Christmas is coming and my time on the smallholding at the moment is limited. Cooking, present buying and last minute fixings ready for a house full seem to have taken over. I still do my morning rounds. The morning is a great time here. I take the kids down to school and then before long I am back here ready to go. Every morning I then head out to the field to check everything over and feed the pigs. The pigs are very expectant of their food and are usually grunting for it as I bike past them on the way back from dropping off the kids. After picking up the food the pigs are always my first port of call. The moment I get in the field they are squeaking and grunting and running around because they are so excited about the arrival of food. They are both getting quite big now and both totally food obsessed. If it hasn't rained for a few days their area is normally fine. However once it does rain the mud just gets thicker and thicker and the standing water rises. They don't seem to mind but it can be hard going across the thick mud with two heavy hungry pigs jostling you to try and get at their food. They usually have cleared an area of dried ground to feed them on by having a good root around with their noses. Once the pigs are fed and have had a scratch behind the ears I usually go and check the polytunnel. At the moment not a lot is going on in their. Some greens are ready but not really growing so they can be picked as and when required. Other plants are small but will have a massive headstart on anything else in the spring so when other veg are simply seedlings these will be ready to eat. So I just pop my head in. If it's cold all of the plants are under fleece. If not then I move it out of the way so they can get more light.

The sheep are usually next. I sometimes feed them and sometimes not. They have plenty of grass so it's only to keep them tame and to check them over. The ram we have at the moment is very greedy and so the rest of the sheep find it hard to get much of the food. He is much tamer than the others and is happy to have a stroke. The others are a little more wary. They will come really close but aren't keen on being touched. They like it even less when I have to catch them to check them or remove the large sticks and twigs that they regularly get stuck in their wool.

It's then just a quick hello to the chickens who I feed and let out when I first get up, and a quick check on the couple of veg that are growing. There is often a few extras like topping up the bird food, but all in all it makes rather a nice start to the day, and makes me feel ready for a nice cup of coffee.

The plan fell apart the other morning when I was short of time as I was trying to get to the doctor, the turkey was delivered and I had to get the fridge in the out house working (no door on and no plug). I got that working dashed some food in for the pigs and got in the car quick. Unfortunately in my haste the gate got left open so the sheep could get into the veg area. I think the Strawberries will survive but most of their large leaves seem to have been munched.

Last minute extra note "Speckled Star" (favorite old chicken) is very ill. Think she'll need to go in the morning, poor girl. Wonder who'll get that job?

Visiting Ram

We now have the services of a Ram (or Tup) servicing our Ewes. That should mean if all goes to plan that the Ewes will be tupped and ready to lamb next April or May. The sheep have managed to eat and trample all of the grass in their enclosure (I am not sure all the wet weather helped). So we have moved them in with the chickens. They are quite funny together. I have seen a couple of chickens give a sheep a peck to get it to move out of the way (this technique does seem to work). The sheep have realised that the chicken house contains straw which is edible. To start with this involved nibbling at entrance ways to get at it. Yesterday morning the sheep let the chickens out first thing by opening their door in an effort to get at the straw. This morning all was well when I let the chickens out, however they had nibbled all the straw they could reach in the hen house. So while we had breakfast they took another approach which was to completely demolish one wall of the chicken house! I found all the slats removed and a leg of the house broken. Once the sheep had broken in I don't think they were that keen on the straw due to all the chicken poo on it. I was trying to get up a fence in the main field so we can get the sheep out of the chicken run, however I ended up spending a good while fixing the chicken house instead. However I did manage to get some fencing done and in the next couple of days we should hopefully be able to let the sheep out into the main field.

Tractor loaded up and ready to help with fencing

I seem to have forgotten already what happened last week, I really ought to update my blog more often. At the weekend the kids and I left Zoe dog sitting and went down to the RSSKL Advent fair. It was great to catch up with lots of people. I spent the whole day chatting and drinking coffee. On Sunday Mark visited (a University Friend) and he helped us with the animals. We clipped the chickens wings. Zoe had helpfully made a corral to chase them into. This saved the usual procedure of chasing them round in circles around the chicken house and never catching them. Steve then kindly delivered the Tup. We then had to get all of the sheep into the other field. Zoe decided we should make a corridor of palettes to guide them from one field to the next. I was somewhat sceptical that the flimsy fence would keep them in. However it worked well and the sheep happily just followed the food bucket where ever it went.

