Monday 11th January 2021: Another start to another week, it doesn’t really seem like a new year does it? I think we anticipated that 2021 was going to bring us the freedom we were used to before the pandemic but it seems to be worse now than ever before. The only difference is that mass vaccination is starting to get going, Shelley has volunteered to help with the local vaccination centre, helping to direct cars and people in the right direction. I do hope it will all start to make a difference soon for the sake of my sanity as well as everyone else’s I’m sure.
You may be wondering about the birds, they are still in lockdown and last time they were not allowed out until April 🙄 To be honest it’s better for us as we don’t have to worry about fox attacks, if it really wanted to it could dig under but it would be hard going for most of the stables, it’s also easy and quick to nip out to the stable block for feeding and egg collecting plus it’s warmer than going to the paddocks. Having said all that I doubt very much the birds think it’s better, locked up day and night and not free roaming, not able to peck at the grass or any worms/insects, roll on spring for all manner of reasons including the welfare of the birds.
John finally finished the last bit of the floor last night, yay, now we can begin to paint and wallpaper it and lay some flooring on the top of the new floor. I am glad that is the last of the dusty work done, did I mention the dust 🤣🤣 Every individual thing will need to be dusted or cleaned before it goes back onto the shelves, I did say to John at one point ‘you are not working in an empty house ya know’ meaning he could have covered things up with dust sheets before he started, but no, let’s just get the saw out and start cutting 😖 small thing I know and let’s face it I do have plenty of time on my hands but still 🙄
I put a picture up of the kittens last week though they are getting big now but we also still have Diesel, the difference is that he does not come anywhere near the house, he eats and sleeps outside, mostly in the hay barn where he makes himself a tunnel into the hay, I imagine that is lovely and warm 😀
The fire bricks arrived, can’t remember if I said that last week or not but by the old ‘law of the sod’ the Rayburn has settled right down and our temporary bricks are doing fine so for that reason we have not installed the new ones as yet but we will do soon.
We got the animals done first thing and then we went off to the diy shop to get paint and all that we need to do the job and get the wallpaper hung. So we have spent hours rubbing bits down and then painting the first coat and then the second coat. The painting is mainly my job, John does not like doing it, nor do I really but someone has to 🙄 John is far too impatient for that kind of job, as it is he keeps rushing me to get the next coat on, you have to wait for the last one to dry first I keep telling him. At the moment everything has had two coats of white and part of the mdf has been primed, still a long way to go yet but we are getting there. Today it has been Johns job to do the afternoon rounds and get the fire sorted and keep it going, it will be interesting to see what he gets us for dinner 😜
I decided we will paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls, it is quite a light colour and I honestly can’t see the point of painting it white just because that is what is always done, I may have made an error but we will see. Painted it now and it’s a bit darker than we thought but I quite like it, it’s my she cave 😂 It will be less of an office and more of a workroom for sewing, ancestry research, crafting, reading and a little bit of paperwork plus the grandchildren will have their toys and books in there in there so a playroom as well, multifunctional 🥰
I always like to do things a bit differently 😜 when I was in my early teens I had my Mum hang my wallpaper sideways because I preferred the look, it was late seventies and the wallpaper was stripes with a kind of bump in it so I thought it would look awesome sideways on, like a heartbeat trace 😀
Tuesday: I am pleased with the painting even the ceiling, it looks great and you can hardly tell it’s the same colour as the walls. John did the outside jobs then went off to get some feed as we have completely run out. Meanwhile I had a shower, got some washing on and filled and painted a couple of bits that needed doing plus cleaned the windows. We are ready to wallpaper the one wall, it’s been a few years since I did any wallpapering so I am a bit apprehensive especially as the one roll of paper I bought cost an arm and a leg 😜 It was exactly what I wanted though and so I figure it justified the price, I now have to make sure I don’t cock up 🙄 and there is not much room for error with just one roll 😂 no pressure!
Wallpapering done 😀 it was a tense few minutes getting the first one right but it went well and looks great. Then I had to pop to the doctors to get a blood test, the practice is very busy getting ready for mass vaccinations starting on Friday. Then it was back home to begin another mammoth painting session, this time the shelving and desk area that John built in, first it needed a primer coat and then the first coat of paint, lots of nooks and crannies to paint round this time so it took a good couple of hours. John was on Rayburn and animal duty and even dinner and washing up duties today. Tomorrow Martin is coming to fit the door on the cupboard which is great and earlier than we expected him to be able to do it, so it should all be nearly finished by the end of the week I think, John will pick up some flooring to lay and then it will just be skirting board and put the door back on and voila, we can get on with another job 😜
Wednesday: We did the animals and then John went off to get a piece of mdf for the cupboard door that Martin is coming to fit. After that he went to get flooring, being very careful at the minute to sanitise hands all the time, the merchants like most shops are pretty good at controlling numbers and being covid secure. I got the Rayburn lit and do a bit of rubbing down ready for the last coat of paint on the shelving etc.
