Tag: wind

Posted in Friesland Farm

Windy weather, picking and freezing & John returns home.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 29th June 2020: It very windy today, I’m sure we don’t normally have winds as strong as this in June 🙄 yesterday was the same, strong enough to damage plants and whip bits off of trees 😏

I spent the night on my own here which is only the second time in 11 years I think. I can be pretty scary as we are a bit out in the sticks but to be honest I was so tired that I went straight to sleep anyhow. This morning I was up early, showered and out to do the animal rounds, I walked round the garden thinking I would do a bit outside but the buffeting from the wind soon put me off 😂 I decided to get a few bits done indoors and at 9am John called to say he could come home. I arranged with Shelley to go and pick him up and by 11am he was back home again. They are not sure why it happened and not sure if it will happen again 😏 but in the meantime we go about life as normally as possible. John had something to eat, a cup of tea, a nice bath and at the moment is having a sleep, you know what it’s like trying to sleep in hospital so he is a bit tired today.

I am still doing the glacé cherries they take 10 days and I had missed a couple of days, which doesn’t matter as long as you continue the process for the number of days rather than in succession, I should be on day 7 but am only on day 6 in the process.

The last topic in last weeks blog was the link to the grow.foodrevolution.org and I did say I would come back to the subject. In my opinion anyone who eats 🙄 has children, grandchildren or cares about their future generations really ought to be looking more closely at how food is grown, what the processes are and why it should change. Remember way back in my blogs I always said I was prepared for an apocalypse of some kind and then the pandemic came. Up to that point even I thought maybe I was a bit barmy but it happened and life was not how we had always known it to be, to me it just confirmed that we shouldn’t be complacent, never mind being alert during a pandemic, we should be alert at all times, or at the very least awake to the problems in the world.

Declining soil fertility is a real worldwide problem, one that you should be aware of, the over use of pesticides, weedkillers and artificial fertilisers has depleted the soil of its vitamins and minerals and turned the vast growing acres into dust bowls with no nutrition in them or at least only enough to last a few decades longer. Years ago farmers would spread muck back onto the fields (and some still do) but the bigger the farm the less likely they are to do this and of course it’s the big farms that provide a vast quantity of the crops we eat in one form or another. Mono cropping is also an issue, vast areas with one crop do nothing for biodiversity, which should be all part of a healthy system. The fruit and vegetables you buy from the supermarkets, that you think are giving you a good healthy diet, are not providing anywhere near the amount of nutrients that they used to 50 years ago because of the reduced soil fertility. What can you do? It’s my firm belief that as individuals all doing our bit we make a strong collective, and that goes for any issue. You don’t need to be an activist or an ‘alternative’ or join a cause, all you need to do is understand the issue and adjust your thoughts and actions accordingly, in my mind it really is that simple.

Getting the fertility back into the soil is relatively easy on a small scale and should be done even in the flower garden, composting your own green waste rather than sending it to the council to compost is a great way to ensure that you know what is going back into the ground. With communal composting schemes they don’t ask you not to put waste that has been treated with weedkiller or pesticides in, that means there is a possibility that residue is left in the end product, the product which is then bagged up to be sold or sold in bulk, makes you think doesn’t it. Even organic compost only has to be organic in origin not organically treated. Once upon a time every garden owner would have had a heap and that would all eventually go back into the garden, it’s my belief that every garden over a certain size (a size that can accommodate a small compost bin) should not be allowed a green bin 😏 (and I did write to our local council to suggest that idea) I’m not sure where it all went wrong when as a nation of Gardeners’ we forgot the basics of gardening!

Tuesday: Not raining, not windy, not sunny, happy me it means I can get on. John did the rounds with me but he was tired afterwards and so went in for a sit down. I got on with some picking, mangetout, peas, carrots, rhubarb, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackcurrants and cherries. I wasn’t going to pick any more cherries but the urge to gather is irresistible 😜 The peas and carrots are for dinner later, the strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and raspberries are going into a mixed fruit crumble for pudding 😀 After doing a few other bits we went to town to get a little bit of shopping, but they still don’t have any jam sugar on the shelves, I will have to see if I can get a bulk buy. When we got back John had another rest lol and I prepared a shepherds pie and the crumble for later on. A quick rest and a cuppa and I got on with making some blackcurrant jam, I had some sugar in the cupboard already but will need more before the season is out.

Mixed fruit crumble mix

Be careful what you wish for lol, remember I said I was hoping to get some cherries, well the morello tree is loaded with them and although the black bird is having some there are hundreds 🙄 I have already picked quite a lot and today I couldn’t resist picking some more. The problem with cherries is they do not continue to ripen once picked and you can’t leave them to get the very dark colour (the birds get there first) but they are ripe at the cherry red colour so that’s when they get picked. I have some cooked and in the freezer, the glacé cherries are still on the go and now I have about another kg to do something with. I have told Mum to come and pick some tomorrow if she wants some, I hate to see them wasted.

You can see why they use these vibrant cherries to glacé 😀

Wednesday: First it’s hot, then it’s not, then it is again, one of those days when the jumper is on, off, on, off and sometimes a raincoat is needed too 😜 John did the morning rounds and I got on with some picking, as well as the things I have already been harvesting, I picked peppers, some small courgettes, some beetroot and a very small handful of dwarf beans. The beans were cut up and frozen along with the peas I picked yesterday and I also froze the mixed fruit. I still need to do something with the beetroot, I was thinking of grating it and freezing, that would be quite useful I think. The courgettes and peppers can wait and I may use them tomorrow or put some out for sale. One job I wanted to get done was to repot the yellow raspberry, it was getting a bit big for the pot it was in. When I took it out of the old pot the soil was really dry, even though we had the rain this week so I gave all the rest of the pots of raspberries a good soak. I grow them in pots because the runners take over the garden otherwise although you do get far more berries if they are in the ground, I think I should identify a raspberry patch and let them romp away lol. Mum and Ken came up to pick some cherries and blackcurrants, the timing was not great as it started to rain as they got here and slowly got heavier but with Ken on the cherry tree and Mum on the blackcurrants they soon had enough to be going on with 😀

Thursday: Busy morning for me again, John did the morning rounds then went to have a lie down. I have been working on the decorative side of the garden instead of the growing side. I edged all the lawn and then gave it a cut, cut back some overhanging branches, potted up some self sown plantings and put some bits out for sale. John bought coffee out mid morning and we discussed getting some fence panels for the decking area as the wind blows right across there from a westerly direction. He went off to get some now that the suppliers are open but had to get someone to help him lift them in as he didn’t have the strength on his own 😏 It takes a lot longer than you think to recover from something like that.

The rest of the day was spent pottering, some of the time in the poly tunnel where I dug out the flat leaf parsley, it had got huge and was taking over, I managed to save a root to pot up. I seem to be lacking momentum at the minute, I am ok in the mornings but by mid afternoon I’m flagging lol.

One thing I forgot to mention is that John saw a hedgehog the other night, I know we have them but rarely see them and then you wonder if they have moved on but nope they are still here, all part of my lovely little eco system 😀

Friday: Not sure what kind of a day it’s going to be weatherwise, at the moment it’s overcast and dry but the sky is moody and looks like it is threatening to rain. We could do with a bit, the wind that we have had has dried the ground so quickly and we have stronger winds tomorrow apparently 😏 What happened to summer? I am certain the seasons are shifting, the ants are on the move and they don’t normally start until the beginning of August but I think the next lot of warm sunny weather and they will be flying.

I have been doing various things this morning, picking mangetout and broad beans, then some sour cherries to put out for sale. I picked a big bunch of basil which is now in the dehydrator and smells amazing, I prepped everything I picked ready for the freezer, I am only getting small quantities at the minute but they soon become a big batch if you do it daily. I find open freezing the best way to do them and I have started mixing up the veg and fruit as I think I would be more inclined to use it like that besides it makes it easier for soups and stews. I pulled a few baby turnips, one I grated along with beetroot and carrots chopped a baby pepper and that with a hard boiled egg will be my lunch, all home produced 😀 I potted up a few bits I dug up in the polytunnel yesterday, some bits of mint, flat leaf parsley and aquilegia which had been growing in there for a couple of years. I seem to have a few things that have self set or have been sown but got huge and are happily growing in there but I really need to have a clear out as there is less and less space for the things I want to grow. I want to have a go at pak Choi (I have sown seeds which have come up nicely) this winter and also get some more salad leaves sown to take us through the end of the summer and into autumn. Looking at the weather forecast there is less than 50% chance of rain, much less at times, so I’m thinking I will have to water some of the veg growing outside, the courgettes and patty pan seem to be taking ages to get going so a bit of extra watering might help boost them along a bit. Really I should weigh everything I pick and add it up at the end of the season, that would give me more of an idea of how much is actually produced I think. Picking it daily and then freezing some, eating some or putting some out for sale, it doesn’t seem like a lot bit it probably adds up to much more than I think.

It struck me when eating my lunch that we probably eat as well as folks who dine in a fancy restaurant, without the price tag 😋 The presentation isn’t as good I grant you that, but it’s all fresh, hand picked and prepared, organic, yep we feast like kings here 😀 It also occurred to me that the phrase, you are what you eat, is not strictly true 🙄 I, we, have eaten fresh homegrown produce for 11 years, the ten years or so before that I bought organic and yet I ended up ill, I would probably be worse if it were not for the good food but it means that environmental factors play a part as well, in that I would include stress. Stress plays a very large part in your health as far as I can see, I was the person who worried about things, even little things and the big things, well they sent me into overload lol. These days I am more of a ‘couldn’t give a toss’ type 🤪, I learnt not to worry about things that hadn’t happened (nor were likely to) and only to worry and then deal with things that did actually happen. That’s a far better way to live and certainly better for your health, so if you recognise yourself in there take a tip from me, stop worrying. Be kind to others but be kind to yourself as well, Life is too short to spend it worrying.

Rain stopped play in the afternoon but at least I won’t have to water tonight 😀

Saturday: I have done very little outside today, picked some greens for the Guineas and clean out the water buckets for the horses and that’s about it. I spent a lovely morning with Charlie at a wedding dress shop trying on dresses, Charlie not me obvs lol. She was the shops first appointment since the lockdown and it was by appointment only 😀 Afterwards we went to a local independent coffee shop where the new normal is to give your details, when ordering for sitting in, so that they can track and trace if necessary, social distancing in place and it all seems to work well. Considering more shops and the pubs are allowed to open today, the town was still not very busy, I feel this is all going to take longer than we first thought to get back to the old normal 😏

Sunday: A very windy but dry day today. John put up the fence panels around the decking area, it was to hopefully reduce the wind but it has still blown the chairs around 🙄 I did some picking again this morning, rhubarb, mange tout, broad beans, dwarf beans, courgette and a few blueberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries. The it all had to be sorted and either put out for sale or prepped for the freezer. We went round to see Mum and Ken and have a coffee, not sure what else we have done today lol. I need to organise myself a bit better to get jobs done as I have slacked a bit lately. One job is to sort the freezers out, with the picking prepping and freezing I tend to just find any space for it to go but then everything is all over the place and I have no idea what I have. I usually use sacks in the bottom of the big freezers, one for veg, one for fruit at least that way I know which sack to look in, I might not know what is actually in there, but I know if it’s one or the other 😜 The white woven sacks (from the builders merchant) are ideal if anyone is thinking of doing it as they don’t stick to the side of the freezer at all.

Have a great week, I think the weather is going to improve, hopefully this wind will do one 😋 Stay safe, stay alert.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Garlic harvest, wildlife mornings & a tad of the wet stuff.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 18th May 2020: A new week 😀 still in a global pandemic and life has taken a slower pace for a majority of us. I wonder how many will continue to take it much slower once the threat is over. John has decided that when he goes back to work he is going to go later and come home earlier, I have heard that before mind you 😂 and of course he has the luxury of choice, we don’t have a mortgage, the bills are fairly low and he is self employed so can please himself to an extent.

He is going to do a job today, a leak under a floor which is regarded as an essential repair, he is going to do the hens and ducks before he goes though and will be home to do the afternoon rounds. This is because the temps look set to be pretty high and I will struggle out in the sun. The paddocks are ridiculously exposed areas and had we known 11 years ago that I would end up with this disease we would have started way back then planting many many trees so it was easier for me to move around in the shade lol.

We set the alarm this morning as we have things to get on with and seem to be sleeping in longer and longer! John did the feeding and letting out, I did the ponies and then we went to try and establish if the goose eggs were worth letting her sit on them for very much longer. You take your life in your hands really as the rest of them are not happy you are apparently ‘attacking’ the other one 😂 I did manage to pick up two eggs and they feel heavy enough to contain something so we put some food and water in for her as she is losing condition bu not coming off the nest.

Next I had to rig up electric fencing across the slip rail we repaired yesterday because although Jack has free run of some pretty big paddocks he has decided he wants the grass on the other side of the fence 🙄

John then left for work and I got on with some gardening jobs. First I pulled all the rest of the garlic that I grew over winter, it’s ready now and I want the space for more tomato plants, it’s now drying in the sun. I planted some leeks, they are a bit late going in but will catch up, you need firm ground that you can make good deep holes with the dibber for leeks. You just drop the tiny plants into the holes and eventually they will swell to fit the holes, leeks are a great staple for winter and they are kinder on the stomach than onions so if you have IBS try leeks instead. Then onto some more weeding and I took the hens a bucketful, the tree spinach I grew last year has self seeded everywhere but it’s good for the hens, rabbits and torts so it will come in handy. After that I found a tree stake and put that in next to a dwarf apple I planted in the veg garden, it a bit blowy today so I thought it could do with staking before it snaps off. A great day for drying the washing so two loads are now out on the line as well, at that point I figured a short sit down had been earned 😀

Leeks, I planted about 15 in all and I have plenty more seedlings, I might just spread the rest around in spare areas or inbetween rows of other crops already growing, you can never have too many leeks 😀

After my sit down my aim is to clean the bathroom, Hoover and polish the sitting room and give the kitchen a clean plus decided what to have to dinner tonight.

I got the jobs done that I wanted plus I made bread and a sultana and orange tray bake (Mary Berry) one of the simplest and foolproof recipes I have ever used and tasty, great if you have a sad looking orange sitting in the fruit bowl lol. We are having fish cakes for dinner, John will have chips and peas but I am having some of the salad leaves from the garden, the wild rocket is particularly tasty and I have a good bed of mixed salad leaves waiting to be used up.

