Today and yesterday in words and pictures

Yesterday
First of the butternut squash went out for sale, priced at 75p for the smaller ones - just under 1kg, then £1 for middle sized and £1.50 for some huge ones almost 2kg. The first lot - 8 I think - sold so quickly I had to put labels on some more  and get them out too. We also sold the last 3 large pumpkins. There are a couple of dozen big ones still  a bit green and a few small ones to sell.
I made  Sweetcorn Relish first. It's a variation on piccalilli. Brilliant with burgers both veggie or meat.

If anyone can tell me how/why this picture turned round by 90 degrees from how it was in the file I would love to know and how do I turn it back again?
The Autumn raspberries are coming to an end. Just half a basin full today, so I got some of the apricots out of the freezer for my one of my five a day. So gorgeous, what an exotic treat. C is eating stewed apple at the moment, which is my least favourite way of eating fruit. We are bringing in a few eating apples  to eat too. I don't think there will be many to wrap and keep this year, the quality is awful. Hopefully we won't get too much windy weather to knock them all off the trees before they are ready.

 Do you remember me saying that I had to buy some biros as we'd not had any free ones? Lo and behold in the post today. From the Red Cross - how many tens of thousands of these do they send out? Presumably it's worth their while doing it. Today there were 2 greetings cards, the pen, a bookmark and a little note book.

This one turned round too- very odd.

My other main job was having a big sort out in the airing cupboard. Our youngest had borrowed the sleeping bags to go to a festival and when they came back they were just shoved in any old how. So I had a tidy up. Got rid of 4 old very faded pillowcases that were lurking and a sheet that's gone to the shed for future use as a dust sheet and found 2 pillows that I didn't know were there.

C was away down to the village early to move the irrigation stuff. Then he went to work for his customer in Leiston. He was putting the glass into the greenhouse and nearly got finished just needing to get one more pane which was a different size. He took the small trailer with him so as to pick up a couple of IBC containers because yesterday we had a phone call asking if we had any left. The bloke at the factory said they had loads waiting to be sold if  we wanted some more we could have them cheap. These 1000 litre containers are originally used for water soluble stuff like car cleaner and they get sold off when the taps are no longer good enough. For water storage they are still fine once they are washed out.  So after lunch he went back with the big trailer and came back with 8 more. We'll advertise them in The Suffolk Smallholders Newsletter.

  He was back out  to move the irrigator again at 4pm and when he got home decided to load the HUGE pumpkins onto the trailer, to bring them round to the front drive. This is how we got them onto the trailer, rolled them onto a board on the front forks and then rolled them off onto the trailer. Except for the BIGGEST which went on a board on a pallet to shift it.

  we went out of the top gate with me sitting on one pumpkin to keep the biggest steady and drove down to the house drive way. No other traffic around for those few moments - thank goodness. Now they are parked where everyone can see them  but Heavens knows if anyone will want them.

And Today
There have been people stopping to take photos of the pumpkins but no one has offered to take one away yet.

C decided to tackle taking down the old shed. I was needed to hold things while he cut them up and to load bits onto the mower trailer and into wheelbarrows and to tidy up afterwards - as usual. There is now a huge builders bag of wood for me to cut for kindling, bigger bits in the shed to be cut for the woodburner and a bag of rubbishy bits for burning sometime. All that's left is the concrete bases of shed and greenhouse to be broken up and removed.

View from kitchen  this morning 

and then a while later

 
C went to move the irrigation equipment for the final time, it's gone back to the farm and if we get all the rain forecast for next week it might not be used again this year. Then he was cutting grass for our neighbour and some here too.My jobs this afternoon were ironing and cleaning  indoors, eggs collected and sorted.

Our electricity meter was read at the beginning of September, but no bill arrived, so about 10 days ago I rang to ask why and gave the lady the meter readings and she said a bill would be on the way. Today we got a phone call querying the meter mans readings as it was extra high so I read it again and my reading was 10,000 less than the meter man!  So I'm SO glad that someone picked up the discrepancy, I would have had heart failure had a bill that big arrived. Hopefully it's now sorted and we will now get a bill and settle up. I don't like owing or being owed money. Which reminds me we must get in touch with the bloke who had all the round bale hay, he still owes us £900!

Library day picture tomorrow, I have at least 16 to pick up. *loud cheer*


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Back Tomorrow
Sue

An expensive month.

