Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! It has been too long. 

It takes a great deal of effect to maintain a blog and due to this, I had to put it on hold while I gave my attention to other areas of my life.

I am currently working and studying, in addition to being a mother, a wife, a milk maid, a cook and unfortunately a cleaner.

So with exams recently sat, I am able to update you on the goings on here at the cottage.

We are all ready for Christmas and the children are very excited. They finished up with school and play school on Friday and are counting down the nights still Santa comes.

We are over wintering my two young horses and the children's pony max together in a new sand paddock. It is working out very well and it doesn't hold a drop of rain.

They are feed haylage along the fence and it is super easy to keep them now.

Moo, the jersey cow has  been dry since we brought her in, back in October. She is her own cow yard near the horses. She is due her calf early in March and her belly is growing everyday. We let her out on grass for a few hours on dry days.

Our milking machine failed just before we dried her up, It will require a new motor and after some consideration, we have decided to purchase a brand new portable milking machine in the New Year. In the long run it should be more cost efficient. I do not want a newly freshening cow without a reliable milk machine.

The bees are clustered for winter. They fly on warmer days to collect water and empty their bowels. I will start to feed them when the days warm up in the new year. At the moment they can't break cluster to feed, I just hope that they stored enough for themselves during last season. We only took a few frames of heather honey from one hive. Some of this has been stored, should I need to it give it to a lighter/weaker hive.

The fox visited and took our two ducks and a young pet chicken called chirp chirp. The children were very saddened by this.

We currently have two roosters and ten hens that are still laying well for us. I collect about four eggs each morning at the moment.

Hubby got two male ferrets a few months ago to resolve the rat issue that we had. Our shed was alive with the amount of rats that were present.

Thankfully the ferrets have cleared out all rats in our immediate area. They have proven to be very easy to keep as we release them a few times a week and they come back for feeding, which is raw meat and off cuts free from our butcher. They are not very tame and handling of them requires gloves. I'm glad we got them.

Merry Christmas xx