Party plans amongst other things

I don’t know if I am imagining it but I think I can already see the difference in the fields from the rain.  I’m hoping for some sun after the downpours we’ve had and then maybe everything will have a growth burst.  The greenhouse has been firmly shut up to keep the heat in for the last day or two, opposed to the previous week when the doors were flung open along with every vent I could find as things were struggling in the intense heat.  Ah the lovely British weather.  I wouldn’t change it for anything!

Now speaking of the greenhouse, the tomatoes are thriving since I planted them in my well-rotted muck from my lovely horses.  However something else is growing in there too.  Mushrooms!  Lots of white rubbery ones and some tall skinny grey ones.  I said to Grace, my daughter who is 9, that I wonder if we can eat them.  Of course she looked horrified but I will find out and Steven and I will have them if they are edible.  I won’t give the kids them in case I get it wrong, but also they both hate the texture of mushrooms.

We are throwing a big party in a little over a week and I’ve been preparing like mad in between everything else.  I’m going to try and make a few homemade items in addition to the shop bought (sauces etc) to give people a literal taste of what we’re all about.  I was thinking about the following.  Breads – Onion bread, Sun dried tomato bread, Apple Cider bread and a seed bread.  Now granted, these will be made in the bread maker, but all the ingredients will be fresh and there’s obviously no dreaded e numbers in there.  As I will need to make a couple in advance, does anyone have any experience which of these breads might freeze better?

Asparagus is something else we have in abundance, so I am going to make an asparagus quiche as we have a couple of vegetarians.  Is there any other sides or BBQ food that would be doable with asparagus?

Rhubarb – the rhubarb and ginger jam that I made is happily sat in in the pantry waiting patiently to be put to good use.  I *may* use some in the sponge cake I am going to make for Jack’s birthday cake but I need to give that some thought as I’ve never used the flavour jam in cake before.  However for the BBQ if I have enough rhubarb and have time, I may do a rhubarb chutney. 

Eggs.  I’ll also do some hard boiled hen and duck eggs (if the ducks start laying again by then as the ducklings only just hatched) but I don’t think the geese are going to grace us with their eggs any more this year.  If they do I will hard boil some of those too, as I’d like to show the different eggs we have on offer here.

I’m also making frittatas to chop into small squares and serve as nibbles to pick up with a cocktail stick.  We’ve had comments off rude people before about frittatas being pauper food, so I am going to make it stand out and hold its own. 

Now I think that’s all we have edible ready at the moment and reading back, I’m really pleased with it! 

When we’re back from holiday our cockerels will be almost ready to eat so that will be our next test.  I’m not sure I am ready to be there for the slaughter, which I know I should as it’s not fair on Steven to do it on his own, but I will happily take its feathers off and watch as he gets it ready for the oven.  I will do a Sunday lunch for family and we can all have a feast to celebrate him having a happy, healthy life and in return us having a happy, family meal.

Speaking of meat, we have 6 ducklings in total now.  Isn’t that fabulous?  We have learnt from the goose mistake and have secured their water area so that they should be able to get in and out safely.  They may find it hard to get in and out of their house, so we will keep an eye on that and make any changes they need.  As much as I love the ducklings, I can’t help but let my mind wander to what sauce goes best with duck.  Come the winter, we should be getting a nice freezer full of meat (the boys) and some extra eggs from the girls once they’re old enough.

Have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend everyone :)

Preparing for winter.

When we moved in, we set up a housekeeping account which we use for any house related income and outgoings.  One of the unknowns that I try to budget for is heating oil.  Each month we put away £125, ready to fill the tank when we need to.  It also pays for our coal.  The amount we have left in the tank, we’re hoping, will last us until the end of August and then the money we’ve saved will buy us 1000 litres of oil and also another car full of coal.  This is the start of our preparing for winter. 

