A true British Summer

The last week or two were one of those mega busy ones that I've alluded to from time to time.  I had a full week of meetings, meaning I was at work later than normal, giving us less time on a night (if any!).  Grace is going to Senior school in September and had her induction day a week gone Wednesday.  I am pleased to say she settled right in after a scary morning of not knowing anyone.  She's had party's, performances, church services and lots of other things.  We've also thrown a party which saw 120 people pass through our gates.  It's was fantastic and we thoroughly enjoyed it, though I won't lie and say we're not pleased it's over.  It thankfully went without a hitch, however we had lots of left overs.  More on that soon.
 
The veg plot and friends
We have hit the busiest time of year!  I must admit we are struggling in the heat with the watering being so demanding.  Thankfully there is no hose pipe ban here.  We do try and save water in IBC tanks and we also make comfrey tea to save on using tomato feed, but there's no getting away from the fact we are heavily reliant on the tap water right now.  As usual, when we are confronted with a problem, it sets us off thinking how we can avoid having it again.  You watch, we will be fully loaded with rain water saved when next year comes round, and it'll be the wettest summer on record!
 
Our Autumn planted onions, shallots and garlic did us very proud this year.  We've just taken them all up and have hung them out on a make shift dryer.  I'm planning on keeping one of the best garlic cloves and sowing that again come the Autumn.  The shallots are Golden Gourmet and if they taste as good as they look, we will get those again this Autumn.  The onions are Shakespeare and Red Cross.  The garlic are Carcassone Wight and Provence Wight.

 

 

 

 The onion bed is now empty, dug over and ready for the next lot of veg.  We were lucky enough to be gifted 40 broad bean plug plants, so I've started putting them in.

 

Another full time job is harvesting all of the fruit and veg.  It's certainly not a hardship.  The first tomatoes are ready - a kilo of mixed ones.  These are going to be dried in the dehydrator as we love 'sun' dried toms, especially in a bread I make which is my daughter's favourite.

 

 

This is the second lot of peas, sweetcorn and second broad beans.  The first lot of peas and broad beans which are in another bed, are ready to be pulled up to make way for something else.

 

These cabbages and caulis I am so thrilled with. Today I have pulled most of them up, so they are being washed and popped in the freezer to make use of another day as we aren't currently having meals that these veg would play a part in, it is just too hot.

 

 

I am very happy with the leeks, but not the spring planted onions, something keeps going in the bed and turning it over, rather annoying.

 

 

The currants are always very rewarding:

 

 

 

I am growing cucamelon this year, and they are doing really well in hanging baskets, so that is the way forward for me from now on (assuming we want to grow them again!).  It saves on space too.

 

I didn't think I had grown any cucumbers as all I seemed to have is gherkins, which are very bitter when they get too big.  Anyway, turns out I did put some cucumbers in and they are doing great.

 

 

The pepper plants are doing fantastic and some seeds that I got from Dawn 2 years ago are proving perfect again this year. 

 

Jack is using his no technology time to spend with me podding peas.  His concentration might not last long, but I hope it is memories in the making for him.

 

I have found the peas which we will stick to too, Victorian Collosal Climbing which I have mentioned before.  They are over 8ft tall and produce huge pods with the sweetest taste despite their size.  A winner!

On the smallholding:

 

So we had a very hard lesson learnt here on the smallholding.  One of our 6 lambs went down with fly strike.  It was awful, truly awful.  I will spare you the details, I couldn't even bring myself to get a photo and that in itself says a lot when I know what I have pictured in the last.  We did what we needed to do and paid the expensive lesson.  Thankfully we are talking financially and not the little lamb's life.  He made it through, though I had one very sleepless night thinking he wasn't going to make it.  This is him healing and in a very good place compare to where he was.  We know where we went wrong and it will not happen again.  He's totally back to normal now, just needs his wool to catch up.  Aloe Vera gel is amazing stuff by the way, for healing skin conditions.  Here I am trying to get a photo with him and failing.

