A Welsh smallholding (Ad)venture
Another cold but dry day which starts at dawn as usual with a deal of chicken poop picking and setting out the food, water and grit bowls for the girls. Then a quick run out to the local farm to buy our milk (or raw milk as it is laughingly called these days to distinguish … Continue reading More farmyard tales…
So Jim blasts his horn to maintain his social distance and let me know he is delivering near enough 3 tonnes of horse muck to the top field. I dash out and open the gate. He backs just inside the field gate and tries to use his hydraulic tipper. No way. Far too heavy. Realising … Continue reading Farmyard tales
Today (24th March 2020) is our newly rescued cage hens first full day of freedom, well at least around their new run. The irony is that having spent their whole lives in a cage the footprint of which is no bigger than a sheet of A4 paper, they are finally experiencing relative freedom on the … Continue reading A bitter sweet irony…
On Thursday 19 March, with the Coronavirus crisis upon us, we had two phone calls in quick succession. One was from Martin Kirkland, supreme builder of chicken coops, to say he would deliver our new coop at 11 am on Sunday 22 March and the other was with the British Hen Welfare Trust to say … Continue reading New birds on the block
What is free range? In the EU free range means that one hectare (2.4 acres) of outdoor range must be provided for every 2,500 hens (equivalent to 4 m2 per hen; at least 2.5 m2 per hen must be available at any one time if rotation of the outdoor range is practiced) Continuous access during … Continue reading Free range
In Spring, we let our chickens out of the run after about 10am and call them back in for lettuce and corn around 3pm. That gives them 5 good hours to go hunting for worms, slugs, insects and voles and generally explore our 6 acres. So where do they go? 6 feet away from their … Continue reading Lazy chickens
Today three of us did battle with the new Mistral Italian flail mower attachment. The three point linkage behind our old tractor has obviously not had care and attention lavished on it in the last 40 odd years and the linkages were seized tight with rust. Also the weight of the attachment had caused the … Continue reading Tractors, trees, trials and tribulations
Our arable land is set well away from the house through the wood. The way we intend to cultivate that land requires a base camp from which our growers community can operate, a place to store tools, our little tractor and its implements and an area to store root vegetable crops securely. We also could … Continue reading Plans for the future
In order to ‘buy local’ things have to be ‘made local’. To that end, we are busy planting, pruning and creating all manner of goods here at Joleen Meadows. Our eggs, fruit and vegetables are all from our little patch. We sell them from the door and also take our fresh produce to the local … Continue reading Buy local
Some pics from our first Summer. Continue reading Around and about