More Progress

Hi again, well, things have been cracking on here in Cornwall. The new chicken enclosure is up and now in use. It appears, so far, to be rat-proof ....... fingers crossed for that one. The rats have once again become a real problem and although I hate to do it, I will be putting rat bait down for a few days to try and get on top of the situation. I totally appreciate that living in the country, with animals that live outside, there will always be an issue with rats but they have started to take over the garden and sadly, it's time to do something about it. The chickens love their new space but to be fair, they spend most of their time free ranging on the front lawn digging up my flowers! There are still a couple of little bits left to do, the house is going to be raised up so the chickens have even more floor space and there has also been the addition of a new nest box, again raised off the floor because our chickens do love to fly and hop and climb .... weird little things that they are lol.

The new nest box .... I call it the penthouse flat lol 

The ducks are now 9 weeks old and finally have names and are now big enough to live outside on a permanent basis. Big Bird the Aylesbury, Coco the chocolate Muscovey and Lulu the Mallard now live in this gorgeous little des-res. Woodworking skills courtesy of my daughter and hubby 😀

The chickens were quite excited at the prospect of a new house and were mightily miffed when they were turfed out so the ducks could inspect their new home. 

We also re-located their pond so all-in-all, I think they are happy little quackers. 

We have also had some of our first veg harvest. It's so exciting to be able to go and pick what you need for dinner. 

I am totally amazed at how well the aubergines have grown in the poly tunnel and the sweetcorn as well however we are having one issue that is really, really, REALLY annoying me. We have mice in the poly tunnel and they are eating the tomatoes. And when I say eating them, they're not just eating the ripe ones but the green ones as well!! At first we had no idea what was damaging them until I spotted this ...... 

Mouse droppings on one of the tomatoes. I am absolutely gutted. We have hundreds of tomatoes in there and it looks like we might lose all of them to the mice. They aren't even just eating the ones low down on the plants, they're actually climbing up the stalks of the plants and eating them at the top of the bushes. This tomato is about 4 feet off the ground!! I seriously don't know what to do about it. If anyone has any suggestions I would be most grateful. Again, I understand the countryside comes with it's issues and pests are a big part of that but it's actually quite heartbreaking that we nurtured the plants for so long and spent such a long time making sure they grew well and now we might not actually get to eat any of them. 

On a much happier note, last month, our middle daughter got married and we spent a lovely three days at the Folly Farm Centre near Bristol with family and friends celebrating with her and her new husband.

Happy New Year to All

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year. Ours was so nice, I can honestly say it was one of the nicest Christmases I have had in a long time. I was thoroughly spoiled and despite only having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off work, it was so lovely to spend time with my family that it's a real anti-climax now that everyone has gone home and it's back to being just the animals and me, at least during the week. Weekends are now full of hard graft trying to get the poly tunnel up and running, finishing off the raised beds on the front lawn ....... only one more to construct, paint and get into place and then it's sorted, and then, generally tidying things up and getting rid of the "building site look" before the growing season starts in earnest. I am simply so excited that it's getting harder and harder to face the drudgery of my hideously boring-but-essential day job. I know it provides the money for things like seeds and compost and plant pots and poly tunnels and paving slabs and the endless other things we need to help us on our way with the self sufficiency venture we have planned but the reality of grumpy, stroppy and downright nasty customers I have to deal with on a daily basis can be a tad trying after a while. Still, I am very hopeful that by the end of the year I will be able to quit my job and concentrate full time on growing, harvesting, making and baking and there won't be a pair of shoes or a grumpy customer in sight :-). 

Anyway, here are a few of the pictures we have taken over the last few months of the progress we have been making. 

The poly tunnel has gone from this 

The beds are laid out where they will be and the internal patio/potting/cooking/filming space has been marked out and once the ground has thawed out, we can get on with the levelling of the area ready for the paving slabs. There is loads more to do, mostly stuff I don't quite get because I can't picture it in my head but hubby assures me it will be "a piece of cake". I'm withholding judgement until I see what happens but he's pretty good at doing stuff like this so I'm hopeful it won't take too long. 

