Wildlife at Night (Video)

Wildlife Camera

A few weeks ago we noticed that some of our hedging plants were being eaten by something. The hedging was only planted in the spring and although it has become established and is growing well it is still quite short, some of the plants are only a couple of feet tall. The hazel and plum were the main targets and they seemed to be eaten from the lower branches upwards so we ruled out deer activity. In an attempt to discover our intruder we bought a little wildlife camera and I thought I share a little post showing what we caught on camera (you might need to expand it to full screen to see it!).

You can just see a pair of eyes at the bottom of the picture where the branches are moving and then a hop hop along the hedge line. Yes, it looks like our culprit is a rabbit. Hopefully it won't take too much of the hedge so it will grow next spring.

We also manage to get a couple of pictures of our local fox, another very good reason to make sure the chickens are locked up safely at night. Finn did spot the fox one day who seemed pretty surprised to be challenged by a black lab in the field and soon legged it.

M set the camera up in the byre to see if we could capture some footage of our barn owl. The video isn't great but he/she is definitely in residence. Hopefully we'll be able to get some video of the deer in the woods soon.

Winter arrives

Cold days.

After a very mild Autumn I think we were caught out with the early arrival of winter weather; snow, hail and very cold days have arrived.

The woods looked lovely with a covering of snow but unfortunately it meant that any thoughts of gardening had to be put on hold.

I think we'd almost forgotten how cold this old house could be and so there was nothing else for it but to light the fire. It never takes Jess long to notice when the fire is lit. To be honest I love having the fire lit and snuggling up watching a good film or drama. We eventually managed to finish watching Dickensian and War & Peace, both of which we had recorded ages ago.

 

At the very end of October we headed off to the SECC in Glasgow to visit the joint Crafts for Christmas and Stitching, Sewing & Hobbycrafts shows. We had a great time and it was so easy to get to by train. Although we didn't buy very much we couldn't resist this absolutely gorgeous bowl by Muggins Pottery and the funny piggy salt and pepper set (can't remember the name of the seller) where the salt and pepper comes out of their snouts. There was also the wonderful stand by Beth Currie, she produces beautiful hand crocheted jewellery which is definitely worth a look for that very special and unique gift.

 

I think the pigs were slightly confused with their first experience of snow and were running around very excitedly. Unfortunately after it melted we realised that their enclosure was becoming pretty waterlogged. They didn't seem to mind the mud too much but we were worried about the effect of constant wetness on their feet and so started to look for alternative accommodation. Also after M's face plant in the mud it was getting difficult to walk through the area, sadly I didn't have a camera to catch the moment of him lying in the mud being nuzzled by Ginger.

 

Although part of the byre roof is missing we decided that we would be able to make a dry area for the pigs inside along with access to an outside grass area. Jess and Finn were slightly bemused at losing part of their paddock but needs must. We were dreading trying to walk the pigs to their new enclosure but with 2 buckets of food they followed us. Yay, we had a major pat on the back after this as we had visions of them running off around the woods.

 

It took a wee bit of getting used to but they settled in quickly and the nice new grassy enclosure was completely de-turfed in 24 hours. After a few adjustments to the sleeping area they can be found cuddled up together snoring away in the afternoons.

One of the best things about rainy cold days is that they become our craft days and M has been very busy. He has made some Christmas decorations but as Christmas doesn't officially begin in our household until Dec I'll save those photos for later. However, he did also make this charming owl who is now very much at home in our garden. I have been knitting but I'll come back to that at a later date.

I mentioned a while ago how we are fortunate to have so much wildlife around us; well, this little fella somehow found his way into the kitchen. I didn't even spot him at first, I thought it was some grass/dirt (not that our house is that dirty!!). M noticed him and it was lucky that I hadn't stood on him, funnily enough the dogs hadn't even investigated him. M was very brave and relocated him back outside again.

  

For us November is always a very important time for remembrance and so we went to our local church for the Remembrance Day service. It was a wonderful service with numerous poems and writings from past servicemen and a very important message of learning from the past. The organist also played the Last Post on his trumpet which was beautiful and always brings a tear to my eye. After the service we stopped at the local war memorial. We have passed this point many times over the last year and never been to see it. The gardens are so well tended, always full of beautiful flowers and the standing soldier is always freshly dressed at this time of year.

We had an attempt to harvest our sweet potatoes in October but decided they needed a little longer and this was our harvest. Not the most spectacular display but oh they are so tasty. It hasn't put us off trying them again but I think fewer plants to the pot and an earlier start may produce a bigger harvest.

