Tag: Vegetables

Posted in Friesland Farm

Runner beans, runner beans and more runner beans 😝

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th August: Not Up so early this morning, the urgency to water everything has now gone as the drizzle keeps on coming, they say the heatwave will be back but I have my doubts about that. John did the feeding, I went out and got started with the picking, the runners have not been picked for a couple of days so there are plenty to harvest, a few courgettes, some mangetout, I also put out some Victoria plums as I still have plenty in the freezer from last years bumper crop. Egg customers come earlier and earlier in the hopes of getting eggs but what they don’t realise is that if we sell out the day before there will not be any more until around 10am as the hens only get going about 8.30/9 The ducks always lay first thing but even they are on a go slow at the minute, the only ones laying like crazy are the quail.

The book I ordered ‘ Timeless Simplicity’ by John Lane arrived and I have read a couple of pages, I can see me quoting from it left, right and centre there is already so much in it that I identify with that I wish I had read it many years ago!

The grass is coming back through 😀 it’s amazing resilient stuff, the paddock was almost black with dead grass and now there is a haze of green across it which will make the geese very happy indeed and the hens will benefit too because although they eat layer pellets they do eat the tips of the blades and of course the insects will return so we should see them skipping across the area trying to catch them 😀 The ducks were put in there as a temporary measure and it doesn’t really suit them so I need to move them out, beside the geese have now taken to attacking another one so the sooner the better really. I would do it myself but the hut won’t go through the gateway into the orchard so it needs a bit of muscle to man handle it round. The ducklings are making a proper mess now it has rained so I need to sort them out too and I also need to pick some more plums, better finish this coffee and get on with it I think 😀

By lunchtime I had made a slow but sure start on the orchard area, I managed to herd the other ducks through to there and I let the ducklings out of their run into the whole area. I began planting up the fence line which will be an edible/wildlife attractant hedge so far I have planted 3 blackcurrant, which are in degradable pots, some feverfew, comfrey, lemon balm, a dog rose and a thornless blackberry, I also planted a kiwi root I found growing in the path, under the greengage tree, bonus if this takes and grows. I planted some marigold seedlings in and around various places and I have a buffalo currant in a pot which I have placed under the damson tree for now. So I have a good mix now and all they have to do is grow, easier said than done when the first thing that appears is a chicken because I have disturbed the ground and they think it’s a scratch and freeforall 😝 I have protected a few of the plants and will do the rest later. Hopefully come spring it will have all settled and be growing nicely providing shade, food and cover not just for the ducks but for all manner of things.

I moved Billy into the big tunnel to do some foraging plus it’s a bit warmer in there and as him and Voldy don’t seem to get on too well he will welcome the break I think. I did move the melons up from the floor, I don’t want him tucking into those 😋

I picked some plums and grabbed hold of a wasp in the process, luckily I didn’t get stung, they are everywhere at the moment especially on the greengage but I managed to pick a handful of those that have not been eaten just yet.

Did the afternoon feeding and picking and filled up the water buckets, then went on the search to find something to put it over the plants in the orchard, we were given some water containers like the ones in offices they make great cloches when you cut the bottoms off and I also use the bottoms to stand pot plants in when they need extra watering.

Just when you think you know what birds are around you another surprise pops up, unfortunately this one had got trapped and died some time ago but when I saw it my first thought was a baby green woodpecker, after doing a bit of googling I discovered it was in fact a goldcrest the smallest of the UKs birds, I shall keep an eye out for live ones from now on.

Tuesday: A dry day, warm enough, John did the main of the birds this morning while I did the birds in the orchard of which there are quite a lot now lol, ducklings, two lots of ducks, two lots of quail, the light Sussex chicks and the rabbits and Guineas, I think it’s full 😀 The orchard, just to give you an image, has three plum trees, greengage, damson and Victoria, a pear tree, an apple tree and a huge walnut tree, so plenty of scope to begin under planting for a forest garden.

I did quite a bit of picking and harvesting

The potatoes were from a self setter, I think I am going to give up cultivating them and just leave the self setters to spring up around the place they do far better than the cosseted lot.

Yesterday I didn’t feel as well as I had been doing and feel that some of the symptoms are creeping back slowly, especially in my feet so today I am loading up on the anti inflammatory foodstuffs to see what happens. I will take serapeptase in the mornings and today I am having turmeric tea then later I will have pineapple and see if any of that helps at all. I make the turmeric tea with almond milk, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper and maple syrup if you like chai, you will like this, spicy and warming with the added bonus hopefully.

I had some Megrim sole delivered with the fish from Cornwall and we had it tonight for dinner, Sam cooked it for us which was very kind of her 😀 John had his with potatoes and peas but I had a salsa of cucumber, tomatoes, garlic and pine nuts, in a balsamic dressing, with mine, she pan fried it in butter, salt, pepper and a couple of rashers of back bacon, it was delish. Megrim is the poorer relation to Dover sole in as much as it’s not so in demand but actually the flavour is good and it’s a sustainable fish 🎣

I was thinking about making a carrot relish of some type and it seems there is a popular sandwich sold by a well known food store, Wensleydale cheese and sweet carrot chutney, (sounds amazing) so there is demand 😀 I also need to have a go at the caramelised red onion chutney that everyone seems to love although I didn’t grow red onions this year and seems pointless buying them in so I will put it on my list to grow next year. I also want to try getting a pickle as close to the country’s favourite, Branston, I wonder if it’s possible?

I absolutely adore Pinterest, I’m pinning all the time lol, anything you have an idea about can be found on there, my folders take nearly as long to get through as the site itself 🤣

Wednesday: Dry again today, temps are average, overcast. Got the usual morning jobs done and then dug out a tub of fence paint and started painting the fence near the back door, random? , not really as Mum and my niece Anna are coming over this morning to do some jobs 😀 So I thought I would set them onto sorting out the front yard space, as I said before it had always been just left because of Kai but now he has gone I can tart it up a bit. It needed an awful lot of weeding and a good bit of tidying and so painting the fence and gate will make it look a whole lot better to boot! I also made another little raised bed out of the ones I took down, at the moment I have only put pots in it but I will get round to planting it up soon. Mum found four little buddleja saplings growing and has potted them up for use somewhere else or selling on, mine is the yellow, ball type and I would like to get the more common purple one at some point, superb for the butterfly population.

Thursday: Raining this morning, normally I would make rainy days, baking days, but I need to do the cleaning instead 😜 Before going outside I had cleaned the washing machine, Charlie was complaining it’s stinks, it did, so I cleaned out the drawer and put a solution through it, cleaned all the sink plug holes nearby and it smells much better now. I sprayed the bathroom ready to give it a clean later, and the back toilet, got the dinner underway (braised beef with garden veg) and a pudding, plum crumble, John will be very happy tonight 😀 put some washing on then went out and did the orchard animals before coming back in and getting on with it. Mid morning my cousin came with a bag of seaweed from his holiday, I had asked for some to make my own fertiliser. I had to put the sold out sign up because we are out of eggs until this afternoon as I don’t have time to keep going out and collecting them besides we would never catch up if I did. There has already been a steady stream of customers, we can never seem to get this balance right, too many customers, not enough eggs, too many eggs, not enough customers, I don’t know what the answer is?

My vest veg customer came twice this morning, I saw his car, but there was nothing out there mainly because I was not going to go out in the pouring rain and pick it! A quick lunchtime sit down before I carry on 😋

I had a brief look in the office/playroom/junkroom and decided that was a whole mornings work on its own so I shut the door again 😜 I think I need to employ the services of a professional de-clutterer! Besides the Sun is out again now so I may go out and do a bit of picking, I will just have a quick browse on Pinterest first 😋

Well looking on there mad me hungry cos it’s mostly food that comes up on my feed lol, luckily I had got some soup out of the freezer and ate that, then I really needed to have a bit of a rest because things are playing up a bit and I’m having to take ibrufen to get anything done ☹️ so I popped a couple of pills and had a lie down on the sofa 😀 But not for long, I think I will get a ‘do not disturb’ sign for the gate 😜

Fed the birds, picked up the eggs, picked some runner beans, cucumbers and tomatoes, I am trying to decide if the melons are ready, I think I shall have to pick one and cut it to see, I’m not sure what variety they are and it’s not totally clear if they have ripened. The rain and now the sunshine will give everything a bit of a growth spurt hopefully as it has dwindled a little bit, better be careful what I wish for because it will take me longer to pick everything lol. I think another batch of runner bean chutney is needed as the last lot went fairly quickly.

I made some Greek yoghurt in the yoghurt maker, another packet I’m afraid as I haven’t got round to reading how to do it without but I will, beside it does taste delicious 😀

Friday: Beautiful morning, fresh to begin with, no idea what the temps went down to overnight but must have been fairly low, then warm sunshine which looms as though it’s here for the day 😀

Got all the orchard animals fed and watered, I did a good bit of foraging for the rabbits so they have some diversity in their diet, I cut a melon to test for ripeness, its not quite ready but not far off so I gave it to the torts and some to the light Sussex chicks, who are now getting to a good size. Some of the runner beans are now getting older and so I made a batch of chutney with those and I am just investigating ‘shucking’ which is removing the bean from the pod and possibly then blanching the beans and taking off the outer layer leaving a lovely green bean that splits in two, can’t be much different from a pea really.

The kitchen smells amazing 😀 as well as the chutney I have tomatoes, onion, garlic, carrot, basil and oregano, salt, pepper all tossed in olive oil, reducing down in the oven for a sauce, delish. A bit of an indulgence really as John doesn’t like pasta so the sauce is all for me and whoever I share it with, it’s a bit of a shame because if I’m honest it is the part I love the most about harvesting it all is making lovely goodies to eat either fresh or later in the winter time.

Saturday: Dull as far as the weather goes though not cold. I spent a fair bit of the morning chatting with various customers but in between that did some picking, runner beans, courgettes and broccoli. The brassica cage is still holding up really well against the cabbage white so I am able to harvest quite a few sproutings, I also filled a trug with old leaves and bits that have ‘blown’ as I call them, there was also a cabbage in there which was supposed to be broccoli but isn’t, I gave that to the light Sussex chicks to pick over, it should keep them busy for most of the day. I need to put some kale in for overwinter and will definitely be using the cage for that. I noticed the other day that the few French beans plants I planted had got more flowers on so I thought I will leave them a few days and then pick the beans, well something has been eating them ☹️ at first I thought rabbits, but they would have eaten the whole bean and this is just the end so something that can’t quite reach all the way up, possibly a mouse which will be more difficult to protect them from.

I was walking down the garden and heard a familiar noise, oh shit, I had left the water on in the poly tunnel, for 24hrs 😜 damn, it won’t need watering for quite a few days now but hopefully it will swell the melons!

Had Josh and Florence for a few hours, mostly played with playdough that my sister had made for him, it started off four different colours now it just one 😋

Sunday: Another dull day, not that I’m complaining as it means I can get stuff done outside. John did most of the birds while I did the orchard lot. Today that meant cleaning out most of the huts and runs, putting in clean bedding and washing out the water bowls. Two of the huts needed moving as they don’t have floors they are just on the dirt ground. Meanwhile John has started repairing the movable chicken hut which will go into the side paddock to house a new batch of hens, just 30 in order to keep turning over the laying flock and meet the demand for eggs.

I went for a little wander around the farm to see what blackberries were about, not many they are still red, quite small and look dry due to the lack of rain I suspect. My cooking app,e tree continues to chuck apples all over the drive especially when it’s windy, it’s a shame as the tree showed great promise at the beginning of the year. I picked some more Victoria plums, a fair few of the last lot I picked had codling moth grub in them but the branches on the other side seem fine, it’s my own fault as I didn’t put grease bands around the trunk nor did I put up the moth traps, I definitely will do next time.

Have a great week 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

‘Timeless simplicity’, tortoises & pasta sauce.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday August 6th and the year is rolling on😜 By 9am this morning I had already done a 4hr stint in the garden! Watering the bits I didn’t get done last night and tidying away pots, I have a place where I keep them all over winter then as they get used I tend to chuck them down by the front of the greenhouse along with anything else I have been using 🤪 I figured it was time to tidy it all up, I also demolished one of the narrow raised beds in front of the greenhouse. Over the years it has had various different things growing in it, mostly flowers but the trees have got a bit big and it’s too shady, I did however shove the potatoes in there when I could finally get them in after the wet spring, they have not amounted to anything so that was waste of time, the wood at the bottom was rotting and coming away so it’s time to remove them. As always I didn’t take a before photo so this one is of the remaining bed so you get the idea of what I am talking about and the nice clear space I have now made. I contemplated doing the other one straight after but sitting here having my coffee I’m thinking that was probably enough action with the lump hammer and spade for today.

You can see that I have mounded up the soil in the background and covered it with black plastic, the soil was dead, there was hardly any life in it at all so covering will help to bring it back to life and get some composting done.

