Night time visitor

I don’t think I have mentioned yet, but I am having a kind of detox September.  I’m not drinking alcohol, trying to eat cleaner than I normally might, cutting right back on the sugar intake and so on.  My theory that I am working towards is that if it isn’t or can’t be produced by nature, it doesn’t get eaten.  Yes you can pull this thought to bits, saying wine if from grapes etc but I am not going down that route.  As I said to a friend, if it doesn’t feel right, it won’t be. I’m eating salad dressing still and drinking cordial as that helps me get my salad and water intake.  I really do think that eating seasonally and home grown lends itself to this way of thinking anyway and as we cut out more and more shop bought food, it will happen automatically.  I’m just giving myself a bit of a boost.

I am sleeping better already.  I used to lay in bed and read for a hour before I went to sleep, often falling asleep with the book in my hand.  It would be 11pm before I got to sleep which is too late for me during the week.  So now I’m having a warm shower, getting into bed and going to sleep.  I’ve slept great this week apart from last night when the puppies heard something and started barking!

Steven’s doing it too, though with slightly different requirements.  He’s training to build up and I’m hoping to slim down (1 stone 5lb or so would be nice)!

With this in mind I was excited to receive the latest veg box which contained all sorts of healthy goodies.  We had half of the peppers in last night’s tea and the salad was mostly used in today’s lunches for work.  That leaves the spinach, borlotti beans, some onions, broccoli and courgettes for the next few days.  I’ve also been given courgettes so I am going to nip over to a couple of blogs to see how they’ve frozen them as I don’t want to waste them.  Also the borlotti beans look almost dried out, so I’m wondering if I need to soak them.  I’m sure I’ve read that they store very well.

When I locked up last night, I had another friend waiting for me, this time a hedgehog!  Do you remember the toad that jumped out on me before?  Well this little guy scared the life out of me as it was dark and I didn’t expect him to appear in my torchlight.  He was adorable!  I’m so pleased to know we have hedgehogs living with us, they need looking after!

Nature's morning

Today was the start of a back to school and work, normal week.  Although school started last week, they were only there two days so I don’t think the teachers do too much with them, knowing that the kids are so excited to see each other again. 

So we have our new routine back in place, getting any homework done as soon as we get in whilst I finalise tea.  The kids and I sit together in the kitchen and complete everything that’s needed, pack the backs back up for the next day and then they are free to enjoy themselves, which includes getting some jobs done on the smallholding of course.  This includes collecting the eggs, filling the feeders up or changing the water.  The horses usually need doing although they are living in the field at the moment so apart from ride and keeping the field poo free, there’s not a lot of jobs to do there.

Can you believe we haven’t picked any brambles yet?  Maybe you can if you haven’t had any yourself.  I was so sure the masses of bushed that are around us would be heavy with brambles but their fruit is so small that you don’t get a bramble off it, it’s really not worth the pickings.  I think we may need to venture to our old bramble spot and get a few tubs full for the freezer.

Speaking of which, we’re going to buy a new freezer this week and hopefully get it delivered at the weekend.  Our kitchen freezer simply isn’t big enough for what we are going to need.  Soon enough we should have some whole chickens and a goose ready to be froze too, which definitely won’t fit in the kitchen freezer.  I’d also like to stock up on some milk as we’re very sporadic in how much we use.  I’m looking at getting a tall upright, opposed to a chest freezer as although I like the thought of the chest freezer, I often hear about people scrabbling around in them having to shift everything from the top to get to the thing they need at the bottom etc.

My husband spoke to the farmer we’re getting our new additions from and we’re told they should be with us shortly so fingers crossed I can post about them soon.

We’re due a lovely week of weather here in the North East and although I’m at work, I’m going to get out and make the most of it by finishing off those jobs in the greenhouse and veg plot that we started a few days back.  Then I need to start thinking about moving some of our rotted manure to the beds that will be sitting empty until Spring and covering them over to keep them protected and weed free.  I’ve also started a drawing for what’s going where in the veg plot for 2017 summer harvest, so I’ll take a picture of the drawing and share it with you this week once I have finished it.

Finally, the most important part of this post.  My kids were chatting amongst themselves this morning and Jack made a comment, I didn’t hear it, but Grace’s response was “the morning’s don’t belong to us Jack, they belong to nature” and although she may not have meant it how I ended up thinking of it.  She’s so right, it will carry on without us, we’re just here to enjoy the ride.  So let’s enjoy every minute – I’m so thankful that we’re getting to do what we love.  Happy Monday everyone J