Changes Before Winter | Life on a Smallholding

The heat has finally eased, well, briefly! With some time off approaching, we decided it was time for a proper walk around the smallholding and a look at what needs doing before the year gets away from us. With only 19 weeks of 2026 left, there turned out to be rather more on the list than we expected. The dry weather has taken its toll on the land. Dexter is already needing some of our winter hay, Sonic's paddock needs extending, there are fences to repair, dead trees to deal with, pigs to prepare for the months ahead and plenty of decisions to make before winter. One of the hardest is our poultry. After Taking Stock of our egg production over the last few weeks, we've had to accept that we're feeding far more hens than the number of eggs we're getting back. Our Rhode Island Reds have been part of the smallholding for years, so deciding what to do with them hasn't been particularly easy. Thankfully, we've managed to find them lovely new homes, just as a very successful hatch has given us the beginnings of our next generation of laying hens. So an empty chicken pen means another job for Steven: strip it back, clean it out and start again, ready for its new residents. Elsewhere, we're harvesting from the greenhouse, planning ahead for winter and discovering, once again, that going for a simple walk around the smallholding is a very good way of making a rather enormous jobs list. Thanks for joining us for another week here on the smallholding.