I know, I know - July was ages ago, but here we are. A funny month. There's no evidence from my photographs that I did anything but laze around for the first half of the month, and then in the second half I finally caught covid for the first time. As usual though, some things have happened, in spite of me. Trees Our trees are growing! We had 1000 planted by the national park back in December 2020, and many of them are starting to appear from the top of their guards. It's nowhere near a woodland yet, but I'm starting to see how it might be in a few years. We even spotted the first orchid we've seen here. Chickens I'm not sure I've said much about the chickens for a while, but they're still here, mostly lazing around in the sunshine. We had to take poor Bonny to the vets at the end of the month though. She'd laid a few lash eggs over several weeks, and the vet gave her a hormonal implant to stop her producing any more eggs, and hopefully let her fight off whatever she was fighting. She's always been skittish, and never remotely appreciated being picked up, and it was difficult to catch her. The vet described her as 'having an attitude'... She's had mixed fortunes in relation to her health since then - more in August's post. Sorting out We've been slowly sorting out odd corners of the house, and July was the turn of these shelves in the the offshot. They housed all kinds of bric a brac, but now are home to nicely organised chicken-related supplies. The reason we had to empty all this out in the first place was because there's something wrong with the washing machine. I was hoping emptying the filter for the first time in 20 years would help, and it did, a bit - but there's clearly something else wrong too. We can't go into the winter with a machine that leaves us with sopping wet clothes, so that needs to be sorted with some urgency (although clearly not much, as it's now near the end of August and I still haven't done it...). Isolation Finally, after avoiding it for over two years, I caught covid. I wasn't too ill, but it was a fairly rotten few days. I moved into the spare room, and after a couple of days of lying around feeling sorry for myself, I settled into a nice routine of watching tv and knitting, and once I felt a little better, repairing some cushions and sewing new covers. I had a day lounging on the swing with the chickens, knitting and looking at the view, and then towards the end, I spent a day sat at the kitchen table, writing a five year plan (sounds ridiculous, but I do love a good planning session). Outside July in the garden was a mostly spent despairing at the state of it. Seedlings not planted out, weeds everywhere, and a general mess. I did harvest some fruit though - although I've just thrown it in the freezer, so I do need to do something more permanent with it. It's looking like we might actually get some apples this year too. So that was July, and, of course, I didn't finish the kitchen ceiling, or paint the walls - I was planning on doing that in my week off, but covid intervened. It's not a secret that I haven't yet done it, but I'm hopeful for this weekend... (although scything has now taken precedence, so we'll see).
August's update should show considerably more activity - I'll try not to be so late in writing it this time...
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I don't really know where June went. We had some sunshine, and spent some more time in the garden, an even harvested a little. The months just seem to whizz by sometimes. Furry visitor We had our furry pal to visit for a few days at the start of the month. He's perfectly lovely, but it's a bit of a nuisance as we don't have an enclosed garden so we have to take him out several times a day, and of course he can't come into contact with the chickens at all, which makes things quite difficult at times. Having the dog did make me do quite a bit more walking than usual, which was nice. Fortunately, he also spent quite a lot of time snoozing. In the garden I'm not sure my photos do the garden work justice this month. I feel like I've spent a lot of time wheelbarrowing woodchips, weeding, and watering the greenhouse. A friend and I cleared the buttercups between the apple trees to create a new bed for some of the patty pan squash. The edible windbreak is looking luscious, if a little untidy. We'll need to do a fair bit of excavation to find the gooseberries once they're ripe. I planted some comfrey last year and I'm pleased to see it's taking off nicely. It can spread as much as it likes here so it will be good to see how far it gets. I'm also pleased to see that we look set to get a few apples this year, fingers crossed. We've also been keeping nicely on top of the strimming, and things aren't looking too scruffy at the minute. Eating outside All this tidying up, coupled with light evenings and sunshine, has meant we've cooked and eaten outside quite a lot. Nothing fancy, usually just veggie sausages and eggs, but it's nice to sit outside with a bit of fire as the sun goes down. Harvest I finally got round to harvesting last year's leeks. I was leaving them in the hope they'd get bigger than spring onions, but apparently not, and I wanted the space for this year's veg, so out they came. I also pulled up the rhubarb, and made some jam. There wasn't much, possibly because it was buried under a load of nettles in the windbreak - I think I'll split the crowns and space them out a little later this year. I made just one jar of jam, and I suspect I left it to boil for a bit too long, because it's rather more like toffee than jam... Still, I quite like the idea of doing small batches of experimental preserves - I'm hoping my technique will get more reliable if I try regularly. Spring cleaning I've been continuing last month's tidying and sorting of the house, and got round to washing, airing, and mending a couple of blankets. We have SO many blankets. We seem to have just acquired so many over the years, from charity shops, people making them, and goodness knows where else. They get carted out into the garden, thrown in the car, taken upstairs, brought back downstairs, and shoved on the back of the sofa. I feel like we have far too many, but they do all get used, so I won't be having a blanket clear out any time soon. There's not much else to report from June. I made a bit of progress on the kitchen ceiling, but nothing worth photographing. Peter made some progress with the new wardrobe area, but again, I didn't take any photographs - I need to rectify that soon.
