Well I can barely write this for my poor hands are rough as sandpaper. Oh my poor paws! Once renowned for their smoothness and softness they needs a whole lot of tlc in the form of cocoa butter and vitamin e! I was at a smallholders fair at Sissinghurst castle on Sunday and tried some New Romney (sheep) natural handcream. Well...soft it might be but I'm so not ready to move into my 'lavender' stage of life. I'll stick with my unnatural but gorgeous smelling handcreams thanks....mind you if you could combine the natural product with a fabulous smell for those of us under 50 then I could be on to something I guess!
Anyway not only are my hands rough my arms are shredded and I have been stung by so many nettles I now have immunity to them! Let this be a lesson - a) when thinning out the brambles in the hedge ensure you have proper (= thick) gloves on, not my lightweight but matching-to-my-outfit pink ones as hawthorns hurt! and b) it's so not the time to top up the tan when ones arms are required to enter nettle and thistle territory. You see not only have DH and I been 'tidying up' (any excuse for DH to get the brushcutter out) but we have been learning about ragwort. In cityesque naivety one may assume ragwort is only trouble for horses. Not so. It is a liver poisoner for most mammals so I have learned (thankfully this time not by the hard way.) Therefore my sheep and ducks and soon to arrive pigs (wait for the info!) are at risk. Not that we have tonnes of the stuff but having spent the best part of the day digging up the year 2+ growths and searching for the year 1 spread of leaves it's enough. Remember a few posts back the link to the Chaninbar moth? Well, it's weirdly become a big friend as they stand out so well against all the greenery and their favourite diet? The ragwort....Each bit needs handling with gloves, burning and where the roots remained (Madonna aint got nothing on my arms but still, I'm not made for heavy pulling) killing off with Round Up (another X against my name for the organic campaigners out there I'm sure but I'm of the opinion toughness needs dealing with in a tough manner - Dave take note when next thinking about the rioters.) But I'm proud to say at the moment we are ragwort free. Unfortunately our neighbours have tonnes of it...
The other pest we have been trying to control has been the wasp. After feeling pretty smug all year that we have limited wasp appearance all of a sudden they're everywhere. Annoyingly all over our apples that are just about ready with a bumper crop and our raspberries which are just starting to fruit making daytime picking impossible. Having acquired 2 pretty wasp traps to replace the homemade jamjar-hole-jam ones both DH and I felt confident in the traps claims that wasps can't fly down. Hmmm...not sure what type of wasps you have Mister-Inventor but I can assure you all ours do! They can also sting pretty well too at this time of year both DD and I getting done in the space of 30 mins on Sunday.
The aforementioned smallholders fair led to discussions again on pigs and having met a couple of useful companies - notably Over The Stile there we are making moves in obtaining a pig ark. We're not short of land, I hate pigs so am unlikely to get attached to them and the obvious reasons of meat spring to mind. the market turn for purchase-rear-freezer is pretty good too making it not a bad 'investment.' Special rare breeds the best apparently and we are thinking about rearing them organically so if we do sell a bit of meat it's likely to be a better price for the supreme quality with the same work ethic. 2 weaners might be heading our way pretty soon...watch this space. The best advice I have heard on them however is not to name them, or more to the point not to let DD name them!
For the named animals the sheep continue to grow - missed a trick with Minty and Rosemary. They are prime lamb! Looking forward to getting the ram over in October to Dolly and Dors as if they produce more of the same it won't just be pork sitting a plenty in our freezer! We've made contact with a farmer over in Kent who can 'loan us' his Southdown ram. Just need to look into the pros and cons of Southdown x Polled Dorsets offspring.
The ducks continue not to settle and rush around wildly including the fence, fence posts, side of their house anything really! Pongo the drake nearly knocked himself out 2 days ago when trying to catch them to do my weekly check of them. Ha! There's some irony attached to the principle of catching your ducks to check them over for health and injuries when your ducks freak out so much they do themselves injury! Pongo went to bed that night with a bloody beak and bit of a headache methinks. In the morning he'd obviously used the white Jemima as some sort of sponge...poor Jemima, typical bloke!
Mx
Weather: Been mixed, mostly warm, sunny spells, windy periods, anything from 19 - 25 degrees. Mad August!
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