Hopefully the sheep will stop destroying the chicken house and will be out enjoying the long grass in the field very soon. 

We are now managing to have salad from the polytunnel several times a week, as well as a having some servings of Kale. Hardly self sufficiency but it's a start.

Sheep, parties and weddings

In the last ten days or so since my last update it's been pretty busy. It started with our first working weekend. This time we had one family visiting, thanks Ben, Anna and kids for coming. We had a fantastic weekend. Saturday started with a “Room on the Broom” kiddie fun session at Beverley Minster which they all loved. Luckily in the afternoon there were jobs that needed doing in the polytunnel as the heavy rain didn't make it tempting to do much else. Nearly all the plants in the polytunnel now have extra fleece protection for Frosty nights. The combination of fleece and the polytunnel plastic should keep the frost away. Sunday we set to with compost heap creating using old pallets. We made a good few, filled several in with compost and then using our new (well new to us it was my Grandfathers) tractor/mower collected loads of horse manure from our neighbours who have horses. We were really pleased with the weekend and are going to try some again in the future.

The Monday afterwards the Sheep arrived. Having them delivered was quite a saga. The sheep we wanted were in the field next door along with a load of other sheep. So Steve (who owns them) and another guy turned up about lunch time in the cold weather and we all set too. First we herded all the sheep out of Steve's field and onto the dead end section of road. Once we had them collected there Steve shaked his food bucket and lead them down the road and into our area of hardstanding at the entrance to the field. They were sort of trapped in there although not all of the fencing was sheep proof so we had to be quite careful. Then with aid of some sheep hurdles we corralled them into a corner. Once there they were wormed and checked. Our sheep were selected and guided one at a time by the horns (They weren't to keen on that) into the prepared field. We then had to herd the rest back into Steve's field and I somehow managed to leave one behind in the road (oops). We got it in the end though. So we now have our sheep. Two Ewe's and two castrated Rams. A fully in tact Ram will visit in late November for “Tupping” and then hopefully we will have lambs in the Spring. If the Ram visits Late November then we should get lambs late April. The sheep are a little nervous but getting more tame every day. They don't need feeding but we tend to go in every day with a little feed just to get closer to them and get them tamer. This should make checking them nice and easy. We now need to put some fencing across the rest of the field to protect the vegetables and polytunnel from them. At the moment they are in a smaller fenced off area.

As well as all of this we have had Christine and Kevin's wedding, Imogens 6^th birthday and party. Immy's party finished with a tractor ride and the tractor pulling a trailer with twelve or so kiddies in. It was all going so well until I managed to get a puncture. On the home front the Kitchen is almost there. Last bit of woodwork is going on tomorrow then hopefully I'll do the final touches this week. It's all fully operational now though. 

As a matter of interest we are now just (but only just) outside the current bird flu restriction zone.

Sheep and Bonfires

It's been half term this week and so we have been away for quite a lot of it so not so much has been going on here at Leconfield Grange. Sheep preparations have continued and once I have put in a gate tomorrow we are ready to go with them. They will then have a small paddock. While they eat that grass I then need to do a load more fencing so they can go in the rest of the field but not destroy the polytunnel or eat strawberries.

As you can see things are going well in the polytunnel and some of these greens are ready for some cut and come again salad nibbling already. As you can also see there are still slugs in there, but not too many and I am getting rid of them most evenings. 