We have log burners which we use as a heating source for the main house, but they aren’t linked to the central heating system so they only warm the room they’re in, plus a bit of escape heat into the corridors.  Our heating in the new house isn’t great, it merely takes the chill off and given that our house is 100’s of years old, it’s glacial inside during Winter, so taking the chill off simply brings it up to a zero temperature opposed to a positive temperature (or so it feels like).  Therefore I begrudge putting the heating on as I don’t think we’re benefitting enough from the amount of oil we’re using.  We do however have the Aga which is on constantly and heats the kitchen so it is lovely and toasty.  We’ve taken the decision not to turn it off for the summer.  We use the two plates on the top to dry a multitude of clothes, boil the kettle and keep it warm, toast our bread, cook our eggs, plus use the main ovens for all of our meals.  At present, with oil prices being so low when we last bought oil in January, this wasn’t a difficult decision to make, however if oil prices go back up to their sky high 50p+ a litre then we would switch it off over the summer.  Maybe.

Another expense of the Aga is to get it serviced twice a year.  Now I don’t know if this is overkill, but that’s what we were advised.  It’s an old solid fuel conversion which now runs on the oil and it’s circa 45 years old so I want to take good care of it.  The service is £80 a time *gulp*.

In other planning ahead news, we’re having a housewarming party now the main jobs are done and the weather is being kinder to us.  We’re combining this with my son’s 6^th birthday which has resulted in catering for around 100 guests!  I am really looking forward to it but by the same token must plan, plan, plan.  I’ve been good and accepted all help where it’s been offered, from bringing food & drink, to coming to help set up the night before and also an offer of a gazeebo to be prepared for the weather, umbrellas, tables for food and so on.  We have some lovely, helpful friends which we would struggle without, so thumbs up for them!

Throwing a party means that this month’s grocery budget will be stretched out to cater for everything, however I think we can do it and I love a good challenge (plus it’s 'Bring your own boose' so that expense is gone straight away!).

Finally for today, dare I say this, once we’ve had the party, I shall be planning for Christmas.  Now don’t shoot me, I love Christmas.  However this year is obviously hugely important as it’s our first Christmas in the new home.  We’re inviting all of our family over who want to come and I’ll do a traditional Christmas lunch for everyone, play games, have family time, drink mulled wine and generally enjoy how blessed we are.  I would like December to be full of Christmas cheer and that does not include stressing over cards, gifts and food.  I would like to do a get together/open house for the neighbours and some close friends but I need to think about how I’d manage that to keep numbers down, where do you draw the line!? 

Rhubarb and ginger jam

I am rather impressed with myself tonight. I have made rhubarb and ginger jam using our veg plot rhubarb and a jam making pan that I bought years ago but never got round to using. The pan was made for the Aga I am sure and I thoroughly enjoyed making it. I found it really relaxing and the smells were divine. Tomorrow I shall have some with breakfast and hope it tastes as good as I am expecting. Another rung on the self sufficient ladder, or at least a baby step in the right direction. This will last us right through the year although if it's nice I may give some of the kilner jar smaller ones in hampers for Christmas.

The weather here is being enoyed by the ducks and the fields! So much so that the ducklings decided to hatch and we have at least 2 but will leave Mam to do her thing and check tomorrow if we can. What a fabulously 'smallholding like' evening.

First free meat by our own hands

***Pictures of shot pigeon warning***...

Well, from Steven's hands if I am being pedantic. He shot his first pigeon tonight and it'll be going in the freezer with some others which we were given, to go on our bbq for our housewarming. We will of course be offering other meat that people associate as normal bbq food, but we want to show people the lifestyle we've chosen and are trying to adopt as we're very proud of it. We've spoken many times in our last home about shooting our own food and now we have managed to. One less pigeon to eat my veggies and one more meal for us. A nice balance I would say.

PS do I even need to warn people of the pictures, it's polite to I guess?

Normal service resumed

Thank you to everyone who took time out to comment on my last post. I feel like I have made huge strides this weekend despite not doing anything major. So without further ado, let's get back to normal but with the addition of incorporating some if your lovely ideas into my daily and weekly routines. Routine and planning seems to be the key. More to follow on this.
I don't think I posted about out latest Freeby. A wheely bin with a tap on the bottom of it. We have hooked it up to the rain flow off the greenhouse and tonight I started using this harvested rain water to water the greenhouse. Simple and effective and best of all free. Especially as we're on a water metre here.
Tomorrow we will purchase our next round of chicken feed but it won't cost us a penny. They have literally paid for themselves in eggs. How fabulous! I hope you've all had a lovely Monday and happy new week!!

