Veggie curry fry up

 We never allow waste in our house so leftovers are used to make more meals. It can produce some interesting breakfasts - fried up leftover veggie curry, for example. Alas, with this curry, though the vegetables were all locally produced, we had to make a trip to the supermarket for the rice.

Honey and raspberry beer

 
We've been trying out our honey and raspberry beer over Christmas. It has worked rather well. Only 8 bottles to go. It may take me some weeks before I can report that the beer has all been drunk.

Using up the quail eggs

 

We still have quail eggs to use up so I used a few boxes of them to make a potato salad. We used our pink fur apple potatoes as they are great in salads. I have to confess we cheated with the mayonnaise. That came from the local Coop.

Mud!

Our weather has been alternating between cold and wet. We can get the land rover around the smallholding when it is cold but we very nearly got stuck when we drove over our main field to move a load of manure recently. The ground was wet and not frozen. The land rover was redecorated and then had to have a clean up!

Pregnant Edna

 

I mentioned last week that we were hoping the 4 ewes were pregnant. I took these photos of Edna, the oldest ewe, in the past couple of days and she is starting to show her size. Jo, from whom we got the ewes, told us that Edna normally gives birth early but is a good mum. She has calculated that we will need to start checking for lambs on 16th January. It is the earliest possible date based on Rex, the ram, going in with the girls on 24th August. Busy times ahead (hopefully)!

Instant pond - just add water

All our poultry are confined to runs at the moment. DEFRA have ordered all poultry must be kept caged for the time being until the recent outbreaks of bird flu are behind us. The ruling applies to all poultry in England. We had been planning to dismantle our duckling run but fortunately we did not get round to doing so. It has been brought back into use as a run for the 7 call ducks. We have had lots of rain recently so the ground is rather muddy. The call ducks were starting to get muddy so we added this large bowl previously used as a water trough for the goats. We had to build a rampart at one side to give the ducks access. They are, however, loving the pond.

 

Pregnant sheep?

 

Our 4 ewes have been with the ram since the end of August. We have no definitive proof they are pregnant but they are looking bigger around the waste. Perhaps it's down to the woolen coats or eating too much grass. But perhaps the ram has had his way with them. Fingers crossed!

This is the first time we have kept sheep so lambing will be a new experience for us. The first births won't be before late January. So at least a month to go.