With a birthday and wedding anniversary in November and another birthday just after Christmas this is always a busy pressie time of year for us. This year M bought me the complete collection of The Good Life, it is loosely what our lives are based on but hopefully without quite so many disasters. If you've never seen it then it's worth lighting the fire, snuggling under a blanket and spending a few hours giggling - it's good for your health.

I nearly forgot to say massive congratulations to Andy Murray for finishing the year as World Singles number 1 with a magnificent win at the ATP World Tour Finals. Also huge congrats to Jamie Murray (sorry, couldn't find a photo) for finishing as World Doubles number 1. (There are some great pictures posted by their mum on the BBC News.)

Phew!!!

And Breathe

Well, it took a while but I got there in the end and managed to complete a round up of our first year on our smallholding. If you read it all then congratulations that you made it through; hopefully you got a sense of what we are up to, our challenges and how we are getting along.

It's been quite intriguing to look back at what we have been doing, what we achieved and how the landscape has changed in a short 12 months. I love the picture above as it captures so much of what we have been doing; from the orchard and hedging to the veg patch and the pig ark, it's all here.

I didn't even get around to mentioning the wonderful wildlife we have here, the deer we see in our field and woods, the heron, frogs and ducks in the midden, our resident barn owls and the local bats. We have been mesmerised by the variety of birds and since my recognition skills are so poor we just had to get a book of British birds. It is a shame they don't stay still long enough to give me a chance to find them in the book. At least we could identify robins, sparrows, crows, magpies, buzzards, kestrels, willow warblers and I think curlews. Unfortunately we never seem to have a camera when it's needed.

We had numerous house martins nesting around the barn and at the side of the house and had to rescue a few of the babies who weren't quite ready to fly. The most exciting moment was watching a fledgling learning to fly, it was running down the yard flapping until eventually it flew.

There was a commotion one day with some wrens making a lot of noise and then we realised that a chick had got it's leg caught in some twine used for it's nest and was hanging upside down. The mum and dad couldn't get it free and then it fell quite a distance and bounced off some old crates. Thankfully we were able to rescue it and put it back in the nest, after M had remove the dangerous plastic twine.

 

In an effort to combat the intrusive weeds and generally tidy up the veg patch M built wooden edging around the whole area. it definitely neatens up the whole place and will hopefully make it more manageable next year.

One unexpected and unwanted surprise was the discovery of this little family in the barn, yes, they are baby rats. It probably explained the ripped pig food bag but M took these off to the far side of the field and put preventative measures in place to deal with the parents. The pig food is now secure and will hopefully be eaten just by the pigs now.

Talking of pigs, they are growing really big now and are still as entertaining as ever. They are loving the apples and rooting around their large enclosure. We have learnt that they are very quick to notice when the battery is flat on the electric fence and will then try to disconnect the whole thing. Hopefully this is one mistake we only make once.

 

I love this time of year, the change in colours can be so dramatic and the gorgeous deep red of the blueberries is heart warming.

As the leaves turn and fall we are able to roam more freely in the woods again although it does mean there are lots of jobs to do before the onset of winter. Thankfully M is a dab hand with the mower, strimmer and brush cutter!!! We also coppiced a lot of willow, clearing out as much dead wood as possible. It's a pretty big job which we have yet to complete as there's nearly as much willow as ash around our woods.

Although it's been a mild autumn we have had a few wet and windy days which call for indoor activities and so emerged another bench made by M. Unfortunately we didn't have any paint left over and so we had to buy some more, this was half price for some reason!! It wasn't until a few weeks later that we realised how bright it really was as we could see it from the road, 3 fields away.

 

Another great thing about this time of the year is the end of the main harvesting and preserving of vegetables, which in our case meant the last carrots, peppers and Jalapenos. We are fortunate to have an old, highly productive apple tree and some autumn raspberries and in a last ditch attempt to use them all I embarked on another batch of apple and raspberry/blackcurrant crumbles. We also had some bananas well past their best so I made a couple of small banana loaves with the aim of freezing one but they didn't last the weekend - too tasty.

This is the very last picture of the kitchen, I promise, but I had to include a little photo of the final touch, our blinds arrived and for once we didn't pick plain neutral colours. I just love them.

