Showing posts with label Pigs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pigs. Show all posts

For the joy of it

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It is clear there will be challenges. Well let's be honest, there already are.  H was up at the crack of something horrible to go for a second interview with Lidl, which it appears is the blue ribband of part time jobs. She did some shelf stacking, they asked her if lifting five trays of yoghurt was too much for her (at her current job, she hefts about 25kg sacks of animal feed!)  and she was duly interviewed. She forgot to ask what happens next so we now await ... something.

Boo was catching up on mocks, which she missed as result of gadding about  doing study days in Oxford, and as the sun was shining and my week has been minced stuffed and baked twice over, and this was quite possibly my only day to get  anything done, I planted stuff and cleared out the greenhouse.

I'm actually excited about the chance to get right back to roots. We've been trying so desperately to turn everything we do into a business for so long, I've forgotten what it's like to do the things I used to do for joy, for joy.

I know it's going to be hard. We're looking into selling all the goats, pretty much all the sheep, the pony. Gulp. But. We'll have Boo's sheep to care for. They are sweet, and slightly bonkers, and purebred and few in number. When H goes off to Uni for at least four days a week, I'll have her little horse to care for, and he's pure gold.

On Friday, for the first time in - ever? - I sat down to watch episode one in a season of Gardener's World (I do love me a bit of Monty and Nigel) and thought about my garden, and growing veg just for my  family.

Today, I planted a square bed of red onions. Just one pack, from the feedstore where H works. It was brilliant. They are our onions. The garden at the field that was once our CSA garden will lie idle this year. If we're lucky, we might add some compost, even build the odd bed, for future use, but by and large it will do nothing, unless perchance it becomes a pig pen. That's not out of the question.

The garden beside our house - roughly the size of an allotment, and pretty much our own, personal, in splendid isolation. allotment garden - will be home to our vegetables. The flowers I'd already started as a potential business, will now become beds and borders and hopefully armfulls of cut flowers for our own pure joy.

That is, if I get this job!

Possibly because of the sunshine, there was a little bit of heart singing today.


Simply Loving the Land.

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There is such an imperative in the air.

We've had a busy and tiring day, but we have achieved much, and if there is one thing I love, sisters, it is working as a family. Can I get an Amen?!

We are under intense pressure, right now, but it brings out the best. Late, late in the season we planted a big half acre patch of pumpkin and beans, now only God and the weather can decide if they grow and give us something in return, or if it was all for nuthin'.

Today, after they got up early and rode, and after an extended stint of room sorting, the girls pitched up down at the field and spent a couple of precious hours weeding. This is not, you know, Margot Leadbetter in her rubber gloves weeding. This is like, Alien meets Day of the Triffids weeding. After we ploughed the old market garden, it gave birth to some serious weeds.

In fact, the half we didn't get to plant is Nettleopolis. But. In exciting developments, we have decided to IGNORE the wretched feudal barons. I am working on suitably Medieval curses. A plague on both their houses. So. The other half. We have been ... netting ... for ... PIGS!  Yes, the return of the oinkers.

So Neil strimmed and post bashed and electric fenced while we girls hoed and cultivated and generally nettle bashed and found amazing bits of flint and wondered if they were hand tools and wondered if Phil Harding who after all only lives down the road might be convinced to come and have a look at our plot. Tone.

Tomorrow (or when time allows) I do believe it's time to clear the turkey pen.

Photos will follow - just getting the hang of a new camera - ill gotten gains from the sale of a small grey pony, who, before you weep too many tears, has gone to live in pony HEAVEN as he was sold to top-smart dressage yard lady where H works, for her daughter, and he is now like, a PRINCE of a pony.

A small but significant thank you to Jules - for reminding us that what we were perhaps taking a teeny bit for granted, is someone else's wildest dream.

To bed now - up far too late, working on something to offer to anyone who might like to like to live and love simply on the land.


Pig

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Oh my goodness, time to breathe would be nice. Oh, and the ability.
I have my winter chest infection settling in nicely, a stinking cold, right as the girls' term draws to a close and all the stuff happens - including H going into meltdown about the injustice of it all - and then the pigs got butchered.
I have dry cured about 5 kilos of streaky bacon, well actually H did most of that, yesterday, put an enormous ham into a wet cure (this is the first time I've done any of this, I'm doing it all in hope and prayer!) and then today made an ENORMOUS pork pie.
I have taken some photos and tomorrow I promise I will look for my camera lead.
We've moved some goats around - Paisley and Poplin are being dried off and must be covered soon, we're struggling to find a stud goat this year - and Linen and Lace are moving down to Mill Farm to be with their mummies, re-establish their family links, and scoot around outside a lot. It's a great place to be as they have a huge open yard, so they can be outside when ever they like but are not in mud and mire. Then there are open fronted barns, so they can also be inside when ever they like.
Scallywag has moved back up to the barn, where we will feed her up, which she will love, and she will milk through, if her record is anything to go by. She is too old to kid again, and we don't want to put that stress on her, a nice easy season of just eating and giving milk, going out in the head high weed paddock, and keeping ponies company, will suit her.
Three days more of school, and then we will get ready for Christmas - we haven't done the whole November thing, not even made our cards yet!
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