And what's in store for July? I WILL finish the kitchen ceiling - I've been saying that for months but I am so very close now. A second coat of yellow on the kitchen walls. Will we have moved into the new bedroom?? Things are certainly heading in that direction. Outside, I need to get the rest of the seedlings out of the greenhouse, and it's time to start scything the meadow again. I'm determined to scythe it all this year, so need to start soon. That's probably enough of a list for now. May has been an interesting month. I experimented with giving up various online activities - so no social media, no forums, and no online news, for a whole month. I didn't give up everything, but it shift the balance somewhat. Nothing dramatic happened - I didn't suddenly have hours extra every day - but I did find myself doing more pottering around the house, spending a little more time in the garden, going for a walk each evening. So, what's happened around here in May? Tidying up I've never been much of a housekeeper, but in May I did actually stick to a regular routine, with just a little pottering in a different room each evening, and it's made such a difference. I spent a week doing a little pottering around in the bathroom each evening, and, as well as clearing out a few drawers, I also managed to scrape some of the ludicrous flaking paintwork from round the edge of the bath. The bathroom is tiled, and the tiles have been painted with emulsion. It's hideous, but it won't get anywhere near the top of the priority list until the kitchen and bedroom are finished. Around the bath though, the paint has been flaking off for a while, and each time I have a shower more is dislodged. Finally I just got the scraper and scraped it all off, and while it looks ridiculous, at least no more paint is flaking into the bath, and it's a lot easier to clean the walls. I also spent fifteen minutes each evening decluttering and sorting out the study, the room that I work in when I work at home. This houses most of my books, which were piled higgledy piggledy onto the shelves, sometimes two or three deep, as well as my sewing paraphernalia, and all manner of other things. I sifted and sorted, and prioritised, and gave things away, and finally the bookshelves are just one book deep, and I can easily see and get at everything. I even got rid of most of the stuff that was piled up on my desk. My desk is an extendable table, and I cleared so much space I was able to take out the extension to make it smaller, which means I can now get at the window. Everything has been cleaned and dusted and hoovered, and I am thrilled. It seems I didn't take a picture though, and now I've got the sofa bed up in there for a few days, so I'll take one once order is restored. In the meadow (and the windbreak) I finished raking up the dry cut grass after April's mechanical scythe experiments, and spread it all on the windbreak to keep down the weeds. The cuckoo flower is in bloom out there, and I finally found the yellow rattle seeds I collected last autumn, and sowed them into the meadow. In all probability this was a useless endeavour - they really need a period of frost to germinate, and spring-sown seeds often don't take, but they don't last more than one season, so since I had them, there was no point not sowing them. I put them in the freezer for a couple of weeks first - again, probably pointless. Time will tell I suppose. I also finally got round to cutting some willow, and planting it in a soggy bit of the windbreak area. It's too late in the season really, but again, there was no real point in not trying. Some of the cuttings have taken, some haven't - I'll try some more in the autumn to give them a better chance. Sowing seeds I finally got round to sowing my seeds in May. I was much earlier last year, and spent quite a lot of April mollycoddling them with fleece overnight until the frost risk passed. This lot have germinated quickly, and I think they're pretty much caught up with last year. In the garden Outside, the veg garden isn't quite ready, but I've been pottering out there and some of the weeds have been cleared, and it won't be too long now. We've had a lovely show of blossom this year so I have high hopes for more than one apple in the autumn. I've done some more strimming, and I've very much enjoyed pottering around in the evening and seeing evidence of where the chickens have been in the daytime. The chickens The chickens are all well (touch wood), and there is nothing much to report on that front, thank goodness. Long may it stay that way. Poppy Chicken did have a brief period of malaise, but made a miraculous recovery on the day of her vet trip. We did keep the appointment just in case, but the vet confirmed our suspicions that there was, in fact, nothing wrong with her. Cheeky monkey. The Avian Flu lockdown ended on 1st May, so the chickens have been roaming free, which both they and we are delighted about. We've had some lovely weather, and the girls have made excellent use of the sunbathing opportunities. They've been producing plenty of eggs, so we've been making pancakes galore and taking eggs with us every time we visit someone. Overall, May has been pretty cheerful. I've still not finished the kitchen ceiling, and we're still not installed in the new bedroom, but both of those things are inching closer.
