Oh deer

We spotted this hoof print in a bit of mud on the small holding. It belongs to a deer. I'm not surprised as I have occasionally seen deer in the area. It does raise the issue however of potential crop damage. Hopefully it will not be too significant.

Reusing timber

We have spent much of today recovering timber from a garden near to where we live. A friend of ours runs a gardening business and he had been called in to replace the fence. The quality of the timber was good and instead of disposing of it, we were offered the opportunity to take it. It will make excellent material for building pig arks and goat sheds. Great use for something that would otherwise be disposed of.

Two goat babies

Coal, one of our nanny goats, gave birth to two babies yesterday morning. Last year she rejected both her babies. She did exactly the same this time round. So we are the foster mother of a little boy and  little girl. They were named by others via Facebook Sooty (the boy) and Sweep (the girl). We brought them home last night to make feeding them easier at 4am and took them back to the goat paddock this morning so they can get used to being around other goats and build up a resistance to infection.

Self-Sufficient in Suburbia early January

The first half of January saw us stepping up our activities to prepare the new field for planting. Top soil and manure were shipped down to be spread on the land. We started planting the boundary edge. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen we made our first bacon.

Bringing home the bacon

We have had a go at making our first bacon. The bacon joint was from the half pig we got a year ago in an exchange for 2 goat kids. The joint was cured and then put through the bacon slicer we bought last year.





Of course, it would have been a shame not to have tried it.



Result: excellent!

Fly tipped wood chip

I discovered this pile of fly tipped wood chip next to the car park of one of our local parks recently. As usual, my mind turned to how someone else's waste illegally and selfishly dumped on the local environment could be turned into a resource. I came up with a bright idea.



We bagged up about 15 sacks of wood chip and shipped it down to the small holding.



We have a problem there with patches of damp ground in which the land rover wheels has caused deep gullies



The wood chip was perfect for filling in the gullies. We haven't yet driven over it. That experiment is on the to-do list.

New veg bed

We are continuing to move manure and top soil to the smallholding to create new vegetable beds. For the time being however, we are creating the new beds at the bottom of the field, rather than the top where we have already set up 4. The reason for this is to avoid taking the land rover over the grass which we have churned up in places, though we are taking action to repair this. The rain at the start of the month has created wet patches but they are starting to dry off. Nevertheless, we are leaving the top of the smallholding alone for a bit longer until the ground is dryer.