And then I finished my coffee and thought, sod it, in for a penny, in for a pound, and got on with demolishing the other one 🤪 although as fast as I was trying to rake up the chickens were in there scratching it all about! The asters that were growing on the end have been put in a tub of water, each year I kept meaning to divide them as they have been struggling for a couple of years, so now after a good drink I will pot the, up ready for selling or planting in various areas. Once the soil has broken down a bit I will be re using it on other projects I have in mind or to top up any existing raised beds, that area is going to have a small compound and house built for my new arrivals so that they are nice and close for the grandchildren to help feed and watch.

After collecting some eggs, as trade is brisk this morning, and finishing tidying stuff away it was 10.30 and time for a well earned rest and catch up with my fave tv programme at the moment 😀

Tuesday: Lay in, Up at 6am 😜 I only did a small amount of watering today I will do more tonight but the night are much cooler and full of moisture so it’s not as needed as it was. Picked a good amount of veg, 14 cucumbers lol, they have been hiding I think, beans, mangetout, tomatoes that will ripen out in the open sun and some baby corn. Then I got on with removing another raised bed that is under the trees and doesn’t get much light or rain so things struggle, actually the hens all scratch in in too so most things have died off. I moved it to the front, dug up all the soil, added some rotted manure and planted it up with the plants I bought ages ago and haven’t been able to sort yet and gave it all a good soaking. Then I made a coffee and sat down for five minutes peace, I got to about three and Sam, Mia and Alfie arrived. Sam and Mia helped to put the run up and move the ducklings outside for the day, they had great fun splashing, washing and preening themselves, the bigger ducks came to have a look and it’s got me wondering if I could get them to adopt the same way the geese did, it’s worth a try I reckon. Then we fed the rabbits a couple of the cucumbers and the light Sussex chicks some spinach and a few weeds, I collected up some eggs as customers keep on coming this morning and then it was time for Sam to go to work and Mia and I to entertain ourselves 😀

We have some roast chicken left over so I am going to make a curry with that today, John won’t eat curry so I will have to come up with something else for him.

While Mia was asleep I made a chicken and broccoli bake for John, the recipe suggests breadcrumb on top but I will just use potato and cheese. When Mia woke up we went outside to hang out the washing and pull some carrots to go with Johns dinner and then we fed the chickens and collected the eggs, Mia very carefully carried the quail eggs back and put them in the egg box, none broken 😀 Then we had a well earned rest and watched Wisspa 😜

Not many eggs to put out this afternoon and we had completely sold out, they have dropped in numbers by about 20 a day which is a lot!

Oooo when is it ever going to rain again, just keeping everything alive is bloody tiring, sometimes I look at how dry the ground is and think shall I just stop? The paddocks have now gone from brown to starting to blacken, I know they will come back as soon as it rains for long enough but honestly I don’t want another summer like this one!

We made a decision to put the ducklings in a hutch outside with the run around them, they are only three weeks old but they haven’t been under the lamp for the last week and the nighttime temps are not cold, in springtime I wouldn’t have taken the risk but at this time of year, with the weather as it is, it should be fine.

Wednesday: Noticeably cooler this morning though the rain forecast for the end of the week has disappeared off the radar again! Did a bit of watering and Mum arrived early to do some more hoeing, it’s great because I would never keep on top of it all otherwise, so thanks Mum 😘 I tidied up the small bed in front of the front gate, a bit of chopping and cutting back, clip the grass edges (the only bits of grass growing) planted up one of the lime trees in a pot and put that out there and pulled out no end of shasta daisies they are so thuggish and take over entirely. A quick cup of coffee and then set about sorting out the greenhouse, throwing away stuff I don’t need, taking down the staging that is in there, it will be burnt, it’s not very good as it had to be screwed to the frame to stop it falling over! Plenty of stuff to keep but I need to sort out the shed so I can get it in there lol, always a knock on job, once it’s cleared it will be ready to take down then John can put the base down and I can get it ordered, we have some very large tree branches to remove as well so that will be quite a big job. We pick up my new pets tomorrow and they will be living in there temporarily until we get sorted for them. Molly the cat has disappeared again, sometimes she does this for a few days but as she is quite ancient I know one day she won’t return.

The evening sky was totally awesome tonight, we were driving back from my brothers (another birthday 😀) and the view across the Windrush valley was fantastic, it reminded me of a Wild West sunset (not that I’ve ever seen one except in films) I did say to John that we are lucky to see things like that, people living in cities and big towns don’t get to see it very often and we see great sunsets every evening, I did try and get a photo but my phone camera just does not capture the magnificence of it at all.

Thursday: Awake early because it’s become the norm and I can’t turn it off now 😜 This morning we are off to pick up the two new members of the menagerie 😀 I will introduce them later.

On one of the smallholding pages during a discussion about meat production and all that comes with it, was a quote from a book, a book that I have now ordered and look forward to reading.

‘The industrialist was horrified to find the fisherman lying beside his boat, smoking his pipe.

“Why aren’t you fishing?” said the industrialist.

“Because I have caught enough fish for the day.”

“Why don’t you catch some more?”

“What would I do with them?”

“Earn more money. Then you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. That would bring you money to buy nylon nets, so more fish, more money. Soon you would have enough to buy two boats, even a fleet of boats. Then you could be rich like me.”

“What would I do then?”

“Then you could sit back and enjoy life.”

“What do you think I’m doing now?” ‘

from ‘Timeless Simplicity’ by John Lane

The hens are looking decidedly worse for wear with this continuing lack of rain and consequently a lack of green grass! In the industry they are kept for 52 weeks from point of lay and we are nearing that point so have some decisions to make, difficult because around 60 of them are still laying and I think if we had better ground the others would probably still be but the relentless heat has taken its toll as well, do we get a new batch at a cost and retire the others but that means twice as much work, do we sell off the older birds cheap even then we would have a cross over period of waiting for the eggs to get big enough, hmmm we will ponder on it for a while I think. It will be better to get new birds later in the year so that they carry us through the summer months when demand is higher but that means keeping more birds than would be ideal through the winter months. It is not just the hens, the ducks have dropped off too, with this in mind I have ordered feed with wormer in the hopes that keeping them in the best condition possible will help bring them back into lay, then of course you have the added problem of the daylight hours getting shorter all the while, it’s not easy 😝

So we went on a road trip, not long, about an hour and look what we bought back with us, meet Billy, who we shall call Big Billy and Voldertort or Voldy for short, currently they are in the fruit cage on weed patrol. Their owner is relocating out of the country and was looking for new owners and we were chosen 😀😀😀

In the afternoon I carried on clearing out the greenhouse, goodness knows why I’ve got so much stuff in there but I do use most of it at times, I have tidied up the shed a bit so I can get some stuff, that shouldn’t be getting wet, in there, the rest is outside! Hopefully I can get John started on taking it down this weekend and then the base can go down ready for the new one.

The tortoises spent all afternoon trying to get out of the fruit cage, Billy is very astute, he knows where the door is and if I’m in the garden he comes over or follows me while I’m walking round the outside. He also likes feet lol, especially ones in flip flops and kept making a beeline for Sams toes. We just (by a whisker) got their hut sorted with dry bedding in it before the rain came down, they had taken themselves off to bed about 6, into the trug with the straw in it which wouldn’t have held off the rain, so they are now nice and cosy for the night.

I found a great list of what torts like to eat, it’s very extensive and we have plenty of most of that on and around the farm 😀

IT RAINED 😀😀 not a huge amount but enough to wet the ground and hopefully we will get a bit more before the night is over.

Friday: Still raining 😀 giving the ground a good soak, I did intend to get a fair amount done but with the rain to begin with then visitors it ended up with nothing, not outside anyhow, I made bread and used fresh tomato/basil/ garlic to make bolognese and a batch for the freezer for another day. Picked some veg and weeds for the tortoises who were slow to wake today with temps dipping so much, then picked more herbs and weeds for the rabbits.

Saturday: Dry and sunny today and after getting all the morning chores done I went off to Worcester with our next door neighbour to a sheep sale 😀 Yvonne has Oxford Down sheep and this was a special sale of that breed.

John had instructions to clean out the ducks, geese, and hens and we discussed creosoting one of the moveable huts so that we can move it to the side paddock and purchase some news hens to overlap the older ones.

By the end of the sheep sale if I never hear another sheep bleating again that will be fine 😜 it was a very interesting day mind you and the whole operation is very slick. I spent the day wandering around and watching some judging and some of the sales and people watching too, fascinating day all in all, and with a few purchases made and loaded we headed home.

Rain in the evening.

Sunday: Wet start maybe it will dry up later on, John did the birds then went off to work for a couple of hours. I made pasta sauce for the freezer, tomatoes, basil, onions and garlic all homegrown mixed with salt, pepper and olive oil then roasted in the oven, cooled blitzed and frozen. I also had some bananas to use up so I made a GF banana, chocolate (cocoa powder) and peanut butter loaf, a basic chuck in the bowl and mix along with maple syrup and some coconut oil, baking powder so it’s dairy free and low in calories as well 😀

Sam and Luke stayed overnight as they went to a function locally and we looked after Mia so we had Mia to entertain us this morning 😀

We are off out for a Sunday roast later with Shelley, Martin, Josh and Florence so depending on the weather we might not get much more than the routine things done today.

Molly returned.

Well as usual once it starts raining it doesn’t flipping stop, it always goes from one extreme to the other!

Posted in Friesland Farm

Grazing tables, runner bean chutney & and soup mix.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday night again: As I usually start the blog on a Monday morning I sometimes miss out something relevant or interesting, tonight while John was watching the F1 highlights I was reading a book I ordered last week.

Pretty interesting stuff and quite a lot of plants I had no idea you could eat, some of them are obvious and well known but a lot of them are long forgotten for instance we all know what Quinoa is these days, but the victorians were eating it long before we ‘discovered’ it and then it fell out of favour for many, many years. I have got quinoa seed that I was going to grow this year but when I got ill I couldn’t sow it, I will defiantly give it a go next year, along with some other grains, amaranth, millet, and wheat.

The sky, for a very brief period tonight (about 3 minutes) was amazing, it looked like someone had lit up the whole place with orange floodlights, I have seen some amazing sunsets in the years we have been here but that is a first, it was quite eerie, it was quickly followed by rain and dark foreboding skies.

Monday 30th July: It’s my birthday 😀 and as is custom I will be providing the food for any visitors today, I have decided to lay on a grazing table, look them up, they are amazing, I’m not saying mine is going to look anything like the artistic offerings on Pinterest but I will give it my best shot. My present is not arriving until mid August, I know what it (they) are and they will be increasing the menagerie by 2 but I will leave you guessing until then 😜

First thing I turned the water on in the poly tunnel then indulged myself with a coffee and a catch up with The Handmaids Tale, difficult to watch at times but a fascinating series.

We sold out of eggs yesterday and nearly every day before that and by the time John went to work the hens hadn’t laid so after a quick shower and another coffee 😝 I went to collect so that we will have some for sale today!

Top up Jacks water in the field, give the burning bin a kick so that it keeps smouldering away, lay out some cardboard on the garden, we have another heatwave ahead apparently, hard boil some quail eggs ready for later, FaceTime with Shelley! Josh and Flo, then with Sam and Mia, sit down with coffee 😜 I actually feel rather to tired today so I’m not going over do it although there are many jobs to get done, it’s my day, they can wait 🤪

Had a wonderful evening with some amazing presents, my family know me very well, I did the grazing platters for food and I was really pleased with how they turned out

Tuesday: Family funeral today and so it was just get the necessary jobs done first thing, I then watched a short tutorial on forest gardening, then out for a large part of the day, come back to get the necessary jobs done then out for dinner in the evening with Dad and Sue who came up for the funeral. Very tired by the end of the day!

Wednesday: Lammas 😀 Up fairly early not for any other reason than the dogs barking to go out, they don’t normally but they were in for a good few hours yesterday and so it was only fair to let them out, mind you they were barking at 3.30am however I ignored that and they then waited until 5.

John did the feeding as normal (it’s fallen into normal anyway) and I did some watering in the tunnels, fed the rabbits some forage and hay, took the sheets off the bed to wash, still feel pretty tired this morning.

I potted on the honey berries, red currants and cranberry, the cranberry I actually potted into an old recycle bin, which I lined and filled with ericaceous compost, it likes to stay wet apparently so I need to remember to keep it watered. Sue and Dad called in for coffee before departing for Wales and after that I did a bit of housework and had a little rest.

By 2.30 we had sold out of eggs and when I was ill it had to stay like that until John came home but as I am on the mend I went round and collected them up, feeding the birds thief scratch corn in the process, a bit early in the day but I would never get anywhere near the hut without tripping over them or standing on them if I didn’t do it😝 While I am there I turn out the persistent broodies, we are down to about 4 now as apposed to 11 at one point!

