This week has been busy, aren't they all. As we had a few dry clear days, we set to and cleaned all the animal houses thoroughly. Neadless to say once it had rained and the ground was muddy again, the hen houses especially looked no better!
The last of the garlic is now drying in the conservatory. I went to weed the onion bed, mistakenly planning to put peas in, only to find a load of late onions, which I had left when I did the initial harvest as they were so small - a really welcome find. Our sparce beans are being picked and our courgettes have a new flush of life. Tomatoes continue to come thick and fast from the greenhouse.
Foraging I have been collecting elderberries, there was a good crop this year but the birds have been stripping them as they rippened in a way I have never seen before. I have a few frozen now, whether there will be enough to make wine this year or just to flavour jam we will have to wait and see. Apples again have been poor with us. Last year we were a wash with crab apples for crab apple jelly, this year I have managed one batch only so far. I may get a second batch but not much more. The brambles are prolific some we are eating again some I am freezing until I have time to use them. Sloes have been good and again I am collecting and freezing them. They are better after a frost or being frozen, and I don't really have time now.
One of the most interesting things happening, and I'm not entirely sure why, is that we still don't have our heating on. The weekly maximum and minimum temperatures aren't that far off normal but we are about a month late in putting our heating on. The hall remains at 19 or 20 C which gives a very comfortable house. The bedrooms are cool at night but we are in bed, the hot water bottles are in action. We do have the fire on at night and the cooker gives out heat, but this is not new. Who knows.
We have been looking at our garage roof wondering about more solar panels - PV or thermal. With our new system we have needed to keep the wood pellet boiler on through the summer - similar to a gas system - however, I am much more aware with the pellets that the boiler is cycling several times an hour to keep the water in it's system up to temperature. It would cost the same to run the immersions and switch the boiler off. It looks like we will have used about 77% of our solar PV this year which is great, I'm not sure if we can capture the rest for the hot water but we think we shall try, so we are experimenting with the timers. The inital trial resulted in the immersions being left on for 4 days as I forgot to switich them off - timers are more reliable!

I had hoped to bring good news. Today we had expected to have the solar panels signed off by Scottish Power. As you know to get this done we needed a bit of equipment that can vary the voltage going through the G59 switich to ensure it will cut off in a power cut. Unfortunately, this piece of equipment, when sent from the manufacturer of the G59 switich was faulty so we need to wait for a replacement.
Hopefully, this will come this week and we will be able to be up and running in the next week or so.
Also bad news on the wood pellet boiler front. The installers have asked for the installation to be delayed until January due to pressures of work. It is good to hear they are busy and does give us more time to get the garage cleared and everything set up. The preparatory electrics are just about finished as hopefully we will be able to get tidied up before Christmas.
The project has developed a few more holes, we are still getting cabbage, garlic, tomatoes, chillies, potatoes and eggs from the garden. We also have some chicken and rabbit in the freezer, however, this does mean a narrow diet so we are supplementing with onions and apple juice.
Talking of rabbits, our initial doe and her only daughter were vaccinated against myxomatosis this week, so we will be able to get them out again at the end of this week. That will be a relief for all.

Well, as you will see on the install page, Scottish Power's engineer came out as planned, but did not carry the testing equipment needed, and had not relayed this to our installer. So we are looking at next week before we start making electricity.
We have this week taken delivery of 6.5m3 of wood from a new supplier. This looks nice, dry wood, though it is currently in the garage as it is too wet to transfer it into the wood store. The other nice thing, is that we are sharing it with friends who are about to have a woodburning stove put in.
On the subject of garages out rabbits are still undercover out of the way of myxomatosis. I took the doe and two kits to the vet. The doe needed her myxomatotsis vaccine, now she had been in quaranteen 2 weeks. I took two kits, as I want to keep a doe and couldn't decide if these two were female or male. Thankfully one was female. She has also been vaccinated so they should be back outside together in a weeks time. Mind considering how wet and miserable it has been I'm not sure they will be that delighted.
We have also had the electricians in the garage this week doing the preparatory work for the wood pellet boiler going in.
We are still eating out beans (frozen), potatoes, cabbages and the last of the tomatoes. My greeny yellow ones are still turning red so the green tomato chutney is going to be a small affair this year.
With regards out frozen produce our 30+ year old chest freezer is starting to fail. So I have spent a fair amount of time looking at chest freezers. We want the most fuel efficient one that can fit in the space and can keep things frozen for as long as possible in a power cut. It looks like this will probably be a Bosch, Miele do a more efficient one, but it is probably too big for the space and is over £500. In preparation for this there has been lots of tidying and throwing asway, it is amazing how much stuff we keep hold of but never use.