Graham & Sandra's Smallholding Pages
WelcomeThis is where we are keeping friends & family updated
each month with news & photos on our smallholding venture
now that we live in Ceredigion, Wales.
January 2012
A Happy New Year to all our visitors to our smallholding section. I know that several of you drop in each month to catch up on what we're up to, so I hope you are well & fighting fit for the year ahead.
It really will be a very brief update this month, as the weather has limited our outdoor work, so we've been doing other things instead. We expected it to be like this in Winter, but hopefully by the end of the year Graham will have his workshops in place & we're thinking of putting a small log burner in there for heating, so even on the coldest, wettest days he will be able to do things in his workshop in comfort if he wishes.
The year for us started off very very windy & blew down "ye olde shoppe" again, despite the fact that it had two large concrete blocks in the bottom of it to stabilize it! This was during the night, so fortunately there were no eggs in it this time. No damage done though, apart from a few solar lamps that were sitting behind it that got smashed.
It feels like it has been raining here for the whole of January, interspersed with just a few sunny days, & I don't think I'm exaggerating! We live in wellies this time of year if venturing outside for anything. We haven't had much frost so far where we are, but with the first real frost of the year I had a flat battery on my car & it just happened to be Friday 13th! During the last couple of days the temperature has dropped dramatically & we've had one day of snow, although fortunately it didn't lay here but we could see it settling on the hill tops in the distance.
Despite the weather Graham has been able to get a few outside things done, mostly planting in the polytunnel, which is now rather full! He's also done some decorating in the lounge, but now we can't do any more until we get the double glazing people in to replace the patio doors, but I don't really want that done in weather like this, so we may have to wait a bit.
We have lambs in the field next to us already, so now we're keeping our eyes on the ewes in the field across the lane to see if we get some there too. The daffodils are just showing through the ground, so it will be interesting when they're in flower to see how our front patch looks, where we transplanted loads last year from the chicken run. It must have been the hottest day of last year when we transplanted those bulbs & we could do with a bit of that warmth right now!
We will be back again next month, hopefully warmer; in the meantime stay healthy, happy & safe.
December 2011
We do hope you all had a lovely Christmas.
Well, what a difference a year makes! This time last year we were covered in snow & now all we seem to have had this month is rain & more rain! At least it's much milder, but it wasn't such a nice Christmas without the "Christmas Card" landscape. On the Friday before Christmas we'd had one inch of rain from midnight to lunchtime! The garden had small rivulets running through it & the river down in the valley was a raging torrent! Fortunately the gully Graham had dug in front of the garage leading towards the drain did it's job & the rain didn't run into the garage.
This year we decided, before putting up the outside Christmas lights, we wanted to add something to them, so we went out & found a fantastic 'Santa's Grotto', seemingly in the middle of nowhere; it was actually on the edge of a rural village, but certainly not on a main route or near a town. This lovely couple had a huge shed in their grounds, I would say it was the size of about eight average sheds put end to end; it contained none of their stock, only their Christmas lighting display & what a display it was! As they open up for you they switch on the lights & as you walk in it is just magical. I'm a retired kid & loved it, so I can imagine how young children would react. It never ceases to amaze us, the gems we keep finding in the countryside here. We found what we were looking for & we will definitely be going back next year when they have their Summer lighting in stock, to get something to string up along the back of the bungalow.
The Country Market, where we sell our surplus produce, closes at this time of year for about five weeks, so we may be eating a lot of omlettes during this time if our gate sales are low, as our chickens are still laying at full capacity at the moment! Although gate sales were rocketing just before Christmas I have the feeling it will slow down for a while now. Graham is growing lots of things in the polytunnel hoping to be able to sell early crops at market next year, as well as enjoying them ourselves, & the vegetable garden should be fully functional by the Spring we hope.
We noticed earlier this month that there were several Magpies & Crows in the chicken run, eating their food & generally upsetting the chicks; it seemed for a few days that every time we looked out of the window there they were! We've always had the odd Magpie around that took some of their food & that wasn't too bad as just one doesn't seem to bother the chicks. It was the invasion of so many I think that upset them. So Graham has strung up old CD's all over the top of the run as a deterrent, & thankfully it seems to be working.
The Starlings are flocking regularly over the field across the lane & loads of them landed in the front garden one afternoon recently - they covered the grass & it looked like a scene out of Hitchcock's 'The Birds'! Apparently there is a massive roosting of them under the pier at Aberystwyth - we saw it on Spring or Autumn Watch one year. We obviously get the smaller flocks that have spread out from there during the daytime for feeding. We are also under the flight path of Geese, as we see them regularly flying out to & back from their feeding grounds; we also hear them in the mornings when we have the windows open!
We've now been doing our monthly updates for a whole year; a year which for us has just sped by. Our retirement is certainly not going to be idle; we already have lots more plans & ideas for 2012 & are going into the New Year hopefully full steam ahead!
