Onions / Omelette / Boots - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 3 August, 2020

by Rosemary at 2:55pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 27^th July

Pretty heavy rain pretty much all day so did paperwork, went shopping, picked up Penfold’s antibiotics at the vet and went to the feed store for pig food and chick pellets. I’ve bought enough chick pellets to do them until we kill them.

A chum of ours came and took three of our old hens from the group we’ll be culling this autumn. They’ll live out their natural lives chooking around in her garden.

Gave the cows some hay this morning – they told me they were wet and starving. Huh.

Tuesday 28^th July

Bit grey to start but the sun came out after lunchtime.  Took Smokey for a walk in had; Rebecca and Kate rode but I wanted to do some in hand stuff with him. He was very good. He can go sideways.

Vet was out to the cattle today; jagged Rosie to bring her back into season and took blood samples from the calves to test for BVD. It all went remarkably smoothly, even though Rosie untied herself twice. Ace’s back feet look terrible. I was going to wait until after Blizz calved and get them trimmed them but I might need to do it now.

Lifted onions (and few shallots that were lurking – don’t know what I was thinking when I planted them out). I don’t normally grow onions but they came in a money saving pack with shallots and garlic. No idea what happened to the garlic.

Onions.

Note to self, next year just grow “normal” courgettes – they sell fine. The ball ones and the yellow ones don’t. Pigs like them though.

Festival meeting this afternoon.

Wednesday 29^th July

Lovely morning. Long list of wee jobs demanding attention today but maneged to get out for a wee hack.

Me 'n' Smokey.

Popped down to East PItkerro to check the steers –Charlie has finally worked out what a bucket is AND was fast enough to actually get to EAT some beet pulp today.

Charlie.

Thursday 30^th July

No riding today. Dan strimmed hen pens, ready to move them on Saturday. Pulled more ragwort and cut the vegetable garden grass.

Friday 31^st July

Fine day; rode up to Barry for a wee change. Smokey was very good. We went out at 9am, so there were no flies, which was nice.

Brought the sheep into Home, but dagged the BFL first. One has the most amazing scoots, but seems fine otherwise.

The wee while Araucana hen is lame; sprayed her foot with AB spray – that’s my repertoire exhausted. Cleaned out the two hen houses; the caravan is fine.

Spent an hour pulling ragwort; getting there.

Almost finished pulling ragwort.

Saturday 1^st August

Lammas - so should have been a day off but didn’t quite work out that way. We needed to empty the muck trailer and bring the bags of ragwort out of Laing’s Field, so that was our morning.

Rosie and Ace are loved up; it was quite sweet watching them while I was pulling ragwort this afternoon. Tomorrow should see it finished.

Ace, Rosie and Albie.

Sunday 2^nd August

Lovely day again, except for one heavy shower. The ragwort pulling is finished for this year. Six rubble bags worth, now all gone. Not saying we’ve pulled every bit of ragwort, but there’s not much flowering now. Ace and Rosie still together, bless ‘em.

Trailer of ragwort, ready for disposal.

Dan picked blackcurrants; I sorted them for freezing. There are loads still to pick though. There’s a thornless blackberry in the fruit garden and it’s absolutely laden – we need to get it netted pdq.

We had home-grown omelettes for lunch – our eggs, tomatoes and chees made from our cows’ milk. Braw.

Homegrown omelette.

We have a jay coming to the birdfeeders. Never seen one before. Saw that bloody rat in the feed store tonight though. I think we need to try the humane trap again. Grrrr.

Finally, Facebook reminded me that two years ago, I got new boots. I bought two pairs and, although they're getting a bit hard up, they've some life left in them yet.

Boots.