that was lambing

the window for lambing now draws to a close.. if they squeezed any out now they remaining ewes would have had to have been tupped on the ram’s last day, and be a week late too! - is not going to happen…

So - not a roaring success. 

 Only one out of the three ewes lambed.. she had triplets - not that common in a first timer.. needed help with one, managed the other two herself - but they later died.. despite lots of effort on our part. A very distressing and tiring time indeed. lamb-lagged.

I was told I should toughen up.. that most people would have ‘let nature take it’s course’, that we made it harder on ourselves by trying.  We discovered that we would rather stay soft, care, suffer.. because..well thats part of the point of raising our own livestock.. to care.

So what went wrong? why did only two of the ewes get in lamb? I’ve been asking local shepherds.  The general consensus is that the ram went in too late.  Well yes it was not our plan for him to go in in November.. we were supposed to borrow him in September.. but the foot and mouth restrictions came along and as were were borrowing a ram - we don’t have enough land to keep our own, we were stuffed.  As it happens, the ram had other ideas.. broke into the field with his girls in it and the farm we were borrowing from found their ewes tupped earlier than planned. This freed the ram up to come to us in November  - and we have got one lamb out of it. So far.  I’m not counting any lambs yet until they come back from the butcher in joint shaped bags.. what with blue tongue round the corner and everything.

There is some differences in opinion as to whether our ewes will get into lamb next year.. having missed this chance.. some people say they wont if they miss a year.. but we shall see., we have arranged to borrow the ram again..in September, unless something else crops up to mess up our plans!

so nope not a roaring success, but not a roaring failure either.

None of our ewes died, we got lots of experience, we are one lamb up (so far),   and all we lost was sleep.

nettle pasta

what are nettles good for #5 - nettle pasta

After making the nettle beer, I was left with a panful of nettle pulp with a few bits of lemon peel.  I picked these out and thought… seems a shame to have done all that tedious nettle picking and then throw them away and only keep the cooking water! I figure you could use the pulp now in place of spinach in most recipes. We opted to make spaghetti.

Got out the pasta machine and spooked ourselves as there was a note on the inside of the box, even spookier it was in himself’s handwriting! it said “1 egg to 100g of flour.. you always over cook it!”

We don’t recall leaving this message to ourselves.. but it’s good advice!Experimented with the pasta recipe.. which I have put on the recipe pages,  if you add wet stuff. you need more flour.. or less eggs - we ended up with 500g flour + two egg sized lumps of squeezed out nettle pulp + 2 eggs.  There is the faintest hint of nettle taste about the pasta, which is frankly swamped by most sauces, but the goodness is still there, and the colour!

Always enjoy making pasta.. must do it more often, especially as we now have plenty of eggs. The Rayburn provided us with a handy rail to dry the pasta on (since the rayburn is currently cold), and we made lots of lovely spagetti at 11 o’clock last night. 

Today sat in the garden eating green spaghetti with a nice tomato and ham sauce I threw together.. very satisfying indeed.. wild foods made good, one picking session made into two recipes, tasty food and a lot of fun.

suddenly summer

I don’t know why I keep listening to weather forecasts. They so often get it wrong. Sometimes they even get the current situation wrong! - it will say pouring with rain now  .. and its sunny!  Mostly they tell of gloom.. half an hour’s rain means rain is forecast.. not sun…

The forecast was wrong for the weekend.. Sunday was supposed to be rainy.. but was so hot. We turned the rayburn off. Depressing.. the heart of the home. But mains gas is a con. if we had to chop wood to keep it going we would have let it out ages ago, and the bills are killing us.  So it went cold, and we had cold food for tea. Hopefully soon the other cooker will be installed.. But in the meantime its mega forward planning.. having to decide today if I might need to use the oven tomorrow.. if I want it warm in time!

As if a reward, today was even hotter, and we joined family and friends for a barbecue, and suddenly we are there.. socialising in the garden in the evening, over shared salads, wine and various meat, and it seems a fair exchange:- rayburn off, barbecue on.

ex-mouse

Caught in one of the instant death traps this morning.  Let’s hope he was working alone.  I feel no remorse.. it was him or our food.

mouse in greenhouse

Yes - the main reason I raise most of my plants in modules prior to planting out, is to protect them from pests.. mostly slugs, but also mice. I experimented with planted peas direct this year, and mice ate the lot.  So it is somewhat depressing to find there is a mouse (or mice) in my greenhouse.

