Strawberry / Royal Highland Show / New car - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 27 June, 2022

by Rosemary at 8:35am in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 20^th June

The day didn’t quite get off to the planned start – we both forgot to take the meat birds’ feed out last night, so rather than getting on with that job first thing, we had to wait a bit for them to “empty”.

Still, that gave me time to bake a couple of fruit tea loaves and some ginger nuts and get some of my paperwork done.

In the end, we had nine whole birds, totalling 29.52, average 3.28, range 2.61 – 3.92 and one portioned bird. Plus necks, feet, heads for dog feed.
 

Tuesday 21^stJune

The longest day and the clover is flowering.

Clover.

And Bertie may get lost in the long grass in the vegetable garden. We’ve decided to leave areas uncut for wildlife. And cats.

Spot the cat.

Wednesday 22^nd June

Took the dogs and Bertie at the vet for their annual check up – all well, but the dogs have put on more weight than we liked, so we’ll cut back their food a bit. They don’t get as much exercise now the garden is enclosed.

Thursday 23^rd June

It was good to be back! Kate, Mike, Astrid (almost 3) and I spent the day at the Royal Highland Show. Astrid was a wee star – she liked the orange tractor and counted the wheel nuts, and the goats. She wasn’t awfully impressed by candyfloss but the grown ups liked it.

Astrid's tractor.

And I loved this pick up.

Braw car.

Friday 24^th June

Back at the Highland this afternoon, but on the RBST tent. Different format this year but quite a few good conversations with folk with a genuine interest in rare and native breeds. Drove through three torrential showers on the way home to find Dan had the sprinkler on here. And he had the first strawberry.

First strawberry of the year.

Our friends, Alistair and Janet, won a third and fifth is big Bluefaced Leicester classes with two homebred lambs, so they were very happy with that.

It’s been pretty hot – not natural corgi weather.

Hot dog.

Saturday 25^th June

Catching up from yesterday. Managed to strip the beds and get the linen washed but remaking the beds at 9pm was a real pain. We’ve had some heavy showers over the last few nights plus daily sunshine, so both Dan and I spent a few hours weeding. I really need to tackle the flowerbeds.

Sunday 26^th June

Lovely sunny morning, but quite windy. We were going to give the lambs their second Covexin vax and apply Clik, but there’s rain forecast so we’ll do it during the week.

Back on the RBST stand this afternoon. Very windy – bit worried about the marquee (not really). Knackered tonight. And sair feet.