While we were away we went to Caernarfon in North Wales and the kids managed to climb Tryfan. As it is a scramble most of the way up we were pretty impressed by how they managed. I certainly didn't like that sort of thing when I was their age, but they seemed to love it. We also went to a family bonfire party while we were away which was fantastic and the kids loved it seeing their second cousins. I am hopefully going to get my Grandfathers old sit on mower this week which should make some work a lot easier like mowing and lugging trailer fulls of manure from the stables a couple of doors down to here. Pulling trailers by hand is quite hard work. I think Zoe likes the rustic nature of it, which is fine but the effort required (especially with a puncture) is quite high. We have a working weekend coming up this weekend so we should get some more work done on the smallholding. I have a few different plans in mind. If anyone would like to come and hasn't been invited just let me know. 

The kitchen is now almost there. With a little finishing off from me and some boxing in of the extractor piping from the kitchen people I think we will be there. It has been so nice for the last couple of weeks being able to cook again.

New addition: sheep

After eye drops, antibiotics and isolation Speckled Star seems to be fine again. Somewhat underweight but back with the other chickens and holding her own. Bluebell on the other hand is looking plump, content and hasn't laid an egg in a week. Perhaps I ought to threaten her with the pot. We certainly need some new chickens. I think we'll give Speckled Star a week to settle back in and gain some weight and then go and get a couple more. We desperately need eggs. I am going to have to buy some this week. A very rare event. Harriett's chicks are growing well too and hopefully soon they can join the others in the main run. If we're lucky they may even start to lay.

I found some slugs in the polytunnel last night. Not many but the last thing we need in there is slugs. I seem to have found that every garden we have has it's own particular gastropod that eats all the plants. In London it was snails. In Bovingdon it was weird green mottled slugs. Here it is those tiny slugs. I got about 100 off the plants one evening. There are only a few in the polytunnel, but I'd like to eradicate them as soon as possible. My current method is to collect them in a jam jar and take them with me as I take the kids to school. Then when we are a suitable distance from the school we let them go. I used to just chop them all up, but using secateurs on those tiny slugs is impossible, and well, as we can just let them go a safe distance away, why not? The peas and beans are also looking a bit sad in there. I'll keep an eye on that. I might have to get out the gardening books with those lovely pictures of diseased plants. I usually find that I read all of the ailments described and none come close to what is the matter with the plants I have. Always worth a try though.

The kitchen is now repacked and usable (almost) as a kitchen. Once I connect the extractor to the outside wall it's a fully functioning kitchen. It'll be nice to have a lick of paint on the walls too, but one thing at a time. The main thing is we can ditch the ready meals and actually cook. I have to admit the move from microwave only meals and onto oven ready ones was a big improvement. I think I overdid the Shepherds pie meals with Harriett as she is refusing to eat it for at least a month.

Zoe managed to let the pigs escape over the weekend. They are always quite boisterous at the gate as you go to feed them (see video below - sorry having technical issues will add it when I sort them out). However I am usually quite careful as they jostle to not let them out. Zoe however did. The Saddle back being totally ruled by her stomach just wandered back in following the food bucket. The Tamworth however is not such a … errm … pig. She was enjoying the taste of freedom and of fresh grass (of which there is now little in their run). I was upstairs about to have a morning shower. So then Zoe, Harriett and I tried to guide the pig back into it's run. It was not very keen and was having far more fun running in circles avoiding us and eating the grass. Eventually in desperation Zoe managed to get the dog lead around it's neck and guide it back to it's run. It went happily to start with, but then had a bit of a panic. We managed to get her back in though, and she was calm and happy once back inside. I am going to fence off an area of vegetables that is going to be a potato field and another for a squash and pumpkin field and let them in, to dig it over. They'll enjoy the fresh grass and it'll save me lots of digging or rotivating.

