seed sowing in earnest

well – I prefer to use compost.

The hibernation is over, as the greenhouse shut up against the cold again, the potting tray out, and the seeds – new and uncrumpled and old and muddy, have been perused.  I meant to start last month.. but life got away from me somewhat.

So far I have sown cauliflower, leeks (autumn giant), physallis, chilli (cherry bomb), and started some parsnip seeds chitting.  Every windowsill on the North side of the house has potatoes chitting too.   It’s just the start.. from here on I shall be sowing, pricking out, potting on, hardening off, and planting out.

unfortunately, we are behind on digging the veg beds, so direct sowing might be a week or so away yet, but himself was out there working hard most of the day – just we have a lot of ground to dig.

We also processed yet more of the hedging wood into logs etc, our every move followed by the sheep, who are convinced we have a stash of grass hidden somewhere – not helped by the fact we are feeding them.  They are all very approachable, and not just for food – Sharona always comes alongside wanting her back scratched, Saffie is more of a head and ears stroke kind of girl. Arabella is still deciding, still a little nervous.  I have got her so she will let me stroke her head, and I tell himself that i am the ’sheep whisperer’ just to annoy him, as Arabella doesn’t let him pat her.

Sometimes, their over friendliness can make getting anything done tricky, as you are constantly nudged for a scratch etc, but the benefit is how easy it is to check them at lambing time.

No sign yet.. I suspect Saffie is hanging on to the hot date of the 19th.. whereas I am beginning to wonder if Sharona is actually pregnant, as she is not that big….

cake

As I explained… the recent cache of eggs of unknown date created a need to make cake.  Well, ok, I could have thought of other ways of using them.. but enough of that.. onto the cake.

First off, I decided to invent a recipe to use up the last of the Christmas mincemeat, and made a mincemeat loaf.  Himself would be happy to eat mincepies all year round, and yes has been seen eating them in the summer, but personally I feel they are a festive thing.. but the mincemeat can be used in other ways. So I put together this loaf, and it is a family hit – currently standing in 4th place in the colour it green all time cake favourites ( the top three being chocolate mud cake, chocolate brownies, and coffee cake).  I do  suspect them of rating favourably in the hope of more cake…

And I did make more cake – the aforementioned coffee cake.  This recipe is from the new rayburn cook book. I would carry on using this book even if I stopped having a rayburn, and particular joy for me is how many recipes are designed to use the rayburn meat tray. For once I did not have to use the wrong shaped, wrong sized pan and hope for the best/ adjust recipe.  The coffee cake is a throw in all the ingredients and blend type, very easy, and delicious, and to my son’s delight made a huge cake about a foot square. To his dismay, I have frozen most of it!

That’s recipes 7 and 8 out of my 52

So how virtuous am I? I have used up the laid away eggs, I have invented a recipe to use up left over mincemeat, I have made full use of the rayburn whilst it was on, and stockpiled food in the freezer.  So if some cake was eaten on the way.. seems a fair exchange… well…that’s my excuse…

laying away

We have so much mud at the moment – its so depressing, and I seem to live in mud caked jeans.  The field is poached around the gate area, so we moved the sheep – they were very put out as they know the rule about the grass being greener.. and dashed through enthusiastically, and then kept looking around for where I might have put the grass.  Ok there is some, but not much, and not lush.

The hen run is muddy too – I’m trying to decide if we are overstocked - they are still well within the definition of free range, but this is the first year it has been so muddy – but I think it is less to do with the number of hens, and more to do with the sheer amount of water.. it rained almost all of November, then we had all that snow, now more rain.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the hens, as this damp muddy weather is ideal for them developing lurgies, such as mycoplasma.  The other week one of the exchequer leghorns had a dodgy eye, and I had to bathe it – but I think that was injury related.  They say leghorns are very ‘flighty’ – more like mad as a box of frogs – but I like them for it.  When we release the new pullets into the run, all the other breeds  know their place: the bottom of the pecking order, and slowly work their way into the flock – not so the leghorns, I let them go, and they shot out and picked fights with everyone, and they are only puny things. And this bolshieness is, I suspect, how she got her eye injury – all cured now though.

The other day, when I was collecting eggs, I realised one of the leghorns  – now named One-eye (even though the eye was fine and she has two…) was just standing in the hen house.  I couldn’t decide if that meant she was ill, or bright – since  it was raining. The other hens were outside under their ark shelter muttering about it all.  Something to pay attention to, I thought, especially as she had had that dodgy eye, and not laid an egg since. 

