Lockdown Haircut

How is your lockdown hairstyle coming along? I am generally managing fairly well. Fortunately I am not a frequent visitor to the hairdresser and had been fairly recently before lockdown. I certainly wasn’t one of those rushing off to have my hair and nails done as Boris Johnson was contemplating lockdown. I found this a curious thing that many ladies seemed to do. Vanity seemed to win over personal safety when a hairdresser or beautician must have been seeing umpteen people at close quarters. I have had no roots to worry about as my hair has been natural for many years but I did take a pair of scissors to my fringe when I realised I was constantly touching my face to brush my hair back. Luckily it has quite a spiky style so did little damage to it. 

Farmer Husband is a different matter. He is beginning to look a little hippyish. He has refused to let me get near him with any scissors, garden shears, sheep or horse clippers! It seemed the ideal opportunity when the sheep shearers arrived but unsurprisingly he was not in agreement!

The sheep however must have been very relieved to lose their woolly coats in the heat we have been having.

It was a hot day for shearing yesterday for a job that is hard work at the best of times.

Sky is always keen to help with the sheep and was on call for any rounding up that was needed.

All the wool fleeces have to be folded up and packed into wool bags which are then sewn up ready to be sent off.

Meanwhile the sheep look quite different!

The noise during shearing is terrific. The ewes and lambs bawl incessantly because they have been separated. They continue afterwards until they find each other. The shearing machinery is noisy and then on top of that they seem to like to have a radio playing at full volume. Definitely not a tranquil day in the countryside.

It does not take the mums long to settle down once they are reunited and soon peace returns to the farm.

You will be pleased to know that Husband Farmer has this evening got me to order him some hair clippers on Amazon!

Early Haymaking

Who would have thought when we were having all that rain during the winter that we would see it as dry as it is now? It seems to be the way our weather is going these days. A long wet period followed by an equally long dry time. Dry is definitely the word! This has brought haymaking forward this year. The grass was ready to cut and would have dried out if left any longer.

So the last few days of May have been busy. The crop is much lighter than usual but the quality is good. We make the majority of our hay in small bales which is easier for the sheep and is also ideal for selling for horses.

Sadly it is another farm activity that has been done this year  without any visitors. Last year the haymaking in this same field was exactly a month later and we were sharing birthday cake for Younger Daughter with various members of the family in the field.

It is now all safely gathered in so hopefully we might get a bit of this rain that has been forecasted tomorrow.

The Bake Off Results

Firstly I must apologise for taking so long to come back with the results of the Savoury Tart Bake Off. It seems to have been quite a busy week although not for any real reason! We are still taking things very cautiously with very few changes to our daily life. I did bravely go for a socially distanced walk with a friend last week. I don't think we will be rushing to have our quota of 6 in our garden. I was thrown into a dilema when it was suggested that we had book club in someone's garden. I was relieved that I was not the only one who considered too early to take such a step. We will be continuing on Zoom until next time.
However back to the results. Here are they and w are and who made which tart.
No. 1 The Full English Breakfast was made by my sister and was placed joint 4th my our judges and was also placed 4th by my blog commenters.
No. 2 Quiche Lorraine was made by Farmer Daughter. She was placed 2nd by the judges but 5th by all of you!
No. 3 The Caramelised Red Onion Tart was made by me. It was placed joint 4th by the judges and 2nd by you.
No. 4 Callie's Quiche was made by my sister in law and was placed 1st by the judges and 3rd by you.
No. 5 The Salmon and Asparagus Tart was made by Younger Daughter. She was placed 3rd by the judges and 1st by all of you! Personally I agree with you, this is the one that I would definitely like to have tasted! It is of course all only a bit of fun.
The next challenge has been individual cakes so I shall be showing you those soon.
  Meanwhile the shearers are due tomorrow. The sheep will be pleased to lose their wooly coats in this hot weather. I thought therefore that I would show you a photo I took the other day when the sheep were in the field in front of the house/. The ha ha gives the illusion as it is supposed to do that the sheep are on the front lawn!

Family Bake Off : Savoury Tart

 

 
 

This last weekend's family bake off was to cook a Savoury Tart. The judges found this one quite a difficult one to score. their consensus was however that they would like to taste each one!

I thought this time that rather than give you the results and tell you who cooked ech one i would give you all the chance to be judges yourself. would you like to score them from 1st to 5th and give a few encouraging comments.

So here are the entries.

1. Full English Breakfast.

 

 

2. Quiche Lorraine 

 

 




















3.Caramelised Red Onion and Bacon Tart 

4. Callie's Quiche, souffled with cheese and bacon.

5.Salmon and Asparagus with a lemony and wholegrain mustard.                                               

 

So it's over to you now before I reveal the results!

Staying in Touch

Social Interaction is an important part of most of lives. The current lockdown has put this to an extreme test. We have all had to become inventive in the ways we stay in touch. There are still old fashioned ways such as the post and I have tried to make a point of sending people a few cards. I also send food parcels to younger daughter especially since we have found a hiding place for the postman to leave packages outside her door.

Social distance chats are becoming the thing too. Stopping on walks for a bit of a catch up or in our case when selling eggs and corn.

It is the Internet however that has been a lifeline to most of us. Emails, Whatsapp groups, Zoom, FaceTime and blogging have become essential parts of our lives. Quiz nights, bingo, bake offs have all been reinvented. 

Long chats with younger daughter are particularly important and while we FaceTime she shows us around her home and garden sending pictures as well. Sometimes I get the feeling she misses the dog more than us and I suspect the feeling is mutual. Poppy therefore also has her turn at FaceTime! 

An Afternoon Walk

This is actually a walk from mid April where I took my camera along meaning to post it. Somehow it got forgotten amongst my other photos. So off we go.

It's surprising how different things look from this now, a month later. The grass is much longer and greener, the trees are now in leaf and the lambs below are much bigger.

This is a crab apple tree which we gave my brother in law and his wife a few years ago. It has fantastic blossom and the fruit is a good source of food for birds in the autumn. You can see that it is well guarded to prevent the deer eating it.

There are also two bee hives on the edge of this field. They are usually tended to by one of the cousins but she has recently had a baby so has found a beekeeper to deal with them this year.

This walk takes us just through the edge of the quarry where you can see the deep red soil.

Then across the road into a small woodland area much of which was surface quarried in the past so is quite undulating.

The path skirts along the side of the woods.

It then drops into the top of the woodland which at the time was a sea of wild garlic.

I have probably mentioned before that the broad leafed garlic tends to dominate over the bluebells however the further you go in the bluebells become more evident.

They become a carpet of blue with their subtle perfume in contrast to the much heavier harsh garlic smell.

 

There has to be at least one Poppy picture.

Cool Off Time

Poppy like many Labradors loves water. She doesn't think twice about jumping into any puddle or water trough that she finds. I wasn't too pleased when she jumped in this one because it's not very clean, she needed a hose down afterwards. It is also rather close to the electric fence and I was worried she would touch it as she climbed out. Don't worry I lifted it out of the way.

This old bath had been a trough for many many years. This however was Poppy's last swim in it.

Farm work is pretty up together at the moment, we can't currently go anywhere for the day and brother in law and sister in law couldn't take their holiday away. Consequently a lot of extra jobs have been done around the farm including replacing the trough. Poppy was soon able to try out the new one.

Just right on a baking hot day and the water was clean!