Tag: Vegetables

Posted in Friesland Farm

Bad start, got better, life is good.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 30th April: A woeful morning right from the off, early morning call to John, his Mum is being admitted to hospital after an incident, I do the morning rounds, and we have had a fox massacre in the back paddock. It has gone in through the window on the roof and massacred the hens that sleep in there overnight ☹️ The window was broken but it’s up high on what you would think was an impossible incline, I’m thinking that the strong winds overnight have shaken the rest of the glass and it has broken and any opportunity is all the Fox needs.

It’s bitterly cold out there this morning, I’m hanging on to the fact that this is the last day of the cold weather 😜 It is fricking perishing out there, the wind is blowing a hoolie down from the North, less than half an hour out there and my hands are like ice blocks, I don’t think I will bother outside, the farm behind has a bonfire and there is smoke blowing straight down the yard, don’t get me wrong I love the smell of a bonfire but I can even smell it indoors too 🙁 Ever wish you had a rewind button for the day 😝

It warmed up in the afternoon, typical after I had lit the Rayburn, when John got back from the hospital he cleaned out the front hens which was overdue, while I cleaned out the quail, then he spent the rest of the evening cutting up wood from the mountain 😝 I did a bit of gardening, weeding etc and we didn’t finish until it was dark.

Tuesday: May Day 😄 Today didn’t start off much better lol, I cleaned and filled up a drinker for the hens in the orchard, turned it over and whoosh the bottom came off and a couple of litres of water went everywhere, all over the side and down the back of the cupboards in the boot room 😜While I was outside I took a little time to inhale the perfume of the apple blossom on this glorious May Day morning. I collected fodder for the rabbits, hazel, lemon balm, fennel, dandelions, plantain, grass tufts, I love watching them pick out their favourites first, usually the dandelion closely followed by grass and raspberry runners.

Then we did some tree work in the front paddock, two trees that died a couple of years ago after a pony got in and ate the bark from them, bits of branches keep falling off and they needed taking down properly. We have left about 4ft of stump on both of them, I saw this on a programme about an arboretum, they leave the stump to rot naturally and provide a home for the insects, great idea I thought so that’s what we have done. There is an apple tree that I planted a couple of years ago that should now get lots of light and put on some good growth, the dead wood has been cut up and put in the firewood store (smaller stuff is set aside for use in the fire pit later in the year)

After that John cut the front driveway grass and the lawn while I tidied up the orchard and burnt some dead stuff and twigs, a great mornings work 😀 John went off to the hospital at lunchtime and Mia arrived for her afternoon with Nana while Mummy goes to work, looking every inch the gardener in her hat today 😍

John came back and we had a load of wood chip delivered into the ménage so he got the tractor out and spread it, meanwhile Mia and I made daisy chains, had rides in the wheelbarrow and watched Grampy on the tractor.

I did a bit of baking while I was getting dinner ready, biscuits and a rhubarb loaf, mostly to stop John moaning that there is nothing to eat when he is home.

Wednesday: Raining and cold again ☹️ Did the morning rounds with John then he set about tidying up the wood mountain area and various bits while I went into the greenhouse to work. I feel disheartened at the amount of time and effort I am putting into growing seeds when the temperatures make it a struggle this year, a few of the seedlings have suffered damping off because the compost (that was watered when the sun was hot and shinning) is now cold and wet. I have relented and taken the power out there to turn on the propagators that I have available to warm it up a bit, hopefully it will only be a couple of days at most but this yo-yo-ing of the weather is making things difficult. I have just been watching a video of how to make a hot bench with soil warming cables which I think is what I am going to have to do for next year, I have earmarked a piece of celotex for the job and we have plenty of wood to make a bench 😝 I planted up the pea seeds I have had sprouting on the windowsill, I hope they grow, I never had such a bad year with peas as this year has been. I also planted the sweet pea seeds which I also had sprouting, we can only hope they continue to grow. I’m beginning to wonder what the heck I do wrong, some people are naturally green fingered and can grow something from a dead twig, I am not one of those, if the chance is there for it to die, it does 🤔

After being outside I came in to finish off the loaf of bread I had proving before I went out and got all the ingredients ready for dinner tonight, John has chicken casserole and I am having a Lean in 15 chicken carbonara. I put some sausage rolls in the oven at the same time as the bread, something warm and tasty for John to have with his coffee after being out in the rain.

I ordered myself a chop saw, as a girl does lol, there are things I want to make and waiting for John to be here with his circular saw (which doesn’t cut very straight or so he tells me) is a pain so I will have my own and I can get on when I want to. Bird boxes and herb boxes are on the list but I got carried away looking at benches with storage in, who knows I may achieve this yet 😀 My son in law Martin has offered to give me a lesson on the saw and I am taking him up on the offer better to be safe than sorry and if I know how to use it properly there will be no end to the kinds of things I can ‘knock up’.

Thursday: Lovely weather this morning and after doing the morning rounds, John came back from sorting his Mum out, she was discharged yesterday, we had the arduous task of taking down the fence in the back paddock, it took till lunchtime to cut off the stock fencing and then take down and clear up all the post and rail, we now have one huge paddock at the back 😀 easier for dragging and maintaining and Jack thinks it’s Christmas 😀

After some lunch and forty winks 😉 we started the afternoon jobs, John on cutting up wood as the mountain he was clearing is now full of old rail from the paddock 😝 and I did some veg gardening, to be honest, sitting here now I can’t think what I have done but I did do something 🤪 Mum called round with my niece Zeri and we spent a bit of time looking at the rabbits, guinea pigs and baby chicks 😀 then John did the afternoon feeding and egg collecting while I transported compost from the sack in the front to the beds that needed filling. It’s a shame I can’t get the tonne bag any closer to the garden but it’s in the front driveway until it’s empty enough to be able to drag it! John went off to get his Mums dinner and I planted some runner beans in the poly tunnel and some ying yang beans outside, hopefully they won’t get eaten by slugs and mice, always something attacking the veg.

I cleaned the oscillating sprayer and looked for the hand held trigger type sprayer which I can’t find, I have a feeling it didn’t work and water just spat out the end so I must have thrown it away, I will order a new one, I am going for the Karcher brand as their oscillating sprayer is so good much better than the hozelock one which gets stuck all the time.

A family birthday means we are out for the evening for nibbles, or scoffs which is more like it 😄

Friday: Another good day weather wise, temps look to be warm and no rain 😀 John went off to get some bits of feed and sort his Mum out so he won’t be back until gone midday today. After the morning feeding I did some weeding collecting four buckets of forage for the rabbits who were very happy about that, I sowed some sunflower seeds into pots and then some carrots into one of the smaller raised beds, I have to get everything ready to cover before even starting as the chickens can smell disturbed Earth from miles away and are there scratching as soon as your back is turned. I weed killed the bindweed as it is such a pain to try and dig it all out and I don’t want it taking hold this year like it did last year. When John came back he moved the tonne bag of multi purpose compost with the tractor so that it is nearer to the garden, makes life a bit easier. I have dedicated a small section of one of the beds to flowers this year, I am planting it up with anything and everything I have, it will be a totally random selection and randomly planted, no order to it whatsoever, we will see how it turns out, the main aim is to have a riot of colour to look at and a nectar patch for the insects to feed on. My chop saw arrived………watch this space 😜

Saturday: Well we are on a roll with the weather ☀️ of course with it this hot it means I have to get started early and then chase the shade 😂 which runs out around 2pm at this time of year. I have got plenty done though, I finally planted the potatoes, I looked round for a place but there is not enough soil depth on the beds to grow them so I have used the two long raised beds that used to have flowers in them, I had dug up and potted everything in order to empty them out and put them back together but it never got done and so it’s perfect for growing spuds in, the rest are in pots and potato growing sacks anywhere I can place them I have, I told you the garden was all a bit random this year 😜 First thing this morning I took clematis cuttings after seeing something on Facebook that reminded me it was the right time, I have Montana, Neiobe and Dawn, the Dawn was bought by a friend for my 40th birthday many, many years ago now, it’s a small clematis that is ideal for a shady corner, hopefully the cuttings strike but I won’t hold my breath lol. I potted on the runner beans and put some more seeds into trays, the sprayer I ordered arrived and I have sorted out and connected up all of the hose pipes and various heads for them, I think I will be watering sooner rather than later with this heat. I fixed a little wooden cold frame that I have had for years, the glass fell out and I have finally put it back in and secured it, it now has sweet pea, poppies and cosmos seedlings growing under it. I have filled up some old recycling boxes with compost ready for the cucumbers in the small tunnel and repotted a grapevine that was in the wrong place and struggling, it’s now in full sun so hopefully will romp away nicely. John has not felt well today but despite that has fixed the top rails on one of the paddock fences before deciding to have a sleep.