I often think autumn can be as busy as spring in the garden as plants are lifted, divided and potted up before the cold weather, tender plants are brought into the greenhouse, pots are replanted with autumnal colours and bulb planting beings in earnest. Having removed all the dead lobelia and marigolds from the hanging baskets we managed to give them a lift with some ivy and winter pansies which I hope will start to flower soon. We were pretty disappointed with the lack of bulbs/flowers around the woods last year and so set about planting lots of daffodils, tulips, ferns and primulas in areas where we will get the benefit of their colours. I can hardly wait until Spring.

One last job for M was a second coat of black paint on the yard gates which look great and match the house now. We were thrilled when a car stopped one day and a chap (with 4 children) got out to chat about the history of the farmhouse where he spent the majority of his childhood when his grandparents owned it. He was a lovely man and the memories he had were fascinating. We are still so delighted to be here and hearing his stories brought the farm of old to life for us.

12 months (Aug&Sep)

August 2016

What a wonderful month, full of the promises of many harvests to come. Plants growing happily in the sunny and warm environment combined with long days for enjoying the outdoors. It was a very exciting time when we hoped to literally see the fruits of our labour.

The bench left by the previous owners had a make over and yes, M used up the rest of the green paint left over from when I painted the greenhouse staging. How lovely to see it nestled happily in amongst the Hazels in full leaf.

 

We were fortunate to find that we had quite a number of large and fruitful blackcurrant bushes and we tried our best to harvest as much as possible before the birds ate them all. However, sadly we missed out on the red currants as they disappeared overnight. Mum gave me her (award winning - 1st prize at her local fair) jam recipe and so I made a batch of blackcurrant jam, M used some to start off some hedgerow wine and the rest were destined for the freezer.

 

In the first week we made the journey to go and collect our pigs. Full of enthusiasm and a little anticipation we set off and a little while later home came 2 very cute and funny little animals. It was a bit like when we first got the chickens and we couldn't help but watch them explore their ark and enclosure. We also discovered that they love to be petted and scratched. In a bid not to get too attached we decided to call them Ginger and Spot, just to be able to tell them apart.

 

The first onions were harvested and to our delight we had some reasonably big broccoli which miraculously survived the slugs and caterpillars.

We tried lifting a couple of potato plants to check if they were ready and were disappointed to find that they had been attacked by some kind of animal, slugs or worms or strangely wasps. So we lifted the whole crop to try to save the best of them. It was really disheartening to have to chuck about 50% of the harvest and next year we would have to rethink our potato growing. Our squash also failed miserably, mainly due to slugs so that was another crop which would need to be relocated.

In the middle of the month M had gone out to do some jobs around the woods when he came back to say that there was a deer caught in the barbed wire fencing which separates us from the neighbouring farm. The deer had caught his hind leg between the top 2 lengths of barbed wire which had then twisted like a tourniquet around his leg so he was on the ground (on our side of the fence) with his leg in the air. M managed to get over the fence to the farmers field and cut one of the lengths of wire to free the deer. Sitting well back on the quad I watched the poor animal try to run away but dragging his back leg. Worried about the condition of him we called the SSPCA who arrived really quickly. Despite searching our woods we could not find him and presumed that it probably had a dead leg or pins and needles and once the feeling had returned he had probably run off. A happy ending - hopefully.

 

Despite all the important jobs to be done we were pretty fed up with the sad looking little Wendy house in the yard. Before we could start painting M spent some time re-felting the roof, adding a bit of flashing along the roof line and replacing a few rotten boards at the back. Then, after much deliberation over colours, we painted it lavender and stone. It strangely gave us a real sense of achievement and joy to see the little house looking all new.

 

Well into the month it became apparent that there was an issue with the tomato plants as some of the leaves had started to turn yellow. I researched the Internet and all our gardening books but was convinced that it wasn't blight. The plants looked awful but started to set flowers so rather than chuck them we thought we'd just see how the fruits got along. After all the seed sowing, pricking out and potting up it was pretty demoralising to see these sad looking plants deteriorating every day. The baths were brilliant and kept us in carrots and a wide variety of salads through the whole summer. M even managed to make them less ugly by giving them a coat of grey paint.

 

Despite the numerous sunny days we were often surprised at how changeable the weather was and how inaccurate the weather app could be. It was hard to believe that these photos were taken on consecutive days; it was fortunate we always had warm and waterproof clothing to hand. Oh and these were the best of the onions we harvested from the onion sets, the seeds I sowed were a bit too late and didn't really have long enough to develop so in the end we had lots of little ones.

 

We made sure we still had plenty of walks at the seaside where we were able to enjoy the bright, clear days and of course on the not so nice days we had the Olympics to watch.

