Frozen Frog Spawn

12th July
Elvis did not come out with her ducklings this morning. As I suspected, she is stepping back and letting them get on with growing up... which they are dong very fast indeed. They are a pretty bunch and it will be a shame to eat them later in the year.

Today's main job was a dangerous one, summer pruning and harvesting gooseberries. We've not got a bumper harvest this year, but I'm not complaining. Every year is different. The red gooseberries all needed picking. They are small but very sweet. The standard green Invicta gooseberries were well swollen. Some were ripe enough to eat raw, the rest I left on the bushes.

The whitecurrants were easier to deal with. Their summer prune just involves cutting back the sideshoots. In previous years the ducks had enjoyed more of the currants than us, but this year they showed no interest. To look at the bushes from outside you would think there was hardly any fruit to be had, but the currants hang on short stems hidden by the leaves.Delve a little deeper and there they are.

In fact I managed to harvest about 3kg of whitecurrants. I just need to decide what to do with them now.
Picking the whitecurrants took an age as I patiently worked along each branch. But there was still time to prune the redcurrants. These are just starting to colour up and there are absolutely mountains of them hanging on the bushes. It won't be long before a redcurrant bonanza. I might try using the steam juicer to make a cordial this year.
The birds find redcurrants easier to spot than their white cousins and last year we lost them all just about the night before I was intending to pick them. So today they were netted, using the net which has just come off one of the cherry trees which Sue picked.

23 eggs have been in the incubator for 18 days now at a temperature of precisely 37.5 degrees Celsius. We tried to keep the humidity at 45% but with the ambient air at over 60% most of the time this proved impossible. (Hence 23 eggs. We started with 24 but one was replaced with a sock full of rice in an attempt to reduce the humidity. It worked a little, for a while!) Humidity is important since it dictates how much liquid evaporates through the shell of the egg and therefore how big the air sac is for the chick to breath when it comes to hatching time.
So today was Day 19. Time for the eggs to come off the roller and to increase the humidity further.
If all goes well they will start hatching in a couple of days.

13th July
I open froze the currants and berries in trays. Today I scraped them off the trays to go into freezer bags. The whitecurrants, to my evil eye at least, look like frozen frog spawn. There could be a marketing idea here for a healthy Halloween treat. I also discovered by accident that it may be an awful lot easier to remove the stems when the currants are frozen. I'll bear this in mind next time.


A surprising proportion of the rest of the day was spent picking blackcurrants and raspberries, especially given that I was supposed to be at work for the afternoon.
But for the second week in a row my car refused to start. After replacing the starter motor last week, it looks as if it was the battery after all. I won't ever be going back to Whizzywheels in Wisbech again. It's the second time they've taken the proverbial in the last few weeks.
On the bright side, it did spur me into finding a more local mechanic.

So engrossing myself in the fiddly task of picking and de-stemming blackcurrants was a welcome distraction from my thoughts. The raspberries have enjoyed the wet weather too and are starting to produce a bumper crop. I've finally worked out that I've pretty much got all summer-fruiting canes and that all the healthy canes which came up and didn't fruit last year were in fact what would bear this year's fruit. I hadn't expected them to come up so early and so made the mistake of thinking they were autumn-fruiting canes which failed to crop. Doh!  I know now.

14th July
Car fixed. New battery installed.
While the mechanic was here, this arrived. Care to guess what it is?

It's a chicken plucker. You scold the chicken, attach this contraption to a drill and the spinning rubber fingers take (most of) the feathers off the bird. I imagine these end up literally everywhere. Anyway, if it works even half as well as I hope then it will save a lot of time when it comes to processing a dozen chickens at a time.

I did actually make it to work today, though I owe them quite a bit of time now and will try to make most of it up next week before the summer holidays start.
After work I hitched up the trailer and drove to a field in the middle of nowhere where a smallholder acquaintance (who just happens to be one and the same mechanic as fixed my car this morning) was baling his hay field. What a lovely activity on a fine day under the endless fenland skies.




I slalomed between the bales on the field before pulling up and loading fifteen bales into my trailer. Back to the farm to unload, then back again for another fifteen.

This winter was so mild that the Shetland sheep got by without any hay whatsoever. Buying thirty bales now is probably a good way to guarantee another mild winter.

As I was stacking the hay in the turkey stable I discovered yet another secret hoard of eggs furtively tucked away. I'm reorganising the stables in a couple of days, but I'll try to move the nest so that hopefully the hen keeps laying in it. That way I know where they are when I want to steal the eggs. I'll mark a couple which I'll leave so she keeps coming back.

One final job for the day.
I abandoned the coriander crop in the polytunnel - it just hasn't grown leafy enough this year - and sowed another few rows of carrots which so far have been doing very well under cover. Hopefully the carrot flies won't discover that the polytunnel has doors.

Harvesting - A Mixed Bag

9th July
Rainwater harvesting for the polytunnel
Heavy rain when I woke up, so I hastily hooked up a hosepipe to the overflowing water butts, channelling the rain into a couple of watering cans in the polytunnel. While I wait for each watering can to fill in turn I weed, harvest and thin foliage. The rain water is much appreciated by the plants.

It can get very sticky in the polytunnel so it is important to  remove foliage from ground level. To reduce humidity the courgettes got heavily trimmed and the rampant squash plants cut back.

I harvested and thinned out the kohl rabi and turnips. I've only left a few. They are very susceptible to rot once the other plants get going and temperatures warm up. Turnip fly becomes a problem too. The Purple Top Milans seem to have a harder flesh and to be more resistant to rot and fly than the Snowball and Goldenball. Next year I'll reserve the latter two for outside. Straight into the newly available space went peppers and aubergines.
Where I removed the kohl rabi plants, the sweetcorn growing in amongst them is about a foot tall. The plants growing without any competition are up to the polytunnel roof - what a difference! It's planned though. Now I've removed the kohl rabi the sweetcorn will prosper and will come ready later than the rest.
Once the rain stopped I harvested more beetroots to be processed.

Beetroots laid out ready for baking

Not going round the bend
A walk along the roadside revealed the extent of the damage to next door's field gate caused by yet another car coming off at the bend. The car must have been in quite a state as that wooden gate post has lifted a massive lump of concrete from the ground.

10th July
A lay in, a Wimbledon final and a European Cup final in which Ronaldo got floored by a Silver-Y moth
Young swallows and tree sparrows
In between all this the swallows fledged. I opened the chicken feed shed to find one fluttering against the window so I caught it and placed it back on its nest but there was only one other. They both promptly flew off the nest, one again fluttering against the window, so I caught it and released it for its first flight. A very special moment. Fortunately the hobby's daily speculative fly through the garden had already happened today.

More excitement on the wild birds front. I've planted a branch of twisted willow in the border near the bird feeding station in the hope that birds will use it as a perch coming to and from the feeders. Well, the first birds to do this were the tree sparrow family, two fledged young and their parents. Excellent.

Squishy strawberries
A much anticipated strawberry harvest was very disappointing indeed - virtually all of them had rotted before they even ripened properly. Those that had escaped this had mostly been munched by something. I'm not sure how much the straw has helped.

I checked the weather forecast before pruning the plum trees. Dry all day. Ten minutes of pruning soon changed that, precipitating a cloudburst!
I gave up.



This was also the cue to get the Ixworth chicks back inside before they caught a chill. They've been going outside for a couple of days to get them ready for a move into the stables. It means they leave their mess and smells outside too. They also get to eat grass, scratch around and peck at insects. They seem to find the outside world quite scary at the moment.


11th July
Failed Wurzels and an Injury to Mr Rotavator
I spent the morning trying to track down a spare belt for Mr Rotavator who had a rather unfortunate mishap yesterday. Hopefully he'll be back to his wonderful best soon.
In readiness for his return to good health, I got out the slasher and hacked back all the fat hen which has grown up in what was supposed to be the mangel wurzel patch. The slugs and/or rabbits did for this crop before it ever got going. Next year I'll be growing each plant in modules before planting out. This has worked brilliantly over in the main veg patch where I'm growing the mangels which will, I'm sure, help me retain the Jeff Yates Mangel Wurzel Trophy!

Poor Honey
After all the work I'd put into the strawberry beds, yesterday's failed harvest was a big let down. Today it was Sue's turn. This has been a testing year so far for the honey bees and for beekeepers. But Sue had at least managed to take off enough frames of honey to fill about 16 jars. But when she came to spin it, some wasn't yet ready to be spun and the rest surprisingly contained rape honey that had set in the combs. All Sue's hard work for just three jars of honey and if this year continues in the same vein that could be it for honey for the year.

First Broad Beans
Fortunately my harvesting today was more productive. The broad beans have survived a bit of a bashing from the weather and today I was able to gather the first few. You can tell when they are ready when the pod hang downwards. There were carrots from the polytunnel along with more mangetout and the first Swiss chard leaves of the year, which came from self-seeded plants rather than those I've planted.
Sue worked her magic in the kitchen combining these with some pork mince from the freezer. Just a little of everything always seems to make so much lovely food!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we head into the gooseberry patch.

Post-Brexit Growth

Post-Brexit and we are experiencing rapid growth - the chicks, the ducklings, the sweetcorn, the grass, the tomatoes, the swallow babies - all are growing at an amazing rate.

1st July
Where is the summer?
Last year 1st July saw record temperatures in the mid 30s. What a contrast today!

There has been a honey bee starvation warning issued as they've not been able to get out and forage. In the polytunnel, the courgette plants are failing to produce viable fruits as they are not getting pollinated. Instead the developing fruits just rot off. I may have to start hand pollinating.

On the plus side, the peas and potatoes are enjoying the rain. Swings and roundabouts.

2nd July

Dramatic skies today

Pottering
A day of clearing, weeding, transplanting and general pottering, aka gentle general maintenance.
The polytunnel is rapidly turning into a jungle. It's amazing how even a little summer heat gets the plants growing so fast. Air flow becomes very important, so lower leaves are regularly removed along with anything wilting or yellowing.

Tomatoes are remarkably resilient. Apart from the Romas, which are a bush-type, all the others need the side shoots pinching out on a regular basis so that all the plant's efforts can go into producing trusses of fruit from the main stem. Once the tomatoes start developing on a truss, I like to remove the leaves lower down. This allows the light in to ripen the tomatoes as well as letting air flow through the tunnel at ground level.


Underneath the tomatoes I am growing basil. They make good companions growing together and good companions in the kitchen. Today I took the first basil harvest, cutting the tops off the plants so they bush up.

3rd July
Nasty but necessary
I've been waiting for a dry, calm day to do the spraying. In an ideal world I'd be able to rely on physical methods to remove weeds, but this is impossible sometimes. Today I was using two chemicals. Glyphosate (aka Roudup) kills everything and is what I have to use on the driveway to prevent it turning into a lawn. I have also used this around the perimeter of the electric fence to keep the grass from growing up through the fence. The other chemical I use is Grazon. This is a selective weedkiller which is hugely effective against nettles, docks and thistles which are my main problems. All of these plants are good to have for wildlife, but it is not possible to maintain small patches of them and let them flower without them spreading uncontrollably. The only way I can do this is by minimal use of spray when I have to.
Besides this, I may have become hyper allergic to nettles. A couple of harmless stings on my ankles recently have turned very nasty and necessitated a visit to the pharmacy.

Today's other major job was to convert the electric fence in the top paddock from battery to mains. It needs to be strong enough and reliable enough to train new sheep and lambs for when they go down to the bottom. Also I have learned this year that it can be dangerous for the sheep if they are able to ignore it and become entangled.
Everything was going very well until I turned it on and it tripped the RCD in the garage! After lots of testing and elimination, I established that it seems to be the earth cable causing the problem. I've got a feeling that I just need to move the earth stake further away from the building, but I've left it for the moment. It's not an urgent job and I want to come to it at the beginning of a day, just in case it needs more time to sort out.

Honey bees struggling
Sue was on the last session of her intermediate beekeeping course today. She returned with tales of everybody having troubles with the rainy weather we've had. Sue has two hives without queens, the one that swarmed and the one with the swarm she collected. Most of the other beekeepers had experienced problems with swarms and lost queens too.
For the moment Sue has united these two colonies.

Strawberry harvest
My new strawberry beds are starting to produce. It doesn't look like a great year, with late ripening and at least half the fruits rotting off before ripening. Still there were plenty of fruits to be picked. Sue has performed her magic and turned them into strawberry & honey icecream, strawberry & banana fruit leather, strawberry and honey fruit leather and dried strawberries. The first of the raspberries were ready too. Dried raspberries are like tiny packages of flavour explosion.

