A new path across the lawn

Taking advantage of sunshine, the son and I placed some strategic stepping stones from our patio gate to the chicken and duck yards (they share a wall).  The son is in charge of their daily chores (mainly feeding/watering) and he was slipping on the too short grass;  now we can all safely traverse without any more damage to the lawn.

As a result however, all domestic birds are locked away in their yards until spring.  The grass just can't take any more abuse.  The two ducks have had regular free range until now, though the eleven chickens haven't had much, sadly.  While they have a fairly large yard, it's got no greenery.  I'm trying to keep it topped up with wood chips to soak up the mud/poo (an uphill battle).  The ducks like mud, so I'm not quite as concerned with the state of their yard at present.  If it gets too pooey, they can have some wood chips too.

Our two oldest hens, Rock and Cookie, are still with us at age nine;  if they make it to April, we will be able to celebrate their tenth birthday!  Before these two, the oldest chicken age we've ever experienced was six;  Rock and Cookie are true record breakers.  The son asked me if we would be getting any new rescue hens (of our flock, seven of the eleven are rescues) and I think we will wait till we're back down to around six chickens or so.  Rescue hens in particular are fairly short lived (getting to age four is pretty good and we get them at around 18 months old) so it's not outside the realm of possibility that we will get new ones in the coming year.  It's not been quite a year since we adopted the Birthday chickens.

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I'll be taking my Christmas blog break from now until January;  I'm hoping for as much homegrown food as possible for our festive meals.  I'll be back with my grand total of food for 2025:  have I beaten last year's record?  I'll try to get a last few things harvested and tallied before the deadline and we can find out together.

Keeping warm

A while back, the son and I (and occasionally husband) would go out on bikes into the woods near us every few weeks.  We'd collect as much fallen dead wood as we could into a couple large bags and cart them home on the bikes;  this was the kindling for our wood stove.  Now however, and for the past several years, I've instead been saving almost all our own woody prunings, large and small.  

I'm not sure if our current system is less work than the previous system.  For example, we need to cut and trim the wood ourselves instead of collecting it off the ground (and simply breaking it into pieces).  It also needs to dry several months, up to a year, depending on thickness;  the dead wood in the forest was ready to burn as soon as we brought it home.  True, we don't need to make much of a trip for our own wood, but we do need a place to store it while it dries;  and it usually ends up needing at least two piles if not more:  one for green wood drying out, one for dried wood ready to burn.  I collected the forest wood as needed, and kept it in the transport bags until time to burn.  I could also collect fairly thick pieces and not bother with the twigs;  now I even save my twiggy trimmings and tie them into kindling bundles (more work but great fire starters).

As I've mentioned in the past, we buy in the majority of the fuel for our stove, which is our main source of heating in the winter (we have a gas boiler which we rely on for hot water--we almost never use the central heating).  We also keep a large pot and a smaller kettle of water on top of the stove, for washing dishes/hot water bottles/tea/coffee.  

Being able to light the fire with our own (free) wood isn't the biggest money saver, though we think it's worthwhile.  I'm happy to have that little bit more of self reliance.  Although not directly related to my food, my homegrown woodpile is still a part of my garden. 

The Vegetable Challenge in winter

Our Thanksgiving meal was lovely and included lots of homegrown ingredients, including vegetables, eggs and herbs.  We had a nice dinner with friends;  now we're looking forward to Christmas dinner, though just with our four selves.

I'm still picking a few fresh things from the garden and allotment; this last week I've picked lettuce, cauliflower (I thought I'd already got them all), turnips and Chinese cabbage.  I still have fresh leeks in the fridge and squash in my living room, plus various bags in the freezer--and quite a lot of jars in my fridge and pantry:  dried, fermented, pickled.  The Vegetable Challenge has another seven or so weeks to run, and I'm fairly confident about achieving it this time.  I'm even confident about extending it beyond its finish date of 21st January.

Because of my garden and allotment plan this year, there's been plenty of variety and meals haven't got monotonous, at least not yet.  Eating with the season has been interesting and tasty I think.  I liked eating salads every day in summer and I've appreciated starting on the preserved veg at the start of winter:  pickled cucumbers and beets recently.  I've been trying to get through jars to make room in my fridge!  To that end, the last of the early summer sauerkraut has been cooked into most of my stews, and I'm alternating my breakfast kimchi with mixed veg salsa (which also pairs very well with eggs, regardless of having a very different flavor).

And after looking forward to it all year long, it's nice to start finally eating the first parsnips.  I don't have a lot this time, but next spring I'll try to get a full bed instead of just a few rows.  A nice treat in winter.  And I still have a small bed of pak choi awaiting me:  the anticipation is almost better than the eating.