For friends & family, who drop by from around the globe, we wish you all a Happy, Safe & Healthy 2012.
November 2011
I'm late publishing November's update, mainly because I've been trying to rectify little problems I have on some of the pages of the website, unfortunately without success. I've now given up trying for the time being. I may have to completely rejig the whole thing in the new year, so I'll worry about it then; I may also have to invest in new software as what I use now is rather ancient & no longer produced!
The first day of November started off with brilliant sunshine, so like a fool I put my washing on the line. I wasn't quick enough at lunchtime, when the heavens opened - it was raining out the back & sunny out the front & we had a beautiful rainbow, but I also had a line of wet washing - yet again I've had to bring it in & rewash! We get a lot of beautiful rainbows here, & usually you can see the whole semi circle, not just part of the arc. We then had rain & more rain as the month progressed, ending with howling gales. A few things were blowing around the garden but fortunately nothing was damaged.
Graham has been spending more & more time in the polytunnel, especially on wet days, repotting, planting & getting things ready for next season. The polytunnel is over half full already. He's planted the onions & shallots & we've been making chutney with the left over courgettes & green tomatoes. I discovered a really tasty, but quick recipe for courgette chutney just at the end of the season & we always have excess courgettes so next year I shall be making a lot more of it.
On bonfire night we watched fireworks from our lounge; we were settled in front of the log fire & had a perfect view through the patio doors of our neighbour's display. We had our first real frost of the Winter a couple of nights later; got up in the morning to find the lawn white instead of green. If you walk outside during early evening now there is a lovely smell of wood burning in all directions, from all the log burners that are lit now that it's turned colder.
Graham did get a window of a couple of dry days when he hired a mini tractor with rotovator so he could rotovate all of the vegetable garden quickly, without having to take the turf off first. The turf had been the sticking point for us; it needed to come off first if Graham was going to use our little rotovator as the grass kept clogging it, & it was too much like hard work to dig it off & was very time consuming, so by using the mini tractor & rotovator he did it all in a couple of hours thereby saving loads of time & energy. He then went down the lane to a neighbour four times & filled the trailer up with horse manure & laid that all over the veg garden for the Winter. Should be nice & ready for Spring; just glad it's not too near the house!
There are a lot of trees here, mainly on our borders. It is obvious from the state of some of them that they just haven't been managed over the years. The fruit trees that Graham pruned hard the first year we were here are now producing lots of fruit. Other trees he'd pruned are growing again with nice fresh healthy looking branches & leaves. So gradually I think he'll work his way around the borders pruning & coppicing as needed. There was one big tree at the bottom corner with three trunks, one of which was leaning in towards our garden. This tree had very poor leaf coverage last year so Graham decided he'd have one of the trunks off the other day. His chain saw was not big enough to go through the trunk so he had to keep going round it getting out wedges, rather like sharpening a pencil. At one stage when he put the saw in water just poured out; it appears that the centre of the trunk was rotten & hollow & was just a rain reservoir! Once it had emptied he managed to finish cutting it down & it fell into our garden just below the vegetable garden. He's now been busy taking branches off it, getting rid of dead wood & using the smaller bits to store for kindling & the next job will be to saw the rest of the wood into logs for drying. The other two trunks will have to wait until later when he can get some help as they are
leaning the other way. We've got several out the front that need branches removing too; that will have to be done on a day when I'm up for
being 'road marshall' though, as all of it will have to be done from the lane.
My next update will be after Christmas, so to all of you who come to read, wherever in the world you are viewing from, we do hope you have a lovely Christmas, & our best wishes for a Happy New Year to you.
Stay healthy, happy & safe wherever you are living.
October 2011
We started off still in the warm following on from September, which was nice, but as we moved into October it started getting colder. It's been a strange month, warming up some days & others positively Wintery. I am already looking forward to Spring & we haven't really got to Winter yet!
The pigs went off to the abattoir this month. They had to have metal ear tags put in before they went, so Graham had a practice run on a piece of cardboard & then put them in with minimum off fuss on everyone's part thankfully. He'd been playing with their ears whilst they'd been eating ever since we had them so they were used to him handling them, in anticipation of this day.
They were absolutely brilliant - it took us only one minute to get them loaded in the trailer & they took only a couple of minutes to come out of it the other end. No fuss, no panic; it was all calm & relaxed, which made us feel a whole lot better as well. It was just over an hours journey & we arrived a little early & were in a queue behind two others. We sat in the car & waited & it was not a problem. Then somebody bought a wheelbarrow full of entrails out of the building & went across the yard in front of us, and proceeded to lift them into one of the waste bins that were lined up along the side. For those of you who know me well & my aversion to meat & butcher's shops, you will be amazed that my stomach contents stayed put - I averted my eyes once I realized what they were doing, but I had seen the image! When it was our turn I was actually out of the car holding the gate whilst we unloaded & dealt with the paper work that is involved & all this without disgracing myself! One of the abattoir workers did ask me if I thought I was the 'lone ranger' though - I think it must have been the perfumed soaked scarf round my mouth & nose, along with my cowboy hat! 42 & 48 have been the perfect pigs for us for our very first attempt at pig keeping; we have had no trouble with them at all, from the very beginning, to putting tags in their ears & to loading them into the trailer. All Graham's hard work on the fencing & the time he's spent with the pigs getting them used to him handling them has paid off. Let's hope the next two are as easy.