 

 

Then they all decided to get themselves stuck in a gate which was fun!

 

 

We're desperate for rain, but I actually am so pleased hat we're seeing a proper season!  I love to see the seasons change and this is what I imagine a proper British summer to be like.  The fields are sparse so we are giving hay to the horses and sheep.  We don't have a lot of land so we need to make sure we use what we have well and buying in hay and hard feed is just a way of life here.

 

 

 

Fox update!  He's not had any more as we have moved them.  It's not a permanent solution but it's working for now.  Here they are in the shed we have moved them too:

 

 Quite happy in there.  Sadly they are now penned in but at least they are alive.

 

Another one just because:

 

 

In the kitchen:

Rosemary is being air dried in the heat of the kitchen, ready for lots of winter stews and other uses. 

 
Raspberry jam is my favourite and a pleasure to make.  Every year I am blown away by the taste.  Incidentally, my daughter is giving a jar to her teacher, with another item, as a leaving gift.

 Annie is my shadow, just watching over me.  She is growing into a beautiful natured, strong and loyal dog.  Her gentle nature is just perfect.  She's 8 months old now, so lots more growing and maturing time.

 

 

 

Grace and Jack are still making their own choice items.  Both chose gingerbread men, which were really nice.

 

I normally give an "In the house" update however we have had so much going on outside that there's very little happening in the house.  However our party had some fabulous photos to share with you.  We've had a lot of left over food, some of which is in the freezer and some we had in the following days.  We had enough breadbuns to sink a ship though.

 

Jack on the tree swing. 

 

 

My family getting quality time together. 

 

Love seeing people enjoying each others company at our place.  Everyone deserves that chill out time.

 

 

My Dad and Ste doing a grand job on the bbq.

 

 

My Mam and her friends, enjoying some food and sun.  We were so blessed with the weather.

 

 

My Nana and my aunty (her daughter in law)

 

 

Table tennis table for the kids and big kids :)

 

 

My uncle keeping the sun off his bonnet haha.

 

 

We ordered a bouncy castle obstacle course thing for the kids to enjoy.

 

 

We also have a nest of swallows (or swifts?), of which since this photo was taken, have all safely fledged.

 

 

 

 So life is fantastic. Learning every day!  Struggling to sleep on a night though, due to the weather, work is easing up slightly, the garden is producing, Grace is moving on to senior school, Ste is enjoying the veg garden more and more and Jack is getting used to no technology nights. 

Hope everyone is well xx

Summer vibes

This week saw the summer solstice and with it has brought a week or more of lovely weather.  I don't know about you, but I can't quite believe we're heading into July at a rapid pace.  We have one weekend left before our summer party!  We have loads of people coming, think in the hundred numbers instead of tens!  I have booked the kids bouncy castle and have borrowed the tables from friends to use for all the food.  I've got a list and a plan, but that's about it for now!  We will manage, we always do.


The veg plot and friends
With the weather being so warm and dry, I'm having to water everything daily in! the greenhouse, polytunnel and outside plots.  That in itself is a time consuming task so I've started roping the kids in the do their bit.  Inevitably they get bored and start a water fight instead! Great fun though.
Each year on our little smallholding, we are aiming to improve the veg plot and make it work better for us.  This year, we've decided to make a permanent fruit cage around the soft fruits.  The birds are welcome to the wild fruits here, but not the raspberries, currants or gooseberries!  We've acquired a huge green, heavy net which we have attached to the frame of some metal fencing that we have.  It's work in progress as we're making it so that it won't go anywhere, meaning it's taking time to get right.  I think it is looking great so far and will give me a fighting chance to get the fruits harvested.

Speaking of harvests, we've had a good harvest of strawberries and gooseberries which are now in the fridge to keep for a day or 2.  I'm going to make strawberry jam as that is simply what has to be done with the first strawberries of the year!  The potatoes are flowering nicely too.