We had slightly worrying message this morning as my sister has tested positive for covid, hopefully she won’t suffer too much and recover quickly.
Spent the best part of the day still painting and getting the final floor covering down. I realise I made two mistakes on this project, first, letting John talk me into Matt paint, error, I should have stuck to my guns and gone with silk, and second, letting John go and get the flooring. I thought it would be safe enough after all we had seen it in the flesh and agreed on it and I sent him with a photograph of it and gave him the name of it 🙄 I go in when he has half laid it and say that does not look right it’s too light, nope this is the one he says, I look it up, no it’s not, definitely not. He tells me the name, nope that’s not the name I gave you! Anyhooo I am not going to change any of it now, I can’t be arsed, I just want to get it finished and everything back in so that I can have the living room back and get tided up.
Thursday: John does the morning outside rounds while I do the morning inside rounds 😝 and then he goes off to get another pack of flooring as he miscalculated 🙄 and I do some of the touch up painting which will hopefully be the last of the walls and desk area, just the skirting left to paint once we get it. John comes back and starts to get the last three bits of floor down, I can hear lots of swearing and grunting, it appears the last bits are being a bit of a pig to get it 😜
14th January 2013 we had to have our old dog Max put to sleep, his back legs went one morning and he just sat on the mat looking up at us 😢 The decision is never an easy one but we would always put the animals welfare before our feelings, no matter how much we loved him or how much we would miss him we made the call and that was the end of Max’s time with us. We had a difficult phone all to make first, our youngest, Charlotte was in Australia, she was very attached to Max, he was her childhood pet, we wanted to let her say goodbye first. We call the little paddock at the back Max’s paddock, that’s where our memories of him are, it’s fast becoming the memorial paddock as it has the trees for Johns Mum and Dad planted there as well 🥰 Felix the original farm cat is also buried up there, Milly who was my dog is buried in the garden under the lawn, we also have Gilbert who was my sisters cat buried under the oak tree, quite a cemetery we have here lol.
Ta da finally finished the room, hours of work, sweat and toil and it is all done bar the shouting 😜 It is looking amazing and I can wait to start using it, first though we will need to concentrate on the birds, cleaning out etc as they have not been done this week, that is the weekend taken care of then 🙄
Friday: Yay Friday 😀 even in a lockdown Friday feels good 😂 John did the morning rounds and then had a call out to a leak and another to a blockage 🙄 Meanwhile I have been busy cleaning, at last I can clean and hoover and polish and get everything put back where it is supposed to be. I got the living room back to normality and the spare room, all the grandchildren’s toys have been cleaned and hoovered and now sit waiting for the day they can come to Nanas again 🙃 I just realised I have the big cupboard in the office to clear and clean too, it got an awful lot of dust in there before the door went on, that might take me a while but I can have another clear out while I am doing it. I am being ruthless (well as ruthless as I get) when sorting stuff, why do we keep stuff we never use or don’t know what to do with 🤷♀️ Is it because the minute we throw it out we know we will need it? Or, as in my case, can’t bring myself to throw things away that still have a use (just not to me) and the charity shops are not open at the minute so we can’t take it there either.
Turns out I am not very ruthless 😂 I threw some things out really I did but not many 🙄 I carried on cleaning and putting away then John arrived home just before 12, he says everyone is so careful at the moment and hardly any one is going out anywhere. My sister keeps us updated daily and she is doing ok, she does not feel well, like she has flu, but at the moment she is ok.
After a spot of lunch I lit the Rayburn and John went outside to get some wood in and then the plan is to take all the rubbish from doing the office up to the skip and get decorating stuff put away. I have ordered another electric radiator for the spare room as John disconnected that radiator as well, it was back to back with the one in the office and we are not sure which one was leaking so they both went. I have to say the electric radiator is great, I said to John that although we will have them in all rooms I don’t think we will need them on very high at all and certainly some can probably be turned off for days if we don’t need them on. These are not like a storage heater they are notorious for chucking out heat when you do need it and not being on when you do, nor are they like the little portable electric heaters that are filled with oil. The radiators have a ceramic core and hold the heat well, they are quick to heat up and slow to cool down once the thermostat turns them off plus they can be programmed differently for every hour of every day, that’s progress for you, you can also use a remote control or connect to wifi and have smart heaters but we didn’t go for those options as they have a habit of going offline at any given moment 😂 Just the basic switch in at the wall will do for us.