I've done the September accounting and it's very obvious that September was an expensive month. My walking boots, the septic tanks pumped out, paying for having the hay and straw baled, a NHS prescription pre-payment card,  a half lamb for the freezer and 2 gas cylinders all pushed up the outgoings. But luckily all were budgeted for, so no overdraft, no credit cards, no borrowing.
 I'll do a proper review of the month tomorrow.

I was all ready to make a double batch of Sweetcorn Relish this morning until LUCKILY, last night, I looked in the cupboard and found the bottle of distilled vinegar wasn't full, as I thought, but almost empty.
So it was off to do Octobers main local Tesco shop a day early. Bargains? yellow stickers? In our Tesco? You've got to be joking! the only good buy was a big -  5Kg - bag of gran. sugar and that was only because they had sent me  £1 off voucher, which made it 5kg for £2.85.
C heard on 5 Live News ( that's the only radio station he can pick up when he's in the big tractor moving the irrigation stuff) that Sainsburys have stopped comparing against Tesco when they do their money off voucher at the checkout because everything is now more expensive at Tesco so there's no point in comparing. I thought that sounded a bit unlikely so onto My Supermarket website where I did a small check with the things  brought home from Tesco today and I couldn't find anything cheaper at Sainsburys except for tins of plum tomatoes which they have on offer at 4 for £1.

There was one thing I had to buy this morning that I don't remember buying for years and that was a pack of Bic pens. Usually we get enough free pens in the post from the Red Cross or Damart and if we were searching for one in the past we could always go and rootle around in Cs work van, where he was bound to have acquired some from the office. However in the last month or so it's been  "where's the blinkin' pen?" when the phone rings and "where's the blinkin' pen?" every time we need to book in a camper. So I've given in and bought a pack of 10, at least they were on offer at £1.50 and they  have a label on for using one up and sending it in for a £10 voucher. I may have to get scribbling!

While I was gallivanting in Saxmundham, C was over the road working  at our neighbours. This afternoon he worked on our field clearing some more weeds from the pumpkin and squash area.
We have sold 50 pumpkins so far, that's an income of £75 and there are still some to sell. Not bad for a few pounds outlay on seeds and a bit of work, as mostly we just let them get on with growing - which is why there are so many weeds this year. He later brought round 33 butternut squash of varying sizes and put them in the shed ready to sell. When I've finished this post I shall have a look to see how much they are selling for in the supermarkets. There are more still on the field but less than we grew last year as the plants from the later sown seeds have plenty of green growth but no squash.

In town I noticed a poster for a new craft group starting at the refurbished wool and needlework shop. It's the 3rd Wednesday of each month from 10 am - 12 noon and is £4 a session which includes a cuppa and a cake. This sounds expensive to me ( although most things seem expensive to me!) but is it? I'm not getting any needlework stuff done at the moment so going there would make me pick up my cross stitch again. But £4? I'm  sounding like a real mean  tight-wad!

Hey hey! Guess what was in the post this morning.......... The new issue of Home Farm Magazine. Ruth and Paul, the editors, must have been happy with my review of last months issue that they have sent me another to review. How lucky am I?
I shall read it and report back as soon as possible. It's arrived at just the right time as the library books had all been finished until the mobile library comes on Friday. Hoping to bike to the van I thought I'd better have a trial bike ride having not cycled anywhere for 8 weeks due to that blasted pneumonia, so hopped on my bike and went up the road for 10 minutes and back again without any ill effects. Good.

Goodbye to someone on Bloglovin who has un-followed!
But for everyone else I shall be 
Back Tomorrow
Sue

It's all down hill from here

At 2.29 this morning when most people were tucked up in bed  the Autumn equinox happened, that's when the length of day and night are the same, so it's all downhill from here! (Unless you are reading this in Australia in which case you've got spring on the way - lucky people!)

 I never look forward to winter, for so many years it meant feeling cold, lonely and depressed even though I wasn't actually cold or lonely, that's one of the problems of depression it magnifies things out of all proportion.
 Now I can cope better with winter but I still don't like it and I HATE being cold.

By coincidence last night was our first night with nobody on the campsite since......(and I had to look it up in the bookings diary)........... June 2nd.  Pretty good going and so different to years in the past, before we had all the mod-cons.

 I've been feeling loads better over the last couple of days,  I'm really getting back to normal, taking back some of my jobs that C has been doing for 5 weeks. FIVE WEEKS! I've never had that long "off work" before. I'm not sure what we would have done if we'd have still had goats, C couldn't milk ( he has got funny thumbs!) and our neighbour away and then ill at the same time as me, it would have been a real muddle.