I went with John this evening to fix a leaking outside tap, on our way back home just up the lane we saw a beautiful barn owl flying low over the field, life is good 😀

Tuesday: John has to go and finish the job he started yesterday but did the animals first, I helped a bit before getting on with watering the poly tunnels before it gets too hot. Then I spent the rest of the morning (until 11am) potting things on, I have a lot of shrubs/trees and plants that I have been growing since last year and they won’t get much bigger unless I give them some tlc. Bigger pots, fresh compost, plenty of water and some feed should see them come on in leaps and bounds now. I planted a few things out into the flower beds and then it was time for coffee and recharging my batteries 😜

I am trying to work out what is the best thing to do with our front area immediately out side the house, it’s basically been a gravelled area for about 10 years. I have filled the area in front of the house with pots, this is because at some point we need to reclad the front and so I didn’t want to dig a border or bed as it will get trampled down, so pots are a great option however they do have to be watered every day. The other problem is weeds growing in the gravel, some I don’t mind, some are a pain and unsightly but I also am not inclined to use too much weedkiller because of the wildlife, so you can see I have a dilemma lol, which I honestly don’t know how to overcome at the minute. The area opposite the building has got weedy and untidy but I have started putting a few plants and shrubs in that bit to brighten it up and I have the catalpa tree coming which will also get planted there. Another problem with the area is that it gets the sun from early morning until late afternoon, south facing, not too bad for sun loving plants but for me it’s difficult to spend much time on it each day, so I can’t make an impact within a few hours, more like ten minutes here and there which is not much use. The other day the sun went behind clouds so I went and got the hoe and by the time I got out there the sun was back out lol, I did his about four times before giving up completely. I need an overcast day but all we are getting is sunshine at the moment.

The afternoon I spent indoors and had a cheeky nap as I felt a bit tired. John came home in time to do the egg collecting and feeding, we had dinner then went in search of ice creams 😀

When we got back it had cooled down enough for me to go outside and get the Indian Bean Tree planted, John did come out and dig the hole for me as it turns out there was some kind of footings right where I had chosen to put it, so an iron bar was needed to break it up. I carried on outside, hoeing, sweeping, tidying and watering until almost 10pm. It was a lovely cool evening so I made the most of it 😀

Wednesday: I was up with the larks this morning lol, 5am i woke up and thought, I need a wee, I’m hungry and I could do with a cuppa so I got up made a brew and went outside where the air was lovely and cool, there was a low mist and the pink sunrise sky made it almost magical. I had a shower went out and did watering, weeding, planting, sorted out the horses with fresh water, poo picking and putting Biscuit back in her lockdown paddock after letting her out overnight to have some time with Jack and some fresh grass. I came back in to get some breakfast and John still wasn’t up lol. Eventually he hauled his sorry arse out of bed and did the feeding rounds and then we went off to a local landscaping yard to get some new pots and I came back with a tree 😜 We also called in at the local Smokery where I bought some fresh fruit, freshly made sausages and some strawberries and cream 😋 The afternoon was spent inside in the cool as it’s far to hot for me and we decided that we would wait until it cools right down and spend the evening outside working again.

Another evening stint, cutting the grass, repotting and re positioning plants, watering, so much nicer when it’s cooler lol. John spent the evening digging up nettle and plantain clumps in the front paddock and helping me move heavy pots etc. I ran out of time to get a photo of the most beautiful aquilegia, in the evening light it had a wonderful glow, if I remember I will try and get a pic tomorrow, it probably has an optimum glory time which I just missed 😜

No filter needed for this beauty 😀

Thursday: John is off to do another job today, easing himself back in slowly, he will have to be careful about hand washing etc and the customers have to stay out of the way and hopefully all should be ok, he was enjoying not working but you can’t stay like that forever unless you have a big bank account 😜 So far though he has kept his promise about doing the morning rounds before he goes, this is so I can get on with watering in the garden before it gets too hot. I have to water in two stints, one in the morning and one in the evening, two different half’s of the garden and mostly because we have had no rain for weeks. The water tanks are almost empty, that’s nearly 20,000 litres used in various places, they need a refill. I was up early again, 5.30 this time, dressed and out with a cuppa in my hand, love the cool mornings. I had plenty of wildlife experiences this morning, firstly a deer in the far paddock grazing away oblivious to the fact I was watching. Then as I was watering in the garden a heron flew straight over the top of me, they make quite a bit of noise when flying unlike other birds, after that I found baby bees hatching in the hay, literally hatching right there and then, cute little bumbles. The last is worthy of a paragraph of its own 😂 in all the years I have kept ducks (around 20) I have never seen an elusive duck penis, yep you read that correctly lol, but this morning was the morning. Now this one was still attached to the drake, there are fabled stories of drakes discarding them now and again, if you have not read one of my previous blogs on the matter, they can be up to half a metre long and fit the chosen mate so if the mate dies they grow a new one. Anyway there it was when I came round the corner this morning, fascinating, as I said, still attached and slowly retracting but definitely a first for me 😜

This mornings main job was to tidy up bits of the garden that just get left and to clean out the pirate ship for whenever the kiddies can use it again. I found a nest in there while I was sweeping and it has eggs in, I’m guessing Robin, it’s quite high so I left it undisturbed. Sweeping down the decking area and giving the table a wash, tidying up the seating area under the oak tree and making it look like someone cares 😌 Put up the hammock, just in case I get a fancy for laying in it today, potting up some self set plants that are coming up round the garden, huecheras and daisy type flowers. Feed the torts some thistles, spinach and sorrel, plant a tomato plant that arrived (black tomatoes, they sold well last year and are very tasty) Back indoors to get some bread on and decide what’s for dinner later, then a well earned break after all that is a five hour stint I have done already lol.

An evening spent watering, the ground is sooo dry it’s ridiculous and I know rain is forecast but in my years of experience never rely on it to come unless of course you don’t want it because you are having an outdoor event 🤣 then it pours down!

Have a look at this photo, just a dog laying on the ground right? Zoom in and look again, the blob to the right of the dog is a fledgling blue tit. The baby bird was flapping out squawking and Mia just sat watching it bless her, I’m surprised she didn’t try to catch it as she is always trying to catch bees 😂

John was concerned about the fledgling, it can’t fly, shall we pick it up? No, is the answer, it can fly or at least it’s learning to fly, the parents will be very close by encouraging it to take flight by cheeping at it. Sure enough within a couple of minutes it was making progress and eventually went up the tree albeit by climbing the trunk 😜

This bit of the garden always make me smile as I go past, the flowers are a mix of old fashioned type plants, common varieties and wildflowers (some might call weeds) BUT it is always teeming with bees and insects which was the intention so I’m more than happy with that 😀

Friday: An altogether different morning this morning, blowy and although it has tried hard to rain all we got was a ‘spit‘ and unless we get anything else we are going to be in a bit of trouble for watering 😏 John is working again today, once it starts it won’t stop, but he did the animals beforehand, just as well as I feel under par today and I actually went and had a lay back down and 15 minutes sleep at about 8.30, I think the early mornings and working evenings finally caught up with me. I spent a couple of hours tidying up the greenhouse, going through old seed packets etc, making sure everything that needed potting on is done and has sufficient watering needs. I sorted out plants that will be going to Mum, they are at this moment making their way back across France and should be in the UK by tomorrow, they will then probably have to self isolate but they will be very glad to get home. I have been growing a few veg plants for her so that she has a chance at getting a crop this year, we had no idea how long they would have to stay in Spain for but luckily she will be in time to get some stuff in the ground 😀

Saturday: Still very blowy, unseasonably windy they said and it’s a pain as it has already broken off my splendid artichoke plants 😏 Still it has bought a bit of rain with it, not enough to fill the tanks but enough to chivvy along all the veg growing outside, they respond quickly and strongly to rain unlike tap water or even water from the rain butt for that matter. It’s the chemical reaction that is sparked that charges the ground and the air and motivates the growth. As the temps are set to rise again next week I will take whatever we can get at the minute.

This morning John had to go and sort out a hot water issue and I got on with doing some bits in the garden, quite a few bits actually. Firstly, last night I had a plan lol, I have grown some marrow seedlings because I had them but they take up a lot of room so I have put a tub, half filled with manure and half filled with compost, in the front area where it gets really weedy gravel. I planted three plants in there and hopefully they will grow well and produce some marrows, if not they will at least produce lots of foliage which will spread and help cover the weeds. I also have a trellis out there which is doing nothing so I am going to grow a couple of cucumbers up it, plenty of sun out there so they should produce something and again the foliage will be better than bare trellis. I potted up some Hyacinth Bean which is a climbing flower also to grow up the trellis, potted on all kinds of things, sorted out what is going to Mums for her to continue growing and put some bits out for sale. I barrowed two lots of muck, one for the melons, tomatoes and cucumbers in the poly tunnel and one for the pumpkins and dwarf beans, they will need as much mulch as they can get without any serious rain coming any time soon.

I discovered a few greenfly on a couple of peppers and aubergine in the greenhouse, I then started the hunt for a bottle of neem oil I have somewhere in the boot room but do you think I could find it, nope, everything else but that, in the end I used thyme oil diluted and hopefully that might work just as well 🙄 On a wider note about greenfly and blackfly in the garden, I seem to be doing ok this year so far🤞 last year was a bad year and lots of things suffered but I’m hoping I have a good balance this year which is helping. I stop feeding the garden birds around the beginning of May, the weather is better and there should be plenty to keep the birds and youngsters going, I help them and then they help me and I have seen plenty of little beaks filled with grubs and bugs so it’s working well. I do have some powdery mildew on the brambly apple tree in the front though 🙄 this is due to the prolonged dry weather and as it is a large tree Im not sure that anything I can do will be sufficient, it’s only on a few leaves at the minute and I am tempted to leave it to nature and see what happens, theoretically the balance of nature should sort it but we will see.

One seasonal fruit I like to tell people about are oranges, there is a season for them even though you can get them all year round 🙄 Orange season is just coming to an end and if you buy oranges get them from around the end of Feb to May, you will find they are at their tastiest then, you can thank me later 😀 After orange season comes lemon season so we are just coming into that now, I think, fingers crossed, I am going to get my very first ripe lemon this year 😀😀😀 very exited about that. I had a chat with an egg customer the other day about lemon curd (which I love) I can’t make it, by that I mean I can never get it to turn no matter how much I try, do it in the slow cooker she said, whaaaaaat, I didn’t know this was a thing and so I am definitely going to give this a go, I will have to buy lemons this year but once the tree is producing lots I shall use my own. The other thing I have growing for the first time this year, and I don’t want to jinx it, are kiwi, the vine is about four years old and usually gets frosted so no fruit, but this year I can see a few small fruitlets forming, another exciting first. It’s not all good mind you as the grape vine that produced masses last year looks to have died over winter, you win some you lose some, that life 😜

We nipped to the local garden centre this afternoon, I wanted a couple of packets of seeds for another project, a climbing rose and I bought some plants for hanging baskets 🤷‍♀️ wtf, I don’t even do hanging baskets 🤣 impulse buys 😂 It was nice to get out even if it wasn’t the usual gentle stroll around, but the system they have was flawless and they have worked hard to make sure it’s all socially distanced. We treated ourselves to an ice cream and milkshake from the pop up coffee shop afterwards, lol funny how we feel the need to treat ourselves, goes hand in hand with the impulse buys I think!

I am pleased to report that the thyme oil appears to have killed off the greenfly on the peppers, now all I have to do is make sure it doesn’t affect the growth of the plant leaves or the peppers 😀

Sunday: A busy morning again this morning, I did some watering first thing, pots and poly tunnels, then I spent a while sorting out plants that need to go to the cold frames and holding area ready for growing on either for autumn or next spring. It can be a slow process sometimes waiting for plants to establish and get going especially when like me you hate paying silly money for plants so get the small ones lol. It’s the time of year for semi ripe cuttings and I’m not very good at cuttings despite the lesson Mum gave me last year, however all I really have to lose is some compost so I set about identifying what I wanted to take cutting from. The pot of compost wants to be free draining so I added grit to it for that purpose, they also need to be in the light but not in the sun so they are under the greenhouse bench, they need humidity so after watering they have been placed in a propagator (not turned on) and hopefully some of them will strike. I have done rosemary, lavender, olive, clematis, sambucus, japonica and the new climbing rose I just bought. I have tried my best and fingers crossed I get something from them lol.

Meanwhile after doing the morning rounds John started on creosoting the hen hut at the back, the hens (which were being picked off by the fox and are now secure) will go back in there once the creosote is dry and isn’t giving off odour!

Ooops just had a notification of some other seeds I’d ordered, is there a group for ‘Gardeners’ anonymous’ 😜luckily they were only £2 but they are jack fruit which I’ve not tired before, love trying new stuff 😀

When he finished that and I had finished doing all my bits we shot to another garden centre to pick up some more compost (I need to get a bulk delivery next year I think) of course there were a couple of plants that went into the trolley and a pot for the new climbing rose I bought yesterday. It’s my weakness I have to admit 😜 I would rather go to garden centre after garden centre than shopping centre after shopping centre 😂 The plants are big ones so I can easily divide them and get at least two if not three out of each one so in my eyes it’s money saving (apart from the fact that I didn’t need them 😋)

Another evening of watering and working and it’s around this time of year I start wondering why?? The winds were awful and they have taken off all the apricots and peaches that were growing, the artichoke which were in their fully glory are now on the ground so I have had to salvage what I could and chop the rest down 😏 The weeds are gaily growing away fiercely unlike the veg which is struggling due to lack of rain, the slugs are managing to find the strawberries before I do, and I’m finding more and more greenfly, yep definitely the time of year I think I might just give up 😜 On the plus side the mangetout are beginning to get big enough to pick and the broad beans are developing, I do have small kiwis and there are lemons, the apple, pear and cherry trees are loaded with fruit so are the gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries so it’s not all bad. Maybe it’s just time to get rid of what fails and stick with the easier stuff.

Another day and another week tomorrow, always onwards and upwards lol, stay safe x x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Painting, pancake day, leap day and plenty of rain 🌧

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 24th February 2020: Another Monday, another crap weather day, still blowing around and still raining on and off. Never mind though I had a project to do today, paint the kitchen, just the bottom end as the rest is tiled. It’s a good way to wonder where on Earth the hours disappeared too mind, I started at 9.30 after doing the morning rounds and the next thing I am listening to the 2 o’clock news thinking ‘what, where did the time go’ and no I didn’t do the ceiling 😜 It was a lick to freshen the place up a bit. I just about left myself enough time to tidy up, light the Rayburn and sit and have a cuppa while the fire bedded in before going out to do the afternoon rounds.

It will be interesting to see if John notices 😜

Tuesday: Pancake day, or more accurately Shrove Tuesday, we all know about pancake day the best day of the year when we were kids, we had no idea of any religious background to it in our house we were just happy to jump on the delicious bandwagon of pancakes, syrup, lemon and sugar, these days often chocolate spread as well. It’s is generally known that Ash Wednesday follows but did you know there are other named days in that week? Collop Monday when you used up your meat stores, Shrove Tuesday, eggs and flour stores, Ash Wednesday, depending on where in the country you were, Fritter Thursday, (apples and pears) or Bloody Thursday when you used up your black pudding and Kissing Friday. As with many traditions they have all got muddled in with different religions and regions but pancake day remains steadfast across all areas 😀

The morning started off damp and drizzly and I wasn’t really feeling it, I think I rather overdid it yesterday and consequently suffered with many aches and stiffness. I had breakfast, a couple of ibrufen and sat and listened to a podcast from Conversations of Inspiration with Holly Tucker founder of Not on the High Street. This podcast caught my eye because she was interviewing Robin Hutson who is the founder of The Pig hotels, if you have never been to one of these hotels I urge you to go, pricey but well worth it, the whole ethos of each hotel is fabulous and I loved staying at The Pig in the Forest.

