourg I think it was. Yep they were great times to grow up for sure 😀
I picked some Autumn raspberries, this is the first time I have been able to pick a decent amount and now they will produce this everyday so I shall be freezing some of them. I cut down on the amount of bushes I had by about 2/3 because I couldn’t keep up with picking lol maybe I should have just done a third 🙄 I stewed some cooking apples and made a batch lot of apple and raspberry crumbles for John, for me I froze some batches of stewed apple unsweetened which I can add other fruit to or cinnamon and maybe a sprinkle of truvia until I get used to no sugar at all lol. John has cut out his one sugar in tea and is now a no sugar tea drinker but I can’t quite let go.
Autumn Raspberries
Tuesday: Not a bad weather day, overcast but warm enough for only one layer 😀 Apart from the usual bits and pieces I have been chopping and cooking down tomatoes ready to purée. This will then go into the freezer as a base for soups, slightly different to the passata as it’s just tomatoes. I have begun to stress my tomato plants, I do this every year and all it means is less watering, much less, this then tricks the plant into thinking the season is over and will hopefully ripen what fruit is still on there. You still end up with some green tomatoes but not as many.
Went for a walk with Sam, Shelley, and the grandchildren this afternoon, we walked round the village which was lovely. Plenty of nice looking apples on some of the trees, might have to go and raid some, the ones on the roadside of course, my scrumping days are long gone 😂 In a village I lived in when I was about 10 there was an orchard over the road from where we lived (now a housing estate 😏) but we would often go over the wall for an apple or two. I am not sure who the land belonged too but they didn’t pick the apples so we helped ourselves lol. It’s funny is t it that people go blackberry picking but you don’t see people picking apples or nuts 🙄
Wednesday: Well it’s happened and the country is back on restrictions, gatherings of people are down from 30 to 6 and no more than two households indoors or outdoors, I think 🤔 Anyone who is surprised by it must have had their head in the sand, the groups that have been gathering in bars, certainly local ones, have been ridiculous and there seems to have been no policing of the rules either by the bar staff or the authorities. Most of the pubs and restaurants I know of have been sticking to the guidelines but the micro pubs and bars have had large gatherings outside on the pavement which is indeed difficult to police, hopefully these new restrictions will stop all that and still allow the pubs and restaurants to continue providing the excellent service that they have been.
Meanwhile I have been doing a few bits this morning, picking some apples I missed on the last look, some courgettes and a couple of pears. Watering the poly tunnels and picking the tomatoes, I have had a good haul of toms this year and there are still plenty on there, I just hope we get the weather to keep them going and ripen them, especially the indigo ones which are always slow to ripen I find. I watered all the plants in the new bed out the front and the ones in pots and tided up the front a bit as we are expecting the wood delivery today for the cladding.
I picked a few blackberries this afternoon from the hedgerow lining the back paddocks, there are more but I’m pretty sure the horses will start mugging me for them if I go into their paddock. Then wood delivery arrived and I called John to let him know as he was coming home early to do some of the work. That’s when we found out that our phone number (new one) comes up on the receiving phone under the old owner which was a business in Carterton under the name of fitfigures! Great so when I phone out if someone has caller ID they may not answer it, bloody unbelievable that this saga continues. On the funny side John quickly quipped ‘I’ll know it’s you darling’ 😂
I had a small accident, John was on the house phone in the kitchen calling the wood yard as the delivery was short, I was in the kitchen and going into the boot room. You make a very fleeting assessment of the path you are going to take without even realising it and that’s what I did, the pathway was clear and I walked toward the boot room door, at the same time John got up from the chair with the phone still in his hand up by his ear, finished the call, turned round, went to put his hand down and bang it caught me on the corner of my left eye, worse I had my glasses on which seemed to clout the corner of my eyebrow. It all happened in a split second. How the glasses hit the eyebrow I don’t know as I have tried to manoeuvre the glasses to see but they are rigid so it must have been a heck of a clout, I ended up on the floor as the stop was so abrupt and I reckon I will have a black eye tomorrow 👀