Cleaned the boot room up a bit, it gets so dusty very quickly that it’s a thankless task but has to be done, then gave the dogs a groom, patch is moulting like crazy, hardly anything came off of Mia!

John took to his bed, he has a high temperature and is pretty unwell 🤒 so it’s up to me to put the birds to bed tonight, it’s very pleasant out there this evening.

I noticed on my way round how much the asparagus has shot up just today, I have been picking a bundle of 10 nearly every day but in the morning I am going to have to cut it early or some will be too long, it does not stay in the egg shed very long it sells pretty quickly, mind you the rhubarb is the same and it looks like I will be picking mange tout as well, the over wintered broad beans in the greenhouse have just started to form, I love it when the veg starts coming in thick and fast.

Sunday: Cracking day again and even at 7am there is no ‘cool’ feel to the air so it’s gonna be hot! The animals are flipping annoying this morning, the cats have taken to following me everywhere and now diesel is sat on the shed roof right next to the bird feeder and all the little birds are giving the alarm call. The chickens are pesky this morning pecking at my boots while I’m sat drinking coffee outside and trying to wander into the kitchen, the dogs bark at fresh air and take off chasing fresh air also every 2 minutes, while I’m typing a chicken flies onto my knee, what’s wrong with them all today?

Did the morning rounds, John is poorly in bed though better than he was last night, then I did a bit in the greenhouse and moved some stuff to the poly tunnel and then I thought bugger this I’m going to have a few hours off lol. You may have noticed that we work 7 days a week usually but today as John is not up to it and it’s a lovely day I decided to read in the shade, bliss, inbetween I took a walk around one of the fields and thought why go anywhere when you have all this to enjoy 😊. I had an egg customer that was Spanish and out for the day call in and bought some eggs and asparagus, ‘you have a lovely Farm’ he said in a Spanish accent, ‘thank you’ I said and thought, yes we really do even though I spend all winter moaning about it, days like today give it back tenfold 😄

As I was having a few hours off and I can’t really sit still very long I decided to pick dandelions and have a go at making dandelion honey or ‘poor mans honey’ I was going to make dandelion jelly but I thought the honey seemed more interesting. I sat in the paddock for a good half hour picking the heads then another half hour or more pulling or cutting the yellow petals away from the green bits and then simmered them with a sliced lemon for 20 mins, they now need to soak overnight so the next instalment will be on next weeks blog 🤪

The petals once they are picked are incredibly fluffy and tactile to put your hands in and if anyone fancies a go themselves we have millions of dandelions all growing in untreated paddocks so come and help yourself 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Lots of sunshine ☀️ Jobs completed (at last) and thunderstorms ⛈

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 16th April: Had a very busy day today! Mostly in the garden, I made a little strawberry bed inside the fruit cage and planted strawberry’s that had set themselves in various places, then I spent the rest of the time tidying up, pots that had got blown around, plants that didn’t make it through the winter, raking up dead stuff etc etc so that when the nice weather comes I might just get time to sit and appreciate it all 😜 I carried on a bit too long then it was all to do at the end of the day, light the fire for some hot water, clean up, feed the birds, do the eggs.

I ordered a new choke lever for the lawn mower, it got broken last year and it’s hard graft trying to move it with various implements 😜 I need to give the mower a service and sharpen the blades but the parts are extortionate so I will clean the spark plug up, sharpen the blades with an angle grinder, check the oil and put on the new lever when it arrives and maybe hoover the air filter lol, then it should be good to go 🤞

Tuesday: Up had a shower and had a batch of blueberry muffins in the oven before 8am this morning 😀 I had some blueberries to use up and all the grandchildren will be here later so nana made nana cake 😀 It’s windy this morning and a tad cold with it, still waiting for this heat wave 😜 I’m sure when it gets here it will be with a vengeance like all our weather patterns seem to be.

Fed and water all the animals and foraged for the rabbits, this morning they had, lemon balm, apple, sweet potato, plantain, raspberry runners, broccoli, kale, some cherry wood and violets, happy bunnies.

Doing the afternoon feed in the wind,rain and cold I fail to see how tomorrow is supposed to get up to 24c 😝

Wednesday: The Sun shone ☀️ and how 😀 amazing after yesterday evenings weather. Needless to say there is a lot to do although we would have got further on except for the rain last night, I was hoping that some of the paddocks would nearly be ok for dragging but the rain put paid to that so probably be the weekend when it gets done now. John had a day at home today, I’m not going to call it a day off as I think he has to work harder here than in his regular job 😝 he has been busy taking down all the broken fencing in the back paddocks. We are making two large paddocks instead of six smaller ones that we had originally, they will be much easier to drag, roll and seed without fences in the way, there will only be four corners in each paddock instead of 12 in this particular area, which will make turning the tractor a whole lot easier. It looks lovely with the fences down as I said to John it’s good to change things about a little.

Meanwhile I have been in the garden, watering the tunnels and greenhouse, the temperatures are sweltering in there 😜 At last I have sown some runner bean seeds, I don’t know about other veg gardeners but I don’t feel I have got going until the bean seeds are sown and the potatoes but they are still not in yet due to the inclement weather we have had. I made a quick mini garden and filled it with compost ready for Mia to play in when she arrived, she had a wonderful time digging and moving soil from place to place. She had her lunch outside while I sat and sharpened the grass clippers, all four pairs 😜 I ask you, how did we manage to end up with four pairs? Then it was time for her nap and I cleaned off the decking area and put the parasol cover in the washing machine, hope it comes back out in one bit 🤪 John had a bit of lunch then went back out to the fields, I did help him a bit this morning collecting up electric tape and stakes, I will try and do a bit more later on this evening after Mia goes home.

Ate supper out on the decking, how lovely 😊

Thursday: Another hot one predicted so I was up at 5.45, actually I woke up, my back was aching, I needed a wee and I had acid reflux so I figured I might as well get up and stay up and get an early start in the cool! It was actually very pleasant and I got on pretty well up to the point where the postman came and delivered the choke lever for the mower then it went downhill 😝 I fitted the part but the recoil rope would not budge so I go onto you tube to see what the problem might be, I checked the blade wasn’t wedged (eventually when I found the correct tools) I took off the top cover and checked the spool that was working fine, checked the engine spinny bit was moving, it was, next step check with the spark plug removed, finally found a tool to use for that and snapped the spark plug in half 🤪 I was cursing and swearing and nigh on stomping when John came home, found the right tool removed the remainder of the plug, went and got a new one then helped with solving the problem. It seems when I put the choke lever back on I hadn’t quite got it in the right place and now we have done that it’s working fine 😀 it took me roughly three times as long to fix the damn thing than it did to cut the grass, but I now know a lot more about lawn mowers 😜

After some lunch we got started on cleaning out the middle bay of the hay barn, we picked that job as it was in the shade but it was still hot, dusty work. We quite expected to see a rodent or two when we lifted the pallets that the hay had been stood on, and patch was on standby to catch anything but there wasn’t a single movement so I’m guessing the cats are doing a better job than I thought. John went off to do his Mums dinner and I had a shower and box dyed my hair, it was getting rather too grey and I’m not ready for that just yet lol.

