I'm on annual leave at the moment but that doesn't mean I get a rest! I work on the old adage 'change is as good as a rest'.
One of my jobs is refurbing a recently purchased tatty livestock trailer. It needs a bit of work to make it good once more - some new tyres, a new wood floor under the aluminium non-slip panels, and a bit of welding to the struts in the roof, and then a rub down, prime and paint. Nothing we can't do ourselves. Trailers are so expensive that we knew we would have to buy a bit of a basketcase for couple of hundred quid and make it good. As long as the chassis was sound, everything else was doable. I spent a few hours last week cleaning it off and spraying all of the bolts with WD-40 ready to get to work on it.
The trailer is needed for two things - to take the pigs to the abattoir (the first of which will be going at the beginning of September, as they are now big boys) and to pick up some sheep that I am hoping to purchase in the autumn. I'm looking for some pregnant ewes so we can grow the lambs on next year for the freezer and help keep the paddock grass down so we don't have to mow it any more. I also want to get some good quality fleece that can be processed into 4ply so I can use my knitting machine a bit more.
I'm harvesting all sorts of food from the property at the moment. I have more potatoes to dig up, cooking apples and plums are coming off the trees and the elderberries are ready, plus I have mountains of cherry tomatoes so this week I'm turning my hand to preserving them. By the time I go back to work I want to have laid down in the freezer mash and colcanon, spinach cubes, sliced apples, stewed apples and plums for pie fillings, fruit crumbles, and roasted tomatoes with seasalt, olive oil and basil. I also want to prep some dried tomatoes under oil, and elderberry syrup in preparation for winter coughs and colds and also as a sauce for any game I manage to 'procure' from local farmers. This will all go into the the freezers out in the barns.
In the last week it's become clear that the night's are drawing in - Fleagle has started cuddling up on the sofa to keep warm (and grooming me) and I had to put our duvet on the bed last night - so my mind is now turning to winter. I'm practicing the Ant Philosophy - ants think winter all summer, and summer all winter. We think and plan ahead.
"An ancient story says, "Don't build your house on the sand in the summer." Why do we need that advice? Because it is important to be realistic. In the summer, you've got to think storm. You've got to think rocks as you enjoy the sand and sun. Think ahead." Jim Rohn, author and personal development guru
I've dipped into the savings to sort out autumn and winter tasks this week - I have a 2m3 of ash wood being delivered, which will go into one of the barns to season for a few months, some bags of coal, and the oil tank will be topped up to its full 2700 litres as August prices are nice and low. I then have to book the septic tank to be emptied, the boiler to be serviced and the chimneys to be swept at the end of September. I'm fishing out the winter coats to go to the dry cleaners, washing all the scarves, hats and gloves, and buying a curtain pole for above the front door to add heavy curtains to. I also have some work to do on the porch door, which needs a new weatherstrip on the bottom and a small storage heater on the wall - it can feel a little damp in the porch on occasions, which means that we have to be careful what we store, so I want to address that problem.
Finally, hedges. All the hedges on the property will need doing, so we'll be doing what we did last year - trimming in 1-2 hour bursts on good weather days. It all gets done eventually, and it doesn't seem such a back-breaking task if you break it down into small chunks. That will take place throughout September and October, and then we can keep the trimmings for kindling.
It's all go here!
Wow, you're certainly busy with all of that going on! Love the fact you've got established apples and plums in your property.
Hedge trimming sounds a pain , and topping up on fuel when it's cheap in the summer is a good call :-)
Posted by: Maria | August 18, 2017 at 07:32 PM