The compost in modules have been turned out.. and seeds stolen.  I am waiting for squash seeds to germinate that just aren’t there! I moved as much as possible into propagators, but this morning, my sweetcorn was turned out.. and out of a tray of 24, all bar 4 were gone.  We had set a trap.. and the peanut butter bait was gone.. but the trap failed to close.

Today I encouraged Ebb, the cat, into the greenhouse. He was delighted.  Last time he ventured in, he luxuriated on my delicate little seedlings, and I sent him packing. 

Ebb is a great hunter, always bringing us rodents home. Of course, I wish he ate them outside. Worse is when he does not eat them.. and either releases them alive (himself has got very good at catching mice by the tail as a result), or the sweet smell of death makes us take a room apart until we find the body…

I figured he would come into the greenhouse.. sniff about.. paw excitedly behind some pots.. maybe even catch the blighter, and certainly the scent of cat would send the mice packing.  Instead of course he tried to luxuriate on my seedlings again, causing different but just as fatal damage to them as the mouse - before settling in my potting tray for a nice nap. 

Meanwhile sowing had slowed right down, as the propagators are full.  So.. just have to hope Ebb-scent is enough.. or the trap works this time..

nettle beer

what are nettles good for #4

Honestly, I thought nettle beer would be disgusting….and it’s not  - its really very good!.. made in a similar way to elderflower champagne (but not quite as wonderful). 

 Me being me.. I looked at a few recipes for nettle beer, then tweaked it into my own. A hit with us - so much so that we have been out today and harvested yet more nettle tips, for another batch.

Fear not.. no nettle loving butterflies were hurt in the making of this beer.. only the tips does not take out much in the way of nettles!

road trip

 a very good day - we took part in a community event and walked around a wood owned by one our neighbours - really inspiring, planted twenty years ago, and looks wonderful. We would like to put some trees in for coppicing - we don’t have enough land to supply ourselves with firewood, but we could have some nice trees and make a contribution to our woodpile.

Then himself dug out more of the pit of hope, and I made a nice picnic.  We haven’t been on a road trip for a while and faced with one today, that would cover a meal time, I realised my heart was sinking at the thought of buying food on the way.  Not being fans of most of what is on offer at motorway service stations, the best prospect was a couple of paninis and coffee at costa-packet, and all for something like fifteen quid. As we were going to meet some people from the self sufficientish forums, it seemed only right to make something ourselves!. So I made some muffins, and some spinach and feta triangles, and a radish and sorrel salad, made up some elderflower cordial (the last of 2007 batch! - roll on elderflower season!) and took a bottle of mead for the party. We meant to picnic en route, but ended up running late (it was sunny.. the garden was calling..), so ate there, whilst chatting.  Thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, nice bunch of like minded, friendly people.

Stiff from the car journey though.. funny how our bodies have got used to the digging and gardening, and work around here.. but sit still for a few hours in a car and we seize up…

water collection

Now have a water butt set up for the greenhouse.  Up until now, we have been collecting rainwater.. but not in the right place. We have a 400 gallon ex-juice container collecting off the old piggery, but to get water to the greenhouse means filling up two watering cans, walking up the lane, up the steps and into the greenhouse… retrace steps with empty cans and repeat.

A couple of days ago, himself and our son set up the new water butt.  We have already set up one on the lean to greenhouse, just by diverting the guttering into a small butt. Ideal as it is greenhouse temperature, and environmentally friendly to use rainwater. And now we have one on the new greenhouse too, only this one is set outside. 

By using some spare drainage materials, an old conditioner bottle for a funnel, and some light-glaze to replace some broken glass in the greenhouse, some old hose, a post and rope to stop the butt blowing over when it is empty, some wire to hold everything in place and a cup hook aka ‘the no moving parts, can’t break, no need for a tap’ on off device.. we now have collected water available right to the plants.

It’s all a bit Heath Robinson, but we had everything already, apart from the light glaze, but as the glass had broken, yet again, we were going to have to replace it anyway, and this allowed something more flexible and less likely to break again, and a hole could be cut for the hosepipe into the greenhouse.

‘the no moving parts, can’t break, no need for a tap’  device is a cup hook taped to the end of the hose pipe and it is hooked up higher than the top of the water butt. To get water.. lower the pipe. This also allows us to find out where the water level is.  Well it works.. and that’s all that counts.  Despite forecasts to the contrary, it has been sunny the last few days, but we had one day of rain, and that has been enough to do the watering for the rest of the week.  Perfect.