The farmer next door was dragging his field, I knew it was the right time and looking at the forecast we may have missed the opportunity as showers are forecast for Sat and Sun 😝

Friday: Up early again today, rather enjoying the cool early mornings to be honest 😁 John is at home today, well partly, he has to go round and sort his Mum out mid morning but we cracked on and got the animals fed and watered, then John went down to the back paddocks to fill in holes where here has taken out the posts. There is still one more fence to dismantle, then the remaining fences to repair, we had a quick look at the back wall which is a falling down stone field wall. It would be good to put it back up but in all honesty that is a massive job so we may end up taking out the stone and planting a hedge, unless we can find someone who wants to practice their stone walling 😜 While John was out doing that I got on with watering the tunnels and greenhouse, then I finally put the first early potatoes in one of the raised beds along with some beetroot seedlings, carrot seeds and a bulb of garlic, I’m mixing it up this year lol I used the green netting that was too small for the fruit cage to cover the hoops I had already put in, the chickens would be scratching it up before I know it if I don’t cover it as I go. I planted some more beetroot seedlings in the poly tunnel and some melon plants under a cloche. I am trying to decide what is the best thing to tackle slugs, I have some beer traps but unless the slugs feel like a pint they still attack the plants and I don’t want to use slug pellets. So having done a quick bit of reading it seems diatomaceous earth is a good organic method, or at least worth a try, and since I have a sackful I will give it a go, along with damp cardboard, at least I can feed the slugs to the ducks 🦆

Saturday: Up and at it early again though not quite as early as previous days 😜 Main jobs on the agenda was to get the netting on top of the fruit cage and get the brassica cage up, missions accomplished by lunchtime. The brassica cage is a belt and braces job because there is nothing more disheartening than seeing the wonderful, green, bushy plants get decimated by caterpillars 🐛 I’m hoping they won’t get in this, any brassica cage is only as good as it’s weakest point, hopefully we don’t have any and I will be planting a sacrificial crop to lure them away. After that I actually planted the broccoli plants 😀 I also planted some, pak choi and chard directly into the ground and made hoop covers to protect them from chickens, pigeons, anything else that will have a go at them

I was on a roll so I sowed some coriander seeds and some summer savoury, a good day in the garden. John tidied up the rest of the hay barn then went to get some chick crumb as the quail are due to hatch tomorrow and the little silkie bantam has hatched some chicks but I can’t see how many yet I can just hear them. I noticed the asparagus has shot up so I picked a handful of spears, I will probably put those out for sale as I already have dinner sorted and we are out to lunch tomorrow.

Charlie cleaned the boot room floor, it really is grey not muddy coloured 😮 to be honest it is not a ‘priority’ job on my great list of jobs and so I’m grateful that she has done it.

WOW we had the mother of all thunderstorms late evening, lol, I love a good storm.

Sunday: The storms carried on into the night and were so loud it woke most people up in the area from what I have heard, certainly some very loud claps of thunder woke us up at 2am!

Despite the storms and the downpours, the sun was shining brightly this morning and everything felt as fresh as a daisy. We did the morning routine and I watered the polytunnels, then I sowed the wild flower seed where I wanted it, I must say I was taken back by the instruction to weed killer the area first? Needless to say I didn’t which may be an error but I couldn’t see the logic really. Walking back across the paddock I realised it was ripe for dragging, it was only 9am so still cool enough, I convinced John it was a good idea and Macca was eager to have a go on the tractor so that’s what we did. We only got the big corner paddock done as the tractor was playing up a bit and the gateway into the next field is still too wet though John really wanted to go through I put my foot down, the last thing we need is a stuck tractor so that can wait until next week. I finished off the dragging, I love driving the tractor, everyone else gets bored 😑

I can’t remember if I have written that the silkie has hatched at least one chick, hopefully she will have a few others to join it soon, the quail in the incubator show no signs of hatching even though we are on hatch day, I tried candling them but they are difficult to see through so its a waiting game. We made a decision to allow the geese to begin sitting so any eggs they lay from today we will not be picking up for sale, I am hoping for more than one gosling this year, after all they have had two years practice at it now 😜 John has busy busy tidying and moving wood, now we have moved the tractor to the hay barn there is space under cover to get the wood in which will keep it nice and dry for next winter.

I had an hour spare to pot on some tomatoes before we go out for lunch, I have beefsteak and plum this year as well as regular tomatoes, I haven’t done cherry toms this year as I wanted to have a go at different varieties, the other seeds are at last getting going, cucumbers are just breaking the surface, at last we are under way 😀

We went to Upton Firehouse for lunch, if you live locally and have never been put it on your list of places to try you won’t be disappointed, if you have been before you will know why an afternoon nap was next on the agenda 🤪 😴

http://www.uptonsmokery.co.uk/

Posted in Friesland Farm

Amazing smells of Spring, First pick of Rhubarb and new Guinea pigs.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 10th April : Damp this morning with fine drizzle 😐 however it feels ok temperature wise.

Did the morning rounds, 1 egg from the new ladies and evidence of eaten shell, I suspect as we moved them into the outdoor run, we actually do have a rat nicking them, no other reason for them to go from 5 to 1 egg so I need to remedy that and possibly move them back to the stable until further notice and see how many they lay there.

Put out the eggs in the shed which is looking very full of every type of egg we do 😀 and then went round to collect some bits for the rabbits, dandelion I have been growing into a big plant, bits of hazel, blackcurrant and some lovage. I have ordered a book called ‘beyond the pellets’ to learn about feeding rabbits naturally all year round with fresh produce but also ‘tree hay’ which is basically chopped and dried twigs, leaves etc for the winter feed. A mention of it of one of the smallholding sites sparked my interest in being able to feed the bunnies without buying pelleted feed, they get fed a lot of fresh greens during spring and summer but not winter so it will be an interesting read and hopefully a way forward to natural feeding.

I picked the very first lot of rhubarb 😃😃 that makes me very happy and now I just need to decide what I am going to do with it, of course stewed rhubarb and custard is a must as I always say, if you haven’t tried it since childhood do give it a go now you are older, it is delicious.

Then a task I wanted to try all spring but didn’t get round to it and I saw a quick easy way to have a go so that’s what I have done, tapped the maple tree, only I haven’t bored a hole in the trunk and done it that way, I have cut a small branch and taped a glass bottle onto it, fingers crossed I’m not too late for the rising sap and get at least a bit to try. I will check it later to see if I am going to get anything.

The smells this morning have been enough to lift the spirits, the black currant is very strong even just brushing past it, the rhubarb smells divine, the blossom on the trees is heavy, it’s all full of promise and deliciousness 😀

Now going to look at all the rhubarb recipes I have been collecting 😀

Made rhubarb crumble and extras for the freezer, a rhubarb tea bread (simple and quick (except soaking the fruit bit) recipe) and I have some stewed rhubarb and vanilla ready to eat with custard 😀 also made a loaf of bread today.

Rhubarb Tea Loaf

• 300g sultanas

• 200g roasted rhubarb (see note below)

• 300ml strong earl grey tea

• 100g dark brown sugar

• 275g self-raising flour

• 1 egg, beaten

Method

1. Mix the sultanas, rhubarb and sugar together in a large bowl. Cover with the tea and leave to soak overnight.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 150°C(fan)/170°C/gas mark 3. Grease and baseline a 2lb/900g loaf tin. Stir the flour and egg into the fruit mixture. Pour into the prepared tin.

3. Bake in the oven for 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cover the top with foil if it’s getting too brown.