And June, what will June bring? We have a temporary visiting dog for a few days, so the first part of the month will be spent on duty making sure the dog never comes face to face with the chickens (neither are well-trained, and none of them can be trusted). Some seedlings will make it out into the garden, and I have high hopes for the kitchen ceiling, although I'm making no promises. The big job for the summer is another extension to the chicken run. Will we make a start on that in June? That might depend if I can squeeze in a few more days off. We'll see. We have had a rather dry April, an I've spent a good amount of time outside, which I'm very grateful for. I didn't have my usual fortnight off work over Easter, but I've had a few long weekends, and am feeling rather more rested than I was at the end of March. So what's been happening in April? Strimming the grass We have a lot of grass, and I don't have a lawnmower - largely because I don't really have much you'd describe with such a sedate term as a 'lawn'. Our grass is bumpy, tufty, unwieldy, and full of weeds, and while I considered buying a diesel mower this month, I was eventually won over by a strimmer harness, which takes the weight of the strimmer, making it far easier to carry for the hour or so it takes to cut the bits of grass I can be bothered to cut. It's not exactly a bowling green... but at least I don't have to wear wellies to peg the washing out. I've left plenty long for the wild flowers to grow throughout the summer. The veg patch There isn't much to say about the veg patch. I've done very little in there so far, aside from occasionally waving a hoe on my way past, and throwing down a bit of wood chip. It's untidy and not really ready for planting, but that's ok, because I haven't sown a single seed in the greenhouse yet, so I won't be planting anything for a while. Things are starting to grow though. There has been blossom on the plum tree, and the apple trees are starting to bloom too. The fig tree is getting started in the greenhouse too. I see from last year's April on the Homestead post that I had all kinds of things growing in April, but not this year. Cutting the hay field My main outdoor job in April has been cutting the hay field. This is not something that usually happens in April. Since I've been cutting the hay with a scythe, usually in late summer, I've never managed to get through the whole field before the winter, meaning the new spring grass grows through the flattened, dried grass from the previous year, creating a thatch, and making it much harder to cut with a scythe at the end of the summer. This year, I decided I was going to experiment with some machinery to try and remove last year's grass, in a bid to make scything easier later, and hired a power scythe (or rather, a rotavator with a scythe attachment) for a weekend. I've never used one before, and gosh, it was a heavy and unwieldy beast. It was self-propelling, so at least I didn't have to push, but it had a mind of its own, and it was quite a struggle to get it to go in a straight line over our bumpy, tussocky field. I'd also anticipated that the scythe attachment at the front would slice under the thatch of old, dried grass, but no - the machine just sailed over the top of the flattened grass, with the blade chomping into thin air. I suspect it would be slightly more effective for cutting a field of standing hay (which is what it's designed for). All this meant that I had to effectively lift the handles as I was guiding it along, and even then, it didn't go under the thatch, but it did at least manage to remove some of the dried grass. You can see that even after cutting, and raking, there's still a lot of dried grass on the ground that hasn't been cut. Not much I can do about that at this point. I'm trying to restore it as a traditional hay meadow, which means no cutting (or grazing etc) rom now until towards the end of the summer to let the flowers do their thing. Incidentally, people often ask me why I haven't hired in a contractor, or put some sheep in, or some other solution that doesn't involve me either swinging a scythe or wielding machinery. It's a reasonable question - I'm often complaining about scything/machinery-wielding, so I can see why people ask. The answer, of course, is not that I didn't think of those things, but that I've weighed up all the options and am trying the one that's the most straightforward first. That doesn't mean it's the least effort on my part (far from it). But this is a small field, and this is the wrong type of year for hay-making, and so finding someone with a large tractor and hay-making equipment who is willing to drive it out here for a tiny amount of grass (when they're not cutting any other fields locally) isn't going to be easy. It might be possible to get someone to cut it when they're cutting other local fields - but that means having it cut when other farmers are cutting for silage (often June) which is too early for the flower seeds to have dropped. Making silage doesn't have the same requirements or routine as making hay, and barely anyone round here makes hay because of the unreliable weather. As for sheep (or llamas, or whatever) - again, this is a small field. Yes, there are some local sheep farmers, who all have their own land. This field has no water supply, falling-down walls, and a large, dangerous, derelict