Versitile Blog Award

Oooh thank you very much Mandy at the lovely Chateau Moorhen, a fellow versatile blogger, for my lovely Versitile Blogger Award! It is an honour indeed.

Now, following the terms of the award, I am able to pass it on to as many other deserving bloggers (who haven't had it yet) as I wish - but have to declare a hitherto unknown fact about myself for each blog I nominate.

Here goes then:

The Barefoot Crofter

I absolutely love this blog - Jacqui is a crofter on the Isle of Lewis, living the life I dream of. Her blog is visually very pretty and includes loads of absolutely breathtaking photos. It is also a mixture of tales of local things, recipies, knitting and growing stuff - my four favorite things ever.

Useless Beauty

Susie is the best knitter I have ever known (virtually speaking) and inspired me to knit socks. Although I will never be able to make the amazingly complicated and delicate things that she does, I like to vicariously knit though her lovely blog. Plus she is stalked by every cat in Cambridge and found an unexploaded bomb in her garden.

Chants Cottage

Sarah is doing amazing things in Mid Wales, like foraging and growing things and snooking (hope I got that right) and rennovating an old cottage and I love her dry take on the joys of selfsufficiency.

So, here goes:

1. I still suck my thumb occasionally. Yes, I am over 30 but as far as I am concerned it is free, doesn't make me fat and is totally legal.

2. I am an organic gardener...almost. I just cannot give up the slug pellets - a row of beheadded leuttice plants breaks my heart.

3. I am learning how to be a florist at college...it has been a lifelong dream and I had a revellation at 30 and decided to go for it.

So go and check out these amazing fellow bloggers who make Blogland a lovely place to be.

Kindling

My parents are having a new kitchen fitted shortly, and have taken down the delightful 70's heavily varnished wooden shiplap celing. This is perfect kindling material - but with acres of digging to do, I don't have time to chop it all up.

Ah retirement... all that time on your hands...best use it productively. Thanks Dad for a pile of kindling that will keep us going for the rest of the year!

Pork Delivery

Yesterday, I went to collect our pork from the farmer - 4 pigs worth. As you can see, it pretty much filled the kitchen (much to the fascination of the dog - don't worry, they were in plastic bags).

I portioned it out into one pigs worth for us, our landlady and each set of parents. This meant everyone ended up with the following:

20 pork chops
10 roasting joints of various sizes (some HUGE!)
liver and kidneys
one huge 5kg bag of sausage mince
4 ham hocks (lovely with lentils in a soup)
one tenderloin
two huge bacon joints (basically a large rectangle which we will slice into bits, cure and make bacon out of)

We had a whole leg too, which Oli wants to air cure and make parma style ham out of.

It has all gone in the freezer for now and we will gather the ingredients (vast amounts of sugar/salt, smoking chips, juniper berries, rusk and sausage skins) that we need to start the ham and bacon curing and sausage making bonanza.

I politely refused the heads and the trotters, though we were offered. I know it is a waste, but with only two of us, we will struggle to eat the above before it goes off - without having to go through the grisly business of making brawn (belurgh!) and cooking trotters. Lets face it, nobody eats these out of choice, do they?

 Pork supposedly lasts 3 months in a freezer (although our last lot was OK after 6) before developing a strange metallic tang.

The Curious Case Of The Bright Orange Dead Bird

On my lunchtime walkies with the dog today, something bright caught my eye.

In a bush, still clamped on to a twig but upside down, was this bird - dead as a dodo, with an almost fluorescent orange breast and a jet black head.

Apologies to the squeamish.

Being a little ornotholgically challenged, I have no idea what type of bird it might be (perhaps someone who knows could tell me?). I also don't know what happened to it - it wasn't that cold last night and it didn't have any obvious wounds.

Curious!

And...we're off!

The cycle of sowing and growing 2012 has begun. I am growing a lot of flowers for cutting this year, as well as all of the usual vegetables.  This weekend I sowed some early leuttice, spinach, broad beans and tomatoes, as I had some of last years’ seeds to use up (I think it pays to do this early, though many disagree).

On the flower front I sowed statice, stocks, cerinthe, bells of Ireland, rudbeckia, delphers, sweet peas, perennial cornflower, violas and lots more. I use a mixture of 1/3 vermiculite to 2/3 peat free multi-purpose compost.

