It is Wednesday and I realise I have not written a single thing for the blog! The main reason for that is that I have had other things on my mind and plenty to do that is not Smallholding related.
Tomorrow is Charlotte and Maccas wedding day 🥰 and so as you can imagine I have had lots of things to get ready and sort out for that. Couple that with half term and going out with the grandchildren and there is not much time for writing or anything else really. On Monday afternoon we went on a pumpkin trail that a local farm/cafe/campsite had put on for free in their woodland area, the kiddies really enjoyed finding the pumpkins and the treat at the end of the trail.
On Tuesday morning I went with Sam, Mia, George and Lucie for a photo shoot, part of a competition Sam won on social media. That was a fun morning until the twins got tired and fractious. Back home for lunch and then Sam and Mia went out into the front paddock to move the fencing for the horses again as they had eaten off the little bit extra I had given them on Sunday.
This morning I have mostly been organising my bag for staying away overnight ready for the big day tomorrow. I also had to nip round and make sure the rabbits, Guineas and the birds in the orchard were all topped up with feed and water, make sure the horses water was full up and that all slip rails and gates were closed just in case 🤪
Thursday: Charlie’s wedding day 🥰🥰
Friday: It’s going to be a short blog this week 😂 Wednesday afternoon, Sam, Shelley, Charlie and I left for the The Wheatsheaf hotel in Northleach where we spent the night before the wedding. Lovely hotel and the food was superb, the staff were friendly and very accommodating. The next morning we were up early and had breakfast before the hairdressers, make up lady and photographer arrived. We spent a wonderful and surprisingly relaxed morning getting ready before John and the cars arrived and we were off to the venue. Stone Barn near Bibury, again another fantastic venue, the staff were amazing and know their job well, the food was outstanding and the day was filled with love and laughter, an absolutely delightful day celebrating the marriage of two wonderful people who make an awesome couple. An amazing day full of so many thoughtful little touches, a day of many amazing moments for my memory bank, just perfect 🥰
My very beautiful youngest daughter Charlie and her new husband Sam aka Macca
Saturday: After doing all the usual jobs we spent the rest of the day taking down old bits of the back area and putting up new stud work for the pantry. A very exciting project as far as I am concerned because it’s were I get to store everything I grow or make and hang flowers and herbs to dry 😁 That literally took us all day to get that sorted.
Sunday: Oh my days, rain, torrential rain, non stop torrential rain! Then flooding in the back area because the outside drain was blocked, John normally keeps it clear but because of everything else he has been doing it got left. We had water coming in everywhere out the back 😏 Then the electric tripped, we went round trying to find out what had tripped it, it took six goes of turning it back on only for it to go again before we found the culprit which was an extension lead to one of the freezers, it was getting wet and electrics do not like that 😂 Eventually after spending time in the pouring rain, John managed to get the water to run away. We then got on with the job we had originally gone out there to do which was take down some more of the old stuff at the other end of the building where Johns pool table will be going. It’s like playing rubics cube at the minute because we have to keep moving everything from one place to another in order to get any further forward, eventually it will all fall into place.
We went out with Sam, Luke and the kiddies for a Sunday roast, it’s Luke’s birthday tomorrow so it was nice to have a bit of time out with them to mark the occasion.
The clocks went back last night and it’s Halloween or Samhain today. Samhain marks the end of the natural year really, everything is now harvested including nuts and berries and growth naturally dies back ready for the winter sleep. Having something hearty to eat is appropriate, it is a season to celebrate feasting now, not too much though or else or your stores will be gone before the next growing season gets underway 😂 I will miss the summer days and temperatures but I also enjoy the darker nights and frosty mornings, hunkering down and staying cosy as much as possible. I still have plenty to do outside in the garden but at this time of year if it doesn’t get done it can wait until spring, I can find plenty to occupy me inside if needs be.
Have a good week and find lots of things to do that give you that cosy feeling, Winter has arrived 😬
Monday 8th February 2021: Morning 😀 it’s 9.30am and I have sat down to have a coffee. I have already been out and rolled a wheel of hay to the paddock with John and fed the horses, lit the Rayburn, got a loaf of bread proving, got lunch and this evenings dinner organised, put some washing on, fed the cats and dogs, made an appointment for bloods at the end of the week and a multitude of other little jobs that needed doing. It’s cold outside brrrr , last night the wind gusts kept waking me up, around 10 times I would say as the roof rattles with each one 🙄 It is a crisp, dry cold morning though with a light dusting of snow, actually not a bad morning, at least it’s not raining 😝 John has gone off to work this morning but he doesn’t have a lot on this week so he will be here quite a lot, he said the less he goes to work, the less he wants to go! Not sure what I am going to do today, I plan to sling the hoover round quickly and I have some bits of paperwork to sort out and file, too cold to do much outside so that’s off the list, maybe I will work out what I am going to plant this year and where also what I need to do in order to get going when the time is right. That last bit will be a long list as nothing has been done in preparation as yet, there is cutting back, weeding, mulching and re positioning to do. I had planted a flower bed in the veg garden, that’s because I didn’t have anywhere else to put flowers but now we have the front beds I could move a lot of the bigger stuff and just leave good pollinating plants behind. The calendula which readily self set everywhere are great for the veg plots but the delphiniums, rudbeckia, dahlias etc will be better in the front I think. Each week I wait and hope that the weather will be kind enough to get going and so far each week it hasn’t been, I am sure I will get there in the end 🙄 I have another raised bed to think about at the side now, this one is fairly small in comparison to the others, 8 x 4ft and only one sleeper high. There is a sumac that grows there which I would like to see back again, it has got ravaged when the trees came down but should recover, it’s just a small one but if left could get lovely and big, there is also an elderflower that self set and if I keep that smallish that will be nice too, under those I plan to plant hellebore, snowdrops, for winter interest and probably some good ground cover. I want that bed to be fairly maintenance free if I’m honest as I have plenty of others to keep in order. I also plan to have a bench the other side because we get some fantastic early morning sun there and in the early hours of a summer morning it would be nice to sit and have coffee before the sun gets too hot. If I remember I will get some pics today so that I have before and after, when it eventually gets finished that is 😀
10.30 and it’s trying to snow 🙄 good job I got some leek and potato soup out for lunch today 😀
Snow flurries all day but nothing much is settling so far luckily but by golly it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!
Mostly I pottered indoors, John came home at lunchtime and did do a bit outside but it was soo cold he gave up and came in. He did the animals in the afternoon while I got the dinner cooked and that’s it for Monday. I rather think that will be similar most days with these temperatures, can’t really do a lot out there and can’t go anywhere else 😂
Tuesday: Oh god it’s only Tuesday 😂 pretty much a Groundhog Day, or same shit different day type of day lol. John did most of the animals this morning before nipping out to do a quick job, I did the horses, Guineas, cats and dogs plus the normal household stuff. I spent a hour getting a shepherds pie ready for dinner this evening, all the while thinking, this will take John approximately 3 minutes flat to wolf down 🙄 Got some veg soup made from my frozen stash, made a couple of cards and did a Lino print. In the afternoon it’s feeding, egg collecting, egg sorting, dinner and that is pretty much the day. Very boring at the minute, can’t really do much outside, it’s freezing, very cold dry air and a cold wind to go with it, not nice and not much to be able to achieve really. John did have a little go at some more of the side driveway but even he got fed up and cold and came in for the afternoon.
I did a fair bit of research in the evening after watching Rick Stein in France where he watched someone pressing their nuts 😛 Walnuts to be exact and I thought well maybe I could do that with our nuts, why not, makes sense to use the resources we have here. What I already knew was that cold pressed oils are better than hot pressed though I wasn’t sure why. Now I know that as the nut meat is heated ready for extraction they lose a lot of their goodness , it was obvious really if I had thought about it enough. The oil industry uses heat as it can extract much more volume but the quality is poorer whereas cold pressed yields lower volumes of higher quality oil. I always buy cold pressed olive oil, we went to an olive grove once in Tuscany and I understood that cold pressed was the best quality you could get so ever since then that’s what I have bought. The harder part of my research was trying to find the best method of extraction, I suppose here in the UK it is not something that is done on a small scale. I imagine that in warmer a Mediterranean climate many homes would have olive trees etc and practise pressing 🤷♀️ but here in the UK I think that is rare 😂 I found a few worktop machines that are available, they vary in price and I could not decide if they were worth the investment or not. Then I started thinking about how you could do it with a ready made machine which would be a better option, the nuts need to be crushed and then pressed. Crushing would be easy enough, you could do small batches in the food processor, but the pressing is harder to work out. You can use a hand operated press but my experience with pressing is that you need good hand grip and wrist strength both of which are long gone for me 🙄 some kind of hydraulic aid is needed, I did ask John if it would be possible to convert the log splitter which has 400lb of pressure, it might be an option, I will keep looking to see if there is anything that might work, or I may end up buying a machine 😜
Wednesday: Still really cold, still dry but the sun is shining this morning which makes everything feel better doesn’t it. John did the morning rounds and then went off to do a small job. I had a shower and sorted a few bits before venturing out to sort out the rest of the motley crew. Two years ago today we went on holiday, as it turns out it was the last holiday we had to date 😔 had we known we would have booked in another one later that year lol. Still it was an adventure, we sailed the high seas, and at times they were high 🤢 we crossed the Artic Circle (tick that off the bucket list) and we went to right up to Alta in search of the Northern Lights (storm Eric scuppered those plans 😣) what I would give for a holiday right now 😜
Sorted out what I needed to outside then back in to light the Rayburn which was troublesome today 🙄 I took me over an hour to get it stabilised which is a pain in the arse quite frankly. John has left over shepherds pie for dinner tonight but I got out some gooseberries to make a crumble with and one of our home produced chickens for tomorrow’s dinner. Then I went online to order some more bread flour, during the first lockdown when it was hard to come by I ordered from a whole food company and it is by far the best flour I have used for making bread so far. I ordered bread flour and also plain and self raising as well as a few other bits and pieces. I had a good look through the range they offer and it was a huge range, I was struck by three things. First that 60/70% of the people I know wouldn’t have a clue what half of them were, second that 80/90% of people I know wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway and third that I 100% don’t make full use of everything I grow here! That actually all adds up to a forth and that is that on the whole we, as a ‘modern, white, first world’ population have entirely lost touch with good food ingredients, I can’t include ethnic minorities in that statement because I believe that they still know and do use the majority of these ingredients in cooking. Yes I realise that a percentage of people use fresh ingredients but I also think that they are very basic in their choices as indeed am I really, when you start to really look at what is available we use such a tiny proportion. I shall have to set myself a mission to widen my ingredient usage and really look at the things I grow and broaden the ways I can use/store/preserve them. If you are wondering what the hell is she on about (admit it you were 😜) it’s is things like drying kale and using the powdered form or de hydrating much more produce for use during the winter or really drying plenty of beans and pulses for the same reasons. I have dabbled a little bit, the fruit powders were not terribly successful as I found they burnt a little bit maybe I should try again, and I have done beans and pulses but I should do many more I think. There are so many things I grow both in the veg garden and the flower garden and indeed also includes weeds like plantain, cleavers etc that I don’t use fully and maybe I really should.
That’s what happens when it is too cold outside to get anything much done, I start thinking and looking and learning and then churning it out but it’s a good thing I think, certainly brightens up the day to have a project in mind 😂
I went out in the afternoon and did a few bits mainly defrosting the water tap and hose so that I could get a decent amount of water up to the horses, when they are on ad lib hay they drink a lot. I had to bring the hose connector in and run it under the hot tap, when I finally got it off the tap that was, nothing is easy when it’s freezing weather, I think the temps go down to around -5 at night if not lower. I filled up all the wild bird feeders, they are also eating a lot at the minute as there is nothing else available. Then it was on to putting fresh bedding in for the geese and ducks, I had a look at the hens, I will be so glad when they can get back outside but I’m not expecting that to happen until April really. The stables are ok but not the best environment for them and they need clean bedding every couple of days which has a knock on effect on running costs. Back indoors to top up the Rayburn although when you come in from outside it feels like a sauna 😂 Make a cup of tea and after that I will probably go back out to do the egg rounds and probably put clean bedding in for the hens too.
I had an online discussion about pressing nut oils and it would seem that I can use my Apple scratter and press to do the job so I will probably give that a go later in the year, I don’t have anything to lose by trying it out.
Thursday: I have no idea what the temperature went down to overnight but it was mightily cold this morning! John did the animals while I got dinner in the slow cooker and sorted out the washing etc then it was off to town to have my blood tests. Even though it was market day it was very quiet everywhere, we did a bit of shopping while we were there and then back home.
I wish this cold grip would move on, it’s getting tedious now, hard to get anything done outside, bloody freezing when you do go out and large parts of the day spent indoors where it’s lovely and warm but it makes you feel tired.
My new tree arrived today but I can’t plant it until the frozen weather moves on.
The news is all very depressing 😔 goodness knows when this whole situation will get any better, I think most people are really feeling quite low at the minute. I never thought I would hear the words ‘it is illegal to go on holiday’ 🙄 It is not looking like we have very much to look forward to in the first half of the year at least, fingers crossed for a few months respite in the summer.
I have 30 pallet collars arriving tomorrow 1200 x 1000 we will be using them to re organise the veg beds. Much easier to deal with smaller raised beds that great swathes of garden.
I feel quite despondent today, can you tell 😜 so I bought a gardening magazine to cheer myself up and I think tomorrow I will start writing a list of seeds to start sowing at the beginning of next month. There is plenty to organise really and I will have all these pallet collars to start putting in as well, organising what I will grow where might give me the boost I need at the minute to get me through the rest of this month.
Friday: I got over my self indulgent melancholy and had a pretty busy morning.
Last night the the wind was constant and the metal roof was banging about, for almost three hours I laid awake until I decided to sleep in the living room, that got a bit cold in the early hours so I went back to the bedroom where the wind was somewhat quieter for a while.
