All about my husband

I am lucky enough to have a husband who not only works very hard to bring home a good wage each month to pay the inevitable bills, but he also works extremely hard at home to get our smallholding up and running.
This weekend he has managed to make some new feeders for the hens which will keep the rain off the food and more importantly, keep the hens dry. He has made a brooder in the garage using shelves that were already there. Our youngest chicks seem happy there.
He had also cleaned out the geese pond,  which he made himself, including the quick clean function. His design means he needs to move a piece of wood and the water flows our into the beck that runs along side our land. He then refills it using the rain water harvested from the big barn's roof.
So I must say I am rather pleased with having him for my husband ☺.
We have also found our duck eggs! We thought they weren't laying and then discovered that they had buried them. As of today we had 8 of various colours. I am not sure which girls are laying which colours but I am not worried. I'm just pleased they are pulling their weight! I will make something with some this week to see what they are like.
The geese are still laying on their eggs so we are hoping for goslings early May.
Most importantly, it's stopped raining!!!!

Wonderful March weekend

The weekend's fly by anyway however this weekend especially. Friday night we celebrated the birthday of Steven's dad with the family. A lovely night though meant no time to do anything at home.
Saturday I rode out on the morning then it seems I blinked and the day was over! We have had lots of people interested in our horse manure! So both Saturday and Sunday saw us helping people load up their trailers and bags with lots of lovely manure. We have another one coming tomorrow too. So far, even though it is free, people have left us some LED lights for our outbuilding and 18 pigeon breasts for the freezer. Really kind and we shall be trying the pigeon on Friday so if anyone has any suggestions then they are most welcome.
Today we have been sorting out the pigs home for when we get them. We have decided they can live in the copse that we've been taking the trees down from. We will mesh round the trees that are left and have started penning off the area they will be allowed in.
I've also managed to get quite a few more seeds in the greenhouse and half of another bed weeded outside. Beans and peas will be going in that one. In the greenhouse I have purple sprouting broccoli,  cabbages and onions coming through and looking strong. I've put some more tomatoes in, sweetcorn, broad beans and dwarf beans today.
The onion sets we planted a couple if weeks ago, we checked today to see if they had rotted but so far they look ok with roots coming out of the bottom.
Finally we have, well Steven has, cleared out the paving slabs from behind the current compost/muck heap bins and stacked them neatly along side them. This means once we have tidied out the rest of the rubbish bits you can see in the picture,  we will be able to use that as  a compost muck heap too. Great stuff. Lovely weekend though all went a bit too quick for my liking.

New tack / storage room

My gorgeous husband has outdone himself again. He's managed to put a new tack room up over the last 2 days. This means all the stuff I have, my worldly horsey belongings, now have a home.  At the moment they are stacked around the barn in a fashion that means I never know where anything is.  Thank you. It's the best valentine's gift ever.

 

 

Staying on horsey news, sorry for any non horsey people, we managed to get them all in the field for a little while over the weekend. This is a big deal for us and is a huge step forward. I'm really pleased we paid to get the fence done instead of trying to tackle that one ourselves. Great job on the fence too by a firm in Durham.

 

 

This afternoon I spent an hour with my daughter planting the next lot of seeds. We have put in more tomatoes including the beefsteak which I am really hoping make it, aubergine, onion seeds, more cauliflower, mint and chives. I'll then take the advice of notjustgreenfingers and Caroline from thehousehoarder and plant them in pots so they don't become unruly. Thanks guys.

 

We have also candled the eggs that are in the incubator and we think we're on for 15 of the 18. 3 were duds and went the distance. They are due on Saturday and I can't wait for their arrival.

 

The geese have settled in magnificantly and merrily wander around the smallholding all day. They love their water, which at the moment is a kids paddling pool and they happily chat along to each other all day. We are still not sure if they are the boy and 2 girls we asked for but they are lovely all the same.  I love this life :).
 

Happy new chucks...

The new chickens seem to be settling in and this morning they were all perched together, bar one who always sleeps on the floor anyway.

They had to stay in for the remainder of the day as they are still getting used to where their bed is.  However once we got home we thought we'd try them out of the shed which they loved.  A little nervous but very inquisitive, they were soon exploring with the other 6, our 6 old faithfuls.  We were given 2 eggs as a thank you.

This evening after doing the horses, we got stuck into planting some seeds which are now in the greenhouse.  The tomatoes came in the house though for a bit more warmth.  It's all trial and error for us.  We've never really grew anything before so wish us look.  The camera ran out before I managed to take a few snaps of the seeds.

I quickly charged it in the house to show you the frittata I cooked for tomorrow's lunch boxes.  They are so simple to make and amazingly tasty.  This one had left over ham, cheese, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and onions in it.  Started on the simmering plate then once the eggs had started to firm slightly I popped it in to the roasting oven for 5 minutes.  Delicious!

 

Also, we're expecting 3 new family members on Friday.  Sshhhh, don't tell anyone yet.