After waiting for the ibrufen to kick in I went for a shower, seriously I was struggling to move but luckily the warmth of the water eased my overworked muscles and by the time I got out of the shower the sun was shinning ☀️ Well I was not about to pass up that little nugget of delight so I whizzed round doing the animals and then straight into the garden. Into the greenhouse to be exact because I knew it was going to be lovely in there with the rays of the sun. The sun didn’t actually last that long but it had the desired effect of firing up my engines and so there was no stopping me 😀 Seed sowing was the job I had in mind and this year I am sowing into smaller modules, most years I would wait and sow into the ground but it’s so wet that I am taking a different approach this year. I sowed beetroot, swede and turnip, 50 of each then 10 each of patty pan, courgette, loofah, pumpkin and butternut squash, 15 sweet corn and 50 each of mangetout and petit poi’s. I have bought in the metal shelves I had last year so that I can get layers of trays all going at the same time and use the excess heat from the heat mat at the same time. I am really pleased with the way the seedlings I started on the windowsill are doing now that they are in a heated propagator, I managed not to let them get too spindly and the cucumbers are putting on their second set of leaves. I had a hunt round for this elusive mouse and thought I had found its house but it was empty, I have moved everything that is high enough for it to move from the ground area up to the bench area and hopefully that will stop it eating any seeds I have sown. I also took the added measures of covering the seed trays with see through lids or putting them up on the shelving and unless the dear little soul is a gymnast it shouldn’t be able to get up there.

After doing that lot I checked on the poly tunnel and the carrots and peas are doing well. Then I picked some purple sprouting broccoli, kale and a few small Brussel sprouts which we will have with dinner tonight.

We will have some of the greens with mashed potato and lamb chops but some I will use for tomorrow as I have also got a chicken carcass out of the freezer, I never throw them away I always freeze them and use them for soups, broth or stock.

This is the daphne I bought the other week, I wish they would get round to inventing smelly vision as it smells amazing, you will just have to take my word for it.

The sun came back out in the afternoon and I popped back into the greenhouse to pot up the melon seedlings and put those in the propagator as well. I am chuffed that the melon seeds from Josh’s water melon have sprouted, I am going to give these a real good go which will please him no end as it’s just about his favourite thing to eat. The temperature in the greenhouse was a whopping 25c, amazing!

Wednesday: Not a bad morning, by the time I got out there the sun was shinning though it was cold but not too bad. Before I went out I watched Ben Fogle: A new life in the country, John watched it last night but I fell asleep and this morning he said you really need to watch it so I did. What an inspirational person Miss Puffin (not her real name) is, she moved at the age of 43 from London where she was a nanny to John O Groats to run a petting farm, farm shop, b & b with no experience of animals, business or Scotland, all on her own, now that is life changing, challenging and ultimately hugely rewarding despite the lows. The Facebook page is Puffin Croft if you want to look her up.

Feeling inspired and cheerful I went out to sort out our menagerie, feeding, letting out and topping up bedding etc. I sorted out the eggs and put some trays of duck eggs up for sale on the selling sites as they are stacking up again. The goose egg sales are a bit slow, I find this happens every year, then suddenly they take off and people continue asking for them well into summer when of course they are no longer available 🙄 Thinking ahead to next week when John will be here instead of his normal work and he will constantly want to eat 😜 I decided to bake a couple of fruit cakes using the goose eggs.

I took a photo of what is my favourite view at the moment, it’s our side window in the kitchen and there is normally not much to see to be honest but this week Mr Robin has shown his wife this little house and she has decided it’s a good place to raise her young so they have been very busy moving in 😀 This box has been there for about 5 years and never had any occupants before so I’m very excited to watch the comings and goings and hopefully catch sight of the fledglings when the time comes.

You can just see the bird box on the back of the shed where a robin family have decided to move into.

Thursday: What can I say about today’s weather lol, it’s wet but snowing, not settling thankfully. It was a thicker socks and thicker gloves morning and I got the rounds done early, I was back in lighting the Rayburn at 8.30 I figured I might as well feel warm all day before I have to go back out later on. This bug I have is lingering, one day I feel ok the next I feel washed out and tired, still coughing but not as much and still got a blocked nose and ears making my head feel thick 🙄 I may just have a rest day today or a mostly rest day anyhow.

What does one do on a rest day, well watch a film, pay a few bills and order new sofas of course 😜 I was thinking I should hoover and polish the living room and then started thinking that I need to wash the sofa covers but I don’t honestly think they will make it through in one piece so I went all in and ordered them lol We have had them for over 25 years so I think it’s allowed don’t you.

Friday: Back to the wet horrible weather and surprise we have a storm rolling in for the weekend. This one is called Jorge as it was named by the Spanish (it’s visiting there first 😜) I got on and did the animals first thing then sorted out the eggs to fill the shed up completely and then a few house keeping bits and pieces before having Josh and Florence for the afternoon. It’s Shelleys birthday and Martin is taking her out for lunch 😀

The Corona virus situation is getting worse, I’m not sure if they have declared a pandemic yet but they will be very soon if not. I include this in my blog because you never know what is going to happen world wide and so it seems a good idea to have a written record of what is happening.

Saturday 29th Feb: A bonus day 😜 all I can think it’s and extra day of rain! We had some real downpours through the night and we are sodden this morning with more heavy rain due sometime this afternoon. Couple that with high winds again and well it’s becoming a regular weekend thing. My cold is not shifting very quickly it’s now blocking my sinuses, so a constant thick head means I find it difficult to concentrate on much more than what I have to. All in all a pretty depressing outlook for the weekend 🙄 a

Well it’s midday and so far the weather hasn’t been too bad, the sun is shinning though it’s cold and the wind has just picked up though not as much as was predicted…..yet🙄

We went round to Shelleys in the evening for a joint birthday cake with my sister who had her birthday last week. I got to see my newest great nephew Theo, a beautiful little bundle of cuteness 😀

Sunday: I’m starting to feel better thank goodness, this has dragged on and on and I really want it gone as John is off for the next week so we can get some jobs done. I wanted to drag the fields but that is not going to happen as they are very wet still so we started with the rabbit run, boarding up the mesh so that little Dotty Iron Man rabbit can come out and be with the other rabbit and guineas. I did a full clean out while we were at it, over winter I deep litter them which basically means putting fresh stuff in on top of the old but eventually it all needs to come out. Then it was on to sort the ménage mirrors out and take the framework down, over the years the wind has rocked them and now they are cracked and one had fallen out and so we decided to take them out altogether. In between that I did a bit of seed sowing and moved the aubergines and peppers into a heated propagator, I now have a free windowsill again. We popped to the garden centre to pick up some compost as the seed potatoes are ready to go in the bags but the garden compost is soaking wet. We had visits from Charlie and then from Sam, Luke, Mia and the twiglets Lucie and George, I wonder how long they will get called twiglets for lol, we used to call Josh sausage but that didn’t stick lucky for him 😜 Some of the wood that was used for the mirror frames will be reused as sides for a long raised bed in the polytunnel, on one side there is a clay seam which is difficult to use given the heat in there in the summer so I am putting a bed on top of it to give the plants a better chance.

I’m hoping, along with the rest of the country I’m sure, that we will have a bit more sunshine next week 😀😀😀

Have a great week everyone.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Crap weather, Dotty Iron Man rabbit & decisions, decisions.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

A bit late, sorry 😜 normal service will return when I feel better 🤒

Monday 17th Feb 2020: We are back round to Monday again how did that happen 😜 The remnants of storm Dennis have still been felt, lashings of rain, some gusts of winds, to be honest I expected the lake to have become a reservoir this morning but to my surprise it had receded quite a bit instead 🙄 and the river has almost gone too.

I did the morning rounds as per usual, the horses were still in their stables so I took them some hay and topped up the water buckets. I cleaned out the quail and then did a little bit outside, planted the pretty primroses and the miniature iris that I bought at the weekend. It was cold but not freezing, however, when my fingers and toes started to get cold I came back in. Paperwork was calling to me and I really needed to be able to see the top of the desk so I got on with sorting it out, doing some invoices and paying some bills.

Sam, Mia and the twiglets arrived mid afternoon and Sam had a look over the horses before turning them back out, she said they almost ran out lol, they don’t like being in.

I eventually got the Rayburn lit just before it was time to go out and do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting.

In the evening we went to pick up a new member of the pet menagerie, a little black and white rabbit, very sweet little girl and our other rabbit seems to like her, don’t worry I have checked and it’s definitely a girl 😜 The guinea pigs totally ignored her prefering to squirrel away the cabbage leaves I had given them to share lol.

Tuesday: An altogether better morning this morning, it’s not raining that’s a big bonus, it’s not too cold and the sun keeps trying to come out. The ground underfoot is awful, squelchy, sodden, sticky, muddy hopefully we will have a few dry days now.

I’ve just spent and hour and a half cleaning the bathroom 🙄 a proper clean, all the walls, toothbrush and white vinegar in the difficult areas, behind the towel rails etc. This is because we have 5 downlights and two of them had blown, the one in the shower cubicle over a year ago, we replaced them yesterday (long story as to why we hadn’t done it before now) and suddenly I could see all the areas that had got grubby 😮 so I decided to give it a right good clean, just as well I didn’t decide to work outside as the rain returned 😏

Shelley, Josh and Florence came round in the afternoon for a while and in the evening I had a Bowen therapy session booked.

Wednesday: A typical February day, dull, slightly cold and trying to rain. Before going out this morning I got some dinner going in the slow cooker, a rich beef stew if I get time I will pop in some dumplings.

Then out to do the animals, the new baby rabbit has been locked in her cage for the time being, I couldn’t quite believe it yesterday when I went out and couldn’t find her in the run with the others, turns out she is small enough to squeeze through a 2″ square mesh and she was in with the light sussex hens. I would have left her there but that run is not as secure as the other one and there are small gaps she could get out of so for her safety and my sanity she is in the cage which is within the run.

I pottered about for a little bit, putting clean bedding in the duck shed and checking the seed potatoes in the greenhouse. Again they have been nibbled, I thought it was a one off but no, not only the potatoes but the second lot of broad bean seeds have also been eaten along with the sweet peas 😡 I removed the seed potatoes and put them in a dark cupboard indoors and I have set a mouse trap, judging by the droppings it’s not a rat or a squirrel but a mouse which means it has probably set up home in there somewhere so I need to exterminate it 😕 sorry.

I contemplated finding more to do outside but it started to drizzle and as the ground is already waterlogged, tramping about compacting it won’t do much good either so I came inside. I have a stupid dry cough and feel a little under par so I think I will potter about indoors and listen to a few podcasts 😋

Having spent the day inside in the warm I was reluctant to go out and do the afternoon feed and egg collection but it has to be done. It is about this time of year (every year) when I am trudging round in the cold and the mud (which is worse this year than any other) thinking ‘why am I doing this’ and thinking perhaps selling up is a good idea. I know once the sunshine comes and the ground dries up I will think this is the best place in the world to be but right here right now it’s not 😏

Thursday: (and I had to change that as I keep thinking it’s Friday) Another vile day 😕 I got everything done and dusted by 8.30 as I had Josh and Florence for the morning while Shelley had her hair done. She had it cut short and had been growing it to donate her pony tail to the Princess trust who make wigs for children with cancer. We had planned, along with Sam, Mia and the twiglets, to go to Blenheim Palace for the afternoon but the weather was just horrible so we stayed home instead. We made a super hero’s den for the kids in the spare room and set up a picnic blanket for them, then Shelley went off to the shop to buy the kind of goodies you need on a day like today, chocolate, biscuits, an activity magazine and apple juice, while the adults had baked Camembert and chocolate 😜 They played very well together all afternoon and tidied up with the tidy up song while I went out to feed the animals and collect the eggs. The weather had cheered up a bit by then, still a little windy but the Sun had come out, after I had finished the afternoon rounds I went and got the new rabbit and bought it indoors to show the children. What shall we call her? everyone chipped in and now she has the name Dotty Iron Man Rabbit 🤣

Friday: It’s definitely Friday 😀 I went out to do the morning rounds and Jack had managed to get his rug off, a horse rug is basically like a straight jacket with many buckles and belts so how the heck he has done this I have no idea 🙄 On with the rest of the rounds and nothing much to report which is always a good thing 😀 I then spent a couple of hours in the greenhouse, first I set up the heat mat and I put some staging up higher to make use of any rising heat. Then I set up an electric propagator and the tomatoes and cucumber I had growing on the kitchen windowsill have now been potted on and are in the warmth in there. I am trialling this so it may be that I have peaked too soon but nothing ventured is nothing gained as they say. I have also put a couple of tomato plants on their own and a few in bunches as they grew, I want to see if they do better with other plants as company. The next job was to hunt for this damn mouse but I couldn’t find it living anywhere, at the moment I am filling the mouse trap and it is eating it all so it must be quite small and light, I will feed it up until it gets heavy enough to spring the trap 😜

Back indooors to light the Rayburn as I have the twins later while Mia goes for a swimming lesson and some great news on the family chat as my niece had her baby last night 😀 a little boy (well 8lb 12oz, ouch) lovely news 😀

It’s been a bit of a boring week to write about to be honest and I have had a horrible cold coupled with a hacking cough, I am kind of hoping that my bug will do one right about the same time as the crap weather and what a joyful day that will be 😀

Saturday: Another crap weekend with the weather, seriously, the wind and the rain have been going all night long and have not eased this morning. I am weather weary now, feeling so poorly doesn’t help, I can’t breathe through my nose, the cough is hacking, my head feels like it will explode, wake me up when it’s spring.

We ran the feed right out this week, it’s good to empty the feed bins totally now and again, and so John has gone off to get supplies, we can’t do any feeding until he gets back and so no point letting them out either. I also have a hay delivery coming this morning, we are at that stage when the horses are hungry but the grass is non existent especially this year with all the rain. We will be rolling a big round bale into the field and hoping it will keep them going for a couple of weeks until the weather settles and the new grass comes through.

Fingers crossed that the week I have booked for John to be at home is a decent week. It’s a shame really as we could have been getting ahead of ourselves but it looks like it will be all to do at once 🙄

Sunday: Yesterday I felt really ill but it seems to have turned a corner this morning thank goodness. The weather has not really got any better, still blowing a hoolie with rain now and then for good measure, I am so done with this weather stream as are many other people. I know we have a lot to be grateful for as our home is not flooded and everything is intact but even so I have had enough of the relentless wind and rain it’s been going on for around three weeks with hardly a break.

