First frost of the autumn

The days are now getting really short. Yesterday we had the first frost of the autumn. Not a severe one, but noticeable. 

Cleaning the honeycomb

We have stored in large buckets in previous years the pressed honeycomb in the expectation that at some point we will get round to extracting the beeswax. We are a step closer that doing that but first we have washed the honeycomb in water which we have put into large pans. We will be using this honey water for brewing (and there was a great deal more honey washed out of the honeycomb than we expected).

Venison and pigeon casserole

We still have lots of pigeon breasts to use up so we combined some with venison from the deer carcass we took to the  game butcher recently to make a rather pleasant casserole.

Honey sale

 I've spent the past couple of days sorting the honey from 2 hives. Tomorrow the honey will be on sale at the pop up shop at the Whinnies Community Garden. I will be there to help with the socially distanced crowd control!

New sheep paddock

 The new paddock for the sheep is finished! It's about 4 times the size of their previous paddock. We moved them into it on Friday and they are loving it - especially the grass. Next job is to build the lambing shed.

Self-isolation ended

I have been goat sitting for a couple of weeks. A friend tested positive for covid and he owns a couple of goats. As he had to self-isolate, I was recruited to look after the goats. That came to an end today and I'm pleased to report my friend is in good health, as are the goats. 

Beans

I don't know what variety of beans these are. They were grown by a friend and he let me pick the rest of the crop. They looked like runner beans when in the pods on the plans. When removed from the pods they look like butter beans. Anyway, the beans I picked are all now in the freezer.