This Years Squash Harvest

These are some of the squashes that I've grown this year. 

Not a massive harvest but it should see us through some meals during the winter. It seems to be a bit hit or miss as to how many squashes I can grow. Some varieties produce loads (like last year) but don't taste that good. This year I concentrated on a couple that I know taste good, Turks Turban and Crown Prince, these are true winter squashes and so store well, the hundreds that I grew last year were only really any good to bulk out meals and tasted of very little, a disappointment really. 

What variety of squash do you grow and if you're going for self sufficiency how big of an area do you grow with them?

Future Sunday Roasts

The boys that hatched out in the summer are pretty much ready to eat I think and look pretty good. They fight a lot so I think it will be time soon to put them in the oven! 

What age do other peopel kill their young cockerels at?

Harvesting Chillies

I just love the colours of the chillies I've been harvesting lately. The harvest hasn't been as big as I hoped but nothing as done as well in the greenhouse this year. The cayennes have been great on my pizzas for the  last few months though! 

I'm thinking about drying most of these as I haven't got enough to pickle this year. Although I am tempted to make some spicy chutney if anyone has a good recipe for me to try? 

How does everyone else preserve their chilli harvest? I also like the idea I saw on Jamie Oliver where he keeps some in the freezer and just grates it on his food! 

A Scene From The Past - Almost!

If it wasn't for the tractor and quad bike then it could have been a timeless scene from the English countryside. 

 Sorry the pictures aren't very good!

As I was drenching the ewes the hunt came trotting by, exercising the dogs and taking the horses for a ride. We heard them long before we saw them, with horns blowing and dogs being called by name, luckily I already had the sheep penned in. 

Made me smile as they shouted good morning in their suits from the top of their horses, to the peasant tending to his flock, back bent! 

Routine Work With Sheep - Drench

There's a lot of repeat work with animals although no two jobs are ever the same. 

At the weekend I drenched the lambs and then yesterday I drench the ewes. This flushes the worms out of their stomach and keeps them growing well

Marking a lamb I've just drenched

 It's a job I've always found easy to do but I suppose that's because I was shown the right way and I've been doing it so long I can't remember when I started drenching them instead of dad (when I lived on the farm).

I simple try to get them where they can't run away (a tight pen for something like this is important otherwise you'll be chasing sheep all day), then I pull their heads back, push the nossel in their mouth and give them the drench. I mark each one as I do it so there are no repeat dosages. I try to keep the mark as small as possible as dad always hated to see sheep with lots of marks on them so I was nagged not to paint the sheep when I was younger! 

This is a job where I started out just being in the pen with dad when I was a child and when I was big enough I used to mark the ewes for him (which makes the job a lot faster), then as I became a larger teenager we used to interchange who did it.

Yummy

And then encase this job didn't take enough time you have to go fill in the medicine book and right down who had what. I love that bit...