With trying to mow a field with a push along petrol mower our thoughts have been turning to automatic edible mowers, or sheep. We were just discussing this one morning and then as luck would have it, that afternoon someone appeared in the field next door delivering a trailer load of sheep. So I thought this is really not an opportunity to miss and went over for a chat. After a very helpful chat and a bit of thinking we now have dibs on four sheep. They seem to be some sort of cross between about 3 breeds but apparently have few health problems, eat grass and taste good. I was wondering about milk too but apparently that's a bit more specialist, so we'll start with just mowers and eaters. We are getting four and trying to work out how many Ewes we want (as mothers) and how many castrated rams we want (for eating). I think we might go for two and two. He is also going to lend us his ram so they can be tupped and have lambs in the spring. All we need to do now is some fencing work and we are away. After this discussion we then went to Hull fair (see below)

Well on top of all of that I sanded the kids bedroom floor, we've had the heating re-jigged and the leaking chimney fixed so it's been quite a bust week. As for now, the pipework has just arrived to connect the extractor to the outside, so I'd better go and fix it all in place. Then the cooking can really begin again.

New Kitcen on the way

So the kitchen has really dominated over the last week or so since3 I last wrote. It now looks pretty good even if it is not functional and working yet. We can at least now use the hob and oven a little so we have advanced to such meals as oven ready Pizza and pasts with sauce, which is quite exotic compared to simply more microwave Shepherds Pie (unless your Harriett who is now very taken with microwave meals). At the moment the walls are being skimmed and then tomorrow the guys who built the kitchen are back and should finish then or possibly Monday. Still some finishing off to do after that, but we are definitely near the end.

Speckled Star (chicken) is ill again now. She has some sort of eye issue. I ended up taking her to the vet yesterday and getting her eye drops.Eye drops... for a chicken. She is really the kids favorite so got a bit of extra special treatment going. Duke and Bluebell are both looking a bit fed up with each other. I think they are bored with just each other for company. I might let the chicks in with them for a few hours later just to cheer them all up.

The polytunnel is doing brilliantly. I now have two beds ready to go. ONe is fully planted up and all the plants in it are doing really well. I should get the other one planted up this afternoon. It's brilliant. Only one tiny but of slug damage in their and I caught the perpetrator in the act and swiftly evacuated him from the tunnel. We have gained more Strawberries and some Rhubarb from freecycle and so I now need to get them planted out. I think I may need to dig another Strawberry bed. But then I can't imagine having too many Strawberries. I just can't see that it's possible to grow more than you can consume, freeze or turn into jam.

I need to get ordering orchard trees as they will become available soon and I'll get onto that once the kitchen is sorted. Well lunch and the polytunnel are calling.

I have again been rather lax in updating my blog so apologies for that. Last week I had my parents here and set them to work in various ways. Dad did a wonderful job preparing and painting wooden windows and so I now have much less to do in that department (although the rain this morning isn't helping me carry on with the job).

 Mum and I set to on some gardening. This seemed to be mainly untangling plants that had merged and created some kind of horrific root knot. There also seemed to be Elder trees and hawthorn trees that had a habit of growing up in the middle of other trees bushes and plants. All of this made the work quite slow and hard going, but in the end we managed to sort out a bed and a half and get it into a good order.

flower bed before the work

Over the weekend we removed the kitchen. That went reasonably well although removing granite worktop stuck tight to large cupboards makes for some pretty heavy lifting. It's all out now and the kitchen is looking very pretty. Ready for the new one to come in now. We have been having BBQs and cooking on the camping stove out in the back yard. We do also have the kettle and microwave in the utility room so we can eat (which is a good).

So lots of kitchen sorting this week and hopefully some time in the polytunnel where the seedlings are doing really well, but more need planting and some will need planting into beds soon. Will also be nice to just add the finishing touches so it is totally finished.
Pigs chicks and chickens are all doing well. Although the pigs are getting bigger I am not sure they are going to be eating size in just two months. We will have to see what happens. We had our first frost on Saturday night. It's quite odd as the days have been so warm. The kids dashed out with hats and gloves on to go and play in it.