4. NB: to roast the rhubarb chop into 2cm pieces, toss with 20g caster sugar (or more if you prefer it to be sweeter – I don’t think it needs more sugar in this recipe), cover and roast for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, in an oven preheated to 200°C.

This is a recipe from sneakyveg.com as always I used what I had rather than what’s in the recipe so instead of Earl Grey tea I used a Green Tea and a Tetley tea bag and steeped them for about 10 mins, I used currants instead of sultanas and I added a splash of orange juice (just because 😜) I also did not wait overnight for the fruit to soak, I did two hours soaking because I couldn’t be bothered to wait 😝 it will still turn out fine I’m sure.

Tuesday 10th April 🤣🤣 spot the error, I figured I would leave it as it was and it’s turning into Groundhog Day round here as regards to the rain anyhow!

Wet, muddy, slippery, I’m beginning to think this is our lot, seriously, it has rained pretty much every day for nearly 3 weeks at least, how much more is there?

Although there is evidence of the grass growing through the mud so that’s a more positive outlook, more grass = more grass roots = something to soak up the rain 😀

According to the forecast (though it seems to change daily) tomorrow is the last day of rain for a while, fingers crossed 🤞

Cleaned out the duck shed with the help of Mia while Sam was doing the horse, Mia was plastered in mud by the time she finished but she enjoyed helping out, I think she will be a great asset as she gets older as she likes to get stuck in ‘I help’ is what she says 😀 After that we went for a well earned costa 😀

Fed the chickens late afternoon and collected the eggs, we are managing to keep up at the moment and we have some fall back in the form of pullet eggs as they are all laying now. We moved the new ducks back into the stable overnight to see what was happening with the eggs as I only got 1 yesterday, I think it’s because they don’t lay as early as my established lot, they have all laid by 8am which is when I let them out. The new ones seem to lay all during the morning and so yesterday they would have probably laid outside and the birds would eat them. I opened the stable at midday and they have gone for a wander so I may have to keep putting them in the stable for the time being otherwise I won’t get any eggs at all.

The book about feeding rabbits naturally arrived and I have part read it, very interesting, there is a lot of fresh food that I knew they could have of course but also some that I had no idea about. I think I have an abundance of assorted material that I will be able to feed them on and save money on pelleted feed, as I have said Spring and summer will be easy it’s the winter and autumn will be more difficult. With that in mind I have knocked up a herb drying screen, it’s rudimentary but it does the job and I made it with stuff I had lying round so free as well 😀 It will be for drying summer herbs that I can make a herb hay with in time. When I started researching it I was amazed that you can buy freshly cut willow sticks for your rabbit online at £12.99kg and dried raspberry leaves, two resources that I usually assign to the compost heap, not anymore, everything will be assessed for rabbit fodder!

Wednesday: A pleasant enough morning, early drizzle but that went and after the morning rounds I got on with some things in the garden. I put some water in a large bucket and then a sack full of manure in the water to make some manure feed, I still have some concentrate left from last year but no time like the present to make some more. Planted up some of the Pak Choi seedlings, some in the large tunnel and some in the small, the weaker seedlings I have planted in a square mushroom container to grow on for the rabbits, I doesn’t matter if they don’t survive but if they do that a bonus. Uncovered and moved the citrus trees into the large tunnel also gave them a feed, they haven’t done too badly over winter and two lemons are still clinging on in there, then tidied up the small tunnel where they have been overwintering. Pinched out the tips of the broad bean plants now that they have started to flower, the soft fleshy tops attract black fly and they are good to eat so they will be wilted and I will eat them with fish later today. Everything else is still a bit slow but hopefully once the temps climb they will burst into life 😜 Still all too wet to do much on the garden itself, too wet to hoe, to wet to walk on really so it’s a waiting game. I read an article about earthing up potatoes, ha, they haven’t even gone in the ground yet! I collected some forage bits for the rabbits to eat, I am looking at everything as potential rabbit feed now 🤣 I even thought about giving them the bean tops then decided against it, they can have the plants when they go over and I will have the tops 😝

Thursday: Got a little bit excited when my weather ap said 24 and sunny today, then it quickly corrected itself and went to 7 and light rain 😩 It’s grey and misty/damp out this morning hey ho beginning to get used to it now. Still waiting for the wire to arrive for the fruit cage otherwise I could have got on with that at least. The nighttime temperatures are no longer dropping so that’s a bonus, it means I don’t need to worry too much about the seedlings in the greenhouse as they should be fine, I can’t see a frost forecast for the next two weeks, famous last words 😜

Went in the greenhouse after feeding and pricked out the broccoli seedlings, once again I have about 50 plants lol don’t know what I’m going to do with all those! I also potted on the Aubergines and moved them into the large poly tunnel underneath another cloche, I have no idea if they will survive or not but they have got too big for the windowsill and there is no where else to move them to at the moment. I did the same with some pepper plants, the tomatoes I did last week seem to be holding their own, waiting for some warmth like the rest of us. The courgettes I had in the propagator on the window sill rotted away, I have never known a year like this one, normally things can be slow but this is ridiculous! There are things that are growing however so all is not lost, the strawberries in the tunnel have grown some flowers 😀 the garlic has sprouted that I planted out last week, the peas in the small tunnel have flowers on, the rhubarb is getting bigger, hope springs eternal, as Pope said.

Came in about 11.30 with the intention of doing some baking but the Sam arrived and we went out to clean the tack room and throw a whole load of crap away, then sorted out all the fencing stakes and electric tape so that it was all in one place finally. Then the rain came, again 😟

Came indoors to make an egg/dairy/gluten free cake, sounds like a recipe for disaster and may well be, it’s still in the oven but I’m not hopeful that this mix is going to bind together while cooking 😝

Then out to do the pm feeding and egg collection, take a couple of photos of the quail house on my way round for someone who wants an idea on how to build their own, then off to look at a property with Shelley and Martin, busy day 🤪

Friday: Road trip 😀 actually it was five minutes down the lane to the Cotswold Wildlife Park, so I got the morning rounds done quickly and off we went, picnic packed, plenty of layers on, had an exhausting day but thoroughly enjoyed by all of us😀

Back home in time to do the afternoon feeding but not before a well earned cup of tea and a sit down.

Did the feeding, collected the eggs, fed the horse then cleaned out the POL pen at the back, John came home halfway through doing it so gave me a hand and then we went to pick up some new pets 😀

You will remember the story of what a rogue ferret did to my guinea pigs back in November, well I have two news ones, meet Tinker and Tucker, two little boars from a friends of ours that breeds them.

I ordered 100g of wild flower seeds for heavy shade, we have put poultry fence all along the roadside of the side paddock, it has a lot of trees along there and we decided it was heavily shaded and as it is fenced off at the moment hopefully the seeds will grow.

Saturday: Cracking day, Sun, Sun, Sun all day long 😀 After feeding this morning we got on with wiring the fruit cage as the rolls had arrived finally. In my search for the right size hole and the right height and length as I wanted 25m long 1m high x 2 I didn’t check the quality of the wire and as a consequence it was not really a great quality, the top and bottom wires were pulled too tight causing bagging in the middle, however we have put it on and it dose not look too bad. Just got the netting to put over the top and the door to wire then it’s finished 😀

Grand National Day, and whatever your thoughts are on horse racing, in our house the GN has always been a big day, normally we would all be in the living room screaming at the telly (except last year when none of us had any horse anywhere near finishing) this year we had a group FaceTime as Charlie is in Italy and Sam was at her house, Shelley and Martin came to ours for the event, Martin and I both had the winner this year 😀 However I made the mistake of doing the bet online, not the same I would rather go and collect cash winnings from the bookies. And that was pretty much it especially as I had to spend a couple of hours on hold while trying to unlock my betting account (which I opened for the occasion) having cocked up signing in in the first place 😝

I was hoping tomorrow was going to be similar to today but rain is forecast ffs!

