Back at the start of December I finished creating the pallet fence along one side of the vegetable garden (read about it here).
And just four days later took it apart again to use the pallets to build the front of the chicken palace because the Avian Flu Prevention Zone measures were enforced. Last Tuesday, we managed to collect some more pallets from the local business that we buy the pallets from and yesterday I decided to rebuild the fence around the vegetable garden.
The weather was glorious yesterday, it was frosty start but the sun threw a deep pink colour across the smallholding making the frost twinkle. After I had done the morning chores and Mr J had gone to work, I carried the pallets to the annual vegetable garden, put them into place ensuring that I had a pallet at right angles to the fence between each fence pallet and tied them together.
To go around a corkscrew willow tree that is slap bang in the middle of the fence line, I used a double length pallet so that I didn't need to put a cross brace where the tree is planted. I was so pleased to have some fresh air and sunshine that when I went back inside I opened the patio door and the ground floor windows to air the house.
To celebrate the winter sunshine and that so many of the chickens have come into lay, either back into lay or laying for the first time, I decided to have an egg salad for lunch. Both the smaller chickens that we hatched at the end of July last year that are a cross between the bantam cockerel we had for a short while and either Jack or Diesel (I can't remember which of them) have started laying this week. Two of the Jersey Giant girls have started laying, one of the Australorp chickens (we call her Mrs O) has been laying for around two weeks. A couple of the Cream Legbar girls starting laying again last week, which is fabulous as I had got to the point of thinking that they would never lay again. So we are now collecting around 9 - 12 eggs a day and I expect this to rise as the light levels increase and the days get longer.
I get a huge amount of satisfaction from being able to go to the garden and gather food for our meals and yesterday while a couple of eggs were cooking, I collected some salad leaves from the greenhouse and some lamb's lettuce (corn salad) and spring onions from the vegetable garden. The rest of the day I was busied myself with cleaning out the chicken house in the field (that is currently home to our meat bird). I was somewhat alarmed to discover that there is red mite in the house, so I cleaned it out as much as I could and sprinkled diatomaceous earth (DE) all around the corners, the perch supports and all the usual hiding spots for red mite. After I had put fresh sawdust in the henhouse, I sprinkled some more DE over the sawdust in the areas that I know the bird sits. Hopefully that will prevent him being bitten by the mites and it will kill them off. Once he has been dispatched, Mr J and I will take the house apart and treat all of the wood including in the joint sections that I can't reach by puffing and sprinkling the DE while the house it together. Having dealt with the red mite situation as much as I can right now, I went inside, peeled off my outer clothing and put it straight into the washing machine so that I didn't transfer the mite from the house in the field to the other henhouses. I have seen no evidence of mite in the other houses, so wanted to take as many precautions as possible to prevent the spread.
Clean clothing on, I headed back outside just in time to greet our friend the tree surgeon who had arrived with a large trailer load of wood chippings. These comprise mostly of hedging plants and have a fairly high leylandii content, so I don't want that to go onto the garden soil, but these chippings are ideal for use on the pathways in the vegetable garden. The pathways have a weed suppressing membrane over the ground and chippings over the membrane. The chippings will break down over the next couple of years and then I will add it to the soil and then I can put down new chippings on the pathways. This arrangement with the tree surgeon seems ideal. For his customers who want the waste wood cleared away from their property, he needs to either store the chippings, take them to a tip (which has a cost implication for him) or he can deliver them to someone who can make use of them (me!). I now have a long term source of wood chippings and once the pathways are all covered, I can leave the heaps of chippings in situ for a year or so to let it break down before adding it to the garden. When he delivers chippings that do not have a leylandii in them I can make wood chip heaps in the chicken fields and let them scratch through the chippings (which they love to do), turning them (which they are very good at doing), adding their manure (which they do naturally) and helping it to break down quickly. It was a very satisfying day and exhausted, I fell asleep on the sofa by 9pm. If you'd like to see my day on today's vlog you can find it here or click on the video below.