It is actually all a ploy so that I have an excuse not to do the washing up.

So from now on, the windowsills will be groaning under the weight of seed trays and every available bright spot has a propagator. I really don’t think there is anything more uplifting than when the first seedling pokes its head above the compost. Yippee!

Well Darn Me!

I spent five hours on the M4/M25 on Monday as a passenger. It is always annoying sitting still without doing anything constructive, so I thought I would put the time to good use.

My lovely woolly sock (not knitted by me I feel I should add) got caught on a rough screw on our carpet joiner strip thingy and developed a gaping hole. These are the most comfortable, warmest socks in the world, so I was not prepared to throw them away.

I had a go at darning the hole. I guess this is a skill which is on the decline - I have certainly never been taught how to do it, and there isn't much point darning a 'Next' skinny knit sock which only cost a pound in the first place. But it is well worth it for chunky real wool socks like these.

Using a darning needle, I created a row of vertical stitches using as many of the remaining original stitches as possible.

I then made a 'lattice' by weaving horizontal stitches through the vertical ones. It pays to keep the stitches as taught as possible here - mine weren't that tight so it is a bit wonky.

Secure the wool and snip off. Finished! Not the most beautiful repair job, but OK for a first attempt I thought and my lovely socks are back in action.

Getting Away for a Day

It was a lovely day today, with glorious winter sunshine and a balmy 2 degrees C - a slight improvement on last night's -15!!

With the still unmelted snow on the ground, there really wasn't much to be done around the farmstead, so we went on a 'day trip'. I would have liked a bracing walk to a lovely pub and then a lingering lunch infront of a roaring log fire, but as we are rather ahem...impecunious of late, it had to be a freebie. So we made a couple of sarnies and a thermos of coffee, and set off to the nearest beach. Being in Wiltshire, this meant Brean Down in Somerset, about an hours drive away.

Being Brean Down (basically Weston-Super-Mare) 'sea' is an abstract notion. While we were there, the 'sea' was half a mile out from the huge sandflat. The dog and I ran out to splash in the Atlantic...and ran...and ran. We had to turn back when we started to sink into the boggy quicksand. Oh well, it was pretty in the sunlight.

Do you see the mountain goats? No, I kid you not (hahaha). There were loads - not what you expect to see by the seaside.

Once we had got to the top, we scoffed down lunch. Nice to soak up some winter rays.

Gratuitous Snow Pictures

I am lucky in that I work so close to my home (in the same village) that I can pop back at lunchtime, to walk Libby, our pooch.
It was so pretty this lunchtime, I thought I would take some snaps before it all melted away.

The poor daffodils don't know whether they are coming or going, having come up early only to be clobbered by snow!

Doh! We probably should have put these in the log store while we had the chance.

I love these chicken tracks in the snow.

In my defence, the dog coat was a Christmas present...

The village duck pond is frozen solid - no sign of any ducks today.

I love this crazy topiary and how the snow shows up the dry stone wall so nicely.

All in all, a nice walk for Libby and also for me.

RIP Amy the Hen

I went out to collect the eggs yesterday - we had three, which was fantastic, as we have been lucky to get one a day from 9 hens in the last two months. Always an insult when you trudge in and out in the cold and wet to feed them, muck them out, and then have to BUY eggs when you go shopping!
But my delight didn't last long - just next to the bushes behind the henhouse, was a pile of grey feathers. My heart sank as I recognised the stripy ones - they looked suspiciously like the feathers of my FAVORITE hen, Amy. So called because she was a cream legbar - the only hen we had who laid the most beautiful blue eggs - and had a little feathery beehive like the equally ill fated star.  She was a beautiful hen, gorgeous multi-coloured plumage and a very sweet nature.

I feel like a terrible poultry husband. We have moved henhouses recently as the old one was falling apart - to this new one which was a donation from a freind of a friend whose husband found he was allergic to poultry.

This has understandably confused the chooks, who had been sitting on the top of their old henhouse at bedtime. This week they gradually got the hang of it, and we had two consecutive nights of them going to bed as they should.

You screw it to the henhouse, attach the string to the door, et viola!

We use VSB electronic door openers on our hen and duckhouses, which rise with the light and come down at dusk. They are fabulous, and save us the job of getting up at first light and having to be home in time to shut them away. If I had to do this, I don't think I would keep poultry - I need my weekend lie ins! One door opener has failed on oe occasion in three years - not bad at all. And the hens are usually are all tucked away long before the door goes down. But not this time.

