Juice / BBQ / Tags - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 9 September, 2019

by Rosemary at 1:03pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 2^nd September

Can’t believe it’s September, but the weather has changed- much cooler and damp this morning, then quite a breeze rising. After I finished in the office, it was over to Laing’s Field to finally finish pulling ragwort. What a sense of satisfaction. Of course, I haven’t pulled every last bit, but that’s the bulk of it out and most of it before it seeded. We’ll need to get out with the trailer and get the bags in now, for burning.

Dan removed the supers from the four hives – looks good fro a decent crop of honey this year, including some comb honey.

We picked all the Discovery apples – the crop was disappointing and there was a lot of scab but they’re fine for juicing.

Tuesday 3^rd September

Cool and overcast. I brought the cattle into the barn today as practice for the vet’s visit tomorrow. They were fine.

Zenith, pre tags.

Then I moved the tup lambs in from Laing’s Field to Far Top, which has lots of grass. Still some squitty bums.

We had a visit from a couple of local music promoters, who were looking for quirky venues – I think we meet the criteria, so hopefully we’ll be having some music events here at Dalmore.

Dan extracted honey – he reckons about 60 jars plus some comb. This is the first time we’ve done comb honey but her seems to be a demand, so we might do more next year. It’s harder work for the bees to produce it, so the yield is lower, but it’s much easier to harvest.

We’ve got quite a lot of cooking apples, so I made 6lb of mincemeat – we’ve a few courses on in December, so I will need it for mince pies.

Mincemeat, ready for the oven.

Wednesday 4^th September

The vet was out this morning to take a blood sample from Zenith for BVD testing. We put her tags in and sorted Zephyr’s tag as well, so we’re not very popular.

We wormed the tup lambs with squitty bums – Zolvix only has a 7 day withdrawal period, so it doesn’t affect them going to the abattoir at the end of the month, although a couple of them will have to do some growing before then.

In sheep mode, we weaned the three ewe lambs that have been sold – they’re now in with Niamh and her ewe lamb, and the three BFL so that they can learn to come to a bucket.

75% of these lambs are sold!

I tried my hand at choux pastry for the first time. The resultant profiteroles were a little well fired, but delicious, especially with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Éclairs next. And I need to work on the chocolate sauce.

First attempt at choux pastry.

Thursday 5^th September

Cooler than of late, but dry, sunny and breezy. Moved the ewes into Laing’s Field and updated the Flock Registers.

Had lunch in St Monans with Johns and Linda. Very nice indeed.

Friday 6^th September

Blizzard is in season. Zenith was born 22^nd July, so If she holds, her calving date will move back towards the other two, which is good.

Dan pressed the Discovery apples – lovely juice.

Most of the afternoon spent getting ready for tomorrow’s BBQ.

Saturday 7^th September

BBQ was a huge success! Quite a lot of work but worth it.

 

Sunday 8^th September

Up at 6am; I fed the animals while Dan started the tidy-up. Once we’d cleared up, we went back to bed for a snooze, but woke after an hour. It was such a lovely day, it seemed a shame to waste it.

One of the sold ewe lambs is lame, so we had a look and she had a wee cut in between the cleats. Clean up and blue spray – hopefully she’ll be OK tomorrow.

Annie’s lame too – she might just have taken a bash at feeding, so we’ll give her a day or two and see if she comes sound.

Dan bottled the juice – 12 bottles and two 5l boxes, for us.

Discovery apple juice.

We also spent some time in the veg garden – weeded the brassicas and put on the big cage, and did a bit more weeding. The dahlias look fab, but the rest of the flowers are getting a bit sad.

Vegetable garden.

Brassica cage almost complete.

Kale weeded.