Did a bit of watering in the evening just to keep on top of the bit of good the rain did.

Thursday: Had a bit of a lie in this morning, the dogs barked at 5 so I let them out but went back to bed till 6.30 and I feel better for it, I feel like I have some energy to get on. I turned the sprinkler on at the bottom of the veg garden and the pressure was down so I went round the farm and checked that all the outside taps were off, they were so it wasn’t that, I went back and took the sprinkler head off one hose and attached it to another, nothing wrong with the pressure there so I went back to the other hose and found a piece of wood chip lodged inside, problem solved 😀 Then onto foraging for the rabbits, this morning they had a selection of weeds and herbs, I have also got into the habit of giving some to the light Sussex chicks who love picking over it. There seems a huge difference between the hybrids and the pure breeds as far as forage goes, the hybrids would certainly eat chickweed and brassicas but they wouldn’t pick over the plantain or the herbs as I have tried it before so I am really pleased that the pure breeds are going to be able to forage, and therefore sustain themselves. much more widely than the hybrids.

I dug up a few bits that I want to bring on for the hedge lines, lemon balm being one plant as well as a couple of dog roses that have self set, there are hazel trees and elderflower that sprout up all over the place which I will also be using, the ground is still too hard yet though.

I am still looking for something to create another small pond with and trying to decide where to put it, it will have to be covered with wire in the winter or the ducks will just demolish it when they are free ranging. I intend to let the Welsh Harlequins roam over the vegetable garden at the end of Autumn, they will help to control the slug/snail population and the light Sussex will also have free range to control any pests both above and below the ground, all the while they will be fertilising the area, win, win.

I went for a gentle wander around the farm, I was in the hunt for butterflies because we haven’t seen very many this year, plenty of cabbage whites but not many others. I did encounter a few common blues, my dream one day would be to spot large blues 😀 I have seen a few over the last couple of weeks, a speckled wood butterfly, red admiral, tortoiseshell peacock but not very many, I’m guessing the weather is making it difficult for them. I need to print off a little chart I can carry so that if I see any I don’t recognise I can look it up there and then, mind you it’s quite difficult to get a good look when they are fluttering about.

I did find a good amount of blackberries that I will be able to pick when they are ready , we haven’t had many for a few years as John cleared them all out of the hedgerows when he was tidying up 😝 plus the horses used to eat them before I could get to them and as there is just Jack now hopefully he won’t get round to scoffing the lot!

I thought I ought to stop chasing butterflies and do a bit of housework 🤪 besides it was getting a bit hot out there for me!

I picked up the post and in there was an invitation for a health screening which always gets me thinking. The questions are pretty generic especially on exercise, I don’t go to the gym or go for long/brisk walks, I don’t swim (anymore) BUT I spend most of my time (when possible) outside in fairly clean air, put it this way, I can smell the fumes when I go into town, and most of that time is spent on the move so that can be about 6/8 hrs a day, some of that time is spent doing hard physical work. Scraping dried chicken poo off the floor is pretty physical even though it doesn’t sound it, I hump 20kg feed sacks up and down, straw bales, barrowfuls of horse muck and occasionally there is some hard digging to be done, at times I have shovelled 14 tons of shingle, mixed up tons of concrete and barrowed it to where it’s needed, carried heavy blocks/pieces of wood and pushed heavy chicken houses/horse boxes/trailers, who needs a gym membership? Then there is the food question, do you eat healthily? Well this one always gets me, depends on what you consider to be healthy, I do not consider fresh vegetables/salad/fruit to be healthy unless it hasn’t been sprayed with either pesticide/insecticide/herbicide ( and lettuce the most heavily sprayed crop there is) or treated with artificial fertiliser and growth hormones. I don’t consider animals that have been routinely pumped full of medication of any sort to be healthy either, I don’t really consider farmed fish to be the best option and I am beginning to wonder because of the state of our oceans if fish is actually a good option or not (and I rarely eat prawns because of their preferred abode shall we say 😩) I cook from scratch so I know what is in the dish I am eating and most of it is home grown, not every ingredient, that’s impossible, but those that are not, are on the whole responsibly sourced. Yes we eat pies, puddings and cakes but they are not shop bought (except if I am catering for lots of people a couple of times a year) have you looked at the ingredient list on a shop bought cake ?? 😩 there is barely a recognisable ingredient in them. I drink decaf coffee (haven’t quite made the leap to tea yet) I drink less alcohol than a nun who has taken her vows, mostly because alcohol does not mix very well with the meds I have to take, if I do, I have have two G & Ts (I prefer an artisan gin, should you ever need to know that 🤣) max so my unit measurement is a grand total of around 2 a month pushing the boat out if it gets to 4! Sometimes it can be 0 for months on end ( That does not include holidays away when it could be considered as binge drinking in context 🤪) So I think I do eat healthily, and sometimes heartily 😋 but always mindfully, PLUS I take very good care of my gut bacteria, a subject that the medical profession, in this country, on the whole has not woken up to yet. Now, back to the subject, where do you think I will find the tick box for that lot 🤔

The grains I ordered arrived today, amaranth, wheat and millet, oooo now I’ve been looking them up and milling at home is a possibility I am full of enthusiasm for growing it 😀 originally I bought them to grow for the chickens but we may as well benefit too.

The runner beans are coming in thick and fast, I think chutney is on the cards, the butternut squash are growing well I’m really pleased with them, last year they were very small and not very many of them either. The melons in the poly tunnel are also doing much better than any other year, and the tomatoes are looking like a good crop too. I grew three types of tomato, money maker, your average size tomato, beefsteak, giant ones, though they haven’t got that big yet and then plum tomato which will be for making sauces or cooking with, great because the basil is also doing exceptionally well, yum.

My dual pear tree, although it’s growing very well, has got scab, just on the one variety, the other must be more resistant, so I spent the evening reading up about it, how to control it and also how I need to prune it, there are lots of pears on it, it’s a shame that about 50% are no good 😏

Friday: I set to pruning the pear tree first thing, I need to make sure every leaf and fruit is picked up in autumn and burnt to try to prevent it happening again next year.

Going round the garden I discovered that something, either chicken or blackbird, has been pecking away at my spaghetti squash 😏 they are growing under the asparagus which has now gone to fern, so I had to cut the fern down low enough to be able to put environmesh over the whole lots to stop any more losses, if it’s not one thing it’s another, I thought they were well hidden away under there. Mum came over early and got started with the hoeing, it always looks so much nicer when it’s done but I hardly get time to do it so I’m very grateful 😀

We have had Samantha’s dog Alfie all week while she was away on holiday and he can be a real pain in the butt, he chases chickens (doesn’t hurt them it’s just a game) he chases the cats, same again, he will torment Jack in the field by trying to round him up, he jumps the gate when egg customers come and has even jumped into their cars when they open the door this week, he tears around from the back when he hears the back door open and barges through the gate nearly knocking you flying if you haven’t remembered he is there, he constantly carries the longest stick he can find in the hopes that you will throw it for him and you have to have your wits about you when he has that in his mouth, but he does have one use that the other dogs don’t have and that is that he barks at anything unusual. So when he started barking at lunchtime and it wasn’t in the direction of the front gate I went out to investigate. I found him down the strip between the duck pen and the veg garden barking away, I couldn’t see anything so I stood for a couple of minutes, then I heard someone whistling from the direction in the next field from us, up popped a familiar face, guess who has lost his hawk again 😂

Later on in the day I did some watering and harvested some of the potatoes that were growing in pots because it’s really hard to keep them going, there wasn’t much on them but a few boilings which will do us. I dug up some lemon balm and mint with roots and potted them up, I will be using some of it to plant in the hedgelines for the hens to forage on and of course the insects love them. They have both flowered and gone over now so I harvested the mint in big bunches and hung them to dry in the greenhouse, some of it will be crushed up and used for adding to the horse feed in winter and the rest will be dried for the rabbits. I will probably do the same with the lemon balm and both of them will put on some new growth before the end of summer, some mint that I already cut for feeding fresh to the rabbits has grown back and I have cut that to make mint sauce. I also harvested sage, again I cut it back after flowering and this is all new growth, that will be dried for winter use, I will probably give it a hard cut back in a couple of weeks which will then be dried for the rabbits in winter. I will also dry some mint for culinary use, I’ve not done this before I don’t know why it’s just not something I have thought about using dry, first time for everything 😀

Saturday: Got straight on with making runner bean chutney this morning and also some mint sauce both are pretty easy to do, if you have never had runner bean chutney give it a try it’s well worth it, very tasty 😋 I picked a few more runners and some mangetout, but that was about all I did outside. We went out for an impromptu lunch then of course the afternoon nap 😜 and out again this evening for a surprise party. Not achieved very much today!

Sunday: John got on with the feeding and letting out while I started the watering, had a bit of a lie in until 6.30 this morning 😀 It has been so hot again that the ground dries up fast, luckily overnight there is still moisture but not enough to keep everything going on it’s own. I did some picking, runner beans 😝 courgettes, baby corn and broccoli, although the brassica cage has kept the butterflies out it hasn’t kept out the flea beetle which arrived in hordes when the field next door was harvested. They make thousands of little holes in the leaves but eventually they will die off and the plants will recover with new shoots. The second lot of broccoli I planted, you will remember, kept going to seed and I had to keep taking the tops off, well they never produced anything, except seeds 😀) so I will let them go to seed and hopefully some self set plants will grown next year. The general rule is not to grow brassicas in the same place twice because of club root but I’m willing to chance it and see what happens.

Once it started to get too hot out there I came inside to prep what I had picked, firstly blanch the broccoli for open freezing, I soaked in in cold water after for a good while so that any beetles float to the top of the water and can be taken out. I finally got round to making my ‘Souper mix’ this is basically any veg and herbs you want to put in and blitz in a processor, in the photo everything except the celery Is from the garden and will make an excellent vegetable stock for soups or casseroles/stews, I can sneak things in there that John wouldn’t normally eat 😝 The original recipe suggests adding an enormous amount of salt and putting it in jars for storage however I decided to freeze it and the only thing I could find that would be about the right portion size was cake tins, so I used cake cases and filled them to the top packing down tightly and open froze them, when they are done I will discard the cases and pop them all in one labelled bag for use as and when.

I wanted to get some passata made as well but I haven’t quite got enough ripe tomatoes yet, I grew the large plum variety this year especially for this reason and as the garlic and basil have done really well I’m hoping it will taste divine. 😋

We had tickets for countryfile live today but as the temps are set to go above 31c and there is never enough shade at these kinds of shows we gave the tickets to Charlie and Macca, she reported that it was very hot and they were melting so I’m glad we didn’t go.

There is a very good reason why, when I but plants in, that I do not plant them up straight away, and today I am really glad that I don’t because the peach tree I bought has sprouted horsetail or marestail in the base 😩 an invasive weed that is difficult to eradicate, at the moment it’s one piece that I will break off and burn until such time I can take the tree out of the pot and clean the roots thoroughly. I could inform the place I got it from but as it spreads by spores it could have come from anywhere but I have never had it before and it is not growing anywhere else, yet!

An evening of watering, with the temps as they are it really doesn’t take long befor everything is dry as a crisp again! Rain forecast for the end of the week and I hope we get a bit more than last time, it’s getting a real struggle to keep everything going with the days shortening as well. A bit of tidying up in the fruit cage, the rabbits and Guinea pigs love raspberry leaves and so they had a bucket full of cuttings, and I’m done for the day 😀

Have a good week 😁

Posted in Friesland Farm

Ducklings, a Blood Moon Lunar eclipse & finally some rain ☔️

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Sunday night: I’m officially exhausted tonight, it’s close looks like it should rain but I don’t think it’s going to. There were a few other things I should have written on the blog but the technology was playing up and I was too tired to bother! Firstly that I picked around 2kg of blackcurrants as well this morning, plenty that are going over went to the chickens and quail, when they have stripped them the branches will go to the rabbits to chew on and I need to get up early to process them before the heat sees them off. Secondly the sheep two fields away have obviously been separated from their lambs for weaning as they have been bleating for nearly 72 hrs straight poor things, not that the noise bothers us, it doesn’t but they do sound distressed 😩 I keep looking at the forecast for the next two weeks, it keeps changing, firstly it looked like thunder storms, now they have disappeared and the rain forecast on the one day is next Monday which happens to be my birthday, cheers for that 🤪 still it will probably change again before that.

Monday 23rd July: Up with the larks to get on, Ive decided I will keep all the curtains closed today to try and keep the house a bit cooler than outside but first thing in the morning it’s already warm in here though cool outside! I got on with extracting the juice from the blackcurrants and fruit I picked yesterday, not sure what I will do with the juice yet probably a few different things but there is plenty of time to decide while it’s straining. Another duckling had hatched and there are more pipping so hopefully I will be able to move them this afternoon, always a tricky thing to decide because a hatchling can go 24hrs without food and water as it has absorbed the egg yolk which will feed it for that amount of time, however the others are still hatching and it’s best not to open the incubator at all, instinct is all you can go on really.