Whinging over 😜 John did the morning rounds and then we measured up for some fencing that has come down at the bottom need of the veg garden, the posts have been going for a coup,e for years and now they have gone and all that is holding the fence up is the wire. We thought about picket fencing and went off to the diy shop to have a look but when we priced it up decided it wasn’t worth it so we bought some more wire with smaller holes to stop the ducks getting in and then went to get some breakfast at a local garden centre. We met Shelley, Martin and the kids there and they joined us, I bought a couple of pots for the daphne and another shrub I got the last time I went. I want to keep them in pots for now as I am not sure where I want them to finally end up and besides they are quite small so need a bit of looking after to being them on. The rest of the day we spent discussing and researching various topics such as solar panels and electric boilers, mulling around ideas of wether to apply for planning for a house and what kind or, as this one is perfectly adequate and just need some upgrading, wether we just upgrade it, we went round and round until our brains were frazzled, we discovered what we don’t like but not what we do.

I will try and do better with the blog next week, hopefully I will feel a little more up to it by then, have a good week.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Stormy weather, goose eggs & pod casts.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th January: I had a cracking evening last night, by that I mean cracking nuts not having a good time 😜 I thought I’d better get started on the nuts if I do half an hour here and there I will soon have plenty of nuts to snack on or use in cooking. Turns out that only approx 60% of the walnuts are any good but that’s still useful, I haven’t started on the hazels yet. John spent late afternoon getting the gate finished and hung, he is getting very good at gates now, if you put his first effort next to the latest you would laugh and wonder how on earth it ever kept anything in or out let alone shut properly. Our skill set has widened massively over the years, hopefully we can pass some of them on to the next couple of generations you never know when they will need them.

I did a few extra jobs while I was on the rounds this morning, topping up the duck house bedding, moving the electric fence for the hens out in the side paddock and I had to fix the turkey pen fence. Something, probably a Fox has had a go at pulling the fence and there was a gap in it next to the doorway, basically it had been pulled out of the wood pinching it together. I grabbed a hammer and some u nails and fixed it, good job I saw it other wise the turkeys would have been got.

When I finished that I thought I would see what could be done in the garden, the weather is nice enough this morning and I feel like these are bonus days and shouldn’t be wasted. I got the jute out that I ordered and set about putting that down on a bed I cleared last week. I have reservations about using it, on the one hand it’s natural and therefore environmentally friendly, biodegradable, compostable so plenty going for it, it also does not flap about in the wind like the plastic and it would stabilise the soil if left in situ with more compost put on top. On the other hand it’s quite expensive monetarily speaking and I doubled it up because I’m not sure it will exclude the light with just one layer. It is an experiment so we will see how it goes.

I then tried to dig up the blackberry and stingers that have taken hold near the far fence 🙄 hmm I found I wasn’t strong enough to get right to the bottom of the roots nor to pull them so I am going to have to get John to help with that as some point. It does need a new fence there so we will probably do both jobs at the same time. While I was mooching about I found a piece of guttering and had a lightbulb moment, I would use it to plant some peas into in the tunnel. Mice usually bugger up my plans for early peas but you can hang a piece of gutter from the cross bars and that means the little sods can’t reach the seeds 😀 Even if I just use the shoots for salad they will be welcome early greens. The gutter didn’t have any stop ends so I got two plant pots and used those instead, filled it with compost and planted the seeds, it’s not pretty but it is functional and will hopefully work well.

The weather is about to get a bit nasty, we have a very deep depression coming in from the west which will bring strong winds and rain according to the forecasters but the temperatures are still well above average for the time of year.

So I just joined the group NFFN which stands for Nature friendly farming network, I don’t normally randomly join groups but this one seems to be aimed at exactly what I am trying to achieve here which is living off the land but not to the detriment of all other living things that are also here, sustainable farming, not that I farm in the general sense but I do have land that needs managing.

In the run up to Christmas the egg sales went berserk and we couldn’t pick them up and get them out fast enough, the week between Christmas and New Year was pretty steady but since the New Year it’s safe to say it has slowed down considerably and non existent on some days. In order to have a good turn around I have been trying to sell the duck eggs on the sale pages, normally they get snapped up but nothing doing today so I need to look up ways of using them up lol.

Tuesday: It’s calm this morning but we have another weather front coming in apparently so we are in the calm between storms. Here in the UK the storms are named in alphabetical order yesterday’s was storm Brendan so we are only just into storm weather, it usually gets to around g/h/i/j/k but there are 21 storm names allocated each year, if they surpass that I don’t know what they do lol.

I did the rounds this morning, again doing a bit extra as I go, this time it’s a sack full of hay for the rabbit/guineas and two sackfuls of fresh straw for the light Sussex pen, a quick coffee and sort out the egg shed and it will be time to clean out the quail who are still in the back area under cover as they seem to be laying much better in there. Not that we need the eggs, as I said yesterday the customers seem thin on the ground at the minute, I have been plugging them on the sale sites though so hopefully we will get a few new customers to help keep the eggs turning over quickly.

Sat and watched the horses frolicking in the paddock, I don’t know what had got into them but they were having a fine time of it 😀

I have some strawberry plants and some pots of tête-à-tête daffodils to put out for sale but I am kind of holding off until the storms pass as they will just get blown everywhere 💨 The winds were quite strong last night probably around 55-60mph (not strong in comparison to some countries) further up country they were reaching 85mph, but coming up from the south west and from that direction they don’t seem to affect us hugely.

I cleaned out the quail, one of them gets hard little balls of muck stuck to its toes so I had to soften that and get it off, it only happens to one I don’t know why. Then I collect up the daffodils and strawberry plants took them into the greenhouse and gave them a tidy up before putting them up for sale on the sites. The minute I got into the garden I was swarmed by hens all thinking that hopefully it’s three o’clock and I am going to feed them, not a hope it’s only 11am. I don’t know why they do it as they have feed inside the hut so if they were really hungry they could go and get that 🙄 Then is was inside to get the Rayburn lit, the weather though it started off ok has declined and it’s now wet with a breeze, I can tell it’s colder because I wanted to light the Rayburn at 10am but held off to get things done outside first.

I got myself ready to leave the warmth of the house to do the afternoon rounds, I stood at the back thinking ‘bloody heck it’s rough out here’ when all of a sudden crack and a bough came down, good job the wind is blowing so that the bough went along the fence and not towards the house, this is exactly the reason we started taking these down, we really need to finish the job 😏 Just before I went out, as I was getting my coat on, we lost the electric, just for a minute and it came back on but I’m pretty sure it will go again at some point.

We lost power at 4.45 after a couple of flickers, I just knew it was going to go 🙄 luckily I had kept the Rayburn low so there was not much in the fire box which is good as no power means no pump to take the hot water away from the boiler!

John came home and we went out to get something to eat and called into my sisters to get a cup of tea, when we got back at 8pm the electric was still off so John had a bath by candlelight while I sat in the living room with a torch and did some reading. All good fun, this is when we could do with a small wood burning stove that would be like the 1970s when Mum used to make toast on the parkray during power cuts 😀

Wednesday: Is it only Wednesday lol, the power did not come back on until 10.30pm by which time we had given up and gone to bed, it was starting to feel a tad cold and likely that the torch would run out of power so called it a night at 10pm.

It is a calm pleasant morning again, and this mornings survey of the place found no other damage but we do have the big lake back in the side paddock. This normally appears after days of relentless rain and not overnight, there was nothing there yesterday. The chap was due to come Sunday morning for rabbiting but I have warned him it might not be worthwhile as the rabbits have either drowned or fled the burrows.

I keep thinking we must be able to utilise this transient feature somehow but you can bet your bottom dollar that the minute we decide to male it into a permanent wildlife pond we will have a drought 😜

One good thing is that I was unable to cook dinner last night so I am ahead of the game with what to have tonight 😂 I have also lit the Rayburn earlier than usual as you can feel the cold having had no heating during the previous evening.

Thursday: It was colder overnight and I thought we would see a frost but at 6.30 this morning I couldn’t see any sign of one.

Out to do the rounds once it was light enough and nothing untoward but I did find the first goose egg of the season 😀 John had said he thought he saw something when he was shutting them away last night and he was correct. This is nearly a month earlier than usual and I can only assume that the mild winters as contributed to that. Normally the winter would be full of days when the ground is frozen or at least frosted but we have had less than a handful of days like that so the geese have been able to steadily graze grass constantly which is unusual. It means that they have been able to get good nutrition throughout and therefore start laying early which is great for them and a bonus for us.

One of the things I started listening to when the electric was off were podcasts, the selection out there is phenomenal and every type of subject is available. This morning I listened to an hour long podcast about growing and storing enough food to feed your family for a year, it was interesting and the best thing is that on the phone it’s mobile, I just take the phone with me whatever I am doing and can carry on listening. I got dressed, I did the washing up, then out to sort and box the eggs, all the while taking the phone with me and listening to something that interests me, much better than listening to the radio or the cat meowing 😜 I think I will definitely include podcasts as a part of my day.

Friday: I have blood tests this morning, these are for monitoring the effects of the drugs I have to take, they are disease modifying drugs and can have all sorts of side effects so need keeping an eye on. When I feel really well, like I do at the minute, I question wether I even have anything wrong but in truth if I came off the drugs I think things would plummet pretty quickly.

So the weather has been pretty atrocious this week I think it’s fair to say, today is not much better but we do have some sunshine in the forecast for the weekend, hopefully it will make an appearance, if for no other reason than to bring a bit of cheer to what seems like a very long month. We have about six weeks to go before we can get uplifted by the fact that spring will actually begin to spring. I watched a programme last night and the clip with the birds singing and the green grass made me realise how much I long for that time of year. I said to John yesterday that I look forward to the weekends when he takes over the feeding, if I had to do it seven days a week I think I would give up the birds entirely 🙄 We have customers that say ‘don’t give up doing this, we love your eggs’ but I reckon if they spent even one day in the wet, wind and mud they might think differently lol.

After the deluge of rain we have had this last week one serious thought I have been having is about exactly how to stabilise the ground. You can visibly see serious amounts of run off (as we are on a slight incline) and consequently the erosion of the soil especially on the veg garden. If the past few years have taught me anything it’s that this problem is getting worse and I don’t really have the expertise or knowledge so I am going to have to read all I can and work it out. The problem would not doubt be easily solved if we did not have grazing animals on the land and by that I mean the horses and the geese. They would eat most of anything you plant unless it is well protected, heavily protected in the case of the horses. I think I need to, and indeed want to, increase the hedging especially in the side paddock at the front by the lane. We have discussed putting up a fence to keep the horses away from anything newly planted but the geese would get through that and so would the chickens and they would scratch up round the roots so you see what I am up against here, multiple procedures are needed. In the meantime if anyone can point me in the direction of some serious land management articles involving erosion and how to prevent it I would be very grateful 😀

Saturday: A good hard frost overnight whoop, nice and fresh and crisp this morning and we did need it. Those plants that go dormant over winter need the cold so that they recognise when to break dormancy as it gets warmer plus it kills off a few pests and diseases. Of course along with the frost generally come a sunny day and that is exactly what we got, cold but sunny. John did the animals then had to shoot off and sort something out on a job he is currently on. Meanwhile I sorted out the morning household jobs and then went out to give hay and some carrots to the horses, top up the wild bird feeders and feed Diesel who had actually bought his own breakfast along in the form of a dead mouse 🙄 glad to see he is still earning his keep. When John came back he got to work on the fence that runs along from his new gate, digging holes and putting in fence posts, not a great job for a cold day so I made a batch of biscuits to keep him ticking along. Shelley, Josh and Florence came over, Josh wanted to help with some jobs. Always keen to take up the offer of some help as you never know when they will stop wanting to, we put some clean bedding in for the ducks, checked the growing daffodils and fruit trees at the back, had a tour around the veg garden, Josh was very interested in what was growing he kept asking ‘what’s this plant Nana’ lol, we went to watch Grampy do a bit then they found a nice icy puddle to jump up and down in which entertained them no end 😀

Back indooors for a cup of tea and some lunch and we had an episode that is the only time it is acceptable to hit a child, choking, Josh got a whole hula hoop stuck and was choking, Shelley whacked him a few times nothing, she looked at me saying ‘Mum’ and I went round and took over, three hard whacks, nothing, rapidly going through my head was after this next one if it doesn’t budge I am going to have to do it much harder and roll my fist up under his rib cage, thankfully it budged and came out. It was probably seconds but it feels like a lifetime and so many thoughts are running through your head mostly what your next stage of action will be. Of course a hula hoop will eventually go soft but at the time, the child is panicking and in this case Florence was also screaming because we were whacking Josh. Object removed, sighs of relief, then come the lectures lol, don’t talk with your mouthful, chew your food properly, and sit still while you are eating, all the things countless generations of mothers have said to their children, there is a very good reason for that 😜

I listened to another pod cast this morning while I was sorting eggs, one from the RHS about Wisley, very interesting and it got me intrigued, I definitely want to go and visit this year if I can. They have an attraction called ‘The giant houseplant takeover’ I am not really keen on houseplants but listening to the pod cast I was thinking how very clever the idea is as they explained what it was all about. John will be delighted lol, I’m sure they have a good cafe he can sit in and while away the time 😝

I made a pan of vegetable soup, nice and warming on a day like today and obviously very good for you, get your five a day all in one hit lol. I will probably whizz it up as I have put herbs in there and what John doesn’t know won’t hurt him 😜

I really have a hankering for a Cornish pasty lol, I might just have to make some.

I cleaned the windows, I thought it would probably be better if I could see through them 😝

The sky is kind of purple tonight, love the spectacular sunsets and sunrises the cold weather brings.

Sunday: Another hard frost, harder than yesterday I would say, but again the sun is shinning brilliantly and it looks magical shinning on the frozen branches and ground. John did the morning rounds and cleaned out the front hens, I sorted eggs etc.

This morning we are going to Blenheim Palace for a walk around the grounds and a coffee. We are very lucky to have this magnificent stately home only 20 minutes down the road and this year I bought annual passes for us and the girls so that it can be enjoyed all year round.

Well that turned into quite a chunk of the day visiting ‘The Kingdom’ as Josh called it 😂 I bought family passes for presents and I think we will definitely get our monies worth going there regularly, there is plenty of ground to cover and lots to do as well as the events they put on.

We got back at 3 and it was then a rush to grab a sandwich (long story as the cafe was packed as were the palace grounds) and scoot round to visit Charlie and Macca for his birthday. A quick cuppa with them then back home to do the afternoon feeding, egg collecting and light the Rayburn. The place gets pretty cold when there is no heating all day 🙄

Posted in Friesland Farm

A missing kitten 😔 a new arrival 😀 & nuts 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 24th Sept: We arrived back at around 10pm last night, it was raining most of the day in Guernsey, all the way home it has rained non stop and it’s still raining this morning. I woke at 5, I think I heard rumbles of thunder, and it has not stopped at all, it’s now 8.30 and I really should go out and let all the birds out, it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop at all today so best get on with it.

