Updates on the blog have been rather sparse lately but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening behind the scenes. Mostly the time just goes with the amount of work needed during summer but a new day job has taken up some time and the converted barn/holiday let has been pleasantly busy as well so the …
Even now I occasionally find myself thinking of our smallholding as the “new” place but it’s been 3 years since we moved here so it’s time for the third anniversary blog update. The various blog updates certainly make for some interesting reading and it’s at times like this when this blog really proves its worth. …
Now that the weather seems to have settled down a little I can safely think about doing a “Spring” update here. We’ve had a bit of everything from the weather over the last week or so – snow, hail, rain, sun, cloud – but the forecast for the week ahead seems to show a more …
Despite the occasional unseasonal weather just lately, I wanted to post a summer stock take for the current livestock. As luck would have it we had a fairly decent day of sunshine last weekend so I was able to get some quick snapshots as well. Cattle The two Dexter’s are quite calm now and happy enough …
An update on the chickens is long overdue and particularly relevant now that spring is arriving in the North Pennines. This last winter has been a real eye-opener because both flocks of chickens went through a fairly drastic moult. We hadn’t seen that at all during the first winter here so it was a bit …
I’m constantly reminding myself of the good fortune in having a selection of fairly good outbuildings at my disposal. They’re generally weatherproof most of the time with power and light available so they’re perfectly usable for my needs. The problem I’ve had is that the original potting shed had collected more and more junk since we …
Continue reading ‘Final preparations before planting begins’ »
As part of the preparations for the planned new livestock arrivals, we arranged for a fencing contractor to come and make some changes to existing fencing in the back fields. I’m sure I might have been able to do this work myself but the professionals are definitely quicker and the results are probably a lot stronger than my amateur efforts …
It seemed such a simple idea this morning, I could close up the older main chicken house once they were all out and leave just the newer chicken coop open well before they put themselves to bed. Unfortunately this was not quite as straightforward as I had thought… They’ve enjoyed this elderly but very desirable …
I’d spotted that the British Hen Welfare Trust had some hens to re-home in our area and last Saturday was collection day. I’d been considering doing this earlier in the year and decided against it but now the time was right – particularly given that our existing flock haven’t laid any eggs for quite some …
For several weeks now, the roof on the original chicken house has looked the worse for wear. As far as I can tell this is partly down to the passing years but I suspect it’s not helped by bored crows pecking at it while waiting to pinch any spare chicken food. Finally I got organised …