I drew a little picture on my whiteboard of how I wanted the poly tunnel to look. After my husband had stopped laughing at my awful drawing, he then sighed with resignation when he realised I was actually being serious and we set about designing the space ........ including the bunting which everyone thinks is bonkers but I don't care lol 

The cover will be going on now that the wiggle wire has arrived!! I kid you not, that's what it's called lol, it's a very cool way for stretching and fixing the plastic in place without using nails. It's been MIA for the last week until about 11am this morning when I donned my metaphorical "Sherlock" hat and went to find it. It had been delivered to totally the wrong place but after a process of elimination I managed to track it down and bring it home. Case Closed lol :-)

The chickens are under lockdown because of the avian flu risk. They'e none too pleased about life in captivity but it's for their own good. They have a new toy to play with. My husband read somewhere that chickens are inquisitive and that one woman had bought hers a child's xylophone to play with so I hopped online and bought them this.

I've not actually seen the using it yet but they like to go and look at it. They also have loads of shelves and ladders for them to hop about on and I've ordered them a chicken-safe mirror because apparently they like to see their own reflection lol. I have no idea if this is true or not but I'm happy to give it a go if it makes them more contented while they're on lockdown.

They've also been having the odd treat every now and then. They love water melon so I have been adding a few chunks to their bowl a couple of times a week and this morning, it was so cold and frosty that I made them some porridge. They totally love it. No milk or sugar, just oats made with water and given to them while it's still warm. Only as an occasional treat but they seem happy and contented enough and I'm still getting a couple of eggs a day from them so they must be doing ok.

The girls tucking into their breakfast this morning. 

Anyway, that's all I have time to write for now. Got to go chop and collect some firewood, fetch llama food from the feed store and make something hot and delicious for my supper because it's absolutely FREEZING here in Cornwall just now. I will just leave you with my favourite picture of my house this Christmas. I've never had outdoor lights before but this year I decided I would give it a go. I totally LOVE them and I'm never taking them down :-)

Happy New Year Everyone XxX

My New Garden Design.

Well, I have to say it was lovely to get so many comments from people on my last blog post, I'm so happy that there are still some of you out there :-)

I have been looking back through all the photos I've been taking over the last few months, wondering where to start and I think I will start with the garden. In my very first blog post my garden was a boring, bare rectangle of grass that mostly resembled a field, probably because that's exactly what it used to be. The person who converted our house from foundry workers cottages, badly, I might add, ran true to form and basically just left the front garden to grow wild.

At the time, I didn't have much money and keeping the grass down and managing to get it fenced in so the dogs had a safe place to run was as much as I could manage and over the years, I have added little bits and pieces to the garden and now, although it's still a rectangle consisting mostly of grass, it's slightly less boring. But not much! That, however, is about to change. Over the last few weeks, there has been lots of measuring and sourcing of materials and a gazillion ideas pinned on a virtual mood board and then there was a LOT of garden designing and planning and a fair old amount of, shall we say, "discussion" about where, what and how things should be done and finally, thanks to my husband ......... drum roll please ........ the finished plan can now be revealed.

Isn't it fabulous. This is hopefully what my garden will look like a few months from now. We have already started and have spent every spare weekend preparing the space. There's been a lot of digging and turf stripping and clearing and a couple of weeks ago, a big lorry with a crane on the back delivered 2 tonnes of granite setts for the pathways and edging. A delivery of compost will be arriving next week to start filling up the flower beds and more sand and cement will be arriving in the not too distant future so I can finish concreting in more of the setts ...... I'm actually getting quite good and cementing the little buggers in place and have only managed to drop them on my toes twice. It's hard work but it's very slowly starting to look less like a field :-)

Digging the trench for the first lot of setts to be cemented in. I'm getting very good at it now :-)

Between the apple trees, the turf will be stripped off, soil added and then bark chippings will be put on top and some shade-loving plants will be planted to add some colour.

Roughly laying out the setts to see what they look like. 

Around the edge of the lawn will be flower beds full of cottage garden plants.

Harriet and Bluebell helping in the garden. 

So, watch this space. I will keep posting progress photos so you can see how it's coming along. And if anyone has any suggestions and ideas for plants that don't mind shade I would love to hear from you. 

A Sad Day

Yesterday morning, sadly, I had to take one of my chickens, Pepper Potts, to the vet. She went downhill very quickly and the vet said that she had an abdominal mass and that sadly, there was nothing he could do. It was evident that the kindest thing was to put her to sleep and obviously, I was rather upset. I know she was only a chicken but they all have their own little personalities and I still always get quite emotional when they die. I would be a terrible farmer. All the animals that were supposed to be sent to be slaughtered would end up as pets! 