Oh a had a wander and looked at the bees in the tree, loads of bees going in and out so they are definitely thriving, no sign of honey oozing out yet though 😂
I made dinner, John worked on the front of the building, after dinner he carried on doing some more. Meanwhile I fed the dogs, why is this relevant I hear you ask, well John has been doing it but I kept telling him he was over feeding them. Every time I looked at their bowl it was FULL of biscuits, we feed them a decent dog feed which I researched thoroughly and they only need a third of what he was putting in there. Naturally being dogs they were eating it all but I could see that Mia in particular was putting on weight. Despite being asked (told) he still kept over feeding and so now I am in charge of doing it 😜
My eye hurts, I have a small, hurts to touch, lump on the eyebrow 🙄
Diesel still hasn’t appeared that’s a week now, not having much luck with cats at the moment. He has been here ten years mind you and been more and more absent lately so either found himself somewhere better or met his demise 😏
Thursday: A lovely morning, warm but mainly overcast, I had already decided as I was falling asleep last night that I would get out and tidy up the fruit cage. One of the support wires had snapped and there were quite a few weeds that needed pulling. So that’s exactly what I did, a very pleasant couple of hours of weeding here and there as well as the fruit cage. Then I watered some things because the ground is very dry again, luckily there is plenty of rain water in the storage tanks at the minute. I picked a few ears of corn, might have to have one for lunch 😀 I am going to try the microwave method, you leave the corn in the husk (un shucked is the term) and microwave it and apparently the husk is then easier to remove, we will see 🙄
The corn was delicious and very easy to do in the microwave, I was impressed with the ease in which the husk came off and the tenderness of the corn, winner 😀
Lunch, freshly picked corn on the cob, hard boiled egg with mayo and home grown salad 🥰 life is good 😀
My eye didn’t blacken thank goodness and it is less tender today but still a lump there and a little bit sore.
I did a walk around the perimeter of the paddocks just for a bit of exercise and picked up some walnuts. I can tell the squirrel is fearing on them already this year because there are peelings and bits of shell all under the tree, occasionally he must drop one that he has peeled and that’s a bonus for me as it means I don’t have to do that one 😂 Hulling walnuts is my least favourite job, there is no easy way to do it and I have tried multiple methods over the years. The main thing is to wear gloves otherwise you have brown fingers for weeks afterwards. As with the hazels this year, I am not planning on gathering all of them, just enough to keep me going, we have them growing so might as well use them in cakes etc.
Shelley and the children called late afternoon and we went up to the back paddock and picked a good haul of blackberries 😀
Friday 11th Sept: I put the date in today because of course it’s a day that we can never forget. Long before we bought the smallholding a terrible day unfolded in the USA and the whole world watched the events as they happened, not something I will forget in a hurry, I remember exactly where I was sat and how the room looked as I watched the news reports of the Twin Towers being attacked and the horror as I watched live when the towers began to fall 😢 RIP
I started the morning with that Friday feeling 🥰 and got on with some picking, cucumbers, sweetcorn, runner beans, beetroot, hazel nuts and walnuts today. You can tell what time of year it is without a calendar by the shift in what you are gathering in, early Autumn is a time I love.
I have a couple of marrow and I decided to make a marrow cake, they are the same as a courgette just bigger. I sort of followed a recipe, this is a healthier version of what I found, it’s still in the oven so hopefully will taste just as good as a version with fat and sugar in it.
Marrow cake: 300g Marrow, grated 2 eggs 150g whole wheat flour, 150g SR flour 100g coconut oil (melted if you are in a colder climate 😂) 1tsp baking powder, 1tsp cinnamon 1tsp vanilla extract 3tbls Maple syrup (or to taste) put it all in a bowl and mix thoroughly, bake at around 160c for approx 40mins or until you get a clean knife. I figured it would be about 12 slices from a loaf tin and so each slice is around 200 calories a slice which is not bad when you ‘NEED CAKE’ 😜 You could add nuts or chocolate chips or even add cocoa powder if you want a chocolate version but obviously that increases the calories. I think I will mix up a little icing sugar and lemon or lime juice to drizzle on top as an extra treat.