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Last Monday I spent the afternoon moving some pallets to the edge of the vegetable garden to complete the pallet fence with compost bays. I was very pleased with how nicely it finished off the vegetable garden.
The pallets held down one side of weed suppressing membrane and on Tuesday I moved several barrow loads of wood chippings (from our trees that were taken down last month) to cover the membrane and complete this side of the vegetable garden. It looked splendid and I was very excited to have quite so much space in which to make compost. Late Tuesday afternoon we learnt that Defra had announced a 'Prevention Zone' to protect our poultry from the risk of Avian Flu. It took me quite a while to find out what was needed to be done to comply and the announcements that I saw said it covered England. Mr J and I realised that if Wales didn't have such measures, it very soon would. And Wednesday morning I found the relevant information saying that it applied to Wales and Scotland too. So after careful reading I came to the conclusion that I would need to find a way to keep the birds inside a covered area for the next month at the very least. Reading between the lines, I suspect that this situation may well continue for longer. Our birds are kept in four separate areas, one for each breeding flock and so we needed to create four separate pens for them. What a headache! But, looking for a positive in all this chaos, it has meant that we've had a long hard think about which birds we really value and we've assessed whether we want to keep all the birds or reduce the number of different breeds that we keep. In the end, I decided to put the chickens into two areas and the ducks in their own pen. So armed with strong resolve and somewhat weak body I started to tackle the task. The irony of this announcement coming a few hours before Mr J went back to work for the week didn't pass me by. There is an urgency to getting the birds under cover and so regardless of my body being in the throws of another hashimoto's attack and regardless of having used just about all my energy making the pallet fence, my plan for the rest of the week curled up on the sofa had been scuppered as Mr J works four days a week and he was returning to work on Wednesday morning. It was time for me to dig deep and get on with it!
I started by putting chicken wire around the top section of the stable where up to now it had been open.
The gate was only waist high so that also needed extending to full height. I am so pleased that we have collected so much scrap wood this year, it meant that I could rummage around in the piggery and find suitable pieces of reclaimed timber to use. There are still nails in the wood and I didn't have the strength to lever them out, so I wrapped duct tape around them to protect our hands and act as a warning to be careful handling that section of wood. This week I have wished over and over that we had electric drill/screwdriver (one of those ones with a battery pack so they can be easily used where there is no power supply), because using a manual screwdriver for this kind of task was rather soul destroying. The chickens will still be sleeping in their shed, so I moved their flexible fence to give them a narrow corridor between the shed and stable along which to travel morning and evening. This corridor will then be covered and enclosed to ensure that the chickens are protected from contact with wild birds. I hung their vermin proof feeding station from a beam and placed buckets of water with apple cider vinegar and garlic on to a pallet (so it's less likely to have wood shavings kicked into it.
They don't seem terribly impressed at their sudden confinement. The Cream Legbar girls aren't too bothered as they prefer to be out of the wind and rain, but the boys and the other chickens are looking quite stressed. I am sure that they will settle down, especially once I have the walkway covered and enclosed as they will then have access to at least a small area outside. Mr J and I spent Wednesday evening trying to work out where and how to create a covered area for the Jersey Giants and Australorps. We spent half an hour or so looking at the back piggery, but it's roofing panels have deteriorated significantly over the last year and there are large oil drums of 'we don't know what' that could well be toxic to birds, so we talked about ways to fence off that part of the piggery to allow the birds to use the rest of it. It looked like a nightmare of a job and I was already feeling fairly fragile. Thursday morning I had a lightbulb moment, I had realised how to turn the outbuilding that I've refer to as my garden room into a comfortable place for the black and white birds. I took out the wood, hazel poles, bags of bags, paddling pool and a host of 'stuff' that we had dumped there to be put away once we had somewhere for these things to live. The dry wood I stored in the wood store in the stables and I put everything outside the old barn door (which doesn't open, so I wasn't blocking it). Once clear it became obvious that this would be an ideal chicken palace. So with the drizzle steadily soaking me through I went to the vegetable garden and dismantled the lovely pallet fence that I put up only four days earlier!
