Well we seem to have come to the end of our crisis for now, thankfully. Dad is back at home, I took him home last weekend, and he seems fine, albeit rather weak. He's just going to relax and regain his strength over the winter and come out fighting a little bit fitter next spring. Phew!
Onto to smallholding matters again for me -
One crop that always does well here is potatoes. I say it does well, but only because we are vigilant about their watering through the summer as they are definitely our winter staple.
The ground is double dug in February/March and heavily manured with rotted stable manure. Usually three long trenches are hand dug to accommodate one bag of second earlies and one bag of main-crop. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the second earlies we had this year, but the main-crop is Cara - a firm favourite of ours as it does so well on our light, sandy soil.
Michael spent the day last Sunday digging up all the main-crop; I had used the second earlies before this straight from the ground. They were OK, a red skinned variety that suffered a bit with scab, and therefore not good enough to sell, but fine for us to use.
The main-crop are excellent. A good variety of sizes with some really big ones in there two. Out of one bag of seed potatoes Michael has harvested five paper sacks full (the 25Kg size). We are chuffed to bits. Hopefully that will mean we won't have to buy any this winter and they will see us through until next spring when the new potatoes that we always grow in the polytunnel will be ready, but more on that topic in the new year.
Stats today -
Eggs produced = 4
Sales - Nil
Expenses - Nil
Monday 9 December 2013
Wednesday 4 December 2013
Update
Apologies for not posting in ages. I'll explain.
My father fell ill whilst on holiday in Austria and the coach company that he was travelling with 'dropped him off' at a hospital in Luxembourg on the way back. He spent five weeks there and was discharged a week ago. His insurance company flew him home with a Doctor escort, who then handed him over to a paramedic who drove him home to me here in Norfolk in an Ambucar. Part of his discharge from the hospital in Luxembourg was that he had to have a chest x-ray as soon as possible, so I duly took him off to my local doctor who arranged for this to be done that very afternoon at the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital in Norwich. Chest x-ray done and a doctor was called who admitted him. And he's still there! Another operation later and he's on the mend, but very weak. So our life here is taken up with hospital visiting, feeding livestock and not much else at the moment.
Apologies but until all this with Dad has been sorted I won't be able to post much. We are hoping that he will be able to go home sometime next week, so please bear with me until normal service is resumed!
My father fell ill whilst on holiday in Austria and the coach company that he was travelling with 'dropped him off' at a hospital in Luxembourg on the way back. He spent five weeks there and was discharged a week ago. His insurance company flew him home with a Doctor escort, who then handed him over to a paramedic who drove him home to me here in Norfolk in an Ambucar. Part of his discharge from the hospital in Luxembourg was that he had to have a chest x-ray as soon as possible, so I duly took him off to my local doctor who arranged for this to be done that very afternoon at the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital in Norwich. Chest x-ray done and a doctor was called who admitted him. And he's still there! Another operation later and he's on the mend, but very weak. So our life here is taken up with hospital visiting, feeding livestock and not much else at the moment.
Apologies but until all this with Dad has been sorted I won't be able to post much. We are hoping that he will be able to go home sometime next week, so please bear with me until normal service is resumed!
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