We collected the pork two days later - jointed, but not individually wrapped - just all the cuts for each half of a pig in one big bag, so our next task was to wrap each cut & get it into the freezer. The kitchen resembled a production line for a while there. Again, those that know me well will wonder how I even managed to be in the kitchen with so much raw meat, let alone handle & wrap all those cuts! I just hope the taste was worth the effort, but as I don't eat Pork I'll never know for sure!
Graham has built a new wood store on the side of the garage, so we now hopefully have enough logs for the Winter stored at the top of the garden near the bungalow; I hope so as we've already had the log burner on a few times on very cold evenings! Our other log piles are still all dotted around the grounds at the moment in various stages of drying out for future years, but mainly waiting for us to demolish the old prefab at the bottom of the garden & put some new outbuildings in it's place, together with a log store. We are anticipating starting on that in the Spring if all other plans work out.
We had another rally come down our lane this month, but unlike the one last February this was a more civilized hour, starting at midnight and finishing around 2.00 a.m. Graham was outside watching with some neighbours & I stayed in with the dogs & watched from indoors.
On the website about Road Rallies in Wales it notes
"In Wales & the English counties bordering on to the Principality, event organizers have at their disposal a maze of twisty, narrow & generally sparsely populated lanes; with a little careful route planning these can be made into a demanding challenge for the most competent of competitors"
I don't know the whole of the route they took that night but I do know they went down to Cwymtydu after leaving our lane & that is a very twisty, hilly narrow route! The entrants are not just local either; they come from far & wide - about 70 cars in this last rally. My dad used to do a lot of rallying when we lived in Nigeria & I think he'd have enjoyed the demanding routes here. I believe we're due another one in February again, presumably if there's no snow on the ground. Looks like we usually get two a year if weather conditions permit.
Graham's been busy in the polytunnel filling it up slowly - strawberry runners & broad beans were the latest additions to be planted this month. We're harvesting vegetables from the green tunnel but the tomatoes & courgettes are finished now so we've been busy making some chutney with the green tomatoes & the last of the courgettes. There are so many fallen leaves here with trees all about us that the grass gets covered in them & if they're left & it rains it's just a haven for slugs, so this year we've decided that raking them up & putting them in a cage to rot down would be a much better idea than leaving them. I guess this will be an ongoing thing until all the leaves have left the trees now. It's amazing how the vista at the bottom of the garden opens up as well once the leaves are off the trees. The dogs have had their last haircut for the year now, so hopefully they have got a bit of time for their coats to grow a little before we get the snow, which I am sure is on it's way!
No photos this month as the camera's been left indoors! Will try & get some for next month when we'll be back again.
In the meantime stay healthy, happy & safe out there wherever in the globe you are.
September 2011
Well, where did that month go then! I can't believe another month has gone by so quickly & now here we are at the end of it with temperatures breaking all records; Summer at last!
At the beginning of the month on a quiet Sunday morning we put up the shed, all bar the roof. I've put sheds up with Graham before, but none have been as substantial as this one & consequently each side was heavy to lift, but bit by bit we managed it. We'd chosen a shed with a pent roof, which came in one piece & you just lift it into place. There was no way I could even lift it off the ground, let alone help Graham lift it up into position, so that had to wait for help from an obliging neighbour the following day. Once it was on the roof should really have been felted straight away, but there was far too much wind to do it & we were expecting a storm with even stronger winds, according to the weather forecast, so Graham painted it with bitumen to get it weatherproofed before the storm. The felt has since been put on in much calmer weather & it really is by far the strongest shed we've ever had. We shall definitely have a second one of these when we start working on another section of the garden.
Well the storm that was forecast duly arrived with its strong winds & the result for us was that we were without telephone or internet for about three days. BT then did a temporary fix so we had a phone line but our internet speed was well down for some time. We don't get the best internet speed in the world living here on a good day; it seems the local exchange is overloaded, plus we're last but one on the line from the exchange & when you look at where the overhead cables go from the exchange to here I sometimes wonder how it ever works at all!!
The eggs and veg are still selling well, although our runner beans and courgettes are now coming to an end. There are still a few tomatoes ripening but we'll be left with quite a lot of green ones, so we'll be making chutney with those quite soon. Winter greens are coming along nicely in the tunnel but there's still more work to do in the vegetable garden before we're up and running to full capacity.