I had almost run out of cable ties having used so many to create the fence, so was careful about not waste them, placing all the pallets before actually securing them together.
I used the gate that I'd made by lashing together chicken wire panels which had been between the two chicken fields, but as it wasn't going to be needed for the next month, this seemed the simplest way to make a door. I found the longest piece of wood that we had, but still it wasn't quite long enough to reach the top of the outbuilding, so I created a small base from two pieces of wood which, once bedded into the ground at just the right place, allowed the upright wood to be wedged into place. In this photo you can see that I hadn't quite managed to knock it vertical yet. I put a piece of 2"x1" across the top of the door to stop the door falling out and another length of wood (2"x4") to brace the vertical length. It was still pretty wobbly and needed securing at the top, but I didn't feel well enough to be climbling ladders so I sent a message to the tree surgeon to see if he was free to help me for a short time. As the chicken house is wider than the doorway I needed to move it inside before putting up the second side of pallets. This meant moving the Jersey Giants who, by this time, were looking very stressed at all the change going on. I moved them into the field that Big Red and his girls had been in and Little White continued to crow his stressed and mournful crow while he watched me push his house out of his field and into the outbuilding. I moved the last few pallets into place and was so tired that I started crying as I screwed them into place. I was relieved to hear Mr J's van come along our lane only to realise that it wasn't him, it was our friend the tree surgeon coming to help. There is something about having someone you don't know terribly well arrive, it makes you put on a smile and not show how rotten you are feeling and that is exactly what I did. And it helped to have somebody else there, I felt less overwhelmed by how much still needed to be done. He hopped up his ladder and straightened the vertical post, securing it with a fixing plate that I had ready. Then he stapled chicken wire from the roof downwards across the full width of the outbuilding.
When Mr J got home he carried more bales of wood shavings and chopped rape seed stems (bedding often used for horses) to the outbuilding. I had managed to spread the contents of two below and around the chicken house, but run out of strength to carry enough to cover the whole floor area. The light was fading fast, but there was just enough light to carry the Jersey Giants to their new accommodation and put them in the house for the night. I ached all over and headed inside to start cooking our supper and looked forward to having a long hot soak in a bath. After supper we watched a little television and then I headed to the bathroom. This was going to be the best bath - ever!
Or not. As I turned off the hot water tap, it came away in my hand with water gushing at full flow into the bath. To avoid flooding the bathroom I pulled out the plug. We searched for an isolating valve for the bath, but there wasn't one, so Mr J turned off the water at the mains. Too late I realised that now I had no water in the bath and so that was the end of my hot soaky bath idea. It seemed that this week was just going to throw everything it could at me to make life awkward. I went to bed feeling rather sorry for myself and as I lay there in a cold achy grump I started thinking about just how much worse things could be. Sometimes it's good to give yourself a mental kick in the pants, I pulled myself out of my sorry mood and fell into a deep sleep. On Friday morning before I let the birds out of their house, I fixed the final row of chicken wire into place securing the bottom of it to the pallets and overlapping it by about fifteen inches with the top section put on by the tree surgeon. I secured the overlap in a few places to ensure that the birds wouldn't be able to get out and created a makeshift lock (with baling twine and a hook) for the door. Then I let the birds out to explore their new temporary home.
