Sexy Chicks and Dirty Hoes

Firstly, it's been a long while since the last update, sorry for that, we've just been busy both at home and away. I know how you all hang on our every update....;)



So, what news? Well first off, as you can see the chickens arrived. As you can also see, Kate was very pleased about the arrival of her 'girls'. They do have names, but I forget what they are as they keep changing - one's called Marigold because it likes rubber gloves. I have no idea how Kate knows this and I think I prefer to keep it that way. They spent the first week behind their fox-proof electric netting getting used to their new surroundings. Buzz as usual took a keen interest in proceedings until he found out why the netting is fox-proof. I can only imagine what 2000 volts through a wet nose feels like, but he won't go near the chickens at all now, in fact if they come over when he's with us, he runs off - I think as far as he's concerned, chickens have magic powers and are best avoided. Kate let them out of their run after about a week so they became properly free range and the first couple started laying, though they haven't quite got the idea of nest boxes, often leaving them round the garden for us to find - it's like Easter every day at Love Lane House.
Since they went free range, they've been into everything, including watching me eat their eggs for breakfast, which can be quite off-putting (for a second or two, home-laid free range eggs do taste so much better than bought).The veg garden is now starting to come alive, we have our early potatoes coming up, garlic, shallots and onions are progressing well, we have lettuce under glass (well, plastic) and have planted out the sprouts and caulis. We've also put in peas from one of our old neighbours in Wiltshire, have Suzanne's herbs in the propagator along with tomatos and beans, and have sown out carrots and beetroot in the seed bed. The growing season is shorter here, and we're preparing everything a bit too early, but so far we've been lucky with frosts.
While we're on the subject, thanks to those of you who emailed about the grub we found, it seems it is indeed a cockchafer, and the chickens love them.
The sheep seem happy enough too (as you can see, they jump for joy when the camera comes out), however they're shedding their fleeces at the moment so they look scruffy and neglected, I dread to think what the sheep farmers round here make of them. We've moved them onto the garden by the house as mowing the lawn was becoming a bit like painting the Forth bridge, we'd get to one end and have to start again at the other. The paddock is in a bit of a state too with docks and ragwort, so I think we'll have to have it sprayed, 3 sheep just aren't enough to closely crop an acre in spring, but we'll need it for lambing next year so we'll need to improve it somehow.
We've had some more friends down, Ruth and Rob helped us with all sorts, including completing the wire fencing for the pigs, putting up the hurdles to keep the sheep in the garden, cleaning out the chickens and moving a load of wood. Rob worked like a trooper and we got as much done in a couple of days as we would have done in a couple of weekends, so we're very grateful for the help.

So all we need now for pigs is a place for them to live, I'm planning to do the plans this weekend, buy the wood next week and hopefully we'll have pigs in by the end of the month, and pork in time to sell to everyone at our wedding in November. All in all we're still very happy here, and looking ofrward to the great summer we've been promised. As you can see from the picture above, the trees are all coming into leaf at last and the place is transformed, it's a real haven.

Finally, I thought I'd show you early rehearsals for the Easby Animal Marching Band - the band leader seems keen, but the first of the recruits don't seem to know what to make of it....

Getting to Know Ewe

The last week or so has been spent getting to know the sheep a bit better, learning how they tick and giving them somewhere to shelter from the wind. We'd originally tried to make a shelter from some old tarpaulin we had, but every time the wind blew, the sheep scattered as it flapped so we had to have a rethink as they weren't going to get a good night's sleep with the lash-up we'd provided them. The new shelter was made from a pallet we scrounged (like proper Yorkshire farmers) from a building site next to my parent's house. They seem to like it, so we've scrounged the rest of the pallets off the building site to give them an extension (en-suite and a new kitchen, we thought), we might even give them a roof if we're feeling generous.
One thing we're aware of is that we don't have a sheepdog (no matter how hard he tries) or a quad bike (no matter how hard I try) so we need a way of getting the sheep to come to us, rather than the other way around.
The tried and tested smallholder's way is bucket training, the idea being that a bucket with food is rattled and the sheep come running to you, rather than you running round the field like an idiot. So last Friday, Kate started the training, I recorded it in pictures.....


It starts well, the rattling bucket gets their interest.