John got started on the morning rounds while I whizzed round and did a few things inside before joining him on the yard to get going on cleaning out the hens. We moved the light Sussex from the POL pen into the stable that flooded but is now dry, we moved the hens that were in the small dark stable out to the POL pen so they can get some natural light and air, we then cleaned out that stable. Probably around seven to eight wheelbarrows full of sawdust and chicken poo 😝 We then put in all clean sawdust and moved half of the hens from the stable at the back into the smaller stable, the rest will stay where they are, the reason being that the fewer hens in one place the less meets they get in or at least it takes longer to get in a mess. They also tend to break a lot of eggs when there is 30 of them all in together, hopefully now they all have more space there will be less breakages as well. The other lot of hens in a different stable keep relatively clean as there are only about 16 of them, while I was in there putting in fresh straw for laying in one was about to lay, I got my phone out and took a video, it’s rare you actually see an egg being laid 😮
The chap came and dropped off the pallet collars I ordered and then it was time to come in and light the Rayburn, it’s still pretty bitter and the wind has not let up at all, hopefully it will be above freezing tomorrow as we still can’t use the outside taps or hoses🙄
Afternoon rounds consisted of egg collecting, feeding and bucketing water up to the horses and geese. John thinks the geese are getting close to laying as the gander is getting more fierce by the day, geese begin to lay around Valentine’s Day so hopefully they will be right on cue this weekend 🥰
Tomorrow we will clean out the remaining stable, ran out of time today and that will be them all done for at least a week 😝 We can also look at where the pallet collars will be going as I haven’t quite decided on a design yet.
Saturday: Up and about, John went out to do the feeding and I sorted stuff out indoors before going out to help with the last stable cleaning. My god it was bloody freezing, I mean freezing 🥶 the wind chill even at 9.30 must have been around -6, it is the wind that is the problem, even barrowing back and forth I could not warm up my finger tips and hips even with good clothing on. In the end I said to John I can’t do this its too cold so I came in to light the Rayburn and get dinner sorted for this evening while he carried on. I think this problem I have been having with the ends of my fingers is the problem, they hurt like billyo even inside thick warm gloves. Hopefully this evening the temperature is going to come up to 1c and stay above freezing, our average winter temps are between 1c and 7c so you can see why a whole week of continuous below freezing is unusual and hard work. Some where in Scotland it went down to -21 I think, that’s insane for the UK 🙄 Our weather seems to become more extreme year on year, record heat, record cold and record rainfall is becoming normal and the seasons seem to be shifting slightly too, any veg grower will tell you that they need to adapt all the time for growing and harvesting.
Sunday: Be careful what you wish for! The temperature finally came up above freezing sometime during the night and as a consequence we had a burst pipe out the back on the dog shower, good job we have a live in plumber 😜 It had drained all the hot water so the shower I was going to have didn’t happen, it was still cold this morning and I was looking forward to a hot shower. I lit the Rayburn first thing, not in the best of moods when it’s cold and I can’t warm up at all. It’s Valentine’s Day, not that it makes much difference in our house, although I organised a dine in for two on Friday evening and have organised afternoon tea for today, John as usual did nothing, no flowers, no card, no nothing, thanks pal, that has not made my mood any better I can tell you 😜 It’s no surprise really, I used to have tell John to take his Mum flowers or she would never have got any then he would take all the credit when his Mum was delighted 🙄 Like many women, for the first probably 25 years after we got married I always organised the birthday presents and cards etc then one year I said to him that he needed to take over remembering his Mum and Dads birthday and getting them something, that resulted in his Mum getting a bunch of artificial flowers and he never even noticed the difference 😂
It’s definitely warmer by a few degrees and guess what, it’s raining, jeez can’t we just have a nice day, Winter seems sooo long at the best of times but this year it is just endless.
We had our afternoon tea, although there was quite a lot of it so we have saved some for another time, then it was time to do the animals again and that is another week done and dusted. Time relentlessly marches on regardless of anything in its path, that is the one consistent thing in life, time and tide waits for no man 😜 same time next week, see ya 👋
Monday February 1st 2021: Imbolc, the midway point between the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox, the beginning of the return of Spring, St Brigid’s day (who also happens to be the patron saint of chicken farmers amongst others) there are plenty of customs and traditions surrounding the day but for me it is definitely celebrating the turning of the wheel towards Spring and all its glory 🌸 🌼🌷🌻
John has returned to his ‘proper job’ this month so today for the first time in a while I am here on my own for the day. He did go out and feed most of the birds before he went though bless him, I need to get out and sort the horses and the Guineas. First and foremost I got the house bits done, some washing up, washing on, rubbish out, feed the cats and dogs, have breakfast etc etc all at my own leisure 😀 It is great having John around but it is more restricting when you have someone else to cater for and work around all day long 😜 So what is on my agenda, well a lot will depend on the weather and I think we are in for more heavy rain at some point in the early part of the week and of course it is still quite cold this morning. I do have a few seeds to sow, lemon grass which I love growing as it smells amazing, I have some garlic chives I want to get growing and probably today I will spent a small amount of time in the greenhouse checking over what is already in there and maybe a bit of tidying and sorting. At some point I need to give the poly tunnels and the greenhouse glass a good wash to maximise the light getting in and no doubt I will find jobs as I go round. Yesterday I spotted a pot of snowdrops in the cold frame, lovely little white heads bobbing gracefully on the end of the slender green stalks, I had thought I had lost them all. There were plenty here when we came but with the constant re arranging of areas I had forgotten that I dug them up and potted them, happy discovery 🥰
I went out and did the things I needed to get done (it is pretty cold out, not frozen but not mild either) had a look round in the greenhouse, nothing much to report. It feels like I am waiting…..waiting for the vaccines so start making an impact, waiting for things to start bursting into life, just waiting and waiting for something that signals life is beginning to shift and change 🙄 It’s been a tough, long Winter and we could all really do with some sunshine on the horizon. Don’t get me wrong I am under no illusion that life is going to get back to normal anytime soon, I think the process will be long and slow but I am hoping there will be some kind of normality coming our way.
I got the Rayburn lit and then once that settled down I had a few bits of paperwork and bills to sort out.
Well I would have got some bits done except that he internet keeps dropping in and out 🙄 I reported the fault over a week ago and luckily we have a mini hub which they activated back then, it settled down and has been fine all week and now it’s started playing up again, I can only hope it’s because they are fixing it, what are the chances 😏
Tuesday: It’s 11am and have sat down with a coffee. John did the feeding again this morning before going to work 😀 At my leisure I had breakfast, put some washing on, fed the cats and dogs, went out to feed the horses, put the eggs out and then spent an hour doing some weeding on that front bed. It is nice and mild out but very very soggy underfoot after yet more heavy rain overnight, it does not take much to soak everything after the amount of rain we have had over the last week. As it was quite pleasant I thought I could probably weed the bit of the bed I could reach from the pathway, it is very claggy and I almost stopped after my gloves got completely clogged but decided to carry on regardless. I would have done more except I remembered that I needed to make some bread so that was a good time to break and have coffee at the same time. I came in through the the kitchen and out to the boot room to take off my coat and wellies, noticed the cat had knocked over an egg box that had two eggs in it, I cleared it up and then realised I had left the kitchen door ajar. Then ensues a game of cat and human, the cat got in the house, we have had this a few times, it’s Jack and he likes to make you chase him and try and get him out from hidey holes 😜 It is exactly how you can imagine it would be but eventually he gives up and goes back out to the boot room. We need to work out what to do about the eggs in boxes because the cats have taken to sharpening their claws on the boxes totally ravaging them and breaking any eggs in the process. I would have hoped that by now they would be spending more time outside but it seems although they were born in a barn they rather prefer a comfy, cosy boot room to lounge around in all day and night! They have also worked out that if they knock a box over that is partially filled they get broken eggs 🙄 and an extra feast 😂 I assume as the days get longer and warmer and I am spending more time outside, they will too 🤷♀️
I am avoiding lighting the Rayburn until much later, I lit it around midday yesterday and we were sweating by the evening as it was so much milder out 😂
I had intended to get something ‘useful’ achieved but as ever those little jobs took over. A delivery, the postbox, lunch, sort out the ring doorbell, bread making. The ring doorbell has not been working, it has gone offline, who gave it permission for that I don’t know 🤷♀️ anyhow I decided to get it in and charge it and sort it out. I discovered that when John put it back up in a slightly difference place, the security screws could not be fully screwed in, no wonder it’s not bloody working. Honestly it was a simple enough job, we took it down, including the back plate, to install a cover over the top because of the rain affecting it, the cover had to come back off for some reason that John explained but I can’t remember. He put the unit back up without the cover and it never worked, I assumed it was because of bad weather, but no today when I went to get it in I discovered the problem of the security screws. Basically there is not enough room to get the screwdriver at an angle that you can fully screw them in (there was room before the alteration) as there is a fence in the way. Actually, thinking about it I’m not sure that affects the working of the unit but even so 🙄 I will get it charged, get it back online and put it back up myself, properly this time.
Wednesday: Not much to report today, the weather was fairly mild again but we are looking at another beast from the east arriving at the weekend. With that in mind I have ordered more hay wheels for the horses to keep them going. John did the feeding this morning just leaving the horses, Guineas, dogs and cats for me to get done. I then spent half an hour or more trying to get the ring doorbell working, I was walking around the front trying to see where the wifi drops out. I think since we have re insulated and cladded the signal strength is too poor to reach to the gate next to the egg shed. It reaches about half way but that’s no use really as we have cctv that can see that far, the doorbell was for, well doorbell enquiries really 🙄 So I deactivated it, cancelled the subscription for video capture storage and put it up for sale, by 5.30 it was sold and gone and I need to go back to an old fashioned door bell. To be honest I’m quite glad, it constantly went off with egg customers coming and going plus if I wasn’t in the connection while trying to talk to someone was not the best.
We rang the bell and clapped our hands for Captain Sir Tom Moore tonight, he really did become a national treasure, he inspired people and gave people hope during some very depressing times through the pandemic RIP. He had an amazing 100th year, raising over 30 million (in a very short space of time), becoming an honorary Colonel, an honorary member of the England cricket team, a number one hit, a world record being the oldest person to have a number one hit, a royal variety performance, an honorary doctorate, birthday messages from the Queen, members of the royal family, the Prime Minister and receiving a knighthood, but what he gave was so much more so so many people, hope and perseverance 🥰
Thursday: A wet day again today, although the morning was dry just as I decided it was time for a walk the rain started. Not to be deterred I carried on anyway but was soaked through by the time I got back, good job I had lit the Rayburn before going out. The task was to get my coat and gloves dry before it was time to go out and do the animals, it was my wax jacket (which obviously needs rewaxing) the rain had got in somehow and I needed to get it dry again because putting on a wet coat to go out is not nice at all. Anyhow I was saved by the fact that John came home earlier than expected 😀 and so he did them lol. I had Mia for the day as she, like a lot of school children, is beginning to struggle emotionally with the lockdown and being at home all the time. She came over for the day so that she could have time to herself and do something different. Shelley, Josh and Flo came over to join us on the walk, we were all soaked but we had a lovely time splashing in puddles and letting the rain drip down our faces. I did feel really sad when Josh cried because he could not come in to nanny’s house, it s heartbreaking really but between us adults we had agreed that I would form a childcare bubble with Sam to help out with things got tough. I am pretty sure Shelley could do with the break as well but at the minute sadly it has to be this way 😔 I had to peel off Mia’s clothes and put them to dry by the Rayburn so she spent a couple of hours wrapped in a blanket on the sofa with a hot water bottle watching the tv. We had made biscuits in the morning so we had a snack and a drink and a rest while we warmed up and dried off. The biscuits are a really simple recipe from Mary Berry, the more of her recipes I use, the more I choose to do, they always turn out as expected. These are called fork biscuits use three ingredients (four if you include chocolate chips) and are easy enough for little children to do.
100g (4oz) butter, softened 50g (2oz) caster sugar 150g (5oz) self-raising flour, mix it all together, form 16 balls, press down with a fork that is dipped in water and bake at 180c for about 10 minutes or until the edges are just turning golden, I leave them to cool for a while until I move them as they are still quite soft while they are hot. We added some cocoa powder and chocolate chips but you could add whatever flavours you have or like. I can’t show you a picture as Mia took them home to share with George, Lucie, Mummy & Daddy, we gave one each to Josh and Flo too.
Friday: A lovely mild, sunny morning so far. I have done all the usual things plus fill up the wild bird feeders, I have a hay delivery coming at lunchtime but have stopped midway during the hoovering to have a coffee 😜 I have plenty to get on with and we are expecting the temperature to drop tonight and have a snow warning for Saturday into Sunday so we will see how that pans out. With that in mind I thought I would get all the house jobs done so that I can maybe sit and doing some crafting over the weekend. I am still waiting for some paper to arrive before I can do the Lino prints, hopefully that will arrive today. I keep looking at the garden but yet again overnight we had some heavy rain so the ground is totally sodden and it’s not worth compacting it by treading all over it. We could really do with a dry period now, the long range forecast does not look too bad as far as rain goes. I always find February a long month, which is ironic as it’s the shortest, but it is almost a long slow plod towards warmer days and crucially warmer soil, we will get there, we always do, time keeps on marching on and the wheel keeps turning 🌝
The rain is back and hammering down again, we are so waterlogged, not just our paddocks but all around the area and parts of the country 😏 My heart actually sinks when I hear the rain becoming harder.