September 2016

Fully immersed with harvesting, preserving, saving seeds and taking cuttings we knew that as the summer drew to a close that we would remain pretty busy.

The pigs were starting to grow and were such a wonderful sight squealing and oinking for their food. We also discovered that they loved the apples from the trees as an afternoon treat. M built a little shelter for their feeder as we anticipated the onset of wind and rain.

 

For the first time ever we managed to successfully grow runner beans and had a huge harvest (despite the best efforts of the wasps to eat them all). Thankfully Debbie, from Hidden Valley Pigs, had given me a wonderful runner bean chutney recipe which I couldn't wait to try. (We spent 2 wonderful days with Debbie and Simon learning as much as possible about smallholding before our house move.) The rest of the beans were chopped, blanched and frozen for the winter months.

I had mixed success with the germination of my tomato, Jalapeno and pepper seeds and ultimately ended up with loads, 26 tomato plants, 10 Jalapenos and 9 peppers in total. Lesson for next year, a family of 2 don't really need that many Jalapenos. However, not to waste them I cut them in half, stuffed them with a mixture of cream cheese and grated cheese before rolling in egg and breadcrumbs. These Jalapeno poppers went in the freezer for later as there were loads more on the plants. (NB Some of the poppers were mild and some were hot and there was no way to tell by just looking!!!)

 

One of the biggest jobs which we had been putting off was to paint the outside of the house including the barn. As I pootled off to see mum for a few days M spent the time preparing the walls and then giving them a fresh look with bright white and painting the wooden doors black. It looked great afterwards and on my return I did help with some bits when I wasn't trying to preserve and freeze fruit and veg.

Despite the appalling state of my 26(!) tomato plants we had a huge harvest and I managed to make about 12-15 pots of passata along with 3 pots of tomato and chorizo soup for the freezer.

M made the most of the change in weather by making another seat (not sure it can be called a bench) from some pallets. Yet again we had some left over paint and so this one matches the Wendy house. It looked wonderful and being near the pig pen meant we could sit and watch them in comfort. He also put some cuttings of willow in a semicircle around it which he hoped he would be able to make into a willow fence next year.

Throughout the month I collected as many of the tomatoes as possible, making lots more passata. I even made some green tomato chutney with the last of the fruits which were not going to ripen. But I was so glad when, at the end of the month, I was eventually able to clear out all the dreadful tomato plants and condemn them to the incinerator, not the compost bins as I was worried that maybe they had some kind of disease. It was time to tidy up the greenhouse and get it ready for winter.

We were fortunate to have 2 of our own small freezers and 2 left by the previous owners but this month we bought a chest freezer; it was something we had always hankered after and would be invaluable with the amount of produce we now had. Especially since I had also started to make and freeze cottage pies, apple & blackcurrant and apple & blackberry crumbles.

 

In preparation for next year we managed to bag a really good deal on a bunch of perennial plugs but oh they were so so tiny. As least there was room to pot them up and grow them on in the greenhouse. Our 2 olive trees had outgrown their large pots, although they were pretty they never did have any olives so we thought we'd give them a chance in the garden. In they went with the usual 'they'll live or die' caveat and we just hoped they would survive the coming winter.

 

By the end of the season the veg patch had been cleared of crops but was in dire need of weeding, digging over and generally tidying up but that was going to be a job for next month. An unexpected bonus was the sight of apples on one of our newly planted trees, we didn't think we would get apples for a few years and they tasted gorgeous. It was a good time for us to reflect on the successful and not so successful (failed!) crops to help with our planning for next year. The list of poor crops grew to include potatoes, squash, cauliflower, red cabbage, sweetcorn, peppers, beetroot and Swiss chard. Whereas the list of why did we grow these included turnip and cucumber. The biggest successes were the peas (loads), beans (runner and broad), carrots and despite their overall small size we did manage some garlic and onions.

The glass on our front door was quite pretty but unfortunately I discovered that I could see daylight at the side of the door and so we took the decision to replace the door and sadly the window would have to be replaced too. We hoped the new door would be fitted before Christmas and maybe before the really cold weather started. Still, it would be interesting to see what M could do with the glass when it was removed.

 

And so we reached the end of first year, we had achieved much more than we had ever dreamed of. It was an education in many ways and lots of hard work but overall we had an immense amount of fun and satisfaction from our efforts. (Shame I couldn't find a better photo) Here's to many more years of fun.