They soon seem to realise what's in the bucket.


There seems to be an odd one out...


However, one bucket isn't big enough for more than one head, and they start to get a little more...forceful. As you can see, Kate's nerve is going.....


...so she leaves them to it...


...resulting in one sheep with a bucket on her head.

Other than sheep, it's been routine jobs over the Bank Holiday weekend. We realised that the lawn (for lawn read rough grass, it's no bowling green that's for sure) wouldn't be 'mowed' by the sheep when there's an acre of paddock to do, so we did it with the lawn mower. It took 2 days. We have more lawn than we thought we did. We also did some digging, the patch of what we thought was waste ground by the back door turns out to have once been a herb garden, so we've rescued what we can and have an accidental herb/flower bed now.
We also found the big grub thing on the left, we had a few in the veg garden too, they're huge and mean looking but we've no idea what they are - we fed it to the birds anyway but we'll probably find it was the larva of some rare insect that makes veg grow twice as fast as normal or something.
Just after Easter we had a short visit from Nik and Leo, friends from Southampton - we got Nik doing bucket training too, his 'overhead technique' was a new one on me - pictures to follow if he dares to send them to us.
Finally the chicken house - painted, doors attached and bolted together - all that I have to do now is attach the roof and Chickenopolis is ready for it's first residents. It's been a long slog but I've enjoyed spending my evenings making this, and though I say so myself, it actually looks quite good. The only issue is what to do next, 'Project Hogtown' looks to be on the cards.

Sheep!

Big news this week is the arrival of Margi, Morag and Martha as Kate has named them, 3 Wiltshire Horn shearlings (year old lambs basically). We're not intending to eat them (well, I can only speak for Kate and I here, Buzz seems to have other ideas, as you can see on the right), they're going to keep the paddock down and next year have lambs for us to sell or eat as we see fit. The problem is that we've been like worried parents since they arrived, constantly looking out of the window to see where they are, and when they disappear over the hill we have visions of them forming an escape committee and going next door to live with the professionally kept ewes, with their fancy barns and weed free pastures. I'm sure we'll relax a bit once we get to know them better. We're also lucky in that the people we bought them off have been very helpful, Esmond and Ann Black are hobby-breeders who live about 15 miles away and have a flock of around 30 Wiltshire Horns and a wealth of experience. We got to hear about them through the North Yorkshire Smallholders Association. As complete novices they could have so easily sold us disease-ridden fleabags with rotten feet and worms, but they calmly and gently took us through the ins and outs of sheep keeping, with no pressure to buy. Esmond even allowed me to worm our sheep before they left his smallholding so we could be sure they'd be protected and so I could get experience of using the worming gun and more importantly, holding a squrming sheep while dosing it with wormer. Sheep were the last thing on our list for this place, but we're both much happier than we thought we would be about having them here.
Speaking of meeting people through the Smallholders Association, we met a local couple recently in a similar position to us. A chap called Dave posted a request for a 'pocket money' chicken house for his son, obviously we don't have a spare house, but I do have the plans I've been following, so replied that he was welcome to have a copy if he wanted to have a go at making one. In the end his son found a chicken house in budget and Dave was let off the hook, but we arranged to meet up anyway and Kate and I went round to Dave and Julie's house in Richmond on Saturday morning. They keep chickens and sheep, so it was a great way to gain a bit of confdence about sheep keeping (they were so relaxed about their sheep) and get fired up to get the chicken house finished so we can get some birds and start producing eggs. It was a lovely start to the weekend, in the company of nice people doing what we are just setting out to do and I think it gave us both confidence in our own venture.
On the subject of the chicken house, as you can see above all the pieces fit together (no-one is more surprised than I am. Actually, maybe Kate is. And possibly some of you reading this - see Nick, I'm not a complete klutz). Given a boost by seeing Dave and Julie's chickens, we've now started painting the house so it will be weatherproof for a few years to come, then we're just about there and the chickens can move in - finally we're on the home stretch for the chicken house saga.
Our veg are coming through (as are the weeds, naturally) and we bought a hose for the upside-down tap, so at least we can direct the jet of water somewhere other than skywards.
And when the sun comes out, there is no place either of us would rather be than here.

