Chilly October Nights
As the winter is slowly but surely taking it’s grip, I’m starting to feel quite frankly, bloody cold in the evenings. Yet I will NOT have the heating on just yet! Whilst I can still work outside without the aid of a hat and gloves, I won’t put the central heating on. Plus the fact that I am really having to count the pennies at the moment (anyone need a freelance writer?). So we’ve started to use up the logs and kindling I collected from the half-fallen crab apple. It’s actually ok - doesn’t smolder too much and burns fairly slowly, and I think this might be due to the fact that I was exceedingly lazy and just left it in the (well aerated) laundry basket in the kitchen for a couple of weeks. So maybe my procrastination has paid off for once!
I managed to actually do some ‘work’ on the Smallest Smallholding this weekend. Not much - but it still counts as at least something. Ok, it was mostly tidying up again, but it needed doing. The hens absolutely love it when I’m out there, mostly I imagine because wherever I go, inevitably there’s going to be a newly uncovered patch of soggy grass, overturned soil or some other interesting oocurance that will lead to some nice nibbly bits. They have also been assisting me by following me around and systematically obliterating each nice neat pile of leaves I have raked up, or creating great craters in our attempts at levelling out and re-seeding the lawn. I still can’t help but laugh at their signature three-toed footprints that are left behind though, very artistic in their own little way.
We’ve started feeding them pasta in the evenings, on advice from someone in the Omlet forum (apparently pasta as a carbohydrate is calorific, just what Pokey needs), and Yoko seems to be getting better again after a brief couple of down days. I think going to bed with some pasta in her crop has given her the extra oomph she’s needed. She’s started shouting a bit again, which is actually a welcome sign, but I won’t feel like things are really back to normal until she starts shouting at the floor again.
Rich has been busy plastering in the kitchen, and despite his initial frustrations he’s starting to enjoy it as he becomes more proficient. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to (perhaps physically) steer him in the direction of some wood so he can make my greenhouse staging. I would give it a go, but I’m possibly one of the most accident prone and cack-handed people to grace the planet, and I think there is an unwritten rule in this house that LUCY MUST STAY AWAY FROM THE POWER TOOLS, UNLESS CLOSELY SUPERVISED BY RICH.
Next week I’m hoping to get some bulbs into the ground under the hedges in the Smallest Smallholding - alliums, daffodils (pheasant eye, lovely), and anenomes. Mum has also give me some verbena bonariensis seedlings to put in for next summer. The bees absolutely adore them so that’s just what I need to boost the wildlife through-traffic next year. Also on my Things To Do list is eventually tackling and pruning the trees and the last flowering gargantuan buddleia. The warm weather has been encouraging new shoot and bud growth and I’m really reluctant to prune it down just yet, on account of the bees that are still sporadically making an appearance. I wonder when we’ll start getting the frosts?
October 8th, 2007 at 4:17 am
We still smile when the hens rummage around in the garden with us. But I found it hard to be amused when they razed the sorrel patch to the ground!!!!!
But I’d advise not to over do white pasta (wholemeal is better) and give them some mixed corn as well - too much sticky white pasta isn’t good for their digestion. (Best to avoid white bread too).
A good supper is crucial for hens to keep wrm all through the winter nights - our “under-gardeners’ get mixed corn served about an hour before bed time. It’s like a weather forecast - they seem to know when it’s going to be a cold night and they pack their crops full to almost tennis ball size and their feathers stick out at the front
We’ve had a couple of slight frosts already (enough to zap the courgettes and taint the blackberries) but there’s so much colour to enjoy - it’s great to be outside working in the garden!
Celia
October 8th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Hello Celia - yes we do give them wholemeal pasta when it’s available from the supermarket (if it’s good for me it’s ok for them too!), and they also have a bowl of mixed corn out there with their layers mash. I remember Farm Shop Lady advising us about mixed corn last year in the winter. We got them a couple of weeks before Christmas and kept them in the conservatory (no heating) so that they could acclimatise from being in the battery house! I think the corn is good because it’s a slow burning carbohydrate.
You don’t seem too far away from me geographically, so I wonder why we’ve not had any hint of a frost yet? I usually know where the frost ‘hot spots’ (oxymoron!) are in our garden and there’s been no sign. I’m keeping an eye on metcheck though…really don’t want to lose my chocolate cosmos!
October 10th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Sounds like you are extremely busy. I love having a roaring fire in Autumn and Winter. Our log pile is stocking up and soon i will be back to bagging all the wood for the two farmhouses to use.
I have been busy potato grading outside but I didn’t need my hat like you.
Hope you keep ticking the jobs off and I look forward to photographs of the bulbs in spring.
Sara from farmingfriends
October 14th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Glad I found your blog, Lucy. I totally ‘get’ what you’re trying to do, and sympathise with the lack of kindred spirits. I’m not a million miles off 40 (ahem), and I still know hardly anybody (I live in the London suburbs) who understands the gardening/growing/green ‘bug’. When I explain to my wife that what I really want for my birthday is 10m of chicken wire and some wooden stakes from Champion Timber, she struggles to hide a look of pitying incomprehension.
Don’t let the sceptics grind you down!!