I made a very stupid schoolboy error this morning, I wanted to clean the bathroom and have limescale remover which I thought was already diluted, when I was halfway round the bathroom I realised it wasn’t and the smell was overpowering, so much so that I had to get out. I went back in with a wetted towel over my face, seriously it was that strong! The other thing that happened was intense pain in the two fingers that still have not quite recovered, it’s like neuralgia, oh my days on a scale of one to ten it was right up there I didn’t know what to do with myself 😩 I can only assume it’s nerve endings responding to the undiluted limescale remover, what an absolute twonk, I won’t be doing that again I can assure you.

6 ducklings by mid evening and some more have pipped.

Watering begins as soon as there is a bit of shade covering and goes on until dark 😜 along with picking, I also planted up two things that arrived today, the saffron crocus bulbs and the tea plant 😀 I tasted one of the mulberries, not ready yet, too sharp but I need to keep an eye on them or the birds will have them before me. The tree itself has got a bit out of control and I need to give it a prune to get it back in order but it obviously likes it’s situation which is great, I bought it about 10 years ago and it was in our old garden but there was no way I was going to leave it behind so we dug it up and moved it hoping it would take and it did 😀 Mine is the King James cultivar and only started producing fruit about 3 years ago but they are very succulent and delicious 😋

John cleaned out the hens in the front paddock, normally he does it on a Sunday but was a bit tired so did it today instead, he has to wait until it’s cool enough to be able to get out there otherwise it’s like being in an oven, I can’t wait to be able to plant some trees in the front there but we will have to wait until autumn for the best results.

At 9pm I started making jam! It is just not cool enough to do it before that so inbetween moving the hose, washing up, tidying up I’m carefully watching for the sugar to dissolve then onto a rolling boil, then of course there is all that washing up to do as well because you don’t want to leave it till morning or you will regret it 😝

The late news is all about the heatwave and the impact it is having or will have especially on the farmers and of course we all rely on them for our food, it is severe, the fields are parched so no grass for the animals. I’m guessing the grain harvest was ok but the straw length will be short having a knock on effect for winter bedding, it all has an effect in food prices in the end 😏

As you will have worked out all my work is either done at one end of he day or the other so I’m off to bed for another early start tomorrow.

Tuesday: The air temp was deliciously fresh this morning at 5am 😀 so I cracked on with a bit of watering and some picking, the moisture in the air over night is still pretty good so what I had watered last night was still damp. At 7am Mum arrived to help with some hoeing and weeding and she dug up a fair few self seeded blackcurrant plants. I potted these up in bio degradable pots ready for planting later on in the year along with some Verbena Bonariensis which had also self set, this verbena is one of my favourite plants, tall, graceful and just keeps going, easy to cultivate and look after, what’s not to like, oh and the bees love it.

I moved the last duckling to the brooder, 7 hatched in all, they are sex linked and it’s looking like I only have two females, pants, never mind I’m happy with the hatch overall, I cleaned the incubator and put it away as that’s the last hatching for this year, then I made coffee and Mum asked what time it was, about 11 I said but I will check, 9.30 🤣🤣🤣 it’s only 9.30.

I have been surveying the veg that is lurking underneath thick growth, namely the squash, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, pumpkins and the other squash who’s name escapes me but tastes like sweet potato, and they are all doing really well, plenty of tiny fruits beginning to swell, the spaghetti squash already has two or three large fruits, looks like a good year 😀

I gave myself the night off of watering tonight, I may regret it but hopefully one night won’t hurt.

Wednesday: It’s very much cooler this morning, I felt a bit chilly in my shorts and t-shirt 😂 I did a bit of watering, not so much as of late because the ground seems to be holding it better for now at least, still no sign of rain though ☹️

The melons in the poly tunnel are finally getting bigger, they were peanut sized and for a while I thought they were not going to produce anything much at all.

Going round every night and every morning I can definitely see the changes that I need to make in order to improve yields and for the garden to be more sustainable, it is pretty sustainable as it is but there are a few areas that need looking at and rectifying. I need more height in the form of trees, not huge ones and they need to produce something either for us or for wildlife. Then I need a layer underneath them in the form of shrubs, again they must have a use one way or another which is why I think currant bushes are the ideal option, the layers below that are easier I have plenty of options from what I already have growing. The fence line needs addressing, it is just that, a fence, nothing growing on it, around it or up it, in fact I have a fair few fences like that which will also be getting some planting to produce two things, food and habitation for whatever decides to take up residence 😀 however none of this can be done at the moment, I tried digging into the ground, nope, not a hope, too hard so I wait and watch and plan. I think by far the biggest thing and the most difficult to achieve in terms of hard graft is the use of rain water, not from the roof into tanks, that’s easy but the surface water and run off, slowing it down so that a) it’s not causing erosion and b) it’s being held back long enough to permeate more slowly, on a small scale in the veg plot that’s not too bad, on a bigger scale over the farm it’s a whole different thing 😝

I have Josh and Florence this morning for a few hours so I won’t be getting much (anything) else done apart from entertaining and feeding them lol, if I manage to get a coffee or a wee I will be lucky 🤪 Then I had Mia in the afternoon, exhausted today.

Watering in the evening and while I was out there I thought I would take some photos of the flower bed I planted up, it is a delightful mash up of cultivated/wild/herbs/veg the bees love it and I have let it do it’s thing, I haven’t kept it in check at all because I want to collect the seed from it all this year so that I can plant up other areas like it next year. The tiny water pond I put in at the beginning of the year is also there though it’s totally hidden by vegetation, I haven’t seen anything in it yet but I’m sure in time there will be life 😀 I want to put another one in somewhere but haven’t decided quite where just yet.

I have been looking at IBC tanks for water storage they seem the cheapest option and they can be more easily moved should we need to, if I could collect another 4000lt from the roof that would help in times like this and even when we don’t have a heatwave it will be better to use rainwater.

Thursday: The alarm goes off, I don’t really want to get up but needs must 🤪 it’s cool again this morning either that or we have got used to the temperatures! I did lots of picking, runner beans, cucumbers, baby corn, mangetout, carrots and broccoli, some has gone out for sale and the rest I will process for the freezer. Then foraging for the rabbits and guinea pigs, it’s easy at the moment as there are plenty of sow thistles, plantain, dandelion some chard and half a bed of rocket that has been decimated by the flea beetle coming in off the harvested field next door. Their squeals of delight are pure pleasure to listen to when I start unloading the goodies in their pen 😀 I have also been feeding some to the light Sussex chicks, they too now look forward to what is coming and all wait at the gate lol.

I was reading a post on one of the Facebook pages I am on about raw diets for dogs, we used to feed ours a raw diet, we had 5 dogs at the time and a friendly butcher who lived over the road so the meat/bones were plentiful and free, he died, we moved and the dogs have been on kibble since then, they do get raw meat from time to time, but it got me thinking about putting them back on a fully natural, raw diet. It would be so much better for them, as it is we have to avoid one particular flavour of the brand we use because it dyes Mia’s underbelly brown!

Suns out so I’m in, I should be doing housework or something but instead I am researching, learning, absorbing, back to the permaculture and what we need to do, I have realised there is no definitive answer because every one has a different aspect/soil condition/ climate etc etc so it’s really down to the individual to observe, learn and implement. I have not used a mind map for very many years and there are a lot revolving around permaculture but for me to get my head around what I need to do I think I am going to have to use one 😝

My fig tree has produce a few fruits this year, about 11 or so, the first one is very nearly ready to pick, I shall savour the moment my teeth sink into it 😀 The grapes are also doing well this year I might get a few bunches. I potted on my citrus trees, I did deliberate as to when I should do this but with a full moon tomorrow I figured now was as good a time as any, I didn’t want to wait until they were dormant as they need a bit of careful treatment over winter and watering them to establish root growth wouldn’t be ideal then, besides they have outgrown their pots!

Very beautiful sunset tonight and I tried to get a photo but in all honesty it didn’t do it justice.

Friday: Up early, got Jack in ready for the farrier, even at 5 this morning the flies are awful so hopefully he will enjoy being in for a few hours. Watering begins, there were a few drops of rain last night, about 4 to be precise, and I thought this is it, great but nope nothing more than that, I think when I finally comes I am going to stand outside in it!

Some plants arrived this morning, redcurrant, cranberry and honeyberry, some of the red currant I will be using in the fence lines for the hens to forage on along with blackcurrants, the honeyberries will go in the fruit cage as will the cranberry. I cut some willow whips this morning and have put them in a bucket of water, hopefully they will sprout roots, if they do they will be for the formation of a ‘fedge’ along the duck pen, a living fence, the beginnings of my permaculture plan for the ducks.

The cat, Diesel, frightened the life out of me this morning when he leapt over the fence with his breakfast in his mouth (baby bunny today) at least he is helping to keep the rabbit population down.

Had a chat over the gate to a neighbour who had come to find out where his son had got to with the eggs, he was playing with our dogs, the carrier arrived an hour early and a workman who is with a bunch that are digging up the road in front of our drive came to ask to use the loo, lol all or nothing here that’s the way it goes. When I went back inside I realised I was hungry and that I had forgotten to have breakfast this morning, yesterday I had a hankering for some pancakes but didn’t make them so I made them this morning. As a general rule we don’t eat pancakes except on Shrove Tuesday so it felt like a nice little treat with a cup of coffee 😀

Well tonight I was hoping to write about the amazing Blood Moon Lunar eclipse but for the first time in weeks we had thick cloud and couldn’t see a darn thing 😏

Saturday: I got woken up by the wind, hoping it was rain I shot out of bed to look, barely a wetting, still the day is not over and showers are forecast I just hope we get at least one of them! After breakfast (I remembered this morning 🤪) I went out and picked a few kgs of runner beans, they are selling well as always, I picked a small amount of other things, courgette, cucumber, mangetout and baby corn and put them out for sale. I sell them for two reasons mainly, 1. to cover the costs of seeds and therefore what we eat and 2. we couldn’t possibly eat all that is produced even though it is not huge quantities, but mostly it is to give people a taste of what real veg should be, sometimes wonky in terms of shape and size but ALWAYS the best tasting veg you can get no exceptions 😀 Nearly everything you buy in the supermarkets is severely lacking in the true flavour, if you have never grown your own before make next year the year you try, it doesn’t have to be much, a small pot of French beans is probably one of the easiest to do or a raspberry cane in a pot and you would be surprised about how much you can get into a tiny area if that’s all you have, or plant in amongst your flowers and shrubs.

Had to pop to Witney to pick up my new reading glasses and some bits, on the way home the sky was black and foreboding, the rain fell freely and fast, but it appeared not in Shilton! Just another wetting, nothing substantial as yet, it keeps trying and thunderstorms are forecast for tomorrow, I hope we get a decent soaking soon, there are now more apples on the ground with this wind and lack of water, than are on the tree ☹️

When we got home John got on with cleaning out the front hens as it’s much cooler today and not raining it’s the ideal opportunity, he also had to repair the duck house pop hole ramp as it broke yesterday evening and we had to barricade them in. Some small brown envelopes had arrived in the post and I started collecting seed to put in them, I want to collect as much seed as possible (close the loop, at least as far as plants and veg are concerned) from almost anything I can this year and I found it oddly satisfying, more than I thought I would, some seed will be for me to propagate and some seed will be for sale should anyone want any. So far I have collected, white foxglove, white delphinium, salvia, love in a mist, viola, aquilegia and calendula, plenty more to come I just need to keep a close eye on them 😀

FINALLY a bloody good downpour and the sweet smell of petrichor 😀 That will fill up the water tanks nicely and give a much needed boost to the vegetation because although mains water keeps it alive, rain water brings oxygen, nitrates and carbon dioxide and when it comes into contact with the soil it helps to release minerals, win, win 😀

Sunday: More rain 😀 that means a bit of a lie in until 6.45 lol, I’ve got too used to waking up early me thinks. John did the feeding and watering while I did a few household bits then we went out and tidied up the stable block and the back area, they have needed doing for ages so now was a good time while I wasn’t preoccupied with the garden. The winds have been quite strong, blowing everything about, leaves, buckets and most of the apples off of the cooking Apple tree ☹️

Tomorrow is my birthday so apart from the stuff that has to be done and preparing food for the family then not a lot else will get done 😀

Have a great week 😀😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Endless watering, plenty of picking and Cornish mackerel for dinner.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 16th July: The dry, hot spell looks set to continue with no sign of rain 😏 although as I have said there is moisture in the air overnight so there is some respite for the plants. We were discussing the last summer we had like this which was 2006, very hot and dry though not as prolonged as this one, the other that I remember well was 1976. A childhood memory of a long hot idyllic summer holiday, I would have been 12 and we lived in a village then, going off all day with a sarnie and a drink to play in the local park or abandoned railway line all day long, catching crayfish, minnows or bullheads, making dens on the edge of a crop field (naughty) water fights and paddling pools, a time gone by and lost forever for most children I fear 😩

I did a bit of watering in the morning and harvested some courgettes, everything is starting to ramp up a gear at long last, I can see the cucumbers beginning to grow bigger and the beans are getting longer so it’s all finally going in the right direction. While I am out there I am constantly planning for times ahead, I can’t do anything at the minute not least because the ground is so hard and anyway best time will be autumn to move things around, I really need to start a list so I don’t forget anything. The peach tree I ordered arrived yesterday so I have repotted it and stood it out the front which is south facing, it has one peach on it, hopefully many more next year, I also moved the orange and lemon tree out there and the fig, with all this sunshine I may as well make the most of it. The grapevine has loads of grapes on it, I’m very excited about that lol and I’m thinking the olive tree would probably do better out there to. I have ordered some big pots with handles so that they can all be moved back inside for overwintering as they won’t survive otherwise and I ordered some seaweed fertiliser as a bit of a boost for the plants, it’s full of minerals, shame I don’t live closer to the sea, I could harvest my own.