Get Orf My Laaand

We've noticed evidence of a few fishermen coming into our woods night fishing recently. This wouldn't be so bad in itself but a) they make a mess (there are no loos nearby, if you get my meaning - yes, eugh!) and b) the local gamekeeper is also on the committee of the angling club and told me the other day that they don't allow night fishing on the Swale at all. The picture on the left is of the bit they want to fish, the pool in the foreground, it's the first calm water for a good half mile so it's a haven for the fish, it's also where we go to relax when it's sunny.
Since they seem to be coming in from the field next door, where they're allowed to fish from, we've started putting up a barrier to try and stop them, eventually all our felled and fallen trees along with a good selection of prickly and spiny stuff will be laid along the fence. This is the start of it, we hope to make it bigger and denser over time. It might not stop them, but they'll have to be pretty determined to get through;

It's the best we can do without putting up expensive fencing, since trip wires, spikes in the ground and just taking potshots at them violates their human rights or something, bless 'em.
In other news, the first shoots of garlic are coming through and the tomatos and whatever the other thing we planted in the propagator (I can't remember, we'll call it 'surprise veg') have germinated and should be ready to plant out soon, weather permitting. Stuff is actually growing, how great is that?
We have also made plans for the paddock, we have 2 options, sheep from my brother in law (along with his continual 'advice' about how we should do everything) on loan, or buy some rare-breed Wiltshire Horn sheep that don't need shearing or dipping (no, they're not bald, their wool falls off supposedly) from a local breeder, I must ring them and have a chat.
We also got our electric fencing delivered. Well, delivered to the top of the village, the driver came in a 12 ton truck and couldn't get to us. Kate's away in the Subaru at the moment, so I had to go up in the Lotus to collect the boxes. The man laughed when he saw me. Needless to say the boxes were huge, so I drove down through the abbey with boxes sticking out of the window, the boot/engine cover open and a load of metal posts sticking out, and a big box on my lap I could hardly see over. The tourists I passed seemed amused, even when I nearly ran them over.
The fence is great though, it's got a hugely powerful energiser - any fox that comes after our chickens is going to get a big surprise. Or cooked alive. It's powerful enough to power 8km of wire and it's a shame we're not allowed to electrify the fence the fishermen are coming over - that'd put you off, climbing over a fence in the dead of night and 8000 volts through your wedding vegetables.
Anyway, the upshot is we're ready for pigs and chickens now, hopefully both will arrive in the next month or so.
That is, they will if they have somewhere to live. As promised last update, here are the pictures of the chicken house in progress - I'm actually surprised how well it's gone so far - I still have all my fingers, the workbench only has a few battle scars and the bits appear to fit together reasonably well. I'll leave the self-congratulation until it's actually providing useful chicken accommodation, but I'm surprised at how I haven't thrown all the bits on the bonfire in disgust yet. So much so, Kate's trusing me to make the pig ark too - I'd better get my finger out if we're going to get some animals in the next few weeks.

Feeling Like We're Getting Started Now

Finally, we got some seeds in the ground this weekend and it feels great, we've stopped talking about doing this, we've started it proper.
After a couple of weeks of digging, this weekend we got down to raking a seed bed and planting some seeds. Sunday was forecast to be a bright and sunny day, so we decided that we would sow our first veg once the ground had warmed up a little (and when I could drag Kate away from her new washing line, she's very pleased with the washing line - don't ask....).
I left Kate to do some more raking while I went off to do something vitally important (honestly dear), when I got back, she was 'resting' again. You might notice the water trough in the field behind her, this was the pre-requisite for putting the seeds in - a working water supply - so earlier in the week I emptied the stinking, rotten leaf infested water out of the trough (mostly over my feet) and removed the trough itself from it's concrete block housing by disconnecting the pipe. Simple enough job now I thought - go to farm store, buy correct fittings and a tap, connect to existing supply and hey presto, all the water the plants could desire. Wrong. As you can see from the picture, after 2 days of going back and forth, several gallons of leaked water, 3 miles of PTFE tape and a lot of swearing, the tap now looks like this;

It should be said that water does come out now, there are no leaks and we can water the seeds, but at full pressure the jet will have your eye out.