Sunday: Well it’s not too bad to wake up to, it’s dry at the moment and though obviously a lot cooler than yesterday, it’s not bad at all. Got the feeding done, cleaned out the geese and put fresh bedding in for the ducks, then it was on to finish the fruit cage. We joined together the two lots of wire, top and bottom and then got the net out to put over the roof, John had tensioned two wires across to support the netting. Almost immediately it became apparent that the net was a bit too short, we turned it round and nope it was not quite going to stretch, umming and arghing we decided to put up what we could and we would have to get another piece and stitch it together, not ideal but we had already bought this piece. At this point John decided to measure the length and width, now I did ask him to do this in the beginning and he told me it was definitely 8m x 5m, on measuring it properly this time he admitted it was 8.5m long, no wonder it won’t reach 🤪 I made an executive decision to reorder a piece big enough to cover the whole thing and will use the other netting elsewhere.

After we couldn’t finish that, John went to clean out the hens at the front and I did some hoeing on the veg beds, the asparagus is just starting to poke through so I weeded that bed and a couple of others. I no longer think weeding is a chore as it is now seen as rabbit fodder, I always used to give them the dandelions but now they are having nearly every weed and tuft of grass, two birds with one stone comes to mind. Then I did a bit of work on a new bed I have made at the bottom of one of the raised veg beds, I decided I don’t have enough flowers and so marked that area off at the end of last year for the purpose. I have a small raised bed in front of it which is also filled with primula, cowslips, dwarf lavender and a rose, I put some tete a tete bulbs in there so it will mostly be a spring bed and the first to give colour. Most of the plants I have chosen to go in there will be single flower because that is best for the insects and especially the bees, they can’t gather pollen from double headed flowers. There won’t be much uniformity to it, it will be what I have got already and planted haphazardly (until it gets on my nerves then I will re arrange it all 😜) It began to rain while I was doing this last part but it wasn’t cold so I carried on until the rain became a bit too heavy, no point damagingthe soil by treading it down.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Wind, a fence and some much needed R&R 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 12th Feb: What a fabulous day, after the endless miserable weather we have had today was welcomed with, let’s get busy, thoughts. To begin with it was still frozen but without that cold wind, so I began tidying up, putting away, picking wind blown paraphernalia up. By mid morning it was thawing but still frozen so into the greenhouse, which by the way was a balmy 17c thanks to the bubble wrap 😀I potted on the blueberry bushes, some primula and pansies, sowed some pak Choi seeds before going on to dig out a huge patch of stingers that have taken over the orchard area. Before I did all that this morning I had put up some temporary fence and let the orchard pen birds out into the whole of the orchard, they had a great time as I was digging and pulling up nettle roots.

Also inbetween all that I had lit the fire and got the dinner ready for tonight, a slow roasted breast of lamb, well it was supposed to be slow roasted except that the Rayburn was in full flo today and by the time I came back inside the oven was up to roast and the lamb was cooking too fast 😩 I have come to the conclusion that you can either work outside and neglect inside or you can work inside and neglect outside but trying to do both doesn’t work very well. The lamb will be fine in the end I’m sure but the best laid plans and all that 🤪

I would have carried on until I had done all the nettles, there is a small patch left to do, but I though I would have an hour sat down before beginning the afternoon session, good job or the lamb would have been crispy 😝

Tuesday: I’ve got wind again! Nope it’s not something I have eaten 🤪 it’s outside battering the heck out of the farm. Winters, I find, are usually defined by the weather that prevailed the most, you know, it was a wet winter, it was a dry winter, it was a cold winter, well this is the first time I will write, it’s been a windy winter, I have never known so many wind storms and strong ones at that. The weather, always a constant topic on this island and even more so among those who work outside, is not as reliable as it used to be, even going back eight years you could work around what was likely to be but these days nothing is certain, climate change or weather patterns that stretch over millennia? I personally think a bit of both, I mean, you can’t say that all the weather deviations are caused by climate change and ignore the greatest power on Earth, Mother Nature, and although we as a species are always pushing the boundaries of knowledge, there is so much more in the Universe we don’t understand yet. 🌍 we’ve had Ice Ages and mini ice ages, I know those could not have been stopped even by the greatest of brains, what if we are now on a naturally warming cycle, ok we would be contributing to it massively but we wouldn’t be able to stop it. Who knows, not us because ‘since records began’ is a tiny nano second in comparison to the age of the Earth.

I ordered some grass seed today for the chicken paddocks, we have different seed for different grazing, the poultry mix has a short ryegrass which is hard wearing and grows pretty quickly, combined with clovers and fescue we have been really impressed with how well the grass has stood up to the weather this winter, as it grows quite quickly and goes to seed fairly early it also is thickening up the ley as it does so, providing the hens don’t eat all the seed!

Wednesday: Crap weather again, did the basics outside in the morning, went to lunch at Shelley’s with Sam, did the basics in the afternoon and John put the birds away, well most of them as there are remnants on Thursday morning of chicken feathers 😟

Thursday: Nice sunny start, soon started spitting with rain 🌧 I will be honest I’m struggling, physically and mentally today. This thing with my hands is becoming a nuisance, I have to take anti inflammatory in the morning just to be able to get stuff done, not good, coupled with trudging/slipping my way through the feeding rounds. I have buckets of eggs to wash but after carry heavy buckets of feed and scrapping the hen hut floor my hands are just not willing and neither am I 🙄 I’m tired after being awake half the night with chronic acid reflux, my own fault as I spent a couple of hours bent over cutting up felt pieces for some craftwork, should have used a higher table. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day 😐

Gave my arse a kick and cleaned out the geese, the sun came back out 🌞 makes a difference.

Friday: After doing the usual routine I spent a lot of time in traffic going to and from the hospital with Shelley and Josh as Shelley went for her 36 week scan 😀 I am amazed at how technology has come on, in my day you could only hear babies heart beat now you can see pictures, see what sex they are, tell if they have hair and roughly how much they weigh amazing! Josh was convinced it was a hippo he could see on the screen instead of his baby sister 😜

Saturday: Had a more productive day today, I cleaned out the ducks while John did the rest of the feeding, then some tidying and clearing outside, that’s all we seem to do and don’t get anywhere! I then decided I needed a small fence round my plants outside the back door as the dogs keep knocking over the pots and digging holes in the dirt so I set about making a fence as you do lol. It turned out ok and serves the purpose I need it for.

John cleaned out the front hen hut and cut up some wood plus got a few wheelbarrow fulls inside for next week, we are slowly getting through the wood mountain.

This morning we also caught up all the baby rabbits and took them to the far corner paddock where we released them into some scrub, it was that or raise them for meat and I didn’t really want to do that, if we lived a frugal life I would have but we don’t need to so they can run free. The babies that were born under the decking or shed I’m not sure which, have not been seen for days, I did find remnants of one in the stable block so I’m guessing that the cats have caught them, along with a headless pheasant I found in the stables too, now if they could just catch a few mice and rats that would be awesome 😀

Tomorrow we are off to The Pig in the Wood for an overnight stay that the girls bought us for Christmas so we are looking forward to a bit of R & R. The girls will be looking after the farm and taking over from John looking after his Mum so a huge thanks to them all 😘😘

This store room at the place we stayed was amazing, all the produce that was grown on site then pickled, dried or made is store here until needed, I am so going to have one of these 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Dead duck, disappearing baby rabbits and parsnip cake. 

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: Woke up with a touch of vertigo today so just about got round and did the feeding then mostly tried to sit still all day until the next lot of feeding in the afternoon! Thankfully it had passed by early evening and fingers crossed it won’t come back for a while. Bit of a waste of a day but sometimes the body is just trying to tell you to stop. 

