Homestead Reality Lessons: Episode 1

I've been recording videos again, this time I'm talking a little about some of the realities of running a smallholding or homestead that you may not have learned from watching river cottage or the Good Life.

Not All Rural Life is Rosy

This week has in part been one of those where as a blogger we gloss over the shittier parts of smallholding which usually only shows the quainter aspects like raising baby chicks and pulling home-grown carrots. 

Now dont get me wrong there has been plenty of the nicer stuff like a light dusting of snow and calm sunny cold winter mornings, but I'm not gonna lie, there is plenty of crap mixed in with it, and I mean that literally.

For instance one of our cockerels doesn't like me so chicken chores have to be done with a shovel in one hand in case he attacks me (never bothers hubby though). We also have a duck separated at the moment as she has problems oiling her own feathers and gets soaked andcold in bad weather, add to that our 2 young Buff Orpington cockerels don't seem to realise she is a duck and keep... well umm... 'pouncing' on her!

To top all this off we have had the drains backing up and a toilet that would not go down, resulting in fishing around in the septic tank, digging up sewage pipes and too much time spent with arms down toilets, wonderful. 

Thankfully we did not need to remove the toilet, I was having an anxiety attack envisioning removing said toilet and ruining the bathroom floor and waste water to clean up everywhere in one of the few finished rooms in the house.

Of course now I can't get the scene out my head from Christmas Vacation with cousin Eddie emptying his chemical toilet into the drains, shouting to all who will listen 

"Shitter full !! "

The Dilemma of Raising Meat

 Today I want to touch very briefly upon the subject of raising meat. I don't plan on going into detail on the subject of raising and producing meat on the smallholding as I know not everyone who reads my blog eats meat and that includes my mother. But currently me and John do eat meat in small quantities, although we have not always done so.

I've had a very personal moral dilemma over eating meat for a long time. We have lived on our small holding for 6 years now, and I have kept chickens for eggs for several years before that in my back garden. The subject of raising our own meat to go with our veg has always been very brief conversations along the lines of....."It would be good to raise our own but I'm not sure if I could dispatch an animal I've raised" and then we would carry on planting carrots.

My dilemma has been that how can I be willing to eat meat someone else has dispatched but not be willing to do it myself? An animal has died to feed me in either situation, but if we raise our own we know how that animal has lived etc.

I'm not saying people must raise their own meat if they wish to eat it, we haven't up until now, but we have the land and ability to do it ourselves. In our situation we have the chance to know our animals are well looked after, been fed well, and had a clean dispatch.

So at the beginning of this year we made a decision to try raising our own meat and laying hens. All our flock at the time were ageing and we were not expecting many eggs this year, so the plan was to increase our laying flock by buying in and incubating hatching eggs in the breeds I would like for eggs, then when large enough any surplus cockerels would either be dispatched for the freezer, or if we truly couldn't do the deed we would sell them on.

The plan has worked out well, we have at least 10 new layers (we are still waiting to sex the youngest when they get a bit bigger) plus new breeding cockerels for future selling of our own hatchlings.

Almost 2 weeks ago we had our first dispatch day which went well for our first go, John was on dispatch and pluck duty and me in the kitchen preparing them for the freezer. We had our first roast last Sunday of the 5 that went in the freezer and I have to say I'm pleased with the result.

The plan next year is to raise hatching eggs of breeds that are specifically meat birds plus breed some of our own pure breeds to sell locally as layers. And yes I did choose breeds this year that lay pretty coloured eggs it's been one of those unimportant but giddy silly homesteading dreams to have baskets of multicoloured eggs on my kitchen table.

The photos above show 3 of our keeper cockerels Laurence the Lavender Araucana in the top photo, and Cornelius the Welsummer cockerel alongside our Cream Legbar who has yet to be named, so if you have any name ideas let me know :) 

Magical Moments of the Egg Kind

There are a number of magical moments when you do any form of self-sufficiency, such as your first laid egg, or the first pan of home-grown new potatoes, perhaps it is the first podded peas or ripe tomato.

Each year brings new magical moments and today was one of those, our first egg laid by a hen we incubated and hatched from an egg herself !!!     Life full circle.

It has been a very bad harvest year on the island, a very damp cool summer with the local barley and hay crops been virtually none existant, its going to have a knock on effect next year for the animals for sure.

Harvests on the plot haven't been very good either. Our onions and broad beans are decent enough but little else.

And meet the sum total of our tomato harvest, not much salad out of that one !!

But onwards and upwards,

we keep on planting and we always harvest something from our little patch of land.

All Change in Chicken Land

It's been all change here in chicken world, the second clutch of chick were moved out of the upstairs brooder into the smallest chook house yesterday afternoon, giving them there first taste of the wild Orkney outdoors.

To hand over the keys to their new abode, the previous residents needed to be upgraded to their new digs, the large movable chook shed, giving us the perfect time to start introducing them to the oldest birds. 

