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