When I was getting the dustbin back in this morning I noticed the little crocus that we planted a couple of years ago in the grass under the cooking apple tree. When the crocus open thats when you will see the first bees of the year flying around 🐝 And talking of bees I am doing an online beekeeping course 😀 Hopefully, if I think I can look after bees ok I will order my first bee hive and some bees. I also hatched a plan to breed ladybirds lol, last year I bought the larvae for the brassica cage but I figured if I can find a bunch of ladybirds as they come out of hibernation and put them in the greenhouse I should be able to get eggs and hatch them 🤷♀️
Saturday: Foggy this morning and it got heavier as the morning went on but by the afternoon it had cleared. It was cold as well first thing, we did the morning rounds, I cleaned out the guinea pigs and put fresh bedding in all the other pens/stables and then I started to help John with the side driveway, my toes were getting colder and colder and I had to change into my isotherm wellies which are much warmer. We got a temporary small gate up, none of the merchants can get hold of any at the minute so we have a piece of ply instead. We took the old fence and gate down and then the fox chap turned up, there are a few problems on the farms around us and we have nightly visits here, they are trying to dig into the stables where the hens are at the minute. A quick chat turned into an hour talking about all kinds of things by this time is was lunchtime so I went in to stick the kettle on and make bacon rolls. Shelley came to get some eggs so that was another chat over the fence for a while, time to light the Rayburn and have a sit down 😂 we haven’t got very far in the last few hours today. I did go online and order a uk grown silver birch to plant in the area and they also had a good deal on some cherry plum trees so I really had to buy them too 😜
Sunday: Not as cold as I thought it was going to be this morning but the temps have plunged this afternoon and the wind is bitterly cold. The forecast is for seven days below zero 🥶 a mini beast from the east, many places have snow but we don’t….yet! We did the animals rounds and then John did a bit on the side driveway, moving a layer of mud that has built up over the past couple of years. We treated ourselves to a costa this morning and I also booked a takeaway roast dinner from the pub in the next village along 😀 Got to have a few treats in this lockdown winter. Apart from the usual jobs we haven’t done much else today, I have been doing a bit of Lino cutting and printing but that’s it really.
Another week over and hopefully another week nearer to normality 🙄 Its going to be a cold one, below freezing which means carrying water to the paddocks and breaking ice on what’s already there. I am hoping the ground will freeze overnight so I can get a wheel of hay rolled out to the horses, filling up a tonne bag and dragging it out is pretty hard work when the ground is churned up with wet mud. Oh the joys of a winter on the smallholding, oh wait there are no joys 😂
Monday 25th January 2021: Morning campers 😀 it is a fine sunny morning this morning though the snow is still on the ground and it’s freezing the Sun is glorious ☀️ Amazing how it lifts your spirits even in the depths of Winter.
Early morning geese, I keep looking but they have not started laying yet.
As you can guess, this morning was all about breaking water buckets and making sure everything has enough food to keep them warm, the horses can’t get at any available grass so they are having a good breakfast and plenty of hay, the Guineas are getting plenty of hay as well as their regular feed and the chickens, ducks and geese are also getting plenty. So are the rats, well one at least, John disturbed one in the duck feeder this morning. I was round the other side and heard a shout I thought he had fallen over so went to find him and he was trying to get the dogs to catch the rat but it was too quick. His plan is to sneak up on it tomorrow morning with the dogs ready, good luck with that one 😂
I went for a look round the front paddock and found fox tracks, I followed them in a circle around the paddock, sometimes it had stopped and had a dig in the grass and then carried on, it went all the way round the paddock and back to the goose hut that is not in use at the minute, that is where it had marked territory, the unmistakable stink of fox 🦊
Beautiful crisp, sunny morning ☀️
Back inside to have breakfast and a coffee, get the Rayburn lit put some washing on and then I got something out of the freezer for dinner and I made two batches of crumble mix. I had some flour I needed to use up and John has been hankering after pudding (I did suggest he learn to bake but that fell on deaf ears) so tonight there will be mixed fruit crumble for pudding 😀 and plenty of pre mix in the freezer for others days. Makes life a lot easier when you can just grab pre prepared and throw it all together. You would think today would be a good soup day but I had some sausage rolls in the freezer (they were for the Christmas festivities that never happened so might as well eat them up, well John anyway. He is out doing some more fencing, I did think the ground would be too hard but he said once you break the surface it’s soft so that’s good news, the fence can continue.
John had to go and sort a quick leak, someone damaged a pipe 🙄 and when he came back he started on digging out for the driveway with the tractor. Meanwhile my card blanks came and so I got started making them, I find it very relaxing and the results quite pleasing 🥰 Some will be for sale in the egg shed and some will be sold online via social media.
Tuesday: Really, it’s only Tuesday 🙄 We did the usual this morning, nothing untoward, John didn’t see his rat 😂 Then it was on with the jobs of the day, John has spent most of the day as happy as a pig in the proverbial, on the tractor digging (making a bloody muddy mess actually) but it looks like progress, sort of. He is taking off the top layer off what was a grass area, it will be the drive to the yard eventually, only taken about ten years to get round to it but hey we are nearly there now 😜 Meanwhile I have also spent the day doing happy things, making cards, I had an order for a few and also a special commission for quite a few ‘hug’ cards. I have really enjoyed myself and it’s easy to be in there for hours doing them, I have used 50 card blanks already and had to order more, luckily there is not much else to be done except keep the Rayburn going and make cups of tea for John.
We received a lovely letter in the post today from our little niece Zeri, it was delightful and so I have sent her a card in the post with all our news and a picture of the horses. It is actually really nice to get good old fashioned letters, I doubt many do any more with e mail and social media, I think there should be a revival 🥰 With that in mind I made some for the grandchildren and posted them off too 😀
COVID-19 deaths have gone over 100,000 in the UK 😔 back in March at the beginning of this the hope was to limit deaths to around 40,000
Wednesday: Much milder this morning and drizzly to go with it but that’s fine at least the taps work and watering the animals is much easier. John did the animals and when he came back in we talked about what we would do today, Sam had messaged me and asked if I could go over and help her out so that’s what I did for the day while John stayed here and did some wood stacking and dug a hole for one of the gate posts.
Just listening to the news and schools will not be going back before the first week of March 🙄 pretty tough on parents with school age children I reckon. I have seen how difficult it is to cope with three under fives at home especially when one of them has school work to complete and there are I am sure much more complex families and problems all over the country especially if the parents have to work from home and school their kids. At the same time I think it is necessary to have as many people stay at home as possible with the daily figures still high, we are paying the price for Christmas gatherings. It does not help when gatherings of 300/400 people are still having to be broken up, what’s wrong with people surely these things can wait, I wonder if they would be so keen if they were denied treatment should they become ill 🤷♀️
Thursday: It’s a lovely sunny mild morning this morning despite the fact that we had torrential rain for most of the night, consequently the lake is back in the side paddock and it’s bigger than I have ever seen it before. As always though it will disappear within a couple of days unless we get more heavy rain. We seem to get concentrated bursts of rain these days, I remember when you would have rain then it would stop and start often through the day or night, now it’s all or nothing as far as I can see, climate change?, I don’t know but I do know it’s different.
We did the animals and then John went off to do a little job for someone while I got dinner for tonight sorted and various household jobs. I would like to get out on the first front bed and weed it but I will have to wait for a gap in the weather when it’s not frozen and not soggy, might be waiting a while and all the time the weeds are growing. I have seen plenty of bulbs coming up too, that always brings a smile to my face at this time of year, hardy little things that keep on pushing up no matter what the weather is doing 🥰
Oh how lovely to see you 😍 it means Spring is on the way 😀
The rest of the day was spent by John putting up more posts and fencing, right where one of the posts was going he found a huge slab of concrete about four inches down so he was on the kango for a while to break through it. No idea what it is or why it’s there, part of the MOD site I guess, I was hoping and am always hoping we will find an underground bunker one day, oh the possibilities 😜 root storage, wine cellar, underground home lol. I spent my time sorting the Rayburn, making cards and keeping an eye on the braised beef in the slow cooker (yeah I know it doesn’t really need keeping an eye on 😂)
Friday: Whoo Friday, except that yesterday I kept thinking it was Saturday so that makes Friday, Sunday doesn’t it 😜 Anyway whatever day it is it’s bloody raining again, not just drizzle oh no full on straight down rain, been raining on and off all night, never mind after this we are forecast……snow again.
I decided I was sick of looking like a middle aged, dragged through a hedge backwards mess, so this morning I spritzed a little perfume, straightened my fringe (hair has got so long it goes in a pony tail everyday) put on a tiny bit of slap and got ready to go out in the rain 😝 Animals done and sorted, back in for breakfast and a coffee and then John went off to pick up some POL hens for a customer who doesn’t want to wait until Spring when we will get the big batch in. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to get them mid winter in an avian lockdown but hey each to their own 😀 Meanwhile I need to decided what’s for dinner tonight, I get really, really bored of that particular decision, I guess that’s why holidays are so looked forward too, someone else has decided and even giving you a menu with a choice 😂 Sigh, holidays, remember those, we haven’t had one for nearly two years now, this time two years ago we were getting ready for our adventure to cross into the artic circle. The next holiday is going to be amazing and so much more appreciated than ever before I think 🥰
Saturday: I have never known this much rain, it’s concentrated and relentless, the standing water is worse than ever before. I know I shouldn’t moan as it does not affect our house in any way but one of the stables is flooded, the hay barn is flooded (this normally happens once a year if that, that’s twice this week 🙄) the paddocks at the side have a bigger, wider lake than I have ever seen and there is water running everywhere. I know as soon as it stops raining it will drain away but in the meantime it’s rather depressing and we can’t do anything to stop it raining 🌧 I was talking the other day with Sue and we were saying that in Winters past it was usually cold and not much rain now we have torrential rain In autumn, Winter and Spring, 2007 I think it was in July we had similar, unprecedented rain and serious flooding in July!
Just looking through the photos of the last year at all the produce I grew and cannot wait for this years growing season to get going, so looking forward to seed sowing and growing which is one of my favourite parts, waiting for everything to grow is mediocre and then picking and using all the fresh ingredients is the pinnacle of the hard work that goes into it all, roll on Spring.
Oh good grief now it’s snowing! Gotta laugh or else I might cry, there is a flood warning for Shilton according to Alexa, I know we are on higher ground so not such a problem for us but the village is at risk of flooding 😔
As the weather is crap I decided to do something creative, Sam bought me a lino cutting kit for Christmas, I haven’t done that since I was a primary school and that was a VERY long time ago 😂 I got everything out and had a go, it is a lovely medium to work with and I really enjoyed it. I was quite pleased with my first effort, needs some adjustments, the moon looks like it’s an eclipse but all in all a good effort I reckon, can’t wait to do some more.
Sunday: I have no idea where that week went but gone it is! We did the animals this morning and I put clean bedding in for the ducks, geese, Ted the Turkey and the Guineas. I was just taking some sawdust to the hens in the stable when I heard foxes screeching, this was about 9.30am, I looked to my neighbours paddock and there were two foxes playing, bold as brass in broad daylight, I guess they were playing it didn’t look like fighting more a game of chase. I gave her a quick ring just in case her hens were out in the run, it does not take much for a fox to dig up or tear down something in its way and it was frozen this morning so not much other food available. After they disappeared I carried on with the job in hand and then back indoors to light the Rayburn and get lunch and dinner sorted out, made a few cards that had been ordered. I got John to clean the flue before I lit the Rayburn and in-between that and the animals he has been digging another post hole for the new gateway. Hard digging as first an old post had to be removed and then the new one had to go down about two foot as it’s a big gate, it is looking rather fab though and we are going to build a small planter as well which will look lovely.
It started snowing again mid afternoon but nothing much just some flurries and hopefully it won’t try any harder 🙏 John returns to work tomorrow and that will be me on me tod again 🙄 mixed blessings 🥴
Monday 18th January 2021: I like typing 2021 it feels very futuristic 😂 Monday morning again and the weather is ok, you can tell when the weather is just ok as the English don’t mention it, we tend to talk about extremes, isn’t it hot or it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, we mostly always mention the rain though, we state the obvious, wet today isn’t it 😝 We are definitely weather obsessed as a nation and that’s because it is usually all over the place, you can’t guarantee that Spring will be spring like or that summer will be warm and dry you have to wait and see what comes our way and we can change it but what we can do is use it as a conversation starter 😀
John has had to go and change a set of taps for an elderly disabled lady this morning but first we did the morning feeding and watering. Once he had left I did some household bits plus get some bread on the go, since the beginning of this lockdown we have not bought bread at all I have made every loaf.
I did contemplate going out to the front and cutting back dead foliage on the flower bed by the front gate but I think I will wait, there will be plenty of insects hibernating still and although I am keen to get tided up I don’t want to disturb them just yet.
We need to decide what job we are going to get sorted next, the side driveway is on our radar but that will be weather dependant, when it’s dry we can get on, if it’s pouring down (and there is rain on the radar) then there won’t be any point as it will just make more of a mess than necessary plus who wants to get a soaking when you don’t need to.
