Tag: homestead

Winter, winter, winter, winter…

And it is pouring down today! It is boggy and muddy and squelchy and windy and alright, not officially winter, but it is starting to feel like it. So, I’ve done the outdoor stuff this morning, i.e. hens, ducks, getting wood in, chopping kindling and I got the remaining onions in from the greenhouse and plaited them up… and now, I’m sat here whilst the kids do exercises off YouTube. They were getting a bit rowdy earlier left to their own devices, so that’s what we decided on. I took some photo’s while I was outside this morning:

dirty ducks in the tunnel.
onions and duck eggs collected.
braiding the onions up
The hens are captive at the moment, seem ok though. they’re all having a laying break at the moment.
One reason why the chickens aren’t currently outside. The other is Bird flu.
View from the shed this morning.

I’ve had to do a makeshift enclosure within the tunnel, for the ducks. They just create mess everywhere. They’ve created stagnant ponds at two corners. So they’re enclosed within a run again. They seem happy with it, all three girls are laying almost daily. Also, with the run of the tunnel they were laying eggs all over the place, mainly in the mud, instead of their house, so all eggs were covered in a layer of mud. They’ve been using the house since I enclosed them, which is a massive bonus. You aren’t supposed to wash eggs unless you’re using them straight away or putting them straight into the fridge. I prefer keeping ours at room temperature, they last quite a while. So not being really muddy is a definite bonus.

I’d left some onions in the tunnel to dry and now it’s starting to get damp in there I thought it was time to bring them in. I’ve braided them together and they’re hung near the oil range, to help them dry out properly.

All the chickens are inside their shed, probably until the spring now. I’m doing what’s known as deep littering, which is just adding a layer of shavings regularly, rather than fully cleaning them out. And then, if it works out how I’m thinking, I’ll do a massive clean out in the spring. (if it works out). They got red mite this year, the first time I’ve ever had that problem, so when they were brought in, they were all powdered a couple of times and treated. Some are still looking a little pale though, so I’m wondering whether I need to do it again.

As you can see from the photo after the chickens, the ground really is wet. I’m glad the chickens are off it for a while. It’s quite slippy, I have to watch my step! 😀

So, in addition to all this, what have we done recently..? well, I’ve been in a lot with the kids, we haven’t had the car much, so we’ve mainly (not entirely) been at home, which is ok for a while but then I start to get a little stir crazy. There’s a lot to do and I very, very rarely, if ever, feel bored, but we will hopefully have the car a bit more soon. I’ve had a filling this week, when we first moved to Ireland, I had to have a root canal. The tooth on top had cracked and so I had to have it sorted and filled. I’m not used to having much dental stuff done, the dentist was lovely though. My emotions are all over the place sometimes, right in the middle when there was smoke coming out of my mouth and I was immobile in the chair I started thinking about how my mum always made sure we looked after our teeth and had milk regularly and all that, and to my surprise and horror and amusement (in a weird way), tears started rolling down my face. I recovered though fairly quickly. They didn’t have a bawling wreck on their hands anyway 🙂

Then, last night was apparently an Irish tradition, we did it for the first-time last year. The tradition is that you let your kids stay up to see the Late, Late, Toy Show on RTE dressed in pyjamas and give them copious amounts of sweets and anything else their little hearts desire whilst watching Ryan Tubridy interviewing children and singing and dancing and talking and promoting toys and all that. The kids lasted until 11 pm, then it was bed. It was really nice actually. Specially that they didn’t actually stay up until midnight or after. We also had a takeaway from a town near us, they call it ‘Asian Street Food’. So that was a real treat, it was gorgeous. The petrol stations and shops round here sell these big bags of mixed sweets, jellies, sour ones etc and so that’s what we got on the sweets front. I’m feeling it a bit today though, I ate a lot of junk food, I’m a light weight nowadays. Doesn’t stop me from eating junk though, I really need to get fit…! Looks like it’s YouTube exercises for me as well as the kids. They love them, mainly minecraft ones, zelda etc etc.

Church has been great, we haven’t been able to get for the last week or two, but in general it’s been lovely. I didn’t expect to like how it was originally, but I love it. I love the mass, I love the words, I love that God is there. I even loved that littlest has been playing up a bit and I’ve had to hang around the entrance sometimes for a while, waiting for him to be ready to go in. Because we’ve been at the entrance, it’s meant I’ve said hello to people coming in, which I wouldn’t have done, had I been sat inside. God is good.

