While waiting for the vet to arrive.....

We are waiting for the vet to arrive at any minute to take blood samples from our sheep. We are not looking forward to this job. Two years ago I was smacked in the chest by a leaping sheep, and last year Lester crushed his thumb. Hopefully no damage will occur this year, and at least the sheep still have their winter coats on so they will be easier to grab hold of.

So where is the sheep shearer? Not arrived yet. Lester said that he wanted to shear the sheep himself, but I said to wait until the numbers were down. The sheep shearer man is tall and burly, but even he kicks up a sweat as he shears, his bare chest dribbling with moisture and his black curly hair soaked all through.

Great things are happening in the back kitchen, the best being the covering up of the rat holes....

..... and here is one of them. When I first moved into the back kitchen a couple of years ago the walls were rough but there were no holes. Over time holes were made at floor level, but I did not know of the existence of these higher ones. I felt quite sick when Jim showed them to me. But now....

...... what's this! Feet and hands walking up the wall? Nooo, just Builder Jim  messing about in the wet plaster now covering the rat holed wall!

All three freezers are now out in the Middle Barn....

 

.... it was supposed to be a temporary move while the back kitchen was being done, but we think that we shall leave them out there. Not sure where Lester is going to put the mini tractor next winter, because this is the space he used last winter. 

 

And here is the now empty back kitchen.....

 

..... with the walls starting to get covered over. The door is the one which goes into the Middle Barn and the freezers, so they are still close by. This area is where the food storage shelves will be.

...and here is the right hand side of the space...this will be the laundry area, and on the left there is to be a sink and work top space which will be a mini dairy.

And turning round to look back towards the front kitchen.....there is to be a wall put up to separate this space, on one side will be the meat processing area, and on the other side will be the food prep area. It was not planned this way, but sort of arrived as work progressed. It is with some surprise, and relief, that I have come to realise that I shall have separate areas to do our food preparation and storage. It should make things a lot easier for me, and save a lot of time. It would be nice not to have to keep tripping over things. It would be nice to be tidier.

....well the vet still has not arrived, so I am off out into the veg garden to plant the onions which have been waiting a week to go into the ground. But first, in the middle of a patch muddle, here is Lester having a moment with Maz....

 

Vx

All the cherries are done, so is one of the pigs....

 

 

Well I've done the cherries. I am sorry to say that having the harvest arrive when it did was a bit of a nuisance because of having lots of other things to do, like keep on finding homes for all the equipment and other stuff which was in the back kitchen. It's all moved out now, and Builder Jim is now working on the walls. He has already found a rat nest, with one mummified rat in situ. I was right about the rats having rat runs inside the actual walls, because the nest had two runs, one going downwards, the other going upwards, and all unseen by us. Oh well, it's all been stoppered up by concrete, which is a good thing, because when I was pottering about in the back kitchen it was always in the back of my mind that a rat would be around. And they were. The nest was at head height.

 

Anyway, I have got the cherries stored away, but dehydrated them instead, which was less effort to do than putting them into canning jars, which I did last year. I didn't do anything with the cherries, just got the pips out, cut them in half, and put them cut side uppermost on the dehydrator trays.

 

 

 

..which dried them into these....

 

..... which all went into a bag for winter use...

 

 

I am keeping an eye on the bag to make sure that no moisture appears on the plastic, which means that the cherries have not dried properly. So far so good. And the oddness is,  that these cherries of ours taste sour when fresh, but when dehydrated, they are a lot sweeter and definitely yummy, and will be taking the place of raisins and sultanas in cakes and desserts I bake.

 

I need to prune the cherry trees now. Keep dithering about doing so. Apparently you can never kill a fruit tree by pruning it, yet I still feel nervous about taking the scissors to our trees. I bought a big posh book about pruning trees. We have other books about pruning trees. There is the internet full of info about pruning trees. But still I dither.........

 

 

Did one of the three female pigs the other day. Had to do the job at daybreak because of the flies. We just managed to finish the job just as the first flies arrived. It is not the best time of the year to be slaughtering animals, but the job had to be done.

 

To cool the carcass down we put it into the freezer. Good job we bought big freezers. A few hours of chilling, and we were able to get the meat butchered. All done. 

 

 

Trying to stay positive at the moment. The back kitchen is now empty, which is good .....  and memories of the rat infestation in that area will fade away, encouraged to do so by the work of pour builder as he gets the walls repaired and then covered over with lime plaster. I once loved the look of the stone walls, but have come to realise that they might look attractive, but that they also are home to insects, rats, and mice, this I have learnt by living beside those walls. But our positivity seems to want to go downhill at the moment, probably assisted by this ongoing stormy, oppressive weather we are having at the moment.