Oh the joys of getting back to work 🙄 wet and muddy out there today lol. All seems to be well with the farm, I found a few eggs that Shelley wouldn’t have known where they lay as I forgot to tell her but it was checked on Thursday so they are still ok. The only thing out of order at the moment is that we can’t find one of the kittens, TC, I haven’t seen him at all since we got back and I have checked all the sheds and called him but as yet no sign of him, I’m hoping he turns up sometime today. On the other hand Diesel who has not been around for about a week has turned up for feeding this morning, I know cats are a law unto themselves but they sure cause worry 😏

The geese have still been laying while we were away, not sure what is going on there but never look a gift horse in the mouth as they say.

10.30 still raining, quite heavily too, I guess that summer is over then 😏

Shelley has been collecting the walnuts as they have been dropping while we were away, I thought the squirrel was getting them but obviously not which is great for me 😀

Still no sign of the cat and you feel out of sorts when something isn’t where it’s supposed to be, I have checked in all the outbuildings just to make sure he’s not locked in somewhere, I’ve checked the roadside to make sure he hasn’t been run over, it’s odd because he is always the one under my feet and the pair of them haven’t really ventured very far as yet. Benny is on his own for the first time ever and keeps sleeping in the dog bed, good job the dogs don’t mind him bunking in with them 😀 hopefully TC will just show up after being off for a wander 🙄

John and I spent two hours tonight once everything had gone to bed and it was quieter, trying to listen and see if TC was stuck anywhere. I kept thinking I could hear faint miaowing and we searched every tiny space we could find, up in the roof space, down the walls, behind the walls, under wood stacks, up pipes, literally every inch was searched but no luck and the noise I thought I heard occasionally never got louder the closer we got to anything. At one point John fell over and knocked all the grass seed everywhere and hurt his shoulder, the opposite one to the one he hurt last year falling over in the duck pen. To be honest it could have been anything that I heard, John would say can you hear that bird, nope, my hearing is not that great since I’ve had tinnitus 🙄

Wednesday: I feel despondent this morning, the cats missing, one day back at work and John is feeling tired and achy, it’s been raining so it’s wet and muddy everywhere, these are the kind of days I think ‘yep let’s give it all up’ 😏

On a brighter note our new resident arrived last night just as it was getting dark, Biscuit, the Shetland pony 😀 she is a lovely, obliging little pony who likes to be brushed and fussed. Her long term field companion died of a stroke a few weeks ago and her owners were looking for a new home for her, we went and had a look at her and she is very sweet and the perfect height for the grandchildren to interact with plus a gentle temperament. Jack has not met her yet as she is in the stable for the moment but hopefully he will be happy to have a ‘little’ company 😋

I did the rounds this morning then onto some picking, still plenty of tomatoes and courgettes, also some cucumber and a melon. I need to pick the grapes soon and I have been collecting more walnuts.

Shelley came over to help have a quick look for the cat but nothing. Sam arrived with the twiglets and we skipped out Biscuits stable then took 9 pallets up to the small back paddock to protect the trees I planted as the geese are going in there for a while. I had to drill a new hole for the bolt in their hut and put in some clean bedding, that was all in between rain showers and feeding the babies 👶 👶 After they left I cleaned out the stable that the chickens and ducks are in, put clean bedding in the other duck pen house, somewhere in amongst that I got the dinner ready. John came home and put a piece on the bottom of another stable to make it fox proof as I will be moving the light Sussex into there before dispatch.

After dinner and putting the birds to bed I had a customer come to pick up some plants, John went to get a bit of shopping and Shelley came back to listen in the dark when it’s much quieter to see if we could hear the cat, she has much better hearing than we do 🤣 we spent about an hour or so out here but couldn’t hear anything that sounded like a cat 😏

Thursday: Although it’s rained overnight it has been a fine sunny morning this morning. I did the morning rounds changing bits of electric fencing as I went round, the front hens now have free range of the whole paddock, they were getting out anyway so might as well make it easy for them 😂 I checked on Biscuit who is still in the stable at the minute and all the hens have had a scoop of calcium and grit to boost shell and gut health. Then onto the garden, I had quite forgotten just how abundant this time of year is, not only are there thousands of blackberries and hundreds of nuts but I picked a whopping load of tomatoes and a basket full of grapes. I just have to decide what to do with them all, some grapes have been frozen, I ate some with my lunch, some have gone into a jelly for John and some out for sale, I will give the girls some and have told the wider family if they want any grapes or tomatoes to pop by. At some point I’m going to have to do passata lol and I did think about dehydrating some grapes for raisins for cooking or snacking. Fruit leather is another thing I really want to try so if I get a bit of time I will do that as well, plenty of berries around to try that with at the moment. The elderberries are abundant though I haven’t actually picked any of those yet but I will hopefully get to some before the birds do.

I think someone somewhere has thought, right you haven’t got enough to write about in your blog so here you go have some of this 🤪

I messaged Charlie yesterday and said I am going to rename this place Chaos, no explanation needed and today it’s still the same. A busy morning and a busy afternoon as well, then Samantha came over with the twins and Mia as Mia wanted to see biscuit. They skipped her stable out and gave her a swede to chew on, took her into the ménage for a frolic and then out to meet jack for the first time, which incidentally went very well. Time to get her back in, she caught well and off went Sam back to the stable while I minded the twins and Mia, next thing Biscuit is dragging Sam back down to the paddock ‘I’d forgotten how strong they are’ she said 😂 I run and get an apple cut it into four pieces and we are leading her back with the proverbial ‘Apple instead of carrot’ in front of her nose to get her back, meanwhile the twins are crying and so is Mia. They leave and I get on with prepping dinner and hoovering the floor which has mud clumps from my wellies where I have been in and out all day, inbetween I am messaging people who want to buy plants. John comes home with the inserts for the tap that has been dripping for a fortnight, filling a small saucepan overnight, I kid you not the minute he walks in with his tools the tap fails to drip and we watch it and watch it but no drip, this often happens to customers he tells me, they say my tap is dripping badly and when he gets there nothing but at least he knows how badly this one has been dripping so that’s something at least even if it is a bit bizarre. Dinner is cooking and I get a message from the chap with the rabbit to say he is bringing it round now, ok, we quickly get dinner on the table and munch that down just in time for when he arrives. He comes in with the rabbit and I put the kettle on, I’m busy making a cuppa and we are chatting next thing we hear is a very loud crash right beside us, We have a recess alcove behind the hob and the top bit, so the ceiling of it, has just fallen off and landed on the hob knocking all my bottles of oil and herbs everywhere 🙄 What the actual 🤬 We go and get the rabbit hutch in and he has bought a glove to handle the rabbit, it’s four months old, it doesn’t bite but growls due to not being handled very much 😋 I wasn’t expecting that 🙄 so as this rabbit is intended for Josh and Flo I shall have to handle her until she is petable lol. The day is still not over yet, I cleaned one of the other stables this afternoon which is where the light Sussex are going, to clean them up and fatten, so off we go to round up 12 rather large chickens which make the most horrendous noise when they are caught, honestly anybody would think we were dispatching there and then.

If you can imagine that as this is all happening usually the dogs are barking at something or other, the phone is going, there are chickens and ducks getting under my feet, customers are turning up for plants and this has been a daily occurrence this week you can see why it’s chaos, I won’t even go into the two nightmares I had last night and woke in absolute terror at one of them, all adds to the mix 😜

Have you ever seen that picture of an aging lady in wellies and a straw hat on a farmyard with all the animals everywhere, that’s me I think 🤣

Once we put the animals to bed we nipped to Charlie’s for a cuppa.

Friday: After the morning rounds I spent nearly two hours processing the walnuts we have been picking up. First they need to be taken out of their green coat, sometimes they are already out but not often and sometimes the coat has turned to brown mush. So I spent a good deal of time in the greenhouse doing that then it’s into the boot room and put some white vinegar in the sink and tumble the nuts with my hands, this does two things, get any remaining casing bits off and makes sure there are no bacteria/mould on the shell. When you buy walnuts in the shell from the supermarket they will have been treated with a food grade bleach which is why they are a lot cleaner than mine will be in the end, I could do this but I prefer the vinegar and it works very well. Next the nuts are dried, I put them in a towel and roll a few at a time, and then they will need to air dry so they need to be somewhere that is not damp, the kitchen works well as long as the air can get all round the basket. If you put them in a container that the air can’t circulate in they will form mould again, my thoughts are that if the mould is on the outside it could penetrate to the inside which could potentially make you ill if you eat them like that. I generally keep them in their shells until after the New Year when I have more time to shell them for storage in jars, you can eat them straight after picking, they are called wet walnuts and that means the nut meat hasn’t dried, if you leave them to cure they become the walnut you are probably more familiar with and then they store much better. I like the taste of wet walnuts many people don’t but I see it as a bit of a foragers treat. The whole process may seem bothersome for many people but for starters the nuts are free 😀 (expensive in the shops) and then there is the fact that they are a great brain food so it would be a little idiotic for me not to do it, besides the fact that I end up with very dark brown fingers and thumbs (walnut is a great dye) it’s rewarding to have a store of nuts I have gathered and prepared and that will last well into the next year for snacks and cooking.

Luckily the hazelnuts do not need the same amount of work, they just need to be stored in damp free conditions until they are ready to be eaten or cracked for storing and using.

Sam, Shelley and the children came over in the afternoon to see Biscuit and the rabbit 😀

When they left I did the afternoon rounds and collected the eggs for putting out as usual. Yesterday I had put out a punnet of grapes and covered them in cling film and was pretty annoyed to find that someone had lifted the film and pinched a few grapes from the bunch, I could see they had been taken as they leave that little mushy tail behind, what kind of a person does that? I bought them back in and won’t be putting anymore out, last week it was the cherry tomatoes, I could tell one or two had been nicked and sure enough when I bought the punnet back in and weighed it there were some missing 😡

Dinner done and dusted we are having a quiet night tonight, famous last words 😋

Saturday: It’s forecast to be dry today which is good after the last few days of on off rain. I had a plan to keep the hens in the stable shut in this morning because I have no idea where they are laying their eggs, John and I talked about it last night and this morning he went off up the back to do the geese and hens in the small back paddock. Meanwhile I came out and fed and watered the ones in the stable being kept in and then went round to do the ducks in the side pen, next thing I see is are the hens out everywhere, there followed an exchange of words, mostly ‘you never bloody listen’ & ‘I forgot’ 😜

With the rest of the birds and animals sorted it was onto the jobs for the morning, I sorted out the egg shed and picked a few bits for putting out along with some pumpkins and a couple of spaghetti squash. I pulled all the remaining carrots, at this time of year if you don’t get them out either the rain starts to rot them or the slugs start to eat them. Johns job was to deep clean the Rayburn ready for lightening when we need it, it’s a pretty big job it includes sweeping the flue and pulling all the grates out and a mucky job to boot 😀 I cleaned all the carrots then sliced and diced them, blanched them and they will go in the freezer to open freeze once they are cool.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with these grapes and Pinterest isn’t giving me much inspiration on that front lol

I decided to have a go at dehydrating some of the grapes to see how well they would do and of course raisins, which is what they will be, will come in handy for cooking. I put a few of the hybrid blackberries in to see how well they do, then I started thinking about Christmas mincemeat and how lovely it would be with the raisins, dried blackberries and some of our chopped hazels/walnuts in there as well mmmm just got figure out a way to make it low sugar enough to still taste good but I think it’s entirely do able, it’s a shame I didn’t get the cherries this year as they could have gone in as well, but all that together with our own apples and I am looking forward to making it.

Sunday: It rained heavily last night and is lighter but still raining this morning, as I always say, once it’s here it doesn’t stop 😜 John was up early breakfasted and out doing the morning rounds before I got up 😀 that is an unusual but welcome occurrence, it means I don’t have to go out and get wet until later 😂 He has now gone off to visit his Mum picking up Shelley on the way, I am having the twins for an hour this morning while Sam does the food shopping.

I realised that we had lost the lights in the kitchen and out the back, normally after heavy rain the pump from the water tank is the culprit but not this time, so far I have unplugged and turned off everything outside in the stable block but it’s still tripping, John is not back yet and so I decided to wait until he is otherwise it’s numerous trips backwards and forwards to the fuse box to figure out what exactly is causing the problem, freezers, tumble dryers, washing machine who knows at this point 🙄

John Home problem sorted, it was the pump after all, it just took a while to settle for some bizarre reason.

Today has had a definite winter feel to it 😏 wind and rain although the sun did shine occasionally.

Still no sign of TC, I find the whole thing a bit odd to be honest, he was extremely friendly and always here, I guess we may never know what happened to him 😔

Posted in Friesland Farm

Swallows, petrichor & some CPR training

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Easter Monday: I keep thinking it’s Sunday lol, Another nice morning, up early again because John is off it means I can go straight out to the garden and get started on some stuff. I have hoed the brassica cage, keeping the weeds for the rabbits, planted some broad beans round the edge of the cage and the brassicas will go in the middle, I’m also planning on growing peas in there because they will grow upwards rather than outwards so I can get them in between the brassicas and keep the birds off, bonus 😀 I did as much hoeing as I needed, I’m taking a more relaxed approach this year as I mentioned before, a lot of the weeds will be hand pulled to feed the rabbits and torts so I need a supply lol. The only weed I am actively controlling is bindweed, the rabbits will eat it but it’s such a thug it gets out of hand quickly and swamps everything so I’m trying to keep it down. I have planted a couple of herbs, my rosemary got so big it split in two and that caused the plant to rot over winter so I have a new one in and I also bought a curry plant to give that a try, I have been going round finding self set plants and digging those up and potting them, even things like Rosa rugosa because I can plant those in the hedge lines eventually.

The swallows have arrived, John spotted them yesterday afternoon flying around, you know Spring has sprung when they turn up 😀 They will have come from South Africa travelling up to 200 miles a day to get here, I think they deserve the noting of their arrival!

