Stuff that works for me in cold (baltic) weather!

Another very cold and absolutely freezing day today!  However, the sunshine and clear blue skies make up for the fact that it's still -6oC at 10.00 am.

Having kept animals at home for the last ten years I have found the following things really help when we hit the 'very cold' part of winter.  This year hasn't been so bad so far, last year our lowest temp was -27oC and we stayed at below -20oC for a week.  All this is fine for us humans, central heating, an Aga, a couple of log burning stoves and even some electric fan heaters kept us warm inside but dealing with our horses and chickens outside was more challenging.

Here is my list -

• Musto snug jodpurs - warm legs and happy me
• Muck boots - these are neoprene wellies, and keep your feet warm and dry (but they do really stink when you take them off, I Febreze mine and my OH's!!)
• I have two galvanised waterers for our chickens - one is always defrosting/defrosted inside the house, ready to be swapped over for the outside one once it freezes (and this can happen a couple of times a day if it's -20!)
• Last year we finally bought and fitted a heatsource tape to the water pipe that supplies my stables - it has a built in thermostat which automatically heats the length of blue water pipe if the temp drops below 3oC.  It means that I can fill the horses water buckets in the stable and also outside without having to fill containers from the house and move to the stables/field by wheelbarrow.
• I now use large Tub Trugs as water buckets in the horses stables and in my fields (especially as my automatic waterer freezes solid pretty quickly).  They are easy to remove the ice from and flex a bit if they get frozen solid.
• I use a kids (clean) shavings fork to lift ice out from the buckets before I refill them with water - bit basic but stops the water freezing again so quickly.
• We have a section of hardstanding in our paddock nearest the stables, I feed the horses hay from a round (Highland Cattle!) feeding ring there, it stops them standing in mud and means I don't have too far to go to move hay.
• When the temp is really cold, I feed the horses in their stables, do rug checks etc etc and then I leave the stable doors and the gate to the field open.  This means they are free to come and go as they please.  My two big horses moved home with us from Calgary, Alberta and are used to cold temperatures, but I have found on really cold nights that they keep warmer if they can move/walk around rather than standing in a loose box all night.  This seems especially true with Zac, my paint horse, he is around 24 years old and is quite stiff in his pelvis so keeping moving is much better for him.
•  I keep a chicken feeder filled up with layers pellets under a small weather shelter at all times.  The chickens also get two poultry corn feeds a day, and an extra feed of grain at night just before roosting.  My theory is that this keeps them a bit warmer when they are roosting!
• We have a automatic pop hole opener on our chicken house, which is great, but sometimes if there is a lot of snow I dig small paths for the chickens to go from their house, to the water, to the feeder etc.  A sprinkling of hay outside their door can help them jump down, they don't seem to like the initial shock of going onto cold snow.  We just rake it up again once the hay has gone. 

A list of simple things, but they mean I can look after my animals, even when it does feel like we're in a freezer outside.

tipping it down Tuesday

Pouring with rain today, just been out to bring horses in to their stables to dry off with some hay.  I'll put their rain sheets on before I put them back out in a couple of hours.  So, I'm sitting here with a coffee, perfect for catching up with what's happened in the last week or so.

Coco

Last Tuesday we visited D.A.W.G.S (link to their website below) rescue centre in Aberdeen.  We were interested in rehoming a wee dog from them.  After various questionaires and a home visit, I took our kids and our two other dogs into the D.A.W.G.S. Kennels to meet up with the dog (my husband met us there too, as he works in Aberdeen).   It was a huge success, we loved her and she seemed very happy with us too.  So we brought her home and she has settled in really well.  She is learning to respect our other animals, is a bit wary of visitors but she is a lovely addition to our brood! 

http://www.thedawghouse.co.uk/

fruit in here somewhere

On Saturday I braved our completely overgrown fruit patch to pick blackcurrants for jam and some gooseberries for pudding that night.  Whoever decided that gooseberries were good to eat deserves a medal, in my opinion!  They are the scariest looking fruit and the thorns and spikes on the plants make picking them downright dangerous (I have the scars to prove it).   My hens were very pleased with my efforts though and decided to help themselves to the gooseberries I had picked too.

Happily I've now got 7 pots of blackcurrant jam and made delicious Gooseberry Snow pudding (from Valentine Werner on Saturday Kitchen).

hottest weekend of the year (so far)

What a gorgeous weekend we have just had.  Things are moving on quicker with the polytunnel now, got the beds all in place now.  We have one narrow bed on the left hand side, to grow beans, peas etc in.  A double width bed in the middle and on the right hand side we have left bare.  The plan here is to make a huge 'growbag' from weed fabric, fill it with well rotted manure and grow our tomatoes in it. 

We have left a working area at both ends of the tunnel and have also got two paths (wheelbarrow width) down between the beds.  Next weekend will see us putting the plastic over the top of the frame, and doing the final adjustments on the structure.  All the wee bolts will be adjusted to tension the plastic cover (well, that's the plan at least).

Elsewhere in the garden things are really starting to take off, my wild garlic is blooming and looking perfect for adding to a frittata or soup maybe?  Our lovage is absolutely perfect right now - and very tempting to grab a mouthful when walking past (as well as adding it to salads - yum).    We have finally planted all our tatties and I hope to get our onions planted in the next day or two.

We've also added a couple of new hens to our wee brood, some Amber Star pullets, they are around 16 weeks old, so about 5 weeks from point of lay.  They are happy docile wee things, and have started life in our 'baby' chook ark, where they can see and hear the big girls but not be bullied by them.  Their names are Princess Peach (Peachie for short) and Daisy - apparently something to do with Mariocart (the kids chose the names!).  We'll introduce them all when we move all the chickens to the other end of the garden, at night of course.  One of my friends has just started keeping hens and it's been so much fun helping her with setting up her flock.