I am on a roll this morning, whilst having bread on the go I have also got some bits of paperwork done, Bill paying, filing, sending out invoices etc and lit the Rayburn and got soup on for lunch. One of the things I did last year for the first time was the bags of frozen mixed veg for soup and I am so pleased I did they have been great and will definitely be doing them again for next Winter. This mix has courgettes, celery, turnip, onion, carrot and runner beans in it, mostly they were odd veg that I couldn’t do much else with and so I chopped them and open froze then put them all in one bag to use as a soup mix. If you have the odd carrot or stick of celery in the fridge do the same, you will soon have a soup bag ready for when you need it, anything can go in even the odd potato. I tend to cook mine down until the veg collapse then whizz with a hand blender, add stock of your choice and voila lunch is ready in no time, we have ours with freshly baked bread today which is a bonus 😀
We got lots of little bits done in the afternoon, the door stop and door handle, I have a fold up table that we have hung neatly on the back of the door, that’s for when I need extra room for crafting or sewing etc. The next radiator got delivered and that was put up in the spare room. I know it is a little thing but I am loving the heat from these radiators, it’s hard to explain but the room feels all over gently heated rather than what we have now from the wet system 🤷♀️
Dinner tonight consists of left over roast lamb so John has a throw it in the pot dinner with lamb, potatoes, carrots and mixed veg plus stock and cornflour, throw it all in and put it in the Rayburn until cooked. Not sure why so many recipes faff about with preparation when these dinners always come out smelling delicious 😋 I on the other hand am having a healthy version of lamb korma made by marinating the lamb in yoghurt and a korma spice, I will add ground almond to it when I cook it, having that with whole grain rice, a cucumber and grape salad and a wholemeal pitta bread, together with a diet Cherry coke I can almost kid myself I have had a lovely takeaway 🤣
John did the afternoon rounds while I got the dinner ready and that is Monday almost done and dusted, just the evening to relax and enjoy, this lockdown lark is quite enjoyable really 😜
The vaccine rollout is well under way and over 4million people have already been vaccinated, they are vaccinating a higher number than those that are testing positive so that’s a great thing. They have started to call in the over 70s as well now, hopefully it won’t be long until we get ours. As I said before Shelley has been a volunteer at the local vaccination centre and she said people are very emotional about receiving their jabs, for some of them it has been their first trip out since last March 😔
Tuesday: Busy again today, it’s much easier to keep busy while the days pass than sit doing nothing though I appreciate some don’t have the choice. First up John did the morning rounds, I had a shower and then did some hoovering, fed the cats and dogs, put out the rubbish those kind of jobs. Then onto the main events of the day and we had two, John was on concrete duties, we have an areas just outside the double doors in the back bit, for some reason the paths ends before it reaches the doors and so I wanted to get it extended to keep the mud down when we come in from the yard. Meanwhile I spent an hour in the greenhouse sowing broad bean seeds and some peas, the peas will be for harvesting the shoots as I am rather partial to pea shoots in my salad. After that I decided the big poly tunnel could be done, the garden itself is too wet but the tunnel is perfect for working in at this time of year. I spent a good couple of hours, weeding, pulling up anything that was still growing, salad mostly, and then putting barrowfulls of mushroom compost on the beds. Last year I left things to grow on but I feel that was a bit of mistake as I never really had a starting point, I was always trying to work round everything, the salad leaves went to the chickens in the stable, judging by the scuffles they were very happy to have something to peck over. I have beds in there because after we sited it I discovered it was on a clear seam and a big one at that, year after year I tried growing straight into it but it was hard work with little return. We cobbled together beds out of what we had lying around and the difference was amazing, I get good crops now, the left hand corner near the doorway is fine, that has lovely soil and so does not need any type of bed, funny how the soil type can change within centimetres 😜
It’s mid afternoon and I haven’t lit the Rayburn yet, it’s positively balmy at around 11 degrees today 😜
I discovered that the kittens or at least one of them is as much use as a chocolate teapot 😝 I was digging mushroom compost from the big tonne bag when a couple of mice suddenly appeared. No sign of the cats outside so I went into the boot room and picked one up and took it back with me (Jack) I put him in the bag and he jumped straight out without even looking. I the tried to catch him again but he wasn’t having any of it so I caught the mouse, I put it down on the floor, the cat was looking, the mouse ran, the cat looked and only once the mouse had disappeared under the fence did the cat venture forward and sniff where the mouse had been 🤣 I said to John I am going to have to train them I think!
John had covered up his concrete as it’s right outside the door but as I am always telling him your defences are only as good as your weakest point, the dog went out and stood on the tiny bit that was not covered 🤣🤣 which caused some swearing 😜 To be fair he has been lucky with the weather today as storm Christoph is battering the UK and until about 4pm we hadn’t really seen any sign of it at all. As it is at the minute we have a bit of rain but nothing much, it may progress through the night mind you 🙄
I realised after looking through my seeds that I didn’t have any peas, I had a few, those I sowed this morning but nowhere near enough to grow a decent amount of peas for the year. I ordered, mangetout, snap peas and a dwarf early variety which I will probably sow in pots and then transfer to the tunnel. The carrots I was hoping to have in the small tunnel never got very far, they sprouted but something and I suspect that is a mouse, keeps eating the greenery so not much chance of anything developing underneath. I also ordered some lemon grass seeds, I really loved growing it though I didn’t use much of it and need to rectify that. I love the smell of anything lemony, the lemon verbena has survived the winter so far and it smells amazing even in the depths of the dormant season.
The onions, garlic and shallots are doing well as I said last week, I got a photo so you can see how they are coming along.
Onions, garlic and shallots, I thought it was a lot when I planted them but will probably find it’s not enough 😂 Broad beans sown, the others are plants I have had on the heat mat through the winter which seems to have worked well 😀
The weather took a turn for the worst during the evening, heavy rain and high winds, hopefully it will have blown over by the morning 😀
Wednesday: Ewww storm Christoph got going overnight, I think I was woken three or four times with the wind or the rain making a racket and all today has been nothing less than a washout with constant rain. John attempted to dig a hole for the first post of the fence that will run down the side of the new driveway but he gave up, too wet, who wants to work in the rain. Apart from the necessary we didn’t do much else.
We did spend a fair bit of the day watching CNN, the outgoing President and the incoming President, how different the two ceremonies were 🙄 I hope the USA manages to heal the differences that have set them so far apart from each other ❤️ 🇺🇸
Thursday: OMG excuse my language but that was fucking awful out there doing the animals this morning! After around 36 hours of constant rain and gusts of wind battering the place, it was wet, soggy, windy, raining, blowing a hoolie and bitterly cold to boot, one of the worst mornings so far. At one point it looked as though the sun was coming out and it was clearing up but just as I left the stable block to go and do Ted I did an about turn and ran back. The sky turned black, the wind whipped up from nowhere and the rain lashed down for all of around one to two minutes then it was gone again but I still got wet and windswept. I am so over winter already lol, we have the usual lake and river in the side paddocks, that is becoming a much more frequent feature as the years go by. Early on it was an occasional thing, eleven years later and we get it about four to five times a year, every year 🙄
We had decided to go into town this morning, the local market is on a Thursday and I wanted to get some fresh fruit and a few bits of veg. I got leeks, mine are still in the ground and still rather small, potatoes as I didn’t grow enough to last us and then fresh fruit for snacking on. We saw Shelley, Josh and Flo down there so we bought some cakes and went and got a takeaway coffee to stand and drink. I haven’t seen Josh and Flo except when they are in the car or on messenger so it was lovely to interact with them 😀 We went to the butchers where I got some chicken breast and then to the supermarket where we bought more than we thought we originally needed 🙄 I dropped off some leeks to Mum on the way back and a bunch of flowers , great news she had her jab yesterday and Ken had his today. Then it was back home to a warm house as we lit the Rayburn before leaving, I didn’t want to come home to a cold house on a day like today. It had stopped raining by the time we went out mind you but it was still a cold day. By the time we got back it was early afternoon and so not much point starting anything, I have chopped up some potatoes, leeks and celeriac and put that in the slow cooker for tomorrow’s lunch, it will cook the rest of the afternoon and all evening then I will turn it off overnight and turn it back on in the morning ready for lunchtime.
That will probably be it for today except for the afternoon rounds which John is doing as I type, an evening snuggled up in the warm either reading or watching a film maybe. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry and Sunny although still quite cold, I will spend some time thinking about what job I can be doing in the garden or polytunnels.
Friday: A sharp frost this morning. We went out to do the rounds and discovered that Jack had bust out of the field, the electric still had not been turned back on, big mistake 😜, and he had worked it out. He has had a good wander round the place and broken into the hay barn 🙄 We got him back in the paddock, sorted the fencing, turned it on and hopefully he will stay there for a while. They have finished their big roll of hay so I will have to get some more delivered, I doubt very much the grass will start growing anytime soon. In the meantime I will have to fill up sacks and drag them out to the field. John did most of the birds and I went over to do Ted and the Guineas, in with Ted are the two light Sussex that hatched first last year, the female has laid her first egg today 😀 it’s always lovely to get the first egg from a pullet (young female) no matter how many times you have seen it. I went into the small poly tunnel where I set the mousetrap yesterday and result, two in the trap 😀 I will have to reset it, and I tried but it kept going off, there are bound to be more around eating all my veg, these two are the ones that have been nibbling the carrot tops all winter long.
I came indoors to do the washing up, hoovering and get the Rayburn ready for lighting later, meanwhile John carried on with digging the holes for the side fence and he has now gone off to get cement to have a rest from the digging lol. I have a bit of a headache this morning, hopefully nothing but I can’t seem to shake it off, normally I guess, nobody would worry but at the minute you never know what you have picked up even being very careful on the limited times you go out 🙄
The pea seeds I ordered have arrived and so have the seed potatoes, I will get the earlies ready to chit and they will go in the big tunnel, also I will start of early peas and grow them on in the big tunnel as well I think. I have some garlic chive seeds that can be sown anytime so I will go and get them done later. The sun is shining beautifully now and the greenhouse will be a lovely place to be working in about another hours time I reckon 😀 It might even be warm enough in the to pretend it’s spring 😜
We have the leek and potato soup for lunch today so I do t have to stop and think about what I need to be doing for that.
I did go out into the greenhouse and sowed a few peas, I also tided up the small tunnel though it didn’t need much doing but it was still very cold on my feet and my toes began to hurt so I gave that up. Instead I set about fixing the egg board which usually sits out on the front of the driveway. It got blown over during one windy night a few weeks ago and the leg came apart so I fixed it back together re wrote it and put it back out.
Saturday: I have been feeling a bit urgh the last couple of days, can’t put my finger on it but I think it’s to do with the Lupus, I have tiny red hives on my fingers and toes and they hurt if I knock them against anything. I feel tired and lethargic and have a borderline headache, I actually didn’t realise that there is such as thing as a ‘Lupus headache’ and what I need to watch for is vasculitis, oh joy another thing to keep an eye on and not so easy at the minute when the doctors are really busy with a pandemic. It all seems a bit trivial to bother the doc with but if it gets worse I will have to get it looked at, of course with Lupus it can sometimes just clear up and go away of its own accord which is what I am hoping it will do.
It’s cold and frosty this morning, because I have been feeling sluggish John left me to sleep in and did the animals this morning 🥰 I am grateful that I have someone to pick up the reins if needs be. He then went out and started on the fence again while I did the usual household tidying bits, rubbish, recycling, milk bottles all those little jobs. I had just made coffee when he came back in, his feet were too cold working out there so he drank his coffee and went off to the merchants and the bank, hopefully the sun will have warmed the ground by the time he returns.
According to some news reports a hospital in Kent is trialling elderberry as a treatment for covid, I imagine it runs alongside other more conventional treatments but finally the medical world wakes up to alternative treatments. I make plenty with elderberries, pies, syrups and Pontack sauce, I will definitely be picking them and putting them out for sale this year lol.
I have had a lovely day, I have been in my little room designing cards for Valentine’s Day, I can’t make them yet as I am waiting for the recycled card to come but they are along the same lines as the button Christmas cards I made. It’s very therapeutic and just what I needed today when I don’t have the energy for much else.
I did go outside mid afternoon and attempt to fill the water buckets up at the back the the hosepipe was still frozen so I took buckets of water up. I also put down some clean bedding for the geese and the ducks. I am hoping the geese will begin to lay very soon, it’s a short season for goose eggs and like duck eggs you either love em or hate em and luckily we do have customers that love em 🥰 I also lit the Rayburn quote early and have been keeping that going all day as well as getting in a couple of loads of wood from the store, we are due snow tomorrow so best to keep it all topped up.
It’s a fish and chip supper tonight from the chip shop, I am really looking forward to it, one day when I don’t have to think about what to get for dinner 😜
Sunday: got up and had a look out of the window around 6.30am, nothing to report, went back to bed, got up at 8am and we had a good layer of snow and it was still snowing 🌨 The forecast says we will get around 5 to 8cm 🙄 and it will snow most of the day. So we donned our snow gear and went out to do the animals, I love pristine snow but the dogs always get there first at least it will clean their coats nicely. Then I made John go for a walk in the side paddock, a couple of snowballs thrown and we went back in. Snow days mean no days for us, we can’t do a lot outside and I am wondering what on Earth people do all day long 🤷♀️ it will a marathon tv watch or reading which I will be so bored of by the end of the day 🙄 I lit the Rayburn, John got some bacon sizzling on the hot plate and that will probably be it for us until the animals need doing later. In normal years the kids might have come over but this year the at is not an option sadly, we did get the sledge out but I couldn’t pull John on it 🤣 Years ago when we lived at a different house the kids had plastic ones and when they came in to warm up, someone nicked them so my dad made them a wooden one but we never really had any decent snowfall for years after so it never got used, we got it out today but it has woodworm 😝 it is still sound enough but too small for either of us to use, maybe one year it will get used by children again.
Afternoon rounds done and dusted, the snow is still on the ground only slightly melted and the forecast is for a very cold night possibly -5 so we made sure we filled up water buckets ready for the morning, we will have to break ice but at least there will be water. Dinner is in the Rayburn, the curtains are now shut and the house is nice and warm. Have a great week, stay safe and stay warm x x
Monday 11th January 2021: Another start to another week, it doesn’t really seem like a new year does it? I think we anticipated that 2021 was going to bring us the freedom we were used to before the pandemic but it seems to be worse now than ever before. The only difference is that mass vaccination is starting to get going, Shelley has volunteered to help with the local vaccination centre, helping to direct cars and people in the right direction. I do hope it will all start to make a difference soon for the sake of my sanity as well as everyone else’s I’m sure.
You may be wondering about the birds, they are still in lockdown and last time they were not allowed out until April 🙄 To be honest it’s better for us as we don’t have to worry about fox attacks, if it really wanted to it could dig under but it would be hard going for most of the stables, it’s also easy and quick to nip out to the stable block for feeding and egg collecting plus it’s warmer than going to the paddocks. Having said all that I doubt very much the birds think it’s better, locked up day and night and not free roaming, not able to peck at the grass or any worms/insects, roll on spring for all manner of reasons including the welfare of the birds.
John finally finished the last bit of the floor last night, yay, now we can begin to paint and wallpaper it and lay some flooring on the top of the new floor. I am glad that is the last of the dusty work done, did I mention the dust 🤣🤣 Every individual thing will need to be dusted or cleaned before it goes back onto the shelves, I did say to John at one point ‘you are not working in an empty house ya know’ meaning he could have covered things up with dust sheets before he started, but no, let’s just get the saw out and start cutting 😖 small thing I know and let’s face it I do have plenty of time on my hands but still 🙄
I put a picture up of the kittens last week though they are getting big now but we also still have Diesel, the difference is that he does not come anywhere near the house, he eats and sleeps outside, mostly in the hay barn where he makes himself a tunnel into the hay, I imagine that is lovely and warm 😀
The fire bricks arrived, can’t remember if I said that last week or not but by the old ‘law of the sod’ the Rayburn has settled right down and our temporary bricks are doing fine so for that reason we have not installed the new ones as yet but we will do soon.