barn, meaning animals would need an electric fence and daily tending, which I'm not volunteering for. The cows we have in the other fields don't turn up until May - and if we let them in this field at that point, they'd just munch all the plants we were trying to encourage. And anyway, last year's dry, flattened grass, isn't really an appealing prospect for many animals, who'd likely be inclined to just munch the new green shoots and ignore the old stuff. Right now, I prefer to spend a small amount of money hiring a small piece of equipment and put in a load of effort myself over a weekend, rather than traipsing around the countryside asking local farmers for things they would rightly regard as a bit mad. Anyway, the point is that I have inadvertently made some hay in April, and it all got spread as mulch on the edible windbreak, which I see is exactly what I did with the small amount of hay I had at this time last year too. I also spread a bit around the willow dome, which I hope this year will actually grow enough to turn into a dome. Other things All was pleasingly uneventful on the chicken front in April, which is how we like it, although the bird flu lockdown was still in force (lifted today - hooray!) We've had plenty of eggs, which we've mostly either given away or made into pancakes. We cooked our first meal outside towards the end of the month - it wasn't quite warm enough but we'd committed ourselves by that point, so we did it anyway. And in possibly the most exciting event of the month, our resident owl landed on our swing seat and peered at us through the living room window. We have made some progress inside, although apparently I haven't taken any photos of it. Mostly it's involved moving three different bookcases around the house in a kind of bookcase version of musical chairs. We do now have shelves in the new bedroom though, and I'm hopeful some clothes rails will follow shortly, and then we can start moving clothes in. Getting there. Slowly. This weekend would have been a good time to finish a few things, but it's ended up being surprisingly sociable, and our first night away in a hotel for, gosh, I don't even know how long - possibly about five years. Crikey.
So what will May bring? I'll sow some seeds, and prepare the veg garden. I'd love to say we'll move into the new bedroom, but I've been saying that since December so I might just wait and see. I'd like to get the kitchen ceiling finished, but I've been saying that for even longer, so again, let's just wait and see... March has been a funny old month. We've had some glorious sunshine, and some freezing snow. We have been on strike at work for part of the month, which has caused disruption and stress, as well as a loss of wages. The chickens are still shut in under the Avian Flu housing order, and nothing feels quite settled. As usual though, when I look back, progress has been made and things are moving forwards. Inside the house We haven't made any more progress in the kitchen in March, although we did find these bar stools for £5 each in a charity shop, so we've been enjoying sitting at the breakfast bar. I promised myself I'd finish the painting in the bedroom in March, and I did just about manage it. I've oiled all the skirting boards with Danish Oil, and finished the final coat of gold paint on the walls. We've still not moved in... but we have at least moved the mattress and bed base in there, and have the dehumidifier on to make sure everything is properly dried out. I've also had a bit of a clear out of clothes in preparation for moving everything to the new room eventually. March was also the month we finally got round to taking the Christmas tree down. Chickens Ah, the chickens. The Avian Flu housing order is still in place. Last year it was lifted on 1st April, but the outbreak is much worse this year, so it's still in force, and because it's been more than 16 weeks, you can no longer buy free range eggs in the shops. What a mess it all is. Our chickens are lucky, and have an excellent, spacious run, with plenty of things to perch on, an indoor dust bath, and humans to bring them treats. Peter built them a new viewing platform in March, so they can stand and shout at us when they see us out in the garden. After a quiet month on the chicken front in February, we have had quite the palaver with Bessie in March. Bessie is our oldest chicken. She's an ex-battery hen, rescued at 18 months old, and we've had her for 3 years now. She's settled in nicely - here she is in happier times enjoying a sunbeam. Anyway. She started looking a bit poorly, and we suspected her hormonal implant was wearing off. Sadly, our vet is right in the middle of an avian flu outbreak zone, and so can't see chickens. Another chicken we might have risked a local vet - very nice, with her own chickens, but not a specialist - but for Bessie... we are sentimental fools. And so the vet came on a home visit, and then another one a couple of weeks later to check the infection had gone and she wasn't carrying any fluid. We eventually settled into a routine with twice a day antibiotics - Peter catching Bessie, and holding her head up, and me pushing two separate half tablets down her throat. None of us have enjoyed it... but we've got pretty good at it now, and it seems to have headed off the problem. Of course, none of this comes cheap, and we have