Pepper Potts after diving head first into a plate of yoghurt :-)

Anyway, when I got back home, Amelia Pond, my one remaining chicken was looking bewildered and sad and was clearly looking for her friend .... cue more blubbing. Anyway, I decided that I didn't want her to get lonely and that I needed to get her a new friend. Hey presto, through the incredible power of social media, within seconds, and I mean literally seconds, of putting out a request on a well known social networking site and I had offers of chickens from people all over Cornwall. 

I decided to go with a lovely lady, who lives very close to me who offered me one of her flock and this morning, I went to pick her up. She's point of lay, so younger than Amelia Pond by about 2 and a half years and I was quite nervous because I had no idea how to introduce them. The lady told me to just put them in the run together so, that's exactly what I did! There was a bit of clucking and chasing around and a few ruffled feathers for about 2 minutes but after that, although they were a bit wary of each other for about 10 minutes, they are now scratching around happily as if they have always known each other. Amazing!

She's apparently a Buff Orpington cross but she's a feisty little thing and judging by the speed she was tearing around the chicken run while the nice farmers wife was trying to catch her for me, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she was part vulture/part Road Runner! 

Anyway, meet Katniss Everdeen

Wet and Windy Cornwall

I'm not a big fan of dark winter nights. Although I love lighting the fire and snuggling up on the sofa and I absolutely LOVE hearty warming casseroles and soups, I do prefer the light nights of summer, less gloomy and I seem to get more accomplished when it's light outside ...... weird I know! There is nothing more depressing than getting home from work and immediately having to close the curtains. I also don't like getting up when it's dark, somehow it feels like it's still the middle of the night and my body tells me that I should just turn over and go back to sleep ....... oh how I wish I could. 

It's been dank, dreary and blustery here in Cornwall for the last couple of days and I have been trudging through ever deepening mud on my way to do the animal chores. The llamas have now been moved into side of the field where the field shelter is and they will stay there now, probably until spring. In the nice spring and summer months they don't use the field shelter at all and they potter about in the field and eat the luscious grass. In winter, they usually only use the field shelter when it snows or the rain is torrential, otherwise, they usually just hang out under the trees. Still, it's there for them if they want to use it. Also, from now until spring, the field shelter gets a nice thick layer of hay for them to sleep on and net full of hay for them to munch on, along a daily bucket-full of llama food.

The chickens are recovering nicely from the rat infestation trauma. They still aren't laying and haven't been for a very long time but they are much happier now and are almost back to normal. Hopefully they will produce an egg or two for me at some point but I don't really mind if they don't I shall just keep on spoiling them. They're just so cute.

The cats, on the other hand, are behaving atrociously. For some bizarre reason, there is a lot of fighting going on at the moment. I can't figure it out. Nothing has changed. No new additions to the household. No new routines. No new cat food .......... No idea what's going on!! Hopefully, things will calm down and sort themselves out. I might invest in one of those cat calming diffusers, see if that helps.

Looking at these cute little fluff balls it's hard to believe they could be such growling snarling beasts as they have been this week :-)

In the meantime, I seem to be going into hibernation mode. At this time if the year I get the overwhelming urge to stock up the freezer, buy a whole pile of logs and coal and settle in for the winter. Tine to get the chimney swept.

Chickens on the Fritz!

I don't know if I have mentioned it but my chickens are on the fritz! They are not laying AT ALL! They seem fine in themselves, they are running around, scratching up the ground, eating and drinking well, they have bright eyes and their combs are a good colour and not at all droopy. I have checked their house for mites and other beasties that might be causing a problem but try as I might, I couldn't find anything to explain why my chickens are defective. And this is not a recent thing, they haven't laid an egg for about 5 months now. I have a slight suspicion that it might initially have been because over the winter we had a bit of a rat problem. I'm not the only person where we live that has chickens and I know that my neighbour had a rat problem too but his chickens were obviously ninja chickens and clearly made of sterner stuff than my two wimps because their chickens are laying like mad. Fortunately, as the weather has warmed up the rats seem to have stopped bugging the chickens and I haven't spotted a rat in my garden for about 2 months. I know they're probably still around, despite the traps, but I'm guessing their usual food source is once again plentiful so they now have no need to come onto the lawn any more and steal the chickens food. But still no eggs! Anyway, the lovely Sue from Our New Life In The Country gave me some advice and recommended a seaweed based chicken tonic and also some garlic granules and very helpfully supplied a link so off I went and ordered some. It arrived this morning so, today the chickens have had a dose of the tonic in their water, some garlic granules mixed in with their food and I also read on-line that a little bit of probiotic yoghurt can be beneficial as well so they have had that too! 

