Tag: chickens

Rain!

It’s so wet today it’s unreal. I really want to garden as well. I haven’t really done anything for over two weeks as I’ve been ill (Still not quite right) and away for a short period so the garden is getting covered in weeds because it’s rained so much over the last week. It’s mainly horsetail on one side as well, which is a real pain, I just keep having to hoe it off and I’m aiming to get ground cover plants in to try and squish it. On the plus side, the plants we’ve grown are pretty strong and doing well. We have cosmos, larkspur, sweet peas, cornflowers (blue and black ball), cerinthe, corncockle, calendula and borage plants growing on the front so far. We’ve also got a load of Rudbeckia seedlings to plant as well and even more sweet peas. Chris also bought a lupin (which I really wanted, so it was a nice surprise) and some dahlias, we need to pick a site for them too. At least we now know the plants will grow here, which is brilliant.

A very soggy view through the window.

On the veg side, the second early potatoes are growing well, I haven’t managed to get main crops in yet. The peas and the garlic are growing well, there’s some beetroot seedlings showing now and some parsnip seedlings. I have sweetcorn to plant out and need to plant the runner beans, it should be warm enough now. I planted them too early last year and they didn’t do well. Our strawberry plants are flowering but unfortunately it looks like the raspberry canes have died off, Chris thinks it’s because we had a dry spell and we didn’t water them enough. I’m praying they come back, but we may have to get some more. The cranberry and blueberry bushes are growing really well round the side. I’m still trying to decide what to do with my cucumber and tomato plants as we haven’t yet got a poly tunnel. I might have to pot them on and keep them indoors. I’m pretty sure it’s too windy here to have them outdoors. Oh yes! I have a couple of courgette plants to plant out too. It’s all go…exciting though, eventually I want to be able to grow veg just about all year round for our use. Not sure whether I’ll manage to get all that I want this year, but I’ll try.

Sweet corn plants (they’ve now gone outside)

Animals are currently on hold, I think chickens or ducks will be first, but as there’s pine martens, mink, foxes and badgers around here, we’re going to have to make sure they’re as secure as we can get them. Probably with electric fencing as well as an enclosure. I also feel like I currently have enough on, but it would be good to have chickens again.

A Summary of the latter end of this week in Pictures

My eggs arrived! it was a record, they came through the post in less than a day, fully intact and ready to incubate! An Post is great. If it was a courier it wouldn’t have got here nearly as quickly. Sorry but I haven’t actually taken pictures of the eggs yet. They went into the incubator tonight. They should take approximately three weeks to hatch (providing they’re fertile).

Our new fire was installed and (wait for it…) a radiator in the living room, we’ve been soooo warm:

We also had a range installed that runs our central heating, I don’t think I’ve lived in a house with central heating for about 14 years, it’s great! The surroundings will one day match the cooker. I made pancakes this morning, then pizza tonight, to try it out. It is very, very nice. The only thing I really have to watch is keeping the littlest boy away from it because it gets so hot and trying to tell the oldest boy not to put plastic objects on top of it. Might have to get the fire guard back out for a bit maybe.

Finally, Chris’s dream came true, yes folks, he has a tractor!

He just has to get the mower to go with it and he’ll be away up off to the field with it. Up, up and awwaaaaaay, off to sort the field out.

God bless you all and see you soon.

What’s happening at the moment? Jobs…!

So what are we doing at the moment? It’s quite a busy time really. We’ve agreed to have our windows and door replaced, they should arrive for fitting over the next 4 weeks. The range and a new fire are being installed in just over a week (all being well) and an electrician is visiting tonight to check out the electrics (I am so thankful that he is coming).

Chris is currently strimming the field, all 3 acres – he has bought a steel brushcutter blade for the strimmer and it’s getting through it a lot better than the grass cutter blade. It’s very hard work and he’s building a shed today as a bit of break from it. (The future plan is to possibly get a little tractor and use that and to probably get a few goats). The shed will be great to temporarily store all our boxes that we aren’t unpacking yet and will allow us to do up the cottage more easily. I’ve decided I need to re-box a few things to give us more room, it makes more sense than winding our way through stuff we don’t yet have storage for in the house.

There’s a little plantation right next to our cottage which you can see on the above photograph. Eventually, the spruces are going to be chopped down as they’re very tall and quite close to the house and we’re hopefully going to have some native trees there instead. There are a couple of birch already in there but struggling and a lot of holly.

I knew there were some bottles in the wood, but this week I started investigating a little further and there are what looks like hundreds! I’ve started excavating them and am going to keep on doing so. It was suggested that we do a bottle wall, I’d love to in some ways but with everything we have to do now and over the next few years it is currently unlikely – so bottle bank here I come!

So I (Cathy) am watching Brexit and the UK and Irish responses to it with interest and I have to say, since we’ve been here we’ve met with nothing but friendliness and have been welcomed in general but Brexit particularly online seems to be stirring up a lot of anti English comments, I don’t know if that is because of the certain type of people who comment on online posts or if it is a general feeling, but I have to say the English or the UK don’t exactly help themselves sometimes. Whoever started the petition to get the Republic to join the UK is a little bit assumptive or taking the mickey methinks.

So anyway, back to the old homestead….I’m getting hatching egg fever again, I think I’m going to go for the breed Cream Legbar if possible as they are autosexing, you can tell if they’re male or female as soon as they hatch, which is helpful. I’m REALLY looking forward to hatching them, I just need to find a supplier over here. Cream Legbars have green/blue eggs and are bred mainly as laying hens, not for meat.

last year’s chicks 🐣

I’m also going to start reading up on goat keeping as I mentioned earlier, I think we have probably decided on goats as the main/first animal we will keep. Only a few as we only have 3 acres but we will see, there is no rush, as we also have to get the premises ready, as if you have livestock, you have to be registered with the Department of Agriculture as a goat/sheep keeper and be approved. We don’t know if it will be this year or next, but it will probably happen at some point.

Bye for now. May God bless you one and all with the knowledge of Him.

Cathy.