Assalamu Alikum wa Rahmatullaji wa Barakatuhu, ,
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and write about what’s been going in. Alhumdullilah the slaughterhouse is all finished and there’s just a bit of paperwork left to do but we are mashAllah fully operational and getting used to slaughtering onsite rather than taking the birds off to Birmingham.
MashAllah we had a very busy month last month, we took our first batch of lambs and goats to slaughter at the closest HMC abbatoir and also slaughtered HMC ducks and chickens onsite. This is the first time that we have offered our lambs and goats for slaughter and the feedback has been Alhumdullilah very good. We purchased all the orphan lambs from a local farm which we fed on milk until they were old enough to free range and live outdoors. The goats were all born on the farm and fed by their mothers after which they grazed on the lush, rich pastures on the farm. Both the lambs and goats were a minimum of a year old when they were slaughtered; ensuring that they were truly halal and tayyib. As we do not slaughter until the animals are at least a year old this is something that we will offer seasonally as we will only slaughter what we rear and not buy in animals from other farms to slaughter.
Whilst living on the farm and rearing the animals and being so involved we have noticed that our eating habits have changed. Before we got so involved in the rearing we were very big meat/poultry eaters and I can remember cooking meat or chicken for at least one meal a day. Now, we have noticed unintentionally we are consuming less meat and chicken and might go weeks without eating it. We (this includes the kids!) are happy to eat fish, rice, vegetables and lentils and have meat and chicken as a treat or when we fancy it which might be every two to three weeks.
Our first beehive was put in towards the end of last Summer and our supplier was so pleased with how well the hive has been doing he’s recommended we install another one! The bee’s happily buzz around the garden and are quite happy to share it with us, even though we’ve not been lucky enough to enjoy our spring tulips this year thanks to someone we won’t mention any names, Umran, who decided to let the young lambs in to graze in the garden instead of cutting the grass. Needless to say with all that lovely fresh grass to eat they made a beeline straight for my pretty flowers that didn’t even get a chance to bloom.
Thanks to our wonderful Duke of Edinburgh volunteers who visit the farm every week we have managed to plant all our seeds in the poly tunnel. Alhumdullilah we have manged to plant everything without purchasing any compost as we are now making lots of our own. We’ve also planted a few different seeds than previous years so keep an eye on the photo gallery and I’ll update you if we have any joy!
We’ve had lots of open days and picnics at the farm last year and inshAllah we intend to offer those again this year. It’s quite difficult to try to explain that there are no organised activities and it’s an opportunity to experience nature and appreciate what Allah swt has created for us, but once people come to the farm they soak in the peacefulness they mashAllah realise exactly what we meant.
The peacock run has also finally been built and now that Safiyyah has moved bedrooms she’s awoken by them calling her instead of us! Mr Peacock is very excitedly flashing his tail to everyone that wants to watch as he is now in his new home for all to see.
Forgot to mention the turkeys! We mashAllah had some fantastic reviews for our turkeys, they came to us in July last year and were six months old when we slaughtered them. We then hand dry plucked them and left them to hang for 11 days, the result was a mashAllah fantastic succulent tasty turkey and all Halal and Tayyib.