All Day Breakfast

It was Millie’s birthday so we invited her to the farm for afternoon tea, a walk in the woods and a fry-up. We sent her home with tomatoes and cucumbers from our bounty. We need to stagger the planting next year so everything is not ready all at the one time. We baked a cake for her birthday, and some scones. All was going well with the baking until we discovered EB had left grease-proof paper on the bottom of the top cake layer. When she cut the first slice for Millie, the cake fought back. Eventually it dawned on us why the cake couldn’t be cut and EB slipped the paper out. Greedily, it retained most of the lovely chocolate filling, but the cake was delicious despite this.

  • Two customers drooling
  • It’s baking in here!

  • Out to cool
  • Cheese scones ready for baking
  • In the oven
  • Expert Beekeeper can bake as well
  • Cheese and plain scones
  • Afternoon tea and birthday cards
  • Needy Blonde photo bombs again
  • A perfect fern
Millie’s birthday

GS was busy cutting the grass in-by. It won’t be the last cut of the year though.

Strimming since it’s not raining

The fry-up was so good I did not take time out to take photos. We had ordered a variety pack from a butcher in the west recommended by GSM. There were hardly any leftovers so the dogs were disappointed, poor things. Meanwhile the horses were enjoying the dry weather this weekend. See if you can spot them in the photo below.

Singin’ in the Rain

Our posts always show photos taken in the sunshine when we can do stuff outside, so I thought I would show you some taken in the unrelenting precipitation which is part of life in this part of the world. I sometimes wonder if we could share the love and blow some clouds to the arid deserts to bring them into bloom.

Brambles are coming (along with autumn, hope it’s drier)
  • Inside where it’s dry for Tripod
  • A river across the yard
  • Fifi hides from the rain
  • Wet Ginger
  • The pond
  • The gate to the horses’ field
  • Puddles, Dooffus’ favourite drink
Sick of being in during the summer

Does this remind you of That’s Life with Esther Rantzen?

Warning***rude vegetables in this post (and I’m not talking about the cucumbers)

  • Lemme out!
  • Coming out to play
  • Where can I go?
  • That’s enough exercise
  • Ahhh, a hammock for a bed, bliss
  • Needy Blonde photobombs again
A day in the life of Margo the ferret

I don’t think I have introduced you to Margo the ferret. She likes to come out and have a mad half hour running about like an animated draught excluder, all the while making “puppuppuppuppupp” sounds. She was after my beer, sorry Margo, it was low alcohol. No photos of this, I couldn’t take photos and save my drink, even if it was 0%.

MIL-lie and her knitting samples

MIL-lie came to see us this weekend. She brought her knitting to show us. There were all sorts of hats, cardi’s, jumpers and pram covers. We think we should set up an arts and crafts shop and sell the wares. I’m sure these lovely knitted items would be popular. She stayed for dinner so EB made roast chicken. There were home grown peas and carrots to go with it. GSS made Yorkshire puddings which rose perfectly. He learned that from his gran, GSM. The dinner was delicious. I needed a lie down after.

  • Glad to see the gladioli
  • Picking peas for dinner
  • More peas
  • The soft fruit patch
  • the vegetable patch
  • The pear tree
  • Beetroot
  • The pears look good
How does our garden grow?

The vegetable patch is doing better now it’s stopped raining. GSS and GSM pick the pods and eat most of the peas before they get to the pan. But there are plenty. We cooked some beetroot in the oven and had it cold today. The apples are really small and have black spots, it might have been too much rain and the cool summer, they looked ok a few weeks ago. The pears seem ok. I can’t wait for the potatoes to be ready, then I won’t have to pay a fortune for plastic wrapped produce at the local supermarket.

I promised some rudeness in this post, if you are easily upset, look away now…

  • Mutant tomato
  • Is that a truncheon?
  • OOO-er missus
Misshapen veggies, the joke never gets old

Seriously, though, we’ve had about 5lbs of tomatoes of various sizes and colours, and 6 cucumbers. The pumpkins are doing well, hopefully they will be full grown for Hallowe’en.

I’ll leave off with pictures of the garden. The bees are working overtime in the flowers as they need to have honey by the end of August. I’m looking forward to EB showing us how you get honey from the hives.

All good for bees and butterflies

Touching Cloth

Warning*** this post might be a bit rude/disgusting

On Friday evening, we had imbibed a glass or two of the red stuff with a lovely steak dinner. The Experts invited us over to their abode for more wine, so of course we agreed. During the course of consuming several more bottles, the midges came out and started feasting…on us.

We then had to zip up the awning to keep out the blighters and light some citronella candles. This arrangement worked, freeing us to keep on drinking until the Needy Blonde decided in true Labrador fashion to release noxious gases into the confined space…repeatedly. The green tinge rose silent but deadly, first noticed by EB, who winced in pain. Displaying excellent hang time, in a few minutes the gas drifted over to us. I needed a mask, but ended up covering my face in my t-shirt. We then worried about the gas passing over the candles, picturing the awning disappearing in an exo-thermic reaction. EB and EF used to be firefighters so I’m sure they would do the old hero thing if the noxious mix of sulphur, hydrogen sulphide, possibly nasty organics such as benzene and a bit of radiation proved to be flammable.