Dad and Sue popped in, they are en route to Suffolk and made an overnight stop here so we chatted for the afternoon and drank tea then went out for dinner in the evening, they will be back again on Friday. I obviously didn’t water as I was out so an early start in the morning.

Tuesday: Up early to get the watering done, at this point I realise I have left the polytunnel water on all day and all night 😝 uh oh, it won’t need watering for at least a week I should think, still at least I know it got enough!

I picked the first of the runner beans, not the traditional ones but the dwarf ‘yin yang’ ones, I grew them last year and kept them for the black and white seeds but this year I’m harvesting them in their young form, they are exceptionally sweet and juicy for a bean.

I may be getting carried away with the possibilities that this weather could bring but I have ordered a couple of random plants to try out, the first is kumquat which, according to most places, is pretty easy to grow here, the next is saffron crocus, can’t hurt to give it a try and thirdly but by no means a runner up is Camellia sinensis, tea! I thought, let’s just see how it does, the plant I ordered is small and so about £5 plus postage, worth a go, you never know Shilton might be just the place for a tea plantation 😂 or saffron fields, you never know until you try and I am always trying 😀

One of the benefits of feeding the birds through the winter is they drop seed and it grows, we have sunflowers randomly popping up and also flax (linseed) I used to have some flax growing at our old house and when I saw it I wondered why I hadn’t thought of growing it here, when you see fields of blue, that’s flax, it’s such a beautiful little flower and of course the seeds are hugely useful, and now we will hopefully have a bird seed mix growing of it’s own accord, bonus 😀

Wednesday: Up early to do some gardening bits, watering, picking and then sort out the brooder unit for the ducklings which will hopefully hatch on Friday. I had supper out with my girlfriends last night and even though it was a gentle evening it has taken its toll on me today, by 9am I was already tired and trying to get some extra bits done but eventually I decided to lay on the sofa 😜 That was pretty much it for the day until early evening when after resting I get a second wind and can do a bit more. Shopping was on the agenda, I have been sending John for bits and pieces while I was ill but you know you get to a stage when you need to replenish a few things and you know full well that what you put on the list will not be what he comes home with, a bit like the replacement items in an online shop! The reduced basket had pots of extra thick double cream reduced to 90p so I bought a couple of pots and I will make butter with them, I will have some buttermilk leftover from make it so it’s a win, win for me.

Watering again this evening, I can’t believe how much it dries out good job the hosepipe ban is not in force as yet though I don’t think it will be long before we get notification and goodness knows what we will do then, abandon ship I reckon 🤪

Last week or the week before, I can’t remember when, I said I was making an effort try eliminating plastics wherever possible and I had bought loofahs to use for washing up etc, well they are working out really well, I’m so pleased much better than the artificial sponge thingys. I did try growing them but they didn’t germinate, given how great I find them I will give them another go next year.

Just found Jack wandering around the yard, Sam had put him out on a bit of grass outside his field and he decided he would go on tour 😝 I have now put him in the little paddock where there is plenty of grass both dead and alive for him to munch on overnight.

Thursday: Usual routine of early morning watering, a bit of picking and then off for some more blood tests.

Mostly spent the rest of he day resting, though I did watch ‘An inconvenient Truth’ and apparently there is another film out which I will look up and watch that too. I briefly mentioned before about my thoughts on global warming and climate change, undoubtably we are contributing massively towards this and accelerating it at a colossal speed but I do believe there are natural cycles at force as well, after all Mother Nature is ALL about cycles, those cycles we can’t stop or slow down but the choices we make can have an impact good or bad on climate change. If you don’t know anything about it, learn, if you do know, learn a bit more and make the changes that you can, and make a conscious effort to work towards those that are a little bit more elusive. We only have one life, live it, but we only have one planet, look after it while you are here.

Friday: Up at the crack of sparrows 😀 there was a good bit to pick this morning, runners, beetroot, courgettes, a few apricots I missed, some mangetout but one thing I really needed to pick was a few remaining gooseberries. Dad and Sue are back this evening and we had arranged to go out to eat but I thought with all the amazing produce I have here I might as well cook. We are having the mackerel from Cornwall along with a medley of seasonal veg and new potatoes, I wanted to make a gooseberry sauce to compliment the fish so that’s what the gooseberries were for, good job there were some left. The sauce calls for horseradish sauce which I don’t have to hand but I do have horseradish growing, it was a measly woody bit but it will do the job so I made a tiny amount of horseradish sauce to go in the gooseberry sauce 😋 we we have Madagascan vanilla ice cream with homemade mixed berry sauce for dessert washed down with a Sauvignon blanc 😀

Oh my days it finally rained, thank you Mother Nature, it means I can have an extra couple of hours in bed in the morning 😝

My blood tests came back normal and the first of the duck eggs in the incubator has pipped, happy Friday 😀

Saturday: Well it was only a small amount of the rain that was needed but it was enough to mean I could have a lie in 😀 Having got so used to being up early I was still up by 6.30 😝 but the damp ground d meant I could get on with other things instead of watering. The first on the agenda was a proper clean out of both the rabbit cages, they actually were not as bad as I had feared they would be but now they are nice and clean. Then on to clearing up debris from the orchard pen and making a mini compost heap next to the light Sussex chicks so that when they are let out into the bigger pen they can scratch about in it to their hearts contents and hopefully that will lead to great tasting chicken. John also fixed a little hut up for the ducks so they don’t have to go in with the rabbits anymore and put a catch on the inside of the chicks hut so that when I go in the door doesn’t swing open and they all escape. He put a top on the water barrel that is connected to the gutter on the rabbit run so that the leaves don’t all fall in, the water we managed to catch yesterday was no good at all because it was full of debris.

As it is predicted that the temps will go up as high as 33c next week I really needed to get a handle on the garden so firstly we moved anything that is in a pot onto spaces on the veg beds so that they get watered at the same time, cutting down on having to water the pots by hand thus saving time. Then I got a bale of straw from the stable and mulched the potatoes, they were hastily planted into some raised beds that were previously used for flowers ( I dug them up last autumn and divided them, potting them up for future use, most have been put into the flower bed area now) The potatoes are struggling but there are some there, firstly they struggle because they are under a huge tree and secondly because they need watering separately to the rest of the garden and I often just run out of time, so they were mulched and soaked and hopefully we will get something from them later in the year. The rest of the bale I used to mulch anything in a pot, they will dry out pretty quickly and hopefully this will help, it includes the raspberry bushes that I potted up early in the year, I need to mulch as much as possible to make life a lot easier but by then it was lunchtime and then time for a rest. I am finding I need about and hour and a half sleep in the daytime and then I am good to go again. My blood results came back as ‘no action required’ which means the inflammation has gone down which is great and I no longer have any pain, also great but I guess this is a convalescent period where I need to build my strength back up, each day I can work a bit longer without feeling ill or tired so I am on the upward road touch wood.

Still waiting for the first duckling to hatch 🐣

The Large Fowl Light Sussex in their new run, I will be adding pots of foliage when the weather changes, at the moment I have lovage and a hazel tree ready but would like to get a currant bush in there as well so that they can forage for themselves, I have also been putting a barrowful of rotted manure in for them which they love scratching around in. We need to put in a roosting tree for them so that they can sleep outside if they choose to. In the Autumn, Winter and early Spring they will free range in the orchard and veg garden to help with pests, hopefully they will have as near to natural diet/life as possible.

Did a bit of picking in the evening as everything I put out today has gone! I picked 1kg of runner beans and that’s just the first picking once they get going there will be many more, the first veg I ever sold were runners and they continue to be the best selling item closely followed by the rhubarb. I picked a large punnet of berries, blue, raspberry, blackcurrant and Logan berries I might make a mixed jam with those, I found a cucumber that I had missed and it’s very fat lol, the tomatoes are just beginning to ripen and for the first time of trying I may even have some aubergines this year 😀

Sunday: Guess what I did this morning? Yep, watering I think I’m officially sick of doing it now, a ‘surprise’ shower would be just wonderful 😝

Apart from watering I also picked the baby corn, the stalks are around 8ft high and I thought there were no cobs but they suddenly shot through yesterday, I got John to take a short video of me harvesting them, which I will have to post separately as it won’t upload here, anyone who gets this emailed can try looking on Facebook under Friesland Farm 😀 hopefully it will be on there.

The first duckling hatched this afternoon, there are others pipping so fingers crossed for a good hatch 🐣

Posted in Friesland Farm

Cherry pie, apricot jam and still no rain 😏

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 9th July: Up at 4.30am! Needed the toilet, starving, that’s the steroids, there was daylight so I figured I might as well get up an on. It was so wonderfully fresh and cool at that time of the day, even better than late at night, a welcome break from the daytime heat. Diesel also ate breakfast with me, not too close though as his was a mouse 😜 Of course there are plenty of people who are regularly up then, but as a general rule not me, though I would love to be an early bird it’s totally forced 😜

By 7am I have hung out the washing, cleaned out the outdoor quail, sorted and boxed yesterday’s eggs, filled up the pool and sorted the outside duck pen, moved the sprinkler several times over, done the washing-up/drying and putting away, stripped the bed, put more washing on, starving again now 😝 more breakfast, trying to eat well, toast first thing now yoghurt, blackcurrant sauce and walnuts.

By 8am I have hung out the second lot of washing and put a third load on, done some hoeing, collected weeds and forage for the rabbits and moved the sprinkler two more times, I need a sit down, what I should have is a glass of orange juice, what I will have is a coffee 😋 So far it’s cooler than previous days, I hope it stays like that for a few hours.

So after my busy early morning things went a bit downhill ☹️ I am on a short burst of steroids tapering off by 5mg every 5 days taking 20 days in all, I have 7 days left and I feel that things are slowly sliding backwards again, consequently I sat down at 12, laid down at 12.30 and didn’t do anything else until 7 when the days steroids had kicked back in. At 1.45 we lost our electric 😡 again, luckily I called John he came home and set up the generator to plug the incubator in, we also had to connect up the electric fence round the hens as the farmer over the back lost 17 hens on Saturday afternoon to the fox, normally I would be able to do the generator myself but not at the moment.

So after my next dose of steroids I am able to function again, there was a nice breeze this evening though it’s still muggy, feeling better I got on with hoovering and polishing the bedroom, changing the covers, not that we need any at the minute 😝 and cleaning the shower, then outside to get some watering done. I had a good look around at the veg plants, tiny runner beans are beginning to grow, there are tomatoes and cucumbers just coming along I think it will be ‘al rite’ in the end. I made a mental note to pick the morello cherries in the morning, they are not quite as dark as I would like but from last years experience if I don’t get them now the birds will strip the tree while I’m not looking, the cherries are plump and soft to the touch, that’ll do for me, I am looking forward to cherry jam 😀 One year I made glacé cherries with them, that’s a long (2 week) process and well worth the effort but I’ve decided on jam (I think 😝)

The apricots are also nearly ready, my most favourite is apricot preserve, it reminds me of three weeks spent on a French exchange when I was a teenager, real French bread, butter and apricot preserve, delish 😋

Off to bed for another early start tomorrow.