42 & 48 have filled out nicely. The stock trailer is now at their gateway so that they can go in & out of it at will. Graham started feeding them in there so they'd get used to going in & out of it; the idea being that they will then be calm & used to it on D day! It seems to be working; they are right down at the bottom of the garden but you can still hear them from the bungalow when they're stomping around inside the trailer at various times during the day, so they don't just go in there for the food!
We think most of the Swallows have gone over these last few days of the month; no doubt taking advantage of the good weather for their flight. They aren't the only ones taking advantage of the weather - the farmers around have that have crops have been harvesting & you can hear the combine harvester & baler making a gentle hum late into the night.
We've added a few more photos & we'll be back again next month.
In the meantime, for friends & family who we know drop by to view from all over the globe, stay healthy happy & safe.
August 2011
Despite some lovely days in August Autumn is definitely creeping in; you can feel it in the air some evenings & some days this month have been extremely cold. It will soon be time to light the fire for a couple of hours in the evenings - any excuse for me for a nice log fire!
I often look out of the front window & see the Swallows all lined up along the telephone wire; they look like they're thinking of moving on & I guess that won't be long now. It's lovely to see them all flitting backwards & forwards over the garden during the day & we'll miss them when they go. Unfortunately we never did get the House Martins back nesting this year; perhaps we'll be lucky & get some new ones next year.
We had family from England visiting us this month, which we enjoyed & it also meant we took it easy for a few days & as a bonus we got some help with the weeding whilst they were here. Look forward to seeing them again next year.
The polytunnel frame has been sitting waiting for weeks for a day with absolutely no wind for us to put the cover on. Earlier in the week we heard the weather forecaster say there were no isobars over us on Wednesday & Thursday of this week & our ears pricked up instantly!! Sure enough yesterday morning was sunny, still & calm. Graham had got everything ready the day before & so in the morning we put it's cover on. I'm pleased to report that we got the cover over the frame without a hitch & Graham then went round it all clamping & securing it before putting the ends & doors on. Today we did the finishing touches to it & just as G was beginning to get the inside how he wants it we got a call from the local sawmill to say our shed was ready & they would deliver it this afternoon - how's that for timing!! We had decided that it would be a good idea to have a shed sited where the old greenhouse used to be, which means for garden tools it is in the ideal place -between the veg & fruit garden, greenhouse & polytunnel & right next to the compost bins, so a couple of weeks ago we went out & found our local mill & ordered one, which they've now made. I guess our next job this weekend is to put up the shed!
We started selling vegetables at the gate this month, which are going very well along with the eggs & we've also joined the local Country Market, where we can sell surplus produce once a week, so if our gate sales are slack we can sell at the Market. At the moment though our gate sales are such that we sell out very quickly. Considering we only have a quarter of our vegetable garden in production we're not doing too bad at all. We're even getting orders for eggs before they're laid some weeks!
42 & 48 are growing well - they've almost doubled in size since we got them & they are full of energy & never seem to stop digging! It is interesting to watch them when there is any noise out of the ordinary (like the RAF doing a fly past), & they never cease to amuse us. They instantly come running towards you the minute you go anywhere near the run; I'm sure it's just for a back scratch!
We had a day out recently to visit the Abattoir where they will be going, so we could time the journey, have a look around to see where it all happens, & discuss all the finer details. We were both impressed, & feel confident about the porkers going there. Still won't make it any easier when the time comes though! Now we have to spend some time getting them used to the going in & out of the trailer so that we don't have fun & games on the day!
We've invested in a green net tunnel (like a small polytunnel that you can walk inside but covered in green netting), in which we're growing our Winter greens. It was a case of got the ground ready, ordered the tunnel which was delivered the next day, put it up the following day & planted the next! All seems to be going well in there so far, so hopefully Winter greens will be caterpillar free! At least the tunnel is not too heavy duty & we can easily lift it & move it to another position next year for the rotation.
Graham has scythed off the meadow, & has just done it's annual mow & hopefully we'll have lots more flowers in it as well next year, some that come in naturally & some we've planted in ourselves. The bees & butterflies it attracts is well worth the effort, as well as being able to identify wild flowers we've not seen before.
Went to the local Agricultural show in the next village on from us this month & were very impressed, & despite it being a village show there was a lot of variety & it was quite busy. There was also some fantastic local craft work on display & we bumped into a few neighbours whilst there. Methinks Graham will be entering a few vegetables next year; this could be an annual event from now on, so watch this space!
Unfortunately I keep leaving the camera indoors, so this month there are no photos.
We do hope you are all keeping well & enjoying life wherever in the world you are living; stay healthy, happy & safe.
We'll be back again next month with some more waffle!