We got the animals done first thing and then we went off to the diy shop to get paint and all that we need to do the job and get the wallpaper hung. So we have spent hours rubbing bits down and then painting the first coat and then the second coat. The painting is mainly my job, John does not like doing it, nor do I really but someone has to 🙄 John is far too impatient for that kind of job, as it is he keeps rushing me to get the next coat on, you have to wait for the last one to dry first I keep telling him. At the moment everything has had two coats of white and part of the mdf has been primed, still a long way to go yet but we are getting there. Today it has been Johns job to do the afternoon rounds and get the fire sorted and keep it going, it will be interesting to see what he gets us for dinner 😜
I decided we will paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls, it is quite a light colour and I honestly can’t see the point of painting it white just because that is what is always done, I may have made an error but we will see. Painted it now and it’s a bit darker than we thought but I quite like it, it’s my she cave 😂 It will be less of an office and more of a workroom for sewing, ancestry research, crafting, reading and a little bit of paperwork plus the grandchildren will have their toys and books in there in there so a playroom as well, multifunctional 🥰
I always like to do things a bit differently 😜 when I was in my early teens I had my Mum hang my wallpaper sideways because I preferred the look, it was late seventies and the wallpaper was stripes with a kind of bump in it so I thought it would look awesome sideways on, like a heartbeat trace 😀
Tuesday: I am pleased with the painting even the ceiling, it looks great and you can hardly tell it’s the same colour as the walls. John did the outside jobs then went off to get some feed as we have completely run out. Meanwhile I had a shower, got some washing on and filled and painted a couple of bits that needed doing plus cleaned the windows. We are ready to wallpaper the one wall, it’s been a few years since I did any wallpapering so I am a bit apprehensive especially as the one roll of paper I bought cost an arm and a leg 😜 It was exactly what I wanted though and so I figure it justified the price, I now have to make sure I don’t cock up 🙄 and there is not much room for error with just one roll 😂 no pressure!
Wallpapering done 😀 it was a tense few minutes getting the first one right but it went well and looks great. Then I had to pop to the doctors to get a blood test, the practice is very busy getting ready for mass vaccinations starting on Friday. Then it was back home to begin another mammoth painting session, this time the shelving and desk area that John built in, first it needed a primer coat and then the first coat of paint, lots of nooks and crannies to paint round this time so it took a good couple of hours. John was on Rayburn and animal duty and even dinner and washing up duties today. Tomorrow Martin is coming to fit the door on the cupboard which is great and earlier than we expected him to be able to do it, so it should all be nearly finished by the end of the week I think, John will pick up some flooring to lay and then it will just be skirting board and put the door back on and voila, we can get on with another job 😜
Wednesday: We did the animals and then John went off to get a piece of mdf for the cupboard door that Martin is coming to fit. After that he went to get flooring, being very careful at the minute to sanitise hands all the time, the merchants like most shops are pretty good at controlling numbers and being covid secure. I got the Rayburn lit and do a bit of rubbing down ready for the last coat of paint on the shelving etc.
We had slightly worrying message this morning as my sister has tested positive for covid, hopefully she won’t suffer too much and recover quickly.
Spent the best part of the day still painting and getting the final floor covering down. I realise I made two mistakes on this project, first, letting John talk me into Matt paint, error, I should have stuck to my guns and gone with silk, and second, letting John go and get the flooring. I thought it would be safe enough after all we had seen it in the flesh and agreed on it and I sent him with a photograph of it and gave him the name of it 🙄 I go in when he has half laid it and say that does not look right it’s too light, nope this is the one he says, I look it up, no it’s not, definitely not. He tells me the name, nope that’s not the name I gave you! Anyhooo I am not going to change any of it now, I can’t be arsed, I just want to get it finished and everything back in so that I can have the living room back and get tided up.
Thursday: John does the morning outside rounds while I do the morning inside rounds 😝 and then he goes off to get another pack of flooring as he miscalculated 🙄 and I do some of the touch up painting which will hopefully be the last of the walls and desk area, just the skirting left to paint once we get it. John comes back and starts to get the last three bits of floor down, I can hear lots of swearing and grunting, it appears the last bits are being a bit of a pig to get it 😜
14th January 2013 we had to have our old dog Max put to sleep, his back legs went one morning and he just sat on the mat looking up at us 😢 The decision is never an easy one but we would always put the animals welfare before our feelings, no matter how much we loved him or how much we would miss him we made the call and that was the end of Max’s time with us. We had a difficult phone all to make first, our youngest, Charlotte was in Australia, she was very attached to Max, he was her childhood pet, we wanted to let her say goodbye first. We call the little paddock at the back Max’s paddock, that’s where our memories of him are, it’s fast becoming the memorial paddock as it has the trees for Johns Mum and Dad planted there as well 🥰 Felix the original farm cat is also buried up there, Milly who was my dog is buried in the garden under the lawn, we also have Gilbert who was my sisters cat buried under the oak tree, quite a cemetery we have here lol.
Ta da finally finished the room, hours of work, sweat and toil and it is all done bar the shouting 😜 It is looking amazing and I can wait to start using it, first though we will need to concentrate on the birds, cleaning out etc as they have not been done this week, that is the weekend taken care of then 🙄
Friday: Yay Friday 😀 even in a lockdown Friday feels good 😂 John did the morning rounds and then had a call out to a leak and another to a blockage 🙄 Meanwhile I have been busy cleaning, at last I can clean and hoover and polish and get everything put back where it is supposed to be. I got the living room back to normality and the spare room, all the grandchildren’s toys have been cleaned and hoovered and now sit waiting for the day they can come to Nanas again 🙃 I just realised I have the big cupboard in the office to clear and clean too, it got an awful lot of dust in there before the door went on, that might take me a while but I can have another clear out while I am doing it. I am being ruthless (well as ruthless as I get) when sorting stuff, why do we keep stuff we never use or don’t know what to do with 🤷♀️ Is it because the minute we throw it out we know we will need it? Or, as in my case, can’t bring myself to throw things away that still have a use (just not to me) and the charity shops are not open at the minute so we can’t take it there either.
Turns out I am not very ruthless 😂 I threw some things out really I did but not many 🙄 I carried on cleaning and putting away then John arrived home just before 12, he says everyone is so careful at the moment and hardly any one is going out anywhere. My sister keeps us updated daily and she is doing ok, she does not feel well, like she has flu, but at the moment she is ok.
After a spot of lunch I lit the Rayburn and John went outside to get some wood in and then the plan is to take all the rubbish from doing the office up to the skip and get decorating stuff put away. I have ordered another electric radiator for the spare room as John disconnected that radiator as well, it was back to back with the one in the office and we are not sure which one was leaking so they both went. I have to say the electric radiator is great, I said to John that although we will have them in all rooms I don’t think we will need them on very high at all and certainly some can probably be turned off for days if we don’t need them on. These are not like a storage heater they are notorious for chucking out heat when you do need it and not being on when you do, nor are they like the little portable electric heaters that are filled with oil. The radiators have a ceramic core and hold the heat well, they are quick to heat up and slow to cool down once the thermostat turns them off plus they can be programmed differently for every hour of every day, that’s progress for you, you can also use a remote control or connect to wifi and have smart heaters but we didn’t go for those options as they have a habit of going offline at any given moment 😂 Just the basic switch in at the wall will do for us.
Saturday: Phew busy day when we finally got up that is 😜 We we’re not too late up just about an hour later than normal but it does put you a bit behind. First jobs as always was get the animals fed and watered then it was off to town to get a few things done, the post office to post a parcel, the supermarket to get some bits of greenery for the chickens and a couple of household bits, the petrol station to fill up with fuel, a quick Costa, back to get some wood shavings from the farm shop next door and we are ready to get on with the task of the day. Cleaning out all the birds was top of the agenda, four hours later and all the birds have been mucked out, had clean bedding put down, topped up the grit holders, cleaned the water buckets and had a treat of an iceberg lettuce or some cabbage. The Guineas also had a partial clean out, I don’t like to take it all out in the winter as they have made a very cosy bed for themselves, it can all come out when the temperatures begin to climb. They also got treats of cabbage, apple, swede and carrot, the horses had carrot and apple, the geese had cabbage and apple and Ted the Turkey had cabbage, the only ones I forgot to give anything to were the ducks but I don’t suppose they noticed 🙄 I topped up the wild bird feeders while I was at it and now everything should feel loved and cared for 🥰 The strange thing that happened today was that I was declined four icebergs I was only allowed three, it seems they are having trouble getting hold of them and so limiting customers. It’s a pain that the birds are locked down in winter as come spring I would have plenty growing to be able to give them without having to buy it but that’s they way it is and they really enjoyed their treat demolishing them in seconds flat! We also bought a large pecking block, we will rotate it round the hens, at the minute the first lot are not interested in it at all but they may have a go at it later on. Trying to find things to keep them amused is difficult and actually what we are trying to do is to stop them getting bored as that often leads to egg eating and bullying. I did throw a carrot in as that will keep them amused for ages, it can’t easily be eaten so will last a lot longer.
When we had finished out there it was mid afternoon and time to come in and get the Rayburn lit, do the washing up from this morning, have a cup of tea and then John watched some snooker. He has been so busy he has not been able to watch it at all so it only seems fair to agree to him watching it this afternoon, I can find plenty of other things to do and may even retreat into my new room to do some of them 😀
While we were driving through town we took a sneaky photo of Shelley in her high vis, she had volunteered to help man the vaccination arrivals at the health centre, it’s for her covid memory book and she could hardly take one of herself could she 😂 Its a shame I couldn’t volunteer, you can’t be in a vulnerable category otherwise I would have, the more people that get on board with helping the smoother things will go and the quicker we will all receive our vaccinations making getting back to normal more of a reality.
Sunday: Another busy day, lockdown doesn’t really matter for us as there is always plenty to do round here. Today after doing the morning rounds we set about pollarding the willows at the very front of the driveway. I left them last year to see what they would look like and the answer is too big 😜 There was also the twisted hazel outside the gateway that had grown a fair few straight whips and they needed to come out as well. That took us the best part of the day to get them all cut down, shredded/chipped and tided up, some of the ends that were too big for the shredder were cut and have been stacked. They will be left to rot down giving invertebrates plenty of laces to hide, live and feed eventually. The shredding were also put back on the ground, these will get covered by grass growth in spring and also rot down, feeding the ground as it does so. There was one other that needed doing which is the chestnut that came down in the wind a couple of years ago, it has thrown up multiple shoots and they need cutting back before they get too big, ideally the stump needs grinding out but that’s a job for another day.
Once we finished and put everything away it was indoors for a cup of tea, light the Rayburn and a sit down for an hour before doing the afternoon feeding and egg collecting. It is actually days like this that I am glad of the early evenings because once everything is shut away you can relax entirely 😀
It looks drastic but they soon grow back 😀
I have been thinking about the growing year ahead and thinking of the things I would like to do more of this year, last night we had a shoulder of lamb and although I had mint sauce I rather prefer mint jelly which we have run out of so I will defiantly be making a few jars of that. Then I was thinking I would like to do a lot more dehydrating this year, I did a fair amount of dried herbs which has seen me over winter but I’m sure there are plenty of other things that I could be drying and using, I will have to make a list or I will not remember.
Have a good week, stay safe, stay home if you can, the better weather is coming I promise (just not yet 😜)
Monday 4th January 2021: Having decided we will go to the shop as minimally as possible I am busy ploughing through the freezers, luckily they are full of all kinds of things especially veg and fruit, what we don’t buy I can make, bread, biscuits, cakes, pies, yep we are pretty sorted and to be honest I am rather enjoying wondering what on Earth each lump of frozen stuff is 😂 The veg, you will remember from last year, was all chopped and open froze so that’s easy to identify, sometimes I get out what I think is soup only to find it’s stock or in one case tomato juice instead of tomato soup but they are small matters that can easily be used regardless. This is when being self sufficient/reliant comes into its own in a big way and it’s what I love about what we do, I can’t wait to get started on the next growing season 😀
There is not much that can be done outside on the veg garden at the minute, if you are starting from scratch and have an area identified or built you can cover with cardboard and mulch to keep the weeds down, it’s to cold, wet, frozen to do much else for now. It will soon be time to start off pepper, aubergine and tomato seeds but only if you have good heat and good light otherwise you will be wasting your time and end up with leggy, weak seedlings, I usually wait until the beginning of March and even then only if the weather is not too cold and dull. The onions, garlic and shallots I planted at the end of the last season are doing well, plenty of top growth on them if they carry on I expect to get a good harvest from them. I still have the brassicas growing in the cage, I think they are sprouting broccoli and they should soon begin to sprout, the foliage is about 5/6 feet tall so if nothing appears that will be disappointing 😜 only another few weeks and the rhubarb and asparagus will start to appear and the whole process of growing our own will begin again.
Getting the office sorted was the job of the day today, we (I say we but mostly John) have had to make good any of the walls ready for plaster boarding. For some reason five years ago we never got round to finishing the room and so it was half done and left like that for years 🙄 anyhow after a lot of hard graft today the walls, ceiling and window surround are now ready for plastering and John is plastering the ceiling as I write. We do have a problem with the floor where a radiator has been leaking and part of it will have to be replaced as it is rotten, the floor is also not level it appears and so that needs to be rectified as well, all doable I am told so I am letting the expert get on with it and I am there as a dead man or cleaner or labourer or tea maker whatever is needed 😜 That has taken up most of the day with the usual jobs slotting in when they need to be.
I did go out into the poly tunnel and pull up some pak Choi this morning, not for us to eat but for the hens, they have now been inside for quite a while and so giving them greens now and again will hopefully help with boredom and lack of natural foraging. I still have a fair bit of lettuce type plants growing in there and I will continue to pull them for the birds they are more in need of it than me I think.
