The Ups and Downs at Nunnery Farm in 2011

Now as those that have been following me in my attempts at moving ever closer to partial self sufficiency, which is to grow fruit and vegetables to accompany the free range meat I already produce, will already know that Dave the Lamb lost the plot last year and thwarted my attempts good and proper.

 For those that don't, Dave the Lamb was one of last year's lambs that I hand reared in the house after his mother died after giving birth to him and his twin Poppy who sadly I didn't manage to save. Dave was one of the porliest lambs I have ever dealt with and I fully expected to lose him too. Dave, however, had other ideas and is alive and well on Nunnery Farm. In fact Dave has become somewhat of a local celebrity as he always comes with me on the dog walks around the valley and has been known from time to time to accompany me in the Landrover! Dave's problem is he has no idea he is a lamb!

Dave would go out in the garden as he was slowly getting better and would always be with me during the day outside developing the veg patch and all was well. I imagined chutneys and fruit wines. Dave however had other plans which included eating everything in site and if he didn't like the taste of something he would make his bed in it. Dave the Lamb went berserk. It was so late on in the year when he did this (just as everything was getting ready to be eaten by ME!) that I actually thought I would have very little to show for my efforts at the end of the year. I am happy to say I was totally wrong!

The plants grew back in no time, my strawberries and raspberries grew in abundance, I couldn't move for blackberries, the hens laid plenty of eggs, in fact we got so much out of the veg patch that I couldn't have been more pleased.

This year I have already started outside and will tell you about that again but I intend to leave out the things I didn't make much use of and replace them with more of what I did. When the year ended I had made so much fruit vodka I thought it would last me a lifetime  and I was certain that Christmas would be a very merry one indeed.

        

The meat I produced on the farm last year meant that I did not buy a single piece of lamb, pork or beef. The sausages were split into 3 flavours pork/leek, pork and spicy pork which unfortunately other people have now discovered and my stocks have depleted!! 

I made lots of chutney and I still have lots left so at last I have a little home produce larder and have a small pile just aging nicely.. Unfortunately I didn't manage to save any of the vodka and considering the amount I produced is a little bit of a concern - I will simply have to make more this year!

 Dave the Lamb was forgiven and still spends his days playing with the dogs and joins in chasing the cats and he still gets into bother. The dogs are ok, the cats are still going and Kyle who is 2 now is having the time of his life and becoming quite the farmer!

This year I will produce twice as many vegetables and twice as much to drink - well, that's the plan!

It's Nearly Time

Sadly it is almost time to say goodbye to the two Saddleback pigs I have on the farm at the moment. I have to organise a trailer and get my paperwork in order for tomorrow.

I have just brought the next set of weaners on to the farm which makes taking the older two a little bit easier to deal with because while I am looking after the little ones I am not thinking about the two that have gone. It works for me anyway but it is never something that I look forward to, enjoy or find easy to deal with.

I have never really been comfortable with the killing of animals for any reason and drifted in and out of vegetarian phases in my younger days. I think the first attempt at becoming a vegetarian was after buying The Smiths album and listening to Meat is Murder. Upon hearing Morrisey confirm the killing of an animal was death for no reason and death for no reason was murder my life as a vegetarian had begun to take shape .... unfortunately after many months struggling to find vegetable curry and breakfast without bacon tasty I decided that a vegetarian life was not really for me and so I started to think about how I could eat meat without the guilt trip it carried with it for me personally. This came about by me thinking of raising my own meat as strange as it sounds because that way I could ensure that the life any animal I raised for meat would be controlled by me and I could thereby ensure their life would be the best it could possibly be. In knowing that my pigs are raised the way nature intended without any growth hormones or cruel practices that routinely take place with indoor intensively farmed pigs I reached a place where I was happy to eat that meat.

This aside, the weeks leading up to the date that I take the animals to slaughter I still find terribly upsetting and I find it hard to think about anything else. I consle myself with the fact that they have had a great life that is not offered to many animals destined for the food chain. The first time I took animals to slaughter I realised just how much respect is required for the animal that in the end gives you everything.

So here I am at the saddest point in the journey that is home grown meat. I now need to get the papers and pigs ready so they can be transported.

I need to complete the BPEX forms (these are avilable online at the BPEX site) and email these to the Abattoir. The pigs will need to arrive no later than 10am in the morning. I will load the pigs on the trailer then ear tag them. I have always got someone else to do this for me just because I am a softy but I am going to try and do this myself this time ... lets see!! I will set off at 6.00am to get there before 7am which is the earliest I can unload them and then get them settled into their pen.

So it is a sad day but it is also makes me happy because I am standing for what I believe in and by doing what I do I am making a difference.

Dave's Destruction Knows No Bounds

Now Dave has been causing trouble yet again ....