July 2011
What a strange month July turned out to be with the weather. Some really, really hot days & then extremely cold ones on the rainy days; I distinctly remember seeing the golf in Sandwich, Kent on the T.V. when it was wet & blustery & more like Winter than Summer; it was exactly the same here & I very nearly lit the fire! Thankfully the latter end of the month has improved somewhat & I hope this now stays with us for a couple of months.
42 & 48 are coming along nicely; they still don't wallow in mud, but boy do they love digging. They have very strong neck muscles & sure have a lot of strength in their noses! The area we put them in was a bit of a jungle - parts of it hadn't been touched in years - it's nearly all been turned over now, with very little vegetation showing & we've only had them about a month or so! Pity we couldn't have put them on the vegetable garden to rotovate it for us! They're real little cuties though & follow Graham around like he's the Pied Piper! He can make them roll on to their backs by rubbing under their chins & down their backs, so hopefully if we need them to cover themselves with mud to protect from sunburn he'll be able to trick them into rolling into it! They're not too keen on the rain at all & just go into their sty to sleep whilst it's raining & come out for a dig later. They do love their backs scratched though & come running up to the fence for a scratch if you go anywhere near. I can well understand why people keep pigs as pets.
More chicken escapees this month, so have had to cut down even more branches, but I think we've now solved the problem & there haven't been any losses thankfully; we always seem to be sitting outside having a cuppa when one's on the loose, so have managed to recover it very quickly. We decided against getting Silkies on the advice of our supplier - they are only bantam size & would probably get picked on by our flock, so we got three Cuckoo Marans instead & they have integrated into the flock extremely well.
Been a busy month with the wildlife too - the hedgehogs are waking the dogs up in the middle of the night, so they wake us up asking to go out & then they go chasing hedgehogs & we have to go out & rescue a hedgehog, take it somewhere where they can't reach it & then we all go back to bed..................... until the next night! (The dogs don't actually attack the hedgehogs - they just get up real close & bark at it like mad until we drag them away!)
The squirrels, which have not put in an appearance for some time now, suddenly appeared again one day last week - sitting in the chicken food container eating the food, to the amazement of the chicks, who wouldn't go anywhere near them. They disappeared as fast as they came & we haven't seen them since.
We needed to dismantle the large greenhouse to get rid of it, so Graham started on a Saturday, emptying it out & taking out the glass, & by late afternoon the following Wednesday it had been sold, completely dismantled & removed off site. That was much quicker than we thought it would happen so we're well pleased.
We then erected the frame for the polytunnel & as we're on a slope it was a bit harder than on the flat but we eventually managed it. Now it needs it's cover put on so we need a good weather forecast for a few days without any wind. We have family coming to stay next month so hopefully we'll get good weather whilst they're here & we'll have some extra pairs of hands to help us, which will make the job so much easier.
Things are moving on, but we've still loads to do, & we've more plans evolving, so yet more work to come! We're certainly never going to get bored here - we haven't got the time!
We hope you are all well & enjoying your Summer / Winter, depending on what part of the world you are living. We'll be back again next month with a further update.
June 2011
The winds from the end of May died down & we had some cracking days at the beginning of the month, so much so the dogs & I had to have the sun shades out in the garden! Sadly it didn't last & we've had some much cooler days since, but thankfully it's now improved. We were eating strawberries [from the garden] & cream the week before Wimbledon, so we've got that right!
The Glastonbury festival this year has reminded us that we've now been here for a year, which has just flown by. We moved during Glastonbury weekend last year & we were in the middle of a heatwave - there was even a drought warning here; a touch different to this year! We still have loads we wish to do, but we're pretty pleased with what we've achieved so far.
It's been like a nursery for fledglings in the trees just outside our back door lately. We have bird feeders hanging on the three trees near the back door & we always sit outside when it's not raining & we're having a cuppa. Earlier in the month you could hear the youngsters up in the trees calling for food whilst the feeders were covered with busy parents. You could only identify where the youngsters were amongst the leaves when the parents went back to feed them, they were so well camouflaged Now, a couple of weeks on, the feeders are mobbed by the youngsters, mostly Blue Tits, Greenfinches, Chaffinches & Sparrows. Such a lovely sight, especially when the baby Woodpecker visits as well, which he/she does most days. It's a cacophony of different sounds out there. One afternoon, whilst sitting having a cuppa, I thought I heard a slightly different noise quite close & looked around for the source & saw out of the corner of my eye, amongst the overgrown grass, one of our Black Rock chickens having a tour of the garden! We've since had to chop a few branches off the trees within the chicken run as we had another escapee a few days later! Fortunately they were both okay & were led back to the run without mishap. The Black Rocks seem to be the most adventurous of all the breeds we have, & are often seen sitting up in the trees in the run, so we're going to have to keep those branches trimmed regularly now.
Not all good news with the fledglings though. We've had a pair of Pied Wagtails that have entertained us day after day, but we found two of their youngsters dead one day with the parents going crazy up on the roof. We think their nest must have been predated by something. The good news though is that one obviously escaped & survived, as it's now out on the lawn each day with the parents.
