It’s been a steady
summer on the smallholding with lots of changes since my last update.
The polytunnel growing has gone brilliantly this year. In late summer
we had Aubergines, tomatoes, chillis, peppers,basil and courgettes
all ready for eating which was amazing. The tomatoes and chillis are
still going now, although with the cooler weather I cant see them
keeping going for much longer. Its now all planted up with winter
salad and spring beans an peas ready for the season ahead. Pumpkins
are another thing that have done stunningly well this year. Both the
pumpkins I planted and the ones the kids planted have gone mad and
produced loads of fruits. So I now have a supply for pumpkin soup,
risotto, roasted pumpkin, pumpkin pie etc while the kids are going to
have loads of home grown lanterns at Halloween.
The chicks we raised
are now fully grown although not laying yet which is a little
upsetting. Of the cockerels all but one are now in the freezer ready
for roasting. They were all starting to argue with each other and so
it was time to go. The cockerel we kept seems very calm and seems to
get on OK with our resident cockerel so we’ll see how they all do
together. The chicks were separated from our older chickens but once
the cockerels went I put them all together and made them a new
chicken house to fit them all in. So they now have a de-luxe
converted play house as their chicken house. We have been having
issues in the older hen houses with mites which were getting a pain,
although with regular cleaning and spraying of the chicken house I
was starting to keep them under control.
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| The hansom chap on the left is the new cockerel |
The pigs have now
all gone. Three were sold as meat and two were meat for us. The
freezer is now full to bursting and trying to find anything in there
at the moment is almost impossible. Its just simpler to eat what’s
on top at the moment. We made all sorts from the pork including hams,
bacon, air dried ham, salami and sausages. The salami is currently
growing a few weird moulds on its surface but apparently that’s
normal so we’ll see what it tastes like when it’s ready in a
month or so. The air dried ham is a whole back leg (with the bone
taken out) currently completely buried in salt. At the end if the
week I’ll take it out, wipe it down with white wine vineagar, wrap
it in muslin then hang it in a mouse proof cage from a shelter roof
so it stays dry but the wind gets to it. Last time we made it was
just under two years ago and it was amazing. We still have some if it
left.
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| Sausage making |
The sheep are doing
well. After the very eventful lambing they have all thrived. They are
now a good size and doing well. We didn’t castrate the male lambs
this year so they are now separated off from the rest of the flock
before they cause any unwanted lambs. We need to get in the ram soon
to start the whole cycle again for next year. Hopefully lambing will
be a bit simpler next spring, although it happened all on one day and
mainly during daylight hours was quite good.
All sorts has
changed at home, Zoe has changed jobs at her work, the kids have
changed school and I am in the process of some changes at work too.
More to follow on that another time.
