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Afternoon Tea / Ponying Smokey / ZenithRSS feed

Posted: Monday 13 January, 2020

by Rosemary at 4:10pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 6th January

Windy but very mild, becoming colder later with light rain. Office day, but baked a Banana, honey and walnut loaf for Sunday.

Tuesday 7th January

Mild and rainy; not as windy as forecast, drying up and some sunny spells. Dealt with more paperwork – dallying it doesn’t make it go away, sadly.

Started working with Zenith; she’s a spooky wee thing.

Baked an exploding gingerbread. Cleaned the oven.

Wednesday 8th January

Took hay and straw to East Pitkerro – the old bale would have lasted another day, so we brought it home in dumpy bags for the cows. Put their Closamectin on – I have more left than I thought, so I checked the on-bottle dispenser. What measures as 25ml on the bottle is 20ml in the syringe – fortunately, we overdose on weight, so it will be fine. I know users should check, but if the on-bottle measure is that inaccurate, why bother?

Called in at the Monifieth allotments to leave a note saying we have manure available; spoke to a nice man, who said he’d be happy to take some. Their soil looks almost as sandy as ours.

Windy today, and coming from the North, so much colder. Smallholding Scotland meeting tonight.

Thursday 9th January

Tara and I got out for a wee hack this morning, ponying Euro. I made another slightly less explosive gingerbread, halving the bicarbonate of soda in it, but the texture isn’t as nice. Bigger tin next time.

Did some housework and some Smallholding Scotland stuff.

Sheep scanner is coming Wednesday 15th January. Urquhart and Teddy are going away on the 18th.

Friday 10th January

Phew, whizz round today – Post Office, pharmacy, vet, fuel, shopping, car wash and a wee visit to see Lorna and baked a spiced fruit loaf. Had friends over for pizza. Braw.

Saturday 11th January

Very windy, squally showers – planned riding abandoned. Filled the flat trailer with rubbish and went to the Arbroath skip. Very satisfying.

Turned the office / classroom into a tearoom for the afternoon tea dry run tomorrow.

Sunday 12th January

Much nicer today, weather-wise. Today was the dry run for a potential diversification – bookable afternoon teas. I’d invited ten folk to let me practice on them. It went reasonably well, but it was a lot of work. I was up at 6am to start baking – scones (plain, fruit and cheese), Victoria sponges, choux buns, sandwiches plus the two tea loaves I’d baked earlier in the week. If we’re going to do it, we need to make it less labour intensive.

Tara and Rebecca went for a hack, and ponied Smokey. He liked that.

PoniesThree ponies, two riders.

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