So what's happening here on the Suffolk coast.
Yesterday we had the big  lorry come to pump out the two septic tanks - ours and the campsite. One of the benefits of having no mains drainage is the we have no sewer charges and getting the tank pumped out every 2 or 3 years is all we have to pay for. It was £75 for each tank. Not too bad and no more than 3 years ago. I dread to think what sewerage charges are nowadays.
C was here all day yesterday apart from going down the road twice to shift the irrigation stuff, we've had so little rain they are still watering the carrot fields. Farmers are very worried about the oil seed rape seedlings which have come through the ground and then stopped growing, although the farmers with sugar beet like dry weather as it makes it easier to get  up out of the ground and concentrates the sugar content of the beet so they get paid more. We don't have as much sugar beet grown around here as in the past when there was a sugar beet factory in Ipswich. Now the nearest is in Bury St Edmunds which is across the other side of Suffolk. When I worked in Bury many years ago the sweet sickly smell drifting over the town when the campaign started was always a sign of winter on the way.

Today C  loaded the greenhouse staging he's been making into the trailer and went off to work for his customer in Leiston. He came home with a cheque for labour and payment  for the greenhouse that he forced  made her realise it was just what she needed,  to buy off us!   The cheque will go into the ISA savings. C was off again after lunch  shifting the irrigator again and  then did some grass cutting here.

I did a pile of ironing, put a load of windfall cooking apples into the freezer and  made a vegetable curry while yesterday was bread baking  and hoovering up day.

With the weather cooling down and less sunshine we shall soon need to start lighting the Rayburn for hot water, it's yet another sign of winter on the way, when bringing a wheelbarrow full of wood down from the shed becomes a regular daily job.

Welcome to new followers on Bloglovin' and to 1st Man, a new Google friend follower.

There were all sorts of comments about pumpkins yesterday.  I have to say that we get very few things stolen off the stall, especially since we had the new kitchen extension built with a big window overlooking the front gate where the stall is. I have a sign on the stall which asks people to put the money through the letterbox in the front door, which means it is safely in the house out of the way. The majority of people are scrupulously honest, even ringing the doorbell or leaving a note to tell me if they are 5p short of change! and they put in in when they next go by. Thank goodness for our quiet  friendly bit of Suffolk.
The big pumpkins I mentioned are far too big to carry, this one - the biggest - is now even bigger than this photo. There are 4 more nearly as big. No one will even be able to lift them into a car without help.

That's another point about our stall and where we live. Someone once asked why we don't deliver eggs to our customers, it's because they are not close to us- no one is close to us except our few neighbours. We are over a mile from the two nearest villages and people stop to buy things from our stall when they are passing by in cars, they could come from anywhere and are on the way to work or  shopping or whatever. I recognise a lot of people because they are regular customers but mostly I don't know who they are or where they live.

Right, I've waffled on enough.
Back Tomorrow
Sue

Plenty of Pumpkin Questions

 We sold our first two pumpkins yesterday and 5 more today and brought another load more in off the field  ready for selling this week(and 1 squash). I did a rough guesstimate of how many we have to sell and I reckon close to 100!

 So how come when I wanted less pumpkins than last year we have more and when I wanted more squash than last year it looks as if there are a lot less?

We've found from previous years if we sell them all for about £1.50 people will buy them. If I put the bigger ones out with a higher price tag they get nicked. Why are pumpkins the only things we have pinched off the stall?

And why are there so many different sizes when they are all from the same seed packet?

And what the heck are we going to do with the MONSTER and the other 4 which are almost as big?

So many questions.
So few answers.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

The first cucumber

Yesterday we had our first cucumber from the poly tunnel. This is several weeks earlier than most years and quite a treat. Most of the teeny weeny cucumbers have now been taken off the plants so that all their energy can go into growing upwards and onwards rather than producing too many cucumbers too soon.
Lots of tomatoes have set and we will now start feeding them and the cucumbers and peppers. We use Comfrey"tea" and an occasional bottle of Tomarite or something similar.

So available from the garden or poly-tunnels today  we have- potatoes, asparagus, lettuce, salad leaves, beetroot, cucumber and rhubarb.