Dave In His Hiding Place Avoiding Capture

His distruction of the entire garden has meant that I have been left with only one choice......

My Raspberry Bush

Dave is heading to solitary confinement.

Another Bush After Dave Dined On it

Harsh some may say ......but fair!

Another Plant Trashed

He has been moved to the second unused pig area for a few days in the hope that he will at last want to live in the field ... or get a taste for grass!!

Nat Taking Dave to His New Home

As you can see by the way Dave had to be transported to his new home he is not impressed. I will see how he goes on and see about letting him out with the others in about a week for good behaviour!!

Surprisingly The Nunnery Farm Completely Overfilled Skip Remains

My really really grown up plan failed to work yesterday which was, as I had said, to hide upstairs during collection of slightly overfilled skip and wait for him to just go away and I am sure it would have worked but the driver phoned me for directions en-route and once I had spoken to him felt a bit silly sitting in the bedroom when he knew I was in so there was only one thing to do.

 

I faced the music

He was not impressed and told me he had never seen anything like it in 20 years to which I replied Ooh Thanks - he didn't appear to appreciate my good wit.

He  walked around it twice, got out his camera and proceed to snap away from every angle. Then turned and walked to his van saying he would return tomorrow with another skip which I had to put the top half of the skip in.

I asked if he was taking snaps of my piece of tightly packed art so he could enter it in Skip Monthly Magazine Best Fill Competition or whatever magazine skip men had in their offices these days of course knowing it would win ... he didn't reply!

I said he could always take it to The Tate.

Again nothing!

I went in!!

I presume I am now blacklisted in the world of local skip hire!!

Anyone Fancy a Fruit Tea?

 This blueberry bush I planted a couple of years ago had a few little berries on it last time I looked but the chickens have obviously got there first - oh well never mind - next year I may move it or cover it with a little light netting to protect the crop - which is tiny anyway to say the least! I need to read up on what sort of place they like to be in and maybe increase production next year.

 If there is one thing that grows in abundance it is sorrel. I wish there was more use for it, what with the garden and field I could produce a tonne of the stuff easily each year! There is an endangered bird called the Twite which feeds on the seeds of the sorrel plant and so therefore I guess I can live with the abundant growth of it. Although I am not a great fan [ there seems to be a feathered friend who is!

Onto my herbs and although I do not have many at the moment, those that I do have seem to be growing in abundance. Another herb that grows like wild fire is fennel. I bought one plant from a garden centre about 3 years ago - what a mistake - it is wild. I now have fennel making up part of my lawn, the majority of my weeds. It comes up through the tarmac, through walls - advice for this thing is do not touch it with a barge pole! No one likes it here at Nunnery Farm even the geese steer clear and that is saying something. It is typical the things I don't like grow like mad!

Although saying that I do pretty well with the herbs dotted here and there and I will certainly be re-stocking these to include more sage which although invasive and quite tough has not come back this year and it was an amazing plant which served me right up to the middle of winter which was a shame.

My thyme is fantastic, so is my rosemary. I have a bay that is plodding along but to date has never let me down. If you want any mint then look no further there is tonnes of it but I rather like mint, the flowers and the bees that is attracts so for me it can be as invasive as it likes. I also have what I think is lemon bergamot - no idea what to use it for but I do like to smell it now and again!




I have marjoram which always appears year after year.  I have tried for years to grow dill unsuccessfully. I think it may be time to try and grow some in a pot, everyone elses dill that flourishes seems to be contained so maybe thats the way to go! My wonderful sister has attempted a dill plant but as yet remains just soil. I will keep you updated on Sis's Dill Developments!

Molly in the sun - she lies in the same place for hours, thats a berner for you, just wait until she meets her new baby sister Elf!

I only realised that this cherry tree was in fact a cherry tree a couple of years ago. There are 3 close together causing disruption to my telephone lines given  chance. The third one is just straggly and needs to come down but the other two are fantastic and this year seem to have gone mad. The trouble is because these trees are so big there is no way I can cover them with net to protect them and the majority of cherries are to high for me to harvest which is a shame. I will probably get a pot of jam if I am lucky!

I plan to get a couple of apple trees, a couple of pear and seek out some good grafted ones that will produce some nice fruit in quick time.

If you haven't noticed I am on catch up and for the record I am not doing too bad!!

This is Bean in the sunshine just about to get the hose pipe!

Meg is keeping well away from Bean. Bean drives Meg mad and here is Meg doing what she does best - chilling!

I

I don't need to tell you who this lump is, she will not lie outside but insists on the settee. This one is about to get replaced and so she doesn't know it yet but her days on the sofa are numbered!