Anyway, with the addition of a chicken wire 'roof' to keep the birds off, we now have stage one of 'Project Love Lane House' underway, which is a good feeling - there are seed potatoes 'chitting' and some seeds in the propagator too, hopefully in a few months we'll be reporting our first harvest. Rabbit, deer, cabbage white, pigeon, pheasant, carrot fly, potato blight and other assorted pests and diseases permitting.

In other news, the chicken house is underway, just an hour or so a night after work, which is short enough to stop me getting over confident and mucking it up or slicing a finger off - although the workbench has a few new holes and cutouts already - pictures (of the progress on the chicken house, not the cock-ups) next time.

We have a period of both being very busy for the next couple of weeks, one or other of us is away for extended periods of time so progress might be a bit slow - forgive us if the updates are a bit thin on the ground - April may well be livestock month however!

Busy, Busy, Busy.

Long time since the last update, so lots to tell.
We finally finished fencing the veggy garden, it looks so easy when you see professional contractors doing it, by hand it's nowhere near as easy as it looks, but we're there. The wire is buried, the gate is on and one of the beds is dug over ready to start planting as soon as the weather improves.
We ordered loads of seeds in a fit of enthusiasm, now we have to find room to plant them all and I have a feeling 2 beds aren't going to be enough, especially as we need one as a seedbed, so more digging is in the pipeline. Speaking of pipes, the water trough has to come out and a tap put in it's place, this should be a simple job, but we've already had a mini-flood in the annexe when the washing machine plumbing ('expertly' fitted by me) decided to leak all over the place, so we're not going to take it lightly, especially as the water supply comes from George's farm next door, and he's lambing at the moment so a major water leak at our end might not go down too well....
Anyway, as you can see, the garden looks like it's getting there;


In other news, Kate bought plans for a DIY chicken house which arrived the other day, so we went out to buy the wood for me to make it, I haven't done much more than simple DIY since school, but hopefully 'Luggy' Proud, my woodwork teacher instilled the basics into me between throwing chisels around the woodwork room at school so that I'll be able to make something the chickens will be proud of. Or at least unfussy enough to live in and not get squashed by as it collapses around them.
We also decided to do a bit of work in the big wood this week. Although we don't plan to use it for pigs for a year or two, it runs along the banks of the river, and seeing as we have river frontage we thought we ought to make somewhere for us to go and get away from our livestock responsibilities every once in a while.
The problem is that the wood is chock-a-block with gorse and bramble, and the best bit of the river access is (naturally) at the end of the wood, so we've set to work with the brush cutter (now officially Kate's favourite purchase since the last pair of shoes), a lethal petrol strimmer with what appears to be a 3 bladed ninja star at one end that tears through the undergrowth like a knife through butter. We set to work and shortly after we had the beginnings of a path. If you look at the gorse on the left, that's what it looked like before we set to work, half an hour later there was a path there. Kate loves using this thing and likes to pretend she's Darth Vader, humming his theme tune from Star Wars as ahe hacks away at the undergrowth - I can lose her for hours with this thing, no plant is safe.

We also cleared an area to sit by the river, again covered in bramble and gorse, again dispatched in minutes by 'Darth' Page and her new toy. It overlooks what we have begun to call our 'beach' at the corner of the river where sandy deposits have been left. After sliding down the bank on our backsides all too often, I got a few rocks from the river and made some steps down to the water so now parents and old people (ie. me) can get down to the bank of the river safely.
As usual, click on the small images to make them bigger;

When we were packing up on Saturday after the fencing, we were treated to a spectacular sunset....

Rabbit Proof Fence

Well, we hope it's rabbit proof. We've been busy digging in the chicken wire so the rabbits can't get under the bottom of it and eat all our veg. As you can see, we've finally found a use for a lawn edger I've had for about a decade and never used - it's perfect for shoving chiken wire into the trench I'd dug previously with the spade. Now, if the rabbits try and burrow underneath the fence, they should in theory be stopped by the chicken wire.
It's slow going however, and all of Saturday afternoon only gave us about 20 yards of fencing or two sides of the garden. It looks good once it's all attached though, as you can see.

Only one small problem, this morning we saw two red deer in the woods, they're easily big enough to jump the fence and eat all the plants. So we might have to fortify the garden even more.....