I've managed to get some more seeds sown, only lettuce and purple kale.  It's a bit late for the kale but it should be fine in the polytunnel and hopefully give us a late crop.

In the orchard there hardly any plums coming through this year, though the damsons seems to be doing well.  The apples and pears are coming through fabulously and we also have 6 almonds! 

On the Smallholding


Well as expected, the fox has been back and had more poultry.  We have had some of the local game keepers round to give us some advice, so hopefully we can sort the problem.  It's simply not sustainable as we will have nothing left by the end of the week at this rate.  Down to 12 from 60 plus now. 
The horses are still enjoying living out in the field whilst we have the good weather, though the grass is very low now.  We are definitely going to rest half of the field, however it seems a bit pointless until we get some rain.  We also managed to speak to our other friend, the farmer over the field, about spraying it as it's riddled with creeping buttercup and sadly, organic methods aren't going to work in this instance.  He's happy to help us out when the time comes to spray. 
We take the horse muck out of the field daily to try our best to look after the land we have.  The more we look after it, the more rewards we will reap eventually.  Look at the view I have when I walk out to do it on a morning....I will never tire of this.

The lambs are putting weight on by the minute and are only 12 weeks old but almost as big as their mothers.  We are giving them the healthiest and happiest lives we can, which is what we are all about in time for the winter to come when we will start to reduce numbers.  They are so pleased to have their wool off now this hot weather is here.

In the kitchen


I bottled the Elderflower cordial and oh my, it's good this year.  The colour is perfect.  It no longer looks like an animal sample! 
We've been having freezer surprise a lot for tea.  It genuinely has been a surprise as a lot of the labels have frozen and dropped off!  I'm trying to make space in the freezer to allow this years harvests to re fill it.
I made Shakshuka (no idea what the right spelling is) for Supper on Sunday and I did flatbread as a side to have it with.  I've never made them before and they turned out very well.

In the house
I've had so many things I wanted to update for this part of the blog.  So we as a family are working on a new routine.  I used to hate that word, thinking it was so restrictive.  How wrong I was!  It makes somewhere like this work.  We can't run a smallholding without routine and standards, especially when we are working full time too.
My new idea came from a discussion I was having with Ste.  We're aiming to move to a less technology dependant lifestyle Monday to Thursday. When I get home around 4pm, it's technology off and we all pile outside, getting on with one of the many jobs that we have to do.  I work on my laptop on a night so once we come back in, I will catch up on emails, pictures and social media whilst I am getting set up and logging in.  There's no technology for the kids at all Mon to Thurs.  This is what happened when we agreed this....

It's so nice to see.  The kids playing together (yes, the started fighting in the end but hey ho), Jack wanted to help cook and Grace was enjoying life.  Technology is a habit in a lot of instances I think.  It has a place in our lives, of course it does, but it isn't welcome to take over like it has been for me.
We've also agreed to do something on a Monday together.  Jack decided he wanted to bake and Grace said a bike ride.  Tonight Jack baked cheese scones, something he has asked to do regularly since we visited Beamish recently.  I love it there!  In the old farmhouse kitchen, they'd made scones, cut them up and were dishing them out.  He loved them!  Grace brought down a toy she'd got for her birthday in February and enjoyed 30 minutes putting it together.

Budgets

This year we've seen a ridiculous increase in the council tax.  I have no say in that sadly.  Our oil consumption is down over the summer, thankfully.  We do have a small say in that, making sure we bulk buy and be sensible with use.  The one thing we should see a reduction soon is the groceries.  We have a small budget each month, certainly compared to many people we know.  I'm menu planning again, which I enjoy and working out where we can make savings.  The money saved is planned for use elsewhere.  There's a balance to be had between enjoying life and saving and each family is different.  To achieve what we want to with the smallholding, we do need to rein in spending and luxuries more than some may do.  I'll be giving this more priority and will update as we go.
For now, it's another working week for us and this one is a crazyt, busy one.