I moved the Australorps into the new chicken palace, Little White greeted each one by letting them know who is boss. There was a bit of jostling and shoving, but nothing violent, but then if I was a chicken, even one as big as an Australorp cockerel, I don't think I'd take my chances against Little White, he is a very large bird. Then I turned my attention to the ducks. I lifted the flexible netting that has been around one third of the vegetable garden (the short side at the far end of the veg area and along the side by the duck enclosure) and moved it to create a narrow passageway from the duck house into the small enclosure where the ducklings were in the summer. This means that the ducks avoid walking under the trees where wild birds like to sit and deposit their droppings below. The ducks are very upset by all the change, they now have an area about forty feet square, but that will reduce by at least half. Tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon Mr J and I will create a makeshift covered enclosure for the ducks. I have run out of strength to carry any more pallets, so will need to rely on him to move them from the garden to around the duck pond. We have looked at the options of buying an enclosure, which I think will be the answer in the long term, but we need to get the ducks under cover as soon as possible, so a rough framework covered on the outside with chicken wire and covered over the top with a tarp, some corrugated metal panels and a rigid, clear, twin wall plastic panel will have to do. It will keep them safe even if it doesn't look pretty and we will have complied with the Defra order. I have hung a bottle of hand gel on the gate for visitors to use and we've bought an approved disinfectant for a foot dip before we enter the birds' enclosures. Hopefully, we now comply with all the biosecurity measures that we need to. I plan to spend most of next week on the sofa or in bed to recover from the stress and physical strain of the last few days. But before then we have one other event to enjoy. Tomorrow morning we are heading to Bristol for several reasons. Firstly I want to visit my parents' grave because I like to place a Christmas wreath on their grave. Then we are going to a shop to buy a few essentials that we will need in the next couple of weeks. After that we will be heading to collect our two new family members.
Monty (front) and Tabitha are nine years old, their last owner has passed away and we jumped at the opportunity to give them a home. Hopefully they will be happy to curl up on the sofa with me as they get to know us over the next week or so.
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It's been another good week in the garden, although the sun comes up later and the air is cooler, I have still been able to get outside and make some progress. We've had another couple of loads of chipped wood delivered by the local tree surgeons (two different tree surgeons now drop off chippings to us), so I have been able to move ahead with making pathways around raised beds. I've struggled to keep on top of the weeds growing through the cardboard layer that I've put on the pathways between raised beds and they've been rampaging through the vegetable beds. So I've made the decision that for the first couple of years I will have weed supressing membrane on the paths, covered with wood chippings and once the raised beds are more established and the pernicious weeds are killed off, I will lift the membrane, replace it with cardboard again and a deep layer of wood chippings. I would rather not use plastic in the garden, but I need to find a balance between what I'd like to do and what I am physically capable of doing. If I spend the time and energy keeping on top of the pernicious weeds in non-productive areas, I won't have energy to either tend the productive areas or to develop further areas of the garden. On balance, this seems a sensible compromise, long term the plastic membrane will be removed, but in the short term I am giving myself a chance to get the rest of the garden developed.
After laying out the paths and giving them a three to four inch layer of wood chippings, I covered the area that will be the raised bed with a layer of cardboard boxes and then covered the cardboard with well composted wood chippings. Next I will put some topsoil, garden compost and mixed them together and top it with another layer of well composted wood chippings. This bed will then be ready to plant up. Having decided on next year's planting planI have realised that some of the options I've selected just won't work. I've allocated one bed to have broad beans in it, which will need planting in the next couple of weeks if I want to have an early crop next year, but that bed still has purple sprouting broccoli, carrots and spinach in it and they will sit in the ground over the winter. So I will need to re-jiggle my plan again and put the autumn planted vegetables into beds that are vacant or becoming vacant very soon. I've been back to see my GP this week to discuss the results of last week's blood tests. It looks like the short Hashimoto's attack that I had a few weeks ago took it's toll on my thyroid, as it's function had dropped again. Although my results showed 'within normal range' I have learned that I feel best when the TSH level is around or just below 1. The normal range for the tests that my GP uses is 0.3 - 4.2, so in theory anywhere in that range is acceptable. I'm not sure who it is acceptable to, but it's certainly not right for me! When I can get my TSH to around 0.5 (together with some pretty careful management of what I eat and when, and what activities I do and when) I feel close to normal in energy and general health, last week's test showed it had increased to 2.38, which explains why I have been feeling less than sparkly for the last few weeks. My lovely GP, who is happy to work with how a patient feels and not just the numbers on the screen, was happy to increase my medication to help put my TSH back to where I feel I good as I can. I'm aware that I am very fortunate to have a GP who works with a patient in this way, so many people that I've spoken to are told that they have reached 'normal range' and that's that, they are left struggling with a thyroid still not being supported to the extent that it needs to be for them to feel healthy. Hats off to my GP for listening to my request and being happy to work with me as I try to take some control of my well-being. Hashimoto's is an auto-immune disease, my body has mistakenly decided to attack itself and in particular, attack my thyroid gland. I have a couple of other auto-immune issues lurking away, but thankfully they don't effect my every day living and hopefully they never will. Growing my own food is part of managing the Hashimoto's disease and the hypothyroidism that it's caused. Reducing the synthetic chemicals and toxins that I eat has gone a long way to helping how I feel and Mr J says that he is feeling healthier too. Added to the reduction in substances that were causing problems, the increase in fresh air and gentle exercise has also helped me feel better. It's a win-win situation. Earlier in the week my brother-in-law telephoned me to see if I could make use of some grapes that a friend of his had. So mid-week we went to my sister's home and collected two huge carrier bags filled to the brim with sweet black grapes.
