Thankfully, the monsoon season seems to have come to an end. We got off lightly during Storm Desmond (which only took the sand off our beach), but the whole last month has been extremely wet and windy, with water lying in the fields. A few days before Desmond our little burn had turned into a raging stream after a particularly rainy day and one of our wee bridges was underwater. This was also the day I could check which of our land is potentially water-logged, but luckily everything drained away the next day.
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| Back to its normal calm self |
It doesn't feel very Christmassy around here yet. Temperatures are still very mild, some roses are in bloom, the grass is green and nothing has gone dormant yet.
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| December rose |
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| Green, green grass, almost looks like a lawn now |
Because of the wet weather, we haven't made as much progress on the log pile as we would have liked. But progress is being made.
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| The wood stacks are growing |
Soruss has not wasted any time in amalgamating the flocks. He seems to be quite the disciplinarian, much to the chagrin of his mother Amber, who's probably regretting her harsh treatment of him when he was little.
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| Grazing under Soruss' watchful eye |
We're slowly working our way through the large Pink Fairy pumpkins and are currently on number three of six (the freezer is filling up with pumpkin, too). Pumpkin ale is planned. In the veg garden, the garlic has shot up and everything else keeps growing slowly. The first of the winter broccoli is starting to appear, while we're still harvesting a couple of the summer broccoli plants. Amazing.
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| Our one red cabbage this year - earmarked for Christmas |
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| Celeriac - lots of these guys around this winter |
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| December veg garden - still looking quite busy |
With all the bad weather, the season has turned from gardening and harvesting to DIY. Three rooms are on the agenda. Good thing Domino is helping out!
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| DIY cat strikes again |
Green indeed! Are you sure you are not living in the Southern hemisphere and just heading for summer? Are you still getting eggs? Around here the traditional breeds don't lay very much at this time of the year.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely heading for winter here. Had our first frost last night. Our hens are all hybrids so they slow down during the winter but we still get eggs. We're still waiting for most of the new hens to start laying. At the moment, we're only getting about an egg a day.
ReplyDeleteLove the rooster our hens have just been through a moult and have stopped laying - they had better start soon or they will be heading for the pot! I'd really like to get a couple of Wyandotte hens and a rooster - maybe in the spring. That celeriac looks amazing mine have lovely leaves but have yet to bulk up hardly surprising given the overall lack of water this year. Not sure how we manage any DiY without the aid of a cat ;)
ReplyDeleteOurs took a 2-month holiday when moulting in the summer, but are now laying again. And the young hens are just starting up. They're laying mini eggs - 41 grams but perfectly formed. Do you destalk your celeriacs? I think it helps in channelling their energy into their bodies rather than their leaves. Well, if you're going for a cockerel, choose carefully and trim the spurs. Our first one (Rhode Island Red) was a psycho and even the handraised current one just attacked me for the first time this week. They just love a fight.
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