So the next morning, when she was missing from the flock, I feared the worst.. and went looking for the body.  Only there was no body. No One-eye.  No holes in fence… and then I saw her under the hen house.

Because laying in the mud collecting eggs is not my idea of fun, when we built the new hen house, we carefully fenced in all around the bottom of the house to stop them from going under. Himself had mentioned that one had broken in, but it was all right, he had fixed it and there were no eggs under there. One-eye thought otherwise and as I was pondering whether to lie down in the mud to reach for her, I saw her happily tuck another egg in.

I found the other way in, by which time One-eye was doing her ‘I’ve laid an egg’ chorus and had left, and was able to reach (without the full mud facial) the eight eggs she had in there.

So now I’m going to crack them all open to see if they are any good – its been cool enough but some might have frozen, then find something to cook with them, so they are not wasted.  I may have to make cake.

imbolc already

How on earth did it get to be February?  Time rushes – and now, today is Imbolc, the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.  No wonder there seems to be more daylight at the end of the day.

Today I set up my propagator again, and seed sowing begins.  Seems apt, Imbolc marking the start of the farming season.  There is some suggestion it means ‘ewes milk’.  Well .. yes Saffie, our ewe, looks like she has plenty.. but no lambs yet.

Incidentally, unearthing the propagator also revealed one last bag of spuds.. so they are not all finished yet after all!

So – I looked up what recipes would suit Imbolc, and am tempted to make MrsL’s St Brigid cake ..

however we settled on making zabaglione. Not because it has anything to do with Imbolc…but just because I love it

last of the spuds

Ate  the last of our home grown potatoes today.  Not bad getting as far as February this time.  Especially considering we had blight.. again…  do you spose there will every be a blight free year?

We have been doing wat we can to fight it.. we rotate carefully, remove all signs of volunteers, and haven’t even composted peelings this year.  In the greenhouses, we have thrown open the doors and tried to get as much of this freezing weather inside. This means the overwintering plants such as the lemongrass and cardamom are now houseplants!

We have bought our seed potatoes.. so many of them, and they will soon be on every North facing windowsill, chitting.

As always the plan is to grow all our own spuds…

seville orange marmalade

Today, as well as cutting lots of bean poles (we reckon we need 130!), and checking on the ewes who have no intention of lambing, I made marmalade.

In an unusual fit of *being organised* I actually managed to buy Seville oranges this year.  Being *unorganised* I have held on to them for sometime before getting around to making the marmalade, until they started to look sad.  Which was silly as they can be frozen whole.. but you know.. I’m going to make marmalade annnny day now.. well I finally did. Standard marmalade recipe:

slice 6 Seville oranges and find every single cut on your hands with the acidic juice.  Painstakingly remove 5 billion seeds and tie up in a cloth.  Pour 2 litres of water over oranges and leave overnight. Next day, curse that you started it, and cook for about an hour until soft. Measure (preserving pan with measurements on it very handy here) and add same volume of sugar, pre warmed. Cook *forever* until setting point, including an enthusiastic stir resulting in the bag of seeds bursting, and spending lots of time removing all the seeds again, this time from hot sugar solution. After reaching setting point, including the use of countless saucers in the freezer, and test samples of marmalade all over, let rest so the peel does not float to top of jars.  Jar. notice peel has floated to top of jars. Decide it does not matter.

I have made marmalades of various types over the years, but this is the first time I’ve made Seville orange marmalade, so that makes it number 6 out of 52 recipes.

judging from the way himself ate the marmalade stuck to the preserving pan, it’s a winner

the lambing window

We are now in the period of time when lambs are possible.. it being 147 days since the ram went in with the ewes. As he was in with them for some weeks, we have to keep checking the girls for some weeks. 

It’s a nerve-racking time, as we do like our girls, and would be so sad if anything should happen to them.

Sharona looks some weeks away from producing, but Saffie saddlebags looks ready to burst.  She has a full udder, and a swollen rear end.  She’s not off her food or looking grumpy.. but as this is the first time she has lambed with us, we don’t really know how she reacts.  She does look so huge though..and regularly tries to knock me down each check, as we are feeding them three times a day, twice with beet shreds, and once with concentrates, as we have very little grass now.  She’s not aggressive.. just enthusiastic, and tall.. and wide….

red sky at night

One of those evenings when the whole world was suddenly lit with an orangey glow.

Cold though – but at least the days are getting noticeably longer – the hens must have noticed too as we are getting plenty of eggs.. mostly small ones from the new layers, but eggs.  Need to up our egg consumption or start selling them.