Country Shows and Hard Graft

A productive weekend - 13th and 14th August 

On Friday evening, I sat down with a glass of wine in the knowledge that I'd won the War on Weeds.  It may be temporary and there may be more wars to come, but I had managed it.  Here's a little glimpse of how the weeds had taken over the pathways, as well as the beds.

 

I concentrated on the beds as they contain food - the weeds would slow down the growth of the plants and that means less food for us.  So I had to prioritise.  The pathways were unsightly but as the weed seeds would spread from them, they were tackled too.  I've a video here closing the week out.

That freed us up on Saturday to be able to attend a Countryside show.  It was only a 20 minute drive from us.  £20 entry gave you access all day if you wanted, but as it wasn't huge and the rain started, we made a getaway after a few hours of enjoying the offerings.

We took little Rodney too - he had a fantastic time.

 

You can see the rain making its way over in the photos.  A moody sky but an enjoyable few hours.

Back home and there was a tonne of work waiting for us.  We have recently purchased a new multi purpose hedge trimmer come chainsaw, come brush cutter machine.  It's petrol powered and needs a strong hand behind it.  Thankfully Steven was on the job and we worked together, with me on clean up duty, to tidy up the hedges and trees.  It looks so much neater and pleasing to be around.

We did have a few teething problems with it, which I will contact the company about however for the most part, it's a great tool to add to the collection.

After a lot of work, I took the opportunity to have a sit down and cuddle with Annie.  That face!

Outside space in February, including seeds, chickens and eggs

Look what we found growing in the muck pile, perfectly polished mushrooms.  They are still there, I don't trust myself to identify mushrooms, but I do appreciate them and one day, who knows, Ste may try them ;)

 Where there is muck there is money?  We we gifted a gesture of cash for some muck we bagged up for the allotments recently, isn't that great?  Maybe we can make an income from it as we look to set up our own little farm business in the coming months.

 The muck has been getting used in the veg plot to feed or mulch the beds before we covered them.  It's hard work, but very worth it.  Hopefully this will keep the weeds down as well as prep the beds for when we are ready to fill them.  It'll be end May, early June here for most things as last year we learnt the hard way when we had a frost on May 27th and we lost a load of plants.

One thing we want to get sorted pretty soon, maybe on a March goal is the rain water collection and how to then use it.  We think we will get a motorised pump to help distribute the water from the tanks to wherever it needs to be.  At the bottom of the veg plot, on the other side of the fence is the compost heap we are trying to put together.  It's coming along really well with green and brown items.  According to Charles Dowding, it should be ready in 8 months or so once full.  I have no idea how long it'll take to fill, it's a big size container!

It is the furthest bed here that we are using it for.  The other beds look like this mess as the storms that are passing through keep ripping the fronts off them.  I'm going to turn one in to a hot bed and sow some carrots and parsnips in them this weekend - how controversial using muck for roots ;)

Wandering away from the muck heaps takes you around to the greenhouse where I've been sowing seeds since Valentine's Day.  The leeks took a while to show but they are there!  I've a couple of varieties to try.  This was my workstation at the time!

 The salad, kale, tomatoes etc are coming along well.  Some of these will be pricked out and moved on this weekend, which hopefully won't shock them.

 Giant sunflowers!!

 Thrilled to see the wild garlic Ste bought me for my birthday (best present EVER)  taking hold.  We have NEVER had it before, so I hope it likes living there. 

I rescued some snowdrops from a near death experience at the muck heap too, not sure where they will go yet.

Taking a step outside the greenhouse is a view to stop and enjoy.  It's not all been rain.

Then we have the latest additions!  I have such a soft spot for ducks and I can't tell you how thrilled we are to get these 4, 3 girls and a boy of the Aylesbury.  We've already been getting lots of beautiful eggs from them which we have popped 19 in to the incubator in an effort to start breeding them as we would like to become a supplier in the area, which there isn't many of.  Another income opportunity hopefully.  

We've been getting plenty of chicken eggs too and have lots of lovely people asking to buy them from us each week.

The geese on the other hand aren't laying yet and they won't even use the blinking pond we re did for them! I have no idea what's going on there, they prefer to drink the stagnant water that gathers in the drain pipes and things laying around the place!

Staying on the poultry theme, the meat birds have just been processed and my god are they big.  I'm really pleased with this lot, which will see us through the next 10 weeks for sure.  We have a plan with meat birds, I'll come back to that again in another blog post.

The other meat we produced in 2019 was the lamb, which I took the last lot out of the freezer the other night.  Hell's bells I didn't realise there was so much left.  So I am now frantically cooking this lot, to refreeze in cooked form and get it put back in the freezzer in an orderly fashion.  Again, it'll be on the foody post in the coming days and weeks.

Here's my kitchen window view keeping an eye on the weather.  We've had some spectacular colours!

Something else that has been going on is the tup arriving.  He joined us on the 16th Feb and will stay with us a few weeks.  Hoping to have lambs the first week or 2 in to July, but it could be 3 weeks after that, depending on if he catches them or not.  I think they are all pleased to be inside at the moment on dry straw with nice hay.  It's certainly better than being on the wet muddy fields with the storms blowing a hooey around you.

 Here he is, we called him Arthur.  He's very sweet and his black ears are forever twitching in opposite directions.  He's not that tall compared to the last tup, but he's chunkier.  Let's see what happens :)

Finally, Annie is still underwhelmed by everything and is still sneaking a nap in places she really shouldn't. 

 Have a lovely weekend all.  We have a very busy schedule Friday through to Sunday so we will catch up with another post next week.