Back to basics

I seem to have lost all ability to stay on top of the washing, ironing, getting tea out of the freezer, housework and anything else remotely associated with being a good mum, wife, daughter and so on.
I have never been one for too much tidying although I do appreciate it when  it's done. Life is for living and most of the time the balance is just about ok. Not this last week though. I think it's partially down to the lighter nights as we're outside so late thay I come in, do my work that I have to do (5 hours evening work a week from home Tues, Wed and Thurs in total) Then shower and bed. Some nights I battle to have a shower as I am so tired truth be told! Then of course I am tired the next morning so getting up as early as I need to is a pain in the rear. On a morning there is just me as Steven is out to work before we get up (I get up at 6) so I have the animals to let out, skip out, feed etc etc (this morning I had to put a very smug looking pony back in the field he should have been in) Then breakfast, kids ready and school run starts at 7.30.
I don't watch TV during those nights now as I don't get to sit down to and it doesn't bother me one bit. What does bother me is feeling completely behind in everything this week. The washing is piled high, ironing is a mountain and the house looks very untidy. I really didn't want this to happen in this house as I had so many hopes and aspirations of how I would be able to manage it. The kids help with things like recycle and tidy their rooms (hah!) And Steven is out working on essentials outside the whole time he is home so it's not easy. I prefer to be outside at the moment, I am happy out there. It's amazing. I think I just need to devote a bit more time to the house. In the January when we moved in I did somehow but again, the weather didn't make me want to go outside and it was dark by 4pm!
Bit of a rant tonight, sorry! I find it always helps to get things down on paper. I should be in bed but I'm waiting for the washing machine to finish as I didn't put it on in time 😕
Soon be Friday!

A smallholding weekend.....we're getting there

The weekends go by in a flash.  Why is that?  I remember finishing work on Friday and thinking how happy I was that it was the weekend and we have 2 free days to spend as we wish, enjoying each other’s company and the ups and downs of smallholding life.

Saturday saw my friend and I ride the horses out along a route that previously had a gas gun set up on it to scare the birds off their crops.  It’s been switched off now, so we ventured along the bridleway which leads through a farm.  I met the owner the previous week and it turned out I used to go to school with him, so we were happy to go through.  It turned out there were lots of bridle gates and some weren’t accessible easily so I ended up jumping off and walking most of the route through the farm.  We’re going to use it again as part of a circular route so that we don’t have to get off twice.  We doubled back on ourselves on Saturday meaning we need to go back through the gates again which was a pain. 

A lovely couple took 20 bags of manure from us this week, taking the last lot on Saturday.  They absolutely loved our place and even brought us a cake to say thank you for the muck!  It’s no hardship other than bagging it up and it helps us not have a much to get rid of, so we were very grateful for the cake.  It was a Greek yoghurt cake and I kid you not, it tasted divine.  Light and tasty, what more could you want.  They are welcome for more muck any time!  They also bought 12 eggs from us.

For lunch on Saturday I harvested the crazily big asparagus and made soup from it.  It was lovely.  My son likened it to a nicer leek and potato (he’s 5).  My Mam and Dad turned up as I was making it, so I fed all of us (not Mam as she has digestive issues bless her), with leftovers eaten on Sunday.  I was beaming with pride as serving something up that we grew ourselves (ish, it grew regardless of us).

After lunch, we said bye to my parents and set to work in the small paddock trying to clear it of the last bits of debris from the ginormous pile of branches, fence posts, rotted rails and general dumping ground items that the previous owner had left there.  It’s looking a lot better but still work to do there.  The ponies can go on it, which is the main thing.

Steven and I sat down in the middle of the paddock with a cold drink late on the afternoon and spent 10 minutes just taking it all in.  Days like that were what it was all about.  Cake for muck, eating our own produce and working on our own land.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  My only downfall was that I hadn’t anything prepared for tea so when we went in at 7:30pm we ordered a take away.  Oh well!

On Sunday morning I was coming back with my daughter from her ride out when the neighbour rang, she wanted 12 eggs when we had time.  As we were almost back home, I nipped in, grabbed 12 eggs and took them round to them as they were having pancakes for  breakfast.  You don’t get better service than that and no fresher eggs that laid that day!