I have washed them and sorted through them, picking them off their stalks and discarding unripe, over-ripe and mushy ones. The first bag yielded almost 9lbs (4kgs) of grapes ready to cook.
I used 4lbs of fruit to make some grape jelly, which tastes wonderful and will be a lovely accompaniment to cold cuts of meat or roast duck. The remainder I have frozen and will use to make syrups and wine when there is a little less to do in the garden. Over the weekend, we started to put fence stakes into the ground in the chicken field. Until now we have been using flexible chicken netting (the type that can be electrified), but two long rolls of this netting were on loan from Helen at Valerie Chicken. We need to give the netting back to Helen for her to use to keep her pigs secure and although she doesn't need it back until December, there is no point in us waiting until last minute to put in our permanent fencing. So using the recycled fence stakes that came from my sister's home, Mr J has put in the first row of stakes that I will then fix metal chicken wire onto and that will divide the field in two (as the flexible netting does now). We have decided that it would be sensible to then plant trees and shrubs along each side of the new fence. This should provide us with more fruit, nuts and berries and give the chickens some shade, but most importantly it will offer more wind protection and as the plants grow, the hedge should slow down the wind that whistles across the chicken field for most of the year. Last night (Sunday) we moved the Australorp pullet that was hatched at the end of June into the chicken coop that houses the other Australorps that were hatched at the end of July. As they are from different breeders, the eggs from the older bird will be ideal for breeding additional members of the flock and for providing us with hatching eggs to sell. This morning she doesn't look wildly happy about being in a new enclosure and her former companions are looking rather put out that she is now in an adjacent space, but it won't take too long for either her or the others to settle down again. Once the new fences are in place we will also create a separate enclosure for the Jersey Giants. I had said that I'd finished hatching eggs for the year, but I changed my mind and decided to hatch one more batch of chicks which can over-winter in the shelter of the stable and venture outside at their own pace.
So I have found another breeder of Jersey Giants (photo of his young birds above) and ordered six eggs which should arrive in the next few days. Hopefully this clutch will give us another female or two and if we get a cockerel then it will be going to the breeder that we bought the first eggs from to put some fresh genes into his flock of birds. I have tried to build good relationships with the breeders of birds that we have bought eggs from, because there is nothing quite like asking advice from folks who know the breed well and it's nice to be able to offer something in return, like birds from different bloodlines. We are still learning (an awful lot, thick and fast) and I feel that knowledge and experience are the greatest assets we can acquire. We are heading back outside this morning to continue installing the new fencing for the chickens. But first, as always, it's time for a cuppa! If you'd like to receive my blog posts direct to your inbox just enter your email address in the box below and follow the instructions. You'll probably need to confirm by clicking a link in your email inbox and then you will receive my blog each time a new entry is published. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time.