It is early evening and we have an announcement at 8pm from the Prime Minister 🙄 another lockdown? I think it will be and luckily John had already decided to have January off and hopefully he will still be able to get materials to get on with the office, if not there are plenty of other jobs to do 🤣
Tuesday: So we are into another full lockdown which will be reviewed in seven weeks! Oh my days seven weeks, luckily we have plenty to occupy us. As I type John is taking out the second radiator, not sure that January is a good time to be taking out radiators but who am I so comment lol, the first electric one will be arriving today so we can see how well that is going to work. I am also waiting for him to clean the flue so I can get the fire lit as it is a tad cold this morning 🥶
Rayburn lit and outside jobs done, I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon doing not a lot but not nothing if you see what I mean. We had butternut squash soup for lunch and I tried making a fruit loaf. This is the second or third attempt I have made at doing this but yet again it is failing to rise on the first prove so I think I will give up and never try it again. I don’t like to give up on anything but sometimes the constant failing at it wears you down to despondency, John would be the only one that eats it, I would try a slice but that’s it, and so maybe leave that to the mass production, they seem to manage it easily enough. I am saying all this but I know that I will want to nail it one day 😜
I did think about going down the driveway and pollarding the willow trees now they are dormant, but and it is a but, if I got lost in doing the job and forgot the time the Rayburn would be out when I came back in, it needs feeding every hour or so to keep it up to temperature and as John is plastering he dose t really have time to watch it. Maybe I will wait for a warmer day, today is pretty chilly with a North/East wind and you can really feel the bite in the air.
The fruit bread didn’t fail after all, I put it in the warming oven in the Rayburn and although it took a couple of hours it finally started to rise 😀 it was just on a go slow, it’s not the best loaf ever but it is edible and that’s the main thing.
Wednesday: I have to double check what day it is at the minute 🙄 John had a call out early this morning so it was down to me to do the morning rounds. It was cold but actually it was quite nice to get outside in the fresh air rather than being indoors in the warm. I fed everything and made sure all the water buckets and holders were topped up, collected a few eggs that had already been laid. John came home with a takeaway coffee as the job was at a local coffee shop where they do great coffee, I was delighted that the cup was 100% compostable as well as warming me up on a cold winters day. He left again shortly afterwards to another call out hopefully that will be it for the rest of the day as he has a couple more walls to plaster. So far the ceiling, one wall and two of the window reveals are done now all that is left is the top window reveal and two walls, time to start thinking about paint then 😀 I already have some wallpaper I want to put up on one wall, oh I forgot, the floor has to be done first before painting begins, it seems never ending but it hasn’t taken long really and we have waited five years to get it done so a few more days won’t hurt.
John is having to be very careful when he goes to jobs both for the customers sake and ours, the covid numbers are climbing so rapidly it’s crazy and the reports of the hospitals at breaking point is a big worry so the safer we can keep everyone the better.
I had an email to say the firebricks are with the Royal Mail so I am holding off lighting the Rayburn to see if they arrive with the postman this morning, the oven is reaching ridiculously high temperatures with our makeshift bricks in there and so the sooner we can get the right ones in the better it will be for the boiler.
I keep thinking I will get outside on the garden and do some work but it’s still rather cold at the minute, when I came in from doing the animals the top of my legs were blue 😧 there is plenty of time and I’m sure the temperature will rise slightly soon. I did look at the rhubarb that I am forcing, it’s growing nicely, the other plants have barely started so forcing is a good idea and it will mean an early crop which is good when there is not much else about. I think I will get the broad bean seeds sown sooner rather than later and I might try some salad leaves in the greenhouse as I the heat mat I have had on in there seems to be doing a great job of keeping the frost out.
The postman came and went and no fire bricks so I lit the Rayburn it’s too cold to wait anymore. Midday and John is still out fixing a leak, it’s a hole in a lead pipe so that means replacing the very old pipe with new or trying to find a fitting that will connect old to new which is rare these days. Meanwhile I decided I would have a look and order some seed potatoes, normally I only do maincrop but this year I am going to do first earlies so the sooner I order them the better. I ordered, Charlotte, swift and Vivaldi and I will probably set at least one lot in the polytunnel for an even earlier crop. I also ordered the main crop potatoes at the same time to save on postage, I have gone for Cara, I have had them before, they have a good yield and are fairly disease resistant plus the longer you leave them in the bigger they get which is perfect for baking potatoes. I always think I don’t grow enough potatoes but they do need quite a bit of space if grown traditionally. I have found that growing them in tubs is a hit and miss affair and never the yields you see in the photographs 🙄 Having said that I will be growing the earlies in tubs or potato bags I think, it’s easier and you can put them in a corner of the tunnel where they won’t interfere with later growing, that’s the plan anyway. The main crop will go in the ground I just need to decided where they will go this year.
Once John was back and the Rayburn had settled I decided to go for a quick walk around the village, might as well it’s the only out and about time I will be getting. It was Baltic as I walked along the lane towards the village but once I was surrounded by buildings it wasn’t too bad. I noticed all the bulbs forcing their way upwards, some daffodils already have flower buds waiting to open, mine by contrast have not even appeared above ground yet. The village was quiet, not a soul to be seen, all tucked up in the warm I expect. The sun is trying to shine, hopefully we will se more of it soon it has been very shy of late 🙄
John bought me a Monty Don book for Christmas and it is a lovely gentle read about the wildlife he sees in his garden, it is an ideal read for this time of year when you can’t really get out in the garden for very long, it’s called My Garden World and I highly recommend it.
Well you couldn’t dream up what happened in the USA today and we watched the news all night as events unfolded and demonstrators stormed Capitol Hill all spurred on by the current President, it is not our politics to comment on but I will be glad when the 20th January arrives and a new President is sworn in, the integrity of America can hopefully be repaired from then on in.
Thursday: Bloody hell it’s cold! We woke up to freezing fog which did not lift all day, a day shrouded in mist, an eerie landscape.
The office and its problems went from bad to worse, where the floor had been getting wet for a very long time the timbers underneath were also rotten. These are timbers that the whole floor sits on, luckily the main strut that sits on concrete blocks was sound but the rest had to be replaced and John has spent the day doing the first third of the floor we still have two thirds to lift, replace timbers, insulate and re-lay flooring. At least once it’s done it will be sound for a good few years again. The problem goes further than the office as we have discovered and the spare room next door will also have to have the floor lifted and repaired but that can wait until warmer weather comes along as it’s not very warm with the floor missing and freezing temperatures outside 😜
I have formed a childcare bubble with Samantha and the children so that once a week I can help look after the twins and Mia. Being locked down with three under fives is hard work and mentally wearing especially when there is an expectation to do home learning with Mia. I have seen for myself the difficulties Sam has encountered and I feel it’s only right to step in and help out. Essential childcare bubbles are legally allowed, I think they consider looking after children while parents are working as essential but I also consider this to be essential and until someone tells me differently that’s what we will be doing 🙄 So that’s what I was doing for most of the day, helping with Mia’s school work, doing some baking with her and going for a walk, and also playing with the twiglets who are a complete handful at the minute 😂
Friday: It snowed overnight, not too much, more of a dusting than anything but still everywhere is white this morning. We kept the Rayburn in overnight last night, partly because it was cold outside and partly because having no floor in place and no heating in two rooms it was cool indoors and so keeping it in overnight seemed like the best option. It was still going this morning after using our overnight Lekto fuel and so it started up easily this morning. I got it going while John went out and started the animal rounds and then I went out to help him. The horses are getting increasingly hungrier and so I decided we would try and get one of the big round bales out to the paddock. We huffed and puffed and heaved and rolled the 370kg round bale until it was in place, harder than it sounds when you have to negotiate it round corners and also when the cat thinks it’s a great fairground ride to be taken advantage of 😝 Outside jobs done it was time for a quick coffee before John went off to deal with a badly leaking tap that an elderly lady has and pick up some more flooring etc from the merchants. Meanwhile I hoovered and polished, the dust that comes from taking up the floor is considerable and the more I can keep it down the better in the long run, I will be glad when the floor is finally finished. Its slow going even though John is working all hours to get it sorted, good job we are in lockdown and can’t go anywhere else really otherwise it would probably take twice as long as it is already 🙄
Dug out the broad bean and pea seeds and had intended to sow them by now but as yet I haven’t got round to doing it, probably just as well to wait a while for the weather to warm up just a little bit more. I always find that February is a lot colder than we expect it to be, the thinking is, it’s a new year and we are approaching spring but in reality we are still in the throes of late winter so it shouldn’t be a surprise when the temperature plummets 😂
While John was out I got the dinner on the go, diced lamb in the slow cooker along with home grown veg, I added potatoes as well, might as well put it all in one pot than I don’t have to faff about later. The perfect dinner for a day like today especially as it has starting snowing again, no idea how long it will go on for or if it will settle. Shelley, who lives just ten minutes away in town said they only have the tiniest hint of snow not a layer like we have here, I guess that’s the differencein temperatures in towns/cities and rural areas, I have mentioned before that it is always 2/3 degrees colder here 🥶
John came home and got on with the job in hand and just while we are in chaos the electrician turned up. I am not complaining though as normally we have to wait an age for things to get done, that’s the problem when you are trade and your mates are all trade, you have to wait for them to do their real work first 😂
The electrics are done which is good because all the office equipment was running off an extension lead before and I now have usb points as well 😀 The floor is a tad slower 🙃 obviously because other stuff was happening it meant that John couldn’t get on as fast as he would have liked, last night he worked until about 8.30pm but tonight he has called it a day at 5.30pm we can start again fresh in the morning, it’s taking a whole lot longer than I had hoped but hey at least it is getting done 😀 We have put the electric radiator on the wall and turned it on but despite several readings of the instructions to programme it we have so far failed and it is just on permanently 😜
I made a mixed fruit pie to go along with the lamb stew tonight, a proper winter meal on what feels like another very cold night again tonight.
Saturday: Busy day today, first and foremost the animals and we are still having to bucket water to the ones outside as the taps and pipe are frozen. Then John is back on the office floor job and I am carting old flooring out and getting it burnt along with the feeds bags and the Christmas rubbish, as well as a few barrow fulls of wood to bring in for the Rayburn. Needless to say I was on afternoon duties and by the evening I was tired and when I get tired I get grumpy lol. We had a restful evening and recharged our batteries for tomorrow.
Sunday: It’s still all frozen this morning though last night I was able to fill up the water buckets as the tap defrosted during the day. Looking forward to slightly warmer weather though that will probably bring rain with it 😏 We did the animals and then went to get our click and collect shopping from the supermarket, restock on things that have run out and it’s actually a very easy, stress free process, hopefully covid dodging as well 😜 We had breakfast out and by that I mean a takeaway Costa coffee and bacon roll in the car in the car park 😂 I had some shopping to drop round for Mum and then it was back home to get on with lighting the Rayburn and the final bit of the floor to come up and new to go down. It’s mid afternoon as I write this and the final new timbers are going in. Meanwhile I spent a good couple of hours giving the bathroom a right good clean, wash down all the walls, shelves, windowsill, turn out the cupboards and throw away all the out of date stuff and things we don’t use anymore, a good use of my time I reckon.
I will be glad when this job is finished and so will John I think 😂
Just as I was typing the electric tripped, it did it once already and the usual culprit is the pump outside that takes the water from the tanks to the garden so we unplugged it but it tripped again. This meant going though all the things we have plugged in to figure what was causing it, at one point we thought it was one of the big freezers which would be a disaster as we could never eat all that in 24 hrs. Luckily we figured out that it was the electric to the fencing out in the paddock that is keeping the horses in, I need to sort it out sooner rather than later as it won’t take Jack long to figure out that there is no current running through the tape and he will be pulling it down in no time. It has been fine while everything was frozen but as it starts to thaw I’m guessing moisture has got into the reel and caused it to trip.
We bought the cats a Christmas present as you can see from the main photo, not sure it was a good idea though as they hardly leave it except for feeding time 😂
That’s another week done and dusted and who knows what is going to happen over the next week, I am quite expecting further restrictions to be put in place as the numbers are scary at the minute. I always say it could be worse and of course there are worse situations to be in but during the Winter months I think many people are struggling emotionally and mentally with things. If that is you then put on your favourite uplifting song and dance and sing as if no one is watching, tomorrow is another day, we will keep battling forward until we have got this thing nailed 🥰 Stay safe x
Now I know I said I wasn’t going to blog over Christmas but some days just warrant an jot down. Today Dec 21st is a day like that, first John gets the animals done and goes off Christmas shopping, I do a few little house bits and then set up to wrap presents. First I have to move bits of the rubic cube to get to the wrapping paper, scissors, tape etc, a bit of intense searching for a few things and I’m ready to go, shit I have forgotten to put the eggs out and there is a customer waiting, I also forget to put a note out explaining the lack of honesty box, back in, do that and I am good to go. I pick up the sellotape block, you know the unit that is very easy to use, drop it, break it and now it doesn’t roll and won’t tear off nicely leaving an end. I carry on each time trying to find the end of the sellotape, I try sticking the end to the table but if it falls off once it falls off a hundred times. I remember that at 11am a hay delivery is coming oh ffs John has gone off in the car and left the van parked right in front of the gate (I don’t drive) never mind I will open the side gate that will eventually be the driveway and oh another bloody rubic cube scenario, move planks of wood so the gate can open, move bits and pieces left by John so the truck and trailer can manouvre properly, move a bloody great pile of hedge clippings and debris so it can actually get through, sometimes I hanker for an ordinary life 😝
Monday 27th December 2020: It snowed! Despite Alexa giving a totally different weather forecast it began to snow early Monday morning and then it started to settle and overnight it froze and it has being frozen each day so far.
