First egg of 2024!

Here it is kids, the moment we've all been waiting for -- the first egg of 2024!  

We last had an egg on 30th September, so we've been waiting for this one for a while.  Our first egg last year was in the week between Xmas and New Year, so significantly later this year.  Because of the weather?  I don't know...

For those of you who don't know, once upon a time, eggs were a seasonal food, like asparagus or strawberries.  Egg laying is linked to light levels, so when days start getting shorter, laying tails off, and when the light starts to come back, laying resumes.  The reason you can buy eggs year round in the supermarket is because they give hens artificial light to trick them into laying all the time, but we think that our hens deserve a break and a rest from their hard work...

In other news, somebody on the island ended up with more Seville oranges than she ordered -- which meant that I got to make marmalade -- and somehow I managed to end up with more marmalade than I was expecting, but it is so delicious that an oversupply will not be a problem!

Spotted this earlier -- Cookie and Freya probably as close as they ever get to each other -- separated by a pane of glass!  And now I am off to wash my windows!  :)

Glorious Snow!

Today is the FOURTH day of this glorious snow and I am loving it!  Sadly, tomorrow it looks like it is going to warm up again and we will have sleet and this will all go away...  Best to enjoy it while it's here -- so amazingly beautiful!  Never thought I would get to experience snow like this again...

Sheep cuddles!

The rain and wind has paused, so I can go spend some time with my sheep!  This is my favourite lamb, and by the looks of it, I am her favourite human!  (Taking selfies with a lamb is infinitely harder than you imagine -- this is the best shot of a VERY bad bunch!)

So now that tupping is over for the year all the girls are back together -- four ewes who are hopefully in lamb, two ewes who I didn't tup because they are nuisances, and four ewe lambs awaiting their turn next autumn.

In other news, here's a batch of wild-fermented apple wine I've just started -- check back in a few months and I'll let you know how it tastes!

Cookie in one of her favourite sleeping spots on a sunny day -- the car!  She is clearly looking annoyed because she knows that as soon as I put away the camera I'm removing her from her spot!

And this is a quantity of pork stock -- I'm cleaning out the bits and bobs from the bottom of one of the freezers, in preparation for Pete going on there -- so there will be lots of stock making over the next week or two!

Progress towards self-sufficiency

Finally got around to doing the year end accounts and I am very pleased with the results!

Overall we spent less money on day to day expenses this year than last year -- and this in the face of the Cost of Living crisis!  This means that we are getting better at making/producing/doing stuff for ourselves with less outside inputs...

Between the hens and the ducks, we had 1343 eggs in total in 2023 -- and when you work out what we've spent on bought in feed -- which of course has gone up in price since last year -- we are spending less per egg than it would cost if we bought them in the shop, so that's a good win.

Our biggest expense is electricity -- it runs our air source heat pump -- but hopefully by the end of this winter, the numbers will show that the insulation that went in last February/March and the new heat pump that we had installed in May have greatly reduced our electricity consumption (plus we are actually warm this winter for the first time since moving here!)

Further along these lines, this morning I mended a bedsheet that had a tear in it.  It took me less than an hour -- at current UK minimum wage of £10.42, there's no way I could have earned enough money to buy a new sheet with the wages I would have earned in that time, and I've now got a perfectly good useable sheet!

(Sorry, no pics.  I was going to photograph the mended sheet, but how do you photograph a sheet without folding it and then you wouldn't see the mend which would defeat the purpose of the photograph!  :) )

2024

Weather here has been appalling of late -- lots and lots of strong winds and lots and lots of heavy rain -- the fields are all waterlogged and we have a lake in our quarry!

Today however was a gift -- we had sun and dry and not too windy -- perfect weather for a swim!  Unlike my last swim two days before Xmas when there was ice on the roads, the air temperature today was 7c -- warmer than the sea!  Quite choppy water -- very refreshing...

Pete the ram said goodbye to the girls on the 30th, so now we wait until April for lambs.  That said, one of the ram lambs (intact) somehow got into the field with some of the ewe lambs overnight so hopefully he did not manage to catch any of them as I don't want surprise lambs after I think lambing is finished and I really don't want my ewe lambs in lamb...

And I'll leave you with a little bit of industrial archaeology -- found this metal plaque in the field -- presumably the 80+ mph winds on Wednesday brought it here -- keeping it because it's got the same year of manufacture as I do!  :)