had to have a serious rethink of our vet strategy. The rest of the ladies from now on will be going taking their chances with the local vet... Batch cooking On a related note, I've done an audit of our food cupboard, and am attempting to make a dent in it in April, in order to limit our spending on food a bit (ridiculous, yes, when we just spent four months worth of food budget on Bessie, but there we are). And so I've been batch cooking, which I've not done for ages, and which I've very much enjoyed. Brown rice, quinoa, red lentil dhal, two different pasta bakes - all nicely stored away in the freezer for work lunches and easily-defrosted tea. It's made me feel nicely organised and domesticated, and I'll be doing more of it this evening. It's so easy to fall into the trap of buying lunch at work, or getting home late and just having toast for tea. In the garden I've not done much in the garden yet - it's mostly been quite cold, and I've been focusing on getting the bedroom ready. But outside is definitely waking up. The daffodils are out along the drive, and there's even some frogspawn in the soggy areas of grass in the fields. We've had some frosty nights, but it's still been warm enough occasionally to hang the washing out, and to sit outside with a cuppa. I made a good start on cleaning out the greenhouse, and even found what I think are loofah seeds. I've not planted anything yet though - we're quite high up here, and seem to be behind many places in our growing season, so there's not much point. April will be the month though... The elders in the edible windbreak have started sprouting, and I spotted this cosy little nest last week too. The veg patch itself is looking barren, with only a few lonely sprouts reminding me of last year's failed harvests. We've been doing 'deep littering' in the chicken run for a few years now, and every now and then I dig a few barrows of lovely, crumbly compost from the bottom of the run and spread it over the veg beds. I'm also slowly spreading some of the wood chip mountain onto the paths. I turned some of the compost, and managed to twinge my back, but fortunately that seems to have recovered now. And I spent a day pottering about and moving all these pallets and bits of scrap wood off the grass - I'm going to want to mow at some point fairly soon and these were all in the way. The owls have been very active round here lately, with one in particular hooting at all times of the day. I found this owl pellet under the conifers - it's quite gruesome and fascinating to see all the little bones in there. So that was March, and as usual, listing everything here makes me feel like I did actually get something done after all. So what's on the cards for April? I'm hoping we can move into the bedroom, and start the process of turning the old bedroom into a craft room. I want to sow some seeds, of course, and do a bit of work on some of our dry stone walls before the cows come back. I'm investigating hiring a power scythe to finish off the hay field.
So hopefully there will be some good progress to report by the end of April. We'll see. I've had my head down in work for much of February, and only really emerged after a deadline for the last week. Again, not much progress has been made, but we have had some weather, and slowly signs of spring are appearing. Weather February was wet, and we had three named storms in quick succession (Dudley, Franklin, and Eunice). Fortunately, we came through unscathed, just losing a bench to the other end of the garden. It was quite surprising, given the speed of the wind, and our exposed site on the top of a hill. We barely even lost a tree branch. We have had a lot of water though, and acquired a small temporary lake. We've also had a few flurries of snow, although nothing too dramatic, thank goodness. Signs of spring In amongst the weather, we have had a few signs of spring, although it's been too cold to stay outside for long. The rhubarb is growing, the snowdrops are out, and a few daffodils are starting to show their heads, although we have no flowers yet. We had a giant flock of starlings land in the garden the other day too. In the garden We've not really done anything in the garden, but we have had an enormous pile of woodchip delivered. A fair bit of this will go into the chicken run to keep it from getting too muddy while they're still shut in under the housing order. I'll top up the paths in the veg patch, and we've given a load to some friends, who I suspect will come back for more. The rest will keep us going for the rest of the year, being used as mulch around the fruit bushes. In the house I've slowly started to emerge from my work-based torpor to think about decorating again. Not actually done much of it, mind you. But I did manage to paint a first coat of yellow on the kitchen and dining room the other day, and I can't believe the difference it's made. SO very cheerful having painted walls, instead of bare plaster. There's still a lot that needs doing in the kitchen (we have no skirting boards or windowsills for a start, and the ceiling still isn't fully boarded), but it's starting to feel like an actual room now, which makes all the difference. That was pretty much it for February. Work, the odd cafe trip, and a brief flurry of painting towards the end. It feels good though, to be a bit more restful, a little less hurried.