Drinking wine through our t-shirts proved to be very difficult. EF has no sense of smell, so he was perfectly comfortable all through this mass poisoning. Lucky him, another super power!

EB trying to avoid the mushroom cloud and EF blissfully unaware

Thinking About Winter

Early August and the temperature has dipped already. We had a flood of water off the fields threatening the patio and the polytunnel. When it dries, if it dries, we need to get the local agricultural contractor to fix the broken drains and scrape the drive.

We have all been feeling cold, so we got our old oil fired boiler replaced with a newer, much more efficient and smaller one. We replaced some radiators and had the system flushed and cleaned. Hopefully we will be cosier this winter.

Other News

I keep having to rescue these red tailed bumble bees from the horses’ drinking trough. This involves me scooping one up whilst reciting “please don’t sting me, please don’t sting me”, until the wet bee is set upon the fence post to dry off. You can see her dark fur coat is all wet.

Drying off from a swim
So many types of bumble bees at the farm.

Cushy Butterfield’s Welly

As you know, Cushy Butterfield has arthritis. She also has an abscess in her hoof which was cut out by our farrier. So now when she goes out to the field she has to wear a welly to stop dirt or dampness getting in as that will encourage the nasty bugs in her hoof. She does not like wearing a welly which I think you will see in the pictures. The welly came with its own straps to hold it on, but she shakes her leg to get it off. So I’ve had to resort to gaffa tape.

  • Not talking to you
  • You think this is funny?
  • I’m flouncing off now

In A Jam

This week saw the blackcurrants achieve full ripeness. They were hanging like grapes so we decided to make jam. GSS followed us with his camera to get a photo-montage feel to recording the process.

First catch your blackcurrants. Try not to eat them or give them to the dog or the chickens.
Prepare the fruit by washing and destalking. Wash the jars and then put in the oven to sterilize them. Place the blackcurrants in water and bring to the boil.
When the fruit has boiled for 10 minutes, add sugar. We used less than the recipe as the blackcurrants were really sweet and juicy. Stir to dissolve the sugar then keep an active boil.
The jam is ready when it sets a cold plate. Take your finger through it and it does not flow back. Ladle hot jam into sterile jars. Put lids on but not tight.
This part is really important so listen up people. Licking the spoon, it has to be done. Next make scones. Ignore dogs, warm scones and fresh made jam are not good for them.
Always make scones to taste the jam, it’s tradition. Ignore dogs who resort to getting under feet and under tables, scones and jam are too good for them.
The first batch, note Expert Forester photobombing.

I can’t wait for the blackberries to be ripe. We have lots of them. I’ve heard you can get damaged picking them, all part of the fun.

Fresh made jam and scones, too good for dogs, no matter how big they make their sad brown eyes.

What a Difference a Year Makes

We are coming up for a year on the farm. Whilst I’m trying to think up what we can do for a party whilst still in partial lockdown, I took some time to look at photos taken when we got the keys last year (on the left hand side below) and how the place looks now (right hand side).

GSS won’t pose now, too cool.
Took down the plant which had started to prise the roof off the stables, and new polytunnel.
Thinned out the laurel at the left side, our electricity pole was replaced as well.
GSM had a lot of bottles of stuff she doesn’t drink (she is the gin queen). We added our stash. NB Liquor lasts ages in this house, bottles of wine however are drunk on the day of purchase lest they go off lol
Doofus took time to get used to the new place, he’s totally relaxed now.
We put in a new kitchen and bathroom.

Our moving in day was hot and dry and we had all the doors and windows open. We soon learned that was an invitation to flies and birds to come on in. GS got good at catching birds with a towel and taking them outside to fly off. The flies on the other hand were dispatched. This year, it’s cold, raining, dark and we have the heating on…

Journey to the Edge

Millie came to visit yesterday so Geordie Smallholder hitched up the trailer to the tractor so that those of us nursing sore joints could go see the waterfall at the very southerly tip of the farm.

  • Bob the Builders’ trailer
  • Needy Blonde needs a kiss from Millie
  • Doofus on my lap, heavy doggie
All aboard!

The journey down was very bumpy and Doofus sat on me the whole time. He weighs a ton btw. When we got to the bottom field the fittest of us scrambled off and the Expert Forester thoughtfully  dropped the side of the trailer to ease the exit of us stiffies. However, he dropped the higher side, so we had to pull Millie by the wellies uphill to get her out. Her bum left shiny clean marks in the trailer.

Skid marks

We then walked to the waterfall, played with the dogs and admired the geology (yes, I really am that boring).

Spot how many times Doofus’s girlfriend the Needy Blonde photobombs.
Somewhere in this picture is a Geordie Smallholder. See if you can spot him. Its very hard because of his natural camouflage.
The waterfall.
A rare picture of GSS with Expert Forester. GSS does the opposite of photobombing. Note Doofus in the background, photobombing, lol.
The girls took the long way back to give the dogs a longer walk. That’s our story, it’s a good one and we are sticking to it.

And where was Geordie Smallholder’s Mother during all of this? She stayed back at the farm after coming out to wave us off with her white hanky. All that excitement made us hungry so we had afternoon tea, scones from the Expert Beekeeper and cakes from the local baker. It’s a hard life here on the farm!

The only time we are quiet.