News from our farmstead #38

Closing chapters, opening new ones

Firstly please forgive me for the shorter format of this month’s newsletter. I’ve just got Santi off to bed, read a few chapters of my book, and suddenly realised it’s the last day of the month. I’ve only missed a monthly newsletter once, during exceptional circumstances, and for pedantic reasons that make sense only to me, I don’t want to slip into bad habits with this newsletter so here we are!

Santi cheers us on with his spatula as we install the oven

July will of course always be a special month for us, now, as it’s the month of Santi’s birthday and of all the memories that brings. As I mentioned last month, we wanted to get an oven installed in time for his birthday. This involved first moving a bunch of electrics around so that they wouldn’t be directly above the hobs (instinct told me that probably wouldn’t be safe?) and then, well, buying and installing an oven. I’m pleased to say that all of those things went smoothly and I’m even more pleased to say that the first three things I baked - a tray of brownies, a victoria sponge and baby-friendly carrot cake all turned out deliciously! And Santi enjoyed his party - I think. Obviously he had no idea what was going on but maybe some of my delight at eating half a victoria sponge rubbed off on him. He managed a good few hours and a lot of pizza crust before getting sleepy and grumpy, anyway. And we are very happy to have an oven. Next step, bread making!

Wow, you idiots really did all that work just to bake this thing? Which I’m not remotely interested in eating?

In fact, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Santi’s birthday was the end of the month - July actually began with a little holiday to Rome. It was a very special holiday because my best friend, whose wedding we attended in Rome last year, was now expecting her own baby and I knew this holiday was our last chance to see her before the baby arrived. And I also felt like it would be fitting to re-do last year’s babymoon, as it were. I’m so glad we made the trip and it was really wonderful to return to the places I’d felt so unwell last year, this time with an almost-one year old. It felt healing, in a sense, like closing a circle that needed closing. Travelling with Santi turned out to be so much easier than I’d expected, mainly because we’ve now been in a very predictable nap routine for many months and it’s quite easy to make sure he stays well rested and in a good mood. The trip made me really excited to travel more as a family in the future. Having a baby really does make you see the world through fresh eyes!

Near Rome

So between our trip to Rome and Santi’s birthday, the next couple of weeks were taken up trying to get the kitchen ready for the oven. We had a bunch of tiling to finish (where?!?!? you might be asking. Have we not tiled every conceivable surface in the house by this point? You’ll have to watch our next video to find out)… and a few other things, besides the electrics, which made sense to do at this point whilst we were still pushing on the kitchen. We also had a bit of extra work on our hands with the unexpected arrival of 11 chicks, which we had no idea a hen was even incubating. I don’t know how she managed it, but it seems she had a nest somewhere outside the coop and was sneaking out to incubate it, but always returning at feeding time. We never counted her missing so I have no idea how she kept us fooled for 21 days. One morning she simply turned up back at the coop with 11 little chicks bobbing about underneath her, waiting to be let inside with them.

Since the chickens and ducks currently live together, the chicks caused a bit of an issue because the ducks had water which was too deep for the chicks. The coop was also not fully chick-proof. They are very small and can squeeze through tiny gaps, which they seemed to enjoy doing, much to the cats’ delight. We didn’t lose any to the cats, thankfully, but two did drown before we figured out a better solution for the ducks’ water. We were also regularly rounding up stray chicks multiple times a day and attempting to figure out where they had escaped from this time, so we could fix it. We have now prioritised separating the ducks so the water issue isn’t a problem any more, although to be honest by the time we get the new duck pen finished the chicks will probably be big enough to hold their own in a trug of water. Anyway, it needed to be done, so it’s a good job we’ve been pushed to make a start.

The beginnings of a duck palace…

In between all of this, I also got the good news that the lymph nodes that were removed from my neck last month turned out to all be clean and cancer free, as far as can be seen. My post-operative blood work also looked exactly as the doctors were hoping it would. So as far at my little whirlwind thyroid cancer journey goes, it’s all over. There is no more treatment, just annual check ups. We’re still trying to get the dose right of my thyroid replacement hormone though. Conveniently there is a corresponding hormone which your pituitary gland produces when your body is low on the thyroid hormone, so by measuring this other hormone, doctors can tell whether I’m being given enough thyroid hormone or not. Otherwise I suppose they’d just have to go on self-reported symptoms of hypo- or hyper-thyroidism and I’m feeling fine so that wouldn’t work too well. I’m curious to see how I feel when I finally get the right dose!

And now, to end the month, I’m in the UK with Santi for a couple of weeks. Not for entirely happy reasons but we’re still going to be having a lovely time seeing family, escaping from the intense August heat on the farmstead, and stocking up on marmite. It’s my third night here and I’ve already had my second fish and chips dinner, so I’d say I’ve started as I mean to go on.

Apologies for so little renovation/farmstead news this month. Not much is happening in the garden apart from watering our little raised beds and picking things here and there. The kitchen has taken centre stage for a while, but we now have nothing major left to do in there, and I think we can finally close that chapter. It’s been a long time coming! Of course there are little improvements, extra shelves which might be nice, some more painting, but there’s no longer anything screaming “renovation site!” when you walk into the room. Once we’re back from the UK and the weather cools a bit, it’ll probably be high time to think about a new big project. And I have a few ideas…

Thanks for reading again,

Harriet 🌻