And what will March bring? I would love for us to move into our new bedroom, which means a last little bit of painting, and a whole load of shifting stuff. We'll need to figure out windowsills, and blinds, and shelves, but it'll be worth it in the end. Downstairs, the kitchen needs another coat of yellow, and some ceiling boards, and skirting boards. Some of those things will get done in March, and some might not. I suppose by the end of March the weather might be starting to pick up, and maybe I'll even be thinking about planting some seeds. I can't imagine being outside today, but yesterday was glorious and soon the greenhouse will beckon... It would be nice to have inside sorted out before outside starts to vie for attention... Well, yes, it's nearly the end of February, I know. This year is flying by already. January was quite a rollercoaster. Visitors We started the year with a temporary house guest, with us while his owner was in hospital. We do sometimes ponder whether it would be cheerful to have a dog, and now we know that the answer is probably not, right now at least. Perhaps if we had an enclosed garden, but without one, and with a dog we couldn't trust not to run off, dog custody was rather a chore, even if the dog himself wasn't much trouble. Having to go out several times a day did make me see a little more outside than I've been used to for a while though, so that was nice. The dog was here for a fortnight, and has now, fortunately for all, been reunited with his owner. He did have an exciting time while he was here though, including being introduced to my sister and her family, including their two dogs. I didn't get a picture - but he was, shall we say, not quite as well behaved as he could have been. Everyone else was on their best behaviour though, and my nephews helped us trial my new pizza stone, with a selection of wild and wonderful toppings. Snow We had a flurry of snow in January, which made the hay field look briefly like the waves on the sea. Chicken tragedy And then... a tragedy. Bunty escaped while the run was being cleaned out, and wandered off. We looked absolutely everywhere - she could only have been gone for 20 minutes before she was missed. It's possible she was grabbed by a predator, but there were no signs, and the others weren't alarmed. She might have felt ill, or broody, and hidden away, but we searched and searched all their usual places, and everywhere else we could think of, and put the word out locally, and... nothing. I've not made any kind of public announcement because I suppose we still keep hoping that one day she'll turn up. It's not looking likely now though, sadly. The others are ok - stuck in the run under the avian flu housing order, but it's warm and sheltered, and they don't seem too grumpy about it. We take them turf and treats every day, and sit with them, and take blurry photographs, and wait for spring. Cafes There isn't really much else to report from January. By the time we'd done messing about the dog, and searching for and mourning Bunty chicken, there wasn't much of January left. We were trying to be super frugal, and cut back on our cafe trips, but fortunately my Auntie had bought us vouchers for our favourite cafe for Christmas, so we did still have a few trips. I'm trying not to expect too much of myself this year. The last couple of years have been tough, with one thing and another, and I'm tired. In January I was trying to recuperate a little, trying to rest, and not squeeze too many things in. Not always successful, but I did manage to not make any progress on the DIY, so I suppose that counts as a win, in a strange kind of a way.
I'll to be more prompt with my February round up and not feel like I'm falling too far behind myself. December was a month of two halves here. The first half was hectic, with the final (almost) juggling of tradespeople and work, and the second half was like a very much needed rest cure, as I slowly started the process of piecing my addled head back together. So, first of all, the thing that's been occupying us for most of the year. The building work Eventually, in December, the granite arrived, having been delayed by Storm Arwen. Once that was in (after a few alterations), the appliances and sink were fitted. Finally, we had a fully functional kitchen. That's not quite the end of it, of course. The granite guys filled the joints with flexible silicone sealant, which started to collect water and dust within a few days, and they have yet to return to replace it with epoxy, as agreed. I've chased them again through the kitchen fitters, and fingers crossed I won't end up doing it myself. There are still things we need to do ourselves though. Skirting board, finishing the ceiling, painting... But it's a useable kitchen and dining room, and we had our Christmas dinner there, and it was Very Cheerful Indeed. Upstairs isn't quite finished either, despite our intentions to be properly moved into our new bedroom by Christmas. Still, December brought us a carpet, and more painting, and the hope that things would be finished eventually. All that remains now is to paint the second coat on the second half of the ceiling, another coat of gold on one of the walls, and to oil the skirting boards. Oh, and things like windowsills and curtains and shelves, of course, but we can move in without those for now. Despite what's left, we can finally see the end, and I am delighted. The aftermath of the building work The run up to Christmas was devoted to returning the house to some kind of order. There was detritus everywhere. Every room that wasn't a building site was being used for some kind of storage, and it had become impossible to even run the hoover round. It's no wonder we were feeling quite overwhelmed. The last picture is of the room we've been using as a temporary kitchen for two years. It did us well, but I am very glad to see the back of it. Anyway, after much hard work, and many trips to the tip and the garage, order is restored. Mostly, anyway. We can sit in the dining room, and I can use my study as an office again. The temporary kitchen is not yet reinvented as a music room, but it will be... Chickens There isn't much to report on the chicken front. The new ladies are settling in nicely, and we had no vet trips in December. There is another avian flu housing order in place here, but they seem to be entertained enough, and their new extended run keeps them out of most of the weather. It's not particularly pretty in there, so I find myself taking far fewer photographs, but we do spend plenty of time sitting with them, and they get lots of treats. There's not much else to report from December. I did no work outside - all our attentions were focused on sorting out inside, and on Christmas, although I was the least prepared I've ever been for that, and several people I'd usually send a little something to got nothing at all I'm afraid. I hope to make up for that throughout the year.