Wednesday 30th December 2020: I felt compelled to write today as it is a milestone day, the UK Astrazenica vaccine has been approved and will begin roll out next week. Although we already have the Pfizer one that needs special handling at extremely low temperature whereas this new one can be kept in a fridge making it much easier to transport and handle. It hasn’t come a day too soon here as we were just learning (through social media) that the virus is taking a real hold in the nearest town to us. During the first wave it was as if the virus wasn’t even real, hardly anybody we knew had it, just one or two people, and everything seemed fairly normal in the circumstances. We did wonder if the whole thing was real back then but now it has become obvious that it is spreading very fast indeed here. The NHS is under extreme strain and for that reason alone it is a whoop whoop day, bring on the vaccine and let’s get back to normal, more importantly, people will stop dying from it 🥰 We can finally think about toasting in a better New Year 😀
December 31st 2020: New Years Eve, not many celebrations going on but at midnight we went outside and rang the bell we used to ring on a Thursday night for the NHS, we could hear others ringing bells and shouting Happy New Year and there was a good show of fireworks from various areas, job done now kiss goodbye to 2020 and off to bed.
Friday January 1st 2021: Welcome to a new year, hopefully the vaccine and a little more freedom than we have had over the last nine/ten months, I seriously hope so, until then we carry on with the new normal 😜
Saturday January 2nd: We did the animals, the ground is still frozen and so it’s a case of breaking water and making sure all the animals are all ok. We have had torrential rain and floods and then snow and freezing cold weather and a glimpse of winter sun at times as well, a smorgasbord of weather. John has been doing the office and so he then went off to get insulation and plasterboard so we can carry on and hopefully get it finished soon. Meanwhile I cleaned out the Rayburn, for two days I have been saying to John that it was not burning right and definitely not behaving as it normally does. I get told I am not doing it properly even though I have now been running this thing for nearly eleven years. Anyway I found the reason that it has not been performing as it should, the oven was getting too hot too quickly, the water and radiators were not getting very hot at all and I couldn’t for the life of me keep the flue temperature up. It was fine up to the day before yesterday, he fire bricks had cracked, not just cracked but one of them was in six different pieces 😩 Great, it’s freezing, it’s Saturday so no next day delivery available and we have no Rayburn. John is still out and I remember that we have another set of fire bricks in the shed, they are the summer bricks that go over the top of the winter bricks but we don’t use it in the summer so never use the bricks either. The only problem is that they are a different size, John arrives home and I give him the options, go without heating etc until Monday, try sticking the fire bricks back together with fire cement or, and I rather think this is a stroke of genius on my part, cut down the fire bricks that we already have as a temporary measure u til the new one arrives. They are shorter and wider than the correct ones but we can cut them to width and use the leftover bit to make them longer. That’s what we did and it has been successful though it will be better once the correct fitting bricks arrive. We then got on with insulation the office and getting up a few sheets of plasterboard, we will get there eventually after all there is not a lot else to do at the minute 😂 The virus is spreading rapidly and we have made the decision not to go anywhere that we don’t really need to, I have made a few loaves of bread and put them in the freezer, I also made some butter from the cream we didn’t use on Boxing Day, we have plenty in the freezers to keep us going and the milkman delivers the milk so apart from some bananas and the plasterboard we have not had to go anywhere yet.
Butter made from the cream we didn’t use, both the butter and the buttermilk are in the freezer ready to use at a later date.
Sunday: Still doing all the usual jobs as well as getting the office done, keep coming up against problems in there, the radiator has been leaking, probably for months and the floor is rotten in one area, I said in the first place we should just knock the place down and start again 🙄 The Rayburn is holding although the fire brick keeps falling forward, hopefully tomorrow the new ones will arrive. We have also ordered our first electric radiator to venture into cleaner heating, we will see how well they heat the room before we go any further with the project. I said to John I have no idea what I will do with all the extra hours it usually takes me to look after the Rayburn 😜
On the amazing side of things, I grew oranges whoo hoo, no mean feat in the UK I can tell you and what’s more they are ripe and they taste great, there were just two but two is a win and two that are edible is a great achievement so I am blowing my own trumpet 😀
Have a good week, covid is still on the rampage, even more so now 🙄 so stay safe everyone.
Monday 7th December 2020: I have had a busy but highly productive day today and smashed 10,000 steps by 3pm. First there was the morning routine and jobs, today that included cleaning out the ducks, cleaning out the guinea pigs and moving the one on his own into the cage inside the pen that the other two are in. I can’t put them together as they are all boars and if they haven’t grown up together will fine to the end if you know what I mean. I am kinda hoping that the longer he is there and they can see and smell each other through the grill they may in the end tolerate one another, time will tell. Burn some more bits of rubbish, seems to mount up all the time and I wanted to get that done at the weekend but other things got in the way. I also filled up all of the wild bird feeders and I turned Biscuit back out into the paddock with Jack, she was very happy to be back out and did a fair bit of running around for five minutes as well as a lovely roll so she can’t be feeling too bad can she. I mucked out the stable, mucking is different from skipping lol, mucking involves taking out all the soiled bedding rather than just taking out the poop. The bed is clean again for the next time they need to come in, always better to prepare as you never know when you will need the stable.
After finishing outside it was indoors to strip the bed and give the bedrooms and good Hoover and polish and remake the bed, put the wash loads on, light the Rayburn and sort some of the Christmas presents. Then lunch which was butternut squash and chilli soup and then an afternoon of organising the last few bits I need for Christmas, a few little presents, presents to send in the mail, presents for John, wrapping paper etc etc. I am almost finished just one more present to get for one of the grandchildren, though I do find it difficult to stop buying when I see things that I think someone might like.
Get the dinner sorted for later and then out to do the feeding and egg collecting. Now we are putting them out in the morning instead of 4pm I don’t feel under such pressure to multi task 😀 it will be back out around 4.15 to shut them away for the night and then I think I will have a sit down before I need to start cooking the dinner, though I do need to hang the washing to dry, do some washing up, a girls work is never done really 😜
Oh and I forgot to tell you that the doc finally got in touch and I have to come off the meds for two weeks then have another blood test as the white cells have not improved. Is there any sign of Lupus activity he asked me, nope none whatsoever, must be the meds then. I do feel a little tired today not sure if that’s all the running round I have been doing or not 🤔
Tuesday take 1: Today is a milestone day, this morning the first vaccine was administered in the UK to a 90 year old lady, hopefully we are at the beginning of the end of what has been a tough year for everyone.
Tuesday take 2: Ooo it’s cold and foggy this morning, I didn’t realise there was ice until I went to put the eggs out, I thought it was just fog. I came back in and lit the Rayburn before going out to do the animals this morning, it was nice and toasty when I came back in and it means my coat, which hangs on the radiator in the boot room, will be warm when I go back out later. I fed everything and broke ice on outside water buckets, nothing to report today, all is well.
When I checked the egg shed this morning I found that some of my cards and tags have sold, that made me very happy 😃 nice when someone wants to buy something you have produced, normally it’s veg and eggs but branching out feels good.
As if getting the front done and the outside beds wasn’t enough, we have decided to try and get the office sorted before Christmas 🙄 when we did the place about five years ago the office ended up half done, it has walls that are half insulated and half plaster boarded, it needs the ceiling insulated and boarded and the remaining bits including round the window done. This room is cold and you can really feel it when you open the door to go in, It would make an ideal craft/sewing/ancestry research/ reading room but it’s either too cold in winter or too hot in summer. I also actually don’t need an office like I did before now that the plumbing company no longer exists, sole traders have much less paperwork 😜 and so I can reduce the desk area to a minimum which will give me room to be able to put up a folding table when I need it and there will be room for a single sofa bed or similar. I am not expecting to get it all done by Christmas just the insulation and the built in desk area then it will be ready to plaster and decorate next year sometime 🤞
We are only 13 days away from the shortest day 🥰 and the daylight hours will begin to increase again, tiny increments but I will take whatever it gives.
There is a lot of talk about climate change and how we may not see snow again in parts of the UK. I am not particularly keen on snow, a hard frost or even better a hoar frost is my favourite, I don’t mind the snow but hate the mess it makes once it starts to thaw 😝 undoubtedly our day to day life contributes massively to carbon emissions and the effect on the climate but little is ever reported about the other things that influence the weather massively such as solar activity or rather the lack of it. Scientists say we are entering a Grand Solar Minimum, in the last hundred years the sun was at its weakest in 2019 and 2020 is the beginning of the GSM with decreased activity possibly up to 2053. Forgive me if I seem naive but although our atmosphere is affected by carbon emissions I can’t see the the sun activity is, that’s a power all of it own and so it has to affect what happens here on earth, stratospheric conditions are also an important factor. On this day in 1938 the highest temperature for December was recorded in La Mesa, California, that surely couldn’t be climate change that was a direct cause of carbon emissions way back then could it 🤷♀️ I think during the climate change dialogue we have forgotten about natural cycles mostly because we have no idea what they have been over the last few millennia, apart from the really big changes such as the ice age, we have only monitored the last couple of hundred years, and yes we have exceptional technology but there is a lot more to learn yet in my tiny opinion. None of that means I don’t believe in climate change and the effects it is having, I do, and I believe we are massive contributors that should be doing all we can to put the brakes on, but I also think that there is more than one factor (maybe many) affecting our weather patterns. Only way in the future will they be able to look back and tell.
Did the afternoon rounds later than I normally do now I don’t have to put the eggs out at 4pm, so at 3.45 I fed everything and collected the eggs then at approx 4.20 I went round and shut everything away from the night, back in to get the dinner underway and that’s another day done.
Wednesday: Not so cold this morning, it rained last night and is damp this morning, no sign of frost. Today marks another milestone, a personal one this time. I said the the girls do you think it’s time for new jeans when you can take them off without unbuttoning them, actually I new it was time, the pairs I had been wearing had got very baggy everywhere, so I took the plunge and ordered new jeans. The fact that I had to order a size 12 is the milestone, I don’t think I have been in that size for over 25 years, so I’m blowing my own trumpet here, whoop, whoop 🙌 go me 😀 Now if I could lose a couple of sizes from my ample bust (which I have always hated) I will be very happy indeed. It’s funny isn’t it, if you have straight hair you want curly, if you have a flat chest you’d like bigger boobs, if you are a stick you would like some curves and all of this works in reverse. Once you accept what you have and work with it life becomes happier, but the one thing I have always said I would like to have is tailor made clothes that fit properly, sleeves that are not too long, shoulders that are not too wide etc, at 5’3 I neither fit the petite range nor the regular lol, misfit that’s me 😜
Phew a busy morning, anyone would think it was the bake off tent 😀 I have made three dozen mince pies, a mincemeat slice and a loaf of bread. I had already made three lots of shortcut pastry yesterday but the morning went as follows: Come in and light the Rayburn, while it’s getting going start the bread off in the mixer, then roll out the first dozen mince pies, sort the Rayburn with more wood and shut down, bread is now on the first prove, roll out the next dozen pies, fill and get into the pre warmed oven. While I am at it I might as well make a mincemeat slice which is a recipe given to me a few years back, roll out the next dozen pies, make the pastry for the slice, get the first 2 lots out of the oven, knock back the bread dough for the second prove, wash the mince pie tins, fill the third and get into the oven, roll out the slice and fill ready for the oven, put some more wood on the fire, have a coffee, get the last lot out of the oven and the slice in. ,are a quick phone call, get the slice out and put the bread in the oven to cook, wash up, phew 😂 The slice is a great alternative to mince pie and is good for a pudding, it is basically a shortcrust pastry with egg, milk and sugar added, divide into two, roll out and put one half in an 8inch tin, add a layer of mincemeat then top with the other half of the pastry, brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar and bake until it’s done which is about 20 minutes.
Thursday already! Did a bit around the house before venturing outside to do the feeding and letting out , collected a few eggs while I was at it, another routine morning. Routine is boring but also welcome, it means nothing is afoot, disastrous, problematic, be grateful for routine 😀 It’s milder again today, no sign of frost of a cold wind, just rather pleasant for a December morning, on this day last year we woke up to snow according to the memories on Facebook. Yesterday we were told that if conditions were favourable we might be able to see the Northern Lights in the UK even this far south, there was cloud cover, disappointing but there is a chance over the next two nights so I will keep looking 😀
A lovely story about the Winter solstice came upon my news feed today, little fairies mourning the death of the Sun King on the solstice are told by the Wise Old Mother that though the old sun king has died they should not be sad, on the very same day a tiny new Sun King is born, he is small but with each day he grows bigger and stronger. I thought that was a lovely way to view the winter, once we reach the solstice, every day will be a tiny step nearer to the warmth of the sun again 🌞
I have just been reading a report about the vaccination from Lupus UK, it looks like we will be vaccinated after the 65 yr olds, so first came the over 80s and healthcare/frontline workers, then it’s the over 75s, then the over 70s, followed but the over 65s then anyone 16 – 64 with underlying health conditions that are on the list and Immunocompromised patients are one of those, who knows how long that will be until we get it 🤷♀️
Friday: Did the morning rounds, nothing untoward to report. Then I set about clearing leaves from the driveway, this is the only place I clear leaves from as it can get slippery with wet leaves sat there and nobody wants a twisted ankle or worse. On the rest of the smallholding the leaves stay where they are and like some little miracle by spring they are all gone. This is because the worms and microbes spend their time pulling them down into the ground then breaking them down to feed on, the result is better quality soil and all done by nature, no need for a leaf blower. You could of course rake them up and make a leaf mulch bin which eventually makes excellent soil improver but I prefer to let it happen naturally and besides it far less work 😜
I came in then and had some breakfast and truth be told I am feeling pretty tired 😏 My hands, wrists and elbows are hurting a little from shovelling and none of this is a very good sign. I can’t work out why when I am on the meds but my white cells are low, I feel great, but I come off them and a week later some not very welcome symptoms begin to appear 🤷♀️ I was getting on fine and now I’m thinking I don’t want to be exhausted all over the Christmas holiday 😔
I looked at the 14/16 day forecast looks like we in for rain and gales, great, not much sign of snow but we may get some frosty weather close to Christmas Day.