Frankly ..... they are better fed than I am at the moment! 

Here is a spectacularly grubby Pepper Potts covered in yoghurt :-)

Mutant Ninja Tomato Plants

This morning, as I was outside feeding the chickens and moving their run around the garden, I noticed what I thought were some very large weeds. Now this is not entirely unexpected as my garden is sort of overgrown again. I haven't really had time to mow the lawn in the last few weeks because I have been sewing like a maniac to keep up with the market stall. On closer inspection, it turned out that the "weeds" were not weeds at all, they were tomato plants. Three of them in fact and the only way I can think of them having appeared there is that the seeds must have been eaten my the chickens, who have a particular fondness for tomatoes and when the seeds had been pooped out, they have managed to germinate and grow into fine healthy plants!! They even have flowers on. I am totally amazed because the tomato plants I have been growing all summer are now almost finished but these wild, mutant ninja plants are flourishing. 

If you look closely, you can just see the flowers on this next picture ..... amazing!

The question now, is, what do I do with them? Is it possible to dig them up and keep on growing them or will they not produce anything because it's the wrong time of year? Have any of you had anything like this happen before? I have heard of people having rogue potato plants growing from a spud that has not been dug up and of course apple trees sprouting up from discarded apple cores but has anyone ever had tomato plants growing in weird and wonderful places??? 

Cookies, Casserole and Chickens

Well another week of totally bizarre weather. On Thursday, at the market, the weather was all over the place. One minute it was beautiful blue sky with lovely sunny weather, the next it was absolutely bouncing down with pea sized hail stones or torrential rain. My poor chickens don't know whether they're coming or going and spend their time dashing in and out of their chicken house like mad things depending on what the weather is doing. It's quite funny to see them scuttle off in to their house when the first hail stones start falling and then tentatively poking their heads out when it stops, just to make sure it's safe to some out again. These guys weren't so lucky and had to take shelter under the hedge. They live about a quarter of a mile up the lane and they are truly free range chickens, they regularly wander down to say hello to my girls and have, on occasion, left me an egg as a present on the gravel where I park my car.

Because the weather has been so awful I am now in full-on-winter-hibernation mode. This includes being in soup and casserole mode. I love stews and casseroles. I always make it with loads of veg, usually whatever I have in the house but, at the moment, my favourites are carrots, butternut squash and sweet potato. I read somewhere that the orange pigment found in carrots is due to the antioxidant beta-carotene, also found in other deep orange foods such as sweet potatoes, pumpkin, butternut squash and papaya and that Beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A in the body which helps to maintain healthy eyes, support your immune system, keep your skin healthy, and is thought to protect against certain cancers. An added bonus to the fabulous taste in my opinion :-). I also usually add some meat to my casserole. I prefer beef or lamb but whatever meat you like will work just as well, with enough stock to cover everything. The whole thing is then simmered slowly in the oven in my oh-so-cute, pink, cast iron casserole pot et voila, it turns into the most delicious stew. The flavours are rich and deep and the meat is so tender it melts in your mouth. The same goes for soup. I love homemade soup. It always feels as if it's good for you. My favourite at the moment is watercress and potato. Silky and smooth, it has a lovely earthy flavour and the watercress adds a delicate peppery-ness which is delicious. And with all the veg in there you just know it has to be good for you.

The other thing I tend to do when the weather is not very nice is bake. While the oven is on cooking the casserole, I always try and put something else in there with it so it's not such a waste of energy so, I bake. Cakes or cookies or maybe a crumble. Anything I can think of really that will go nicely with a steaming mug of tea or a smooth frothy coffee or with some thick Jersey cream for pudding. As with everything else, when I bake I do tend to wing it slightly. I know you really aren't supposed to but if I don't have a particular ingredient I substitute something else. I made some chocolate chip cookies the other day but I didn't have the right kind of sugar it needed for the recipes so, I substituted the light muscovado sugar for some dark brown sticky sugar I had in the cupboard. The cookies were completely delicious, they had a chewy caramel flavour to them and quite frankly, they didn't last very long at all.