Tuesday: Well I woke at 3.30 decided that was far too early 🤪 the alarm went off at 4.30 and I eventually got out of bed at 4.50! Straight out and turn on the watering, you are probably thinking ‘why don’t you get a timer’ well there are many answers to that question lol. I do have a timer but in the past it’s failed in some way, either water pressure issues or just not turned on, so reliability is the first reason, secondly, the way we set things out originally isn’t very ergonomic for getting the maximum watered by the minimum amount of movement from the sprinkler, basically the area is spread out too far with obstacles in the way blocking the water flow, so constant moving of the sprinkler is what I need to do. We never really envisaged ending up growing so much so never thought about a whole sprinkler system in the first place plus as the main source of water we use is harvested rainwater it’s more difficult to pump it and get the pressure needed. Soaker hose is the next best option and we do have one on the bean bed but that’s it and because the raised beds are all separated by paths we can’t run a continuous hose so I would still have to go out and disconnect the hose and reconnect elsewhere, all these issues need to be looked at.

There were a couple of jobs I wanted to get done, the cherries and picking the apricots, objective achieved 😀 That’s the best haul of apricots I’ve ever had, around 50/60 up to now there have only been about 10 so I’m well chuffed with that, I left a few on there for the birds and insects, same with the cherries. The trees will need pruning now that the fruit is harvested, I need to raise the height of the lower branches slightly so I can get a guild growing and I need to just keep the height and spread of the trees in check so that I can still pick the fruit. Established stone fruit trees are done in early summer to minimise any chance of silver leaf, a fungal disease that can affect them. I hoed the fruit cage which had got quite weedy and the rabbits had a huge haul of mixed weeds. By then it as 7am and I am already flagging and needing to sit down ☹️ not the direction I was hoping I would be going in by now 😏

I did, well, practically nothing until about 3pm, except rest and sleep. Sam and Mia came over and when I woke up from sleeping the cleaning fairy had been 😁 how lovely. I spoke to the doctor and he suggests not dropping the dose on the next change over in two days time but to carry on with the same level and it will probably be for longer, also need more blood tests to check the CRP levels, that’s C-reactive protein which are markers for inflammation.

I lost my glasses somewhere in the garden this morning, where my hair has got thinner (oh yes there are more joys to his than you can imagine 😜) they keep falling backwards off my head, and you know that feeling that you know are supposed to be there but they are not well I kept getting it thinking I must have left them indoors but nope they are lost, they are not my new ones thankfully 😅

In the evening after I got the watering under way I sat and pitted the cherries with the little cherry stone pitter which John thought was a very clever tool. I ended up with 5 cups of them so not a huge haul but enough to do something with, I said I would make jam BUT when I was FaceTiming Shelley and telling her about them and a pic I had seen of a lovely looking Cherry pie, a little Joshy voice piped up and said ‘ooo yes please nana’ 🤣🤣 so cherry pie it will be 😀 I have also got some mixed berries straining to make sauce for ice creams, yoghurt, jellies etc. I’m left with a couple of handfuls of cherry pits (stones) apparently you can process these and then grind they will be almond in flavour BUT stones contain cyanide so it’s quite a process, you can use the pits whole which will still have cherry flesh on them and infuse cream with them and turn into a whip or fool type pudding, I had already washed them though so I am going to keep washing them until they are clean enough, then dry them and make one of those little cherry stone bags for headaches or warming your hands on a cold day.

I finally plaited the first of the onions, the plaits are not expert and a bit loose but I’m not looking to win any shows with them just store them for use, I put around 12 in a plait, that’s heavy enough to lug around. I have more onions to bring in and cure but I wish I had planted double the amount given that the growing conditions and curing conditions have been perfect this year, still you never know how it will go, there have been years where the moisture in the air is too much and some of them end up rotting so I will take what I have. The garlic has also cured nicely, again I wish I had planted a whole lot more, I have hard neck garlic so they won’t plait but they will be cleaned up and stored in a net, they store well until mid winter when they are likely to go hard, (it won’t last that long anyhow) once the temperatures have cooled down in the house (Autumn) they will all hang in the boot room ready for use. A final bit of watering before it gets too dark to see and I’m done for the day, the cherry pie filling is cooling hopefully I will get the chance/ be able, to make some lovely sweet pastry in the morning and couple them together. I did read a recipe that said to drop in almond essence once it was cooked but I’m a bit of a purist with my flavours, I like to taste exactly what it is, I did look for some essence as I was going to mix a tiny bit and see what I thought but I don’t have any so that sorted that out 😋

Wednesday: Up and out to water early, it is noticeably cooler this morning meaning the watering will have much more effect than in recent mornings. I cleaned and netted the garlic, small haul but nevertheless a home grown one 😀 I have rushed about a bit this morning trying to get some stuff done, pastry for the cherry pie, cook the berry sauce with some sugar for keeping in the fridge, actually made the first loaf of bread in weeks, lots of washing up, you’d be amazed how much there is just doing a few little things, sort and put the eggs out. Towards the end of the jobs I can feel myself going down, I start to feel cold, get a headache then very tired, so I had a hot shower, and am now sitting on the sofa with a decaf coff 😋

I did manage to make the cherry pie and I think Josh was pretty chuffed with it, Mia had some after her sleep but has a sweeter tooth than Josh and preferred the pastry and the ice cream to the cherry filling lol

We had decided we were not going to go on holiday this year but we really need one so I booked one 😀 it is at this point I part with my ethics somewhat because we cruise, have done for over 20 years, John hates flying and on the three occasions in 35 years that he has it’s not much fun sitting beside him 😜we spent the early part of the children’s life holidaying in places like Cornwall but in all honesty that is not a holiday for me what with still having to do the cooking and tidying up, organising picnics etc etc. So we went on our first cruise in 1997, it was fabulous, we get to eat the different foods we each like, someone else does everything except get us dressed for the whole time, we can do as much or as little as we want to, yes there are environmental issues as with all forms of transportation, yes there are waste issues, there are issues in every quarter but the industry is working hard to counteract or remedy these and we have actually seen the difference over the years, so there you have it my Achilles heal as it were! There will be no shopping trip for new clothes though, I take the ones I have had for years, evening dresses from the charity shop (bargains lol) John has had the same tuxedo and shirts for 20 years 😜 though he did have new trousers two years ago, we’ve earned this and are looking forward to a relaxing break 😀

I’m watering the garden again this evening as it’s overcast I can start a bit earlier, dashing out to move the hose at half time, England’s hopes are riding high tonight with this game and I doubt there are many countrymen/women/children that are not watching it 😀⚽️ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Thursday: Up early as usual watering, I think with the temps having dipped I am on top of this for a while a least, picked a very small amount of raspberries then went back to bed for 2 hours as I didn’t feel well, I have more bloods test this morning so we will see what the markers are doing and hopefully get sorted as I was doing well on 15mg but 10 is not enough.

One of the brown rabbits was dead this morning, there is no sign of fly strike, injury, myxomatosis and body condition is good, the others are fine so I am putting it down to age, we had them from someone re-homing them and I don’t know how old they are exactly though we have had them nearly three years and I do believe they were a few years old then.

Haven’t done anything else all day except rest and sleep and then watering in the evening ☹️

Friday: Alarm went off, I didn’t get up, not for another half hour anyway, so 5.30 I went out to turn on the water and the hens were making such a racket I thought there must be something in with them, I went over but nope they were just very vocal so I let them all out. In between moving the sprinkler around I pruned the apricot tree, just as bit so that the branches don’t get too heavy next year and break, well that was the plan but the tree has canker 😩 It had it in the trunk last year and I treated it with Bordeaux mixture but it has appeared on the branches, this is not good, the tree will have to be removed and burnt, gutted as it produced a good amount of fruit this year. There are no other controls available and if it was just in the branches it could be cut back to clean wood but being in the trunk already means it’s fate is sealed and it will come down so that it doesn’t spread to the other stone fruit trees 😪 I will probably order another tree, a more resistance variety, of course it cannot be planted in the same place and I have yet to think what I will put there instead.

One of the ‘news’ items currently circulating is regarding the government stockpiling food ready for Breixt, I have no idea if this is true, probably a nano comment made had been blown all out of proportion by the press as is usual and although I wouldn’t advocate storing large amounts of food, but given the ‘panic buying’ culture in his country it does make sense to have some reserves. I suppose as someone who strives for self sufficiency this is part and parcel of what we do, we grow, plant, harvest and process for the leaner months, obviously not everyone is able to do this but there are small changes you can make to your habits that would help in a temporary shortage of any kind. Just picking up an extra tin or dry goods packet when you shop, I’m not suggesting you do it every time otherwise you end up with a bulging cupboard but just making sure you always have 2 tins/packets instead of 1, things that have a long use by date on them are useful to have on standby, dried milk powder, jelly for instance, given the long, hot, dry spell, bottled water might be a good idea, things that if you don’t need to use in an emergency, will still get used, we don’t want wastage here 😀 It’s not scaremongering, it’s just good practice to think about how you would manage given an emergency situation, whatever that situation happens to be.

Needless to say I am monitoring this expected rain very closely today, I’m not sure why, I’m just hoping it doesn’t disappear off the radar and there is not much I can do about it if it does! Please rain, is not something I would ever normally utter but PLEASE RAIN 🌧🤪

I have to tell you what a total success the brassica cage has been, it was a belt and braces job, if you have ever tried to grow them you will know why 😝 I grew broccoli because that’s what we like and the early planted ones have done amazingly well, first a nice round head on each of them and now they are producing florets galore. The later planted ones have done nothing but keep going to seed despite me constantly cutting them back (continuous rabbit forage though) There is not one single butterfly in there and so no caterpillars borne out in the blanching water which has nothing floating in it except bit of broccoli, big success 😀

One thing I want to get made this year is a ‘souper mix’ it is basically vegetable stock, any combination of veg and herbs, blitzed to within an inch of its life in a processor then preserve with salt in a jar, the actual recipe can be found in the River Cottage handbook No2 but you can make it up as to what you have and I found it will keep longer than 6 months or you could always freeze it in batches, you need about 2 tsp per 500ml liquid, a great base for soups and stews and packed full of nutrients instead of preservatives.

I made apricot jam, I am functioning better today and really wanted to get it made, jam sessions are never the same twice and today was no different this came to a set point quicker than softer fruits. Tips, get your jars ready before you start, by that I mean if you are re-using jars, clean them first and get them ready for sterilising don’t put the fruit on to soften and then realise the jars you want to use need the labels soaking off! I have some sticky stuff remover which is fab but I really should have done it before I put them away lol. Secondly EVERYTHING is hot and I mean hot, especially if you are using kilner type jars with metal on them so be very careful in your procedures, thirdly always prepare extra jars, todays batch made more than I was expecting so I had to quickly find two more jars to sterilise, last but by not means least I find the right equipment is key to having continually successful jam sessions, heavy based pan, thermometer (one where part of the bubble has not gone on its own holiday 🤪) metal funnel, and never leave the jam to answer the phone or the door 😝 Oh boy am I looking forward to tasting this one 😀 one quick thing I used a large orange for pectin, just because I didn’t have a lemon or any lemon juice, it will work just as well, apricot have a medium amount of pectin but are low in acid meaning they need added extra to help the gelling process.

Although I feel a lot more with it today I still took it easy for the afternoon, blood results were back and had an appointment with the doc, the inflammation markers are up higher than they were before but with no symptoms, so no pain??? The problems I have had seem to be from the reducing of the steroids so we have slowed it down to see what happens and more blood test next week, in the meantime I carry on when I can and rest when I can’t.

The rain I was hoping for was nothing more than a ‘piddle’ and didn’t even wet the air let alone the ground so watering duties will continue for the foreseeable future 😋 I know we are far luckier than some countries where it’s a life or death situation but it does make life difficult.

Saturday: Well at 4.30 this morning it was very foggy, great because it means there was moisture in the air overnight for the plants to absorb however watering must still commence as the temps are set to be high again today. Other jobs included digging up a hardy fushia that isn’t doing so well where it was, I’ve potted it and will give it some tlc before repositioning it, to be honest I think the dog has been laying on it! I had a reg legged partridge right outside the kitchen window and a cricket on a plant out there too, pretty sure one was looking for the other 😜 I picked a random selection of different beans, they are just starting to come through but not enough of anything to sell yet, my best veg customer came and I gave them to him for free as a taste of things to come seeing how he has been so patient! I finally managed to move the quail from out of the back area to the orchard, it was a case of dismantling two cages to make one decent one, I put a ramp in so they can get to the top area, an upside down covered hanging basket which I’m hoping they will lay in and a dust bath, hopefully they will be very happy there. The odd silkie chick that survived a throwing against the trees stump as an egg is now pretty big, and a cockerel 😜 he has been living with the quail but he has also now got freedom to move and it in the orchard. We will probably allow him to roost in the trees and come and go whenever he pleases. I candled the duck eggs in the incubator, only one was infertile, they are due to hatch next week.

I picked a big bunch of basil, washed it and waiting for it to dry off a bit before I chop it and mix it with olive oil to freeze in an ice cube tray for winter use, I made bread, I’ve taken to making a traditional cottage loaf which I rather like the look of, and then had a well earned couple of hours sit down as my feet are beginning to hurt.

