Hedging

It wasn't a very successful weekend. We woke on Saturday morning to what promised to be a lovely, frosty, cold but sunny day. All plans for starting work on the attic bedroom were dropped (again) as we both agreed to spend the day hedging. Dry weekends have been few and far between of late and hard frosty ground was a bonus.

The churchyard hedge in the paddock is mostly, sycamore, ash, elder and a little hazel. Each year we cut out the largest trees and lay any that are suitable to fill gaps, so stimulating growth and thickening the base of the hedge but still leaving a third untouched for the wildlife.

Last year we didn't get the hedge cut and the largest trees to come out were bigger than usual so work was heavy going but we were making an impression. Until that is I got stung on the head by one of our bees. (I had only just commented on how busy they were so early in the year)

Last time I was stung I reacted quite badly, so this time I immediately stopped work, removed the sting and took a couple of spoonfuls of Prition (an anti histamine) we keep in a cupboard in the feed store, for such occasions. Within an hour I started to feel quite drowsy so we stopped for lunch, planning to go back in the afternoon. However by then my head, face and neck had started to swell so I spent the rest of the weekend sleeping after being regularly dosed with Prition.

To cap it all my husband aggravated a back injury whilst clambering amongst the hedge so he also spent the rest of the weekend do very little.

This weekend we will try again, the forecast is for snow but time is running out.

Lamb

Today we picked up the lamb from the butchers. They were Annie's triplets - Zwartbles X Suffolk. As always the meat looks good, the Zwartbles breed adds a sweetness and a tenderness to the meat and being a larger breed it also adds size to the chops and joints.

There was a greater variation to the weights than we expected. The largest lamb had started to grow away from the rest or the smallest lag behind, I not sure which, maybe a little of both, but the smallest carcass came back at just under 17kg, the largest 29kg !! The one in between was 23+kg which is about average.

This time we had the meat vacuum packed and labelled in the view of selling a few half lambs. ( Available to buy locally (as I am unable to post) @ £5 kg, please email me for details )

Being vacuum packed makes it hard to photograph but an example of 1/2 a leg joint from last year's lamb can be seen here .


We still have Freda's twins, for a couple more weeks at least. They are a mix of breeds. Freda (the mother) is from a Shropshire ewe and a Jacob ram. She was put to a Suffolk ram. The twins are smaller and stockier than Annie's' triplets and the meat has a slightly stronger taste.
As a breed they are definitely less friendly and less trusting than the Zwartbles.

This year we have chosen not to put the ewes to the ram but as 'lambing time' draws closer I miss the anticipation and the preparations...maybe next year.

Just in time...

..... for Christmas and for Dad's visit, the down stair shower room is finished. The awful antiquated yellow bathroom suite is no more. The peeling paint gone, along with the damp walls. Everything is new and sparkly and the heated towel rail means no more damp towels.

The lambs are happy

Having decided to overwinter the lambs, at the weekend we bought in several bales of hay and straw.

The lambs are alternating between the paddock and orchard by day and in the 'fowl's run' at night once the turkeys have been closed in.

With the temperature so mild the grass is still growing so the lambs have plenty to eat, although the nutritional value is low. The orchard is scattered with the last few windfall apples adding interest to their diet and the hedges are still in leaf, (the hedges always being preferrred to grass at the best of times)

The land is free draining so mud is rarely an issue. All in all I think the lambs will be fine and with the ewes not returning to the land for most, if not all, of 2012 the ground will also have a chance to recover.

Buying time

We have come to a decision, to help relieve of the pressure of the work which needs to be achieved in the next few weeks.

We still have the lambs, but rather than fret about when will be able to get them to the abattoir we have decided to keep them until January. Logistically it will be so much easier then. The stable will be empty, once the turkeys have gone, which means we will have somewhere dry to keep the lambs before slaughter. It is also easier to load them into the trailer from the stable yard and lights in the stable enables us to dag them anytime of the day; with the darker mornings and evenings extra jobs such as this are normally saved for the weekends.

We will also have a few more weeks to sort out the freezers.

Keeping the lambs over winter will mean having to buy in hay and hard feed, but this year it is a small price to pay for extra 'breathing space'.

Racing away

The year is racing ahead, leaving us standing in it's trail. Days quickly become months and little appears to have been achieved. The 'to do list' gets longer and longer.

Nature however has the habit of 'carrying on' as normal with or without our input.

The lambs have grown very well despite our worries of the inadequate amount of grass. They are now ready to be sent off as soon as I can organise dates.

A few weeks ago we took the ewes to a friends. A yearly event, firstly to wean the lambs and secondly for the ewes to run with the ram later in the year. It also gives our land a chance to rest.

We had decided not to lamb the ewes next year, however my friend has asked if she could 'use' Annie, the Zwartbles. So we may have a complete year sheep free as she will keep both ewes on her small holding until Annie is weaned in 2012.
It will be strange, but good as we have limited land and a year completely free of livestock will help to break any parasitic burden.

The fruit garden has been very productive, the Autumn raspberries have been outstanding and the strawberries are producing a second, smaller crop.

The potatoes survived the blight as we were quick to cut back all the foliage, thankfully it never reached the tomatoes.

The shallots and onions have done far better than we deserve, as they were completely neglected and hard to find amongst the weeds.

On the 'must do' list for the following months are the hedges and the compost/muck heap. Also we must replace the fence between Fred's ground and the Fowls run. It has been on the 'to do' list for a while but this morning one of the lambs broke through making it a priority.

The poultry have done extremely well this year, possibly where most of my time has been spent, but worth it as the flocks are beginning to become established.

I have further plans for next year, but as the year comes to an end it becomes apparent that despite all our plans, achievements and the lack of, nature continues pretty much on course.

Plums

Last year we decided that in 2011 we would cut back drastically on vegetable growing and the inevitable harvesting and preserving and concentrate on renovating the houses. Of course nothing goes as planned and 'other things' cropped up which demanded our attention, so little progress has been made on the houses and other than potatoes, onion, shallots, courgettes, cucumbers, beetroot and tomatoes we have little veg.

The fruit has done remarkably well however, with very little help from us.. The plums especially.

We have three very old Dittisham plum trees, which if we had the time last year would more than likely have been taken down. More than half of one tree is dead, the others not very different. To be honest earlier in the year I didn't really take much notice of the amount of blossom or whether it suffered from the late frosts and so it came as quite a surprise when we started to harvest the plums and began filling bucket after bucket.

We have made jam, chutney, sorbet, plum brandy and many crumbles. Pickled plums and plum cake are new recipes we are going to try. We have given them away to anyone willing to take them, fed them to the poultry and sheep ( who appear to have become as tried of them as we have.) and still we keep picking and perserving.

Photos: In the making

Plum jam:



Plum chutney:



Plum and apple chutney: