A Tantalising Glimpse Of Spring

Sunday 10th Feb

Alpaca Janine had her injections for her poorly leg, pleased to say she is now all better, a good reason to be checking livestock twice a day, spotting problems early and getting on top of them.

In the afternoon  we took Tess for walk around Keepers in the forest

 

 She had a great time sniffing and exploring everything, she couldn't manage the steps to the bridges

 Martin had to give her a helping hand to get to the other side.

It was a challenging for our oldie, up and down hills

 Every now and then he had to have a rest and a cat nap but she managed the whole circular walk, slept like a baby when we got back.

Monday 11th Feb

We were working with some of the pork we got back from our pigs,

 mincing and seasoning

 and made up a lovely batch of pork chili burgers.

 The skins were salted and into the oven for pork crackling a snack Martin enjoys.

 Also a lovely joint of pork roasted for dinner.

Tuesday 12th Feb

Preparations were on the way for lambing

 Our little herd will be lambing outside, so a shelter has been put together using pallets in the paddock near the house were we will move them to.

Another pork session took place

 we made up some lovely looking salami using a pork and buffalo mix.

also some sausage rolls and pasties to go in the freezer.

Wed 13th Feb

It was a day out for me, there is a little group of now 7 crafting sewers who meet up once a month taking turn about hosting and we have a go at new to some a small project, pop over to my craft blog to see what we were doing this month. My Craft Blog

Thursday 14th Feb

For some its valentines day but we don't bother with any of that now, been together far too long. It was a fantastic sunny spring like day, I was up in the woodland field

 I had another batch of young trees to get planted up

 I also cleared a load mole hills. Don't need big tufted mounds when I am scything up there.

 In the poly tunnel, I was getting more things on the go, peas and some broad beans.

Friday 15th Feb

Another glorious sunny day basking in 17c

I gave Martin a hand in the afternoon to put a new haylage bale into the buffalo boys.

 the boys did there bit to help as well

 It was my job to keep them away so Martin could get the bale unwrapped and in the ring.

 a short video of the boys getting excited.

Saturday 16th Feb

Martin went on the lambing course learned hands on about presentations castration tube feeding etc, they use dead lambs to practice on that are donated by local farmers.

We discovered the ducks had made a start laying

 They had made a nest and our first four eggs were there, another few weeks and we will set some in the incubator.

The Chickens are in full lay as well so there is lots of eggs on the menu.

 The Coriander and Basil seeds are coming up great under the grow lights, I have a growing area set up in the spare bedroom, two heated propagators and two lots of grow lights.

 this handsome fella is also up there, its a young pineapple plant I bought in.

Clearing some space in the freezer I dehydrated a bag of chopped onions 

 They were then ground down into a powder

  ready to add spoonfuls to whatever is being cooked, 24 onions in that jar. I am going to go through my jars of dehydrated stuff and get a lot of them ground down. Takes up less space and easy to add to casseroles soups etc.