Minnie Margaret Myrtle Moo

Oohh forgot to say I have discovered the nest of one hen so my egg collecting has increased slightly. Most of my hens are larger ladies and they only have to sit down in the sunshine for a rest and they go broody so that is the current reason for lack of eggs both for me and my Honesty Box!

Will They .... Wont They ..... Skip Stress at Nunnery Farm

Will they or won't they - is the question that has troubled me all night because today is intended collection day of the skip and I am not sure they are going to agree to move it as I may have gone slightly overboard!

Recently there has been some building works going on in the human quarters of Nunnery Farm. I use the term human loosely as thinking about it there are more animals live in our house - in fact we are outnumbered by a staggering 3 to 1! That is the calculation by not including Dave who is actually semi-permanent and the baby Elf who will be joining us very soon! Does that mean they live in a palace or we live in a kennel!

Anyway during the course of these renovations I have been dumping all the stuff to go to the tip in a pile in the garden ready for the day there was enough to fill a skip and last week when an old mattress was added to the pile I thought it time to order a skip and get rid.

Seems simple enough - the skip arrived and not being an expert in skip sizes I ordered a small one thinking this would do. When it arrived it did look rather a little smaller than I had hoped but not being put off began the task of filling it, and filling it, and filling it!

I did manage to get everything in as is evident with the photograph but in the meantime had created a rather tall tower and I had a funny feeling there are skip rules and one of those is do not over fill. I decided that when the man came to collect it I would plead ignorance and apologise and say I just didn't know that to be the case and hope he let me off.

With that decision made I went into the house to phone them and realised that my plan was useless

I found that just below the telephone number and just below where I had signed there were clear instructions about the load level - fantastic!

There is only one thing to do in such circumstances I must act senbsibly and like a grown up. I am going to open the gate so the truck can get down the drive once I have fed the pigs this morning and then I am going to pretent I am not in.

I will update later as to whether the load has been removed!

Nunnery Farm Has an Unexpected Harvest

 After planting out our bedding plants my Trusty Helper and I set about checking just what was going on in the gardens of Nunnery Farm and we were completely taken by surprise.

 A gooseberry bush planted a year ago and forgotten all about had a hidden bunch of treasure, we counted 4 little gooseberries -

We then cam across our blackcurrant bush which seemed to be packed full of fruit - only one or two are ripe at the moment but hopefully this will continue to grow like it has been doing and we can maybe make some jam or even some cordial to see us through the winter, especially hot on Bonfire Night!

 Next was Kyle's plot - he planted a couple of tomato seeds, about 50 lettuce seeds and 2 pumpkin seeds last week when I did the vegetable plot and he was so excited today to see that it was time to split the seedlings and plant them into bigger pots. So my little baby potted all his plants in bigger tubs and we moved them into the little greenhouse we have.

The tomato plants have now flowered and so fingers crossed we will have our first set of tomatoes to eat in the not too distant future.


It was lovely explaining to Kyle that his seedlings would grow into food we could eat and then the flowers on the tomatoes would soon die to reveal some more little treasures we could eat too. I have never been more excited about growing our own food now that my little boy can have fun growing things with me too.

But this was not all that was to be found .....

Should Have Gone To Specsavers - The Flock Get Sheared

Today was a more productive day in that I actually got something done without Dave causing too much disruption. My fashionable Flock got re-styled revealing thier new Summer looks with funky cropped locks!!

From this.....

To this .....

This ....

 and This ...

Back to work in the garden tomorrow and in particular the veg patch. I have decided to get that done and planted up with my winter veg before I continue with the general gardening. I am worried that it will be too late to plant anything by the time I get the weeding finished! Especially if my two assistants are involved!

The Garden - Keep Calm and Carry On

I am continuing to try and do a couple of hours a day in the garden weeding and edging ever closer to the late revival of my vegetable patch!I have stuck to my plan and come rain or shine I have been out with my gardening tools and tried to push on.

However, I was hoping to be a little further on by the end of last week but I can now see the weeding itself taking me a few days - if not weeks more - this is due to me being joined by my two trusty helpers (one is a Lamb and one is 2 years old). The truth is they are not really helping at all.

Ready For Action

During yesterday's 2 hour allocated gardening slot Dave the Lamb stuck to my leg like glue - literally. When I looked down he was there and when I was not looking down he jumped up to remind me he was there.

View from Above

Dave on his Back Legs

When you are bending down, digging or generally moving around, one thing that really doesn't help you is a lamb wrapped around your legs. I tripped over constantly and when I wasn't tripping I was hobbling around trying to carry on ignoring him the best I could. As well as this minor inconvenience, my other helper headed off towards the pond every time my back was turned grabbing anything he could lay his hands on and throwing it, or attempting to throw it in the water. 

I put my tools away and went back inside.

So all in all a very productive day!