Tuesday: Better today, not dizzy but have a head cold blurhh, sweating as I did the morning rounds. Got a few things done before Mia arrives, some potatoes that needed digging up and put up some protective fencing around the fruit trees in the front paddock, the geese keep trying to strip the bark which will kill them off if I don’t stop it now. 

Wednesday: Lovely sunny morning ☀️ got the feeding done then onto picking the rest of the veg I started getting in yesterday. There are potatoes, parsnip, celeriac, snack peppers, hot peppers. The pepper plants in the poly tunnel are huge but did not produce much, however they are still healthy plants and as peppers are perennial plants I will see what I can do to overwinter them, it would be great to get such a head start on them next year, I also think I need to keep the plants smaller so that they produce fruit quicker, can’t hurt to try. After that I went to clean out the geese and then put fresh bedding in for the ducks, which by the way we are lucky to still have this morning after John did not shut them in, either their house nor their pen, the gate was wide open this morning and they were taking themselves off down to the paddock! Still have a touch of vertigo but not too bad, I think it’s caused by this head cold which is also something and nothing at the moment, hope it doesn’t get worse 😝 

Ordered some ‘meteor’ pea seeds as the last ones I planted got eaten by something, I will be growing them the way we used to in school, well starting them off that way at least, on a wet piece of tissue on the windowsill along with the broad beans. I’m guessing it’s mice pinching the seeds before they even get started, I can’t blame them really but they are interrupting my growing attempts, so starting them off then planting them will hopefully give me a better shot at it. 


I am making roasted celeriac soup today, have not made it before so I am hoping it tastes good, I made fresh bread yesterday so that will be dinner tonight, we try and have a meal in the week that rests the gut a little, besides soup is such an easy and delicious thing to have. There are recipes for apple and celeriac soup but I opted for just the celeriac, with a touch of garlic.

As I was looking for recipes I found one for parsnip Madeira cake, yeah, I will let you know what it tastes like once it’s cooked lol. Next to chocolate cake, Madeira is one of Johns favourite cakes so we will see how it goes down. 

Verdict is still out, it’s edible and not at all unpleasant, John asked me not to tell him what was in it so I haven’t and he has been eating it just fine lol, I quite like it though I wouldn’t put it on my favs list. 

Thursday: Drizzle today, as the mornings are quite dark, before even going out to do the feeding I cleaned the bathroom, after feeding I got on with some washing and cleaning the rest of the house and that was pretty much the day for me, John was home early so he did the afternoon feed and collected the eggs and lit the fire, Sam came over and did the horse, I did do a bit of paperwork that needed doing. 

Goodness I haven’t noted anything for Friday or Saturday lol so I will have to round up, did the usual feeding etc. I can’t actually remember what I did Friday except that I thought all the baby rabbits had gone, turns out they were hiding behind the side of the hut and a wall, so much for me blocking up all the holes! Had Josh in the morning while Shelley and Martin went for a scan on baby, she is a pink one 💕😀 Sam and Mia came over in the afternoon and Charlie came round in the evening. Saturday morning I did a bit of clearing in the poly tunnel, I have cut back all the peppers as they won’t produce anything now, but they are perennial so I have given them a good watering and covered them to see if they will survive winter, no harm in trying.  I also put fleece jumpers on my lemon and orange trees, gave them a good last watering and bubble wrapped the pots they are in, I have about 5 small lemons growing and hoping they make it through the winter. I intend to move them into the large tunnel next year but need to build some raised boxes for them so that they are not in wet cold ground, ideally a conservatory is needed but we don’t have one so  until we do I hope they survive, they did last year but it was fairly mild. 

On one of those days the disabled duck died 😩 she has had a bad leg, I tried rest and all kinds of other things but in the end she just seemed to get on with it as it was, she was eating and drinking fine, she even learnt how to stand on one leg, just using the other which was pretty useless, to balance on but when I opened the hut one of those mornings she didn’t come out and had died overnight. 

Sunday: Sunny but a cold wind, and the clocks have gone back, that will mean dark nights and it really doesn’t seem much lighter in the mornings either! 

Posted in Friesland Farm

Butterflies, pitta bread & Countryfile Live 😀

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: I was a bit preoccupied last week what with visitors and John off and forgot to mention that I got some bantam eggs and they are now in the incubator, we also had no hot water as the immersion heater went on Friday so cold showers all round until its fixed, I have ordered the part and hope it arrives soon. Strangely enough we suddenly have some luke warm water this morning?? No idea what is going on with that (found out later John had fixed it) 

The sun is shining this morning and the two buddliea globosa, which have orange ball shaped flowers, are dancing with butterflies, mostly painted lady and red admiral, the odd peacock and also plenty of bees, all feeding on the nectar.

Well the day went a bit pear shaped when my neighbour shouted to me over the fence, she thought someone had dumped rubbish in her field but turns out that someone had been trying to nick Johns well hidden scrap from behind the hay barn, they had 30 bags of it lined up ready to go. Luckily John had heard the dog barking around 12.30 last night and got up, turned all the lights on and let the other dogs out, I guess they scarpered! He had to come home and retrieve it from the field, sure hope they don’t come back again it makes you feel very uneasy to know that people are prowling around. Activity has been high in the last couple of weeks as we have had some undesirables move in just a couple of miles down the road. 

Tuesday: All was well overnight thank goodness. A bright sunny start to the day, I did the feed round and then took Kai up to the back paddock for a grooming session, he is moulting like mad at the moment and the field looks like something has been massacred but it’s just fur. Mia arrived and sat out in the garden for a bit while I picked some tomatoes, which she kept pointing to and saying ‘egg’ lol, pulled up some weeds for the bunnies and guinea pigs, then she got bored of that so we went inside. 

Another couple of showers again later on in the day, I really think that might be it for summer now😝 the seasons seem to be all different the last few years, usually the ants start flying around early August but they have already gone a few weeks ago and this mornings mist was definitely autumnal.

Made bread once Mia had gone home, while I was at it I made a batch of ginger biscuits and something I wanted to have a go at for the first time, pitta bread. I don’t like the shop bought pittas, they are at the very least, disappointing 😏 and I have never had one that has been made by someone so I thought I would give it a go. They take 5 mins to mix up, an hour to prove the dough and then 1 and half minutes each to cook, brilliant, the results were mixed, some puffed up, some didn’t but apparently that doesn’t matter unless you want to fill it, but for humous non puffed is fine and they will freeze fine so don’t have to be eaten all at once lol. They are quite delicious and nothing like the cardboard things in the supermarket, they would easily lend themselves to dips, mopping up curry, chilli, stew yep a definite winner. 


Wednesday: Filthy day from start to finish! Didn’t really get much done outside apart from the routine stuff and a bit of picking early on, Mia arrived and Shelley and Josh came over to play and that was pretty much how the day went. Sure hope the rain eases of soon 😜 

John spent the evening outside moving the woodpile to fill the gap that the nighttime visitors were obviously trying to use.

Thursday: Not raining but windy and spitting and overcast, the jet stream is too high up for good weather it seems 😝 Nevertheless jobs need to be done so did the usual feeding routine, sold out of eggs by goodness knows what time this morning 8.30 I think, the earliest customer coming around 7.30! The chap a couple of miles down the road has given up his 150 hens due to ill health and I guess some are coming here however we don’t have enough hens to supply them all. 

After feeding I did picking, runner, dwarf beans, courgettes, tomato, swede and beetroot, the veg suddenly seems to be getting snapped up at a great rate too, maybe new customers? I pulled up some weeds and perpetual spinach plus some herbs for the rabbits and guinea pigs and a tub full of herbs for the chickens to peck over. I saw a programme where the local chicken farm was feeding a mix of chopped up leftover herbs from a herb farm so I thought I would try it on mine and see how they like it. Then onto the POL pen as it is getting very muddy with all the rain, I think it is still coming in through the roof and I will have to watch it to see what is happening as John appears not to have fixed it with his two bits of wood propping it up 😜Cleaned up the floor, chucked in some bits for them to scratch around for and changed the low water trough for two buckets as this may be part of the problem, when emptying it you can’t help but tip it all over the floor, better to have buckets that can be carried away for emptying. 