I popped out to do a headcount the night before - could have sworn they were all there, but it was dark and cold and I was in a rush...obviously Amy had decided to spend the night outside and the fox took his chance. A friend offered to come and stake it out, and shoot it for us. But foxes are hungry too at this time of year - I don't blame the fox, I blame myself.

I noticed little scratch marks in the grass, around the wire coop bit of the new henhouse. The fox is obviously trying to get in that way. So we have put a 'skirt' of logs and things around the base for now, and Oli will fix chicken wire to the bottom of the run at the weekend as a more permenant measure.

Buy Cheap, Buy Twice

Not sure how much this has to do with being a smallholder, other than when you spend all of your money on animals of various types, you are always broke?I am in the process of a massive financial review lately (more tedious details to follow shortly) and one of the things I will be taking more notice of from now on is the clothing budget.

I am  a total scruffbag when I am not at work. With a grubby little dog to walk down muddy lanes, chickens to put to bed and mossy logs and ash to ferry about  for the logburner, there is just no point in wearing anything nice around the house. When I lived in a city, I was always relatively well dressed, in case someone ‘knocked on the door’. Well, living so rurally means that a) we are too far away for anyone to just ‘pop round’ or b) everyone else is just as scruffy so it doesn’t matter. In fact, my good friend and neighbour frequently walks around in her PJ bottoms and a jumper covered in dog hair. Because of this, I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes.

But in December, I broke, desperate for a taste of ‘normal life’  and went on a bit of a ‘spree’, buying various items, one being this jumper from Mango. It cost me £9.99, and as I only wear it to work, I haven’t washed it yet (should mention I do layer up, so it doesn’t smell, ok!). I put it on this morning and gasped –  it is covered in bobbles, is stretched out of shape where it had half fallen off its hanger and the sleeves are all misshapen and baggy when you wear it. I looked at the label – 78% Viscose, 28% Polyamide. I know you can de-bobble with one of those gadgets, or with a razor, but in my experience this doesn’t last long. I recon I can get a few more wears out if it before it will be consigned to the ‘gardening clothes’ drawer – but what a waste! Ten or so wears and it is redundant – price per wear almost £1.00.

Compare this with…..my lovely GAP jumper. It cost £50 back in 2006, when I had money to burn.

I LOVE it. The word comfort blanket doesn’t even get close. It is 100% wool.  I recon I have worn this at least once a week for seven years. Price per wear = who knows but it must be in the low pence – and it’s got years left in it. You can tip a cup of tea over its brightly coloured stripes and it doesn’t show. You can cook a smelly roast dinner in it, hang it by a window and the smell disappears. I have never de-bobbled it and have washed it several times. Over the years, like a trusty guardian angel, it has seen me through:

visiting grans who are now 90 (sorry gran);

cuddling babies who are now all grown up;

dirty jobs like bottle feeding lambs;

And many, many more things.

I know that you are thinking about Time Team, but I don't care!

Look, I have heard them all, OK?

So – lesson learned. From now on I am buying quality, not quantity. It is hard when you are skint and seemingly unable to save money, but I am going to try. Five months of buying the crappy Mango jumper would have bought me another GAP lifelong companion.  Even better to buy them from charity shops, where you can find bargains my other lovely, stripy, GAP jumper, which was £8. See a theme emerging here?

Time to Say Goodbye

“A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork.

What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand,

is that the two statements are connected

by an and not by a but.”

 John Berger

Yesterday, we got ‘the call’ from our farmer friend that he was in the area, and could pick up our porkers on the way back to his farm, to take to slaughter today, with some of his own animals.

They are probably dead by now – all morning I have been looking at the clock and wondering whether they have breathed their last. My work colleagues keep asking me whether I am sad about it. This is a bit annoying. I feel like asking them if they mourned the death of the pig which is in their supermarket sandwich. The fact is, animals die so that we can eat meat – I think they just feel that it is a bit heartless if you happened to know the animal when it was alive.