Tuesday: St George’s Day April 23rd not celebrated as it should be in my opinion considering it’s our National day! Mia day today but I got everything done before she arrived plus a little watering, I do hope we get some rain this week as things are beginning to struggle a little, they need something to perk them up. We didn’t do much apart from watch the torts and play but Sam finished early so I whizzed round and did the feeding and eggs then time for GOT 😀😀 I feel tired today, that’s the first time in a week or so, not sure why but definitely not got the umph I have had 😕 Late afternoon I planted some more peas, these are going in the brassica cage with broad beans and the brassicas. I thought I would take advantage of the fact that the cage is netted so that will keep the pigeons off them also they will grow much higher/narrower than the beans and cabbages/cauliflower so won’t be competing for space and light. I watered them in even though a touch of rain is forecast and I could smell that the air was charged. I could hear rumbles of thunder while I was out there but as yet I hasn’t come to much and the from the amount of times I have left it because it was supposed to rain and didn’t , I have learnt from experience, a little extra doesn’t do any harm. Hopefully with a rest tonight and a good nights sleep (which now I think about it, I didn’t have last night, I kept waking up for some reason) I should be raring to go tomorrow 🙄

I have ordered 25 Silver Birch trees, yep 25, well they were a bargain, I will only want a few of them but the rest I can pot up and sell on hopefully, if not we will have lots more lovely trees around the place. I tried growing some from seed but they didn’t grow at all and the around the two birches I already have I have never found saplings.

Going back to this morning I just have to tell you this, I went into the stable block to feed the hens that are in the stable (the escapees from the back paddock) near the tap was an overturned bucket with lots of the ground scratched about round it, I lifted the bucket and there was a hen, she has had a lucky escape from the fox by the looks of it, obviously the fox couldn’t work out how to knock the bucket over but it knew there was something under it, the hen clearly felt safe as she had even laid an egg 😬

Wednesday: Feeling less tired today so cracked on a bit, got the feeding etc done and then Into the garden. With rain forecast I wanted to get a couple of things done, first, cut the grass on the lawn and the driveway, two reasons, I want the clippings to put on the beds as a mulch and I don’t want the grass to spurt and get too long to cut when the rain comes. Second job was to get some things planted in the ground also because rain is forecast and that will give them a good start, eating peas and sweet peas mostly. I could have spent forever doing things but finally a shower 😀 I have heard thunder and the patter of a few drops since last night but nothing materialised until now. It seems odd that in England, where the rest of the world thinks it rains all the time, we are desperate for some rain, we haven’t had any for around 2/3 weeks and together with the scorching spring temperatures we have had, it’s a recipe for disaster in the garden, especially veg gardens. It’s not that we want rain all the time but over the years we have got used to it and so garden accordingly, we are now beginning to realise that we need to adapt and change, that is the reason I have been trying to create more of a forest garden so that we have a canopy to hold the moisture in the soil. The time for neat rows and bare soil has passed, well here at least and I need to learn a different way, not new, it’s been done in various forms for hundreds of years and there are always new ideas to tap into, it’s a journey of discovery I am enjoying.

I took a photo of one of the ‘guilds’ I created, it’s in its infancy and the photo is taken from directly above, I planted this up last year and the apple tree had been moved from the paddock because it was struggling massively. The tree is the one with the red leaves in the middle, I so want this to do well because the flesh of the apple is also red which I thought would be fun, then there is comfrey an accumulator, it will pull up nutrients from deep down and deposit them when it either dies back or is chopped and dropped, that’s the theory anyway, then there are strawberries they will spread, covering the bare ground and they obviously bring bees and insects to the area (pollinator) it doesn’t matter if the berries get eaten by birds, they are not my main plants for harvesting, you can just see onions poking through, those help deter pests due to the smell (repellers) I need to plant a (fixer) in there which will be from the legume family, they draw nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on the roots and release it into the soil when they die back, nitrogen is one of the most important chemicals to a plant, it’s needed to make chlorophyll, clover is probably what I will sow, it’s permanent unlike the beans and peas although I may put a couple of those in as well, it’s not difficult once to understand what each plant does and how it helps the other, in this case they are all helping he apple tree, hopefully it will work out, I will let you know. I have other guilds to plant up, the fruit trees have already been in the ground for a year so time to build the guilds 😀

We had a short shower, long enough to be able to smell that delightful smell of Petrichor 😀 one of my fave smells, this is the rain causing chemical reactions of either oil being realised from plants or bacteria, either way it’s a smell I love and the garden loves it too which is the most important thing. You could spend a day watering with tap water just to keep things ticking over, but a short burst of rain and the plants do a little happy dance, burst into life and put on good growth, now we just need a little bit more to fill up the water tanks please 😜

Went up to my neighbours to try and help identify some veg seedlings for her, the classic mistake we all make ‘I will recognise those when they come up’ or the labels fade/wash away, and you are left with trays of very similar looking seedlings 😀

Back home and did an hour in the tunnel, emptying things that have not grown, sowing odd packets of things that have been opened last year and a few left, they may come up, they may not but nothing ventured nothing gained. There were a few chick pea seeds so I sowed them and they grew well but didn’t produce much last time, however I figure the rabbits will eat the tops if nothing else.

I picked a few bits for the egg shed, rhubarb, asparagus and I put out Welsh onion, these are not something you will find readily in the shops, they are a perennial onion with a bit more of a kick than chives but not as strong as an onion, use them the same way you would as spring onion or chives.

Thursday: We have had a substantial amount of rain overnight by the looks of it which is great, the sun is trying to shine and the temps are not too low so it’s great growing weather. We popped out to do some bits last night and driving down the lanes I was thinking how fabulous the countryside looks when the hedges all start to fill out.

Pick a job, any job that’s the order of the day today, indoors, animals, garden, plenty needs doing, first of all though shower and coffee 😜

I ordered some tomato plants, I thought I had ordered some previously but I can’t find any email saying so (probably end up with loads arriving) I have got some seeds in but I think it’s a bit late really and the plants will give me a good start.

Yesterday while gardening I found a few borage seedlings in the path so I dug them up and relocated them back onto the herb bed, I was reading this morning that borage is especially useful to pollinating insects as it fills up with nectar every two minutes 😲 so I will be on the look out for more seedlings to transplant around the rest of the beds, borage can be a bit annoying if you like well structured gardening as it is big, hairy and floppy (yes, now I’ve written it, I see how rudely that will be interpreted by some 😜) and seeds everywhere but it is a fabulous plant for the insects so well worth putting up with 😀

I got a few of those jobs done that have needed doing for a while, you know the ones you walk past daily thinking, I need to do that, I must do that, I really have to do that soon lol. Mainly it was cleaning out the rabbits, they get deep littered over winter which works well, they have a couple of wet areas the rest is dry and the bumbles fall through the straw to the bottom. Well now was the time to sift all through it, take out the wet, shovel up the bumbles and dust, a lot of the straw is perfectly fine to throw on the toilet areas and then they will have clean straw and hay elsewhere. The quail hut needed doing as well and the nest boxes of the incarcerated hens in the stable, I’m keeping them in hoping that when they finally go back out into the back paddock most of them will stay there 🙄 I picked some fresh food for the rabbits and guinea, weeds, some herbs, and some chard, I gave a bit of chard to the light Sussex and the hens in the stable. We have a light Sussex hen sitting on eggs at the moment, I would be nice if she manages to hatch a bunch of them out, we haven’t had hen raised chicks for a couple of years.

What I really need to get a grip with is feeding the light Sussex as naturally as possible, that was always the intention, a flock of dual purpose birds for our own use, to feed them fresh fruit, veg, herbs & then grain & pulses. For one reason or another it has not been possible to get them out on a paddock as yet and now she is sitting I will have to wait a while longer but it gives me time to put something in place for when the time comes.

We hadn’t had as much rain over night as I thought, just a spitting by the looks of it but just as I finished the rabbits, tidied away and came in for coffee the heavens opened and down it came, good timing 😝

The sun is coming out in between showers so I went out and planted the rest of the seed potatoes this year we have swift (earlies) and Picasso (main crop) last year the potato harvest was not good because of the long hot spell hopefully this year will be better. I also scattered some cornflower and poppy seeds in the flower bed, I have cornflower growing from seed in the tunnel as well but you can never have enough cornflowers 😀 I am trialing a few other things, millet, quinoa, kidney beans, and haricot beans, and sunflowers seeds from the bird seed, to see if they grow and how well and I have had a piece of ginger in my fruit bowl that I was hoping would begin to sprout, it has so now I have placed it on top of some compost in a pot in the tunnel to see if I can get that going. Ginger is a bit hit and miss I find, it sprouts really well then dies off but I do know people who grow it successfully so giving it a go. My tea bush (Camellia Sinensis) survived winter, I need to read up on the best location to plant it once it’s big enough and get this, because if I was trying I wouldn’t succeed, but I used some cut apple wood branches to secure a piece of mesh round some bulbs and the wood has rooted 😲 free apple tree 😀 only one piece out of about 8 buy hey I’ll take that as a win. Amaranth is another I am going to try, the leaves are eaten like spinach and if it goes to seed the birds/hens will love it.

I put an item up for sale on social media and had a chap contact me as he wanted to buy it, all very normal, he didn’t know the area and doesn’t have a sat nav so asked if he could meet in Carterton which he does know a bit, that’s fine we can do that, as a thank you for going out of your way (it’s not really) would you like some tomato plants, yes please 😀 Sungold and Indigo, I haven’t grown either before so looking forward to seeing how they do.

Friday: I have only done the basics today, firstly it’s bloods day, I am pleased to say that the last lot of results were all normal so these should be too, then I went with Shelley while Josh had his class photos taken, then to get a coffee and cake, then a bit of food shopping. Back home and Mum came, then Sam and Mia so we all had a lunch of prawns and salad leaves from the tunnel and some general chat while the children argued over every little thing 😂 the amazing thing is that when it was time for Josh to go, he and Mia suddenly declared how much they love each other lol, if only they did that at the start it might have been a less fractious afternoon, kids 😝

Some brassica plants arrived today, I had forgotten that I ordered them but I’m pleased that there are Brussel sprouts in with them as well as cauliflower, cabbage and purple sprouting, I have loads of the latter two as seedlings so goodness knows what I will do with them all. I ordered plants last year and they did so well that I must have decided to repeat it again this year, meanwhile gaily sowing plenty of the seeds as well 🙄

Saturday: Oh what a difference in the weather from this time last week! The wind is very cold this morning, if you are reading this and not living in the UK you might be able to see why we are obsessed with talking about he weather, it’s soooo changeable it’s ridiculous, it makes planning anything outdoors very sketchy. We are lulled into a false sense of Spring then wham October is back lol, it’s a reminder to make sure any plants that are going out are short and strong rather than spindly or leggy as they will get battered.

We did the morning feeding and letting out and John keeps complaining about the wind and how cold it is, I told him, I know you are just trying to talk yourself into a warm comfy seat in front of the telly for F1 and some snooker 😝 I can find plenty of jobs under cover 😂

Before we get under way for the day on the smallholding though we are going for a bit of CPR training, the village now has a defibrillator in place and offered the free opportunity to learn or freshen up on CPR and familiarise ourselves with how the defibrillator works, too good an opportunity to miss.

The we went straight to pick up some multi purpose compost from the garden centre and of course John had to have a breakfast while he was there 😂 It gave me a bit of time for a look round and pick up some bits, I like to go to the casualty dept and rescue something I might fancy, today was a large lemon thyme for £2. For nearly ten years I have only grown vegetables and fruit with the odd flower or shrub in a pot, I realised how much I missed flower gardening, gardening in general, but I’m a bit giddy with my rediscovered passion for it lol and buying, propagating plants left right and centre. I’m even thinking, where can I start a real garden, by that I mean a dedicated area, it’s not that we don’t have the space, 5 acres is a lot, but can I, should I, give over a particular space to it? At the moment I have a small border in the front of the gate, pots and boxes in front of the building and a small area approx 5ft x 5ft in the veg garden.

I am changing the place bit by bit, I wish I had started 10 years back but hey that’s hindsight for you, the small paddock has got some fruit trees and I have a couple more native trees to go in so that will have a small copse area, and we have a small copse area in the side paddock right down near the road, I have never touched this but was looking at it yesterday thinking I could doing a little bit of tidying in there, it’s mostly hawthorn bushes and put a couple of other trees in there as well. We would have to fence it off though or the horse will probably eat anything I put in!

When we got back I spent a bit of time in the tunnel, it’s nice in there and horrid outside the wind is fierce. I picked up some 50p herbs from the supermarket, basil and parsley the basil I have planted in a pot with a cloche and the parsley I took a sharp knife to the roots and divided it into 4, planted 2 in the salad bed and potted 2 just to see if they take and how they do because that would be a very cheap way to get plenty of herbs on the go. I also picked up a rosemary also 50p, (these are all living herbs with roots) and took some cuttings from the nice soft tips of it, also just to see if it works.

After that we had decided that we would use one of the brooders that John made to move the chicks into as they need more space and will be moved out of it by the time the ducklings arrive. I don’t often give John the credit he is due (doesn’t pay to let him get too big for his boots 😜) but I am soooo pleased with these, they are just perfect and he has done a great job of building them, so if you see him out and about you can tell him ‘nice brooder unit’ 😀😀

Back out into the tunnel (my happy, happy place) and pot on a few more seedlings that are getting big enough now, I’m going to have so much to plant out very soon I will be busy from dawn till dusk 😋 Inbetween I was trying to go round picking up stuff that has been strewn by the wind 😕 hoping it dies down soon.

Then we went to pick up Josh who is coming for sausage and chips and a sleepover at Nanas and Gramp Gramps 😀

Sunday: A better day weather wise, the wind has dropped and we had a fair bit of sunshine in the afternoon. Josh went out and helped Grampy do the feeding and letting out this morning then the boys came over to do some more to the greenhouse and the girls came over with the rest of the grandchildren. By early afternoon they had gone and I set about planting the brassicas up, the whole cage is full now with broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, cabbage, purple sprouting, dwarf kale and some turnips, all that together with the broad beans and some peas should fill it to bursting once it’s all growing.

I potted up most of the silver birch whips, heeled a couple of them in in various places in the veg garden, the rest will be planted around the farm somewhere yet to be decided.

Charlie and Macca invited us for roast dinner, never going to say no to that 😀 and when we returned I went out to water the stuff I had planted earlier.

Picture of ranunculus which I have totally fallen in love with.

Job done

Day done

Week done 😀

Posted in Friesland Farm

Seed sowing, incubating & poultry processing

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday March 11th: It’s still windy! Generally we have a day or a night of windy weather then that’s it for a while, it seems like it’s been windy for weeks 😜 and it’s not finished yet as the weeks forecast still has high winds making an appearance. Our weather patterns are definitely becoming more erratic, even 5 years ago there were distinct seasons with seasonal weather, these last few years they are all over the place, global warming?, possibly but is it man made or a natural cycle or a combination of both?