I'm still checking the gooseberries every other day for sawfly caterpillars and squishing as many of the destructive little things as I can find. It takes nearly an hour to go round all the bushes but worth the effort. The bushes are laden with fruit and maybe I will pick even more than last years record which was  over 130kg = 130 x 2.2 = errrrrrrrrrr......................somewhere near to 300lb! I think. Although when C got carted off to hospital and had to stay there for 2 weeks while waiting to go for the stents, I maybe stopped counting.

This morning we got the squash plants out onto the field, 24  I think with some more in the conservatory just beginning to grow. It then turned into the hottest day so far - I hope they will survive. We gave them all a good watering so fingers crossed.

Each plant has the soil earthed up around it so it sits in a small hollow. This is to protect from wind damage and to help catch any rain. With any luck, in a few months time, this area will be completely covered with trailing plants and plenty of squash and pumpkins to sell. Over on the left are our 6 rows of main-crop potatoes just beginning to grow through the ridges.

Earlier this morning I went to Saxmundham to visit Mr Ts supermarket and as I had a letter that needed to go quickly I walked through town to the postbox at the sorting office. You can tell what a quiet life I lead as I got really excited because a new shop had a poster up " Opening soon" selling Antiques, collectables and SECOND HAND BOOKS! Sounds very interesting. Then I went a bit further past  the small wool shop, which at first glance looked as if it had closed down. But they had a poster in the window saying it was having a big refurbishment, would be re-opening in early June with new craft materials and CRAFT CLASSES. Things are on the up!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

30 Ways to save £1--- DAY 8 + Pumpkin & Pepper Chutney

This morning I made the last chutney of the season. Nearly 7 jars of Pumpkin and pepper chutney.
It's a lovely colour and always tastes good. Several years ago someone asked me how I made chutneys of various colours because when they made some it always looked the same. I said that I used white vinegar when I made a chutney in which I wanted to show the colour of the veg. They said " but it costs more than malt vinegar". So I guess you pay your money and choose your colour!

 Here is my recipe which, as usual, is a variation on one from a recipe book.

Pumpkin And Pepper Chutney
2 and a half pound prepared pumpkin after peeling, de-seeding and cut into small pieces.
1lb cooking apples,peeled,cored and chopped
12oz onions, chopped
2 red peppers, de-seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoon ground ginger
 1 teaspoon  black pepper
2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 and a quarter pints of white vinegar
1lb gran sugar

Put everything except the sugar in a large pan and mix well
Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring often until everything is very soft
( I use a potato masher to squish everything)
Stir in the sugar until dissolved and then continue to simmer and stir frquently until it is thick and there is no liquid on the surface.
Pot into sterilised jars and cover and label.
NOTE - this is quite a dry chutney and you have to watch that it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan.

I then used some more of the pumpkin to make some soup.

DAY 8 of the 30 Ways to Save £1 was
8. Swap an expensive hobby for a cheaper one

My main hobby has always been reading, and always using library books for free. A few years ago I started to  collect WWII books about the home front and usually get these secondhand.
When we had small children and before we moved here our main leisure pastime was being Scout and Cub Leaders. This takes a lot of time but doesn't really cost much and our children always joined in with Cub things whenever possible. We also had 1 or  2 allotments and grew as much as we could. Once we moved to the smallholding keeping livestock and looking after the land took all our time and our hobby of producing our own food became our way of life. Him Outside didn't read a lot until about 10 years ago but now reads as much as me. I also like card making which could easily cost a fortune. If you bought regular magazines - there are several papercraft ones- and then bought all the things needed to make the cards in them it would be a very expensive hobby. Thank goodness I often find bits and pieces at car boot sales. My only regular expenditure for this hobby is £12 a year for the Craft Creations Magazine and then I send in cards I've made for their Readers Gallery and often win a £10 voucher to use on craft things from their catalogue.

Some people we knew had a yacht and told us it was like pouring money into a hole in the sea!

Him Outside is so glad to have his tractor back, the hydraulics are working better than they ever have done and he can lift heavy stuff in the front bucket with no trouble at all. He rang to tell them at the engineers that it was working really well and they were so pleased to get a Thank you.
Today he has done the shuttering and filled it with rubble ready for the base of the replacement mens toilets for the campsite.

Nearly forgot to say WELCOME  to follower number 92 -- Practically Penniless. I love to read her blog as she is home schooling which is something we did, but only for 6 months, when we moved house twice quite quickly. The children all wanted to get back to school ASAP!