4th July
Could it be that summer has at last arrived? I think that may be a little over-optimistic. In fact, I'm not sure that summers will ever again be what we imagine them to be. Were they ever?
Anyway, I made the most of it to mow the lawns. A hobby swooped low through the veg plot today. It is making daily appearances at the moment. The adult swallows usually see it coming way before I do. In fact it is their alarm calls which prompt me to look up.
The swallow chicks in the chicken shed are growing at an amazing pace now. It won't be long before I find the nest empty.



What Have I Raised?
Elvis's ten ducklings are also growing at an amazing rate. They suddenly have feathers instead of down and look like proper ducks. They still stick with Elvis mostly, but are becoming more independent. It won't be long before Elvis moves away from them. If I know her, she'll soon be broody again!
I won't be giving the ducks names as they are destined for the table later this year.

High Rise Chicks
Also growing up fast are the Ixworth chicks which are now two weeks old. I redesigned their broody box today, as they were constantly kicking their bedding into the drinker and kicking their feed everywhere. My solution is to make their accommodation two storey, as they are now capable of finding their way up the stairs to their food and drink or even hopping straight up there.



5th July
Garlic
The garlic has grown incredibly quickly this year. It has obviously enjoyed the wet conditions since I planted the cloves back in January. I sowed parsnips in between the rows. The two seem to do very well together and look after each other. By the time the parsnips are becoming robust plants, the garlic is starting to die back. Every year it gets rust, but this doesn't seem to affect it at all. I had been waiting for some sunny weather as it needs to dry, particularly the bases of the stems where rot is most likely to set in.
The bulbs had split and swollen very nicely. I didn't remember planting quite so many cloves, but 133 bulbs should be enough to last another year.

Garlic bulbs set to dry.

Yellow Mangetout
I've tried a new variety of Mangetout this year, a yellow one to make it easier to pick. It has grown well, though I'm not sure it tastes quite so sweet as the green one I grew in the polytunnel. It's a close thing though and the pink and purple flowers and yellow pods may keep this on the list for next year.
It is cropping very well too.




Final job of the day was to dig some potatoes for dinner. The Dunluces have completely died down and this was the first time I was harvesting them. I got a really good amount from just one plant and they certainly are tasty.

6th July
Today I did none of the jobs on my list! Instead...
Beetroot bounty
I harvested a whole load of beetroots. I grow purple ones (Boltardy), Golden ones and stripy ones (Chioggia). Quite notable the outdoor ones had caught up with the early ones I planted in the polytunnel and done at least as well. Maybe next year I'll save the polytunnel space for something else.
Later on Sue roasted the beets ready to be peeled and vacuum packed.


Continuing the theme of doing jobs not on the list, I decided to plant the last thirty willow whips which had been sitting in the water butt developing roots. I'll be very surprised if they all take, but hopefully some will.

Captain Peacock lives on
It was while I was doing this job that I heard Lady Peacock calling. I'd not heard her for a while so went to investigate. She was strutting around in the middle of the road, but them I spotted the reason why as two chicks ran across the road behind her.


7th July
A complete non starter of a day
A but of a disastrous day really. I got in my car to go to work and it absolutely refused to start. It had no life in it whatsoever. So I had to stay in and wait for someone to come and help me start it, then get it to a garage without turning the engine back off. Turns out it was the starter motor. This is the second time this has happened. The car is seven years old and I have calculated it is costing me almost £2 per week just for the starter motor. Not very impressive Ford.

But the day was to get worse. For late afternoon my arms started itching and were covered in rather ugly and angry blisters. It looked a little like shingles, but not quite. The doctor didn't think it was either. So all I can think is that I have become very allergic to nettles as I really can't think of anything else that could have caused it. I am always getting stung by nettles so it is hard to remember if the blisters matched where I had been stung.
I guess we'll find out more next time I get stung. For the moment though I'm on anti-histamines which make me incredibly tired and antibiotics.

8th July
The only good thing if it had been shingles would have been being signed off from work for a couple of weeks, which would have taken me nicely up to the summer holidays!
As it was, I was back at work today. In the evening I had to take Boris, dressed in his bow tie, on school dog duties, meet and greet at the Year 6 prom. We didn't have that in my day. Mind you, it wasn't called Year 6 either, it was fourth year juniors.

June goes out with a splash

26th June
Bonus beans
I'd put it off for a couple of days but decided to spend the morning trying to fix the electric fence. That was until I found that yesterday's storm had left an inch of water standing in the corner stable, the one where the fence energiser is sited.
So instead I finished planting the beans I'd raised in the polytunnel. I decided to plant out the Cobra beans as they seem to have outgrown their early deformities. And the Pea Beans too! After sowing a couple of hundred beans, I've finally got about a dozen to germinate. They'd better not get munched by slugs!

Forgetting about Brexit
The afternoon was the Smallholders Club meeting being held at a friend's smallholding. It was nice to get away from the problems of the world for a while.
Quinoa Query
Back from the meeting, I decided to plant out my quinoa plants. I grew some spares in modules just in case the direct sown ones didn't make it. As it is, I have no idea whether they made it or not as they are totally indistinguishable from the fat hen which is probably the commonest weed on my land. So I've left that bed to grow - it should be possible to tell them when they come into flower - and planted a new patch elsewhere.
53 Red Hot Pokers
As I was doing this the swallows started to kick up a real commotion. The cause soon became apparent as a barn owl swooped through the garden being chased by swallows. It appeared to come from the hollow ash tree, so with a bit of luck it's decided to roost there during the day.
Finally the rain set in again. It's certainly been a wet June. I retired to the polytunnel and potted up my Red Hot Poker plants - I got 53 from one small tray.
The polytunnel is filling quickly so I harvested a few turnips which were looking really good. In these muggy conditions it's important to thin out plants to enable the air to circulate at ground level, otherwise everything starts to rot.

27th June
Keeping the sheep in
A lovely day spent down in the sheep field. I love it down here under the huge fenland sky. I can just absorb myself in the moment and leave all the worries of the world behind.
Today's task was to work out where the problem was with the electric fence and to section off the field into smaller areas so I can rotate the sheep.
I replaced some of the wire which had turned rusty, I cleaned up some of the connections and I spent quite some time cutting the grass down under the fence. Finally I took the mower down and cut the grass short under the fence. All of this managed to raise the voltage at the end of the fence from about 800 to just over 4000. This should be enough to teach the Shetland lambs not to keep going through it. They can still get through if they put their head down and make most of the contact with their woolly back, but it won't take long before they get a shock and learn to stay where they are supposed to be.
There's still room for improvement. The far end of the fence still goes through swards of long grass and I've reluctantly decided that when the weather is good enough I will have to use weedkiller to keep the grass down. Keeping a few hundred metres of fence clear of grass is just not practical with shears or a strimmer (for starters, there are too many accidents when the lower wire gets severed) and the ground is too rough for the mower.

Dragonflies and a Hawk Moth
I was surprised to find standing water in one area, but very pleased to see dragonflies over it.

Another surprising find was this amazing Privet Hawk Moth on a fence post.

Finally it was time to move the young lambs down to their new home. I spent several hours shepherding the flock. They seemed very happy with the new food choices and there were no major arguments with the old timers. It's fascinating to watch the Shetland sheep eat. At times they munch the lush grass at ground level, other times they nibble away at the seed heads a foot or more off the ground. I guess it gives their neck a rest.

Swallow trials
A swallow colony attracts its fair share of undesirables. We never used to have magpies here, but for the last couple of years they've become more regular. With this has come an increase in violent muggings, for they make occasional visits to the nests to plunder eggs and  young birds. Still, enough of the swallows survive this ordeal and this past week some of the young have been on the wing. This makes the adults more defensive than usual and several times a day they rise into the air as one chattering loudly. It often draws my attention to a raptor of some description. Today the swallow saw off a sparrowhawk in the morning and a barn owl and a kestrel in the afternoon. But there is one falcon which is a much bigger threat, for the day the first swallows nest is the day the first hobby appears. A dapper and slender falcon which summers in this country, it consumes dragonflies in the early part of the year, catching them mid-air. But this swift and agile falcon is quite capable of catching a swallow, especially a young inexperienced one. And so it was this evening that I saw this for the first time. I missed the actual moment, but alerted to a raptor I looked up to see the hobby shooting low through the garden with a swallow dangling from its talons.
Fortunately the swallows will have more than one brood and not all the young will be predated. There are always more on the way.