The rest of the day was as per usual, nothing exciting or unusual happening here 😂
Saturday: The weather was lovely today and after we did the morning rounds John went out to finish off levelling the soil on the front bed and I did some clearing up of bits and pieces and taking stuff the skip. I then decided that we would be better pooling our efforts and getting one thing done instead to two separate ones and so I went to help John. We got the soil levelled, took off what we didn’t need and bagged it up for the other bed and then set about planting some of the plants I have in pots. I have loads of them but of course at this time of year it’s a job to remember exactly what some of them are, they all look dead. Some of them are recognisable though and so we planted up the things I could identify including my forest pansy tree which I am excited to see burst into flower early next spring. It’s a small tree so won’t get to large for the site, it’s great for bees as the flowers arrive early and before the leaves come out, good food for bees when there is not much else around. It is a big flower though and although I have a lot to go in there I think I made need to buy or grow some more 😜
Here is a sneak preview of what we have been doing, it is still work in progress though and we still have plenty to do before it’s finished. As you can see it was a beautiful day today, blue skies and warm for mid December.
John went off to have his flu jab mid afternoon, he is allowed it this year as he is in the over 50 bracket 😂 I had mine back in October as I always do having underlying health conditions and all that 🙄
When he came back we went in for a sit down and apart from collecting the eggs, feeding and lighting the Rayburn we didn’t do much else, oh except watch the snooker, well John watches the snooker, I have to suffer the running commentary from him even if I don’t want it.
We have discussed sorting the office out and that work will begin on Monday providing nothing else comes up.
At dark we moved the last lot of hens from outside to the stable block where they will now stay until the Avian Flu lockdown ends. It’s good for us as it means that the winter feeding etc won’t be such a chore, inside the stable block is much better than out in the paddocks but not so good for the birds really as they won’t have the freedom they normally enjoy 😏
Sunday: This morning we did the usual routine and then set about starting the office makeover, it will be small part office, small part craft sewing room, a place to do the ancestry searching, a place to keep the grandchildren’s toys and books, a bit of everything really. Mid morning we went to the DIY shop and picked up some storage containers and a chair that I really liked at a bargain price. That set me on the journey of planning the rest of the room and I found some very expensive wall paper 🙄 luckily we only need one roll for the wall I want to do. Up to Christmas it will just be a case of getting it sorted so there is room for two travel cots for the twins on a Christmas Day but after Christmas we will start in it properly. Charlotte phoned and asked if we had our Christmas tree up yet and when I said no she wanted to know why not, the entire contents of the office are in the living room I told her, oh I will let you off then she said lol. I am not quite sure what we did the rest of the day apart from the normal things, the day seemed to go really quickly and that is the end of another week 😀
Monday 30th November 2020: Monday again 🙄 a good Monday this week as we come out of the second lockdown so by Thursday things will feel fairly normal again hopefully. The infection rate has decreased by a third over the last couple of weeks which is good news but we are still not out of the woods yet, when they start to roll out the vaccine we will be on the up and up 🤞
It’s still foggy this morning but it’s fairly mild, it doesn’t feel too cold at all out there. I did the morning rounds, let everything out, fed and watered everything collected the duck eggs, not much to report on that front.
Did a fair few bits indoors, routine stuff really, washing, cleaning out the fridge, clean the boot room. I lit the Rayburn about 12.30 as it felt a tad cold and John called in for some lunch about 1pm, I had FaceTime chats with Sam and Shelley in the afternoon, a bit of reading and then it was time to go out and feed/collect the eggs. I was reluctant to go out, it was nice and toasty inside but actually it wasn’t too bad at all. John was home before 4pm so he will be shutting the birds away tonight, lovely 😊 it’s a bit of a pain having to go back out so soon after the feed rounds especially when I am trying to get the dinner sorted for the evening.
I have looked at the weather forecast for the end of the week after Samantha mentioned it was going to get cold, looks like we might even get some snow ⛄️
Tuesday 1st December: White rabbits 🐇 This morning if I stood in a particular place in the kitchen I could see the moon through the back door and the emerging sunrise through the front window, it was pretty cool 😀
It’s the first day of December and the radio has back to back Christmas songs this morning 😏 I am not a fan of starting too early with the festive stuff, my tree will not go up for another couple of weeks, if I put it up now I would be bored of it by the time Christmas arrives not to mention the dust that will accumulate on the baubles 😂 I did buy an advent calendar this year a chocolate one which is normally something I refuse to do, I prefer the old fashioned ones with a picture behind the door lol, but this year is different and we do need a little bit of cheer, however I forgot to get it out this morning before John went to work so looks like he will have to go second this year 😜
This morning I did the rounds as per usual and all is well. Then I finally got round to getting the heat mat on in the greenhouse, this means I have to run an extension cable to it. With hindsight we should have dug out and put a cable underground but at the time I had no intention of using electric in there. Now however I have changed my mind (a woman’s prerogative ya know 😜) and if I want to keep certain plants alive over Winter then needs must. We had a chat last night with a local company about solar PV and battery storage and hopefully that will be something we install next year so in theory we will be creating our own electric to run the greenhouse and the house itself.
I then spent a large part of the morning doing some crafting, I have plenty of buttons to use and so along with some recycled card I have been making cards as well as gift tags. It’s fun and different to something I would normally be doing although I was proving and baking a loaf of bread at the same time 🥰
Recycled card and up cycled buttons 😀
Wednesday: A beautiful sunrise this morning it was positively glowing through the windows.
It went from orange to pink, just beautiful.
It is National tree week this week, there are lots of initiatives to get people planting trees, visiting trees or pledging to nurture trees. I have said before, there are not enough trees in this country purely from personal experience there is not enough shade and if the climate hots up we are going to need that shade. Over the years we have planted about 20 new trees here that have successfully taken and a few that haven’t but even on our five acres that’s a drop in the ocean, we still have room for plenty more. I like to plant trees that are either productive or native but now and again there is room for a non native decorative tree. I have a few trees in pots, some that I know where they will be going and some that I have no idea about yet but I will find a place for them eventually.
Today is the first day out of lockdown but we are straight into the tier system and we are tier two. That means we can pretty much do everything except visit inside others homes, the pubs and restaurants are open for table service meals, the beauty industry is open again, the non essential shops are open as are many other services and events as long as they are covid secure. Just think, this time last year we had no idea what was coming, our existence is fragile, though as a species we think we are top of the tree. We have watched politicians try to pick their way through the crisis and be slammed with criticism whatever path they took. At first people were concerned about the health of their friends, family and neighbours, then that kind of wore off and they were worried more about the economy and finally about their freedom. It’s a funny mix, from where I stand I’m not too worried about the economy but I don’t have a young family and a mortgage otherwise I might think differently. I sit on the fence with the rules really, on the one hand I follow them on the other hand I think ‘you don’t own me and I am capable of making intelligent decisions for myself’ no good getting irate about it all, it is what it is and they are doing what they think is the best for everyone. The first vaccine has been approved today so here begins the road to normality, not that I think our normality is a good thing, it’s not, the all consuming, regurgitating species that we are will definitely be the downfall of this planet, if something else doesn’t get us first that is 🙄 It should have been a wake up call but it just became an inconvenience.
Did the mornings rounds, it is chillier than I thought it would be out there, definitely felt a nip in my fingers, should have worn gloves definitely will tomorrow. I came in and rang the surgery, I am still waiting for the results of my bloods, I called yesterday as I hadn’t heard anything, still with the doctor, I called today and still with the doctor. What does that actually mean I asked, it means the receptionist can’t see the results as the doctor either hasn’t looked at them yet or is reviewing them. I am hoping that means he has been in touch with my Rheumatologist to figure out what to do, either that or the results are fine and carry on as before needs no rushing, however it would be nice to know 🙄
I am going out for a coffee this morning, because I can, it will be nice to see other human beings even if my tolerance of them is low 😂 I used to think that I would like to be living on a remote island somewhere away from civilisation but in fact this years episodes have shown me that I am not a hermit and I do like small, well tiny interactions with my species after all 😜
I really need to find some recipes for duck eggs, we have loads of them, they sell much more slowly than the chicken eggs and the ducks have been laying well consequently I have about seven dozen to do something with 🤣
I have been making more cards today after I had an order for 10, then another order for 10, I figured I’d better get on and make some. I am finding it very addictive and rather wish I had somewhere I could leave it all out so that when I had a spare hour I could just sit and do them.
I did the afternoon rounds and collected the eggs, I will be glad when they don’t have to go out at 4pm as this will give me a little bit of leeway on my time and what I can get done.
John came home with a bag full of biscuits p, he had been to do a job where the lady makes them, it started as a hobby apparently and now she takes orders for them, there is hope for my card empire yet 😜
Thursday: Did the morning rounds in the rain 🌧 it was too bad it’s not pouring just raining 😝 It mostly went the same as every morning except one of the little light Sussex chicks was not well. I have been watching it for a couple of days and yesterday it was still eating fine although a little static at the end of the day. This morning it was obviously in trouble, I guess the cold nights didn’t help, I scooped it up and bought it in, gave it some sugar water but I could tell it was too far gone and so had to dispatch it. They can go down very quickly, with lots of fluffed up feathers it’s easy to miss the signs of wasting underneath but this one had got quite thin. Neck dislocation is a very quick and precise method of dispatch and one I have been doing for over twenty years now so I am proficient, never a nice thing to do but often the kindest. It was a lot smaller than the others that hatched at the same time so I am guessing there was something wrong with it from the start, sometimes it can take weeks or even months to become evident.
Samantha came over to get the horses in, it is wet and cold and we are supposed to have snow/sleet showers tomorrow so they can come in for a bit of a break and a warm up especially Biscuit who is getting on and we all know how you feel the cold the older you get.
I spent a few happy hours making more cards as I have sold all the ones I made so far 😀 it’s fun, I enjoy doing it and it’s a job in the warm 😀 In-between making them I did the afternoon rounds and was supposed to do the shutting away but John was home in time so I carried on card making while he went out and did it instead bless him.
Friday: Busy couple of hours first thing this morning, the horses came in overnight and that adds to the job list, they need feeding, watering and skipping out (removing the poop) Jack will probably go back out later today as he is not too happy at being in but depending on the temperature Biscuit will stay in a little longer. The rest of the rounds were done without incident and John was here to take charge of another eight tonne of topsoil for the raised bed which is now full I am pleased to say. Charlie popped over before going to work to collect a card order that I made for someone at her work and bought me a juice of carrot, celery and ginger, lovely. I am having Florence this morning as part of the essential child care we are allowed to do, Shelley can now work again and there are a lot of clients on the waiting list, so I said I would look after Florence while she gets some of the back log sorted.
Went for a walk with Florence, first to the post box to post a letter, I have to fill in a sheep and goat inventory annually even if I don’t have either at the moment, then we carried on down to the village Ford where there is a Christmas tree in the middle of the water, then all the way round church lane w
The announcement came yesterday that as from 14th December all poultry and captive birds must be housed so that the wild birds cannot get near them. This is essentially lockdown for the birds, so we are not the only ones with a virus rampaging. Last time this happened we were not prepared, I had never had to do it before and we were caught off guard. The things we put in place turned out to be awful (tarpaulins covering the runs) it was wet and muddy and a disaster. This time we are on top of the game 😀 we have enough spare stables to house all 90 laying hens plus outside pens that can be closed off and netted, they have solid roofs already. The weekend will be all about preparing, moving, and cleaning out. I feel bad for Ted as he is a big bird but his pen is fairly large, he is in the big rabbit run which is 10ft square probably bigger guessing measurements is not my forte 😜 I want to move the big guinea hut he out of there and put the single pig somewhere else but not sure where just yet. The quail are already in the back area under cover. That just leaves the ducks and the geese, the ducks could go in a stable once the horses go back out and if we needed it back they would have to go back outside. The geese however are more of a problem, they are big birds and they eat grass as their staple diet, they will be confined to the small back paddock for the time being. We also have to have foot dips which have to be used before entering any pen, run, stable block, oh the joys of poultry keeping. I seriously wonder if it is really worth the effort sometimes 🤔
Afternoon rounds included turning Jack back out into the paddocks and moving Biscuit into Jacks stable because it’s bigger than hers. Then put the birds all to bed and off to get a bit of shopping. When we got back and after we had eaten we booked a holiday 😀😀😀😀😀😀 it’s not until 2022 mind you but boy it feels good to have something to look forward to 🥰
Saturday: Turned the alarm off last night so not such an early start today. John did half the rounds while I did the other half and sorted out Biscuit. The next job was cleaning the flue although it has been burning clean and didn’t need much doing, I definitely can’t wait for electric heating next year though. A few more odd jobs to get done and then it was time to go and pay our respects to a friend on his last journey 😢
Unexpected things that happen in life give you cause to evaluate what really is important and what are the things that would not matter if they were gone. It is important to enjoy whatever it is you have decided to do, the small things and the bigger things, if you are not loving it then change it, you only get one go at this life make the most of it.
We met one of our new neighbours over the road today they moved in about a week ago so that was nice.
Sam came over in the afternoon to check Biscuit over, she definitely is not keeping herself as warm as she ought to be which is worrying really, could be something major going on. The vet will be coming soon to rasp Jacks teeth so we can get them to give her a look over and see what they think. I am no expert but I think by the way she puffs a bit and the fact she is not staying warm it’s going to be her heart but I might be wrong, when she goes back out she will be having a rug on this year.
Sunday: Suddenly realised its mid evening and I haven’t signed this week off yet 🙄 We did the morning rounds and then John moved a load of timber that was stacked in front of the stable we were going to use for the third lot of hens. Meanwhile I did a few other little bit and pieces, I went to have a looked and we realised that the stable would not be secure enough from the fox and we would also have to put up netting to stop the hens escaping, so we went to plan b. We will use the stable that Biscuit was in as that is secure, it means that John moved all the timber for nothing but hey Ho sometimes it goes like that. After that we went out for breakfast, yay finally we can go out to eat on our way back we picked up the Christmas tree which we bought from the farm in the village. It won’t be going up just yet but at least we have it ready. The weather was foggy, grey, drizzly and a tad cold so we decided not to do anymore outside work today, we watched a couple of films instead, that’s what Sunday afternoons are for isn’t it lol.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 