As Graham had been concentrating all efforts on cutting down Laburnum trees & doing the stock fencing, cutting the grass was put on a back burner until it got to the stage where the whole garden was beginning to look like a meadow [hence the chicken being able to wander about without been seen!] Eventually he decided it was time to get the lawn mower out, only to find that it had a flat tyre which had also perished, so a new one was ordered. Then, when the new tyre arrived so did the rain, so we had further delay. Finally we had some dry days & most of the grass has now been cut & it no longer looks like we've abandoned the place!
The fencing for the pig run was finished mid month; the pig sty roofing completed & tested and is waterproof. All the Laburnum trees that were overhanging the run have been cut down & the wood is being stored & dried for a couple of seasons before burning. All the necessary paperwork has been done, abattoir booked in advance & we collected two boars on 23rd at 10 weeks old. They are Pietrain x Welsh & are numbered 42 & 48, aka Pork & Bacon Mark 1! The move was thankfully uneventful, with everything going to plan and no escapees. Goodness only knows how we'd catch even one of them if they got out, so let's hope they don't! They were understandably nervous the first day, & on advice we've restricted them to one half of the run only to start with for a couple of weeks. Even so, they were straight into digging & they tested all the boundaries, which held, so Graham's hard work was worth it. They were running away from us the first day, but by the second day they were starting to come towards us as we approached - it's all to do with food - they already know who feeds them! By the third day they were enjoying having their backs scratched by us & seemed to have settled in quite quickly & comfortably. However not all things go smoothly - 42 had a bit of sunburn on the following day, which concerned us. We had made sure the run had plenty of shade but they will keep laying in the sun & how you stop a pig laying in the sun is beyond me! We had also made sure they had a mud wallow in there, as we know mud on their backs helps protect against the sun, but they don't know what to do with it, apart from walk through it! So there was Graham & I, taking it in turns, to try & rub mud onto their backs - no easy task with them still being fairly nervous of us. Two days after the sunburn they are beginning to get into a routine & although they are still laying in the sun for some of the time they are also going into the sty during the day for a sleep, & not laying in the sun too long. One can only hope...... Now we just need to teach them how to roll in the mud to get their backs covered! And all this for pork on the table..................!
Graham has now put in a total of 111 posts throughout [& that's without the fencing posts we've concreted in for the garden fence]. He started off in the chicken run with a sledge hammer, but fortunately a neighbour lent him a monkey (post rammer), which made doing the rest just a bit easier, although it's still aching muscle work. There are 50 posts in the pig run, 31 in the chicken run & 30 in the vegetable garden. Fortunately for the fruit garden we were able to utilize the 30 that were already in situ for the vines that we grubbed out. At least these jobs are all 'one offs' & won't need doing again. We can now move on to the next task which I believe is to dismantle the large greenhouse so that we can put up the polytunnel - once the grass has been cut again of course!
There is a large field [about 22 acres] over the lane from us and recently, whilst the good weather was still holding, the farmer took the grass off for silage. They cut it one evening & lifted it the next day. Whilst they were lifting it the Red Kites, Buzzards & Gulls were flocking overhead en masse. Although we regularly see Red Kites & Buzzards over the garden to see so many at one time was quite a sight.
We got as far as decorating half of the conservatory & then the pig run took over! I'm hoping we'll get the other half done in a day or so before we start dismantling the greenhouse & I'm guessing the lounge will now have to wait until late Autumn as there is still so much to do outside before Winter sets in.
We hope you are all well & enjoying life, wherever you are, & we'll be back next month with further updates. A few new pics have been added which you might like to have a look at, including 42 & 48.
May 2011
May started off with a storm & then we had a couple of overcast, very very windy days - 'ye olde shoppe' blew down in the wind & we had scrambled eggs!! Fortunately we only put a dozen eggs out at a time otherwise it could have been disastrous! Graham has done some more configuring of the shop construction since, & believe me it's now not going anywhere!!
We covered the orchard with bird netting towards the end of the month. What a fiasco that was! Half hour job said his lordship - more like one and a half! The netting was about 14m x 12m, so not small, & we had to mark the middle point before we could do it properly. We decided to spread it out on the ground & find the middle & mark it with a bit of red ribbon. I took off my wellies & started to walk across the netting in bare feet, red ribbon in hand, with Graham directing me towards the middle. I didn't get very far at the first attempt - I caught both my big toes in the netting at the same time & fell flat on my face!!!! Once I managed to stop laughing & got up I took it more slowly & picked my feet up this time & managed to make it to the middle & out again! We then rolled it all back up & hoisted it up over the wires & gradually spread it out & tied it down. Hopefully our fruit will now be protected; the strawberries are looking promising already.