I wonder why it is totally impossible to just eat one cookie :-)

My Eggy Dilemma

Some of you might know that few months ago, thanks to a lovely present of a hand-made chicken house from one of my market friends, I finally realised my dream of getting some chickens. Now, before I got my chickens, there was some debate as to how many we should get. Never one to do things by halves, my first instincnt was to get six. My ever sensible daughter advised I should get two. After much discussion, good sense prevailed and we became the proud owners of two very spoilt chickens. I love having them in my garden. They are totally hilarious and the little clucking, squawking sounds they make whenever I go into the garden to see them is very sweet and, of course, the eggs they lay are truly delicious.

When I first got my chickens, it took a few weeks for them to start laying and when they did finally start to lay, I was ecstatic. The two teeny pullet eggs I got every other day were enthusiastically consumed in a variety of different ways. Fried in a little butter or scrambled on a thick slice of buttered toast for breakfast, in an omelette with some cheese and a couple of home grown courgettes and salad leaves for a lunchtime treat or as home-made scotch eggs which, even though I say it myself, were delicious and even more so because it was the first time I had ever attempted them.

Anyway, for the last 6 weeks or so, my chicken have been laying 2 eggs each day, regular as clockwork and, much as I am grateful for all the lovely eggs, I am totally running out of ideas of things to cook with them. I therefore decided, in the spirit of sharing, that I should maybe give some of them away to friends and this is where I hit the snag. Every single one of my friends has chickens! My neighbours have chickens ......... the people with the field behind mine have chickens ......one of my market friends has 8000 free range organic chickens making my two eggs a day look like small fry compared to the amount of eggs she has to deal with so, not surprisingly, I was having a little bit of difficulty finding someone to bestow my delicious eggs on.

It was while I was trying to decide what to do with the two dozen eggs that had steadily accumulated in my cupboard that the very nice man came to empty our septic tank ....... a smelly, thankless task at any time of day but at 8am, even more grim so, I decided that I would cheer him up. I grabbed six of my eggs and rushed outside to bestow my gift on him only to receive a somewhat startled look of what can only be described as pure terror. Nevertheless, he accepted the eggs, thanked me and quickly scuttled back to his lorry to finish his task. It wasn't until I glanced in the mirror on my way back into the kitchen that I realised why he had looked so terrified. At 6.30 that morning, I had taken the dogs out into the field in my pyjamas for a run and had slipped over while trying to retrieve the rope chew thing from the tree where I had accidently chucked it. The dogs and I had then continued to have a roaring time playing fetch, hide and seek and seeing who could dig the biggest hole until it was time to head back inside for breakfast. Unbeknown to me I had managed to get mud all over my face and in my hair along with some unidentifiable vegetation and a couple of spiders for good measure and I looked like a complete wild woman ..... or possibly some lone survivor of a lost civilisation dressed in tartan pyjamas, green wellies and a fleece!! It's no wonder the poor man had scuttled off to his lorry, I'm surprised he was actually brave enough to take the eggs from me at all.

Finally ........

Just a quick post. 

I'm so thrilled.

On June 4th, I got my two lovely chickens and yesterday ......

this :-)

And this morning .........

 The teeniest fried eggs for breakfast ever :-)

Delicious.

New Additions

On Sunday, my lovely chicken house, a present from some market friends, finally got it's new inhabitants. We now have two lovely chickens. A ginger coloured Lohmann Brown and a cute grey, black and white one which is a Speckeldy Maran and yesterday, we spent the day putting together a chicken run for them. Actually, I say putting together but what I really mean is building from scratch!! It's not quite finished yet but we will get it finished by tonight. I did borrow a run from a neighbour to tide me over until it's done so the chickens are happily clucking around on the lawn. I would love them to be able to free range around the garden but my neighbours have a cat that has already tried to eat one of my neighbours chickens so I figured a nice big spacious run would be the safest option. I know two chickens doesn't seem like many but it's only me and my youngest daughter at home now so actually two chickens is plenty. Here they are. No eggs yet as they are point of lay and obviously have had a bit of upheaval after being moved to their new home but I'm sure it won't be long before they are laying us some lovely fresh eggs.