28th June
I spent the morning with the sheep again, time well spent doing not very much!
Howcome my legs have come up in a terrible rash just from brushing against our deadly fenland nettles yet the Shetland can munch away on them quite happily?



Into the polytunnel. Again.
Early afternoon and the rain came again. Again I retired to the polytunnel and set about potting up the flowers I've ben raising in trays and modules. At this time of year I move them out of the polytunnel as they can quickly dry up on a hot day and I find that conditions outside are less extreme. They often get just enough water from the sky but I occasionally give them a drink. But this year they have been drowning! Quite literally. I cannot keep emptying the trays they stand in fast enough. If I don't put them in trays they can all too easily dry up.

And so I began the task of picking them out, prising apart their root systems and giving each its own pot in which to grow big enough to be planted out into the beds. My previous efforts to grow foxgloves from seed have come to nothing, so this year I sowed a good pinch of seed into each module. Well, I now have about three hundred tiny foxglove plants crammed together. Potting up this many plants takes ages. I got about a hundred done and have left the rest. They probably won't be needed, though I could try and sell them if  get time. I potted up lupins, hollyhocks and liatris too so the flower beds should hopefully be looking good this time next year, if the rabbits and slugs don't get them all.

Where are the pollinators?
The sun came out again in the evening which hailed a bright double rainbow. The bees came out too, for their feeding time has been short of late. In fact I'm having trouble with the general lack of pollinators this year, hardly a hoverfly or butterfly to be seen.

29th June
A day of relentless rain. Rest day declared!

30th June
Cow poo!
We took the whole school on their now annual trip to the Norfolk Show today. Main interest for the class I was with were the cow sheds. To be more precise, they displayed a slightly concerning preoccupation with cow poo! That and which cow had the most Kim Kardashian bottom!

Putting that aside, it's a great show, though I can't believe how much it is for Joe Public to get in. It would have cost Sue and I £60 if we didn't get free teachers tickets. Someone's raking in an awful lot of money. It's a shame they can't find a little space for a few non-profit making organisations like the smallholders clubs.
The disadvantage of going with the school is that I had to go where the children wanted to go. I glimpsed some amazing blacksmithery and willow weaving and would have liked to spend time looking at the ride-on mowers, but I just couldn't get the children interested to the same extent as the cow poo.
On the plus side, I did rather fall in love with the mini Dexter cows. And there were some great sheep in the Rare Breeds area, Hungarian Screw-horned sheep, also known as Rackas. Then there were the donkeys with dreadlocks and I was pretty impressed with the heavy horses and the old farm machinery they pulled.




Worried about my nuts
Back home and there was a squirrel on the feed feeders. Only the second time I've ever seen one on our land. I'm afraid its not really welcome. I don't want my bird feeders destroyed and I certainly hope it doesn't find the cobnut trees.
A fox heard calling late at night was a reminder to keep careful guard on the poultry. On a positive note, the barn owl seems to have settled in the area as I saw it swoop in and perch on the chicken fence at dusk.

Tomorrow it's July. Hard to believe.

One hell of a hail storm

21st June
Six chicks have now hatched and are fluffed up nicely in the incubator. There's no sign of anything happening to the other twelve eggs though, which is disappointing. We are only collecting them from two Ixworth hens though, so it took a couple of weeks to collect a clutch to go in the incubator.

I set up a broody box for them which included our new (second hand) electric hen. I am much happier using this than the anglepoise lamp we used to use. I was never quite sure I wouldn't come home to a molten plastic box or worse still.

The weather was good today so mowing was very much on the agenda. This is a job which feels very much like repainting the Forth Bridge, never ending! I don't mind doing it but it takes time away from other jobs.
In between mowing I took full advantage of the new neighbours' invitation to harvest their strawberries, which always appear to be ready before ours. Sue has dried a fair few and the rest are in the freezer waiting to be turned into jam, ice cream and yogurt.

22nd June
I am a bit surprised to report that we are up to 11 chicks. They are all safely in the broody box. The next batch of eggs will be in the incubator as soon as I have time to clean it out.