Sunday afternoon was spent in the field which we had sectioned off on Saturday.  The kids played with next doors kids and we finished poo picking so the field can grow unhindered by piles of poo.  That’s something we need to start doing almost daily as we don’t have vast amounts of space, so we need to look after it well.  Finally I went round the smaller paddock picking leaves off the trees in an attempt to identify them and make sure they’re not poisonous as the ponies now have full access to the woods as part of their turn out.  Even if they didn’t have access to the woods, they’d still get some of the tree’s leaves as they’re growing at a very enthusiastic rate, so this is a priority for this week.

After a full and tiring day, Steven suggested we go out for tea, who were we to say no?  So he took us to the local pub where we had a lovely meal that filled us up nicely.  We’re so lucky to have a lovely family, even if it’s slightly crazy and the kids fight like cat and dog J

Beautiful blooms!

Happy Friday!
What a lovely way to have spent Friday afternoon into early evening. I've had a couple of hours in the greenhouse planting up the tomatoes into their final resting spot for some. Others that were planted later have gone into the middle size pots and will go into their buckets in a few weeks. They were all planted with half manure half compost from Tesco and had a good feed with Tomatorite. I love the smell of the tomato plants, it makes me think we might actually get a harvest!
My lovely Dad spent an hour digging over the dreaded stony veg bed. It's still in huge chunks but makes life easier for me tomorrow digging it down further.
We had a dead pheasant in the woods today which is the third unexplained death around here. Firstly was Mr Fox, secondly was a rabbit in the middle of our drive and today a pheasant. None of which had any marks to suggest how they died!
We had a wander around the small holding tonight and took in the prettiness around us. The fruit trees are in bloom, the bluebells out and life couldn't be better. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Escapee geese and other things

I came home as usual today and had to stop to take a photo of the house and blossom tree. It looked stunning! Nature at its best. Then I came in, got changed and went straight outside to check all animals are present and correct. Filling up the geeses water I realised they weren't there hissing at me so I went to check their usual hang out and they weren't there either. In fact they were nowhere to be seen. So my daughter and I went looking and found them hanging about near the stream on the other side of our boundary. I have no idea how they got to it as there's a full fence with mesh and corragated steel there which the goslings couldn't fly or jump over even if the adults could. Anyway we headed them back and they spend a happy few hours sunbathing where they should be!
I went to check the veg plot once all the animals were accounted for and found the asparagus has gone crazy today with one having gone to seed. They grow at a crazy speed. Does anyone know if it can freeze?
Ryan the adopted gosling is enjoying his new home, our home! He loves following Steven about. The dogs aren't so happy about that though!
I was looking through the small paddock tonight and noticed the nettles are taking over as is this ivy looking plant. Both are going to have to be strimmed back at the weekend and kept on top of as there is very little grass in there anyway and I will have to keep supplementing hay if we don't sort it. At least they can use it to stretch their legs. Anyone any ideas what the ivy type plant is?
Almost the weekend and I can't wait!!

Spot the geese? Top middle!

Cowslips and nettles!

An unplanned productive evening.

Last night I finished work, got the kids from school and as they were both tired and Grace was feeling under the weather, they pretty much went to bed as soon as they got in and had tea.  Nothing serious thankfully, just school kids and more germs, but it meant I somehow had a really productive evening.
I set about in the veg plot digging over part of the remaining bed that I've been avoiding.  If I take it an hour at a time, it's more manageable than the thought of doing it all at once.  It's about 1/3 to 1/2 done now so I am really pleased.  I've added more rotted manure in to the bit I've done tonight and hopefully come the weekend I will get the rest of the plants in there.  Then that leaves one more bed plus a space that's previously been used for burning god knows what.  That will become my potato bed very soon.
So in between the veg plot, I had a guy come and collect some manure which combined with another couple over the last week has made an even bigger dent in the muck heap.  Once he had gone and I'd done what I set out to in the veg plot, I spent an hour in the field picking up a barrow of poo.  It's back breaking work but it was actually quite therapeutic as it is so quiet, so relaxing that in the end I almost enjoyed it.
In the greenhouse the tomato plants have started showing lots of the yellow flowers which will become the fruit so I am now getting excited!!  How long until I can harvest my first tomato!!  Rhubarb & asparargus were divine, I wonder if the tomatoes will be!
Finally I watered my plants then put the animals to bed before collapsing into my own bed, ready to do it all again the next day, what could be better!


Dad started digging the bed for me last night which spured me in to doing more tonight.