We got the greenhouse measured up last night (just as they arrived there was a snow/hail/wind storm) and a cutting list sorted, just have to get it priced up and see what kind of wood we go with, it would be nice to have Oak but I’m thinking that will be a bit pricey 😝

I have a multitude of jobs to get done today and luckily there was enough roast left over for bubble and squeak for Johns dinner later so I don’t have to stop and think about that 😀

Phew it’s 1.30 and I haven’t stopped, I have got a lot done and I am pleased with what I have achieved so far today. Most of it was in the garden but a few indoor bits like ringing for blood appointment, booking in the septic tank clearance, changing the skip, then setting the eggs int the incubator, moving the lone quail back with the others, feed the rabbits etc. The septic tank was an interesting conversation the chap told me he would have to pass me to a different dept as he didn’t deal with commercial, he thought this was a Hotel🤣 it gets very confusing as we are listed as Shilton Horse Hotel, I’ve changed it now to Friesland Farm which is our other title, I told you its confusing, in the past we have had people looking for a bed for the night, I was allocated a personal manager from a company I ordered stuff from (them thinking it was going to be big business as a hotel needs a lot of things lol) the TV licensing asking how many TVs we had the list goes on 😜

Eventually I got out into the garden, ah, my happy place 😀 I sowed some more peas, I’ve decided to go big this year, plant loads lol, then I got the raised bed outside ready for sowing carrots. I weeded it and raked it over then I went inside for a coffee while the hens did their bit scratching it over and picking out any insects, preparation is key when the ‘ginger ninjas’ are around as any disturbed soil and they are there so I had to get the netting all ready before I sowed the carrot seeds otherwise they would be quickly scattered. I have sown an early variety and these are short carrots so should be a quick crop, well fairly quick, I have only sown half the bed for the time being and will sow the other half in about 3 weeks I think so the whole crop does not come at once. I have some amaranth that I will sow alongside them but I want to wait until it’s a little bit warmer before putting that in, the seed heads will be great for my utility birds and you can eat the leaves but the rabbits will probably get those. I did a bit of raking up debris and tidying around the raised bed, I think if I do bits at a time instead of looking at the whole job at once it will be better. Then it was onto weeding the brassica cage, one or two plants have survived the winter and are sprouting again so I will leave those they will be a welcome harvest of greens in a couple of weeks time. After that I tidied up and weeded the fruit cage, the rabbits had a bucketful of greens, I also put up a couple of wires along the far side so that I can train a grape along them, it’s a nice sunny spot and hopefully the grape will do well there. Then onto one of the main beds that has had Swiss chard in it all winter but now it’s started growing the hens are ravaging it so I have hooped and netted it. I stopped for a rest and found my back and knees were not so willing to get going again so that’s when I decided I would come in for a break. It’s great to feel that I can get all this done but I also have other jobs to do like the fire and the afternoon feeding and eggs so best not overdo it. Plenty of jobs still on the to do list though 😝

At about 1.20 while I was sat thinking should I do a bit more, and my back was saying no, the wind suddenly dropped, just like that, all of a sudden it was very still and I wondered for a moment if it was the calm before a storm but nothing else happened it was quite weird.

The goose eggs are at last selling, in fact they sold out yesterday without me realising, good job we are getting plenty 😀

Tuesday: Yet another storm is blowing in, this time storm Gareth, last year it was The Beast from the East, this year its The Winds from the West! It seems to have been constantly windy for over a week here 🙄 John has done all the outside jobs this morning already so I don’t even have to go out 😀 ⭐️ I have Mia today and although she went to hospital yesterday to see if the cast can come off they have decided it needs to stay on for longer. Not sure what we are going to find to do with heavy rains forecast as well could be a long day lol.

I decided to light the Rayburn quite early as it was a bit chilly, I had already prepped it before Mia arrived so just light it and off we go, or so I thought but the cook/heat lever had jumped its fitting and was stuck on cook, no amount of pulling or pushing the lever would move it, I tried levering it with the poker from inside the hot plate but nope, at this point there were flames so I couldn’t move it from inside, only one option I have to let the fire die right down so I can manually do it from within the fire box 🙄 all the best laid plans and all that! I put the little electric fire on instead 😋

I turned on the turner for the incubator, fingers crossed we don’t get any power cuts like last year!

Wednesday: Still the weather is a bit crap, windy, cold, not raining, yet. John did the morning stuff, he said one of the geese is permanently in the hut but I will need to encourage her out as we don’t really want them to sit, not yet anyway, that will be a fun task 😜

As I didn’t have to get outside straight away I though I ought to do some paperwork, bill paying etc, I hate this time of year when everything is due lol, I called John to remind him that as his van is now three years old he needs an MOT before I can tax it, great, let’s hope it sails through 🙄 When we had a limited company I would always allocate Fridays for paperwork, now that we don’t I just do it willy nilly but it does mean that I sometimes get behind and then hate the thought of having to sit and do it all, mind you when it’s done I feel a sense of freedom 😀

Went out and sorted some things for the animals, rabbits fed, quail some feed, the geese were all by the boot room window so I quickly went and collected the eggs while they were out 😝 checked for the cat again, still no sign, managed to get the pigeon out they are a bit stupid it’s the second time it has got stuck in the tack room. Then onto a bit of garden stuff, I cleaned the polytunnels with Algon, an organic wash that smells a lot like vinegar so I guess that’s the main ingredient. It’s blooming hard work out there with some real strong gusts of wind 💨 In for a coffee and a look at the to do list, plenty to choose from 😜

I thought I would have a go at the tree tapping as the spline arrived so I gathered everything together and went out to drill a hole in the tree but the drill bit isn’t big enough and the wind is making it hard work so I will wait for my new drill to arrive, it has bits with it and hopefully one will be ideal for the job. The wind is really making things difficult, it’s not structurally damaging (at the moment) but things are flying around. The small poly tunnel door has come off the runners and flapping about so I have fixed it back and put some buckets of water in front of it to hopefully hold it in place. I can’t do mucking out as the straw will just fly around all over the place so I’m giving that a miss for today, I wanted to get some rubbish moved to the skip but again it just gets blown out of my hands so that is also on the back burner, it seems like we have had this windy weather for ages 🙄 I have done what I can out there and looking at the forecast things should settle down after today and definitely next week looks a whole lot quieter.

I checked on the quail this morning there does not appear to be any more vent pecking hopefully I’ve nipped it in the bud.

I had Josh this afternoon as he wanted to come over ‘on his own’ and help me do the feeding and egg collecting 😀

John has come home with this cold everyone seems to be passing around ☹️

Thursday: So this damn stormy weather is still with us this morning, it’s supposed to have moved on by now it’s getting very tiresome 😋 It woke me up a couple of times in the night along with a noise that I have no idea what it was. I heard it and it woke me with a start, it was right outside our bedroom window and my very first thought was ‘that’s a big cat’ I didn’t get out and look out of the window I wish I had, Ive looked at the cctv this morning but it’s mostly covered in cobwebs (on the to do list) Ive pretty much heard a great many things at night here before but not that and I checked with every sound effect I could google to see if fox/badger/deer make a noise like that, nope. It made a sound like a domestic cat does when it’s cornered but it was a much bigger sound. It’s a mystery and I will ask around for any other sightings, I do know that where John was working the lad thought he saw something going into their wooded area last week and that is about three miles down the road?

I have been out this morning and let all the birds out and fed everything, all the while looking for clues lol, everything seems normal, well as normal as we get here 😝 I have some bread on the go, it’s ages since I last made some and John has requested it, did I mention he has a cold 😜 he is feeling sorry for himself, I hope I don’t get it as well otherwise how on earth will life function here 😝

I went out into the back bit to do a bit of tidying away and sorting, I had loaded the wheelbarrow up with some stuff for the skip but it started hailing and it’s still blowing a hoolie out there so I gave up and came in, took my coat and wellies off and the sun came out, exasperating weather.

It’s rhubarb season 😀 I picked the first bunch of rhubarb this morning put it out and it’s was sold in no time at all 😀 once it really gets going I think I am going to make a batch of rhubarb and vanilla jam and of course there is always my favourite stewed rhubarb and custard to be had 😀

At 2pm our delivery of new hens arrived 40 new laying stock and 20 for selling on, these are always lovely clean birds strong and healthy and start laying pretty quickly as they are around 17 weeks old. I settled them in with feed and water, now we just have to wait for eggs 😀

My new cordless screwdriver/drill arrived, it has a European plug 🙄 I should have checked, I have now ordered the converter! I cut the old plug off of the old charger which no longer works, you never know when you need a plug lol and I will put the charger out for recycling, I will keep the drill and batteries until they are well and truly knackered.

I am off to see an American Bluegrass group, Hayseed Dixie, in Oxford tonight, I’m really looking forward to something a bit different 😀

Friday: The wind is still here ☹️ I’m not the only one banging on about it lol, I had blood tests this morning and unprompted the nurse was saying about how the wind is getting annoying, then the septic tank lorry arrived and the driver also unprompted started talking about the windy weather and he wishes it would stop, glad it’s not just me 😝

I did all the usual things first thing, then went off for blood tests and popped in to the local shop to get some new work trousers, back home and the tank lorry arrived, got that done and dusted for another year, then out to check on the new hens in the hut in the paddock, we are not letting them out until tomorrow as it’s Florence’s 1st birthday and I don’t want to spend all evening chasing chickens rather than eating birthday cake! I did a bit more seed sowing into modules in the poly tunnel, broad beans this time and all year round cauliflowers. I took the wheelbarrow full of junk down to the empty skip and also put a load of wire that has been on the floor into it, though I’m now thinking I will take some back out and use it to cover beds so the chickens can’t scratch everything up. I was thinking I ought to sow some beetroot and turnip as well. I have so many jobs running through my head that I want to get sorted, although I said I was moving the light Sussex, I never got round to it and now I’m thinking I will just dispatch two of the cockerels and move the others. I have filled the incubator with their eggs and typically because I wanted to save some for the lady with the pre school, they have stopped laying so I think a move will kick start them again. I have made enquiries to find some POL ducks as we have more customers than eggs, hopefully I will find some soon 😀 I would hatch but too many drakes and we are not that keen on duck although we could learn to like it I suppose and at least it’s self sufficiency at its best.

The wind dropped suddenly around 6pm and John had been called out on an emergency (water coming through their ceiling) so I quickly went out and burnt the rubbish I had been trying to get done all week. We burn all our cardboard/paper rather than putting it in the recycling bin, only through the autumn/winter/spring months though not in the height of summer 🙄 and then once it was dark and everything was shut away for the night it was time to go and visit our little Florence who is 1 today 😀 it’s easy to remember her birthday if you studied Julius Caesar in English Lit, beware the ides of March. There is in fact an ‘ides’ in every month, it is the day of the month you settled your debts, some months it is the 15th and some months the 13th.

Saturday: Wet and windy 🙄 On a smallholding there is always a list of jobs to do and you start the day with the intention of doing what’s on the list, then something else comes along and takes priority. After doing the animals this morning the plan was to dispatch drakes but in the end we cleared up the back area, putting away etc because I need to order wood for the greenhouse and it needs to be kept dry and flat. Then I noticed that one of the mirrors in the ménage had been hit by the wind and broken, it was just hanging there which, obviously, is dangerous so that had to come down. Before John sorted that out we caught up the two light Sussex cockerels that we don’t need and dispatched them and I got on with plucking them while John sorted out taking down the mirror. I was still plucking (took me an age today) so he went and made the pen, that the remainder of the Sussex were to go back into (we moved them after the fox got in) more secure. The pen they are in is secure but small and mostly concrete, I wanted to get them back out on some dirt and weeds. I have two hens and two cockerels left and they all got a dusting of louse powder and DE for good measure.

Yesterday I ordered an Angelica plant and a jostaberry Bush, the Angelica will go where the tortoises will be, it’s great for the bees 🐝 and I may even get round to doing crystallised Angelica you never know.

F1 season begins again this weekend so that has to be watched of course, after years of just watching with John I’ve decided if you can’t beat them join them but I thought I would bring some rivalry by backing a different team to John lol, and after watching the Frank Williams story I’m getting behind the Williams team, I don’t expect great things like a world championship but a little bit of competition does you good 😜

Sunday: Well the weather today has certainly been changeable that much I know 😀 sunny first thing, then the wind picked up mid morning and it was cold, we have had hail, rain, the lot and now back to sunny again. First thing we sorted out the duck enclosure, the floor was giving in the hut so John put new ply down, the bolts all needed adjusting and then new straw put down. We will aim to get the ducks we want in there later today 😝John went off to visit his Mum while I did a bit of gardening and burnt some of the rubbish, chicken feathers from yesterday etc. When John came back we had coffee and we had intended to go outside and do a bit more but the wind was really cold so we decided to go out for lunch instead 😜 When we came back I did a bit of seed sowing in the polytunnel, flower seeds this time, some lupins, delphiniums, sweet peas plus a few others, all from seed I collected last year. It’s nice and warm in the tunnel as the sun has been shinning on it but while I was in there the hail came down, that was a bit loud lol.

Oh and I learnt something new this weekend, you can eat dahlia tubers 😲 who knew, apparently they are a staple food source in some countries, any dahlias even the lovely ones you grow in your gardens 😀

It’s 6pm, I’ve just sat down with a cuppa after processing the two birds we dispatched yesterday. They won’t look like the chicken you buy in a shop, firstly they are much older, about a year compared to a commercial chicken which is slaughtered at around 8 weeks (that’s not a typo) meat chickens are bred to eat constantly and grow very fast, we have had these breeds before and it’s not very nice which is why we chose a slow growing utility breed. Secondly they are not plump like the chicken you buy in the supermarket, this is because they have not been pumped full of water after death to make them look appetising and thirdly they are not bleached (albeit a food grade bleach) the dark marks on the skin are from me getting a little trigger happy with the scorch torch which is used to burn off and wispy bits and fluff. They are altogether more gamey looking and taste a whole lot better than the blandness of a commercial breed because they have been alive longer to develop flavour. These two weighed 3&1/2 & 4lbs, plenty for the two of us to feed on for a couple of days, the feet and necks I have put in the Rayburn to roast for the dogs, they do not particularly like the heart and liver so I don’t bother but sometimes I will save the livers and freeze them for pate or stuffing.

It is getting dark and we have two things to do tonight, one get the new hens into their hut, yesterday even though the door was open they didn’t venture out but today they have, they may go in by themselves, they may not 🙄 and two get the ducks into the duck pen when they have been used to going to bed in the stable block all winter, could be a lot going night 😝

Posted in Friesland Farm

A Wedding, a death & a bloody great pot hole 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 4th March: Cold and blustery this morning but at least it’s not raining. I have not done much but the usual today what with house guests and all. Finally the family secret is out of the bag, yesterday we surprised Dad and today Adi, my other brother was surprised with the arrival of Joe, also my brother, and his family all the way from Australia. Adi and Heidi are getting married tomorrow and it was hard work keeping it a secret from him lol. Big get together tomorrow, I think the last time we were all together in the same country was five years ago!

I had to light the Rayburn early as Dad who is almost 82 is definitely feeling the cold wind today.