There is a Smallholder's show held at the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells towards the end of May every year. We put the dogs in kennels & booked ourselves into B & B on a lovely isolated farm for a couple of nights, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but only 4½ miles from the showground. We sat in on a talk about 'keeping pigs for beginners' which was quite helpful for us, as well as entertaining, and we spent a lot of time in the pig buildings, with me ooing and ahhing at the piglets. How am I ever going to see ours off to slaughter??? Adam Henson from the Countryfile programme was there judging some cattle & pigs & he was being filmed, so if you watch the programme & they use the footage look out for us in the background! Amongst many other bits we bought a polytunnel whilst there, which is to replace our big, unsafe greenhouse. It is being delivered next week & we are going to erect it ourselves - watch this space - it takes the guys at the firm, who put them up regularly, a complete day for two of them to erect one about the size of ours - let's see how long it takes us & if we can do it! At least there is a good instructional dvd that comes with it but we do need to check the weather forecast to make sure there is no chance of strong winds whilst we're putting it up! Before all that even starts though we've got to dismantle the old greenhouse & it's not small!
Graham's been working on the pig run putting in fencing posts, & replacing the old roof on the pig sty. Lo & behold he suddenly realised that there are four or five Laburnum trees that overhang the pig run; for those of you who don't already know, Laburnum is poisonous, especially the seeds, & as you all know pigs will eat anything that's laying on the ground, so before we can finish off the run we have to take down these trees; we don't want sick pigs or unnecessary vets bills! At least we can burn the wood once it's been well seasoned.
Graham's cheerful chicks seem to be doing well & giving us a steady supply of eggs; three Silkies will be added to the run next week. I don't think Silkies are quite so productive as the rest of the flock, but I like them & they are quite pretty in comparison. We had some when we were in Whitfield, so it will be nice to have them again.
We're going slower in the veg garden than we would have liked; we're having trouble rotovating it as the grass keeps clogging the rotovator. As a result we now have huge areas covered in black polythene to kill off the grass first, so that's still work in progress. The greenhouse is full of plants though & most are thriving, although we had a near disaster with our tomato plants a couple of weeks ago. Seems they had a Magnesium deficiency, so we fed them with Epsom Salts & thankfully it's worked.
Four wild ducks came for a visit the other day; they spent ages walking all around the grounds before flying off. I'm convinced the black polythene sheeting laid out in the vegetable garden looks like water from up high & that's why they dropped in! We keep seeing House Martins but none are yet rebuilding the nest under the eaves, so looks like ours either haven't made it or they're taking their time coming home.
We've ended the month as we started, with very strong winds but this time 'ye olde shoppe' has stayed standing so whatever Graham did to it worked & the rain has filled all the water butts.
Will be back next month again to let you know what we've been up to.
April 2011
What a cracker April turned out to be; fantastic weather for most of the month with a mini heatwave at Easter. Then we had a Royal Wedding to watch & wasn't it lovely. Just a shame that the visitors from England that came earlier in the month picked one of the very few days that were overcast & misty. Still our second set of visitors from England later in the month picked a nice warm day. We enjoyed seeing you all & hope you will return.
The trees in the new orchard are doing well & we'll soon have to put the net over it all to protect it from the birds. The greenhouse has had to be shaded as it is getting so hot & despite having 10 large water butts, if we don't get rain soon we'll run out of water, so we may need to invest in some more water butts for the future.
The Swallows & the House Martins have started arriving & it's lovely to see them flying around. We're hoping the House Martins that nested under our eaves last year will be here soon rebuilding their nest; just hope they survived that long journey from South Africa. We watched the young fledge the nest last year soon after we moved in, which was a first for us. Still haven't heard the cuckoo yet though. There are Pied Wagtails wandering around on our lawn several times a day, obviously feeding on insects etc from the ground and you can see that they are keeping one eye on the dogs so they don't suddenly get caught - wise birds! It's fascinating to watch though, with the Pied Wagtails only feet away from a dog.
We bought six more chicks this month and are now looking for a couple of Silkies to round off the flock. So far we've got Light Sussex, Black Rock, Calder Ranger, Bluebelles & Warrens. Started selling our surplus eggs at the gate this month & so far it's been very successful. The 'sold out' notice has been up a few times, so it will be good when all our hens start laying; so far there are four that haven't yet started.
The chicks needed to be moved to the second run this month to let the ground recover in the first run. Before we could do that we had a gardening job to do - in the second run, around each fruit tree were bunches & bunches of daffodils. If we left them the chicks would destroy them, so they had to be dug up. Fortunately the flowers had gone over. We must have picked the hottest day of the year and 'mad dogs & Englishmen' were the words that sprang to mind many a time that day!! We dug them up (three large tub trugs full) & replanted them in the grass border near our drive. The grass border has very dry soil, was full of stones & had loads of tree roots growing through it, so it was a very long day! We've got more bunches in the pig run to transplant in the border at some stage before the pigs arrive, so we hope the effort will be worthwhile & that next Spring the border will look fantastic.