Saturday: Phew busy day when we finally got up that is 😜 We we’re not too late up just about an hour later than normal but it does put you a bit behind. First jobs as always was get the animals fed and watered then it was off to town to get a few things done, the post office to post a parcel, the supermarket to get some bits of greenery for the chickens and a couple of household bits, the petrol station to fill up with fuel, a quick Costa, back to get some wood shavings from the farm shop next door and we are ready to get on with the task of the day. Cleaning out all the birds was top of the agenda, four hours later and all the birds have been mucked out, had clean bedding put down, topped up the grit holders, cleaned the water buckets and had a treat of an iceberg lettuce or some cabbage. The Guineas also had a partial clean out, I don’t like to take it all out in the winter as they have made a very cosy bed for themselves, it can all come out when the temperatures begin to climb. They also got treats of cabbage, apple, swede and carrot, the horses had carrot and apple, the geese had cabbage and apple and Ted the Turkey had cabbage, the only ones I forgot to give anything to were the ducks but I don’t suppose they noticed 🙄 I topped up the wild bird feeders while I was at it and now everything should feel loved and cared for 🥰 The strange thing that happened today was that I was declined four icebergs I was only allowed three, it seems they are having trouble getting hold of them and so limiting customers. It’s a pain that the birds are locked down in winter as come spring I would have plenty growing to be able to give them without having to buy it but that’s they way it is and they really enjoyed their treat demolishing them in seconds flat! We also bought a large pecking block, we will rotate it round the hens, at the minute the first lot are not interested in it at all but they may have a go at it later on. Trying to find things to keep them amused is difficult and actually what we are trying to do is to stop them getting bored as that often leads to egg eating and bullying. I did throw a carrot in as that will keep them amused for ages, it can’t easily be eaten so will last a lot longer.
When we had finished out there it was mid afternoon and time to come in and get the Rayburn lit, do the washing up from this morning, have a cup of tea and then John watched some snooker. He has been so busy he has not been able to watch it at all so it only seems fair to agree to him watching it this afternoon, I can find plenty of other things to do and may even retreat into my new room to do some of them 😀
While we were driving through town we took a sneaky photo of Shelley in her high vis, she had volunteered to help man the vaccination arrivals at the health centre, it’s for her covid memory book and she could hardly take one of herself could she 😂 Its a shame I couldn’t volunteer, you can’t be in a vulnerable category otherwise I would have, the more people that get on board with helping the smoother things will go and the quicker we will all receive our vaccinations making getting back to normal more of a reality.
Sunday: Another busy day, lockdown doesn’t really matter for us as there is always plenty to do round here. Today after doing the morning rounds we set about pollarding the willows at the very front of the driveway. I left them last year to see what they would look like and the answer is too big 😜 There was also the twisted hazel outside the gateway that had grown a fair few straight whips and they needed to come out as well. That took us the best part of the day to get them all cut down, shredded/chipped and tided up, some of the ends that were too big for the shredder were cut and have been stacked. They will be left to rot down giving invertebrates plenty of laces to hide, live and feed eventually. The shredding were also put back on the ground, these will get covered by grass growth in spring and also rot down, feeding the ground as it does so. There was one other that needed doing which is the chestnut that came down in the wind a couple of years ago, it has thrown up multiple shoots and they need cutting back before they get too big, ideally the stump needs grinding out but that’s a job for another day.
Once we finished and put everything away it was indoors for a cup of tea, light the Rayburn and a sit down for an hour before doing the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. It is actually days like this that I am glad of the early evenings because once everything is shut away you can relax entirely 😀
I have been thinking about the growing year ahead and thinking of the things I would like to do more of this year, last night we had a shoulder of lamb and although I had mint sauce I rather prefer mint jelly which we have run out of so I will defiantly be making a few jars of that. Then I was thinking I would like to do a lot more dehydrating this year, I did a fair amount of dried herbs which has seen me over winter but I’m sure there are plenty of other things that I could be drying and using, I will have to make a list or I will not remember.
Have a good week, stay safe, stay home if you can, the better weather is coming I promise (just not yet 😜)
frieslandfarm (flowers) 