I had to look up two potential problems, one, blood in chicken poop but a chart analysis reassured me that it was just the shedding of lining and normal, thank goodness for that, the hens are all vaccinated but coccidiosis is always a worry, technically they shouldn’t get it but it’s possible one may have escaped the vaccination process and the second problem is the yellowing of the leaves on the tomato plants, it’s not blight and it doesn’t appear to be a nutrient deficiency, at this time of the season it is more likely to be the plants beginning to shut down. They have done their job, grown, produced flowers, then fruit (which is starting to ripen) and that’s a job done as far as they are concerned, I think it’s a little early but then so is everything else this year! 

In the afternoon I cleaned out the quail and then the ducks, both huts are mucky from the wet weather, at this time of year they shouldn’t need cleaning out so much! Then I went on to burn the paper feed sacks etc and remembered I needed to check out the greengage plums. Normally I don’t pick anything until it’s ripe but the greengage are the exception to the rule this year, I usually leave them until they are just about ready but find that the wasps get there first. Gages are the sweetest of plums, there is a scale measurement for fruit sweetness but I can’t find the reference now, gages come pretty high on the scale even though they look like they might be sour, trust me, they are not. I usually end up with a couple of handfuls but this year I have hit the jackpot with them, the damsons on the other hand are not so good and as I still have some in the freezer from last year I may leave them all for the wasps 😀 I also have Victoria’s but they seem, contrary to everything else, well behind schedule ?? Plums grown commercially are picked before they are ripe, then stored, then pumped with ethylene which is the same gas given off by bananas and some other fruit so all I need to do with the gages is leave them on the side next to the fruit bowl to ripen. I will probably put a few out for sale but mostly I will be eating them in their natural state 😀 I just realised that they are also free of coddling moth grubs this year so the traps I put up last year and the sticky bands have done the job, in fact all the top fruit is free of it so well done me 😝 

Friday seems to be lost somewhere 😝

Saturday: Whoop whoop we are off to Countryfile live today so up early to do the animals then off out for the day, Shelley is in charge at the farm 😀

We had a fab day out, it was one of the best shows of that type I have been to, something for everyone, everything to do with the countryside and a little bit more. I learnt a lot, ate a lot, walked a lot and talked to a lot of people. So many people are very passionate about their breed or their product or their skills it was the perfect place to showcase them all. The rare breeds, bees and using a scythe really caught my interest and we both thoroughly enjoyed watching the Stihl Timbersports British Championship. 

Sunday: Lol, John was up early this morning and when he was dressed realised it was Sunday and not Monday as he had thought 😝 The weather looked set to be fair and so we got on with feeding and then a bit of picking for me while John cut up some of the wood from the pile that seems to be multiplying while we are not looking. I swept the front driveway and cut the grass, it does look so much better when it’s done but I can’t help thinking it won’t be long until the Autumn leaves will be making a mess. There are little villages of mushrooms sprouting up all over the place, they look fabulous when they first bloom and add another dimension to the garden areas. 

Posted in Friesland Farm

Courgettes, courgettes and many more courgettes 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday: It’s cooler this morning which means it’s a lot easier to be motivated as I’m not sweating doing the morning rounds. I did a bit of watering but we are expecting rain tomorrow so I have left most of the garden, if it doesn’t come I shall be watering for hours 😝 Went to Millets Farm with the grandchildren today to see the animals, fell in love with the Pygmy goats lol, definitely would like to get some one day. 

We had a bird come in the window again today, this time it panicked and flew into the room then into the kitchen, eventually I managed to get it out of the side window, bizarre, it’s radar must be well off centre. We seem to have quite a lot of small birds especially sparrows at the moment, by my reckoning the bird boxes have had two possibly three lots of hatchlings in each box this year which is fabulous but they must be getting pretty full of debris by now and will need a good clean out eventually. 

Tuesday: It finally rained ☔️☔️ just a bit overnight, but hopefully we will get more, the grass will be refreshed with just a bit but the trees and the shrubs need more so fingers crossed. 

I have a feeling I am going to have hundreds of courgettes this year lol so I have been looking up recipes, I tried the Parmesan fingers, they are ok but I need to cut them thinner I think, I like them crispy. Also chocolate/courgette cake, I am always a bit wary of these recipes as mostly the veg doesn’t really add anything to the cake but I have found a recipe that uses oil instead of butter so I consider it to be a little more healthy. I am not a great lover of courgette, I add them to stews etc to bulk it out but never really tried much else with them, this is obviously the year to go for it and see what happens. 

While searching through Pinterest I found a recipe for something entirely different that I am going to have to have a go at making, banana and peanut butter bread pudding, mmmmm all of my favs rolled into one and useful as a winter breakfast I reckon, I shall be saving all the end bits of bread for this one 😀 

The courgette cake tastes lovely, definitely will do that one again.


I glanced out of the door to see one of our rabbits hopping round the garden, I looked over to their run to see the door wide open and also the door to the orchard pen 😝 we had a child visitor this morning who went to see them but didn’t close and bolt the doors properly, I put Mia in the pushchair and under a tree as it was spitting with rain and proceeded to round them up, luckily they were easy to round up and it was done fairly quickly, lesson: it’s worth double checking the gates even if someone says they have shut them 😜
Well it’s has definitely rained and rained good, thank goodness for that, the garden and paddocks were desperate, I mean really desperate, the raspberry bushes were beginning to die back, the fruit trees were dropping their fruit, the paddocks, especially the chicken paddock was bare and dry and brown but it will have a new lease of life after the rain. Normally we could easily go three weeks without rain but not with the temperatures we have had as well, you can spend hours watering but nothing is as good as a rain shower, it’s charged with energy to start with and blanket coverage means every root gets a drink. 

Wednesday: Got some picking done, the runner beans are getting big enough to pick now, had Mia so didn’t get much else done apart from playing 😜

Went out into the back paddock in the evening, John missed a bit of ragwort so had to show him where it was, saw the little owl while we were out there and discussed having mains electric fencing instead of post and rail as the wood seems to rot away so quickly, either way we will have to spend some dollar 😜

Thursday: Rained a little over night which is welcome. This morning I am multitasking in a big way lol, I’ve stripped the sofas to wash the covers which will take 4 loads, done the feeding, got the sourdough bread on the go and picked fruit and veg, then on to clean the house. 

I picked more courgettes, not quite sure what I am going to do with them all 😝 picked a few runner beans and some purple dwarf beans and a couple of outdoor cucumbers. In the fruit cage I picked raspberries and then some loganberries, these are like large blackberries and they need picking on time as they readily fall off the bush onto the floor. I need to make some jam with them but I also still have ironing to do from weeks ago lol, which activity will win, I’m leaning towards the jam. The sourdough bread is going to take a lot longer to prove than normal bread I think, I have done a fair bit of reading about it all to try and understand exactly what needs doing and why I’m doing it, so far I seem to have got the hang of it but we shall see how the bread turns out before I can say it’s a success. 

In the end I did the ironing so I could watch the tennis at the same time lol, thinking about it I could do with a tv in the kitchen then I would never have to sit down 😋

Things were going well, I was getting loads done and then pain struck in the bottom of my thumb joint, you don’t realise how much you use your thumb until you can’t! I must have strained it somehow and it was very painful, took a couple of ibrufen and waited for it to get better which is did but slowly, turning off a tap, lifting a saucepan even doing up your jeans is so much more difficult never mind putting the covers back on or prepping veg.