For the next week or so their shed and run are inside the chicken land run, giving everyone a chance to get used to one another, then the fun of integration for the birds we are keeping begins

And at only 9 weeks old, and can barely believe how huge they have already grown!!

Meet the Flockers !!!

Meet the new feathered members of the family !!!! We now have a much extended flock of chooks, and our first ducks, we have re-homed them due to a family bereavement and they are slowly settling in :)

Top left we have Charlie Drake (the cute little white cartoon duck) smallest and ruler of the flock, with his missus Jemima (head female duck). Charlie and our other drake seem to have no problem sharing their harem except when it comes to Jemima, she is his Lady :) and Charlie puts him in his place damn quick even though he is half his size.

Bottom left we have our second in command and kept in his place Rhode Island Red. Big Red as he is called, apparently was a bit of a piece of work until having an incident with a car, now he has a limp and comes second place to his older more laid back commander.

Bottom middle we have Curly with one of the younger ladies of the flock. Curly's tail feathers have this adorable way of curling up, he can get quite boorish when it comes to feeding time and is rather bossy with the ladies, but bows down to Charlie's command.

Bottom right we have Mr and Mrs Maran. Mrs Maran is top of the ladies pecking order but is laid back and doesn't seem to need to enforce her place much, and it is rare if she is not by her hubby's side.

Mr Maran is top chook, he is laid back with everyone, keeps Big Red in his place simply by chasing him every so often, other than the other evening when Red tried it on with Mrs Maran and he took exception. A brief fight later and the sparrows were happy with their fresh supply of nest feathers, and Mr Maran kept reminding Red who was in-charge for the next 24 hours.

Top right we have one of our young lady ducks of which there is 7 not including the two drakes and Jemima. The only one named so far is our special needs duck Tilly.

And the final picture on the middle right, is one of our new little red hens. There are 8 of these girls but only two have names, Mona who we have taken out of the run and homed with our 2 older chooks as she was getting severely picked on and is our depressed chook.

We also have Peggy, so named due to her dodgy leg which means she has a limp, but she is actually the least flighty of all the birds and will come right up to you no problem.

We now seem to be inundated with eggs, good job we like quiche, and omlettes, and scrambled egg, egg custard, dippy eggs, egg mayonaise, meringue........

#100happydays Round-up 26th-2nd April

Photoshoot at the Ring of Brodgar 26th March

Poppy cat hunting in the garden 27th March

Mrs Blackbird watching me, watching her 28th March

First bunch of daffodils from the garden picked by John 30th March

It may be cold out but it is sunny and the fire is warm 2nd April

Well I didn't manage to remember to take a pic everyday so I have thrown in a couple of extras from the week. 

First a male pheasant who has been hanging around lately.

A little wren stopped by in the garden for a few days.

And this Redwing followed John home up the drive.

It has been a busy week for birds in our garden :)

This Year's Spring Lambs

It is always a joy when the farm next door lets the first of the lambs into the paddock behind us. They spend there first days here before being moved to the more open fields.

The fence is only a few feet from one of the lounge windows allowing you to get really close to them.

As much as I like the taste of meat, seeing the animals so closely does make you think twice.

Orkney produces fantastic meats and is sold locally in the butchers and restaurants, a lamb or a calf you have fawned over could in all likelihood end up on your plate in a few months.

I have attached a couple of short videos I took of the sweeties for you to fawn over too. enjoy !!

Fledglings

Today is a day in town, so I am typing this up from our brilliant local library, for such a small comunity Kirkwall library really is great, and the archives section upstairs is amazing, the sheer quantity of records they have is unbelievable.

I am hoping whist I am in town I won't miss our fledgling hooded crows leaving us. A few weeks back a pair began building and then sitting on a nest in one of our trees, brave of them as the nest is only around 9' off the ground. Then early one morning around 6am I heard one of the crows going crackers outside, and thought "Oh %$£&*^ poppy is up the blooming tree!!", so I leaps out of bed, goes running out the back door in no more than a tiny nighty and slippers to find popps trotting towards me with a new hatched baby in her jaws :(

Well I took it off her and it was still alive and headed to the tree, only for our poppy to come out of the undergrowth with another, also alive!

So there is me climbing up a tree flashing far too much body at the crack of dawn, hoping the farmer isn't out early for some reason, placing baby birds back in the nest and getting a lecture form the parent birds lol
Fortunately the chicks survived, and for the past few weeks as they have been growing, everytime poppy goes in the garden she gets mobbed by the parents, consequently she has spent a lot of time indoors, but serve her right I should think !

Now the chicks are leaving the nest and have been learing how to fly, one is more advanced than the other, but they are both managing to get up on the barn roofs, so not long now I should think. I took the opputunity to take a couple of snaps of one of them the other day, but I made a sharp exit as mummy crow was getting rather upset with me.
Well my time on the computer here is nearly up, time to go do the rest of the shopping before the bus home with hubby later. TTFN xx