November 2005 nearly there now

November as usual proved to be a very busy month but rather than issues to do with the animals the issues centred around the hub of the house the kitchen. After nearly two years of Debbie trying and trying to make the concrete floor look half decent action was finally taken. A concrete floor has always been practical for our family what with kids Wellingtons and dogs footprints an expensive carpet or laminate flooring would be a case of throwing good money after bad. I have seen a few examples of how to make the concrete look better but painting over I think would just leave the problem for another day. No we needed something more lasting done once and that is it for year's, decades, no forever, if that is possible.
During the summer I used black slate tiles to address the concrete floor in the bathroom and the result was better than I expected and even the splashing from the kids in the bath and little boys doing what little boys do at the toilet meant a quick mop sorted the floor back to a really nice finish. So after trying a few stores Debbie made a decision to have natural slate tiles laid down in our main entrance (The Boot Room) and straight through to the kitchen.
Some of you will have seen me mention I had a little tiling to do but you probably didn't pick up on the pure frustration and utter desperation at some points of getting the job done. Not so much the actual tiling but the fact that our kitchen really is the hub of the house, which is, occupied almost 24/7 with different activities which all had to be accommodated when tiling. Not least that the tiling adhesive needs to dry and the sealer solution (2 coats) and polish (2 coats) all needed to be left from 3 hours up over to produce the result that is now much better than I imagined it would be if I do say so myself.
The result should also mean that that is it sorted for decades I hope. I certainly have no intention of doing anything else to it and if anyone dares to ask for my help with tiling well I am sure you can imagine the response so resist the temptation!
The last two months although physically hard have given me a great deal of time to think about things and I think it is slowing dawning on me that after nearly two years the actual set up of our home and land may be very much sorted to provide us with what we yearned for when we first came to Aberdeenshire.
We have made few changes to the actual house except for cosmetic touches and it works well for us. The only thing I suppose could be made better is the heating system which to be honest is none existent. That may sound strange bearing in mind we live where the winters are supposed to be artic like but for our needs the Rayburn cooker means we don't suffer a great deal! It provides the warmth for the kitchen in which we generally spend around 90% of our time in during the daytime throughout the year. It is also set up to provide all our hot water needs which it does too efficiently at times. The kids bedrooms are directly above the kitchen which is basically beams and floorboards so heats them fine just our bedroom where we could do with better heating this just means I've got an excuse for a cuddle though!!
The animals are pretty much sorted now although we have a distinct lack of eggs at the moment. We started with 6 hens 2 years ago and still have those but they are either just passed the moult or are just finishing motherhood duties. During the summer we did however hatch quite a few eggs of our two breeds and enjoyed our first chicken a few weeks back. Very tasty which is good news for the Light Sussex, yet to try the New Hampshire cockerels as they were the second and third batch but should be ready soon. So we know we have good meat birds but it would be nice if the point of lay young birds would start producing a few eggs there are after all in total around 40 young hens for egg laying. To be honest it is partly my fault, as I know that if I could get a light on in the henhouse to extend their day this would probably result in a good supply of eggs. Although pretty easy to do it's still a case of time, which by the time I get an opportunity to do this it will be spring and we will have an egg mountain not unlike the food mountain excesses we hear of.
Game birds are plentiful and hopefully at the end of the season I should be able to arrange for a great deal of duck, pheasant, and partridge meat for the freezer to supply us over the summer to the start of the next shooting season.
We have what we believe is the right amount of sheep for our purposes. 6 ewes and 2 ewe lambs for breeding. We are hoping to keep a few ewe lambs each year to eventually have our own reared flock of Suffolk's which still have not lost their appeal that is except for the ram lambs who seem to be getting to the age that they feel they can take on all comers. The breeding ram is due to be coming for his holidays within the next few weeks so I think that out of the 4 ram lambs the 2 biggest are going to have to go to the freezer leaving 'Little Fella' with a playmate for a few extra months.
As our orphan lamb 'Little fella' really has struggled to put weight on and I can see why so many are advertised for sale in the early months of the year as from this experience our orphan lamb really has struggled to keep up with his cousins maybe he knows something they don't. It does give us the slight headache of having to keep him separated from the ewes passed the point at which we expected all the rams to be in the freezer. The future will take the form of keeping most of the ram lambs for our own use perhaps selling a few, keeping a few ewe lambs to bring in new breeding stock and finally for the older ewes to provide mutton as our recent addition of mutton to the menu was a pleasant surprise in how good it tastes.
Lastly the pigs. Having had a baptism of fire over the last two years we have decided to carry on breeding pedigree Large Black pigs. Primarily based on Bonnie our original Large Black whose temperament has been superb as has her rearing skills. She has taken to our other gilt Lady and new boar Malcolm who as well are pedigree Large Blacks well not too large at the moment but by next spring summer time will be part of a breeding trio. Lady is very much like Bonnie and seems to enjoy the contact from us, Malcolm as well seems quite at home and together they should mean pork is readily available all year round.
Fruit and veg production I think is something I am going to have to work at and probably score a 'could do better' for this year. One of the lessons I have learned thought is that you can over plant things, which I found to my cost. This meant a few crops all matured at once leaving the impossible task of trying to use them in a very short period of time. Staggered planting I think is a key word for next year as is no overstocking. Believe it or not I managed to use half of a 60ft polytunnel to grow only pumpkins, and squash the later didn't even produce one fruit! I have managed to have a good think about what to grow and how to organise the crops next year so we shall just have to wait and see if I've learned from my mistakes.