A few pics have been added but not many this time; I'm hoping to get more taken in May when out & about & will put them on next month.
March 2011
Last month we had a local car rally which came along our lane; apparently this is an annual event & only cancelled in extreme bad weather. The first car arrived about 3 in the morning & the last car must have gone past about 5ish, so not much sleep that night! They had a timed section on our lane; I guess possibly because it's narrow, has some nasty bends & dips & bad cambers, so is excellent for rallying.
The difference in the weather between then & now is amazing. We've been working outdoors in T shirts apart from the odd few days when we've had rain. This is such a lovely time of year too with everything coming to life again. It's really quite nice to discover a garden for the first time as the seasons unfold, & having been a garden nursery in it's time there has been a lot of generous planting here. The daffodils alone that have come up around the grounds is amazing; there are large clumps of them everywhere. The front border is throwing up some lovely little gems too. I can't keep up with the weeding though; just do a bit at a time & hope it's enough!
Unfortunately the ewes that were about to lamb were moved from the field opposite us as the ground was too wet; the soil has a different sub structure over the lane & doesn't drain as well as this side, so I guess we chose the right side of the lane to live. The ewes have been moved to drier pasture, so good for them, but a shame for me because I was hoping to see some lambing in action!
Graham's been busy putting together the new chicken house & we finished off the fencing for the run. We've split the run so that we can keep the chicks on one side whilst we let the ground recover on the other side if necessary & then swap them over. We've also put an electric wire around the outside to deter the foxes, which we've heard are very active here, although as yet we've not seen one. We added another six chicks to the flock this week. We'll leave them for a few days to get used to each other & then we'll get a few more.
Now Graham's finished the chicken run he's moved on to the vegetable garden again & is in the middle of rotovating it. We're a lot further behind with that than we would have liked but can't be helped; we can't do everything at once, even I know that!!!!
It so very quiet here most of the time, apart from the birdsong & this time of year that's quite frantic! It's lovely to just sit & listen to them for a while. The tadpoles have nearly all gone; whether they turned into small frogs or whether the newts had them for dinner is anybody's guess! It appears there are some geese grazing/living down by the river not far away as we can often hear them when we're outside. We must take a walk further along the river soon & see if we can spot them as we can't see any sign of them from the bridge. We usually see the buzzards daily, hovering in the sky over the valley, to see what's for dinner presumably, & you can hear the woodpeckers down in the valley from our back door! The RAF put in a brief appearance some days as well, on practice runs - sends the dogs mad!
Indoors the decorating is progressing, but slowly. Still once the carpet fitters come next week we can move on to the next room & then it won't be long before we only have the lounge to do. This will leave us with the outside of the bungalow & garage to paint this Summer!
There's never a chance to get bored; there's always something to do & my next project is to learn how to use the ride on mower so I can cut the grass whilst Graham's doing something more useful............. watch this space!!!!
February 2011
We've added some pics of the garden taken at the end of last year; it was so cold with minus temperatures for days that the snow hung around for some time. The council don't grit our lane so you need a tractor, quad bike or 4x4 to get in & out when the snow lays; the postman & delivery lorries just don't bother coming! As the ground was frozen most of the time any garden digging was out of the question,so the stock fencing came to a complete standstill. We weren't idle though as we started decorating indoors.
We have plenty of birds who visit the garden, along with squirrels & we have lotsof bird feeders out; fortunately most of them are squirrel proof as they've alreadydestroyed one! We usually watch them at meal times when we're sitting in the conservatory; I don't think we ever sit down to a meal here without either birds or squirrels to entertain us! The geese fly overhead waking us up about five o'clock every morning & they fly back again in the evening. We have kites hovering overhead regularly & often quite low so we get a real good look at them. There is a small river at the bottom of the valley just beyond our garden & this attracts lots of buzzards which are often flying over the garden. We've heard owls down in the valley but as yet not seen them but we have seen the bats down there.
February started very very windy with plenty of rain, but then suddenly turned quite mild so some progress was made outdoors. With the increased activity of the farmer's tractor up & down the lane to his fields we can tell Spring is just around the corner. He hasn't been active on the tractor for the last couple of months, so it's a very welcome sight. There are now sheep in the field over the lane from us & we think we might see some lambs there soon. It just reminds us we need to get our skates on as there is loads to do before Spring arrives.
We'll try & do an update each month so if you are interested please keep visiting.
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January 2011
We moved here in June 2010 & hope that we will be ready to increase our flock of chickens & get a couple of pigs
(Pork & Bacon Mark I) by the Spring.
Our vegetable garden is in the making, we've planted a small orchard & one of the greenhouses is operational & full to bursting.
We have projects & ideas to keep us going for years if we have the stamina.
We will keep this page updated throughout the year, so if you are interested please check back often.
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