This is one of the many muck bins, look at all those mushrooms growing!! 

Close up of one of the mushrooms

The muck heap has caved in as it's started to rot.  3 months old, good stuff this sh1t!

Veg plot update

The rhubarb has taken off in a dramatic way so any time tested recipes will be greatly received.  I do love rhubarb crumble but that’s all I ever have made.  I made the rhubarb cake recently which was lovely so anything else anyone recommends I am happy to give a go.

There’s more asparagus ready to harvest, it’s shooting up left, right and centre and tastes divine!!

The remainder of the veg plots are coming along nicely but there are 2 which I just cringe at every time I look.  They shout “painful back, blood, sweat and tears” at me every time I look. They are going to take a lot of TLC to get up to speed but I need them up and running so let’s stop moaning and crack on.  One is going to be for the broccoli, more caulis and cabbage.  The other bed will be for squashes.  I have some started in the greenhouse and the remainder are going in this weekend. 

Tomatoes are doing well and some are flowering already!  The plant which we didn’t know what it was?  Well, I think may be a bean plant of some description, looking at how it’s coming along.  I have more tomato seeds in which are late but I will ripen them off the vine if I have to. 

Aside from these 2 veg beds there is one that only has currant bushes and rhubarb in (the one I made the cake with, yum) and nothing else, so there's a lot of wasted soil space to me.  I have done the lasagne method with the spare space. Anyone seen it?  I put newspaper down over the weeds (didn't bother to pull them out, will soon know if that is a bad idea) and then lots of our lovely horse manure over the top. This will compact and rot over the coming weeks when I will add another layer of newspaper, grass cuttings and manure and in a few months time we will dig the bed over in the hope for good soil and no weeds Or we'll have some cracking weeds that thrived on the manure when the newspaper did nothing!  It's an experiment and saved my back doing that bed
On a night when I’m locking all of the animals up, I wander round the veg plot and close up the greenhouse and my mind is already drifting to next year and what I want to start off early in the greenhouse, when can we afford a polytunnel, what should we put in each bed to rotate it etc.  I love it growing our own things.  We have so much to learn, it’s fabulous!

Meet Ryan

Time for an update on the goslings that were hatched. 
After losing the one to the pond, the remaining 4 are doing extremely well and following the adult geese everywhere.  They seem to be thriving and enjoying life.  The day or two after the first lot arrived saw a few strange things happen.  Firstly, the other Mother Goose abandoned her eggs in favour of walking round with her friend and her friend’s goslings.  So the remaining eggs in the shed went cold and we thought were goners.  Anyway, as we said we would, we let nature take its course and left them there.  We had a couple that hatched ok but died  for one reason or another and some that died trying to hatch.  A day or two later, when one was trying to get out and struggling, we decided nature had its own way for long enough and we helped the little dude out.  Mother Goose has already rejected a couple of goslings that hatched after the first day (that accounted for some of the deaths I mentioned), so we decided to pop Ryan as he is now called, in to the incubator and see if he made it.  He did and now Steven and I have been adopted by him as his parents!  His favourite past time is swimming round in the sink.

With this in mind, when 7 Vorwerk chicks (breed of hen) came up for sale a day later, I thought they would make great friends for Ryan and we were right.  For now anyway, before he gets too big!

It wasn’t a silly move though as I now have the 2 breeds I really wanted, Lakenvelder and Vorwerk.  I shall breed these myself over the next year or so, when I introduce some from a different blood line (some people say it matters, others say it doesn’t). 

May Day Bank Holiday

We have slowed down in people who are wanting muck from us, the Spring surge of keen gardeners has wilted to a snail’s pace.  Of course that’s the cycle.  We did however have a regular guy take a trailer full from us at the weekend, which made a dent in our ever increasing manure pile!  In an effort to slow down the bedding going on the heap over the summer, I’ve started putting the ponies out a lot more now the weather’s picked up.  It is catch 22 as we want the grass to come through enough to keep them but also we want them out on it!

So in an effort to allow both the boys and girls out together and to reduce the impact on the grass, Steven has put up a new fence to create a small paddock around the ground we lovingly named “Thistle Paddock” as it was overgrown and unloved when we moved in back in January.  The fence looks great, but they aren’t cheap to buy are they?  We are using electric tape around the other parts of the paddock, until we can afford the rest.  The tape will only do its job for so long though as they boys desire for the nicer looking grass will overcome their fear of the tape!