Rhubarb, a birthday, bathroom and Annie :)

I am really noticing the change in daylight hours this last week. Que the panic moment where Spring is upon us and I don’t feel ready. In anticipation of this, we’re getting a nice, early starting with the seed sowing again this year. Inevitably there will be some losses but it has served me well for the last 2 years since we started on this journey.

We have now sown most varieties of tomatoes, peppers and chillis, aubergine, leeks, peas, lettuce and cucumbers.  The peas went into guttering and have been placed in the greenhouse, for when they are ready to plant out, maybe April time.  They will just slide straight into a trench from the guttering, suffering little disturbance and making life easier for me.

I've sown SO many tomatoes this year.  A few reasons, one as my harvest was poor last year, also to find out which varieties suit our weather here in the North East from which I will save seed and use next year.  I plan on making and preserving enough tomato sauces (be it pasta, ketchup, bottled etc) to last a family until the next tomato season and I also will sell some, be it plants to grow on, or tomatoes to eat.

Some of the tomatoes from last weekend are flying up - for those which are leggy, I will replant up to their leaves as tomatoes are happy to do this.

Below the broad bean expermiment is underway.  The Aquadulce are coming through ahead of the Bunyard's exhibition.

Finally sweet peas are doing well (ignore the label, it's not what is sown).  I'm really looking forward to a great display of sweet peas this year, they are lovely plants and the bees love them too.

I invested in some capiliary matting to hopefully help with the watering of all the seedlings as that is a very time consuming job once we're underway.  Anything to make life easier!

The rhubarb that I put the black bin on is not showing at all, but this little plant here took off last year and it is looking like it will this year too!  Look at it, no forcing and it's away already.  The growing season is here!

In doing all of the seeds, I am spending a lot of time in the potting shed and Annie has been joining me now she is allowed out.  She is turning into such a lovely dog.

Unfortunately, the fox has paid us another visit.  The 3rd now.  We have Vorwerk chickens that free range completely, meaning they sleep where they want to.  Inevitably that meant they were easy pickings and 4 of the 6 went last night.  The 2 hens that remain are now in with the other chickens and locked away on a night.

One of the reasons I am not managing to post so much is the amount we have going on at the moment.  Here's one of our current projects.  The family bathroom.  It is one of the more dated rooms in the house so we have decided to get on with it rather than wait until the Autumn, which was the first plan.  Unfortunately, the walls and ceiling all need replacing, but at least it should be a job that we only do once.

I'm lucky Ste just gets on with it - this is how we take old baths out in this house.

I'm sure it'll be worth it!

It's Grace's birthday on Wednesday, she will be 11.  This is her 3rd birthday in the house and for each one we have thrown her a little tea party.  She had a friend over, family came and we enjoyed a nice few hours together.  Look at the cake my Mam made for her - simply delicious!  Grace is a lucky girl.

I really am trying to make sure we all slow down a bit here as January has gone by in the blink of an eye and it's a bit worrying!  We get up at 5 and don't stop until we go to bed around 10.  Being busy is great, but not at the expense of time going by too quickly.  I'm going to see what we can do to slow the days down a bit! 

Footprints in the snow and Saturday soup

The snow always tells a story. It tells me that we have lots of night time visitors as these (rat?) prints weren’t there when I locked up at 9:30. Ste will have to get out with his gun (and try to not nod off whilst waiting), which is his favourite past time!

Today we moved the geese, as every night since the fox came, they have been squatting in the sheep stable. The sheep are coming indoors for January and February, so the ever indispensable mesh covered greenhouse frame, which housed the Ross Cobbs (meat birds) until recently, was set up ready for the geese tonight. When changing the bedding over, we found broody gooses eggs so we’ve moved them.

Every animal is getting additional feed at the moment, the sheep are having hay morning and night as there’s no grass for them. One of the horses decided she fancied some too this morning, which was cute!

I tidied the pantry out yesterday as it was becoming our dumping ground for the Christmas chocolate and food gifts we received. I had been moaning to Ste about the spice jars in there as there was a few and I kept knocking them off. An hour later he walked back in with this:

I was very impressed and pleased. How kind.
Something I need to get back in to is cooking all of our meals. We’ve been lucky enough to be invited out by friends and family through December, which has taken its toll on the hips and how we feel. We are feeling the need for clean eating, if you know what I mean? Starting off with Saturday soup! Today is pea and bacon from bbcgoodfood and it was delicious.
Chop an onion and soften, add a couple of crushed garlic cloves and a spoonful of my souper mix and fry for a minute. Add 3/4 bag frozen peas (this was around 750g) and 750ml stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins whilst you grill some bacon.

I blended mine immediately with a stick blender then served. Add bacon bits on to the top if you’re a fan, I am and it was amazing. Highly recommended.

In other thoughts, I buy Grow Your Own magazine as one of the treats to myself (some may laugh!) and they send seeds with every issue. I recently received some cauliflower seeds, all year round variety, which I decided to sow today. A bit early maybe, but what the hell.
I also purchased onion seeds from Real Seed which means I can keep some for saving the seed at the end of the season. It’s a very reasonably priced website that has a lot of heritage seeds which I love. These are the onion seeds I got delivered which were also sown.

They went into the Vitopod as onion seeds won’t germinate in cold soil. 4 trays, 1 for each variety. The cauliflower seeds went into an unheated propagator, however after testing it,  I have put the kerosene heater on in the shed, just to keep the edge off. It will be interesting to see how cold it gets in there. All learning for us still and I love that!

The heater is on a flat stone just to be safe and I’ve checked it a few times until I am confident it’s safe.
Finally, here is Buster and Annie this morning after breakfast having a relaxing time together. Rodney watches over them but never lays with them, so far!

Today I made a list for our 2018 plans using my new notebook which was a lovely surprise from Louise. I love it!!