 

...... and our builder has just said that the walls are sprinkled with lots of rat holes....must have been like the M25 inside those walls as rats scampered along their rat highways. Crikey, but I felt quite sick as I looked at those walls. Not to worry, the other side of the wall has already been repaired and sealed, and this side will be sealed soon. The rat war continues!!!

Cherries, watering, and the well......

Well. things are as they are, and we are quite happy about this. However, sometimes this smallholding life can be quite tiring, making us wonder if it is all worth the effort. Of course it is! In our better moments we know this, but sometimes things have a habit of piling up, making one feel as if one is under a mountain of 'things to do'. That's when it is best to stop. Just for a little while.

We have a week off from our builder this week, which is a good thing because I have to shift everything out of the back kitchen so that can be sorted out. The lounge is now done, and looking good and ready for painting, the music room/ snug is just needing the paintwork finished, the kitchen is finished, apart from shelves still needing to be done, but is looking a total mess as it gets stuffed full of the contents of the back kitchen. Three months time, though, and all should be sorted out again. Meanwhile ..........

.....we suddenly noticed that the cherries were ripe. Good thing that the weather has been damp and breezy which seems to have discouraged the birds from doing a raid on them, leaving us time to pick them.

Nearly 6 kgs of cherries......that is what I now need to de-pip and can. 

Out on the veg plots......

Veg Plot 1:

The greenery you can see on the left is all weeds! But the faint lines of green on the right are seedlings coming up. Unfortunately those seedlings are tangled up with vigorous growing weeds, and it is taking an age to rescue them. A lot of seeds have not come up at all. Last night I got despondent about the state of the veg plot. Having started so late in the season we could not expect much effort from the seeds we planted, but the kale, cabbages, chard, some beetroot, a couple of tomatoes, a few coriander, other brassicas, and all the courgettes are up. But what we are doing well with are the beans. We had the idea of planting them along the fence line (on the right) so that they can climb the wire for support. All have come up. 

To make me feel a little cheered up about the veg plot, we bought a few plants. They looked a little sad in the shop, so I was quite happy to rescue them. 

We are watering the rows by hand, with watering cans. I am building quite sturdy arm muscles now. Carrying two full watering cans from the water butts to each individual row was a hard on me at first, but now I swing along, ....... well not quite, but I am getting there! 

So why water by hand? Because the weeds don't need any help to grow, and by using the hosepipe they are assisted to grow even more rampantly that they already are. Watering by hand gives us a feeling of having some control about what is watered and what isn't. 

So where is the water coming from? Our well out in the front garden. Lester has rigged up hosepipes, pumps, more hosepipes, another pump, and goodness knows what else, and fills this container, which is out back by doors to the middle barn .........

......the well dries up when the container is half full, so Lester does a morning and evening pump to give us the water we need. However, the well is starting to give us more at each pumping so we think that regular use is waking up the underground streams which feed the well.

From here the water is then pumped to Veg Plot 1, where we fill the water butts up. 

It's a start. Last year we watered from the pond in the woods, but we had a lot of rain last year so the pond remained full for most of the season. Most years, though, it dries up mid summer. We could use water from the river, but our big pump has died, so we can't. So, hopefully, the well will keep us going. 

Collecting rain water is on our list of 'to do's' but is way down that list at the moment!

Veg Plot 2:

...... and obviously nothing growing here, not even weeds! This is the work of the pigs, who have tilled the ground for us, but also given it a hard surface. If I have time I might plant some winter squash in this plot. Last year we had a huge harvest of squash, which fed the pigs for weeks, so it would be well worth the effort to get some harvest off this plot. Just need a bit of rain to soften the surface.

Veg Plot 3:

The three young pigs have just been put in this plot, and are just about to start digging it up. We are under pressure, though, to get them into the freezer because they are getting bigger by the day. Being Tamworths they are slow growers, but they seem to be doing a growth spurt lately, and are getting bigger by the day.

Need to have an Internet search about what to do about flea beetles, which seem to be happily populating themselves on the kale and brassicas. Would appreciate any helpful hints about what you do. Thanks.

Off to get some more cherries pipped, and then off out to the veg plot to get those plants I bought into the ground, otherwise they will sit around for days waiting for me to remember to do the job, which is a habit of mine........ I shall not say too much about the onions and leeks I bought and which sat in the bucket of water waiting to be planted out for so long that they all rotted. I felt bad about the waste of plant life and the waste of money, and vowed to be more self disciplined in the future. 

Vx