The pigs in the autumn - amazing how much they grew in the last few months. They even had a bench to sit on.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. I know that my pigs were well looked after. They had a snuggly house, plenty of space to run about in, lots of soil and roots to snuffle about and plenty of treats. So I can’t be sad about their lives, the way I am about the way intensively reared pigs live. That only leaves their deaths to be sad about. I did have a quiet moment at the sight of the empty pig pen, but I am not sad.

I know that they were sent to a local family run small abattoir, about a twenty five minute drive away from us, so any stress was kept to a minimum. Oli went with our last lot and saw it through right until the last minute. He said it was all done so fast that none of the pigs had a chance to see what was going on – and there was no squealing.  This is a million miles away from the hours travelled by some animals to large slaughterhouses, who queue up for ages in full sight of what is going on.  If I am going to eat any pigs, I would rather they are the ones that met their end with as much dignity as possible in the circumstances.

In the trailer.

For me, there are two options – either don’t eat it, or go to the trouble to make sure it has lived and died well. Just buying it and trying not to think about the bad bits isn’t really a choice for me – I am sorry if that sounds a bit sanctimonious.

They were on their way within half an hour. We tempted them into the trailer with some food (this does feel a bit duplicitous), completed the paperwork (which is for the local council's animal movement records) while they ate, and our friend took them off to overnight in a barn before the journey in the morning.

Note to self - must buy flat cap or will never make proper farmer status.

It will be a couple of weeks before our pork delivery arrives.

Brrrrrrr

Well according to local thermometers it has been down to -6 last night and any garden activity in the weekend was a write-off. The ground was too hard to get a fork in. And annoying as I wanted to exploit my newely re-discovered digging mojo - having gotten through 3/4 of veg patch 2 (there are four) the week before:

Still, at least the frost should kill off the pests in the soil which have been brought to the surface by the digging. Nothing much for it than to stay in the warm and drink tea - and browse the internet to see what other things can be done in preparation for the spring.

As I kind of fell out of love with the garden in the autumn, I didn't plant any bulbs - which I massively regret. So treated myself to these gorgeous 'tete-a-tete' dwarf narcissi from the garden centre and planted them up in a bowl. Only one has managed to burst through so far but the little flash of yellow is just enough to keep me going on these frosty mornings.

Pigs In Blankets

Along with most of the South of England, we have had some very cold days (lowest -5c around here) and even a dusting of snow. The water trough has at least 3 inches of ice on it, which we have to bash though with a hammer in the mornings.

I felt very bad for the poor pigs, out there in their pig arc. It is corrugated iron, so not very well insulated at all. We do give them straw from time to time, to keep them off the ground and comfortable - but they eat it, so a bale only lasts a week! They had snuffled the earth and remains of the straw into the corners, blocking off any draughts, and all sleep in a hollow in the middle.

People keep telling me that with those four boys in there all together, the body heat would keep them warm enough alone. I did check on them one night, and wheras the ground outside was frozen hard, the dusty earth inside the house was still loose, dry and friable. I can conclude then, that it must have been around or above freezing in there, but nontheless, still too cold to be comfortable. They are off in the next few days for slaughter, but I wanted their last week to be a happy one.

So as soon as we heard that the cold weather was on the way, we went and bought three big bales last week, and stuffed the pig arc full.

They checked it out approvingly:

And soon dived in, burying themselves completely. Only coming out on the promise of dinner.

Can you blame them?

Finito!

Well reader, since my last post about my list of outstanding jobs I am pleased to announce that I have finished one project - the unfinished socks.

I thought it was going to be a matter of just sewing up the toes, but no - I found that I had actually abandoned the fourth sock mid way through. This meant I had to trawl the internet for the pattern, unpick it to a stage I recognised, and finish it, before sewing up all of the toes. But I did it - so unfinished project number 5 is off my list!

The practice run. Yes, the toe seam on the left foot is running vertically not horizontally, it's not a trick of the light.

The expensive tweedy wool pair - if honest, not as good as the practice run.

Now look, they aren't perfect, I know. Because I was so impatient, I made them more like ankle socks than the nice woolly legwarmers I envisaged...but I could feasibly make a nice long pair now if I wanted to (but not until my other unfinished projects are finished!).

The four socks probably cost about £10 in wool and needles - more than enough to by a snazzy pair of 'North Face' hiking socks in Blacks. But it is a comfort to know that if the apocalypse arrives tomorrow and I have to resort to knitting my own, my tootsies will be toasty and warm.