Meet Bent Nose

A few ago we came across young hedgehog in the garden that we have named Bent Nose, because he has a very distinctive bent nose, he has become a firm friend of hubby, who dutiful feeds him every evening with dog meat, cat biscuits and mash poatoe, we are trying to get him up to 500grms in weight, which according to the reasearch we have done is what he has to be to hibernate succesfully, when we found him he was a meger 125grms, next weigh in he was up to 300grms, then crept up to 400grms last night he weighed in at 480grms so is almost there, it seems that Bent Nose has now been joined by a friend for dinner, his friend is bigger so we assume is a good weight to hibernate, so far the weather has been holding and so he wont be scurring off to hibernate just yet, and there is a good chance he will make the target in time.

Talking of the weather we are picking our second crop of strawberries and have had a good dozen or so each day, a nice welcome if not unexpected bonus this time of year, we still have peppers chillis and a few tomatoes to pick, there are loads of figs on the trees but I dont think they will ripen in time, we have had some during the summer but it would be nice to get a second crop, never mind cant have everything, got one of the greenhouses cleaned out and insulated ready for winter, just got the other one to do when we pick the last crops from it, and I have started moving in tender plants, we had a mild frost the other day, but I am not going to risk losing plants this year I lost so many last year with the harsh winter. Time to sign off will be back soon with news from the kitchen.

Bees Have Done It

The bees are earning there keep and what a great job they are doing as well, our first crop of honey is on sale in my shop and is selling fast, we only have a few jars left, I decided to packed the honey in 250g pet jars, rather than 1lb jars, as a lot of my customers are elderly and on there own they dont like big jars and to make it easier and less chance of damage I went for the pet jars rather than glass, made up some blocks of beeswax as I have had a few people asking after that as well, bought a mould from Thorne when I put my order in for jars, the mould makes love ingot blocks with the word Beeswax embossed on it, so well done bees keep up the good work, the money from the sale of the honey and beeswax, will help subsides the costs of the varroa treatment and winter feeding the new swarm that dose not have enough food.

Next year all being well we will have lots more to sell.

its time for me to start preparing for Christmas, so I am making a start today on those pressie that I am making for the grandchildren, and to make a start on my christmas pud, we are spending christmas at home this year, hubby has been filling the wood store, so we will be toasty warm, the stor cupboards and freezer are full to busting so we will be all ready to huncker down for the holiday together.

I have finished knitting my jumper and plan to start on some socks tonight, I love hand knitted socks they are so comfy and warm and very hard wearing, also need to get the aprons embroidered for the shop, we have decided we need some sort of uniform that the customers can identify us with, so black aprons with our names on them and the shop name Homespun Crafts, has been decided upon, will also save me getting glue and paint all over my clothes which tends to happen in workshops.

Housework is done have hoovered through, cleared up the kitchen, washing on the line, chooks are fed so I am spending the rest of my day off playing with my sewing machine, so off to enjoy myself.