23rd June
The electric fence in the top paddock has been set on full bluff for a while now as the battery has no power in it. But the Shetland lambs have figured this out and hop through it with impunity. Within the confines of the paddock this is not really a problem since there is enough flimsy fence to still keep them where I want them. The problem is though that the lambs now have horns and I came home from work today to find one pathetically entangled. It was no great effort to set it free, but I decided that now would be a good time to move the lambs up with the adult Shetlands. The ewes' udders would have completely dried up by now and the adults need a little help keeping the grass down this year.

Before the move I did a little maintenance work on the electric fence which runs all round the bottom field. This one is mains powered and it's not a good idea to touch it! A couple of wooden posts needed replacing and I wanted to set up the strip grazing system again.

This was a couple of hours work, so at about 8pm I led the lambs down to be reunited with their mums and dad, Rambo. The two new lambs we bought from Church Farm went too. Introducing seven at once would share out the stress if there was to be any argie-bargie. As it was, the sheep mixed together very well...

... until the Shetland lambs started going straight through the electric fence and into the orchard.

This was more serious, as from there they could go absolutely anywhere if they so chose. They could also do a lot of damage to the trees, as Shetlands' favourite food is tree bark. I tested the fence and it was very weak.
A few older parts of wire had started to rust a little and in places the fence was running through very long grass indeed. It was possible that too much electricity was being lost along the fence. However, my poor understanding of the subject led me to believe that at least at the beginning of the fence the charge should still be strong. I tested it and it wasn't.
By now, the sheep were back out into the orchard again and it was raining heavily. I turned the fence off and decided to reconnect it where the lead-in wire comes in. It was while I was doing this that I received a rather sharp shock! My finger was tingling for several minutes afterwards. There was obviously power somewhere.
Still the power was low. I went right back to the energiser in the stable and reconnected the lead-in wire at that end. Still no difference.
There was no choice but to go all round the perimeter of the fence moving the posts inwards to shorter grass and pushing the long and very wet grass away from the base. By the time I got all the way round time was getting on and I was absolutely drenched. Not only was the rain coming down heavily but the water was travelling up my trousers from the sodden long grass. From there gravity took it back down into my boots which were squelching nicely.

I got back to the beginning and tested the power again. Still no difference. :-(

This was clearly going to need further investigation, but darkness was approaching so I took the decision to move the lambs back to the top paddock.
The whole evening had gone, I was drenched, the sheep were back in the same place and I now had two electric fences not working.
On the plus side... any suggestions?

24th June
The morning after the night before.
I always stay up ridiculously late on election nights. I'm addicted to the coverage. I'll keep away from the politics. Suffice to say that I'm glad I grow all my own food - it just might shield me from some of the worst effects of what's to come.

Good news today. At the fifth attempt I've finally managed to germinate some Pea Beans. I literally chucked loads of them into a seed tray and covered them in compost as a final last ditch attempt.

More good news. Sue has been away for a couple of days and now she is back. She came back to another swarm of bees. At a guess from the same hive as the last one. Sometimes they just keep swarming.
The swarm I caught a couple of days ago didn't stay in the end. By the morning the spare hive was completely empty. Hopefully we'll have more luck with this lot.

Final job for the day was to nip out the tomato side shoots. As well as those in the polytunnel I'm growing lots outside this year. This is always a risk and often comes to nothing, but if everything comes together we will have mountains of tomatoes at the end of the year. The first ones should be ready in the polytunnel in the not too distant future.

25th June

The videos, if they've worked, say it all.
I was working on the bean patch today, weeding, edging and planting out module grown plants where there were gaps. Only a couple of the kidney beans had come through so replacing these was the main job.
After that I set about erecting supports for the broad bean plants which are on the verge of collapsing under their own weight. Half way through this the heavens opened and I had to make a run for it into the polytunnel. This was to be no normal storm though. Hailstones absolutely pelted down for half an hour. Fortunately for you, in the name of the blog, I made a run back to the house to get my phone and record the event. I was literally running through about an inch of water and hailstones. My second drenching in three days.

When it finally eased off there was water everywhere and piles of hailstones.

I hadn't twigged that the brassica netting might be in trouble too. When I went back out to check all the birds and animals were okay I noticed that the aluminium poles were dangerously bent and the netting was weighed down with hailstones, which I had to scoop out by hand. It is late June and my hands are stinging from scooping up hailstones. Something is wrong here.