On that note, I will say goodbye for now. Goodbye and God bless you. Oh, Oh, yes! One final thing, I’ve started reading a book called ‘All About Heaven’ by John Oliver. And I haven’t finished it yet, but I really do recommend it if anyone wants to know anything about ‘present heaven’, and where we go when we die now, rather than when Jesus returns. There’s some emotive stuff, mainly because the reason it was written was when his son died. But it’s also very reassuring and has a refreshing perspective about life in general.

See you!

Cathy.

Write until you can write!

I’ve just been looking and it’s been about two months since the last blog, so hi to everyone. The absolute last post I did also seems to have disappeared off the blog for some reason, but never mind, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve had a bit of a writer’s block again, so as the title says, I’m writing til I write.

So, since the last smallholding type jobbo – the ducks have been outside for ages now, they’re massive and all grown up looking, there’s one drake now and 3 girls, which will be fine for now. One of the girls got eaten by a predator so I’ve moved the rest to a more secure run now.

The growing has been going really well in general. The tomato plants are massive but are actually really late in producing tomatoes, they’ve come now, but aren’t red yet. There’s nothing wrong with them and they’re growing well, they’re just late. I can only put it down to the fact that it was really quite cold here right up to July time. Same with the cucumbers, they’re starting to grow, but only just starting. The gherkins are nearly ready for pickling.

We’ve had tons of celery, we had a good amount of new potatoes which have since been eaten and also put into celery soup which I’ve portioned and frozen. We’ve now got green beans, swedes, spring onions and lettuce growing in that bed. The maincrop potatoes should be ready soon and the sprouts and leeks will be ready in the winter/spring I would think. I’ve also got some purple sprouting broccoli to plant out and some more cabbage.

The runner beans are growing well in the greenhouse, I think I’m going to leave them on the plants and let them dry so I can use them as kidney beans. I do cook chilli quite a bit. The peas have not done brilliantly inside, if we do them next year, they’ll be outside. The kids have loved what we have produced though. I’ve also got haricot beans growing, which again I think I’m going to let them grow and dry. Could maybe make baked beans and add them to stews and all that in the future. I’m trying to store quite a bit for use over the winter. Not sure how effective it will be, but it will be more than we’ve previously managed! So that is good. Oh yeah, I cut the broad bean plants down to ground level because that’s apparently what you do (they put nitrogen into the soil as they rot off) and three have grown again and are flowering! Bonus!

Since the last post, we’ve also had visitors for a week. Chris’s parents came to see us. They stayed elsewhere but visited every day. It was great, It had been three years since we’d seen them in person. Three years is quite a while, especially when you have young children, they grow and change so fast. That’s one of the main things that bothers me about moving here. But strangely, it also didn’t feel as though it had been three years too, so that was good. I am hoping to nip across to see my family at some point, for a weekend or something, but I don’t know when yet.

Travelling is slightly more awkward than it used to be. We only have one car now and a motorbike (plus a normal bike with an engine). So if it is raining hard or if Chris needs the car for some reason, we don’t have it. So we won’t quite have the ease we used to with travelling. It doesn’t make it impossible though. We’ll probably fly in instead of going by boat and have to be collected or get the coach or something. Family, I will let you know I promise (not just turn up haha). I did actually have it really easy a couple of years ago, I just drove back. Home ed makes it really easy as well, we can come whenever we like and J’s passport was sorted very quickly, so that’s no longer a problem. Officially, when you read the rules, you’re not supposed to need a passport to travel between England and Ireland because of the common travel area, but you’re always asked for them at the airport. I suppose it’s probably the most reliable form of ID.

It’s been so hot over the last week, it’s been gorgeous. Thankyou God! It’s meant to be breaking tonight with torrential rain and a storm. Haven’t seen any sign yet, but it’s meant to be on it’s way. Then lower temps and more rain this week. It’s been lovely walking about in my crocs rather than wellies. It hasn’t been as hot as England though, I’m quite grateful for that. There’s been a stream of people driving past our house over the past week with trailer loads of cut turf for the winter fires. That’s something that’s very different about Ireland. We’ve been splitting wood whilst it’s been hot too and Chris is very busy making a log store out of steel. Pictures to come soon.

Anyway, I think that’s more than enough for now. I have plans to write more soon.

Cathy.