Saturday: Busy day today, we started off with the usual rounds and I did a few bits while John started on the second half of the front of the building. He pulled off the cladding and horror, the main timbers at the bottom were rotten through and through, I mean crumbling rotten and some of the timber that goes going under the building 😏 He kept saying ‘oh dear this doesn’t look good’ no shit Sherlock, I was starting to panic a little and to be honest felt like crying. I came indoors and had a word with myself then went back out, ‘right then, instead of being negative how about we look at it properly and see exactly what is what and then decide what we will do about it’. So John went underneath the building as there was space (just about) for him to get under and assess the situation fully. Turns out that only the first couple of foot of the timbers were gone and the rest was fine which meant we had something solid to attach new timbers to 😅 thank goodness for that. Martin arrived to help and as Shelley was working I looked after Florence and Josh while they got on with some work. Me and the kiddies went and picked raspberries, had a good look at the pumpkin patch, I think they were impressed with my efforts, which is good because that’s who I grow them for 🙄 we fed the guineas and the torts, went for a walk in the paddock to look at the bees nest, picked some walnuts, had some snacks and some chit chat and then it was time for them to go home. Martin came back in the afternoon and carried on helping John and now we have half the building sorted and the first layer of ply has gone on. John and I couldn’t decide (agree) on the colour to stain the cladding when it’s finished I wanted a brown shade, John wanted grey which I wasn’t keen on. He bought home a tin of the grey anyway (to my disgust 😂) but actually now he has done a sample I quite like it and think it will look great. There is a first time for everything and John was right, which is a first 😝
You can just see Johns foot as he scrabbles about underneath to assess the extent of the rotten timbers 😱
Sunday: Lovely sunny day, John did the animals and then got on with the front of the house. Luckily the rest of the timbers are not as bad as that lot yesterday and so he was able to get on well. I did some watering in the greenhouse and tunnels and then decided to clear one side of the small tunnel. There were a couple of tomato plants that have all but gone over a sorry looking parsley and a large cape gooseberry in the bed. I had decided previously to take out the gooseberry as it’s got too being, I don’t get many from it and it casts a lot of shade. Once cleared I had to top up the beds with some fresh compost and then I sowed some forcing carrots, I have no idea if I will get any but it doesn’t cost much to give it a go so I have nothing to lose. They are Amsterdam forcing carrots, quick maturing and so I might be lucky enough to get some for Christmas.
One filled the other waiting to be filled then sown with carrots for a Christmas crop hopefully. There is parsley growing right in the middle too lol.
It’s twilight and I went out to collect a delivery that just arrived, I can hear an owl in the hedgerow between us and the next field, twit twoo 🦉🥰
Monday 31st August, Bank Holiday: Busy in the front area today, finishing planting bits in the front border, off to the garden centre to get a few more plants 😜 and then begin to dig out the plants in planters on the other side near the front of the house as that’s the next area to be done. Move all the pots out of the way (there are around forty of them I think 🤣) and time for a quick sit down mid afternoon!
Tuesday: September 1st, White Rabbits, A busy morning again today and by 10.30 I had put two loads of washing through, changed the bedcovers, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned out the ducks and the geese, picked berries and tomatoes, got the dinner sorted and chopped a load of veg for a soup batch, not bad going 😀 I had just made coffee when Mum and Ken called in so we had coffee in the garden. I still have plenty of jobs left on my list which is not actually a written list it’s one in my head 😜 I also need to go and get some shopping later as the whole ‘John can go with a list’ idea didn’t really work out so well, he came back with plenty that wasn’t on the list and a few things that definitely were he had forgotten to get 🙄 well I wouldn’t mind but my breakfast cereal was one of them, he did however buy hot cross buns and some muffins which he likes!
I needed a chocolate fix so I finally got round to making this avocado chocolate pudding and while it’s not going to make any ‘wow that’s amazing’ lists, it is chocolatey without the sugar and fat and it does feel like you have just had a treat 😀 Avocado, banana, maple syrup and unsweetened cocoa powder, blitz, eat, it’s as simple as that.