Birthdays

The chicks welcome committee. Reminds me of when new year 7 pupils started at school and the older pupils would crowd around the playground fence

Apologies for being so lax in my blogging last week. I am sure my thousands of readers will be deeply upset. Having birthdays and parties for 8 year olds is quite a time consuming business and having made enough jelly and jam sandwiches for a large infant class I ran out of time for weekly basics such as blogging. Harriett had her birthday on Wednesday. She had a lovely day and I spent the morning shopping for chickens which Mum and Dad got her for her birthday. In the end they only had chicks so Harriett is now the very proud owner of two chicks. Very nice for Harriett but doesn't get us any more eggs in the short term. They may not even lay until the spring now. I also had a chat about getting a breed of chicken that goes broody, so in the spring will buy some  Silkies or Orpingtons  so that we can raise some of our own chickens for laying and eating. Apologies if the writing seems a little disjointed I have some Elderberry and apple jam on the go and I have to keep hopping up and down to test it and to stop it boiling over. The apple tree in the front garden has gone a bit mad so we have been having everything with apples: Apple and raisin bread, apple and blackberry crumble, apple juice and now jam. To start with the wasps were eating all the apples. A few wasp traps solved that although dealing with a jam jar filled with jam covered dead  and almost dead wasps wasn't much fun.

I found this chap in the field while digging a strawberry bed. He seemed quite tame

 Just checked jam on a saucer, not set yet. The pigs are growing like mad and are getting more and more used to us. I have found they like being tickled behind their ears. They have also taken to sniffing and chewing on peoples wellies while they are wearing them. It's quite amusing although once they are bigger it could mean going back across the field in socks.

On Sunday we finally finished getting the skin fully on the polytunnel. It's still not 100% finished, but bar a couple of minor finishing off tasks it is up and running. The seedlings I planted are starting to grow so fingers crossed for fresh greens through the winter and early spring. The tomatoes in field however are less successful and are dying off at a quick rate. I'll put it down to the weather rather than being a bit neglected earlier in the year. I have dug a strawberry bed this week and put in the strawberries I got given from Greg at our housewarming party.

mmm better check that jam again.

 I am going to be in trouble now, there is half cooked jam on the keyboard.

Now I have written about last week it seems I have achieved more than I thought I had. On top of all of that was Harriett's party on Saturday.

This week I am into the wonders of sanding and painting window frames. Hold me back please I can't wait to start!

Polytunnel almost there

I am begining to feel that it may have been a smaller job to rebuild the house than build a polytunnel. It may seem to the untrained eye to be a fairly simple task. The instructions may give this impression aswell with such helpful sections such as "prerparing for the big day". I am wondering which of the many big days involved it is referring to? Was it the big day (or two) of foundation digging?. The big day (or two) of erecting a lot of complicated metal work or the big day or two (still in progress) of attaching the plastic sheet to the structure. I think we have used every tool in the workshop and hammered in at least a thousand nails. However after all of this work it is almost ready. I am hoping to be planting in it by the weekend. However I am not sure the end door will actually be finished by then. I just hope it is worth all this effort. On the positive side I am hoping to get lots of salad through the winter, get new potatoes for Christmas without flying them in from Mexico and be able to grow Melons. So on the whole my week and weekend has been dominated by trying to get this huge construction project finally finished.
I have had some time for other things. The pigs have got tamer and tamer and bigger and bigger. They now get very excited when ever we visit. They are still however not very good about eating their greens. A bit like the kids they prefer pure carbohydrates. That is with the exception of apples. They love them. Our apple tree has suddenly gone mad and loads of apples are ripe. The pigs are enjoying the benefit of the wind falls. Linked to the pigs I have started to look for an abattoir. We wanted to make sure we got the correct one with so many horror stories of huge industrial set ups. However I managed to find a really small one near York. It seemed to be about 3 slaughter men and a butcher working in an old barn in a farm. I saw them dispatch a pig and it seems to me a very quick and stress free process. The pig was on it's own in the pen . One of the guys stood next to it and then simply placed the electric shock tongs on it's neck. From that point it doesn't move again. It seems to completely knock it out. Another man then quickly ties up it's leg to a machine which hoists the pig up and it's throat is cut, so it is then clinically dead. It was very quick and seemed to have no stress or struggling. I am not quite sure it is so neat in the giant industrial abattoirs.
Well I am off to try and finally get this polytunnel sorted and ready for planting. See the video below for just how effective the pigs rooting really is