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| << July 2023 | August 2023 | September 2023 >> |
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1st: 15/15 Not sure in all our years of keeping 10-plus chickens we have ever had all our chickens lay an egg on the same day. Today we got 15/15. And generally we are getting 12/13 a day. They are all in their second, third or fourth year of laying and six of them are ex-commercials who would have been for the chop in early spring. Been trying to work out why, what may be different about our chicken keeping - the only thing I can think of is that because the top half of their stable doors are netted (due to flockdown), we only shut the bottom half each night and so they get daylight as soon as the sun comes up. Maybe the extra light helps??? Whatever the reason they are all superstars!!! And we just love these colours!!!  |
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2nd: It's August!! We have mud, sheep covered with straw because we are having to muck out their field shelters, soft fruit that is going mouldy before it ripens and we sit here with 3 layers on... deep sigh. BUT, we also have chicks being taught how to thrive by the best broody chicken ever, goat kids that love us because we keep giving them browsing, 'inside' their barn, LOADS of grass and we are eating courgette or marrow on a daily basis - yum yum. We are finding the positives where we can!!!!     |
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3rd: Dogs running free!!! Best sight ever - dogs running free!!! Love our setters so much!!! Took all five up to our local moor today - second time we have taken them all at once. They were so well behaved, and we met not a soul. |
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4th: Good Harvests to Come Some good harvests to come (fingers crossed). Taken a while for the female flowers to start on the squash - better late than never (we hope)     |
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5th: Work of Art Found this old nest when we were doing a bit of gardening this week. Just look at all the wool that has been used, picked up from all the bits that get discarded or blown around the garden when we are skirting, washing and drying. Just amazing - what a complete work of art!! How warm and dry those fledglings must have been.   |
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6th: Health and Safety Inspection... Thankfully we passed!!  |
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7th: 'And breath' One of our favourite smallholding activities at the moment is walking around our land with the dogs each morning, and when we get to Oak Field, leaving them to enjoy a very active 'quick-there's-a-mouse-in-the-grass' hunt whilst we sit down and spend time with our very friendly, and rather bonkers sheep. It's a real 'and breath' time, a time to admire the views, empty the mind and get ready for the day!     |
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8th: Soup It's that time if year again for getting the freezers stocked up with soup - this is our marrow and tromboncino. And we have so many more of these. Think the poultry will be benefiting from a fair few later in the autumn!  |
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9th: Grass is always greener The goats have been given access to the whole of Fruit Field (two acres), just for them. It's full of lots of grass and lots of browsing. So, what do they do - stick their heads through the stock fencing into the allotment because obviously the grass is far tastier that side!!!  |
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10th: Washing Fleeces Making the most of two days of good weather and getting a load of fleeces on to wash. Today was Herdwick x2 and some whopping Suffolk/ Texel/ Mule crosses. This is one of the later, weighing in at over 4kg, falling off our skirting table (2 metres long) and full of the most amazing curls. Think it is also going to become a gorgeous white!!     |
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11th: Fleece-tastic We (Jack) has yet to master the skill of 'showing' the wonders of a fleece whilst still on the sheep (sheep moves, only two hands, camera-phone kept changing screens, sheep in question was actually more interested in chuckles... you get the picture...) BUT my goodness, the gorgeous Lime - our Bluefaced Leicester/ Gotland (one of two 6-month old bottle babies from the wonderful Gotland Gin), seems to be carrying the most amazing fleece.   |
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12th: Apples and Bees Gonna be fun picking the apples from this tree! First year it's really produced anything since the hives were put here... and we have the bees to thank for that we are sure!  |
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13th: All in a day All 'picked' today: the apples, a few windfalls (will pick the rest this week); the plums just a handful of the 16kg picked this afternoon from one tree; blackberries and raspberries; a dozen eggs and yet more we-were-once-courgettes!! How lucky are we to get so much food on a daily basis from our own land!!!  |
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14th: 'Relaxed' setters. It's all go with the 'Relaxed' setters. Obviously been a hard day's night .  |
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15th: Unbelievable harvest This is just some of the food Youssef and his family have produced on our community allotment in just a few short months. How amazing!! This guy has green fingers for sure!! (All our rotted cow manure they piled on there in the winter will have helped too.) It is wonderful what the land will give you if you treat it right!!     |
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16th: Kids and kids: irresistible combination    |
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19th: Family of Four This family of four rugs are made from Texel and Badger Face wool - all the fibre was a join to both spin and weave. I do enjoy spinning with 'shorter' fibres which a lot of these were. It's why when we skirt we don't do it that heavily as we find that most of the wool from a sheep fleece is usable in our rug making, long, short and everything in between. It was fun making the two matching 'pet' rugs to go with the larger floor ones and judging from the photo, the first pet rug is an absolute hit!! Talk about the cat (dog) that's got the cream.   |
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20th: Helping Someone came to supervise whilst we picked apples today!!  |
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21st: Cuties The goats discovered the pig arc in Fruit Field this week and now it is there 'go to' place. The other day we had to go and fetch them for their tea as they seemed very unkeen to leave it!!! We have popped fresh straw in mind you..... spoilt kids!!!  |
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22nd: Colour change Our white buddleia is now purple this year!!! No idea why!! A bit of a shame as we tool cuttings and have been telling people the resulting flowers will definitely be white!!  |
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23rd: Dragonfly It's my mole hill and yes, it tastes pretty darn good!!  |
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24th: Orange Moor Another fabulous walk on the moor today, looking very smart now it has been mown. It's easier for the dogs to have a really good run but the mouse-hunting isn't quite so full on now. This was us at the end - very happy and very tired!!  |
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25th: Stripes We have been getting a lot of requests for stripes in our commissioned rugs this year, especially in the alpaca rugs. People like being able to 'see' their individual animals which is rather lovely!! These two, both alpaca rugs, are now with their new owners in Devon and Cheshire - one in the home of a Olympic cyclist no less!!   |
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26th: Visitors Standing talking in the Fruit Field with Danny and Shyama - and it's not only the dogs that sit and wait with us!!!  |
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27th: Smiling sheep Relaxed and happy. They are very bonded, all our sheep and alpacas. We just love walking into their field, having a fab meet and greet and then watching them settle and chill around us!! The smile on Lemon's face says it all.  |
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28th: Squash After oodles of male flowers, we then had a flurry of female ones starting so it looks as though we may be harvesting some butternut squash this year, both from our cold frames (or in the case of the ones here, 'out' of our cold frames) and the allotment. The freezers are already filling up with soups made from marrow and tromboncinos, with the squash as well, we should have enough to have at least two a week between now and next summer!!!  |
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29th: Besties Otter and Sparrow  |