I probably won’t write anything tomorrow as it will be a busy day, we are travelling down to Winchester and the plan is to leave all the birds in with feed and water, a friend is popping round to let the dogs out for a stretch and a wee and we will be home late evening 😀

There is no sign whatsoever of Cruella De Ville, I have no idea what has happened to her, it’s possible the fox got her as it has been in the tack room and cornered a hen in there from the amount of feathers, or its frightened her so much she has run off but I would have thought she would have come back as she has been here 4 months now ☹️

Tuesday: I have a few minutes to write so this mornings routine was slightly different as the hens/ducks are being kept in all day as we are off for the the wedding and it being a Tuesday anyone I would have asked to do anything is at work 🙄 Trying to get in through the door with a bunch of birds that are used to coming out was not the easiest of tasks today. John had to go and do a quick job 😡 not happy about that, so it was me on me tod. First job, the quail and I could see fresh blood in the cage, so I pick them all up and find one bleeding on the back end, I wash her off, purple spray her and put her back, I watch and see the others pecking at her back end. Great now I have to find a separate cage/box, and isolate her, she is in a cat cage with food and water and hopefully will heal soon. Onto the hens, banged my head twice trying to get in with feed and water without letting any of them out, swearing can most definitely be heard at these points! I’ve let the geese out, they are easy to get back in so will herd them back in before we go. Molly the cat is not moving very much this morning, normally she runs under your feet every time you go through the door but today she is staying put, in fact at one point I thought she had died but she put her head up when I went over to stroke her, I don’t think she has long left though ☹️ The dogs will mostly be in today but a friend is coming round to let them out later and we won’t be too late home. Let the celebrations begin 😀

We arrived home around 10pm, my friend had done a fab job, closed the curtains, turned the lamps on etc. It was most unfortunate for her that Molly the cat died while we were away for the day ☹️ I knew she was near the end this morning but I was hoping she would hang on until we got back, so as she put it, a wedding one day and a funeral the next!

Wednesday: Dull and damp outside this morning, John let the birds out they were happy after being in all day yesterday and from here on in I can now reorganise them, we had been keeping them in the stable block because we knew they would need to spend the day locked in for safety.

I noticed more blood in the quail cage and on further investigation I found three out of four quail with a pecked vent, so I oiked out the culprit and then moved the other three back to the outside pen, I will give them time to recover then put the other one back in and hope it behaves itself.

Sue cleaned out one of the duck houses for me, ready to move the ducks back outside though probably not today as the weather has not improved in fact it has got worse, I did a few bits outside and then decided it was too horrible out there if it wasn’t totally necessary 😜

Thursday: Still no sign of nice weather, it’s a bit cold and windy but at least not raining this morning. John let the birds in the stable out and fed them and I went round and did the geese and light Sussex. When I got to the light Sussex the door had come open and one of the hens was out, now I checked the door yesterday and although the bolt did not go fully in it did feel secure so either the wind has rocked it or someone has been poking about! Luckily all the birds are still there and only one had got out. I have been saving the eggs from these birds and just need 3 more for 18 then I will set them in the incubator. I can smell the fox this morning so will need to set up the camera again and see what is prowling around at night. We are off out for breakfast this morning with our guests, nice to get out and about 😀

That turned out to be more eventful than planned lol, halfway down the lane Sue pulled to the side to let an oncoming vehicle pass went in a rather large pothole and burst the tyre! Luckily she is with the AA as the locking nut on the wheel wouldn’t turn so she called them and we waited an hour for them to come, a passing van stopped to help, a young chap got out and said ‘hello Brian’ turned out to be one of my brothers (the one over from Australia) mates from many years ago. We all had a good laugh on the side of the road and eventually made it just before they stopped cooking breakfast altogether 🙄

We had a funny incident tonight when Dad went out the back for a smoke, we had two black cats, Molly who died on Tuesday and Diesel who very rarely comes anywhere near the ‘indoors’ but for some reason he came running in the back meowing tonight, frightened the life out of Dad as he thought the Molly had come back to life 😂

Friday: I haven’t really done much apart from the usual today. I have a contorted hazel in the front of the drive and each year it sends up straight stems, these need to be cut out so that it doesn’t revert back, Sue kindly offered to do this job for me today 😀 Sam, Shelley and the children called round in the afternoon, Sam made a batch of scones while she was here 😀 they filled the kitchen with a lovely smell.

Rain in the afternoon again, it really hasn’t been the nicest of weeks for our visitors, they will be going back to Wales on Sunday, we say they bought the rain with them, hopefully they will take it back 🤣

Saturday: Windy again but the sun is out so not so bad. John let the animals out and fed them while I sorted out the eggs for sale. Then John went out and sorted out the hunt and fencing in the paddock ready for the new birds next week, meanwhile I cleared an area that I wanted him to put a shelf up in and promptly dropped a slab of marble on my foot 😡 it’s sore but not broken I don’t think. He had left his tools at work (there’s a surprise) so we had to use my cordless screwdriver, I plugged the battery in to charge and the charger stopped working, ffs, I have had mine for about 15 years and at times it won’t work so I have ordered a new one 😀 just as cheap to buy the whole lot as a new charger so decision made. I did a bit of a tidy up in the boot room and sorted out the incubator and got that set up, I have 18 light Sussex eggs to go in when it’s up to temperature and humidity, these, if successful are our dual propose birds. Dad and Sue went off out to do some visiting. I planted up some strawberry plants in the poly tunnel and sowed a row of spinach a row of salad leaves and also coriander, watered the citrus trees and sowed some peas in a tray, emptied the mouse trap and reset it. In the soil before sowing I mixed in some mycorrhizal fungi for good measure 😀 it was blooming blowy, I mean seriously blowy out there this afternoon!

Then an afternoon of rugby, we don’t do rugby but Dad and Sue do lol, Sue did shell some hazelnuts for me inbetween games 😀

Set the wildlife camera again tonight as last nights failed, no idea what I did wrong but fingers crossed tonight it will pick up something.

Sunday: It is VERY windy this morning, I don’t think I ever seen it so bad in the daytime before, the wind is literally ‘roaring’ through the tops of the trees. John was filling the water buckets from the tanks and the wind was blowing the water sideways completely missing the bucket! My anxiety levels are always high when it’s windy just waiting for something to happen 🙄 I got the sd card in from the camera, caught the fox on it a few things times plus diesel but not Cruella ☹️ We did the birds and caught up one of the drakes to dispatch as Dad is going to take it home and pluck it then dine on it 😀

Dad and Sue left about 10 to return to Wales visiting my Aunt on the way, I cracked on with the cleaning as I haven’t been able to do it all week. I’ve booked a weekend near Dads birthday at the end of May, I booked through Airbnb on a smallholding 😀 very excited about that 😀 John stacked wood, he was going to cut the hedge but it’s so windy it’s not really safe to do.

The son in laws are coming round to measure up for the top of the greenhouse later so I have a roast to prepare for them all and hopefully that will be the end of cooking for a while as I have plenty of leftover portions from the meals I have been making all week 😜

I am booking tickets for the Malvern Spring show, we decided we would go on the Friday when it’s not too busy, if I don’t book things we never go so that’s my plan this year.

Went out and got a bit of food shopping and for after the roast beef later I have made a traditional rice pudding.

March:

‘The Anglo-Saxons called the month Hlyd monath which means Stormy month, or Hraed monath which means Rugged month.’

Very apt!

Poor Mia asked where Molly the cat was, when we explained she had gone to sleep she completely understood and promptly burst into tears 😢

Posted in Friesland Farm

Snow, ice, rain, fog = Winter 🥶

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 4th February: It rained in the early hours and has taken some of the snow with it but there are still large bits of ice underfoot! It’s been a busy couple of hours already, we discovered that Molly had managed to pull down the door where the quail are and had two of them for her breakfast 😡 Partly due to the fact that John had left the dustbin, we keep, the dog food in, out a little way which has given her a way up, guess who is in the dog house 🙄 The hens have been getting everywhere including in the back area and they knock everything over so I have been tidying up that and burning some rubbish.

We have had some success on the larger pest front over the last week and have reduced the numbers by three, there are still a few more around though, apologies to anyone this doesn’t sit well with but when you are inundated like we are at the moment something has to be done, after all our birds are just going about their daily lives as well and we need to protect them. We do as much as possible in terms of making sure that they are locked away and in a secure area but this doesn’t stop predators finding any way it can to get at them including daytime marauding 😫 And believe me the irony is not lost on me as far as the cat is concerned for a split second I considered dispatching her as well 😲

I still have a mouse coming in, it ate all the bait without setting off the trap and judging by the tiniest of cracks I think it’s getting in, it must be very small indeed, I will keep trying though I don’t want a family setting up in the house!

It is much milder today and it is not going to change for a couple of weeks so that will make life easier in terms of getting water to everything though it’s already muddy out there and that will just get worse with the rain that’s forecast, hey ho always something, can’t complain really, up to Christmas time we had a smooth ride into Winter.

We have plenty of eggs to push this week what with the lane being impassable for a couple of days the numbers soon mount up, egg for tea tonight as well 😋

I went for a massage in the evening, I have been looking forward to this for ages 😀 normally I will have a Bowen treatment but opted for a relaxing massage today.

Tuesday: Mia day, some of the conversations we have are so funny and of course very precious. Before she arrives I get the morning stuff done, set the Rayburn for lighting, organise what’s for dinner and get some washing on, I have to get this all done as she likes my full attention lol.

I have been having some inflammation issues over the past week partly my fault as a few times I have forgotten to take my evening medication 🥴 so after talking with my massage therapist who is a fountain of knowledge I am going to have a serious effort at eating anti inflammatory foods, I do this on and off but find Winter is harder to stick to it. Soup is a good way of getting what I need and yesterday I made a lovely vegetable soup and today I have made a specific soup with ginger and turmeric it also contains broccoli and leeks. The leeks I have growing in the garden but the broccoli is from the shop, note to self grow much more broccoli this year, I did grow a fair amount last year but it’s all gone. With a bit of salt and pepper and some chicken bone broth, hopefully it will taste good. I also took the time to set some beans and pulses soaking in water for a few hours, I keep meaning to do this then forget, I want to start using the butter beans I grew, that will be soup for tomorrow.

Going back to the tree theme, I read something the other day that intrigued me, in America studies have shown that trees are moving west, obviously not the trees themselves but the seedlings/saplings, this has baffled scientists as they expected them to move North due to climate change, they don’t know why they are going west. Just proves one thing to me, we don’t know everything even will all the science that we have, at one point in history they thought the world was flat 😝 ‘that’s all I have to say about that’ 😉

Wednesday: A soggy, foggy morning lol, it rained heavily last night and the moisture is hanging in the air this morning. I have blood tests early on so whizz round and get everything done before popping into town to get those done. Picked up a bit of shopping in town and then got some packing done for our trip next week, packed everything but the kitchen sink and probably still will think, I should have packed that lol, I tend to pack, then add to it and then come home with a case of stuff we haven’t worn! Forgot that the farrier was coming so dash out to get Jack into the stable and that seemed like a good time for a coffee break. We have plenty of jobs on the list to get done and make life easier for Shelley who will be living here and Sam who will be helping her. I have been trying to keep my nails nice but it’s just not happening especially when everything is muddy outside and constant washing of hands makes them dry 😝

I had the pulse and beans soup at lunch, pretty tasty actually, the last time I ate those was when I lived at home and Mum used them to make meals goes further, the butter beans probably needed a lot more cooking so I only ate the very soft ones.

It’s very mild out, pleasant after the recent low temps, I didn’t light the Rayburn until 2.30 as the house was warm enough but we do need hot water 😜

Went out to do the afternoon feeding and egg collecting then had a stroll up to the small paddock to see, with my glasses on, if I could see any daffs poking up, I went the other day and couldn’t see any and was wondering if they were being eaten. There are a few not many yet fingers crossed they are still ok under there and waiting for the right moment 😜 On the way back down I stopped at the hay barn and tidied up the few straw bales that are left, the chickens have scratched them all about so I put the straw into some tonne bags and covered them with old horse rugs. I found a few eggs that had been laid and fallen down the side of the pallet floor so I threw them into the hedge, no idea how old they are.

I’ve noticed the ducks are all trying to separate off into pairs and one pair has gone up to the back paddock, they go everyday I just hope they are not laying out in the open as there will be no chance for any eggs they are trying to amass. One of the rescue ducks keeps trying to sit on a clutch in the stable block, I have marked three duck eggs with big black crosses and will leave them each time to see if she continues to sit, she buried them well so it’s a sign she wants to. Still waiting for the appearance of the first goose eggs.

Thursday: It was pretty windy overnight and the rain hammered down again, normally the wind keeps me awake but I must have been pretty tired because I hardly heard it. I unexpectedly had Mia early this morning so John went out and let all the birds out, it’s now 9.30 and I haven’t been able to go out and collect the eggs yet but that’s fine they will be ok, I’m not sure if he has fed them but as they are all free ranging they will find food somewhere! Meanwhile I have some indoor jobs I can get on with.

Friday: A filthy morning 😜 wet, windy just yuk. I had a phone call from the Dr last night about my blood tests, rather than inflammation like I thought it was it seems my white cell count has dropped too low so I am to stop the meds. I explained I was going away as initially he wanted them stopped for one week but I’m going to have to stop them for two weeks, I have no idea how this is going to affect me I’m just hoping its not too much and then we will see what’s happening when I get back 🙄 UPDATE, I have spoken to the Dr again and there should be no adverse effects, things should just go back to normal so my mind is at rest now 😀

John was up early this morning and was in the kitchen when the mouse sauntered across the worktop, he tried to catch it but it ran off the worktop and fell into a plastic bag hanging on the end that has recycling in it, he took the bag out the back and emptied it out but no sign of the mouse, there is a hole in the bag, so goodness knows where it is now 😝

It really is horrible out there, just windy now and I’m hoping it will dry up a lot of the wet but working in the wind is hard work, I want to get the animals cleaned out, moving straw about in this is a recipe for disaster 😂

Well I went out and did a bit, cleaned out the nesting boxes and put fresh sawdust in, I think I will leave the fresh straw until later and do it just before they go into bed, the wind already caught the bucket of sawdust I was carrying and blew half of it down the yard 🤣 I just didn’t want to leave ourselves too much to do tomorrow.

Hot chocolate was definitely the order of the day today 😀

Saturday: So this morning it was supposed to be all hands on deck to get the jobs done and sorted except that John hit himself in the eye yesterday with a piece of plastic pipe and this morning couldn’t open his eyes! I did try to persuade him to go to minor injuries last night but no, this morning he is walking around hands out in front of him trying to feel his way round the place oh ffs. Right that’s it, either we get this eye bathed and open or we are not going away tomorrow, I did try to get him to put an ice pack on it last night but also nope, well not very long anyhow. So we bathe the eye and at least it’s open long enough to get the jobs done outside, but now after a coffee he needs another lie down 🙄 we still have the flue and fire to clean out, get the house straight and finish the packing, or at least I will be finishing my packing, he may be staying here at this rate 😜

Ok well things have improved a bit and we have got everything done and are as ready as we can be so, and I’ve waited an age to say this, we are off to the Artic Circle, arrrggghhh, see you on the other side 😀