The last couple of days the air temperature early in the morning has been much cooler and then the fog today, you can see the difference in the plants just from that little bit of relief, they are suddenly more upright and not flagging so much, there is rain forecast next week, well there would be, bang on cue for the summer holidays!

We are directly in the airspace between the Royal International Air Tattoo and RAF Brize Norton and the air show is this weekend so it’s pretty noisy at times but we get random displays flying over every now and again so, the best one I have ever seen while we were here was a formation of about 12 helicopters flying directly towards us, it was a pretty awesome sight.

Standing at the back door a got a whiff of bonfire 🤔 had a look round and yep someone close by has one going, now we have had no rain for weeks, the ground is parched and as dry as I have ever seen it, personally I would think I was very stupid if I lit a bonfire in this climate, fingers crossed it stays under control!

We had a rare evening out, thanks to Shelley and Martin for coming over to shut the birds away, The Great British Summer Garden Party at Blenheim Palace, a wonderful evening, very relaxing, great entertainment and fireworks to finish with a round of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory, perfick 😀

Sunday: Despite a long day yesterday I was still awake at 6 so I got up and went out to get the watering underway, the moisture in the air over night lately has done wonders for both the lawn and the plants, they are not needing quite so much watering as before. I used the lawn edger and tidied it up putting all the sods into the bucket for the rabbits, then cut the grass as it was looking rather strangely with long bits and dead bits all mingling in, at least they are all the same length bits now 😋 A quick cat nap after that just to recharge, I’m pretty tired today so will be taking it steady, I don’t want to be overdoing it, though there is so much I want to be getting on with, it can wait a bit longer.

John is out there this evening cleaning out the hens, he has to wait until it’s cooled down enough to be in there, just watching the countryfile weather and things are getting fresher, now if we could just have a touch of rain too please that would be marvellous 😜

Posted in Friesland Farm

Forest gardening, Midsummer and a Harris Hawk

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 18th May: The weather looks set to be fair this week, no rain in sight which means lots of watering to be done! I’m pretty good this morning once I’ve taken something to help out so John did half the birds and I did the other half, we have 10 hatchlings in the final count, good strong chicks though so hopefully they will continue that way. Weeding and foraging for the rabbits goes hand in hand so I did some of that, there is plenty for them at this time of year. I made up a cutting compost mix as I have a few bits I want to try and strike, the mix is compost, sand and vermiculite and then the cuttings dipped in root gel and put on a lower shelf in a unheated propagator in the greenhouse out of direct sunlight, nothing to lose really so I will give them a go.

I sold 6 quail over the weekend 5 female and one male so the urgency to find them a proper place is not so bad now, my plan, I think, is to keep a male (and I have identified which one already) with a few females, that way I have two separate flocks and if I want to breed I can swap the males over for new bloodlines, the rest of the males I will probably let go and they can have a couple of days freedom before they become dinner for some other wildlife, it’s a dog eat dog world out there 😩 The POL sales also went crazy at the weekend, we haven’t sold any for a couple of weeks then all of a sudden 20 in one weekend!

Lots of pottering in the garden and a bit of planning for ‘forest gardening’ which I am going to have a go at, to be honest I already have bits of it in place I just didn’t realise there was an actual term for it! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_gardening

Harvested some potatoes from the self setter box I have, it’s a large crate and I have now grown self setters in there for about 4 years in a row with no problems whatsoever ever, basically I harvest as I have today, leaving behind all the tiny potatoes and they grow again, I will probably get some more in time for Christmas and do the same all over again.

Picked a few strawberries and raspberries, not many but I plan to plant strawberries in with the forest garden as I have found that the best plants are always the ones that have self set, I’m beginning to think all this preening, pruning, row growing etc is a complete waste of time, I think I will let nature show me how it’s done 😀

I have noticed a fair bit of ‘June drop’ from the fruit trees, I just hope there is enough left at the end of the season to harvest, one of my plum branches has already snapped under the weight and the plums are pretty small at the minute. I have an apple tree in the paddock that is struggling, it’s been struggling ever since I put it in but this year it’s just not managing at all so I need to dig that up and move it, I think I will plant a sweet chestnut out there instead.

On my down time I am continuously learning, today it’s all about ‘swales’ as far as I can make out, it’s basically a ditch dug out on the contour or slope and piled up on the other side to create a water catchment that is ‘level’ this collects the rain and then filters it slowly or much more slowly at least in the downward direction meaning the plants in its pathway can utilise the water more efficiently. I am definitely going to give this a try, Swales can be large covering a whole field or they can be smaller such as in a veg plot setting, interesting and pretty obvious when you think about it, and obvious that our ‘natural’ Swales run in completely the wrong direction! I have also been reading other bits and pieces that seem obvious but I had never thought of it, I seem to be having my eyes opened just recently to a number of things, maybe I had closed my mind and was just bumbling through. I couldn’t really get my head around permaculture being anything more than lots of people trying to make money out of writing a book about it but I am beginning to see exactly what it’s all about and how to apply it, looking, learning and applying. Sure we are doing the basics, collecting rainwater etc but I am still having to stand and water everything which takes time, and I am missing out on useful water such as the duck pond when it’s emptied just gets tipped out, all those duck poo nutrients going to waste waahh what was I thinking 😜

Sowed a bed of carrot seeds where I had pulled the onions from.

I have spotted, pardon the pun, many, many ladybird larvae all over the garden, on a positive note this is fab for my garden however they are Harlequin larvae so not so good for the native ladybird ☹️ firstly, parasites that attack native ones don’t attack harlequins and secondly if the harlequins run out of food they will eat native ladybird eggs.

Had a dental appointment then dinner then out to cut the front paddock, it’s grown so much since we last did it which doesn’t seem that long ago, while John was on lawnmower duty I did a bit of watering then went to help him, typically it’s now spitting with rain 😝

Ordered a book called ‘Permaculture in a nutshell’ hopefully it will help me see what it is we need to be putting in place, meanwhile I am looking at things with new vision, I also ordered an Alder tree as apparently it fixes nitrogen and will be planting that out near the fruit trees in the paddock, and some horseradish, the last lot I bought as dried foot failed to appear although (I had forgotten) there is some on the side of the road just a bit up from us so I may go and dig a piece up from there as well.

Found a baby bird dead in the water butt, how it got there is a mystery as there is a lid on it, the only thing I can think is that it has fallen down the drainpipe?

Tuesday: Apart from John carrying two feed buckets to the front for me it was, me, myself, I, on morning duties today, I don’t mind telling you I was worn out after lol. Mum arrived fairly early to do some gardening 😀 yay many hands make light work as they say and I am always grateful for extra hands. She did some weeding up on the far end while I did some in the middle, then I potted up a thornless blackberry and some black currant seedlings that had grown in the brassica cage. I cut some broccoli, one for Mum and one for our dinner later.

At the moment I am collecting eggs from the Welsh Harlequin ducks that I separated off they will be the last batch of eggs to go in the incubator this year, I should be able to fit about 12 in there hopefully.

Some trees I ordered have arrived, not any old trees but ‘sacred’ trees, small leaved lime or linden, multiple uses including using the young leaves in salads, linden tea can be made for blood pressure and the bark can be used for rope making if I ever need it 😀 They are small at the moment but will reach a great height eventually, I will pot them up and bring them on keeping a close eye on them for a year, they can be used as coppice for fuel so there’s an option, I will probably use one in my ‘edible forest’ that is the veg garden.

The summer solstice is fast approaching, why does is come so quickly when winter drags on so long, anyhow I have found a recipe for honey cakes which are used as an offering for the ‘faeries’ on Midsummers eve, a pretty simple recipe and something I haven’t tried before so I will be giving them a go.

Wednesday: Ooops totally overdid it yesterday and by the evening I was not too good so a dose of painkillers and a good nights sleep was in order. This morning John kindly did the morning routine before going to work bless him, I showered and by 8.30 I had started to clean the kitchen which has been bugging me for a while. A deep clean, drawers, cupboards, walls etc so at this present time 12.30 I’m having a break and still have plenty to do in there.

I noticed a grasshopper on the wall by the breadbin, thought ah that’s sweet and took a photo,

I thought about putting it back outside but forgot, now I have to live with the consequences because on my, hoovering the tops of the walls round, I found a spider had wrapped said grasshopper up for lunch 😩 so I hoovered up that bastard too 🤪

Went on clean the living room and the bedroom, knackered now and shoulders are killing me ☹️ still it feels nice and clean everywhere, well not everywhere there is still the boot room and the office to de clutter and deweb but they can wait for another day.

After some more anti inflammatory pills and a rest some dinner it was back to work watering, picking etc and I made the honey cake, I use the term loosely and I won’t put the recipe on here because there are probably far better examples out there. Honey cake, well it has honey in it and it’s definitely cake, it also has a fair amount of coffee, I used decaf so we won’t be bouncing off the walls after eating it, it’s edible, pleasant enough but not what I would call honey cake really.

Today I picked a small tub of strawberries and raspberries, 4 heads of broccoli, some beetroot, a courgette, rainbow chard and some new potatoes, most of which I have put out for sale as we have already eaten. The dilemma is what to charge for naturally grown veg, I always check the supermarket prices but I feel that if I priced them like that they are grossly underpriced for what you are getting, something that actually tastes like its supposed to, been lovingly tended, had nothing sprayed on it whatsoever, the best veg you can get to be precise 😀

Thursday: Up in the middle of the night to eat and take anti inflammatory! The trouble is when I feel ok I get stuck into jobs then pay for it later on 😜 Anyhow, John did the morning routine then went off to get feed then take the van for a service, I had some paperwork to do so got on with that as much as I could because for some reason my iPad and printer are not talking to each other 🤪

In the afternoon I used the cardboard, that I had put on the floor in the greenhouse over winter, to cut and place round the squash plants that are growing outside, it’s a start to the mulching I need to get done. Mulch, mulch, mulch is my mantra of the week, we are in for a serious lack of rain and some very high temperatures which won’t do the plants any good at all so best start preparing now. John came home and was on in ‘half a job John’ mode, at this moment we have everything pulled out from under the kitchen sink as he is putting in an outside tap but that’s as far as he has got, then we have tools out in the orchard area where he has half fitted some angle irons at the top of the fencing with wire attached to it to stop the fox getting over, at one point I wondered where he had gone and he was up the garden weeding in goggles due to the high pollen count!!! “There is medication available you know” but you can’t help those who won’t help themselves can you 😩

Just been informed after asking what the plan is, that every time he goes to do a job he needs a tool that is in the van that has gone for a service, I get it now, I thought he was just being unproductive lol.

My bit of bedtime reading arrived yesterday ‘permaculture in a nutshell’ and today I have been making a plan to start the polyculture, permaculture, forest garden approach, I have a pear tree in the orchard that I will start with. I have chosen plants that I already have available:

Comfrey – Mulch/insect attractor

Lavender – attractor

Borage – attractor

Fennel – attractor

Rhubarb – mulch

Solomans seal

Strawberry – attractor/stabiliser

Thyme – soil stabiliser

Peas – nitrogen fixer

I still need to have fruit bushes which will probably be currant and roots which may be onion or wild garlic or chives but this is the basic outline of my ‘guild’ I will observe and see what does well and what fails, either way I will learn a fair bit I think.

I’ve just read a blog on a forest garden hedge so that will be another project to think about, ooo so much to do and so little time 😜 Inbetween that I fancied a snack so I made some raspberry fritters 😀 mashed banana, flour, cinnamon, mash and stir then add the raspberries then fry in coconut oil, rather delish with some creme fresh though they didn’t hold shape too well, still it all goes down the same way 😝

So I asked for an outside tap under the kitchen window and this happened!

Well I wouldn’t mind so much except that John is a time served plumber 😩 there was a LOT of swearing and a bit of a puddle and apparently the kitchen tap (which admittedly we had been having problems with) was f**ked this is why it has been leaking even though John fitted new washers a while back. On the up side I now have an outside tap to water the front plants with 😀

A bit later I asked John if it was connected to the hot, “nope, it’s just a cold tap and before you say anything, a hundred years ago they would have delighted with that fitted” so I said, “a hundred years ago they would have been delighted with rabbit for dinner “ guess what’s on the menu tomorrow 🤪

Mowed the grass and used the mowings for mulches on various plants that are in danger of drying out too quickly when this hot weather hits us.

Friday: By mutual agreement I have decided to take it a bit easier today, I find that I am suffering a lot once I stop in late evening and then the joints seize up over night. Having said that there are a couple of jobs I want to get done, the first is my second ‘guild’ an Apple tree this time. It was growing out in the paddock but it has never been happy there so I dug it up and pruned it back, put in in water to soak for a couple of days and planted it elsewhere this morning. So far I have planted comfrey, strawberries and black currant round it, there is a pumpkin growing close by and some Welsh onions, I need a few other things in there, I will probably try coriander as a quick growing herb and some broad beans for fixing nitrogen. I have some b bean plants that I cut back after they had finished, they are in a pot so will transplant easily.