Wednesday: It’s definitely September 🙄 a chill in the air this morning but with the promise of sunshine warming things up. I haven’t done much but potter today, I love a pottering day, no agenda, no task list, just waft about and do whatever I think needs doing 😜 We had a bit of good news this morning, we invested in some premium bonds and we each have some. Johns idea was to have a competition and see who wins the most lol, this does not bother me as I do not have a competitive bone in my body, seriously I couldn’t care less if I win at monopoly or not 😜 We both won something which is great for our first ever draw but the funniest thing is that I won more than he did 😂 It must be terribly frustrating for a competitive person to come up against a non competitive one, it’s not that I don’t believe in it just that it’s not in me. From what I have read it means I have an inner peace, that I am comfortable with who I am and that I focus on bettering myself 🙄 on that note I’m off to meditate 😀
Thursday: It feels warmer this morning compared to yesterday, it’s grey and overcast but pleasant enough. I decided to get out and do some bits in the garden, a bit of picking first, it has all slowed down now which is good as I can focus on other things. Getting the beds ready for winter is what I decided to do, I have a few small raised beds that have now finished bearing crops. I weeded them, put a good layer of mushroom compost on them, covered them with the biodegradable covering and weighted that down with some mesh grids I have. The jury is still out on the biodegradable stuff, it’s not really for winter cover more for spring planting but as I have it and the life is six months I thought I ought to use it. It’s very flimsy and even a slight breeze makes it difficult to manage, then the drizzle started which made it stick to my hands but I got there in the end 🙄 I weeded round the leeks which are still pretty small but they have growing time left as they can be left in the ground all winter. My back started to ache so I figured that was enough of that but if I can get bits like that done every couple of days it shouldn’t take long to have it all back in order. You may remember I was going to do the whole chop and drop thing but I have decided that I can’t work with that, I found that there was no order to how I needed to work which may be fine for some but not for me. I think I have finally got to the age when I realise that if something doesn’t work for you give it up and change it, you can change it as many times as you like before you decide what is harmonious 😀
Mum called in to pick some elderberries and had a cuppa and a chat, we decided that it’s going to be a long winter this year lol, that’s a depressing thought and we are as always hopeful of an Indian summer but in all honesty I’ve only really known one year when that happened. It was Samantha’s 21st birthday which was mid September and it was glorious weather, we sat outside drinking bottles of champagne on Mums lawn, of course it may have only been that one day, I can’t really remember 😜
Friday: I had a bloods appointment this morning so shelley picked me up and took me and then we went to visit my niece for a cup of coffee, a quick trip into town to find Josh some trainers and then back home for the afternoon stuff.
Saturday: John went off to order wood for the front of the building as we are recladding it. It was done once about 8 or 9 years ago but it was never done properly, new cladding laid over old. This time the whole lot is coming off and it will have ply on in first and then the cladding. It’s a doubled edged sword really as all the birds nest in the bits that are hanging off as well as wasp nests lol but it has to be done. He came back from ordering and started the demolition, I did point out that there is still stuff lying around from the old fence he took down to replace, I’m hoping he spends a bit of time tidying up, I always say ‘it’s easy to make a mess’ not so easy to clear it all up 🙄 Meanwhile I have been weeding and pulling up old foliage in the veg garden again well I was until the sun came out then it was inside to wash up and organise lunch and tomorrow’s dinner. I am planning in advance as I am following a healthy eating regime and trying to keep on track which I find I can do better if everything is thought about well ahead of time. I did clean out the guineas as well first thing and pick a few hazelnuts. I am not going to collect as many as I did last year better to leave them for the wildlife as I can’t possibly use all of them.
I picked a few berries and a couple of courgettes but everything is beginning to slow down now, you have that manic few weeks when everything needs picking at once, even if you make successional sowings, and then calm returns and it is much more manageable. It is the time of year you will find my pockets full of nuts though as I tend to pick them up off the floor as I go round. I am thinking about what or if I want to winter plant, I have some things in like leeks, sprouting broccoli and the chard but do I want other things like winter salad leaves, hmm probably not but winter spinach would be a good idea I think and as the welsh onion are not doing particularly well I think onion sets and garlic would be a good idea.
In the end I ordered onion/garlic and shallot sets, some forcing carrots which will go in the tunnel and I should get some around Christmas time and also some cauliflower plants, I think brassicas do better overwinter the butterflies and pests are not so voracious 🤞
Sunday: After the morning routine John got on with the front of the building, it needs quite a bit of prep work before he can start to put it back together and by that I mean some of the timbers are rotten 😂 My morning was mostly spent picking, there was quite a lot which was surprising, French beans, runner beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, chillies, beetroot, swede, chard, cape gooseberries , sweetcorn and a couple of courgettes, still picking up nuts as I go 😜 Everything is now either out for sale or prepped for the freezer. Time for lunch and a quick sit down.
Ted is becoming a bit of a heartthrob with the ladies, Florence in particular loves Ted, everyone loves Ted, I think he may need his own Facebook page soon 😂 I have hopefully found him a mate though she needs to grow a bit first but watch this space.
Ted the Turkey
We haven’t seen Diesel for a few days which is a worry, he is getting on a bit for a farm cat, hopefully he will appear soon.
Look at these beautiful coloured peppers my Mum grew from the plants I gave her, mine were all green or yellow lol these are a velvety purple colour. And so begins the re cladding 😱
frieslandfarm (flowers) 