We're already half way through January of course, and I can give you advance warning that there will be very little done outside, and not that much inside either... What will 2022 bring on the homestead? Finishing the kitchen and bedroom projects of course, and then I think we'll need a good rest from DIY. I'd like to do something with the bathroom, but we'll see. Outside, more of the same - hay making, veg growing, composting, dry stone wall fixing. Let's see. We were all over the place in November. Not geographically - we've barely been anywhere - but mentally and organisationally. As usual though, progress has been made, although not always directly by us. Let's start with what's been causing the most upheaval for the last few months. The building work The builders worked their final day in November, and were replaced by the kitchen fitters. This was quite a momentous occasion, although as I've said before, as nice as they were, I think we were all ready for them to finish (them probably more than us...). I did my best, but didn't quite finish the ceiling before the kitchen went in (I did finish the bit over the kitchen units themselves though). The initial fitting didn't take that long, then some different people came to template for the granite. Slowly I could start to see what it might feel like when it was finished. Progress was being made upstairs too. I'd done more painting, and the builders put the skirting board on (after a brief flurry of us refusing the frankly filthy skirting board they'd bought, and going in search of some new stuff). We chose the new carpet for the bedroom - a difficult decision between multiple very similar shades of beige. Some of my family came over to help me paint for a day, which was most appreciated, and we made excellent progress. The granite was scheduled to arrive on the last day of November, but instead Storm Arwen arrived (more on that below), and I spent an extremely cold day painting some of the kitchen yellow. And that's where we were up to at the end of November - not finished, but definitely getting there! Chickens I've already posted about our sad loss of Rusty chicken near the start of the month. She really was an excellent chicken, and we still miss her very much, as does Bessie, now on her own as the elder of our little flock. A couple of weeks later, we rehomed three new chickens through the British Hen Welfare Trust. These ladies, like Bessie and Rusty, had previously been caged, and were lacking a few feathers. It did feel a bit soon after losing Rusty, especially for Bessie, who seemed a bit bewildered by the arrival of the newcomers. But with the prospect of another avian flu housing order on the horizon, I wanted to make sure the new ladies were settled in, and they were all used to each other, before they were shut in together for months. As it turned out, we were right to do that, as the housing order came into force earlier than last year, but fortunately our two little flocks had merged reasonably happily by then. To start with though, we kept the new ladies in the same run, but in a separated area, so they could all see and hear each other, but not fight. Oddly enough, they showed no interest in fighting anyway. When we first introduced Bessie, Rusty and Beaky to our original chickens, Mildred and Maud, the older ladies made a lot of noise, the new ones jumped the fence and started a squabble, and it took a while to establish a pecking order. When we brought in the young hens last summer, Beaky shouted at the top of her voice for several hours, not remotely impressed by the imposters. This time though, both lots mostly ignored each other. It was quite odd. Bunty did come over for a little look, but mostly the older ladies just stayed away, slightly wary of the newcomers. We named the new girls Poppy, Sunshine and Budgie. Poppy's leg had been damaged in the rehoming process, so after advice from the British Hen Welfare Trust and other chicken rehomers, we put her on 'cage rest' for a few days, to give her chance to eat and drink without being trampled on. She could still see and hear the others, and seemed quite happy to have a bit of space to herself. After a few days of sitting down, we went in one morning to find her stood up, and she's been fine ever since. For some reason she still won't follow the others to bed though - she finds a comfy spot to settle down and we have to lift her into the chicken house. I'm hoping she learns soon. Budgie is a cheerful soul, and seems to have integrated well with the older chickens. Sunshine though, is a bit of a menace. She idly pecks tail feathers of the other new girls as she walks past, and has even attempted to peck Bessie a couple of times. None of the older ones seem willing to fight back, so Sunshine may well rise through the ranks. We'll see. She's not getting away with pecking poor old Bessie though. We had a couple of weeks of keeping them separate, letting the older ones out during the day, and giving the new ones the freedom of the whole run, before some supervised mixing for an hour before bed. It seems to have worked, and now the housing order is in place, they're mostly all muddling through together in the same run, thank goodness. The weather November started off with some nice autumnal weather. And then one day we woke to a rather dramatic scene, and no electricity or heating. All very pretty, but... no electricity, and no heating, and no way of getting the car out to go somewhere warmer. Oh, and no mobile signal, as the mobile network was down as well. First job of course was to check on the chickens, and make sure they were cosy (it was warmer in their house than ours), and add some fortifications from the biting wind. Not pretty, but surprisingly effective. We set off to walk to the nearest farm, to check if their power was out. On the way we met the farmer, who gave us a lift in his snow plough. The snow was deep, with a strange blue light glowing from within, which I'd