Fortunately the netting was strong enough not to tear and the poles sprung back into shape. Otherwise a fairly harmless but spectacular weather event could have been a bit of a disaster.

Strawberry Moon Solstice or The Honey Moon Buzz

It's been a long day, 16 hours 51 minutes 30 seconds to be precise.

An awful lot has happened so the day deserves a blog post all to itself.

Allegedly the first day of summer too, though nobody told the weather gods.

Sunrise was 4.36am today. I didn't get up to see it, though I was up about an hour later. However, it wasn't till the afternoon that the sun finally put in an appearance after a thoroughly damp morning.

There's a full moon tonight too, a June full moon being known as a Strawberry moon. It's a nice name for a moon which is supposed to coincide with the start of strawberry picking season... if you are an Algonquin Indian in North America, which is where the name comes from.
Here my strawberries aren't quite ready yet, though I've been offered the chance to pick all that I want from next door this year.

One newspaper article described a June full moon coinciding with summer solstice as a "once in a life time" occurrence. They clearly don't understand statistics. As full moons come round every 28 days, surely you'd be unlucky if there was only one in your life time!

When I checked, the last time this occurred was 22 June 1967 - when I was almost one year of age. If I live to nearly 96 I'll see it again on June 21st 2062.

First Red Duke of Yorks
So with the strawberries stubbornly refusing to ripen I went for the next best thing and dug up my first outdoor grown new potatoes of the year. I could have waited longer and got bigger tubers, but there will be enough and the first potatoes of the year always feel special. I love the deep red colour of Red Duke of York and I love the fact that this early variety is so floury and makes excellent chips. For the classic new potato taste, though, I've grown Dunluce outside this year and Arran Pilot in the polytunnel, the last of which we have just consumed.

Two new lambs
First smallholding business of the day was to drop by in Upwell to pick up a bone saw and a few other bits and pieces. I don't do much butchery but it was going second hand and always handy to have.
Then on to Church Farm Rare Breeds Centre in Stow Bardolph to pick up two lambs. These are just  for fattening up - the farm buys in orphan lambs as this is their main attraction and income during the spring. Luckily for me, it means they have a supply of ready weaned, tame sheep all ready to go just as the grass is getting long. They'll join the Shetlands for five months before going off to slaughter, so I won't be giving them names or getting too attached to them.

Arthur and the turkeys
The turkey poults stayed in this morning. With the weather being cold and damp I thought it best to play safe. One of them jumped the stable wall with mum though and spent the day having some quality one to one time with her. The weather brightened up for the afternoon and the rest of the poults came out. Arthur joined them, He gets on well with the turkey family.

There's a but of a buzz round here
I'd been up for about eight hours and still there was half the day to go. Now another name for the Strawberry Moon is the Honey Moon, which turned out to be a far more appropriate name for today.
After a little early afternoon nap (it was, after all, a very, very long day), I took the dogs out to check on the sheep and turkeys. But something was amiss. There was a buzz in the air. And I mean a BUZZ.
Thousands and thousands of bees were swarming around hive number one. The cloud of bees stretched over toward the veg patch. There must be a swarm somewhere but I just couldn't get close enough to see. I gingerly skirted round, taking a very wide berth, until I eventually came across this.

Incoming!

The bees always swarm when Sue is not at home, so muggins here gets to don the bee suit and collect them up. While I was getting ready, the bees settled onto a wooden fence post. Not the ideal swarm location. There would be no shaking them into a box or simply cutting off the end of a branch. Swarm bees are not supposed to be aggressive and they did in fact allow very close approach. But there are limits to their patience and when you scoop them into a box by the glove full, there are some who suspect you of trying to hurt their queen who is somewhere at the centre of things )or hopefully by now in the box).

A solstice chick
Remember I said it was a long day. Well there was more. For when I came in from recapturing the bees one of the Ixworth chicks had hatched and several more were pipping. By tomorrow there could be eighteen of them to look after!



And so I sit here watching the first episode of the new Top Gear I've managed to catch up with before I turn over for the start of the England Match. It's now a beautiful evening to be watching the beautiful game.
When the sun sets at 21.28 I'll go and put the chickens away and hopefully get to admire the Strawberry Honey Moon.