Although we now have a cow problem!  Next door’s cows are constantly trying to get in with our horses and by God do they knock stock posts out easily.  They’re going to do themselves an injury if they aren’t careful as they insist on getting tangled in wires and walking on the most inappropriate place.  So if anyone has any techniques to keep the cows away, I’ll be happy to hear them!!

Over the bank holiday weekend we had family and friends over and it’s been a lovely time.  It has meant that I have got nothing done that I should have though and the house is looking unloved and in need of a good tidy and clean.  The problem is we’re so limited on time during the week and at the weekends people descend on us or we find more important jobs to do.  We’ll get round to it, at some point!

Our hens are well and truly paying for themselves now.  We have made over £40 in egg sales over the last 3/4 weeks, so say average of £10 a week.  That will pay for their next round of food and hopefully we will get to the point where we have a bit extra in the kitty too. 

The goslings have finally hatched too!  We haven’t got any decent photos yet as they are really protective of them, understandably.  As soon as we can, we’ll get a few good shot of them.  We’ve sectioned off what we can to make their area gosling proof but as you can imagine, on a smallholding, there’s only so much you can do and we’ve decided to let Mam do her job and what will be will be.  The geese have been managing for years and years without our help, so I’m sure she has this in the bag!  We’ve already got 2 requests for Christmas geese and a request to buy some for a community corner that a local resident is putting together.  We’ll see, we don’t even know how many we have yet, or indeed if they’ll make it.

Our rescue girls are doing really well despite losing one of their friends a while back.  They’re contributing the most to the £10 a week money.  They make me smile every day, they seem to have so much more character and need for interaction than our pure breeds and older girls.  It’s lovely.  We’ve tried to find more to rehome, but nowhere has any dates available yet.

Our growers (the ones we hatched out first) are coming on leaps and bounds, literally.  The cockerels are learning to crow and the hens are flitting around as they see fit.  They are 11 weeks on Saturday so they will have to stay in their separate bit for a while yet.  That leaves us with a dilemma of where to put the 6 chicks that we have which are only a few weeks old as they are due to go out soon, especially now the weather’s picked up and they can feel the sun on their backs.  We may have to make a makeshift pen next to the rescue girls until we can put the growers elsewhere.  We do have a long term plan of where they will go, but it’s whether we will have the time before we go on holiday.

Veggies wise, I’m hoping that now the sun is back, that we will be able to get into the veg plot again and with Steven’s man power and my planting skills, we can put the rest of the plants in that are looking sad in their small pots waiting to be planted out.

I counted my tomato plants last night and I think there were 23, but a few of which may have been lost to the frost.  I’m thinking about putting a few of them into their grow bags at the weekend and see how they manage.  I bought some tomatorite thinking I should be feeding them now, but the bottle says to feed when the fruit starts to form. 

The potatos aren’t looking great at all.  The little green shoots that started to appear have gone brown and slimy.  Should I have covered those little green shoots with more earth?  I’ll try and post some pictures soon as I forgot to get some when I was investigating last night.

Also, on spuds, we bought a huge bag full and they’ve all sprouted, they aren’t seed potatoes but eating ones and were intended for our tea.  There’s just too many though. Some of them have 6 inch shoots on then, can I plant them?

 

A sad day

Today we had one of our questions answered. Mammy goose can look after the goslings but only to an extent. Sadly, we lost one of our 5 to drowning. He was only a day old. We've taken it quite hard as really, we could have prevented it. Poor little thing. He's buried near where he would have lived. Needless to say, tonight Steven has rigged something up to help them stand somewhere safe if they need to whilst they catch their breath and made it easier for them to get out the pond.
In other news, we've started moving a load of crap from the pony paddock into the woods. We were going to burn it but decided it's too close to the woods already plus if the ground underneath it isn't already dead, it soon would be with a fire on it. Once that's done it'll really make a difference to the size of the paddock. I'm suffering now mind you, midgie bites!!
To cheer us up after a sad day, here's a couple of pony and horse pics.
Oh and I wrote a huge long post in response to being nominated by Louise for the Liebster awards and bloody lost it. So I will redo it asap. I quite enjoyed it!