As I look at things with new vision so much of ‘traditional’ gardening seems pretty foolhardy now, most attributed to the victorians who liked neat and tidy rows but then they had plenty of man power in the kitchen garden which I definitely don’t have here. One of the practices I will definitely adopt is the ‘chop and drop’ I mean unless you want compost to plant into then why on earth spend all that time taking it all to the compost heap, turning it and hauling it back again, chop it, leave it where it is and let nature do the work for you seems obvious now, unless of course there is disease but even then burn it and use the ash on the garden. I am rather liking this new outlook, how can I save time and work but still reap the benefits. Another thing I have taken more notice of is how/where plants grow, one instance is a rogue strawberry plant that had escaped out of the fruit cage and is growing in the path, it’s not watered or fed or tended in any way and yet it is in much better health than the cosseted ones inside the cage? Another observation is of 5 sweet potato plants, 4 of them struggling 1 which is under the tomato plants is romping away, again the 4 had greenfly which I wiped off but the other one didn’t have any, that information will be consigned to memory for future years.

Today I picked raspberries and strawberries, in previous years we had an abundance but I dug three rows of raspberries up last year as they were getting out of control in terms of I didn’t have time to tend or even pick them properly and the strawberries had got in the same kind of muddle so we cleared them, sadly this year I don’t have very many so there won’t be jam!

Saturday: Up early to take painkillers again so that I can get up at the usual time and be able to do some work! I did the morning rounds with John then onto a bit of watering in the shady areas, then I put up a temporary fence in the orchard to let the Welsh harlequins have more room but not get on the veg garden or they will eat the courgettes 😜 Then I planted a lime tree in the duck pen and put some protection round it, we were going to change the duck pen and move it but actually all it needs is some greenery in the form of trees and bushes and preferably ones with berries that will feed them too such as elderberry and currant, they will provide shade, shelter and forage. Then onto foraging for the rabbits, willow, hazel, lemon balm, plenty of plantain, dandelions, clover, thistle and birds foot trefoil and grass. It’s getting quite warm out there now after a cool start.

Charlie is making smoothies with the few berries I have collected 😀 there looks like there will be plenty of black currants and gooseberry and hopefully I will get some jam made with those although John is not particularly keen on those flavours as that’s all there will be he may actually try them 😝

I watched a red legged partridge, that had somehow managed to get in the front paddock with all the birds, frantically running round trying to find a way back out while being chased by all and sundry, it must have eventually got out as peace was resumed pretty quickly. We get a pair visit the farm every year, I presume they are the same pair and it’s always the same time of year.

Picked some gooseberries (I know they are ready because each time I go up there the blackbirds are ferreting about underneath them) topped and tailed them and made some jam with a bit of elderflower cordial in for good measure. I went slightly wrong, don’t know what I was thinking when I put the sugar in at the same time as the gooseberries 😜 no harm done really it just meant I needed to cook them slowly to begin with then on to a boil. While I was waiting I put the contents of the under the sink cupboard back after John advised me to leave it all out and check for any leaks after fitting the new kitchen tap, we now have a proper mixer tap back. I always sterilise my jam jars in the oven, it’s just how I prefer to do it, I know it can be done in the microwave or with sterilising fluid but that’s my preferred method, wash with hot soapy water, rinse and then with the oven set at around 120/30c they can stay in there until the jam is ready to jar up, I use a thermometer rather than a plate from the freezer, mainly because I can’t be bothered to keep going backwards and forwards to the freezer which is out the back! I was surprised how quickly the temperature went up to setting point so I’m hoping it does actually set. It was only after I made the jam I remembered I had bought a proper jam pan last year, I had to search for it but I will definitely use that next time so as not to burn it which can happen in a thinner saucepan. I had enough strawberries and raspberries to make a couple of jars of mixed jam so that’s what I did, in the proper pan this time. This jam had quite a lot of foam, you can remove it with a spoon just before putting it a jar, you can use a tiny amount of butter or oil when you cook the jam or you can do what I do and leave it. It is said that it can shorten the life of the jam but as two jars will probably not even last a month in this house then I don’t worry too much, I prefer to take it off when I open a jar. If you take it off you can heat it in the microwave and it will make a bit of extra jam ready for instant use, the foam is just jam bubbles so nothing terrible. Obviously if you are wanting to give your jam as a present/gift I would recommend scooping it off, if it’s for home use then don’t worry unless you really want to.

I made a pineapple, turmeric and ginger blitz in the nutrition bullet tonight, I need to try and get this inflammation down and I’d rather try and do it naturally rather than continuous pills.

The sunset tonight was magnificent, Charlie took some photos 😀

Sunday: I’m not in very good shape this morning, I will have to relent and call the doctor tomorrow and see what can be done. John did the morning stuff while I hobbled around, had a shower got dressed etc then I did manage to go outside and pick a few raspberries and do a bit of watering of stuff in the shade. Then I heard a peculiar noise 3 times so I was about to go and investigate when I heard somebody shouting hello across the hedge. It turns out a chap who was hawking at the farm over the back from us had lost his Harris hawk, so that’s the noise I could hear. We eventually located it in the top of one of our conifers and he called it down with a tit bit to entice it, her name was Missie and she was a beautiful bird. I invited the chap to feel free to catch rabbits with her here and I hope that he will take us up on the offer at some point as we are getting over run with them.

Didn’t do much for the rest of the day except watering in the evening, John cleaned out the front birds and we had to move a duck that the geese have regularly been picking on for some unknown reason ☹️

Posted in Friesland Farm

Edibles at last, another birthday & a successful adoption.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 4th June: Rain first thing, I watered last night so that seems a waste of time but you never know how things are going to go! John is back as his proper job this week so I am on my own doing the feeding etc this morning. When I finished that it was onto the veg garden and I did a bit of weeding before doing some picking, there is not much in the way of offerings at the moment but I did pick some broad beans, peas, asparagus, rhubarb, rainbow chard and 5 baby cauliflower. This all bodes well as I got a piece of gammon from the freezer last night so for dinner with it we are having cauliflower cheese, peas and broad beans, the other veg was put out for sale and gone within half an hour. The broad beans I have gone to the extra length of skinning them as well, not sure that’s the right term, so they are taken out of the pod first then the whiteish skin on each bean is also taken off and you are left with a bright green bean, worth it so I am told, I will let you know.

Sam and Mia came over and they cleaned out the rabbits while I got on with some more hoeing, it’s a constant activity with all this sunshine then rain, I did joke to John that I should maybe sell fat hen, chickweed and dandelion leaves as bagged salad, all are perfectly edible, his face said what most customers would say I think 🤪 There are plenty of people out there who regularly eat this kind of thing and some who exclusively eat ‘weeds’ and forage but I’m not sure we are ready for that just yet although most veg as we know it are just hybrid weeds 😝

On a positive note the garlic have formed beautiful large heads and the onions are doing very well, normally with all that rain they would start to rot but in the raised beds this year they are sitting pretty.

Tuesday: A pleasant enough day today, overcast, average spring temps so a good day to get stuff done. The morning routine went as per usual then onto the garden, I spent a good couple of hours in the big poly tunnel tying up tomatoes, beans, weeding etc, then Mum popped in for a coffee and I had a chat with her about a couple of problems in the garden, I have ordered some Epsom salts to try and combat some of the issues. Then onto hoeing in the fruit cage, it’s like a jungle in there, then Sam and Mia, Shelley, Josh and Flo arrived and made lunch, after they left I did the egg collection and afternoon feed, then a bit of hoovering and tidying and the day is done, well sort of as after dinner I did some more hoeing and sexed the goslings, I think they are both female, happy days 😀

At some point in the day I candled the eggs in the incubator, I removed nine that were not fertile, fingers crossed that the rest all hatch, I think there are 15 left in there.

Wednesday: A warmer day with sunshine from early on, I did the morning stuff then a bit of watering in the small tunnel then onto hoeing the pathways. Yesterday my muscles in my legs and arms were playing up but I took some paracetamol and all was well until later in the evening. This morning I took paracetamol a bit later and then did the hoeing but found I couldn’t manage much more than two pathways, always listening to what my body is trying to tell me, I gave it up and went and had a sit down instead, no point trying to do something I can’t and if I rest it should help.

I put the baby goslings out for an hour in a run on the lawn, I don’t think they quite knew what to make of it, I need to figure out what I am going to put them in as they are getting too big for the brooder unit.

Thursday: June 7th Johns Birthday 🎂 Overcast this morning but good temperatures. I did the morning routine, then picked some forage for the rabbits and a bit of watering, I looked over the garden to see what is coming in, tiny little courgettes forming, globe artichoke, heads of broccoli beginning to form so not too bad. I smile when I go past the onions and garlic as they are doing fabulously in the raised beds, we have been given some big pieces of timber that will be ideal to raise up more of the beds and we really need to put a lot of effort into soil structure come autumn. I have decided that polyculture is definitely the way forward for me, mixing up the veg with fruit trees/bushes and flowers, for the main part anyway, I will still need to heavily cover the brassicas.

Friday: You can probably tell by the lack of any thing written that I haven’t done much these past few days, that’s because of my joints/muscles, I don’t know what is wrong with them but they are not working properly. It could be the Lupus or it could be the virus John had at the beginning of the month, either way it’s has steadily got worse until this morning John had to do the animals as I couldn’t bear weight at all on my legs, plenty of painkillers and a bath hasn’t made much difference but I can at least walk again albeit slowly, I certainly cannot bend my knees though and it’s not just my legs affected one side of my jaw is stiff, some fingers and the palms of my hands, very random! I have to keep moving though otherwise it’s worse so some slow pottering is the order of the day. It gives me time to think about things and one of those is the goslings, looking back over the blog posts I realise the eggs can’t be much good the goose has been sat for too long now so tonight all being well I will try swapping the live goslings in and take the eggs out, who knows how this will go, I can only try and it will be the best option for all of them.

8pm and operation swap goslings for eggs gets under way, first John went out with some corn to entice the goose off her nest while I put the goslings in a bucket and covered them with a towel so they stayed silent. Corn thrown, off goosey gets, in I nip and unload the goslings into the nest and cover them with nest debris, remove the eggs, they start chirping and John shouts ‘she’s coming’ get out quick as the whole family is coming, lots of noise going on in there but they are not attacking so that’s a good sign. I watched for a few minutes before deciding to shutting them in once everything quietens down. I will have a look later and see how it’s going. I break open the eggs against a tree, oh my god what a stink with half grown embryos, they were never going to hatch so the right decision was made as long as all goes well.

Saturday: Still having trouble with my muscles/joints meaning I’m fairly incapacitated first thing in the morning, I got up at 6am to take painkillers and went back to bed to let them work then got up at 7am. John did the animals this morning before going off to get some dog food, a tap for the water butt and to do his Mum.

I am delighted to tell you that the adoption of the baby geese is going really well and today they are all out grazing happily together, I will definitely be doing that again next year, more successful all round.

Once the continuous painkillers were in action I managed to get some jobs done, it’s better to keep moving, once I stop it all seizes up again. I did a bit of weeding and gave that to the rabbits then planted up the rest of the tomato plants I had in the greenhouse, they are excess plants but I figured I may as well plant them out and might even get a crop from them before they get blight. I picked a bunch of asparagus, some strawberries, peas and some rainbow chard, watered the carrot seedlings and that was about it for the morning. John cleaned out the goose hut now everything is going well, then connected up a water butt to the guttering he put up on the rabbit run so there should always be water available for them now providing it rains occasionally that is lol.

Struggled a lot today, do a bit, sit down, do a bit, lay down, do a bit, sit down again, pants I hope this moves on quickly! Just finished watering the garden when it started to rain, I did check the forecast first and it was something like 5% chance 😝oh well.

Chickens are the most annoying things, John put a whole bale of straw in when he cleaned out the goose hut, tonight it’s all across the bloody paddock, scratched out by the hens!

Sunday: Still rather incapacitated so John has done all the jobs again while I lie around and take painkillers 😩 After the usual stuff and going to sort his Mum out he came back and turned my compost heap with the tractor, there is some great looking stuff in there and I want to be able to use it on the beds this autumn so it needs regular turning. Charlie is cooking a roast later so that leaves me free to sit around and not do much lol, eventually I got bored of that and suggested a trip to the garden centre which John readily agreed to as it means he can get out of working in the heat. I wanted to get some flowering plants of various descriptions, in the end the haul included the most amazing smelling rose and a patio grape with tons of fruit already forming on it, some plants came from the casualty dept and I have split and planted some of them and taken cuttings as well.

Hopefully I will start to feel better very soon as I have jobs I want to get on with 🤪