never seen before, but which apparently happens when it contains a lot of water, so I'm told. It was clearly light enough to be blown around though, as it had formed wild snowdrifts across our drive and the road. The power was off at the farm too, but they had a generator, so we used their phone, charged our mobiles (not that they worked anyway), had a cup of tea, and reported our dangling power line to the electricity company. We came home with a couple of flasks and a hot water bottle. I painted the kitchen, Peter dug some snow, and we attempted to prepare for a cold and dark evening ahead. When it went dark, we set off back to the farm - they'd said we could refill our flasks and hot water bottles - but drifts higher than my waist had blown across the road, and were impossible to walk through. We decided it would be easier to go across the fields, but the drifts were worse, and we ended up crawling to get over walls in places. Utterly ridiculous, and it took us well over an hour to get half a mile. Didn't seem much point turning back though as we didn't have anything else to do anyway. We do have an open fire in my study, which has been used as a dumping ground for weeks now. We cleared it enough to get at the fire and sofa, and huddled in there, using our flasks to make cup a soups, and watching as the thermometer reached the heady heights of 10 degrees Celsius. Small open fires are rubbish. The next morning, the sunrise was beautiful, but we still had no power. Our drive had been ploughed though, as the power company had been to check on the cables, and we managed to get the car to the nearest town for a warm up in a cafe (and enough phone signal to cancel our evening with friends). We spent the evening draining the central heating system so the pipes didn't freeze. The next day the roads were still atrocious, and I wasn't happy driving on them at all, so I cancelled work. Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, we regained power - four days after it went off. We refilled the central heating system, but it wouldn't turn back on, and we had to wait for a plumber until Thursday evening. Overall, it was a bit of a fiasco, but we came through it ok. The study was an utter tip - four nights of huddling round a tiny fire, using a camping stove in the garden to boil water (we found it on the second day so didn't have to rely on the neighbours), meant quite a mess to clear up. So there we are. November felt like quite the emotional rollercoaster for all kinds of reasons, but we at least ended the month closer to a kitchen than we started it. We won't get over Rusty chicken in a hurry, but we're doing our best to keep Bessie, Bonny and Bunty happy while introducing the new ladies to some of the delights of a happy retirement.
Let's see what December brings. I confess I'll be glad to see the back of 2021... October was not really much fun around here. The builders were here all month (and still are), I have been back and forth to work, and we have had two poorly chickens - and lost poor Rusty at the start of November (I'll do a separate memorial post about her, she was a special little character). Progress was made though, and I hope by the end of November things will be even more exciting! The building work To start with - the building work. Lots of progress was made in October! The plastering was finished both upstairs and down, and the upstairs lights were switched on. Very exciting! We are delighted with our curved corners on some of the downstairs windows. The radiators were all attached, and after replacing the thermostat, the heating was switched on. Can't tell you how exciting it is to have a warm house at the twirl of a dial. The plaster dried out enough upstairs for me to paint a first coat on some of the walls, before the radiators were put on. We're going for a sunshiney orange, to try and make us feel more cosy over the winter. We also retrieved the sink from the garage and cleaned it up. It's one we found in a skip, but there's nothing wrong with it, and now it's almost as shiny as new. It's a bit sad looking back at these pictures of Rusty chicken, knowing she only had another couple of weeks with us. Chickens After an uneventful September, we had a flurry of chicken activity in October, with both Bonny and Rusty not being very well. Bonny was laying soft shelled eggs, and was given antibiotics - she seemed fine at her check up, but we're still keeping an eye on her. Rusty's ailments were more elusive - she had steroids and anti-inflammatories, and then we thought she might have sour crop, so she had her crop flushed, and antibiotics, but eventually whatever was going on (possibly a tumour blocking part of her digestive system, we think) got too much. At the end of October though, we were still holding out hope. Outside Outside was sorely neglected in October. I did a little more scything, but overall have done nowhere near as much as I wanted to this year. Of course, all the grass is soggy and flattened now, so isn't ideal at all for cutting, but I might plough on throughout the winter when there's an occasional sunny day. I've harvested barely anything from the garden this year. A few tomatoes, a couple of patty pan squash, and three apples, which were technically windfalls and too bruised to eat. Between work, multiple vet trips, and a constant merry-go-round of builders, October felt quite overwhelming and I'm not surprised that nothing much else got done really. I feel a bit like I'm making excuses, but it's tiring having people working in your house all the time - and it's been pretty much every day for over two months now. There are constant decisions to make, issues to raise, problems to solve, and on top of everything else it's wearing me a bit thin.
Still, we are hurtling towards the end now, and maybe November's update will show considerable improvement... |
Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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