The sourdough was ok, not 100% but around 90 I would say, I think the mix was too wet as when it was proving it started to spread over the side of the tin, tastes good though and the texture is good, the next one will hopefully be even better. 

Friday: whipped round his morning as have routine blood tests to get to. Later in the afternoon my Friday help came and did some picking, the courgette numbers are ridiculous, I have no idea what I was thinking planting that many! We inspected the chick peas and there are loads of little pods on the plants, happy with that. I did a bit of tidying and some picking, then collected the eggs, the pullets are laying really well and we are getting 36 out of 38 birds already which is helping out in the egg shed massively. 

I was very sad to hear that our local fencing supplier had died, he was ‘old skool’ and a real character, I shall miss him ringing up for duck eggs and giving me abuse if we didn’t have any lol. 

The air tattoo is on his weekend and we have had noisy aeroplanes around all day today, it would be nice if the cloud lifted so we could actually see them and get a free show. 

Saturday: Got off to a flying start, John did the birds out in the front paddock while I did the others then he went off on the fortnightly feed run, meanwhile I cleaned the boot room, burnt the paper sacks and rubbish and started tidying up the back covered area, John helped to finish that when he came back. I had put the wildlife camera out last night up the back and checked out the footage, Mr Fox, no surprise there. Did a bit of veg picking while John watched the qualifying and I had a good haul of self set potatoes, they will feed us for a week or two at least. I spotted 10 apricots on the tree, the birds had already got to a few of them but I ended up with six, not bad considering I thought the frost had got all of them, maybe next year will be better (I say that every year, last year they were plentiful but pitted). Such was the success of the courgette/choc cake I have made another two today along with some more sourdough bread and a regular loaf. The sourdough takes ages to prove, I think I may go back to the old way but not until I have used up the starter and at least I know how to do it now even if I don’t! 

We have another fly phenomenon in the living room this time, I hoovered up around 30 flies yesterday, we have identified where they are coming from and John has gone to get some expanding foam to fill the hole. The problem is the wooden hollow walls and the rat poison, bad combination 😝 still at least we can fix it, he is also picking up some wasp nest killer as I still have a nest in one of the compost bins and I can’t work near it because they get angry, I will show them who is boss 😉 We have a bees nest in the feed room but I won’t be killing them off as they tend to mind their own business as long as we mind ours and we can co exist quite happily. 
Courgette and Chocolate cake recipe


Basically just put it all in a big bowl and stir, then bake at around 160c for approx 40mins or until the knife comes out clean. This make two lb loaf tin size cakes, give it a go you won’t be disappointed I can tell you. I used pecans in the first one and walnuts in the next lot, also olive oil in the first because that’s all I had and sunflower in the second lot. You can buy courgettes in the little shed 😜😜 or actually I have that many that if you are reading this and just ask me I will give you some for free 😀
I have set the camera again tonight, lets see what, if anything, we get.

Sunday:  Checked the camera and have more video of Mr Fox, I have tried in vain to transfer it from my laptop to the iPad if I actually succeed then it will be on here fingers crossed. In the end I had to video the video!  Nope I couldn’t upload it even then 😔 I will try uploading it onto the Friesland Farm Facebook page and hope that works. 

​Martin came over to do some more to the play pirate ship, just some finishing touches to go now, the smile on Joshua’s face was a mile wide when he went in, Mia and him will have such fun although I think us adults will have just as much, can’t wait to dress up and play pirates, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. 

Pulled up an enormous swede today, there were a couple more that were quite big and I don’t really want them any bigger so I dug four up and hopefully they will store well until they are needed. A drop more rain this afternoon means I won’t have to water 💦 yay. A common problem this year is tomatoes not setting fruit, mine included, plenty of flowers but they are not turning into fruit at all, it was the hot spell that caused it, the pollen becomes sterile if the temps are consistently high, there are a few tomatoes on each plant so all is not lost but it would have been nice to have had a jackpot load. 

Posted in Friesland Farm

Why?

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Now I know what some of you are thinking ‘what’s Hubby done now’ sorry to disappoint you, he appears to be blemish free this week! The ‘why?’ are genuine musings that I have pondered over while going about my work, I work alone all day, every day for at least five days a week and so with only myself to talk to (not out loud, I hasten to add) questions pop up all the time and none more so than this week.

Some musings are more intelligent than others such as why are we trading with China? and do we have more to fear from the controlling president of that country than we do from thousands of immigrants pouring into Europe with the only agenda for them being a decent life for their families? Sorry, that’s probably a bit deep for a smallholding blog but it is what goes on in my head along with why do flies make that irritating buzzing sound when they fly? Birds fly, but they don’t make a sound like you instantly want to swat them every time they come near, come to think of it they do not dive bomb you every few seconds either. They are not very clever, I mean if they went silently about their business we wouldn’t be reaching for the fly spray in the height of summer would we?

Other musings range from, why did we lend our new 1m blade electric hedge trimmer out and why didn’t they notice that the flex was dangerously close to the blade that chops thing off? I actually know the answer to this, because said person is an idiot that is why, and now we have a lovely piece of blue tape covering up the joiner (exasperated sigh) Shall I continue? Why when there are five acres, and a considerable amount of countryside thereafter available, does the cat want to **** right where you have just planted seedlings?  Why wont the geese go to bed on the only night there is no one around to help? Why would you think it is perfectly ok to go and get your eggs from the local smallholding honesty shed at 11.30pm? Why didn’t anyone bring me chocolate home today? they must have known I needed some 🙂 It is at this point you are probably thinking, yep, she spends too much time on her own with only the chickens to talk to lol

Why is life so cruel sometimes? that applies to humans and animals alike, this week it all went very wrong for one of our new point of lay hens, life was ticking along nicely for her, she had been reared in a shed for the best part of 16 weeks then she arrived here and had her first taste of outdoor life, the smells, sounds, and new sights such as dogs and horses, in her prime she laid her first egg and disaster struck. A prolapse is not something I have had to deal with before and so I turned to Google to find out what to do, first bathe the prolapse in antiseptic, then using Vaseline and gloves push the prolapse back to where it came from (not for the squeamish I can assure you)  use Witch Hazel to bathe it afterwards in the hopes that it will retract and deflate. Leave the hen somewhere quiet overnight with water only and see what happens, the hen went into shock, that’s what happened and so the kindest thing to do was ‘the deed’. Normally I don’t get sentimental feelings over the hens but I really felt sorry for this one, she was only a youngster and hardly had a chance at a happy life.

The tidying up of the veg plot has continued this week and this morning I began to venture out further onto the farm and identify areas that needed doing, one main area being the hedge along the front driveway. So that is where I was, trimming the hedge with my blue bandaged electric trimmer when today’s Why? came along, actually I wonder this one every year and people who do it seem to think it is a very reasonable thing to do, I however, cannot see the point, except under certain circumstances (which I consider to be ludicrous anyway). Why do people feel the need to spend most of Autumn and the first part of Winter gathering up all the leaves that have been shed from the trees? Do people not know that the worms and the weather will do most of it for you without any sweat being broken at all? Perhaps its a case of that shiny red/green leafblower in the corner of the garage is calling and you cant wait to play with it or it might be that the only bit of earth that actually belongs to you (so to speak because I bet a pound to a penny if it came to it you would not own the fracking rights under your driveway) has been entirely covered with block paving or slabs (that’s the ludicrous bit as far as I’m concerned and a topic for a whole blog of its own one day) and understandably you don’t want to slip on the wet soggy leaves. If you leave those leaves they will enrich the soil beneath them, ok so I know it will look untidy for a few weeks but its far better for the ground than buying lawn feed or soil improver surely, you don’t have to break into your wallet or that sweat, you can sit in the evening sun, sipping your glass of cider/ale/prossecco smug in the knowledge that those worms are working for you 😉

Have a great week 🙂